The next morning they were up and ready to go before it was light. Even though there had been no sign of vamp activity during the night they agreed that it would be better to wait until after sunrise.
Ben was hungry. His body ached and he wanted nothing more than a comfortable bed and a cuddle with Mary. But he was aware that they were still at the beginning of their journey and they were off to a bad start. What had started as a two week round trip had become something much longer. They would be lucky if they made it back inside of a month and, when they got back, there was nothing to guarantee they would be welcome.
They passed through the rest of the village in silence. The early morning sun did not improve its appearance but Daniel didn’t seem to mind. He walked ahead of them with a wistful look in his eye and Ben began to suspect that he knew why he had been crying.
He led them through the heart of the village, a market place now overgrown, wooden stalls rotted beneath the weeds and made it look like land choral. Bees and other insect buzzed around, darting from flower to flower. It looked as if the bee population was another that had improved without human interference.
The village sloped gently down hill and Daniel appeared to be in no rush. Aaron sighed from time to time but was, on the whole, patient. It took until lunch time for them to reach the river. There were boats there but most of them had been destroyed, either due to lack of maintenance or sabotage. There was one, shining example, however that stood alone in the middle of the river.
It was bigger than even the hulk had been. A fresh coat of white paint had been applied to the hull and in shined brightly in the mid-day sun. It was beautiful. Certainly better than the long boat they had been in that was destroyed. Had this always been the plan, he wondered.
They followed the path down to the river and then he could see that there were people on the boat already. Three men of a similar age to him, checking ropes and cables. Daniel and Aaron approached the vessel while Ben stayed back with Anthony and Kris. He was impressed but confused.
There were rumoured to be other communities in the area but, as far as he was aware, that was all they were; rumours. He had seen no sign of them in any of his wanderings. Yet here were three men he had never met aboard a boat that he was sure he would have remembered and Daniel and Aaron seemed to know them.
They waved at each other and Daniel accepted a hand up and onto the ship. He stood on the roof and spoke to the man who had helped him over while the other two men carried on about their work. While this was going on Aaron wandered back up the hill to them.
“We should make good progress in this,” he said.
Ben nodded but kept his eyes on Daniel and the men.
A few minutes later Daniel turned and waved them aboard. Aaron led with Ben bringing up the rear. They had to help Anthony up, his shoulder was too weak to support him, and Kris showed little interest in the fact they were boarding another boat. Introductions were made; the captain was a little man called Joel Thresher, the two boys were his sons Martin and Alexander. Mrs Thresher was a portly woman called Samantha who wouldn’t let anyone else near her kitchen, not even to make tea.
The boat was called The Robinson Crusoe and, as they settled in, Joel explained how they had spent the last twenty years travelling up and down the river. They knew all about Sanctuary, of course, but had no interest in settling anywhere at the moment.
An hour after boarding they were washed and dressed in clean clothes. Martin and Alexander untied the ropes and the engine thrummed into life. They were off again and this time, Ben thought, infinitely more prepared.
The Threshers knew all about the dam. They had, in fact, discovered it independently of Aaron and Anthony as it blocked the course they had taken in previous years without trouble.
They hadn’t known, or assumed, it was the work of vamps, however. It seemed most likely to be down to the village down river. Although why they would want to dry out their stretch of the river was a mystery but Joel had been determined to find out and took his family to do so.
As luck had it Aaron and Anthony had been on their way to the dam to show it to Daniel and the two groups met mid-way between the two points. Initial caution soon gave way to friendly conversation and eventually, as they worked out who must have built it.
The Threshers had been moored in the little village for more than six months which was longer than any of them cared to be tied to a single location. So they were happy to be on their way again. Ben, for his part was cautiously optimistic that they would be little more than two weeks aboard the smart boat.
Mrs Thresher cleaned and treated their wounds and forbade them from taking shifts at the tiller for at least three days. Under her watchful eye Ben had little to do during the long days except sleep and walk up and down the boat. In fact for the rest of the first day all he did was sit, drinking strong tea and watching his shattered ankle swell to twice its normal size.
On the second day he managed to sneak away from Mrs Thresher and go up on deck where he found Aaron and Joel talking at the tiller. He had something on his mind that he wanted to ask them about.
“Have you got a minute,” he said as he walked towards them.
Joel turned towards him and then back to Aaron. “I need to check on the boys,” he said and then shuffled away with the careless movements of someone who has spent most of their life on a boat.
Ben smiled at him as he passed and then hobbled over to Aaron.
“What’s on your mind?” he said.
He had been thinking about it for the last twenty-four hours but out in the fresh air with the countryside rushing past he couldn’t work out how to begin. So he said something else entirely. “What’s Dan’s story?”
“How do you mean?”
Ben shrugged. “I saw him crying in the church.”
Aaron nodded and rubbed a hand over the brown and grey stubble growing on his chin. “He used to live in the village. He was the vicar.”
Ben thought about the way Daniel had handled a gun, about how comfortable he had been killing people.
“Don’t look so surprised,” said Aaron. “None of us are who we used to be.”
He supposed that was right. It was just different for him; he hadn’t had a life before so he had nothing to compare himself to. For the first time he wondered what he would have become if the world hadn’t ended. What would he be doing now if he didn’t have to help save the village from vamps?
“We’re not just getting weapons to fight the vamps, are we?” he said.
Aaron studied him and shook his head.
“When were you going to tell me?”
“When I trusted you enough.”
It seemed strange that he had been taken this far if he wasn’t trusted. “You don’t trust me?”
Aaron shrugged. “The General’s your brother in-law. You still trust him?”
Ben considered his answer carefully. He had trusted Nicholas, never particularly liked him, admittedly, but he’d always thought he had the best interest of Sanctuary at heart. But he hadn’t wanted to do anything about the dam and he’d probably tried to kill them for doing it anyway. He shook his head, “not anymore.”
Aaron smiled, apparently it was the right answer. “You don’t know the half of what he’s done,” he said cryptically.
“Like what?” he said.
“You know he rigged the election?”
“How could he?”
Aaron shrugged. “His people counted the votes didn’t they?”
Honestly Ben had no idea. He wasn’t the least bit interested in politics. He hadn’t even voted. “So you’re going to overthrow him?