Days Like This (10 page)

‘Because I couldn’t bear to think I’d be nothing one day. I wanted the serum they gave me that made me young, kept me young. I didn’t want my body to just shrivel up. I didn’t want to grow old and die. I would have done anything to stop the ageing.’ Meredith said, shaking her head.

‘What was the serum?’ Lily asked. ‘Is it connected to the pills that the Blacktroopers bring?’

‘Yes,’ Meredith mumbled. Lily had to lean forward to hear her. ‘If you want the serum, you have to take the pills.’

‘But what
is
the serum?’ Lily insisted. It was no use. Meredith went off on a tangent.

‘When my children left, did I tell you their names – Terrence and Rose?’

Lily realised there was no use trying to push the woman. She just had to let her talk. ‘Yes, go on,’ Lily said.

‘Terrence went first and then Rose. One straight after the other. No, I should say it properly – I gave them away. At first I was happy they were gone. Can you imagine? But then I fell ill. I couldn’t even get out of bed and I almost died. I lay there terribly sick and when they came with the drugs, I couldn’t swallow them; at first because I was too sick to do it and then because of the transformation. Eventually, my fever went away. I was weak, but that’s when I realised. Oh dear, that’s when I knew –’

Tears ran down her face. Lily touched Meredith’s hand to prompt her to keep talking, but Meredith just shook her head, her whole body trembling. Lily wanted to shake her by her frail shoulders. The woman was sobbing now, ancient hands pressed against her face.

‘Oh, I gave them away for nothing, for nothing. I gave them away without even knowing what I was doing. I want them back. I want to change what I’ve done, but I can’t.’ Meredith’s voice was rising.

‘You’re not making sense, Meredith, listen –’

‘It was the drugs, don’t you see? If only I’d known earlier, I wouldn’t have taken them. I’d have tricked those bastards, I would have found a way –’

‘
Meredith
. I don’t understand. Please try to explain it to me. I need to know. What about the drugs?’

‘They wanted us to give away our own children. They wanted us to forget how to love our own children. Can you believe such cruelty? That’s what those people have done to me. That’s why I no longer have my children.’ Tears rolled down her creased cheeks and dropped onto her lap.

Forcing herself to stay calm, Lily took Meredith gently by the face and made her turn her head. ‘Please try and explain what you mean about the drugs and the serum.’

‘I see they attached that to you, too.’ Meredith looked at Lily’s bracelet.

‘Did you try and get them back, your children?’ Lily asked.

‘They said I’d donated my children of my own free will. They said my children were the price I had to pay. I told them I didn’t want it any more, their poison. I just wanted my children back. I wanted to go and find them and bring them home. So they put this thing on me to keep me trapped.’

She raised her wrist. Lily could see the copper wires inside the black bracelet; even thicker than the ones in Lily’s bracelet.

‘And then they stopped talking to me. They wouldn’t even tell me if my children were still alive. They said if I wouldn’t take their drugs and I didn’t want their precious stuff, I was on my own and they would leave me to die,’ Meredith said.

Lily tried to make sense of what she was saying. She patted the old woman’s hand soothingly. Meredith leaned towards Lily and whispered, ‘Do you know how they get the serum? They get it from children like you.’ Then Meredith started laughing. It was grotesque. Lily thought she mustn’t be quite sane.

‘Let me show you something,’ Meredith said. ‘Over there, on the little table …’

There was a photo in a silver frame and Lily got up and brought it back to Meredith. Lily checked the TV screen. Still clear. In the photo, a youngish woman was sitting on a cream sofa. A teenage boy and girl sat beside her.

‘Are these your children?’

Meredith nodded wearily.

‘Who’s this woman here?’

‘That’s me, taken two months ago.’

Lily looked from the photo to the shrunken person in front of her. ‘It can’t be.’

‘It is. I’ll be forty next year, but I look eighty. It happened quickly once I stopped taking their serum. I’m dying. There’s nothing I can do about it and nothing I want to do about it. If I can’t have my children I want to die.’

Lily’s brain struggled to catch up. ‘Are you saying the Blacktrooper drugs made you give away your children?’

‘I gave them away. I did it, no one else.’

Lily checked the screen again. It was clear, but she thought she saw a shadow slide past the front door. It was hard to see down the gloomy hallway. Lily remembered how quietly the Blacktroopers moved when they wanted to.

Meredith had seen it, too. ‘Go,’ she said quietly. ‘Don’t be caught here. Save yourself.’

Lily desperately wanted to run, but she couldn’t bring herself to leave this frail woman.

‘Go out the French doors, they’re not locked,’ Meredith said. ‘See if you can scale the wall into the garden next door. Then make your way to the wall on the far side – there’s a gate there that the neighbour’s don’t lock. They never used to, anyway.’

‘No, I’m not leaving you here. What’ll they do to you?’ Lily darted across to the kitchen and grabbed a knife from a block on the counter. ‘I’m staying,’ she said.

‘No!’ Meredith’s voice rose thinly. ‘You have to go. I’m not going to be responsible for another child. Leave now.’

Lily shook her head, tightening her grasp on the knife handle. The front door knob turned with the faintest crunch of metal.

Meredith pushed herself upright, staggering slightly, and took four rapid steps across the room. Before Lily could stop her, Meredith opened the French doors and stepped outside. She fell to the ground instantly as the bracelet siren began it’s unearthly screeching. Lily dropped the knife and sprang after her, throwing herself down beside the woman, but it was too late. This bracelet was different from Lily’s. It had already tightened like a vice, instantly severing Meredith’s hand. Her dark blood ran thickly from her wrist and soaked into the ground. Meredith’s eyes went wide, her body stiffened and convulsed once, twice and then she went quite still, her eyes already glazing over. The bracelet, having completed it’s gruesome task, fell silent.

Lily was horrified.

‘Meredith!’ She felt for a pulse, but there was nothing. Lily recoiled, scrambling backwards.

She heard the troopers enter the house.

Lily took off across the garden, which was a green and sodden tangle. She felt removed, as if this was all happening to someone else. She looked back at Meredith’s tiny husk of a body. If only she’d left when Meredith had told her to; if only she’d listened.

She stumbled between some brimming pots and tunnelled through a creeper that was growing against the neighbour’s wall. The rainwater on the leaves drenched her. At least here she was hidden from the house. Using the protruding rivets that attached the creeper’s support to the wall, she climbed frantically, sobbing, her arms and thighs burning.

One of the rivets ripped out of the wall and Lily gasped, swinging out, wrenching her wrist and yelping.
Idiot
, she berated herself. She needed to be more careful. Any minute she expected a rough hand to grab her ankle and haul her down. Finally she saw the top of the garden wall. She threw one leg over, grazing the skin on her stomach and inner thigh before toppling down the other side.

Only then did Lily remember she’d left her bag beside Meredith’s chair. The remote control for her bracelet was in it. Now there was no way to prevent the bracelet from tightening if someone set it off. Thanks to her own stupidity, she’d brought about the death of a desperate woman and would probably end up losing her own hand as well.

She stopped and listened. Angry shouts were coming from Meredith’s house. Lily pictured the Blacktroopers crouching over the old woman, who had sacrificed her life so Lily could get away. She had to at least honour Meredith’s sacrifice.

This neighbouring backyard was obsessively clipped and trimmed like the yard at Lily’s parents’. Unfortunately, this controlled garden didn’t offer Lily anywhere to hide. She darted across the lawn towards the back of the house. She was briefly exposed to the wide glass doors that faced onto the garden and reflected the light, making it impossible to see if anyone was watching.

Meredith had been right; there was a gate in the wall on the far side of the neighbour’s garden and it was unlocked. But maybe leaving by this exit was too obvious. Lily hesitated, weighing her options. Her legs were still shaky from climbing the wall. As well as the remote control, her water and cap were in the bag she’d left behind. She prayed the Blacktroopers wouldn’t search the bag.

There was a furious roar of voices from beyond the neighbour’s wall. Lily had to move faster. Frantically, she examined the back fence. It was too high – there was no way over there. The side fence was of a more manageable height, but it was too smooth; without footholds. Her original plan of climbing through the back gardens and hiding in one of them until the danger passed wasn’t going to work.

She went through the gate, trying to look everywhere at once, eyeing every movement of tree branches and bushes. The air shimmered in the post-downpour heatwave. She heard the sound of shattering glass from Meredith’s house.

Lily prepared herself and burst into the street at a run, ducking behind the thick trunk of the tree outside Meredith’s house. There was a line of similar trees running up the street, healthy and green from the water moon.

She peered around the tree and was shocked to see Blacktroopers everywhere. Where had so many of them come from so quickly? They were moving from house to house while their high metal vehicle idled further down the road. Lily took off in the opposite direction. Dodging in and out, trying to keep the line of trees between her and the Blacktroopers, she could see glimpses of the Wall up ahead. If she could only just reach it, there must be a way over. She was running so fast she couldn’t stop herself in time when a group of black-clad figures sprang out in front of her and she cannoned right into them. The lead figure spread out his arms and trapped her.

But she’d come too far to give up now without a fight. She lashed out as they surrounded her. One of them pressed a hand across her mouth and nose so she couldn’t yell and could barely breathe. They yanked her sideways into a thick clump of bush. She twisted and struggled, biting the smothering hand, kicking and wrenching against the other arms that held her. They were forcing her down onto the ground and Lily panicked because it felt like they were trying to choke her.

Finding new strength, she twisted sideways to free her mouth and started to yell until someone spun her over onto her stomach and pressed her face into the wet dirt. Fear of suffocation made her panic and she jammed her elbow into the person closest to her, hearing a sharp exhalation. He loosened his grip and she scrambled to her feet, ready to fight.

The people looking at her with something like panic were not Blacktroopers. They wore no helmets or visors, carried no weapons as far as she could see, and their faces were young, properly young. The one who had first grabbed Lily stood still, though his eyes darted about. He was obviously making a huge effort to stay calm.

‘Come with us now,’ he spoke rapidly in a low, urgent voice. ‘You’re lucky they didn’t spot you. They’re searching further down the street but once we leave our cover here, it’s only a matter of time. The storm stuffed up their surveillance cameras. They’re probably already working again by now. We’ve been tracking them while they’ve been tracking you. We have to get out of here, though,
now
.’

Lily looked at the others. There were five of them, three girls and two boys about Lily’s age, maybe older.

‘Who are you?’ she demanded.

‘We’re not the enemy,’ said the boy who had first grabbed her. The others were glancing around, fidgeting and shifting from foot to foot. One of the girls rubbed her hand where Lily had bitten it.

‘They killed a woman back there,’ Lily said, outrage spilling out of her. She wanted to go back, pick up the knife and stab every one of the Blacktroopers.

‘Yes, they have a tendency to do that,’ the first boy said wryly. He was clearly their leader. ‘We’ll answer your questions later. Come on, I’ve already told you there’s no time for talk.’

‘Where are we going?’

‘Over the Wall,’ the boy said. With that, Lily’s hesitation disappeared.

They surrounded Lily in a ragged half moon and she ran with them, slightly behind the boy. They reached the end of Meredith’s street and were soon running along the road parallel to the Wall. The lead boy stopped abruptly. Lily stumbled and the girl whose hand she’d bitten steadied her, taking her elbow briefly. Lily looked over her shoulder and was relieved to see they weren’t being followed. Not yet.

They had stopped across from a giant tree that leaned towards the Wall. The tree had an unusual triple fork. Lily figured they were going to use the tree to climb the Wall, though she couldn’t really see how.

‘This is the best place,’ the leader said. ‘Narrower no-man’s land.’

Lily didn’t know what he meant. She reached out and touched the Wall. She’d wanted to do that for all those hours she’d stared out at it from the bathroom window. The last time she’d touched it was just after it was built and she’d never forgotten it’s odd, watery feel. Sometimes she’d thought of it as a glacier glittering in the sun or an iceberg sailing to warmer seas. Sometimes it was an ice castle or a snowy mountain. Now it was just the barrier between her and a free life.

She was surprised at how slippery it was. It would be about as easy to climb as if it really was an iceberg. Plus there was the inward curve at the top that would make scaling it even harder.

Working quickly, the lead boy unwound a length of finely plaited rope from around his waist, then fished out a silver object from his pocket and attached it to the rope. He opened the thing to reveal sharp hooks that glinted in the sun. The others unwound lengths of pale-coloured material from beneath their shirts. The material had been wrapped around their bodies against their skin and had given them a slightly bulky appearance. Now Lily saw how thin they really were. She figured food must be scarce on the other side of the Wall.