The Fearless (22 page)

Ben shakes his head, and Cass keeps plodding along, still staring at the ground. I think about asking her if she’s OK, but I don’t want Ben to realize she’s struggling. ‘Guys, I need to rest. I don’t feel so good,’ I say.

‘We’ve only been walking an hour,’ Ben says, sounding irritated.

‘Are you OK?’ Gina asks.

‘Aye.’ I try to make my voice sound weary. ‘Just tired. I just need to sit down for a bit.’

Ben sighs sharply, but lets us stop at a burned-out Texaco garage for half an hour while we check our weapons. The relief on Cass’s face as she sits down on her pack is plain.

‘Keep as close to the buildings as you can,’ Ben says when we’re getting ready to leave again. ‘No one, but no one is to walk out into the middle of the road unless I say so.’

We all nod. I glance at Cass and see her biting her lip. We make our way through the city, constantly on the alert for Magpies or Fearless. The houses have given way to large commercial buildings and skyscrapers with broken windows, drifts of rubbish piled up in the entrances. ‘What was that?’ Gina says, stopping in front of me so suddenly I almost collide with her.

Ben and Cy, who are in front, look round. ‘What was what?’ Ben says.

‘I heard something,’ Gina says.

We stand there, listening. Once, the air would’ve been filled with the roar of traffic and the sound of people. If it was like that today, it would deafen us – well, me, Gina, Ben and Cy, anyhow. Now, all I hear is the creak of Ben’s boots in the snow as he shifts his position slightly, the sound of our breathing, and the faint caw of a crow, calling from two, maybe three miles away.

Ben shakes his head. ‘I don’t hear anything,’ he says.

Cy and I glance at each other and shrug.

We carry on walking. Half of me is hoping Mara will appear right in front of us, holding onto Cass’s wee brother, and it’ll be bam, job done – as long as I can keep Cass from shooting Mara.

But it’s just like the barterers have always said: the city is frozen, silent, dead. We stop to eat and rest again in the entranceway of an apartment block that looks as if it was only half-finished when the Invasion hit – it’s covered with rusting scaffolding, a crane sticking up from the roof.

Then I hear it, faint but unmistakable.

Laughter.

Ben drops his pouch of beef stew, grabs his rifle and jumps to his feet.

‘What? What is it?’ Cass says, looking alarmed, and I realize it’s still too far away for her to hear it.

‘That’s what I heard earlier,’ Gina hisses.

‘Stay here,’ Ben orders. He walks to the edge of the steps and peers out at the street.

I hear the laughter again. It’s shrill and bubbling. Is it Cass’s brother?

It stops.

‘Let’s get going,’ Ben says, his expression grim.

As we walk, we listen for the laughter, but we don’t hear it again. The road opens up into a dual carriageway, and we dart between abandoned cars, buses and lorries, our fingers curled round the triggers of our guns. When the buildings close in around us again, I should feel relieved, but all I can think is,
We’re getting closer to the Torturehouse
. I start to get flashes of memory – pain and cages and screaming and smoke – that make me go cold all over.

Ben stops and holds up a hand. ‘What?’ Gina whispers.

‘We’re here,’ he says. He points across the street, and I see a long stone building with arches along its front. The railway station.

‘We need to get across there,’ Ben says. ‘We’ll go one by one, and the rest of us can cover. Agreed?’

‘I’ll go first,’ Gina says.

‘OK.’

Gina checks her gun, then runs across the road. When she reaches the station, she presses herself into one of the archways and gives us a thumbs-up.

Cy goes next, and then it’s my turn. Now it’s just Cass and Ben.

I see her swallow. Then she’s running too, sprinting across to Gina and me. As she reaches us she stumbles and instinctively, I reach out and grab her arm. For a second, our faces are so close I can feel her breath against my face. Ben runs across the road. I let go of Cass and she leans against the wall beside me, gasping.

‘Right,’ Ben says. ‘This is—’

‘Ben,’ Gina says.

He looks round at her. ‘What?’

She points.

Footprints.

My heart leaps.

‘They’re not ours, are they?’ Gina says.

Ben shakes his head. I glance round at the churned snow where we ran across to the station. Whoever made these was walking, and they’re frozen solid, as if they were made hours or even days ago. They snake past the front of the station and disappear through one of the archways further along. They’re too big to be Mara’s, but they’re
somebody’s
. Another Fearless’s, maybe. Someone could have met her here.

Ben lets out a slow breath. ‘We have to go this way. There isn’t a quicker route.’

‘Come on, then,’ Cy says. ‘The sooner we get this over with, the better.’

We follow the footsteps through the archway and into the station. When I see the shops with metal shutters half-pulled down across the fronts, the blank departure screens and the steps, I get a rush of déjà vu. Even with the gaps in my memory, I remember this place. I remember screaming, because the pain in my head was so bad.

‘Up there.’ Ben points at the steps. I glance at the shuttered shops. I know there’s no one there, ’cos I’d be able to hear them breathing if they were, but I still feel on edge. In less than an hour, we’ll be there.

Then we hear the laughter again.

It’s coming from somewhere on the station – not close, but not too far away either. We all shrink back, guns aimed in the direction of the laughter.

‘Shit,’ Ben says, closing his eyes.

‘What do we do?’ Gina says.

‘Carry on. What choice do we have?’ He shifts his gun into a more comfortable position. ‘When I say go – go.’

We wait, listening for the laughter.

Silence.

‘
Go!
’ Ben says.

We pelt up the steps, our feet thudding against the crumbling concrete. The others are much faster than me, and once again, I have to fight to keep up, my heart pounding, my chest burning. I thought I was fit after all my Patrol training, but compared to them, I’m useless.

At the top of the steps is an enclosed bridge. ‘Keep going!’ Ben snaps, jabbing a finger to his left as I pause, trying to catch my breath. I sprint along the bridge after Myo, and as we pass places where the glass has been broken I get glimpses of the platforms and the railway lines underneath us, buried in the snow.

At the other end, Ben tells us to wait, and uses the sights on his gun to peer through one of the gaps in the glass. Then he crosses to the opposite side and does the same.

‘Are you OK?’ Myo asks me in a low voice, at the same time as Gina asks Ben if he can see anything.

I nod.

Ben shakes his head. ‘We’d better wait a minute. We made a lot of noise just now. Whoever’s here is going to know they’re not alone.’

We cluster near the top of the steps. Myo’s right next to me, and every muscle in my body is tensed with the effort of trying not to brush against him.

When five minutes have passed and we haven’t heard the laughter again, we creep down the steps.

‘We need to go that way,’ Ben says, pointing. ‘Trains to Meadowhall used to leave from up there.’

‘We know,’ Myo says, and I glance round at him. He sounds almost angry.

Ben looks apologetic. ‘Sorry. I wasn’t sure if you remembered.’

To my surprise, Gina reaches out and gives Myo’s arm a comforting squeeze. I’m even more surprised – and yes, a tiny bit jealous – when he puts his hand over hers for a moment and gives her a quick smile. What was all that about? Has he been here before?
When?

‘OK. Follow me,’ Ben says. ‘And stick together.’

We make our way to the end of the platform, where a train sits against the buffers, its sloping nose buried in a snowdrift. I’m relieved the doors are closed and the windows are too grimy to see through. Who knows what could be in there?

‘Which way?’ Gina whispers. Ben points to a tunnel just up the tracks.

‘More footprints, look,’ Myo says. He’s right; they’re going into the tunnel, and this time, they’re fresh.

‘Then we must be going in the right direction,’ Ben says. ‘Assuming they’re made by a Fearless, of course.’

We run to the tunnel in single file, listening out for that laughter again. The hairs on the back of my neck are standing up, the skin on my arms prickling.

On the other side of the tunnel is a cutting. The trees at the top are so overgrown that their branches form a thick, mat-like roof across it, keeping out the snow so we can no longer see if we’re following the footprints.

Then, directly ahead, we hear the laughter.

‘Oh,
shit
,’ Gina says. ‘It’s
here
.’

‘Keep your guns ready, OK?’ Ben whispers back.

We edge along the tracks, the laughter bouncing towards us as we pass through another series of tunnels. I can hear scraping noises, and a muttering voice. Sometimes it sounds like one, sometimes two.

The last tunnel we enter is much longer and curved; I can’t see through to the end. A faint, shuddering light plays across its walls, and something’s burning, filling the air with a thick, greasy smell that instantly takes me back to my apartment on Hope: oil lamps.

Whoever’s there gives another burst of laughter.

Holding up a hand, Ben walks forward, flat-footed and almost silent.

Gina and Cy exchange glances, then go after him. Myo and I follow. Ben looks round and motions frantically for us to get down. We all drop into a crouch.

The tunnel is choked with rubbish: paper, rusty cans, old plastic bottles, bags and boxes, even bits of furniture, and sitting cross-legged in the middle of it all is a Fearless, his wrists bound with rope and a metal collar around his neck with a chain. The other end of the chain is fixed to a heavy metal post, which has been driven into the tunnel floor.

I gasp.

‘Shut up!’ Ben mutters through clenched teeth as the Fearless scrambles to his feet and jerks his head round, trying to find the source of the sound. I clap a hand across my mouth so the word I want to scream can’t escape.

Dad
.

I don’t know how. I don’t know why. But it’s him.

It’s
him
.

His mouth has been sewn shut with thin wire, dried blood crusted around the holes in his lips where it’s gone in. He’s so thin his cheekbones stick out like blades, his hair hanging over his face in filthy strings.

My vision goes grey at the edges. I put a hand against the wall to steady myself.

‘Cass?’ Myo whispers.

I shake my head fiercely. One of Dad’s hands is bandaged, and I remember, with a stab of nausea, Danny telling us how the new drug the Fearless made to replace the serum rots them from the inside out. I wonder if I’m actually in the middle of a nightmare, and if in a moment, I’ll wake up back at the hotel we slept in last night, or the farmhouse, or the factory; or if, perhaps, this whole journey has all been a nightmare and I’m actually still at the bunker.

Then, in the middle of one of the piles of rubbish, something stirs. At first, I think I’m hallucinating; that the exhaustion from days of walking and the shock at seeing Dad have finally caught up with me, and my brain’s trying to trick me into thinking the rubbish has come to life. It’s not until the shape rises up that I see it’s a man, so grimy and grey he’s almost indistinguishable from the junk he was hiding in. I shoot a glance at his eyes, my heart beating faster than ever, but they’re brown, not silver. He gets to his feet and brushes himself down.

‘What is it, what is it?’ he asks Dad in a voice that sounds squeaky and thin, as if he doesn’t use it very much. ‘Is someone coming, are they coming, are they?’

Dad looks in our direction again and makes a thin
gnnnnnh
sound behind the wire.

‘Who’s there?’ the ragged man says in his rusty voice. ‘Who’s there, who’s there?’ He turns from side to side, craning his skinny neck. ‘Show yourself or I’ll let him off his chain, I’ll let him off, oh yes!’

Ben steps forward, then Cy, then Gina, aiming their guns at the man’s head. ‘I wouldn’t if I were you,’ Ben says. Myo and I follow them, even though I’m shaking so hard I can barely walk.

The ragged man throws back his head and lets out the cackling laugh we heard earlier. He’s almost as thin as Dad. His gaze dances over us, his eyes shining, and I think,
He’s crazy. Completely crazy
. Who is he? A barterer? Or just someone like us, who’s somehow managed to survive?

Dad strains on his chain, and the ragged man gives another laugh. ‘I thought you were one of them,’ he says, looking over his shoulder at Dad. ‘But you’re not, you’re not, that’s good, now why don’t you put those guns down, eh, and we can all have a chat, oh yes.’ He grins, showing teeth that are various shades of orange and black. Dad struggles harder against his chains, and the ragged man takes a step away from him.

‘What’s with the wire?’ Gina asks in a low, tense voice.

‘He’s a biter,’ the man babbles. ‘A biter, a biter, oh yes, had to stop him biting, didn’t I?’

‘But what – what are you
doing
with him?’ I say. I’m trembling harder than ever. My voice sounds high and faint.

‘He guards my things, guards my things, oh yes.’ The ragged man sweeps out a hand to indicate the piles of rubbish – his hoard. ‘I found him at the Torturehouse, he was gonna get me so I got him instead. He won’t last long, can’t feed him, I can’t, but I can always get myself another, oh yes.’

The man starts babbling in a singsong voice. ‘The Torturehouse, the Torturehouse, lots like him there, oh yes. People in cages, wanted me in a cage too, but I outsmarted them, oh yes.’

Ben clenches the fingers of his free hand into a fist, uncurls them again. ‘We’re looking for a Fearless,’ he says, slowly, patiently, as if he’s speaking to a very young child. ‘A girl in a blue dress. Have you seen her?’