Blood Run
Here's the beginning of a new thing I'm going to call it BLOOD RUN. The title will do for now. Preparations for my film KUNG FU FLID are growing a pace. We start shooting week after next. Anyway, enjoy this new piece.
BLOOD RUN
1.
There are days and there are days. This was a day. The blackened skyline was smirched charcoal. Occasionally the sun would appear but it was more like it was coughed up. And it was doom, doom, doom in the papers and the world was heading towards it at a zooming rate.
They were born like this. Not all at the same time. At three year breaks. The Eldest would often get lost in herself. The second, now he was generous. And the youngest was a bright thing full of smiles, time was working itself out in her.
When it happened the eldest knew. She saw them standing at the end of the bed. They came and sat beside her. They put their hands through her hair. They kissed her. They hugged her. They told her that they would always be with her. That they loved her like the universe that was ever expanding. They said that it was up to her now to look after her brother and sister. That they were not going to be there in person, but their spirits would never leave them. Her mother then exclaimed oh god and held her as tight as she could and her father screamed no not now and slowly they both disappeared from view and presence.
The girl was left sitting in bed. Alone. She didn't sleep. She tried but nothing came. She got up. She went first to her little sisters room. The little sister was just eighteen months and was sound asleep. She was lying on her back. She was breathing lightly. The elder sister watched her. She watched her because she was her parent now and so it was up to her to take on a parents view. She tried to look with her mother's eyes.
She then went into her brother's room. He was curled up. In a ball. She climbed in with him and held him. She put her face against his and felt his breathing against her cheek. She put her head on the pillow and took in the aroma of his hair. She imagined her father breathing him in as he had done to her so, so many times. Her brother breathed quietly and slowly she fell asleep.
When she awoke. She lay there silently. Daylight was filtered through the curtains. She didn't wake with a start. It was not sudden. It was a slow painful drag into the day.
When her brother woke she said to him that their mum and dad were dead. He asked her how she knew and she told that last night they had come to her. He lay there not doubting her word because when she spoke she reminded him of his mother. He knew that she knew things that he didn't. He could feel that something had changed.
They could hear the little one stir. She got up and went to her. She picked her out of the cot. She then felt her heart break because she knew that this little one would know nothing of her parents. Ghosts work best like memories but if you have none then there are none. That's just the way it is.
She made all three of them breakfast. And then she got herself ready as they played. She looked in the mirror at her eight year old face and saw both her father and mother looking back at her. And then she began to cry.
And so there were days and they were banging on the door. They had started with the doorbell but when the there was no answer they began to pound. The eldest ran around the house gathering up things and throwing them into a bag. She took as much as she could carry. The brother watched. She said choose a toy. Just one. We can only take one.
Which one should it be?
And she stopped and said which one reminds you of them. And he looked at her and said that he did not know and she picked up his blue bear and said this is where she stitched it and he held you with it.
He nodded and stuffed it in the bag.
The little one was still.
The eldest took one look at the place that they had lived in and saw one photo on the mantelpiece with all five of them smiling. It was too precious but she had no choice but to fold it. She made sure that no fold would cross her parents face. And then she saw their book and found that there was room and no more for it.
She peaked out of the window. They were at the front and the back of the house. At the front of the house they were bringing a bright red battering ram.
Quick, she said, we have to go up. She put the back pack on her brother and put her sister into the baby carrier and slung her on her back. She was heavy.
There were slow heavy crashes on the front door below. Unforgiving.
They climbed to the top of the house. She didn't really know what they were going to do when they got there. But they ran up anyway.
When they got to the top most window she looked out. Her brother was looking scared.
What do they want?
I don't know.
I wish...
So do I.
She looked out of the window. They were a long way up.
We need to climb out. If we climb out and get onto the roof we might be able to get over to the next building.
He looked at her and never doubted. She felt doubt of course. But she didn't want to get caught. When they came they came and that was that.
She opened the window. The three children looked out. The little one was mercifully quiet. The boy held her hand. They were not noticed from below. The girl took a deep breath and told her brother that it would be fine. And then she stepped out. Her feet tipped out over the edge.
Below the front door smashed and bodies fought to make their way. It was crawling.
We have to go.
I'm scared.
There were feet running up the stairs.
We have to go now.
I might fall.
And she smiled like her mother and said I will catch you.
Even from up here?
Even from up here.
Vermin in an army on its way up. There were voices and radios and orders.
He stepped out.
The men were scrambling almost feet away behind the wall, behind the door. She reached in and closed the window. As the door to the room caved in their feet vanished from view.
Over the rooftops they ran. Their bodies black silhouettes in a moment of sun. Their little footsteps as quick as their little feet could carry them, the little one with eyes wide taking it all in for the first time as the wind blew her soft hair, oblivious to the height, to the drop, to the death not far behind them, around them, two small figures carrying a burden beyond their time and a little one with no knowledge of this life let alone its end .
Quickly, quickly.
I'm going as quick as I can. This bag is heavy.
Yes, I know. We can rest later.
The boy knew that there was no time. Whatever it was that was behind them he knew that it was a sure bad thing. The roof came to an end. Between them and the next one was a jump that stretched slightly longer than triple the Eldest's ones body.
I don't think I can jump that far he said.
Her brow was tight and deep in thought.
I could try. If I run. Maybe, he decided.
She looked at him, her little brother, full of life and pleasant dreams and boyish bravado. She scanned the roof. She heard voices coming from the window from which they had come. He turned towards her and she could sense that he was about to cry. And there behind him she saw a plank.
Quick.
With the bag on his back and the child on hers it wasn't so easy to lift it. But they managed. Its stretch across the chasm was ample. But its width was slight.
We'll have to balance.
And a great cloud fell over the earth, it blew out the sun but in fairness so too did it block out the wind.
Like in the circus.
Yes.
They stood up on the ledge. She felt her mother say, don't look down, just look ahead and don't go faster than you need. Her brother replied OK and she look down on him and smiled and said are you ready and she could see that he wasn't, so she said don't be afraid, I am with you, trying to give her voice the authority of some force other than this earth, but feeling small, which their three forms were. Tiny in comparison to the thing that was after them.
She held his hand and edged her feet out. The little one on her back started to call his name. She held his hand. Four feet gently moving forward and below them, far below the ground in a snapshot silent and still and dead. Their movement was inches and they blocked out all else around them.
A head appeared in the distance behind them and a voice called but they didn't hear. They were halfway across, the wood was old and creaked and there in the centre it gently bowed.
Just keep going.
I'm scared.
Yes, I'm scared too.
And then a figure, then two, then three, then five appeared on the roof behind and came dashing towards them, dynamic forms covering the ground so quick. The little feet almost to the other side and the boy turned and called her name and nearly lost his foot and the older girl turned and grabbed and steadied him and saw what was hurtling towards them. She pulled him quickly across as the heavy figure of man leapt forward, loosing its balance, scrambling for the plank, which tipped and snapped and with a terrible scream he fell, bouncing off the walls, head flipping somersaults to splat three blood daubs on the walls to finish in a cruel thump all that way down below.
The children looked back at those that were after them. For a moment there was a silence as wide as the space between them. And then she said run and they were off, the little one bouncing on her back and the boy as fast as he could behind her, through a door, almost falling down some stairs. Don't look back. Don't look back. The stairs a mild blue with thin worn metal banisters. Round and round, jumping two, three at a time till the bottom was reached, a corridor ran and they burst out into an alley separated from the world and ran with their burdens swinging heavy on their backs dwarfing all the more their pocketsize forms.
