“How many men?” asked Dad.
“Five, including Sue, and she says one of the others is not happy with things and would probably side with us if she had a word with him.” He smiled. “Good odds, yes?”
We retreated and made our plans.
What we didn’t know was that our every move was being watched.
I’D ALWAYS ASSUMED that one day Dad would teach me to drive, but I thought it would be in a Ford KA or a Mini; I didn’t expect my first driving lesson to be in an armoured minesweeper.
I remembered when he’d taught me how to ride a bike. It had stabilisers on the back but somehow I kept managing to fall off anyway. Dad would pick me up, dust me off, dry my tears, and ask me if I wanted to give up. I sniffed and shook my head, checked my helmet was secure, and got right back on the saddle. Learning to drive an armoured car was much easier; if I made a mistake, it wasn’t my knees that got damaged, it was whatever car, tree or house happened to get in our way. It was more fun getting it wrong and crashing in to stuff, but I forced myself to concentrate; every minute I wasted was another minute Matron spent in captivity.
“I don’t want you out in the open, Lee,” Dad had insisted. “You won’t hear if I shout you a warning, or if someone’s yelling at you to put down your weapon. Going into battle deaf is a surefire way to get yourself killed. I want you in here, safe.”
“I’m not disagreeing with you, Dad. But this isn’t your fight. You don’t know these people, they’re my responsibility.”
He shook his head in wonder. “Listen to you. Son, you’re sixteen. The only responsibility you should have is passing your GCSEs. And as for no ties, this is your home now. So it’s mine too. If you’re willing to risk your life for your friends, then so am I. Okay?”
“Okay,” I said with a smile. “And thank you.”
“Don’t mention it. Now, let’s get these gear changes sorted.”
My Dad. Cool as fuck.
So at 11:45 the next day, at the same moment that I knew Dad and Tariq were approaching the house from the west, I strapped myself in, revved the engine, and drove the Stryker as fast as I could across the moat bridge and straight into the front doors of Groombridge Place. As soon as the vehicle ground to a halt, jammed in the doorway, I unbuckled myself, ran back to the gunner’s seat and pressed my eye against the periscope. Didn’t take long. Two of them came running down the stairs, guns blazing, and I took care of them sharpish. Wow, I thought, that was easy. Only one left. Dad and Tariq appeared at the end of the entrance hall, so I grabbed my gun, opened the hatch and climbed out to join them.
Sue was close behind them with another soldier, a young African-American guy, thick set and jowly.
“We’ll get the woman from the cellar,” said Sue. “You get Jane.”
They peeled away and the three of us ran up the stairs, guns raised, ready for attack from the landing. None came. We turned right at the top of the wide staircase and followed the landing around to the three doors that led off it. The final one, with its thick frosted glass panels, was where Sue had told us Matron was being held. I ran forward but Dad grabbed my arm and shook his head.
He inched towards the door and shouted the code phrase: “Finally, someone with balls.”
There was no reply, so he raised his gun and pushed the door open. There was a series of shots from inside the room, the glass shattered and Dad flew backwards, shot in the chest. He hit the ground hard and slid back against the banister, mouth gaping, blood splattered across his face and hands. His gun fell from his useless hands and he gasped for breath as I heard Matron scream “No!” from inside the room.
Why I reacted the way I did, I don’t know. Maybe it was second nature to me now. But I didn’t run to help my dad. Even though I was in shock, and screaming in fury and pain, I didn’t go to help him. Instead, I took the necessary steps to neutralise the threat first. Just like a proper soldier.
I flung myself forward, rolled on the landing and came up crouching, gun raised, in front of the swinging door. I saw a tall soldier standing behind a bald woman in a bed. Without hesitation I put a bullet right between his eyes, spraying his brains all over the wall. I didn’t stay to watch him fall. I threw my gun aside, spun around and grabbed my dad, who was blinking in shock.
I wrapped my arms around him, trying not to look at the gaping holes in his chest and the thick blood pouring from them, staining his combats. He looked up at me and mouthed something I couldn’t hear. I leant closer with my good ear, trying to catch the words, but his eyes rolled back in his head and he became limp and unresponsive.
I cradled him, rocking him back and forth, stroking his hair, crying. I don’t know what I said, but I was speaking to him, trying to keep him with me, trying to talk him out of dying.
I was aware of a commotion behind me but I ignored it. There were people running up the stairs too, but I didn’t spare them a glance. Then there were hands on me, pulling me away. I kicked and fought, but they were too strong. I looked up and saw that it was Tariq and behind him there was that weird bald woman with the sunken eyes and grey skin. She was in a wheelchair now, shouting orders at Sue. Mrs Atkins stood behind them, her hand to her mouth. Tariq held me there, shouting that I should let them work. But the dead TV tone was louder now, rising in pitch in response to the gunfire.
The soldier I had seen with Sue lifted my dad in his arms and carried him away, Mrs Atkins close behind. Sue followed, going down the stairs backwards, carefully pulling the woman in the wheelchair behind her. When they had disappeared Tariq let me go, to sprawl on the landing in my father’s blood.
I felt numb. All I could hear was dead air and static.
JANE
I SAW LEE fly backwards from the door and I screamed. He couldn’t be dead. He just couldn’t. And then my eyes seemed to play tricks on me, because there he was, shaven-headed and bruised, crouched at the door, shooting the guy behind me and then turning round to grab… who?
A young man stepped between us and reached down to put his hand on Lee’s shoulder.
“You!” I shouted. “Come here, get me out of this fucking bed.”
The man turned to face me. He had brown skin, black hair and kind brown eyes. This must be Tariq, I thought. He didn’t move, stunned, it seemed, by what had happened, unsure which way to turn.
“Quickly,” I yelled. “I’m a doctor.” That did the trick. He ran into the room, grabbed the wheelchair and pushed it alongside the bed. Then he stood there, hesitating. “What?” I said, exasperated beyond words.
“Um, you’re…”
I looked down. I was in my pyjamas.
“Oh for God’s sake just pick me up, man.”
“Right, yeah, of course.”
I could hear a low keening noise coming from the landing as Tariq lifted me from my bed into the wheelchair and pushed me towards the two people on the floor. It was only when I reached the door that I realised who the shot man must be.
“Is that Lee’s dad?”
“John, yeah,” mumbled the Iraqi.
I heard heavy footsteps on the stairs and then John croaked: “A school. After all that, I buy it in a bloody school,” and gasped. Lee bent over his dying father and moaned, a low piteous wail of pure emptiness and grief.
I looked to my left and saw Mrs Atkins, Sue and a Yank soldier racing towards us.
“Sue,” I shouted. “You’re a nurse, yes?”
“Yeah,” she said as she skidded to a halt beside me.
“Who operated on me while I was out? Was it you?”
“No, Doctor Cox, he flew back to the main staging area with the general.”
“Shit. But is the OR still in place? Did they strike the OR?”
She looked at me and gasped as she realised what I was suggesting.
“No, it’s still there, hooked up to the generator and everything.”
“Right, you,” I said, pointing to the Yank soldier. “What’s your name?”
“Jamal, Ma’am.”
“Right, Jamal, pick this man up and take him to the OR now. Sue, wheel me downstairs. We have to work fast if we’re going to save him.”
Sue blanched. “I’m not qualified to…”
“No, but I am. I’ll direct you. Sue, it’s his only chance. We can do this.”
She had gone white, but she nodded. “Ok,” she whispered.
Jamal shoved himself past us and reached down to remove Lee, but Tariq blocked his way with a sneer and did it himself, holding Lee back as we moved away. I so wanted to stop and hold Lee, comfort him, feel the reality that he was back. But there was time for tearful reunions later.
“Sue, wheel me downstairs,” I ordered. “We’ve got work to do.”
The operating room that Blythe had used to fix me up had been erected in the kitchen. Ironically, it was the same room I’d used for my fake surgery on the captain who’d been shot here. I tried not to think about what I’d done that day, about the young soldier dying in my arms after I slit his throat. Too much blood on my hands.
A polythene clean-room had been erected using gaffer tape, and there was a makeshift airlock through which you entered the sterile area.
Jamal was standing inside the doorway, still holding John, looking unsure about what to do when Sue wheeled me in. Mrs Atkins entered behind us.
I saw a rack of scrubs in the corner, a tub of alcohol handwash by the sink and a pile of tissue hats and facemasks beside it.
“Is he still breathing?” I asked as we entered.
Jamal nodded.
“Good. No time for protocol now. Jamal, get him on the operating table then get out again.” He did so. “Back upstairs, help the others. Mrs Atkins, you’re going to help Sue perform surgery.”
She nodded briskly. Did nothing faze her?
“Right, both of you, take your shoes off, scrub up in the sink and get those hats and masks on. Where are the instruments?”
“Over there.” Sue pointed to a trolley with a metal tray on top of it. In it rested a collection of surgical instruments, some still covered in blood.
“Shit. I suppose boiling water’s out of the question?” I asked. Without a word Mrs Atkins walked behind the polythene sheets and I heard a click. She popped out again. “Kettle’s on.”
“Then let’s get to work.”
LEE
I SAT ON the landing, arms wrapped around my knees, rocking back and forth with my eyes closed, my clothes slick with my father’s blood.
I felt a hand on my shoulder but I ignored it. It squeezed, trying to attract my attention. I reached up and batted it away. Then someone put their hand across my mouth. I opened my eyes, ready to shout, but Tariq’s nose was an inch from mine and he had his finger to his lips. When he saw that I was with him he held up four fingers and pointed down. I saw past him to Jamal, who stood at the top of the stairs, gun raised, craning across the banister to look down into the entrance hall.
Tariq leaned forward and whispered into my ear.
“Wrong ear,” I muttered. He switched.
“Sorry,” he said. “At least four coming in the front, probably more out back. It was a trap, Lee. They must have been waiting for us to make a move.”
“Dad?”
“In the kitchen. Matron and the others are operating on him now.”
“Right, let’s go.”
“I think we…” he began, but I was already on my feet and moving past him. I lifted my machine gun to my waist with my left hand, took my Browning out with my right, and walked past Tariq and Jamal before they could react. I walked quickly, focused and calm, straight down the stairs, peripherally aware of Tariq running to stop me. As I descended I saw two soldiers moving cautiously through the entrance hall, silently checking the rooms. One of them saw me, but before he could warn his colleague or bring his weapon to bear I opened fire with the machine gun.
The bullets raked across his body, flinging him backwards as I crouched and fired the Browning, taking the other soldier three times in the chest. I stood up and kept moving.
Tariq fell into step beside me.
“They’ll have heard that,” he said wearily, like he was too tired to be angry.
“Good.” I said coldly.
A stream of bullets flew past our heads. I dived down the last three steps, spinning in mid-air and letting off some shots at the shooter in the office door. I missed, but the doorframe splintered, momentarily distracting the gunman. Tariq stepped over me and shot the guy in the head.
I’d hit the hard tiled floor with my bad shoulder but I hardly even noticed the pain. I felt a knot of hatred in my belly as I leapt up. These fuckers had shot my dad and I wasn’t going to stop until every last one of them was dead.
“Fucking deathwish Terminator shit,” muttered Tariq.
I chambered another round and kept moving without acknowledging his sour disapproval. I thought: this must be what it feels like to be Rowles.
“Stryker,” I barked at Jamal, who was halfway down the stairs. He nodded and ran to the vehicle, still jammed in the front door. I heard gunfire but didn’t look back as Tariq and I walked into the school, guns raised. Past the staircase was a passage that led to the kitchen and the courtyard beyond it. Just as I was reaching forward to open the door, it swung open. I fired without hesitation, putting four rounds into the stomach of the soldier before me. Tariq opened fire beside me, sending a hail of bullets over the head of the falling soldier, wiping out the two men behind him. They fired back even as his bullets hit, but their shots went wide.
The second door on the right was the kitchen, and I ran inside. I could see a polythene tent. Inside it, Matron was directing Sue from her wheelchair as the nurse leaned over the kitchen table working on Dad.
“Time to go!” I shouted.
“We need two minutes to stabilise him,” Jane yelled back.
A burst of gunfire came from behind me.
“No problem,” I said, turning and opening fire at the soldiers coming towards me.
So help me, I smiled as I took their lives. Then Tariq and I walked on, looking for more.
JANE
THE THIRD AND final bullet landed with a clang as Sue dropped it into the small metal dish.
“What now?” she asked.
“His left lung’s collapsed,” I said. “He’s drowning in his own blood. We need to aspirate. Have we got a tube of any kind?”
Mrs Atkins stepped across to a metal trolley cluttered with implements. She rifled through it and then waved a piece of clear plastic tube.
“Great. Sue, you need to puncture the lung and shove that in.”
Sue took up her scalpel and got to work. I leaned forward so I could shout in John’s ear.
“John, John Keegan. I need you to concentrate, John. Focus on my voice. I need you to take a deep breath, okay? Very deep, when I say. Can you do that?”
His eyes flickered and he moaned. I took that as a yes.
“Ready,” said Sue, holding the tube, which now stuck out of his side.
“Now, John, breathe deep,” I said, willing him to obey.
He gasped, then sucked air in through his mouth. It bubbled and gargled in him, then the tube filled with blood and the lung drained its load on to the floor.
I breathed a big sigh of relief. “Good.”
There was the sudden shocking sound of gunfire from somewhere in the building. Sue and I exchanged worried glances, but she shrugged. Not our problem yet.
“What next?” Sue asked.
“Now let’s patch and seal. We need some superglue. There’s some in a tupperware box under the sink.”
The gunfire resumed, louder and closer, as Mrs Atkins retrieved the small tube.
“Now glue the entry wounds together. I’ve a feeling we’re going to be moving him before we’re finished.”
Sue was a calm and efficient nurse. When all this was done with, if she wanted to stay, I’d train her up as a doctor. We needed all the doctors we could get.
“Done,” she said.
“Mrs Atkins, roll him over. Sue, come here.”
The door crashed open.
“Time to go,” yelled Lee.
“We need two more minutes to stabilise him,” I shouted. I think he replied, but it was drowned out by gunfire. Then he was gone.
Mrs Atkins had rolled John on to his side so Sue and I could examine the exit wounds. One in particular bothered me. I reached into it and ran my gloved finger around his insides.
“Shit,” I muttered. “Sue, glue the other two but this one you’re going to have to make an incision, widen it, then go in and tie off the artery. Can you do that?”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
The sound of gunfire was moving around the outside, to the courtyard. It was relentless and heavy; whoever Lee and the others were holding off, there were a lot of them. A sudden explosion blew in the windows and made Sue scream as one wall of the polythene clean-room came free and tumbled to the floor. She recovered her wits quickly and proceeded, her teeth gritted with determination.
She looked up and said “Done” the second Lee and Tariq ran into the room.
“Can we move him?” gasped Lee.
“Yes,” I replied. “Sue, can you…” But she already had the wounded man in a fireman’s lift.
Tariq leaned out of the door and let off a stream of fire then said: “Now!”
He went first, Sue and John behind, then Mrs Atkins pushing me in the chair, as Lee brought up the rear, firing short bursts to cover our retreat.
We left the corridor and came out into the main entrance hall. The armoured car was still stuck in the doorway, but the gun on top was pointing outside, laying down suppressing fire at the moat bridge.
Tariq climbed up on to the roof, then Sue and he manhandled John through the hatch and down into the car. I could see Sue talking urgently to Tariq as they worked, then she turned and leapt down, running past us all, back into the school.
School's Out Forever (afterblight chronicles) Page 46