Blood Crazy (42 page)

Candles burned on the altar. More burned in candlesticks around the walls. The place was deserted.

Quiet as a cat I hunted through the shadows. Where were mum and dad? Where was Sarah?

There was a purpose to all this. My parents had seen my return to the valley. I'd heard my father whistling.

They couldn't walk into the hotel and get me. So they'd taken Sarah. Knowing I'd follow them here.

Here was the trap.

And here, Nick Aten, their first-born son, was the prey.

‘Mum … Dad … Here I am …' My voice echoed in the cavern of the church. I looked up into the shadows. ‘Aren't you going to say hello to your loving son?'

‘Nick … Nick …'

I twisted round, finger tightening on the trigger.

‘
Nick
.'

It wasn't the voice I expected.

‘Sarah. Where are you?'

‘Straight in front of you. The door … They've locked me in here.'

In the shadows I saw the door. Behind a steel grille the size of a TV screen was a gleam of blonde hair.

‘Sarah … You're all right?'

‘Yes … They're using me as bait, Nick … It's you they want.'

‘Well, they've gone now. You're safe.'

I forced my hand through the grille, felt her grab my hand and kiss it; and then hold it to her face. It was wet with tears.

We stayed like that for minutes on end, just feeling the touch of one another. After all these months it was so overpowering I couldn't speak.

Sarah whispered, ‘What was that noise? I heard a clap of thunder, then the whole building began to shake. I though it was going to come down on top of me.'

‘Don't worry. That was the sound of our lives being saved.'

She began to tell me about Curt's atrocities and the starvation but I told her that was over too.

‘Let's get you home,' I told her. ‘Is there another way out of here?'

‘No … It's the crypt. There's only coffins down there.'

‘I'll have to find something to break the door down.'

‘Don't you leave me, Nick Aten … Not now. Don't you dare.'

‘I won't. There's a cross on the wall made out of iron. Stand back and I'll break the door down with that.'

Sarah must have seen them first. I saw her eyes go unnaturally wide beyond the door grille.

Next came a cold sensation at the top of my back.

The cold became flaming agony and I twisted away and fell against the wall.

Standing there side by side were my parents – wild and dirty-looking now, with long hair and blazing eyes. My mother held a knife in her hand. Her fingers gleamed red with fresh blood.

I moved my left shoulder. The pain from the knife wound stabbed through my back.

Panting, I raised the pistol and looked at my father's face through the sight.

My hand began to tremble.

They stood and stared at me, heads shaking slightly from the tension twisting up the muscles inside of them.

I forced myself to keep aiming at the face. Only now I didn't see the wildman hair and mad eyes.

I saw my father's face. His lips parted and I saw the gap in his teeth.

‘Nick … Nick.' I heard Sarah behind me. The voice seemed faraway. ‘Nick. Shoot them … They're not your parents any more … Fire the gun.'

I pulled the trigger. The explosion echoed around the church.

Ten feet above my father's head the bullet knocked a lump out of the wall.

‘Mum … Dad.' My throat hurt as I tore out the words. ‘I don't know if there's some part of you deep down can hear me … But listen. I'm a father now. I've a new family. And you've no right to do this. It's time for you to go away now. You've got to leave us alone.'

I fired above their heads again. They did not flinch.

‘Nick … Don't let them do this to you,' called Sarah. ‘They're not your parents. If you don't kill them they'll kill you …'

My mother began to walk slowly forward, the knife held straight out in her hand. I was so hypnotised by her eyes that I forgot everything else until the blow knocked me sideways.

My father held the cross I'd intended to use to break the crypt door down with.

He swung it again.

I jerked back and the heavy ironwork bit into the wall.

‘Stop it … Dad, stop it!'

He kept moving forward. I lifted the gun.

He swung again and the cross splintered a wooden pew.

With my free hand I began picking up prayer books laid out on the pews and threw them at him.

He kept on coming.

‘Dad, don't … don't …' I felt six years old again. My dad was coming to punish me and there was nothing I could do about it … He could run faster than me, he was stronger than me … Here he comes to smack me and carry me crying to bed.

Slash with the cross; sometimes to beat thin air, sometimes hitting the wall, sometimes hitting my arms.

‘Dad … No … Leave me alone.'

The wall at the end of the church met my back and I could walk backwards no longer.

All I could see were my father's eyes. Staring into mine. And they were getting closer and closer.

The sound of the gunshot came from nowhere. The echo crashed from wall to wall. My head jerked from left to right to see where it had come from.

Then I looked at my own hand. Smoke oozed from the gun-barrel. My finger still pulled the trigger so tightly it had turned bone white.

Slowly I looked down along the aisle.

My father lay flat on his back, arms stretched out at either side. Above his head was the cross. A spreading pool of blood fanned out around his head.

My mother came at me snarling. The force of her leap knocked me flat; the pistol skidded away across the floor.

She crouched on my chest, both hands in my mouth trying to tear my jaws apart.

I crunched my teeth together on her fingers.

But she didn't let go. She only used the grip to pull my head up then crack it back down onto the stone slabs.

She did it again, and a droning sound started running through my brain.

Consciousness was slipping away from me.

Give you birth … Do you know the sacrifices we had to make for you … You failed us … You betrayed us … dirty, dirty son … We
gave you everything … You failed us … Now we're taking it all back … Everything …

Mum's voice. But it was only in my head as my mind began to slip. Somewhere a girl was screaming my name …

‘Nick! Fight her, Nick! Fight her!'

The strength came thundering back from somewhere deep inside. I kicked up, pushing her off.

I pulled myself to my feet and backed off, choking.

From her ragged clothes she pulled out the knife and came forward, eyes burning, her lips parted.

Then she ran at me.

I sidestepped her, grabbed her by the huge bunch of tangled hair. And using the momentum I spun her smack into a stone pillar.

The first time her head hit the pillar it was accidental.

The next time was not. Nor the next.

When she was gone I lowered her to the floor.

I found the key to the crypt by my mother's body.

Sarah came out and we hung onto one another like children.

As we walked toward the doors we heard it.

A low, breathless whistling. Arms around one another we walked down the aisle to where my father lay.

He looked up at the ceiling, whistling: blood had spread out like a red blanket on which he lay.

When he saw movement he stopped whistling, and turned his head to look at me.

Sarah says that's when he died.

I say the same. But deep down I know that for a few seconds he was my old dad again. Sane, tranquil, and knowing that I'd still love him and mum until the day I stopped breathing too.

Del-Coffey's house. Candles burning.

My injuries weren't serious – even so, I wore so many bandages I looked like something from
Return Of The Mummy
. Sarah sat beside me on the sofa, as the girl brought in the baby.

‘Look at him,' said the girl, staring at the baby in awe, ‘just look at him – the way he sees things. He's been here before.'

After the girl had put the baby in Sarah's arms Del-Coffey ushered her out of the room.

‘I'll leave you to it.' He smiled. ‘You got a lot of talking and … and stuff to catch up on … Give us a shout when you're ready for bed; the girl will look after the baby tonight.'

‘Here you are,' said Sarah. ‘Your son and heir … He's four weeks old today. Come on, hold him.'

‘I can't. I'll drop him.'

‘No, you won't. Hold out your arms … That's it, support his head with your other hand … There, you look like a natural born father now.'

In the last ten months I'd never trembled as much as this. He lay there content in my arms, his clear eyes looking from one candle to the next. In that face and those eyes I saw my whole family – John, Uncle Jack, mum and dad, grandparents, and, of course, someone far older, who we'd forgotten was there all along.

Sarah kissed both of us.

I whispered, ‘What's his name?'

‘I hope you don't mind. I called him David. After all, even though Dave Middleton never knew it, he probably saved our lives … He deserves some kind of memorial.'

I shook my head smiling. ‘I don't mind at all … Well, young Dave Aten, I'm your dad – not a pretty sight, eh? Never mind, we'll have plenty of time to get used to one another.'

The stream at the bottom of the garden sounded musical and relaxing. David played on a blanket in the shade of a tree. Sarah sat checking sheets of computer printouts.

The hot August sun gently baked the twelve young men and women as they sat around the table, cold drinks in their hands. The mood was quietly cheerful and there was gentle laughter as well as talk.

‘Think of it like this,' I was saying for the hundredth time since I returned to Eskdale. ‘Imagine a newborn baby is like a new video recorder.'

Sarah giggled. ‘Can't you come up with a more picturesque example?'

I stuck out my tongue and ploughed on. ‘Think back to the days when you could actually buy a video recorder. You know, when we had money and shopping malls and traffic jams. Anyway, the video recorder is the newborn baby's brain. It comes with a blank tape on which you record your own personal memories, likes and dislikes on. That is YOU. Also, though you don't know it, it comes with a pre-recorded tape that's packed with thousands of programs, movies, documentaries – this is the unconscious mind. The trick is to be able to access these pre-recorded programs: if you can do that you can transform your life, be healthier, become
anyone you want to be – servant, warrior, scientist, teacher, leader …'

‘Tinker, tailor, soldier …' chipped in Sarah.

More gentle laughter.

This dozen were our first school teachers. I looked at them each in turn. ‘Remember, for the sake of the children – we have this conspiracy – we all pretend there is a God … like we pretend there is Santa Claus and the tooth fairy. When they're old enough, then they learn the truth. That's when they move into the adult phase of their life. Jewish kids had Bar Mitzvah, we will—'

‘Nick. Sorry to interrupt.'

Del-Coffey loped awkwardly across the lawn, laces eternally trailing.

Breathless, he sat down and poured himself a lemonade. The bloke is worth his weight in gold.

It is due to his intellect that we, two thousand of us now, live safely in a territory twenty miles across that's free from Creosotes. Armed patrols pick them off as they cross the borders.

It was Del-Coffey who rigged up the wind turbines that give us electricity; and his meticulous organization of scavenging expeditions means we have food stores to keep us going until we learn how to properly farm the land.

You can read Del-Coffey's account of what happened from DAY 1 to the present day – it's scholarly, extremely detailed, big words, maps, photographs, the whole sausage. You'll find it in the four big leather-bound books in the library, along with the video archive.

Now, as we get to the end of this, a little bit about me. Yeah, I did become leader – that's when life really did get tough.
Responsibility
is the hardest word in the English language.

After the day we blew the dam we mopped up the last of the Creosotes. Slatter did that virtually singlehanded. He moved amongt them like an avenging angel. An ugly one with a tattooed face and pit boots – but an angel none the less.

A week after that he left without telling anyone where or why he was going. We've not seen him since. One day we'll name a town or something after him.

But if he ever came back … Sometimes I wonder. I might reach for the rifle I keep by my desk.

* * *

Del-Coffey's face was pink from the walk in the hot sun. ‘I've spent the morning on the radio … Jigsaw and Doc are all right, but their camp took a battering from the Creosotes last night … Don't worry, they reckon they can hold out. The bad news is two communities have gone down in Florida and France. New tactics. Half a million Creosotes at a time just roll over the camps like a tide … Oh … and I'm getting this weird message from some lady called Bernadette who says she lives on the Ark.'

I sat up, suddenly tense.

‘She's not broadcasting to any particular community. It's going out worldwide. She says …' Del-Coffey read from his clipboard. ‘This message is for Alexander the Great. The time has come to build your empire … Remember December.' Del-Coffey took a swallow of lemonade. ‘Then the message gets weirder. This Bernadette says, tell Alexander the Great he has a girl child and she has been named Alexandra. Mother and baby are both fine.'