by Kevin Brooks
What does it mean if it’s not?
What does it mean to us if He’s gone?
What does it mean if He’s only pretending?
There was a lot to talk about.
Options, risks, outcomes.
Hopes, fears, maybes.
Optimism, pessimism, don’t-get-too-excitedism.
It was hard work.
1) because we’re all half-dead and can’t think clearly.
And 2) because we have to assume He’s still up there, watching and listening.
We used pens and paper to start with, but it was so time-consuming, so incredibly frustrating and tiring, that in the end we gave up. Instead, we covered ourselves in a tent of sheets and whispered to each other. There was a chance He’d gas us, or turn on the water, or the noise, but it was a chance worth taking.
Nothing happened.
We talked things through. From optimism to pessimism and back again. Finally we settled on somewhere in the middle.
We’re going to wait.
Fred was against it at first. He wants to know if He’s still up there or not, one way or the other. Right now.
‘If He’s not there we can do something. Do it right now. We don’t have time to wait.’
‘But what if He is still there?’
‘What have we got to lose?’
Our lives, I thought.
‘All right,’ I said. ‘Let’s just give it another day.’
‘Why?’
‘We have to play to our strengths,’ I said. ‘We’re weak, drained, confused, starved, cold. The only thing we’re fit for is waiting. We’ve spent the last two months doing nothing. We’re good at it. He’s not. Let’s use what we’ve got.’
‘Then what?’
‘Then we do something.’
Fred looked at me, his eyes struggling to stay open.
‘OK,’ he said eventually.
We both turned to check that it was OK with Jenny, but she was already asleep.
Now I’m alone, with you, listening to the hum of the walls, and I’m beginning to doubt myself. I want to tell you something, but it’s best if I don’t.
Let’s just say I can see the end of something, the end of a trail of doubts.
And it doesn’t look good.
I wish I had something to read apart from the bible. I can’t possibly read that. Anything else would do, anything to take my mind off thinking. A dictionary would be good. Yeah, a dictionary. If I had the choice between a chocolate cake and a dictionary … well, obviously I’d take the cake. But I’d have to think about it.
No I wouldn’t.
I’d swap a thousand dictionaries for a piece of stale cake.
I would like a dictionary though. A dictionary contains all the books ever written, and all the books that will ever be written. That’s something, isn’t it? The words aren’t in the right order, of course, but it’s still something.
You know what else I’d like?
A map of the world.
I’d pin it on the wall. Then I’d know where everywhere was. It’d be right there, on the wall.
I’m off to think about zebras now.
???
The lights are out. I don’t know what time it is. The clock’s stopped. It’s 11.35 for ever. I’m writing this in the light of a fire.
Now we’re starting down the trail of doubts.
I was in the kitchen when it happened. Jenny was asleep. Fred was in the bathroom. I’d just washed my face and I was peering at my reflection in the steel surface of the sink, trying to convince myself that I didn’t actually look like that, that it was the paucity – I remember the word popping into my head – that it was the paucity of the sink as a mirror that was the problem, not me … or some such drivel.
Some such?
Paucity?
What’s the matter with me? Why am I suddenly talking like a Charles Dickens character? Maybe I’m turning into Oliver Twist. Desperate with hunger and reckless with misery … please, sir, I want some more …
Anyway, I was stooped over the sink. Everything was as dull and deadly quiet as it always is. Boring, airless, flat, white. Suddenly I sensed something. I didn’t know what it was. A vibration, perhaps. A shift in tone or pressure. A faint change in the unheard rhythm of the bunker … I don’t know. Whatever it was, it didn’t last long. A second, two at the most, and then the silence fell. Absolute silence. It sounded very loud for a moment, then incredibly quiet. I swear I could hear my blood running cold.
The humming had stopped.
That’s what it was.
The humming in the walls. Stopped. Gone.
No power, I thought. Shit, if there’s no power …
And that’s when the lights went out.
The kitchen was blacker than black. Lightless. Sightless. As I stood there staring into the dark, a vision came to me of the very first morning I woke up down here. I saw myself getting out of bed and groping my way to the door and out into the corridor. Scared to death. Touching the walls. Scared of the dark. Tapping my foot on the floor. Scared of what I couldn’t see. No clock, no hands, no sky, no sounds, just solid darkness and a low humming sound deep within the walls.
And now even the humming was gone.
I was nothing, existing in nothing.
‘We shouldn’t have waited,’ I said out loud.
My voice was a foghorn.
‘Shit.’
The next thing I did was possibly the stupidest thing I’ve ever done.
After I’d stood there for a while, listening to Fred’s distant shouts from the bathroom – ‘Hey! What’s going on? Where’s the light? Hey! Linus? Linus!’ – I suddenly realized that I was incredibly thirsty. I don’t why. Maybe it was the adrenaline or something, sucking out my precious fuel reserves … I really don’t know.
All I knew was that I had to have a drink, right now.
Without thinking, I turned on the tap, let it run, and started feeling around in the dark for a cup. But I couldn’t find one. I felt along the draining board, along the counter, then reached up into the cupboards. I was panicking. You know how the dark can make you panic over stupid little things? Well, that’s my excuse. I was panicking. I wasn’t thinking. My hands were clattering through the cupboards, finding plates and bowls, but still no cups, and all the time the water was streaming from the tap, splashing into the sink, draining away, down the plughole …
And then three things happened simultaneously.
1) my hand closed on a cup
2) a thought flashed into my head – save the water!
and 3) the tap started coughing, spitting out the last few drops.
No power, no plumbing, no water.
Shit! No water!
I dropped the cup, crashed around in the sink looking for the plug, stuck my hand over the plughole, found the plug, dropped it, found it again, and stuck it in the plughole. But by then the water from the tap had dried up. The tap was silent. No hissing, no gurgling, no nothing. I groaned. I dried my hand on my shirt, groaned again, and put my hand in the sink. Hoping hoping hoping for a touch of water …
Please …
There was just enough to dampen my palm.
I need to rest now.
More later.
Later.
So there I am, in the kitchen, feeling dead and stupid and disbelieving. From the other end of the bunker I can hear Fred trying to flush the lavatory. It brings a momentary smile to my face. He’s always doing that. Pumping away on the handle, flush, flush, flush … only this time it sounds different. It sounds dry and empty … waterless.
Oh no.
; ‘Fred!’ I call out. ‘Don’t flush it! FRED!’
But he’s too busy trying to flush. He can’t hear me.
I start running out of the kitchen, racing through the darkness … and run straight into the open door. Whack! I’m vaguely aware of the initial shock, a cracking sound, a dull thud, and for the tiniest fraction of a second I think – it’s OK, I’m all right, I just ran into the door, that’s all, it’s not so bad – and then the truth kicks in with a blinding roar that sears through my head and I stagger drunkenly to one side and fall to the floor clutching at my broken nose and moaning like a baby. Jesus Christ, it hurts. My head’s on fire … my nose, my mouth, my teeth … hot blood and tears streaming down my face …
‘FRED!’ I call out again through bloody lips.
And then I pass out.
Next thing I know Fred’s standing over me with a burning cigarette lighter in his hand. Jenny is behind him. Their faces loom ghoulishly in the shadows of the flame.
‘What are you doing down there?’ says Fred.
‘Bleeding,’ I tell him.
So that’s it. We’ve got about a millimetre of water in the sink. No food, no plumbing, no light, no heat …
No, we’ve got heat. We’ve got a fire going in my room. Can you hear it crackling? Burning wood, table legs, paper … nice and hot. Enough light to see what we need to see.
‘Now can we do something?’ says Fred.
‘We still don’t know if He’s gone.’
‘Of course He’s fucking gone. The generator’s packed in. The lift’s stopped. We’ve got a fire going. He wouldn’t let us have a fire, would He? If He was still here, He’d have put it out by now.’
‘Not necessarily. He could be –’
Fred slams his hand on the floor. ‘He’s GONE, Linus! He’s gone. Shit, man, what’s the matter with you? He’s gone. Why can’t you see it?’
I look at Fred. ‘I don’t know. I suppose I’m just scared.’
He shakes his head. Angry, sad, kind. ‘There’s nothing to be scared of now. He’s gone.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Believe it. He’s gone. We’re on our own. No one’s watching us any more. Now all we’ve got to do is get out.’
All we’ve got to do is get out.
That was a few hours ago, maybe more than a few hours. A day, two days … who knows? I think Fred’s right. I think He’s gone. We’ve poked at the cameras, set light to them, spat at them … no reaction. He’s gone. I don’t know why I was so unwilling to accept it. Maybe I’m going mad. Stir crazy. Maybe I don’t want to leave. Maybe I’ve got so used to being down here that the idea of getting out is even scarier than the idea of dying.
Or maybe it’s something else.
Anyway, He’s gone.
Dead?
Possibly.
Car crash, illness, accident, it could be anything. He fell down some stairs. He got a fish bone stuck in His throat. He drank too much, fell over, broke His neck. Stuck His finger in a wall socket and zapped Himself. These things happen, don’t they? People die, nothing happens.
I mean, He’s not likely to have many friends, is He? No one’s going to miss Him. No one’s going to come calling. And wherever we are, it’s bound to be somewhere remote. He could be lying dead upstairs for years before anyone finds Him.
Then again, maybe I was right the first time. Maybe He’s not dead, He’s just gone. Got fed up with the whole thing. Got bored with it, got in his car and drove off to create another hell-hole somewhere else.
It’s possible.
It’s also irrelevant.
We’ve been trying to get out for hours, days, and we haven’t got anywhere at all. We’ve hit things, bashed things, burned things, ripped things, hammered things, screamed at things. Nothing. Nowhere. We’ve sat down in the firelight and talked about things. Nothing. We’ve virtually burned the kitchen to the ground. Useless.
Worse than useless.
We forgot about the fridge.
I can’t believe it. We forgot about the ice in the fridge. We set light to the kitchen … God knows why … it seemed like a good idea at the time … nearly fried ourselves in the process, and all we did was burn up the kitchen, ice and all. Got hot, got sweaty, got dry and tired, got thirsty …
We have half a cup of water left.
No days, no nights. No dates. Just times of sleep and non-sleep. The water’s all gone. We lick condensation from the walls. Fred hammers at the lift door with whatever he can find. Saucepans, chair legs, bits of cooker. When they break he finds something else. The door is barely scratched.
Fred wipes sweat from his skin and sucks on the cloth.
‘It’s salt,’ I tell him. Thalt. My speech is thick and slurred. ‘It’s just salt and stuff. It’s no good.’
He sniffs and rubs his throat. His lips are blue.
‘There’s a bottle of cleaning stuff in the bathroom,’ he says.
‘Bleach.’
‘It’s liquid. Might be all right. We could do something –’
‘It’s bleach. It’ll kill you.’
He shrugs.
Jenny lies still. Her skin is ashen-grey, blotchy.
I stare at the fire and think of zebras.
Can’t walk, can’t get up. Can’t speak. Mouth is foul. Tongue’s as big as a mountain. Numb. Fred’s stopped hammering. Sits cross-legged on the floor with his head bowed, like a Buddha in rags. Skin shrunk to his bones, eyes sunk inside his skull.
It hurts to pee.
Hurts to drink it.
Everything hurts.
Mountain … salt …
I got it.
Mountain … zebra.
Dad’s zebra.
On top of a mountain
I saw a zebra
eating some chips
with his girlfriend called Debra.
She didn’t have salt
and she didn’t have sauce
and she didn’t have stripes
because she was a horse
Hey, Dad …
Listen …
I didn’t mean anything, you know.
I didn’t mean to hurt you.
OK?
I’m sorry.
Fred’s dead.
Went to the bathroom and drank the bleach.
Howled for an hour then coughed up blood and died.
So terrible. No words.
We can’t get his body out of the bathroom. Too big. Doesn’t matter. We don’t go in there.
Jenny …
I had another vision thing. I saw her. She’s lying beside me on the floor. The fire’s going out. I can’t get up to get any wood. I could burn you now. I could burn you now. I saw her, a long time ago. Looking up at the ceiling. Clear brown eyes, soft shiny hair, a curious little mouth.
He’s a bad man, isn’t he?
Looking up at the ceiling.
You’re a bad man, Mister. A very bad man.
She’s a feather of bones.
Long time.
Days.
A long way from everything. Floating, sad, cold. I wish things were different. I wish I was home. I wish Dad was sitting in his armchair with a cigarette and a glass of brandy, with a Wild West picturebook in his lap, with Mum in the kitchen, and the Monkees playing quietly on the CD player. I wish I was the little kid standing beside the chair, like a small ghost in blue flannelette pyjamas, giving off a silent fragrance of orange squash and skin. I wish I was standing there with my head cocked to one side, looking down at the pictures in the book. Pictures of cowboys, Buffalo Bill, Wild Bill Hickok, Wyatt Earp, Frank and Je
sse James, Davy Crockett.
‘He got a dog on his head.’
Dad looks at me, then looks back at the picture of the handsome fellow in buckskin breeches and a raccoon-skin hat.
‘That’s Davy Crockett,’ he says.
‘Doggett.’
‘Crockett, Davy Crockett. He was born on a mountain top in Tennessee, greenest state in the land of the free, raised in the woods, so he knew every tree, tamed him a b’ar when he was only three …’ Dad sings quietly, ‘Davy, Davy Crockett, king of the wild frontier …’
I point at Davy Crockett’s hat. ‘Got a dog on his head.’
‘No, it’s a raccoon. Ra-coon.’
‘Dog.’
‘Raccoon. It’s a bit like a dog –’
‘What dog?’
‘It’s not a dog, Linus. It’s a raccoon. Ra-coon. Raccoon-skin hat. See its stripy tail?’
‘It’s past his bedtime,’ Mum says from the door.
‘Raccoon dog,’ I say. ‘Bear. Fox.’
Dad sighs, sips his brandy and turns the page.
‘Come on, you,’ Mum says. ‘It’s time for bed.’
Jenny dies in my arms.
Goes to sleep, doesn’t wake up.
My tears taste of blood.
Days, no light.
Hours days years.
flesh and blood meat drink that’s all it isflesh and blood it’s allthesame chicken cow pig = 3 it’s all just meatfleshfoodenergy it’s all the same turn the bad to good we’re all animalsanimalsanimals
meatanddrink
your liquid eyes
so sorry
so hurting skinned dry
please forgive me
no tears now
too long
sick
don’tcare the light the tunnel
no
this is what i know
it doesn’t hurt any more
this is
THE BEGINNING
