Ectopia (21 page)

Runt stands behind him. The same polytext shirts have nothing to grip to on Runt. His is lime green and it sags. He's in shorts, his legs like pins. Go back Runt. Go back.

Runt turns. Now the gate's open I hear him shout.

- It's Bender. Soo's found Bender. He's in the house. He's waving to us. Come on. Quick.

In they come. They bunch at the gate, squeezing side by side, and burst in. Mulch Pint Roach Skel Furbo Zeb Melba Kes Jok Dome Rasp Skink Parch Ozie Mug Toast Saf Flint Scud Ant. They're dressed for the undertow, dressed for heat, bare feet stuck in old trainers, bare legs, bare arms, bare heads too, coz who gives a fuck about cancer from the sun and who gives a toss for headgear laws coz we're all dying the planet's dying and since we're dying let's die free with the wind of our running blowing on skin. They're dressed for the sun but not for flames. Dressed for heat but not for fire.

Furbo's bare chested. His shirt's in his hand, smeared with blood he's wiped from his mouth, the blood from the hit of Dad's rock, and the blood's now dripping to streak down his ribs, the mouth bleeding but grinning, his arms held wide, dancing a little circle dance of his trim buff body for Karen to see and to choose. He's made it. He's come for Karen. He's in the garden. He's on his way.

Kes leaps to the right and runs, his arms flapping, heading for the knives and bars and stones in the corner, re-arming for the ex-Dad wars.

Roach looks to the door then the window then the weapons then the tower, his legs going all ways at once but somehow forward.

Dome holds his bare hands toward me, the sun folding a shine of light round his head, smiling his simple smile.

Skink blinks, standing still on the edge, choosing his move.

Scud falls. He was charging the door. His feet are in the air somersaulting round his head. I see the trap that got him before he lands. The dull white of Dad's paving stones are sleeked brown. Dad's coated em with oil. The random mess of his paving, stones scattered round the front, has a purpose after all.

Pint's headed round a patch of barbed wire coils. His foot's found a stone. Another oiled stone. His arms reach forward like a low dive in water, his head set to scrape the dust.

A bottle arcs high from Dad's silver arm. It rises from his tower, glowing amber.

- Go Get out Go Go GO

I mouth the shout. Malik joins in. Our hands are up, we push the undertow back, we signal em back, but we're on the inside and they're on the out. I'm inside watching.

I look for flames from the bottle, a flaming bottle, but it's just a bottle. Mulch is in the group between the back trench and the front. He catches sight of the bottle and swipes it aside. It smashes on the bakehard dust, exploding in shards, its liquid splashing high.

A shard of bottle glass cuts into Furbo's leg. The liquid springs up and hits his chest. He wipes his left hand over it and smells. His face curls up. He hates this smell. He shouts.

- Whisky!

Furbo scoops up the bottle neck and shakes its zags at Dad

– Drek! Fucking drek! We'll zag you!

Furbo's body's coated like it's in a whisky sweat. He steps out, raising his foot to start the charge, him against ex-Dad, him and his trim buff newly flammable body ready to shake down the wooden tower.

Kes gets to the tower first. He snatches a knife from the ground and holds the blade between his teeth as he leaps for a high right handhold on Dad's ladder then flexes his arm to reach up with his left. He looks good. As Dad holds a bottle over his head and shakes whisky down into his face, Kes looks good. And as Dad swings the bottle round to connect with Kes's jaw, Kes looks perfect. His jaw clamps the blade tight in his mouth, his arms beat fast against the air, and he's backward flying. It's good.

I'm saying this with no more Kes but he did it. It's good I saw it and good to say it. Kes did it. Kes took flight.

He's in the air when bottles join him. Kes comes down to earth as bottles fly high. Dad has a case of twelve. His aim looks wild but it's good.

Kes thumps to the ground. He's light. He's made for flight not landing. His head twists to one side and he crumples. His body's still. The first bottle lands beyond him, in front of Furbo's charge.

Furbo swerves. Glass and whisky chase him.

Bottles explode, undertow scatters, the glass is nothing coz cuts only bleed and blood won't burn but whisky's different. Whisky sticks to the skin where flames will find it. A bottle spins round and smashes loud on the brick over the door as Scud thumps against the wood. Scud's now bruised and wet and flammable.

Ex-Dad's crouched on his platform. He flips the hood from off his back to silver over his head. He's looking out now through a reflective visor, looking at his hands. One bottle's left. It's between his knees, a rag stuffed into its neck. Dad reaches left to something I can't see but I know what it is. I know.

He's reaching for his lighter.

I'm frozen. Frozen inside the picture of all I'm seeing. The voice of Karen shakes me loose, yelling from the hole in the cellar door. Yelling at us to get down there.

- No, I yell.

I think I yell. The yell's so loud it sucks in the air and blasts round the house as a roar. It's like yelling can't stop things but only join in like the rattle in throats at death. I see Dad set his lighter to the rag that's stuffed into the end of his final bottle. I see the light catch hold and the bottle whirl in his arm before sailing its flame towards the front of the house. I hear it land against the brick and scatter its liquid fire.

A moment. Teensquad had one moment. Turn for the gate and some would have made it. But they stare. I don't blame em. Skies don't collapse every fucking day. This is too good. The air thumps down from the sky to suck at the trench then blasts back as a roar. Flames are yellow and orange and blue but first it seems they're white. The blast is white. It shoots in white above the house and then the faces turn.

Some turn just a fraction to the right and some turn to the left. They're watching the white of flame. It shoots wide just as it shoots high, speeding from the front garden along the trench and round to the back. The kerosene was liquid fuming on plastic. Now it rises from the trench as a wall.

Dad's planted a wall round the house. The faces go white as the flames rush toward em. Ant knows what it is. Death's coming. Fuck off death. He spins around to head for the gate. Spinning's easy. His foot's on a stone that's coated with oil. His feet run behind him as his body tips forward.

The wall closes. White flames collide outside my window. They bulge against the house. The plate glass cracks. Four lines zig from the corners. Heat and light turn all things white. My eyes are burned but still I see. I see the future as it happens.

Ant reaches down to break his fall. He runs with his hands as well as his feet, scuttling clear, making for the gate. The feet jump forward with the fire at their soles. The fire jumps too. It crosses the dust from where Ant was then leaps ahead to meet him where he's going. He can't shout but I hear his head. It explodes above the outer trench, snatched up in the blast. Its blood and tissue go like a volcano, upward stream of liquid fire.

Dad's stepping down his ladder. The flames turn orange round the ladder's wood. His boot falls through the charcoal of the last two rungs but he stands on landing. His suit won't burn but the earth's hot. He lifts one boot up then the other, jumping into quicktime spotrunning. His silver turns gold coz the suit reflects fire. He wants to stick around. I know that though his face is just flame in the mirror of his mask. He wants to watch us burn but his body says breathe.

Two steps take him to the outer trench of flame and he leaps it. He crashes through the fire of fence and is gone. He's out on the streets to earth that won't melt. He's running for air that won't scorch lungs. The fucker's still breathing.

Dome breathes too. Flames lick high from the whisky splashes stuck to his back, blue and yellow flames like wings. His jaw lets loose his final breath. It burns from his mouth like a tongue of flame and is gone. All air is gone. There's nothing to breathe but fire. Dome's body drops as heavy liquid to coat the dust in tar. Toast plucks the flames from his face. His fingers sink in past cheekbones. I catch a smile on Mug as the fire licks his face into shape. Then the face and the smile are gone. Pint and Flint run against each other. Their arms fold round like they're a dancing couple. Their bodies melt and fuse. Scud charges at the house and hits the door. His body's a ram, a battering ram, a flaming battering ram. The door holds though flames pass through it. Scud's legs kick as he burns down to carbon. Ozie must have farted. Flames rocket the ground from out his ass then shoot up to take him as fuel. Furbo's olive skin goes darker, darker, olive turning oil. Parch's skin goes white red black gone. Skel goes up like a wooden stake, arms stretched like a cross. Runt flares, those matchstick legs pumping up a wind but there's no wind coz there's no air only blast. Looks like Soo had fat in him. His skin bubbles and spits. Mulch slaps at the craters on Soo's skin while bubbling himself. Jok's black hair, Melba's blonde, both turn to ginger as they stand side by side. Their hands make fists and they both stand still. They make beautiful fires. Roach's left leg catches fire before his right one, and then the right one catches up. Zeb sits and folds his head inside his arms. Flames fold a ball around him. Saf opens his mouth, shaping a word, some dark round hissing word. His fingers point high like birthday candles. Rasp jumps through the trench and presses his nose against the window. His face slips a smear down the melting glass. The smear is red and smokes to black.

That's it.

 

- Shut the fuck up, Bender.

- Malik. Where are you?

- I'm here. Open your eyes.

- They're open. It's bright. So bright. I can't see. Only light. White light.

- Open your eyes.

- Karen? Is that Karen?

- Yes. Put down the voicecard and open your eyes.

- I've got to see. I've got to tell it. See it and tell it as it happens. It's all gone if I don't see it, don't tell it. Dad's gone. They'll say it didn't happen but I saw it. I saw it.

- It's over, Bender. It's over. You're in the cellar. We dragged you down. Karen took care of you while I slotted bricks into the gap in the cellar door. You passed out. Then you came round. You've been babbling since. Just shut the fuck up, Bender. Shut the fuck up and open your eyes.

- What do you mean open my eyes? They're open. It's bright. Too bright.

- I'm Karen. It's OK. You're safe. I'm here. Malik's here. Paul's here. We've got you safe. I'm going to bathe your eyes. Keep em closed and I'll bathe em with warm water. We haven't got cold we've only warm from a bucket but it'll do. Then you can open em. You'll see where you are. You've said enough, Steven. Just go quiet. I'll bathe your eyes, and then you can take a look around.

- He got away. Dad got away. The fucker had it planned. He sucked us all in then put on that silver suit and walked out through the flames. I saw it. I saw it all. I saw it so I'll get him. He thinks he …

- Shhh. Here. I'm bathing your eyes. Go quiet, Steven. You've said enough. Let's have some quiet. Stop recording. I'm turning your voicecard off. Come on, give it here. Let go. Let me have it.

 

The light in the room's dull orange and even. It doesn't dance through shadows the way candlelight does. The bricks in the walls each give off a glow. I look up and make out the cracks in the ceiling. Heavy beats thump across the floor above. Maybe it's just timbers falling. The cracks shoot forward through the plaster and widen. Flashes of bright orange shine through em. I turn my head to look across the floor. Paul's in his pajamas lying on his mattress. His body's flat but I watch his right hand. Its fingers are arched and tapping.

- He's working a keyboard, I say.

Karen rolls across and checks his face. She looks close.

- His eyes are doing their thing too, she says – All those tiny shifts and dilations they made in front of the screen.

She waves a hand in front of his face.

- He's not here, Steven. He doesn't see me. He doesn't know where he is. You know what he's doing? He's watching some re-run of an old program. His head's still in front of that computer, jazzing up his scores.

- Better there than here, Malik says. Malik's never been so hot on living the now. Now's fucked, he often says. Anywhere but here he says. It's one of his mantras. It's what keeps him running.

Maybe he's right. I close my eyes and give it a go.

I dream up a blue sky. Plant a branch across it and coat it with green leaves. Have the leaves dapple the sunlight so I get both brightness and shade. Try for the touch of cool breeze, some scent of living flowers.

Maybe that's how I'll go when I die, snatching up scraps of nature like this, kidding myself that life was worth living. Maybe I'll give in at the close like everyone else and end on a lie. Right now orange light burns slivers of moons below my eyelids. My lungs are made of black cracked leather and pumping and hurting and gasping. My face was a shell that's opened and now it's burning to the bone.

Karen screams. She used to go ultrasonic as a kid, screams so sharp and high they scratched patterns in the plaster over her bed. Where I was a runner she was a screamer. I ran the streets, she pierced the neighborhood with screams.

Then she stopped.

She's been storing this scream up for years. It belts out of her like she can use it to blow the heat away. I think she's looking at me. Think her scream is a measure of what I look like now with my face burnt off.