Tamsin Beech Ch. 06: Ayr

Finally, they had a lead.

They'd heard the gunfire from up ahead the second they'd been dropped off. But by the time they'd reached the site of the skirmish outside Ayr's crumbling Odeon cinema and neutralised the remaining Reivers there, the quarry was long gone. Just a battered fishing boat to be seen, steaming out to sea in the distance.

"All of them?" Kim Napp Gylan toed the corpse at his feet, "except for this one."

Major Cho nodded, "Every one, sir. But we spotted a blood trail heading north ..."

Kim Napp Gylan nodded, "Towards the harbour."

One body. Unlike the others with their filed teeth, piercings and tattoos, their armour made from tyres and weapons from old farming machinery, this one wore the remnants of an MTP military uniform and carried an empty rucksack like a scavenger. He'd been shot by a large calibre weapon in both legs - possibly the Humvee's gun? But it had undoubtedly been the bullet to the head that had killed him. Precise. A mercy killing perhaps?

"If only the dead could speak," Kim Napp Gylan crouched beside the body, looking into the dead man's staring eyes, "was it your friends on the boat we saw? Where would they be going?"

A commotion from the cinema drew their attention. The major immediately stepped protectively in front of his superior, weapon raised. But Kim Napp Gylan shouldered past him, "What's going on?"

The youngest member of the squad stumbled out of the cinema's ruined foyer and vomited violently in the gutter. The others raised their weapons and gaped in horror as around two dozen pale and emaciated figures crawled and limped, shambling out into the light after him, blinking as they shielded their eyes. Both men and women, some lacking arms, others - legs. All were dressed in rags, the stumps of their limbs inexpertly sewn with crude stitches.

"Looks like we've found a Reiver larder," Kim Napp Gylan allowed himself a half smile. He stepped forward and grabbed a filthy, bearded man roughly by his single arm, "what happened here?"

The man trembled, staring up at him with wide, bloodshot eyes, "P-people came. A w-woman. Reivers sh-shot at them."

"Which people? Soldiers?"

"B-brave," muttered the man.

After weeks or months or however long locked up waiting to be eaten a piece at a time by Reivers, the man was clearly delirious from pain and malnutrition, Kim Napp Gylan assumed, "Brave? What do you mean, brave?"

The man pointed back in the direction of the cinema.

"Fuck this. CHO! See if you can get any more sense out of him."

"Shall we feed and water them sir?" Major Cho called.

"What the fuck for? They'll be dead soon," Kim Napp Gylan let the man fall to the ground and stormed towards the cinema, wiping his hands on his uniform trousers.

The cinema's outer doors had long since disintegrated and the few remaining pieces of timber hung sadly from frames grown soft with rot. Kim Napp Gylan drew his Type 70 pistol as he entered, holding a hand over his face against the stench of decay and swarms of flies. Framed posters still hung around the wide foyer, sheltered inside from the worst of the weather. Ancient capitalist movies that had undoubtedly carried subliminal propaganda messages at the time - 'Back To The Future,' 'Mad Max: Fury Road' and 'Brave'.

He stopped in front of the poster for Disney's Scottish animation. A bow wielding heroine with blue green eyes and tumbling locks of flame red hair. Brave. It was a cartoon obviously but he could see the resemblance immediately. Almost like a caricature of a real person.

Almost like one of the framed photos on President Vladimir Zakhvatchikov's office desk ...

Kim Napp Gylan walked slowly back outside and thoughtfully gazed in the direction of Ayr's harbour, the sunset reflecting like glowing embers in his dark eyes, "She's still alive ..."

COMING SOON ... CHAPTER SEVEN: KERRERA