Tabitha (22 page)

‘Thank you,’ she
said, relieved.

‘And if they ask
you anything awkward, you just c-come to me,’ said Liv. ‘I know how to k-keep
them in line. Same if there’s anything you want to talk about. You come
st
-straight to me.’ Tabitha hugged her. ‘Now
rest
,
will you?’

‘Alright,’
Tabitha replied softly, smiling as Liv left and closed the door. She lay there
on the bed with Laika, rubbing her mum’s blue ribbon between her finger and
thumb, and tried to think about the good times as she dozed off. For the first
time in a long time, Tabitha felt safe.

20

It was a chillier morning than most, and
the sky was overcast. Tabitha zipped up her hoodie when she wandered outside
the keep, and pulled the hood close around her neck. It was going to be an
early autumn this year, from the looks of it.

‘Morning,’ Will
said brightly, up on the curtain wall beside the courtyard.

‘Morning,’
Tabitha replied, climbing the stone steps to join him.

‘How did you
sleep?’

‘Really well,
thanks,’ she replied, stifling a yawn. ‘It was really nice of Liv, to let me
sleep in her bed.’

‘Well, it’s not
just her bed,’ Will said with a smile. ‘We can all use it, if we want to. It’s
just that she’s been the bossiest about keeping hold of it.’ Tabitha smiled,
and hesitated. Thinking how to say what she wanted to say. Probably better just
to be honest about it.

‘I’m embarrassed
about yesterday,’ she told him. A blackbird flew overhead.

‘Well don’t be,’
Will replied, watching the town below. ‘From what Liv said, you’ve been through
a
lot
.’

‘I just don’t
want anyone to think I’m weak,’ she said. ‘Crying since I got here, and being
sick all over the place…’

‘Trust me, no
one thinks you’re weak,’ Will replied. ‘None of us could have done what you’ve
done. I mean, look what you’ve survived just to get here. Liv told us
everything. You’re different.’

‘I’m just the
same as all of you,’ she said, shaking her head. Did he mean her hands?

‘Yeah, you’re
still human like the rest of us… but look at what you can
do
. You’re
like… superhuman.’

‘That’s comic
book stuff,’ she said dismissively, thinking about her favourite films.

‘So you don’t
think the way you heal is superhuman?’ said Will, disbelieving. ‘Having alien
blood, and alien strength? You’ve got, like,
superpowers
. They’re not
things to be ashamed of, mate,’ he chuckled. ‘Be proud of them. I mean, they’ve
got you this far in one piece, haven’t they?’

‘Well, yeah,’
she admitted. He did have a point.

‘You’re just who
we need, Tabitha. You could be the one to turn this war around.’

‘Well… it’s not
really a war. They’ve already won,’ Tabitha pointed out.

‘No, it’s still
on,’ he replied stubbornly. ‘It started the day they came here, and we’re still
fighting it now just by staying alive. They only win the war if they kill every
last one of us on the planet. And not a second sooner.’

‘Well, that’s a
good way of looking at it,’ she admitted. ‘So if the war’s still going on, how
do we stand a chance of winning?’

‘Us,’ he said
simply. ‘It starts with the five of us. We need to become something.’

‘How do you
mean?’ she said.

‘Well, I used to
think the army would come here and save us, but the last couple of days, I’m
not so sure,’ said Will. ‘Maybe instead, we need to save ourselves. I want us
to become an idea for other people.’

‘I’m not sure
what you mean,’ said Tabitha, smiling in apology.

‘Well, all will
become clear,’ Will said brightly. ‘I’ve got a new plan for us. I’ll be telling
everyone about it later on.’

Liv headed back over to the fireplace in
the keep as Will and Tabitha came back inside. She made herself look busy, and
pretended she hadn’t been peering round the doorway at them while they were
talking on the wall.

‘Morning,’ Will
said brightly.

‘M-Morning,’ Liv
echoed. ‘I’ll get some breakfast on.’ Her mind was racing. Why wasn’t she the
first to know about the new plan? She was always the first to know the plans.
She was the one Will confided in, but he hadn’t mentioned his new idea to her
at all. Had something changed?

‘Thank you, for
last night,’ Tabitha told Liv. ‘I should be the one making breakfast, though.’

‘Oh no, it’s fine
hun,’ said Liv, smiling. ‘As long as you’re feeling better, that’s all that
matters.’ Having had her offer of help politely refused, Tabitha left Liv to
make the breakfast and went to fuss over Laika for a little while. There was
something different about Liv this morning; she was sure of it. Something a
little more frosty. But she didn’t know her yet. She didn’t know any of them
yet.

A little later
Will had asked everyone to meet up in the keep, and waited for them to come
inside before he made his speech. Jim slurped his tea at the table and cringed
at the taste.

‘Liv, this
milk’s off,’ he said. ‘Tastes like porridge.’

‘Yeah, it’s
o-oat milk,’ Liv replied. ‘Don’t you like it?’

‘Well, not in my
tea I don’t. Haven’t we got any of the proper stuff left?’

‘The long-life
milk?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Only one
c-carton left,’ Liv replied. She stepped closer, and dropped her voice to a
whisper. ‘But while it’s you Jim, you can have it to yourself. We’ll
pr
-pretend it’s all gone, ok?’ she winked at him.

‘Scandalous,’ he
chuckled quietly. He slurped his tea, and grimaced at the
oaty
taste.

‘Give me that,’
said Liv, smiling. ‘I’ll make you another cup.’ Chris came downstairs yawning,
woken from sleep. Tabitha stepped back inside the keep door, having gotten rid
of Laika’s business out in the garden.

‘Right everyone,
this is a biggie,’ said Will, rubbing his hands together with excitement. He
was grinning like a little boy.

‘Not another
idea
,’
Chris moaned, flattening his bed hair as he took a seat at the table.

‘See, it’s that can-do
attitude that I love about you, Chris,’ Will said brightly. ‘Now. I’ve been
thinking,’ he told the group. He hesitated. ‘I don’t think the army’s coming
here to save us. If they were, they would have got here by now.’ Jim nodded
gravely. ‘If we’re going to survive here, we’re going to have to start heading
outside for food and things,’ Will continued. ‘At least until the allotment
gets going,’ he added, with a nod to Jim. ‘So… I say we need to take charge of
this town. To do that, we need to turn ourselves into something more.’ Liv
nodded.

‘I don’t know
what that means,’ Jim admitted.

‘Well, I mean
that we need to band together and become a team,’ Will replied. ‘We could be
the start of something big. I mean, Tabitha managed to find us, so what if there’s
more people out there? Looking for a place like this?’

‘It was just
luck that I found this place though,’ Tabitha chipped in.

‘Exactly, so we
need to advertise,’ Will told the group. ‘We need to get
noticed,
so
other people out there can come and find us.’

‘An urban
l-legend,’ Liv suggested.

‘Exactly!’ said
Will, banging his fist on the table. ‘A tribe,’ he said excitedly. ‘Like a… a
group of heroes. With a mission to protect people.’

‘That sounds
shit,’ Chris chipped in. ‘Have you been drinking or something?’

‘See, Chris
agrees with me,’ said Will sarcastically, ignoring him. ‘It’s a great idea.’

‘So just like
that, we’re going to be a bunch of heroes?’ said Chris, chuckling in disbelief.

‘Just like that,’
Will said with a smile. ‘Every group of heroes in history started out the same
way. Just a handful of people, agreeing to a cause they believed in.’

‘What heroes?’
said Chris, looking around at the others. ‘This is real life, do you
understand? There aren’t any heroes in real life.’

‘So doctors and
soldiers, and, and relief w-workers, they’re not heroes?’ said Liv.

‘That’s
different,’ said Chris, folding his arms.

‘No, it’s not,’
Will replied. ‘Those
are
real heroes. And we can be too. It’s like you said
Liv, doctors and soldiers and relief workers. We can be those things to other
people. We can
help
people here.’ Jim grunted his approval.

‘So we’re a team
now?’ Tabitha chipped in, moving it on a step. Making it official.

‘That’s right,’
Will said happily. ‘If we’re all together on this?’ the others looked around at
one another and nodded, glad to be part of something bigger. Chris stayed
quiet, arms crossed.

‘So what do we
call ourselves?’ said Jim.

‘Well, that’s
what we need to decide,’ Will replied excitedly. He fetched a pad and pen and
put them down on the table. ‘I’ll get some food on the go, and we’ll have a
brainstorm.’ Chris moaned at the word.

‘A what?’ said
Jim, screwing his face up.

‘Brainstorm,’
Tabitha replied. ‘It means we’ll have a think about it.’

‘
Ohh
,’ said Jim. ‘Is that a proper word? Brainstorm?’

‘Afraid so,’
said Liv, smiling at Will.

‘Yeah, but it’s
only a certain kind of person who uses words like
brainstorm
,’ said
Chris, aiming it at Will.

‘Look, just get
some ideas written down,’ said Will, pointing a half-eaten biscuit at the
writing pad on the table. ‘Please.’

Coming up with a name took longer than
they expected. It wasn’t easy to think of something that everyone could agree
on. The group had already drained their cups and emptied their plates while
they were thinking, and the clammy fatigue of a board meeting had settled in
over their heads. With nothing else to do though, nobody wanted to be the first
one to give up.

‘The Leftovers,’
Chris suggested, picking his nose. ‘Because we’re the last people left over
after the main course.’

‘God, that’s
grim,’ said Liv. ‘I vote n-no on that one.’ Will, Jim and Tabitha agreed. The
daylight from the open door painted their faces bright against the gloom and
shadows. Tabitha looked over at Laika, resting on the rug by the white ashes of
the fire. She smiled to see her so safe for once. So content.

‘The Knights,’
Jim chipped in. ‘We live in a castle, and we want to protect people. So
we’re like knights.’

‘It’s a good
one,’ Will replied, noting it down on his pad in a scruffy hand. Tabitha had
never seen anyone hold a pen so strangely. ‘
So.
We’ve
got The Resistance, The Survivors, The Wolves, The Guardians, and The Knights.
And a
lot
of crossed out names we can’t agree on.
Any
more
?’ the room was quiet. Only the high cheeps and chatters of the
birds outside. Jim coughed to break the silence.

‘The Ghosts,’
Liv suggested, after a moment of thought. ‘Because we’re going to rise up from
the dead, and haunt our enemies. And because it s-sounds cool.’

‘It does sound
cool,’ said Tabitha, smiling. Will nodded. Jim grunted his approval, past
caring. Tabitha’s heart leapt at the sticky social glue she felt around her.
They’d brought her in and stuck her to the family. She was there at the start
of this, whatever it was. The movement.

‘Oh Liv, that
does sound cool,’ Chris mocked her. ‘Are you two just here to kiss each other’s
arses? Get a room.’ Tabitha didn’t have a reply. She could only look at him,
dumbfounded. Surely it was too soon to be getting into fights; she hardly knew
him. Well, she knew he was a prick now, anyway.

‘Actually,
Tabitha would be the first p-person I’d get a room with in this place,’ Liv
shot back. ‘And I bet she’d be a damn sight b-better than you, chicken dick.’
Will burst out laughing. Jim and Tabitha grinned. Chris glared angrily at Liv,
lost for words.

‘Chicken dick,’
Jim chuckled to himself, tickled.

‘Right, should
we get back to business?’ said Will, grinning.

‘Just g-give as good
as you get with him,’ Liv advised Tabitha, holding Chris’s angry stare. ‘Even
science can’t explain why he’s just such a massive
pr
-prat.’

‘It’s only since
I got here that I got like that, actually,’ Chris replied. ‘It must be the
c-company
.’

‘Chris,’ Will
warned him.

‘Well bloody
well leave then!’ Liv yelled.

‘You leave!’
Chris yelled back, kicking off a shouting match between them.

‘Don’t you dare
take the piss out of her!’ Jim bellowed. Laika looked up, startled from sleep.
She looked to Tabitha amidst all the shouting. Tabitha looked back and
shrugged, bemused.

‘Jesus Christ,’
Will sighed, standing up. ‘Everyone, shut up!’ he slammed his hands down on the
table, and the room fell silent. ‘We’re called The Ghosts, alright? I can’t be
arsed with this
any more
.’ Jim grunted and nodded.
Liv was still fuming. ‘Why do our family meetings always turn out like this?’
said Will, despairing. ‘Anyway. Phase Two. Follow me outside.’

‘Now,’ said
Will, pacing in the garden. The others were assembled to hear the plan.

‘Tabitha, I
don’t think any of us have mentioned it, so you won’t be aware of this,’ he
said. ‘We had an army patrol coming through the hills over there, last week.’
Tabitha looked in the direction he was pointing, but saw only the curtain wall.
She felt stupid for looking, but no one seemed to notice.