Skylight (Arcadium, #2) (14 page)

And I do want
to do something. I just don’t know what or how or if I’m strong
enough.

“It’s time this
virus and those responsible had a taste of their own medicine. So
are we going to go do some destroying of our own?”

I let out a
slow breath. Sweat drips off my face. Stones press on my skin.
“Well…” I say. “When you put it that way.”

THE STONE EDGES
poke against my stomach like blunt teeth. We wait another hour,
watching Jacob’s digital watch, which for some reason thinks it’s
the year 1995. Maybe it’s a reminder of the past. Or maybe he’s
like me, and has totally forgotten the date. I tried to keep track
of time for a while, but when your mind is always consumed with
survival, a seemingly random number just can’t compete for space in
your brain. I don’t even know what day it is anymore. It kind of
feels like a Tuesday, but who knows?

The sun has
been at full strength for some time now. Soon it’ll turn orange and
slide out of view, and if we can’t get out from under the trains,
we’ll be spending the night here in uncomfortable squished-up
pain.

I look up at
Jacob as he stares at his watch. He has the tan of a man constantly
on the move. His rough dark stubble covers the lower half of his
face, almost like a mask. Like he’s trying to hide himself away
from everything. His eyes are dark and calm. They remind me of
clear starless nights.

My eyes narrow
in on something strange. A shiny drop of blood makes a slow trail
from his nose, heading towards his upper lip. He’s watching the
seconds tick over on his watch, completely oblivious.

“Jacob,” I
whisper. “Your nose.”

He looks up,
and it takes a few seconds for him to process my meaning. His hand
whips to his nose, and when he pulls back he sees the blood.

Pinching the
bridge of his nose, and keeping his eyes averted, he says, “Must be
this heat.”

I mean, it is
hot. It’s always hot in summer. Liss was more of a nose-bleeder
than me, but I think that’s because she picked her nose (gross I
know), and I didn’t. Jacob doesn’t seem like the nose-picker type,
so yeah, it’s probably the heat. Or the stress of being surrounded
by infected people whose only goal is tearing up anything that
moves. That could do it too.

A set of pale,
eroding feet shuffle past, so close that I don’t dare turn my head.
I just watch out of the corner of my eye as they lurch away
again.

Jacob bleeds a
little pool over the sharp stones; the drops drip drip dripping
from his nose so quietly. When his nosebleed dries up, he looks me
dead in the eyes.

“We’re not
walking out of here anytime soon,” he says, glancing around.

I want to ask
Jacob if he’s okay, but I don’t think he’d answer. Maybe the
nosebleed is something to do with the car crash we had. But without
a doctor, we’ll never know. So I stop thinking about what’s right
in front of me, and I start thinking about how to keep going.

“Maybe we could
crawl to the front of the carriages and run from there,” I
whisper.

“Too much
noise.” Jacob pauses. “Though, perhaps we could if we were on the
roof.”

I look back to
Kean and Trouble’s carriage. Kean is much closer, well, his feet
are, anyway. They must have been moving towards us, at an
excruciatingly slow pace over the past few hours.

“Climb on to
the roof? You think that could work? If we get stuck, we’ll
bake.”

“Risk or risk.
Not many options.”

I really would
like out from underneath this train. My left leg is starting to
cramp.

“Who goes
first?” I ask.

“You. I’ll
cover.”

I twist my head
so I can see the others and I wait until I make eye contact with
Trouble before giving him a few signs. Kean turns in time to catch
them. I swirl my finger about like a whirlpool, which means
all
of us
, and then I press my finger against the train body and do
a little running person with my fingers. Kean and Trouble look at
each other, then Kean does a thumbs up.

We have to wait
another fifteen minutes before it’s clear enough to slide out, and
when we do it takes longer than I expect for my blood to
recirculate. I stand up like a newborn deer, kind of wobbling on my
feet. There’s no time to look about, but there is some kind of
comfort in knowing that Jacob is wielding his gun. I crunch as
quietly as I can over the stones, but they seem intent on being
difficult. I reach the gap between the trains, and that’s when my
heart does its weightless fluttering trick. It’s one of the newer
trains. I already knew there was no passageway between carriages
here, just the coupling, but what I didn’t realise is how smooth it
all is. There’s nothing to grab on to. I duck behind the carriage
as infected move back and forth on the other side.

“Nothing to
climb,” I mouth to Jacob.

Suddenly Kean
and Trouble are out in the open and running towards me. And I know
the look on Kean’s face. We’ve been made.

I step up onto
the coupling just as Jacob arrives. He stands by the train and taps
his shoulder with his free hand. I don’t need any more
encouragement, because I can hear their growls now.

He bends down,
and I scramble up, stepping on his shoulders, pushing and grabbing
for anything I can. I drag myself up onto the hot roof, and spin.
Kean pops up next and I grab his shirt, pulling up as Trouble gives
him a shove. Jacob doesn’t need any help. He simply leaps to the
coupling then to the roof, catching the edge in one hand and
pulling himself up. I duck as his gun briefly points toward me, but
he doesn’t notice. Jacob stands and pops off a few shots. Two
infected collapse onto each other in a bundle of already dead
limbs.

Trouble grips
the edge of the roof and kicks off the other carriage to get
himself leverage. I grab his arm and shirt to help and when he’s up
I can’t let go because we’re all so close together and I don’t want
to knock him off.

Below, the
infected swarm over the dead bodies, chasing our sounds. They move
like toxic water, heads bobbing in waves.

“Lets go.”
Jacob flattens himself against the metal and starts crawling as low
as he can, so the infected won’t track his movement. I let out a
quiet breath and follow. The sun reflects brightly off the metal
and I squint the whole way.

We crawl when
we can, but sometimes we have to stand and move half bent over,
trying not to get caught in the low wires as we navigate around
long boxes of metal full of dead electrics. We cross four
carriages, and then have to make a two-metre jump between our train
and the one parked in front. One by one we go for it. Crossing the
space like birds taking flight.

I’m sweaty and
exhausted and over-heating. The bottle of water in my backpack
makes sloshing sounds but there’s no time for a drink. We drop down
low again. I drag myself along on my elbows then crawl on my hands
and knees.

When we reach
the front of the train, we all lie there, waiting, before deciding
most of the infected are still interested in our old position. One
by one we half climb, half slide down to the ground.

The tracks
ahead are empty. Thanks to the long line of trains, we’re now well
clear of the station. Trouble puts his hand on my shoulder and
nods. Neither of us smiles. I just nod back.

WE MOVE QUICKLY
now, no stopping. We take out any straggling infected we come
across, and just keep going; heads turning, eyes searching, weapons
at the ready. Every now and then one of us does a full three-sixty
degree spin, slowly taking in every movement, every sound. Jacob
holds a mean looking hunting knife. He still has the guns but this
is quieter. Safer.

Since I lost my
main weapon, Trouble gives me a knife from his backpack. I hold it,
ready to make use of it, but Jacob and Trouble are doing most of
the work.

Sometimes I try
to balance on the train track as we go, but always end up walking
along the sleepers. Sometimes there’s grass for us to tread on,
sometimes not.

We move
silently.

Trouble swings
his bag to his front as he walks and rifles through it until he
pulls out his water bottle. He unscrews the lid then offers it to
me with a nod. I look at Trouble, at his offering. He has a quarter
left. I have maybe three sips left in my own bottle, we all know
that, but Trouble’s sharing anyway.

So I take the
bottle, have a few sips of lukewarm water and then pass it back.
Trouble offers it to Kean but Kean just waves his hand and shakes
his head.

And we just
keep going. Keep moving. I don’t take out any infected. Jacob does
most of it, and he does it well. Trouble helps him when there are
multiples to dispose of. Kean holds his bar, half-heartedly, but
never needs to use it.

I keep looking
to my side expecting Liss to be there. I keep thinking that I feel
her hand holding mine as we’re walking. I feel her watching me,
haunting me, because she’s dead. I know this, but I need to keep
reminding myself, over and over, otherwise I’ll start believing
it’s not true.

We make good
time, taking out twenty or thirty infected along the way. The
stations we pass are like ghost towns — Malvern, Armadale, Toorak,
Hawkesburn. We don’t come across any survivors. We move single file
through South Yarra and Richmond Stations, ducking low against the
empty platforms, treading on rubbish. The journey is a long ten
kilometres of sweat and aching legs.

The sun hangs
low and orange as we reach the entrance to the underground City
Loop. The track slowly slants downwards, between two concrete walls
and leads to an ominous looking square tunnel. Pitch black, of
course. And it has a strange new addition: a metal bar fence covers
the opening.

Completely
covers it.

Although the
closer we get, the larger the gap beneath it seems, almost like
it’s been purposefully raised on one side so people can slide
underneath. I guess that makes sense. Infected are useless on the
ground, they’d never be able to coordinate the movements needed to
slide on their bellies underneath that fence. Well… as far as I
know they can’t.

We stop some
way back, ducking down by the concrete, and survey the scene.

“We’re just
going to walk straight in?” Kean asks in a low voice.

Jacob taps his
knife against his leg, thinking. “You have a better idea?”

“No, I just
want to be clear.”

“We don’t
exactly have the best luck with tunnels,” I say.

Kean shades his
eyes from the afternoon glare. “That depends on how you look at it.
We all made it out alive.”

I stop myself
from saying, And how long did that last? We’re tense enough without
me adding to it.

“Think we’ll be
gassed again?” I ask.

The corner of
Jacob’s lips turn downward. “Impossible to say, though it’s
likely.”

“Wonderful,”
Kean replies.

Trouble is
still at the back of our line. He kind of leans his head around
Kean, to watch our conversation. Maybe he uses our tone and body
language and expressions to pick up information, I don’t know. But
I’m sure he’d like to voice some concerns about entering another
dark tunnel-like space after almost dying in Burnley Tunnel.

You see, I
didn’t think of that when I left. About other people’s fears, their
traumas. Before, on the road, there was no time to think, I had an
excuse then, but back in the hills I had all the time in the world
to consider things. And I didn’t. So if someone has to sacrifice
themselves today, it should be me.

“Same order,
single file.” Jacob glances over his shoulder. “We go under the
fence, one at a time. Kean, you cover me when I’m on the
ground.”

Kean nods.

“Torches out,”
he continues. “We have no idea what’s waiting for us on the other
side of that fence, so eyes open, weapons at the ready.” He pauses,
like he’s expecting a salute or something. He doesn’t get one.
We’re not really the saluting types.

“Let’s move,”
Jacob says.

We set
ourselves up with torches and weapons, and then I give Trouble the
hand signal for
single file
. Straight away it reminds me of
Liss, because those were the hand signals we created together —
when it was just us two — for travelling quietly in the open.

I follow Jacob,
then it’s Kean and Trouble.

We move
forward, staying low until the walls rise above us and we’re
trapped in the concrete corridor. The entrance to the underground
is chained and padlocked in multiple places, either to keep the
infected out or to keep them within.

I look back
into the glaring sun, so low in the afternoon sky that its blaze
hits me right at eye level, as if it’s pushing me toward the
darkness.

Jacob slides
under the bars on his back, gun in hand. He pops up on the other
side and brushes debris off his clothes. It must be a reflex or a
natural instinct or something, because it makes no sense since
we’re already sweaty and dirty, and there’s no telling what’s
waiting for us in the dark. Strange how, without realising it, we
carry little pieces of the old world with us.

I squirm under
the gate, and the others follow in the same order we’ve naturally
picked up since we gained a new member and lost a few. Jacob always
goes first, controlling the position of power. Which I suppose
makes sense when he’s the one offering coverage with firepower. But
I can’t help but think he could have completed this journey much
quicker on his own. And that makes me wonder why exactly he would
even allow a bunch of people to follow him?

I frown as
Jacob switches on his torch and flashes it into the dark, barely
penetrating the emptiness. If Jacob didn’t need us for the journey,
and is completely capable of destroying a whole facility on his
own, then why on earth would he want us to tag along?