It was as if his head suddenly cleared and he realised the position his unthinking rage had placed him in. He’d just killed the religious leader of a group of insane cannibals, all of whom were armed. And they were all looking at him.
“Nice one, Mac,” I said. “Good move.”
There was a collective roar, a guttural explosion of fury from every Blood Hunter in the hall. Then they rushed him. They could have shot him, but I guess there was something about wanting to inflict the pain personally, needing to feel the kicks and punches landing. Some of them even threw their guns aside as they ran. Like a tide, the cultists swept left and right to the stairs and streamed up them onto the stage. I was ignored, forgotten. Mac fired, mowing some of them down as they approached, but it was no use. They fell upon him and he screamed as he vanished beneath a flurry of fists.
Two things happened at once. The boys and men who’d been held prisoner ran forward and grabbed all the discarded weapons they could; and an army of girls appeared on the balcony above us.
Matron stood directly opposite and above me on the balcony, machine gun pointed down. To her left and right, flanking the room on all three sides, were fifteen young girls, all similarly armed.
I saw Rowles look up in astonishment. Then he looked at the stage and he smiled broadly.
“Fire!” he yelled.
All the girls opened up at once, pouring fire down into the throng of Blood Hunters. Those boys and men who’d grabbed discarded guns did the same.
The Blood Hunters didn’t stand a chance. It was a massacre. Some of them realised what had happened and tried to bring their weapons to bear, but the onslaught was too fierce, the fire too concentrated. The gunfire seemed to go on forever, a cacophony of stuttering weapons with a staccato accompaniment of spent cartridges hitting the floor. The noise reached a crescendo and then gradually died away as magazine after magazine clicked empty and the guns fell silent. As the smoke rose, and the smell of cordite swamped everything, silence fell.
The stage was piled head-high with twitching, bleeding Blood Hunters; dead, dying and wounded. And me, upside down, swinging gently above the slaughter, splashed with blood and gore, laughing hysterically.
MATRON WAS APPALLED at what had occurred, but she took control with assured, businesslike calm. She sorted out the youngest children, both boys and girls, and sent them outside to collect weapons from the battlefield. The men and older boys set to work pulling the Blood Hunters off the stage and sorting them into three piles: dead, mortally wounded, and those who could perhaps be saved. Matron co-ordinated the triage.
There was a brief argument between Rowles and Matron, with Rowles arguing that they should all be shot in the head. Matron wouldn’t hear of it. Rowles surprised me by accepting her authority.
After I was cut down I sat at the far end of the hall and nursed my wounds, unable to believe that I was still alive. After a while Matron came and sat next to me, resting her hand on my knee.
“You all right?” she asked. I didn’t need to answer that. “No, of course you’re not. Sorry. Stupid question.”
I smiled to indicate I didn’t mind and she grimaced. “Ouch,” she said, as she leant forward, took hold of my jaw and opened my mouth to reveal my missing front tooth. It had snapped in two, leaving a jagged, serrated edge that I couldn’t stop probing with my tongue. “That must really hurt.”
“Not yet,” I lisped. “Your drugs are still taking the edge off. But I wouldn’t mind another hit before you pull the root out.”
“No problem. Hold still.” She took hold of my re-broken nose and wrenched it into place again, making me yell. “You need a splint on that. I’m not sure it’ll set quite right, though.”
“Great,” I laughed. “I’m a limping, lisping, gap-toothed scarface with a broken nose. What a catch.”
She placed her hand on my cheek. “Oh, I don’t know.” She flashed me a cheeky, girlish grin that made me feel all sorts of interesting things. I actually blushed.
“Are all the girls okay?” I asked, changing the subject.
She nodded. “David kept his side of the bargain. They didn’t touch them. Which isn’t to say they enjoyed being locked in a caravan for so long.” She surveyed the makeshift morgue in front of her. “I was hoping they wouldn’t have to open fire; that just the threat would be enough to get the Blood Hunters to disarm. It seems that these days everyone has to end up killing somebody.”
I looked at her and suddenly I realised where we’d gone wrong, all those months ago.
“It should have been you,” I said to her.
“Sorry?”
“In charge. It should have been you, not Bates.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she scoffed.
“Think about it. Every time things went wrong you were the one who did the right thing. You stood up to that woman on the drive; you stood up to Bates and Mac when Hammond was killed. While I was making plots, pretending to be something I wasn’t, you were always the honest one. Of all the lessons Mac was trying to teach me about leadership, that’s the one he never understood: you can only be a proper leader if you’re willing to stand up for what you believe in and be counted when it matters. I never was. You always were. It should have been you, Jane. Not Bates, not Mac, not me. You. Maybe then none of this would have happened.”
“Oh fuck off, Nine Lives” said a voice from the stage. There was Mac, fished out from the very bottom of the pile of bodies. He was covered in cuts and bruises, but not a single bullet had made its way through the crowd to him, curled up on the floor at the epicentre of the lynch mob. “The last thing we need right now is a fucking moral, yeah? Spare us, please.”
Two of the boys who’d been sorting through the bodies stood beside him, keeping him covered. I stood up and walked towards him across the hall floor, skirting the wounded and dying.
“What does it take to kill you, eh?” I said, incredulous. “I mean, I shot you, I blew you up, you just got beaten and shot at. What does it fucking take to get rid of you?”
“Back at you, Nine Lives,” he replied, with a sneer.
I reached the stage and leant on it, resting my arms on the footlights and looking up at him. I sniffed and shook my head. I didn’t understand it, but I was almost glad to see him. “Shooting David wasn’t the cleverest thing you’ve ever done, was it?”
He shrugged, then he limped over to the front of the stage and sat down, dangling his legs over the side next to me.
“Fair point.” He chuckled. “Snatched defeat out of the jaws of victory there, didn’t I?”
“Kind of, yeah. You do realise you’re insane. Really, genuinely psychopathic.”
“Probably,” he replied. He paused and then said: “I blame society.”
I couldn’t help it; that made me laugh. After a second he joined in and before I knew it we were holding our sides, tears streaming down our faces, in the grips of the most terrible giggles. When they subsided I reached down and picked up a discarded Browning. I checked it was loaded and chambered a round.
“Still,” I said. “I’m going to have to kill you now, Sean. I hope you understand that.”
He looked at me and nodded.
“It’s what I’d do,” he said evenly.
“I just want you to know, it’s completely personal. I really hate your guts and I want you to die.”
“I understand,” he said.
I took a step back, raised the gun and aimed at his heart. I looked straight into his face, at his one remaining eye, as I squeezed the trigger to the biting point.
“Lee, put it down,” said Matron, behind me.
I didn’t move a muscle.
“Lee, please, put it down. Enough now. You don’t need to kill him. I worked too bloody hard to put him back together.”
Mac held my gaze. His face gave nothing away. He seemed more curious than scared, interested to see which way I’d jump. Was I finally the cold blooded killer he’d always told me I needed to be? The answer was yes, an
d I was going to prove it. I wanted to kill him. I was sure it was the right and necessary thing to do.
I felt Matron’s hand on my arm. “Put it down, Lee. It’s over.”
I turned my head to look at her. Somehow I’d not noticed before now, but she’d washed her face clean of blood. I could really see her for the first time in months. Her eyes held such compassion and warmth. My stomach felt hollow and empty, but I couldn’t be sure whether it was because of the drugs wearing off, the sight of her face, or the certain knowledge that I was going to pull the trigger whatever she said.
“Sorry, Jane. But I’m a killer now.” I turned back to face Mac. “It’s what he made me.” I steadied my arm to fire. I would have done it too, but Mac wasn’t looking at me any more. He was looking over my shoulder. He smiled. “Finally,” he said. “Someone with balls.”
The first bullet took him in the jaw, ripping away half his face. The second got him right between the eyes. The third and fourth hit him in the right shoulder. The fifth went wide, and the sixth ripped open his throat. The seventh and eight took away his nose and one remaining eye. The ninth, tenth and eleventh hit his chest, exploding his heart and lungs. Then the hammer hit metal. Mac fell backwards, a dead weight.
Green, by this point standing beside me, dropped the smoking gun to the floor, wiped his eyes, and walked away without a word.
EPILOGUE
I REMEMBER THE first time I met Lee. He was fourteen and it was my first day as Matron at St Mark’s, my first day as Jane Crowther. I wasn’t sure if it was an identity I’d be comfortable with. I’d trained to be a doctor, not nursemaid to a bunch of spoiled upper-class brats. I was nervous and uncertain.
The police had taken care of all the details, and Inspector Cooper assured me that my cover was absolutely water tight. A few years hidden away in this anonymous little school and then maybe I could resume my medical studies somewhere else. Somewhere they’d never find me.
The last words Cooper said to me were: “I promise you, Kate, it’s over. You’ll never have to pick up a gun again.”
What a joke.
Anyway, there I was, hair freshly dyed, first day at my new school. And the first boy into the San that morning was Lee. He was awkward and gangly, with arms that seemed too long for his body, and a smattering of spots across his forehead. His hair was wild and scruffy, and his uniform was a mess. He’d hit a pothole and fallen off his bike, he said, as he showed me the nasty graze on his arm. I swabbed it clean, smeared it with germolene and slapped on a bandage. Three years of medical training for this, I thought, totally depressed.
But then Lee did the sweetest thing, I’ve never forgotten it.
“You’ve got a hell of a job here, you know,” he said. “Your predecessor was quite something.”
I remember thinking ‘Predecessor’? What kind of fourteen-year-old uses a word like ‘predecessor?’ Certainly not the kind of kids I grew up with.
“Really? How’s that, then?” I asked.
So he told me all about the headmaster and his wife, and explained why the boys might resent me; he gave me tips on how to defuse the head’s rages, and schooled me in the tactics needed to manage the particularly difficult boys, who he named and shamed so I wouldn’t get caught by surprise. He was shy but friendly, presenting himself as a willing conspirator and helpmate. By the time he left I felt much better about things.
It was such a thoughtful, welcoming thing to do. I had a soft spot for him from that moment on, I suppose.
I think back to the year after The Cull, and the broken, hard-faced wreck that he became, and I want to weep. You see, he was never cut out for leadership, not under those circumstances, anyway. He was sweet and slightly bookish, a bit of a dreamer really. Young, yes, but mature for his age and with a strong sense of right and wrong.
Even now, years later, he hasn’t got over the choices he made that year. I try to tell him that he shouldn’t feel bad, that what he achieved was flat out heroic. But he doesn’t see it that way. He still has the nightmares. I like to think that I’m a help to him, but sometimes he suffers from deep depressions that can last up to a month, and I’m powerless then. Still, I think writing this account has been therapeutic for him.
However, he can’t bring himself to write the final chapter of the St Mark’s story, so he’s asked me to do it for him. I’m not much of a writer, so I’ll keep it brief.
We were still clearing out the main hall when we heard shouts and running feet in the corridors. Then Rowles appeared on the balcony and shouted: “Bomb!”
Everyone was very calm about it, no one panicked. I suppose after what we’d just been through this seemed kind of tame. We walked outside and made our way to the playing fields at the back. Rowles had been putting the guns back into the armoury when he’d discovered a cluster of dynamite sticks, booby trapped and wired up to a clock.
MacKillick must have left them there, as an insurance policy. If he’d survived he’d have gone down and cut whichever wire he needed to cut. But he was dead, and neither Rowles nor Lee wanted to take the gamble of choosing red, yellow or black. As we stood there debating what to do there was the biggest explosion I’ve ever seen. All the grenades and bullets in the armoury went up with the dynamite, practically demolishing Castle in one horrendous bang.
Sean had the last laugh in the end. If he couldn’t rule St Mark’s then no-one could.
The wreckage burnt long into the night, warming us as we tried to decide what to do next. Lee just sat there, silent, staring at the fire, tears streaming down his face as he watched all his dreams, everything he’d fought for, burn away to ashes.
In the morning we packed up the Blood Hunters’ marquee and walked to Hildenborough, where we moved into empty houses and slept all day.
I had been thinking about what Lee had said, about me being the natural leader. Those three months at the farm with the girls had been wonderful, and yes, I had enjoyed being in charge. Lee made it very clear that he didn’t want the job any more.
So I called a meeting and we put it to the vote. Should we stay and become part of the Hildenborough community, or should I take charge of the search for a new home, a new school? The vote was unanimous.
Weeks later, when we were having our final meeting to choose between two likely places, Lee took me to one side.
“I’m leaving, Jane,” he said.
I told him to stop being silly. His arm and hand were healing but he still had limited movement. He needed more physiotherapy and time to recover. But he was determined.
“I have to go find my father,” he explained. “I know he survived the plague, but he should have been back here by now. Something’s gone wrong and he might need my help.”
“But where will you look?” I asked, unable to believe this.
“Iraq,” he said simply.
I begged him to reconsider, told him to wait for us to finish our meeting and then we’d discuss it. He promised he would. But when we wrapped up half an hour later, he was gone.
I only spent two years as the matron of St Mark’s School for Boys. I’d gone there looking for a refuge from violence, and instead I’d found more death than I could have imagined. And more kindness, too. We took the sign from the front gate with us when we moved into Groombridge, establishing some sense of continuity. “St Mark’s is dead, long live St Mark’s,” as Rowles put it.
I was in control and I swore this time it would work, this time everyone would be safe.
I’d make sure of it.
THE END
OPERATION MOTHERLAND
Original cover art by Mark Harrison
PART ONE
LEE
CHAPTER ONE
I CELEBRATED MY sixteenth birthday by crashing a plane, fighting for my life, and facing execution. Again.
I’d rather have just blown out some candles and got pissed.
“HELLO? IS ANYBODY there? Hello?”
“Lee? Oh, thank God.”
“Dad? Dad, is that
you? I can hardly hear you. Where are you?”
“Still in Basra, but we’re shipping out soon. Listen, I don’t know how much time I have. Is your mother there?”
“Er, yeah.”
“Put her on, son.”
I’D BEEN SCANNING the terrain for about ten minutes, looking for a decent place to land, when small-arms fire raked the fuselage.
Stupid, careless idiot; I’d been flying in circles, just asking to be shot at.
The problem was that I couldn’t find the airport. I could see the river snaking to the sea, the city straddling it and blending into desert at the edges. I could see the columns of smoke rising high off to the north, and the boats bobbing in the long abandoned harbour. But I couldn’t see the bloody airport. So I had to get closer and look for somewhere to land.
I’d managed to fly thousands of miles, refuel twice without incident (if you didn’t count that psycho in Cyprus, but he wasn’t that much trouble) and make it to my destination unscathed. Then, on arrival, I descend to within shooting distance and wave my wings at anyone who fancies a potshot.
I bloody deserved to be shot down.
I pulled hard on the control column, trying to raise the plane’s nose and climb out of range, but it didn’t respond.
“Oh shit,” I said.
I was at 500 feet and descending, nose first, towards a suburban street littered with abandoned cars and a single burned-out tank. I tried to shimmy the plane left or right, pumped the pedals, heaved and wrenched the control column, anything to get some fraction of control.
School's Out Forever (afterblight chronicles) Page 25