his head. ‘These are not any creatures of Earth I have ever seen.’
Their whispered conversation had attracted the attention of the ‘child’. It stopped organizing the others and wandered over towards them with an awkward gait that looked like an uncomfortable approximation of a person walking. As if it was making a conscious effort to appear more human.
Sal and Lincoln instantly stopped speaking and looked up at it from the pile of coals they were lying on. She could see it more easily now, even if it was just by candlelight. It was no more than four feet tall, slender and narrow shouldered. Its head was loaf-shaped like the others, but, in proportion to its meagre body, much larger.
The creature squatted down, a position that looked more comfortable for it to settle into, and cocked its oversized head curiously at them. Its eyes were bigger than those on the ape-like variety that had carried her and Lincoln. Bigger and more childlike. But it was the mouth that drew her attention. There were no lips, just a jagged, uneven line of scarred, ribbed and bumpy flesh. As if some careless, or perhaps drunk, sculptor had fashioned them as an afterthought from lumpy clay.
Sal noticed, surprised she hadn’t spotted it before, that the creature had a dark bow-tie tied round its thin neck. It looked almost comical, and reminded her again of children playing dress-up. If she wasn’t so terrified of what these creatures were going to do to her and Lincoln, she might have thought this thing actually looked almost cute.
‘I … I’m … Sal,’ she whispered. ‘M-my name … is … S-Sal.’ She pointed at Lincoln. ‘And he is … A-Abraham.’
It cocked its head again, the eyes – all black like a rodent’s – narrowed, and faint frown lines appeared on its featureless pale skin. The gash of a mouth flexed unpleasantly.
‘Shal?’
‘Saleena,’ she said again. ‘M-my l-longer name … it’s Saleena.’
‘Shaleena?’ it repeated carefully.
‘No, it’s Ssss-aleena.’
‘Thatsh what I shaid. Shaleena?’
She realized its malformed mouth was producing a lisp. She nodded. ‘That’s right, then.’
It looked at Lincoln. ‘Ay-bra-ham?’ it pronounced carefully.
He nodded.
The creature looked down at them carefully for a full minute in a thoughtful silence, then finally its lips rippled and flexed.
‘My name ish … Shixty-one.’
My name is Sixty-one?
‘That’sh what my name ushed to be.’ The creature’s lips moved in a way that Sal interpreted as a possible smile, although with the twisted jagged lines of its ‘lips’ the twitch of movement could have meant anything.
‘I changed my name … It’sh Shamuel, now.’
She shot a quick glance at Lincoln. Did he just say Samuel?
She looked at it again. ‘Your name … did you s-say y-your name is Samuel?’
It nodded. There was a hint of childlike pride in that gesture, she thought. Like a little boy showing his teacher that he can actually tie his own shoelaces now.
‘That’sh exshactly right.’ It smiled again. ‘Shamuel’sh the name.’
CHAPTER 47
2001, outside Dead City
Captain Ewan McManus studied the city skyline through field glasses. ‘Marvellous,’ he muttered without any real enthusiasm. He lowered his glasses, his eyes squinting back sunlight beneath the peak of his helmet.
‘Are you saying they went in there?’ asked Liam. ‘That’s the Dead City you were talking about last night, right?’
McManus nodded. ‘The very same.’
White Bear was beside them. He’d just returned from scouting ahead. ‘Tracks lead into city,’ he said. ‘Many more track, go into city.’
‘As I suspected.’ He tucked the field glasses back into a pouch on his belt. ‘This area’s been plagued by runaway eugenics. They raid for food, sometimes just for fun. And that’s where they scurry back to.’
‘I also see human track … is small, light, maybe girl,’ said White Bear, looking at Liam. ‘Your sister? She walk. Maybe eugenic need rest awhile, dah?’
‘Oh Jay-zus! Thank God … she’s alive!’
McManus slapped his shoulder. ‘There you are. Some jolly good news.’
‘So what now? We’re going in?’
McManus nodded. ‘Of course we’ll go in. This is the kind of thing my lads are used to doing – house-to-house, urban fighting. Not for the faint-hearted. It’s combat up close and not very pretty, I’m afraid.’
He shook his head. ‘Of course, if the Confederate army had the gumption to go in and clean this mess up earlier instead of ignoring the problem, we wouldn’t have so many eugenics to deal with now.’ He puffed his lips. ‘Pfft. Ruddy useless lot. Nothing more than poorly trained farmhands, fools and felons.’
‘So when?’
McManus turned to Liam. ‘When are we going in?’
Liam nodded.
‘I shall call in