Ruin (The Ruin Saga Book 1)

Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed—in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet.

— 1 Corinthians 15:51-58

Norman Creek was hunting. Through the rifle’s scope the streets below him were magnified tenfold. Pale, late-afternoon light fell upon the tarmac and his prey.

His pulse quickened, and his throat grew tighter, but a deep breath saw to his nerves and calmed his trigger finger. Adjusting his position upon a high ridge with creeping increments, he settled into a recess in the scree. His muscles ached, but the discomfort was dull, without edge. The sharp pinches of pebbles against his skin seemed a thousand miles distant. He only felt hunger, a maddening beast growling in his gut, driving him forwards.

Allison and Lucian were perched on either side of him, ready. Their quarry was close.

Below, a thick mist prowled the streets. Ringing silence filled the air, stark and naked. Rivers of cars lined the roadside, rusted skeletons, often crushed together into mangled balls of twisted metal. Bearing down on them were the remains of houses, office blocks and shopping centres. All crumbling, all faded, mere shadows.

Most buildings stood without roofs, hatless. The slate tiles and supporting beams had collapsed and sent upper floors crashing to the dirt long ago. Possessions were scattered in the rubble: lamps, telephones, pots and pans, the occasional sofa.

Norman paid none of it any attention. Things had always been this way, ever since the End. And those old enough to remember the Old World were growing fewer. He only had eyes for the dark figure milling at the intersection below the ridge.

Amidst decayed bricks and mortar echoed the steady clip-clop of hooves on concrete, those of a foraging stag busying itself with a clump of grass thrusting through the tarmac.

The old Red had been gorging himself. His bulk was distended almost a foot, bulging and round. But he was no picture of health. His aged body was decrepit, and the herd had long moved on; his tired legs were no match for the spring in their step.

He gave a low grumble, chewing his pulpy meal, oblivious. As Norman squeezed the trigger, the stag snorted a plume of morning vapour with an attitude that could have been weariness and turned to face his death.

A low whine filled the air, followed by a wet splattering sound. A plume of red matter soared from the side of the stag's head, spewing against the cracked window of a burned-out Prius. Stiffening in a sudden spasm, it sank to the pavement, twitching and jerking in a spreading pool of crimson.

The gunshot’s roar reverberated against walls, trees and stones, rolling out across the landscape, but its might went unappreciated. There was scarcely anything left alive to recoil from the racket. The sound died away after only a few diminishing echoes to be replaced by the same deep quiet as before.

In the distance, a bird chirped in the English spring morning. The door of a nearby fast-food restaurant blew in the wind, jostling against the wall behind it. Otherwise, the world was silent and the town lifeless once more, just as it had all been for almost forty years.

Norman lowered the rifle and checked his companions. Lucian, wrinkled and squat, was already climbing over the ridge, sending a cascade of stones rolling end over end towards the junction, taking soil and grass with them. Norman clambered over the ridge’s lip and followed, descending towards his prize, stopping only to help Allison to her feet. She rose in a cloud of dust, her usual squeamishness hidden behind a disciplined mask.

They fell into step with Lucian without a word and made for the stag, peppering the street with rubble. Once the ridge levelled out, Norman took a deep breath, working the knots of tension from his shoulders. His senses slowly came to life again. He’d been so focused on the stag that he’d forgotten the distant roar of the North Sea and the salty air clinging to the back of his throat.

They crept low and fast, skittering over uneven ground. A sharp gale blew through the streets, lifting some of the mist for a moment, giving them a view of the coast and the remains of Margate. The quaint little town had once catered to seafront tourists, but it was a far cry from its heyday now. Seagulls still took flight from towering white cliffs nearby, diving to catch fish from the surging waves, but that alone remained unchanged.

The wilderness had retaken much of the land since the End. The relics of the Old World had been overgrown and smothered by grasses, vines, and moss, painting the grey and white stonework a speckled green. The wiry trunks of sapling trees thrust their way through foundations, crumbling concrete and tearing plaster. By now, no surface remained untouched by the encroaching foliage.

Though the fallen stag lay only twenty yards from the base of the rise, it took them almost a minute to reach it. Every movement was calculated, necessary. They maintained their rigid stances until they stood over the corpse, and then stood for a further minute in silence, turning in a wide arc to survey the town’s many shadows.

Once satisfied that they were alone, their wariness evaporated.

Allison Rutherford’s cherub-round face contorted. “I miss beef,” she said.

Lucian grunted. “You ain’t going to see another cow for a long time—if you ever see one.”

“They can’t all be gone.”

“They bloody well can. Same thing happened with the sheep, Allie, before your time.”

Norman watched without saying a word, but couldn’t prevent his stomach from rumbling at the thought of steak.

They had all grown thin of late. Most had fared far worse, and by comparison they had enjoyed a luxurious diet. Yet it was becoming ever more difficult to ignore their pronounced cheekbones, their pallid skin, or the manner in which their clothes hung in loose folds around their waists.

Norman glanced down at his hands, filthy and stiff with dried detritus, protruding from grimed sleeves. His fingertips were numb to the coastal breeze, oblivious to its caress. There was no denying it. He was falling apart.

Allie was still looking at the stag resentfully. “It’s not the same,” she muttered.

“It’s food,” Lucian said. “Be thankful you have some.”

She looked down at him with distaste. Although of average height, she stood almost a head taller than him. Yet her gaze was laced with respect. “All the same, I’d rather not butcher an animal in the street.”

Lucian shared no such qualms, and with a flick of his wrist drew a knife across the stag’s hide, exposing the crimson tissue beneath. Blood oozed from the open wound.

“I don’t know about you,” he said, “but I can’t wait to get back. What do you think?”

Norman nodded and bent to help. “Let’s get it done. We’re sitting ducks,” he said, trying to ignore how weak and clumsy his own voice sounded. The mud on his face cracked as his cheeks tightened with lines of concentration. Cutting with broad strokes into tendon and gristle, he set about removing the stag’s hindquarters.

If they didn’t eat they would grow careless, and their efforts to remain hidden over the last few days would have been in vain.

The road was soon deep rouge and their hands became slick with gore, but they were quick and cut with expert care, never wasteful. The carcass deflated as they removed the liver, kidneys and the flesh of the upper limbs, but apart from their incisions, the stag didn’t look brutalised.

The three of them pulled out ragged sacks from their trousers, letting the sea breeze blow them open. They stowed the meat, binding the sacks in knots that were given loving attention lest anything escape. Then they stood and looked about, wary once more.

To have their prize stolen now would be too great a loss, especially today.

Watchful of the looming hills, they took up the sacks and fled the bloodied junction, darting over the wreckage of the Old World, into roadside mist.

“Do we have everything?” Norman said. He hefted one of the bags of meat onto his mount’s back, struggling under its weight. The stallion snorted and shuffled, restless, but took the load. He patted its muzzle, despite himself eyeing the rippling lean meat of its shoulders.

If we didn’t have to forage so far from home just to scrape by, you’d be only so much stew,
he thought.
And, if things don’t pick up, that’s exactly where you’ll end up.

Allie was hunched over a small pile of yellowed paper, crouched atop a large, smooth stone. She rifled through the pages, muttering to herself, pointing from each sheet to a corresponding bag or package, ticking things off.

A small fire crackled in the centre of their makeshift campsite. Lucian was boiling some water in a billycan suspended from three sticks wedged at opposing angles. The clearing was shielded from view by a thick shrubbery on one side and by the sheer edge of a large cliff on the other, forty feet from where they sat. Three horses were tied at the edge of the clearing, chewing away at the sparse grains in the bags hanging from their snouts.

Allie looked up and shook her head. “Heather needs more supplies. Bandages and sutures, mostly, but we can’t afford to go over to the chemist. It’s on the other side of town. Besides, Ray said that it was picked clean a few weeks ago. Somebody must have passed through. But we definitely need more food.”