The Last Year of the Wild - Volume 1: Winter

Copyright © 2023 Lizzie Pepper

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Matador

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ISBN 978 1803137 728

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Matador is an imprint of Troubador Publishing Ltd

Contents

Prelude

Welcome, to the wilds of the

North East English Coastline…

In the year – 2060

‘This Robin is barely alive and the Sparrow feels lifeless. There must be something you can do for them? I just couldn’t leave them behind, the poor birds are smothered in the oil,’ a young man shouted in exasperation, as he raced to pull a large wooden rescue crate out of the back of his van, battling against the high winds and heavy rain.

‘Jake, how many times do I need to tell you? We’ve no space left for any more,’ a flustered man replied from the doorway of a Coastguard Centre, which stood high on a cliff edge, overlooking an angry swirling North Sea.

Jake carefully set the crate down in the doorway and assessed the skies above.

‘No, we must keep going. You’ve just got to make more space inside. I don’t care how you do it but I am not stopping now. Not until we have helped every single bird.’

‘You’re crazy. It is far too dangerous in this storm, come on inside,’ the man demanded, watching Jake running back to his van, leaving him with the dying birds curled up in the crate beside him as he did so.

Seconds later, his wheels splashed through a deep puddle as he accelerated out of the car-park. As the van’s engine roared off into the distance, a gust of wind swept through, causing a makeshift sign dangling above the Centre’s doorway to creak loudly. Roughly written were the words…

Chapter 1

Trapped

A little later, deep inside the Coastguard Centre, trapped within the confines of his rescue crate, Rufus the Robin was desperately trying to escape as he listened to the unfamiliar noises in the darkness around him. Bang, crash…

‘What…what was that?’ he shouted out loud in his soft Scottish accent, pausing for a moment to listen intently, before continuing, ‘Who’s there?’

Seconds later…a snapping noise and another bang sounded.

‘Is that you Skyla…? Hey. Can anyone hear me?’ Rufus called. ‘If I could just see, this would be whole lot easier.’

Straining against the black goo that held his eye lids firmly shut, he tried to ignore the waves of panic racing through his tiny brown feathered body and small red chest.

‘Grrrrr…,’ he growled, hoping to defend himself from any danger which might be lurking nearby.

Clamping his beak together, he strained to open his eyes, eventually collapsing on the hard floor of his crate with exhaustion. Feeling trapped, blinded by darkness, his eyes stung with pain. His only option was to lay still and play dead.

‘Where am I…?’ he whispered to himself.

Suddenly, the crate shook beneath him and a loud crash sounded again, followed by the familiar smell of a ‘Being’ wafting past his nostrils.

‘I have got to get out of here,’ he exclaimed, determined to move his limp and heavy body.

Stirring up all the energy he had left, Rufus’s patience broke as he shouted angrily at himself, ‘Just…open will you.’

Amazingly, it worked as he managed to force open his eyelids, allowing him enough time to focus on the human’s face, which was staring directly back at him. For a few seconds Rufus remained motionless, realising that he had never been this close to a ‘Being’ before. How odd it looked he thought? Standing upright, with oversized eyes and strange useless looking feathers growing out of the top if its head. And, what kind of food could they eat with that shape of beak, he wondered? Puzzling as it was, Rufus couldn’t contain his urge to escape.

‘Arrh. Beings,’ he screamed, dragging himself across the floor of his crate as best he could to get out of the way. ‘Just don’t…touch me, it feels too weird.’

His eyes slammed shut again, causing him to wobble, tripping as he did so over what felt like a warm and feathery ball. Another bird maybe? he thought.

There was no time to check, as he heard to his horror the sound of more Beings’ feet heading in his direction, chirping in their high-pitched squeaky voices as they got closer.

‘Mo, you have to put…one to sleep…and quickly,’ Rufus roughly translated, only understanding a few words.

Blindly, Rufus helplessly listened to the chaos around him, as the swish of the Beings’ clothes wafted their suffocating chemical smell in his direction again.

Stand back, he heard them cry, as he tightly curled his body up hoping that by some miracle he might actually be able to hide from them.

‘Now…do it now,’ one Being squeaked in the commotion.

‘No,’ Rufus screamed, defending himself and wishing they could understand him. ‘No, wait. I need to get back to my garden, they all need me. I am Rufus…Rufus Robin of 42…Barton Gardens…’.

The sharp pain of the needle entered Rufus’s brown feathered back, instantly immobilising his whole body. Petrified, he quickly lost the ability to speak and smell. As his hearing disappeared, darkness flooded through his body, plunging him into a deep sleep.

Chapter 2

Nightfall

Further inland the storm had run out of energy, as dusk turned to nightfall around the sides of an icy dark lake in the North East of England. The atmosphere was almost still, only occasionally interrupted by the sound of twittering birds wriggling to keep warm amongst the deep stiff grasses surrounding the lake.

In a muddy patch by the water’s edge, the peaceful scene was broken by the sound of flapping wings from the skies above, swishing as they came into land.

‘Captain Mallard, do you have a moment? May I have your permission to speak freely?’ a military voice whispered in the darkness.

After a few seconds, a rather exasperated reply came, ‘Yes, what is it now, Starling Officer 167?’

‘Sir, I feel we should go and investigate the emergency message we received earlier. What if it is for real and Corax’s Army has struck again?’

‘May I remind you Officer, you are trained to think and not feel, is that clear?’ Captain Mallard sighed and then continued, ‘The call sounded like a hoax to me. A deadly black sea? Never have I heard of such a thing?’

‘Sir, the message said hundreds of birds have died,’ the Starling informed tentatively.

‘I doubt that, there’s hardly a hundred of us left to die,’ the Captain replied sarcastically. ‘We already have enough to worry about right now without this. Can’t you feel the rain is about to start again? Honestly, there’ll be flooding everywhere and still no food for us all.’

Fumbling with his feathers uneasily, the Starling Officer tried one last time.

‘The coast isn’t far, it might be worth checking it. I mean, what if Corax is not content with just taking over our lands but wishes to take over the ocean as well?’

After a few short seconds of silence, the Officer watched the silhouette of the Captain plodding around thoughtfully. The young Officer began to wonder if he had overstepped the mark?

‘Fine, go,’ the Captain finally announced. ‘But fly fast. Nightfall is here and I do not wish to be interrogated by the Nightshift as to why you’re out well after the safety of the daylight hours. And, if I am right and this is some ridiculous hoax, I want the culprit caught. Do I make myself clear?’

‘Yes, Sir. Thank you, Sir,’ answered the Officer mechanically.

‘Good, go quickly. Oh, and Officer, for your information, I hear that Rufus Robin is also missing, not that it