School's Out Forever (afterblight chronicles)

by Scott K. Andrews

  He was going to crucify Bates.

  “We can’t let this happen,” said Norton, urgently, when the truth became apparent. We were sitting in the San staring out of the window at the ghastly construction and all it represented. “If we let him do this then… I don’t know what. But it ain’t good.”

  “And how do you suggest we stop him?” I replied. “He has a cadre of permanently armed boys who are fiercely loyal. At first through stupidity and now, after what they did to Matron, they’re as guilty as he is and they know it. He owns them and I don’t think they’ll hesitate to shoot any one of us dead if Mac orders it. Not now.”

  Norton nodded. “I’ve asked around, as discreetly as I can, but no-one saw anything that night. I can’t find out which boys went into that room.”

  Alone in the San, my mind focused by the pain, I’d had plenty of time to dwell on what had happened to Matron. “Come to take your turn?” she’d asked. At first the implication of that question made me sick with horror, but then, as the long night wore on that disgust turned into a deep burning pit of anger, a fury I didn’t know I had it in me to feel. It changed me. It made things simple.

  “Then we assume they all did,” I said. “Every one of those bastards is responsible for what happened to Matron, and every single one of them will pay for it. They crossed a line when they went into that room. He initiated them.”

  I was actually grateful for being bedridden, and that gratitude made me guilty. Had I been expected to participate I would have either gotten myself killed trying to prevent it, or been forced to take part at the point of a gun. I knew this, but still I felt that I should have been there to protect her, that I could have done something, anything.

  “They’re like him now,” I went on. “He’s made them that way, and we mustn’t underestimate any one of them. They’re loyal and stupid and, we now know, capable of pretty much anything. We have to be so careful. Play the long game.”

  “Bates won’t be around that long.”

  “No,” I admitted, matter of fact. “He probably won’t be.”

  Norton looked at me askance.

  “So we do nothing? We just let them do this?”

  I looked at the cross and considered my options.

  “No. No, we don’t. But I can only see one course of action that doesn’t get us crucified too. I don’t like it, and neither will you.”

  All the blood drained from Norton’s face as I told him what I wanted him to do.

  “COMING TO JOIN the party?” asked Mac, as he pushed the wheelchair to my bedside. “I promise you, son, it’s gonna be massive!”

  “Wouldn’t miss it for the world, sir.” I smiled my most feral smile and for the first time it didn’t feel forced or fake. I felt like a hunter, felt that ruthlessness, that focus, that calm.

  “Attaboy, Lee.” He playfully punched me on the arm and then helped me into the chair. I didn’t bother disguising my discomfort and pain; if my plan didn’t work and I had to resort to plan B, I would need Mac to know just how bad my leg really was.

  “Still bad, eh?”

  “Yeah. Little bit. Wish Matron was here, I don’t want it going gangrenous.”

  “That bitch is long gone, but we’ll find her. Just for you Lee, we’ll find her.”

  He pushed me out the door and down the corridor to the stairs, where Patel was waiting to help carry me down.

  “Actually, Lee, you missed some fun the other night, y’know.”

  Staying calm in the face of moments like this was becoming easier; the anger gave me more control.

  “Really? What was that then?”

  We reached the top of the stairs and Patel took the front wheels.

  “What do you say, Patel? The other night. Quality times, yeah?”

  Patel looked momentarily uncomfortable, but it might just have been the weight of the chair.

  “Yes sir. Top quality,” he replied.

  “We taught that bitch a lesson all right. Let her know who’s in charge around here. You should’ve been there, Lee. I reckon you always fancied her, am I right? Shame you missed your chance to take a pop, yeah?”

  I fantasised about taking a knife, driving it deep into his beating heart and smiling into his dying eyes.

  “Now that,” I said enthusiastically, “would have been worth getting gangrene for!”

  Mac and Patel laughed. All three of us, partners in crime.

  We reached the bottom of the stairs and I was wheeled out through the courtyard to the back field.

  “The girls legged it during the night, by the way. Don’t worry, we’ll find ’em. And we’ve got night patrols now, and sentry boxes. No-one else is getting out of here. Isn’t that right, fat lady?” This last to the Dinner Lady, who stood to one side, arms folded, trying defiance on for size, but unable to disguise her uncertainty and fear. She slept alone, above the kitchen, directly opposite the windows of the boys’ dorms. Matron must have considered it too risky to wake her.

  “She tried to leg it this morning,” said Mac, “but she’s too big to be proper stealthy. Anyway, what’d we eat if she vanished? You’re precious to me, Mrs Dinner Lady, you are. Got to keep you close to home.”

  He leaned down and whispered to me. “Plus, you know, with Matron gone, we gotta have options for entertainment, yeah.”

  Norton was stood on the edge of the ranks closest to me. He glanced at me as I was wheeled past and nodded almost imperceptibly. I sighed with relief. Mission accomplished.

  Mac parked me and took his place in front of the troops, the cross looming above him.

  “It gives me no pleasure, what I’m about to do,” he said.

  Oh fuck off, I thought.

  “But a strong leader must be ruthless in the pursuit of justice and safety. Anyone who harms one of mine will suffer the consequences, and they must know that I will be unswerving in their pursuit. There is no room here for mercy or forgiveness. The only sacred thing here is justice. If you kill one of the people under my protection you kill a part of me. And so help me God, you will do penance for your sins.”

  This was a new line, this holy righteousness bollocks. I hoped he wasn’t going to get a messiah complex. On cue, Mac took out a Bible and began to read aloud as Zayn and Green emerged from the building escorting Bates.

  “The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the iniquities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men,” read Mac, channelling Samuel L. Jackson. “Blessed is he, who in the name of charity and goodwill, shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother’s keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who would attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know my name is the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon thee.”

  Mac was really hamming it up. This was taking a turn for the weird. Whatever, I had to compliment him on his choice of reading; it was at least appropriate.

  The boys led Bates up to the cross and he didn’t struggle at all. Even when he saw the construction upon which he was to be mounted, he didn’t show the least surprise or concern. I didn’t think there was much left of Bates to kill.

  Mac walked over to him and forced him down onto his knees, and then his back. He tied his wrists and feet to the improvised crucifix in silence. Then he got the hammer and nails. He looked disappointed when Bates didn’t cry out in pain as they pierced his flesh.

  He stood back and seized one of the ropes that were attached to the cross. Zayn and Pugh took the others, and together they heaved the construction upright. It was difficult. The heavy structure swayed and warped as they manhandled the post into the hole. They stood back and looked up at their handiwork.

  It’s a potent image, a man on a cross, possibly the most iconic there is. It’s full of associations and meanings, mythic resonances of sacrifice and martyrdom. I looked up at Bates, whose head lolled drunkenly onto his shoulders, glassy eyed. Here was no sacrifice. He was no martyr. He
was just a weak man who’d tried to be strong and had failed. No great tragedy, just another failed hero.

  Mac seemed unsatisfied by the spectacle. I think he’d expected some wailing and moaning, begging and pleading. He’d been looking forward to this moment and now it had arrived his subject wasn’t delivering the goods. Where was the catharsis? Where was the triumph? How could he gloat over a man so rag-doll limp that he was barely even present at his own execution?

  I felt a tiny glow of satisfaction. The sedative that I’d taken from the San was doing its work. Norton had ensured that he was chosen to take the condemned man his final meal. He’d relayed my promise to find Bates’ family and inform them of his death, before offering him a syringe. Bates had obviously accepted the escape route we’d offered him, and had injected himself. If I’d judged the dosage right he would lapse into a coma and die within a couple of hours and no-one would be any the wiser. Mac would think the crucifixion had been quicker than expected, probably assuming heart failure and shock, while Bates surfed out of this life on a warm wave of drug-induced bliss.

  It was the only mercy we could offer him.

  The boys were dismissed and they marched away in silence.

  Mac took one last look at Bates and then walked over to me and began to wheel me towards Castle, leaving his one-time mentor to what he believed would be a slow and agonising death.

  I took some satisfaction in knowing that I’d cheated Mac of that, at least. It was not much of a victory, but it was something, some small scintilla of compassion.

  Now that I was his second-in-command I needed to find a way of talking to Mac, of being his mate. It was difficult to know which tack to take but I decided to brazen it out and be chummy and sarcastic and hope he went with it and didn’t take offence. I gulped and took the plunge.

  “You,” I said witheringly, “have seen Pulp Fiction way too many times.”

  He chuckled and replied “I got pre-mediaeval on his ass.”

  And then Bates began to scream.

  “At last,” said Mac, with satisfaction. But he kept wheeling me onwards and he never looked back.

  THE SCREAM OF a dying man is a terrible thing to hear. It cuts right through you, strips you of all your illusions of immortality, removes any comfort you take in your own existence and reminds you, in the starkest way possible, that we all survive the day at the merest whim of fate and happenstance. It’s humbling and horrifying and once you’ve heard it you never forget it. But at least it’s normally over quite quickly.

  I lay in the San listening to Bates scream for about an hour before I decided that I could stand it no longer. Either I’d got the dosage wrong and he had come around, or he was suffering the worst trip imaginable. Whatever. I’d either not helped or, perhaps, had made things worse. I wasn’t prepared to live with that. Time for Plan B.

  I levered myself off the bed and hopped across to the medicine cabinet. My leg was so bad now that even hopping was almost unbearable. But what did my pain compare with that of the man outside screaming into the face of inevitable death? I opened the cabinet and sorted through the little bottles until I found the right one. I grabbed a syringe, filled it, and jammed it straight into my wound. For a moment there were two men screaming, but then the sweet morphine did its work and my leg felt warm and clumsy and twice its normal size. But at least it bore my weight. I had no idea how long it would take for the drug to affect my senses, but I knew I had to be fast. I limped to the door and checked the corridor. Empty. Thank heaven for small blessings. My rifle stood against the wall in one of the corners, untouched since I’d put it there when I was brought into the San wounded, what seemed like a lifetime ago.

  I picked it up and limped to the back stairwell. Again, no-one around. I hit the stairs and climbed. I was starting to get dizzy. I held tight to the railing as I made my way up to the locked door that gave out onto the roof. Two hard blows from my rifle butt took care of the lock, and I was out, underneath the low grey clouds.

  I made my way to the edge of the roof, which felt springy underneath me, like I was walking on a duvet. The sky above me began to spin and I felt a hot flush rise up my body and face, like a cartoon character who’s just eaten a hot chilli. I walked right to the edge and looked down, swayed unsteadily and leapt back. Carefully.

  I lay down, assumed firing position and sighted my rifle on the chest of the man so far below me, who screamed and screamed and screamed.

  I tried to focus on my task but the roof felt as if it was swallowing me up, engulfing me like quicksand. My head felt tight, my vision swam, my hands shook.

  I grasped the rifle tight and closed my eyes. I steadied my breathing and opened them again. The madness scampered around the periphery of my vision, but I found that I had, for a moment at least, clarity.

  Maybe it was the recklessness of drugged-up mania, or perhaps I was simply so far gone that I had ceased to worry about the consequences of my actions; whichever it was, I didn’t hesitate for an instant. In a heartbeat I did the one thing I had been trying so hard to avoid these long months since The Cull had made each man, woman and child the sole guardian of their own morality; the one thing I had feared the most because of what it would say about where my choices had brought me and what I was truly capable of.

  I squeezed the trigger and ended a man’s life.

  Finally, I was a killer.

  LESSON TWO

  HOW TO BE A TRAITOR

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  BEFORE THE CULL, back when St Mark’s was just another boys’ school and I was just a fourth-former trying to pass my exams, I got on the wrong side of Mac once.

  It was Friday lunchtime and I had cycled into town to buy myself a bag of chips and pick up a magazine. Popping out at lunchtime wasn’t forbidden but it was tight, time-wise, and if you dawdled you ran the risk of missing the start of afternoon lessons.

  That day I bumped into a girl from the high school who I had met at one of the formal social events that the two schools collaborated on every now and then. I was awkward around girls. I had been in single-sex education since I was barely able to walk, and I didn’t have sisters. It wasn’t that I didn’t know what to talk to girls about; I didn’t know how to talk to them at all.

  So while I was browsing the shelves in the newsagents this girl came up, said “hi” and we chatted for a few minutes. Her name was Michelle and I liked her. I can’t really remember what I said; it’s a bit of a blur. I was just concentrating on not spitting, swearing or belching. But it seemed to go off okay and she smiled as she said goodbye. She was pretty, I was blushing beetroot red, and I dawdled and daydreamed all the way back to school where I cycled straight into Mac, lying in wait at the school gates for waifs and strays.

  “What the fuck time do you call this?” he asked.

  “Sorry, I just, um…” Nope, no way out, caught bang to rights.

  He grabbed the magazine.

  “Hey, hey, what’s this? SEX?”

  “Um, no, it’s SFX. It just looks like that ’cause the picture’s covering the bottom of the F.”

  “So you say. But all I can see is a magazine with a woman in a bikini on the cover and SEX written across the top of it.”

  “It’s Princess Leia.”

  He rolled up the magazine and whacked me round the head with it as hard as he could.

  “I don’t care if it’s Princess bloody Diana, it’s confiscated.”

  There was no point protesting.

  “So you a geek then, eh? Little spoddy sci-fi fan? Wank off over pictures of Daleks do you?”

  So many cutting responses came to mind but I wasn’t stupid enough to deliver any of them. I just stood there, head down, silent.

  His punishment was typically creative. I had to stand in a corridor and hold the magazine against the wall with my nose. Simple enough, you might think. But he made me keep my feet a metre away from the wall, with my hands behind my back. I was leaning forward at an angle of about 45 degrees, and all my weight was pu
shed down onto my nose. Within a minute the pain was excruciating. He made me stand like that for half an hour. I never crossed him again, and he soon forgot who I was.

  I was still in junior school when I learnt the secret to dealing with bullies: hit them as hard as you possibly can and make their noses bleed. Always worked for me. But when the bullies were officially sanctioned, when they were prefects (or teachers, come to think of it), then the more you protested, challenged them, fought back, or answered their rhetorical questions, the worse things got. They had authority on their side and any argument, reason or excuse you offered could just be ignored.

  So I learned to swallow my pride, to bite back the retorts, to clench my fists but not let them fly. Keep your head down, don’t draw attention to yourself, fly under the radar. Secret to a quiet life; secret to survival.

  That instinct was deep ingrained in me by the time The Cull came around. I suppose that’s why I didn’t challenge Mac at the start, why I motioned to Norton to keep quiet when Hammond needed our help, why I decided to try and bring Mac down by infiltration and subterfuge. A lifetime of learning how to survive institutional bullying had taught me how to be sneaky, but I no longer understood the rules of open confrontation.

  Mac still had the authority, although now it came from the muzzle of a gun and a cadre of lackeys rather than a fancy blue blazer braid, and I was still locked into the role of submissive victim, seething with resentment but staying silent, fighting the injustice indirectly, with plots and schemes.

  But I still remembered the satisfaction of bloodying a bully’s nose, and longed to feel Mac’s cartilage crack beneath my fists.

  MY MOUTH FELT dry and sandy, my eyes were gummed shut, and my leg was just a distant ache. I could hear someone moving around in the room, but I couldn’t speak or move for a minute or so. Eventually I was able to manage a croak, and I heard a squeal and what sounded like a glass hitting the floor. I’d made somebody jump.