“I’ll think about it, Nathan, okay? I’ll think about it.” Kamiyo turned back towards the cabin, ending this tense conversation that had caused his palms to sweat. Why did Nathan frighten him almost as much as the demons?
25
TED
Ted strolled the ramparts with a canister of petrol in hand. During the last few hours, he’d had the teenagers wrapping arrows in cloth. If the demons tried coming up the front approach, they would rain fire on them. Next on his list was to restore the gate inside the lower guardhouse and shore up the outer wall in several places. With enough time, Ted also intended to dig trenches and place spikes. Anything to make life harder for the demons.
He wanted to see the lot of ‘em dead.
The more time Ted spent at the castle, the more he thought it might actually be possible to make a stand. The walls, if anything, had only strengthened over the centuries, compacted by their own massive weight. It would take a hellfire missile to knock them down, and he couldn’t imagine the demons turning up in Apache helicopters. Leaving would be easier once he knew the people here were safe. Another week, maybe two, and he would’ve done more than enough to walk away with a clean conscience.
With the petrol placed strategically along the castle’s walls, he now headed into the castle’s courtyard. The area had been filled with tents, and a campfire was fed daily and lit nightly. Inside the castle, hearths burned constantly, and cot beds were set up throughout the upper floors. All in all, there was plenty of space for the group to live their lives. There was even a dungeon if such a thing ever became necessary.
The group spent most evenings eating together in the main hall which was a wide, cavernous room in the centre of the castle’s ground floor. It had the largest hearth, several windows, and a collection of ancient tables cut from solid, dark wood. With the modern chairs they had requisitioned from the cabin, the castle’s cavernous interior became an odd mixture of ancient and new—much like a renovated church. It was a warm, fortified space, and its embrace lifted people’s spirit’s after a hard day’s work.
Ted went into the main hall now but continued until he entered a small chapel on its east side. No one in the group claimed to be overtly religious, and even those who identified as Christian did not require a space to pray, so the chapel was put to use as a pantry. Small and chilly, it was the closest thing they had to a refrigerator.
Jackie noticed Ted in the pantry and came to talk to him. “Ted, is there anything I can help you with today? I must say, I feel a lot safer since you braced the front gate.”
Ted had managed to drop the large portcullis last night and had braced it with two thick pine logs. “A tank would struggle to make it through now,” he said. “I ‘m planning on building a palisade too. If we position them right, we can force the demons into a huddle and torch the bastards with fire. We’ll warm ourselves on their corpses.”
Jackie grimaced. The healing slash on her cheek opened and closed like a ghoulish mouth. “Oh my.”
Ted blushed. “Sorry! I’ve, um, lost a lot of my filters after spending so much time alone.”
“It’s okay. I need to toughen up. I’m glad you’re here, Ted, unfiltered or not.” She put a hand on his arm. The touch filled him with guilt, but he endured it. Part of him stirred at the human contact, but he fought it away. Jackie may have sensed his conflict because she pulled her hand away from his arm. “Hannah told me how the two of you met,” she said. “That you were driving on your own. For how long?”
Ted turned his back to check the food supplies on the shelves. He started with the crab apples collected from the forest floor. “I lost track,” he muttered. “More than a month, less than two. I started out from Colchester.”
“Why did you leave?”
He scooped the crab apples together into a pile and moved on to counting bundles of dried fish. “Because I had no reason to stay.”
“Hannah said you were travelling north. How far north?”
“As far as north goes.”
“Why?”
He stopped counting and leant his weight against the racking. The furious imp that lived inside him was begging to get out. “Because I made a promise I intend to keep.”
“A promise to whom?”
He wanted to turn and yell in her face, to shove her away and tell her to mind her own fucking business. “A promise to my daughter.”
Jackie gasped. “Oh, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have pried.”
He turned to look at her, glad the tears remained behind his eyes and not on his hairy cheeks. “It’s okay.” He wondered if he might implode by continuing to speak. The memories he tried so hard to suppress were now right at the surface. “We’ve all lost people, Jackie. Did you… did you have any children of your own?”
Jackie smiled, which wasn’t the expression he’d expected. “I have a son somewhere. All grown up. A fire fighter.”
“You believe he’s alive?”
“I do.” She smiled again, and the pride showed in her eyes. “He’s out there somewhere, helping people, being brave. I know it.”
Ted returned her smile, unable not to feel at least some of her hope. It radiated off her, and in the presence of that emotion, Ted did something that surprised him—he took the photograph of his daughter out of his pocket and handed it to Jackie. A kindly stranger had taken it for Ted while he cuddled Chloe at the zoo. Chloe was beaming
