Tears of Blood

by Rachel Martin

  They start dousing the pile with what I can only assume is petrol or diesel. This breaks me out of the illusion that I am living in a world where I am able to cry, that I am in a world which accepts that now. I am not. The tears stop falling almost instantly. I force myself to be strong. This is a new, much more brutal reality, and I am gripped, once more. I think I can actually smell the petrol or whatever it is from here. No, I can actually smell it from here. They really want to make sure it burns. I suppose they think they can save the city one fire at a time. Killing the illness. Incinerating the dead. I doubt it somehow. I mean how did everyone die so quickly? How did everyone get ill all at once? It is a mystery. No outbreak in history has ever killed everyone in a matter of hours as far as I know, or has it? No way, plagues went on for days, didn’t they? Besides, there is no fire big enough for all those bodies. The city was well over nine million people, and the rest, the unregistered, the unknown, the multitude more.

  A wave passes through me. My head turns. Nausea rises. Oh my God. What the fuck? It’s that man, that soldier. Why do I feel like I know him? I sit in the darkness of the staff room and watch. He is walking outside the coffee shop. There is a little light inside the visor of his suit, it is illuminating his face. I duck down below the window sill. I’ve seen him before, I know it, not the other day, not outside the house, before that… where the Hell do I know him from? Something deep within me is telling me that he knows me too. Some secret part of me, something I try to deny, some sixth sense. Why am I feeling this way? I listen to the sound of Olly breathing in his sleep. I lose my fear. My heart rate slows. I do know him. Where have I seen him before? I kneel back up and squint and stare and try to remember. Nothing comes to me. Another mystery, they are snowballing into my mind now. I will never unwrap them all. The amount I don’t know is monumental. I am only just beginning to realise it. I was living in a bubble. What an idiot. His head jolts up towards the window. I drop down below the ledge. Did he see me? It’s too dark in here. There’s no way. Look, no, no, no, don’t look. Yes, do look. No, no, no, don’t, it’s a mistake, he’ll definitely see you. I can’t help it, I have to look. I pop my head up over the window ledge. He’s gone. Phew. What’s he doing? Where’s he gone? And who is he anyway? I shake my head and kneel closer to the window. Why do I care so much? He’s just another soldier ready to force us into the labs. Isn’t he? Isn’t he? Who gives a shit if I’ve seen him in my life before now? I’ve seen a million people, two million people, and I’ve spoken to thousands. All faces, all individuals, all gone, except him. Stop it Izzy. Stop it. Besides, what difference does that make anyway? But I do have this strange feeling, it is rising out of me, wrapping me up in doubt. It is tightening its grip. There is a noise downstairs. I freeze in place. I am about to throw up. Oh my God, someone is inside the coffee shop. They are going to find us. Shit.

  ten

  I rush to Olly. I rouse him. His drowsy face looks up at me. He sees my fear immediately. He starts to shake. I hear thunder in the distance. I put my finger to my mouth.

  “We need to hide. It’s a game.”

  He grins. I listen. The sound of someone crunching down on broken crockery floats up the stairway and into the room. Shit, shit, shit. I quickly roll up the sleeping bag, ground sheet, blankets and coats and shove them all into the cupboards, and then I hide us inside the wardrobe, crouching down in the corner, huddled together. Please, please, please, please don’t find us.

  Olly starts to giggle. I do too. I am shaking all over. There are loud echoing footsteps downstairs in the hallway beside the stairs. Someone is tapping the bannister. Fuck. I feel Olly’s heart beating next to mine. We are utterly silent save for that. There are footsteps on the stairs. Fuck, fuck, fuck. I clutch Olly tighter.

  “We must be silent.”

  “It’s OK, it’s…”

  “Sssshhh,” I whisper, “he’s almost here.”

  Olly falls silent as the sound of footsteps grows louder and louder. The door squeaks open. Olly seems to heat up. I quietly kiss his forehead, he is boiling up. I put my hand over his mouth, just in case. I pray that whoever it is will just go away. They step into the room. My heart, my heart. It can’t take this kind of pressure. I can feel him right in front of the wardrobe door. Olly heats up even more. What is he doing?

  Through the gap between the wardrobe doors I can see a man standing there in the dim light from the fires outside. He is just standing in the middle of the room. His orange suit is shining in the orange light. He is facing the window. My heart, it is beating so fast. My fingers start to seize up. In through the nose and out through the mouth. Quietly, silently. I stare. I watch as he unzips his contamination suit and takes off the helmet. What the fuck? Is he an immune too? He breathes in the air, deeply through his nose, his hands are on his hips. He stands and stares through the window, at the other soldiers, at the bodies in the square. Then his head whips around and down towards the wardrobe, down towards us. He knows we are here. Doesn’t he? I feel like he can see us through the gap in the doors. He can’t, he can’t. He can’t possibly see through that. Even in the sunlight no one can see through wood. But did we make a noise? My heart stops. Me and Olly both hold our breaths instinctively. We are absolutely silent, but my mind is in crescendo. He puts the helmet back on and re-zips his suit up and leaves. I hear him descending down the steps. I hear him trouncing through the broken crockery. I then hear him hammering something downstairs, it sounds like it is at the front of the building. What the Hell was that all about? I am too scared to leave the wardrobe. I wait again. I wait and I wait and I listen. The shop is silent and remains silent for a minute, two minutes, three minutes, four minutes. My heart rate returns to normal. My blood begins to flow again. I gingerly push open the wardrobe door. I pop my head around. We are alone. Phew. He has even shut the door, how considerate.

  “We are safe, Iz,” Olly says.

  He is not talking to me, he is talking into me. I am lifted from fear. I have no doubt. I crawl out and pop my head over the window ledge. The soldiers are grouped together watching the bonfire. It is only just beginning to roar into life. The room is being bathed in brighter and brighter orange light. We can feel the heat. The flames are being reflected in the visors of the soldier’s contamination-suits. They are creating demonic faces, where theirs should be. Devils are walking the Earth now. The colours are alive. The kindling are the dead. Beautiful oranges and reds and yellows shrouding the darkness within. I am mesmerised. So is Olly. This is something we have never ever seen before, in all its macabre glory. We just stare and stare and hold hands and stare some more. We watch as the sky above the bodies ignites like fireworks, it is their dying embers. What’s the point in hiding the truth from him? He needs to know. He wants to know. He already knows, and he needs to learn how to survive in this brave new world. We can hear the flesh sizzling, like the bodies are crying, we have to be strong. The flesh is sparking. The fat is helping them to burn. The flesh slips off their bodies, falling deeper into the cesspit below them. Skulls break off of spinal columns, some of them fall on to the paved floor in the square, and roll away from the fire towards us. Black hollow lifeless eyes, with flames as eyelids, stare up at us and we stare down at them. I see brains behind them being turned into soup which begins to ooze out of eye sockets. It is a perverse parody of life, as if the skulls are crying as they slowly disintegrate away, turning into nothing, turning into ash. Nothing more, nothing less. Beautiful. Simply beautiful. Even the soldiers find it gruesome, and step away from the mess. The smell begins to seep up and through the windows. The stench of burning hair, and charred skin, it is eating through all the walls and the windows like radiation, there is no escape from it. Olly crawls up on to my lap; I stroke his little head as we look through the glass together. Flames are licking around the teeth and mouth of skulls. Somehow, it makes it look as if it’s speaking, speaking to me in my mind. I think I can hear it. I think I can hear the voices of all the dead. I do hear the voices of the
dead. They are all around me, and in me, and before me: The end is nigh, the end is nigh, the end is nigh. But, it is not the end, it is a new beginning. I fear I can hear the skulls screaming, the lost voices of the departed, screeching out from the nothing, just one last call, just one more note, then silence, forevermore, lost to the darkness of the past. They won’t scream anymore, no one will, who will listen. Those days are gone. I see it so clearly now. Teeth fall to the floor as a jawbone cracks. A sucker punch from Hell. It has turned so many humans into nothing more than a stain on the surface of the Earth, a blackened spot blemishing the green and pleasant land. Out damned spot, out. A soldier whacks another skull back into the pile with a golf club. It breaks-up on impact. They all laugh as skull fragments go flying in different directions. They have been trained for this. They have been waiting for this. They want this. It is almost as if they knew this would happen. I think back. I can only remember pieces from my old life, I am already forgetting, as if that was a dream, and out of the ashes of our not-so-great-civilization the Phoenix will rise, and blessed are the meek for they will inherit the Earth. I look down at the soldiers. Surely their time will come, because they are not fucking meek… but we are. I grip Olly’s hand. We most definitely are. I wonder what will become of us. I wonder with hope in my heart. Hope is growing as the old ways burn away.

  The flames are still growing higher and higher as the fire burns deep into the centre of the bodies, more flesh, more fat, more bones to eat. The heat is warming the building around us. We are not quite as cold as we were. Snow is melting all around the square. As I watch, I almost hear the flames laughing. Everything is laughing at us. Well fuck them, I think. Olly laughs.

  “Fuck them, fuck them, fuck them,” he repeats.

  Did I say that out loud? Maybe. He keeps on repeating it. I laugh.

  “Yeah, fuck them,” I join in, why stop him from swearing?

  We both fall backwards laughing. I suddenly realise how loud we are being.

  “Ssssshh Olly,” I say still laughing.

  “It’s OK, No one will hear us,” he says in a mature voice.

  I stare at him while putting my hand over his mouth gently.

  “But we mustn’t risk it now must we?”

  He pulls my hand down, and shakes his head. We laugh silently. I realise how surreal this all is. We are laughing while the people of the city burn, literally burn. I flush. A cold sweat passes over me. A single tear falls from my eye. That is all I can offer. That is all I am allowed. This is their last night on Earth, the bodies. I wonder if they are the lucky ones, I wonder if they are better off than we are, getting out quick before the real hardships come. We have never been tested before, how will we survive? Olly cuddles me. I love him so much. I wonder if I really was brought here for a reason, perhaps I needed to see this, some sort of grotesque closure to the end of civilization as I know it. Ash floats up into the air, a burning effigy, momentarily transforming their death into life again, one more time alive with colour, one more time to strut upon the stage, once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more, then dead forever and ever and ever, to infinity and back. So brief and oh so beautiful. Through his little arms I feel Olly’s love flow through me. I must sort myself out. I can’t fall in to despair. I need to protect him. I need to protect myself. I have to. I have to. I have to.

  “We’re going to have to stay here for a few days,” I whisper into his ear. Then I kiss him. “We can’t leave. We need to be really quiet though until all those people outside go away.”

  “OK, Izzy. We will stay here, and we will be fine.”

  I eye him curiously, “yes we will.”

  He sits on my lap, and we keep watching until we are so tired we can’t stay awake anymore.

  eleven

  I wake up. I am soaked in sweat. It is still dark outside and I can hear the soldiers. They are laughing and joking and rustling about. Olly is sleeping soundly beside me. What is happening to me? I’ve been dreaming of him... that man… that bloody man. Who the Hell is he? Why do I feel like I know him? Is he another Immune? He must be, and somehow I know him. Oh my God. I sit up abruptly. It hits me, the knowing. A veil has been lifted from my eyes. Oh my God. That’s it. I remember him. I do know him. I do. My mouth hangs open as the memory brightens. I smile to myself as the clarity of thought washes through me and all around me. I feel lighter for it. How could I forget? What is wrong with me? I have seen him before, on the bus. My memory suddenly recalls the moment back to me as if it were a photo. Yes, he was just sitting there. We made eye contact, a deep knowing eye contact, without words, longer than usual, calmer, it struck me at the time, yet I thought I had forgotten about it. I had forgotten about it. Yet, I remember how I felt, like he was just watching, waiting, anticipating, protecting. But the moment passed, and I blinked and got back to some serious staring out of the bus window. I had seen him more than once, on the bus, walking on the pavement, at the shopping centre. Always we saw each other, always we knew we saw each other. I had forgotten him. But I remember him now. Yes I remember him now. And now he is haunting my dreams. How? He is even haunting my waking thoughts. Always there, but just out of view. As if his being is cast in shadow. Is he protecting me? Maybe I am imagining it, and all this is some kind of weird hallucination. Fuck, the clarity passes and I am lost in confusion once more.

  I need a distraction. I slip out of the sleeping bag and kneel down by the window. I look out at the fire. It is almost an ember now, it is almost gone… I shudder. I touch the glass, it is not freezing. Did I know him? Did I? I must’ve known him. Known is the wrong word. I recognised him. I am so confused. This new world is starting to play with my mind, making me aware of things that were lost in the multitude. I am more focussed. I am more single-minded, yet it is hard to shake off the shackles of the workings of the mind before. It is disconcerting. All of my dreams flow back to me in one giant hit. I remember so clearly. He first entered my dreams about a year ago. Now he is always there in the background of my mind, in the background of my dreams. It is like he has been etched into the surface of my psyche somehow, like a love confession scarred into a young tree. It is almost like he is an integral part of me, an integral part of my dreams, creating them, leading them, like a shadow or a ghost, with a purpose as yet undefined. He is always there, but not there, like now, on the peripheries of my life, without actually being there. Does my subconscious mind know we will need him? My conscious mind knows it too if I’m honest with myself. Has he always been watching over me? Why? Has my subconscious brain absorbed his image over and over and over and now he is coming back to speak to me in dreams? But why? How? No. That is impossible. There’s something else in my head that is trying to claw its way out of the darkness, out of the nothing. Is he even a soldier? I wonder. In the black of the room I see his face. I hear his breathing. Is he here now? I almost want him to be. I do want him here to protect us. I am being paranoid. I am desperate, clinging on to the tiniest bit of hope. My heart is racing so much that it becomes all I can sense. Calm down, calm down, calm down, in through the nose out through the mouth, in through the nose out through the mouth. I close my eyes.

  Olly stirs and rolls over. His little arm is looking for me, looking for warmth. I climb back in the sleeping bag beside him. He nuzzles up to me and whispers:

  “Izzy stop it,” his voice is wispy, archaic almost, it is laden with sleep. “Cuddle me.”

  I do, and I instantly feel better, I sleep.

  In the grey light of the day, I creep downstairs and hide just behind the wall next to the doorway into the café. Three, two, one, I brave it and have a peek. I stand back against the frozen wall. It’s even more destroyed then I originally thought. God... But someone has nailed the door back into place. It was him, that man, the man I think I know. That must have been what all that hammering was about last night. At least I wasn’t imagining it. My thoughts from last night pass through me. Am I imagining it? Am I going mad? Am I inventing an altered past? Was i
t all nothing more than a dream? It is hard to distinguish anything past in this alien world, and it sure as Hell feels like it right now. Everything is different. Anyway, I wish he had nailed something to cover up all the broken windows too, but no such luck. There is a bitter wind blowing in, snow is starting to build up inside. I glance beyond all the broken things and check outside at the square. The soldiers are out in force and are busy poking about with the bonfire. None are looking this way. Now, now, now. I hold my breath. I ball my fists. I dart down behind the service counter.

  There is no food or drink here. Worst luck. I crawl towards the edge of the counter and check the floors. Nothing. I think of going out the back and scooping some snow into a saucepan. I shudder. No, I can’t the snow will be contaminated with human ash. My stomach lurches. I want to puke. No, no, no, I cannot resort to that, not yet anyway. I’ve already had to watch the people burn, and breathe them in, drinking them would be a little bit too much right now. I am not that desperate. I sit on the floor behind the counter, knees to chest. There has got to be something to drink in here. There has to be. We came here for a reason. I believe it. I cross my fingers, close my eyes, and pray for it. I know there will be.

  I spring up and rush out the back and into the storeroom. It’s been raided. Why is this happening to me? The only things left on the shelves are two bags of coffee beans and a few packets of cinnamon. I open one of the coffee bags. Mmmm, it always did have a rich and wholesome aroma. Despite the cold, that smell warms me. If I had a coffee grinder, perhaps I would be quite content right now. But I don’t, not one that doesn’t need electricity anyway. I put the packet down. I don’t even like coffee, at least I didn’t before. I would probably love it now. Why does everything have to go wrong all the time? Can’t I just catch a break? I lean forward and grab a cupboard door handle. I can’t believe it. I tingle all over. I want to scream with happiness. A crate of water bottles. Two crates actually. My dreams have been answered.