by Leyton, Bisi
“No, I would have sensed it when I pulsed him,” Bach replied.
“Maybe he’s confused about what happened to him.”
“Or perhaps…” He halted.
She waited for him to continue speaking. “What?”
“Forget it; he is probably confused.”
They neared the edge of town and she slowed the vehicle down.
“How are we going to get him back in?” Bach asked. “If you go, you will be taken to Didan again. I guess I will have to take him. It will raise flags too, but I will think of some excuse.”
“Actually, I already thought of that.”
“And?”
“I escaped through one of the holes the new head of security forgot to fill. We can take Garfield back that way. I could smuggle him into my house and we can say he’s been recovering there.”
“But they will know he was not in town before.”
“Will they? Most of the soldiers who guarded the gate are still in a coma and no one is tracking who went in or out. For all they’ll know, Garfield arrived while everyone was sick, but before the empirics got here.”
“Mina has been to your house. She’ll remember that Garfield was not there.”
“That woman was only interested in looking at Mother, she didn’t even see me. I think we’ll be fine. We just need to sneak him back across the water.”
“Easy as that?”
“I didn’t expect that his leg would be broken.”
“No, you thought I’d be infected, didn’t you?” Garfield moaned in pain from the backseat.
*****
With Bach’s help, she got Garfield settled into her bedroom and she transferred herself to the living room.
“What are they doing here?” David walked in as Bach set the injured boy down.
“I was hoping I would catch up with you before you got home.” Dropping the pillow she was fluffing, she hurried to her brother.
“Wisty, do you expect me to be his nurse too?”
“No, no.” She ushered him out the door.
“Okay, talk to me,” David demanded. “I thought he went missing?”
“We found him and snuck him back, since no one is supposed to leave.”
“And he’s not been through quarantine? So he could turn into a flesh eater and he’d only be down the hall from our mother.” He was seething. “Are you out of your mind?”
“He is not infected.” Bach stepped into the hall behind the siblings.
“Hey, I’m talking to my sister. Can’t you be somewhere else?” David snapped.
“No.” Bach grimaced at him.
“Go, please,” she muttered.
Bach hesitated, but left.
“How do you know he’s not infected?” David asked her.
“Bach can tell those kinds of things,” she explained. “But we can take Garfield down to the bunker and lock him in there until Cheung can get here to run some tests.”
“Why don’t we take him to the quarantine center? It’s running now.”
“Because…” she paused; she didn’t want to tell him too much. In time, she’d have to explain to David what was really going on, but that conversation couldn’t happen now. “I’m already in trouble with Charles for trying to get the patrols started. If he found out I snuck out, he’ll cut our rations.” This was technically true, but not the whole truth.
“But Garfield is going to eat into our rations too,” her brother pointed out.
“But Town Hall will probably take away more food than he’ll eat. You know what they’re like.”
He nodded though he still looked unhappy. “I guess we could say he’s been here all along. Who’s going to know since Thomas Clarkson’s still unconscious?”
“Thanks.”
“How are you going to fix his leg?” David asked.
“I’ll find a doctor,” she said. “We’ll just say he fell.”
“And they’ll believe that?”
“It’ll be impossible for them to check the story with so many people still unconscious or just recovering. Can you watch Mum and I’ll—”
“I’ll go.” Her brother sighed.
“Thanks, David.”
“You know, Wisty.” Her brother turned to her. “If you’d asked, I would’ve helped you bring him back. You don’t need to do all of this alone.”
“I know, David. I just wasn’t thinking.”
David hugged her and left.
“Why do you let him talk to me that way?” Bach asked as he came back in.
“What way?”
“As if I need his permission to speak to you.”
“Hello, Wisteria.” Alba walked in. “David let me in.”
She cringed, glanced at Bach, and forced a smile. “Hi.” She wasn’t going to start this with him again.
“Bach, something has come up.” Alba strode over to him.
“What?” Wisteria asked.
“It is hard to explain,” Alba answered, and then she whispered something else to him.
“I have to leave.” He grimaced.
“What’s wrong?” Wisteria felt uneasy at his tenseness.
“I—I cannot talk about it.” He backed away.
“I am so sorry, Sen-Son.” Kindly, Alba rubbed his back, but he brushed her away as well.
“Just tell me what’s going on.” She finally turned to Alba. “Does Didan know something?”
“It is a Family matter, but did you find your friend Garfield?” Alba asked calmly.
“How did you know we went?” Wisteria knew he hadn’t had a chance to tell anyone what they’d just done.
“I kind of persuaded Bach to get your friend,” Alba defended.
“You did?” Wisteria was shocked; he’d only helped her because Alba made him?
“I thought you would kind of be happy about that?” The Famila girl’s smile faded. “I can see now I was wrong.”
“I’m surprised is all.” Wisteria turned to Bach. “So, you weren’t going to go until she told you to?”
“This is what you want to talk about right now?” Looking frustrated, he turned away.
“Bach—” Wisteria was boiling, but the Famila kids left before she could say any more.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
David told one of the recovering doctors that Garfield fell, and convinced him to visit a few hours later. The doctor noticed it wasn’t a fresh wound, and scolded the kids for not getting help sooner. The man put Garfield’s leg in a makeshift cast made of wood and gave them some herbal tea to help with the pain.
“Is the tea helping?” Wisteria asked Garfield after the doctor left.
“No.” Garfield’s grimacing expression showed that he was still suffering. “I don’t know how long I can stand this. The quack just gave me an aspirin.”
Strong painkillers were only used nowadays when people were going to have major surgery because medicine was scarce and extremely valuable. There wasn’t enough for minor procedures such as broken bones or childbirth.
“He left these in case you need to sleep.” She showed him three white pills. “If the pain gets to be too much.”
“Nah, I’ll be okay in a while.” Sitting up, he tried to get a better view of the pills.
“Are you sure? You’ve been out for eleven hours.”
He shook his head. “I want to be conscious when Coles finds me here. He’ll try to kill me.”
“Coles left Smythe.” She put the tablets in her pocket. “I want to check on my mother.”
“What do you mean Coles left?” he called out to her as she left. “Wisteria?”
Not wanting to talk about it, she headed back to her mother’s room where the woman was still lying on her back just as she had been when Wisteria had left her. Crawling onto the bed, she kissed her forehead. “Mummy, please wake up. You’ve got to help me sort this out.”
Her mother didn’t move. Wisteria’s tears splashed down onto her mother’s face. Wiping them away, she forced herself to stop crying. It wasn’
t going to help anything.
“What happened to her?” Garfield limped into the room.
“They say it’s the Sleeping Fever. She’s been this way for twenty days, since Coles went away.”
“Please tell me Coles just moved out.”
Shaking her head, she turned back to him. “He’s left the island.”
“Bloody hell,” Garfield gasped. “I have to tell you something.” He continued to hobble in. Each step seemed like an exercise in torture for him.
“You’re supposed to be lying down.” She eased him into the nearest seat.
“I’m fine.”
“Garfield, you look like you’re going to faint.”
“We’ve got bigger problems,” he warned gravely.
“I doubt that. You won’t believe what’s happened since you’ve been gone.” She hadn’t told him about the empirics or the extent of the comas. Garfield needed time to recover himself and get his head on straight before she dumped this on him. It wasn’t like there was much he could do. Bach did say he had it sorted out. As much as she hated to admit it, there wasn’t much she could do but wait and hope he and Alba came through. But what if they didn’t?
“So, Coles left to find a cure?”
“No, he probably left because Charles and Bruno removed him as head of security. Now Bruno Morel is in charge of security.”
“Bruno? But he’s useless at everything.”
“I think it’s really Sir Charles running things, but Bruno is a captain, so technically he’s doing something.”
“But Andrew and the other soldiers, they’re still helping, right?”
“No, Andrew’s dead and the other soldiers are still in comas.”
“All of them?” His eyes widened. “We’re dead.”
“I know it’s bad, but if we—”
“No, you’re not listening. We’re going to die, because they’re going to attack the town,” Garfield blurted out.
“The Family? How did you know?” Her heart leaped into her mouth.
“No, the dungeon people, they’re coming to attack Smythe.”
“You’re not making sense.”
“Mackenzie and 200 crazed lunatics are on their way here to take over.”
“Jessica Mackenzie, the crazy woman from London?” she clarified. Shortly after she and Bach first met, they’d sought refuge with some survivors in an underground car park. The kids called them the Dungeon Dwellers. Initially, she was glad to have found safety, but soon the leader, Mackenzie, decided she was going to use him for food. Garfield, who they met in the Dungeon, had helped them escape.
“Yeah.” He nodded frantically.
Slowly, she rose to her feet. “How do you know that?”
“I…” He halted.
“Garfield, where did you go when you disappeared that night?” She marched over to him.
He stared at the ground, trying not to make eye contact.
She pulled his face to meet her gaze. “Garfield Simon, you better talk to me now.”
“I went back to get Owena,” Garfield murmured.
“Who?”
“The old lady in the Dungeon who cooked all the food.” Garfield described the woman in detail.
“She was the woman who cooked that boy, Greg,” she said.
“And she’s my grandmother.”
“You told me your family was up north. You came to London for a party when things went mad.”
He nodded. “I came for the party, but stayed at my grandmother’s house. I left her at the dungeon because I was horrified that she helped Mackenzie cook people. I hoped she’d rot with Mackenzie.”
“And what changed?”
“Nothing at first. When I arrived in Smythe, I focused on being happy and trying to settle in here. I pushed her to the back of my mind. But when I saw what you did for David because he was family? I realized I couldn’t abandon her like that. I had to find out what happened to her. Since I was in David’s car and it had a full tank, I risked it. You know, like you did.”
“You went back to London alone? And Mackenzie just let you back in?”
“Not at first, but I told her you guys were dead and I begged. After she let me in, I acted like I was really grateful and happy to be alive, so they’d trust me.”
“She didn’t just slaughter you?”
He shook his head. “They had just gotten some fresh meat. Since they don’t have power to freeze meat, they wanted to keep me alive for as long as possible, otherwise I’d just spoil. So, they just watched me.”
“Wait—fresh meat? What were they cooking?”
He shifted in his seat. “You remember Mel, the twelve-year-old?”
“Her?”
“No, her mother.”
“And your grandmother, she was okay with this?”
“That place changed her.”
She sank to the ground, covering her mouth.
“Wisteria, focus,” Garfield implored. “I finally told Owena why I was back. I told her all about Smythe and that at the first chance we got, we’d make a run for the car.”
“And she told Mackenzie?”
“I don’t know, maybe someone overheard us, but next thing I know, Mackenzie and her thugs came at me with knives and guns. They wanted to know all about Smythe.”
“And you told them.”
“I had to tell them something. So I said there were only about thirty people here and we don’t have any weapons. I assumed once they got here, between Coles, the soldiers, and trackers, we’d take care of them.”
“How many are we talking about?”
“The Dungeon’s made contact with other survivor groups and they’re about 200 now. They’re armed, desperate, and don’t want to share.”
“Armed?”
“Hand guns, some rifles, but mainly knives, bats, and things like that. The soldiers can easily take them, but we need all of them.”
“How much time do we have?”
“Days.”
She covered her face with her hands. It felt hopeless.
“I was barely able to escape. Those people broke my leg trying to stop me. I drove back, but found the town was full of biters and knew if I drove in, the swarm would get me and I’d not be able to run, so I went back to one of the pits and hid. Bach can stop them, right? He could summon a swarm of biters to block the way or something.”
But would he? She didn’t know how badly summoning a swarm would weaken him. Perhaps if Alba helped? She shuddered at the notion of asking the Famila girl for help, but she seemed to be the only option. Looking out the window as the rain started pouring again, she saw the sun was rising now and she knew it would be risky trying to seek out either Alba or Bach in broad daylight. “It’s not that simple. Some of the empirics have arrived.”
“Bach’s friends?”
“The empirics are hardcore Famila here to find out how the obsidian crystal got here in the first place. And they aren’t all like him. You know how Bach used to be?”
“That bad?”
“Worse,” she replied. “Much worse, and they’ll probably kill me if they know Bach and I have bonded.”
“How many of them are here?”
“Seven Famila, but I don’t know how many people have turned into sleepwalkers. Just when it seemed everyone was sick, they turned up and commenced treating everyone, one on one.”
“Why didn’t they turn everyone into sleepwalkers, one by one, as they woke up?” Garfield asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe they can’t or are afraid to,” she guessed aloud.
“So, we can’t go to Sir Charles?”
“I think he’s been renewed, but I’m not sure.” Going back over to him, she helped him up. “You should get back into bed.”
“Talk to Bach about this.”
She didn’t want to go to him about anything right now. “We can figure this out.”
“How?”
“Let me think. Just give me some time.”
“We don’t have time. M
ackenzie’s desperate. I got back to Woolmer three days ago, and I seriously thought Mackenzie would’ve been here already. Get him to do something.”
*****
Bach walked into his pitch black apartment, out of the heavy downpour. Closing the door, he headed toward the stairs, but stopped when someone knocked. Returning to open it, he saw Enric and Lluc standing there. He stepped back to let them in. “How bad is it?”
“Father will survive,” Lluc said. “But he is very weak.”
“Do not worry, the old man is very strong,” Enric remarked as he entered. “If anyone can survive a fall in the highlands, he can.”
Bach had been horrified when Alba told him his father had been attacked by a leviathan while meditating in the mountains. Leviathans were massive scaly creatures that lived in his realm. They were often hunted or raced for sport, even though doing so often resulted in someone getting injured or worse.
Alba had refused to tell him anything more except that his older brother Lluc and Enric were arriving.
“Leviathans do not come ashore,” Bach remarked. “How was that possible?”
“It went crazy, we guessed, but the sentinels stopped it,” Lluc informed him. “He fell and twisted his arm, but he will survive.”
“Are you sure Father will be all right?” Bach asked.
“I would not be here if I did not believe it. The Sen is my father too,” Lluc scolded.
Bach dropped into the nearest seat. He’d been worried when he heard the news. “Thanks for letting me know. I should return to see him.”
“Actually, that is not why we are here.” Lluc smirked.
“What?” Bach studied his guests.
Lluc seemed smug while Enric appeared pensive.
“My father has agreed to let you name Alba as your intended.” Enric was obviously trying to conceal his frustration.
“I do not believe—how? Who asked?” Bach was astonished his father had done this behind his back. As the wind rattled against the iron mesh on his window, he struggled to think. “Are you sure?”
“I cannot believe it, either. My father did not give me a clue.” Enric frowned.
“Our father asked him. After the leviathan attack, the Sen decided he needed to ensure you would not throw your life away.” Lluc’s cold face broke into a smile. “This is good news.”
