The Last Girl Guide: Diary of a Survivor

by Karen Wrighton

  Doctor Quinn was the educational psychologist that the school got for me when one of the teachers thought I may be autistic. Technically, I'm not autistic, though I am high on the autistic spectrum. I have something called Asperger's Syndrome, which basically means that I have the social skills of a skunk coupled with the memory of an elephant. Elephants never forget.

  During one of our sessions, Dr. Quinn said traumatic childhood memories, thoughts and emotions get trapped inside you like puss inside of a boil, and that talking about them was like lancing the boil and getting all the poison out so you can heal up. Maybe I did a bit of pimple squeezing yesterday when I was talking to you.

  Anyhow, I got some sleep, and then Sal, and I had some lunch and set off along the canal. We made excellent progress, the Forest Locks around Retford are all relatively modern and easy to negotiate. There were a ton of them, but we managed to sail through the whole lot in one afternoon. I moored up directly above Retford Town Lock, and we ate supper. Then Sal, and I went for a stroll along the eastern bank of the waterway.

  The breeze brought a slight chill to the otherwise warm air. The sky was clear and it was as if the stars had multiplied a million times in one night. I must get myself a book on astronomy when I come across one. I strained to see if I could hear the dogs, but there was nothing but the chirping of the crickets and one solitary screech from a tawny owl.

  I began to relax then, another reason why I slept so well last night. I didn’t wake up until way after sunrise this morning.

  After breakfast, I took some stock of the damage the dogs had done to our supplies. Sal has hardly any food left, and I have lost a lot too. According to the map, there is a large superstore only a 2 min walk away close to Retford High Street, so I decided to go and pick up some supplies before going on.

  The old Lock Cottage looked beautiful in the summer sunshine, it seemed as if the pox had never happened, as if at any moment the lock keeper would open the door, put his empty milk bottles out on the step and wave hello.

  Sal and I walked down the steps onto the embankment. At the bottom was the entrance to the superstore. Just think how many thousands of these stores are sitting here now - enough food for a population that once approached seventy million. I need never go short of food, that’s for sure.

  The doors of the store were open wide. There were two grinning, desiccated corpses in the aisles and the mummified body of an infant still in its pram. The child looked like a tiny shrivelled doll, its head was shrunken and way too small for the knitted cap, which had fallen down over its eyes. The baby’s fine blond hair lay in tufts, scattered across the tiny lace pillow.

  Perhaps these were the bodies of what once was a family. They must have come here during the plague, and unusually the corpses have escaped the notice of the dogs. Maybe because the store was a little out of the way?

  Thinking about the dogs made me anxious, so I swung my backpack off my shoulders, rapidly filling it with supplies and stuffing a few packets of pork rinds in my pocket before we left.

  We started back up the steps and then I heard something that I had not heard in almost a year - a human voice.

  "Little girl..." A thin, waif-like, old man stood at the top of the steps blocking our way.

  He had a mane of scruffy white hair and long whiskers, and his eyes were sunken deep into their sockets. He was wearing a dirty brown trench coat, and a bottle of whiskey hung loosely from his right hand. The brim of another bottle protruded from his pocket. His aroma was familiar, he smelled exactly like Ma after a binge. He smiled the same way too - that slight, drunken, hitch of the lips that said ‘I’ve got you now.’

  I spun around as he attempted to grab hold of me with his free hand. Sal seemed to sense my anxiety, she growled and snapped at the stranger’s leg, taking his attention from me long enough for me to pull away.

  Sal and I raced across the empty car park. I did not look back to see if he was following, but I did not need to. I heard the sound of the dog's attack, of ripping flesh, and the old man’s cries of pain. The Spaniels cries were nothing compared to an old man pleading for my help. He had been a vagrant, an alkie like Ma, and like Ma his aggressive manner threatened me. Now, he would never threaten anyone again. Fang had seen to that.

  I was glad he was gone - like I was glad Ma was gone, and yet the guilt of that feeling of relief was like a knife in the chest.

  Sal and I raced around the building and made our way back to Mona. As we boarded, the dogs were still fighting over their ‘meal,' so I lost no time in firing up the engine, and we left. As I steered the boat past the embankment, Fang ran to the top of the steps, a bloody brown rag hanging from his jaws. His eyes followed us as we sailed by. I swear he was scowling. 'Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war.' William Shakespeare

  A few minutes later we passed an old Church covered in ivy and bright purple wisteria in full bloom. Death, horror, pestilence, cruelty, and despair loom so large in my life and yet the flowers still bloom - 'life' goes on. Only it doesn’t always, does it? That saying is crap.

  I wouldn't allow myself the luxury of wallowing in the guilt I felt over the death of the old man... or Ma. No amount of guilt can change the past, and no amount of worrying can alter the future.

  I had to take a pragmatic approach. I have long been a fan of pragmatism, both the word and the philosophy. So I concentrated on what I needed to do.

  According to the map in the Canal Guide, our next challenge was to be the Drakeholes Tunnel. Drakeholes is one hundred and fifty-four yards long. The tunnel is so narrow and squat, that in the days before engines boats had to be legged through. The canal boatmen would walk the barges through by propelling them along using their bodies and legs. Thankfully, Mona’s engine works fine.

  Inside the tunnel, the air was damp, and a stiff breeze lashed at my body, making me shiver. The arched walls were covered in moss. Pollyanna-like, I started to think about the positives of the situation. There was no towpath so Fang would not be able to follow us through, he would have to go around.

  Soon after we made it through we were at our next Lock - Grindley top. Don’t you just love some of the names they give the locks - so cute, I wonder who got to name them. There was a gigantic mooring bollard here. I can’t imagine what boat needs a bollard that large. Maybe it had something to do with the old brickworks. Many of the buildings were long derelict, but most of it was still standing. Though the larger building seemed to have been destroyed by fire, and relatively recently judging by the smell.

  Shaw’s lock leaked so badly that it took an age to get through, but the two Misterton locks were no trouble at all. By late afternoon we had reached West Stockwith and its junction with the River Trent.

  Sal and I shared a packet of pork rinds and a bowl of oxtail soup. It was the first thing I had eaten all day. I was tired, but after what had happened at Retford I did not want to hang about, and once we got on to the River Trent, it would be much harder for Fang and his pack to follow us. So I decided that we would drive on, through the West Stockwith tidal lock, to make our way as far along the Trent as we could before dusk, when we would need to think about mooring up for the night. Only it didn’t quite work out that way.

  The West Stockwith lock was massive and complex. I was very intimidated by it, but It seemed to go well at first. I tied up the boat and opened the sluices. Then, as usual, I walked down and checked the far gates and paddles were closed before picking up my windlass and cranking open the lock paddles. The lock filled quickly, and I opened the gate, went back, untied Mona and steered her in. Closing the gates behind us, I lowered the sluice paddles. All that was left to do was to open the gate paddles in front to empty the lock - but I could not get them to open. The mechanism looked okay. I reasoned that the only thing that could be causing the problem was something blocking the paddles.

  I took off my jeans and lowered myself into the water, which was cold, black and full of detritus. It was like trying to swim through chicken noodle soup
, and it stunk. I took a long gulp of air and dove down to the sluice paddles. I kept brushing by stuff, there was so much debris in the water. No wonder the paddles were stuck.

  The water was so black that I was virtually blind, so I had to feel my way around. I touched something that felt like a bundle of rags wedged against the sluice paddles, so I grabbed hold with both hands and pulled. After a moment's resistance, the object came loose and drifted towards me in the blackness.

  The water started to move, sending bubbles up to the surface as the water flowed faster and the lock began to empty. A dark shape floated towards me, buoyed along by the foaming current. When it got close I could see that it was the corpse of a woman, her face ragged and torn, skin melted on her skull like a candle left too close to the fire. I lunged backward, taking in a large mouthful of the thick, stagnant water.

  Gulping for air, I broke the surface of the water, choking and gagging as the woman's body popped up beside me, a dismembered hand floating beside her faded blond tresses.

  On deck, Sal barked and whined, running to and fro and intermittently leaning over the edge of the boat. She must have sensed my anxiety.

  I had hung a rope from the bow of the boat so I could pull myself out. Once I got back on board, I wrapped myself in a blanket, but I couldn’t stop shivering. Sal nuzzled me, licking my face. I watched the lock empty as the corpse bobbed and gyrated in the water like dead goldfish, destined to be flushed down the toilet and into oblivion.

  When the water level equalized, I jumped onto the towpath, opened the lock gates, and sailed Mona out onto the River Trent. The rapidly fragmenting corpse was swept out with us, swirling around in the eddying current, arms flailing as if performing in some grotesque water ballet until eventually, the devil reached up to claim what was his, and the body was dragged into the depths of the Trent.

  I should have felt some relief then, as we headed down the river, but I made an error, glancing backward towards the lock. Fang stood, like a wolf, silhouetted against the moonlit skyline. ‘Never look back.’

  21st July

  Wet Nosed Hero

  I intended to travel through the night. I sat, wrapped in a blanket, as I steered Mona along the banks of the Trent. The river is much wider than the canal, and it was tidal, so each surge exerted a bit of a pull on the boat. Even so, it was a relatively straightforward job to maintain our course.

  I awoke with a jolt just before dawn, when Mona crashed against the reed bank, disturbing a large flock of mallards. Agitated, the birds spread their wings over the mist covered river, cackling loudly in alarm. The noise sounded ghostly and shrill in the muffled silence of the dawn air. The mallards flew towards the eastern horizon in a perfect 'V' formation, their wingtips, glinting against the amber sky. ‘Red sun at morning, sailors take warning.’

  I had fallen asleep at the tiller, and the boat had drifted into the riverbank. I felt awful and was shivering so violently that my teeth were chattering. My head pounded as I attempted to get up and then I threw up over the side of the boat.

  Somehow I was able to get below deck and climb into my bunk. I was barely aware of Sal climbing up beside me.

  Soon, I was lost in a sea of dreams and revisiting all sorts of crap. Like the day when Ma was smashed and tried to beat me (not a particularly unusual occurrence). I ducked, and Ma's hand went straight through the glass door. The jagged glass slashed her artery right open, it looked like that fountain in Geneva, blood spurted all up the walls and over both of us. I had my first aid badge, luckily, so I knew what to do to stem the bleeding. I held a pile of folded, clean towels over the wound, applied pressure and then waited with her until the ambulance arrived.

  I told the paramedics that she had slipped. I am not a good liar but lying about Ma was automatic, I've told enough white lies about Ma to ice a wedding cake.

  It took me hours to clean the place up afterward. The social services came and took me into care until Ma got out of the hospital. It was the best five weeks I ever had. They placed me in foster care with a couple of retired teachers, Mr. and Mrs. Halfpenny, who, according to the social worker, “didn’t mind caring for kids with special needs.”

  The Halfpennys' owned a cottage with a white picket fence. It had a big old cottage garden and inside, against almost every wall sat a bookcase stuffed with books of every conceivable size, shape, and variety. I was like a cat in a canary shop. I had never read so much or eaten so well. I rarely cry, but when they sent me back to Ma, I had to swallow so many tears that my throat hurt. Even now, if I catch the merest whiff of the scent of lavender, it takes me instantly back to that time. Penny loved that herb, - she even baked lavender cookies - and yes, her name really was Penny Halfpenny. They must both be dead now.

  I don't know how long I had slept. I must have lost a whole day. Sal was whining, she had made a mess on the floor by the door. It stunk so bad, I heaved.

  Cleaning up dogs mess when you feel the way I did this morning is no easy task. I opened up all the windows to try to get rid of the stench, but my head was spinning. We had drifted right up to the side of the river bank - the western bank. Though it looked deserted, I got an instant spike of adrenalin as I saw that the bow of the boat was level with the bank. I had to get us to safety as soon as I could. Tentatively I opened the door onto the deck.

  I had barely opened a crack in the door when I knocked backward. Fang charged through and into the cabin. Instantly, Sal rushed by me, knocking me out of the way. In a heartbeat they were ripping each other apart and then two more of the pack arrived to join the affray. Sal was being torn to pieces.

  I panicked - I wanted to vomit. I couldn't remember where I had stashed the flare gun. Then I saw my backpack leaning against a chair. I opened the zip pocket on the side of the bag and pulled out the flare gun. Not to be fired indoors, not to be fired indoors…

  I aimed the gun towards the affray - flashes of teeth, claws, gyrating bodies, biting and slashing at each other. All this was accompanied by a cacophony of barking, growling, and whining pitiful yelps. All I could see was a mass of entwined limbs. I could not fire the flare gun without hitting Sal. So I fired over their heads.

  The flare hit the top of the doorway with a flash and then a loud roar as the wooden structure caught instantly alight. Alarmed by this, the dogs took flight, leaving Sal motionless and bleeding on the floor.

  I could not tend to her then. I had to put out the fire and get the boat into the middle of the river where we would be safe from another attack. I steered Mona downstream at full speed for a few miles before shutting down the engine and letting her drift.

  Sal was in a bad way. At first, I was certain that she was dead. She lay unmoving and silent. Her fur was soaked and matted with blood. Tentatively, I stroked her flank. She responded with a whimper that pierced my chest like a knife, ripping it wide and laying everything inside bare. My cold, empty heart with the love I felt for Sal, being its one single speck of warmth, now ebbing at its centre.

  It took me a while to clean and dress her wounds. Reassuringly, most of the bites appeared superficial, but blood still seeped from a deep gash in the skin around her neck. I learned the theory behind suturing wounds during my first aid course and had even practiced my technique on a banana skin, but I had never sutured a wound for real.

  I made a list of steps in my head as I gathered and then sterilized the equipment. I had no medical stitch kit but managed to find scissors, a needle, fishing twine, and antiseptic wipes. I cut the hair from around the wound and cleaned it with salt water, patting around the edges with disinfectant wipes.

  The wound was ragged and stitching together jagged flesh would make healing more difficult and leave the area open to infection, so I used the small pair of scissors to cut away the torn flesh.

  Sal barely flinched as I repaired the lesion. I put in 27 stitches. She was pretty much out for the count. I sat with her then, watching her chest rise and fall and willing it to keep on going. Don’t die, Sal, please don’t
die…

  22nd July

  An Awful Waste of Space

  I'm not sure how much time was lost when I was sick. I was barely conscious during those missing hours or days. Therefore, I shall carry on as if they never existed. After all, if time is a human construct, then you must need a person to experience it. It's like that old conundrum 'If a tree falls in the forest and there is no one there to hear it, does it make a sound?' I would argue that the answer is no because a sound is our brain's interpretation of the vibrations in the air, which are picked up by our senses. If there is nobody there with a brain, then the trees falling can create only vibrations.

  As soon as I felt comfortable leaving Sal alone, I fired up the engine, and we set off down the river. I wanted to get as far away from Fang as we could. I am convinced that animal won't stop until he has killed us both.

  I steered Mona through Trent Lock later in the day, and we headed out onto the River Soar, which forms part of the Leicester arm of the Grand Union Canal. Seven chimneys loomed like giant tombstones, casting their shadows before the skyline ahead of us - remnants of a lost industry and a lost civilization.