Blood Crazy (29 page)

Crows flew up, wild dogs scrambled out of our way. I ran across a carpet of bodies. These were adults pocked with gunshot wounds.

When I reached Jigsaw in the compound he was crying uncontrollably, beating his forehead with the palm of his hand like he wanted to knock out his brains.

Doc stood still, face white, panting, ‘How did they do it? How did they do it? Boss could have used the trucks to crop them … If – if the numbers were reduced below … They wouldn't attack … They.' He looked round, winded by what he saw.

Dead Creosotes littered the compound. Here and there were the bodies of people from the community. I ran from outbuilding to barn to house shouting.

‘Sheila … Sheila!'

Sheila lay on the stairs. She'd died trying to stop the madmen reaching the attic room where the baby was. I knelt on the step and held her broken face to mine.

I whispered. ‘I want to die now. Jesus, let me die. Let me die.'

After a couple of hours we were in a state where we could actually make a search of the camp.

We found Boss's body beneath some Creosotes by the gate. He must have been one of the first to fall. Spent cartridges and guns littered the place in a shining carpet. The Creosotes themselves hadn't used any weapons, other than a single-minded drive to push
their way into the camp. In the end that had been the most devastating weapon of all.

A few of the Creosotes had survived their injuries and lay or sat silently in the carnage. They ignored us. Jigsaw loaded a rifle.

As I continued my search for survivors I heard the slow crack of the rifle echoing round the dead buildings.

Doc found me hunting through the stable. ‘They're all dead, Nick. You don't have to check each one. The Kaybees were thorough. They weren't going to spare a single one of us.'

‘You're right … But I'm not leaving here until I've accounted for everyone.'

‘I found out why they didn't use the trucks to crop back the psychos,' Doc said. ‘The trucks' tanks were empty. Apart from the one truck Sheila used to escort us out there wasn't a drop of diesel left in the camp. Boss had given us the last few gallons for the car.'

Blood thudded through my ears. ‘Jesus, I only asked him for two.'

‘He gave us eight. He told me not to tell you. He even disconnected the fuel gauge on the car.' Doc shrugged. ‘Boss wanted to make sure we, and particularly you, Nick, made it back here in case we couldn't find any supplies.'

‘Damn … Damn him!' I roared every obscenity I could think of. ‘Boss has made me responsible for all these deaths. If I'd thought that bit harder maybe we wouldn't have needed the fuel. Boss could have cropped back the lunatics … These kids would still be alive!'

I looked round at the fields. They were a bleak wasteland now. A cold wind ripped across the grass. Family Creosote had moved on now. Their work here was complete. One by one we, their children, were dying.

I breathed in sharply, struck by an idea that felt as if it had come whistling from out of the cosmos like a bullet. The sensation was the same as when I was looking through the stores before I found the generator.

‘Where you going?' shouted Jigsaw.

I ran back to the house, then up the stairs to where Sheila lay. ‘I know, sunshine,' I said gently. ‘I know what you did.'

I went to the cot where the youngest baby slept. Cold lumps twisting in my stomach, I pulled back the blood-soaked quilt.

Then I turned over the tiny figure on the mattress. It felt stiff … I pulled back the bonnet.

‘Sheila … Whatever they did to you, you won in the end.'

In my hands, in baby clothes, was a plastic doll.

I pushed back the hatch in the ceiling where the water tank sat in the roof void. After climbing up, I lifted the lid of the tank. The water had long gone. Inside it now was a thick layer of blankets. On the blankets was the baby. It opened its eyes and smiled at me.

‘How did you know? Nick …' Doc followed me as I carried the baby across to the truck. ‘How could you possibly know the baby was there? There was no note. Nothing.'

‘Sixth sense. When you've survived in hell this long you develop one. Jigsaw, stop wasting bullets … That won't turn the clock back.'

‘Sixth sense my arse. What made you look for the baby?'

‘To be honest I don't really know. I just felt, here inside, that Sheila would do something to protect it. By the time they broke into the compound she must have known no one would escape. And that even though she could slow them down as they came up the stairs to the nursery, she couldn't stop them. And that they'd find the baby.'

Doc nodded. ‘So she hid it in the empty water tank and just hoped we'd return and find it before it starved.'

I said, ‘Look. You can see where the Creosotes have pulled out all the stores across the yard: they searched this place meticulously. They were going to make sure no one that was under nineteen walked out of here. I reckon our people managed to hold out in the house for a little while. Sheila must have watched the murdering bastards from the window. She saw they were counting our dead. Sure, they've been watching us for weeks to see how we behave, but the bastards have been
counting
us too. They knew we were away from camp. But if they counted even one short they'd have torn the camp apart until they found the baby. Sarah dressed the doll in baby clothes and covered it in blood to make them think the baby was dead … Jigsaw, put the gun down and feed the baby. Here's the bottle. You're going to have to give it plenty of fluids. It's dehydrated.'

Doc shook his head. ‘Messiah syndrome, Nick. I know it's delusional crap … but I look at you and, Christ, do I wonder.'

‘Let's get back to reality.' I said briskly. ‘Doc, help me move the bodies into the house … No, not the adults. Let the bastards rot. Then you two've got to find somewhere new to live.'

‘We've decided.' He nodded at Jigsaw who clumsily held the baby in one arm while holding the bottle for it to drink from. ‘We're going on to the community in Harmby. They might let us join them.'

‘When they see you with that truckful of supplies they'll welcome you with open arms.'

‘You're going back to Eskdale?'

I nodded. ‘You two take the truck and the car. There's a motorbike in the garage. I'll be able to get home on one tankful of fuel.'

Doc nodded grimly. Then we moved the bodies back into the house.

‘I'll do it,' said Doc pulling out his cigarette lighter.

For half an hour we stood the way mourners stand at gravesides and watched the flames engulf the house. Then I said goodbye to Jigsaw, Doc, and the baby who was gurgling happily now, slung a rifle across my back and climbed onto the bike. It started first time. I waved, then rode away in the direction of home.

In front of me I saw the road stretching out into the distance. In my head I saw Sheila: her bright smile that always made me smile, and the way she looked at me with those eyes that flashed like black diamonds.

And behind me the smoke column from the burning house rose into the sky like a stairway to heaven.

That's the point, I think, when I stopped feeling horror or shock. Perhaps I was in a kind of psychological withdrawal.

I rode the motorbike hour after hour. Sometimes the road was blocked by floods or land slips and I'd have to find another route.

That night I slept in a barn. I found a diary there. It told the story of a sixteen-year-old, Mark Woodley, and how he'd survived the first days of the sanity crash.

My parents are close behind me now. I don't know why they hate me. The world has gone mad. I understand that. But I can't understand why it's happened to mum and dad. The truth just won't sink into my head. All I can do is run and run. I'll find a place where they'll never find me. An island. I'll live there like Robinson Crusoe
.

In the corner of the barn lay a skeleton picked shiny white by rats. In a detached way I noticed his quartz battery watch still kept perfect time. The second hand swept round and round, ticking away the seconds for its dead owner.

I dropped the diary by the skeleton.

‘Mark … You didn't run fast enough, old son.'

The next day I was back on the road by, according to Mark Woodley's watch, 7.09.

I found a motorway and headed north. Although flurries of snow
blew across the empty lanes there was no reason why I shouldn't be pulling up in front of the hotel in Eskdale by suppertime.

Then I came to the line that stretched along the central reservation as far as I could see. I drove along them for three miles before actually registering what they were.

I slowed down. Every ten yards a wooden frame in the shape of a letter Y and six feet tall had been set in the turf. To each frame someone had been nailed.

This was crucifixion on a scale the world had never seen before. I rode past the nailed bodies and inside I felt nothing. All I wanted was to get home and see that Sarah was safe. This was just another atrocity. No worse than the latest … or probably the next.

I had gone another mile when I saw the flash of gold ahead. I slowed down to a crawl. The material of the clothing of one of the corpses was shiny.

I stopped alongside the body.

‘Trousers … I'll get the bastards for you. Believe me, I will.'

The blood on his dead face was dry; his hands nailed to the top of the two prongs on the Y-shaped frame were blue.

Then a finger moved.

‘Trousers?'

With an effort so huge it hurt me to watch, he lifted his head to look at me. There was no expression on his face as his eyes fixed on mine.

‘Jesus … I'll get you down, Trousers. You'll be all right.'

He shook his head. Again the movement was painful to watch. I looked down at his feet.

Whichever bastard Creosote had nailed him there had also removed his feet. Leaving him with the choice of hanging by the nails through his hands, or bearing the weight on his two frozen ankle stumps.

He watched me through the crust of blood.

‘I'll do it, son. You know I will.'

Slowly he turned his head to one side. I slipped the rifle off my shoulder. At first I was shaking so much I could not aim properly. Then I took a deep breath. The shaking stopped. I squeezed the trigger.

The birds flew up from their feeding grounds at the sound of the shot. I fired again. Then again.

After I made sure his hurting had ended I rode off the motorway at the next exit.

I rode slowly along the silted-up roads, the back tyre sliding at every bend.

I was perhaps seventy miles from home when I saw the mountains rising up ahead of me to merge with the cloud. I pushed on faster hoping to cross them before dark.

But I should have known HOPE was an animal in danger of extinction now. Before I even reached the foothills the bike's motor gave an almighty bang and seized.

It didn't take me long to discover the piston had cracked. I shouldered the rifle and backpack and began to walk.

Ahead the mountains looked bleak. The wind cut through you like a blade. Then the snow flurries became a blizzard.

The road took me up the mountainside. I'd never been as cold as this. Christ, it was a supernatural cold that felt as if it blew in through my chest, punching through blood and lungs and heart like ice nails, then tore out through my back.

I crunched on through the snow.

Every so often I'd stop to scrape snow off a road sign so I'd know I was still heading in the direction of home. Would I be glad to see Sarah. Thoughts of snuggling up to her beneath the covers warmed me. It kept me going.

Ahead the road ran up the mountainside but it would be suicide to follow it now. I'd have to find shelter for the night otherwise the cold would kill me. I took a fork to the left which ran steeply downhill toward a lake in the valley bottom. There'd be a house or barn there.

At least going downhill was easier. I even ran for a while to stamp the blood round faster through my body.

I reached the edge of the lake and began to follow the shoreline road. The lake itself was massive, stretching away into the distance like an inland sea.

Here and there yachts wallowed cock-eyedly in the water where they had been abandoned all those months ago.

After a while, the road took me into a forest. At least it was more
sheltered from the wind there. The snow fell gently like feathers to the ground.

It grew darker. Another hour of daylight left. I had to find shelter. Already my feet were numb and lights began to twitch in front of my eyes.

‘One day you'll do something right, Nick Aten …' I bollocked myself to keep awake. ‘You screwed up in Eskdale, you screwed up in Leyburn … if you'd got half a brain you could have kept Sheila alive … you could have kept the bloody lot alive … Doc said they thought you were the bloody messiah sent to save them. Now, that's a joke. You let them die, Aten … You could have saved them … You could, you stupid shitter, you could …' I was trying to feel pain, remorse, guilt … anything. Because at that moment I only felt a numbness icing its way into every part of my body.

‘Could have done it. Could've built them a balloon … could've floated them out. Cabbage brain, Aten … Cabbage brain …'

How I did it I don't know but I found myself deep in the forest. Somewhere I'd lost the road in the snow.

‘So you're taking the easy way out, Aten. You're going to lose yourself, then you're going to curl up in the snow and die … Ha, bleeding ha! Coward. You've found a way to escape the truth at last.'

And what is the truth, Nick?

‘Simple, St Dave Christ Almighty Middleton of Doncaster … I should have listened to you – done what you said. I should have stayed in Eskdale and run the place myself. There, I've said it, so you can take that Holy Joe smile of your face or I'll—'