by Lily Herne
And for the second time that night, everything went black.
3
This time when I came to it was daylight, and judging by the haze in the air it was some time early in the morning. I had no clue how long I’d been out, but I couldn’t see any sign of the wagon; the pathway it had taken snaked out of sight behind a copse of Port Jacksons.
I stretched my limbs one by one to make sure none of them were broken, then wiggled the fingers of the arm that had hit the rock. Apart from a couple of bruises, everything seemed fine.
One thing was for sure: I’d been incredibly lucky, and I was filled with a surge of triumph.
I’d escaped! I’d made it!
I was outside!
Then it really hit me.
I was outside, all right.
I was outside in the Deadlands.
I hadn’t even considered this when I’d climbed on to the roof, and clearly this hadn’t occurred to Paul, either. I hadn’t thought that by escaping from the wagon I’d actually be exchanging one unknown horror for something possibly far, far worse.
Scrambling to my feet, I realised that I could hear moaning in the distance. I had no idea how far away the Rotters were, or what the hell I’d do if there were any in the area, but I was about to find out.
My only option was to climb a tree and scope out where to go.
I chose a large pine, and got moving.
The branches ripped into Lungi’s dress as I climbed higher and higher, my hands sticky with tree sap, but I pushed on, ignoring the rough feel of the bark as it grazed my skin. Then something caught my eye, something white, which was totally unexpected. As far as I knew there weren’t any white buildings in the enclave; everything was either grey brick or mud-spattered brown.
I edged along a branch, really taking a chance now, the bough lurching dangerously. There was no doubt about it, the flash of white looked as if it was part of a wall of some description. And there was something peeking over the top of it, something metallic that glinted in the sun. The sight of it nudged at my memory.
Then I had it.
I was looking at the distant shape of a roller coaster.
4
I began to wonder if I’d hit my head harder than I thought, and I was actually in the middle of some hyper-realistic dream.
After the roller-coaster sighting, I’d scrambled down from the tree as fast as I could, and ditched the path for what was clearly a grassed-over highway, stumbling past the shells of cars hidden under shrouds of foliage and fynbos. I didn’t care that I was headed away from the enclave, Table Mountain behind me in the far distance. I didn’t care that I could hear the plaintive moan of what had to be a huge group of Rotters. All I could think was: This can’t be! This is impossible!
I was right outside a shopping mall, the multilayered parking lot around it still housing the remains of several cars. Nature was making its mark on the exterior – the Port Jacksons extended right up to the mall’s walls, and ropey creeper strands had long ago forced their fingers into the brickwork – but I could still make out the Ster Kinekor and Woolworths signs, and a faded billboard with the words Ratanga Junction: Under twelves ride free! emblazoned across it. I’d recognised the looping skeleton of the Cobra thrill ride that formed part of the massive mall complex instantly, a long-forgotten memory sparking into life at the sight of it. Years earlier Jobe and I had spent hours begging Dad to take us there, but we’d never made it. The closest we’d ever come was driving past it on the way to visit Gran.
And here it was. Intact.
I walked past more car-shaped humps and overturned shopping trolleys, entranced by the remains of the dried-up canals that snaked past the buildings. I skirted past a long-dead café, the chairs overturned and riddled with rust, the tiled floor now home to thigh-high grass. A family of cats mewled and scampered out of a dilapidated kombi, and above my head, a cloud of Egyptian geese dipped and whirled.
Obviously, my brain was bursting with questions: Why hadn’t I known about this before? Was this why the Guardians only let us travel at night? And why, out of all the buildings in Cape Town, had they left these standing?
And most importantly: What the hell was I going to do next?
But the choice was taken away from me.
The parking lot may have looked abandoned, but it wasn’t.
The Rotters’ moans were getting louder and louder, and I caught a glimpse of movement in the dark depths. They were shambling around the cars, and I suspected that if I didn’t get it together, they’d be on me in a matter of minutes. I had no way of knowing if the others’ disinterest had been a fluke. I only had one option. I had to head inside the mall and figure out what to do next.
I sprinted up a ramp, leaping over the mangled corpse of a shopping trolley, and headed towards the glass doors in front of me.
I pushed against them, but they didn’t give.
Then I noticed the metal door handle. What an idiot! I grabbed it with both hands, turned it, and headed straight into heaven.
5
Or hell, depending on your point of view.
The first thing that hit me was the piped music. It took me right back to before the War, although I didn’t recognise the tune. It was some woman singing breathily about another chick called Amy, over a beat like a juddering pulse.
There was another sound I couldn’t place at first – a low humming. Then I figured out what it was: electricity. It had been so many years since I’d heard it, I’d forgotten how loud it actually was.
I moved forwards, staring at the marble pillars, the giant pots spewing fronds of plastic greenery and the huge, gleaming picture windows, behind which rows of beautiful, immobile people glared back at me.
The outside may have been taken over by nature but the interior was untouched.
I don’t know how long I stood there, taking in the shining floors, the double row of whirring escalators, the painted eyes of the mannequins. Everything was pristine. As if the War and the Great Fire had never happened. As if my biggest problem right then was what flavour of ice cream to buy, or which book to choose with my birthday money. It was only the lack of customers that spoiled the illusion, though the doors to the clothing stores nearest to me were all open, as if they were waiting for shoppers to start milling through them.
I was alone in an immaculate, fully stocked shopping mall.
So I did the only thing I could have done right then.
I went shopping.
6
I know what you’re thinking: I must have lost my mind, right? That maybe the smack on the head really had scrambled my brains. But be honest, would you have done any different? It had been ten years since I’d seen anything like this and I couldn’t resist.
I chose the first shop at random, some sort of clothing store, and walked numbly over to a rack of clothes. I grabbed a pair of jeans and pulled them on under Lungi’s dress. They were a size too big, but I picked out a black silk tie decorated with dinosaur skulls and used it as a belt. Then I ripped off the dress completely and exchanged it for a tight black T-shirt with the words Team Jacob on it, and flicked through a rack of leather jackets until I found one that looked to be my size. The clothes felt soft and comfortable and unbelievably delicious next to my skin. Next: shoes. I dug through boxes of fur-lined boots, trying on several pairs until I found ones that fitted snugly. I bounced up and down on their springy soles. I felt like I could walk forever in them.
Finally, I gazed at my reflection in the mirrors that lined the store walls. A stranger stared back at me – a stylish stranger in a kick-arse leather jacket and boots to die for. I’d forgotten all about the enclave, the Lottery and the Rotters outside in the Deadlands. Bizarrely, at that second all I could think was: If only Thabo could see me now.
And this was only one of the shops in the mall.
Grabbing a backpack from a shelf, I slung it over my shoulder and left the clothing store. Outside, I walked past shops frozen in time: a store sellin
g intricate carpets and ridiculous bendy chairs; another one that seemed to sell nothing but twisted silver forks and decorative cutlery. It was totally bewildering, and I didn’t know where to start. I slipped into a Body Shop and grabbed the first things I saw – scented shampoos and bars of colourful soap – greedily shoving them into my bag, before pausing for several seconds to take in the clean perfumey smell of the shop.
Heading for the escalators, I cruised up to the next level and chose an aisle at random. The place was huge: it was on two levels, with double-barrelled corridors that looped around, running parallel to each other, the rows of shops stretching off as far as the eye could see.
I darted in and out of every shop I passed, and within ten minutes the backpack was stuffed full. I’d picked out another pair of jeans, a short dress made of glittery material, and three pairs of Converse sneakers in different colours. Then something struck me. There had to be a bookshop! I quickened my pace, passing a shop bulging with ball gowns, and another furniture store – the televisions in the window showing nothing but static – but at the end of the aisle, I caught a whiff of delicious perfume. Unable to resist, I followed the scent through a set of gleaming glass doors and found myself in a sprawling store that seemed to sell everything: shampoo, make-up, wheelchairs and bottles of herbal medicine. But it wasn’t long before the heady scent of perfume started to make me feel a bit nauseous, and I wandered out into the main walkway again.
By now I had forgotten all about my decision to search for a bookstore and when I spied the open doors of a huge department store I wandered inside and began flicking automatically through a rack of silky T-shirts. But I was beginning to flag. There was just too much. Too much to think about. Too much to see, to smell, to digest. The mannequins seemed to be staring at me with their dead painted eyes – and the hair on the back of my neck started to prickle. I suddenly had the feeling that I was being watched, and I didn’t think it was just because the mannequins were giving me the creeps.
I think it was at that moment that I started coming to my senses.
What the hell did I think I was doing?
Who was running this place? Why hadn’t it been destroyed along with the rest of the city?
What if it was a trap?
I knew I had to get out of the store, out of the mall, and as far away from it as possible. And I had to do it right that second.
But by then it was too late.
7
The muzak suddenly cut out and was replaced with a tremendous roaring noise that seemed to make the air around me throb. The sound was ear-shattering, and I clamped my hands over my head and threw myself down on to the carpet, almost sending a mannequin toppling as I banged heavily against its legs. Then, as quickly as it had started, the sound cut out.
My ears buzzed, and I realised I’d been holding my breath. I stayed where I was for a few seconds before finally shuffling forwards. Nothing. Whatever it was had gone. I started to get to my feet, but before I was even, halfway up, I felt a hand clamp down over my mouth. I didn’t have a chance to struggle – the next thing I knew I was being dragged into a curtained-off changing room.
I twisted to get away, but whoever was holding me was incredibly strong. In desperation, I bit into the hand clamped over my mouth, and, suddenly, I was free. But even as I turned to run my legs were swept out from underneath me, and I landed with a thump on my back, staring up at a dark-haired guy who was looking at me with a combination of fury and exasperation.
Moving faster than I thought possible, he dropped to a crouch and clamped his hand over my mouth again.
For a couple of seconds I just stared up at him. Using his free hand, he brushed his floppy black hair out of his eyes and leaned closer to me. ‘Shhhh!’ he hissed into my ear. ‘Keep still.’
I tried to speak, but my words were muffled against his palm.
‘Just be quiet!’ he whispered. ‘You have to trust me.’
He had to be joking. Why would I trust someone who’d just knocked me to the floor and had his hand over my mouth? I struggled again, trying to lash out at him with my legs.
‘Do you want to die?’ he hissed in my ear. I stared straight into his eyes. They were different colours: one was dark brown, one greenish grey.
I shook my head.
‘Good. Keep very quiet. Don’t even breathe. Okay?’
For the first time it really hit home that I was out of the enclave and none of the normal rules applied. Anything could happen to me. Anything at all.
Several seconds later I heard the same roar I’d heard earlier, but this time it faded in seconds. The dark-haired guy didn’t move a muscle until the sound had totally disappeared. Then he removed his hand from my mouth and shook it. I could make out teeth marks in his palm where I’d bitten him, but I hadn’t broken the skin.
I sat up and glared at him, not sure whether to be furious or terrified. ‘What the hell is going on?’ I said.
‘We have to get out of here,’ he replied. ‘And we have to get out of here fast.’
‘Why?’
‘Questions later,’ he snapped.
He held out his hand to help me up, but I ignored it. He was dressed in scuffed black jeans, a leather jacket and a plain grey T-shirt – and under normal circumstances I would have said he was cute. Or he would have been if he wasn’t staring at me as if I was a piece of crap he’d found on his shoe. It was then that I noticed that he had something strapped to his back. When I realised that it was a large curved panga, I wasn’t sure whether to scream or laugh out loud.
‘Are you going to kill me?’ I said, struggling to my feet under my own steam.
‘Don’t be stupid!’ he snorted, shouldering a huge rucksack. ‘I just saved your life. Now, let’s go!’
He grabbed my arm and almost effortlessly propelled me towards the exit. I shrugged myself out of his grip. ‘I can walk by myself.’
Then I remembered something. I scooted away from him and raced back to retrieve my backpack. He shook his head again and rolled his eyes at me. ‘Follow me,’ he said. ‘And keep close.’
He paused at the shop’s exit and looked in both directions before setting off. Taking a left, he bounded down corridor and onto the escalators, taking the stairs two at a time, the heavy leather boots he was wearing somehow barely making a sound. He didn’t run, but he was way taller than me – Thabo’s height at least – and I had to take two strides to every one of his.
At the bottom of the escalator he put his fingers to his lips and gestured towards the end of the hallway. I stopped dead, heart leaping into my mouth. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. A bunch of Rotters were industriously slopping water over the shop windows, pausing every now and again to dunk their sponges into the buckets at their feet.
‘We’re going to have to go past them,’ he whispered. ‘You going to be cool with that?’
I shrugged, not willing to let my fear show. What if they could actually see me this time? But the guy didn’t seem that concerned about their presence, which helped.
I kept close to his side as we made our way past them, but they didn’t even turn in our direction; they just carried on sloshing water across a shopfront as if we didn’t exist. Clearly the guy was as invisible to them as I was.
I followed him down a side aisle and down towards a revolving glass door. I could see the blue glimmer of the sky beyond it, and I quickened my pace.
We pushed through and out into the fresh air.
Grumpy Panga Guy strode down a weed- and bramble-infested ramp that had once ferried cars into the multi-storey lot, and we crossed what was clearly a grassed-over highway as we made our way towards the theme park’s walls, the concrete at our feet lumpy with fig tree roots. There was someone leaning against the wall directly in front of us. At first, with the afternoon sun blinding me, I only saw whoever it was in silhouette – a tall chunky figure with spikes sticking up from its head. But as we got closer I could tell it was a girl; the crazy spikes were backcombed h
anks of hair. She was dressed in a similar fashion to the guy: black jeans, heavy lace-up boots, cropped leather jacket and a bag as large and bulky as his lay at her feet. Thin chains were laced around her hands and forearms and she was wearing mirrored shades, so I couldn’t read her expression. Like Grumpy Panga Guy, she seemed to be about my age, maybe a few years older.
‘Took your time,’ she said to him. She didn’t seem to show any surprise at the sight of me.
‘Tell me about it,’ he said. ‘You won’t believe what this chick has just done.’
‘Hey!’ I snapped. ‘My name’s Lele, not “this chick” and will someone please tell me what the hell is going on?’
‘I’ll tell you what’s going on, Zombie Bait,’ the girl said, her voice slightly accented – Malawian, Batswana, maybe. ‘Ash here just saved your arse.’
‘Ash?’ I said to him. ‘Is that really your name?’
He nodded curtly.
‘And you are?’ I said to the girl.
‘Saint,’ she said with a curl of her lip.
‘What?’
‘Lost your hearing as well as your sense of self-preservation?’
‘No need to be such a bitch,’ I said. ‘I was only asking.’ I thought of adding that at least my name wasn’t as lame and clearly made-up as theirs, but something made me keep quiet. ‘Where are you from?’ I asked her.
‘Later,’ the girl said. ‘We have to get out of here. It’s going to get dark fairly soon.’
‘Where to?’ I said.
Again the girl stared at me as if I was mad. ‘Back to the enclave of course. Where else? The nail salon?’
‘Hey!’ I snapped, ‘I didn’t ask to be –’
‘Shut up!’ the girl hissed as a low moaning sound drifted towards us. Ash and Saint flattened themselves against the wall, and motioned for me to do the same. The moaning grew louder, and several seconds later a crowd of Rotters came casually wandering out of the entrace to the theme park as if they’d spent the day riding the roller coaster.