The Dead Boy (25 page)

            'Tickles,'
said Wayland.

            'Jesus
fucking Christ, man. That reeks. Fuck...don't eat that. You'll die like him.
Look at him.'

            The
man's friend, named Don Wood, gagged at the smell of Wayland's rotten flesh,
the smell of the pus that soaked his trouser.

            Matt
nodded. The stench was sickening.

            'Fuck
it. You're right. I'd rather die hungry.'

            'Better,
Matt. Got to be better than...' the man Don, who'd once had a wife and two
children and a vicious little terrier waiting for him after each trip, waved
his hand at Wayland's ruined body. 'Die right, Matt. Don't die some kind of
cunt.'

            Matt's
head dropped. 'I'm just so fucking hungry,' he said.

            'Me,
too,' said Wayland.

            Matt
laid the knife against Wayland's throat, and the old man grunted as Matt cried
and slipped the knife through his throat. Then, he gurgled, still clinging to
life. Wayland's blood stank of rot, just like the rest of him.

            The
men watched. The man on the work surface sounded like he was trying to say
something.

            Whatever
it was, Matt and Don watched the man die, grateful at the last when that awful
burbling monologue ended.

            Don
moved to hold his friend, but Matt held up a hand not holding the knife, palm
out.

            'Don't,
mate. Don't.' said Matt. Don's friend for near enough eight years, he had such
a terrible, hollow look in his eyes.    

            'Matt...'

            Matt
shook his head, then plunged the knife he'd used on Wayland through his own
scrawny neck.

            'Ah,
fuck, Matt,' said Don.

            He
sat right where he was on the kitchen floor and cried until he had nothing but
snot left in the tank. He sniffed and snivelled for a while longer, then he
dragged the bodies topside, one at a time, where he heaved them over the side
to sink deep beneath the grey waves.

           
Grey,
like everything left.

            Don
staggered on slow, tired legs back below. He touched a picture on the wall, then
took a quarter bottle of whiskey from the locker beneath his bunk. He left his
thick yellow slicker and his undercoat behind. Then, he drank the last of the
whisky on the deck in the freezing storm and wished he could see his family
again.

           
Even
my shit dog
, he thought.

            He
sat until he didn't feel the hunger any longer.

*

Eleanor
walked. Snow and ice hung from the wires in the sky above her head. The ground,
whether road or field, deep in snow or frozen but barren, was always hard
going. The towns she passed were silent, dead things. Often, she didn't know it
was a town until she was deep inside the boundaries. She could barely see fifty
yards ahead.

            She
didn't stop. She couldn't.

            Along
the way she found food, frozen, which she part-thawed in the warmth of her
coats. She wore goggles over her eyes, not for glare, for there was none, but
to protect them against the temperature. At night, she sought shelter. To walk
utterly blind would be idiocy.

            After
she killed the man in the factory or warehouse, whatever it had been, she was
more cautious. She killed others, but only when given no choice at all. And, as
she took each new step, words returned. Muffled, beneath a scarf over her face
and a balaclava that saved her face from being bitten by the cold, she mouthed
the words, tried out the shape of the names of things.

            'Cold.
Snow. Telegraph Pole. Car, burned. Car, buried. Road. Body. Leg, no body.
Alone. One. Walk. Tired.'

            Inside,
sheltered for the night, she would roam dead people's houses, nothing to listen
to but the endless wind and the sound of her own voice.

            'Stairs,'
she would say, just to be haunted by something other than the ghosts in the
wind. 'Carpet. Cooker. Window. Wood. Cabinet. Wooden cabinet. Drawers...cupboards...glass
and glasses and tap and sink and...'

            In
her sleep, in tents made of ice-crusted bed sheets and quilts, never lighting a
light lest someone kill her while she slept, to eat or steal, she continued
learning all through the night. Softly, in her sleep, she would speak words she
remembered, or words
US
taught her, or sometimes just repeat remembered
conversations that drifted through her dreams. Many nights she screamed and
kicked her way back to waking. But as time moved on, Eleanor screamed less. She
got better at sleeping, and better at surviving, too.

            January
the first was the coldest day she'd ever known, and it made her risk fire. She
found firelighters, stinking of a fuel that promised heat, and a wood-burner, a
basket of wood. She had three lighters hidden in the depths of her coats now.
It only took one lighter, but all of the firelighters to get the flames
burning. It was glorious. She stared at the fire the whole night, ate a tin
heated on the metal top of the burner, the tin and paper label blackening while
the food inside thawed, warmed, then bubbled.

            Something
like minced beef, in gravy, and the single greatest thing she had ever eaten
her whole life. She cried.

            She
fell asleep in front of the fire. When she woke, it was dark. She touched the
metal, ticking quickly as it cooled. She took the memory of that fading warmth
on the road with her.

*

Maybe
it was the memory of warmth that did it.

            When
the roads were no more, entirely lost beneath ice and snow, she headed straight
on, unerringly toward the edge of the island. She had no destination in mind,
but to walk, to achieve something, to see an end to her pointless task. But she
did not give in, nor stop and sit in the snow and freeze like so many others.
Occasionally she passed an iced form, laying or sometimes simply sitting. They
must have been tired, she thought, those people who had died and could not even
find the energy to lay still in the comforting blanket of snow.

            Whenever
she found herself thinking how nice it would be to rest under the white sheets,
to stretch her aching legs and wriggle her toes under crisp cotton, she didn't
give in. She walked harder, faster, until she could find shelter and rest and
not die.

            Not
dying, though, was not her goal. It was too close, too immediate. To move, she
needed something further away to aim for, and that was the coast. She knew that
when she got there, she would go no further, but that didn't matter. What
mattered was reaching the end, looking ahead, rather than down at her feet. So
doing, when the roads became hidden, she created her own road, one that she
could see in her mind. It was not white, like snow, or black like a road that
cars might travel. Her road wasn't lit by cats' eyes, or artificially glowing
lamps set high on concrete poles. Her road was a summer thing, of the
countryside. A dirt road, the weeds at the side high and running along the
middle. A single lane track, hard from the sun she imagined shining down. The
sun was warm, the air still and hot and insects and birds made the song she
walked through. Butterflies flew, sometimes, silent. Partridge clucked,
startled, and bounced across the road, or pheasant that ran back and forth,
idiotic but wonderful there in her memory and her imagination.

            Sometimes
the real road wavered, over streams, river, around burned, stinking cities and
down meandering streets through old towns. Her path was always there, in her
head, though, and for her it was far more real than the battered, frozen
landscape all around.

            She
did not know it was January when her foot hit sluggish water that carried on
and on, far into the murk that hid the distance (sometimes, when a blizzard
hit, she could see nothing at all). She frowned, wondering for an instant if
this was a river, or some lake. But it shifted, back, forth. Like waves.

            She
squatted, pulling the scarf and balaclava free for long enough that the tang of
briny, salted water hit her freezing nostrils. She put them back on, and closed
her eyes.

            But
the path didn't go. The things she saw in her mind merely grew brighter.

            So
easy. So easy to step out into the sea and walk until she felt nothing. Until
she ended, like everyone else on the planet, perhaps.

            Maybe,
though, it was the memory of warmth that made that path so solid and real. She
shrugged, the gesture lost beneath the many coats that kept her living.

            And
she was, wasn't she? She was alive. Still. Not just a dead thing come back to
life any longer, a soulless shell, wandering blindly. She was...

            Mortal.

            Human.

            At
that thought, the road seemed to shift from her imagination and become real
enough that she could feel it beneath her feet. Then, in that moment, a look of
wonder flitted within her swathed face, a brightening in her eyes that she
thought was gone forever. Up ahead, on the path in her mind, there was a young
boy. Distant, still, but he held up a hand and she imagined squinting against
the glare of the sun. Was he waving?

            She
thought he was. She thought, too, that maybe she recognised the boy.

            'George?'
she asked, and when she said his name, Eleanor Farnham remembered her son, and
why
US
called her Mother.

*

XX.

The Last Flight

Men
and women aren't creatures divided into the dark, or the light. Each has a
monster inside them, each has a saint.

            When
those that remained on the rig in the North Sea began to work on getting the
helicopter running, it could have gone either way. They could have bickered,
fought, plotted to kill George, throw Edgar into the sea, perhaps keep Francis
to themselves as some kind of toy, something to take the sting from the cold
for a while until they all died anyway. They could have easily overpowered John
Wake when the decision to fly was made. They could have taken the helicopter
instead, and forced him to fly them to France, or England. But they did not.
Sometimes, when human beings know death approaches and know it is a death they
cannot fight, they can be heroes. Men who look into Death's hollow eyes and
stand just that bit taller.

            Few
things polarise human spirit so well as death.

            The
riggers worked. They grumbled about the work. Two men died in one day, braving
a terrifying squall that brought the heaviest snow any of them had seen in
their lives. The two men, one a blunt, short man from Lancashire, the other a
Brazilian geologist more used to boats that studied soundings on the seabed,
were both swept into the sea and no one saw them fall away.

            When
the helicopter gamely sputtered it last, and landed Francis and her two
companions on the rig, John Wake entertained no hope of ever flying again. For
a while he cursed himself for abandoning his chopper to the elements, but they
were all resourceful people, all made more so by necessity. They built a
rudimentary shelter around the chopper, a clever thing that could stand the
wind, but needed it, too - when they were ready to fly and finally released the
bolts on the shelter, the roof and one metal side would simply be blown free.

            It
would probably fly further than the chopper itself, but Wake tried not to think
about that. Mostly, he succeeded.

            On
the day they began work, Bors, now with a beard to match his frame, took Wake
to one side, to a room with photographs on the wall. He pointed at one
photograph in particular.

            'The
fact you made it here was a miracle. When we knew the end really was happening,
the company put on three flights a day. Mostly, people left. On this, though,'
he said, meaning the larger helicopter in the picture - far larger than the one
which Wake was accustomed to piloting. It looked like a mini-bus. A thing build
for purpose, fitted for rough conditions. Wake's chopper was commercial, for
sight-seeing, and short hops at that.

            He
understood well enough.

            'We
do it because we have no choice, Mr. Bors. We're dead anyway, right? Might as
well try for something amazing.'

            'This
I understand,' said the man. He stood a foot taller, and probably outweighed the
pilot by thirty or forty pounds.   

            'Can
you help? Give us a better chance?'

            Bors
shrugged. 'It's dangerous enough in one of these big choppers. I don't know how
often they crash. Maybe ten, in a bad year...I don't know. The men and pilots
wear dry suits. These things have two engines...your chopper has just one.'

            'Yes.'

            'These
have floats, too. The land, they roll over in the sea...like...' Bors didn't
have the word, but Wake did.

            'Capsize?'

            'Yes.
Then you are upside down. The water freezes you, and you are confused and
upside down. You understand this?'

            'Dangerous,'
said Wake.

            'Yes.
You would die.'

            'Cheers,'
said Wake without rancour. Bors smiled.

            'But
your helicopter will not...
capsize
. It will simply sink.'

            'You're
a ray of sunshine.'

            'Thank
you. But...your chopper, it is like a car in water, I think. Water will enter,
if your tiny helicopter snaps. If you do not die in the first second. Men snap,
too, when the chopper hits - their backs or legs. Spine goes
crack
. Far
out from shore? No. The cold will kill you and then you'll drown, too. About
three times dead,' Bors shrugged. 'Death flying in this weather.'

            The
pilot shrugged, too. 'We die...we die. It isn't a thing we can just
not
do. The kid wants to go. You know what? I want to, too. I'm not built to sit
still, Bors.'

            'Then,
listen. If a thousand things happen or don't happen, you must get out...but you
will not be able to. The pressure?'

            The
water would push against the windows and the doors, holding them shut, all the
while the chopper would be sinking in freezing water. Even if they still lived,
they would not make it to the surface. They would be confused, perhaps upside
down, in heavy, frozen seas.

            Wake
understood.

            Bors
took something from his coat and passed it to Wake. 'The other men...they do
not know I took this. We have small security on a rig, but hard men. I took
this before the last men left, before they emptied the gun locker.'

            Wake
took the small automatic pistol Bors held out to him.

            'Loaded?'

            'Of
course. You shoot out the windows. Small hole, perhaps...the glass is not like glass,
you know?'

            'Sure...I...'

            'You,
Francis, Edgar...you will have to kick. There are emergency handles on your
helicopter. These you will you have to fight. When the cold hits, even if you
can get out...you will need to fight
more
. You must want to live.'

            'Bors,
seriously...thanks for the pep talk. Thanks.'

            Bors
laughed, a booming thing from deep within his broad chest. 'I
am
helpful.'

            'You
are. Thank you.'

            John
Wake thought back on his conversation with Bors. He'd taped the pistol beneath
his seat so it was easy enough to get.

            Because
Bors was right.

            They
were coming down. It was just a matter of when...out to sea, they would die for
sure. On land, they'd probably die, but might stand a chance if he could manage
to not break all their spines. Shallow water, they'd hit with a fair bang and
then the cold would kill them.

            Either
way...he put their chances at around 1%.

            The
day he and Bors spoke the intakes were clogged, oil and engine frozen, seized
up. The rotors sported beards of ice.

           
It's
an old man,
thought Wake, bundled into three coats and still freezing.

            By
the end of December, it was past its best, certainly. A man in his middle age,
one that felt his years but thought he was still twenty. A man who knew he'd
die...but not today.             On the day of the last flight, John rose long
before his passengers and went outside, through the storm. In the metal
shelter, while the wind raged outside, the pilot lay his hand against the chill
metal plates.

            'You
die today. You know that? You die, but you lived well. Make it there, you hear
me? One last time. Carry us home.'

            He
wasn't sure if he was talking to the chopper or himself. Maybe it was both.

*

Edgar
turned in his sleep. The bed was more narrow than his memory, but it was
because Sarah was on his side on the bed. She always was. He opened his eyes
and turned toward her, to move her knee from the small of his back. But she
wouldn't move, even with his hand pushing at her. Her knee was cold, cold
enough to wonder if she'd forgotten her hot water bottle. She often did, then
snuggled into him. He was always warm. He shoved, this time, smiling. She slept
heavy, she always did.

            'Jesus,
Sarah, shift over, would you?'

            She
turned then, smiling. He could see her perfectly well, because it seemed they'd
slept past sunrise. It didn't feel late, but early still. That bright,
early-hour sunshine of summer. Their bedroom was hot, boiling, bright. Her
smile was genuine, though, and something stirred in him that seemed to stir
slightly less often in his fifties, but he was fifty, wasn't he? Not dead. He
could feel that gentle push of a slow hard-on growing against his pyjamas.

            'Morning,'
he smiled at her, in that way men have with their wives, that special smile
when they wake up just right and they've got a little time before work, or
maybe when their kids are downstairs or still sound asleep. Their breath would
smell, but he'd push his head into her shoulder, and she would do the same with
him.

            'Edgar.
Soon, now. It will be soon.'

            His
wife kissed him, and Edgar woke with the memory of cold lips on his. Then he
remembered the helicopter, and knew what the dream meant.

            It
was just fine by him. The boy sought him out. He knew why, ever since the first
day they met. Not because George needed him, but because Francis did.

            For
a nine year old boy, George was pretty damn smart.

            He
looked across at George. Francis was still asleep. George's eyes peered back at
Edgar in the dim light.

            'Will
you look after her, George?'

            George
nodded, then he beckoned Edgar to him. Edgar laid his good hand on the bed, and
George put his own, smaller hand, on top.

           
Always.

            'Then,
I think I'm good to go.'

           
You
don't have to. You could stay.

            Edgar
smiled sadly, and shook his head.

            'I
see things, like a sixth sense, maybe. I'm not like you, George. Or him. I'm
just...'

           
I
don't know everything, Edgar,
said George.
The voice in my head? It's
older than me. I think it is me, Edgar. I've been thinking about it. All the
time, I think about everything. About him, about me, about why me, what I
should do. But most of it, doesn't matter how hard I think - I don't understand.
I think that older voice is me, talking to myself. Like an older man, telling
his younger self all the things he wished he'd known?

            'I
think that's a good wish to come true,' said Edgar.

           
But
I'm nine. I don't get it. But I do know you needed saving, and so did Francis.
Maybe that was enough?

            Edgar
leaned in and kissed George's cheek.

            'That
sounds quite noble, my friend. And I won't stay. This way's better. To the end.
And you know what? I know something even you don't know. Your mother's proud of
you, George. When she sees how good you are, she'll cry, George. Trust me.
While you're busy saving everyone else...maybe
she'll
save
you
.'

            George
squeezed Edgar's hand hard. Edgar squeezed back. 'Goodbyes aren't so bad,
George.'

            He
let go, then reached down to the bunk below and not too gently shook Francis
awake.

            'Time's
wasting, young lady.'

            'Fuck
off,' she moaned, half-asleep still. Edgar and George shared a smile. Edgar
figured there were worse ways to say goodbye.

*

The
seven men who would stay, waiting for death in whatever form it chose did not
complain. They didn't cry, didn't plead. Francis waited for one to snatch them
back, to drive a knife into one or all, insane and wild with iron and steel.

            But
that was the roads she'd travelled. This was the sea.

            She
didn't want to hug the seven men who remained, but she didn't want to simply
walk across the ice to the chopper without something.

            Everyone
stank. Every face was bearded, now, but for herself and George. George stood
beside her. Tears pooled in his eyes, but he was nine. She was an adult.

           
A
killer.

            She
wished her emotions were as easy and close to hand as George's.

            So
she went to each in turn with nothing but a kiss to offer. Then, she followed
Edgar and Wake across the slick surface of the rig to the chopper, holding
George tight and tied to him, too. She would not lose him now.

            No
one looked back.