Horizon. Sophie Littlefield

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СКАЧАТЬ of their pants. Stupid beasts, their shoes would be ruined, waterlogged; the skin of their feet would swell and peel and, if they weren’t Beaters, succumb to rot and gangrene. But because of their wretched immunity they’d keep walking even after the skin had sloughed away and they walked on bone-ends and raw pulped flesh, never knowing and never caring.

       Something almost sounded like laughter. They were playing like children, patting at the water with their hands and crowing. There was a commotion as they jostled for position, going farther and farther into the water until it was up to their chests, their underarms. They had to be freezing. A citizen could last ten, maybe fifteen minutes in that water before hypothermia sucked the life from them, but a Beater…they were too stupid to stay out of the cold water. It would serve them right if they fell facedown, dead, in the river.

       The water was the only barrier between them and the island, and seeing them breaching it spurred a deep, almost insensible terror. Of course they couldn’t swim, and the wide brown river surged and churned with whirling currents and floating debris and hidden hazards. Cass was perfectly safe on this side, but the dread that accompanied this odd sight was undeniable and complete.

       Cass gathered her things. She would tell the others, would find Dana or Shannon or Neal and let them know, as they were supposed to report any Beater sighting and especially any behaviors that were out of the ordinary. They’d know what to do. And Cass was more than happy to let the others handle it.

       She was stuffing the cloth back into the little zipped ditty bag that held her collection of toiletries when a startled squawk reached her ears. She looked back over the water and saw that two Beaters had given a third a shove, pushing it into deeper water, and were watching it flail. Water flew and frothed as it gasped for air and flung its arms out wildly, cheered by its babbling, grinning comrades.

       The current began to carry it, slowly spinning, on a lazy ride downstream, and for a terrifying moment it almost seemed as though it was floating toward the island, but of course the river carried its bounty in the center, and only when a log or branch jutted into the water would it get snagged and dragged and deposited on a silty bank. By then it would be drowned, as dead as dead could be, sodden and already starting to decompose, just another bit of Aftertime detritus to be broken down and absorbed back into the earth, no longer a danger to anything.

       Cass watched it struggle, beginning to tire, swallowing great gulps of river water. But right before she turned to go, she saw something that made her pause.

       The Beater stopped flailing and paddled. For a moment she doubted what she was seeing, but the longer she watched, the more she became sure of it. Its hands stroked the water in front of itself, a sloppy dog paddle, fingers splayed and weak against the current. A moment later it sank beneath the surface, the water quivering and swirling above where it disappeared for a moment before the current smoothed it over.

       The Beater was as good as dead.

       But before it died, it had started to teach itself to swim.

       The kids were all fussy, as though they had sensed Cass’s mood despite her efforts to cover it up. Twyla whimpered and sucked her thumb, a habit Suzanne had been trying to break her of for some time, and which she had given Cass strict instructions to monitor. But today wasn’t the day for it, and Cass let the little girl comfort herself, wiping her tear-streaked face gently.

       Dane and Dirk squabbled, and as the morning wore on, it got worse, Dane making a game of snatching away any plaything that caught Dirk’s attention. The little boy was enraged, screaming and bunching his hands into fists, so Cass picked him up and walked him around the living room, making loops through the kitchen. On one of her rotations she came back to find Dane holding his hands squeezed tightly together, yelling at Ruthie.

       “She bit me! Cass, Ruthie bit me!”

       Cass sighed and set Dirk down next to Twyla, who was giving play shots to a stuffed dog with a fake plastic syringe. Then she bent to examine Dane’s hand. Sure enough, there was a perfect angry red imprint of Ruthie’s teeth on the soft flesh of his palm.

       “Oh, Ruthie,” Cass said, and Ruthie shyly picked up the skirt of her play dress and pulled it up over her head, a new habit that Cass usually found charming. “Were you two fighting?”

       Dane shrugged, and Cass saw that he was trying to hide the pile of play money behind him. Dane was a hoarder, and she frequently had to intervene when he took things from the others, only to find little stashes here and there around the house, piles of doll shoes and board books and spoons. She was always at a loss as to how to discipline for this habit; the parenting books of Before never gave advice about what effect seeing your dad beaten to death trying to defend a water supply, or watching your happy-go-lucky neighbor get dragged away by a horde of screaming monsters, might have on children and what you could do to help.

       She’d tried to talk to Ingrid about Dane, but she didn’t believe Cass. Ingrid’s answer to every parenting problem involved more of her relentless structured activities; she suggested Cass read a book called Red Monsters Share and discuss it with the children.

       “Dane. There’s enough play money for everyone to share,” she said now, digging deep to come up with enough patience to see her through at least until lunch. By the time she served the children their tea and jam sandwiches—jam made from the nectarines she’d grown herself—she would probably be able to force down a few crackers. She always felt better after she got something in her stomach to absorb the churning bile left behind by one of her infrequent all-out benders.

       Which she never would have had, if it hadn’t been for—

      No, don’t

      Dane was looking at her doubtfully, groping around behind him, trying to push the coins out of her sight.

       “There’s enough for everyone,” Cass repeated. “You don’t have to keep them all yourself.”

       “She bit me,” Dane repeated stubbornly. “Biting is not okay.”

       And it wasn’t, of course; biting was one of the things that could get a kid thrown out of child care, Before. That and not being current on vaccinations. Or a failure to potty train. All offenses that seemed ridiculously irrelevant now.

       “Biting is not okay, but neither is not sharing,” Cass said through gritted teeth. What she really wanted to do was seize all the plastic coins and put them in a box and put the box up on the counter where none of the kids could reach it, and keep taking things away from them every time they fussed, until they had nothing, nothing, and maybe that would keep them quiet, just long enough for her to get her strength back, just long enough to think.

       “Maybe Ruthie’s got the fever,” Dane said, watching her closely, a mean little smile at the corner of his mouth.

       Cass froze. She ground her fingernails into the palms of her hands, forcing herself not to react. “Don’t you ever say that,” she finally whispered, her own voice sounding strange to herself, stripped bare and dragged over coals.

       There must have been something in her tone or expression that finally got through to Dane, because the smirk left his face and his lower lip wobbled and he looked down at the carpet.

       “Don’t you ever say anything like that, Dane,” she repeated. Because if an adult could accuse, who was to say that a child couldn’t, as well? She was nearly positive that Phillip had the fever, but if more cases popped up, there was sure to be hysteria, finger-pointing, blame. There were people in New Eden—the weak ones, the easily swayed and those with a tenuous grip on reality—who СКАЧАТЬ