by James Erith
‘At eleven o’clock this evening, all airports, ferry crossings, railway stations, waterways and motorways will be closed. Travel in or out of Great Britain will be prohibited unless authorised by one of you. As of midnight tonight, there will be a total media blackout. The Internet will be temporarily suspended, with access at specific times to be announced. Television and radio stations will play films and repeats and be the source of all news updates. Supermarkets will come under state supervision and armed military units are already moving in to areas where civil unrest is likely. Yes, we do envisage serious panic in towns and cities as people rush for supplies.
‘To that end, a curfew will come into play in every town and city across the country and a zero tolerance approach will be forced upon the citizens of the country.’ The commissioner could feel the sweat on him. ‘You will need to work fast. The security of the country is at stake.’
Stone remained standing, looking into the eyes of the people below him. ‘We believe that so long as the disease is confined to the north of the country, these measures might contain the spread, both south and farther north. Every available expert is working on a solution right now.’
He pushed his glasses along his nose. ‘As Britain goes into lockdown, be assured the world is watching with bated breath, and even then, it may be too late.’
THE COMMISSIONER DREW in a deep breath and mopped his brow. The stunned crowd in front of him began to disperse, heads buried in folders.
‘Is a chopper available?’ he said to the smart young officer next to him.
The officer, Dickinson, made a quick call. ‘Ten minutes and it’s yours,’ he said as he hung up. ‘Can I brief the pilot where it’s headed?’
‘Short trip – Upsall. Want to take a look for myself and there’s someone I need to get out – the headmaster at the school, name of Solomon. Can you run a check and see if he’s made contact with anyone?’
‘It’s bang in the middle of the zone, sir,’ Dickinson said. ‘The area suffered badly.’
‘I don’t care,’ the commissioner snapped back. ‘I need that man out of there, dead or alive!’
Dickinson raced off. Stone glanced at his watch and dusted down his jacket. He studied his mobile. Still no word from the scientists. When would they come back with something – anything? They were so lost in their own world, scientists, what they needed was a bang on the head to sort them out. He spotted Dickinson returning.
‘This Headmaster, Solomon,’ the officer said, ‘actively used his mobile when the signal became operational. Nothing since 21:00 hours yesterday. Maybe he ran out of battery.’
‘Good. At least we know he survived. Are we ready?’
Dickinson nodded and, knowing that the Commissioner liked to stride more than walk, marched quickly ahead.
‘GOOD HEAVENS,’ Stone muttered as he viewed the distant, brown smear of water and debris that was once the fertile green fields of the Vale of York. ‘Now, pay attention. I want details of everyone in this area, starting with Upsall. I want names and addresses. I want to know who is in the school, pupils, teachers, caterers, who runs the newsagents, who blows the candles out in the church. I want medical records, death records, birth records and a history of the place from as far back as you can get. I want to know the occupations of all the families that have been around the area, I want contractor information.’ He paused as he waited for the team to catch up with their note taking. ‘I want a pattern. Have you got that?’
‘sir,’ one of the officers nearby said, ‘this kind of investigation takes weeks.’
Stone fixed him an icy stare. ‘Understand this, money is no object. Hire everyone you can. Use the universities of Leeds, Durham, Newcastle – Timbuktu for all I care. We need results and we need to find something that connects Upsall to this plague, do you understand? We need this last week, Goddammit.’
The chopper wheeled to the right. ‘And I want everyone, and I mean everyone, who was found in Upsall village put in quarantine. Are the military in there yet? Good. Make arrangements for a mass evacuation of all the people up into the moors.’ He rubbed his chin. ‘Try using the outcrop at Crayke – use the castle there.’ He fixed each of the people with eyes that told them to trust him implicitly. ‘Your status as part of this team means you can access anyone. Anyone,’ he emphasised. ‘So get on your phones and get about your business. NOW.’
In no time the crew were relaying messages from their communications devices.
A message came through from the pilot. ‘We’re approaching Upsall, sir.’
‘Good. Can you get near the tower?’
The helicopter whirred and levelled out. Beneath them was a slurry of debris where the pretty village once stood. Grey water swirled below. Sticking out was the old tower of the school and the top half of the tall chapel.
Before long, one of the marines was being lowered down, onto the parapet. A couple of people were there welcoming him in.
One was the familiar figure of the headmaster, Solomon.
TO THE COMMISSIONER, his cousin looked pale and drawn. Weight had already dropped off him, and his face, rotund at their last meeting, was now angular and coated with a grey, stubbly beard.
‘You have to get the others out,’ the headmaster said. ‘You can’t leave them there. You don’t know what it’s like.’
Stone nodded and patted his shoulder reassuringly. ‘We’ll get everyone out, believe me,’ he said and then added, ‘I’m sorry about your party. I know how much it meant.’ The chopper soared into the rain. ‘Was rather looking forward to it myself.’
The headmaster shrugged. Tears welled in his eyes as he stared out of the window.
‘I’m going to come straight to the point, Solomon,’ Stone said. ‘We’ve got a pandemic on our hands and it stems from here.’ He stared out of the window as if sharing the older man’s grief. ‘You need to tell me everything you know about Upsall.’
The headmaster gathered himself together. ‘Of course. I’ll tell you what I know, but I’m not sure if it’ll help.’
The chopper climbed high and from here the devastation was truly remarkable. Water stretched from Teesside in the north as far as the eye could see to the south. Dotted at various points were outcrops, islands, full of tents and makeshift dwellings, like mini shanty towns.
‘Were there any unusual circumstances prior to the storm?’ Stone asked.
Solomon thought for a while. ‘None. We thought the storm was, for all intents and purposes, just localised. That’s what the Met Office said.’
‘So you called the Met Office?’
Solomon remembered the incident with Isabella. ‘No. Not exactly. I watched the forecast on the television, but there was a girl – one of my brightest students—’
‘She thought otherwise?’
Solomon admired the way his young cousin had the knack of picking up little leads like this. ‘Yes, probably nothing,’ he said. ‘A smart kid. You know, just interested—’
Stone lent in. ‘And she said what, exactly?’
‘Well, she’d made a barometer and insisted there was going to be a terrible storm. Why, I don’t know. But she did it on three occasions.’
‘Her name?’
‘Isabella de Lowe,’ he replied without flinching.
Stone scratched her name in his pad and handed it to the officer next to him. ‘Get this checked out,’ he said. ‘Find out if she’s alive, what family she has.’
‘Oh, I wouldn’t worry about her,’ Solomon said. ‘Her parents are stuck in the Middle East – archaeologists—’
‘Look, I need answers and, at the moment, there are none,’ Stone said. ‘Everyone, and I mean everyone, is being checked out.’
An alarm bell rang in Solomon’s mind. ‘But she’s only a child—’
‘I don’t care if she’s a bloody donkey. I need to know about everyone.’ His tone was tough and unapologetic. ‘Where is she from? Upsall or—’
‘All I’m saying,’ Solomon said in his mo
st head-masterly way, ‘is that this girl came to me wanting to talk about a storm, which she said was going to be bigger than everyone thought.’
‘Why?’ Stone pressed. ‘Do all your students do this?’
‘I have no idea,’ Solomon replied racking his brain. ‘Perhaps she was being intuitive. Some children are remarkable in that respect. She’s a bright child, one of our best.’
‘Do you know where she lives?’
Solomon didn’t like the way this was going. ‘In the hills,’ he said, waving a hand roughly in the air. ‘Extraordinary family, very eccentric.’
‘In what way?’
Solomon had forgotten what a persevering human being Stone could be. It was, he realised, one of the reasons he’d climbed to the top. ‘Look,’ he said. ‘I’m tired, exhausted and hungry and I don’t think this is helping.’ He turned his head away. The headmaster needed to think, to run the conversations through his mind before he’d give his cousin anything else to work on. He certainly wasn’t going to allow Stone to hound his students. ‘I simply think you’re barking up the wrong tree,’ he added.
Stone surveyed his haggard cousin. ‘de Lowe. Is that the name?’
Solomon grunted disapprovingly.
Stone turned to the officer. ‘Find out everything about the de Lowe family. History, academic records, family records – the whole damn lot. Understand?’
Solomon was too tired to respond. In his heart there was something about Isabella and her ranting that struck a chord with everything that had happened – as if she knew. But what and why her? How could that family, living in a curious old cottage perched high up on the moors, with the strange old man looking after them and a heritage as old as the hills, have anything to do with this disaster?
But, deep down, Solomon supposed that if anyone had a clue about strange goings on in Upsall – it might be them. He slumped back into his seat and shut his eyes. He’d find out when they landed and he’d slept, washed and eaten. Until then, the last person he would tell would be Stone and his cronies.
Stone had a fearsome reputation for extracting information and he wasn’t ready to hand over his students, or his friends.
Not yet at any rate.
SEVENTY
CAIN’S PLAN
Cain amazed himself with his supreme intelligence. And his latest ruse smacked of pure genius.
OK, so he lost the boy. But did he really need him? No, not right now. In a way, the timing couldn’t have been better. You see, he’d discovered a way of speeding up delivery of the plague, so that the world was plunged into misery even before the water had receded. Four days early! That was the strange thing about those dream-giving spider things, the dreamspinners. They knew everything but, at the same time, they knew nothing.
And yes, he did miss having the boy around. What a wonderful feeling! Walking, dancing, beating people up, just like the good old days. When the boy was better, he’d return and tell him all about his mother – for a price, of course. He looked forward to it. But this time, he’d look after him and get the boy to utterly trust him.
Cain couldn’t believe that he had ignored the boy’s most basic needs. For a brief moment he felt a twinge of regret but his current excitement made him overlook that emotion. Next time, he’d find a way of talking, perhaps by opening up a path in his brain, and they’d communicate and wouldn’t that be fun? And he’d feed him – like a king. Already, huge lists of foods were being sought out. Things he’d never heard of. Things with extraordinary names like fish fingers and roast chicken and Coco Pops and prawn crackers. A kitchen to prepare this food was under construction, along with a well of water sunk deep into the palace earth and filtered in exactly the way necessary for humans.
Next time, he wouldn’t force the boy to do anything by burning him. He’d only burn him if he didn’t do things his way. Sure, it might be tricky, but he’d communicate and then win him over.
Anyway, the boy would understand that he had an opportunity to wield real power. And, if he was honest, Cain wondered about letting himself be dominated, controlled like a sleeping partner – taking a back seat and seeing what happened. He could switch off for a year or two, have a break from being a spirit; take a sabbatical, become a non-executive.
Cain danced around and swished through the air even if it wasn’t half as enjoyable as having an actual, real body to do it in. He thought about the Heirs of Eden and laughed. So they survived the flood. Big deal. They have seven days to find the three tablets and, as of day three, those wretched children are still moping around their strange little home while a very horrid plague is rearing its ugly head to the unsuspecting world.
And it’s all their fault!
He laughed. Well, they were just kids. The only person who could guide them was the old man. And what a failure he was turning out to be. Worse than useless! He had no idea, even if he had discovered the old cellar and the trees at the brook. It was like watching a snail in a running race.
Cain ran through the sequence of events on Earth. By the time the Heirs of Eden failed, as they were bound to, every living thing would have succumbed to the plague and died. He laughed. It was so easy: just let them be themselves. The dreamspinners would take him to the Ancient Woman, his dear mother, and he’d open up the Garden of Eden himself. He couldn’t believe he hadn’t thought of it before.
Then he’d have control of every living thing, every being, every cell of every being and he’d nurture the ones he wanted and put them onto a new Earth and revitalise his dear Havilah. He would create any creature he wished, just the way he wanted. And would the old man stop him? No, because he wouldn’t know how.
But what if those children managed to succeed? He toyed with the absurdity of it. On the remote chance that they did manage to find the stone tablets, could he deny them passage to the Garden of Eden? No, not really. But it made no difference. The prize would still be his because he’d steal it. In any case, children of the human race would never commit murder, I mean, they could hardly bear to even dream of it.
With these happy thoughts, he summoned Asgard. ‘Dreamspinner, dreamspinner, dreamspinner,’ he called. Moments later the large, opaque, spidery creature appeared, his blue middle fizzing with electric light. ‘Aha! There you are. How is our little plan coming along?’
Asgard’s legs moved rapidly. ‘Master, the particles have been mixed into the new stocks of spider web dream powders deep in the caves of Havilah.’
‘Excellent!’ Cain said. ‘What will these dreams be like?’
‘Havilarian spiders are different to those of the Garden of Eden and Earth. They are clever, brutal, manipulative and easily roused. These qualities are reflected in the action of the dream powders made from their spider webs.’
‘Nightmares?’
‘Bad dreams are as rewarding and enriching as the pleasant,’ Asgard said, flicking his legs. ‘After all, they are only dreams. Remember, creativity and enlightenment comes from the darker side of life too, Master.’
Cain was intrigued. ‘Why not spider webs from Earth?’
‘Earth spiders are bland and lifeless. These spider web powders do not nourish dreamspinners as deeply.’
‘Why so?’
‘Dream powders are as vital to us as the breathing of air is to mankind and water is to creatures of the sea. Dreamspinners will spin more dreams from Havilah from now on. I guarantee it.’
‘Your band of dreamspinners has grown?’
‘Now there are many,’ the spidery creature signed, speaking through the vibrations of his legs. ‘Each day, as the sun sets, more join. Dreamspinners cannot resist a dream.’
‘Even bad ones, eh?’ Cain loved this creature. ‘You are most enlightening, Asgard,’ he said. ‘And wise,’ he added.
Asgard was unsure of Cain’s meaning. ‘In the event of the boy returning to you,’ Asgard continued, ‘I have found a way of transporting you from place to place.’
If Cain had ears, they would have flapped. ‘Are you sugges
ting there are dreamspinners who would sacrifice themselves?’ he asked.
‘Indeed. Some who are too old to give dreams do not wish to see the world shaping as it is. They believe a new time is coming. They are prepared to go to their deaths early.’
Cain jumped up, invisibly, and thumped the air repeatedly. ‘Phenomenal news! Truly, Asgard, this is wonderful! I am delighted with you.’ He lowered his voice. ‘Tell me, dreamspinner, how long before the plague particles in your dream powders are ready to go?’
‘The new spider web dream powders are free to use as the sun sinks over the western horizon.’
Cain gasped. ‘Tonight? Already? My goodness.’
The ghost danced an invisible jig. What a turnaround! Nightmares stuffed full of plague, and a few days early at that. ‘Poor, dear, little Earthlings,’ he crowed. ‘They have no idea what is about to hit them – and not a helping hand in sight.’
Damn the wretched Prophecy, damn the old man and damn the Heirs of Eden, he thought. Very soon there won’t be a world worth saving.
SEVENTY-ONE
LOCKDOWN
While showing footage of the hairless boy in his hospital bed, the TV screen started to flicker, soon blacking out altogether.
Isabella flipped the light switch, but it wasn’t working either and she noticed that the buzz of the generator no longer filled the air. She shot out of the house to see if she could restart the motor.
Silence filled the kitchen. ‘Was that who I think it was?’ Daisy said quietly.
Archie had gone pale. ‘What do you mean?’ he stammered, trying to hide his face.
‘That boy!’ Daisy said.
Archie didn’t know what to say.
‘It’s Kemp! It has to be.’
‘You think so?’