Class Four: Those Who Survive (11 page)

Chapter Fourteen

The garage door slid down rusty runners; a sound like a hundred mice having prickly pears inserted roughly into a usually outbound-only orifice made the hair on the guards’ necks stand on end.

“Man, that was one mental day,” one said to the other. “How much longer is it until we attack?”

Guard number two sneezed. “Fucking dust. Not sure. Feels like forever right now though. Still, better to be doing this than what the other chapters are doing. You heard about the Reverend didn’t ya?”

Lackey number one nodded solemnly. “Yeah, man. That was all kinds of wrong. I heard they found his head still reciting chapter and verse from the Book of Ishtar.”

“His devotion is an example to us all, Brother, that much is true. Still, we keep his fire burning through the work we do now, the camps of the unrighteous that we cull, the heathens we bring to Rapture. Did She not say—”

A sound like a blocked vacuum cleaner gasped behind them. The two guards jumped and looked at the source, calming when they realised it was the penitent who had been interred in the cage that morning.

“Hey, Malky, this one’s still breathing, a regular Duracell bunny if ever I saw one,” guard number one said, the panic still in his voice.

Malky made his way round the side of the RV and looked at the man in the cage. He had lost a couple of fingers after passing out holding onto the frame. One of the undead groupies had managed to clamp down on the back swing and remove them clean from the joint between the middle and proximal phalanx. He had learnt then he’d better stay awake, or he would be eaten piece by piece.

The hulk surveyed the whimpering husk and looked down on the floor. “Perhaps he is still with us, because the person who put him in there this morning did not commence bleeding before we set off.” The guard gulped as the imposing figure loomed over him.

A pause followed which seemed to bookend the Palaeolithic and Neolithic time periods. “No matter. He will provide us with a distraction before we leave in the morning. Make sure the penitents are fed and that we are secure. We don’t want any visitors in the night.” Malky turned and headed into the gloom of the building.

“How many do we have?” a voice asked from the shadows.

Malky stopped and bowed. “Estimates are just over a hundred, your Grace. A few days in so far, it appears that we have not been as blessed as we had hoped.”

Devin manifested from the murk. “It matters not, we don’t want too many first off. It’s the second week where we will be going through the larger towns; we should attract quite the following then. Though sleeping in the vans with them outside will test the initiates resolve. As long as our Brothers have prepared the refuelling and safe zones, we have nothing to fear.”

Malky nodded in agreement. “Everything will be as you asked, of that I am sure.”

“Of course it will. They know the price of failure,” Devin replied succinctly. He regarded the two guards who were bowed in deference. “I also think it best that acolytes do not make assumptions as to the fate of the other chapters. Speculation and hearsay are the work of the unbelievers. These poisonous and seditious words will infect our harmony, do I make myself clear?”

The two guards saluted Devin with a hand to their chests. “Of course, your Grace. We meant no disrespect. We are Her children, and guided by your hand,” they stuttered between them.

Devin nodded and allowed them to return to their evening tasks. “Malky, a word if I may?”

“Your Grace?” Malky asked softly.

“The Apostle has signalled to our scouts that he is in place and knows when to strike. He has gone dark, we will soon be able to remove another feeble bastion of resistance,” Devin said fervently.

“That is excellent news indeed, your Grace. The snake is within their midst, coiled and ready to strike. It is truly a beautiful sight to see the heathens take the Apostle in as one of their own. Matched only by his blade being the first to be held against their throats,” Malky said whilst smiling.

“Indeed it is. Come, we need to rest. Ensure the acolytes have read chapters eight through to ten; it will gird them for the days ahead.”

May 14
th
2014

20:05

“No problem, Mr Davidson. Ms Webber has the doctor in with her at the moment, but you should be fine to go in,” the nurse said, pointing to the closed door barring access to Room Three. Mumbled voices could be heard beyond.

As he gained entry into the room, he caught the end of a sentence. “…orry Ms Webber, but we should be able to do an ultrasound in the next ten minutes or so. We’ve been having problems with the power in the last half hour—” the Doctor stopped as Francis entered, and raised his hands in apology.

Diane looked across and smiled. Though it broke a face which was red as a result of crying.

The doctor saw his opportunity and left the room in a hurry. Francis walked over to Diane and held her hand. “Got here as quickly as I could, baby. You should see the sky out there, it’s—”

His story was interrupted by his hand being crushed and a flood of tears. Diane pulled Francis into her and bawled, “Something’s wrong, Francis, I can feel it. It just doesn’t feel
right
.”

“Shhh, it’s okay baby, I’m here now, it’ll be okay,” he assured her, gently rubbing her back and kissing her forehead. “How doesn’t it feel right?” he asked softly, still trying to stem her crying with his soothing.

Diane looked up, sniffed back a chunk of spit and mucus and swallowed it, coughing after it went down. “When I was ha…having dinner, he was just going crazy, kicking out, almost thrashing about. You know how he likes listening to Crosses? Well, it just didn’t do anything. Even when I got here he was still flailing around. I must’ve been to the toilet five or six times. He’s playing havoc with my bladder.”

Francis pulled a tissue from a box next to the bed and passed it to Diane, who took it and blew into it with a noise akin to an elephant saying ‘hello, how are you today?’. “Thanks baby,” she said, wiping the dripping tissue across her nose.

“About five minutes ago, though, when the doctor came in, he just stopped. He’s not doing anything now. I’m
scared
Francis. Something has happened, I know it,” Diane whimpered.

Chapter Fifteen

“Are we nearly there yet?” Nathan whinged, his feet dragging along the sodden ground. Clumps of dead leaves and moss stuck to the toes of his trainers, leaving them looking like the prow of a Roman bireme.

Francis grunted and pushed on through the skeletal bushes. The buds of new life were just beginning to burst out of the finger-like ends. The going had been tough; they’d had to camp in the bough of an oak tree having failed to escape the clutches of night and nature the previous day.

“Not long now kid,” Francis muttered, almost willing the words to be true rather than having any actual belief in them. His stomach growled in rebellion at him. The past two weeks of canned fish and soft Ritz crackers were not providing the fuel needed to traverse the bleak, seemingly never-ending terrain.

Nathan grumbled under his breath, huffed, and continued to half walk and half slide through the mulch underfoot. “Do you miss her?” he asked. His breath formed a cloud in front of his ruddy face. Francis turned and looked down at him, causing the child to walk into the back of his legs.

“No idea who you’re talking about, kid,” he mumbled. A hand moved from its temporary home of armpit and rubbed his nose. A trail of snot glistened like a comet trail. Francis turned and plodded onwards, head down; branches scratched and pawed at his face, but he paid them no heed.

The boy galloped for a few steps to catch up. “You were talking about her in your sleep again last night. You mention her a lot more these days, never used to,” he said, matter of factly.

Francis plunged his hands back between his armpits, trying to hug the warmth into the fabric of his body.

“Was she like my mummy?” Nate asked softly. He had picked up a small stick and was poking it into small muddy hillocks as they clomped forwards. The mist hung like a thick pair of net curtains around them.

“I never knew your mother,” Francis sniffed. “Only spoke to her briefly, before, y’know, she turned. I can’t honestly say if she was like her.”

Nathan trotted forward to walk by the man’s side. “I get scared some days, Francis.”

Francis wilted slightly and looked down at the boy. “Scared of what, kid? I’m gonna look after you. Nothing is going to hurt you. I promise.”

The boy gave a toothy grin. “I know, that doesn’t scare me. I know you’ll always look after me.”

“Then what are you scared of, Nate?”

Nathan sighed and started to swish the stick into patches of rotting leaves. “That I’m going to forget her. Forget what she looks like, what she sounded like. When I go to sleep at night, I close my eyes really tight, so tight that they go all stingy sometimes. I lie there and I try to remember her face. She’s all hazy, like looking through this fog.”

Francis stopped and knelt down. “Hey kid, don’t worry, come here.” Nathan planted the stick into the ground like a flagless pole and sauntered across to the man.

“Close your eyes, Nate. Not too tight this time, okay. They closed? Not too tight?”

Nathan nodded wildly.

“Good, okay. I want you to think about your last birthday for me, okay? Think back to when all of this didn’t exist. You there?”

The nod was more subdued.

“Okay, kid. So what did you get for your last birthday?”

The boy’s eyes flickered under their lids, chasing the memory down like a cup trying to trap a rolling ball.

“I didn’t get my presents until after school. Mummy had to work late sometimes, and that meant my Grandad had to look after me in the morning. I got back from school, and went into the dining room. Mummy was there with my Auntie Sue, Uncle Ken, and my cousins, Karen and Brian. Nanny and Grandad were there, too. They were all stood around a table where there was a cake with candles all glowing.”

Francis placed his hands on Nathan’s bony shoulders. The contact made the boy shudder slightly, before relaxing; his eyes, still closed, lazily looked around the memory he was back in.

“They all sang happy birthday to me, and then said I had to blow out the candles and make a wish. Mummy lifted me up and stood me up on the chair, and I started crying. I don’t know why. Mummy hugged me and said ‘don’t cry, Nathan, for the wish you make today will come true, just keep it close and tell no one’. She smelt of cake and her skin felt so smooth and soft. I wiped the tears, made a wish and blew out the candles.” As he finished, Nathan opened his eyes as if waking up for the first time that day. They were red and welling up with water.

“Hey kid, don’t cry,” Francis pulled him in tight and held him. He felt the boy shudder against him; muffled words intermingled with heavy sniffs rocked his body.

“What was that, Nate?”

Nathan withdrew from the embrace and rubbed his tear-laced eyes. “It didn’t come true, my wish. I don’t want any of this. I want my mummy to still be here.”

“Kid, there is nothing I want more than for that to be the case, honest. But life now doesn’t work that way. Hell, I don’t even think it worked that way
before
all this happened. We’ve all lost someone, people so close to us that it hurts to think about them now. But we have to. We have to remember them. They are always alive as long as we remember them. Your mum, my Diane, it hurts like hell to think of them and that they’re not here anymore, but we have to, okay?” Francis hugged Nathan again. Little arms held onto the man.

The forest held its breath; the mist matched the mood and lifted a little. “Thank you, Francis,” Nathan said, before coughing up thick nasally phlegm. Francis nodded back in acknowledgement. “So her name was Diane?” the boy asked.

Francis smiled, just a crack. “Yes, her name was Diane, and she was my world, much like your mum was yours. I remember her. In my way. But some things are too painful to talk about, kid. You know what, I’ll make you a deal.”

“What’s that?” Nathan asked, wiping his tears with his coat sleeve.

“When I dream of her again, I’ll tell you what happened, okay? Some of it will be as difficult to hear as it is to say, but…” Francis reached into his pocket and pulled out a small crumpled packet of Polo mints, “by telling you, you can keep her alive too, in case anything happens to me, yeah?”

Nathan looked puzzled for a moment and then nodded. “You’re not going to leave me are you?”

“I’m sure as hell not planning on it kid, but the world is all messed up these days. You never know what you’re going to bump into next, eh?” Francis dropped a mint into the kid’s hand and chucked one into the abyss of his own mouth. “Come on, let’s get going.”

An hour or so later and the fog lifted its skirt to reveal the lip of the forest. Standing atop a small hill, the pair looked out over more forest opposite and a strange sight below.

“What’s that down there?” Nathan pointed to a Big Top sat in the crescent of a clearing; another long narrow tent ran off the back of it, disappearing into the woodland. A scattering of vehicles of various shapes and sizes were parked out front.

“Looks like a circus tent or something. Come on, let’s go have a look, but be on the lookout okay?” Francis cautioned.

The pair carefully picked their way down the muddy embankment. Roots jutted out, forming straggly handholds which made the descent manageable. They dusted themselves off at the bottom and made their way through the assortment of parked cars and vans. In front of the entrance was a once white minibus, sprayed with mud and detritus. From behind the van they could see a small plume of smoke being cast into the air.

A man, dressed in a red morning jacket, remarkably white trousers, a bow tie and black riding boots stood with his back to them, Francis moved the boy behind him and coughed. The man spun around as if he was on a roulette wheel.

His face was the colour of milky tea. A thin waxed moustache curled around his nostrils. At first glance it looked like it had been drawn on with a fat marker pen. His black hair was slicked to one side, his eyes wide with surprise, the man’s puckered mouth was clamped down on a cigarette.

Thin fingers extracted the cigarette, poise returned, and a wisp of smoke drifted from parted lips. “My, my, you gave me quite the fright,” the man enunciated. He placed the cigarette to his lips once more and inhaled deeply. The cherry flared angrily and ate into the remainder of the stick, stopping as it met the border to the filter. It was flicked away, sent cartwheeling through the air like a flare, before landing in a muddy puddle, a mini moat around one of the tent moorings.

A hand reached behind his back and pulled out a velvet disc the size of a plate. With well-practised alacrity, he bowed and the disc expanded into a top hat with a loud PUFF. With a showman’s deep bow, he donned the hat and stood up, one hand behind his back, the other straight forward, fingers splayed.

“Good day to you fair travellers. I bid thee welcome to this site of wonder and astonishment. Where you will witness such sights which you thought were never possible. Some have fainted as they crossed this very threshold, the mere thought of what lay beyond too much for their brains to comprehend. I give you…Trevor Norman’s Penny Gaff.” The man bent to one side, his arms displaying the entrance as if it were a giant, priceless vase.

“Erm, what now?” Francis asked. “Do you want money or something?”

The man sighed and sagged, disappointed. “No, good sir, money is of no use to man or beast these days. I provide entertainment and sustenance, for man cannot live on adventure alone, hmm?”

Nathan appeared from behind Francis’ sizeable frame. “Is it a circus?” The words squeaked out of him.

“Pah!” the man scoffed. He did a little shanty which brought him closer to the pair. Francis instinctively reached for the baton in the bag webbing.

“This is no circus, young man. Pray tell, have you ever seen…a man who lives as a scorpion? Hands ending in claws, a tail, which yields no poison, but arches over him in the same manner as the skittering desert insect?” The man bowed over again, one arm extended to the tent entrance, the other across his chest.

“Have your innocent eyes even seen a boy who looks like a shark, a denizen of the deep, yet lives on land and plays just as you?”

Nathan shook his head vigorously, his eyes bulging with wonder. “No sir…”

The man stood up, hands clasped behind him, one eyebrow raised in an upside down V. “Then please, come with me, enter my Gaff, see such sights as these, and
more
, for we are mere entertainers trying to do what we can in these days. There is such sadness now, so much sorrow. We try to bring only joy. Why, a party has just entered, the show is about to begin, come, come, we have room for two more. You won’t believe your eyes. I just need any weapons from your person…”

Francis stepped into the man’s personal space. “Listen, slim, we’re just passing through. We don’t want to see your freakshow, now just mo—”

The man shrieked, “FREAK SHOW? How dare you, sir. HOW DARE YOU! Those that dwell within are no freaks, they are wonders, nay, they are
marvels
, do not denigrate their existence with such vulgarities.”

“Woah, I don’t mean no offence, pal. Just we’re trying to get somewhere, and this isn’t helping.” Francis raised his hands in supplication. The man stroked out the ends of his moustache against his lip.

“But of course,” he simpered, “this interlude will not take you long, an hour at most. We have food and drink for when the show is over. Please, it’s all we have these days.”

The man turned around and his body started to fall and rise. Francis realised he was sobbing. “Hey, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. Why not, sure, if it won’t take long, we’d love to, hey kid?” Nathan nodded enthusiastically, gripping Francis’ sleeve.

“Wonderful!” The man spun around and wiped a bulbous tear from his cheek. “Come, come, this way. This is Goliath, please be gentle. He lost his twin brother a few months back and has been mute ever since.”

The man led them to a large flap which served as the entrance to the Big Top. A dwarf dressed as a clown held open one side. A chipped hand-painted enamel badge confirmed his identity as ‘GOLIATH’. Though he was stationary, his body leaned forward unnaturally, as if he was an extra in the Smooth Criminal video.

As Francis and Nathan were ushered in, it looked like the dwarf tried to make a move to grab them, but one hand was firmly affixed to the opening. His shirt collar was pulled up over the bottom half of his face. “Is he—” Francis spluttered as he was hauled inside.

“He’s fine. He will be, anyway. Just needs time to grieve. So many lost these days, eh? Come hither, the others will be eagerly waiting for the show to start. You won’t want to miss a single second,” the Ringmaster said smoothly, “I promise.”

“Others?” Francis asked. “What others?”

“Good sir, I have just returned from a recce of the local area in my van. Saving the unfortunate souls within who were travelling on foot, or too weary to carry on. I offered them the same as you: sustenance, both of the body and soul. Come, come, you’ll see that this is nothing more than altruism,” the Ringmaster said enthusiastically, cajoling them through a draped entranceway.

The interior smelt of mouldy canvas, wet grass, mud and eucalyptus oil. The gloom wrapped around them like fumes from a chain smoker’s living room.