by Jack Jewis
She still remembered the owner. His name was Ryan Peat. A moustache covered his top lip, and his hair was scrunched back into a bun on the top of his head. He always talked about peace and mindfulness, though sometimes he scared Heather. He wore a dark expression, as though the calmness of his face was a mask for something else.
She didn’t know where her daughter and Eric were. Some DCs were in the yard. She saw a group cowering near a cabin, while others lay dead on the stone. It was clear though that not all of them were here. Some must have gotten away somehow, and if Scarsgill was right, then Kim and Eric were on the train.
It made her chest hurt when she thought that she’d travelled so far and had only just missed them. It was better than the alternative, though. At least if they’d gotten away on the train, it meant they hadn’t suffered the same fate as the rest of the people in the yard.
As much as her body cried out for rest, she wouldn’t get it yet. She was going to find Kim. Even if it meant following the train tracks for mile after mile, she’d find her daughter.
She still couldn’t reconcile the idea in her head that Charles Bull was a man with feelings and emotions, but she was grateful to him for one thing. She realised now that he was right in everything he said. With the world the way it was now, people who forgot their morals were generally the ones who survived. Those who tried to keep a clear conscience ended up like Heather.
She stood up. The train tracks started beyond the camp. It was going to be a long journey, and she’d need a horse and provisions. She guessed she might find food and water in one of the red brick buildings.
Charles broke away from a conversation with Dr. Scarsgill.
“Going somewhere?” he said.
“I’m going to find the train.”
“Good luck. Time to activate the jet pack under that skirt of yours.”
“You’ve used that one before,” said Heather. “It wasn’t funny last time, and I’m still not wearing a skirt.”
“Charles,” said Scarsgill.
He pointed over to the camp gates. A company of Capita soldiers rode toward Dam Marsh on horseback. All of them had swords hanging from sheaths on the sides of their horses. In the middle of them, a man rode a mount that was bigger than the rest. Its saddle was painted gold, and the reins shimmered under the sun. The rider wore a mask that didn’t just cover his mouth and nose, but stretched over all of his face It was painted brown, and it looked as if wrinkles had been cut into the plastic. The cheeks were coloured red, and there was a sneering quality to its expression.
The rest of the Capita soldiers bunched around him, seemingly so that nobody could attack from the back or sides. The man held the reins of his horse high up in the air, curling his fingers lightly around the leather like a rich lady holding a tea cup. She had never seen the man before, but she guessed he was someone important.
“Marduk,” said Charles.
She’d heard the name. Everyone who lived near the Dome knew the names of the Five. Ishkur, Nabu, Marduk, Sin and Tammuz. Ishkur was the ruler of them, but the other four were powerful enough.
Lilly was sat beyond camp, mere metres away from the procession of Capita horses. Charles walked over to the body of a camp guard and pried a baton out of his hands. The end of it was smeared with blood.
“I’ve never seen any of the Five leave the Grand Hall,” he said. “For Marduk to be here, this must be important. I don’t think he’d make the journey to see my delicate features.”
“They’re here for me,” said Scarsgill. He had his hands in front of his waist, and he wrung them in agitation. “Someone must have told them about the girl.”
“What do we do?” asked Heather.
“I can’t let Marduk take me,” said Scarsgill. “I need to finish what I started. Your daughter is the key to everything, Heather.” He nodded at an infected on the floor near them. “It will be the end of them. With her, we can put a stop to the infection.”
“You’re not touching my girl. I’m leaving,” said Heather.
Charles sighed.
“You’ll never catch the train.”
“I don’t care. I’m not staying here.”
As Marduk and his Capita escort approached, Scarsgill paced the floor. He wrung his hands so much that the skin had started to chafe.
“Take me with you,” he said.
“No way.”
“I know where your daughter is headed. I told the boy where to go.”
“And where’s that?”
“To see one of my old colleagues. Someone who can help.” There was a tremor in the doctor’s voice, and he couldn’t help glancing at the Capita soldiers as they drew closer.
“Get hold of yourself,” said Charles. “Who is this colleague of yours, and where is he?”
Scarsgill stopped pacing.
“His name is Rushden. He lives in Kiele. Or he used to, anyway. I haven’t seen him in years.”
Heather couldn’t believe what she was hearing. They’d escaped the pursuit of Capita soldiers and travelled through the Mordeline, only to find that her daughter was gone. They walked into a war zone, somehow survived the fighting, and then Scarsgill had hit them with this; her daughter was headed to a town that she had not long since left.
Marduk pointed across the yard at them. He lifted his head, and Heather felt his mask sneer at her. The Capita guards spread out on their horses, some going left and others right until they surrounded Heather, Charles and Scarsgill in a circle.
She looked at the train tracks beyond camp. Kim was out there, somewhere. It made her chest ache to know that she’d come so close to finding her, but there was some relief in knowing she was alive.
The hooves of Marduk’s horse clomped toward them, crushing the gravel beneath its muscled legs. Marduk drew the horse to a halt. The animal stomped down on a stone and kicked dusty mist into the air.
Charles looked at her.
“Lilly’s over there,” he said. “I need to get to her.”
Heather nodded.
“And Kim’s out there, too.”
He gave her a look, and for the first time since she had met the man, she felt an affinity with him. They shared a mutual ground, but Charles stood in the shadow and she in the light, and she couldn’t help feeling that he was dragging her into the darkness. She knew that if she was ever going to find her daughter, she would have to embrace it.
Marduk said something, but she didn’t listen. She stared into the bounty hunter’s eyes and for the first time, she saw that he was worried.
“Marduk’s going to want to kill me,” he said. “And if that happens, you’ll never find your daughter. So what I need you to do is-”
“Follow your lead?” asked Heather.
Charles nodded.
This time, she knew that she would. The old Heather would have been scared. She would have suspected lies and betrayal. The new version didn’t care, because this one knew exactly what she needed to do to get her daughter back.
She ignored Marduk’s shadowy figure in front of her and turned her head and stared at the train tracks. They could spread across the Mainland for miles, for all she cared, because there was only one burning desire in her mind. To get away from the camp and follow them.
This isn’t the end, she vowed.
Camp Dam Marsh had been the final destination for so many. The yard was littered with bodies, some who had been brought here as prisoners, and others who came to work, scared that if they refused the Capita would banish them from its safe zones. It had been the end for so many people, but for Heather, it was the beginning.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Baz
“Everyone grab a shovel,” said Max. “Dig until your arms hurt.”
They’d separated the Capita soldiers’ corpses into one pile and the remaining unburned Kiele townsfolk into another. Their bodies lay on the ground like discarded dolls, and as the sun rose up it cast pastel light over the stabs and slashes in their skin. It lit the crimson st
ains in their clothes and illuminated their faces, showing what their expressions had been when they met their deaths. Some had wide eyes and open mouths, while others had faces so scrunched up in pain it looked like their bones had collapsed.
After a few hours of sleep they had all met up outside the town gates, where the wasteland grass was stained red and the carrion swooped and dived and tried to pick at the skin of the dead.
Rushden turned to Max. “Wasn’t anyone on guard last night?”
Rushden’s hand was bandaged up, though blood leaked through the cloth. Baz felt exhaustion in every cell of his body, and it was like he was only being held up by strings being pulled from somewhere in the sky. Rushden showed no signs of tiredness.
“We’ve just lost half our people,” said Max. “Not just our fighters, Rushden, but half our population. And the other half is ready to crack.”
A raven fluttered next to the body of a Capita soldier. Rushden picked up a stone and threw it. He missed by three feet, but the bird got the message and flapped its black wings and took off into the sky.
“By all rights,” said Rushden, “we should just burn them. I can still smell their bonfire in the air. Even after the fight, they could have showed a shred of decency.”
“That’s the Capita for you,” said Max.
They walked onto the wasteland and past the heads on the stakes. The air was crisp enough that it could snap, and the caws of birds came from their left and right. They walked over to the pile of Capita bodies. They were laid side by side like dominoes. Baz looked at their faces. He saw cold skin and standard-issue masks. Some had stab wounds and scratches on their bodies. He didn’t recognise most of the Runts, but as he went from face to face, he stopped at one of them. He recognised Lerner, his skin freezing despite the sun’s weak rise in the sky.
The other Kiele men soon joined them. After so much fighting their shoulders should have been slumped and their faces should have looked drained, but they put on a front. They wouldn’t let themselves feel the aftereffects of battle until it had really finished. The end wasn’t when the blades stopped swinging and the knives were dropped. The other part of battle, the worse one, came afterwards. It was when the victor had to cope with the effects of the violence; when they had to dig graves in the wasteland and deal with the dead. It was grabbing a corpse under the armpits and dragging it across the grass, hearing a crunching sound as you pulled it over to the burial pit.
As Kiele men dragged the last two Capita corpses over to the wasteland grave, Rushden stopped them.
“Save one,” he said.
He looked at Baz.
“Come here, soldier.”
He almost forgot he was still wearing his Capita uniform. He had never gotten used to the feel of it; the prickliness around his neck, the way it hung loose around his arms but tight on his legs. It had never felt right.
Rushden looked at Max. “Hand me your knife,” he said.
Max pulled his blade from his belt and gave it to Rushden. The ginger-haired man fixed Baz with a look full of disgust, as though when he looked into his eyes he saw the Dome and the Five and Ishkur, and all the terrible things they had done in the Mainland.
He walked toward him, eyes burning holes into his face as though they were magnifying glasses focussing rays of hate. Baz wished they hadn’t taken his weapon away from him.
Rushden stopped in front of him. Baz waited for his arm to raise and the blow to come. He clenched his fists at his side.
“Take it,” said Rushden.
He stretched his hand out, knife hilt resting on his palm. Dirt lined the creases of his skin.
Baz held the blade. The handle was warm, and the sheen of the metal had faded long ago. It felt heavier than the standard-issue Capita weapons, even though it was smaller.
Rushden pointed at the head of one of the Capita corpses.
“See that?” he said.
“I had noticed, yeah,” said Baz.
Rushden turned and pointed at a stake dug into the ground near the town walls. Where the other stakes wore severed heads on their spikes, this one was empty.
“I think you know what I’m asking you to do.”
Baz looked at the dead Runt. The skin on his neck looked cold, the colour of it almost blue in the morning chill. It looked like it would be tough to cut through it. Even then, there was the vertebrae and larynx. All his life he’d never really thought about the particulars of cutting a man’s head off. He supposed it wasn’t something most people had to consider, really. Now that he did, he felt his stomach turn.
The Kiele men watched him. His Capita uniform became constricting now, as if the fabrics were tightening around him. He became all too aware of how it marked him as different. Expectant eyes stared at the blade in his hand, and some darted their gazes at the other dead Runt.
There was no choice. If he didn’t do this, they’d kill him. He walked over to the body. He looked into the dead man’s face. He had nostrils that seemed too wide for his nose, and there was a mole on the side of his face, just below his well-groomed sideburns. His skin made him look like he had been hanging in a butcher’s refrigeration room for hours, and Baz wondered if this meant there wouldn’t be much blood.
Rushden and Max watched him. As he started to unbutton the Runt’s shirt collar, he heard them talk.
“You know what you’re going to have to do,” said Max.
Rushden clutched his bite wound.
“No chance.”
“You’ve been bitten. You know what happens after that.”
“I don’t care. I’m not becoming like them, Max, bite or no bite. If it means I have to die, then so be it. Besides, you never know. I might wake up from the coma. I might be immune.”
“The chances of that are one in a hundred.”
“Thousands, probably. I’d rather take those odds than become like them.”
Baz unbuttoned the Runt’s shirt and spread it wide so that his neck was fully exposed. He held his blade in his right hand. The handle had felt warm when Max first passed it to him, but Baz’s cold hands had cooled it down. He poked the blade against the Runt’s skin. Despite the snappy chill in the air, it was still soft. He stopped.
He couldn’t do it. He’d never been a fighter. Even in the early days before the Dome, he’d only ever killed infected when he really had to. He didn’t like the sound skin made when it teared, and that noise was the same whether someone was alive, dead, or infected. Skin was still skin, and it wasn’t meant to be ripped apart.
Some of the men moved around him. He saw weapons held in firm grips, eyes locked on him, waiting for him to do something. Most of them probably wanted him to make a run for it. They would have loved to hunt down the Capita soldier and kill him. Once more, the uniform felt tight around his body. He felt like if he didn’t take it off soon, it would just melt into his skin like Ishkur’s mask.
He looked at the Runt. He took a breath and held it in. This is what it would take, he realised. If he wanted to leave the Capita, this was what he would have to do. He’d have to cut the head off a Capita soldier.
Pressing the blade against the man’s skin, he closed his eyes. He jerked his arm forward. The knife slipped in easily at first, then met resistance deeper into the man’s neck. There was a snapping sound as he cut through the vertebrae. He felt the blade meeting bone, and the smell of blood crept into his nostrils and sneaked down his throat.
As he felt the blade tear through bone and skin, he felt his uniform start to loosen. He opened his eyes and saw Max and Rushden watching him. He cut through the last part of skin until finally, the Capita soldier’s head was separated from his body.
Although nobody said anything, Baz saw appreciation in their eyes. There was a sense of something changing around him, like his life was a book and someone had turned the page, and the rest of the paper was blank. For too long he’d served an empire that he didn’t love nor even agree with. He looked at the walls of Kiele, at the houses and shop roofs pok
ing over the stone, and he saw something that he could be a part of.
Hanks would make it back to the Dome, of course. He’d tell the Five what had happened, and they would retaliate in the most violent fashion. Ishkur would have replaced him already, he knew. Someone else would wear the Tammuz mask from now on. The knowledge made his clothes feel even looser, like he was breathing for the first time.
He looked up at Max and Rushden.
“I know a way we can get to them,” he said. “I can lead you to the Five.”