The footsteps got closer, then she heard many more pairs of boots coming up the stairs in pursuit.
Caroline scrunched her toes against the soft, smooth bed sheets in a tactile farewell just as the door to her room burst open.
“Caroline?” It was Rowles. He was breathing hard, on the verge of panic, which was unlike him.
“What’s happening?” she said. Or at least that’s what she tried to say. Her tongue felt like a lump of meat in her mouth and her lips seemed swollen and heavy. What she actually said was “Wa han,” but sweet, faithful Rowles understood her.
“American army,” he said, by way of explanation as he closed the door behind him, grabbed a metal-framed canvas chair and shoved it under the door handle. Then he ran to her bedside, leaned over and kissed her on the cheek.
“They may not check too carefully,” he whispered.
The door handle rattled immediately. She’d thought he was being optimistic.
The boy she trusted more than anyone else alive crouched down beside her bed with a machine gun aimed at the door. It was cocked and ready to fire. He was defending her with his life, and she felt an overwhelming flood of affection for him. It took a huge effort but she managed to lift her right arm out from under the covers and reach across to stroke his light brown hair. He glanced up at her and she smiled at him. His wide eyes and small freckled nose gave him the face of an angel, but stare deeper into those eyes and there was only pitiless darkness. Hard to believe he was only eleven.
He smiled back and just for a moment his eyes lightened. There was still some feeling in there, after all. She hoped one day she’d hear him laugh. But she didn’t think it likely.
She remembered her father laughing at an old repeat of Morecambe and Wise, his eyes creased to slits as he literally held his sides and rocked back and forth on the sofa like a laughing policeman at a fairground.
If Rowles was going to die here, she was glad she could die with him. She’d heard Matron refer to them once as Bonnie and Clyde, so it was fitting.
The door ceased rattling and the footsteps clattered away.
A moment later she heard boots descending the stairs.
Rowles stood up and walked around the bed, then pulled the curtain aside a fraction and looked out at the battlefield.
“I don’t know why they’re attacking, but I think they’re winning.” There was a huge explosion nearby and he pulled back from the window, shielding his eyes. “It’s not safe to stay here. We have to go.”
Caroline wanted nothing more than to run away with him, but she would need to be carried, manhandled, pushed in a wheelchair. She was twelve years old and would have described herself as solid, even stocky. Rowles was eleven and thin as a rake. There was no chance. She wanted to tell him to go without her, to save himself and leave her be. But her treacherous mouth wouldn’t form the words and, she realised with some surprise, she was too selfish for that. She wanted to be with him, no matter what.
“Wel air,” she grunted.
“Good idea. I’ll go look for one. Back in a mo.”
He pulled the chair away from the handle and cracked open the door. Once he’d assured himself that the corridor was clear he slipped out, pulling the door closed behind him.
Caroline was alone again.
The noises of fighting were moving away now. The building in which she lay was quite near the main gates and she presumed it was their destruction which had signalled the start of the assault and woken her up. Now the fight was moving into the centre of the base. But below her window there was a steady rumble of incoming trucks, tanks and other vehicles as the Americans flooded in to join the fight.
She wondered where Matron was. It was unlike her to leave them alone; she should have been with Rowles, giving orders, taking decisions, making the children feel safe, protected, even loved, with a sly glance or a flash of a smile in the direst of circumstances. Rowles’ presence made Caroline feel safe, Matron’s made her feel she belonged.
She remembered her older sister’s arm around her shoulder at their grandad’s funeral, reaching up and taking her hand, feeling her sister squeeze it for comfort.
Footsteps and voices in the corridor. Rowles was no longer alone.
The door opened and a tall man with thick black hair and heavy features entered. He was wearing jeans and a t-shirt, but had an SLR machine gun slung across his chest. She recognised him — he was the doctor who had been there when she regained consciousness after the operation. Jones? Johns? She couldn’t recall his name.
Rowles came in behind the man, pushing a wheelchair, then closed the door.
The doctor leaned over her.
“Can you hear me, Caroline?” he asked.
“Yuh.”
“Can you move at all?”
She lifted her arm feebly and wiggled her fingers until the effort became too much and the limb flopped back down, useless.
The doctor smiled. It was obviously meant to be reassuring but there was something calculating in his eyes, something which made her withhold trust.
“We’re going to lift you into the wheelchair,” he said. “It may hurt, but I haven’t got any anaesthetic on me, I’m afraid. Then we’re going to take the lift down to the rear doors where I’ve got a jeep waiting. If we move quickly, I think we’ll be able to get ourselves away from here before they secure the perimeter.” He turned and nodded to Rowles, who wheeled the chair alongside the bed then took Caroline’s hand.
She was sad to leave her clean, white cocoon, but the pain in her head as the doctor and Rowles pulled her into a sitting position made it hard to concentrate on anything but staying conscious.
“One, two, three,” said the doctor, grunting on “three” as they lifted Caroline out of the bed and into the chair. Once she was sitting again, the pain in her head receded.
Outside, there was a whoosh and then a tremendous explosion directly beneath the window. Bazooka, perhaps? The window finally came off its latch and smashed against the interior wall, showering the now empty bed with shards of glass.
The doctor went to take the handles of the wheelchair, but Rowles stepped behind her. The doctor, looking over her head at Rowles’ determined, territorial look — which Caroline could picture clearly, even though she was facing the other way — nodded. He turned and opened the door, then waved for Rowles to follow him.
They moved quickly out of the room and into the corridor, turning left and heading for the grey lift doors twenty metres away. Caroline observed the flat details of the corridor as she rolled past door after door, all closed. They reached the lift and the doctor reached out to press the call button, but before he could make contact the lift pinged, the doors slid open, and an American soldier stood before them, gun levelled straight at the doctor’s chest.
The soldier and the doctor stood there for a second, frozen in surprise. But the soldier’s reflexes were tuned for combat, and when the moment passed he was quickest. Deciding that he didn’t need to waste ammunition, he brought his gun around and smashed the butt across the doctor’s face, sending him crashing to the floor, stunned.
Caroline was intrigued by the soldier’s uniform. It was a camouflage pattern of light and dark browns. Desert clothes, hardly suitable for warfare on the rolling green plains of England.
The soldier stepped over the prone doctor and relieved him of his weapon. Caroline could tell by the tiny vibrations in her chair that Rowles was still gripping the handles tightly, resisting the temptation to go for the gun that was slung across his back, waiting for the right moment. Perhaps the soldier hadn’t even noticed the strap that ran diagonally across the boy’s chest. Or perhaps he’d made the same mistake that so many had made before him, ignoring the tiny boy, failing to consider him a threat. If that were the case, Caroline knew he’d soon regret that judgment.
The soldier stood upright and looked down at the two children. He didn’t say a word, just held out his arm, lowered his index finger, and rotated it to indicate t
hat they should turn around and go back the way they’d come.
Caroline felt her chair move to the left, beginning to describe a circle, then the chair stopped at about 45 degrees and Rowles stepped back from the handles, grabbed the strap, brought his gun to bear, and fired at the soldier’s chest.
There was a dry click as the gun jammed and then another of those moments of stunned surprise as boy and man stood facing each other.
Caroline saw the doctor begin to stir on the floor behind the soldier.
The look of astonishment on the soldier’s face faded into amusement and he laughed at Rowles.
Oh dear, thought Caroline, allowing herself a tiny smile. That’s not wise.
Rowles launched himself at the soldier with a cry, using his gun as a club, beating the man’s chest and arms. The soldier lifted one big hand and swatted the gun aside, then lifted the boy off the ground in a bear hug, pinning his arms to his sides.
The doctor was up on all fours now, shaking his head to clear it. There was a loud scream of engines above as the jets made another pass, and a clatter of boots on the stairs at the far end of the corridor, as the soldiers returned.
“Little boy,” said the soldier in a thick Brooklyn accent. “You’re feisty, aintcha?”
Grasped tight, his feet off the ground, his arms useless, with no weapon to defend himself, Rowles looked puny and weak compared to the man who held him fast.
But Rowles was not beaten yet. With a feral snarl he bared his teeth, leaned forward, and bit hard into the man’s throat.
The soldier staggered back and released his hold on the boy. But Rowles did not fall to the floor. Instead, he wrapped his arms around the soldier’s neck and his legs around his waist, and continued biting, gnawing, crunching and savaging the man’s throat. He growled as he did so, like a wolf ripping out the throat of a helpless lamb.
Great fists raised and smashed the boy’s head again and again and Caroline winced at the soldier’s scream of pure agony and terror, but Rowles was limpet tight to the man, impossible to dislodge. The soldier took another step back and lost his footing, tumbling down and smashing his helmet against the floor. Rowles leaped up, pulled the knife from the soldier’s leather sheath, grasped it tightly in both hands and brought it down in a mighty arc, straight into his heart. The soldier’s legs kicked furiously, but his death throes gave the boy no pause.
Rowles pulled out the knife, cut the gun’s strap with one swift slice, freeing the M-16 from the soldier’s chest, then turned to the doctor, who had by now regained his feet.
“Quickly,” he said. The doctor reached forward, grabbed the handles of Caroline’s chair and spun her around, pulling her behind him as he backed into the lift.
The clatter of boots was deafening now. Helmets appeared, rising up the stairs at the far end of the corridor. Rowles, his back to Caroline, fired a short burst at the stairwell, which caused the helmets to vanish from view.
Then the boy turned to look at her. His eyes were pitch black, blood dripped from his face and chin, and when he spoke she could see strands of flesh stuck between his teeth.
She realised in that moment that she loved him more than she had ever loved anyone in her life.
“Run,” he said softly, his voice full of regret.
The doctor pressed the button and the doors of the lift began to slide closed. Caroline lifted her arm, reaching out her helpless fingers towards Rowles. Their eyes met and she knew, with absolute certainty, that she would never see him alive again.
Through the tiny crack as the doors closed she caught a glimpse of him turning away from her and running down the corridor. Then there was gunfire and screaming, and the soft buzz of the lift’s engine as the metal cage lowered her gently to the ground.
As her eyes filled with tears, she caught a faint hint of lilies on the air.
PART ONE
CHAPTER ONE
“WHEN IS IT acceptable to kill another human being?”
The question hangs there as Green waits for an answer. It takes a moment but eventually a girl three seats back raises her hand.
“Caitlin?”
“When they’re trying to kill you, Sir?”
We make them say Sir and Ma’am at St Mark’s. Old skool.
Green writes this on the whiteboard. I make a mental note to add whiteboard pens to our scavenging list; we’re running short.
“Anyone else?”
More hands go up now that someone else has taken the plunge. Green indicates them one by one, writing their contributions up.
“When someone’s trying to kill a friend of yours.”
“Or a family member.”
“When someone is a murderer.”
“Or a rapist.”
Green doesn’t react any differently to this suggestion, but I shift in my seat, uncomfortable both for him and for myself.
“Or a paedo.”
“In a battle, like a war or something.”
“As part of an initiation.”
Okay, we’d better keep an eye on that one.
“When they’re stealing your food or water.”
“If they try to take over your home.”
“For revenge.”
Green turns quickly back to the class. “Who said that? Was that you, Stone?”
The boy nods, unsure if he’s about to cop a bollocking.
“Revenge for what, though?” asks Green intently. No-one answers. The class seems confused. “You see, Stone has hit the heart of the matter. A lot of your suggestions — murderer, rapist, paedophile, thief — wouldn’t killing them just be an act of revenge? I mean, the crime’s already been committed. You’re not going to bring back the murder victim, un-rape someone, un-abuse a child. So why kill the criminal other than for revenge? And if it is revenge, is it a justifiable thing? Is killing for vengeance a crime, or a right?”
Another long pause, then a boy at the back, quite close to me, says: “But in those cases it isn’t just revenge, is it, Sir? Coz they might kill again, or rape or abuse or steal. So by killing them you’re protecting everybody.”
Green claps his hands, pleased. “Yes!” he says forcefully. “But what about prison? If you could lock the person away and thereby protect everyone? Remove the danger, and what purpose does killing the criminal achieve then other than vengeance? So again, is vengeance okay?”
“But there aren’t any prisons any more, Sir,” responds the boy, warming to the discussion. “And food and water and stuff are hard to get. So it’s a question of practicality and resources, isn’t it?”
I can tell Green is pleased. This boy is lively and engaged.
“So are we allowed to do things now, after The Cull, that we would have considered immoral beforehand?” demands Green.
“Yes,” says the boy firmly. “The world has changed. The morals they had before The Cull are a luxury we just can’t afford any more.”
“You don’t think morality is absolute?” responds Green, who once fired a clip’s worth of bullets into an unarmed man and has never displayed a hint of remorse. “That some things are just wrong, no matter what?”
“Do you, Sir?”
Jesus, this boy’s, what, fourteen? And before I can help myself I tut inwardly and think ‘kids these days.’ I smile ruefully at my own reaction. Am I getting old? I notice, as well, that he said ‘they.’ He was born ten years before The Cull, but already the people who ran the world then are another breed, as ancient and unknowable as the Romans. How quickly we forget.
Green beckons the boy forward. “Come to the front, Stone.”
The boy rises and walks down the aisle to the front of the classroom, the other children gently laughing at his discomfort. Green hands the boy a book.
“Turn to page thirteen and read Vindici’s speech.” The boy begins to read, stumbling over the archaic language at first, but gradually gets the hang of it. I sit, transfixed, until he cries: “Whoe’er knew murder unpaid? Faith, give revenge her due!” and I notice a mome
ntary grimace that flashes across Green’s face as the knowledge of his act of vengeance twists in his guts.
I quietly rise from my seat, nod encouragingly at Green, and sneak out of the classroom.
When I was at school, plays like The Revenger’s Tragedy seemed ancient and irrelevant, hard to understand and full of abstract moral question that meant nothing to us. But these kids? This generation of children who saw everyone they’ve ever known and loved die slow, painful deaths and then had to survive in a world without law, authority or consequence get that play on a level I never could, and Green — twenty-one now and no longer the uncomfortable, persecuted teenager I first met — has turned into a fine drama teacher; impassioned, encouraging, good with kids. He’s also a pacifist now, and refuses to touch a gun under any circumstances.
I’m oddly proud of him. Which, given our personal history, is quite something.
I stand in the hallway and listen to the babble of voices drifting out of the four classrooms that stand adjacent to it. It’s a good sound, a hopeful, productive noise. It’s learning and debate, friendship and community. And it’s rare these days. So very rare.
I glance up at the clock on the wall. 10:36. Of course GMT no longer exists, so the world has reverted to local time — the clocks at St Mark’s take their time from the sundial in the garden. I wonder if time, like morality, is absolute. Does GMT still exist somewhere, like those echoes of the big bang that astronomers and physicists were always trying to catch hint of, waiting to be rediscovered and re-established? And if the clock that set GMT is lost, and we someday recreate standard time, what if we’re a millisecond out? How would we ever know? I linger in the hallway, surrounded by the murmur of learning, and daydream of a world in which everyone is always a millisecond late.
School's Out Forever (afterblight chronicles) Page 54
