Darkness Follows

by L. A. Weatherly

  Right there and then, I yanked off Melody’s hated boots from my own feet, wincing at the pain. Their once cherry-red leather was cracked and peeling. I quickly bathed my injured heel with some snow, then dabbed it as dry as I could with the disintegrating scrap of rag. It was in tatters now. I wouldn’t have lasted another day.

  I pulled on the socks and my flight boots. I’d lost so much weight that the boots were slightly loose, but they were real. I let out a quick, fierce breath. These boots had been made to last for years. I could walk in them for miles if need be. They wouldn’t injure me.

  I was going to survive.

  The adrenalin was fading, leaving me trembling and drained. I staggered as I stood up, clutching Melody’s ruined boots with one hand. The scavengers had left her nothing. She lay exposed to the elements, blue eyes glazed.

  On the platform above, I could still hear the Guns laughing. The music had stopped. “Better than horse races,” one said. “Told you the Vancour bitch would get the boots – now pay up.”

  The words sounded distant. I felt hot; my heel gave a fierce throb. I stood staring down at Melody’s lifeless body…and had an overwhelming urge to kick it as hard as I could.

  My jaw clenched with the effort of not doing it. I started to tremble, staring down at her. As the severed heads on the fence watched, I stiffly tossed Melody’s boots to the ground beside her. They landed in an untidy tangle near her bound wrists.

  “These are yours,” I said hoarsely.

  The next morning as we waited in line for food I deliberately didn’t look up at the fence. I knew what I would see. But when the sprightly music started up and we all marched out the front gates, I was able to keep up with the others. My injured heel already felt a little better.

  Over the next few days, the difference the boots made to my life gave me new sympathy for Melody, though I hated her no less. My first day here, I’d been thrown in solitary for two weeks. By the time I’d gotten out, Melody had lived half a month in this place – she knew survival could hinge on the most basic things. My boots had been technically hers, according to the records. Would I have been able to resist keeping them, had our positions been reversed?

  Back then, I probably would have. More fool me.

  At the mine I was put alternately to work on the ore mounds, the crusher or deep in the mine itself. Though the work was still bone-aching, though I was still weary and hungry, at least my feet could keep going now for as long as I did.

  Yet I felt numb inside. I kept thinking of that moment when I’d had to stop myself from kicking Melody’s lifeless body. I wanted to feel horrified.

  I didn’t.

  The worst thing was that if her body were in front of me right now, I’d be just as tempted.

  Four days after Melody’s death I saw Ingo at the mine. He was heading for the front of the crusher, pushing a loaded wheelbarrow. I was pushing an empty one, about to get another load of gravel for the ore mounds.

  I stiffened as our eyes met. His were dark; I saw a scornful flash in them despite his weariness.

  We both kept going through the dusty mine with its slanting light that never quite pierced the gloom. Neither of us spoke, but my skin tingled with awareness of him. Not as a man – the thought was ludicrous these days – but as what he’d always been to me: an opponent.

  In our Peacefighting days, Ingo had been my favourite person to fight against, even before I knew his name. His flying kept me guessing, challenged me to do better. When we’d met by chance one night in a club, I’d liked talking to him just as much – but we’d never lost that faint adversarial edge.

  I grabbed a shovel and started loading my empty wheelbarrow with gravel, my shoulders aching. I wished that I’d never seen Ingo here, that I could have relegated him to being a footnote in my past: the guy who’d helped me break into the World for Peace building and was then never heard of again.

  But Ingo was here. Still challenging me.

  My spirits hardened. As Ingo passed me on his way back into the mine I didn’t look up. Our eyes didn’t meet again.

  Later, as the moon rose, Claudia stood beside me in front of our hut as we all ate. On the screen, Gunnison greeted the troops. Stray snowflakes cast fluttering moths across his image. “Call me Johnny!” he whispered.

  Claudia had double portions just like she’d said: her tin cup was brimming full.

  She saw me looking and dipped her bread in the soup. She offered it to me. “Want some?”

  Her pointed smile said that it was because of me that she had it. I accepted the soup-drenched bread without speaking. I’d learned months ago that an extra mouthful could mean the difference between staying on your feet and collapsing.

  After I’d swallowed it and then licked the inside of my own cup, catching every last scrap of soup, I finally did what I’d avoided doing these past days. I looked at the fence.

  Melody’s head was still pristine and unmarked, her long blonde hair stirring in the breeze. I gazed at it for a long time, wishing I felt more than I did. Wishing I could feel something – anything at all.

  That evening I did something I hadn’t done in months. Long before curfew, I lay down on the narrow bed I shared with Fran, and dug my fingers into the lining of my jacket. I took out the folded square of paper. I could have traded it for food dozens of times over – paper was precious here, for lining clothes against the cold. I’d never even considered it.

  I unfolded the paper carefully. It had been drenched and weakened by the disinfection; I’d known that looking at it too often would destroy it. But as the months passed, that hadn’t been the main reason I’d avoided taking it out.

  The smudged ink was still legible, showing my mother’s pretty, looping handwriting.

  Dear Amity,

  Darling, I’ve tried so hard to get to see you but they say it’s impossible. I’m frightened to try any more in case they arrest me too, which they’ve threatened me with, and as you know I have responsibilities which mean I must avoid this at all costs. I hope very much to be at your trial, though, even if it’s just in the gallery so that you can see me there, but it seems they’re trying to make things as unpleasant as they can for you and so they might not allow that, either. But, darling, you’re NOT alone. Even if I’m not there in person, I’ll be there in spirit, thinking of you every moment. I know you didn’t do what they say you did, so don’t give that another thought. Just stay strong and be my good girl and everything will somehow be all right.

  I don’t have any news of Hal, but I hope that wherever he is, he’s keeping strong and well too. I hope this letter reaches you. I will try very hard to make sure it does, no matter what.

  With love from,

  Ma

  Though my throat felt tight, my eyes stayed dry as I read the familiar words. I knew that she’d tried to be there. I knew it with everything I had. My mother and I hadn’t always gotten along, but I’d never doubted for a second how much she loved me.

  My fingers tightened on the paper as my gaze lingered on the last paragraph, the words Ma had underlined. Keeping strong and well.

  When Ma had written this letter my brother Hal had been all right – though still in hiding in that tiny room under the floorboards. I wouldn’t allow myself to even consider that his situation might have changed since then. No, Hal was still all right – please, please, he had to be, and so did Ma. The “responsibilities” Ma mentioned were taking care of him, of course. Her friend Madame Josephine would hopefully be protecting him – it was her house Hal was sheltering in – but Hal needed our mother now.

  I needed her too, even if for most of my life I’d prided myself on being too grown-up for that. “Ma,” I murmured, my voice inaudible. Even if I escaped, I couldn’t go near her.

  She and my brother were lost to me for good.

  Though I tried never to think about Collie, a long-ago conversation came back: he’d told me how a girl on his street in the Central States had been arrested, and he’d stood by and
done nothing.

  “Don’t blame yourself,” I’d told him.

  “No,” he said. “I don’t blame myself. That’s the part I hate most.”

  In the cramped hut with its heavy smells, I slowly refolded the letter and tucked it away again. I knew that I didn’t blame myself for my inaction, either. I’d do the same thing again in a heartbeat.

  What’s out there for me? I’d asked Ingo.

  Maybe yourself, he’d said.

  Feeling hollow, I stared down at my boots: the thick unbeautiful pieces of leather that had saved my life – at least physically. What about the rest of me?

  And I knew I only had one option.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  December, 1941

  At the mine they kept me outside on the ore mounds, with the grey smokestacks of the processing plant rising up in the distance. Snow-trucks rumbled between the two. Over a week passed when I didn’t encounter Ingo – I was terrified that they’d make me permanent on the mounds and that I’d never get a chance to speak to him again.

  In the evenings I skirted the marketplace and kept an eye out for the woman who’d passed his note to me – she must know him, surely? I never saw her. She’d melted away into the nameless, faceless women who kept to their own groups and huts. To show too much interest in another group was to ask for trouble. I couldn’t risk it, not now that I’d decided.

  Had I decided? The thought filled me with dread. But finally one morning in early December I arrived at the mine and the Gun in charge jerked his head towards the tunnels.

  “In there today. Help out whatever miner needs you.”

  It felt like lightning had struck. I kept my face expressionless. “Yes, sir,” I said, and headed into the mines, choosing the tunnel I’d seen Ingo emerge from most often.

  The mines were a mazelike series of rough tunnels with electric lights strung along the ceiling. The ringing of metal against stone filled the air. Guns patrolled, looking bored, as male prisoners swung pickaxes at the stone walls, prising rocks from them. Women prisoners helped wrest stubborn rocks free and pile them into the wheelbarrows.

  I made my way down the tunnel, my heart thumping as I kept an eye out, but I didn’t see Ingo. Soon I came to a miner working on his own; a Gun stood nearby, watching. With an inner curse, I stopped and started to help. The miner looked stooped and old, though probably wasn’t much more than thirty.

  We weren’t supposed to talk. We barely even met each other’s eyes. Finally, when the Gun had wandered away a little, I leaned close. “Do you know Ingo Manfred?” I whispered. “Is he in this mine today?”

  The miner looked startled. His gaze darted worriedly to the Gun. “Around that bend,” he murmured, jerking his head further down the mine.

  We worked in silence for some time longer. The rocks I wrested from the wall came out in small cascades of pebbles; my calloused hands were grimy with dust. The pickaxes rang through the air, along with the sound of grunts and thuds. The Gun hummed tunelessly, looking bored.

  An alarmed shout came from up near the mine’s entrance. “Keep working!” our Gun barked at us, and strode towards the noise. Another Gun from further down the mine followed.

  Further down – where Ingo was. It felt like the ocean was roaring through my senses. I put down my pickaxe and walked away. After a startled pause, I heard my miner start up work again more feverishly than before, as if trying to cover my absence.

  I turned the bend. I saw Ingo instantly – he was the third miner down, shirtless and sweat-streaked like the others, his burned face clear under the harsh lights. The woman working with him was older, not someone I’d seen before. I hurried to them and drew out a scrap of bread I’d saved from my breakfast.

  “Trade places with me,” I hissed urgently, pressing it into her hand. “I’m working just around the bend.”

  She stared at the food. I saw her throat move.

  “Hurry!” I urged. “The Guns’ll be back in a minute!”

  She clasped her fingers around the bread and darted off. Without looking at Ingo – who’d paused, staring at me – I grabbed hold of a loose-looking rock in the wall and started gouging at it with the small spade she’d left behind.

  “Keep working,” I said in a feverish undertone. After a moment he swung the pickaxe again, sending pebbles and dust skittering down the wall.

  I didn’t breathe again until the Gun guarding Ingo’s section was back in place. Like the other Gun, he seemed bored, patrolling the long area with lazy strides. He didn’t appear to notice that one of the drab, faceless workers had changed.

  No alarm came. After several minutes my shoulders eased. I risked a glance at Ingo. He was frowning, not looking at me. When the Gun had taken a dozen steps in the other direction, he muttered, “Pissing without permission for a change?”

  “I had to talk to you,” I whispered back.

  He pulled a rock from the wall with a grunt. “So talk.”

  I helped him heft it into the wheelbarrow; our heads were side by side. My heart was beating so hard that I hardly heard myself speak. “I think I’ve changed my mind.”

  His dark eyes raked over me. “You think?”

  I started to answer. Nothing came out.

  Ingo turned away, the scarred half of his face a crinkled mask beneath the dust. The Gun was heading back again. Ingo swung the pickaxe viciously, as if he wished he were levelling it at the guard. When the man had passed, he hissed, “Thinking is no good to me. You have to be sure.”

  When I’d first met Ingo, a lifetime ago, his hair had been a riot of crisp black curls. Now it was shorn so short that I could see his scalp through the dark hair. It made his lean face look too exposed, his nose and chin too prominent.

  My throat felt tight. “I’m sure.”

  Ingo sagged slightly. He didn’t look at me, but a humourless smile touched his thin lips.

  “You time your decisions well, don’t you?” he whispered.

  “What?”

  I could hardly hear what he said next. “It has to be tomorrow night. There is no other time.”

  Tomorrow night. I went still and Ingo nudged me sharply; the Gun was returning. I crouched down and started gouging at a loose stone. Ingo went back to swinging the pickaxe.

  For half an hour, maybe, the Gun stayed near us, rocking back and forth on his heels and occasionally shouting jokey banter to the guard further down. From what they were saying, the cry we’d heard earlier had been a miner hurt in a small rockfall. They seemed to think it a big joke that the man had been sent to Medical…probably never to return, if he didn’t heal fast enough.

  Ingo and I kept working. His hands were large, but with narrow wrists; his fingers were long and dusty. I glimpsed the tattoo on his palm – the swirl for Leo – and almost gave a humourless laugh.

  The same tattoo as Collie. If I believed in omens, I’d take this as a bad one.

  Finally the Gun wandered down the tunnel to stand nearer the bend and talk to the other guard. Ingo dropped quickly to his haunches and reached to help me pull out a rock.

  “Meet me tonight,” he muttered. “The same place. Midnight.”

  I started to nod, then remembered. “It’s difficult. There’s an informer in my hut.”

  “There’s an informer in every hut. Be there.”

  I swallowed hard. “All right.”

  Ingo’s eyes were ink-dark; his right eyelid drooped, pulled tightly by the scar. “You’re sure?”

  I nodded without looking at him. “Yes,” I said shortly, and wondered how I was going to manage it.

  The changing of the guard had occurred only moments ago – now searchlights swept across the yard in a long arc. They licked hungrily at my toes, then moved on.

  I darted through the shadows, timing my progress from hut to hut. Finally I got away from the main compound and relaxed a fraction. It was darker here, with fewer Guns.

  Getting out of the hut hadn’t been as hard as I’d expected. For a change it had been relativ
ely silent, its dark forms asleep or disinterested. Maybe it was about time that I had a little luck.

  When I reached the storage hut Ingo wasn’t there yet. I hid in the blackest part of the gloom behind the small building. It was colder when you weren’t moving, and soon I was shivering.

  Even after so many months, I couldn’t get used to how thin I was. Before, I’d had firm curves on the generous side that I’d always taken for granted. Now I had no padding, hardly any breasts. Even just standing here, rubbing my legs against each other, I could feel the hard knobbliness of my knees.

  I stiffened as two Guns on patrol passed close by, their footsteps solid.

  “Tomorrow night should be good,” said one.

  The other laughed. “Anything that’s different is good… man, I can hardly wait to finish my term and get out of this place.”

  My skin prickled. Tomorrow night – when Ingo had said we had to escape.

  Their voices receded. Gunnison’s indecipherable murmur rustled against the silence. After an eternity a dark figure appeared on the fence’s other side. Ingo. He hesitated, looking around him, and then squirmed under the opening.

  “Move over,” he panted.

  I exhaled and did. Ingo slipped into the shadowy space and leaned against the building next to me. In the faint moonlight I saw him rubbing his hands under his arms. His angular face looked haggard, but he gave a dry smile.

  “You’re on time tonight,” he whispered. “I thought you would be.”

  I glanced out towards the other huts. “I saw two Guns not long ago. They were on patrol.”

  “All right, we’ll have to hurry. Why did you change your mind about escaping?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “If I’m going to trust you with my life, it matters very much. Tell me.”

  “You see these boots?” I asked finally. Ingo glanced at my feet. “They…made me realize something,” I said. “I’ve got to get out of here or die trying.”