by Jack Jewis
~
Back in his cabin, he couldn’t help smiling when he gave the raisins and nuts to Kim and saw her grab for them. Despite the grin, he just felt like getting into bed and pulling the sheet around him. He wanted to smother himself in darkness and sleep his way through the next month.
If even Goral’s sister was trapped in camp, what hope was there for the DCs? He had already seen what happened when you tried to escape. He didn’t even want to imagine the guards aiming their pistols at Kim and blowing a hole in her head.
The rest of the DCs were asleep in their beds. One bed, at the far end nearest the buckets, was empty. It had used to belong to the boy who had fallen first in the race.
“Where’s Theo?” said Eric.
Kim raised a palm full of nuts to her mouth.
“He won’t be coming back. Guards came in earlier. I thought it was just an inspection, but they pulled Theo out of bed and dragged him away.”
“This is Martin’s fault,” said Eric.
Martin had tripped Theo in the race. Eric knew that somebody had to fall first, and he was glad it wasn’t Kim. That didn’t mean he couldn’t feel sad for the boy. He glanced at the bunk across from him. Martin Wrench lay on it, fast asleep.
Eric’s face grew hot. He walked over to the bunk and prodded Martin’s side. When the boy didn’t wake, Eric shook him. Martin turned over drowsily.
“Mum?” he said.
Eric grabbed him and pulled him off the bunk. Martin fell to the floor, and other DCs started to stir when they heard the bang. Martin put his hand to his face and rubbed his eyes.
“What the hell?” he said.
Eric pointed.
“See that?” he said, gesturing at the empty bed. “See what your little trick did?”
He wanted to punch Martin. Blood rushed to his cheeks, and he realised he was clenching his fists.
“Leave it, Eric,” said Kim. She glanced through the window to see if the commotion had brought the attention of the guards.
Martin got to his feet. Eric was ready to hit him, when the boy spoke.
“I was just scared,” he said, scratching his ear. “I didn’t want them to take me. I didn’t know what else to do.”
Eric felt a hand on his shoulder. Kim gently pulled him away.
“Come on,” she said. “Don’t get us into trouble.”
Eric shrugged her away. He walked over to his bed and laid down on it. Something nipped at his arm, but when he looked down, he couldn’t see anything. Great, he thought. Fleas.
He looked at Martin as the boy trundled back to bed. Eric didn’t want to admit it, but he was scared too. He was terrified of what would happen if they tried to escape, but even worse were the consequences of staying. He thought of Goral and Allie in the cabin, and of Marta’s warning to him. He pulled his sheet up to his chin. When the time came, he hoped he was brave enough to risk escape. He owed it to Kim.
Chapter Sixteen
Ed
“I feel as weak as Ed’s arms,” said The Savage.
He shifted on the ground. The trees were getting sparser now, but when they looked up, all they saw was a night sky so black that it even smothered out the stars. After a full day of walking they had decided to stop and rest. They could have lit a fire, but none of them wanted to risk it. Ed didn’t even think he’d be able to sleep. All day he’d had the feeling of something following them, and every so often, terrible shrieks came from deep in the forest.
“Just get some sleep,” said Ed. “We’ll talk in the morning.”
The Savage sat up. His movements were weary, and rather than seeming like a puppy, now he reminded Ed of an old dog.
“Why risk it?” he said. “Prolong it all you want, but we all know what you’ll have to do, Ed. Here.”
The Savage reached into his pocket and took out a penknife. He threw it across the ground. Ed picked up the blade at his feet and held it. He knew that he was going to have to give The Savage his blood, but he couldn’t face letting another man drink from him. The idea seemed brutal, like something no person should ever have to think about. No matter how the idea sickened him, was he willing to let The Savage turn? Would it be any better to see the man die and then have to deal with him as an infected?
“We’re not getting out of Loch-Deep anytime soon. Ripeech put paid to that,” said The Savage.
Bethelyn scoffed. “If this Ripeech even exists, he’s just a wolf or something. Whoever blocked the shortcut, it wasn’t your mythical beast. There are no monsters.”
This time it was The Savage’s turn to scoff. “No monsters? Did you have your eyes shut on Golgoth?”
“That was different. The infected aren’t monsters. They’re different, somehow. More like us than anything else.”
“Because they still have the faces of the people you know?” said The Savage. “Sometimes they’re the worst, sweetheart.”
Bethelyn rubbed her eyes. “Don’t call me that.”
“So what now?” said Ed.
The Savage stretched his arms. “My ship’s out of the question, obviously. The shortcut is blocked. That leaves us one option. Cut through the heart of Loch-Deep and walk across Ripeech’s lawn.”
“And what about him? The thing that’s out there?” said Ed. Unlike Bethelyn, Ed knew that the shrieks and cries they heard didn’t come from a wolf or any animal like that. They were something else.
“I don’t know,” said The Savage.
Ed leaned back in surprise. It was the first time he’d ever heard The Savage entertain self-doubt. Something about it worried him. He stared at the man’s face and saw the bags under his eyes. The infection was waking inside him, and it wouldn’t be long until it swam in blood and poured into every cell in his body.
He gripped the penknife in his hand. He slid the blade up out of the plastic, and held it against his thumb. The Savage stared at him with hungry eyes. Ed didn’t want to do it, but he knew that without The Savage, both he and Bethelyn would die in Loch-Deep.
The Savage passed him a plastic bottle. They’d found it in the woods nestled in a mound of twigs, and The Savage had cut off the end of it to make it into a cup.
Ed pricked his thumb with the blade. He jerked back at the pain. Blood welled in his skin where the knife had pierced, and he held it over the container. As he watched his blood drip into the plastic, he wondered what kind of world he’d found himself in. At one point in his life his biggest worry had been the prospect of having to get a job. He wondered what would have happened if he had been infected. Would he have had the survival instinct to drink someone’s blood, or worse, eat their flesh?
His blood looked thick as it ran down the side of the plastic. Across from him, The Savage eyed it lustily. For a second, he looked more animal than man.
There was no choice really, he knew. Without this man, despicable as he was, they’d never get out of Loch-Deep. He’d never find James. They lived in a world where this sort of thing was necessary. Probably accepted, even. Ed shuddered when he imagined what had become of the Mainland. Even if this Ripeech was real, he wondered if worse monsters awaited him in whatever towns and cities that had survived.
James was out there somewhere. The last member of what was already a small family, even before his parents died. He had to get to them. But then there was Ripeech. It was following them. He sensed it, and he smelled it. Sometimes, in the dark, he heard its cries shriek through the forest, and there was something almost human about them.
“Here,” said Ed.
As he passed the container to The Savage, his blood swished in the bottom. The Savage held it in front of him.
“What’s the matter?” said Ed.
The Savage held it to his eye level.
“My blood not good enough for you?”
“I just hate the taste,” said The Savage.
He pinched his nose with one hand, and with the other he tipped the blood into his mouth. He made a slurping sound as he drank. At one point he moved the containe
r away from his mouth and retched, but he wasn’t sick. He took a deep breath and then drank the rest down.
“You’ve got some on your mask,” said Bethelyn.
The Savage wiped the mouthpiece of his mask, and then fastened it back up.
“What if we refused to give you blood?” said Ed. “What would you have done?”
“He’d have killed us,” said Bethelyn. She glanced at The Savage. “Wouldn’t you?”
The Savage set the container beside him. He thought about the question for a few seconds.
“I expect I would,” he said.
As they sat in silence, a cry pierced through the night. It was so loud and so full of pain that a shudder ran through Ed. He had the urge to run and find somewhere small and safe; somewhere enclosed where he was sure of the walls around him and didn’t feel so exposed.
“So why don’t you just do it?” said Bethelyn. “The blood won’t hold off the infection long, will it?”
“A couple of days at most,” said The Savage.
“And flesh is different?”
“Flesh would keep it at bay for a month.”
“So why lead us out of here? Why not just stab us in our sleep and then cook us up?”
Ed sat up. He stared into The Savage’s eyes. The blood on his mask was already drying around the mouthpiece. He stared at his eyes and saw weakness in them. Finally, he understood something about The Savage.
“I think you want us to stay with you,” he said. “You want to stay human, that’s why you don’t kill us. You’re worried that if you carried on the way you were going, you were turning more monster than person. That about right?”
The Savage thought about it. He put the container in his pocket and then lay back on the ground.
“Get some sleep,” he said. “And wake me if Ripeech comes.”
Chapter Seventeen
Heather
In the glimmer of the fire she saw the cruel expressions of the Capita soldiers. She leaned forward and felt the heat on her face, and the sensation sent prickles along her skin. Shifting position was a chore with bound hands, and if she moved even an inch the soldiers would watch her. Before tying her up, they’d checked her pockets and taken the rock that she had concealed.
They hadn’t told her their names, so she had decided to call them Stone Face and Grandpa. One of them had features that looked like they had been carved into a rock. The other had hair so white that she had to look up to see if it was snowing. Despite how grumpy Stone Face looked, he had a soft voice. Grandpa spoke with a growl.
“You used to work at the camp, I heard,” said Stone Face.
Grandpa put his hands against the flames. He got so close that Heather almost felt her own skin burn, but the older man didn’t seem to notice the heat.
“I was at Dam Marsh for a while,” he answered.
Stone Face tapped his fingers on his trousers as if he couldn’t stay still even when sat down.
“Is it true about the doctor? Scarsgill?”
“What about him?”
“I heard he’s a freak. That he’s into all sorts of weird shit.”
Grandpa pulled his hands away from the fire. “I knew a woman at camp who used to sleep with him. He was a cold bastard, but she told me that when he screwed her, the bed nearly collapsed. He just went at it like an animal. Then when he was done, he would lay back, all stiff-like and just stare at the ceiling.”
Stone Face smiled. “Weird.”
“Yeah. Apparently he couldn’t sleep at night because of the sounds of the infected on the perimeter.”
Stone Face leaned in closer to his friend.
“Is it true what they say about you?”
Grandpa huffed. “I told them not to put me with a chatty partner,” he said. “And they sent me you. Think they’re punishing me.”
“Come on. Just tell me.”
“Fine,” said Grandpa. “It’s true. I’m infected.”
“So what do you take for it? Blood or flesh?”
“Flesh. It means unpleasantness once a month, rather than four times a week. You get to my age and you can’t face looking at a cup of blood every other morning.”
Heather knew where the blood and flesh came from. If she thought she’d even get a second to try it, she would have pounced on Grandpa and smashed his face in. It sickened her that he could talk so brazenly about having to eat another person’s flesh.
The night before, they’d stopped. Heather had been so exhausted that she’d fallen asleep, but it wasn’t long before she bolted awake covered in sweat. She’d dreamed of Kim, and she had seen her in Camp Dam Marsh. Scared and alone. Watching the people around her get killed and have their bodies drained of blood and stripped of their flesh. Somewhere in her mind, Heather knew that would happen to her daughter, too, but she couldn’t think about it. All she could focus on was finding her and getting her back.
“So is it as bad as they say at Dam Marsh?” said Stone Face.
Grandpa gave him a sideways look. His face was so serious Heather doubted he’d ever given a real smile in his life.
“Worse in some ways. Depends what you think about them.”
“Them?”
“The Darwin’s Children. You’re a young guy, and you’ve probably had the Capita’s lessons planted deep in you. You’ll probably go right up to your sergeant when we’re back in the Dome and tell him what I’ve said. I don’t care anymore, to be honest. Here’s the truth; Dam Marsh is a horrible place. It’s inhuman. And sometimes, I can’t even look at myself.”
Stone Face looked at the ground. “I feel that way too sometimes,” he mumbled.
“Then why do you think we do it?”
Stone Face shrugged his shoulders.
“I’ll tell you why,” said Grandpa. “It’s fear. That’s what makes us go along. I mean, look at me. The white hair isn’t a fashion choice, you know. I’m getting old. Soon enough my body will give out and I won’t be able to work as a soldier anymore. What do you think the Capita will do to me then? Throw me a retirement party and buy me a gold watch?”
“Then why don’t you do something else?”
Grandpa leaned forward. “Like I said. Same reason most people go along with Ishkur and his friends. Fear.”
Heather watched the men as they chatted. It wasn’t an excuse, she knew. Being scared didn’t forgive your actions. Fear was a dividing line that separated the good from the bad. The people who gave in to fear didn’t suddenly get a clear conscience.
She thought about Kim at camp. She wondered if the doctor, Scarsgill, had done something to her. Maybe he’d focus on the adults first, and then work his way to the children. Heather didn’t like thinking this way. She didn’t want her moral code to be tainted grey, let alone black. But when it was your own daughter, morals meant nothing.
I sound like them, she thought. But maybe that was the only way to get her back.
She shuffled on the ground.
“I need the toilet,” she said.
Grandpa looked at her.
“Then wet yourself. I’m not falling for the old ‘I need a wee’ trick. In fact, I’m not letting you anywhere near me.”
Stone Face got to his feet. “Speaking of that, I need to go see a man about a piss.”
Stone face walked away from the fire. As he left, his Capita uniform blended into the darkness around him, and soon enough Heather was left alone with Grandpa. Sometimes he looked at her and he got a sneaky look on his face, as if the cogs of his mind were trying to turn and it wouldn’t be long until he let them.
This would be her only chance, she knew. The problem was that her hands were bound, so there was nothing she could do. She looked at the fire as it twisted and spat. I’ll do anything, she thought. She braced herself. This was going to hurt, but it would be the only way.
Before Grandpa could react, Heather rolled herself over into the middle of the fire. The flames nipped at her skin, and her neck started to sting. She couldn’t help crying out.
“Holy shit,” he said.
He rushed over to her. Heather rolled across the ground, extinguishing the flames on the mud. The soldier got to his knees and put a hand on her. Heather leapt on him, knocking him over onto his back.