School's Out Page 21

  "Then they can aid in the salvation of others."

  "As bleeders."

  "Or food. Or both. Their blood and flesh is a holy sacrament."

  "Is that all they are to you, a resource?"

  "If they will not accept the word of God then yes." He leaned back and shrugged as if to say 'what can you do?'

  I decided to try a different tack.

  "When we blew up that room you were outside the door," I said. "How did you survive?"

  "I am watched over," he replied.

  I thought: you ran down the stairs when you heard the window break, more like. "But if your little cult is so blessed, why were we able to burn your house to the ground?"

  He laughed, as if indulging a child who's just asked a particularly stupid question. "You were merely the messenger of God's wrath. He wishes me to bring His word to the world. I was betraying my calling by situating myself in one location." He gestured around him, at the marquee. "Now, you see, we are mobile! And we save more souls every day of our never ending journey. All thanks to you."

  "You're welcome. So why not move on. Why lay siege to a school when there are so many other places to save?"

  "I may be a holy man, but I am not above a little vengeance. You killed my disciples, you oppose me and my followers. That cannot go unpunished."

  "People are going to die here today. Lots of people. Yours and mine. Men, women, boys, girls. And there's no need for it all. You can just walk away."

  "Shan't."

  Strike One.

  "All right then, let the people in the school leave and take the building as your new base. Rent free. All yours."

  "Didn't you listen to what I said? We are mobile now. That is how it is meant to be."

  Strike Two.

  "Then take me."

  "Excuse me?"

  "Take me. Bleed me, eat me, do whatever you want. I won't resist. But leave the school alone."

  "My dear young man, I have you already. Where's my incentive to make a deal?"

  Strike Three.

  Okay then. I'd given him every chance; done everything I could to avoid bloodshed. No choice now but to fight. Only problem was that my plan relied on my being outside. And I was stuck in this bloody great tent. I needed to be creative.

  "How many men and guns have you got here anyway?" I asked.

  He smiled. It was not pleasant. "Lots and lots."

  I made a play of considering this.

  "Can I, perhaps, join you, then?"

  Finally, I'd managed to surprise him. "You wish to join the flock of the saved?"

  "I don't want to die, so on balance, yeah. Please."

  "Do you understand what joining the ranks of the saved entails?"

  "I've heard about the ritual blood letting. Correct me if I make a mistake. A victim is selected from amongst the prisoners or, if the person joining is considered particularly valuable, from the ranks of the already saved. The victim is held down by two men, and the supplicant, who has been stripped naked, slits the victim's throat and collects the blood in a bowl. When the bowl is full they drink the blood. Then the body is turned over and sliced open. You then dab your hands in the gore and make the sign of the cross, in blood, on the supplicant's chest. The supplicant takes the knife, cuts their palm, and drips their blood into your outstretched hands, and you wash your face with it. That about right?"

  "And you'd be happy to take the ritual of salvation?"

  "If it means staying alive, then yes, I would."

  "Can I tell you a secret?"

  "Please."

  He leaned forward and whispered conspiratorially: "You're not a very good liar."

  "I'm not lying. I swear I'll join you if you let me."

  "If you wish to join us why did you kill the acolytes I dispatched to bring you to me? We found their bodies on the road yesterday. And why attack and tie up the two men by the river? No, I think it's more likely that you've developed some kind of plan and this conversation is the start of it. Did you really think we would just leave if you asked me nicely?"

  He spat the word 'nicely' at me like a curse, and there was a sudden flash of furious madness in his eyes.

  "I hoped so. I had to try, didn't I?"

  The fury was replaced by contempt.

  "You believe yourself to be in a story, don't you?" he sneered. "I think you imagine yourself as the hero who strolls into the enemy camp, baits the villain and then runs away to fight another day. Yes? But you're so wrong. My crusade is holy and righteous and you are nothing but a clueless heathen. I have bound my followers together in faith and blood through the power of my will. I lead them to glory and salvation. You have no idea the trials I have undergone, the opposition I have overcome, the demons I have banished. I am the hero of this tale, boy, not you. You're just a footnote. Nothing more."

  He was impressive when he got going.

  "I don't know what you and your boy scouts have planned, but I can assure you it's utterly futile," he ranted. "You have no forces to call upon. We have the school surrounded and all your boys and their weapons are contained inside. They can't attack us for the same reason we can't attack them - they'd be cut down before they reached the walls. And even if it does come to a fight, which I think unlikely, my men outnumber you two to one and are not afraid to die. You should see them fight. It's a glorious thing. They fling themselves into danger without a second thought. They are magnificent!"

  David's messianic fervour was impressive but I wasn't completely convinced by it. I thought about the two men I'd interrogated on the river bank the day before. Magnificent wasn't the word I'd use to describe them; they were just scared idiots happy to have a tribe to belong to. Obviously there would be a hard core of men, like the one I'd killed in Hildenborough, who'd fight to the last, but I was sure that if David were taken out of the equation then the majority of Blood Hunters would fall apart. I hoped so, anyway. My whole plan relied upon it.

  "You're... you're right," I said, trying not to overplay it. "I know we don't stand a chance. I was bluffing. There's no way we can fight you, not like this."

  "Don't believe a word he says, David," said a familiar voice behind me. "He's got a plan, all right."

  I turned to face the new arrival. The guys I'd interrogated at the pillbox had told me Mac was here, so I'd expected to come face to face with him again. But nothing could have prepared me for how he looked. I recoiled involuntarily at the sight of him.

  His hair was all burnt away, his bald head blackened and scarred. The left side of his face was also a mass of scar tissue, and it sagged downwards, indicating that he had no muscle control there. The left side of his lips had been burnt away too, leaving half his teeth exposed and giving him a permanent sneer of loathing and contempt. His left ear was a ragged tatter and his left eye socket gaped, black and empty. His left arm ended abruptly just above what used to be his elbow, but the right hand held a machine gun with measured confidence. He looked like some kind of zombie.

  But it wasn't the sight of Mac that froze my blood and stopped my heart.

  Because standing next to him was Matron.

  And her face and hair were smeared with human blood.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  "Look," I said, "It's a pretty simple plan."

  "Too simple if you ask me," said Bob.

  "Can your man shoot as well as you say... yes or no?" I asked.

  "He's bloody brilliant," he replied.

  "And does he have a problem with shooting people?"

  "No," he replied darkly.

  "Then I reckon it's our best shot. Um, sorry. Not intended."

  "But are you sure it'll work?" asked Rowles.

  "The Blood Hunters are a cult of personality. It stands to reason that if we eliminate their leader then they won't know what to do. There's every chance they may just wander off."

  "I can't believe this is our best plan. Hope they wander off. Jesus," muttered Norton.

  "You said he never comes out of the tent, so how
are you going to get him out in the open?" asked Bob.

  "I'll improvise. Just make sure your man's ready. The second David steps outside, I want him dead. Then while they're running around flapping their hands and wailing you lot come out onto the road and line up, weapons raised. But don't fire unless you have to. And Norton, you lead the boys out of the school and do the same. With their leader dead, and us sandwiching them between two rows of guns and making a show of force, I think there's the possibility of a surrender."

  "And Mac?" said Norton. "We don't expect him to just walk away, do we?"

  "No. I don't really know what he's going to do. He's the wild card."

  Matron held a gun on me as Mac and David walked to one side and talked quietly, glancing over at me every now and then. I stayed seated. I looked up at Matron, trying to get some indication that she was under duress. Nothing.

  Eventually David returned to the table. Mac stood behind him, his twisted mouth lolling into a dangerous smile. His face was as hard to read as David's, probably because half of it wasn't really there. But he was up to something, and I didn't like it.

  "At the urgings of Brother Sean, I have reconsidered your request to join us," said David.

  What the fuck?

  "Oh. Um... thanks."

  "If you wish to retire to prepare yourself, Sister Jane will sit vigil with you in seclusion until the appointed hour."

  "Great, thank you," I said, confused and suspicious. "I promise you won't regret this."

  And so Matron and I found ourselves sitting on the grass in a corner of the tent, shielded from view by an improvised partition made of blankets draped over wooden stands.

  I had so much I wanted to say. Jane Crowther was funny and vivacious; she stood up for herself and didn't take any shit from anyone. Could this blank-eyed acolyte really be her?

  "I'm sorry," I said eventually.

  She looked up at me. It was hard to tell, but I thought she looked confused.

  "If I'd just got rid of Mac earlier then I could have brought you back to the school sooner. They'd never have found you."

  "Thank heaven they did," she replied. "For I am saved!"

  Please, God, no. I felt tears starting to well up.

  "Nah," she said eventually. "Only kidding."

  I had never been so relieved in my life. Except for that time when I didn't die on the scaffold. On reflection, that probably trumps it. But I was pretty bloody relieved. I went to hug her but she pushed me away.

  "Better not. I kind of stink. The blood, y'know," she whispered, careful that we shouldn't be overheard by anyone lurking on the other side of the blanket.

  "Yeah, about that. I meant to ask, why exactly are you covered in blood, carrying a gun and hanging out with psychotic religious cannibals?

  "I'm a loyal disciple now, Lee. Have to be."

  "Why?"

  "They have the girls. There are about a hundred people travelling with David now, and many of them have medical conditions that need to be managed. They need a doctor, so they need me alive. But I made it clear when they took me that if they harmed any of my girls I'd kill myself. The girls stay alive and untouched as long as I co-operate. They keep them in a caravan but they park it about a mile away from the main tent each night, just so I'm not tempted to try and find them."

  "But you're not a doctor."

  "You don't know everything about me, Lee," she snapped impatiently. I'd touched a nerve. "I went to medical school for three years."

  "So why..."

  She interrupted me. "Not important right now. That was another life."

  I looked at her blood-caked face.

  "You had to convert?"

  "Yes. It was a condition."

  "So you performed the ritual?"

  She nodded. "They chose a Blood Hunter as the victim. Made it a little bit easier. I couldn't have done it to a prisoner. God knows what would have happened to us then, but I couldn't have done it. Even so, it was..." she broke off, unable to continue.

  "So the girls are safe and you're the cult doctor, yeah?"

  "Yeah."

  "I don't really want to ask this, but Mac...?"

  "Yes, I patched him up. Not the prettiest job, and he died on the table twice, but I managed it in the end. I think it was sheer force of will that kept him alive. He's very, very angry at you, Lee."

  "No shit, Sherlock. But why the fuck would you help him?"

  "It's my job. I save people. It's what I do. I don't... I try not to kill."

  "But after what he did, how could you?"

  "How could I not?" she replied furiously.

  I didn't know what to say to that. "And he's David's right-hand man?"

  She groaned. "Yes. After I patched him up he asked to convert and David let him. Said he had brought a message from God and deserved to be saved. They chose a child for his initiation. A young girl, no more than fifteen. He didn't hesitate for a second. And then he started doing it again."

  "Doing what?"

  "Worming his way in. Showing off, seizing the initiative, getting things done. He brought back more prisoners in the first month than they'd had in the previous three. Their strategist died in the attack on Hildenborough. Mac sussed that there was a vacancy, and filled it. David relies on him a lot now."

  "He should watch his back then. He'll be crucified before he knows it."

  "Not that easy. Mac doesn't have the same power base here. He's not been able to gather a little gang of followers. Everyone's first loyalty is to David. It was Mac who persuaded David to come here, and he devised the plan of attack. I think he stumbled across the, let's call them officers for want of a better word, a few weeks back, and they hatched the plan together. Lure you away, attack while you're off-site. He was incandescent when the attack on the school failed. He didn't anticipate such an organised resistance. And when he found the bodies of the boys in the truck yesterday evening, my God. Did you do that?"

  I explained what had happened to us at the farm and subsequently. As I told her about killing Wolf-Barry she did the strangest thing. She reached out and stroked my hair.

  "You poor boy," she said, her voice full of compassion and sorrow.

  I suddenly felt very uncomfortable.

  "It was necessary," I said awkwardly. "I'm just doing what has to be done."

  She nodded, wordlessly. But she left her hand resting on mine.

  "So what's with persuading David to let me convert?" I asked.

  "I have no idea. Whatever he's got planned it can't be good."

  "But the ritual takes place outside, yes?"

  "Normally."

  "Good. When we get outside things are going to kick off. With any luck there won't be a proper fire-fight, but if the shooting starts I need you to run, as fast as you can, across the road. There's a stile in the hedgerow a few metres to the left of the school gate. They'll be waiting for you and they'll give you covering fire if need be."

  She nodded.

  At that moment a blanket was flung aside and Mac leered down at us.

  "How's the reunion going?" he croaked.

  "Sorry?" I replied. "Couldn't quite catch that. Could you enunciate a little better, please."

  He looked down at me, furious. It's hard to talk when your lips have been partially burnt away.

  I stood up and held out my hand.

  "Hey Mac, you look great. No hard feelings, yeah?" I glanced down and pretended to be surprised that there was no hand for me to shake. "Oh. Sorry." Mock embarrassed.

  "Come with me," he said, with what looked like an attempt at a smile.

  A crowd had gathered outside the tent, and Matron and I were led through them to a clear space in the centre where David was standing. This crowd was no good at all. The sniper wouldn't be able to get a good shot at David in amongst all these people. I was thinking as fast as I could but I had nothing. I might have to go through with this foul ritual after all.

  "Have you selected a victim for today, David?" asked Mac. And something i
n his tone of voice made me even more uneasy.

  "I have decided to take your advice, Brother Sean," David replied.

  The crowd parted and two men walked forwards, herding a boy between them. It was Heathcote. So now I knew what had happened to the boy manning the GPMG at the school gates. His face was streaked with tears and snot, and he was snivelling. He looked utterly petrified. He saw me and a moment of hope flashed across his face, but he swiftly realised what was going on, and he let out a low moan of animal terror. He started muttering: "Oh God, oh God, oh God no, please God no."

  His escorts walked him into the centre of the space and forced him onto his knees. Once he was kneeling I could see that his hands were tied behind his back. One man grabbed his hair and pulled his head back, exposing the soft flesh of his throat. Heathcote fell silent, too terrified to even whimper. He knew he was about to die. As he looked over at me I saw the mingled pleading and fear in his eyes and I felt like I wanted to be sick.

  I was so transfixed that I didn't even notice Mac walk up beside me. I only registered his presence when he whispered in my ear.

  "You weren't there when we taught this bitch a lesson. You weren't there when we executed the men from Hildenborough. I made you my second-in-command but you never really earned it, did you? You never got your hands wet. Or your dick, for that matter."

  I clenched my fists. Mustn't let him provoke me. I had to think of a way out of this.

  "It was too easy for you," he continued. "I wonder, would you have shot one of the prisoners that day if you'd been there?"

  I turned to face him, defiant and angry.

  "No, I wouldn't have. I'm not a murderer."

  He chuckled. "You keep saying that, Lee. Who are you trying to convince? I should warn you, I'm a hard sell. I'm the one you betrayed, shot in cold blood and left to die, remember. Bates might disagree with you too. And I imagine you killed at least one of my officers yesterday. So what's the difference between a killer and a murderer, hmm? Coz you're definitely a killer."

  I just stared into his eye.

  "No answer to that? Well, let's put it to the test. You have a choice. If you want to live you have to kill Heathcote. Take a knife, slit his throat, watch him die. And then you have to drink his blood. You want to be in my gang you have to earn it this time. If you refuse I'll put a bullet in both your kneecaps and hang you upside down to bleed."