screamed exhortations. And the torch revealed them for what they were.
The woman sat astride the man, blood and sweat running down her back, buttocks spread provocatively as she glared at us over her shoulder. Her body must have been very fine once, but now the curves were slashed and the swells were torn, knobbled with scar tissue. The man writhed beneath her, a high keening issuing from his throat. I had a frank view of where they were joined, his penis still locked inside her. And I saw why they had both been screaming.
The woman held onto a long strand of barbed wire. Its end was twisted several times around the man’s scrotum, and she’d pulled it tight.
“Want some, alien?” she asked.
Their blood was mingling down there.
I turned away, the acidic tang of bile rising in my throat. Chele had hurried on and I followed the jumping light, glad that Laura was still unconscious. Laughter followed us down into the tunnel, slick as puke, just as sick.
I wondered just where he’d directed us. Wherever, it couldn’t be as bad as where we had just escaped from.
And I thought of the riots and the shootings and the disease-stricken valley being napalmed…
“Why is this happening?” I said, suddenly feeling tears looming once again. Things had been happening so quickly that I’d barely had a chance to think. It seemed like days since I’d escaped the coach, but it was probably no more than an hour or two. Chele kept on walking, offering me no answer. It was a hopeless question.
“Dad,” Laura moaned, “you’re hurting me.”
“Honey, we’ve just got to go on a little longer. How do you feel?”
“Everything hurts.”
I was already flagging beneath her weight, but I managed to stretch and give her a kiss on the chin. “A little longer. Chele, we need to move a long way quickly.”
“You think they might come after us?”
I thought of what Black Teeth had said, about how outsiders were fodder and that barbing them was all they knew. Perhaps he’d fancied some sport, for once. The thrill of the chase. Maybe, for him and his people, revenge would taste sweeter if they had to work for it.
“It’s crossed my mind,” I said. “Any signs of this tunnel leading anywhere?” I had my head down with the weight of Laura slung over my neck, so I couldn’t see much more than my feet and Chele’s shadow, thrown back by the torch.
“Hang on.” She stopped and we stood there for a few seconds, silent and still. “No sign of a breeze,” she said. “Can’t hear anything. If they’re following, they’re very quiet about it.”
“Let me down, Dad.”
“Honey…” But she was heavier than ever, and in a minute or two I would not be able to manage any more. I hadn’t kept in shape, especially since Janine had died. I’d let myself go.
I set her down gently and she hissed, leaning back into me.
“Laura?”
“Pins and needles,” she said, and she giggled. “Bloody pins and needles!”
Laughter was the last thing I’d expected. Screaming, maybe, but laughter… and maybe that’s why it felt so good when I joined in.
Chele simply stared at us, unable to see a funny side. “They’ll hear us back in the cave,” she said. “They’ll think we’re laughing at them.”
“We are!” I said, laughing out loud. “Did you see that couple? That barbed wire? What else can we do but laugh!”
Laura shook her legs, her giggles mixing with groans of discomfort as her circulation returned. Some of her wounds glinted once more as fresh blood started to flow. Her pains became real again, her laughter stuttered and she remembered that she had a lot more to worry about than pins and needles.
“Daddy, don’t let them do it to me again,” she said. “Please, please don’t — ”
“I never will,” I said, wanting to hold her and hug her and love her here in the dark, in a cave in a place that was an idea of Hell. But Chele was glaring at me and I knew we had to leave. “Can you walk, honey?”
Laura nodded. “I think so. I hurt everywhere, so at least it’s pretty even.”
“Do you feel weak?”
She nodded. “I think I need a sugar rush. Don’t suppose you have any chocolate?” She looked at Chele then, almost as if seeing her for the first time. Thank you so much,” she said. I felt a hot rush of pride for my young, insightful daughter. She didn’t know Chele and could have no idea of how she had come to be here with me. But still, she knew a friend when she saw one.
“It’s my honour,” Chele said. “Your dad… he let me help him, and now I’m helping you. And you’re both helping me. More than you can know.”
“Chele was on the same coach — ” I started, but then Chele cut in.
“Later, Nolan. Please, I want out of here and I really, really think we should leave. Laura? You agree?”
“Dad?” Her voice was a plea in itself. I nodded, Chele headed off and I walked behind Laura, ready to catch her should she stumble or faint.
The tunnel turned and erred downward, so steep in places that we had to brace ourselves against the walls to prevent our feet slipping out from beneath us. We were going deeper and that wasn’t good, but the air was also changing — its smells, its tastes, its textures were different from the cave and the place we had left.
Lost underground forever, I thought. Now there’s an interesting idea of Hell. I started looking out for the creamy reflection of skeletons.
And then I looked around, wondering where the coach could be and whether I was looking into some spectator’s eyes at that very moment.
“All those people…” I said.
“What?” Chele did not turn around, and Laura seemed content just to listen.
“All those people in that valley. The disease. The bombs. All stolen away from the real world, all fodder?”
Chele did not answer, but the light jumped along the walls as if startled, and I guessed that she’d shrugged her shoulders.
The numbers staggered me. And I wondered how many people went missing every year around the globe, how many are never found. What chance that a relative will see them on a journey through Hell?
What was the likelihood that I would find Laura whilst trying to come to terms with losing her?
I thought about Black Teeth’s comments, wondering whether I’d created my own god or simply found the real One at last.
There was a loud crack behind us, like two rocks being smacked together. We stopped, wide-eyed and fearful, as a sound bathed us in echoes. It was a sigh or a roar, a whisper or a shout, all concepts of distance and time making it difficult to discern.
Another crack, followed by two more in quick succession.
“They’re gunshots,” Chele said. And as if in answer the cracks turned into one long string of explosions, and the whisper or roar emerged as very definite, very desperate screams.
“They’re being slaughtered,” I said, thinking of the pathetic people we’d left behind, dancing in the cave as bullets found them.
“I can’t be sorry,” Laura whispered. “I can’t be sorry at all.” And her voice, quiet though it was, cut through the destruction.
We stood there for a minute, avoiding each other’s eyes and listening to the murder. I heard screams and shouts between the gunfire and towards the end, as the volume seemed to decrease, moaning and pleading and crying between the intermittent shots. Chele moved the torch so that its liquid light shifted back along the tunnel the way we had come. I looked at her, caught the flames reflected in her eyes, and we both knew what the other was thinking.
Laura said it. “Maybe they’ll come for us now. The demons… maybe they’ll come.”
“Let’s go,” Chele said, turning away and heading back into the tunnel. She did not wait for a response,
