School's Out Forever (afterblight chronicles)

by Scott K. Andrews

  So I lay there, listening to the owls and the foxes, wishing that my father were here to take charge on my behalf. I wished I could go back to being a boy again, that I could retreat to a world where my only worries were acne, BO and whether that girl from the high school would laugh at me if I asked her to meet me at lunchtime for a bag of chips at the bus stop. That was what my life should be like. I was fifteen, for God’s sake. Whoever heard of a fifteen-year-old general? Well, Alexander the Great, perhaps. Whatever happened, things would be settled once and for all by the end of the day. Either I’d be dead and the school would be destroyed, or the Blood Hunters would be wiped from the face of the earth like the plague they were. When dawn finally broke I greeted it with a kind of relief; waiting to fight is far worse than actually fighting.

  Breakfast was a sombre affair. Green hadn’t spoken a word since we’d rescued him, and he sat at the end of the table, picking at his bacon and eggs. Haycox was in shock, coming to terms with the fact that yesterday his life had changed from horse grooming to disembowelling and decapitation. I hardly knew any of the boys who made up Green’s theatre troupe, but they were artsy types, uncomfortable in a fight, reeling from the deaths of their friends Russell and Jones. Bob was subdued because he’d had a very hard time convincing some of the men in Hildenborough to provide support for our plans; after all, they’d lost friends in an attack on the school once before. But the opportunity to revenge themselves on the Blood Hunters was enough to sway them in the end.

  The only person who ate well was Rowles. He cleaned his plate, and then went back for more. He didn’t seem worried at all. But if you looked closely you could see that he was dead behind the eyes. I worried about that boy.

  When we were finished we washed up and got dressed. Rowles, Haycox and I had our combats, the others had to make do with green and brown clothes that Bob had begged and borrowed the day before. We met the new Hildenborough militia on the forecourt of the house and went over the plan once again. Weapons were distributed and goodbyes said. Then we walked down the drive towards the rising sun.

  We were going to pick a fight.

  THERE’S SOMETHING MEDIAEVAL about pitching a tent outside a fortified castle and laying siege to it. But since the Blood Hunters had to do without smart bombs, air strikes or fuel, it seemed logical to re-adopt the neglected arts of war.

  The marquee sat to one side of the school’s main gate, outside the walls, on the grass between the road and the school wall. The gate itself lay on the ground in pieces, run down by a truck. The truck in question lay on its side about twenty metres inside the gates. There was a corpse hanging out of the driver’s side window. The sandbagged machine gun emplacement at the main gate had been scattered by the impact, I had no idea of the fate of the boys who’d been manning it. The Blood Hunters had collected the sandbags and rebuilt it, remounting the GPMG and pointing it down the drive at the school.

  With the drive covered, and the pillboxes manned at the rear, all approaches to the school were pinned down. But the long driveway in front, the playing fields at the back, and the paddocks and gardens on either side provided no cover for attackers who made it over the wall, which meant that a straightforward attack would be suicide. Stalemate.

  The Blood Hunters were going to have to starve the school into submission. And I wasn’t going to allow them that much time.

  I turned my binoculars towards Castle and was relieved to see a Union Jack flag dangling from a window. That was the signal; Norton had made it past the guards and was inside. There was nothing left to do now. Time to begin.

  I broke cover about half a mile down the road and strolled as nonchalantly as I could towards the school. I tried whistling but my mouth was too dry. It took them a minute to spot me. Three of the biggest guys I’ve ever seen ran towards me, weapons raised for firing.

  I grinned at them. I was going for confidence but I probably looked unhinged.

  “Take me to your leader,” I said. So they did.

  There was a crowd milling around outside the entrance to the marquee as we approached. A whole tribe of people in jeans and t-shirts, wearing flip flops and trainers, carrying machetes and guns, their faces, arms and hair soaked in human blood. The meeting of mundane and surreal was hard to accept. So was the smell.

  I’ve never been religious. It just never made any sense to me. But I sang the hymns and intoned the prayers at school assemblies and the compulsory Sunday morning service in the chapel. The kind of religion I was exposed to always seemed harmless enough. Either the vicars were pompous bores or young men who tried to be cool by playing guitar or something embarrassing like that. One of the boys in my dorm had attended a thing called the Alpha Course one summer holiday, and the subsequent term he’d stopped smoking and joined the school’s Christian Fellowship. But that was about as sinister as it got. And I sort of got it. It was about feeling part of a community, taking comfort in a belief that there was some point to everything. I didn’t feel the need of it myself, but I kind of understood why some people did.

  But this… I couldn’t begin to wrap my head around this. How fucked in the head did you have to be to think that human sacrifice was going to save your immortal soul? How desperate for certainty did you need to be to imagine that smearing yourself in human blood was a good idea? I wondered whether the Blood Hunters were just a collection of weak, scared people in thrall to a charismatic nutter, or were they some expression of something deeper, more fundamental? The Aztec part of us, if you like.

  I might as well have been walking through a crowd of Martians. I couldn’t comprehend these people on any level. And suddenly I realised I’d made a terrible mistake strolling in here. Because how can you talk to someone when you don’t even know their language?

  The tent flap was held open for me and I walked into the marquee. The air inside was fetid and humid, and smelt of grass, sweat and blood. Blankets lay on the floor, surrounded by bags and collections of random objects and piles of clothes; lots of little Blood Hunter nests. Running down the middle of the tent was a long red carpet, and at the far end, raised on a wooden dais, was a throne. I say throne, but it was really just a big wooden chair with a gold lame blanket tossed over it and a red velvet cushion. Sat on this throne was David, wearing his immaculate pinstripe suit and bowler hat. His umbrella rested on one of the arms. Two armed guards stood either side of the throne.

  I was shoved onto the red carpet and marched down it to meet the Blood Hunters’ leader. I had no idea what to expect. I certainly didn’t expect him to get up, walk down to meet me, shake my hand and offer me a cup of tea and a slice of cake.

  But that’s what he did.

  “We’ve spoken before, haven’t we?” he asked as he poured Earl Grey into a china cup.

  “Yes, we have.” He handed me the cup and saucer and I thanked him. “At Ightham.”

  “I thought so. You were one of the boys who attacked us.”

  I took a sip. “Yeah.”

  We sat on canvas chairs facing each other across a wrought iron table. There was a plate on the table with lemon drizzle cake on it. I didn’t ask where they’d managed to find lemons, I just helped myself. It was delicious.

  Imagine a clown performing for children, his face covered in make-up. Then try to imagine what he looks like when all the slap’s taken away. Is he old or young? Ugly or attractive? It’s impossible to say. All you can see is the clown face. It was the same with David. I found it very hard to get a sense of what he looked like, because all I could see was the cracked and crumbling patina of blood that caked his face. It made him difficult to read.

  Obviously I was taking tea with a madman. But was he personally dangerous? Was he likely to kill me himself, with no warning, on a whim or because of something I might say? Or did his threat lie solely in his power over others? I could find no clue at all in his expression or his cold grey eyes.

  “So what can I do for you this fine sunny day, young man?” he said. “Do you wish to join us, per
haps? We always have room for penitent souls.” He smiled insincerely.

  “I’ve come to ask you to leave.” Even though I’d been rehearsing this in my head all night I still couldn’t believe I’d just said that.

  “I’m sorry?”

  “I want you to leave St Mark’s alone. Just leave. Please.”

  He put down his tea carefully, then he placed his elbows on the table and rested his face in his hands.

  “Why would I want to do that? There are young, innocent souls in there, in need of salvation. I can provide them with that. I’m only here to help.”

  “And if they don’t want your salvation?”

  “Then they can aid in the salvation of others.”

  “As bleeders.”

  “Or food. Or both. Their blood and flesh is a holy sacrament.”

  “Is that all they are to you, a resource?”

  “If they will not accept the word of God then yes.” He leaned back and shrugged as if to say ‘what can you do?’

  I decided to try a different tack.

  “When we blew up that room you were outside the door,” I said. “How did you survive?”

  “I am watched over,” he replied.

  I thought: you ran down the stairs when you heard the window break, more like. “But if your little cult is so blessed, why were we able to burn your house to the ground?”

  He laughed, as if indulging a child who’s just asked a particularly stupid question. “You were merely the messenger of God’s wrath. He wishes me to bring His word to the world. I was betraying my calling by situating myself in one location.” He gestured around him, at the marquee. “Now, you see, we are mobile! And we save more souls every day of our never ending journey. All thanks to you.”

  “You’re welcome. So why not move on. Why lay siege to a school when there are so many other places to save?”

  “I may be a holy man, but I am not above a little vengeance. You killed my disciples, you oppose me and my followers. That cannot go unpunished.”

  “People are going to die here today. Lots of people. Yours and mine. Men, women, boys, girls. And there’s no need for it all. You can just walk away.”

  “Shan’t.”

  Strike One.

  “All right then, let the people in the school leave and take the building as your new base. Rent free. All yours.”

  “Didn’t you listen to what I said? We are mobile now. That is how it is meant to be.”

  Strike Two.

  “Then take me.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Take me. Bleed me, eat me, do whatever you want. I won’t resist. But leave the school alone.”

  “My dear young man, I have you already. Where’s my incentive to make a deal?”

  Strike Three.

  Okay then. I’d given him every chance; done everything I could to avoid bloodshed. No choice now but to fight. Only problem was that my plan relied on my being outside. And I was stuck in this bloody great tent. I needed to be creative.

  “How many men and guns have you got here anyway?” I asked.

  He smiled. It was not pleasant. “Lots and lots.”

  I made a play of considering this.

  “Can I, perhaps, join you, then?”

  Finally, I’d managed to surprise him. “You wish to join the flock of the saved?”

  “I don’t want to die, so on balance, yeah. Please.”

  “Do you understand what joining the ranks of the saved entails?”

  “I’ve heard about the ritual blood letting. Correct me if I make a mistake. A victim is selected from amongst the prisoners or, if the person joining is considered particularly valuable, from the ranks of the already saved. The victim is held down by two men, and the supplicant, who has been stripped naked, slits the victim’s throat and collects the blood in a bowl. When the bowl is full they drink the blood. Then the body is turned over and sliced open. You then dab your hands in the gore and make the sign of the cross, in blood, on the supplicant’s chest. The supplicant takes the knife, cuts their palm, and drips their blood into your outstretched hands, and you wash your face with it. That about right?”

  “And you’d be happy to take the ritual of salvation?”

  “If it means staying alive, then yes, I would.”

  “Can I tell you a secret?”

  “Please.”

  He leaned forward and whispered conspiratorially: “You’re not a very good liar.”

  “I’m not lying. I swear I’ll join you if you let me.”

  “If you wish to join us why did you kill the acolytes I dispatched to bring you to me? We found their bodies on the road yesterday. And why attack and tie up the two men by the river? No, I think it’s more likely that you’ve developed some kind of plan and this conversation is the start of it. Did you really think we would just leave if you asked me nicely?”

  He spat the word ‘nicely’ at me like a curse, and there was a sudden flash of furious madness in his eyes.

  “I hoped so. I had to try, didn’t I?”

  The fury was replaced by contempt.

  “You believe yourself to be in a story, don’t you?” he sneered. “I think you imagine yourself as the hero who strolls into the enemy camp, baits the villain and then runs away to fight another day. Yes? But you’re so wrong. My crusade is holy and righteous and you are nothing but a clueless heathen. I have bound my followers together in faith and blood through the power of my will. I lead them to glory and salvation. You have no idea of the trials I have undergone, the opposition I have overcome, the demons I have banished. I am the hero of this tale, boy, not you. You’re just a footnote. Nothing more.”

  He was impressive when he got going.

  “I don’t know what you and your boy scouts have planned, but I can assure you it’s utterly futile,” he ranted. “You have no forces to call upon. We have the school surrounded and all your boys and their weapons are contained inside. They can’t attack us for the same reason we can’t attack them — they’d be cut down before they reached the walls. And even if it does come to a fight, which I think unlikely, my men outnumber you two to one and are not afraid to die. You should see them fight. It’s a glorious thing. They fling themselves into danger without a second thought. They are magnificent!”

  David’s messianic fervour was impressive but I wasn’t completely convinced by it. I thought about the two men I’d interrogated on the river bank the day before. Magnificent wasn’t the word I’d use to describe them; they were just scared idiots happy to have a tribe to belong to. Obviously there would be a hard core of men, like the one I’d killed in Hildenborough, who’d fight to the last, but I was sure that if David were taken out of the equation then the majority of Blood Hunters would fall apart. I hoped so, anyway. My whole plan relied upon it.

  “You’re… you’re right,” I said, trying not to overplay it. “I know we don’t stand a chance. I was bluffing. There’s no way we can fight you, not like this.”

  “Don’t believe a word he says, David,” said a familiar voice behind me. “He’s got a plan, all right.”

  I turned to face the new arrival. The guys I’d interrogated at the pillbox had told me Mac was here, so I’d expected to come face to face with him again. But nothing could have prepared me for how he looked. I recoiled involuntarily at the sight of him.

  His hair was all burnt away, his bald head blackened and scarred. The left side of his face was also a mass of scar tissue, and it sagged downwards, indicating that he had no muscle control there. The left side of his lips had been burnt away too, leaving half his teeth exposed and giving him a permanent sneer of loathing and contempt. His left ear was a ragged tatter and his left eye socket gaped, black and empty. His left arm ended abruptly just above what used to be his elbow, but the right hand held a machine gun with measured confidence. He looked like some kind of zombie.

  But it wasn’t the sight of Mac that froze my blood and stopped my heart.

  Because standing next to him was Ma
tron.

  And her face and hair were smeared with human blood.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  “LOOK,” I SAID, “It’s a pretty simple plan.”

  “Too simple if you ask me,” said Bob.

  “Can your man shoot as well as you say… yes or no?” I asked.

  “He’s bloody brilliant,” he replied.

  “And does he have a problem with shooting people?”

  “No,” he replied darkly.

  “Then I reckon it’s our best shot. Um, sorry. Not intended.”

  “But are you sure it’ll work?” asked Rowles.

  “The Blood Hunters are a cult of personality. It stands to reason that if we eliminate their leader then they won’t know what to do. There’s every chance they may just wander off.”

  “I can’t believe this is our best plan. Hope they wander off. Jesus,” muttered Norton.

  “You said he never comes out of the tent, so how are you going to get him out in the open?” asked Bob.

  “I’ll improvise. Just make sure your man’s ready. The second David steps outside, I want him dead. Then while they’re running around flapping their hands and wailing you lot come out onto the road and line up, weapons raised. But don’t fire unless you have to. And Norton, you lead the boys out of the school and do the same. With their leader dead, and us sandwiching them between two rows of guns and making a show of force, I think there’s the possibility of a surrender.”

  “And Mac?” said Norton. “We don’t expect him to just walk away, do we?”

  “No. I don’t really know what he’s going to do. He’s the wild card.”

  MATRON HELD A gun on me as Mac and David walked to one side and talked quietly, glancing over at me every now and then. I stayed seated. I looked up at Matron, trying to get some indication that she was under duress. Nothing.

  Eventually David returned to the table. Mac stood behind him, his twisted mouth lolling into a dangerous smile. His face was as hard to read as David’s, probably because half of it wasn’t really there. But he was up to something, and I didn’t like it.