Aftermath

him they’d loaded all their supplies onto another boat elsewhere.

Back the other way.

It was hard to see much of anything through the mass of masts and the countless moored boats of various classes. He ran back toward the marina entrance, barely able to keep moving now, soaked with sweat, and then dragged himself out along another jetty. He ran out to the end of the narrow wooden decking which stretched beyond the last of the boats, and looked out over the water. He sank to his knees. Out there, rapidly disappearing toward the horizon, the helicopter gracefully drifted away. And below it on the water, a single boat.

What did he do now? He ruled out the most obvious two answers in order of impossibility: go back to the castle and try and salvage something from the chaos there, or get into a boat and try to find the island on his own. If he could just find a map and compass, then remember the name of the damn island, then teach himself to navigate, then learn how to sail a bloody boat …

Who was he kidding? Everything was completely fucked. His best option—probably the only real option remaining—was to either go back to the cruiser or the flat he’d previously occupied, lock the fucking door behind him, and never take a single step outside again.

“Harte, what the hell is going on?” a voice shouted from out of nowhere. He scrambled back to his feet, then spun around and saw Michael standing at the other end of the jetty.

32

“You’re bloody lucky. Another couple of minutes and we’d have been gone,” Harry said as he passed Harte a bottle of water and a towel. Harte wiped his face dry and drank thirstily, then tried to ask the first of the hundreds of questions which had flooded into his brain. He could barely speak, let alone think straight.

“Why…?” was all he could manage.

“Why what? Why are we still here?” Michael asked. Harte nodded. “Like Harry said,” he explained, “we weren’t planning on hanging around much longer. Did you see Cooper and Richard? We were supposed to be following them.”

“We put the supplies on the other boat and left this one empty for all the passengers we were supposed to be taking,” Harry said. “We stopped back to try and load up a few more things before we left. I swear, mate, you caught us by the skin of your teeth.”

“Anyway,” Michael said, leaning back against the cabin wall and watching Harte intently, “more to the point, why are you here?”

“You’re making a habit of abandoning your mates, aren’t you?” Harry added unnecessarily.

Harte finished his water, wiped his face again, and tried to explain.

“It’s Jas,” he said. “The fucker’s completely lost the plot. We were getting ready to clear out and he went ape-shit. We were just trying to get our share of the supplies and he flew off the handle. Before we knew what was happening there were guns going off and he was fighting with Jackson and all sorts.”

Michael looked at Harry. “Sounds about right from what Cooper and Donna said. That’s the guy who thought living on an island was a bad idea? Cooper said there’d probably be some trouble with him.”

“You can say that again.”

“So what exactly happened?”

“I didn’t see it all—”

“Too busy plotting your escape?”

Harte ignored Harry’s cheap jibe and continued. “Jas reckons the island is too restrictive. Thinks it’s too cut off.”

“Doesn’t make any difference these days,” Michael said quickly. “Where you are is far less important than —”

“Listen, you don’t have to convince me,” Harte interrupted, “I’ve already had this argument. I was planning to go with you, remember? Look, no one really knows what the best long-term option is anymore, no one can, but most folks seemed to have decided that going with you guys was the safer option.”

“And this Jas wouldn’t let them?”

“That’s about it.”

“So what do we do now?” Harry asked. “Just head back home like we agreed?”

“You can’t,” Harte said, an uncharacteristic urgency in his voice. “The only reason people aren’t here is because they couldn’t get away, not because they didn’t want to.”

“And what about you? Are you just here because you were still hoping to catch a lift?”

Harte shook his head and looked at both of the other two men. He wasn’t sure what they thought of him. Did they believe anything he said?

“I came back because I want your help,” he said. “I know I ran away before and yes, I did it because I was a coward and I didn’t want to go back to the castle. But you’ve got to believe me, this is different. My friends are trapped back there, and I want to get them out.”

33

The castle was a hive of frightened activity. The beaten-up bus sat useless in the middle of the courtyard like a beached whale. Its other tires had been slashed to make sure it wasn’t going anywhere, and all the supplies which had been loaded onboard had been removed. All around, people carried out Jas’s orders, passed to them by Kieran, Bayliss, Ainsworth, and Field. Field himself stood guard in front of the gate, a rifle held where everyone could see it, his presence alone enough to deter anyone from trying to get out. He occasionally barked instructions at Howard and Bob, who were shoveling the remains of the dead into wheelbarrows, then dumping them into the overfull cesspit. They were both exhausted, too tired to even think about rebelling now. Jackson’s body had been taken over to the cesspit area too. His corpse had been left by the outside wall, wrapped in a tarpaulin and dumped next to where Steve Morecombe had been buried a week and a half earlier. No one would notice the stink over there, Field had said.

Jas watched the proceedings alone from the top of the gatehouse, keen to put as much distance as possible between himself and everyone else. It had taken him more than an hour and two cans of lager to stop shaking after Jackson’s death. He was overwhelmed by a raft of unexpected emotions: guilt, fear, anger, remorse … but there was nothing he could do. It wasn’t my fault. What’s done is done, he kept telling himself. I need to get this lot back on track now. Let them forget about the helicopter and that bloody island and all that bullshit. Another few weeks and we can move out of here.

But he kept coming back to one dark thought.

I’ve killed a man.

He tried to focus on something—anything—else, but it was impossible. He hadn’t actually sunk the knife into the other man’s chest, but he may as well have. Over the months he’d destroyed untold hundreds of those wretched cadavers which walked the dead world outside, dispatching even the least decayed, most human of them without a second’s thought—but this was different. Completely different.

Less than a hundred people left alive that I know of, and I killed one of them …

“What do you want me to do with them?”

Jas, startled by the unexpected voice, quickly turned around. It was Kieran.

“What?”

“I asked you what you want me to do with them. Do we just keep them locked up in the caravans for now?”

Jas thought for a moment. “Might as well,” he replied, trying not to sound as distracted and nervous as he felt. “Use the vans nearest the gatehouse. Let them calm down. We need to get everything back to how it was before those fuckers turned up here and screwed everything up.”

Kiera paused before answering. “Okay. You’re the boss.”

He turned to go back downstairs, but Jas called to him before he disappeared.