Bloodtide

by Melvin Burgess

  It stood some metres off and screamed at us at the top of its voice, screaming, squealing and grunting like pigs do, but roaring terribly too. I don’t know why, I suppose it was trying to frighten us, and it worked all right. We just sat there and screamed back. It came closer, still making that terrible noise, getting right up close so that the spittle fell on our faces.

  Then I think it spotted the welded chains. It stopped yelling suddenly and grunted curiously, then it walked right up close to have a look. Its head was about a metre long and it had to tip its whole body to one side to get a proper look. Then, it began to laugh. Oh, yeah, it found the whole situation really funny. It was grunting and snorting and rolling about. It laughed so much it collapsed onto its elbows and buried its snout in the earth, shaking its head from side to side and slapping at the ground with its hands.

  When it recovered it got back up and went to Hadrian. It leaned with one elbow on the iron beam and felt him all over with that thick piggy hand, his legs, his body, his face. It settled on his neck and began to squeeze. Hadrian didn’t even have time to gurgle. Then it took a huge bite out of his side.

  33

  In a small room with no windows tucked away in a high corner of the water tower, Signy lay on a narrow bed, her ruined legs wrapped in grubby bandages. Around her were bars and bare metal. The illusion had been removed – the wood panelling, the carpets, the expensive curtains, the brass fittings, all torn down and taken away. The television sets, the phones, the computer, the music, all gone. Everything but bars and chains were too good for her now.

  In among the utmost loss of everything Signy had one consolation. Somehow, without anyone seeing her, Cherry had managed to sneak in and hide under the bed. When all was clear the little cat, who had grown lean and sleek in the past few months, jumped up onto the bed, begged to be stroked for five minutes, and then curled up neatly and fell straight to sleep. Signy woke her up every now and then, clutching her and weeping, and Cherry allowed her to hold her too tight and get her fur wet with tears.

  At some point a guard entered with a tray of food and Signy tensed and shrank away, but they had already done everything they wanted to with her. The man put the tray down on the floor.

  ‘You’d better eat,’ he told her. Signy turned her face away. She only wanted to die. What good could come of her life now? What was she – some sort of trophy for Conor to show off?

  The guard shrugged and left the room. Straight away little Cherry emerged from under the bed where she’d been hiding. She sniffed daintily at the tray, and licked the butter on the bread thoughtfully.

  Later still, when everything was quiet, Signy eased herself off the bed and dragged herself painfully with her hands to the door to test it. It was locked of course and a rough voice ordered her away from it. She pulled herself back to her bed. Death would have to wait a while longer. Her throat was as dry as sand, but she would drink nothing. Cherry tried to sit on her legs but it hurt and she had to lift her off and put her on her stomach instead. She laid her hand on the cat’s back, and turned her face to the wall.

  At long last, exhausted from her sleepless night and long ordeal, Signy fell into a kind of trance. It could never be called a sleep. She lay there for long hours, eyes half closed, not moving. A guard came in much later with more food on a tray, and again demanded that she eat it.

  ‘You’d better,’ he threatened. ‘Conor wants you alive.’ He waited but she didn’t move a muscle. ‘They’ll be force feeding you if you don’t,’ he warned. He put the second tray on the floor next to the first one and left the room. Signy opened her eyes, looked at the food and drink, watched the door close, and turned her head back to the wall.

  Some hours after that, when it was truly dark, Cherry, who was asleep by Signy’s side, got up, stretched, and went to sniff the food that the girl had allowed to grow cold. She lapped a little water from a cup and licked the fat off some potatoes. She was hungry, but nothing else there was to a cat’s taste.

  Signy opened her eyes to find a young girl kneeling by her bed stuffing potatoes in her mouth and weeping.

  The girl looked up at her and wiped tears out of her eyes. ‘Poor Signy, poor Signy,’ the girl wept. She was about ten or eleven years old. She chomped busily as the tears fell. She was a curious-looking girl, with a soft, downy skin.

  ‘Don’t trouble yourself about me, dear,’ murmured Signy, who was in her trance still, and thought she was dreaming.

  The girl put her potato carefully down on the plate and sobbed into her hands. ‘But I’ll help you,’ she said. ‘You helped me. We’re all we have, aren’t we, Signy… Queen? You and me, we’ve both lost everything for King Conor. I’ll help you. I know how.’ The girl smiled in amusement and leaned forward. ‘Would you like me to help you?’ she whispered.

  Signy smiled at the strange little vision. ‘How can you?’ she asked.

  ‘I can save your brothers from the Pig, of course.’

  Signy scowled. Now the dream was turning unpleasant. ‘They’re dead,’ she said, and turned her face away.

  ‘No, no, not dead. You must never believe Conor. Even he knows that. I think he doesn’t know how to believe in things. I went down, I listened. I heard the men talking. I told Conor off for not knowing his heart. They’ve been left chained up, your brothers. I saw it. Chained and welded to a piece of iron and left out in the halfman lands for the Pig. Poor boys! But maybe I can save them, Signy, Queen. I’ll do it for you.’

  Suddenly Signy felt terribly awake. Thinking about her brothers had stung her out of her trance. She turned her head to examine this strange, vivid dream. She wanted to see the holes in it, the faults, the tell-tale signs of dreaming. But the harder she concentrated, the more awake she felt and the more real the vision became. The girl smiled to see her face. She reached out to stroke her cheek.

  ‘Poor Signy!’ she said. ‘I’ll be your feet now.’

  Signy sat up. She was becoming scared. Why wasn’t this going away? ‘Who are you?’ she whispered.

  The girl frowned. ‘Don’t you know me?’ she whispered. A flush of white and orange-brown and black fur rustled briefly like a breeze stirring on her skin. It spread over her brow and under her clothes. Then it was gone again.

  Signy edged back in the bed in real fear. She remembered words she had all but forgotten: ‘She has more than one shape…’

  ‘Cherry?’

  The girl smiled; the fur rippled briefly again. ‘Girl isn’t nice,’ she said. ‘But handy when you need hands and talk!’ She laughed and clapped her hands together.

  Signy reached out and touched her face. It was real. She felt the tears. She felt fur grow like a breeze and disappear again.

  This was no dream.

  ‘You…’

  The girl leaned forward and hissed in a kind of ecstasy, ‘I’m yours! I’m yours!’

  Signy edged forward slightly on the bed. ‘You can save them?’

  ‘I can try!’ boasted the girl. ‘There’s no one like me.’ She purred.

  Then, before Signy’s eyes, she shrank. The fur moved over her, her form moved and shifted. Signy thought, shape-changer! And suddenly there was the little cat standing by the door, mewing.

  ‘Cherry? Cherry?’ At once Signy began to doubt everything she had seen. She pulled higher in the bed, wincing at the terrible pain in her legs. The cat glanced at her and blinked. She turned back to the door and began mewing again. There was a curse from the other side of the door. A key turned, the door opened a fraction, and the little cat dashed out. The door slammed at once. Signy heard the guard shouting, ‘Oi!’ But Cherry was fast. Someone took a couple of steps after her.

  ‘How did that get in there?’

  ‘Leave it. It’s just a bloody cat.’

  Signy lay back in her bed. She stared at the ceiling for a long, long time, not really believing. She must be hallucinating. But her fingers were still wet with Cherry’s tears where she had touched her face. After a while, she caught sight of the t
ray of cold food by her bed. She couldn’t stomach food but, reaching carefully down, Signy took up a cup of water and drank. Maybe it would be best to stay alive after all, for the time being.

  34

  siggy

  When it finished with Hadrian it belched like a man, turned around three times like a dog and lay down by the girder to sleep among the bloody bones of our brother. It sighed a long, happy sigh. It raised its head to look at us and it grinned.

  ‘ ’Night,’ it grunted. And it went to sleep in about two seconds.

  ‘ ’Night,’ I replied. ‘Sweet dreams.’ No, I wasn’t being brave. And don’t think I didn’t care about what had happened to Had either. But while you’re alive you’re still yourself, against all the odds.

  It was the longest night, the kind of night Conor had dreamed up for us. We couldn’t sleep – well, could you? It was fear, exhaustion, hunger, misery, God knows what. It wasn’t always the really terrible things like our dead brother, like our fate. It was something stupid like just going to the toilet. That’s something they never tell you about in the stories. You know that princess they tied up for the dragon to come and eat? How many times do you think she shat herself ? The prince in that story must’ve been a bit of a perve if you ask me.

  How long was it going to take? I was remembering those stories of how big animals sometimes only eat once every two or three days and I thought, this could go on forever. That really did my head in. That’s when I had the first decent idea I’d had since we got into this mess. Get it over with. I nudged Ben, and I started shouting and yelling at the Pig, ‘OI! COME ON THEN, YOU FAT BASTARD… GET OFF YOUR HAMS… COME ON… COME ON…’

  ‘What are you doing?’ hissed Ben.

  ‘Waking him up. Let’s get this over with,’ I said.

  Ben had a think about it. He didn’t need to think long.

  ‘OI! FATSO! OFF YOUR ARSE AND COP THIS! COME ON, GET ON WITH IT!’

  We were screaming our lungs out. The Pig grunted and stirred slightly in his sleep.

  ‘Try again…’

  ‘OI! DUSTBIN BREATH! GET OFF YOUR FAT ARSE!’ I yelled. Ben started laughing. We both sat there in our chains giggling.

  ‘IT’S SNACK TIME!’ screamed Ben.

  ‘COME ON, THEN! SO YOU WANT TO MIX IT, DO YOU? RIGHT, YOU ASKED FOR IT!’

  Pause.

  ‘He doesn’t seem to be responding,’ whispered Ben.

  ‘Try again.’

  ‘YOUR MOTHER WAS A PIG!’

  ‘NO, YOUR MOTHER WAS A PERSON!’

  ‘OI! OI! HAMBURGER FACE!’

  ‘SAUSAGE FINGERS!’

  ‘BUMFACE!’

  We nearly ruptured ourselves laughing. We were hysterical! But would you believe it, he wouldn’t wake up? He just grunted, turned over and carried right on dreaming.

  Ben said, ‘Something else might come and get us and he’d never even wake up.’

  And you know what? That thought was terrifying. Don’t ask me why. I mean, you couldn’t get worse than the Pig, he was just horrible, but the thought of some other half-thing coming along and eating us out of our chains while he slept there was worse than anything. Maybe it was just something else to worry about. It meant we weren’t safe. It meant we didn’t know what was going to happen next after all.

  When you have the fear in you, you see it everywhere around you. We started peering out through the moonlight at imaginary things moving in the shadows. Every crunch and rustle in the undergrowth set us off almost weeping with fear. I ask you – scared of the shadows when you’re sleeping with the Pig! I could have begged him just to wake up and eat us.

  But we needn’t have worried. When finally there really was a soft rustle and the brambles nearby really did part, and the striped face of a greedy woman-thing did look out, the Pig was awake in an instant. When it came to looking after his dinner, he suddenly became a light sleeper. We’d hardly started screaming when he came rushing up, bellowing like a bull. I caught a glimpse of the jaw of this other thing dropping – it was funny, it reminded me of a puppy you’d just shouted at – before it turned and fled. I caught sight of a furry, black and white back, a set of long white teeth and a pair of corduroy trousers disappearing in the moonlight.

  The Pig came back, looking most put out. He patted me and Ben all over to make sure we were all OK. Then he folded his arms under his fat, bristly chin and went straight back to sleep. We tried to stop him getting to sleep by yelling at him for five minutes or more, but it only made our throats sore. I think he rather liked us shouting. It meant dinner was still fresh.

  And then, there was nothing to think about but Hadrian.

  There was rain later in the night, falling silently in the darkness. We licked the water off our faces, but after that it got very cold. We were shivering in our bonds. We sang some songs – old songs of London when London was still part of the world, which Val had taught us when we were little. Some of the songs had the old names of other towns outside – Glasgow, Tipperary, Norwich. Val had promised to show us them one day, but this was as far as either of us was going.

  We’d just about dried off from the rain when the dew came down, and shortly after the Pig woke up.

  It was just getting light. He pushed himself up to all fours on his hands and stretched. He walked across to look us over and grunted, as if he was saying something. He winked. He came right up and had a sniff. I was waiting for the crunch, but he was still full up, I guess. He turned and left as the sun came up and went to hide away in the shadows of the collapsed car park, where he made his den. He screamed before he settled, just to let anyone else know he was still there.

  Later, I began to doze. I hadn’t thought sleep was possible, but the longer you go without it, the stronger it becomes. Twice I was woken by the Pig screaming and roaring at some intruder. The third time there was a gurgling noise, then the sound of his jaws, wet. I glanced across but quickly looked away. And that was my brother Ben.

  It was my third night in the halfman lands.

  My arms and legs had been in the same position for so long they’d given up cramping. I couldn’t even feel them. Cold meant nothing. But I was thirsty – so thirsty! My tongue had swelled up: it felt like a hot, dry toad sitting in my mouth. When the dew came down I sucked at my collar for moisture. Even so, when the sun came up I was glad. Isn’t it strange? The bones of my brothers lay in bloody heaps on the crooked paving stones. The same fate was waiting for me. Everything had been lost, and inside I was so desolated and lonely that I knew I should never recover even if I lived. But I was still glad when the sun rose over the lip of the wall and fell on my skin and warmed me. I tipped my head back into the morning light and felt the heat on me and I thought it was beautiful after all.

  Then the pain of warming began: the burns on my ankles and wrists, my swollen tongue, my cramped limbs. As the sun got higher, the Pig got up, snorting and farting and grumbling. He waggled his eyebrows and made a noise. It might have been, ‘See ya!’ Then he went off to hide under the rubble of the collapsed car park.

  I remember Val saying how his father, in great pain during the last days of his life, would go to walk in Hyde Park to inspect the crops and enjoy the smell of the earth, the wind, the rain. I knew it was no good mourning my brothers, or Signy or Val. They were lost beyond my caring. I didn’t want their bones to torture me. So, it may sound sick, but I tried instead to think about the world as it was, as it always will be – the world without me. The warm sun, the wind stirring the long, green banks of weeds, the birds flitting about grasses and flowers. They were goldfinches, I think, pretty little things.

  But it was difficult, my mind was wandering. I began to see shapes: battle cars in the clouds, men coming through the grass, faces and forms hiding and dodging amongst the broken walls and sliding down the collapsed sections of roofing.

  ‘Try not to turn your head.’

  … Overhead the tiny dots of birds. What?

  ‘Siggy?’

  I was dreami
ng.

  ‘… a friend.’

  ‘Who’s there?’ I croaked. My voice was as dry as hot brick.

  ‘Your sister sent me.’ My heart leaped – but not for escape, not yet. ‘I’m thirsty!’ I begged.

  ‘Quiet!’ the voice hissed. There was a pause. I heard whoever it was tut. ‘Hang on. And keep quiet. If that big piggy thing comes back, I’m going. OK?’

  ‘OK.’

  There was a rustle. I was so thirsty, but I tried not to turn my head to watch. It was a miracle already that anyone, or anything, had got so close to me without the Pig hearing. A thought I’d stopped thinking came into my head. Could I escape? Was it really possible?

  Suddenly the face of a child was pushed into mine. It was a girl.

  ‘Mmm… mmm…’ she said. Her mouth was full. She tipped her head down to me and let a trickle of water fall on me. I felt it trickle down my face and licked at it. Water! And then I had another thought. My thoughts were like clean pebbles dropped into still water. The thought was: Giver of Life.

  I opened my mouth and let it dribble in and I swallowed it.

  Two, three times the little girl – she couldn’t have been more than ten or eleven years old – came to me with a mouthful of water. By the third time I was beginning to notice some odd things about her. The thick down on her skin, for example. Just a little bit longer and thicker and you could have called it fur. And then I noticed something that almost made me jump out of my skin. Her face was right next to mine, watching me closely and quite without embarrassment, as if I was a dentist so close to her face.

  Her eyes were slit, like a cat’s.

  ‘Ah!’ I shouted, startled. She jumped and let the water fall down my front. At almost the same moment there was a horrendous squealing roar; the Pig had heard me. He came rushing through the brambles like a rhino. I saw her eyes swivel to one side before she darted off. I was certain I’d killed her.