Instead of replying Elsa asked, ‘Why don’t you go watch my sister burn?’
‘But she’s not your real sister … not your blood sister, is she?’ She sniffed. ‘But your sort call each other brother and sister like you belong to one big family, don’t you?’
‘What do you know about my sort? You don’t know anything about us.’
‘And you know nothing about me, young woman.’
Young woman? What happened to the insults? Elsa looked more closely at this veteran of the remote farming community. The lined face softened.
‘I’m eighty-five years old. Sixty years ago I worked in one of the cities on the coast. Back then your kind and mine got on. Oh, we lived in separate communities, we never became what you’d call friends, but we could ride in the same bus together without getting into a war about who sat where.’ She limped to the barn doors. ‘All that’s changed of course.’ With her back to Elsa the woman leaned forward so she could see through a knothole in the timber. ‘Your “sister” is at the stake. Did you know her well?’
‘Enough.’
‘Then stay on your stool. There’s no need to see this.’
For whole minutes there was silence in the barn. On her stool Elsa sat with her back hunched and her arms across her stomach as she watched the back of the woman’s head. Her silver hair developed a golden halo. Elsa realized that was the light of the fire shining through the knothole. Outside, the crowd had fallen silent … only it was more than silence. It was the suspenseful pause of people waiting for a momentous event. And what they tensely bided their time for happened. Voices rose. A wild exclamation of surprise. The sound alone could have been from a crowd when their team unexpectedly scored a point. Elsa knew what was happening. Even though she could see nothing but the horizontal tracks of firelight coming through the narrow gaps in the barn’s planking; she had to force herself not to imagine Lorne burning alive. Her lovely blonde hair would go first …
Elsa couldn’t remain silent. ‘So do you like what you see?’ No reply. ‘Is my sister dead yet?’
The woman stared through the knothole at the ‘monster’ burning in her own dozen cubic yards of hellfire.
‘In half an hour they’re going to do the same to me. Are you going out there with the rest of that pack of fools to watch? Because when I burn I won’t keep quiet. I’ll curse them! I’ll curse their moribund farms! And I’ll curse you!’
For a moment there was no movement in the barn. From outside came sporadic bursts of shouting, even applause. Elsa still refused to imagine what provoked the celebrations.
Then without turning to look back at Elsa the woman spoke. ‘Fifty years ago I gave birth to Cullum. I had a difficult time. It had just gone two in the morning and the hospital was short staffed. There’d been flu going round. I’d been in labour eight hours and Cullum just wasn’t coming. The only specialist neonatal doctor was one of yours. Already by then they weren’t allowed to deal directly with human patients; they were restricted to teaching, and that remote treatment they used to have back then. But the short of it was my baby would die inside of me. The saps had given up on me, but one of your kind – those we call monsters now – didn’t quit. She delivered Cullum and stayed with him until he was breathing like he should. You saw yourself my only son grew up as strong as anybody else’s little lad.’ In the gloom the lines of firelight seeping through the boards revealed themselves as a brilliant golden latticework.
‘So who’s to blame?’ Elsa asked. ‘How did our relationship become so poisonous?’
‘I don’t know, lass.’ The woman sighed. ‘What I do know is this. Up that ladder is a hayloft. Behind the bales you’ll find a window. Climb out onto the roof. You can work along the cow shed, then drop down behind the wall. That lot won’t be able to see you from over yonder. Follow the river upstream. You’ll have a better chance in the hills. And don’t think of trying to save your sister. Take it from me, she’s dead.’
There was a pause as Elsa stared in disbelief.
‘Run, lass. They’ll be back in five minutes.’
‘You mean you’re giving me permission to—’
‘Go on with you, girl! Get out of my sight!’
Elsa slowed to a walk. At the side of the night-time river that gurgled its way through rocks she looked back. Beyond the silhouette of the farm’s chimneys there was a copper glow in the air. The yellow firelight had turned red. A blood red that haemorrhaged into the night sky.
A murmur escaped her lips, ‘Sister, I’m sorry …’
The sound of carousing reached her. The death of an innocent woman had made the farming community glorious. They exulted. A chorus of cheers reached her. Keep moving, she told herself. When they find you’ve gone they’ll come looking for you. If they caught her now they’d redouble their efforts to inflict humiliation and pain. She’d often heard the taunt, ‘Dead meat don’t hurt,’ but what did they know?
As she waded across the river she looked toward the rising belly of a hill. And then for the second time in her life she heard the faint song of the ancient dead. It came as an indistinct nocturne on the night air …
4
I, GOD SCARER
They walked through the night-time forest. To the child it was a world every bit as rich as the forest by day. Above him, through the branches, he glimpsed a spray of silver lights against darkness.
‘Stars,’ Dr Paul Marais pointed out.
The world was rich with subtle colours, animal scents, the piping of fluttering leathery creatures that flew something like birds; he heard the scrape-scrape of burrowing creatures in the soil beneath his feet. He was even conscious of the tidal flow of sap through tree trunks. There were times he paused to savour the wonder of it all. Paul, however, prompted him to keep moving through this richly textured nightscape of smell, sound, and sight.
‘You’re going to be sick of the sound of my bonny Scottish accent,’ Paul whispered as they walked. ‘But I’m trying to wake up your mind. We’ve got to get all the mental connections firing so you remember who you are … what you are. You have to learn about the circumstances … the shitty circumstances I might add … that brought us out here to the middle of nowhere. And you have to understand what happened to the world. That and why we don’t belong in it anymore.’ He paused. ‘No, don’t watch the fox cubs; listen to me. Do you remember your name?’
Name? Something moved inside his head. A stir of understanding. ‘Uh … muh …’
‘Name … your … nay-murr.’
He clenched his fists with the effort. ‘Ch … ch-kurr …’
‘Go on, my friend, you can do it.’
‘N-chur …’ He redoubled the effort. ‘Child.’
‘Child?’ Paul Marais clicked his tongue. ‘The ward staff call all the transients ‘Child’. It’s endearing and they don’t have to remember everyone’s name.’
‘Child!’
‘Ssh … keep it down. We’re not out of the woods yet. Figuratively or otherwise.’
‘Child.’
‘OK. Very good. It’s a start. But keep moving.’ Paul glanced back the way they came. Hundreds of tree trunks marched away into the darkness. ‘We’ve probably lost the hunters back there but it’s open season on us now. There’ll be more out with guns. They won’t want to miss any of the fun.’
‘Nnn … guns …’ The child touched his chest. It was still sore.
Paul gave a low whistle. ‘You took three big ones in the ribs, didn’t you?’ He shook his head in wonder. ‘You’re a lucky man to be still vertical.’ His teeth gleamed as he grinned in the gloom. ‘What I wouldn’t give to look under that skin of yours. No wonder the folk in Birthing couldn’t stop themselves telling everyone you’re the bloody modern miracle.’
A breeze moved through the forest. A sizzling sound rose from the leaves, while the trees appeared to nod their shaggy heads in acknowledgement of the doctor’s statement.
‘I’m a city boy,’ he said. ‘Forests make me itch. There??
?s something uncanny about them. Too much life all in one place. See, I told you you’d get tired of my voice. But I want to see the light of consciousness blazing from those two eyes of yours, my friend. Show me that fucking window of the soul. Do you hear?’ He sighed. ‘You’re hearing, but you’ve still to find the on-switch.’ He clicked his tongue. ‘Now I’m babbling … OK. We need to find the others.’ A grunt escaped his lips. ‘If they haven’t been caught.’
They walked beneath the trees. The only sounds were ones expressed by the natural world around them. The child couldn’t even see any houses although he did detect the faintest whiff of coal smoke from a distant dwelling. To his right an owl sped from the darkness to snatch a mouse from the grass. Nearby, larger beasts lay grunting in half-slumber in the undergrowth. At that moment, there was a sense of peace. And despite the death of the mouse in the owl’s beak a tranquillity held sway over the nocturnal forest. A sense of natural order; of primordial rhythms adhering to their proper course. The child felt himself fall into step with this heartbeat of nature. The disturbing images of death and blood in the building just hours ago receded. He was no longer alone. This figure in green clothes strode beside him. The man spoke constantly, yet it was a soothing voice that rarely rose above a whisper.
‘You don’t remember your name yet? No? You will soon enough. It’s written there on your wrist tag. I won’t tell you it. You need to remember yourself if you’re going to claim it as your very own … in here.’ The man tapped his own temple. ‘I don’t know what happened to you before the transition. Transition? What euphemisms we create, eh? You might recall being in hospital. Some patients experience terror, others serene acceptance. Then you went through the transition process … and you became what you are now. Years ago they called us Frankenstein monsters. Personally, I prefer the name that some prankster painted on our wall. GOD SCARER.’ They followed a brook that sang through a jumble of pebbles. ‘So, what’s it like to be a God Scarer? I’ve been a fully fledged God Scarer for twenty years. I like it. It’s got to be better than being dead. Which we are, of course. I carry my death certificate in my wallet. On dreary days it cheers me up. Yours’ll be back at the transit station. Although I’m sure it will have been burnt to the ground by now. Along with most of my colleagues and patients.’
‘Dead?’
The doctor glanced at the child with a raised eyebrow. ‘Yes. Dead. Dead as nails. The terrible crime they – we – committed was our complete dedication to humanity. Of course, we had the temerity to be like Lazarus. We rose from the dead. You have to admit it doesn’t seem at all fair, does it? Did we God Scarers ever hurt anyone?’
The child stopped. ‘Frankenstein.’
‘Aye, we’re the big, bonny children of Frankenstein.’ The doctor gave a grim smile. ‘Yes. Good old bloody up-to-his-elbows-in-cadaver-guts Frankenstein. Victor Frankenstein was fiction, of course, but in essence the process became fact. Science showed us the way to reanimate a corpse. Moreover, it improved on the original.’ He sighed. ‘That’s right, pal. We’re dead men walking. OK … Keep up, my little God Scarer. We’ve got to find somewhere safe. If we don’t, we’ll wind up dying all over again. Once is enough for me.’
Paul whispered, ‘It’s no good. We can’t go any further. We’ll have to find another crossing upstream.’
The child watched from the cover of the massive oak. All around him was the living, breathing world of the forest. Stars shone from a sky that was as black as the pupil of an eye. He’d enjoyed this walk with the man. Now they couldn’t go on, even though Paul had, until this point, relentlessly urged him to keep moving quickly. Why couldn’t they continue? He saw nothing to prevent them. The child took a step forward.
Paul grabbed hold of his arm, ‘Not that way. Don’t you see the soldiers? There’s three of them. Over the far side of the river. They’re guarding the bridge.’ He clicked his tongue. ‘Aye, they’re waiting for us, my friend.’ He stepped back under the trees. ‘So, that’s not the way for us. It might be a bit of a hike but there’s bound to be a crossing up … No. Listen to me.’ Once more Paul tugged on the child’s arm. ‘Stand still, laddie. You can’t cross the bridge. We’re God Scarers. They’ll spot us in a second. And see those weapons? Sub-machine-guns. They make piles of nicely diced monster flesh.’
‘Uh … uhh …’
‘Try and understand what I’m telling you. We can’t cross the footbridge. They’ll kill us if we do. And, no, we can’t fight them. Even if they didn’t have guns we have vowed – every man jack of us – we’ve vowed never to use violence against a human being. If they strike us we never retaliate. DO NO HARM TO HUMANITY. DO NOT ALLOW HARM TO BEFALL HUMANITY DUE TO YOUR ACTION OR INACTION. That’s our law. The God Scarer law.’
For a moment the pair stood beneath the sheltering arms of the oak. A light night-time breeze stirred the leaves so it sounded as if the mighty tree whispered to them; a primeval language of the natural world.
Gently, Paul Marais pulled the child in a direction away from the footbridge. ‘That’s it, pal. This way. We’ll find a way back to our brothers and sisters. Nice and easy does it. Quiet as a mouse, eh? We don’t want to attract the soldier men’s attention.’
The sound of the river sliding across the gravel played on the child’s mind like a song. He glanced back to see the bridge spanning the black waters. Built of white timber the guard rails gleamed like twin rays of light as they ran from this bank to the next. The child turned.
‘No, this way, sonny. Remember what I told you? Soldiers? Guns? We don’t want to – hey.’ The whisper almost became a shout. ‘Oh, bollocks. No … don’t you dare …’
The child started to move. Part of him was dimly aware that Paul had tried to hold on to him but the child effortlessly shrugged free. Now he loped out of the forest toward the footbridge. He needed to cross the river. That’s why he was here. Instantly the three soldiers on the far bank saw him. A second later electric light blazed across the water to illuminate him. Shouts reached his ears.
‘Do you see it, Corporal? It’s from the transit station.’
The three men ran onto the narrow bridge to block the child’s way. Behind him, Paul yelled at him to return to the trees. Although the child couldn’t say why, he knew he must cross the bridge at all costs. His feet made a muffled pounding as he ran on soft earth. Ahead of him, three men in their grey uniforms were already on the bridge. Two of them carried objects that emitted a bright yellow light. The other carried a long-barrelled weapon. At the halfway point across the river the three stopped. The youngest appeared to waver.
‘Don’t worry, Robson,’ called the leader of the group. ‘God Scarers can’t hurt anyone. It’s inbuilt. They’re not allowed to harm a human being.’
The child’s feet hit the boards of the bridge with a sound that boomed like thunder. It was enough to make the soldiers flinch.
‘Stop! I know what you are. I order you to stop. You must obey me!’ The soldier called to the one with the rifle. ‘When it stops shoot it in the head.’
‘Yes, Corporal!’
The soldier aimed the rifle as the other two shone their lights in the child’s face. At either side of him the white handrails blazed with reflected light. Behind him Paul Marais had stopped running toward the bridge; his body-language broadcast his sense of resignation at the imminent destruction of one of his kind.
‘I ordered you to stop,’ bellowed the corporal.
The child ran faster. The timber structure trembled under the force of his pounding feet. The soldier that was nearest, the one with the rifle, lowered it. Pure fear at the sight of this colossus racing toward him froze his limbs.
‘Snap out of it, Kruger! It won’t hurt you. It’s impossible!’
A dawning of understanding. The child saw fear on the man’s face. It paralysed him. He was incapable of using the rifle. Or so it seemed. At the last moment the man raised the weapon.
Paul screamed, ‘No! Don’t fight them! You’re not allowed. You
can’t— OH, GOD!’
The child saw the soldier’s trigger-finger whiten as the pressure increased. A split-second later the child’s fingertips swung to brush the end of the gun muzzle. To him it didn’t seem a forceful blow, he only meant to push the rifle aside. Yet the second his fingers struck it the steel barrel bent out of shape. The momentum of his action tore the rifle from the soldier’s hands. By now, the man howled in terror and disbelief. Another split second later the child had grabbed hold of the man’s tunic, hoisted him in the air, and hurled him into the river.
The corporal who’d been last on the bridge threw his flashlight aside in order to swing the sub-machine-gun from his shoulder. He’d have managed to fire a burst, too, only the young soldier panicked. He pushed by his superior with a screaming, ‘Get out of the way! Let me through!’ Then he fled for the far bank.
The corporal recovered his balance. He dragged the bolt back on the weapon. Another second and the corporal would have emptied the magazine of .45 calibre rounds into his attacker’s chest. But there wasn’t a second to spare. The child still ran forward. At the same time he swung out his arm. His palm slapped over the man’s face, his splayed fingers closed over the scalp. He could feel the bristle of razored hair under his fingertips. He even felt the press of the corporal’s two eyes bulging out into the palm of his hand. The child still ran forward. He carried the man like a doll, the legs swinging as the feet parted company with the decking.