by RR Haywood
‘Not yet,’ she says gently, ‘calm down first.’
‘I’m calm.’
‘Okay, just another minute then until that flush has gone.’
‘I’m flushed because it’s hot.’
‘Okay,’ she remains calm and drops her bag onto the ground and bends down to undo the top before glancing up as though in fear I’d walk off, ‘stay there.’ She pulls a bottle of water out and stands up while unscrewing the top, ‘lean forward.’
I do as told and close my eyes as the water pours over my face and I flinch involuntarily when her hand touches my forehead, ‘relax,’ she says, ‘I won’t hurt you.’ She works her hand through my hair pushing the water through then down over my forehead and gently brushing my closed eyes, nose, cheeks and down to my jaw. ‘Stay still,’ she whispers and does it again from my hair down my face to my jaw, ‘better?’
‘Yes, thank you.’
‘You’re a right diva when you don’t have your snickers,’ she says with a smile when I open my eyes, ‘now do me,’ she hands me a bottle and closes her eyes, ‘do you remember that advert?’
‘Yeah,’ I chuckle and unscrew the lid, ‘ready?’
‘Oh yes.’
She’s stubborn, brave and something else too, she’s bloody switched on. I’m not intellectual or even intelligent like Reginald, Roy, Charlie and Paula. I can’t make jokes as fast as Blowers and the lads, I can’t be blunt like Blinky and not worry about speaking my mind but I bloody know when a pretty girl is using her looks on me and right now, Marcy is going for the full on experience and getting me to run crystal clear water over her hair and face knowing full well I’ll be completely absorbed. It’s cheap but fuck it, it also works a treat and I’m gone. Staring at her skin and feeling the softness of it under my fingertips as I work to sluice the sweat off and gently bring my hand from her scalp, down her forehead to her nose and those eyebrows and down the high cheekbones to the full lips. My hand stops at the point of her chin with my forefinger under and my thumb over. I tilt her face up and close the distance with an overwhelming urge to kiss her while expecting her to open her eyes and recoil again or laugh at me. It takes forever but the anticipation has my heart booming in my chest and I pause, holding off to enjoy that sensation of wanting but not having. She opens her heavy eyelids and locks eyes on me, unmoving but daring, challenging and there the same want I feel inside is portrayed in her expression. Her lips twitch to smile but not mocking me and she moves the last few inches and sinks her lips on mine to an explosion of pure touch that makes my heart miss a few beats and my stomach flip over a few times while my legs go all rubbery and weird.
Everything can wait now. The whole world and all that is in it because it doesn't matter. Nothing matters but this second. The kiss we shared yesterday was born of peril and the fear of imminent death and it was wonderful and glorious but nothing compared to right now. Since I’ve met her, since the first minute on the flatlands outside the fort when time seemed to stand still and I saw the seasons of years pass in a second and the ground heaved to send me flying into the sky, since then I have wanted this and now, to have it, to share the gentlest of kisses is the most perfect of moments I have ever known. More than that. It is everything and all. We don’t move but remain stock still with our lips touching, eyes closed, my hand still on her chin and my other holding the water bottle. Maybe she does it to delay me. Maybe she is only giving her lips so I won’t rush the lads and push them on, maybe she wants the infection to win and is buying time, or maybe, just maybe she is kissing me because she wants to do it and as though she can read my thoughts she pushes harder into me but not driven by lust but by a consuming desire to be closer. I do the same and the feeling grows. A sense of completeness, of wholeness. I drop the bottle and snake my hand through her hair and it increases yet again. Her hands find my head and again it grows. Every movement made, every motion taken to close the gaps between us heightens the feeling of it being right but still not driven by lust or a need to fuck on the floor. Not that. Deeper and infinitely more powerful and it feels like we’re being lifted from the ground and floating in a void of nothing where nothing exists except that sensation. It is right. It is correct. More than appropriate and the unmistakable perfection of the feeling legitimatises the very thing we are doing. Now I don’t want to go to Stenbury or Brookley or Flitcombe or anywhere but yet I have to go to those places and I know it is pre-ordained and expected but not by the infection but by something else. By this.
Her lips part and slowly the feelings of man and woman creep to infuse with the other perfect sensation of being right but we are human and again it is right. A taste is given and a want builds to have more, to take more but to only take what is given and she gives to me as I do to her. Lips opening as the warm air from our lungs exhales into the others. We breathe each other. We taste each other. We give ourselves to the other for nothing is more human and loving than to kiss. More than sex. More than making love. A kiss is the most intimate act and a kiss given with love, with consent, with need and desire to give pleasure and receive pleasure and focus that sensation is as powerful as anything ever known. Lust will taint it. Lust and the organic reaction of the body to copulate to further the species but if they can be withstood to stretch the moment of the intimacy then the reward will only be greater for it and our reward is given freely.
When we part we do so not because the desire has finished because the desire has increased to such a height that nothing short of divine intervention could satisfy it now, and to be blunt, we don’t have time to start shagging on the floor of Maplin. No, we part because the perfection of the moment has been reached and to end now will hold that perfect moment forever and always.
We don’t speak but remain still and close. Breathing as our hearts start to return to normal and the dilation of our pupils retract to where they should be.
‘Why us?’ She whispers, ‘why do we have to fix this?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘I wish….’
‘I know…me too.’
‘But we can’t.’
‘No,’ I reply, ‘we can’t.’
‘One day?’
‘Yes. One day.’
‘Promise?’
‘I promise. You too?’
‘I promise too. One day.’
‘One day,’ I say and gently ease away. She closes her eyes as though savouring the moment and not wanting it to end and I’d give anything to go back and just stay with her. No. I would not give anything. I look outside to the group all chatting and drinking cans of fizzy drink and past them to Reginald and Charlie pouring over the maps at the desk. No. I wouldn’t give anything.
‘Ready?’ I ask.
‘I am,’ she says picking her bag up, ‘you?’
‘Am now,’ I smile.
‘Oh is that what it takes to calm you down?’
‘Maybe,’ I chuckle, ‘in fact yes, exactly that.’
‘Noted,’ she says, ‘I’ll be your chief calmer downerer.’
‘Marcy,’ I say as she looks at me, ‘thank you and sorry for what I said.’
‘S’okay,’ she shrugs the bag on, ‘I slapped you twice for it.’
‘Yeah,’ I say rubbing my face, ‘you can hit hard.’
‘Yep, you learn when you’re this beautiful,’ she says.
‘So vain.’
We head back outside to a group of people pretending not to notice that we’ve been gone and Dave giving Marcy a very blank stare that goes on for a few seconds longer than it needs to, but then it is Dave and she did slap me and it’s lucky he didn’t shoot her on the spot.
‘We’re all ready,’ Nick says cheerfully.
‘Yeah?’ I ask everyone, ‘sure? We can stop for a drink if anyone wants one...or if anyone needs a poo.’ Blank looks come back which slowly adjust to Marcy in obvious realisation that she’s said something to me, ‘fair enough, load up then.’
‘Mr Howie,’ Reggie calls out, ‘we’ve identified a field
half a mile from the village that is screened by a wooded copse for the deployment of the drone aircraft.’
‘Great stuff, mate. Give us a shout when we’re close.’
We get into the baking hot oven of the Saxon and instantly wilt. Engine on. Doors closed. Air conditioning on full and we pull away from Hydehill.
Day Eighteen
Update No 4
I am definitely on the correct route. A small village full of thatched cottages and in the main road are a few dozen corpses and with more of the same military grade shell casings glinting in the sun.
On inspection of the bodies I can see they have been shot with clear precision and many of them with that tell-tale signature of a bullet hole in the precise mid centre of the forehead.
Next to the main road is a café and it is there the officers must have stopped for a planning meeting. Empty cans of soft drinks, water bottles and chocolate bar wrappers left in situ and a large bucket of water brought out for the attack dogs.
I am now even more excited. The fact they fought a battle then calmly stopped for a tea break is a sight that warms my heart for it tells me they have retained order and structure and an adherence to decent values. I searched the inside of the café and discovered the soft drinks cabinet almost empty. This tells me the officers were thoughtful enough to take drinks and refreshments out to the privates and non-commissioned officers forming the guard perimeter on the main road.
I must be honest and admit that I have given consideration to leaving Jess here and seeking a vehicle to use so I can close the distance between us. But I say with honesty that the very idea was quickly discounted. Jess may be slower than army trucks but in her senses I trust and again she showed the same response as we neared the main road by snorting and throwing her head.
It is still very hot and now very humid. I fear another storm is brewing.
NB
Thirteen
The battle for Brookley
‘Yes. Yes,’ Reginald nods while thinking, ‘yes.’
‘You agree?’
‘Yes. Yes.’
‘I mean they haven’t worn masks or eye protection since they started, no protective clothing at all and every single one of them is covered in cuts with broken skin.’
‘Yes,’ Reginald says again, ‘indeed. Cuts. The possibility of blood or fluid transference will be very high. And tell me again what happened with Mr Howie?’
‘Nick was on the floor, everyone was leaning over him and Mr Howie, Blowers, Cookey and Marcy were all rubbing their cut hands into him and we all heard Mr Howie offer himself instead of Nick.’
‘And you heard this internally rather than externally?’
‘Yes. Mr Howie did not speak yet we all heard it.’
‘Perhaps he did speak but given the tension of the moment it merely appeared as though he did not speak.’
‘No. As soon as I heard his voice I looked at him and most of the others did too. Marcy was right next to him and she was staring at him. Clarence was facing Mr Howie, Cookey and Blowers were opposite and of course Nick was lying down. They all had a clear view and Mr Howie was not speaking.’
Reginald nods again and listens intently as the air in the van cools rapidly from the air conditioning on maximum, ‘telepathy is a form of extrasensory perception cognition through which information can be passed but it is fiction. It does not exist. It is not possible therefore if something is not possible then there must be another explanation for it.’
‘But…’
‘Having said that,’ Reginald says cutting her off, ‘that was my belief only three weeks ago but having been subjected to an advanced organic state of telepathic control in the form of a hive mind collective intelligence I would suggest that whatever variance of infection or virus you are all infected with has meant that, at times of extreme emotion, Mr Howie has gained the ability to broadcast his thoughts in the same way the infection transposes its will upon the host bodies.’
Charlie does as Reginald did and listens intently until the full realisation of his suggestion hits home, ‘oh,’ she says dully, ‘oh dear.’
‘Yes, my dear,’ Reginald says softly, ‘oh dear indeed.’
‘So we are all infected.’
‘I am not a doctor,’ Reginald says holding his hands out with the palms facing Charlie, ‘and I can only make suppositions based on the very limited information I have. But, given the fact that we know the infection can use such a technique and coupled with the fact that at least four of the group appear to be immune to the virus in its current known state then yes, indeed it does appear that way.’
‘Five,’ Charlie says, ‘five are immune. Six including Meredith.’
‘I was not counting Marcy or myself. Marcy and I turned. That we later turned back could suggest that whatever variance of virus within us is different to the one inside you, or inside the four we know are immune.’
‘But Mr Howie was kissing Marcy,’ Charlie says thinking hard, ‘in Maplin.’
‘It was only a matter of time,’ Reginald says with a low groan, ‘but perhaps that does not change anything. If Marcy and I are carriers it could be that the type of virus in you stops you taking any further infection from us, or indeed from them.’
‘We really need to find virologists.’
‘Indeed we do but our course at this time is to seek ways to cull their numbers which is a futile act and one likened to bolting the proverbial stable door after the horse has ran very far away.’
‘You think this is futile?’
‘Charlie, anything less than an arsenal of nuclear bombs being dropped is futile. They are like cockroaches and rats. Millions of them in the country and no doubt billions of them worldwide. What can thirteen people do? Our efforts should be as you say and directed at finding a virologist to understand why we have variances within our small group and what can be taken from us to create either a vaccine or a cure.’
‘You think they can be cured?’
‘In truth no. I think the best we can hope for is a vaccine to prevent anyone else being turned and then waiting for them to die out naturally.’
‘That would take years.’
‘Yes.’
‘And even then it would only take a few to survive and…’ she trails off at the long bleak future ahead of them.
‘Yes,’ he says and lets the subject drop at seeing the range of emotions cross her face. He looks at the monitor and the view of the countryside coming at them on two images and the other showing the view of the countryside being left behind. The future and the past shown almost as representation of what they are discussing. Ahead are the possibilities. Behind are the facts of what they can prove. Ahead could be anything but behind there are only trees.
Charlie’s radio squawks on the desk, ‘Howie to everyone…we’re passing through the next village now…Brookley is only a few minutes after that.’
A few houses go by on the monitor. Then a few more until they are passing what is attempting to be the main road complete with one shop. Turning to the matter at hand, Reginald stares down at the map on the desk and the village of Brookley followed Flitcombe and finally Stenbury. Smaller towns between them but those are the ones to be leap-frogged.
They should be seeking professional experts who can understand this but unless Mr Howie is ready to listen to that suggestion then they have no choice but to stay the course and plan to stay alive until he is ready. The village passes by plunging then once more back into the open countryside as they head to the spot allocated on the map to be used to deploy the drone. Thinking such a thing makes him shake his head in disbelief, that he would be in the back of an armoured van having been turned into a crazed monster and now working as a military strategist for what is possible the only functioning resistance group in the country is beyond comprehension and best not to be dwelled upon.
‘We should be close,’ Reginald calls out to Roy who transmits the same on his radio, ‘look for an opening to the field on the right side.’
/>
‘Howie to Reginald, you there?’
‘Reginald here, please do go ahead Mr Howie.’
‘No fields here, mate. There is a bloody big industrial estate though.’
Charlie leans forward to check the map as Reginald checks is and peers over to look at Charlie’s. ‘The maps must be old,’ Charlie says, ‘do they look new?’
‘Reginald to Mr Howie, does the industrial estate look new in appearance?’
‘Er…yeah I guess so…they’re all metal instead of the old brick things.’
‘Then we suggest they have been built since the maps were completed and this is the correct location.’
The vehicles had slowed down as the communication was held and now with them moving on again Reginald and Charlie check the monitor as the opening entry way into the industrial zone comes into a view complete with a large sign board indicating the names and trades of the various business located within. The Saxon leads the way down a broken concrete road running between the units to a wide open patch of wasteland complete with puddles left from the intense rain and thick weeds growing through the cracks.
Half a mile from Brookley and as Roy’s van comes to a halt next to the Saxon so Charlie opens the rear door and jumps down to turn back and carefully lift the drone out to rest on the ground. Reginald switches the monitor to the live feed and activates his handset as Roy climbs into the back to watch him.
Everyone armed and ready, guns up and aiming out with Meredith running in a wide circle round the group sniffing the ground.
‘Ready?’ Nick gets to Charlie and check the drone as she turns the handset on and nods, ‘go for it, nice and high remember.’
The insect-like machine comes to life with four sets of blades whirring with a rising pitch as she starts a gentle press of the stick. Up it goes, straight into the air and banking gently backwards.
‘Forty metres,’ Reginald calls out from the readout on the display.