A.N. Another one! Also, further chapters may be posted slowly for a while 'cause it's my birthday tomorrow, and I've got a lot of exams this week and the next, which I have to pretend to be revising for. Enjoy :D
Chapter 9
We got out of the house, having removed all signs that we'd been there, and headed towards what Desert said was north, away from our ghost town. On the other side of a long, unused field that was covered in snow up to my waist that we had to kick and shovel out of our way as we went and then fill in again behind us, the woods swung out in a wide curve, blanketing one of the tallest of the many hills in the area, and it was in that part of the woods that we hid for the night.
At first, I thought that maybe the whole thing was some sort of cruel trick the adults were playing on us to get back at us for being stupid before. They seemed way too stressed for that, though, and just after we got settled in the woods, we saw helicopters landing in the distant town and tiny figures hopping out. A few minutes after that, bright flames bloomed in the darkness.
We were told to go to sleep while the adults kept watch, but none of us except Fever could; I supposed he was used to it by now, all the running away at the drop of a hat, the fear and the tension. I couldn't relax, even though I was lying stock still and barely breathing. What if they noticed our tracks? What if they found us? If they caught us, would they just shoot us or take us back to their headquarters? The adults never went into detail about what happened to the people who got caught – maybe they didn't even know themselves – but they were quite clear that it was bad, and if they thought it was bad then it'd be terrible for us.
We were almost catatonic by the time Sunshine poked her head into our tiny tent and told us to get up. My brain was caught somewhere between having a panicked adrenaline rush and being so tired and hungry that I could barely rouse myself at all. Its solution was to shut down completely, and I hauled myself out of the old sleeping bag I was sharing with Dock for warmth and pulled the rest of my clothes back on without forming a single thought.
It was, for once, a clear day, and I remembered that it was summer. We'd been taught about the four seasons and such back in school, but the weather hardly ever changed throughout the year, and if it did there was no pattern to it, so we never bothered. The whole thing was just to keep the older adults happy with their memories of when the world was normal, as far as we were concerned. The sky was a pale blue and the sun was a bright light beaming down through the leafless trees and bouncing off the snow. When I managed to find my snow goggles – a plain council-issue one I'd had for years, as had Dock, Karin and El – I looked out in the direction of the ghost town.
All that was left was a smouldering blotch in the middle of the endless white.
We spent half an hour traipsing through the woods before anyone spoke.
“Just so you know,” King said from the front, “Don't call each other by your real names while you're out here, not even quietly. You don't know who's nearby, remember.”
“Like we ever do that,” Fever muttered to himself grumpily, kicking a plant and showering little clods of snow everywhere as he passed.
“Where are we going?” Dock asked. I was thinking that myself.
“Uh . . . well, our map says there's a town in this direction, but it's way away from where we are right now, and the map's kinda out of date. D'you guys know anywhere near here?” Siren replied over her shoulder as she rustled a huge piece of paper criss-crossed with lines. I wondered if she actually knew what any of the lines meant, or if she was just pretending to keep us from panicking.
“Dunno,” I shrugged, “This is the furthest we've ever been out of town. Nobody ever travels any more, hardly. There could be anything if we keep walking.”
Karin cleared her throat nervously and added,
“Well, there's the city -”
“No!” I interrupted, shaking my head. I realised now that the vampires I'd seen were just humans in masks, but the very idea of going into the ruins of Manchester still held a sense of foreboding that was too powerful for me to overcome.
“What?” King and Siren slowed a little so that we were grouped tighter together and they could hear us better. Karin flushed and stared at the ground.
“Nothing,” she mumbled. Siren put an arm around her and fixed her with her best 'mum' smile.
“Come on, darling, what city?” she asked. Karin cleared her throat again.
“It's just . . . Manchester city centre, the city that all our families were from before – before this. It was destroyed, there's only bits of buildings left. It's not safe.”
“How's it not safe?” Karin shook her head and wouldn't answer, so I replied,
“I saw Dracs in there. The night before we ran away and you found us. We were playing dares, and Do – Wind-Up Merchant dared me to go in there. Normally we're not allowed.”
Siren shot King a look I didn't understand.
“What were they doing?” she asked.
“I dunno,” I shook my head, “They were right in the middle bit, it's like a sort of clearing area, there's a load of what used to be, erm . . . buses, they call them. There were only a few, they were patrolling, I think. They didn't see us.”
“Interesting. Very interesting,” nodded King.
“Well, we won't be staying there, but that's some useful information we can pass on.” Desert added.
“Pass on? How? The radios don't work. Are there more of you over here?” Dock asked. King shrugged very deliberately and looked away. I narrowed my eyes at him.
“Who knows. Who knows.”
The adults wouldn't answer us any more when we asked – and we were only asking because they clearly knew something and weren't telling us – so we tried pleading with Fever. He was in a bad mood at having to be up so early, though, and told us that he was barely given any information before we turned up, and wasn't told anything now because the adults knew we'd ask him.
I kept looking over my shoulder as we walked. The clear skies didn't last long, and by lunch time it was snowing so our tracks were covered, but I couldn't help checking anyway. I didn't want to admit it, but the Dracs scared me. They weren't the only things to have put my life in danger – wolves foraging in town at night, the various bouts of hypothermia, the pneumonia when I was four – but they were still different to anything else. All the other stuff were just things that happened if you were poor in England, they were a part of life. But the Dracs, they were people, real human beings – or had been at some point, at least. Even if they'd had all kinds of drugs injected into them or been brainwashed, I'd never seen a human being that was prepared to kill other human beings for no other reason than that we got in the way and they were told to do it. Were their consciences completely gone? Or was this what real evil was like? Was it the Dracs who were the worst, or Better Living Industries? The Dracs, being the ones I'd had the most contact with, seemed worse to me, although I could still see poor Ben's face in my mind.
If I knew anything any more, it was that I was not letting them mess with anyone else if I could help it. Whatever they said about me and the others not being ready to fight, that wasn't going to stop me. If I ever came face-to-face with a Drac again, there'd be no stopping me.
It was nightfall by the time we found somewhere. Desert had a weird pair of glasses held up to his face – binoculars, Fever said they were called – and had been scanning the horizon for any sign of cizilisation.
I was just beginning to worry that maybe our town was the only one left in Britain when he shouted out and King jogged over to him. He borrowed the binoculars for a moment, then waved his hands at us to beckon us forwards.
“Come on, we've found somewhere!” he grinned, looking actually happy. It was infectious, and I found myself smiling a little as well, as we ran clumsily through the thick snow. Maybe I was just looking forward to sleeping somewhere with a ceiling.
“Can you see any Bli stuff?” Siren called out as she waded through the snow. Me and Dock were the same height as her, but we were going much faster from years of practice at snow-walking.
“No, and you know how they like to show off, normally they've got logos everywhere. There's nothing there,” King called back as he steamed off towards the town. I could see it myself now, and it was spurring me on like nothing else.
Tiny place, probably the same size as ours had been. But there were lights in the windows that weren't from fires, and that was all I needed. Lights meant people. Normal people. Safety, if only for a while.
As I ran, I felt something collide with the back of my head. I panicked for a moment, until I realised that I hadn't been hurt; it was a snowball. I knew straight away who'd thrown it, and whirled round instantly with one of my own and aimed it at Dock's face. He grinned and ducked, but tripped over and vanished into the snow. Karin snorted with laughter as she scooped up snowballs of her own for protection, and Dock was pushed right back into the snow again as El launched an attack on him. Fever gave us a weird look until I succeeded in sending one right into his face. He let out a sort of indignant noise and Siren snickered at him.
“What was that for?” he asked, scowling as usual.
“It's what you do in a snowball fight!” I grinned, throwing another at him which he managed to dodge.
“Oh, stop being so moody, Fever,” Siren beamed at him, “You're only sixteen, mess around!”
She regretted that a moment later when Fever's first snowball went arcing into the middle of her back, sending her stumbling into King's side.
We made our way much slower towards the town, and it was almost completely dark by the time we reached the start of the main road through it, but for the first time in a while, I was actually happy.
