Paradise: Chapter 12: 2 Kings (10478) [DRAFT!]

 

Chapter 12: 2 Kings (10478)

Tucker’s place was a large flat on Gorphine Road, large and elegant, but cold in the winter. With the power outages and intermittent gas supply it was so cold that there was mould growing on the walls and ceilings. Tucker, wandered the place in his robe and slippers, smoking his foul pipe, and spreading dandruff everywhere as he scratched at his balding head. He has long since passed caring about appearances, thought Joe to himself as slipped and slid through the snow back to his scruffy benefactors digs. Joe knew the old bastard had money somewhere, but if it was in the flat it was well hidden. Tucker liked Joe enough to tolerate him living in the flat but didn’t trust him with any sum of money larger than twenty pounds, which was why Joe, on his way back from the minimarket, only had a couple of quid in change in his pocket.

The pavements were covered in slushy snow. No one had bothered to put salt down on it and it was turning into a treacherous ice rink. Joe’s nose was red. He had been given money in November to buy himself a new coat, hat, and gloves, but he had spent it on dope. Tucker had told him he could go around in nothing but his hoodie as a lesson. It was a long slow walk, and Joe did it silently, continuing to think his thoughts, or what passed for thoughts in the head of someone like Joe. He was not deep; his desires were simple. Above all else he needed a steady supply of dope or as a second option – weed. When his stash started running low, he started to get nervous. His usual suppliers were unreliable now after the reditus and Joe’s equilibrium had been upset by it. Still, it was what it was, and if he had enough on hand, and a bit of extra money to top up his stash as and when required then he was happy. Things like food, drink, fags and clothing he never paid for unless he absolutely had to. Generally, though he found he could get by sponging off Tucker or Johnny, or anyone else in his orbit.

Currently he was not happy, as getting to his suppliers was much harder with Johnny out of town. Joe did not think much of Johnny, he did not think much of anyone when it came to it and was quite open with himself that the only reason that he hung around with Johnny was because he had a car and was a pushover. Without that free taxi service, he had to do things like go to the shops for Tucker on foot. If he couldn’t get lift from some other sucker, he would have to make the journey over to Yolker by himself, either on foot or by bus. Neither option appealed to him.

He’d tried calling Johnny but had not had an answer. He had considered going over to his flat, but it was too far for Joe to consider walking it and he wasn’t sure of what bus to take. He’d work it out when he needed to. For now, he’d keep the change from the money he had been given by Tucker for his groceries and add it to his dope kitty.

The shops nearest to the flat were all closed up and the minimarket was about a mile away, an inhumane distance to expect anyone to walk in this weather without a coat thought Joe as he walked hunched down over his cigarette. There was no snow, but there was a chill breeze coming up from the river with the threat of rain in the air. The clouds hung low over the roof tops and the streets were dark and quiet. Over the course of his entire walk back, he had only seen a couple of cars go past and three army trucks. Once he heard a police siren, but it had been out of sight. From the minimarket he followed a cycle path through a long strip of trees beside the dual carriageway before turning right up a hill and onto a city street. From there he turned again, onto another one, a meandering narrow lane lined with closed shops that lead past the old Odeon. Next, he walked across a carpark, now largely bereft of cars, and finally onto another terraced street where Tucker’s third floor flat was. He was used to this journey, having done it many times, but before the reditus there had been no minimarket, no dual carriageway and no cycle path. The jumble of the Splintering had shattered the town Joe had known into sub-zonal fragments and mixed it in with many others. If was funny how people had got used to it, like they just forgot the old roads. Joe remembered though, he prided himself on it. Right now, he was on the east end of Gorphine Road, which had once led to Heater Park, but which now, if you followed it long enough lead to an area of city unknown to Joe that he wanted nothing to do with. Gorphine was safe and familiar. It had been a rundown dump even before the reditus. Even so, where once every other shop window had been boarded up, now they all were. Last year windows had been broken by squatters and DPs until they were all rounded up and taken away. After that a council van had come around with a bunch of MDF and a nail gun and put the final nail in Gorphine’s coffin. That was why Joe had to walk a mile to get to a shop.

People still lived here, mainly in the upper flats. Mostly old people, recluses and other oddballs. People that didn’t go out much. Joe got bored out of his head at this end of Evermarch. It was more fun down around the college where the students still knew how to entertain themselves, and it was easier to get hash. What had happened to all that? He’d not seen Ellie or Wasp since Johnny had left town. Without that stupid yellow to take him around, Joe’s life got smaller. Joe was in theory attending the same college as Johnny, doing a course on engineering, but he’d not been back this year at all. It was too much of a trek from Tucker’s. Joe had fleetingly thought about breaking into Johnny’s flat and lying in wait there for his return, but it would be cold, there would be no food and nothing to do. Much as he disliked Tucker, it was warm and well stocked. A comfortable prison.

Joe took the bags to the kitchen and dumped them on the floor, then went through to the living room where Tucker was stood in the middle of the room reading a book. Tucker was a tall, grey-haired man with an unkempt beard. He did not look like a typical gay, Joe had often thought, he dressed like a tramp and had the habits of one. It was late afternoon, and he was still not dressed, wearing a black dressing gown, the shoulders of which were covered in dandruff. He was definitely bent though, Joe knew. He had known Tucker back before the reditus and had seen the company he had kept. He had never shown the slightest interest in Joe, he appeared to be constantly irritated by the young man, if anything.

Tucker put down his book and wandered into the kitchen. He took the bags from the floor and took their contents out on the work top.

‘Oh Joe,’ he sighed. ‘You’ve forgotten half of it. You forgot the hand sanitizer. And the face cream.’

‘What do you need that for anyway,’ asked Joe from the living room. ‘Since when do you moisturise?’

‘Never you mind. Where is the receipt?’

Joe fished it out of his pocket, crumpled it up and tossed it into the kitchen. Tucker tsked as he bent to pick it up. ‘You didn’t forget your fags.’ Tucker pronounced the word snidely. ‘And you forgot half of the fruit I wanted.’

‘You buy all this fruit, but I never see you eat it!’

Tucker said nothing more as he busied about in the kitchen. Joe gave the older man a filthy look and turned on the TV.

‘I’m going to have to go out later, thanks to you,’ said Tucker as he flounced into his room. ‘I’m going for a lie down.’

Joes picked up his tobacco tin from the coffee table and rolled himself a joint. Tucker didn’t mind his habit and would even take a puff every now and then. He inspected the contents of his tin. Supplies were running low.

 

The next day he took a bus to Yolker. He knew all the dealers there, but they were often hard to locate during daylight hours. Like a patient fisherman on a riverbank, he sat on a park bench next to the Yolker Medical Centre. The Centre was on top of an underground carpark that was inhabited by troglodytes. Joe wasn’t interested in any of them though – if they were doing drugs, it would be glue and lighter fluid. Joe had more refined tastes. No, he was waiting to see who was going in and out of the Centre itself and eyeing them up, guessing their prescription and the likelihood of him being able to buy anything off them. If he was lucky, he would land a big fish, a dealer. He was on first name terms with all of them and they all came here eventually, he just needed to be patient.

It had just been doctors and nurses so far, haggard looking people, tired and dejected. The centre was for outpatients and before the reditus it had been where Joe had got his methadone. That had stopped now though, they didn’t deal with junkies at all, not officially anyway. Same as it ever was, you could still get a script for depression, and there was plenty of that to go around in Evermarch these days, so the whole place was awash with knock-off anti-depressants.

No matter how worn down a doctor looked they would never give you anything without an appointment. They would not sell you a script pad for any amount of money. The muta watched for that sort of thing. Joe just couldn’t get his hands on any decent dope, now that his search radius was so small. No hash, no MDMA, no speed, no acid, no nothing, so here he sat, waiting and hoping he could at least scrounge a few jellies off a depressed junkie.

And then suddenly, like an angel flying down from heaven, Leon walked out of the centre, across the concrete bridge down to the main road and sat on the bench beside Joe. He started talking as if he had only been gone five minutes.

‘Cannae get anything oot o’ them,’ he said. ‘Cunts are hording all the drugs for themselves. Used to be I ran a dozen junkies through this place, collecting scripts. Uppers, downers, pinks, tabs, jellies. Now nothing. They took all the gear out of the chemists and keep it at the Centre now. They’ve got armed guards in there.’

Joe nodded. He had been on Valium and Temazepam before the reditus, given to him by a nurse at this very Centre and he had sold half of it for hash. Those had been the good times.

‘Ye ken what I do for a decent buzz these days?’ asked Leon. ‘That weed is fine, but it’s a mellow high. I’ve been drinking homemade whiskey. Fucking tastes like shite, but it does the job. That and the gas.’

‘I’m not doing that again,’ said Joe who had had enough butane induced hallucinations to put him off it for life. ‘That’s for junkies.’

‘Fuckin aye man. But that’s what I’m reduced to. See what I’m saying? Those cunts in there have all the good stuff. If I could get a gun and some mad bastard mad enough to do it, I’d do a number on the place.’

Joe knew well enough an enterprise like that was well beyond Leon. ‘Cannae just break in at night?’

Leon put out his hand for Joe to see how it trembled. ‘Do I look like a fucking cat burglar to you? I’ve got it so bad I can hardly skin up. Anyway, good to see you, how’s things?’

‘You got anything?’ asked Joe, getting to the point.

‘Business is not so good Joe. I’ve got my business, you know? I’m a businessman with a business to run, but right now, times are hard, know what I mean? I’m having to diversify. Getting a new line in from the Delta. Making inroads. Got some free samples, hey you want to try some? Free to an old and valued customer?’

‘Aye, ok,’ nodded Joe and Leon fished around in the pocket of his Parka. He dropped a few tablets into Joe’s hand who then swiftly stashed them in his coat. ‘What is it?’

‘Some kind of acid, I think. Meant to be good.’

 

Back on Gorphine Road, the sun was out and just about managing to shine some light on the small play park across the road from Tucker’s flat. There were no children in the park, just Joe. He sat on one of the benches where the parents used to sit as their children played.

He’d forgotten his key when he had gone out and if Tucker was in, he had not answered the intercom when Joe had buzzed. Neither had anyone else. Nobody did these days, to be fair, as soon as that thing went, they would all be pissing themselves. No one answered the door to anyone they were not expecting, and if they had any sense they were prepared for a speedy exit. Even Tucker had a grab bag in the flat, gathering dust beside his bed.

Bored, Joe took one of the pills out of his pocket and swallowed it. He then leaned back his head to feel the sun on his face and waited for it to kick in. After a few moments he started to hallucinate. He raised his eyes and watched rainbow colours flit across the sky in pulsating waves.

‘Fuck…’ he manged to gasp as he realised he was in for a much wilder trip than he had expected. It was the last rational thought to go through his brain before it started. Swirling patterns swooped down around the buildings, in and out of the trees, colourful ribbons of light. Half-dazzled he winced and shaded his eyes with his hand. It was intense.

‘Kinda harsh high,’ remarked someone to his left.

‘Fuck man, fuck!’ Joe was suddenly aware he was looking at Wormwood. How long had he been doing that? Five minutes? An hour? With difficulty he tore his gaze away from the great cosmic scab in the southern skies and looked at the person beside him. It was Wasp. Where had he come from?

‘My eyes have gone weird Joe. I don’t like this. This fucking Delta shit. Why did you make me take it? I uh…’ Wasp looked back up at Wormwood.

‘Dinnae look at it,’ said Joe and gave him a half-hearted shake. Joe gave up on Wasp and was about to look up again when he noticed Tucker coming out of the flat door. He had a carrier bag in one hand and a rolled-up blanket under the other arm.

Joe got unsteadily to his feet and did his best to ignore the colourful beams of light bouncing around the place and followed Tucker as he went to the bottom of the road. After another turn it dawned on Joe that his landlord was going to the minimarket, so he cut onto the dual-carriage way and walked along the grass verge to get there first.

He waited as the older man finally toddled up to the shop door and went in, watching from on top of the underpass. Tucker came out again after five or so minutes with the bag and blanket as before, but also another full bag of messages. He then walked off. Odd, thought Joe, he’s not going home, he is going into the park in the opposite direction.

Joe followed Tucker through the park, starting to sober up a bit as he breathed in the cool air. As he walked into the woods on the other side of the park, down a side track he heard a growl. He looked down the track and saw a grizzly bear eating a human arm. Not totally sober yet then, he thought.

If he was tripping that much, was that even Tucker he was following or some kind of phantasm?

‘Fucking phantasms,’ he muttered to himself, but followed on anyway. Tucker appeared lost in his own thoughts and never once glanced over his shoulder.

After ten more minutes of walking Tucker stopped at the garden gate of a terraced house and opened it. Joe hid behind a hedge and watched as he then went to the door and rung the bell. A frail looking old lady quickly answered it, almost as if she had been waiting for him. She took the bags and blanket and handed Tucker a note. A few words were exchanged, Tucker tipped his hat at her, and she shut the door. He seemed to sag a little, then turned and walked back to the gate.

Joe had to quickly duck behind a wheelie bin as Tucker walked past, he had no idea what to make of what he had just seen. It wasn’t Tucker’s mum because she was dead. Some random old wifie he was looking after? But then why never mention it, and if it was as innocent as that, the lazy old bastard would have sent Joe. It was a secret then. But what?

He didn’t follow Tucker but lingered on the street for a while. It was quiet, even quieter than Gorphine. Off the main road, it was a well-tended cul-de-sac called Prentice Gardens. He thought about breaking into the old lady’s house, but he was still too wasted, and the walking had tired him out. Way too much effort and there might well have been more than just her in there. With no cunning plan coming to mind, he stumbled and shuffled home again, the drug gradually leaving his system. He saw no more grizzly bears and Wasp was gone when he looked in at the play park.

He buzzed to be let in, and Tucker opened the door. The old fellow went back to his room when Joe entered so Joe wasted no time in searching Tucker’s coat pockets for clues. He found the old lady’s note, a scrap of paper with a list on it:

 

Tissues, warm socks, newspaper, any cinema mags, fresh fruit, vit pills

He took a picture of it with his phone, put the note back where he had found it and went to lie down in his room. He was tired, but as he began to doze off, he kept wondering about everything he had seen. Joe was clever, he had a sharp mind, always looking at the angles, always looking for the benefit. A cunning finely honed from an upbringing in care and then later, on the streets. And so, a picture formed in his mind, it was simple when you thought about it. He remembered at the beginning of the reditus, when they rounded up all the deviants. All of Tucker’s bent friends had disappeared, one way or the other, picked up in the street by the muta, or bundled into vans in the dead of night. Some had bolted south for the Delta or north into Galloway. Tucker had considered it, but in the end had opted to stay put and take his chances. Not all of his old friends had been picked up or fled, Joe was sure that at least one of them was hiding out at 14 Prentice Gardens and Tucker was keeping them supplied with food… and tissues, and socks, and reading material, and everything else they needed. The question was – how could Joe turn this knowledge to his advantage?

 

***

The time had come for Father Willaim to leave Paradise. McQuade had driven them out of the village and down into the valley where they eventually came to the fork in the road where they were to decide to return north or continue south.

McQuade stopped the truck and let the engine idle. The cool air-conditioning filling the cab raised goosebumps on Nimite’s arms.

‘Are you not curious as to where they went, Brother McQuade?’

‘Nowhere good.’

‘Well, if you must return north to receive new instructions from the Red Cross, then you must do that. I will gather my things and continue on by myself.’

McQuade scowled at him, switched off the engine and went round to the back of the truck. Nimite stayed where he was and listened as the Tropospheric equipment was powered up. He then reached up and opened the air vent behind the seats a little so he could eavesdrop. He felt this small sin was justified given the situation.

McQuade established contact with the office in Evermarch after spending some time aligning the dish.

‘Hello Lisa,’ he said eventually. He was evidently wearing headphones as Nimite could not hear the other side of the conversation. ‘We’ve left Paradise. Father William wants to continue south.’

He didn’t say much after that for a while as the person at the other end spoke. After this long pause he then started reading off numbers. Nimite recognised it as the coded part of the transmission. He then finished off by saying, ‘yeah. A couple of things. Do me a favour and pass on all relevant details to the church. They’ll want to know what’s going on. This will be the last transmission as we’ll be going out of range soon. Tell… tell my girls that I love them and to look after each other, ok? Just in case… Yes, I know… I know… I’ll take care. You take care too. I will. Over and out.’

Nimite did his best to compose himself as McQuade switched off the equipment and came back to the front of the truck.

‘Well, they’ve left it up to me.’

‘I see. And what is your decision?’ asked Nimite.

‘We’ll see,’ grumbled McQuade. ‘They told me that the army has been sent down from Evermarch and rounded up all the illegally held slaves they could find. That means there is less work for me to do up there. They might not even let me back into any of the farms now.’

‘They closed down the farms?’

‘No, Lisa doesn’t think so. The Committee can always work the farms themselves and they’ll probably just round up more slaves.’

‘Then you should go back?’

‘I think we should go back. But they also said I should keep you safe.’

Nimite said nothing, sitting patiently.

McQuade fired up the truck and looked left and then right along the rutted jungle track. He tapped the steering wheel a few times then turned the wheel to the right. South.

‘We’ll be out of communication range soon and the fuel will run out eventually if we can’t buy more.’

Nimite thanked him several times, but McQuade was not in the mood for chit-chat, so he went back to looking out the window. He watched the jungle roll slowly by, enjoying the gentle rocking motion of the truck as she crawled along the trail.

 

Three days passed before they saw any other people. There was no road, just a trail left by the farm trucks that had come this way before. The familiar Guyanese jungle gave way to another jungle of a different character. This place, they agreed, had probably been part of Africa. It was a large zone, with a wide sluggish river roughly in its centre, flowing west to east. There was no bridge, the road simply forded the river at its widest, shallowest point. After the river, they passed through a deserted small town called Titule. The red dirt lanes between the low buildings had all been overgrown by the encroaching jungle. No one had lived here for a year at least. On the south side of town there was something more like a road, a dusty track that predated the reditus, so they made quicker progress, heading south-west to the next zone line. They stopped for the night on the north side of the line, sleeping in the truck. Nimite slept lightly and spent most of the night listening to the sounds of nocturnal animals going about their business. It seemed evident that this part of the planet had been completely abandoned by humans.

On the second day, and their second new zone, the going got much harder. The temperature plummeted to below zero and the terrain changed to a desolate brown wasteland. No trees grew, and barely any grass, the wind a relentless force sweeping everything away, leaving scoured rocks almost white from weathering, between which lay patches of brown peaty soil where nothing grew except straggly yellow grass.

There were many lakes, big and small, which the trail had to weave its way through, frequently switching back on itself or circling wide around a body of water. In some places there was an old pre-reditus road, but it was in poor condition, and so full of potholes it was only marginally better than driving over the smoothed-down rocks. Broken and lopsided telephone poles indicated where the old road was.

‘I once went to Shetland on holiday,’ remarked McQuade. ‘It was a bit like this. Maybe this is Norway or Sweden.’

Nimite merely nodded as he shivered in the passenger seat. ‘I never knew it could be this cold.’

The trail continued on its way. They passed an abandoned truck. It had been stripped for parts, but it looked like it had come from Goldengreens. As they watched the carcass roll past, McQuade patted Brenda’s dashboard and muttered, ‘good girl.’

On the third day they crossed another zone line into mountainous desert. This line was what people post-reditus called complicated. A complicated zone line could mean any number of eye and brain defying things, but in this case, it meant that they entered the new zone at a higher elevation than the previous one.

‘Ow,’ winced Nimite before holding his nose and popping his ears.

‘I think we just went up a thousand metres,’ said McQuade at the wheel.

The extra height at least afforded them a good view. To their south the mountains continued, but to the east they could see the haze of another zone line, perpendicular to the one they had just crossed. On the other side appeared to be mountains too, but covered in snow, and beyond that was the sea.

‘Look,’ said Nimite as he pointed out of his window. ‘Just where the three zones meet is a village. Perhaps we can stop for supplies and ask what lies ahead?’

McQuade agreed. Although it was about ten miles away, there was a decent enough looking track that would take them down to it.

They reached a T-junction where another Goldengreens truck had been abandoned. It only had three wheels left on it and the bonnet was propped up on its lever. McQuade stopped to look in the cabin and trailer.

‘Nothing of any value left, but it’s only been here a week or two,’ he reported as he climbed back into Brenda’s cabin.

The smaller of the roads at the junction led to the village, a dusty track down the mountainside until it reached the zone line and became thick dark mud. They were now in a sheltered valley, battered by rain and constantly changing winds. The temperature fluctuated wildly between sub-zero and blasts of desert heat. The snow from the east was whipped around overhead by the zonal winds and meeting the warmer air from the west, turned into a seemingly never-ending rain. A weather system in microcosm that had turned the whole north-south line into a temperate, lush valley.

‘That zone line must be a mile wide a least,’ pointed out McQuade. ‘I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s even madder than the Evermarch-Delta Line.’

Nimite agreed and watched as this strange narrow world rolled past his window. There were sapling growing here, mainly conifers, scattered randomly through tightly packed grasses, thornbushes, tulips, dandelions, desert poppies, lilies and jasmine. There was an abundance of animal life here too. Nimite saw species of deer, beavers and even bison, almost as if they were all crammed in together into this narrow bit of fertile land. Lurking in the trees he saw predators, perhaps jackals.

‘Look! Over there, is it a leopard?’ exclaimed Nimite. ‘This place is like the garden of Eden. So bountiful.’

The muddy road wound its way north through the zone line until they saw the village ahead. The road wound its way down through the tangled forest to reveal the village was little better than a shanty. The dwellings were made from bits of clapboard, rusted corrugated iron, and broken-down cars, buses and trucks. There were more than enough abandoned vehicles alone to house the few hundred people that lived here.

A handful of people were visible, a mix of white-skinned westerners and darker-skinned folks, Middle Eastern in appearance. They were dressed in patched coats and tattered clothes. They appeared to be in a miserable state, sheltering from the rain in their doorways, looking nervously at the truck as it lumbered into town. A tall pale-skinned man, skinny and gaunt, approached the truck alone, his right hand holding up an umbrella. He appeared happy to see the big red cross on Brenda’s hood and flanks and was even more pleased when he looked up into the cab and saw the priest’s collar around Nimite’s neck.

‘Father, thank God!’ he cried. ‘We are very pleased to see you!’

He introduced himself as Henry Bole and when Nimite came down from the cabin he ushered him over to a building he described as his house.

‘You have no idea how we have hoped for this day, Father,’ Henry spoke quickly. ‘We are in a bad way.’

‘What do you call this place?’ asked Nimite.

‘Oh, just the Village I suppose. It’s what they called it when I arrived.’

‘Where did you come from?’

‘I’m from Ontario in Canada. There are a few others that made it here with me, but people are from all over. We all just sort of wash up here. Please come in, I will make some tea.’

Nimite looked around as he entered the gloomy house. It was made from sheets of corrugated iron and roofed with a big metal sheet that looked like it had come off a bus. Blue tarpaulin hung under it to channel away any rain that came in. The kitchen had a small stove in it, onto which Henry placed a kettle. The ceiling was low, and he had to stoop as he went over to the table and sat down. Nimite noted that although there was no rain coming in, the wooden floor was wet and caked in mud. There was an oil lamp on the table, and from the door leading to the bedroom he could see another flickering light. He could see the end of the bed and something or someone rolled and moved the covers. Bole smiled, went over and shut the door.

Nimite turned and looked through the window. He saw that McQuade was stood alongside Brenda and being somewhat mobbed by sick and injured people. He pushed them back as he went round to the back to get his medical supplies. Nimite saw that they were all skinny and diseased looking, dressed in the meagrest of rain sodden rags. Everything and everyone seemed to be caked in mud.

 

Henry served the tea and offered some homemade biscuits. It was meagre fair. Nimite took the tea but waved away the plate. This man was so skinny, he thought, how can they all be so skinny when the forest is so full of game?

‘Please, Father, take one. A lady in the Village makes them and it would make her proud if you ate one of them.’

Nimite smiled and took one. It was shortbread, laced with cashew nuts and tasted delicious after eating McQuade’s army ration packs for three days.

As they drank and ate, Bole talked, seemingly glad to have someone in authority to tell his story to. ‘The first ones to come here, they died or moved on. Then some others came. I’ve been here about a year. More people came, and the Village got big, but they bought Splinter viruses with them, you know, and many people died.’

Nimite nodded and sipped his tea. It tasted stewed.

‘You see father, this is the meeting point of three major zone lines. You can see it shimmering on the other side of the hills. North is tundra, where you came from. Southwest is desert, but I’m told if you follow the road long enough you get to a city. To the east is a big chunk of Hudson Bay. There was a bit of Canada attached to it. That’s where I am from. Back in Canada we tried to make a go of it, you know, stay in our homes and tough it out, but that winter was hell. There was no help from anyone, we were totally abandoned and when the food ran out a bunch of us packed up and headed out. It was awful, we had to leave the old folks behind, and no one could agree on the best direction to go. In the end I decided to go west, for no reason other than I had family in Winnipeg. I ended up here. There were others but they either died on the way or died here.’

‘So that is Winnipeg out there in the snow?’ asked Nimite.

‘No Father. The land to the east is Wapusk National Park. I visited it once to see polar bears when I was young. In the summer the snow melts, but I’ve not seen that happen yet. Maybe it’s confused as to what season it is. Did you see any bears on your way up?’

‘No.’

‘Stay out of the forest Father, its full of bears. And wolves, and God knows what else.’ Henry sighed and sat back. ‘Well, that’s us. But what news of the rest of the world Father, where have you come from?’

 

Nimite told Bole about Evermarch, the Delta and the Divided Kingdom. He was – not surprised, exactly – but found it slightly dismaying that not one word of anything from the north had made it down to the Village.

‘You’ve not talked to any of the Goldengreens trucks going south?’ asked Nimite.

‘We sometimes see their dust rising in the mountains, but we never go up there. I’ve heard the trucks are guarded by armed men who shoot at anyone that gets too close.’

‘I see,’ accepted Nimite. ‘I doubt they would have wanted to trade news anyway, had they stopped.’

Bole bowed and smiled, a submissive gesture Nimite was beginning to find irritating. ‘But whole cities survived, Father. That’s good news.’

When they had finished their tea, they went back outside. Henry held up his umbrella. ‘Do you think some of us could make it there? To Evermarch?’

‘It is many miles,’ replied Nimite. ‘First there is the cold lands, then many miles of jungle to traverse. The region is home to bandits and zealots. It would not be a safe journey.’

Bole sighed. ‘It seems like we are forever trapped here, unable to go any further in any direction.’

‘Perhaps when I return, I can see if the army can send trucks. They did it before, although that was closer to home.’ If I ever return, thought Nimite.

They watched as wet people, huddled up under blankets and umbrellas, crowded around the Red Cross truck in search of aid. Nimite saw that McQuade was inside the truck, bandaging the sores on an old lady’s arms.

‘The situation just seems to get worse,’ Bole went on as they watched. ‘More people come, and they bring diseases with them which then goes round the whole village. No sooner have we recovered from one than we are hit by another.’

‘McQuade is a marvellous fellow,’ said Nimite.

‘Many people will be happy to see a religious man here too, and to hear news of the north.’

Just then a woman pushed through the throng and came up to McQuade. She was dark-skinned and gaunt, ragged and unwashed. She carried a swaddled bundle in her arms, the outer layer being a dirty baby blanket. Muttering plaintively, she pushed the bundle under McQuade’s nose. Without taking it, he looked down and pealed back a few layers, but then recoiled back. He tried to push her gently away, as other villagers came forward, but she was insistent, her voice become higher pitched as she thrust the bundle back towards McQuade who held up his hands, evidently not wanting to touch it.

Nimite walked up to the truck, as Bole held his umbrella up to protect him from the rain. ‘What is it, Edward?’

‘It’s a doll, Father.’

The woman now tried to push the bundle at Nimite, crying something in her own language which may have been ‘my child, my child.’

Nimite was about to say something, but Bole interjected. ‘It’s just Mrs Abdelhassen. She lost her baby, poor thing and has gone quite mad.’

He then nodded at two nearby men, who took the woman by the elbows and led her away. She cried, and looked over her shoulder, but did not resist them.

 

That night Nimite ate his evening meal in the truck with McQuade.

‘What can we do, Brother Edward? We are in the same predicament as we were in, in Paradise, are we not? I have told the bishop that I intend to follow the Goldengreen’s trucks wherever they go, but we again find ourselves amongst people in need.’

‘They’ve all got leprosy, Father.’

McQuade sat at his desk reading, while he ate from an army ration pack. Nimite came over and looked at the medical dictionary that lay open on it.

‘I don’t know any of these words,’ admitted Nimite.

‘I carry a lot of meds with me,’ said McQuade. ‘But nothing for leprosy. I’ve got some rifampicin, but the book says you need more than just that.’

‘What is your plan, Brother Edward?’

‘We shouldn’t use all of it. We might need anti-biotics for ourselves. I’m planning to help the worst cases for now. Then we’ll see. There may not be enough for everyone here, so we’ll have to be sparing with the medicine regardless.’

‘I shall find a suitable place to do the Lauds prayer in the morning.’

McQuade apparently had no desire to wake up before dawn. ‘Watch yourself then Father. I’ve got an uneasy feeling about this place.’

 

***

What his father had advised Johnny was true, there were less roadblocks on the backroads. The fencibles at the first one recognised the yellow whale-like shape of Beryl and waved him through. Once he had passed Corsock he saw army vehicles ahead, so he turned off onto the main road just long enough to get around it. He had had no idea if they would have stopped him or not, he just didn’t want to take any chances. The snow helped. The last checkpoint he came to was unmanned. He could see where the guards had been, there were barriers, chairs and all sorts of rubbish scattered about, but no signs of live so he drove round the barriers and continued on his way.

The Zone Line between Galloway and Evermarch was barely noticeable, just a shimmering in the air as two parts of Scotland were stitched together and a rush of wind, blowing north and then south as two slightly different air pressures battled it out. Before the reditus Scotland’s weather had always been changeable, now around the zone lines it was a constant chaotic mess of wind, rain and snow.

Once he was over the Zone Line, he had Wormwood directly in his line of sight the rest of the way, so he drove with the visors down and his sunglasses on. There was both a police checkpoint and an army roadblock, but it was snowing much heavier in Evermarch, so he was again waved through. The army soldiers didn’t even come out of their hut. The bored policemen peered in the window, and Johnny smiled at them in a friendly manner. Seeing he was a local lad they waved him on and went back to their cars, not even taking the time to exchange gossip or ask for news from the north.

 

He went to his flat, kicking the snow off his boots at the door and dumping his bags in the bedroom. He broke up some wood and lit the fire, then made himself something to eat. The electricity was off, so he ate a sparse cold meal by the light of the fire. He decided he’d probably sleep on the sofa tonight just to keep warm.

He tried the landline, but it was dead. He looked at his mobile phone and saw it was picking up three bars.

‘They must have more masts working,’ he muttered to himself as he called Stephanie.

She picked up. ‘Johnny?’

‘Hell yeah. I’m in the city. Shall I come to you, or… you know, visa versa?’

‘Not tonight,’ she replied, talking quickly. ‘Oh, meet me at Gold is Gold, ok? I gotta go.’

‘Wait. What time?’

‘Umm. Not sure, I’ll call you tomorrow, ok? Gotta go, bye.’

Johnny tossed the phone on the sofa and stood idly in the middle of the room. ‘Huh.’

He had a load of wood in the car, which he didn’t fancy bring up to the flat in the dark. He’d do it in the morning then. He found that he wasn’t tired and considered phoning around to see if any of his university pals wanted to meet up. Not Joe though or any of that bunch of wastrels. He’d been quite enjoying the break from all their nonsense.

In the end he decided he was still hungry and went out to get a kebab.

 

He waited all the next day until he heard from Stiffy again and was told to pick her up at ten in the evening. He drove down through South Bannock. The snow was off and the people of Evermarch were bravely celebrating Hogmanay. He saw revellers coming in and out of the pubs on Junction Road, not in the numbers he would have expected before the reditus, but many more than last year when the muta had been out in force spoiling everyone’s fun.

There was a police checkpoint on the Zone Line. The cop waved him through but warned. ‘This is it. I doubt you’ll get back through tonight. The army is coming soon.’

Johnny drove down the coast now, through Charity and Bounty Hall. He took is jacket off and rolled down the windows to let in the warm sea breeze. The locals were out in force for New Year, and every so often he heard the crack of fireworks and saw them reflected out on the ocean water. He found the journey pleasant and slowed down to enjoy it more as he slid past Tiger Island and the eastern edge of Prospect. This area was popular with the clansmen, the closest part of the Delta and where they commonly came to enjoy the local food and drink.

When he rolled up into the carpark of the Gold is Gold Hotel and Bar, he saw that Stiffy was already there, chatting to one of the locals in the doorway. She only had one bag. The big fellow nodded to Johnny as he came up to her and sauntered off to join his friends at the bar, a group of dark-skinned fellows in vests and cargo pants drinking Dunderhead rum.

‘You’re late!’ she accused him with a smile. She picked up her bag. ‘Let’s go!’

He didn’t even have a chance to get a drink. He was familiar with this place and liked it a lot. It catered to the tastes of clansmen and wasn’t dangerous like some of the dives down in Georgetown.

He followed her to the car and opened the door for her.

‘This is all very mysterious,’ he remarked as they drove away.

She kissed him sideways on the lips.

‘No really,’ she said as she pushed her bag into the back. ‘I told you Prospect has gone downhill. We all just decided to leave after what happened the other night. I’ve been at my aunt’s house the last few nights.’

‘What happened?’

‘Oh God, Johnny, I just can’t talk about it. Is that, ok?’

‘Hey, sure.’

‘It’s already so crowded at my aunt’s house. I’ve been sleeping on the floor in my cousin’s room. I think they were relieved when I said I would come stay with you.’

‘No worries.’

‘Your parents won’t mind?’ she asked.

‘Oh, not at all. It’s just… It was pretty dicey coming down. Police, army and fencibles. Everybody seems to be guarding their own patch.’

‘If you want, you can just take me into town. I can go back to my aunties.’

‘Nah, you don’t even have a bed there. We can try for my folks at least. If we get turned back, you can always stay at mine.’

Stiffy laughed. ‘Your little love nest, you’d like that eh?  Och, it’s not too bad in the summer. I don’t like waking up with snails all over the floor.’

Johhny laughed. ‘That was just the one time. And it was slugs.’

‘Oh, that makes all the difference!’

‘I sorted those little buggers out don’t worry. The flat’s a lot cozier now that I’ve got a supply of wood.’

They chatted in the car as they drove up out of the Delta, but Stiffy had dozed off by the time they were back in Evermarch. Johnny liked driving up the bypass at night, when it was totally deserted. He had turned the heating on in the car, but the change in pressure woke her up.

She didn’t speak, just looking ahead at the road, the streetlamps going slowly past as Beryl cruised along, passing her from light to shadow to light. Johnny glanced over at her. She could be really pretty in moments like this, he thought, with her hair down, her face thoughtful, as if she was pondering life’s great mysteries. He knew from experience she wasn’t. Stiffy was not deep, she was a typical clansman teenager, who before the reditus had lived her life on her mobile phone along with her peers, talking about the trivial actions of online celebrities and planning for no more of a future than working in a shop until they got married and started having children.

The reditus has changed all that, both her and Johnny were scarred in ways they did not yet understand. When he thought about it, he realised he was trying his best to live his life the way he had before it had hit. Staying at university, going home to see the parents on the holidays, hanging out with his so-called mates. Stiffy was younger though and had been at an age when she was still trying to make sense of the world. You might think that such monumental events would change her, make her stronger, make her re-evaluate everything. Far from it. The wittering, laughing girl mildly obsessed with pop culture had been replaced with - nothing. Nothing whatsoever. Johnny saw it in his younger friends too, like Wasp. They were empty. Johnny knew, because he had asked her, when she was gazing off into the middle distance like that, she was not thinking any thoughts, let alone deep ones.

Johnny was saddened by this, but he smiled to himself as he occasionally glanced over at her.

‘What are you looking at?’ she asked mildly.

‘I was thinking you look distant.’

‘I’ve just woken up. Where are we?’

They were not far from the northern zone line and in a few minutes, they were at the checkpoint that Johnny had passed through on the way down. It was all but abandoned, with only one police car across the outbound lane on the Evermarch side. The snow had slowed a little and instead of being waved through as he had been coming down, the cop came out of the car to talk to them.

‘You again?’ he asked as Johnny wound down his window.

‘Me again, yes. Where did everyone else go?’

‘They’ve gone back into Evermarch. I wouldn’t go any further if I were you.’

‘Why not?’

The policeman straightened up and looked north. He was young, in his twenties and apparently all alone. He seemed nervous. ‘The army are up to something. They didn’t tell me. But, well. I wouldn’t make any sudden moves around them; you’d be better waiting until morning.’ He then looked over Beryl as her windscreen wipers beat gently in the night and snowflakes danced in the beams of her headlights. ‘No danger of them thinking you’re a threat in this beast anyway, but however innocent you look, I doubt they’d let you through.’

‘They going to shoot at me?’

‘Maybe. Try in the morning, maybe things will have settled down.’

The cop wasn’t stopping them, but his advice sounded well intended. Johnny thanked him and turned Beryl around. ‘Hogmanay couldn’t have gone that mental. Want to be taken back to your aunts?’

‘Not really,’ replied Stiffy.

‘We could go back to my flat?’ asked Johnny as he checked his fuel gauge.

‘Sure, ok.’

They headed south again along the western side of Evermarch, the snow getting heavier, slowing Beryl down to a crawl. All the exits off the bypass were closed though and they found themselves being pushed further and further south.

‘Maybe we should head back into the Delta,’ Johnny eventually conceded. It was the only place the road they were on had left to go. When they got there the zone line was closed and so they headed west, looking for a road that would take them anywhere, north or south.

Against all logic the western road had been ploughed and gritted that day, by some diligent Evermarch council worker prepared to clear a road even if it had been blocked by police and army checkpoints.

They made it to Fowker Tower with no issue and decided to try going north one last time, on the back roads, but were turned again and again at checkpoints, always being told a version of what the first policeman had told him – the army is up that way and it’s dangerous. Johnny found he was getting increasingly worried, firstly about how is parents were doing, and secondly about his dwindling supply of petrol. If they could not get into Evermarch, or back to the Delta, there was only one place they could go.

‘I think we have to spend the night in Fowker,’ he said eventually.

 

It was one in the morning by the time they got to the tower. The only other traffic they saw was a convoy of four army trucks, pointed towards Evermarch. They had stopped for some reason and groups of gaunt looking soldiers stood by the tailgates watched Beryl as she lumbered past, a big yellow blob looming out of the snowy darkness.

‘We’ve missed the bells, but not the party,’ said Johnny as they rolled up into the carpark in front of Fowker. He parked in his usual spot, and they walked along the unlit path through the trees to the tower, guided by the lights that shone all the way up its height. They could hear the sounds of revelry getting louder as they approached. The people of Fowker were apparently partying as if it was their last day on Earth.

Initially Johnny didn’t see anyone he recognised so they sat down by the fire in the main hall. The front doors were open as the drunk and the drugged wandered in an out, but there was plenty of wood and the fire was well banked. He sat with his eyes shut for a while, enjoying the heat of the flames on his skin. He opened them again when a stranger pressed a beer into his hand. Johnny turned to thank him, but the man had already moved on, heading up the central stairs with a crate of bottles.

They sat in silence for a while, sharing the beer, watching people come and go. Johnny saw a few people that he recognised but who he had no great desire to engage with. After a while Stiffy checked her phone. ‘It’s two in the morning. Shall we find a bed?’

‘Yeah,’ murmured Johnny who was half asleep snuggled into her side, warming his feet by the fire. He was more concerned about the rumbling in his stomach though. ‘Let’s go see if Danny is in his lair.’

They found Danny in his small quarters on the third floor. A narrow kitchen with a view over the forest. He had other rooms through a side door, but Johnny had never seen them. He was sat at the kitchen table smoking homegrown dope with some of his cronies.

‘Hey,’ he declared on sight of Frost, in his slow gentle drawl. ‘It’s the artist! You’re still an artist? You’re still going to Uni?’

People shuffled along the benches at the table and Johnny sat down. ‘Sure sure, but it’s Christmas break still. I don’t go back until the 20^th.’

‘Take a puff of this, my friend. Then see what marvellous visions befall you. You’ll be a better artist for it.’

Johnny accepted the proffered joint and took a drag before passing it along. When it came to Stiffy, she waved it away, then held on to his arm with both hands. As the drug entered his system he was hit with a wave of paranoia and suddenly found her clinginess immensely irritating.

The joint moved around, another was rolled, and it moved round too, in the opposite direction. The small hot kitchen filled with a marijuana fug. Johnny found that he was incredibly stoned. The paranoia gave way to a perceived feeling of clarity. He saw (in his heightened state of awareness) himself, Stiffy, Danny and these others so lucidly it was like he could read their minds. It was a bit much.

Look at Stiffy, he thought to himself. In her sensible waterproof coat, blue jeans and her dull brown shoes that must have come from the charity bin at a hostel. She does not fit in here. Compare and contrast her to Danny and this bunch of hippies. In their tie-died shirts, with their wild unkempt hair, stinking of patchouli oil and weed. Johnny fit in, he said to himself as he winced at the smoke in his eyes and smiled. He nodded. An art student fits in, in a place like this. All is good. I’m cool. It’s all cool.

Before the reditus he had been close to dumping Stiffy. His other friends had laughed at her. Well, not to his face, but he felt that they had. She hadn’t fit with the look he was going for. He had wanted a thin girl with long blonde hair, wearing beads and friendship bracelets. Instead, he had ended up with a girl a bit too short, a bit too fat, frizzy ginger hair, covered head to foot in freckles.

Now, he felt at ease. He valued her as she was. Dependable. Easily pleased. It was easy to love someone when they worshiped you. Johnny could see that he had, in a way, pushed himself into loving her back, so that he had someone to hold onto in the turbulent months after the reditus. Now though, in this moment, he felt that his love for her was genuine. They may have looked like an odd couple to some of these stoners, but he was fine with that.

‘Pretty mellow, Johnny?’ enquired Danny. ‘It’s pretty mellow gear, right?’

‘I’m aff ma nut, Danny. It’s like I’m connecting with everything. Like, psychically.’

‘Yeah?’ asked Danny. ‘Then where is America? Where is China? Are you seeing that? I always wondered.’

‘Not phys-i-cally,’ murmured Johnny. ‘Psych-i-cally. Ah, never mind it passed.’

‘You know Pelican Ed? He says God told him that America has a volcano in it now. A, like, really big volcano.’

‘How does Ed know?’

‘God told him.’

‘He should tell them,’ said Johnny looking at Danny through half-closed eyes. ‘Tell the EDTC. They give you money.’

‘Yeah, what’s that?’

‘Divine Trace Centre. If God speaks to you, you call them up. If you fill in a form, they give you twenty bucks, plus expenses. They have adverts everywhere in Evermarch.’

‘Oh, yeah. That, that. I knew that.’

It was five in the morning, and they were the last two awake. Stiffy had fallen asleep leaning against Johnny and all the others had gone. The conversation meandered on, Danny doing most of the talking as he rolled up joint after joint.

Johnny told him about his troubles with the Committee.

‘You can get out of that FPN man,’ Danny opined. ‘For real, you won’t need to kill any animals to get the church off your case. You remember Pelican Ed? He was given a fine and penance for kissing his girlfriend in public. He was given a Sin Offering, same as you. What you do is give proof that you don’t have any money and then you give the poorest persons offering, which is one ephah of flour.’

‘What’s an ephah?’

‘It’s like a sack. Like an Asda bag size. I mean, like you know, but measured in eggs. I think like fill an Asda bag with flour and… and like have a bank statement. The guards at the gate don’t give a shit. They’ll just wave you through. Then like, you give them the form. You know, like you’ve filled in the form already man, don’t forget that shit, and then you go to the priest or whoever and say, here is my ephah of flour man, and like, my paperwork man.’

‘And then what?’

‘And then you leave, man. And like, what is this motherfucker going to do with a Tesco bag of… I mean an Asda bag of flour, man? He just puts it in the bin. Just go back later and take it back.’

‘What would I do with an Asda back of flour though?’

Danny took a long draw on the joint they were passing to each other, coughed, choked and then finally gasped. ‘… I dunno, bake some bread or some shit.’

Johnny was already as stoned as he was likely to get but took a draw anyway, before passing it back. ‘Yeah, that sounds like a plan. If I ever go back to the city. Wow, what’s it come to?’

Danny nodded sagely. ‘It was always like this man. It’s like, it’s like the craziness is just out in the open now.’

‘You get all of it though Danny. Living on the Zone Line all the time. I’d go mad living here.’

Danny took a moment to gather his straying thoughts. ‘Johnny, let me tell you. I have given this some thought. West of here is the Gobi Desert man. Like if you go there, it’s really hot, and in the Delta too, but in Evermarch its snowing. How can that be?’

‘No one knows Danny. Fucking God did it.’

‘Yeah man, but he didn’t like just move bits of planet around on the surface of Earth. Plate tectonics and shit. Think about it. It’s all about latitude. Where is the sun? The angle of the sun determines the seasons. In Evermarch you have spring, summer, winter, you know, but on the Delta it’s hot all year round. How can it be the same sun shining on both places?’

‘I’ve never thought about that.’

‘No one has,’ Danny nodded sagely. ‘Scientists won’t touch it. They don’t want to look behind the veil, man. It’s a bending of reality. Voodoo magic.’

‘It’s like different biomes, there is like a temperature filter. God sends these winds…’

‘Where you getting that man? Church leaflets? No. This is what I think. The real reality. Now. The real reality now is here. People call them zone lines because the connect two pieces of what people used to think was reality. No, my friend. Far from it. The opposite is true. The zone lines are the real places and outside are just the bits of debris left over.’

‘I don’t get it.’

‘What I’m saying is.’ Danny leaned forward and blew smoke out of the side of his mouth. ‘What I’m saying is people call them Zone Lines, but they are not that, they are conduits, like, like druidic ley lines. Where the power is. You just need to tune your ariels into the cosmos.’

Johnny giggled and hiccupped violently enough to wake Stiffy. ‘Can we go to bed?’ she murmured.

‘You can sleep here if you like, but you’ll be more comfortable downstairs,’ advised Danny.

Johnny led Stiffy down a floor to one of the big communal sleeping rooms. It would have been a function room at some point in its life, but now it was used for ‘guests’ to the Tower. There were an assortment of beds and mattresses, thirty or so maybe, scattered around the room. All the beds were taken, but he spotted an unoccupied double mattress at the back wall.

‘Ideal,’ he whispered to himself and guided Stiffy down onto it. He then went to the cupboard where he knew there would be some clean blankets. After he had bedded them both down, he gazed up for a few minutes, listening to the snoring, taking in the odour of the twenty or so other sleepers in the room and tracing the beams of moonlight across the ceiling and thought, ‘this must be what it feels like to be a DP.’