Ways of the Doomed

by McPartlin, Moira;

  I tried another button and shouted, ‘Murderer!’

  This time Davie halted his slaughter and looked up. He was three beds down the line and from the blood washing the floor, I could see he was being systematic.

  ‘You will be next, mongrel.’

  ‘Why are you bothering with me and them, what about the escaping prisoners?’ He ignored me and continued on his bloody journey.

  ‘Don’t you care? All your hard work escaping.’

  ‘Out of the frying pan into the fire. Out of the frying pan into the fire.’ He repeated it over and over as he moved down the line.

  I tugged at my wrist strap but it held tight. I counted the beds left on his murder spree. Six.

  ‘Why do you want to kill me? I am your grandson.’ I had no clue where the Infirmary was in connection to the control room.

  Four.

  Three.

  ‘Stop the prisoners! They’re escaping!’ My desperate words were ignored.

  Two.

  One.

  ‘Your turn, Sorlie.’

  I thumped my hand on the other call button. ‘Scud, he’s coming for me.’ But Scud had moved on to another section. With my free hand I hammered each button, some twice. ‘Scud! Ridgeway! Anyone!’ But an escape was being executed as per Vanora’s instructions and I had no idea whether they heard me or not.

  Davie’s coat paddled the blood on the Infirmary floor as he spun and left the room. I tugged; the strap bit, breaking skin and drawing beads of blood. Then suddenly my hand and arm were flung from the port – the plug-in’s job was done. The monitor showed Ridgeway still feeding his human slot machine. Scud was on the top level conducting the hordes but showing a worried eye to the camera. I reckoned I could reach Ridgeway first. There was no sign of Davie.

  I yanked the control room door open and fled down the corridor. I knew the steps were just beyond the door. My fingers touched the latch when a boot struck out and I sprawled on the floor. Before I could catch a bearing he throttled the scruff of my neckband and hauled me back to the control room. The gun pressed into my back. His strength was immense. He threw me into the control chair, the gun still trained on me.

  ‘Why haven’t you killed me yet?’ I was dead anyway.

  ‘Because I want to enjoy your terror.’ A crazed smirk was on show.

  ‘Like my mother’s terror.’ Wow, where’d that come from?

  He took a step back as if I’d punched him. ‘What terror is this?’

  ‘The terror she felt when she was dragged off by the Military.’ There was a flicker of doubt behind that smirk. ‘Oh no wait, you missed that, didn’t you? You were off doing important work for the State.’ What was I doing? But the smirk had slipped and with it, all the tension in his face; his features sagged and so did the hand holding the gun.

  ‘I was protecting her. She looked Privileged, she deserved a good life.’

  ‘She was given a Hero in Death status.’ My hatred dripped from each word.

  ‘That wasn’t supposed to happen.’ Was that snot on the end of his nose? Was that a tear that stood out on his eye? And then like a starburst revelation, I knew this was the debt Ishbel claimed he owed. A guilt Vanora used to torment him.

  ‘She was a lovely child.’ His face masked in memory. The gun dropped its aim. ‘I thought I was protecting her,’ he repeated. ‘She was such a good girl. Privileged.’

  ‘Memories are the one thing the State cannot take from you,’ I whispered, afraid to break the spell. ‘My mother Kathleen told me that every time she went on a mission.’ The sound of her name felt good and gave me courage.

  ‘Did she really tell you that? That was my mantra; I gave it to her. To remind her of our good times. To remind her I loved her.’

  He was crazy. ‘And she gave it to me because she loved me and wanted me to have a little piece of you. I have your Privileged genes. She wanted to protect me as you did with her. She destroyed my passport.’

  He searched my face for some form of recognition and I prayed he did not see Vanora. ‘I’m Kathleen’s son. We could fight back,’ I wheedled. ‘Together.’ But he seemed not to hear.

  ‘Memories,’ he smiled. Then something on a monitor caught his attention. He tightened the grip on the gun.

  One monitor showed Scud running down stairs, having finished his human round-up.

  I shifted the communicator round my wrist; it had dug in deep. ‘I found the bird, Grandfather,’ I whispered. He lifted his head and stared with confused eyes. I thumbed the playback. The room filled with the sound of the sea, and then rising from it the creaking, scratchy call of the corncrake. The confusion left him as he listened, the gun almost forgotten.

  ‘We could take this to the government. You will get the place you deserve.’

  His smile had an eerie edge as he lifted the gun once more to aim at me.

  ‘Ma had forgiven you. She never held it against you. She knew you were trying to protect her. She loved you.’

  ‘You think so?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I don’t.’ Confusion cleared completely from his face.

  ‘Why do you want to kill me? I’m your grandson.’

  ‘You are a mongrel and this mongrel line has to end. It ends with you.’

  ‘You’re wrong. What about Ishbel?’

  ‘Vanora’s lieutenant?’ his sneered. ‘Your whore can not help you now.’

  ‘Ishbel is your daughter. Vanora’s daughter,’ I whispered.

  He sank into the chair, his winter eyes iced over. I watched his expressions move with a thousand possibilities.

  ‘No. Not possible.’ But doubt flickered on his brow. He believed me. I could see he believed me as his mind slipped further into the past.

  ‘Vanora gave birth to her after she left you.’

  ‘You lie to save yourself.’

  ‘She has your height, your stature. I’ve seen her passport, her name under your name.’

  ‘No.’ He spoke as if in a dream.

  ‘If you kill me she’ll be all that is left of your blood line.’ I watched the gun waver. ‘Just think, a native, alive, ripe and ready to carry on your line.’

  His eyes clouded, but the gun stayed trained on me.

  ‘Memories are the one thing the State cannot take from you,’ I whispered in prayer.

  The sound of running shook him from his dwam. His eyes flicked to the door. I lunged at him, grabbed for the gun. His boot caught me between the legs. An explosion of pain and sound rocked me. My body skittered across a wet floor. There was no further pain, but my ears were ringing. I was splattered in blood. And then Scud was beside me.

  ‘Don’t look,’ he said, but of course I did.

  His face was blown off, his mane of silver hair matted, seeping with thick black blood that reached out on the floor towards me.

  ‘I killed him.’

  ‘It was an accident, I saw.’

  ‘I killed him.’

  ‘You did us a favour, now come on. Let’s get moving Sorlie.’ Scud didn’t even look at him. He lifted me to my feet and manoeuvred me into the corridor towards the reactor room.

  ‘I killed him. I’m sixteen and I’m a murderer.’

  ‘Forget him, come on.’

  The taste and smell of his killing crawled over me. I gagged and spewed the contents of my stomach onto the corridor. Scud rubbed my back, still trying to usher me along. I spewed again, bile this time, my stomach empty. I moved to wipe my mouth with the back of my hand but it was covered in blood and brain. I gagged.

  • • •

  Scud pulled up before we entered the reactor room. ‘On you go, hurry or you’ll miss the boat.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Ah’m not coming.’

  ‘You have to come, to tell them it was an accident.’


  He looked disappointed. ‘There’s nae need fur that. You’ll be a hero. No, ah’m stayin’ here.’

  ‘Are you mad? Why?’

  The Privileged eyes narrowed and something alien crept there. ‘Ah’ve some reading tae catch up on.’

  ‘But why? There’s nothing here for you.’ I motioned to the reactor room. ‘Scud, we’re nearly there. Free.’

  ‘Look at me,’ he said, dusting down his uniform. ‘Ah’m Privileged now. Ah don’t belong out there.’

  ‘Yes you do. You helped with the escape. Vanora…’

  ‘Vanora will have no further use for me. I’ve done my bit. She’s not wanting a mongrel like me muddying things.’

  ‘No, you’re wrong. We’re the same, I’m part native too. A mongrel.’ That word almost choked me but it was the truth.

  ‘We’re not the same. You were brought up Privileged and you will always look on me as a native. Ah don’t belong with you.’ There was a glimmer of the old Scud in the beseeching look he wore. ‘Ah don’t belong anywhere but here.’

  ‘Are you mad? You’re just institutionalised, you’ll be looked after, I promise.’

  ‘Ah’m staying.’

  ‘You can’t stay here on your own.’

  ‘Why not? Ah can live like a king fur a while. All those books. There will be enough provisions tae last me until they come.’

  ‘What about the guards?’

  ‘Oh yeah, the guards.’ He shrugged.

  ‘The guards will kill you.’

  ‘No they won’t. They’ve been a victim of Davie’s brutality too. We’ll get along just fine. Ah’ll cook them up something special for when they wake.’

  When I opened my mouth to protest again Scud took my arm and squeezed it.

  ‘Make your grandmother proud. Make Ishbel proud,’ he said, then tapped his nose as he used to, although this time I had no clue to its meaning.

  ‘Now go, before ah huv tae punch yer lights out and carry ye there.’

  I watched his straight proud back as he walked away and closed the door behind him.

  The last of the men were out.

  ‘Where’s Scud?’ Ridgeway asked, peering at my bloodied state.

  ‘He’s not coming.’

  ‘Is he dead?’

  ‘No, but Davie is.’ My voice choked at the memory and I knew it would haunt me forever. ‘I killed him.’ Ridgeway showed no surprise.

  ‘You did the world a favour then.’

  ‘Didn’t you hear me? I said I killed him.’

  But he ignored me. ‘If Davie’s dead, why did Scud stay?’ He moved towards the door as if to go back for him. I held up my hand.

  ‘Leave him, he’s too far gone.’ My voice sounded unconvinced but Ridgeway heeded my words and wasted no more time before he lifted me into the pipe and with his great shove I began to slide. In those few seconds in the flume the final picture of the T-map came to my mind. The person left behind – undecided. I had thought it was me. I had screamed ‘come on’ because I thought I’d been left behind, but it had been Scud. Vanora knew this – that had been part of her plan all along. But had she planned for her grandson to become a murderer? Nothing would ever be the same again. I felt tears chafe my bile-burned throat. I stank of death. It was me or him. He was going to kill me. Maybe it would have been better if he had.

  • • •

  The sea was so full of bobbing bodies, I could have walked across them to the busy convoy of small inflatables, a few metres offshore. Splashing bodies were being ladled on board head over heels.

  Heavy rain pattered the sea and pelted a triumphant Kenneth as he stood on the big boulder, arms windmilling, roaring instructions like Moses directing the parting of the Red Sea. His instructions were unnecessary because whatever Scud and Ridgeway had programmed into the command bands still worked. The men were automatons, blindly walking into the sea like some sort of mass suicide. Once the boats had scooped their fill, they disappeared into the dark before returning empty to replenish their load. Ridgeway adjusted the lens on his eye and I followed. Out in the bay a huge black turret bulked from the sea and another rose beside it, followed by one more. Their fat rounded bodies stretched horizontally; a city of sea-monsters emerged as we paddled in the waves. The inflatables buzzed around the beasts’ skirts.

  ‘What are they?’ I shouted to Ridgeway.

  ‘Submarines?’ Kenneth shrieked into the wind like a banshee.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Old nuclear subs.’ He spelled it out with great pleasure but this time I didn’t care. Nuclear or not, I just wanted off this damned island.

  A commotion erupted on the beach. It was Toad, frozen at the water’s edge, his eyes bulged like onions. When he backed up the beach, a man with white hair grabbed him and nudged him forward, but he dug his heels into the sand, petrified. The white-haired man gestured to another and together they hoisted him onto their shoulders, waded into the water and flung him in the nearest boat.

  ‘Come on, let’s go,’ Ridgeway said.

  ‘Well, this is all going very well.’ Kenneth scrambled off his boulder. ‘Where’s Scud?’

  ‘We leave him here,’ Ridgeway said. Kenneth looked sharply at him then lowered his head.

  ‘I don’t think that’s wise.’

  ‘What do you want to do, destroy him?’ I said. Kenneth winced as a piece of my spittle flew at him, but he just wiped it off his sleeve and walked towards the boats. He didn’t even notice the blood on me.

  ‘There’s been enough bloodshed tonight,’ I screamed. Kenneth spun his heels on the sand. Ridgeway whispered something to him. Kenneth narrowed at me, summing me up.

  ‘Well, Vanora’s going to love you,’ he sarcied to me, then turned to Ridgeway. ‘Take the boy to the boats, then go back and deal with Scud.’

  ‘No,’ Ridgeway said.

  ‘No?’

  ‘No Kenneth, we leave him.’

  Kenneth turned to me. ‘Sorlie, you were the one who didn’t trust him and you were right. If he stays he will be a danger to our plans. He knows too much.’

  ‘He won’t betray us.’

  ‘How can we be sure?’

  ‘Oh – so now we have to be sure.’ His sarcasm had infected me. I pointed to the prison. ‘We have just followed a plan from a snafin’ thought map dragged out of an old woman’s brain and one of those images was Scud staying behind, remember?’

  ‘But she broke the connection before we knew what happened,’ Kenneth stuttered.

  ‘Yeah, I wonder why. Maybe it was deliberate, I don’t know any more. All I know is Scud stayed behind; that’s what she wanted. It’s what Scud wants. Game Over. Reload.’

  Ridgeway settled the matter. ‘No, Sorlie’s right. Scud got us in, he dealt with the guards, he helped the escape. We don’t have time to go back for him.’ He began wading into the sea. ‘It’s what Vanora wanted. The Military will kill him anyway when they eventually decide it’s worth spending some of their precious fuel to come out here and check things out.’

  A wave of sickness assaulted me again. If this is what Vanora planned all along, what fate did she really have in store for her released army? Suddenly the boats didn’t look so inviting after all.

  I left the shoreline and put my head against the cool boulder. I spat in the sand to push the nausea down. It was sheltered from the wind, calm away from the commotion. That’s when I heard it again – the rasp and the scrap of the corncrake. I searched the black cliff face, took off my lens, wiped it and tried again. There it was again. I looked up to just below the prison stairs. There she was. Perched on a ledge. Ishbel, smiling down at me. She held a finger to her mouth to stop me alerting the others. When the corncrake call came again I was transported back to our kitchen, to the game we played, matching the extinct animals to Ishbel’s sounds. A game she excelled in. She had never left me. It was Ishbel
who threw the butterfly bomb at Merj and it was Ishbel who called the corncrake to me as we climbed the cliff, her call I played to Davie. She had followed us along the cliff-pass to watch us leave. I started to climb the cliff.

  ‘No!’ she mouthed, flapping her arms towards the boats, pointing north. Kenneth roared for me to get in the boat and she signalled again for me to leave. When I held my hand up as if to wave she OK’d her thumb and finger as Merj had done in the library. Then she was gone, disappeared over the cliff rim. I had no idea what she was up to but I didn’t care, Ishbel was still on my side and that mattered more than anything else.

  • • •

  Ridgeway and I were destined for one of the subs.

  ‘Your chips need to be deactivated before you can be allowed up top,’ one of the seamen explained.

  Kenneth the caveman had escaped being chipped and would be permitted to ride on one of the heavy trawlers set to tow the subs once they were sunk to two hundred metres under the ocean.

  Hundreds of men clambered up ladders slung over the sides of the black hulking beasts and crawled all over the decks like maggots on a carcass. Men in uniform directed them towards three different entry points. How would they all fit in?

  Kenneth read my mind. ‘Don’t worry, they’ve fitted out the torpedo space for them. We can get more than three hundred in each. You must hurry though; the sooner these beauties are below water, the better. Only the ballast and air pumps will be used, no other power. The wake of the trawlers will hide all evidence of them. And remember, these trawlers have legitimate business in the northern seas.’ His mirth had returned. ‘Come on Sorlie, one more day of discomfort and then we’ll be free. I’m sure Vanora will have a feast prepared to welcome her army and victorious kin. Things will change now. We have our chance. It is up to us to make our future work.’

  I wished to share his excitement, but too much had happened. Maybe when we reached the north my feelings would change. My doubts must have shown because Kenneth suddenly became grave.

  ‘Whatever happens, Sorlie, you will still have Ishbel and me looking out for you.’

  The two who cared. The ‘we’ Ishbel had told me of on the Transport so long ago. I knew I should have told him of Ishbel’s presence on the island but something held me back. Now I just wanted to leave the bloody mess behind.