Blood Crazy (30 page)

I lunged at the face with its sincere smile … My hands hit a tree. I looked round, panting. ‘Hang on, Nick, old son … You're coming apart at the seams.'

Cutting down to the water's edge, I headed along the shore. I was tripping over my feet now, like a drunk trying to make his way home.

Someone was swimming in the lake. Cold in there, Trousers. Best wait till Spring at least. Cold mountain water … I shook my head and saw the swimmer was a branch floating by.

I walked on through a world that had lost all its warmth and
colour to become black and white. White mountains, black trees, white ground, black water …

Going to die, Aten … Maybe this is best … feel nothing no more …

‘Hello. Are you lost? Hello? Can you hear me?'

Standing in front of me on the beach were two figures, wrapped like Arctic explorers.

The tall one said to the other, ‘Timothy, put the bow down and help me get him to the boat.'

The shorter one, a chubby mongoloid boy of about sixteen, with a concerned look on his pink face, grabbed me by the arm and all but carried me down the beach to sit me in the back of a rowing boat. Then he and the thin one rowed us out into the lake.

I sat there like the ice man of Alaska. My brain had stopped working, so at that point there seemed nothing bizarre about riding in a boat across a five-mile-wide lake in the middle of a blizzard.

Eventually, I could see an object ahead, floating on the water. Just a collection of lumps. Nothing recognizable. The two rowed hard toward it.

We were nearly alongside it before I realised it was a group of huge steel barges, the kind they use to shift coal or rocks. They tied up alongside a low platform, then the mongoloid boy lifted me out.

Suddenly there were young kids milling about, the thin kid was giving orders in a low voice, and I was being pushed up a set of steps into an enclosed passageway.

With a clutch of excited kids pulling me by the arms and coat, they took me through a doorway into a room. I stood there blinking in the brilliant light from neon strips in the ceiling.

‘Josie, switch on the fire. Yes … On full. Good girl. Here you are, friend, sit down.'

I sat down in front of a three-bar electric fire and stared blankly at the glowing elements.

It seemed distant but in the room there was a lot of excited movement as children pulled off my coat, gloves, boots.

‘Put his rifle somewhere safe … Carefully now. That's right … In the cupboard. You'd better lock it and give me the key … Now, something warm to eat.'

A girl of around seventeen put down the sewing she'd been working on. ‘I'll get it. There's hot soup in the galley.'

I sat there in the armchair, feasting on the heat beating out from the fire, and feeling my feet and hands hurting as they thawed. More than once I wondered if I was dreaming all this, and that I was really lying unconscious in a snowdrift. But as I looked round at the paintings on the walls I reckoned even my brain couldn't come up with those.

Adam, that was the name of the thin one, was open and friendly. After I'd changed my clothes and returned to the lounge, he told me about themselves. ‘We're a small community. Thirty-eight in all. At first we lived in a hotel overlooking the lake but we had too much trouble from the afflicted people so I was told to collect the barges from the quarry at the far end of the lake, moor them here as far from the banks as possible and build houses inside of them.'

‘You were told?'

‘Yes. The Lord spoke to me. He told me how to keep these children safe from harm.'

I just nodded. So he was a religious nut but who cares? They'd got somewhere bright and warm, and for me that was all that mattered.

‘I was seventeen when it happened,' he said, putting his long fingers together like he was praying, ‘I worked at the monastery in the next valley. You see, I was too young to become a monk but I had already decided to devote my life to God … It was His will that the brothers and Father Abbot became sick. So I went out and gathered all the children I could find. Eventually I moved them here to the Ark.'

Sitting on the carpet looking up at Adam was virtually the entire population of his community. With the exception of the mongoloid boy, the girl who'd brought me the soup and a pair of Oriental girls, the rest were under the age of eleven.

Adam continued speaking in his soft monk's voice. The children gazed up at him in adoration. ‘The Lord instructed me. He showed me where there are generators on the shore that are powered by water from mountain streams, and how to run the cable out here so we have electricity to warm us and cook our meals.'

While we talked I found my eyes being drawn back to the
paintings hanging from the wall. They looked like primitive cave paintings showing stretched-out men and women building houses, farming, sitting with children on their knees listening to musicians playing flutes. On the end wall was a painting running from ceiling to floor showing a tall man in that stretched-out style with his arms raised in praise to the sun rising above a mountain. The mountain looked like the one I nearly died on. The young man looked like Adam.

‘Interesting paintings,' I said. ‘Who's the artist?'

‘That's our Bernadette.' He smiled at the seventeen-year-old girl who sat sewing on the sofa. She pushed back her short dark hair and smiled shyly.

Adam said, ‘She paints what she dreams. And I believe the dreams are sent to her by the Lord. These paintings are very special to us. They are signs from Him for all of us to see. They show us images of ourselves in this Ark; and of how we will live in the future.'

I didn't go for this The-Lord-Will-Show-Us-The-Way business but these kids had certainly got themselves a nice place to live. And it was safe. The Creosotes were showing single-minded determination in destroying their young, but I couldn't see how they could get their paws on this place.

Adam talked. I politely listened. After all, I was their guest so it seemed a way of paying for my lodgings to listen to his God-given plans.

Adam was just describing how they were bringing in the sheep to fields nearer to the lake when I was hit by a fit of sneezing.

‘I think that long walk took its toll on you, Nick. Bernadette, find something for Nick's cold, will you, please?'

Obediently she put down her sewing and disappeared from the lounge.

‘You look exhausted, Nick. And these days we have to be more careful of coughs and sneezes. You'd best spend a couple of days in bed.'

‘Thanks, that's kind of you. But I need to be moving on in the morning. I have to get back home. There's a community of people in a lot of danger. Only they don't know it yet.'

‘If you must, you must, Nick. At least get a good night's rest.
You'll have a room of your own and tomorrow we'll send you off after a good breakfast with our prayers.'

‘Eh … thank you, Adam.' Awkwardly I smiled at the clean faces looking up at me like I was the Bishop of Bangor. ‘Thank you.'

Bernadette came back with a bottle of grey liquid and a spoon. I had hoped the something for my throat would have been a mugful of brandy. This, which she spooned into my mouth, tasted of cough sweets and kerosene.

I was then shown my bedroom, very cozy with sheepskin rugs on the floor and Bernadette's wacko pictures on the wall. I turned to say goodnight to Adam and saw all the children cramming into the corridor to watch me.

‘Goodnight.'

‘Goodnight, Nick,' they said in chorus.

I shut the door, peeled off my clothes and hauled myself into bed. The comfort and warmth were exquisite. For a while I tried to stay awake and work out how the Ark was composed. Inter-connecting Portacabins inside the barges, I guessed. Certainly a neat trick with the waterpowered generators, though. Hats off to Adam with his bucketsful of divine inspiration.

I yawned. Suddenly I felt so tired I ached, as if Slatter had done a clog dance all over me in his pit boots. The old monster Slatter. What was he doing now? With any luck someone would have shot him, or maybe he'd ended up
Carrying The Can
.

I dreamt that night Sarah made love to me. I lay on my back and looked up to see her there in the gloom, her long blonde hair trailing forward over her face to brush against my chest.

‘It's all right, Nick. Everything's all right. Lie still … Don't try to move … ah … That's it … Oh! That is perfect.'

A confused dream. I only remember fragments. Sarah. Her long hair. Behind her the wacko pictures of long men on the wall. Then the burning rush that comes bursting and sparkling through your body.

The days that followed were, in the main, a blur. Bernadette thought I had some kind of infection or 'flu. I was weak, feverish. Nights I would soak the sheets with sweat and dream that Sarah made love to me. In the near darkness I would see her silhouette on top of me, her long hair flowing down across her breasts.

During the day I would take short walks around the decks.

Children fished from the platform. They'd sing as they cast out the lines. One morning they were singing carols.

‘Only ten days until Christmas,' a boy told me cheerfully. ‘Adam says we can have a tree and decorations and things.'

Christmas? I leaned against the railing. Hell, how long was it since my parents took me from Eskdale? Eight weeks? I needed to get back. And now.

All I wanted was to get to the shore, then I could hit the road again. Maybe I'd find a car. With a car I'd be back in a day. If I walked it'd take a week.

Adam walked by. He wore jeans and a lumberjack shirt but he should have worn a monk's habit. ‘Don't overdo it, Nick. You're still unwell.'

‘I feel fine,' I lied. ‘Have you a car? Or a truck?'

‘No. In a dream the Lord told me not to use them. Too noisy. We
don't do anything that will bring attention to ourselves. We light no fires that would make smoke. By night the windows are shuttered so no one will see the lights across the lake. When we hunt we use bows so there are no gunshots. Come on, friend. Inside where it's warm. I'll ask Bernadette to bring you tea.'

‘Yes … Oh, that's it. Nick. Keep it there, keep it there, I-ah … Oh, yes. Yes …'

Sarah came in the dream again. Swaying backwards and forward above me. In the dark all I could see was the shape of her head and her swaying hair.

‘Still not feeling any better?' Bernadette spooned more medicine into my mouth.

‘I don't feel ill … Just weak. I can hardly climb the stairs.'

‘Do you want me to ask Timothy to help you back to your room?'

‘No, thanks. I like it in the lounge … Are you still painting the pictures?'

Smiling, she nodded. ‘Mmm … When God puts the dreams in my head.'

She left singing. I wondered if she was a bit simple.

I'd spend the day sitting, watching the Ark's inhabitants. They all worked hard, even the youngest children. They were clean, obedient. When Adam spoke they listened with love and respect. Twice a day they held services and sang hymns.

All I could do was sit there, hoping that tomorrow I would be fit enough to continue back to Eskdale.

That night as I got ready for bed I saw something catch the light on one of the sheepskin rugs.

My heart beat harder when I picked it up.

As long as my arm, it was a hair. I put it against my dark jeans. There was no doubting it. It was blonde.

I rubbed my face trying to get my sluggish brain in gear.

The dreams I had. Sarah making love to me. Dreams can be funny, unsettling, erotic – but one thing they do not do is leave physical evidence behind. I wound the hair around a pencil and put it in the drawer.

Then I went to bed, my heart beating fast, thinking hard.

I intended to stay awake but once more tiredness beat me. I lay down and closed my eyes.

The dream girl came again. I tried to lift up my head but it felt as if it had been bolted to the pillow: my arms were too heavy to lift more than a few inches. The figure above me rocked and panted.

Afterwards she dropped forward, breathing deeply, her breath hot on my face. She balanced herself with an arm at each side of my head. With an effort I turned my head to one side. I could see only a dark shadow of an arm. I rolled my head the other way. This time I saw more.

A little light leaked under the door from the passageway. At first I could see a bare forearm and wrist. No jewellery. Featureless skin … No. I forced myself to see more. There was a birthmark. A red patch on the skin in the shape of a letter C.

I tried to speak but all that came out was grunt. Trying to sit up was worse. It was like trying to move in a dream. Nothing worked.

With a huge effort I snapped into a sitting position and opened my eyes.

It was morning. Daylight seeped through the curtains and Timothy was thumping the door. ‘Breakfast, breakfast, breakfast.'

‘Okay, okay … I'm awake. Timothy, I said I'm AWAKE!'

I ate breakfast feeling like something slimy had made its grave beneath my tongue. As I slipped back into focus I began looking round at the hands of people eating.

I drank four mugfuls of tea, hoping it would crank up my brain cells.

When Bernadette left the lounge to take the plates back to the galley, I followed.

‘You don't look as peaky as you did, Nick.'

‘I feel a lot better. Let me help wash up.'

She began to run hot water onto the plates. ‘That's very kind of you. But you need to rest. Anyway, I enjoy washing up. I always sing as I scrub. You know it—'

I grabbed her arm and pulled up the sleeve. A birthmark showed up like a red C.

‘Bernadette. It was you.'

She looked up, her dark eyes startled. ‘I'm sorry, Mr Aten. I
don't know what you mean … Don't look at me like that. You're scaring me.'