Thirst (Thirst Series) Read online

  Thirst - Kindle Version 1.0

  (c) Guy N Smith 1980 - 2011

  Published by Black Hill Books, February 2011

  ISBN : 978-1-907846-144

  First Published by New English Library (NEL) February 1980.

  Converted to Ebook from original paperback by Scan2Ebook.com

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise distributed without the publisher's prior consent in any form whatsoever. Mechanisms are employed to make each Ebook unique and traceable back to the original purchaser.

  For more information visit Guy's website at :www.guynsmith.com

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  Contents

  Title

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Epilogue

  The End

  Chapter 1

  The tanker lumbered through the night, its erratic passage reflecting the mood of its driver - angry; punishing the engine on stretches of straight road, torturing brakes and tyres on the bends.

  The powerful headlights revealed the twisted, seemingly endless tarmac that lay ahead, its surface glinting and treacherous after a day of prolonged heavy rain. Another bend; almost a skid, but not quite: the thick tread of the tyres gripped at the last moment, the vehicle swayed, but kept on course. The engine roared its protest at the steep incline, the gears crashed noisily. An effort for both man and machine, but at length the road levelled - the tanker was speeding again.

  Dark forbidding forests lay on the left, almost sheer mountainsides thickly planted with spruce trees, the branches of the lower ones reaching out over the road as though in an attempt to protect it from the lashing rain and gales that came from the west. On the right: sloping grassland, a few hedges here and there to signify a boundary, sheep huddled in the gorse, awaiting daybreak and a continuation of their routine of life.

  Scudding broken cloud permitted the moon to shine for brief periods, obscuring it every few minutes, plunging the wild landscape into total blackness.

  Mel Timberley gripped the wheel with such intensity that his knuckles showed white in the darkness of the cab. Small and slightly built, he looked somehow out of place in these surroundings. At twenty-two years of age he had barely matured. Boyish features that were normally good humoured were now contorted with rage. Long dark hair fell to his shoulders, and every so often he brushed strands from his face, a habit that he had developed this last year or so since he had begun lorry driving.

  He drove automatically, instinctively. His eyes saw what lay ahead and his limbs responded, braking or accelerating, and yet he was oblivious to it all. So much had happened in a few short hours. And now he was left to pick up the shreds, discard them, and start all over again. First, though, he had to erase the memories, and that would not be easy. Even now his mind was going over the events again like a re-run of some old film on the television. He didn't want to watch, but there was no way out, no instant switch that would render the screen blank.

  If was all Maureen's fault. Damn her! Without her he wouldn't be here now, miles off course, speeding through this Welsh wilderness. If anything went wrong, an accident, a breakdown, or just a blowout, the first question his firm would ask would be what the hell were you doing out there? Dismissal would be instantaneous. You couldn't use a tanker loaded with toxic weedkiller as a private runabout, no matter how lenient your employers were.

  But the sack would only be the start of a chain of disasters in Mel Timberley's life. His wife would want to know all about it too. Christ, she'd be livid. He could see her now: a woman scorned, bent on revenge - the bitch! But that didn't make it any easier. Just hating her wasn't enough. It was as though she had some hold over him. He could not figure out quite what it was: certainly not sex. He got it at weekends if he was lucky and she was in the mood. Even on the occasions when she came to orgasm it was as though she was doing him a favour. Once, after a succession of refusals, she had caught him in the act of attempting to satisfy himself. She had not spoken to him for a week; he wasn't supposed to need that kind of relief. No, it wasn't sex that held their three year-old marriage together. Nor kids, because they hadn't got any. It was - he could hardly bring himself to admit it, but he knew the reason well enough: fear! He was afraid of a twenty year-old girl. Humble, apologising for any domestic misdemeanours, doing her bidding, shopping on Saturdays instead of football or fishing, taking her out in the car on Sundays when he would sooner have been resting after a week of hard driving … and he hadn't the courage to leave her.

  He laughed to himself, harshly expelling all his pent-up bitterness. Even now he would not be able to face up to her. If everything came out into the open he would cringe and beg for forgiveness, promising not to be unfaithful ever again. He despised himself for it, but he knew there was nothing he could do about it.

  It all boiled down to sex. There was no getting away from it. If a guy couldn't get it at home, he looked elsewhere for it. Some got away with it, just as he had done these past few months. Others got found out. And there was every possibility that that might happen to himself in a very short time.

  His thoughts switched from his wife to Maureen. The girl in Pontrhydfendigaid had had everything to offer him in her bed. Ironically, her husband had been a lorry driver too. She understood the breed. Perhaps, and it had never occurred to him before, she was just getting her own back on her old man. What was good for the gander was good for the goose.

  Timberley laughed aloud again. Hell, what did it matter why a woman screwed so long as she did? The attraction on his part had been her experience. She was ten years older than himself; possibly flattered by the attentions of a mere youth. All that mattered now was that it was all over. Worse than that, the consequences were looming up on Mel Timberley's horizon. He was really stuck on a chain of disasters. Maureen's husband's lorry had broken down in Carmarthen so he had left it and hitchhiked back to Pontrhydfendigaid, arriving home shortly after 2 am. The first warning Timberley had got of Ken's homecoming was when the bedroom door had opened and an overall-clad figure had entered the room. Maureen had been torn from the position she had chosen astride her boyfriend's naked body; Mel had been sent sprawling on the floor. That in itself was bad enough - but worse was to follow.

  ‘Don't think you've heard the last of this.’ The big man looked down on him, thick lips twisted into a sneer. ‘I've got the number of your truck outside. I'll be having a word with your firm, lodging complaints about tankers of toxic spray left unattended around the countryside.’

  Timberley, thinking it over in his speeding cab a few hours later, knew that it was no idle threat. Tomorrow the balloon would go up. Maybe he could stop it getting back to his wife. He'd try to think up something. Oh, Christ, what was the use? Whatever he told her she would ring up Weedsprays Limited and give vent to her wrath. She wouldn't be siding with him. She would just be her usual hellish self, a bad-tempered bitch who got her kicks out of slating the opposite sex.

  He wished some guy would drop in and screw her whilst he was away. Somehow the very idea was a turn-on. Some big bastard like Maureen's husband, unc
outh, unwashed, making her come and pant and plead for more. But it wouldn't happen. It was a physical impossibility. Any man would get the brush off, followed by a stream of volatile abuse. All the same, it was a nice thought.

  Tankers of toxic spray … Jesus, he hadn't thought of it like that before. Up until now it had been just a cargo, a load of liquid that somebody used to kill a few weeds. He remembered that article in the paper a week ago. It had also made the headlines of the nine o'clock news on the television.

  A young boy, seven or eight years of age, just an ordinary kid: some stupid sod had filled a pop bottle with weedkiller and left it lying around. Colourless, like lemonade. The boy had unscrewed the stopper, taken a swig, spat it out. But it was too late. The damage was done. It had happened before, back in the days when everybody was buying paraquat. That had been bad enough, even when they had discovered an antidote. But this stuff …

  Timberley was angry again. A feeling of guilt swept over him. He shouldered part of the blame. He transported the poison. Without drivers it would not be distributed. He carried liquid death. Jesus Christ!

  The details of the recent disaster flooded back to him with fresh horror. The boy's name … Larkin or Lakin, something like that. He couldn't remember exactly, but it didn't matter. The kid's father had been doing some gardening. Typical suburban stuff, weedkilling an area of crazy paving. He'd had some of the Weedspray left over in the watering can and thought that maybe it would come in handy for another day. So he'd carefully poured it into a mineral-water bottle. He hadn't even put it up out of his son's reach. He'd left it out there on the terrace. It had stopped there for a whole week, right until the following Saturday. That was when the young boy had found it. He'd thought it was pop, tried a swig and spat most of it out. He'd swallowed a little: a bitter taste, like almonds. He'd gone round to the local shop and spent some of his pocket money on sweets in an attempt to get rid of the nasty flavour in his mouth. But he'd told nobody.

  Mel Timberley broke out into a cold sweat as the details came back to him. The boy had complained later that evening of a sore throat and chest and a headache. His parents presumed that he was sickening with some juvenile ailment and had put him to bed, still totally unaware that he had drunk some of the weedkiller. The boy himself had forgotten all about it.

  During the night the family were awoken by the sound of someone moving about downstairs. They went out on to the landing and the first thing they noticed was their son's bedroom door wide open and the bedclothes strewn on the floor.

  They had dashed downstairs, and the sight that greeted them had almost robbed them of their sanity. Timberley gripped the steering wheel as he envisaged the scene in that kitchen: the kid, stark naked, eyes wide and staring, frothing at the mouth; seeing his parents, but not recognising them.

  They had watched helplessly, hypnotised by the horror of it all. His breathing was laboured, wheezing. And in his hand he held a carving knife which he had taken from the draining board. He gripped it by the hilt, the blade turned inwards, the point against his stomach.

  They were too late to stop him as he fell forward on to the sharp knife, skewering himself like a Sunday joint of rare beef, the blood oozing out beneath his fallen body. His father had dashed forward, but even in his death throes the boy was fighting him, frenziedly trying to prevent the knife from being pulled out; biting, scratching, and screaming inarticulately, writhing in agony.

  Mrs Larkin rang for an ambulance but the boy was dead before it arrived. At first the doctors presumed he'd had some sort of fit, but a post-mortem revealed that he had died as a result of drinking Weedspray, a pain-crazed death preceded by madness. An inquiry followed. There had been a petition signed by half the townspeople (Timberley couldn't remember the name of the town), in an attempt to get Weedspray banned from public sale. It hadn't got them anywhere. The father had been blamed. A kind of murderer, public opinion had said, and a month later Larkin had been found dead in his car in the garage, a length of hosepiping conveying the carbon monoxide fumes from the exhaust to the inside of the vehicle. Mrs Larkin was taken to hospital for psychiatric treatment. She'd tried to take an overdose of aspirin but hadn't taken enough. They'd saved her. But she'd finish the job one day: all because of Weedspray.

  Timberley took a bend too fast and felt the rear offside wheel mount the grass verge. He braked hard and brought the tanker under control once more. Hell, it was the first time he'd taken a real good look at himself. A right bastard, a shit of the first order. And to make matters worse he was taking a load of this deadly chemical poison to Birmingham. Enough to kill a population three times the size of that city. And, somewhere along the line, another kid could die. It was on the cards that some stupid bugger would fill a bottle with it and leave it lying about. An accessory to murder, that's what he was. Jesus Christ!

  He slowed up, and for a couple of seconds he was on the verge of panic. If only he could get rid of the load, lose it. But it was impossible. Even if it was possible, it wouldn't make any odds. Three tankers a week travelled to Birmingham. Ten to London. Four to Manchester. The distribution was well organised and efficient. He was only a small expendable link in a big chain. He could opt out tomorrow and Weedspray wouldn't even falter. It would continue at a steady canter, manufacturing liquid death, impervious to accidents, passing the buck which always finished up with the consumer,

  The moon flooded the rugged terrain through a break in the clouds. Water glinted below him, a large expanse of scintillating inky blackness. The Claerwen Reservoir. Pure, clear, mountain water that was piped all the way to Birmingham. Mankind could not exist without water.

  The panoramic view checked Timberley's anger. So natural, peaceful - so far removed from all his troubles.

  His foot came off the accelerator and on to the brake pedal. The road was dropping sharply, at least one-in-seven, with tortuous bends. Trees leaned over in the gale, some of the fir branches brushing the side of the vehicle.

  He was more relaxed now. The sight of the huge lake reminded him of fishing. He smiled wryly to himself. It was months since he had last tried his luck with a rod and line. In fact, his subscription to the angling club had lapsed. What was the point in renewing it when he had to spend every weekend shopping or riding in the car? He remembered once going on a fishing trip to Lake Vyrnwy. He'd caught two trout that day, a brown and a rainbow. Then put 'em both back. What a bloody waste of time and effort! Still, it depended on how you looked at it. Life wasn't what you got out of it. You had to put something into it too. He'd had a choice that day. In a way he'd been God. He'd been in a position to give either life or death to those fish. He'd given them life. Ironically, his position was similar to that now. He had a tankful of death at his disposal. Only there was no way he could get rid of it.

  Clouds obscured the moon again and his headlights picked out the land ahead. Trees fought against the gale, broken branches littered the road. Leaves swirled like a snowstorm, pulled from the trees before their time. Autumn had barely started.

  Timberley fumbled in his pockets for cigarettes and matches, steering with one hand. He could feel the wind buffeting the lorry, threatening to wrench the steering wheel from his hands.

  He extracted a crumpled cigarette from the packet, placed it between his lips, and juggled with matches. He couldn't get the weedkiller out of his mind. Certain death … no antidote. There was too much responsibility attached to this job, so much beyond his control. Even lorry driving had its risks. That dog he'd run over last week: it could just as easily have been a child. One second the road was clear, the next … A lot of drivers awoke from such nightmares lathered in sweat. Timberley knew the feeling, the relief that it had only been a dream. But one day it could be reality. Today, tomorrow, next week, next year …

  The match flared. He pushed the end of the cigarette into the flame and inhaled the smoke. His vision was momentarily impaired, his concentration broken.

  Something moved ahead of him: an indiscernible shap
e, leaping and bounding from the forest shadows into his path, seeming to slow as it entered the beams from the tanker's headlights. It stopped.

  Timberley stood hard on brakes and clutch pedal, a wave of shock surging through him. Oh, God, this was it! One second you thought about killing, the next death was materialising out of the nocturnal darkness.

  Rubber squealed on wet tarmac and loose gravel. He flung the wheel over, attempting to counter the skid. Too late - the rear end was coming round. Slow motion … graceful … a kind of ballet, swaying to silent music, the fir forest bowing its applause, the wind howling its delight …

  Mel Timberley saw the hare crouching, mesmerised, frightened, its eyes reflecting the glare of the headlights. The twin beams zigzagged as the vehicle slewed, and the creature was lost to his sight. He had not hit it. Its death would not have mattered but, nevertheless, it had not died. In a way he was thankful.

  There was a splintering crash. He knew that the roadside barrier had splintered to matchwood. He felt the vehicle lurch sideways, and braced himself for the impact. But there was none, only blackness all around - a sensation akin to that of being conveyed to the ground floor in a fast moving elevator.

  Realisation hammered at his shocked and bemused brain. The tanker was airborne. A sheer drop - no trees to break the fall … floating …

  He knew that he was going to die. In seconds the plunging lorry would be torn asunder by jagged rocks or flattened on hard earth. He expected to panic, but he did not. A numbness set in, an inexplicable anaesthetic that somehow spared him the terror of it all.

  Falling … falling … falling ...

  A shuddering impact threw him across the cab. His legs were twisted beneath his body, and his left arm hung limply. But the vehicle continued on its course, slower now, so gently. And the blackness around him was a thousand times more intense.

  He lay there, smashed and useless, aware that the tanker was still moving. Consciousness refused to desert him as though some unseen sadistic power was compelling him to witness the end.