Deadlands Read online

  Lily Herne divides her time between Cape Town and Norwich, UK, and can sometimes be found in both places at once. Her interests include chainsaws, steampunk and cake. You can follow her on Twitter at @Herne13 or friend her on Facebook – she’d love to hear from you.

  Constable & Robinson Ltd

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  London WC1B 4HP

  www.constablerobinson.com

  First published by Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd 2011

  First published in the UK by Much-in-Little,

  an imprint of Constable & Robinson Ltd, 2013

  Copyright © Sarah Lotz and Savannah Lotz, 2011

  The rights of Sarah Lotz and Savannah Lotz to be identified as the authors of this work have been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  All rights reserved. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  A copy of the British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available from the British Library

  ISBN: 978-1-47210-090-0 (paperback)

  ISBN: 978-1-47210-091-7 (ebook)

  Printed and bound in the UK

  1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

  Cover design: Gray318

  Part One

  This story begins with a funeral. I know it’s a bit of a downer to start it here, but it just feels right. I could begin ten years ago when the War ended, or even start when I discovered my ‘special skill’, but if you don’t like it, as my friend Ginger would say, ‘Not my problemo, mate.’

  Oh, and I should probably warn you that it ends with a funeral as well.

  But I’m not going to tell you whose.

  You can find that out for yourself.

  1

  My name is Lele de la Fontein. I’m seventeen and a bit, and the first funeral I was telling you about was my grandmother’s. I don’t remember exactly on which day it took place (who cares about those kind of details, right?), but I do remember the weather. Winter was in full swing; the sky pregnant with the rain that was to turn the streets into muddy rivers for days afterwards; the wind pulsing and howling around us.

  Not that the biting South-Easterly seemed to bother the Resurrectionists. They were standing in a circle around Gran’s shrouded body, holding hands and swaying from side to side as if they were playing the world’s sickest game of ring-a-ring o’ roses. Most of them were Dad’s age or older, and around their necks they all wore those horrible amulets carved to look like human vertebrae. Their leader, a man with a scraggly grey beard and rickety legs, abruptly stopped swaying and thrust his arms into the air. ‘Soon we shall send this woman, our dearly beloved sister, out into the world,’ he said in a ridiculous booming voice. ‘Yes! Out into the world beyond! For her divine resurrection in the next life.’

  His followers all smiled and nodded, but I couldn’t stand it any longer. ‘This is crap!’ I said, making sure my voice carried over the wind. ‘They shouldn’t be here.’

  ‘Leletia!’ the Mantis snapped. ‘Keep your voice down.’

  ‘Gran didn’t believe in all this kak!’

  The Mantis glared at me, and I did my best to stare her down, but it wasn’t a battle I was going to win anytime soon. For the thousandth time I tried to figure out what it was Dad saw in her. It couldn’t be her looks. Thanks to her bulbous eyes, spindly limbs and general twitchiness, she always looked as if she was on the verge of pouncing on something. I tried to catch Dad’s eye, but, as usual, he was lost in his own world. He stared straight ahead, the empty left arm of his jacket taped to his side so that it wouldn’t flap around in the wind. He didn’t look even slightly sad, but that wasn’t surprising. Gran wasn’t his mother, and after Mom died he hadn’t had much to do with her. Or with me and Jobe, while we’re on the subject.

  The wind dropped, and the moans of the Rotters floated towards us. They sounded closer to the fence than usual, as if they could sense what was about to happen.

  I think it was then that Gran’s death really hit me. I tried repeating the same mantra to myself over and over again – I will not cry, I will not cry, I will not cry – but my tear ducts weren’t listening. I wasn’t just crying because Gran was gone. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I was going to miss her so much my stomach hurt, but there was also a selfish part of me that hated her for leaving us. Because without her, Jobe and I would be forced to stay in the stinking city enclave; we’d be stuck with Dad and the Mantis for good.

  Jobe snuggled closer to me, sing-songing to himself as he often did, oblivious to the fact that our lives had taken a massive turn for the worse. He didn’t seem to be feeling the chill, although his bare brown feet were turning slightly blue. The Mantis had made him leave Chinwag – his kitten and constant companion – behind, but even this didn’t seem to bother him.

  The Mantis pulled her fine woollen wrap tighter around her bony body and sighed, ‘And try to get your brother to behave, Leletia.’

  I ignored her. Jobe did what he wanted. Not even I had any control over him, and she knew that. I scrubbed my face with my palms, smearing away the worst of the tears, and tried not to look at Gran’s body, its shape seemingly so much smaller than when she’d been alive.

  We all jumped as the enclave gate clanked open behind us.

  Rickety Legs gasped and clapped his hands together. ‘They’re coming!’ he said, his followers clustering around him like a bunch of excited kids. My stomach flipped, and even the Mantis’s grim expression tightened.

  It was time.

  I held my breath as the Guardians’ wagon came over the rise towards us. The huge black horse pulling it was prancing in terror; the harness strapped too tightly across its body, foam frothing around the bit in its mouth. The wind whipped its mane around its neck, and behind the blinkers on its bridle I caught a glimpse of the whites of its eyes.

  The cart shook and bumped over the patchy track, eventually coming to a stop a few metres from us. The Resurrectionists all fell to their knees, muttering prayers and clutching at their vertebrae amulets. The Mantis and Dad bowed their heads, but I refused to look away. It was the first time I’d been so close to a Guardian and for a second I almost forgot about my grief. There were two of them – one driving the cart, hands hidden under the sleeves of its robe, and another sitting rigidly next to it. The driver turned its head towards us, and I couldn’t resist peering into the dark shadow that lay under its hood. But the rough brown fabric fell too far over its head; the blank darkness where its face should be somehow creepier than anything my imagination could conjure up.

  Of course, at that stage not even the bigwig embassy officials knew what the Guardians looked like under their robes. There were rumours of course – that they were highly evolved Rotters who covered up so that they wouldn’t freak everyone out with their maggoty, decaying flesh; that they looked so terrifying that just one peek at their true form would send a person insane. (Of course, now that I do know what they look like under their robes, I’m not surprised they covered up.)

  The Guardians climbed down and headed towards us, ignoring the prostrate Resurrectionists as if they also thought the cult was a pointless load of crap. The driver lifted Gran’s body and flung it onto the back of the wagon as if it was nothing more than a bag of potatoes; as if she hadn’t once been a living, breathing pe
rson at all. Then, job done, they climbed back on to the wagon and started heading back towards the gate.

  ‘Let’s go,’ the Mantis said. ‘It’s freezing.’

  Dad put his good arm around her shoulders and they turned away. Rickety Legs nodded at the Mantis, shook her hand, and then he and his crew started ambling away, chatting amongst themselves. ‘Leletia, bring your brother,’ Dad mumbled.

  Jobe was crouched on the ground, fingers fanned out in the mud, and when the wind died I could hear he was speaking to himself in the strange quiet voice he sometimes used: ‘Gogo,’ he murmured. ‘Gogo.’

  I guess all the anger, grief and distress I was feeling reached a head. Or maybe Jobe’s rare words finally cemented the fact that I would never see Gran again. This was it. I was really, truly on my own.

  ‘No!’ I screamed, and started racing towards the spiked metal gate. One of the Guardians was busy hefting it open, and I thudded down towards the wagon, my legs gathering momentum, unable to stop as the sloping ground fell away sharply in front of me. I skidded and fell to my knees, inches away from the wheels. The horse reared up in alarm, but neither Guardian reacted. The driver just flicked the reins again, and the horse moved on, snorting and shaking its head.

  I scrambled to my feet. The gate was fully open now and I could see right through to the outside – right into the Deadlands. I’d become used to seeing the top of Table Mountain, the shells of the few remaining high-rises and the burned-out skeletons of the cylindrical buildings everyone used to call the Tampon Towers peeking over the fence, but I’d never seen into the Deadlands before. Jobe and I had been ferried to the city enclave in the middle of the night, but we hadn’t even caught a glimpse of the faceless Guardian who drove our wagon. Now I could make out the rusted carcass of an overturned taxi, grass growing in and around its broken windows. And as I stared at it, something scrabbled around its side, something with raggedy grey limbs and a skull that seemed to be made up of nothing but yellow teeth and dark eyeholes.

  The thing moved in rapid, jerky gestures. It was heading straight for the opening, crawling on all fours, jaw gaping impossibly wide, a ghoulish moan coming from its throat.

  I knew that if I didn’t move fast it would be on me in seconds, but my limbs had turned to jelly. The Rotter skittered forward, metres away from the gate, as I watched, paralysed with horror. Then, as if it was a trainer instructing a dog to sit, one of the Guardians languidly lifted its arm and the creature slunk back to its hideout in the junked vehicle. Seconds later the gate closed behind the wagon with a metallic clash.

  I felt my arm being yanked roughly as someone hauled me to my feet. ‘Lele!’ Dad yelled at me, trying to catch his breath. ‘What the hell were you thinking?’

  I shrugged my shoulder out of his grasp and started walking back towards where the Mantis and Jobe were waiting. The rain was starting to fall steadily, drops the size of two cent pieces splashing down around us.

  ‘How could you?’ the Mantis hissed.

  I was so overwhelmed by a spike of hatred that I actually started shaking. I know the Mantis was supposed to be a great war hero and everything, but right then, as far as I was concerned, she was an A-grade bitch. Somehow, I promised myself, I’d make a plan to get away from the city enclave. Away from Dad. Away from the Resurrectionists. And especially away from the Mantis.

  And I’d do whatever it took.

  The light was fading fast. Taking Jobe’s hand, I turned back towards the fence one last time.

  ‘Bye, Gran,’ I whispered into the wind.

  I was trying not to think that somewhere, out in the Deadlands, Gran was getting up.

  2

  I spent the next day hiding out in my room, doing my best to ignore Dad and the Mantis, whiling away the time sketching. I hated that room; I just couldn’t get used to being so confined. Gran’s cottage in the Agriculturals may have been little more than a glorified shack, but there were acres of farmland and veld around our fenced settlements and livestock pens – the area so vast that we could barely hear the moans of the Rotters who roamed in the faraway Deadlands. Not so in the city, where it was an almost constant background noise, ebbing and flowing at the whim of the wind.

  Thanks to the Mantis’s high-powered job at the embassy, she and Dad owned a squat brick-and-mortar box squeezed in between its neighbours. It was supposed to be privileged housing, but you could have fooled me. The place stank of the paraffin that fuelled the lamps at night and the windows were tiny and hardly let in any light, even on the sunniest of days.

  Around dinner time, Jobe appeared at the door, Chinwag clutched in his arms. He toddled over to me and placed a cool hand on my forehead. ‘Eina,’ he said.

  ‘Yeah, Jobe,’ I said. ‘You’ve got that right.’

  He climbed onto the bed and curled up next to me, Chinwag squirming out of his grasp and snuggling herself into the crook of my legs.

  There was a knock on the door and the Mantis entered. She was carrying a long-sleeved woollen tunic over her arm and I could tell by the look in her eye that she was about to give me one of her ‘important talks’. She stalked over to the wooden chair in the corner of the room and sat down, primly crossing her ankles. ‘So, Leletia,’ she said, all fake cheeriness, as if we hadn’t all been at a funeral the day before. ‘First day at your new school tomorrow. You must be so excited.’

  I wasn’t in the slightest bit excited. If it hadn’t been for the sorrow that was eating out my insides, I’d have been feeling a low, throbbing dread.

  She held out the grey tunic. ‘Isn’t it gorgeous?’

  ‘I’m not wearing that,’ I said.

  Her eyes flickered with irritation. ‘You will wear it, Leletia.’

  ‘My name’s Lele.’

  She sighed and pinched her nose with her thumb and forefinger as if I was literally giving her a headache. ‘We’ve all got to adjust,’ she said. ‘I know how hard it is for you to deal with your grandmother’s passing over . . .’

  ‘You don’t know anything about me.’

  She carried on as if I hadn’t spoken. ‘We all lost people during the War and we all have to learn to move on and try to make a better life for ourselves. That is why your father and I decided it was best for you to go to school tomorrow. There’s no point wallowing in grief.’

  ‘I don’t want to go to your stupid Rotter-lover school!’ I didn’t like how my voice sounded – whingeing and weak – but I couldn’t help it.

  The Mantis looked me straight in the eye, but she didn’t raise her voice when she spoke. ‘You listen to me very carefully, Leletia. That kind of talk could land all of us into very serious trouble – you especially.’

  I glared at her. ‘Okay, Cleo. I don’t want to go to your stupid zombie-lover school. Better?’

  ‘I know you think you’re being very clever, Leletia. But ignorance is no excuse –’

  ‘Who’s being ignorant? I’m not the one who treats the Guardians like they’re gods!’

  ‘The Resurrectionists are making a better life for all of us, Leletia,’ the Mantis said with that same irritating calmness. ‘If it wasn’t for them, we’d still all be living in tents like refugees.’

  ‘It’s sick, though, making deals with them. You’re sick!’

  She gave me a small, icy smile and toyed with the amulet around her neck. ‘You’re extremely lucky to be going to school at all. Not everyone gets the chance. You know that.’

  ‘So you’ve said, like, a hundred times.’

  ‘Do you know how lucky you are? A chance at a career?’

  ‘Whatever.’

  ‘Not whatever, Leletia. You’ve come of age. You know the alternative.’

  I hated to admit it, but she was right. And the alternative wasn’t pretty. Marriage. Breeding. Two of the girls at my old school had left to get married when they were fifteen; even in the Agriculturals there were loads of young mothers and fathers, many of them not much older than me, carrying babies and pulling toddlers around by the ha
nd.

  The Mantis was really getting into her stride now. ‘Besides, it’s the best school in the enclave. Have you any idea how many favours I had to call in to get you in there?’

  But I had one card up my sleeve. ‘What about the Lottery?’ I said.

  She jerked back slightly. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘What if I win the Lottery? Then it’s all a waste of time, isn’t it?’

  ‘Now you’re just being obtuse! You know you’re not eligible. Not after . . . your brother . . .’ Her eyes strayed to where Jobe was snuggled up close to me and I felt a small thrill of triumph. I’d suspected that mentioning the Lottery would rattle her. I’d heard that even hard-core Resurrectionists didn’t like talking about it. But her discomfort didn’t last long. ‘You’re going tomorrow, Leletia, whether you like it or not.’

  I thought about telling her to stick it. But what was my alternative? Running away? Even if I did somehow make it through the Deadlands and back to the Agriculturals unscathed, I didn’t want to imagine what would happen to Jobe if I wasn’t around. I’d heard rumours that kids like him weren’t tolerated in some parts of the city enclave.

  Taking my silence as agreement, the Mantis got to her feet, pausing only to pick up Mom’s old army boots from where I’d dropped them at the base of the bed. They were at least a size too big, but I’d padded them out with old socks, and they were comfortable enough. ‘You can borrow a pair of my shoes tomorrow,’ she said. ‘We’ll get you some more at the leather market at the weekend.’

  ‘No thanks. I’m wearing those.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous. You’ll be the laughing stock. It’s bad enough that your hair . . . well, at least that will grow. It’s about time you learned that we do things differently in the city.’

  ‘You mean so that I don’t embarrass you?’ I sat up, and Chinwag zooted to the end of the bed where she began licking a paw.

  The Mantis didn’t answer.

  ‘I’ll go to your stupid school,’ I said, reaching over and grabbing the boots out of her grasp. ‘But on my terms.’