Poison Read online

  Eight

  It takes another five hours for the last of the locusts to be killed. The wheat field isn’t much more than a blackened canvas of dead and dying locusts, but we’ve managed to save a small portion of wheat. Most of the Farmers can hardly stand, and I can see tears forming in their eyes if they’re not already crying. The apples are all gone, along with all the stone fruit. The pumpkins are relatively safe thanks to their tough skin, but we’ve got nothing in the way of greens.

  At dusk, a weary crowd gathers in the square. There are no promotional courting videos today, only the peel of the Chief Warden’s decree playing on a loop on the jumbo screens. It’s been six years, but the sight of her unforgiving eyes makes me want to duck behind the door. Her message is short but powerful.

  “…has been placed on Gideon’s Landing. As punishment for the contravention of Seeder Covenant 2.2, effective immediately, a sanction has been placed on Gideon’s Landing. As punishment for the…”

  Suddenly it all makes sense. Covenant 2.2 was amended during the Wanderer Rebellion. No person shall aid a Wanderer in conspiracy to commit theft against the Citadel’s natural property. Someone has been caught trying to smuggle seeds. The person being tortured in the prison, perhaps?

  The punishment for such a first-degree crime is usually death. And we will die. Without the Citadel’s quarterly delivery of viable seeds, the Landing will have no means to grow their own food. The Seeders alter every seed the Citadel provides to make sure its offspring are sterile. They call them terminator seeds. Taking cuttings is ruled out because the genetic makeup of crops has been altered to ensure that when removed from the plant, the cells die at an accelerated rate before they can produce roots. We can’t grow, gather, or hunt. We’re helpless without the Seeders.

  During my circus years, I couldn’t comprehend the need for the Farmers’ manual labour when the Citadel has technology capable of doing the job much more quickly. I remember the distant look in Papa’s eyes as he explained to me that sometimes jobs can be about more than just getting something done quickly. It wasn’t until the night my mother was murdered that I finally understood.

  As I watch the Farmers’ distraught faces while they hear the proclamation, I find it impossible to imagine them being able to organise a revolt against the Citadel when they’re so physically depleted. How, then, have the Seeders come to the conclusion that the Landing has been aiding the Wanderers? And more importantly, I can’t begin to comprehend the notion that there may still be Wanderers out there.

  It’s no longer safe to be outside after dark. Electricity to the Landing has been cut and the backup generators have long since burned out. Hunger and fear have turned into savagery and people are beginning to turn on each other. When I go to check the apothecary, it’s been ransacked. No store has been left unturned in the Merchant district, and inside their homes, people guard their food like a lava ant guards its winter nectar horde.

  My mother used to comfort me when I was afraid with stories about how in times of crisis, people have been known to band together and share what they have. Those people must have known that help was coming eventually, and they could afford to be generous. Nobody is coming for us, and that makes people brutal.

  I sit in an armchair I’ve pushed against my bedroom window and stare beyond the treetops. Sometimes I imagine I can see the orb of the Citadel’s domed garden, and it makes the distance between the Citadel and the Landing seem shorter. So short that I haven’t been able to stop thinking about going on walkabout.

  From the stories my mother used to tell me, walkabouts were a rite of passage for the Aboriginal peoples who originally settled Australia. It was a transition between adolescence and adulthood where males would venture out into the bush and spend time connecting with the land. When they arrived, the Seeders adopted the practice. Only they’ve turned it into a gruesome practice of contrition.

  The rule is if a citizen of any of the regions can make it to the Citadel to plead their case, the Seeders grant them one request. Nobody knows if that’s true because no one has ever made it to the Citadel on foot. There’s only been one call for a walkabout that I know of in my lifetime. It happened my second year in the Citadel circus. The people of Enid’s Lake were caught trying to launch boats from a secluded seashore. I don’t know why they bothered with the polluted state of the ocean. Two weeks after their region was sanctioned, Aiden and I came across the first body in the forest. It was bloated, rank-smelling, and half scavenged by predators. The only way to tell the person was from the Lake was the seaweed contents in his gut, and that’s not an experience I ever want to relive.

  My stomach grumbles. It has been doing that for three days. We have a cellar of food on top of the rations that have been divided to each citizen, but even that won’t last us long. Sully paces below my window. My chest goes hollow at the thought of her starving to death in this house. Or abducted and roasted to feed a desperate family. At least in the forest, she’ll be able to hunt, and if she dies, it will be fighting and free.

  Micah comes to visit me and brings ill comments with him. “What do you think is wrong with Henry?” he says.

  “I don’t know. He’s barely eaten anything since he’s been back and sleeps most of the day.” At the time, I thought it was the smoke making him cough and sneeze, but his symptoms have only gotten worse.

  “Do you think that’s why the Seeders shipped him back here?”

  “No, Micah. The Seeders sent him back here to die with us.”

  Micah wrinkles his nose in disgust.

  Over the next few days, Papa spends more time inside his room than out. When not asleep, he’s in his office with the door closed. On the fourth day, Portia stalks through the kitchen door as Micah and I are having a breakfast of leftover broth. She carries a thundercloud with her.

  “Your father wants to see you,” she says to me, and then she disappears out the back door.

  If we weren’t in this situation, I’d be glad they’re fighting, except Papa’s sudden temper and irritability isn’t confined to Portia. Last night when I knocked on his office door, he yelled at me to go away.

  I reach the top of the stairs in time to hear the bedroom door being flung open. Papa strides out in a dishevelled mess. Slung around his back is a rucksack that I know is full of medication. He clutches his head in his hands and grunts as though he’s in pain. I notice then that his knuckles are caked in dry blood. When he sees me standing there, he shakes his head vigorously, and spit that has foamed around his mouth sprays on the balustrade.

  “Papa?” I say. “Are you okay?”

  He takes two steps to reach me, and when I get a good look at him, I draw back against the wall. His eyes are unfocused and his blinking rapid. He presses his nose close to my face and inhales as though he’s trying to register my scent.

  “Rory,” Papa says in a torturous rasp. “Find Thomas Dempsey. Save us all.”

  Then he races down the stairs and into the kitchen. I sail over the handrail and follow in time to see him disappear down into the cellar. The cellar door is the only one in the house that locks from the outside.

  “What’s going on?” Micah asks. He’s abandoned his breakfast and come up to me, his face ashen with concern.

  “Bolt the door!” Papa says from the other side.

  “Why?” I ask, only to be answered by the sound of repeated blows to the door. I do as he says and bolt the cellar door.

  “What’s all the commotion?” Portia says.

  By now, the blood is booming in my ears. I sink to the ground and crouch on the floor with my back against the door. Each kick Papa levies at the door radiates through my shoulders. I briefly register Felicity entering the room. Micah’s face appears before me. He says something I can’t or don’t want to hear.

  I stay that way until Portia comes back with a doctor. Micah leads me to the kitchen table. In exchange for a week’s rations, the doctor tells us he’s never seen anything like this.

  S
omething flashes across the doctor’s expression. It questions what the fuss is about when we’re all going to die anyway. I want to spring up and punch him in the face, but he’s already packing his bags.

  The doctor may have never seen symptoms like these, but I have. In the palliative care unit of a first-tier Citadel hospital. When Aiden and I watched as his mother fought and eventually lost to it. My father has been infected with a mutated strain of rabies. Without proper medical treatment, he has less than a week to live. Maybe a bit more if he’s able to treat himself with the medication in his rucksack. Until then, we have to keep him confined because he will become increasingly aggressive and contagious.

  I don’t have a clue how long it will take to get to the Citadel on foot, but Papa must have thought there was a chance it could save us. Why else would he want me to find his former employer, Thomas Dempsey?

  I guess that settles the argument: I’m going to the Citadel. Or I could take off in any direction and the Seeders would just assume I died along with the rest of the Landing. If I had no ties, I would disappear. No more dealing with Seeders or Reapers or people I love dying.

  I shake my head to clear it of silly fancies and write to Micah, saying I’m sorry and that I’ll do my best to come back. I strap the vial of Micah’s Rose in with the note and leave the bundle outside Micah’s door.

  There’s no time to reconsider. I just secure my belt that holds a dozen throwing knives around my waist, grab the backpack I’ve had prepared for days, and leave as silently as I can out the back door.

  Cold wind whips around me. I pull the hood of my waterproof jacket over my head and take double steps across the back lawn. I feel warmth at my side and know Sully has joined me. As usual, she whines her disapproval at my late-night sojourn, until I squeeze through the back gate and beckon her to come. Excitement ripples through her, and she takes off through the streets of our home in the Merchant quarters. I don’t know how to convey to her that this is probably going to be the last time we ever do this. So I let her run and hope nobody notices us. What can they do about it now?

  The Landing is too quiet. At this time of year, the Farmers should be rising early to get a head start on the harvest. The bakers’ hut should be a beacon in the night, drawing people to it with both warmth and aroma. Instead, it’s a dark husk of its former self, its windows broken and doors kicked in.

  I can’t bear looking at the destruction, so I lock my sights on the metal gates that mark the line between the Landing and the forest. When I arrive, Sully is pacing back and forth past the gate. Every now and then, she draws up into a pouncing position and jumps several metres. I don’t share her impatience to leave, but I force open the heavy metal gates and step into my future.

  Nine

  At noon, we literally stumble across our first body. Sully races around a giant red gum, her tail whomping vigorously as she tugs on something I can’t see.

  “Shut up, Sully!” I say just as my ankle catches on an exposed tree root. I trip forward but manage to keep myself from falling by grabbing onto an overhanging branch. When I right myself, I realise the ground has become springy. When I finally get a good look at what I’m standing on, I’m thankful I haven’t had much to eat.

  He was a Farmer. I can tell as much by his practical well-worn clothes and calloused hands. I don’t know him personally, though, so there’s no logical reason why my chest feels so tight. I wonder if he has family he’s left behind. Of course he does. Why would he bother to go on walkabout if he didn’t have people he cared for?

  His eyeball wobbles and then explodes as dozens of maggots surge through the socket. My gag reflex kicks in. I pinch my nostrils closed and take a couple long, deep breaths. It helps a little, but I can’t help feeling I’m sucking in death vapours.

  Some animal has made a mess of his internal organs, but his gut has been left untouched. That tells me he’s eaten something that’s killed him. A quick scan of the undergrowth and I discover a clump of young leaves that look a lot like spinach. The poison is still running in yellow droplets from where the Farmer tore off some leaves. I pick a leaf, taking care not to get any sap on my fingers, and hold it up to Sully’s nose. She sneezes and backs away. If only the Farmer’s sense of smell was as keen.

  I don’t like the idea of simply moving on, but the alternative is to build a pyre and burn the body. I have neither the tools nor the time, and a shallow grave may as well not be a grave at all. Besides, the rotting corpse might keep predators happy and away from Sully and me for a while.

  The foliage in the undergrowth rustles. I think it must be the wind until I hear dried leaves being trampled and the telltale squeak of rodents. Pins and needles scurry up my shoulders. I want to jump onto the closest branch and get as high up as I can, but all I can do is watch as Sully growls once and then pounces into the thicket. She crashes around and then drags out a furry mass about a quarter of her size and covered in grey hairs. It’s a wood rat. Before the Famine, rodents used to be small. This one would come up to my knee. The Seeders have a penchant for engineering things to be bigger than they should be.

  The rat is dead, but Sully doesn’t take chances. She locks her teeth around its head, stamps on the thing’s torso, and with the force of her jaw, decapitates it. I dry wretch at the sight of the carcass. That’s when the rest of the rats descend on us. A whole nest of them.

  “Run, Sully!” I yell. But Sully doesn’t have much of a flight response. She might be the runt of her litter, but she’s still bigger than most dogs. The Seeders only discarded her because, unlike her sabrewolf brothers and sisters, she didn’t obey their commands a hundred percent of the time.

  I make a running jump onto the trunk of the closest tree and use my knees as springs to project myself upwards. My palms chafe against the branch as I swing my legs, bend them to fit through the gap in my arms, and hook them onto the branch. I lever myself into sitting position and then settle into a crouch with my feet on two branches.

  One of the rats attempts to climb the tree I’m in. Sully bats it away as another rat leaps onto her back. The rat’s belly still shows signs of an autumn food glut, but its ruby eyes rage in hunger. Winter is coming to the Landing, and the smaller game must be in hiding. I figure it’s so desperate for food that it’s willing to take on a sabrewolf, when the thing rears and I see old blood caked to its fanged teeth. This thing has fed recently.

  I think of the dead Farmer and my fight instinct finally kicks in. I throw two knives in a matter of seconds. The first takes the rat through the chest and the second embeds in its left eye. The rats just keep coming. It’s as though the forest is giving birth to rat babies to replace the ones that go down. Sully is a blur of red-brown fur, claws, and teeth. I throw knife after knife, every one consistently hitting its target. My circus sword mistress would be proud. Eventually, I run out of knives. Still the rats come. When they realise I’m no longer armed, the rats start trying to climb the tree again.

  Sully yelps. I can only watch as the rats start to bite her. One of the bigger ones darts for her neck. Sully tries to turn, but there are too many to dodge. Her cry of pain is so raw it slices through me like an electric shock. White-hot rage fills me to the point where I’m shaking the branch. I leap from my tree just as a pair of rats reaches the spot I was sitting in.

  Within seconds, I’m metres away from the tree I was originally in. Jumping from tree to tree is surprisingly easy in the forest. The Seeders grow them tall and close together. All the better for predators to hide in. Rough bark has much more traction than uneven beams.

  I scan the area for a suitable branch, something dead and dry enough to use as kindling. Sully whines. I force myself not to look down and keep scanning. There! In the cedar to my right is a branch that’s broken most of the way through and is only hanging on by a shred of bark. I climb up and snap the branch clean. The main stem is about a couple of inches in diameter and eight inches long before it branches out into a bushy silhouette. From inside my backp
ack, I pull out a jar of white balm.

  The recipe belonged to my mother. It’s meant to be a soothing balm that will coax frostbite away. It also happens to be highly flammable, and when on fire, it turns into a sticky liquid. The kind that is almost impossible to wash out. I apply the balm liberally to the branch and set the whole thing on fire with my lighter.

  Then I shove myself out of the tree, making sure I turn at exactly the right angle not to jar any of my joints. My foot lands on the back of the rat biting Sully’s neck. I hear the satisfying snap of bones and grind my foot harder.

  By now I look like I have the sun attached to the thin branch I’m holding. It’s radiating so much heat I feel like the skin on my hand must be melting. The only thing keeping me from flinging the branch away is the effect it’s having on the rats. All the ones near Sully flee. The unpleasant stench of burning hair fills my nose every time the fire so much as touches rat fur. I swing the branch in semicircles, widening the arch as I advance.

  The rats shriek as the hot balm eats its way through their fur. The balm will continue to burn unless calming lotion is applied. Water won’t do a thing unless they immerse themselves for hours. Enough time for Sully and me to be far away.

  Soon, the rats begin to run. I keep up with my attack even though my arm is about to give out. It does give out just as the last rat turns tail, but I fling the branch as my arm drops to make it look like I’m still on the attack.

  “Argh!” I scream. Small droplets of balm flick onto my wrist as the branch hits the ground. There it continues to smoulder. It’s like a thousand little insects are tearing into my wrist with red-hot pincers. I bite my lip to keep from crying out again, drag open my backpack, and wade through the bottles of creams for the calming lotion. I can’t slather enough lotion onto myself fast enough.