The night came.
In the end, from me carrying him to the cabin until he stopped breathing took more than twenty hours. Looking back now I felt privileged to be there.
I grew up fast in those twenty hours. I began to see life from a different angle. I guess this is what it felt like to be a man.
As the sun rose through red clouds to shine on those red waters I went out onto the deck. For the first time in weeks the air felt fresh and clean on my face.
I realized the flood had lifted the ship from the grip of baked mud. We now floated free on that red lake.
Kate appeared at my side. She didn’t say anything. She didn’t need to. As she put her arm around my waist I turned and buried my face in her hair.
FLOODS OF RED
JUNE
What is there left to tell you?
You must know what happened after my brother Stephen’s death; it’s documented well enough. You’ll know about the arguments I had with the survivors on the ship. I didn’t want to become leader. Christ knows I didn’t think I could handle that responsibility, but both Stephen’s group and the tribe from London voted me in. So there I was, leader of over two hundred people, more than half of them children, on a warship, adrift in the middle of that God Almighty flood of red.
At first, the real fear was that we would be washed out into the Atlantic Ocean where we’d drift aimlessly until we starved. Although we could start the ship’s generators to give us electricity, the steering gear and propellers were so wrecked we couldn’t sail the ship under power.
On the day after Stephen’s death the currents carried the ship through what once must have been a city—probably Liverpool was the best guess. The tips of church spires and office blocks broke the surface of the water. I freed the anchor chain at the stern and watched the anchor plunge into the blood-red flood water.
I could picture the anchor gliding down into the red-misted depths, trailing its massive steel chain; then somewhere down there it dragged for a while across the remains of roads, knocking aside submerged cars, perhaps ripping across house roofs deep underwater, before finally lodging solid in a building. Who knows? Perhaps some ruined supermarket or cinema.
And for six months that’s where we stayed anchored.
After the heat, the winter stormed in with a vengeance. For month after month black snowflakes tumbled out of the sky; the north winds churned the water, rolling the ship where it lay at anchor.
Whoever had stocked the ship with food had done a hell of a job. At least we wouldn’t go hungry. The snow provided a heaven-sent supply of fresh water. Once the black grit had been filtered out.
So, there we sat. Looking back now, it seemed a busy time. I reorganized the two groups, fusing them into one community. Tesco has been transformed into my most valuable right-hand man. Just now he’s having the time of his life making snowmen with the kids on the upper deck. For the first time in his life he feels as if he belongs to a real family. He’s loving every minute of it.
I don’t know what happened to those who reached the Mirdath, the ship we planned to board on the west coast at Heysham. I like to think they waited for as long as they could, then they reluctantly up-anchored, sailed south and found that tropical island. Every so often, I’ll wake at night and imagine them all, including some I knew from my schooldays, enjoying late-night fish barbecues on the beach or happily fooling around beneath the coconut palms.
And Kate?
Well, we share a cabin. We get on well together…and yeah…I guess this relationship is for keeps. Sometimes she’ll get mad with me when I’m cranky. Then her green eyes blaze like lasers and she’ll threaten to chuck me overboard. But within ten minutes we’re laughing again, and then, as likely as not, we’ll maybe steal an hour or two away in the cabin to make up. And when we’re not doing absolutely wicked things to each other’s bodies, she applies that clear head of hers to organizing food supplies or updating the archive that Stephen had so assiduously collected.
And, my God, the cabin looks almost homely. The little girl, Lee, sticks pictures of happy-smiley faces she’s painted on the wall, and big beaming suns in wax crayon. Alongside those I’ve put the photographs Stephen had in his wallet. They still have his fingerprints on the back, left there by the blood he had on his fingertips. And yeah…there’s never a day goes by when I don’t think of him. Especially when I see the photograph of us when he was fourteen years old and I was eight. We’re posing with ice cream cornets as if they’re microphones, mouths open wide, one fist punching the air, as if we’re belting out some blood-and-guts rock ‘n roll song.
For the first few weeks I’d look at the photos stuck up there on the wall and I’d get the mother of all lumps in my throat. My eyes would prick. Then one day it all changed. I knew I’d assimilated the memory of Stephen somewhere into my psyche. Sure, his body had been stitched into a sheet, then dropped overboard into the blood-red waters. But he wasn’t really dead and gone. Part of his soul, his spirit—call it whatever the hell you want—part of him had become welded to some part of me inside. And I feel more whole because of it. So now, when I see the photographs I don’t feel sad—in fact I can’t help myself: I smile.
JULY
A few days ago the snow stopped falling. The cloud cleared. This morning the sun shone for the first time in months.
Kate and I took the inflatable Zodiac dinghy, fired up the outboard motor, then headed east, weaving round the ruined buildings that are appearing day by day now as the flood waters gradually fall.
We looked back at the great ship as it lay at anchor in the middle of the fresh-water lake. And now it looked like plain old water. The red oxides that had dyed it the colour of blood have settled into the lake bed, leaving the water as clear as glass.
Twenty minutes later I saw land rise out of the flood waters in front of us. It was nothing more than a mound of mud left by the receding water.
‘What are you landing for?’ Kate asked. ‘There’s nothing here.’
‘There’s something…there is something.’ I didn’t know what, but my skin had begun to tingle. I sensed I’d find something there.
Something special? Something magical?
I just didn’t know, but it was as if that thousand acres of dirt were calling my name.
I jumped from the Zodiac onto the drying mud. Kate followed.
I couldn’t stop myself now. I felt it calling me. My skin tingled like mad, my heart thumped, my blood buzzed through my veins.
I could feel excitement rising inside my body as if it was the sun burning through storm clouds. Any moment it would break through and vanquish all darkness in a glorious burst of light.
The mud rose steeply in front of me. Beyond that I could see nothing.
I was running now. I had to see what lay beyond the rise.
My boots slopped through the rich black silt that was the rotted remains of plants, animals, human beings.
I reached the top of the slope. I stood there, panting, looking out at the island growing out of the flood.
‘What is it?’ Kate panted as she climbed up behind me. ‘What can you see?’
I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t.
I held out my hand to help her stand as she cleared the slope.
I watched her face. Her eyes widened, surprised, then a smile broke through as she looked in amazement.
‘Flowers? Rick…it’s full of flowers.’
Then, hand in hand, we walked through a green pasture that grew gold, red, and wild and beautiful with dandelion, poppy and thyme.
This was the beginning.
Simon Clark, On Deadly Ground
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