The Deluge

by Mark Morris

  "What I any? What do you mean, you know what I anz? What any I then?"

  "You know," the man crooned, like a teasing child with a secret.

  "I don't, actually," snapped Abby, "so you'd better tell inc."

  His eyes grew big. "Monster," he hissed. "Changeling."

  Abby thought of the story Sue had told them-the little girl who had become something else. "Have you seen them?" she asked. "Have you seen them change?"

  Abruptly his face creased with rage. "Don't-fucking-playganmes-can't-play-gauzes-with-nee."

  "I'm not playing games," said Abby, "and I'm not one of them. But someone in our group saw a little girl change into something else. Is that what you saw?"

  The supermarket man clapped his hands to his ears. "Notlistening-not-listening-to-you."

  "Okay," she said, "so you think I'm some sort of monster - which I'm not, by the way. But if I were one of those things, what would be the point in capturing me? What do you get out of it?"

  The man removed his hands from his ears and an expression of childlike cunning appeared on his face. "I-got-you," he muttered.

  "But what's the point of having me?" said Abby. "If I'm one of these monsters why don't I just change into whatever it is they're supposed to change into? And if we're all monsters, then won't you just have made all the other monsters angry by capturing me?"

  It was like trying to fire a gun with a crooked barrel. Her bullets were simply not hitting the target. Abby decided that if reason wouldn't work, then she would have to try threats.

  "Listen, you idiot," she said, trying to sound angry rather than scared, "we've got guns, yeah? And if my dad thinks you've hurt me, or you're going to hurt me, he'll shoot you. So why don't you just... stop all this? We can help you."

  The man stared at her, the rain running down his face, his ragged clothes plastered to his body. All at once he struck Abby as pitiful rather than frightening, and for a second she thought she might have got through to him. Then he gestured towards the houses, which resembled ice sculptures under the blue lightning. "You walk."

  Abby felt like weeping with frustration, but she clamped the emotion inside, scared that if she started she might not be able to stop. She splashed ahead of him once again, blinking rain out of her eyes, and eventually they reached a gate at the edge of the field. The man darted forward and pushed it open, beckoning her through. He ushered her across a road to the line of houses on the opposite side. Up close,Abby could see that the pale stone walls of the houses were streaked with silt, the pan-tiled roofs caked with sandy mud and debris. There was the decomposing carcass of a cow in one boggy garden, its legs sticking up in the air. At the edge of the field a green delivery van seemed to be growing out of the mud, and a child's tricycle hung from the branches of a bedraggled tree.

  The man directed Abby through the estate, and finally ordered her to halt in front of a corner house in what must once have been a pleasant cul-de-sac. He scampered ahead of her and opened the door.

  "Inside," he said.

  They went in and he directed her to a ground-floor room leading off the hallway. The place stank of moldy carpets and stagnant water, though thankfully not of human decay. It was pitch-black between lightning flashes, and Abby moved hesitantly unsure whether the squelching sound when she walked came from her boots and socks or the carpet beneath her feet. "Stand-against-the-wall-over-there," the man said.

  "I would if I could see it."

  "Stand-over-there," he repeated.

  The lightning flashed, giving her a glimpse of the room. She moved over to the wall, which was cracked and trickling with water. The man scuttled over to what she could only think of as a nest in the corner and scrabbled about. Moments later he produced several stubby candles and a matchbox. He lit the candles and the room came to flickering life.

  He had made no concessions to homelyness. Instead of shifting the debris out of the way, as Abby's group did whenever they stopped somewhere, the man had simply left it where it was. Thus items of furniture were strewn about and the room's other contents were little more than a muddy, shattered mess of plastic, glass, wood and wiring spread across the floor. The plaster ceiling bulged in several places, as though about to collapse at any moment. But at least the glass in the windows was intact, and judging by the smell the house appeared to have been unoccupied at the time of the floodwhich was probably why the man had chosen it.

  "Sit-down," he said, waggling a hand at her.

  "I'd rather stand."

  "Sit-sit-sit-sit-sit."

  Abby sighed. "Have you got anything I can sit on?"

  "Sit," he said again.

  "I'm not a dog," she said, but she squatted on her haunches, cold and wet and miserable.

  The man seemed oblivious to the conditions. He hunkered down in his nest, watching her, his eyes glittering in the candlelight. Water dripped off Abby's clothes. She felt the shivers starting deep in her belly, and tried not to succumb to them.

  "Well, this is nice," she said.

  The man said nothing. Abby swallowed, refusing to be intimidated.

  "So, what happens now?" she asked.

  The man delved into a bag and produced what Abby thought was a muddy bar of soap. When he wiped it on his wet sleeve, however, she realized it was a chunk of vacuumpacked cheese. He produced a knife with a serrated blade and hacked at the wrapping until he could peel it off with his fingers. He munched the cheese, watching Abby as though daring her to try to take it off him.

  "Aren't you going to offer me any?" she asked.

  Again he flashed that cunning grin. Spraying clots of cheese, he muttered, "Can't-fool-nee-don't-need-it-do-you?"

  "I need to eat too," Abby said.

  The man shook his head. "No-no-don't-eat-what-we-eatoh-no-no-I-know-that-yes-I-do-oh-yes-yes-yes."

  "So what do I eat then?" Abby demanded.

  "Us"

  "What are you on about?"

  "Us-us-I-know-I-know-I-seen-it."

  Abby thought for a minute, wondering what to say, what to do. Weren't people in hostage situations supposed to try to get to know their captors, build up a rapport with them?

  "What's your name?" she asked.

  The man glanced at her, his jaw working rapidly. He re minded her of a chimpanzee in a zoo, nibbling fruit and watching the visitors.

  "You must have a name," Abby said. "Mine's Abby. Abby Marshall. I'm thirteen years old. I live with my mum in Scotland, but I was visiting my dad in London when the flood came. My dad's called Steve. He owns a record shop. He's in a band-the Hogs. They're quite well-known. They've done CDs and stuff. They play old people's music, rhythm and blues and that. Some old musicians are still pretty cool, though, aren't they? Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash and the Beatles. What sort of music do you like?"

  She kept up a stream of chatter, giving the man as much information as she could think of. She kept throwing in the odd question too, but he didn't answer any of them. She tried not to be discouraged by his silence. She hoped his taciturnity was a sign that he was listening to her. The man ate half his cheese, then produced a plastic bottle of water, which he drained in less than a minute, gulping it as if it was the first drink he'd had in days.

  "Thanks for offering me some," Abby said. "I'm quite thirsty too, you know"

  "You-lie," he muttered, and pointed at her. "You-lie-youlie-you-lie."

  Abby glared at him. "My name is Abby Marshall. I'm thirteen years old. And you are making a big mistake."

  She rested her head against the wall, feeling a sudden wash of despair. She was wet, cold, filthy, hungry, thirsty, scared and miserable. She could hardly believe that less than two weeks ago Dad had met her as she got off the train and taken her shopping in Oxford Street. He'd bought her two new tops and a pair of jeans from Diesel. They'd had a latte in Starbucks, and later they'd had something to eat in All Bar One. The place had been full of young city types with smart suits and trendy haircuts, sipping wine or foreign beer out of bottles. Entranced by the bu
zz and glamour of the city, Abby had told Dad that when she was old enough she wanted to move down, maybe go to London University, get a job in publishing or the media, something like that.

  She didn't realize she'd fallen asleep until she jerked awake. She was immediately aware of two things: It was daylight and she was shivering. When she moved she became aware of a third thing: a sharp, glassy pain in her shoulders. She might have cried out if she hadn't glanced across at the supermarket man and realized that he was asleep and snoring quietly.

  She couldn't believe her luck. He might have tied her hands behind her, but he hadn't tied her legs. He really is mad, she thought. Mad and careless. Using the wall behind her, she pushed herself into a standing position. Pins and needles in-nmediately sprang to life in her legs, the tingling gradually worsening to a muscle-spasming crescendo.

  Gritting her teeth, she took a couple of experimental steps forward. Though her legs felt unlike her own she forced herself on. Half a dozen steps later she was at the door and he was still snoring. She had to turn her back to the door to manipulate the handle with her numb fingers. It took a few goes, but she kept calm, and eventually the handle turned. She tugged the swollen door open, gritting her teeth at the sound it made, like a wet rip, as it dragged across the carpet. When the gap was wide enough she slipped through and hurried along the boggy hall carpet to the front door.

  This door was harder to open because of the Yale lock above the handle at chest height. To manipulate it she had to turn her back to the door, bend over double and raise her arms behind her as high as she could. After several attempts she managed it, twisting it open and unlocking it. She turned the door handle and was pulling the door open when a howl of fury ripped through the silence of the house.

  Frantically she squeezed through the gap between door and frame, and started to run. But the ground was swampy underfoot and without her arms to balance her she slipped several times, only just managing to keep upright. It was like running in a dream, wading through treacly mud. The man roared again, a muffled, echoey sound-and then he burst from the house.

  Abby's terror seemed to sap the strength from her legs, but she kept running. He roared again, much closer now, and Abby screamed, veering from side to side in the hope of evading capture. But then something got tangled in her legs and she fell, desperately twisting onto her side to avoid her already bruised chin hitting the ground. Her momentum caused her body to skid several feet, like a kid on a homemade soap slide on a summer's day. Filthy water arced up on either side of her. And then she was being pulled roughly over onto her back.

  The supermarket man loomed above her, blotting out the daylight. He was snarling and grunting like an animal, his dirt-streaked face twisted in fury. In his hand he was clutching the knife that he had used to saw through the plastic wrapping of the cheese. He raised the knife, and with a clarity born of terror, Abby saw the muscles knotting in his sinewy forearms, the sleeves of his gray jacket and once white shirt hanging in ragged loops.

  As he brought the knife slashing down, Abby squeezed her eyes shut and screamed.

  Hearing the scream, Libby's body clenched like a fist. Instinctively her finger jerked on the trigger of the crossbow, releasing the arrow, which flew across the street and straight through the upper glass panel in the front door of the house opposite. The glass collapsed inwards with a shrill jangle, but Libby didn't see it; she was already looking around, trying to pinpoint the source of the scream.

  "Hello?" she called. "Is anyone there?" Feeling selfconscious and horribly exposed, she yelled, "Steve? Sue? Max? Can anyone hear me?"

  The second scream was so shrill, so bloodcurdling, that it was like a punch to the gut. Libby felt her legs go weak. `Bloody hell," she moaned. "Bloody hell, bloody hell." Though her hands were trembling, she managed to reload the crossbow just as Sue had told her; then she began to shakily run towards where she thought the sound had come from.

  How long since she and the others had split up to, as Sue put it, "maximize the search area"? Twenty minutes? It was certainly no longer than that. They had arranged to rendezvous after an hour, and because Libby didn't have a watch Sue had promised to give her a five-minute warning by firing a shot into the air.

  Libby wished she could do that. She hadn't envisaged this scenario when she'd suggested she have the crossbow because she was too nervous to carry a gun. Sue had tried to impress upon her that the only difference was that they had less ammunition for the crossbow, but Libby had been insistent.

  She ran through several streets, feeling like one of the illprepared, ragtag soldiers she used to see on the news, scuttling through the dusty streets of some battle-scarred town on the other side of the world. She ran around aimlessly for five minutes before realizing how pointless it was. She was sweating and breathing in deep rasping gulps, not because she was unfit, but because she was stressed to the eyeballs, overdosing on adrenaline.

  The two screams had sounded so close that Libby had half expected to stumble across some atrocity in the middle of the street. The sounds had certainly seemed to come from outside, but that didn't mean the screamer still was. Whoever had made the girl (Libby thought it was a girl) scream could easily have dragged her into a house or a shed. The girl and her tor-mentor might be in any of the houses Libby was passing; there was simply no way she could search them all.

  She walked on, calling Abby's name, trying not to tell herself it was hopeless. She came to a left turn, which a metal street sign, rusted by salt water, informed her was Lurgan Drive. Beneath the name of the road were the words "cul-desac." Libby began to stroll down it, holding the crossbow out in front of her, head moving from side to side as she scanned each house for signs of occupation. "Abby!" she shouted every ten seconds or so. "Abby!"

  She reached the bottom of the road and was walking past the corner house when a metal wastepaper bin, rusty and dented, arced out of the large front window in a glittering crescendo of shattered glass and landed with a splat in the mud of the front garden.

  Even before the rain of glass had stopped falling, Libby was diving for cover behind a blue Citreon that was upside down in the middle of the street. Her nerve endings sizzled with shock; her heart thumped wildly. She took a few seconds to gather herself, and then she popped her head out to see what was happening.

  She half expected a bullet to go zinging past her face, but there was no movement, no sound, from the house. Through the jagged hole in the front window she could see only an indeterminate mass of shadow. She tried to call out, but her throat was so dry that at first she could make no sound. She swallowed, licked her lips, tried again. "Abby!" she called in a croaky voice. "It's me, Libby! Are you in there?"

  Nothing. No scuffs of movement, no bumps or bangs. If whoever had screamed was the same person who had thrown the bin out the window, she'd guess they were now being restrained-or perhaps had even been dragged out the back door while Libby was crouching behind the car.

  She had to act. She knew that. She couldn't just stay here, hiding. Shit, she thought. Shit, shit, shit. She had never had a fight in her life. Violence was anathema to her. She had even taught primary because she hadn't thought she'd be able to handle the stress of teaching teenagers.

  "Come on, Libby," she muttered to herself, "you can do this." She sidled around the edge of the Citreon, eyeing the house, then scuttled across to the dubious cover of the lamppost beside the silted-up garden wall. She was panting and her heart raced in her chest. She didn't feel like a soldier; in fact, she couldn't remember when she had ever felt so uncertain about what to do. She jumped as something cold splashed on her cheek, then realized it was water from last night's rain dripping off the slimy strings of seaweed draped over the craning neck of the lamppost overhead.

  She tried to order her thoughts, to formulate some kind of plan. But all she could think of to do was enter the house and check out every room. But what if she was attacked? Would she be able to pull the trigger of the crossbow, actually shoot someone? On th
e other hand, what if Abby suddenly popped up from nowhere? Would Libby be able to stop herself from pulling the trigger?

  "Okay," she muttered, "here we go." She broke cover and ran up the drive, her feet squelching in the mud. She reached the front door and tried it. Locked. Shit. What now.? She thought of the front window. Could she climb in without cutting herself to ribbons? She decided to check it out, hurrying from the door to the window. She paused at the side of the window, then jabbed her head forward to peer into the room.

  It was empty, but there were recent signs of habitation. A sleeping bag, a discarded plastic bottle. Triangles of glass were sticking out from the frame of the broken window. There was one above her head the size of a guillotine blade. She could knock it out, but that would make a noise. Then she noticed the smaller windows on either side. The frames were illfitting, saturated by seawater. She got her fingers under the edge of the closest one and tugged on it. To her surprise it parted like wet cardboard and the window swung open.

  She hauled herself onto the sill and climbed into the house. Okay, she thought, so far so good. She crept across the room towards the door, listening. Hearing nothing, she pushed the door slowly open. She began to edge out into a hallway that stank of mold, the carpet like waterlogged turf....

  And a hand shot round the edge of the door and yanked the crossbow from her grasp!

  Libby squealed, partly with shock and partly because the weapon had been snatched from her so roughly that she felt as though her right forefinger had been dislocated. She stumbled forward, almost slipped on the soggy carpet. She turned to see a filthy, ragged man pointing the crossbow at her face. She put up a hand, knowing that if he fired, the arrow would pass straight through her palm and embed itself in her skull.

  "Please..." she begged.

  "Sit down!" the man screamed at her. "Sit-down-sit-downsit-down!"

  Libby slid to the hall carpet, filthy water seeping through the material of her trousers. Behind the man, lying on her front, was Abby, hands and feet tied, gagged by a filthy strip of cloth. Libby saw the look in Abby's eyes and felt ashamed and full of despair. She had failed, succumbed with barely a whimper. Too late she realized she should have left a sign for Steve and the others, some indication of where she was. The man grabbed her arm in a painful, clawlike grip. He was nmunmbling, his voice so low that the words were like gravel shifting in his throat.