The Relic Keeper (6 page)

Mathew’s head throbbed today. The painkillers he was on hardly touched it and his legs ached from the exercises that the physiotherapist had shown him. At least they could be moved now, although he doubted he’d be running a marathon soon, and he was not able to initiate any movement himself. All of his body hurt, but his head thumped like nothing he’d felt before. He lay in the semi-darkness and tried to sleep, but the pain was too severe. He’d asked for something extra, but it seemed that anything else would just put him to sleep, and the staff didn’t want that, however hard he pleaded with them.

The days flowed into one another. Degrees of pain and confusion ruled his life; not the passing of hours or the setting of the sun. Sometimes he slept for what must have been days at a time, and others he lay awake and alone for hours on end. He was in pain, he was mystified, and above all he was bored. They wouldn’t give him a book to read, although he doubted he’d be able to. In fact the staff often seemed baffled as to why he’d want one. There was nothing to listen to, or to watch. All these monitors and no tv, it seemed ludicrous. And none of the staff apart from the oriental girl Reiko appeared to be allowed to talk to him. And even she never gave him any information. He couldn’t even get the date from any of them. As soon as he was able to he was going to get Paula to speak to that lawyer brother of hers and they’d bloody sue this place, private clinic or not.

The noise of the door opening – it was actually the sound of air rushing in he thought, the door seemed to be silent – made him jump from his private rant. He swivelled his head as best he could to see the Japanese girl enter. She glided up to his bed and asked how he felt. He explained and she ignored him.
Nothing new there then
, he thought.

“Fine then Mathew. Now before we discuss your exercises I need to tell you something about where you are and why you are here.”

“Well thank God for that, that’s what I’ve been trying to get out of you lot for days. And will you tell me why my wife hasn’t been admitted to see me?”

The girl looked at him with kind eyes. “Yes Mathew, that’s one of the things I need to talk to you about.” And suddenly he felt very nervous about the ensuing discussion.

Mathew slumped down into his bed and tried to take in what he’d just been told. It had taken his mind off the pain, that was for sure. Events seemed to be clearer and more confused simultaneously. He remembered about the heart problems, the angina, the mild but worrying coronary that had scared the crap out of him. But the last heart attack, that was blur. It seemed vaguely familiar, but it wasn’t something he could say that he actually remembered. It certainly explained the lack of visitors, and the deathly look on his face when he caught sight of his reflection. At least another two weeks in this bed and only then might they
consider
letting him out of the room. If he was lucky! Well he wasn’t feeling very fucking lucky now. No way.
It was no surprise they wouldn’t tell me the date; they’d probably have given me another fucking heart attack
, he thought. And then his head had started spinning with questions and emotions. He’d felt like crying, and throwing up, and in fact he had done both of these slightly. After more than an hour the girl had said that she would leave him, but she would be back soon. She asked if she could get him anything. He’d said no at first, but as she left the room he called to her and asked for some music.

“I can arrange that,” she said gently, then left him with his thoughts.

Memories started to flood back as he became aware of his predicament. Mostly of Paula and Jessica, but also of his parents, his brother, his house, his job. Everything he loved was gone. Everything he knew was no longer the same. He closed his eyes and let the sedative Rei had administered wash over him. He felt bathed in cotton wool, and vulnerable, and unspeakably lonely. He drifted into a soft and artificial sleep.

When he awoke it took him a minute to be really certain that he hadn’t dreamt the whole thing. He thought back to the day he had the attack and the haze around his memory lifted to reveal the scene. He’d been late home, there’d been a strike on the tube, and had been in a hideous mood by the time he got there. He’d thought that he had the most terrible indigestion, he felt tired, his heart pounded, and he’d even said that next year he was leaving that awful job and going to get a peaceful one doing something relaxing. Gardening maybe.

Jessica had been screaming because she she’d wanted some sweets and Paula wouldn’t buy them, and Paula was complaining that Jessie had been an atrocious child all day. She was looking forward to Jessie starting school so she could get back to work. Mathew listened to them both as best as he could, but felt so tired. He slumped onto the chair by the tv, his head back and his eyes shut, trying not to get too stressed by the noise of his two girls. And then the nauseous feeling swept over him, steadily and suddenly. He felt a sharp pain in the pit of his stomach, which seemed to move about his body strangely.

“Matty? Matty, are you ok?” Paula had asked. He could hear her, but she seemed far away.

“I just need to sleep. I think I ate something bad.” His heart was racing and there was tingling sensation creeping down his left arm.

“Matty, you don’t look well. You look…grey.”

“Daddy, will you take me to see the horses at the farm tomorrow?”

“Not now, Jessie love,” said Paula, bundling the little girl away.

Mathew couldn’t move. Paula had looked at him concerned. Of course, she’d seen that look before. Mathew imagined the vacant expression, the sallow complexion and that strangely blue tint to the lips. He must have looked like her grandfather just before he died.

“Matty? Can you hear me? Matty?” Mathew could hear the panic rise in her throat and her voice start to tremble. “Jessie, I want you to get mummy the telephone right now.” The little girl had watched her parents. What would she be thinking? She’d never seen anything like this. “Jessie. The phone? Now!” Mathew remembered his head feeling heavy and rolling back awkwardly…

The haze clouded across Mathew’s mind as the hospital room swept back into focus. Absently he shook his head, as if the action would clear the image of the memory. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply. Both his girls were gone, and he was alone and lost. He lay his head back and let the sedatives wash over his mind, hardly noticing the tear that cut a lonely course down the side of his face.

Deon slumped into the chair in the centre of the room. The apartment was smaller than he remembered it; it had been well over two years since he’d last stayed here. Despite several treatments sometime earlier there was still a damp patch in the far corner and the wooden window surround was beginning to show signs of rot. The place smelt of abandonment. The wall lighting was out; but then he hadn’t paid a maintenance fee in years so that was to be expected. The only light came through the small window against one wall, and as this overlooked the rear wall of another tenement very little sunlight came through this. Deon switched on his flashlight and the room brightened to reveal all its dark corners. It was, he thought, rather like living in a subterranean cave, full of dark and foreboding crevices and surrounded by unfriendly and potentially dangerous neighbours. He’d passed through the passageways of teenage gangs and pushers on the way to the apartment. They stared at him with their narcotic gaze as he passed by and he kept his eyes ahead and concentrated on not looking intimidated. He had even thought of stopping and trying to get some hash from one of the boys, but thought better of it. This was not the time to lose concentration. He flipped open his pipe, inserted a tobacco tab and activated it, breathing in the nicotine and trying not to think too hard about taste of the cannabis that he hadn’t bought. And while he smoked he looked out of the window at the brick wall opposite and thought about the events of the last three days.

He had been locked into the burning building and had tried to find Nasreen, but with no success. As the heat had become more intense he’d been forced into a corner of the building and had somehow managed to scramble up an old shelving unit to a small boarded up window. He’d been able to work the wooden slats loose and kick out enough of the glass to allow himself to slip through. From this viewpoint he could see most of Unit. It was burning fiercely, the flames casting strange shadows and illuminating the area around the fort. Each of the many separate buildings was ablaze, as were the few vehicles around the complex. There was no sign of the people he’d heard screaming earlier, although several lumps on the ground could, he supposed, be the remnants of them. The flames beneath him were rising and he half-jumped, half-fell, from the apex of the two-storey building onto the grass below. His ankle buckled, but didn’t break, and he made his way as quickly possible to the perimeter fence, and was thankful that he hadn’t repaired it better earlier. He looked around but saw no one and scaled the barrier as best he could. Scrambling down the other side his ankle twisted again, sending a jolt of pain up his left leg. Unable to move he lay in the ditch outside the inner fence and watched Unit burn.

As the pain began to subside he moved himself away from the complex. Whatever had happened here did not look to Deon like an accident. Someone had torched the commune in several locations and he thought it prudent to be as far away as possible before they realised there were survivors. Although he couldn’t see any movement every now and again he heard the crack of gunfire and he wondered who was shooting at whom. Breaking though a small hole in the fence that he’d seen earlier - and used on one occasion - he limped from the burning set of buildings.

He managed to rest for a couple of hours by an abandoned farm house about two kilometres from Unit, but by the time day broke it was evident that he would not be able to walk on his damaged left ankle. Searching though the old building he found a short stick that he cut and shaped into a walking aid of sorts. He had heard the police arrive and the noise of several officers passing his resting-place in the night, but fortunately none had come close enough to the building to spot him. The fuller search, he knew, would include dogs, and then he would be found, and with a background like his, that would be bad. Using his stick for support he hobbled quickly from the area, just as a fleet of press vehicles began to arrive at the scene while the police already there started their wider search of the region.

Earlier in the week Unit had traded some food with a group of travellers, Deon meanwhile, had traded some technical know-how for some tobacco tabs from them. He took the risk of activating his c-pac and tried to locate them. It showed no signs of being traced and he located the convoy of old-fashioned trucks some 30 kilometres away. Using the stick for support he left his shelter and started on the road north. The weather was clear for a change, although cold, but the going was slow, and he needed to duck into the woods off the road when any vehicle passed.

As he walked he became less aware of the pain in his ankle and stumbled less, which increased his speed. After five hours he’d managed to cover nine kilometres and was well out of earshot of the mayhem at Unit, as the press and police swarmed on the devastation. The stick had left splinters in his hand and the road started to cause blisters on the sole of his right foot, while his left ankle varied between pain and numbness. The clouds sped across the sky and a veil of fog dropped softly over his mind, numbing his senses. He concentrated only on the road ahead, and excluded all else, although once or twice he turned because he’d heard someone call him by name. He became only vaguely aware of the sounds around him, and hardly heard the motorcycle that came up behind him. By the time he heard the vehicle it was too late to hide and he opted to carry on his slow walk and hope that something would happen for the good. You sometimes had to just place your faith in events and let God sort the problems.

“Oi, what you doin’ mate? Where you headed?” the rider asked as he drove slowly alongside the ramshackled figure. He was about 19 and was dressed casually in loose blue leggings and a purple vest. His hair was tied back in a ponytail and his arms were tattooed with pictures of women and horses. Although he didn’t recognise him, Deon assumed he was a traveller.

“I’m trying to find a convoy. There’s about 20 trucks to the north of here, and they’ve offered to exchange a lift for some work.”

“Convoy eh? Where you headin’, then.” The rider looked Deon up and down and studied his tattered clothes. “You leavin’ that fire back outside town?”

“No. Just heading somewhere. They know where they’re taking me. I just need to get further north.”

“Got any money?”

“No,” Deon answered truthfully. “I have nothing.”

“How you goin’ to pay for a ride north then?”

“I can work.”

“You can’t even walk, mate. How you gonna work?”

“I’m a transmissions guy. I can fix communications,” he said, then added hopefully, “and I can show them how to rig a c-pac to detect and locate the police.”

The rider thought for a second, and pulled the bike in front of Deon, blocking his path. He climbed off the bike and pulled a blade from his pocket. He flipped it over in his hand, adroitly spinning it around his large fingers. The sinews in his arms flexed as the knife spun. He spoke to Deon while watching the knife.

“Now, I
could
take you to a convoy. Save you some walkin’, cos I reckon that leg o’ yours is in a bad way. And there’s some people there could fix you up. Maybe get you north. But what I’m thinkin’ is what’s in this for me? Cos I could just leave you, or take you back, cos I bet there’s someone lookin’ for you back there.” He flicked the knife over again, pointing it at Deon. “There’s a whole lotta stuff I could do.”

Deon tried to think lucidly through the haze. He had no money, no possessions, save for a c-pac and a pipe, and he realised that the kid may just prefer to cut him for sport. He was not a fighter, and this kid was twice his weight.

“You ever been in trouble?”

The rider laughed. “Trouble? What are you, me Da? I’m not troubled by trouble. Filth don’t ever get near us.”

“Yeah, but I could fix it for you to be someone else. No need to worry about the police catching you, cos if they do, you’ll just be a different person. Critical, eh? Help me get into London and I’ll set you up with a different identity. You could do what you want, and you’ll just slip off all their records.” The guy was thinking about it, which was good. “And, you could get cash from other people, no sweat, no confrontation, no weapons. Just link up a c-pac and take credits out of accounts.”

“How much?”

“You can clear an account, ’cos your identity becomes another person’s. Do it less than four times a year and they’ll never even bother looking.” The rider looked at him hard and pocketed the blade.

“I’ll take you to the convoy, and then they’ll decide if they want to take you north. You can show this identity trick o’ yours, jus’ me mind, not them other tossers. And if you’re right, well that’s ok then. But don’t fuck me over, else you’ll be lookin’ for a new person to be.” He started the bike, Deon climbed on the back and they headed off.

The travellers had mentioned that their transmissions had not been operational past Basingstoke. With some bartering he agreed to fix up their communication rig in exchange for a hurried lift north. At the main camp he was helped into a truck and given a series of mechanic-diagrams to examine. He spent two days working on the c-pacs links they had while the trucks made their slow journey to London. The travellers fed him and one gave him a mixture of herbs and extracts to help his ankle. Although the potion tasted vile, his leg felt better within a day and he wondered if there was something to it. He stayed in the truck most of the time and hardly exercised his leg, which left it stiff, but less sore. He became obsessed in bypassing the transmission blocks, broke only to sleep or for food occasionally. He ignored other aspects of his life and focused only on the job he was performing. Once he had finished he shifted his attention to his promise. He rigged the young rider’s c-pac to choose a new personal profile, and he explained the procedures of using it and changing it regularly, although he doubted that he’d remember to change the details often enough to stop the pack being deactivated remotely once someone noticed that the same profile was being used to skim cash out of accounts. The travellers were setting up camp in an old park in east London where they were to exchange people, horses and vehicles with several others for a week. Then they would set off again after a short time and a chance to raise some money. Deon declined the offer to join their ranks but instead left the convoy as it passed through Streatham and hurried back to the lock-up apartment that he’d kept, just in case he should need it.

And so he came to be sitting in South London, alone, having lost virtually everything that he’d owned or valued, and, for all he knew, wanted by the police. Entrenched in the lock-up he allowed his mind to wander, and for the first time thought back to the events of his last night at Unit, and it was only then that he really appreciated what had happened. Moreover, he focused on what hadn’t happened: the promised apocalypse had never occurred and Deon had been too engrossed in his work with the travellers to notice. How had Caroline made such a big mistake? Perhaps, he thought, she’d foreseen the end of her own troupe of devout followers. It had, after all, been the end of
her
world. He had always felt that he had a task to perform for God, and now he had been spared from the disaster at Unit. There must have been a reason for it. It was his duty now to understand what had happened and to fulfil his destiny. He kept a check on his c-pac for updates on the news, and waited for the story of Unit to be covered. When it came he was unsurprised to hear his name. He was, however, interested to hear that there’d been another survivor. Somehow Nasreen had got out. Deon checked the details again on the next bulletin. He couldn’t see how she’d managed to get away when the last he’d seen of her she running further into the burning building, but it was there on the screen, they were the only two survivors. He kept checking the news bulletins for any further information, and although none came on about Unit, it did mean that he heard every other news story that week. This was how he came to find a rather strange item of interest at 3 am after 2 days in the apartment.

The story on the first reading was being treated with a degree of contempt, but something about it caught Deon’s attention straight away. He raised the volume and listened intently.

Sensationally, it seems that a London clinic, the Walden Centre, had made a claim that they’d raised a man, dead for nearly a century, back from the dead
.
We haven’t any further details at present, but we’ll keep you informed on this as it develops. All we can currently say is that the clinic has claimed that using the latest technology they’ve been able to work on a cadaver, which has been in a state of frozen animation since the late twentieth century. Previous attempts at reanimation have always met with failure and protests from ethical groups, but this time it appears that the procedure has been a full success. A full statement is expected from the clinic later today.

Deon sat astonished at the story. No further details were made available at the time, so made a note of all he’d just heard. Surely, he thought, it could be no coincidence that he’d survived the destruction of Unit in order to witness the rebirth of a man in the same city that he now dwelt. Although the news broadcast claimed that this manner of resuscitation had never occurred successfully in previous attempts Deon knew that they were wrong.

“He has passed and risen from the dead,” Deon said quietly, hardly noticing that he was talking to himself. “And I alone from the Disciples have been chosen to see this.” This was something he would have to examine further.

What was the sign?

Would he know it when it came?

Deon pulled the mattress from its place the against the wall and heaved the board behind it enough to allow him to squeeze his hand in. He felt about for the box he’d set aside all that time ago, and eventually his fingers touched it. He could feel the smoothness of the polished wood, and right-angles of the joinery. He took the box out and held it in his hands. It was small, about the right size to fit one shoe, but not a pair, and it was polished brown wood, with vertical lines down the sides. It looked, Deon thought, like the sides of a Greek temple. He pressed the sides, as he’d done a thousand times before, and prodded every area, but of course it wouldn’t open. It couldn’t open, because the time was not right yet. But soon it would be. He knew that. He had thought that the box was a mistake, and had contemplated casting it back to the depths of the Thames, but had hidden it instead before joining the Divine Temple. But maybe that was part of the plan. He had come back here. Back to the box. Back to the mystery it held within its compartments. He shook it and heard the rattle of the relic inside. If only he would be shown what that was and how to use it. He placed the box down carefully.