by Jack Jewis
They stood at the edge of the clearing. It seemed like none of them wanted to take the first step out of Loch-Deep, as though something held them back. Bethelyn’s skin and clothes were covered in blood from fighting the infected, but there was an expression on her face that had been missing. Ed liked it. For the first time since Golgoth, there was something there, as if something was filling the hollowness inside her.
“You two need a rest?” said The Savage.
He had walked by their side since they trampled through the forest. His voice was softer around the edges now and although he still threw insults at them, they were less barbed.
Ed shook his head.
“No. Let’s just get out of here. I’m guessing that we’ve still got a long way to go.”
The Savage rubbed his arm. In the fight at the meditation centre, one of the infected had bitten him. It didn’t matter. It wasn’t as if infection was a danger to him.
“The end of the rainbow’s a while away. Hope you’ve got the stamina.”
They walked toward the last line of trees. Ed felt weak sunlight hit his skin as soon as they broke past the last branch. Despite the wind around him, he felt warm.
“What’s that?” said Bethelyn.
She pointed across from them. Beyond the trees there was a grassy plain, and rows of metal ran across it. Ed realised that it was a train track. He followed Bethelyn’s outstretched finger and saw a train resting on the tracks. Two of the carriages had turned over, and the last one had decoupled.
There was a group of people near the first carriage. He saw men and women sat on the ground. One man leaned against the metal and stared at the sky. Beyond them, near the driver’s carriage, was a boy.
The boy was stood on the tracks. An old man advanced on him with a knife in his hand, and even so far away, Ed could sense the aggression in the way he moved. The people on the carriage hadn’t seen what was happening. As the old man took menacing steps closer to the boy, Ed knew he had to do something.
Summoning the last of his energy, he sprinted across the plain. The man near the carriage sprang away from the metal, pointed at him and shouted. Ed ignored him, gaze fixed firmly on the boy and the old man.
Just as the old man reached the boy and grabbed him by the neck, Ed got close enough to shove him. The old man’s grasp was strong, and he squeezed his hand so tight around the boy’s neck that he couldn’t breathe. The boy clawed at the man’s arms but it only served to make him tighten his grip.
Ed punched the old man in the face. The knife clattered from his hand and fell to the floor. His head jerked back in surprise, and for the first time he noticed that Ed was there. It was as if he had been lost in a fugue of violence as he strangled the boy, and Ed broke it when he struck him.
The man lurched toward him with hate burning in his gaze. Ed punched him again and knocked him to the floor. He grasped at the ground to get up, but Ed swung his boot at his face, and the back of the man’s head hit the rim of the metal track. He stopped moving.
The other group of people walked away from the carriage and toward Ed. They all wore the same clothes, and the fabric was so delicate that some of them sported holes in their sleeves and trousers. There were children with cheekbones pressing against their skin. From the way their clothes hung from their limbs, he could tell most of them had lost a lot of weight in a short time.
He turned to the boy.
“What’s your name?” he said.
The boy glanced over to the carriage where a girl sat on a step.
“Eric.”
“Where have you come from?”
“Camp Dam Marsh.”
“Is that a holiday resort or something?”
He knew the question was stupid before it even left his lips. He just had to look at the people with their malnourished faces to see that they hadn’t been sat around a pool enjoying cocktails. He couldn’t understand why they all wore the same clothes, but that wasn’t all. There were too many questions. Who was the old man? Why had he been trying to kill the boy?
The Savage walked over to the old man on the tracks. He stood above him and stared down at his face. He got down to his knees and lifted the man’s head close to his, cupping his hands around his sunken cheeks and turning his head from side to side.
The Savage’s face was wide with surprise for a split second, but the expression soon faded, replaced by the smoldering of anger. He stared down at the old man. He still hadn’t stirred. Ed didn’t feel even a trace of guilt about kicking him.
“Dad?” said The Savage.
It was Ed’s turn to be surprised.
“This is your dad?”
The Savage didn’t seem to hear him. He slapped the old man lightly on the face.
“Wake up, you old bastard,” he said.
Bethelyn walked over to the group of people near the carriage. She ignored the adults, and instead kneeled in front of two of the children. She turned their faces toward hers, inspecting them intently as if she was giving them a health check. One of the boys wrapped his small arms around her shoulders. Bethelyn smiled and then returned the hug.
Ed hung back, wary of the old man on the floor. When he looked at the man, Eric’s face changed. Although he was already pale, seeing the man seemed to suck even more of the colour out of his cheeks. Ed put his hand on the boy’s shoulder.
“I’m Ed,” he said. “This here is The Savage, and the lady over there is Bethelyn.”
Eric glanced behind him and looked at the girl by the carriage again.
“Who’s she?” asked Ed.
“My sister, Kim.”
He said the word sister hesitantly, as if trying it out for the first time. Ed thought that they didn’t look much alike. Even so far away he could see the girl was older, and her face was the palest of the group.
“Is she okay?”
Eric shook his head.
“We need to find her mum.”
“Her mum? Isn’t she your mum too?”
Eric shook his head again.
“Okay. Where is she?”
“Near the Dome. I think she is, anyway.”
“What’s the Dome?”
The Savage turned his head.
“It’s a hell of a long way from here,” he said.
He looked at Eric and tried to feign a pleasant expression, but it didn’t fit his face. The Savage needed to take baby steps, Ed decided. It was enough for now that he had stopped calling Ed Wetgills and had started playing nice, but nobody expected him to turn into Mr. Smiley.
“Mind telling me why my old man was trying to kill you?” said The Savage.
Eric sighed.
“It’s a long story.”
Ed looked at the wreckage around him. The train had come off the tracks and turned over, and through the windows he could see a couple of motionless bodies propped against the walls. Wherever Dam Marsh was, it seemed like these people had left it in a hurry. They didn’t appear to have any sort of food or supplies with them, and with a dozen people to feed, that was going to be a problem.
Bethelyn stayed on her knees and consoled some of the children. It made Ed happy to see the faint crease of a smile on her lips. Eric’s sister sat on the carriage step, watching the scene as if she was detached from it.
He knew what the world was now. He might not have known the geography or heard of a place called the Dome, but that wasn’t the point. He was going to find his brother. After seeing these children, he knew that there was more he could do, too. There were survivors on the Mainland, and that meant there would be towns. Maybe even cities. It didn’t matter; he just wanted to find somewhere worth staying.
“Want to know where your brother is?” said The Savage.
It was the last thing he’d expected him to say. He had assumed that The Savage would hold back on anything to do with James, keeping the information secret and trading little bits of it in return for the cure to his infection.
“Aren’t you going to blackmail me for my blood?�
�� he said.
“I can’t live like that anymore,” said The Savage. “If you give it to me, I’ll take it. But I won’t be a monster again. I know I didn’t see Ripeech, but I heard him. I won’t become like that.”
For the first time ever, Ed felt affection for the man. It made him shudder to think of it, but he knew that without him, he wouldn’t have made it through Loch-Deep.
“Okay,” he said. “Where’s James?”
The Savage paused. He drew out the silence and gazed at the faces around him. Eric gave him a blank stare. Ed sighed in irritation.
“Still doing the dramatics?”
“You can’t change some things,” said The Savage. “Okay. We need to get to the Dome. That’s where James is.”
“While you’re in the mood for questions, how about you tell me your name?” said Ed.
The Savage thought about it. After a few seconds, he shook his head.
“I don’t think our relationship is at that level yet.”
Eric shuffled on his feet. He glanced back at his sister, and then at Ed.
“What about us?” he asked.
Ed looked around him. The overturned train looked foreign against the backdrop of the plains. The grass under their feet was yellow and dry, and the forest behind them was full of spindly limbed trees and darkness. There might not have been beauty in the world any more, but he didn’t need it.
He crouched down so that he was eye level with Eric. He put his hands on his shoulders.
“If we’re going to the Dome, you can come with us. We’ll help you find Kim’s mum.”
He stood up. His knees cracked and his calves ached, and he still heard Ripeech’s voice echo somewhere in the back of his mind. The grass seemed to stretch out for endless miles beyond them, and he got the sense that his legs were going to hurt a hell of a lot more in the weeks to come. It was okay, though. It was better than being on the boat.
The Savage stood up.
“Ready to go, Wetgills?”
He said the name with a smile on his face this time. Ed grinned back.
“I guess so. Let’s go.”
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Copyright © 2016 by Jack Lewis
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