The Dying & The Dead 2 (16 page)

“I can tell you this, because soon
you’ll be miles away in a Capita uniform, taking pot-shots at Resistance
fighters. And it’s highly unlikely you’ll ever see the Dome again. So here it
is.”

He pinched the cigarette papers and
sprinkled tobacco into it. Strands spilled out onto the table.

“I’m fucking sick of the Capita. And
the Dome. If it weren’t for the infected, I’d leave here in a second. But I
have to stay because I can’t risk what lies outside the borders. So I pull
twelve hour shifts and deal with annoying shits like you, and then I go home
and find my wife already in bed. Before I know it, it’s time to get up and put
the uniform back on. I’m sick of it.”

“We’ve all got to do what it takes to
survive.”

“If only the Five were here now. Just
put me in a room with one of them for an hour, and I’d get them to see things
differently. Show them what their decisions mean to the real people.”

Baz saw an opening.

“How about you let me go, skip the
processing and go home to your wife?”

Irvine’s face became stern again.
Whatever humanity he’d chosen to show Baz, was gone.

“Nice try. But no. You’re joining the
Capita army. There’s a resistance town we’re going to invade. Apparently, it’ll
mean more land and resources for the Capita. And I bet a lot of that will
trickle down to people like me,” he said. This time his sarcasm matched Baz’s.

The universe was looking down on him
and laughing. It was pointing an almighty finger and chortling to itself,
cheeks reddening with the hilarity of the karma it was about to serve. The
stupid thing was that he couldn’t blame anyone else. He’d sat in the Grand Hall
and made this happen.

“Let me see,” said Baz. “Is this town
called Kiele, by any chance?”

Irvine looked surprised. “You’re a
clever one.”

“Just a lucky guess.”

Irvine finished making his cigarette
and brought it to his lips. When he flicked his lighter and brought the flame
to it, the fire engulfed the paper and ruined the cigarette. He slammed it down
on the table.

“Get some sleep in your cell
tonight,” he said. “Because tomorrow you’ll be a soldier.”

Chapter
Fifteen

Eric

Keeping an eye on the guards had
become second nature to him as he prowled through the yard. It was easy to see
why the other kids had been caught in their escape attempt. They hadn’t exactly
tried to be sneaky, and when the watchtower light had swept over them, they had
panicked. If only they had gotten advice from Eric’s mum.

Just pretend it’s a wasp
, he heard her say. When she told him
that, she hadn’t been talking about search lights sweeping over a camp for the immune,
of course. The advice still worked, and at times like this he missed her so
much.

Over the last couple of days he’d
spent more time in the yard checking the cabins than he had in the shed where
he was supposed to be sorting shoes. He half thought that the guard stationed
outside knew he was sneaking off, and just didn’t care.

There was only one cabin left to
check. Nobody had seen his mum or sister, it seemed. With each passing day hope
of finding them shrank, and Eric’s prospects paled as much as Kim’s face. He
worried about the girl. She had hardly eaten, and Eric couldn’t even bring
himself to tell her what had happened in Goral’s cabin. He felt like he was
going to throw up when he thought of Allie’s naked body on the table, with
blood pouring from his throat.

Across the yard, three guards picked
stones off the ground and threw them at the DCs who worked in front of them. It
was such pointless cruelty. Careful to make sure they didn’t look his way, Eric
crept over to the cabin door and opened it.

Inside, this cabin was nothing like
the others. Instead of rows of cheaply-made beds and waste buckets, there was a
double-sized bedframe. Ornaments lined bookcases placed against the walls, and
there was a photograph on one of them. It was of a boy and a girl running down
a beach. Eric thought he had seen them before.

“It’s no use, boy,” said a voice.

Eric snapped his attention to the
corner of the room. An old woman sat on a wooden chair. She was the oldest
woman he had ever seen. Her skin was a mess of wrinkles etched deep into her,
and her body was thin and bony and looked like it might shatter if she took a
step. Eric wondered if she could even get off the chair.

“I’ve been here years,” she said, in
an exotic accent. “And I know there’s no escaping. Look at this.”

She lifted the hem of her blouse and
showed him her stomach. The skin sagged, and Eric thought he could see the
bottom of her breast drooping down. A scar ran along her belly. It was thick
and brown, like the stitching of an old teddy bear.

“I tried to escape once. This is the
present they gave me.”

Eric felt disarmed by her. He sensed
that she wasn’t like the rest of the DCs, but instinctively he knew that she
didn’t work in the camp either.

“How come they didn’t kill you?” he
said.

“Because of my little brother. I’m
Marta Vitch.”

When heard the surname, he shuddered.
He remembered Goral telling the story of his family name to Allie. It was as
though it was a curse word, and it made Eric feel bad to even repeat it in his
head.

“He’s your little brother?” said
Eric. “He seems…”

“Ancient? He looks it, but he’s
younger than me.”

“No.”

“Don’t believe me? Cut me open and
count the rings.”

She gestured to another chair that
rested against the wall. Eric looked at the window behind him. The yard was as busy
as usual, but nobody seemed to be looking in his direction. He dragged the
chair until it faced Marta.

“Why did he do that to you if he’s
your brother?”

She traced her hand across the scar.
Her skin rippled at the touch.

“He keeps me here, but he won’t kill
me. He wouldn’t kill you either, I suspect. The guards would, but that’s not usually
Goral’s way. Except when…No, his way is much worse. Don’t ever cross him, boy.
And if you do, make sure you aren’t caught.”

Bullshit that’s not his way
, thought Eric.

He looked around him. A light bulb
hung from a cord attached to the ceiling, but there was no power running to it.
In the corner of the room, high up on the wall, was a painting of a little
village. A man in dirty clothes pushed a wheelbarrow along a dirt path, and a
herd of cows grazed in the distance. It seemed like a nice place, and one that
Eric would gladly have swapped for Dam Marsh.

“I’ve seen you poking around,” said
Marta. “If you’re looking for escape, you won’t find it.”

“I’m looking for my mum and sister.”

“Which cabin are they in?”

“I don’t even know if they’re here. I
haven’t found them, anyway.”

Marta gave him a sad smile. “Some
people come here and they don’t stay as long as the rest of us. The Capita has certain
plans for some folks, and different plans for others.”

Marta got up off her chair. The
process seemed to take several minutes, and Eric wondered if he would see the
afternoon sun start to set by the time her feet hit the floor. When she stood
in front of him she stretched to full height, and suddenly she didn’t seem so
old.

She walked across the room and into a
small kitchen area, where pans covered a gas hob, and two white cupboards were
fastened to the wall. Eric saw a loaf of fruit bread on the counter with foil
around it, and crumbs were scattered on the plastic in front of it. His mouth
watered for a second, and then he felt nauseous. Ever since the night in
Goral’s cabin, food had lost its appeal.

Marta opened a cupboard and searched
in it. She took out a handful of raisins and nuts. She wrapped them in a
plastic sheet, and then walked across the room and handed them to Eric.

“Here,” she said, reaching out with
bony fingers. “For your friend. The girl.”

“How do you know...?”

Marta tapped her nose. “I’m not as
stupid as you might think. Don’t let my years fool you.”

She settled back into her chair.

“You might be thinking of escape,”
she continued. “But I would hate to see Goral get his hands on a boy like you.
I know what he does, Eric. Don’t think I’m blind to it. It’s something the men
in our family have always done. There was a time, back home, when people
scuttled away when they heard the Vitch name.”

~

Back in his cabin, he couldn’t help
smiling when he gave the raisins and nuts to Kim and saw her grab for them.
Despite the grin, he just felt like getting into bed and pulling the sheet
around him. He wanted to smother himself in darkness and sleep his way through
the next month.

If even Goral’s sister was trapped in
camp, what hope was there for the DCs? He had already seen what happened when
you tried to escape. He didn’t even want to imagine the guards aiming their
pistols at Kim and blowing a hole in her head.

The rest of the DCs were asleep in
their beds. One bed, at the far end nearest the buckets, was empty. It had used
to belong to the boy who had fallen first in the race.

“Where’s Theo?” said Eric.

Kim raised a palm full of nuts to her
mouth.

“He won’t be coming back. Guards came
in earlier. I thought it was just an inspection, but they pulled Theo out of
bed and dragged him away.”

“This is Martin’s fault,” said Eric.

Martin had tripped Theo in the race.
Eric knew that somebody had to fall first, and he was glad it wasn’t Kim. That
didn’t mean he couldn’t feel sad for the boy. He glanced at the bunk across
from him. Martin Wrench lay on it, fast asleep.

Eric’s face grew hot. He walked over
to the bunk and prodded Martin’s side. When the boy didn’t wake, Eric shook
him. Martin turned over drowsily.

“Mum?” he said.

Eric grabbed him and pulled him off
the bunk. Martin fell to the floor, and other DCs started to stir when they
heard the bang. Martin put his hand to his face and rubbed his eyes.

“What the hell?” he said.

Eric pointed.

“See that?” he said, gesturing at the
empty bed. “See what your little trick did?”

He wanted to punch Martin. Blood rushed
to his cheeks, and he realised he was clenching his fists.

“Leave it, Eric,” said Kim. She
glanced through the window to see if the commotion had brought the attention of
the guards.

Martin got to his feet. Eric was
ready to hit him, when the boy spoke.

“I was just scared,” he said,
scratching his ear. “I didn’t want them to take me. I didn’t know what else to
do.”

Eric felt a hand on his shoulder. Kim
gently pulled him away.

“Come on,” she said. “Don’t get us
into trouble.”

Eric shrugged her away. He walked
over to his bed and laid down on it. Something nipped at his arm, but when he
looked down, he couldn’t see anything.
Great
, he thought.
Fleas
.

He looked at Martin as the boy
trundled back to bed. Eric didn’t want to admit it, but he was scared too. He
was terrified of what would happen if they tried to escape, but even worse were
the consequences of staying. He thought of Goral and Allie in the cabin, and of
Marta’s warning to him. He pulled his sheet up to his chin. When the time came,
he hoped he was brave enough to risk escape. He owed it to Kim.