Blood Crazy

  ‘Course I do. But … but listen. Adults changed, just like that.’ I snapped my fingers. ‘Maybe the Creosotes are changing again. Look at the evidence. We’ve been captured alive. They’ve left us with food and drink. We should sit on our butts and be patient. Maybe the Creosotes are recovering, maybe the madness was temporary.’

  ‘And maybe Santa Claus really does come down your chimney,’ grunted Trousers.

  I looked in the direction of his voice. Already I could make out the golden gleam of his trousers in the gloom. Around me were shadow shapes of another six people sitting or lying on sacks – all except one who lay in the corner.

  ‘Why doesn’t that kid deserve a mattress?’ I asked.

  Trouser’s voice was low. ‘Because they hit the poor sod just that bit too hard.’

  We waited in silence, feeling the rock of the boat as it drifted down stream. My head ached viciously with every movement. Above us came the scrape of feet passing across the decks.

  Well, Nick, I thought. Mummy and daddy have come to take you home. Or to hell. Somewhere anyway.

  I slept. When I awoke the rocking had stopped but there was still a sense of motion. The more I lay there, just sensing how we moved, the more convinced I became that we had left the river and were moving along a still body of water – a canal, maybe. There was no motor sound so I could only guess the Creosotes were pulling the barge by lines. In my mind’s eye I could see them. A team of a dozen apiece walking along each banking tugging the barge along toward its appointment with destiny.

  ‘How long has it been now, Trousers?’

  ‘By my Casio … It’s been precisely … Ninety hours and sixteen minutes.’

  ‘Christ, they’ve been pulling this tub nearly four days.’

  Now Eskdale was far, far away. I rubbed my face, feeling the scrape of the scabs against my fingers. What had happened to Sarah? She must think I was a carcass now, rotting away under a bush somewhere.

  ‘Hungry?’

  ‘Starving.’

  ‘What’s it to be, then?’ Trousers picked up the sack. ‘Potato or apple?’

  ‘Sling us another apple.’

  ‘Maybe they’re going to starve us to death,’ came a voice out of the darkness.

  ‘Shut up.’ I bit into the apple; it was sour enough to make your eyes water. ‘We’re alive, aren’t we?’

  As we were eating we heard a sudden grating sound. Above our heads the hatch lifted. Sunlight blasted into the hold, forcing us to screw shut our eyes.

  When at last I could open them I looked up. Heads in silhouette looked down at us.

  ‘Here it comes,’ someone whispered. ‘Say your prayers.’

  ‘You …’ It was the voice of an old man. ‘Up here.’

  One of the Creosotes lowered a rope.

  ‘You. Up here.’

  Trousers reached for the rope.

  ‘No … No. You!’

  The old guy was looking at me. Suddenly the piss-stinking metal box was the place I wanted to stay.

  ‘You. Up here.’

  ‘Good luck, mate,’ whispered Trousers.

  Feeling like the lamb to the you know what, I climbed up the rope.

  It took a good minute to orientate myself when I reached the deck. It was a frosty morning with laser-bright sunlight shafting through the trees. I saw we were on a long barge tied to the canal bank.

  All around, watching me, were the Creosotes.

  Quickly I scanned the faces; all were thick with dirt.

  My dad squatted like a madcap ape on a mound of tarpaulins. He stared at me like I’d just beamed down from the flipside of the cosmos.

  ‘You! You!’

  I twisted round. It was mum. She stared so hard at me her head twitched. Her hair was long and wild now.

  ‘What do you want from me?’

  She stared harder.

  ‘Mum … What do you want? Why can’t you leave us alone?’

  Her lips parted. ‘You. You.’

  ‘Christ … Can’t you speak English any more? What are you doing to us? Why did you kill John?’

  ‘John!’ The name meant something to her. Moving her head like a bird, she tilted it to one side, then looked behind me.

  I looked in the same direction. Against the wheelhouse was a row of little figures.

  I swallowed. They looked like ventriloquist dummies. Their faces were shrivelled. They wore toddler’s clothes but there was something over-large about their heads. I saw one had its face stitched with a series of clumsy cotton crosses in a line like this: XXXXXX. From mouth to ear.

  For the first time in days the heat came back to me like a furious rush of steam through my veins. ‘You mad bastards! What on Earth have you done?’

  The Creosotes watched me, their eyes bright and expectant like kids waiting outside Santa’s grotto.

  I screamed at them, swearing and shaking my hands. ‘What made you do this? Can’t you think for yourselves? Can’t you talk properly? What’s happened to you? Is it God? Is it? When I talk to you does God, or Martians or – or the fucking Holy Ghost listen to me? Does it?’

  They stared.

  ‘I mean have you been taken over by aliens? You don’t wear the same expressions on your faces any more! You don’t know how to drive a car … you don’t wash yourselves … What’s going on inside your heads? Can’t you talk to me? Can’t you tell me what you’re doing?’

  I turned on my father as he squatted there, lips slightly parted showing the gap in his teeth.

  ‘Dad! Who am I? Look at my face … Recognize me?’

  He stared at me, like I was the weird one.

  ‘Dad! Wake up! You know me? Our Nick. He’ll either end up a millionaire or in jail. Remember John? Loved his computer, loved doing homework. Uncle Jack. People treated him like a retard, but he was the only fucking one out of the Atens who had a mind of his own. You know he – he could play that guitar – really play the bastard … He was a fucking genius and not one of you lot could see it. You fucking humoured him, like you fucking humoured me …’

  I wiped at something wet on my face. I thought I was bleeding from the head wound again. I wasn’t.

  ‘Well done, you fucking twat,’ I howled at him. ‘I was ten years old the last time you made me cry. You’ve done it again. Jesus, sweet bleeding Jesus … You know something, Dad. I wished YOU’d died of cancer. Not Uncle Jack.’

  ‘Don’t talk like that to your father.’

  I turned round to look at my mother. Her face had changed. She looked in pain. ‘Don’t say that to him, Nick … ’S not fair. Nick, he did the best for you, he … You …’ For two seconds, maybe three, she wore a look of such confusion. It shattered the alien expression. Her eyes watered, and there was a flicker of warmth there – even recognition.

  ‘Oh, Nick … Oh. What have we done? Sweet Lord, what have we done?’ The expression was of someone waking in a strange place. Her eyes darted about as if seeing the people for the first time.

  ‘Nick. I am so sorry. Poor John. We …’ She clenched her fists. Her eyes shut. ‘It’s so … so special.’ She smiled, eyes still shut. ‘It’s so special. It’s marvellous. It’s a miracle.’

  Her eyes opened – the expression of alien calm had returned; her eyes turned cold.

  Behind me the whistling started. Dad sat there, crouching on the tarpaulin. As he whistled he shivered. His eyes moved quickly like a frightened animal caught in a trap.

  He whistled the carol We Wish You a Merry Christmas. When we were young he’d whistle it Xmas morning as a signal to get up and open our presents.

  He whistled it then, lips trembling, blowing out white vapour in the ice-cold air. I sensed some sane part of him was still hidden beneath the madman. The weight of his madness was too great for him to talk sanely even for a few seconds as mum had done. He tried to communicate everything in those few whistled notes.

  Sanity had flashed like a light across his dark world of madness. For a moment he knew, lucidly, what he had done,
murdering John, and the madlands they now lived in.

  Then the madness took control again, snapping off the light of sanity. He whistled no more and lifted his face to me and stared and stared and stared …

  I sat down on a crate feeling empty – a cold, crying emptiness that a whole universe couldn’t have filled.

  I sat there, watched by the dry eyes of the ventriloquists’ dolls that weren’t dolls.

  Later they pulled a sack over my head and tied me.

  Were they going to drop me over the side into the water and leave me to drown?

  Right then, I did not give a shit.

  I heard them moving about the boat. Then hands lifted me and carried me the length of the barge.

  No one spoke. All I could hear was my own breathing – a flat dead sound.

  We left the barge and they carried me for perhaps ten minutes. Then they tied me to a tree. I could see nothing but dots of light needling through the sacking.

  Then it was quiet.

  I waited for a long, long time. Would I be beaten with sticks, or have rocks dropped on my head? Were they hungry and building a fire nearby?

  I shivered against the tree until my legs buckled and I sagged against the ropes.

  Eventually, I made up my mind. If they killed me, they killed me. But I wanted to see the sunlight.

  No one bothered me as I twisted round like a Houdini wannabe, working out of the ropes, then eventually the sack.

  There I sat on the forest floor. Not a soul in sight.

  I found my way back to the canal. The barge had gone.

  For half an hour or so I tried to follow it, but I wasn’t sure which direction it had taken.

  At last I turned my back on the canal and headed deeper into the forest. I was alone again.

  But it wouldn’t be for long.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Croppers

  I reached the edge of the forest. The ground sloped up ahead of me to the brow of a low hill. The sun shone on the frosted grass. Any other time it would have been great walking weather.

  All I felt was cold, hungry and miserable. For all I knew I could be hundreds of miles from Eskdale. Sarah probably thought I was dead. And so would Curt. When he knew I wasn’t coming back how long would it be before he went looking for Sarah?

  As I trudged up the slope I heard the trucks. Four of them rounded the edge of the forest to growl up the incline toward me.

  For some reason they came in pairs, two side by side.

  A pair of trucks stopped right next to me. I saw that metal bars had been welded to the front making them look like homemade snowploughs. A head came out of the window. The kid was as surprised to see me as I him.

  ‘Damnation … Where do you think you’re going?’

  ‘Home,’ I shouted above the snarl of motors. ‘If I can find it.’

  ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Nick.’

  ‘Nick – if you don’t get your arse up here, the only place you’ll be going is straight to Baby Jesus.’ The kid pushed open the door.

  From the look on his face I didn’t hang around. In three steps I was in the passenger seat and banging shut the door.

  ‘Nick, old mate, haven’t you seen the beggars? The whole place is cheesy with them.’

  ‘Seen who?’

  ‘Kaybees. That’s who.’

  I shook my head, lost. ‘Kaybees?’

  The kid exchanged a grin with the eighteen-year-old girl driving the truck. Her dark eyes flashed as she laughed.

  ‘Kaybees. Short for Crazy Bastards. I’m Sheila, by the way. This gangster’s Jigsaw.’

  ‘Jigsaw on account of the face.’ Grinning, he pointed at his face criss-crossed with scars. ‘When my parents decided I’d look better without a head I decided the quickest way out was through my bedroom window. Which I didn’t bother opening first. I’m the human jigsaw. Sheila had to tape all the pieces together.’

  ‘From memory. I think it’s an improvement.’

  ‘You brother and sister?’

  ‘Neighbours,’ she said. ‘That first night in April, when the shit started flying, the first I knew about it was the sound of Jigsaw breaking glass with his face … Excuse me, Nick.’

  She picked up a CB handset. ‘We’ve picked up a traveller. Name’s Nick. We’ll take him along for the ride.’

  ‘Okay … Okay.’ The voice vibrated the speaker like a robot on speed. These people were tense. ‘Let’s do it! We haven’t got the fuel to hang around!’

  Sheila expertly slipped the gear and we rolled forward up the hill. The truck to our right stayed by our side like it had been welded there.

  ‘So where are the … Kaybees, then?’

  ‘Nearly at the top of the hill. We should see them any time … Now.’ She let out a scream, a blend of excitement and pure, pure terror. ‘There they are, God love ’em.’

  Shit. Creosotes. There must have been thousands of them. They stood on the grass plain like a forest of saplings in the sunlight.

  ‘Jigsaw. Sheila. I know I’m only a hitchhiker … But shouldn’t we be driving away from them? Not toward them.’

  Sheila accelerated the truck across the grass. The other truck stayed by our side.

  ‘You’ve got us wrong, Nick. We’re not running away from them. We’re farmers,’ she yelled. ‘We’re going to crop some weeds!’

  Over the CB a voice hollered. ‘Go … Go … Go!’

  We picked up speed, wheels crunching across the frozen turf. The truck at our side started to peel away from us. It stayed parallel, running at the same speed, but the gap widened.

  I twisted round to get a better view. The other pair of trucks was doing the same, occasionally the steel plough on their noses would splatter a bush … Shit. There was a steel cable tied between the two trucks.

  I looked back at the gap of blurring grass between our two trucks. It, too, had a silver cable that stretched out between them at maybe waist height.

  ‘Now! Go for it!’ Sheila shouted into the CB mike. ‘Turn when I turn!’

  Jigsaw gripped the rail on the dash. ‘Hang on tight. Here we go!’

  I looked forward as the Creosotes came up in front. They did not move. They only stared at us with those light-bulb eyes.

  We plunged into them.

  The trucks were hitting fifty and we were like the scythe of Mr Death himself. I couldn’t take my eyes away, as the cable, pulled tight now, cut through men and women as easily as a blade. Windows splashed red.

  More Creosotes popped like balloons on the steel plough bolted to the front of the trucks.

  Sheila hit the wiper switch to scrape away the spray that turned the glass crimson. Now the ground was more bumpy, or at least the tyres bumped over lumps there.

  And all the time someone yelled hysterically into the CB. God knows what – the volume distorted the voice into a mechanical crashing sound.

  Then it was over. The trucks were slowing. I looked at Sheila: her dark eyes burned out from her face, sweat dripped off the end of her nose. Muscles stood out in her neck like rods.

  She shot me a look. ‘Hang on tight, Nick. We’re going back. That’s right, buddy, we’re going to do it all over again.’

  I gripped the dash rail and stared forward through the strawberry jam on the window. My teeth clenched. The engines roared. I saw the faces of the Creosotes getting nearer and nearer.

  This time I closed my eyes. But I could not close my ears.

  After we’d driven a couple of miles in formation the trucks stopped. The Creosotes were a long way behind us now.

  One kid from each truck jumped down and unhitched the cables, then using sweeping brushes, they wiped the red shit off the sides of the truck. Jigsaw pulled at pieces wedged in the snowplough (or should that be meatplough?) I heard him shout to a kid working on the next truck, ‘Can you manage that, Smithy? Here, let me give you a hand.’ He threw something at the kid who ducked and laughed.

  I felt sick. I turned to Sheila. ‘
Why did you do that? The Creosotes, I mean the Kaybees, are different now … They’re not violent. What you did was a bloody massacre.’

  Sheila’s dark eyes widened. ‘Where have you been, sunshine? The North Pole? In the real world we’re fighting for our lives.’

  I told her where I’d come from and about the few Creosotes we’d seen in Eskdale. ‘Until a few days ago all they’d done was watch our camp.’

  ‘You said until a few days ago. What happened then, Nick?’

  I told her how I’d been kidnapped and carried by barge to this place. Wherever that was.

  Sheila nodded. ‘Then they just let you go.’

  ‘Yes, how do you know?’

  ‘Same pattern, sunshine. They came, they watched us for a bit. Then a few of us were taken when we were out foraging. Some were taken by their own mothers and fathers. They carried them a hundred miles or so then they turned them loose. Most got back safely.’

  I shook my head. ‘What the hell do they do that for?’

  ‘At first we guessed it was nothing more than a loony game of cat and mouse. Now we know they were studying our behaviour … what we’d do in certain situations … Hey, Jigsaw, hurry it up. We can’t hang around here forever. I’m hungry.’ She turned back to me: her smile died. ‘Then, five weeks ago, I remember it because it was my nineteenth birthday, the Kaybees came back. I mean they came back mob-handed. We woke up one morning to find thousands surrounding the camp, pressed right up to the fence.’

  ‘And I take it they weren’t there to sing you happy birthday.’

  ‘Correct. They just piled in at us, Nick. Oh, we’d got guns by the crateful. We blasted them … They kept on coming. They just don’t know fear. They walked over the ones we’d shot, then we shot them, then some more and more.’

  ‘What saved you?’

  ‘Not guns … In the end it was our brains. Or rather a kid we call Doc. We’d dug a ditch all around the camp. He got us to dump most of our kerosene stocks into the ditch, then lob in a burning rag. And that was the end of the attack. And the beginning of the world’s biggest barbie.’

  She laughed but she wasn’t smiling. A muscle twitched in her face. ‘It was awful. I’ve been terrified ever since. I can’t sleep … Every time I close my eyes I see burning men and women.’ She took a deep breath, looked at me keenly for a second then smiled. She gripped my hand and slapped it onto her stomach and held it there. ‘Feel that. I’ve lost twenty pounds in five weeks.’