School's Out Forever (The Afterblight Chronicles: The St Mark's Books)

by Scott K. Andrews

  KATE WAS ALWAYS a good girl at school. She studied hard, got good grades, excelled at science, biology especially, and made her parents proud.

  She only got in trouble once, and that wasn’t her fault. Her friend April had started a fight – she never really understood what about – and Kate had tried to break it up. But in the struggle to keep the peace she ended up getting thumped, hard, by a nasty little bitch called Mandy Jennings. So Kate thumped her back – the first and only time she ever threw a punch. Well, until Moss Side. Unfortunately, her aim was true and Mandy wore glasses. So when the screaming and hair pulling finally ended, Kate was marched off to see the headmaster, who gave her all that guff about letting herself down. And Kate bought it, ’cause she was a good girl, and she felt ashamed and she cried and said, “Sorry, Sir.”

  As Sanders drove the truck through the gates of Salisbury HQ I felt an echo of what Kate had felt when she was about to be brought up before a figure of authority – a sick, hollow, butterfly ache in the stomach. The only difference was that Jane would have told the headmaster to go stuff himself. And the headmaster was unlikely to have Kate lined up in front of a firing squad.

  Salisbury had been the centre of British Army maneouvres for decades, and all the facilities had recently been given a 21st century facelift, so the main base at Tidworth was modern and sprawling, with barracks aplenty and facilities for the maintenance of all sorts of vehicles. But there was so much stuff gathered here that it had spilled out of the base perimeter and on to the plain itself. Row upon row of trucks, tanks, armoured vehicles, jeeps, fire engines, both Green Goddesses and the conventional red ones, ambulances and police vans. Not to mention the hundreds of oil tankers, lined up in rows stretching off to the horizon.

  Sanders had undersold the operation’s ambitions. They weren’t just hoarding weapons, they were collecting all the resources they could lay their hands on. After all, resources meant power. If they had all the service vehicles and all the fuel, married to a well drilled force in possession of weaponry vastly superior to anything else out there, they would be unstoppable.

  As I looked out of the truck window and saw all that hardware I felt both excited and scared. All that power, just waiting for someone to give the order to move from preparation to implementation. Operation Motherland was a sleeping giant. When it awoke nothing and nobody would be able to stand in its way.

  We drove past a parade ground where at least 400 men were doing drills, and groups of soldiers in full kit marched past us at regular intervals, heading for trucks or armoured vehicles, off to round up more guns, fuel, Pot Noodles or whatever. The place was buzzing, full of organised, purposeful activity.

  So as we drove into that awe inspiring place I felt insignificant and afraid, and I wondered what the headmaster would be like. Because with all this at his command, he could do pretty much anything he wanted with me.

  Sanders pulled up outside the medical centre and carried Caroline inside. We’d made her a little bed in the back and Rowles had sat with her during the journey. He’d not said a word to me since she’d been shot. I think he blamed me for letting it happen, and an angry Rowles was not someone I wanted to confront, so I left him alone to brood. Caroline herself was conscious and cogent, but complaining of sharp pains in her head, which worried me. There was a possibility that she was bleeding into her skull, and I wanted her x-rayed as quickly as possible. I let Sanders sort out the formalities and I sat in the truck feeling guilty, useless and scared.

  I caught myself wishing Lee were here, but I banished that thought as quickly as it appeared.

  Sanders emerged five minutes later and opened the cab door for me, indicating that I should get out.

  “They think she’ll be fine, but they’re going to give her a full work up. Rowles is staying with her,” he said as I clambered down. There was an awkward moment as he put his hands around my waist to lift me down. I stared at him, not unkindly, and he removed his hands and apologised with a smile.

  He led the way to the regimental HQ.

  “The doctors here have lots of practice treating injuries like hers,” he explained. “The one I saw said to tell you that you’d done an excellent job on her.”

  I nodded, trying to take pride in the compliment, but I felt nothing but shame.

  We came to the steps of the main building and Sanders put one of his huge hands on my shoulder. I stopped.

  “Let me do the talking, okay?” he said.

  I looked at him curiously.

  “I think I can sort this out,” he explained. “But you’ll have to trust me.”

  “Sure,” I said, allowing myself a flicker of hope.

  We walked up the steps and through the double doors. There was a notice board on our left as we entered, plastered with timetables, orders, a poster for a karaoke night. It was so normal, it reminded me of school. Down the long corridor which stretched ahead of us men and women in uniform were bustling from room to room carrying clipboards and folders. A drink machine, actually powered up and working, was frothing a coffee for a bored looking army clerk. That corridor was the closest thing I’d seen to pre-Cull England in two years. Nobody was scared, nobody was hungry. There was an air of ordered, peaceful activity, like any office, really. I wondered if this was the way forward for us survivors, or whether the military machine was just hiding itself away inside a secure compound where they could pretend nothing had happened, that routine military life was just the same as it had always been, running like clockwork, all hierarchy and structure.

  We walked down the corridor and Sanders knocked on the door at the far end. The nameplate read Maj. Gen. J. G. Kennett. This was the big man. I braced myself, but when a stern voice barked “Enter!” Sanders turned and pointed to a chair in the corner.

  “Stay there,” he said. “I’ll only be a minute.”

  I nodded, aware that my life, and the lives of my kids, rested entirely upon what this man, who I hardly knew, was going to say next.

  As Sanders opened the door, I sat down to wait. I’d only been there for a minute, twiddling my thumbs and staring at the patterns on the carpet, when a young woman brought me a cup of tea in a saucer, with biscuits.

  “There you go, Miss,” she said with a smile.

  Cup and saucer, tea and biscuits. I shook my head in wonder.

  About ten minutes later, long after I’d exhausted all the entertainment possibilities of sitting on a chair in a corridor, the door to Kennett’s office opened and Sanders popped his head out.

  “Jane,” was all he said by way of summons.

  I felt a pang of butterflies in my tummy as I rose and entered the office of probably the most powerful man in the country. The room was plush but not opulent. Regimental photos lined the walls, and there were even a few paintings – Waterloo, the trenches of the Somme. The floor was polished wood with a huge, deep rug laid across most of it. There were old wooden filing cabinets, upholstered wooden armchairs, a sideboard with decanter and glasses. The room was old school privilege and power; comfort, security and authority embodied in the trappings of tradition and duty.

  Major General Kennett was standing in front of his desk, leaning back against it, his arms folded across his chest. He was about forty, plump, red cheeked and bald, with a strong square jaw, and was dressed plainly in green trousers and jumper. He regarded me with calculating green eyes. I was unsure whether his air of easy authority was innate or whether it was bestowed upon him by the room itself and all the cultural and social respect it represented.

  Sanders stood to one side, hands clasped behind his back. He wasn’t at attention, but he was formal. I think they call it ‘standing easy.’

  “Miss Crowther, welcome to Operation Motherland,” said Kennett, leaning forward and offering me his hand. His voice was high and nasal, with a strong southern accent, kind of like Ken Livingstone. It didn’t suit him at all.

  I took his hand and he shook it once, firmly.

  He didn’t offer me a seat, so I
stood there, unsure what was required of me.

  “The lieutenant has been telling me what happened at your school and on the journey here. There’ll have to be an investigation, of course.” He folded his arms and pursed his lips, assessing me.

  I couldn’t think of anything to say, so I just said, “Right.”

  There was a long pause.

  “I’m not entirely sure I believe everything he told me,” added Kennett.

  “Sir...” began Sanders, but Kennett silenced him with a look.

  “But I’ve known him a long time, Miss Crowther. He’s one of my most trusted officers. So I choose to believe him. And I feel sure that everything the investigation discovers will corroborate his story. Won’t it, Sanders?”

  “Sir.”

  “Yes,” mused Kennett. “Thorough. I like that in a soldier. So I shall continue to believe him, and by extension to trust you, unless you give me reason to do otherwise. Do you think you’re likely to do that, Miss Crowther?”

  “No, Sir,” I said, surprised by my instinctive deference.

  “Good. In which case you are welcome to remain here while the girl in your care recuperates. After that you will be escorted safely back to your school. We will, I’m afraid, have to disarm your merry band, but I’m sure you understand that’s for the best.”

  “Actually, Sir...” I began. But the warning in his eyes was clear and unambiguous. I fell silent again and nodded. Jesus, this really was like talking to my old headmaster.

  “Excellent.” Kennett clapped his hands and smiled. Business concluded. “Sanders will find you a billet, and maybe we’ll see you at our karaoke night tonight. Sanders does a very good Lemmy, I’m told.” With that he turned his back on us, picked up a file and began to read.

  A second later, almost as an afterthought, he said, “Dismissed.”

  Sanders saluted, said “Sir” and ushered me out of the door.

  “What the hell did you tell him?” I asked incredulously as we walked out of the building into the crisp air of a spring evening.

  “What I needed to. I’ll brief you properly later, so we can get our stories straight for the investigators. Essentially, the child traffickers killed our guys, and you killed the traffickers.”

  At the bottom of the steps I stopped, took his hand, leant up and kissed him on the cheek.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  He squeezed my hand and smiled. “You’re welcome. Now let’s get you billeted, then you can start thinking about what you’re going to sing tonight!”

  “You wish! I’ve got a voice like a strangled cat.”

  The billet was a room on the first floor of a simple barrack building. It had a single bed, wardrobe, wash basin with clean running water, a TV with DVD player and plug sockets that had power. Plus, central heating! I leant my bum against the radiator, enjoying that slightly too hot feeling that I’d almost forgotten. Log fires are nice, but give me a boiling hot radiator any day of the week.

  After Sanders left me alone I went to the communal bathroom at the end of the landing, drew myself a hot bath and soaked all the aches away. Sanders had scraped together some toiletries from somewhere, so I washed my hair, soaped myself clean, shaved my legs, plucked my eyebrows, waxed my top lip, and did all those things I used to take so completely for granted. When I was all done, I lay back in the water and watched the steam rise and curl as the stitches in my cheek throbbed in the heat.

  I closed my eyes and imagined I was at home, that Gran was downstairs making tea, and that after I’d dried my hair I’d go downstairs and eat her corned beef pie with mash and we’d watch trashy telly.

  It was a nice, warm daydream.

  I felt safe for the first time in two years.

  When I woke, the water was tepid and night had fallen. The light was off so the bathroom was dark. I suppose that’s why Sanders hadn’t found me and dragged me off to karaoke. I looped the plug chain around my big toe and pulled it out, then I rose, pulled my towel off the hot radiator and wrapped it around me. Back in my billet I found that Sanders had left me some clean clothes, bless him, and although the short black dress he’d chosen for me was perhaps not quite what I’d have opted for, I decided to indulge him, and myself. There was fancy underwear as well – nothing crass, just good quality – and the shoes were nice. He’d almost guessed my size right in all respects.

  When I was all dolled up, I put on some slap and looked at myself in a mirror. Bathed, well dressed, made-up. Nothing out of the ordinary a few years ago, but the woman staring back at me seemed like an old stranger, someone I’d known very well once upon a time but had lost touch with. I was glad to see her again, but I knew she was only visiting briefly.

  I looked like Kate.

  Well, no matter. I was about to walk into a room full of soldiers, looking pretty damn good, if I said so myself. It had been a long time since I’d turned any heads, and I was looking forward to it.

  Pulling a coat around my shoulders, I left the room, turned off the light and walked downstairs, listening to my heels clicking on the lino. Again, a sound from the past – high heels on a staircase. One small detail of a forgotten life, once commonplace, now extraordinary to me.

  I opened the door and stepped outside. The camp was dark, but the roads were lit with orange sodium lights. I stopped and listened. From somewhere off in the distance I could hear a chorus of drunken voices singing Delilah. I followed the sound, enjoying the sensation of once again being able to walk alone at night without fear.

  Which is why it was such a surprise when the man dropped out of the sky on a parachute and landed on the path in front of me, and hands grabbed me from behind, muffling my shouts, dragging me into the shadows.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  I KICKED AND struggled, but the man holding me was too strong. I’d have bitten his fingers off if he hadn’t been wearing heavy leather gloves.

  I was pulled off the path and into the bushes, where I was pushed down on to my knees and held firm.

  “If you do exactly as I say, you won’t be harmed,” said a soft voice in my ear. The accent was unmistakeably American, an exotic twang after two years of Kentish brogue. I felt cold metal at my throat.

  “If you cry out, I’ll slit your throat, Limey bitch. Understand?”

  Limey? Who the hell called Brits ‘Limeys’ anymore?

  I nodded gently. He removed his hand from my mouth.

  I’ve been in worse spots before, but I was completely unprepared for this. I was in the safest place in Britain, in my bloody party dress! So unfair. Anyway, I was more scared than I’d been in a long time and I momentarily lost my cool. My terror, I’m embarrassed to admit, made me compliant. I didn’t make a sound.

  “Good girl,” said my captor. “Now, which way to the main gate?”

  “I only got here today, I’m not sure. I can’t direct you. I could probably walk you there, though.”

  He tightened his grip. “Not good enough.”

  He fell silent, thinking it over. As he did so the bushes rustled and another man, the parachutist, joined us. He was dressed entirely in black, almost invisible. It was only when I saw his thick leather gloves that I realised that both men had fallen out of the sky. My captors shared a brief, whispered conference.

  “All right,” said the new guy, also a Yank. “Here’s what we’re going to do. You’re gonna walk us to the gate. We’ll stay in the shadows, but we’ll be watching you. If you try to shout out or run, you’re dead.”

  To illustrate the point he pulled out a handgun and slowly screwed a silencer into the barrel.

  “Joe’s a really good shot,” added the man holding the knife to my throat, and I could hear the smile in his voice. “You should remember that. Now go.”

  He withdrew the knife and released me. I knelt there for a moment, composing myself, then I got up and walked back to the path, brushing the dirt from my knees. So much for karaoke, I thought, as I stood in a pool of orange light, rearranging my dress and getting my b
earings. I didn’t doubt the ruthlessness or ability of the men who were threatening me. Plus, they’d bloody parachuted here. I’d not seen a contrail in two years, so that implied all sorts of things. I decided to play along until something clever occurred to me or an opportunity presented itself. Which it did almost immediately.

  “There you are,” boomed a voice to my left. I turned to see Sanders striding towards me wearing shirt and jeans, a bottle of lager in his hand. “I wondered what was keeping you. Lost?”

  I nodded. Shit, would they just kill him? Sanders walked up to me and held out his arm. I slipped mine through his and said, “Let’s take a walk.”

  He seemed unsure, eager to get back to the singing, but his guard was down, he wasn’t expecting trouble, and a woman wanted to spend time with him. He smiled. “All right,” he said. “But there is no escape, sooner or later you get to hear my Ace of Spades.”

  “I’ve already seen your ace in the hole, Sanders. It wasn’t all that.”

  “Hey!”

  As we began walking, I caught a tiny flash of movement out of the corner of my eye, a shift in the shadows, black on black. We were being stalked.

  I gripped his arm way too tightly and increased the pace. He gave me a curious look and I tried to signal with my eyes that something was up. But it was dark and he was slightly drunk. Sanders the soldier was off duty, this was Sanders the boozed-up Motörhead fan. I wondered how long the two Yanks would allow this to continue before they got trigger happy. I needed to stall.

  “Let’s take a walk to the medical centre,” I said. “I want to look in on Caroline.”

  “Okay,” he replied, giving my arm a squeeze of sympathy.

  “It’s by the main gate, isn’t it?” I asked, slightly too loud.

  “Um yeah, it’s this way,” he answered.

  He led the way and we walked in silence for a minute or two. I caught no hint of our pursuers. They were good, whoever they were.

  “You look beautiful,” said Sanders as we passed a row of silent tanks.

  “Well, thanks for the clothes and stuff,” I said, lamely.