20. THE GIRL ON THE BED

The school holidays, and the two friend go to check on their fallout shelter

“I’m going back to school in September,” Innocent told Wallace as they met a few days after his return from a fortnight’s family holiday. They had their bicycles and were aimlessly riding round the park close to where they lived. “I’m going to do my GCEs and hope to get to college or university,” he added.

“I can’t,” replied Wallace wistfully, “I reckon I could cope, with the work and all that stuff, but my mum needs me to start earning. I’ve got an interview with the council in a couple of days, an apprenticeship doing repairs to houses, and don’t some of them need it!”

“Great,” replied Innocent. “I tell you what, let’s go and check out our fallout shelter before it falls down altogether.”

“It might have already,” shrugged Wallace, “I’ve not been there since the last time we went together, and that was before you went off on your holidays.”

“Come on then,” grinned Innocent, “it’ll be like the good old days.”

“The happiest days of our lives, you mean?” laughed Wallace.

“Like old Tewkbury said? Gotcha!” agreed his friend, “Tell you what, let me tell you about this bird I met at the caravan site! She was something, Angela was her name and she had such big you-know-whats that they all but burst out of her swimming cozzie!”

“Did you, you know, do anything?” asked Wallace, suddenly aware that his best friend seemed to be growing ahead of him when it came to girls.

“Did we!” laughed Innocent, “she taught me a thing or two, she did! For starters, she taught me how to build sandcastles, enjoy ice-creams and grow fat on candy floss! And no, I know exactly what you’re getting at, but anything that occurred, and I’m not saying that anything did, that’s private.”

“Of course,” acknowledged Wallace, “but did she show you her … you know, boobies?”

“Angela was a really decent girl,” Innocent told him sharply, ”and she wouldn’t have anything to do with that sort of thing!” And he grinned suddenly, “but I did suggest it and I managed to bump against them more than once, gently like! But that’s as far as it went. Anyway, shut up about her, you never met her and I probably never will again, and let’s get down to that fallout shelter of ours before World War Three breaks out and we need it!”

“Do you think it will?” asked Wallace, “break out, I mean. There’s all the posturing by the Russians, displays of their rockets in Red Square and marching like puppets in perfect time with each other, and tanks and stuff rolling through the streets...”

“It all depends on who blinks first,” muttered Innocent, “and who thinks they’ve got an advantage and can make a pre-emptive strike, and get away with it. But whoever it is, we’ll be little piggies in the middle and any bombs that fall may well have our names on them.”

“So let’s check our shelter out,” shuddered Wallace, “come on, race you to Swanspottle Woods!”

They pedalled, two a-breast, down the road leading to the lane where the tumble-down cottage was. It was a good day to be out on their bikes, the sun not being too hot and the breeze not too cold.

“I was beginning to think we wouldn’t come here again,” shouted Wallace to Innocent as they veered off the road and onto the unmade lane.

“Oh, we might. I hope not for the reasons we’ve got it, but we might well come here a few times, for fun. And Penny: I bet she still comes here, what with her camp bed and all. Just hope she isn’t there when we get there, and not doing her filthy business if she is!”

“I used to like Penny,” said Wallace, “I thought a lot of her. I don’t know what it was, her hair probably, so fluffy and free and scented! But I really liked her. I carried her books home from school for her, which is what lads are supposed to do, isn’t it?”

Innocent nodded, though Wallace didn’t see as their bikes jostled down the rough surface they were on. “Girls can smell nice,” he said loud enough for his friend to hear, “Angela did!”

The lane petered out just before they arrived at the cottage where they leaned their bikes against a wall that looked as if it might just hold their weight without collapsing into a pile of dusty debris, and went inside the building. It was just like they remembered it, but the cellar door was open and a smell, unpleasant and unlike anything they’d noticed before, seemed to drift up from below.

“She should have shut that door,” growled Wallace.

“You think it was Penny? Here in the cottage and leaving doors open?” asked Innocent.

“I haven’t been here since the last time we came together, and Penny’s the only other person I can think of who comes to a place like this,” replied Wallace.

“Someone else might have found it. Someone else might have wanted a fallout shelter,” argued Innocent, “after all, it’s not just us two with any common sense!”

“Come on, let’s get our bicycle front lamps and take a look around,” suggested Wallace. “Good thing I’ve got a new battery in mine! I might like our fallout shelter but I’m not so keen on it when I can’t see my hand in front of my face.”

“Same here, mate: same here.”

The two boys fetched their lamps and started back to the cottage.

“I’ve got this feeling,” grumbled Wallace, “I suppose it’s that smell, but I’ve a feeling something might be down there. A wolf, maybe, a wild animal, maybe, with vicious fangs and bright red eyes and claws like razors!”

“There aren’t any wolves left in this country,” laughed Innocent, but instead of sounding joyful his laughter had a macabre ring to it in the silence of that cottage.

They made their way down the stairs that led from what had been a kitchen. The smell from below seemed to get worse, if anything, and they stayed close together, taking the last step as if they had but the one body between them.

Wallace shone his torch around. There, in the corner, was the pile of coal, clearly undisturbed since they’d last been there. But it wasn’t that which took their attention but the folding bed that Penny had kept propped against the wall, and it was no longer folded but open.

And there was someone lying on it. Someone lying very still. Someone they recognised.

“Penny!” exclaimed Innocent.

And it was Penny, but not the Penny they knew.

She was still as the grave, her face had a grey, dullness to it, her eyes were open but glazed and her lovely fragrant hair was lank.

“Penny!” called Wallace, “it’s us! We’re here!”

But there was to be no wakening the girl. She lay there in a pool of her own dried blood and it was from her that the unpleasant smell of decay and death had been seeping.

“Come on!” hissed Innocent, “we need pennies for the phone box! We need to phone the police!”

© Peter Rogerson 24.06.19