by Simon Clark
‘Drink!’
‘Ouch, not so loud, Lou. I really do feel like death.’
‘If you’re feeling like death that’s an improvement.’ She bustled round, straightening his bedding, then yanked the curtains open, which admitted eyeball-searing light.
Victor protested. ‘Why don’t people leave me to wallow in peace?’ Scrunching his eyes against the light, he peered round the room. ‘Is Jay still here?’
‘Jay? No, he’s down in the yard with Wilkes.’
‘With the mayor?’
‘No, Wilkes the goat. Victor, will you start thinking straight?’
He took a swallow of the cloudy water. ‘Hell’s bells, that tastes awful.’
‘While you were sleeping today the health authority dropped a thousand of those packets by helicopter. They won’t cure, but they restore chemical balance to the body.’
‘Is the island still under quarantine?’
‘That we are. We’re prisoners here until the emergency committee lift the order. So far there’s a seventy per cent infection rate. The elderly are hit the hardest, young folk like you, Victor Brodman, start to pick up within twelve hours of feeling the first symptoms.’
‘Do they know what it is yet?’
‘Probably a mutated version of gastric flu. Already there’s stupid speculation in the newspapers that like some epidemics of influenza are supposed to arrive from outer space, so this bug flew in by meteor.’ She sniffed. ‘In truth, the cause of this outbreak is more about hygiene systems rather than solar systems.’
‘So it’s not that serious?’
‘Serious enough to claim two lives already.’
‘Really?’ This shocked him enough to sit up. ‘Who?’
‘Two elderly men. Mr Moore. And Mr Henry.’
‘Good grief. I’ve known them for years. So the disease is worse than they thought?’
‘The disease wasn’t directly responsible. Mr Henry decided to dig a deep hole on the beach. The sides collapsed and he suffocated. Mr Moore fell in the bathroom and struck his head hard enough to cause a haemorrhage. There are also rumours that at least two women have gone missing. I’m sorry to bring such bad news.’ She sat on the end of his bed. ‘But I’m also here for another reason. An important reason.’
‘Lou, is it Laura? Is she all right?’
‘So Laura has been on your mind?’
Lou was usually such a warm, bubbly character that this chill manner roused him from his lingering drowsiness. ‘What’s wrong, Lou?’
She plaited her fingers together on her knees. ‘Today, Victor, I’m going to test our friendship to breaking point. We’ve known each other for many years. We respect each other . . . shush, Victor. Let me say my piece.’ She took a deep breath. ‘You are a fine man, Victor Brodman. Loyal, caring, compassionate. You’re also a turtle of a man. By that I mean that whenever you find yourself on the brink of a potentially romantic relationship you retreat into that damn shell.’
‘Lou, I’m not like that.’
‘Oh, yes, you are. I’ve watched you with female visitors to the island. They flirt, you might flirt back, then when it seems as if the lady is ready to take it further, back into your cold, hard shell you go. You retreat. You say you need to count ducks, or lizards, or whatever, then vanish into the woods. You might have been Mr Right in the woman’s eyes, but within minutes you are Mr Gone, never to be seen again until the woman’s left the island. No, shush, Victor. Let me finish because what I’ve seen over the last few days has made me so angry.’
‘Angry?’
‘Yes, angry at you. Dunderhead.’
‘Lou, what’s got into you? I—’
‘Victor, let me finish. Listen, Laura is a lovely person. I’ve never seen anyone devoted like she is to the children in her care. Every day she fights battles to save them from being locked in secure units or kept on tranquillizers that would knock down a horse. Just before she came to Siluria her friend, Maureen, died in a traffic accident. Laura has been under so much pressure! Her spirit was breaking to little bits. Then something marvellous happened . . .’
‘Oh?’
‘She met you, you foolish man. For the first time in months I saw her like the time we first met. Her entire face changed. Eyes sparkling. She was happy, happy, happy! I don’t know what happened between you. That’s none of my business—’
‘You’re right, it is none of your—’
‘But being Laura’s friend and being concerned for her well-being is my business. It’s my business to want the best for you, too.’ She sighed. This wasn’t easy for her. ‘I saw two lovely people meet. They clearly like each other. That old magic happened. I saw it in Laura’s eyes and yours. Then you go back into your shell, Victor – your cold hard shell. A shell that doesn’t protect you, no sir. That shell keeps you isolated from womankind.’
‘Lou, I’m tired.’
‘Sleep when you’re old like me, Victor. Now’s the time to fight for happiness. Defeat your demons.’
‘I don’t have any demons.’
‘You do! They are turning you into a hermit. Kill the demons now; otherwise you’re going to turn into a lonely, miserable hermit.’ She balled her fist. ‘Someone must tell you one important fact. Victor, it is time you buried your wife.’
He flinched. ‘Lou, stop right there. You’ve no damn right to say that.’
‘OK, so hate me. But it’s got to be said. I know Ghorlan disappeared in the river. You never could bury her body. But it’s time to bury her in here.’ She extended her hand to touch his head. Furious, he pushed it away. ‘Bury your dead wife, Victor, so you can rejoin the world. You deserve a life. Ghorlan wouldn’t want you to live as if part of you died with her.’
‘How can you say what Ghorlan would or wouldn’t want? Leave me alone!’
‘You keep Ghorlan alive. She’s dead, Victor. Bury her.’
Sweating, he twisted the sheet in his hands. ‘Get out . . . get out!’
That evening Victor headed into the forest. Lethargy made walking hard work. He still alternated between sweats and a shivering coldness; the fever hadn’t quit yet. Every so often he needed to pause until a surge of queasiness passed. However, he was determined to get out of the apartment because he churned inside.
This time it wasn’t the virus, it was thinking about the last twenty-four hours. Constantly, he replayed what Laura had said to him. Then there were Lou’s home truths that had been so very bitter to hear. Add to that the dream of last night when he met Ghorlan in the clearing – if it was a dream. Now, the symptoms of the physical illness seemed almost trivial in comparison. He wanted to yell his fury at the sky. In the last few days it seemed as if some monster had been peeling him alive. His heart had been bared. His nerves exposed. Now his soul that had been sheltering deep inside of himself was being roughly dragged out into the cold light of day.
Instinct guided his feet. Soon he found himself in the clearing. In its centre, the tree that Ghorlan had planted on their first wedding anniversary. Now the Cedar of Lebanon had grown to some twenty feet or so. Its deep green leaves formed distinct horizontal layers. The trunk soared upward, straight as a rod. Beneath the deepening blue sky he moved forward to press his palm against the tree’s bark. As he did so he felt the sting of the wound that the thorn had inflicted last night. At that instant he noticed two figures at the edge of the clearing. Jay and Archer stood side by side. Neither wore the carefree grin of a young child out on an adventure. Archer’s old-beyond-his-years face appeared to be good company for Jay’s eerie elfin face, with those large, almond-shaped eyes. Both watched Victor with gravely serious expressions. Then Jay took a dozen steps toward Victor. Victor glanced round, half expecting to see Ghorlan in the shadows.
Victor was determined to keep a grip on reality. ‘How’s Laura today?’ he asked. ‘Have you seen her?’
Jay didn’t answer. Instead, he said, ‘You hate me. I tried to make you happy last night, but it went wrong.’
‘It a
lways goes wrong, doesn’t it?’
Jay gave a solemn nod.
‘You try so hard to do nice things for people but it ends up hurting them. Why’s that, Jay?’
‘I don’t want to. But that’s what I’m supposed to do. I frighten people. I make bad things happen to them. Then they die.’
‘Can you say why that is?’
Jay shrugged. ‘I do everything not to hurt people. I fight what’s inside of me. In the end it always wins. I can’t stop harming them.’
Victor glanced across at Archer. The eight-year-old had been watching the adult and the boy talking by the tree. Now he gazed up into the clear blue sky. Five miles above his head two jetliners flew parallel to one another, though they must have been miles apart. Jay looked up as well. The two jets drew white lines through that perfect blue.
‘It’s getting stronger inside of me.’ Jay watched the contrails. ‘I know all the hurt comes from inside my head. I killed Maureen. I made Max want to drown himself.’ Perspiration oozed from his brow. ‘It’s my job to make everyone die.’
Five miles above the island the two jetliners began to turn.
‘There are people on those planes.’ Victor’s mouth turned dry. ‘Men, women, children. Innocent people. They’ve never hurt anyone.’
The once straight vapour trails now curved. The tiny silvery glints showed that the two planes were changing course. Victor’s heart thudded. A sense of the inevitable filled him. A cold, oozing dread. Down here it all seemed in slow motion. Of course, up there in the sky two aircraft, filled with passengers, had a closing speed of a thousand miles an hour.
Archer gasped, ‘Those jets are flying right at each other.’ With that he fled into the forest.
Victor crouched so as to be eye-level with Jay. ‘Don’t do this. Please don’t. Think of all those hundreds of people.’
‘I have to . . . I don’t want to. But they’ve got to die.’
A fist-sized stone lay by Victor’s feet. He saw himself seizing it, then smashing the hard rock down on to Jay’s skull. Fragile bones would splinter, the brain would bleed. Then all this would be over. For ever and ever, amen.
Above them the planes closed at a relentless rate. Two missiles on a head-on collision course. In little more than twenty seconds from now the contrails would merge in carnage. The boy gazed up at the aircraft. No expression revealed what he was thinking. Those uncannily large eyes did not blink.
Victor searched his fever-ridden mind, knowing he’d have to stop Jay now. If he couldn’t find the right words he’d have to wield the rock. Victor scrunched his shoulders as he forced himself to think. Eureka! He shouted: ‘Jay. I’m going to marry Laura. Great news, eh?’
Jay’s eyes swung from the planes to stare at Victor. For the first time there was shock there. Then the boy raced away into the bushes. Victor could hardly bear to bring himself to look up into the sky. For a moment, he stared upward, his eyes watered, his heart hammered as emotion overloaded every nerve. Five miles above the peaceful island of Siluria the two jet trails were parting. He watched as the pilots guided their aircraft away from danger. Two minutes later, with a safe distance between them once more, the pair of airliners vanished over the horizon.
He thought, by God it worked. But next time I might not be so lucky.
Twenty-Three
The next morning hard gusts struck the building; air currents sighed around the eaves like someone psyching themselves up to broach bad news. Victor checked his reflection in the mirror. Tongue still coated, cheeks flushed with patches of red, dark rings under his eyes. That tenacious bug was determined to make life unpleasant for him. If anything, he longed to rest in bed for a bit longer before he started out across the island. Only he’d woken that morning with a revelation. Jay is changing. Whatever’s inside of him is getting more powerful. Before, he picked off people at random one by one. Now he has the power to destroy entire plane-loads of passengers. Or would have done if Victor hadn’t sprung that lie on him. That he planned to marry Laura. What next for Jay? Bring death to a community and what then? Entire cities. A whole nation? He steadied himself as vertigo rolled through him. This sickness tried hard to keep him at home. But he had to find Laura to share what he knew. That Jay would soon exterminate people by the dozen – then what? By the thousand? The need to speak to Laura burned with that same intensity as the fever. A moment later he flew out of the apartment, leaving the door banging in the breeze.
Mayor Wilkes cursed the cold breeze. He cursed the quarantine order that kept him on the island. He cursed the crappy signal on his mobile phone. A gusty lane was no place to conduct important business. Black clouds shot through the sky. Any second now there’d be rain. He was certain.
‘Don’t let the asbestos in the mill make you miss the completion deadline,’ he told his site manager. This was the biggest project of the year. Now his profit margins were in danger. ‘Bring the boys in at night. They’ll clear out the asbestos without the need for a specialist team. They’re too bloody expensive. What’s that? I said have the boys clear the asbestos. Ass-bess-toss . . .’ The voice in his ear spoke fractured words. ‘Did you hear what I just told you, Heggerty? The signal’s all . . . damn it.’ His frustration cranked up a notch. For some reason Heggerty couldn’t make out the word ‘asbestos’. Crap phone, crap signal, crap island! Mayor Wilkes raged at the man, ‘Get that asbestos out. Did you hear me? Make it vanish. I don’t care if it is toxic. Get rid of it. Did you get that?’
Saban Deer trotted by him into town. They regarded him with their bright blue eyes as if he was trying to amuse them as he stood there, jacket flapping, shouting into a little black box in one hand. Even the deer acted out of character. They would never normally get this close. Hell, he was near enough to kick a bristly backside. It might relieve some of this tension. As he debated clumping one with his glossy black shoe a horde of figures came round the bend. He recognized them as the Badsworth Lodge rabble. God, how they tried his patience. They weren’t like other kids (who annoyed Mayor Wilkes at the best of times), these kids were weird. They all had old-looking faces. Mostly they were quiet, peculiarly quiet, like they brooded over secret plans. Every so often, however, they’d release an outburst of anger. A kind of rage he’d never seen before. ‘Weird little beggars.’ he muttered. ‘What?’ He pressed the phone against his ear. ‘You heard that clearly enough, Heggerty, but I wasn’t calling you a weird little beggar.’ He spoke faster as the children approached. The troublemaker he recognized immediately as Jay walked apart from the group. Lou brought up the rear. They were heading in the direction of the hostel. It must be a rough time for the little swine, he thought sourly. Something that might be a voice crackled in his ear. Mayor Wilkes tried again. ‘Asbestos. Ass-bess-toss. Get the asbestos out before the building inspector arrives tomorrow. I don’t have her in my pocket yet. If the asbestos isn’t gone she’ll close down all demolition. For crying out loud, Heggerty, are you getting any of this? If that asbestos doesn’t vanish you’re sacked. Got that? Sacked.’ Random syllables came through the speaker. Dear God, what’s wrong with the phones today? But whatever happened he had to get the command through to Heggerty or he’d lose a fortune on the mill project. At that moment, however, the children arrived.
Aged between eight and mid-teens, they had been walking in silence, their faces stony, like only Badsworth Lodge kids could do. Robots without souls. Automatons marching. Right now, Mayor Wilkes wished he had a cattle prod. One of those that dealt out an electric shock. That’d put some life in them. Clockwork boys and girls! See how you like five hundred volts! Only at that precise time one of the kids decided this was the perfect location for a hysterical outburst.
‘Jay! Why’z Jay gotta come wi’ us all the time?’ The teenage girl rounded on Lou. ‘Why’nt leave him back on ya’ farm?’
Speak English, child, Wilkes fumed silently. The voice of Heggerty sounded in his ear. ‘Heggerty, I told you to get rid of the asbestos.’ Only the girl’s shrieking was
so loud that he couldn’t hear Heggerty’s reply. No doubt his site manager couldn’t hear Wilkes either. Damn. Wilkes had only trudged all the way up here because he couldn’t get a signal at home. The landline was a no-no because he’d become so paranoid that the police might be listening in. Now everything had gone belly up because the kids had gone mental. Shrieking, howling, weeping.
A tiny boy with an unsettling adult-like face protested to the girl, ‘Leave Jay alone. He’s not said your name.’
‘Jay lover, Jay boyfriend, Jay kisser!’ screamed the girl.
‘Will you be quiet,’ Wilkes thundered, ‘I am trying to make an important business call.’
Lou bustled up. ‘I apologize, Mayor Wilkes. We’ll soon leave you in peace.’
‘See that you do!’ He eyed the children with distaste. ‘Any of these sick?’
‘No, sir.’
‘None from the lodge at all?’
‘We’ve all been fine.’
‘Typical,’ he seethed. ‘Three-quarters of the island are puking but all these are in the pink. And I’m a prisoner on this blasted muck heap.’ He tried to speak again with his site manager but the din wrecked any chance of communication.
‘Move along, children. Mayor Wilkes has important work to do.’
The little boy with the old face tried to block a girl’s way as she went to harangue Jay. The boy with the goblin eyes just stood there in that inert way of his. Not speaking. Not registering any emotion.
Oh, what I wouldn’t give for that cattle prod, Wilkes thought again. Five hundred volts. I’ll bring the little devils into line.
‘You keep out of this! Archer the Jay lover.’ She gave the tiny child a muscular shove. Archer fell sideways to smack against the tarmac.
‘Enough of that, young lady,’ Lou chided. ‘We’re eating at the hostel today. Best behaviour, folks, let’s show them that Badsworth Lodge folk are polite folk.’
As Archer got back to his feet he realized his elbow bled from where it had struck the roadway. Eyes watering, he pulled a tissue from his pocket. Normally, Wilkes had such little respect for these children he found it easy not to notice what they did. Just then, something did catch his attention one hundred per cent. When Archer yanked out the tissue an object fell from his pocket. It was flexible, slender and glinted yellow. Archer dabbed his red graze, not noticing he’d dropped one of his possessions.