Blood Water (6 page)

'Come on, boys,' Mrs Rees said to Sean and James. 'You'd
better come back to the hall with me. The headmaster
wants everyone together. Mr Phoenix will be all right
– I'll check back on him in a while.'

'But we're looking after Dr Morrow. He doesn't know
his way around the school,' Sean insisted.

'Yeah, and he said he wouldn't be long,' James added
before Mrs Rees could get a word in. 'Just a quick look,
that's all, then we'll bring him back to the hall.'

Mrs Rees thought it over. 'All right, but be sure you
do. This storm isn't getting any better and we can't have
people roaming around the school on their own. What
exactly are you two doing here anyway? James, you left
school three years ago, and you, Sean, you're supposed
to be off sick.'

'I am, miss. I mean, I was, but I, well . . . It's a long
story. We were on our way home when we got caught in
the storm and we stopped to give Dr Morrow a lift. He
works with James at the study centre.'

'Study centre? I thought he was Mr Phoenix's GP.'

'He is,' James said quickly. 'But he's also a marine
biologist and runs courses.'

'He must be a busy man.'

'Yes, very busy.'

'All right, well, you may as well go on up to the staff
room then. But don't let the headmaster know I let you
up there. I'm trusting you two. Understood?'

'Yes, miss,' they replied in unison.

Mrs Rees still looked sceptical, but she left them to
it.

'I can't believe this,' James said. 'It's like I never left
school.'

'Never mind that,' Sean said, leading the way up
the stairs. 'We can't leave Dr Morrow on his own with
Phoenix if he has that thing in him.' They ran up the
stairs to the staff room, and were surprised when they
went in to find no one there.

'That's strange,' Sean said, scanning the large room
with its sofas and coffee tables. On the floor a mug appeared
to have been knocked over, its contents saturating
a large section of the carpet. All was quiet.

'I don't like this.' James walked slowly towards the
middle of the room. 'What's through there?' he asked,
pointing to an open door on the far side of the room.

'I don't know,' Sean said, 'but I'd guess it's their toilets.
That must be where Phoenix and Morrow have gone.'

'Yeah,' James replied, clearly reluctant to go and find
out. 'I really don't like this.'

'Come on,' Sean said. 'It's probably fine.'

Above the sound of the storm outside, they suddenly
heard a thud, a tinkle of breaking glass, and what could
have been a cry. They both froze, then looked again at
the open doorway, knowing that they had to go through
it – even though it was the last thing on earth they
wanted to do.

James went first, a step ahead of Sean, who was
similarly terrified and readying himself to turn and
run for his life at the slightest hint of danger. Ahead of
them was a corridor and they saw doors to the ladies' and
then the men's toilets, where James took a firm grip
on the handle and slowly twisted.

It was an odd feeling – the kind of feeling, Sean
guessed, that firemen must experience before opening
the door to a burning room, or policemen entering a
building where a criminal is lying in wait. It was something
in the gut. As the door widened to reveal the
broken window, the glass and the blood, they knew that
something terrible had occurred.

They remained on the threshold, ready to turn and
bolt, waiting for the inevitable shock. But if Phoenix
was there, he was clearly in no hurry to move. He had
to be out of sight in one of the cubicles. Either that or
he'd jumped out of the window, but that would surely
be suicidal. Sean wondered if anyone could survive
the plunge.

'What do we do?' he whispered, hearing in his own
voice that he was shaking.

James tried to reply, but nothing came out. He
couldn't think of a good enough response anyway. And
then the matter was resolved for them. There was a loud
sigh, then a shuffling sound, and Phoenix came out of
the last cubicle.

The three of them stood there, just looking at each
other; rain blew in through the broken window and
soaked the floor around them. Phoenix seemed to be
grinning, but at the same time was clearly in some
discomfort. Welts covered his face, red sores that
certainly hadn't been there when he'd met Sean by the
park. The man's eyes were bloodshot and looked like
they'd receded, sunk back into his head. He shuffled
awkwardly forward; a series of strange sounds issued
from his throat before he managed to form words.

'You came with the doctor,' he said matter-of-factly.

Sean recognized the voice but it sounded strained.
He and James exchanged glances and waited to see what
Phoenix would do next: he scratched one of the angry
sores on his right cheek, drawing blood, which trickled
down to his chin. All three of them winced.

'Mr Phoenix?' James asked, wanting this confrontation
to end quickly. 'What happened to Mr Morrow?'

'What?' Phoenix noticed the blood on his fingers
and rubbed it around. He looked up, first at the boys
and then over his shoulder towards the window. 'Oh . . .
he's outside.' He seemed to be in some kind of daze, or
perhaps hypnotized. 'He's outside,' he repeated.

Sean swallowed, feeling the cold more and more. He
looked at his brother for guidance.

'OK,' James said. 'You stay here for a moment, Mr
Phoenix. Sean and I are just going out there to see if
Mr Morrow is OK – we'll be back in a second.'

Phoenix just stared at them blankly, and they turned
to leave, but then he said something that changed
everything: 'He's got it now.'

The boys stopped and looked at him.

'What?' James asked.

'That thing . . . It's in him now. I'm . . . It needed
someone fresh. I'm already finished. No use any more.
I think the water did for me . . .' He coughed, turned
and spat into the toilet behind him, then coughed again,
violently.

'What do you mean?' Sean asked.

'It kept me going but I was ill, I think . . . From being
under the water so long. I . . . God, I'm so tired. I need
to sit down.'

'Why did it go through the window?' James asked.

'I pushed it,' Phoenix said. 'But it wasn't enough. That
thing, it gives you strength . . . It seemed to make more
use of my body than I could.' He coughed again. 'Except
the head . . . I still feel dizzy.'

'Dizzy?'

'When it got me by the river I was staggering all over
the place. I banged my head on a branch and blacked
out. I didn't hit it that hard, but the creature went mad.
I think while it was in my head it was extra sensitive
to any pressure or trauma there. Any other part of the
body doesn't seem to matter so much.'

'What does it want?' Sean asked.

'I'm not sure. It was looking for something but I
didn't understand what. It has no consideration for life.
It's cold. That's why I pushed it out of the window. You
have to stop it . . . I really need to rest.'

'Did it communicate with you?' James asked.

Phoenix wiped his forehead, drawing more blood
from the sores there. When he looked back at the
boys he could see horror in their eyes at his appearance.
'When it was in me I could hear random, jumbled
thoughts. I don't know what it is, but I sensed it was
intelligent . . . And very, very tired of being lonely.
Things are different now. Whatever it is after, it won't
stop until it gets it.' His stare bored into each of the
brothers in turn. 'There are more than three hundred
children here right now. They are all in serious danger.'
He coughed again, this time spitting a dark red liquid
onto the floor. 'That thing has made me very ill. I think
if it had been in me any longer I might have . . . Please,
I really do need to sit down.' Phoenix pushed past Sean
and went into the staff room, where he collapsed into a
chair.

Sean looked back at his brother, then turned to peer
out of the window into the storm. The rain was still
sheeting down and it was very gloomy now. However, it
was clear that there was no body on the ground below
the window.

'It's alive,' James said, turning to his brother. 'It's out
there somewhere . . .'

Mr Waites, the history teacher, hadn't heard the headmaster's
announcement asking everyone to congregate
in the main hall: the faulty speaker in his classroom still
hadn't been fixed, and his radio was on. He wanted to
go home, but if he didn't mark the test papers from the
previous week now, he never would. He scratched his
head and looked out of the window. The rain was still
hammering down – he hoped the roads wouldn't be
flooded. Most of the children should have left for the
day by now, but even so, the school seemed unnaturally
quiet. In a while, he thought, he would go up to the staff
room to make himself a coffee; first he wanted to get
two more papers marked.

But as he picked up the next exam paper, he had the
unnerving feeling of being watched. There was no one
in the doorway. Then, as he turned back towards the
window, he knew, even before he had any evidence, that
there was someone standing outside. Except that there
was no one there. He got up and went across to the
window, trying to see through the downpour. What
kind of an idiot would be wandering about in that? He
wondered if he should go and take a look, then thought
better of it. Why get drenched chasing after some
fool? It had probably just been his imagination anyway.
He went back to his desk, sat down and resumed his
marking, with no clue as to either the true extent of
the flooding or the horrific events unfolding within the
school.

'We need to tell the others,' Sean said. 'Quickly.'

'Tell them what?'

'I don't know, but he could be back inside already. We
can't just let that thing keep jumping into people. Look
what it did to Mr Phoenix – he looks terrible.'

They both turned back to the teacher, now slumped
limply in his chair. They could only guess at the awful
changes that had taken place inside his body – he looked
near death.

'Sean,' Phoenix said weakly. 'Come here.' Sean went
and sat on a nearby sofa. 'Sean, that thing has to be
stopped. It's scared and angry. Whatever it wants, I have
a horrible feeling something bad will happen if it finds
it.'

'How are you feeling?' James asked, changing the
subject.

'Bloody terrible,' Phoenix answered, coughing. 'It's
like a bad case of the flu. Everything feels tender and
swollen. I'm bunged up and—'

'We'll get you to the hospital as soon as the weather
eases a little,' James said. 'It's still too dangerous to go
out now.'

'Come on,' Sean said, tugging James's sleeve. 'We
need to tell Mr Titus and the others what's going on.
We won't tell them everything. We'll just say that Dr
Morrow's gone mad and needs to be restrained.'

'Titus'll think we're mad,' James told him. 'We should
try and deal with this on our own.'

'But we can't. That thing's too dangerous.'

'Waites,' Phoenix said. 'See if he's in his classroom
– he usually stays on after school to catch up on paperwork.
If he's here he's more likely to listen to you than
Mr Titus. Titus is such an idiot.' He coughed again.

Sean and James nodded, then turned and reluctantly
left the teacher to go downstairs, wondering if Morrow
and the thing inside him were already back inside the
building.

'Oh God,' Phoenix whispered once the boys were out
of earshot. 'What the hell is happening to me?'

Most of the pupils had already been picked up by parents,
and incredibly one of the school buses had managed to
make it through to collect the students – the driver said
there was still a relatively safe route back to the depot
twelve miles away. In the hall Mr Titus, Mrs Rees and
the few remaining children were sitting or standing near
the huge windows, watching the rain and the pools of
water that had formed outside.

'It's just ridiculous,' Mrs Rees muttered.

'I dread to think what this is doing to the town,' Mr
Titus said. 'Remember the floods we had before? It
took months for some businesses to recover. Some of
them never reopened. The cinema has been refurbished
at least twice because of floodwater. It's amazing how
much destruction can be caused by just a few hours of
rain.'

'Yes, well, I hope it stops soon. I don't want to be
stranded here all night. I'm sure the kids don't either.
Right, I'd better go back to the staff room to check on
Nigel. I'll be back in a second.'

Outside was a wall of water. Cold water. The creature
inside Morrow was content to wait, at least for now, for
the right opportunity to present itself. It didn't feel the
cold like its host did, and it couldn't understand why
he was shaking so much and making that odd sound
with his teeth, but it realized that these human beings
were afraid of being cold and wet. It could hurt them.
So it wasn't going to stay outside for long – just long
enough. It could feel that some of the man's bones had
been broken. There was pain, but it buried this, kept it
locked away so that it could concentrate. Luckily the
injuries didn't impede movement.

It had already crept around most of the school buildings
looking for signs of life inside, and so far had only
spotted one person apart from the three it had left
upstairs in the staff room. They had been sitting in a
classroom and had been a prime target, but there seemed
no point in changing bodies at this point, not while this
one's memories hadn't yet been thoroughly plundered.

And it wasn't an easy task either. Morrow seemed to
guess that the creature was looking for something, and
was trying to block it, to hamper its efforts by thinking
completely random and meaningless thoughts. It
would learn what it needed to though. Whatever that
was. And that was really the problem. It knew it had
lost something at some point, a long time ago, but it
couldn't remember what it was. Whatever it was, the
secret wasn't in Morrow's mind, but he might still have
a clue as to who did possess that knowledge.

What is it?
the creature demanded in frustration
within Morrow's mind.
What is it that I need to know?

Although it was unaware of it, a moan issued from
Morrow's lips. It was a moan of helplessness and distress
– though it was completely lost in the dark and the rain.
But the moan was less to do with Morrow's sorry state,
and more to do with what he had seen inside the building.
He recognized the woman. He'd seen her earlier.
His thoughts were in a mess, jumbled up and blurred.
The entity in his head was clouding his memory as well
as governing his mind. Then he felt it squirm. It had
seen her too, and it made him move towards a point
of interception. Morrow couldn't bear the thought of
another helpless person being infected.
Please
– the
thought, weak, drifted somewhere through his war-torn
subconscious –
stop this now . . . Whatever it is you want
to know, I can't help you. That woman, leave her alone. No
more. Please, no more . . .

Mrs Rees had half expected the head to chastise her
for leaving Mr Phoenix unattended, but he was clearly
preoccupied with the environmental calamity that was
unfolding outside. She strode up the corridor towards
the annexe and passed the reception area, now empty as
Mrs Evans had decided to take a risk and drive home in
the rain. She was about to go up the steps leading to the
staff room when she heard the main doors open.