Watershed (7 page)

His name was Whitey, on account of his hair. Born that colour and it'd be a safe bet it'd be the same when he died, he said with some pride. He'd been alone a long time, wandering aimlessly like them, until a few months back when he'd come across a couple of men. Didn't like the look of 'em much, he said, but they shared space for a bit and the two let slip 'bout this place they'd heard of. A few days later, Whitey set out to find it; he'd been walking ever since.

He didn't mention what had happened to the men, and no one asked. They were more interested in the rest of the story. What place?

Whitey screwed up his eyes, as though deep in thought. Dunno, he said at last. All's he knew it was northeast. Some kinda fortress they said; the town that wouldn't die. The two men had heard it from some others who said the call had come out on a shortwave or somethin'. Coord'nates, must've been, 'cept the men didn't know 'em. Keep goin' 'til you reach the big water, they said, then up to the mountains and around. Helluva long way, but Whitey figured northeast was northeast. He'd find it sooner or later.

What water? Daniel asked. There was no water. The sea was miles behind them surely? Whitey nodded and said: Yeah, but it's moved in, hasn't it? Found its way into all them low places. Just head northeast and they'd be sure to hit it. That's all he knew.

Daniel turned to Jon. Had he heard anything on that walkie-talkie of his? Jon would switch it on every now and then to scout for any trouble but, miserly with the weakening batteries, he never kept it going for long. Sarah wondered how many other things they'd missed. Now he shook his head and made his excuses: its range wasn't that long, and did Daniel have any fucking idea how many channels there were?

Whitey gave a snort. Channel wouldn't matter any more; the call had gone out a long time ago. But there'd be others passin' the message on, all's they had to do was listen, he said. Then he cocked his head – in the dark, his white hair was a giveaway – and added that there weren't no rush. Nothin' was gunna get through this storm.

They spent two days holed up with Whitey in the shed, keeping their movements to a minimum to conserve energy and water, and Sarah soon warmed to him. When he wasn't swapping tales with the other men, he spent his time with her and Rachel, fascinated by the babies. Once, Sarah offered to let him hold Jeremiah and he took the child in his skeletal hands so gingerly, she laughed; Rachel wasn't as trusting with Ethan. Whitey sat still, staring down at the child who stared up with equal interest. When Jeremiah's small hand reached out to clutch a tangle of Whitey's long hair, the old man smiled and whispered his name, over and over,
Jeremiah, Jeremiah, Jeremiah,
so it became almost a poem. After finally returning the baby, he stared at Sarah long and hard, and said: You make it to that fortress, hear? For the boy's sake. But go careful. Coz we ain't the only ones lookin' for it.

On the third morning, she woke to find him gone. The storm had blown over during the night and Whitey had disappeared with it, taking his broken shotgun with him. She never knew if he made it to the Citadel or not; she didn't see him again. But she never forgot him.

Mirage.
Mir-raj
. Too beautiful a word, she thought, for something so cruel. The dance of haze that beckoned and tempted and lured them forwards, promising hope: Whitey's big water. But every dune and every flat proved false, spindles of trees and other wreckage materialising from nothing, the waterless land still lapping at their feet. Once Sarah was certain she'd seen a shimmer of camels – their loping domed shapes were unmistakeable – but as soon as she blinked they disappeared. Other shapes loomed too, dusty spirals whipped up to tease: Anna, calling to her, or old Whitey striding ahead, just out of reach, whistling encouragement before twisting and whirling to nothing.

Other things weren't imagined. Jon was the next to go, succumbing to a snakebite of all things, and he died much the same way as he'd lived, griping and cursing. None of them had strength to spare to dig a grave; they covered him with hot sand and marked the place with a single rock. So it was that Sarah finally got her wish, with Daniel taking the lead and the compass at last.

But the world was changed, and with it the rules; two more were lost in quick succession. Perhaps the group had become complacent, secure in the proven strength of their numbers; perhaps it'd simply been a case of wrong place, wrong time, but when Seb crested a dune ahead of them and they heard his warning shout, all of them froze while three ragged figures rose up as if from beneath the ground to pull him down, just as Sarah had once seen lions hunt a buffalo, mobbing and pressing it to the earth, subduing its struggles with tooth and claw. Similarly, Seb's end was almost silent, any growls and howls snatched by the wind. The rest of them scattered and ran, a spooked herd; it'd happened so quickly, there was nothing they could've done to help and they had no ammunition to waste with panicked pot shots. But Nat's fate, a few weeks later, was worse; her screams, when the swarm of raiders cornered and tore at her, pinning and spreading her, followed the fleeing group, taunting their cowardice; Sarah later cried, remembering Anna,
and hating her relief that it had been Nat who'd been taken, and not her or Rachel.

And now they were five and two.

Go careful, Whitey had warned. Coz they weren't the only ones.

They began walking at night, when they could, when enough faint red moonlight allowed; it was more perilous, the shifting terrain masking hidden dangers – sinkholes of sand that gave way beneath tired feet, half-submerged rubble catching and tripping them – so they trudged in single file, stepping where others had and trusting to that night's leader to find the safest path. Better were the too-brief but more forgiving hours of dawn and dusk; once, between those hours, they'd found shelter behind a wall of skulls someone had painstakingly stacked into a crescent shape. Sarah hadn't slept well that day, her dreams too filled with images of the wall collapsing, of suffocating beneath a pile of grinning heads, of their lipless kisses and their voiceless pleas.

She chewed slowly, painfully. She'd already lost one tooth, the offending brown ivory loosening from bone and gum to drop from her mouth; now it seemed she was soon to lose another. But she chewed despite the ache, and Daniel chewed too, softening sinewy flesh to a grey paste, before tearing it into tiny pieces for Jeremiah to suck and swallow. If there was any miracle to be found in their misery, it was he. Ethan sickened often – at his first taste of water, and his first bite of meat, even vomiting up a bit of old biscuit that Rachel had let soak in her milk – but Jeremiah took in everything they gave him, and then demanded more. Younger than Ethan, but already bigger, stronger, more robust, he rode in a sling on Daniel's back, bare-footed and bare-bottomed, a monkey of a boy and a child of his time, his small pot-bellied body adapting quickly to any change, his eyes trusting, his laugh infectious.
It seemed to Sarah the only time she smiled any more was when Jeremiah laughed.

Anna's miracle child, fathered by demons.

Whitey's big water proved bigger than perhaps even he'd imagined: a drowned valley so vast, clouded by salted air so thick, they couldn't sight the further shore; couldn't even be certain there was one. Sarah tried to imagine what lay beneath: towns perhaps, farms with neat wire fences and rotting posts, old roads weighed by sunken vehicles, long dead carcasses and bones picked clean by fish. From the heights the water appeared calmer than she remembered but with no passage down the sheer cliffs, there was no way to check. Instead, they turned north to the hazed shadow of the mountains, just as Whitey had told them to, and pressed on, ever cautious.

Thinking back, she couldn't be sure what it was that first woke her – the grind of sand beneath boots or Rachel's startled yelp, high and fearful. They'd sought cover from the sun beneath a straggle of grey bushes spiked with thorns and black berries – Banjo tried one but quickly spat it out – and had clumped together to wait out the heat. Daniel had taken watch but, as exhausted as the rest of them, he must have fallen asleep, and now they'd been caught out. Bleary-eyed and dazed, Sarah blinked against the sun's glare, but felt cold. So cold. How hateful was fate, to have led them this far, only to catch them out at the last?

She counted seven men, swathed in cloaks and other ragged bits, faces wrapped, eyes shadowed, but weapons drawn; makeshift swords and long knives; one aimed his rifle at Daniel. Hugging Jeremiah to her and trying not to think of Nat, Sarah prayed for a merciful end. Ethan snuffled and cried; Jeremiah gurgled and laughed and squirmed in her arms.

We have children, she heard Daniel say, his voice calm but brittle.

We ain't blind, replied one of the men, but still none of them made a move, didn't fall, voracious and rabid, upon the small captive group, as Sarah had imagined.

Daniel tried again, ever reasonable, ever rational: We're looking for the town. On the other side of the water. The town that wouldn't die.

A nod, and Sarah shivered as she felt the man's piercing gaze strip her bare before sliding across to Rachel. Hearing Cutler shift behind her, Sarah willed him not to do anything. At least not until the last.

The man's reply was slow: Seems everyone's lookin' for that place. Godders, eaters. And the rest. But them on the pass are real choosy now about who gets through. So which are you? he asked, still eyeing them all. Godders or eaters? Or maybe both?

Daniel shook his head and rose to his knees; one of the others stepped forwards, machete raised but though he held up his hands, Daniel didn't cower. Neither, he answered. We have children.

There was another tense silence, longer this time, even the babies quieting their fussing while the wind whooped and whistled, but Sarah didn't hear it; her ears were filled with the beat of her blood. Then another curt nod and the first man turned to the one beside him.

Signal ahead and tell him to hold up, he said. We're bringin' in five more.