The Grounders Part 3

An hour and half later Beth pulled onto a one-track lane and bumped up the road to the farm.

“Here we are” she said as she can to a stop.

They got out of the car and looked around. There was a farm house in front of them surrounded by fields and a barn across the single-track road. But behind the house was a big glass building.

“What’s that?” Dora asked.

“It’s a massive greenhouse, isn’t it?” Elodie said.

“Right you are, we need it to grown some of the produce in the right environment” Beth told them.

“I thought greenhouses were small and went in the back garden” Marisol replied.

“Not this one” Max said “we need to grow loads in it and a small one just won’t do” he smiled at Marisol who smiled back.

“Let’s get you lot out of those clothes” Beth said leading them towards the front door.

 

Effie readied herself along with her search team, her second in command Cleo Questson and Dr. Halson Bradford. Hal Bradford an expert in the surface world packed his bag with all his gadgets that would help him navigate the barren world above. He picked up a gun and accidentally dropped it setting it off, the bullet narrowly missing Cleo.

“Dr. Bradford the safety needs to be on” Effie told him “That way if you do drop it, it won’t set off and almost kill someone” she picked it up put on the safety and handed it back to him.

“Y…y…y yes, sorry” he gently took it and put it in his holster. 

“Are you sure he should be coming with us” Cleo whispered as Effie approached her.

“He’s the only expert we have, we have no idea what it’s like up there we need someone who knows about the surface world.”

“But what if he is wrong.”

“Then we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.” Effie stepped forwards to address her team.

“You know who we are looking for, Ezra and four female companions. We are treating this as a kidnapping but we are to find out what really happened and why they left.”

Everyone nodded.

    They filed through the metal hallways towards the same doors to the outside world. When they reached the door, they stopped.

“Masks on” Effie shouted. They put their masks on and gripped their guns, all except Dr Bradford who only had his little hand gun. Effie typed in her authorisation code to open to the doors. They started to open, the same alarm going off, but only briefly this time. Callahan watching from the security room with Benson turned it off. Through an earpiece he spoke to Effie.

“Remember keep me posted Effie and good luck.”

“Thank you General” Effie replied.

Through the screen Callahan watched as Effie, Cleo, Dr Bradford and the rest of the team walked through the opened door and up the stairs. Once out of sight the door closed. Callahan sighed.

 

In one of Beth’s spare rooms, Elodie and her friends were going through the clothes Beth had shown them, jumpers, t shirts, jeans, dungarees, work trousers, even some dresses.

“How do you have so many clothes?” Dora asked.

“Thrift shops and charity shops. Clothes are mega expensive to buy brand new and thrift and charity shops very rarely have anything good so when you see it you buy it whether you need it or not, same with food especially meat. I’ll let you all get changed, Max is making some lunch.”

   Max had made sandwiches with homemade bread, ham salad and tuna mayonnaise. He offered Marisol the biggest sandwich who graciously accepted. Ezra and Elodie gave each other a little smiled.

“So, what happened after the asteroid strike?” Ezra asked after they had finished eating “well what have you learned of it” he amended.

Beth and Max looked at each other.

“Well, most of the world’s population died” Beth started “the asteroids came crashing down, they destroyed near enough everything. People screamed, they had to watch as people they loved were killed, some families were wiped out completely” Beth continued “after, the world spent years struggling to survive, people died from illness and starvation, gangs where formed, some of them brutal. One gang even stared to eat people. It took nearly 100 years before someone actually took matters into his own hands and began building civilisation again. Brandon Longford. He became president of the UK.”

“President! What happened to the royal family? They never entered the underground world, refusing to leave their country to die” Ezra pipped up.

“History says they were killed in the strike. Buckingham Palace was destroyed, along with Sandringham and Balmoral. Windsor survived but was badly damaged. It’s where President Longford formed his government”

“It was a bit like that old tv show The Walling Dead for a bit, just without the zombies” Max said.

“Anyway, over the last two hundred years society has slowly been rebuilding its self, still is. There are still gangs about that are horrible, you need to be careful, I’ve not seen any of them this end of the country for a while but they do tend to show up unexpectedly and caused as much disruption as they possible can and sometimes, well more times than not death” Beth finished telling them.

“There are people going around killing other people” Elodie whispered.

“Yes, there are, they all seem to think that they are exempt from the law but there have been those that have been caught and executed.” 

“Wait the death penalty is back?” Ezra asked.

“Yes, it is, there was a vote on it and nearly everyone said yes.” Max replied “it’s only used in extreme circumstances though” he added.

“Still want to like here grounders?” Beth asked.

Yes, wait you don’t have arranged marriages, do you?” Nadira asked.

“No, you can marry who you want though all couples are encouraged to procreate to replenish the country’s population” Beth replied.

“Oh, great then yes I still want to stay” Nadira said. The others all agreed.

“Great you will have to help out on the farm, we can feed and house you and we will pay you whenever we can, money is still really difficult to earn at the minute.”

“Thank you, Beth” Ezra said.

 

Effie and her team had wondered for miles, for hours even. She stopped and looked around. The sun beamed down on them; heat they had never felt before surrounded them. Dr Bradford was wondering left, right and centre taking in everything he could.

“Simply wonderful” he exclaimed so happy he could fly.

“What were you expecting?” Effie kindly asked.

“Nothing on this scale, the grass is, well it’s here, I thought there would be no grass, and” he checked his scanners “I think the air is breathable” he took of his masked.

“Dr Bradford!” Effie stepped forwards but nothing happened to the doctor at all.

“Ha, ha” Dr Bradford expressed “it’s breathable, the air is breathable” he jumped up and down excitedly. Effie shook her head exasperatedly and took her own mask off. Everyone else followed suit.

“We’ll rest for a bit, but keep an eye out for hostilities, just because the surface isn’t as barren as we thought doesn’t mean we are safe.”

They say eating and drinking, one of the team even had a cat nap but Dr Bradford was excitedly writing into a note book. Cleo poured a hot drink and hand it to him along with a ration bar.

“You need to eat and drink Dr.” She told him.

“Thank you” he said taking her offering without taking his eyes off the note book. “What are you writing anyway?” Cleo asked kneeling next to him and looking at what he was writing.

“I’m documenting what I see and find up here, what is so wonderfully different to what we had thought for all these years” he replied.

“Here” one of the male team members handed him a camera.

“Oh, thank you so much, I will get it back to you once we are back and I have taken the photos off” he stood up and started taking photos.

“Who knew it was liveable up here” Cleo said to Effie as she sat back down.

“Well, none of the presidents have ever physically sent anyone up here to investigate. We could all come live above ground now.”

“I know. Imagine living somewhere like this and waking up to the gorgeous scenery every morning for the rest of your life” Cleo said wondering.

“I wonder if anyone survived the asteroid strike” Effie said.

“Maybe, only time will tell. Do you think they will have their own government?” Cleo asked.

“Maybe, they did before, somewhat broken but they did. If they still do hopefully, it will be better than it was.” They both sat admiring the view for a few minutes.

“You know who would hate this?” Effie asked.

“President Hardthorne” Cleo replied.

“Exactly, it would threaten everything she’s worked or is working towards, she would probably try and take over forcing the backwards world we now like in on this one”

“Come on I think we should keep moving, it will be dark soon, hopefully we will come across some shelter for the night” Cleo said.

Effie nodded. She picked out her gun.

“Right let’s keep moving, we need to cover more ground before night fall and find shelter for the night.”

Everyone packed up and made a move.

 

    A little while later, the sun setting Effie spotted a covering of trees and insisted on resting for the night. Talking first watch, Effie used heated pads within her uniform to keep warm as the temperature dropped and it became colder. Half way through the night, Effie heard sounds of engines and shouts of voices.

“Get up” she whispered “get up.”

“What’s happening?” One of her team said groggily.

“There’s someone out there” Effie told them.

“Oh, maybe they could help us” another on said.

“I don’t know, I’m not liking the sounds I hear. Arm yourselves. Dr Bradford make sure your safety is off.”

Every one awake armed themselves but before they could get a bearing with what was going on, a quad bike came screaming through the bushes that surrounded them, hitting two of the team members, killing them. More bikes came, people in ripped and dirty jeans and filthy jackets whooped their way through, they started shooting with their own guns.

“Move!” Effie shouted. She grabbed Dr Bradford and started to run; Cleo close behind. The bikes followed, reaving their engines, firing their guns and laughing as they hit someone or ran someone down. Effie hit the ground but managed to get up and keep running. At the same time, she was able to take down some of the bikers herself along with Cleo but there were too many of them. Running as fast as they could they came a long bridge blocked by a fence. Climbing over they saw a rushing river. They were able to jump into the water as the bikers struggled to get through the fence. Taken by the current under the bridge, Dr Bradford was able to use on of his gadgets to hook on to the concrete wall. Hooking it to him, he was able to grab Effie and Cleo and pull them up onto a ledge. They sat quietly holding their breath as they heard the bikers break through the fence and skid to a holt. Looking over both side of the bridge the bikers deduced they had drowned and rode away laughing. After a few minutes Effie, Cloe and Dr Bradford all exhaled with relief.

 

Eating dinner Ezra was watching the TV with Max and Elodie, the rest sat at the table. The news was talking about budgets and making head way with supporting farms and a story on the current President Kerry Lockwood outside Windsor castle declaring she will continue her ancestors work to rebuild the country and that talks to restart training with other countries are on the way.

“Talks to start trading with other countries have been on the way for years, get a bloody move on” Max shouted to the TV. Ezra and Elodie looked at him.

“Sorry but the keep repeating all the same stories” he said.

“Don’t apologise my mother would do what is best for her not what’s best for the community” Ezra replied.

“You’re the president’s son in the grounders world?” Max asked.

“Yes”

“Did they kidnap you?” Max asked quietly.

“What! No, I came willing, our world is so backwards now, we all wanted to live more freely”

“You think someone might come after you?”

“Probably, Callahan or Effie no doubt, but I can handle both of them, they aren’t the biggest fan of my mother so we should be ok.”

“Who?” Max asked.

“Callahan is head of our military and Effie is one of his deputies.”

“You’ve got a military wow. The government has put ours back together but it’s really small at the minute. Same with the law enforcement. Nothing is big enough yet especially to take on the outcasts, I wouldn’t be surprised if they outnumbered our police.”

“Outcasts?” Elodie asked.

“Oh, that’s what we call the people who live outside of society” Max told her.

     “Right Ezra said he will sleep of the sofa so you ladies can double up in the spare bedrooms, I’ve cleared the bed of clothes in the back room so it can be used and here are some pyjamas for you all” Beth said as they all got ready for bed later on.

“Thank you” Dora said.

      Dora was the first one up the next morning. She dressed and when downstairs to make a cup of tea. It was very early. The sun had not yet risen so she stepped outside to watch. It was beautiful. She had never seen the sun rise before. After a while she heard lots of clucking and went round the back of the house to fine a tall, broad red headed man feeding the chickens behind a fence.

“Stop pecking my ankles will ya” he said to the chickens pecking around his feet. He looked up and saw Dora.

“Who are you?” He asked.

“I’m Dora, you must be the farm hand” Dora replied.

“Yeah I am. Charlie. Where do you come from?” Charlie asked.

“Underground” Dora replied.

“You’re a grounder?” Charlie looked stunned “what are you doing up here?”

“My friends and I wanted a freer life.”

“There are more of you?”

“Yes, me, Elodie, Marisol, Nadira and Ezra” she told him. He kept looking at her weirdly.

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

“It just you look so normal and bit pale but that’s probably from the lack of vitamin D.”

“How were you expecting me to look.”

“I don’t know I thought you may have sprouted antlers or something.”

Dora laughed.

“You watch too many space movies” she told him. There was two loud barks and the dogs Monty, a golden retriever and Biggles and border collie who Dora had meet last night came bounding out of the house. Max was behind them.

“Ooo, here come the dogs” Charlie smiled “hey boys” he said as they reached the fence. He bent to pet them through the metal fence, Dora pet them too.

“Morning Charlie, morning Dora” Max said approving them “Beth’s getting breakfast ready if you want some.”

Dora all of a sudden realised how hungry she was.

    Inside Beth was as cooking up a full English breakfast minus the black pudding.

“Something smells good” Charlie said coming in behind Dora and Max. Max introduces Charlie to the rest. They took a seat whilst Max helped Beth. The dogs slipped under the table wagging their tails. Beth turned the news on as they ate. A news story about a massacre in West Yorkshire was the top story.

“As the air force did their routine morning fly over, they noticed the bodies lying in the countryside here” an on-location news reporter said “law enforcement were called straight away and conclude it was the work of one of the outcast groups still roaming the country.”

As the reporter kept talking a body was being loaded into a vehicle behind. Elodie recognised the uniform they were wearing.

“They’re grounders” she said.

“Are you sure?” Marisol asked.

“Yes, recognise the uniform.”

Ezra had a closer look.

“Elodie’s right. They’re from underground alright, though they are just normal solders, where’s their first in command.”

“The area has been scouted for anyone else that may have been involved but no one has been found” the news reporter continued “it looks like someone may jumped into the nearby river but until a search of the river is complete, we will not know for sure if they have drowned or survived. If anyone does have any information about last night, they are encouraged to call the number on screen and quote the case number below. Back to you in the studio.”

The camera cut back to the news studio, everyone looked at each other.

“Effie or Callahan could be dead” Dora said “Effie was always really nice.”

“They may not be, like they said until they search the river, they don’t know. Hopefully which ever one of them was leading the team is still alive” Ezra reassured them all.

“Hopefully” Elodie replied.