by Gabby Tye
“C’mon. Let’s get some rest,” Kyl said after they managed to calm down. They stood up and made their way towards the stairs.
“Eee!” Eryn squeaked. She grabbed my hand and dragged me away before we got spotted. We stumbled into our room and shut the door, collapsing on the floor and giggling quietly.
“Shut up!” It was Dyanne. “Or I will come over and smash your heads!”
Yikes! We scrambled to our mattresses and lay down. I smiled to myself. I couldn’t be sure, but I had the feeling that I hadn’t laughed like that for a long time.
CHAPTER 12
I clutched at my side painfully as I ran next to Jae.
“I knew you shouldn’t have come,” he said, glancing at me.
We were on a “hunting” expedition for more food. Breakfast had been really horrible, just half a can of baked beans each.
And lunch had been worse – more sardines and jars of pickled vegetables that were salty and disgusting. I ate everything, nonetheless. It was then that I realised that the “feast” the night before had been a special one, just for me.
They normally ate as little as possible to preserve whatever food they had left. The stash in the house was dwindling, so when the kids started talking about venturing out to search for more food – something they took turns to do regularly – I volunteered to go. It was my way of thanking them. Plus, I didn’t want them to start thinking of me as a burden, an extra mouth to feed. Dyanne had already voiced her objections to keeping me in their group.
“Why is she here, anyway? We can hardly feed ourselves! We’re running out of food. We don’t know who she is, so why must we help her?”
She had glanced around smugly to see if anyone else agreed with her. I looked around and saw a few kids nodding silently.
“You see? You all agree with…”
Kyl cut her off with a glare. “How could you? So now you think survival is more important than helping someone? More important than living an honourable life? Who knows what would’ve happened if we had left her there. Since when did the lives of other people not matter?”
Dyanne backed down, but looked defiant.
Another kid spoke up, “If we don’t have enough to eat, we will all die. I don’t want to die.”
“But if we leave her to die, won’t we be like the ones in Camp Zero? Saving themselves and leaving others to die?” Jae said. “We all have a choice, you know. And our choices define who we are. I don’t want to be one of them.”
“Why are you defending her, anyway?” Dyanne said. “Just because she’s pretty? You talk about honour, but it is so clear that you stupid boys are all suckers for a pretty face!”
“That’s not true,” Eryn said quietly. “I want her to stay too. It wouldn’t be right to let another kid die. Haven’t we seen enough kids die? What if it were Shulin? What if we lost her one day, and another group found her and left her to die instead of helping her? How would you feel then?”
That seemed to have an effect on Dyanne. Her face took on a stubborn look, but I saw a deep sadness in her eyes.
“We have to give her a chance at least,” Kyl said. “She could be useful. Another set of hands also means more work can be done.”
So Jae and I had just stolen some food – although in my mind, it wasn’t really stealing if people had abandoned their stuff. We had rummaged through the homes in an HDB block and were about to run away with our loot when three adults ambushed us and tried to take our food.
They jumped us when we rounded a corner at the void deck and tried to grab at our bags of food. We should have known better, and we should have been more alert, but we were tired from searching house to house, climbing all those stairs.
We ran from them as fast as we could, turning a corner where Jae pulled me into a small enclosed space, where we stayed hidden. There we sat, gasping for air until the sound of angry footsteps faded.
I turned and glared at Jae, trying to ignore the fact that we were standing so close. “That wouldn’t have happened if you had listened to what I said, but no, you had to do it your way and now look what happened.”
Jae had insisted on being super thorough. He had made us start from the very top floor – the 25th floor, in this case – and we had to go through every single flat. Being the impatient one, I had wanted to leave after finding a nice stash of canned food and instant noodles on the 20th floor. But no, Jae said, we had to look in every flat.
Jae shot me a sheepish half-grin. “Look, tulip, I’m sorry, okay? But it’s not my fault, you agreed to do it too.”
Tulip? I scowled at him. “Jerk.”
“We should go back now, since we have everything we need. Also, they might have friends, so we’d better go before they bring back-up.”
“Why don’t they just look for their own food anyway, instead of stealing from us?” I asked.
“Firstly, they are too lazy and too weak to search the way we do. Secondly,” he said, pausing to give me a smug look, “they can’t pick locks like I can.”
“Yeah, yeah, big applause for the master criminal,” I said sarcastically. I refused to let him see how impressed I was with his lock-picking skills, which were really quite good. He had managed to open all kinds of locked doors and metal gates.
He looked faintly disappointed. “Enough chatting. We’d better go now.”
“Fine, but give me something to fight with first, just in case. I bet you fight like a girl,” I taunted needlessly. Why was I being so mean to Jae? Was I a mean person?
Jae peered around the space we were in. It was a small storage area filled with cleaning equipment – brooms and pails and stuff like that. He took hold of a mop and pulled off the head.
“Here, will this do?” he said, handing me the mop stick.
I sighed, taking the stick. “Do I have a choice? Let’s go!”
CHAPTER 13
Jae opened the door to the storage room slowly and looked out. He shut it really quickly and blew out a big breath.
“Not good,” he said. “They brought back-up. There are 10 of them now.”
“So what do we do? Maybe we should just stay in here,” I whispered.
“Chicken,” he said, smirking at me. “Who’s being the girl now?”
“I am a girl,” I said, shooting daggers at him.
Before he could think of a comeback, the door to the storage room flew open and we found ourselves staring at a big man. He had a shaved head and tattoos running up his bulging arm muscles. He would have looked a lot scarier had he not been wearing a pink T-shirt.
As I stood and gawked, Jae grabbed a broom and shoved the dusty end into his face. As the man spluttered, Jae pushed him aside and ran out, grabbing me along.
We tried to run away but they had us surrounded. I gaped in horror at the men.
Jae and I stood back to back, each with a huge rucksack filled with food.
“Don’t let them take the food,” he said. “They are weak. We can take them down.”
Two of the men lunged at me. Embarrassingly, I screeched.
I was terrified. I shouldn’t be here, I thought. I should be at home, painting my nails and texting friends on my phone – or whatever it was I usually did. Not fighting a bunch of guys! I panicked and swung my stick at them. The stick hit one of the guys on the side of his head and he simply crumpled to the ground.
My mind registered what happened with some surprise – I did that?
Then my hands started moving on their own. I twirled the stick smoothly and shot off a stunningly fast blow to the other guy. I hit him right in the middle of his chest with the end of the stick and he dropped on the floor, gasping for breath. I stared at the poor guy in shock.
What did I just do? How did I do that?
I looked over at Jae. He was surrounded by five of them while three others – including Tattoo Guy – simply stood by, watching. When they realised that I had taken down two of their guys, the three of them surged towards me.
I screamed again an
d panicked. This time, my wits seemed to have left me and I found myself swinging my stick wildly. Tattoo Guy easily smacked my stick away and caught my arm. In his other hand, he had a knife.
I shrieked. “Jae! Help me!”
CHAPTER 14
Jae had problems of his own. He was fending off five men. I saw him take a hard blow to his stomach.
Suddenly, I felt a sharp pain shoot up my left arm, followed by something warm. I lifted my arm and saw blood.
I was bleeding! Tattoo Guy had slashed me! I wrenched my arm out of his grasp and tried to slap him. How stupid was that?
I felt my body go numb with terror as the three men closed in on me. My arm was hurting really badly and I felt tears threatening to spill out at the corner of my eyes. Tattoo Guy was watching me with a really mean look. He started to laugh.
“Think you’re so tough now, little girl?”
Little girl? Who did he think he was, calling me little girl? Now I was angry. I felt a sensation prickling at the back of my skull. It was a strange but not unpleasant feeling. A series of images appeared in my mind, like a video clip played on high speed. I saw Tattoo Guy charge at me and knock me to the ground with his shoulder.
I shook my head in confusion. Tattoo Guy was still in front of me – not moving, but I could tell he was going to. In my peripheral vision, I saw my stick on the floor. I inched closer to it, all the time watching him closely as he started to move.
When he started to charge at me, I dove towards my stick. I grabbed it in my right hand, tucked my head to my chest and executed a perfect roll on the floor, landing back up on my feet.
With quick reflexes I didn’t know I had, I then swung the stick at his legs. He tripped and fell flat on his face, arms and legs splayed in all directions. If I hadn’t been scared to death, I might actually have laughed.
When Tattoo Guy’s two friends came at me, I fought like a maniac, hitting everything that came my way with the stick. I let instincts take over. My arms and legs seemed to be moving on their own. One second I was sweeping the stick at one assailant’s knee, the next second, I was pivoting on the spot, my leg flying up in a kick that sent the other man backwards. Wow, that was cool, I thought.
Just when I thought it was over, there was Tattoo Guy again. And, boy, was he mad. Why wouldn’t he leave me alone? It was really frustrating because I really didn’t want to fight. I just wanted to go home! But he was tough and wouldn’t stay down.
Then he said something that sent a chill down my spine, “You think you can just come back here and steal from me again?”
CHAPTER 15
Again? Again? This man knows me? I faltered for one second. Seeing me hesitate, he launched a fierce punch at my face. Weirdly, again, I saw the whole attack play out in my mind before it actually happened. I felt that same prickling feeling. The same strange sensation…
Which was why I was able to bring my stick up to deflect his blow. I heard a sickening crack. I think I broke his arm. I didn’t feel bad. He pretty much deserved it.
He charged at me – for the third time – but I was strangely calm as I watched him. I ducked under his clumsy attack and brought my knee up to his stomach. He fell with a dull thud.
“What do you mean ‘again’?” I shouted at him. “How do you know me? Who am I? Who am I?”
“Zee!” I heard Jae call out. “Behind you!”
I swung around to see three more men advancing towards me. I noted smugly that the men had abandoned their attack on Jae to deal with me. Obviously, they thought I was the bigger threat, not him. Ha! Who was the girl now?
I spun the stick in my hands calmly, then swung it at the man nearest to me. There was a satisfying crack as he took the hit on his head. He fell.
I looked at the other two men. These two looked seriously pathetic. They were so thin I could see their shoulder bones poking out from their T-shirts.
“Who’s next?” I said, feeling much braver than I had at the start of the fight.
They both ran at me – one from the left and one from the right. This time, when I felt that funny sensation, I just went with it. I saw what they intended to do. One of them meant to get his arm around my neck in a chokehold. The other one, I realised with a chill, wanted to kill me.
I did the only logical thing – I simply jumped out of the way and they crashed into each other and fell onto the floor. They struggled to get up, but were so weak they slumped on the floor again.
I ran over to Jae. I think he was laughing – or trying not to. In any case, he was failing horribly.
“What’s so damn funny? You could have helped me, you know!”
“Did you see their expressions?” Jae said, excited the way only a boy could get over a fight.
“Obviously not. I was too busy trying not to get killed!” I shook my head in exasperation. “What happened to the rest of them?”
Jae grinned cheekily at me. “They ran off after seeing what the evil stick-twirling monster could do.”
I rolled my eyes but at the same time, felt relieved that I didn’t have to fight any more crazed adults.
“And when were you going to tell me that you could fight like that? I’ve never seen anything like that,” Jae demanded, frowning at me.
“How could I have told you if I didn’t know? I didn’t know…” I faltered.
Where had I learned to fight like that? And what about that thing I had felt in my head? I knew what those men were going to do. I could read their minds!
“We’d better go. In case they have a second back-up or something,” Jae said, not looking at me.
I didn’t need to be told a second time. I was so ready to go home. We picked up our stash of food and ran.
I wondered if I should tell Jae about what Tattoo Guy had said. I wished I had gotten him to tell me more. He might know something about who I was. And what about the weird mind-reading thing? Should I tell Jae about that, too? I bet he already thought I was weird – what would he make of this, I wondered.
I would tell him when we g0t back home, I decided. Our home was only about two kilometres away. We should be back in less than 20 minutes, I thought.
Boy, was I wrong.
CHAPTER 16
In the end, we took something like two hours to get home. I mean, seriously.
We were crossing a big open road, away from the cluster of HDB blocks we had come from when we spotted them. Another gang of adults. Not again!
We ran back towards the blocks and hid behind one of the big pillars in a void deck.
“Did they see us?” I asked. I couldn’t run anymore. I was ready to give up the food we had found and just go home already.
All this fighting and running was too much for me.
“I don’t think so,” Jae said, still not looking at me.
“What are they doing?” I asked. I slumped down on the floor and used the bag of food as a back rest.
“Something’s wrong,” Jae said. “Take a look.”
“Don’t want to,” I said. “Too tired.”
“I’m serious. You got to look at this.” His voice trembled slightly.
That got my attention. I followed his gaze.
There were about 10 of them and they were walking in a really weird way – half limping, half shuffling along. It made my stomach feel a little bit sick to see them.
“What is wrong with them?” I whispered to Jae, unable to tear my eyes away from them.
“I don’t know. I’ve never seen adults look so bad before. Mostly, they look hungry, and they are aggressive. But this group looks different,” he said.
“They are giving me the creeps,” I said, shuddering.
“Then will you be quiet? I don’t want them coming after us. I’m too tired to fight again,” Jae scolded.
Just then, one of them – a woman – turned her head and looked right at us. I managed to stifle a scream. Jae reached for my hand and squeezed it weakly, and I was thankful I was not alone. She could not see us, of course. We wer
e well hidden behind the pillar and a pile of old boxes, but we could see her by peering through a crack.
She started dragging her feet towards us. I watched in horror as she took one shambling step after another. As she got closer, I could see that her skin was blistered and broken. Disgusting pus-filled sores covered her arms and legs and even her face. Her hair was long and tangled and if she wasn’t this pus-filled sores person, I think that she would, actually, have been quite pretty.
There was a dull empty look in her eyes as she stumbled towards us. I looked at her feet. No shoes. Her feet were covered with cuts, some not properly healed because she was leaving a trail of pus and blood behind her as she shuffled towards us. I was filled with terror. I turned to run, but Jae held me firmly by the waist.
“Shh!” he whispered. “If we run, we’ll be seen.”
I don’t know what would have happened if the commotion hadn’t broken out behind her. She whipped her head to look and started shambling away. We squinted from behind the boxes, trying to make out what was going on. And then, immediately, we wished we hadn’t.
One of the adults had collapsed in the middle of the road. Well, it looked like a man, but we couldn’t tell. The rest of the group shambled frantically towards him. I thought they were going to help him up.
They didn’t. They didn’t! Oh my God, they didn’t!
They did something else. Something much worse. They stooped down and started taking bites out of him.
I felt bile rising up my throat and I turned around and threw up.
Jae looked as if he might vomit too, but instead, he patted my back gently. My own terror, horror and disgust were all reflected on his face. He peered through the boxes nervously, then looked back at me. His face was pale.
“Please be quiet,” he begged as I started to cry.
He held me close to him as we huddled behind those boxes. We could not – did not – want to look anymore. After a while, the grunting and feeding sounds stopped and Jae got up to take a cautious peek. They were gone, and so was the body. They must have eaten all of him and dragged his bones away. The poor man, I thought, he was being eaten alive.
