Chapter 6
Chapter six
Hallie couldn’t hear anything beyond her harsh breathing and the roar of the quiet and still air all around her.
The silence seemed to drag on, weighing more heavily on her with each passing moment.
She wasn’t sure what she disliked most. The waiting, or waiting while someone she cared about had walked into potential danger.
It was so much easier when she worked alone, and just had herself to worry about.
She only realised she had been holding her breath when Girard reappeared in the gap in the wall and raised his hand, beckoning her forward.
She sucked in air, heart slowing a fraction.
He was unharmed. She put the gun away and rose to her feet.
Despite his signal, and the emptiness around her, her skin prickled with unease as she crossed the open space to the ramp across the ditch.
As she reached the edge of the ditch the smell of burning grew stronger and she looked down, seeing what had caught Girard’s attention.
The bottom of the ditch was thick with black, heavy ash that looked almost oily in the daylight, and also full of small bones.
Too small to be from people, which was something of a relief after the discovery of the body in the woods.
“That’s disturbing,” Hallie commented, pausing before she set foot on the ramp.
“Yes. It looks like the residents burned small animals in the ditch. It stretches out to either side.”
Hallie shivered, gaze following the line of the ditch to one side and then the other, seeing that Girard was right.
Almost against her will, she crouched down by the edge of the ditch to get a better look at the remains.
“Some kind of small creature. A bit bigger than a rat, I’d say. Any idea what they could be?”
“There are a few options,” Girard said, and something in his voice made her look up, unease tightening her stomach at his grim expression.
“I’m guessing, from the sheer amount of skeletons, that this was a swarm of some kind.
Off-hand there are only a few creatures that do that kind of thing, and they are all dangerous. ”
“Huh,” Hallie said, straightening to her feet. “So the ditch and wall could be there to stop wildlife after all.”
“Perhaps,” Girard said. “I don’t want to rule anything out right now.”
“That’s fair,” Hallie agreed. She took a last look at the grisly contents at the bottom of the ditch before she crossed the ramp and between the gap in the walls.
Just inside the wall she spotted a gate - a single panel of tree trunks lashed together with rope.
The rope seemed to have been made of knotted and woven grass, rather than the machine-made ropes she was used to seeing.
The gate had been fully opened, resting against the inside of the wall.
On the other side of the gap, there was what looked like a winch mechanism made of wood and more of the heavy rope.
Hallie traced the line of the rope from the winch and lifted her brows. “The ramp can be raised?”
“It seems so,” Girard agreed.
“But it’s been left down, and the gate open,” Hallie said, talking mostly to herself.
She frowned as she took a closer look at the gate, noticing that the rope that was holding the gate onto the wall was badly frayed, almost as if something had been chewing on it.
Despite the heavy wood, it wouldn’t take much to cut through the rope and topple the gate.
Before she could turn her attention to the rest of the settlement, something next to the wall caught her attention. “And what’s that?”
There was what looked like a makeshift step, formed of a couple of wooden crates, with a metal cannister next to it and a long stick with fabric wrapped around one end resting against the inside of the wall.
“I think it’s what they used to set fire to the ditch,” Girard said.
Moving closer, Hallie caught the strong scent of fuel from the metal container and looked from that to the long stick, then noticed that there was a simple plastic lighter on top of the nearest crate, easily to hand for someone wanting to set fire to the fabric wrapped around the end of the stick.
She nudged the nearest crate with her foot, testing how strong it was.
Satisfied that the crate would hold her weight, she got up onto it.
The extra height allowed her to look over the wooden wall and although she couldn’t see into the ditch, she knew it was just outside the fence.
“Yes. You’d be able to reach over the wall and throw the stick into the ditch from here,” she said.
“And they were ready for the next time they needed it,” Girard added, holding out a hand as she prepared to step down from the crate.
She didn’t really need the support, but she was happy to have an excuse to put her hand in his, welcoming the familiar warmth of his touch and the brief moment of connection.
He squeezed her hand gently before he let her go.
She turned back to the set-up of the crates, can and stick. “So, they’ve needed this often enough to have it ready. And near enough to the entrance so that one person could close the gates, pull up the ramp then light up the stick and toss it into the ditch.”
“I’m guessing that the settlers probably added some kind of fuel or kindling to the bottom of the ditch, too,” Girard said. “This seems quite well thought-out.”
“The burned remains in the ditch look a few days old, at least,” Hallie commented.
“So, either the settlers haven’t needed it since then …” Girard said.
“Or no one has been here to use it,” Hallie finished.
“I like my option better, but I suspect yours is the right answer,” Girard said, turning to look around the settlement. Hallie turned with him, getting her first good look at what lay inside the wooden walls.
There were a half dozen small buildings scattered here and there, the ones with the basic thatched roofs she’d spotted from outside the fence.
The building walls were formed of what looked like woven branches and not one of the structures looked weatherproof.
In fact, Hallie thought a harsh storm might blow them over.
The almost temporary nature of the small buildings was in sharp contrast to the pair of buildings at the centre of the settlement which were solidly built.
Each was slightly raised from the ground on what looked like a concrete base, with brick walls and a tiled roof.
One was low and long, the other was the taller building with the metal structure on the roof that she’d spotted from outside the wall.
The ground between the buildings was bare, packed earth, like the path that had led them here.
It was slightly damp, showing the trace of footsteps here and there.
With a few downpours of rain, though, Hallie suspected that the earth would quickly turn to mud.
But it seemed that whoever had lived here had had other priorities than making the ground fit for winter.
Just behind the long, low brick building Hallie could see what looked like a workshop area.
There was an open-fronted basic shed with a long, sturdy work table inside it sitting next to what looked like a large kiln.
She’d seen pottery kilns in low city and wondered if that was where the settlers had fired the bricks used in the buildings.
There was also a squat, metal cylinder set off the ground on a wooden frame.
Some kind of water tank, she thought, perhaps catching rainwater for the settlers’ use.
She’d seen similar arrangements in low city in some of the larger gardens where the households used the rainwater for their vegetable plots.
Despite the buildings and the shadows of footprints in the ground, which were clear evidence of a population, there was not one person in sight, and no movement that might suggest that there were people around, not even a door flapping in the breeze.
The silence and the stillness made Hallie’s fingers twitch towards the gun at her hip.
There was nothing to shoot at, though. Just a lot of empty-looking buildings.
She might have believed the place abandoned entirely if it hadn’t been for the gleaming length of metal sticking up into the sky.
That looked far too new and too modern for an abandoned settlement.
“Radio station?” Hallie asked, pointing to the taller brick building with the metal structure.
“I think so,” Girard agreed. “Let’s try there first. I don’t like this silence. Stay alert.”
Hallie just nodded and put her hand on the hilt of her gun, not wanting to carry it in her hands, and walked beside Girard as they headed for the largest building.
When they reached it, it had the same feel as the rest of the place.
Empty and abandoned. It wasn’t like the abandoned buildings in low city, though.
This building was in good repair, with the brickwork intact, the roof line straight, and the double doors at the end of the building having all their hinges, metal handles showing no sign of rust. With the hairs lifting on the nape of her neck, Hallie put her hand on the door nearest to her and pulled, then pushed gently, testing the weight.
To her surprise, it opened easily, swinging inwards to reveal a dark interior.
With a sideways look at Girard, she stepped inside, with him just behind her.
The first impression of the inside of the building was stale. The air was flat and dead against her face and in her nose and mouth and smelled strongly of old sweat and mouldy food.