by Mason Sabre
As long as they used a fuelling station in the daytime, no one would question James. And if he paid cash, it was even better. The Humans thought he was dead. Lost somewhere to a war he’d been fighting. They weren’t looking for him.
Perhaps the fact the Humans were too focused on Prisoner 932416 now, meant they didn’t care about anyone else. She could hope for that too.
They set off again, and when the rain stopped, and the sky cleared, Diana saw a road sign. It was half broken and hanging from a wooden pole, swinging in the breeze. She recognised the pictures on it. Signs in Exile didn’t have words, or proper directions, just symbols and things like that. Just enough information for those travelling.
“James, look.” Diana slowed the car enough. God she was tired. She’d driven the whole day, stopping only for breaks and stretches and to rub her eyes. She was half glad it was close to time to bunk down, but part of her worried what kind of night they’d have. At least James had got a good rest, and he hadn’t been sick anymore. The veins, though … they’d got darker, or maybe that was just the light. “I think there’s a town.”
It was hard to make anything out. Most places James had got her to drive through were fields on either side, or dense woodlands. There had been one area that had scared her half to death with huge drops on either side, and a poster that bragged the place to be the highest road in Exile. Did he forget she had a fear of heights?
“James?” While he remained asleep, Diana reached over and pulled the blanket down and the top of his shirt out of the way. Her heart sank at the sight of the lines. They were worse. She was sure. They seemed so dark now they were black, jet black worms under his skin. Maybe they were filled with blood.
“We’re here?” He blinked and straightened, pulling the blanket back around him as he looked out of the window. “Where are we?” he got the map and looked at it through bleary eyes. “Diana.”
“Here,” she said, and she pointed at the spot. There was no clear marking of a town, but then it wasn’t like she’d expected James to mark them all. Just things that would give ideas they were in the right direction.
He tried to sit straighter, but when he moved, he grabbed his head and let out a moan. Diana reached for him. It hurt her to see him so sick. He was the strong one. He was the one who had saved her and did everything. When he was like this, she felt helpless. She wished there was a way she could take it away.
“You okay?”
“I feel like shit.”
She held his hand and gave him a moment to get himself together. He put his other hand to his chest and took in a laboured breath.
“James?” she asked, full of concern.
“My chest is tight. I’m okay.” He leant over and let out a groan with it. Finn sat up, paying attention from the back.
“What’s wrong?”
He put his hand up, went to speak, stopped and shook his head. A second later, he had the car door open and leant out to vomit at the side of the road. Diana could do nothing for him but rub his back. She hated it. She hated this more than anything.
When he finished and sat himself back in the seat, she wiped his mouth for him. “Are you okay?”
“My stomach hurts.” He pressed a hand to it as if to demonstrate. “Feels like a ton of bricks and glass in there, all on fire. For God’s sake--” He cut off, rolled to the side and half fell, half climbed out of the car before falling to his knees and throwing up more.
Diana engaged the handbrake and raced out to him. He was vomiting again. Not that there was anything to bring up. Most of it was just bile. She reached past him to get the water bottle. “Here. Drink this. At least give yourself something to bring back up.”
He took it from her, and no sooner had he taken two mouthfuls, he keeled over and was puking again. His fever was back up too. When she touched his forehead, it was like back at the house, burning enough to sizzle. She tried not to let her mind run away with it, because once her head got going, and the idea something was wrong with James, she was sure as hell going to land them in trouble just to get him some help.
“Maybe you can sit in the car and I’ll walk to the town. See if they have a doctor or something.”
James shook his head. “I’m not letting you go there alone. We don’t know who they are, and they don’t know us. I’m going with you.”
“You can hardly crawl, let alone walk.”
He raised his head, so he could look at her, and the sight of him all but broke her heart into a million pieces. She wanted to take him home and care for him. To wrap him in blankets and make everything better.
He’d blown blood vessels in his face, around his nose. His eyes were bloodshot to hell. “You look like a monster from the deep. If they see--”
“You’re not going there alone.” The determination in his voice told her she wasn’t winning this one.
“Okay,” she said. “I’ll put the car to the side of the road, we walk slowly, and I’m carrying the crossbow.”
James leant against her and nodded. He had no energy for anything else.
Chapter 7
It was a town she had found. Thank God. But just because it was a town of Others, didn’t mean it was all welcoming. Diana wasn’t just going to race up to the gates and expect a warm welcome from whoever lived there. That would be idiotic.
Not every town welcomed visitors of any kind. It was much easier, and safer sometimes, to shut the world out and put the walls up with the gates closed. Half the time, Diana wished her town had done that, but then if that was so, she and James would never have been invited to stay. Most towns had a gatehouse, and the residents took turns to guard it, or at least a group of them did. It would depend on how each place dished out jobs to the inhabitants.
The thriving towns had shopping strips, a row of shops people entered. Those tended to let visitors in because the outside trade funded the town.
“I’m not sure anyone is here,” Diana said as they got closer. They’d walked from the car. It was safer that way. If there was someone in the gatehouse and they saw a strange car approaching, they were more likely to get their guns out. Especially as she didn’t have an identification card, they’d need if they were a trading town, and God she hoped they were.
James stopped again, needing to catch his breath and just rest. He didn’t sit, though Diana offered to help him. “Just give me a second.” She waited. His shirt clung to his skin. His forehead beaded with perspiration and his skin was so ashen now that Diana feared it would get too much for him and he would collapse.
“We’re almost there.”
“I know.”
She kept talking to him in a running commentary to make sure he was okay, but his voice was tight, his words clipped like he was in pain, and it tugged at her heart just hearing the way he struggled. “You could sit here, and I’ll go on.”
“No. I’m coming. Just …” One step, another.
She moved the bag on her back, trying to shake the weight in it so it didn’t pull so bad on her shoulders. They were in agony already. But they needed the fresh produce to trade. There was little money in Exile, in the towns anyway. Most things were bought by trading. A deep ache ran across the base of her neck and she tried rolling her shoulders just to ease it. Nothing made it better, but she refused to make the mistake of taking it off while James rested. Her shoulders would never take it on again. She’d give anything to stretch her wings out … just to feel the air in them.
“We should knock and wait. Maybe they’re in the middle of change over.”
“Yes.” Although it was unusual for a gate to be unmanned. “Take my hand,” she said. Not because she thought he needed it, but right then, thinking about her wings and what she’d lost, it always gave her a pang inside. James was her rock. But also, holding his hand would show anyone they were just a couple—a couple looking for help.
There was a buzzer nailed to a small piece of wood next to the door. Diana pressed it and then angled her head, so she could listen for
the sounds of the chimes, or whatever wonderful tune it would make. It didn’t make any sound in the gatehouse itself, but then what was the point in that. If there was someone in there, she could have knocked on the glass.
“Perhaps they didn’t hear it,” James offered. He leant himself against the booth and peered into the small murky window.
“I’ll try again.”
Still nothing.
“Maybe there is no one there,” she said as she rolled her shoulders again, but all that seemed to do was stretch her muscles too much and make it worse.
“Try the gate.”
“Stay there a second.”
The gates were large, doubled. They were big enough, so they could let a car or a small van through, but there was also a smaller one at the side for a person to walk through. Both looked clean and well used. If the town was abandoned, then the gates would be rusted, worn down and off their hinges.
She tried the small gate, and she gasped a little when the catch clicked into place and she opened it. She didn’t let it swing all the way, though. Not if someone was on the other side and ready to charge at her in any moment. Pressing her face to the gap, she eased the gate just enough. “I can’t see anyone here.”
“We go in slow,” James offered. “If there is anyone inside, they can see us approaching.”
“Agreed.” The last thing they needed was to be mistaken for some looter or money hunter.
James pushed himself off the gatehouse wall and walked over to her. He dragged his feet as he went, almost as if it was an effort to lift them. She said nothing to him about it, but part of her wished he’d stayed in the car and she could have gone in alone … even if they were in any danger.
No.
No time to think about that just now.
“It’s clear.” Well the road was. The gates opened to a street like those old Wild West movies, without the hay bale, or the horses and the guns at dawn, although, claws at dawn were possible.
The road was neat, swept and clean. Another sign that this place wasn’t just left. The buildings were houses, but the first few were signed up like shops with hand-painted signs out front. It was quaint, she thought to herself. The way it was all hand done. Gave it character. A vacant one to the right.
“Can you see anyone?”
“No. It looks … it’s empty.”
They pushed in and trudged along the path. Slowly because of James. There were no sounds around, no telltale things that there was anyone about. Even at home in Newport, with so few families left, there were always sounds. Doors closing, cars moving.
“Let me check this one out.” The first house, well shop, was built as an old Victorian house. They all were really. Diana supposed it was hard to find a house in Exile that didn’t seem like it was built in the Victorian era with the tall buildings, high doors and long windows.
James sat on the steps as Diana climbed up them to the front door. She knocked and strained to hear anyone coming to answer her. She wasn’t surprised when no one did, curious, though. She knocked again, this time louder.
Nothing.
The front of the house had a large bay window, and on the other side, there was a large display table boasting an array of loaves of bread, pastries, and other such baked goods that made her mouth water and her stomach cramp with hunger. She saw no one inside, either, when she pressed her face against the glass and looked into the darkness of the room.
She tried the door. It was open. She frowned. “I’m just going to look inside,” she called down to James. She knocked on the door again and eased it open, arms ready to go up in surrender if anyone shot out and asked her what the hell she was doing. “Hello? Is anyone here?” A few seconds passed. Nothing. “I’m coming in. My name is Diana. I don’t mean any harm.”
Stepping into the clear hallway felt so wrong to her. She was trespassing, although maybe she wasn’t, not really. You couldn’t trespass in a shop open for business.
“Is anyone here?”
No one came to chase her out. No one answered her. No one even made a sound to say they were there, but just hadn’t heard her.
The box on the counter in the front room—the bakery—had its lid open and the drawer inside it was tipped on its side. It was one of those boxes people used to keep petty cash in. They had one of those for the rare occasion an outsider came to buy produce, but mostly she and James just traded. The coffee mug near to it was half full of coffee. Diana pressed her hand to it. “Cool,” she said. It wasn’t cold it had sat there for days, but it was cool enough it had been a few hours.
When she grabbed a loaf of bread from the table in front of the window, she pressed it between her thumb and fingers. Still soft and crusty. If it had been standing for days, it would have been a rock. She lifted it to her face and mistakenly took a deep breath and inhaled the wonderful scent of fresh bread. Her stomach growled in protest and longing. She should have put it back, but it was so hard. Once it was in her hand, it was like holding gold, or water and she was dying. It had been so long since either of them had eaten bread.
Jane had been the one in the town who’d make things like that. Diana had tried herself to make bread, but more often than not it was flat and hard, and ingredients were too costly to waste on silly experiments.
Sometimes Jane made a sourdough, and hell, it tasted so good, a person would give up their grandmother for it. Diana missed the taste. The fermented warm tastes … hot melted butter. “Oh, hell. I’ll pay them.” She nodded to herself. She’d take the loaf and leave them some vegetables in return. Food, for food.
Before she got outside, she tore away a hunk of the bread and took a bite. Oh, it was so damn good. Bloody hell. The flavours. She closed her eyes almost in the flavour orgasm happening in her mouth.
James hadn’t moved while Diana was in the bakery. He didn’t so much as turn when she came out.
“There’s no one in there. But I found this. It’s fresh.”
She brought the bread to him, pulled more off for herself and then handed him what was left. “I don’t think there is anyone here at all.”
“What do you mean?”
“The town. I can’t hear anyone. Sometimes, when I put my hand on the ground, I can detect life, but I don’t know. It’s just … empty. Like everyone left or something.” He took the bread from her, and only took a small piece, then she watched him a moment as he took a tiny bite. She didn’t blame him. Maybe he’d bring it up, maybe he wouldn’t.
“I’ll check the next shop.”
She did the same as she had done with the bakery. She knocked, listened, waited, knocked again, peered through the window and then opened the door and called to anyone who might be there. She stepped into the emptiness the same way she had with the other place. There were flowers and herbs lining the shelves on the wall. The scent of sage filled the air, like someone had been burning it. “A witch.” It had to be. From what she could tell, most of the things in there were the medicinal ingredients of witches’ potions. Not that she knew anything about those, but enough she’d bet her life this place belonged to a wiccan.
With this house, she dared to go into the back, feeling a little less like she was doing something wrong. There was a backroom to the place, and it held a small sofa and a single bed. At the end, there was a kitchenette. Dishes were in the sink. There was a glass of some juice on the counter. None of which had gone mouldy or showed signs of being left for too long.
“So strange.”
“There’s no one in there, either,” she said to James when she went back outside. “It’s more like everyone has just disappeared rather than gone outside. Like things are half-left as if they were in the middle of whatever it was. It’s like someone clicked their fingers, and poof, everyone gone.” She snapped her own fingers to demonstrate.
“Looks like whatever I’ve got, I’ve passed it onto you,” James joked.
“Well you sound better, if you’re in a teasing mood.” She bent to him, so she could check his
temperature again. “Still too hot. There’s a bed and a sofa in the back there. Perhaps you could rest.” She didn’t make a habit of sleeping in strange people’s houses, but two nights now and she was suggesting it. It was better than outside with James being unwell. “They might have paracetamol … I didn’t even think to check. That would bring your fever down.”
“I’m sure they will.” It was the one thing they hadn’t thought to bring. Most Others didn’t need them. Not like Humans. They weren’t all full of aches and pains, but they kept them handy, just in case. “We can see the night in here. Especially if no one comes back. Unless you worry we might go, poof.”
She slapped his arm.
After Diana gave the house a good search, she helped James inside and settled him on the sofa. There was one thing stopping in someone’s house, there was another taking their bed.
It was hard for James to get up the steps. He held onto the rail and Diana stayed behind him ready to catch him if he needed it. He’d climbed up like an old man. Instead of taking one step and the next, he stopped at each one, paused and caught his breath.
When they got inside, she thought about locking the door. The key was hanging on the inside, on a board that read home sweet home. “There’s a medicine cabinet in there,” James said, pointing into the main shop room.
Diana hadn’t seen it. She’d been too occupied searching the house and making sure it was clear.
“Let me check.” She went behind the counter. The owner of this place had a money box the same as the bakery, and it was open and empty the same way. That alone created a strange feeling in Diana’s gut. Did they all run from something? Just up and leave and only need cash? It seemed unlikely. There were pictures on the wall … pictures that seemed personal.
Guiltily, she opened the door to the cabinet. It was the usual medicinal things, packs of painkillers, plasters, and various first aid things. She grabbed two of the paracetamol blister packs and closed it.
“I was hoping they had antibiotics or something.”