Tears of Blood

by Rachel Martin

  “This is why we are here,” he says. “You do it.”

  Somehow I just know what to do. My hand glides through the air in slow motion. The tiny hairs on my hand can feel the change in gravity as it lifts up. I clutch my fingers around the rose. It twists. I jump backwards.

  “Wow,” I whisper.

  I grab it again and twist it until it clicks. An invisible door inch’s backwards from the wall, like magic. We look at each other, hearts racing, faces lit with excitement. I step towards the door and push it. I poke my head through. There is a set of stairs.

  “Come on,” I say grabbing Olly’s hand.

  We descend into a basement. I turn on my torch. We look at each other and laugh.

  “Well done Olly,” I say fluffing up his hair.

  This is a treasure trove. It is like a war bunker. There is a larder, wind-up lighting, beds, blankets, gas stoves with several large gas cylinders, a wind-up radio with C.Ds, board games, books, everything we will need for a good few months, or even years. I stand staring at the scene before me. I can’t believe how lucky we are. But this is not luck. I grab one of the lamps and wind it up. The room is suddenly illuminated. I look down at Olly. He knew, he bloody knew. He felt it, somehow. I felt it too. The world is speaking to him, to me. The Earth wants us to survive. Olly is a marvel. Maybe Christmas is not going to be that bad after all. Olly smiles knowingly at me. There is a glint in his eyes, something ancient and wonderful. I clear my mind and close my eyes. A spark flashes through me, and I know. Once we are done in here, the world will be a safer, warmer, better place, and all that will be left will be the immunes.

  “Guess what?” I say.

  “What?”

  “It’s Christmas.”

  “Yay,” he says as he rushes towards all the board games.

  sixteen

  There is a rot in the air. We can taste it. We are choking on it. Olly can’t bear it. I can’t bear it. Our eyes are beginning to sting. The smell has seeped into the house and descended down into the bunker. We can almost see the air growing thicker. It is putrid. It is death. It is killing us. It is taking away all our joy. It is taking away our ability to think. It is time to leave, and it has come way too soon, way before all the supplies have run out. We can’t wait until Spring has properly sprung because of the bodies. It is a dilemma I’ve been battling with for weeks. Every day I go outside and judge the bodies, and as the temperature rises, so does the rate of decomposition. The whole city is beginning to smell rotten, and it is getting worse. Soon we will be invaded by flies, maggots and disease. We have to go. We have to leave while there is still a deep chill in the air, while the bodies are still more or less intact. We can’t wait any longer. We will suffocate if we do.

  As I pack our rucksacks with as much food as we can lift, I think of the man who created this place for his family. All the preparations in the world didn’t prepare them for the disease. It hit too fast and was way too deadly. Why are we so lucky? I sit on the edge of the bunk bed, light up the gas stove for the last time, and cook a huge survivor’s breakfast.

  “Eat until you can eat no more,” I tell Olly.

  He sits on his camping chair and digs in. I watch him while I eat mournfully, savouring every mouthful. I need to remember the good things when we are out on the road. We will need good memories, something to look forward to, something to cling on to in the cold.

  I open one of the road atlases I found in the bunker and double check the route. Olly sits with his arm around me staring at the pages. He knows exactly what’s coming. He completely understands. His understanding of the world comes from a more natural level of awareness, a level I can only reach in short surges. My brain is still easing into that way of seeing. It isn’t easy to remould yourself. The mind can’t let go. Even being down here for this past couple of months I still fight the feeling. I still can’t rely upon it. I still don’t understand what is happening, not really. I stare at the map.

  “See.” I point to the red line I have drawn onto the pages. “We are going to follow this line all the way up…” I flick through the pages, “to,” I keep flicking, “here. That’s where Uncle James lives.”

  “Yay, I can’t wait.”

  “Good, me too. It’s not far.” I don’t tell him it’s about three hundred miles. “We will be there in a few days.”

  He stares at me. He knows I’m lying. I just know he knows. We are speaking without words, for each other, for ourselves.

  “It’s going to be a wonderful adventure,” I tell him.

  “Yay, I love adventures. I’m bored down here,” he says as he jumps off the bed. “Come on,” he says excitedly, “I want to go now.”

  He takes hold of my hand and pulls me. I stand up, slap the book closed and put it in my rucksack. I have the route etched into my brain. Hopefully, I will be able to navigate it without even having to check. I put my hands on my hips, stretch backwards, and look about over all the things we are leaving behind. All the things that have kept us sane down here. It has been our safe haven. I don’t want to go. I sigh long and hard. This is going to hurt.

  “Come on then, let’s go.”

  “Yay,” Olly says grabbing his bag. “Let’s go.”

  We climb up the steps for the last time, push the door and enter the main house. The smell hits us, beating us to a standstill. I feel sick. My breakfast is rising. I fight the gag reflex. Olly and I close our eyes and disappear into another place, a place of colour, shapes, and light. We grow in strength. We are ready once more.

  “Shall I leave the hidden door open?” I ask. “You know, just in case someone else finds this place.”

  “Yeah, good idea.”

  We venture onwards towards the front door. I hold my breath and open it. The second wave hits us. We both stagger backwards a pace, we shiver, we hold our breaths again. We breathe because we have to. We gag. We fight the feeling. We swallow it down. I shake my head. Mind over matter, mind over matter. I find my Zen. I am at peace.

  “We’ll be out of here in no time, I lie. Things will be alright very soon.”

  He looks up at me, takes hold of my hand, and sighs, “let’s go.”

  He begins pulling me out of the door. I can’t get used to mature way he speaks sometimes. His mannerisms, his way of being. Was he always like this? Was he like this before the virus? In fact, in some ways, I know that he was like this, but I never paid much attention to him, unless it was to allow myself to be irritated. Well, I’m paying attention to it now, without that rising annoyance. I follow him out of the door and onto the pavement.

  “This way,” I say.

  There were more people in London than I ever could have imagined. Where did all these people go when they were alive? Are there enough houses for them all? I can’t help but stare at the corpses. Some of them are beginning to bloat, others have chewed off noses and fingers. I tear my eyes away, but the horror transfixes me. Rather them than me, rather them than me. Around the next bend, we pass someone who has had their entire face pecked off. A crow caws and flies off with a red thread from an eyeball hanging out of its beak. I curl my lip and focus on the direction I’m going. Other crows begin to caw at us. We have stumbled into their territory. We pick up our pace. They are losing their fear of us. We are losing dominion.

  Some of the faces are turning mouldy. They have a cheese-like green and white mould growing over their dead skin. Some of the bodies are turning blue. Others have turned completely ashen black already. I look away and up into the air, I reluctantly look back, I am captivated and horrified. I am so glad we left when we did. I do not want to be here once Spring actually arrives and Heaven forbid Summer, especially if it is a warm one. What will happen to the bodies? They can’t all get eaten. Will they liquefy and melt into oblivion, leaving nothing but their bones? I convulse a little, and wish Olly didn’t have to see all this, but what can I do? I stare forwards and focus on the destination. I try to sing and hum and ignore the horror. We talk idly about his favour
ite cartoons. We make up stories, anything other than focusing on the scenes around us.

  It takes three days of walking, but we barely make a wrong turn as we exit the city. I can actually see the map in my mind’s eye, like I have a photographic memory. I never had one before. This world does have its advantages. We arrive at the silent, tomblike M25. It is a far cry from before, where cars roared around it every second of every day. We climb up the bank and onto the road. We look one way then the other, as if it was normal times, as if there are still cars driving down the road. The memory of the M25 before and the vision of it now seem to merge into one another. It is a scene of carnage. I can almost see how it all ended. We step out and on to the tarmac and begin weaving between the cars. They are everywhere, parked up in endless queues, or crashed up into each other, or on their sides. Some of them have been burned out. Some of them have smashed through the barriers and are laying upside down in the mud. I can almost hear the panic. I can almost taste it. Bodies are strewn about all over the place, just like everywhere else. The birds are enjoying all the extra food, so are the rats, and the foxes, and the dogs, and the cats, and whatever else lives in the forests and the fields on the other side. They are the kings of the world again, but still, all the animals scatter when they see us. That residual fear lingers. They know what we were. We are the ones that need to change. We were so arrogant and foolish. Silently we cross the motorway and climb down the bank to the other side.

  As we head out of London, the rotten smell lessens, as does the haze. We climb to the top of a hill and look down. There is a black mist covering the city. It looks like Hell. I am so glad we are out of there. We turn and we don’t look back, and as soon as we do, the Sun begins to shine through a gap in the clouds. It is showing us the way. I follow it to the railway line. This will take us almost all the way up to our destination. We listen to the trees and the rustlings of small animals all around us. Olly and I look at each other and grin. Nature is fighting back. Nature is already relishing in the silence of the machines. The animals are already rebuilding their numbers, already venturing out in this tranquil new world. At night we camp in a deserted train station. Things are going to get better I can feel it.

  It rained while we were asleep, and now there are raindrops covering all the leaves and branches. As the Sun shines brighter and brighter, it is being reflected a million times in the droplets. Right now the world out here appears to be sprinkled in spectacular little diamonds. I am in wonder. It is as if we are surrounded by stars. I am seeing the beauty in nature for the first time. I am appreciating it for the first time. I feel I am connected to it. I can feel the stories in the trees, in the water, yet I still do not understand the language. In the bunker, I was learning how to think differently but I still need to learn how to connect properly. As we walk, I can feel the extra oxygen on this path being absorbed by my body and how my cells respond. I feel as if I am already adjusting back to nature. Everything appears new, it is far deeper and much more meaningful. I can actually hear things I have never heard before. There is magic in the land. There is music. A humming sound. A resonance. It flows through us and all around us. I embrace the orchestra of silence.

  Olly is balancing on the rail. He begins humming a little tune. It is the sounds I can hear coming out of the Earth. Song’s we’ve never heard before. He is like a beacon. He is absorbing it all in his stride. He is in tune, and he is beginning to turn it around and use it. I can see him changing. His imagination is taking control. Imagination is all that we have now. All we can manipulate. Imagination is what we will use to change this world, to change in this world. We have no other choice.

  A twig breaks in the bushes. Both our heads whip in that direction. There is something else here. Someone else? There is a rustling up ahead. My body turns cold. For a moment I am unable to move, unable to think. I grab Olly and pull him off of the rail. I stand perfectly still and listen. I look down at Olly, he is grinning. I stare at him for a moment, perplexed. I grin. I can’t help it. He is forcing it out of me. We both wait and listen. Then a string of horses trail one after the other, across the tracks ahead of us. The last one, a huge black stallion, stops and motions its head towards us, like it is acknowledging us. I take a step backward. What the…? I lift my hand to my gaping mouth. Olly’s picture! Time seems to stand still for me to realise it. I can barely breathe. I am acutely aware of the time between breaths. I gulp in a lungful. I hold it. What the Hell is going on? I watch as Olly steps forwards. The stallion waits. He bends his head. Olly takes off his mitten and strokes the horse’s muzzle. It snorts vapour clouds out of its nostrils into the still cool air. Olly laughs. The horse shakes its head, and trots off. We watch it catch up with the others on the field, galloping, jumping, they are finally free. Maybe this was supposed to happen. Maybe, just maybe things are going to get better.

  Olly freezes and looks into the bushes again. A magnetism has risen inside me, I am being pulled. I follow his line of sight, into the shadows. I squint but see nothing. Something moves. There is a face, I want to run but I can’t. It’s him.

  “Don’t be frightened,” he says stepping forwards out of the bushes and on to the tracks just ahead of us.

  “Don’t,” I say lifting up my hand weakly to stop him. My throat has gone completely dry. I am trembling. I shake my head. What is happening? Olly knew this would happen. I still don’t get it. “Stop,” I say. “Leave us alone. We don’t have anything for you to steal.”

  He stops. My heart is racing. A strange heat is flooding me, it is cascading up through me. The world appears to be fading to white all around us, all except for us. What is going on? What is happening? Nothing is as it seems.

  “You don’t need to be afraid,” he says, kindly, soothingly, lifting both his hands up as if I have a gun pointed at him. “I’m here to help.”

  I want to trust him. I feel I can trust him. Olly drew this. Olly knows something more, something more profound. I know it too. But still, I am frozen, paralysed, and lost.

  “Please,” I say, pushing my hand further out in front of me, but I am weak, ineffectual, I have been hit. I am almost crying. I am confused, and I don’t know why. Something is happening to me.

  “I know you feel it. The world, it is changing around us,” he says.

  “What?” I splutter, shaking my head.

  “I don’t want to hurt you.”

  “Leave us alone,” I say.

  “Please, you must listen. I have something I need to tell you. I’ll leave if you still want me too, but only after I have told you.”

  “No, just go away,” I say.

  “But…” Olly says.

  “Don’t,” I snap.

  “He’s good like us,” Olly says.

  “What?” I utter.

  “Listen, please,” the man says.

  “Leave me alone.” I am almost in tears and I don’t know why, and I don’t know if they are tears of fear or tears of joy.

  My mind is running too fast to comprehend. I cannot translate my thoughts. Olly and the man are both staring at me. There is silence, and it is penetrating me, I am about to explode. I put my hands to my head and massage my temples. I close my eyes. There is a strange vibration all around me. It is heeding me to listen. In through the nose out through the mouth, in through the nose out through the mouth.

  “Can’t you tell yet Izzy?” Olly says, walking toward the man. “He’s our friend.” He takes the man by the hand.

  “Thank you, Olly,” the man says.

  “How do you know his name?” I snap.

  “I know both your names.”

  “How?”

  “I wanted to tell you before, when you were in the coffee shop, but it wasn’t the right time.”

  “What?”

  “I knew you two would be OK.”

  “What? What do you mean?”

  “The soldiers were already starting to die out, and the ones who weren’t sick were taking it upon themselves to steal all they can a
nd disappear off to survive alone. There were only a few days left before the inevitable. I knew what you were thinking. It was clear to me that you two would stay hidden up there until they were gone and it was safe. I left the water for you.”

  “What?” I scratch my head frantically. I wring my hands together.

  “Did you think anyone would leave those by accident?”

  I think about it. I visualise the scene in the larder at the coffee shop. “No… I guess not,” I concede.

  “You must listen.”

  “Why?” I ask. “Why do you care so much about us?”

  He breathes deeply.

  “There is so much to say, and I guess it’s about time you know the truth,” he pauses.

  He stares at me. Olly stares at me. I grow hot with anger and confusion.

  “Just tell us then,” I shout.

  There is a painful silence where Olly and the man glance at each other.

  “OK, I’m sorry, but this is going to be a bit of a shock.”

  “Just fucking tell us.”

  Olly laughs, “fucking, fucking.” He steps towards the man and holds his hand.

  “I am your biological father,” he says to me. “Both of you,” he adds looking at Olly.

  I can’t say a thing. My mouth is dry. My body is stiff. I can’t move. I just stare at the man. Olly stares up at him too and grins. The man smiles down at my little brother. Olly laughs. What is happening? I close my eyes.

  “What the fuck?” I mutter, shaking my head.

  I feel like someone has just thumped me in the stomach. I lurch backwards. I almost believe him. I do believe him. I just know. My thoughts were real, he has been watching over me. Hasn’t he? I shake my head. I can’t believe this. I look at him. I see it, the knowing. I look away from him and up along the railway tracks. There are blue skies overhead. I can hear the birds singing, and the horses neighing. I look back at the boys. They are united. They step towards me. One tiny step at a time. A little bit closer. A little bit more.