INK: Blue (INK Trilogy Book 3) (7 page)

She does, I'm sure she does. She loves it there.

"Oh Edsel, I do love you so much you know?" Lash hugged him tightly, making everything right in the world with that one simple gesture. "I love what you're willing to sacrifice for us; it means more than you could ever know. I'm just amazed it's taken you so long to realize this about yourself though. You do love it here. You like the craziness, and you like the excitement. I've always known that, and this is the reason why I love you more than anything — knowing what you gave up for us. Sure, you convinced yourself it was what you wanted, but I could see it, you were just like Aiden but trying to hide it. You wanted some adventures too. It's who you are."

Damn. Seems like everyone knows me better than I know myself.

"I will do anything to keep you both safe, you know that. I don't need anything apart from you and Aiden, so let's try our best to keep this family together, all right?"

"All right."

God I love this woman. I really don't deserve her. I knew I was flawed, but not quite this flawed.

SEARCH

"Any more sunbathing and you'll be as dark as some of my Ink Michael," quipped Edsel, as Michael turned down the offer to go with them on their latest trip.

"Well, I don't think that is going to happen, but I do enjoy the sun. In this climate you have to make the most of it while you can. Soon enough it will be autumn and I will be on the road again, the lonely traveler wandering the country, watching the leaves fall from the trees and the creatures foraging for food before the winter settles in."

"Very poetic. But if you're sure?" Michael nodded in reply and said a quick goodbye, before heading up to the roof for another day in his deck chair.

Aiden was excited as usual, keen to go off and explore, although he didn't know the purpose of their next foray out into the towns and villages that dotted the west coast of England.

Best he doesn't. I can't very well tell him we're just going off to find him a girlfriend and then he has to come home with us to the island. He'd have a fit.

They were going to make a more extended trip this time, planning on being away for a few weeks. They would travel by car, bicycles on the roof like a family just off for a little vacation, a sight all too familiar once, now a real curiosity for anybody that spotted them.

Edsel was nervous, knowing the longer they were away, the higher the risk and the greater the chance that they would come up on the radar of The Eventuals. So far they hadn't seen any, and Edsel wanted to keep it that way. His skin began to prickle every time he thought about them, what they had done, taken away from him and left him with.

If they stuck to small towns and villages, and explored the countryside for signs of life, then the chances were low of encountering them. It was the old cities where they congregated, their numbers not large enough because of the ever-dwindling population for them to have a foothold in each once-populated part of the entire country.

Edsel tried to open his mind up through his limited skills in The Noise, seeking out hints of life, but he felt like a child moved up a class when really he should have been held back an extra year — he just wasn't that good at it, yet he knew that if he asked Aiden to be on the hunt for girls he wasn't going to be very popular. Or was he? Maybe that was exactly how he should handle the situation? Tell Aiden straight that he should be scouting for girls to meet, doing all he could to seek out the presence of others as he was much better at it than he or Lash was.

"Hey Aiden, you know we had that conversation about girls and that you would quite like to meet one, or, you know... um, more than just meet?"

Damn, I am not going to handle this well.

"Yes?" said Aiden, looking as wary as a pig in an abattoir.

"Well, how about trying to find people via The Noise? Can you tell how old people are if you find them?"

Aiden sighed, and Lash looked at him like he really shouldn't be bringing the subject up. Edsel just shrugged; it was too late now. "What do you think I've been doing since we got here? I've been doing everything I can to try to find people. There just aren't many around, or if there are then they have The Lethargy."

Wow! I got that wrong.

"Oh, okay, right. Yeah, good job then I suppose." Edsel turned to Lash and smiled a smug smile.

In your face!

Lash scowled back at him before turning in her seat. "So are there any people close by? How far does this thing work? Your radar?"

"It's not really like that. You two can do it a little so you know it's more a feeling, although not a feeling. It's hard to explain, more like you can see colors without really seeing them, read the signals like a page in a book, but sometimes the lines just look like squiggles and you can't make any sense of it all. Sorry, I'm not explaining this very well."

"Hey buddy, no problem. You're doing a better job of it than I could." Edsel glanced at Aiden in the rear-view mirror.

He's such a great lad now. We can't lose him.

"Thanks. But there's nobody about as far as I can tell."

"So let's keep on going then, it's not like we have a deadline."

They drove for days.

~~~

Travel was infuriating.

Every single road ended up being blocked eventually in one way or another, and the detours grew longer and longer the smaller the roads they tried to use. Edsel became increasingly frustrated, Lash got quiet — which was always a bad sign — and Aiden was clearly getting depressed.

Where is everybody? They can't all have gone.

It wasn't like the country was devoid of life, but unless you went into built-up areas where people clung to past lives as if waiting for them to return, then it was no easy task to uncover where Whole were trying to build a future for themselves, however tenuous.

After yet another dead end, the road blocked by a landslide where a steep cliff had collapsed because maintenance work had been abandoned, Edsel was about ready to give it all up and go back to the apartment just to give them all a break from each other. Then he had an idea.

We need high ground. Somewhere that gives us a view for miles and miles.

"Does anybody fancy a bit of a hike?"

Edsel turned to face Lash as he saw her fist clench out of his peripheral vision. "Whoa, hold on. I don't mean any rock climbing, I mean that I have an idea."

With a fist poised to give him a dead arm, Lash asked, "What idea?"

"If we go there," Edsel pointed at the high hills in the distance, "then maybe we will see signs of life. Fires, fields with crops, plowed land. Something. The higher we get the further we can see. It's a lovely clear day so we should get just about the best view possible. Waddya think? Aiden?"

"Sounds like a good idea to me, yeah. And I could do with some fresh air. No offense but it's getting a little stinky in here."

"Hey, it's not just me," protested Edsel.

"I never said it was. And thanks, it's a good idea. Let's do it."

He's looking perkier already.

"Okay," said Lash. "Let's go hiking."

A few miles further on, and after more detours, the car died on them. Fuel was always a problem, as were simple maintenance issues caused by vehicles standing idle for so many years. Batteries wouldn't keep their charge, some vehicles never even started, or if they did then there was no fuel readily available. With lessons learned Edsel always tried to take as much with them as possible, but more often than not they swapped vehicles if they felt the car begin to show signs of mechanical problems in any way. Edsel got out and topped up the tank with the last can that was full, and then they were off again.

I need to come up with a better plan for long trips. We need a tanker, not jerry cans of fuel.

More twists and turns, and a couple of arguments about which way to go, saw them finally arrive in a large open space at the foot of the hills, where a large number of vehicles were parked — day-trippers that never made it back, those that had the same idea as Edsel, or hikers just wandering off into the countryside, knowing it would be their last ever day of hiking.

"Right, let's get our gear and go take a walk."

VIEW

The rolling hills still had good footpaths, if a little overgrown, so the going was relatively easy. What Edsel wasn't ready for was just how many bodies littered their way. He'd always thought that most people died of The Lethargy in their own homes, or at least close by, so it came as somewhat of a revelation. It was not a jolly jaunt in the countryside for him and his family.

"Why are there so many dead people here? It doesn't make sense," said Lash, turning away from the sight of yet another corpse, bones scattered in all directions, long ago ripped apart by the creatures that made the hills their homes.

"I thought it was just people coming to places they loved, you know, for the last time. Maybe doing what we're doing, searching for signs of life, but this is getting ridiculous."

Something isn't right here
.

"Anyone else getting a bad feeling about this?" Aiden nudged a bone with his foot, kicking it out of the path. It clattered as it came to a stop against a rock, shining bright in the crisp clear air.

"I know I am," said Lash, shivering despite wearing more clothes than Edsel was accustomed to seeing her in.

"So, do we carry on or go back? What do you think could have caused this?"

"Cannibals," said Aiden.

"Shut up, don't be daft. Nobody would do that, would they?" Lash looked around nervously, as if expecting a savage in a loincloth brandishing a club to jump out at them from behind a rock.

"I doubt it very much, and it still wouldn't explain why so many people are up here. They must have come up for some reason, before whatever happened to them actually happened."

There can't be can there?

"Let's keep going, it doesn't look like it's much further now," said Aiden, clearly still keen on trying to gain the vantage point and look down on the country for miles in all directions.

They carried on walking, the wind picking up the higher they climbed, playing tricks on them, whispering of hidden dangers, carrying sounds across the open spaces that were alien and jolting awake something in Edsel's unconsciousness.

What is that? I know that sound.

~~~

They crested the brow of the hill and stood in stunned silence at the vista opened up before them — offering its beauty, the purity of a landscape that once extended from one end of the country to the other, slowly spreading to reclaim what was once taken by man.

The only thing that marred the beauty were more bones, stark against the dark loam of the exposed hillside. Edsel's long hair whipped about his face like a flag planted at the summit. He turned to Lash, jealous of the fact she'd thought to bring something to tie her much longer locks back with. "Beautiful, isn't it?"

"Stunning," she agreed. "You can see for miles."

"And you can see fields with crops, you were right," said Aiden, pointing off into the distance, a dark patch of earth against the lush green a clear sign of human activity.

Well, seems like I had a good idea for once.

Edsel paused, pulling his hair back. There was that sound again. What was it?

Oh shit, time to go.

Edsel grabbed hold of Lash's arm and pulled her toward Aiden, shock on her face at the abrupt change in mood. "We have to go. Now," he whispered. "We aren't alone."

Lash and Aiden scanned the area, seeing nothing, but Edsel knew. "Look in The Noise Aiden, what do you see? And I don't mean people."

"What's going on?" asked Lash, whispering just as Edsel had.

"Ssh, just a minute."

Aiden went still, eyes unfocused and moving up in their sockets. It felt like a lifetime of standing there on the exposed hillside, waiting for what Edsel knew, or thought he knew, was coming soon.

We can't wait any longer.

"Over there," said Aiden, pointing along the ridge where it dipped down out of sight. "There's something coming. Not fast, but there are at least three, if not more. What are they?"

"Never mind that, let's just go. And be quiet. Aiden, you first, then Lash, then me. Don't speak, just watch out for them."

So why aren't you speaking via The Noise?
asked Aiden.

Damn, sorry guys. Okay, let's move.

They set off down the hill, moving as fast as they could, Edsel constantly looking behind, concern growing every time they walked past a large rock that could be a good hiding place.

Move faster, just don't run.

Okay.

Okay.

Edsel felt the wind change direction, pummeling him from behind, pushing him to go faster, almost making him stumble. In a second it had changed again, this time coming from the direction of his concern.

Just don't change to blow back toward them.

He knew that if their scent was easy to detect on the breeze then they were in serious trouble, if they weren't already. They kept walking, not quite running, not a leisurely stroll either. The descent was easy, the footpaths a godsend, and Edsel could see their car only fifteen terror-filled minutes later. The ground was already high where the vehicles were parked so it wasn't as if it had been a challenging walk anyway. But it wasn't over yet, not until they got into their vehicle and the doors were firmly locked.

Nearly made it, nearly made it.

They were on the flat now, heading toward the car, when Aiden turned suddenly, staring off to the right. From out behind a tourist coach came a panther, as black as night, body lithe and pure muscle. It was walking slowly, sniffing the air, turning and repeatedly looking back to where it had come from. The eyes were focused, vision acute, teeth needle sharp, but it didn't seem in any hurry to attack.