The Pack by Tom Pow Read Free Book Online

forever—only stories.”
    â€œAshes and dust,” said Bradley.
    â€œAshes and dust. That’s what I’ve learned.” The Old Woman, Bradley noticed, had folded her scarf up into an oblong doll. She kneaded and she stroked it as she talked.
    â€œI was a mother too many years ago and a grandmother. There was a place I liked to go with the children—a cabin far in the north—”
    â€œWhere wolves once lived?”
    â€œWhere wolves once lived. When the Dead Time came and they shut my school, that’s where I wanted to go. I arranged with my daughter to meet me at the heart of the Invisible City and to bring the grandchildren. I’d bargained with someone for an old truck that wouldn’t arouse suspicion.
    â€œThings in the Invisible City weren’t much better than here in those days. Vigilante groups had established strict curfews to keep the lid on the looting and the lawlessness. Up ahead of our truck, I saw a barrier. It was a checkpoint and I knew they wouldn’t allow us to pass. I put my foot down and swerved to get round them.
    â€œThe wheels of the truck went over some loose bricks or something. The truck went over on its side and I was thrown clear. But just before I was, I heard the shots that ignited the petrol tank. The truck flared up. No one stood a chance…”
    The Old Woman seemed to be folding herself into herself, like the head-scarf she squeezed in her hands.
    â€œAnd you?”
    â€œI don’t know. Someone found me unconscious and spirited me away. I was nursed back to this. But I knew then that, to survive, I’d have to lose everything I’d known—how to read, to write, what I’d been, my name. All of that was over …
    â€œBradley”—the Old Woman reached out and gripped his forearm—“remember, I’ve told you the stories you need to survive. Remember them. And better for you … if you don’t come back.”
    â€œYour name?” Bradley asked.
    â€œBridget,” the Old Woman replied. And then, with the faintest hint of pride, as if she were blowing dust from an old family relic, “Mrs. Bridget Newton.”

PART TWO
    THE FORBIDDEN TERRITORIES

6
    CAPTURE
    Bradley carried a small black backpack with a couple of slices of bread and a ham bone the Old Woman had brought out from her skirts and pressed on him. He took one brief look round at her, framed in the doorway, Shelter at her side. She seemed about to wave, but only brushed something—a snowflake perhaps—from her eye.
    The snow was thick and before leaving Bradley had bound more rags round his feet for warmth. The laces of his trainers strained to close.
    Hunger knew where they were going. He loped along before Bradley, his nose at times deep in the snow as he tracked Victor and Fearless. Every so often he would stop and turn to Bradley with a white nose to reassure him they were on the trail. Bradley nodded to him and waved him on.
    They followed down Main Street, eerily deserted in the early morning, till they came to a broad square. In the middle of the square the snow was piled high on the neck of a broken statue. The square was the centre of a crossroads. To cross this road was to enter the Forbidden Territories. Hunger looked at Bradley: Is this what you want?
    â€œCome on, Hunger,” said Bradley. “We’ve no choice.”
    At first, the Forbidden Territories seemed no different from the Zones: the same derelict buildings, the same braziers in the waste ground. They passed people wrapped in old blankets, stamping out the cold. Then they saw the first flag hanging from a street window. A black fist on a frayed white background—a sign to all from the warlord, Black Fist, that this territory was under his control. On one giant banner the fist appeared to punch a hole in a block of tenements.
    Bradley and Hunger pressed themselves into a doorway. Four children appeared, dragging a sled.