Chapter 13: Mark of the Beast by Stephen Simpson

 

Liam woke up from his loud alarm ring tone and rubbed his hands over his eyes vigorously.

Lydia yawned and stretched. “That alarm can wake the dead, Liam,” she complained.

Giovanni sat up quickly as if something was chasing him from his dreams and gave Liam a look that would kill if it could.

Shaun was already in the kitchen, making coffee by the light of a candle.

Lydia slipped her legs off the bed and walked over to the double bunk. She gently shook Mandy’s shoulder. “Hey, you have to wake up. We have to get going.”

Liam walked across the cabin to the end where the glass sliding door was and sighed a long sound. “This is going to be hard,” he said. “The snow is at least ankle deep and it doesn’t look like it’s going to let up.”

Giovanni pulled his phone from his pocket, and opened his Maps app. “There’s a tiny village not far from here. We can see if we can get a car.”

Liam turned to look at him. “You mean, steal a car?”

Giovanni rolled his eyes. “That’s exactly what I mean, unless, of course, you want to walk for give or take twelve nights in this.” He swept his arm in an arc to emphasise the grim weather outside the glass barrier. “We’re not even fully equipped to walk in this, and we’ll probably all have hypothermia before dawn.”

Liam relented. “Fine. I guess we don’t really have a choice.”

Lydia walked closer to them, holding a mug of steaming coffee between her palms. “Liam, I know you only ever want to do the right thing, but don’t you see we don’t have a choice?”

“Yeah,” Shaun said from across the room. “Do you think I ever planned on blowing up a government facility?”

They all turned to look at him.

“Never. I am not a terrorist and I have always followed the straight and narrow path. Always listened and did what I was told. I never disobeyed a single person from what I can remember but here I am on my way to do what I never thought I would. This…” He brought his hand up to his forehead. “This barcode that they’re giving everyone is bigger than the government wanting to control us like puppets. This is the beginning of a war between good and evil. Between God and the Devil.”

Lydia nodded.

Giovanni said, “After the dream I woke up from, I agree with you. I don’t want to be the person labelled as a dissident or a thief, but this is so much bigger than just being a rebel.”

Mandy pushed both her arms up into the sky as she stretched. “I also had a funny kind of dream. It’s a little fuzzy still but it’s strange how most times when you wake up a dream fades, but this one seems to get clearer the longer I am awake.

Liam looked over his shoulder at the falling snow outside. “We better get going. Dress as warm as you can.”

They pulled on what they had. Jackets, beanies, and scarves, and then in a row they exited the cabin at the back door.

Lydia looked at the shower cubicle on the side of the open porch and wished she could have had another shower to warm up her bones in preparation for the long walk ahead.

Shaun asked, “How far is this village you’re taking us to?”

Giovanni replied, “About two miles. If we walk fast, it will take about an hour to get there and if we can get a car quick enough then we’ll be in Colony Dinta by morning.”

Liam said, “I am not setting foot in Colony Dinta in the daytime. It’s already going to be difficult getting around at night under the cover of non-existent darkness where there is no difference between night and day with all the streetlights and signage everywhere.”

Giovanni offered, “I’ll drop you all off on the outskirts of the city and carry on by myself. I can’t walk because I’ll have things to carry back.”

Lydia said, “No! What if they catch you?”

He gave her a grin. “They won’t. I’ll pull my beanie down low and keep my head down. I’m good at fitting into any situation, and they won’t even know I’m there.”

Mandy chipped in, “I agree with Lydia, it’s going to be dangerous for you.”

“I appreciate all your concerns, but someone has to do it, and that someone has to be me because I know where to get hold of stuff that blows other stuff up.”

The wind picked up suddenly and pushed hard against the five dark figures walking down the dark, shaded road. The backroad was hardly wider than a footpath and was only wide enough for one car going one way. These roads were hardly ever salted, and Lydia could feel the cold seeping through her trainers. She tried not to walk in the other’s footsteps because she did not want to slip in the layer of ice their steps had left behind. They continued to walk in silence, concentrating hard on ignoring the frigid wind blowing against them. Lydia felt her cheeks getting colder and colder, and her nose was starting to get runny. The wind blew through her knitted beanie and into her ears. She knew if she did not get out of this wind soon, she would end up with serious earache soon enough.

If felt like hours dragging their feet through the snow which started to fall harder and harder around them. The trees around them where whipping around in the wind, and the sound it made was loud. If they wanted to say anything they would have had to yell.

Giovanni lifted his arm and pointed with his finger. “There,” he said loudly. “I can see a house.”

Mandy moaned, “Please let there be a car easy enough to borrow.”

Giovanni lifted his arm sideways to get them to stop walking. He said, “I’ll go ahead. Follow at a distance.” He turned around and walked backwards. “When you hear an engine start, come running as fast as you can.” He turned around again and walked away.

They waited for a minute or two and then started following Giovanni.

Giovanni was hoping to find an older car to borrow, as Mandy had said. In older cars that don’t have keyless entry or maybe not even any central locking at all, he would have a much easier time. As he walked, he searched for a rounded, heavy rock and with all the snow it was hard to find one at all. At the first house he passed there were no vehicles, but as he continued past, he saw an older Land Rover Defender in the driveway of the next house. He smiled a wide smile. Imagine the odds of finding a car he actually wanted to own himself one day.

To the side of the driveway, in a rock garden, he found a nice rock that fit perfectly in his palm. He looked up at the darkened windows of the house, making sure no one was lurking out at him, then put his backpack down at his feet before he opened a side pocket and pulled out a flat screwdriver, which he always kept on him, in case he needed it to defend himself.

He pushed the flat tip of the screwdriver against the lock mechanism in the door and used the rock to give it one hard bang. The noise reverberated in the still of the night, and he took another minute to stare up at the house, inspecting each road facing window one at a time. He repeated this action, until he was able to wrench the door open.

Giovanni knew how to snip the power wires found under the steering wheel and winding the ends together so that a complete circuit was formed which would initiate the fuel pump like with the first turn of the ignition, and then by cutting and stripping the wires on either side of the ignition interlock, so that when they were touched together it would send a current through to the starter motor to get the engine of the car running.

He did not have to do any of that, though. The owner had left a set of spare keys in the cup holder between the seats.

Giovanni started the vehicle and pulled out of the driveway quickly as the others started running toward the car. Lydia ran to the front of the car and pulled open the front passenger door.

Liam followed her until he realised there were no back doors and that he had to double back to get in a door at the back of the Land Rover. He fumbled his hands over the large tyre fixed to the back of the vehicle. The hue from the red taillights were not helping him find the door handle. When he eventually found it, he pulled the door open with a jerk and climbed up into the back of the truck quickly. “You couldn’t find a normal car?”

“Hey,” Giovanni said from the front. “This is an awesome car. Get in so that we can get out of here.”

Shaun helped Mandy in, and then climbed in after her. He said, “We’re in, you can go,” while he was pulling the door shut.

Giovanni pulled away with the tyres squealing on the tarmac.

“Do you want them to phone the police?” Liam asked with an exasperated sigh.

Giovanni glanced over his shoulder. “Liam. Can I give you some advice? If I was you, I’d just shut up.”

Liam huffed but didn’t say anything. He started digging in his backpack and pulled out his sleeping bag after piling the cans of food that was at the top to the side. After he packed all the cans back into his bag, he spread the sleeping bag over the metal beneath him. He positioned himself so that he sat with his back against the door and looked out of the windscreen in the front, over the low metal barrier separating the front from the back.

Mandy and Shaun were sitting on the low metal storage boxes on either side of him. Their forearms were resting on their knees, and it did not look very comfortable.

They were silent as they drove along the quiet backroad. Giovanni had to concentrate hard to see where he was going through the flurry of snow falling in a white sheet ahead of them, and to add to this the road was not well maintained.

Every time the car hit a pothole, Shaun, Mandy, and Liam moaned in pain and discomfort.

Lydia kept her eye on the skyline so that she could warn Giovanni to stop and switch off the bright headlights if she saw the sky lightened by an approaching vehicle, which might be a patrol car.

Shaun said, “We’re not going much faster than if we were walking, but I am glad I’m not out in this weather anymore.” He was looking out of the small window at the back, partly blocked by the spare tyre fastened to it. The red hue of the taillights made it look dystopian out there. He felt a shiver scamper down his spine.

Mandy yawned. “Me too. It sucked, a lot. My shoes are soaked through, and I am trying to figure out if my toes are still there.”

Liam suggested, “You should take them off, and let your socks dry out a bit. The car should warm up soon enough.”

“Good idea,” she said as she leaned forward and started to undo her shoelaces.

They reached a T-junction, and Giovanni turned right to go South.

Lydia sat up straight. She felt fear burning like an ember in the pit of her stomach. “Is this safe?”

Giovanni glanced in her direction. “It would probably be safer in the day if we’re going to be travelling by car because there’ll be lots of other cars then as well. Not just us. If we were walking, I’d say travelling at night would be a lot safer, though.”

Lydia said, “But we’re driving. I say we pull off the road somewhere and wait for daylight. I have a feeling we shouldn’t be driving at night.”

Shaun agreed.

Giovanni disagreed, “I think we’ll still be okay travelling at night.”

Mandy sided with Giovanni.

Shaun asked, “What if there’s a patrol car and they stop us. Between us we only have one gun.”

Lydia turned in her seat to look at Liam. “You have the deciding vote.”

Liam said, “You’re all forgetting about the curfew. If a patrol car came by, there’s no way that they’re not going to pull us over, so we should stop somewhere where we cannot be seen from the road.”

Giovanni continued driving and Lydia prayed that they would not cross paths with a patrol vehicle. Not long after, there was a narrow dirt road that led into a forest of trees. Giovanni turned in and Shaun jumped out of the back to open the wooden farm gate. He pushed it open and waited for the car to drive through before he closed it again. Giovanni stopped the car so that he could get back in.

The dirt road turned a corner, and Giovanni stopped when they could not see the main road behind them anymore. He switched off all the lights and the car engine.

The sudden silence was loud.

Mandy whispered, “We might as well have a nap, while we wait for the sun to rise. Have you got anymore sleeping bags, Liam?”

Liam told her, “We can share this one. There’s enough room back here for the three of us if we spoon together.”

Shaun moved to sit on the floor. “Also, spooning will keep us warm from shared body heat.”

Lydia bent over and pulled her sleeping bag from her backpack, leaving all the canned food lying at her feet. “If we unzip this one all the way, and make it bigger, you and I can share it,” she told Giovanni.

Soon they were fast asleep. At first, Lydia did not think she would be able to sleep but after only having a few hours of sleep earlier and after having not slept for two days prior to that she was more tired than she realised she was.

Continue reading Chapter 14/17

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