Islanders

by John Barlow

  “So, how do you survive?”

  “I grow vegetables. They leave me alone, out here, away from trouble. I grow veg. They leave me alone. And...” she blushed just a touch, “you see, in my case... Sullivan’s... he’s an evil piece of scum, but he has a soft spot for me. Don’t forget, we used to be comrades. Before he went power crazy, we worked together, him, Ben’s mum and dad, me. We were gonna built a new society. Our kids were gonna be the new hope for the world. They were gonna be the future! We were idealistic, were gonna do so much!”

  “Your kids? Do you mean you had a...” Silver said.

  “Forget it!” Terra said quickly. “Just forget I ever said that! You hear?”

  She turned away, and grabbed a fistful of onions.

  There was a sudden clucking noise and a cackle of laughter. Bad an’ Worse tumbled through the bushes at the edge of the garden. They’d found a couple of chunk-hens. They both had a bird under their arm, and were brandishing them like feathery bazooka guns, trying to get the hens to peck their brother to death. The birds snapped and snapped in rapid-fire as the twins danced around each other, almost doubled up with laughter. They had both been nipped all over, but it didn’t seem to matter: the birds weren’t biting hard, they were just playing, and Bad an’ Worse were loving it.

  Then they saw the others, there amid the onions. It was like the twins could read each other’s minds. The stopped playing with the hens, and a grin swept across their faces in an instant.

  “Hey, Coby! Look what we’ve got!” Worse shouted.

  Coby’s jaw fell open. He knew what was coming. Terra, meanwhile, could hardly believe what she was seeing, and stood there, along with Silver and Ben, too amazed to speak.

  Coby was already up and running. They hung me down from the cliffs by my ears, he told himself as he scarpered, now they’re after me with a couple of deadly hens! Off he sprinted, with the twins in hot pursuit.

  “They’ll be back,” Terra shrugged, as the three of them vanished into the woods, to the sound of snapping chunk-hens.

  *

  Late that evening they had dinner around the large wooden table in the kitchen. On the table were two oil lamps, which gave off a murky yellow light.

  “Don’t you have electricity?” Silver had asked when Terra lit the lamps.

  Terra stared at her as if she had asked the most fearful question in the world.

  “Keep away from electricity!” she said, stone-faced and deadly serious. “From now on, all of you, stay clear of it.”

  So, under the light of the oil lamps they ate. There were great piles of fried onions, done nice and slow in the pan until they had turned brown. And with the onions as many little potatoes, tomatoes, carrots and celery as they wanted. And between them, they wanted a lot, especially Bad an’ Worse. Coby watched the twins as he ate, still sulking, and rubbing his arms and the back of his neck where the chunk-hens had given him a thousand friendly nips.

  Terra, meanwhile, answered more of Silver’s questions.

  “Are the melted men bad?” Terra said with a chuckle. “The poor things! They’re Sullivan’s police. Low-level security. Not really bad. Dumb, most of them. They’re only used for patrolling, nothing very important. You see, Sullivan likes to keep the roads open. Just in case. Ah, Jack!” she said, lifting the bottle of Complex Spirit and waving it in the air, as if this explained everything. She took a swig straight from the bottle. “Silly old Jack Sullivan!”

  “You on first name terms with him?” Bad said, looking up from his plate. He’d only known about Sullivan for few minutes, but already he wanted to punch his teeth out.

  “Me and Sullivan go back,” she said, looking at the space in front of her. “Way back.”

  Coby was puzzled. “Why does he want to keep the roads open?” he asked.

  “Because he’s still looking for the Survivors. After all these years, still looking. And if any of you tell anyone about the Settlement, if you speak about it to anyone at all, it will get back to Sullivan. Because he will chase, and torment, and torture, if he thinks he’ll find the last of the Survivors.”

  Terra drank again from the bottle.

  “Have your fun stealing cars from the melted men, but remember, this place is dangerous. Especially for you!” she said to Ben. “Go home, all of you, go home and make the best of it. Leave this place.”

  She got up from the table and went outside.

  *

  It was pitch black when Ben crept out of the cottage and into the garden. A scattering of stars hung in the sky, and he remembered how he used to look up at the stars back on the Island, wondering if his dad had ever gazed up at them too, those strange patterns that changed every night but kept coming around again and again, glinting like tiny memories too far away to hear.

  He didn’t see Terra until he had walked right past her in the dark, only the glowing tip of her cigarette visible. She was sitting on a low wall at the side of the house.

  “Hi,” she whispered, almost as if she’d been expecting him. “And before you tell me, I know it’s bad for me.”

  With that, she dropped the cigarette and trod on it.

  For a while neither of them spoke. There was too much going on in Ben’s head, and he didn’t know where to start. He had so much to ask her. But suddenly he felt the absence of his dad like an enormous, gaping hole in his life, and he had no idea how to mend it. Perhaps he never would.

  “So, you’re going to take them back, Ben?” Terra said at last, hardly loud enough to hear. “Back to the Settlement? Where you’ll be safe?”

  He thought about it for a while.

  “I’m not going back, not yet,” he said. He was glad that he couldn’t see her eyes. “I’m going to find my dad.”

  “Ben...” she began.

  “We had a messenger. Someone from here came and found us. He said my dad was alive.”

  Terra sighed. And in that sigh Ben could hear immediately that she didn’t believe him.

  “He said dad was... Oh, what does it matter! You don’t believe me.”

  “Go home, Ben. Please. Take the others home with you, where it’s safe.”

  For a second she was silent. Then she seemed to laugh quietly to herself.

  “Do you know what your dad’s biggest fault was?” she whispered.

  “What?”

  “He never saw the risks. I can see the same thing in you, Ben. Striding off further into the mainland before you know the dangers. That’s your dad all over. Pure John Brewer. That’s why he got caught. And why I ended up here on my own instead of with the Survivors. Because your dad couldn’t resist a bit of action, a bit more glory for himself. Sorry to say it, but your dad was a lovely, brave, big-hearted asshole...”

  “But why was it all his fault?”

  “He had to have his big macho quest, didn’t he? Went off to confront Sullivan, his final mission. I remember him telling me all about it, puffed up and proud he was. Said he’d come straight back, get the rest of the Underground, and take us to the Settlement. Back to where his baby son was about to be born...”

  Her voice trailed off.

  “Ben, I’m sorry. I just let my big mouth run on...”

  “Don’t worry. My mum’s still a bit angry with him as well.”

  “Oh I bet she is, sweetheart. I just bet she is.”

  “Anyway, when he didn’t come back, why didn’t the rest of the Underground just make their own way out to the Settlement? It’s not that hard, you know. We made it back here on our own.”

  “Ben, don’t you see? We didn’t know where it was! It was too dangerous for everyone to know. Sullivan would have found out. No one knew where it was. East, west, south... we had no idea. Only your dad knew. That’s how the Settlement has survived, because Sullivan never found out where it was. And if he ever does, he’ll be there in a flash for your mum.”

  Ben’s flesh began to creep. “Great, so now you’re telling me Sullivan had something going on with my mum...” he said, sickened a
t the very thought of it.

  “No! Ben, Ben, no! Sullivan was mad about your mum. But she despised him. When he knew that the Underground were secretly planning to escape, he offered her everything. She could have been the most powerful woman alive, he begged her, he almost... he almost killed himself with grief when she wouldn’t listen to him. It was nearly impossible to smuggle her away. I mean her and you, you inside her, an unborn baby...”

  Ben laughed. He’d never thought of himself that like before.

  “She risked everything for you, Ben. Just to get you away from Sullivan. She risked so much. You’ll never know how brave she was.”

  There was a long pause.

  “You know,” he said, not knowing whether he should say it, “she talked about you.”

  “Who did?”

  “My mum.”

  “She talked about me? To you?”

  “When you told us your name, I knew I’d heard it before. Mum used to talk about you. Years ago, when I was a lot younger. I realized yesterday evening who you were, but I thought it’d make you sad, so I kept it to myself. I’m sorry.”

  “It does make me sad,” she said, not even trying to fight the tears, which were already filling her eyes. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to know. It’s beautiful, however sad!”

  Her voice crackled away to nothing, and she wheezed a few incomprehensible words, before sniffing all her sadness back inside herself and refusing to cry any more.

  “You were the only person from the past she ever talked about,” Ben said. “She didn’t even talk about Dad, apart to tell me that he was dead, which he isn’t. It was when I was small. She’d talk about this girl called Terra, how she’d been her inspiration, the heart of the Underground, the fairy! She used to call you the fairy, because she said you floated, you weren’t made of flesh and bone, you were made of pure goodness. And... she misses you more than anything.”

  Terra stared out into the darkness of the night, unable to speak.

  “Well,” Ben whispered, trying to cheer her up, “you’ll see you soon enough, when we go back go to the Island with us.”

  Straightaway he realized what he’d said.

  “Oh, crap!” he hissed, and hit himself on the forehead with the base of his hand. “Damn it!”

  “Don’t worry,” Terra said, “I’d already worked out that the Settlement was probably on an island: no cars, no weird mutations... And we’re only about thirty miles from the coast here. You can trust me. I won’t let you down, Ben.”

  “All right,” he said, “but don’t mention to the others that I told you. OK?”

  “OK!” Terra said, a bit offended. “And you remember not to tell anyone else. OK?”

  There was another pause.

  “Ben,” she said. “I won’t be coming back with you. To the Settlement.”

  “What? But my mum...”

  “I know, Ben. I know.” She took a deep breath. “I’ll never leave the mainland. You see... ah, this is difficult! You see, he’s got something of mine. Sullivan’s got something that I can’t...” Tears were rolling down her cheeks. “I can’t leave here. I’m sorry. I’ve got to stay.”

  Ben took her hand and held it tight. And together, without another word, they searched the black night sky desperately for some sign of hope.

  Deep within him, as he peered up into the darkness, Ben realized something for the first time: Dad’s not dead, he told himself. Sullivan didn’t kill him. And now I know why.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  That night Silver slept on the couch. Ben was in the bathtub, and Coby under the stairs. Bad lay on a pile of blankets on the kitchen table, but he rolled off so many times that in the end he stayed on the floor.

  Worse was too excited to sleep. He wandered out into the garden. Right at the bottom, hidden away, he found a tumble-down stable block where Terra kept half a dozen pigs. Inside it was Ugly Pig, asleep with his new friends. Worse stroked Ugly between the ears, then snuggled down beside him on a bed of straw, and dozed happily all night.

  In the morning, a curious smell invaded the whole house. Bad, Silver and Coby followed their noses and found Terra in the kitchen, cooking. What was it? A sizzling noise? And the strong, savory smell? Ooh, that was some smell! Delicious, mind-blowing, completely mysterious...

  “Brrrrreakfast!” Terra shouted.

  They were already in their places at the table. She put a large plate in front of each one of them. On every plate were two fried eggs and a nice big pile of fried tomatoes. But there was something else, something they had heard about, and read about, and seen on movies plenty of times, but had never tasted: bacon.

  “Oh, wow!” Bad said, his mouth quivering.

  “Bacon!” Coby whispered.

  Silver was dumb-struck.

  All three of them gazed down at their plates.

  “Hey,” Terra said, “where are Ben and Bad? Their breakfasts’ll get cold.”

  But the three at the table weren’t listening. They were staring at their slices of crisply fried bacon, big drops of saliva collecting on their glistening lips.

  Coby stabbed a piece with his fork slowly, then lifted it up. It shone with hot fat, and smelled fantastic, even better than the onions they’d had yesterday evening. Sniffing its powerful, salty smell, he popped the whole piece into his mouth and chewed very slowly. The others watched him. He chewed carefully, trying not to be greedy. However, each time his jaws moved his eyes grew larger and his mouth went faster and faster.

  “It’s...” he said, almost choking, too excited to swallow, “...it’s fantastic!”

  With that they dove into their food, gobbling down bacon and eggs and tomatoes with hardly a word. It was like watching a pack of piranha-stars at a breakfast banquet.

  The bacon was unbelievably delicious, after a lifetime on the Island eating whatever miserable scraps of food there were. They polished it off in no time at all. And only then, when they’d finished, did they noticed: Worse and Ben were still nowhere to be seen.

  “Someone better go and look for them,” Terra said, “before all the bacon’s gone.”

  Bad went out to look for the others. He soon found his brother, snuggled down in the pig sty with Ugly and the other pigs. It looked as if he’d slept better than anybody else, there on a thick pile of straw, and he was just stretching and thinking about getting up when Bad came to fetch him.

  “You’ll never believe what’s for breakfast!” Bad said, and told him to hurry up and get to the kitchen.

  Worse yawned, stretched, and tickled Ugly Pig behind the ears. Ugly gave a little grunt, then rolled over and fell asleep again. So Worse got up, picked the bits of straw from his hair, and ran a grubby hand across his face, which, as usual, was dirty. Then he went straight to the kitchen, famished, and ready to eat just about anything.

  “What...?” he said, as he sat down at the table and saw a big plateful of eggs and bacon waiting for him. All the others watched him, giggling, patting their stomachs with satisfaction. “Is it...” he said.

  “Bacon!” they cried, laughing at one another, licking their fingers, which were covered in delicious, salty bacon fat.

  “Bacon...” Worse said. “But...”

  Slowly he picked up his fork. But it was no use. He couldn’t eat the bacon.

  “I think I’ll just have the eggs,” he said.

  Immediately three hands raced across the table, and all traces of bacon disappeared from Worse’s plate. From that day on, Worse never touched a slice of bacon in his life.

  It wasn’t until they’d all licked their salty, greasy fingers for the very last bit of bacon fat, that they looked around.

  Where was Ben?

  *

  At that very moment, Ben was hanging onto the neck of an emu, and thinking exactly the same thing. The bird bounded swiftly along the road, taking huge steps, and Ben wondered just where it was taking him.

  Earlier that morning, before anyone else was awake, he had tiptoed out of Terra�
�s cottage and crept away into the woods, with the rising sun on his back. After a while he came across a road, probably the same road as yesterday, and he set out along it. The sun was behind him, so he must be going west, towards the heart of the mainland. More than that he didn’t know.

  There were lights on the road, tall rusting street lights. Some of them were on, flickering and buzzing overhead. Others were smashed, hanging down with their wires mangled and exposed, fizzing and sparking in the air.

  As far as he could see into the distance there were more lights, like a string of buzzing orange dots along the road. And that’s where he was heading. Whatever had happened to his dad, there was only one way to find out, and it was better to do it now, alone.

  After walking for a while he had come across a giant emu by the side of the road, pecking at the ground idly. Ben approached it cautiously, gave the bird a couple of friendly strokes, and pulled himself up onto its great feathery back. He looked around: sure enough, not far away he saw a little head nestled in a bushy clump of bracken. The plants shuddered and trembled to the sound of an emu-lator’s snoring.

  “Well,” Ben said, kicking his legs, “I know I shouldn’t, but...”

  He grabbed the emu’s neck tight and off they went.

  Half an hour later, Ben’s backside was pretty sore, and he had discovered something about giant emus that everybody discovers before too long: they have no brakes. He held on for dear life as the bird raced along the road, showing no signs of slowing down.

  The morning sunshine soon gave way to dark, irregular clouds. Strips of murky gray blew across the sky, blocking out the light of what had been a clear day. There was something unnatural about the sky, Ben thought each time he glanced up, something cold and metallic that sent a shiver down his spine. But on he went, with no idea how he might stop.

  The road continued over a long, rolling hill, then another, mile after mile, street lights humming and sparking above him all the way. Wherever he was going, it was a long way off. But this must be the way, he told himself, because there were no other roads in sight, no side-roads, no turn-offs. Nothing. Just one long road taking him further into the mainland.