Hooded Man (90 page)

“But why?” This came from Karen Shipley, a thirty-year-old ex-receptionist who’d joined them about six months ago. “I don’t understand.”

“Do people need a reason anymore?” Darryl answered, and she looked stung by his remark. Everyone knew she had a crush on Darryl – everyone except the young man himself, apparently. “They see something others have built up, and they want to take it, destroy it.” He was quite obviously talking about their experience when Javier had rolled into town; Gwen could empathise. It was the kind of thinking she’d used to motivate these people.

“Hold on. Look, we still don’t know what we’re dealing with here,” Andy commented. “How many men, how well armed they are.”

“Pretty
well
armed going by the state of that jeep,” Jeffreys chipped in, as he took another look at it through the window. “Put it this way, I’m glad
it
’s not my patient.” He’d managed to stabilise Graham. New Hope had boasted a small local practice, even before the name change. The doctor’s trainee assistant, a young Indian called Sat, was keeping an eye on Graham while Jeffreys attended the crisis talks. He’d alert him if anything happened.

“Agreed,” said Gwen. “And there’s something else.” She told them about her suspicions that someone had been watching them for a while now.

“You didn’t think to mention this before?” Andy asked.

“What was I supposed to say? I didn’t know anything for certain. What good would it have done to worry everyone needlessly? Besides, it’s not the first time I’ve thought people might be keeping an eye on the village.”

“What?” This was Jeffreys.

“It’s okay, I think they were here to help. It’s connected to how I got away from the castle last year.” Gwen saw that they didn’t understand, and shook her head. “You know what? I’m not even going to try to explain. What’s happened has happened. But these people obviously aren’t friendlies. And they aren’t going away anytime soon.”

“How long can we hold out for?” asked Jeffreys.

“Food-wise, a week. Maybe two,” Darryl informed them. “It’s ammo we’re running short of. Graham brought back a few more supplies, but not nearly enough. If those guys keep pushing and have more than us...”

“They obviously want
something
,” Jeffreys said.

Andy sighed. “Yeah: us, dead. And they might just get it, too.”

Gwen glanced across at her son, playing without a care in the world. “That’s not going to happen.” She walked towards the door, then opened it, ignoring protests from the people inside. Gwen strode across the village to the front wall and climbed the ladder. Taking hold of her rifle, she crouched down on the ledge. Gwen stuck her head up over the top, and it was then that bullets raked the wall, causing her to duck again. “All right,” she whispered to herself, “if that’s the way you want to play it.” She swung around and returned fire with the M16, targeting the flashes. “You like that, eh? All right, have some more, then.” Her teeth were clenched as she fired, spraying until the rifle clicked empty. Still she kept her finger pressed on the trigger, breathing hard.

There was silence outside. The only sound she could hear was the pounding of her heart in her chest. The hand on her shoulder made her jump, and she almost turned the weapon on whoever it was.

“Gwen, that’s enough.” It was Andy, his expression full of concern.

“No, I –”

He took the rifle from her. “They’re camped out. It’s a waste of our ammo.”

She stared at him, then said quietly, “We can’t let them take us, Andy. Not again. We
have
to fight back.” Gwen looked down and saw that some of the others had followed her out of the meeting. She saw the worried faces of Darryl, Karen, a half dozen more. Some of them knew what it was like to be invaded, some had no idea – yet.

Andy took hold of her, attempting to rest her head on his shoulder. “It’s okay. We won’t let that happen.” Then it was his turn to tense up.

She pulled away. “What?” Gwen followed his gaze, peering at an angle through the gap in the wall.

“I think you winged one,” he said.

He was right. One of the shooters had broken cover, staggering about in the open. He was clutching his leg, rifle falling from his hands.

“We need to get to him, get him inside,” Gwen told Andy. If they could question this guy they might get a few answers.

“You can’t be serious?” said Andy.

“I am, and I know exactly the way to do it.”

For the first time that day, Gwen broke into a smile.

CHAPTER FIVE

S
HE HADN’T DONE
badly for herself, she had to say. Though, obviously, she’d seen it coming.

And while most little girls’ childhood fantasies revolved around living in a castle, it had never been hers. This had been an adult fantasy, something that occurred to her later in life when she realised it actually could be achieved. She’d always been a realist, even from an early age.

What attracted her the most was not the fantasy life of living here, but how well these surroundings fitted her persona. A medieval backdrop to match her outlook. Yet she was also a dichotomy, because however much she loved the old fashioned nature of where she now resided, she was still connected to the modern world. The castle had power, it had running water; all right, people who would run and
fetch
her water. It was protected by the weapons of the 20
^th
and 21
^st
century: tanks, jeeps, machine-guns and mounted rocket launchers. Her men might well carry the swords of their ancestors, had changed their names according to the old Celtic ways, but they were also armed to the gills with guns.

It made her laugh to think that if she had been around back in the days when this place had been built – the rock itself had been occupied as far back as the mid-second century – she would have been burned at the stake. Not just because of the modern weaponry – just how would you explain a Weasel 2 light anti-aircraft defence system to a primitive? – but because she studied the ancient arts.

Ancient and modern, it was a curious mix. But one which she found most appealing.

She pondered this again as she sat before her cards. Looking around the faded red walls, then up at the original hammerbeam roof, her gaze settled on the suits of armour flanking the fireplace. Each now held Heckler & Koch MG4 5.56 mm light machine-guns at her insistence. There was something
right
about the combination.

But that was her all over, as many had commented in the past.

The past. It wasn’t very often she looked back there – preferring instead to look into the future. Now it had crossed her mind, spurred on, no doubt, by the reading she’d just done, and she thought back to how her life had taken this turn.

Maybe she hadn’t dreamed about castles and crowns when she was little, because the reality of her situation meant there was no point believing in fairy tales. How could she when she was forced to survive on whatever food her mother could afford, gristly scrag-ends begged from the butchers? After seeing her mother stab her violent, abusive father right in front of her eyes? Her dad had come home stinking of beer and her mother had asked if he had the rent, because the landlord had been round again.

“Dinnae bother me, woman,” he’d shouted in her face, then turned away. When her maw tried to get him to listen, he’d brought his fist round in an arc and caught her with a back-hander that sent the woman sprawling across the floor. He didn’t seem to care that his five-year-old daughter was in the room, watching. She remembered seeing her mother spit out blood, getting to her hands and knees as her father turned his attentions to the screaming child in the corner. “Shut yer fuckin’ trap, or so help me I’ll...”

She’d run when she saw her dad approach, scooting past and making for the kitchen. She’d been looking for a cupboard to climb into, when her father grabbed her by the scruff of the neck. “I’ll teach yer to run from me, lass!”

“Git away from her,” came her mother’s voice from behind.

The large man dropped his terrified child and turned. It was then that she saw what her mother had in her right hand. A kitchen knife; meant only to scare him perhaps, to warn him off – stop him from beating them both to a pulp. And if he hadn’t tried to wrestle the thing from her grasp, perhaps it wouldn’t have slid into his stomach like that. But it was what happened afterwards that really shattered her illusions about fantasies. Her father staggering backwards, clutching his stomach, holding up his red hands and calling her maw a ‘fuckin’ houk.’ Her mother’s face contorting, then the knife plunging into him again and again, even when he was on the floor; the years of cruelty at his hands all coming out in those thrusts.

If it hadn’t been for that, her mother might have got away with self defence, or at least shown that she was only protecting her baby. As it was, the judge said what she’d done, the wounds inflicted, indicated it was a conscious, perhaps even premeditated, act. Lawyers tried to argue mental instability due to the abuse at the hands of a psychotic drunkard, but the courts hadn’t bought it. Her mother died in prison long before the virus came along, managing to hang herself with some bedsheets.

If only I’d been able to see it coming.

It was a dangerous thought that had plagued her throughout her childhood in care, then into her adolescence. One which finally became an obsession. She’d consulted the libraries, but didn’t have much joy finding a way to achieve this – and back then there hadn’t been an accessible ’net. So she’d turned to someone who might be able to teach her. There was an old fortune teller called Evelyn who operated not too far away from the home they’d stuck her in, making a meagre living from consultations. Whenever she had any spare time, she’d visit Evelyn, who live on her own and welcomed the company. The old lady taught her much about the different methods of seeing into the future: the crystal ball, the runes and, of course, the cards. But she also told her something else.

“You have a gift, dear,” Evelyn would often say. “A real gift. It’s only just starting to emerge, as often they do at this time of life, but it’s there. And it’s strong.”

She became the closest thing to a daughter the woman had, or more like a granddaughter. On Evelyn’s shelves, in her back room, were row upon row of books on magic and the occult, which she’d borrow and read, often without permission or Evelyn’s knowledge. When Evelyn passed away at the age of eighty – she’d found her one Sunday, after letting herself in: eyes closed in her favourite armchair – she’d taken some of these books before calling the authorities. For safe keeping, she told herself. Well, Evelyn had no family; what would happen to them otherwise?

The cow who ran the home eventually discovered them, however, although they’d been hidden away in the back of her wardrobe. She’d thrown out the ‘filth’ and given her charge a lecture on morals. Angry, and remembering enough to perform one spell in particular, she’d put a curse on the bitch, who’d crashed her car about a week later. It might have been coincidence, but she doubted that very much, and it scared her. She’d never in a million years thought the magic would work. It taught her to have a newfound respect for the forces she was dabbling with.

“You have a gift.”

She used to look at those girls at school, into the Goth scene, or kids involved in roleplaying games, and think:
You really don’t know a thing, do you?

When she was old enough to leave care and school, she got a job in a local fish and chip shop. For a while she tried to live an ordinary life, mainly because she fell in love with the owner’s son. She’d always sworn she’d never get involved with anyone, never let her heart rule her head – never let herself get into the same mess as her mother. But the emotions she felt whenever she saw Alex were impossible to ignore. There was such a connection, such a pull, and they had so much in common. He was strong, but gentle with it, and said that he loved her too. She believed him. He was
so
different from her father: for one thing, he never touched a drop of alcohol, and there wasn’t a violent bone in his body. It was rare to find someone like that, she knew. So rare, that she’d said yes when Alex proposed.

In spite of everything she’d once said, all she’d once learnt, she didn’t even
try
and look into the future this time. She didn’t need to, because Evelyn had told her about Alex. Told her that one day that special, perfect man would come along and she’d have everything she ever dreamed of. Someone with whom she’d share a special bond. “Where love’s involved, it’s difficult to see your own future; it... clouds things, makes them unclear,” the old woman had warned, then held up one card in particular. A man sat on a throne, holding a sword: ‘The Emperor.’ “But I see it. I see it all. He’ll come along, your king. You just wait and see, sweetheart. You’ll almost be as one, the same. Then it’ll be happy ever after.”

She should have known better than to believe it, though. Happy ever afters only happened in make-believe. She’d been gutted when she found out Alex was cheating on her after only a year as her husband. Not just with one woman, either, but with several.