Ruin (The Ruin Saga Book 1) (12 page)

After a long silence, a smile flickered upon her pale lips. “I see her,” she whispered.

“Yeah,” he said, looking out towards the reddening horizon. “Me too.”

Sometime later, the old man snored himself awake in the stern. The awning was subjected to a vicious beating while he fought his way out into the open. There, he crouched, blinking and coughing.

Don handed over the half-emptied canteen, and the old man swiftly depleted it before he could say a word about rationing it, proceeding to peer in through its upturned neck with a dissatisfied expression.

Don laid a hand on his shoulder before he could reach for another. “We need to save the rest for later,” he said.

The old man scowled, cradling his head in his wrinkled palms. “It’s hot. I never thought it’d be hot on the water.”

“I thought you’d been on the sea before.”

The old man giggled feebly. “Yes, on a ferry, Donald. A big one. Not a…a…” He gestured to the rowboat around them, not bothering to finish. “I should have thought of water. Stupid.”

Billy leaned over the side and skimmed the crest of a passing wave into her palms. She held it out to him. “There’s water all around, silly,” she said.

The old man shook his head, too weary to humour her, and turned away.

Billy looked to Don, her face blank.

“Throw it back, Billy.”

“Why? Grandpa’s thirsty.”

“You can’t drink seawater.”

“But I’ve drank it before. It’s not very nice, but it’s still water.”

“It makes you thirstier, throw it away.”

She slumped and threw the handful back over the side, then peered into the water. “Where are all the fishes?”

“I don’t know. Gone.”

“When will they be back?”

“I don’t know.”

“In New Land?”

“Maybe. Hopefully.”

She blinked, staring into the lifeless depths.

“What time is it?” the old man said, sounding wearier than ever. Don was frightened by how wilted and frail he looked.

“Half one, maybe two.”

“We need to get moving if we’re going to get there before we run out of supplies.”

The two of them, stiff and aching, assumed their positions beside one another and took an oar each. They then began rowing once more, straining against the squalls.

Don fought the urge to cough several times, knowing full well that once he started he would have great difficulty stopping. Yet the urge never faded, plaguing him like an itch never scratched.

All the while, Billy sat opposite them and watched. The sun had become a fiery half sphere on the world’s edge by the time her eyes started to droop and her chest began to sag. From then on, she swayed with the current until her shoulder made contact with the floor, and then she was still.

Don watched her sleep and knew that she was dreaming of a better time. He found himself wondering whether there was a person left alive who didn’t do just that, whenever they closed their eyes.

Row upon row of children moved in unison, their faces scrunched into expressions of intense concentration. Copying Norman’s every move as he executed a series of oriental motions, they twirled and pivoted as one. Not once did their focus falter.

He watched them from the corner of his eye, forever fascinated by the manner in which their immaturity evaporated once their classes had begun. They moved with him, but at the same time they improvised, correcting his minute mistakes. Compared to them, he was a clumsy buffoon. The progeny of a hardened caste of survivors, their bodies and minds were honed to perfection.

Their weekly martial arts training was supposed to develop the stealth they’d need once they were old enough to scavenge and hunt. Going unnoticed was now paramount. Over the last year, remaining hidden had defused a great many potential shootouts.

But the children were already faster, quieter and more agile than any adult, and they all knew it. Having grown up around situations that demanded subtlety, they were each as lithe as birds.

Nevertheless, they were promptly lined up every week to hone their skills.

Teaching was something that Norman considered one of the less taxing duties on the rota system; the children were more or less self-sufficient already, and they seemed to like him. He suspected that his lax style appealed to their allergy to hard work.

And yet, he would still never see eye to eye with them. A distant but ever-present measure of respect nested behind their eyes, forging an impassable chasm between them. They too looked to him with a casual acceptance of his purpose in life. There didn’t seem to be even a glimmer of doubt in their eyes that he would one day be the Big Man, the one in charge.

After half an hour of yelling, thrusting and twisting, the class was dismissed and the children dispersed. Their carefully crafted stances and disciplined silence fell away in an instant, and they were themselves again. They proceeded to poke, entertain and torture each other as they left the hall.

Norman was left standing alone in the gymnasium. They wouldn’t be back for an hour, and he had little to do in the meantime. He wandered into the hallway, inspecting art projects tacked to the display boards—some new and some over forty years old; fresh paint right alongside the yellowed scrawls of the Old World’s last students—and eventually found his way to Sarah’s classroom.

The younger children were few in number, but sang merrily enough to make up for it, in a range of pitches that, together, sounded truly awful:

The rhyme—one of the few to have reportedly retained its original rhythm—echoed throughout the dozens of empty classrooms. Norman stopped at the doorway and looked in to see them gathered cross-legged on the floor, swaying from side to side to the din of their off-key wailing.

Sarah sat before them in a checked summer dress, the headband upon her crown framing her cheeks with curls of fire-red hair. She indicated the lyrics plastered upon her easel with a pointer, but the children scarcely glanced up, instead singing from memory.

Norman watched them sway, and couldn’t help smiling. Eventually, Sarah looked up from her vigil and noticed his presence. She slid away from the easel. The children didn’t seem to notice, and kept right on singing.

She tiptoed closer, bouncing on the balls of her feet so as not to disturb them, her face illuminated by an inner light, all gums and brilliant white teeth. She would have been beautiful, were it not for the gawky, disproportioned spectacles balanced on her brow.

“They’re getting better,” he said.

She smiled back at them, doe-eyed. “I prefer the sound of cats drowning in custard.”

“Have you got time for lunch?”

“I’ll be done soon.” She was peering over her shoulder at the toddlers, transfixed.

“Come on, they won’t notice if you take a break.” He began to tug her from the room.

“Oh, I shouldn’t,” she said. “Norman—oh, all right.”

A minute later they were eating tasteless bread in the hallway, listening to the ear-splitting singing and trying to ignore the grit and sawdust between their teeth.

After a while he realised that she was smiling at him. “You should come to an English class some time,” she said. “I get all sorts to come along, not just kids. We could use a speaker every now and then—one who’s actually been reading all the books that people have been bringing back from out there, one who isn’t just following Alex’s every word about ‘
saving the world and all its wonders’
.”

“Careful. Enough words like that about the Chosen One are bound to get ye strung up by the village.”

“I’ll take my chances.” Her smile was coy, puncturing his attempt at diversion with ease. “You’d be great.”

Norman muttered under his breath for a while, pulling at his frayed sleeves. “I’m not one for public speaking.”

She searched him with eyes magnified to insectivorous proportions by her ghastly specs. “I know it’s been rough on you this year,” she said, “all this…everybody turning sheep. But maybe you could try to see the other side of it. You’ve got an opportunity to help them. It’s all hand holding at first, but people are stronger than they look. All they’re looking for is somebody to give them a purpose, a direction—something to live for.

“People look to you. They trust you.” She hesitated, scanning him. “But you always shrink away. Why?”

Norman felt the light-heartedness of the conversation drain away. His throat had closed up. After a moment he could no longer match her gaze.

“Don’t worry,” she said. Despite his reticence, her unassuming gaze had only grown more amused. She smiled, observing him from behind hooded lids, and leaned against the wall. “I’ll get to you eventually.”

He was quiet for a moment longer. “So, you and Robert,” he said.

She laughed, and her teeth brightened the hall once more. “Yes,” she said. The comforting glaze had been wiped from her face. A flush touched her cheeks, and her chest rose and fell until she was almost breathless.

“Nobody saw that one coming.”

She paused with her last crumb of sawdust-bread held to her lips, frowning. “Why?”

Norman shrugged. “If I were a betting man I’d have put my money on you having Richard in your sights. He lives for the written word almost as much as you do.”

She glanced along the hall, brows raised. “Him? He’s always got his head in the clouds.”

“Funny, I always thought it was two inches up DeGray’s arse.”

She giggled, and hesitated before answering, “Robert’s different. He’s sweet, and kind,” she breathed, her lids lowered further. “He doesn’t despair about the End, doesn’t fret about what’s to come. He’s a fixer. All he sees is something broken, something that only needs the right mechanic to make it work again.” An inner light seemed to emanate from the rosy tones upon her cheeks and chest. “He’s everything a man should be.” She appeared to come back to herself, and trailed away into an embarrassed silence.

Norman couldn’t help laughing. “Poetic.”

“One tries.” She then glanced back to him, her eyes growing sharp. “You need to change,” she said.

He sighed. “I know,” he said. “They’re all looking to me now. I feel their eyes on me in the street.” He paused. “I just need time.”

She was smiling again, and flicked her head towards his midriff. “I meant your clothes.”

Norman looked down at his martial arts robe. “I like it,” he said after a brief pause. “I’m not sure why people don’t dress like this all the time.”

“The children seem to think along the same lines.”

“At least I taught them something.”

A hulking figure interrupted their joint smirk, blustering past with great bounding strides. The two of them parted to allow the portly man past, offering greetings that were promptly ignored.

“He’s done it again,” the man roared. “That boy will never learn!”

If Sarah was the last Librarian, then he was the last Professor. The sworn archenemy of all youth, John DeGray was a blimp of a man, and had taken it as his life’s work to mercilessly educate anybody who strayed too close. Despite knowing more than most had forgotten, he was handicapped by the trifling affliction of hating almost everybody. In truth, were it not for Richard Maxwell, his one permanent student, he would have been at a loss for things to do.

Yet most thought them both indispensable, for they represented all that remained of the Old World’s scholars. Afforded special status—owing to Alexander’s most famous mantra, ‘
Knowledge is power
’—and yet unable to contribute anything tangible to the city, they spent the majority of their time in their hovel of a classroom.

Norman and Sarah exchanged bemused glances and, after a glance in the direction of the warbling young ones, followed him. They remained in pursuit until John disappeared into the second occupied classroom, at which point they were obliged to pause and recoil at the fountain of abuse whistling across the threshold. Approaching on tiptoes, they peered in. John, scintillating with rage, was in the process of verbally castrating a slight young man seated at the only desk.

Richard stared up at John’s ranting form without the slightest trace of surprise or concern. Tiny in comparison to his mentor, crushed between his desk and a sizeable swathe of books and papers from Sarah’s warehouse, he certainly looked to be little more than a child. Despite his foxlike features and intelligent gaze, he was still young enough to bear a fading smattering of acne. A faded red shirt that was far too big for him hung about him like a cloak. To Norman’s knowledge, it was the only one he owned. Richard had adopted the Old World academics’ hatred of fashion, and insisted on washing the same attire each night so that it could be worn the following day.

“You apologised to Hubble,” John bellowed. His auburn eyebrows—tangled thickets upon his plum-red face—were pressed so close together that for a moment Norman was reminded of Lucian.

“I did,” Richard said. He stared down at the chessboard before him, his hand poised above it. His face was a perfect picture of intense concentration.