CHAPTER FIVE
Bach marched across the roof of the Hunter Tower, through the makeshift forest. It was once a flower garden, but he now used it to grow vegetables. Over a year ago, he and Felip built a greenhouse and planted the garden up there so they would be able to grow some of the vegetables from their home realm. Growing plants was something he’d learned from watching his mother, who collected the most unusual plants he’d ever seen.
Felip was bad at working with plants, but he’d gotten a bit better over the last years with Bach’s help.
Enric, on the other hand, was useless at it and he tried to get Piper to learn, but Bach refused to be near enough to teach her.
Once at the edge of the roof, he leaned over, watching the night covered street. About three hundred or so infected Terrans staggered along in the street below.
Bringing the Terran girl here was a mistake. She didn’t remember him and from her eagerness to leave, she despised him. This hurt him deeply. He did not expect her to fall at his feet, but he didn’t expect such rejection. “Ah.” He clenched the railing as sweat poured down his arms.
“I thought you would be inside, figuring out why you think you remember her.” Felip tapped him on the shoulder. “Instead, you are up here alone while getting extremely angry.”
“Why are you not resting? You look worse than before.”
“I think Wisteria has been around strangle weed.” He waved his hands and sat down on a nearby bench. “But it’ll be better once she has washed.”
“That explains why I have been sweating so much. How much does she have on her?”
“She did not have with her. I think she bathes in it.”
Unbeknownst to the Terrans, strangle weed, a violet vine that grew on Terra, was one of the few things from Terra that could kill the Family. It was toxic to the Family in almost any form and just being near it was uncomfortable for Bach, to say the least.
“After the swarm passes, I will take her back. We will not have to worry about her poison,” Bach grumbled as he stepped onto the railing. “I want to check the perimeter again. At least to make sure there’s no risk of a breach.”
“Why? Your grandfather’s Thayn built this tower one hundred and fifty years ago to make it impregnable to the Terrans. Not even one of their tanks could break the walls.”
“What do I know about construction or tanks? I will sleep better knowing everyone is okay.” Bach climbed on to the ledge.
He was about to jump off when Felip stopped him. “Are you afraid of her?”
“What?” he scoffed.
“It is like you are trying to find reason to leave, but I could be mistaken.”
“You are right—you are mistaken.”
“Or are you lonely here? Is that what this is about?”
“Lonely?” He almost fell off the edge. “For a Terran? If I wanted to find entertainment of that grade, I would not have settled for her.”
“They do look a lot like us. If you drink a lot of sandwine, you might trick yourself into thinking she was?” Felip jeered.
“I do not know what you are talking about.” Needing to be alone, Bach jumped off the ledge. He grabbed onto a windowsill to break his fall when he reached the eleventh floor, and climbed into Room 1134, his east side entrance. He headed to the stairwell, moving swiftly through the dark interior.
* * * * *
The food Felip had brought for Wisteria was far too rich and too much for her. When she was younger, she never had trouble eating big, rich meals, but after years of living off rations she couldn’t seem to indulge anymore. The main reason she couldn’t seem to eat much was because of her worry over the horde of biters below.
She limped out into a dark corridor and spotted a door near the end. It was open and a bright light shone from it into the hall. She could hear music and laughter emanating from the room. Slowly, she moved to the door and peaked inside. Felip stood playing video games in front of an enormous television at the far end of a massive living room.
The floor was marble and she was sure there was a swimming pool on one end of the room. On the other was a large mirror, which made the room look even larger. When everyone else she knew was struggling to find food, these boys were living like kings, and really stupid kings at that. She couldn’t understand why biters didn’t just break in and overrun this place. Wisteria needed to escape, but with the swarm below that was impossible. Maybe she could reason with the guys to turn off the music and the lights at the very least.
“Hello,” Felip greeted her. “Have you decided what you are going to do?”
“I can’t leave, not with the biters swarming down there.”
He gestured for her to sit.
She hopped over to one of the sofas and sat down in front of the television, spotting a newspaper on the couch. The headline read, Doomsday Virus Cured! She wanted to both laugh and cry, because people had been so naïve and stupid back then. It was certainly an old newspaper from before the swarms.
There was a time when the government thought the biters could be saved. It was months after the outbreak and everyone thought there was a real cure. The scientific community, media, and the government championed it. Some pockets of scientists were skeptical, but they were painted as quacks and panic mongers.
People clamored for this cure and it was practically handed out on street corners. Her mother wasn’t convinced and she made them bunker down in Bristol. Wisteria waited, hoping for sanity to return while people were treated, but that never happened. Three weeks later, most of the government, media, and medical communities were infected. Days later, she heard the final broadcast from the BBC, with a message from Queen Elizabeth asking people to stay calm and carry on. That was the last government communication of any kind.
“Television, wow! I can’t remember the last time I watched TV,” Wisteria remarked as she sat down. “But how do you make all this work?”
“Magic,” he teased.
“Seriously.”
“If I explained it to you? You would not understand.”
“You’re running diesel generators? That’s not hard to understand.”
“Yes, that is exactly what we are doing.” Felip chuckled as though she was an idiot and turned back to his games.
There was no point continuing the conversation or showing any frustration over his response. She had to figure out how and when she’d leave. Her sword had vanished and these people didn’t have weapons in easy access.
“How long have you been out there? Where are you from?”
“Oh, not for long. How long have you all been up here?” She didn’t want to discuss where she was from. She got up, limped over to the cabinet and started to examine the titles.
“Two years, but it is better for me not to try and keep track. In my mind, it helps pass the time. But I am going to assume you live around a lot of people.”
“Why do you assume that?”
“Because Bach said he got you from Norton and I have heard there is a safe haven near there. The Isle of Smythe; one of the last human safe havens.”
“One of them? Wait, you know about other settlements?” She jumped up, but couldn’t stand long. “How many? Where?”
“A few.” Bach came into the room. “Eventually, they kill each other or are devoured by the infected. I would not expect yours to last very long.” He sounded as if he wanted everyone to die.
“We’ll be fine,” She shot back angrily. “We keep ourselves safe.”
“Not very safe, since you ended up here with us.” He looked like he was smirking.
“That was an accident,” she defended.
“Well, it is only a matter of time,” Bach quipped. “The infected will breach and everyone you know will die, if they are not dead already.”
“What?” She searched for words to reply, but she didn’t have to figure that out because Bach skulked out of the room.
“Ah, do not worry about him. He is just mad because you are using his room,” Felip chortled while he continued to play the game.
* * * * *
Bach returned to his makeshift quarters, regretting what he said about the Terrans. Well actually no, he stood by it. The reason he and his cohorts came to Terra was to watch the Terrans suffer for what they did to him and his mother.
Watching the swarm of infected Terrans wandering beneath his window, he wanted to will the swarm to dissipate, so Felip could take Wisteria away. But doing that would take almost all his strength to get a swarm this size to scatter.
Hours later, he was still at the window when someone knocked. Opening his door, he saw Wisteria standing outside with her arms crossed. Just seeing her mad at him upset him because she must have remembered this lost secret and was choosing to toy with him. Her large black eyes squinted up at him through her long eyelashes. This particular guise was one he’d seen before.
“Yes?” He looked down at the short girl.
“Thank you for saving my life. And thank you for letting me stay in your room.” The sound of her voice was rhythmic because he remembered now that she’d been a singer. She was also a liar, for not admitting that she knew him.
“But you owe me an apology.” Her eyes were squeezed to angry slits.
“What?”
“You should apologize for what you said before. Why did you act that way?”
“Okay, I am sorry. Is that better?” He started to close the door.
Wisteria stopped it with her hand. “Please, never speak to me like that again.” She furiously limped away from him and made her way down the hall.
* * * * *
Moments later, Wisteria lay down to sleep, but her thoughts were full of mixed images of her family and the surreal groans from the biters below. After several hours of trying to sleep, she gave up and left the room. She wandered around the penthouse apartment and found her way to the roof.
While there, she saw a black ball the size of a volleyball, spinning on the center of the roof. She walked over to it. It seemed to be rotating by itself and seemingly floating in mid-air. She reached to touch the ball, but someone seized her hand.
“Touch that and it will rip your arm from your shoulder.”
Wisteria turned to find Bach, standing behind her while clutching her wrist. His hand lingered before letting go of her. She reminded herself that he was still a jerk for what he said earlier, along with his callous apology. He had saved her life and she was trapped in his home, so she decided to bite her tongue. “What is it? And if it’s so dangerous, why is it up here?”
“Because I would not put something so dangerous inside the house.”
“Why do you need something like this at all?”
He stepped up to the ball and reach toward the spinning sphere.
“Don’t!” She grabbed his hand.
Alarmed, he glanced down at her fingers on his skin. For a second, she thought he actually blushed, but then remembered it was nighttime and dark so she couldn’t really tell.
“It will not hurt me.” He removed her hands and then placed his on the black ball.
Suddenly, all the lights on the roof when out.
“How do you think we get power Wisteria? The biel core powers the building.”
“Oh, right.” She tried to sound convincing and not completely confused. “I thought you used diesel generators.”
“Generators?” He paused and sighed. “But they are disgusting and loud. Why would I do that?”
Sensing another insult coming, Wisteria decided to wrap up the conversation. She simply nodded and started to leave. “Good night.”
“I am sorry about what I said before,” she heard Bach call out.
His apology caught her by surprise. “You apologized already.” She stopped, but didn’t look at him.
“No, that was not an apology. I…”
Wisteria was relieved. She wasn’t in the mood for another off-hand remark. Things were bad enough without having to deal with the teenage drama king. “Don’t worry about it.” She continued going.
“I have not had a visitor here in over a year,” he admitted.
Wisteria guessed that accounted for his lack of manners, but she still wasn’t going to set herself up to take more of his harshness.
“I am not saying that to try and justify what I—” he paused blocking her path. “Please, do not leave.”
He wants me to stay forever? Wisteria almost choked and then she calmed down. The panic in her mind was slightly abated, but Bach still might use her for bait for the biters or eat her himself when they ran out of food.
“Wisteria?”
For a moment, he seemed familiar. No, I don’t know this boy or the other one. “Sure, I’ll stay for a while, I guess.” She shivered in the cold air.
“Perhaps we could sit in the greenhouse?” he suggested.
* * * * *
It was obvious Wisteria was cold. Bach figured the greenhouse would be warmer, but she did not seem sure. Cautiously, she scanned the glass building as she fidgeted with her sleeves. He watched her eyelashes flutter while she looked around and she shook her head. “I’m fine out here,” she told him.
“But you are cold.”
“I’ve been worse off.” Walking to the ledge of the building, she sat down.
He sat down next to her.
She forced a smile, but he could see that there was no happiness in her eyes.
She was probably still mad about before, but that was not Bach’s concern. Now that the scavenger was up here, he could keep a better eye on her and he wanted her to confess that she knew him.
Avoided eye contact, she fidgeted with the short red dress, attempting to pull it over her jeans.
“Here.” He took off his jacket and spread it over her legs.
“No, no.” She took if off and handed it back to him. “I said I’m okay.”
“If you want it, you can use it, but I am not going to use it.” He laid the jacket on the ground beside her. “In case you change your mind, Ria.” He remembered just then that she hated being called Ria.
Her head jerked up, but she kept quiet. She looked upset as if she needed to speak, but didn’t.
It was then that Bach realized she was afraid. “You are not a prisoner here,” he assured her.
“I know,” she said cheerfully. “Once the biters are gone, I’ll be gone too.”
It still stung him that she was so eager to go. Bach wished he knew why. Perhaps, he should go with Enric and Felip on one of their excursions to the human settlement in the north. The sandwine seemed to make both of them more open to consider Terran girls and maybe it would work for him. All it took, according to Enric, was food and cosmetics. Then Bach remembered he had something of Wisteria’s. “These were the things you were collecting in the shop.” He took out brightly colored tubes from his pocket and placed them on her lap. “Your friend dropped it on her way out.” Why would she risk her life for junk like this?
“This isn’t mine. I’m not sure peach lip gloss suits me.” Wisteria studied the objects and seemed to be puzzled. “I wasn’t in that shop looking to buy makeup. I was trying to get her to go home. If I had just listened to him, I wouldn’t be here.”
“Listened to who?”
“Andrew. I was supposed stay in his line of site and if those girls weren’t leaving, I was meant to leave them and just get out.”
“And who is Andrew?”
“Andrew and I work as trackers in Norton.”
“What exactly do trackers do?”
“Mainly watching and monitoring the biters, studying their behavior and their numbers. If we need to, we cure them.” She fiddled with her blouse.
“Cure them? How? This sickness has no treatment.”
She didn’t move and at first Bach thought she was asleep.
“Wisteria.”
“We shoot them, Bach.” she sadly confessed. “No one knows how to treat them, but whatever we learn, we tell the soldiers and they take some actions.”
“Why are they making you do that?” Bach couldn’t believe someone as weak as her would have a job so insanely dangerous.
“They didn’t force me. I guess it’s something I have to do. It was that or pest control,” Wisteria replied. “And rat catching isn’t a skill I have.”
“Sounds safer though,” Bach retorted.
“True, but I was tired of being afraid. Don’t get me wrong, tracking is terrifying, but at least I feel more in control because I’m doing something about my life. I’m not just sitting around, waiting for the biters to get me.”
“But this time, you were not in control. Your friend? That girl, she almost got you infected and the other one died.”
“Melissa died?” She looked to be even more dejected than before, although she did not sound surprised.
“Do a lot of people get killed doing tracking?” How could she put herself in danger daily, for people like the girl who abandoned her?
“No one lately; Melissa was the first in months,” Wisteria answered in a small voice. “Everything’s mad. Everyone has lost someone. I don’t even know what’s happened to my father.”
“He is not with you by the beach?”
“The beach, you mean Norton? I’m not from there. We—were nearby. Well, sort of, we were on vacation, my mother, brother, and me.”
“Your father?”
“My parents aren’t together. They haven’t been for years. He stayed back in Lagos with his other wife and children.”
“Oh, so you only had a part of your family with you,” Bach concluded.
She nodded her head as she continued. “We arrived in Bristol and three days later everything went mad. That was the first time we saw the biters overrun a town. We were stranded there, surrounded by biters or panicked people, but we survived. An old married couple, the Lawsons, took us in for a while. We stayed in their cellar and in exchange, we shared the food we brought from Paris.”
“And the biters did not find this cellar?”
“They had a fallout shelter. It was built in the 1950s. We lived with them for a few weeks, maybe a month. They were nice people, but they lost their family when Bristol was overrun with the biters.”
“How bad was it?”
She coughed, forcing her voice to become firm. “It was hell. There were thousands of them, attacking and eating people. They were killing and eating people for weeks. We heard the screaming for days.”
“How did you get out?”
“We were lucky. Someone started a fire, a big fire in the city center. It was big enough to draw most of the infected away from us. We were going to join a convoy that was heading to Luton Airport. We heard there were still a few planes flying. The convoy was going to take us, but not the Lawsons because they didn’t have enough space.”
“You left them behind.”
“No, they left us behind. The Lawsons poisoned my brother, and made him so sick the convoy was afraid he was infected. They abandoned us.” She recalled begging the leader of the convoy to change his mind. “At least they didn’t kill him or try to sell us for food or something.”
“Your mother must have been terrified.”
“Actually,” she paused and shook her head. “She didn’t want to go to Luton Airport at all. David and I pushed for it. My mum kept saying since the Lawsons risked their lives for us, we should let them go. Then, David conveniently got sick. She was convinced there was a safe haven on the coast. She’d heard a rumor about it.”
Bach watched all the expressions pass across her smooth face as she spoke.
“We started heading east, and joined up with another convoy of people. Someone always had a story about somewhere that was biter free and the convoy often argued about which way to go. Eventually, the convoy splintered and most started heading to Luton Airport, because they thought there were planes still leaving and airport security had somehow contained the threat.” She paused and looked away from him, as if remembering the terrible journey. “Weeks later, we ran into two of the vehicles of the Lawson’s convoy. The cars were empty. All eight people, including the Lawsons, were dead and all their possessions were gone.”
“The biters got to them?”
“They looked to be already infected,” Wisteria recalled. “They were shot in the head. It was the first time my mother gave me a gun. We kept going to the coast. I was amazed when we found Smythe and were finally safe. Only four of us made it to the Isle of Smythe. And now I’m here.” She sighed heavily and looked out over the roof.
The cool night wind blew through them, causing her hair to fly into her face. She fought to get control of it, and Bach smiled as he watched her run her fingers through her long black braids. He realized how much he missed being around her and girls in general.
Piper was the only girl he had seen in seven months. Occasionally, girls from the Jade Ocean would sneak across through a threshold. However, the Lord of Jarthan, who guarded the thresholds between two realms, caught onto this, when his daughter Alba was one of the girls who snuck across. “What do you think happened to your father?” he inquired.
“Bach, can we talk about something else?” She gnawed at her lip.
“What do you want to talk about?”
“How come you live up here?” Her dark eyes finally met this. “How are you able to live up here? The biters would’ve gotten up here by now.”
“It was completely abandoned when we arrived years ago.” His father’s Thayns made sure the building was secured. The Family had thousands of dens around Terran. In England, Bach knew of over ten.
“You found it just like that?” She didn’t sound like she believed him.
“We have been here ever since.”
“And you guys are still up here all day, playing video games.”
The three boys travelled through the country to see the extent of the destruction, but Bach didn’t feel it would the best thing to tell her that he was here to watch her world die. “Sometimes we go looking for food or video games,but our life here is dull.” Felip and Enric also made trips to a safe haven in the North as well. The girls up there seemed open to doing anything for cosmetics. Enric particularly liked to distract himself with multiple Terrans.
“You plan to just wait this out?” She seemed even more skeptical of his answers, but she didn’t press him further. “What was your life like before this? Any family, parents, girlfriends, or hobbies? Were you a rock star?”
“Last I heard, my father and two brothers were well. My mother is dead.”
“I’m sorry.”
Bach knew she was feigning concern, so he remained silent.
“What happened to her?” The girl’s dark eyes finally met his.
“Why are you so interested in my life?”
“Huh?” She paused as though surprised by his skepticism. “It helps to know who I’m sharing a roof with. And I told you about my life.”
“The only thing worth knowing about me is if this all ended tomorrow, there will not be anything left on this world for me.”
* * * * *
Bach seemed uncomfortable about something.
Wisteria was considering whether or not she wanted to press further into his life. The conversation was strange and one-sided. He seemed to want to know all about her, but then refused to talk even a little about himself. She concluded that he was an ass after all.
“You were not going to introduce us, Eminent?” someone jeered.
Turning back, she saw another boy standing behind them. This boy was taller and bigger than Bach. Like Bach and Felip, he had green eyes and was dressed in equally dated attire. This boy’s hair was light brown, short and spiky.
Peeking out from behind him was a tall, thin red-headed girl who looked like she’d been in a fight, as she was sporting a large bruise over one of her blue eyes.
“Wisteria.” Bach got to his feet. “This is Enric.”
“Your name,” Enric stated slowly, “is Wisteria? Curious that you named her, Bach.”
“What happened to her?” Wisteria glanced at the other girl, but she darted behind Enric.
“Her? Do not worry about her.” Enric dismissed her question. “Piper, go inside and wait for us.”
“I don’t want to,” the red-head declared. “I want to stay with you.”
Enric cocked his eyebrow at the girl.
At his stare, she gasped and hurried inside.
“You see Bach, she is getting better trained,” Enric commented.
Appearing more unsettled now that his friend had arrived, Bach didn’t reply. He took Enric aside and they exchanged a few words in that foreign language.
Strangely, Wisteria understood parts of the conversation.
Bach asked Enric about Piper’s bruising and Enric was asking why Wisteria had a name.
She couldn’t make out any more than that.
“Wisteria.” Enric dragged out the last syllable of her name. “I heard Bach treated you badly earlier. You will learn he is a jerk, but in time you will figure him out.”
“In time, what do you mean?” Wisteria wondered. “I’m not going to be here that long.”
“No, of course you are not.” Enric sneered. “Right…Bach?”
“What is he talking about?” Dread started rising up within her. What were these boys planning?
Bach glowered at Enric.
“I will leave you two alone,” Enric remarked and made his way back into the building.
Once Enric was gone, Bach didn’t say anything to her as he turned away and left.
Alone on the roof, Wisteria wondered what to make of them. She knew they were definitely hiding something from her and that she needed to find a way out of here. Looking at the sea of biters moving along the street below, she didn’t have an immediate solution. Her next move was clear to her though: she needed to find some sort of weapon.
