Blood Crazy (7 page)

Sarah, too shocked to think, sat on the floor.

‘Come on, Sarah, love. Your mother's making you a cup of tea. Open the door.'

She couldn't
think
what to do, so she did what her guts
told
her to do.

She ran the water. ‘I'm just going to wash, then I'll come out.'

Leaving the water running, she climbed out of the window onto the flat roof of the conservatory. From there, she swung herself off the roof, hanging by her hands from the guttering, before dropping into the flower bed.

Legs threatening to give way, she managed to jog round the house. As she ran she heard the sound of her VW Beetle.

Her sisters had seen what had happened to her, got the car started and were desperately trying to drive the thing. Eleven-year-old Anne in the driving seat, revving the engine until it rattled, tried to get it in gear but didn't know she had to depress the clutch pedal. Metal struck metal, the old German car shrieked.

Sarah pushed both sisters into the front passenger seat then reversed the car across the yard as her father belted from the house. One look at his face told her
RUN
.

As she drove down the drive he charged the car, punching through the passenger window with his fist.

Sarah thrashed the motor and the car left him behind. Immediately he stopped running and just stared after them.

Five minutes later Sarah parked the car – then she threw up in a hedgebottom.

After that, the sequence of events was similar to mine. Driving round, shocked. Listening to the same message on the radio. Seeing the aftermath where parents had torn apart their children.

By late afternoon both sisters were complaining of hunger. Sarah found a deserted village store. They could have taken what they wanted but the Hayes sisters had been brought up nicely with a private education. Looting wasn't on the curriculum so Sarah left the few coins she found in the car to pay for the loaf of bread and chocolate they took.

Sunday night they slept in the car in a wood. The next morning she decided to drive to Doncaster police station.

If I hadn't found them as they tried to change the tyre I think the three sisters – or some part of them – would have joined the other objects that topped the ten-foot poles carried by the mob.

‘What's happened? Why are they trying to kill us?

Shrugging, I opened another beer. Sarah sat on the wooden bench that looked over the fields and tried to work out what had happened. It was a mystery she wanted to solve so much it hurt her more than the bruised cheekbone.

‘I went to bed Saturday night. I'd watched TV with my parents. They were perfectly normal. Dad even brought home a Chinese meal. Then when I woke up Sunday morning they tried to kill me.

‘Had your father ever brought home a Chinese meal before?'

‘No. He always said he never fancied eating—' She shot me a look with those clear blue eyes.

‘What do you mean, Nick? What's eating Chinese food got to do with …'

‘Not much, probably. Only the last time I saw my dad he was drinking beer in the afternoon. Nothing odd about that except I'd never seen him ever drink beer before during the day.'

‘You mean they were starting to change even then?'

‘Probably. But the changes were so slight you didn't notice them at the time.'

‘But what caused it?' Sarah beat her knee to the rhythm of the
words. ‘What caused most of the population to turn into homicidal maniacs?'

‘Not
most
of the population.
All
the
adult
population.' I told her about the river of lunatics I'd seen on the motorway. ‘As far as I can tell everyone over twenty has been driven stark, barking mad. I haven't seen any kids affected.'

‘But how?'

I nearly told her my neural disrupter theory. In the cold light of day it sounded too half-assed. I shrugged again.

She started pacing in front of the bench. ‘Is it something in the water supply? In the air? Like a nerve gas? Is it a virus? Why should it send people not just mad, but … but it seems to implant in parents a – a craving to kill their own children … I mean they're not fighting each other, they're banding together, they're flocking like birds … they want … they seem to need to … oh God … God …'

Sarah suddenly sat down rubbing her forehead, like she was trying to massage the mystery from her brain.

And she obviously had brains. She was trying to work out logically what had happened. I'm short on brains. I opened another beer. Why should I try and work out what happened? There'd be plenty of scientists and psychologists and all that shit working on what had hit Doncaster for years to come.

I walked round the hilltop. Castle Rising is a straight-sided little hill that pokes out of the flat countryside like a monster zit. I'd not chosen it for its picturesque setting but its views of the surrounding fields. If the crazy people should come we'd see them a mile off.

Sarah's sisters sat on a blanket, eating sandwiches. I avoided them. They never stopped asking questions.

‘Will mummy and daddy be all right now? When can we go home? Who'll look after Pookah and Chestnut?' (Their ponies.) ‘If that car isn't yours whose is it then? Won't we get into trouble if we don't go to school?'

I completed the circuit of the hilltop and sat beside Sarah. A faint fatherly instinct suggested I put my arm around her and tell her everything would be okay. But at seventeen you don't do that kind of thing.

‘Sarah. I planned on driving south. I reckon we should be out of the affected area after a few miles … You and your sisters can come along if you like.'

‘Thanks … And thanks for picking us up back in town. You took a risk.'

‘Don't worry about it.' I drained the can. ‘We'll have another half-hour here then we'll be off.'

I picked a patch of soft grass on the sloping hillside and lay down. Sunshine warmed my face and the beer and sandwiches made me feel that the world was going to be all right after all. My eyes closed.

The birds sang, the two youngest girls were laughing. At this distance it sounded musical.

I let myself imagine I was drifting on a cloud, a mile high above the countryside; it was as soft as cottonwool. I relaxed into it; I relaxed and I relaxed and I floated out of this world.

‘Nick! Here, quick!'

I ran down the hillside so fast that when I tried to stop I skied the rest of the way, my trainers buzzing over the grass.

‘What is it? What's wrong?'

Then I stopped and gawped stupidly at the two people in front of me.

‘Mum … Dad.' I had to laugh out loud then or cry hysterically. ‘How did you find me? Are you all right? Did – did you see what's happened in Doncaster? They – they … It's all—'

‘Nick … It's all right, Nick. We know what happened.'

My dad, smiling, showing the gap in his top teeth, walked up and put his arm around me. The hug was tight and loving. Mum hung back, pushing back her hair. Her smile was pure mother love.

‘Nick, I bet you'd given us up for dead,' she said. ‘Whatever happens we'll never leave you again.' She kissed me on the cheek. If she could she would have picked me up like a toddler and hugged me.

‘Come on, let's go home. The car's parked on the road.'

‘John's waiting to see you. He's been dying to show you those new games he bought.'

A cold lump squeezed through my guts to my legs. A bastard dream.

I shook my head. ‘Yeah. John's dying to see me. And where's Uncle Jack? Playing crazy golf?'

My mother laughed like a teenage girl. ‘No. We left him practising his guitar in the kitchen.'

I still wanted to go with them. I really did. I wanted them to strap me in the back of dad's car and ride home like I was seven years old. But something deeper said:

NO. RUN LIKE HELL, NICK ATEN. SHOVE YOUR PARENTS AWAY AND RUN, RUN, RUN. THEY'RE GOING TO QUEER YOU UP, BOY.

‘Here you are, Nicholas.'

‘You know he's going to either end up a millionaire one day or end up in jail.'

Run, Nick, run!

Too late.

Mum and dad pushed me down and held me flat on the ground, my arms outstretched. I was seven years old, not strong enough to stop what they were going to do to me.

‘Now, Nicholas, don't be silly. I'm not going to hurt you.' It was the voice my mum used when she used to cut my toe nails. ‘You want to look like John, don't you? Lie still. Anyone would think we were trying to kill you.'

Mum held a knife in front of my face.

‘If it bothers you,' dad said, ‘think about your favourite programme.
The Munsters
, isn't it? Lie still, Nicholas, don't wriggle like that. It'll be over in a minute.'

No!

Stop!

I stared down at my bared chest as mum eased the blade into the skin. Dad began to whistle
Ten Green Bottles
through the gap in his teeth.

A red smile opened in my chest.

Not breathing, I watched her calmly cut through the chest wall. Like a plump red fruit my heart pumped there, its white roots, the arteries, disappearing into bloody meat.

Mum grasped a handful of arteries and began cutting through them as I'd seen her cut rind from bacon, snapping the tougher bits with her fingers.

Each broken artery was agony. I screamed.

‘Don't be silly, Nicholas,' she said. ‘Another minute and I'll be done. Then you can join your brother. Now hold still while I cut your big one.'

Muthaaaaaaaaa
…

I was sitting on the grass, grunting. When my eyes focused I saw Sarah looking down at me, her eyes wide.

‘Are you all right, Nick? I thought you were having a heart attack or something.'

I breathed deeply and rubbed my sweaty palms against the grass.

‘Can I get you anything, Nick? A drink?'

I shook my head. The pain felt real. My parents seemed real. I looked down the hillside to make sure they weren't really there.

‘Come on,' I said, standing. ‘Let's get back to the car.'

‘Nick.' She touched my arm. It was the first time she touched me. ‘Nick, are you sure you're okay?'

I made my face smile. Inside I felt shit. ‘Yeah. Thanks. Just a stupid dream.' I ran my hand across my chest feeling for the hole and feeling stupidly relieved that there was nothing there.

‘Was it bad?'

‘It was nothing. Forget it. Come on, I want to get back to civilization before it gets dark.'

‘Are you sure it's safe this way?'

‘No.'

Sarah looked out at the passing houses. Some were burning. ‘You might have been better using the by-pass.'

‘It still takes us too close to the town centre.' I turned onto a road that linked the industrial areas with another motorway. That one, I hoped, empty. If it was we could be out of the madlands within the hour. In the back seat Anne and Vicki were half asleep.

‘Watch it,' Sarah said. ‘They're in the bushes.'

‘I see them.'

Alongside the road ran a six-foot mound planted with shrubs that screened the factories from the road. It was sprinkled with men and women sitting on the ridge. None looked under twenty-five.

‘What do you think they're waiting for?'

‘The second coming … People like them to join them.' I shot her a grim smile. ‘Or people like us.'

I dropped the speed to twenty-five. Ahead debris littered the road. A truck had ploughed off the road, gouged out a chunk of banking, then dropped on its side.

‘Jesus, just look at that,' whispered Sarah. ‘Look at all that money.'

The security truck had cracked open like an egg. Bank notes ran
across the road like a fifty million dollar rug. I drove through them sending up a spray of fifties like a speedboat cutting through the ocean.

I could have stopped and picked it up. For a minute or two I would have been a millionaire – before the crazy bastards on the bund tore me in two.

‘Nick!'

I hit the brake. ‘What?'

‘There's a boy back there.'

Vicki shouted, ‘He's running after us!'

Anne screamed. ‘Quick. Drive away, Nick. He'll catch us.'

‘He's not one of them. He's too young.'

The boy was about fifteen. God knows where he came from, but he came leaping down the slope onto the road about a hundred yards behind us. Even from this distance you could tell he was terrified.

He ran toward us, his eyes locked on the car. His arms wind-milled, the sports jacket flapped open.

I slipped the car into reverse. I'd meet him half way.

‘Get ready to open the back door, Vicki. No, not yet. Wait until he's – shit.'

I nearly reversed into her. An old woman had limped down the banking to stand between me and the running youth. He ran faster, arms going wildly. And I saw why. Running down the banking after him was a mob of adults.

They wanted his blood.

I began to psych myself up. The old woman wouldn't let me reverse past her. I'd have to reverse over her. It made sense. Her eyes told me she was mad. Mad, bad and dangerous.

Into reverse. Pedal down. Bang. Easy.

Come on, Aten. Come on you soft prick.

Shit … I couldn't do it.

I stared back at the woman, and I knew I couldn't run the mad old bitch down.

‘Watch it, Nick. They're coming for us.'

More crazies were running across a factory yard. A six-foot chain link fence separated them from us. Slowly they began to climb it. Soon they would be dropping down onto the road right next to us.

Behind us the youth had closed the gap to perhaps forty yards.