Paradigm (9781909490406) (29 page)

‘I still do,' she whispered to herself, and Filip squeezed her hand.

A
s they climbed the stairs
, the musty smell of piss and decay was strong—but not as overpowering, Alice thought, as when she'd lived there.

‘There'll be a blockage between the eighth and ninth floors that we're going to need to move,' she said.

‘That's not a problem.'

Filip switched off their cameras. He kissed her softly on the forehead. ‘Are you sure you want to do this?'

‘Of course I'm sure,' she said. ‘I have to.'

W
hen they reached
the eighth floor, the stairway was clear all the way up to the roof. The sideboards and tables that Hutchinson had used to barricade the way were gone with the only reminder being thin slivers of wood that had been well-trodden into the stairs.

Alice looked at Filip.

‘Something's wrong,' she said. ‘This isn't how I left it.'

They edged along the balcony until they reached the door marked 59 and pushed it aside gingerly. Inside the flat were the remnants of her previous life: the pictures, the furniture, her books and clothes. But the rough boards she had stuffed over the balcony windows had been replaced with smart, clean window guards on one side, the black, rusty scissors had been carefully placed on the mantelpiece and, most shockingly, the body of Hutchinson had gone.

‘Someone has been here,' said Alice slowly. And repeated: ‘This isn't how I left it.' She drew her gun from her belt and held it firm in her hand.

‘Hutchinson?' whispered Filip. ‘How could he still be alive after all this time?'

‘He can't be,' said Alice. ‘I killed him.' She picked up the orangey-black scissors that still held the traces of the burnt ochre colour of blood. ‘With these.' Filip took the scissors and stuffed them into his backpack. A ring of charred stones filled with half-burned wood-sticks filled one corner and smoke stains crept up the edge of the wallpaper.

‘We have what we came for; now let's go,' he said, pulling at her arm. But Alice walked into the kitchen and ran her finger down the tiles that had pictures of drab flowers and ugly, sad birds.

‘This isn't like the other places we've passed through,' she said. ‘It's clean.' She opened the kitchen cupboard. It was half full of dried goods and cans. A bowl of water stood on the counter top.

‘There's somebody living here,' she said. ‘What if… what if… he's not dead?'

Alice felt an ice-chill down her back. Killing him once had been horrific enough. Having to do it a second time might prove to be more difficult. They both looked towards the hallway and up the stairs.

‘Or what if your mother came home?'

A
lice's fingers
were trembling as she pulled the gun out in front of her. At the top of the stairs, she and Filip stood alongside each other and inched across the landing in absolute silence. The door to her room was ajar and as soon as they peered through the crack, it was obvious that it was empty. Alice nodded towards her mother's room. Her mother's den.

From the window outside, the sound of gulls floated in, muted against the closed door of Alice's mother's room but enough to jolt them both in momentary shock. They crept along the corridor and Alice held her ear to the warped wooden door. She beckoned Filip with her finger. Through the inch-thick reproduction wood came the sound she was least expecting—a heavy, regular elephantine snore.

Alice felt her heart sink. She shouldn't have hoped. She should never, not even for one second, have believed in hope.

Her mother would never, ever have come back for her.

‘
W
ho are you
?' Filip had one hand on the boy's shoulder, pinning him to the bed while Alice pointed her gun directly at his temple. His bloodshot eyes opened slowly and a trickle of froth dripped from his mouth onto the bedspread.

‘I'm sick,' he said. ‘Help me.' Alice kept the gun pointed squarely between the boy's eyes. To her he looked around eighteen, possibly older. A thin fuzz of whisker covered his upper lip and chin and his hair was long and lank, gathered around his neck in matted curls. That would have made him twelve, maybe thirteen at the time of the Storms.

‘How long have you been out here?'

Filip pulled back the covers; the boy was shivering with fever, his hands wrapped around his own body were clammy and warm. The room smelled of sickness, Alice thought, like the inside of a hospital. She lowered the gun and reached into her backpack and pulled out some pills, stuffing them into the boy's mouth and rinsing them through with the water they had brought with them. He coughed and then spluttered but kept the tablets inside his throat. Alice watched as they slipped down to where they might do some good.

‘Are you really here? Is this another dream?' Alice stroked his forehead and he smiled weakly, dribbling across the pillow.

‘You just have a fever,' she said. ‘You'll be fine in a few days.'

Filip looked at the boy and then across at Alice.

‘We can't take him,' he said. ‘What if he has something serious and infects the others?' Alice rubbed her fingers across the furrow of her temple.

‘But we can't leave him,' she said. ‘He has the flu, that's all. He comes with us—but we'll need to take him back to the infirmary in the Ship. Get him looked after properly.'

‘Are you sure that's the right thing to do?'

‘It's the only thing to do. He won't survive out here without help. And he's in my house. That almost makes him a guest. It's… it's some sort of sign.' She pulled the sheets and bedspread back over him and trickled a little more water down his throat. He gulped it slowly then dropped his head back onto the pillow.

‘How do you think he managed to survive all this time out here alone?' said Filip. Alice shrugged. The garish interior of the room was incongruous, inappropriate. After five years in the clean sleekness of the Ship, it looked bawdy and cheap.

‘I don't know. He's thin, undernourished but alive.' She pulled the covers closely around the boy and tucked them underneath him so that he was cocooned tightly. With a corner, she wiped the thin layer of sweat from his face and he made a tiny motion of thanks with his head.

‘Who are you?' she whispered, touching him gently on the side of the cheek. ‘Tell us who you are.'

The boy opened his eyes so that a tiny crack of white was visible. ‘My name is Richard Carter Warren,' he managed and promptly drifted back off to sleep.

I
n the living room
, Alice picked through the remains of her belongs and found some paper and a pencil. Filip watched as she scribbled furiously then folded the paper and placed it on the mantelpiece. Everything else she piled into the fireplace Richard had made and set it alight. All except a rough wooden trap that leant against the wall.

‘He ate the birds,' Alice mouthed quietly while she and Filip, warming their hands on the glowing embers, watched the sun disappear behind the horizon.

‘We'll leave at dawn,' she said with defined finality. ‘That way we should make it through the city safely and through the tunnel by mid-morning.'

Filip nodded as she ran her finger along the blade of the scissors.

‘What will you do with those?'

‘They're the last thing that reminds me of here. I'm going to put them where they'll never be found.'

W
hen the first
shards of light filtered through the window coverings, they slunk from the flat. Filip made a stretcher for Richard—a bed sheet doubled over and tied tightly to a pair of broom handles—but for the majority of the journey they didn't need it. The boy stumbled between the two of them, carried by their fervent intention to get back to the community they were creating, back to their home.

At the busker's alcove in the tunnel, Alice wrapped up the scissors in a fragment of cloth and placed them onto the ledge at the back with the possessions of the busker who had long since disappeared. Alice wondered if he'd been in the tunnel until the last moment, swept away by the tidal wave of water. Richard looked confusedly between Filip and Alice, rubbed his forehead, but said nothing.

‘When we get back to the others, I want you to arrange for this tunnel to be sealed at both ends,' said Alice. ‘Tight. Impenetrable. Unbreakable. I want us sealed off from the outside to keep us safe from everything that's out there. From both ends and with hard trophene. I want this place never to be found.'

Filip nodded in agreement and put his arm back around Richard. Then, together, the three of them stumbled in perfect silence past the bricked-up alcoves and mosaics towards the pale circle of light at the other end of the tunnel.

I
n the thick
grass that surrounded the tall, faded building, there was no shortage of insects that hissed and clicked, picking at Carter's skin through his shredded shirt. The dark grey cloud had crept its way across the sky throughout the afternoon and was now plump and ugly, positioned directly above him, waiting to release the remains of its steady cargo across the ruins of the city.

H
e made
it inside before the first of the rains came—up the inky dark stairs and through the innards of the tower block. As the rain started to fall, across the city he pushed open the smashed remains of the doors to each of the flats, exhausted. Each was empty, desolate and ruined, with everything broken—until he came to the one at the end. Apart from some dust, the door that stood slightly ajar was pristine and the number 59 on the door was almost shiny.

The flat was nothing like the house in the Deadlands that he had been into with Lily. There was no water damage and it smelt surprisingly cool and fresh. A few feathers floated from corner to corner and some insects crept across the floor but, all in all, it was remarkably clean and tidy. There were a pile of books at one side of the room and some blankets wrapped tightly in plastic on a rester. Carter walked towards the large window-doors that led out onto a balcony overlooking the city. Someone had boarded them up in part and covered the rest with clear plastic. There was something calm about the room, something different.

In a corner stood a box with EMERGENCY RATIONS, written in thick red letters across the top. Carter kicked the box. It was solid and full. Using a knife from the kitchen, he prised it open and inside there were cartons with pictures of food on them. He chose the SUPER LONG LASTING STEW NEW VARIETY and pulled the ring from the can. It tasted sour and made him feel sick. But it was vaguely edible and better than nothing. The next one, FISH COCKTAIL, was less appealing and as he swigged it back from the can he retched violently and threw the can into the dirty, brown sink. The sharp clank sounded throughout the whole of the apartment, and upstairs there was the dull flutter of movement.

Back through the kitchen door Carter looked up the stairs and tested his weight against the first two.

‘Hello?' he called tentatively, but there was no answer. On the wall leading up the stairs, there was the crinkled paper of an old, battered map with the word GONE scrawled across the middle. He traced his finger around the edges of the landmasses. Maybe, just maybe he could find his way to the next place, wherever that might be. Then there was the scratching, moving sound again. He looked up and down the stairs.

Tiny paw prints pattered the edges of the stairs on top of heavy boot marks that had once trod straight up the middle. Carter lifted his leg slowly and set it down on the next stair. The wood creaked like an aching bone. He took the next stair slowly. As he made it to the top, the shuffling started again.

‘Hello?' he said, his voice sounding hollow. ‘Hello.' His heart beat faster as the noise became louder. Then he saw it. As the rat-like creature with a billowing tail came racing down the landing, past him and down the stairs, Carter screamed. The animal, too, let out a terrified yelp as it slipped out of the door and bounded out of the flats. Carter watched it as it went, his legs shaking and the relief leaving his body in a half-guffaw.

He climbed up the last step and stepped loudly along the corridor to wake any other creatures that might be hiding or sleeping. There were no people here, they had long gone. Upstairs, the rooms were less well-kept but each had a clean rester and in each one was a pack of clothes in a plastic coverlet. Carter pulled open the pack and, inside, there was a shirt that was in slightly better condition than the one he was wearing and a pair of jeans that didn't need a belt. He put them on and felt the fresh softness of something old and something new wash over him.

He wrapped his arms around himself and thought of his parents, desperate to make a new life for everyone, sacrificing themselves for a new Community. He still couldn't decide whether he admired them or hated them but, more than anything else, he wished they were with him now. He wasn't exactly sure of the plan but he would make them proud of him. He would make everyone proud, Ariel and Lucia more than anyone. And he would go back for them. He made his way downstairs and gently pulled the map off the wall; from this height, he might be able to work out where he was.

A
s he crossed
the room towards the balcony, he found the note still propped up against the wall on the mantelpiece. The paper had yellowed with age as well as much folding and unfolding. But in the last rays of the day, he could still pick out the words slowly as they slipped from the page.

C
arter looked
at the words for a long, long time before he put the note back on the mantelpiece and picked up the map. Twice more he picked up the note and put it back before he had memorised every word; every word that that been written by Alice Davenport herself. It was unbelievable, but it was a sign. This is where it had all started.

He opened up the door out onto the balcony to taste the sweetness of the relief of fresh air. The rain was still light and slow but there was a swirl of dark cloud that blotted out the brightness of the sun and a gloomy shadow heralded the start of another big downpour. In the distance, Carter could just make out the shapes of tall buildings and the dark outline of a giant wheel. And, although it wasn't in view, out across the floodplain and past the river, the late afternoon lights of Unity Square twinkling back at him would shine oblivious and blurry with the rain.

There was no going back now, without a plan and without a purpose. But he would find one and create a place where he could bring Ariel to eventually—although he had no idea how. His heart ached at the thought of the Community and of Isabella; the one person he wanted to share this with was gone. But he would do what his parents would have wanted. He would rest and wait until he had a plan of clear direction. There would be more places like the farmhouse he and Lily had visited where there would be books to learn from and a way to survive. And he would make sure everyone knew about the Industry. He would find a way—he was Carter Warren.

There was an old axe with blue-flecked paint on the balcony and a faint line on the horizon demarked the difference between land and sky, between hope and luck. He pulled out the map and rested it on the railing, looking at the shapes of the landmass against the skyline. It was then he realised that the underside of the map was different, hand-drawn, notated with references, and snaking across the middle was the thick loop of the Black River. In the far corner was the Community, its sketched features all crossed out with scratchy red colouring. Across where the Community lay on the map, someone had written: DANGER—KEEP OUT.

Spreading out into the Deadlands, the map was marked with tiny crosses and triangles. Carter felt his mouth open wide: the map had been drawn after the Community had been established. He cast his eyes from the map across the edges of the brittle landscape and traced the horizon with his finger. He would go west. He would follow the sun.

I
t was only then
that he noticed how the thick piles of stones in the undergrowth below were arranged. Not randomly, but in a pattern. There was always a pattern.

T
here were patches
—faint and less bright patches where only thin, raised amounts of tangle had grown over the stones that were embossed with green. The stones were set in straight lines and curves that spelled out three words that made his heart beat faster as the final rays of the pale sun shone across the derelict Deadlands. His hands shook as he put down the map and looked again at the ground as he read the stone words embedded in the grass over and over. His heart beat faster as the words rose up to meet him.