No Shelter from Darkness (7 page)

Her mother returned with a small bowl of vegetable soup and a slice of bread. Beth unenthusiastically bit into the stale cut and groaned at a sore pain in her gums. As if she wasn't already hurting enough. Her stomach gurgled in appreciation of the food, but it still wasn't satisfying the part of her that protested loudest for the missing something.

And then it wasn't long before Beth felt the need for sleep drifting over her again. Her mother had begun to change the bandage on her leg, but she never saw the end result. Her mother's pitying expression was the last thing she saw, blurring into darkness.

*   *   *

Beth noticed the silence first.

Not simply that it was there, but rather, that it had changed.

Next was the smell. Something disgusting and so intense it felt like whatever was producing it had been shoved up her nose. Instinctively she breathed only through her mouth. The stench disappeared.

Then came the realization of the firmness of her bed. It was cool, even maybe a little damp. Beth opened her eyes, her unfamiliar surroundings forcing a cold sweat. She sucked air, catching a bit of drool from the corner of her mouth, and blinked, hoping the dark images before her would vanish.

They didn't.

Like two roads merging together, her sight and thoughts united in focus, and Beth looked out upon a vertical wall of liquid glass. Nighttime reflected off the rippling surface, as did a sliver of moon that looked to have been turned to catch falling stars. Lifting her head, she felt the weight of her hair pointlessly trying to anchor her to the bank as the scene rotated, so that the moon was in its rightful place above her.

Propped up on one hand, Beth's heart pounded. There was no lingering drowsiness now; she was awake. This was not a dream.
Out ahead she could make out the dark tree line against the deep night sky, but the moon's glow was so slight she could barely see much else. Staring up, the celestial bodies blurred as her many thoughts whirled. She was torn between the need to get home to safety and the need to know how she had come to be wherever she was.

Getting to her feet, she found that the soft ground was still warm from her body and tried to squeeze up between her toes. She managed to make out a large patch of mud contrasting on her nightgown, and her fingers felt the dried mud on her face. Tentatively, she took tiny steps forward, and only needed a few before the cold water stung her toes. She crouched, cupped some water and washed off the dried muck.

She dried her face on her sleeves, refreshed now and more alert, and became aware of a sound that might have been there all along: a faint, distant hum. Its consistent monotone posed no danger from planes; instead, it kick-started Beth's investigative notions.

The buzzing came from behind her, while the dark outlines of trees around the lake suggested its size. She was sure the gentle noise was from searchlight generators, and that meant she could only be in Victoria Park.

Keeping the electrical hum on her right, Beth left the lake through the trees and emerged on open ground. Once in the grass she began to feel the odd small stone prod the soles of her feet, and relief washed over her when she stepped onto a track-like road. She moved towards Bonner Bridge, with the buzz of the generators fading behind her.

Beth's pulse steadied and her initial panic was long gone. Settling into a pace on a route that she'd walked a thousand times before, she made her way down St. James's Avenue, trying to remember how she'd gotten to the park. In blackout, the streets were as dark as the wilderness she'd left. What light she was given by the night sky might have been enough to see the white lines painted around the bases of lamp posts, but instead Beth walked absent-mindedly down the middle of the deserted roads. She winced now and then when a stone dug into the arch of her foot. Each time, she momentarily lapsed back to breathing through her nose. Though the smell lessened, it never seemed to go away completely.

She remembered her mother redressing her leg, the soup … that ghostly face in the mirror.

And then she stopped dead.

The fuzzy memory brought with it a realization: there was no longer any pain or aching. She wasn't tired, she wasn't weak, and the thirst—that relentless craving—was gone for the first time in weeks. If she focused, she could feel the slight ache of a bruise on her shin, but she hadn't even been limping. Something big had happened; she felt it in her guts, and it scared her.

Occasionally yanked from her trance-like walk by stubbing her toes—and once from the startling call of an ARP warden a couple of streets over to “Put that light out!”—Beth finally reached the top of her street. Now her worries turned to what she'd find when she reached home. She had no idea what the time was, and could only guess it was late enough for everyone to be in bed. How else could she have left unnoticed?

Did I leave unnoticed?

What am I coming back to?

The moonlight faintly lit the houses on her side of the street. Creeping up to her front door, Beth saw it was ajar. She stopped outside and listened through the gap, but there was nothing. No light escaped either, so she slowly pushed the door open, stopping it halfway just shy of its creaking-point.

Slipping inside, she closed it and controlled the latch as it locked. The small arc of windows at the top of the door was painted black; once it was closed she only had her sense of touch to go by. She put out her hand, found the banister rail, and ascended the stairs. Keeping her feet to the outside edges of each wooden step, she managed to reach the top without a sound. Her bedroom was the first room, set at the back of their small house, and groping blindly she discovered her door had been left wide open. As she closed it gently behind her, she felt oddly comforted by a loud snore at the end of the hall, recognizing Oliver's trademark coming from her mother's room.

Beth fingered the light switch, but after spending so long in the dark thought better of it than to blind herself. Instead, she felt along the length of her bed and reached over to what would be a softer light on her bedside table, and with her eyes closed she switched it on. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust. The first thing she saw was a leaf in her hair. Turning, she fumbled for the latch of her
wardrobe door, and caught a flash of bronze in its mirror as she opened it. She was lucky to still have an old nightgown, and pulled it down from the top shelf, flinging it onto her messy bed.

Sleepwalking. In her feverish state, it was the only reasonable explanation. It didn't explain how she was apparently cured of her fatigue, though. She sighed. The mystery would take longer to solve than it had taken her eyes to adjust to the light.

Beth turned back to the open wardrobe and closed the door. She gasped and stumbled back onto her bed. The springs creaked and the front of her gown pressed against her skin. It was cold, slightly damp and still heavy from the …

… mud?

Her hands began to shake as she looked down wide-eyed at the blood-soaked cotton that covered her.

A soft whine escaped and threatened to turn into a wail. Beth quickly and unsteadily got to her feet. The blood was tacky, and the gown stuck to her body. Her vision blurred as her trembling hand pinched the gown and peeled it away. Without thinking, she used the same hand to cover her mouth to smother her own whining, smudging blood on her cheeks as she forced herself to hold her mouth shut to silence the scream.

She breathed deeply, inhaling the fumes of aging blood, a tiny stream of it running down her right cheek. She lowered her hand slowly. Her heart felt too big for her chest as it thundered, and she stared at her bloody reflection and waited.

But the nightmare wouldn't end.

SIX

EVERY MORNING FOR THE PAST FOUR DAYS,
the first thing Lynne had done after rising was open her daughter's bedroom door to check on her. Her heart sped up for only a few beats every time her hand curled around the handle, hoping that when the door opened Beth would open her eyes and say “good morning”. It was a futile hope and she knew it, so each morning she settled for seeing the blankets gently rise and fall.

Once again she crept along the dark landing. This would be the third day since Beth had last woken properly. Since Wednesday night she'd spoken nothing more than mumbled gibberish, and rarely at that. Last night Mary had found Beth unsteadily sleepwalking down the landing, but she didn't wake up, even when they'd practically carried her back to bed. Lynne had managed to swap shifts for the past two days to be at Beth's side, always ready with water. Today that responsibility would lie on Mary's shoulders.

Lynne took a deep breath, gripped the handle, turned it and pushed.

Blinded by the unexpected light streaming through the uncovered window, her free arm instinctively shot up in front of her face and she gasped. Her eyes adjusted quickly to find the room deserted. She heard a soft bang coming from the kitchen, as if the stove door had been closed.

With a rush of excitement Lynne raced down the stairs, through the sitting room and into the kitchen to find Beth at the table, crouched over a cold bowl of soup and staring up at her, like she'd been caught stealing precious jewels. The two held each other's gaze for a
long moment, until Lynne's steel melted and she rushed to her daughter, suffocating her in an embrace, barely giving the girl enough time to drop the spoon back in the bowl.

The commotion brought Oliver and Mary down to an early breakfast, one that Beth seemed to enjoy far too much; she had already polished off the leftovers of the family's meal from the night before. Oliver was amused at his sister's lack of manners, but Lynne sat in silence after having eaten only half of what was on her plate. She looked carefully at her daughter, studying her. The initial joy that overwhelmed her had subsided, allowing her curious nurse's mind to take over.

Mary and Oliver were doing most of the talking, while Beth ate, nodded, and managed one or two words here and there between mouthfuls. Lynne knew that her own joy and relief should have been radiating from her. But so should Beth's. For someone who'd just woken up from what might as well have been a coma—at a snap of the fingers, it seemed—Beth didn't appear to be very happy about it. Lynne couldn't ignore the blatant peculiarities, either. Yesterday her daughter had been a pale, sleeping ghost; today—aside from a slight thinness—she was now looking strong and healthy, with her olive glow returned.

There was a natural lull in the children's chatter and Lynne leant forward onto her elbows, breaking her own rule. Across from her, Beth was cutting the last bit of her toast in two. She'd already asked the obvious questions like how was she feeling, and was she drowsy or dizzy. Beth said only that she was “feeling fine”.

“Sweetheart? What's the last thing you remember?”

Beth stopped carving the stiff browned bread and looked up at her. “Last night, in my bedroom, when you changed my bandage.” Beth glanced down, hesitated, and looked back up. “What day is it?”

Oliver sniggered, but Lynne ignored him and he soon took the silence as a cue to shut up.

“It's Saturday. I changed your bandage three days ago.”

Beth put down her knife and fork, while her pseudo-siblings quietly finished their rationed helpings. Beth was clearly shaken, so Lynne smiled softly. But from both a professional perspective and a motherly one, she had to know what had happened.

At the sound of cutlery being put on a finished plate, Lynne turned to Mary as she put her hands in her lap. “It looks like you can go to sports day after all, Mary.” She had to stifle the genuine chuckle that rose from her chest when she saw Mary's face drop ever so slightly. “Why don't you go upstairs and start getting ready?”

“Don't you want me to wash up, Mrs. Wade?”

“Thank you, but I'll do it before I leave.” She turned to her son. “And you, mister mischief, can go upstairs and tidy
my
room. If I step on another one of those bloody toy soldiers, I swear I'll throw them all out.”

Without a word Oliver excused himself, conveniently leaving Lynne at the table alone with her daughter. If not for the mess of her black hair looking practically matted on one side, no one would have guessed she'd just spent almost a week in bed. But her expression had changed slightly, her brow furrowed. “What's wrong?” Lynne asked.

“Pardon? Oh, nothing. It's sports day today.”

“Yes, but don't think for a second you're going.”

“In Victoria Park.” It was almost a whisper.

Lynne recomposed her posture. “Sweetheart, I need to try and understand what's happened.”

Beth shrugged. “I don't know.”

“There's got to be something. When did you wake up?”

“This morning.”

“Yes, but what time?”

Another shrug while Beth lightly tapped the table with her finger. “About ten minutes before you came down, I suppose.”

“Describe it to me. How did you feel when you first woke up?”

Lynne looked at the table where Beth again tapped her finger before she spoke. “I felt hungry. That's why I came downstairs.”

“Think really hard. Can you remember anything, anything at all, between the night I changed your bandage and this morning?”

Beth looked down at her plate and hummed, like she'd been given a complex mathematical problem to solve in her head. “No. Nothing at all. I guess I just got better.”

Lynne smiled. “Yes, I suppose you did, darling.” She looked back down to her daughter's hands, flat on the table now and either side of her plate. She leaned a little closer and gasped slightly in disgust.
“Good God, Beth, look at the state of your fingernails.” Quickly snatching her hands from the table, as if ashamed of some phantom disfigurement, Beth hid them under it. “Go and scrub them at once,” Lynne ordered. Beth sheepishly did as she was told and went into the scullery, from which Lynne soon heard the sounds of running water and the scrubbing of nails.

As far as recoveries went, Beth's had been remarkably quick and that was very rare. It threw into question the diagnoses of fatigue-related conditions. For Beth to recover so fast would have to mean she had instead been suffering from a virus. But there was something else. Lynne felt that Beth was keeping something from her.