The Night Butterflies

By Sara Litchfield

It is always dark. Warmer than it should be. The sun is a dull glower of reproach, only sometimes visible through the fallout. A once-majestic university town is crumbled, ashen and divided. The Men have made their home the Facility, where they develop the medication to combat the radiation that would otherwise kill those left alive.

Another day at school for Teacher. Another morning of bullying and torment from a batch of doll-like triplets more violent and unbalanced by the day. They are the nightmare product of Project Eden, the operation devised by Leader for the survival of the community, seeded in the Mothers without their consent.

Teacher has hope. She has a secret. When it is uncovered by Jimmy-1, a triplet who might be different, what will it mean for his future and hers?

Not just another dystopian novel. New author Sara Litchfield explores what it means to be a child, a mother and a monster in a chilling world devoid of comfort.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sara Litchfield
• Release date: Oct 2, 2014
• ISBN: 9780473295295

Sara Litchfield

ONCE UPON A TIME, a seven-year-old girl put the finishing touches on her latest masterpiece. The house was littered with them. Little stories that came from who knew where in her head. By eleven, she decided it was time to release a bestseller and sent a gritty horror novel to Penguin (it was a novella really – but she was smaller then). She’d like to take this opportunity to thank Penguin for their kind and encouraging letter of 1996 – hopefully you’ll be hearing of her.Penguin said, ‘Don’t stop writing.’ But ten years later and what had happened to that wonder; that wit; that imagination; that self-belief in being a best-seller waiting to happen? It was all still there – just buried like hope at the bottom of Pandora’s box. As she grew up, she continued to read like the clappers but her creative writing whittled. After leaving school, she only wrote academically. She put away her childish things. She went to Cambridge and studied theology & philosophy. She wrote a dissertation on whether human fulfilment was possible and immersed herself in utopian hopes and dreams. She was published in an international theological journal. Her inspirational supervisor said, ‘Don’t stop writing.’From this promising point, she got sucked into the city and became an accountant. Always she told herself it would be worth it one day to do for accountancy what John Grisham did for law. She would write thrillers about regulatory compliance some day – just you wait. Meanwhile, it was worth it because one day she’d have her own business and be able to do her own bookkeeping. The writing bug was still there, just distracted by spreadsheets and financial reporting on risk and control.Anyway, one day, one internal audit too many was too much. She escaped. She went on an epic adventure to the other side of the world, defying near-death experiences and finding love along the way. She decided to make a living doing something she loved and studied to become a freelance editor. She started her own business. And she took back out her childish things – her hopes and dreams; crumpled but still creative. And she started to write...

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The Night Butterflies

By Sara Litchfield

First published in New Zealand in 2014 by RIW Press

A division of Right Ink On The Wall Ltd

Copyright © Sara Litchfield 2014

Smashwords Edition

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

Any references to historical events or places are used fictitiously. All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the National Library of New Zealand

ISBN 978-0-473-29529-5

Book & Cover Design by PJW Design

Cover Art by NKW-Illustration

Editor – Marcy Kennedy

Copy Editor – Samantha Gordon, Invisible Ink Editing

Formatting – Polgarus Studio

RIW Press

Right Ink On The Wall Ltd

PO Box 838

Queenstown 9348

New Zealand

www.rightinkonthewall.com

For Kade

Contents

1. Reflection

2. Fallout

3. Combustion

4. Seeking

5. Chrysalis

6. Hiding

7. Incarceration

8. Precipitation

9. Theft

10. Incineration

11. Radiation

12. Metamorphosis

13. Attack

14. Emergence

Epilogue

Acknowledgments

About the Author

1. Reflection

Teacher

I remember the day they burned the babies. I remember it when I least want to—when I close my eyes at night and open them again at dawn. I smell the acrid smoke. I hear their Mothers’ screams. The memory is etched in my mind as harshly as the mushroom on the television screen in my bunker the day the world died.

No one saved by that bunker called my poor, departed father crazy anymore. And no one made fun of me anymore, either. That day, Eloise Carnaby was lost along with the countless others. After the end of the world, I came to be known only as Teacher.

A heavy textbook hit the dusty blackboard behind my head with a resounding smack. I jumped. Flat, empty eyes looked up from a row of beautiful, doll-like faces. Twenty twelve-year-olds sat before me on uneven, wooden chairs, each staring intently. The matching sneers on their faces sat oddly against the backdrop of brightly painted walls. Antique artwork hanging there showcased improbable purple flowers, orange sunshine, and heavy, green circles on thin, brown sticks, the kind of trees you’d never find in a garden, even Before. The pictures were faded, curling at the edges. They could never have come from the hands of these monsters.

Another book whistled by my cheek, skimming my red hair. My insides tightened, but that’s all. I must never show my fear. It only encouraged them.

I stood up and smoothed my hands down my beige, cotton blouse, frowning at the frayed edges. Stop that.

A harsh giggle erupted from the back right-hand corner. Three identical girls, blonde pigtails swinging, stood and pushed their chairs over behind them with a clatter. The Jesses.

One flung a careless hand out to shove her sister from her path and then bent to pick up a book. It was Jess-3. The number branded the upper surface of her right hand. Ugly, red welts, blistered and scarred. It was obvious from the beginning that it would be the only way The Men would be able to tell them apart. I doubted even their Mothers could.

The Mothers that hadn't died in childbirth or killed themselves when the first babies were burned couldn't believe it when they all fell pregnant a second time. They knew The Men tampered with their meds, but this was too much. More Mothers ended themselves when they realized. Not many could face another birthing. Or another burning.

The Men caught on quickly. They isolated five Mothers and forced them to come to term. Another five actually chose to. Even a nuclear bomb can't quash the hope in some people. Each Mother bore a set of cursed triplets.

But not one baby without a mouth or nose. Not one with claws for hands or holes for eyes. The ‘abominations’ that had come before—the way The Men acted, it was as though they thought they had cancelled them out. They had gotten it right this time, so we should just forget them now, forget the twisted limbs and nightmare faces that had burned. But I will never forget.

A book zipped toward me from the side of the classroom in my blind spot. It struck my left temple and I staggered to one side. I flung my hand up. Ten more books struck me down the length of my body, battering the shield of my arm. My eyes watered. The children had thrown them wildly. All those books shouldn’t have hit their mark that hard. My heart sank, weighting my body down like an anchor. Hadn’t I been waiting for this to happen?

My arm ached. They wouldn’t be my first bruises. I looked up; they were all standing now. I studied their frowns, their squinting eyes. They swiped at their chairs, barely brushing them but sending them careening into each other. The force came from their minds, not their hands. I clenched my jaw. One boy, Sam-2, bared his teeth and snapped at another.

I staggered to the wall blindly and reached for the black button there. I smacked it twice with the flat of my hand. My palm tingled.

You’re all devils, I said quietly. It’s you who should have burned.

What be devils?

My head flicked up. Jimmy-1 was standing apart. The others had turned their vicious temper on each other and forgotten my existence already. They saw me hit the button; their work was done.

I met his gaze and opened my mouth. A calculator smashed into my lips, the plastic corner cutting my upper gum. I tasted blood. They’d not forgotten me after all.

Boots pounded the corridor outside. The door opened. Five of The Men poured into the room. Heads encased in thick, black, rubber gas masks swung from side to side. They raised their spray cans and Sleep-Water hissed over the scrapping children. The fighting stopped. Eyelids drooped. Their limbs fell to hang at their sides, too heavy now to lift, fingers clutched stiffly over books they’d been about to fling as weapons.

I opened my mouth to tell The Men that they’d started using their minds to guide their missiles, then let it fall closed as I thought better of it. They’d find out soon enough. I just wanted to go home.

The Men pulled silently on listless arms, shuffling the children into formation and marching them out in a line of docile sleepwalkers. I leaned on the table. My lips throbbed.

Jimmy-1 raised his head as they filed out the door.

Just go home, I said. Just go home and do something to make you feel.

Maybe nothing could make them feel. Or maybe their older brothers and sisters could have taught them, if they hadn’t burned.

That day, I’d stood at the window and watched the ash of the murdered rise in the distance. A mini-mushroom. A never-ending worm of smoke swelling, twisting, and turning up to the heavens. And then I’d walked from my window and down the concrete stairs to the baby in my bunker. I’d picked up the tiny form that had come from me and held it tightly to my constricting chest. And I’d hummed a broken lullaby into its wisp of red hair, in time with my tears.

Jimmy-1

Just go home and do something to make you feel.

I thinked what did that mean? I shaked my head hard and I waked up a bit.

The Men leaved us in the street outside the school. They taked their torches with them so it hard to see. It always hot and always quite dark because no lights but torches. Teacher sayed there be a war; people fighted with bombs and that why everything be broke and why it always dark. If you stare very hard at the sky you maybe see a round, dark red ball hiding up there. Teacher sayed the sky used to be blue and the ball be yellow and maked light for the whole world. It maked no difference to us.

Some Trips lied down on the ground for nap time. They must be really close to the Sleepy-Water when The Men shooted it.

I still holded onto a book. It got numbers inside. Other Trips holded books too. When they waked up, they throwed them on the ground. John-2 stamped on his book and kicked it. Justin-1 kicked it back. The ground all dry and cracked and dust. The dust comed up in little, brown clouds around them.

I taked out a fire-stick and put my book on fire. The black smoke hit my nose and I coughed. Jeb-3 and Alice-1 gived me their books, and we put them on fire too. We put them on the ground and watched them burn. Then everyone else waked up and grabbed the books off the dirt. They throwed them on the fire and we laughed and laughed and we danced around the fire and we had fire in our eyes.

We bored quick when the fire died. Me and Jane-2 goed to my house. It close to school on the broke street. My house broke too. It maked of gray stones and there holes in every one. Sometimes, we maked the holes bigger for fun.

‘Do something to make you feel,’ I sayed. What can we do?

Jane-2 just looked at me. I always telled her what to do. We could make porny, I suppose.

So we maked porny on the floor. I goed hot on the inside and then my head all light. But I keeped thinking about Teacher and what did she mean. We always maked porny, ever since we finded the magazines in that house. It feeled nice. Sometimes, we maked it in school and Teacher be crying. Sometimes, if we all want to go home we all maked it until she hitted The Men button again and again.

Mother comed downstairs when she heared the noise.

You’re home early again, she sayed.

Her face got lines all over it. The lines always pointed down. Her eyes always pointed down too. She looked like her face got cracks, like the broke house. There always be more cracks when I comed home early.

Feed us, I sayed.

I liked to eat. Normally, we just eat pills, but there real food around too, in cans if you could still find it. I liked lots of things. I liked to make porny. I liked to hurt Mother. And Teacher. And other Trips. Sometimes we hunted Trips and maked them dead—all of the Stevens dead this way. I knowed that Teacher dint mean make fun like that though. She sayed ‘feel.’

She sayed before, all red in the face, matching her hair, You should feel sorry. You should feel awful. You should feel sad. You should feel something. Even happy if this shit makes you happy. But we not understanding. The others dint care what she meaned, but I thinked I should ask.

Jane-2 skipped across the kitchen and pushed Mother hard at the cupboard. She been here to eat before. I always finded food. Mother stumbled over and holded the sink to stay up. She taked a big breath but sayed nothing. She pulled out two rusty cans from the cupboard, opened them, poured beans into two bowls. She crushed pills and mixed in powder to make the food not poison.

I eated fast. Then my head heavy and my tummy too. Me and Jane-2 finished and got up. We wobbled on our feet. Mother put Sleepy Pills in the food. Like always. She throwed Jane-2 out the broke door and taked me upstairs. She pushed me into the bed and I too tired to fight.

Nick, she sayed, quiet.

I dint know who she talking about. There no Trip that name. And all the Mothers and The Men got no names. Jimmy-2 and Jimmy-3 dead when they born. I knowed Mother wish I dead too.

Karen

I stood over my son’s bed and watched him fall asleep. I breathed slowly, through my mouth. The air tasted stale in here after the sharp, sweet scent of baked beans released from the old cans in the kitchen. I reached out and pulled the faded cover up to his chin. It used to be blue. I smoothed the corner of the tatty pillowcase.

I could yank that pillow from under his head and have it over his face in a second. He wouldn’t struggle too much, not with the amount of Sleep I’d given him.

Putting a finger to my mouth, I bit down on the knuckle. I’d been here before.

I don’t remember the sight of my first child. The Men took it. It burned with the rest of that first batch of babies. It’s like looking back through a haze, seeing scenes through a tangle of cotton wool. I was too shell-shocked to mourn it. I only mourned myself.

When I realized I was pregnant again, I remembered enough that I cursed the claws that hadn’t ripped me beyond repair. I felt sick and furious and terrified when I thought of what might be growing inside me again. But even facing my feelings was like wading through toffee. By the time my cloudy mind finally decided to take some action, there wasn’t enough mind left for the task. I was caught.

I stared at the sleeping child. The product of that capture. I swung about and paced the length of the tiny room, careful not to catch my feet in the snags of the threadbare carpet.

At least Nick wasn’t there the day I was caught. My Nick. In my muddled head, my cornered heart, he remained the same man I’d met. As kind as he was clever. As loving as he was handsome. Dark brown hair that matched his happy eyes, always crinkled with laughter at the corners. A wide smile hardly ever absent from a face that always carried a shade of stubble and more softness than strength. I couldn’t have coped with the look on that face if he’d caught me trying to kill my own unborn.

I stopped pacing, averted my face from the bed, and swept out of the room and down the stairs. I sat in the kitchen and stared into space. I didn’t have to wait long before a perfunctory knock sounded on the door. Without waiting for an answer, three of The Men entered the house, announced by the creaking door and heavy-booted footfall.

Med-run, said one, unnecessarily, his voice hollow behind the mask. Another padded up the stairs to head-count. He could have just asked.

They dished out airtight, plastic containers from