“I know, we did go to the farm,” he pauses. “Your Uncle wasn’t there. I’m sorry.”
“Oh,” I say staring into the trees.
Even though I knew, deep in the very heart of me, that he would be gone, it still hurts.
Stephen puts his hand on my shoulder. “Are you OK?”
I nod and wipe away the tears forming in my eyes.
“We stayed at the farm for a few days, but Olly sensed danger. It was far too conspicuous. You could see it from the main road. We had to leave.”
I sigh and stare at the old house.
“It looks haunted,” I say.
“Well it certainly is old, that’s for sure.”
“Haunted,” Olly repeats as he unclicks his seatbelt and jumps out of the car. “Haunted, haunted. Come on Izzy,” he says, then rushes to the front door.
I watch him disappear inside. I am warming to the place. I love it already. There is a magic about it, and it is absorbing me. It is calling to me. I know why Olly loves it. I know how he found it.
“After you got taken, so much changed for us. I have so much to tell you about how we found you. But in the meantime, we had to find somewhere to live. I’m sorry we took so long, we could only find you when we were ready. We found this place and had to fix it up. It was leaking, and animals had made it a home. It took a lot of work, but the structure is sound. Trust me this is perfect.”
“What about food? That’s why we needed the farm wasn’t it?”
“Come on, I’ll show you.”
I follow him around the side of the house and into the back garden. It’s larger than I expected and completely surrounded by the forest. It feels like a secret space, something just for us. It feels enchanted. Stephen has divided it up. There is a fenced pen for goats. The kids are playing while the adults eat grass. I step over to the fence, as soon as I touch the wire the kids rush towards me. They are so cute my heart melts.
“They’re very friendly, makes them easier to milk.”
I stroke their little heads. They enjoy the touch, a smile stretches across their faces, they enjoy this attention. As I stare down at them a tear forms in my still blurry eyes. It has been a very long time since I have felt this safe. For the first time since all of this began I begin to let my guard down.
“Come, see what we have done here.”
The other half of the garden has been ploughed. The mud is in rows all the way down to the forest.
“This was hard work. All done by hand, my hand, like in the old days. I tell you, you have a better respect for the land when you have to fight it yourself. Look we have planted potatoes here.” He points to the ground. “The soil is rich and fertile. I decided that potatoes were the most substantial crop. We will survive.”
“Milk and potatoes ay, what more do we need?” I say with as much enthusiasm as I can conjure up.
“Well meat too but we’ve vowed only to eat the old, nearly dying goats,” Stephen says. “Never one in its prime. Olly wants us to do a ritual too. He somehow knows about rituals. I don’t know, every day it is something new with him. He seems to be gaining insight from the forgotten past. As if he can somehow speak to the Earth itself. He can extract memory from the natural world. He knows the secret history.” He pauses and breathes deeply. “And he is right, we do have to become more attuned to nature now. To learn the old ways, like our ancestors, it is still in us you know. I am learning so much. He is helping me.”
I stare at the trees. The leaves rustle in the breeze.
“That is how it should be. How it was done before. We have definitely forgotten how to live with nature. I had so much time to think. I understand completely. We need to change, we have to change,” I say.
“Yes.” He nods. “Yes we do. We have no choice, things are going to be so different from now on.”
We both stare into the forest and listen to the bird's sing. The morning Sun is shining through tiny gaps in the leaves, creating star-like constellations on the ground with its beaming light. It is going to be a lovely day.
“Besides…” Stephen continues, “this place is surrounded by farms in all directions.” He motions toward the forest. “So we can go foraging for other crops without too much difficulty. And we have your brother to let us know when it’s safe.” He turns and looks intently at me.
I tear my eyes away from the points of light on the Earth.
“Come on, let’s go inside,” he says stepping towards me and resting a hand on my shoulder. “It’s going to get too bright for your eyes soon.”
“I saw him every day I was in there you know. He saved me. I would’ve completely lost it without him. I knew it was him and that I wasn’t going mad,” I say thoughtfully looking up at Stephen.
He hugs me, “you’re lucky.”
“I know.”
We walk towards the house. Until I suddenly stop, as if everything that has just happened hits me all at once.
“I’m so glad to be out of that place.”
“I know, Izzy. I can only imagine.” He hugs me.
I start to cry.
“We’re so glad you’re back and safe. It won’t happen again. We will be ready for anything.”
I force myself to stop crying.
“Do you think Archie is dead?” I ask.
“I really don’t know. Olly may be able to sense something, but he’s too tired. We’ll have to wait.”
“Come on,” Stephen says, “let’s go in.”
I follow Stephen into the cool darkened interior of the house. It smells old, musty, they have tried to mask it, but it’s part of the atmosphere. I like it. I breathe it in. It feels like a place stuck in time. It feels like a home. I take off my sunglasses, my eyes slowly adjust in the shadowy kitchen. They have dressed it up with a few modern chairs and a dining table. It is plain and simple. It is what we need. I follow him into the living room and sit on one of the easy chairs. I glance around the room. It is like being inside an antique. Like living in the past. The floor and fireplace are made of flagstone. The fire is on the same wall as the kitchen, the hearth is on the other side. The structure extends upwards into a chimney. On the ceiling are exposed beams of ancient wood. I close my eyes. I can almost hear their stories. The past is emanating out of them. I have so much to learn. So much to connect with. Everything is telling me things will improve. I sigh. This place is perfect. There is an ancient bookshelf which appears to be made out of one huge tree trunk, and there are many books. There are candlestick holders on the walls and a huge cumbersome wooden table in the middle of the room. I am falling in love with it. This is a deeper sort of home. I feel safe and warm here, like I am in a cocoon deep in the forest, like I am going to be nurtured here and become who I need to be to survive. My stomach hollows and turns cold. It is a pang of guilt, I miss my parents. I wish they were here with me. But I feel them in me, I know they want me to be happy, to survive, and their memory makes me strong.
Stephen creeps up the staircase, coming back down a minute later. He goes into the kitchen then returns with two large glasses of what I imagine must be goat’s milk.
“He’s fast asleep,” he says handing me a glass.
He sits down opposite me and starts to make a fire. I take a sip of the milk. It tastes lovely. I relax back into the chair and watch Stephen start the fire.
“What happened?” He asks me eventually without making eye contact, poking the fire.
I tell him about the men capturing me, my escape, my foot injury, getting recaptured, and taken to the farmhouse. I leave out the raping. That is something I never intend to talk about, especially not to Stephen or Olly. Though I think he knows, how can he not know, he knows Archie better than I do. Once the fire is roaring, he sits back in his comfortable chair opposite me. We stare at each other for a few moments, in silence. We are understanding each other on another level.
“Did Archie tell you what he wanted you for?” He asks.
“No, not really.”
“What do y
ou mean not really?”
“Well, when I first arrived Archie said something about experiments the army was doing. He didn’t go any further than that though. So I don’t know.”
“Right… well, it’s true. We were guinea pigs. Those experiments were highly classified. We were not told the extent of them until later, much later. We were given batches of injections, they were designed to heighten the senses. There were several rounds of injections and several batches over the years. We went out on duty while taking them. Do you remember when I told you about Afghanistan?”
“Yes, when you were lost out in the desert.”
“Yes well, I was only twenty, not much older than you are now. You were born not long after that actually. Anyway, it was just after we had been administered the first batch of injections. I became far more aware of things. I survived because it made me more aware of the natural world around me. I found water because of it, because I just knew where it was, as if I was a divining rod. I amazed myself, and that was just the start. You were born out of donations I made while I was on the first batch.”
I stare at him.
“So, am I genetically modified?”
“In a sense yes. For you, and all the other children born out of the donations, well, it is a part of you. I mean we have changed but never to the extent of you. Something has been awoken in our minds, but we could never do what Olly can do. We could never sustain it. It was designed to heighten the senses that we already have. So you are more human than human in a way. Also, it has had the added benefit of making all people who took the injection immune to the disease, as well as their children. Obviously, there are the naturals too. But I didn’t know that until after the virus hit. I would have tried to save people if I could have,” he shakes his head, “I wonder about that disease, I feel they must’ve known it was coming. They wanted survivors. Special G.M survivors and natural immunes. They knew the planet couldn’t sustain endless population growth.”
I stare into the flames. My parents could have been saved. I ball my fists. I grind my teeth.
“I’m not sure the army even knew the extent of what would happen, they did not plan for this.”
I breathe heavily. I unclench my fists. I cannot change the past. The only way is forward.
“What about Olly?”
“Yes, well the experiments continued… We were told that they were some combination of vitamins and minerals, designed to completely detoxify us making us more attune naturally. So at first, we thought the effects were due to that, it wasn’t until later when a few of us could do things that were almost supernatural, that we realised the truth. They had been micro-dosing us with a derivative of N-Dimethyltryptamine, a compound found naturally in plants and animals.”
“What? N Di-what?”
“Some people call it the spirit molecule. It has psychoactive properties, though the army manipulated it and messed about with it.”
“Oh.”
“Anyway, they increased the dosage over time. Micro-doses became doses, double doses, well… you get the idea. Olly was born of the fifth batch, only after he was conceived did I begin to realise what was going on. When I was on that last round, I could sense the slightest nervousness in the air. I could sense the calm. I knew who was going to enter a room before I saw them. I could move things, only small things with my mind. I knew what everyone was thinking. I could hear sweat beading on someone’s brow. It made me hyper-sensitive, and observant. Anyway, as far as I am aware Olly is the only child born of the fifth batch. Your parents were the only ones to actually choose that particular donation because you were already alive, it made sense to use the same donor. You and Olly and all the other children born of this have slightly altered D.N.A. In a sense, you and Olly are probably two of the most naturally powerful people ever to exist. The thing is the power has to be learned and improved on. I can only imagine that in the past you probably were afraid of your senses, thinking them abnormal, denying them, like they were some rouge sense or something.”
“Oh my God, yeah I did, that’s true. I thought there was something wrong with me. I didn’t understand. But when all this started, I began to realise it was something else because of Olly. He started doing weird things. I was scared at first, but because of him, I began using my senses. He was teaching me.”
“I’m sorry that you felt abnormal, like I say I didn’t understand myself at first.”
“It’s OK, don’t worry. It’s not your fault. I’d be dead now if I had been any different. And despite everything I am happy to be alive.”
Stephen smiles, “good. I am so glad to hear that.”
We both sit and stare into the flames for a moment.
“I became very curious you know. I wanted to see you. I had to see you both, so I broke into the army records, they knew where you all were. They were monitoring you. I had to see you both for myself. I wanted to know what you were like. I walked past the house a few times, I saw you on the bus. I wanted to protect you, but I couldn’t introduce myself.”
“I knew it. I knew I had seen you before, before all this started.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before, I just couldn’t find the words.”
“Don’t worry about it, you’re here now.”
We stare into the fire both lost in our own thoughts.
“Can you tell me about Archie?” I ask nervously.
“I never actually imagined he would be that determined to get you. There are others he could have found, many others. I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault.”
Stephen smiles sadly.
“Anyway,” he continues, “he hated me, well he wanted me to join him, I refused and then he hated me. The injections drove him to the edge. They seemed to affect him the most. He had a more natural affinity with them you see. He had the most natural gifts. He could’ve been so good. But instead…”
We stare into the fire. Suddenly the memory of the syringes on Archie’s desk flash across my mind. They had the number six written on them. He wanted me to see them. He wanted me to have this moment of understanding. He knew I would escape. He knew Olly would come for me. Of course he knew. Shit. Shit. Shit. He was injecting them, of course he knew.
“What is it?” Stephen asks.
“Nothing.” I shake my head. “Nothing, don’t worry,” I say.
My stomach suddenly cramps. I wince in pain.
“Are you OK?”
“Yeah. Yeah,” I try and convince myself. This is not happening. “Just hungry and tired.”
“One sec,” Stephen jumps up and runs into the kitchen.
He comes back with a biscuit tin and puts it down on my knee. I take off the lid. All the chocolatey ones are still there. It tastes so good.
“We have plenty to keep us going.”
“Mmmm, I’d almost forgotten that taste. All I had at the farm was noodles and stews.”
A look of guilt passes across Stephen’s face. He shivers and begins poking the fire again. I finish the biscuit and have another.
“Anyway tell me what happened with you two?” I say, wanting to change the subject, not wanting to think on the cell and the rapes for any longer than I need to.
“Well,” he replies, “you remember we were out on the boat.”
I nod and pick up another biscuit.
“We’d caught a few fish. You were inside the house sulking,” he laughs.
“I remember.”
“Well, all of a sudden, Olly freaks out. He starts screaming your name. He stands up and the boat starts rocking from side to side, I try and calm him down. But then he gets worse. He just starts screaming this strange, abnormal scream. I’d never heard anything like it before. It was like the one you heard last night.”
I nod.
“I mean when we were in the army strange things would happen, but nothing like that, not to that extent. Dark clouds started forming over head and then the rain started, it got worse and worse, and then the hail began.”
/> “Oh my God, yeah I remember that. The men had to stop driving, the hail, it was huge.”
“Yes, it was.” He breathes heavily. “All this time we are out in the middle of the lake, the hail starts hitting us and the boat. One hit my leg, I winced in pain, I tell you I had a bruise for a month. Olly saw, and then after that, it was like a force field was around us, neither of us got hit again. I know now Olly did it somehow, he made a break in the cloud or something, he can’t remember it was all instinct, strange and wonderful. He was manipulating nature. I remember the hail was so big and was falling so hard that around us on the lake it looked like mad piranhas were in a feeding frenzy. I just stared at it. I couldn’t understand at first. All this seemed to happen in a flash. I then tried to calm Olly down. He was screaming your name as if it were some sort of ancient war cry. I can’t explain it, it was so strange. I’d never experienced anything like it, not even while we were dosed up, you see it is part of him, he can do only what we dreamt of.”
“He did it with me once when we were running away from some of the sick people, they were chasing us. I wasn’t sure at the time, I was so scared, but now, after last night I know it was him. He made them collapse. He saved me.”
“Then you know.”
I nod. We sit in silence for a moment, each one of us remembering the moment of the scream.
“Anyway,” he says breaking the silence, “even though the hail somehow avoided hitting either one of us, the boat was starting to fill up with them. I wanted to row back, but it was impossible because the boat was rocking back and forth violently. It was like waves were coming out from under us, like we were the epicentre. Olly was screaming ‘they have taken her, we need to get her’. I calmed myself down, grabbed him and hugged him. I told him over and over that we will find you, we will save you.”
“Poor Olly, he knew, he actually knew.”
“Yes, he did.”
“I wish I’d listened.”
“I can only imagine.”
We stare at each other for a moment, until I break eye contact, I stare at the biscuits. I sigh mournfully.
“So,” he continues, “somehow I manage to calm him down, and then I get us to the shore. We checked the house, you were gone. We run out the front, nothing, no sign of you. I see Olly’s about to explode again. I kneel in front of him, take hold of his little arms and make him know we will find you and that you’ll be OK.”
Tears of Blood Page 20