The Fearless (9 page)

Jori comes back from Sam’s just before eight. I get him wrapped up in extra layers of clothing, and then we get under his covers and he snuggles down in my arms as I tell him a story about what my life was like before the Invasion. He never tires of hearing about Mum and Dad, or our old house, or the village, or what my school was like. It used to be painful telling him these things, but I’ve spoken about them so often now that they feel like dreams, or things that happened to someone else.

Gradually, he relaxes in my arms, his breathing becoming deep and steady. I extricate myself carefully. Then I stand beside his sleeping mat and gaze at him for a moment. With his skin permanently dry from the weather and the salty air, and his penetrating gaze, my brother often seems older than he really is. But when he’s asleep, the furrow between his eyebrows smoothes out, and he’s just an ordinary, innocent seven-year-old. I sigh. Part of me wishes he could stay this way for ever.

Then I remember Myo. I feel a burst of nerves. Am I
really
going to do this?

Half an hour
, I tell myself.
If it takes any longer than that, I’ll come back.

I put my coat, hat and scarf on, trying not to make any noise, and step into my plimsolls.

‘Cass? Where are you going?’ a sleepy voice says behind me.

I jump and look round. Jori’s eyes are open. Crap.

‘Um, nowhere,’ I say.

‘Why have you got your bag?’

‘I borrowed something from Sol and I need to take it back. Go to sleep, OK? I’ll only be a few minutes.’

Feeling guilty and flustered, I grab the spare lantern, turning away so he doesn’t see me tucking it under my coat, and hurry out of the apartment before he can ask what I borrowed from Sol. Outside, frost glitters, the moonlight making everything look like the old black-and-white films they used to show on TV before the Invasion, the ones Dad liked so much. I dart between pools of shadow to the courtyard steps, cursing the moon for being so bright.

The fence around the Shudders is too high to climb; I’ll have to do what I used to do when I was a kid – look for a way under or through. I feel my way along it until I find some loops of wire that have been used to fix two pieces of the fence together. Blowing on my frozen hands to warm them, I untwist them, pulling the mesh apart to make a Cass-sized hole. As I squeeze through, the wire catches at my jacket and hair.

Once I’m on the other side, I pull the hole closed and stand there for a moment, listening to the thunder of the sea and the wind moaning through the ruins. Now I’m here, I’m glad of the moonlight. Without it I could easily smack my head on a beam or fall down a foundation hole.

As I duck through a doorway, the Shudders fence rattles in the place where I came through. I freeze, listening for the crunch of footsteps across the rubble-strewn ground; the bark of a Patroller’s voice as they shout,
Who’s there
?

Nothing happens. It must have been the wind. I let out a slow, shaky breath, trying to see where I am. I haven’t been here in years, and everything looks so different in this eerie, silver light. At last, I spot something I recognize: a dented metal sign advertising a restaurant, lying at an angle against a pile of rubble. I’m on the street that runs through the middle of the ‘town’; under my feet are paving stones, almost buried by the sand that’s blown here in winter storms, and all around, leafless saplings have taken root and struggled up through the rubble, many more of them than I remember. Shivering, I thread my way through piles of brick and stone, carefully making my way down to the cinema, which is at the bottom of the street.

Behind me, I hear a skittering sound, like a stone being kicked. I look round, but I can’t see anything. Perhaps it was just a piece of brick falling from a building.

Then, as I start walking again, I hear the sound for a second time. This time, it’s more distinct.

Footsteps, light and quick.

‘Who’s there?’ I hiss. I’m certain it’s not the Patrol. They’d march up, grab my arm, demand to know what I was doing here.

No answer. The hairs on the back of my neck prickle. What if it’s a Fearless?

Don’t be stupid
, I tell myself.
The Patrol searched the Shudders top to bottom after they found Myo, remember? There’s no one else here
.

So why do I feel as if I’m being watched?

I crouch, feeling around for a lump of brick.

‘Whoever’s there,’ I say as I straighten up, ‘Stop messing about or I’m going to chuck this brick at your head. And I’m a great shot.’

I grip the brick harder, feeling its sharp edges dig into my palm and fingers. I’m almost certain that someone’s playing a joke on me. Maybe Rob. It’s exactly the sort of thing he’d do.

The footsteps start again, coming towards me, then stop.

‘I mean it,’ I snarl.

‘Cass, it’s me,’ a small voice says.

Jori?

‘Where are you?’ I say.

My brother emerges from behind a pile of concrete blocks just a few feet away. He’s still bundled up in all the clothes I put him to bed in, and my spare scarf is wound around his neck.

‘For God’s
sake
, Jor.’ I hold out my hand to help him over the rubble. ‘I told you to go to sleep!’

‘I couldn’t.’

‘Did you follow me?’

He nods. ‘I saw you go through the fence.’

Goddammit, he must have been right behind me when I left the apartment. And there’s no time to send him back. If he gets caught . . . ‘I s’pose you’ll have to come with me, then. But you’ll have to be careful.’

‘Come where?’

‘The cinema. I’ve got to look for something.’

A smile flickers across his lips.

I frown. ‘I guess that means you can tell me the best way in there?’ I say, and he gets such a guilty look on his face that any other time, I’d laugh.

‘You won’t tell anyone, will you?’ he says.

Still frowning, I shake my head. ‘No. But you shouldn’t come here, Jor. It’s dangerous.’

I know my words will probably have no effect, though. Nothing stopped
me
. ‘Come on,’ I tell him, lighting the lantern. ‘Before we freeze to death.’

The cinema looks almost exactly the same as it did when I last came here, a few days before my twelfth birthday, and two weeks before Mum walked into the sea. The lobby and the steps leading up to the auditorium are coated in a thick layer of dust and seagull crap, bundles of cable hanging from the ceiling from when the building work was abandoned. Shafts of moonlight coming through holes in the ceiling illuminate speckles of mould on the walls, and here and there more of those spindly trees have taken root in the carpet.

‘You can still get in there,’ Jori says, pointing at the auditorium steps. At the top are two doors with round windows, half hanging off their hinges. As I squeeze through them after my brother, I get a shiver of déjà vu. How many times did I do this when I was younger, with Sol or one of the others?

Once we’re on the other side, I put a hand on Jori’s arm to stop him and hold out the lantern. ‘Are the steps still safe?’

‘Not the ones at the side,’ he says. ‘The ones in the middle are OK, though.’

We descend them carefully, the boards creaking and cracking under our feet. At the back of the stage, there’s a vast screen. I remember how I used to wonder what would happen if we still had electricity and could’ve switched the projection equipment on. Would we see films from seven years ago – films of life as it used to be? Even now, the thought makes me shiver.

Jori hauls himself up onto the stage and goes pelting across it. ‘Come back here!’ I say as I jump up after him. There used to be steps here too, but most of the treads have rotted away.

He giggles.

‘I mean it,’ I say. ‘Stay where I can see you.’ Then, to my right, I hear a scuffling sound. ‘Jori! What did I just tell you?’

‘I’m not doing anything,’ my brother’s voice says at my left elbow, making me jump.

‘But I just heard you—’ I hold the lantern up, but all I can see is the screen. ‘Never mind.’ Maybe it was a rat. There are plenty on the island, despite the maintenance crew’s efforts to get rid of them.
Maybe I should make sure
, I think. I shine the lantern into the corners, trying to ignore the chill creeping up my spine. To my relief, there’s nothing there.

I find Myo’s bag underneath a board at the back of the stage, just like he said. It’s a large, battered-looking leather satchel. I can’t resist peeping inside. He has all sorts of stuff in there: a knife –
hang on
, I think.
Didn’t Sol say Myo attacked him with his knife and that he got rid of it?
– a rolled-up jacket, some binoculars, the first battery operated torch I’ve seen in years, some foil pouches with
MRE
and
Meal, Ready to Eat
on the front, and . . . chocolate bars? I take one out and frown at it. It
is
a chocolate bar – a Cadbury’s Bournville, in a crackly red plastic wrapper. Where did he get it? I’ve never known the barterers to trade stuff like this. Not the ones who come down this way, anyhow.

‘What’s that?’ Jori says, and I realize he’s never seen chocolate before. We had it on the island when we first came here, but he was too little to eat it, and after six months or so, it was all gone.

‘Chocolate. Want to try some?’ I say. After we’ve come in here to get his bag back on this freezing cold night, running the risk of being caught by the Patrol, I reckon Myo can spare us one chocolate bar.

‘You mean like that stuff you used to buy with your allowance?’ he says. I’ve told him about the food we used to eat before the Invasion many times.

I nod, and tear open the wrapper. The chocolate has a white bloom on the surface, and the texture’s weird – kind of brittle and powdery – but I still get a wave of nostalgia as I nibble on it. When Jori tries it, though, he makes a face and spits it out. ‘This is
horrible
. It tastes like dust.’

He’s right. This stuff is definitely past its best. Regretfully, I chuck the half-eaten chocolate away and pick up Myo’s bag, slinging it across my chest.

‘Come on,’ I tell Jori. But he isn’t beside me any longer.

‘I heard something,’ he whispers, his voice carrying through the darkness to where I’m standing.

‘So did I. A rat or something. Nothing to worry about.’

‘No. It sounds like
breathing
.’

We both go quiet. All I can hear is the thud of my heartbeat in my ears, and the ever-present sound of the sea outside.

‘There’s nothing there,’ I say. ‘You probably heard—’

Then I stop. I
can
hear breathing, steady and rasping and slow.

I turn, holding up the lantern. ‘Who’s there?’ I say sharply, wondering if Myo had someone with him after all. But wouldn’t the Patrol have found them? Wouldn’t whoever was with Myo have come to
help
him?

I hear a creak as something – or some
one
– moves. ‘It’s coming from over here,’ my brother whispers.

‘Stay with me.’ I reach into Myo’s satchel for the knife.

Jori screams.

Something barges past me, jolting the lantern and making it go out.

‘
Cass! Help! HELP!
’ Jori yells.

‘Where are you?’ I cry, whirling around.

Jori’s screams cut off abruptly.

I give up trying to find the knife and grab the torch instead, shining it in the direction Jori’s screams were coming from. There are two people at the back of the stage: a man with filthy bandages wrapped around his head and covering one arm, and a girl in a thin blue dress, her long, black hair hanging into her face. The man is holding Jori, one hand clamped across his mouth to silence him. In his other is a gun, which he’s pressing against my brother’s temple. Despite this, Jori’s struggling to get free, his eyes wide and terrified. The man grins at me, showing rotted, blackened teeth. A terrible smell comes off him in waves.

That’s when I see both he and the girl have silver-coloured eyes with enormous pupils.

‘This one’ll do,’ he says in a growling voice that brings memories of that terrible night seven years ago flooding back.

Before I can move, cry out, do anything, he leaps off the edge of the stage into the shadows, the girl flitting after them like a ghost.

‘JORI!’ I scream as they crash through the auditorium and up the steps. I run after them; my feet meet empty air as I plummet off the edge of the stage, and I land in a crumpled, winded heap, the torch flying from my hand and going dark as it skitters away across the floor.

I haul myself to my feet again, taking in a groaning, sobbing breath.
The Patrol
, I think as I stagger up the steps and through the moonlit lobby.
The Patrol will stop them
. I keep shouting my brother’s name as I run back up the street to the fence. As I frantically tug the mesh apart, I hear a cry, then a muffled-sounding
crack
over by the sea wall. My heart leaps. The Patrol must have caught the Fearless and shot them as they tried to get off the island. I push through the fence and start running again, my legs going weak with relief.

It isn’t until I get closer that I realize other people are shouting too. I see a cluster of lanterns; a small crowd of Patrollers gathered around a huddled shape lying at the base of the wall; other people running from the direction of the Meeting Hall and the Exchange. I reach the huddled shape at the same time as Rob and Sol, praying that it’s the Fearless man, that someone has Jori, and he’s safe.

But it isn’t the Fearless man. It isn’t the girl, either. It’s Patroller Cary, his eyes open but sightless, his mouth frozen in an ‘O’ of surprise, a small, bloody hole in the centre of his forehead.

There’s no sign of the Fearless or Jori anywhere.

I clap my hands across my mouth. Someone’s making a low keening sound which, when people start looking round, I realize is coming from me.

‘What the hell’s going on?’ Captain Denning pushes his way to the front of the little crowd gathered round Patroller Cary, and swears.