The Devil in green

'Shouldn't be long till dawn,' Mallory said as they ran, head down against the deluge. 'They'll leave us alone at first light.'

The rider was finding it hard to keep up with his twisted ankle. 'How do you know?'

'I don't.'

'Are you sure we'll find somewhere to hide out up there?'

'No, but we haven't got much choice, have we? Unless you want to stand and fight?'

The rider didn't answer.

They came to the wooden bridge barred by a gate with signs warning of the dangers of crumbling ancient monuments. Mallory laughed, then hauled himself over, yanking the rider behind him.

The whistling assailed them as they ran through the broken remains of the gatehouse; the wild shapes were already loping along the road past the car park. Lightning revealed the bleak interior of the inner bailey: a flimsy wooden ticket office and shop to their right, and then a wide expanse of sodden grass and ruins that were barely more than four feet high in most places.

'Shit, fuck and bastard,' Mallory said.

The rider whimpered. 'What do we do now?'

'Firstly, you stop getting on my nerves by whining. Secondly…' Mallory scanned the site as best he could in the storm, then with a resigned sigh broke into a run. The rider jumped and followed, looking over his shoulder so much that he slipped and fell several times.

Mallory picked out the shattered block of the keep on the far side of the inner bailey. It was useless for any kind of serious defence, but it was the best place to make a stand until the shotgun shells ran out. They found an area protected on three sides by the only remaining high walls on the site, which also served to shelter them from the worst of the storm.

'We're going to die,' the rider moaned.

'Yep.' Mallory began to count out the remaining cartridges; there weren't as many as he had thought.

'You don't seem bothered!'

Through an iron grille, Mallory could just make out frantic activity near the gateway. He positioned the shotgun to pick off one or two as they advanced across the open space, then waited. After five minutes it was clear the things weren't coming in.

'They've stayed at the gate.' Even as Mallory spoke, the wind picked up the insistent whistling, now moving around the ramparts as if searching for access. It became increasingly sharp, frustrated. Mallory sank back down into the lee of the wall.

'Why aren't they coming in?' The rider looked at Mallory accusingly, as if he were lying.

'I don't know,' Mallory snapped. 'Maybe they don't like the decor.'

It was so dark in their defensive position that they could only see the pale glow of their faces and hands. Above and around them, the wind howled mercilessly, drowning out their ragged breathing but not the whistling, which, though muted, still set their teeth on edge.

After a while, they'd calmed down enough to entertain conversation.

'I'm Jez Miller.' The rider appeared keen for some kind of connection, comfort, someone to tell him things weren't as bad as he feared, though he realised instinctively he was talking to the wrong person.

'Mallory.'

'It's lucky you came along when you did.'

'That's one way of looking at it.' Mallory examined Miller surreptitiously. Though in his mid-twenties, he had the face of a man twenty years older, lined through screwing up his features in despair, hollow-cheeked from lack of sustenance, made worse by scruffy shoulder-length hair already turning grey.

'Where did you get the car?' Miller asked, plucking at his sodden trousers.

'Stole it. In Marlborough.'

Miller thought for a second until the realisation hit him. 'You drove across Salisbury Plain!' An uninterested silence hung in the dark. 'You don't see many cars these days. Everyone's trying to save petrol, for emergencies.'

'It was an emergency. I had to get out of Marlborough. Dull as ditchwater, that place.'

Miller couldn't read Mallory at all and that plainly made him uncomfortable. 'So you were going to Salisbury?'

'I heard they were hiring down at the cathedral. At least, that's the word going around. Thought I'd take a look.'

Miller started in surprise. 'Me too!' Excitedly, he scrabbled around to face Mallory. 'You're going to be a knight?'

'If the pay's right. These days food, drink and shelter would probably swing it.'

'I couldn't believe it when I heard! I thought the Church had gone the same way as everything else. You know, with all that's been happening…' He struggled for a second. 'With the gods… what they call gods… all that happening every day… all the time… people said there wasn't any need for a Church. Why should you believe in a God who never shows up when all that's going on around you? That's what they said.'

'You a Christian, then?'

'I wasn't particularly. I mean, I was christened, but I never went to church. I'm a Christian now. God's the only one who can save us.' Miller slipped his fingers around the crucifix he'd picked up from the broken window of the jeweller's.

'Well, it's not as if we can save ourselves.'

Miller wrinkled his brow at the odd tone in Mallory's voice. 'You don't believe.'

'I don't believe in anything.'

'How can you say that?'

Mallory gave a low laugh. 'Everyone else is doing a good job believing. You said it yourself — miracles all over the place. I'm the only unbeliever in a born-again world.' He laughed louder, amused at the concept.

'But how can you work for the Church… how can you be a knight?'

'They're paying men to do a job — to protect their clerics. The new Knights Templar. That sounds like a good deal. A bit of strong-arm stuff here and there, nothing too taxing. These days, it's all scratching in the fields to feed the masses, or making things, or sewing — all the rubbish people think's necessary to get us back on our feet. If I had a list of ways to spend my remaining days, planting potatoes would not be on it.'

'They won't have you.'

'I'm betting they will. They'll have anybody they can get, these days.'

'That's cynical.'

Mallory grunted. 'We'll see.'

Miller scratched on the floor, listening to the rise and fall of the whistling as it moved around the ramparts. 'What are they?' he asked eventually.

'No idea.'

'Where did all these things come from?'

'No idea.'

'One of my mates saw a dragon.' When Mallory didn't respond, Miller pressed on, 'Why are we being made to suffer like this?'

'You say made as if there's some intelligence behind it. The sooner you accept there isn't, the easier your life will be. Things happen, you deal with them and move on to the next. That's the way it goes. You're not being victimised. You don't have to lead some deviantly perfect lifestyle just to get a reward in some next life. You make the most of what you've got here. It's about survival.'

'If that's all there is, what's the point?'

Mallory's laugh suggested that the answer was ridiculously obvious.

Miller became depressed by Mallory's attitude. Everything about Miller said he wanted to be uplifted, to be told there was some meaning to all the suffering everyone was going through. 'Is Marlborough your home?'

'No.' Mallory considered leaving it there, but then took pity on Miller. 'London. I wasn't born there, but that's where I spent most of my life.'

'Is it true the whole place has been destroyed? That's what people say.'

'I got out before the shit hit the fan. Went north. Birmingham for a while.' His voice trailed away.

'No family?' Mallory's silence told Miller this was a question too far. 'I'm from Swindon,' Miller continued, to fill the gap. 'My mum and dad are still there, and my sister. I suppose I could have stuck it out, too. Life isn't so bad. People are pulling together, setting up systems. They've just about got the food distribution sorted out. I reckon they should get through this winter OK.' He paused as the harsh memories returned. 'Not like last winter.'