Blood Crazy (24 page)

‘Don't worry. I will. Just make sure you lot are in the right place at the right time. There's a bus coming to take you away from all this.'

I kissed her again, and she hugged me tightly in a way that frightened me. As if she had a premonition she would never see me again.

Waving, I walked away back into the village. I kept looking back. Sarah still watched me; each time I looked back distance had shrunk her. At the school I took the shortcut back through the wood.

I walked thinking about Sarah, about what I would have to do today, and about the new community. I was still thinking hard when a figure appeared in the clearing in front of me. For a second the sun
broke the cloud and lit the space in the trees like a spotlight. Half dazzled, I squinted against the brilliant light.

The figure stepped forward and recognition winded me.

‘Mother …'

Mum smiled but it wasn't mother love. It was the smile of a hunter who's made the kill.

The first blow came from behind. I fell forward, my skull ringing with pain. I pulled myself to my knees as I saw mum lift the rock above my head. She smiled again. Then swung the rock down. Then all I remember is seeing blood dripping red onto fallen leaves – and nothing more.

What I heard first were the words: ‘It's about time, Sleeping Beauty. I thought you were never going to wake up.'

My eyes were open but I saw pig all. Total darkness. ‘Trousers? Is that you?'

‘It's me, Nick Aten. How you feeling?'

‘Sore … Shit, make that agony. Christ … What they done to me, Trousers?'

‘Same as everyone here. Cracked our skulls, tied us in sacks and chucked us down into this hole.'

I felt round in the dark until I found an arm.

‘I know we're in the shit, Nick, but I'm still not going to sit here in the dark and hold hands with you.'

‘Where are we? Ouch, my bleeding head … How did you get here? You're
Carrying The Can
this afternoon.'

‘This afternoon? That was yesterday. They chained me to the can. I ran like hell-fire. Managed to make it to the top of the church tower, unlocked the cuff and tossed the thing ten seconds before it blew. After that I legged it.' Trousers chuckled; there was no humour though. ‘I got about a mile when wham! The next thing I know I'm lying tied in a sack. There was a hole in it so I could see I was lying on a river bank. The next thing I know I'm carried onto a boat or barge and dropped down into the cargo hold. You were
already here, but I couldn't wake you. They'd given that lump of stone you call a head a sound battering – but I reckon if you can survive being stamped on by Slatter you can take most things.'

I felt around. I was lying on a pile of sacks. The whole place smelt of old, cold piss.

‘Shit,' I whispered, ‘I wish I could see. Have they left us something to drink?'

‘Yeah. Cans of tonic water and lemonade, if you can find them amongst all the empties. And there's some potatoes and apples in a sack across there.'

‘Where?'

‘Take it easy, Nick. I've left some cans alongside you. And if you give it five minutes you're eyes will adjust.'

‘Trousers, have you any idea what they're going to do with us?'

It wasn't Trousers who answered. The voice sounded as if it belonged to a thirteen-year-old boy. ‘They're going to kill us, that's what they're going to do with us.'

‘No, they're not,' said Trousers. ‘If they wanted to do that, they'd have topped us when they caught us. They need us. They're taking us somewhere.'

‘Where?'

‘Search me … Shh. Do you feel it? Every so often you feel a turning movement as if we're moving on the current. Sometimes we bump into things, the bank or other boats or something … Then we're pushed off again. And don't even think of trying to escape. The walls are smooth as glass, there's nothing to climb up. We're like woodlice at the bottom of a glass.'

I opened a can. It was tonic water. Normally I couldn't stand the stuff. This time I drank it like it had come sparkling fresh from the Holy Grail. I touched my head and felt a crust of scabs near my hair line. Mum had certainly held nothing back when she belted me with the rock.

I shook my head dazed. What were they going to do with us? Why did our parents haunt us like the ghost of Christmas frigging past?

‘I reckon they're taking us for slaves,' said the thirteen-year-old solemnly. ‘That's what they did in wars. We did it in history.'

Another voice came from somewhere behind me. ‘Or maybe they're taking us for food.'

‘Shut up,' I snapped. ‘Trying to frighten ourselves won't help.'

‘He's doing a good job,' said Trousers. ‘I'm scared. Hell, Nick, you remember what parents did to their kids six months ago?'

‘Course I do. But … but listen. Adults changed, just like that.' I snapped my fingers. ‘Maybe the Creosotes are changing again. Look at the evidence. We've been captured alive. They've left us with food and drink. We should sit on our butts and be patient. Maybe the Creosotes are recovering, maybe the madness was temporary.'

‘And maybe Santa Claus really does come down your chimney,' grunted Trousers.

I looked in the direction of his voice. Already I could make out the golden gleam of his trousers in the gloom. Around me were shadow shapes of another six people sitting or lying on sacks – all except one who lay in the corner.

‘Why doesn't that kid deserve a mattress?' I asked.

Trouser's voice was low. ‘Because they hit the poor sod just that bit too hard.'

We waited in silence, feeling the rock of the boat as it drifted down stream. My head ached viciously with every movement. Above us came the scrape of feet passing across the decks.

Well, Nick
, I thought.
Mummy and daddy have come to take you home. Or to hell. Somewhere anyway
.

I slept. When I awoke the rocking had stopped but there was still a sense of motion. The more I lay there, just sensing how we moved, the more convinced I became that we had left the river and were moving along a still body of water – a canal, maybe. There was no motor sound so I could only guess the Creosotes were pulling the barge by lines. In my mind's eye I could see them. A team of a dozen apiece walking along each banking tugging the barge along toward its appointment with destiny.

‘How long has it been now, Trousers?'

‘By my Casio … It's been precisely … Ninety hours and sixteen minutes.'

‘Christ, they've been pulling this tub nearly four days.'

Now Eskdale was far, far away. I rubbed my face, feeling the scrape of the scabs against my fingers. What had happened to Sarah? She must think I was a carcass now, rotting away under a bush somewhere.

‘Hungry?'

‘Starving.'

‘What's it to be, then?' Trousers picked up the sack. ‘Potato or apple?'

‘Sling us another apple.'

‘Maybe they're going to starve us to death,' came a voice out of the darkness.

‘Shut up.' I bit into the apple; it was sour enough to make your eyes water. ‘We're alive, aren't we?'

As we were eating we heard a sudden grating sound. Above our heads the hatch lifted. Sunlight blasted into the hold, forcing us to screw shut our eyes.

When at last I could open them I looked up. Heads in silhouette looked down at us.

‘Here it comes,' someone whispered. ‘Say your prayers.'

‘You …' It was the voice of an old man. ‘Up here.'

One of the Creosotes lowered a rope.

‘You. Up here.'

Trousers reached for the rope.

‘No … No. You!'

The old guy was looking at me. Suddenly the piss-stinking metal box was the place I wanted to stay.

‘You. Up here.'

‘Good luck, mate,' whispered Trousers.

Feeling like the lamb to the you know what, I climbed up the rope.

It took a good minute to orientate myself when I reached the deck. It was a frosty morning with laser-bright sunlight shafting through the trees. I saw we were on a long barge tied to the canal bank.

All around, watching me, were the Creosotes.

Quickly I scanned the faces; all were thick with dirt.

My dad squatted like a madcap ape on a mound of tarpaulins. He
stared at me like I'd just beamed down from the flipside of the cosmos.

‘You! You!'

I twisted round. It was mum. She stared so hard at me her head twitched. Her hair was long and wild now.

‘What do you want from me?'

She stared harder.

‘Mum … What do you want? Why can't you leave us alone?'

Her lips parted. ‘You. You.'

‘Christ … Can't you speak English any more? What are you doing to us? Why did you kill John?'

‘John!' The name meant something to her. Moving her head like a bird, she tilted it to one side, then looked behind me.

I looked in the same direction. Against the wheelhouse was a row of little figures.

I swallowed. They looked like ventriloquist dummies. Their faces were shrivelled. They wore toddler's clothes but there was something over-large about their heads. I saw one had its face stitched with a series of clumsy cotton crosses in a line like this: XXXXXX. From mouth to ear.

For the first time in days the heat came back to me like a furious rush of steam through my veins. ‘You mad bastards! What on Earth have you done?'

The Creosotes watched me, their eyes bright and expectant like kids waiting outside Santa's grotto.

I screamed at them, swearing and shaking my hands. ‘What made you do this? Can't you think for yourselves? Can't you talk properly? What's happened to you? Is it God? Is it? When I talk to you does God, or Martians or – or the fucking Holy Ghost listen to me? Does it?'

They stared.

‘I mean have you been taken over by aliens? You don't wear the same expressions on your faces any more! You don't know how to drive a car … you don't wash yourselves … What's going on inside your heads? Can't you talk to me? Can't you tell me what you're doing?'

I turned on my father as he squatted there, lips slightly parted showing the gap in his teeth.

‘Dad! Who am I? Look at my face … Recognize me?'

He stared at me, like I was the weird one.

‘Dad! Wake up! You know me?
Our Nick. He'll either end up a millionaire or in jail
. Remember John? Loved his computer, loved doing homework. Uncle Jack. People treated him like a retard, but he was the only fucking one out of the Atens who had a mind of his own. You know he – he could play that guitar – really play the bastard … He was a fucking genius and not one of you lot could see it. You fucking humoured him, like you fucking humoured me …'

I wiped at something wet on my face. I thought I was bleeding from the head wound again. I wasn't.

‘Well done, you fucking twat,' I howled at him. ‘I was ten years old the last time you made me cry. You've done it again. Jesus, sweet bleeding Jesus … You know something, Dad. I wished
YOU
'd died of cancer. Not Uncle Jack.'

‘Don't talk like that to your father.'

I turned round to look at my mother. Her face had changed. She looked in pain. ‘Don't say that to him, Nick … 'S not fair. Nick, he did the best for you, he … You …' For two seconds, maybe three, she wore a look of such confusion. It shattered the alien expression. Her eyes watered, and there was a flicker of warmth there – even recognition.

‘Oh, Nick … Oh. What have we done? Sweet Lord, what have we done?' The expression was of someone waking in a strange place. Her eyes darted about as if seeing the people for the first time.

‘Nick. I am so sorry. Poor John. We …' She clenched her fists. Her eyes shut. ‘It's so … so special.' She smiled, eyes still shut. ‘It's so special. It's marvellous. It's a miracle.'

Her eyes opened – the expression of alien calm had returned; her eyes turned cold.

Behind me the whistling started. Dad sat there, crouching on the tarpaulin. As he whistled he shivered. His eyes moved quickly like a frightened animal caught in a trap.

He whistled the carol
We Wish You a Merry Christmas
. When we were young he'd whistle it Xmas morning as a signal to get up and open our presents.

He whistled it then, lips trembling, blowing out white vapour in
the ice-cold air. I sensed some sane part of him was still hidden beneath the madman. The weight of his madness was too great for him to talk sanely even for a few seconds as mum had done. He tried to communicate everything in those few whistled notes.

Sanity had flashed like a light across his dark world of madness. For a moment he knew, lucidly, what he had done, murdering John, and the madlands they now lived in.

Then the madness took control again, snapping off the light of sanity. He whistled no more and lifted his face to me and stared and stared and stared …

I sat down on a crate feeling empty – a cold, crying emptiness that a whole universe couldn't have filled.

I sat there, watched by the dry eyes of the ventriloquists' dolls that weren't dolls.

Later they pulled a sack over my head and tied me.

Were they going to drop me over the side into the water and leave me to drown?

Right then, I did not give a shit.

I heard them moving about the boat. Then hands lifted me and carried me the length of the barge.

No one spoke. All I could hear was my own breathing – a flat dead sound.

We left the barge and they carried me for perhaps ten minutes. Then they tied me to a tree. I could see nothing but dots of light needling through the sacking.

Then it was quiet.

I waited for a long, long time. Would I be beaten with sticks, or have rocks dropped on my head? Were they hungry and building a fire nearby?