The Stuff of Nightmares (11 page)

‘What are you looking for?’ I frowned as Carter rifled through my belongings. ‘If it’s jewellery or weapons or alcohol, you’re going to be disappointed.’

‘I’m glad you don’t carry weapons,’ Carter said brusquely. ‘Because I don’t want to have to fight off some maniac in the middle of the night with a knife in his hand.’

‘You’re the one who tried to slice my neck – remember?’ I said indignantly.

‘I may still do it,’ Carter said belligerently.

I shut up. What was the man’s problem? I ran a nervous hand over my head, my hair so short as to be practically non-existent. After searching my bag a second time, Carter walked over to the table and sat down. He removed a small pot from the shelf behind him and, using a wooden spoon, began to eat.

‘Aren’t you going to offer me any?’ I wheedled.

I couldn’t believe he was going to sit there with me watching and not offer me a mouthful. He glared at me before silently turning back to his food, shoving another spoonful into his mouth. Casting a filthy look in his direction, I repacked my belongings, everything except the herbs, which I munched on slowly. I watched the steam rise from Carter’s bowl. I hadn’t eaten hot food in a long time.

‘Oh, for goodness’ sake!’ he snarled, retrieving another small wooden bowl from the shelf. ‘You can have some, but only because I’m tired of you staring at me.’

I almost ran to the table. This man was so tetchy, he’d probably change his mind before I’d tasted a morsel. Carter poured about four spoonfuls from his bowl into mine. I scrutinized the orange-greeny-brown puddle before me.

‘Has this been regurgitated?’

‘If you don’t bloody want it, just pass it back.’ Carter snatched at my bowl, only I got to it first.

‘I didn’t say I didn’t want it,’ I said. ‘And I trust that this is just a taster. I mean, if this soup – is it soup? – is OK, will you give me some more?’

Carter stared at me, his expression hovering somewhere between thunderous and incredulous. Then, unexpectedly, he started laughing – a low, reluctant, rumbling sound.

‘You have more goddamn nerve than any ten people I know,’ he muttered. ‘No, you can’t have any more.’

‘Can I have a spoon then?’ I asked, after searching my side of the table for one. Carter took a spoon from the shelf behind him and slammed it down in front of me. ‘Boy, you are turning out to be more trouble than you’re worth.’

‘My name is Robby, not Boy,’ I said, picking up the spoon and tasting the puddle in my bowl. Instantly I began to retch. It was disgusting. ‘What the hell is this?’ I asked angrily.

‘If you don’t like it, just give it back,’ Carter ordered.

‘With pleasure!’ I pushed the bowl away from me.
‘I could make it better than that with one hand tied behind my back and one eye closed.’

‘Well, tomorrow you’ll get a chance to prove it,’ Carter said silkily. ‘If you stay here, you’ll have to earn your keep. Tomorrow you’ll get your chance to cook and clean.’

I looked around the dingy room. ‘I couldn’t do any worse than you.’

‘Robby, you are
this
close’ – Carter held his thumb and index finger tight together under my nose – ‘to getting your arse kicked out into the rain.’

We watched each other for a few moments.

‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘Sometimes I go a bit too far.’

‘I’m surprised you’ve managed to live this long.’ Carter shook his head, returning to the muck in front of him.

‘So am I,’ I admitted. I turned to stare at the wooden shutters covering the window, listening to the sound of the rain beyond.

‘Why did you say that?’

I turned to find Carter watching me curiously. I shrugged. ‘I travel a lot. I told you. I’ve almost been caught in the rain on more than one occasion.’ Again we watched each other. ‘I watched someone die in the rain once,’ I continued quietly, looking away again. ‘I was in a house full of people when it started – the only house for miles with a decent roof. A woman arrived … she’d been caught in it. She pleaded with us to let her in, but the man who owned the house bolted the door and stood guard over it with a knife in either
hand
. He wouldn’t let anyone near it. She’d been out in the rain too long. I watched with five others through a side window. She kept banging on the door, screaming. The skin blistered on her face, her arms … Then it began to peel right off, dropping with the rain. I watched the rain burn, then wash the flesh off her. It rained for a whole day. When it stopped raining all that was left of her was sludge …’

‘She shouldn’t have been stupid enough to let herself get caught in it,’ Carter said harshly, picking up my bowl to finish what I hadn’t started.

I watched him, careful to keep any derogatory expression off my face. I remembered the woman’s husband, safe inside with us, begging for her to be let in. When the woman’s screams faded, so did the man’s pleas. Finally he fell to his knees and sobbed. I had watched his wife die … I watched him survive. That’s the way it worked.

I walked back to the worn-out settee and sat down. Picking up my herbs again, I started to munch. ‘Is this where I sleep tonight?’

Carter glanced at me. ‘You can sleep where you please. But I warn you, I’m a very light sleeper and I
always
sleep with a knife close by.’

‘Is that how you got the scar on your face?’

Ignoring my flippant question, he continued, ‘If you try anything, anything at all, I’ll slit your throat first and ask questions later.’

‘Were you born anti-social, or did the war do this to you?’

‘If you had any sense,’ Carter said curtly, ‘you would cultivate the same attitude. Your age might’ve brought you some sympathy before, but now you’re getting old, just like the rest of us. If you don’t toughen up, kid, you’re going to get trampled underfoot.’

‘I can take care of myself,’ I told him sternly. ‘The last person who thought otherwise is now dead.’

‘You don’t look as though you could kill a fly – not that there are that many left in this country,’ Carter said disdainfully.

One good thing to come out of the war? I wondered. Though the fish and frogs who had to live on flies might not agree with me. The animals alive nowadays had cultivated the same sixth sense as me when it came to the rain, and they always headed for shelter hours before it started. The chemicals in the atmosphere weren’t supposed to kill any living creatures except humans, but maybe the animals knew more than the scientists. I watched Carter stand up and walk to the door.

‘I can look after myself,’ I repeated. ‘I’m vindictive and vengeful. It helps me survive.’

Carter laughed in my face. ‘And very, very young.’ His expression hardened. ‘So stay down here if you plan to get older.’

He left the room. I placed my backpack on the stained, grubby floor and stretched out on the settee, switching the knife I kept in my right boot to my left boot as I decided to lie on my right side. I liked to keep
my
knife close to hand. Carter was a morose pig, obviously unused to company, but he didn’t
look
like a murderer. I tugged at my shirt. I longed to unstrap myself but decided it would be too dangerous. Instead I closed my eyes and tried to fall asleep.

‘Wake up, damn it!’

‘Ouch!’ I exclaimed angrily after another hard punch to my arm.

‘What about breakfast?’ Carter demanded.

‘What about it?’ I repeated coolly, rubbing my upper arm.

‘Earn your keep!’ He walked away from me and opened the shutters. ‘And once you’ve made the breakfast you can clean the house.’

‘And what’re you going to be doing while I work?’ I asked, irritated.

‘Reading your sci-fi novel. It’s been a long time since I read a proper book.’

‘That’s not fair,’ I replied.

‘Tough. If you don’t like it you can always leave. And if you don’t do it you’ll be leaving anyway.’

I looked out of the window at the rain. It flowed like mini waterfalls off the leaves of all the trees around. How clever of whoever it was to release into the air a chemical agent which was only activated when it rained. And how extremely clever to ensure that it only attacked human flesh.

‘Well?’ Carter asked when I didn’t respond.

‘Why d’you think the rain still only attacks people?’
I
asked. ‘Why would someone design a chemical to wipe us all out?’

Carter frowned at my question, which had obviously taken him by surprise. ‘Maybe they didn’t expect the chemicals to remain in the atmosphere for so long.’

‘Or maybe they didn’t care if they died as long as they could take their enemies with them,’ I ventured.

‘Hmm,’ said Carter, but it was hard to tell whether he was in agreement or just acknowledging what I’d said.

‘But that still doesn’t explain why the—’

‘Never mind the damn rain, what about breakfast?’

‘Don’t you have any thoughts on the subject?’

‘None that I’m going to share with you.’

‘What did you do before the war?’ I asked curiously. ‘You’re pretty old so you must’ve worked at something before all this. Or were you unemployed? You seem well educated, in spite of your bad manners and worse habits …’

‘All these attempts to get out of making the breakfast aren’t working,’ Carter said icily. ‘And I’m not going to tell you again.’

‘All right, all right,’ I sighed, getting up. ‘I’ll cook but I’m not cleaning your bloody house. It was like this when I got here.’

I went into the kitchen and Carter followed me. It was cramped and smelled nose-twitchingly of old, burned food. A wood-burning stove sat self-consciously opposite two huge water tanks which were
as
tall as Carter, with a diameter of at least two-thirds of a metre each. These tanks had a gap of just under a metre between them, in which a chair had been placed. The kitchen was small enough as it was, without wasting space like that, I thought. The tanks should’ve been placed next to each other, touching. There were various cupboards, work surfaces covered with rotting bits of food and candle ends, and next to the stove a small sink. I pointed to the door on the other side of the stove.

‘What’s through there?’ I asked.

‘The toilet.’

‘Where do you keep the food?’ I looked askance at the cupboards. Did I really want food out of those dirty, disgusting things?

Carter studied me. ‘Between the two water tanks,’ he said at last. I frowned as he walked over, moved the chair and lifted the filthy, patchy lino to one side. There was a trapdoor totally flush with the floor.

‘The cellar runs beneath most of the house. That’s where I keep my food,’ Carter said, his eyes burning into me. ‘You can go down there and get some, but don’t think of stealing anything because I’m going to check you and your bag before you leave.’

I walked across and peered down into the inky blackness that was the cellar.

‘What about some light?’ I asked.

Carter picked up a candle end and thrust it into my hand, then took a match out of one of his pockets and struck it against the wall before lighting the candle.
Without
another word I went down into the cellar. I’d have to find a way of pocketing some bits of candle before I left. I kept a number of useful, useless objects in my pockets: two candle ends, matches wrapped in a tiny scrap of cellophane, a pack of well-used cards, pins, even plasters. They were all things that my mother had given me – and so far I’d never needed to use anything but the cards and the matches. I looked around. I was surrounded by box upon box, swallowed up by the darkness beyond the light from my candle. Before I left I’d also have to try and pocket some food. Carter obviously had plenty.

‘Hurry up,’ he called after me.

With a patient sigh, I began to search through the tins in the box nearest to me for something suitable to eat.

‘Breakfast is served.’ I entered the living room, a plate in either hand. Carter was standing by the window, staring out. I placed the steaming plates on the table. My hands can stand really hot things; it’s the cold they don’t like. We ate breakfast in silence, although I could tell that my host was impressed. Not only did he make appreciative noises as he ate the corned beef hash I’d prepared, he then licked the plate, slamming it back down on the table. There was no ‘thank you’, not even a ‘that was good’.

‘What
did
you do before the war?’ I asked, annoyed. ‘No, don’t tell me. Let me guess … you wrote books on manners and etiquette.’

‘That’s not too far from the truth,’ Carter said dryly. ‘You can tidy up now,’ he added quickly, as if regretting the admission.

‘I’m not tidying anything – I told you that before.’

Carter smiled suddenly. ‘Can you play chess?’

‘Yes,’ I said cautiously, thrown by the change of subject.

‘We’ll play chess instead then.’ He shrugged. ‘It’s been a long time since I had an opponent other than myself.’

I could now see why the house was so dirty. The first two games lasted about twenty and thirty minutes respectively and I was thrashed both times. The third game lasted over an hour and I was still beaten, much to Carter’s disgust.

‘I thought you said you could play,’ he said scathingly.

‘I can play in that I know the rules. I never said I was a grand master.’

Carter snorted with derision at that.

‘I’m no good at strategy games, I never have been,’ I told him. In between playing, I made lunch. After the games I made dinner.

And so the first day passed. I asked Carter to show me around the house but he looked at me frostily and didn’t deign to answer. When I pestered him further he did tell me that the room next to the living room was a half-empty storeroom, nothing more.

The next day we played yet more chess, then draughts, using the chess pieces as draughtsmen. I was
actually
better than him at that, much to his annoyed amazement.

‘How come you’re so good at draughts and so crap at chess?’ he asked.

I smiled. ‘Draughts is more impulsive. It suits me.’

‘What a load of bull!’

‘You explain it then,’ I challenged.

He couldn’t, so he started cheating. Every time I looked away, one of my pieces would mysteriously disappear from the board. When it grew dark we both read for a while. Then he went upstairs and I stayed downstairs. And so the second day passed.