Jericho Rose

By Phill Featherstone

The pandemic is over and it's time to rebuild. Visionary groups plan for a new world, but there are some who try to bend this to their own advantage. An authoritarian government uses a pod system to force the population into permanent lockdown, and carries out monstrous experiments to deal with the mass infertility which is an effect of the viru

• Language: English
• Publisher: Opitus Books
• Release date: Aug 2, 2022
• ISBN: 9781838003500

Phill Featherstone

Phill Featherstone was born in West Yorkshire, England. He read English and taught in London, Hampshire and the midlands, before, with his wife, Sally, founding and running a publishing company specialising in educational materials. As well as writing fiction, Phill has collaborated on several books of activities for children. Phill lives with Sally in a Pennine farmhouse, where he spends his time writing, walking, reading and on conserving the upland hay meadows surrounding his home.

Book preview

1

DOGS

Lander walked away from Adam and Magda, the gravel on the terrace crunching under his feet. He didn’t hurry, although he wanted to. He didn’t look round, despite feeling their gaze boring into his back.

He reached the grassy slope that skirted the lake, and followed the path that led to a small wood. Once hidden from the house he slowed down and took a deep breath. He sat on a tree stump. It was a perfect afternoon and the land shimmered in an unseasonal heat haze. A few wispy clouds stippled a cornflower sky. The trees were an autumn carnival – layer upon layer of oranges, yellows, russets, ochres.

He was full of rage, furious with Adam but also angry with himself. How could he have trusted this man? How could he have been so taken in? As for Magda, her deceit astounded him. They had been through so much together and he’d considered her a friend; he’d even thought there might be the possibility of her being more than that. Yet here she was on the same side as Adam, and apparently having worked with him throughout the Infection.

His knuckles were sore from when he’d hit Adam, and the bones in his hand hurt. He wondered if maybe he’d broken something. He’d wrenched his wrist too, probably when he’d tried to throttle him.

The grass was still damp from the morning rain and soon he felt the moisture seeping through his jeans, but he didn’t care. The poor start to the day had morphed into a perfect afternoon, and a sweep of wispy clouds stippled a sky of deep, autumn blue. They were like vapour trails, although he knew they couldn’t be. The aircraft which used to make such things were gone. Would they ever fly again? Who knew? A little way ahead of him the stream widened into a pool. It was flat calm until a trio of ducks landed messily on the water. Beyond, the trees were a carnival of colour – layer upon layer of oranges, yellows, russets, ochres. Was it his imagination, or was everything more vibrant, brighter, more intense since the Infection? Perhaps it was the lurking presence of death that made it seem so. What was it that Roman guy had said? Carpe diem; grab it while you can. If the Infection had taught him anything, it was that.

There were fields on the other side of the trees. The nearest had been planted with wheat, done at a time when the farmer must have thought it would be needed but it had been neglected, and the ears had dropped so that only the chaff was left. The ribbons of exhausted stalks, beaten down by wind and rain, meandered into the distance. This crop was lost. Would there be another? Would this field ever come back to life?

He remembered a trick Granddad used to perform, a favourite when he and Kerryl were small. The focus was a dull brown wad about the size of a baseball. It looked like dead moss, and it was kept in a plastic bag at the back of the airing cupboard. The ritual never varied. Granddad would show them the lifeless lump and get the two children to examine it, and the two children would bend over it, sniffing and prodding.

‘What do you think it is?’ Granddad would say, picking it up and flourishing it.

‘Straw,’ Lander would offer.

‘Wool,’ from Kerryl.

‘Granddad would smile and stroke his chin. ‘Well you’re both wrong,’ he’d say. ‘It’s not straw and it’s not wool. It doesn’t look like one, but this is a rose. Next question: is it alive or is it dead? What do you think?’

‘Dead,’ they’d both say.

‘Are you sure?’

They’d nod.

‘Well then, I’d better bring it back to life. Do you think I can do that? Do you think I can make this rose live again?’

Kerryl and Lander always said no, even though they knew that was the wrong answer.

‘Very well,’ he’d say. ‘In that case it looks like I might need some magic.’

He’d get one of Gran’s cooking bowls from the cupboard and fill it with water from the tap. Next he’d place it in the middle of the kitchen table, nudging it one way or another to get it in the exact centre. When he was satisfied, he’d hold the wad over the bowl, close his eyes and recite what he said was a secret spell.

‘Rose, rose, rise from the dead,

Rose, rose, raise your head.’

Stooping low, he’d place the ‘rose’ reverentially in the water and wave his hands over it, repeating the spell while the entranced children looked on. After a moment or two something amazing would start to happen. Slowly at first, then more quickly, the dun lump would swell. Tendrils would extend from it, and as they uncurled the brown would become green, and it would grow. Over the next few hours Lander and Kerryl would keep returning to the table, and at every visit the plant would look bigger, stronger and more alive. This would go on until Gran decided she needed the kitchen table, or perhaps she simply got fed up, when she’d make Granddad shift the bowl and she’d shoo them all away.

As they grew older, he and Kerryl wearied of the trick. Eventually Kerryl, in a pre-teen strop, said scathingly, ‘Why do you call it a rose? It’s not a rose. It doesn’t look a bit like a rose.’

Granddad shook his head. ‘Oh yes, it is a rose,’ he said. He got down a battered old encyclopaedia from the bookshelf and opened it. ‘Look. There.’

There was a photograph of Granddad’s plant looking shrivelled and dry, and another of it green and lush. Beneath them was the caption Rose of Jericho, also known as The Resurrection Plant, and a short description saying that it was native to desert regions and could survive long periods of drought by apparently dying, springing back to life when the rains came.

‘You see,’ Granddad had said, with an air of I-told-you-so. ‘It’s dead when it has to be, and alive when it can be. It knows how to make the best of things. We could all learn from that.’

That was what the cornfield needed; resurrection. In fact, everywhere did. Lander had heard that the Infection had wiped out ninety-nine percent of the national population. He couldn’t imagine how anyone could know a figure like that or even estimate it, but certainly an unimaginable number of people had gone. Despite that, there still could be more than half a million who had managed to survive. It would surely be enough to rebuild, except…

Over the months since the retreat of the Infection it had become apparent that all the women of child-bearing age had stopped having periods. At first the premature menopause had been treated light heartedly, something of a joke, until people began to see how widespread it was, and realised what it meant. However, that wasn’t the whole of the problem; what made it worse was what had happened to men; they were sterile.

Lander knew this because Adam and Magda had told him. Very few other people did. With no social media, limited phone calls and a single radio and TV channel controlled by the government there was no way of spreading the news. So people thought it was something that applied to them and people they knew, not that it was nationwide. Was is worldwide? Was the situation the same in other countries? Why should it be any different?

So there you were: no more babies. There were of course children who had been born before the Infection. The virus had been particularly hard on the very young and the very old, but some had got through. With their parents and carers dead most of the ones that had survived had gone feral, and although it was too soon to tell properly it looked as though they too would be unable to reproduce. So even if the cornfield was resurrected what it grew would not be needed because there would be no more mouths to feed. And what would be the point of rebuilding anything if people knew that their efforts wouldn’t be needed beyond their own lifetimes? It was an invitation to sink into the sort of nihilism and lawlessness that had been common in towns and cities at the height of the scourge, as their populations collapsed and their structures crumbled.

He was roused by a faint drumming. It wasn’t an insect, but at first it was no louder than one. As the sound came closer it resolved into the throb of a helicopter. To begin with Lander couldn’t see it, but then he located a tiny speck in the dazzling blue distance. As he watched, it grew; then it was joined by another some way behind. They came closer, and he saw that the leader had twin rotors: a Chinook, the choice for military transport. The one following was smaller. It was a fascinating sight. These were the first flying machines he had seen since the Infection took hold and it was exhilarating to see such a demonstration of normality, but it was scary too. Why were they here?

They came towards the house, making a great sweep over the parkland before landing on the terrace where only a short while ago he and Adam had fought. For a second he wondered if they were after him, before realising how ridiculous that was. What would two helicopters be doing looking for him. Then he heard a much more worrying sound: the barking of dogs, rowdy and urgent. There was something about the racket that was definitely threatening. It was time to go.

He got up. The sudden movement made him dizzy, and he had to steady himself on a tree. The noise of the dogs was keener now, and closer. Then he caught sight of them through the trees. There were two of them, big and slobbering, straining against leashes held by two figures in battle fatigues. Had they seen him? It didn’t matter, they were following his scent.

The main path was too well trodden, too obvious, so he moved further into the woods and found himself at once in a thicket of tangled undergrowth. Creepers and brambles, tree roots and brushwood, caught, scratched and tripped him. The dense scrub meant he could no longer see the dogs, but he could certainly hear them and they were louder, gaining on him.

There was a stream ahead and he pushed painfully through another thicket towards it. It was three or four metres wide, shallow and running quickly. He’d heard that a fox would use water to put pursuers off its scent, so he splashed into it and headed in the direction of the flow. It was cold and the stones were slippery. He slid, cried out as his damaged hand failed to save him, and there was a flash of pain as his knee struck a rock. He struggled back to his feet and limped on. The dogs sounded even nearer now, baying and snarling, and he could hear their handlers shouting encouragement and crashing about in the brush.

There was a voice through a loud hailer.

‘Lander Shaw. You can’t get away. We have dogs. Come out and show yourself. We don’t mean you any harm.’

No harm? Why the dogs then?

He hurried on, slithering and sliding down the middle of the brook. It would have been easier to run along the tops of the smooth rocks that rose like steppingstones along the shallows at the edge, but he thought the dogs might be able to get his scent from those, so he stuck to the deeper water. With any luck, by the time he climbed out on the other side they might have lost his scent.

Ahead of him the stream ran into a shallow ravine and plunged in a short cascade to a pool below. It looked tricky, but he had to go on. The dogs were on the bank above him and sounded to be only a little way behind. He was exposed. Anyone looking down couldn’t miss seeing him. The barking was closer, almost overhead. He jumped towards the pool, landed, fell, righted himself and desperately scanned the bank. To his left was a circular, concrete pipe. It was only just wider than he was. He was afraid of being in confined spaces but he had no choice. He knelt down and his injured knee screamed in protest. He ignored it and wriggled into the pipe, drawing his legs in after him. He got them in just as the first dog arrived.

2

A CHALLENGE

The tube was pitch black. He’d hoped it might be a short, quick escape route but he couldn’t see the other end. His body cut out all the light and he was scared to go on. He had no idea where it went. It might not lead anywhere, it could just come to a dead end with no way out. It was dark and damp and he felt like he had in the canal tunnel he’d gone through with Steve on their way south. That had been over a mile long. How long was this? He couldn’t crawl a mile, his damaged hand and his injured knee wouldn’t put up with it, even if he could stand the mental torture of being enclosed in the dark.

However, the options were simple: either he had to go on, or he must reverse out and face the dogs. There was no choice and he began to wriggle forward. The surface of the pipe was smooth and crawling wasn’t too hard. He found he could use his elbows to ease himself along, which meant he was able to protect his hand. However, there was no way of shielding his knee and that hurt, protesting at each contact with the concrete. The pipe was taking some of the water from the stream and his body blocked it, so that a clammy dam soon formed uncomfortably in his crotch. The culvert amplified his grunting and he could hear nothing else, so he couldn’t tell whether the dogs had found the entrance or not. Would he know if they were behind him? Would a dog come into the pipe after him? Might there be a snarling beast between him and the way out? The thought brought on a sudden fit of panic and he froze.

He could see nothing. The conduit seemed to be straight, burrowing into the hillside. What would be at its end? He reasoned that it couldn’t be dead because the water had to go somewhere, but it might not be anything he could get out of. How far in was he? It felt he’d gone a long way, but it might only be a few metres. Suppose the men had worked out where he’d gone and blocked the entrance. It would only take a couple of big rocks to trap him. He shuddered, and forced himself to focus on what he must do now.

Despite the coldness of the water he was hot, sweating from the effort of pulling himself along. He felt again the black hand of claustrophobia, like in the canal tunnel, like in the body scanner in the Oxford hospital where he’d first met Adam. He started to tremble and his head pounded. His impulse was to go backwards as fast as he could, to get out, dogs or no dogs. He fought to control his breathing, to slow his heart, to quell the panic. To lose control now, in here, would be… well, it could be fatal. Deep breaths: in, hold, out; in, hold, out. Slowly the panic eased, his heart rate slowed, and he regained control of his head.

Having moments before been hot, he was now cold, so cold he was shivering. How cold did you have to be to suffer hypothermia? How long did it take? He made himself crawl on in the dark, feeling ahead, breathing in time with each forward reach. The fucking pipe! Where was it going? What was it for? There was a sour smell. It didn’t smell like a sewer, more suggestive of ancient, rotting vegetation. It must be some sort of storm overflow, taking water from the stream to ease the risk of flooding below. Earlier he’d noticed that beyond the blue dome of the afternoon sky and the wispy filaments of cirrus, dark clouds were building on the horizon. What would happen if there was a downpour? Would the pipe fill? Would he drown? He felt another wave of fear. Keep calm, he snarled at himself. Don’t be a wimp, keep calm.

His leading hand, fumbling forward in the blackness, met an obstruction. There was an instant’s terror when he thought the pipe was blocked, before realising that it wasn’t, it just turned sharply to the right. The bend was so tight he had to lie on his side to get around it, and even then it was a struggle. He lay still for a moment to get his breath, then looked ahead and saw … daylight! A slim beam of sunshine struck through a narrow shaft that broke into the top of the pipe a few metres ahead. He could see that beyond it the broad pipe divided into two smaller ones. Neither was big enough for him to get through.

He worked his way towards the sunlight, thankful for the relief from the dark, but his joy was short lived. When he got to the foot of the shaft he rolled on to his back and looked up. He was dazzled at first by the brightness, but then his vision cleared. A couple of metres above him was a barred grating; beyond that the open air, the beautiful sky. But the grating looked solid. Even if he could reach it, could he move it? And before that there was the problem of getting himself around the angle into the shaft. The pipe was so narrow that movement was only just possible, and the shaft looked even tighter. Still, the sunlight made him feel better and a breeze freshened his face. He tensed his muscles and clenched his teeth. He was going to get out of this fucking place.

His denim jacket was soaked. It had given useful protection to his arms and elbows while he’d been crawling, but it was bulky, and it would be easier to work his way into the shaft without it. Getting his arms out was difficult, but he wriggled and squirmed and eventually he was free.

He pushed the jacket through his legs and into the pipe behind him and turned his attention to the shaft. It was lined with bricks, fringed at the top with ferns. The bricks were uneven and offered holds for climbing. He reached up with both arms and got his hands around a couple. Tentatively he tried them to see how firm they were. The last thing he wanted was to pull them out of place and for the brick lining of the shaft to tumble down on him. They seemed okay, so he took a deep breath, gathered his strength, and heaved, at the same time twisting to work his shoulders into the shaft.

Whoever had built this thing had joined it up by simply smashing through the concrete pipe, and the edge where they’d done that was rough. His t-shirt was torn, and without his jacket there was nothing between his bare stomach and the jagged surface of the break. He tried to go back to ease the discomfort, but he was stuck.

Yet again he had to fight the fear. His arms were aching and his fingers were numb. He clasped his hands on the bricks and heaved again, and as he did so he jerked his body, ignoring the hurt as his naked skin scraped on the concrete.

He’d managed to get his top half into the shaft, but his legs wouldn’t bend in the right direction to get himself properly through the hole. He tried again, and the back of his jeans snagged on the rough edge of the pipe. His arms were over his head and the space was so tight he couldn’t get them down to do anything. He struggled and writhed and sucked in his stomach, and as he worked his hips through the hole he felt the jeans being pulled off. They dropped to his ankles and formed a pad of material in the bottom of the shaft. Now he had another problem. His trainers were bulky, and he couldn’t get his feet through the legs of the jeans. Until he could manage that he wouldn’t be able to get far enough up the shaft to move the grating and get out. He had to get his trainers off, but in the confined space he couldn’t reach them to loosen the laces.

He wiggled his foot and managed to get his left toe against the heel of his right shoe. At first his foot seemed gripped fast in the trainer, but slowly he was able to ease it out. Now he had to do the same with the other one. For the first he’d had the protection of a trainer, but that had now gone and without the buffer he couldn’t get enough leverage. In desperation he wedged the back of his foot against the broken edge of the pipe and gave a sudden, hard wrench. With a jerk his foot came out. He scraped his heel painfully on the jagged edge of the concrete, but he was free.

Without his jeans and footwear he could now get fully into the shaft. He stood on the two protruding bricks he’d used as handholds and reached up to the grating. For a moment he hesitated, too scared to try to move it. It looked depressingly solid. What if it was firmly fast, bolted to the top of the shaft? Suppose it was cemented in. Could he get back the way he’d come?

He told himself not to be an idiot, he’d never get out unless he tried. His hands were trembling as he pushed against the bars. They resisted, but he thought he felt a slight movement. He took a deep breath, pushed again, harder, harder, and gave a yelp of joy as one edge of the grill gave. He heaved, and with a groan of protest it slid aside. There was nothing above him but the glorious, blessed, blissful, joyful open air. He levered himself up until his head and shoulders were out of the shaft, and closed his eyes as the breeze wafted his face. He braced his legs against the sides of the shaft, gave a last push, and he was out.

For several minutes he could do nothing. He lay on his back, panting, flooded with euphoria. Then he felt the cold. He sat up and looked around. He was at the foot of a small slope in the corner of a field. Lake Manor was hidden. He’d lost any sense of direction, but he guessed it must be behind him on the other side of the hill. There were no other buildings in sight. He’d no idea how far he’d come underground, it had felt like miles. Everything was quiet; he could hear no dogs, just birdsong and the buzz of insects. He examined his wounds. He had a spread of painful grazes around his waist and sides. His hands, elbows and knees were sore from the crawling and one knee, the one he had fallen on in the stream, had an ugly gash. It was weeping blood, and so was his foot.

He leant over the edge of the shaft and looked down into the hole. He could see his jeans at the bottom, but he couldn’t reach them. There was a fallen branch nearby with a fork at the end, and he spent some time trying to hook it around the waistband, but he couldn’t. He’d think he’d got it fast, but as soon as he pulled the stick the jeans fell off. No way was he going back into the shaft. He’d manage without them, and his trainers.

He hurled the stick away. Once more events seemed to be repeating themselves. There’d been a time soon after he first left the farm when his trainers had been stolen. Then he’d fashioned foot coverings out of an old rubble sack. There was nothing like that here, and if there was he had nothing to cut it with. There was no sign of any help, either. On the previous occasion a farmer had given him some boots, as well as hiding him from an army patrol. He felt suddenly emotional at the memory of the old man’s unconditional kindness and generosity. What had happened to him?

The sun was much lower now. His shirt and underwear were sodden, and he was getting colder all the time. He had some more clothes in one of the inflatables that