by Jack Lewis
Alice looked at the ground for a few seconds. Her skin was full and pink, and it was free of the wrinkles that most people her age sported. Whatever burdens Alice carried, she carried them well. She was a contrast to Victoria, whose wrinkles made her look like a leather purse. Alice looked toward the fence. The men stepped away from the area they had been holding.
“I’m sorry Kyle, I can’t. They need me here. You’ve seen how stupid they are. The fence will fall apart if I leave it to Ewan. And he’d love to tell people I was slacking off.”
I sighed. That was the answer I’d been dreading. “I know. I tried finding Lou, but she’s a ghost.”
“Saw her yesterday,” said Alice. “She was arguing with the guy we saw in Victoria’s office, the one with the scarred face.”
“Billy?”
“Yeah. Then I saw her in the street and she blanked me.”
I didn’t know what was going on with Lou. She knew Billy from before, that much was obvious. She was keeping something from me, but I had to remind myself that I had only met the woman a few weeks ago. I had no right to demand to know the secrets of her past. I would just have to wait for her to tell me. Until then, though, I didn’t know how much I could trust her.
Pinpricks of freezing wind punctured through the insulation of my coat. I stamped my feet on the ground to get my blood flowing.
“Thanks anyway,” I said.
I walked away, toward the exit of the settlement.
“Kyle?” Alice called after me.
I turned, waited for her to say something.
“Don’t do anything to fuck this up for us,” she said.
There was no way around it. I was going to have to go and see Moe alone. If I didn’t, there was no way Victoria would let us stay. That meant we would all have to head into the Wilds again, leave the safety of Bleakholt and face the same old dangers. Starvation, cold, the infected, stalkers. I couldn’t put Alice and Ben through it. I couldn’t ask Justin and Melissa to leave with me.
The problem was that I couldn’t trust myself around Moe. I always thought of myself as a logical guy. I was calm and not prone to emotions. But Moe had done something unforgivable, and even thinking of him sent a shot of hot anger through my veins. I was worried something would take over my brain if I saw him. Make me do something to him that would make me feel good, but would screw things up for everyone.
As I got nearer to the exit, boots trampled on the ground behind me.
“Going somewhere?” said a gruff voice.
Billy stepped in beside me, his muscled frame covered by a thick wool coat. A leather belt covered his waist, thick enough that a weight lifter could use it as a girdle. A butcher’s mallet hung off it.
“Going to see the campers,” I said.
“I’m coming with you,” said Billy.
I wanted to ask why. I wanted to refuse him, but I just didn’t have it in me. The truth was I needed someone there to hold me back. I didn’t matter that I didn’t trust Billy. He was tough enough to stop me if the rage took over.
***
The Vasey campsite was a scattering of battered tents. People huddled together around fires that flickered against the wind. Cold was etched into their faces, and their cheek bones stuck out. Life outside the fence was completely different from the safety of Bleakholt. The people looked a thousand calories short of what an average person needed to live. It reminded me of paintings I’d seen in a museum of the Irish potato famine. Desperation was written into their skin and the scars of hunger twisted their faces.
“Jesus,” said Billy. “Never actually been out here. Didn’t know things were this bad.”
“Don’t get your violin out just yet,” I said.
“What do you mean?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
I found it hard to be sympathetic. Moe was their ringleader, but every person here was complicit in the abandonment of the Vasey settlement. They all shared blame in what happened; the people they had left behind in Vasey had been slaughtered by stalkers.
I stamped away the tiny flicker of empathy that rose in my chest when I looked at their malnourished faces. I imagined a hard shell covering me, deflecting anything that might stir feelings of sympathy.
A man looked up as we approached. Recognition lit his face when he saw me. He opened his mouth to speak, but the words didn’t come. Yeah, I thought, you know who I am. You know what you did.
“Where’s Moe?” I said, keeping my voice cold as stone.
He pointed to a bank of trees a hundred feet away. It was the beginnings of a small wood. The branches of the trees were bare and the stick-thin limbs creaked against the wind. Despite the lack of foliage the woods were still dark, as though a shadow hung over them. I couldn’t see Moe, but he must have been there somewhere.
Instead of walking through the camp we skirted around the outside. Some of the campers would want to speak to me and maybe even apologise, but I didn’t want to hear it. Billy couldn’t help but stare as we walked through, and his expression dropped from tough stoicism to an etching of concern.
“Victoria never told us that it was this bad,” he said.
“Don’t get soft,” I said. “They deserve it.”
He screwed his face up, made the pock-marks on his skin more pronounced, tiny craters that dug into his cheek. “Are you for real?”
“Just trust me.”
“You’re a cold son of a bitch,” he said.
“They know what they did.”
“And what was that?”
“I don’t want to talk about it right now,” I said.
Billy looked at the ground. “We’ve all done things we regret,” he said, some of the harshness gone from his voice. “Do you think people deserve a second chance?.”
I didn’t answer him. I wanted to ask him about Lou, find out how he knew her and what the hell was going on. I knew he wouldn’t tell me, and I couldn’t afford to have an argument with him. Right now, so close to the Vasey camp, he was the only ally I had.
The wind screamed at the edge of the woods as the bare-limbed trees sucked it in and shrieked it back out. The muddy floor was toughened by frost, and our boots crunched as we walked along it. The further in we got, the more I wanted to turn back. The atmosphere of the woods made me want to zip my coat up to my chin and cover my face, as if there was something I shouldn’t see. The trees stretched back much further than I had first thought, and the whole woodland area must have covered at least a quarter of a mile.
“Jesus, look at that,” said Billy.
He pointed at a tree. I followed his outstretched finger, and then stopped walking. My legs felt heavy and my chest hurt as though the cold was a vice squeezing against it. I looked at the tree and felt a tremor of revulsion.
Ropes were tied around the trunk. Blood was splattered around the bark as though someone had exploded against it. Just below the ropes, stuck in the bark, was a fingernail with blood on the end, like someone had clawed desperately at the tree. I realised that the ropes were positioned at roughly chest height. Someone had been tied to the tree and torn apart.
Billy’s face was white. Despite his tough appearance, the draining of his face told me that he wasn’t as hardened to the horrors of the Wilds as I was. But even I felt sick. What had happened?
“Who the fuck are these people?” said Billy.
I didn’t occur to me that the Vasey crew had done this. I didn’t know what had gone on, but I never thought them capable of this, whatever it was.
Someone screamed ahead of us. There were dark figures thirty metres away. Two men dragged another one to a tree. His arms flailed and his feet dug into the ground, but he wasn’t able to get any grip against the hardened mud. He shrieks carried into the forest as they dragged him away.
13
The blood-stained ropes and the man’s desperate screams told us everything. It explained how Moe had been dealing with the stalkers. Thinking about it made my stomach lurch. This couldn’t go on. I didn
’t know exactly what I was going to do yet, but I had to stop this.
Moe pinned the man’s arms against the tree while another guy wrapped a cord of rope around his waist. The man thrashed against the ropes. I turned away and looked at the frost encrusted mud on the ground. I didn’t want to see the man’s face.
“Think about my kids, Moe. What are they gonna do?”
“You should have thought about that, you sick son of a bitch. Now quit begging.”
The man struggled like a dog tearing at a leash. He kicked out and landed a boot in the groin of the man who tied him, who bent over and wheezed. The tied-up man lurched forward and tried to snap the bonds that held him to the tree, but the rope was too thick. Moe stepped back, raised a hand and gave him a slap that echoed in the silent forest.
The man’s shoulders sagged. He leant his head back, dazed. Moe slapped him again.
“If Deb wanted you in her tent, she’d have invited you in,” said Moe.
The man looked up. The red prints of Moe's hand marked his pale cheeks. “I didn’t do a fucking thing,” he said.
“No, but you were going to.”
The man bared his teeth, his face screwed up like an animal. “Who gave you the moral high ground?”
Moe grinned, a sick twisting of his lips that spread across his wrinkled face. “You don’t need moral high ground when you’re sat on the throne.”
He pulled his hand back and clenched it into a fist. He smashed it into the man’s nose, sent blood spraying out.
“That’s enough,” said Billy. “We’ve gotta stop this.”
I knew he was right, but I couldn’t move. The sight of Moe had flushed my body with anger. Every time he slapped the man it was like a drum that sent rage pounding through me. I tried to move my legs but they were blocks of lead. It was as though my body put in a defence mechanism to stop me. Like my brain knew that the closer I got to Moe, the more likely I was to reach for my knife. I imagined my blade sticking out of his gut, his blood dripping onto the mud.
Billy’s boots crunched on the floor as he walked. Moe span round.
“You’re a pretty one,” he said, looking at Billy’s face.
Billy put his hand to his scarred cheek. “Untie him,” he said, and pointed at the guy.
“This isn’t your nice little settlement,” said Moe. “Out here I’ll do whatever the fuck I wa – “
Moe looked past Billy and saw me, and the words dropped from his mouth like ash.
“Kyle,” he said. This time the mocking tone left his voice.
My legs lightened as though my brain had handed back control of my body. I walked toward Moe, repeated words in my head like a mantra. Think of the others, Kyle. Don’t kill him. Think of the others.
Neither of us spoke for a while. I couldn’t believe how different Moe looked. He’d lost most of his bulk, whether through weeks of non-stop travel or plain malnourishment. He wore a cold sneer on his face. The long sheets of hair that once flowed from the sides of his head had started to wilt, leaving him with only a few strands of straw. His face was a desert of wrinkles, his skin the grey of concrete.
I couldn’t think about Moe. I had to put that to one side and try to pretend I was just dealing with another man. Get the job done, and get back to Bleakholt. Once I was far away from Moe and I’d held up my end of the bargain to Victoria, I could take my rage out on a wall. I would batter it until my knuckles swelled.
“What are you doing to him?” I said, pointing at the man, though I already knew the answer.
“I’d heard you were here,” said Moe.
The man struggled against the bonds but his effort was useless. A look of panic shot across his face.
“What the fuck’s going on?” I said.
Moe looked at the man, his face screwed in disgust. “Don’t worry about him.”
The man screamed. “I’ve done nothing wrong.”
“The rule worked in Vasey, and it works here,” said Moe. “With the added bonus of keeping our stalker friends happy.”
In Vasey, our old settlement, there was one rule. If you killed someone or stole something, you died. Without a police force it was the only way to keep things in order. I never agreed with it, but there wasn’t an alternative. As I looked at the man tied to a tree, terror written across his face, I knew the rule was wrong. Something about Moe’s face told me this wasn’t about justice. He got a kick out of it.
“Make sure the ropes are tight,” Moe said. Then he looked at me. “When we first got here, the stalkers would come every night. They’d prowl through camp, ripping people from their tents. So I started leaving them sacrifices. It keeps them happy, and now they stay away from camp. They know that if they come to the woods at night, they’ll get their meal. I’ve trained them. Call me Moe, the stalker whisperer.”
Revulsion coursed through me. I imagined how many people had spent their nights tied to a tree, shivering in the cold, waiting for the stalkers to come. Hearing their claws scrape against the frozen ground as they crawled closer. Teeth bared, spit dripping from their mouths.
Victoria wanted me to solve her stalker problem. She wanted me to find out how the Vasey campers were dealing with them, but I couldn’t bring this back as a solution. No matter what this man had done, if he had done anything wrong at all, he didn’t deserve this.
“It’s pretty clear you’re one of them now, Kyle,” said Moe. “Your loyalties have changed.”
My shoulders tensed. “What the hell do you know about loyalty? You abandoned everyone, Moe. Do you know what happened to the people you left behind in Vasey?”
“I took with me everyone who wanted to come.”
“You left the rest to die.”
Moe’s face turned red. “I did what a leader does. I made a hard choice for the good of my people.”
I pointed at the man tied to the tree. His whole body sagged as if he had accepted his fate, his determination to escape replaced by grim desperation.
“Look at your people now. I’m sure they’re thanking you for the choices you’ve made.”
I walked toward Moe. I gripped my knife and pulled it from my belt. Moe flinched, and the two men stood beside him as if to shield the old man from my blade. As I got nearer to him it took every ounce of resolve to turn away from Moe. I stopped next to the tree. I reached up next to the man and cut the ropes with my knife.
One of Moe’s men took a step toward me, a machete in his hand.
“Don’t move a fucking inch,” said Billy, his solid frame persuading the man to rethink his actions.
I cut through the rope until it dropped to the floor like a dead snake. The man took a step away from the tree and then stumbled to the ground. His face was pure white, his eyes glazed. A damp patch had spread through his jeans.
“This stops now,” I said, looking at Moe. “No more sacrifices. No more of the rule.”
Moe’s hands shook. His eyes burned on me, and I could see the wheels of his brain turning. I thought he might reach for his knife, and I got ready with my own. I could take the old man, and Billy could handle the other two. When the Vasey campers found out there would be uproar, and they loved Moe so much they’d come for revenge. Still, sinking my knife into his neck would have been so sweet.
Moe relaxed his arms. “You better run back to the settlement,” he said, the familiar grin twisting on his lips.
My heart pounded and my fingers shook. Images flooded through my brain of the slaughter in Vasey. The cobblestones stained with blood from the stalker attacks. I thought of the people Moe had let die, and knew that he deserved the same fate.
I couldn’t do it. If I did, I would be taking the dream of Bleakholt away from the others. I couldn’t do that to Alice, Ben, Justin and Melissa.
“Let’s go,” I said to Billy.
I was going to have to tell Victoria that the Vasey campers didn’t have a way to stop the stalker attacks. Not one that we could copy, anyway. I didn’t know what she’d do. Would she kick us out?
/>
As we walked away across the frozen mud, I heard Moe call out after me.
“Run away to your new friends,” he shouted. “When I take over, you’ll be punished like the rest of them.”
14
Although we were well out of the forest, I could still smell blood in the air. I didn’t know if I was imagining it or if being in the woods amongst the blood-covered trees had somehow stained me. The wind whistled in my ear, and I was sure I could hear the creak of Moe’s cackle in it.
As we walked back to town I thought about what to do. I would have to tell Victoria what the Vasey campers were doing to keep the stalkers away. If she knew about that, she was bound to do something about it. I would relish being the one to stick a knife in Moe’s gut, but I needed to square things with her first. If I had Victoria’s blessing, there was no way she could evict us from Bleakholt.