Thirst (Thirst Series)

by Guy N Smith

  An untidy bed, a huddled shape in the centre, face buried in the pillow. Shivering violently, moaning softly with a sound that seemed to come from the very depths of her soul - she was in torment: physical and mental.

  ‘Cathy,’ He spoke softly, and his voice quivered.

  She stirred, but did not answer him.

  ‘Cathy,’ he repeated, more urgently. ‘It's me. Ron. How do you feel?’ A stupid question, but one had to start at the beginning.

  Another groan, louder this time. Her head moved, coming round to face him, and for a brief second he closed his eyes, frightened to look at it. Their eyes met. He stared. Her features were flushed. She was ill, feverish. But there was no sign of the terrible weeping ulcers.

  ‘Ron,’ came an unrecognisable whisper, not even reminiscent of her usual voice. ‘Ron … a drink …please.’

  ‘I'll get you one.’

  Like an automaton he went across to the bathroom, emptied some toothbrushes out of a plastic beaker and filled it from the cold tap. Returning to the bedroom, he was surprised to see that she was sitting up, arms outstretched for the drink in a gesture of sheer desperation. And he also saw that she was naked from the waist upwards. Probably starkers, but the bedclothes still screened the lower half of her slim body.

  She grabbed the beaker with both hands, tearing it from his grasp, spilling half of it down herself; the water dripped from her small firm breasts. Boobs just like Ron Blythe had always expected her to have. Even now, amidst his fears, he eyed them appreciatively.

  Her head was back, the beaker between her lips. Most of the water went down her throat. A few drops cascaded down her chin. She gasped loudly, a cry not of relief but of frustration, pushing the empty container back at him.

  ‘Water,’ she cried hoarsely. ‘More water.’

  ‘You're ill,’ he said. ‘But I want to know exactly what's the matter with you before I send for the doctor.’

  ‘Water.’ Her eyes were glazed.

  ‘OK. I'll get you some more in a minute. But are you in pain anywhere?’

  She nodded, the promise of more water seeming to make her more rational.

  ‘Here,’ she groaned, and flung back the sheets.

  Transfixed, Ron Blythe stared at her naked body, saw the loveliness first, before the horrors made their full impact upon him. Cathy was bathed in sweat, her skin glistening. Knees drawn up, thighs parted lewdly. Provocative, at any other time, but now he scarcely noticed the object of his earlier fantasy.

  At first he thought that the insides of her thighs were chafed as though she had been horse riding bareback. He peered closer, and it was then that he noticed the tiny white pinpoints: a mass of minute boils between which there was no break, a living multitude of sores that breathed and grew, and were spreading upwards until they disappeared beneath the bushy pubics.

  He jerked his head away. He wanted to flee, to be sick. He had seen it all before - on those horses. Cathy Blythe would be dead by midday. Approximately three hours were left to her - three hours of terrible suffering that only death could end.

  ‘Water.’ Her eyes glinted, unnaturally bright.

  ‘Hang on, I'll go and get some more. Just lie still. And I think we'd better let the doctor have a look at you.’

  ‘Water … quickly, please.’

  Tears were in Ron Blythe's eyes as he left the room, gently closing the door behind him. He did not want to run the risk of her hearing him talking on the telephone down in the hall below.

  His legs were weak as he descended the stairs. He was trembling, and even as he began to dial he wondered if he would be capable of speaking coherently. First he must talk to Ken Broadhurst. Ken could inform the authorities. As for a doctor ... he knew he would have to send for one. Possibly morphine would ease the physical suffering of the girl upstairs. But there was no way in which the mental anguish could be helped.

  ‘Ken? Yes, it's me.’ A lump in his throat restricted his words to a staccato speech. ‘The worst's happened … yes, yes, of course I'm sure. My … sister-in-law … bad. Very bad. You get things moving. I can't leave here. Not for a time anyway …’

  Blythe had replaced the receiver before Broadhurst had finished. He pressed the buttons on the telephone cradle to get the dialling tone again. Simon had to be told. A girl's voice answered, and he asked for his brother.

  ‘Mr Blythe … I'm afraid he isn't available at the moment. If you could ring back again in about twenty minutes or so …’

  ‘Fetch him out of the strongroom at once, will you please. It's vitally urgent.’

  ‘I'm sorry …’

  ‘Fetch him, this minute please, It's a matter of life and death. Literally.’

  The receiver at the other end was laid down, and Ron heard the girl going away. People talked in the background. Seconds became minutes. A hubbub of conversation. Oh, Jesus Christ!

  He waited. Then there was a movement upstairs; footsteps dragging across the landing, the bathroom tap was running. Cathy could wait no longer for her drink. Ron Blythe thought of putting the receiver down and going up to her, but there was no point. She had water now, and that was all she wanted. Then a voice crackled indignantly in the earpiece.

  ‘Simon. It's Ron …’

  ‘Look -’ even more indignant ‘- I told you not to call me between …’

  ‘This is urgent. Cathy's ill. You'd better come home.’

  ‘I can't. Have you called the doctor?’

  ‘Fuck the doctor! You'd better get back here as quick as you can.’

  A pause. When Simon spoke again his voice quavered.

  ‘What's the matter with her? How bad is she?’ he asked.

  ‘I'm not going to beat about the bush.’ Ron knew that his brother had to be told sometime. There was nothing to be gained by withholding the truth. ‘She's very ill, Simon. Drinking water by the pint. It's the weedkiller.It's struck here in Birmingham!’

  Simon let out his breath in a long sigh. Silence whilst his numbed brain coped with the situation. Ron hoped he wasn't going to collapse or anything stupid like that.

  ‘You must be kidding.’ The tone of the bank security man's voice conveyed to Ron that the other did not think he was kidding, simply shock, clutching at vain hopes.

  ‘Get back here as quick as you can.’

  Ron Blythe banged the receiver down. He knew that his brother would come. One more call to make - the doctor. Oh, Christ, he didn't know the name of Cathy's doctor, and there was no point in trying to ask her. He made an instant decision, and dialled 999.

  ‘Which service do you require, please?’

  ‘Ambulance,’ and he reeled off the address. ‘A woman is seriously ill.’

  Abruptly he gave his own name, the address of the house, and then ran back up the stairs.

  Cathy was still drinking water in the bathroom. The sink was full and she was sprawled over it, lapping like a dog. He stood there watching her.

  He let her drink. There was nothing else he could do. The rash was all over her buttocks, an unsightly mass of tiny ulcers. She was scratching even as she drank, her long fingernails opening up the sores and making them bleed freely.

  Suddenly she turned and saw him. A faint smile appeared on her cracked lips. Amidst the crazed thirst and discomfort she was clutching at logic.

  ‘I'm ill, aren't I?’ she croaked. ‘It's the water that's done it, isn't it? Like you said.’

  ‘I don't know,’ he lied. ‘But Simon's coming back from work, and there's an ambulance on the way.’

  ‘Simon!’ She spat with contempt. ‘What good is he to anybody, well or sick? He's the most self-opinionated, sexless sod any woman could wish for.’

  Ron Blythe stared at her, mouth open. She knew what was the matter with her, and probably that she was going to die. But there were things she wanted to say first.

  ‘You … fancy me, don't you?’

  ‘Yes,’ he gulped and averted his gaze. ‘I've always fancied you, Cathy.’

  ‘You'd've gone
to bed with me if I'd asked you to.’ A statement, not a question.

  ‘Yes,’ he admitted.

  ‘Then let's go back into the bedroom and do it.’

  He stiffened, licking his lips. They had known each other for ten years and now, with the end closing in on her, she was making the offer he had fantasised about most of the previous night. He saw those once unblemished thighs, and knew that it was an impossibility. Now he felt only repugnance and regret.

  ‘There isn't time. Simon will soon be here.’

  ‘Oh, to hell with Simon!’

  He reached out and slipped an arm around her waist, grimacing as his fingers touched the weeping flesh. Any pretext would do to get her back into the bedroom.

  She leaned against him and he was surprised how heavy she felt. She was breathing with difficulty, her bosom rising and falling. There was a faint rattle in her throat.

  A step at a time … her knees buckled, and had he not been holding her she would have fallen.

  ‘Easy does it. Relax,’ he murmured.

  They crossed the landing and entered the bedroom. Ron steered her towards the bed. She began to laugh, an unnatural, unnerving sound.

  He lowered her down on to the crumpled sheets, releasing his hold on her. She laughed again, and then she was grasping him by the wrists with a sudden strength that belied her condition, pulling viciously. He resisted and they wrestled, his heels digging into the carpeted floor.

  ‘Come on, Ron. You've always wanted me. Now's your chance.’

  Her nipples stood out stiff and straight, and Ron Blythe had no doubt that she was fully aroused. Some inexplicable reserves were aiding her in an effort to mate with a man for the last time in her life.

  With a tremendous wrench he was free, staggering back. Cathy lost her balance and fell on the bed, legs lewdly spread. Their eyes met. His were full of pity, hers cauldrons of lust. She tried to struggle up, but this time her efforts were to no avail.

  ‘You … fool,’ she was gulping, her throat rattling. ‘You poor fool.’

  ‘You … could have had me.’

  ‘I know.’ He looked down at the floor as he spoke. ‘And don't think I didn't want to. Oh, God in heaven, why did it have to be you?’

  The piercing wail of a siren, growing louder by the second, filled the room. Cathy's expression changed to one of terror. Blythe wasn't sure whether she was shivering or trembling.

  ‘That's … they're coming forme, aren't they?’ She reached out her hands, imploring. ‘Don't let them take me, Ron.Please.’

  He turned quickly and left the room. His heart pounded madly as he descended the stairs, two at a time. He flung open the front door. Two uniformed ambulance men were walking up the gravelled drive, an older one with greying hair, the other a mere youth.

  ‘We had a call,’ the first one said. ‘A woman. Seriously ill.’

  ‘Upstairs. You'll need a stretcher.’

  The young one turned back to fetch whatever they used from the ambulance, his companion stepping into the house. ‘Any idea what's the matter with her?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes,’ Blythe said, tight lipped. ‘Toxic weedkiller poisoning. There's no antidote. It's the stuff that went into the Claerwen Reservoir in Wales. It was reported in the papers.’

  ‘Hmm, I did read something about it.’ The other tipped his peaked cap on to the back of his head and scratched his hair. ‘Better 'ave a look at 'er first.’

  They heard Cathy's moans before they reached the landing: loud wails, utter hopelessness - the knowledge that she was going to die.

  The ambulance man wrinkled his nose as he stepped into the bedroom. It was all he could do to stop himself from retching as the vile cancerous odour greeted him.

  Cathy lay where Ron had left her. Her eyes were closed. Her hands were resting across her mouth, her white even teeth biting hard on the fingers. She neither saw nor heard the two men.

  ‘We'd better get 'er down to the East Midlands Hospital as soon as possible,’ the ambulance man muttered.

  Footsteps on the stairs announced the arrival of his colleague with a portable invalid chair. Ron Blythe stood back, not wanting to watch as the two men wrapped Cathy in a blanket and began to transport her down to the waiting ambulance.

  Blythe stood there in the window, transfixed, watching the chair being put into the rear of the vehicle. The young man got inside with Cathy. The other closed the doors and went round to the cab.

  The ambulance moved out into the road; the blue light began to flash and the siren wailed again as the wheels picked up speed. Blythe stood there long after it was lost to sight. He wondered why a man had so much difficulty in being able to cry - something to do with the tear ducts. God, if only he could weep and get some of this out of his system.

  A black Austin taxi turned into the road. It pulled into the kerb by the house. A man alighted. It was Simon, his hair awry, looking generally dishevelled. He pushed a note into the cabby's hand and, without waiting for the change, began to run up the drive. Ron heard him in the hall, panic stricken, then running up the stairs.

  ‘Cathy … Cathy,’ he wailed as he entered the bedroom, staring all around him. ‘My God, where is she?’

  ‘She's gone to hospital, Simon.’ Ron faced his brother. ‘It's the best place for her.’

  With a strangled sob, Simon Blythe sank down on to the bed, his face buried in his hands. His whole body shook for a few moments and then, pulling himself together with a supreme effort, he looked up.

  ‘Is … is …?’ It was a question he was frightened to ask but knew that he must. ‘Is there … any chance for her, Ron?’

  ‘I'm afraid not.’ Ron Blythe shook his head and dropped his gaze. ‘Only a miracle can save her, Simon. We must pray either for that or a quick end.’

  Simon's head dropped into his hands again, and when he looked up his expression had changed. His tear-filled eyes smouldered with hate: hate for his brother.

  ‘You killed her, Ron, as surely as if you had plunged a knife into her heart,’ he snarled.

  ‘If it helps to blame me, then carry on. I can take it. But I feel just as bad about it as you do.’

  ‘Words. Words. You don't give a damn. Oh, God, how I hope this stuff will get you. And that you'll suffer.’

  Simon Blythe was on his feet, fists raised menacingly. He took a step forward.’

  ‘Before you resort to violence, Simon -’ Ron spoke calmly ‘- there's something I need to know: the name and address of Cathy's employers.’

  ‘What … whatever for?’ Simon checked, taken aback.

  ‘Because it was from the water there that Cathy got the poison.’

  ‘How d'you make that out?’

  ‘A simple process of elimination. If the weedkiller was coming through the taps in this house we'd all be poisoned by now. You and me, as well as Cathy. But, so far, we're all right. The authorities will need to check on those who; worked with Cathy, although in all probability they are by this time very ill.’

  ‘I see.’ Simon paled. ‘Er … Johnson, Briscoe and Bartlett, Colmore Row.’

  ‘Thanks. And if you feel like hitting me, please carry on.’

  His brother turned away. ‘I'd better get down to the hospital,’ he muttered.

  Alone in the house once more, Ron Blythe went downstairs. Broadhurst would be ringing shortly. He knew that it was imperative to wait for the call.

  In the distance, above the everyday noises of suburban city life, he heard a harsh sound. It seemed to grow steadily in volume, like an orchestra beginning an overture: louder, louder still, and then deafening.

  He wanted to clasp his hands over his ears to shut it out. But it would still have echoed inside his brain. He would hear it, sleeping or waking, until his dying day.

  Sirens - ambulances, fire engines, police - hell bent in every direction on missions of mercy. And there was nothing that any of them would be able to do to alleviate the suffering of the victims. The holocaust had begun.

  Chapter 5<
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  A bright autumn morning. It was warm for the time of year, and the experts had forecast an ‘Indian Summer’. That was a fairly safe prediction after several weeks of drought, and the areas of low pressure appeared happy to remain over the Atlantic.

  The weather even helped to brighten the depressing view from a railway signal box perched high upon the viaduct, like some elevated birds' nesting box in a suburban garden. A high-level track branched off the main lines, an innovation that was designed to segregate an InterCity service from the local one, all geared towards speed and efficiency. The delays on the Birmingham to Euston line, via Coventry, would be minimal from now onwards: a longer distance in a shorter time.

  And here at Ham's Hall, man's technical triumphs merged. Adjacent to the railway, the nearest cooling tower - jutting higher than the lone signal box - was the heart that pumped the city of Birmingham's lifeblood: electricity - an entire system concentrated within a few acres.

  The initial planning had been opposed on the grounds that it was a vulnerable target in times of war. But, as the architects had pointed out, World War II was more than three decades in the past. The next war would be a nuclear one, and Birmingham would be destroyed at one fell swoop in a matter of minutes. Power and communications wouldbe annihilated whether it was in a combined or a separate entity. So the plans were passed. Trains passed half-hourly. Millions of volts of electricity were transmitted by the minute. Yet another step in the constant march of progress had been achieved,

  Teddy Williams felt that for himself it had been several steps up the social ladder. No longer was he just another signalman at the massive New Street Station. He had emerged from obscurity into a state of individuality. The fact that he shared his duties in the Ham's Hall signal box was of no consequence. He was the senior man. The other three, he informed his wife, and his drinking associates at the Fox and Goose, were hisassistants; his was the number-one job. He was evasive about matters of wage increases, for in fact he was slightly out of pocket since taking his new post. He talked of increased responsibility. In fact there was less - less points and less trains. Life was easier. And with retirement less than three years in the future he was more than satisfied with his lot.