Dan woke and opened his eye to an ornate but unfamiliar high ceiling.

He could only see from is right side, however. He raised a tentative hand to feel his face, discovering heavy bandaging to the forehead and left side. The events flooded back to him, and the tears of grief and fear started to fall weakly for the loss of his friends.

"HE'S AWAKE" shrieked a voice which could only belong to Leah. The noise lanced through him like a bullet, tearing him from his self-pity.

Too many people to count rushed in, staring at him. He turned his painfully stiff neck to his right to see only one other bed occupied. Everyone tried to speak to him at once until Kate's commanding voice cut through the cacophony to berate them all and banish them from the medical wing.

She came to him, shining a light in his eye and asking him questions to assess his level of concussion.

He answered them all groggily, then started with his own.

"What happened?" was the best he could do. His throat was sore and his mouth dry.

"You caused merry bloody hell, that's what happened" she said, reading his mind and bringing a bottle of water with a straw in "running off like you did to play cowboy"

Her words were softened by her genuine smile at seeing him conscious and mostly whole.

"They argued all night about going after you, in the end Jack said he heard something on the radio so we just went" she said plainly.

"We?" he croaked.

"Joe, Jack, Neil and me" she replied. "Found you slumped in Lexi's truck and found the others parcelled up inside" she continued before he had a chance to ask "Both are fine; Lexi is still out" she gestured to the bed beside him "but she is responding normally. Serious concussion and she needed some stitches. Lots of stitches, actually."

"Steve was let out yesterday – he was the only one of you not to have a glass jaw by the way – and got twenty-six stitches in the arm. You got nearly forty on your head because I had to be more delicate to maintain your rugged good looks" she waited for a laugh and realised one wasn't coming.

Dan started to cry silently, remembering the one name that hadn't been mentioned.

Kate went on "I can't comment on the last patient, as I'm underqualified." She let that sink in.

He turned his good eye to her, "Ash?" he asked, hopefully.

"Leah!" she called towards the closed door "I know you're out there. Be useful and go and find Sera.

No reply was heard, but the door opened a couple of minutes later.

"Sorry for the delay" Sera announced happily as she entered "I've been training this little shit to not bite me. Everyone else is fair game as far as I'm concerned, but I had to muzzle him before he gave up and let me stitch him"

Ash limped towards him on three legs as fast as he could, his tail wagging ludicrously and threatening to destabilise him. He jumped on the bed and tried to lick him through the confines of the muzzle.

"How?" said Dan, but could not continue.

"They found you outside" said Sera "they found the others where you had left them. You were all brought back here."

He looked at her, holding onto his dog tightly and looking at the shaved patch of fur where a series of ragged stitches held together the slashed skin on his left shoulder.

"Joe went inside to see what had happened. I'm told he has stopped being sick now. He brought back all of your stuff and afterwards followed the last trail of blood to where he found this recalcitrant mutt barking at a window out of his reach. He had lost plenty of blood, but let me tell you he was still damned difficult to catch even on three legs". She rolled up her left sleeve to show a series of bruises and puncture wounds.

"Don't worry about me" she said with mock selflessness "I'm only on a course of antibiotics and had to have a tetanus booster in the arse, much to her delight" she shot a playfully evil look at Kate who blew her a kiss.

"Seriously though, he was going to have us all until he saw you in here. We had to show you to him every hour or so when he started to play up. You need to sort that out"

Dan was so happy that they had made it out alive, that he forgot to ask about the one who had nearly killed all four of them.

"I need to see Joe, now" he said, suddenly serious.

Joe bustled in, full of self-importance, only seconds after a shouted summons. He must have been in Ops.

"Welcome back, Boss" he said.

Dan owed him a lot, and decided to play it nice. "You did well Joe. Tell me what you found"

He told the story he had already heard from Kate and Sera. Joe had gone in and followed the same tracks which were blatantly obvious as Dan had left a wide smear of blood as he dragged out the other two. It was mostly them who had smeared Dan's blood, but still, it was like following a satnav Joe said. He found the candlelit room and recovered all the weapons, as well as Lexi's shredded equipment. He heard barking and followed it to where he found Ash on three legs with barely the energy to stand. He refused to leave a window which was covered in bloodstains, and he had to send someone back to fetch Sera and Chris who eventually managed to get a blanket over Ash and subdue him with minimal injury.

To themselves.

Sera had stitched up the dog, Kate and Lizzie stitched up the people and there they all were. Kate was especially proud that Alice had done her first sutures as she was supervised closing Steve's wound as it was the easiest. Dan's face required more experienced hands apparently, including their resident veterinarian.

"Joe" he said carefully "What about him?" he said with a foreboding emphasis.

"No trace, Boss. Went out the window and vanished. Missing Lexi's knife but I found everything else" he said.

Joe left and Dan turned to face the still sleeping Lexi.

"I'm bloody starving. How long have I been out?" he asked Kate.

"Two days" she said, bringing coffee and food.


Lexi woke that afternoon and immediately began to scream, arching her back like she was fitting. Kate and Lizzie ran to settle her. He felt helpless and responsible for her pain.

"You're officially discharged" Kate told Dan, summarily dismissing him from the makeshift ward as she charged a hypodermic syringe with what he suspected was morphine.

Alice helped him walk from his bed to his own room. Ten metres had not felt so tiring since he had dragged the two unconscious Rangers from the hospital.

He found that his cot was gone and a proper double bed had been put in his room, with a real quilt, and he was propped up in it.

Courtesy of Jimmy, Alice said.

Sera appeared not long after and delivered Ash, now without the muzzle. The dog climbed onto the bed with difficulty and settled down to sleep after his renewed excitement had tired him.

Leah came in not long after bearing plastic plates of food and sat with him to eat as she shared news from the last two days.

Nobody had been out since they had returned; it seemed like they were locked down until further notice. Joe had stood guard throughout the day, with others taking shifts to remain awake at night.

The world continued to turn, it seemed, without his permanent presence to organise people. Steve joined them, prompting Dan to ask Leah to take some time off. She skipped away, eager to warm up with some TV time and whatever it was she got up to.

He asked Steve to open the window and pass him his cigarettes, which he did and he inhaled deeply, relishing the taste and feel of the nicotine in his lungs. Ash grumbled and shifted position, but did not complain any further at his bad habit.

Steve thanked him for what he did, prompting Dan to wave his thanks away as irrelevant. Steve's left arm was bandaged and in a sling, but he saw that he had a Sig on his right hip and three spare magazines on his belt. He had cleaned the ugly shotgun belonging to Dan and put it on a small shelf above his head where the cigarettes and a plastic bowl to use as an ashtray went. A short time after, Neil brought in a wheeled trolley with a TV and DVD on, plugging it into a long lead connected to his bank of generators.

It seemed that people's comfort and entertainment were more important than conserving petrol right now.

He watched some awful, far-fetched films over the rest of the day. It seemed that people can drive cars between consecutive skyscrapers it seemed, without injury, and still be able to deliver sensational one-liners.

He had various visitors, all ignored by Ash who still slept noisily. He was brought snippets of news until he had built a picture of how the civilian contingent was coping in the absence of their warrior class. Chris still worked the farm with Sera keeping a watchful eye when she wasn't moonlighting as a human Doctor, and Cedric and Maggie were busy over on the gardens. Both Chris and Cedric now carried shotguns as provided by Pete from the civilian armoury. This was apparently done on Penny's instruction, and Joe was forbidden to leave the grounds until more Rangers were fit.

He struggled to the toilet that afternoon as his newly employed digestive system kicked in. Ash wanted to stay asleep, and he managed a short trip outside to walk, or hobble more accurately, his dog before bed.

More food and more news was brought to him throughout the evening, before he was given more tablets and a healthy dose of scotch before he slept.

Sera came to walk Ash before breakfast, and he responded with stiffness and grumbling before he gave up and sat to have her put a lead around his neck.

Breakfast came next, brought by Leah who had charged an iPad she had borrowed from one of the others and wanted to play a game of air hockey with him which was more like pong. He tried to explain pong to Leah and gave up.

At lunchtime he was visited by Kate and Sera and examined; they said he would be fine and left more tablets with a bottle of water.

Jay came next, and lit a fire in his room, changing the atmosphere considerably. Neil had closed his window mostly, but given him a pipe to blow smoke down for it to escape outside.

That evening, Lexi was helped into his room where she was propped up alongside Dan and left. They sat in silence and watched another blockbuster, seemingly chosen as a radical form of PTSD cure. Half way through I am Legend, when the dog died, they both cried unashamedly and both received annoyed and confused looks from Ash.

Hours after they were put together, they began to speak about the hospital.

"I'm so sorry" Dan said.

Lexi cut him off and told him bluntly, "I knew the risks of being a Ranger; it was just unlucky that he got the drop on me"

Dan thought that it was more than luck. He had 'got the drop' on two trained men after he took her out, then wounded a vicious animal intent on ripping his throat out before escaping.

"He wasn't lucky, he was possessed. Driven mad by all this shit. He was dangerous and he and others like him may still be out there" said Dan, unintentionally bringing the mood down to minus ten degrees.

Lexi didn't say anything for a while, but he knew she was doing some soul-searching. She lacked the words to express it yet, but she had had a near miss. A very near miss.

"Thank you for coming to save me" she said quietly "I don't know what he was going to do, but they told me what he had done when I was knocked out. I'd have rather died than go through whatever he planned. I'm glad I didn't" she smiled at him, ever a lamb in his flock it seemed. He didn't know how to respond.

"There's space, can I just stay where I am tonight instead of going back to medical?" she asked hopefully.

He wanted her to, but didn't want her to misunderstand the reasons.

"Yeah, but if your farts are bad and you snore then you're out. That's the dog's job" he said, receiving a disdainful look from Ash.

They drank and watched another DVD afterwards, but the generator power was cut and they both fell asleep in silence and darkness.


He had pulled himself desperately through the window as the hideous animal snapped at him, eager for more of his flesh.

He fell to coldness and safety on the outside, clutching at the ragged mess on his right side. He ran to a place he knew well, and slumped into the corner where he lay shivering throughout the night.

The third great lance of flame and noise from the man's gun had torn a big scrap of flesh away above the patient's right hip. He was pressing his badly mangled left hand into the ragged wound. He could not move those fingers anyway. He looked down and saw that the ligaments and tendons of the back of his hand were all exposed, some severed and bunched tight never to be of use again.

He hurt everywhere; that evil animal had bitten him so many times until he managed to stick it with the knife.

He lay there, waiting for the demon to tell him what to do, but no instructions came. No commands to follow were given.

What did come was an ever increasing weakness, and the puddle of congealing blood around him widened.

His breathing became shallow and fast.

He realised that the demon had abandoned him, that he was not strong enough to transcend as promised.

He was not worthy, which was why he was going to die.

He was cold. Tears of sadness and weakness, of impotent rage and loneliness began to fall from his eyes.

As his breathing became sporadic, and his heart finally ran out of blood to pump around his body, he lost consciousness.

The patient died where he sat in the corner of his old room in the secure wing of the psychiatric hospital, surrounded by the rotting bodies of those who gave him the tablets which had kept the demon away for so long.


FREEDOM IS THE RIGHT TO TELL PEOPLE WHAT THEY DO NOT WANT TO HEAR

As decided, nobody went off the reservation save for those who tended to the gardens twice a week. All the preparation for winter had been done with nothing to plant until the New Year. The horses and sheep had been moved to the farm so all the animals were in close proximity for wintering.

A crude system of rainwater collection provided water to the bathrooms via the guttering; this saved having to carry up bottled water to use for washing hence extending their water resources further.

Penny came to see him the next day, and he insisted on dressing and meeting her in Ops with a gun at his waist. He had not spoken to her since before the hospital and he was not happy about the whisperings he had been hearing from his covert sources; he had to appear strong in front of her, despite his injuries.

It had been said that Penny wanted control of the Rangers to come under her department and not be run separately by Dan. The rumours spoke of a political coup, of a subtle but important balance of power.

Still quite shaky on his feet and with half of his head bandaged, he walked tall and asked Leah for a report as he strode into Ops.

"All quiet" she said.

"Penny" Dan said in greeting, turning his head to be able to see her. She was flanked by her new PA, Karen.

"May we talk?" asked Penny quietly.

"Leah? Break time" he said, and the girl walked from the room with as much dignity as she could muster in the circumstances. She knew full well when she was being dismissed for grown up talk. She clicked her fingers to Ash who followed without question; following his stomach, Dan thought.

He sat at the main table with the two women, and he turned to look pointedly at Karen.

"Would you give us the room, please?" Penny said politely to the woman after following his deliberate gaze. Karen looked surprised, even a little affronted, but gathered her things and left the room in a mimic of Leah but without the same level of grace and decorum.

This obviously wasn't a meeting that required minutes.

The two looked at each other for a few seconds in silence before Penny broke first.

"How have we come to regard each other like this?" she asked. He wasn't sure how to explain it without causing offence, so he didn't bother to try.

"Our ideal was a cooperative society, which you are trying to turn into a communist state" he said.

Penny bridled instantly, and Dan thought she would rise and leave the room. She kept her temper in check and answered him acidly.

"That is ridiculous and slanderous" she bit back "You would turn us into a police state with martial law I presume?" she emphasised the word police, and left the counter-accusation hanging heavily.

"Without protection, where would we be?" he asked rhetorically.

"Rules are protection. Co-ordination is safety. We all have our jobs here, and mine is to deal with the violence so you and the others don't have to. You think me barbaric, but you misunderstand me intentionally; we are the rough men who stand ready" he said, meaning to get through to her on a deeper level with references to literature "the violence I use is for the good of all and not myself" he finished, having risen from his seat as he spoke to lean his hands on the table.

His aching head hurt as he spoke, but he could not show weakness now.

"There is, and will be, no police state here. No Big Brother." He said more quietly as he sat back down and seemed to shrink in size "which means there will be no inequality also. No leadership class of person to rule the others. We work together or we are all slaves"

"What are we, if not the leading class?" asked Penny "You lead yours for now and I lead mine so what is the difference?" this was too much for Dan.

"There is a world of difference!" he shot back vehemently, ignoring the 'for now' comment.

"We lead because we are the best placed in our fields. When someone better comes along, they will lead instead of us. No one person should have the final say. Your model of our cooperative society is a dictatorship and nothing more!" Penny said nothing, so he carried on "What if a member of the group wished to take a council seat? Maybe yours? What then? Would you have a Ranger banish them? Punish them? Would you have us performing public executions?"

Penny stuttered for words, unable to admit that she had never given a thought to relinquishing power.

"They must be allowed to present their case to everyone, others would present their own and the people will decide. If another person wanted my job they could have it; but they would have to prove to everyone that they are better at it than I am. I will not retain power by force, nor will I wield it to keep you on your damned pedestal" he finished angrily.

Penny was fuming, but silent. He knew he had said some things which shocked her, mostly because they were true and she would not admit it to herself. She was also angry that he knew more than she thought he did. Obviously her quiet plays for power amongst the wider group had reached ears sympathetic to Dan's popularity.

Dan stood, slowly and carefully pushing his chair back under the table, before fixing Penny with his good eye.

"Please, Penny" he said softly "Remember how we all started this journey together. I don't want overall control but I will challenge you for it if needs be. Please, this is about all of us and not just one person. There's no throne, no crown here. It's survival or death; and if we fight amongst ourselves then there won't be much in the way of survival."

He walked out, wanting to lie down again for a very long time but feeling too wound up to stay still. He walked slowly outside and sat heavily on a felled tree trunk some distance away, deep in thought.

It was there that Leah found him. He had no idea how long he'd been there until his trance was interrupted by the girl and his dog. She sat next to him in silence.

"What we do now will inevitably change us" he said softly to her. To himself.

"What we see and do will take whatever innocence we have left, and our humanity with it. To survive we have to adapt; to adopt the same behaviour as the people we fight."

He hung his head with a sigh and continued the introspection.

"We have to become capable of rage and the sickening violence we see them use but there is a difference"

The last word he said with savage passion. He turned to the silent girl, seeing his own bright eyes mirrored in hers as she let his words soak in.

"The difference is that we keep our evil locked away deep inside us until we need it, then we let it out of the cage to protect what we have. We let it out to get the job done and then we lock it away again."

He hung his head again and sighed; the sudden fire now extinguished.

"But there is a cost to us. We're not monsters but we have to act like monsters, and that takes a toll on us. We are willing to make that sacrifice to keep people safe. To make life peaceful"

He got up, dizzy for a second with a wave of pain and exhaustion.

"You're right" he said to Leah who still hadn't spoken a word.

"Ok. I'll talk to Penny again" he said as he rose with difficulty, leaving her sat there.


Penny returned to her room and paced, restlessly. She had been so scared when Dan had gone, and felt awful for relishing the thought that he might not come back alive or at all. She imagined herself moulding his replacement into a more malleable version of him; a controllable leader of her personal honour guard.

Dan's words had cut her deeply. Her temper was high, and made worse when she realised that he was right about her behaviour. The truth was, she was enjoying the power.

It started as happiness to have other people, then swelled into pride to have people working for her. The routine of giving orders and thinking of jobs for people to do, then choosing who should do them had taken over her every waking thought. So much so, that without realising it she had accrued a staff to follow her around and annotate those orders for distribution.

She had grown power hungry, and she was suddenly ashamed at the realisation.

It wasn't intentional she convinced herself. It was the situation; it does things to people. From the very beginning she had busied herself every day, and when more people joined them she had more to organise and so on and so forth. She told herself that they all needed her to plan their every day. They wouldn't be on the firm ground they were had it not been for her leadership.

Sometimes that leadership took away the choices of the people, but it was for their own good. People came to her with ideas, with suggestions, and she politely listened at first. Lately she was so busy that she started to turn them away.

Since Karen arrived she had issued a standing order not to be disturbed directly, and to take the details of those wanting to see her. She had become obsessive, almost fanatical in her thoughts of the future for reasons she hadn't shared with anyone she now knew.

She stopped pacing and stood still. She started to cry. She was suddenly so very tired, she thought, as she lay down on her bed to submit to the sobs coming from deep inside her. She felt sick, and the waves of pain that had affected her recently started again.

A while later, Dan found her still in that position. He sat gently on the edge of her bed, and rested his left hand lightly on her shoulder. She woke to see him watching her, and for once did not have the energy to straighten her appearance.

"I am so sorry" she said "Things just, took on a momentum that I couldn't'…"

"It's ok." He said "We need you to be you, nothing more"

She smiled and closed her eyes again.


All thirty-eight of them sat together for dinner on the tables. They ate, and afterward Dan told them the sanitised version of events at the hospital. He thanked the people he wanted to thank, and laid out some ground rules with a heavy olive branch.

"Penny's direction to have those on the farm and gardens carrying shotguns is to remain in place. Anyone wanting training is to make themselves known" He said.

"On that note" he continued "suggestions and questions are more commonplace now that there are lots of us" he paused to scan the room, having to raise his voice for all of them to hear him.

"These will be written down – we have plenty of paper – and placed in the box that Karen will organise. We will bring these to the council every week. Concerns about every day work are to be brought to your head of department, but this provides another route which should be available as we have agreed" he nodded to Penny, who graciously accepted the mention even though nothing of the sort was decided until Dan said it now.

"We are locking down things for the winter, so everyone is going to have more time on their hands. There will be three hours of electricity after dinner from the generators. My advice is not to let Leah choose the film every night" that got the laughs he hoped for.

"Over the next week, everyone is to find a time to report to Kate so that the medical unit have a full history and everyone gets an MOT" another ripple of low laughter. He had discussed this with Kate, Lizzie and Alice and they had been preparing a filing system to keep medical notes of them all.

"Nobody will go off site unless with permission, not counting those working on the farms and gardens. Or Pete, obviously" he added.

"There will only be a couple of trips made a month during the worst weather, and until our wounds are healed there won't be any. So, everyone take some time to relax. Those of you organised to help with the farm know who you are, this gives farm workers time off to make it fair."

He asked Leah what the film was tonight, and she said a title he didn't recognise which prompted a mixture of different noises from the rest of them. The group took that as dismissal, and he nodded to his operations department when he got their eye contact. He had to call Leah over, and she came reluctantly holding a DVD which he could only describe as 'pink'. He decided to deal with her job first so she could get on with having a life.

"Any applications coming in to Ops go to you, you record them in a ledger and keep them ready to discuss. Ok?" he said.

"Ok. What's a ledger?" she asked.

"A book used to keep lists" he said, keeping it simple to avoid the trademark, 'wait, what?' from her again.

She ran off hoping to get to the TV before someone overrode her film choice. He sat down to look around his Rangers, and what he saw was almost pitiful. He still had half of his face bandaged, and had not yet seen the damage. He had, however, seen the grimace on Kate's face when she changed the dressings. Steve was still bandaged but he had lost the sling. Joe was uninjured but was still the weakest link, as bad as Dan felt by thinking it. Lexi was badly bruised over her head and face. Her eyes were ringed with purple and yellow, and she moved stiffly under a loose sweatshirt. He knew the cuts on her chest were worse than she made out. It would probably be weeks before they were all fully fit, and he had to look at a rehabilitation program for them. They needed to stay fit and lean; there was no off-season training or warmup games – when they went out they had to be at one hundred per cent or people would die.

"Sidearms at all times, we'll take a day at a time each in Ops. Joe, Me, Steve, Lex, in that order. When we are physically capable, we are making a trip that will require some heavy machinery." Eyebrows were raised "Police armoury – hopefully more Glocks, MP5's, G36's. If we're really lucky they've upgraded to the HK416's. Either way we need more guns that aren't for pheasant shooting."

Agreement all round, although there were some questioning looks about his knowledge. Dan stayed to help clear the plates as he realised that Cara was waiting behind in the kitchen, heating the water to wash up and not wanting to interrupt. He apologised, and helped her. They talked as they worked; Dan washed and Cara dried up, and she promised to make a lemon drizzle cake for him. One of the small echoes of sentimentality which he felt mattered.

He walked outside the front door and lit a cigarette as Ash limped around in circles looking for the best place to empty his bladder. Lexi joined him, as he suspected she would. He offered her a cigarette, which she took.

"Doing ok?" he asked her.

She inhaled, held it, and let it out slowly. "Yeah. No more bikinis, but yeah"

Leah was turning out to be a very useful spy; Dan had heard that Mark had tried hard with her when she got out of the hospital wing but she seemed to have shut that door in his face.

"What about Penny" she said. He knew this was coming from someone, and knew that whatever he said would probably become common knowledge within a day.

There's the truth, and then there's the truth they all needed to move on together.

"She's been under a bit of pressure – the stress of us lot getting put through a blender didn't help I should imagine. She's done well getting everyone organised for the winter though, don't you think?" he said, turning to Lexi for her turn.

"Yep. She's not, you know, planning on changing things or anything?" She asked innocently.

Dan matched her innocence. "Like what?"

"Well. We still work for you, don't we?" she said, trailing off in uncertainty at the boundaries she was pushing.

Rumour really did spread fast he thought.

"Yes. You do. Why, did you hear that she was planning on any changes?" he challenged.

"No, no" said Lexi "I was just checking"

Dan finished his cigarette, called his dog and went to watch the film. Luckily, Leah missed out. He settled down with his thoughts spinning, pretending to watch a film with the others.


Days rolled into weeks. Frosts came and it tried to snow a few times. Everyone was wrapped up well; the boxes of thermal sports base layers lifted from the camping store were a good buy.

Dan went with black under armour under his standard black clothes. He had got a black arctic waterproof and windproof pullover from one of their scavenging trips during the hot weather. He had dug it out and now pretty much lived in it.

Curiously, he noticed that the other Rangers had followed suit in style noir, which adorably included Leah. Her black boots had her black combat trousers tucked in, and she added about four layers of tops and fleeces topped off with a black woollen hat.

Dan had kept the beard and hair a little longer, but still the same length all over, which both Joe and Steve had adopted. Dan's bandaging had come off, exposing the straight line of delicate stitching running through the puckered skin from below his left eye and up into his hairline. Luckily the blade had cut through his eyebrow and missed the recess of his eye socket. It itched like hell, which he knew was a good sign. Kate gave him painkillers which he stopped taking before she recommended, much to her annoyance. He did complete the course of antibiotics which had been given to all of them. Ash had even had a course, courtesy of Sera's small medicinal stock.

He donned his own black woolly hat and went outside, pulling on his thermal gloves. The fresh, pink skin of his scarred face feeling the icy stab of the cold more than the rest of him.

Ash bounded with him, fully healed long before the human casualties. He smoked as he walked, passing a couple of the others as they went. Ash even let the others touch him now. Dan had worked hard to have him in the house to get used to people. It was Sera's suggestion, after she had been bitten trying to stop Ash's bleeding. He was still developing and double the size as when he was first found. He had a coarse short coat which had darkened only slightly as he matured. He glided effortlessly; loping on all fours with a casual ease that did not betray the savage speed he could employ. It's not the size of the dog that make the hits big; it's the speed it hits you at. Well, Ash was big and fast.

He walked up to the farm and back, talking with people he met as he walked. He went into Ops and Ash stalked to Leah's side where he practically searched her for food. His snout was almost the same size of her torso.

Leah pushed the animal out of her face and produced a sheaf of papers, clearing her throat and giving Ash a polo which he crunched once and swallowed, looking expectantly for more.

"Applications" she announced. Dan picked up a plastic wrapped pack of biscuits and poured coffee from a flask left by Steve – it was his day on duty – who was studying maps.

"Give me the highlights" he said as he sat and invited Steve to join them with a wave.

"Request for specialist item recovery" she read, then scanned her eyes along the rest of the text. "Christmas presents, actually"

Dan smiled. That kind of humanity made him happy and he would be glad to do those runs himself, even though he bloody hated Christmas.

"A suggestion that the Rangers run a self-defence class" she said. He thought of Lexi, with her martial arts background "Lexi might like that". Dan was well qualified to teach also, but didn't want another commitment on his time.

"Kyle wants to be a Ranger" she said with a smile. Dan coughed and spat coffee as he controlled himself.

"This again?" he said, annoyed. Steve gave him a questioning look and he explained.

"Kyle is a complaining, cowardly, weak, selfish, chinless mewling little boy who wants people to fear and respect him. He wants a gun. The answer is the same as when he asked the first time; no fucking chance."

Leah muttered "language" not quite under her breath and made a note, but Dan told her "I'll tell him myself though"

"Any more?" he asked.

"Request from Cedric and Maggie to run through training with people working away from the house" she said "What to do if someone turns up, basically" Dan looked to Steve, who nodded his agreement to the silent request.

"I can throw in a bit of E&E for flavour too" he said. Dan was glad to have him; even with the six-inch scar across his forearm he had got for putting his eggs in Dan's basket. It was still angry and swollen, as was the stripe down his own face.

"Ok, link up with Chris and find a day when the farm is covered by Logistics. Reckon you could do it within the week?" he asked.

Steve did. There were no more requests of interest, and the few more that were for Christmas presents went on the pile for a one-hit shopping trip.

He decided that there had been a long enough wait, that he was healed enough to take Joe on a trip. He went to tell Penny what he planned before finding Neil and the others he needed.

He had rounded everyone up and Ops was full. Neil, Mike, Jimmy, Ian and Joe sat to listen.

"I want to raid a police armoury." He let that hang for effect.

"I need Jimmy to bring a crew under Mike and Ian's direction to use heavy machinery to breach it. Neil, there's a diesel tank in need of emptying too so we may as well have all that while we're there." He said.

"Ideas" he announced, inviting the selected group to join in.

Mike was the first to speak. "I assume we are talking stressed concrete, probably reinforced with steel?" he asked.

"I think so, and no windows" Dan replied.

"So we attack the weakest point. The lock" he said confidently. "Jackhammer around the door housing and a Stihl saw with a diamond tipped blade. It won't be pretty but it will be open"

"We've got the kit" said Neil.

"Kev can use the jackhammer, he's big enough" said Jimmy not hiding his pride in his giant sidekick.

All in agreement, they planned to leave in an hour.

Dan and Joe went in the new Discovery, Neil went in his Defender with Ian and Mike towing the mobile tanker with its attached pump. Jimmy and Kev borrowed Lexi's Defender, carrying a generator and the tools they needed.

Dan and Joe cleared the building, driving into the yard he had left months ago after his first burglary. There was some evidence of scavenging since he had been there last, but he highly doubted anyone could have got into the armoury. He paused to look at the now unrecognisable corpse that lay unburied in the car park where he had dumped him out of his BMW.

They cleared the building, then led Mike, Ian, Jimmy and Kev to the heavy steel door. Mike started to give instructions to the others to say what he needed, and Dan took Joe outside leaving orders to be called when they were close to getting in.

Neil was busy pumping the diesel into his tanker, smiling at his creation again. He gave a thumbs up to them as they reappeared.

"Can you get up there?" Dan asked Joe, pointing at the roof of a police van. Joe nodded and jogged over to get the height advantage and keep watch to protect the mission. The noise started, shaking the whole building.

Dan went back inside to look for more equipment to augment their kit. He took a number of batons, and six ballistic vests as he only had two for his Rangers currently. Magazine holders and holsters from lockers went into the large bag he was carrying as the noise was replaced with the high-pitched scream of metal being cut. Ash watched him, hoping for food every time he prised open a locker.

Eventually the noise and vibration stopped, and he heard his name being shouted without urgency. He took the armful of big black kit bags he had emptied, hoping to have enough to fill them.

The doorway looked like it had exploded, with a pile of rubble pushed to one side. They had exposed the lock housing and mangled it to the point where they could force it open using the hydraulics. Dan wasn't too happy.

The racks were mostly empty. There were two Heckler & Koch G36 carbines, four Glocks, no MP5's, but there were a pair of HK416's. The carbines had the new sights which had the telescopic part you could flip to the side to use a holographic sight. They both had torch attachments, however all the guns only had two firing selector settings; safe and semi-automatic. Not really worth the energy expended he thought, but better than nothing.

Ammunition was stacked and spare magazines were found. He was really hoping for more. He picked up the two single-barrelled launcher guns – they basically fired a round like a solid lump of rubber. They were called AEP's; attenuating energy projectiles. Non-lethal, unless you were seriously unlucky, but bloody painful.

The bags were loaded, the fuel was siphoned, and they set off home for dinner. Dan was the only one not to be excited; the others thought the haul was impressive.

All the new weaponry got left in the bags, ready for all the Rangers to strip them in the morning and familiarise themselves before test firing.

After dinner Dan asked Kyle to step out with him. Kyle was very wary of Ash; he was one of the few people he wouldn't let touch him which proved to Dan that his dog was a good judge of character. Dan sent Ash off into the bushes so as not to lose Kyle's attention.

"Listen, about being a Ranger" he started, glancing sideways at Kyle in the fading light. He did not look happy, as if he knew where the conversation was heading. If he had single brain cell, Dan mused, then he should.

"It's not going to happen. It takes previous experience which we all have and we don't have the infrastructure to train someone from scratch" he said.

Kyle stopped walking. "Joe doesn't. Lexi doesn't. We don't even know if you do" his anger made him brave. Dan let the weak personal attack pass, knowing that jealousy has a strong pull.

"Joe and Lexi's experience was enough for them to be assessed. I assessed them. They are now Rangers." he said carefully.

"WELL ASSESS ME THEN!" shouted Kyle. He was shaking and close to tears.

"Tell me why you want it" instructed Dan, keeping his cool.

Kyle failed the first test; he failed to control his anger. "Why should you lot get to swan around and do what you want while everyone else works? Cocky bastards. You think you're better because you got a gun."

"Stop now, Kyle" Dan said coldly.

Kyle failed another test, demonstrating to Dan that he had no sense of self-preservation by carrying on.

"You pick who you want. Do what you want. You're a fucking Nazi. You..." Kyle stopped, yelping in terror as Dan grabbed the front of his coat with both hands like a striking animal, pulling him close.

"Take a good look at my face, you spoilt little shit" he growled at him.

"Does it look like it was fun? Would you have swapped places with me when I was fighting with the bastard who did this, after he took out two other people who I know for a fact would snap you without breaking a sweat? Would you even have survived this long if we hadn't taken you in?"

Kyle didn't answer, just tried to keep himself from crying in temper.

"No, Kyle. The answer is no. You aren't capable not only because you aren't trained, but because you only want it to show off. I have no use for you and I will never put a gun in your hand. Am I understood?" he said savagely. At the tone of Dan's voice, Ash had crept out of the dark and began to growl menacingly behind Kyle. He edged away, casting a fearful look at the dog, then ran back to the house.

"Fuck it" he said to himself before adding "Well, that went well" aloud to Ash.


The next weeks went by slowly. The old house got very cold, and gas heaters had to be used to stop people freezing. Everyone was wearing gloves and hats inside. Only two more trips were made out. One heavily protected detail visited an ambulance station now that Kate had got her medical stocks in order with Steve, Joe and Dan going as protection whilst Lexi stayed behind as she took the longest to heal from her injuries.

The other was to the closest vets as Sera had set up a small surgery on the farm and needed more supplies. With a little more instruction from Steve, Leah was becoming very good with maps and plotted the route easily.

Both trips were, thankfully, uneventful. Dan tried to develop some kind of routine, but felt increasingly restless as time wore on. He wanted to be out, finding more people but most of the group were happy to sit tight and let the cold pass. A few of them got ill, but Kate took the precaution of keeping a very close eye on them and quarantining those with viruses. She insisted that everyone take vitamin supplements with breakfast to try and avoid the colds too.

Dan received lots of sullen looks from Kyle, but he clearly lacked the conviction to make any trouble. Jack had started to spend his days either tinkering with the radio in the small hope that there was anyone on the other end, and taking trips with Pete to hunt game.

One of the cows died and with the help of the Discovery's winch and a trailer, it was butchered and brought back to the house. They had a variation on steak every day for a month, it was tough meat but it was food and nobody complained.

Dan noticed that some curious pairings had started to form. Mark had given up on Lexi and had moved on to try and impress Cara. She had other ideas and seemed to have a soft spot for Matty. The effect of this was that he stayed overweight due to her cakes and extras from the kitchen.

Chris and Ana spent most days together, and in early November they moved into one of the living quarters together. Penny wanted to object, but she held her tongue at the tactful suggestions of others. Mark moved on to Eve, who seemed receptive but could barely get away from the traumatised child who clung to her legs constantly. She still hadn't spoken. Mark gave up on Eve and tried to get close to Sera, who slapped him down. Literally. Sera spent most of her free time with Kate, which most people thought nothing of but then most people hadn't noticed what Dan had.

Lexi still tried to get time with Dan, but he tried to make it clear that it wasn't going to happen.

They had a frank conversation one evening, and he told her "I'm responsible for keeping you safe. Think about the hospital; if I hadn't been thinking straight because we were an item, then that pyscho could've killed us all"

It was a weak argument, but one that she accepted.

On the whole, people were happy. Even more so one day when a large, scruffy black cat visited the gatehouse. Ash immediately went for it, and Dan had to resort to screaming at him in German for the first time in weeks before he came away. The cat sat on the bonnet of the Discovery and hissed at the dog, who whined pitifully at being so outsmarted by a simple height advantage. Leah insisted that the cat be fed and join them. She called it Mollie, but Dan was sure it was a male and looked more of a Boris than a Mollie.

Leah would have none of it; this evil cat who taunted the dogs and scratched everyone else adored her. It would curl up on her lap in Ops and even got a bed on top of the boxed ammo where it spent the day sleeping and being fed. If he had to stereotype the cat as a person, he was pretty sure this one had done some time in jail and wasn't to be crossed lightly.

By mid-November, Leah had compiled a long list of special items people wanted to give as Christmas presents. Dan called a council meeting – they weren't always weekly by now as there was nothing much to report by anyone as they were in a semi-hibernation – and proposed an outing to the shopping centre where he and Lexi had found Joe and Mark. It was accepted without argument, which he found strange, and he found himself almost brokering the case against going as nobody else objected. Unanimous agreement unsettled him. It felt like complacency, and complacency would get someone killed.

In the end, it was decided that two trips were to be made. Dan and Lexi would take one with Jimmy and Kev, and Steve and Joe would take another with Adam and Andrew. Joe knew the shopping centre well anyway, and Dan trusted Steve more than anyone but himself to keep them safe.

Leah pleaded with him to go. She was obviously getting bored. He agreed, thinking that it would do her good to get out. She must be nearly thirteen now – she had dropped her pretence of being fifteen by pure accident on the day they had found Lexi and the others – and Dan thought that she was old enough to learn some survival skills.

He started to take her out with him to exercise Ash, and after she had learned not to bounce alongside him asking questions, he started to teach her some skills.

They approached buildings he knew to be empty, starting with the gym, and got her to practice watching the building before entering it. He gave her an empty Glock to practice weapon handling and was impressed with her. He didn't know if she was naturally good, or just naturally good at mimicking him.

He was often told that his only real skill was replicating what he saw others do; and for years took it as an insult until he saw her doing the same. He even let her fire a few rounds, but she struggled with the recoil and the noise, letting out a scream and dropping the gun once as the slide pinched her hand. He had nothing smaller to let her use, not that anything smaller would stop a cuddly toy let alone a person.

Her pleading got through to him, and he promised to keep teaching her. In the interim, he taught her how to strip and clean all the weapons they had with the exception of the large machine gun.

The news of the shopping trips went round quickly, and others asked to come. This also went to the council, and again people were happy for 'civilians' to go as long as they were adequately protected. In the end, Neil stayed home for both trips and all four Rangers accompanied a small group to the shopping centre twice.

Dan showed concern throughout the trips, as he felt that everyone was being too happy and not considering the dangers. Lexi told him he was being grumpy, which he conceded that he was. Probably.

Leah brought back next year's calendar for Ops, with large boxes to write things in. It was adorned with pictures of kittens.

December arrived and a wave of excitement buzzed through the cold survivors. Pete had brought in a small conifer tree one day, and Jay mounted it in a large flat slice of oak he had used as a chopping block when splitting the wood. A box of decorations was found in an office – they still had lots of unused rooms to clear out – and the place took on a happier feel. A fire burned all day in the lounge, where people had taken to congregating as there was less work to do. The library was being well used too, probably far more so than it had ever been.


Christmas loomed. Pete and Jack had brought down four Canada geese ready for the large meal. One of these had fallen into the lake and one of his dogs, either Tot or Dram as Dan could never tell them apart, almost froze to death after she jumped in and towed it to the shore. Her more sensible sister took it from her on dry land and proudly presented it to their master.

The wet dog was wrapped in a blanket and cuddled in shifts by the fire until Pete put an end to her pampering and took her back to work the next day, much to her disgust.

Extra hands were recruited into the kitchen to prepare, and Penny came to Dan with a rare request of frivolity. She looked drawn and thinner in the face, but did her best to maintain her standards and presence.

"It's something of a tradition, you see." She started uncertainly "I've checked with Andrew and he is quite certain that we have no sherry at all" she carried on with blustery explanations but he stopped her, smiling.

"Penny, if you want sherry for Christmas I will go and get some on one condition" he said kindly.

"Which is?" Penny asked, concerned.

"That you check there are no more Christmas requests before I leave in an hour!" he replied. She smiled and disappeared, returning thirty minutes later with a list.

Dan stood and unlocked his over-stocked armoury. He took his M4 and loaded the standard five magazines he carried. As he was slowly adding the 5.56 rounds to the magazines, Leah walked in carrying the very fat 'Mollie' who yowled threateningly at Ash.

Ash in response, as the savage animal he was, whimpered as he back-pedalled and hid behind Dan's chair. That would explain the scratches on his nose the day before.

"Kid?" Dan said to her "Put that fleabag down and help me, please"

"She isn't a fleabag!" She replied indignantly, but put the cat on its perch anyway.

"Yes, he is. Sera said so, and she would know because she got scratched giving him flea medication!" he said to goad her.

"She" answered Leah flatly, bored of the same needling comments from him.

He slid a Sig to her and three magazines. "Load them with 9mm for me?" he asked nonchalantly.

Leah was understandably excited; she was being trusted with real ammunition. She deftly loaded the magazines with fifteen rounds each, then picked up the gun. He watched her carefully out of the corner of his eye, making sure she didn't accidentally shoot him. She checked the safety, seated the magazine then slid it home with a click – not slapping it in like they do in films and damaging the housing. She then held the gun to the ground and chambered a bullet. She checked the safety again and then neatly arranged the gun and magazines on the table.

"Very good" said Dan, trying to keep it casual. "Now fetch a Glock check the actions and load one mag" he said, pretending to concentrate on loading his own rounds.

Leah was confused, but did as she was asked. She finished at around the same time as Dan stood and went across the entrance hall to his room. It was too early for Christmas, but still. On their trip to the police station he had brought back some ballistic body armour. As he had searched the lockers, he stumbled across the kit of what must have been the smallest policewoman ever. She can't have been much bigger than Leah, who was very tall for her age at nearly five and a half feet, but still very small in the torso. He had removed the police badging out of principle, and got Lou to secretly sew a pistol holster to the front cover with a double mag pouch on the lower left side. He had done this just after he had started training Leah, and hoped she would be happy with it. He had even attached a sheath holding a short four-inch knife on the front of the left shoulder just like his own.

He donned his own armour vest, and dumped the small back one on the table in front of her. She looked at it incredulously, mouth open, too scared of disappointment to believe what she saw.

Dan feigned a surprised look at her and said "Well? Kit up kid, we haven't got all day"

It was probably the greatest moment of her life, possibly even before everyone she knew had died.

Lexi was duty that day, and he told her they were going out and expected to be back by nightfall. He gave her the nearby location they were going to with orders to come in force if not back when the sun was down and no radio contact had been made.

Lexi smiled at Dan's kindness and helped Leah tighten the vest over her coat. She picked up the Glock with some ceremony, checked the safety was on and pulled the topslide back slightly to see brass, just as he had taught her. Her hands were too small to do it with one hand as he did when he was showing off. She secured the weapon in the holster, which covered most of her chest, and tried her hardest not to beam with happiness.

Dan took his E&E bag, called Ash to heel, and they drove out.

Leah was at her most grown up as they rode. Her eyes were alert, and her questions were minimal. He wasn't sure if she was actually looking or just being seen to be looking, he didn't mind either way as she was trying.

Truth was, he could've done this short trip alone with just Ash, but it pays to prepare and she had to get out at some point or she would die of boredom.

They found the shop they wanted after a short drive, and although Dan had personally cleared the same building three times now, he went through the full drill just as he had trained her. He mimed that she should draw her gun but not release the safety – they had discussed this in the car; she was only to take the safety off if he explicitly told her to shoot something.

He sat Ash at the door and told him to stay. He wasn't overly bothered as he had done this so many times before. With their rear covered, he and Leah searched the small building. It was actually an old fuel station which had been turned into a Sainsbury's Local shop, and Leah moved silently as she had been taught and covered his back as he moved. He smiled to himself as she exaggerated the semi-crouch she had seen him use. The kid was a natural. Turning this into a real-life scenario where she might have to shoot a person was some way off, but if these skills were ingrained now then she would be better than all of them when she was grown up.

He nodded to her, and she announced "CLEAR" loudly to nobody in particular, full of pride. On hearing her call, Ash trotted in betraying the he knew this was just a training exercise and wasn't taking it seriously.

"OI!" said Dan loudly "OUT" Ash turned a lazy circle and sat in the doorway of the shop where Dan told him to stay. He was the best early warning system this side of an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle. Dan produced the list and Leah got a basket. As the world had ended in early summer, there were no crackers or Christmas items lining the shelves. If it had been October when it happened then there probably would have been, he thought sourly.

They quickly gathered what they had come for, and Dan ad-libbed with bags of nuts and all the Pringles tubes he could see. They were still in date until late next year.

He led Leah back outside where they put the basket on the back seat, called their bored sentry to jump in – he was lay down with his chin on his front paws in protest of being berated – and drove home.

Bizarrely, he had just made Leah the happiest girl ever, but that came at a price as they walked in through the main doors just as Kyle walked out. He focused on the gun strapped to the chest of a child and went pale. Dan thought he would cry or scream in rage, but he said nothing and walked out with glistening eyes.

Screw him, he thought. He trusted the kid more than he would ever trust Kyle. He should see if she can manage the shorter G36C soon, in the absence of finding an MP5.

Christmas Eve came, and Penny had done well organising games and entertainment. Cara had produced a seemingly endless supply of jam tarts and mince pies, and the alcohol supplies took a hit. Presents had been wrapped, and an enormous pile lay under the tree. Cards had been given as though everything were as it used to be, only this time Dan put them on the windowsill in Ops. One read "Dear Ops and Rangers, thank you for keeping us all safe. Lots of love from the Catering department xxx"

He supposed that counted as normal now.

He felt bad that he hadn't 'bought' gifts for anyone, and hadn't even thought to get a small pack of cards to give out, not that he could easily remember everyone's names. He told himself that he was busy keeping them all alive whilst they shopped like it was a safe activity, but in his heart he knew it was because he was a miserable bugger.

He tried to excuse himself from the festivities on Christmas morning under the pretence of keeping watch, but nobody would let him. Even Ash was joining in, with the two cockers jumping around with him playfully.

Dan received an extensive list of presents; an indulgently costly watch with compass and altimeter, a book of jokes (obviously someone else thought he was miserable too), some items of clothing, an action man (someone thought they were funny), a torch mount for his Sig from Steve and a number of bottles of scotch. Leah had got him and Ash matching bandanas with the lower half of a skull on.

The best present by far, was something that Lexi had retrieved for Ash. Clothing for dogs was a contentious issue for Dan, but there was no doubting the brilliance of this item.

In khaki green, with a heavy grab handle and tactical loops for attachments like Dan's vest, Ash stood proudly with his own gear on. It read 'K-9' on a Velcro patch on the side, and came with two pouches for him to carry a collapsible bowl and a bottle of water. Dan fitted it to him, and laughed with everyone else as Ash spun in circles trying to figure out with utter futility what they had done to him.

Christmas dinner was wonderful – even more so if you considered the limited cooking abilities post apocalypse. The food kept coming, as did the cakes and the drinks.

Everyone went to bed late as the fire burned low. Dan was properly drunk, for the first time since it was just him and Neil. He bid goodnight to the few left up, and took his dog outside for a smoke. He could barely stand upright, let alone still. He rolled into bed, having strewn his clothes across the floor of his room and collapsed naked into the mattress where he cursed the ceiling for spinning. Just as he thought he was going to have to get up and puke, he lost consciousness.

He woke after what seemed like five minutes to light streaming in through the open curtains. It was impossibly bright, but his still-drunk brain could not compute that it had snowed heavily in the night.

He was cold, his head hurt, and as he rolled over he realised he was not alone.


She was fast asleep and either he or she, or both of them, stank of alcohol. He couldn't tell, but he cursed himself silently, and racked his memory for how this happened.

She stirred, and he didn't know whether to get dressed quietly and leave or pretend to be asleep. As he was debating this, she groaned and rolled over, snaking a soft, lazy arm over his lower back. He froze, but the hand moved down and squeezed his cheek intimately.

How the actual fuck did this happen? He thought.

He lay there in shock, one arse cheek in her hand and his mouth open, just as she opened her eyes and focused on the world. She squinted her face tightly at the bright light, then slowly released his flesh as it dawned on her where she was.

"Did you? Did we? Oh shit!" she said as she scrabbled the duvet up to cover her bare chest.

"What the fuck?" asked Dan in a croak, equally mortified.

It was one of the most awkward moments of his life and combined to a murderous hangover, he wasn't having a good day already.

He looked around on the floor and grabbed some clothes. He threw them on in haste and bundled form the room, stopping in the cold hallway to put his coat, hat and boots on as his breath misted in front of his face to further cloud his vision. Ash had not taken the initiative to come with him, so he abandoned the dog to sleep in blissful ignorance of his embarrassment.

He stole outside silently as the cold hit him. His head swam. He stopped at a patch of trees about twenty metres from the front door and expelled the remaining sour contents of his stomach into the snow.

He knelt in the bushes, stomach heaving. The crunch of frozen snow underfoot made him turn, his fogged brain trying to make sense of anything and everything.

The shovel hit him hard in the right side of his head and shoulder, the blow deflecting as he flinched away from it. It sprawled him face down, choking him with a face full of dirty slush.

"Not better than me now, are you?" whined his attacker in a peevish voice, close to tears as he raised the shovel high above his head again.

Kyle had been waiting for him. He was going to have one last attempt at convincing him to try him out and see if he could shoot. He had wanted to attend Lexi's self-defence class but was too bigoted to accept instruction in fighting from a woman, regardless that Lexi was arguably one of the most capable people there.

Despite being told exactly why, he still thought he could cajole his way into being tested where he could prove himself and finally be a Somebody.

The final straw was when he saw her go into his room. He realised, as he saw Dan stagger outside, that he was wasting his breath by planning to speak to him. This man, who he saw as a bully, would never let him join his elite. He would never make him one of them. Just like everyone else in Kyle's life; this man was better than him and he knew it.

But not today, he had no guns and that bastard dog of his was nowhere to be seen. He would show this man what he could do.

He picked up the shovel left by the front door to clear snow, and walked behind him. He thought himself stealthy, but in truth he would never have got anywhere near the man if he wasn't so drunk; he simply wasn't aware of anything.

As he retched onto the ground, Kyle swung the shovel like a cricketer aiming to send Dan's head clear over the boundary. The bastard turned at the last minute, making him miss his face. Kyle recovered himself and started to beat the shovel down on him, over and over. He cried aloud as he did it. He cried for all the years he had been laughed at, rejected, bested, left behind and ignored whilst the Dan's of the world got the recognition and the women. The people good at sports, the ones who had muscles, fuck all of them.

Dan spun onto his back and used his legs. He held off maybe ten or fifteen blows before a slipped footing rewarded him with a stinging blow to his right knee. He involuntarily reached for it, and took a heavy hit to the top of his head. Darkness flashed, and the pain was unbearable.

Kyle was so enraged; so consumed in his attack that he did not see Ana and Chris coming out of the house on their way to the farm. They saw him, but it took a few seconds to realise that he was attacking a person and not venting frustrations into the snow. Ana shouted and started to run towards him as Chris took the twelve bore shotgun from the slip on his back and fired twice in the air.

Kyle realised he had been caught. He faced a choice; stay and this bastard would surely kill him, or run.

He ran.

Chris and Ana went to help Dan who was covered in blood. He had taken a massive amount of damage and combined with his hangover, he lost consciousness.

Others ran from the house pulling on clothes as they rushed headlong into the cold. Confusion reigned, and shouts for explanations rang out. Chris handed Ana the gun and went to lift him up, only stopping when Kate screamed a command to leave him. She ran over and saw the injuries to Dan's head and the discarded shovel on the ground, barking orders for the stretcher and spine-board to be brought from medical immediately. She had to get him off the ground quickly to avoid hypothermia, but carefully so she didn't aggravate the likely neck injuries he had.

Penny strode from the house, her commanding voice demanding an explanation for the commotion. She saw Dan, bloodied and battered in the snow, and stopped.

"Oh dear God!" she said "Who did this?"

Ana spoke first. "It was Kyle" she still pronounced it 'Keel'. "He hit him with…" she was lost for the translation although it was obvious, and pointed to the shovel saying "Cobok"

"We see him, and he run" she finished lamely.

Dan was brought inside strapped to the stretcher with blocks either side of his head. Heaters were brought in and a fire lit in medical as his body temperature had already fallen dangerously low from the short time on the wet ground. People buzzed around, asking questions until Kate roared at them all to get out.

"Anybody not medically trained is to leave right now!" she bawled as her temper frayed too far, standing square to stare down the room until they fled. Only she and Lizzie remained.

Dan was unaware of all this as he lay unresponsive on his back, dripping diluted snowmelt and blood onto the floor.


Dan was out for most of the morning. When he did come round, he could not move his head. This resulted in him fountaining acidic bile into the air for it to fall in his face. He would have choked had Kate not run over to him and tipped his entire immobile body over for the sick to go with gravity. She cleaned him up and began an in depth top to toe survey where she tested his feeling all over.

No obvious spinal damage. She turned him the other way and felt down every single segment of his vertebrae asking each time if he had pain or numbness. He didn't. She checked his skull thoroughly, looking for signs of fractures. After checking his pupil response for the fiftieth time, she finally allowed him to remove the head blocks and move around. Kate was still unhappy.

"I'm only guessing you realise?" she asked testily "You should have a full spinal x-ray or a CT preferably"

Dan tried to reassure her that he was fine, and that she was doing a great job without modern machinery. He could barely get the words out from the swollen right side of his jaw.

"Council members" he mumbled "Please"

He was soon looking up at the concerned faces of Penny, Andrew, Neil, Jimmy, Cara and Chris. Kate was still flitting around him, but had sent Lizzie to take a break.

Dan had told a version of events which left out some embarrassingly key details. Where his consciousness ended, so Chris' story began. He learned how the cowardly bastard Kyle had run into the woods rather than face the consequences.

Kate reported that Dan was lucky, that one of the blows could easily have paralysed or killed him. Neil reported that Steve, Joe and Lexi had gone after Kyle, but as Ash was too wound up over him being down to go with them, they lost track of him after a mile.

He wanted to get his dog and his gun and hunt the bastard down. He said as much to the council but even he had to agree he was in no state to move anywhere for a while. He left out the more creative ideas of what he could do when he caught him.

Kyle's actions had brought about the difficult question of punishment. The only one internal problem they had ever encountered had resulted in the public humiliation and ejection of Callum some months ago. That was different; that was a fight as such and not a deliberate action by the leaders of a group of people. It wasn't society punishing a crime.

Was Kyle to be banished? That held inherent dangers in that he knew where they were and what capabilities they had. He could return with others and be a serious threat to them.

Someone suggested execution which Dan thought was a good idea at first, but the more he thought of it, the more he knew it was the wrong way to go; killing someone was one thing, executing them for a crime was different. Even if it was the attempted murder of himself.

Neil pointed out that it was irrelevant as Kyle was in the wind anyway, and was unlikely to live long without shelter and equipment. From what Chris said he ran with just the clothes on his back so would probably die of exposure before the New Year.

Penny suggested that if he returned or was captured then he should stand trial. Dan wanted to protest that he was seen by three people doing it and then ran away. No mitigation he could offer could excuse his actions, especially as he fled after. He held his tongue though; as anarchical as he felt he still believed in justice. Although his beliefs were in a deeper and purer justice than the world had known before it happened.

The subject was ended under the cloud of crossing bridges when they came to them, and he was left to sleep by the others. He wasn't sure how badly hurt he was, as the hangover symptoms seemed worse than the head injuries. Sera brought Ash to him later that day, and the huge dog hurt him again by climbing onto the hospital bed as he had a matter of weeks before. He refused to leave and growled at Kate when she told him to get down, prompting Dan to reprimand him and send him out with Sera.

He would've preferred to go back to his own bed but Kate insisted on twenty-four hours' observation, especially the way he 'liked to collect concussions' she added.

He was released by lunchtime the next day and walked stiffly to the front door. He let Ash out on the way past, and leaned against his truck to smoke. Steve joined him, told him of the brief hunt for Kyle but without a dog they were too far behind to find him.

"Pete tried with his girls, but they just put pheasants up instead" he laughed.

"Ash would've caught him and tore the little fucker to pieces" Dan growled, looking at the dog. Sensing he was being discussed he cocked his head over and stared at Dan with his ears up, waiting for food or praise or both. He fussed his head.

"I don't fancy his chances though" said Steve "I've seen people die in better conditions, and he has no tradecraft at all from what I hear" he reassured Dan. Steve's eyes glazed over, deep in memory.

"Where have you gone, mate?" Dan asked, kindly.

"The cockpit of a Merlin. Kosovo" he replied quietly.

He put a hand on the pilot's shoulder as he passed. They all had their history, and post-traumatic stress was probably the only single common denominator for them all.

Dan had his own skeletons too, just not of the frozen wasteland mass genocide type.

Steve felt instantly guilty for the lie.

True, he had seen some awful atrocities during his service in the Balkans and elsewhere but nothing compared to the soldiers actually on the ground. He had really gone back to Snowdon years ago. A sudden storm had hit them when walking and he had to lead his wife and kids down before the weather became a danger to them.

Dan limped back into Ops, where Leah fixed him with a smile of relief. The mangy cat hissed at Ash from its perch; a Sainsbury's shopping basket with a prison blanket inside on top of a five-foot-tall stack of 5.56 bullets in boxes.

Ash responded with a whine of fear and frustration as he backed away from the evil thing.

Lexi blushed and looked at the floor. He wasn't in the mood, but he had to deal with this soon. Steve walked back in and went straight past Ops, deep in thought. Dan made a show of producing his packet of cigarettes, announcing clearly without words that he was going back outside. As he had hoped, Lexi followed him.

He lit two cigarettes at once, and handed her one in silence. He walked with some difficulty to the place where Kyle had attacked him.

He laughed mirthlessly; that was probably the only conceivable circumstances in which Kyle could ever have beaten him.

But he had, and it was very nearly final.

"I'll kill the bastard if I find him" she started.

"You won't, because if he's not already dead I doubt he will last more than a couple of days" he replied tiredly "Any idea what set him off?" he asked, subtly raising the subject.

"We didn't do anything" She blurted out, turning crimson "I just…"

"You just what?" he asked carefully.

"I just didn't want to spend Christmas on my own" she said to the floor "I was drunk and I just got in your bed, that's it"

He sighed "Lex, we've been through this."

"I know" she said "Kyle tried it on with me last night and I was" she hesitated, searching for the right word "unkind to him. Cruel actually. Then he probably saw me go to your room. It's my fault"

"No, it isn't" said Dan "It's Kyle's for being a fucking jealous prick and mine for letting the rat get the drop on me. You know I roughed him up the other day and Ash saw him off?"

Lexi's eyebrows raised "Yeah" said Dan "He demanded to be a Ranger. Again."

Lexi laughed "I bet he shit a brick when you gave Leah a Glock!"

Dan wasn't in the mood to laugh at Kyle's wounded pride; his injuries were still too sore. He started to walk back to the house.

"So, we good now?" Lexi asked after him.

"Yes" he said, not entirely convincing himself, as he recalled her bare chest in his bed covered in scars she received for doing the job he gave her.


After the excitement of Christmas and Kyle being branded an outlaw, New Year came and went without the grand celebration of previous times. Perhaps people were more pensive about the passing of time and making resolutions without sharing them with the loved ones they had last time around.

The mood became low, then tempers started to fray. Suggestions were made for scavenging runs, mostly for people to get out. Neil insisted Dan take him out for petrol as the generators had used almost all of his stores up. Dan knew he still had over three hundred litres of petrol, but humoured him anyway. Six people volunteered to come. In the end they went on their own, travelling further afield just for the hell of it.

One of the main reasons for Dan putting a stop to the trips during winter was that the roads, without proper maintenance and gritting, were degrading fast and were treacherous in places. He had to go slowly, avoiding potholes and even subsidence at one point. They had ten jerry cans to fill and two hand pumps to do it with.

Neil removed the reservoir locks as he had done before, and suggested a race to fill the first can. Dan smiled, and asked what the stakes were.

"Name your price, Monsieur" Neil replied in a sleazy French accent.

"I win, you do my washing up this week" he said.

"Likewise" Neil said, offering his hand. As Dan took his own hand from the pump to shake Neil's, he shouted "GO" and began to pump furiously, making Dan curse and rush to try and catch up.

They couldn't call a clear winner, and sat panting and laughing together as Ash gave them both a questioning look. They finished the other cans at a more sensible pace and went to set off home. They drove for a few minutes before Neil stared ahead, leaning towards the windscreen.

He held up a pointed finger in silence, making Dan look to his right where a pillar of black smoke was rising behind a copse of trees in the distance.

They exchanged a look, and Dan turned the Discovery towards the possibility of people. They struggled to find the source of the smoke; when they got close to where they thought it was, they found a golf course blocking their path. They had to drive a long detour with Neil keeping an eye on the Ordnance Survey map of the area. Eventually they found a long, looping road which had housing estates branched off at intervals to the right, and industrial areas to their left.

The source of the smoke was the bonnet of a crashed Ford Transit minibus, the unfortunate driver having taken advantage of the relaxed seatbelt laws of late. His shattered and twisted frame was sprawled though the broken windscreen where his upper body was starting to cook from the heat of the small fire which hadn't yet erupted to engulf the entire vehicle. Dan had seen enough in his life to know that the driver was killed on impact, and that the whole lot would be afire soon. Bags were strewn about in the back and on the ground next to the open sliding door.

"Someone survived" he said, pointing to the uneven tracks in the wet grass leading to the overgrown bushes separating the road from an industrial area.

Neil had not come armed, so Dan handed him his Sig as he retrieved the M4 from the cab. He whistled Ash to his heel and locked the Land Rover before setting off after the survivors of the crash. The tracks were a mess, like whoever had left them was dragging something in a hurry.

The more Dan looked at the tracks, the more concerned he grew. There were gouge marks intermittently, like whatever they were dragging was fighting back. He hadn't survived this long by being careless, so he sank to a crouch and readied his weapon as he whispered his suspicions to Neil.

The older man switched on immediately and his happy demeanour melted away to reveal his darker, more serious side. Dan made eye contact with Ash before giving him a hand signal; Ash understood and sank into a stalk as he moved silently alongside his master.

Moving carefully meant moving very slowly. It was close to five minutes before they were rewarded with a low grumble from Ash's patented early warning system. They slowly circled a building before finding a vantage point where Dan could see what was inside. It was a warehouse and looked similar to their own stores, but not organised by any standard. Crates of bottles and tins were ripped open in no particular order. He heard a male voice speaking, and what sounded like a female voice responding angrily.

He scanned the room and saw movement off to his right. He assessed what he saw and considered his options before deciding to play this one dumb. He stripped off his body armour and swapped weapons with Neil. He tucked the Sig in the back of his trousers before creeping alongside the building to where the shutter door was rolled up. He sat Ash flush to the building, so a person would have to be outside before they saw him. He made him stay with eye contact and hand signals before walking away to come to the building from the direction of the road.

He put his hands in his pockets and scuffed his feet as he walked, trying to demonstrate no threat in his body language.

"Hello?" he called as he approached the door.

The man who had been talking visibly jumped in fright, and wheeled on Dan holding a gun. He recognised it easily as a Glock, and thought that this weapon had probably been sourced in the same way he had his own in the beginning.

The man held it sideways, like he was in a film. Dan felt a surge of disappointment at the low standards of this newest adversary, suspecting that he was going to have to converse with a mouth breather; ever the post-apocalyptic snob.

"What the fuck do you want?" he asked, scared and edgy. He walked away from the woman and Dan saw her clearly for the first time. Her blonde hair was a mess, and her big eyes pleaded with him for help but burned with a mockery that said she would never lower herself to actually beg for his assistance. He made no response to her look, but focused on the man with the gun.

He advanced on Dan, still holding the gun sideways and evidently scared by the intrusion. He thought that if he was going to walk up to him and hold the gun to his head then this was going to be easier than he suspected. He stopped short of the threshold, about ten feet from where Dan stood with his hands up.

Dan willed him to close the gap between them and make it easier to remove him from the equation. A glance at Ash showed that he wasn't in play yet; their new enemy needed to walk forward a few more feet for the dog to surprise him.

"I said, what do you want?" said the man testily. His aggression failed to mask the panic evidently rising in him. He forced himself to sound in control, only managing to cover his fear with an excess of hostility.

"Who is it?" came another voice from inside. It wasn't the woman, as she sat and stared at Dan with almost a sense of amusement at the turn of events.

That complicated things; there was at least one other in there and had no clue yet if they were armed as well.

"Whoa mate!" said Dan, intentionally attempting to mimic a local accent in an attempt to dumb down.

"Was that you that had a crash back there?" he said, stalling for time.

"No, someone else. We helped them" he said, uneasily.

"They ran us off the road and dragged me here" the woman started to shout indignantly before another man stepped into view and slapped her hard across the head, messing her hair up further and receiving a murderous look in response. Dan involuntarily stepped forward but the man with the gun pointed it in his face.

"Not one more step, she's ours. Get lost." he said nervously, waving the end of the barrel at Dan. He could barely keep the gun still. Dan now had to take out two in quick succession before the woman got hurt. Simply leaving was not an option for him now. He stepped backwards and stared at the man.

"What are you going to do? I bet you don't know, do you? Look at you, you're a joke" he said softly as he walked backwards, goading him.

The man reacted as he was supposed to, with his manhood affronted he stepped forwards to close the gap with Dan and threaten him again; to be close enough to see his fear.

As the hand holding the gun came into view he just saw Ash tilt his head to marvel at the new toy he was being presented with. A second later he launched, took the arm and the body attached to it. The force of the impact and the momentum of the dog was sufficient to yank the man's neck painfully as he was taken to the ground. Dan stepped to the side, simultaneously drawing the Sig from behind his back.

He walked past Ash ripping at the man without taking his eyes off the second target; he had to trust the dog to do his job as speed was paramount. Untrained people take triple the time to react, and he capitalised on that.

As the second man saw what was happening he reached out and grabbed the woman, reacting far quicker than Dan expected.

Too late for Dan to strike, he held a knife to her throat and looking terrified and desperate. He had the same twitchiness as the man now screaming in Ash's teeth.

"Get your dog off him!" he bellowed in fear, pressing the knife into the flesh above the woman's collar bone.

"No. Let her go and I'll call my dog back" Dan said in a low monotone. Give the appearance of calm, and their panic will rise.

"NO!" he snapped in retort over the noise of snarling and painful screams, trembling. Dan thought that this man was likely to cut her deeply by pure accident in his state of panic. He glanced at the woman, still pointing the Sig at the man holding her.

"What's your name?" he asked her in the same low voice.

"Marie" she said through gritted teeth "Lovely to meet you, but please get this fucking arsehole off me" sarcasm in the face of adversity. She got more attractive by the second.

"Marie, I'm very sorry" he said. The look of confusion on her face was replaced by open-mouthed, horrified shock when he fired a single round.

The desperate man's biggest mistake was that he had let Dan get to within ten feet as he spoke; so close that he could not miss. The bullet entered his face just under the nose, tearing a ragged hole through his top lip, shattering the teeth behind before blowing the brainstem out. The hand holding the knife had no chance to cut her accidentally, as it was instantly lifeless without the possibility of any nerve receiving a signal from the brain.

Marie stood still with her mouth open and blood splattered on her face as her captor fell to the floor, utterly lifeless. Dan heard the percussive cough of a suppressed weapon firing outside, and ran to find Neil had fired at, and killed, a ragged-haired woman running at Ash with an axe. He thanked him, and called Ash away from the dead man he still tore at.

"Good boy, leave it" he said. Ash trotted to his side without reluctance, happy with the praise. His muzzle, face and chest were soaked red with the man's blood. He walked back inside where he found Marie wiping the gore from her face in horror. Dan went to speak to her, but was met with a snarl "In my hair? Thanks!" she said, then took a breath and steadied herself.

"No, seriously. Thanks" she said, and raised herself on tiptoes to kiss his cheek, transferring a small amount of brain matter to his face.

She walked to a door and opened it, revealing another woman and a man who was groggy with a lump on his head. The woman was much shorter and heavier than Marie, she was Asian, had long dark hair and an almond shaped face. She saw the spreading puddle of dark red blood on the ground and looked instantly unwell, hugging Marie tightly. In contrast, Marie seemed to be unfazed by their ordeal.

The man was barely conscious and couldn't quite understand what was happening. Dan checked him out and hoped it would pass as he could detect no serious trauma. With help, he laid him on a heavy plastic sheet as a makeshift stretcher.

He retrieved the Glock and found no other weapons of use. They left the bodies where they were and spirited the women outside where he took back his kit from Neil. He used a bottle of water from inside to wash the blood from Ash's face – fearing that it painted him in a less than ideal light.

Marie and Selina told them that they were in a minibus with their friend, Anthony, when something big hit the windscreen and they crashed. They were brought here by the now deceased occupants of the warehouse and told they were staying with them now. They disagreed on that point, whereby Selina was locked in a cupboard with the man injured in the crash.

"Then you showed up with your wolf and shot the nice man I was talking to" said Marie.

Dan couldn't get a bead on her at all; she looked delicate and if forced to guess he would have said she was the 'hide in a corner and cry' type as opposed to the 'make jokes about seeing someone shot in the face twelve inches away' type. She fixed him with a smile to show she was joking, and he felt himself colouring up. He liked her. She disarmed him completely and made him feel like an awkward boy.

"I assume you two live somewhere near here?" Selina asked, changing the subject.

"We have our own manor house and grounds" said Neil pompously. He pronounced grounds as 'grinds', making Dan smile. He'd used the very same impression when they first met.

"And there are almost forty of us" Dan added. That got a response form the two, who exchanged a look. Selina asked "All immune?"

"I assume so, none of us got sick when it happened" he said, then changed the subject again as they walked to the Land Rover.

"Where did you come from?" Dan asked.

"Racist." said Selina mockingly "My family's from Bolton and I moved down for University" Neil laughed at her sense of humour.

"No!" Dan stuttered "I meant…"

"We know what you meant, silly sally" said Marie.

"We had to leave the city because supplies were running out and the smell was awful. There were also a lot more people like them back there making it unsafe to stay" she added.

"So, what do you ladies do?" asked Neil politely, as he called a stop to readjust his grip on the makeshift stretcher.

"Selina's a madam in one of Europe's most prestigious brothels and I'm an award winning pole dancer" Marie said, without even a hint of frivolity.

Both men were taken back by this, and both felt instantly foolish when the women started to laugh simultaneously.

Marie sighed "I am – was – a Detective Sergeant in the City's Major Investigation Team" she let that hang and noticed a close scrutiny from Dan.

"He is some kind or architect, but to be honest I switched off whenever he spoke about work" she finished. 'He' was called Paul, and was looking a little green from the concussion.

"Well, I'm a pharmacist… Student." said Selina feeling totally upstaged by Marie who was still locked in a staring match with Dan.

"Shall we give you three a little time alone?" she asked them politely. Dan snapped out of his trance to see that his bloodstained dog stared at her as intently as he had been doing, one lip curled up in a wonky smile.

LOVED OR UNDERSTOOD?

Dan and Neil drove their new additions back in awkward silence. Dan kept stealing glances at Marie in the rea view mirror, which he caught Neil noticing.

They spoke freely of their experiences in the last few months, of how people in the city who had survived the virus, it was a virus in Selina's opinion, had simply died of a lack of basic skills such as the ability to find water when their taps ran dry and the local shop was looted.

Twice before they had encountered hostile groups who wanted to take rather than build. They were the last of five people originally in the group; one died on the bonnet of their minibus and the other had killed himself about two weeks after he found them. Marie said that this was very selfish of him, as they had to clean it up.

The Glock was originally hers, taken on a whim from the holster of a dead colleague before she gave up and left work for the last time, but she was the first to admit that she had never fired one and hadn't a clue how they worked; she had devoted her life to catching the people who used them on others.

Paul was deposited immediately into the care of Kate, who made loud noises about people plaguing her with serious head injuries. Marie and Selina were given the guided tour of the house by Dan. He didn't want to seem eager, but he couldn't bear to part with Marie so soon; there was something intriguing – no, enchanting about her.

He took off his kit in Ops and allowed Leah to clean the M4 and two pistols; his own weapons were dirty through firing, and the Glock through neglect. Leah was keen to show off, and Steve was there to keep an eye on her and make sure nobody was killed by a stray bullet ricocheting around the office by accident. Selina made a comment about child soldiers which went ignored.

He was as thorough as he could have been with the tour, introducing everyone he could remember the name of and offered to show them the farms and garden to extend the time.

"No thanks" said Marie "I'd love a cup of tea and a shower though"

Dan said he couldn't help with the shower, then turned red as his courage abandoned him entirely. Penny gladly took them away from him and explained how the water was heated in the bathrooms for washing. They were taken to 'Primark' as it was dubbed – the clothing store, and allocated a place to sleep.

Lexi returned from the gym where she had been teaching a chilly self-defence class and heard of the new arrivals. She poked her head into medical and shrieked.

"PAUL!" she squealed, running to his bed and landing on him. A barrage of questions followed, none of which he could answer as he was barely conscious still. Kate ejected her from the wing and she excitedly grilled Dan for answers.

"We rescued three from a bunch of local redneck equivalents" he said "I know nothing more about the bloke"

"I do!" she said, almost hyperactively "He's an instructor at my club! He's amazing!" Dan could not say he was put out to hear that she had interest in another man.

"Just wait 'til he's better!" she said "He'll be able to teach everyone better than I can!" and with that she bounced from Ops.

Dan and Steve exchanged looks of surprise. Lexi had a crush on the man, and luckily he was still alive.

At dinner the new arrivals, bar Paul who was in medical with Lexi waiting on him, were greeted by Penny. They were told to relax for the night and tomorrow they would be found a role to play.

For Selina that was purely academic; as someone with pharmaceutical knowledge, Kate had laid a very strong claim to her as a medical assistant.

Marie was a different matter. Dan wanted her close, purely for selfish personal reasons, but she had no interest and no skill with firearms. She had other necessary requirements for the Rangers, but he had to find a way to keep her with his unit where he held sway.

She had not made a big deal of her skills, saying that she probably had very little to offer in a self-effacing manner. Dan thought of expanding the Ops role to justify having both Marie and Leah there.

As they now numbered forty-one, forty-four with Ash and the spaniels, he could not get close enough to Marie after dinner to capitalise her time without looking obvious. He gave up and went outside to smoke.

To his surprise, Marie also came outside and lit a cigarette. She saw him and raised a conspiratorial eyebrow, "Dying breed" she said solemnly "very few of us anti-social smokers left in the world now"

It seemed to be a well-rehearsed 'break the ice' smoking conversation. He didn't know what to say. All of his moody swagger deserted him when she spoke.

"Have you thought of joining the Ops department?" he asked in the absence of anything better to say.

"Can't say, to be honest. Not sure I'd be much use to you gunslingers. I'm more used to pointing your type in the direction of baddies and saying 'fetch'"

Her smile took all the insult out of her words.

"It's not about gunslinging" he reasoned "it's about tactical planning more than anything"

She said nothing, so he pressed his advantage.

"Fancy a drink?" he offered.

"Long day" she replied flatly "I'll probably just get to bed"

Dan accepted this as chivalrously as he could, but reflected that he probably still seemed like a jilted boy as he walked inside, calling Ash after him. He stripped off his coat as he stood in his room, hoping for another glance of the captivating woman who was not in the slightest bit impressed with him. He gave up, and went to bed.


"Revenge is an act you want to commit when you are powerless, and because you are powerless" said Billy magnanimously.

Kyle thought that he couldn't give a single shit for the theory, he just wanted to hurt Dan. Badly.

He had run across country for as long as he could remember, terrified of that dog chasing him down and ripping his flesh like he had heard it did during the hospital fiasco.

He had run for hours with no clear direction or purpose.

As it got dark he had no idea where he was, but he saw light from a fire and he heard voices. He ran towards it, and as he burst through the trees and into their sight, he collapsed with exhaustion.

The group seemed startled to see him emerge into their camp. They looked to Billy, who seemed to be calling every shot.

Now he sat, wrapped warmly and given food and alcohol, he listened.

"Relax, Kyle" said Billy with a smile "You are among friends now"

Kyle was petty and selfish, but he wasn't entirely stupid. He was a little worried about who these men were and what they did to people they found.

"What's brought you to us then?" Said Billy. He was unsure whether to tell the truth at first, but his anger at how he felt he had been mistreated was very raw. Tears stung at his eyes as he realised what he had done, blaming anyone but himself. He told them about the house, about Dan and the Rangers, about how they strutted around with their machine guns whilst others had to work for their food. Billy lapped it all up, making the right noises and pulling sympathetic faces when Kyle's indignation reached its height.

"I think we can help you, Kyle" he said, smiling a dangerous smile.

He would have his revenge on Dan and his smug bastards.