Aftermath

9

Driver had settled quickly into the routine—what little routine there was—of life within the crumbling walls of Cheetham Castle. In comparison to everywhere else he’d been recently, this was bliss. Okay, so he was having to work harder than he was used to, and sometimes Jackson’s “all for the common good” ethos felt a little forced and hard to stomach, but he was safe and his mind was kept occupied and it was a small price to pay. He generally busied himself around the group’s vehicles, particularly the comfortable backseat of his replacement bus. He was tasked with keeping them all in good working order but, as no one had ventured beyond the castle walls in all the time he’d been there, that hadn’t required a huge amount of effort. But, Driver being Driver, he’d done all he could to make a little work last as long as possible. He always managed to make himself look busy when, in fact, none of them actually had very much to do at all.

He’d taken to living on the bus. It was as good a place as any: better than most parts of the castle itself—windproof and relatively warm—and as spacious as most of the caravans the others used (less crowded, too). This morning, however, it was particularly cold. Driver opened one eye, then quickly closed it. It was still dark, and he was nowhere near ready to start another day just yet. He snuggled down deeper into his sleeping bag and wrapped his arms around himself to try and retain as much precious heat as possible. He was on the verge of drifting off again when something slammed against the back end of the bus, close to where he was lying. He sat upright in an instant, heart pounding, expecting to see bodies surrounding him. He relaxed when he saw that it was just Jackson, wrapped up like an Arctic explorer. He gestured for Driver to let him in. Still in his sleeping bag, he grudgingly shuffled, jumped, and tripped the length of the bus to open the door.

“Bloody hell,” he said, “do you know what time it is?”

“Do I look like I care what time it is?” Jackson replied, irritated. “Get yourself ready, Driver, we’re going out.”

“Out? Where?”

“Bromwell.”

* * *

Within the hour, Driver found himself standing inside the prefabricated museum with a small team of volunteers. He looked around at them. Most people (himself included, if he was honest about it) did as little as they could to get by, content to leave the much of the work to the minority of folks. And here they were: the usual suspects—the same faces which tended to appear whenever anything important needed doing. Bob Wilkins was there, despite his frequent protestations about staying inside the castle walls and not taking risks, and next to him, wearing a grubby hazmat suit, was Steve Morecombe, another man who seemed to talk a lot but who said very little worth listening to.

Next to them, leaning up against the nearest wall, was Zoe, a tall, athletic-looking student. Driver liked Zoe, not that he’d had much to do with her so far. She was different from the others, and liked to keep herself to herself. He could identify with that. She was what Driver’s ex-wife Sandra would have called “an individual.” Much to the bemusement of the rest of the group, Zoe referred to herself as a student because that, technically, was what she still was. She could often be found alone in the corner of the classroom or the caravan where she lived, continuing to pore over the books and other texts she’d kept with her from university. What good’s all that going to do you now? people asked her with infuriating regularity. Where was the point in studying a now-defunct subject such as criminal law, or in studying anything else for that matter? Driver knew they were missing the point entirely. He didn’t need to ask Zoe why she studied, because he already knew. It was obvious. Like the newspaper he had read over and over, Zoe’s studies were her coping mechanism. They were both a distraction and an occupation; a link to the past she wasn’t yet ready to lose. “Just because you’ve all forgotten who you used to be,” she’d sometimes tell them when she was feeling particularly frustrated, “doesn’t mean I have to.”

Kieran and Jackson marched across the courtyard toward the classroom, feet crunching through the gravel and frost. They’d barely got through the door before Bob was at them.

“Well?”

“Well what?” Jackson asked.

“Is it safe?”

“No way of knowing that for sure until we get out there, is there, Bob?”

“That’s reassuring,” Steve grumbled. Driver said nothing, but he shared their concern. This seemed like the most tenuous of plans.

“All I can tell you,” Jackson said, “is that they’re all pretty much frozen solid right now. The frost last night was particularly severe. I tried digging a hole just now, and I could barely get the spade to break the surface of the soil, so those things outside shouldn’t be much more than chunks of ice. As long as we’re back before they start to thaw out, we should be fine.”

“Should be fine?” Bob said.

“Will be fine. Now, are we ready?”

There was a muted, barely audible response.

“I’m ready,” Zoe said, keen to show she was willing and to kick the others up the backside a little.

Nothing.

“Kieran’s going out there first in the digger to clear those icy bastards off the road, Driver follows with the rest of us. He’ll get us to the hotel, then it’s in and out and back again as quick as we can. No messing around. Got it?”

“You make it sound so easy,” Steve said.

“It will be easy,” Jackson replied. “Trust me.”

“Oh, we trust you, all right,” Bob said, following Zoe as she walked out of the classroom. “It’s what’s left of the rest of the world we have a problem with.”

Driver was the last to leave, his stomach knotted with nerves. He didn’t know what scared him more—the prospect of leaving the safety of the castle walls, or what he might find back at the hotel.