Tabitha (20 page)

19

The town that surrounded the castle was
deserted. Tabitha parked up on the high street. She patted the hunting knife on
her belt, and hoisted the rifle around her shoulder. It was quiet here. There
were cars around too; plenty to scrounge some petrol out of. But she wanted to
check the town over first. Better to take any residents head-on, she decided,
than let them take her by surprise.

‘Come on, you,’
she told Laika, letting her out of the back seat. ‘And keep quiet.’ They passed
through a stone arch, into the old heart of the town. The castle overlooked
everything from a tall hill on her left. The rising smoke trail had
disappeared. The town was small but built-up; everything crammed together on
old narrow streets. Every house and shop was tilted and warped, like they’d
been built for a fairy tale. Over the rooftops she could make out the crooked
spire of a church. There were no tall offices though. No blocks of flats, and no
factories. It seemed like a place cut out of history. Laika sniffed at the rank
gutters, and followed her nose away up the street.

‘Laika, stay
close,’ said Tabitha. She looked up at the uneven rooftops, and around at the
glass panes of old shop windows that distorted their looted interiors. Laika
padded back up the street, and nuzzled Tabitha’s hand. It was a shame to loot
beautiful old shops like these, Tabitha thought. She imagined what the town
would look like with a good covering of snow, street lamps lit, like a scene in
a children’s story. Even despite all the broken doors hanging off their hinges.

At least the toy
shop had been left alone; Tabitha was glad. Teddy bears and wooden figurines
still crowded the window. There were rattles and trains in there; toy soldiers
and dolls. She didn’t think anyone made those old toys any more. Then she saw
it. The door was intact; still shut. It had been barred with two thin shiny
chains, nailed to the corners of the doorframe like a giant X. Fixed around the
chain links were little padlocks
;
memorials.
Tiny locks on
fragile chains. So easy to break, but still intact. Locks on a shared memory
through that old shop door; protecting a bright warm thought from the world.
Tabitha saw a note taped to the inside of the window, written in a shaky but
elegant script.

Take the furniture for fire wood, if you
must. But please, don’t burn the toys. Take them for your children, if you are
still blessed with them.

These are dark days, and innocence is
one of the few lights we have left.

Tabitha stepped
back from the shop’s warped little window and the old toys inside. She felt a
lump in her throat.

‘Come on,
Laika
,’ she said, her voice faltering. She moved away from
the shop. She didn’t want to be so close to something so fragile, as if just
being near it might break it. Laika started growling.

‘Hey!’ came a
voice down the road. A young woman stood down at the end of the narrow street,
aiming a shotgun at her. She was tanned and dark-haired; big brown eyes staring
nervously. ‘What do you w-want?’ the woman called over.

‘Petrol, for my
car,’ Tabitha replied. A cool breeze tousled her hair. ‘Are you living up in
that castle?’ the woman stood there, said nothing. Tabitha grabbed Laika’s
collar to keep her close. With her other hand she pulled her hunting rifle
around and pressed the stock into her shoulder, aiming at the woman down the
scope.

‘I’ll shoot
you,’ the woman warned her. She had an Irish accent.

‘I’ll shoot you,’
Tabitha called back. ‘Who’s going to do the most damage, at this distance?’ the
woman stared, hesitated. She jumped at a scuttling noise behind her, and
checked over her shoulders nervously.

‘So, are you
n-normal?’ the woman stuttered, still aiming the shotgun.

‘What?’ Tabitha
called back.

‘Are you
normal?’ the woman repeated, adjusting the shotgun against her shoulder.

‘Yeah,’ Tabitha
replied, for the sake of argument. She’d never liked the word
normal
.
When it came to people, there was no such thing
.
Especially now. Anyway,
she was probably as far from
normal
as it was possible to get.
Exhausted, Tabitha waited for the woman to respond. But she was just standing
there, sizing her up, aiming her shotgun.

‘Look, if you’re
going to shoot me, just do it,’ Tabitha called up the street. ‘I’m tired of
this shit.’ She heard falling roof tiles behind her, slipping and cracking on
the road. Laika started barking. It was a spider, clambering across a rooftop
above them. Stalking them. The woman studied Tabitha carefully, and lowered her
shotgun.

‘It’s not
s-s-safe out here,’ the woman stuttered. ‘There’s a few of us living here,
inside the c-castle. Come on.’

‘I’m Liv, by the
way,’ said the woman, as they made their way quickly through the narrow
streets. The sun above them was a pale staring eye.

‘Tabitha,’ she
replied. ‘This is Laika.’

‘Well, I’m glad
to meet you T-Tabitha,’ Liv replied. ‘And Laika,’ she added. She was turning
her head constantly as they crossed town, checking this way and that. Looking
from the road to the rooftops for any sign of spiders. Tabitha was running
through everything in her head. Everything that might happen once they reached
the castle. Mugging, raping, murdering. Imprisonment. Experiments. They might take
her car and eat her dog. Eat her too, maybe. The woman didn’t seem that bad,
though. Yet.

‘Do you do this
a lot?’ Liv asked her, as they crossed the main road through the town centre.

‘Sorry?’ said
Tabitha, dazed.

‘Zone out, I
mean,’ said Liv. ‘You l-look exhausted.’

‘Well, I feel
it,’ Tabitha admitted, dropping her guard a little. She checked for oncoming
cars as they crossed the road. She caught herself doing it and looked at Liv,
and felt like an idiot.

‘One good
th
-thing about the apocalypse,’ Liv observed, smiling. ‘No
traffic.’ Tabitha’s glum tired face softened into a smile. ‘It’s not far now,’
said Liv. ‘And Jim’s around this c-corner here. He’ll watch our backs while we
get to the castle.’

‘How many of you
are there?’ said Tabitha, stooping to reassure Laika while they walked.

‘Four.’

‘
Four
?’
Tabitha repeated, shocked. She’d expected more survivors than that.

‘It’s weird;
we’ve all lived around here for years, and never met before now,’ said Liv,
pushing her hair back in the breeze.

‘How did you
survive?’ said Tabitha. They crossed another road, skirting around the high
street. Tabitha realised why when she glimpsed the silver shapes, hiding along
the shop fronts.

‘We’d seen smoke
coming from the c-castle,’ said Liv. ‘There were five of us out here in town,
living from house to house. We’d seen a fella up there on the castle wall,
waving and
sh
-shouting one day. So, we made a run for
it. Up to the castle. They k-killed two of us on the way, though.’

‘I’m sorry,’
Tabitha said gently.

‘Well, we’ve both
lost people, I’m sure,’ Liv replied grimly. ‘But
th
-thanks.
All we can do now is hole up in the castle, and wait for the army to come.’

‘The army’s on
its way?’ said Tabitha, looking at her.

‘Will thinks
they will be. One day.’ Liv replied. ‘But you should probably ask him about
that yourself. I’m n-not very good at optimism. Not like he is. Look, there’s
home,’ she said, nodding at the castle. It loomed large on the hill around the
next street corner, separated from town by a small field. Suddenly someone
stepped out from a doorway beside them; a man in his sixties. His grizzly
expression creased up into a smile.

‘A new face!’ he
said brightly, with a smoker’s voice. ‘Thank god for that. Liv was getting
really depressing to talk to.’ He grinned like a schoolboy, and put his guard
up. Liv laid into him with a few punches on the arm.

‘Alright, I’m
sorry! Sorry!’ he pleaded, laughing all the while with a dopey infectious
chuckle. Tabitha couldn’t help but smile. With a wave of his hand he led them
on quickly towards the castle. He was wearing a thin cardigan over a creased
shirt, and had longer hair than she was used to seeing on an old man.
Pensioner
grunge.

‘Sorry love,
what was your name?’ he said. He squinted when he smiled.

‘Tabitha,’ she
said, shouldering her rifle. ‘This is Laika.’

‘Pleased to meet
you. I’m Jim,’ he replied, in a broad accent she couldn’t quite place. He shook
her hand while Laika sniffed around him, tail wagging. ‘Jeez, your hands are
freezing!’ he said. ‘And… metal.’

‘What?’ said Liv,
looking at Tabitha’s hands. ‘I thought they were g-gloves. What’s that about?’

‘It’s a long
story,’ Tabitha replied, exhausted. Laika came back to nuzzle her hand. At
least her dog liked her cold grey fingers.

‘Well, I like stories,’
said Jim, leading them on towards the park gates and the castle beyond. ‘And
we’ve got plenty of time to hear it, you know. Nothing else to do here.’ Liv
smiled. Tabitha felt herself starting to relax a little. Her heart had stopped
racing, at least.

They reached the castle by a winding
path of old stone steps, giving Tabitha a chance to see just how high and sheer
the encircling outer wall really was. The stairs curved up around the hill and
ended with an iron-barred gate in the castle wall, set into an old stone
archway. A tall grim man with gaunt cheeks opened the iron gate for them to
come inside the walls.

‘Tabitha, this
is C-Chris,’ said Liv. ‘Chris, Tabitha.’ Tabitha smiled at him.

‘Alright,’ Chris
grunted, closing the gate behind them. He didn’t seem too thrilled about
Laika’s greeting either. He coughed dryly and watched them walk through.
Tabitha glanced back at him. He looked… intense.

‘He’s like that
with everyone,’ Liv muttered. ‘I’m still trying to w-work out why he’s such a
knob all the time.’ Tabitha smirked. Jim led them across a small courtyard, up
some steps to the square castle keep. The whole place was solid, simple. The
keep tower stood in the centre, with grass and gardens around it. The thick
stone curtain wall circled all of it, making a towering barrier against the
world outside. It felt safe here; its own little world. The wall was wide
enough for two people to walk along and watch the whole town from the hill top.
With the iron gate closed in the archway, there was no way in other than
climbing the high curtain wall. It was only eight or nine feet tall above the
garden inside the grounds, but closer to a thirty-foot drop on the outside to
the rocky hill below. Looking around the garden Tabitha saw that half the grass
had been turned over to bare black soil, and shoots were starting to show.

‘Jim’s very
proud of his allotment,’ Liv whispered to Tabitha. Jim was opening the solid
wooden door of the keep to let them inside. ‘If you ever find five minutes to
help him with his plants, it’ll mean the world to him.’ Tabitha smiled, and
looked out over the garden. Birds were singing; water was trickling out through
a stone font set into the rock wall.

‘Fresh
sp
-spring water,’ Liv boasted, nodding at the font.

‘Amazing,’ Tabitha
replied happily, thinking about all the washes she could have. She’d never
smelled this bad in her life; surely the others must have noticed it. Chris
grunted and pushed past them, climbing the stone steps up onto the wall. He
walked along the battlements, watching the town below for any sign of spiders.
Or, he was just being antisocial. Tabitha wasn’t sure.

‘Will!’ Jim
shouted inside the door, up at the roof of the keep. ‘It’s our driver, from the
vintage car!’

‘You saw me
coming?’ said Tabitha, as she and Liv headed inside.

‘And heard you,’
Liv replied.

‘Hard to miss
you,’ Jim said brightly, welcoming her inside the keep with a sweep of his
hand. ‘It was the only sound for miles.’

‘Oh my god,’
Tabitha mumbled, looking around inside the keep. Where she’d pictured dark
stone walls and a long-gone roof, there were nests of blankets and sofa
cushions, and a new ceiling just over her head.

‘This used to be
a visitor centre, of sorts,’ said Jim, pointing out the tiny cafe kitchen over
to the right. ‘It’s a shame the gas oven doesn’t work,’ he added. ‘At least
there’s food in the cupboards though.’ It was so warm in here. A solid wooden
table took up the centre of the room, surrounded by plastic stacking chairs.
The other tables and chairs had been pushed to the walls to act like shelves,
holding a random assortment of boxes and bags. A log fire blazed in the stone
fireplace, filling the room with the sweet smell of burning pine cones. It was
a home. A man climbed down the wooden steps from the floor above, looking like
he’d just come from a festival. Wide smile, dreadlocked hair, and two gnarled
scars down one cheek.

‘I’m so glad to
meet you,’ he said, beaming. He shook Tabitha’s hand in both of his. ‘I’m Will.
Or William, if you’re mad at me.’