by Daniel Shand
My mouth was open and my eyes were closed.
‘Do you remember what you said to me?’
I shook my head, eyes full of the blackness of lids.
‘You asked me what I was crying for. You told me it would all be over soon enough.’
‘That was Mikey, not me.’
‘It was both of you.’
I shook my head. No.
‘Well guess what?’ she said and I opened my eyes. She was inches from my face, peering into me like a curious bird. ‘It’ll all be over soon enough.’
I gasped and blinked and she was gone and I was on my back and my hands were crippled from the weight of me. My brother was over me. He was beautiful and real. I saw for the first time that he had heavy eyelashes like a girl’s.
‘Paul? You all right man?’
‘I was dreaming,’ I said.
‘You were shouting.’
‘It was horrible. Mikey, it was her. She was here.’
‘Who was?’
‘The wee lassie. It was the wee lassie Mikey. She told me we were all going to burn.’
His face fell. ‘There’s all dirt on you.’
‘She was here Mikey. I seen her.’
‘I don’t want to talk about that,’ he said, shuffling away and lying down.
A sound appeared in my throat that was both amusement and horror. My blood had been roaring away for hours and I was exhausted.
‘She was here,’ I repeated. ‘She’s all right.’
My brother ignored me.
In the time I’d been out a few more police had arrived. They stood around by the opening of the path, conversing with Brother Terry who was now fully robed. He was wearing an elaborate feathered headdress also.
‘Hey,’ I shouted, twisting my back. ‘What’re yous lot saying?’
They cast annoyed glances in my direction but did not address me.
‘Hoi! Hoi! Look at me. What’s going on? When’s the boom?’
One of the coppers gave me the fingers and I laughed, loud and mad. I no longer feared what they would do to me.
‘Fuck off,’ I shouted. ‘Fucken pigs. They’re going to kill us. Listen, listen! They’re going to blow us the fuck up.’
A few of the campers, loitering by the fire and in the doors of tents, started to show an interest. Their faces went from me to Brother Terry.
‘It’s true,’ I screamed.
Brother Terry pinched the bridge of his nose and nodded, before ambling over to address the camp at large.
‘There may be,’ he said, ‘a small explosion or two. It’s nothing to worry about. It’s all part of the grand plan. Don’t listen to this lunatic, who I would remind you is only present because of his brother’s status.’
I saw the big bald guy scowl.
‘That seems sort of maybe dangerous,’ he said, stepping forward.
Brother Terry muttered something beneath his breath before smiling and nodding. ‘It won’t be,’ he confirmed. ‘Now, can we do something about this one?’
The police then proceeded to attack me. I did my best to curl into a ball so as to protect my body but inside I couldn’t even feel them. I was flying above the treetops, the land wide open for miles around. Silver lochs cradled the feet of mountains in their bends, carnivorous birds arced curves of perfect still re-entry, the ice-blue universe pressed against the sky’s dome. I flew until I felt radiation burn my belly and I saw the sprawling base below me.
I could pick out Isaac by the colour of his hair. He looked up at me and waved. I waved back and then he pulled a strap on his rucksack. I was buoyed upwards by the force of the blast, a bowl of hot cloud forcing me to the edge of the sky. All my clothes had been burned away and my dick flapped like a dog’s tail in the rippling wind.
Once the men were done they left me alone to recover. I asked Mikey when it was going to happen and he told me that he didn’t know. He wouldn’t look at me when I sobbed.
Then the next night came too and it was obvious even to me that things were starting to unravel. The Church lit the lamps around the camp and had a go at rustling up dinner. They did not do a good job.
People were dishevelled. It was too quiet.
Brother Terry approached us as his followers were hunched over bowls of something foul smelling. Or rather, he approached Mikey. He kneeled in the dirt beside him, the headdress wonky on his slick hair. He sighed.
Mikey gave me a look.
Brother Terry sighed again and blinked and there was moisture in his crow’s feet.
‘Am I doing the right thing?’ he whispered.
Mikey opened his mouth and then closed it again.
‘You’re not,’ I said. ‘Definitely.’
‘I wasn’t asking you, you mad bastard,’ he snapped, and then to Mikey, ‘Well?’
‘It feels a bit much,’ said Mikey.
‘But didn’t you say you were the resurrection, that anyone who believed in you would live after death?’ There was a hint of desperation in his voice, a pleading quality.
‘Maybe,’ said Mikey.
‘So what does it matter if it goes wrong, if my plan doesn’t work? We’ll all be all right, won’t we?’
Mikey looked up at the sky. ‘It’s hard to say exactly.’
Brother Terry nodded, apparently satisfied. As he walked away he checked his watch and muttered, ‘What the fuck’s taking him so long?’
Then the first explosion came.
A noise, one slow roll of thunder and everyone stood up, apart from Mikey and me.
I lost it again.
My body convulsed against my will. I screwed my eyes so tight shut that my brain was sore and auras of colour vibrated in the dark. I waited for the end to come, but it didn’t.
Everyone – the Church, the men, Brother Terry – stood at the far end of camp, watching the far off base through the trees. They were whole, their bodies unvaporised.
‘What the fuck?’ I whispered, my mouth gummed with lack of water. I could smell my own breath.
Mikey struggled to his knees and then hopped to his feet. I looked up and his head blocked out the moon. He squatted and helped me to my own feet. It was difficult. My head was full of static and my joints trembled from my weight. We worked in silence, the backs of the group to us, before starting to hop across the camp.
My breath skipped and my nose ran and overhead was the sound of jets roaring, clouds rubbing. We hopped out of the clearing and onto the path. We managed to cut our hands free on sharp branches and then were able to untie our own knees and ankles. I felt weightless, free for the first time. My blood was kicking in harder than ever before. If I’d stumbled upon Brother Terry I could have executed him with even the softest parts of my hands.
On we went, sprinting down the path, over the footbridge, towards the van. There were lights in the trees, lamps left by the protestors, but also torch beams knifing into black spaces. There were shouts following us.
I think I was shouting but all sound was so far away. I might have been screaming but the words were like gentle whispers in the recess of my mouth.
‘Oh fuck,’ I whispered. ‘Oh God. Oh Jesus Christ,’ I screamed.
And then the van loomed out of the trees, huge and pale, and we were in it and Mikey was trying to drive but in my hysteria I fought him off.
‘No,’ I whispered. ‘It has to be me.’
There were hands slapping on the windows of the van, curled fists thumping on the glass, I couldn’t see their faces, just the hands, skin paling against the glass.
‘What are you laughing at?’ asked Mikey.
I didn’t answer him. I wasn’t laughing.
I lurched the van forward and turned out onto the road. The loch was wild with moonlight and I had my foot on the floor and the engine was squealing.
‘Change the fucken gear,’ said Mikey, shaking my arm.
I did as he said and we zoomed away, the dark houses and dark greenery smearing by us while the water and the moon stood solid.
‘Stop shouting,’ pleaded Mikey.
I stole a look at his face. It was horrible.
‘Sorry,’ I whispered.
Bright light shone on the side of Mikey’s face. I checked the rear view. Headlight, full beam. They were after us. Mikey flipped himself off his seat and stumbled into the back.
‘I think it’s them coppers,’ he shouted through.
‘We’ll see about that,’ I whispered, forcing my big toe as hard against the accelerator as I could.
We were approaching the base, its huge concrete structures were manifesting in the black sky. A column of smoke was rising from the inside – the fruit of Isaac’s labour.
Keep going. There was a tankful of petrol. Keep going.
Eighty miles an hour.
‘They’re flooring it,’ shouted Mikey.
I gritted my teeth and kept going. The road was veering beside the base and I was only a few feet away from the wall of nearest building. We’d clear it soon enough and be in open country.
‘C’mon you bastard,’ I whispered to the van, pressed back against my seat from the onwards, onwards, onwards thrust.
‘They’re right behind us,’ said Mikey, and I knew he was right because the van was bathed in white light, and in that white light I saw figures emerging from the woods on the right like angels. I really thought they were ghosts or angels, I believed it. I saw them hold hands to their faces to shield themselves from the brightness of the cars. One of them wore an elaborate feathered headdress.
We were nearly beyond the base when I felt the wheels go out from under me. The van spun.
An eruption of matter blasting across the road.
I think I was smiling. I think my eyes were half-closed. The world was ringing, roaring.
Well, I thought. Here it is at last. Now we’ll see what’s next.
The van spun around and came to a stop and we were facing back the way we’d come. The base’s fence and the wall we’d passed were littered across the road and the coppers’ car was on its back, burning. Smoke was rising from the van’s bonnet, hypnotising me. Fingers forced their way around my neck muscles, forced their way into my mind.
Leave me alone, I said, I’m watching the fire.
‘Paul.’
Just let me be. Let me go.
‘Paul. Fucking move.’
The smell that hit me as the van’s door opened. . . electric smoke and broken rock and something else, something irony. The road was smeared with a glistening substance. It was blood, coming from the coppers’ car.
‘Wow,’ I said.
I looked at the coppers’ car and I looked at the hole blown in the side of the base and then Mikey came into focus, right in front of me. His mouth was moving but my hearing was gone, blown. He was pleading with me, tugging at my clothes, throwing his head back in the direction of the woods.
‘It’s blood,’ I said, as I checked my own body.
I let Mikey drag me across the road, past the upside-down car and the fire warmed my face. The car’s interior looked like a jar of jam – glass and red jelly. I let myself be pulled over the ditch and into the woods and away from the carnage on the road.
We ran through the trees and the smell of smoke was still heavy in my lungs.
It doesn’t matter, I tried to tell Mikey, I’m going to die anyway. The wee lassie said.
He didn’t turn back so I kept pace with him, running doubled over, dodging the trees that threw themselves in my path. Where were we going? I didn’t know anymore. This whole time I’d known exactly where we were going and I’d been in charge and no one ever beat me, not once, and now I was following my brother into nothingness and I did not care. I would follow him and I would do what he told me and I would be glad.
There were ghosts in the forest. At first I thought the Church had caught up with us but then I ran through one of them.
I said for Mikey to look at them. There was Duncan and there was the American boy and there was the man whose house we’d taken and there was the cat that I’d locked in an abandoned cellar out by the old Sinclair tile factory. They were watching me from behind trees but I wasn’t scared of them because I knew they wouldn’t do anything until the wee lassie was close.
When we reached higher ground we looked down through the trees and we could see the smoke rising from the base and out on the loch there was a tiny fire. A tiny fire, in the water. You could just make out its flailing limbs and the water reflecting fire around it.
‘Is that Isaac?’ I asked.
Mikey didn’t answer me, so I mustn’t have said it out loud.
17
I sat on the hillside and looked down at the reservoir below. Mikey was at the bottom of the hill, bathing in the water. Every part of me held pain, from my brains to my legs. We’d run through the night and slept in the open.
I pushed myself up and crawled. The hillside was steep and I had to lean right back to shuffle down. It took me a long time.
‘All right?’ Mikey asked, when I was close.
‘Aye,’ I said.
His tattered robes were hung over a big rock and he stood naked in the reservoir water up to his arse.
‘Some night,’ he said.
I nodded.
‘You OK then?’
‘Aye,’ I said. ‘A few cuts and bruises. You?’
He shook his head. ‘Fine.’
It was a warm morning. The sky was open and the hills light. I had never felt so dislocated from the world.
‘Where are we?’ I asked.
‘Not sure. We went for about an hour, maybe three miles or so?’
I nodded and looked at my own tatty clothes. I’d need a wash too. My hair was clinging to my neck with its lankness and I could feel the sweat and dirt in my beard.
‘You reckon they’re coming after us?’ I asked.
Mikey scooped up a handful of water and let it fall onto his face, then he shrugged. ‘Dunno. Maybe. Probably not.’
‘God,’ I said. ‘The inside of that motor. Jesus.’
‘I know.’
We both thought about that for a moment and then I stripped off and joined him in the water. I shuffled forward, doing my best not to hurt my feet on the stones. I submerged myself and let the cold water cling to my skin, sat with my arse on the rocks. I re-emerged, breaking the surface, and bobbed around with just my head above the water like a crocodile.
‘What now?’ I asked.
‘I suppose we just keep going,’ said Mikey. ‘Stay off the roads, maybe try and catch a train someplace. We could hide in a train toilet or something.’
‘That’s a good idea,’ I said.
Once we were clean we let ourselves dry in the air and got dressed again. We set off on foot around the reservoir and headed into the hills. I had a recurring fantasy that we were being followed. I would glimpse figures in the corner of my eye but when I turned to look they were gone, only the blank land staring back at me.
We talked little as we walked, breaking the silence only to consult each other on matters of direction. Which path we should take, whether we should go over or around the oncoming hill. Mikey was different, I could feel that. At some point in the previous few days he had changed or maybe he had been changing slowly and only now was I catching up to him. He seemed solid in a way he never had before. He took the lead as we walked, and I followed in his footsteps.
In the afternoon we took a break on the east side of a hill we were descending. We had no food or water of course but we took a break anyway, sitting on our arses, hugging our knees, looking out over the country.
I had a flash of the explosion. My vision went black. I touched my eyes.
‘You all right?’ he asked.
‘Aye, fine. Just remembering.’
‘You were off your head last night.’
‘I know,’ I said.
‘There’s something wrong with you.’
I couldn’t argue. ‘Aye,’ I sa
id.
He swallowed. ‘I think if we make it back in one piece you need to get yourself seen to.’
‘Maybe.’
‘I mean, fuck,’ he said and his voice broke and he put his forehead on his arms. ‘We’ve done things Paul. The things we’ve done, I never thought that would be us. I thought that once I was on the outside it would be normal. Like it would be the life folk have on the telly or in films or that.’
‘I’m sorry. I thought I was doing my best.’
‘That Duncan bloke. We put him in the fucken water.’
‘What do you want me to say?’
‘I just want you to say fucken something about it. I’ve been going out my mind about the whole fucken thing and I don’t know how you can just sit there as if it never happened to you. How can you do that?’
He tilted his head and looked at me from under his brow, his face soured with disgust.
‘I’m not going to argue with you,’ I said.
‘C’mon,’ he said. ‘Let’s get a move on.’
And so off we went.
My feelings of paranoia did not abate through the afternoon. I had the constant strong impression that enemies were on our tail, hiding just out of my eye line, concealing themselves behind whatever cover the land provided. I felt there were camouflaged soldiers lying on their fronts in the grass and that any moment I would hear an insectish whining and a bullet would ripple out of my chest.
We kept going on and on and in the early evening we crested a hill and found a large body of water below us. I recognised it from our irregular drives of a few days ago – it was Loch Lomond. At least we were on track.
We walked down the hill towards the loch as the day was dying. The place was thick with insects, midges and flies. My soles ached and my stomach had gone past hunger. My insides felt cavernous, full of air and echoes.
‘We’ll need to see about some food,’ I said to Mikey, who was ahead of me on the downward slope.
‘How’ll we do that?’ he asked without turning.
I didn’t have an answer so I kept going.
At the bottom of the hill we crouched in the trees to observe the road that clung to the loch’s west shore. Nothing was coming so we skipped over it and into the band of trees on the other side. Past them was the shore. The day had become overcast and dark and the islands out in the water were black whales breaking the surface.