Phantoms of the North: An Alice in Deadland Adventure (Alice, No. 6) (6 page)

‘Ladies and gentlemen, boys and
girls, humans and Biters of all ages. On the dance floor is our very own Alice.
As things would have it, this CD has a song that goes out just to her. Some of
you old-timers may recognize it. Now, let’s dance!’

He jumped off the makeshift stage
and grabbed Sayoni, pulling her onto the dance floor as the song began.

Alice held onto Bunny Ears’ good
hand as they moved to the music. Alice looked up at Bunny Ears. Biters couldn’t
smile, could they? But Alice swore she saw something there. Who had he been
before The Rising? What had brought them together on their journey—pure
coincidence or something else? Her mom had sometimes said that everything
happened for a reason, so what was the reason that had made Alice’s life take
the path it had? She wanted to know Bunny Ears’ real name, wanted to know what
he had done before The Rising, wanted to ask him if he had a girlfriend back
then. But Alice knew that she would never get answers to all those
questions—all she would know was that she had a friend who would gladly give
his life for her, and that she would do the same for him. That was more than
enough for her. As they danced, Alice realized that all her earlier
reservations were gone.

Sometimes the best way to feel
included was to seek out the company of another outsider like yourself.

***

‘Was that a gunshot?’

Arjun looked up at Alice, and she
could see that he had perhaps had one cup too many of the wine some of the men
had brewed. ‘Alice, enjoy yourself. There’s no Zeus, no Red Guards, nothing out
there. For the first time, I feel alive again.’

Alice must have been mistaken. She
sat down next to him. Bunny Ears stood nearby, still nodding his head in tune
to the music that was playing. The party was still in full swing, and Arjun was
hardly the only one who was drunk. Aalok was screaming and jumping off the
stage repeatedly. He kept saying ‘banzai’ as he jumped, then would climb back
up on stage and repeat the act. Sayoni was holding her stomach and laughing
uncontrollably. Haroula came by with a glass in her hand.

‘Alice, this is the greatest gift
you have given to all of us.’

When Alice looked at her,
wondering what she meant, Haroula leaned down and hugged her.

‘My girl, the freedom to laugh, to
be silly, to celebrate the here and now with those you care about. There is
perhaps nothing more precious in the world and we have you to thank for it.’

Alice shrank back as Haroula
kissed her on the forehead and then Haroula tousled Alice’s hair. At that
moment, Alice so wished she could cry. Her mom had lovingly combed her hair
with her fingers in the exact same way. Haroula looked into Alice’s eyes.

‘My girl, what makes you beautiful
is who you are inside. You can see that in your friend Bunny Ears, why do you
assume others can’t see the same with you?’

As Haroula walked off to join the
party, Arjun had a fresh glass in his hand.

‘I was a shoe salesman before The
Rising, and a damn good one at that. I worked my ass off every day, and never
really had time to spend with my family. When The Rising happened, I was as
usual late at work, and my parents were all alone with nobody to protect them.
Selling shoes, goddamn shoes!’

He spat on the ground and tears
welled up in his eyes.

‘We were so busy with our jobs,
with our targets, our bonuses, that we forgot what really mattered. The Rising
may have taken away so much, but at least for me, it has given me that sense of
perspective back. All that matters now is keeping our home safe, our people
safe and happy. Isn’t that more meaningful a life than getting promoted to
Divisional Sales Head and wearing a cheap tie and filling in spreadsheets of
how many shoes you’ve sold?’

Alice knew nothing of life before
The Rising, but she had seen how people could be enticed by material things.
The people of Wonderland had almost lost their liberty to a ploy by the Central
Committee that had played precisely upon this weakness.

Doctor Edwards came by, pulling
behind him a visibly drunk Norbert. ‘While I may be much older than my
assistant here, it seems like my ability to hold my drink is also much more
than his.’

They sat down next to her and
while Norbert curled up on the ground and began snoring almost immediately,
Edwards grinned at Alice.

‘Everyone vaccinated, no more
infections. Who would have thought that possible just a few years ago? Now if
only I could find some way of reversing the process among Biters.’

‘Can that be done?’

‘Before The Rising, we would have
been able to map their DNA, understand what mutations have caused them to be
the way they are, but now we just don’t have the facilities. Yet. I say that
because we are on our way back to how we were—give it a few years and we may have
those kinds of labs up and running again, and perhaps we will find a cure. Now,
let me go and find a more comfortable place for my assistant to sleep.’

Sayoni came by, with Aalok hanging
onto her still saying ‘banzai’.

‘I need some help with our town drunk
here. Can someone help me lug him home?’

Arjun got up and grabbed Aalok and
hefted him over his shoulder.

‘Just tell me where to dump him.’

As they walked away, Alice looked
at Bunny Ears.

‘No sleep for us, eh? What do you
do at night, Bunny Ears? I sit and close my eyes and pretend that I’m
dreaming—of my Dad, my Mom, Jane and all the others I’ve known. Do you think of
your parents?’

Of course Bunny Ears could not
speak back, but he sat down and placed his hand on Alice’s. She looked at him
with a smile.

‘You do understand, don’t you?
What was your name? Do you remember it?’

He growled as if in frustration
and then got back up abruptly.

‘It’s OK. It doesn’t matter what
your name was. You’re just Bunny Ears to me now, aren’t you?’

But then Alice sensed that
something else was bothering Bunny Ears. He bared his teeth and growled loudly.
A couple of people nearby looked at him in alarm and now Alice was on her feet
as well.

‘Turn off the music,’ she shouted.

As the music was stopped, they all
heard it. The distant pop of automatic gunfire and the screeches of terrified
Biters.

***

Alice was the first to reach the
nearest Jeep and screamed out to anyone who was within earshot.

‘Come on! Sounds like it’s coming
from the direction of the farmland.’

Salil was there in a second,
carrying his rifle. Clearly she was not the only one to not let her guard down.
Haroula joined them a second later as did Bunny Ears.

‘Haroula, you don’t even have a
weapon with you.’

‘Then lend me your handgun. It’s
my farm.’

That settled it and they drove
off, with another Jeep carrying Brittany, Arjun and a couple of others in it
just a few minutes behind them.

Salil drove as fast as he dared in
the darkness. He had kept the headlights off so as not to present an easy
target for whoever was out there, but within a few seconds, there was no more
gunfire to be heard. Whatever had gone down at the farm had ended, and Alice
feared they would arrive way too late.

‘Haroula, who was at the farm?’

The old woman had a haunted look
on her face. She too knew that they were going to be too late and her decision
to leave behind only two sentries was weighing heavily on her conscience.

‘Just two guards. Kevin and Kris.
Just two of them. I never thought…’

She never completed her sentence
as someone fired from their left. In the darkness, they missed but their muzzle
flash gave away their position. Their enemies did not have night vision scopes,
but Alice did. She spotted them in the ghostly green glow of her scope. Two
men, carrying Enfield rifles, partially hidden behind a small rise about twenty
meters away. She whispered to Salil.

‘Slow down.’

Alice jumped out of the Jeep as
their attackers fired again, this time kicking up dust around the Jeep’s tires.
Alice took one more look at them through her scope and then slung her rifle
across her back. Then she went towards them, carrying her handgun in one hand
and knife in the other. They were easy to stalk, as their muzzle flashes kept
giving away their position. Alice reasoned they were either very stupid or very
desperate to keep firing away against unknown odds from a static, partially
exposed position. She circled around, coming in from behind them. As one of
them leaned out to fire from his rifle, Alice shot him in the back. There was
no question of being chivalrous. Alice had learned at an early age that what
mattered was that you came back alive and the other guy didn’t.

The second man turned to face this
unexpected threat and Alice kicked away his rifle. He made a clumsy lunge
towards her. She parried with her knife hand and kneed him in the face.
Bleeding from his nose, the man fell back heavily on the ground, That was when
Alice noticed that both men were bleeding profusely from gunshot wounds to the
leg. She brought her handgun up.

‘Come with me.’

The man pleaded with her, ‘Don’t
kill me, please.’

‘If I wanted you dead, you’d
already be dead.’

She dragged him out of their cover
and saw Salil there waiting for her.

‘Let me get this piece of dirt.’

He threw the man across the back
of the Jeep. There was no need to restrain him, He was already in a lot of pain
from his wounds and screamed in terror as he saw Bunny Ears sitting above him.

They drove on towards the farm and
Alice began to see bodies lying by the side of the road. At least four men, all
bandits like the man she had captured. She hoped Kevin and Kris were still
alive, but even if they were not, they had clearly put up a hell of a fight.
The lights in the farm were on, and the walls bore testament to a fierce
battle. Many of the walls were pockmarked with bullets and there were blood
trails all over the place where wounded men had tried to find safety. As Alice
took a look around, the second Jeep arrived and Arjun was right behind her. He
had totally sobered up.

‘Have those bandits lost their
minds?’

Alice said nothing, still taking
it all in. The bandits had never attacked Wonderland or their farms. Indeed,
they had never ventured this close to Wonderland in at least a couple of years.
She spotted some movement on the second floor of the barn and pointed to it.

‘Someone’s up there. Have a look.’

Salil and Brittany ran up, their
rifles at the ready, and a couple of minutes later, Salil called out.

‘They’re ours. Both are badly
wounded.’

Two more men ran up and helped
them carry down Kevin and Kris, both bleeding from multiple wounds. Haroula had
tears in her eyes and ran up to them.

‘Thank God you’re alive. Get them
back to the clinic.’

As they were loaded up in one of
the Jeeps, Kevin called out to Alice.

‘We thought they were bandits and
fired on them when they came into the farm, but there were two men on horses.
They carried automatic weapons and knew what they were doing. We fought as long
as we could, but then we took shelter in the barn. Sorry we couldn’t get them
all.’

Alice held his hand.

‘You did real good. I counted six
dead and at least two wounded. Against odds like that, you did more than anyone
could have asked for. Who were the men on horses? I’ve seen only a handful of
horses out here, and never seen any bandit on horseback.’

‘They were no bandits, Alice. They
were dressed in cloaks and their faces were masked, and they rode like devils,
turning and firing from horseback. They had us cornered in the barn but they
took a look around and then just melted away.’

As Kevin was carried to the Jeep
and one Jeep drove back to Wonderland with the two wounded men, Alice surveyed
the carnage around them. Something made no sense. Arjun had come up next to
her.

‘What’s on your mind?’

‘Bandits attacking a defended
settlement like this is rare, but even if I assume they got desperate and
attacked, it doesn’t add up.’

Arjun raised his eyebrows.

‘They took nothing. Kevin and Kris
were wounded and holed up in the barn. They could have looted clothes, food,
tools—anything they wanted. But they took nothing. They just got into the farm
and went away after looking for some time.’

‘Well, we have someone who can
answer that.’

She called out to Salil, and he
pulled the captured bandit in front of them. The man was in obvious pain and
looked to be on the verge of tears. Alice called out to Bunny Ears.

‘Come here. This man may not be as
co-operative as we would want, and you could help him understand what we need.’

Bunny Ears walked up next to the
bandit and growled close to his ears. The man shrank back in fear.