Them – Part 1

As the rain pelted down hard against his leather hood, Jackson glanced up and down the empty road before crossing towards the pub. The small act was a force of habit now, more than a precaution, it was a comforting thought that somewhere out there, there may actually still be cars on the road. 

Finally he was here.

32 miles he’d travelled on foot over the course of 6 days and 5 nights.

Together, they had initially fed off the remains of the tins they’d had leftover in their kitchen and the still edible food in the fridge. Later, when on his own, he had been getting by on bottles of water and sugar sachets. He was clinging to the half-baked idea that his brother Grant had gotten one last laugh over the skeptics. That somewhere, in the small village of Lauder in the Scottish Borders, there remained hope. 

Grant had told him that they would be making for Lauder as soon as word started spreading on the radio, on social media and on the news sites. “Get your comfiest trainers” he’d said ‘we’re leaving NOW’. On the way, he’d explained how he’d been reading for months that it was going to happen, that society as we knew it had been teetering on the edge. Jackson had laughed. Not at him, but just laughed. He knew that this was happening to him right now but somehow he couldn’t quite get his head around the fact that it was actually happening. He wanted to just laugh and say “aye right” but subconsciously he somehow just knew he needed to get on with this, trust his brother, for once.

As they’d made their way out of their small town of Bonnyrigg, just 10 miles south of Edinburgh, Grant explained how he’d been chatting with others across not just Scotland or the UK, but the world who were readying themselves too, they had been for years. The Scottish sub-group had identified a safe haven to travel to. Agreements were made, you would arrive on foot, no vehicles. Vehicles they would attract attention and attention was something they couldn’t afford. Jackson had nervously sniggered again at all of this, attract attention from what he’d thought. They’d agreed to bring food. One family member each and no more. They couldn’t afford passengers. 

When the panic hit and his brother had erupted into a whirlwind of action Jackson had been happy to follow Grant and let him lead with all this stuff, he almost felt like he was doing him a favour in the beginning, like he was doing it all out of pity. Let him have his day.

Jackson soon learned on their second day of walking how right his brother had been and exactly what they didn’t want to attract attention from. 

From a distance, maybe 200 metres or so, Jackson spotted another traveller on the road. Jackson had actually waved to them.

“Why the FUCK would you do that?” Grant had whisper-screamed at him. His eyes wet with tears, real tears. His angry vein was popping out his neck. Jackson had remembered that detail so vividly.

The traveller had covered the space between them in seconds, it walked directly towards Grant who was wildly rummaging through his backpack for something, muttering away to himself. As it got closer still, Grant had looked into Jacksons eyes and shook his head with a sad resignation.

6 Weeks Later

Around week 6 of isolation in Lauder the food situation was starting to look bleak. Jackson reckoned there were maybe enough tins left to last another few nights. It had only been a day ago that Jan, the youngest of the group, had left to check if Diane had returned safely from the tin run. Neither returned.

Conversations had raged on into the night between the remaining two, Ally and Jackson, about hunting wildlife. Were there even animals out there? No-one had said that they’d seen any during the brief times they’d left their sanctuary. Jackson was sure the group had pretty much raided every house in the village now. Options were scarce. 

“I got something on the radio the other night” Ally announced out into the quiet room. Jackson, whose head had been hanging between his knees parked in the corner of the room, slowly lifted his head. He was tired. “Something?” He asked. 

“Yeah, might be something, might be nothing.” Ally muttered, almost like he regretted the words leaving his mouth. 

“Well fuck mate” said Jackson“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we’re getting pretty close to being out of options here. Something is better than nothing! What is it?”

Ally explained that he had heard chatter between two voices coming across their small, digital radio. One of the voices had said they were a small group in Bathgate, a town in West Lothian situated half way between Edinburgh and Glasgow. The other had been a single survivor, Graeme. He was boxed up in a flat in the Grassmarket area of Edinburgh. He was living off the food that had been leftover amongst the assortment of restaurants, cafe’s and pubs dotted around the area. 

“I’m 99% sure he said that there was a guy in the City who was recruiting folk” said Ally, finally making eye contact with Jackson. 

Jacksons eyebrows furrowed “Recruiting?” He was smirking but silently, almost embarrassingly, hopeful. 

Ally was nodding. “To be honest mate, this was why I’ve not mentioned it until now. It sounds…” he paused looking for the right word. Almost so long that Jackson was worried he’d nodded off with his eyes open. “…it sounds bloody mental.”

Between disruptions on the radio and what sounded to Ally like explosions in the background, this Graeme had explained to the Bathgate survivor that there was a man in the City who was the head of a group of survivors. Ally thought he had him called him The Devil. 

“The Devil?!” Laughed Jackson. “Aye, I know” conceded Ally, hands up protesting his innocence in a don’t-shoot-the-messenger type way. “I felt the same. But that’s what it sounded like. It could have been Dennis or Darryl. I dunno. Anyway, whoever this guy was, Graeme said he was recruiting. Building a group of survivors to fight. Said he thought there was maybe 10 or more of them. He talked about him burning them and it was killing them.”

“Fuckin’ hell” Jackson muttered under his breath, his head falling back between his knees. The tingles of ice tip toeing their way up his spine were so uncomfortable that he wanted to get up and run out the room. 

“Aye” said Ally with a deep exhale of breath. 

They both knew what the other man was thinking. Neither really wanted to leave Lauder, it had been their little corner of hope for the last couple of months, where they’d made new friends, bonded and survived the end of the world. But supplies were now low, as were friends. The two of them needed help and more importantly, hope. Whoever this Devil or Darryl or Dennis was, it sounded to Jackson like hope. 

“Do you think you can contact this Graeme guy?” Jackson asked, expecting to be laughed out the room.

Ally closed his eyes tight, took a deep breath and got up, leaving the room in a rush, without a word. He returned just as quickly with the radio in his hand “Might as well try” he grinned.

Without much further conversation between the two of them except a quick plan of what they’d all need to take with them, Ally sat up for the next few hours, trying to listen out for ‘Grassmarket Graeme’. Finally, they got him.

Ally did most of the talking, the excitement of speaking to someone new had overcome him a little. 

He asked Graeme about Edinburgh – “an absolute mess. Everything is abandoned. The few people I’ve encountered have been really nice and helpful though”

He asked about them and how many Graeme had encountered – “a few, I managed to outrun them back to the flat but it was fucking mental”

Finally, he asked about this Devil character he had mentioned to the Bathgate group. 

“Aye, you were right, Devil. Derek Vellers. He’s a goon. Him and his brother Anders or Anvil they call him. They run some gang. Or used to. Aye, anyway, they’re trying to galvanise folk, get a big survivors group going. I’ve had one of his boys here at the flats asking if folk want help from them. They’re set up in the castle. Aye, Edinburgh Castle.” Graeme had to stop for a moment as he rasped out a huge barking cough. “Anyway, the boy said they’ve stacks of food, clothes, medicines, everything. And they’re hunting and burning them. Said they’re going to rid Edinburgh of this filth.”

Jackson and Ally exchanged a similar wide-eyed look at each other. Jackson felt the blood pumping round his body for the first time in days, his stomach danced with nervous excitement.

DEVIL

Derek Vellers was sat leaning forward in a stone seat heating his hands across a makeshift fire in the middle of a large, desolate room within the confines of Edinburgh Castle. The warm fire crackling at his hands was in stark contrast to the rest of the large empty room surrounded by cold stone, high ceilings and an array of ancient golden weaponry. Maces, swords and axes hung on the wall behind Vellers. A steel-plated, gold-coloured gas mask with tribal symbols on it, taken from the city’s national museum, lay cast aside on a small table next to the chair. 

The doors to the room banged hard twice, echoing throughout. 

“Aye” shouted Vellers. 

The doors creaked opened, a woman and a man stumbled through. They were being pushed forward by two men behind them. Both men at the back wore similar masks to the one lay on the table by Vellers. The woman sobbed and the man was whispering at her to stop. He pleaded with her. His whispers filled the room and echoed all throughout. They were nudged forward by the men at the back until they stood before the fire, directly across from Vellers. 

Vellers let out a large exhale of breath and nodded at the two men who had been supervising the man and woman. “Tell ma brother I need him” he said to the men. The man on the right nodded once, spinning on his heel and left the room. A minute later he came trotting back in. Removing his mask to reveal a young, sneering face, he nasally addressed Vellers “He’s no there Devil, Brick said he’s away oot hunting.”  

Vellers shook his head, the weight of the world seemed to be sitting on his shoulders. He looked up at the young man and sneered. “Fucks sake. OK. Right both you two get tae fuck. If ma brother comes back, tell the wee dick tae come see me.”

The young man slipped his mask back on and they both left on command. The doors were slammed shut and Vellers was left looking across the dancing flames of the fire at the man and sobbing woman. Both were tied with rope at their hands. Both were filthy, bruised and bloody. 

“Have youse seen them” asked Vellers, his upper lip curled up in disgust like a retail manager having to deal with insubordinate employees who had been caught fiddling the tills.

The woman began to sob even more, she was trying to get out words but they were a song of cries, inconsolable moans and hyperventilating. “Fucks sake” muttered Vellers to himself. 

“Have. Youse. Seen. Them?” He asked again, slower this time with a bit more patience in his face. He asked it directly to the man who had his head down, chin almost touching his chest. “No, not at all” he responded. A well-spoken tone to his words. “We were in the gardens resting, we’d been systematically going through the shops on Princess Street. Today is day…..five I think.”

Vellers sat back in his chair now. “Ah right OK, I get it pal.” he declared with mischief in his eyes. “Princess Street, the gardens, that’s aw mine though” The words hung in the air with menace alongside the crackle of the fire. The woman was still in a state of anguish, crying, bubbling, trying desperately to control her breathing. The man looked at Vellers with searching eyes, his eyebrows furrowed and he began to shake his head, searching for the words that might produce some sort of compassion or mercy. “Please, we got chased out of St James’ Quarter. We just needed somewhere to hide out. We needed food. She hurt her leg” he gestured towards the woman “and we just….please, please.”

Vellers sat forward again rubbing his hands and holding them over the fire, taking in the heat against his palms.

“It’s weird” he began, looking deep into the embers of the fire. “When I was wee, ma Ma used to call me a wee devil cos I was a wee shite at school and that. Always doing daft stuff tae get kicked out the class, suspended, expelled. Aw that. Then when I was in the army they called me the Devil there tae. I used tae like setting these cunts on fire. I never got it. Why send us ower there tae fight these lot, gie us guns and train us tae kill them but if somebody sets them on fire, they’ve suddenly got this big problem wi it. I used tae laugh hearing them pleading and praying or whatever it was. I cannae think of anything mare satisfying than the noise o’ their skin peeling aff their bones.” He was smiling like a demented Cheshire cat, as if replaying a favourite memory in the back of his mind, flames danced in the reflection of his eyes.

“PLEASE….!” shouted the man interrupting the daydream. 

Vellers snapped a threatening look at the man which made him cower backwards. He tripped and fell onto the cold floor. 

“Now they just call me the Devil cos a tell them tae. Cos it’s ma name”

He stood to his feet and nonchalantly wandered round the fire to the woman. Devil shook his head at the pleading man in front of him and pushed the woman face-first into the fire. He continued slowly, methodically walking out the room as the horrific duet of the man and womans anguish echoed off the stone walls.