‘Do I have bad breath?’
He froze and the colour drained from his face. ‘No. I … uh, no.’
‘Well, good then, you don’t have to walk so far away. It’s been a really long time since I’ve spoken to anyone, and I think it would be nice to talk while we try to get you home.’
He blinked a couple times, then nodded. ‘Okay.’
‘So what are people up to these days?’
He laughed, a little nervously, and said, ‘Not much. You know, living — normal stuff.’
He looked at me quickly to see if I had taken offence. I attempted to smile back at him encouragingly, and motioned for him to keep walking.
We talked. I tried to get useful information out of him — like whether the humans planned on expanding their colonies — but really I just kept the conversation going because I enjoyed speaking to another being. Luckily for me, Elliot was a chatterbox once I started him on a topic and he could be quite funny. And he was pretty good-looking, I might add. When he wasn’t looking, I’d examine his angular features and admire the way his clothing hung on him.
Embarrassing I know, but I wanted him to like me. So when I felt him flinch when he accidentally touched my cold skin as we scrambled our way up some loose rocks, I reassured him by trying to sound as ‘normal’ as possible.
‘Wow, it really gets cold when the sun starts to drop. I’m glad we’re out of that canyon now.’
He gave me a sheepish smile, and we continued our walk back towards the Desert Camp. He told me about the society he’d come from, about the different human settlements, schooling, even the new laws around arranged marriage.
‘What? That’s never going to work.’
His cheeks went red and he looked out at the glowing lights of camp in the distance. Its many apartments were built into the cliff face and, with the approaching night, indoor candlelight gave the cliff a beautiful orange glow against the deep purple of the sky.
He sighed and said, ‘You’re right, it probably won’t. Although my father thinks it will.’
‘Oh no, that means you—’
‘I know.’ His jaw clenched.
‘So do you know who she is?’ I asked.
‘Yeah, kind of. We’ve been out on a couple of dates. Her family are Leaders, too, and good friends of my parents. We’re supposed to get married when I’m done with my schooling at Desert Camp.’
We were silent then. It was clear he didn’t want to say much more, and looked moodily at the ground.
‘That sucks. Sorry,’ I said — anything to break the silence.
He nodded, still looking at the ground.
‘Was that why you tried to throw yourself into a Zombie pit today?’
He looked up at me with the most beautiful blue eyes and laughed. ‘No! It’s not that bad yet!’ And then, more seriously, ‘I just need to get out of there sometimes — away.’
‘Ah yes …’ I couldn’t think of anything more to say. It was getting darker quickly now, and we both knew that he should get back, that other students at Desert Camp would begin to notice his absence. But it seemed neither of us was willing to be the first to say goodbye.
‘So I guess that’s it then. You probably have things to do?’
‘Yeah, kind of. But nothing I want to do.’
He turned to me then and started to reach for my hand, but caught himself before he made contact. He shook his head, smiled and reached out again. ‘Sorry, Katie. Thank you for getting me out of there.’
‘Hey, I had nothing else going on,’ I joked, though I could feel a lump growing in my throat. The first boy I’d met in six decades and I was falling for him. And now we had to say goodbye.
‘We’re never going to see each other again, are we?’
If my heart could race, it would have done so at that point.
‘No. Probably not. I don’t think the other humans would approve of you making friends with someone like me.’
He gave me a sneaky smile. ‘Oh well, what they don’t know won’t hurt them.’
‘Sure, crazy human, if you want to. But I don’t think your family is going to want you hanging out with a Dead girl.’
So we agreed to meet up the next day after Elliot’s morning lectures. I knew this was probably not the wisest decision I had ever made. It certainly wouldn’t be his. An infected, blighted, Undead woman spending time with one of humanity’s promising young Leaders? But I couldn’t bear to have it any other way. I knew I should have said no, but I was selfish. It was more than just the promise of company after so many years of solitude. When our skin brushed, the way I felt when his dark-blue eyes looked into mine, made a long-silent bird begin to beat its wings inside my chest. The feeling filled me with light, joy, excitement, but also fear. To have something allows you to have something to lose. And I hadn’t had anything to lose for a long time.
As I walked back to my silo — my princess tower, as I sometimes fondly called it — I realised that I felt another emotion too. I stopped, and for a moment stood alone in the dark, surrounded by the vastness of the desert. After so many years of loneliness, I felt the beautiful, soft glow of hope.
ELLIOT, winter, 61 A. Z.
ELLIOT SAT IN his lecture, but his mind was elsewhere. He was overwhelmed by what had happened to him the previous day, encountering Katie, the strange creature who’d saved him from ravenous Corpses. Beyond the obvious fact that she was a Blue, she was unlike any woman he had ever known, and their walk through the canyon already seemed to him one of the most exhilarating times of his life.
Elliot needed to know more about her. What did she do and where did she live? It seemed impossible to him that such a tiny woman was living by herself out in the desert. He knew she was a Blue, and racked his brains to remember anything he might have heard about this rare kind of Zombie. Zombie. Katie hardly seemed like the flesh-eating monster he associated with that word. Sure, she was changed, with dusky, almost violet skin and grey eyes, but those were the only things that made her different.
He couldn’t wait for the morning to be over so he could see her again. But he’d have to be careful no one knew what he was up to. He’d say he was feeling a little under the weather and go back to his room, wait a bit and then sneak out.
KATIE, winter, 61 A. Z.
WE HAD DECIDED to meet on high ground at the end of the cliff’s edge, where there’d be fewer roaming Corpses, and we’d be far enough from the colony for me to be safe as well. I saw his flame-coloured hair in the distance and felt a rush of happiness. He had kept his word and was sitting waiting for me!
I stopped and observed him for a moment as he stood up and looked out into the distance, shook his head and ran his hands through his hair. Finally, he sat back down and stared at the ground. It was a motion that seemed to say he was restless or maybe upset about something. I threw a small stone at him to get his attention.
He spun around to see what had hit him. He smiled and looked at me with his stormy-coloured eyes. I felt the little bird in my chest beat its wings against my ribs and then fly up into my throat.
‘Hey.’
‘Hey,’ I repeated back, hoping to play it cool and hide how I was feeling.
‘So, Blues don’t eat people, but they do throw rocks?’
‘Oh yeah, totally. That, and we like to drive cars really, really fast.’
We both giggled at our stupid jokes, then Elliot cleared his throat and looked at me with a serious face.
‘You have a car?’
‘Of course. Actually I have a few’ — I thought it best to omit how I came to acquire them — ‘but not a lot of petrol. Have you ever been for a drive in one?’
Elliot’s eyes glowed with desire. ‘No! And nobody I’ve ever known has either — not even my father, who’s the City Leader, has driven one. Can you take me for a ride?’
‘Sure. I guess so, but we’ll have to walk back to my Tower. Are you up for that?’
He seemed to sense what I was implying. It was brave of
him, and slightly reckless, to come out into the desert and meet me today. But to agree to come back with me to my hidden home, through unknown territory, was more than bold, it was foolish.
‘Well …’ He looked down at the ground and I saw the muscles in his jaw clench. ‘Yeah, why not?’
I tried to think of the right way to phrase what I wanted to say, but couldn’t think of a nice way of putting it. ‘Sure, we can do that, but Elliot, isn’t it a bit crazy? I mean, it’s not like I’ll do anything to you, and I’m totally happy you’re here — but why are you out here with me?’
He met my eyes and smiled mischievously. ‘Let’s go for a drive.’
LUKAS, autumn, 61 A. Z.
FINDING A WIDER road, although its edges were overgrown with shrubs and its surface cracked, Lukas felt a fragment of relief. At last he wouldn’t have to fight through heavy mud and bush to stay on the trail. But his progress was slow, his simmering anger sapping his energy. Why had nobody from the Tree Sanctuary bothered to stop him from being banished? He wasn’t a monster! Everyone who had cared for him and loved him had just allowed him to be put out like rubbish. They had thrown him out, wounded, to try to survive on his own.
His parents had died when he was young, both of them bitten and infected. So he had grown up with another family, who tried to make him feel like one of their children, but there had always been a quiet, unspoken division between them. They had loved him, just not quite as much as their own children. Now, in his time of need, where were they? If he had been one of the biological children, would he have been abandoned like this to die alone? Or, rather, not to die, but instead to live in this terrible state of in-between?
After several days following the road and seeing no signs of life, Lukas spotted an old house surrounded by shrubs and trees, its roof sagging under the pressure of a collapsed pine. It was filthy and derelict, but Lukas needed to put his head down and get out of the miserable weather. As long as it was dry inside, it would suit him well enough. The interior was mouldy and everything was covered in a thick layer of dirt, leaves and pine needles, but it had once been a cosy family home. Photos, faded and partially obscured by dust, hung on the walls. He could make out smiling faces: a mother, father, two children, an older man who was perhaps a grandfather. In one photo they sat grinning from ear to ear inside a bright red car. Lukas had never seen a car moving, but he knew that, before the Plague, people travelled about in them at fast speeds and across huge distances. The shiny car in the photograph was nothing like the rusting heaps that littered the roadway.
Lukas moved from room to room, fascinated by the remnants of a world now gone. It seemed impossible that people lived like this, that all these objects had purpose and meaning only sixty-one years ago. In one room he found a dresser filled with clothing. Stale and dusty, but dry. He peeled off his own muddy and torn clothes and selected a flannel shirt and jeans that looked just long enough to fit him. The buttons on the shirt were difficult to manage with one hand, but when at last he was finished, he wiped the grime off an old mirror and regarded himself.
His once-olive skin was now dusky. His eyes were no longer blue but grey, like water on a river stone. The red flannel shirt, tight on his shoulders and short in the waist, had its left arm hanging empty and useless. But considering that he hadn’t eaten for a week, he hadn’t slept, he had walked for hours on end, and had recently been attacked by a Corpse and lost an arm, Lukas thought he looked surprisingly okay.
Why hadn’t he died? Exhaustion, thirst and exposure to the elements should have killed him many weeks before. He stared into the mirror, searching for an explanation.
The healer at Tree Sanctuary, the one who had lowered him to the ground, had said he was a Blue. Lukas vaguely remembered a story told to him by a Gunslinger who had been tricked by a half-human, half-Corpse with bluish skin. The Gunslinger had been travelling alone and seen what he thought was a person in distress. He had got off his horse to inspect the man, who lay whimpering on the ground and calling for help. But when the Gunslinger got closer, he saw the unhealthy skin colour, the grey eyes and blue lips. Before he had a chance to draw his gun, the Blue was upon him, giving him a solid punch in the jaw, wrestling his pistol from him. The stunned Gunslinger had then watched the Blue steal his horse and ride off. With no weapon and no mount, the Gunslinger hadn’t dared to track the Blue. It was hard enough, he said, just making it back to a colony without being bitten.
Was Lukas the same as that horse thief? He certainly wasn’t like the awkward Corpses he’d seen on the road, with their mouths hanging open, sunken eyes and pitiful groans. Nor was he like the quicker Variants, with their moist, mottled skin, animal-like movements, and seemingly unquenchable hunger and ferocity when attacking. Lukas felt quite normal, all things considered. He felt hungry and was still in pain from his amputated arm, but physically he seemed all right.
ELLIOT, winter, 61 A. Z.
WALKING BACK TO Desert Camp, the excitement of adventure still humming within him, Elliot decided he had to make a serious change in his life. For the past month, he had spent almost every afternoon with Katie. Mostly just talking and taking walks to look at things, but it had been the best month of his life. They’d also done things he never would have imagined he’d do, like exploring old buildings and driving a car. Elliot felt as if he was truly living, doing things he wanted to do and not being judged by everyone around him. And Elliot felt something he had never known before — a sense of attachment. When he looked into Katie’s eyes, he felt all the possibilities in the world. When they went on one of their little adventures, it seemed to him that they were a team. She was amazing and funny and … beautiful, Elliot had realised. Shiny black hair, soft grey eyes, petite body. So what if she had bluish skin?
Elliot knew what his family would do if they found out — disown him. But he didn’t care what his parents thought. They had always been distant, authoritarian figures with stiff hugs and very few kind words. His sisters, Rose and Jenny, would worry about him, and this pained him. Still, he also knew that as much as they loved him, they would fall in with their parents’ wishes and shun him if ordered to do so.
The decision to leave his old life, in which everything had been dictated to him, orchestrated by his parents and the community, was easy for Elliot. His world had been pleasant enough, even privileged, but it was bland. His future had been laid out for him: a marriage to the pretty Adele and a life in politics as a Leader. But he had never felt anything other than a physical desire for Adele. Her curvy figure and pretty face had aroused in him the same feelings as they did in most young men. But she was snobbish, narrow-minded, self-righteous and, worst of all, had an irritating laugh. Elliot knew she didn’t love him. She would turn out like her cold socialite mother. And like his own.
Working in politics held even less interest for Elliot than the prospect of marriage. Sitting around with bitter-faced old men, planning where to store that year’s crops, allocating supplies and spending countless hours speaking to the Leaders of other settlements about the exchange of goods — it sounded insufferably dull. Elliot had always imagined himself working with his hands, making things. He preferred to be outside and to see the product of his efforts, some tangible accomplishment.
Even so, he knew that choosing to turn his back on that life to stay with Katie was crazy, impulsive, and would have consequences for his family. But perhaps it wasn’t a choice after all — he simply felt unable to resist. Maybe it was something to do with almost being ripped apart by the Corpses in the canyon that made it seem so urgent to follow his desires. Life was precious and was meant to be lived. What had seemed tolerable before — marriage, becoming a Leader, having children — now seemed ridiculous, and unbearable.
Elliot wanted a different life and Katie was the answer. She made everything seem exciting, possible. So, when Elliot returned to Desert Camp, he quietly packed a bag and wrote a couple of letters: one to Rose and one to the director of education, saying he would no l
onger be attending lectures. He knew that after he’d been missing from class for a day or so, someone would check his room and then find his notes. By then he’d be long gone.
ELLIOT, winter, 61 A. Z.
Dear Rose,
I’m an outcast. The law about the Infected is wrong. They are not all the same. The Leaders just don’t realise it yet.
I hope you get this letter before you hear the news from somebody else. What I’ve done isn’t bad, it’s just that the Council Leaders have deemed it unclean. It’s not really as horrible as it sounds, I promise you.
Mother and Father are going to be mad. Mad like you’ve never seen before, and they’ll probably disown me. Please, Rose, don’t judge me or get angry with me too. I really need you as my sister right now and for you to try to understand.
I’ve met someone who has changed everything. She’s wonderful, exciting, smart and funny. Her name is Katie and I think you’ll really like her. I know that I’m promised to Adele. Well, too bad, because now that I’ve met Katie there is no way that I could ever be happy with Addy. I’m sorry if things get weird for you because of this, though me not marrying Adele isn’t what’s going to make Mother scream. Rose, the reason why this is going to be a scandal is because Katie is a Blue.
I know it sounds crazy. It seems impossible to me at times, too. She saved me. That’s how we met. I was about to be torn to pieces by the Deads, but she simply walked through them, pushing them aside, and dragged me out. I had been walking out to the weather lab, which isn’t very far from Desert Camp, but I slipped on the rocks and slid down into a gulley. There were four Corpses trapped in there (who knows for how long — they probably fell in), and they came at me.
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