The Fandom Read online

  “Violet? Are you OK?” Katie says. Her face turns from green to white, white to green.

  The floor seems to swing a foot to the left, and I start to feel like I’ve stepped off a carousel—this morning’s porridge hot and thick at the base of my throat. I think I hear someone scream my name. I turn to see Nate’s mouth pulled open in a yawn, his brown eyes wide. Instinctively, my eyes flick up. And that’s when I see it. The emerald light spinning from a cable, the scaffolding lurching forward. I barely have time to cover my face as the entire metal structure hurtles toward us.

  WAKING FEELS LIKE crawling out of a bog. Every time I see the surface, feel the fresh air on my skin, some dark phantom pulls me under again. It’s so tempting to just keep on sinking, but the thought of the scaffolding pinning me down, imprisoning Nate, Alice, Katie … even Russell and Julia … drives me on. Somehow, I drag my body from the mud, force my eyes to open, compel my brain to engage.

  The light from the fire door casts the room in a ghostly glow. I can just pick out the metal rods of the scaffold, spearing the floor like a bizarre postmodern sculpture. That smell—medicine and burning fabric—grows in my nostrils, causing my eyes to smart.

  “Nate?” I pull myself onto my elbows. Pain shoots through my skull.

  “Violet?” I hear his voice, wavering at the edges, soaring above the muffled theme tune and the chime of metal against metal.

  I extend my fingers like I can somehow draw him to my body. “Nate, are you OK?”

  I see his face, etched with fear, pitching toward me in the gloom. “Violet, you’re bleeding.” He slips his hands beneath my armpits and pulls me into a half-standing position. My head feels like it may explode.

  “Alice? Katie?” I push my hands into the wet flesh of my forehead.

  “I’m OK … I think.” Alice kind of reels toward us, her dress and thighs streaked with ash. “What the hell happened?”

  But I don’t answer, I need to find Katie. I drop onto all fours and begin to pat the ground. She was standing right next to me, she can’t have gone far. “Katie? Katie?”

  I hear a groan to my right. My head pivots—pain slamming into the backs of my eyes—and I see her neon tights, luminous in the black. Nate reaches her first. They wobble into a kneeling position.

  “I’m fine, I’m fine,” she mutters, almost to herself.

  That alien scent grows, and we hear another creak, louder this time.

  “The fire door …” Alice says, her voice stretched with panic.

  And somehow, a unit of four, we stagger toward the exit sign, stumbling over metal and equipment. We burst through the door, hacking and spitting and clinging to one another. The daylight stings my eyes, and I feel like some kind of ghoul, squinting and recoiling. I can’t help but notice how cold it’s become, my skin growing coarse with goose bumps. We slide onto the tiles, backs pressed against the cool of the stone walls.

  “Where the hell are we?” I say. At least, my mouth forms the words, but I hear only this deafening noise, like I’m standing in a tunnel with a train storming past—rumbling and groaning and kicking up dust. At first, I think it’s a bad case of tinnitus, my brain objecting to the movement, but my eyes slowly make sense of the colors and shapes. People. Thousands of people. All tall and slim and dressed in tailored clothes. Fists pumping the air, voices raised, the vibrations of stamping feet traveling through the backs of my thighs.

  “We need to get help,” Nate shouts, pulling his phone from his pocket. His eye patch must have fallen off at some point, because I notice both his eyes glisten with tears. “No signal,” he says.

  I nod, which I immediately regret, the pain kind of sloshing around my skull like toxic goop. “Russell and Julia are still in there …” And the security guards, and Clipboard Lady … I try to say, but my voice sinks beneath a fanfare of trumpets.

  “Is this some kind of cosplay event?” Alice shouts.

  I wipe the blood from my face with my sleeve and blink quickly. I recognize the scene now. We’re in the Coliseum from The Gallows Dance, ground level, right at the back. The sloped auditorium, filled with perfect, symmetrical faces, surrounds us on all sides, leading the eye upward to the crest of the circular stone wall, dotted with armed Gem guards. Before us, an angry crowd pushes forward with a life of its own, perfect bodies topped with thick, glossy hair. I can’t see, but I know the stage and the gallows rest at the front, hidden by the throng.

  “It’s like the best role play ever.” Alice removes her broken heels and stands to get a better view.

  She’s right—they’ve even got the smell right. The Coliseum rests on the border between the Imp city and the Pastures, and I can smell the sweetness of the Pastures battling the filth of the city. Pollen and freshly mown grass colliding with dead meat and vinegar.

  “Screw role play,” Katie shouts. “We need to find security.” She leaves the safety of the fire exit and dashes toward the back of the crowd.

  “Screw security,” Alice says. “We need to make sure Russell posts that photo.”

  Nate helps me stand, and even though my head feels like it may dissolve, the thought of Russell and Julia trapped and wounded forces my limbs into action. I grab a tall, broad shoulder, briefly noticing the blood on my fingers as they splay before me. A man turns to look at me. The symmetry of his features makes my words jar in my throat.

  “We need help.” My voice comes out scratched and damaged like an old analogue recording.

  He looks confused for a moment. “Get lost, Imp, or I’ll call the guards.”

  “Look, I know you’re in role,” Nate says, “but there’s been an accident. The blood’s real.”

  The man easily shoves Nate to the ground. “I said, get lost, Imp.”

  “Jesus, Nate, are you OK?” I drop beside him, brushing the dirt from his hands.

  “And I thought I was a Gallows Dance fanatic,” he says. “This fandom is hard-core.”

  I jump to my feet and grab another person. This time a woman in her forties, maybe even older, it’s hard to tell. She’s still beautiful, her skin kind of smoothed over her face like a veil, her auburn hair curling to one side. She looks at me and her almond eyes narrow with disgust. “Don’t touch me, you … you filthy Imp … you ape. Guards!” She begins to shout. “Guards!” But her voice gets swamped by the crowd and the fanfare and the stamping feet.

  “Forget it,” Nate says, pulling at my arm.

  We loop around the back of the crowd, eyes darting from side to side, trying to find someone … anyone … who looks like they may be vaguely official. Katie doesn’t seem to be having any more luck, her mouth drawn tight with confusion as a slender blonde woman shouts in her face. But a group of concerned cosplayers gather around Alice, nursing the small cut on her forearm, smoothing her golden hair from her face. For once, Alice actually blends in. They must have contacted every modeling agency in London … Britain … to make this role play seem so real.

  I climb the bottom few steps that lead to the sloped seating at the back of the Coliseum, Nate beside me. We can just about see over the crowd. Sure enough, at the front, I can see the stage. A rickety, wooden construction topped with a broad beam. Nine loops of rope dangle, surrounding the necks of the nine condemned Imps. Their faces flash on a giant screen behind. I can make out every imperfection. The slight crookedness of their features, the odd gray whisker, the mishmash of yellow teeth. But their imperfection stands out even from a distance. Their physiques aren’t quite right—too skinny, slightly stooped, broad in the wrong places. I actually feel a little relieved, just seeing their humanity staring back at me.

  “It’s the first scene,” Nate says, excitedly. “God, they’ve pulled out all the stops. The condemned Imps look just like the actors from the film.”

  He’s right. I know every freckle and every line on those nine faces. The woman with bloodshot eyes who repetitively touches her ear as though the action brings her some kind of comfort. The man with bruises on his forearms who keeps hi
s eyes closed for most of the proceedings. And a girl, who can’t be much older than sixteen, yet grits her teeth with such tenacity her jaw looks like it may fuse together. I can tell you about each Imp in detail—I’ve watched the film forty-six times.

  I swallow, hard. “Nate. Focus. We need to find help.”

  The giant screen behind the stage fills with the face of the Gem president: President Stoneback. He looks so unnatural, like a drum—skin drawn over perfect features and fastened with invisible pins. And this big, his eyes look like huge glass orbs, completely hollow and incapable of holding any warmth or kindness. He addresses the crowd with his reedy tone, just like he did in the film.

  “Fellow Gems, we are gathered here today to witness the death of these Imps. Guilty of theft, rape, and murder.” The crowd cheers. “Because in order to keep our world perfect, we must eliminate these imperfect beings … these vermin.”

  The drumroll begins to build. The hangman, a figure in black, moves toward the lever. I know it’s only for show, but this feeling of unease spreads through my abdomen … something isn’t quite right. I’m about to pull Nate from the steps when Katie runs toward us, swinging her hands above her head and mouthing the word Julia.

  We look up and see Julia Starling, standing high on the crest of the wall, hands on hips, dark hair flailing in the wind. Framed against the gray of the sky, she looks truly awesome. Terrifying. That feeling of unease begins to morph into panic, my heart throwing itself against my ribs like it’s some kind of trapped animal. Something definitely isn’t right. She’s escaped completely unharmed and has somehow managed to dress as Rose. Tunic, leggings, army boots. I watch as she touches her fist to her lips. She says something to herself, and then hoists her arm above her head, pummeling it down in a graceful arc.

  I know what it is before I see it. A grenade. But not one that wreaks death and destruction. No. A thistle-bomb. Designed to release the rebels’ symbol of hope. And of course a handy distraction. It launches over the crowd, hovering for a moment like a black bird of prey before filling the Coliseum with a loud clack. Hundreds of white thistle seeds disperse into the air, floating upward and outward like scraps of down. I hear the odd gasp, the crowd pointing, tracking the seeds through the sky.

  “This is amazing,” Nate shouts above the drums. “A thistle-bomb, just like in canon.”

  “A little too amazing,” I reply. The smell, the actors, the sheer scale of the set. It’s all too real. I begin to feel woozy and the drumroll grows to fill every space in my head.

  Suddenly, the drums stop. Peace. The crowd remains captivated, statue-like, their flawless chins lifted skyward. This is the moment in the film when the Imp rebels appeared, releasing their smoke bombs and storming the stage, liberating the condemned Imps from the gallows. And Rose slipped away unseen, just melted back into the gray of the Imp city, having proved her worth as an Imp rebel.

  I hold my breath, awaiting the battle cry of the rebels.

  But, instead, I hear Katie, screaming at the top of her lungs. “Julia! Julia! Are you OK?”

  The last thing we need is to draw attention to ourselves.

  “Katie, no!” I shout.

  She runs toward the stands, waving her arms above her head. “Julia, be careful, you might fall.”

  “Katie, stop,” I shout.

  But it’s too late. The guards swivel in their podiums, alerted to Julia’s presence, guns cocked and aimed. Julia turns and a strange expression grips her face, a hybrid of acceptance and determination. The sound of gunfire ruptures my skull and a series of red dots spreads across her tunic, merging into one large splotch. It forms a belt of blood, reminiscent of my own sash. She glances at her abdomen—a bemused smile gripping her rosebud mouth—and begins to topple. Her slender hands whirl before her, grasping for an invisible man, but she falls between the stalls like a doll, her hair a black cape streaming behind her. She smacks the pavement, inhuman and lifeless. A sack of grit. I watch as the life leaks from her, two ruby butterfly wings unfolding across the concrete.

  This can’t be real.

  I’m about to jump from the steps, about to run to her, when another sound grabs my attention. The sound of nine trapdoors flying open. Nate grabs my hand with his, so hard it hurts. And I know what I’m about to see, I know I should just look away. But I can’t. I can’t. Nine bodies fall, nine pieces of rope snap straight and taut, and nine sets of legs kick and twirl. The man with the bruised forearms, the woman with the bloodshot eyes, the girl with the fused jaw—all of them—dancing their final dance.

  Instinctively, I look to Katie. She stands, frozen, her knuckles bleached and ragged as she clutches her face. Next, I find Alice, her painted mouth ajar, her eyes loaded with tears. And I can still feel Nate, crushing my hand, tugging at the fabric of my tunic like he’s five.

  And I know we share only one thought:

  We’re not in cosplay anymore.

  A MAN PUSHES FREE of the crowd and runs toward Julia’s twisted body. He wears the regulation gray overalls of the Imp slaves—the Imps who work in the Pastures for the Gems. I can’t help but notice how uncomfortable they look in real life, the fabric coarse and poorly stitched. He drops to his knees as he enters her blood pool, and kind of scoops her into his great chest in one easy motion. Her hand flops away from her and begins to twitch, like she rests on the edge of a dream. The twitch becomes more pronounced, and I begin to wonder if she’s still alive, then I realize her small frame has been swallowed up by the movement of the Imp as he convulses with grief. I suddenly feel like I should look away, like I’m somehow intruding.

  The ground around him begins to explode as the guards open fire. I want to shout to him, Run, run away, but my lips won’t move. He looks up, and for some reason, his eyes find mine. We stare at each other and I absorb his face. Mahogany skin, dirt rammed into every crack, a nose that has stopped too many fists. I recognize him from the film. Matthew. One of Thorn’s most trusted rebels, and responsible—at least in part—for recruiting Rose. The tendons on his neck stand out like rods; he thinks I’m intruding, too.

  The gunfire causes a few of the Gems to turn, their beautiful faces changing from joy to horror as they clasp their cheeks. Panic breaks out at the back of the crowd. A few of the Gems dash toward the great metal gates at the side of the Coliseum that lead to the Pastures.

  The bullets stop, guards afraid of piercing the wrong belly, just long enough for a woman, also dressed in gray overalls, to fall onto the man. She pulls at the clothes on his back, her thin mouth shouting orders, her raven, gray-streaked hair fanning around her face. Saskia, the other rebel responsible for recruiting Rose. She has the same hard face as the actress in the film, yet she looks kind of different.

  Matthew stands, clasping Julia to him as though she’s a sleeping child. He pauses and, again, catches my eye. He then looks to Nate, and I see a shift in his dark eyes as some impulse shoots through him. He lays Julia back in her own blood, whispering something meant for her only, and then runs toward us, arms extended. I don’t flinch, shielded by disbelief, but I notice the blood on his hands as he grasps a handful of my tunic.

  “Quickly,” he roars. “Come with me.”

  I look to Nate, expecting a nonchalant shrug, but his face remains frozen with anxiety. We are in The Gallows Dance, his eyes say. I almost start to laugh. We are in The Gallows Dance.

  Matthew seizes my shoulders. “For God’s sake, you won’t last a second with all these Gems.” He pulls me forward so my nose almost touches his.

  He’s the same height as me, which strikes me as odd—he seemed so big on the silver screen. Then I remember, I’m still standing on the steps. But I don’t move, caught between shock and laughter. This close I see he also looks slightly different from his film counterpart—the structure of his face looks more robust, his eyes an even deeper brown.

  He pushes me back, frustrated, and grabs my cheeks with slippery, warm fingers. “Look.” He forces me to contemplate the stage. Nine bodi
es hang limp from their ropes, their necks arched almost like a swan’s, their feet no longer dancing but pointing toward the earth.

  Saskia runs up behind him. “Leave ’em, Matthew. Bloody leave ’em.”

  But Matthew doesn’t budge. “You want to end up like them?” He squeezes my cheeks, causing my lips to pop out. “’Cause that’s what will happen if you don’t shift your arses, right now.”

  His words obviously rouse Nate, who tugs at my tunic. “Come on, Violet.”

  And it’s this motion that finally unlocks my legs. If we truly are in The Gallows Dance, then we are in the most dangerous place imaginable … the place where they hang non-genetically enhanced humans. Me. Nate. I pull my face from Matthew’s grip and clasp his hand, wrapping my free arm around my brother. We begin to run around the back of the crowd, crouched low, anticipating more bullets.

  “Where are we going?” Katie shouts, catching up to us.

  Only when I see Katie do I remember with a burst of guilt that four of us entered this nightmare.

  “Alice,” I scream. “Alice.”

  But I can’t see her anywhere. Panic winds around my chest. Matthew begins to drag us through the Gems, I bash into perfect figure after perfect figure, they look at us, disgust registering on their faces, but the disgust keeps us safe, causing them to recoil like we have some contagious disease. I hear a couple of cries. Apes, filthy apes. But still no Alice. I slow for a moment, trying to catch sight of her blonde hair, gleaming at least a head above the rest of the crowd. But what normally sets her apart instead makes her impossible to spot.

  “Guards,” a Gem shouts. “Guards, there’s some rogue Imps in the Coliseum.”

  “Come on,” Matthew says, his grip tightening.

  “Alice.” My voice soars above the crowd.

  Saskia runs up behind us. “Shut your face, you little idiot. You’ll get us all killed.”

  Then, faintly, I hear a voice. I want to say that familiarity draws me to it, something deep-rooted that recognizes the timbre, the pitch, but it’s the fact that she calls my name. Violet. Violet. She wobbles toward us, standing out only because of the soot and terror that mark her face.