by James Erith
It didn’t add up.
Archie twisted the knife in his hand, flicking the dull blade around his fingers. He didn’t have Isabella’s cleverness to try and work it out nor Daisy’s easy going nature to forget. To Archie, these confusing thoughts filled his soul with darkness.
And now, to top it off, Old Man Wood had gone totally stark-raving bonkers. Sure, you could talk to trees in dreams, but at 8:30 in the morning – to a clump of willows?
They’d have to get the old man seen to – proper medical help. Northallerton had a decent geriatric ward, at least that’s what Gus Williams said. He used to visit his great-grandfather who got everything muddled up before he passed away.
The unfamiliar anger brewed in his veins again; his neck throbbed as a pain shot into his head. ‘Why?’ he said out loud to the dank air in the shed. ‘I’m a twelve, nearly thirteen-year-old boy, and I’m sitting in a cold potting-shed in North Yorkshire, scared out of my mind. Why me?
‘WHY ME?’ he yelled. ‘WHAT IS HAPPENING TO US?’
Annoyed that there were simply no answers, he weighed up his heaviest knife. He summoned every ounce of strength in his body and, with a cry, threw it as hard as he could at the old stump.
Archie walked across the floor and ran his hands over the two foot-thick log which now lay on the ground, split clean in half.
He smiled, picked the knife off the floor and, for a reason he couldn’t explain, rubbed the centre over his jeans. He looked at it again and, just as he was returning it to the cloth, he realised he’d seen it before.
In the centre of the knife lay the circular emblem of a tree, with branches arching out above and roots mirrored identically below. The emblem of the Tree of Life.
He’d seen it in the cave, the exact same emblem. His heart beat quickened. The emblem at the beginning of the mural bearing fruit, and in the middle depicting death and finally by the images that reminded him of rebirth – of a new beginning.
Archie gasped and for the first time he wondered if the words of Cain should be taken with deadly seriousness. In his mind, he ran through the meeting in the alleyway again and again trying to remember every word until he realised his bones were aching.
Cain told of a prophecy – that the storm was only the beginning. It blended in perfectly with what he’d seen in the cave.
Niggling at the back of his mind was another thing; what had become of Kemp? Did he die, or run to high ground, or, and his pulse raced at the thought, did he actually join with Cain? Poor Kemp. Whatever happened, it must have been a nightmare. He was probably better off dead.
He rolled his neck and took a deep breath.
Whatever was going on, Daisy was right. All these things were somehow linked and they were right bang in the middle of it. And if only he could remember the general gist of Cain’s speech to Kemp because, he realised, it was absolutely pivotal to the outcome.
Like it or not.
SIXTY-THREE
THE MIRACLE BOY
With his mouth and nose enclosed by a clear plastic breathing device, Kemp sucked in a large mouthful of oxygen and opened his eyes. Slowly, Kemp’s brain began to wonder where he was.
He listened. A gentle churning noise, like the dull throb of an engine, of machinery gently running through its processes, followed by a regular bleep.
His body felt lighter and, as he ran a check over his anatomy, he noticed the burning didn’t hurt compared to the agony he’d experienced before. Perhaps he’d died after all.
Kemp searched his body for signs of Cain.
None.
For a moment his mind and body leapt for joy. Then he remembered that Cain might be asleep. And Cain never slept for long. His eyes felt heavy again.
His ears picked out noises nearby.
He listened. Voices, deep voices, whispering, occasionally louder. Concerned, anxious tones. One higher pitched than the others. He tried to move his hands but they felt leaden, as though fixed down by weights. He yearned for someone to hold him and love him, for the comfort of a warm hug, of gentle words and soothing kisses. He pined for the mother he never knew.
A terrible sadness sank into him and a tear rolled down his cheek. He needed to sleep.
Kemp felt his mind drift off once more.
PRIME MINISTER KINGSFORD was basking on his sun lounger in Italy when the news broke. Three days into his break and the phones went crazy. Typical, he thought. Of all the weeks! Here he was with his family, gradually unwinding from the rigours of government, when there’s an emergency of simply epic proportions to deal with.
It was true; you never got time out in this job, he mused, and with an election looming, he had needed a week to recharge his batteries. And now this. Oh well, what did he expect? Running the country, he thought, was like looking after thousands of plates spinning on sticks and making sure that each person twiddling a stick kept it moving. If one plate fell, it became an event or an outcry or a scandal. When a whole pile of them crashed, the pointing finger of the media spotlight inevitably turned on him.
He caught a helicopter the following day to find out what was happening. By the time he arrived, the damage had been done and England’s heart lay in ruins. As the chopper flew north from London, he saw at first hand extraordinary scenes beneath him. From as far south as Lincolnshire, through the Midlands, into South Yorkshire then on and up through the Vale of York between the Moors and Dales, he looked out of the window to find a country underwater. Entire towns were submerged, fields transformed into huge, muddy lakes, only occasionally interspersed by protruding islands of high ground.
His leadership hung by a thread. It was typical, he thought. Those damn media people. What on earth could he do about a biblical-style freak flood? Furthermore, the damage had been so sudden, so brutal. Coordinating a rescue effort in these conditions and setting up COBRA, the emergency government council, took time. Time which they didn’t have. To the rest of the country, their efforts appeared disorganised and uncoordinated … ‘Too little action, too late’ the papers screamed. It must look, he thought, like a shambles. But they were doing everything they could.
Victims of the storm were being found every hour, bloated and floating in the waters, thousands of people displaced, homes ruined, infrastructure wrecked, businesses destroyed and lives shattered. The difficulty was that the rains hadn’t let up enough to enable the waters to recede, while high tides meant the water had nowhere to go. From his vantage point in the chopper, the Prime Minister fully understood how desperate the situation truly was. The military faced an uphill battle to coordinate a salvage operation in such adverse conditions. But, as the hours went by, fingers pointed accusingly at the Prime Minister.
Worse still was the latest development. A deadly virus was spreading. World governments and the media were clamouring for updates and yet there was very little he could tell them. The only option was to meet the experts in North Yorkshire, find out what they knew first hand, so he might understand what they were up against.
Soon enough, he found himself wearing an anti-contamination suit and staring through thick glass at a sick bald boy in an isolation unit; the miracle boy, found naked in the top of a tree right in the middle of a huge expanse of water. The images, already a sensation around the world, represented a glimmer of hope; a good news story, amongst the carnage, as the disaster spiralled out of control.
The Prime Minister recognised this and wondered how long he could put off facing the press and their questions. The media were baying like hounds for a story, and he needed it to be a positive one. The boy’s survival remained top priority.
DR ADRIAN MULLER instantly struck everyone who met him as a kindly man. His sharp nose, thick mop of dark hair that flopped across his forehead and his jutting jaw line that moved from side to side when he talked, gave him a curiously academic air. He took hold of the clipboard and ran his finger down the boy’s chart. Without meaning to, he raised his thick, dark, eyebrows which dislodged his half-moon wire-framed glasses. He
nudged them back into place without even noticing.
He studied the data again. The boy’s survival simply didn’t make sense. ‘Are you sure these are correct?’
The nurse, her mousy hair tied behind her head in a bun, confirmed the data. It had been triple checked she told him. And, keeping her voice low, she said, ‘His condition is unlike any of the other flood victims. Typically, what we’re noticing is a combination of hypothermia and a form of viral infection. This is nothing like that. Now that he’s come out of his coma – we’re hoping to talk to the boy later today.’
Dr Muller shook his head as he looked beyond the sheet of glass in front of him.
The boy lay on the bed, his mouth and nose covered by a plastic mask, his arms pricked with drips that dangled from him like flexible plastic straws. Littering his body were bandages, liberally administered, as if he were part human, part Egyptian mummy.
Two other men stood next to the medics in the gallery room with the window that looked in on the boy. One was Charlie Stone, the tall, thin, silver-haired Police Commissioner and chief coordinator of the flood relief, and the other was Prime Minister, Ed Kingsford.
And the PM was more than a little irritated by the whole thing.
‘HE’S BEEN LOOKED over by the pathologists,’ the doctor said.
‘Good,’ Commissioner Stone nodded. ‘When will their findings be available?’
Dr Muller cocked his head. ‘In roughly two to four hours,’ he replied. ‘They’re working on it now.’
‘And is this the same illness as the others?’ said the Prime Minister.
‘We don’t know, sir,’ the doctor replied, his jaw jutting one way and then the other. ‘At the moment, it appears not. The symptoms common to the majority of victims are not evident – at least not yet. That’s what makes him intriguing. We have the world’s leading scientists evaluating this type of influenza, yet the boy here has none of the rashes, skin discolouration, acute vomiting or bowel dysfunction seen in the others. This little fella’s main problem is malnutrition, poisoning and burns.’
‘Burns?’ Commissioner Stone quizzed.
‘Indeed,’ Dr Muller replied. The news of this had surprised him too. ‘Small burns covering all four limbs, front and back and around the neck up to the ears. We think his hair has been singed off – not a single follicle can be found on his body. In his mouth, we discovered traces of soot and burn-blisters. It’s as if this boy has been in a fire or been sprayed with a flammable substance.’ The doctor raised his eyebrows. ‘Were any fires reported?’
Commissioner Stone thought for a minute. ‘Further south from where the boy was found there were two big blazes. But the boy would’ve had to swim or row a raft several miles against the current to get to where he was found. And remember, he was found naked. Are there signs of hypothermia?’
Dr Muller shook his head.
‘And no major flesh injuries,’ the nurse added. ‘Not even minor scratches or bruises, just burns.’
The doctor strummed the glass with his fingernails. ‘When his samples come back, we’ll know if he’s a carrier. If he is, then we might be able to monitor the effect of the virus through his body. We’ll try and trace the viral elements and isolate it. At the moment, he’s our mystery boy and the only hope for a cure.’
‘What if he came from somewhere else?’ the nurse asked.
‘Are you suggesting he fell out of the sky, like an alien?’ the Prime Minister said with sarcastic bite.
The nurse blushed.
The Prime Minister noticed and immediately regretted his sharp tongue. ‘Oh, forgive me, I’m sorry,’ he said. He smiled badly. ‘Doctor,’ he said, ‘how many patients have symptoms of this … disease, and how quickly does it affect them?’
The doctor stared at the floor. ‘It acts fast; ten to thirty hours at most from incubation to death, depending on the severity of the strain and the constitution of the patient. There are sixty-two dead at the moment, each victim pulled from the water, all with the tell-tale skin rash and signs of acute vomiting and diarrhoea. In truth, Prime Minister, we have no idea how many are infected.’
‘Is there any way of knowing?’
‘None, I’m afraid. We don’t know if it’s waterborne or airborne, or both. And we don’t know where it originates, but our guess is somewhere near to the epicentre of the storm, possibly the village of Upsall.’ He raised his eyebrows and looked over the top of his spectacles. ‘At the moment we can’t tell whether it’s an animal-based virus or a toxic chemical released into the floodwater.’
The Prime Minister sucked in a breath. ‘What about some form of chemical or biological agent?’
‘Unlikely,’ the doctor replied. ‘Though there are similarities to the untrained eye.’
‘Have the initial life-savers, doctors and nurses shown any of the symptoms?’
‘No, not yet, but many are in the containment zone, just in case,’ Dr Muller continued. ‘The common factor is that it appears to tie-in with those in contact with the floodwater—’
‘Which is being analysed as we speak,’ the Commissioner added. ‘And the boy has obviously spent time in the floodwater, which makes him unique.’
A nervous quiet fell over the gathering. Then the PM asked, ‘Do you know where he comes from?’
‘No, I’m afraid not, Prime Minister,’ Dr Muller said. ‘No distinguishing marks, no clothes, nothing. We can’t even tell what colour his hair is, though, from the paleness of his skin, we suspect he’s a redhead.’
‘And strangely,’ the Commissioner said, ‘no one has come forward to claim him, even though footage of the boy has been shown repeatedly on every single TV channel in the world.’
The team continued to stare at the boy, working out the next move.
‘Alright, hear me out,’ the Prime Minister began. ‘The boy’s story has captured the imagination of audiences around the globe … and you think he might come around in the next few hours. Is there any way we can use this as a media event so we can buy some time until we have a clearer idea what this disease is? I mean, if it’s contagious, we’ll need to work around the clock to start the process of containment, correct?’
‘Indeed, Prime Minister,’ the doctor said. ‘Can I suggest that before the scientists divulge their reports tonight, we start the process of sealing-off the infected area. If we take into account the movement of people during this time, the cordon needs to cover a significantly larger mileage than just the flood zone.’
Commissioner Stone nodded. ‘With the known geographical spread of the flooding stretching for such a vast distance, this operation will be bigger than the evacuation of Dunkirk during the war.’
The Prime Minister coughed. ‘Hang on a minute!’ he said, a frown covering his face. ‘Let’s not run before we can walk, eh? Shouldn’t we wait until the scientists report back? What if this thing is imminently curable?’
The doctor twiddled his thumbs. ‘Prime Minister, I urge you to start the process as soon as possible. This outbreak is from an unknown pathogen and more cases are being reported on an hourly basis. We are fighting a battle with an unfamiliar enemy and time is against us. The flooding is spreading, therefore the disease is spreading. It is not going to get any easier.’
Prime Minister Kingsford had gone pale. The potential calamity of the situation was sinking in fast.
Commissioner Stone noticed. ‘We have already begun it … quietly,’ he added. ‘The last thing we need is a media-led panic. I have taken the liberty of putting in place a “containment zone” around North Yorkshire – travel bans to the area for everyone and I’ve cancelled leave for all civil servants, doctors, nurses and emergency crews. I realise this goes above my jurisdiction, but as the flood disaster tsar I had to trust my judgement.’
A murmur of agreement.
The Prime Minister’s mood lifted a little now that a plan appeared to be coming together. ‘Good thinking. Well done, Stone. Use whatever powers you feel necessary to get to the bottom of
this bloody mess. I will make sure all the relevant authorities are aware.’ One of the Prime Minister’s personal private secretaries scribbled on his pad and slipped out of the room.
‘So, first things first,’ the Prime Minister continued. ‘We invite selected media in and show them the child,’ he turned to the doctor. ‘You happy with that, Dr Muller?’
The doctor moved his jaw and nodded slowly. ‘Sure. We can try to get the boy talking, it’s a long shot but worth a go—’
‘Don’t you think it might appear a little bit see-through, a touch desperate?’ the Commissioner asked.
The Prime Minister turned on him. ‘Look, Stone, we’ve got the world’s press outside clamouring to know what the hell’s going on,’ he snapped. ‘Many are already sniffing about and jumping to conclusions. If the word gets out before we have any evidence, think of the consequences. Think of the panic. Imagine the morning’s headlines. “Britain – Quarantined”.’ The Prime Minister paused for effect. ‘In the rush to leave the disaster zone, the disease may go with it and that, my friends, will be a total catastrophe. We need to buy time.’ The Prime Minister kneaded his temples. ‘The fact is this: it’s our very own biblical mess and we’re going to have to deal with it. It’s as simple as that.’
‘You’re correct,’ the doctor said. At last the officials were now taking the situation with the deadly seriousness it deserved. ‘Good to hear you’re right behind us.’
‘Call a press conference for midday,’ the Prime Minister ordered. ‘You’ll have the boy’s blood results by then, so see if you can add a positive spin. Expand on the fact that this boy was found against all odds, burnt and naked up a tree, a miracle among the carnage, to give you added time. Speak to the press team. Commissioner Stone – you’ve got a day – more if we’re lucky – to find out as much as you can and continue the “quiet” work you’ve started. After that – and when there’s a fuller picture – the COBRA team will put a wider containment plan into action.’