Blood Crazy

by Simon Clark

  After that we didn’t do much of anything. The rain stayed off so I checked over the Shogun and topped up the tank from a can. Sarah came out to watch me at one point, her arms folded over her breasts, long hair blowing back in the breeze.

  ‘I’m sorry about this morning, Nick. Vicki and Anne are still upset about what happened.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it. It’s a wonder we’re not all swinging through the trees screaming our heads off. This is the biggest piece of shit to hit the fan since Noah’s flood.’

  She kissed me on the cheek then returned to the cottage. Blushing, I checked our food stocks. They were adequate but I’d have to hunt out more supplies in a few days. As I counted canned beans questions ran through my head. Should we stop or should we go? The cottage seemed safe for now. But more than once I thought of the Goldilocks-and-the-three-bears scenario. Should we try and find where the sane world started once more?

  And I remembered last night when Sarah and I kissed. What would happen tonight?

  There were no answers, only questions. I started counting bags of sugar.

  Evening came. Vicki and Anne went off to bed. Sarah cut bread in the kitchen.

  ‘Nick, would you get me the cheese?’

  It was an innocent enough request but it was a set-up. To get the cheese from the cupboard I had to get past her, between the table and worktop. As I moved sideways through the gap between Sarah, her back to me, and the table, she arched her back and pushed gently back. I had to brush by her, my groin sliding across her bottom.

  It doesn’t seem much in cold print. But it was probably the most erotic experience I’d had with my clothes on.

  She said nothing, but gave me a shy smile as she licked the butter from her finger. My heart changed gear and I felt a giddy flush. ‘I’ll get some wood for the fire.’

  What’s that Rod Stewart song? Tonight’s The Night.

  The night, cool and clear. A full moon lit the trees making the leaves twinkle silver. Beneath the leaves the tree trunks marched off into the dark in pale columns. Back at the cottage the candlelight showed downstairs windows as yellow oblongs. Upstairs they were black. Anne and Vicki were asleep.

  Despite everything – my brother, Steve, cities on fire, madmen – all I could think about at that moment was Sarah. Her blonde hair flowing down to her bottom. Her bare arms and the little gold chain round one wrist. The thought of seeing her naked by firelight was pure, mind-blowing, body-vibrating excitement.

  I wanted to run back right then but I walked to the edge of the wood, sucking in the cold air. I wanted to return poised and in control. Not looking like Homer Simpson slobbering over a bucketful of chocolate.

  Moonlight splotched on the grass between trees. No breeze to ruffle the leaves. Absolute stillness.

  Sarah was waiting for me. I imagined her smile as I walked into the cottage. Her arms coming up around my neck.

  It was only as I began to walk back to the cottage that something registered in my head.

  There were too many trees.

  I looked back into the forest. The tree trunks were closer together than earlier in the day. No. Get a grip, Aten. Again that feeling cracked through my head. I was losing my grip. I was going mad too.

  ‘S easy to do. ’S easy, Nick. Just imagine the trees are creeping up to cluster round the house. They reach out their branches like grannie’s knotty arms to hug you tight.

  No, Nick. I bit my lip hard enough to bring reality juddering back. The reason why the trees are flocking toward the cottage is because they aren’t trees at all. They are …

  People.

  My eyes tuned to the gloom and I saw them.

  What I’d taken as hundreds more tree trunks were men and women. They were standing scattered through the forest as far as I could see. And they were looking at me.

  I began walking backward. An object clunked against my foot.

  I looked down.

  Casually lying on his side, the upper part of his body supported by one elbow, like he was enjoying a sunny afternoon in his garden, was a man. About fifty with a stubbled beard, he looked up at me. No expression on his face but his eyes shone like balls of blue neon in the moonlight. He did not move. He only watched. And I felt terror come at me like a knife and cut me through.

  I froze. The madman’s eyes held me there. I waited for the avalanche of people to fall on me and kill me there in the wood.

  Without moving my head, I scanned the hundreds of men and women standing there like mannequins. They must have crept up to us like a tide creeps up a beach.

  They were waiting for something to trigger them to attack. Perhaps a movement from me, or just some animal instinct inside them.

  Slowly, slowly, I began moving back to the house. I walked backwards. My guts told me to keep facing them. Only pray you don’t fall over anything.

  By the time I reached the cottage door my mouth had dry-welded shut. Sweat soaked me. And, Christ, I just wanted to run and scream.

  I looked back at the people. Not one of them had moved, but I sensed a change in them. They had seen their prey. Soon they would hunt.

  ‘I thought you’d got lost.’

  Sarah sat on the rug in front of the log fire. She’d brushed her hair so it fell down over her shoulders, arms and chest like a golden cloak.

  I stared at her. She must have thought I’d been struck stupid.

  As I closed the door and slid the bolt I whispered, ‘Sarah. Get Vicki and Anne. We’re going.’

  Sarah’s face flashed shock. ‘They’re here, aren’t they?’

  ‘They are all around the fucking cottage … Now move, Sarah. Please.’

  She shifted, fast and silent. In five minutes Vicki and Anne stood yawning in the kitchen. Sarah said to her sisters, ‘Listen. We’re going out to the car. No one talk, make a noise, or let go of my hand.’

  She looked at me which I guessed meant, Okay, let’s do it.

  I snuffed the candles, picked up the axe, then slid back the bolt. I went first; Sarah, gripping her sisters’ hands, followed. We had to get into the car as quickly and as silently as we could. Then blast out of there like a bullet from a gun.

  The people still stood weirdly in the wood. Like statues. I could see more lay under the trees in that strange, casual way. On their sides, lifting themselves up on one elbow. Vicki hung back staring back at the hundreds of eyes gleaming from out of the darkness.

  Sarah gently pulled her to the car.

  At that point I guessed the nearest was about forty yards from us. If they charged now, we’d be ripped to pieces.

  As I stood between the girls and the nearest lunatics, axe at the ready, Sarah pushed her sisters into the back seat.

  I saw Vicki reach across to the back door and give it a hefty pull to shut it. A door slam would have sounded like a gunshot in this silent forest.

  The best I could do was to simply jam my arm between the door and the bodywork.

  The door hit my forearm with a soft thump. Quiet, but the pain shot up my neck like a bullet.

  Sarah, eyes big with concern, came round the car to help but I waved her to get in the passenger seat. She did, closing the door without a sound. As soon as I clicked the rear door gently shut Anne locked it.

  Then I was in the driver’s seat, door locked, turning the ignition and whispering, ‘Come on, sweetheart, first time … first time.’

  It did. The engine purred – the sweetest sound I’ve ever heard.

  At first I didn’t switch on the lights. I waited until the speedo was nudging twenty before I hit the switch. As the beams blew away the dark the car lurched and bumped over something in the road. The girls let out gasping cries, but the back wheels bounced straight over it and we were away.

  We could have run over a branch. But I knew it wasn’t. It was something soft … fleshy, lying on the road. I drove the car away into the night.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Do You Want to Live or Do You Want to Die?

  We drov
e through the night to get back to Doncaster. Sarah agreed. We felt safer in a place we knew.

  On the edge of town just before the North Bridge spans the river, canal and railway lines there’s one of these out-of-town retail parks, fronted by a massive car park. It consists of six or seven huge stores that sell furniture, DIY, carpets and electrical goods.

  Vicki saw the people first and squealed for us to stop.

  We parked a hundred yards from the nearest store. What we saw were a group to-ing and fro-ing, carrying all kinds of stuff – chairs, boxes, bedding, you name it. Sarah leaned over my side so she could see through my window. ‘Well … What do you think?’

  ‘They look young,’ I said. ‘So let’s take a closer look.’

  At first I thought kids were looting the stores. As I drove up I saw they were organised. They were bringing goods from outlying stores to one central store that had the makings of a compound outside the front doors. No sooner had I parked by a row of trucks then a tall, smiling youth was striding toward us. I got out of the car.

  ‘Hi, I’m Dave Middleton. Nice to see you.’

  He appeared genuinely pleased to see us and shook everyone’s hand in turn, while asking our names. Late teens, well spoken, even though dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt he had a well groomed look.

  He said, ‘The first question I have to ask is – do you want to live? Or do you want to die?’ The smile dropped for a second.

  ‘Well, what do you think?’ asked Sarah, puzzled.

  ‘Sorry.’ The smile flashed back. ‘I have to be brutal and ask it right out. We’re trying to get a community together here. Some people have been turning up who are, quite frankly, time wasters. We’ve no room for passengers. You look worn out, Nick. You too, girls. I’ll get coffee organised and you can get to know us.’

  Smiling, he led us inside. It was a furniture store so there was no shortage of chairs and sofas to sit on. Within five minutes we had coffee and sandwiches.

  ‘I’ll be back in two ticks. We’re just making this place secure.’

  I didn’t know Dave Middleton, but I knew what he’d been like in life before the sanity crash. I could see him from a cash-fat family; no doubt he was a youth leader at the local church. Without trying the mental picture came of him leading a group of clean-cut kids through the mountains singing hymns in Joy to the World voices.

  A good-looking, clean-living guy who I never saw in my world of red-hot nightclubs. I’d seen them at school, though, and I hated them. Now I saw they had their place on Earth. Level headed, good organisers, Dave Middleton was doing the Phoenix bit and pulling a crowd of kids out of the ashes of a burning civilization.

  Half an hour later he took us on a conducted tour, long legs springing him along, like he was showing us around his beloved church.

  ‘I was on a camping weekend with some friends when it happened.’ He sounded indestructibly cheerful. ‘I know it’s only a few days since, but things came together quite quickly … This is where the girls sleep. What we’re not short of is beds. Boys sleep in the warehouse at the back there. This way, please. Watch your feet, Sarah, Michael’s been careless with the packing … Michael, don’t forget to put the plastic sheets in the sacks. We don’t want anyone falling over them. Right, where was I … Oh, that’s it. Within two days we’d collected fifty-six people, some we literally picked up from the street – from toddlers to the eldest, that’s Rebecca Keene, she’s eighteen. We put together a convoy of vehicles and set out to find somewhere safe to stay. This seemed the best. It’s secure. There are no windows apart from those at the front where the main doors are. We’re going to protect that area with a barbed wire compound. You’ll notice we’ve got electricity. The store has emergency generators.’

  We followed him upstairs into what would have been the manager’s office. Its mirror windows looked out across the hangar-size store, beds and furniture stretching to the distant doors. Children and teenagers buzzed up and down the aisles each with their own task – none slacked.

  ‘Excuse me a moment.’ Dave picked up a microphone. His voice rolled across the place like God’s own. ‘Rebecca Keene. Rebecca Keene and Martin Del-Coffey to the office, please. Oh, and can I have everyone’s attention? Will all those handling barbed wire remember they must wear gloves. Thank you.’ He swivelled back to smile at us. ‘Right, I’ll introduce you to the Steering Committee.’

  Steering Committee. By that I guessed he meant ‘bosses.’

  Sarah caught my eye. Just a bit, she raised her eyebrows. If we weren’t running for our lives she’d have found this amusing.

  Me? Me, I’d have laughed my frigging socks off.

  Then Dave Middleton went into detail. He listed the vehicles, food and bottled water reserves, medicines, the group’s objectives. He even had something called a mission statement he’d written in blue and red and pinned to the wall. As he talked a bony girl in a blue headscarf joined us, very sober faced. Another holy roller, I decided. This was Rebecca Keene. Then came a sixteen-year-old with wispy blond hair and a high forehead. His untied laces trailed along the floor. This was the steering committee.

  ‘I must confess.’ Dave smiled. ‘We’re self-appointed. Once we’re settled we’ll hold elections so everyone can decide who will be in charge. Rebecca and I have experience of leading youth groups through our work at St Timothy’s. Martin Del-Coffey here is our resident genius. You might have seen features on him in the local newspaper. He has the highest recorded IQ for his age in the area covered by Doncaster’s Education Authority.’

  Bully for him. I’d have said that a week ago. Not now though. My cockiness had been yanked out. I nodded politely.

  Rebecca spoke in a schoolmistress voice. ‘It’s individuals of Martin’s calibre who will restore our society to what it was before.’

  ‘Only better.’ Martin did not smile. He was there for brains not for charm.

  ‘Excuse me.’ Dave spoke into the PA. ‘Alpha team. Alpha team. Lunchbreak. Remember to be out of the canteen by twelve. We’ve lots of work to get through today.’

  On the shop floor I saw a third of the kids stop whatever they were doing and head for a doorway at the back of the store.

  The steering committee questioned us and I realised we were being assessed. If we didn’t reach a certain mark were we out the door?

  At one point a boy of about eleven tapped on the door and gave some kind of report. ‘We’ve done the circuit, Dave.’

  ‘Anything?’

  ‘Mr Creosote in a house on Briar Lane.’

  ‘How many?’

  ‘Just the one, Dave. There’s something wrong with his leg. He can’t walk right.’

  ‘Well done, Robert. Get some lunch. After that check the river banks as far as Camel’s.’

  Sarah raised her eyebrows. ‘Mr Creosote?’

  Rebecca said, ‘It’s a generic name for the affected adults. A girl used the name Mr Creosote to describe one of the adults that had become ill. The younger ones carried on using the name. It stuck. Now the mentally ill adults have become Mr and Mrs Creosote.’

  ‘It’s a way of sugar coating a very bitter pill, Miss Hayes.’ Martin leaned back picking his fingernails. ‘It frightens the children to say we’re being hounded by a million madmen. Mr Creosote doesn’t sound completely sinister, does it now?’

  A week ago I’d have wanted to slap the arrogant egghead. I nodded meekly.

  ‘From what we’ve seen adults are the only ones affected.’ Sarah, brisk, still hunted answers. ‘They attacked their own children – if they have no children they attack anyone under the age of twenty.’

  ‘Nineteen.’ Martin found his fingernails fascinating. ‘We’ve not found anyone nineteen or older who is sane. We’ve not encountered anyone insane under that age. Whatever attacked their minds was brutally selective.’

  Sarah leaned forward bunching her fists on her knees. ‘But what caused it?’

  ‘That, Miss Hayes, is what I intend to find out.’

 
; Dave said, ‘Martin is excused normal duties. He’s been assigned to research. It’s his job to track down the cause.’

  ‘From what I can determine so far,’ Martin said, ‘the condition is similar to the mental illness schizophrenia.’

  ‘I’ve heard of it,’ said Sarah. ‘It’s curable.’

  ‘Yes, in most cases it can be treated with drugs. But I said similar to schizophrenia. Not the same. Many of the symptoms are present. Paranoia and delusions. Mr and Mrs Creosote seem to be actually afraid of their children – perhaps when they see us they don’t see their sons and daughters but disgusting, frightening monsters that they feel compelled to destroy before we destroy them. Also you’ll have noticed their intellect has been top sliced, rendering them subhuman. They no longer drive cars, live in houses, or use tools.’

  Dave added: ‘We’ve seen bizarre patterns in their behaviour. Have you?’

  I told them about the mass migration south I’d seen on the motorway.

  ‘We’ve seen them laying out bottles,’ Dave said, ‘cans, even jewellery in patterns in car parks and fields. Patterns that although intricate are just … just—’

  ‘Just plain potty.’ For the first time Martin sounded interested in the conversation. ‘It suggests that these patterns have purpose and are very, very important to Mr and Mrs Creosote.’ He smiled. ‘Consequently it appears that Mr Creosote is attempting to communicate with someone.’

  ‘Who?’

  Martin raised his eyes. ‘Someone up there.’

  We talked more, then Dave leaned forward. ‘Sarah. Nick. The question is, would you like to join our community?’

  What else could we say?

  We said it together. ‘Yes. Thank you.’

  ‘If you would just fill in these, please.’ Rebecca handed us a sheet of paper. ‘It’s a short questionnaire. It’s important we know something about you and what talents you possess so we can use you most effectively within the community.’

  Dave Middleton had re-created a slice of civilization in a furniture store in the middle of madland. I knew then I’d hate having to conform and follow the orders of a smarmy church boy.