Wasteland

by Terry Tyler

  His blood and heart rate are tested, for what he doesn't know.

  They show him more images. Horrific scenes that jump out at him.

  He is dismissed, back to the cold Hut F dormitory.

  Sleep. Bad dreams. Emma. Rocky. Brainwashing George, Bob Hodges. Mixed up rubbish, nothing that means anything.

  Morning. A guard appears and tells the dormitory’s occupants to go to the bathroom block, then queue for breakfast in Hut C. He finds Stella, Arlo, Tyler, a couple of other familiar faces. More cups of anaemic tea, with a Danish pastry apiece. Now, though, fewer people complain, or suggest theories about what might happen to them. Most just sit, lost in their own thoughts.

  Back to Hut A, to wait. And wait.

  Even chatty, upbeat Tyler seems in low spirits.

  An announcement.

  "Attention, please. Attention. If your number is called, please take your belongings and report to Hut H."

  The numbers start. The room is so quiet that they boom out, loud and clear, but Dylan doesn't expect to hear his, not after yesterday's performance. He is no strong, healthy Rocky-type. He's a weakling who can't hear properly.

  2346

  2521

  1345

  1897

  1649

  "Hey!" says Stella. "It's you!" She reaches over to squeeze his hand. "Well done, and good luck!"

  He stands; yes, it's him. They called him. They want him. Must be good for something, then.

  "Yeah―Hut H, that's where they went yesterday," says Tyler. "Can only be a good sign, I reckon."

  "Well, I hope I'll see you all in there, soon." He can't help smiling. Tyler pats him on the back and, to his joy, little Arlo leaps forward and grabs him round the waist, hugging him.

  Dylan strokes his head, and tears rush into his eyes.

  "You'd better take your book," Stella says, handing him the one Arlo was reading.

  Dylan shakes his head. "Let him keep it. It was given to me by someone I liked very much; she'd be pleased he's got it."

  "Passing on the love," says Tyler, with a smile. "That's the way it should be. Hope to see you soon, mate."

  Such warmth from these wonderful people lifts his spirits, but as he makes his way over to the door, he considers how pathetically they have accepted their situation, all of them, to the extent that the calling of their allocated number makes them feel relieved. Chosen. Safe.

  Three days ago, they didn't even have the stupid numbers.

  Three days ago, they were free.

  In Hut H, he leans against a wall, eventually sliding down to sit on the floor. Gradually, the room fills up. Stella arrives, and Arlo; they look happy, as if this development can be only positive. He greets them with a hug, delighted to be with them again.

  Tyler does not appear. Or two teenage girls who were teasing Arlo, earlier. Tall, lively and determined that 'the system' wasn't going to beat them down.

  Dylan looks around. With him in Hut H are mothers with children. Older people. One or two with obvious physical disabilities.

  He studies them one by one, trying desperately to spot a specimen of fine health, just so he can say to himself, well, now, look at that guy over there. Nothing wrong with him. Strapping lad. You're in the same group, so you must be okay. But there are no strapping lads.

  A woman a few feet away wears a hearing aid.

  He shuts his eyes.

  "What d'you reckon this means, then?" says an old guy, near to them.

  "Ah, it'll be Hope Village for us," says a skinny woman with bad teeth. "I don't bloody care, as long as I get a bunk bed to sleep on. I can't do another night on the floor, that's for sure."

  A woman of around seventy with long grey hair and clever eyes behind huge glasses says, "Aren't the Hope Villages filled to bursting point, though? That's what I've heard."

  "Well, they've got to put us somewhere!" says Stella, cheerfully.

  "One would hope so," says the glasses lady. "And that's all we can do, now. Hope for the best, even if that best is the Village."

  Sometime later, they hear vehicles driving up. The sound of people outside, lots of them, talking; guards shouting. Ten minutes later, they hear the vehicles drive away.

  That'll be Tyler and the rest of them, thinks Dylan. They were selected by not being selected. He decides not to voice his thoughts.

  It's two-thirty in the afternoon before they get lunch. More tea, a sandwich. This time there are no biscuits.

  As the afternoon rolls on, any optimism left in the room disappears. Stella asks a guard what is happening, and he tells her to go and sit down. She asks again. He repeats his instructions without looking her in the eye.

  "I don't like it here!" shouts out Arlo, and just for a moment, everyone laughs.

  "None of us do, mate," calls out a tired voice from across the room.

  Then quiet.

  Dylan doesn't want to leave their corner, this small bit of safety and comfort with Stella, Arlo and the few other people nearby whose names he cannot remember, but he has to empty his bladder. Outside, the skies darken. There is no one around apart from a few guards at the gate. The huts are all in darkness, apart from the bathroom block and another, set apart, at the far end.

  There are no queues for the urinals. No one there at all, apart from one old guy emerging from a cubicle. Everywhere, silence. The man washes his hands as Dylan urinates.

  "Another night on a bloody mattress then, by the looks of it," he says. "Wish they'd hurry up and take us to wherever we're going."

  "Yeah."

  On the walk back to Hut H, he sees activity. Everyone is walking out, towards him. All of them, quietly, without fuss. Beside them walk the guards, guns at the ready.

  Dylan runs up and down, searching for Stella; he finds her walking with Arlo, her arm around him.

  "What's happening?"

  She smiles up at him, pale hair lit by the only two floodlights still on. "I'm not sure―I'm just glad something is, at last!"

  A guard says, "You―get in line."

  He falls into step by Stella.

  "We've got to go down there. Hut K. To wait for pick-up, they said." She chuckles. "And not a moment too soon, eh? I've got to the point when I don't care where we're going!"

  Why couldn't they be picked up from Hut H, though? Isn't Hut K further from the gates? Beyond it, there is only the fence, and then fields, lonely and silent in the dark night.

  They reach Hut K, and two guards hold the doors open. Inside there is nothing, just dim strip-lighting. The people troop in; when Dylan reaches the threshold, he looks at a young guard.

  Their eyes meet.

  The expression on the guard's face is all too familiar to Dylan―pity, slight discomfort. He is dark of skin; the whites of his eyes stand out in the night. He looks away, but Dylan lets others walk past him, and doesn't move. He keeps his eyes fixed on the guard, silently demanding his attention, because he has to ask.

  He knows, but he has to ask.

  "Why do we have to wait here, instead of Hut H?"

  "I don't know, mate."

  "Are we getting picked up tonight?"

  "I think so."

  "So you don't know for sure?"

  "No."

  Dylan moves closer to him. "What would happen if I refused to go in?"

  Silence.

  The young man's eyes show more than pity, now; they are filled with emotion. "I can't tell you what to do."

  Dylan's every instinct is to run, hide, but he knows what will happen. They will shoot him.

  Better to face whatever is going to happen with the woman and the child who have, over the past two days, become important to him, good people who at least care a little for him, rather than be plastered against a fence, riddled with bullets.

  And he might be wrong. He's been wrong about so much, so many times in the twenty-seven years of his life.

  Another guard yells at him to hurry up, and he joins the others inside Hut K.

  The last people wa
lk in, the doors are shut. The guards remain outside.

  Inside, they mill around, plonk themselves down on the floor, lethargic, chatting in that desultory way that people do when they have nothing to say.

  And then it starts. There is no sound, no smell, but it begins.

  Hands hold heads, eyes search the room, bewildered.

  At first it's just one person saying to another, "Hey―you okay?" while others pound on the door for the guards' attention, but within a minute the room is a mess of panic, so intense that Dylan's head whirls.

  He got it wrong, he should have run for the fence, he should have at least tried―gone out on his own terms―

  Voices shout out in pain; legs collapse, stumbling.

  One by one they drop, as if they are falling asleep standing up.

  "What's going on―?" Stella is frantic, Arlo begins to cry, clinging to his mother, and Dylan grabs them both, enveloping them in his arms, hiding his face in Stella's shoulder, trying to fill his head with pictures of blue skies and green meadows.

  "Think of something beautiful," he whispers, "think of the happiest moment of your life," and little Arlo winds his arm inside Dylan's jacket, clinging to him, too, as if he might protect him. Like a father.

  Screams of hysteria and pain ring in his one good ear, screeching over the desperate banging on the door as, slowly, the poor souls around him realise what is happening to them. He glances up to see them covering their faces with their clothes, anything, to stop the unseen, deadly enemy from entering their bodies. They shrink away from each other, cowering in corners, they kick at the door, hollering at those fuckers outside to let us out, let us out, let us the fuck out of here, you murdering bastards, and then Stella falls, and Arlo is wailing in fear―Dylan holds the boy, so tightly; he is crying now, too, as Arlo goes quiet, the life draining out of him, limp in his arms.

  He looks up at the ceiling and shuts his eyes, forcing his mind to conjure up that green meadow again because he doesn't want the last thing he sees to be this cold, wretched room; it should be blue sky, lush fields, sunshine, birds, pretty flowers, and Emma.

  He places Arlo's lifeless body on that of his mother, touches their necks, their wrists, in case he's wrong, but can feel nothing. He lies down next to them and holds them both close to him; they are so small, so thin.

  He kisses them and holds his beautiful picture in his head, his face on Stella's forehead, his tears warm against her skin, and he waits.

  He can no longer hear the screams in the room.

  When he finds himself above the floor, looking down at the three of them lying there so peacefully, he thinks, so that's that, then.

  And somehow, somewhere, he can feel Emma close by.

  Outside, the young guard who spoke to Dylan has tears streaming down his cheeks.

  Another man, older, bigger, walks up to him and says, "This your first time?"

  "Aye."

  "You'll get used to it." The older guard pats him on the shoulder. "And once you've had the procedure you'll be golden. I can't wait, me." He dips into a pocket and brings out a half-eaten packet of crisps, digging into it and crunching. "They're just rats, at the end of the day."

  Caleb told him once that no experience is ever wasted.

  Before Phase 10, medical and psychological research projects made do with stray wastelanders picked up during collection drives, Hope Village troublemakers, the criminal and the NPU scheme failures; the last two categories often overlapped. Now, Phase 10/B would provide them with a fine crop of emotionally and physically healthy units, to ensure more accurate results.

  Ezra spent many weeks fine-tuning the perfect selection process; Caleb's instructions were to come up with procedures that would 'cause minimum stress to all concerned'.

  When he ran test modules, the sensors told him that anxiety increased as the process progressed, manifesting in panic, and sometimes even aggression.

  Most interestingly, he found that watching the test subjects' angst as their numbers failed to be called made his own anxiety levels rise.

  He knew why.

  Their discomfort provoked haunting memories of the dreaded team game selections of his schooldays.

  Back then, the rugby and cricket captains―popular types he envied, loathed and adored, all at once―would stand on the sports field in front of the rest of the class, choosing their teams one by one, stringing it out to gain maximum sadistic enjoyment. He remembered the smug confidence of the first to be picked. The shame of being the last: chubby gay boy Bettencourt.

  He forced himself to examine the memories, excruciating though the process was, and as he did so he recalled the rare occasions when he was not the last. The sense of renewed belief in himself, as soon as he heard his name.

  He took this memory, and he used it.

  The 10/C units would not be left on the metaphorical sports field, despairing as their numbers failed to be called; they were the feeble, who did not have the psychological strength to cope. Instead, they would be selected. Thus, they would walk to the various Hut Ks with hope in their hearts, because they had been chosen. Human beings are basically optimistic souls, aren't they? When anxious and frightened, they cling on to any possibility, any perceived indication that all will be well.

  As for the instrument of treatment, some had suggested a virus, but Ezra was not keen. Those presented to him for consideration were adapted from viruses found within the animal kingdom, and Ezra knew from hints supplied by Caleb that you could create a shitstorm once you let loose a zoonotic. Now was not the time for a pandemic. Not unless they got the signal from the Secretary General, and both Freya and Caleb were confident that this would not happen; current methods were hitting sustainable population targets.

  The new H75-B has proved ideal. Quick, humane, no mess.

  You had to remain humane, even when given a task of this magnitude. If you didn't, what sort of person would you be?

  Chapter 36

  Flight

  I find Colt in a house down the road with Sloane, happily singing to himself as he cooks something to eat, while she lounges on the sofa, plucking her eyebrows.

  "Hey!" he says, dead casual and friendly, like I've just popped round to his flat in Stack 249. He wipes his hands on a cloth, walking towards me. "So what went down? Did you find them?"

  "I did, but we've got no time for that now." I frown. "Do you two not know what's happening? Hasn't anyone told you?"

  No, they haven't. I get them up to speed; to my bewilderment Colt looks not scared and appalled, as one would expect, but merely a little miffed.

  "Jesus, I've only just got here. You mean I finally get out of MC12 only to have to drag my arse over the North Sea? Sloane and I were talking about trying the off-grids―I risked life and limb last week to get a bit of freedom, not end up in some fucking Dutch refugee camp."

  "Colt―one, you hardly risked life and limb, and two, it's actually not all about you. You can stay here if you want, but I don't rate your chances. We're leaving in one hour."

  "Fuck that," says Sloane, tucking her tweezers and mirror into her top pocket. "I'm not going back to a Hope Village, not for anything. I'd rather be in a refugee centre. At least they're honest."

  I'm glad to see her start to get her kit together, while Colt sighs deeply, abandons his pan, and does the same.

  The evacuation commences. Arriving back at the main house with Colt and Sloane, I go through to the back to find King frantically trying to dismantle radio parts and wrap them safely.

  "King, mate," says Q. "You can't. We don't have the time, and we certainly won't have the room."

  King looks bereft, as if he's being told to leave a beloved pet behind.

  Ace comes in. "Fuel's looking dodgy," he tells me, quietly. "Mick just told me."

  Yara comes up behind him, barging between us. She smells of sweat. "It's going to be a push, but we can move everyone." She claps for attention. "Listen up, people. We're taking two bikes, two quads, one car, which Sloan
e will drive, and the van; we can fit everyone in, however tight a squeeze it is―we will all get there, okay? First stop is an old pub five miles from Waxingham―the Cross Keys. There, we regroup, reassess, while Ace and Q ride out to the coast and check out the situation, 'cause we don't want to get there and find out that they don't want to take us after all, or that the place is flooded with gun-toting arseholes and they've fucked off and left us. If that happens, we'll head south, down the coast, until we find some way of getting across to Europe."

  Ace says, "We should stagger leaving, too, in case we come across no-go areas."

  "What do you mean?"

  "The road blocks and convoys of trucks we saw. Drivers all take radios, and if we see anything we don't like, we alert everyone else down the line, and try a different route."

  Someone calls out, "What if they've gone when we get there, and we run out of fuel on the way down the coast?"

  Yara opens her mouth to speak, but Ace stops her. "Then you're on your own. You hide, try to find a boat, whatever you can. Sorry, but that's all we've got."

  No one else says a word. We've got the picture.

  Yara underlines that we won't be stopping until we get to the Cross Keys. "So use the toilet before you go, just like your mum used to make you do. This is it, guys. And don't forget―if you spot any danger areas, warn the next person down the line by radio."

  Ace holds out his jacket to show me binoculars with night vision and a walkie in the inside pocket. "I've got the two most important things. Just wish I had a gun." He touches my arm. "C'mon. We're going first. I'm not good at waiting on others." Yara is still marshalling the troops into order as we head out of the front door.

  We don't see a soul as we move down towards Suffolk; the afternoon sun shines brightly, and I allow myself to enjoy the ride, cold as I am. What the hell; we might face the foe at any time. We're far from out of the woods, so I'm bloody well going to make the most of every moment I'm still free.