by Jack Lewis
“What’s going on?” he shouted. The wind hit him full force and sucked the air out of his lungs. Ahead of them was a gaping black mouth where the night sky met the sea, and Ed knew that the storm was going to swallow them.
The Savage stopped a few feet in front of him. His skin and hair were soaking wet.
“The storm’s not going to let go,” said The Savage.
“I thought this could sail through the wrath of God?” shouted Ed.
Another wave hit them, and the boat lurched. The Savage almost lost his balance, but regained it at the last moment.
“I thought it could too. But I didn’t think God would be this pissed off.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means the ship’s sinking. Get the girl. We’re going to have to jump.”
Chapter Two
Eric
On Route to Camp Dam Marsh
They were sucking all the air out of the carriage bit by bit; it was the only explanation. The chug of the train vibrated through his stomach, and the wheels made a steady clang as they moved along the track. Eric wished he could close his ears to the sound. The noises inside the train weren’t much better. Babies crying, men coughing. Women whispering to their children in voices that aimed at reassurance, but sounded scared. The boys and girls looked bad, but even the adults’ faces had lost colour.
The windows of the train were boarded shut, and only thin streams of light seeped in where the wood didn’t cover the glass. There must have been seats and things like that at some point, but the carriage had been stripped bare to fit as many people in as possible. The guards had crammed almost fifty men, women and children into each train carriage, and the effect was an unbearable heat approaching the mugginess of a jungle swamp.
It reminded Eric of a game his dad used to play with him when he was younger. He’d pick him up and wrestle him to the ground, and then flop his weight on top of him pretending to be a monster. It started out fun, but soon he’d get a feeling that he couldn’t breathe and stupid thoughts flooded his head like ‘what if dad’s dead? He’s so heavy I’d never get him off.’ Eric would claw at his father and try to shove him away, but he weighed too much. He'd start to feel like his chest and lungs were going to be crushed until all the air left him. Finally his dad would get off him and give him a playful tap on the arm. When he saw Eric’s panicked face, he looked worried. ‘Sorry, bud. I was only playing.’
It was so much worse on the train. His lips were cracked and the air felt hot as he sucked it in. There was a ‘no smoking’ sign stuck to one of the walls, and Eric wondered why someone would want to light a cigarette in such a tight space. Dale had used to smoke roll-up cigarettes, he remembered. Eric hated the smell, but he couldn’t say much because Dale had taken Eric, his mum and sister in and let them live in his house.
At the far end, an old man wheezed. The man stood up and walked over to the window, leaning against the wall to keep himself steady. He put his face to the corner of a window and tried to breathe fresh air, but it was no use. Not only were they boarded up, but they were also shut tight. They were stuck in the suffocating darkness as the train pounded along the tracks.
“What do you think they used it for?” Eric said, trying to take his mind off things.
He was sat on the floor with his back leant against the carriage. Kim sat next to him. They’d sat apart at first, but as their journey wore on she had slowly slumped over to him. She might have slept a little, but he couldn’t tell. He was too distracted by looking at the guards at both ends of the train. Their faces were emotionless as they kept a steady eye on the people around them.
Kim shrugged her shoulders. She pulled her hair from over her back until she could see it in front of her, and then she started to weave strands of it into a plait.
“Why do you always do that?” said Eric.
She stroked her fingers along her auburn locks.
“When I used to get scared, like if I saw an infected or something, mum would take me into a room where I couldn’t see outside, and she’d do this with my hair and talk to me. She’d tell me stories about my grandma and grandad. I knew they weren’t true, though.”
“And that used to work?” said Eric.
Kim nodded.
“Maybe I should grow my hair,” he said.
“Where do you think mum is?” asked Kim.
The question made her seem so young, despite her being older than him. She wasn’t just Kim to him anymore. He’d started to see her as an older sister. They weren’t bonded by blood, but something else joined them together; they were both immune. Eric had already guessed that everyone else on the train was immune, too. He had heard what the Capita did to the people born with immunity genes that meant the infected couldn’t turn them into monsters.
“I don’t know. But she’s looking for you. She’s out there somewhere. Your mum’s stubborn.”
“Do you think Charles Bull has her?”
“I don’t know,” said Eric. “But I hate him.”
Eric put his arm around her. Whatever happened next, he was going to have to look out for Kim. She and her mum had taken him in when he had nobody, and it was partly his fault that they were separated. After all, it was the Capita’s pursuit of him that had led the bounty hunter, Charles Bull, to Heather’s door. Eric couldn’t help being immune, but it was down to him that Heather and Kim were in trouble.
A boy was sat across from them. He looked to be ten years old; not much younger than Eric. His arms were skinny, even by Eric’s puny standards, and the edges of his eyes were wet. He looked around him and tried to catch the gaze of the adults on the carriage, but they were all too occupied with their own sufferings to take on any of his. The boy stretched his jumper over his hand and held it to his face. His upper body shook as he wept.
Looking closer, Eric saw that a damp patch spread across the boy’s crotch. The guards brought buckets out for the DCs to share every so often, but it hadn’t been enough. Somehow, Eric knew that this boy’s accident was not because he really needed a wee, but because he was terrified. The boy looked up at a woman across from him and tried to catch her gaze. Eric watched with disgust as she stared in every direction she could except toward the frightened child.
Kim stirred beside him. She moved away from Eric’s shoulder and got to her feet.
“What are you doing?” said Eric.
A guard eyed her from across the carriage. He twisted a wooden baton in his hand and gritted his teeth. Kim walked across and sat next to the crying boy. He looked up, surprised, and then stared down at his crotch. A look of defeat took over his face, and he put his hands on his lap to hide the accident.
“What’s your name?” said Kim.
“Allie,” said the boy.
He sounded older than Eric expected. He guessed it was possible that Allie could have been the same age as him, but fear had stripped some of the years away. He reminded Eric of a panicky version of himself. He imagined Allie as a little puppy, constantly tugging on a sleeve to get reassurance and attention.
“Come here, Allie,” said Kim.
She put her arm around his shoulder and pulled him close to her. The boy’s eyes widened at first, and then he squirmed. Seeing that Kim wasn’t giving up, he settled into the hug. The woman across from them looked down at the floor. Yeah, thought Eric. You should be ashamed.
A wave of heat hit him, and Eric’s stomach wobbled. He got to his feet. There must have been a way to get fresh air in somehow. Even if they wanted to fit as many people in the train as possible, why had they boarded up the windows? Either they didn’t want the DCs to see where they were being taken, or the Capita guards were just being cruel.
The guard at the right side of the carriage had gone. Probably for another cigarette, thought Eric. He walked over to the door. Through the sounds that the train made on the tracks, Eric knew that it was going too fast for him to jump. If he could just open the door and let a little air in, at least he wouldn’t feel s
o suffocated.
He grabbed the door handle and twisted it, but it didn’t move. He looked behind him and saw that some of the men and women were watching him, and he imagined that they were willing him on. From the sweat covering their foreheads and their faces pale through nausea, he knew they needed the relief as much as him.
He pulled on the door again but it stayed stuck. There were heavy footsteps behind him. Without a word, a meaty hand slapped his face. The force of it was enough to knock him on his back, and he felt his left eye sting. He looked up to see a tall guard standing above him.
Beyond him, at the back of the carriage, a woman retched. Eric got to his feet. The guard loomed over him, chest solid, a baton gripped in his palm. He walked over to the side of the carriage. The boards were driven into the walls by nails, and the wood was thick enough to block any light that hoped to sneak through. Eric grabbed a corner of the board and tried to pry it away.
“Want another one, slugger?” said the guard, and held his fist in the air. He had little blue tattoos on his knuckles.
He walked over to Kim and slumped down next to her and Allie. With the effort of trying to open the door his energy had left him, and his face must have looked just as drained as the other people in the carriage.
“I feel sick,” said Kim.
There was a thudding sound. A woman had collapsed at the end of the carriage, hitting the floor nose first. She didn’t move when she was on the ground, but a long, wheezing sound left her mouth. Next to her, crying and red-faced, was the baby she had been holding. Eric looked around. Surely one of the adults had to do something? Not a single one of them moved. They were so wrapped up in their own troubles that none of them had the sympathy to spare.
Finally a man got to his feet. The top of his scalp was bald, but brown hair lined the sides of his head. There was a dent on the bridge of his nose from where he had, until recently, worn glasses. Eric wondered if the man could even see anything without his spectacles.
“Just going to stand there?” said the man. He walked over to the woman. He seemed so angry that his shoulders shook. “Cowards. You’re all cowards,” he said, glancing around him so that he could address everyone.
He kneeled next to the woman and held his fingers against her neck. After a few seconds, he shook his head. He raised his fist and punched the carriage floor, then pulled his hand away and rubbed his knuckles, wincing. He picked the baby up off the floor and cradled it close to him. Adjusting the blanket around the child, he looked at one of the guards.
“I hope you see our faces at night,” he said. “I want you to picture this woman while you try to sleep. Look at her. Would it have been too much to let a little air in here?”
Eric walked over and sat next to the man. He put his hand on the baby’s forehead. Its skin was hot, and its breathing sounded raspy.
“How much further?” Eric asked the bald man.
The man looked surprised, as if he hadn’t expected anyone to talk to him. The guard at the door crossed his arms.
“Don’t be so quick to wish the journey away. Enjoy it,” said the guard. “Because the end is a hell of a lot worse.”
In the heat, and with nausea churning in his stomach, Eric didn’t have the brain power to figure out where they were going. Kim’s mum was out there somewhere, and her daughter needed her. But where were Eric’s mum and his sister?
It seemed like years since he had last seen them. They had been on a meadow with Dale, the man who had taken them in and who made his mum’s cheeks turn red when he spoke to her. They had been enjoying the grass and the flowers and the sun, but everything had turned dark. The bounty hunter Charles Bull had appeared, a bulky figure blotting out the sun, and he’d ruined everything.
He had to find them. His mum and sister were out there, and somehow, he had to get to them. Who knew, maybe he was going to the same place? His sister was immune, after all. She could have been taken to wherever the train was going.
A door opened at the end of the carriage. For a brief second Eric glimpsed the engine room, with the train driver sat in a chair peering out of a window as the train rushed along the tracks. A man stepped through the door.
He wore a long coat that went down to his thighs. It was clear and plastic, and there were red and yellow stains splattered on it. The buckles squeezed the material tight against his stick-like frame. Despite the heat in the carriage, the man’s face looked cold. His nose seemed sharp enough to tear a hole in his mask, and his forehead bulged out just a little bit too much. He stood tall in the doorframe, his head only inches from the ceiling. His boots made clanging sounds on the metal as he took a few steps forward. A guard closed the door behind him.
Cold seeped through the carriage. The man took in the faces of all the people around him, but if there was any emotion in his stare, it was faint enough to be invisible. His gaze stopped on the woman who had collapsed and died. Next to her, with the shock of adrenaline wearing off, the man held her baby.
The man in the doorway spoke.
“What happened to her?” he said. Even through his mask, his voice was sharp.
One of the guards shrugged.
“Just collapsed.”
“For God’s sake, get her some water.”
“She’s dead.”
“Then get her out of here.”
Everyone else in the carriage seemed too scared to meet the man’s stare. Eric wondered if they knew something that he didn’t, or if he was supposed to recognise the tall and cold-looking man. Well, if the rest of them were too scared to talk, Eric certainly wouldn’t be.
“Where are we going?” he said.
The man tilted his head. Eric felt like a worm wriggling under the gaze of a hawk.
“You’re going to Camp Dam Marsh,” said the man.
One of the guards shifted on his feet.
“Do you think we should be telling them that, Dr. Scarsgill?”
“What?” said Scarsgill. “Would you lie to them as well as kidnap them? Let the poor people know where they’re going, at least.”
He turned his attention to the DCs in the carriage.
“We’ll be there soon. When the train stops, I suggest you wait. I don’t condone violence, but nor can I control it. And trust me; a baton to the head soon puts thoughts of unrest to bed. Until we stop, conserve your energy.”
He turned to leave. Without thinking, Eric stood up. As he approached Scarsgill, one of the guards stepped forward. Eric grabbed Scarsgill’s plastic coat and pulled him back. The doctor stopped and turned. When he looked at Eric he didn’t show annoyance, and he didn’t speak. Instead a silence hung between them, broken only by a wheezing coughing fit of a woman at the back of the train.
“Are my mum and my sister in camp?” he asked.
Scarsgill smiled.
“And who are they?”
“My mum’s tall. She’s got curly hair. My sister’s called Luna. She looks like me, she’s my twin.”
“So you’re looking for a woman with curly hair and a little girl? That doesn’t give me a great deal to go on. Are they immune, like you?”
“My sister is. My mum, I don’t know.”
“If they are, they’ll be in Dam Marsh. I hope you find them.”
Scarsgill left the room, and with it went the cold. Eric wandered back over to Kim and Allie.
“That was stupid,” said Kim.
“I know.”
“What’s Dam Marsh?”
“I don’t know. And I don’t think I want to. But if my mum and Luna are there, we’ll find them.”
“And what about my mum?”
“We’ll find her too, sometime.”
Allie moved his head away from Kim’s shoulder. He had a dent in his chin, maybe from an old accident, and there was a red blotchy birthmark on his neck.
“And what about my grandma?” he said. “She’s alone now. Her hip locks when it gets cold, and she’ll need me to let the chickens out of the hutch.”
Before
Eric or Kim could answer, a screeching sound rose around them. It was so loud that Eric’s ears hurt. Gradually the train slowed, until finally it stopped. With the rumble of the train gone, Eric could hear his own pulse as it beat in his ears.
“Okay,” said one of the guards. “It’s time to go.”
When the door opened and the breeze floated in, Eric leaned his head into it. He felt it chill his skin, but it didn’t do anything to calm his heart rate. He got to his feet and stuck his hand out for Kim. When she gripped him, he noticed how sweaty her palms were. Allie stayed on the carriage floor, looking at them. Eric outstretched his other hand and pulled the boy up.