Fifteen thousand people cheered. Thomas handed the microphone back to the guard and hurried down the ladder, then gave the order for the driver to back the lorry away from the gate. The door to Great Britain was unlocked. Thomas’s army stepped through.
Thomas climbed onto a horse that had been found and tamed for him. His designated commanders and junior officers joined him on mounts of their own, each grinning with pride and anticipation. Thomas smiled too, enjoying the determination on their faces. There would be no sympathy for the enemy this time, no empathising with motives or sympathising with beliefs like the adversaries of old. The demons were vermin, and he would put them down with the snapping of fifteen thousand rifles.
Let our enemy despair, for its days are numbered.
All the doubts Thomas had momentarily experienced melted away. This was what his entire life had been leading up to. There was no way he could fail. Absolutely no way.
There was a time when the start of a new day brought a depressing grey feeling, signalling morning commutes, frosty construction sites, and the odd hangover. Now it meant mankind had survived another night. Ted welcomed the dawn and the tasks ahead. Walls needed building, apprentices needed teaching. Work was no longer a window of hours each day, but a constant state of being. Hard work meant staying alive.
Caution was almost as important as hard work, but it was that the camp lacked. People were too eager to accept newcomers, which had led to Kielder Forest becoming inundated with them. It had started with the group from the supermarket – necessary due to them having a fully stocked pharmacy. Then smaller groups had come out of hiding, creeping out of the trees with fear in their eyes and hunger in their bellies. No one possessed a heart cold enough to turn them away. Lately, however, their newest residents were not vulnerable or needy, but dangerous and suspicious. Besides the American soldiers who had appeared via a gate, there was now a group of American coast guards in camp. Add to that the demon, Sorrow, and various other shady characters that Ted suspected had survived the apocalypse through less than savoury means, and things no longer felt quite so safe at Kielder. It was important not to lose sight of mankind’s capacity for evil. Sometimes it exceeded that of the demons.
Then there was the ex-vicar, Angela. What was her deal?
Ted was on his way to meet with some of the newcomers now. He had met with the American coast guards briefly last night, but it had grown late and the excitement of camp had made things chaotic. In the calm of a new day, and after a night’s rest to consider things, Ted could now question the strangers properly.
As was the case with all visitors, the newcomers had been allocated the guest cabin built at the rear of the castle’s courtyard. Ted had built the place himself with a small team. It was right in the crossfire of several archers standing on the various wooden platforms. It gave visitors the illusion of freedom while retaining the option to fill them full of arrows. It wasn’t fun being suspicious, but there was no other way. In the last few months, Ted had started to see the grey areas of leadership. It was impossible to think of himself as good or bad any more. Being good didn’t always keep people alive and being bad sometimes saved lives.
Dr Kamiyo had left his post at the activity centre and was waiting by the guest cabin. He had his hands on his hips and was staring up at the early morning sky. When he sensed Ted, he lowered his gaze and smiled. “Morning! Looks like we might get rain. Winter’s on the way.”
“We’re ready for it. Long as nobody does anything stupid.”
Kamiyo chuckled. “That might be a problem, because people can’t always help themselves when it comes to being stupid.”
Ted patted his friend on the back. Along with Frank, Dr Kamiyo was one of the few people he fully trusted. They were each committed to the survival of the camp at whatever cost. “Good thing we have you to patch up all the idiots, Doc. Are our guests inside?”
Kamiyo nodded.
The guest cabin was a rickety structure covered in tarps. The nearby supermarket had sold flatpack sheds, which had come in useful. The only problem was their small size. Ted had needed to fashion half a dozen of them together to make the guest cabin. It had a felt roof and raised floor, which counted as luxury these days.
“They’re still inside,” said Kamiyo. “Far as I know, they slept all night through, but Nancy woke them at sunrise.”
Ted shook his head and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I heard something about her daughter being alive. Is that true?”
“From what I’ve been told, the girl’s aboard a ship parked on the coast near Newcastle. It would be really something, huh? Nancy came all the way from Idaho to get here and her daughter just turns up.”
“Indiana,” said Ted, suddenly a little grumpy. While it was truly a blessing if Nancy’s child was alive, it filled him with jealousy. His own daughter, Chloe, hadn’t made
