The hunter had been crouching in the undergrowth for almost two hours when the creature finally wandered into the clearing. His prize. After tracking it for the best part of a day, he knew that this was one of its favourite haunts. This would be the place where he'd look into its eyes, where he'd feel that familiar adrenalin rush from bagging such a fine catch.
So he'd settled himself down to wait.
He was a patient man. And, besides, it wasn't as if he had anything else to do, was it? No going down the pub for a pint and game of darts, no cosy nights in front of the TV. Those days were long gone now, a distant memory… most of the time. The problem with waiting was that the mind needed ways to amuse itself. Against his will, he found himself drifting back, remembering. Thinking about the man he used to be and the life he'd once led. It felt like a dream.
"Read to me some more, Dad… please…"
Mentally, he tried to shake the memories from his head in the same way his old Golden Retriever used to shake himself dry. How little Stevie would laugh when Max did that – he could see the boy's face now on that holiday in Wales. They'd left the campsite and taken a walk down by a long river. Then they'd let the dog off the lead to run around and he'd immediately jumped in the water to chase a fish he'd seen. After swimming with his head held high, Max had finally realised there was no way on Earth he was going to catch the thing. He'd sprayed them all when they ran across to him. Stevie had laughed and laughed, as Joanne held up her hands to…
"Robert… Robert, come back to bed. It's Sunday morning."
They were random, these recollections. That one was from back when they'd first got married, back when they used to lose themselves in each other every weekend. Back before Stevie came along and would climb in with them on a Sunday morning, bringing the papers with him. His son would read the comics while Robert took the sports section and Joanne would comment on what was happening in the world; which usually involved some soap or pop star spending thousands on rehab when everyone knew they'd be back on booze and drugs within a month.
"Listen to this: the government are stating categorically that there's nothing to worry about, Rob… That the people infected are 'isolated incidents', and there's only a slim chance of it becoming airborne."
He squeezed his eyes shut, but the images didn't disappear. Robert went way back now, to his graduation from training college in fact. Remembering how proud his parents had been of him that day; at least he'd given them something before the crash two years later. And he had to admit to feeling a swell of pride himself as his name was called.
"Would you please step forward, Constable Robert Stokes." He could see the crowds of people, the flashes of cameras as they snapped pictures. The applause was deafening. He thought he could change the world back then, make a difference.
Fast forward to the riots when the system was breaking down. The stones and half bricks that were hurled, terrified people hitting them with lead piping, with sticks. So many faces, so much panic.
Robert and his family had moved out of the big city a long time ago, when Stevie was only four. Joanne had argued that she didn't want her husband on the streets facing gun crime and goodness knows what else. She didn't want Stevie growing up without a father (a sick joke when he thought about it now).
"You ready?"
"Push the swing Dad, come on!"
"Okay, you asked for it."
"Higher, higher! Can we go on the roundabout next?"
"Sure thing."
"You're the best, Dad. The best."
Of course, he'd argued that there were pockets of violence everywhere, but he could see it from her point of view as well. In the end he'd listened and they'd upped sticks from the place where he was born and bred. But he hoped to return one day.
They hadn't really gone that far. Robert put in a transfer to a market town north of Nottingham called Mansfield, taking out a mortgage on a house between there and Ollerton. They'd been so happy there. He enjoyed community police work well enough and they lived in one of the most beautiful areas of England, only a short distance from rolling green fields, from woodland and forests – plenty of places to take Max out for walks. Yet close enough to 'civilisation' that Joanne could go shopping if she wanted, and pursue her ambitions to run her own accountancy business now that Stevie had gone to school. She always had been a whizz at maths, even when they were young…
"Hi, my name's Robert – I'm in the class above you."
"Joanne. You're friends with Tracey's brother, aren't you?"
"Yeah, that's right. A bunch of us are going out on Saturday, to the pictures. I was wondering…Well, do you want to come?"
It was ironic that the violence and the death found them all those years later. But it was the same countrywide in those dark days just before The Cull.
If the time prior to that had been a dream, then surely what came next was a nightmare; one from which he was constantly praying he'd wake. As friends on the force stopped turning up for work, as kids from Stevie's school were kept off sick, as more bullshit about the virus appeared in the papers and on the TV news… Nobody had taken it that seriously at first, not after all that business with SARS and Bird Flu. All that changed when they were smacked in the face with it.
Grimacing, Robert relived that night when Joanne had suddenly begun coughing in bed. Turning on the bedside lamp, he'd rolled over to find her holding a tissue up to her mouth. When she brought it away again, there was a bright patch of red there. And her eyes, God in Heaven, her eyes…
"You've got the most beautiful eyes, do you know that?"
"Charmer."
"It's true."
She was looking at him, petrified. They both knew what it meant – had seen enough about it to recognise the symptoms. Then they'd heard the coughing coming from Stevie's room as well.
The scene was playing out in his mind in slow motion: slamming open the door and snapping on the light; seeing crimson splattered all over the ten-year-old's duvet; Stevie crying because he didn't know what was happening to him; Max barking at the foot of his bed.
He'd bundled Joanne and Stevie into the car, knowing it was no use phoning for an ambulance. He and some of his colleagues had waited four or five hours for one to show up just a few days before. Tearing down the country roads, and thankful for all those lessons about how to drive at speed when in pursuit, Robert was soon brought to a halt when he reached the nearest hospital.
The car park was overflowing. People had left their vehicles on grass verges, double and triple parked; wherever they could. He'd had to abandon his vehicle half a mile away from the building itself, then he'd carried Stevie on his shoulder, holding up Joanne with his other arm as they made their way to the Accident and Emergency department. The place was heaving, packed to the rafters with patients, some on trolleys, sitting or laying down – or both – some making do with a couple of chairs for a bed, but most were strewn around the reception area and the corridors like beggars hoping for a handout. It was like something out of those history books from school, monochrome etchings which showed people suffering from the Black Death. Doctors and nurses wearing scrubs and masks flitted about in front of him, so Robert grabbed the nearest one and demanded that the man examine his wife and child.
"Look around you, mate – all these people need attention, and they were all here before you."
"I'm a police officer and-"
"You think that matters anymore?" shouted the man in scrubs. "You think it matters whether you're with the police, the emergency services or… or…" The man coughed. "People are dying… people…" He coughed again, except this time it was loud and wracking, chorusing with the others. The doctor pulled the mask away from his mouth, revealing the blood inside it. Then he looked up. "Oh Jesus," was all he said.
It was at that moment the penny dropped. It really didn't matter anymore: nothing did. Because they were all fucked. The medicos didn't have a clue how to stop this, not even the government – of this country or any other – knew what to do.
Reluctantly, Robert returned home with Stevie and Joanne, made them as comfortable as he could, trying to force cough mixture and paracetamol down them as if they had a common cold or a dose of the flu. Robert waited it out with them, just like he was waiting here today. Knowing that any minute now, because he'd been exposed to the virus as well, he'd start coughing up blood. They'd all go together if they were going to go at all. He watched his wife and son pass their final few hours back in bed, in each other's arms, heaving up their liquefied lungs, fighting for breath. Max lay beside them on the mattress, whining as if he could sense what was about to happen. Robert had spent his whole life trying to protect people, and now he couldn't even protect his own family from the microscopic bastards that were ravaging their bodies. As they slipped away from him – Joanne first, taking a final, wheezing breath, followed by nothing; then Stevie while he stroked the boy's blond hair, not knowing how to answer his questions about why he felt so ill or why Mum wasn't coughing anymore – Robert cried until he thought his tear ducts would burst.
"Help me, Dad… it hurts… make it stop!"
Max licked at Stevie's face, trying to bring him round. The boy didn't move.
Robert slumped over their still bodies, clutching their clothes, screaming at the universe, at God, at anything and everything, before finally exhaustion took him. Conversely now he didn't want to wake, to face what had just happened. But when he did at last, realising that this was all real, wrapping them in the blankets they'd died beneath, he held on to the one and only shred of hope left.
"Stop wriggling about, Stevie, you're taking all the covers. And let your Dad read his sports section."
"Kay."
Robert waited once more, it must have been days… maybe even a couple of weeks, but he didn't feel the passage of the hours. This time it was his own death Robert anticipated. He willed the cough to come, the blood, for the virus to take him. He was ready for it. Oh, was he ready.
Robert existed on what was left in the house – tinned food mainly that Joanne had squirreled away; she was a terror for keeping the cupboards overstocked. Though he hardly felt like eating or drinking, his survival instinct was too strong to simply let himself starve to death. He fed Max, but left the door open so the animal could supplement his diet elsewhere if he chose. Or perhaps for another reason altogether.
"You're going to have to find a new owner soon, boy," he'd tell the old dog daily, "because I'm not going to be here for much longer."
Then even that was snatched away from him by the men in gas masks, the hooded yellow-clad figures in their wagons, sent to scoop up the dead that littered the streets in a vain attempt to halt the spread of this infection. Even this far outside the towns and cities, the pavements were covered. The men broke down the doors of houses, checking inside, coming for the victims of the virus, spraying crosses on walls of buildings to be gutted with flamethrowers. Robert heard them approaching down the street, the megaphones blaring, but it hardly registered. Not until they were actually inside his house, waving their guns around, did he acknowledge their presence.
Max leapt at one of them, clawing at his plastic suit. The man struck the dog on the side of the head with the butt of his automatic rifle. Max fell to the floor with a whine and lay there twitching. Robert jumped out of his chair, but when a rifle was swung in his direction, he froze. He watched anxiously as a couple more men ascended the staircase. Was this what had become of the authorities in his absence, Robert wondered, bully boys throwing their weight around?
"Two of 'em up here," came the muffled call from upstairs. "Been there a while as well by the looks of things."
"Leave them where they are," Robert warned the man pointing the gun at him. "I'll be joining them soon enough."
The fellow gave a cold laugh. "You not seen the news lately, or what passes for it these days? If you haven't got it by now, chances are you never will. You must be O-Neg."
"O-Neg?" Robert gaped at him.
"Completely immune, you lucky bastard. Though it's a wonder you haven't caught somethin' else off them stiffs."
He couldn't take it in. He wasn't going to die after all – leastways not from the virus. But Robert felt far from lucky: he'd lost everything he ever cared about and now he just wanted this all to end.
The men came back downstairs and told him he'd have to go with them. They were looking for people like Robert, apparently. Someone in 'power' thought they might actually be able to develop an antidote from them.
"And what… what's going to happen to Joanne and Stevie… My house?" Robert asked.
"Same as all the others with infected dead inside. Poof," said one of them, opening his fist like a flower in bloom. "The rest of us can't run the risk of catching it when we've gone to all this trouble."
Tears welled in Robert's eyes as a man to his left grabbed his arm, attempting to drag him outside. "I'm not going anywhere," he told them.
"Oh yeah?" the first man brought up his rifle, aiming at Robert's head. He took a step towards the barrel, pressing the cold metal against his forehead.
"Do it, get it over with."
They all looked at each other. "He's too valuable," said the second man, shaking his head.
"Don't you understand, I don't want to live anymore!"
"Tough shit," said the third man, and they began to drag him out through the door. Robert elbowed one, lashed out at another, but all this earned him was a punch in the stomach.
Outside, two of them held Robert while the third sprayed a red 'X' on the front of his house and signalled to a truck behind. Robert looked on through the tears as more men climbed out with flamethrowers, tanks strapped to their backs. While he struggled, these 'firemen' disappeared inside, only to emerge moments later, leaving a trail of flames in their wake. And then, as if the rest of it hadn't been enough, something crawled from the spreading conflagration, looking for all the world like a demon emerging from Hell. Fur alight and whimpering with pain, Max made it a few steps down the path, before collapsing into a burning heap. They hadn't even bothered to check he was dead before setting the house on fire; or maybe they just didn't give a crap.
It was too much to bear. Robert reached up and pulled one of the men's gas masks off, then swung it at his other captor.
"Oh-shit-oh-shit-oh-shit-" gibbered the man whose mask was hanging off, fumbling to replace it, while Robert wrestled out of the other one's grip. Then he ran.
"Get him!"
The third man shot into the air, careful not to hit their prisoner, but at the same time powerless to stop him.
Robert made it round the corner, glancing back over his shoulder only once. His house and everything in it was a blazing inferno, much like many of the others nearby.
"Goodbye sweetheart," he whispered to his wife. "Goodbye son. I love you both very much."
The men would come after him, he knew that, but they wouldn't kill him. Instead they'd take him away somewhere to be prodded and poked, to provide a cure for the men in the masks and their superiors. People he'd once served (no, not like that… never like that!). So Robert ran, harder and faster than he ever had in his life. He didn't have a clue where he was going, just that he had to hide – he needed to get away from people: the living and the dead. Robert calculated that if only those with O-Neg blood were immune, as the man back at his house had said, then most of the population had already been wiped out. Joanne would probably have been able to give him a more precise estimation… if she'd been alive.
On his journey he came across a small abandoned army surplus store, which had been partially looted, the window smashed and whatever was in the display long since stolen. That wasn't what interested him. Robert climbed through, hoping that there might be at least some of the things he'd need: a change of clothing for starters. He found a pair of tough khaki combat trousers, a green t-shirt and a hooded top that fitted him, plus a long, waxy outdoor coat. All that remained was to find a decent knife, a compass and some twine. Once he'd scrounged them up, he left whatever money he had on him by the till.
In the end it was a logical choice. Head for the woodlands at Rufford where he'd spent so much time with Max, where he'd taken Joanne and Stevie occasionally at weekends and bank holidays. Robert would let the oak, silver birch and ferns hide him from what was left of society, live out his life until death took him from natural causes; hopefully soon. Maybe he'd just slip and break his neck one day…
Until then, he would get by. Robert would draw on the survival training he'd gone through as part of his job. He'd thought it was daft at the time, all those role-playing exercises, the team building out in the middle of nowhere. But he'd picked up quite a few things on those courses without even realising it. Unlike some of the lads, he'd actually been paying attention when the tutor had explained about things like making shelters and hunting if you were stranded. In fact, the first thing he'd done when he got to the woods was construct a simple lean-to between a couple of trees. He'd whittled down branches to make the poles, tying these together with the twine, then he'd covered the framework over with all the foliage he could find in the surrounding area. A new home, designed for one.
For water, to drink and to wash, he visited the huge lake at Rufford or trapped rain – filtering it through material torn from his disused clothing, then boiling it over a fire. This Robert made when it grew cold at night with a bow and drill, spinning the sharpened piece of wood on a fire board until it caught light. Using kindling, he'd build it up and warm himself.
For food, he picked edible mushrooms to begin with, then set simple snares and drag nooses to catch small animals, placed over trails or runs, attached to poles. These were large enough to comfortably pass over the creatures' heads, but then grew tighter as they struggled to get out. In his former life he might have felt some guilt about doing this, but it was a different world now. He was a different person. Plus which, he'd eaten meat all his life, hadn't he? Just never thought about where it came from. Now that was his responsibility, because Robert couldn't allow himself to become weak, not when the men might still come after him. He would also catch ducks and geese by the water, using a bolas – two stones connected by the twine and thrown, after some degree of practice, around the bird's necks to weigh them down. And he'd hunt small game with a sharpened spear, not throwing it as you might see in the movies, because that was a good way to lose the weapon, but jabbing at his prey. Then he'd cook whatever he could find over a spit beside the lean-to.
But the bow he used to light the fire gave him other ideas as well. Robert selected a hardwood – dead, dry wood as opposed to greenwood – branch about two metres or so long that was relatively free from knots and limbs. With his knife, he scraped down the largest end so that it had the same pull as the smaller one. The wood had a natural curve to it and he was careful to scrape from the side facing him, knowing that otherwise it might snap the first time he used it. Robert spent ages attaching the twine and getting the pull of the bow just right. Moving on to the arrows, he used the straightest dry sticks he could find, scraping and straightening the shafts. For the arrowheads, he used sharpened stone – then attached feathers from his previous hunts to the shaft, notching the ends. In many respects all this was the easy part, because Robert only had limited experience with a bow and arrow, amounting to the handful of times he'd taken Stevie for archery lessons on holidays.
So he'd practised; for many hours. Drawing back the bow, letting the arrows fly into a target carved on a tree. To begin with Robert had been miles away from the trunk, let alone the target, but gradually his aim improved.
Just like darts… only with bigger arrows, he'd tell himself.
He recalled the day that he hit the bull's eye – he'd been determined to do it before the dark skies emptied their load. The sense of satisfaction was tremendous, and for a split second he'd almost forgotten where he was and how he came to be there, turning and expecting Joanne and Stevie to be behind him, clapping.
"Way to go, Dad, way to go."
"Quite the outdoorsman, now, aren't we?" Joanne's beautiful eyes were filled with love, not terror. Her smiling mouth not stained with blood anymore.
But all was quiet except for the usual sound of birdsong.
As the first spots of rain came down, Robert had hung his head, pulling the hood up. Then he'd returned to camp for the night, walking past the cloth catchments which were collecting the water.
Once again, the days blurred into each other – and Robert could only go by the fact that the grass on the once neatly-trimmed golf course and the parks was now knee-length, that the beard he'd begun growing was thick and bushy, that he'd had to begin stockpiling meat in the ice houses at Rufford, man-made stone buildings set into mounds of earth that would keep it chilled, and insulated by the soil. He'd busted off the barred doors to these and used them as his own personal larder.
The meat mainly came from sheep in the fields, in particular the shaggy Hebrideans that had been introduced to the scrubland before The Cull: easy, slow-moving targets. But he'd noticed that deer were running free now too in the woods, and this was a chance to really put his new-found skills with the bow to good use. The first time he'd attempted a kill, he'd completely messed it up, stumbling through the undergrowth like the most uncoordinated of bulls blundering into Ming vases, alerting the startled deer to his presence. Since that day, he'd learnt to be very stealthy, and adept at blending into his surroundings. He'd bagged more deer and sheep than he could remember, ensuring enough to eat through the past two winters at least; and enough skins and wool to keep him warm during the colder months.
But today he was hunting something altogether different. Something that was worth all the waiting, the crouching, the memories that had come flooding back. Because there, in the clearing, was the magnificent sight of a stag: its strong grey and white torso moving fluidly as it paused to sniff at the air.
Robert held his breath. It was the ultimate test of his hunting skills; one false move and he'd tip off his quarry. Through the long grass and ferns, he looked at the animal, and he was so sure it was looking back at him. All hunted creatures were aware of being watched – if only on a subconscious level – he'd observed. It was the same thing he'd seen when he was just about to give chase to a pickpocket or bootlegger. They'd make a break for it just a fraction of a second before spotting Robert. The trick was to be quicker than them.
If he was going to make his move, it had to be right now. Robert rose, breaking cover: the leaves, twigs, and branches he'd used to camouflage himself falling from his body. Though he'd been hunkered down low, unmoving all this time, his legs were far from stiff and his muscles held him steady. Simultaneously, he raised his bow, which could easily have been mistaken for another branch, another piece of camouflage, were it not for the taut twine attached to its length. Robert and the stag exchanged a glance, the merest of heartbeats and yet lasting forever.
Hunter and prey.
It was only during this time that he felt something akin to being alive again, felt a surge of energy that reminded him he wasn't just a shadow, simply a ghost of his former self.
But in this animal, he also recognised a kindred spirit; a once proud creature reduced to a victim by circumstance.
Robert lowered the bow, nodding to himself and to the stag. The animal stood there stunned for a second or two, not understanding how it could still be alive – the hunter had him in his sights. But it didn't question this for long, running off back into the woods; vanishing from sight.
Robert watched it go, knowing that another kill had never really been the purpose of this exercise. He didn't need any more meat, and didn't hunt just for sport – Robert didn't have a trophy room in the lean-to. They'd shared something in that one brief moment, the stag and him. Both knew what it was like to be on the run, what it was like to escape.
Above all else, both Robert and the stag knew that he could have taken that life, but chose not to.
All of which meant that the hunter, the hooded man, was still the victor.
And so it was his turn to disappear back into the trees.