The Vanished (6 page)

A dead boy floats in a lake.

The water is still and black. Soft ripples spread in concentric circles as the boy’s arms open wider and wider. There is no noise.

The picture freezes. It shakes and then the world around me explodes in a boom. There’s a rata-rata-rata; a horrible, relentless noise. I cover my ears, but it’s too late for my eyes because they’ve seen it and they can never forget it – the sight of the bodies lying lifeless in cars. Blood soaked clothes. Blood stained helmets. Blood splattered windshields.

There’s a boy in front of me. His face is perfect and smiling. His eyes dark and kind and I know this boy. He’s trying to tell me something, but I can’t hear over the gun shots. Then the world falls silent again and I sigh with relief because then I will hear his voice but I can’t. I can’t hear him. He’s silent. The world is silent. I can’t hear anything.

And his face changes, starting at the lips which swell and protrude into something pink and glossy. The skin stretches tighter and hair grows longer and into a red curly mane. There’s a sneer on those lips, one which results in a familiar stomach turn, and I feel the scream in my throat trying to escape. But I can’t make a sound. I can’t even gurgle. My hands move up to my throat and she smiles.

She leans forward, her piercing eyes finding mine, searching me; searching my soul. She leans forward until our noses almost touch and then she whispers something in my ear. I hear the sound of her voice, but I wish I hadn’t.

“This is all your fault,” she says.

*

I woke up to soaked sheets and shouting outside my trailer window. Bleary eyed and shaken, I climbed out of bed and pulled the curtain back to see Sebastian shouting at a bulky man outside the market.

“What’s going on?” Kitty wandered into my room, rubbing her eyes. She looked long and lean in small shorts and a vest top. I tried to suppress a twinge of jealousy. We’d been trailer mates since Ali sorted out my accommodation. Before we’d shared a spare trailer together Kitty had been living in the barn. She had always preferred to be away from people but was trying to become more accustomed to being around people. It was her way of learning how to fit into society.

“I think I need to go out there. It’s Sebastian.” I rammed my feet into boots, still in my unattractive flannel pyjamas.

Kitty squinted out of the window. “What are they fighting about?”

“That’s that I intend to find out.” I barged past her in the tiny space I call my bedroom, which doubled up as the living room and the kitchen, to open the door and step out into the freezing cold.

“The Clone pushed me,” shouted an angry man. “He shoved past an’ put his stinkin’ Clone hands on me fer no good reason. Why should I calm down? He’s filth.”

“I did no such thing,” Sebastian shouted back. The two men were face to face, just inches apart, while a group gathered round. “We bumped shoulders, you old fool.”

The man, who was short and stocky with brown hair greying at the temples, pushed Sebastian with both hands, shoving him backwards. Sebastian stumbled for a few steps before regaining his balance. “Who you calling an old fool,
boy
?”

“Who are you calling boy?” Sebastian squared up to him. I’d never seen him look so furious before. His cheeks were bright pink and his eyes wide and feral. His jaw was set which made his usual soft features appear cruel.

“That’s enough!” I yelled, stepping in between the two of them.

“Get away from me, Freak!” The man pushed me away at the shoulder and I fell to the floor, jolting my knee. “First the Clone and now you want a piece of me.” He beat his chest. “I’m sick of this place, letting in scum like you. Genetically engineered
scum
.” He spat on the floor, the disgusting pile of phlegm landing so close to me I had to squirm away from it. My stomach turned.

“That’s it.” Sebastian flew at the man, throwing a punch, but he was nowhere near as experienced as his opponent who ducked and landed a punch to Sebastian’s kidneys.

“Let’s ‘ave it then.” The man stepped back, waggling his fingers to encourage the fight. He had wide eyes and a devilish grin. “Let’s see what yer made of. All you Clones are made fer violence, everyone knows that. Aggressive little shits. Let’s see if you can take a piece of me.”

Sebastian straightened up, wincing at the pain in his side. His face was red with rage and frustration. He flew at the man, fists flailing, screaming a battle cry as he went. This time the grey haired man had no chance of ducking. Sebastian punched him straight in the face and blood spurted from the man’s nose. I’d had enough.

“Stop it!” I shrieked. The heat of my own anger focused through my mind, and before I knew it, I’d pushed the two men away from each other, picking them up and tossing them. The crowd gasped and screamed.

“What the hell?” the man pulled himself up from the ground. “You freak bitch! You did that! What the hell are you?”

I ignored him and ran over to Sebastian, helping him to his feet. I turned back to the man. “You have no idea what I am or what I am capable of. You leave me and my friends alone.” I turned to the crowd. “That goes for you all. Leave us alone or you will find out just what I can do.”

A man in a white coat jogged over to us. It was Dr Woods from the Council. “What happened here?”

“A fight,” I replied. “That man started it.”

The doctor tutted as he placed a medical kit to the ground. Sebastian had a cut lip and he held his side. “It doesn’t matter who started it. It matters that people got hurt.” He reached into his bag for a bottle of fluid and a cotton wool ball before dabbing Sebastian’s face with it. “And it might not be my place to say this, but do you really think it is wise using your superhuman powers or whatever they are in front of the people? We’re trying to keep the peace among these people and it doesn’t help when you stir up trouble––”

“I told you––”

“Yes, you said he started it. But you finished it.” He glared at me. “You are the one with the ability to scare the people here with your powers. Just keep that in mind.” He packed away the cotton wool and fluid whilst shaking his head. “That is no behaviour for a girl. Maybe you should go back inside your trailer and keep out of it. Now, I’m going to check on Tobias.” The doctor snapped his medical kit shut and walked away. The crowd had filtered out, with just a few stragglers turning to stare at us as they went back to their business.

“Can you believe that guy? He blamed us,” I said.

Sebastian sighed and pushed his hands into his knees. The blotchy red of his cheeks faded to a pasty grey. “He had a point, Mina. It’s going to be hard enough for me to fit in here without you tossing the locals around.”

“A thank you would have been nice,” I snapped. “You weren’t doing much for your image either. What were you thinking throwing punches like that? You should just walk away.”

“Thanks for the almighty power of hind-sight there.” He sighed again. “I don’t know what happened. I just lost it. I’ve never felt like that before. Except for…” he trailed off.

“Except when?” I probed.

“The time when you were being drowned in the river by the Enforcer.”

The hairs stood up on the back of my neck. My dream. The dead boy in the lake. The memory of when Sebastian killed the Enforcer saving my life. I tried to shake it off. “Come on. We should get away from these people.”

“I’m going to help Ali and Ginge set up the stall,” he said.

“Will you be okay?”

“Mina,” he said with a half-smile, “I’ll be fine.”

I watched Sebastian disappear through the trailers on his way to the market. Mothers snatched their children, pulling them away from him as he passed them, as though he had a disease. This wasn’t good. After just a month Sebastian found himself in trouble with the people in the Compound and I just made things worse. Dr Woods was right. I should never have used my gift in front of them, although I didn’t see what me being a girl had to do with anything. It struck me as a strange thing to say, and an even worse thing to believe.

Kitty stood by the door, shifting from one foot to the other. “I saw what you did.”

“I’m not in the mood for a lecture.”

“No, I wouldn’t.” She lurched forward and took me by the shoulders. Kitty had no concept of personal space, and what she thought was soothing was usually just unnerving. I was starting to get used to her. “I think you did the right thing.”

“You do? But it’s just stirring up trouble between us and them.” I wanted to get dressed and make a cup of tea. This day had begun with the worst start possible, and I wanted some normality. Unfortunately, privacy was another concept lost on Kitty.

“Us and them,” she said. “What does that even mean? It’s silly.” She giggled. “You did it to stop Sebastian getting hurt. It’s like your dad always says: if the power used comes from a good place – it’s a good thing.”

I bristled as she mentioned my dad. I hated being reminded that he had been looking after other children apart from me. “I know what my dad says.”

Kitty flushed. “I was just trying to help.” She dropped her eyes from mine and her smile froze.

“Kitty,” I said. “I’m sorry I didn’t mean to––”

She put her hands up as though in protest. “It’s fine. I know what you meant.”

With a few nimble steps she was gone, blonde hair swishing after her. The door slammed, and I had all the privacy I needed.

“You punch like a girl.” Mike grinned at me behind the punch-bag. He was spotting me while Dad and Hiro meditated upstairs in the barn. Kitty was nowhere to be seen, but we’d guessed she was wandering around the Compound border. She did that when she was upset – like a caged cat.

I hit back, harder, almost knocking Mike to the floor. “I’ve been holding back. Didn’t want to hurt you.”

He snorted and regained composure. “No chance of that, sister.”

He’d taken to calling me sister and Hiro “bro” which was strange slang that I’d never heard of before. “Where are you from, anyway?” I asked after finishing a round of jabs to the punch-bag.

Mike grinned again. “London.”

I stopped punching to listen. “How is that possible? You’re not a Clone are you?”

Mike pulled a disgusted face. “Of course not! My parents were in the resistance.”

The Ministry kept London free from all non-GEM families because they didn’t want trouble from the Resistance. I’d always wondered how they lived and even fantasised about joining them, even after my mother’s disappearance, or maybe because of it.

“You were in the London Resistance? Where did you live?” I pulled off my boxing gloves and tossed them to the floor.

“Oh, I get it,” he said with a smirk. “You like danger.” He grinned again and ran his fingers through his hair. “We moved around a lot. Disused buildings… sympathiser’s basements… things like that. We stayed in churches a lot.”

“Churches?”

“Yeah,” he continued. “The clergy were anti-cloning, but the high-powered ones pretended to be pro so they could keep their funding and their middle-class GEM family clients. But secretly they hid the Resistance in the cellars of the churches where we make bombs and plot attacks.”

“You
bombed
people?” I asked.

He winced a little. “Well, not
exactly
. I’ve only known about two or three terrorist attacks in the last few years, and none of them were carried out by my family. There are different levels when you work in the Resistance. My parents were more the making pamphlets kind rather than bombing Ministry buildings kind.”

“Where are your parents now?”

Mike winced again. “They’re dead.”

“I’m so sorry,” I said.

“Can I join you?” Kitty interrupted the tension. She stood in the doorway to the barn shifting her weight from one foot to the other as though on hot coals. She had a lot of nervous energy and continuously either flicked her hair or fiddled with her clothes. Since we’d been living together I’d noticed how she sometimes raised her head as though hearing a distant sound. She was tuned in to the environment around her, and every movement was cat-like and dainty. She reminded me of a lion or tiger, the kind of big cat that my dad would show me documentaries about in the basement of our house.

“Sure,” I said with what I hoped was a friendly smile. “Mike was just telling me about living in London with the Resistance.”

She rolled her eyes. “Oh,
that
, story. I’ve heard that a lot, trust me. Imagine being the only two Freaks in the whole Compound.” She slipped her arm between Mike’s. “He’s been chewing my ear off about the damn thing this entire time.”

Mike shrugged at me. “She loved it. Couldn’t take her hands off me.”

The two of them erupted into giggles while I wondered what it had been like for them to live here alone without parental control. I soon found out why they hadn’t gone off the rails when Mary stepped into the barn.

“What have I told you two, eh?” she called.

Mike and Kitty jumped away from each other like two lovers caught in a clinch. Kitty looked at the floor and twirled a strand of messy hair around her finger.

Mary was upon us with just a few long strides, she walked with the kind of confidence which swung her hips with swagger. Even when stationary she exuded something like a powerful nonchalance. She hooked her fingers into her belt loops and jerked a chin at me.

“Yer dad around, lass?”

I nodded. “He’s on the platform upstairs, meditating with Hiro.”

Her face brightened a little at the sound of Hiro’s name. It seemed that the little boy had a fan club and I wasn’t surprised. I’d been pretty enamoured with him since the first time we met.

“I’ll pop up and have a wee chat with ‘im then, eh.” She smiled, and her face crinkled at the corners of her mouth and eyes. “You doin’ ok, lass?”

“Sure,” I said.

She tapped me on the shoulder with the palm of her hand. “Ye know where I am.”

The three of us watched Mary walk away with her thumbs still pushed low into the belt loops of her trousers. I noticed that as soon as her back was turned Kitty and Mike’s fingers found each other again.

“I can’t believe she caught us,” Kitty whispered.

“Why? She’s not the boss of you,” I said.

Kitty frowned. “You don’t understand. She looked after us when we first arrived.”

“Gave us food and clothes…” Mike said.

“… a place to live,” Kitty finished. “She’s like a mum to us.”

“And we don’t want to let her down.”

“You two are scary,” I said with a laugh. “But what do you think she’s here for? Do you think it’s because of Sebastian’s fight this morning?”

“Could be,” Kitty replied. She was already bored with standing still and started dancing around the punch-bag instead.

“What fight?” Mike asked.

“Oh there was a fight this morning,” Kitty said, punching the bag now. “Mina broke it up with her super-power. There was a crowd and everything.”

“Nice one, telekinesis.” He rolled his eyes. “Do you know what the one thing is that all these people hate more than us?”

“No,” I said.

“What we can do. They hate being reminded of the fact that we are total Freaks!” He pulled at his messy black hair. “Great, they are going to hate us even more now. Ugh! Old socks.”

“Excuse me?” I said.

“Your guilt reeks of old socks.” He backed away, picking up a sword to swing in a different corner of the room.

“How do you two cope with your powers?” I said to Kitty. “He must smell you, and you taste him? Isn’t that weird.”

“Nah,” she replied, still hitting the punch-bag. “Part of the power is that we aren’t good transmitters. I just get a hint of Mike and him the same for me. You want a cup of tea?”

“Okay.” I shrugged. Kitty liked her tea, not that she needed any extra caffeine, and it was one of the things I liked about living with her. We moved over to the little campfire that we had to keep alive to boil water and heat tins of beans.

“Can I ask you a question, Mina?” Kitty dunked the kettle into a bucket of water we kept in the barn.

“Yeah, of course you can.”

“Do you know why your dad wants us to learn how to fight? Don’t you think it’s weird?” She leaned in closer to me, too close as always. “He turned up a month ago and told us he was the one who had brought us together. Then he said that we have to learn how to control our powers, which we didn’t think was strange. We started on the barn and painted it, and you arrived. And then all of a sudden we’re learning martial arts and practicing with swords. Don’t you think that’s weird?”

I didn’t because it was all I’d known from my dad, but perhaps now was the time to question his motives. “He always told me that martial arts helped to teach me the discipline to control my power. It was dangerous when we were in Area 14. There was always a chance that I could get found out. But I don’t understand why we need to fight here. Things are safer here, aren’t they?”

Kitty’s eyes widened, and I could tell that she was about to share some gossip. “Well, there is something which has been spreading round the Compound. It’s something big and kinda scary.”

“What is it?” I asked, now hooked.

Kitty opened her mouth to tell me but was interrupted by another visitor. Dr Woods entered the barn, the coattails of his white medical jacket floating behind him.

“Tell me later,” I whispered. If Dr Woods had something to say about Sebastian I wanted to be there to hear it. “Are you looking for my dad?”

His eyes, which had been travelling around the barn, taking in the set-up of punch bags and swords, found me and held my focus. “Thank you, Mina. I would like a word with the Professor if he is around.”

“I’m here, Stephen,” Dad called as he descended the stairs from the top platform of the barn. Hiro and Mary followed behind.

Stephen? I thought to myself. Since when did Dad end up on first name terms with the members of the Council? Mary I could understand – she helped him to look after the children he sent to the Compound – but Dr Woods? They’d known each other a few short weeks.

“What is it that you wanted to talk about?” Dad asked with an easy smile.

Mike appeared next to Kitty. His nostrils flared and I wondered what scent he’d picked up. Hiro stood half behind Mary’s legs with his hands clamped over his ears. I wanted to pick him up and hold him. He looked so small and helpless.

“I have good news,” Dr Woods said, he opened his arms as he spoke, as though he wanted to embrace us all. “I’ve had words with the rest of the Council.” His eyes flitted to Mary for just a second, whose expression suggested that she had been left out of this Council discussion. “We’ve decided that because of the recent intake of residents to the Compound we need an event to bring the community together.”

“What kinda event is this, Stephen? I dunnae remember any of ye consulting me,” Mary said. Her eyes were two cold beads and I shuddered at the thought of crossing her.

“I do apologise, Mary,” the doctor continued. “I think you were out on business at the time––”

“And it couldnae waited til I was back, eh?” Mary folded her arms.

“––but nevertheless, the important news I have to tell you all is that the Compound is going to hold a summer fete which welcomes newcomers like Mina, Angela and Daniel––”

“What about Sebastian?” I interrupted.

“And Sebastian,” he said between gritted teeth. “It will be held as soon as possible and we need to start with the preparations.”

“That sounds splendid,” Dad said. “The children here would be glad to help you.”

“Well, that is good news, and I’ll pass it on. There is going to be an announcement tomorrow. Mary, would you be interested in taking part in the announcement?” Dr Woods said.

“Damn right I would,” Mary replied.

Dr Woods clapped his hands together. “Oh, and one more thing! Something I think you will be interested in, Mina. Daniel is now ready to come out of hospital.”

My stomach did a backflip. “When?”

“Now, if you want,” he smiled at me, revealing a set of perfect white teeth.

“Yes, now.” My hands went clammy with anticipation.

“After training,” Dad chipped in. I glared at him.

“At the end of the day then,” Dr Woods said. That smile widened once more before he left. Mary stomped after him.

“Were we making a pot of tea?” Dad went back to the kettle over the fire, helping Kitty with the tea.

Hiro and Mike gathered around me. They both looked troubled and their eyes followed Dr Woods as he left the barn.

“I don’t like that man,” Hiro said.

“Me neither,” Mike added. “He smells rotten.”