The Truants

by Lee Markham

  It was the perfect storm.

  Three or four of the crows then charged into the station while the remainder circled and wheeled outside, keeping watch. Over the next minutes a few police staff threw themselves headlong out of the building, running for their lives. They ran directly into the circle of crows, who casually picked them off and laid them down alongside their fallen colleagues. A few moments after that the small group that had ventured in stepped back out into the throng with the girl from the cell – Ricky’s girl – the closest thing they had to a queen. The martyr’s wife.

  The baying mass howled with valedictorian glee. They howled at the stars and the moon and the street lights and the cameras. They danced and they ran and they smashed. Across the city they heard the rising wail of sirens circling in to meet them and they grinned. Fresh meat. Lambs to the slaughter.

  Then they lit out into the night.

  They took the children with them.

  And together they would bring the city to its knees.

  3

  It quickly metastasises into something more than I’d anticipated. More than I’d planned. We’d needed them to come together so that we could draw them out. We’d needed to unify them so that we could herd them. Sacrificing Ricky had been a necessary evil. It saddened me, but his cruelty and his hunger weren’t purely symptomatic of his new condition. He was one of the bad ones, and so of all the ones to let go, he was the one. He was the one who had drawn the most attention, committed the most vicious acts. He hadn’t been the head. The mob had been headless. But in the absence of a head, he had been the closest thing to the horde’s controlling animal instinct. Its louder, uglier, nature. And he’d needed extinguishing before he made any of the others in his image.

  But his death had served this secondary purpose. With a little gentle prodding, his death had become a rallying point for the latent disaffection that gilded the very cells of this new young clutch. It had unified them and caused them to flock. And as a flock we’d been able to steer them en masse. First to the police station to reclaim the girl. I’d insisted upon that. I’d told him no knife unless he brings them all. Every last one of them.

  I would have preferred less violence in her rescue. Fewer deaths. But the deaths of some drones in uniform who could so casually threaten and shoot these children, whose causes for complaint far outweighed anything the drones and their paymasters themselves might present as counter-arguments – well, it was a small price to pay. And it wasn’t without its own cruel symmetry.

  Evolution’s rough-hewn ingenuity, impressive as it clearly was, had still to find an answer to the conundrum of the omelette and the broken eggs.

  So they had come together and they had flocked, and they had rescued the girl. Now they were coming to me. As had been the plan all along: he would round them up and then deliver them unto me and mine, and I would deal with them. I would enlighten them. And matters would be resolved.

  But where reality was now dramatically deviating from the plan was in the secondary and tertiary conflagrations that the primary heat of our flock’s rage was igniting as it passed. The latent disaffection that we’d used as leverage in the wake of Ricky’s death wasn’t unique to our small band. It was endemic. And our small uprising was now inspiring brainless facsimiles across the city. Children were rising up. Parents too. Many of the parents were in fact still children. Some of them weren’t. But all of them had been, and if they didn’t still feel the same way themselves, they remembered all too bitterly a time when they did. Pockets of unfocused anger, bubbling and rising up. Breaking stuff. Smashing, burning, looting, taking. That was how it started. But then even that spilt over into something else. A beige-white noise of lawlessness that said nothing, proved nothing. But spoke volumes. To anyone who might choose to hear. Of which there were few.

  But the narrative wasn’t really that complicated: when an individual can find no worth to assign to their own life, then what value is there in life itself ? When there is nothing to lose, and perhaps nothing even to gain, then why not just lash out? Take… break… Howl at the world and not make a point because there was no point to be made. There was no point. That was the whole point.

  Burn the world down to the ground? Why ask ‘why’, when the real question is ‘why not’?

  All it takes is for someone to go first. And for enough others to follow.

  They had nothing. This proved it.

  Every avalanche starts with a single snowflake that carries the mass across a critical threshold. It’s that one straw too many that breaks the camel’s back. It’s just a single butterfly that needs to flap its wings for a tornado to flatten the world.

  So, it transpires, was the case with Ricky.

  The snowflake, the straw, the butterfly. And as the tornado gears up through the backstreets and alleys of the ghettos and starts to cascade across into the heart of the city, as shop windows cave in and looters run amok, as police huddle and charge and retreat and redeploy, our darling crows march on ahead to the prearranged location.

  I await them, my own flock positioned at key vantage points along the way. They are heading in on the whispered promise of a leader, someone who can explain their condition and utilise their gifts. Someone who will show them a path, and give them the world. All of these notions seeded in vague aspiration and fertile emotion. They don’t know what it is they want. But they know they want something. It is all too easily planted: this idea that we have what they want, and that we will share it with them.

  The pandemonium which grips the city around them makes it that much easier for them to peel off, a splinter group weaving its way like mercury. And not as many as I’d thought. Twenty, maybe thirty of them. No bad thing. It will make it easier.

  The building was once a furniture emporium. It is huge and sprawls round a junction, overlooking a roundabout. It has been empty for about a year now. The floors are still carpeted, that tough nylon shop-carpeting that was hard-wearing and could scorch the skin off the knees and elbows of children who took a tumble when chasing each other round the displays. There are patches that bear the outlines of the shapes of the stock that once decorated the place. Patches untrodden. Fresh. The exact opposite effect to lawn that has been covered and dies in the darkness.

  These thoughts unbidden. Time ticking slowly.

  I look out on the street below me. No sign of trouble down here yet. But the sound of sirens and the distant roar of rioting are certainly on the swell. I look out, anticipating them. They will be here soon.

  Danny, Peter and John’s mother are all here with me. He has promised to release her to my custody once the deed is done and the knife is in his hands. But I don’t trust him. And I doubt he trusts me. Trust has long since left the party. Such is life. We all have our secrets.

  Anna is waiting outside. She’s been tasked with ensuring none of them leave once they’re in. The building, for one night only, is to become an abattoir. That is the plan.

  My flock tell me they are here.

  From the window here on the second floor I see them sweep around the building opposite at a fair clip. They hurtle out and across the road, weaving without hesitation between the cars screeching and swerving to avoid them. Then I lose sight of them as they continue on round to the back of the emporium. I hear them then, jostling through the door at the back, in and up through the echoing chambers and deserted staircases of the store.

  Anna counts them in, and once the last is confirmed Danny gives me a nod, and at that I call in my own.

  Timing will now be everything. The next few moments will need executing with a delicacy and precision that daunts me. I have already watched one mob infestation mutate and spread like a plague – it doesn’t take much – but if it happens again, in here, everything could go wrong. These next few minutes will be more dangerous than anything I’ve ever endeavoured to do in my long, long life. But it has to be done. It has to end.

  The flock climb ominously up from the shadows below, less haste now, mu
ch more caution. The adrenaline that has fuelled their exodus to this place is now fizzling out. It won’t be long before the cold whispers of disenchantment start firing them up again. They’ve been promised a leader. A purpose. An explanation. And they’ve been given an abandoned furniture outlet. It is up to me now to say some words.

  I step out of the shadow and open my arms in welcome.

  They stop, and spread out across the space before me, all eager to see who it is they have come to be enlightened by. The place is shadowy enough for my physical presence to maintain a sense of enigma. It is up to my words now to hold them in position long enough for my own flock to arrive and pen them in.

  ‘Children…’ I say.

  I imagine that might inflame them. And it does.

  ‘Who the fuck you calling children?’ one of them asserts.

  ‘When you have lived as long as I have, everyone is as a child. It is no bad thing. But I have lived a long time. What you all have been for days, perhaps weeks at most, I have been for centuries. I remember the last time this city burnt. And I remember why.’

  They mutter among themselves, unsure whether my words are worth listening to or not. But that uncertainty is enough to hold them in place for now. They’ve nothing better to do.

  ‘Why did it burn before?’ one of the younger ones asks.

  ‘Same reason it’s burning this time. Because it deserved too. It needed to. You know, without forest fires, many forests would become overpopulated and choke. Cities are much the same. If not literal fire, then something similar will often do. Disease. Revolution. Genocide. Such things help keep the books balanced… ah… here you are.’

  My flock softly enter the space and encircle his flock. His lot turn to face mine and they bristle. Quite the stand-off.

  ‘Hush now, children. Understand this – we outnumber you. We are faster than you. We have been doing this longer than you. So what happens next is out of your hands. I have plans for you all. You may not like them, but you are still children and I’m afraid you have no say in the matter. Peter,

  Danny, I would prefer it if she sat this one out downstairs, if you don’t mind?’ I nod to John’s mother. Danny and Peter, consumed now with excitement at what is about to happen, nod enthusiastically. I smile quietly and look to one of mine. ‘Take her downstairs.’

  She is taken away.

  And once she is gone, I get started.

  CHAPTER TEN

  ENTRAPMENT AND RELEASE

  1

  She is as good as her word. He. This so-called ‘Rider’. Ridiculous name. He is as good as his word. No, she. It is still her, no matter the gender of her new hermitage. It is still her, inside the male rat-skin, keeping her promise. I hadn’t been sure that she would. I had cause to mistrust her.

  After centuries walking the earth at my side, just me and her against the world, she had decided to end things. And it was a relief. It was. She was right. I can’t deny it. Looking back now, I can see an element of truth in her words. That it was I who despised the vermin that surrounded us. That swamped what little land there was left to roam. The night skies, which were the only skies we had left to us, they painted with light pollution, stealing away the stars from us. We would retreat into the lightless pockets, but we couldn’t stay there indefinitely.

  We had to eat.

  And where there was food, there was filth. On the floor. In the sky. On the walls and in the water. There was no access to life without exposure to dirt. And it was all because of them. The rats. Swarming and overwhelming and overcoming every attack the planet’s immune system would throw at them. What had begun as the equivalent of a global yeast infection had somehow mutated into a full-blown immunodeficiency syndrome. And the world started to die. Slowly, painfully. And the universe started to draw away from us. Casting us away like a sick runt. Because of them.

  The rats.

  And so what reason was there left to stay.

  But she was right. I did all but get on and do it. I expressed every reason for not staying. I examined and observed and explained and challenged every new set of data. And every new set of data only strengthened my case.

  There were moments of hope, that perhaps the tide might have turned. Eras when they would turn on each other and cut each other down in swathes, and I would pray that perhaps nature had found an antibody that beat their defences and would cause them to self-destruct. Cell suicide. But no. Every time, they would overcome and repopulate. Often they would boom.

  There were plagues and outbreaks – influenzas and poxes – but nothing would touch them. They lived and wallowed and ate their own shit, abandoned their children and left their parents in boxes to rot, but still they marched on.

  So. It is as it was. It was as it is. She was right.

  I don’t know why I needed her to go first. I didn’t know I did. I just…

  I don’t know.

  But now I am here. With Danny and Peter.

  Dear, sweet Peter.

  Perhaps if the world were a better place then there might have been hope for Peter. And perhaps if there were more like Peter there could have been hope for me. But too little, too late. What is done is done. I have no interest in staying any more. Too tired.

  When first I discovered how she had deceived me, there was a moment when I wanted to destroy her. Devour her. And to carry on just to spite her. It is in my nature. And she knew that too. She knew everything.

  That is in her nature.

  But my anger and my hatred quickly dissipated. Peter was kind to me. Looked up to me. Trusted me. Danny less so. He never trusted me. But he cared for Peter. Looked out for him. He was good. Is good. Better than one might have expected. A shame for him too that things would end now as they had to end.

  And the way things had to end was to be me, Danny and Peter back on the bench, rising with the morning sun. With the knife safely destroyed. And all of these other rat-children safely bled out, every last trace of me extinguished. And she could stay, if that is what she wants. I don’t care any more. I just want to be done.

  So I herd them in and send them out across the city to fetch the girl. It is a delicate operation as I am barely there within so many of them. Some of them I have entered directly, via the knife, and they hear me more clearly. A couple of them I have already brought across to us: those ones are on watch with her flock. They will more readily recognise the crows when they descend. But most of them I hardly haunt, passed on inadvertently by the first generation. These are the ones who needed a martyr to motivate them. And motivate them it has. And, having motivated them, I can move them round the obstacles between them and us. I am both shepherd and dog.

  The rescue of the girl is fierce and curiously invigorating. It has been so long since I have hunted with a pack and it reminds me of a time when life was worth living. The speed and the power and the sheer kinetic release of it all. It becomes us. And it makes me stronger in them, which in turn engenders a germ of respect in them for me. It brings us closer.

  It brings us closer. And reawakens something.

  Something that has long been lost in me.

  A lust.

  As we then hurtle and glide through the streets towards our destiny, I remember what it felt like to chase through the trees and across the plains, hunting down monkeys before they became rats. I remember what it felt like to conjure motion from muscle, velocity from ideas. I remember the thump and rattle of running, the delight of air whipping past my skin, the roar of the world as it raced past me. I remember all of these things and I delight. As do these rat-children. They feel life as they’ve never felt it before. And they remind me of how it always used to feel. Before it slipped away. Before it had to mean something.

  And when had that started? When had it started to require meaning, purpose? I can’t even remember what it is that might have caused such a momentous shift. Such a catastrophic shift. When running and chasing and fighting and fucking and hurtling and pelting at full speed was surely the end in itse
lf. What had I allowed myself to become? And why?

  So perhaps now I am faltering. Could this be?

  Could it be that perhaps I might like to stay for a while?

  Play for a while?

  Could that be?

  She would of course insist that I don’t. That was the agreement.

  But maybe the deal needs renegotiating.

  Oh, we could get rid of most of them. I think I would keep Peter. Darling Peter. For a while at least. Danny and the woman could still burn. And then perhaps one of these ones. The fastest, the strongest. Yes… perhaps that is what I shall do.

  It shouldn’t be too hard to organise.

  She doesn’t even need to know.

  She knows I only have the loosest control over them, spread as I am so thinly. Of course one of them could escape from the trap. It wouldn’t be so unfeasible. They all want to survive, it wouldn’t have to be my fault. It would in fact look very much the opposite. I would simply appear weak.

  I consider taking one of them now. But to do so I would lose what little control I have over the rest. The cloud would break and she would know. And if she knew, I would never get the knife.

  But then, do I even need the knife any more?

  If I chose to stay, then what use the knife to me?

  None.

  But in her hands? She would for ever be able to seed me at will, sunder and spread me across the feral beasts, just to punish me and weaken me immeasurably.

  No. It couldn’t be left with her. I still need the knife.

  So I bring them into the building as agreed.

  I swarm up to the top floor as agreed and allow the trap to spring shut. She steps out of the shadows and says the one word that I know will make them buck and thrash against the loose grip I hold them in.