Edge of Chaos [Book 1]

by Jack Lewis

  “Ed,” she said, her eyes pleading. “Don’t say anything. Just fucking don’t.”

  Chapter Six

  Heather

  Out in the garden, Heather had zoned out halfway through laying the tarpaulin over the vegetables. Kim had said something, but Heather’s thoughts were far away, residing in the Dome where Charles Bull had taken Jenny.

  “We’ve been doing this for hours. My arm’s going to drop off,” said Kim.

  It was one of Kim’s typical exaggerations. They hadn’t been working for hours and her arm was connected to her body the way it should be. She’d grown up for ten years without her father, and she started to tell lies after he left.

  They were harmless things; if the walk to school was a mile, Kim said it took three. One day it took on a more destructive bent, as Heather discovered during the break between classes.

  She was standing by the staff room window. From here you could see for miles and it gave the rare view of something outside the Capita, where in the distance a valley of mountains stretched out into the sky. The door behind her opened. It was Mr. Erlich, one of three other teachers in the school. He happened to be Kim’s teacher.

  “Miss Castle.”

  “I told you, you can call me Heather.”

  “Heather,” he said, the word sounding strange, as though the familiarity was hard for him. “Kim said something disturbing in front of the class today.”

  “Go on, you better spill it.”

  He put a hand on her shoulder. It was the first time he’d ever stood within a foot of her, let alone touched her. Why did she feel unnerved?

  “What’s going on, Clive?”

  “I wanted to say I’m sorry about your husband. I had no idea he used to…”

  “Used to what?”

  His cheeks reddened. “That he used to beat you.”

  It was complete bullshit. Heather’s husband never even spoke harshly to her, let alone anything worse. Kim’s fantasy that she had seen her father beat her mother had spilled out of her mouth in the middle of class, and for the next few weeks Heather had to explain that Kim had remembered it wrong. Kim couldn’t tell her why she said it, and she looked on the verge of tears.

  Kim was too young to remember much of her father. Perhaps that was why she lied. She was filling the blanks in her memory by inventing things.

  “Jesus mum, what’s wrong with you today?” said Kim.

  Heather shook her head and focused on the job at hand. Rain tapped onto the hood of her raincoat, and more of it fell on the outstretched tarpaulin and ran in channels off the slick surface.

  Her vegetables were below the tarpaulin. She and Kim managed to dry out and store some of their last crops, but this one was bigger than the rest. This was the one that would give them enough supplies to start the journey away and leave the Capita behind for good.

  She didn’t know where they’d go. There were two or three settlements outside Capita territory, so maybe there. There were islands off the mainland where the infection wouldn’t reach, where the sea surrounding them was better protection than a hammer or a gun.

  It was stepping into the border of crazy to leave without a destination in mind, but anything was better than here. The Capita offered safety, but its price was intrusion, fear, and control.

  Heather knew the stories. Doors busted open in the middle of the night, people dragged screaming into the middle of the road and executed. Curtains in the houses around them twitching as sleepy neighbours watched. The Capita set the price of its freedom, and failure to pay it meant punishment without mercy and without humanity.

  As a teacher, she was standing on a narrow ledge, where all it took was a complaint or two from the kids and she’d face questions herself. She imagined Charles Bull pounding on her door in the middle of the night, his long beak breaching the tread of her bedroom door.

  “What’s it like outside the Capita?” said Kim.

  Heather crouched to her knees and laid the corner of tarpaulin. She used a screwdriver to gouge a hole in it, threaded a small stick through, and drove it into the soil.

  “I don’t know,” said Heather. “I’ve never been.” She’d travelled the mainland, of course, but that was before the outbreak.

  “Is it full of infected?”

  “It’s going to be dangerous and we might die. You understand, don’t you?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And you still want to leave?”

  Kim crossed her arms. “I’m not the same as the other kids. You don’t have to lie to me.”

  “I realise that, but there are things I don’t think you’re ready to know.”

  “You need me,” said Kim. “Once you had Dad, but he’s gone, and you have me to support you now.”

  Heather grinned despite herself. “Do me a favour and stay a kid a while, yeah?”

  A pounding sound came from the front door. Her chest tightened, and the cogs of her mind spun. Visitors were rare these days, and friendly ones rarer. She grabbed the screwdriver and went to the front door.

  She lost her breath at the sight of the monster in front of her. Charles Bull filled the doorframe, with two Capita soldiers behind him.

  A deep gouge ran across one soldier’s face, cutting a channel from the corner of his eye to the edge of his mask. He nodded at Heather with a human gesture she’d never seen from a Capita soldier before. He replaced it with the blank stare the Capita required of its guards.

  “Doing DIY, or are you going to stab me?” he said.

  “Come in,” she said, feigning indifferences to him turning up at her door. Just another normal visit from the Capita’s county hunter. Don’t let him know he gets to you.

  As he followed her into the house, every room grew colder. His eyes made it seem like he was smiling at her, but it was like being smiled at by a shark.

  “Mind if I take a look outside?” said Charles.

  If you touch anything I’ll kill you, she thought.

  Who am I kidding? I’m terrified of him.

  “Go head,” she said.

  Charles went out into the garden, where a flock of geese flew overhead. He turned his attention to the ground. He grabbed one of the sticks Heather had driven into the soil and pulled it.

  He lifted the tarpaulin to reveal a line of carrots with their heads poking out of the soil. He heaved an eight-inch carrot out the earth, spraying mud across the stone paving.

  She clenched her fists. It was like watching a stranger talk to your child on the bus; a feeling of intrusion, of someone rummaging around in your personal possessions. This was their plan, their future, and Charles thought he could do whatever he wanted with it.

  He scraped the soil off the carrot. He took an AVS sensor from his coat pocket, held it in the air, and waited for it to bleep green. He put a hand to his mouth and unzipped part of his mask.

  Heather kept her mask on all the time, because no matter what the AVS registered, there was the chance a gust of wind could blow infected air their way. Charles didn’t seem to mind breathing unfiltered air. He bit the carrot. A second later, he spat chunks of pulped carrot onto the ground, and threw the rest of it across the garden.

  A fire leapt through Heather, and only thoughts of Kim kept her from exploding. One wrong word, one stupid action, and Charles’s men would take her away.

  “Better in a stew,” said Charles. “Raw carrot is too bitter. Tastes too much of the earth.”

  The solder with the scarred face walked around the garden. Despite the pantomime of Charles’s mask, the Capita soldiers wore standard issue. It made them seem more human, but the Capita were masters of propaganda who played with emotions like children played with toys.

  “How long did it take you to dig the trench?” said the soldier, hovering over the onions.

  “A year,” said Kim.

  “A couple of weeks,” corrected Heather.

  “You’ve done a sweet job,” said the soldier

  “Wind you tongue in, Max,” said Charles.r />
  Max had drawn a giant grin across his standard issue mask. It spread from side to side, the mouth open to reveal tonsils at the back. He walked around the garden casually, a contrast to the other solider who was standing so straight you could hang a coat on him.

  Max pinched soil between his fingers and rubbed it until it fell to the ground. “You should start composting,” he said. “It’ll enrich the soil.”

  “How do you know?” said Heather.

  The grin painted on Max’s mask was fake, but his eyes showed a genuine smile. He had an easy manner that, if the Bull wasn’t here, could have relaxed Heather. At the other side of the garden, Kim couldn’t take her eyes off the bounty hunter’s mask.

  “My mum used to grow marrows,” said the soldier. “She won best in show two years in a row. Would have won the third if the judges weren’t in Barry Sander’s pocket.”

  “That’s enough,” said Charles.

  She wanted them to leave, but she couldn’t make it obvious. If she upset Charles, there was no telling what he’d do. She’d heard the things he was capable of.

  “This isn’t a social call,” said Charles.

  Great. Just great. What did he want? Maybe Charles was going to order the food they’d grown to be added to the Capita stores, and that would ruin everything. She made sure the thought stayed where it was. She didn’t need more shit to add to her trench of worries.

  “What can I help you with?” she said, trying to make her voice sound casual.

  “Let’s go inside,” he said, inviting Heather as if this were his house.

  He slid open the patio doors. His boots left faint imprints of mud on the living room carpet, but it had been a long time since she’d cared about stains. It was an achievement sliding out of bed in the morning, let alone cleaning the house.

  They sat in the living room. Charles leaned back into a chair and crossing his legs. Max and the other soldier were standing behind him. The other soldier hadn’t said a word since being here. Maybe he was mute.

  Charles spoke first. “I need you to help me,” he said. “I need you to keep an eye out for DC’s in school. Among the children.”

  Her mind flicked to Jenny, and her stomach lurched. What had happened to her? She didn’t want to think about it. Part of her worried the girl had known Heather was aware of her secret, and she’d told the Capita soldiers that Heather was her accomplice.

  “There aren’t any DC’s in school,” said Kim.

  How did she stay so calm? Kim’s eyes showed more curiosity than fear. Kids didn’t have any awareness of danger. They were cushioned from the reality of the outside world, but that was going to have to change. Children needed to be scared these days. They needed to know what waited for them, both in the safe zones of the Capita and outside it.

  Charles ignored her. “If you knew of any, would you report them?” he asked Heather.

  “Of course,” she lied.

  He leant forward. “Tell me. How could you teach Jenny Fairglove for so long and not know what she was?”

  “They don’t exactly wear stickers.”

  “Come on. I’m talking about a child. They can’t keep secrets.”

  Heathers face flushed red, and she hoped it didn’t show. I want this horrible man out of my house.

  “They tend to hide their condition,” she said, trying to keep the scorn from her voice. “Because they know how they’ll be treated.”

  She regretted the words as soon as she said them. Talking ill of the Capita wasn’t wise no matter whose company you kept. It was downright dangerous in front of Charles.

  “You have no idea how they’re treated, Heather.”

  He stood up out of his seat. His costume made him seem taller than he was. If you peeled back his pantomime dress, you’d see a man who hadn’t eaten his vegetables as a kid.

  “Would you know if your daughter was one of them?” he said.

  Hearing him talk about her daughter made her face hot. “She’s not one of them,” said Heather.

  “But would you report it if she was? How deep is your loyalty to the Capita?”

  “You expect people to choose the Capita over their families?”

  “That’s what I did.”

  Charles’s eyes softened, and his shoulders sagged. He transformed into a different person. One blink later, the effect was reversed, and Charles the Bounty Hunter, with his leather coat and hideous mask, once again filled the room. He drew his coat together. The head of his pickaxe rested parrot-like on his shoulder.

  “Watch the children, Heather. Be my little magpie, and I’ll make sure you’re rewarded with breadcrumbs. But if you don’t report anything, they’ll hear your screams resound from away from the Dome.”

  Heather didn’t say anything. That didn’t bother Charles, who carried on speaking.

  “I shouldn’t be telling you this, but there’s a Resistance insider feeding information from the Capita. I don’t know who it is, but I’ll find out. They can hide, but I know all the hiding places. In the meantime, those of us who live under the Capita must stick together.”

  He turned to Kim. “Do you know how the air smells, girl?”

  “No.”

  “Have you ever wondered?”

  “Yes.”

  After all the things she lied about, all the facts and stories she exaggerated for no reason, she decided to tell the truth about this? This was the one answer Heather didn’t want her to give. It made her look suspicious. Normal people want to smell the air. Normal people didn’t care, and the Capita loved normal people.

  Charles knelt in front of Kim. His leather coat creaked. “Do any of your friends ever take their masks off?”

  “Never.”

  “What about yours, sweet girl? Have you ever taken it off for a tiny second?”

  Kim glared at him. “I’m not stupid. I know what’s in the air. Mum taught me how to use the AVS when I was four.”

  Good girl thought Heather.

  Charles nodded his head. “Your mum is a sensible woman. Let’s hope she stays that way.”

  He nodded to the two soldiers. “We’ve got more houses to visit.”

  Max gave another look around the room and walked out of it.

  “Stay safe. Both of you,” said Charles.

  After Charles left the house, Kim threw her arms around Heather. It was a closeness they rarely shared, despite the love between them. Heather found physical contact strange. Having a kid was supposed to solve that, but hugs still felt awkward. The sentiment hit home this time, and she returned the embrace.

  “He scares me,” said Kim.

  “You did a great job hiding it.”

  “Why does he want to find the DC’s so much?”

  Few people knew the answer. Heather didn’t know the full extent of things, but she knew enough. The answer wasn’t fit for the ears of children, but was there such thing as a child anymore? Despite Kim being just twelve years old, she couldn’t be a kid. She needed to be a small adult. She needed to know the truth. I’m gonna tell her. It’s safer that way.

  “The Capita use their bodies to cure the infected,” she said.

  “I thought you turn when you’re infected?”

  “Not always, Kim.”

  “What would you do if I was a DC, mum? Would you hide me?”

  The question peeled away Heather’s skin, sawed through her skull, and buried itself inside her brain. It was a question she already turned over in her head again and again, in bed. Once, she thought the question was an almighty “yes”. It was unquestionable; if she knew someone was a DC, she would help them.

  After letting the bounty hunter take Jenny, and turning her back on the boy in Cresstone, she wasn’t so sure. She was losing the high ground she’d built for herself. She knew wrong from right, and she thought she would stand up when she needed to. Now the idea had been tested, it was bullshit.

  Chapter Seven

  Ed

  Dark bags sagged under Bethelyn’s eyes. Her skin was
faded, like clothing run through the wash too many times. She was hollow, as if she had lost weight over the last few minutes. Part of her was gone.

  “Bethelyn?”

  “Don’t say anything. I can’t think about it. If I do…I can’t breathe. I don’t wanna hear anything that isn’t related to our survival. I don’t think you realise the shit we’re in Ed, but the infection has hit Golgoth.”