The Sign of One
That’s not what’s been dragging me down though.
I’ve always been a bit of a loner – I guess because of all that moving about we did when I was younger – but now I feel even more left out and alone than usual. It’s like I don’t know these guys any more, even the ones I’d almost call friends. I watch them as they walk or ride the trail, happy and laughing, teeth flashing as they chat away. Okay, so everyone’s keeping a wary eye out too, but it’s been like this ever since we left Deep Six. Even when the hail was rattling down, everyone was banging on about the Fair and how good this or that was. Hey, look, see what I bought? The food was crappy this year, wasn’t it?
Blah, blah, blah. And – I – just – don’t – get – it.
See, I couldn’t give a toss what the fishcakes were like, or what such-and-such might make from that reel of synth-cotton she bought. How can they laugh and joke so soon after seeing such horrors? Am I the only one here who wants to talk about what really happened? Am I the only one still feeling sick to my stomach?
I was freaked out by what I saw at the Fair, but they loved it.
Maybe Nash is right – maybe I’m the weirdo.
I know what he’d say. We live on a dump world. Life is hard, get over it.
And speak of the devil . . .
‘What’s the matter, Kyle?’ says Nash, sidling up to me where I’m leading the fourhorns hauling one of our wagons. ‘Missing your girlfriend?’
I ignore him. Best way with bullies, Rona says.
Tell the truth, I’m not so scared of Nash and his thug mates now, after the Fair. I know they’ll give me a kicking and I know it’ll hurt. But here’s the thing, I feel kind of numb about it. What’s a few bruises compared to a hanging?
‘Took you apart, didn’t she?’ he says.
Oh right – he means that psycho windjammer girl with the dreads. I taste bile again, remembering being sure I was going to die. I’ll be glad if I never see her again.
And there it is again on the breeze, that weird musky smell.
‘You wait,’ says Nash. ‘We’re going to give you such a beating. You’ll still be sucking your food through a straw when the snows come.’
I stare at the hash-willows by the trail. Did something move there?
‘You hear me?’ he says.
‘No,’ I say, distracted. ‘Something’s not right.’
That’s when I hear Clayton shout, his voice high and scared.
‘Rea-pers! ’
Next thing, I hear the thump, thump, thump of our scouts’ pulse rifles rapid-firing in the woods high to our left, and glimpse several bright acid-green flashes through the trees. A woman screams from somewhere up front.
Nash clutches my arm. Not such a tough guy now.
The Reapers leap up from hiding places in bushes and drop down from branches overhanging the trail. Everywhere I look I see more, loping towards us like human wolves, howling and shaking their spears and long knives. I’m rooted to the spot by the sight of their half-naked bodies, plastered in filth and twigs and swirling blue tattoos, their savage Reaper faces all twisted with bloodlust.
Too many – I see that straight away. We’re screwed.
‘Don’t run. Fight!’ roars Clayton.
I can’t do either. I can’t even breathe. It’s like I’ve been zapped by that Slayer muscle-lock. All I can do is stand here, gawping like a fool as Clayton leaps down from his wagon. He drops to one knee, aims his pulse rifle and snaps three thumping shots off before an arrow gets him in the throat, toppling him sideways into the mud. With a curse, Nash knocks me aside and sprints forward along the trail. He snatches up Clayton’s pulse rifle, throws himself down behind our leader’s crumpled body and starts shooting. Thump! Thump! One Reaper, almost on him, flies backwards, a huge hole in his chest.
‘Ammo!’ screams Nash.
He fires again and again into the charging Reapers. One goes down. Another spins round and screams, half his arm gone. Other men are firing now, but the Reapers are on top of us. My muscles unknot themselves. I gulp a huge, sobbing lungful of air. Every nerve in my body screams at me to run, but I swear and dash back to the wagon. If a gommer like Nash can fight, I have to help him. Spare pulse-rifle magazines should be in a box by the bench seat. I clamber up, straight-arming the panicking Zielinski woman out of my way. But I can’t open the box. Some idiot has padlocked it. I plant my feet and howl curses and pull like crazy, ignoring the pain in my fingers. The hasp gives way in a shower of splinters.
No mags in the box, only dirty grey bugwebs.
I look up, just in time, as a Reaper spear flashes towards me. How I twist myself out of the way I’ll never know, but it hisses past. I throw myself across the seat, drop down on the far side of the wagon and pull my hunting knife out. It looks so small in my hand – a child’s toy compared to that Reaper spear.
Sweat pours down my face and screws with my seeing.
The shouts and screams suddenly get louder. I can hear the desperate grunts and scuffles of hand-to-hand fighting now. Something else too, which makes me pant with disbelief – the bang and crackle of a blaster. I grovel in the dirt for a look under the wagon. Through the wheel spokes, I see a man’s boots staggering backwards, surrounded by bare Reaper feet. The boots lift and hang quivering in mid-air. I hear his death shriek, then his body falls to the ground.
It’s Nash I think – or what’s left of him.
The wagon bounces on its springs as something lands on it. A shadow flickers over me and I hear a splash as feet land in the mud behind. I whip round, wheezing with fear, and I’m face to face with a Reaper.
Once, I electrocuted myself. Got careless hooking up a live fuel cell. This feels like that as a jolt of pure terror rips through me. I stagger to my feet, meaning to run, only to find my legs are rubbery and useless.
‘Stay away from me!’ I shout.
This Reaper is short and scrawny, not much older than I am, although it’s hard to tell, he’s so plastered with mud and feathers. He comes at me, leading with his knife. I twist out of the way and he cuts my side, but not serious. I grab his wrist before he can have another go. We pant into each other and wrestle back and forth. He’s way stronger than he looks, however, and fights dirty too. When we end up face to face, he rocks back and headbutts me. I stagger and drop my hands.
What saves me is that Reaper boy’s a gloater.
He steps back, grinning from one filthy ear to the other. And I feel that terrible ferocity shudder through me again, same as when I punched Nash. When he struts back in to finish me, I’m not just ready – I’m looking forward to it.
If I die, then so does he!
I look into his bloodshot eyes and hurl myself at him.
Next thing I know, I’m shaking and down on my hands and knees. Reaper boy is on his back in front of me, legs kicking as he tries to slide further away. The bloody hilt of my knife is sticking out of his chest. Not a killing wound, but he looks as shocked as I am. His knife is beside me. I grab it, the handle slick and warm, and scramble up. His face goes rigid – he must think I’m going to finish him.
I should . . . but I can’t. It’s just not in me.
On the far side of the wagon, the fighting sounds almost over. I gulp air and try to think what to do. Behind me is the fast-flowing brawl of the river. I don’t swim too good, so that’s no use. But I’m the fastest runner in the three valleys. If I can get past their spears, I reckon no half-starved Reaper will catch me. The forest is their world, so it’s the trail or nothing.
But how to get past their spears?
I scramble to the front of the wagon. On the trail, I glimpse hell. Swarming Reapers. Bodies everywhere. A woman screams as she’s dragged away by her hair into the trees. Behind me, Reaper boy starts yelling. I hold my breath and dodge between the rearing, plunging fourhorns. Somehow, their lashing hooves miss me as I reach up and slash their trace ropes. I hack at their flanks. The stink of blood and Reaper does the rest. The maddened fourhorns, free from their harness, red-eyed and frantic with terror, stampede. Reapers scatter. I see one tossed into the air, but daren’t stop to watch. I slip along to the front of the leading wagon, pull my head down into my shoulders and take off running like I’ve never run before.
I make it past the spears, only to trip over a root.
Soon as I hit the ground, I know I’m hurt bad. I scramble up, but my ankle won’t take my weight and I cry out as Reapers come running. I limp backwards and they follow me. They’re in no great rush now, seeing I’m hurt.
It hits me then, like a knife in the guts.
I’m dead.
Something clobbers the back of my knees and sits me down hard. It’s a shelf of rock above the river. I haul myself backwards up on to it, sobbing, staring in horror at the red smears my hands leave on the limestone. My blood, or Reaper blood, or fourhorn blood? Guess I’ll never know.
I think about throwing myself into the water. But I can’t.
‘Not much meat on this one.’
I look into their hateful Reaper eyes. And I don’t know what shocks me more – that Reapers can speak, same as you and me, or that this is the end. Reaper boy struggles up to join them, grinning, my hunting knife in his hand.
At least I left my mark on him. That’s something.
I loved that knife. It’s about the only thing Rona ever gave me, apart from that dose of swamp pox. Slowly, painfully, I haul myself to my feet.
The sky’s so blue – not a cloud in it.
Biggest Reaper points a blaster at me and pulls the trigger.
5
AWAKENING
Agony. Raging and cruel, sinking its razor-sharp fangs into my jaw, neck and shoulder. Tormenting me. Dragging me down, deeper and deeper into the cold, wet darkness. Whispering give up, Kyle, time to die . . .
I scream and scream, but the pain shows no mercy.
A long darkness.
Maybe I come to. Or maybe I just open my eyes.
Either way, I’m staring at feet, sliding free of rushing green water. One booted, one naked, white and shrivelled. My boot. My foot. My legs attached. Dimly, in the small part of my mind that isn’t roaring red with hurt, I realise I’m still alive and someone is hauling me backwards out of a river.
I squeeze my eyes shut again.
Put my hand to my jaw and feel bone, slick and wet.
Shouting. Lots of shouting. And someone calling out my name.
‘Kyle! Can you hear me?’
I try to answer, but all that comes out is spit and groans. I’m cold – so cold.
All I want to do is sleep, but the shouters won’t let me. They lay me on my back on to something hard. When they pick me up, the agony comes scuttling back. It leaps on to my chest, hot and heavy, much more alive than I am, crushing me so I can’t breathe, tearing at my flesh again.
After that, I only remember bits and pieces.
The sky bouncing around.
Crying out as they drop me, seeing the old door that’s my stretcher.
A crash as they kick a gate open.
Hard hands lifting me, putting me carefully down. Whispers and curses.
A man’s voice, strained: ‘Where the hell is she then?’
Somebody running out.
Rona rushing in and gasping as she sees it’s me, dripping gore all over her clean kitchen table. Next thing I know, she’s pushing a needle into my arm. A wonderful soothing warmth as whatever stuff she’s pumped into me trickles its way through my veins. The room spinning round and round my head.
I sob with relief as the drugs chase the agony away.
‘Am I going to die?’ I ask her later. I don’t sound like me. I don’t even sound human. My voice is this weird, paper-thin rasp. It’s only because Rona’s leaning over me, cutting off the remains of my shirt, that she hears.
‘Don’t try to talk, Kyle,’ she says. Her healer voice wobbles.
Someone lifts my head gently on to a pillow. The way I’m lying now, I can see how messed up I am. Blaster spatter has caught me high across my chest, collarbone and jaw. The skin is mostly burnt away, the flesh below red and white and ugly yellow, charred to hard black in a few places. There’s a finger-wide crack where the swollen flesh has burst apart. Everything’s wet and oozing stuff. All around the edges are these huge, angry red blisters and there’s blood everywhere.
I groan. I knew I was hurt bad, but –
‘I’m surprised he can talk at all,’ a man says.
Rona steps aside. Vaguely, I watch the ceiling fan’s blades swish round, until two blurry faces lean in and stare down at me. One is old Fod, Freshwater’s preacher. His gaunt face looks more suspicious than sympathetic. The other face, wide-eyed and nervous, belongs to my girlfriend Jude.
I think it’s Jude squeezing my hand.
‘Does it hurt?’ she asks. Then her hand flies to her mouth.
‘What-do-you-think?’ I manage.
Rona shoves her roughly out of the way. ‘Apart from the blaster wounds, he’s in shock, he’s been stabbed, he’s got some broken ribs and I’m worried his skull might be fractured. Of course it bloody well hurts, Jude.’
She slides another stinging needle into my arm.
Out of the corner of my eye, I think I see faces. It’s torture, but I roll my head to look. Some must be the men who carried me here. The rest are our neighbours – the Clancys, the whole Ferguson brood, some of the Smiths. The men stand there, shuffling their feet and scrunching their hats, as if they’re in chapel. The women wince, look mournful and swap whispered remarks. The children fidget, nudge each other and gaze at me curiously, their eyes like saucers.
Even though I’m struggling to keep my eyes open now, I get it.
They’re here to pay their last respects.
When I come to my senses again, Rona has kicked everybody out, except for Jude. It’s dark outside, but I’m warm and dry and propped up in my bed. A tube snakes from the needle in my left arm to a bottle hanging on a hook. I can’t see my wounds now – they’re smothered in lime-green dressings, which stink of those powerful herbs Rona calls painsuckers. I’ve got to say, they’re doing the job. The pain still gnaws at me, but I don’t feel like screaming the whole time now. Rona is rooting through her battered old medchest. Jude sits cross-legged on the floor beside her, as if she’s waiting to be handed stuff. She’s chewing her fingernails.
Both are way too preoccupied to notice I’m awake.
‘I’m so sick of searching for thirty-year-out-of-date miracles in here,’ Rona says, sounding tired and cross. ‘No antibiotics. No synth-skin. Nothing useful at all. It’s like being back on Earth during the Dark Ages.’
Jude spits a nail. ‘Can I help?’
Rona glares at her. ‘Can you change the fact we’re on a dump world?’
‘Just asking.’
‘Hey, what’s going on?’ I sound almost like me again.
Jude’s freckled face lights up with pleasure and relief. She jumps up and hurries over. I flinch, half thinking she’s going to give me an agonising squeeze, but she stops at the foot of the bed and hugs herself instead.
‘Rona’s been wagging her finger at me.’
‘Um,’ I say, not surprised. ‘How long have I been out?’
‘Best part of a day. Rona says the danger now is infection. If I hug you or kiss you, I could kill you. Then she’ll have to kill me too.’
‘Sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind,’ says Rona. She holds a packet of stuff up to the light and squints at the label on it, before cursing and slinging it back into the medchest. ‘Are you feeling more comfortable now?’
I nod. Big mistake. Even with the soothing painsuckers and injections, the stab of agony in my neck leaves me gasping and wheezing. Through an eyeful of tears, I see Jude start chewing her fingernails again.
‘It’s only a scratch,’ I tell her. ‘Honest. I feel better already.’
Rona scowls, like I’ve said something stupid.
Jude tries to smile. ‘Trust you to get shot in the gob.’
I try to return her smile, but only the left side of my face seems to work. ‘Was that you holding my hand before?’
‘No, it was Fod.’
She darts a glance at Rona, then comes closer and takes my hand. My eyes go blurry again – but not from hurting. I want to tell Jude how badly I’ve missed her, to thank her for being here and trying to cheer me up, but I can’t, not with Rona around. Instead, I blurt out the question that’s been tap-tap-tapping away at the back of my mind. ‘How come I’m not dead?’
‘You’ve the luck of the devil, that’s how,’ Rona says, with a frown. ‘I don’t know much about blasters, but either it misfired or was low on power. Probably old and half-broke, like everything else on this godforsaken planet. The cold river water probably helped too – with the burns, I mean.’
‘Who found me?’
‘Cal Ferguson. You were tangled up in a fallen tree, close to the bank. He fished you out. How you didn’t drown or bash your brains out drifting down through the rapids, we’ll never know. I didn’t think you could swim.’
‘I can’t hardly.’
‘You don’t remember going into the water?’
‘All I remember is the blaster.’
Rona takes her glasses off and rubs her eyes. In the dim light from the glowtubes, I see how tightly the wind-burnt skin on her face is stretched. Her eyes are dark pits from lack of sleep. She turns away to the sink and starts rinsing what look like soiled bandages. Jude hops up on to the bed beside me and plants a kiss on my forehead. Even this hurts, but I’m not complaining.
She reeks of soap and strong antiseptic.
‘We were hanging about,’ she says, ‘twiddling our thumbs until you got back, when we heard the pulse rifles. Some men grabbed guns and rode out straight away. I wanted to go too, but they wouldn’t have it. You should’ve heard me screaming and swearing – but I’m glad now. They say there was nothing anybody could do. By the time they got there, the Reapers were long gone, but it was an awful sight. Bodies everywhere, torn to pieces. Carts stripped clean. Cal was on his way back here to fetch help when he spotted you in the water.’
Reapers. The word makes me shiver, even though I’m safe now.
‘Any others survive?’
‘Uh huh. Four. Although young Meg Zielinski and Todd Patenaude are both hurt bad. Rona’s doing what she can for them, but –’
She shuts up as I have a coughing fit. I feel like I’m suffocating again. Rona hurries over, shoos Jude off the bed and tries her best to soothe me. She manages to pour a mouthful of some sweet drink into me and that helps.
‘I told you. You shouldn’t talk,’ she says.
‘What about Clayton?’ I croak. ‘I saw him get an arrow in the throat.’
Rona shakes her head. ‘They didn’t find his body.’
We all know what that means – we’ve heard the stories. I shudder as I remember that dreadful hungry look I saw on the Reapers’ faces.
‘What did they look like?’ Jude whispers later, behind Rona’s back.
‘The Reapers?’
She shivers. ‘I’ve never seen one.’
‘Be glad then.’ In between coughs, I describe them to her.
‘Human though, same as you and me?’
More carefully this time, I nod. ‘Only more savage.’
I don’t blame Jude for asking. I’d always wondered about Reapers too. Out here in the back of beyond, our handful of farmsteads scattered around the freshwater lake, a lot of what you hear is ignorance and superstition. That’s what Rona says anyway. Like some folk swear Reapers are half-men, who’ve bred with Wrath animals. Others say they’re mutants, turned weird and mad by radiation, whatever that is. Rona, always so sensible, says nobody on Wrath knows for sure what Reapers are, only that they’re out there and fierce dangerous.
There’s not many like me who’ve seen Reapers and lived.
Rona comes back and clicks her tongue. ‘Look, don’t just stand there moping, Judith. You’re getting in my way and Kyle won’t shut up while you’re still here. He needs to rest. You can visit him tomorrow, when he’s feeling better.’
‘See you later then,’ says Jude. She squeezes my hand.
The door shuts behind her and I close my eyes. For a long while, all I hear are the small sounds of Rona faffing and the hiss and rattle of my breathing.
I clutch at what Rona told Jude. The danger now is infection.
So does that mean I’m not going to die?
When I open my eyes, Rona is staring down at me. She has this weird look on her face – like she’s looking at me, but seeing a ghost.
‘What’s the matter?’ I say.
She starts. Gives her eyes a rub again, but says nothing.
Whatever Rona keeps pumping into me knocks me out all right, but fills my head with nightmares. I’d have thought they’d be about Reapers, but instead I’m back at the Peace Fair. Only now I’m looking down at the jostling crowd. I’m on the stage and I see the fear and hate in people’s eyes as they stare up at me.
They hoot and jeer and make the Sign of One.
Suddenly, I’m on my knees, the altar digging into my chest. Vice-like fingers hold me down, crush the side of my face into the blood-red cloth. I see my bandaged arm, stretched out in front of me. It itches, itches like crazy.
Across the altar, another me stares back.
The same lopsided face. The same greasy brown hair flopping over his forehead and falling into his eyes, the same gap between his teeth.
His arm is stretched out and bandaged too.
‘Who are you?’ I ask him.
He smiles – a sneery smile – like he knows something I don’t. They cut his bandage off and his wound is deep and gushing blood. He winks at me.
Strong hands pick me up, haul me towards the gallows.
‘No!’ I scream. ‘You’re making a mistake!’
The crowd goes crazy as the executioner drops the noose over my head. A hatch bangs open under my feet and I plunge into the darkness and –
And wake up, choking and clawing at my throat.
The glowtubes flick-flicker on. Rona comes running. She holds me down until I stop thrashing, then gathers me in her strong arms and rubs my back, like she used to when I was very little. She looks all crumpled and baggy-eyed.
‘You’re all right, Kyle. You had a bad dream, that’s all.’
‘I wish I’d never gone to that stupid Peace Fair,’ I say, when I can talk.
‘Well, I did tell you,’ she sighs.
I pull away. ‘Why didn’t you tell me they killed them?’
‘And if I had told you?’
I shift uneasily. ‘Everybody else goes. I’m sick of being the odd one out.’
Rona smiles at me sadly. ‘What’s done is done, I suppose. But you could have been killed; it’s a miracle you weren’t.’
‘That’s hardly my fault.’
‘No, of course it isn’t,’ she says slowly, ‘but you’ve no idea what the consequences will be. How impossible this makes things.’ She reaches over, checks my dressings are secure, touches my cheek.
‘Impossible?’ I say, not sure I heard right.
Rona gives herself a tired little shake and stands up. ‘Look, it’s the middle of the night and I’m bone-tired. We’ll talk about this tomorrow.’
She goes and fetches me a glass filled with some cloudy-looking liquid.
‘Drink this. It’ll knock out a fourhorn.’
She makes sure I swallow it all, then goes back to bed.
But I don’t go back to sleep. I’m too scared to. I toss and turn, staring up into the darkness, my wounds itching like crazy under their dressings.
Itching, just like my arm did in the dream . . .
6
NEVER SAY THAT WORD
The next day, I’m itching so bad, I nearly go out of my mind. Rona has to bind my hands to stop me tearing at my wounds. She tries all her ointments to soothe me, but nothing works. And she can’t even knock me out – it’s like my body goes all hyper and won’t shut down. I howl like a baby, even in front of Jude, but Rona says that if she gives me anything stronger she’s scared I won’t wake up.