by Simon Clark
‘That’s Kate Robinson; she—’
‘She’s your girlfriend.’
I shook my head.
‘Come on, you can tell your Auntie Caroline.’
‘No, honestly. I hardly know her.’
‘OK.’ Caroline leaned towards the door and pushed it shut. Then quickly she said, ‘I want you to be nice to me.’
‘Uh…I am being nice…aren’t I?’
‘Very nice. But I want you to be nicer.’
‘Caroline?’
In five seconds flat she’d slipped off the shirt and leggings. She didn’t remove the briefs, however. Then, still keeping eye contact, she slipped under the sheet. I felt her hand stroke my thigh upwards, then gently she cupped my testicles with her hand.
‘Caroline, you don’t have to—’
‘Shh…Auntie Caroline knows best.’
‘Caroline, I—’
She kissed me on the mouth. Her lips were so soft and warm, and the tiny tremble I felt through them transmitted itself to me. My heart beat faster, I breathed deeply as I felt her hand begin to caress my cock. Christ, she had such a wonderful touch. I felt myself light up inside.
I looked down into her face. Her eyes glistening in the evening light were so trusting again. I found myself looking down at her small breasts with their pink nipples. I couldn’t help but notice the bruises standing out so vividly they looked as if they’d been daubed there with black ink.
I hadn’t chosen this. But right then I knew she had power over me. I couldn’t say ‘no’ again.
Lamely I said, ‘Caroline, you know you don’t have to do this.’
‘Last night…’ She kissed me on the mouth. ‘I didn’t have a choice…’ She kissed me on the throat. ‘Tonight I can…’ She kissed me on the chest: moist, cool kisses. ‘Tonight, I can say "Yes" or I can say "No" if a man asks me to go to bed with him, so…’ She kissed me on the stomach. ‘So, it’s important to me that I do this for you.’ She kissed my pubes. ‘But you mustn’t fuck me tonight. I’m still sore. One of them used a piece of wood.’ She sounded matter-of-fact; no self-pity there. ‘Mmm…you like this, don’t you?’ I felt her kissing me along the length of my cock. ‘God. You’re hard as a rock.’
I lay back and looked up at the ceiling. I shouldn’t have been turned on. There was too much shit happening. In five hours we were going to run for our lives. Kate Robinson’s smiling face appeared in my mind’s eye. That titchy room with its bare walls and bare light bulb dangling from its flex made no cosy love nest.
But I was turned on. I felt sheer, sheer pleasure. My skin felt unusually sensitive so I could feel the light touch of Caroline’s tongue and her lips moving up and down the length of my penis; then the dizzying sensation of her tongue working around and around its tip. My head spun like I was on a fairground Octopus ride as that tongue went round and around. I looked down at her. Her head twisted from side to side as she sucked enthusiastically.
‘This is wonderful…this’s fan—tasitic…this is what I wanted so much,’ she murmured before filling her mouth with me again.
It was fantastic. Fann—tass—tick…oh, ay-ay-ay believe me. At first I hardly dared touch her—as if she was a fragile antique doll. But within a moment I held bunches of her hair in my fists as my breathing came harder and harder.
Chapter 24
Ben Cavellero said to Stephen: ‘There’s someone following us. Keep everyone walking.’ He looked at me, his eyes glinting in the moonlight. ‘Rick, will you double back with me to see who it is?’
I nodded.
Ben patted me on the shoulder. ‘Best keep the rifle cocked ready.’
This was it. My mouth dried.
We’d set off to walk out of Fairburn at 2 a.m. The Moon shone bright, hard and as round as a coin. But we’d barely cleared the wood at the back of Ben Cavellero’s house. Now it looked as if Ben and I were to fight a rearguard action to allow the others time to escape.
I followed Ben down the line of silent people who were loaded down with backpacks, bedrolls, sleeping bags, pans, shotguns, rifles. Kate caught my eye and nodded as I passed her by. Near the end of the line walked Caroline, a tiny figure beneath the huge backpack. I nodded to her as I passed.
She caught my arm.
‘What’s wrong?’ she whispered.
‘We’re being followed.’
‘People from the refugee camp?’
‘I don’t know. Best keep moving with the others.’
‘I want to come with you.’
‘No.’
‘No job for a mere woman?’ Her voice, not hostile, was gentle as ever. She only wanted to be with me. Whatever happened.
‘Caroline. To be honest, this is no job for me, either. I know in theory how this rifle works—but I’ve not actually fired the damn thing.’
‘I’m coming with you, Rick.’
‘Rick,’ Ben called softly back to me. ‘What’s the problem?’
‘No problem,’ Caroline whispered back as she left the line of people and joined Ben by a clump of bushes. ‘I know how to fire a pistol. I learned when I was working in South Africa.’
Ben said, ‘OK. You were issued with the .38 Smith & Wesson?’
‘That’s right. Trust me, I’m good with a gun.’
‘Don’t worry, I trust you. Now…I hadn’t expected this would happen, so I’ve got no great strategy in mind. I propose we just wait in these bushes to see who’s following us and take it from there. OK?’
‘And if it’s a mob from the camp?’
‘Pray that it isn’t,’ Caroline whispered.
Ben nodded. ‘We’re armed, but if there’s more than half a dozen we’ll have our work cut out.’
Great, I thought bitterly. We’d started out trying to save the refugees’ lives; now we were going to begin killing them.
We waited there in the darkness. Caroline rested her free hand on my bare forearm. The gesture was reassuring, almost protective.
‘Here they come,’ Ben whispered. ‘Don’t fire unless I start firing.’
I glanced back at the others threading their way up through the trees. They were a good hundred paces away now. I could just make out Stephen, striding ahead of the column. Every so often he’d shoot an anxious glance back in our direction.
Jesus wept. Just days ago I was planning to take a rock band out on the road. I’d mapped my future out. Now I’d got no home; my guitar was stashed in Ben’s attic; my own particular future might be to die and rot into the Earth beneath these very trees where I’d played as a child.
I heard the rustle of a bush; the faint crunch of feet on dried leaves.
If you shoot someone, do you aim at the head or the chest?
I raised the rifle to my shoulder. Chest, I decided. Bigger target.
I noticed Caroline ease the revolver from a pouch attached to her belt. She stood legs apart, knees slightly bent, like I’d seen cops in the movies. Hell, she’d had professional training.
More leaves scrunched under feet.
Ben raised the shotgun.
We waited. I found I was holding my breath. My heart sounded like the bass drum driving the beat harder, faster.
Here they come, here they come, here they…
A figure came through the bushes. They moved faster than I expected; we’d been seen; the mob would attack first.
My finger curled round the trigger.
Tightened. The figure moved into my sights.
I thought: Chest. Aim at chest.
‘Bill? Bill Fullwood?’ Ben’s voice came out in an astonished gasp as if he’d just seen an angel drop from heaven. ‘Bill…what the hell are you doing here? What’s wrong?’
Old man Fullwood, the proprietor of Fullwood’s Autos, clambered up the hill, his froth of white hair bright as a halo in the moonlight. He panted noisily and sweat glistened on his face.
‘Bill…what’s the matter?’ Ben hissed. ‘Anything happened at the house?’
Old man Fullwood wiped the sweat fr
om his face with the sleeve of his boiler suit. He couldn’t catch his breath.
‘Take it easy,’ Ben took the old man by his arm. ‘Best sit for a moment.’
‘No, no. I’m fine, thank you…thank you very much.’
‘What on Earth are you doing, charging through the woods at this time of night?’
‘I…’ He inhaled deeply. ‘I saw you…and these young lads and lasses…all packed up. You’re leaving Fairburn, aren’t you?’
Ben shook his head. ‘I’m only going as far as Oak Ridge. Then I’m going back home.’
‘But these lads and lasses…’
‘Yes, they’re leaving, Bill. They’re going to sit this out somewhere nice and quiet.’
‘For how long?’
‘Until it’s safe to come back.’ Ben took a deep breath. ‘Bill, I know how you feel. That everyone should stick together and help one another stay in Fairburn, but—’
‘I know. It’s Hell down there. That’s why I’m going with them.’
‘You want to go with them?’ Ben sounded astonished. ‘Bill, they’re sleeping out under canvas. It might take months to—’
‘I’m as useful as I ever was.’ Old man Fullwood slapped his chest. ‘Five years in the army. I’ve run my own business. There isn’t a thing about cars and trucks I don’t know.’
‘But Bill—’
‘Everything OK?’
‘Stephen?’ Ben sighed. ‘Yes. Everything’s fine. We had Mr Fullwood from the garage following us that’s all.’
I said, ‘He wants to come with us, Stephen.’
‘Out onto the Moors?’
‘Yes, I do,’ old man Fullwood said firmly. ‘There’s life in the old dog yet, you know. So please don’t tell me to go back home. I won’t—’
‘OK,’ Stephen said quickly. ‘You can come with us.’ He looked at Ben. ‘Don’t worry. We’ve room for one more.’
Caroline took his arm. ‘Come on, Mr Fullwood.’ She glanced at me and gave a warm smile. ‘You can walk with me and keep me company.’
Holding his arm she walked with him to join that line of nouveaux refugees who still pushed on up the wooded hillside.
Ben said, ‘you don’t want him with you. OK, he’s a very nice guy, a gentleman, but he’s seventy-five years old.’
‘I didn’t want to stand and argue the toss.’ Stephen sounded more businesslike than I’d ever heard him before. ‘And this is my…tribe, I guess you’d call it now. So what I say goes, right?’
Ben nodded in agreement. ‘You’re the boss.’
‘Besides, what would have happened if we’d turned him down? He’d have gone down there and squealed on us—and you—to the rest of the villagers. They’d have cooked your goose, Ben.’
Ben shook his head grimly. ‘That’s what he would have intended but…’ Ben rested the shotgun barrel across his shoulder. ‘But I’d already made up my mind what I would have done. I’d have shot him as we walked back down to the house.’
‘I know. That’s why I let him join us.’
Ben held out his hand for Stephen to shake. ‘Don’t let that humanitarian streak get the better of you. It’s going to be a liability rather than an asset now, you know?’
Stephen shook him warmly by the hand. ‘Whatever does happen, Ben, I’ll make sure we come out of this with our humanity still intact.’
‘I believe you will, friend…Ah, Rick.’ He shook my hand. ‘Look after each other, won’t you?’ His eyes twinkled in the moonlight as he backed away still smiling. ‘I’ll be seeing you.’
‘You know where to find us if things don’t work out here,’ called Stephen.
‘You can count on it. Goodbye…and good luck.’ With that Ben turned and walked quickly down hill.
Stephen turned and looked at me. ‘All right, Kid K. You think we’re up to the Noah bit?’
‘I’m not, but you are.’
‘You will be soon, son—you will be. Come on, then, let’s march those folks out two by two.’
Then, singing softly under his breath, he led the way up the hill.
Chapter 25
My name is Kate Robinson. I am nineteen years old. Until a few days ago I shared a flat with two friends in Leeds where I worked at a city centre bookshop.
Yesterday at a meeting at Ben Cavellero’s house he asked us to record our experiences as we enter a new Dark Age, where there will soon be no newspapers, television or radio.
So I’ll do my best. This is what happened to me:
At two this morning we left Ben Cavellero’s house under cover of darkness. We then walked for ten hours across country avoiding all roads and human settlements by sticking to one of the ancient pack-horse routes that run north along the spine of the Pennine hills. Today we covered perhaps fifteen kilometres.
Everyone is pretty much exhausted. Stephen Kennedy (the elected leader of our group) has told us there’ll be no more travelling today. I’m pleased about that. The old man, who joined the group, has kept up with us OK so far, but I don’t know how much longer he can maintain the pace.
It is now mid-afternoon, the sun is really blazing down. We have erected tents in a grass field. There are no houses or roads in sight. We are alone. Already I’m feeling such relief to be away from the refugee camp. With so many people crowding into that little village it felt claustrophobic.
Where I now sit at the entrance to the tent I’m sharing with Ruth Sparkman and Charlotte Lewis, I can see Stephen and Rick Kennedy setting up the camping stoves. The two brothers are so much alike it’s astonishing. They could be mistaken for twins despite the five-year age difference.
I guess I’m self-appointed archivist now. I’ve brought a wallet full of faxes and hard copies of e-mail messages from people around the world. They relate their experiences; much of it is harrowing reading.
A few minutes ago Rick Kennedy stopped by the tent to ask me what I was doing as I sorted the pieces of paper into date order. He’s got a nice smile. His eyes are the same striking blue as his brother’s. I heard he played guitar in a rock band.
‘Have you read these?’ he asked, picking out one of the sheets of paper.
‘All of them,’ I said. ‘I wish I hadn’t. I couldn’t sleep after that.’
‘Grim, aren’t they? The poor guy who lost his family in the Disneyland explosion. He’d just decided to give up on life.’
‘You get the feeling, though, that if he’d still had the people he loved with him he’d have done anything to survive.’
‘I think you’re right, Kate.’
Kate. For some reason something near a giddy thrill ran through me when he said my name. Kate.
‘So it’s particularly hard to do a Robinson Crusoe and survive alone,’ I told him as he flicked through the sheets of paper. ‘Half the battle is having someone to love and someone you know loves you.’
He smiled at me. ‘I suppose even Robinson Crusoe finally had his Man Friday.’
‘You really think so?’
He laughed, his teeth shining white. ‘No…no, when I…’ He burst out laughing again, a tear squeezing out along one of his long lashes. ‘No. When I say Robinson finally had his Man Friday I meant—oh, what does it matter. If—if they were fond of each other that’s all that matters, isn’t it?’
I think it was the tension of the last few days, then this sudden sense of freedom that suddenly set us off giggling like school kids. As he wiped the tears from his eyes Caroline suddenly appeared.
‘Hello, Kate. Sorry to interrupt, Rick, but Stephen needs to know where the matches are.’
‘Oh…Caroline, I’ll get them.’
‘No need, Rick, just tell me where they are.’
‘They’re in the side pocket of my backpack. It’s the black one over there by the wall.’
Caroline gave a bright smile. ‘Everyone like bacon?’
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘that would be nice.’ Rick’s a bit of a mystery. Mostly he comes across as something of a rogue with the mischievous twinkle in h
is blue eyes. Now all of a sudden he spoke to Caroline in a polite, respectful way as if she was his aunt—a strict Primitive Methodist aunt at that.
After she’d gone he glanced through more of the fax messages. ‘Kate. This really is global, isn’t it?’
‘As far as I can see. Africa, Asia, Australia, North America—they’ve all been hit bad.’
He licked his thumb and put the sheets of paper down on my lap one at a time almost as if he was dealing a hand of playing cards. As he did so he listed each catastrophe. Melbourne: poison gas. Florida: explosion of inflammable gas. France and Spain: volcanoes. New York: destroyed by tidal wave. One from a Karl Langeveld, Johannesburg, South Africa. He began to read. ‘"Here I am at the top of the building. I can see the whole of Klein Street. The toxic gas hasn’t shifted for six days. Commissioner Street is littered with corpses; the gas killed people in the thousands. Every so often I see someone enter the street. Soon they will hold their hands to their face and throat, then they fall, they squirm for a few movements, then they lie still. Completely still. Birds here on the roof are not affected by the gas. Not until they swoop below the second floor. Then they fall to the ground; wings beat frantically at the pavement; then they are stilled, too.
‘"Now nothing moves. Nothing, that is, except the Grey Men."‘ Rick paused, frowning. Then read on. ‘"I saw the Grey Men last night. They walked amongst my gassed countrymen. The gas does not hurt them. I am terrified, because the Grey Men looked up at me as I watched them. They stared at me. They are fascinated by me. I obsess them. They watch me from the street every time I look down from the top of the building. Sometime soon, I think, they will break down the doors of the office block and hunt me down. They are the Grey Men. I don’t know where they are from. They frighten me."‘ Rick suddenly looked troubled. ‘The Grey Men. What does he mean: the Grey Men?’
I shrugged. ‘It’s clearly from someone who’s being driven insane by the whole experience. Either that or he has access to drugs.’
Rick lightly rubbed the tips of his fingers across his forehead as if suddenly preoccupied by some immense problem. ‘This…Karl Langeveld says he can see Grey Men?’