Throwback

by Guy N Smith

  It was Racel she feared most during those hours whilst Kuz was away. A slim young girl with no man of her own although sometimes the other men took her to satisfy their lust, a nymph who spent most of her time alone down by the stream. Jackie feared lest one night Kuz might go to her, her own status would then be in jeopardy. Her own hatred towards Racel simmered, she even considered killing the girl, holding her down in the water where she would not even be able to scream, leaving her there for the others to find. An accident, a drowning, none would be able to prove otherwise. But she hesitated, hoped that it would not come to that. As yet Kuz had shown no more than a passing interest in the younger girl. Jackie would keep a close watch on the situation. She would lose her life before she relinquished her mate.

  Then one evening the hunters returned with a prisoner. An excited chattering from the other women brought Jackie to the door of the new dwelling-place, had her shading her eyes from the blinding last rays of the setting sun as she gazed in a westerly direction across the rolling heather and bracken slopes. She made out a file of some twenty or thirty men, the 'bearers' laden with the carcass of some huge animal, probably a bull or a cow, which they had slaughtered and jointed. She recognised Kuz's powerful shape in the lead and in front of him shambled a stooped and cowed form, one whose hands and arms were bound with ropes, being prodded along by a vicious pitchfork in the hands of the chief. Her mouth went dry and she trembled slightly.

  The women flocked to the edge of the camp, clustered together, jabbering and pointing. What was this that the hunters had caught? It looked like a man, yet the features were hairless; the approaching column was now near enough for them to discern details. Strange clothing that virtually enclosed the entire body as though the tender while flesh had to be protected from the elements. Their cries of wonderment turning to fear, they huddled together in case this strange creature suddenly broke free and attacked them.

  But there was no way the captive was going to escape from Kuz and his followers. The rope which bound him was pulled so tightly that his hands were numb from loss of circulation and there was a discoloration on the side of his head that was still swelling, a blow from a club having knocked him unconscious.

  Phil Winder's head throbbed and his vision was distorted; blurred moving shapes around him, threatening creatures that might have come straight out of some weird fantasy movie, celluloid images taking on 3-D perspective. A swift jab to his buttocks from those needle prongs had him crying out his pain and fear aloud, guttural laughs mocking him. He almost blacked out; maybe it would be better if he had done so because when he came to these creatures would have disappeared, and if he didn't regain consciousness then at least he would be spared all this. But he didn't faint, just stumbled, the rope jerked taut preventing him from falling. And he knew then that it was all really happening.

  At twenty his figure was still boyish, possibly ungainly but not when compared with this lot! His mother used to say repeatedly to her friends, 'Our Phil's got his dad's bum and my short legs.' Which was true but it didn't matter any more. He had come home on vacation from college, a week's courtesy stay really at his folks' farm out in the sticks because if he didn't show his face occasionally there was always the possibility that they might cut his allowance, and then he'd be left to manage on his grant which would be a well-nigh impossibility. Staying around the farm was just asking for trouble; Dad would rope him in for the hay harvest or else his mother would make the most of having a driver available and think up all kinds of shopping trips that her husband was always too busy to take her on. 'Now you go and park in the multi-storey and wait for me there—I shan't be long. And on the way back we'd better call and see the Mitchells. I haven't been there since last Christmas and they'll be thinking that I don't want to see them any more.' Mother would fill his days all right if Dad didn't, so he'd gone pot-holing. Well, not real pot-holing because the old mine shafts were artificial. Dangerous, too, but if you were careful you were safe enough. The locals called them the 'treacle mines', lead mines which were played out now, but there were a few shafts still open if you could find them, hidden in the moorland heather.

  That was when Phil Winder's first nightmare had begun. He had found a deep shaft, had winched himself down. There was water in the bottom but only an inch or so, it drained away somewhere down one of the passages that led off from the main one. Using his torch he had followed that first passage, come to a fork and taken the left-hand one. Fascinating, exciting; the roof was sound enough even if it did sag in places and he had to crawl sometimes for ten yards at a stretch. Possibly nobody had come down here since the mine had closed at the turn of the century. There was no knowing what he might find. His spirit of adventure spurred him on oblivious of the obvious danger until it was too late. He was lost!

  Panic at first, wanting to scream, to run blindly down every opening he came to. Help me, for God's sake somebody! But nobody would hear him. To give up, to slump down on the wet floor and sob. There's no way out, you'll die down here; they won't even find your body to give you a funeral. This is your grave, your own private tomb. You're here forever. You'll go mad before you die.

  After the initial shock he had managed to pull himself together. He wouldn't get anywhere either by panicking or giving up, either way he would die. First, he had to rest, get his strength back, conserve his torch batteries as well. Then later he would embark upon a systematic exploration of the mine tunnels until he found the shaft that led up to the world above. It had to be here somewhere, it was just a question of stumbling on it. He could only hope. He didn't pray because he did not believe. Even in this sort of desperate situation he wasn't going to yield to that religious indoctrination that it had taken him all his college years to get rid of, like a child convincing himself that there isn't a bogey in the stair cupboard.

  Fatigue forced him to sleep and when he awoke he embarked upon the search again, got the distinct feeling that some of the tunnels doubled back on themselves. It might have been his imagination, he was so disorientated that he couldn't be sure. He had lost all track of time, regretted not having brought a watch with him; didn't even know how long he had been below ground. It was impossible to hazard a guess. Hours, days? Eternal blackness whenever he switched the torch off, using it sparingly now because the battery was running out. Soon he would have to face up to life without even that dim yellow glow.

  He was hungry, too. Nausea that had him retching, tasting his own bile and smelling his own sweat. Once he almost got round to praying, that was how bad it was.

  He was glad he had not yielded to the temptation because shortly after that he spied a sliver of weak daylight up ahead of him and knew he'd found the shaft. If he had prayed his mind would never have accepted that those prayers had not been answered; he might even have started going to chapel again on Sundays. Sorry Mum, Dad, you were right after all. Sorry God. One coincidence could have changed his future life.

  It took him some time to get back up to the surface. At one stage he thought he wasn't going to make it because he was so weak, like that time he had had the measles when he was sixteen. But he got there in the'end, lay prone in the scorching sun a few yards from the shaft entrance and promised himself he would never go pot-holing again. Not ever. Let's go on that shopping trip to Shrewsbury tomorrow, Mum. I'll wait for you in the multi-storey. Take your time, I don't mind how long you are. And maybe the day after I'll give Dad a hand with the hay harvest. But I won't ever go underground again.

  Eventually he got to his feet, swayed unsteadily as a fit of dizziness engulfed him. An awful thought; suppose he fell and toppled back down there. Walking wasn't easy, he could have flopped down into the soft springy heather and just gone to sleep. But he had to get home; they would be searching for him, maybe even the police were out with tracker dogs, lines of civilians scouring the hills. He was not even sure if he had been below ground overnight, whether this sun which sweated him was the same one that had been rising upwards on its morning journey
when he had left the farm.

  A feeling that something was decidedly wrong but he couldn't place it. The silence. Even out here you always heard a tractor or a Land Rover in the distance, the constant hum of rural activity so much in contrast to the city clamour. That was what he hated about the country, so bloody quiet it gave you the creeps. A little shiver prickled his skin. This was just too bloody quiet, even for the country.

  Walking down a sheep track that flattened out into a bridle-path, overhanging boughs lush with full summer greenery, the grass thick and strong. Everywhere smelled sweet, sickly sweet. That was because his stomach was empty, blackmailing him; give me food or else I'll throw up.

  The silence was starting to get on his nerves. You always heard something. But not now. The path widened and he came to a stile, the beginning of his father's land. Wasn't anybody out looking for him, hadn't they even missed him?

  Sheep; normally he would not have given them a second glance because they didn't interest him. In-bred, unhealthy, non-thinking, stupid animals. His head jerked round again and he stared in surprise. They were his father's white-faced Suffolks all right with a black 'W stamped on their fleeces, doing exactly what you would have expected them to be doing; grazing like they were starving, hadn't seen food for a week. Only they were grazing a field of growing barley!

  He could not see where they had got in because the field was large and undulating; one weak place in the hedge adjoining the long stretch of pastureland would have been enough and they would have trotted through in single file, following the sheep in front like they always did. OK, everybody's stock got out sometimes but he knew his father well enough to know that the sheep wouldn't be out for long before John Winder discovered them and came post haste in his pick-up with Flook to round them up and drive them back. But there was no sign of anybody.

  Phil stood watching for a few seconds and then he broke into a fast trot. Personally he didn't give a fuck about the sheep in the barley but he knew that something had to be wrong back home. Maybe they were too busy out looking for him. It was a logical explanation, but somehow it didn't ring true, even if it did make him feel guilty. You bloody selfish bastard.

  He took a short-cut across the big grass field, saw the farmhouse when he topped the brow. Something about it added to his unease. Sure it was summer and there wouldn't be smoke coming out of the kitchen chimney. But there would be activity of some kind. The red pick-up was in the yard; there was no sign of the bantams which virtually lived by the back door. He started to run.

  Breathless, he went in through the yard gate and that was when he first saw his parents. They were in the big dutch barn which still had a few bales of last year's hay in it and ... oh Christ, it wasn't really them . . . was it? No, for fuck's sake, you aren't my parents!

  His logic tried to throw out all sorts of answers, tried to make him believe them. A couple of tramps, filthy dirty and with no clothes, they'd hidden in the barn. But these weren't tramps. Facially they resembled his mother and father, the man looking like his pubic hair had run riot and grown a widening path right up to his stubble of a beard. Instead of the old-fashioned short back and sides his hair curled greasily down to his shoulders. Phil kept his eyes elevated; it was too embarrassing to look below the waistline of your own father.

  On to his mother: she had lost her false teeth so that her cheeks were hollowed, her mouth shrunken. Again an excess of hair but it was not so prolific on her body as on her husband's. Unsightly baggy breasts that sagged with age, a roll of waistline fat that she had hidden from him for years with a pair of corsets. A V of hair; he jerked his head away, saw their expressions of fear, the way they backed away from him. It was them.

  'Father, mother.' He whispered the words, tried to will them to shout back, 'We're not your father and mother.' They huddled together pathetically, whined like a pair of collies that knew they were in for a good larruping. For maybe ten seconds parents and offspring stared at one another and then with a shrill shriek the two hideous caricatures broke into a shuffling flight, scrambling over hay bales, dragging each other in turn, out through the other end of the bay and into the fields.

  Phil Winder stood and watched them go. He did not pursue them because he did not want to catch up with them again, did not want to have to look upon their wizened animal-like faces and have to convince himself once more that they were his parents.

  He didn't need any more convincing, didn't look for reasons, accepted that some terrible change had come over everybody and everything. Except himself? Fearfully he smoothed his hands down his body, felt at his skin. He seemed OK.

  It was a long time before he finally plucked up the courage to go into the house, kicked open the back door and almost shouted 'Is anybody there?' Of course there was nobody there. Then the stench hit him, a foul putrefying odour that would have had him spewing if he hadn't had an empty stomach. He retched and it hurt, recognised the smell even before he saw the mess on the red quarry tiles, patches of semi-solid excreta crawling with bluebottles. They lifted, settled again almost immediately, fed ravenously.

  They've shit on the floor, a voice inside him gasped and he wanted to cry. Oh Jesus, who's done this to my folks?

  Apart from that the house was much the same as it always was, working-class tidiness reminiscent of his mother's upbringing in a farm labourer's cottage in the days when people really were poor. He checked himself in the mirror, didn't really care now whether anything had happened to him or not. Physically he looked the same. But I'm going slowly fucking mad.

  Looking back he could not really remember how he had passed the rest of that awful day. He had shovelled up the mess on the kitchen floor, thrown it out into the yard and the flies had followed it. After that he had just sat about, lying to himself that his mother and father would be back later and everything would be all right.

  But they did not return and everything wasn't all right. Dusk merged into darkness and he still sat there in the old wooden rocking chair by the dead Rayburn. He was still there in the morning when the sun's rays gently eased him awake and everything came flooding back to him. I'm glad I don't believe in you, God, because you wouldn't have let this happen. He ate a tin of cold beans and cut his finger opening the can so that he spottled blood on the working surface. Eventually he stopped bleeding and made himself some coffee, tried to work out what he was going to do.

  He needed help; he'd take the pick-up into the village and tell the police. The police always knew what to do, didn't get in a flap. His mind made up, he went outside, noted absent-mindedly that it was going to be another scorcher. He had completely forgotten about his experiences below ground; this was far more terrifying.

  As he drove into the village he knew right away he wasn't going to get any help—because there wasn't anybody here to help him. Like a trained burglar sussing out prospective houses he could tell that every one was empty, whether the front doors hung open or not.

  He might have been a century too late, the inhabitants dead and gone. A cat jumped off a stone wall and fled at his approach. A mongrel dog barked at him from a distance then turned and ran with its tail between its legs. Apart from that there was no sign of life.

  He pulled up by the triangle of rough unmown grass that was fondly termed 'the Green' and saw at a glance that the telephone in the kiosk had been vandalised; the receiver and dialling mechanism were torn away, left smashed and bent on the floor.

  He sighed his despair, glanced at the Mazda's petrol gauge. Almost empty, just about enough juice to get him back to the farm. And he was only going back there because it had once been his home.

  He made it to the yard gates before the engine stuttered and died, free-wheeled the last few yards. It was only later that he asked himself why he hadn't tried some of those parked cars in the village; almost surely he would have found one with the keys in and some petrol in the tank. But he hadn't and that was that. He wasn't going back there again.

  Days stretched into weeks and still he hu
ng around the farm doing nothing. When the fridge was empty he started on the freezer; the generator out by the buildings would keep it going for some time yet because it was not running anything else. When he ran out of food he would think of something but not until. His parents would not be coming back, the sheep were still in the barley and there wasn't a goddamned thing he could do about it. For the time being he would sit it out.

  The initial terror had numbed him but gradually it was wearing off. Acceptance came in stages but reasoning was a different matter. The eternal 'why'. Why had everybody just up and gone? It was some sort of nuclear attack, of course. He had escaped because he had been down the mine but soon radiation would take its toll of him. When he felt really ill and started throwing up he would know that he had radiation sickness, the beginning of the end. Cancer, really. And once he was sure, he would do something about it; he'd read somewhere that it could take you months, even years, to die depending upon how exposed to it you had been. He wasn't going to wait and suffer that long.

  What he needed to do, he decided, was to get away from this place, move further afield and maybe meet up with some other survivors—if there were any.

  And it was on his very first trek beyond the boundary stile on the bridle-path that he met up with that party of hunters from the hills. They must have heard him coming, had lain in wait for him along that overgrown path, some of them up in the trees above.

  Something hit him. Ape actors in a jungle movie coming right out of the screen, sending him sprawling, surrounding him, jabbering. Breathless, he looked up, found the twin prongs of a pitchfork only an inch or so from his throat. He tried to swallow but couldn't make it, let his eyes roll because he couldn't move his head. There were a lot of them, maybe twenty or more, others standing just outside his range of vision. And every one of them bore a strong resemblance to how his parents had looked the last time he had seen them.