SL Huang - Up and Coming - Stories by the 2016 Campbell-Eligible Authors

The first few visits, they’d tried to catch her. Once, she barely escaped. She begged Hedron not to send his people to spit and shed through the fence, nor to activate the spores coating the piers and their vehicles, in case it disturbed the status quo and even more people came. He eventually relented, although the ones responsible had walked, and he made them stay near the compound as a warning, until they starved to death.

After that, the Oilers settled for trading. Hedron said they thought they were keeping an eye on her, as if she needed it with him around.

That was how she’d met Kay, and Kay was the only one who’d been outside since.

Chancery hadn’t needed Hedron to talk to Kay. Kay wasn’t people .

The kettle rattled, spitting water onto the hotplate. Chancery dragged herself away from one of her treasured recipe books and filled the cracked brown teapot before snuggling it under a cosy.

She retreated to the living room with biscuits and tea. Curled up in front of the fire with notebook and pen, she made a list. Lists kept her calm. Hedron had taught her that. They were recipes for getting through the day.

After a while she opened her eyes to see Hedron peering at her notebook. The fire had died away to embers. She threw twigs and logs into the hearth to get it going again.

Skook nosed his way around the door, pink tongue lolling and his face all wet. Hedron had got Skook for her after the Oilers tried to catch her. He was an enormous dog, the biggest she’d ever seen. He had fluffy fur the colour of autumn leaves and looked like a cross between a lion and a bear. Hedron said he was a Himalayan mastiff. Even down on all fours, his head reached her chest, and Chancery loved him to bits. She had never been to see the Oilers without him since he arrived. He helped Hedron keep her safe.

"How were the goats?"

"Fine. I’ve got a couple of our people out by the barn." Hedron didn’t say what they were doing because they both knew. They would be walking. That’s what they did.

"I’ll be careful." They’d learned the hard way it was almost impossible for Hedron to stop her walking when she was close to one of their people and he and his hat were elsewhere. "Are you staying for dinner?"

"I ate not long ago." He yawned, mouth impossibly huge above his pointy chin, teeth glinting in the firelight.

Chancery didn’t ask what he’d had. Or who. She put the guard in front of the fire and returned to the kitchen.

She fetched rabbits and pheasants from the snares in the greyness of pre-dawn, the Haar thick and moist across the fields and forests. The rest of the morning was spent on mise-en-place , because Kay was coming and Chancery wanted it to be perfect. She always wanted it to be perfect, but didn’t mind getting it wrong so much when there was no one around to see.

Hedron visited after lunch.

"Are you going to clean your hat?" she asked. It was making her bones itch and her toes curl. He fingered the brim and sniffed his fingers.

"Not today," he said. "You mustn’t stray far without me, Chancery."

"Okay."

She frowned as he left. He wasn’t normally quite so protective.

She was reading, clean and a little damp from an early bath, when Skook went mad and an engine rumbled into the yard, the sound burbling in her gullet. Her heart kicked against her ribcage.

Someone banged on the door. "Chance? Have you got hold of that carnivorous pony?"

Chancery knew Kay meant Skook, even though Skook was a dog. "Yes!"

Then she heard a much deeper voice, a voice that pattered on her skin like the first pebbles of an oncoming landslide. She grabbed the boning knife from the rack.

Kay was swaddled in a heavy fleece with the Chevroil logo on the breast, a fur-lined trapper hat, mitts, and thick cargo-trousers. She trailed a scent of soft-hard peony, orange blossom, sandalwood, and vanilla; by comparison, Chancery’s honeysuckle soap smelled of cheap chemicals. Her deep brown eyes, candied rose petal lips, and complexion of smooth, dark, rich honey were so perfectly beautiful Chancery’s gut twisted in a tight knot of hopeless inadequacy.

Worse, behind Kay was a man. A people . Hedron would be so angry.

Sick anxiety clogged Chancery’s throat.

"My god, you’ve gotten thin." Kay pulled off her hat, hair falling in glossy waves. "Hi, Skook. Remember me?"

He growled, hackles raised.

"Evidently not. Oh, Chance. It’s so good to see you."

Kay embraced her. She returned it, stiffly, not ready for the intimacy but not wanting to offend. She could smell the man. Bacon, baked beans, and black pudding. All Oilers were the same; she couldn’t tell them apart.

Except Kay.

"What’s this?" Kay plucked the knife from her hand. Chancery couldn’t reply, but her fingers ached to snatch it back. Kay put the knife on the table.

"It’s all right, Rob. Chance’s shy," Kay said over her shoulder. "You must know Rob, Chance. He told me your sausages are the best." She paused, her face an undecipherable combination of smile curves and frown lines. "I’ll have to see more of you or one day you’ll forget me, too. Rob, would you mind helping me with my stuff? I brought coffee and I’d better get it before Chance makes me some unspeakable concoction from twigs and rabbit droppings."

"I said I’d drop you off, that’s all. I thought this place was close to the beach." Rob’s gravelly voice made the words clipped and fierce.

"We’re only a mile inland. You can practically smell the sea," Kay told him in a harsh whisper. "Think of Sara. She’s your niece . You’ve got plenty of time. Man up."

Kay turned back, expression tight and stiff. "This won’t take long," she said.

They went out again. Chancery stood by the stove, shaking. She tried to calm herself by listing all the recipes she knew for raspberries. Skook growled and she shushed him.

They fetched five boxes, piling them on the floor. Kay took Rob outside and there was muffled conversation, then the jeep left with a throaty gurgle. Chancery stared at the pyramid of cardboard invading her space.

When Kay returned, she took off her jacket and her boots, dumping them on the floor by the sink instead of putting them where they were supposed to go.

"Right!" She grabbed the knife and plunged it through the tape sealing the first box. Chancery swallowed her instinctive protest. Skook pressed against her.

Kay rummaged and made piles of bubble wrap. "Teabags," she said, brandishing a box. "Coffee. Chocolate. Ammunition and clothes…Must be in another box. Preserved lemons, hickory chips, almond flour, parmesan, canned cherries, olive oil, dried pasta—”

Chancery’s legs folded under her. The cold seeped into her buttocks, grocery items and packaging accumulating around her, long-lost scents worming into her head. She rocked, clutching herself so she wouldn’t dissolve into the strangeness.

"Oh god. I’m sorry." Kay put the jar she was holding back in the box. "You’re getting worse. You shouldn’t be out here alone." She kept her voice soft, glancing at the dog. "I’ll tidy this up and we can go through and have a drink, like normal people."

Kay’s tidying comprised throwing everything back in the box and kicking the bubble wrap under the table. She dumped the knife in the sink and grabbed a bottle of French wine with one hand and Chancery with the other. "Come on."

"They caught a few two weeks ago." Kay had drunk half the bottle. Chancery had barely touched her glass. Skook was asleep on the hearthrug. "Took them to Porton Down. Everyone thought they’d be dead by now. No one knows why they’re not. I heard one of them was pregnant. They must be breeding. Can you imagine? They say the further inland you go the less time it takes before you Walk, no matter how careful you are. It’s why the scientists got infected, despite all the precautions. Even the ones who didn’t go near the Walkers."