John Halkin - Squelch

Her own father had done the same, of course. When she was small, American bombers had flown daily across their patch of sky on their way to kill Vietcong; to calm her fears he’d made up stories about them in which war and death played no part. Later, in that little boat when she’d really needed his strength, he’d been one of the first to die. She’d had to help her mother and brother tip his body over the side.

‘Cabbage!’

Wendy returned proudly bearing the spring cabbage in both arms, hugging it like a teddy bear.

Phuong was on the point of asking her to put it on the table when, turning, she caught sight of a green, hairy caterpillar slowly appearing from among the leaves and manoeuvring itself on to Wendy’s T-shirt. She stared at it, uncomprehending. Everyone said they were safe here, didn’t they? No caterpillars here, surely?

‘Wendy!’ Lesley appeared in the doorway. Her voice was hardly above a whisper. ‘Wendy, stand absolutely still, d’you hear?’

‘I’ll take the cabbage,’ Phuong said, trying to speak normally. She reached out her hands for it. ‘You’re being a real help today, aren’t you?’

‘Yes.’

She grasped the cabbage and slowly moved it away, praying the caterpillar would choose to remain on the leaf. Luckily, Wendy still hadn’t noticed it.

But it didn’t. Its rear end suddenly curled on to the T-shirt which it gripped like a brooch.

Dropping the cabbage, Phuong plucked the caterpillar away from Wendy and stepped back with it between her fingers to deposit it in the sink. Immediately its hairs seemed to bristle and she felt a sharp pain shooting through her hand, causing her to cry out.

She had to get rid of it… she had to kill it somehow before it… but it clung to her… she couldn’t shake it off…

Her eyes misted and she felt herself staggering back against the draining board. New pains drilled into her wrist as the caterpillar’s mandibles set to work. Something hit the back of her head. She was lying on the tiled floor moaning and screaming… so much screaming… so much burning… all over her body…

Lesley was shouting something. She could hear the voice faintly. And Frankie? Was Frankie there?

No, it was the ghost whistle of the American jets overhead, and her father swinging her up in his arms, and the hot tangy smell of the sea as it lapped against the side of the boat.

Down through the water he carried her, gripping her tight as they left all sounds far behind.

Lesley had been able to do nothing to save Phuong and blamed herself bitterly for it. Pondering it afterwards while Mary fussed around her, trying to comfort her when all she wanted was to be left alone, she could no longer grasp how quickly it had all happened. She had gone into the kitchen and seen Wendy with the spring cabbage. Even as she was shouting her warning — or that’s how it seemed — Phuong had knocked the cabbage out of Wendy’s hand and was picking the caterpillar off her T-shirt. Sacrificing herself, because she knew the dangers well enough.

Then suddenly she was rolling on the floor and Frankie dashed into the kitchen, wanting to get the caterpillar off her, grabbing it as she’d grab a handful of sand and screaming hysterically.

Oh God, it was all so confused! Somehow, Lesley remembered, she’d got the caterpillar away from Frankie and crushed it under the rubber tip of her walking stick till its guts squelched out. Frankie, bleeding and unconscious by now, she’d hoisted on to the kitchen table.

Only then had she noticed that two more caterpillars had emerged from the heart of the cabbage and were attacking Phuong’s throat. It was too late to prevent them.

The doctor had wanted to keep her in hospital, pointing out — with the medical profession’s gift for understatement — that she’d had a shock. Phuong was dead, though Frankie was expected to do all right. But how could she stay in hospital with Wendy and Caroline still at home? She wanted Bernie — the old Bernie from before any of this had happened — but of course he wasn’t there. Gone for good.

In a dream the previous night she’d been naked in bed with Bernie and Ginny together, not doing anything, but in a close, warm embrace as they floated with me bedclothes around them. Then she’d woken up, to lie awake working out how to kill herself without upsetting the children.

Not possible, of course. She had to go on.

Mary went into her own room to telephone, leaving her alone. Wendy and Caroline were in bed, having cried themselves to sleep at last. Then Mary came back to say she intended putting the emergency plans in hand for the transfer of the whole school to Scotland. She had discussed it with the chairman of the governors and she had agreed. Several individual caterpillar attacks had now been reported in the county. It was best to make the move before the panic started.

There was no news. Ginny rang Jeff’s house two or three times and at the last attempt Alan answered. All the equipment was in working order, he assured her. No, he’d received no confirmation yet that the plane had left West Africa. The arrangements were vague. Either there would be a telegram delivered directly, or else a phone call from some unnamed office in London. All he knew for certain was that Jeff planned an overnight flight to arrive early in the morning; if there were any delays taking off even that might not happen.

‘I’m sleeping here at Jeff’s house,’ Alan assured her as they discussed all the possibilities. ‘If he calls in on the agreed wavelength I’m bound to know.’

‘Let’s hope it’s soon,’ Ginny said fervently.

The situation was getting considerably worse and it was only the necessity to wait for Jeff which kept them in the village. Bernie’s surgeries had long since been abandoned, and there were few emergency calls any longer simply because most people had already left. Streets were deserted; farms untended. An outbreak of burglaries had resulted in the teenage gang concerned dying horrible deaths. They had been found — three girls and four boys — lying mutilated on what had once been a wealthy stockbroker’s well-kept lawn. The caterpillars had been crawling over them as thickly as ants.

From London too the news was not good. The jumbo jet which had crashed on Feltham shopping centre had been bound for New York with a full complement of passengers. Not one survived, and there was a high casualty rate on the ground. It had now been confirmed that moths in the jet engines’ air intake had been responsible.

That had been bad enough, but that same evening also saw the first attacks in the London Underground. A Piccadilly Line train arriving at Earl’s Court released swarms of giant moths on to the platform as its doors slid open. Waiting passengers ran screaming for the exits as the moths attacked them, but many were blinded. When rescue teams arrived they found more casualties in the centre three cars, though none elsewhere on the train. The following day saw more incidents as hundreds of moths invaded the tunnels. The accumulated filth blackened their wings. Soon not a single station in the central London area was free of them. Their dark forms came fluttering through the tunnels to greet every train and dart into the passengers’ eyes. The entire Underground system had to be closed down.

Ginny rang Jack’s number more often than she could count, but there was no answer. Had he been hurt, she wondered; or was he simply away somewhere? It was never possible to tell with Jack. But she kept trying, and each time could not help visualising the empty flat where there was no one to pick up the receiver.

These days that happened so often. Bernie too had commented on it. You dialled a number but no one replied. Were they even alive any longer?