Dean Carter - Blood Water

‘I did not give you permission to lie down, you maggot! Damn! Dying once is bad enough…’ the soldier said, his voice fading. ‘Dying twice is inexcusable.’ And then the familiar words game over appeared on the screen, sealing Sean’s failure.

He sighed and put down the controller. He was bored already. Maybe he should go back to sleep until Mum brought his soup up. Maybe when he woke the rain would have stopped and she would let him go outside for some fresh air. He wriggled under the covers and closed his eyes.

The next thing he was aware of was the sound of bombs, machine-gun fire and the screams of dying men. He opened his eyes to find that he was lying on the ground, staring up at a night sky illuminated by flashes and explosions. The noise all around him was deafening and made his head hurt. He tried putting his hands over his ears, but he couldn’t seem to move them; all he could do was lie there, wondering what on earth had happened. Then, amidst the cacophony, he heard the sound of heavy boots stomping across the ground towards him.

‘Just what in the hell do you think you’re doing, soldier? Did I say you could take a nap? Get on your feet before I tear you a new one!’ A face came into view. An angry, ugly face, almost green in colour, pockmarked, scarred and wasted. There were no lips. One eye was missing, and in places the skull beneath showed through. ‘You’re a disgrace to this platoon! I ought to stuff you into a body-bag myself and ship you back with all the other lumps of useless meat. You make me sick! You hear me? You make me sick!’

Sean opened his eyes to find himself back in bed, but the sounds were still there. Then as his senses returned to some kind of order, he realized that the noise was different. It wasn’t gunfire or the sound of exploding shells, it was the rain again, and it sounded just as insistent as before. He turned over and looked up to see the decaying, putrid face of Sergeant Maul.

‘You make me sick!’

‘Aaaaargh!’ He closed his eyes and braced himself for the next shock. He waited for what seemed like ages, shivering beneath the bedclothes, praying that when he opened his eyes again the horrible image would be gone. When he finally summoned up the courage to look again, the sergeant was nowhere to be seen.

‘Bloody hell,’ he said, gazing around the room before focusing his attention on the downpour outside. ‘I can’t take any more of this.’ He looked at the clock – almost four – then got out of bed and headed downstairs.

His mum was sitting on the sofa, a magazine on her lap, once more talking into the phone. She hung up and looked at Sean questioningly.

‘I thought I told you to stay in—’

‘I can’t,’ Sean protested. ‘I keep freaking out.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I keep seeing things… I just don’t want to stay up there. Can’t I just watch TV down here for a bit?’

‘I suppose so. At least I’ll be able to keep an eye on you. I brought your soup up earlier but you were fast asleep. I didn’t want to wake you. You can put it in the microwave when you’re ready.’

The only things on TV were boring discussion programmes, soaps and quiz shows like Brainbox , Mum’s favourite, but Sean didn’t really mind. He didn’t want to be alone in his room any more. It was having a bad effect on him. He occasionally turned to the window to see how the rain was doing; just after five it actually started to die down.

‘Looks like it might be over,’ he said.

‘Yeah, but they’ve forecast more for tomorrow,’ Mum replied, her attention on her magazine. ‘That’s when we’ll get the worst of it apparently. I hope the river can cope. It’s burst its banks before.’

‘Yeah, that’d be bad.’ But for some reason Sean actually found the idea of a flood quite exciting. And if he was off school tomorrow as well, he might be able to go and take a look. That’s if he could persuade Mum to let him out of course.

Dad arrived home shortly afterwards, and while he washed his hands in the sink, Sean filled him in on the strange vision he’d had earlier.

‘You saw me in the garden? What was I doing?’

‘Just standing there in the rain… Enjoying it from the look of things. It was like that scene in The Shawshank Redemption .’

‘Ha ha. Well, that’s not the sort of thing I’m likely to do, trust me.’

‘I know, it’s just… It was so real, you know?’

‘The brain can make you believe whatever it wants you to if it tries hard enough.’

‘Yeah, but it’s my brain. It’s me… It should do what I tell it to. It’s not some other creature.’

‘Well, sometimes it can seem like that. It can rebel, do things you don’t expect, don’t want. It’s the brain’s way of telling you that something’s going wrong, or that something has happened to it and it needs time to recover.’

‘Mmm, yeah, I suppose. I can’t believe all this is because I didn’t drink enough water.’

‘Yes, well,’ Dad said, drying his hands on a towel, ‘you’ll know better next time, won’t you? Graham said you were "severely dehydrated" and narrowly avoided heat exhaustion. People have had strokes after going through what you did.’

‘Seriously?’

‘Yep. So you’d better be careful next time.’

‘Yes, he’d better,’ Mum said, coming in to check on the status of dinner.

Feeling lazy, Sean slept most of the following morning. After lunch the rain eased up a little, and by then he was desperate to get some fresh air; he felt like a prisoner. Mum would be home from the hospital at about three, so he had over an hour of freedom before she got back to insist that he should rest. He needed to get out, but he was also curious to see how high the river had risen. He put on his jacket, then his boots, opened the back door and stepped outside.

It looked like the end of the world had begun. Water streamed over the slabs in the back garden and large muddy pools had already drowned the flowerbeds. The sky was unbroken grey clouds. The weather reports had been right: this was really bad. God , Sean thought. If it goes on much longer we’ll all be submerged .

Although the rain was definitely stopping, the water was taking a long time to drain away into the already sodden ground. Sean locked the back door, then turned and splashed his way to the gate, stepping onto the driveway and looking to see if there was anyone else around. Unsurprisingly, there wasn’t. He crossed the end of the cul de sac and went down the small path that led to the main road, hoping no cars would race through the deep puddles by the kerb and soak him.

As he passed the hospital and the New Inn, he wondered how much damage the rain might do, and if it would be permanent. It wouldn’t be the first time the river had burst its banks, but it had rarely reached the high street. If it did so now and flooded the shops and houses of Orchard Wells, they would be in trouble.

When he reached the petrol station he was able to see the bridge and the river, and what he saw made him stop and stare. The river was far higher than he had expected; it raged under the arches of the bridge and was no more than a metre from the road. The foaming muddy water swirled as it hit the bridge; large branches and foliage were sucked under the torrent to emerge in pieces on the other side. He’d seen the river high, but never this high.

He walked on and saw a crowd of people gathered by the bridge, marvelling at the spectacle. As he moved among them he watched them shake their heads and laugh or just stare at the water surging past. He looked up into the sky and groaned as the rain resumed; how long would it be before the water rose up over the bridge? It had already swamped more than half of the field on the side of the river he’d just left. On the other side, the town side, it was nearly up to the car park of the Bridge Hotel.