The Moon Stealers and The Children of the Light (15 page)

The familiar sound of a gun shot echoed in the air
from a distance away. The creatures stopped swooping down on their meal and
cautiously circled in the sky, waiting for it to be safe once again.

‘Sounded like it came from the back of the building,’
said Tracker. ‘We’re too far away for them to be shooting at us.’

‘Maybe a creature was trying to break into the house,’
suggested
Georgia
.

‘If the guards' attention is on the creatures at the
moment, we should get inside the walled garden and find somewhere to rest,’
Steven said.

He helped Tracker through the porch and into what
seemed like another world; the air inside the garden was warmer and more humid
than it had been amongst the trees. They followed a path around borders of
plants towards a series of pitched roofed greenhouses that ran the length of
one side of the garden. Steven opened a door to the first one and walked
inside. Amongst the tropical plants and fruit trees that were growing was
another door which opened into a workshop at the back of the greenhouse. Here
the roof was tiled and the walls were hidden by staging piled with terracotta
pots of different sizes, wooden canes, string and labels. Around the floor were
bags of compost, some work benches as well as piles of Hessian sacks and a
collapsible stool. Steven went back to help Tracker into the greenhouse.

‘You can rest your ankle in here,’ Steven said as he
arranged the sacks to form a makeshift bed for Tracker. He hobbled over to it
and collapsed with a sigh of relief.

‘You take the stool,’ Steven told
Georgia
. ‘Try and get some sleep. I’ll keep guard out here.’

Steven walked back out into the greenhouse and stepped
amongst one of the displays of plants. He sat down on the ground and hid
himself amongst the exotic fruit trees, ferns and thick leaved plants, making
sure that he had a good clear view of the entrance to the walled garden just in
case they should receive any visitors.

Then they waited.

Steven had become quite comfortable nestled amongst
the soft ferns in the warm air of the greenhouse. During the night he had
focused his attention on the porch to the walled garden, but no one ventured
from the house to search for them. After a while he began to watch the
creatures instead. From the amount of time they spent circling around carefully
examining the ground, it was obvious that the abundance of food was not as easily
available as it initially had been. They seemed to concentrate their nightly
attacks from the sky above the house, feeding off what was left of the man on
the statue, and attempting to break into the house, where they knew there were
humans. Several hours after they had entered the greenhouse and despite his
best efforts to fight it, Steven slowly dropped off to sleep, his eyes no
longer able to hold back the tiredness that overwhelmed his body. Since he had
travelled on the train to Parsley Bottom to investigate the meteor landing, his
life had been in complete turmoil. And his body was exhausted and he could do
nothing more to fight it.

He felt the warmth of the sun that penetrated through
the glass roof of the greenhouse and onto his face and knew that it must be
daytime. He opened his eyes, took a deep breath and rubbed his face, in an
attempt to wake himself up. He had no idea of the time, but so far, no one had
arrived to work in the garden. His little den amongst the plants was small and
restricted his view of the whole garden, so he shuffled out of the gap and
stood on the paved path that wound between the greenhouses. He stretched his
arms out and arched his back which was stiff from being in the same position
for so long, then he began to take a good look around him. The door to the
workshop where Tracker and Georgia had slept was slightly ajar.

Steven's eyes were drawn to the path that led into the
workshop. There was something not quite right about the smears of mud that
stained the herringbone brickwork. His eyes followed the path back to where he
was standing and all the way to the door to the greenhouse. There was a trail
of dark spots, some trodden on by shoes leaving random patterns that matched
the sole of a boot. Steven crouched down, intrigued by the marks. Most of them
were dry and looked like dark splashes of mud or tar, but where condensation
and dew had fallen from the thick glossy leaves of the tropical plants, the
marks were still damp.

And they were red.

Steven realised that the stains and smears were blood.
It had either been walked into the workshop by someone or something, or left
behind as something left. Panic flashed through Steven's mind as he thought
about the possibilities for the blood.
Had some of the guards come from the
house and attacked his friends inside the workshop and taken them away injured
whilst he had slept?

Steven pulled his gun out from between his belt and
trousers and slowly walked over towards the workshop door. He could see the
trail of blood beneath the door and inside the entrance to the room.

He pushed himself against the wall beside the door and
listened. He could hear a slow gentle breathing sound so knew that someone was
still inside the workshop. Peering through the gap between the door and the frame,
Steven could see the fold up chair that he had given to
Georgia
to sit on.

The chair was now empty.

Steven tried to see inside the room as much as he
could without moving the door. A change in the shape of a shadow drew his
attention to the other side of the wall he was standing against. There was
definitely someone still inside the room, but there was no way of knowing if it
was Georgia, Tracker, or an intruder.

Steven quietly pulled away from the door and crept
along the path inside the greenhouse to the next door. He hoped that the rooms
might be interlinking so that he would be able to see if Georgia and Tracker
were still inside the room or not.

The next door he came to was identical to the
workshop. He pushed it slightly open so that he could squeeze through the gap and
into a storeroom that was stacked with wooden crates, dried bulbs packed with
straw, as well as boxes of seed that must have been salvaged from a garden
centre. To the right of the room was another wooden door that should also lead through
to the workshop.

He moved towards it, making sure that his feet didn’t
knock anything on the floor and betray his presence. The door was old and dry
and there was a gap between two of the vertical wooden slats that was wide
enough to squint through and get a view of the inside of the workshop. Standing
beside the door amongst the blood stains on the floor was the familiar shape of
Georgia
nervously waiting. On the floor, tucked beneath the
shadow of the wall the body of Tracker still slept.

Steven went out of the storeroom and back towards the
workshop.

'
Georgia
, it's me,' whispered Steven at the door, not wanting
to startle
Georgia
.

Georgia
's face nervously peered round the side of the wall
and looked through the gap.

'I heard movement and wondered if we had company,' she
said with relief.

Steven pushed the door open. It swung into the
workshop over the top of more dried up splashes of blood.
Georgia
followed Steven’s gaze.

'What is it? Mud?' she asked.

'No, it's blood, and it comes along the path and into
this room.' Steven swung the door open as wide as possible to let in the
daylight. Combined with the light that came in from a high window, the room was
divided by varying degrees of light. As they followed the trail of blood into
the room their boots disturbed the dust on the ground and kicked it into the
air. The splashes of blood led them directly towards the make-shift bed where
Tracker was sleeping. Layer upon layer of thick Hessian sacks provided a
cushioned and warm bed for him, but beside his leg was a dark pool of blood
that had soaked through some of the sacks.

Steven knelt down beside Tracker's head and placed a
hand gently on his shoulder to avoid surprising him.

'Tracker,' he whispered into the sleeping man’s ear.

There was no response.

Steven tried again. 'Tracker, wake up.'

This time there was a response. Tracker’s eye lids
sprang open, then remembering where he was, he immediately reached for his gun
and began to sit upright ready to fight or run. Steven placed a hand on his
chest.

'Stay there,' he said. 'I think you've wounded your
leg.'

'Must have been when I fell last night,' Tracker
replied warily. 'I thought I felt something catch on my leg.'

Steven lifted the bundle of sacks that covered the
lower part of Tracker's body. The fabric around the calf of his left leg was
soaked in blood. Steven carefully rolled up Tracker’s jeans until he could see
the calf muscle.

'Have you got a water bottle,' Steven asked
Georgia
. She went over to the chair she had been sitting on during
the night and picked up what remained of her water.

'There's a first aid box over here as well,' she
added, taking the box off the wall and taking it to Steven.

'I think one of the gunman’s bullets must have grazed
your leg,' he said to Tracker. Steven tipped some water onto some thick gauze from
the first aid box and began cleaning Tracker’s wound. Once the blood had been
cleaned away he could see a clean line in the skin that went deeper into the
red fleshy part of the muscle where a bullet had glanced Tracker’s leg. Steven
gathered some more gauze, found some adhesive tape and began strapping it
tightly against the wound.

'Do you think you will be ok to stand?' Steven asked.

'Only one way to find out,' replied Tracker with a
smile. He swung his legs off the pile of sacks and onto the floor. Using Steven
for support he lifted himself up and began to slowly put weight through his
injured leg. With a wince he managed to hobble around the workshop.

'It's fine,' he said. 'Just stings a bit.'

'Shhhh,' said
Georgia
in a whisper from near the door. She closed it so
there was only a small crack between it and the frame, immediately reducing the
amount of light that entered the room.

'What is it?' asked Tracker.

'The community has just arrived for work,' she
replied.

 
Steven
,
Georgia
, and Tracker watched through the gap in the door as
armed guards walked lines of dejected looking people through the porch and into
the garden. They all seemed to walk in unison with each other, moving their
legs at the same time like well drilled soldiers. Every time their right legs
struck the ground a strange metallic jingle filled the air. All of the
survivors seemed to obediently taking up position beside different squares of
the garden. As one line of survivors walked past the greenhouse
Georgia
could see what was making the metallic noise. One leg
of each survivor was chained to the person behind as if they were slaves. That
was why they had to walk in unison with each other.

The lines were divided into groups of two or four
people, depending on the size of the plot they were going to be working on.
Long lengths of chain were then attached to large metal rings that had been
secured onto the brickwork around each side of the garden. Each worker was
chained to the ring with just enough length so they could work their portion of
the garden. Nobody put up any resistance to being chained; they seemed to be
accepting of their situation. The survivors of the human race had been turned
into mindless slaves that obeyed instructions without question. However, they
probably knew what the alternative would be if they dared to stand up and fight
against their guards; there was a constant reminder chained to the statue of
Andromeda in the terraced gardens behind Osborne House.

'What shall we do if the guards come in here?'
whispered
Georgia
.

'I don’t know,' replied Steven. 'We won't be able to
integrate ourselves into this gardening community if they are all chained up.
We would have to chain ourselves otherwise the guards would notice that
something wasn’t right.'

'How many survivors can you see?' Tracker asked, his
mind clearly on something else.

All three of them counted the survivors, they were
easy to spot by the way they held their heads down and avoided eye contact with
the guards.

Steven was the first to answer. 'I would say twenty.'

'I agree,' said
Georgia
. 'Why do you ask?'

'Twenty seems like a good number to start a revolution
to me?' replied Tracker with a smile on his face.

Steven and Georgia turned to face him, each with a smile
of their own. They knew that Tracker couldn’t have left the survivors to their
fate with Coldred.

'What have you got planned?' asked Steven.

'The guards have to be our priority. The walled garden
is enclosed and protected from the outside. No one can see in, so the rest of
the community, especially those in Coldred's council, wouldn’t know about the
revolution until we made our way into the house. I see four guards, each with
weapons. Combined with the weapons we have and any tools we can find in the storeroom
and workshops, most of these twenty can be successfully armed. We could even
sneak back to the stash we left in the tree above the car to get more weapons
and ammunition when needed.'

Tracker quickly told them his plan to disarm and
capture the guards, but as he would not be able to move around very quickly, it
would put Steven and Georgia at greater risk.

Georgia
dipped her fingers into the blood that had dribbled
from Tracker's wound onto the Hessian sacks then wiped her fingers against her
face, smearing the blood across her cheeks and forehead. Steven found some
thick chunks of wood and passed one to Tracker.

Georgia
bravely stepped out of the workshop and walked along
the path towards the door to the greenhouse. The survivors were being handed their
tools for their days work. Hoes, trowels, spades and forks that had been
propped up inside a tool shed next to the greenhouse were being distributed by
one of the guards. He was the first to spot
Georgia
walking out of the greenhouse.

'Who are you,' he shouted clutching his gun nervously
and aiming it in her direction.

'I'm unarmed,' she replied lifting her good arm above
her head for him to see that she was no threat.

'What's wrong with your other arm?' asked another
guard, pointing to
Georgia
's arm that was bound against her chest.

'I broke it,' she lied.

One of the other guards walked up beside her.

'Have you been hiding inside the greenhouse?' he
asked.

Georgia
nodded. 'My friend is in there. He's hurt.'

The guard looked at the blood on her hand and face.

'You two go in and see what's wrong with her friend.
If he's injured or diseased, put him out of his misery,' instructed one of the
guards that seemed to be in charge. 'As for you,' he said looking
Georgia
up and down, 'you're not going to be good for much
with only one arm working.'

'Please help my friend,' she pleaded as the men
entered the greenhouse. 'I think he's been shot.'

'Kilmartin said he saw someone outside the house last
night,' said the guard in charge to the man at the tool shed. 'He thought he
might have shot one as they ran away, but was sure the creatures would feast on
him by the end of the night.'

'There's blood on the path,' shouted one of the guards
inside the greenhouse as they stepped cautiously along the path towards the
workshop door.

Georgia
watched as the two men entered the workshop and
disappeared into the darkness. From where she was, neither Georgia nor the remaining
guards would be able to see inside the workshop. She listened and was sure that
she heard two faint thuds, but maybe it was only her imagination because she had
expected it. Thankfully there was no gunfire which meant that so far Tracker’s
plan was working.

Georgia
took a step away from the guard and nearer to a
survivor who had stopped hoeing the ground and was watching what was going on.

'Stay where you are,' instructed the main guard,
thinking that
Georgia
was about to make a break for freedom and escape.
'What have you found?' he shouted towards the greenhouse.

There was a moment’s silence.

'We might need some help in here,' came a reply.

The main guard sighed. 'Go and help them,' he
instructed the remaining guard at the tool shed. He was younger than the others
and
Georgia
was sure she noticed a slight bow of his head as he
was told what to do. Without hesitation he walked straight into the greenhouse
and into the workshop. Again, no gunshot. Now it was
Georgia
's turn.

The main guard waited patiently.

'What are you doing in there?' he shouted towards the
greenhouse. He turned to Georgia ready to ask her a question, but as he did,
his face was whipped to the side as the wooden pole from a hoe struck his cheek
and knocked him to the ground. In the time it took him to blink and realise
what was happening,
Georgia
had kicked away his gun, pulled her handgun from the
back of her trousers and was aiming it at the guard's head.

'I might only be able to use one arm, but I wouldn’t
say I was totally useless,' she said to her prisoner.

From the greenhouse two men walked out of the door,
bound the hands of
Georgia
's prisoner with garden twine and dragged him into the
greenhouse. Inside the workshop Steven and Tracker dropped the guard beside the
other three, one still unconscious from being hit on the head with the wood as
they had entered the workshop. They had stripped the guards of all weapons,
keys and tools, and gathered them in a wooden crate which Steven carried back
out into the sunshine.

All of the survivors had stopped working and were
silently watching the three people standing before them.

Tracker emptied the crate on the ground then turned it
over and stood on it so that everyone could see him.

'Hello,' he said, nervously addressing the chained up
survivors. He realised how pathetic it sounded as soon as he said it, but he
was unsure what to tell them.

He tried again. 'The human race has been dealt a
devastating blow. Not everyone has survived the creatures attack, but for one
reason or another, everyone standing in this garden right now, is alive. The
future of mankind rests on our shoulders, so I see no reason that you should
all be held in chains. We are special and we are unique, you do not deserve to
be held captive and suppressed in this manner.’ Tracker looked across the faces
of the survivors in the garden and realised that he had their attention. ‘My friends
here will start to take the chains off your ankles in a moment. From that time
you will be free to do whatever you want and go wherever you want, but I urge
you not to run away, otherwise you will be captured by the same people that put
you in your chains. This is not the sort of justice or community you should be
part of.'

One of the survivors put his hand in the air,
requesting to speak. 'As long as we stick to the rules, we know we are safe
from the creatures,' he said.

'Who will feed us?' asked another nervous looking man.

'You shouldn’t have to stick to the rules, you are not
a prisoner,’ replied Tracker. ‘You can feed yourselves. You should not be
dictated to by others or put in chains. You were free before the creatures
came, and managed to feed yourself, you deserve to be free again.'

'But where will we go?' asked another survivor. Some
of the others around her nodded their heads in agreement.

'You have everything here to survive. The only problem
you have is the management of the community that is trying to control your lives.
Once we release you I ask you to join me and my friends in fighting those who
put you in chains.'

'But what about the creatures?' said another, 'who
will protect us from the creatures?'

'You have not been told the complete truth. There are
ways to prevent yourself from getting sick or being attacked by the creatures,
other than with guns. There are antibiotics available that will prevent you
from getting sick, as well as a vaccine that is being developed. Somehow,
probably through one of their senses, the creatures avoid you if you have taken
the antibiotics.'

'How do you know this?'

'We have had first hand experience with the creatures
and travelled around during the day and night without any being attacked. We
have come from another community near
London
that is growing its own food and collecting water
without the threat of creature attacks. Our scientists are working on producing
enough vaccine to protect everyone from the creatures, once we have it we
should be able to resume a relatively normal life alongside the creatures.'

'Do you have the antibiotics here?'

'No, but your leader, the American, has a supply of
antibiotics himself. We suspect he is providing them to key members of the
community to protect them. We also believe there is a scientist who travelled
here with him who also has the ability to create the vaccine.'

'If this were true, why wouldn’t he give it to every
member of the community?' asked a young man leaning on his spade.

'Power,' replied Tracker. 'He can control the people
that surround him. Making sure they are people he can trust or will obey his
instructions without question. You can see the results of those that don’t fit
in with his idea if you go round the back of Osborne House and take a look at
the fountain.'

'We are proof that the antibiotics work,' added
Steven. 'We travelled unmolested by the creatures to the
Isle of Wight
in pursuit of this community. The American is
selecting the strongest people whilst getting rid of the elderly, sick and disabled.
We cannot take you all back to the mainland, but we can help you build a
community here on the island that does not involve being chained, or punished
for standing up against the management. A free community would give you all a
fair chance at a future for yourselves and your children. If you want to be
part of a community where you can be free to make your own choices and not live
under the threat of creatures or tyranny, join us and take control.'

'But we would need the vaccine,' shouted a survivor in
one corner.

'The American is likely to keep the antibiotics and
vaccine close to him. It is probably being developed here at Osborne House. You
need to take control of the community and work together,' Tracker continued.

'My sister works in the Health Sector as a nurse,’
spoke a lady near the front. She turned slightly so that the other survivors
could hear her. ‘She says the American often visits a professor that works in a
separate room experimenting with things. No one seems to know what he's doing in
there.'

‘That may be where the vaccine is being developed. But
your first step to freedom would be to overthrow the management then find the
vaccine.'