The Deluge

by Mark Morris

  I've decided to write this diary because something awful has happened and we don't know what's going to happen to us. Last year at school we read Scott of the Antarctic's journal, and this is supposed to be a bit like that. It will tell you about the flood and what happens after, and about how we live and where we go. At the end of Scott's journal he dies, frozen in a tent in the middle of a blizzard. I hope I don't die, but if I do, I hope this diary is found by someone who reads it and maybe learns something about us, and who maybe even tells our loved ones what happened to us (if they're still alive).

  It's day 3 after the flood. On Sunday night I woke up and the block of flats where Dad lives was shaking, and we thought there was an earthquake. Then the lights went out and Dad got some candles, and after a while we heard this sort of whooshing noise, and when it got light the next morning virtually the whole of London was under-water. There were only the tops of a few buildings sticking up, includ-ing our block of flats. If dad's flat hadn't been on the top floor we would have drowned like all the thousands of other people.

  It's horrible looking out the window, and I try to stop myself from doing it. Sometimes, tho, I can't help myself. Every time I look there are bodies going past. Yesterday I saw a body of a baby that was all purple, and sometimes they're not even whole bodies cos things in the water have been eating them. It's totally gross and it makes me feel sick just thinking about it.

  There are not just bodies going past, tho, there are other things too. We've seen wood and trees and paper and plastic and twisted bits of metal and parts of buildings, and there have been lots of cars and vans and lorries. Yesterday we saw a big red bus go past, turning over in the water, with all this slimy seaweed sticking to its wheels. And there have been chairs and settees and cushions and TVs and animals-dogs and cats, mainly, but Dad said he'd also seen a horse.

  When it first happened I thought the police would come or the army with helicopters or boats and pick up all the survivors. Dad said he had food and water to last us for a week or 2, and he even found a camping stove so we could cook stuff. I thought the worst thing would be that we'd be bored cos we wouldn't be able to go anywhere or do anything. There's no power so we can't watch TV or listen to music. And there's no water in the taps or the toilet, so we can't wash prop-erly or brush our teeth and we have to do our business in a bucket and chuck it out the window.

  Me and Dad aren't on our own, tho. Across the landing are Mr. and Mrs. Beamish, who have lived here for years. They're really nice, but Mr. Beamish has got something wrong with his heart and he has to take loads of tablets, and he can't walk very far (he gets about in a wheelchair most of the time). He's still cheerful, tho, but you can tell Mrs. Beamish is worried about him. Yesterday she told Dad that if his tablets ran out then he'd die. But I said to Dad that if ourfood and water ran out then we'd all die anyway. Dad laughed and said not to worry, that we would get rescued. I could tell he was only saying that to make me feel better. I think he thinks I don't really know how se-rious all this stuff is, but I do. I knew that if we didn't get rescued we'd starve to death. But I always thought something would happen, and now it has.

  This morning when I woke up I could tell something was different. Even tho I don't like doing it, I went to the window and looked out. I looked at the next tall building, which was quite a way away, and at first I wasn't sure why it looked taller than usual. Then I noticed a few more buildings sticking out of the water, and suddenly my body sort of jumped, as if someone had put a hand on my shoulder. But I wasn't scared, I was excited, as excited as I'd been yesterday when we saw the helicopter. (Oh, I forgot to mention that.About 4 o'clock yesterday afternoon a helicopter circled the top of our building for about 5 minutes, then flew away. He must have seen our HELP sign, but he didn't land or rescue us or anything, even tho we were leaning out the window, wav-ing our arms and shouting. When he flew away I thought Dad was go-ing to lose it. His face went red and he started swearing. But then he calmed down. He said that maybe the helicopter pilot was on a recon-naissance mission and that he'd gone back to base or whatever to report our position. But the pilot didn't come back. Nobody did.)

  Where was I? Oh yes, I was excited by what I was seeing.And the reason I was excited was-Ta da! Wait for it-the water was going down! I went to tell Dad and at first I couldn't make him under-stand. Then he looked out the window and for about 10 minutes he was really happy. Neither of us knew where the water was going, but it was going somewhere and that was enough for us. Dad said it was as if someone somewhere had pulled a big plug out of a plughole.

  "We'll be all right now, Dad, won't we?" I said, and that was when his face changed. From looking happy he suddenly looked worried again, and I could tell he was thinking of stuff.

  "Well, it's an encouraging sign," he said.

  "But we'll be able to go out now," I said. "If the water keeps go-ing down we'll be able to go out on the streets and get food."

  "From where?" he said. "Everywhere's been underwater. The houses, the shops, the supermarkets. All the food will be ruined."

  I hadn't thought about that. In the back of my mind I just thought that we'd be rescued and taken somewhere where there wasn't a flood. I hadn't really thought about what would happen if the water went down and we were still here.

  "Some of it'll be all right, tho, won't it?" I said. "The tins and the packets. We'll just have to see what we can find."

  The buildings below where the water had been were black and slimy-looking, as if seaweed and stuff had started to grow on them. "It's going to be hard out there,Abby," he said. "It's going to be total devastation. There'll be bodies and mud and everywhere will be wrecked."

  "But we'll be okay," I said. "We will, won't we, Dad?"

  He looked at me and smiled. "Let's hope so," he said.

  "We could go to Scotland." I said. "Find Mum and Dylan. Castle Morton's really high up. It'll probably be okay there."

  "We'll have to walk," he said, "maybe all the way. You do realize that, don't you?"

  To be honest, that was something else I hadn't thought about. "Maybe it'll be okay when we get out of London," I said. "Maybe the roads will be clearer and we'll be able to get a car. Maybe even the trains'll be working."

  "I don't think so," he said.

  "Why not?" I asked.

  "I've been thinking about it," he said. "If it was only London that had been affected, or even the south of England, there would have been signs of a rescue operation by now. There would have been planes and helicopters buzzing around, policemen in boats, but there's been nothing."

  "There was that helicopter yesterday," I said.

  "It was privately owned," he said. "It wasn't an official rescue vehicle."

  "How could you tell?" I asked.

  "There was no insignia on it," he said. "If it had been official it would have said `Police' or `RAF' on the side."

  (PS:These might not have been the exact words that we said, but it's more or less.

  (PPS: Dad helps me out with words I can't remember. For in-stance: `insignia.

  We decided that, for now, we'd head north, towards Scotland. Dad said we might have to change our plans on the way, depending on what we found out or what happened to us, but for now it was as good a plan as any.

  "We'll have to take the Beamishes with us," I said. "We can't just leave them here."

  Dad gave a big sigh. "I know," he said. "That's something else I've been thinking about."

  "How are we going to manage with Mr. Beamish's wheelchair?" I said.

  He nodded and said, "It's going to be impossible. The streets'll be in a real state. It'll be hard enough getting through them on foot."

  "Maybe it won't be as bad as you think," I said, but he pulled a face as if he didn't believe it.

  Dad went round to the Beamishes to tell them what we were plan-ning and I sat down at the kitchen table and made a list of what I thought we'd need. Dad had a big rucksack, and luckily I'd brought a rucksack with me for the weekend too. I wro
te down as much stuff as I could think of, and Dad added some more things. Here's our list:

  Food & water

  Clothes

  Sleeping bags

  Tin opener

  Sharp knife & other cutlery

  Matches

  Scissors

  Soap, shampoo, toothbrushes & toothpaste

  First aid kit

  Mr. Beamish's medicine

  Tools (hammer, screwdriver, nails, etc.)

  Torches & batteries

  Camping stove & spare gas canisters

  Cigarettes & booze (Dad added that one

  At first I also put makeup and a hairbrush and stuff on the list, but then I crossed them off. Me and Dad filled the rucksacks, and then the Beamishes came round and we had the biggest meal we'd had for 3 days-tuna fish sandwiches, crisps, biscuits, apples, and hot coffee with sugar but without milk, which I was getting used to now. By 3 o'clock the water was nearly down to street level, and we could see that it was total devastation, just like Dad had said. From up where we were London looked like a muddy tangle of trees and junk and wrecked cars.

  I looked at Dad and I could tell what he was thinking-How was Mr. Beamish going to cope? I admit part of me wished that the Beamishes weren't with us. I felt horrible for thinking that, but I think it was kind of natural to think it too.

  At 3:15 Dad said, "Right then, is everyone ready?"

  Mrs. Beamish was really nervous. She said, "What if the water comes back?"

  "Then we'll have to swim for it, won't we?" Mr. Beamish said, and he laughed in that smoky, crackly way of his.

  First thing me and Dad had to do was carry Mr. Beamish in his wheelchair down 20 flights of wet, slippery stairs. "You ready, sweet-heart?" Dad said.

  I tried not to look scared, even tho I was. "Ready, Dad," I said.

  The crab made him so sick that Max wondered if he was going to die. He curled up in a ball on the roof, pain tearing through his guts. He felt hot and then cold; his sweat smelled pungent and salty. Occasionally he would lean over and open his mouth and a whitish gruel would gout from him and splash on the ground. This was almost a relief, but afterwards he would dry heave so violently that his body would jerk and tears would spring from his eyes. His stomach would feel tight, as if a boa constrictor were coiling around him, crushing his ribs, squeezing the juice out of him.

  He didn't know whether it was the crabmeat or his lack of water that brought Noel back to him. All he knew was that, after drifting in the dark for what seemed like days, his eyes opening and closing, he suddenly became aware that his brother was by his side.

  "Hey bro," Noel said, in that pseudo-New York/Jamaican patois he adopted sometimes. "Wass happening?"

  Max tried to sit up and felt Noel's strong hands helping him, lifting him into a sitting position as if he were as light as a baby.

  "I thought you were dead," Max muttered. "I thought everyone was dead."

  Noel laughed at the very idea. "Not me, man. Indestructible. Always come back atcha."

  "How'd you get out of the hospital?"

  "I got up off my bed and walked. Like Lazarus in the Bible."

  "But how did you get through the water?"

  "I walk on water," Noel said, and laughed again. "No, man, I swam. What do you think?"

  "But you're not wet"

  "So, I dried. It's a warm day. Breezy. You been out a long time. You don't look good."

  "I ate a crab," Max said. "It made me sick."

  "A crab." Noel made a face as if he were impressed. "You catch and cook that fucker?"

  "Catch, yeah. Cook, no. I tried to light a fire. There's lots of old wood up here. I tried to do it like we used to, remember? Spinning the stick on the wood? But it was too damp. It wouldn't light."

  "You should have used a magnifying glass," Noel said. "Remember when we were kids and we used to fry those slugs? Man, they stank when they started to smoke. That's what you should have done."

  "I didn't have a magnifying glass."

  "That's too bad. Always have a magnifying glass. Box of matches too. First rule of survival." Noel looked around, as if inspecting a piece of real estate. "What you doing up here anyway?"

  "Getting sick, mostly," Max said, and Noel guffawed. When his elder brother's laughter had abated, Max told him about the gang. Noel patted his brother on the shoulder.

  "You're a hero, man," he said. "You led them away from me."

  "Did they find you?" Max asked, suddenly remembering their final threat to him. "They said they were gonna find you and-"

  "Whoa, whoa." Noel held up his hands. "Don't fret, bro. Them couldn't find them dicks in a dark room if them was luminous. Them has been swept away by a mighty wave. The earth has been washed clean."

  "And what about me?" Max asked. "Am I gonna die here?"

  "Nah," Noel said. "I'll look after you."

  "I wanted to stop them," Max said. "I wanted to stop them finding you. I was gonna come down, make sure you were okay. I locked the door, but then the lights went out, and I was too scared to come down in the dark in case they were waiting for me. The building was shaking and everything was black and I didn't know what was happening. When the wave came it was like the whole world was being swallowed by black. I thought it was the end, man. I just lay down and waited to die. And then the next day, when the sun came up, I looked out and it was all water, man. I opened the door and I went down the stairs, but after about ten steps there was water, and I didn't know what to do. It was dark, and there was stuff floating on the top. That first day there was paper and a plastic box like the ones you keep pills in, and other stuff. And I thought of you, man. Down there, in all the water. And it killed me that I couldn't get to you. It made me crazy...."

  "Shh," Noel said, putting his amps around his brother. "Tell me about the crab."

  "The second day there was a body," Max said. "A woman. She must have floated to the top, up all the stairs. It was freaky. It was like she'd made it up because she could smell me or something. Like she knew I was still alive and she didn't like it. Like she was coming to get me. Her eyes were white...." He began to shudder.

  "The crab, man, the crab," Noel said soothingly.

  "It was later that day. I was hungry and thirsty. I'd sucked up a bit of rain water off the roof, but that was all. I'd locked the woman in the stairwell, but she bugged me, man. I couldn't stop thinking about her. I thought about her standing up, pulling herself out of the water. I kept thinking I could hear her thumping on the door, trying to get to me. I kept seeing these blue lights far away, crackling like lightning. When the morning came I wanted to see if the woman was still there. Not knowing was worse than knowing, you know what I mean? So I opened the door, man, and this fucking big crab ran out. I nearly died. I thought it was her. Her hand. Reaching out for nee."

  "So you killed it?" Noel said.

  "Chased that fucker and stomped it to death."

  "And the woman?"

  "Gone. Sunk back down in the water."

  "So you ate the crab?" said Noel.

  "Not right away. I couldn't face it at first. I thought it might be okay if I cooked it, so I tried to make a fire, but I couldn't do it. I left it a day. Big mistake. It was attracting the birds by then, and I thought if I didn't eat it the birds would." "What did it taste like?"

  "Like shit." Max shook his head. "There's no way I'd ever eat anything like that again. I'd rather starve."

  Noel laughed and patted his brother on the shoulder. "So, what say we have some real food now?"

  Max placed a hand on his aching stomach. "Sounds good. Not sure I'd keep it down, though."

  "'Course you will. Here." From somewhere, Noel produced a McDonald's bag, from which he took a burger box each for himself and Max, two large bags of fries, and two regular Cokes.

  "Wow, man, where'd you get this?" Max asked.

  "Nowhere is closed to the Green machine."

  "But the water?" said Max.

  "No more questions. Eat."

&nb
sp; Max ate. He ate like it was the best meal he had ever had in his life-which in some ways it was. Someone had once told him McDonald's burgers were made of assholes and eyeballs, but this one tasted of heaven. It contained the meatiest meat, the onioniest onion, the cheesiest cheese and the relishiest relish that had ever tantalized his tastebuds. He suspected he was drooling like a dog around the bun, but he didn't care. The Coke was a soothing balm on his parched throat. The fizz tin gled its way through his system, settled his stomach. After his meal he felt invincible, able to face whatever the world might throw at him.

  "What now?" he said.

  "Now, little bro, you head out into the big wide world."

  "But the water..." Max said again.

  Noel gestured expansively to the edge of the roof. "Long gone. Take a look."

  Max walked to the edge of the roof and peered over the side. To his astonishment he discovered that Noel was right. Where previously there had been a gray ocean, now there were buildings dripping with slime and seaweed, standing in what appeared to be a black swamp of uprooted trees and twisted metal.

  "What the fuck, man?" Max gabbled. "Where'd the water go?"

  No answer. Max swung round, expecting to see his brother standing there, looking smug. But Noel was gone, as was the debris of their meal.

  "Noel?" Max said, and then shouted. "Noel, where you at?"

  No answer but the whistle of wind across the lonely rooftops, the cries of birds scavenging for scraps in the strange new jungle below.

  Max felt bereft. Suddenly all he wanted to do was sink to the ground and weep.

  But no. Noel had come to him for a reason, hadn't he? Now, little bro, his brother had said, you head out into the big wide world.

  Max walked to the door that led to the stairwell and opened it. The stairs were coated with silt and mud-caked debris that looked mostly like torn rags. On the fifth step down a fish the length of his forearm was flapping frantically. The stairwell smelled dank and rotten; weed and slime clung to the dripping walls. There were no lights, which meant that after one flight the steps disappeared into an underwater gloom.

  Descending the stairs felt to Max like sinking into hell. The steps themselves were slippery as ice. As he headed down the gloom opened out before him, a little vestigial light creep ing in from outside. Here and there he saw more fish flapping in the dimness, silver bodies gleaming, mouths agape, eyes boggling.