Deadlands

by Lily Herne

  ‘How? How is hurting innocent people going to do anything other than bring the Resurrectionists down on us?’

  Their argument sounded almost rehearsed and I got the impression right then that they’d been through this before.

  ‘Don’t worry about it, pretty boy,’ Thabo said. ‘You just carry on bringing back useless crap for everyone. As long as the Mall Rats are getting rich, who cares about the rest of us?’

  ‘You are so misguided, Thabo,’ Ash said.

  ‘Yeah? I’d rather be misguided than a coward.’

  Ash’s face darkened, and I was pretty sure that if I didn’t intervene they’d attack each other with more than just words. I stepped in between them. ‘Ash, Thabo, just chill out, okay?’

  Thabo turned to me. ‘You don’t need to be around useless parasites like him, Lele. They’re just using you. Come and join us. Join me.’

  ‘Thabo,’ I said, reaching over to touch his hand. ‘I can’t. You don’t understand.’

  He snatched his hand away from me. ‘I understand more than you know, Lele.’

  My stomach was beginning to feel hollow. ‘Let’s just go,’ I said to Ash. ‘Come on.’

  ‘Ask him,’ Thabo said. ‘Ask your boyfriend.’

  ‘Ask him what?’

  ‘Ask him how come you won the Lottery, Lele. Ask your boyfriend who betrayed you.’

  Ash jerked back as if he’d been pushed.

  ‘What are you talking about?’ I asked Thabo, but already I could feel the blood running cold in my veins.

  ‘Ask him,’ Thabo said.

  ‘Ash? What’s Thabo talking about?’ But in my gut I knew he was telling the truth.

  ‘They planned the whole thing, Lele,’ Thabo said. ‘It was your precious Mall Rats who almost got you killed.’

  And with a last hate-filled glance at Ash, he stalked off into the main thoroughfare.

  6

  ‘Is it true, Hester?’

  She nodded. She was so weak that she could barely sit up in bed, but I needed to hear the truth from her. ‘Lele,’ she said, ‘I’m so sorry. I didn’t want you to find out this way.’

  The shock of betrayal was so great that for a second I was sure I was going to throw up.

  ‘Are you okay, Lele?’ Ginger asked as I steadied myself against the bed.

  ‘Of course I’m not bloody okay, Ginger!’ I snapped. He flinched, but I didn’t allow myself to feel guilty for sniping at him. I waited for the furious anger to take me over completely, but it didn’t. All I felt was a weird calmness.

  ‘But I don’t understand, Hester. Why didn’t you just ask me to join you? Why make sure I won the Lottery?’

  Hester reached over to take my hand. ‘We misjudged you, Lele.’

  Then it struck me. ‘You needed me to need you!’ I said. ‘You needed to make sure I had no choice but to join you.’

  She closed her eyes and nodded.

  ‘But that’s so cruel!’ I said. ‘I could have been killed! Or worse!’

  ‘We wouldn’t have let that happen, Lele,’ Saint said.

  ‘Oh, really?’ I said. ‘How would you have stopped the Guardians from doing whatever they had planned for me?’

  Saint shifted uncomfortably. ‘We had a plan.’ I’d never seen her look so ill-at-ease.

  ‘A plan? What kind of plan? How could you have a plan to beat the Guardians?’

  ‘We were going to bust you out of the wagon – but things changed. You did it yourself.’

  ‘So you let me wander around the Deadlands by myself? Go into the mall without trying to help me?’ Now the anger was starting to build, and I welcomed it.

  ‘We were watching you.’

  ‘Thanks a lot. Watching to make sure the Rotters actually couldn’t see me, right? Making sure I had the right skills!’

  Saint nodded.

  ‘And then you pretended that you guys had just been shopping, so that I’d think you’d rescued me. So that I’d be grateful.’

  ‘Ash did rescue you, Lele,’ Saint said. ‘We didn’t expect the Guardians to be –’

  ‘Save it,’ I said.

  Ginger was staring at the floor, scuffing his feet like a little boy being scolded.

  ‘Ginger?’ I said. ‘Please tell me you weren’t part of this as well.’

  ‘Sorry, Lele,’ he mumbled. ‘Really, I am.’

  ‘But how did you know beforehand that I might be able to move around in the Deadlands without the Rotters attacking me?’ Ash glanced at me, and then I had it. ‘It’s something to do with Jobe, isn’t it? Have you all got twins who were taken?’

  Saint nodded.

  ‘Where’s your twin, Saint?’

  She shook her head. ‘I do not know. He was sent to a different school from me.’

  ‘And you Ginger?’

  ‘Not me,’ Ginger said. ‘I’m just a freak of nature.’

  ‘You can say that again,’ Saint said, trying to make light of the situation. But it was too little too late.

  My brain was racing. ‘Okay, so you found out that I had a twin who was rejected by the Guardians during the War. But how did you actually fix the Lottery? Are you in cahoots with the Resurrectionists or something?’

  ‘No ways!’ Ginger said.

  ‘But you must have had someone on the inside! Who? Comrade Pelosi? Zyed’s father?’

  ‘Who’s Zyed?’ Ginger asked.

  Then it clicked. ‘Comrade Xhati!’ I remembered the book list from my first official trip to the mall, and what he’d said about being a poetry professor before the War.

  He’d sold me out for a couple of poetry books.

  Ash spoke up for the first time. ‘Lele, we would have told you sooner or later.’

  ‘Yeah, right!’ I spat. ‘You’ve all been pretending to be my friends. All this time!’

  ‘Lele, we are your friends,’ Ginger said. ‘Come on, let’s grab a Coke, hang out and watch a movie. Hey, how about Zombieland again or 28 Days Later? It’s set in London, and it’s, like, so –’

  ‘You’re not my friends, Ginger,’ I said. ‘Friends don’t do things like this to each other. Friends don’t lie and cheat and . . . and . . . try to get someone killed!’

  Hester struggled to pull herself up to a sitting position. ‘Lele, truly, we made a terrible mistake. And I think you know what that is like, nè?’

  She had a point, but all I could think of right then was that they’d lied to me. They’d planned it down to the last detail. And I’d been stupid. I should have figured it out sooner.

  At that moment I decided that Thabo was right. That they were just using me.

  I pulled the hood of the Resurrectionist robe back over my head and ran for the exit.

  No one tried to stop me.

  7

  I walked for ages, not caring where I was going, not thinking about anything other than what the Mall Rats had done to me.

  No longer worried about who saw or recognised me, I flipped the hood back from my face, letting it fall to my shoulders. I almost pulled the robe off entirely, but decided at the last moment to keep it on, just in case.

  ‘Hey, sisi!’ a man catcalled to me. ‘Hey! Come and save me, girl!’

  The men with him all laughed raucously, and I increased my pace. For the first time I sensed an aura of threat in New Arrivals. But what did I care? What was the worst that could happen? I’d thought the Resurrectionists were the enemy. But they weren’t. It was those closest to home.

  It was then that I knew what I had to do. My whole reason for being part of the Mall Rats – to rescue Jobe – had fallen away. He was happier at Mandela House than I’d ever seen him. And now I’d discovered that the people I’d thought were my friends had betrayed me. So why shouldn’t I join the ANZ? Do some good for a change. And this time, for the right reasons.

  I didn’t recognise the street I was in, but after a few wrong turns I managed to locate the market area. I got my bearings, and hurried towards Lungi’s place.

  A group of ten
or so people were milling around outside her pink house. A fire was flickering in a half-drum, and an elderly woman was preparing to slaughter several chickens that were squawking in a pen next to her.

  Lungi was squashed into a faded deckchair, chatting to the guy with the hectic scar on his face.

  ‘What you want here, sister?’ Lungi asked as I strode up to her.

  The chattering stopped instantly as everyone turned to check me out – even the chickens seemed to be watching me distrustfully. ‘I need to see Thabo,’ I said.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I just do.’

  ‘Does Hester know you have come here?’

  ‘Look, just tell me where he is.’

  ‘How do I know you are not some sort of spy, nè?’

  ‘You know I’m not a spy, Lungi,’ I said.

  The scarred guy grinned and winked at me. ‘You can spy on me anytime, cherie,’ he said, looking me up and down.

  ‘Shove it, scar-face,’ I snapped.

  The men and women roared with laughter, and blood rushed to my cheeks.

  ‘Oh, just forget it,’ I said, turning on my heel to stalk away.

  ‘Wait, sisi,’ Lungi said.

  ‘What?’

  She sighed and looked at me carefully for several seconds. Then she seemed to come to some sort of decision. ‘Come with me. I will take you to him.’

  Lungi led me into the house and through the kitchen. She unlocked the back door and I followed her out in to the night. We trekked through a labyrinth of byways and backyards, Lungi calling out to her neighbours as we ducked under lines hanging with damp washing, traipsed across smallholdings where mealies struggled to grow, and climbed over fences made out of bits of old wire and rusted hubcaps.

  We were heading closer and closer to the fence, but just before we reached it Lungi stopped outside a large army tent. I could hear the sound of voices within, and then a burst of applause. There was a hand-drawn sign outside the tent that read Soup Kitchen, and a few feet from the entrance an elderly man was stirring something in a metal pot placed precariously over a fire. Two women and a chunky teenage guy were sitting on the ground just behind him. They were dressed in rags and were passing a bottle around, but none of them seemed to be even slightly drunk. One of the women put her hand in her pocket and tensed up as we approached.

  ‘You know what you are getting yourself into?’ Lungi asked me.

  ‘I think so,’ I said, holding her gaze.

  ‘Then all I can say is good luck, princess.’

  She nodded to the elderly man, and he pulled the flap back so that I could sneak inside.

  There had to be fifty people sitting close together on the ground, and I had to edge around the side of the tent to avoid causing a disturbance. It was stifling inside, the air thick with the stench of nervous sweat and unwashed bodies. Thabo and a tall middle-aged woman with cropped blonde hair stood in front of the crowd, and every eye was fixed on them.

  ‘My friends, it is indeed getting worse,’ Thabo said, running a hand through his dreads. ‘Last week, seven of our members were relocated. Relocated! I like how they use their words!’ The crowd murmured appreciatively. ‘I ask you, when did the dead stop being our enemies? When did the living start to be the ones we fear most?’ Thabo spoke unhurriedly, his words ringing out over the people in front of him, his demeanour inspiring the same kind of attention as Comrade Nkosi. His eyes strayed to mine and he paused, but he didn’t change his expression. ‘How long will we put up with this? What other secrets are they keeping from us? And then there is the Lottery. Sure, at the present time it is only Resurrectionist teenagers who are taken, but for how long? Who knows what deals they are doing with the Guardians behind our backs? We demand transparency! We demand to know our future!’

  Now the crowd roared, and several people raised their fists.

  Thabo waited for the cheers to subside, sweeping his eyes through the crowd, as if he was fixing his gaze on every individual there. ‘That is why we are asking you to join us,’ he finally said. ‘It is time to fight back and gain what has been lost: our freedom!’

  The crowd stood up and started clapping. I caught Thabo’s eye again, and this time he gave me a small nod of acknowledgement. The applause went on and on, but then, under the noise of stamping feet and cheers, I heard another sound – a scream.

  It all happened so fast that at first I didn’t even have time to feel scared. ‘They’re here!’ someone shouted. ‘Get out! Run!’ And, within seconds, the cheers turned into panicked screams as the crowd tried to push its way out of the tent. I couldn’t see clearly through the panicked throng, but it looked as if a group of people wearing Resurrectionist robes and brandishing clubs were trying to fight their way inside. I heard the dull thuds as the clubs landed on heads and bodies, and although I was relatively safe at the edge of the crowd, I could see that it wouldn’t be long before they reached me. I pulled the robe’s hood over my head, in the hope that it would camouflage me for long enough to sneak out, but then I felt someone grab my hand.

  ‘This way!’ Thabo said, dragging me towards the back of the tent.

  Following him through a gash that had been cut into the canvas, I found myself right next to the fence.

  ‘Come on!’ Thabo hissed as the head and shoulders of a robed Resurrectionist began to appear through the gap.

  I’ve never run as fast as I did then – even when Ginger had set off the fireworks in the mall. Thabo and I sprinted down the narrow muddy pathway next to the fence, angry shouts pursuing us.

  We dodged and sprinted through the crevices between shacks and tents and caravans, keeping to the shadows as much as possible and choosing our direction at random. Soon the screams and chaos were left behind, but fuelled by adrenalin we kept on going until both of us were completely out of breath and almost sick with exhaustion.

  Finally, dragging in lungfuls of air, I followed Thabo into an alleyway between two rows of connected shacks.

  ‘Are we safe?’ I asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said, leaning over to catch his own breath. ‘There were so many of them. I’ve never seen so many.’

  He rubbed his head and a small dribble of blood snaked over his forehead.

  ‘You’re hurt!’ I said.

  ‘Duh, Lele,’ he replied with his old lopsided grin. ‘I’m cool. Don’t worry about it, it’s nothing. Look, I have to get back, see if I can help anyone else. You stay here.’

  ‘No ways!’ I said. ‘I’ll come with you.’

  ‘It’s not safe, Lele.’

  ‘What will the Resurrectionists do to them? To the others who were there?’

  ‘They’ll be relocated, of course,’ he spat.

  I caught his sleeve. ‘I want to join you,’ I said. ‘You were right, Thabo. I want to do what I can to help stop this.’

  He smiled again. ‘Good.’

  ‘I’m sorry about Ash, about –’

  He wound his fingers through mine. ‘It’s cool, Lele,’ he said. ‘But we’ll talk about this later, okay? Right now I must go and –’

  ‘Hold it!’ a voice said from behind us.

  Three robed Resurrectionists were blocking one end of the alleyway.

  ‘Come on!’ Thabo said to me, eyes wide. We darted towards the other end, but as we did so a couple of shadowy figures moved to block that exit as well. All five would be on us in seconds.

  ‘We’re going to have to fight our way through them,’ Thabo said. ‘Stand back and get behind me.’

  ‘Thabo,’ I said, forgetting my exhaustion as I was hit with another blast of adrenalin. ‘You might actually want to get behind me.’

  ‘But –’

  The three Resurrectionists at the other end were approaching fast. ‘See if you can stop the other two,’ I said, and he nodded.

  The three came at once, holding wooden clubs aloft as they ran towards me.

  I floored the first with an uppercut from my elbow, finished him off with a kick to his stomach and du
cked as the second swiped with his club. I let it slam into my back, trying to absorb the pain, and then hooked my leg under his and tripped him onto his back. I slammed my foot into his crotch and he let out a hiss of agony.

  Behind me, Thabo was tussling with the two guards, but apart from the third Resurrectionist facing me – a ginormous blonde woman with icy eyes – the way ahead was clear.

  ‘Hang on, Thabo!’ I said, lashing out with my right leg.

  ‘Nice try, girly,’ the woman said, jumping back with way more agility than I was expecting. ‘But that won’t work with me.’

  ‘Oh, really?’ I said.

  She leapt towards me, club held aloft, but at the last second I dropped to my hands and knees and rolled my body into hers, sending her flying. Then, kicking the club out of her reach, I slammed my foot down on her hand. She screamed in rage, swung around and lashed out with her leg. The woman was fast and it was all I could do to jump out of the way. Stumbling over the guy I’d knocked out, I almost lost my balance, and by the time I recovered she was on me. I let her punch me in the face. I’d been punched by Saint before, and it wasn’t anything I couldn’t handle. Letting my body go limp – feigning concussion – I dropped to a crouch and swept my leg out, hooking the back of her knee. This time she fell backwards, jarred her head on the ground, and was still.

  ‘Lele! Run!’

  ‘Thabo!’

  He was being dragged away down the alley, and behind him I could make out the shadowy shapes of yet more Resurrectionists. More than I’d ever be able to defeat. I could still escape at the other end – that way was clear – and I had a split-second decision to make. Fight on for Thabo, or get the hell out of there before both exits were blocked.

  I could hear the sound of more running feet, and the shrill shriek of whistles being blown.

  There was no way I could fight them all off.

  I had to run. I had no choice.

  But I swore that I would help him another way.

  I needed to come up with a plan.

  And I had to hurry.

  8

  ‘Leletia!’

  The Mantis’s tea cup slipped from her grasp and splintered on the floor.