Leaving the City: Episode 1

  Chapter 3

  It was dawn when we woke. Dawns are always cold, but we knew we’d soon warm up when we were walking, so we didn’t bother with wrapping up warm. Some days I wished we’d find somewhere to settle down, where we could become the people everyone came to for bartering. Unfortunately, as I planned on staying with Alex, I knew that would never happen. Even though he could stay in one place for a month or two, maybe a little more if we found somewhere particularly interesting, and then he’d want to move on, find somewhere new to explore, no matter what I said in an attempt to convince him to stay. Most of the time I didn’t bother. There were two places, though, I would have liked to have spent longer, and if I was lucky we might go back to at some point. That did seem unlikely though, considering how much of our country there was to explore.

  We didn’t expect the day to be that different to any other, although we knew we were getting near to Third City. Neither of us knew where the entrance was, so it was a surprise when we saw two people, one male and one female, climbing out. If they hadn’t seen us we’d probably have walked away, because newbies could be dangerous, but they did. The girl, as she couldn’t have been much older than seventeen, looked more afraid than the male, and I thought she was the more sensible of the two. He looked as though he had no idea how difficult it was going to be for him to live his life in the wasteland. I knew he’d soon find out.

  My eyes met with hers for a moment while I tried to gauge whether she was going to be useful or not. I didn’t believe he would be, even though he was holding onto a gun.

  Honestly, never give an idiot a gun. They’re dangerous with them, especially in situations where you don’t want to be doing something stupid, and I thought both of them would be much safer if she had the weapon. Actually the first thing I did when we all met was hand her one of my spare knives and a pistol. Normally I wouldn’t have done that, but there was something about her that made me think she might actually know what she was doing with them. She smiled at me. “What are you doing?” he asked, his voice much louder than it needed to be. “I have a weapon.”

  As tempting as it would have been to yell at him I kept my voice as calm as I could. “Out here everyone needs a weapon.”

  “She doesn’t know how to use them,” he snapped back at me.

  Somehow I managed to not laugh at him. “She will soon.”

  “You shouldn’t be getting involved.”

  “Maybe not, but you’re talking loud enough to bring any pack of mutants hunting for prey and I think it’s only fair that she has a chance of surviving them.” I smiled at her. “I’m Kat.”

  “Mare.” She smiled back. “Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “I don’t believe in mutants,” the boy said, “that's just a myth to keep us in the cities.”

  That time I did laugh. “Don’t believe in them. That’s entirely up to you. When you see your first pack, however…”

  “See them?” Mare asked.

  “Eventually everyone sees them.” Alex’s voice, to them, wouldn’t have sounded angry, but I could hear the fury in it, that two city-folk would dare to ignore people who obviously knew what they were talking about. “You’re more likely to come across a gang of mercenaries first, though, or a ghoul.”

  “How long have you two been out here?” Mare asked, and I wasn’t surprised that she knew.

  “About three years now.” Our eyes met for a moment. “Sometimes it feels much longer though, especially as Alex likes to wander. I don’t think we’ll ever stay in one place.” I studied her. “What made you decide to leave the city?”

  “My brother’s out here somewhere. He left the city when I was too young to leave it myself, but now I’m going to find him, no matter how long it takes or how far I have to go.”

  “And you?” I looked at the man with her, certain that I knew why he was out in the wasteland, although I wouldn’t had minded being wrong. “Why have you come to the wasteland?”

  “When a girl needs protecting that’s what you’ve gotta do.”

  I looked between him and Mare. The gun, I was certain, belonged to her, so she didn’t actually need anyone there to protect her. Had she been alone I would have asked her to join us, but she wasn’t. She was with him. As the last thing I wanted to deal with was a pack of mutants I would rather not travel with an idiot who didn’t know that mutants were attracted by loud noises.

  But I didn’t want to leave her alone with him. I looked at Alex and knew what he was thinking, the way I always had, so I could tell he was having the same debate with himself.

  “You’re going to be better off in a group,” Alex said. “Kat and I would be willing to travel with you, at least as far as the nearest town, and there you might be able to get some help in the hunt for your brother, Mare.”

  “We don’t need no…”

  “Shut up, Jake. Thank you. We’d like to accept your offer. Do you know where the nearest town is?”

  “Kat has a map.” He smiled. “Kat always has a map.”

  “I’m the planner in the relationship and he’s…” I smiled at Alex. “The annoying spontaneous one who always wants to be traveling.”

  “You two are together?”

  “Keep your voice down, Jake.”

  “Who do you think you are?”

  “The girl who’s going to have to keep you alive if you draw a pack of mutants towards us, because if you keep speaking as loud as you are that is what’s going to happen, even though you don’t believe in mutants.”

  “Or mercenaries,” Alex added helpfully, smiling at me as he did so. “Both mutants and mercenaries are drawn by noise. Ghouls aren’t.”

  “What are ghouls drawn by then?” Mare asked.

  “Depression, normally, the true bone deep weariness of life.” Alex sighed. “Ghouls like depressed people, as they’re easily drawn away and out into the deep wastes.”

  Mare nibbled on her bottom lip. “I don’t know as much about the wastelands as I think I need to.”

  “You never do. No matter how much you learn in the cities it’s never enough.” I smiled at her. “We’ll teach you what you need to know before you go off alone. When there’s a pair of you the chances of surviving out here are much higher.” Even though Jake is a total moron. “It should only take us about three days to get to Hamilton.”

  “Three days.” Jake shook his head. “That’s too long. We need to be going in the opposite direction.”

  “How do you know that?” My voice was much icier than I wanted it to be. “Surely you didn’t see where Mare’s brother went when he left.”

  “No, I didn’t, but I know.”

  Mare’s eyes met mine. She shrugged and I could tell she knew what I was thinking, although I was beginning to believe she might not have been able to get out of the city without him. He was definitely that sort of person, so I knew we’d be much better off if he disappeared, but that wasn’t going to happen. ‘Looking after’ Mare was his first priority.

  “You know how, exactly?”

  “I can feel him.”

  Alex laughed, but I was worried. If Jake truly did believe he could feel Mare’s brother then they were going to have a big problem getting him to go in the right direction. Should he go in the direction he wanted to go in he was going to end up lost in the deep wastes, probably with a ghoul trailing him, as he got more and more depressed. Mare would be fine after that, although getting back to what we called civilization - what most city folk wouldn’t - would be much harder than she expected. I tried to work out some way that I would be able to convince him not to do anything stupid.

  “Do you have enough supplies to go wandering?” I tried to seem more friendly than I had before. “You aren’t going to find a lot if you go in the opposite direction to Hamilton, so your best bet is to get as much as you can before you go off and learn a little more about what you might be lucky enough to scavenge out there.”

  Jake stared at me, as though he knew what I w
as trying to do, but he couldn’t fault my logic. Finally he nodded. “Okay. That does make sense.” Hopefully his bravado was going to start to fade away now. “I just want to find him as quickly as possible, you know?”

  “How did you know him?” I asked.

  Both Mare and Alex started walking, leaving me to follow with Jake, which wasn’t as much of a problem as it might have been moments ago. “Once upon a time he was my best friend. There was three years between us, but I thought he trusted me with everything and I only found out he didn’t when he left Third City without me. For a while I hated him for the choice he’d made, especially when I saw how much it hurt Mare, so coming out here to find him wasn’t an option then. It wasn’t until Mare came out here that I decided it was time we found him.” He sighed. “Maybe I shouldn’t have come.”

  I decided honesty was the best policy then. “As long as you stop being an idiot, Jake, you’ll do fine out here. It is better that the two of you are together.”

  “What about you and Alex? Why are you out here?”

  “This was what he wanted and I wanted to be with him.” I smiled. “There was a time when I would have reminded myself that a man means nothing, really, but that was before I fell in love. Once you are… it’s so different.” I glanced at him. “Are you in love with Mare?”

  “Probably not. I wish I was, but this is for her brother.”

  “Were you in love with him?”

  Jake laughed. “Honestly, Kat, I don’t think I’ve ever been in love, but I hope someday I will be.”

  That was when I heard a sound that I hated more than any other. Mercenaries, though, were much better than mutants. Mercenaries we could deal with, as long as Jake didn’t do anything stupid. Fortunately Alex had heard it as well, our eyes meeting for a moment as we both made certain that we had Jake in the center of the circle we made with Mare, because we needed him there much more than we needed him in the field. I had my gun in one hand and my knife in the other, waiting to see what weapons they were going to have, although it was likely they’d have knives. Guns were often too much hassle for groups like that, as it meant cleaning them regularly, while knives could gather all the blood in the world without it being too much of a problem.

  “Ready for this?” I asked Mare, knowing we had a few moments left before they were upon us.

  “No, but I don’t have a choice, do I?”

  I smiled. “Unfortunately not. Normally these sorts of groups don’t have long range weapons, so it’s hand-to-hand combat.” I knew I should give Jake a weapon, but I didn’t trust him enough to give him my last knife. “Move as quickly as you can, otherwise you will get stabbed and we’re still three days away from Hamilton.”