by Ilze Hugo
“Strand Street. There isn’t enough time . . .”
“What?”
“Strand Street isn’t far enough. We still have to get all the way to Sea Point, on foot, before . . . If we had a car . . .”
“Don’t worry about that. It’s all sorted. I phoned a friend.”
- 79 - SANS
They came to a fork in the dark. “Left, we’re going left,” he said. His Nikes squelched as he walked. (Poor babies were having one hell of a rough week.) At the end of the tunnel, there was a small wooden door. “This is it,” he said. “We’re here.”
He pulled at the door. For a moment, the light blinded him. He blinked the white light away, opened his eyes again, almost couldn’t believe them. There, next to the road, waving at them through the rolled-down window of a white Toyota Hilux, was the sin-eater. Thank fuck.
“You came,” said Sans.
“Of course, boet. Of course,” said the sin-eater. “Come on, then. Don’t just stand there. Get in!”
- 80 - ATERI
Ateri was digging. Jamis was lying next to him, chewing and licking and slobbering on a big fat leather shoe. Thud, thud, thud went the shovel as it hit the dirt. Down, down, down spiraled Ateri’s thoughts as the hole sank deeper and the mound of brown earth beside him piled higher. Sweat stung his eyes. A jarful of curse words clogged his throat.
Done.
The shovel struck soil again.
He was done with being a muscle. He missed the family trade he was born into. Show business. The rush you get from a rapt crowd. He was a performer—always had been, always will be—not an enforcer.
Maybe it was time to go back to all that. But not street circus tricks this time. No. Something else. Ateri had never said this out loud to anyone, but he’d always thought he’d make a good comedian. He could be quite funny if he tried. And he loved coming up with new jokes. He was practicing his lines on Jamis all the time.
Maybe he’d talk to Konishiki. Ask him to hire him and Jamis at the comedy club. He could bartend or clean or help with bouncing when he wasn’t busy on stage. And when he was, Jamis could get in on the act, too. They could be a team. A comedy duo.
Ateri took the dead man by the arms and lowered him into the hole. He wrestled the chewed shoe from Jamis and chucked that in, too. The hyena gave a halfhearted growl, then slunk away to find something else to do.
As he shoveled dirt onto the dead man’s face, a plan took shape. It could work. He’d try. He’d really try this time. It was time.
- 81 - SANS
They found them in the holy hall, just like Anna said they would. The street rat was holding the gun, pointing it at the nun, her hands shaking violently. “I want my brother back!” she cried.
“I’m sorry,” said the nun, shaking her head, “but the dead aren’t meant to be kept as pets. It’s not right. They need to move on.”
“Pets!” screamed the rat. “How can you say that? My brother isn’t a pet!”
“I didn’t mean it like that. It doesn’t even hurt, the procedure. We only use a tiny spark of spiritual energy. Their spirits don’t even register it. There’s a faint whiff, like the smell a photocopier emits, then we send them right back where they belong.”
The girl’s head was swaying, her crazy hair doing this crazy jig to the tune of her whipping neck and her shaking hands. “You’re crazy. You’re a crazy old woman.”
“Don’t you realize this is all your fault?” It was the sin-eater, his eyes locked on the nun. “The riots. The souls. It’s all on you. You’re hoarding them. In these bottles. Tying them to this plane. They can’t move on.”
The nun turned her head. Noticed the three of them crowding the door. “Sans. Who is this man? What is he doing here? What is he talking about?”
“You really don’t know, do you?” said the fat man.
Then the old nun said something else, but Sans couldn’t hear it. He was watching the street rat now. There was this look in the kid’s eyes. Resolve. Her hands, which had been rattling earlier, were still. The dead collector had noticed it, too—she took a step forwards, holding her palms up in front of her. “This isn’t the way to fix things, Tomorrow. You know that. Give me the gun.”
“I thought you didn’t care,” said the rat.
“I do care,” pleaded the dead collector. “Please, give me the gun. There are other ways to fix this.”
Silent tears were streaming down the girl’s cheeks and the candles made the wet salt glitter like dew. “It’s too late for that,” she said softly.
“Please, kid,” Sans tried. “You can’t fight fire with fire. Take it from me.” What a stupid thing to say, he chided himself silently. But it was all he had.
“I don’t care. I don’t care anymore,” said the little rat. “Elliot. None of it matters without him. You don’t know what it’s like. To have no one . . .”
I do, kid, I do, Sans wanted to say. But he didn’t.
“She’s evil. She has to pay. Someone has to pay. For all of it.” The rat changed her grip on the gun. Her eyes spat brimstone now.
“Not now!” shouted the sin-eater. “Wait!”
The trigger clicked.
The girl looked down at the gun.
Then at Faith, her eyes a question mark.
The dead collector sighed. “Did you really think I’d leave a loaded gun in my glove compartment?”
- 82 - FAITH
“Did you really think I’d leave a loaded gun in my glove compartment?” Faith said, sucking in a breath of relief. Thank God, thank God, thank God Ash didn’t leave a loaded gun in my glove compartment.
Tomorrow’s whole body slumped. “I—I don’t know what else to do. I don’t know where Elliot is.”
Faith turned her attention to the burning orbs. There were hundreds of them. Hundreds. She was thinking of Jacob’s face, his burning, glowing face. She couldn’t see it anywhere. She couldn’t see Elliot, either. She remembered the sangoma’s words: You will find him if you let him go.
Then something in her mind clicked. “Forget about her. I know where Elliot is,” she told the girl, reaching out her hand. “Just give me the gun.”
- 83 - FRED
“She’s evil . . .” said the girl, but Fred didn’t hear the rest. Didn’t even hear the trigger click. All those glowing orbs. So many faces. He hadn’t been taking his little blue-and-yellow pills since Thursday. (That whole damn fight with Faith on Friday, it had unsettled him. Made him think. He couldn’t take the little pills after that.) And now the convent’s holy hall, that had previously just been a drab dark room with bleddie baie bottles and candles to him, was lit up like a soccer game at night, with lights in his eyes and spectators crowding the stands. So many spectators, all shouting to be heard, all screaming at him, trying to get his attention. Making it really bleddie hard to keep his eye on the ball.
“Not now!” he shouted at the orbs. “Wait!” Eye on the ball, boet, eye on the ball, he told himself. You used to be a cop jou donner—keep your eye on the ball, assess the scene, focus on what’s important. Focus. Drown out the voices, the faces, focus. Focus on the threats. The caretaker. The girl. The nun . . .
The nun. Something in the old woman’s eyes; she was looking at the caretaker, a flick of her wrist, and Fred knew what was to come. But it didn’t make a difference. The caretaker was too fast and Fred was too out of shape. The caretaker launched himself towards the girl and the gun. The gun clattered, skidded across the wood.
The girl fell, her body locked under the caretaker’s bulk.
- 84 - TOMORROW
The fall knocked the breath right out of her. The world went dark. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move, couldn’t see. Her head hurt. The smell of alcohol and sweat filled her nostrils until she wanted to choke. She could hear Faith shouting, but she couldn’t hear what.
The caretaker was pulling at her arms, trying to pin them behind her back. The claustrophobia, the weight of him, she needed to breathe, needed to get up, get o
ut. She screamed until her lungs burned and pulled with everything she had until one arm wedged free. Clawing at his hair, his ears, tearing at anything she could get a grip on. “Elliot!” she screamed. “What did you do with my brother, you bastard!”
A crash, and Tomorrow blacked out.
- 85 - MAJOR
Major screamed in pain and let go of the kid. As he let go, he fell against the candle-lit shelf. A kaleidoscope of fire and glass lit up the dark as the long shelf toppled over and a hundred candles tumbled down, their flaming tips kissing the wooden floor. He scrambled to his feet, pulling off his jacket. Saw Sans doing the same. Together they tried to choke the flames. But it didn’t help. The flames couldn’t be tamed. They were spreading too fast.
Smoke filled up the hall, blanking out the light. He looked around for Mother, but he couldn’t see her—the smoke was disorientating him. He didn’t know his left from his right.
“We have to go,” said Sans, pulling at his arm. “We have to get out of here. We have to go now!” But Major wasn’t going anywhere without Mother. He found her at the back of the hall, next to the tipped-over shelf. She was lying on her back. “Come!” he yelled, holding out his hand towards her. “Come.”
“No,” she answered. “I can’t. My leg. It’s caught underneath the shelf.”
“Help!” he called to Sans. Together they heaved at the shelf until their sweat turned to steam and their eyes were blind with smoke.
“It’s stuck,” said Mother. “It’s no use. Just go.” The roof was popping and crackling. Angry black waves rolled across the ceiling.
“We’ll go get help,” coughed Major. There were knives in his chest, so many knives. He had his shirt pulled up over his mouth, and so did Sans, but it wasn’t helping anymore.
“Go,” said Mother again, before exploding into a coughing fit. “The sisters. You have to warn the girls. The bell. In the garden. Go ring it. Wake them up.”
- 86 - SANS
The flames were rolling across the ceiling like a freight train without brakes. “The bell! You’ve got to find the bell!” he shouted to Faith. She nodded, and sprinted towards the garden, the bell. The fat man followed her, holding the girl in his arms.
Three quick bangs rang through the corridors. “Gunshots,” shouted Sans. The virus patrol!
“Not gunshots,” wheezed Major. “It’s the windows exploding.”
They started running. Down the open corridor. Towards the convent’s sleeping quarters. Panicked sisters were starting to stream out the doors. “Go, go, go!” the caretaker shouted at them. “To the garden! Out!”
Sans was helping the caretaker pull open the big double doors to the dining hall when he realized his back was feeling strangely light. And there was this weird pulling feeling against his wrist, like something was tugging him in the other direction. Fuck. The backpack. The strap must have broken in the shuffle. He’d lost it. The bag. The bloody book.
“I know, I know!” he screamed at the pull on his wrist. “I’m going back, fuck it, I’m going back!”
- 87 - FAITH
Crawling along the floor on their hands and knees towards the door, they left the smoke, and the flames and the orbs that glowed like the world was going to burst. The sin-eater was carrying the girl, who was sobbing quietly into his shoulder, covered in soot, a large red gash spitting blood from the back of her head.
“Is she going to be okay?” said Faith, eyes on the blood.
“She’ll be fine.”
“Where’s Sans?”
“I haven’t seen him since we reached the hallway; I think he’s with that tattooed guy with the wonky eye, trying to see if any of the sisters need help getting out. Come, we need to find the bell.”
“Elliot,” murmured the girl. “Elliot . . . we need to get Elliot . . .”
“He’s okay. He’s here.” Faith pulled the bottle out of her coat pocket and shoved it into the sin-eater’s palm. “Do you know how to get him out?” she asked him.
“Are you sure it’s the baby boy?” said the sin-eater. “It could be anyone in here. You don’t want to give her false hope.”
“I think so. Just tell me you know what to do? To get him out?”
“I’ll phone Pinky. We’ll figure it out.”
At the bottom of the garden, they found the bell. Next to Mary with her eyes downturned.
Fred covered the girl with his jacket, and laid her down on the grass.
The sound of the ringing bell bled into the dark, seeking out the last of the slumbering nuns, who swirled outside in twos and threes, clutching at their robes and coughing in fits as the smoke spiraled and the sulphurous smell of burnt hair clawed at their noses and throats.
But Faith didn’t hear it. Her brain had tuned the world on silent, and all she could see was her pulling arms on the bell cord, while her tongue tasted soot, her throat burned, and her brain sang the same childhood song on repeat:
Oranges and lemons,
say the bells of St. Clement’s.
You owe me five farthings,
say the bells of St. Martin’s.
When will you pay me?
say the bells of Old Bailey.
When I grow rich,
say the bells of Shoreditch.
When will that be?
say the bells of Stepney.
I do not know,
says the great bell of Bow.
Here comes a candle to light you to bed,
Here comes a chopper to chop off your head!
Chip chop chip chop—the last man’s dead.
- 88 - TOMORROW
The fat Afrikaans man gave her the bottle filled with Elliot’s beautiful brown locks. “Your brother’s in here,” he whispered. “We’re going to get him out.” He wasn’t wearing his mask and his moustache moved as he talked. But she trusted him. She couldn’t see Faith anywhere, and when she tried to move her neck it hurt, but she could hear the dead collector’s voice, over the noise of the fireworks. Fireworks? Was she starting to hallucinate? Why fireworks? Then the bell started ringing. And something came flying through the convent’s window, and landed a few meters away on the grass. A backpack.
“Elliot,” she whispered, gripping the bottle tight. “I did it. I found you. It’s going to be all right.”
- 89 - SANS
He was lying in the holy hall next to the window while the flames leapt higher and the smoke turned the world black. He wasn’t alone. Someone was sitting next to him on the floor, her hair glowing black, blue, indigo in the orange light.
“Hey, I thought you said you were going to leave me alone now,” he coughed.
His unicorn, Anna, smiled at him, and he smiled back.
“You did it, you saved the book,” she said.
“But I didn’t manage to save myself, did I? The door is blocked. Fucking roof beam or something.”
“Yes.”
“I’m not going to make it out of here, am I?”
“No. Not this time, kid.”
“Oh,” he said. “I guess I’m fine with that.”
Anna held out her hand and he took it. Was he imagining it, or was her indigo hair growing? Reaching out? No, it wasn’t a trick of the light, the strands were stretching towards him, snaking over his hands, his arms, his legs, his feet, his stomach, covering him like a blanket, a beautiful black cocoon. Enveloping him.
“Where am I going?”
“I don’t know,” she murmured. “It’s different for everyone.”
“Say,” he coughed as the strands started snaking over his eyes, his cheeks, his lips, his face. “Why the hell didn’t you just tell me who you were from the start? What you wanted from me? Why the charades?”
He could feel the strands streaking through his hair now. His mother used to stroke his hair like that. “Would you have listened?” she asked.
She grinned at him, her teeth a Cheshire crescent, a white moon of incisors blinking at him in the dark, and he wanted to laugh. He stifled the urge out of habit, b
efore he realized he didn’t need to anymore. “Probably not.” He cackled. “Probably not.”
- 90 - PIPER
After fleeing the crash that saved her life, Piper kept running. Up, up, into the fynbos folds of the mountain. Higher, higher. When she was finally certain she was alone, that no one was following her, she stopped and pulled her mask off. Drank in the beauty of the fynbos. Allowed herself to feel the sun on her lips. Then the corners of her mouth stretched outward. Until she was just teeth and no lips. Her body began to shake, but she didn’t have to keep it in anymore. Alone among the fynbos, she could finally laugh without fear—she didn’t have to pretend anymore. She gave in to the laughter, and her body shook with violent giggles. She let it all out, expunged it, until her muscles ached, but she could breathe again.
Feeling sober again, she pushed on. The plan was simple. Head up to the mountain’s table, find the death cult living up there, inside the old tourist café on top of the mountain. She’d heard they performed this ritual, before they injected you, a ritual to improve your chances of reincarnation. Piper had always liked the idea of reincarnation. A fresh start. A chance to try again. She’d read about a research professor of psychiatry at the University of Virginia, a Dr. Ian Stevenson, who’d done some incredible research on the topic, and it had given her hope.
Hope. It was all going according to plan, until the wind started up and a thick white mist erased the scenery. The world disappeared. And it became cold. So cold. Unimaginably cold.