Scott Andrews - School's Out Forever

MacKillick must have left them there, as an insurance policy. If he’d survived he’d have gone down and cut whichever wire he needed to cut. But he was dead, and neither Rowles nor Lee wanted to take the gamble of choosing red, yellow or black. As we stood there debating what to do there was the biggest explosion I’ve ever seen. All the grenades and bullets in the armoury went up with the dynamite, practically demolishing Castle in one horrendous bang.

Sean had the last laugh in the end. If he couldn’t rule St Mark’s then no-one could.

The wreckage burnt long into the night, warming us as we tried to decide what to do next. Lee just sat there, silent, staring at the fire, tears streaming down his face as he watched all his dreams, everything he’d fought for, burn away to ashes.

In the morning we packed up the Blood Hunters’ marquee and walked to Hildenborough, where we moved into empty houses and slept all day.

I had been thinking about what Lee had said, about me being the natural leader. Those three months at the farm with the girls had been wonderful, and yes, I had enjoyed being in charge. Lee made it very clear that he didn’t want the job any more.

So I called a meeting and we put it to the vote. Should we stay and become part of the Hildenborough community, or should I take charge of the search for a new home, a new school? The vote was unanimous.

Weeks later, when we were having our final meeting to choose between two likely places, Lee took me to one side.

“I’m leaving, Jane,” he said.

I told him to stop being silly. His arm and hand were healing but he still had limited movement. He needed more physiotherapy and time to recover. But he was determined.

“I have to go find my father,” he explained. “I know he survived the plague, but he should have been back here by now. Something’s gone wrong and he might need my help.”

“But where will you look?” I asked, unable to believe this.

“Iraq,” he said simply.

I begged him to reconsider, told him to wait for us to finish our meeting and then we’d discuss it. He promised he would. But when we wrapped up half an hour later, he was gone.

I only spent two years as the matron of St Mark’s School for Boys. I’d gone there looking for a refuge from violence, and instead I’d found more death than I could have imagined. And more kindness, too. We took the sign from the front gate with us when we moved into Groombridge, establishing some sense of continuity. “St Mark’s is dead, long live St Mark’s,” as Rowles put it.

I was in control and I swore this time it would work, this time everyone would be safe.

I’d make sure of it.

I CELEBRATED MY sixteenth birthday by crashing a plane, fighting for my life, and facing execution. Again.

I’d rather have just blown out some candles and got pissed.

“HELLO? IS ANYBODY there? Hello?”

“Lee? Oh, thank God.”

“Dad? Dad, is that you? I can hardly hear you. Where are you?”

“Still in Basra, but we’re shipping out soon. Listen, I don’t know how much time I have. Is your mother there?”

“Er, yeah.”

“Put her on, son.”

I’D BEEN SCANNING the terrain for about ten minutes, looking for a decent place to land, when small-arms fire raked the fuselage.

Stupid, careless idiot; I’d been flying in circles, just asking to be shot at.

The problem was that I couldn’t find the airport. I could see the river snaking to the sea, the city straddling it and blending into desert at the edges. I could see the columns of smoke rising high off to the north, and the boats bobbing in the long abandoned harbour. But I couldn’t see the bloody airport. So I had to get closer and look for somewhere to land.

I’d managed to fly thousands of miles, refuel twice without incident (if you didn’t count that psycho in Cyprus, but he wasn’t that much trouble) and make it to my destination unscathed. Then, on arrival, I descend to within shooting distance and wave my wings at anyone who fancies a potshot.

I bloody deserved to be shot down.

I pulled hard on the control column, trying to raise the plane’s nose and climb out of range, but it didn’t respond.

“Oh shit,” I said.

I was at 500 feet and descending, nose first, towards a suburban street littered with abandoned cars and a single burned-out tank. I tried to shimmy the plane left or right, pumped the pedals, heaved and wrenched the control column, anything to get some fraction of control.

Nothing.

Too low to bail out, nothing to do but ride the plane into the ground and hope I was able to walk away.

My arrival in Iraq was going to be bumpy.

“JESUS, DAD, WHAT did you say to her? Dad, you still there?”

“Yeah, just… I, um… listen, Lee, there’s something I have to tell you.”

“Ok.”

“The plague, from what we’ve been hearing here, it’s sort of specific.”

“Eh?”

“You only get it if you’ve got a particular blood type. No, that’s not right. You don’t get it if you’ve got a particular blood type. Everyone who’s O-Negative is immune, that’s what the doc here told us.”

“And everyone else…”

“Is going to die.”

I WAS COMING in clean towards the road, lined up by pure chance. If the road had been clear, and if I could’ve got the nose up, I’d maybe have had a chance. But I was heading straight for the fucking tank, and no matter what I did the plane was just a hunk of unresponsive metal.

There was another burst of gunfire, and this time I could see the muzzle flash of the machine gun on a rooftop to my left. His aim was true and the plane shuddered as the bullets hit the tail, sending fragments of ailerons flying into the tailwind. I yelled something obscene, furious, defiant, then pulled the control column again, more in frustration than hope.

And, hallelujah , it responded. That second burst of fire must have knocked something loose. I never thought I’d be grateful that someone was shooting at me.

Of course, at twenty feet and however many knots, there wasn’t that much I could actually do.

The nose came up a fraction, just enough to change the angle of attack from suicidal to survivable. Not enough to actually stop my descent, though.

I’m pretty sure I was yelling when the tail of the plane slammed into the turret of the tank, snapped off, and pitched the plane nose first into the hard-packed earth.

The world spun and tumbled as I screamed in tune with the crash and wrench of twisting metal. The plane somersaulted, over and over, down the road, bouncing off cars and buildings, losing its wings, being whittled away with every revolution, until it seemed there was just a ball of warped metal and shattered plastic cocooning me as it gouged the ground, ricocheting like some kind of fucked-up pinball.

Eventually, just as the darkness crept into my vision and I felt myself starting to black out, the world stopped spinning.

My head was swimming, there was blood in my mouth, I was upside down, the straps of my harness digging into my knotted shoulders, but I was alive.

“One more life used up, Nine Lives,” whispered a familiar, sarcastic voice in my head. I told it to piss off.