Blood Crazy (9 page)

After hours of driving my arms and shoulders hurt like hell; the tension clamped my jaws together so tightly my teeth ached. As the motorway approached another burning city we saw the road ahead was completely blocked with a wall of smashed trucks and cars. It didn't look like a deliberate barricade. If anything it looked as if people had driven suicidally into the wreckage. There was no way past and the sun hung low in the sky.

We were scared. We didn't know the area. We didn't know if we'd turn a corner to find a thousand crazies blocking the road.

I U-turned and took the first motorway exit. Then I headed into the countryside.

We found the cottage in a forest. Unlocked and deserted, it seemed like paradise. Of course, there was no electricity but water still ran from the taps, and it had one of those old kitchen ranges where you can cook over an open fire.

For the last three days it had rained. We did nothing much but eat and sleep. Vicki and Anne went through a cycle of arguing, crying for mummy, long silences, then back to arguing again. I drove to the nearby village – deserted apart from dead boys and girls – and returned with a car load of supplies, clothes, toys and games. After that they seemed happier with something to occupy them.

Now they were upstairs asleep and I was eating spaghetti with their big sister and trying to work out what the hell we should do next.

‘Do you think that ape Slatter was right?' Sarah sipped her wine. ‘That all the world's like this now?'

‘No. Even if there had been a nuclear strike there'd be large areas
still unaffected. If we drive far enough we'll find towns that are completely normal.'

‘God … It's a mess though, isn't it? It's like something out of the Bible. Thousands must have died. Cities destroyed. If the madness is permanent the government are going to have to keep them somewhere. Whole counties are going to have to be turned into mental institutions.'

‘Thank God it's not our problem … Cold?'

‘A bit … Yes.'

She was shaking but it probably had damn-all to do with the temperature. I pushed more logs onto the fire. Soon the flames blazed white up the chimney, filling the room with a pulsating light so bright we didn't need candles.

After we'd eaten we sat together on the sofa just watching the flames dance like it was the latest TV poll-topper.

I couldn't help thinking about my parents. Because I hadn't seen them crazy like the rest I couldn't believe that they weren't normal. I knew that if they walked through that door right now they would be like they had always been. Level-headed adults who put their children's interests first.

Sarah hugged the cushion to her chest. ‘Perhaps it was in the water. A drug or toxin.'

‘But who'd do a thing like that?'

‘Terrorists.'

‘But why aren't we affected? It only seems to have sent people over the age of twenty insane.'

‘Adults have different levels of hormone in their bodies to children and adolescents. Perhaps the hormones reacted with the drug. Or the gas.'

Outside, rain rattled the windows from out of the darkness. Sarah closed the curtains. She said when it grew dark she didn't like to see the tree trunks that surrounded the cottage. They looked like ghost sentinels. Waiting for something to happen.

When she returned she sat next to me on the sofa. Sometimes when she got close like that I felt a buzz of excitement. A dozen times these last three days I had wanted, just out of the blue, to reach over and hold her hand or stroke her blonde hair.

The beer didn't help my resistance. I wanted to touch her.
Nothing wildly sexual but what I wouldn't give to just sit there on the sofa with my arm round her, watching the flames alive in the grate.

Sarah pushed her hair back over her shoulder. On the wall behind her, her shadow image, distorted and gigantic from the log fire, mimicked the motion. She was beautiful – if she'd read from the Yellow Pages I'd have drunk in every word.

‘You said you saw people heading south on a motorway.'

‘There were thousands of them. It was a people river. You can't imagine what it was like unless you saw it with your own eyes.'

‘So adults haven't simply gone mad. I mean they're not just running round, screaming. There's a pattern.'

‘There's a pattern all right. Parents kill their children. Adults who have no children kill anyone under the age of twenty.'

‘But it's almost as if they're following new instincts. They're killing. Yes, we've seen that. But they are also flocking like birds. As soon as there's a big enough group something tells them to march south. Nick, they're migrating.'

‘Migrating?'

‘Yes. Like birds. But where?'

I shrugged. ‘One day we'll know. Anyway, the effects of this madness might be temporary. Tomorrow all these people might wake up in a field a hundred miles from home wondering just how the hell they got there.'

‘God, I hope you're right.'

‘Wine?'

‘Please.' She paused, then: ‘Are you sure you're comfortable sleeping on this sofa?'

There was more to that question than met the eye. I'd slept three nights on the sofa. Upstairs there were two bedrooms with a double bed in each. The two younger sisters in one and Sarah in a double bed by herself.

I told her I was fine and we talked small talk. What we said with our mouths didn't really matter. We were communicating with our eyes and the way we moved our heads and hands, and the way she stroked back that long hair that shone in the firelight.

‘How's the face?' I asked looking at the dark bruise on her cheekbone.

‘It doesn't hurt. But it's still swollen. You can feel it.'

Sarah had invited me to touch her. She pushed back a strand of hair and leaned sideways across the sofa toward me. When her eyes looked directly into mine I felt electricity buzz through my blood stream.

Gently I stroked my finger tip across her cheek. It didn't stop there. I couldn't stop myself. I carried on gliding my fingertips across her skin, down to her throat, then in one movement to the back of her neck beneath her hair.

She slid across the sofa cushions toward me, her hips lifting against her skirt.

The kiss. Soft. Shot with sweetness, warm. And she kissed me as much as I kissed her.

I breathed her in, her smell of soap and skin and hair. I tasted her.

We held each other tightly, kissing. I let my hands stroke down her arching back to where her T-shirt was tucked into her skirt. She was ready for it all, her breathing hot in my ear. I wanted to see her naked by firelight.

Then I broke the clinch. Trembling and breathing fast I stood up. She looked up, her blue eyes bright.

Suddenly I felt awkward. ‘I'll get more wood for the fire.'

Sarah sat smiling at me. ‘I'm warm enough. Anyway, I'm going to bed now. I feel more than a little bit drunk.'

‘Me too.'

I knew we'd sleep in our usual places tonight. Sarah upstairs, me on the sofa. Call it courtship convention but something told me not to rush things to fast. Tonight I felt hot and giddy and Sarah seemed the loveliest thing in the world.

I wouldn't make love to her tonight.

But tomorrow night, I told myself as she kissed me on the cheek before going upstairs, tomorrow night we would.

I dreamt this:

I opened the door of the cottage. Standing there were Mum and Dad. They looked pleased to see me.

‘Hello, Nick,' dad said.

‘Are you looking after yourself?' Mum seemed concerned. ‘Are you getting enough to eat?'

Dad's smile broadened showing the gap in his top front teeth. ‘We know you've been hearing rumours that we intend to kill you.'

My mother looked at me hard. ‘We don't want to kill you, Nick. But we have to.'

‘The sooner you come home, Nick, the sooner we can get it over with. Your mother wants to wear your heart on her sleeve. So don't be a silly boy, Nicholas. Tell him, Judy, tell him we want him home. It's your favourite for tea, then straight upstairs for the killing, easy as one-two-three …'

‘Did you kill John?'

Dad smiled, exposing his gap teeth. ‘Ask him yourself.'

I looked down. Between them, as if my parents held the hands of a two-year-old was John. His head was as I remember it, the size of a teenager's, but his body had shrunk to the size of a toddler's. His eyes were open but dull, his mouth had become a bruised hole and the rip in his face had dried black.

Then the screaming started.

I woke on the sofa. The screaming continued.

Vicki and Anne. I rolled off the sofa and ran upstairs, pulling up my jeans as I went. Sarah, dressed in pants and T-shirt, was already through the bedroom door.

The two girls were hiding under the bedclothes screaming so loudly it felt like needles being driven into my ears.

Sarah tried to pull back the blankets. ‘Vicki … Anne. What's wrong? Anne, shut up and let go of the blanket. Now. What's the matter?'

Anne's eyes were round as she sat there, holding the blanket up to her chin. ‘We saw a man.'

‘Looking in through the window,' wailed Vicki. ‘He frightened us.'

The curtains were partly open.

My nerves were stripped. ‘How could he look through the window? It's ten feet from the ground.'

‘Big man,' whispered Vicki.

‘Don't be ridiculous. Men don't grow to that—'

‘Nick,' Sarah said quietly. ‘I'll take care of it.'

I shrugged and fastened the belt on my jeans.

Sarah sat on the bed. ‘Don't you think you could have imagined it?'

‘No.'

‘Which one of you saw the man?'

‘We both did. He was a big man, looking straight in the window at us. His eyes were really staring. He didn't like us.'

I looked out the window. ‘No sign of giants.'

‘Nick, don't tease them.'

‘Sarah, Anne, Vicki. Look for yourself. There's no one there. This window is a good ten feet from the ground. There's no ladder against the wall.'

‘But we
did
see someone, Sarah.'

Vicki looked as if she was going to cry. ‘You believe us, don't you, Sarah?'

Hysterical schoolgirls weren't the way I wanted to start the day. Irritated, I snapped, ‘What did he look like then?'

There was a pause while Vicki thought about it. Then she pointed at me and said, ‘The man looked like him.'

That derailed me. Sarah shot me a pointed look that obviously asked: Nick Aten? A peeping tom?

‘It wasn't me. Jesus. What would I want to look in your damn bedroom for?'

Sarah turned to ice. ‘Was it you, Nick?'

‘Was it hell. How could I … More to the point WHY in God's name should I want to look in at these two whining brats?'

‘You tell us, Nick. We don't know you. On the surface you've been nice but you're showing us you're a bastard now. For all we know you might have been in trouble with the police for this and God knows what else in the past. Okay, we don't know you … but we've seen people you know.'

‘Who?'

‘That ape we picked up. Tug somebody or other.'

‘Tug Slatter? If you think—'

‘I do think, Nick Aten. If you know animals like that then what the hell are you like, Mr Aten? What are YOU like?'

Suddenly I felt like the condemned man. And for some stupid reason I felt guilty. Whatever it was that drove men and women crazy, was it beginning to affect me too? Had I somehow scrambled up the drainpipe to leer insanely through the window? I began to sweat.

The three girls stared at me. In their eyes I was a dangerous loony. First I was peeping. What next? Downstairs in the kitchen there were plenty of sharp knives. Just a moment, girls, I want you to say hello to Mr Knife and Mrs Pain.

Then Sarah said, ‘Vicki, how do you know it was him? You weren't wearing your glasses.'

‘I never said it was him, stupid. I said it looked LIKE him.'

Sarah sighed explosively. ‘You mean it
wasn't
Nick looking through the window?'

‘No. It just looked like him.'

‘Either it was or it wasn't. Was he dressed?'

‘I think so, but I didn't see what he was wearing.'

Sarah shot me an apologetic look then asked her other sister, ‘Anne. You saw him. What did he look like? The colour of his hair?'

‘Oh, it was like Pookah.'

‘Pookah's her pony,' Sarah explained. ‘It's a piebald.'

‘What's that mean?

‘It's a mixture of black hair and grey.'

I said nothing. I tipped my head forward and pointed at my black hair.

‘Oh, I noticed something else,' Anne said. ‘He had a big gap in his teeth just here.' She pointed at her front upper teeth.

‘A gap in his teeth … I'll check outside,' I said.

Sarah grabbed my arm. ‘Nick. What's wrong?'

‘Nothing's wrong.'

‘You look awful. You're as white as a sheet.'

I nearly told her then that Anne had just described my father.

Outside the rain had stopped; a rising breeze shook the trees that surrounded the cottage in their thousands. It made the sound of the sea.

I walked round the cottage while breathing in the cold air. Nothing had changed. Shogun still parked by the cottage; the doors of outbuildings still closed; their contents untouched. I didn't see any strange footprints, but as the area consisted mainly of turf I didn't expect to find any.

Sarah joined me. ‘Anything?'

‘Nothing.'

‘Are you sure you're all right? When Anne described the man you looked as if you'd been kicked.'

‘Listen, I'm fine. Okay?'

Her blue eyes watched me, hurt. I was playing the rough bastard.