The Mutants (3 page)

‘No.’ Lyle’s voice interrupted Cora’s train of thoughts and she looked across the room to see Lyle’s hand covering Shyla’s. ‘You have to save those, remember? Who knows when you’ll find more.’

‘But this is a special occasion!’ Shyla looked downcast.

‘Let her use them.’ Cora sat cross-legged in front of the cold fire pit and caught Lyle’s disapproving look before he remembered that she could see in the dark. She laughed and he snarled at her.

‘Fine,’ he snapped, falling to the floor. ‘Let’s just use all the fire sticks in the one night!’

‘It’s her find, not yours,’ said Cora, irritated. ‘She can do what she wants with them.’

Lyle said nothing back, but Cora could tell that he was still angry about it. Shyla looked as though she wasn’t sure if she should light a stick or not, but eventually she decided to follow Cora’s advice and brought flames to the fire pit. Although Lyle was only being smart about conserving materials, Cora knew Shyla wasn’t one for living life without excitement. She was a girl who needed hope and light and colour. New things brought light into her eyes, and without a bit of hope she became discouraged. It was hard enough finding something to be happy about on this Earth as it was, and to take away someone’s only desires was just cruel.

They fetched some knives out of the storage container and started cutting the claws off the burrowers. They had no fur so they didn’t need to be skinned, though their claws and heads had to be removed. The heads were left away from the house at night to keep the rodents and eight-legged creatures from coming in while they slept, and the claws were valuable materials.

Cora stuck one burrower on the end of a stick and held it over the flames of the fire pit to start roasting. The smell was intoxicating and made her mouth water. Lizard-birds were one thing, but burrowers – fully covered in juicy meat – was another. It had been a while since she had something this fat to eat.

All things considered, it was a peaceful day so far. The hunt went smoothly, the sharp-tooths stayed away, and now they were sitting around a fire cooking meat. Cora still had to visit the traders and return home to fix up her defenses, but she doubted to find any danger in those tasks.

‘What was the nastiest thing you’ve ever had to eat?’ asked Shyla suddenly. She twisted the stick in her hands, allowing the underside of the burrower to touch the fire.

‘A shell bug,’ said Lyle, after some consideration. He stuck out his tongue. ‘Most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen, too.’

‘That is nasty,’ agreed Cora, smiling. ‘Though, I bet it can’t beat lizard-bird eggs.’

Shyla twisted up her face in disgust and Lyle did the same. They both agreed. ‘Your turn.’

Cora thought for a second. ‘The strangest mutant you’ve ever seen.’

This question was a favourite that they liked to ask over the years, though they always agreed on the Utopians’ funny suits as being “mutants”.

‘The best deal you’ve ever made down at the traders,’ said Lyle, taking a bite out of his roasted burrower.

‘One quick-claw for a jacket and a knife,’ said Cora quickly, beating Shyla, who scowled but then smirked, as she had something better in mind.

‘A sharp-tooth’s fang for a pair of boots and a rain protector,’ she said smugly.

Lyle glanced her way in disbelief. ‘How exactly did you kill a sharp-tooth?’

‘And how did you pluck out its tooth?’ chimed in Cora.

‘Well, I never said I killed it.’ Shyla giggled and wiped juice from the meat off her face. ‘I have another one. What’s the scariest memory you have?’

Cora paused to think upon that one. There was the one time where she had been spotted by a sharp-tooth while hunting. That had been terrifying, though the creature had decided not to chase her. She probably wouldn’t be sitting around the fire roasting burrowers if she had been chased.

‘The day the raiders took my mother,’ said Lyle quietly.

The room became very quiet and Shyla bit her lip, knowing once again she had said something out of line. All of them remembered that day. Perhaps not as clearly as Lyle did, but clear enough to know it had been horrible. Various villagers had been taken off to the floating city. Usually the Utopians just killed them on the spot. It was their “cure” for civilization. But this time they rounded up a few mutants who seemed “different” than the others and loaded them onto their flying ships. Lyle’s mother had quick-claw blood and so of course they wanted her. It was only because of her Lyle was not taken, as she had told him to hide in the basement of their home.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Shyla softly, touching his shoulder.

Cora suddenly knew the traders and repairs would have to wait tonight. She would be staying here, because tonight her friends needed her. The pictures on the wall stood out amongst the red of the flames, and Cora found herself wondering the same things as Shyla.
Can we ever be happy? Is that even possible? With so much pain and death … can it actually become a reality someday?

Maybe she would never find happiness within the bleak world, and maybe the three of them would be stuck in the shadow of a greater civilization for the rest of their lives. But that had each other, at least, and that was what really mattered. Strength came in numbers, and three was a pretty strong number, or so Cora thought.

Thoughts of going to the traders left the minds of the others and soon they were asleep on the floor of the house, breathing softly. Cora rose from her spot and ventured outside through the hole. From the top of the wall she could see a great deal of the village – even some of her statue in the distance. It was not a large place, or even a very nice place considering what she heard about towns farther west and north, but it was her home. Occasionally she thought about setting out to find a better place to live, but the fear of running into a pack of quick-claws or sharp-tooths caused her to crawl back into her hole of a home.

Cora looked upwards towards the floating city. The base was now spouting out its normal display of fire without the dancing flames she had seen before. Something must have gone terribly wrong up there. Utopia had encountered some sort of problem that made the fire go out of control. Cora knew nothing of how things were powered, like the flying ships the raiders used, but she knew they were delicate objects and – like all delicate things – they broke easily when handled the wrong way.

She imagined what it looked like on the inside, what sort of luxuries the Utopians had. Surely they had the riches talked about in stories spun by the traders, pieces of land dedicated to raising animals for meat, rooms that produced water and fires that started at the push of a button. Fire sticks were great, but the kinds of tools possessed by the Utopians were obviously much better.

Give me one day up there
, thought Cora.
Just one day. Let me feel what they feel: comfort, security, happiness
. She didn’t know who she was talking to when she asked these things. Lyle once said that a bigger power existed somewhere out there, and the Utopians worshipped it. If there was really a bigger power out there, it would have crushed Utopia by now and saved Earth from The Death Mark.

Then again, could they really be saved any longer? The awful thought that Cora’s village was the last one left and the traders were spinning lies about other cities existing sometimes traveled across her mind. Why else would the raiders come to the village so often … unless they were too afraid to go any farther?

I hope they’re shivering in their perfect boots up there
, thought Cora bitterly. She actually shivered from a gust of wind and retreated back into the house. It was just as cold inside, so she grabbed a few blankets from the corner (mites did not often visit Shyla’s home so her blankets lasted much longer) and threw one over both Shyla and Lyle. She kept the last one for herself and wrapped it around her shoulders. She was far from tired, but somehow watching the others sleep caused her to fade off into a deep slumber as well.

When she awoke, her eyes instantly started to sting. She scrambled away from the shaft of sunlight pouring in through the hole and retreated into the dark corner of the room, frightened by the rude awakening. In her struggle, she knocked over the fire pit, sending cinders all over the floor.

The chaos roused both Shyla and Lyle from their sleep and they jumped to their feet, looking ready for a fight. Chances are, if something woke you while you were sleeping, it was nothing good and you would have to deal with it. When they saw Cora hiding blindly in the corner, their survival instincts died away.

‘My eyes are getting worse!’ said Cora, panicked. She kept her hands over her face, even when the sun couldn’t reach her. ‘I’m going blind!’

‘It’s okay, Cora. It’s okay.’ Shyla patted her friend’s shoulder in comfort and shot Lyle a worried look that was not meant for Cora to see. ‘You’ll be all right if you stay out of the light.’

Only … Cora
couldn’t
stay out of the light, not if she wanted to survive. She still needed to make some trades with the vendors. Her water-catcher was broken and she needed to find some sort of material to mend it with. Then she had to track down someone willing to trade a burrower for sun-dimmers. They were like glasses, but instead of allowing you to see more clearly, they muted the light. Cora had a pair a few years ago, but they had gotten broken during a raid. Broken sun-dimmers were not useful and definitely not worth anything to traders.

‘What’s that noise?’ murmured Lyle, turning his head towards the hole in the wall.

Cora listened but could hear nothing. Shyla left her and wandered through the gap outside. She returned a few moments later in a hurry.

‘Utopians,’ she hissed, crouching low to the floor.

Cora tried to look through the hole, as well, but was met with blotches of red and black. She retreated away and pulled up her hood, trying desperately to rid her sight of the burning colours. She could hear the flying machines now, whizzing by overhead. Their ships hummed like night bugs.

They waited inside the house until everything grew quiet again, and then Lyle peeked outside to take a quick look at the village.

‘They’re gone,’ he said flatly.

‘They must have been just passing through,’ added Shyla.

‘I hate this …’ was all Cora said.

The three collected the leftover burrowers and wrapped them up in a blanket to carry. It was time to secure some goods from the traders and figure out what their stock was going to look like during the cold season. Last year had been tough, filled with nights so bitter that Cora thought she would freeze to death. Although there were no crawly creatures to contend with, there were certainly other things that wanted you dead.

The traders usually hung around the shadowy parts of the village, where the sun could not touch them and the wind could not toss their wares around. No one minded where they decided to peddle their foreign goods, because without them everyone would either go hungry or cold or both. Cora felt like she was a huge contributor to the traders sometimes. Her kills often went straight to them to bargain for other valuable things. Then those kills went to a villager that no doubt despised her Utopian blood, though they gobbled down the meat thankfully enough.

Rorian was the trader that offered the most for what you gave him, and that was who the three friends went to straight away. Today, however, he seemed a bit putout. His ratty hat and long scarf were no longer worse for wear than he was. Traders roamed around a great deal and so they developed various strains of The Death Mark. Rorian was caked in the sickness, having bumpy skin, red eyes, a limp leg, and no hair.

‘Ah, if it isn’t my favourite customer,’ he croaked when he saw Cora coming around the turn. She pulled down her hood once she was out of the reach of the sun. ‘Welcome, welcome! Have any nice finds for me today?’

The other traders eyed the sack Lyle carried with great interest and envy. They knew – if Rorian played himself right – the loot would go to him.

‘We do,’ answered Cora. She reached down into the sack and pulled up the plumpest burrower to wiggle in front of Rorian’s face. ‘How is this for a nice find?’