by Jack Jewis
She looked at Charles. The bounty hunter shrugged, and then cast his gaze across the yard to where Lilly sat. She was far enough away to be unaffected by the trouble.
Heather didn’t have the patience to even listen to Scarsgill. She didn’t care what he meant about Kim being important, she just needed to find her.
If Scarsgill wasn’t going to talk, then she needed to make him. She remembered what Charles had told her; that she needed to take on some of the darkness of the world. She’d already done that when she tore a guard’s throat out. It seemed like sometimes, the only way to get what you wanted in the world was to do something that blackened your soul.
She took the knife from Charles’s hand. Scarsgill saw it and blinked in surprise. Heather jerked it forward and stabbed him in the arm.
He cried out. His face scrunched up in pain, and blood welled up onto the sleeve of his coat and ran down the plastic.
“Where are they?” said Heather, words spitting through gritted teeth.
She twisted the knife. Scarsgill screamed. She felt the blade cut into the gristle of his arm, and the sensation made her want to vomit. She breathed through her nose.
“Tell me where they are.”
Scarsgill’s face was a mask of pain. The blood drained from his cheeks until he looked chalk white, and the fingers on his wounded arm twitched.
“The train,” he said.
She held the knife in his arm.
“Where’s the train?”
With his free hand, Scarsgill pointed across the yard. Heather saw a dog kennel with all the cells empty, and then a red brick building.
“I don’t see a train,” she said.
Scarsgill grunted. “It left already,” he said. “Your children are gone.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
Baz
He tried to wriggle his hands, but he could only manage an inch of movement before ropes tightened against his wrists. It was the same for his feet too, and he felt the nylon scratch his ankles as he moved them. When his vision cleared, he didn’t see the cobbled streets or sloping roofs of Kiele. Instead he looked out onto a wasteland stained with blood from the bodies that had been dragged across it, and the air smelled of sweat and urine. The knots of the ropes fastened him to a wooden pole that was dug into the dirt.
A faint breeze swept through the air, and voices spoke dimly in the background. He couldn’t have been far out of Kiele, he knew, though he couldn’t turn his neck to confirm it. To his right there was a decapitated head at the top of another pole, staring out into the wasteland as though it was on watch. He could see the underside of its neck and how the spike was driven through the gristle and up into its chin.
Kiele must have been behind him, then. Where were Rushden and Max? Baz had taken a risk freeing them from the cells, and this was the thanks he got. He started to wonder if it had been the right thing to do. Letting them go was an act of treason toward the Capita. If Hanks found out he did it, he wouldn’t waste more than a second thinking about how to punish him.
He squirmed against the ropes, but they were too thick and bristly, and they’d been wrapped around him and the wood so many times that there was no way he could break them.
He heard the clip-clop of hooves and marching of feet behind him. He wondered what Rushden and Max were going to do to him. Maybe their plan was to torture him for secrets. The thing was, they’d caught a bigger prize than they could ever have imagined. He knew more than any normal Runt. If they made him feel enough pain, he could tell them secrets about the Capita that would fuel the fire in the Resistance’s belly for years to come.
When the horse rounded him, Baz saw that Hanks was riding it. He’d taken a cut across the face in battle. His sickle hung from his side, and the curve of the blade was smeared with blood.
“See you’re awake,” said Hanks. “How’s that head of yours?”
Baz had the urge to rub his forehead but knew the ropes would hold firm.
“Can you cut me loose?” he said. “Bastards must have knocked me out.”
Hanks nodded at one of his officers.
“Go ahead,” he said.
As the officer approached with a knife, Hanks spoke. He lifted his hand in the air.
“Hold up. Actually, let’s not free you yet. Let’s talk about why we found you passed out in the police station, with two empty cells next to you and the keys in your hand.”
Rushden and Max hadn’t been the ones who tied him up. They must have fled after being let loose, and one of the Capita Runts had found him. He must have been tied up here on Hanks’ orders. He remembered all the stories he’d heard about Hanks. Deserters getting shot in the ankles, men having their eyes scooped out. The ropes seemed a lot tighter, and they burned his skin even more as he squirmed.
“Where are they?” said Hanks.
“Who?”
“You might be dumb, Baz, but surely you’re not this stupid. You’re not in a position to pretend you are, either. Tell me where they are.”
He’d always felt like he walked a lonely line in the Capita. In council meetings, even when he wore the mask and costume, he never quite felt like he was Tammuz. He never fit in. He worked hard to hide his northern accent as if uttering the rough syllables was shameful, and his upbringing meant he couldn’t make the right decisions. Marduk and Nabu spoke with English so perfectly accented that the Queen would have given them a knighthood. Sometimes, though, Nabu slipped up and Baz heard some of the Gloucestershire creep into his tone.
He’d never really believed the Capita’s ideology. He’d gone along with it because principles were luxuries since the outbreak. You either stayed in the Dome and chose to embrace the Capita ideals, or you walked into the darkness of the wasteland and wondered what would get you first; hunger, thirst, or the infected.
Since the battle in Kiele, he realised the true cost of his decisions. It wasn’t just about survival anymore. If he ever got back to the Dome, he knew he couldn’t just put his mask back on and walk into the Grand Hall. He’d seen the knife wounds and heard the cries of pain, and he knew what the decisions made in the Hall really meant.
He looked at Hanks. His saw his thick shoulders, muscles tensed as he held the reins of his horse. The wrestling action figure in his shirt pocket, the chewed head just peeking out. It felt like Hanks was peeling his skin away with his gaze alone.
Men like this couldn’t win, he decided. People like Charles Bull and Marduk couldn’t be allowed to prosper just because they were prepared to do things that others weren’t. Max and Rushden might have betrayed him the second they had the chance, but Baz believed their cause was worthier than any of the Capita’s lies.
“I’m trying to remember where they are, but my memory is fuzzy,” he said.
Hanks scowled.
“Go and bring it,” he said to an officer.
The officer walked away. Baz couldn’t turn his head enough to see where he was going, but a few minutes later he was back. This time, as he approached, there were two sets of footsteps. The boom of the officer’s boots was easy to recognise. The other steps were slow and dragging, like shoes scraping across stone.
The officer walked into view. He held ropes tight in his hand, and on the end of them was an infected. Spit flew out of its mouth as it snarled. Its skin had the pink softness of someone who was human not too long ago, though his neck had a scratch so deep that Baz winced to look at it.
The infected wore a Capita uniform. It was obviously one of the Runts, since the uniform was torn and dirty. Hanks was trying to scare him. Maybe the lieutenant had forgotten, but Baz was there when the other infected were defanged. He knew the old man’s ploys, and knew that this infected wouldn’t have any teeth.
“Tell us where they are and why you let them out,” said Hanks.
When Baz didn’t say anything, Hanks ordered the men around him to move back. He turned his horse around and trotted ten feet away. The officer holding the infected jerked his head back as it lashed out a
t him. He grabbed his knife and in one swipe cut the ropes that held it.
Suddenly free, the infected moved its head from side to side, groaning as it decided who to attack. Another officer stepped up behind it and gave it a shove.
The infected locked its gaze on Baz. Desire lit in its eyes, and it opened its mouth and cried out. Baz saw teeth slick with spit, yellowing where they met gums.
The ropes felt even more constricting. He squirmed and struggled but they wouldn’t budge, and he felt the coarse material rubbed the skin off his wrists. The infected took lurching steps toward him, and he knew it would take less than a minute for it to reach him.
He knew Hanks wanted answers. The problem was that Baz didn’t have them. And even if he possessed them and wanted to talk, Hanks would kill him as soon as the last word left his mouth. On the other side, the Resistance men didn’t trust him either, and they’d gladly left him to face the consequences of letting them go.
This was the end, he realised. As the infected stumbled close enough that Baz could hear the clack of its teeth, he knew he was out of allies.
He hoped that he’d done one good thing. That freeing the Resistance fighters would lead to something that brought karma on the people of the wasteland and hurt the Capita. If he knew that, he could face dying.
As the infected reached out for him, an arrow plunged through its head, tearing through the weak skin at its temple and travelling to the centre of its brain. The creature fell to the floor at his feet.
He looked to his left to see Rushden stood with a bow tensed in his arms. Behind him was Max, and with them were some of the men and women from Kiele. Stood with the crowd and trying to blend in was Ronnie Alderson. He’d ripped the Capita emblem from the sleeve of his shirt.
Hanks rounded his horse. He slipped the sickle from his side and wiped the blood on the leather saddle. He rubbed the head of the action figure in his pocket, and then turned to his men.
“No prisoners this time. I want every pulse stopped. I want the ground covered red. I want to see their blood on your hands and knives.”
He slapped the side of his horse and charged toward the Kiele fighters. Seeing their leader in action, the Capita officers and Runts soon followed. Some were still fuelled by adrenaline from the battle the day before, but others gave a reluctant charge, running at a slow pace like a child in a PE class who’d rather be at home.
The people of Kiele were ready this time. Wise to Hanks and his tricks, they made sure to look around and check that no infected had been let loose. As the Capita commander pounded toward them on his stallion, Rushden slid another arrow onto his bow. Max tapped a knife against his palm, and the other men and women of Kiele held whatever they could find that was sharp enough to pierce flesh or blunt enough to crack bones.
The ends of Capita blades tore through the skin of Kiele men and women. Hammers cracked down on skulls, and men screamed as knives were pushed deep into their chests. The wasteland was filled with cries of pain and bellows of anger. Baz could only watch as he saw creased foreheads gather sweat, and blood shot eyes open wide as blades sunk into flesh. When a man clutched his throat to stem the spurt of blood from a slash on his skin, the noise was like the patter of a waterfall.
He heard someone moan, but it didn’t come from anyone in the battle. He looked down, and saw the infected at his feet was straightening up. It put its hands on the floor and pushed it up. The arrow still stood out of its temple as though it was wearing a novelty hat. The arrowhead must not have gone far enough into its brain.
Cold panic covered him. He struggled against the ropes and winced at the burning of his already raw skin. He could move against them all day and never get free.
He bent his thumb in toward his palm. He pulled his hand against the ropes, and inch by inch he felt it get free. As he slid through the rope, he felt pressure on his hands. Pain racked through him. He realised that his thumb was being dislocated, but he bit through the agony and strained to get his hand free.
The infected stood up. It fixed its gaze firmly on Baz. Just as it lurched at him, Baz felt his hand fall out of the ropes. He ducked down and let the infected collide with the wooden pole.
Rushden appeared behind the infected. He grabbed it and turned it around, and held a small knife in his hand, prepared to complete the job he’d left half–finished with his bow.
As Rushden went to stab it, Hanks galloped by on his horse. He swung his sickle at him, but the ginger man moved his head back, and the blade sliced the top of his earlobe. He put his hand to the side of his head and blood covered his fingers.
More people streamed out from the gates of Kiele. All the surviving townsfolk rushed at the Capita soldiers with hammers and pikes and shovels, and Baz watched as they attacked the soldiers. Capita uniforms were stained red as blades punctured them, and he heard the screams of Runts as they fell to the floor.
His left hand was free. Despite the pain from his dislocated thumb, he sucked it up and worked on the rope on his right arm until he felt it loosen, and then he slipped his hand free. He fell forward onto the floor. Pain stung through him as his left hand touched the ground.
The screams of the Capita soldiers started to die down. One by one Hanks’s men fell, until soon the leader sat alone on his horse, with angry Kiele fighters around him and all his unit lying dead on the wasteland.
Max ran over to them. His mask was smeared with blood, covering the smile he’d painted on it. He held a long knife in his hand, and for a few seconds he stood and panted. He looked at Hanks, and then at Rushden.
“Make sure you take him alive,” he said, nodding at the lieutenant.
Rushden turned to Hanks. He cocked an arrow on his bow and aimed at the horse. As he was about to let it loose, the infected leaned in to him and bit down on his hand. Rushden screamed and let the bow fall to the floor. Baz heard a crunch as the infected chewed through his finger bones.
Max grabbed the infected and pulled it away from Rushden. Hanks took advantage of the confusion. He tugged sharply on his horse’s reins, turned and then gave it a kick. The horse galloped away. Before Rushden or Max could do anything, the lieutenant was galloping away from Kiele.
Baz loosened the ropes around his feet. They had been tied so tight that the circulation had been cut off, and his feet felt numb when he tried to walk on them. He stumbled forward, putting his hands out in front of him, and felt pain tear through him as his thumb touched the ground.
The grass of the wasteland was discoloured with the blood of the Capita soldiers and the Kiele townsfolk. Rushden held his hand out in front of him, mangled and covered crimson.
Lieutenant Hanks became a spot in the distance. With all the Capita soldiers dead and their commander gone, Baz was alone with the Resistance fighters.
While he attended to his friend, Max had forgotten about the infected. The monster lurched toward him, reaching out with long fingernails and scrabbling to grab hold of his clothes. Baz pushed it so hard that it fell to the floor. The blood rushed back to his feet, but the sensation wasn’t quite there yet. He raised his boot up and brought it down to the infected’s head, repeating it until the infected stopped moving. He didn’t feel the impact as his boot crunched its skull, but he saw its brains leak out onto the grass and knew that it was dead.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Heather
She could never have imagined the smell of battle; so full of sweat and blood, heavy with the sense that lives had been lost. The wailing of the men and women around her was so desperate that it sounded worse than the hungry moans of the infected. The ground was littered with guards clutching open wounds and dogs lying motionless on the gravel; infected with skulls split open and brain matter spilling through the cracks in the bones.
It was a strain to even lift her head. Her stomach was heavy, and she felt that if she opened her mouth, the contents would just spill out onto the stones. She just wanted to close her eyes.
The parts of the yard that weren’t t
aken up by dead guards or a limp infected, were covered in loose gravel. There was a white running track painted around the outside. The cabins were to her left. The cheap wooden buildings reminded her of holidays with her parents. Her dad worked the production line at a car manufacturing factory and her mum had given up a glittering clothes shop career to look after Heather and her brother, so rather than boarding a plane bound somewhere hot, her childhood holidays took place in boggy fields, inside cabins barely big enough to sleep them all.
Despite how much she’d hated them at the time, she would have given anything to be there. Even stronger was the feeling that she’d like to take Kim and Eric someday. She bet she could even take them to the same resort she used to go to. It was called Loch-Deep. It was a meditation retreat, but the owners would rent cabins to families to make enough money to maintain it. The only condition was that the parents promised to keep their kids under control and not ruin the inner calm of those who were there to relax.