by Kevin Brooks
While all this was going on I stayed in the bathroom, and as soon as all the shouting started I got to work. I had to move fast.
1) empty the rubbish out of the bin liner.
2) tear off five more bags from the roll.
3) quickly start stuffing one bag into another, then another, then another …
4) until I’d made a super-strong bin bag (six liners thick).
They were the extra-large bin liners, the ones you use for garden refuse. We hadn’t specifically asked for them, and I don’t know why He’d sent them down. I don’t suppose He thought it mattered. Or maybe He did, thinking about it now. Maybe He knew what He was doing all along. Anyway, they were the extra-large bin liners, and I’m pretty small for my age, so when I climbed inside the super-strong bin liner, crouched down low, and scrunched myself up as tightly as possible, there was still enough room to fold the bin liner over my head.
And then I just waited.
Hoping.
Wondering …
I could hear all the racket going on outside – Fred cursing, Anja and Bird shouting – and then all at once that horrible piercing whistle started screaming out again. Not for long, but long enough to hurt.
And then suddenly it was quiet again.
I waited in the black plastic darkness.
Hoping, wondering …
Had He seen me making the bag?
Had He seen me getting into it?
Had the diversion worked?
Had I made the super-strong bin bag strong enough?
I waited.
Keeping perfectly still.
After a while I heard Fred’s footsteps coming along the corridor. The bathroom door opened, his footsteps came closer, then the bin bag opened and he tipped some rubbish over my head. Not much, just enough to cover me. The bag closed. I felt him grip the bag and lift, and I held my breath, half-expecting the bag to split open, but it didn’t. And then I was being carried along the corridor.
Like I said, I’m not that big, and I don’t weigh very much at the best of times, but it was still a pretty remarkable feat. Fred had to carry me as if I weighed nothing, as if I was just a bag full of rubbish. Incredible. It was a very strange feeling, being carried along like a bag full of rubbish, and at one point I almost started laughing. I imagined myself as a tiny little man being carried home in a bag of shopping by an unsuspecting shopper, and when the shopper got home and started unpacking the bags, I’d jump out and scare them to death.
Doesn’t sound very funny, does it?
You had to be there, I suppose.
I could feel Fred turning left now, heading along the little corridor towards the lift. And then, as gently as possible, but without making it too obvious that he was being gentle, Fred dropped me down inside the lift and left me there. Just another bag of rubbish.
All I had to do now was wait until nine o’clock and hope that 1) the lift went up as usual, 2) The Man Upstairs hadn’t seen me getting into the bin liner, and 3) He hadn’t been watching too carefully as Fred carried me along the corridor.
It was quite a lot to hope for.
Time passed slowly.
I waited.
Not moving.
Trying not to breathe too hard.
Then, after a few minutes, the lift door closed.
Tkk-kshhh-mmm …
I held my breath again.
The lift lurched and started going up.
Nnnnnnnn …
I couldn’t believe it.
I was moving, I was going up, out of the bunker.
The lift stopped.
G-dung, g-dunk.
Everything was quiet.
I waited.
Nothing.
The door stayed closed.
I waited.
Nothing.
Then I heard a very faint hiss. A gassy sound. And a few moments later I smelled it. A chemical smell, not unpleasant. Like a hospital smell. Clean and gassy and …
‘Oh, shit,’ I muttered.
And that was it.
I don’t remember anything else.
Just senselessness.
When I woke up I was lying on my bed, back in my room, with a throbbing head and gummy eyes and a terrible ache in my stomach. I was shivering violently. It was freezing cold. My eyes felt as if they were glued together and there was a nasty sour taste in the back of my throat. I sat up, groaned, and cracked open my eyes.
Russell was sitting in the chair across the room.
‘How are you?’ he asked.
‘Uh … ?’
‘How do you feel?’
‘Like shit,’ I said, rubbing goo from my eyes. ‘What happened?’
He gassed us all, that’s what happened. Me in the lift, the others in the bunker. They were unconscious for about three hours. I was out for nearly twelve. He sent me back down in the lift. When the others came round they got me out and put me to bed.
‘You didn’t look too good for a while,’ Russell said. ‘We were all quite worried about you. Especially Jenny.’
‘Is she OK?’
‘As well as can be expected.’
‘Good.’ I shivered. ‘Why’s it so cold?’
‘He’s turned the heating off.’
‘Punishment, I suppose?’
Russell nodded. ‘That’s not all, I’m afraid. While we were all unconscious, He came down and removed all the food and drink from the kitchen. All we’ve got left is water.’
I opened my mouth to speak, but all that came out was a hacking cough that turned me inside out.
It’s late now. I’m not feeling too bad. Not physically, anyway. I went in to see Jenny a while ago. She cried when she saw me. She said she thought I was dying.
‘I’m not going to die,’ I told her. ‘I’m as tough as old boots.’
‘No you’re not,’ she said. ‘You’re weedy, like me.’
I smiled. ‘I’m not weedy.’
She wiped her nose. ‘You are.’
‘Yeah, well … us weedies are stronger than we look, aren’t we? We have Weedy Power.’
She grinned. ‘Weedy Power? What’s that?’
‘It’s the stuff the others don’t have. The stuff that keeps us going. Me and you, the Super Weeds.’
‘Yeah.’
I didn’t know what I was talking about. It felt all right though. It still feels all right. And as I sit here in bed writing these thoughts, I feel something I haven’t felt in a long time, maybe never. I feel a closeness. It’s a huge and overwhelming feeling that cancels out everything else, and I don’t know what to do with it. It’s so good it’s beyond good, but at the same time it’s unbearable. It fills me with visions of blackness and pain.
I can’t say any more.
Sunday, 19 February
No food for two days now. Everyone’s getting tired and irritable. No one has actually said they blame me, but I can see it in their eyes. We told you it was a stupid idea, we told you.
Yesterday the punishment continued with three hours of deafening noise. I don’t know what it was. Some kind of abominable music – thunderous drums, horrible screeching sounds, wailing voices … God, it was awful. And so unbelievably loud. There was nothing we could do. We all just lay down on our beds with sheets and clothing wrapped round our heads, our hands clamped tightly to our ears … for three infernal hours.
Indescribable.
When it finally stopped, the silence shrieked with pain.
Monday, 20 February
Four hours of sweltering heat followed by four hours of arctic chill. Then the heat again, then the cold, the heat, the cold …
More skull-burs
ting noise.
Still nothing to eat.
All you can do is live it.
Live through it. Retreat inside your head, try to switch off, and wait it out.
Nothing lasts for ever.
You can take it.
Take it.
Take it.
Tuesday, 21 February
At last.
The temperature’s back to normal and we’ve got food again. Food. Tons of it. When the lift came down this morning it was piled high with all kinds of stuff. Meat, bread, vegetables, fruit, chocolate … I’ve never seen anything so delicious in my life.
Foooooood!
Russell advised us to eat sparingly at first. He said if we ate too much on an empty stomach we’d get cramps. We all listened to him, nodding our heads and drooling, and then we all just piled in and gorged ourselves like starving animals. It was like one of those Roman banquets you see in films – bits of fruit and meat flying all over the place, everyone chomping and chewing and munching and dribbling and burping …
God, it felt good.
Now I’m lying on my bed drinking tea and grinning at the pain in my belly. It’s a good pain. Good and full. Just to make it feel even better, I’m trying to remember how it felt to be hungry. It’s impossible though. I know it felt bad, but I can’t seem to dredge up the actual feeling of it …
Hold on.
Maybe Russell was right about the cramps.
I’m starting to feel something …
Like
No, it’s not cramps
Something else
it’s coming up all over all through
like electric like a
warm away gone away
warm and weightless
I think it’s
perfect.
hot and thirstless I’ve never needed anything. Nothing is wrong. The walls are framed in tattered gold.
the garden the garden you’re back in the garden again. never went away. yesyes, here you are, whupping your bamboo cane at the hedge and shaking the summer tears from your head. forget it. forget what? just do what you want. go down to the washing-line pole, go down, go round. go round and round the washing-line pole, round and round and round and round see it all against the whirling sky see it all the window house the roof the sun the pigeon trees the sky the fence the pyramid sky the window house where tigers wait the roof the sun the pigeon trees hoo hoo just look at the sunborn sky the hedge the rose of thorns rhinoceros horns the whirling sky where blackbirds soar the window house the roof of sun the big green trees the fence the gate the whirling sky
now we’re clear.
doing this.
counting the animals in your animal book.
count the animals.
how many animals? count your fingers.
slowworm of course, he’s in the book. slowworm rhinoceros tiger lion slug fox bear pigeon dog bear. no. rhinoceros tiger lion slug fox bear pigeon dog. is a slug an animal? slugdogslog. glug. a slug’s a whale in a jam jar. hee. elephant whale insect mouse. what’s that funny thing? weasel cow badger fox. no. flop-eared rabbit weasel.
daddy’s joke
how do you know. no. what’s the difference between a weasel and a stoat?
a weasel’s weasily recognized and a stoat is stoatally different.
daddy tells rhymes.
budgies are bigger than grizzly bears
and crabs are covered in fleas
and parrots eat people and tigers eat pears
and bees make honey from cheese.
and the other one, the one with the buffaloes. round and round and round and round
buffaloes are hard to please
they don’t like mice and they don’t like peas
they only like to eat big things
like mountain lions and eagles wings
but bumble bees on the other hand
eat tiny things like ants and sand
and and and
and a million bee meals are so small
a baby buffalo could eat them all
and the one with the zebra. no. can’t remember. so. fingers. slowwormrhino nocerous tigerlion slugdog foxbear pigeondog elephantwhaleinsectmouse weasel cowbadgerfox rabbit stoat budgiegar fleacrab parrotpeople beebuffalobear eagullee roundandroundandroundandround drink your orange, plastic warm in the august sun. the washing-line pole is cold as lead. good for swinging on. round and round. the rope line sways to a rhythm. tink of tin knot collar tink of tin knot collartink of tinknot collar
how many animals? including people?
we’re all animals
how many animals?
27?
enough for now.
slowworm = 28.
zebra = 29.
2 foxies = 28.
STOP
this is where you are.
here
here sitting on the green grass in the whirling garden chewing on a stick. drained and dazed. staring at the wall.
there’s only me.
me you me
I’m still here, Mister.
The sun still moves in the sky.
It doesn’t matter what time it is.
A day lasts for ever. Let’s go.
the garden path leads up to the rockery mountains where the stones are waiting for you to set light to a petrolsoaked spiderman with a banger in his spidershirt or to take him to the badlands where spiders hunch in web-hung caves their bulbous backs crossed like donkeys gripped tight in 8 black feet. donkeys and mexicans german soldiers sergeant fury maybe a mouse. a grizzly bear rroooaahh! or billy the kid. billy the magic man trapped in a cave with a donkeyspider. the spider spins him up in his silk and hangs him on a hook and billy waves his magic wand and taps his magic book and says i am not afraid to die like a man but the burning fuse of the banger melts his pretty face and when it blows it blows a hole in his plastic heart aaaahhhh!!! see all these small places are made for cowboys and indians to wait in ambush or to fight or to fall to their deaths or covered in honeyjam wait for the ants to come and all these small places are known unto you. so hongkong robocop gets it in the neck aaaahhhh!!!! these stones aren’t fixed. the middle and bottom ones are set but the top ones wobble and lift when no one’s looking like now. you can raise the roof on the sky of another world and let there be light. in flattened mud the colour of chocolate understone animals panic in the sun. woodlice scatter. worms wriggle and squirm. muscle-red yellow white like milksick. centipedes. a coughed-up slug. the hard brown coil of a millipede poke it with a stick. a long thin beetle specked with green skittles to a hole where it bows its head and ticks to the right then shudders and turns and ticks to the left going back in time. adjust your grip on the rock and look closer. see the slickness of the mud and the run of mystery trails. the beetle hole is rimmed inside with a pale white glow of tiny eggs. not quite white they have the colour of underground or dead things and you know you know that if you put them in an empty matchbox to see what happens they’ll shrivel up to nothing. you know it. and now you hear your mother’s voice.
LINUS!
a long way away
WHERE ARE YOU?
‘I’m here.’
Later. A million years later.
My head hurts. I feel sick.
The food was drugged.
He drugged the food.
I don’t know what He put in it, something weird. Christ, I’ve never felt so weird in my life. Not bad-weird exactly. But not good-weird either. Just weird-weird. Different-planet weird. It was like I was someone else for a while. Somewhere and something else.
I can’t think ab
out it now.
I have to sleep.
Wednesday, 22 February
OK, we’ve had a meeting. We had to get together again. We’re all losing it. We need to recuperate, to console and comfort ourselves. Shit, we need something.
Looking round the table, all I could see were dying faces.
Jenny, poor kid. She can hardly speak. She sicked up most of the drugged food so she didn’t suffer too much, but she’s suffered enough. Sick people, bad dreams, the noise, the heat, the cold – she can’t deal with all that. She’s just a kid, for Christ’s sake. It’s too much.
I wrote a note this morning. I got a sheet of paper from the leaflet-holder on the wall and wrote: Why don’t you let Jenny go? Please? Just this one thing. Let her go. I’ll pay for it, if that’s what you want. I’ll do anything. Tell me what you want me to do, and I’ll do it. Just let her go. Please.
I knew it was pointless.
A waste of time.
But I did it anyway.
Anja’s just about had it. She’s starting to look like one of those crazy women you see on the street, the ones who carry all their belongings in plastic bags and shout at cars. Her face is empty and mad.
Bird keeps staring at everybody like he wants to kill them.
Russell’s getting sicker by the day. He can’t speak properly. His speech is slurred and his face is dulled with pain.
Fred though … Fred still looks pretty strong. Hard and scary. Stony. I suppose he’s used to it. Pain is nothing to him. It bounces off his head like raindrops off a rock.
And me? Well, I only know my face from the inside. It feels skinny and hard and raw with hurt.
So there we all were, six dying faces sitting round the table waiting for someone to speak. The silence was driving me mad.