The Dying & The Dead 2 (2 page)

“It’s named after a Gerekin legend. A
guy who was lost in the Wilderness of Torment and had to eat his family so that
he could survive. He would do anything to stay alive. Anything. And that’s why
it’s the oldest constellation in the sky.”

“That’s not how stars work,” said Ed.
“Do you even know what you’re saying?”

“Just think on,” said The Savage. “My
condition is the curse that I bear, but if I don’t get something soon, it’ll be
yours too.”

“What do you mean?”

The Savage shook his head.

“Come on, Ed. You’ve figured this out
already. I need blood or flesh from someone who’s immune, and if I don’t get
it, it won’t be long until my skin looks like rotten pork and I’m trying to
claw your eyelids off. Luckily for me, there are two immune people on this
boat.”

Ed knew this, of course. Until the
infection hit Golgoth he had been sheltered from the true extent of the
outbreak, but after seeing The Savage and his men, it hadn’t taken him long to
work things out. If you were bitten or scratched by one of the infected, there
was a small window of time where you could ingest the flesh or blood of someone
who was immune.  Trouble was, Ed stood on one side of the window, and The
Savage was on the other, staring at him through the glass.

“How did you get infected?” Ed asked.

A wave splashed over the deck and
sprayed ten feet above them. The Savage tilted his head into it as if he was
enjoying a shower. He looked at Ed, water dripping down the plastic of his
mask.

“You better go down, it’s getting bad.
Let daddy drive the car.”

~

The air was suffocating below deck, as
though the wooden walls were tightening and making the space even smaller. In
some ways he preferred being on deck, even if it meant that he’d be hit by a
spray of salt water. There were two rooms below. One of them was The Savage’s.
The other used to be a cargo hold, but there was nothing in it now save a pile
of blankets which Bethelyn slept on. Ed had to make do with the cold floor.

He found Bethelyn on her make-shift bed.
Her eyes were open, and she stared at the ceiling, motionless. Rather than
disturb her straight away, Ed looked around. On one wall two rusted hooks were
fastened into the timber. The Savage hadn’t done much to make his ship seem
homely, and the vessel carried that smell of sodden old wood. On the other wall,
there was a paper drawing.

Bethelyn hadn’t spoken much since
leaving the island. One of the only conversations she’d had was to ask if
anyone had a pen or pencil. In the hurry to escape the infected neither Ed nor The
Savage had thought to pack stationary, so Bethelyn had burned the end of a piece
of wood and used the soot to draw on the back of an old poster. After wetting
the soot and applying it to the paper, she’d sketched a likeness of her
daughter, April, and she stuck it to the cabin wall. Ed had been content to let
her grieve in her own way, but it wasn’t healthy. A couple of times, when she
thought he was asleep, Ed heard her talking to her soot-drawn little girl.

She hadn’t left her room much since they
had gone on the ship, but Ed could hardly blame her. Losing a child must have
been an unimaginable hell, but to have to kill her yourself must have been so
much worse.

“Come on up top,” he said. His words
broke the stillness. The old wood of the deck groaned above them.  “Take a walk
with me. See the storm. Trust me, there’s nothing like a face full of salt
water to wake you up.”

Bethelyn didn’t even look at him.

“What’s the point? I just want to
sleep.”

“You might want to close your eyes for
that.”

He didn’t know what to say. Since
finding out from The Savage that his brother, James, was alive on the Mainland,
all Ed had wanted to do was find him and be reunited with his lost sibling. He
was the last family he had left; his big brother who he thought would always be
there. The idea of looking for him had given him purpose. For Bethelyn, there
was no such drive. She had already lost the only person who was important to
her on Golgoth, and Ed knew that nothing he could do would change it. A walk on
deck wasn’t going to clear everything up for her. He just wished she’d eat and
sleep a little.

There was a loud crashing sound overhead,
as if someone had dropped an anvil on deck. Once again he wondered about the
fragility of the boat, and he didn’t feel so confident that the vessel could
sail through the wrath of God. Above, filtering down the hatch and dimly
meeting his ears, he heard The Savage yelling.

Ed left the room. He went across the walkway
and climbed up the ladder that led up to the deck. Water dripped down from
above and pattered on his head, and a rumbling sound drowned out the
possibility of hearing anything else. Something crashed again, and as he peered
through the hatch, a spread of cold water hit him in the face.

The wind was swirling around them. It
battered the mast so quickly it was like the pulse from a heart ready to burst.
The ship rose up for what seemed like twenty feet, and then it fell back onto
the surface of the sea with a thud, flooding the timbers with raging sea water.

As Ed stood on deck and fought to keep
his balance, The Savage ran toward him. He couldn’t hear what he was saying
over the roar of the sea, but he felt his own heart hammer in his chest. The
sea punched at the sides of the ship again and again, driving itself into
frenzy and aiming for the knockout blow. Ed’s legs felt unsteady.

“What’s going on?” he shouted. The wind
hit him full force and sucked the air out of his lungs. Ahead of them was a
gaping black mouth where the night sky met the sea, and Ed knew that the storm
was going to swallow them.

The Savage stopped a few feet in front
of him. His skin and hair were soaking wet.

“The storm’s not going to let go,” said The
Savage.

“I thought this could sail through the
wrath of God?” shouted Ed.

Another wave hit them, and the boat
lurched. The Savage almost lost his balance, but regained it at the last
moment.

“I thought it could too. But I didn’t
think God would be this pissed off.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means the ship’s sinking. Get the
girl. We’re going to have to jump.”

Chapter
Two

Eric

On
Route to Camp Dam Marsh

They were sucking all the air out of the
carriage bit by bit; it was the only explanation. The chug of the train vibrated
through his stomach, and the wheels made a steady clang as they moved along the
track. Eric wished he could close his ears to the sound. The noises inside the
train weren’t much better. Babies crying, men coughing. Women whispering to
their children in voices that aimed at reassurance, but sounded scared. The
boys and girls looked bad, but even the adults’ faces had lost colour.

The windows of the train were boarded
shut, and only thin streams of light seeped in where the wood didn’t cover the
glass. There must have been seats and things like that at some point, but the
carriage had been stripped bare to fit as many people in as possible. The
guards had crammed almost fifty men, women and children into each train
carriage, and the effect was an unbearable heat approaching the mugginess of a
jungle swamp.

It reminded Eric of a game his dad used
to play with him when he was younger. He’d pick him up and wrestle him to the
ground, and then flop his weight on top of him pretending to be a monster. It
started out fun, but soon he’d get a feeling that he couldn’t breathe and
stupid thoughts flooded his head like ‘
what if dad’s dead? He’s so heavy I’d
never get him off.’
Eric would claw at his father and try to shove him away,
but he weighed too much. He'd start to feel like his chest and lungs were going
to be crushed until all the air left him. Finally his dad would get off him and
give him a playful tap on the arm. When he saw Eric’s panicked face, he looked
worried. ‘
Sorry, bud. I was only playing.’

It was so much worse on the train. His
lips were cracked and the air felt hot as he sucked it in. There was a ‘no
smoking’ sign stuck to one of the walls, and Eric wondered why someone would
want to light a cigarette in such a tight space. Dale had used to smoke roll-up
cigarettes, he remembered. Eric hated the smell, but he couldn’t say much
because Dale had taken Eric, his mum and sister in and let them live in his
house.

At the far end, an old man wheezed. The
man stood up and walked over to the window, leaning against the wall to keep
himself steady. He put his face to the corner of a window and tried to breathe
fresh air, but it was no use. Not only were they boarded up, but they were also
shut tight. They were stuck in the suffocating darkness as the train pounded
along the tracks.

“What do you think they used it for?”
Eric said, trying to take his mind off things.

He was sat on the floor with his back
leant against the carriage. Kim sat next to him. They’d sat apart at first, but
as their journey wore on she had slowly slumped over to him. She might have
slept a little, but he couldn’t tell. He was too distracted by looking at the guards
at both ends of the train. Their faces were emotionless as they kept a steady
eye on the people around them.

Kim shrugged her shoulders. She pulled
her hair from over her back until she could see it in front of her, and then
she started to weave strands of it into a plait.

“Why do you always do that?” said Eric.

She stroked her fingers along her auburn
locks.

“When I used to get scared, like if I
saw an infected or something, mum would take me into a room where I couldn’t
see outside, and she’d do this with my hair and talk to me. She’d tell me
stories about my grandma and grandad. I knew they weren’t true, though.”

“And that used to work?” said Eric.

Kim nodded.

“Maybe I should grow my hair,” he said.

“Where do you think mum is?” asked Kim.

The question made her seem so young,
despite her being older than him. She wasn’t just Kim to him anymore. He’d
started to see her as an older sister. They weren’t bonded by blood, but
something else joined them together; they were both immune. Eric had already
guessed that everyone else on the train was immune, too. He had heard what the
Capita did to the people born with immunity genes that meant the infected
couldn’t turn them into monsters.

“I don’t know. But she’s looking for
you. She’s out there somewhere. Your mum’s stubborn.”

“Do you think Charles Bull has her?”

“I don’t know,” said Eric. “But I hate
him.”

Eric put his arm around her. Whatever happened
next, he was going to have to look out for Kim. She and her mum had taken him
in when he had nobody, and it was partly his fault that they were separated. After
all, it was the Capita’s pursuit of him that had led the bounty hunter, Charles
Bull, to Heather’s door. Eric couldn’t help being immune, but it was down to
him that Heather and Kim were in trouble.

A boy was sat across from them. He
looked to be ten years old; not much younger than Eric. His arms were skinny,
even by Eric’s puny standards, and the edges of his eyes were wet. He looked
around him and tried to catch the gaze of the adults on the carriage, but they
were all too occupied with their own sufferings to take on any of his. The boy
stretched his jumper over his hand and held it to his face. His upper body
shook as he wept.

Looking closer, Eric saw that a damp
patch spread across the boy’s crotch. The guards brought buckets out for the
DCs to share every so often, but it hadn’t been enough. Somehow, Eric knew that
this boy’s accident was not because he really needed a wee, but because he was
terrified. The boy looked up at a woman across from him and tried to catch her
gaze. Eric watched with disgust as she stared in every direction she could
except toward the frightened child.

Kim stirred beside him. She moved away
from Eric’s shoulder and got to her feet.

“What are you doing?” said Eric.

A guard eyed her from across the
carriage. He twisted a wooden baton in his hand and gritted his teeth. Kim
walked across and sat next to the crying boy. He looked up, surprised, and then
stared down at his crotch. A look of defeat took over his face, and he put his
hands on his lap to hide the accident.

“What’s your name?” said Kim.

“Allie,” said the boy.

He sounded older than Eric expected. He
guessed it was possible that Allie could have been the same age as him, but
fear had stripped some of the years away. He reminded Eric of a panicky version
of himself. He imagined Allie as a little puppy, constantly tugging on a sleeve
to get reassurance and attention.

“Come here, Allie,” said Kim.

She put her arm around his shoulder and
pulled him close to her. The boy’s eyes widened at first, and then he squirmed.
Seeing that Kim wasn’t giving up, he settled into the hug. The woman across
from them looked down at the floor.
Yeah
, thought Eric.
You should be
ashamed.

A wave of heat hit him, and Eric’s stomach
wobbled. He got to his feet. There must have been a way to get fresh air in
somehow. Even if they wanted to fit as many people in the train as possible,
why had they boarded up the windows? Either they didn’t want the DCs to see
where they were being taken, or the Capita guards were just being cruel.

The guard at the right side of the
carriage had gone.
Probably for another cigarette
, thought Eric. He
walked over to the door. Through the sounds that the train made on the tracks,
Eric knew that it was going too fast for him to jump. If he could just open the
door and let a little air in, at least he wouldn’t feel so suffocated.

He grabbed the door handle and twisted
it, but it didn’t move. He looked behind him and saw that some of the men and
women were watching him, and he imagined that they were willing him on. From
the sweat covering their foreheads and their faces pale through nausea, he knew
they needed the relief as much as him.

He pulled on the door again but it
stayed stuck. There were heavy footsteps behind him. Without a word, a meaty
hand slapped his face. The force of it was enough to knock him on his back, and
he felt his left eye sting. He looked up to see a tall guard standing above
him.

Beyond him, at the back of the carriage,
a woman retched. Eric got to his feet. The guard loomed over him, chest solid,
a baton gripped in his palm. He walked over to the side of the carriage. The
boards were driven into the walls by nails, and the wood was thick enough to
block any light that hoped to sneak through. Eric grabbed a corner of the board
and tried to pry it away.

“Want another one, slugger?” said the
guard, and held his fist in the air. He had little blue tattoos on his
knuckles.

He walked over to Kim and slumped down
next to her and Allie. With the effort of trying to open the door his energy
had left him, and his face must have looked just as drained as the other people
in the carriage.

“I feel sick,” said Kim.

There was a thudding sound. A woman had collapsed
at the end of the carriage, hitting the floor nose first. She didn’t move when
she was on the ground, but a long, wheezing sound left her mouth. Next to her,
crying and red-faced, was the baby she had been holding. Eric looked around.
Surely one of the adults had to do something? Not a single one of them moved. They
were so wrapped up in their own troubles that none of them had the sympathy to
spare.

Finally a man got to his feet. The top
of his scalp was bald, but brown hair lined the sides of his head. There was a
dent on the bridge of his nose from where he had, until recently, worn glasses.
Eric wondered if the man could even see anything without his spectacles.

“Just going to stand there?” said the
man. He walked over to the woman. He seemed so angry that his shoulders shook.
“Cowards. You’re all cowards,” he said, glancing around him so that he could
address everyone.

He kneeled next to the woman and held
his fingers against her neck. After a few seconds, he shook his head. He raised
his fist and punched the carriage floor, then pulled his hand away and rubbed
his knuckles, wincing. He picked the baby up off the floor and cradled it close
to him. Adjusting the blanket around the child, he looked at one of the guards.

“I hope you see our faces at night,” he
said. “I want you to picture this woman while you try to sleep. Look at her.
Would it have been too much to let a little air in here?”

Eric walked over and sat next to the man.
He put his hand on the baby’s forehead. Its skin was hot, and its breathing
sounded raspy.

“How much further?” Eric asked the bald man.

The man looked surprised, as if he
hadn’t expected anyone to talk to him. The guard at the door crossed his arms.

“Don’t be so quick to wish the journey
away. Enjoy it,” said the guard. “Because the end is a hell of a lot worse.”

In the heat, and with nausea churning in
his stomach, Eric didn’t have the brain power to figure out where they were
going. Kim’s mum was out there somewhere, and her daughter needed her. But
where were Eric’s mum and his sister?

It seemed like years since he had last
seen them. They had been on a meadow with Dale, the man who had taken them in
and who made his mum’s cheeks turn red when he spoke to her. They had been
enjoying the grass and the flowers and the sun, but everything had turned dark.
The bounty hunter Charles Bull had appeared, a bulky figure blotting out the
sun, and he’d ruined everything.

He had to find them. His mum and sister were
out there, and somehow, he had to get to them. Who knew, maybe he was going to
the same place? His sister was immune, after all. She could have been taken to
wherever the train was going.

A door opened at the end of the
carriage. For a brief second Eric glimpsed the engine room, with the train
driver sat in a chair peering out of a window as the train rushed along the
tracks. A man stepped through the door.