Survivors

Bretnel was what would have been described in the old days by some people as a “character”, by others “a wally”, but must would have called him a “nutter”. Whatever they called him they would all have described him as weird. It was a kind, gentle, weirdness that was hard to really dislike, but he could often be irritating and always a little perplexing. You never really knew where you were with Bretnel. They found that at one minute he could be immensely interested in the smallest detail of their life in the camps, then suddenly without warning he would get up and walk off muttering to himself and ignoring everyone and everything around him.

What Bretnel really liked to ask them questions about was the Aliens. He would ask question after question going into all sorts of weird details and apparent tangents. He would often stop and mutter things like “fascinating” or “that explains an awful lot” or “well, well, well I wonder if…” and so on. Occasionally he would then explain what he’d been thinking about. Sometimes it was about the weapons the Alien’s used, sometimes it was about their communications, sometimes it was about the way they moved and hovered. Pretty much all of this went over Joe and Holly’s heads. Luke managed to take in some of it, at least at a superficial level but very often he got bored with the conversation and would wander off in a huff.

Perhaps the weirdest thing about Bretnel though was his blackouts. He would often stop in the middle of what he was doing and stare blankly with unseeing eyes at nothing at all. These mental freezes could last seconds or occasionally over a minute. When he came too he would carry on with whatever he was saying or doing as if absolutely nothing had happened.

At first they found this pretty disconcerting and they didn’t really know what to do with themselves. Slowly though it became evident just how “out of it” Bretnel was when he went into one of his trances. It was Joe, who else, that started to push things. He started pulling faces, wave his hands and do silly walks right under Bretnels nose. Not a flicker, not a trace of reaction registered on Bretnel’s face. He just kept staring. Holly and Luke found this hilarious. Poor Bretnel would often snap back into consciousness, surrounded by snorting, giggling kids and seemingly without any idea of what was happening. Most of the time he chose to ignore these antics and paid them no attention at all.

Life in the facility was, to be absolutely honest, pretty dull. There seemed to be no lack of food, no lack of power, nice warm beds, fresh cold water and absolutely nothing at all to do. There was no need to scavenge, no need to duck and run, no need to hide, no real need to do anything at all if you didn’t want to. For a few days it seemed like fun, but after a few weeks it was all getting pretty boring. How could having so many good things be boring? Soft sheets, toilet paper, hot water, regular meat in their diet, and even hot chocolate to drink at the end of everyday. If they’d thought about it at all, which they didn’t , they would have been surprised just how quickly they’d got used to it.

For his part Bretnel claimed that the hot chocolate was the only real luxury he had, but to be fair the hot chocolate was pretty damn good, and Bretnel always took a childlike delight in giving it to them. He insisted on making it for everyone himself each night. He often said, with a wink and a grin, that he made it from his own special recipe which included a little shot of something special. They took this to mean something alcoholic. The Catlins in Darius’s camp had brewed some kind of homemade hooch but the kids had never been allowed to try it.

“Rot your brains that stuff will” Mamma had always told them as she lovingly nestled her share of the hooch in her mug.”When you’re older you’ll love it she’d say laughing.

Bretnels hot chocolate did have some kind of kick to it that made it especially tasty, so they didn’t have too much trouble indulging Bretnel in this little ritual.

Bretnel would often sit and tell them stories about the world before the Aliens came, about his life, about the people he knew and what he’d done, but in all honesty the stories weren’t very interesting. He did have lots of books that they could read, but they were mostly scientific tomes that weren’t very exciting and certainly weren’t very inspiring like the ones Darius had given them. With not much to do and not much to occupy themselves they found that they had far too much time to fill and therefore far too much time to think.

Bretnel would disappear off for hours at a time to parts of the base they weren’t allowed to go into. They knew they weren’t allowed to go in because Bretnel was always careful to lock the doors after him to make sure they were kept out. And so life trudged on. They were relatively safe from the Aliens, they had food and shelter and they were bored, so, so bored. They couldn’t go outside, they never got to see the sun and they didn’t even get to do too much running around, they almost ached for something to do.

One day when they sat down for a meal Luke decided he had had enough. He’d tried to ask Bretnel a few times about the base and how he’d come to be there and he’d always been fobbed off. This time he thought, “I want answers”. Bretnel sat down with them and was nosily tucking in to his food with his normal gusto, and complete lack of manners. His food splattered everywhere with bits of spaghetti lodging themselves in his shaggy beard.

“I can’t eat this” said Luke shoving his plate away and frowning at Bretnel.

“Is it not to your liking master Luke?” Asked Bretnel.

“No it is not to my liking” sneered Luke mimicking Bretnel’s oddly nasal way of speaking.

“I sense” said Bretnel “That something is amiss and we are at a crossroads in our relationship. What we may call a minor crisis. Am I right master Luke?” Bretnel laid down his spoon and fork and fixed Luke with a steady gaze.

Holly and Joe shifted uneasily in their seats not sure what was going on and even less sure of what was going to happen next.

“If I knew what the hell you were talking about” snapped Luke “I’d probably agree. What I want is some answers!”

“Pray what elucidation do you require?”

“I don’t need bloody elucidation!” Shouted Luke “I’m not hungry. I want you to come clean and tell us what the hell is going on here”

Bretnel opened his mouth as if he was about to say something, seemed to think better of it, then just asked quietly but firmly “What do you want to know Luke?”

To save you (as the reader) having to pick through Bretnel’s rambling, colourful answers to Lukes questions I will summarise what he said in the next few paragraphs.

Bretnel was, in his own words, a genius. Actually he wasn’t just a genius, he was a genius even among geniuses. He made Einstein look like a particularly thick plebeian schoolboy (again his own words). This brilliance had brought him to the attention of the secret services who had enlisted his help on a number of top secret projects that required the application of a unique scientific mind. This had eventually led him to Long-Barrow Down, the facility they now found themselves in. Bretnel had been working on a genetic enhancement programme when he had started to have blinding headaches that left him weak and helpless for days. After a series of tests the doctors had diagnosed a rare, aggressive, incurable brain wasting disease. The doctors couldn’t agree how long Bretnel had to live, the estimates ranged from six to eighteen months, how long his brain would continue to function as it had was even more hotly disputed. It was Bretnel himself that suggested that he was cryogenically frozen until a cure was found. He had the idea, he designed the equipment and then he’d built it. He left absolutely nothing to chance. So two years before anyone had ever heard of the Aliens, Bretnel Stobesworth-Brown was frozen in a casket a mile underground in a top secret base.

Then one day, and even Bretnel couldn’t explain why, the machine defrosted him. He’d come round completely alone, the base was deserted and the Aliens were masters of the earth.

The base was designed to keep over eight hundred people supplied with food and water for three years. There were huge stores of dried goods, massive fridges and freezers all hidden deep within the mountain. Hydro-electric generators, hidden solar panels and deep earth heat exchangers gave the base a completely independent, untraceable power source. Shielded for radiation, radar, radio, electrical and just about every type of wave you could think of, the base was self sustaining and virtually invisible.

Where everyone had gone Bretnel didn’t know, why they had gone, he didn’t know, if they were ever coming back he very much doubted it. So he had been alone for nearly four years. His headaches had gone but had been replaced by the blackouts. He had continued his studies into genetics as a means to occupy his mind and help him pass the time. This he insisted was all there really was to tell.

That night as they lay in their beds sipping the last of their hot chocolate they talked about what Bretnel has told them. It all seemed to make sense, or as much sense as anything did these days, but what did it change? They were still stuck somewhere deep inside a mountain, with Bretnel as the only other human being they had any contact with. There was still nothing to do and no point to anything they did. Camp life may not have been as comfortable, and they’d often been hungry, but at least they didn’t have what seemed like hundreds of empty hours to fill. When everything that needed to be said seemed to have been said they one by one dropped off into a comfy but disgruntled sleep.