Eugene Lambert - The Sign of One

My next heartbeat is a long time coming. ‘My brother?’

More tears wriggle down her face. ‘Your identical twin. Colm.’

I stand up so fast, my vision goes all blurry.

‘ What? I have a brother ?’

Rona reaches for me, but I recoil.

‘Kyle,’ she pleads.

The door bangs open. Sky sticks her head inside, looking real tense.

‘We’ve got company!’

Somehow, Rona beats me to the door. I’m trying to peer past her when her whole body stiffens. I hear her sudden intake of breath. When she turns round, I see she’s bitten her lip so hard it’s bleeding. I squeeze past and look outside. In the distance, I see a column of flaming torches, slowly winding its way towards us.

No three ways about it – it’s a lynch mob.

‘Oh, Jude,’ I groan. ‘What the hell have you done?’

‘Time to go,’ hisses Sky.

Rona runs, grabs my parka and my daypack and hurls them at me.

‘Don’t stand there!’ she yells. ‘Get out by the back window.’

She rips open a cupboard and grabs a plastic container. Stunned, I watch as she tears the cap off and starts sloshing liquid over walls and floor.

I know that stink – it’s surgical spirit.

‘I’m not leaving you,’ I shout.

Rona throws the empty container down. ‘I’ll catch up with you at the old landing ground. Now please, Kyle, do as I say for once. And hurry!’

What old landing ground?

The girl starts hauling me away, but I shrug her off.

‘Don’t be an idiot,’ she says.

Next thing I know, Rona is shaking me.

‘Kyle, there’s a gun in your pack. Don’t be scared to use it if you have to. We do still have friends out there, more than you know. Sky will take us to them; we’ll be safe there. I love you. Now, get moving! I’ll follow as soon as I can.’

She crushes her lips to my cheek, then shoves me away.

I want to say, ‘I love you too.’

But a sudden gust of wind rattles the shutters, bringing with it the sound of men’s voices, baying for twist blood. And they’re shouting my name.

It’s like I feel rope around my neck already.

I throw myself out of the window after the girl. I run and run and don’t look back until a whoosh sound overtakes me. I stop then, bent over and panting after the steep climb. Way below me a red and orange fireball leaps high into the night sky. The torches of the lynch mob scatter. I hear angry cries. I think maybe I see a figure flit from the back of the blazing shack and dodge through leaping shadows. Only I can’t see anything but flames now as Sky appears beside me, gasping.

‘Rona knows what she’s doing,’ I tell her. Tell myself.

‘Good,’ she says, sounding disgusted. ‘But you don’t. Where do you think you’re going? The landing ground’s up this way.’

She stomps away off to my left and the darkness swallows her.

When the sun finally drags itself up in the west, bathing the world in watery dayshine, I reckon I’ve done enough running. I’ve never come this way on any of my hunting trips, so have only the vaguest idea where we are – someplace high in the mountains north of Freshwater. Half an hour ago, in pitch-darkness, the trail crossed over a ridge. We’ve been descending ever since.

Sky’s ahead of me, limping along and not looking back.

It’s been a hell of a night getting up here, cold and hard and scary. How we weren’t stalked and gobbled by gibbercats or nightrunners, I’ll never know.

With a curse, I ease the pack from my aching shoulders. My stomach rumbles, so I find a rock to sit on, take a drink from my canteen and open the pack. Knowing Rona, she’ll have packed food. Sure enough, first thing I find is a bag of nuts and berries. I start munching. Below me, the trail switchbacks down to a plateau and what looks like an abandoned landing ground. The grass runway is overgrown. There’s a barn with a water tower leaning against it, and some fallen-down shacks. At one end of the runway, I see what must be the steam winch, with its boiler, smokestack and cable drums. But what I don’t see is any windjammer. I have another dig in the pack then, looking for the gun Rona said was in there.

It’s at the bottom, still wrapped in its oily rag.

‘No way,’ I say, when I unwrap it.

I’d hoped for a blaster or a flamer, something lethal. But no, this is some ancient slug-thrower from the Long Ago on Earth. A quick fiddle and I get the cylinder thing in the middle to fall open. More disappointment. Three rusty bullets, three empty chambers. It’s not even fully loaded. Just great. The whole world wants me dead and Rona gives me a weapon that will probably blow up in my face if I shoot it. I try aiming it, but it’s so heavy it wobbles all over the place.

Sky turns and slogs back up the trail to me.

Quickly, I stuff the old gun back into my pack. If I’m tired, Sky looks destroyed. Despite it still being chilly enough up here for me to be glad of the parka Rona made me take, sweat is running down the girl’s face. Those painted bars under her eyes are all smudged, dripping down into her hollow cheeks.

‘What the frag are you doing?’ she says, looking mad as hell.

‘Oh, we’re talking now?’ I say.

The whole night, she’s pretty much ignored me. A few times, I asked her where we were going – the most I ever got back was a grunted ‘up’.

I fake-smile. ‘Want some nuts?’

Her dark eyes blaze. For a second, I think she’ll knock them from my hand.

‘Stuff your face later,’ she snaps. ‘We need to keep moving.’

I shake my head. ‘This is as far as I go.’

‘Don’t be stupid.’

‘I’m waiting here for Rona.’

Sky surprises me. I expect her to bite my head off, but she doesn’t. ‘You’ll be waiting a long time,’ she says softly.

I shrug. Sure, I know what she’s thinking – I’ve thought it too. My head is thumping from thinking it. Maybe Rona’s dead, or captured.

‘I’ll take that chance,’ I say.

Her scowl comes back. ‘I don’t think so. You promised your mother you’d do what I tell you. And I’m telling you to move.’

I stand up so quick that she takes a step back.

‘Yeah?’ I say. ‘So tell me how come I don’t see a windjammer? If you’re leading me into some sort of trap, I’ll kill you.’

‘See that?’ she says, sneering and pointing. ‘That’s camouflage.’

There’s a weird cross-shaped mound covered in scrub at the other end of the runway from the winch. Now that I know where to look, I see the windjammer.

‘Okay,’ I say, feeling stupid. ‘But what about Rona?’

‘What about her? She knows where this place is and how to get here. We’ve got loads to do to get ready for take-off. If you help, it’ll get done faster.’

‘And you won’t go without her?’

‘We’ll wait as long as we can.’ With that, she sets off down the trail again.

After a quick think, I hoist my pack and chase after her.

‘Hey, what do you mean, loads to do?’

‘Look at the state of everything,’ she says, over her shoulder. ‘We took a hell of a risk landing here. If we can’t get the winch going, then –’

She shrugs, but I get it. No winch, no flight, and we’re stuck here.

‘I never knew about this place,’ I say.

She spits. ‘You don’t seem to know much about anything.’

I’m fishing for a comeback when a loud bang sends birds screeching and flapping into the air. I duck, sure we’re being shot at, only to see smoke billow from the chimney of the winch. A man leaps from the cab and staggers away, beating at his windjammer leathers. I’m a long way away, but he looks familiar.