School's Out Forever (afterblight chronicles) Read online

  The main kitchen was a useless modern gas range, but in one of the outbuildings we found a turn of the century kitchen with a long-forgotten wood burning stove. We cleaned it up and had hot food once a day, prepared by one of the boy’s aunts, who we started to call the ‘Dinner Lady’, although her name was Mrs Atkins. Lots of the dorms had old, bricked-up fireplaces, so we took a sledgehammer to those, opened up the chimneys again, harvested some grates from an abandoned hardware store in Sevenoaks, and slept snug every night. The woods in the school grounds provided all the fuel we needed.

  We even set up a paddock and rounded up a cow for milking, two pigs and three sheep. Being a posh private school, St Mark’s had no shortage of wannabe gentleman farmers and two had survived and returned — Heathcote and Williams took to their tasks like pigs to swill.

  The school came to seem like a haven. We organised football and rugby tournaments, started having assembly after breakfast; hell, we even had campfires and sing-alongs. The big stone wall that enclosed the grounds on three sides, and the River Medway which marked the school’s southern border, kept the outside world distant and held it at bay. We felt safe and insulated, and Bates and Mac were fine as long as that lasted. Sure the scavenging parties were a little too soldiery to take seriously, but without his cronies Mac seemed almost normal, and Bates gradually settled down. He relied heavily on Mac to organise things, but sorting out the rota for planting spuds and milking the cow doesn’t really provide much opportunity for megalomania.

  It was surreal. The world had died and here was this tiny, insular community of grieving children carrying on as if everything was fine. And for a while, just for a while, I allowed myself to be lulled by it, allowed myself to think maybe things would be all right, maybe the world hadn’t descended into anarchy and chaos and cults and blood and horror, maybe the rest of the world was like we were — hopeful and coping. Maybe this little society we were setting up would work.

  What an idiot I was. A community is only as healthy as the people who lead it. And we had Bates and Mac. I should have realised we were fucked before we even began.

  We could only keep the madness at bay for so long. We were living in denial, and Mr Hammond’s arrival changed everything.

  NORTON AND I were in the south quad working on a madcap contraption designed by some fifth-form chemistry ‘A’ student called Dudley, designed to harvest methane gas from animal shit, when we heard the first gunshots. They echoed off the walls and we couldn’t tell where they were coming from. There were sharp repetitive sounds too, which we quickly realised were hooves on tarmac, and distant shouts. The front drive!

  We ran through the buildings to the front door and looked out at the long driveway that led from the front gate up to the school. An old man was running as fast as he could up the drive towards us, holding hands with two boys. All three were shouting for help. Behind them, just inside the gate but gaining fast, were a man and a woman on horseback. Both carried shotguns. The woman took aim at the fleeing trio. She fired and one of the boys stumbled and fell forwards onto the gravel. The old man hesitated, unsure what to do.

  “Run, you idiot, run,” whispered Norton.

  The old man ushered the other boy towards the school and as the child continued running the man turned back to get the wounded boy. He crouched there protectively, shielding him from the approaching riders as they reined in their steeds and loomed over them. The woman took careful aim at the running boy.

  While all this was happening boys had come running up to the door one by one, drawn by the noise. Bates arrived last, carrying his rifle. He pushed to the front and went to open the door just as the woman fired and the running boy threw up his arms and tumbled head over heels onto the cold drive. He lay there for a moment and then started crawling towards us. We all gasped, horrified. The woman started her mount trotting towards him.

  I glanced up at Bates but the look on his face said it all; he was frozen, unable to make a decision. We weren’t going to get anything useful from him.

  “Where’s Mac?” he asked.

  “Scavenging party, sir,” I replied.

  “Oh. Right. Ummm…”

  Shit. I had to do something.

  “Sir, give me the gun sir,” I said.

  “What?”

  “Give me the gun, sir.” I didn’t shout, that wouldn’t have worked. I was just quietly insistent, assuming authority I didn’t really feel. He handed me the rifle just as Matron came running. She too was armed.

  “Matron,” I said. “Get out there and talk to them. Just give me two minutes.”

  Startled, she looked to Bates for confirmation, but he was just staring out the window, biting his lip. She looked back to me and nodded, then stepped out onto the front steps, rifle ready but not presented for firing.

  The horsewoman had dismounted and was standing over the injured child, who continued to crawl away from her, whimpering and crying, leaving a thick red snail trail behind him. Her colleague was still mounted, covering the other two, about twenty metres behind her.

  I turned away from the door, pushed through the crowd of boys, and ran up the main stairs. I needed to get to a good vantage point.

  I heard a shot behind me and my stomach lurched. Jesus, she’d executed the boy.

  I reached the first floor landing and ran into the classroom that looked down over the driveway. Dammit, the bloody windows were closed. I laid the rifle on the window seat and tried to pull up the sash. No use, it was painted shut and wouldn’t budge. I looked down, saw Matron, and realised with relief that it was she who had fired, a warning shot. The wounded boy was still crawling. The horsewoman’s shotgun was now aimed square at Matron.

  I could have shattered one of the small panes of glass, but I didn’t want to draw attention to myself, and I needed to be able to hear what was being said. I cursed, grabbed the gun, and ran back to the staircase. I was losing seconds I couldn’t afford. I sprinted up the stairs to the second floor. The front room here was a dormitory with beds lying underneath the windows, one of which was already open. I muttered silent thanks and lay down on the bed, brought the rifle up and rested the barrel on the window frame. I nestled the stock deep into the soft tissue of my right shoulder. The .303 kicks like a bastard, and if you don’t seat it properly you can give yourself a livid purple bruise to the collarbone that’ll leave you hurting for weeks. Believe me, I know.

  I lifted the bolt, drew it back and a round popped up from the magazine to fill the void. I then pushed the bolt forward again, smoothly slotting the round into the breach, snapped the bolt back down and slipped off the safety catch. I took careful aim and calmed my breathing, steadied my hands, focused on the woman with the shotgun.

  “…looters, plain and simple,” she was saying. She stood about five metres in front of Matron. The boy was still crawling, still whimpering, halfway between the two women.

  “Looters?” replied Matron, incredulous.

  “They were seen taking food from a newsagent’s in Hildenborough. An old man with two boys. No doubt. We’ve been tracking them for the past hour.”

  “And who the hell says they shouldn’t take food where they find it? You may not have noticed, dear, but our debit cards don’t work any more.”

  The boy kept crawling.

  “We control Hildenborough now,” the woman said. “Our territory, our rules.”

  “And who’s we?”

  “The local magistrate, George Baker, took charge. He’s the law there, and if he says you’re a looter, you’re a looter.”

  “And you shoot looters?”

  “The ones who run, yeah.”

  “And the ones you catch?”

  “We hang them.”

  Matron leant down to the boy, who had now reached her and was clawing at her shoes.

  “I know this boy. He’s thirteen!” she shouted.

  The horsewoman shrugged.

  “Looter is a looter. And people who shelter looters are no better.”

&n
bsp; Matron stood up again, raised her rifle and walked right up to the horsewoman. I thought the rider would fire but she kept her cool, confident that her colleague would deter Matron from firing the first shot.

  The two women stood face to face, one raised gun barrel length between them.

  “Well this,” said Matron, “is my territory. And here I am the law. You leave. Now.”

  The horsewoman held Matron’s gaze for a long minute. I had to shift my aim; Matron’s head was blocking my shot. I sighted on the horseman instead.

  The horsewoman called Matron’s bluff.

  “Oh yeah,” she sneered. “And who’s going to make me? You and whose army?”

  She pushed the barrel of Matron’s rifle aside, raised her shotgun and, before I could react, clubbed Matron hard on the head with the stock. Matron slumped to the ground, stunned.

  This was it, the moment of truth. I’d fired this rifle countless times on the range, blasting away at paper people, but I’d never fired at a real, breathing, living human being. If I could list my unspoken ambitions in life one of them, which I think most people probably share, was to never actually kill someone. I didn’t want anybody’s blood on my conscience, didn’t want to stay awake at night playing and replaying my actions, seeing someone die again and again at my hands.

  I’d heard my dad wake up screaming.

  I knew what becoming a killer meant.

  But there and then hesitation meant that other people, people I cared about, would die. I didn’t have time to consider, philosophise or second guess. As the horsewoman lowered her gun to point at Matron’s head, I took careful aim at her chest and gently squeezed the trigger.

  But before I could shoot, before I could take my first life, someone else opened fire at the man who sat covering the other two ‘looters’. The man spun in the air, tumbled off the horse and lay still. The woman turned to see what was happening. Matron, injured but mobile, gathered the wounded boy into her arms and began staggering towards the school. The man’s horse took fright and ran left onto the grass, whinnying and rearing, revealing Mac, stood at the school gate with a smoking rifle held firm at his shoulder.

  The horsewoman gave a cry of anguish and ran towards Mac. She fired her shotgun once, causing the old man to duck, but the shot went wide, and then she too was felled by a single shot from Mac. Her momentum carried her on a few steps and then she fell in a heap alongside the two looters she’d been pursuing.

  Her horse now took fright and bolted, racing, head down, towards Matron, threatening to trample her and the boy she was carrying.

  Without a second’s thought I re-sighted and fired.

  The rifle kicked hard into my shoulder and the explosion deafened me. But the horse went down, clean shot, straight to the head. It was the first time I had ever shot a moving target. The first time I’d ever shot anything alive.

  I lay there for a moment, shocked by what I’d done. I could see Mac looking up at my window in surprise.

  My hands were shaking.

  I wasn’t really a killer.

  Not yet.

  I WALKED BACK down the stairs, unsteady on my feet, wobbly with adrenaline comedown. The entrance hall was in commotion. Matron had already gone; run straight through the crowd on the way to the San, and Norton had taken control of the situation.

  “Heathcote, take some boys and get these fucking horses out of sight,” he was saying. “Williams, you take care of the bodies. The last thing we need is their friends finding their corpses on our front door.”

  The two farmboys gathered groups of older boys and hurried outside to begin cleaning up.

  I stood there, letting the noise and confusion wash over me. It took me a moment before I realised that Norton was talking to me.

  “Lee. Lee!”

  I shook my head to clear away the fog. “Yeah?”

  He put his hand on my arm, concerned. “You okay?”

  “Yeah.” I nodded. “Yeah, I think so, yeah.”

  “Good. Come on, let’s get the other wounded boy inside.”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  Outside the sky was clear blue, the air crisp and fresh. The gravel crunched underneath my feet as we ran to the fallen boy and the old man who was tending him. All my senses seemed heightened. I could hear my heart pounding, see far off details with crystal clarity. I could smell the blood.

  We ran past the dead horse, next to which stood three boys debating the best way to move the great beast. I slowed and stopped. I stepped around the animal and knelt down beside it, reaching out to touch its still warm neck. Its eyes stared, mad and sightless, and its mouth lay open, tongue lolling out, teeth bared in fright. There was a neat hole above its left eye, from which black and grey matter oozed onto the drive.

  I felt its fading body heat and tears welled up in my eyes. My stomach felt hollow, my head felt tight, and all I wanted to do was curl up in a dark hole and cry. It was the first real emotion I had felt since my mother died.

  I forced the feelings down. Time for that later; things to do now. I muttered “sorry,” and then rose and ran after Norton, wiping my eyes as I did so.

  As I approached the looters I was shocked to recognise the man. It was Mr Hammond, our art master. I knew the boy too, by sight. He was a third-former, I think, but his name escaped me. Hammond was an old man, seventy-five and long overdue for retirement, but he looked about ninety now. His face was pale and unshaven, his cheeks hollow and shadowed. His clothes, so familiar from countless art classes, were ragged and torn. He had a deep gash across his forehead that streamed blood down one side of his face.

  He didn’t look like he’d endured the easiest apocalypse.

  Williams lifted the dead woman and pushed past me as I approached. Norton was helping Hammond to his feet, Mac was lifting the wounded boy. Bates was standing there too, staring at the pool of blood on the ground, eyes glazed, expression blank. When I reached him he didn’t look up.

  “Sir,” I said. No response. “Sir.”

  Bates snapped out of his reverie and looked up at me.

  “Hmmm?”

  “Your rifle, sir,” I said, and handed it to him. He looked down at it in horror, as if I’d just offered him a severed human head. Then he reached out and took it.

  “Thank you,” he murmured.

  Norton and Hammond moved off back towards the school, and Mac handed the boy, bleeding but breathing, to a couple of fifth-formers who carried him away.

  So there we were; me, Bates and Mac, stood around two pools of blood, all unsure exactly what to say to each other. It was only now that I noticed that Mac had dried blood smeared across his combat jacket. I studied him closely. I had just killed a horse and I was a wreck; he’d just gunned down two people and he didn’t seem in the least bit concerned. I may not have been a killer, but he was. And something about his reaction, or lack of it, told me this was not the first time he’d taken a life.

  “What happened to you?” I asked. “Where are the others?”

  Bates looked at Mac and seemed to regain his senses. Mac was watching him carefully, and his cool appraising stare made me feel deeply uneasy.

  “Yes, Mac,” said Bates. “You left with McCulloch and Fleming. Where are they?”

  He would have answered but he was suddenly surrounded by a crowd of sixth-form boys, eager to congratulate him. Wolf-Barry slapped his back and punched the air, Patel kept saying that it was “so cool”, Zayn just looked awed.

  Great, he’d got a new fan club.

  WE GATHERED THAT evening in the main common room after a subdued dinner of curried horse. I didn’t eat.

  Bates was first to speak.

  “You’re all aware of the incident that occurred this afternoon. Matron is even now working to save the lives of the two boys who were shot. These boys are Grant of 2B and Preston of 4C.”

  One boy in the second row gave an audible gasp at this news. A classmate, probably.

  Bates seemed more sure of himself in this safe, controlled en
vironment. All trace of his earlier loss of composure was gone. He stood erect, in full uniform, with his arms behind his back, like a regimental Sergeant-Major.

  “I’m going to hand over to Mr Hammond at this stage, who will tell you what happened. Dennis…”

  He gestured to his colleague to take over, and resumed his seat. Hammond stood and surveyed the room, scanning our faces, mentally noting which of us he knew, seeing who had survived and who, by omission, had not.

  “Boys, it’s good to be back. It’s good to see so many of you again. It gives me hope that…” He trailed off, momentarily overcome.

  “Preston and Grant lived near me in Sevenoaks, and they both arrived at my house together a few days ago. It was my suggestion that we return here. If we’d stayed where we were, maybe… Anyway, we ran out of petrol just as we entered Hildenborough. But it’s only an hour’s walk to the school so we weren’t worried. Grant was hungry so we stopped at a newsagent’s and rummaged around for something to eat. The place had been pretty thoroughly cleaned out, but we found chocolate bars underneath an overturned cupboard. We considered ourselves lucky, and set off again. But within minutes there was a hue and cry. The shout ‘looter’ went up and we saw a man running towards us, so we just ran for our lives.

  “Preston knows the area very well and thanks to him we were able to elude our pursuers, although we never seemed able to completely shake them off. They finally caught up with us at the gate and you know the rest.

  “If it hadn’t been for Matron and MacKillick here…” Again he trailed off into silence.

  You would have expected Hammond to have been grateful to the man who had saved his life, but the look he flashed Mac was one of distaste and suspicion.

  Bates stood again, thanked Hammond, and handed the floor to Mac with an alarming degree of deference. Norton and I exchanged worried glances. Mac had cleaned up and changed his uniform, but he still sported combats and camouflage.