The New Day

by Lorraine Thomson

  “You destroyed my home, you killed my mother and took my brother, and you expect us to believe you’ve changed?”

  Sorrel wanted to shatter him, the way he had shattered her, but her words were empty vessels. Her fury had gone, blown away like dust on the wind.

  “It’s true, whether you believe it or not. I’m done with violence. You are welcome to stay here for the night. You will be fed, given beds to sleep in and in the morning, you’ll be handed provisions to see you on your way. I have only one condition.”

  “And that is?” Einstein asked, his cynicism clear in his voice.

  “Go in peace, but do not return. I will not be so tolerant of the intrusion a second time.”

  “What about Eli?” Sorrel’s fear of the answer caused her to whisper the question, but Brig caught it all the same.

  “You already have the answer. The child has made his choice.”

  With that, Brig left the room by the door in the corner. When it closed behind him, Sorrel raised her face to Einstein. “It’s all been for nothing.”

  “No, Sorrel,” Einstein knelt before her and took hold of her hands, “it has not been for nothing. You have found Eli – and found him safe and well. We will take him with us. He is your brother after all, and Brig has no right to keep him from you.”

  Sorrel shook her head. “I can’t do it. Eli is not an object to be fought over. Though it kills me to say it, Brig is right – Eli is safe here and that’s more than we can offer.”

  Einstein frowned.

  “We can keep him safe, Sorrel.”

  Sorrel shook her head.

  “No, we can’t. There’s nothing I can do for my brother. What would have happened when you were in the mines and I was in prison? What about when the noose waited for me at the Hanging Tree? We couldn’t have looked after him then and we can’t look after him now.”

  “It is different now.”

  “Different how? We have nothing to offer. My love is of no use. Brig makes him happy. You saw how Eli smiled at him. He even calls him Dada. He screamed when he saw me, Einstein. He screamed.”

  The memory of Eli’s scream echoed through the emptiness inside her.

  “That is not your fault – it is because of what Brig did in Amat.”

  “Maybe you’re right, but whatever the truth of it, when Eli looks at me he feels pain. Brig makes him smile. I need to do what’s right for Eli, not me. I have nothing, I can offer him nothing – not happiness and certainly not safety.”

  “Sorrel, you are the bravest soul I have ever met.”

  “I’m not brave – I’m scared. All I know is fear. I don’t want that to be my legacy for Eli. Please, go and fetch Brig for me.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’m sure.”

  Einstein left and returned a few moments later with Brig.

  “Einstein tells me you have something to say to me.”

  Sorrel nodded. “We will do as you ask and leave peacefully in the morning, and we will not come back. But in return, there’s something I want to ask of you.”

  “Go on,” Brig said.

  “When he is old enough to understand, tell Eli where he came from. Tell him that he has a sister who loves him now and always. Let him know he is loved.”

  Brig thought for a moment before speaking. “I will do as you ask, you have my word.”

  “What is that worth?” Einstein asked.

  “Leave it be, Einstein,” Sorrel said. “All we can do is take Brig at his word. It’s clear that he cares for Eli, and so I believe him.”

  “You do well by the boy, Sorrel. I will look after him.” He looked at Einstein. “You should let go of the past – nothing good will come of clinging to it.”

  “You were the one who brought up Clovis.”

  “My mistake. Both of you, pay heed. I will cherish Eli and ensure his safety. I will let him know he has a sister who loves him, and if he ever has the inclination to seek her out, I will not stand in his way.”

  “Thank you, Brig. The necklace he took? It belonged to his grandmother.”

  “You wish it returned?”

  “No, it belongs with Eli. Tell him the five points of the star represent the traits he will need to survive – strength, vitality, courage, wisdom and perseverance.”

  “When he is old enough, I will tell him.”

  Sorrel’s sleep that night was slow to come and when it arrived, it came laden with images of Eli crying and her mother in a sea of red.

  They left at first light. Sorrel was hollowed out. The feelings she’d had that David was in trouble had gone. The simple truth was that he had abandoned her and Eli had rejected her. Everything she had been fighting for had been taken from her. There were no more dreams. All that lay ahead of her now was the empty desolation of her heart. Even though Einstein walked beside her, she was alone.

  3.

  Ghost

  As soon as he opened the door, David knew he was in the Wastelands, but it wasn’t the Wastelands he’d been expecting. That the landscape consisted of dusty soil and barren rock was no surprise, but to see huddled within this uncompromising environment a tiny, bustling settlement, left him with his mouth hanging open and his eyes wide.

  Tents, tepees, and lean-tos sprouted between and sprawled against another couple of wooden shacks, and a single square building that could only have come from the Before times. Someone was patrolling around its flat roof, stopping every so often to stare out at the Wastelands beyond the camp.

  The abodes were organised in such a haphazard way they looked as though they’d been dropped from the sky and left to prosper or rot where they fell.

  In the middle of the ramshackle structures was a large fire pit, around which had been arranged a series of makeshift chairs and tables, and a couple of open-topped water barrels.

  Scattered throughout the small settlement was the most motley crew David had ever set eyes on. They were a bedraggled bunch, mostly men and no children that he could see, and all looking like the Dregs would be a step up for them. Yet each of them was industrious and fully engaged with the task in hand. From his vantage point, he observed the chopping of wood, the preparation of food, the sharpening of knives, the hardening of spears, and the pitching of tents. Though it couldn’t have looked more different, in a strange way it reminded him of Amat. Perhaps it was how busy each was with their task. Or perhaps it was more to do with how each looked as though they belonged in this place. Barren and inhospitable though it was, a feeling of intense loneliness and longing came over him at the thought.

  “So, you’re on your feet.”

  David turned to see a man with cropped white blonde hair coming towards him. Eyes the colour of thunderclouds gazed at him from a face leathered by wind and sun. His close-fitting clothes were made of cured animal hides, tightly stitched and dark in tone. His voice caused a memory flash in David’s mind.

  “You’re not Mason,” David said, “you’re the other one.”

  The man grinned. “It’s coming back to you then?”

  “Some – I’m not sure what was real and what I dreamt. I was in a pit – they caught me and put me there – and then, black clouds. You were the black clouds.”

  “And they were the Sawneys. You’re lucky we got to you when we did. Couple more minutes and they’d have carved the heart right out of you. You’d have stayed alive long enough to watch them eating it while it was still beating.” The man put his hand out. “Cyrus.”

  David’s mind whirled as he shook Cyrus’s hand. “David.”

  “You look kind of green around the gills, David. You okay?”

  His heart thudded as images of sharpened teeth and gleaming white skulls flashed through his mind. “I’m fine.”

  “Hmm, if you say so. You were out of your box last night.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “You were stoned – you know, high. On ‘shrooms and suchlike?”

  David shook his head.

  “Oh man, where have
you been all your life?”

  “Amat, mostly.”

  Cyrus laughed. “Never heard of it. You’re a straight-up kind of a kid, but I like you. The Sawneys drugged you – you remember seeing anything strange?”

  David tried to think past images of teeth and skulls. “Sounds floating in the air – orange and purple.”

  The amused look on Cyrus’s face caused him to blush.

  “You’ve no cause to be embarrassed, David. They drugged you so that you would welcome death when it came – so that your muscles would be relaxed and your meat would be tender when they ate you.”

  David groaned. “I remember – I remember thinking it would be fine to die – I was looking forward to it. What is wrong with those people?”

  “Plenty. We’ve been looking for their lair for a long time. Last night we got lucky – and so did you.”

  David shook his head and stared down at his feet. He’d been close – so close – to the Sawneys murdering him and he hadn’t cared. He’d wanted them to do it. After a moment, he looked up at Cyrus.

  “Thank you.”

  “Welcome. Come on, I’ll give you the grand tour. Won’t take long – just one thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You might get flashbacks – moments when you feel the way you did last night, and maybe see some of the same crazy stuff. Don’t worry about it if it happens. It’ll pass and if I see it happening, I’ll guide you through.”

  The Sawneys, flashbacks, ‘shrooms, and now this desolate place that looked like somewhere nobody should be living. David felt like he was moving from one strange world to another.

  Cyrus nodded to the people they passed as he led David across the middle of the settlement to the Before building. The people, each as weather-worn as Cyrus, nodded back. Some of them stared blatantly at David, others gave him scant recognition. The look-out on top of the building waved at Cyrus before carrying on with his patrol.

  “How do you survive here?” David asked. “I mean, we’re in the Wastelands, right? Where does your water come from – what do you eat? And who are these people anyway?”

  Cyrus laughed again. “An enquiring mind – I like it. To answer the last first – the Zeros come from all over. Drifters, outcasts, some who’ve committed crimes – folk who don’t – or can’t – belong anyplace else. In other words, the scrag-end of life. They end up in the Wastelands because there’s nowhere else for them to go. If the Sawneys don’t get them first, some of them end up here.”

  “And the rest?”

  Cyrus shrugged. “They don’t like it, they move on. No hard feelings either way. But we don’t ask questions and, as long as they abide by the rules, they’re welcome to stay.”

  “Zeros?”

  Cyrus grinned. “Mason came up with that one – because we count for nothing.”

  David snorted. “I know that feeling – I was a thrall in Dinawl.”

  “A thrall in Dinawl – you’re a poet, David, and you don’t even know it. You asked how we survive – the answer’s right in here.”

  Cyrus opened the door of the Before building.

  Straight away, its interior reminded David of Metro. It was filled with row after row of shelves, stretching from the floor to higher than he could reach. The shelves were packed with boxes and cans and packages made of plastic and decorated with pictures and writing. As he walked through the building, David saw other shelves filled with all manner of tools, and larger items he didn’t recognise or understand the use of, but he knew one thing for sure.

  “This is a Before shop.”

  “Uh-huh,” Cyrus replied. “You been in one already?”

  David nodded. “The same, but different. What’s it doing out here in the Wastelands?”

  “I guess it was built before the Wastelands got wasted. But you haven’t seen the best of it yet.”

  Cyrus led David to the back of the shop and through a door, which opened on to a yard surrounded by walls the height of David then half again. Within the walls, a cornucopia of plants sprouted from urns and boxes, barrels and pots.

  David wandered along the pathways between shrubs and vegetable patches, marvelling at the flourishing bounty. A small tree sprouted from a tub filled with dark earth, its branches laden with purple damsons. Nearby, a row of cabbages erupted from a wooden crate. Beyond them, a solitary figure with his back to them tended a neat row of pots frothing with herbs and salad leaves. The echo of loneliness resonating around the man sent a shiver through David.

  “You okay?” Cyrus asked. “Not having a flashback, are you?”

  David felt strange inside, like he was looking at something and not seeing it. “No, not a flashback.”

  Cyrus plucked a damson from the tree and handed it to David. “Try it.”

  The fruit’s rich juice trickled down David’s chin as he bit into the sweet flesh. He wiped it away with the back of his hand.

  “This,” Cyrus said, “is how we survive here. See all those bags there?” He pointed to mounds of plastic pillow-shaped sacks stacked on top of wooden pallets. “Each one of those bags is filled with rich, fertile soil. This place was what those crazy Before people called a Garden Centre. It says so on a sign back in the shop. They took soil from the earth and wrapped it in plastic bags – can you believe that? Don’t know what they did it for – maybe saving it for when the Wastelands got wasted. Whatever their reason, I’m glad they did it. That plastic – it lasts forever and it kept that soil nice and fresh for us. But that’s not all – come see this.”

  David ran his hand over one of the smooth bags. There had been a lot of plastic in Metro. David wondered if it really did last forever, and how could anyone know?

  Cyrus led him to a tap set in the wall and turned it on.

  “Look at that – it’s a miracle of fresh, clean water. What we have here, David, is a little oasis of salvation in the middle of the Wastelands.”

  “Cyrus!”

  David turned around and immediately prickled at the sight of a mutant entering the yard. He was typically muscular with bristling red hair spiking from the top of his massive head. A thin rope of plaited red beard dangled from his monstrous chin.

  Cyrus turned the tap off. “Mason, you remember David.”

  “How could I forget?” Mason gave David a cursory glance before turning his attention back to Cyrus. “Lance and Gilligan are at it again.”

  “Pemmican?”

  Mason nodded. “Pemmican.”

  “Okay, let’s go.”

  David gave the solitary man at the back of the yard one last glance before following Cyrus. Even in a place full of the scrag-end of life, there was something tragic about the stoop of the man’s shoulders, like he was carrying a burden he didn’t know he had. As David turned to leave, another shiver crawled down his spine.

  Outside, two clusters of Zeros were holding back two individuals from having a go at each other. The would-be fighters were spitting and hollering at their captors and each other. Their faces were twisted out of sorts with rage, but even on a good day neither of them would have been lookers.

  The features of the one called Lance were all bunched up around the pointy nose in the middle of his long, drawn-out face. His nostrils flared as he ranted at Gilligan.

  “You meant it, Gilligan, I know you meant it. I’m gonna kill you.”

  “It was an accident,” Gilligan yelled back. “You’re just too stupid and stubborn to admit you know it.”

  Gilligan’s mouth flapped and yapped in the middle of a ferocious beard that burgeoned around his nose and sprouted most of the way to his eyes.

  Cyrus strode into the space between the duo and held up his hands. “Enough already. I’m done with you boys getting into spats over pemmican. This ends here, and it ends today. You listening?”

  Lance and Gilligan muttered and nodded to indicate that they were indeed listening.

  “Here’s what we’re going to do. You boys can either fight it out to the death, here and now,”
Cyrus looked at each of them in turn to make sure they understood the weight of his words, “or, you come to an agreement about what constitutes good pemmican and we draw a line under the whole business. Now what’s it to be, boys? Death for one of you, or pemmican for all?”

  Lance was the first to break the glaring competition. He shook his head. “Hell, Gilligan, I don’t want to kill you. Let’s say we work on the pemmican together.”

  Gilligan’s bushy eyebrows furled. “What makes you think it’d be you doing the killing?”

  Lance immediately snarled back, “Same reason I know the right way to make pemmican. I know what I know, Gilligan!”

  The two men lunged at each other but were restrained. They stopped their snarling when Cyrus roared.

  “What are you holding them back for? If they want to kill each other, let them get on with it and then maybe we’ll get some peace around here. Go on,” he urged, “let them go.”

  The Zeros restraining the two men glanced at each other.

  “If you say so, Cyrus,” one of them muttered.

  The other shrugged and they released their captives.

  Surprised by the turn of events, Lance and Gilligan stood exactly where they were, each of them taking turns to stare at the ground, squint at Cyrus, and glance at the others. They looked anywhere but at each other.

  “Well, what are you waiting for?” Cyrus asked. “Go on. Kill each other.”

  Neither moved nor spoke.

  “Thought not. Well, if it’s not death, it’s kiss and make up. Go on, shake hands, boys.”

  After a moment, the two shuffled towards each other and shook hands. Lance playfully punched Gilligan on the arm, maybe a little harder than he ought. Gilligan returned the punch, putting a little more effort into it and just as David thought it was all going to kick off again, the pair of them threw their arms around each other and hugged tightly. With all the beard and eyebrows he had going on, David couldn’t be exactly sure, but he suspected he saw a tear in Gilligan’s eye before he buried his face in Lance’s shoulder.