The Exodus Plague | Book 2 | Imprisoned

by Collingbourne, Huw

  Sitting alone at an end table, which stood at a ninety-degree angle to the tables presided over by the three nurses, sat a doctor. The doctor was a woman of mature years. She was wearing a long white coat and had a stethoscope around her neck. She had the physique of a rugby-player and the face of a Roman general. Her grey hair was pulled back into a tight bun and her penetrating eye looked at each patient as though it was blessed with X-Ray vision.

  As Geoff arrived at her desk, the doctor stood, smiled and said, “You, young man, need to take more exercise.”

  “Ha! That’s a joke! I’ve been bloody slaving away like a bloody slave.”

  “That would be logical, were it true. However for a man of your age, you are already developing a paunch which is why I recommend that you follow this exercise regimen.” The doctor handed over a black-and-white leaflet which Geoff immediately folded up and put into the back pocket of his jeans without giving it another glance. By that time, Leila had arrived at the doctor’s desk. “Whatever advice you want to give me,” Leila said, “I don’t want to hear it so you may as well save your breath.”

  “Ah, you are the young woman who refused to provide a blood sample,” the doctor said, “A great shame. The more samples we have, the sooner our work will be done.”

  “And what work is that, exactly?” asked Jonathan who had just arrived at the desk munching a chocolate digestive biscuit.

  “Developing an antidote, of course. That is what this is all about.”

  “What what is all about?” said Jonathan, “The blood samples, you mean?”

  “What everything is about,” said the doctor, “Everything here at Camp Jollity. Has nobody explained that to you?”

  All three shook their heads. Geoff said something rude under his breath. Leila said something even ruder at the top of her voice, causing the three nurses to turn in her direction and tut disapprovingly before continuing with their work with needles, swabs and biscuits.

  “Ah, yes,” said the doctor, “It is the great work of our age. To develop a treatment. So that these poor people,” she indicated some of the apathetic red-eyes who were shuffling silently from nurse to nurse in the queue behind Jonathan, “can once again play their full part in society. In the rebuilding of society. Which is why it is such a pity when anyone refuses to provide a sample. Especially when anyone of, how can I put it, medical significance, refuses.”

  “I am of medical significance?” Leila said, “Why, my dear, that’s quite the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me.”

  “Facetious you may be,” said the doctor, “but it is quite true that you are rather special. There aren’t many of you.”

  “Last time I counted,” said Leila, “there was just one of me.”

  “Not many of you who have been infected and spontaneously, as it were, regained a good degree of physical and, to some extent, mental normality.”

  “To some extent? What the hell…!”

  “Now, now, don’t take exception. What I am saying is that we have discovered very few such people. And for all I know, you might hold the vital secret.”

  Matteo had shuffled along behind them by now and was staring, vacant and open-mouthed at the doctor.

  “You might hold the vital secret,” the doctor continued, “To restoring to some sense of normality those poor lost souls like Matteo. But if you refuse to help us – well…”

  The doctor smiled sweetly at Leila. Matteo glanced at her and he too smiled. The three nurses at their benches paused in their work to look across at Leila. The hints of smiles appeared to flit across even their cruel, vulpine faces.

  “So, my dear,” said the doctor, “perhaps now that you understand how important this is, to all of us, you might reconsider and consent to giving us a small sample of your blood?”

  Leila smiled too. “I’d rip your damned arms off sooner than I’d let you take a drop of my blood,” she said as she stalked out of the Jollity Grill.

  Escape Committee

  “It’s our best bet,” Geoff said, “We could all go on the cross country run and when the time is right we could make a break for it.”

  They were sitting in the Jollity Lounge Bar. It was already getting dark outside. Faded, multi-coloured Chinese lanterns hanging from the ceiling provided a dim illumination while small bottle-glass ship’s lanterns glimmered on the tables. Whoever had furnished the Jollity Lounge Bar hadn’t cared much about uniformity of design. The walls were draped in fishermen’s nets, dust-covered plastic palm trees stood in odd corners and the bar was decorated with horse brasses.

  “We’d never make it,” Jonathan said, “Sergeant Major ‘Crusher’ Edwards keeps his beady eye on all the runners. There’s another soldier that goes running too. They are both armed.

  “We’d need a diversion,” said Leila.

  “You could do a strip-tease,” Geoff giggled. Leila’s foot jabbed out sharply beneath the table and Geoff let out a shriek of pain. He also stopped giggling.

  “What sort of diversion do you have in mind?” Jonathan said.

  “Pretend one of us has collapsed. From heat exhaustion or something. They’d have to stop the running then. It would be chaos. And during the chaos…”

  “Wouldn’t work,” said Jonathan, “For one thing, Old Crusher wouldn’t care less if the whole bloody lot of us fell down and died. For another thing, there are soldiers who keep watch on the route. They’d arrest anyone who stopped. Maybe they’d just shoot them?”

  “I seen a film once,” said Geoff.

  “Get away! You amaze me,” said Leila.

  “Let me finish! It was a war film and they dug a tunnel. They started in their barracks, which was like the place where they was sleeping, a bit like the chalets here. They used spoons and stuff and they dug their way right under the fence.”

  “You may not have noticed,” said Leila, “But the floors of the chalets are made of concrete. If you can explain how to dig through concrete with a spoon, I’m all ears.”

  “Could we climb over the fence?” asked Jonathan.

  “The fences have got to be ten feet tall,” said Geoff, “with spikes on the top.”

  “What’s more, there are all those watch towers,” Leila added, “They’d be bound to see. And shooting a few escapees would probably be their idea of harmless fun.”

  “What about the lorries?” said Geoff.

  “What lorries?” asked Jonathan.

  “The ones that bring food in and stuff. You seen them. They come into the front gate. They go up to the kitchens and offload. Then they go out again.”

  “And…?”

  “We could be inside the lorries when they go out again.”

  “How would we do that?”

  “We could create a diversion.”

  Jonathan and Leila groaned.

  “We may have to admit it,” said Jonathan, “When it comes to escaping, we are not exactly in the Steve McQueen class.”

  “Who?” said Geoff. Leila hit him. “Hey! What’s that for?”

  “Mind if I join you?” It was Matteo.

  “Feel free,” said Jonathan.

  “You are still attempting to formulate an escape plan, I presume?”

  Leila eyed him suspiciously.

  “It’s OK,” Jonathan assured her, “Matteo and I had a bit of a chat while we were cross-country running. We can trust him.”

  “That may or may not be the case,” said Leila, “I was just wondering where all these fancy words were coming from. The last time I tried to have a conversation with Matteo, he responded in grunts of one syllable.”

  “Ah yes, that is true,” Matteo conceded, “I may have a little explaining to do.”

  “Let me get in some drinks,” said Jonathan. Apart from them, the Jollity Lounge Bar was deserted. The luxuriant shade of the plastic palm trees went unnoticed by the other campers who were, presumably, either sleeping off the hardships of the day in their bleak chalets or else enjoying whatever rib-tickling entertainments were on offer in th
e Jollity Theatre that night. “What will it be, Matteo?”

  It was a pointless question. Pink gins might be available to the officer classes but to the hoi polio, the only refreshment on offer was thin, warm lager. They decided to go for the lager. The fat, depressed-looking barman put the bill on Jonathan’s ‘tab’. Nobody ever explained how or when the bill would ever be paid off. And nobody ever asked.

  “You see, the thing is,” said Matteo, “You and I,” (here he looked pointedly at Leila) “are rather special to them. To the people in charge, I mean. The soldiers, the doctors and whoever they report to?”

  “Why us?”

  “People who were infected but who recovered. We appear to have something of value to them. But they don’t know what it is. The others, by which I mean most of the sad, shuffling imbeciles in this Camp, are expendable. We are not.”

  “I thought you were one of the shuffling imbeciles,” Leila said.

  “I am pleased my deception fooled you. I have come to the conclusion that it is altogether better, safer, to be just one of the crowd than to be someone special.”

  “Even though you would then be one of the expendables?”

  “Oh, especially for that reason. You see, being just a face in the crowd makes me anonymous. Being anonymous gives me the freedom to go to places and talk to people which you, my dear Leila, would not have. They keep an especially close eye on you. They do not on me.”

  “And why does that matter?”

  “Because it has given me the opportunity to devise an escape plan.”

  “An escape plan?” said Jonathan, “You have one?”

  “Oh, absolutely. The only question that remains is: do you want to be a part of it?”

  Whispers In The Dark

  “I can help you.” He’d been lounging on the other side of the perimeter railings just beyond the amusement park. “I know you are trying to get out. I can help.”

  It was the same young man that Jonathan had seen before. He was just as skinny and just as dirty as he had been then. He was unshaven and his long, dark hair hung limply like desiccated seaweed.

  It was a warm night. The breeze smelled of the sea. The sky was clear, almost moonless and filled with stars. Jonathan had strolled across the sports’ field, turned left and walked along the perimeter fence until, eventually, he had arrived in the desolate little funfair. He’d sauntered past the carousel looking at the sad, wooden horses. He’d glanced at the dodgem cars, lined up silently against the edge of their rink. He tried to imagine them filled with happy people holding sticks of bright pink candyfloss and toffee apples. He tried to hear the sounds of the guns in the shooting gallery, the hooting wails of the ghost train – the blaring music and noise of a seaside fairground on a warm summer’s night. He couldn’t do it. The place was as dead as a graveyard. He’d leant against the railings and he’d waited. And in a little while, he heard the man’s voice. He glanced around to check that it really was the same man he’d seen before. Having glanced, he turned away again as though to ignore him. Jonathan looked down at the ground and when he spoke it was as though he was speaking to himself. “Is it safe for you to be talking to me?”

  Jonathan recalled that on the previous occasion when the man had spoken to him through the bars, a soldier from one of the watchtowers had warned him away. Maybe this time, there wouldn’t be a warning?

  “Don’t worry about me,” said the man, “I know what I’m doing. See that watchtower over there?” He pointed to the nearest watchtower rising on the inside of the fence, just to the south of the amusement arcade. Jonathan glanced from the corner of his eye but he didn’t turn his head in case it attracted attention. “It’s the only one that has a view of where I’m standing. But there’s no one in it. Not now. There’s often no one in the towers. Sometimes the soldiers slope off for a quiet fag in one of the Blue Chalets. That’s the chalets over on the other side of the sports field. Separate from the chalets where the prisoners stay.”

  “Prisoners?” said Jonathan.

  The man smiled. “You lot. What do they call you? Campers? Guests? Patients? Doesn’t matter what they call you. You know what you are. Anyway, like I was saying, the watchtowers are often empty. They haven’t got enough soldiers to man them all, not all seven of them. Not twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Nobody likes doing tower duty anyway. So they slope off. They have a kip in the chalets. Or maybe they go to one of the bars for a few bevvies. They think no one notices. But I notice. I watch them. They think they are watching me. But all the time, I’m watching them.”

  He was right about the towers. There really was nobody in the watchtower that was supposed to be covering the fairground area. Most of the guests, the prisoners, were so dull-witted and slow that it was inconceivable that they’d be capable of mounting an escape plan. So the soldiers got lazy and sloppy.

  “Why do you watch them?” Jonathan asked. “Why’s it that important to you? You are on the outside after all. You are free to come and go as you please.”

  “I told you. I told you before. They got my friend in there.”

  “In the Camp? I don’t follow. If your friend’s in here why do you want to help me to escape? Why don’t you help your friend escape?”

  “He wouldn’t understand. Not after what they done to him.”

  “What did they do?”

  “They took his mind away. You’ve seen them. The prisoners. They’re like sheep. They go around in flocks, bleating and scared. They don’t think for themselves any more. That’s what they done to him.”

  Jonathan took a while to think about that. What the man was telling him was the direct opposite of what the doctor who’d taken their blood samples had said. The doctor said that the authorities were trying to help people suffering from the sickness. If they appeared to be unintelligent and apathetic that was a consequence of the infection. But now this man lounging against the outside of the railings was telling Jonathan that their apathy was not a result of the disease but of the treatment.

  “Why should I believe you?” Jonathan asked.

  “Believe me about what?”

  “Why should I believe that you want to help us escape? What’s in it for you?”

  “You can help my friend escape. You can bring him with you.”

  “Who is your friend?”

  “That doesn’t matter.”

  “Well, if I’m going to help him escape, you’ll have to tell me who he is at some time. It might as well be now.”

  “You probably don’t even know him. As far as you are concerned, he’s probably just one of the sheep. And sheep are all very much alike one another.”

  Jonathan visualised sheep lying in the blood-stained snow with their throats cut. It was a flashback to January in the aftermath of the Great Snow. He had gone searching for an old sheep farmer who had worked the fields close to where Jonathan had been living at the time. The old man had gone mad. He’d slit the throats of his sheep and then he’d slit his own throat.

  “No,” Jonathan said, “Sheep aren’t so much alike. Not if you know them. Who is your friend?”

  “You know Matteo?”

  “That’s your friend?”

  “No! No. But Matteo understands. He’s leading the resistance.”

  “What’s the resistance?”

  “Never mind that. Matteo told me I can trust you.”

  “How do you know Matteo?”

  “The same way I know you. Through the bars. I talked to him. He talked to me. He’s a clever chap.”

  “Yes, so it seems.”

  “Matteo knows my friend,” the man said as he began walking away from the fence, “You need to get out. As soon as possible. They’ve nearly finished the new Camp. Once you’re in there, there won’t be any going back.”

  “What new Camp? What are you talking about?”

  But the man was already too far off to hear Jonathan. Or if he did hear him, he pretended not to.

  Matteo

  It was breakfas
t time and they were sitting in the Dining Hall. Jonathan, Leila and Geoff had taken a table near one of the big, plate-glass windows. It gave them a good view of the sports field. The sun was shining, the sky was blue. Some clowns walked past, carrying balloons. One of the clowns looked in through the window as he passed, smiled broadly and waved a red-gloved hand at them. Geoff waved back.

  “Best not encourage the clowns, m’dears,” a female voice chuckled, “Worse than seagulls they are, especially once they get started with their custard pies. Now then, my lovelies, what will you gentlemen and lady be having for breakfast today? The kippers are good. Then again, the full English breakfast can’t be beaten, I always think.”

  The waitress standing alongside the table was a plump, smiling, red-cheeked woman. She was so unlike the stern-faced, vinegar-voiced woman who usually took their orders that for a moment Jonathan wondered if a practical joke was being played on them.

  Bobby sensed that something was amiss too. He crept out from beneath the table and stared up at the woman with his head cocked on one side.

  “What a lovely little doggie,” the woman said, and patted Bobby on the head. “Tell you what, m’dear, I’ll find an extra sausage for your doggie, shall I?”

  Just then, Matteo strolled across. “OK if I sit here?” he said.

  “Of course,” Leila said, pulling out an empty chair for him.

  “Morning, Brenda,” said Matteo.

  “Morning, Matty,” she replied, “Full English breakfast, is it?”

  “Please, Brenda. That would be lovely.”

  “What was all that about?” Leila asked when their breakfasts arrived and they were tucking into sausages, bacon, black puddings and fried mushrooms, “Morning, Brenda. Morning, Matty. You’re not normally on first-name terms with the waiting staff.”

  “She’s Sebastian’s aunty.”

  “And who,” said Jonathan, “is Sebastian? Pass the mustard, would you? Thanks.”

  “Well, that’s what I wanted to tell you about. Sebastian is going to help us escape.”

  “I thought the chap lurking outside the railings was going to help us escape. Oh…you mean he is…?”