by Rhys Thomas
Saul started crying loudly. Through the dark he clambered over the bodies towards Edward and sat down next to him. Edward put his arm around the boy but couldn’t speak.
Michael went to the bottom of the stairs and looked up at the door. He said something but Edward couldn’t hear him. Above, Trio was still screaming. He would stop for a second and then start again. Sitting on the cold stone floor, Edward dropped his head on to his knees and clenched his teeth. He couldn’t even imagine what they were doing to him. Beyond his heartbeat he felt again the sickness stirring in his gut. Adults weren’t supposed to do these things to children.
‘Stop crying.’
Edward paused. The voice was near to him. He looked up. The dark shape of one of the boys was standing before him as an inky, indistinct mass. ‘I said shut up.’
He was talking to Saul. Edward pulled the little kid closer to him.
‘Leave him alone,’ he croaked.
‘If he keeps crying like that they’ll come back.’
‘He’s only a little kid.’ His voice was shaky. The little boy next to him was trembling.
‘I couldn’t give a fuck,’ said the boy, his voice becoming something more like a growl. It was unstable. Edward was frightened by it. ‘If you don’t shut him up, I’ll do it for him.’
The inwards approach of the sea was like the inwards approach of the marauders. David watched it coming in. Having been stationed at the sandbag lookout turret on the beach there was little else to do. His mind wandered in and out with the movement of the sea’s edge. He wondered, as he did most days, about the fate that had befallen his parents, he thought about how hungry he was, he thought about his friend, Charlie, up in the lighthouse with Emily, and then he thought about just what exactly was going to happen to the camp. He tried to remain true to his theory of human resilience being all-powerful. Everybody would stick together because it was the best way to survive. It was pure Darwin really. But faced with an unseen enemy, the only sign of which was in the destruction and violence they left behind them, his theory seemed suddenly very naive.
The waves were big. If you watched them for long enough – the way they rose up, curled over and flopped down one after another – they could hypnotize you. The sound of the crash came after the sight of the wave collapsing; out of time. Wave after wave; he watched them come further and further up the beach.
At first, he thought the black shape in the waves was a log being tossed around in the surf. It was only when the tide came close enough that he thought it was too irregular for a piece of wood. They had a child’s telescope to look through. David brought it over and steadied himself by placing his elbows on the sandbags. After a few moments he located the object and centred it in the lens. He held his breath and waited.
A new wave was forming in the bay. It drew the water before it up into its curling wall. It lifted the shape and turned it over and David dropped the telescope.
‘Jesus,’ he whispered.
He called over to one of the men and pointed out to sea. The man swore and looked down the beach, towards the cliff path. The beach was empty.
‘Come on,’ he said.
They streaked down the sand and into the frothy white of the surf. They pulled the body to dry land. It was a child. Its body was broken in the middle, the clothes ripped about a great red gash in the ribs. Its face had been folded into the skull on one side. It looked monstrous and inhuman.
‘I know who this is,’ said the man.
David lost control of his stomach and threw up into the sand.
‘That is why I say you have been lucky, Charlie. Because Emily has not acted like anybody else I have seen. It is true that everybody behaves in the quiet, gentle way at the illness’s outset, but they undergo at least some level of change over the course of the three days. They progress along the spectrum. Some go far along it, to the end. Others go only a short way along. I speak to families and I understand, Charlie, what seems to decide the trajectory of a particular person, and it is always the people who were the most loved that go on the shortest journey along the spectrum.’
Charlie could not look at him. His throat was hot and there was a pain in his temples.
‘And they were loved because of the people they were before they were ill. I cannot explain it in any other way. Some people inspire great love in others. I do not know why any more than I know how many stars there are. But whatever that inexplicable thing is that causes people to be loved, it is very strong in those who remain gentle.
‘And I can say to you honestly,’ said the doctor to Charlie, who shifted in his seat as the doctor spoke, ‘that Emily has taken the shortest journey along the spectrum of anyone I have seen.’
Emily had once told him that sometimes she wanted never to speak again, and that those times came when she was most contented. She said it was as if speaking was not necessary; that sometimes it just made things complicated. Often, when lying in bed in the morning, or when sitting on a bench in a park, or walking along the seafront, she had told Charlie to shut up and stop his incessant talking. And when in silence he looked at the world’s sights and smelled its smells and heard its sounds, he started to know what she meant. But she was speaking now. And she was looking at him.
‘There is something in us. It is seeded when we are very young and it is buried very deep. We are rarely reminded of it, but when we are we remember it well and feel like we have just been greeted by an old friend. And we think we will never forget it again. But we always do. It’s that thing that connects us all. It’s like a little stream that flows through us and between us and reminds us that we are part of one big thing.’ Emily closed her eyes tight. ‘Oh, you don’t understand.’ Her eyes reopened and she turned her face away from Charlie, the shadows shifting in the clefts of the white pillowcase. The shimmering meniscus of a tear played on her eye. ‘You don’t know what I mean,’ she said.
‘I do.’
Charlie looked at her and watched the change that in that instant befell her and he saw the world as it was: a great spinning orb thrusting aimlessly through the void and then he was back on the lawn of the university campus again with the sun on his back and a pair of delicate hands before him.
He held those hands in his own and for the briefest of moments felt serene.
The change he had witnessed was just an infinitesimal thing. So small and so big. He let go of Emily’s hand and it fell to the blanket. Only the memories remained now.
Adam’s father was halfway down the beach. David held the child in his arms. One side of the body, from the shoulder to the hips, had collapsed in on itself as if it didn’t have any bones. It allowed the body to sit in its human cradle as if it had been designed that way.
A group of people had gathered near the sandbags, which had been pushed over to make access to the beach easier.
Adam’s father, upon seeing his child’s lifeless and broken body, stopped. He looked at it as if it was something obscene. The initial hesitation in his eyes flickered away and David handed the body over.
The man’s glasses were steamed up. He saw the child through a mist. He said nothing. His mouth seized into a clenched, vice-like lock.
‘I just found him,’ said David. He was freezing. His clothes were sodden and the taste of salt was strong in his mouth.
The crowd of people kept their distance as Adam’s father went down on to his knees and laid his son’s body on the sand. He put his hands over his face in silent agony, sliding his fingers beneath his glasses, over his eyes. His shoulders rounded to a slump and he stayed there in that position for a full minute.
Charlie ran his hand over Emily’s face. His mind had started its revolutions again. Those few brief moments with her had ended, the serenity had cracked and the darkness encroached. He felt her cheeks and placed his fingers at her lips. She was still warm and he wanted to make sure that he never forgot the way she felt. Panicked that he might forget something about her, some tiny nuance, made him touch her. He looke
d at her and tried to take a photograph in his mind.
He became aware of somebody watching him. He looked one last time at Emily and turned back into the room. When he saw Miriam standing there in the centre of the darkening space he opened his mouth to speak but nothing came out. He felt the deep bond of loss between them.
Miriam went to him and threw her arms around him. He hugged back quickly, surprised at himself.
‘She only just went,’ he whispered.
She put her hand on Charlie’s head, through the curls of his hair. He was just a child really. Charlie held on to her. Over her shoulder, he said, ‘It’s not fair that she’s gone.’
An image crossed her mind, of Henry in the rear-view mirror of the car.
‘I know,’ she said.
‘She didn’t deserve it.’
Henry had gone to sleep slowly that night. She had stayed with him. He had just looked at her. That was all. They had sat on the bed covers, his back twisted against the headboard and his legs curled under him. She had held his hand and they had looked at one another for a long time until his eyes had shut and he had gone to sleep.
Edward shifted his body so he could shield Saul.
‘He’s scared,’ he said.
‘He should be scared – if they hear him. Now are you going to shut him up?’
Edward looked down at the top of Saul’s head, just a dark, murky shape. The little boy was sobbing more quietly. He had heard the threat of the boy standing over him and was trying to stop himself.
‘Don’t worry about it, Saul, we’ll be out of here soon.’
‘We’re not getting out of here,’ said the boy in the dark.
Edward tried to pick out Michael and John in the gloom but he couldn’t see them. He wished they would come over and help.
‘We will get out of here. The people in the camp will come and save us.’
The boy laughed. ‘Are you kidding?’
‘Or we’ll escape,’ Edward added.
‘Escape?’
‘This is my house,’ he said. ‘I know how to get us out of here.’
There was a hesitation.
‘What makes you think I’d let you go?’
Edward felt his skin go cold. His mouth was dry. He realized something. ‘How old are you?’
‘Older than you are.’
Saul pressed his body closer to Edward in fear.
‘Whose side are you on?’
Charlie couldn’t look at Miriam. His eyes flitted around the room and rested on anything but her. Inside his head everything felt clear and sharp.
‘When we came back from Europe we went to her family first but the place was deserted. There was no sign of a struggle or anything and the house was still intact. It looked like when somebody goes on holiday, you know? They had just vanished. We never found them, but she never mentioned them. Never.’
He hadn’t told anybody this since it had happened. The only other person who had known about it was Emily. But his mind focused now in a cool, detached way that allowed him to gain a wider perspective, unblocked by the foggy emotions that had blinded him from the truth.
‘So then we went to my family. We got near the house and I got this feeling that something was wrong, do you know what I mean? Since the illness first broke I’ve been aware of this thing, like, I don’t know, a sixth sense.’
Miriam nodded that she did know.
‘I wanted to turn back and run but she stopped me. She said we had to go and see because if I didn’t then . . .’ He paused and changed tack. ‘She just said I was afraid. So we went.’
The memory of it played in his head as he recited to Miriam what had happened. She listened in silence.
‘When we got there, the front door was lying in the garden, just torn off. I already knew what had happened. There were no noises inside. It was weird because the living room wasn’t trashed. Someone had come in and taken the TV and stuff but apart from that it looked normal. It had all happened in the kitchen. It must have only taken a couple of minutes.’
His throat was dry from speaking and he could hear his voice cracking. The images of the house were still so crisp.
‘The first person I saw was my dad and he was just . . . lying . . . there, on the floor. His head, it was just, I don’t know, weird. It was all out of shape and scabby. He was lying in a big dried-out circle of blood; my dad.’ The fog of emotion was coming back. He felt hot. ‘You know, you see something like that and something inside you just snaps and it’ll never repair itself. My mum was the same. Her head was crushed as well. Oh God—’
Miriam hugged him again. Charlie felt sick. His eyes were stinging.
‘It was all flat.’
He envisaged the scene, lived it out in his mind. There was no point holding it back any more.
‘It was my brother. He must have got sick. He, you know, he always thought he knew everything, but he wasn’t a bad person, Miri. He wasn’t the sort of person who could do something like that.’
‘I know,’ she whispered. ‘Don’t say any more now.’
‘He wasn’t a bad person. What he did, he killed my whole family, even my little sister, but he didn’t know what he was doing,’ he cried.
Miriam bit her lower lip.
‘When they get ill, some people do things that aren’t them.’
She swallowed.
‘You can’t say he was bad because of what he did. Once you’re ill you’re not the same. I know he was a good person.’
Miriam said nothing. The baby kicked in its womb.
‘He tried to be a good person in life and that’s the most important thing. Dr Balad said the illness just strips away the barrier between us and chaos. So if my brother was so close to chaos all the time then surely the most important thing is that he kept it at bay when he was normal. He fought it every day. It didn’t control him.’
Miriam looked out of the window. The sky was shifting, the clouds thinning. As Charlie unburdened himself from something that had been wrapped so tightly around him, a crack appeared in the gloom of the dusk and she remembered something somebody had once said to her about how everything had cracks because it was the only way for light to get in.
The kid moved quickly. He grabbed Edward by the chin and pushed his head back against the stone wall. Instinctively Edward leaped forward and wrestled him to the floor. He was surprised by how easily the kid fell. Hands lashed out at Edward but he was able to grip their wrists. His arms bent against the pressure from the other kid but he refused to let go. Slowly, using every muscle in his arms, Edward pushed back. The scuffle took place in silence. Nobody said anything in case the men upstairs heard and came down to take another one of them.
‘What are you doing?’ Edward panted.
‘You’re dead,’ the kid replied in a whisper.
‘But I can get us out of here.’
He was winning the struggle.
‘You can’t. We’re never getting out.’
The kid’s strength suddenly died, as if defeated by his own words. He turned his face away and lay still and Edward pinned his arms to the floor.
‘I can get us out. I know a way.’
The atmosphere in the cellar had changed. Edward felt the eyes of the children on him, but they were no longer threatening.
‘How?’ said a voice.
‘Shut up, Patrick,’ said another.
‘Why should I?’
‘We’re part of the Collective.’
‘I’m not part of it.’
‘Neither am I,’ said another voice.
‘They’ll kill us.’
‘They won’t kill us,’ said Edward.
‘How can we get out?’
Edward released the wrists of the boy he had been fighting. The boy didn’t move. Edward felt good; powerful. One thing was for sure and that was that he was not scared. All he wanted to do now was get out and get back to his mum and his sister and his gran.
‘We have to wait until it gets dark,’ he said.
Miriam’s mother watched from the crowd. Mary was standing directly in front of her with her grandmother’s hands on her shoulders. The rumours were already spreading that the men who had taken the house had killed a child.
She saw the little boy’s father stand up and turn to the group. The man swayed on his feet like he was drunk and then stumbled towards the crowd. He was walking, Miriam’s mother could see, towards McAvennie.
‘Where is he?’ he said. ‘Where’s the prisoner?’
McAvennie shook his head, breaking ranks from the group and stepping towards the child’s father. He said something to him that Miriam’s mother couldn’t hear.
The boy’s father shook his head violently, his face contorting. He grabbed McAvennie’s sweater.
‘Tell me.’ His voice rang out.
McAvennie lowered his head.
A voice came from the crowd.
‘They put him in the lighthouse.’
A chaotic instability was stirring. Bodies behind her were bumping Miriam’s mother forwards and there was nothing she could do to stop it. She almost knocked Mary over.
‘Can we go back?’ said the little girl.
A hand grabbed the old woman’s shoulder and moved her roughly aside. Its owner stepped past her.
‘I’ll help you, Benjamin,’ he said.
He was a large man with a thick, brown beard. He was looking at the little corpse lying in the sand and Miriam’s mother could see the genuine lines of pain across his face.
Some of the women in the crowd were crying. More people were coming on to the beach. Miriam’s mother turned her head and looked up towards the house. She could just see the roof and the upstairs windows.
Benjamin, Adam’s father, snapped his head round.
‘Come on,’ said the man with the beard.