Blood Crazy (21 page)

‘But he always disappeared as soon as the fists began to fly,' I added. ‘Now he's developed into a real hard nut.'

Sarah looked at each of us sharply. ‘I don't think we're under any illusion who murdered Boxer yesterday?'

Del-Coffey looked round uneasily as if the apple trees had fruited ears.

Sarah drove on. ‘Curt and Jonathan did it. They lured Boxer down here, then shot him. They had this takeover planned.'

Kitty said in her soft Asian tones, ‘And from what I have seen they are quite shrewd. Immediately they have recruited those who might pose a future threat to them and are buying their loyalty with possessions and power. And from what I have heard on the grapevine Curt is going to create a harem for himself.'

Del-Coffey picked an apple from the tree. ‘And these girls are going to have no choice in the matter. You can add rape to the crime of murder.'

I suddenly felt uncomfortable. ‘Hey, hold on. Is this a meeting of the Steering Committee or what? You are talking as if we're actually going to do something about all this. You know there's no cops we can go to; we can't stick those guys in jail.'

‘That's exactly what we're saying.' Dave's red-rimmed eyes fixed on me. ‘Nick, we have to take back … no, seize, grab onto control of this community and never let go. If we don't, all we can look forward to in the short term is torture and slavery from those thugs … In the long term we'll die – you can be sure of that. If we're not farming the land within the next twelve months we'll die of starvation.'

‘And death might come faster than that.' Del-Coffey bit into the apple. ‘Tell them, Kitty.'

‘Martin and I have continued to study the affected adults we call Creosote. There are small groups moving round the area. Everyone has seen the photographs Martin has taken. Some of the individuals have been identified as mothers and fathers of members of our community.'

‘But they don't pose a threat, do they?' I objected. ‘The most
they've done is watch their sons and daughters here at the hotel. At the moment that seems as life-threatening as mummy and daddy walking down to school at play-time to watch their kids playing hopscotch.'

‘But don't you see, Nick?' Sarah sounded exasperated. ‘There is some instinct that drives our parents to find us. And to watch us. We all know what happened six months ago. Martin and Kitty believe it will happen again. Only this time it won't be a frenzied, mindless attack. Nick, our mothers and fathers are studying us … Then they will work out a way of finishing what they started.'

‘So,' said Dave, ‘what we need to do is this: we will—'

‘Dave … Not that way. Keep away from the hotel.' Del-Coffey cut off towards the bottom of the orchard. His voice dropped to a whisper. ‘In a day or two our new bosses are going to get very paranoid. Every time they see more than two people talking together – the way we're doing at present – they're going to suspect we're plotting a
coup d'état
.'

Sarah glanced back at the hotel. ‘And that's exactly what we're going to have to do.'

‘Look,' I said. ‘I think we're being too hasty here. Why not give it a week or two? Curt might settle down once he sees being boss isn't so easy.'

Del-Coffey bit off another lump of apple. ‘We can't wait. One. I've seen enough of those two to know they'll be first-rate tyrants. With Curt's sadistic streak that'll make life unpleasant for us all. Two. If Family Creosote walk up to those gates now, there's damn all we can do to stop them killing every single one of us.'

Dave said, ‘This is what we do, then: we remove Curt and Jonathan as leaders. Then we appoint a new leader. Boxer, for all his faults, showed us the way. We need someone who's not afraid to discipline wrong-doers fairly but firmly – very, very firmly.'

I asked, ‘Who will be leader?'

‘We'll cross that bridge when we get to it,' said Dave. But I noticed he and Del-Coffey looked at one another as if sharing a secret.

‘Then,' said Del-Coffey, ‘we have to turn the hotel into a fortress. We've got the ten-foot walls and the gates. But we need to dig a deep ditch around the outside of the walls, then beyond that security
fencing topped with barbed wire. Probably an electrified fence would be pretty useful, too. Around the perimeter we will have watch posts. We will have a team of armed guards, trained to deal with any Creosotes should they attack. Within the compound will be—'

‘Wait a minute, wait a minute.' I held up a finger. ‘I know I'm thinking a lot more slowly than any of you. But you said we had to remove Curt and Jonathan as leaders. It might seem a minor detail but they're armed to the teeth – so are their bodyguards. We've no guns, so how do you propose to do it?'

They looked at me as if I'd poured cold water on a flawless plan. I was sorry about that. But I remembered Boxer's bullet-punctured body. And I wanted to stay alive.

Twenty-four hours later Sarah was still mad at me. She came back into our room, slamming the door. Her eyes flashed, her hair swung about her shoulders as she paced the floor.

I sat up in bed and groaned. ‘Look, when are we going to stop this argument? What do you expect from me? I've listened to what you, Del-Coffey and Dave Middleton have said. Okay, kick out Curt and Jonathan, appoint a new leader. I agree, but how the hell do we do that? Those guys are armed and dangerous. Why not give them a few weeks? With experience they might turn out to be good leaders.'

‘Not if you heard what I've just heard.'

‘And what's that?'

‘Do you know what happened this morning? No, you lie there in bed and rot. I'll list them for you. One: Martin Del-Coffey has some drums of fuel in his garage. Those two bastards said that they wanted them. Martin asks why. And do you know what they did, Nick? Broke two of his fingers. He didn't even say no, they couldn't have the fuel. He only asked why.' She paced, punching one hand into the other. ‘Two: young children have been beaten for not keeping quiet outside our new leaders' rooms. Three: at this moment, Curt is sitting in the dining room writing a list. It's a list of girls' names. Now, listen to this … Curt intends to personally make
all the girls on the list pregnant. He's decided we need to increase the population of the community – but with good, strong blood – his blood.'

‘Christ, he's mad.' I sat up in bed. ‘What are you doing?'

Sarah began to pile her clothes into a suitcase.

‘Wait … Sarah, are you on the list?'

‘I'm right at the top. He says he's got a hard-on, and it'd be a shame to waste it.'

I stood and stared at her. The blood roared in my ears.

She looked at me, waiting for a reaction. Then she sighed and went to look out of the window, arms folded.

‘No, that's not fair, Nick. I tried to provoke you into actually doing something about those two.'

‘There is no list?'

‘Oh, there's a list all right … I'm not on it. Do you know why?'

I shrugged.

‘Those two have obviously taken a shine to you, Nick Aten. You're allowed to keep me as your own personal plaything. Kitty's on the list, though. And I imagine in another two or three years so will my sisters. As Curt put it this morning, “when girls are old enough to bleed they're old enough to butcher.”'

‘It's sickening.'

‘It is, but until someone does something about those two we're just going to have to grin and bear it.'

‘Where are you going, then?'

‘I'm moving in with Martin and Kitty. It's not as far away from here as I'd like but it'll have to do. Any time you want a chat you know where I'll be. Bye.'

I dressed and went outside. A cold wind blew and I knew we'd seen the last of the summer. Someone had rigged up the sound system's speakers under tarpaulins and the music still blasted as loud as it had done through those hot summer days and nights.

It was like walking through a deserted funfair. The music still plays. Only there is something mournful and lonely about it now.

Curt and Jonathan – and their bodyguards, now known as the Crew – were lining up cars on the drive. They were planning a
couple of hours chasing one another across country. No doubt firing their Uzis at the sky as they went.

Sarah had said the two thought enough about me not to turn me into one of their slaves as they were doing with the rest of the community. I had got on well with them over the last few weeks, we'd had some good laughs together. But there had to be more to it than that.

I had the answer two minutes later.

One of the Crew was a car short. He saw Slatter sitting on the Porsche on the lawn.

The Crew member, looking like a rebel warrior with shades and bandanna, shotgun cockily over one shoulder, swaggered across toward Slatter.

I knew what the bodyguard intended. He'd go across to Slatter and tell him to shift off the Porsche.

Anyone else would have jumped off the car as if it was hot enough to sizzle steak.

Slatter's eyes came down from where they had been gazing over the treetops. He didn't move, he didn't say anything, he just stared with those two laser eyes at the kid.

You could see the kid just droop – his shoulders dropped, the shotgun hung down limp in his hands. He tried to treat it lightly with a nervous laugh, but you could see that Slatter had scared him.

‘I'll go get the Audi,' he shouted back at his mates, then walked away from Slatter as quickly as he could.

Over the last few days I'd kept an eye on how people reacted under the new leadership – who were the lickspittles, who kept their mouths shut, who complained too much and who was likely to rebel.

Slatter was a hard case; he wasn't afraid of the terrible twosome like we were. Then, neither would Slatter side with them, nor would he try to oust them, so they knew he wasn't a threat.

At that moment I saw how they viewed him. To Curt, Jonathan and their cronies Slatter was a god. Okay, he was a Dark God, a Savage God, but a god all the same. They could have shot him as easily as they would a sheep. But we lived in superstitious times. They would have been too afraid of his ghost stamping up the stairs for them at the dead of night.

I was the only one who ever stood up to Slatter. Of course, once I
nearly got my head busted, but I wasn't afraid to argue with him. So that set me apart from the rest. They respected me.

As the days passed life went from bad to worse. Beatings were run of the mill events.

Curt developed a sadistic new sport called
Carrying the Can
. People guilty of misdemeanours would have a steel pipe, six inches long and as thick as a cucumber, handcuffed to their wrist. From the end of the pipe protruded a fuse.

The game was simple. At the top of the church tower in the village was a glass jar. In the jar a key.

Back at the hotel, the victim stood on the entrance steps while the fuse was lit.

It took ten minutes to reach the gunpowder in the pipe. And it took ten minutes for a fit person to reach the top of the church tower.

You run fast enough. Hey presto. You get to the top of the church tower in time, unlock the cuff and chuck the pipe away from you just in time to see it go up in a puff of smoke.

If you're not fast enough (or for extra laughs they lock the gates to the drive) you're running like billy-oh and – BOOM. You have flash burns on your hands and arms, scorched hair and you're deaf as a post for a couple of days.

Dave pleaded with them to moderate their behaviour. They laughed, then stood on his hands whilst they stubbed cigarettes out on his face.

I saw nothing of Sarah, and when a chance came for me to bring back more fuel for the generators I volunteered fast.

Curt told me they couldn't spare fuel for a car to take me to Ulverston, where a tanker full of fuel waited to be picked up (though they had all they needed for their mindless races), so I'd have to walk which would take me a full day.

Again, I didn't really mind. Eskdale was getting claustrophobic. You hardly dared breathe in case one of the Crew took it as an insult. Then you, too, ended up
Carrying The Can
.

I headed south, seeing no Creosotes as I walked along the country lanes.

I still hoped that Curt and Jonathan would settle down. That they'd see the place would fall apart if they didn't start people working for the benefit of the whole community, not just for the luxury of a lucky few.

Dave Middleton didn't share my optimism. Even as I walked out of Eskdale on that cold October day he must have been planning what he'd say, and what he'd do when I returned.

Because of shit weather and deteriorating roads, it took me two days to get the tanker back to Eskdale.

After parking up, I was walking toward the hotel entrance when Simon ran toward me like he was on fire.

He was
Carrying The Can
. His eyes bled terror; he was sobbing as he ran down the drive in the direction of the church.

Nothing's changed, I thought. But it had.

‘What's wrong with Simon?' I asked Trousers, who stood watching the youth run. ‘It's only a spoonful of gunpowder. He'll do himself more mischief running like that.'

Trousers looked at me, his face blazing with a mixture of terror and sheer heart-pumping excitement. ‘They've changed the rules. Curt's stuffed the pipe with gelignite!'

‘Jesus Christ …' I turned to watch. Dozens more leaned through the hotel windows to watch, too.

Simon belted through the gates at the bottom of the drive, followed the road down through the village to where it crossed the stream, then climbed steeply up to the church.