Black Tide Read online

  “What ARE you?” he asked, more than a little scared.

  “Shush! We’ve got to leave now, boy! Hurry!” The strange wolf-like creature pulled at his hand and turned to go.

  “What about him?” Toby hissed back, pointing at the striking figure stood by the window. The soldier was still standing stoically to attention.

  “That’s a dummy! He was there for the tourists who used to visit here. They had their photos taken with him.”

  “Of course, I knew it was a dummy. Course I did,” Toby said to her back as she scurried away to a far door. “What is this place anyway?”

  “This is the guardroom. You’d better move fast – they’re planning to come back for you soon.”

  The girl slowly swung the heavy wooden door of the guardroom open and peered out. She slipped through the doorway and disappeared into the grey mistiness outside.

  Is this a trap? Should I go with this strange girl?

  She looked so weird, and how had she got into the guardroom? Could she walk through locked doors? Maybe she was a figment of his imagination. It could all be a dream. Maybe he was about to wake up to find himself being beaten up by a soldier with an enormous bearskin hat on his head.

  Staying here waiting for the men to come back and get me seems like a bad idea.

  Toby dragged his aching limbs to the door and, peeking out, saw a huge square of grass. On the other side sat a squat line of Georgian town houses, just like ones Toby had seen on a visit to Edinburgh once with his mum and dad. The grey slate roofs peaked up above creamy mist, which was shot through with blades of sunlight.

  This place is weird. It’s like a town inside a fortress. Now where’s that wolf-girl gone? She might know where Dad and Sylvie are. I’ve got to find them.

  Toby didn’t think it a good idea to wander into the middle of the square – he would be too visible. He clung to the walls. Just as he was passing a rusted metal door with Gaol House painted on it, he heard a noise.

  “Psst… in here,” the girl’s voice called.

  Toby ducked in behind the door.

  “What are you doing?” he whispered angrily at her.

  “We’re going to the ravelin and then down into the outworks. Later, we can get out of a sluice gate and onto the beach, then back to your boat.”

  “Whoa! What are you on about? The ravelin? What’s that? And I need to find my dad and my sister. I’m not leaving here without them… And how did you know I came in a boat?” Toby hoped it was his most commanding voice. He wasn’t going to take orders from a girl, especially one that looked like a wolf, and smelt like one too.

  “Get a grip!” the girl shook his sore arm. “You need to leave now if you want to live. Your family have already been moved to another station. And as for knowing how you arrived – you might as well have put the flags out! I could see you coming for miles.”

  “Oh,” said Toby lamely. Had he really been that useless? “What do you mean ‘station’? What is this place?”

  “Don’t you know anything?” she said crossly. “This is a collecting station – these men —”

  “I call them raiders,” interrupted Toby.

  “Whatever! Call them what you like, but they’re evil. Come on – I’ll explain later!”

  Just then a blood-curdling howl vent the air. It sounded very close.

  “The dogs are here?” Toby clutched at the girl’s grimy arm.

  “What are you talking about?” she looked at him as if he was the mad one. “We must go!”

  The girl slinked out of the door again and this time Toby made sure that he was right behind her.

  “I’m taking you to somewhere safe just now,” she crept along the wall. “This is a good time to move. Most of the men drink at night and are useless by morning.”

  Toby concentrated on following her closely as she slipped in and out of the shadows. Then they climbed up a grassy rampart, which took them onto the huge broad walls of the fort at the level of the house roofs.

  They silently trotted along the top of the wide parapet, carefully keeping to the wall on the seaward side. On the other side the grass fell steeply down a bank to land in the inner yards. They slowed to negotiate a slippery grass rampart that led to a smaller courtyard. In the centre was a large sandy-coloured church. The girl sprinted towards it, leaping over the grass and disappearing into a side porch. Toby followed, tumbling in behind her.

  “Wow!” he cried. Inside the church the hazy light streaming through the side windows lit clouds of dust, throwing a smoky aura down the transept. He ran to the end of the aisle and peered up at the stained-glass windows. One had a picture of an angel playing the bagpipes. It was a long time since he had been in a church and he’d forgotten how beautiful and peaceful they were.

  “Are we safe here?” he turned to ask the girl.

  “Yes, the raiders don’t come here. I’ve made them think it’s haunted.” Toby could just make out the glimpse of a smile from under her wolf get-up. “And some are scared of facing their God because of the things they have done since the red fever.”

  Toby followed the girl into the rear of the church where she pulled back a thick brocade curtain. Behind it was a heavy wooden door that she unlocked to reveal a small vestry. Built into the floor was a trapdoor, which the girl lifted to expose a flight of steps going down into the bowels of the church. She signalled Toby to follow. Pulling the door quietly closed behind them, they took the steps down and down into a narrow passageway that smelt of dust and old bones. The staircase was lit by small electric lights that came on when they approached and went off as they passed, leaving the passage behind them in the dark. Toby realised that they were going down into a cave system. The stairs got shallower and the path widened out.

  “Amazing!” he exclaimed as he climbed downwards. It was like being in the tunnel in Alice in Wonderland. The walls were strung with equipment: reels of pipes and hoses, skeins of rope, anchors, fishing rods and nets, gas cylinders, water carriers, spades and forks, boxes of nails, bundles of wire, a long ladder and even a wheel barrow.

  At the end of the steps the tunnel opened out into a large cave, which was lit with coloured fairy lights strung along its wall. This gave it a Christmassy look, like a fairy grotto. The cave was laid out as a living room with proper chairs, a coffee table and even a battered leather settee complete with fluffy cushions. In the corner sat an old TV with a picture of a Santa on his sleigh stuck to the screen. To one side of the cave was a small kitchenette with a sink, cooker and a hot-water boiler. On the other side was a glass water distiller, and at the back of the room sat a huge generator, quietly humming.

  “Gosh! I’m impressed,” Toby swivelled on his heels to take it all in. “How long did it take you to do all of this?”

  The girl was busy fiddling with a gas canister connected to the cooker.

  “My father made it. You hungry?” she asked.

  Toby sat down on the leather settee and stroked a fluffy cushion that reminded him of Henry, Sylvie’s rabbit.

  “My name’s Toby Tennant, what’s yours?”

  She turned to stare at him as if he had just landed from outer space. Toby could see her better now and under the soft, coloured lights she looked even weirder than he first thought. Draped over her shoulders was a huge, grizzled grey wolf skin that hung way down past her knees. It was complete with the head of the wolf, which perched on top of her head. The whole thing was attached to her body at various places with old baler twine. Toby wondered whether this was where the smell came from: the skin looked moth-eaten and mangy. The wolf’s head had been stuffed so that the yellowing fangs gaped open in a vicious snarl and the beady glass eyes stared at him in animosity. The girl untied the skin cloak and, lifting the wolf’s sneering face from hers, hung the whole thing up on a coat stand.

  “My name is Natasha Marie Anya Gablinski, but my mates call me Tash — I mean, my mates used to call me Tash; I don’t have any now.” She expertly lit the gas stove, and placed a pan
on the hob.

  “Me neither. Well, I do have Jamie, but I don’t know where he is right now…” Toby muttered. “Can I help?”

  “No, thanks. I can take of everything myself. I’m going to cook us some food.”

  “Ok,” Toby wondered at the slightly stilted way she spoke. Maybe she hadn’t spoken to anyone for ages and had forgotten how. He watched her opening some tins and packets and mixing stuff up in the pan. She could be about his age. She was slight but athletic. Her face was smeared with black gunge, presumably for camouflage, but beneath it Toby could make out a rich amber skin tone, which showed off her very white teeth.

  Wonder how she keeps her teeth so nice? Toby self-consciously rubbed his with the cuff of his grimy boiler suit. He couldn’t remember when he had last given them a good brush. Since his mum was no longer around to remind him, he’d given up.

  “How did you get me out of that guardroom? It must have been locked,” he asked. Tash jangled a bunch of keys that were tied to a belt on her waist.

  “My great-grandmamma was in France during World War Two, and was in the freedom fighters – the Resistance. They gave her these skeleton keys. They’re very old so they only work on old locks.”

  “Wow! What an exciting great-grandma! I think mine spent the war knitting socks for the army.”

  “Mine was very brave, and these keys are very handy.”

  “So how do you know my dad and sister have been moved already? Have you seen them? Are they ok? The raiders haven’t hurt them, have they?” Toby asked. As he blurted out his fears, it was like opening the floodgates of his emotions. He started to sob – great big wrenching sobs tearing a pain in his chest. He’d been bottling everything up inside and, now that he felt safe, it was all coming out.

  Must be that whack I got on my head. It’s turned me into a gibbering wreck! What must she think of me?

  5. In the Wolf’s Lair

  Tash said nothing. She left the cooker and came over and sat beside him. Taking his scarred filthy hand into her small brown one, she sat quietly and held it until he had cried himself out. Then she reached over to the coffee table and passed him a big box of soft tissues. Toby took a handful and blew his nose noisily.

  “Thanks,” he blubbered, sniffing hard. “I’m so sorry.”

  “You’ve no need to be sorry,” said Tash, returning his hand to him. Toby felt a small pang of disappointment as she did so. It had been comforting. His mum had always held his hand at bad times.

  “Where have the raiders taken my family? And who is this General they’re all frightened of?” Toby asked, trying to regain his composure while dabbing at his red nose and bleary eyes. Tash returned to her cooking.

  “Late last night the men came back from a hunting trip —”

  “Hunting trip? Is that what they call kidnapping poor frightened families?”

  “Yes, the men like to go on their hunting trips. I hear them talking about their forays up and down the coast. I can wander quite freely around the fort in the dark, camouflaged in my wolf skin. I can get up close, if I hide in the shadows, and listen to them bragging about who they caught and what they did to them.”

  “What?” yelled Toby, jumping up. “I don’t know if I can hear any more.”

  “Your dad and little sister are ok, though. I heard the men saying that the General wanted to see them. I have never seen him here but I know he is a very scary person and will stop at nothing to get his own way. Seems he’s particularly interested in your dad for some reason. Is your dad a doctor? Or a scientist?” asked Tash.

  “No, he’s a… well, he was an engineer. He used to work in the oil industry before the red fever came. But the raiders told me Dad wouldn’t tell them what he used to do. He’s brave, is my dad. He wouldn’t want to help them in any way. They wanted me to tell them but I wouldn’t.”

  “Anyhow, they’ve taken your dad and sister to see the General – they left early this morning in one of the vans.”

  “Where is this General?”

  “I don’t know,” she calmly replied, stirring the pan.

  Toby sat down abruptly and held his throbbing head in his hands, tearing at his hair.

  “Oh! This gets worse and worse. What could the General want with my dad and Sylvie?”

  “Pretty name, ‘Sylvie’,” mused Tash, as she poured her concoction out into two large, chipped bowls. She motioned to Toby to sit down at the kitchen table. “I wish I knew why these bad men are kidnapping people. They’ve taken my father and mother, also.”

  Oh no, she must feel desperate about that too. Funny – she seems very calm.

  Toby went to the table and sat down. The tomatoey stew of pasta and chunky chicken pieces smelt delicious. But he was distracted even through his hunger. Why didn’t Tash seem more bothered if the raiders had her mum and dad?

  “Don’t you want to find your parents?” he asked. Tash pointed to his spoon and fork.

  “Eat,” she commanded. “You’ll feel better for it.” He was too ravenous to argue. They ate in silence and it wasn’t until the last drop of stew had been gulped down that Tash looked up and spoke. “My father told me to stay here. He said I was not to go looking for him and mother if they ever got taken. They got taken three months ago. We were living in the fort then, but these raiders, as you call them, broke in one night and took everybody. I was lucky: my father sent me down here and here I have stayed.”

  She got up from the table to clear the bowls and came back with a tub of warm water, a bottle of disinfectant and a roll of cotton wool. “Here,” she said, “you have a cut on the back of your head. You’d better wash it before it gets infected.”

  Toby winced as he sponged the cut gingerly with the cotton doused in disinfectant.

  “Were there many people living here in the fort?” he asked, grimacing.

  “Yes, about forty: four families and some others. Me and Father and Mother have lived here since the red fever came. My father is very clever. He told the others to make a cave so that if bad men came we could all hide. But the others said that they were safe in Fort George; they thought that nobody could get in. But the bad men did.”

  “Your dad was right. There’s very little that’ll stop those raiders, unfortunately. And the dogs are just as bad,” said Toby.

  “What is it with you and dogs? We’ve had no problems here with dogs. We used to have collies for working our sheep, but the raiders took them, along with the sheep.”

  “Well,” said Toby, “that howl we heard was no ordinary dog. I saw some big dogs on the coast, at a place called Findlater Castle. I could have sworn they were following me.”

  “Why would they do that?” asked Tash.

  “Maybe they think I will lead them to more humans, and where there are humans, there’s food.”

  “Aren’t you assuming a bit much of these dogs? I mean, dogs thinking ahead, dogs having a plan – that sounds a bit weird to me.”

  As they sat in the safety of Tash’s home, under the coloured fairy lights, Toby recounted his story of the dogs. He told how his friend, Jamie, and Jamie’s mum, Katie, who was a scientist, had been studying them in Aberdeen. Katie had come to the conclusion that the dogs there had been infected with the red fever. But instead of making them ill and die like it did most of the humans, it mutated their genes so that they were evolving at a much faster rate. They were growing into bigger, cleverer animals.

  Toby had seen with his own eyes how one large, ferocious dog was acting as their leader. This dog seemed to have a plan. Jamie and his mum called this pack leader “Cerberus”, after the three-headed dog in Greek mythology that guards the mouth of hell.

  “He sounds like a clever animal. Dogs don’t usually plan,” observed Tash.

  “Yes. We don’t know what his plan is,” said Toby. “I can probably guess though: total domination of Scotland if not the whole country. Those dogs I saw on the way here are probably scouting ahead. The others may not be far behind. That howl was probably one of them, tell
ing the others.”

  “Telling?” Tash was sceptical.

  “Yes, they’re really good at communicating. That howl would have been calling them here. They’ll know now that this fort is a human settlement. By coming here I’ve led them to it.”

  “Sorry, Toby,” said Tash, “this all sounds a little… far-fetched?”

  “I know it must seem crazy. But this is a crazy world now – a world where you have to wear a wolf cape. Where did you get that? Is it real?”

  “Yes. It belonged to my father. He gave it to me before he left.” She looked downcast at this memory, so Toby changed the subject.

  “Are you Scottish? You don’t sound it.”

  “Yes, I was born in Inverness, but my parents are from many places. My mother is Russian, and Father is from Poland, though they have both lived all over the world. They speak many languages, but their English is not so good, so mine isn’t either. I know lots about different cultures, though.”

  “That’s brilliant – you must have things in your head I can’t even imagine. I think you’ll get on well with Jamie, my pal: he loves learning stuff.” The thought of Jamie brought Toby back to earth with a bump. He missed his friend.

  I wonder where he is? I hope his mum’s ok, too, and Belle. Toby was about to tell Tash the story of how he and his dad on the Lucky Lady had rescued Jamie and his big white dog, Belle. But glancing over the table, he saw that she had fallen fast asleep, with her head on her hands.

  “Sleep well, strange girl,” he whispered, then went and lay down on the settee. Cuddling the Henry-like cushion to his chest, Toby, too, was asleep in seconds. But his dreams were plagued by dogs: big black dogs chasing him over the rooftops of Fort George. As fast as he ran, the dogs could run faster, and soon they had him pinned up against the church door. He dodged them and sped into the church, but they followed him. Under the stained-glass windows he stood face to face with a massive black dog that had a stub for a tail. This could only be Cerberus. As Toby prayed to the angel playing the bagpipes to save him, Cerberus opened his great, slavering jaws, lifted his head and let out an ear-bursting howl, shaking the very foundations of the church: