by Rhys Thomas
‘No,’ they said together.
‘I’ll get one brought to you.’ He looked at them. ‘Honestly, guys, I can’t stress this enough. Clean water and sewage. It’s so important you wouldn’t believe. Everyone sticks to the rules because they know how fucked we’d be without them, OK? But there’s something more than that.’ He was speaking quietly now, kindly. ‘We’ve got ourselves a real community here. You’ll see as you go along, and we’ve all learned that if we do things for the benefit of everyone we can get things done a hell of a lot better, and a hell of a lot faster. That’s why people stay here, why we’re not all hiding out in houses. Community over individuals. That’s what we got here. I’m sorry to say it so bluntly, but it’s best to lay it on the line. You’ll see it for yourselves. We’re all in this together. The rest of the world might be going to shit but we’re surviving and it’s because everybody knows that what they do, even on the smallest level, is important. Every one of us is a vital cog. It doesn’t take much for the system to fail. Just one person not sticking to the rules could cause the whole thing to collapse. Stay positive, stay focused. If you do need to go wizz in the middle of the night, think about it. Right?’
They both nodded slowly. Charlie felt the information warm his insides. They had come so far, seen so many things, and this camp was the one thing they had aimed for. And now that they were here, right away the hope they had held seemed to have been vindicated. There were good men in charge.
‘What’s rule number three?’ said Emily.
‘Yeah,’ said Fields. He shifted round in the seat to face them. ‘Number three.’ He ran his hand through his thin hair. ‘The illness.’
The atmosphere in the van changed suddenly. The silence grew denser.
‘If one of you gets sick, you have to tell someone. Right away. No waiting. You just do it. For the community.’
He stared at Emily and she held his gaze.
‘And then what?’ she said.
Edward remembered watching his little sister riding her first bike. His dad had fixed stabilizers to the back wheel so she wouldn’t fall off. He remembered finding the way her legs moved funny. They beat in such fast circles but the bike went so slowly. Then the day had come when his dad had taken the stabilizers off. He had run behind her, holding her saddle and reassured her, ‘I’ve got you, I’ve got you.’ But he didn’t. He had let go and she was riding on her own.
Edward had watched it all from the kerb. He had been sitting in his favourite spot where the men who had made the road had dropped a penny into the hot tar and it was still there, stuck in the gutter. He remembered his dad doing the same thing to him when he had first learned to ride a bike. He remembered the feeling of security he got from his dad when he was near. He had looked over his shoulder on that day and had seen his father a few feet behind him, not holding on to the saddle as he had promised. His dad smiled. ‘Just keep going,’ he had said. And he did. He moved his legs through the motions of a circle and on he went, not falling. He was doing it. It was so easy.
No bikes any more though. The day after Mary had the stabilizers taken off, his dad had got sick and turned into a zombie. Seeing him help Mary that day was really the last memory he had of him.
‘Mary,’ he called to her.
She was wearing a red bobble hat and mittens. The grey sea behind her intensified the colour. The hat bobbed up when he called.
‘What?’
‘What are you doing?’
‘Ssh.’
Edward went over to his sister. In front of her was a large molehill. He stood by her side and looked at it.
‘He’s there,’ she whispered. ‘I just saw it moving.’
As soon as she said it the molehill shuddered. A few lumps of mud rolled down its banks.
Edward’s heart started beating quicker. The mud became still again and there was a long silence as they held their breath and waited for a further movement that never came.
‘He’s gone,’ said Edward, eventually.
‘You scared him away,’ his little sister said angrily. ‘With your clomping.’
Edward said nothing. He imagined the mole burrowing underground through his tunnels.
‘I wonder if they ever dig their tunnels and fall off the cliff,’ Mary said seriously.
‘I doubt it.’
‘It would be funny.’
Edward couldn’t see how that would be funny. His sister was just being stupid again. He looked across the bay to the lighthouse. He could make out the small specks of people walking along the road towards it.
His uncle’s binoculars were strapped around his neck. He liked to keep them close to him during the day. They came in handy when he wanted to spy on the other children down in the camp. Lifting the binoculars to his eyes he focused in on the white wall surrounding the lighthouse and all the little outbuildings around it. The wall was waist high and he could only see the top halves of the people leaning against it. There were two of them, a man and a woman. Both of them were old. Neither of them were speaking. The man had a white beard and he reminded Edward of Father Christmas.
‘Let me look,’ his sister moaned, grabbing at the binoculars. The strap pulled on his neck.
‘Ow,’ he snapped, and pushed her.
She let go immediately. He unhooked the binoculars and handed them to her.
They looked gigantic in her tiny hands. They were bigger than her head. He felt a strange surge of love as she peered through. He got this once or twice a day.
‘What were you looking at?’
‘The lighthouse.’
Mary tutted. ‘You’re always looking at the lighthouse.’
‘They keep them up there.’
The bottom few inches of her hair flapped about in the cold wind, lifting up around her hat.
‘Keep what there?’
The surge of love he had felt had energized him. He dug the ends of his fingers into her ribs.
‘The zombies!’ he shouted.
Mary squealed with delight as Edward lifted her off the ground. The binoculars fell to the floor. He used to be able to lift her up easily but now it was more difficult, probably because he was so much skinnier.
‘They’re coming to get you,’ he said in a spooky voice.
‘No,’ she cried.
He put her down and she ran away, wanting him to give chase. He started laughing at the way she ran. Her legs were going fast but her arms didn’t move. He chased her around in a wide circle until she was running back towards the house and then he stopped. Mary sensed the chase had ended and turned back to him.
‘You can’t catch me,’ she said, out of breath.
Edward turned away and went to collect the binoculars. His energy had suddenly vaporized. He hated the sight of the house, so sad-looking and cold with its dirty walls and barbed-wire fence. It was so different from their home in London.
A clod of mud had stuck to one of the binocular lenses. He peeled it off and used his handkerchief to clean the glass. He looked back across the bay to the lighthouse once again but the man and the woman he had been looking at had disappeared inside.
The atmosphere of the camp changed at dusk. In both light and dark there was a quietude, but the loss of the light took something with it. When the sun went down the place felt more desperate, more like the reality of what it really was: a large collection of people holding on.
‘There’s more truth about this place when the light is stripped away,’ said Charlie dramatically.
He and Emily had spent the afternoon walking around the camp and getting acquainted with its layout. They had seen the huge water collectors in the far corner, had seen the men up towards the lighthouse building a wooden structure that would be more permanent than the tents. Some of the farm fields were tended by hand behind the steel fences. The people working in them looked like the old cotton workers, dotted sporadically amongst the plants. The camp, they had been told, had struck a deal with the farmer who lived in a house somewhere on the o
ther side of the forest.
Emily rested her head on Charlie’s shoulder.
‘We should go soon.’
‘Do you want to go?’
‘They said it would be a good idea.’
They were looking out of the little square window next to the door. Charlie stroked her hair.
‘You’re not tired?’
Emily shook her head. ‘We should go.’
‘It’s so quiet up here.’
‘Everybody’s gone down already.’
They went outside and listened to the silence. He looked at Emily and tried to visualize past her skull and into her thoughts. He could never tell what she was thinking deep inside there. He closed his eyes and felt sleep come up his body, savouring its chemicals. Rarely now did he sleep well at night. He mourned for the depth of rest that had for so long eluded him. The familiar darkness swept around the corners of his mind like a cloak of mist and he snapped his eyes open immediately.
‘OK.’ He clapped his hands together with forced energy. ‘Come on, you, let’s get that cute little butt of yours down to the Great Leader.’
She sighed, her eyes half closed and sleepy. She pushed her hand into his and they made their way down to the beach through the dusk.
The smell of smoke in the air was strong. As they approached the beach the sound of people talking grew. They passed the ornate stone pillars that led into the car park just as a stampede of kids ran out from behind the low toilet building on the right, shouting and laughing as they went. Some of them made strange whooping sounds.
Charlie and Emily stopped to let them pass. Emily leaned her head against him.
‘They’re so cute.’
The cliffs up by the lighthouse were flickering with orange firelight. Great gusts of smoke swept up into the air in curling torrents. Within them bright orange embers darted and swirled like shoals of fish.
The entrance to the beach was through a small valley cut between the low sand dunes and it was through this valley that the people of the camp were flowing. The air became much colder here as the winds from the sea blasted their bodies.
On their right-hand side, up against the head of the beach, was a line of containers that must have come from the ocean tanker out in the bay. Their doors were open and Charlie could see inside the nearest few. People had set up homes in them. There were various items of furniture and trinkets and lights inside and the people sat around in them as if it was a perfectly normal thing to be doing. To his left, further up the beach near the house where the two women lived, was another, similar line of the containers. A small bonfire burned away in front of them, around which the residents sat on plastic chairs.
Charlie had half expected a kind of party atmosphere but this was nothing like that. People were standing around, talking quietly in small groups. The sheer mass of people was overwhelming. They stretched right down the beach towards the water, and left and right towards the lighthouse on one side and the stricken tanker on the other, the huge outline of which was just visible against the fading light of the dusk sky.
‘Look at the size of that thing,’ said Charlie. He felt Emily’s grip tighten around his hand, and he turned his attention away from the ship to the beach.
‘There’re so many people,’ she said.
The sound of the crowd was very strange. The combined voices talking so quietly was a low but powerful drone; many sounds becoming one. Charlie and Emily walked out into the sand and threaded themselves aimlessly between the group. There were several bonfires burning and they stopped at one of them, glad for the warmth.
The man standing next to them took a step towards the fire and crouched down on to his hams. He was holding a long stick that he poked into the fire and tumbled out of the flames some small, round objects that looked like rocks.
‘Perfect,’ he said, cheerily.
He looked around fifty, and as he stepped in closer he rolled the rocks on to a plate. Charlie saw that they were in fact baked potatoes wrapped in foil. His stomach rumbled.
The man turned to him in a quick, jerky movement and held up the plate.
‘Spud?’ He leaned over so he could see past Charlie to Emily. ‘How about you?’
Charlie felt a lump in his throat. He tried to say thank you, but his mouth was too dry. He cleared his throat.
‘Thanks.’
He took two of the potatoes in his fingers. They were searing. The man laughed.
‘Use your sleeves, son.’
Charlie pulled the sleeves of his sweater over his hands.
‘That’s so kind of you,’ he said.
The man nodded. The fire crackled and his face was lit up orange.
‘We’ve all got to eat,’ he replied casually.
A voice suddenly rang out across the beach, much louder than the low murmurs of the people.
‘Hello?’ it said. It seemed to be coming from a speaker system set into the cliffs. ‘Can you hear me?’
A collective, unsteady ‘yes’ chanted out from the crowd. They were making their way slowly towards the lighthouse at the western edge of the beach.
‘Gather round, gather round,’ said the voice.
‘That’s him,’ Charlie said. ‘The Scottish guy on the gate.’
The gaps in the crowd were shrinking as the people converged. It was like being at a concert. The people pushed Charlie and Emily in their direction. When they came to a halt they were just a hundred yards from a stage up near the cliffs. Charlie turned a full circle, looking out over the crowd. A thousand people suddenly didn’t seem so large a number now they were all huddled together.
Emily took a baked potato from him and peeled a hole in the foil before handing it back. He was starving. He bit into it and rolled it around in his open mouth to let it cool. It was soft and sweet and badly needed. When he swallowed it he felt its warmth roll down his neck into his belly.
‘OK, OK.’
McAvennie was on the stage, standing behind a microphone and holding a silencing hand in the air. His voice echoed around the cliffs. The crowd became hushed and Charlie watched as McAvennie surveyed them for a moment before speaking.
‘Thanks. OK. Thanks to everyone for coming down again, and for your continued hard work.’ He spoke matter-of-factly, his accent not as strong as when he had been speaking informally. ‘We had a good day today.’ He paused. Through the silence the sound of a generator thrummed. ‘We have been to the farmer and he has given us permission to go to one of the woods on his land for firewood.’ He looked down awkwardly at a slip of white card. ‘As long as we’re responsible,’ he added. ‘We’ll go and collect it as soon as the weather’s good. Maybe tomorrow.’ He looked down again at the card. ‘The new building’s coming along. It won’t be long before we can move the school there. Hopefully by Christmas.’
The crowd murmured with approval.
‘A school?’ Charlie said quietly to Emily.
‘What else? Andrew is going away tomorrow on a salvage. He’ll be taking the usual team. I say again that if anybody knows of somewhere, or can think of somewhere we can go to find something of worth, let us know, aye? We’ve got food, and enough, but we can always do with more. And the same goes for supplies. If more people find us and they need help we’ve got to be ready to take them.’
Charlie put his arm around Emily and felt her move closer to him.
‘Some of you may not know this, but today is a special day.’ He lifted his head to the crowd. ‘The camp is three months old today.’
The crowd started to clap. Emily and Charlie looked at each other and joined in. There were some cheers and shouts and the volume of the clapping increased.
‘Empathy. Compassion. Trust,’ said McAvennie, emphatically, his voice louder. ‘Yes?’
The crowd quietened and nodded their agreement. The low drone of the collective voice returned.
‘It’s been nearly eight months since this thing started, but we’re still here, you hear me? Remember the start of it? The panic?’ H
e waited for a long moment. ‘But the bad news is further apart now. Things are quietening down. Have you noticed that?’
Charlie whispered to Emily. ‘Is it?’
Emily shrugged.
Charlie watched how McAvennie looked at the crowd and how they looked back at him. He sensed something collective in them, like a spirit. There was a strange connection between everybody.
‘We can get through this,’ he said, emotion creeping into his voice. ‘If you just remember the triangle: empathy, compassion, trust. It won’t be long now. We just need to hold together. Together we’re bigger than we are on our own. The sum of our parts. We are kind and good and that’s all we need.’
There was something even awe-like in the faces of the crowd.
‘I for one am proud to be part of this. Just look at what we’ve achieved, and nobody hurt anyone in getting here. If we had believed what we had been told, we’d have all been hiding away in caves by now, terrified of each other, aye? But we didn’t believe it. It wasn’t true, was it? Because we’ve proved it.’
The hum of the crowd rose.
‘Am I right?’
The crowd chanted ‘Yes’ in unison.
The volume with which they said it made Charlie’s bones shake. There was something in McAvennie’s words, hidden between the vowels and pauses and inflections. The crowd behaving like this, like automatons, was sinister; the way they hung on his every word and the way in which he commanded them was not what Charlie was used to. A woman in front of him was crying. The tears shone on her cheeks in the orange light.
Emily whispered, ‘This is weird.’
‘The illness will stop one day,’ called McAvennie. ‘We just have to hold on. We need to keep our hope alive. Each and every one of us.’ The energy grew. ‘There is darkness –’
