The Vanished Page 17

  “They’re gaining on us,” I said.

  “If ye need te use the gun – dunnae hesitate,” Ali said.

  The van started again and he revved it whilst shouting to Mary, Ginge and Stevie to get on their guns. With a screech of the tyres the van started moving away from the people chasing us. But then I noticed something else. Whilst we’d been so busy watching the people from behind, we hadn’t noticed any of them get in cars and drive away. As my head turned to face the front window three cars blocked us off up the street. I turned to look in the wing mirror to find the same behind us. We were trapped.

  31

  Ali said an unrepeatable word and then turned to me. “You’re going te have te flip them.”

  “The cars?” I swallowed. It was one thing to turn the cars of Enforcers who were armed and dangerous, but I knew nothing about these people. I didn’t know if they were peaceful or a threat; if they had weapons or even if they wanted to harm us.

  “Yes, Mina, the cars. Or we cannae get out. Stevie keep that machine gun on them.”

  “But what if they don’t want to hurt us? What if they are just being cautious like the Neds,” I said.

  Ali revved the van. We were at a standstill halfway between both sets of cars with a group of people running at the van. “These aren’t like the Neds. They’re an organised cult and they’re nasty. Ye don’t want te find out what they’re like.”

  “You’ve encountered them before?” I asked.

  “I’ve gotta clean shot, Ali,” Mary shouted from the back. “Shall I take it?”

  “No,” I yelled.

  Ali looked at me. “How dare ye answer for me?” He turned back to Mary. “Not yet. Wait fer them te show hostility.” He put his hand on the handbrake and released it. The van started to move. “You have te do this, kid.”

  I gripped the handle on the door. “I can’t. I don’t know if they are bad people.”

  “They are,” Ali said. The van grew closer and closer to the cars ahead. “I’ve heard the stories.”

  “Stories aren’t good enough,” I said.

  Behind us the cars that had been blocking us started to move. Ahead, we were getting closer and closer, and if I didn’t do anything about it, we were going to crash. Ali’s foot remained on the accelerator, never slowing. He was putting me in an impossible situation and that was enough to make my fingers twitch. I glared at Ali. We were seconds away from crashing. Then I closed my eyes. Ali sucked in his breath and the van carried on speeding through the street. When I opened them again we were clear. I watched our chasers us in the wing mirror and at just the right moment the blockade came back down, causing them to screech on their brakes. They stopped just in time, clipping their bumpers. The cars I lifted were still intact, and I hopped that the drivers were okay after being lifted twenty feet in the air and then put back down. I breathed a sigh of relief. I’d done it and without hurting anyone.

  “Thanks, kid,” Ali said with sincerity. “Ye did a good job there.”

  He pulled the van onto another main street heading out of the city. I breathed a sigh of relief and chuckled, feeling pretty good about myself. That was until what happened next.

  We heard them before we saw them, hanging from every building like monkeys on vines. They were caterwauling, shrieking and whooping. It was a terrifying noise. Something landed on the roof of the van. They just pounced on us like we were their prey, completely covering us. Then the back door was prised open.

  A wiry young boy dressed in a pair of ripped trousers and boots grappled with Stevie. Then another swung through the open door into the van feet first. They were like acrobats and they leapt into the van from all angles until it was a mass of writhing bodies wrestling each other. A gun went off. Things were getting out of hand. I tried to focus on the attackers, trying to use my gift on them, but it was impossible to move them without moving the Scavengers at the same time.

  “Ali, stop driving,” I said. There were a few more gun shots and it made me feel sick to my stomach. “It’s over. We’re surrounded.”

  “I can get ‘em off the van,” Ali said. “I know I can.”

  “And what about inside the van?” I shouted.

  Right on cue an attacker grabbed me from behind and pulled me into the mass of fighters, pinning me to the floor. I kicked out, hitting him between the legs and he fell backwards, in pain. But then there was another to replace him and I had to throw a punch and duck, using my small shape to dodge through his grasp. I found myself bumping into Mary, knocking her to the floor. I tried to pull her up but then another of them attached himself to my back. He was skinny and weighed very little but he threw me off balance so that I fell forwards, taking down Ginge, two more attackers and Reg along with me. The van halted.

  “We surrender,” Ali shouted. “Stop fighting. We surrender.”

  *

  “Think you can talk us out of this one?” I asked Ali. “Maybe we can get them to fight on our side?”

  Ali rolled his eyes at me. “I doubt it.”

  The Scavengers, and me, were in a line facing a set of steps up to a stage. On the stage was a large chair and in it sat a man in a fur coat. We were in one of the University buildings. It was very grand, and I imagined it being used for ceremonies. It had waxed wooden floorboards, panelled walls and a chandelier above our heads. A large painting of an old professor glared down at us, he wore a black coat and funny hat with a tassel. There was a scroll in his hand.

  The man in the furs had to be the leader. He stared at us from his throne with piggy little eyes in a wide face. They were like shrivelled up black marbles and reminded me of hamster eyes, tiny and glassy. His mouth was little more than a thin line, and his hair was so flat and black that it looked like a slick of grease painted on a bald head. He tapped the arm of the chair.

  “What do we have here?” he boomed and then smirked, finishing with a little high pitched laugh. The room was lined with the same shirtless warriors who fought us in the van. They filled each wall and the rest of the room behind us. None of them laughed with their leader. “An old Scottish woman.” He stared at Mary. “A young, virile red-head.” I didn’t like the way his eyes lingered on Ginge. “A young Asian man. Two thugs.” His eyes glanced over Ali, Stevie and Reg before resting on me. “And you.” My fingers twitched. I didn’t like him looking at me.

  The leader of the cult stood up and started to walk down the steps towards us. I realised how old he was. He took each step very deliberately, like a man afraid to fall. But he did not want to show weakness and so he did not accept help from one of his people when they offered. He walked straight up to me, ignoring the rest.

  “Yes,” he breathed in my face. I curled up my lip in disgust. He was rotten and his breath foul. “You are the powerful one. I can see it in your eyes.” His finger reached up to touch my cheek but I moved away. Someone grabbed my hair from behind and held my head still so that the leader could touch me. His finger trailed down from my forehead to my chin. “We keep this one. The rest can be disposed with.”

  “No!” I shouted.

  Everything happened in a blur after that moment. I turned to Ali as the bare-chested fighters started to pull him and the rest of the Scavengers away. Then I threw all of the attackers away from them, throwing them in the air, not caring if I hurt them anymore. I threw the leader into the back wall and he slid to the floor. Someone yelled to knock me unconscious and then many fists headed towards me but I ducked to the floor and rolled over, still with my hands tied behind my back. Someone pulled me to my feet and I had to duck to avoid another punch. Like a wave rippling through a crowd, I threw the attackers in the air and they landed in a heap.

  The man in fur lunged forward and clutched my face in a vice-like grip. He squeezed my jaw so tight that I thought the bones were going to break. He whispered words I didn’t understand, staring deep into my eyes as though trying to cast some sort of spell. It distracted me, and I couldn’t concentrate on my gift. I was drained and my legs
started to buckle underneath me. Ali called my name and I felt my eyes drooping. Then, suddenly, my face was free and I had to push myself up from the floor. The man in fur hit Ali around the head and he collapsed. The anger surged through me again and I lifted the man up, higher and higher and higher until his fur draped all around his floating body. He yelled out and his arms windmilled in the air. This man was evil, I sensed it. He was rotten to the core and he had all of these men under his control. I hated the way he looked at me and Ginge and I wanted all of that to stop. I glanced around the room at the hurt and bruised fighters who had attacked us. They had not once looked at this man with admiration. There was nothing there but fear.

  Once, my dad told me about a disease called cancer that lots of people died of before cloning cured it. He said that sometimes it could be fixed by removing the tumour before the badness spread to the rest of the body. That was what I was going to do. I was going to remove the tumour. I slammed the man down to the ground. I killed him.

  32

  There were a hundred pairs of eyes staring at me. My knees gave in and I dropped to the floor next to Ali and a dead body. From the man in fur there was a long stream of blood running from a wound in his head. I started to cry and I had no way of wiping them from my eyes. Ali stirred and sat up next to me. He looked at the body of the cult leader and then at me.

  “Don’t cry over that fat bastard,” he said. They weren’t the most soothing of words but it did distract me from my depression for just a moment.

  What had I done? I’d killed someone. I knew nothing about this man, except that he had been sat in a throne and looked at us funny. I’d been so sure he was evil. But now he was just a limp man on the floor, dead. His minions stood or sat, they were tired and bruised and they just stared at me. Then the caterwauling began again and Mary looked around the room nervously. Reg and Stevie puffed up their chests, glaring at them all suspiciously, waiting for a fight. Ginge moved closer to Mary.

  “What have I done?” I whispered to no one.

  “Rid the world of something bad,” Ali said. “Don’t feel sorry fer yeself. We’d be dead if it weren’t fer ye.”

  “Why aren’t they attacking us?” I said.

  The bare chested men, who were all young – perhaps in their late teens – were still singing. One of them scuttled towards me and I shrank back away from him. He said nothing but stared at me with large grey eyes. He stood, looking straight at me for a few moments and then he sank to his knees. Still singing, he bowed low, placing his hands on the floorboards as though in worship. The others followed suit, all of them dropping to the floor with their hands and heads touching the waxed wood.

  “Because yer their new leader,” Ali said. “Congratulations.”

  I scrambled to my feet. “No. Stop it.” No one listened; they stayed close to the ground, still singing. My voice couldn’t be heard over so much noise. “Stop it,” I said, louder. They ignored me. “Stop it. I command you to stop it!”

  The singing ceased. The grey eyed boy sat up, staring at me. Again, they all followed suit, expecting something from me. I didn’t know what.

  My mouth flapped open. “At ease,” I said. Ali snorted with laughter. The men just stared at me, confused. “I mean… stand up.” There was a rumble as they obeyed within seconds. “Okay… tell me who you are and why you were following orders from that man.”

  It was the grey eyed boy who spoke. His voice was soft and polite. “We are the Sun Worshippers, and that is the Sun.” He pointed to the dead man.

  “He’s your leader?”

  The boy nodded enthusiastically. “God chose him. He lights our way so that we can follow the path to righteousness.”

  I frowned. “You really believed that this man was fit to lead you. All of you?”

  He looked confused. “Who else would lead us? What would we do without Sun?” His voice softened. “It’s always been this way.”

  Mary folded her arms across her chest. “They’ve all been brainwashed. Poor bairns.”

  “Why did you sing after Sun… died?” I gulped after saying the word. It was so small and yet so laden with meaning. What it really meant was that I’d murdered him. I killed someone.

  “Because the new leader was chosen. You.” He smiled again, his face open and naïve.

  “Well, lad, if the kid here is yer leader, ye’d best untie her at least, eh? And us while yer at it,” Ali said. He raised his eyebrows at the boy.

  The boy’s expression changed to mortification. “Of course.” He scurried around me and I felt his fingers work on the ropes to free my wrists. “I’m so sorry, great one.”

  I cringed. “Just Mina is fine.”

  “As you say, Great Mina.”

  “No great,” I insisted. “Just Mina.”

  “Just Mina,” he repeated.

  “Mina,” I repeated. My wrists were free and I rubbed them with my fingers.

  “Yer in a losing battle there, kid. These lot are a sandwich short of a picnic,” Ali said with a laugh.

  “Don’t be cruel,” I chided. “They’ve just seen their leader killed. They don’t know what the hell is going on.” I turned back to the boy. “Can you get your people to untie my people?” I gestured to the Scavengers.

  The boy nodded and clicked his fingers at the nearest boy soldiers. They jumped to their feet and rushed around the Scavengers. Ginge watched them through her fringe suspiciously.

  “What’s your name?” I asked the boy.

  “I don’t have a name,” he said. “But I do have a number. I’m five.” He beamed with pride. “That means I’m fifth in command.”

  I wasn’t as impressed as he’d hoped for. “You don’t have a name? You never grew up with a name? What about your parents? They must have called you something?”

  “What are parents?”

  My chin almost hit the floor. “You don’t know what parents are? Mother and Father?”

  “I had a mother once,” he said. “But I don’t remember her. We were chosen by Moon to train.”

  Ali snorted. “Sun and Moon? What kind of wackadoodle place is this?”

  I elbowed Ali in the ribs to shush him. “Who’s Moon?”

  “Sun’s advisor. He shows us how to fight and he feeds us.”

  “Lovely place this,” Mary said with a roll of her eyes. “Ask him where the women are.”

  “Five… I can’t call you Five. Can I give you a different name?” I said, shaking my head at all of this. I looked out at the blank faces of the other boy soldiers. What atrocities had they lived through?

  “Of course you can, great Mina. You can call me anything you like.”

  “It’s just Mina, okay? No great. I am not great, I’m so far from great you don’t understand. Look, your new name is Ben. Do you like that name?”

  The boy straightened his back. “I think it is a fine name. A warrior’s name.” He puffed up his chest and pulled back his shoulders. “I will be proud to have been named Ben by the grea… I mean, by Mina.”

  “Good. Now, my first order to you… to you all…” I looked up from Ben to the rest of the Sun Worshippers around the hall. “Is for you to choose a name for yourselves. You are all to have proper names, not numbers. You are people. You deserve names.” I turn back to Ben. “Tell me where your women and children are.”

  *

  Ben took us to a different building, one with lots of floors and windows. We walked past an old reception desk and down a corridor lined with dirty blue linoleum and white walls. It had swinging doors and reminded me of a hospital. Ahead of us I could hear noises, babies crying and whisperings. There was the clatter of something against metal. It felt wrong and my stomach clenched. Perhaps it was because I knew we’d left Sun dead on the floor of the hall, his blood seeping into the floorboards. After what Ben had told me I knew he was a bad person, but part of me couldn’t bear the thought of him like that.

  “This isnae gunnae be pleasant,” Mary warned as we were about to step through another
swinging door towards the noise. “I dunnae about ye but I havnae high hopes fer the women livin’ in luxury.”

  I knew she was right but it still didn’t prepare me for what was behind those doors.

  The smell hit me first – body odour, urine and sweat. I pressed my hand over my mouth. Then I noticed their eyes, those woeful eyes. I would never forget them for as long as I lived. Those eyes bulged out of their thin faces, full of pain and misery. On the other side of the doors the corridor was lined with old classrooms. The classroom doors had been ripped from their hinges and replaced with the metal doors of old cages. Inside each cage were dozens of women and children living in absolute squalor. Some wore rags. Some were completely naked. They were all thin and dirty. There was straw on the floors and a few old blankets strewn around their cages. Some of the women rocked on their haunches, staring into space.

  “Let them out,” I said in a low, shaking voice.

  Ben turned to me. “Are you sure? Sun said that under no circumstances were––”

  “LET THEM OUT,” I screamed. I felt my face turn red. “Sun is dead. I am your leader now and I order you to let them out. Do you have medical supplies? Food? Water?”

  “Yes, we have some of those things. But they aren’t allowed for the women,” Ben said. His eyes were wide with fear.

  Ginge swore and threw herself at him but I caught her. “Don’t spook him,” I said. “We need to get these people to safety.”

  She nodded and spat on the floor in disgust at what we were seeing. I didn’t blame her.

  “Listen to me, Ben,” I said. “Look at me. I am a woman and I killed your leader. I’m now the chosen one.” I pointed to the people in the cages. “I’m the same as them. They’re the same as me… and you. Everything Sun has told you is a lie. He was a bad man. Do you understand?”

  Ben nodded.

  “You have a responsibility to get these people to safety. You’re in charge now – because I say so. You have to make sure that they are fed, watered and treated properly. You get your people to take them to whatever medical centre you have. Give them clothes and a place to clean themselves. You need to learn very quickly that people do not deserve to be treated like this.”