Fox swore and Day dropped down.
“They’ll have heard that. Move!” he whispered.
Day all but threw himself over the edge. At that moment his memory was blank. He had no idea how things had gone before, when he was headed the other way. All he knew was that for a bright and searing moment he was convinced he was doing the wrong thing. It was for this act Finn had given his life and now Anu hers. Perhaps even the nameless woman who had been taken from him so many weeks ago had played her part.
He went so quickly he forgot to unlash the blanket. Although Fox grabbed a part and, in pulling on it, almost dislodged Day in his descent, in the end they were left with Day dropping to the ground and Fox up on the platform without the time nor opportunity to anchor it.
Nevertheless, Fox did his best. After hanging perilously from the ledge, he touched the side only once on his way down. He landed with a bone-jarring crack and rolled instantly to one side clutching his leg. Day, only a short way off and scanning the night for signs of surveillance, hurried over and helped him upright.
Fox was hissing about his leg when Day said, “Swallow your pain. We have to get away.” Without further correspondence he started them into the field, his arm around the limping man’s shoulder. He could’ve been helping his father in from the day’s work. Instead the spectre of assassination loomed over them both.
Day remembered his frantic run when he first touched down over the other side. The latest hobbling effort made a mockery of his hopes for stealth. Eventually Fox cursed and demanded they stop and Day dropped down in the wet dirt and scowled behind them while Fox clutched his leg and swore some more.
“Is it broken?”
“Of course it is.”
Day tried to look over his companion’s shoulder, but not much was clear in the murky light. Day was suitably surprised when Fox gave a wrench and his right leg came off at the knee.
While Day watched, his ashen-faced companion shook the leg. Sand and a number of plastic-wrapped objects fell onto the ground with soft thuds.
“That’s where you keep everything?” Day asked.
“Hmmm. Where else did you think I meant?”
Day played the silent trick again and saved himself the embarrassment.
“Do you think they’re wise to us?” he then asked.
“They must’ve heard something. A herd of antelopes would be quieter,” Day said. With a slight pang he realised how far he had come from where that comparison meant anything.
Fox screwed up his face. “You didn’t exactly help.”
“I’m sorry.”
“A little warning would’ve helped.”
Day dipped his head, contrite, and knew he could’ve briefed Fox better. Anu’s head exploding into bloody fragments had killed his sense of camaraderie.
“Here, you can carry one of these. We’re lucky the damned things didn’t go off in the fall. They’re old enough. Unpredictable little fellas.”
Fox passed a short canister into Day’s hand. The neo-Neolithic had no idea what it was until Fox explained the workings of the grenade. It wasn’t a very comforting thought. The pistol had been colder comfort. Day put the grenade into the little satchel with the hooks.
“Now we can celebrate,” Fox said wryly.
“Yes,” Day said. “It looks like we made it over.” His throat felt strangely dry as he swallowed his grief.
Fox rummaged around in the cloth sack that normally accompanied his belt. With minimal clanking he produced half-a-dozen little cans and dropped them in the space between himself and Day.
“Your lady-friend wasn’t the only one thinking with her stomach.” Fox refrained from smiling, but it was the friendliest thing he’d said yet. His voice was gentle-toned when speaking about Anu.
Day picked up a can. It was disc-shaped. The label had long-since frayed away. Brushing his fingers over the stamp he could spell out the words: crème caramel. It was the sweetest thing he’d ever eaten. While he licked the can empty, nicking his tongue in several places, tears refused to come, though he did groan occasionally, halfway between pleasure and abject misery. He forced himself to eat the next one too, though no appetite existed. He’d gone beyond that. He felt like he wasn’t so much eating the canned peas as slotting the missing nutrients back into the chemical apparatus of his body. Fox ate the contents of three of the tins and gave the last one to Day, who slipped it solemnly into his pack.
They both slept for a while, Fox not as long as Day, or so Day suspected. The sun was well up, but the sky was grey and swollen when Day turned over in the runnel in which they had sheltered. Now Day’s appetite returned with sickening clarity and he sat up and made a face as he imagined the tubes of his stomach sticking together like collapsed plastic sheeting.
Day fumbled out the remaining can, the tattered label reading ‘cream corn’. Across from him, Fox was fidgeting with his prosthetic leg, the combat knife in his hand like a screwdriver.
“Will you walk on it again?”
“I’m going to need a staff or something to lean on,” Fox said, not looking up.
Day popped the seal on the can and Fox looked across to see what he was doing before returning attention to the leg. Shaking his head, he pulled back the tattered bottom of his black trousers and strapped the prosthesis onto a scarred and ugly pink-looking stump.
“I won’t be running again in a hurry, that’s for sure.”
“What about climbing?”
Fox regarded him narrowly for a moment as if tempted to pass comment. Instead he said, “I don’t need to go over another wall if Kvelda really is here. We’ll start looking for her today.”
“We need food. Water, more importantly.”
“We’ll need water, true. Is there a bore here?”
“In the Huddle,” Day said and motioned.
“Any weirdness here I should be aware of?”
“No priests. No.”
Fox grunted. “As far as food goes, twenty-four hours after we locate my daughter we’ll be dining on k-rations courtesy of the old US army. If you can hold on till then we’ll save time.”
“What’s the plan?”
“This thing here,” Fox said. He held up a black, plastic-wrapped tube only a few inches long. “It’s a radio transmitter. I’ve got friends listening to a select frequency. They’ll come when I call.”
Day frowned slowly. “The farm is well guarded.”
“Don’t you worry about it.”
“I guess you’ll want me to do the running around?”
“You’re stuck with me till I get something else to lean on,” Fox said.
Day went quiet for most of a minute. “The ghouls have helicopters. You know that?”
“Yeah I know it. I never said it was going to be easy, son.”
“Alright. Just making sure.”
“Yeah. Too early for your hopes to be up yet.” Fox chuckled without much conviction. “Now come on. I need to find my little girl. I can’t tell you what this’s like, being so close finally.”
With Day’s help Fox limped around, the plastic leg completely unreliable, broken in some way Day didn’t understand. They moved towards the Huddle for water and because it seemed the most sensible way to start. As they approached, moving too slowly across the open terrain, Fox’s eyes flicked feverishly from one person to the next. He was sweating profusely too. He suddenly looked like a crazy man.
“Day.”
He turned at the sound of his own name and saw Carlos standing there in the middle of a cluster of people, each of his big hands around the plastic handles of two enormous bottles of water.
Carlos dropped the bottles and started forward. Day’s bright enthusiasm fizzled as Carlos came forward, frowning and pitching his voice low. If he had been talking or trading with the people around him, he didn’t show it and nor did they, moving away more slowly, several of them glancing around.
Fox stood at Day’s elbow as featureless as a lamp-post. Nonetheless, Carlos couldn’t hel
p but notice him, including Fox in his suggestive glare before he’d even spilled a word.
“What’s going on, compadre?” Carlos snapped his eyes around quickly, on the lookout for anyone taking too great an interest. “You’re meant to be gone.”
“I came back,” Day said. It sound a stupid thing to say, even to him.
“Alone?”
Day followed the stare and said, “No. This is Fox.” He’d left the older man balancing on his own. Out of pity and self-concern, Day moved back a pace and took his newest associate’s shoulder. “Fox came over the wall with me. We’re looking for his daughter.”
“Careful,” Fox said.
“What’s that got to do with anything?” Carlos acted like he hadn’t heard Fox’s subliminal caution, as if to do so would give away his act that everything was normal.
“Things have gotten confused,” Day acknowledged with a nod.
“Confused or haywire, boy?” Carlos looked at Fox for the first time head-on. “What’s your story?”
“Just like Day said,” Fox answered coolly. “My daughter’s been spotted here. I aim to get her back.”
Carlos looked at Day. “Anyone I know?”
“No.”
“Good. What then?”
“Then?”
“Yeah. Like, once you’ve found her?”
“Oh.” Day resisted the temptation to look towards Fox, knowing he was slipping into a subservient role. He only half-succeeded.
“We’ll see.”
“A lot of effort to go to without a plan.”
Fox said, “We’ve got a way out of here. Don’t you worry about that.”
“You gonna take Day with you, old man?”
“I’m sticking to my bargain,” Fox said.
“Carlos, Fox has already saved my hide once,” Day cautioned.
“I hear you, bucko,” Carlos said. He smiled a little too gleefully, flashing his big strong uneven teeth. “Getting to be a habit. I thought you were going solo?”
“That was the plan. A lot’s changed in a short time.”
“Glad to see you safe and sound though,” Carlos said.
Day smiled. “Likewise.”
Carlos kept smiling, but he cooled as his attention slowly switched to Fox and then back to Day. “Well so much for old time. I’ll let you two love-birds take a break. Maybe I’ll catch you on your lonesome some time soon, Day.”
“Yeah, maybe,” Day said, unsure how Fox would feel about his answer and even less certain whether he should care.
Carlos nodded tersely to the older man and walked back casually to his water bottles, crouching to pick the heavy things up with no apparent effort and then slow-marching away. Before he’d gone more than forty paces Fox was close alongside and scowling.
“Who the hell is that?”
“Come on. This is home ground for me. You’ve got to expect me to have some contacts,” Day said.
Fox looked at Carlos’s slowly diminishing back. “That contact looks a little too cagey for me.”
Day couldn’t help smirking. He knew if Fox knew Carlos’s full story he’d probably want to rub him out then and there as a future precaution. Day fancied Fox wouldn’t understand the nature of Carlos’s resolve nor the jam in which the perennial survivor was caught.
“He came from the bore. Let’s scrounge something to drink,” Day said at last.
They moved over to the water and Day found a couple of cracked, sun-yellowed bottles with which to draw a drink. They both drained their containers several times before even bothering to speak. People got used to hunger and thirst. There was no one around who was going to sympathise if they complained. All the same, Day was amazed he’d made it so long since before the priests caught him and left him out to die.
With a palpable sense of irony it began to rain as they trudged further between the patchy shanty dwellings in the Huddle. As the rain fell heavier and heavier a few scuffles broke out for control of the nearest shelters. Elsewhere, long faces looked out from under tarpaulins that might as well have been veils. Day felt like he was an exhibit in a zoo even though it was him walking free between the enclosures.
The rain kept the helicopters away all that afternoon and then night fell. With watching the skies the only real positive entertainment on the farm, a pall of dejection fell across the hex as wide-reaching and grey as the weather. When night began closing in, Day and Fox found a corner where a group of people had cooperated to pitch their sheets and blankets and they tucked in there with a few cautious words.
Day wondered silently whether hiding out among a group would bring the vampires down on them. In all the chaos he’d almost forgotten they were the enemy against whom he’d honed his skills, forged weapons and practised to defeat. Despite his newly-unlocked powers, vague and undefined as they were, Day felt a touch of dread at the back of his throat at the prospect of testing his luck yet one more time.
Fox fell into a soundless sleep, squatting with his shorter leg tucked up beneath him. The steady beat of the rain and the mindless moping chatter of the other people in the shelter eventually wore away Day’s tensions too. Hypnotised into sleep, he curled on his side with his boots out in the rain and he woke only haphazardly until first light came again.
The rain stopped in the morning. Day’s stomach gave a low gurgle as he sat upright, daylight and drops of water breaking over his head as someone removed their contribution from the temporary shelter.
“You slept a long time,” Fox said.
Day hawked phlegm and spat into a puddle. “I was tired. Now I’m hungry.”
“Maybe we’ll find food before we cross Kvelda’s path.”
Day muttered something only half-intelligible and creakily stood. Fox helped himself upright and then clamped his hand on Day’s shoulder.
“The damn leg’s angry about that fall. I’ll need you to help me.”
Day lowered his eyelashes in acknowledgement. He’d already gleaned Fox’s need, but something about the latest summary made Day wonder that the old man wasn’t hurting worse than before. The crinkling around Fox’s eyes seemed as much about emotional armour as mere squinting against the wintry brightness.
They left the cover as it was pulled apart. Day hoped the rain kept away, knowing how it wouldn’t be every night some group would let them freeload. Day had abandoned his own plastic sheeting prior to his first venture over the wall. Now the rain was little more than a fine haze obscuring the distance.
“This way,” Day gestured. At his shoulder, Fox followed.
They went north from the Huddle, moving slowly as Fox required, each of them scanning the crowds carefully and for their own reasons. Day found it hard to believe the old man was as impervious to hunger as he made out. Day himself wasn’t yet anaesthetised to his discomfort, and though it wasn’t audible, he was aware of his stomach letting out long, uncomfortable groans as they moved along.
The pair was about two hundred-and-fifty yards from the northernmost edge of the Huddle when Day spotted a young man and two women standing talking, the man with a blue head-covering gesturing quickly, the women answering back equally as fast. Day hardly paid any heed to the scene, eyes locked instead on the leg of meat held over the man’s shoulder.
He started forward, leaving Fox to hobble slowly after him. His silver-haired companion’s questions went unanswered as Day drew the hook-bladed knife and came in towards the group without speaking. Their excited talk in a language he couldn’t recognise drowned out the sound of Day’s boots crunching on the sandy soil.
The young man’s brown eyes swirled towards him at the last moment. He raised his gesturing arm, but it was useless to ward against the knife strike. Day caught his victim twice in the side, blood instantly saturating the off-white and faded blue folds of cloth.
The women started shrieking, leaping back uselessly with their hands to their dark faces as the male staggered awkwardly to one side, the hand with the leg of meat hanging heavily downwards. Day growled and r
eached for the man’s wrist and stabbed again and broke the blade of the knife off against his ribs.
“What are you doing? What are you doing?” the man cried, making no effort to resist when Day prised the knob from his hand.
Day threw down the broken knife and backed away holding the meat like a club. It was heavy and, despite the smell, he was already salivating. Next to his hunger a little bloodshed was nothing. Whatever part of him that might’ve once been alarmed now simply didn’t exist.
The stabbed man continued to gasp implorations as if he cared more for an excuse than medical attention, but Day drew further and further away until the women felt safe to swarm over the young man again, pulling him to the ground to treat his wounds. Day turned his back and started ripping strips of meat from the leg as he walked the last few steps back to Fox.
“Got your appetite back I see,” Fox said.
Day swallowed a long bloody shred and tipped his head back. “Want some?”
“Wouldn’t mind cooking it first.”
“How long have you been trapped here? You can’t always be so choosy,” Day said to him.
They walked away from the scene of his crime and it wasn’t long before they’d moved on far enough it was almost easy to pretend it had never happened. Day vigorously reduced the meat on the bone until he was satisfied and then threw the grisly mess away. His chin was stained red with slaver.
In the afternoon they began to circle the hex in a clockwise fashion, exchanging sporadic words on a variety of subjects, Fox too terse and preoccupied to really explore anything seriously. Day was in no doubt about the direction where his companion’s thoughts lay. Fox was like a caged animal who couldn’t think of anything except the life he’d left behind. It was only by teasing out more details of the resistance effort Fox and his community had been waging over the past two decades that the conversations left Day with anything to contemplate at all.
It was inevitable that they would run into Kvelda and in the mid-afternoon, almost all the way around on the southern edge of the hex, Day spotted the red-haired girl in the distance with a group of eight others.
Despite his injuries, Fox limped ahead of Day towards the group. Day knew it was important for the older man to have a few moments unobserved with his daughter, even if they were but a few, and Day was at least willing to grant him that. He only worried Fox might not keep his eyes open to all possibilities, including the less than happy ones. While Day had already imagined a number of scenarios in which Kvelda and Fox’s reunion might be less than ideal, as the distance closed between them, Day could see that the girl was at least keeping the same company as last time.
Endless Night Page 18