Eugene Lambert - The Sign of One

She slides another stinging needle into my arm.

Out of the corner of my eye, I think I see faces. It’s torture, but I roll my head to look. Some must be the men who carried me here. The rest are our neighbours – the Clancys, the whole Ferguson brood, some of the Smiths. The men stand there, shuffling their feet and scrunching their hats, as if they’re in chapel. The women wince, look mournful and swap whispered remarks. The children fidget, nudge each other and gaze at me curiously, their eyes like saucers.

Even though I’m struggling to keep my eyes open now, I get it.

They’re here to pay their last respects.

When I come to my senses again, Rona has kicked everybody out, except for Jude. It’s dark outside, but I’m warm and dry and propped up in my bed. A tube snakes from the needle in my left arm to a bottle hanging on a hook. I can’t see my wounds now – they’re smothered in lime-green dressings, which stink of those powerful herbs Rona calls painsuckers. I’ve got to say, they’re doing the job. The pain still gnaws at me, but I don’t feel like screaming the whole time now. Rona is rooting through her battered old medchest. Jude sits cross-legged on the floor beside her, as if she’s waiting to be handed stuff. She’s chewing her fingernails.

Both are way too preoccupied to notice I’m awake.

‘I’m so sick of searching for thirty-year-out-of-date miracles in here,’ Rona says, sounding tired and cross. ‘No antibiotics. No synth-skin. Nothing useful at all. It’s like being back on Earth during the Dark Ages.’

Jude spits a nail. ‘Can I help?’

Rona glares at her. ‘Can you change the fact we’re on a dump world?’

‘Just asking.’

‘Hey, what’s going on?’ I sound almost like me again.

Jude’s freckled face lights up with pleasure and relief. She jumps up and hurries over. I flinch, half thinking she’s going to give me an agonising squeeze, but she stops at the foot of the bed and hugs herself instead.

‘Rona’s been wagging her finger at me.’

‘Um,’ I say, not surprised. ‘How long have I been out?’

‘Best part of a day. Rona says the danger now is infection. If I hug you or kiss you, I could kill you. Then she’ll have to kill me too.’

‘Sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind,’ says Rona. She holds a packet of stuff up to the light and squints at the label on it, before cursing and slinging it back into the medchest. ‘Are you feeling more comfortable now?’

I nod. Big mistake. Even with the soothing painsuckers and injections, the stab of agony in my neck leaves me gasping and wheezing. Through an eyeful of tears, I see Jude start chewing her fingernails again.

‘It’s only a scratch,’ I tell her. ‘Honest. I feel better already.’

Rona scowls, like I’ve said something stupid.

Jude tries to smile. ‘Trust you to get shot in the gob.’

I try to return her smile, but only the left side of my face seems to work. ‘Was that you holding my hand before?’

‘No, it was Fod.’

She darts a glance at Rona, then comes closer and takes my hand. My eyes go blurry again – but not from hurting. I want to tell Jude how badly I’ve missed her, to thank her for being here and trying to cheer me up, but I can’t, not with Rona around. Instead, I blurt out the question that’s been tap-tap-tapping away at the back of my mind. ‘How come I’m not dead?’

‘You’ve the luck of the devil, that’s how,’ Rona says, with a frown. ‘I don’t know much about blasters, but either it misfired or was low on power. Probably old and half-broke, like everything else on this godforsaken planet. The cold river water probably helped too – with the burns, I mean.’

‘Who found me?’

‘Cal Ferguson. You were tangled up in a fallen tree, close to the bank. He fished you out. How you didn’t drown or bash your brains out drifting down through the rapids, we’ll never know. I didn’t think you could swim.’

‘I can’t hardly.’

‘You don’t remember going into the water?’

‘All I remember is the blaster.’

Rona takes her glasses off and rubs her eyes. In the dim light from the glowtubes, I see how tightly the wind-burnt skin on her face is stretched. Her eyes are dark pits from lack of sleep. She turns away to the sink and starts rinsing what look like soiled bandages. Jude hops up on to the bed beside me and plants a kiss on my forehead. Even this hurts, but I’m not complaining.

She reeks of soap and strong antiseptic.

‘We were hanging about,’ she says, ‘twiddling our thumbs until you got back, when we heard the pulse rifles. Some men grabbed guns and rode out straight away. I wanted to go too, but they wouldn’t have it. You should’ve heard me screaming and swearing – but I’m glad now. They say there was nothing anybody could do. By the time they got there, the Reapers were long gone, but it was an awful sight. Bodies everywhere, torn to pieces. Carts stripped clean. Cal was on his way back here to fetch help when he spotted you in the water.’

Reapers . The word makes me shiver, even though I’m safe now.

‘Any others survive?’

‘Uh huh. Four. Although young Meg Zielinski and Todd Patenaude are both hurt bad. Rona’s doing what she can for them, but –’

She shuts up as I have a coughing fit. I feel like I’m suffocating again. Rona hurries over, shoos Jude off the bed and tries her best to soothe me. She manages to pour a mouthful of some sweet drink into me and that helps.

‘I told you. You shouldn’t talk,’ she says.

‘What about Clayton?’ I croak. ‘I saw him get an arrow in the throat.’

Rona shakes her head. ‘They didn’t find his body.’

We all know what that means – we’ve heard the stories. I shudder as I remember that dreadful hungry look I saw on the Reapers’ faces.

‘What did they look like?’ Jude whispers later, behind Rona’s back.

‘The Reapers?’

She shivers. ‘I’ve never seen one.’

‘Be glad then.’ In between coughs, I describe them to her.

‘Human though, same as you and me?’

More carefully this time, I nod. ‘Only more savage.’

I don’t blame Jude for asking. I’d always wondered about Reapers too. Out here in the back of beyond, our handful of farmsteads scattered around the freshwater lake, a lot of what you hear is ignorance and superstition. That’s what Rona says anyway. Like some folk swear Reapers are half-men, who’ve bred with Wrath animals. Others say they’re mutants, turned weird and mad by radiation, whatever that is. Rona, always so sensible, says nobody on Wrath knows for sure what Reapers are, only that they’re out there and fierce dangerous.

There’s not many like me who’ve seen Reapers and lived.

Rona comes back and clicks her tongue. ‘Look, don’t just stand there moping, Judith. You’re getting in my way and Kyle won’t shut up while you’re still here. He needs to rest. You can visit him tomorrow, when he’s feeling better.’

‘See you later then,’ says Jude. She squeezes my hand.

The door shuts behind her and I close my eyes. For a long while, all I hear are the small sounds of Rona faffing and the hiss and rattle of my breathing.

I clutch at what Rona told Jude. The danger now is infection.

So does that mean I’m not going to die?

When I open my eyes, Rona is staring down at me. She has this weird look on her face – like she’s looking at me, but seeing a ghost.

‘What’s the matter?’ I say.

She starts. Gives her eyes a rub again, but says nothing.

Whatever Rona keeps pumping into me knocks me out all right, but fills my head with nightmares. I’d have thought they’d be about Reapers, but instead I’m back at the Peace Fair. Only now I’m looking down at the jostling crowd. I’m on the stage and I see the fear and hate in people’s eyes as they stare up at me.