“Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!” I say looking up at the ceiling, arms raised, spinning in circles.
I drop to my knees and tear open the plastic wrapping. I grab one of the bottles, unscrew it, and down half in one go. I feel the water slide down my throat, hit my stomach, and distribute out along my veins. I close my eyes and allow my body to absorb it. It is Heaven. Cold, but Heaven. I shiver. I tingle. I giggle. My brain starts to fire up. I feel the dehydrated cells begin to wake. The world is a little less grey. Everything is going to be OK.
I search the rest of the cupboards but find nothing else. I open the back door just in case there is something hidden in the snow. The icy wind rushes past me and through the building. It whistles, instilling misery. I step out quickly and shut the door. There is nothing, no milk bottles, no water, nothing other than a little patio area, surrounded by walls and buildings, with two snowy, ashy chairs. The workers would have come out here to smoke their cigarettes. I imagine them now, having a break while the customers drink their tea and coffee. All that chinking, steaming, and conversation. It is a ghost to the place now. What a change from a few days ago. The place is cold and broken, not warm and buzzing.
twelve
The thinning numbers of soldiers mark the passing of the days. There is no order anymore. They have started to give up. Sometimes we see a soldier drop to the floor, only to be shot minutes later, and thrown into the pile of corpses. It is a mercy. Even I know that. They are growing more and more desperate. So are we. We are down to our dry goods and have been forced to collect snow from the back patio. It is disgusting. The only way to drink it is to try and block out the truth. What am I supposed to do? We’ll die if we don’t.
Late one afternoon, Olly surprises me with a drawing.
“For you,” he says, popping a piece of paper on top of the magazine I am reading for the hundredth time, hoping for some sort of enlightenment, but finding none.
I stare at it for a few moments before the images begin making sense. I shake my head. What? What the Hell? My insides flip upside-down. A hot flush rises through me. I smile fearfully. My lip wobbles.
“What made you draw that?” I say without glancing away from the drawing.
“You,” he replies.
I stare at the picture. I absorb every scribble, every line.
“Who’s that,” I ask pointing towards what looks like a young woman and a child holding hands on some derelict train line. There is, what looks like a horse, or a deer, behind them, walking across the tracks.
“Me and you.”
“Right. OK then,” I pause. “Who’s that then,” I say pointing to the figure of a man, who is also holding my hand.
“The man.”
“Yes, the man.”
“He’s our friend.”
“What do you mean?” I ask.
He stares at me. His green eyes are shining brightly. I am being lost in them. I am being immersed in his essence. He blinks. I blink. The spell is broken.
“I don’t know,” he says. “I just thought it, that’s all. He’s my friend too.”
“Who is he?”
“I don’t know his name,” he says picking up one of his cars and playing with it again. “Broom, broom.”
“Olly stop that for a second, tell me how you thought of this?”
“I don’t know I just dreamed it like you dream it.” He gets back to his cars.
My mouth drops open. Am I talking in my sleep now or something?
“How do you know I dreamt about him?”
“I don’t know, I just do.”
My eyes fall back upon the drawing. Why am I finding so much meaning in it? Why am I finding so much meaning in everything? Olly suddenly stands up and points outside.
“It’s him.”
My heart thumps. What the fuck? This is too weird. I crawl to the window ledge. Do it, do it, I dare myself. I peek over. At that moment one of the soldiers looks this way. It’s him. We both drop to the floor. Shit, shit, shit. Me and Olly stare at each other and laugh, nervously. I look back up, they are talking again. Not one of them is looking this way. Phew. I crawl back over to the bed, dragging Olly with me.
“Why him?”
“It just is him. He’s our friend.”
“Did you see him in here the first night we came?”
“No.”
“Where did you see him?”
“I dunno.”
I stare at my brother. He stares back.
“Why are you saying that? Why do you think he’s our friend?” I ask.
“I dunno.” He shrugs his shoulders.
He fiddles about with the car in his hand. He spins the wheels. We both listen to the scratchy sounds as they spin, until they stop.
“I just do,” he continues. “He is. I promise.”
“Oh come on Ol,” I say jokingly. “You can do better than that. What made you think he’s our friend?”
“I dreamed it.”
I stare mutely… “You dreamt it?”
“Yes.”
“OK,” I say thoughtfully. “Don’t worry about it.”
He drops to the floor and starts racing his car over the carpet. I watch him. Something weird is happening. I can feel myself changing. Are we sharing dreams now?
“You won’t leave me when you and the man meet will you?” he says suddenly standing upright, rigidly.
“When I meet that man?”
“Please Izzy.”
He has a little tear forming in his eye. He starts shaking. My heart melts. A motherly love floods through me.
“Of course not, baby. Come here.” He runs over and falls into my lap. I hug him tightly. “I’ll never ever leave you, I promise, cross my heart hope to die, stick a needle in my eye.”
“Stick a needle in your eye.” He laughs. “No, Izzy.”
His laughter fades into the background. He knows something. He is aware of something more. There is something incredibly profound going on. Our minds and bodies are adapting, they are responding to the silence of men, in ways I never imagined.
thirteen
A man runs into the square. A normal man, a well man, not a soldier, I can tell by his body shape, by the way he runs. He is followed shortly after by a rabid group of people. There are no soldiers about to stop them. We haven’t seen one of them in a couple of days. Why now? Why does this have to happen now, just as we are about to leave? The man being chased drops a bag but keeps on running across the square and into one of the other buildings. One of the chasing group grabs the bag, together they tear it apart. They are not immune. They are all going to die and they know it. Shit. They have blood around their mouths and coming out of their eyes. I step back from the window. They get into a fight over something from the bag. Someone punches someone else in the face. The person who hit falls backwards and onto the floor rubbing the side of their face. The others all stand around and scan the area. Shit. They will hunt every single building looking for the immune and supplies.
“Hurry, Olly, we have to go now.”
I take Olly’s hand and we creep downstairs. I turn around to walk out the back. A saucepan hanging on my backpack whacks into the bannister. Shit! It is so loud. It sounds like Big Ben going off. My stomach drops to my feet. I feel like I weigh about hundred thousand tonnes. A black cloud has risen and I am falling into the ground. Fuck. We stand still like statues. But it’s way too late. Through the broken windows at the front of the cafe, I see all their heads swing this way. They see us. There is a moment of infinite silence. A moment of nothing. We are in the eye of the storm. Then they start running this way. They are madmen on the rampage.
“Immunes,” one yells.
“Run,” I urge. “Remember like I showed you.”
We run to the back door and outside to the wall. I push Olly up the garden trellis. He climbs to the top. All the icy dead heads fall onto my head as he scrambles away. I brush them off.
“Along the wall, go. Be careful, Olly, the ice, crawl.�
�
I hear the rabid crowd crash in through the windows and door. They fall over it, over each other, and through it. No time to think, I climb and follow Olly, crawling along the wall.
“There Olly, climb down.”
Suddenly we are in the garden of another house. We run and scramble into the back room. Just as we disappear into the house, I hear the desperate calls of the dying people climbing the trellis after us. There is coughing and shouting.
“To the front door, Olly, and wait.”
I never thought I would be this glad for a rucksack without rice, without pasta, without water, but I am. I rush through the house. The front door is smashed off of its hinges. I stand in the hallway, poke my head out of the front door, and look for movement. Nothing but cars, cars like coffins, with the frozen dead inside, waiting to be re-animated. Blood is staining the glass. Why didn’t the soldiers take those bodies and burn them? They were looking for something, weren’t they? Someone? No time to contemplate on that now. We run and weave between the cars, trying not to look at the frozen faces. We run to a path which is almost hidden from view by an overgrown bush. I push Olly ahead of me. I look back. I see the heads of the sick over the tops of the cars. They are searching for us.
“Go,” I say.
We run up the path, it is muddy, and wet, and cold, and over-grown branches keep slapping me in the stomach and thigh. But rather me than Olly. His little face would be pounded. He would cry.
“This way,” one of them shouts.
He falls into a coughing fit. It sounds as if his stomach has exploded inside him. I almost vomit at the thought. Rather him than us, rather him than us. That thought gives me some relief.
“There Olly,” I say as I see a gap beneath the bushes.
He falls to his knees and crawls under and disappears. I take off my bag and shove it in after him. I can almost hear the breath of the sick as their squelching footsteps grow closer and closer. Olly grabs the bag and pulls it to the other side. I lay flat and begin to wriggle through. I realise that there is a fence behind the bush. I push and squeeze myself, trying to get through. I suck my breath in. I almost reach the other side when someone grabs hold of my foot. My insides freeze. My heart stops. I scream. I look at Olly. I am trying to curtail my fright for him, but I am failing. I am stricken with terror.
“Run,” I tell him, gasping for breath.
I feel as if I am drowning. He sees the fear in me. The sick people start pulling me backwards. I scream again, louder, and more desperate. I almost start crying. Vomit begins to rise from my stomach. Olly grabs my hands and tries to pull me back. I almost laugh and cry simultaneously at the futile gesture. I kick with my other foot. I hit the hand pulling me. It lets me go, but only for a moment. It grabs me again. Then another hand grabs my other foot. I am lost.
“Run,” I shout to my brother.
Olly looks at me, one eyebrow raised. He is not leaving me.
“Run Olly, please,” I shout.
He has a strange intense look about him. I begin sliding backwards again, like a worm disappearing back into its hole. Even though the acid is rising into my mouth I know I have never seen that look in his eyes before. It is him, but not him, not the him that I know. His eyes are shining; they have grown wise, older, more awake, more aware. He is focussed. He wants to save me. There is a fire inside him. I can almost see the flames behind his eyes. I scream as I am yanked harder, my coat gets caught on the fence above me. It is slowing them down, but I am almost gone, into their feral hands. My fingers claw into the snow and frozen cement-like mud. Olly lets me go. He stands straight. He tilts his head upward and stares into the grey cloudy sky. He raises his hands up to shoulder height and turns his palms upwards. He screams. But, this is no ordinary scream. It is not the scream of a child, of a little boy. It is more like a roar and it is not his voice. It is a harrowing, blood-chilling roar of the multitude, one-hundred-thousand voices in one. It ignites the very air around him. My heart is pounding. My skin tingles. A calm washes over me. The snow seems to melt a little. Birds start squawking all around. I hear the howls of dogs. I feel as if I have grown too hot to hold. The hands let me go. I hear the sick people all fall into the mud and the bushes of the narrow path. Some of them are screaming, they are crying out in pain. I begin wriggling back through the hole. Olly pulls me until I am through. I stand and look down at him. What the fuck is going on? Some sort of distant memory, something cloudy and incoherent is telling me not to fear, almost as if I have seen this before. But I haven’t. Not at all, nothing like this. The moment passes. The Olly that roared has gone. He is just Olly once more. My little brother, Olly, just tired and scared, ready to run for the hills. Just like me. The people on the other side of the fence all fall silent. I hear them rustling about. They jump to the hole in the fence. They start clawing at the frozen mud beneath the hedge. I see their hands digging our way.
“Run!” I scream.
fourteen
I grab Olly’s hand and drag him onwards. I look ahead intently, scanning the snowy ground for lumps and bumps, for dips. We are in the garden of a large stately home, somewhere. I have no idea where. I had no idea this even existed. We run up the huge expanse towards the building. We rush past all the snow-covered trees, plants, bushes, ceramic features, statues, and pond. We reach the edge of the building and run around the side to the front. We run, and we don’t look back. We are on a huge gravelly driveway. I know it’s gravelly because I can feel the stones moving about beneath the snow. I pull Olly after me. We can hear the sick running down the muddy footpath beside us, behind the bushes, behind the fence. They are shouting, coughing, crying, moaning, looking for a way through. The bushes rustle as they push forwards as fast as their dying bodies will allow them. We divert off the driveway, away from the people, away from the bushes, across the front garden, towards the edge. The sounds of the dying slowly fade away into the distance. We pass through some trees and reach a fence.
“Come on,” I say.
I lift Olly up.
“Grab on,” I urge.
His hands clutch onto the top of the fence. I push him upward by his feet.
“Pull yourself up and sit on the top.”
I jump up after him. I cling to the top and scramble up and over to the pavement on the other side. I quickly glance around. I recognise nothing. I extend my hands up to my brother.
“Jump, I’ll catch you.”
He glances left and right. He holds his breath and leans forward. He begins to slide down until he falls. I catch him.
“Well done you brave boy,” I say.
He laughs, “I’m brave,” he says.
“Yes, you are. Come on, we’ve gotta go.”
I take his hand, and we carry on running away. We weave between cars, and bodies covered in snow, and buildings, anything and anywhere, as long as it is in the opposite direction to the sick people. We run up roads, and down paths. We run, and we don’t look back. Together we have strength.
Without warning, it begins to rain. It gets heavier and heavier. It becomes so heavy we have no choice but to seek refuge beneath a bus stand.
“Are you OK?” I ask.
“No,” he shakes his head. “I’m tired and hungry.”
He takes hold of my sleeve and pulls my arm towards him.
“OK, OK.”
I sit down and open my bag just in case there is something hidden inside that I forgot about. No such luck, just a measly half packet of rice. We need to find food, and we need to do it soon. I pick Olly up and sit him on my lap.
“We’ll find some food baby, I promise. Or I’ll boil up this rice at the next house.”
“I hate rice.” His bottom lip pops out, and he folds his arms.
“I know,” I laugh. “You’ve told me enough times. We’ll find something else soon.”
“Good. I want something nice like what Mum would make.”
I bite my tongue and look away.
“So do I,” I whimper.
> We sit in silence listening to the rain. It is quite beautiful when all the sounds of the city have died. How long until the rain washes away all the buildings? How long until all this is no more? I sit and wonder. How long did it take the river to carve out the valley, to create the waterfall? Time is meaningless in this world.
“Do you think we’ve lost those horrible people now?”
He nods.
“They went the wrong way,” he says.
I stare down at him for a moment. I think about asking, how do you know? I think better of it. Instead, I wrap my arms around him. The fact that he is so sure makes me feel safe and secure. The feeling resonates outward from my core to the rest of my body. I am absolutely certain that we are safe for now. We both sit and listen to the rain. It sounds like the feet of an army marching all around us. If I close my eyes, I almost believe that I am at war. I am at war, I realise. Life is going to be a struggle from now on. We may be stuck in the trenches right now, but there is only one way to live, to survive, and every single second is worth it.
“It’ll be alright in a minute, see,” I point towards some blue sky in the distance. “The rain will stop soon and then we can go and find some food, and somewhere to stay tonight.”
He nestles in closer and rests his head on me.
“I love you, Izzy,” he says.
“I love you too,” I kiss his cheek.
The tempest does not last long. The blue skies come and take all the rain away. Birdsong comes down to us from up above too. Is spring finally whispering in the air? No, no way, not yet, that is wishful thinking. The nights are about as long as they can be. We need to leave. We need to go now. Night is closer than we think.
Tears of Blood Page 8