‘Waggers was screaming for help and Roy couldn’t do anything because he didn’t have his gun with him. It was next to me. So I shot Tomasz. Roy had taught me how to use the gun. Wasn’t such a clean death. Not military-style at all. Took four shots, but I put him down. Waggers was quite badly hurt. I helped Roy to patch him up and bandage him, but I think his wounds weakened his immune system. He got bad real quick after that and Roy smothered him in his sleep with a pillow.
‘So now it was just me and Roy. As I said, he was my favourite. Roy Peachy. I liked that name. He was big and a bit fat, with a great red beard and a rolling, booming voice. Before his wound he must have been a really physical guy, crashing and roaring around like a bear. Now he was just a wounded bear. He reminded me of Brian Blessed.’
‘Who?’
‘Never mind. Doesn’t matter. But he was fun, and funny, and he was the one who looked after me the most, even though he had this horrible wound that wouldn’t heal. Right in his … well, his groin. He held out for a lot longer than the others. I’d help him to the river. That seemed to keep him going. Something to do. A bit like you helping me along. Under one arm, him hopping and shouting out with the pain.
‘It was late autumn. Winter was coming and he fussed all over me, telling me how hard it was going to be and making sure I was prepared. I had to do everything now, which was a good way of learning. I slaughtered the pig. I couldn’t feed it through the winter, but it could feed me. That was how Roy put it. He taught me to smoke the meat and to salt it. He went over and over what to do with the chickens, how all the traps worked, how to catch fish – that was his favourite part, he loved fishing. It was like he was the last adult and he was trying to pass on all the knowledge and information that humans had stored up.
‘But each day he got a little weaker and a little less focused. He’d drift off. Staring at nothing. Stop talking halfway through a word. Coughing all the time, and sneezing and sweating. He got twitchy. Would suddenly laugh at nothing and then get scared or sad. Drinking more and more. Sometimes I’d watch him when he didn’t know I was looking, and he’d be talking to himself. Eventually he couldn’t leave the farm. He was too weak. So I put him upstairs in the farmhouse where he’d be safe. It got so I hated to be in there with him, listening to him shouting and screaming and muttering all through the night, screeching with laughter. I moved into the barn, left him alone in the house.
‘I got used to it in there, with the sky above me, and I got used to being able to hear everything that was going on in the outside world. Birds in the trees, dogs in the fields, grown-ups coming past. Roy screaming. I felt at home there. I really was becoming half wild. Somehow Roy was holding on. Days went past. I’d go out in the day – I didn’t need to stay hidden from the light like grown-ups – wandering in the fields and woods, fishing in the lakes. Keeping out of Roy’s way. We ate together and that was about it. He stopped talking too eventually. We were like two animals sharing a kill.
‘One morning I went down to the lakes at Virginia Water. You remember where those weird sort of Roman ruins are? It was beautiful. The sun was just coming up and I undressed and washed myself. Something I never did. Took all my filthy, crusty clothes off and washed them too. And for the first time since the attack I saw myself naked, reflected in the water. Saw what my body looked like. It was awful. I was this broken thing. I was tempted not to get dressed again, to wade out into the lake and go under. I don’t know, water always does that to me. Like it’s calling to me. “Malik … Malik … Come to me, let me give you rest …”’ He gave a little snort of laughter.
‘But I’d made a deal with Roy, you see? Promised him I’d sort him out before he went totally sick. So I told the water to get lost. When I got back later, I assumed Roy was asleep. The sun was high in the sky. But as I was sitting in the yard, reading a book, I heard something, and there he was, crawling across the ground, dragging his legs behind him, a look of pure murder on his face. The sun was burning into him. His skin was all red and blistered, and there were boils on him like you see on the really sick ones. They’d come up fast, hadn’t been there the day before. I backed away from him. It wasn’t difficult. I mean, he could only move slowly. And then I realized he was guarding something. He’d got it into his sick mind that he needed to protect the tank that they’d buried. The big metal barrel thing that they’d never told me what was inside. He was sort of lying on top of it.
‘As I watched him, the look on his face went away. First his expression went blank, then sad, then he seemed to recognize me. He smiled and I went to him. Crouched down. He was trying to say something. I could just hear the words.’
‘What did he say?’ asked Ella.
‘“I’m just going outside and may be some time.”’
27
‘Before I killed Roy, though, I had to know something. And I wanted to let him know something. So I spoke to him for the first time. I asked him a question.’
‘What did you ask?’
‘I just asked him what was in the barrel and what it was for. He really smiled then, came alive. Laughed. Like a little kid. Happy for me, I guess. Pleased to be alive. Just like the old days, the old Roy. Told me it was full of petrol. But they’d been paranoid that somebody would want to steal it, so they’d been keeping it secret and guarding it all this time.
‘I helped him up and I moved him into the shade.
‘“It’s yours now,” he said. “All this. The whole world is yours. Don’t muck it up like we did.”
‘I hugged him and he said I was a sly one. “Always knew you were holding out on us,” he said. “Now you stay alive for me, yeah? Make things right again.”
‘I told him I would and I thanked him for everything and that made him happy and then I shot him.’
‘You must have been sad,’ said Ella.
‘I was alone,’ said Malik. ‘I knew that much. And I wasn’t well again. I don’t know if it was from swimming in the cold water, or the stress of losing Roy, but I could feel it coming back. I lost a few days. Couldn’t remember anything after. Still can’t. Just odd, weird flashes. Horrible things. And when I got my senses back I was lying curled up on the floor in the room of the farmhouse where Roy had been sleeping and there was this sort of weird shrine thing there. I must’ve built it. Wasn’t anybody else around. There were all these candles, and some little action figures, army types, God knows where I got them from. And Roy’s gun, in pieces, all broken up and arranged in a pattern. Some dead birds and animals bones tied together. Bowls of beer and whisky, petrol. Some odd random words in what looked like red paint. Feathers and fur and food. And right in the middle, sitting there grinning at me, was Roy’s head. I had a nasty flashback. Of cutting it off with one of the butcher’s knives we’d used on the pig. Dragging the rest of his body out into the field for the dogs.
‘Why I’d done all this I had no idea, no memory of it at all. It looked sick. Evil. I set fire to it all. Nearly burned the whole house down, except it started raining and that put it out. Didn’t want to go back in there, but the next day some grown-ups got into the yard while I was resetting the traps and I had to put them down, and I was so cross I whacked all their heads off and without really thinking I took them into the house and upstairs and put them next to the burnt remains of Roy’s head. And since then, well …’
‘I saw it,’ said Ella.
‘Yeah,’ said Malik. ‘I know. I could tell by the way you looked at me back there. It was a crazy thing at first, a fever thing, and then it became a sort of, I don’t know, like a compulsion. I had to do it. Felt like it gave me some control over the world. Got so that every time I killed a grown-up I’d cut off their head and put it in the farmhouse. It’s mad, I know. But then I am mad.’
‘Why do you kill so many of them?’ Ella asked.
‘It’s my job. I’m the hunter and they’re the hunted.’
‘Really? Is that all?’
‘No. It’s because of what Roy said, I guess, about maki
ng the world clean again, about getting rid of the old world, the grown-ups. Making it right and making it so that we can build something new, something better. And because … Well, as I said, because I’m mad, I suppose. Mad at the world for what it did to me. And just plain mad. The mad killer. But it doesn’t make me any happier. It can’t change what I am.’
‘You’re a good person,’ said Ella. ‘I know you are.’
‘Am I? I try not to think about it. It’s just one day to the next, get by, stay alive. I scraped through the winter after Roy died. Trying to remember everything he’d taught me. Nearly starved to death, nearly froze to death, nearly killed by dogs, nearly poisoned by eating the wrong plants, nearly wiped out by the fever that kept coming back. And then I noticed that the days were getting longer. It was getting warmer. Life was coming back to the world. And I should’ve been happy, glad to be alive, but the water was always calling to me … “Jump in the river and drown, Malik. Goodnight, Irene. Over and out.”’
‘Who’s Irene?’ Ella asked, confused.
‘Oh, it’s this song,’ said Malik. ‘The lads used to sing it when they were drunk. Waggers on his out-of-tune guitar. Tomasz sitting on this wooden crate and banging it like a drum. Goodnight, Irene. They were always singing it. I know it off by heart now. I always wanted to join in, but I couldn’t.’
‘Sing me a bit,’ said Ella. ‘I like songs.’
‘Really? Seriously?’
‘Yes. Really …’
So Malik began to sing, his voice weak and broken, but getting stronger the more he sang. It was a simple tune and Ella was able to join in on the choruses quite quickly.
Irene, goodn-i-ight, Irene, goodnight,
Goodnight, Irene, goodnight, Irene,
I’ll see you in my dreams.
Last Saturday night I got married,
Me and my wife settled down,
Now me and my wife we’re parted,
I’m gonna take another stroll downtown.
Irene, goodn-i-ight, Irene, goodnight,
Goodnight, Irene, goodnight, Irene,
I’ll see you in my dreams.
I love Irene, God knows I do,
I’ll love her till the seas run dry,
But if Irene turns her back on me,
I’m gonna take morphine and die.
Irene, goodni-i-ght, Irene, goodnight,
Goodnight, Irene, goodnight, Irene,
I’ll see you in my dreams.
Sometimes I live in the country,
Sometimes I live in town,
Sometimes I have a great notion
To jump in the river and drown …
Malik stopped. Let Ella sing the last chorus. And then there was silence. Until Malik’s voice came quiet in the darkness.
‘That night, when I rescued you,’ he said. ‘When I was down by the river, ready to jump in, the words were going round in my head. The river calling to me. I was at my lowest just then, before I met you. I so wanted to jump in.’
‘Why didn’t you?’
‘I told you before. The grown-ups came. More of them. I got their scent and …’
‘No,’ said Ella. ‘That’s not it. Why didn’t you jump in really?’
‘I’ve always thought there was a very thin line,’ said Malik. ‘Between doing it and not doing it – but there wasn’t. It’s a thick line, and it’s a line I just couldn’t cross. I guess some of us are wired for survival. We carry on. And now, the thing is, you’ve given me a reason to carry on, Ella. I don’t want to jump in the river any more. I don’t want to be an animal any more. I want to return to the world. You showed me that it isn’t only full of bad things. Bad people.’
‘From now on it’s all going to be all right,’ said Ella, and Malik laughed.
‘I hope you’re right,’ he said.
‘I’m right,’ she said. ‘I’m going to make you well and we’re going to rebuild the farm and we’ll live there like proper farmers. I’ll plant flowers and we’ll have a donkey, and another goat. I like goats. And we’ll find a pig somewhere and make sausages out of him.’
‘You’ve got it all thought out, haven’t you?’
‘Yes. I have.’
28
‘I won’t go! I won’t go! I won’t go!’
‘You’ve got no choice.’
‘I won’t …’ Ella beat her small fists against Malik’s chest. He winced and coughed, then let her carry on a few beats longer before grabbing her wrists and holding her still. He glared at her through his good eye, the white stained red round the edges.
‘You can’t stay here.’
‘I can …’
They were sitting on a platform high up in the treetops in the woods. It was several days since they’d left the farm and gone to hide in the hole. Ella remembered crawling out after listening to Malik’s story. She had had no idea what sort of time it might be, no idea how long they’d been down there, and it had been a shock returning to the real world. Since then she’d spent most of her time sleeping, woken only by hunger. That was how it had been. Day by day, just getting from one meal to the next, stretching out their rations, looking after each other.
Malik got stronger every day and was able to move around more and more for himself. Now he was even well enough to climb trees. He’d spent the morning showing Ella how to make animal traps and he’d found a rabbit in one he’d set nearby. Ella was so hungry she forgot to be squeamish about it and they’d eaten it for lunch, roasted over a fire that he’d let her make. Malik had also found some bitterweeds that she happily ate.
Then they’d come up here to try and see what was going on in the world. The sun was sparkling down through the branches of the surrounding trees, which had fresh, bright green leaves bursting out on them. Through the leaves they could see out over the tops of the lower trees to the fields beyond. It looked quiet and peaceful, and for a long while they’d just sat there, taking it in, glad to be alive, trying not to think of all the bad things that had happened.
And then Malik had ruined it by announcing that he was going to take Ella to a town. They’d gone round and round in circles arguing and for the hundredth time Ella told him that she wasn’t going.
‘I’m not leaving you,’ she said, her voice husky from shouting.
‘Who said anything about leaving me?’ Malik asked. ‘I need you to look after me.’ He smiled at her with his ugly, twisted mouth and his one good eye.
‘But I thought you’d never go back to where people were.’
‘I’ve got no choice, Ella. We’re running out of food and I’m too weak and shonky to catch enough for us to both live on. We’ll go to Bracknell.’
‘Where Isaac went?’
‘Yeah.’ Malik nodded. ‘Provided he made it back there safely. He can stick up for us. He knows you, he knows me, he knows I’m not a threat.’
‘I’m not going.’
‘I’m responsible for you now, Ella. I have to make sure you’re all right. So don’t argue any more. We’re going. End of story.’
‘No. I said no.’
‘Ella. We’ll die. Don’t you see that?’
‘And if we go to a town it’ll be like before – they’ll be horrible to you. Do you think I wasn’t listening to your story?’
‘It’ll be different. I’ll be all right. I’ve got you. You’ve shown me that I can trust people – some people. I’ve thought about this a lot and I’ve decided. I need to return to the world. I’m not an animal. I’m a person. It’ll be a good thing. A positive thing. I want to do it, Ella. It’ll be good for both of us.’
Deep down Ella knew he was right. It had been getting harder and harder as their supplies started to run low. She felt feeble all the time and cold and scared. There was always the worry that they’d be attacked again. She never felt completely safe, not even when they were down in their snug hole. So far they’d been all right. There had been a couple of occasions when a pack of dogs came sniffing by, but Malik got rid of them. The dogs half liked him and h
alf feared him, but they were hungry too and wild, and if they got the chance they’d come in for dinner. When dogs were in a pack, they behaved differently.
‘When?’ she said, sounding grumpy and glum. Grumpy Glumdrops. That’s what her mum used to call her when she was in a bad mood, to try to tease her out of it. And it had always just made her worse. Grumpy Glumdrops. That’s who she was.
‘Tomorrow,’ said Malik. ‘No point in waiting any longer. I’m well enough to walk now. I’ve been thinking about this ever since we had to leave the farm, planning it. You need to be back with people, not stuck with a ghoul like me.’
‘You’re not a ghoul.’
‘I’m hardly Johnny Depp, though, am I?’
Ella had to admit that there was a part of her that was lonely and a part of her that was bored, made worse by sitting thinking about food all day.
That and being attacked by grown-ups.
They hadn’t seen any of them so far. Maybe they’d all gone, marched off with the tall woman and her army. Ella wondered where they’d been going.
‘You’re right,’ said Malik. ‘I’m not a ghoul. Which is why I need to go and live with people again. I’ll have to do it sooner or later. If I don’t go to them they’ll come to me. So are you all right with it, Ella? Can we stop arguing?’