“They were people too and they deserve better,” David said.
The pyramid of skulls was dismantled with respect and each one taken to another cave designated as the final resting place for the Sawney’s victims.
David placed the last skull in the cave with care. He took a moment to stand and think about the person it had belonged to. He had no idea if they were female or male, how old they were, or where they had come from. What he did know was that they’d met a terrible death. He hoped that at some point in their life they had been loved and known happiness.
If it wasn’t for the Zeros, he too would have become a gleaming white trophy, his eye sockets filled with shadows, his exposed teeth grinning at the grim proceedings playing out before him.
He was turning away when he heard the sound. A soft rasp from further back in the cave. He paused and listened. There was nothing at first, and then another sound so small he wondered if he was imagining it. He took a step further into the cave and peered into the shadows beyond. Another sound, small and soft and hardly there.
“Hello?”
He took another few steps until he was standing at the edge of daylight. Beyond was gloom, and beyond the gloom, darkness. He was on the verge of turning back when he heard a movement – a foot scraping on rocky ground – and he could not ignore it. David walked beyond the light into the gloom.
“Who’s there? Come out now and I won’t hurt you.”
He peered into the darkness and took another couple of steps.
“I know you’re there.”
He sensed movement, understood something was hurtling towards him before he saw it. A figure tore out of the dark and tried to get past him, but David stuck out his foot and tripped it up. The creature squealed as it hurtled to the ground.
He went after it before it could get up. It was sprawled in the twilight between darkness and gloom, but David saw enough to know that it was a Sawney. He lunged at it, meaning to grab it by the throat and throttle it, but the Sawney twisted away from his grasp and he saw that it was a young woman.
She scrambled to her feet and ran to the side of the cave. David snatched a rock from the floor and went after her. He raised the rock and swung it towards her head but instead of fighting or trying to escape, the Sawney’s face crumpled and she began whimpering. Something in her manner made David pull short. He stood with the rock in his hand and stared at the Sawney as tears welled in her eyes, which were large for sure, but they did not bulge as horrifically as the rest of her kind and her face was not scarred.
“No, no, no,” she cried.
David’s hand trembled as he battled with himself. The Sawneys were evil – the pyramid of skulls alone was testament to that – but she wasn’t like the rest of them. If she was, he’d be trying to pull her off him as she went for his face or throat. Instead, she sat whimpering while he decided whether to end her life.
She let out a sob when he lowered his arm. Her vulnerability made him angry. He didn’t want to feel guilty, he didn’t want to feel anything about her. Maybe he should dash her brains out and be done with it. He raised the rock again. If she went for him, it would be fair dos and he could kill her, but she just stared up at him, making an easy target of herself and putting it all on him.
David threw the rock aside, grabbed her by the arm and dragged her outside.
Mason was the first to spot him. “Why didn’t you kill her?”
David thrust the Sawney girl towards him.
“You do it, if you have a mind.”
Mason drew his knife. “She can join her kin in the pit.”
The Sawney girl raised her chin, exposing her throat to him, but she kept her eyes open and when Mason looked at her, he too stopped short. He looked at David as though surprised at himself.
David stared at the Sawney girl for a moment then looked back at Mason.
“Her eyes – her face – she isn’t like the others.”
Cyrus’s voice volleyed through the air. “Is that a Sawney?”
“Maybe?” Mason said, not sounding sure of himself.
Cyrus strode towards them.
“What do you mean maybe? Either she is, or she isn’t and she looks like one to me, so get her killed.”
David waited until Cyrus was up close before answering, “No.”
Cyrus pulled his knife, looking like he was going to explode.
David pulled the girl behind himself and squared up.
“Are you serious?” Cyrus was all rage.
“Put your knife down and look at her,” Mason said.
Cyrus looked from Mason to David. “What’s going on?”
“She’s different,” David said.
“Different how?”
“I don’t know, just different.”
“Let me see.” Cyrus pushed David aside and looked at the girl. She stared back at him, a defiant look in her eyes but when Cyrus pulled down her lower lip she didn’t flinch.
David stared at her teeth. They were a little crooked but unsharpened. Cyrus lowered his hand and the three of them looked at each other.
“Please,” the girl said. Cyrus loomed over her. She shrunk into herself but stood her ground. “Please. No die.”
“You understand what we’re saying?” Cyrus growled.
The girl nodded.
“You eat people?”
She shook her head.
Cyrus narrowed his eyes and pushed his face right into hers so that their noses were almost touching. “You sure about that?”
She shook her head again. “No eat people.”
Cyrus lifted her arm and mimed taking a bite out of it and chewing, a sight which David found disturbingly funny. He clamped down on the grin twitching his lips and glanced at Mason only to see his plaited beard wobble as he too battled with a smirk.
“You try any of that bitey stuff,” Cyrus said, “and I’ll kill you without a thought. You understand?”
The Sawney girl nodded.
Cyrus stared at her a moment longer before nodding in return. “Okay, we’ll show you there’s another way. You’re one of us now, understand? You’re a Zero.”
The Sawney girl’s lips curled into a shy smile.
Cyrus turned to David. “You created the problem by not killing her in the first place, so you’re responsible for her. She goes on a people-eating spree, it’s down to you.”
“What?” David looked between Cyrus and mason. Mason shrugged.
“You heard,” Cyrus said. “This is down to you.”
As he strode off, Mason slapped David on the shoulder. He had a fully-fledged grin on his face “Nice one, David.”
“Cheers.” David scowled at the girl. “No biting, or…” He drew his finger across his throat.
“No biting.” She shook her head.
“What’s your name?”
She shook her head again.
David pointed to himself then Mason. “David, Mason…” He pointed to her. She shook her head.
“Well, well, she’s got no name and ain’t that a shame,” Mason was still grinning. “I like Lizbit,” he nudged David. “Liz – bit – get it?”
David screwed up his face. “That’s not even funny.”
“Ask her.” Mason looked at the girl. “Lizbit? You like?”
She stared at him blankly.
“Lizbit,” David told her. “Your name is Lizbit.”
He pointed at himself then to Mason and then her. “David, Mason, Lizbit. Say it – Lizbit – it’s your name.”
She pointed at herself. “Lizbit.”
Mason’s beard wobbled as he laughed.
“It’s not that I don’t trust you.”
David finished tying Lizbit’s wrists together behind her back and paused to speak to her before binding her ankles. Lizbit stared at him without saying anything.
“Okay, maybe it is that I don’t trust you. But you can’t blame me for that.”
He didn’t know how much she understood, but the way she constantly stared
at him was as unnerving as her lack of resistance to him tying her up and he felt compelled to fill the silence.
“We’re going to sleep now – you know sleep?”
“Sleep.”
“Yes, sleep. We’ve been up all night, need to get some rest.”
He bound her ankles, but not too tightly. He didn’t want to hurt her, but neither did he want to risk her killing him while he slept. He didn’t think she would, but he wasn’t taking chances.
Their relationship confused him. Without meaning or wanting to, he had become responsible for her, and though she hadn’t done anything to suggest she was a threat to him, he didn’t trust her. But not trusting her made him feel guilty. He wished Cyrus had dealt with the situation another way. Not by killing her, he didn’t want that. Giving her to someone else to look after would have been good.
Something else was bothering him – who was going to take responsibility for Lizbit when he left the Zeros to find Sorrel? He suspected he already knew the answer, and he didn’t like it.
“Go to sleep,” he ordered her.
He awoke several hours later with Sorrel on his mind and Lizbit watching him.
“Did you sleep at all?” he asked her.
“Sleep,” she replied.
David rolled his eyes. The sooner he found someone else to take care of her, the better.
“Not going to happen,” Cyrus said, “she’s your responsibility.”
“But I’m going to look for Sorrel and I’ll already have Valen to watch out for.”
“Valen has survived this long without you looking out for him. Besides which, I’ll be with you.”
“Seriously?”
“Said so, didn’t I?”
Delighted by the news, David grinned. “I wasn’t sure, thought it might just have been something you said, you know?”
“I’m a man of my word. I’m coming with you, and so is Lizbit.”
The grin faded from David’s face.
“What’s up?” Cyrus asked. “She’s tough enough, won’t take much looking after I don’t reckon.”
“So why can’t we leave her here?”
“She’s a Sawney.”
“You said she was a Zero now.”
“So I did, but we don’t know what Sawney ways are lingering in her. I’m not taking the chance on her making a meal of my Zero kin while you’re not here to keep an eye on her.”
“But someone else can watch her.” David looked around and saw Duncan back on duty on the Garden Centre. “Duncan – he’d do a good job of watching her. She can sit up on the roof with him.”
“David, I’m telling you this for the last time. She’s your responsibility. She comes with us, and if you want Valen to meet his kin again, you’ll make sure she doesn’t eat any of us on the way.”
Lizbit, who followed David like she was his shadow, witnessed the entire exchange. David looked at her.
“No eat,” she said.
“I should have killed you in the cave.”
“No die,” she said.
Cyrus laughed, but not for long. “We’ll leave at first light on the morrow.”
A small group of Zeros gathered at dawn to see them on their way.
“I hope you find them,” Mason said.
“Thank you – thanks for everything,” David said.
“No problem.”
“Just one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“Get rid of that daft beard.”
“You cheeky –”
Mason’s outrage was cut short by Kala’s hoot of laughter. “It is ridiculous, Mason. You must know that.”
Mason glowered at her. “Ridiculous, indeed.”
Kala had agreed to guide the group to the last place she’d seen Sorrel and Einstein. Mason’s glower faded when she hugged him farewell. “Watch yourself, you big lump.”
“You too.”
When Kala released him, Mason turned to Cyrus. They embraced briefly, slapping each other on the shoulders.
“Take good care of the Zeros,” Cyrus said.
“I will,” Mason replied. He looked at David. “Good luck.”
“Thank you.”
They eyed each other for a couple of beats before they too embraced.
“When you two have finished drooling over each other, maybe we can get going,” Kala said.
With that, they said their final goodbyes, slung their kit over their shoulders, and Kala, David, Cyrus, Valen and Lizbit ventured out into the Wastelands.
6.
Vessel
Sorrel put another log on the fire and huddled close. She and Einstein had walked for three days before finding the building, an old stone bothy from Before. It contained a few pieces of furniture – chairs, a table, a bed with a mildewed mattress – and a small treasure trove of rusting tools Einstein had immediately set about restoring. The roof was intact, and it was dry inside, though no matter how much wood she burned, Sorrel could not get warm.
At first, she blamed the cottage. It had been lying empty and unused for so long that its stone walls were saturated with unyielding cold, but as the days wore on with a fire blazing in the hearth and no complaints from Einstein, she wondered if the deep chill she felt was coming not from the building, but from inside herself.
David’s disappearance followed by Eli’s rejection had opened a chasm, a void that deepened and widened with each passing day until she was nought but an empty vessel.
She barely glanced at Einstein when he came through the door. Ignoring her disinterest, he barged into her space and held two large fish in front of her face.
“Fresh from the river. Look how fine they are.”
Not having much choice in the matter, Sorrel stared at the fish. Though she was in no mood to say as much, they were indeed a fine catch. Already gutted and cleaned, each was more than two hand lengths long. Their plump bodies glistened gold, and their backs were dappled with spots surrounded by silver halos. But even though Einstein held them right in front of her, she felt that she was viewing them from a distance. She wasn’t close to anything now.
He placed the fish on the table.
“Some herbs to go with them and they will make an excellent breakfast.”
As hints went, this one was heavy as they came. Sorrel looked back at the fire and stared into the spaces between the flames.
“The fresh air will do you good,” Einstein persisted. He was forever trying to prise her away from the hearth. “By the time you come back, the griddle will be hot.”
Why wouldn’t he leave her alone?
“If you want herbs so much, why don’t you go and fetch them yourself?” She muttered the words, but Einstein caught them well enough.
“You have barely moved for days.”
Sorrel shrugged. “Don’t care.”
“You cannot go on like this.”
“Why not – what does it matter?”
“I know you are hurting, Sorrel, but I am still here. You are not alone.”
Irked by his mithering, she glowered at him. He looked back at her with kindness, but instead of feeling cared for, the compassion in his face twisted something inside her.
“You might be here, but you’re not Eli and you’re not David.”
Einstein stared at her for a long moment before replying. “No, I am not, but right now I am all you have.”
“Lucky me.” Sorrel dashed the words back at him without pausing to think. The furl of his brow and the hurt in his eyes should have made her feel bad, instead she felt glad that he was hurting. Now he knew what it was like.
Einstein shook his head. “This is a fine place we have found – we could winter here. It would do you no harm to think on your good fortune for a change. I am going out to look for herbs. Perhaps you will be in better grace when I return.”
Sorrel looked back at the fire without saying anything. By the time the door had closed behind him, tears were in her eyes.
She had cried a lot in the past days. Though sh
e had little else inside her, of tears there were plenty, but there was no sobbing to accompany them. They simply welled and fell until they stopped.
Her head dropped. She barely had the strength to hold it up. Perhaps she would lie down and go to sleep, curled up in front of the fire. With any luck, she would never wake up, and this, the emptiness, the lack of everything but pain and tears, would be gone.
She stared down at her legs, at her arms lying limply on them. Her gaze strayed to the birthmark on her wrist. Three interconnecting circles. She traced around them with a finger, then again, this time dragging her skin with her nail.
For such a small mark, it had brought her a mountain of grief. Her grandmother had read something into it, as had Martin then Niven. It had become a symbol for people in the Dregs, yet it was nothing but a stupid mark, its only true meaning: trouble.
She dug her nails deeper into her skin, but they were too short to do any damage. She could barely feel them, even when she jabbed them in deep, and Sorrel wanted to feel something – anything that would distract her from the pain inside her – even if that something was a different kind of hurt.
A twig lying by the kindling pile caught her gaze. She picked it up and used it to scratch at her birthmark with its jagged end until she scraped away her skin and drew blood. Sorrel watched as it oozed out in tiny pleasing globules.
She worked at the graze, gradually widening it. There was pain, but it was too far away. She wanted it close to her, she wanted to immerse herself in it.
“What are you doing?”
She’d been so absorbed by her task, she hadn’t noticed Einstein returning. He snatched the twig from her hand and threw it on the fire then lifted her wrist and stared at the wound. “This needs to be cleaned.”
He pulled her to her feet and dragged her to the door, trampling through the freshly gathered herbs he’d dropped. The aroma from their bruised leaves and crushed stems rose to meet her. He’d picked the wrong kind.
She tried to squirm out of his grip. “Leave me alone.”
“No, I will not leave you. We need to go to the river and rinse out that wound.”
“I don’t want to go.”
“Really?” He let go of her arm and turned to face her. “You want to leave it to fester? Is that what you want? Fever and poisoning of the blood to follow?”
The New Day Page 6