by Jule Owen
Her eyes are open, staring blankly. There is a dark neat hole in her forehead.
He staggers to the dry bank, wiping his hands on his trousers, horrified. Grabbing his bag, he runs up the bank and stops at the top, glancing back at Falkous one last time. Then he steps onto the road, half-expecting to be shot or ambushed. But there is no one there. He scans about. Some of the vehicles are gone. He wanders aimlessly amongst the cars, until he comes across the body of the student and the boys and young men Falkous shot. He reaches the end of the queue of cars and sees Vid’s body in the field. The house stands alone on the horizon in a lake of sunset water.
Mathew is standing alone amongst forty or so abandoned cars the gang had not wanted, or did not have the means to take away.
And still no help. There is no sign of the army or police to help them, or at least to come and clear the road. The sun is dying, the sky a raspberry and vanilla smudge. He has no means of contacting anyone. He wonders if any of the on-board computers in the vehicles left on the road work. The cars have all been broken into, the locks blasted away, the doors yanked off with crowbars. He checks several. Everything that can be taken has been taken, including all communication devices. He thinks again about walking to the house in the flooded field. But first he wants to grab a few of his own things from the back of the wrecked Panacea car.
In spite of everything, his bladder is still bursting and he finds a place, against the wheel of an empty, looted van, to obey the call of nature.
Remarkably, no one has broken into the boot of the Panacea car, but it is locked tight and with the car computer stolen he has no way of getting in. Then he remembers Falkous’ handgun. He slipped it in his rucksack when he hid under the car. He pulls it out now. It is cold and heavy. He’s never held a real gun before, but he’s handled similar weapons in hologames he’s played. He taps the bottom of the magazine, looks for and releases the slide on the side of the gun, then points and shoots. The first time he fires, the gun kicks back hard and flips towards his face. The gun, even with the silencer, cracks in the peace of the day. Near the lonely house, large black birds take flight. Mathew can’t see them, but he can hear the flapping of their wings and their caws. The next shot he takes is with a firmer grip. He makes a mess of the boot, but after a few rounds, the lock is obliterated. He slides the safety back on and puts the gun carefully back in his rucksack.
In his bags, in the boot, are the waterproof clothes packed for outdoors life in Elgol, a pair of boots and a coat. He pulls them out, as well as a dry pair of socks and trousers. He stuffs the clean clothes around the bubble-wrapped package in his blue rucksack and retrieves some cans of Coke, a bottle of water and nuts and fruit from the back of the car. Then he sets out back over the bank and weaves his way through the cars, heading in the direction of the house.
There is someone else left alive. A small figure, silhouetted against the sunset in the dimming light, staggering, hands reaching out, feeling wildly in front. Mathew considers changing direction, skirting around the new threat. He hesitates. Stops. Then cautiously he steps towards the stranger.
“Hello?” Mathew says, finally. “Are you okay?”
The figure spins around, hearing his voice. It is a child,. The boy turns his head from the shadow cast by the truck he is standing beside, Mathew’s eyes widen in horror. There is blood all over the front of his clothes. His left eyeball is hanging from its socket by a flesh thread. Bile floods Mathew’s mouth.
“No. No. I’m not okay. Where are you?” the boy asks.
“Here,” Mathew says, moving forward, in spite of his impulse to back away, pity overriding revulsion. He takes hold of the boy’s outstretched hands. “I’m here.”
The relief and gratitude on the boy’s face is extraordinary.
“What happened to you?” Mathew asks, his voice sounding strange and strangled to himself.
The boy is swaying. Mathew opens the door of a nearby car and helps the boy to sit down on a seat. The sight of his face is too much. Mathew stares at the boy’s jeans, stained with blood to the knees. He can hardly believe the boy is conscious or at least not writhing around in pain.
“I couldn’t get my Lenzes out. I was taking too long. So they pinned me down on the floor took them themselves,” the boy says. “I can’t see anything. Is there something wrong with my eyes?”
Mathew doesn’t know what to say. He says, not believing it himself, “You’ll be okay. We’ll get you help.”
“Are the police coming?”
“No,” Mathew says, “I don’t think they are.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know.”
Mathew looks behind him. It is getting dark.
“We need to go,” he says. “We can’t stay here.”
“My parents,” the boy says. “I can’t leave them.”
“Where are they?”
“In our car.”
Mathew wants to ask why they aren’t with him and then stops himself. “Which is your car?” he says; then, realising immediately the boy won’t be able to point it out, he asks, “What does it look like?”
“It’s a taxi.”
“What colour?”
“Yellow.”
That is easy. There is only one yellow car in the huddle still on the motorway. “Do you have anything with you? Clothes? A coat?” The boy is wearing jeans and a sweatshirt and it is getting cold.
“My suitcase is in the boot.”
Mathew walks towards the car. A man and a woman are slumped awkwardly inside. He doesn’t look too closely. It is obvious they are dead. The boot is open. There are three suitcases. Mathew tries each of them until he finds the one belonging to the boy, full of boy’s things. He can’t carry the suitcase, his rucksack and help the boy and there’s little room in his own rucksack for more clothes. He chooses a jacket, a clean pair of trousers, t-shirt and a jumper and closes the boot, then rolls them and stuffs them as best he can into his own bag. He ties a spare pair of shoes by their shoelaces to one of the straps of his bag and swings the whole lot on his back. There’s no point in getting the boy to change until after they have waded through the water, but he helps him into his coat.
“Did you find my parents?”
“Yes,” Mathew says. “We’ll come back for them tomorrow.” He knows this is a lie. They both know it. The boy nods. “Can you walk?” Mathew asks.
“Of course I can.”
“Here,” Mathew says. “Take my hands.” The boy grasps at him. Mathew helps him to his feet. “Now take my arm. Try and let me lead you.”
They step forward haltingly as they learn to walk with one another. It’s slow progress. They get to the bank where Vid’s body lies at the bottom. The boy doesn’t know it’s there. “There’s a slope,” Mathew says. “It’s quite steep. I’ll walk in front and hold your hands to guide you. Come down after me slowly.” The boy shuffles down haltingly. They reach the bottom. “The field is flooded. We’re going to have to be careful. Take my arm again.” The boy does as he’s told. They set off. The light has all but faded, but there is a moon casting a pale light. The house, their target, is a square black silhouette on the horizon. The water is inky. They make silver ripples in it as they walk.
“My feet are cold,” the boy says.
“We’ll be there soon,” Mathew says. “I have a spare dry pair of shoes for you.”
“Thank you,” the boy says. “I don’t know your name.”
“It’s Mathew. What is yours?”
“Isaac.”
The boy is more than a foot shorter than Mathew. He has fine blond, almost white, hair. Mathew is conscious all the time of the boy’s face, which he can’t bring himself to look at. Staring resolutely ahead or at his feet, he tells himself he needs to concentrate.
The water is coming over the top of Mathew’s boots; it’s over the boy’s knees. The ground underneath is slippy. Mathew is worried about the boy falling, of what will happen to him if water gets into his wound. But they stay
upright. The house gets closer. The stars are incredibly bright, magically splattered across the black sky. He has to stop himself from telling the boy to look up.
“How did you escape?” the boy asks.
“I hid in a box in our car.”
“Were you with your parents?”
“No,” Mathew says. “I was with some security people. They were both shot.”
“Dead?”
“Yes.”
“What did they do to my eyes?” Isaac asks.
Mathew doesn’t know what to say.
“It’s bad, isn’t it?”
“You need a doctor.”
They are close to the house. It’s a square red-brick building with a tiled roof; an old farmhouse, built on a bank, but only a foot or so out of the water. They start to climb to it. Mathew’s heart sinks when he sees the windows are dark.
“I don’t feel so good,” Isaac says. Mathew feels him swaying, sinking at the knees.
“No!” Mathew says, grabbing at him. He gets his wrists under the boy’s forearms and manages to drag him up, but he’s not strong enough to carry him. The boy lolls, semi-conscious. Mathew hauls him through the water, up the bank of mud, slipping and struggling to keep his balance. They make it to the top, onto dry ground, and Mathew and the boy collapse. Mathew allows himself to rest for a moment, then gets to his feet and makes for the house. He walks around the darkened building, looking for the front door. There’s a porch, but the light is out and the bell doesn’t work. He hammers on the door.
“Help!” he yells. “Please. Help us.” He keeps hammering.
The house remains dark and still.
“Mathew! Where are you? Mathew!” the boy calls to him in panic.
Mathew goes back to the boy, crouches down and takes his hands.
“I’m here,” he says. “I’m here. It’s okay.”
“Where did you go?”
“I went to try and find help. There’s a house here. Can you stand?” Mathew gets Isaac to his feet. “We can shelter in the porch.”
They find their way back to the front door. Mathew helps the boy to sit with his back against the wall. He finds a place opposite him as the rain starts to come down hard, spitting off the flagstones. It is cold, but at least they are dry. There’s a pathway leading away from the front door of the house. It passes between a hedge into the darkness, but it must go somewhere. This can’t be the only house here. Even if it is, he should make sure. If he can break into the house and get Isaac into dry clothes, he can go and find help. Maybe inside the house there’s a Paper or a Canvas or some means of connecting to the outside world. Then he can tell someone what has happened and summon help.
“Isaac,” Mathew says. “I’m going to try and find a way into the house. I won’t be long.”
“Don’t leave me here,” Isaac says.
“I’m not leaving you, I promise. We need to get out of the rain. I will be back in a few minutes.”
Mathew pulls the hood of his jacket over his head, steps out into the rain and takes the path to the gate. The street beyond is in darkness. The houses have been abandoned. He looks back to the garden. There’s a shed. He goes to it and pushes open the door. It’s pitch dark but he manages to fumble his way to a spade. He grabs it and walks back to the house, finds the nearest window and smashes it. Pulling the sleeve of his jacket over his hand, he picks the remaining blades of glass out of the window frame and then climbs in, falling onto the floor noisily. He’s in a living room. There’s a rug on a wooden floor, an old battered sofa, a fireplace, a coffee table, a bookcase. He stands and dusts himself off, walks into the hallway and opens the front door.
“Isaac,” he says. The boy is huddled into a ball, shaking. “Come on. Let’s get you up.” Mathew hefts the boy to his feet, grabbing under his armpits, and drags him back into the house, into the hallway.
“What do you think you’re doing?” says a man’s voice in the darkness.
Mathew freezes and turns his head, still holding Isaac.
There’s a man on the stairs holding a candle in a candle holder. In his other hand he grips a long sharp kitchen knife.
7 Eyeball
The man walks down the stairs holding a knife. The candle flickers and shadows dance on the high wall by the staircase.
“Get out,” the man says. “Get out of my house.”
“I banged on the door. No one answered. We didn’t think anyone was here.” Weakening under the weight of Isaac, Mathew shuffles slightly towards the man, who is standing at the bottom of the stairs.
“Stay back!” the man says.
Mathew says, “Please. My friend is badly hurt. He needs to see a doctor. We need help.”
The man glances at the boy slumped in Mathew’s arms. Isaac’s face is in shadow. A woman comes down the stairs and stops behind the man. “Jack?” she says.
“Go upstairs,” Jack tells her, brusquely.
“I will not. What is going on?”
“Please,” Mathew says. “My friend is hurt. You have to help us.”
The man holds out the candle and he and the woman both see Isaac's face.
“Oh my God!”
The woman comes down the stairs, pushing past her husband. “Let’s get him to the sofa.” She helps Mathew lift Isaac. The man follows them into the front room.
“What on earth happened?”
“We were on the motorway. The road was blocked. A gang attacked us. Kids with guns. They shot the people I was with. They shot his parents.” Mathew looks at Isaac, unsure if he can hear. “I didn’t see what happened to him, but Isaac told me they tried to take his Lenzes and…” Mathew stops. “I found him like this. There was no one left on the motorway. All the others had been killed or taken away. No one came to help. I saw your house and headed here. I knocked. I did knock pretty hard.”
“I know. We heard you. I’m sorry, we didn’t realise. We thought you had come to harm us.”
Mathew nods. “Is there a doctor in the village?”
The man, who is standing in the hallway still holding the knife, says, “I’ll go and get her.” He puts the knife down, staring at it, as if surprised it is there, and brings the candle in the holder to the woman, who reaches and takes it from him. Then he goes back into the hall, grabs a coat hanging on a hook behind the door and pulls it on.
“Be quick,” she says.
“I will.”
The woman puts the candle on the floor and sits down beside it. She is in her forties, brown-skinned, small and thin, dressed in a print dress. She offers her hand to Mathew, “My name is Elia. My husband’s name is Jack.”
Mathew shakes her hand, “I’m Mathew. This is Isaac.”
She reaches out to Isaac, who is very still, and strokes his hair. Mathew does not know how she can bear to touch his face. “What monsters would do this?”
Mathew shrugs. “They killed the others.”
“They don’t normally come this close to town.”
“Who are they?”
“They call themselves the Reapers. A large gang of boys and young men. They rob, loot, kidnap and worse. There is no money, no work, no food, no law and order since the floods, so they take what they need from others. But they usually leave us alone. They are scared of the village. You should have been too.”
“Scared?”
The front door opens again. Jack returns with an older woman, grey-haired and stocky.
“That was quick,” Elia says.
“I was on my way back from Gerrard’s.”
“Mathew, this is Dr Russell.”
The elderly doctor nods at Mathew. “Who’s the patient?”
“Isaac.”
The older woman hands her coat to Jack, and hurries into the room, putting her bag on the table. She stops short when she sees Isaac's face. “Dear me,” she says.
“Can you help him?” Mathew asks.
“I will try. How long has his eye been like that?”
Mathew says, “I don’t know. A
few hours, maybe?”
The doctor leans over Isaac, “His eyeball is pretty shrivelled up. Can we get him onto your kitchen table, Jack?”
Mathew, Jack and the doctor carry Isaac from the sofa in the living room into the kitchen. Elia clears the table and they place Isaac flat on his back. Jack holds the candle for the doctor as she leans over the boy. “I need more light,” she says, exasperated.
Elia, hovering by the door, says, “I’ll get some more candles.”
“And what happens to us when we burn through them all?” Jack says.
“The doctor needs light.”
“So do we.”
“Oh, for god’s sake! I’ll give you my bloody candles to replace them the next time I come,” Dr Russell says as Elia lights candles around Isaac's head. “Thank you, my dear,” she says to Elia.
She examines Isaac. After a few minutes she says, “There’s nothing I can do with this,” the doctor says, “but cut it off.”
“You’re going to cut off his eyeball?”
“It’s dried out. If we were in a hospital with the right facilities I might be able to do something, but here…” she looks around helplessly. “It will be all I can do to stop infection.”
“What about his other eye? He said he couldn’t see at all.”
The doctor takes an instrument from her bag, peels open Isaac's closed lid and peers into his eye. “Looks okay. Did he say he could see out of it?”
Mathew says, “He can’t see anything. He’s totally blind.”
“It may be scratched… If he’s lucky, it will heal.”
“So he’s not blind?”
“I have no idea. I need to work on this other eye. I’m not sure how squeamish you all are, but I’d like some space to work.” She looks around at everyone. “Would you vacate the room please?” She indicates the door.
“Of course,” Elia says, shepherding Mathew and Jack out of the room.
Mathew goes with Jack and Elia into the living room, following the dim light of Jack’s one candle. Jack indicates to the sofa and Mathew sits down. Elia sits next to him and Jack takes a seat on one of the two armchairs, putting the candle holder on the coffee table. The back of the sofa is wet where the rain has blown in through the broken window. There are shards of glass on the floor.