We were talking when I heard a horse clattering outside on the driveway.
A ten-year-old raced across the foyer. ‘Nick … Nick. It’s one of Slatter’s men. He’s got something important to tell you.’
Outside the kid on horseback told me they’d set the charge against the wall of the dam. ‘There’s a ten-minute delay fuse. Do you want Burke to blow it now?’
‘No.’ I looked at the sun dipping down toward the hills. ‘Tell him to detonate it tonight at midnight when the Creosotes are asleep.’
As the kid prepared to ride off, Del-Coffey told him to wait and ran into the hotel. He came out minutes later with a pair of walkie-talkies. He handed one to the kid on horseback.
‘Now, at least we’ve got instant communication,’ panted Del-Coffey.
After the kid had ridden away we returned to the hotel.
Life was beginning to settle down. I got some kids to make inventories of stores while I decided who could be trusted with guns to help guard the place.
By late afternoon I stopped, suddenly uneasy.
‘Christ, I forgot all about Sarah. Where is she?’
Del-Coffey looked up from his clipboard. ‘I sent word an hour ago … Don’t worry, Nick. She’ll want like mad to come, she’s talked about you night and day ever since your parents took you. It’s just that they’re so damn busy with the children suffering from malnutrition.’
I looked across to where ex-Crew members were handing out plates of steaming food to young kids. ‘I’ve a good mind to nail up some of the old Crew as an example … The bastards should have to pay for this.’
‘Let them pay. Now you’re in charge, Nick, they’ll be happy to work until they drop.’
‘It’s Kitty! It’s Kitty!’ someone shouted. ‘She’s running … Nick!’
Kitty nearly fell into Del-Coffey’s arms as she came gasping up the drive, blood streaming from her mouth.
‘Nick … I’m sorry, Nick …’ Kitty panted. ‘We were walking back to the village … A man and a woman jumped out at us. They’ve taken Sarah away. I tried to fight them …’
That cold feeling came sliding back.
‘Creosotes?’
‘Yes.’
‘What did they look like? Exactly.’
‘Woman … I don’t know. Dark hair. Forty. The man had grey and black hair mixed. And just here.’ She pointed to her mouth.
‘He had a gap in his top front teeth,’ I said.
‘Yes … how did you know?’
Understanding thudded inside of me. Suddenly I felt so weak and tiny – as if I was a little child again. ‘Oh, mother. Why do you always have to interfere?’
Del-Coffey looked startled. ‘Your parents?’
‘Yes. I know it’s them. They’ve been following me all along. They were probably watching me when I was at the Cropper’s settlement … They probably watched me from the bank of the lake when I was on the Ark. Then they followed me all the way home … And now they’ve got Sarah … Jesus Christ Almighty … When is all this going to end?’
Del-Coffey asked Kitty, ‘How long ago was this?’
‘Half an hour.’
‘Half an hour? Kitty, why didn’t you come straight here? They might have—’
I interrupted. ‘Give her a chance to speak. Kitty, what happened after they took her?’
‘I … I followed them. They took her over the hill into the next valley. I watched them take her to that little white church on the hill.’
‘Go on.’
‘I waited a few minutes, but nothing else happened. They just took her into the church.’
I got my rifle and pushed the pistol into my belt.
‘I’ll get some people to go with you,’ said Del-Coffey.
‘Don’t bother … The speed I’ll be shifting none of them will be able to keep up.’
‘For chrissakes be careful.’
I nodded at Bernadette’s book in his hand. ‘Read that – learn it from cover to cover. It might seem strange … But you’ve got to have faith in it … Whether it’s true or not doesn’t matter. We’ve got to believe in something or we might as well feed those children cyanide. At least they’d die quickly.’
Del-Coffey looked bewildered.
‘If I don’t come back … There’s something in the bag I’ve written, too. It’ll all become clear when you read it … It might just save those poor devils’ lives.’
I’d started off down the driveway when I heard Del-Coffey, shouting and running after me. He held the walkie-talkie to his ear. ‘Nick … Nick! It’s Burke up at the dam … He says the Creosotes have started moving.’
‘This is it, then.’ Mouth dry, I looked at Del-Coffey.
I felt I was living out a series of prophecies that were, one by one, becoming fact. Once I would have ranted and sworn. Now I felt calm. I knew what I had to do.
‘They’ve begun to move in our direction, Nick. Burke reckons there’s more than four thousand of them.’
I looked at the faces of the hundreds of kids as they came out of the hotel to watch me go. They didn’t shout now. Their expressions were serious, more than that there was a look of deep, painfully deep trust in their eyes.
‘Nick. What shall I tell Burke?’
In my head I could see Sarah’s face as well as I saw those in front of me.
‘Nick … The dam is in the same valley as the white church.’ Del-Coffey went grey. ‘If they blow up the dam wall a tidal wave a hundred feet high is going to tear down that valley. Nothing will survive that.’
‘I know.’ For a moment the world became unreal – then suddenly I had the strongest conviction in my life what I must do.
I looked at Del-Coffey. ‘Tell Burke to blow the dam. NOW.’
Del-Coffey, trembling, nodded and began talking into the walkie-talkie.
I turned my back on the hotel and the hundreds of watching eyes. And I ran.
Chapter Sixty-One
Some Kind of Reunion
The trees lining the driveway blurred into a dark tunnel as I ran, the rifle strapped across my back.
Through the hotel gates, down into the village, by Del-Coffey’s house, across the bridge, then up the other side of the valley.
As the road began its zig-zag climb up the hill I cut straight up across the turf, willing myself to keep running up the steep hillside, my eyes burning in the direction of the hill-top and the darkening blue sky.
My throat rattled, my body burned and pains pierced my legs, but something inside of me wouldn’t let me slow down.
A hundred yards from the hill-top I heard the sound. A thumping great crack that sounded as if the sky had been torn in two. To my left, in the distance, white smoke billowed into the sky.
The dam had gone. I ran harder, wanting to see what would happen next. The last hundred yards were the steepest. At times, I had to climb on all fours. As my hands touched the ground I felt a powerful vibration running through it.
Then I was at the top of the hill, looking down into the next valley. It had already been and gone.
The tidal wave must have torn the two miles down the valley like a hundred foot high concrete wall, moving with the speed of an express. Its force grinding boulders to gravel.
Nothing living even had a chance to drown in the flood: the crushing wave would have shattered every bone in their bodies.
I turned right and ran along the top of the long spine of the hill, looking down into the valley bottom.
Already the flood waters were dropping as I watched, leaving behind on the valley walls a continuous slick of mud, uprooted trees and thousands upon thousands of dead men and women.
No. Not men and women. They weren’t human any more. They had become an alien species, dedicated to destroying us. I felt no pity. All I wanted now was Sarah.
The church in which she was being held was perhaps another mile down the valley, where it began to broaden out.
The sun rested on the hill top when I saw the church, making its white wa
lls and spire glow pink.
The church and the top of the hill it stood on were clear of the flood. But still surrounding it was a black lake, streaked here and there with clumps of pink froth.
Now it was downhill all the way.
I went down that hillside in huge leaping strides. Slip now and I’d break my neck.
From bushes in front of me a figure lurched out, arms grasping forward.
Not all the Creosotes had been caught in the flood.
I didn’t stop running as I slipped the rifle from my shoulder and shot him in the chest. I jumped over the body as he fell.
Five or six more stragglers came at me. These were ferocious bastards – they wanted my blood.
I shot one after another, willing each bullet to count.
Several more were working along the valley behind me but I ignored them.
Only the ones that stood between me and the church I blasted.
When the bullets ran out I broke the rifle across the head of the last one that stood in my way.
Now I was running across the valley floor, through six inches of liquid silt. Bodies were twisted mud shapes; they were everywhere. In the end I had to run across them they were so tightly packed together.
From trees that had survived the tidal wave more bodies hung from branches like dead fruit where they’d been left as the flood waters dropped.
A hundred yards from the church the liquid mud deepened until I was wading waist deep through this freezing shit, pushing floating corpses away with my hands.
The slope began to run up, I moved quicker as the water shallowed to my knees, ankles, then I was free of it and running up the hill to the white church.
At the doors I stood panting. What I’d find in there God only knew – but I wanted to be in control when I went in.
Gingerly, I pushed open the door.
Inside, the church was filled with dappled greens, pinks, reds, golds and deep, deep shadow.
Silence pressed hard against my ears, the only sound my heart that seemed to fill the void with a deep bass thump.
I pulled the pistol from my belt. It was still dry. I eased back the hammer and holding the gun high walked slowly down the aisle.
The millions of colours moving across the inside of the church came from the setting sun shining through the stained glass windows. They were full of Biblical scenes – ten foot high saints, lambs, angels and a green hill far away.
I couldn’t manage a shout, only a whisper. ‘Sarah?’
Jesus Christ … No.
I’d seen so many things. But this was so bad I had to turn away.
Ahead of me, leaning against the altar rail, a dozen tiny figures. They were like the ones I’d seen on the barge, just before I’d been released.
Cut down and mummified bodies of teenagers. They watched me with their biscuit-dry eyes. One of them had a split face, roughly repaired by a row of stitches: XXXXXX.
Candles burned on the altar. More burned in candlesticks around the walls. The place was deserted.
Quiet as a cat I hunted through the shadows. Where were mum and dad? Where was Sarah?
There was a purpose to all this. My parents had seen my return to the valley. I’d heard my father whistling.
They couldn’t walk into the hotel and get me. So they’d taken Sarah. Knowing I’d follow them here.
Here was the trap.
And here, Nick Aten, their first-born son, was the prey.
‘Mum … Dad … Here I am …’ My voice echoed in the cavern of the church. I looked up into the shadows. ‘Aren’t you going to say hello to your loving son?’
‘Nick … Nick …’
I twisted round, finger tightening on the trigger.
‘Nick.’
It wasn’t the voice I expected.
‘Sarah. Where are you?’
‘Straight in front of you. The door … They’ve locked me in here.’
In the shadows I saw the door. Behind a steel grille the size of a TV screen was a gleam of blonde hair.
‘Sarah … You’re all right?’
‘Yes … They’re using me as bait, Nick … It’s you they want.’
‘Well, they’ve gone now. You’re safe.’
I forced my hand through the grille, felt her grab my hand and kiss it; and then hold it to her face. It was wet with tears.
We stayed like that for minutes on end, just feeling the touch of one another. After all these months it was so overpowering I couldn’t speak.
Sarah whispered, ‘What was that noise? I heard a clap of thunder, then the whole building began to shake. I though it was going to come down on top of me.’
‘Don’t worry. That was the sound of our lives being saved.’
She began to tell me about Curt’s atrocities and the starvation but I told her that was over too.
‘Let’s get you home,’ I told her. ‘Is there another way out of here?’
‘No … It’s the crypt. There’s only coffins down there.’
‘I’ll have to find something to break the door down.’
‘Don’t you leave me, Nick Aten … Not now. Don’t you dare.’
‘I won’t. There’s a cross on the wall made out of iron. Stand back and I’ll break the door down with that.’
Sarah must have seen them first. I saw her eyes go unnaturally wide beyond the door grille.
Next came a cold sensation at the top of my back.
The cold became flaming agony and I twisted away and fell against the wall.
Standing there side by side were my parents – wild and dirty-looking now, with long hair and blazing eyes. My mother held a knife in her hand. Her fingers gleamed red with fresh blood.
I moved my left shoulder. The pain from the knife wound stabbed through my back.
Panting, I raised the pistol and looked at my father’s face through the sight.
My hand began to tremble.
They stood and stared at me, heads shaking slightly from the tension twisting up the muscles inside of them.
I forced myself to keep aiming at the face. Only now I didn’t see the wildman hair and mad eyes.
I saw my father’s face. His lips parted and I saw the gap in his teeth.
‘Nick … Nick.’ I heard Sarah behind me. The voice seemed faraway. ‘Nick. Shoot them … They’re not your parents any more … Fire the gun.’
I pulled the trigger. The explosion echoed around the church.
Ten feet above my father’s head the bullet knocked a lump out of the wall.
‘Mum … Dad.’ My throat hurt as I tore out the words. ‘I don’t know if there’s some part of you deep down can hear me … But listen. I’m a father now. I’ve a new family. And you’ve no right to do this. It’s time for you to go away now. You’ve got to leave us alone.’
I fired above their heads again. They did not flinch.
‘Nick … Don’t let them do this to you,’ called Sarah. ‘They’re not your parents. If you don’t kill them they’ll kill you …’
My mother began to walk slowly forward, the knife held straight out in her hand. I was so hypnotised by her eyes that I forgot everything else until the blow knocked me sideways.
My father held the cross I’d intended to use to break the crypt door down with.
He swung it again.
I jerked back and the heavy ironwork bit into the wall.
‘Stop it … Dad, stop it!’
He kept moving forward. I lifted the gun.
He swung again and the cross splintered a wooden pew.
With my free hand I began picking up prayer books laid out on the pews and threw them at him.
He kept on coming.
‘Dad, don’t … don’t …’ I felt six years old again. My dad was coming to punish me and there was nothing I could do about it … He could run faster than me, he was stronger than me … Here he comes to smack me and carry me crying to bed.
Slash with the cross; sometimes to beat thin air, sometimes hitting the wall, someti
mes hitting my arms.
‘Dad … No … Leave me alone.’
The wall at the end of the church met my back and I could walk backwards no longer.
All I could see were my father’s eyes. Staring into mine. And they were getting closer and closer.
The sound of the gunshot came from nowhere. The echo crashed from wall to wall. My head jerked from left to right to see where it had come from.
Then I looked at my own hand. Smoke oozed from the gun-barrel. My finger still pulled the trigger so tightly it had turned bone white.
Slowly I looked down along the aisle.
My father lay flat on his back, arms stretched out at either side. Above his head was the cross. A spreading pool of blood fanned out around his head.
My mother came at me snarling. The force of her leap knocked me flat; the pistol skidded away across the floor.
She crouched on my chest, both hands in my mouth trying to tear my jaws apart.
I crunched my teeth together on her fingers.
But she didn’t let go. She only used the grip to pull my head up then crack it back down onto the stone slabs.
She did it again, and a droning sound started running through my brain.
Consciousness was slipping away from me.
Give you birth … Do you know the sacrifices we had to make for you … You failed us … You betrayed us … dirty, dirty son … We gave you everything … You failed us … Now we’re taking it all back … Everything …
Mum’s voice. But it was only in my head as my mind began to slip. Somewhere a girl was screaming my name …
‘Nick! Fight her, Nick! Fight her!’
The strength came thundering back from somewhere deep inside. I kicked up, pushing her off.
I pulled myself to my feet and backed off, choking.
From her ragged clothes she pulled out the knife and came forward, eyes burning, her lips parted.
Then she ran at me.
I sidestepped her, grabbed her by the huge bunch of tangled hair. And using the momentum I spun her smack into a stone pillar.
The first time her head hit the pillar it was accidental.
The next time was not. Nor the next.
When she was gone I lowered her to the floor.