Year of the Flood: Novel (35 page)

SAINT RACHEL AND ALL BIRDS

SAINT RACHEL AND ALL BIRDS
YEAR TWENTY-FIVE.

OF THE GIFTS OF SAINT RACHEL; AND OF THE FREEDOM OF THE SPIRIT. SPOKEN BY ADAM ONE.

Dear Friends, dear Fellow Creatures and Fellow Mortals:

What a cause for rejoicing is this rearranged world in which we find ourselves! True, there is a certain — let us not say
disappointment.
The debris left by the Waterless Flood, like that left by any receding flood, is not attractive. It will take time for our longed-for Eden to appear, my Friends.

But how privileged we are to witness these first precious moments of Rebirth! How much clearer the air is, now that man-made pollution has ceased! This freshly cleansed air is to our lungs as the air up there in the clouds is to the lungs of Birds. How light, how ethereal they must feel as they soar above the trees! For many ages, Birds have been linked to the freedom of the Spirit, as opposed to the heavy burden of Matter. Does not the Dove symbolize Grace, the all-forgiving, the all-accepting?

It is in the spirit of that Spirit of grace that we welcome among us three fellow Mortal companions on our journey — Melinda, Darren, and Quill. They have miraculously escaped the Waterless Flood by having been providentially sequestered: Melinda in a hilltop yoga and weight-loss establishment, Darren in a hospital isolation ward, and Quill in a place of solitary incarceration. We rejoice that these three appear not to have been exposed to viral contamination. Although not of our Faith — or not still of our Faith in the case of Quill and Melinda — they are our fellow Creatures; and we are happy to aid them at this common time of trial.

We are grateful also for this temporary abode, which, though it is a former Happicuppa franchise, has sheltered us from the grilling sun and the gruelling storm. Thanks to the skills of Stuart — in especial, his acquaintance with chisels — we have gained entrance to the storeroom, thereby procuring access to much Happicuppa product: the dried milk substitute, the vanilla-flavoured syrup, the moccachino mix, and the single-serving packets of sugar, both raw and white. You all know my view of refined sugar products, but there are times when the rules must bend. Thank you to Nuala, our indomitable Eve Nine, for the skill with which she has whipped up a sustaining brew for our refreshment.

We remember on this Day that the Happicuppa Corp was in direct contravention to the Spirit of Saint Rachel. Its sun-grown, pesticide-sprayed, rainforest-habitat-destroying coffee products were the biggest threat to God’s feathered Creatures in our times, just as DDT was the biggest threat to them in the times of Saint Rachel Carson. It was in the Spirit of Saint Rachel that some of our more radical former members joined the militant campaign against Happicuppa. Other groups were protesting its treatment of indigenous workers, but those ex-Gardeners were protesting its anti-Bird policies. Although we could not condone the violent methods, we did endorse the intention.

Saint Rachel dedicated her life to the Feathered Ones, and thus to the welfare of the entire Planet — for as the Birds sickened and died out, did this not indicate the growing illness of Life itself? Imagine God’s sorrow as he viewed the distress of His most exquisite and tuneful feathered Creations!

Saint Rachel was attacked by the powerful chemical corps of her day, and scorned and pilloried for her truth-telling, but her campaign did at last prevail. Sadly, the anti-Happicuppa campaign did not meet with equal success, but that problem has now been solved by a greater power: Happicuppa has not survived the Waterless Flood. As the Human Words of God put it, in Isaiah 34, “From generation to generation it shall lie waste…. But the Cormorant and the Bittern shall possess it…. There shall the great Owl make her nest, and lay, and hatch, and gather under her shadow; there shall the Vultures also be gathered, every one with her mate.”

And so it has come to pass. Even now, my Friends, the rainforest must be regenerating!

Let us sing.

WHEN GOD SHALL HIS BRIGHT WINGS UNFOLD

When God shall His bright wings unfold
And fly from Heaven’s blue,
He first will as a Dove appear
Of pure and sparkling hue.

Then next the Raven’s form He’ll take,
To show there’s beauty too
In any Bird that He did make,
The oldest and the new.

He’ll sail with Swans, with Hawks He’ll glide,
With Cockatoo and Owl,
The chorus of the dawn He’ll sing,
He’ll dive with Waterfowl.

As Vulture He will next appear,
The Holy Bird of yore,
Who Death does eat, corruption too,
And thus does Life restore.

Under His wings we’ll sheltered be:
From fowler’s nets He’ll save;
His Eye will note the Sparrow’s fall,
And mark the Eagle’s grave.

For those who Avian blood do shed
In idle sport and play
Are murderers of God’s Holy Peace
That blessed the Seventh Day.

From
The God’s Gardeners Oral Hymnbook

68

REN. SAINT CHICO MENDES, MARTYR

YEAR TWENTY-FIVE

We walk through the shimmering meadow. There’s a humming like a thousand tiny vibrators; huge pink butterflies float all around. The clover scent is very strong. Toby probes in front of her with her mop handle. I try to pay attention to where I’m putting my feet, but the ground is lumpy and I trip, and when I look down it’s a boot. Beetles scurry out.

There’s some animals up ahead. They weren’t there a minute ago. I wonder if they were lying down in the grass and then stood up. I hang back, but Toby says, “It’s okay, they’re just Mo’Hairs.”

I’ve never seen a live one before, only online. They stand there looking at us with their jaws moving sideways. “Would they let me pat them?” I say. They’re blue and pink and silver and purple; they look like candy, or sunny-day clouds. So cheerful and peaceful.

“I doubt it,” says Toby. “We need to walk faster.”

“They’re not afraid of us,” I say.

“They should be,” says Toby. “Come on. Let’s go.”

The Mo’Hairs watch us. When we’re closer to them, they turn in a group and move slowly away.

At first Toby says we’re going to the eastern gatehouse. Then after we walk for a while on the paved road, she says it’s farther than she thought. I start to feel dizzy because it’s so hot, especially inside the top-to-toe, so Toby says we’ll head for the trees at the far side of the meadow because it will be cooler in there. I don’t like the trees, it’s too dark in there, but I know we can’t stay out in the meadow.

It is shadier under the trees, but not cooler. It’s dank, and there’s no breeze, and the air is thick, as if it has more air stuffed into it than other air does. But at least we’re out of the sun, so we take off our top-to-toes and walk along the pathway. There’s that rich deep smell of rotting wood, the mushroomy smell I remember from the Gardeners, when we’d go to the Park for Saint Euell’s. The vines have been moving in over the gravel, but a lot of the branches are broken back and stepped on, and Toby says that someone else has come this way; not today though, because the leaves have wilted.

There’s crows up ahead, making a racket.

We come to a stream, with a little bridge. The water’s rippling over stones, and I can see minnows in it. On the far bank there are signs of digging. Toby stands still, turns her head to listen. Then she crosses the bridge and looks at the hole that’s been dug. “Gardeners,” she says, “or someone smart.”

The Gardeners taught that you should never drink right from a stream, especially one near a city: you should make a hole beside it, so the water would be filtered at least a little. Toby has an empty bottle, the one we’ve been drinking from. She fills it from the water hole so only the top layer of water runs into the bottle: she doesn’t want any drowned worms.

Up ahead, off in a small clearing, there’s a patch of mushrooms. Toby says they’re Sweet Tooth — hydnum repandum — and they used to be a fall variety, when we still had fall. We pick them, and Toby puts them into one of the cloth bags she’s brought, and hangs the bag outside her pack so the mushrooms won’t get squashed. Then we continue on.

We smell the thing before we see it. “Don’t scream,” says Toby.

This is what the crows have been cawing about. “Oh no,” I whisper.

It’s Oates. He’s hanging from a tree, twisting slowly. The rope is passed under his arms and knotted at the back. He doesn’t have any clothes on except for his socks and shoes. This makes it worse, because he’s less like a statue that way. His head is thrown back, too far because his throat has been cut; crows flap around his head, scrabbling for footholds. His blond hair’s all matted. There’s a gaping wound in his back, like those on the bodies they used to dump in vacant lots after a kidney theft. But these kidneys wouldn’t have been stolen for transplants.

“Somebody has a very sharp knife,” says Toby.

I’m crying now. “They killed little Oatie,” I say. “I feel sick.” I crumple down onto the ground. Right now I don’t care if I die here: I don’t want to be in a world where they’d do this to Oates. It’s so unfair. I’m gulping air in huge gasps, crying so hard I can barely see.

Toby takes hold of my shoulders, and pulls me up, and shakes me. “Stop that,” she says. “We don’t have time for it. Now come on.” She pushes me ahead of her along the path.

“Can’t we at least cut him down?” I manage to say. “And bury him?”

“We’ll do that later,” says Toby. “But he’s not in his body any more. He’s in Spirit now. Shhh, it’s okay.” She stops and puts her arms around me and rocks me to and fro, then pushes me gently forward again. We need to reach the gatehouse before the afternoon thunderstorm, she says, and the clouds are moving in fast from the south and west.

69

TOBY. SAINT CHICO MENDES, MARTYR

YEAR TWENTY-FIVE

Toby feels bludgeoned — that was brutal, it was horrifying — but she can’t show her feelings to Ren. The Gardeners would have encouraged mourning — within limits — as part of the healing process, but there isn’t the space for it now. The storm clouds are yellowy green, the lightning’s ferocious: she suspects a twister. “Hurry,” she says to Ren. “Unless you want to be blown away.” For the last fifty metres they hold hands and run, heads down, into the wind.

The gatehouse is retro Tex-Mex, with rounded lines and pink adobe-style solarskin: all it lacks is a chapel tower and some bells. Already there’s kudzu clambering up the walls. The wrought-iron gate is standing open. In the ornamental garden with its ring of whitewashed stones — WELCOME TO ANOOYOO spelled out in petunias, but now invaded by purslane and sow thistles — something has been rooting. The pigs, most likely.

“There’s some legs,” says Ren. “Over there by the gate.” Her teeth are chattering: she’s still in shock.

“Legs?” says Toby. She feels affronted: how many demi-bodies does she have to encounter in one day? She goes over to the gate to look. The legs aren’t human, they’re Mo’Hair legs — a complete set of four; just the lower legs, the skinny parts. A little hair still on them, lavender in colour. There’s a head as well, though not a Mo’Hair head: it’s the head of a liobam, the golden fur scruffy, the eye sockets empty and crusted. The tongue’s gone, as well. Liobam tongue, once an expensive gourmet feature at Rarity.

Toby walks back to where Ren stands quivering, hands to her mouth.

“They’re Mo’Hair,” she says. “I’ll make them into soup. With our nice mushrooms.”

“Oh, I can’t eat anything,” says Ren in a doleful voice. “He was just a — he was a boy. I used to carry him around.” The tears are rolling down her cheeks. “Why did they do that?”

“You have to eat,” says Toby. “It’s your duty.” Duty to what? she wonders. Your body is a gift from God and you must honour that gift, said Adam One. But right now she feels no such conviction.

The gatehouse door is open. She looks through the window into the reception area — nobody — and propels Ren inside: the storm’s coming fast. She flicks a light switch: no power. There’s the usual bulletproof check-in window, a blank-faced document scanner, the fingerscan and iris cameras. You’d stand there knowing that you had five wall-mounted sprayguns pointed at your back and controlled from the inside room where the guards used to slouch.

She shines her flashlight through the counter window into the darkness of the inner space. Desks, filing cabinets, trash. Over in the corner, a shape: large enough to be someone. Someone dead, someone asleep, or — worst case — someone who’s heard them coming and is pretending to be a garbage bag. Then, once they’re at ease, there’d be some sneaking up and baring of canines, some slashing and rending.

The door to the inner room’s ajar: she sniffs the air. Mildew, of course. What else? Excrement. Decaying meat. Other noxious undertones. She wishes she had the nose of a dog, to sort one smell from another.

She pulls the door closed. Then she goes outside despite the rain and wind and hauls in the biggest stone from the ornamental flower-garden border. Not enough to stop a strong person, but it might slow down someone weak, or ill. She doesn’t wish to be leapt on from behind by a carnivorous mound of tatters.

“Why are you doing that?” says Ren.

“Just in case,” says Toby. She doesn’t elaborate. Ren is shaky enough as it is: one more horror and she could collapse.

The full force of the storm hits. A thicker darkness howls around them; thunder hollows out the air. In the lightning, Ren’s face comes and goes, her eyes closed, her mouth a frightened O. She clutches Toby’s arm as if about to topple from a cliff.

After what seems like a long time, the thunder trundles away. Toby goes outside to inspect the Mo’Hair legs. Her skin’s prickling: those legs didn’t walk there by themselves, and they’re still quite fresh. No sign of a fire: whoever killed the animal didn’t cook the rest here. She notes the cut marks: Mister Sharp Knife has passed this way. How close might he be?

She looks both ways along the road, strewn now with ripped-off leaves. No movement. The sun’s back now. Steam rises. Crows in the distance.

She uses her own knife to scrape much of the hairy skin from one of the Mo’Hair legs. If she had a large cleaver she could hack it into pieces small enough for her cooking pot. Finally she places one end on the top of the step leading up to the gatehouse and the other on the pavement and hits it with a rock. Now there’s the problem of a fire. She could spend a long time rummaging among the trees for dry wood and still come up empty-handed. “I need to go through that door,” she says to Ren.

“Why?” says Ren weakly. She’s huddled in the empty front room.

“There’s stuff we can burn,” says Toby. “To make a fire. Now listen. There might be someone in there.”

“A dead person?”

“I don’t know,” says Toby.

“I don’t want any more dead people,” says Ren fretfully. There may not be much choice about that, thinks Toby.

“Here’s the rifle,” she says. “This is the trigger. I want you to stand right here. If anyone but me comes out that door, shoot. Don’t hit me by mistake. Okay?” If she herself gets whacked in there, at least Ren will have a weapon.

“Okay,” says Ren. She takes the rifle awkwardly. “But I don’t like it.”

This is crazy, Toby thinks. She’s jumpy enough to shoot me in the back if I sneeze. But if I don’t check that room out, no sleep tonight and maybe a slit throat in the morning. And no fire.

She goes in with her flashlight and her mop handle. Papers litter the floor, smashed lamps. There’s broken glass, crunching underfoot. The smell is stronger now. Flies buzzing. The hairs on her arms lift, the blood rushes in her head.

The bundle on the floor is definitely human, covered with some sort of gruesome blanket. Now she can see the dome of a bald head, some wisps of hair. She pokes at the blanket with the mop handle, keeping the beam of light on the bundle. A moan. She pokes again, harder: there’s a feeble twitching of cloth. Now there are the slits of eyes, and a mouth, lips crusted and blistered.

“Fuckin’ hell,” says the mouth. “Who in fuck are you?”

“Are you sick?” says Toby.

“Asshole shot me,” says the man. His eyes are blinking in the light. “Turn that fuckin’ thing off.” No sign of blood leaking out of his nose or mouth or eyes: with any luck, he doesn’t have the plague.

“Shot you where?” says Toby. The bullet must have been hers, from that time in the meadow. A hand scrabbles forth: red and blue veins. Although he’s shrivelled and filthy, his eyes sunken with fever, this is Blanco, no doubt of it. She ought to know, she’s had the close-up view.

“Leg,” he says. “Went bad on me. Fuckers dumped me here.”

“Two of them?” says Toby. “Did they have a woman with them?” She makes her voice level.

“Gimme some water,” says Blanco. There’s an empty bottle in the corner, near his head. Two bottles, three. Gnawed ribs: the lavender Mo’Hair? “Who else is out there?” he rasps. His breath’s coming hard. “More bitches. I heard more.”

“Let me see your leg,” says Toby. “I may be able to help.” He won’t be the first person ever to have shammed injury.

“I’m fuckin’ dying,” says Blanco. “Turn off that light!” Toby sees various courses of action rippling across his forehead in waves of little frowns. Does he know who she is? Will he try to jump her?

“Take the blanket off,” says Toby, “and I’ll get you some water.”

“Take it off yourself,” croaks Blanco.

“No,” says Toby. “If you don’t want help I’ll just lock you in.”

“Lock’s broken,” he says. “Asshole skinny bitch! Gimme some water!”

Toby pinpoints the other smell: whatever else is wrong with him, he’s decaying. “I’ve got a Zizzy Froot,” she says. “You’ll like that better.” She backs out through the door and closes it behind her, but not before Ren’s had a look.

“It’s him,” she whispers. “The third one, the worst one!”

“Take a deep breath,” says Toby. “You’re perfectly safe. You’ve got the rifle, he doesn’t. Just keep it pointed at that door.”

She digs into her packsack, finds the remaining Zizzy Froot, drinks a quarter of the warm, sugary, fizzy liquid:
Waste not.
Then she fills the bottle up with Poppy and adds a generous dollop of powdered amanitas for good measure. The white Death Angel, granter of dark wishes. If there’s two bad choices take the lesser evil, Zeb would say.

She pushes the door open with her mop handle and shines the flashlight in. Sure enough Blanco is shoving himself across the floor, grinning with the effort. In one hand is his knife: most likely he was hoping to get near enough so he could grab her by the ankles when she went in. Take her down with him, or use her as a bargaining chip to get hold of Ren.

Mad dogs bite. What else is there to know?

“Here you are,” she says. She rolls the bottle towards him. His knife falls with a clink as he grabs for the bottle, unscrews it with shaking hands, guzzles. Toby waits to make sure it all goes down. “Now you’ll feel better,” she says gently. She closes the door.

“He’ll get out!” says Ren. She’s ashen.

“If he gets out, we’ll shoot him,” says Toby. “I’ve given him some painkillers to calm him down.” Silently she says the words of apology and release, the same as she would for a beetle.

She waits until the Poppy has taken hold, then re-enters the room. Blanco’s snoring heavily: if the Poppy doesn’t finish him, the Death Angels will. She lifts the blanket: his left thigh is a mess — decaying cloth and decaying flesh all simmering together. It takes a lot of self-restraint for her not to throw up.

Then she sorts through the room for flammables, gathering what she can — paper, some remnants of a smashed chair, a stack of CDs. There’s a second floor, but Blanco’s blocking the door to what must be the stairway and she’s not ready to get that close to him yet. She searches under the trees for dead branches: with the barbecue lighter and the paper and the CDs, they catch eventually. She makes bone soup with the Mo’Hair leg, adding the mushrooms and some purslane from the flower bed; they eat it sitting in the smoke of the fire, because of the mosquitoes.

They sleep on the flat roof, using a tree to climb up. Toby drags the pack-sacks up too, and the other three Mo’Hair legs, so nothing can steal them during the night. The rooftop’s pebbly, and wet as well: they lie on the two sheets of plastic. The stars are brighter than bright; the moon’s invisible. Just before they go to sleep, Ren whispers, “What if he wakes up?”

“He’ll never wake up,” says Toby.

“Oh,” says Ren in a tiny voice. Is that admiration of Toby, or simply awe in the face of death? He wouldn’t have lived, Toby tells herself, not with a leg as bad as that. Attempting to treat it would have been a waste of maggots. Still, she’s just committed a murder. Or an act of mercy: at least he didn’t die thirsty.

Don’t kid yourself, babe, says the voice of Zeb in her head. You had vengeance in mind.

“May his Spirit go in peace,” she says out loud. Such as it is, the fuck-pig.