Blood Crazy (38 page)

No need. I'd done a good job. The back of his skull curved inward in a mess of blood and brain.

This was the first man I'd killed.

For a second I stared at him, trying to hold down the feeling that was coming up inside of me. I couldn't hold it for long. Up it rushed.

The feeling was good, very good indeed. The old man inside was congratulating me.

I ran down to the river bank. It was do or die now.

Now I was closer to the living causeway I could see it was low in the water and every so often it would move – a kind of undulation as the people shifted slightly to get a better grip on the next, causing the causeway to dip down into the water.

If I got my boots wet I'd never get them dry again. One thing I did need now was to keep my feet in good condition. Quickly I took off
my boots and tied them onto the haversack by the laces. Then, rifle at the ready, I walked barefoot down to the river bank through the snow.

This time I kept my wits about me looking for any sign of Mr Creosote coming through the forest.

I worked along the banking until I was perhaps thirty yards from the causeway. Creosotes were still walking across, but there weren't so many now. I counted only four on the causeway itself. All walked in the same direction from this bank to the next, then they climbed a hill at the other side and disappeared over the ridge. No doubt homing in on another bunch of kids.

I inched nearer to the causeway, trying not to be freaked by the weird sight of all those men and woman hanging onto one another to form the meat road across the water.

When the causeway was clear and there were no more Creosotes heading down toward it, I ran across the frozen mud to where the causeway began at the water's edge.

For a second I hung back. The idea of walking across all those people was repulsive. You wouldn't stuff worms into your mouth – I didn't want to do this.

I looked back to see a dozen more Creosotes walking down through the wood toward me.

This's it.

Like I was walking on light-bulbs I gingerly stepped on the first human link in the causeway. The man shifted under my bare foot and turned his face to look up at me; it was a swollen mask punctured by two red holes where the eyes had been.

I walked on to the causeway, bodies shifting slightly. I didn't stop now, walking as quickly as I dared across the slippery backs and heads of hundreds of men and women.

To my left a woman died with a groan, released her grip on the people next to her and floated away in the current. The causeway dipped and suddenly I was ankle deep in freezing water.

The people braced themselves beneath my feet and lifted up out of the water again. A wave of coughing spread through the living causeway, make it shudder from end to end, but still they gripped each other tightly, so tightly I couldn't tell where one man ended and another began.

In the middle of the roadway a few of the people were already long dead, held there only by the those around them. I trod on one belly that was so rotten my bare foot went through with a crunch. Like stepping onto a rotten melon, fluid squirted up my leg.

Shit to this.

I ran across the yards of skin, and the heads packed as tightly as street cobble stones, my boots swinging crazily from the haversack, my feet thumping down on chests and backs and stomachs and faces, knocking the breath from their bodies. As I ran I was followed by winded

uh-uh-uh-uh-uh

sounds, and the meat road writhed and groaned and panted beneath my feet.

uh-uh-uh-uh-uh-uh-uh-uh

My pounding feet would smash down on a nose or a finger or a forearm, snapping them like dry sticks.

By the time I was three quarters of the way across, the meat road was gripped by convulsions, bucking out of the water like a sea serpent. Hands clutched at my ankles but I didn't stop.

And I didn't stop when I hit the beach at the other side. I ran on through the forest until I'd left the river and the thing in the river far behind.

For the next forty-eight hours I was a walking machine. Nothing stopped me – night, snow, gales, hunger, exhaustion. They should have been obstacles but I drove through them like a tank drives through solid walls.

I ate as I walked – sometimes I think I even slept as I walked.

After I left the mountains the snow turned to slush and it rained for mile after mile.

When at last I knew I had to stop and rest, soaked and exhausted, I found a car on its side against a stone wall. I took my rifle and put a bullet through the tank. As the fuel streamed like piss from the hole I lobbed a match into it.

For the next two hours I roasted myself in front of the inferno. It was so hot it melted a circle of snow fifty feet in diameter. My face burned and my clothes steamed until they were dry.

Then I walked on through the night, through deserted towns alive
with dogs and cats gone wild. Across empty countryside. I saw no communities of kids – only signs there had been once. Mr Creosote is a thorough bastard.

As I walked I imagined what I'd find in Eskdale. The pictures that came into my head pushed me on faster.

On the second night of my journey, at five to midnight, I came across a road sign that seemed to shine in the moonlight.

ESKDALE COUNTRY PARK

I'd done it. I was home.

Before I could go on I had to reach out and touch the sign to prove to myself it was real.

It had taken four months to come less than a hundred miles. A year ago a leisurely drive would have taken a couple of hours.

The hotel and Del-Coffey's house were three miles away.

What now?

As I walked on, slowly now, I realised I hadn't got the remotest idea what I was going to do when I arrived.

Broadly the plan was to kick out Curt and his Crew and take charge. Then get rid of the Creosotes. How I'd actually do it … God only knew.

I walked up the road with the moonlight shining on what was left of the snow.

After a quarter of a mile I heard the whistling begin.

I carried on walking, thinking maybe it was some kid far off in the distance whistling in the dark. But these days what kid would be out in the countryside at midnight?

Ten Green Bottles Hanging On A Wall, If One Green Bottle Should Accidentally Fall …

I'd just walked through an Arctic wilderness but I'd never felt as cold as I did then. I knew who was whistling.

And I knew I'd been seen. And that the whistling was some kind of mind-twisted greeting, or warning. Or threat.

‘Yes, I hear you, dad,' I said to myself. ‘Your son's come back.'

With the whistling floating across the moonlit fields and woods I carried on up the hill.

I was just two miles from Del-Coffey's house when I saw the fire as I crested the hill. It lit a group of farm buildings about a hundred yards to my right.

Follow your instincts, Bernadette had said, listen to the quiet voice inside. I wanted to hurry down the hill into the village and see Sarah – and the baby; my son; for Chrissake's I didn't even know his
name yet. But instinct told me to check on the keeper of the fire first.

This is what I saw as I approached. Sitting around the bonfire in the farmyard were seven teenagers. Six of them looked wild bastards, dressed in army gear.

The seventh I knew instantly.

Tug Slatter. He sat on a log in front of the fire.

As I crossed the yard toward the fire the six kids stood up, surprised to see someone come strolling into their bonfire party in the middle of the night.

Tug Slatter just glanced up, then took a long pull on his cigarette. Far from being surprised he looked as if he'd been expecting me all along.

I crouched on the opposite side of the fire and held out my hands to warm them.

The firelight sent flickers and shadows prancing across Slatter's ugly tattooed face. He looked back at me and said nothing.

We sat like that for a minute. Slatter's army-style buddies looked at one another, then at Slatter for a lead.

I stared at Slatter's bad-beast eyes. And I knew something had changed. Something was missing.

I searched my mind for it.

That's it … I nodded. When I looked at Slatter I knew I was no longer afraid of him.

Before, fear of him, though I wouldn't admit it even to myself, forced me on the defensive. I'd insult him, make a cutting remark or even physically attack him.

Now, for me anyway, Slatter was a monster no more.

Bernadette had told me about all that software lying around in the back of your mind. Most of the time you don't use it, you're not even aware that it exists at all. But if you hit the right keys it comes to life and transforms you.

You can become an Einstein, a mother, a father, a warrior, a leader, a messiah – anything that the situation demands. All you need is that access code.

Somewhere on my journey back here I'd found it. Changes had taken place in my head. I was a different Nick Aten now.

I looked round at the faces watching me to see what I'd do next. ‘I
could murder one of those beers.' I took one without waiting to be asked. The cronies looked at Slatter again, waiting for his lead.

Slatter spat into the fire. ‘You old bastard … I thought you were dead.'

I sensed Slatter's change in attitude to me. The words were pure old Slatter, but the tone had altered. This was probably the nearest thing to a friendly greeting he'd come to in his life.

‘Well …' I drank the beer in one. ‘You can see I'm alive. And I'm back for a reason.'

‘What's that?'

‘Because you need my help.'

‘Piss off.'

‘You need my help, Slatter. And I need yours.'

‘What makes you think I'll help you? I wouldn't piss on you if you were on fire.'

I opened another beer, then I told him what had happened to me. That they were in danger – the Creosotes were massing. As soon as there were enough of them, something would click in their heads, then they'd go hell for leather to kill every single one of us in Eskdale.

At first they found it hard to believe and laughed, saying that sometimes for a laugh they'd walk through the middle of the Creosotes who'd just stand or sit about and not touch them.

I asked why Slatter and his cronies were sitting up here in the yard of a wrecked farmhouse. What was wrong with the creature comforts of the hotel?

Slatter's eyes narrowed and he gave me some crap about Curt paying them in booze and cigarettes to camp out here and keep watch.

‘If no one's afraid of the Creosotes, who are you keeping watch on?'

‘God knows,' said one of the cronies, and with the exception of Slatter they all laughed.

Reading between the lines I guessed Curt had got nervous of having Slatter around and bribed him to live out here.

‘Slatter. I need your help to get rid of the Creosotes.'

‘How you going to do that? There's more than three thousand of the bastards.'

‘I was hoping you'd tell me.'

Slatter laughed.

An eighteen-year-old called Burke had been a mercenary in Africa before the sanity-crash. He said he knew weapons and explosives inside out. ‘We've got a garage full of Semtex. We could blast the bastards.'

‘You could if you could get them all to nicely wait in a big enough building,' said one of the other cronies. ‘Those fuckers are spread out for two miles along the valley floor. You could blast hundreds of them but you'd not get them all.'

‘It's as simple as this,' I told them, ‘if we don't wipe them out, then they'll wipe us out … What if we use the explosive to blast as many as we can, then use guns on the rest?'

Slatter spat. ‘What, seven of us chasing thousands of the mad bastards through the forest? Sure we'd blow away hundreds, but even if they fought back with their bare hands they'd soon tear us a set of new arseholes … Think again, Aten.'

‘Maybe I'll leave it to Martin Del-Coffey. He'll come up with an idea.'

‘That faggot? He'd wipe their arses and try to teach them algebra.'

‘Come on, Slatter, I bet you can come up with an idea.'

‘Of course I could.' The ugly ape face split into a grin. ‘But I'll not tell you.'

‘There's three hundred lives at stake. If you can—'

‘Aten. Hey, Aten, shut up, I'm talking now. D' ya want to know something interesting?'

‘And what's that, Slatter?'

‘That ponce father and tart mother of yours are back as well.'

I stared at him, the blood drumming though my neck.

He pulled on the cigarette, staring at me. ‘They're hanging out with the rest of the mad bastards.'

‘Tell me something new. I already know.'

For the first time he can't have seen the thing in my face he used to feed on: shock, surprise, fear, whatever it was – wasn't there. He shrugged, broke eye contact and looked away.

I smiled. It felt as if I'd won my first small victory.

‘The other thing I want you to help me with,' I said, ‘is to get rid of Curt.'

‘So, Aten, who'll be the new leader?'

‘I will.'

‘Oh yeah … Me help you become new boss man. No way, Aten. No friggin' way.'

I left it at that. Anyway I was knackered from walking for forty-eight hours solid. I took my haversack to the barn, pulled out the sleeping bag and climbed.

Deliberately I kept awake, watching the stars through the open door – and listening to Slatter and his cronies talk around the fire.

Burke entertained them with a few dirty limericks, then they started talking about the Creosotes in the next valley.

‘Aten's thick,' I heard Slatter say. ‘All you have to do to get rid of those psycho bastards is stick Semtex against the wall of the dam, light the fuse, and bang … The water would wash the bastards all the way to kingdom come.'