Eden, p.20
Eden, page 20
The coyote appeared above him, just a couple of steps away. It came for them. Behind it, the larger shape of the wolf stood at the crest and watched.
Cove fell, and at first Jenn thought he’d stumbled, and feared that the beast would jump on him, pin him to the ground, do to him what had been done to Aaron.
But Cove was down on one knee, steadied against uneven rocks with his stick pointed up at the coyote. It paused and growled at him. The memory of pain gave it pause.
The lynx jumped at Lucy. She was ready, swinging her staff and striking the cat across the jaw. Its head snapped back and it fell, rolling over a couple of rocks and falling between two larger ones. It scrambled up, covered in muck and spitting blood.
“Go on!” Lucy said.
Jenn and Gee hurried onward, their footsteps cautious but firm down the rocky slope. The sound of flowing water surrounded them, and she was surprised that she’d only just noticed it. At the bottom of the wide fault in the dam, several streams foamed and surged through the tumbled rocks, while higher up—where they were, and where they had come from— she heard water flowing beneath their feet, carving routes through the fractured structure.
Cove shouted. Jenn steadied herself before looking back. He was trying to back down the uneven slope, waving the stick back and forth in front of him as the coyote advanced.
It grinned a bloody growl.
Her dad climbed back up and stood beside Cove, and the two of them shouted, repeating Jenn’s scream from earlier. The animal’s ears flattened against its skull and its head dipped down, reminding Jenn of a dog being told off. It dropped to its belly.
Behind it, the wolf raised its head and howled.
Jenn had heard wolves before, their calls echoing back and forth between frozen hillsides, or drifting through trees, or soaring from neighbouring valleys. There was something about the sound that gripped the deepest, most primeval part of her. A howling wolf spoke of the wildest of things, in a voice that was triumphant and free.
Louder, closer, this howl was terrifying, because it was a call to charge.
The lynx came across the rocks, the coyote stood and jumped, and behind it the wolf took a huge leap that brought it down among them.
There was no time to run. Jenn and Gee stood shoulder to shoulder, sticks raised. Selina crouched beside Cove and thrust forward with her weapon, tripping the coyote as it landed in front of Jenn’s father. He struck with his impromptu spear and the animal let out a high, pained whine.
The wolf landed on Selina’s other side and barrelled into her, knocking her onto her back and rolling right across her body and down the slope. It squirmed to its feet, and Jenn knew that a momentary hesitation would doom Selina to die with ripped throat and torn flesh.
Jenn and Gee attacked at the same time, Gee’s branch tangling with the wolf’s rear legs, Jenn’s stick striking its head across the flash of white fur. The impact jarred along her arm and she hoped something had broken. As Selina rolled and stood, Jenn pulled back and struck again, but the wolf had already twisted away and turned its head. It snapped its powerful jaws down onto the end of her stick, its teeth crunched through the wood. Spittle flecked the air, and its smell was stronger than ever.
Past the wolf and slightly uphill, her father was stabbing at the coyote. It thrashed away from him, falling between rocks, barking in fear rather than fury now. Cove advanced and beat at it, taking advantage of its retreat.
“Help me!” Lucy shouted. She was on her back with her foot stuck between two rocks, and the lynx fell on her legs, slashing and hissing. She had her stick held across her stomach and pressed into the creature’s throat, keeping its snapping jaws at bay while its back paws scraped across her legs, again and again. Her shouting turned into a scream.
Cove ran and jumped, dropping his stick and tangling both hands into the lynx’s fur, one across its shoulder, the other grabbing at its ear and lifting its head. He propped one foot against a rock and shoved, pushing the cat from Lucy and falling across her himself. He struggled to hold onto the animal.
Jenn stepped towards the wolf, not away, and it reared back in surprise, releasing her splintered stick and allowing her to draw back and prod it in one ear. It yelped and backed away. She edged towards Cove and Lucy and swung, trying to judge distance and angle, knowing that if she was wrong she might doom at least two of her friends to a bloody death.
“Head down!” she shouted, and still gripping the lynx, Cove lowered his face into Lucy’s stomach.
Jenn’s stick connected with the back of the lynx’s neck. It missed Cove’s skull by a hand’s width, and one of his hands by even less.
Stunned, the animal rolled onto its side, legs moving in the air as if dreaming of running.
Cove was on his knees beside Lucy, looking her up and down and breathing heavily. Her own stick lay across her stomach, hands clawing at the air. They were covered in blood.
Jenn stepped close beside Cove and swung again across Lucy’s body, catching the lynx on the head. Again, again, and on the next hit she heard a crunching impact, and the cat’s legs movements sped up. It emitted a strange, almost childlike whine, and she felt a moment of intense pity. She hated killing anything. Her mother had once told her off for squishing a fly: That’s a living thing, more amazing than anything humans have made.
Its life or ours, she thought, and one more hard swing put the creature out of its misery. The mess splashed from its ear across damp grey rock reminded her of Aaron.
“Babe,” Cove said, leaning across Lucy. His arms mimicked hers, held up and out and unable to touch anywhere. There was nowhere to touch without hurting her more.
As quickly as it had begun, the attack ended. The wolf bounded up out of the slumped area of dam, back onto the level crest. The coyote followed, limping and leaving a trail of blood. Jenn’s father took a step in pursuit. His spear was snapped near the tied knife and splashed with gore, with more splattered up his arm.
“Dad,” Jenn said. He turned and she caught his eye. He blinked and nodded. Chasing the wounded animal would do them no good. They had to use this opportunity to escape.
Gee and Selina faced up the slope at where the creatures had disappeared. The angle meant that they might be waiting only a few metres out of sight along the crest. Or maybe they were stalking down the front face of the dam, ready to cross onto the fallen scree and come at them from below.
Lucy groaned.
“Oh, babe!” Cove said again.
Jenn crouched beside her wounded friend, afraid of what she would see, already trying not to imagine having to carry her with them. Please let her just be cut and grazed. Please don’t let me see anything I shouldn’t. Jenn had seen enough stuff that belonged inside a body to last a lifetime.
“Don’t!” Lucy shouted. Cove let go of her arm.
“You’ve got to get up!” he said.
She pointed at her foot where it was wedged down between two rocks. Blood welled and dribbled from a dozen cuts in her thighs and across her left knee.
Jenn saw, and squeezed her eyes shut.
“We’ve got to get down as fast as—” her father began.
“Dad, Lucy’s leg is broken.” Trapped in a space between two rocks, her foot was almost at ninety degrees to her leg. It was already swollen, skin exposed below her running tights stretched and shiny across the misshapen nub of her shattered ankle.
Her father stood over them with blood on his face. It wasn’t his.
“We carry her,” he said. “Down there.” He pointed behind him, down at where the flood had swept across the landscape below the dam. It made sense to go down, but the terrain there was as harsh as where they were now. The going would be slow and torturous, even more so carrying Lucy. She whined with each exhalation. Jenn knew the pain must be excruciating.
“There’s a building,” Jenn said.
“Huh?”
“There. At the far end of the dam, at the toe.” She’d only just perceived the shape, and now that she saw it, it was obvious, like an image emerging from a Rorschach painting.
“Power plant,” Gee said. “It’ll have been flooded.”
“Part of it’s standing,” Selina said. She hung onto Jenn’s father, one hand pressed to the back of her head. Blood dribbled down her arm.
“Somewhere to hole up,” Cove said. “See to her.”
“Don’t you dare fucking touch me,” Lucy said. “I’ll rip your throat out myself.” She sounded angry and afraid at the same time, because she knew what was to come.
“It’s going to hurt,” Cove said, leaning in close. Jenn had never heard him sound so tender. Lucy pressed her lips together, put her arms around his neck, and nodded.
It did hurt. By the time her screaming had echoed away, and Cove and Gee carried Lucy between them, she had passed out.
Jenn couldn’t see the wolf or the coyote, but as they made their way down and across the detritus from the broken dam towards whatever remained of the building, she sensed eyes on them. Intelligent, scheming eyes.
27
“Total recorded worldwide statistics as follows (it has been assumed that unrecorded statistics are substantial, but no reasonable estimate is available):
Zone infiltrations (groups consisting of 3 or more individuals): 776
Infiltrators captured: 377
Known infiltrators not accounted for: 1633 (this statistic also refers to known infiltrators not caught in the months or years following infiltration of specific Zones)
Infiltrators killed (during contact with Zone Protection Forces): 1880”
Leaked document from United Zone Council 9th Annual General Meeting
It might have been easier if Lucy had died.
It was an awful thought, but Dylan couldn’t shake it. He wasn’t sure if it was selfish, or pitiful, or right, because his mind was still running a thousand miles per hour and everything around him seemed so distant. Each step took a minute. Each breath of breeze against his skin was a long, slow exhalation. Every time he breathed, he took in more of Eden.
Somewhere deep down was a strange sense of relief that the mounting pressure had finally blown, first with Aaron being taken, and now this latest attack. It had been coming since they had crossed the river border. He’d felt it more than the others, but for a while he’d put it down to the fact that Kat had come to Eden and was perhaps still here. A sense of foreboding, an idea that her presence was a held breath ready to release a scream. He’d been stupid. Eden didn’t give a fuck about him, or her, or their human thoughts or conflicts. They were nothing more than a virus.
The others would be looking to him. For now they had a destination close by, and their blood was still up, adrenalin pumping and heightening their senses. The fight or flight instinct had drawn them towards their primeval cores, and they had both fought and flown. Taking on what Eden sent against them had brought them closer to the Zone.
Soon, though, there would be a pause. Lucy required attention, Selina had banged her head, and he noticed cuts on Gee’s hand from his splintered stick. Dylan’s own make-do spear was snapped, gnawed through by the beast’s teeth. He could still smell its breath, meaty and rank.
With Lucy out of action, they had to pause and take stock.
Fight or flight, he thought. Now, there really was no option. To stay and attempt to fight was hopeless. They had fended off three powerful animals, but what if the next attack came from a whole pack of wolves? A family of lynx? A grizzly?
They had to get out of Eden.
They kept their wits about them, expecting the wolf and coyote to attack from a different direction. But there was no sign of them. At the toe of the ruptured dam Cove took Lucy onto his back, holding her as gently as he could. Conscious again, she cried out. Blood ran down her legs and dripped from her feet, one still wearing a trainer, the other bare and swollen. They hadn’t assessed the damage properly, but Dylan thought he’d seen the pale nub of cracked bone protruding from her calf.
They crossed the flood-altered terrain. Jenn and Selina led the way, picking a route across the many streams, keeping to rocks where they could to avoid the waterlogged ground between. Further away from the dam and down the valley were places where heavy silt had been laid down and plants had flourished in the fertile ground. This close, the flood had stripped away much of the topsoil to expose the harder surfaces beneath.
Cove muttered to Lucy as he carried her, and sometimes she replied. Dylan couldn’t hear what was being said, and was glad. Their stormy relationship was often on show, but such tenderness should only be between them. Events were breaking down petty tensions. What worried Dylan were the cracks he saw in Cove. He was strong, confident and full of bluff and bluster, but now his eyes were wide with watery shock.
The closer they got to the ruined building, the more Dylan realised it might offer them no shelter at all. It had once been quite large, but some of the outer walls had collapsed, most of the roof had slumped down, and three huge ducts leading from its lower edge now resembled hollow, holed bones, covered in moss and home to nesting birds and scampering lizards. They approached the ruin along a wide channel, possibly a canal formed from concrete but now smoothed over by time, its sharp edges blurred by soil and shrubs, grass and creeping plants. Birds sang at their arrival, as if celebrating what had happened.
“We’ll go ahead and check,” Jenn said, Selina still beside her.
“I’ll go with you.” Gee was flanked by the two women as they neared the fallen building. They paused, and Selina hefted a fist-sized rock. She launched it overarm and it disappeared onto the roof, clattering several times as it bounced from metal and wood. It sounded like it fell inside the structure.
Something called out, high and loud. Movement to their left startled Dylan, and he braced himself in front of Cove and Lucy, broken spear held across his chest.
Birds took wing, emerging from bushes and trees alongside one half-fallen wall and fanning out above them. A few rabbits followed. Selina and Gee threw several more rocks, and undergrowth rustled and whispered as startled animals vacated the old building.
“Now anything left in there isn’t afraid of us,” Selina said.
“Comforting,” Gee said, and he gestured with his stump. “After you.”
* * *
The first part of the ruin was open to the elements and didn’t feel safe. The roof had collapsed, steel purlins rusted and slumped, and they had to negotiate a network of leaning beams, cracked concrete and fallen masonry walls. Lucy was moaning now, and once when Cove nudged her leg against a beam she cried out, a high scream that faded into a long, drawn-out groan.
“We’ve got to see to her,” Dylan said. “Selina, Jenn, go ahead and see if there’s anywhere safer and defendable. For now we’ll do some first aid here.” He saw the fear in everyone’s features.
“Defendable,” Selina said. “Right.”
“Over there,” Dylan said to Cove, pointing into a corner. The large room they were in might once have been an open-plan office. Some scraps of furniture remained, wood rotted away, but metal legs, chair wheels and artificial coverings were scattered around. The ceiling hung low, services spewing from broken ducts resembling the innards of some vast creature. Wires dangled, with spider webs spanning between them. Copper pipes were exposed and cracked from constant weather extremes. Plants grew from holed air-conditioning ducts like hairs on facial moles.
The corner of the room was clear. Two walls remained standing, and the ceiling was mostly whole. It had once been a corner office, but glass had been smashed from the partitions, and a once-grand oak desk was green with mould. Dylan swept his stick across the desk’s surface, scattering the detritus of decades. The surface beneath was solid and whole.
Cove backed up to the desk and gently lowered Lucy’s behind onto it, while Gee held her leg to make sure it didn’t impact the desk’s side. She was frowning, concentrating on not screaming. As Cove and Dylan held her beneath the arms and pulled her further onto the desk, Gee straightened her leg and rested it on the surface.
Lucy groaned aloud when she saw the damage. The cuts from the lynx’s claws were bad and still weeping, but none of them had hit an artery. They could be bandaged and sewn if needed, and Selina had one medical pack she’d rescued from the camp. The real problem was the break in her lower leg.
“Gee,” Dylan said. They all had first aid training, but with Aaron gone, Gee was the most experienced.
“Gonna need help,” he said, holding up his stump.
With Cove sat on the desk nursing Lucy’s head in his lap, Gee went about examining her leg. After a couple of minutes he sighed.
“Chop it off,” Lucy said. She laughed, but it was pained.
“You might end up losing it,” Gee said. “It’s a bad break— bone’s splintered and snapped in at least two places, I reckon. It hasn’t quite broken the skin, but there’s a lot of tissue damage and internal bleeding, swelling pretty nicely. It’s lucky you didn’t pop an artery.”
“Yeah, I’m so lucky.”
“We can splint it, but you’re not walking anytime soon.”
“I’ll carry her,” Cove said.
“We can share,” Dylan said.
“No. I’ll carry her.”
“Fucking show-off,” Lucy whispered.
Gee was still looking at her, and Dylan sensed there was more to say. “Gee?”
“Those cuts from the lynx. I’ll clean them as much as I can, and cover them, but an animal’s claws are hotbeds of bacteria from rotting meat, mud, shit. You’ll get infected. We lost our antibiotics at the camp. Selina might know some plants we can use, but…”
“That means going out there to find them,” Dylan said.
“We need to just get the fuck out of here,” Lucy said. “I can get fixed up and pumped full of medicine when we’re out of Eden.”
“That’ll take longer now,” Dylan said quietly. They would move as fast as they could, which was as fast as the slowest person. Cove would carry Lucy, but he’d be going at half his normal speed, and if and when they encountered obstacles—valleys, cliffs, rivers—they’d have to negotiate each one differently.
