Rhos Meadow

by Lex Sinclair

  The fog had dissipated has foretold by Jack Zane. However, because of the dim dawn light and the crackling blaze below the sky remained obscured. Diana rolled onto her side, groaning at the dead weight of her limbs, numb from their unexpected workout. Merely lifting her arms felt like raising two concrete blocks.

  ‘Are you okay, Mummy?’

  ‘Just a bit sore,’ Diana said, pulling the cord string and diving into the backpack Tulisa had been wearing.

  She found what she wanted. Then she followed the strict instructions given to her by their saviour and lit the flare, squinting at the bright red, phosphorous light that produced an intense heat. She remembered to keep the burning flare at arm’s length and pointed it downwards, swaying it to and fro.

  After a while of doing this, Diana decided to stick the burning flare into the soft earth. A bone-weariness she’d never experienced overcame her and she collapsed on her bum, watching the protruding flare give away their position in an SOS symbol.

  What seemed like a thousand years passed, but could only have been less than an hour before the sound of propellers chopping the air grew closer. The wind gusted. Tulisa ran to Diana’s side and clung to her leg in desperation and fear.

  Through the gaps in the branches and the open space Diana could barely make out helicopter moving steadily in their direction. The helicopter had the traditional brown, green and beige colours of the army. Diana saw a hatch open on the side and a machine gun getting spun on its tripod to point in their direction.

  Letting go of Tulisa, Diana began jumping up and down, waving her arms frantically to show the soldier staring through the sight at them that they were human. The military helicopter hovered overhead. Cedars were blown left and right, leaning on each other fighting not to be blown over.

  Diana could see a young man with shaved, spiked hair in army fatigues. He fed the bullets into the Gatling gun. When they locked eyes, realisation hit him. He snapped a clenched fist into the air and yelled something to his comrade. The Gatling gun fell forward, pointing at the ground. The young man grabbed a pair of binoculars somewhere from inside the helicopter and peered through them. Tears spilled down Diana’s quivering cheeks as she made the sing of the cross on her chest. Then the military officer lit Diana’s heart like nothing she’d ever felt. He gave her the thumbs’ up gesture.

  The rest of what happened became and remained a blur in her memory.

  She vaguely recalled a military officer abseiling from the helicopter, untying himself and, armed with an AK-47 rushing towards them. Diana must have answered some routine questions, permitted the officer to approach and take a closer look at her and Tulisa’s condition. Then and only then did they make their way back down the steep incline across the meadow where the helicopter waited, making a Mexican wave in the tall grass.

  ‘You don’t know how close you were to not making it,’ the young officer said as he helped Diana into the back of the helicopter and strapped her onto a seat against. ‘We were just about to start bombing the place this morning. Is there anyone else?’

  Diana thought of Eric Leibert and shook her head.

  She reached into her pocket and pulled out his mobile phone and knew then why he had given it to her. He had made one last request from her before he climbed the hill towards his grim destiny.

  Tulisa said something to Diana but she could barely hear herself think let alone listen to her little girl’s frail voice over the pair of propellers whipping the air. They ascended the burning carcass of Rhos Meadow and watched it drift by like a bad dream. Firelight reflected in Diana’s pupils. The fire she had started that shook the foundations and rocked the world.

  ‘You did one hell of a job, lady,’ the officer said, shaking his head in awe at the incessant bonfire. ‘You must really love your kid to have done something like that.’

  Diana gave him a wry smile. ‘More than you will ever know. Then she closed her eyes and kept them shut.

  20.

  Diana and Tulisa were taken to Singleton Hospital. The news of what had befallen them and to the Rhos Meadow residents had shocked the world. In the ensuing days thereafter the story appeared on every news channel, paper in every country. But all Diana could think about was the man and the spiritual guidance of a young boy. She lay in her hospital bed listening to the torrential rain outside, like hundreds of gloved fingers tapping the windowpane. Both she and Tulisa had had to give blood samples, X-rays, urine samples, faeces samples.

  A specialist by the name Dr. Ward had been in to see Diana and Tulisa earlier on. He wore the familiar white tunic and eyeglasses that gave him a sophisticated aura he would not have had if he’d not been wearing them. He sat on edge of Diana’s bed, mulling over what he was going to tell her. Then when he did finally speak, his mouth poured words like the battleship-grey clouds.

  ‘The good news is you and Tulisa are perfectly fine,’ he said in a husky, smoker’s voice. ‘We checked your mouth for ulcers. Your eyes dilate as they should. But we need to keep you in for some more examination. The X-rays were also fine, as was the urine samples and faeces samples. I know it’s unpleasant, but believe me its better we do it. We just need to be vigilant and know one-hundred percent that you and Tulisa have not become infected before we let you leave.’ His larynx sounded like a rattlebox when he coughed. We need to check that you have bouts of nausea and vomiting. Dry throat, hacking cough. We have to be careful of a prolonged deterioration. Your body may not show any signs of infection until a little while. Hopefully never. But it’d do no one any good if we let you go and then you suffered with symptoms such as brain swelling; congested lungs and internal bleeding. You could have a severe case of diarrhoea and not think it’s related, all the while excreting your stomach lining. Its things like that we need to be sure of. ‘

  Diana contorted her features at the mention of diarrhoea and excreting the stomach lining.

  ‘I know,’ Dr. Ward went on, ‘it’s not a nice thing to talk about, especially after the traumatic experience you two have already been through. But I’m not going to lie to you and say all this extensive testing is routine. You don’t look at all stupid or naïve, so I’m not going to treat you like you are.

  ‘Did you or Tulisa drink any of the water or eat any of the food in Rhos Meadow at all?’

  ‘The only thing we drank was Coke and food packet food; crisps, chocolate, bread and butter,’ Diana said, her voice groggy.

  ‘But no meat, milk or water or vegetables or fruit from the Gillespie farm, no?’

  Diana shook her head.

  Dr. Ward nodded, satisfied. ‘Good, because we believe that that and some other aspects was the cause behind this outbreak.

  ‘Apart from, lack of nourishment, dehydration, stress and being involved in a terrifying ordeal, both you and your daughter are well. Had you been bitten or scratched I’m not sure there would be anything we could do for you. I believe in science not divine intervention. But as far as this situation is concerned, I’m not so sure.’

  Dr. Ward patted Diana’s leg comfortingly then crossed the room. He stopped upon reaching the threshold at the sound of Diana’s voice.

  ‘Did they manage to kill them all?’

  ‘I would imagine so, Mrs. Weber.’

  ‘But you’re not sure though, are you?’

  ‘The authorities would have informed us had they been unable to. And, as far as I’m aware, all the residents of Rhos Meadow have been accounted for. At least the ones that you didn’t blow to cinders that is.’ He added the last remark with a wry smile. ‘Now, try to get some rest.’

  Diana fell into a deep, dreamless slumber the moment she closed her eyes.

  ***

  When Diana and Tulisa were released from Singleton Hospital over a week later and returned home, it seemed as though they had been away for many years.

  What happened in Rhos Me
adow was a hazy memory from a lifetime ago. Diana had to familiarise herself with the living room. She silently thanked her mum and dad for filling her fridge with fresh food. They had visited in hospital. Her dad tried to talk about what had happened, but quickly realised that doing so was inappropriate. All Diana and Tulisa wanted to do was get on with their lives. Instead the phone rang off the hook, reporters and journalists firing questions, offering exclusives to the newspapers and to make appearances on This Morning and other TV shows. Diana kindly but firmly turned them all down.

  Life without tranquillity was no life. It was hell.

  She could have cashed in one the experience and given her and Tulisa a more comfortable way of living. Yet, to talk about what happened in-depth; about people who were no longer alive to encourage or discourage her seemed like a violation. What Eric Leibert had done was endearing. He hadn’t done it for acclaim, money or to be talked highly of long after he died. He did what he believed he had to do because it was the right thing to do. He sacrificed himself because he wanted to, not for any worldly reason.

  Also, Diana didn’t want to share the time she and Eric spent together suffering, gaining strength from one another. That time was sacred. The arguments were real. The horror. The grief and sorrow that melted her heart eve now thinking about it, was theirs and theirs alone.

  A newspaper had been left folded up on the sofa; probably her father’s. She picked it up and snorted laughter at the front page image a monstrous black mushroom cloud choking the sky. Beneath were the desecrated remains of the Texaco garage. But what made Diana snort laughter was not the graphic, surreal photograph taken from a high vantage point, but he title in bold lettering: GI DI TO THE RESCUE!

  Beneath the main picture was an inset photograph of Diana smiling at the photographer. Behind her were the beautiful, neatly trimmed rosebushes in her parent’s back yard. The photo had been taken two years earlier when Diana and Tulisa had gone over her parents on her birthday for a barbecue.

  Shaking her head, smiling, Diana folded The Sun newspaper up. ‘Trust you, Dad.’

  Tulisa stood next to Diana and craned her head up over her mother’s right arm to see the front page of the newspaper headlines. Diana glanced at her. ‘What a load of nonsense, huh?’

  ‘It’s true,’ Tulisa said. ‘And I never got the chance till now to say, thank you.’

  Diana dropped the paper, forgetting about it. She placed her hands on either side of Tulisa’s head, seeing her reflection in her daughter’s brimming tears. She waited to compose herself. Then in an unwavering voice: ‘And you’ll never have to.’

  Mother and daughter embraced, comforted by the other’s warmth. They had made it.

  Epilogue

  Snowflakes drifted languidly in ones and twos. Two minutes later a flurry descended the white sky and blanketed St. John’s graveyard. Diana and Tulisa wrapped scarves round their necks and done their winter coats up. The path crunched, yielding with every step, leaving a ghost-white footprint in their wake.

  On the slight rise outside the church entrance Diana saw the hearse and the other mourners congregate around the vacant hole in the ground. The coffin lay on the ground where the pallbearers had left it. Tiny vapours of breath curled upwards and dissipated.

  Diana scanned the mourners and fixed her gaze upon a frail middle-aged woman donning a black winter coat and weeping behind a black veil. The woman used a handkerchief supplied by a tall, grey-haired man, biting his top lip. The reverend read a passage from the Bible about God’s only son being our one and only saviour. How through Jesus Christ our Lord our sins would be forgiven and we - like Eric Leibert - would be welcomed into heaven with open arms.

  It wasn’t that Diana didn’t believe in Christianity. What bugged her was how the reverend spoke so highly and grand of Jesus being our saviour when Eric was her saviour. Not Jesus. Jesus didn’t come down from heaven and help her when she prayed, Eric did. Jesus didn’t tell her what she must do at the infant school. Jesus didn’t instruct her on how to light a flare so she and Tulisa could seek salvation. Jesus, according to good book, had done some wonderful things during his short life. Diana didn’t dispute it for a second. However, Eric Leibert had also performed some miracles of his own. If he hadn’t Diana and Tulisa wouldn’t have been standing in a graveyard watching his remains being buried today.

  Diana had every right to believe that no one had saved Eric but Eric himself.

  The reverend made the sign of the holy cross. Then said, ‘Peace be with you.’ With that he closed the tome and made his way towards the path leading into the church.

  Disconsolate mourners parted ways, dispersing in their own directions to carry on their lives. Diana took hold of Tulisa’s hand and moved forward and undone the top two buttons of her winter coat and placed a red rose atop Eric’s coffin.

  ‘Thank you,’ a frail voice croaked.

  Diana glimpsed the direction she heard the voice and noticed Mrs. Leibert pulling away from the man that might have been Eric’s father or uncle. The lady walked over to her and Tulisa. ‘It’s you, isn’t it?’ she said. ‘Diana Stone. And this must be Tulisa,’ she said, gazing down at Tulisa, forcing a tremulous smile.

  ‘Hi,’ Tulisa said, raising a gloved mitten in a cordial gesture.

  ‘You’re a princess,’ Mrs. Leibert said.

  Tulisa shrugged indifferently.

  Mrs. Leibert regarded Diana closely. ‘Is it true, about my little boy?’

  ‘I don’t know what you’ve heard,’ Diana said, matter-of-factly.

  ‘That it wasn’t just you who rescued yourselves.’

  Diana considered her words assiduously. ‘Let me put it this way, Mrs. Leibert. There was only ever one hero or saviour in Rhos Meadow and it sure as hell wasn’t me, despite what the media say. The real hero who sacrificed himself is... waiting for you in a place where there is no such things misery, and the only tears are the ones of pure joy. Thanks to your son my daughter and I have our lives together in harmony.’

  Diana’s chin trembled. She fought back tears out of respect for Mrs. Leibert. Her pain was nothing compared to the grief Mrs. Leibert was enduring.

  ‘When I first laid eyes on you at the start of the burial speech I stopped crying for myself and my little girl. The sorrow you feel magnifies mine beyond infinity. But I saw Eric’s spirit. Even in death he still gave me strength to save myself and my little girl from certain death.’

  Silence descended along with the innumerable snowflakes turning everything around them heavenly white.

  Diana fished out a black Samsung mobile phone and held it out for Mrs. Leibert to take.

  The grief-stricken lady’s lit up seeing the phone.

  ‘I charged the battery. If you turn it on you will hear the only words that matter from your son.’

  The gentleman donning a black suit and tie approached, seeing Mrs. Leibert struggling to operate the phone. He switched it on. Then looked up at Diana. His face creased in deep furrows, haggard. ‘What am I looking at?’

  Diana took the phone off him. She found the one message and played it. Then she held the mobile up so the gentleman and Mrs. Leibert could hear it.

  A hiss of static and rustling of leaves. Then in a loud, clear voice so he could be heard over the windswept trees: ‘Mum. It’s me, Eric. Nothing else matters in the world, except, I love you. Remember that above all else. I love you, Mum...’

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