Divine Madness (20 page)

Regan later changed his mind and declared that the Ark was a sacred place that devils were unfit to enter. Critics of Regan say this simply hid the fact that very few tourists wanted to spend their vacations as guests of a religious cult in the oppressive heat of the Australian outback.

As a result of Regan’s failed ambition, James, Lauren and the other passengers faced a lengthy walk from the aircraft to the Ark itself. It took them through several hundred metres of eerily deserted corridors and into a silent arrivals lounge, where most of the lights were burned out and the dust-covered baggage carousels hadn’t moved in a decade. Finally, they headed outdoors and along a wide ramp that led towards the Ark itself.

James and Lauren didn’t know where they were going, so they walked behind the four other passengers. As they passed through a reinforced steel gate, each passenger bowed reverently at a spindly woman with straight dark hair. James and Lauren had seen photographs and knew it was Joel Regan’s eldest daughter Eleanor, the one they all called The Spider.

James thought there was something wonderfully appropriate about the nickname, as The Spider stepped forwards to introduce herself. She wore a tight black poloneck sweater and had long fingers as slender as pencils. Her voice ought to have been a witchlike cackle, but she opened with a smile and an ordinary Australian accent.

‘Hi,’ Eleanor said. ‘You must be James and Lauren. Congratulations on ascending to the Ark.’

The kids both smiled back as they shook The Spider’s hand. She led them through the turret and outside on to a broad path. The Ark had six pedestrianised roads inside its walls. Each one ran from a turret towards a giant square in the centre of the Ark which contained the Holy Church of the Survivors, with its gigantic dome and three golden spires.

While the church itself was impressive, the rest of the buildings were surprisingly ordinary. They were mostly one or two storeys high and constructed in the most basic utilitarian style, with corrugated metal roofs and white plastic windows. It smacked of cheapness. James felt as if he’d arrived at the swankiest restaurant in town and found Big Mac and fries on the menu.

‘Wakey, wakey,’ a great slab of a woman called Georgie shouted as she burst into James’ bedroom.

It was better than the makeshift facilities at the Brisbane mall, with eight metal-framed beds, personal lockers, plus a purpose-built shower and laundry area at the end of the room.

James was bleary-eyed as he rolled out of bed. He’d arrived at one in the morning and stripped off without waking the room’s seven other residents. These boys were now scrambling into a uniform that looked like a PE kit: white rugby shirt, blue shorts and blue football socks. James took longer than the others, because he had to grab new clothes from inside his locker and remove a mass of plastic bags, tags and stickers.

Once dressed, James joined the back of a line, queuing up to pee into the single stall or the urinal. He was the last to go, and even though he skipped washing his hands, James couldn’t catch up in time to see where everyone had legged it to.

Georgie came in from another bedroom. She screwed up her eyes as if she couldn’t believe what she was seeing and bellowed in James’ ear, ‘Why the
 
hell
 
are you still here?’

‘I haven’t got a timetable,’ James explained. ‘I don’t know where I’m going.’

‘All pupils are on the same timetable,’ she shouted, spraying James with spit. ‘Follow the others.’

‘But they’ve gone.’

‘You’d better learn to keep up with them if you don’t want a punishment. Down the stairs, through the doors and on to the quadrant for morning exercises.’

James sprinted down the corridor, through a door and into a face-full of sunlight. A set of steps on the outside of the building took him down to a dusty patch at the rear of the accommodation block. The hundred and fifty pupils ranged between ten and seventeen years old and stood in four long lines. Everyone wore the same white shirts, but each line wore different colour shorts and socks signifying the building they lived in.

As he joined the end of the blue line, James spotted Lauren standing two rows ahead in yellow kit. Georgie and a couple of other teachers stood up front and started the kids off with some old-school warm-up exercises. They did stretching and toe touching, working their way up to thrusts, push-ups, crunches and star jumps. They had to chant a short sentence between each movement:

‘Good morning, Lord. We are your angels. Here to serve you. Make us strong. Please protect us. Our souls are honest. Our thoughts are pure. We are leaders. We will take humanity. Through the darkness.’

The ten-sentence chant matched the ten repetitions of each exercise. After fifteen minutes of springing up and down in the dirt, James was breathless. His skin was covered in a layer of reddish grit and the lines of the chant were the only things in his head.

After getting two minutes to catch their breath, the four lines were led out through one of the turrets for their run around the perimeter. James estimated that each lap was about a kilometre and a half. They ran a lap in formation at a modest pace, keeping up the chant. At the end of this, the instructors shouted
 
break
 
and the kids were expected to run two more laps as fast as they could. James spotted Lauren and ran alongside her.

‘You OK?’ James puffed.

‘Could have done with more sleep,’ Lauren said, her words jerking as her trainers pounded the tarmac path around the perimeter. ‘And I’ve got grit all down my shorts.’

James scratched his belly. ‘Tell me about it. It’s driving me nuts.’

*

‘What’s your name?’ a kid asked, as the line of dusty boys staggered back across the dirt towards the Blue accommodation block. The kid looked twelve, but was actually a year younger. He had a rugged build and a squished-up nose.

‘James.’

‘I’m Rat.’

James didn’t quite believe what he’d heard. ‘Did you say
 
Rat
?’

‘Well, my name’s Rathbone. But if you ever call me that I’ll kick you in the bollocks.’

James smiled, but he was also surprised: Survivors didn’t swear.

‘Cat got your tongue?’ Rat asked, apparently pleased to have shocked James.

‘I’m just knackered,’ James said, shrugging listlessly.

Rat nodded. ‘You did good. I’ve seen plenty of new arrivals keel over from the heat when they first get here.’

‘How long have you been here?’ James asked, when they reached the bottom of the metal staircase.

‘Just my whole life,’ Rat said.

He pulled the leather necklace from under his shirt. It had half a dozen beads on it, but he pointed to a gold one.

‘What’s that for?’ James asked.

Rat smiled. ‘It means I’m part of the royal family.’

‘Eh?’

‘Joel Regan saved the best ’til last: I’m his thirty-third and final kid.’

‘Cool.’

Rat shook his head, like James was an idiot. ‘What’s cool about it?’

James found himself lost for words again as they reached the entrance of the boys’ dorm. The lads were stripping off for a shower, but Rat stopped walking in the doorway.

‘Are you queer?’ Rat asked bluntly.

James shook his head. ‘No way.’

‘So you like girls?’

James smiled. ‘Yeah.’

‘Naked girls?’

‘They’re my favourite kind.’

‘Come on then,’ Rat grinned, tugging at James’ shirt.

James looked uncertain. ‘What are you doing?’

Rat tutted. ‘Don’t be a pussy. It’ll only take a minute and I swear, this will
 
blow
 
your tiny mind.’

James tried to work out what he should do. There was part of him that wanted to behave until he knew the lie of the land, but on the other hand Rat clearly wasn’t your average brainwashed Survivor brat. He might make a useful ally.

‘Go on then,’ James said. ‘We’re not gonna get in trouble, are we?’

‘Don’t be an idiot all your life, James. I’m gonna be standing right alongside you. I’ve done this a million times.’

James let Rat take him a few metres back along the corridor. He opened a door into a wiltingly hot room, which contained a huge water heater, with pipes and gauges running in all directions.

Rat whispered as he headed towards a table in the far corner, ‘Keep your voice down.’

He clambered on to a table and signalled James to follow. James stepped up and turned to the wall. There was a metal grille in front of his face, which Rat was already staring through. James put his eyes up to the holes and gasped.

‘Isn’t that awesome?’ Rat whispered.

James was looking into a steaming shower room, packed with the girls who lived in the dorm across the hall. They were laughing, shampooing their hair and rubbing soapy hands over themselves.

‘
Oh
,’ James grinned, as his mouth dropped open.

‘Told you it was worth it,’ Rat whispered.

‘
Totally
 
worth it, dude. I want to stay here for the rest of my life.’

There was so much female flesh on display, James couldn’t keep his eyeballs fixed in one place.

Suddenly, Rat smashed his hand against the grille and shouted out, ‘
Perv alert!
’

Before James knew what was going on, Rat had jumped off the table and was heading for the door. He’d unscrewed the grille in anticipation of the prank and it clattered down inside the shower, causing a flurry of screams and a mass exodus of girls.

James jumped off the table and lunged for the door. Rat had pulled it shut and as James grabbed the handle he heard the unmistakable sound of a key turning in the lock.

‘You butthole,’ James shouted, kicking the door hard. ‘Let me out of here. I’ll smash every bone in your body.’

James panicked as he looked around and realised that escape was impossible. A bunch of girls were shouting abuse from inside the shower room, ‘You’re gonna get punished for this, pervert.’

Thirty seconds later, someone was banging on the door. He recognised Georgie’s voice.

‘Open up this instant.’

She pounded again and James tutted at Georgie’s apparent lack of brainpower. ‘Do you think I’d lock
 
myself
 
in here?’

This triggered a pause in the noises coming through the door, before Georgie erupted into a bellow.

‘Rathbone Regan, get out here.’

When there was no reply, she shouted again. ‘Don’t make me come into that shower and drag you out.’

James heard a kerfuffle through the door. It sounded like Rat had been bundled out into the corridor by some of the other boys.

‘Was it him?’ Georgie demanded.

Normal kids wouldn’t have grassed, but Survivors are taught that the Devil will get them if they lie to a superior.

‘We saw Rat with the new kid, Miss.’

‘He came running into the shower half a minute ago.’

Rat started screaming at his roommates, ‘You snitch-assed motherf—’

‘
Rathbone
,’ Georgie shouted. ‘You’re in enough trouble. Do you want me to soap your tongue as well? Where is the key?’

Rat’s response to this demand was a giant raspberry, blown into the palms of both hands. ‘I don’t care what you do to me, fat-ass. You don’t
 
own
 
me.’

‘Miss, we’ve got the key,’ another boy said. ‘It was under Rat’s dirty shorts.’

The key turned. Georgie grabbed James by the collar of his shirt and shoved him up against the corridor wall. The floor was covered in puddles, where various dripping boys had scrambled in and out, but Rat was the only one left. His hair was foamed up with shampoo, and he wore nothing except a towel around his waist.

James shot Rat an angry look, before speaking to Georgie. ‘Miss, he tricked me into it.’

‘I know he tricked you,’ Georgie nodded. ‘I know he locked you in there, but look at the size of him. He didn’t put his arms around your waist and stand you on the table, did he?’

‘No, Miss,’ James said weakly.

‘I want you both to shower and wait downstairs for the service. You can expect to be
 
severely
 
punished.’

‘What about breakfast?’ Rat asked.

‘Tough.’

James stepped into the bedroom, which was muggy from the steam escaping the showers. The other boys were either in the final stages of getting dressed, or they’d already headed downstairs for breakfast.

‘Thanks for sticking up for me, guys,’ Rat shouted to nobody in particular, as he threw off the towel and stormed back into the shower to rinse his hair.

James ripped off his sweaty kit, before following Rat into the steaming shower area. They were the only lads left and Rat backed up to the far wall, looking scared.

‘I ought to slap the piss out of you,’ James said, pointing angrily as he grabbed a bottle of shampoo from a ledge.