by RR Haywood
‘Er…’ Clarence shouts, ‘we’re this way…so come this way…to er…the way of my voice.’
‘Brilliantly done there Clarence,’ I yell back and start swimming a slow breast stroke, eyeing the corpses ahead of me blocking my route.
‘We three kings of orient are…’ Cookey breaks into song, his tone deaf voice blasting out as happy as ever.
‘Keep going,’ I shout and get a mouthful of water in the process. I spit it out violently, thinking about all the bacteria from the corpses in it.
‘One in a manger one in a car…er…jingle bells batman smells robin flew awaaaayyyy….oh what fun it is to be a Blowers that is gay…’
‘You’re such a fucking dick,’ Blowers shouts from somewhere ahead of me.
‘Blowers said he wants to give you the kiss of life, Mr Howie,’ Cookey quips, ‘he said the new technique is to do it with tongues….naked…with baby oil…’
Meredith barking like crazy cuts him off, voices become louder, shouting with alarm. A pistol shot rings out within a second of the cacophony of sound bursting out.
‘What is it?’ I shout and start swimming faster.
‘They’re coming towards you,’ Dave shouts, ‘I got one…’
‘One what?’ I try to yell but water sploshes back into my mouth. Someone shouts stop her and I hear another distinct splash, either Lani or the dog has just jumped in.
‘Meredith is coming your way,’ Clarence bellows which answers the question. I keep my mouth closed this time and focus on swimming towards the noise. The floating bodies obstruct my view so I try craning my head up but get no higher than a couple of inches. A few more strokes and I try again, something larger than a body flits into view between the tendrils of thick fog that cling to the surface of the water. I hear heavy breathing and some small splashing noises give me the direction of Meredith, well, what I hope is Meredith anyway. A get a sudden flashback of shark movies and find the panic starting to rise again. The horrible sensation that something is underneath me, stalking me, snaking near to my legs. I know this is stupid as we don’t get sharks here but still I start thinking of big mutant eels or zombie fish and all sorts of horrible images. I swim harder forcing myself not to go into a frenzy. A growl sounds out ahead of me and I crane my head back up amidst my own now ragged breaths. The dark mass is closer, a stack of mangled bodies all compressed together with tangled limbs and thick strands of pink innards. Dank dark patches of hair mixed with blondes and gingers, a bald head in there too, legs and feet, hands, arms and the whole thing like a raft upon which two undead lie flat out growling and hissing as they lock eyes on me. They look bruised, battered and deformed; one of them has an arrow sticking out of his arse from a hasty but well aimed shot taken by Roy. So grey and lifeless that I wonder how they can still be moving but they are and the sight of me seems to animate them. A darker shadow passes in front of them which causes me more undue panic as my mind translates the image into being a huge shark fin until I realise it’s the head of Meredith gliding round as she looks for a way onto the corpse raft.
‘Dave,’ I shout out, ‘you missed mate, there’s still two on there…’
‘There was three, Mr Howie,’ he shouts back. Of course there was. How could I not realise that?
‘Did I get one?’ Roy shouts politely.
‘In the arse mate but I don’t think he’s that bothered. Dave, do pistols work if they’ve been underwater?’
‘No, Mr Howie…not these ones anyway.’
Right. Brilliant. Two nasty bastards that have a height advantage and are bearing down on me with a look of glee written all over their rancid faces. Nope, make that one as Meredith has just launched herself up and gripped one by the face before letting her weight sink her back down dragging the flailing beast with her. That dog is amazing.
She busies herself with a decent impression of jaws as the water around her turns a funny pink colour. That leaves just one. Just one wanker with his lips pulled back showing me his lovely stained and chipped teeth.
‘Can you swim?’ He doesn't answer. Ignorant shit. I wait until the last second to see what he will do and, as I hoped, he lunges forward to take a nice big bite while I move to the side and watch him sink face first into the sea.
‘Too soon mate,’ I shake my head as his feet slide under the surface then look up to see Meredith swimming back towards me while holding an arm between her teeth like she’s bringing a stick back for me to throw. An actual arm. A fully grown adult arm complete with the sleeve of some dark coloured material and a sparkly watch on the wrist. She swims past looking happy as anything, getting slightly too close and letting the dead hand slap me in the face.
‘You alright?’ Lani shouts.
‘Yeah fine, Meredith has an arm she wants me to throw for her.’
‘An arm?’ She yells back.
‘Yep,’ I start swimming again, following the noise of the others until the two boats, now side by side, come into view. As I swim closer I feel Meredith swimming up beside me, or rather I feel the dead hand ruffling my hair as she paddles along with the arm.
‘Oh,’ Lani stands with the others nodding at the sight of Meredith swimming up to the side of the boat. The clever dog seems to aim for Clarence as if knowing he will be able to lift her in.
‘Drop the arm,’ he orders the dog, who ignores him and whines to be lifted in. He bends over and tries to take it from her mouth but she gives a low growl and he gives up, having seen the devastation that usually follows one of her growls. Reaching down, he pushes his arms under her stomach before lifting her with ease into the boat. She shakes off again, still clutching the arm then turns round to drop it at Clarence’s feet. She looks up at him and yaps a high pitched playful bark, clearly urging him to throw the arm for her.
‘Here mate, would you?’ I get to the side of the boat and try to heave myself up as he reaches down to pluck me in like a ragdoll.
‘You alright boss?’ He asks as I stand dripping and looking down at the arm.
‘Fine,’ I nod and bend down to pick the arm up. Two brown eyes fix on with an intense look, poised and ready. She gets into a crouch, swaying side to side as she tries to guess which way it will go.
‘Hmmmm,’ I look at the human limb and try to decide what to do. Now I’m holding it, it seems stupid to put it back down but I can’t throw it over the side either. ‘So,’ I look round at the others, ‘who needs a hand?’
‘Oh nicely done!’ Cookey bursts out laughing, showing his appreciation for my attempt at humour. Lani gives a resigned shake of her head.
‘I think land is that way,’ I hold the arm up pointing off in a random direction, ‘or is it that way,’ I turn and point the arm off to the other side as Cookey and the lads start cracking up. ‘Tell you what though,’ I give a quick grin, ‘it was handy having Meredith there! Get it…handy…’
Waving the arm about is too much for the dog who decides she wants her toy back and jumps up to take it.
‘Yeah?’ I tease her for a second, ‘you want my arm do you? Yeah? You and whose army eh?’
Meredith fixes me with a cold stare, clearly pissed off and not playing around anymore. She pulls back her top lip and another growl rumbles through her throat.
‘Ah, ok, you have this back, there’s a good girl,’ I hastily drop the arm and move to scratch her behind her ears. She’s instantly happy again as takes the arm in her mouth and starts wagging her tail. Behind me, I hear Lani and the lads all cracking up.
‘So we know not to take toys off of Meredith now,’ Lani tuts but grins all the same.
‘Right,’ I move over to clamber back into my boat and change the subject, ‘we trying again?’
‘Which way?’ Nick asks, ‘Dave dropped the compass.’ I look to Dave who just shrugs and takes his seat in the middle of our boat.
‘Have you turned since I fell in?’ I ask the group as a whole.
‘Nope, we’re still human,’ Cookey quips.
‘Probably, fucking impo
ssible to keep direction,’ Nick replies looking up at the wall of cloud surrounding us.
We have no choice but to get the little engines going again and move off. Nick and Blowers do their best to keep the tillers straight but it’s impossible to tell if we’re veering off to the left or right. This time we stay seated and holding on as the corpses keep bobbing into view hitting the front and sides of the boats with dull thuds. Macabre and gruesome and for a few seconds I feel a surge of guilt at playing about with that arm. That was a part of a person, a human being that loved and cared. A person that was killed in the most awful way and had their body taken over by the infection. What have we become? What have I become that I can piss about with a human limb while the others laugh.
Black humour I think they call it. The same type of humour the soldiers and emergency services have. A coping mechanism. We didn’t ask for this to happen but it has and we’re just trying to make it through the day and survive. Weighing it up in my, I try to work out if doing something like that, playing about with a body part as a way of coping with the horror, if that is a lesser evil than being devoid of all humour. Humour is what defines us, it’s what sets us apart from everything else. Art, humour, our ability to feel. Yes it was a gross and highly disrespectful thing to do but without that humour that allows us to cope, we’d all be mad or completely psychotic.
‘Here boss,’ Cookey passes me a cigarette and I look round to see the others all looking at me.
‘What? Was I thinking out loud?’ I take the cigarette as they shrug and go back to staring at the sides and front.
‘You had that dark look,’ Lani explains quietly.
‘What dark look?’
‘The dark look you get when you’re thinking.’
‘I was thinking,’ I light the cigarette and shift uncomfortably, my underpants are sodden, rubbing against my backside and thighs. My boots feel squelchy and my top is clinging to my body. At least it’s still warm but even that is fucked up. I’ve never felt warm fog before. It’s always been cold and clinging but this is…
‘Fuck me,’ Meredith barking makes me jump. She’s at the front of her boat again, staring intently and slightly off to the left. We all watch her, she doesn't seem angry but more interested in something, ears pricked and head cocked to one side.
‘See the bottom innit,’ Jagger announces, leaning over the side of his boat. Mo Mo joins him, ‘yeah bruv, we could walk now.’
‘Really?’ I shuffle over and look down, the water is clear enough to see the ground a couple of feet down.
‘House bricks,’ Cookey says, ‘we must be over where the estate was.’
‘No way,’ Blowers mutters, ‘is the estate gone?’
‘Looks like it,’ I reply, ‘yeah…the bricks are all burnt…foundations there…see,’ I point to a clump of bricks still embedded in the ground.
‘Fucking Time Team will love this in a few hundred years,’ Cookey chuckles, ‘imagine Baldrick trying to explain how some bloke called Dave blew a settlement up because of a disease.’
‘Baldrick?’ Lani looks over at the young lad.
‘Yeah, the bloke from Time Team, he was Baldrick.’
‘Who is Baldrick?’ Lani asks again.
‘You don’t know who Baldrick is?’ Cookey stares in shock.
‘Clearly,’ Lani tuts, ‘who is he?’
‘Blackadder? You must have seen Blackadder.’
‘Blackadder? No…I think I’ve heard of it but…’
‘Fuck,’ Cookey shakes his head in obvious disappointment, ‘never seen Blackadder. Jagger, have you seen Blackadder?’
‘Yeah,’ he shouts back, ‘My foster carer watched ‘em on DVD.’
‘Dave?’ Cookey asks the quiet man still sitting in the middle of the boat.
‘Yes.’
‘Have you seen Blackadder?’
‘I said yes,’ Dave replies flatly.
‘Paula, have you seen…’
‘I get it,’ Lani snaps, ‘I’m the only one that hasn’t seen it. Couldn’t now even if I wanted to.’
‘Sorry Lani,’ a look of hurt flashes across Cookey’s face, ‘I didn’t mean anything.’
‘Blowers,’ Nick calls out after turning his own engine off, ‘switch off and lift the propeller up, we’ll glide in…don’t risk breaking the blades.’
Blowers does as requested without complaint or comment as we drift over the ruined remains of what was a lovely housing estate less than two weeks ago. The devastation is incredible, that the storm has taken back so much land is staggering. Then I start to think that maybe this land was reclaimed just so they could build the fort. Shit, imagine if the people were still living in the estate when it happened.
The scraping noise tells us we’re grounding out. ‘Good work Nick,’ I call out for him having the presence of mind to switch off and lift the blades clear, ‘anyone know what part of the estate this is…or was?’
Muttered responses in the negative. We clamber out carefully and realise the boats have been caught on a wall jutting up. We’re still in the shallows and have to push and pull the boats free of the obstructions before we start dragging them behind us as we wade on. We go slow and easy as the ground beneath us is pitted with holes and trip hazards. Nobody speaks, the clinging fog makes any sound seemingly too loud, like we’re drawing attention to ourselves or breaking the silence of a hallowed place.
We seem to wade for a long time but with no way of knowing direction, with no features above the surface of the water we have no way of measuring distance so we just keep moving in what we hope is a straight direction, dragging the boats behind us as they get snagged and bang on the debris.
‘Road,’ Dave points down under his feet, ‘the back of the estate is that way,’ he points off to the right, meaning we we’re heading across the estate left to right rather than heading for the rear. We change course and follow Dave as he picks out the remains of the black tarmac beneath his feet.
‘Getting shallower,’ Lani breaths.
‘Good, this place sucks arse,’ Blowers mutters. Jagger and Mo Mo stay quiet and watchful constantly scanning the area around them and my group as they interact.
With groans of relief we spot the clear ground rising up from the water a few feet ahead of us. A couple of seconds later and we’re out of the sea and on firm ground. I still don’t recognise the place or area and the fog has completely ruined any sense of direction I have, but we have what looks like a road underfoot so if we follow that…
‘Where did you leave the Saxon, Nick?’ Clarence asks as Nick lights up and inhales a lungful of smoke.
‘Er,’ Nick turns so he’s facing out to sea, ‘if the fort is that way,’ he waves ahead, ‘then we were off to that side,’ he waves to the right, ‘little harbour down there somewhere…fuck knows,’ he shrugs.
Clarence peers about for a few seconds, staring at the road ahead before he moves off to the side and almost disappears from sight within a few steps. ‘We’re on the main road,’ he calls out, ‘the one that came into the estate.’
‘So we just follow it then, makes life simple.’ I reply as Clarence comes back into view, ‘is it worth getting roped together now?’
Clarence pulls a face while avoiding looking at Dave, ‘we’ll get tangled at the first scrap,’ he says with a tone of politeness that doesn't suit him.
‘I agree with Dave,’ Lani interjects with forced diplomacy. She looks at the big man then at Dave, ‘if we have to fight a running battle we’ll…’
‘And we’ll be tripping over each other in the process,’ Clarence cuts her off, ‘it’ll do more harm than good.’
‘No,’ Paula offers her thoughts, ‘I’m with Dave, we’re better together and getting lost in this would be horrible.’
‘We wouldn’t be lost forever,’ Roy says, ‘I don’t want to be roped up, not with a bow to use.’
Looking about at the wall of fog I can see Dave and Lani’s point but then knowing how ferocious the fighting has been the la
st thing we want is rope getting tangled round our legs.
‘We’ll pair up,’ I announce, ‘instead of roping together we stay tight to our partner. Lani and Nick, Clarence with Jagger and Mo Mo, Blowers and Cookey, Paula with Roy and I’ll stay with Dave. If anything happens and we’ve got to star burst or start running then stay with your group. Stop at the first point of running and we’ll…’ my voice trails off, ‘fuck it, we’ll have to suck it and see, we can only plan so far in advance and I agree with Clarence, I don’t like the idea of being roped up.’
Dave doesn't react but I know him well enough to see he’s not happy. In a way it’s touching that his concern is primarily for our personal security and he’s probably right, but we need the freedom of movement.
‘Dave, you and me up front, the rest stay close behind.’
‘Okay, Mr Howie,’ the small man replies and starts walking forward.
‘The fog doesn’t bother her,’ Jagger points at the dog looming out of the fog, still dripping wet but looking happy enough with her tongue hanging out and tail wagging away.
‘Nothing bothers her,’ Cookey informs them, ‘apart from cats.’
Setting off, we casually fall into the set groups with Dave and me at the front. I notice Clarence discretely falls back to bring the rear up and looks even bigger while flanked by two teenage boys.
Again we fall into silence, just the crunch of our boots on the tarmac and sploshes as we walk through the deep puddles lying inert. Plucking the front of my t shirt away from my body I grimace and wish I was back in that dark room with Lani.
Meredith runs loops round us, ranging in circles as though herding us down the road. She looks so wolf-like disappearing into and running out of the fog bank. I’ve never seen anything like this, in fact I can’t imagine anyone has ever seen fog like this.
‘Dave.’
‘Yes.’
‘Have you ever seen fog like this?’
‘Yes.’
I knew he bloody would have, ‘where?’ I ask him.
‘Argentina.’
‘Right, why were you in Argentina?’
‘I had to bring back a defecting Colonel from their army.’