It's a Long Road to Mercy's End
Novel Extract: England is tearing itself apart in a bitter civil war; a young girl and her mother are on the road, seeking haven from the fighting
Foreword To This Extract
THE near future, in the former United Kingdom, is as grim as it can be: England is tearing itself apart in a bitter civil war.
In this passage from Forever Mercy, an as-yet unfinished draft novel, a young girl and her mother are on the road in search of sanctuary, having been driven from their home by the conflict.
This isn't the story in Forever Mercy, I should point out, but it's a start.
No, the story takes place after the war; when England is trying to rebuild under the guidance and protection of a joint UN/EU peacekeeping mission. But even that isn't the tale we're telling, just the setting.
The novel itself dives into the misadventures of Mercy de la Morte, to use her stage name. A streak of urban fantasy, a hint of sci-fi, a shade of noir, a pinch of weird, and hopefully it'll cook up an entertaining story.
Mercy, herself, is a self-styled Goth femme fatale; a tough, wise-cracking nightclub singer and 'gunslinger' assassin who fancies herself as the Reaper's Moll. But she wasn't always this way. Once, she was just an ordinary little girl fleeing the unthinkable.
The following extract harks back to her childhood; an interlude from the main narrative, and a taster, in a way, for the novel to come...
Interlude: “Are We Nearly There Yet?”
MERCY de la Morte doesn't exist; not for a long while yet.
There's just a little girl called Angela Keller; on the road with her mother, heading who knows where...
This little girl had recently turned ten. They'd spent her birthday on the road, unmarked, but she didn't miss the celebration; she missed her dad.
Angie was cold, she was hungry, she was tired. The dawn sun hadn't yet crawled far into the sky, but they'd already been on the go for hours, heading Eastwards somewhere along the M4. Despite everything, she was getting restless, too.
“Are we nearly there yet?”
Mam didn't answer; she was concentrating on the road. Angie tried again, louder.
“No! You asking every five minutes won't get us there any faster, either.”
“I'm bored!”
“Well, get out and help me push, then. No? Didn't think so.”
Angie was sat in an old shopping trolley, perched on the belongings they'd salvaged from the car days ago when it ran out of juice. She had to tilt her head back to see her mother and plead: “Can't we play a game?”
“You're joking. Now?” Mam's tone rose, stinging. “Like what, I Spy? Okay, I spy with my little eye a road full of refugees. I spy no sign of soldiers – but we're a long way from safe, okay?”
Mam's voice cracked. Angie's eyes tingled, wet. She caught one of her mother's falling tears on her cheek. Splash of cold. More imagined than real. The droplet stifled her own. She shivered and pulled her dad's old coat tighter around her shoulders.
Underneath, she wore dirty jeans, odd trainers, a quilted jacket and a bobble hat on her head, but the mornings were still chilly. Later, when the sun was higher and the day older, the heat would rise until she missed the cool dawn.
“I'm sorry, honey.” Her mother's voice was softer now, but her face remained taut; eyes hollow. The scarf she'd wrapped around her head had fallen loose, revealing a mouth that was a slash of fatigue and fear. “I'm just tired, that's all, and there's a way to go yet.”
“S'okay, Mam.” Angie wiped her cheek and settled back.
The trolley was uncomfortable. It shuddered and juddered over the road surface. Most of the hard stuff was at the bottom, buried under bags of clothes and a couple of sleeping bags arranged to make some kind of seat, but plenty still poked her back and bottom.
There was a stash of money down there somewhere, hastily withdrawn from an ATM before the network crashed. Pretty much worthless now, so Mam said. Cigarettes, they were another matter; sought after, easily tradeable. They were 'rich' in tobacco; she'd made sure of that, but it was risky carrying so much.
“So,” Mam had told her, “don't you be taking a sneaky smoke, my girl!”
As if she would. Angie didn't like the stink of the stuff.
Buried in their belongings was a folder holding their paperwork, too: birth certificates, health insurance documents, passports, mementoes like a few photographs; some of her dad. Most of the memories were locked away on Mam's phone, though; dead until they found somewhere to charge it.
They were all the things that proved they were real people; not vagabonds, Mam said.
Angie didn't get it, why did they need stuff to prove they were real people? She reached down to rummage until she found the softness she sought. Mr Snuggles didn't need bits of paper to prove he was her friend.
She pulled the stuffed unicorn free of its folds in the sleeping bag and brushed dirt from its body. The white fabric was greying, like the world, but the multi-coloured stripes of its horn and tail remained vivid.
“It's all right, Mr Snuggles, we'll be there soon. Mam said so.”
The unicorn didn't reply; truth was, the toy had become a poor conversationalist of late. Angie didn't really blame it.
“It's true, we can rest soon.”
A cackle from her mam. “Rest, yeah, I could do with a rest, and a shower – Oh, God, I really need a shower – and your dad to...”
Mam's words broke off, becoming an intangible mutter that ended in a single hiccuped sob; she missed Dad too. Angie knew that, but they never talked about the absence.
HE'D gone out one day, weeks ago, to see if he could “scrounge” some supplies from somewhere, but that was the day airstrikes first hit the city and brought the civil war home. He never came back. Maybe he was dead; maybe he'd run away. Angie didn't know which possibility was worse.
A fortnight later, English Army forces had penetrated deep inside the city where they battled anti-junta resistance in fierce street fighting. Gunships buzzed the sky and the city centre in the distance was a pall of black smoke. Angie wondered how safe was their quiet little suburb, but Mam's reassurances sounded forced.
When the power went out – cutting off the scary stream of television news – that was it. Mam bustled her daughter out of the apartment and into the car. They joined the frantic, terrifying exodus out of Bristol.
“What about Dad?”
“I've left him a note, honey.” Her mother was lying; she knew. “He'll find us and join us when he can, but we can't stay.”
“Where are we going?”
“I don't know. I'll figure it out. Your Granddad's maybe...”
ANGIE held the unicorn close to her chest, cradled in her arms like a pet rabbit.
She pulled the coat up to her chin, covering them both. Warmth began to blossom in her chest, beneath where the soft toy rested. Welcome, sure, but it only emphasised the cold on her cheeks.
Eventually, she asked: “Where are we going, anyway?”
“Service station.” Mam huffed and puffed, leaning into the trolley. “Not far now; a couple of kilometres, maybe. We can rest, get something to eat.”
“See, Mr Snuggles, I told you.” Louder, for her mam, she added: “Will it be warm?”
“Hope so. Now hush. Let me focus; this trolley's got a mind of its own.”
Angie took the hint, content to comfort Mr Snuggles. She watched the road; she'd seen it all before, but it occupied her attention.
MOST of the abandoned cars had been smashed to the side of the lanes, tossed out of the way by something heavier and larger passing through.
Only a few burned-out vehicles hindered their pedestrian path. She hadn't seen any bodies, yet. Not on this stretch.
The motorway was busy all the same. People trudged along in ones and twos and huddled groups, silent. They moved like a single collected sigh. Their feet kicked through broken glass and metal fragments. There were hundreds of them, spread out along the motorway ahead and back.
Some of them had shopping trolleys, too; jammed with belongings and kids. Most carried their burdens in rucksacks and suitcases, or carried little but a shopping bag or two. They were a forlorn sight, but who was Angie to judge?
Beyond the motorway, to the South, movement caught Angie's eye. A frisson of alarm; she clutched Mr Snuggles tighter, but it was only a tractor in the middle distance. Some farmer tending his field, that's all, as if none of this was happening.
She watched the vehicle, a small beetle crawling across the photo-still landscape, its driver oblivious to the foot-slogging hardships of urban evacuees. Angie wouldn't put it in such terms, herself; she was just a child. She simply remembered past car journeys, day dreaming out the window, past and present flitting by in a countryside collage.
Reality soon intervened. A few minutes up the road, they came across the remains of a military convoy. Mam grunted as she shunted the trolley wide of the mangled vehicles, giving them a wide berth. Glass fragments and brass cartridge cases cracked and tinkled under her feet. The road surface itself was torn up and cratered.
Huge trailers carried the remains of tanks and artillery pieces; massive trucks with tattered strips of canvas; armoured cars and landrovers, all of them spread out in a long line. As far as Angie could see, they were all broken and burned-out.
Eddies of smoke still whispered from some of the smashed hulks. The stink of burnt rubber and soot tickled Angie's nose; a chemical tang in the air stung her throat. Angie sneezed. Once, twice; she wiped a sleeve across her mouth. There was a hint of over-cooked meat.
Some of the gutted ruins still had red, white and blue flags painted on their sides. Relic of a fallen kingdom. Even Angie knew that, but whose side was the loser here? Army vehicles all looked the same to her, no matter for what side they fought. They were bad news, that's all.
ANGIE may have been a kid, but that didn't stop her picking things up from the adults around her; even if she barely understood the half of it.
The names made her head hurt; so many of them were such a mouthful. The talk of Exiled Parliaments, the Northern Regions Coalition, and too many insurgent factions to take in.
Then there was Air Vice Marshall Sir James Carmichael, acting Prime Minister, chair of the Combined Military Emergency National Security Committee, or the 'junta' as it was more simply known.
A man whose political failings were blamed for igniting the conflict, she'd heard (in hushed whispers); he in turn railed against “Celtic absconders”, “intransigent Northerners”, “parliamentary interlopers”, and “radical insurgents exploiting England's rough times for ill-gotten gain”.
That didn't stop him turning to some aye-dee-logik-cally dubious paramilitary factions for support to bolster his depleted and fractured armed forces, or making deals with ambitious aristocrats and businessmen (crooks, Mam said) with their shiny new private armies.
England was paying the price, for one or the other; it depended on who you listened to. There were plenty of bickering voices that paid little heed to the questing ears of the children in their midst.
She was too young for this shit; Angie knew that. She ought to be in school, with her friends; wherever they were now. But with all that was going on, at least she could revel in forbidden words (quietly) without a telling off for her emerging potty mouth.
ANGIE sighed and stared at the vehicles, morbidly looking for dead soldiers; she didn't know if they were supposed to “our boys” or the “bad guys”, so she didn't know if she was supposed to care.
“Whose side were they on, Mam?”
“I don't know, honey, does it matter?” She sounded worn out, speaking more for the sake of filling the sombre silence. “The English Defence Force or Carmichael's English Army, most of their stuff is still decked out in old British Army colours. This might be some rogue general's ambition that's gone up in smoke, for all I know.”
She added something under her breath, probably a curse.
“They're all as bad as each other, I'll tell you that: old politicians clinging to the past, frustrated soldiers desperate to matter, wannabe warlords carving out their little slice of turf; all of 'em squabbling over the scraps... Fuck the lot of 'em.”
Angie mock-gasped at the bad word. “You said f–”
“Just because I said that word doesn't mean you can, got it?”
“Okay.” What Mam didn't hear wouldn't earn a telling off. “That goes for you, too, Mr Snuggles.”
THE end of the convoy was coming up; they were almost clear of the charnal sculpture, but the road ahead was was still littered with the relics of civilian traffic.
Figures moved like ghosts between the cars and lorries. Angie watched the apparitions until the sun's glare brought the tears to her eyes. A voice caught her attention; she turned her gaze back to the shattered formation, blinking back some focus.
Some know-it-all – a podgy old-looking guy with a ruddy face – regarded the last few vehicles with a satisfied air; two bullet-riddled landrovers and a ruptured troop carrier. He gestured to the metal carcasses then pointed skywards before bringing his fist down in a sweeping motion and spreading his fingers. Whoosh! Boom!
“Gunship, I reckon, maybe more than one,” he told his audience, voice carrying. “Yeah, might have been a drone strike. Swooped in and caught these tossers cock-handed. Lit 'em up one by one. Showed 'em who's boss, that's for fukin sure.”
The man's face beamed out from beneath the hood of his mud-spattered kagoul, wide grin showing through his straggly beard. The two middle-aged women he was with didn't seem all that impressed.
Both were burdened by heavy looking bags and rucksacks; they weren't quite looking at the man, or the convoy; silent, stooping, their eyes grazed little more than the road ahead. The man was oblivious, enjoying his moment. Angie wondered why he couldn't carry his own damn bags.
“Carmichael's boys kicked 'em up their fukin arse,” he added. “Serves 'em right. Traitors! We wouldn't be in this mess if they hadn't broke ranks and backed those parliament arsewipes!”
“Just what we need,” Mam muttered as they drew level with the trio, leaning down to whisper in Angie's ear. “Another mansplaining willywobbler.”
Angie giggled at the funny word and watched the man. He did look like a willywobbly, whatever that was. “He's silly.”
“That he is, honey. No, don't look. He might see; we can do without the hassle.”
Too late, the man noticed. “Don't you worry, little girl. Carmichael's boys showed 'em. We'll be right once he's brought back order. Things'll be better then. We can go home. You'll see, little girl! You'll see!”
One of the women sparked back to life: she slapped the man on his arm. “Leave her alone, Derek, you'll scare the poor mite.”
He looked more angry than chastened; face glowing ruddier, teeth flashing through that filthy face hair, but whatever angry retort he had was lost in the roar of jet engines.
Everyone hunched and froze, staring skywards; ready to bolt. Angie gripped the sides of the trolley. She quailed: “Mummy!”
Two fighter planes shrieked low overhead. Both so near, Angie saw the old RAF roundels peering through their poorly painted replacements. She didn't recognise the crude symbols. Impossible to say which faction they fought for now, as if it mattered.
The aircraft soared West, following the line of the motorway. Seconds later, they veered to the North and disappeared into the horizon. The rumble of their engines faded. Angie counted the beats of her thudding heart; they weren't coming back. She breathed.
Shouts from the crowd, audible now. Shuddering sobs. The scrape of moving feet. Mam speaking. “Come on, honey, we need to move; get out and help me push.”
Without saying a word, still staring at the Westward sky, Angie clambered out of the trolley. It was going to be a very long road that led to Mercy...
MC
Copyright© August 2022
This extract was originally published on Mark Catrell’s KoFi page, October 2022.
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