The Plague Stones

by James Brogden

  There was a rake leaning against the wall; she grabbed it, screamed, ‘No! Get the fuck off!’ and began to beat at the seething swarm. They were reluctant to give up their prize. One or two even made nipping darts at her ankles. But when several lay crushed and others had to drag themselves away, wounded, the spirit of the swarm seemed to be broken, and they melted away as quickly as they had appeared, leaving the fox dead on her lawn in a mess of itself.

  Shoulders heaving with exertion and the impulse to throw up, Trish turned to brandish her weapon at the dead girl. ‘What exactly the fuck is going on here?’ she demanded. ‘Who…’ she swallowed thickly. ‘What are you? What do you want from me?’

  The girl said not a word, but simply pointed at the eviscerated animal and then at Trish herself, making the connection clear. Her grin had disappeared. This was not sport anymore. Then She too was gone, melted into the background of the world.

  Trish fell to her knees in the grass beside the butchered animal. When she saw that one of its back legs was still twitching, she thought that things couldn’t possibly get any worse.

  Then her phone, tucked into her jeans’ back pocket, buzzed.

  ‘Oh Jesus, what now?’ she groaned.

  It was a text from Peter: Tobys in A&E. On way now. School wont say why but T says he was bitten by something.

  She watched a rat, whose spine she’d obviously broken with the rake, dragging itself into the bushes with its forepaws, and knew what it was that had attacked her son.

  * * *

  From where Toby was sitting, near the middle of the school dinner hall, all he could hear at first were shrieks of alarm and the plastic scraping of chairs being hurriedly shoved back as kids leapt to their feet.

  ‘Food fight?’ said Krish.

  He shrugged dunno and kept a wary eye forward in case the stupidity spread in their direction, but otherwise it wasn’t worth moving for, yet. He took another bite of his budget chicken zinger burger.

  Then excited cries of ‘Rat! There’s a rat!’ reached him as kids came running past, though not all of them; a decent number had pulled back to a safe distance in a semi-circle around the serving hatch, their fascination overpowering their fear. Most of them had their phones out, videoing something that the press of their bodies prevented him from seeing properly.

  Krish grinned at him. ‘Come on! Let’s have a look!’

  ‘Ah, I’m not so sure that’s a good idea.’ All of a sudden the sound of the crowd’s excited chatter sounded too much like rats chittering below his bedroom window.

  They were tumbling about Her feet, almost as if playing.

  ‘Whatever.’ Krish ran to join the others. Curious despite himself, Toby followed at a wary distance.

  A large black rat was sitting on the glass counter of the school kitchen servery, and the dinner hall was descending into bedlam.

  The rat, for its part, seemed utterly unfazed by the crowd that it was attracting or the disturbance that it was creating. Behind it, Toby could see the kitchen staff absolutely shitting themselves. Someone was yelling into a phone. Others had picked up whatever makeshift weapons were to hand – spatulas, serving spoons. One had a massive knife. The prospect of seeing this routine lunchtime descend into a chaotic slapstick scene of panicked adults chasing a rodent around a large industrial kitchen was too good to resist, but the rodent in question didn’t seem interested in playing. It didn’t even seem particularly interested in the food in the steel serving tubs directly underneath. It was crouched on the glass, wary and alert, its black-bead eyes glittering, its pointed nose in the air, sniffing. Almost as if it were searching for something. Or someone.

  Its head snapped around, just like hers had done, as if it had read his thoughts, and it saw him through the crowd.

  ‘Oh shit—’

  The rat made a chittering noise and leapt. It weaved its way between the feet of kids who leapt away, shrieking, and then it was clawing up his left leg, digging for purchase through his trousers and into the skin of his legs beneath. Its black eyes locked like needles on his, and he knew that it was coming to chew them out of his face.

  Toby managed to get his left hand up in self-defence just in time for the rat’s teeth to sink into the soft flesh below his pinkie finger. The pain was like nothing he had ever felt before, like having his hand clamped in a vice made of bone – and worse, because he knew that the creature’s bite was poison and his imagination told him he could feel it pumping into his flesh which was already hot and swollen tight with infection. And the weight of the thing squirming, claws raking his forearm as it fought for a tighter grip, pink tail lashing like a soft, warm worm. It revolted him on every level. It shifted, gnawing, making a muffled high-pitched snarling, and blood began to flow more freely, his blood in its mouth, and he fell back screaming for someone to get it off him.

  After their shock, people ran to his aid. Krish beat the rat with a plastic tray. Somebody else got the long metal handle of a serving spoon into the hinge of its jaws and tried to lever it off. Hands grabbed it and pulled, even though that made its teeth tear his flesh more. Eventually it was prised off him and it turned its bite on his rescuers so that they dropped it and it streaked from the dining hall.

  Someone was bandaging his hand with a tea towel as he felt shock begin to wash away the world in waves of grey. Faces crowded around, ignoring the shrill voice of a teacher yelling at them to get out of the way, and right at the very back of them he thought he saw the dead girl, ignored by the crowd because of course She couldn’t really be there, enjoying the spectacle with a mocking grin.

  20

  EMERGENCY

  SIX HOURS.

  That was how long the receptionist at Accident and Emergency told him it would take for them to treat his ratbitten child. Six. Fucking. Hours. And they couldn’t even guarantee that. He was told that the Minor Injuries Unit in Shirley was temporarily closed due to staffing shortages, and he could either wait until it reopened tomorrow or take a seat.

  Peter had almost lost it then, but both Trish and Toby looked so wrung-out that he couldn’t bring himself to inflict on them the stress of seeing him Make A Scene, so he swallowed his temper and took his seat.

  He could easily see why it might take so long – even at mid-afternoon on a weekday the waiting area was rammed. Every one of the orange plastic chairs, bolted together in racks, was occupied, mostly by people who also had ‘minor injuries’ such as Toby’s, but that included a lot of bloodstained dressings and limbs clutched while waiting to be told how badly broken they were. He saw lots of elderly people, some obviously distressed rather than injured, some who should have been treated in their homes by district nurses or care workers who hadn’t appeared because there simply weren’t enough of them. One middle-aged man was gasping with chest pains, waiting to be told whether or not he was having a heart attack. A young mother was trying to soothe a squalling, red-faced infant while her two toddlers rolled on the floor. He watched the police bring in a young woman covered in blood and hurling verbal abuse at everyone around her – possibly an addict, possibly with mental health problems, most likely both – looking to pass her off into care which didn’t exist.

  ‘First thing I do when we’re out of here,’ he muttered, ‘is get Environmental Health on those fucking idiots. Rats in schools? It’s like the fucking dark ages, this country, I tell you.’

  Toby had told them what there was to tell, but Trish kept quizzing him anyway. ‘Are you sure there was nothing else, when the rat bit you?’

  ‘What do you mean, else?’ asked Peter. ‘Isn’t that enough?’

  ‘Anything,’ she continued. ‘Were there any… people there that you didn’t recognise?’

  Toby was gripping his hand; the bandage that the school first-aider had put on was already spotted with red. It could have been worse, he’d been told; the rat’s teeth had made deep punctures but at least nothing had torn. Funny, but he didn’t feel like he’d gotten off lucky. He looked up, wariness in
his eyes, like when he knew they were trying to catch him out in a lie. ‘People?’ he asked. ‘Like who?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she continued, but Peter could tell from her voice that she knew exactly. ‘A strange boy, maybe? Or a girl?’

  Toby inhaled sharply. ‘A girl? What kind of girl?’

  ‘What in God’s name are you two on about?’ Peter demanded.

  ‘Patricia!’ interrupted a new voice. Reverend Dobson was heading towards them briskly, along with Nash and another of the Trustees who he recognised from the meet-and-greet but couldn’t immediately put a name to. She had dark, shoulder-length hair framing a wide face which gave the impression that she was smiling even though her face was set in the same expression of concern as the other two. ‘What a terrible thing to have happened!’ continued the reverend. ‘Is Toby all right?’

  ‘Um, sorry, but what are you doing here?’ Peter asked, not meaning to sound rude; it was just so utterly unexpected.

  ‘I called her,’ said Trish.

  ‘You called a priest? What the hell for? Did you think he needed the last rites or something?’

  ‘Peter,’ said Nash. ‘Calm down. We’re here to help.’

  ‘And these two? What are they here for?’

  The dark-haired woman stepped forward. ‘Mr Feenan, as well as being the Trust’s director of environmental services, I’m also a qualified doctor.’ His memory supplied a name for her now: Esme Barlow. He’d only ever met her that one time. ‘I was wondering if you’d like me to take a look at your son’s hand? Somewhere a bit less busy than here? Somewhere closer to home. A bit safer.’

  ‘What, you mean like a private clinic?’

  Nash laughed softly. ‘Do you really care?’

  Peter looked around at the desperate faces in the waiting room and found that he didn’t.

  * * *

  One of the many things that the Feenans hadn’t got around to arranging yet was a new doctor, so they were taken to Covenant House General Practitioners’ Surgery in Haleswell. It was just as busy as anywhere else – albeit on a much smaller scale and with more comfortable chairs, magazines, a coffee machine and a table of toys for small children to play with – but Esme Barlow had a few quiet words with the receptionist and they were all ushered through into an empty treatment room. His son sat up on the examination bed and in Peter’s mind there was absolutely no difference between now and when his little boy was three and sitting in a room exactly like this one having his MMR jab and needing Daddy to hug him. He knew that it didn’t matter how old Toby became – how independent or wise or experienced, maybe even with kids of his own – somewhere he would always be three and needing a hug.

  ‘Now then, young man,’ Barlow said to Toby. ‘Let’s have a look at where you’ve been chewed.’

  As they watched Barlow gently examining Toby’s wound, Nash turned to Peter. ‘I suppose it’s only natural, isn’t it, dialling 999? Adrenalin’s going, your brain goes on autopilot, you do what you’ve been taught. Like the joke about the nun in the launderette – old habits dye hard? Difficult to remember the priority contacts in a situation like that.’

  ‘I have no idea what you’re on about,’ Peter replied. ‘What priority contacts?’ He hadn’t actually called 999, but correcting Nash on this point seemed utterly irrelevant right at this very minute.

  ‘What – you mean nobody arranged that with you?’ Nash seemed genuinely surprised, and even upset. ‘Oh shit, Peter, I am so sorry!’ He took out his wallet while muttering darkly about someone getting their arse handed to them for this, dug for something that looked like an ordinary business card, and handed it over. ‘Pop these names in your phone,’ he said. ‘Next time you need the emergency services, make sure you ask for one of these chaps by name.’

  ‘What does it do?’

  ‘Gets you the emergency services, obviously. Standard fire, police, ambulance – just without so much of the waiting around. Bumps you up the priority chain.’

  ‘Queue-jumping, you mean?’

  His disapproval obviously wasn’t the reaction Nash had been hoping for. ‘Listen, Peter, the NHS uses private ambulances all the time, more and more each year. Private contractors are getting billions of pounds’ worth of health service contracts. There is a subscription-paid private police force already on the streets in London. Even the bloody military, for God’s sake, pays other people to run its fire and rescue service. Everything is outsourced. You live in the twenty-first century, you must know this!’

  ‘But surely,’ said Trish, ‘if there’s someone dying of a heart attack they’re not going to attend an animal bite first, are they?’

  ‘Well obviously we’re not talking about driving past people dying in the street. That would be much too obvious.’ Nash shrugged. ‘Everything is contracted for. It just depends on the terms of the contract.’ Seeing their expressions, he ploughed on before either of them could protest. ‘Oh I know, of course it’s not fair, swanning past all those people out there waiting their turn like good citizens. Why should you get to jump the queue? Why should any of us? It’s entitled. Privileged. And yet your son’s sitting there bleeding, so do you care? You’d be a liar if you said that you did.’

  Peter turned to him. ‘Why are you even here?’

  Nash nodded at Reverend Dobson. ‘Because she asked me. Because your wife asked her. Because the Trust—’

  ‘Looks after its own, yeah yeah yeah, I get it.’

  Nash laughed. ‘Oh, you do not remotely get it.’

  Trish sat next to Toby and stroked his hair. ‘Tell us about the girl,’ she said.

  So Toby did. And just when Peter thought that what he was hearing couldn’t become any more unbelievable, Trish told her side of the story.

  ‘Who is She, Joyce?’ Trish asked the reverend, when she had finished. ‘Why does She want to hurt us?’

  21

  HESTER

  LATE MAY 1349

  TWO DAYS LATER CRISTINA ATTLOWE DIED VOMITING blood and raving with delirium. She resembled something inhuman, with her misshapen flesh livid with purple-black patches and weeping sores, and her fingers hooked into gnarled black claws. Between moans of pain and coughing fits that brought bright red blood up onto her lips she asked repeatedly after her husband whom she believed was away on village business. ‘Is he not returned from Haleswell even yet?’

  ‘No, Mam,’ replied Hester.

  ‘But how can he be away so long? He has not taken his tally sticks so he cannot be at reckoning with the sheriff. Oh where is he?’

  Her mother’s anxiety was directed at the pile of her father’s tally sticks which, like so much of the household, lay in a jumbled mess on the floor. One of his main duties had been to carry accounts of the produce from Sir Roger de Lindesay’s lands to the sheriff in Haleswell, for the purpose of which such sticks were commonly used since most folk, including her father, were unschooled in letters. A stick would be carved with notches to represent quantities of grain, or wool, or any commodity, then split lengthways with one half going to the recipient and the other to the producer, so that each had a copy and neither could cheat the other. She remembered the long hours her father would spend laboriously carving those notches, and the weeks – months, years – of scrupulous reckoning they represented, accounting for the work of Sir Roger’s serfs, dealing with their thefts and idleness and receiving only surly resentment from them in exchange, and having to manage the manor’s ever-increasing demands so that the poorest of Clegeham would still be able to eat.

  And now, all those sticks lay in a discarded pile and her father lay in an unhallowed grave with his wife soon to join him while the great and the good of Haleswell closed themselves off from their neighbours’ need, having taken what they could for as long as it didn’t threaten them. Even the Devil had abandoned her, reneging on their deal, if there had ever been one. Her rat-bitten hand was swollen red and burning with infection.

  Unbidden, a cold fury rose up in Hester Attlowe’s soul, black and b
linding. It overwhelmed and drowned her reason for an unguessable time, and when she came back to herself she found that her mother had died. No words had been said over her. There would be no peace for her in the Lord’s embrace. Another crime to lay at the door of Haleswell.

  ‘There shall be a reckoning,’ she promised – not just to her mother’s corpse, but the empty cottage and the dying village around her. ‘Their debt shall be paid in full.’

  She felt the first scratching itch at the back of her nose, and it was almost a relief.

  Lacking the strength to move, let alone bury her mother, Hester simply drew the coverlet over her face and wept; all the while the fury brimmed so high within her that she was surprised her tears did not come out as black as pitch. Then she shook herself, for weeping had never accomplished anything, said a last goodbye and left her home.

  The church was as dark as it had been before, but now there was an unmistakable stench of putrefaction about the place, as if something had crawled in to die. There were three rats sitting on the altar this time, which Hester thought seemed only appropriate; one each for the souls of her father, mother and brother.

  This time she did not kneel.

  ‘I am done with begging,’ she told them, and their master who she knew was listening. ‘I am done pleading for lives which cannot be saved. Take them. Take us all if that is your will. I no longer pledge myself to you out of love for my family, but out of vengeance for them. Take my service or not, for I am done.’

  Without waiting to see the reaction to this, she strode out and went to make her reckoning.

  Her family’s cottage lay at the southern end of the village, to take advantage of the sun, and so the road north to Haleswell led past the homes of all her dead and dying neighbours. She saw Janot digging through a pile of refuse in search of something to eat, and in spite of everything that had happened she was still shocked at how gaunt his once-muscular frame had become. He was pale and sweating, red-rimmed about the eyes. He saw her and stopped, wincing as if caught in some shameful act.