Ruin (The Ruin Saga Book 1) (29 page)

One of the faces was clearly Alexander’s, though much younger, perhaps no older than Norman was himself. Moments later, he glimpsed Lucian among the sea of dripping faces. His brow bore no sign of the signature crevasse that Norman knew so well, half-obscured by a shock of long, brown hair—luscious, vital locks of which there were now only silver, patchy remnants.

The others were a blur—except for a single figure that clearly did not belong in the picture. Didn’t belong at all. It stood off to one side, some distance behind the others, crouching over him without a trace of rain upon its body—almost as though the rain passed right through it. As though it were not really there. Its face was young and angular, carved with fine detail. Norman sensed an overbearing strength and sinister intent; the eyes staring out from the pale features seemed to see right through him—no, directly into him. Surrounding each eye was a dark streak, a halo of darkness around the glowing, white sclera.

He nodded to Alex and Lucian (their faces still younger, not yet buckled by time and strife), who still called out above Norman, bent close, shouting his name—though he could only tell from the movement of their lips, as their voices were no more than smeared, incoherent warbles.

Norman’s own voice spoke from the ether, as though he’d spoken aloud, voicing his thoughts. What is this?

The figure merely smiled. “
Remember, Norman
,” he said. “
Remember. You were all there. You
all
watched it happen
.”

And then he was gone.

The city’s palette of colours liquefied and reformed, swirling back into focus until the face of the man with the neckerchief was upon him, staring through the glass of his living-room window. For a moment, Norman felt a twinge of recognition, one tenfold stronger than the one he’d felt several nights before, by the campfire.

And then nothing.

Darkness.

He drifted.

Then he felt his body once more—his real body. He was being moved. Distantly, a twinge registered in the crook of his elbow, which built to a sharp pain, and something cold ran up his arm. Then nothing again.

“How is he?” said an addled voice, warped and inhuman. It hung in the ether, faint and undulating.

“I just gave him a shot. He should stop struggling soon,” another voice answered.

“Will he be okay?”

“I’m not sure. We’ll have to wait and see.”

Norman slid further into nothingness, and the voices became silent.

“Here,” Lucian said.

Allie started as a blanket enveloped her from behind. His rough fingers brushed her cheek and she sighed, running a hand over his wrist, blinking eyelids that felt like they were made of concrete. “Thanks,” she muttered.

She glanced over her shoulder and took in the sight of his grizzled silhouette. He looked terrible. “You’ve been up there again, haven’t you? In the hills. People are worried about you.” She hesitated. “I’m worried about you.”

He grunted. “Any change?”

She let it pass, returning her gaze to Norman’s bedside. “It’s like he’s never going to wake up.”

“He will. Give him time.” Lucian staggered over to the other side of the bed and looked down at Norman’s lax face. He glanced at her, then around at the darkened clinic. “You need to get out of here, let someone else watch him.”

“I’m fine.”

“You haven’t slept.”

She couldn’t help smiling at the sacks under his eyes and the wild angle of his unwashed hair. “Look who’s talking.”

His eyes bored into hers until she shifted and straightened. “I can’t help but feel responsible,” she said. “I was there not a minute before. There must have been some sign, something I missed.”

“Bullshit. You were the one who found him. If anything, everyone should be parading in here to thank you.” He grew quiet for a while, and gripped Norman’s forearm. “It’s me who’s responsible. I failed him.”

“What are you talking about?”

“It’s my job to keep us all safe.”

“There’s nothing you could have done.”

“There’s always something you can do.”

She pulled the blanket tighter over her shoulders, hoping some words of comfort she could offer would fall into her lap. They didn’t.

She settled for companionable silence. It was a strange thing, knowing that the two men before her had become her closest friends. When she had arrived in New Canterbury, coming up on two years before, she hadn’t expected to stay long. She had just been passing through.

Funny how things had turned out.

“What are you doing in here?” Lucian muttered.

She blinked. “What?”

“You heard me.”

She swallowed despite herself. “He’s hurt.”

“So let Heather patch him up. What do you care?” Despite the coarseness of his words, his tone was flat, probing, without edge.

She looked at Norman and found that her voice had abandoned her. What
did
she care?

Not long ago she had been taken in by the legend of the Champion just like everyone. He had been the paragon to which the masses could rally. Then she had been assigned to scavenging duty with him, and for a while thought him a bobblehead on which the city hung its hopes and dreams.

And now? Now that had changed again. He wasn’t the hero from the stories. How could anyone really be such a person?

But there was
something
about him. It was buried somewhere deep, so deep that maybe it was just her imagination playing tricks. He was no Champion, but he was no fool, no everyman. Lost, maybe, and frightened, like a deer staring down the barrel of a gun. Yet, though she tried to deny it, he plagued her thoughts.

“He’s my friend,” she said finally.

The slight curve of a faint smile touched Lucian’s lips. “Sure.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

He didn’t reply. His eyes had grown unfixed, glassy. For a while his knuckles whitened, gripping Norman’s sheets, and an ugly snarl flickered over his face. When he finally stepped back, his lips were twisted into a sour slant. “Get some sleep.” He stalked away into the gloom.

“Where are you going?”

“To keep watch. Nobody’s getting in here again. Not ever.”

Alexander watched Lucian carefully as he dropped a yellowed package before him.

His expression was quizzical for a moment, the wind blowing his hair until horizontal. A week’s stubble glittered on his chin. His hunched form was nothing but a shadow atop the hill, overlooking the darkening city. He opened the package with care, revealing its contents with a grunt. “Another?”

Alex sighed, looking down at the cathedral, and nodded.

Lucian sat silently beside his rifle as the pressed silver feather dropped into his hands, the grass lapping at his bare shins in the wind. It had been a hot day, and only now was the temperature beginning to drop. The tree line sat a hundred metres away, hidden by an evening heat wave that shimmered without pause.

Lucian’s face contorted into a grave mask: his eyes steely and his mouth a set, hard line.

Alex walked a small distance away and looked towards the sun as it began to dip below the horizon. He waited for a while, unmoving, his mind blank.

“Where did you get this?”

“My doorstep. Just like all the others.”

“When?”

Alex shook his head. “It could’ve been left any time.”

“How many is that now?”

“I’ve lost count.”

Lucian scowled. “What are we going to do about this?”

“I don’t know.”

“We can’t just sit around and do nothing.”

Alex rubbed the bridge of his nose, shielding his eyes from the glare of the sun. “You need to stop coming out here.” He turned to face him.

Lucian scowled. “And
you
need to stop shutting yourself away. People are looking to the kid, and he isn’t ready to say ‘Boo’ to a goose. So they look to me, and I—I can’t stop thinking that if I see anyone within a mile of this city, I’ll kill them. And it won’t matter who it is. I’ll pull the trigger all the same.”

Alex swallowed to loosen the lump forming in his throat. “I mean it,” he said. “You can’t be out here.”

Lucian looked taken aback. “Why?”

For a brief moment, Alex considered showing him the scrap of paper he’d found in the old man’s pocket, the one with so many of the city’s secrets scrawled across it: where their sniper nests were hidden, the guards’ shift-change times, where the entrances to the catacombs lay—even the elders’ names.

He hadn’t told a soul about that. It had taken a great deal of wile and patience to reposition each nest and change the sentry shifts without piquing anyone’s attention.

But, right now, Lucian looked on the verge of breakdown. He’d have to keep it to himself at least a while longer. His fingers, straying close to his back pocket, dropped back to his side.

He gestured to the darkening forest. “We’ve been attacked twice in as many weeks, two people are dead, and Norman is unconscious.”

Lucian only shrugged, looking away towards the forest. “I know that they come from the east,” he said. “They wouldn’t have come across the river, and the land to the North is too flat.” He looked back to Alex. “I know they’re out there.”

“You’ve seen them?”

“No… But I know they’re there. I can feel their eyes on me sometimes.”

Alex couldn’t quite keep his own gaze from flitting to the tree line. The forest suddenly seemed daunting, malicious. “All the more reason to stay back in the city,” he said.

Lucian ignored him. “How’s Norman?” he said.

“Heather says he’ll be fine.”

Lucian nodded. He turned slowly, squinting as the sun set in earnest. “Why him? He was too young to be responsible…he doesn’t even remember what happened. What could He want with him?”

“I don’t know.”

Alex pulled his coat tighter over his shoulders as a sudden gust of wind tore at his flank. It was cooling fast. The sun had dipped to a crescent of fire, slowly being consumed by the earth. He turned away and headed down the hill.

“You never get used to it, do you?” Lucian called.

Alex halted, looking out over the barren wasteland, where crops and vineyards had once been. His eyes swept past the blackened fields, towards Canterbury, broken and collapsing as the forest overtook the land, year upon year.

Lucian continued, “The silence. Sometimes I wonder whether there was ever anybody else here at all.”

Alex didn’t answer.

“We still have to figure out what to do about this.”

Alex nodded before continuing on towards the city.

Norman heard his breath whistle through his teeth long before he opened his eyes. The world, having been a blur for days, finally materialised. A harsh light bore down upon him from a fluorescent strip light fixed to the ceiling, clawing at his retinas.

He groaned, trying to turn his head away, but the weight of his chest seemed incredible, crushing. A stabbing ache in his intercostal muscles was rendered unbearable with each breath. He opened his mouth, felt stale air stir in his throat, and his cheeks move sluggishly against his teeth.

“Hello?” he called. His voice emerged clipped and broken.

The small effort brought such pain that he subsided, closing his eyes. He listened hard, trying to hear something—anything—over the rasp of his breath against his parched throat.

A bustling caught his attention: building footsteps from afar.

“You’re awake,” Heather said, appearing above him.

Norman ran his tongue around the inside of his mouth, trying to free his jaw from its concrete-like set. “What happened?” he croaked.

“You were attacked.”

“No, no, I remember that. What happened to Jason?”

“Who’s Jason?” Heather asked, absentminded as she bent over his bed and pushed two fingers against his wrist.

“The man who was in my house. He did this to me.”

She scribbled on a chart at the foot of his bed. “Yes, I know. We looked all over, but we couldn’t find anybody. But we did find out how they’ve been getting into the city. Lucian found a maintenance door to the sewer system, up on the hill. They’ve been going right underneath our guards and popping up wherever they please.”