“No point in fighting,” a gruff male voice says right into my ear.
I feel the heat of his breath. I feel the moisture. I smell the rot. I squirm even more. I can’t help it, I do fight. I kick my feet. I try to elbow the man. He just cackles, squeezes me even tighter and keeps dragging me back through the house to the front door. He drags me out into the daylight, out into the front garden, where there is another man stood, waiting for us. He is a young man, he is tall and handsome. I can’t help but notice, even while I am here and utterly helpless. I feel hopeful for a millisecond, because of his youth, because of the way he looks, until I see the coldness in his pale blue eyes. He is just staring at me, completely expressionless, completely emotionless, like I am nothing more than a rag doll. I want to cry. I want to scream. What is happening to me? I stare at him, shocked and scared. The hand is pressing against my mouth so hard my teeth are hurting. The man crushes my legs together between his. He laughs. It hurts. I start to cry. Why are they doing this to me?
I stare at the handsome man. I am trying to force him into action, to help me. He barely registers my existence, how would he ever be able to see, or care about the terror in my eyes. I suddenly get pushed violently forwards towards him. My head whips backwards and almost breaks my neck. I do not have time to think about screaming, and by the time I do, my mouth is muffled again by the handsome man’s hand. The first man, who I now see is older, shorter, and meaner looking, has duct tape. He pulls it open. He wraps it around my hands tying them behind my back. The younger man lets go of my mouth, I try to scream, but he shoves something, some material into it before I have the chance. The older man wraps duct tape around my head stuffing the material even further into my mouth. I am being choked. My eyes are watering. I am a baby again, helpless, and I am drowning in the darkness. They have me exactly where they want me. I am totally in their grips. Olly knew, I realise, he knew this would happen. I collapse to my knees and cry hard. Both the men start laughing. The first man grabs me by the elbow and pulls me up to my feet. He starts pulling me down the road. I don’t walk, but he drags me, and my arm feels as if it is being wrenched out of its socket, I stumble back on to my feet. I have to walk. He leads me down the road.
Above my head the weather suddenly turns. The beautiful warm blue skies of just a moment ago darken. Grey clouds start forming overhead. The men drag me down the country road towards a car parked beneath some trees. How the Hell didn’t we hear this car drive so close to the house? Then the thought crosses my mind, how long have they been here for? How long have they been watching? Oh my God, I feel violated. Olly knew days ago, but he couldn’t explain himself properly, it was just a feeling, it was just a thought. Maybe he heard the car pull up, maybe he heard the men talking, their voices travelling in the wind and into him. Who knows? All I know now is that Olly knew that they were coming. Shit, I can be so pig-headed sometimes. Why oh why didn’t I heed the sound advice and be more careful? Why did I allow myself to turn into the old me? The me before the virus. The weather is deteriorating. The sky turns black, it starts spotting with rain, and the wind whips up. It gets cold. A chill is injected into my heart. The men open the car door and shove me into the back seat. My face hits the seat with the whole weight of my body behind it. My face scrapes along the scratchy material. I can’t sit up. I start trying to shoulder myself up into a sitting position, but I keep falling back down. They are laughing at me. They slam the door closed. It shakes the car.
“He said he wants her unharmed,” one of them says, his voice comes to me muffled through the closed door.
Who the Hell is he talking about? Oh no, are these Archie’s henchmen? I hope not. I really bloody hope not. No… they could be anyone. Couldn’t they? I don’t remember seeing them through the binoculars, not that I really paid that much attention to anyone other than Archie. Oh, I don’t know. I stop moving and listen.
“Fine,” the other one says.
The older one walks around to my side and opens the door. He grabs me by the elbow and yanks me back up into a sitting position. He pulls the seat belt down around me and clicks it into the gauge. I furiously stare at him. He completely ignores me. They both get into the front seats. They start up the engine. It is thundering now, there is lighting over the fields. They can barely see through the windscreen it is raining so hard. Lightning hits the road ahead of us. They laugh, nervously, and look at each other in a strangely meaningful way, a way that I have no way of understanding with all the panic inside me. I am unable to find my Zen. I am unable to use my senses. I am pathetic with fear. What am I going to do? I am stuck and hurting. The driver, the older one, speeds up down the winding road, as the rain beats harder and harder. My head sways to and fro.
“Slow down,” the passenger shouts.
He listens. The rain turns into hail. They slow even more. The hail is so loud on the car roof, I feel like we are inside a drum. I suddenly remember Olly and Stephen out on the lake. Oh no, oh no, oh no. I start to cry even more, I sob. I hope they’re OK. What am I going to do? How am I supposed to live if I don’t know how they are? The men stop the car beneath some trees. They look at each other with that same knowing look.
“Did you ever think this would happen?” The older one says.
“After everything we’ve seen, yes.”
They look forwards and stare at the road as we all listen to the unbelievable sound of hail the size of golf balls hit the car. I wish I could block my ears. I can’t. I wish I wasn’t here, but I am. What am I going to do? I turn my head and gaze out of the side window and look through the gaps in the trees. There are blue skies in the distance. And just as strangely as the storm started, it finishes. It is sunshine and blue skies once more. The men simultaneously shrug their shoulders and drive off in the weather-beaten car.
twenty-one
They drive on for miles. Driving down winding country roads, passing through little villages, towns, steering around bodies, around crashed cars, around God knows what else, best not to look too closely. I have no idea where we are going. I have no idea where we are. I have pins and needles all over my whole body. I have waves of panic cascading through me and all over me, over and over and over again. I breathe deeply through my nose. I try not to fall into despair. I try not to suffocate on the cloth that seems to be burrowing ever deeper into my throat. I tell myself ‘you’re going to be OK, you’re going to be OK, you’re going to be OK’, as if it is some kind of magic mantra, as if, if I say it enough, it will come true. I am trying to convince myself. I am trying to force myself to believe it. But it is not working. I can’t breathe. I can’t think. I can’t do anything.
My mouth is really hurting from being stretched like this. I try to push the material out with my tongue. I can’t. It’s no use. The panic continues to rise. A sickness is rising along with it. I can’t think straight. I am worrying about everything. My mind is losing touching with itself. What are they going to do to me? What is going to happen? Where are they taking me? Who is he? What does he want with me? Is it Archie? Could it be him? Oh no, please God, please no, please don’t let it be him… it’s not, it’s not, it’s not, we lost him and his crew ages ago, they’re long gone, they’re far up the train line. Aren’t they? I’m going crazy. I worry that I will vomit with the material still in my mouth. I worry that the sick will go back down inside me and make me even more sick. That thought makes me heave. That thought makes the acid start to rise. Calm down, calm down, calm down. I close my eyes. Think of the lake. Think of Olly’s little face smiling in the Sun. I know he’s OK. I know it. Somehow, I manage to disappear into serene place momentarily. I am sitting in the Sun, Olly by my side. I hold down the vomit just a little bit longer. Relief for a second.
I lean my head against the window and stare out of it. My eyes flow over the hedgerow and fields. I try to disappear into my own world. I try to think of a way to escape. But the thing in my mouth is suffocating me. I shake my head, trying to loosen it. I try to moisten the cloth
with my tongue so that the moisture will spread across and loosen the duct tape. I try to push it out with my tongue some more. It doesn’t budge. I feel like I am being choked. I shake my head. Think of Olly, think of the lake. I stare out of the window. Where are they taking me? I try and memorise all the place names. I swear I see the same names twice, three times. What is going on? Am I stuck in a loop? Or is my mind playing tricks? It’s no use. There’s no way I can remember them all, not with this terror burning away inside of me. It is driving me mad.
They drive on and on in silence. They only turn around very occasionally to check that I’m still alive, and when they do, I detect no emotion in their eyes, no feeling, no humanity. I wonder what they have seen to make them like this, and what they have done, and what they have been through already. They are hardened. They are inhumane. Maybe they were already like this, and the brand new world has brought out their true natures. Civilisation forced us to conform. We are not civilised anymore. I start to cry again. The older man glances at me from the driver’s seat through the rearview mirror. When he sees my tears, a smirk lifts from the corners of his mouth. I stop crying and try to glare at him, but my strength is fading. I can’t help but continue crying. He laughs and looks back at the road. We drive on.
Finally, the car comes to a halt. I am suddenly very alert. I start to shake. Are we here? I look out of my window. We’re still in the middle of nowhere, somewhere deep in the countryside. I lean to the middle to see through the front window. I sigh. It is nothing more than a crash. I am half relieved that we are not at our destination, but I am also half in fear, what are they are going to do to me now? I tense then un-tense, tense then un-tense. Breathe through the nose. I hate this thing in my mouth. I stare at the crash. There are two cars, both crumpled, one on its side. They must have been going as fast as they could. What were they thinking? They were probably ill, desperate to find help. One of them may have passed out. One of them may have died the moment before. I shudder as I think on the bodies.
I’ve seen far too many bodies already. The walk from the bunker haunts me and pervades my thoughts. It becomes my present. The smells, the death, the decay, the rot. It is all too much. I don’t want to see another body, especially not one that has been fermenting inside a tin can for months. I lean back in the car seat and stare up at the roof. My hands are being crushed behind me. Why is this happening? Why am I living another reality from the one predetermined at birth? What does it mean? Nothing that’s what. Everything means nothing. Tears begin to form in my eyes once more. Slowly they begin to fall. I await my fate. I breathe deeply. What am I going to do? I know we are going to have to get out and walk now. Does that give me a chance to escape? I look all about and up and down the roads. Fields surround us, we could be anywhere. What to do? To run or not to run.
“Right then,” the older man says opening his car door.
They both glance backwards at me, and then get out. The younger man walks around to the rear of the car and opens up the boot. He takes something out, then something else. I feel the weight of the car change. He slams the boot, hard. It makes me jump. I watch him put a rucksack on, then he hands another one to the older man. The older man slips it over his shoulders, tightens it up with the hanging straps, and then opens my door. His hand comes towards me. I lean away from him, as far as I can get toward the middle seat. He just reaches in and yanks me upright, then leans over me, I can smell his body odour, I gag. He unclicks the seat belt. He pulls me out by my elbow, roughly. I fall out on to the tarmac. I force myself to stand but my legs are so weak and I am so afraid. I am shaking and shivering, even though it’s not cold. They both laugh. I force myself to stop. My arms are hurting. I start contorting my shoulders but I can’t shake the blood back into them. Then I start coughing. They laugh even more. I can’t breathe. I start choking, I collapse onto my knees, I am trying to catch my breath. I think I am going to die. I can’t do anything. I look up at them. They look at each other. The younger man gives a nod to the older man. The older one grabs a corner of the tape and pulls it off of my mouth, ripping pieces of my skin and hair away with it. I spit the material out and fall forwards, almost headbutting the road, gasping for breath. I can breathe properly for the first time. I almost feel good, if it weren’t for the fact I can see their boots, and if my arms weren’t almost numb. They both just stand perfectly still and watch me, saying nothing, until I stop coughing.
“Let’s go,” the older man says in a monotone voice.
He grabs my elbow, it doesn’t feel like he’s touching me, my arm is completely numb. He drags me back up onto my bare feet, again. He starts pulling me onwards, towards the crash. I reluctantly follow. As we approach the cars the rancid smell of the dead multiplies. I notice the decaying faces of the rotting corpses still sitting in the driver’s seats. I can’t help but stare. The smell is oozing out of the smashed up windows. There are a million flies inside both the cars. It is like a black swarming cloud devouring the dead. We all stare in silence. My mouth drops open. My stomach is doing flips. The younger man makes the first move. He climbs up and over the cars. I watch the route he takes over the crumpled metal. He reaches the other side and jumps down. The older man pushes me violently forwards. I almost fall face first into the cars. I fight the tears. I fight the puke rising because of the smell. I look down. My feet are standing on tiny squares of smashed up glass. This is not good. I look back at him, pleadingly.
“Go on,” he says.
I step even closer to the cars, trying to avoid the glass littering the road. I look at the cars. I can see that the metal is slippery, there are tiny beads of rain all over it. I can’t do it like this. I want to cry again.
“Go,” he yells.
“I can’t, my hands,” I cry, looking back at him again. “I’ll slip and fall, I could cut myself and bleed to death.”
He stares at me for a moment. I stare back. He sighs then steps towards me. I shrink as he comes closer. He grabs my shoulder and swings me around, he pushes my front down onto the crumpled bonnet. Then he takes my hands and rips off the tape, almost pulling my shoulders out of their sockets in the process. I wince in pain but stifle my yelp. He steps back. I stand up straight.
“Now go,” he says.
I shake my free arms, the pins and needles are fading, the numbness is disappearing. I feel better already. The blood is flowing back to my hands, my fingers loosen. I can do this. I have to do this.
“Hurry up,” the man yells.
I look over the car. It is red. I have no idea what make it was, is, things like that never interested me before, and are completely pointless now. I take a deep breath and hold it. I step up on to the front tyre and on to the crumpled bonnet. I hobble over it, gingerly, gripping on to the other car, the one that is on its side. I hold its bonnet, where the light is, was, it’s totally smashed now. I cross over and slowly lower myself down into a sitting position with my legs dangling over the side. I take another deep breath and slide myself onto the glass littered road. I somehow manage to do it without hurting myself. I step away from the cars and the smells and the dead. I rub my feet clean of dirt and glass. They look alright. Thank God. The younger man steps towards me and takes hold of both my wrists in one of his hands. He tapes them back together. This time he ties them in front of me, a small mercy and I am infinitely grateful. The older man jumps down from the car.
They force me to walk ahead of them. If I fall, they drag me up. If I slow they push me onwards with the barrel of their rifle. We walk on in silence. They smoke and nudge me onwards and speed me up. They walk so fast, too fast. I can barely keep pace with them, especially with my bare feet. My big toe keeps crashing into the tarmac, I think it may be broken, but I can’t stop to check it.
These men must have been soldiers, or gang members, or something like that. It makes sense that they would have been some kind of warrior. In many ways, they are like Stephen. Big, strong, fearless.
“Stop,” one of them yells.
“Into the field,” the older one says, directing me with his gun.
I look at the hole in the bush, then back at them.
“Go,” the older one yells.
I sigh, then step through the brambles and into the field. I stop. This is all too much.
“Move,” the older man says.
I can’t. One of them pushes me with the gun. I fall into the field. I sit and look up at them.
“Please, where are you taking me?” I ask.
“Get up and stop asking questions.”
“Please,” I start to cry again, “please, where are you taking me?”
“Shut up,” the older man snaps, he grabs my hands and pulls me up.
He spins me around so I am facing the field.
“Go, now.”
“But my feet,” I cry turning back around to face them.
They both look down at my bare feet simultaneously, as if they have only just noticed I have no shoes on. They look back at me, their expressions saying nothing of the revelation.
“Walk,” the older man says, “before we make you.”
“Please. I can’t.”
“Walk,” he shouts, spit flying out of his mouth.
I jump. He lifts his gun. For a moment I stare muted, before I whip around and start walking. I keep my eyes on the ground trying to avoid stones and rubbish and whatever else. We walk on and on, across fields, down country lanes, walking passed crashed cars, and corpses. I am so tired and hungry. I’d do anything to be somewhere else. I’d do anything to see Olly and Stephen. I start imagining their faces. I hope they are OK. I hope the hail didn’t sink the boat. I’m sure they are OK. I know they are OK. I just know it. I am sure they will find me too. I have this feeling, this warmth flooding through me. They will find me. I know they will. We are connected. Olly will find a way to use his beautiful mind to find me. He will come to understand his nature. His gifts. If anyone can do it, Olly can.
Tears of Blood Page 13