Flare

Chapter 52

In the end it was done quietly.

We stayed the night, a married couple making room for us in their corner of the barn so that all five of us slept almost nose to nose. The evening was taken up by Emily and I making statements, much as we would have done had we reported a crime before the flare, each page signed and a declaration made that we were telling the truth.

“We have to observe the forms,” Lindsay had said when they were both finished, the paper disappearing into a tatty blue folder. “We may have slipped a little but we’re a long way from barbarism.”

“I wish everyone else felt the same. Maybe we’d have a chance at rebuilding then.”

She’d nodded at me and left, and we’d bedded down in the barn, only to be awakened just after dawn by Max, the farmer whose land it was.

He put a finger to his lips as I woke, then motioned to Emily. I touched her shoulder and she woke instantly, then looked at Max and nodded. We both knew what was happening, there could be no other reason for being woken so early and in secret.

I looked back at Melody and frowned, then leaned in to speak in Max’s ear.

“I can’t leave her alone, she’ll panic if she wakes up and we’re not here.”

He shook his head. “We’ll only be gone a few minutes, and my boy David is standing by the door. She cries out, he’ll be in here like a flash and he’s good with kids, don’t worry.”

I didn’t like it, but I couldn’t see any other way around it, so we crept out as silently as possible, nodding to the young lad who stood in the shadows of the yard, his face hidden by the misty clouds that blocked the sun.

It was much colder this morning, and as Max led us behind the barn and across the fields behind, tendrils of mist wrapped around our legs like the hands of the dead reaching out for us. It was an unusually macabre thought, but it suited my mood.

We crossed two fields before several dark shapes rose out of the mist, coalescing into the standing forms of Lindsay and one of the officers we’d met at the barricade the day before, and the kneeling figures of the two men who had kidnapped Melody.

Just the sight of them made me snarl, and I felt the shackles in my mind tremble.

Lindsay and her colleague nodded at us, while the kneeling men looked up, silent. One look at my face told them all they needed to know, and as we slowed they returned their eyes to the muddy ground in front of them.

Both were handcuffed, but now these cuffs were removed while Lindsay’s colleague covered them with a police-issue pistol held in one hand, while the other held, somewhat incongruously, a pillow.

Keeping clear of the line of fire, Lindsay moved around the side of the men so that they could see her as she spoke.

“You are here today to answer for your crimes. In a perfect world, you would be tried by a court in front of a jury of your peers, and then sentenced by a judge, but this is not a perfect world. Instead, I have to do what I can with the cards I’ve been dealt. You’ve been accused of murder, kidnapping and robbery. Do you have anything to say?”

The men shared a glance, then the one who had held the knife to Melody’s throat shrugged.

“Will it make a difference?”

“Probably not.”

“Then fuck you all.”

Lindsay nodded and motioned for her colleague to step forward.

“I’ve seen the evidence, as have three others picked at random from the camp, and all agree that you are, on the balance of probabilities, guilty of all the charges. There are two possible sentences, but I feel that if you are released, you will continue to prey on those weaker than you.”

One of the men looked up, then spat at Lindsay’s boots.

“If you’re gonna kill us, just fuckin kill us.”

I’d expected them to beg, to plead for their lives, but instead they were meeting their fate with a rough dignity that annoyed me, as if they no longer wished to be part of this screwed up world. I wanted them to cry, to scream, to realise that what they had done was wrong, to admit that we were in the right.

I even hoped for one brief second that it was all an act, that they would try to break free at the last second, and I imagined myself seizing the pistol from Emily’s waistband and shooting them both as they ran into the mist.

Instead, the officer stepped up to the first, placing the pillow against the back of his head. He glanced at Lindsay who, face pale as the mist around her, nodded once.

The sound of the body hitting the ground was louder than the retort of the pistol, muzzle buried as it was in the pillow. The smell of charred feathers and cordite filled the air, followed quickly by another smell as the dead man’s bowels released.

Before the other could do more than blink, the pillow was moved to his head and the pistol pushed into it.

He looked up at me just as the trigger was pulled, his eyes widening as the bullet tore through his skull and he slumped to the ground next to his friend.

I felt strangely empty as I watched them lying there. I searched for some kind of feeling, remorse, relief, anger, guilt, but again there was none.

Emily’s hand stole into mine and squeezed my fingers, making me look at her.

“Are you ok?” She asked softly, as Lindsay led our silent procession back towards the buildings.

I shrugged, unsure what answer to give.

“I think so,” I said, keeping hold of her hand. “I just don’t know anymore.”

She just nodded at that, pulling my arm around her shoulders and leaning into me as we walked back to the barn, leaving the dead where they had fallen.