Angel Blood

by John Singleton

‘OK. OK. It's not quite what I planned for this evening but think about it, Nail boy,’ she grinned. ‘It could be a right laugh. Taking a bunch of kids to the seaside.’

  ‘Seaside!’ exploded Nail. ‘Are you crazy? Who said anything about the seaside?’

  ‘Well, that's where you find the Sky Boat, don't you?’

  ‘Christ, Nats. I've heard it all now. What's made you a freak head all of a sudden?’

  Natalie paused. ‘I remember seeing a film once. On TV. Mum and Dad were out, as per usual. It was in Poland somewhere in the war and these people were hiding in the sewers. They were resistance fighters trying to escape the Germans hunting them. They were in there for days and days. In the dark. No food, no sleep, nothing. They'd given up hope. And then a miracle; they found a manhole the Germans had forgotten to seal.

  ‘And there was this amazing scene where the leader emerges just head and shoulders above the street, above the cobbles. He lets the sun shine on his face. He's exhausted but they've made it. Then he turns round and the first thing he sees is the black jackbooted legs of a German officer pointing a pistol straight at his head.

  ‘And I've never forgotten the look of despair in that man's eyes. To have come so far and have it end like that.’

  Nail shrugged. ‘It's a film, Nats. What's it got to do with us, stuck here in Garvie Wood with your noddy kids.’

  ‘They're not mine,’ said Natalie fiercely. ‘They're nobody's and everybody's. And just for the moment they're ours. Yes ours. Yours and mine till it's all sorted and nobody gets jackbooted back into that Bin.’

  Nail said nothing. Did she have a tongue on her! She was off on one, for sure. OK, so the place sucked, the kids were screwed up but that didn't mean he had to save them for the nation.

  ‘Those kids,’ Natalie was saying, ‘have been locked away for all their lives; they've fought their way out. Just imagine after years of being trapped in there then making it past nurses and doctors and Security and into freedom someone turns round and takes you all the way back. This isn't snakes and ladders, Nail. This is their way out.’

  ‘Great, then we'll take them to the nearest hospital. Let them deal with it. That's what they're there for. It's for their own good.’

  ‘They don't want treatment. They've had years of treatment. A lifetime of being drugged and tranked, as they put it. This is their one and only chance of a bit of life. I mean, think of all the chances you've had and all the chances you've wasted. And me too. Just because you've done nothing with yours, just because your life's going nowhere doesn't mean they've got to miss out.’

  Stupid noddy girl thought Nail. What did she know about his life? He still had plenty of time to take chances.

  ‘So what's made you such a kiddieluvvie all of a sudden?’ he said sourly. ‘Not hours ago they were cartoon kids to you, first in line for the monkey house.’

  ‘Well, I talked to them. Listened to what it's really like in that awful Bin place. And if you'd talk to them instead of blanking them you might change your mind as well. You can tell they don't have much time.’

  ‘I don't know,’ said Nail, ‘my old gran looked like death all her life. Legs thin as roll-ups. Lasted into her nineties, the old biddy. Only went because she got bored.’

  ‘Well, you only have to look at these kids to know they're on their last legs, as you put it.’

  ‘Then we'd better get them back where they can get proper medical care and food and warm.’

  ‘They're not going back to that place.’ Natalie squared up to Nail, her lips trembling. ‘No way.’

  3

  Just then her mobile rang.

  They both stopped.

  ‘Don't answer it,’ said Nail.

  ‘Could be Aunty Jessie,’ said Natalie. ‘I need to talk to her.’

  Nail nodded.

  ‘Natalie?’

  Nail recognized the voice. It wasn't Aunt Jessie. It was Kenno.

  Natalie looked at Nail. He shrugged.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Who is this?’

  ‘It's Kenno, remember me. Came to the Post Office a few days ago with a mate called Nail.’

  Natalie ummed.

  ‘What's up?’

  There was a pause. ‘Coddy's van's missing and he's steaming and Nail had it. He's not with you is he?’

  ‘No. Should he be?’

  Another pause. By now Nail had his ear to the phone as well.

  ‘Only,’ said Kenno speaking very slowly, ‘my ma's had some kind of accident. Didn't they tell you when you went to Bin Linnie together to pick her up?’

  Hold it thought Nail. How did Kenno know Natalie had gone to the Bin with him?

  ‘I don't know anything about going to the Bin,’ said Natalie.

  ‘Because three inmates have escaped. You know the sad little kids they keep there. Know anything about that?’

  Nail started thinking. ‘Sad? Little? Kids?’ Didn't sound like boggie-mouth Kenno. He thought the specimens in the Bin were non-human, the sort of things you bottled and left to escape in horror films.

  The phone had gone silent now as if the battery in Kenno's brain had run out of ideas.

  Nail put the phone to his ear again. He could hear something in the background – telly or a radio chattering.

  ‘Well, if you see that no-hoper Nail tell him from me,’ said Kenno's distant voice, ‘he's a… in fact, just put him on the line.’

  Nail put his hand over the speaker. ‘Say you're tired and going to bed. That you haven't seen me all day and that –’

  ‘And that you really are a no-hoper,’ mouthed Natalie.

  Nail gave a thin smile.

  Then it struck him – why Kenno was suddenly so schoolie polite, why he was talking nicey nicey about ‘Bin Linnie’ and ‘kids’ and why there was crackling talk in the background like a radio on a bad day. That wasn't station Garvie on 93 megahertz, the Voice of Lothian. That was walkie-talkie stuff. And it meant only one thing.

  Police or Bin Security again. The Hyena Men were at Coddy's and checking up.

  With either or both in his ear, Kenno wasn't going to foul-mouth freakie kids. But doing the boggie on his mate Nail, that was OK. He'd driven off with a load of bunking kids. In police eyes that had perv written all over it.

  He snorted.

  Now they'd be after them.

  ‘Natalie? Are you still there?’ Kenno sounded urgent.

  ‘Switch it off. Switch it off,’ Nail hissed. He drew a line across his throat.

  Natalie understood. ‘Piss off, Kenno,’ she said and cut out.

  ‘They've got somebody there,’ said Nail nodding. ‘That freaky doctor probably. Pusie Kenno. He was trying to shop us, Nats.’

  He swore.

  ‘That was a put-up job,’ he spluttered, jabbing a finger at the mobile. He just couldn't believe it. Kenno, a mate, shopping them.

  Natalie leant her forehead against the tree like she was counting for hide-and-seek. She was a bit shaken by the phone call. By the idea of the police. By Kenno trying it on.

  Nail watched her.

  Why not get her to go to the PO, to her aunt's? he began thinking. After all they'd need some clothes and food and stuff and where else were they going to get some? And she couldn't just disappear for a few days without explaining, could she! Otherwise thought Nail, he'd be a prime target for abduction, molestation and Police knows what else they'd dream up for a charge sheet. Vehicle theft. Driving without a licence. Driving without tax and MOT. Driving without insurance. Just driving. God, they wouldn't throw the book at him; they'd throw a whole library.

  It was OK for Natalie to go all gooey over some shortchanged plookie kids but he was the one in line for a right wrong verdict.

  Yeah, get her to the aunt's place and then persuade her to give up the whole crazy seaside number.

  ‘Do you think they were trying to trace us? Can they trace mobiles?’ Natalie was asking.

  ‘I don't know but we're getting
out of here.’

  ‘Not without the kids,’ said Natalie, standing up again.

  She turned.

  4

  The kids were back in the van, sitting in line holding hands and staring at the two of them.

  Natalie ran towards them. The kids immediately huddled.

  ‘It's OK,’ she said. ‘It's OK.’

  Then Chicken Angel separated from the others and climbed out of the van and approached Nail. ‘If I let you read my story will you take us to the sea?’

  ‘To the Sky Boat?’ said X-Ray joining them.

  ‘Or,’ said Natalie, looking him straight in the eye, ‘are you going to wear your jackboots, Herr Nail, and like you said, take them –’

  ‘Before you finish, I never said that,’ said Nail.

  He shook his head. He felt like he'd walked into Oz land. Natalie would have him dancing up the yellow brick road next.

  ‘I haven't a clue where the sea is,’ he said in Natalie's ear.

  By now they were standing beside the van.

  ‘East, west. This is Scotland. Where does the sun rise?’

  Just then Nail felt something touching his hand. It was zero eyes. He pulled it away.

  ‘She just wants to feel you, smell you,’ said Chicken Angel.

  ‘Tell her I don't want to be felt. And I don't want someone smelling me. It makes me feel like I've puked myself.’

  ‘She only wants to touch your face. It's her way of seeing you. She makes pictures with fingers.’

  The thought of the little freakie feeling over his face quite turned Nail's stomach.

  But Lights Out had read Nail's thought. She began morsing X-Ray who was nearest.

  ‘Mumbo noddy jumbo,’ muttered Nail.

  He should have kept his big mouth shut and just said N.O. to Natalie. NO, they weren't sky boating. NO, they weren't following the rising sun. And YES, they were going back to the Bin. The whole thing could turn into a life-long nightmare. He wished he was back in Coddy's kitchen, necking down cannies and chewing chips.

  ‘Nail boy, want to know what she's saying about you?’ said X-Ray.

  Nail said nothing. He was fiddling in his pocket for the van keys.

  ‘She says you think you're a leopard but you're really a pippi inside like all the rest of us. She says your pippi wants to escape like the princess in the clock but a wicked witch has her locked up inside.’

  ‘Rubbish,’ said Nail.

  Suddenly, like they had one mind, the three kids all went very still. They joined hands. ‘Is Nail boy really going to take us?’ asked Chicken Angel. ‘Or is he going to send us back to the Doctor?’

  ‘He's going to take us all. We're going to find somewhere safe and get some food and go to the sea like I said.’

  ‘Let's do Jesus Hands,’ said X-Ray.

  The kids touched their fingertips together and made a tent. They left a space for Natalie.

  ‘Your hands are frozen,’ she said. ‘Come on, Nail, join in.’

  Nail refused. ‘It'll be spells and broomsticks next,’ he mumbled.

  Lights Out turned to face him. She smiled.

  ‘See,’ said Natalie. ‘She likes you.’

  ‘It's because he's got a pippi inside, like Lolo,’ said Chicken Angel.

  Before Nail had time to tell her she was talking nonsense, Lights Out had started mewing.

  ‘Now what's up with her?’ he said.

  Chicken Angel looked startled. Lolo was morsing, fingers working faster and faster.

  ‘What is it?’ said Natalie.

  ‘She says there's a leopard. Two leopards, coming this way.’

  ‘I can't hear anything,’ said Nail.

  The kids scrambled back into the van and Natalie closed the doors.

  ‘Come on. She's psychic, that little no-eyes.’

  Nail fumbled with the keys as the lights from the first car came bouncing through the far trees.

  Swearing, he fired the engine.

  5

  He swung the van round and skidded it behind the wood pile and out of sight of the road.

  Slowly he wound down the window.

  The glow from the vehicle lights aurora-ed around them.

  Then they heard a voice calling over a loudspeaker. ‘Geminis, we know you are there.’

  Inside the van the kids held each other tight in a Jesus Hug.

  ‘Doctor Dearly,’ whispered X-Ray. ‘He's found us.’

  Chicken Angel wailed.

  ‘Geminis.’ The harsh voice called. ‘This is Doctor Dearly, your medical adviser. I am here to help you. I am your friend. You are in great danger. Without proper food and medication your lives will be jeopardized. Show yourselves. A safe environment and the specialist care you need await you in Bin Linnie Lodge. You will be looked after. Your nurses are on standby ready to help. Show yourselves. Geminis, this is Doctor Dearly. I am your friend.’

  Moments later two vehicles slowly passed by, their revolving roof spots setting the road and the side darknesses ablaze with light for a few seconds.

  ‘Geminis, this is Doctor Dearly. You are in great danger.’

  The voice began to fade away.

  ‘Hyenas,’ said Nail.

  Natalie smiled. Nail was beginning to get the idea.

  6

  Suddenly the light flickers on. I am trembling but that may be the flutters. Lights Out is cosy cosy up to Chicken Angel. Her head is lolling. She is still holding Maiden China.

  Chicken Angel is humming her. ‘Lolo is cold,’ she says, frowning my way.

  That's bad I think, but she can't blame me.

  ‘It was Lolo who moosed out Tin Lid,’ I say.

  Chicken Angel nods. ‘We should never have listened to Cough Cough,’ she says.

  I am thinking. Maybe the Bin is better. Our natural habitat. We all have our place. Monkeys in the jungle, lions on the plains, Geminis in the the Bin.

  But Nail boy and Natalie girl will save us.

  CHAPTER 20

  The Hyenas are Coming

  1

  ‘Well, what are you going to do?’ whispered Natalie.

  ‘What am I going to do?’ said Nail. ‘Am I James Bond, Mister Martini, all of a sudden? I keep telling you, Nats. It's not going to work. Those kids are shivering back there and probably starving. I am. I'm gagging for a pint right now. And what's more they smell, smell bad, and they need cleaning up. We'd be doing them a favour handing them back. We'll go to your aunt's place, clean them up. Give them something to eat.’

  ‘And then dump them back at the Bin. That's what you're thinking. Isn't it? I can tell. Get her back home and she'll change her mind. You are a hard case. Kenno was right. And you can add two-faced to that.’

  ‘No way,’ said Nail slowly, gripping the steering wheel like he was throttling Kenno. ‘What does that dummy know? What do you know?’

  Natalie stared through the windscreen. ‘Why would they think we had the kids?’ she said.

  ‘Because they've put two and two together. Van arrives as kids disappear, van vanishes, security guard questioned and admits not searching back of van, says girl claimed assaulted nurse was her ma. This obviously false. Guard now says girl's hysterics all a put-up job, a cover-up. Police agree. Boy and girl now prime suspects. Got it? Girl lies over phone. This confirms suspicion. It's a case of child kidnap.’

  ‘How do they know I lied?’

  ‘Catch up, Nats. How did they get your mobile number? Did you give it Kenno?’

  Natalie shook her head. ‘Oh, God,’ she said. ‘It must have been Aunt Jessie. Yes, I see. She gave it to the police, which means they must have gone to the PO, which means they know I wasn't there.’

  ‘Tucked up in bed and reading Mizz,’ said Nail. ‘And now they'll be waiting for us. Trained marksmen, body armour, road blocks, a cordon of steel.’

  Natalie ignored him. ‘And the police got Kenno to call.’

  ‘Entrapment,’ said Nail.

  ‘Which means,’ said Natalie.

 
‘We're stuffed. We can't go back to the Post Office. We'll be arrested and done for false imprisonment, abduction, God knows what.’

  2

  Suddenly Nail froze. ‘What's that?’ he whispered.

  Something was ring ringing.

  ‘A mobile?’ said Natalie.

  Nail shook his head.

  It was getting louder and louder.

  ‘It's an alarm. It's that noddy clock,’ he cried. ‘It's that no-eyes one.’ He turned to Natalie. ‘Get her to shut it. It'll wake up the whole snoring forest.’

  Natalie reached for the door handle but it was too late.

  A spray of light washed over the log pile.

  ‘They're coming back.’ Natalie twisted in her seat. ‘Coming this way,’ she said hoarsely.

  Nail fired the engine and reversed the van out and bounced into the ruts of the dirt track behind.

  Then he palmed the lever into neutral and leapt out of the car.

  Natalie screamed at him.

  He was going to shop them.

  She went silent as soon as she saw what he was doing.

  From the top of the wood pile Nail pulled down two, three, four logs. He dragged them across the track and rolled them into a staggered formation.

  A fan of light swept over him.

  ‘Stop. This is Doctor Dearly. You have been seen. What you are doing is illegal. Stay where you are. Do not move. My security men will assist you. I repeat, stay where you are and no one will get hurt.’

  But Nail wasn't waiting.

  He'd heard the bark of dogs.

  He leapt in the van, rammed into first and spun away hurtling down the track leaving the pursuit log-jammed and revving in helpless anger.

  ‘They've got dogs,’ said Nail. ‘The bastards have got dogs. What are they thinking of. Dogs will tear them apart. They're animals.’

  Animals? Natalie wasn't sure whether he meant the Hyena Men or Doctor Dearly or just the dogs.

  ‘I told you,’ she shouted, ‘it's a nightmare that place. And the people who run it are ghouls.’

  Nail said nothing. He thought about Kenno's ma who'd worked for years at the Bin. She didn't look like a ghoul. Or did she change to Bad Wolf once she got inside? Is that what places like the Bin did to you? He knew Coddy thought she was a circling shark but, well, Coddy was always dabbling in dangerous waters. Served him right if he got his arm bitten.