School's Out Forever (afterblight chronicles)

by Scott K. Andrews

  It’d most likely hurt a lot, so I picked up a piece of wood from the floor, part of a smashed doorframe, and shoved it into my mouth. I didn’t want any screams bringing my pursuers right to me. Then I stood before the bathroom wall and calmed my breathing, focused, and slammed my dislocated shoulder into the wall as hard as I possibly could.

  The pain blinded me and I was unconscious before I hit the floor.

  “ALL RIGHT, LEE. Look, I gotta go. Look after your mother. I love you.”

  “I love you too. And make sure you come find me, ’cause if you’re not back in a year I’m going to come find you!”

  “Don’t joke. If I’m not back in a year, I’m–”

  Click.

  “Dad? Dad, you there? Dad?”

  WHEN YOU’VE BEEN unconscious as many times as I have, you learn a few tricks. The most important is not to open your eyes until you’re fully awake and have learned all you can about where you are and who’s there with you.

  I was bleeding, hungry and thirsty, and I ached all over from the crash and the kicking, but I was still alive.

  The most obvious thing was that I wasn’t lying on a tiled bathroom floor. I was sitting up, with cold metal cuffs binding my hands to the chair back. Someone had captured me, then. I’d probably screamed as I passed out and they found me where I dropped.

  The second thing was that my shoulder hurt like hell and I still couldn’t move my arm, so I hadn’t managed to relocate it. Thanks a bunch, Hollywood.

  The air was still and dry and there was no wind, so I was indoors. I listened carefully, but I couldn’t hear anybody talking or breathing. I risked opening my eyes and found myself staring down the lens of a handy cam.

  It took a minute for me to realise the implications. I craned around to look behind me, and saw that I was sitting in front of a blue sheet backdrop with Arabic script on it. That’s when I really started to panic. Could I really have flown halfway round the world just to end up in a snuff video?

  It took a lot of effort to regain my composure, but I calmed myself down, got my breathing under control, forced down the panic and concentrated on the details of the room. Dun, mud brick walls, sand floor. Single window, shuttered. Old, tatty blue sofa to my left, sideboard to my right. Lying on the sideboard was a big hunting knife, its razor sharp edge glinting at me like a promise. The handy cam was shiny and new, like it was fresh out of the box. Behind it there was a metal frame chair with canvas seat and back, the same as the one I now occupied. Next to that was an old coffee table on which were piled small video tapes. The last thing I noticed, which made the panic rise again, was the dark red stain on the floor, which formed a semi-circle around my feet. There was a splash of the same stain across the floor in a straight line and on to the wall beside the sofa. That would be the first gush of arterial blood from the last poor bastard who’d sat in this chair.

  I remembered the siege of St Mark’s, two months earlier; walking into the Blood Hunters’ camp, all cocky bravado, baiting the madman in his lair. I remembered the plan going horribly wrong, and the moment when they forced me to kill one of my own men. I remembered holding the knife as I slit Heathcote’s throat, and felt the blood bubble and gush over my hands as I whispered pleas for forgiveness into the ear of my dying friend. I remembered the hollow ache that had sat in my stomach as I’d done that awful thing, the ache that had never left me, which still jolted me awake most nights, sweating and crying, reliving his murder over and over. He had not died easily or well. When the siege was over, and the school was a smoking ruin, I had found Heathcote’s body in amongst the mass of slaughtered, and dug his grave myself. I had broken my arm so it took me two days, but I wouldn’t let anyone else lift a shovel to help me.

  It was as I placed the plain white cross on his grave that I realised I could not stay. All my decisions, all my plots and schemes and plans had just brought the school to ruin. It would be better for everyone if I left Matron in charge and gave the school a fresh start. I was cursed. I stayed long enough to heal the arm, and then I just walked away.

  Dad hadn’t shown up, and it had been nearly a year. Time for me to come good on my promise. Time to fly to Iraq and find out what had become of him. I had little expectation that he was still alive, but I had to try. I had to have something to keep going for, to stop me just ending it all. So I found myself a little Grob Tutor plane, the one I’d been taught to fly by the RAF contingent of the school’s County Cadet Force, plotted a route via various RAF bases where I thought I’d be able to find fuel, and set off.

  All that distance from Heathcote’s grave, all that effort just to put myself in a place where I could suffer exactly the same fate. It seemed only fair. Inevitable, even.

  “Poetic justice, Nine Lives,” said the voice in my head. I couldn’t really argue with that.

  I heard footsteps approaching and low, murmuring voices. The door opened and two men stepped inside. They wore khaki jackets and trousers with tatty, worn out trainers. Both had their faces swathed in cloth, with only their dark eyes visible. They stopped talking and stood in the doorway for a moment, just staring at me. Not long ago I’d have wracked my brain for a quip or putdown, but there’d come a point some months back where I’d heard myself saying something flippant to a psychopath and I’d realised that it didn’t make me cool; it just made me sound like an immature dick who’d seen too many bad action movies. So I just told the truth.

  “I have no idea who you think I am,” I said, trying to keep my voice level. “But I’m not your enemy.”

  They ignored me. The taller one moved to the handy cam and hunched over it, preparing to record. I wondered how he’d charged the battery. The shorter one checked the sheet behind me before picking up the knife and taking his place at my side, still and silent like a sentry.

  “I’m just a boy from England looking for my dad,” I went on hopelessly. “Just let me find him and I’ll fuck off out of it, back home. I promise.”

  No response, just a red light on the handy cam, and the whirr of tiny motors as it opened to receive the tape.

  Of course, it could be that they didn’t even speak English.

  “Look, there’s no media any more anyway. There’s no Internet or telly. So what’s the point of cutting my head off on video? Who’s going to see it?” I thought this was a pretty good point, but they didn’t seem to care.

  The cameraman slid the tape into place and snapped the handy cam closed. A moment’s pause, then he nodded to his companion.

  I tried to calm my nerves, tell myself that I’d been in situations like this before, that there was still a way out. But no-one knew I was here. There were no friends looking for me, no Matron to come riding to my rescue. I was thousands of miles from home, in a country where I couldn’t make myself understood, and I was about to be executed as part of a war that was long since over.

  I supposed it made as much sense as any other violent death.

  I felt a tear trickle down my cheek, but I refused to give them the satisfaction of sobbing. The weird thing is, I wasn’t sad for myself. I’d faced death many times, and I’d got to know this feeling pretty well. I was ready for it. I just felt guilty about my dad. He’d never know what had happened to me after that phone call. I’d been looking forward to that conversation. I missed him.

  The man standing beside me began to talk to the camera in Arabic. I made out occasional words (Yankee, martyr) but that was all. At one point I gabbled an explanation to the camera, drowning out his monologue. At least that way anyone watching it would know who I was. I had no idea where this video would end up so it was worth a shot, I supposed. Nothing else I could do.

  “My name is Lee Keegan,” I shouted. “It’s my sixteenth birthday today, and I’m English. I flew here to find my dad, a Sergeant in the British Army, but my plane crashed and these guys found me. If anyone sees this, please let Jane Crowther know what happened to me. You can find her at Groombridge Place, in Kent, southern England. It’s a school now. Tell h
er I’m sorry.”

  The guy with the knife punched me hard in the side of the head to shut me up. He finished his little speech and then there was silence, except for the soft whirr of tiny motors.

  I stared straight into the camera lens, tears streaming down my face. I clenched my jaw, tried to look defiant. I probably looked like what I was: a weeping, terrified child.

  I felt cold, sharp metal at my throat.

  Then the guy behind the camera stood up straight, unwrapped his face and took off his jacket, revealing a t-shirt that read ‘Code Monkey like you!’

  “Hang on,” he said. “Did you say your name was Keegan?”

  And that’s how I met Tariq.

  CHAPTER TWO

  I DIDN’T FOLLOW the war in Iraq as closely as I should have.

  You’d think that, with my dad on the front line, I’d have been watching and reading everything I could. But there was never any good news. It was all doom and gloom; insurgents, roadside bombs and body counts. It gave me nightmares to think of my dad in the middle of all that. So I stopped reading, listening and watching. I didn’t want to know.

  I knew the general details — Dad was in Basra, a coastal town important to oil supplies; things there weren’t as bad as they were further north, where the Americans were in charge; the British troops didn’t have the right equipment, or enough equipment, or any equipment at all, depending upon whether you watched the BBC, Sky News or Al Jazeera.

  The only thing I knew for sure was that he was somewhere dangerous and there were people who wanted to kill him. Beyond that, I didn’t ask.

  But then, as Mum pointed out, that was his job. He was a soldier. He put himself in harm’s way to pay for our food and clothes, the roof over our heads and the education that would ensure I never had to risk my life the way he did.

  I knew that her family paid for my schooling, not Dad, but I understood what she meant, so I just nodded. She knew how I felt, anyway; she was the daughter of a military man herself.

  “JOHN KEEGAN’S SON?”

  He knew my dad. Oh, God, maybe he’d already sat in this chair. Maybe that was his blood on the floor. My eyes went wide and I couldn’t speak.

  The young man stepped out from behind the camera. “Answer the question will you. Oh shit, he’s going to…”

  I leaned forward and threw up all over his sneakers. I retched and retched until I was dry heaving, snot and tears and puke sliming my face. He jumped backwards, but it was too late.

  “Bloody hell, man,” he said, grimacing at his vomit-coated sneakers. “Do you know how hard it is to get Chuck Jones out here? Fuck.”

  The guy with the knife laughed and said something to him in Arabic (is that what they spoke here? Or was it Iraqi? I’m ashamed to admit I didn’t know). Sneaker man flipped him the bird, annoyed and sarcastic.

  I sat back in the chair, feeling about as wretched and pathetic as it’s possible to feel. I couldn’t think of anything to say. My mind just kept replaying the image of my father sitting here, straining at his bonds as his throat was cut.

  Sneaker man stepped forward, avoiding the puddle of puke. He reached into the back pocket of his jeans and pulled out a photo, which he held in front of me.

  “My name is Tariq,” he said. “Please, is this your father?”

  It was Dad, in desert combats, smiling at the camera, holding a bottle of coke.

  I nodded.

  I wanted to scream “Where did you get that? What have you done with him?” but experience back home taught me that people who enjoy slitting throats don’t normally feel the need to explain themselves.

  “Shit!” he said. “I thought you were one of the Yanks.” Tariq shoved the knife man aside, grabbing his blade as he did so. He knelt down and began sawing at the rope that bound my wrists.

  “If I’d known you were John’s son, I’d never have done this.”

  The rope gave way and my hands were free. He shuffled around the front and began working on the rope that bound my feet.

  “It’s not like we were actually going to kill you. It’s just a trick we use to make them talk. They think we’re all Islamist nutters, so we play up to it. Works a treat.”

  Where the hell did his guy learn his English?

  My feet came free and I sprang up, reached behind me and grabbed the chair with my good arm. In a moment I was standing in the corner, chair held up in front of me like a lion tamer.

  “Honest, we weren’t going to hurt you,” he said, still crouching on the floor, discarded rope all around him. Then he rose to his feet, dropped the knife to the floor and kicked it over to me.

  “We were just going to shit you up and make you talk.”

  “About what?”

  He laughed. “You’re going to love this.”

  “Try me.”

  “Well, we thought you could tell us where your father is.”

  Before I could answer, a young woman ran in. She was also wearing jeans and a t-shirt. What kind of radical Islamists were these? She spoke to Tariq quietly and with urgency, he replied briefly, then she ran from the room. Tariq reached around to the back of his trousers and pulled out an automatic, chambering a round. Another rush of adrenaline and fear; was he just going to shoot me?

  “Your arrival attracted attention,” he said. “We have to move. I do not have time to explain exactly what is happening here, but we are allies, you and I, and should be friends.”

  My disbelief must have been plain to see, because he sighed, stood up, ran his fingers through his thick black hair and said: “Yes, I wouldn’t believe me either. Okay, listen to me, Lee. We have to get away from this building quickly and quietly. If you make a noise or shout for help, then you will be killed. Do you understand? And later, when we are safe, I will explain everything and we will laugh about this.”

  “Right,” I said. “If you say so.”

  He shook his head wearily and threw me the cloth that had bound his face. “Clean yourself.”

  I used my good arm to wipe my face clean. I finished with the cloth and dropped it to the floor. Jesus, I ached everywhere.

  “We should fix your arm.” Tariq reached forward and grabbed my useless limb. “Ready?” I nodded. “Don’t scream.”

  He lifted, twisted and pushed, all at once. I felt the bone rotate and then snap back into its socket. I grunted, and my vision clouded for a moment, but I managed not to scream or pass out. He let go and I lifted my arm up. I could use it again, but it hurt like hell.

  “Toseef is going to lead, you will go after him, I will follow you. Please, I beg you, don’t do anything stupid. If you do, we will all die.”

  Then we were moving. We left that awful room and entered a living area with doorless frames and open windows. The girl was standing by the main door, rifle in hand, scanning the street outside. My three captors shared an urgent, whispered conference. It seemed the girl wanted to go out the front door and down the road; Tariq disagreed. Eventually he ended the discussion with a curt word of command, and we climbed out one of the side windows into a narrow, dusty alleyway that ran behind the houses on this street.

  The sky was deep blue, not a cloud in sight, and the air was heavy and wet. I had expected Iraq to be dry, but Basra was a coastal town, humid and damp. It smelt different, the sandy tang of desert mixed with a dash of salt air from the sea. And something else, a hint of something thick and cloying; I would later learn that it was the smell of burning oil. As soon as I stepped out into that glaring sun I began sweating from every pore all at once. My t-shirt was patched with sweat before we’d even gone a hundred metres. I needed water. A whole great bathful, preferably, to wallow in for a week.

  When we reached the end of the alley the girl motioned for us to flatten ourselves against the wall as she peered cautiously round the corner to see if the street was clear. She leaned back into cover and held up her hands to signal that there were two of whoever it was we were hiding from, to the right. She indicated that they were not looking our way.
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  Again there was a disagreement. The girl wanted to risk running across the road to the alley opposite; Tariq wanted to go back the way we had come. This time, she won the toss. She counted down from three with her fingers, and we broke cover. It was only a few metres to a burnt-out car, and we made it without the alarm being raised. We huddled behind it. She glanced down the road on my right, Tariq on my left. Stuck between them, with Toseef, I was unable to see who or what we were hiding from. All I could see was a tiny lizard, sunning itself on the rear bumper of the car, an inch from my nose. Lying there, frying itself alive on that scalding metal, it radiated warm contentment.

  Toseef grabbed my bad arm to get my attention and I winced. He let go and gave me a look that said sorry. Tariq gave us a silent countdown and we all turned to face the other side of the road as the girl moved to my side, ready to run. There was no-one behind me. They all broke cover, scurrying for the other side of the road. But in the heat of the moment none of them tried to drag me with them; they were so focused on their own predicament they must have just assumed I’d follow suit. But I didn’t. I let them run away and I stayed, crouched behind the car with my small, cold-blooded friend. They didn’t realise I wasn’t with them until they reached the safety of the opposite alleyway. Tariq turned, alarmed. I waved at him and smiled. He slapped Toseef around the head, annoyed, then urgently beckoned for me to follow them. I pretended to consider this for a moment, then shook my head, grinning. I didn’t trust him an inch.

  Of course, I hadn’t exactly escaped, but I’d bought myself an opportunity. I turned away from his frantic gesticulations, and peered around the side of the car. About thirty metres down the road stood a humvee. Result! Through the heat haze I could just make out two soldiers standing either side of the vehicle, backs to me. I looked back at Tariq and I could tell he was about to come running back for me. Now or never.