“Your town council is preparing a selection of items that Newhome manufactures and wishes to offer in trade with Hamamachi. As soon as they are ready, your Custodians will escort the samples and Councillor Okada back to Hamamachi.”
“But what about you? Aren’t you going with them?” I asked, thinking she had left her name out by accident.
“No, I’m not going back."
"What, why not?"
"Because there's something here I want,” she said, a smile tugging at the corners of her slightly upturned mouth.
I wracked my mind, trying to think what she was referring to. “Oh, and what is this thing you want?”
She giggled. “Oh Ethan, you’re a smart guy, but sometimes you aren’t too bright.”
I thought there was a compliment in there somewhere, and a massive hint of what she wanted, but try as I might, the answer eluded me. “You’re not gonna tell me what it is?”
“Nope, you’ll have to work it out by yourself.”
“Well, whatever it is, I’m glad it’s keeping you here,” I said.
“And why’s that?” She leaned forward, her gaze suddenly intense.
I blushed, turning bright red in the process, no doubt. “So you can keep making me these marvellous meals.” Which of course, was not the reason at all. I wanted to tell her it was because I wanted to keep seeing her – sharing meals with her, talking to her, and daydreaming about the impossible.
“Is that right?” she smirked. “In that case, I’ll make you udon tomorrow night – you’ll love it.”
“Can we make it the day after? I have to go out tomorrow night,” I said as I served myself another potato and fish ball.
“Really – where are you going?”
I squirmed in my seat and looked at my hands as I replied. “My father's chosen my bride and our families are meeting at six tomorrow night to finalise the wedding date.”
Nanako choked and sprayed a mouthful of water over the table, her eyes wide with horror and dismay. “Who is this girl?”
I could only glance at her as I replied miserably. “Remember Sergeant King, the leader of the Custodians who helped rescue you on Monday? It’s his younger sister. I met her last night for the first time.”
"Do you…love her?" Her voice waivered as her eyes bore holes through mine.
"No, of course not," I replied without hesitation. "All she cares about is using the marriage to help her get into North End. My father told her father I am capable of accomplishing anything."
"Then tell your father you won't marry her," she said.
“I can’t,” I replied sadly. “All marriages in Newhome are arranged by the fathers. The children have no say in the matter.”
“That's crazy," she said, and then after a long pause, "When do you think the marriage will take place?"
"Probably within the next two months."
At that news, her face paled quite considerably. “Where are you meeting with them tomorrow night?”
“At my parent’s house.”
She nodded and then rose to collect the dirty dishes. She took them to the sink and washed them, making no further attempt at conversation. I put the leftovers in a plastic container and left them on the bench to cool down.
After that, we adjourned to the sofa and although I tried to draw her into conversation, I soon gave up. If she responded at all, it was never more than a word or two.
Her reaction clearly had something to do with my impending marriage, but I could not understand why she took it so badly. We barely knew each other. I had assumed her interest was only to repay the debt she thought she owed me for saving her life, but with her cryptic comments tonight, I suspected that was not the case. And if it wasn’t, then what was her purpose in pursuing me?
"I had best head back, it is getting late," she said as she retrieved what appeared to be a working Smartphone from her pocket.
I watched in childlike wonder as she activated it. "Councillor? Owatta. Hai hai, ja, mata."
"Your phone works/" I virtually squeaked when I found my voice.
"Certainly does."
"But, their batteries are all dead, the digital programming has perished, and there are no satellites to connect them to," I protested.
"That was the case, but we’ve learned how to repair them and make new batteries. We even found a suitable satellite that survived the Apocalypse."
"I'm impressed," I practically drooled. It occurred to me that if I had one of those phones I could talk to Nanako any time. I couldn't just come out and say that. It would be too forward. So I said, "Hey, if I had one too, could I talk to anyone?"
She nodded, though without enthusiasm. "Well, the only people you'd know with Smartphones are Councillor Okada and me."
"Then maybe I could ring you?"
There was a sharp rap at the door before she could answer. Councillor Okada had arrived. I don't know where he had been this evening, but it was obviously close by.
I hurried to open the door and returned the councillor's polite bow. As Nanako joined him, I studied her downcast face and wished there was something, anything, I could do to lift her spirits again. "Thank you for a wonderful evening and delicious meal, Nanako," I said.
She didn't reply, but rose to her toes and pecked a light kiss on my cheek. She turned and left with the councillor without a backward glance.
I glanced quickly about to see if any Custodians were around to see her leave my apartment, but was relieved that none were in sight.
After I closed the door, I slid to the floor and just sat there, at a loss. I touched the cheek she had kissed, and my emotions and thoughts swept into a storm of confusion. I hated to see her so sad. It tore me up inside, as did the fact that the night ended on such a negative note.
I hadn't even confirmed if she was still coming over the evening after next.
“Breathe! Come on, Ethan, breathe!” a nurse shouted as he slapped my face.
My chest heaved as I sucked in a deep breath.
“That’s it, keep going,” he encouraged.
I tried to focus on the nurse, to work out where I was, but everything felt off. I’d never been blind drunk, but I reckon this was what it felt like. My thoughts were sluggish, I could barely move, I couldn’t focus my eyes, and I couldn’t speak. I was also vaguely aware that my head was swathed in bandages.
“Don’t fight it. You’re just feeling the effects of the general anaesthetic. It’ll wear off soon enough. Just go back to sleep, eh?” the nurse said...
...and my body jolted as though struck, pulling me out of the dream. Morning sunlight streamed through the windows. I realised I was in my apartment, lying on the floor beside the front door. I wasn’t in the hospital. That was just one of my recurring nightmares where I relived waking from the brain surgery I’d had when I was eighteen. I remember those days clearly, although I wish I couldn’t.
The brain surgery had cured me of the epilepsy and cyclic amnesia. However, it also affected my minor and major motor skills, including speech. After my recovery, I spent day after day in rehabilitation with speech therapists and physiotherapists. It was agonisingly slow going and extremely frustrating.
I tore my mind away from the nightmare and memories of that most unpleasant time, and wondered how many hours I sat against the door last night before finally fallen asleep. I was stiff and sore, but not overly so as I often slept on the concrete rooftop of the building.
Still tormented by the troubled, miserable expression on Nanako's face last night, I had zero interest in food. I drank a glass of water and threw a couple of pieces of fruit and a bottle of water into my backpack. I didn't pack food for lunch as I figured I'd be in no mood to eat at lunchtime either.
That done, I left my flat and headed for work. It normally took fifteen minutes to walk there, but I stretched it out to half an hour so I wouldn't arrive early. I had no interest in talking to anyone today, especially not In-Your-Face-Cooper.
My walk was plagued with thoughts of Nanako, of how a perfect evening with a beautiful and mysterious girl turned sour when I told her I was getting married. That she reacted like this could mean she felt something for me, and was hurt by the news of my marriage. If so, such a strong reaction surprised me, for we had only known each other for a few days. Surely she could see that there was nowhere our relationship could go from here.
Could I be her reason for not leaving Newhome with Councillor Okada? It sounded so improbable, but when I considered all the evidence, I realised this had to be a possibility.
I was still lost in this mental quagmire when I saw Lieutenant King waiting for me at the Recycling-Works gates with a savage scowl on his face. This wasn't gonna be a good day.
"That was some stunt you pulled last night, Jones," he hissed when I reached him.
Still feeling somewhat distressed, I was in no mood to placate him. "My apologies, Lieutenant, but I was otherwise detained," I replied, the tone of my voice bordering on insolence.
"My father was most displeased. Don’t pull any stupid stunts like that tonight, you hear me?”
“I will be there as arranged, Sir,” I assured him.
“You’d better be. Now hop in your truck and let’s go.”
As I walked over to my teammates, Michal saw my dour expression and raised an eyebrow. I just shrugged in response. I wasn’t going say anything in front of the others.
“Okay scavengers, pack them behinds into the truck!” Cooper ordered as he reached for the driver’s door.
“We’re foragers, not scavengers,” Shorty protested.
“A kettle by any other name is still a kettle, Shorty. We go out into a dead, ruined city and scavenge amongst the decaying ruins for scrap metal. Calling us ‘foragers’ is just some drongo’s attempt to make us think more highly of ourselves than we ought. Now, let’s go.”
On a normal day, I would have taken issue with Cooper’s scornful comments, but I didn’t have the heart for it. I climbed in next to him and we set off for the town gates, the Bushmaster roaring after us.
There was no sign of Nanako, just as I expected.
Once out of town, Cooper drove us east, following exactly the same route he took yesterday. We drove slowly down Dryburgh Street and then towards the CBD itself. We went past rusted out cars and trucks, through shrubbery and wild grasses that flourished in every crack in the roads and sidewalks, until we reached the restaurant we had worked on yesterday.
Cooper backed the truck up to the concrete steps and we clambered out and put on our utility belts. The Custodians parked the Bushmaster in the middle of the street, one private popping out the roof hatch to operate the machine gun, while King and another private exited the vehicle by its rear door. They glanced about the street once, announced their thorough investigation was complete, and gave us the go head to begin work.
“David, you’re upstairs with me,” Cooper snapped, “You other three finish tearing out the lead sheeting from the kitchen floor.”
With Michal wielding his sledgehammer and Shorty and I our crowbars, we traipsed up the concrete steps and into the shell of the restaurant's foyer. All the windows were gone and the wooden frame of the customer-service counter had rotted away, leaving the plastic top lying on the floor amidst a carpet of leaves, twigs, dirt, and plaster that had peeled from what was left of the ceiling. We threaded our way across the dining room, which was an even greater mess than the foyer. The wooden tables had rotted quite badly – most of their legs had collapsed, and the chairs had fared no better. Chunks of plaster had fallen on everything, and the place stank of mildew and mould.
Switching on his torch, Shorty led us to the large kitchen out the back, where we paused and surveyed our previous day's handiwork. After moving the ovens and benches we could shift, we had ripped up most of the disgustingly filthy linoleum floor tiles so we could pull out the grimy, thin lead sheets beneath. Lead sheeting was a common waterproofing system in commercial kitchens. Several kilos of lead were rolled up, but we were only part of the way through.
I grabbed Shorty’s torch and panned it back and forth as I considered which section of the floor to tackle first, when an uneasy feeling rose in my gut. "Hold up, guys," I said quietly, examining our surroundings with more than casual interest now. If I wasn't mistaken, the room had been tampered with ever so slightly. "I don't recall seeing the freezer door open yesterday, and I’m sure we put those rolls of lead in front of it, not beside it."
Michal hefted his sledgehammer and we approached the walk-in freezer as quietly as we could. Suddenly Cooper started screaming “Skel!” at the top of his voice, followed by the sound of his heavy boots thumping on the floorboards above.
At the exact same instant, the walk-in freezer door swung open and a horrifying, skeletal apparition burst into the room, made all the more terrifying by the flickering torchlight and the cow horns protruding from the sides of the skull-helmet. The Skel looked like a demon from the depths of hell. He was also one of the biggest I had ever seen. He charged us while yelling obscenities and brandishing a converted axe. Shorty and Michal fell back in shock, but I noticed he was timing his swing to hit Michal, not me. So I did the last thing the Skel expected. I ducked inside his swing and thrust my crowbar at his throat. Unfortunately, his beefy arms got in the way and threw off my aim, causing the blow to glance off his skull-protected face.
The good news was that my attack had given Michal time to recover his balance, step forward and deliver a mighty swing of his sledgehammer to the Skel's head. The human skull he wore as a helmet exploded and he went down with a massive thud.
However, before we could breathe a sigh of relief, the door at the back of the kitchen smashed open, allowing brilliant sunlight – and two more Skel – into the room.
"Run!" I shouted.
Shorty and Michal didn't need any convincing and sprinted out of the kitchen while I brought up the rear. The Skel, one small and one large, gave pursuit – two more nightmarish ghouls to haunt my dreams for the rest of my life.
As I darted into the dining room, a crossbow bolt missed my head by inches and imbedded itself into the far wall. I glanced back and cried out when I saw that the smaller Skel was only a step behind, hands reaching out to grab me. I threw myself to the right as I twisted to the left and brought down the crowbar. It connected with my pursuer’s right arm, breaking the bone armour and possibly their arm as well.
To my surprise, a woman yelped in pain and uttered a stream of four letter words that would have made me blush had I not been in such dire circumstances – the smaller Skel was female!
Refusing to let this astonishing revelation distract me, I regained my balance and rammed her with my shoulder, sending her reeling into a half-collapsed table. I would have followed this with another crowbar strike, but decided against that particular plan of action when the larger Skel barged out of the kitchen.
I turned and raced after Shorty and Michal, glancing back on occasion to make sure he wasn’t gaining on me.
My teammates and I sprinted out of the darkened restaurant and into the sunlit street. At the same time, the Custodian operating the Bushmaster's roof-mounted machine gun opened fire upon a target on the far side of the street.
King rushed over to us, gun at the ready, "Forget the truck – get in the Bushmaster!"
"Keep your eyes open," I shouted to Shorty and Michal as we ran around the truck to reach the Custodian's vehicle, "they've got us surrounded!"
Hearing a machine gun fire a short burst behind us, I glanced back and sighed with relief when I saw that King had gunned down the Skel who had pursued us in the restaurant.
We hurried to the back of the Bushmaster, where a Custodian held the door open with one hand while keeping his Austeyr assault-rifle ready with the other. Shorty and Michal clambered in and sat down next to Cooper, who was sitting at the front behind the driver’s position.
“Where’s David?” I demanded as I put one foot into the Bushmaster and safety.
Cooper refused to meet my gaze, “I don’t know, one minute he was behind me, the next he wasn’t.”
“You left him behind?” I asked incredulously, not believing what I was hearing.
Cooper glanced at me, guilt and fear etched on his face.
I think I hesitated for all of a second, and then the enormity of what he was saying exploded in my mind. The Skel had David! My teammate and friend had been caught by those abominations, who were even now no doubt carting him away to a fate far, far worse than death.