Scott Andrews - School's Out Forever

Then I realised that I was wet. I reached up and wiped the slick liquid from my face. When my eyes could focus and my dizzy brain began to accept input, I realised that I was soaked from head to toe in fuel.

I heard gunfire in the distance, as someone started taking shots at what was left of my plane.

And I couldn’t move.

“ALL OF THEM?”

“All. Lee, you’re O-Neg. So am I.”

“And mum? Dad, you there? I said, what about Mum?”

“No.”

“Oh. Right.”

“Now listen, she might be safe if you can just quarantine yourselves. Don’t leave the house, at all. For any reason.”

“But what about food? The water’s been switched off, we’ve got no power. There’s these gangs going around attacking houses, Dad, they’ve got guns and knives and…”

“Lee, calm down. Calm down. You mustn’t panic, son. Breathe… You okay now?”

“Not really.”

“I know. But you’re going to be strong, Lee. For your mum.”

“She’s going to die isn’t she… Dad?”

“Yes. Yes, she probably is.”

“But there’s no doctors, you know that right? The hospital’s been closed for a week. They put these signs up saying to wait for the army to set up field hospitals, but they haven’t shown up. They’re not going to, are they?”

“No, I don’t think so, not now. I know it’s hard, but it’s all up to you, son. You’re going to have to nurse her. Until I can get there. I’m coming home, Lee. As fast as I can. You’ve got to hang on, understand?”

“But what if you’re not fast enough? What if something goes wrong? What if I’m left here, alone, with… with… Oh God.”

I REACHED ACROSS and unclasped my harness. It snapped free and I slumped, shoulder first, into a mess of tangled metal. I screamed as my left shoulder ground into a sharp metal edge. Something felt wrong about the way it was lying. I tried to move my left arm but all I felt was an awful grinding of flesh and bone.

It was dislocated.

Add that to the disorientation, which would probably give way to concussion, and the numerous possible wounds that I’d yet to discover, not to mention the chunk of my lower lip that I’d bitten out with what remained of my teeth…

Actually, I’d got off pretty lightly all things considered. If I could just avoid getting burned to death, this might even qualify as a good day. I squirmed in the wreckage, trying to find a gap through which I could wriggle, some way to gain purchase. It was agony; every move ground my shoulder joint against the slack, useless muscles, causing shooting pains so intense that they made my vision blur.

I could hear cries from nearby streets, and more gunfire, as men closed in on my position. I really needed to move.

Finding nothing that offered any chance of escape, I braced myself as best I could and pushed hard, using my full body strength to try and force my way out, like a bird kicking its way out of a metal egg. My spine cracked like a rifle, and my legs burned with effort. My shoulder joint minced the flesh that surrounded it, and I screamed in impotent fury until finally I felt something near my feet give ever so slightly. I redoubled my efforts, taking every ounce of strength I had in my small, wiry frame, and concentrating it in my feet. Oh so slowly, I forced a metal strut backwards and it groaned in protest.

Eventually it bent far enough to let in a small circle of sunlight. I squirmed again, rotating inside my shell, until my head and shoulder were positioned beneath the opening.

I gritted my teeth. This was really going to hurt. I closed my eyes, and pushed myself upwards, squeezing my agonised shoulder through the tiny gap. I felt something rip inside my arm and I screamed again. Once my shoulders were clear I was able to pull my right arm through and use it to push myself free.

Just as my feet emerged, the mass of wreckage beneath me shifted under my redistributed weight, pitching me forward. I lost my balance and tumbled to the ground.

I lay there on the hot, baked earth and I smiled through the pain.

This dirt was Basra.

I’d made it.

“LEE, FOCUS, YOU’VE got things to do.”

“Right. Yes. Okay.”

“Now we’re shipping out of here before the week’s out.”

“Back to England.”

“Yeah.”

“So, what, I should see you in ten days or so?”

“I’m afraid it’s not quite that simple. They’re not just letting us go home. I’m still a soldier and I still have to obey orders. If I try to just come home, I’ll be shot as a deserter. They executed one of my mates yesterday. He wanted to stay here, got a local girlfriend, kid on the way. Tried to slip away, got caught. They shot him at dawn.”

“Bloody hell.”

“Apparently there’s some big thing planned for when we all get home, but nobody’s saying what.”

“So what do I do?”

“You go back to school, to St Mark’s.”

BEFORE I COULD gather my wits and rise to my feet, someone started kicking the crap out of me.

I tried to roll away from the kicks, raise my good arm to protect my head, find some space in between the blows to reach down and grab my Browning, which was tucked into my waistband. But with one arm useless, and my head woozy with shock and pain, I ended up just curling into a ball and letting the blows come. My attacker was shouting and firing his gun in the air, laughing as he kicked me to death. Luckily he was wearing trainers, not hobnail boots. So it was going to take him a while.

Then, what was left of the plane exploded. The shockwave actually rolled me along the ground a bit, like a balled-up hedgehog. My mouth and eyes filled with dust and sand. The kicking stopped. I cautiously removed my arm and saw my assailant sprawled on the floor beside me. There was a short metal stanchion protruding from his forehead. I uncurled myself, lurched upright, reached down and took the AK-47 from his still twitching hands.

He looked younger than me. Dreadful acne, dark skin, khaki combats, plain white t-shirt. He lay there on the sandy ground, staring sightlessly into the sky. My first victim of the day. I hoped he would be the last, but I didn’t think it likely.

A yell from the far end of the street reminded me that he had friends. I had to move. I staggered as fast as I could in the opposite direction. I had no idea of the layout of this town, but it was their home turf. I was one wounded boy with a useless arm, a half-empty machine gun and pistol with a couple of clips; there were probably loads of them, armed to the teeth. I had salvaged no water from the crash, the midday sun was beating down on me hotter than anything I’d ever experienced before, I was losing blood, sweating as I ran, and had no idea how to come by safe drinking water.

I was so screwed.

I wished I had some of Matron’s homebrew drugs on me. Just a shot of that had kept me fighting in the battle for St Mark’s despite shattered teeth, a broken arm and more blows to the head than I could count. But I’d left without saying goodbye. I regretted that now; I’d almost certainly never see her again. Still, it seemed like the right thing to do at the time. I’d probably have ended up blubbing or, worse, trying to snog her, and that would have been excruciating.

A bullet pinged off a brittle brick wall next to my head as I dodged down an alleyway, weaving in between burned-out cars and abandoned barricades. This was pointless. If I could get far enough ahead of them I had a chance, but I just wasn’t capable of any kind of speed. I’d never outrun them.

I had to go to ground.

“BACK TO SCHOOL, seriously?”

“Listen, some of the teachers stayed behind, didn’t they? And some of the boys?”

“Yeah, but…”

“No buts. It’s the only safe place I can think of. They’ve got weapons there, in that bloody armoury, haven’t they?”