by Jack Jewis
A guard approached them. His face and neck were a sickly white. He looked like a man he, Mum and Luna met on the road once. The man asked Mum if she ‘had anything on her’ and offered all his food and clothes. Mum said ‘Like what?’ and the man pointed to his nose and sniffed. Eric remembered thinking how ill he looked.
A Capita guard walked toward the man and the children. He held a long knife that was unlike anything the guards usually carried. The handle was green and there were spaces gouged into it for his fingers, and the blade was jagged and blunt. There was a strange look in his eyes, as though he was hungry for something. Eric knew how well the guards ate, so he couldn’t have needed food.
“You’re not getting anywhere near them,” said the man.
The guard laughed. He held his knife up, as if to remind them that he had it.
Eric watched as an infected walked up behind the guard. He wondered if he should say something, but he decided not to. He waited just long enough to see the infected grab the guard by the shoulders, and then he turned his back on him.
He was about to run when the lab door opened twenty feet in front of him. A man stepped out. As soon as he moved out of the dark doorway, Eric saw that it was Dr. Scarsgill. His face was drained of colour, and a lump stuck out on his forehand from where he had hit the floor after Eric injected him.
Scarsgill walked out onto the yard. He saw Eric and he stopped and stared at him. He couldn’t stand straight, swaying as though the breeze was blowing him.
“You don’t know what you’re doing, Eric,” he said.
“I’m not letting you touch my sister.”
“This isn’t for fun. I know some of the sick bastards here and what they do. I don’t really have a choice in the matter; the Capita sends who it sends. But you and your sister are worth more to me than that. You could mean so much to the whole of the Mainland. Come with me, Eric. Bring your sister and let me help everyone.”
Eric shook his head. He knew he couldn’t trust Scarsgill, same as he couldn’t trust the other adults. Even Marta had let him down. He knew that she’d never actually agreed to help, but going missing at the exact time he needed her felt like a betrayal.
Scarsgill walked toward him. Eric looked to his right. The infected was gone now, having finished with the guard and decided to chase the DC man and the two children. Eric walked over to the guard and picked up his knife. He expected the man to open his eyes and then give a groan, filled with hunger only the infection could give.
There was a rumbling noise. He looked around him, but couldn’t see anything making it. Then a whistle cut through the air and covered the entire camp. It came from the train. Eric saw that beyond the lab, steam drifted from the top of the vehicle.
Someone had started the train. They’d worked out how to switch on the engine, and they were going to leave him behind.
He patted his pocket and heard it rattle. He had the keys with him, so how had they done it? Unless Goral’s keys weren’t for the train.
“I need to go now,” he told the doctor.
For a few seconds they just stared at each other. Scarsgill was weak, and even though the knife in Eric’s hands felt too heavy for him to use properly, Eric knew he had the advantage. He didn’t know what the doctor was going to do. Was he that desperate to capture Eric that he was willing to die?
Moans came from behind him. The infected walked across camp, having killed every guard and DC that they could reach. The rest of the DCs were on the train, Eric knew, but he wondered how many had made it.
He looked at the doctor. He didn’t want to, but he knew he was going to have to kill him. He gripped the knife in his hand and prepared to charge.
Scarsgill held up his hands. He had the sagging shoulders of a man with no fight left in him.
“Just promise me one thing,” he said.
Adrenaline drenched Eric’s veins. He heard the infected trailing their feet across the gravel behind him. In front, reams of smoke curled into the air. Eric ran his free hand through his hair and felt sweat coat his palm.
The doctor sighed. “If you make it far enough across the Mainland, go and see my colleague. I mean it, Eric, the cure is in your blood. You and your sister.”
“She’s not my real sister, you know.”
Scarsgill didn’t say anything for a minute, as if he was processing the information.
“Then the girl is more important than you can imagine. Go and see my colleague. He lives in a town called Kiele. His name is Dr. Rushden.”
Scarsgill turned and walked away. He went into his lab and shut the door behind him. Eric couldn’t believe it had been that easy. Perhaps the doctor was telling the truth, and that all he was interested in was helping the people of the Mainland. Whatever the reason for leaving him alone was, he would think about it later.
When Eric finally got to the train he found Kim stood outside it. Smoke chuffed up into the sky and hung above them like a cloud, and the roar of the engine was so loud that it was hard to talk. The train was three carriages long and there was a section at the front for the driver. Something had once been painted on the sides of it, but the Capita had chipped it away to show the bare metal.
Eric was about to say something, when Kim stepped forward and hugged him. When they parted, Eric felt warm inside. Then he heard the rasping of the infected coming from camp, and he became aware of the hour glass over his head and the sand draining away.
“Who started the train?”
“Go see for yourself,” said Kim.
He walked to the front and opened the driver’s door. He climbed the steps and was about to step in. Marta Vitch was sat in the driver’s seat. She had blood all over her chin and cheeks, and there was a bulge the size of an apple above her nose. When she saw him, she nodded.
Across from her, tied to a chair in the corner, was Goral Vitch. The old man sat calmly, as if he was ready for a pleasant afternoon trip. Despite knowing the ropes had bound Goral to the chair, Eric felt ice run through him.
“There will be time for stories later,” said Marta. “You need to get into one of the carriages and calm everyone down. We will go as soon as the engine is ready.”
He climbed outside. The sky had darkened so that it looked like a vat of oil. Kim stood outside one of the carriages with a throng of DCs around her. He could see that they were firing questions quicker than she could answer, and some of the adults towered over her.
“Where are we going? Do you even know?”
“What will we eat?”
“Who’s the old woman driving the train?”
Eric felt mad. Even after everything that he and Kim had done, they didn’t get any thanks. Instead the adults leaned over Kim and shouted at her. As soon as they had gotten far enough away on the train, he was done, he decided. He and Kim would just leave the rest of them and go somewhere quiet and safe. Eventually, he’d find Mum and Luna, and then they’d search for Heather.
A man stood over Kim and pointed his finger at her. He was about to ask a question when a bullet ripped through his head. Blood splashed all over Kim’s face and covered her skin in crimson dots. The man slumped onto her and knocked her to the ground.
Seconds later the air was filled with the cracking of gunfire. A unit of guards stood near the lab. They lined up in file and held automatic rifles at chest height, resting the butt against their bodies and aiming down the sights.
This was the final plan, Eric realised. The last contingency that the Capita had for Camp Dam Marsh. Even though the infected crept through the yard toward them, the guards only cared about the DCs. They obviously had orders that if the camp fell, then they had to kill as many as possible.
The men and women outside the carriage started to scream as bullets ripped through their clothes and into their flesh. Eric watched as they fell, most not even putting their arms out to stop their faces hitting the floor. Some went limp so suddenly it was as if an off switch had been flipped.
The guards’ guns rattled a
nd smoke left their barrels in wisps. Eric sprinted forward. He didn’t care if one of the bullets hit him. His only concern was Kim, who was struggling under the weight of the dead man slumped on top of her. She pushed against his chest until her face went red, but she couldn’t move him. A bullet bored into the man’s leg and jolted his whole body as if he was having a spasm. Eric grabbed his arm and dragged him away. Bullets dug into the ground around his feet.
“Get on the carriage,” he told Kim.
The sound of the train engine turned from a rumble into a roar. The whistle sounded, louder even than the gunfire of the guards and moans of the infected. The wheels slowly started to turn, the pistons moving from left to right at a speed that almost seemed slow motion. Eric helped Kim over to the carriage, opened the door and pushed her up the steps.
Bullets sunk into the metal of the carriage. One was so close to Eric’s head that he felt a rush of wind on his ear, and the bang as it hit the steel made his eardrum pop.
The train started to edge its way along the tracks. As the gunfire peppered the ground around him, Eric heaved himself up onto the vehicle. He shut the door behind him.
The carriage was filled with scared-looking DCs. They seemed even weaker than they had been the last time they had been on a train. The guards of Camp Dam Marsh had worked some of them until they were near death. Despite their physical exhaustion, there was something in their eyes that had been missing on the first train ride. Eric knew that some of them had hope.
~
He didn’t even know how much time had gone by. The sky had darkened into complete darkness, and then later, the sun had risen. It gave a weak light now, and was hidden behind a cloud as though it was shy.
The rumble of the train’s wheels on the track threatened to lull him into sleep. Some of the DCs around him were already dozing, their bodies drained of energy from the escape. Three men walked through the carriage and pried the boards off all the windows, throwing each sheet of wood onto the floor triumphantly. The light wasn’t strong, but it was enough for them to see the scenery as it went by.
Eric found Kim at the back of the carriage. He walked over and settled down on the floor next to her.
“I can’t believe we did it,” he said.
He put his arm around her. She shrugged him off and inched away. She stared at him and there was a look in her eyes that he couldn’t place. It was one he had never seen on her face before.
“I saw you,” she said, her words drawn out.
“What?”
“I saw what happened to Martin Wrench. I watched you leave him to the dogs.”
Her voice was cold, as if she was talking to a stranger. He knew that he should have helped Martin. The boy was immune, just like him, and he’d only betrayed them to the guards because he was scared for his own life. That still didn’t make it okay. Some of the Capita guards at Dam Marsh were just the same; they worked for the Capita because it was the only way to survive. Was Martin any better than them?
Eric was going to respond to Kim when he heard a screeching sound so loud that he thought his ears were going to pop again. It was the sound of metal scraping across more metal and giving a piercing whine.
The carriage shook. It jerked violently, and the screech drew out for what seemed like hours. Before he even knew what happened, the carriage tipped over.
It seemed to happen in slow motion. The carriage went onto its side and started to slide. One of the men who was prying a board from the window fell back and banged his head on the floor. The screech filled Eric’s head until he couldn’t think of anything else. The jolt threw him off the floor and sent him crashing against what used to be the roof.
He smashed his head against it. He felt a sickening feeling in his stomach, and his head throbbed. The train seemed to be sliding on its side along the tracks. He didn’t know what had happened, but all he could hear were the screams of the DCs around him.
The train stopped suddenly, and he was thrown across the carriage again, smashing his head on the corner of a window. His vision faded to black.
~
He woke with the dim recollection that something had happened. Metal screeching so loud that it was almost as if it was screaming at him. Kids thrown across the carriage like dolls. He felt the back of his head and ran his fingers over a lump sticking out from his skull.
He walked across the carriage. The windows were at his feet now, and the carriage door was at the end but it was pointed up. He didn’t know exactly what had happened, but he knew they’d been derailed and the train had tipped on its side.
He climbed outside to find Kim and the other DCs sat on the ground. Looking around him, he had no idea where they were. They were far away from camp; that much was obvious. To their left was a forest, though it was too dark to see beyond the first line of trees.
The three train carriages had been tipped completely on their sides, and the last one had uncoupled. The front of the train had dislodged from the tracks completely, though it was still upright. In front of it, the track was broken. It looked as if someone had dislodged part of it.
It was time to think about things. He didn’t know where they were, and he didn’t know where they were going. Kim wasn’t speaking to him, and his head throbbed from where he had hit it on the side of the carriage.
Despite that, something felt good. He felt as if he’d done something right. The forest to their left looked dark and miserable, yet anything was better than Dam Marsh. There were no guards around them, and he knew that he could walk where he liked without the threat of a baton on the head. Best of all, there was no Scarsgill. Kim was safe.
Except that Goral was with them. Invisible vines squeezed his chest and made breathing difficult. He was glad that Marta had decided to help them, but why the hell had she brought her brother? What had happened to her, and why was Goral tied up?
He took a deep breath. The trees were far away, but he could smell the pine and the earth. He knew that just like the train that had derailed, he wasn’t destined to run along the same track for the rest of his life. His immunity might have meant that the Capital would always hunt him, but it didn’t mean that he had to let them. He was going to find his family, and they’d find Kim’s mum, too.
Someone shouted from the front of the train. Eric ran over. He opened the door and climbed three rungs of the ladder. He had just enough time to glimpse Marta in the driver’s seat. She wasn’t breathing, but he knew straight away that wasn’t anything to do with the derailing. Marta’s throat had been cut open.
Suddenly, Goral Vitch’s wiry body filled the doorframe. Eric stepped back, missed a rung of the ladder and fell onto the ground. The impact winded him.
Goral held a knife in his hands. Blood coated the silver, spreading from the tip all the way to the handle, and then coated his right hand. He grinned at Eric, and then started to walk down the ladder.
With his stomach winded and his legs refusing to move, Eric could only watch as Goral walked toward him. He heard screams of pain around him from the DCs who had been injured when the train derailed. Wind whispered through the trees in the forest, and the smell of the pine was gone.
He looked into Goral’s face and saw a look of such evil that he felt tainted by it. He remembered Allie on the table, and the old man’s twisted features as he walked around him, naked, and chanted.
Eric’s breaths came fast. He willed his legs to work, but they wouldn’t.
Then he saw three figures emerge from the forest. It seemed like two men and a woman. He didn’t have time to see any more before Goral was creeping toward him, clutching a knife in his hand.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Heather
It seemed like they’d been walking for hours, but time was lost in the darkness and all Heather could measure it by was the aching in her calves and the soaking of her feet in the dank waters. She couldn’t even imagine how tired Charles must have been, having to walk with Lilly over his shoulders.
Eventual
ly they found a metal doorway in the sewer wall. Charles opened it and stepped inside. He walked to the far end as if he knew the layout and set Lilly down on a scratched wooden table. After a few minutes of messing around with something, he struck a match, and then the room was illuminated by the glow of a lamp.
One wall of the room was filled with machinery and a computer terminal, though it had been so long out of use that dust had gathered over the metal. On the other side of the room were two green lockers. Charles opened one of them. It was filled with dried food and bottles of water.
“This used to be where they’d control the flow of water,” said Charles. “When we designed Mordeline, we turned little stops like this into places for provisions.”