Forecast (33 page)

“That’s an abandoned pick up. It’s been there for about six years. Please, let us do our job.”

When night descended on the desert, with optimism and hope sliding away, Hennessey was dropped off at the airport and the Black Hawk disappeared into the night to continue with the search, limited to its hi
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tech aerial searchlights and special thermal
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imaging equipment.

At first light, Hennessey was back up in the sky looking for her parents. It wasn’t until later that afternoon that they spotted the wreckage of a private plane not on record. The Black Hawk began to lose height before banking sharply to the west where it circled twice. It hovered above the plane ruins as the crew observed it thoroughly. The helicopter descended with predatory determination. Hennessey skipped out of the cabin as soon as it landed and ran towards the plane. She could tell immediately by the model that it belonged to her father – a Six Cessna 140. One of the wings had snapped off and the nose had grated the hard ground leaving a long scar in the soil. She peered through the window expecting to see her parents inside sheltering from the sun. Investigating, she circled the plane a few times but found the cabin was empty. She gazed at the endless steep canyons and rugged mountains and exhaled a sharp breath.

Hennessey sighed as she stared around at the endless snowy hills, deciding that there was nothing contemptible about giving up. The chances of finding food in such thick snow bordered on impossible. She teetered for a moment, then dropped to her knees and tucked her feet under her bottom with her fingers clasped together in the approach of prayer.

“What is it?” Sutcliffe asked her.

She faced him. “You know, the fear of God is the foundation of wisdom.”

Sutcliffe and Hennessey had been gone for a few hours in their quest to find food. Burch had been dead for a year and was buried next to the mysterious intruder, Fred Farrell, outside on the hill. As for Matthews, he finally had the privacy he craved, having waited a year to be alone with his cousin, Claris Faraday.

Faraday was sleeping, her breathing soft and attractive. The insulation blankets outlined her lovely body. Matthews wondered if the physique beneath her clothes was as lean as he’d imagined all those months. She was very thin, all skin and bone in fact, but he still found her easy on the eye. He stroked her hair, ran his hand over her bony shoulder and down her arm, stopping at the hard beginning of her breast. Beneath the blankets, he lifted the hem of her knee
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length skirt and, very slowly, slow enough to amplify his stimulation, pushed his hand towards her warm thighs. Faraday moved and gave a soft congenial moan, enjoying it and his arousal increased. Acting on his animal instinct, his hand edged a little further, exploratory, stroking her inner thigh.

Then Trev Gable burst into the room and spoilt the moment. He’d been in the toilet cubicle all night because Matthews had been snoring again and it always prevented him getting his own sleep.

“Morning,” he said sleepily.

Matthews whipped his hand out of Faraday’s skirt and grunted in annoyance, caught up by two consistent urges that both bore the same result. He wanted to be alone with Faraday so they could spend quality time together and he wanted Gable gone because Gable was in the way and because he was eating precious food, food that was diminishing so quickly it would last but a few more months. Who was Trev Gable anyway? He didn’t deserve to be a survivor, he hadn’t earned it. The only reason he was there, alive, was because he’d been stealing from the crew. He’d done nothing along the scale of flying a balloon to the edge of space. And Gable had almost cost him his life last year when he went missing. If he and Faraday hadn’t rescued him from the human cannibals, an action he had come to regret, he would have been killed. Matthews walked about the room in agitation, his presence as he stalked up and down scaring Gable because of all the people there, Matthews he trusted least.

Gable popped out to the elevator to collect a tin of tomatoes. He took a few deep breaths before going back in, sensing the tension in the air. Back inside, he skewered the lid off the tin and with his fingers began spooning the plump tomatoes into his mouth. Some spilt down his front so he set the tomatoes on the floor, pulled his shirt up to his mouth and sucked off the juice. A pair of feet shuffled up to his tin, one of them tapping the floor. He looked up and saw Matthews standing over him, fists clenched.

“What did you do to the toilet?” Matthews barked, his head twitching more than usual, as if a bug had found a way inside his head and was looking for a way out.

“Nothing.”

“Don’t lie. I just went in there and saw it.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Right, follow me.”

Reluctantly, Gable abandoned his tomatoes tin and sheepishly followed Matthews to the other side of the room wondering what was going to happen. Matthews opened the door to the cubicle and pointed at the toilet half
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filled with water.

“Look, just look!”

Gable stepped into the cubicle and peered over the rim of the toilet. “What?”

“Look closer,” said Matthews.

Gable saw nothing out of the ordinary, except for the water level, which was much higher than usual and…

Gable’s head was rammed headlong into the water. He hit his temple on the rim on his way down and struggled for air as the cold water turned pink with blood. His weak arms thrashed ineffectually against his attacker’s impressive strength. Matthews never imagined such a naked growl of terror could emerge from a human throat, though Gable’s scream for help was softened by the sound of the bubbles rushing through the water. Matthews closed the door, not wanting Faraday to wake up.

Suffocating, Gable realised that debt and his thieving ways had brought him there, right now, to his end. He had survived a nuclear war inside the toilet cubicle. Now he would die inside it. Matthews calmly closed his eyes and tilted his head back waiting for the sound of Gable’s whimper to disappear, until the young man gave up and succumbed to his fate.

A few seconds later, he was dead.

Faraday awoke to a dark and silent room that was absolute, sensing she was alone.

She took her time to stir, the comfort of sleep still with her. Yet another night had passed and she hadn’t dreamt. No images. No thoughts. Nothing. Memories of her past seemed to be disappearing altogether, she feared. Incapable of finding the energy to stretch her legs, she just stayed there, empty. Her back felt numb from sleeping on the floor for so long, the blood in her body felt as though it had coagulated. She blinked away sleep before focussing again on her surroundings. Lighting a candle, she looked about the White Room to find it empty. Where was everyone else? Insulation blankets were strewn all over the floor but nobody was sleeping beneath them. One of the toilet doors was closed. Her watch said twelve, but she had no idea whether that meant midday or midnight, if the time was correct at all. She dragged herself to the toilet bringing the candle. She relieved herself and tried the flush, unsurprised when it failed. The cistern hadn’t been refilled. Someone must have gone to collect more seawater, she surmised, critically observing herself in the bath-room mirror. She studied her teeth; blemished and brown. Her skin; pale and arid. Her hair; ratty and split. Her eyes; dark pupils, but still lovely. She heard the main door open and returned to the room to see who had come back. Matthews walked in carrying a bucket of seawater in one hand and a tin of soup with the lid removed in the other.

Matthews took the bucket into the toilet to fill the cistern. When he came back, he gave the soup to Faraday.

“Where’s everyone else?” she asked.

“Brad and Jen went looking for food.”

“Where’s Trev? Asleep in the toilet again?”

“He went out for a bit.”

Faraday looked down and saw red specks in the tiled floor. She dragged a champagne bottle with a candle stabbed into it close to the marks and noticed more droplets. “Is that blood?” she asked.

With the hem of his trousers, Matthews quickly rubbed out the red marks. “No, Trev had tomatoes for breakfast.”

Matthews was acting strange, guarded and not quite himself. She didn’t like to be alone with him. If anyone had the faintest idea what was going on in Matthews’ world, it was Faraday. But over the last few months he’d become increasingly estranged. She observed his handsome features in the candlelight. He took after his mother in appearance, but had the temperament of his father who had been loud-mouthed, sometimes violent and always narrow
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minded. His obnoxiousness and impatience towards others were authentically his own. At times, she was frightened of her cousin as she had been of her uncle. Both were ill
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tempered and anything could ignite that fragile temper. She had seen it several times during their childhood: brawls, arguments, tantrums, outbursts. But she trusted her instincts in that she believed he couldn’t, or wouldn’t, bring harm to her.

“Just me and you,” Matthews said.

Faraday nodded but did not smile.

“I like it. I wish it was always like this, just the two of us.” He wanted to seem gentlemanly and approachable. He wanted her to think of him as just an average guy she might have met in a bar or through a network of friends.

“When will Jen and Brad be back, do you know?”

“Who cares? Let’s just enjoy the freedom while it lasts. How’s the soup?”

“Fine.”

“Good.”

Lighting another candle in order to generate a romantic mood, Matthews began chatting about their childhood, how they hadn’t been the best of friends growing up and how that had changed. He talked about his ex
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girlfriends, one in particular. Naomi Millington. He ex
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pressed his hatred for her, how she had screwed him about and got him heavily into debt and almost ruined his life. He talked about how most women were users, selfish, liars, only out to extort money. Hennessey was a liar and she was selfish, but he didn’t know her agenda on money. He hated women, but not Faraday. She was different to the others, he said. Genuine, kind and accepted men for what they stood for. He said he respected that in a woman.

“I think I might go out and look for Brad and Jen,” Faraday said. “I could do with the exercise.”

“You can’t.” A large scowl appeared on his face. “There are no more oxygen tanks left.”

“I might go anyway. A few minutes outside won’t kill me.”

Faraday didn’t see Matthews clench his fist. “Don’t you want to be here, with me?”

She had been listening to his bullshit patiently and attentively. She wanted to respond, to follow her heart and walk out on him, to tell him to just leave her alone. Her spirit was willing but her body refused. Now she had to try and stall for time. As soon as Sutcliffe and Hennessey got back, she would be safe. Having endured all the ups and downs of such a hellish ordeal for the past one year, she believed that simple survival logic wouldn’t apply right then.

“I’m always here with you. I just feel like some fresh air, that’s all.”

Matthews stopped moving with faucet abruptness. A predatory glint appeared in his eyes. He put a hand on Faraday’s shoulder and began to inch his way closer to her and she could smell his rancid breath burning her face. His lips brushed against hers and a heart beat later she responded.

“What are you doing?”

“I want you.”

She snapped at him. “I’m your cousin for Christ’s sake.”

“You’re a female with needs. I’m a male with needs.”

“Well, I need you to back the hell away.”

Matthews stood like a man poised to do battle and stared down his nose at Faraday. For a moment, she saw a genuine hatred in his eyes. No one was able to frighten her the way he did. As if from nowhere, he pulled out a large dagger and held it taut in his grip, his eyes red with fury and filled with an emotion Faraday couldn’t understand. He indicated with a finger to his lips that she be quiet and closed the gap between them. A mental block and a lack of words failed her. She didn’t have a blade. She didn’t even look around the room for a weapon. Her choice of words, her tone of voice, her body language, those were her weapons and she was intensely aware that she had to find the right combination because the next few seconds were crucial.

In life, people didn’t remember days, they remembered moments, thought Sutcliffe. Finding the Fable
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1 gondola had been one of those memorable moments. It signified their successful return to Earth. For him, seeing Fable
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1 safely back in Britain seemed to complete the journey. It lifted his spirits and he accepted that the impossible hope he had been living with was wrong and dangerous.

Hennessey’s thoughts at that moment were in stark contrast.

With the last of their oxygen tanks on the brink of depletion, she felt that the failed food hunt had been an experience of collective impotency. Food rationing would need to be governed much more stringently if they were to survive the eighteen month timeframe they had set as an achievable target. A year had passed by and all the resources in the White Room were being stretched to their limits. They were down to the last few hours in their oxygen tanks and that meant no more outside explorations. The laptop and mobile phones had all died within a week of the bombs. The torches from the accessory cases had both run dry of batteries. Two of the four life support systems had run out of power also. Eleven unused candles remained in the box, the light from which had been reduced to an hour each morning when food was selected and the room was tidied. She wondered how the crew would take the news of their spectacular failure. Morale was low and so too was food and water. Would it be the final determiner? Hennessey was particularly worried about Faraday. She hadn’t been herself for a long time and was sleeping away the days and nights. She had become a victim to lethargy and her mood was mostly despondent. It weighed down on the moods of others. She wasn’t the only one hurting. They were all victims. All of them had lost their parents, sweethearts, siblings and associates.