Robin Jarvis-Jax 02 Freax And Rejex (42 page)

T
HE MORNING REVEALED
the full extent of the cabin’s destruction. The rain had stopped, but the trees and the barbed wire were still dripping when Lee and Spencer emerged, before anyone else was awake, to sift through the wreckage and salvage as much of their stuff as they could find. They looked up at Jody, hanging on the tower, and shook their heads. She was unconscious. Perhaps that was just as well.

While they foraged, they also collected Marcus’s belongings and gave them to Maggie. The girl was numb with grief and shock. Esther had to make the breakfasts alone that day, and she wasn’t happy.

As he had done after Jim Parker’s death, Jangler generously allowed each internee a sausage. The children ate them in silence. Christina knew Jody would have quoted a list of nauseating ingredients at her if she’d been present, but she ate it anyway. Spencer pushed his plate away, untouched. Did that foul gaoler really think a sausage would somehow make them feel better about Marcus’s death? Was he that crazy? It was insulting.

Alasdair tried to speak to Jangler about getting Jody released, but he gave the same harsh warning as last time. Any more appeals would result in her being kept up there even longer and left for the crows to peck at. Her continued disobedience would not be tolerated. Besides, Jangler added with a macabre chuckle, he liked the new addition to the skelter tower – she was like a living decoration on a skeletal Christmas tree.

Alasdair turned away from him, sickened. He didn’t think she could survive this one. He wished he’d thrown the old sod to the giant worm monster when he’d had the chance.

And so the day passed. Maggie ate nothing and spent the hours in a mechanical daze. She didn’t eat the next day either and it took all Charm’s powers of persuasion to get her to sip some of the soup on the third.

Jody’s predicament loomed over the camp in every sense. Last time she had been shut away around the back of the main block, but now she was strung up for everyone to see. Some of the girls couldn’t bear to look at her and covered their ears when they heard her sobbing. Esther shuddered every time she went outside and secretly wished the girl would die, to put an end to her suffering and theirs. Life here was bad enough without having to see and listen to that. Whenever Garrugaska patrolled the fence, the guard would pretend to take potshots at her and whichever Punchinello was stationed at the top of the tower would hiss down to her, making hideous threats. Jody was thankful for the times when she passed out and her mind wandered in dark places.

On the fourth day she was cut down. No one could quite believe she was still alive. There had been more rain. She had tipped her head back and the drops she had caught had saved her. She had also been able to ease the agony in her arms by putting her weight on one of the cross-timbers behind her. But she was much weaker this time and her hands were almost black from the tightness of the ropes. Nicholas and Drew carried her frail body to her cabin and Alasdair and Christina sat with her.

She had a fever and didn’t come round for another two days. Her body recovered slowly, but she was never the same again. Her spirit was defeated. She had endured too much and seen things none of the others had. Every night she had heard those melancholy 1930s tunes playing and in the cold morning saw strange creatures exit the cabins to be shepherded into vans, which were driven away, long before any of the other children stirred.

Jody withdrew into herself. She wouldn’t look anyone in the eye and kept hers on the ground or fixed to a spot on the wall. She wouldn’t speak and Alasdair worried incessantly about her. It was heartbreaking to witness the pitiable transformation. He tried to engage her in conversations about music or books or anything before this had happened, but there was no
answering spark. Nothing could kindle her interest. She stopped brushing her hair and had to be prompted to wash. Even Christina was shut out. Jody could no longer bear to be touched and flinched whenever the seven-year-old tried to hug her.

Captain Swazzle was greatly pleased to see the change that had come over her and would swagger by, singing her name slowly to send her cowering into the nearest corner.

The weeks rolled over. The two graves grew green with grass. No flowers brightened Anchu’s plot, but Jim Parker’s became covered with daisies. Spencer suggested to Maggie that a headstone for Marcus would be a good idea, even though he wasn’t buried there. It would be a focal point, somewhere she could go to think about him, and if anything happened to them, one day other people would know that a boy called Marcus had died here. Maggie agreed. They salvaged some wood from the demolished cabin and she wrote what they knew about him on it then placed it in the ground close to Jim’s grave, together with a tearful goodbye. A simple stick, with a curved Punchinello hat placed on top, marked where Anchu was interred.

The felt-tip scribbles finally wore off and the girls’ faces returned to normal. Maggie’s vibrant fuchsia hair faded and the dark roots grew, while her weight dwindled. No one could accuse her of eating secret supplies of food any longer – but not one of them apologised.

Gradually the soap and toothpaste ran out and they had to resort to brushing their teeth with charcoal. Their clothes became grey and ragged and they looked more and more like scarecrows. They were still expected to work as hard as ever, but the unvaried diet was beginning to take its toll on their health. Skin rashes became common, cuts and scratches took longer to heal and one of the girls in Esther’s cabin complained of thinning hair.

Lee thought about the food he had stashed beyond the wire, in the
woods. They really needed it now, but the guards were more trigger-happy than ever. He would never make it out there and back again. With a sinking heart, he realised the only way to bring food in was to return to Mooncaster. The prospect filled him with dread, but what else could be done?

“Not yet,” he told himself. “Don’t be goin’ back there yet.”

One morning, just before the first reading of the day, when Jangler was smugly informing his young prisoners of the latest news, they wondered why the only guard on duty was Garrugaska. Where were the others?

“… and the Midwest of the United States is now one with the words of Austerly Fellows,” Jangler told them. “They welcomed
Dancing Jax
with euphoric celebrations when it was read to them from the pulpits of their churches. Even the Ismus was surprised by how swiftly it was received there. How eager those poor lost souls were to join the ranks of the blessed. Only a handful of states remain stubborn, but that won’t last. The civil war that has broken out across America will be short-lived. Soon the resistance will be quashed and the burning cities will find joy and peace within the sacred pages. Praise to the Dawn Prince, hail to the Holy Enchanter.”

The children remained silent. They didn’t even bother listening to these vainglorious speeches any longer. They had no way of knowing how true they were and talk of distant countries might as well have been about other planets. All that mattered to them was how to live through the coming day, here in this evil place. Only Spencer let his thoughts dwell on the violence that was undoubtedly raging on the other side of the Atlantic. He wondered how the places he had always wanted to visit were surviving the effects of that book and he prayed no aberrants like himself would have to experience a camp such as this.

Then the door of the Punchinello cabin opened and the other three guards came strutting out. An audible gasp issued from the prisoners’ lips. Spencer’s mouth fell open. He didn’t trust what his eyes were showing him.

Captain Swazzle’s demand for a completely new wardrobe had finally been granted. Rigged out in their new clothes, the guards paraded up and down, and the children gaped at them in blank surprise. Having one of those creatures dressed as a cowboy was disturbing, but now…

The guards had each chosen a certain distinctive look that appealed to them, for one reason or another. Their previous yellow tunics and ruffs had made a certain warped sense, and matched those hideous faces and high, humped shoulders. But these new garments were utterly preposterous. The absurdity reinforced just how inhuman they were and they appeared even more frightening than before.

Bezuel was decked out like a gangster rapper. He wore a red tracksuit with the word BEZ emblazoned in diamanté letters across the stomach of the baggy black sports shirt beneath. Custom-made mirror shades concealed the cruel eyes and an oversized beanie covered his large bony head. Those strong fingers were adorned with chunky gold rings, studded with diamonds, and fat gold chains and medallions were hung about the thick join where the head met the chest. A luxurious coat of silvery grey chinchilla was draped over his shoulders.

The Punchinello sauntered past, posing and grinning to display the gold grills on his teeth. The children’s eyes flicked from him to the two others.

Captain Swazzle was dressed like Al Capone, in a dark blue, pinstriped, double-breasted suit, tailored to fit that deformed figure. The corner of a white silk handkerchief poked neatly from the breast pocket and a platinum watch chain was strung across the waistcoat. A white fedora was wedged on the Captain’s head and pearl-grey spats covered handmade Italian boots. Swazzle brandished the machine gun as a fashion accessory and the cigar in that wide mouth waggled slowly from side to side.

It was Yikker who drew the most attention. The guard who had despised Marcus and made his brief life here as painful as he could was dressed in the long black cassock of a Catholic priest, with a biretta perched on
his pockmarked skull. He held a leather-bound copy of
Dancing Jax
in one hand as though it was a bible and his automatic pistol in the other. Lee found that outfit particularly repugnant and the disgust showed on his face.

“As you can see,” Jangler announced, directing a slightly uncomfortable, almost embarrassed, glance at the guards, “the Punchinellos have decided to dress differently. Don’t let their new attire confuse you. They are still Warders of the White Castle and you must continue to obey them with the same deference as previously. Failure to do so will result in punishment.”

“Punishment…” Captain Swazzle echoed, looking across at Jody and flicking cigar ash on the ground.

The journey to the minchet thickets took longer that day. The three Punchinellos were enjoying their new outfits too much to march the young prisoners at the usual brisk pace. Bezuel and Yikker promenaded as though the paparazzi were watching and took photographs of each other with the mobiles confiscated months ago. Captain Swazzle affected a rolling tough-guy gait, hunching those humped, vulture-like shoulders even more and scowling at the surrounding countryside. Garrugaska grumbled at them impatiently and took a simmering temper out on Spencer.

When the work parties divided and reached their separate destinations, the guards made the children work twice as hard to make up for lost time. Yikker had brought the lash along and applied it whenever one of them appeared to sag or take too long a breather.

By now the internees were a familiar sight when they were out working. New Forest locals and tourists alike would drive slowly by, to jeer and scream abuse or throw objects at them. Occasionally a car would pull up and the angry driver would bribe one of the Punchinellos with cigarettes or cash so he or she could get close to one of the prisoners. Then they would either spit at, hit or shove them into the minchet thorns,
while denouncing them as the lowest abominations in creation. It was deranged, brutal behaviour and there was nothing the children could do to defend themselves from it.

That day was no different. In the afternoon a peppermint-green Beetle parked at the edge of the road and a man in his forties came out. His unbalanced hatred for the aberrants had flushed his face. As he crossed the road, his fists tightened and his knuckles blanched.

Bezuel nudged Yikker to go and see what the man could give them before allowing him any contact with their charges. Yikker uttered a gargling cackle and the cassock-clad figure went scampering over, eager to haggle.

Bezuel slipped away, silent and unnoticed, the hem of the chinchilla coat skimming noiselessly over the grass. The minchet grew dense in this part of the forest. It choked and clotted the trees and the guard had to skirt round and thread a meandering way through. Bezuel had noticed one of the older prisoners had become separated from the rest and was now out of sight. It was this stray internee the Punchinello was keen to pursue, while the attention of Yikker was distracted elsewhere. Bezuel had waited a long time for this moment to present itself. The guard licked his lips in eager anticipation.

The smaller girls were foraging deep within prickly caves. They had to crawl on their stomachs through heaps of sharp spines and needles, to search for the largest fruits that grew in the shade. The danger of encountering a Doggy-Long-Legs’ nest was ever present in there and the children squirmed forward fearfully. Clouds of bluebottles buzzed everywhere. They pollinated the stinking minchet flowers and bred swiftly in the fruit’s sloppy grey flesh.

Pushing a shopping basket before her, Christina wriggled through on her elbows. The thorns scratched her arms and snagged her hair, but she could not get out of there until the basket was full. Squeezing between
two thick stems, she winced when a woody spike raked across her neck. Then she saw a cluster of ripe grey fruit in the gloom ahead and forgot about the pain.

It was the largest crop she had seen – enough to fill the basket and more. Pulling a determined face, she pressed on. When something brushed against her forehead, she swept it aside and reached for the fattest minchet. It came away from the stalk easily and she placed it carefully in the basket. Then she stretched for another, but her fingers broke through a covering drape of sticky gauze.

The girl let out a startled breath and drew her hand back. Wispy brown strands clung to her skin. It was the web of a Doggy-Long-Legs. She had crept into one of their nests.