Bill Jenkins gripped his arm. ‘Listen!’ he hissed. ‘Can you hear that?’
The fire was hot on his face and every breath of that sour, smoke-laden air punished his lungs. He wanted to back away but Bill Jenkins was insistent.
‘Can’t you hear them?’
Through the roar of the flames came a strange chirruping as though dozens of referees’ whistles were being gently blown in unison, just loud enough to move the pip in the barrel.
‘Beetles? Is that what you’re thinking?’
‘What else?’
‘But they can’t live in that heat, surely!’
A red-hot sheet of corrugated iron tumbled down from a burning window frame, bending like a doubled-over potato crisp as it hit the hard surface of the school playground.
‘Best stand a bit farther back,’ a fireman advised.
They were running out the hoses, Evan noticed. The fire was much fiercer than anyone had imagined. He turned to Bill Jenkins, about to comment that the whistling seemed to have stopped, when a loud rumbling and tearing prompted him to look back, just in time to witness the entire roof falling in.
Even higher flames shot up from the heart of the building, and the heat became so intense they were forced to retreat several yards.
But one thing was certain, he felt: after this there would be no more talk of beetles. Nothing could possibly survive in that furnace.
4
Guy moved his fingers, flexing them under the bandage which covered all but their very tips. With those fingertips he could feel a dam in the sheet over him: quite a long darn too, curving gently like a segmented worm.
He must be in bed, he realised — and he accepted the fact without understanding. A high, narrow bed.
Because of the bright irritation of the daylight he kept his eyes half-closed, though just beyond arm’s reach he was aware of vague, insubstantial shapes. A chair, perhaps? A small table with… was that a vase on it? A vase with flowers? No? He couldn’t really focus on it.
In any case, everything was blotted out by a patch of blue moving across his line of sight: smooth blue material with buttons, and a belt.
‘Awake now, are we?’ The voice was cheerful and friendly, with an Australian accent. ‘Like something to drink?’
‘Champagne,’ he responded drowsily.
‘You an’ me both!’ she laughed. ‘Only this ain’t the Ritz, worse luck. Try some o’ this water to be goin’ on with. OK?’
He took a sip, with her holding the glass for him.
‘Urgh…’
‘It’s an acquired taste, they say!’ she joked, taking the glass away to place it on the bedside table. Then her tone of voice changed. ‘Feel sick, do you?’
‘I’m all right.’
‘Use this bowl here if you feel sick. An’ that’s the bell-push. If you need any help, jus’ press it, OK?’
Her face dissolved into a mysterious mist. Briefly it sharpened again but the shape refused to hold. His fault. The thought shocked through his mind like a blinding revelation: the molecules were drifting apart and she’d cease to exist, this Australian nurse, if he didn’t concentrate.
He frowned, trying to make sense of what his optic nerves were telling him, identifying her cropped, untidy blonde hair beneath a perky cap.
‘I’m in hospital!’ he decided, unnaturally loud.
‘Clever boy! How did you guess?’ The Australian voice held no malice, only a light, gurgling laugh. ‘They brought you in last night, only I don’t suppose you remember.’
‘No.’
‘Me neither, tell you the truth. I was off duty. Think you feel up to holding this thermometer under your tongue while I check your pulse?’ Giving him no chance to reply, she slipped the glass rod into his mouth. ‘No, no need to talk.’
Closing his eyes, he rested his head back on the cool pillows to digest the information. He was in hospital, hands bandaged; dressings on arms and legs too, and on his chest. What had happened he was still not sure. Had he been involved in some sort of accident, in a place overrun with beetles? But his mind wandered again. Concentration slipped down.. down.. until it was lost.
Light years away the nurse’s cool fingers held his wrist, though he knew his arm was floating independently by the bedside, no longer part of him. But she returned it to him, removing the thermometer from his lips, and with a start he came back to a hazy consciousness.
‘You can drop off back to sleep now, Mr Archer,’ that same voice announced from another world. ‘Oh, your wife’s been, 1 meant to tell you. She’s had to go again but she’ll look in later. Meanwhile, you have a good rest — right? OK?’
‘Kath?’
‘Who?’
‘My daughter. Kath. Is she all right?’
‘Oh, you’ll have to ask your wife when you see her. I’ve only jus’ come on, so I know nothing ’cept you bein’ attacked by a swarm o’ some insects or other. What were they — wasps? Look more like snakebites to me, leastwise that’s what I’d think back home in Australia.’
‘Beetles,’ he corrected her drowsily.
With his eyes closed he could see them now: beautiful, terrifying beetles with pincer claws. A whole battalion of them.
‘Beetles? Christ! You mean beetles did that to you? What kind were they, for Chrissake?’
‘Mm-m..’ He was too sleepy to answer.
‘Don’t you worry, Mr Archer. We’ve no beetles in this hospital. The new matron wouldn’t let so much as a greenfly live, not on the wards. She’s a stickler. So ring the bell now if you need anything. Oh, an’ don’t try to get out o’ bed by yourself, not till we say so. OK?’
But her voice had retreated again down the long misty tunnel and his reply died on his lips as he realised she could not possibly hear him, not so far away in the dark caverns.
Snakes, she’d said, hadn’t she?
She must have known.
Plenty of snakes around now in the graveyard, upstanding like waving grass, undulating sensuously, in turns dipping their heads into the pink mess which had once been the old tramp. No — several tramps, one lying on each grave; dead, of course. Dead meat opened up to feed the—
They weren’t real snakes, were they? More like giant worms with dark eyes which regarded him gravely.
He wanted to scream but the tramps — one by one — turned their bulging eyes towards him and placed their raw forefingers warning!)' across their thick lips. Attempting to read their names on the worn headstones, he found the lettering illegible, their identities lost. Meanwhile the worms continued feeding, taking their time, their open mouths slobbering at him.
Until they began to fade.
So too did the corpses and the gravestones, like a slow dissolve in an old black-and-white movie. First soft focus; next the image blurring to the point where even the outline lost all meaning; finally the disappearance: the blank screen on which only the tired print’s scratches were to be seen, flickering and dancing.
Disappeared: that was the key word.
Again he saw Dorothea greeting him when he arrived home, before he had put his bag down even. ‘Kath’s disappeared!’ A memory, of course, a mental voice reassured him calmly. He was reliving — vividly — a larger-than-life memory. In full colour.