Skeletal

by Emma Pullar

  Bunce shakes his head. I heave a sigh. ‘Your people float through life, kept buoyant by Skels. They don’t know how to swim because they’ve lived in the safety of the boat for so long, but one day, Central will tip it up and the Morbs will drown.’

  By the look on Bunce’s face, I’d swear the Dark Angel had squeezed his shoulder and whispered in his ear, you’re next. I’ve shown him the truth and now I sort of wish I hadn’t. He’d have been happier ignorant, living a comfortable life inside his protective bubble. Now look at him, he’s sitting in a cave, probably got pneumonia, half-starved with a great chunk missing from his arm. I’m disgusted with myself. I’m so damn selfish. I’m just like that bastard, Clover. I’ve made Bunce’s life worse, so I can feel better.

  I pull my knife and stab the t-shirt viciously, tearing it into shreds. Bunce doesn’t speak. The Bunce I first met would have protested at destroying his clothes, he would have been horrified. This Bunce doesn’t even look up. He cares about nothing and I did that to him. I’ve given him a life worth losing when he had a life worth living. The guilt ties a knot around my throat and pulls.

  I kneel down before the only friend I have left, who probably won’t want to be my friend for much longer.

  ‘Ouch, don’t be so rough,’ Bunce complains as I wrap the fabric tight around the open wound. Red immediately seeps through. I wrap more of the shirt strips around it and tie off the ends. It will have to do. I reach up and start to unbutton Bunce’s shirt. He grabs my wrist with his blood-stained hand. I look up and his eyes swim into mine. My heart beats faster as he squeezes my bony arm with his strong hand. The pain hasn’t taken his strength. He pulls me closer until my nose is almost touching his. He leans in. I gasp. Is he going to kiss me? Soft words spill onto my lips.

  ‘I can dress myself, for now at least.’

  He lets go of my wrist. Cold stare. Resentful eyes. He does blame me. I pull back, deflated. Confused. I want his affection? Now he’s withdrawn it, I want it. Why would I want a Morb to kiss me? It’s hardly the time or the place. Surely, I’m not that desperate? I search my feelings. I frown as Bunce struggles to take off his shirt using his one good arm. I avert my eyes from his exposed chest. He’s so pale. Curiosity? I’ve never been with anyone so pale. Multi-coloured shirt on, I glance back at him, at his pink lips. An urge to lean over and taste them takes hold of me. I push it to the back of my mind. I can’t do that.

  Bunce told Kian we were in love. Why? Is he in love with me? Is he more than a friend? No. But the more time I spend with Bunce, the more attached to him I become. I can’t pretend that I don’t like him. In fact, I liked him the moment we met. I liked him a little more when we formulated the plan to find the cure, even more when he was bold enough to run away with me, and even more when he was brave enough to cut open that Runner’s ankle. A ball of guilt rolls around inside my gut. Here I am telling him how ignorant he is, when until a few hours ago, I didn’t even know what planet I lived on. I swallow my pride and ask the question burning inside of me.

  ‘What planet are we on?’

  Bunce frowns.

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘This planet we’re on now, what’s it called?’ I ask.

  ‘Mars.’

  The answer is effortless.

  ‘You know that, at least.’

  I cringe at my own words. I should admit that I didn’t know that. I should say, hey actually, I was blindfolded too, and that’s why I didn’t know about both moons or that we live on Mars. I should come clean. My ego won’t allow it. Instead I let my thoughts drag me back to better times spent in Bunce’s company, times that might have continued had I let things unfold naturally instead of forcing my will.

  I think about how Bunce used to meet me every day before class. Once, after walking me back to his sister’s apartment he was allowed to sit in my room with me. We talked for hours. He showed me a popular digi-mag. I read well enough but the mag made no sense to me. I remember the title, YM Magazine! Inside were the most bizarre stories and articles. One page was devoted to young people’s problems. Morb problems, of course, because they really weren’t problems at all, not to me anyway, or any Skel. I stare at the flickering fire, cast my mind back and retrieve the memory. ‘Ask Lyca’, a column where Morbs under the age of twenty-one submit their dilemmas and Lyca would solve them. ‘Dear Lyca, I’m attracted to girls and guys and I know sex for reproductive purposes isn’t allowed, but can I have sex with girls?’ ‘Dear Lyca, what’s a boner?’ ‘Dear Lyca, I’m being bullied because I’m smaller than everyone else. I can’t seem to put on weight. I’ve tried eating more and exercising less but that does nothing. Why hasn’t puberty started for me? I’m seventeen! Will I ever become a fully-grown Morbihan? Help!’

  We both laughed, but it was clear Bunce thought these were ‘real’ problems. He could never comprehend what I might ask Lyca; ‘Dear Lyca, I’m tired of being a slave to the system and being told what to do, having a curfew, being told what to wear, how to act, what to say or not say. I’m tired of working twelve-hour days, six days a week in a cold factory, but I guess I can cope with that because I still have my recoup day. What I’m most aggrieved about is becoming a host. I don’t want my body used and abused in order to breed more over-privileged Morbs. I want a better life, one without the fear of being chucked into Rock Vault and mutilated or executed, my head skewered on the line for all to see and judge, or worse, my body used to sustain Morbihan life. I want to feel safe on the streets and at home. I want my parents not to be dead. I want to hug my grandfather. I want Tess not to be a Mutil. I want Crow to be Kian again! I …’ I don’t want to cry. I’m stronger than this. The backpack is a good distraction. I delve back in and find some apples in the bottom of it and hold them up.

  ‘I didn’t put those in there.’

  ‘Kian, probably,’ I say, and hand one to Bunce.

  He takes the green apple begrudgingly and bites into it. I take a huge bite of mine and the crisp taste reminds my stomach that I’m hungry. I gnaw at the fruit, chewing fast, it’s gone in seconds. I chuck the core into the fire. Bunce leans against the wall, emotionally and physically exhausted, his eyelids droop. The half-eaten apple threatens to fall from his left hand.

  ‘Bunce.’ His eyes snap open. Dreamily, he listens to me.

  ‘Do you know your host mother?’

  ‘You mean Nadina?’

  ‘Is Nadina the woman who pushed you into the world?’ I say, trying to coax some sense from his sleepy head.

  ‘Yes,’ Bunce nods, ‘we see her once a year.’ He yawns. ‘She has her own family now.’

  I think for a moment. Bunce said that so easily, as if it was natural for Morbihan to mix with High-Hosts, so why is it unnatural to engage on the same level with Skels?

  ‘Do you have any feelings towards her?’ I ask.

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘I dunno, some sort of bond? You lived inside her for nine months.’

  ‘No, not really,’ Bunce says, more awake now. ‘We don’t have a lot to do with her. Some families are more involved with their hosts. They celebrate special occasions with them and stuff.’

  I’m starting to think maybe I was wrong and Kian was right. It would have been easier to accept my host duties. Why do I always have to complicate things? I make everything so difficult for myself. If I’d just stuck to the rules we wouldn’t be in this mess.

  ‘Interesting,’ I say. ‘So, how does the host’s link come about?’

  ‘Arranged,’ Bunce says, in a matter of fact tone.

  ‘Arranged?’ I snap. ‘Can’t the host choose their own link partner?’

  Bunce laughs.

  ‘Don’t be silly.’

  ‘Why is that silly?’ I say, indignantly.

  Bunce’s tone changes.

  ‘It isn’t, I don’t know why I thought it was. It is terrible and hosts should have the right to choose their link, whoever it may be,’ he says quickly.

  I smile. Even after all we’ve been throu
gh he still manages to retain his cheeky sense of humour. Bunce yawns again and I catch it. I press my palm to my gaping mouth.

  ‘Get some sleep,’ I say, nodding to the mattress.

  ‘What about you?’ he asks in a sleepy voice.

  ‘I’m good here.’

  I prop his backpack up like a pillow and lean my head against it. Bunce heaves himself to his feet and shuffles over to the mattress in the corner. He lowers himself onto the lumpy pile. Flat on his back, arms placed carefully by his side.

  ‘This mattress stinks! Couldn’t you have found something better?’ he grumbles.

  ‘It’s not mine.’

  ‘It isn’t?’ Bunce turns his head to look over at me. ‘Whose is it?’

  ‘Tinny’s,’ I say, closing my eyes.

  ‘Tinny’s!’ Bunce yells. ‘This isn’t your hideout?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘It belongs to that Slum Lord who tried to cut my throat?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘Gross! I can’t sleep here, who knows what he’s done to this mattress!’ Bunce sits bolt upright and starts examining the mattress. ‘There’s probably piss and jizz all over it!’

  ‘Jizz?’ I laugh at the word, but also at Bunce swearing. He never swears and it sounds funny coming out of his mouth.

  ‘It’s not funny, Skyla. I can’t sleep on someone else’s jizz stains.’

  ‘You can sleep on your own, then?’

  I’m laughing so much, my stomach aches.

  ‘You’re twisting my words,’ Bunce smirks.

  It feels good to laugh, even though the future looks bleak. I need the feeling that laughter brings. We can’t give up yet. I have to keep Bunce’s spirits up. There must be another way that we can make things better for both of us.

  ‘You don’t need to worry,’ I say, kicking off my boots. ‘Tinny only ever used this place to hide from guards. He wouldn’t have felt relaxed enough to … ruin the mattress.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I followed him once, found his hideout and he swore me to secrecy. In exchange, I could use this place when I needed to. He was pissed off about it, though, he never really liked me, said I was a dabbler.’

  Bunce raises his blond eyebrows.

  ‘You know,’ I say, reaching behind my head and untying my hair, the damp locks fall over my shoulders. ‘Living in two worlds, a Skel but also a law-breaker.’

  Bunce slowly lies back down.

  ‘You’re more than a law-breaker now. We’re both fugitives,’ he sighs. ‘What’s going to happen to us?’

  ‘I don’t know, but I’m not giving up on you,’ I say, and I won’t.

  ‘I’m not giving up on you either.’

  With those words, Bunce closes his eyes and I close mine, but inside my head his words remain. What does he mean? Is he saying he’s not going to give up pursuing me? My thoughts explode into a vision of Tess’s smiling face, and then the mutilated one. I open my eyes and gaze upon my sleeping Morb, his chest rising and falling, peaceful. Bunce says he’s not giving up on me. Well, I’m not giving up on Tess. I’m going to help her. I watch the entrance, rain lashes the rocks outside, a few raindrops find their way through the hole, causing a puddle to form at the bottom of the ladder. I hope the puddle doesn’t grow any bigger. I don’t want to wake up submerged in water. I let my eyelids close. I sail into slumber, listening to the snap and crackle of the dwindling fire and the plink, plink, plink of water dropping into the pool beneath the entrance.

  Act III The Choice

  27

  Love and Lies

  I wake to a ticking noise that I hope is something else. The sound sends pins and needles over my skin. I open my eyes. Pitch black. Fire dead. No light shining through the entrance. It’s blocked. I can’t see a thing.

  All I have is my ears. I weigh heavy on them, my eyes wide in the thick darkness, trying to break through it but I don’t even see shadows. I listen, making my breathing shallow so I can home in on which direction the rattling breath and lolloping steps are coming from. I don’t move. Aware of my stillness, my heart trembles and trips over its own beat. The kitchen knife is in my boot. My boot is not within reach. My knuckle-knife is. I quietly slip my fingers through the cold metal loops.

  Wait … Wait …

  Grunt. Sniff. Sniff. It’s close. Strong body odour flairs my nostrils. A mixture of sweat, shit, piss, and puss stirred in a jar and then spread over the skin, this is the stench of a Mutil. I take a breath and choke on it. This creature doesn’t have lenses, red eyes would have been a help in locating it but then the stench is enough of a giveaway, I could smell this beast a mile off.

  Wait …

  I launch an uppercut hard and strong. My fist pushes through muscle and then bones – ribs. I cut through, slicing open the flesh with one side of the retracted blade. The Mutil screeches in pain. Female. Tess? I’m lifted into the air by my throat. Not Tess. I kick and thrash about. The dawn streams in and slices through the blindness, the cave bathed in a murky orange. I can see – just. Two figures stand a few feet away. Is one Bunce? I’m thrown, air rushes for a second before my back slams into the shelves, plates crashing to the floor, pots clattering on the stone ground.

  ‘Bun—’

  I yell, then stop myself. They can’t see well. Don’t give away your position. I rub my throat, more to rub the stink from the Mutil touching me than to sooth the strangulation marks.

  BANG … BANG!

  THUD!

  Shots fired. Body sprawled at my feet. The rising sun warms the left side of my face. My eyes adjust, dirt-encrusted bare feet slap towards me. I turn my weapon and plunge the slender knife upwards, piercing something soft. The scream that erupts is like nothing I’ve ever heard. The cave envelops the noise and the walls vibrate around me. I pull back my hand. A mess of innards spill down the blade and over my clenched fist, I retch and flick the gunk off me. The beast falls to its knees; its face exposed in the dusty light, or rather, what’s left of its face. Swollen, infected gums housing crumbling teeth are exposed through a disintegrated cheek, the flesh eaten away by some parasite. I get to my feet. The Mutil, still on its knees, cups his ruptured scrotum. I grasp what little hair is left on its head, and in one swift motion I carve a red smile across its neck and let the body drop.

  I turn to the mattress. Bunce sits on the edge, gripping Don’s handgun with both hands. I wipe my knife over the beast’s thin rags.

  ‘Spot of breakfast?’ Bunce says calmly, he lowers the gun.

  I retract the blades and shove the knuckle-knife into my pocket. I step over the bodies and crouch to wash my hands in the puddle at the entrance. Dirt floats in the water. I’m exchanging one set of grime for another. I clean as much residue off my skin as is possible, and glance over at Bunce. No fear in his eyes, boyish innocence gone; now there’s a cold lake harbouring a sea monster beneath its steely waters, desensitised to violence, death a way of life. He’s becoming more like me. A product of my world rather than the one he was born to. I drop down onto the mattress and take Bunce’s injured arm in my hands. His words were complacent but his body gives him away, he shakes with adrenalin from his first kill. I decide not to talk about it. Taking a life is always hard, even in defence. I turn his arm over. The makeshift bandages are soaked with orange and red, it’s infected.

  ‘I’ll find us something to eat after I’ve cleaned up this mess,’ I say, pointing to the two dead Mutil.

  Bunce smiles weakly and his thick fingers softly push my limp hair behind my ear. His touch is electric. I get up quickly.

  Cleaning up the mess was harder than I thought. I’m not strong enough to pull the bodies up the ladder on my own; Bunce climbs to the top and yanks them up with one arm while I push. I cringe, trying not to let their rancid flesh touch me. I heave them up the ladder far enough so that Bunce can grab hold and drag them into the daylight. We pile the male and female Mutil a few feet away. The bodies will deter others from venturing near the entrance, but we’ll
soon have to deal with flies and crows and rats and all the bottom feeders that live in the surrounding park.

  Exhausted and feeling faint, Bunce goes back into the den while I venture down the rocky hill. I don’t go far and I don’t have to. I spot fruit trees at the back of the park.

  Three days pass, melting into one another. Sun up, sun down, moons up, moons down. The fruit trees at the edge of the park keep us fed, oranges and apples aplenty. They must be the only fruit trees Central don’t control. I wonder why they allow this fruit to grow unchecked and unclaimed? Maybe it’s deemed unclean due to Mutil contamination. Strange since the Mutil wouldn’t choose to eat fruit. They hunt for meat, any meat. Rats, birds, snake, people. It’s all the same to them, I guess it’s all the same to Morbs too, if they’re even aware of what’s in their food, Bunce wasn’t. I also find fresh water by way of a small creek. This must be what’s keeping the Mutil alive. I start my trek back to the hill, fruit-laden pack on my back, flask of water in my hand. The decomposing carcasses piled on the hilltop act as a deterrent. Albeit unsightly and the smell repulsive, it does repel other Mutil and anything or anyone else who seeks to infiltrate our resting place.

  I think about Bunce as I reach the entrance to our camp. He’s recovering well. His wound is healing, but only after the maggot therapy. He was more than reluctant about it, kept squirming every time I tried to drop the wriggling flesh-eaters into the wound. Two days of rain had filled a crevasse on the rocky hilltop which made a good place to wash. After cleaning away the congealed pus, the infection persisted. Maggots started to spill from the female Mutil’s eye socket. I scooped them up, washed them and placed them in the gash on Bunce’s arm, then wrapped the wound loosely in the last of the t-shirt bandages. It didn’t take long for the therapy to work. The infected skin was soon stripped away. Carnivorous wrigglers flushed out, it should heal but he’ll be left with a nasty scar. His first scar. A reminder of how dangerous it is out here and how different it is inside the Morb complex.