Class Four: Those Who Survive

by Duncan P. Bradshaw

  The visitor surveyed the naked flesh in front of him. The back was pock-marked with burns, misplaced lumps and bobbles of fused bone and skin. The visitor held out a thick red cotton unzipped hoodie. Devin turned, took it and slid it onto his toned but battered body. His digitless hand fumbled to hold the bottom of the runner as he struggled to pull the zip up through the toothed track. He opened his cracked lips, and a near hoarse voice crackled, “Thank you Malky, let us begin. Show me to the penitents.”

  Rebirth.

  Malky bowed shallowly, turned and walked out of the bathroom. Devin followed close behind. As he reached the doorway he cast a glance to a large glass laboratory beaker sitting on a shelf at head height. The sound of laughter filled the room as he pulled down the hem of his hoodie and left the room.

  The dead eyes of the severed head turned and watched him leave; the rictus grin seemed to guffaw in the formaldehyde. Wet flaps of skin around the neck rippled as the floor sprung from the men’s departure. The bone from the remnants of the spinal column scratched against the glass bottom. Grey hair waved in the light green miasma.

  The front door opened with an ominous creak and the two men walked out into the frigid morning air. The fields were covered in frost, like a watercolour painting. The herd of people kneeling on the floor stood out stark in comparison. They were surrounded by eight men armed with a variety of weapons, both makeshift and scavenged. Each guard was wearing the same red hoodie as Devin and his second in command.

  To one side stood a hunched man. His black straggly hair led to an equally rough and shaggy beard; the glint had disappeared from the man’s eyes weeks ago, resigned to his course of action.

  The two men ignored the throng of captives and made a beeline to the forlorn looking man. He snapped out of his introspection as he saw them loom into his cone of vision.

  He braced himself just as Devin’s one remaining working hand grabbed him roughly around the throat. With apparent ease he lifted him in the air. Feet kicked out where his shins were a moment earlier. “I asked you for the plans to the infidel’s camp. Do I have to tear you apart to find it?” Devin asked. His voice still sounded like he had just been found in a desert; it cracked and gutted like a bad telephone line.

  The hoisted man looked down into eyes which burned with a resolve forged in a crucible of faith and unimaginable terror. One eye was pared like a tomato, the edges of the wound were curled up. As the eyelid closed, it formed a lump. His hands held onto the vice which was choking the life from him. “I…I…I have it….your Grace, please…”

  Unsteady legs landed back on terra firma with a painful jolt. A bolt of agony ran up his bones and into his skull. He rubbed his hands around his neck, trying to invoke life back into his core again.

  The morning sun hung low over the horizon; rays of light washed over him, intensifying the pain. Devin formed an eclipse by transitioning in front of it. “Well?” he snarled.

  His breathing was still shallow, but it was returning. His hand switched from resuscitation mode and into his jacket pocket, fishing around momentarily before holding a folded piece of lined paper aloft. As Devin went to take the document, he stopped and turned the paper over, revealing the man’s hand. “It would seem as though we share a similar disability.”

  As the page was snatched from his grasp, he instinctively held his hands together. One hand massaged the place where the little finger had been removed. He nodded in deference and lay on the floor, unsure of his fate.

  Devin unfolded the paper and studied its contents. His brain ran over the map scrawled in black biro, assessing the security and potential avenues of attack. “Thank you, Mister Mystery Man. I’m not sure why you volunteered to help us, but I am a man of my word. Both of our intentions form a synergy, for now at least.” The map was tucked into a trouser pocket and a scabrous hand was extended to the stricken man, which was accepted, reluctantly. “I’ll honour our agreement.”

  As he was drawn up to full height, Devin whispered in his ear, “If I discover that this is a ruse or a play on your behalf, you can be assured that you will suffer the same fate as the penitents over there. But not before Malky has had his fun with you.”

  Mystery Man nodded meekly. “Trust me, I want what you do.”

  Devin patted him on the back. “Then you have nothing to fear. Friend.”

  He spun on his heels and headed back to the group of sorry creatures being held under guard. Malky followed him, his thick lamp-post arms folded across his skyscraper chest. They stood over the disparate wretches. “That one, put him in the coffin cage first. He has enough meat about him. Please don’t forget to begin exsanguination before we leave this time. It was quite frankly an embarrassment when we started collection for that last camp.”

  Malky traced the gnarled finger to a sullen half-naked man. He gestured to one of the guards who picked him up roughly and frogmarched him to an RV which was parked up a short distance away.

  Devin stood over the group and announced, “Ladies and gentlemen, my lucky fifteen. We begin the collection today, and you are the chosen ones. Please follow these men into the Securicar over there. I don’t need to remind you what will happen if you opt to disobey me.”

  He gestured to an upside down body strapped to an old mill wheel on the outside of the building. A gore and filth covered burlap sack hid the face. The violated ribcage looked as if it had been pulled open like a bag of crisps; several ribs were missing and a number of internal organs were hanging down from meaty pipes of viscera. Beneath the figure was a puddle of half frozen offal and congealed blood.

  The guards forced them to stand and herded them into the back of an old Group Six security van. Devin walked over to the back of the RV where Malky had just managed to get the half-naked man into the human shaped metal cage. The cage swung a few feet off the ground from a winch which had been welded onto the roof. The man sobbed gently, and a dark patch appeared on the crotch of his jeans.

  Malky withdrew a box cutter from his pocket and slashed the soles of the man’s feet, causing him to howl in pain. A steady trickle of blood started to pitter patter onto the frozen earth.

  Dank, acrid breath smothered the man’s tear-strewn face as Malky spat out, “Please, make as much noise as you can. We will need every last ounce of your screams.”

  “We’ll take the route as planned. Let us hope that She has blessed us and that her flock are numerous. If this map is accurate, we will need as many as possible to ensure that we can bring Rapture to these heathens,” Devin said raspily.

  Chapter Three

  Steve wiped his glasses with the bottom of his t-shirt. Holding them up to the shaft of light which pierced the grimy window, he saw that all he had achieved was making a bigger smear.

  He wiggled the metal arm which was still poking out at a most peculiar angle. He wrinkled his nose in annoyance and squished the piece of sticky tape which was barely holding it to the frame. Satisfied that it would hold, for now at least, he looked around the room at the other five occupants.

  The room itself looked like it used to be a small storage unit. Judging by the oil stained floor, Steve assumed it used to hold spare machine parts for the factory which took up most of the footprint of the site. Whitewashed brick walls were lined with a wallpaper of fine brown dust and muck. The windows, streaked with filth, peered out onto the bleak concrete loading bay.

  Steve cleared his throat, gingerly placed the glasses back on his face and addressed his unwilling congregation. “Good morning all, my name is Steve. Before all this…unpleasantness, I used to be a therapist, helping people deal with all sorts of everyday issues. The Gaffer asked me to set these weekly meetings up, so that we can hopefully help you come to terms with certain…events which you have all gone through.”

  “Hey dick-knot, go fuck yourself,” growled a man whose entire head, with the exception of his eyebrows and the odd nose hair, was completely shaven. He leered at Steve, and the scar which watermarked his left eye socket opened up lik
e a hungry shark’s maw.

  Steve crossed his legs, carefully opened his notebook to a blank page, withdrew his ballpoint pen emblazoned with a picture of Young Einstein on it, clicked the end to extend the nib and looked across at the man. “Good morning Sir, you are?” he asked in a level voice, hiding the fact that a boulder of sweat was now crashing down his back and his balls had withdrawn into their internal cavity.

  The man scowled again, he was hunched in the plastic chair like it was his dominion, forearms rested on his stained jeans. “Well hello there, Doctor Dick-Knot, my name’s Anton. I have only one thing to say to you mate.”

  Steve scribbled in his book; the pen scratched against the page. As he wrote, he maintained eye-contact with Anton. “Yes Anton, and what would that be?” he enquired.

  The response was abrupt. “Go fuck yourself. I ain’t saying shit to you.” With that, he folded his arms, and looked round the rest of the group, almost begging someone to start on him.

  The pen scratched some more and came to a halt. Steve was still evaluating Anton as a woman’s voice, with a Lancastrian accent, gate-crashed the building silence. “Erm, you what? Are you fucking kidding me? Why don’t you have some manners, pal, before I put my foot on your windpipe and crush the life out of ya.”

  The woman was locked into a staring competition with Anton. As he tried to glare back, the woman increased the power to her death stare and he acquiesced. She continued to bore holes into the side of his head until Steve spoke again. “And you are?”

  She turned to face him. Her dark brown hair swished and brushed the nape of her neck; her gaze switched to a more playful tone. “I’m Dee. Used to be a copper when this all kicked off. Wouldn’t have taken crap from this kind of a-hole then and I won’t take it now,” she stated bluntly.

  Steve resumed writing duties. “Hello Dee. A policewoman eh? I bet you’ve—”

  Dee interrupted with a raised hand. “Listen, pal. No offence, but I believe this is as much use as a cock on a trumpet. I don’t need therapy, I’m fine. It hasn’t happened again for ages, so I don’t really see the point of sitting here when I could be out there doing something useful.” She thumbed to the window behind her.

  Steve looked at her. His hand autonomously continued to scrawl in his notepad.

  “What do you think you’re writing now?” Dee snapped.

  The scratching continued.

  “Seriously, pal, you need to stop writing. Now.” Her voice had hardened and slapped across the circle at Steve.

  He stopped.

  “Interesting,” he muttered. Dee sank back into her chair, flashed one last demeaning glance at Steve before investigating her immaculately manicured fingernails. Steve turned to the man to his right. “Hello there, who are you?” he enquired.

  The man shifted uncomfortably in his seat. His hands were clasped together in a white knuckle grip. The fingernails had gone translucent with the pressure. “Tristan, hi.” his mumbled words were barely audible to some of the group who leant forward to hear them, only to return to the upright position upon the brevity of his sentence.

  A brief period of scratching caused everyone to wince slightly. Steve looked to the chap to his left. “Hello there, who are you?”

  The man stirred slowly as if he had been dreaming. His lank, blonde straggly hair, which looked like it hadn’t been washed since Day One, hung down. As he lifted his head, it hit his face and parted like a pair of theatre curtains on opening night. Glazed eyes, sunken into black lined sockets, nervously looked round the group. “Wotcha, I’m Matt. I had Weetabix this morning, three of them, which was odd as I haven’t had them since I was a kid. Is it me, or were they bigger when we were younger? Used to think they were as big as my dad’s hand. His hand…they…” He trailed off, his head flopped forwards again and he stuffed his hands under his legs.

  Steve turned the page, and looked across to the last remaining anonymous member of the cabal. A woman in her late forties. Previously dyed auburn hair now betrayed its true colour, with a growing layer of pepper grey sprouting from her scalp. “Sylvia,” she answered nervously.

  “Hello, Sylvia,” Steve said softly, matching her tone of voice automatically. “How are you today?” he asked with seemingly genuine concern. Sylvia shuffled uncomfortably in her chair. Her right hand slowly moved across to hold her left wrist; her thumb gently rubbed the arm of her jumper.

  She took a moment to answer. Lost in a memory, she forced a half smile. “I’m okay thank you, Steve. Getting better. I think. Just all gets too much sometimes, eh? And then before you know it, something silly has happened and all these people fuss about nothing and then you realise that you’re a failure. A ruddy great failure.” As she finished, she clenched her jaw. Her eyes reddened as she fought to maintain control over her fluctuating emotions.

  Steve held the notepad to his chest and slid the pen into the coiled metal binder. “It’s okay, Sylvia, you’re not a failure—”

  Anton tutted loudly. Dee whipped round to glare at him once more. Steve raised a passive hand for silence, and then used it to stroke his beard.

  “Sylvia, perhaps you would like to be the bravest of everyone here and start us off? With it all being so fresh in your mind, and after recent events, it could be a very cathartic thing to do. It’ll help you. No one here will judge you. No one here can.” As he said the last words he cast a withering look around the group. Each member recoiled back into their plastic chairs and settled down.

  Her thumb continued to stroke up and down her inner forearm. Sylvia looked up, nodded gently and began.

  Home Comforts – Part One

  It was only a month ago now since…it.

  But well, first off, my husband, Donald, and I had been holed up in a holiday cottage on the edge of the forest. It was perfect. We had been there every year since we were married. It was visit number sixteen. When this all happened, those many months ago, we were out there celebrating our anniversary.

  The sixteenth.

  I remember that night. I think everyone does now, like you always knew where you were when the Twin Towers were hit, or when Princess Diana, God bless her soul, was tragically stolen from us. I met Donald the night she died. We were in a pub on a night out; separate parties of course. We just talked the night away. Before I knew it, we were out on the dancefloor. Just something about my Donald.

  It was the way he looked at me I think. The moment I first saw those magical baby blues looking across the bar at me, oohh, gives me goosebumps now even thinking about it.

  He walked over and I will never forget the line he opened with. ‘Are you tired?’ he asked me. The pub was so loud, but his voice just cut through it all.

  I didn’t have a clue what he was on about, and after flapping my mouth open and shut for what seemed like forever, I managed to stammer out a ‘What?’

  The corner of his mouth rose slightly. He has…had, a lovely smile; used to make any trying day seem brighter.

  Anyway, he leant in closer, and whispered in my ear, ‘You must be tired. As you’ve been running round my mind all night.’ He gave me a little wink and that was it. I was hooked. I giggled like a schoolgirl, and he bought me a drink, one of those Smirnoff Mule’s.

  Sorry, I’m rabbiting on about stuff. So, it’s that night. Donald took me out to a fancy restaurant, one of those where you get lost with all the cutlery. Always got terribly worried if I was doing things wrong, you know?

  I always seem to do things wrong.

  The taxi took us back to the cottage. Donald paid the driver and gave him a generous tip. He was always like that, always made sure he looked after people that gave good service. He was such a gentleman. I walked through the house to the decking at the back. I thought it’d be nice to have a hot-tub to round the night off, you know? Show my appreciation for a good evening.

  As soon as I opened the back patio doors, though, the sky just seemed to, well, bleed. The light blue and orangey sky just turned red; it was like someone had a gr
eat big roller out and painted the sky. Donald had joined me by now, and we were both standing there, looking out at the ungodly scene. He took my hand, held it so tight to stop me trembling, and said, ‘It’ll be okay, Syl. It’ll be okay.’

  We never did get into the hot tub that night. It all unsettled me so much. It may have only gone on for a few hours, but it scared me. We sat on the decking with a bottle of red, a nice Rioja if I remember correctly. He had his arm around me the entire time, and we just sat there in silence.

  The morning came round. I had slept in fits and starts, kept getting the same dream over and over again.

  Hmm? You want me to tell you, Steve? But it’s terribly boring; these people won’t want to hear it.

  Okay then, if you’re sure.

  I’m at a train station, and I’m waiting for my train to come in. I look up at the clock, and see that it’s due any time now, so I check my ticket and pick up my bag. It’s only then that I look up at the announcement board and see that I’m on the wrong platform.

  I start to panic. I look to one side and can see a train coming in. My train. I can feel my heart beating faster and faster. I turn towards the stairs and try to make my way to them, but there are so many people in the way, and I’m trying to fight my way through them, but they just won’t move.

  So many of them.

  I weave this way and that, and eventually, somehow, get through, but as I reach the stairs I realise I’m already on the other platform. The train doors are shutting though, one by one, starting from the far end. I run to the nearest door and catch it just as it is about to close. I get on the train, put my bag on the floor and breathe a sigh of relief.

  It’s then that I look around and notice that the train has no walls, and as it pulls away from the station, it starts going really fast, so much so that people who are sat on their chairs, reading newspapers or checking their phones, are just falling by the wayside. I feel this gust of wind start to pick me off my feet. Just as I’m about to fly off, I wake up.