James scratched his belly. ‘Tell me about it. It’s driving me nuts.’
*
‘What’s your name?’ a kid asked, as the line of dusty boys staggered back across the dirt towards the Blue accommodation block. The kid looked twelve, but was actually a year younger. He had a rugged build and a squished-up nose.
‘James.’
‘I’m Rat.’
James didn’t quite believe what he’d heard. ‘Did you say Rat?’
‘Well, my name’s Rathbone. But if you ever call me that I’ll kick you in the bollocks.’
James smiled, but he was also surprised: Survivors didn’t swear.
‘Cat got your tongue?’ Rat asked, apparently pleased to have shocked James.
‘I’m just knackered,’ James said, shrugging listlessly.
Rat nodded. ‘You did good. I’ve seen plenty of new arrivals keel over from the heat when they first get here.’
‘How long have you been here?’ James asked, when they reached the bottom of the metal staircase.
‘Just my whole life,’ Rat said.
He pulled the leather necklace from under his shirt. It had half a dozen beads on it, but he pointed to a gold one.
‘What’s that for?’ James asked.
Rat smiled. ‘It means I’m part of the royal family.’
‘Eh?’
‘Joel Regan saved the best ’til last: I’m his thirty-third and final kid.’
‘Cool.’
Rat shook his head, like James was an idiot. ‘What’s cool about it?’
James found himself lost for words again as they reached the entrance of the boys’ dorm. The lads were stripping off for a shower, but Rat stopped walking in the doorway.
‘Are you queer?’ Rat asked bluntly.
James shook his head. ‘No way.’
‘So you like girls?’
James smiled. ‘Yeah.’
‘Naked girls?’
‘They’re my favourite kind.’
‘Come on then,’ Rat grinned, tugging at James’ shirt.
James looked uncertain. ‘What are you doing?’
Rat tutted. ‘Don’t be a pussy. It’ll only take a minute and I swear, this will blow your tiny mind.’
James tried to work out what he should do. There was part of him that wanted to behave until he knew the lie of the land, but on the other hand Rat clearly wasn’t your average brainwashed Survivor brat. He might make a useful ally.
‘Go on then,’ James said. ‘We’re not gonna get in trouble, are we?’
‘Don’t be an idiot all your life, James. I’m gonna be standing right alongside you. I’ve done this a million times.’
James let Rat take him a few metres back along the corridor. He opened a door into a wiltingly hot room, which contained a huge water heater, with pipes and gauges running in all directions.
Rat whispered as he headed towards a table in the far corner, ‘Keep your voice down.’
He clambered on to a table and signalled James to follow. James stepped up and turned to the wall. There was a metal grille in front of his face, which Rat was already staring through. James put his eyes up to the holes and gasped.
‘Isn’t that awesome?’ Rat whispered.
James was looking into a steaming shower room, packed with the girls who lived in the dorm across the hall. They were laughing, shampooing their hair and rubbing soapy hands over themselves.
‘Oh,’ James grinned, as his mouth dropped open.
‘Told you it was worth it,’ Rat whispered.
‘Totally worth it, dude. I want to stay here for the rest of my life.’
There was so much female flesh on display, James couldn’t keep his eyeballs fixed in one place.
Suddenly, Rat smashed his hand against the grille and shouted out, ‘Perv alert!’
Before James knew what was going on, Rat had jumped off the table and was heading for the door. He’d unscrewed the grille in anticipation of the prank and it clattered down inside the shower, causing a flurry of screams and a mass exodus of girls.
James jumped off the table and lunged for the door. Rat had pulled it shut and as James grabbed the handle he heard the unmistakable sound of a key turning in the lock.
‘You butthole,’ James shouted, kicking the door hard. ‘Let me out of here. I’ll smash every bone in your body.’
James panicked as he looked around and realised that escape was impossible. A bunch of girls were shouting abuse from inside the shower room, ‘You’re gonna get punished for this, pervert.’
Thirty seconds later, someone was banging on the door. He recognised Georgie’s voice.
‘Open up this instant.’
She pounded again and James tutted at Georgie’s apparent lack of brainpower. ‘Do you think I’d lock myself in here?’
This triggered a pause in the noises coming through the door, before Georgie erupted into a bellow.
‘Rathbone Regan, get out here.’
When there was no reply, she shouted again. ‘Don’t make me come into that shower and drag you out.’
James heard a kerfuffle through the door. It sounded like Rat had been bundled out into the corridor by some of the other boys.
‘Was it him?’ Georgie demanded.
Normal kids wouldn’t have grassed, but Survivors are taught that the Devil will get them if they lie to a superior.
‘We saw Rat with the new kid, Miss.’
‘He came running into the shower half a minute ago.’
Rat started screaming at his roommates, ‘You snitch-assed motherf—’
‘Rathbone,’ Georgie shouted. ‘You’re in enough trouble. Do you want me to soap your tongue as well? Where is the key?’
Rat’s response to this demand was a giant raspberry, blown into the palms of both hands. ‘I don’t care what you do to me, fat-ass. You don’t own me.’
‘Miss, we’ve got the key,’ another boy said. ‘It was under Rat’s dirty shorts.’
The key turned. Georgie grabbed James by the collar of his shirt and shoved him up against the corridor wall. The floor was covered in puddles, where various dripping boys had scrambled in and out, but Rat was the only one left. His hair was foamed up with shampoo, and he wore nothing except a towel around his waist.
James shot Rat an angry look, before speaking to Georgie. ‘Miss, he tricked me into it.’
‘I know he tricked you,’ Georgie nodded. ‘I know he locked you in there, but look at the size of him. He didn’t put his arms around your waist and stand you on the table, did he?’
‘No, Miss,’ James said weakly.
‘I want you both to shower and wait downstairs for the service. You can expect to be severely punished.’
‘What about breakfast?’ Rat asked.
‘Tough.’
James stepped into the bedroom, which was muggy from the steam escaping the showers. The other boys were either in the final stages of getting dressed, or they’d already headed downstairs for breakfast.
‘Thanks for sticking up for me, guys,’ Rat shouted to nobody in particular, as he threw off the towel and stormed back into the shower to rinse his hair.
James ripped off his sweaty kit, before following Rat into the steaming shower area. They were the only lads left and Rat backed up to the far wall, looking scared.
‘I ought to slap the piss out of you,’ James said, pointing angrily as he grabbed a bottle of shampoo from a ledge.
‘I’m not scared of you,’ Rat said, but he looked less sure as James closed him down. He ended up with his back against the tiles and James’ chest a few centimetres from his face.
‘Go on, batter me,’ Rat said defiantly. ‘I don’t care. That cow wants you to and you won’t be the first.’
After lashing out and landing himself in trouble more times than he cared to count, James had recently become a master of turning the other cheek.
‘Why’d you play such a stupid, pointless trick on me?’
Rat tutted. ‘Beat me
up and get it over with, but don’t expect me to squirm in front of you.’
James didn’t know what to make of this kid. Was Rat some kind of Survivor rebel, or did he just have a screw loose?
‘What’s our punishment gonna be?’ James asked.
‘Oh, you’ll love it,’ Rat grinned, turning around and showing James his bum.
James recoiled as he looked at a mass of scabs and bruises, some of them still pretty fresh.
‘Are you kidding?’ James gasped, suddenly a lot more worried about the trouble he was in.
Rat shrugged. ‘They can paddle me all they like. I’m not gonna toe the line. Come to think of it, you’re not one either, are you?’
‘One what?’
Rat smiled. ‘You don’t really believe.’
‘How do you figure that?’ James asked nervously, as he lathered up his pit hair. ‘I took the oath. I’ve got the necklace.’
‘You might wear a necklace,’ Rat said, ‘but if you really believed, you never would have come into that boiler room to look at naked girls. And right now, you’d be telling me to repent and accept our punishment.’
‘Maybe I’m just easily led,’ James said.
Rat shook his head. ‘If you were dumb, I’d be sitting on the floor with a bloody nose right now.’
‘Don’t get too full of yourself, Rat. It might still happen.’
‘So how come you ended up here?’
James explained about Elliot getting stabbed and Ween covering it up as they stepped through to the bedroom and started towelling off.
‘I know him,’ Rat nodded. ‘We used to call him Elliot the Eel, ’cos he’s so slippery. Do you realise, you and your sister are the first new faces to come inside the Ark in three months?’
‘Yeah, the people in Brisbane said there’s a lot of construction work going on, or something.’
Rat smiled. ‘Have you seen any?’
James realised he hadn’t. ‘So what is going on?’
‘Joel Regan’s dying,’ Rat explained. ‘The Spider doesn’t want people outside the Ark finding out, because when my dad dies several billion tons of crap are gonna hit the fan.’
‘Why?’ James asked.
Rat was clearly getting a kick out of finding someone who wanted to hear what he had to say. ‘The whole Survivor religion is based on the idea that god asked Joel Regan to build an Ark and save humanity. But how can he save us when he’s dead?’
‘Yeah.’ James nodded thoughtfully. ‘I can see that’s tricky.’
‘On top of that, there’s a war raging over who takes control when he dies.’
‘Between who?’
‘My dad’s fourth wife, Susie, and my eldest sister, Eleanor – The Spider. Susie is sane, she doesn’t even wear a Survivor necklace. Eleanor’s lot are the opposite, they believe every word in the manual. They say that if my dad dies before the apocalypse, it’s a sign that the devil is winning. When he dies, they’re gonna freak.’
‘Like how?’
‘They think the devil is going to rise up from hell and try to kill them when my dad dies and they live in a fortress with guns, explosives and ammunition stashed in the basement. It’s not a healthy combination.’
James remembered that he was supposed to have fallen into the cult’s belief system. ‘But how can this be true? The Survivors’ Manual says …’
Rat burst out laughing. ‘Yeah right, James. Your Survivor beliefs are somewhere between paper thin and non-existent.’
‘That’s not true,’ James insisted unconvincingly, as he pulled on a pair of boxers.
He was worried. If an eleven-year-old could see through him, who else was going to?
‘Do you know, when my dad joined the Australian army, they gave him an IQ test and he scored one hundred and ninety-six. That basically means he’s a certified genius. They tested me and guess what I got?’
‘Low thirties?’ James grinned.
‘One-nine-seven,’ Rat said. ‘I’m the smartest kid you’re ever likely to meet, so don’t even try pulling the wool over my eyes.’
James couldn’t help smiling at the irony of this situation. ‘If you’re so clever, how come your butt looks like a rugby team used it for kicking practice?’
Rat shrugged. ‘People are always telling me I’m too smart for my own good.’
26. OUCH
Except when non-members were present, Survivors’ services were always single-sex affairs. James and Rat were taken into a large hall and made to lie face down on the wooden floor at the centre of the two circles, which contained all the girls in the boarding school. James didn’t know what to expect, but it was reassuring having Rat alongside him, because the smaller boy had been through this before and didn’t look too scared.
The service was taken by Georgie, whose instruments of choice were a harmonica and a twangy steel guitar. After the standard fifteen minutes of clapping, singing and chanting, Georgie’s voice took on a sombre tone:
‘The Ark is a place of godly purity. But to sin within the Ark is to invite devils into the holiest place on earth. Before we can forgive, such sin must be severely punished. The Devil must be beaten from the souls of the miscreants.’
Georgie gleefully slipped a wooden paddle out of her shorts and snapped her fingers. Two girls carried a school desk into the centre of the circles. James caught an awkward glance at Lauren as he was made to stand up.
A padded belt that fastened with Velcro was wrapped around James’ waist, to protect the base of his spine from injury, then the back of his shorts were tugged down, exposing his bum. A plastic bit was placed in the boys’ mouths to stop them biting their tongues and they were made to lean over the table.
‘It is the duty of those whose dignity was undermined by these perverted and lustful boys to step forward and offer punishment,’ Georgie said, bouncing on the balls of her bare feet.
James was alarmed as a dozen blue-socked girls stood up and formed a queue. There had only been seven or eight in the shower, but James was in no position to complain with a chunk of rubber jammed in his mouth.
‘The older boy is new to this Ark, one stroke each,’ Georgie said. ‘Rathbone is a persistent menace, give him three. Commence.’
James had his head dangling over the edge of the table, so he could only see an upside-down view of the girls’ trainers through the underside of the table. The first one stepped up and took the small paddle from Georgie. There was a sharp crack and the table rocked forwards on to its front legs as Rat took his first lick.
By the time he’d taken three, James could see tears in the corner of Rat’s eyes.
‘I forgive you, Rathbone,’ the blue-socked girl said as she stepped across to James.
James quaked with fear as he braced for the first lick. The force of the paddle made him jolt violently, but it hurt less than he’d feared.
‘I forgive you, James,’ the girl said tautly, as she stepped back and handed the paddle down the line.
James’ relief didn’t last long. The second hit hurt more than the first and each one after that grew more painful.
After the thirteenth girl took the final swing at James’ bare buttocks, Georgie hauled him off the table and snatched the bit from his mouth. As the girls filed out of the room to start morning lessons, James ripped off the padded belt and hitched up his shorts. He noticed that the wooden paddle on the ground beside him was spattered with blood, but James felt his bum and found nothing but one slightly bloody graze.
Then he stepped back and looked at Rat. The eleven-year-old had taken thirty-nine paddle strokes. He was struggling to find the strength to pull himself off the table and had streaks of blood trickling down his legs.
‘Stand up then, lad,’ Georgie said, sounding extremely pleased with herself. ‘We’ll beat the devils out of you yet, young Rathbone.’
Rat used the table to push himself up and James grabbed his arm to steady him. He wiped tears off his face and scowled defiantly at Georgie.
‘Didn?
??t hurt a bit,’ he said.
Georgie ignored him and stepped across to eyeball James.
‘So, new boy,’ she said, as she picked up the bloody paddle and waved it in James’ face. ‘That was a taste of what you can expect if you tempt devils into the Ark. I will demand absolute obedience from now on. Is that clear?’
‘Yes, Miss,’ James said, hardly able to conceal his sense of outrage.
A further glance at Rat’s bloody legs gave James an urge to pick up the paddle and give Georgie a taste of her own medicine. He had the strength, but he’d known there was a risk of physical punishment when he’d signed up for the mission and he wasn’t going to blow six weeks of work in one crazy outburst.
‘Riiiiight,’ Georgie said, twisting her face into an evil smirk. ‘Let’s have the pair of you off to the sweatbox.’
*
James guessed that something called a sweatbox wasn’t going to be an air-conditioned space filled with fluffy cushions, and he was spot on. Georgie frogmarched the two boys to a metal shed near the Ark’s concrete perimeter. The inside was three paces across, with a sand floor and two buckets. The one containing drinking water had a plastic beaker bobbing in it, while the other served as an emergency toilet.
James and Rat reluctantly stepped inside. There was no window, but the brilliant sunlight escaping through gaps in the metal was enough to see by.
‘Contemplate your sins,’ Georgie said severely.
The metal door clattered shut before it was secured with two sliding bolts. James panicked as the searingly hot air reached into his lungs.
Rat saw James was struggling and spoke firmly. ‘Calm down.’
‘I can’t breathe.’
‘Take little breaths until your lungs adjust to the heat,’ Rat said, as he rubbed James’ shoulder to reassure him. ‘You’ll be OK. Just don’t get too close to the metal: it’ll fry your skin.’
While James steadily took deeper breaths, Rat used his shoe to turn over the baking sand so that part of the floor was cool enough to sit on.
‘How long are we in here for?’ James asked.
‘Until school ends at one.’
‘That’s five hours,’ James gasped.
James copied Rat, turning over the baking dirt, before lying on his side so that his throbbing bum didn’t touch the floor. He remembered the tortures he’d been through in basic training and began thinking of the slogans they chanted: