Lanherne Chronicles (Prequel): To Escape the Dead (24 page)

‘But…’ interrupted Fran, looking from Kyle to Charlie for some sort of support.

‘I assure you she’ll be safe in Freya’s hands,’ he continued, holding up his hands trying to placate her. ‘Please, try to see it from our point of view. You’re strangers to us. You could be anybody for all we know… I mean, how do we know you’re not just some sort of scouting party checking us out for a future full on raid? Surely you understand we simply can’t have you all running round unaccompanied.’

‘Charlie, I’ve got to be with Carmella, she needs me,’ said Fran.

‘Some-one will take you to her soon, I promise,’ said Kyle, trying to smile as he pushed his glasses along the bridge of his nose, ‘But first I’ll show you where you’ll be sleeping and then I’m sure Zak will want to talk to some of you about things he wants done in return for your stay…’

‘Now, listen, if you…’ Fran continued, anxiously watching Freya lead Carmella to a doorway in the main building.

‘No, you listen!’ Kyle suddenly snapped, cutting off Fran’s words and making her jump.

Instantly Liz and Charlie caught each other’s eye. From his outburst it was now clear to them both that, despite his almost ‘nerdy’ appearance and build, Kyle was not used to being argued with. Realising the harsh tone he had used, Kyle removed his glasses, sighed and carried on in a more patient manner.

‘I’m sorry… but… but this is not open for debate.’

‘We understand,’ said Charlie, with a nod and a sharp glare directed at Fran before she could interrupt again. ‘Now… do you want to get on with checking the rest us for bites?’

‘Yes... yes, thank you,’ Kyle replied, once again.

As the men piled into the outside toilet to strip for checking, Liz, Anne, Sally and Fran were left to their own devices outside.

‘Stay close,’ Liz called to Anne, as the young girl gleefully chased after a startled chicken. ‘Don’t go too far…’

‘So much for not leaving us unsupervised,’ grumbled Fran, sitting slumped against the side of the building with her jacket draped over her knees. ‘What’s to stop us wandering off now?’

‘This!’ replied Liz, giving the pink band around her arm a tug.

‘What? Has it got some sort of tracking device in it?’ Fran scoffed, angrily pulling at a tuft of grass.

‘No, but it tells them at a glance just who or what we are…’ Liz began, pretending to look at Star as she spoke.

‘Tells who?’ Sally butted in.

‘Those archers on the wall,’ Liz replied, giving Sally a sideways glance. ‘I thought it was odd that they were facing this way rather than looking for any of the Dead on the other side of the wall. From where they are and with the help of this colour coding, they can identify everyone out here at a glance… the men of Saint Xavier’s, the women and of course… their guests.’ With the last word she flicked the end of the pink fabric.

‘Oh, crap!’ whispered Fran, slowly realising the significance of Liz’s observation, the clump of grass she had been venting her anger on suddenly becoming unimportant.

‘So what?’ asked Sally, her hands firmly placed on her hips in exasperation.

‘So, it means that at best this place is a dictatorship and at worst…’

‘A prison,’ said Fran, completing the sentence while nervously steeling a glance at the archers on the platform.

‘Right, no problems there… all free of bites,’ said Kyle, suddenly appearing in the doorway with Charlie, Cam and the other just behind him readjusting their clothes.

‘Good, so can I be taken to Carmella now?’ asked Fran, pushing herself up from the ground.

‘Yes, I just have to get someone to…’ he replied, scanning the vast patchwork of greenery for the nearest worker, ‘take you…’

With a sharp whistle, he waved a tall attractive young man over with a flick of his fingers. Ripping a floppy fishing hat from his head to reveal short jet black hair, the man took a brief second to locate the source of the summoning whistle and then ran over to Kyle.

‘Y...Y…Y…Yes, K... K... K…?’ he said, trying to force the words past his severe stammer.

‘Spit it out, Kai,’ snapped Kyle impatiently.

‘K… Kyle.’ finished Kai, finally managing to say Kyle’s name.

‘S… S… S…’ Kai began apologetically.

‘Oh, let’s not start that again,’ interrupted Kyle, with an aggravated sigh. ‘I need you to take Fran here to old Bronwyn’s room, Freya’s there with the pregnant woman… and make sure they have everything they need… OK?’

‘Y… Y… Yes,’ he replied, sparing a glance in Fran’s direction.

‘Be safe,’ whispered Cam, placing the palm of his hand on her back as she bent down to retrieve her jacket from the ground.

Glancing over her shoulder back at Cam, she saw his concern and something a little less definable looking back at her.

‘Thanks,’ she replied, almost wishing the feel of his hand on her would never come to end, ‘I… I can take care of myself, don’t worry.’

‘Oh, I know,’ said Cam, a smile twitching his lips as he finally removed his hand.

Slipping her arms back into her jacket, it was if she could still feel the ghostly presence of Cam’s hand on her back and as she followed the young man called Kai towards the doorway Freya had taken Carmella, she found herself turning back to steal a final look.

‘His father was an ambassador for the Thai Government,’ said Kyle to no-one in particular, nodding towards Kai as he led Fran away. ‘All that money and it still takes him an age to say his own name…’

Once again Liz caught Charlie’s eye and with unspoken words they both agreed Kyle was fast becoming a bit of an arsehole in their opinion.

‘Right, so let’s get the rest of you settled,’ he continued, completely unaware of just how he was coming across.

Confident the new arrivals would follow him Kyle purposefully strode off, making his way through the growing vegetables to a large doorway with an intricately carved surround.

‘Please don’t dawdle,’ he said, turning back as he pushed open the door, ‘the building is quite a maze of corridors and classrooms… and I don’t want anyone getting lost along the way.’

With Anne’s small hand in her own, Liz stepped through the wide doorway into a high vaulted hallway. Glancing up she saw that a leaded glass dome flooded the entry hall with sunlight, highlighting tiny motes as they swirled and danced on unfelt air currents. Stretching out ahead of her and to her left and right ran corridors which seemed going on forever. The whole place exuded an air of tradition, establishment and privilege but despite this Liz couldn’t help but notice the definite tang of mould in the air. Her gaze flitted across the flooring made up of interlocking wooden tiles that had clearly suffered from a lack of polish for the last five years, to the walls covered in richly carved panelling. Overhead, running off into the distance, large globes of beautifully etched glass hung from the ceiling. Now just a useless reminder of a time long gone, Liz wondered why only every tenth or so light fitting still had its globe in place.

‘We removed them and disabled the fitting so not to waste electricity by mistake,’ said Kyle, noticing Liz’s interest in the lights.

‘What? You have electricity?’ she replied, tearing her gaze away from the hunting scene etched on the nearest hanging globe. ‘How?’

‘Solar panels,’ he said flatly, already striding off along the left hand corridor.

As far as Kyle was concerned he had already explained this to Charlie and as the group’s leader it was therefore his job to fill them in. He didn’t have time to explain every detail of Saint Xavier’s to each of the arrivals in turn just because Charlie didn’t think to share the information.

‘But…’ Liz continued, quickening her pace to catch up with Kyle.

‘Look,’ Kyle snapped, spinning on his heel to face her, ‘all you need to know is that everything’s on a timer, the lights, the hot water, the showers, everything... OK?’

‘Oh… sorry,’ she apologised, slightly taken aback by Kyle’s attitude.

She was itching to ask Kyle just how they had water pressure enough to work a shower but from the irritated look on his face she knew better and bit her tongue. With nothing further to say, Kyle turned and continued leading them along corridors, round corners, up, down and then up again what seemed like to Liz the same staircase, before finally coming to a stop at the mouth of a short hallway on the first floor of the building. Perched on a stool outside one of the six doorways in the corridor was a young woman. In her headscarf, pinafore dress and sloppy looking cardigan, she was dressed very similar to Freya; only this time the flip-flops had been replaced by a pair of heavy boots that seemed to swamp her feet. In her arms was a pile of rather worn looking towels.

‘Ah, Lauren,’ said Kyle, noticing the woman as she wearily rose from the stool, ‘I see you’ve brought our guests some towels, good.’

‘These will be your rooms for your short stay with us,’ he continued, turning to address the group while gesturing to the six doors. ‘The room at the end on the right is a bathroom. Obviously the toilets don’t flush but if you need to urinate you can still do so in the cubicles, anything else then use the commode which will have to be emptied in the morning…. Oh, and this evening after you have completed the tasks Zak assigns you, you will each be allowed a two minute shower.’

‘Hence the towels,’ chimed in the woman Kyle had called Lauren with a friendly smile, shaking the bundle in her arms slightly.

‘Yes… Hence the towels,’ said Kyle, giving Lauren a sideways glance.

With the smile slowly fading on her lips, Lauren almost thrust the towels into Michael’s arms.

‘Do you need anything else,’ she asked Kyle, the smile now truly gone from her face.

Out the corner of her eye Liz saw Tyrone signing something to Paul. She didn’t catch the deaf boy’s signed reply but from the stifled laugh that Tyrone barely held in check she knew neither of them was being very complementary of their somewhat ungracious host. For a second Kyle didn’t speak and it was only when Liz followed his line of sight that she realised he was staring blankly at Tyrone and his brother. Then with a slow almost feline blink, Kyle returned his attention back to Lauren.

‘Yes, Lauren if you could take…’ he paused switching to look at Charlie. ‘Sorry, which one of you is the butcher again?’

‘I am,’ said Phil at the same time as Charlie said his name.

‘Yes… well, if you could take Phil to collect the two sheep tied off outside and then get them to the kitchen, he can butcher them there,’ he continued, taking in Phil’s large muscular mass with a brief calculated glance.

‘Yes, Kyle,’ Lauren replied, with a nod

‘Right let’s get the rest of you to work,’ Kyle muttered to himself, Lauren and Phil seemingly already dismissed from his thoughts, as he stepped back into the main corridor again. ‘We’re not running a hotel here…’

While Liz, with Anne now in her arms, and the others followed Kyle like tourists with a disinterested guide, she caught a few fading words from Phil as he was led back the way they had come by Lauren.

‘Well… he’s a real charmer,’ she heard in Phil’s deep rumbling tone.

‘Yeah, something like that…’ came Lauren’s tired voice before she was too far out of ear shot for Liz to hear anymore.

***

‘No meat for us I’m afraid,’ said Liz, placing a bowl of steaming vegetables in front of Michael, ‘but it’s warm and should fill you up a bit.’

‘Thanks, Liz,’ he replied, spooning a heap of boiled cabbage and potatoes onto his plate before passing the bowl to Tom sat next to him on the long refectory table.

When Kyle had finally taken them to Zak he had given each of them a variety of tasks to complete in recompense for their short stay at Saint Xavier’s. Tyrone and Paul had been given simple digging work in the gardens; Michael was to fell, chop and stack logs from some of the smaller trees in the woodland at the rear of the school, while Cam, Tom and Charlie were sent, under supervision of course, to fill the water tanks on the roof. Answering the question Liz had been dying to ask when Kyle had first mentioned the showers, the series of hand pumps drew water via a set of long hoses from a freshwater lake in the grounds of Saint Xavier’s. Firstly they filled a temporary tank at the base of the building, then pumped it to a secondary one on a single story flat roof and then finally to the large water tank on the main roof of the building. The sheer height of the roof and the volume of water the tank held provided the subsequent pressure needed for the lucky survivors at Xavier’s academy to have a limited supply of running water. Of course none of this was used for drinking or in any of the cooking until it had been thoroughly boiled, the risk of disease was far too great but at least it gave them the precious running water to wash themselves and their clothes in, of which Liz was profoundly jealous.

‘And how was the woman’s work in the kitchens, wench,’ chuckled Tom, taking the bowl of food from Cam.

‘Oh, it’s so fulfilling,’ she sarcastically replied, handing him a plate from the stack on the tray she held under her arm. ‘They’ve certainly got a funny idea of who can do what around here…’

‘Well, count your blessings,’ added Cam, rolling his left arm at the shoulder. ‘My arms are killing me. It’s bloody hard work working those pumps… I’ll swop your dirty laundry and peeling veg any day.’