by Mike Revell
“What’s your name then?” she whispered, making sure there was no one close enough to hear. “Your real name? You do have a name?”
“Of course I do. I’m Owen. Owen Smith.”
“Owen,” she said slowly, testing the word. “It doesn’t suit you. You don’t mind if I keep calling you Jack, do you? It feels right, that way. Plus—” she glanced around to check no one was listening—“it’s probably for the best. I’m not sure anyone else will believe that you’re a pre-Dark trapped inside Jack’s body.”
“No,” I said, struggling to suppress a laugh. “I think I can forgive you.”
She looked toward the horizon. “Come on. Lights down means we’ve got Hunting to do. And then . . .”
“Then what?” I said, when she didn’t offer any more.
“Then we’ll get you some bottle caps. You owe me, remember?”
20
We met with the other Stormwalkers at the edge of camp. They weren’t all following our timetable—some of them had come from other classes—but I guessed that the pocket of daylight meant they had to drop what they were doing and make the most of it.
“How long does it last?” I whispered to Iris, indicating the gray sky.
“It’s different every time. Could be minutes, could be hours. Be ready.”
I didn’t need to ask her what for. The memory of that first jump still haunted me, the way the Darkness made me feel when it got so close. All those memories of Mum.
Dillon nodded at me like Danny did when he spotted me across the courtyard at school. There was a large group of us here, all kids around my age, all in the same grubby rags.
“It’s a good day for Hunting,” he said, eyeing us as we got closer. “I hope you’re ready. One hour, max. I don’t want anyone to get caught out.”
He looked at me as he said it, and my cheeks burned. Something told me he was referring to my trip to Cleansing on that first night. I tried to hold his gaze because it wasn’t like I could have helped it. I just woke up here—I didn’t know what was going on.
When he started talking again, my eyes drifted past him to the distant road and buildings. We were actually going out there. Into the wasteland. I held my breath, wondering how far we would be expected to go. When Quinn picked us up in his truck, we were quite a ways out . . .
I didn’t fancy another mad sprint if the Darkness reemerged earlier than expected. Especially without our illuminators.
“Carter and Dillon, you take the north side,” Seth said. “Jack, Iris, I’d like you to take the hill to the south. Yvonne, we can go this way. Remember, keep an eye out for gasoline. You’ve got a hose in your pack if you need to use it.” He handed each of us a small bag attached to a belt. “Stay sharp. Stay safe.”
And with that, he ran off, dust trailing behind him and pebbles pinging up with every step.
Iris grinned at me, then dashed toward the hill. I blinked in surprise, and my heart kicked up a gear. I felt as if I’d got a bad start in a race.
“Hold up!” I called after her, my feet scuffing on the crumbled earth until we reached the road, where it evened out underfoot.
“You’ve got to stay on your toes,” Iris said. “There could be Dreamless out here.”
I thought back to that creature we saw when we went Stormwalking: its pasty skin, the wild, frothing mouth. “Iris—what, er, what are the Dreamless?”
She hesitated, her jaw set, and her expression made me grow cold.
“I don’t know what they are. I only know what they were. Family. Friends. People who got exposed to the Darkness for too long and had everything ripped out of their minds. Don’t worry about them. If you see one, just whistle. I’ll be right behind you.”
“Whistle?”
“Yeah, like this,” she said, putting her little fingers to the corners of her mouth and blasting out a long note. “If I hear that, I’ll always find you.”
“Thanks,” I said, although I wasn’t sure how much better it made me feel.
I’d been along this road loads of times in my world. There was a supermarket and a brilliant cake shop. Not here though, even though some of the buildings were mostly intact. Small holes in the walls and broken windows were the only signs of the Darkness getting too close. But farther along the road they quickly lost their shape, until it was impossible to tell they ever were buildings.
We picked up the pace, jogging to the top of the hill. Bricks and rubble were strewn across the road.
“Keep an eye out for anything that looks useful,” Iris called. She slowed down just enough for me to catch up, scanning the edges of the road.
“How do you know what’s useful?”
“You just know,” Iris said. She crouched down, picking through stones and dust, moving aside bricks. “You know when you see it. Like that,” she said, her gaze latching onto a broken shopfront.
Something glistened in the light. She rushed over and bent to scoop it up.
It was an empty beer bottle, just like the ones Dad left lying round the house.
“What’s so special about that?” I took it off her and held it up to the light. You could see where the label used to be, so faded it was impossible to read. “It’s just a bottle.”
“You never know when glass might come in handy,” she said, snatching it back and placing it carefully in her bag. “And anyway, I like this stuff.”
Did I imagine it, or were her cheeks going red?
“The others just go for the obvious things. Soap, weapons, that kind of thing. They don’t care what it is. I . . . like the boring, everyday stuff. I like to know how people lived.”
Iris had half-filled her bag before I picked up a single object. She grabbed key rings, an old pocket watch, even something that looked like a plastic toy. Who knew that could survive an apocalypse?
“Oh, wow,” she said, clambering through a crumbled doorway.
I followed her in, covering my nose against the stale air. She kicked aside a clump of stone, and picked something up. Dust fell away beneath her fingers.
“What is it?” I asked, moving closer. She held it so carefully I thought it really was precious, but as I got closer I saw—
“It’s just a book.”
“Just a book?” she squealed, recoiling. She blew on the cover, sending dust billowing into the air. “This is an antique. Urban fantasy,” she read, squinting at the blurb on the back. She opened it and whispered, “Look, it was published in 2001.” Then she laughed, like it was the best possible thing she could find, and stuffed it in her bag.
I was just about to dig through the rubble when a sudden noise made me stop.
I held my breath, listening.
Iris’s eyes locked onto mine, and I knew she’d heard it too—a clatter, somewhere in the ruin. I strained my ears, but there was only silence, heavy all around us.
“We should leave,” Iris whispered.
I nodded, backing away slowly.
We were the only ones who’d come up this way. It couldn’t have been another Stormwalker. And if the noise wasn’t us, then—
A flash of movement in the shadows.
Bricks crunched and pinged as something lurched out of the gloom.
I tried to cry out, but the dust clogged my throat and all that came out was a strangled yelp. Iris rushed past me and I turned to follow her, but as I did something gripped my ankle and threw me over. I threw my hands up to stop myself smashing into the rough ground.
“Iris!”
The rubble dug into my elbows, cutting my skin as I was dragged back. Panic swelling inside me, I tried to grab hold of something, anything, but the ground offered nothing.
I spun around and lashed out with my leg, kicking as hard as I could—
And that was when I saw it.
Dark patches swelled under its shallow white eyes and purple blotches bloomed on its pasty skin. Its nails were long and yellow, sharpened to points, and its teeth . . .
Its teeth gnashed and ground, as rivulets of dr
ool dribbled down its chin.
“Get off!” I cried, swallowing back the lump in my throat.
I kicked again and connected with its feral face, but it only snarled, eyes flashing, and leapt at me once more. Desperately I scrabbled back, trying to get away—
Thwack.
A heavy stone smashed into its forehead, and scattered across the ground.
A groan slipped out of the creature’s foaming mouth, then it collapsed, unconscious.
“Th-thank you,” I panted, scrambling to my feet and fighting for breath.
Iris didn’t move, staring at the creature’s lifeless body. She had a slingshot in her hands, another stone already loaded. Now that the Dreamless had stopped moving, it looked so . . . skinny. How could it have been that fast? That strong? I rubbed my ankle where those long, pale fingers had gripped me so ferociously.
“There could be more,” Iris said. “We should get back and warn LRP.”
21
The Dreamless flashed in my mind every time I blinked. Lurching white hands, blank eyes, and withered skin. Was that what happened when you touched the Darkness? It turned you into that?
Calm down, Owen. You’re safe.
Or as safe as I could be, anyway, when I was trapped inside a disaster story.
We scrambled back, Iris with her pack full of objects, me with far less. We passed a robot, but it barely had time to say, “Hello . . . STORMWALKERS,” before we were past it and pelting toward the market square.
It was deserted. Iris grabbed my arm and dragged me on.
“This way,” she said.
There was a small building near the edge of camp, almost a hut, but not quite, the sort of thing you see next to train stations in quiet villages.
Iris sprinted toward it, bursting through the door.
Quinn was hunched over a desk. All across the wall behind it were screens and dials—dozens of dials. He looked up, frowning. There were two other people in there too. I recognized the man I saw as we burst into camp on my first trip here. The third person was a woman; an LRP officer I’d never seen before.
“You two are back early,” Quinn said.
“Dreamless,” Iris panted, “over by Regent Street.”
“Was it them?” he said, jumping to his feet. Iris shook her head. “Okay, good. Stay here and grab something to eat. We’ll take care of it . . .”
I shot Iris a look, wondering what Quinn had meant. “Was it who?”
All the color drained from her cheeks. In the pallid glow of the lights she looked like a ghost. Quinn nodded at the woman, who set off in the direction we’d just come from. He stood up and started rummaging through a cabinet beside the table.
The quiet stretched for so long I thought Iris was going to ignore the question, but then she spoke in this tiny, low voice, and it was all I could do just to hear the words.
“My parents,” she said. “They got caught by the storm back in the City. It got them just as they reached the barrier. They tried to Cleanse them, but . . .”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
The words sounded so pathetic, lingering there between us.
“I’ve seen Dad once since we got here. What used to be Dad, anyway. I don’t know how he got so far from the City without a ship, but Quinn said Dreamless can walk for days in search of . . .”
I knew what she couldn’t say. It was there in Jack’s thoughts, bubbling to the surface. In search of people. They were drawn to us, drawn to what they used to be, before the endless fear warped their minds and bodies.
No wonder she was so determined for me to go back to Cleansing when I first jumped here. I didn’t know about the camp or the City or Stormwalking or the Dreamless. I didn’t know anything, and she thought the Cleansing hadn’t worked. She thought the storm was going to turn me into one of those things.
“That’s why I volunteered,” Iris said. “My brother went to live with my aunt and uncle, but they couldn’t afford the space for me. And anyway, you heard the ads. Do well here, and your family will get rewarded.”
I stared at her. I didn’t know what to say. She turned away, gazing at the radio—
There was a crackle of static, then a voice came through.
“This is Icarus 1, do you read?”
The fog in my head evaporated on the spot. Jack’s thoughts screamed to the front of my mind. My heart leapt into my throat, trying to beat its way out of my body.
“This is Icarus 1, do you copy? Is anybody out there? The City is dead. Repeat, the City is dead. We need to initiate Operation Phoenix.”
Every bit of air squeezed out of my lungs. That voice . . . I knew it from somewhere. But what did he mean about the City being dead? Surely if it was, we’d know about it by now. Wouldn’t we? Jack’s brother, Ayden, was there. I could see his face as clear as if it were my own. I saw all of them, the crowd of people back behind the fence, waving as our airship set off, drifting higher and higher into the air. We were supposed to save them. They couldn’t be dead . . .
Iris was standing there, her mouth hanging open.
James was the first to react. He slammed a button on the dashboard. “We read you, Icarus 1,” he said. “Icarus 3, reading you loud and clear.”
Silence.
Iris’s eyes were wide. My own face was frozen. If the City was dead, what did that mean for us? Were we the last survivors? Just us, and the other Icarus projects?
Quinn turned to Iris, then back to me, as if seeing us clearly for the first time. I couldn’t read the expression on his face.
“It’s good to hear your voice, Icarus 3. What are your coordinates? We’ve got a pre-Dark airbase here—we think we might be able to reach you.”
“One one one, three two—”
Quinn slammed his fist on a button, and the line went dead.
James gaped at him.
What had just happened? I thought the whole point of setting up this camp was to find somewhere to live, and then to tell people about it. The Marshal said they’d never had any word from Icarus 1 or 2, so this was the first contact they’d ever made, and Quinn just cut them off?
“Quinn!” Iris said.
“What are you doing? Quinn, that was—”
“I know what it was,” Quinn said, holding up his hands defensively. “But we need to tell the Marshal about it. It could be a trap. We don’t know the City’s dead—for all we know, Icarus 1 might be compromised.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” James said pleadingly, “my . . . my family—Quinn, if they’re dead . . .”
“We don’t know that they are,” Quinn said gently. “Our first priority has to be the safety of this camp. We need to keep this quiet, at least for now. If the City is dead, the Marshal will know what to do. We can reestablish contact after we’ve spoken to him. If word got out . . .”
James sat down, breathing heavily. He held his head in his hands.
“You’re right. Of course you are. The Marshal . . . yes . . .”
“James—help Sarah deal with the Dreamless,” Quinn said, before turning to face us. There was a look in his eyes that I couldn’t figure out. “I’ll take care of this.”
I couldn’t get control of Jack’s thoughts. It felt like icicles were stabbing my mind, all the images swirling and swirling.
Then it hit me. What was so familiar about that voice.
The man on the radio . . . he was Jack’s dad.
He was alive. After everything! They’d taken him away from the City, shoved him on board with the other Stormwalkers on Icarus 1, and now he’d managed to find us. He was alive! This was it. This was what I had to do. I had to get through to him. I had to let him know I was okay.
“Come on,” Quinn said. “We better go.”
He led us to the church, the only building on the market square that remained mostly intact. My stomach churned with every step. I breathed slowly, trying to calm down. I could feel my legs moving, but it was as if they were controlled by someone else.
Jack’s dad
was alive!
But . . . if the City really was dead, then what did that mean for the rest of Jack’s family? For all their families? We were supposed to be here to save the City. To build them a new home and let them know about it, so they could send people here to live—to survive. Had it all been for nothing?
We stopped outside the church. The oak double doors had been eaten away and replaced with moth-eaten curtains, which hung either side of the arch. Quinn waited for a few Stormwalkers to pass, taking their scavenged items to the stalls on the square, then he bent low, his expression grave.
“Listen to me very carefully,” he said. “I know you’ll have questions about what you just heard. Trust me, I do too. But for your own safety, you have to ignore it. Just for now. Promise me you won’t mention it. You won’t go round asking questions. If the Marshal finds out what you just heard, then . . .”
“Quinn . . . ,” Iris said.
“Trust me. I’ll find you soon, and explain it all then. But for now, just . . . just get back to the timetable. You’ve still got time before the daylight pocket closes. Don’t mention this to anybody.”
He turned to me, as if he wanted to say more, but the words had got stuck. Eyes watering, he whirled on the spot and marched through the curtains.
My heart was beating loud and hard. I didn’t know if the City really was dead, but I did know one thing. Jack’s dad wasn’t a liar.
I turned to Iris. Her face was ashen. Of course . . . if that message was true, then she’d lost her aunt and uncle, and her brother too. So many lives lost . . .
“You remember when you asked about the Chamber?” she said.
“Yeah?”
“It’s below this building. This is where they take the people who break the rules.” She crept up to the curtains, pressing her ear up against them. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
But before I could reply, she snuck inside.
“Iris—wait!”
Hesitating just for a second, to make sure no one was watching, I followed her. There were no pews inside the church. Just an empty space with boarded-up windows, a muddy flagstone floor, and the gray sky instead of a roof.
