18 Walls Read online

  18 Walls

  A Novel

  Teo Xue Shen

  ISBN: 978-981-46-5544-6

  First Edition: August 2018

  © 2018 by Teo Xue Shen

  Author photo by Joanne Goh

  Used with permission.

  Cover art and design by Joanne Goh

  Published in Singapore by Epigram Books

  www.epigrambooks.sg

  All rights reserved

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  ALSO FROM THE EPIGRAM BOOKS FICTION PRIZE

  2017

  The Riot Act by Sebastian Sim (Winner)

  Sofia and the Utopia Machine by Judith Huang

  9th of August by Andre Yeo

  Nimita’s Place by Akshita Nanda

  If It Were Up to Mrs Dada by Carissa Foo

  Kallang Basin Adagio by Khor Kuan Liang

  Band Eight by Tham Cheng-E

  2016

  The Gatekeeper by Nuraliah Norasid (Winner)

  Fox Fire Girl by O Thiam Chin

  Surrogate Protocol by Tham Cheng-E

  State of Emergency by Jeremy Tiang

  Lieutenant Kurosawa’s Errand Boy by Warran Kalasegaran

  The Last Immigrant by Lau Siew Mei

  Lion Boy and Drummer Girl by Pauline Loh

  2015

  Now That It’s Over by O Thiam Chin (Winner)

  Let’s Give It Up for Gimme Lao! by Sebastian Sim

  Death of a Perm Sec by Wong Souk Yee

  Sugarbread by Balli Kaur Jaswal

  Annabelle Thong by Imran Hashim

  Kappa Quartet by Daryl Qilin Yam

  Altered Straits by Kevin Martens Wong

  For those who believed in me despite the odds,

  those who inspired me to write and those who may,

  in any way, find any part of this novel relatable.

  Prologue

  The youth ran across the street, clutching the heavy folds of his raincoat as the rain pelted down mercilessly from above. Behind him, four others followed, each wearing identical raincoats. The youth skidded to a halt at a street corner, waiting for the others to catch up. Lightning crackled overhead, briefly illuminating the faces of the five teenagers.

  “I’m telling you, this stinks,” one of the boys muttered. “Not knowing our enemy, not knowing what to expect and most of all, not knowing what we are.”

  “Shhh!” the others shushed. “Aracel, that’s enough.”

  But Aracel didn’t stop.

  “Hey! You’re listening in on us, right?” He turned to a tiny red speck fixed to a lamppost far above their heads, betraying the presence of a camera. “Tell me what the hell is going on. Who the hell are the Savages, really. Go on, tell me!”

  The camera merely mocked them in silence.

  Aracel snorted and looked away. Beep. Beep. The youth, the leader of the squad, glanced down at a tiny screen fastened to his wrist. A cluster of red dots vanished, replaced by one single dot, and it was a couple of blocks down the road. He blinked in confusion. The others looked just as confused.

  “The target changed?” one of them asked. “Maybe we should abort?”

  The youth shook his head firmly. Changed or not, it was their target.

  “We’ll take it.”

  He ran along the new route highlighted in green on the tiny screen, his team members following suit with Aracel bringing up the rear, still grumbling unhappily. The rain continued, bringing visibility down even further for them. The streets were blanketed in a heavy fog. After about 45 minutes of running, the youth halted abruptly. A weather-beaten signboard stood in front of an ominous building: Street 51, it read.

  “It’s here,” the youth whispered.

  The building was a warehouse. The target was inside. A chain hung loosely around the handles of the door. Someone had apparently gone at it with a pair of bolt cutters just moments before. Exchanging nods with the rest, the youth readied his rifle and pushed the door open. Bright. Twelve sets of lights were glaring down at them. As his eyes adjusted to the sudden glare, a humanoid shape became clear. There was no doubt. It was their target.

  “Is that…human?” the youth choked out.

  No matter. They had orders. They took aim and fired.

  As the bullets left the barrels of their rifles, a hail of deadly lead, the youth watched, enthralled. There was a flash of movement, accompanied by a gust of wind. The expression on the youth’s face morphed into horror when he realised their target was neither dead nor hurt. It wasn’t that the bullets missed. They were the best sharpshooters around. Instead, the bullets buried themselves into the target, whose flesh only sunk in a little. Then, they fell out as useless, pulverised lumps of metal. Clink. Clink. Clink.

  When the last bullet hit the floor, layers of flesh surrounding the target unravelled. They were wings. No, not wings. Skin flaps. Two semicircular skin flaps extended from each side of the target’s back, from the shoulder blades right down to the pelvis. A long, scaly tail snaked around the target’s legs, rustling as it flexed sinuously. The rest of the target was that of a human male, approximately twenty years of age. Even as the squad stared at it, aghast, its tail whipped forward at breakneck speed, stabbing one of them in the chest. The soldier let out a strangled gasp as blood bubbled to his lips. He was lifted bodily into the air, still attached to the tail, while the others watched, their eyes filled with terror. With a flick of its tail, the target flung the soldier across the room. Crack. Spine snapped. That was it. There were only four of them left now.

  They screamed and opened fire once again. The skin flaps simply wrapped themselves around the target’s body, absorbing the impact of the bullets. And then the target leapt. It was impossibly fast. One moment, it was there, the next, it was right behind them. The tail swept around, sending the soldiers flying in four directions. One of them was caught midflight, the target’s hand, with all its fingers flattened out, slicing at his stomach. It was a bad time to realise that the thing had claws too. The soldier’s whimpers became weaker and weaker as he desperately tried to scoop his scattered guts back into the gaping hole in his body.

  There was a burst of gunfire. The target let out a guttural howl, leaping out of the way as bullets chased it around the warehouse. Its deadly tail lashed out in the direction of the gunfire. The youth refused to lose his nerve. He stood firm and fired continuously at the incoming tail, watching helplessly as his bullets fell to the ground. At the last moment, a soldier darted in front of him, parrying the tail with her dagger. She swung her rifle around and joined her leader, firing even as the tail retracted. The target, losing its patience, lunged. The soldier threw herself out of the way while the youth braced himself, took aim and opened fire again. This time, the bullets hit the human part of the body and with a screech which could rival that of an insane banshee, the target slammed the tip of the skin flap into the youth. He realised, too late, that it wasn’t completely made out of skin. Rather, the skin was attached to some sort of extended rib. It hit him like a truck, se
nding him flying into the air.

  “Oi, asshole! Over here!”

  It was Aracel. At the same time, the other soldier, her rifle mounted on her shoulder and firing away, charged the creature. Thanks to Aracel’s shouting, she lasted five seconds, which would otherwise have been two. Then, she stopped dead in her tracks, a newly opened slash across her throat. The blood shot forth, making the wall look like an abstract painting. Left with no choice, Aracel took out the lights. He grabbed his leader and ducked under a pile of crates as the glass from the lights showered down. They were plunged into darkness. The creature’s silhouette was still visible though, probably due to its size. But miraculously, it seemed to be shrinking and slowing down.

  “We have to go!” Aracel whispered.

  Too bad, the creature heard him. It spun in his direction. Sensing danger, Aracel threw himself over the youth and felt a sickening schulpp as the tail ran through him, twisting and wrenching itself out with an even more sickening squelch. There was now a hole the size of two fists in his chest. Without looking, he could tell he was finished. Screaming defiantly, Aracel emptied the rest of his ammunition into the creature.

  “Look, it’s gonna…lunge soon…I think…” he gasped, slumped over the youth. “Shoot through me…it doesn’t know you’re here…I’m a goner anyway… Do it!”

  The youth’s eyes widened in denial, then hardened with resolve. He knew that it was their final chance. If he failed, he would die too. Something warm and wet was pressed into his hand. It was a tiny silver locket, warm and wet with blood.

  “My…sister…” Aracel coughed.

  His words were blotted out as the creature lunged. The youth opened fire. The creature screamed. Aracel screamed. The youth screamed. Chaos in the dark.

  1

  I scream myself awake. Or maybe not. I don’t know. Could I have screamed or not? White. Black. White. Black. The light above me flickers. The doors are flung open and a woman rushes in. A nurse. She asks if everything’s all right. I guess I must have screamed. I nod apologetically, mumbling something about a nightmare. She nods understandingly, muttering some sort of consolation. I wait. Eventually, she leaves, telling me to get enough rest for my discharge tomorrow. Reassignment, really. New unit, new faces, new tragedies. I slump back onto the hospital bed and sleep.

  Let’s talk about the military. And let’s be clear about one thing. There’s nothing glamorous about it. No parades for a cheering audience, no grandiloquent firepower demonstrations, nothing. We exist solely for the sake of killing. And one day, we will. Before that, it’s boring. Aside from our daily activities, which are printed on paper for us and delivered at four every morning, the rest of the time is ours to spend. Enlistment isn’t compulsory. Most of us are picked up from various orphanages around the country. Some are even whisked right off the streets. It’s a no-brainer. Given a choice between the military and starving to death on filthy asphalt, few would select the latter. Of course, there are cases of voluntary enlistment too. Don’t ask me why anyone would do that to a child.

  We are soldiers. And by “we”, I mean the hundreds of other 16-year-olds filing silently into the hall while a loud voice booms orders over our heads. The soldiers, nothing more than kids actually, are split into orderly rows and groups.

  “NUMBER NINETY-THREE! ROW EIGHT, GROUP FOUR, SQUAD SEVENTY-TWO!”

  And that’s me. No. 93. No longer an individual, but a number. A number against the Savages. We don’t know who or what they are. All we know is that they exist outside the 18 walls which protect our country.

  I’m the last to join my group. There are four others, two girls and two boys. They eye me warily, as I do them. A soldier walks onto the stage at the front of the hall.

  “Silence!” he yells, even though no one else was even talking to begin with. “The Captain is absent, so his deputy will address you shortly.”

  The Captain. Our mythical leader. I don’t think anyone here has ever seen him in person. But his grip over the soldiers is terrifying. Not a single person would dare defy “Captain’s orders”.

  In time, a short man stalks up to the stage. The deputy. He doesn’t need a microphone. His stentorian voice rocks the hall.

  “LISTEN UP! CONGRATULATIONS ON PASSING THE FINAL ASSESSMENT OF THE INDIVIDUAL TRAINING STAGE!”

  Uncertain mutters circulate the hall. Definitely not a mood for celebration.

  “Street 51.”

  “Annihilated.”

  “They’re dead, aren’t they?”

  The deputy must have expected a response like that, for he nods solemnly.

  “YOU MUST HAVE HEARD THE RUMOURS BY NOW. IT WAS A SAD INCIDENT AND WE WILL FOREVER REMEMBER THOSE HEROES IN OUR HEARTS. WE DO NOT WANT A REPEAT OF THE STREET 51 TRAGEDY!”

  My stomach clenches. Just two weeks ago, the final assessment for the individual training stage took place. We were grouped according to strength then. Or rather, killing potential. The strongest, the Elites, were sent on the hardest mission as their final assessment while the weakest were sent on comparatively easier missions. This enabled our superiors to analyse the strength of the entire batch as a whole. Still, throwing five random soldiers together to complete a mission smells of bullshit. Well, no surprise that tragedy struck. The Elite team, which everyone expected to pass with flying colours, crashed and burned with flying body parts. There was one survivor. One out of five of the strongest soldiers in the batch. In just two weeks, the news had, unsurprisingly, spread throughout the rest of the camp and it became known as the Street 51 tragedy. And now, we’re moving on to the group training stage.

  “WHO ARE WE?” the deputy roars.

  “HUMANITY, SIR!” we chorus.

  “AND WHO ARE WE FIGHTING FOR?”

  The same response.

  “WILL YOU GIVE YOUR LIVES FOR HUMANITY?”

  Damn that idiot just won’t shut up. We’ve all been through eight years of this. He knows it too.

  “YES, SIR!”

  More patriotic drivel. A round of applause. End of speech.

  Uniformed personnel stream into the hall, one per squad. Ours is a stout man whose only source of hair on his head is his thick, bushy moustache and equally thick eyebrows. The top of his head shines brightly under the light. I hate him already. He looks like a defective monk.

  “Number six, number fifteen, number twenty-two, number seventy-eight and…”

  He pauses. Then, his mouth curls into a sneer.

  “Number ninety-three,” he finishes. “Room seventy-two. Unpack, introduce yourselves and whatever else you need to do. Be up by five tomorrow.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  We pick up our belongings, not a lot, really. Clothes, equipment and weapons for the most part. We walk in total silence to our designated room. It looks the same as the rooms we have been assigned to for the past eight years. Five beds, five closets, one toilet with a shower, one table and five chairs.

  We pick our beds at random and throw our stuff on the linen sheets. Unpacking can wait. We gather at the table.

  “Well, I guess we’ll be working together from now on,” says one of the boys, a grin on his face. “I’m Rick Greenson. Nice to meet you.”

  No. 22. He has a large build, one you would expect a rugby player to have. It is a wonder he can even fit into the bed. Chiselled jaw, large eyes. Classic Prince Charming.

  “I’m April Chen. Nice to meet you too.”

  No. 6. She has a pockmarked face, short hair and very fair skin.

  “Sean Ooi. I hope we can get along.”

  No. 15. His voice is soft, like the rest of him. A mop of brown hair falls over his eyes, reaching towards his rounded jaw.

  Next is my turn.

  “Ren,” I say.

  They stare at me expectantly.

  “What?” I ask.

  “Just Ren?” Rick says.

  I nod. Then, I remember.

  “Nice to meet you,” I continue with a smile completely devoid of warmth.

  I probab
ly look like a defaced mannequin. Rick doesn’t look happy with my introduction, but he forces a smile and turns to the remaining member of Squad 72.

  “Raine,” she says.

  Her voice is hoarse. That’s it. That’s where her imperfections end. Tanned, waist-length brown hair and stunning blue eyes. It’s disconcerting how she’s managed to retain such a complexion as a soldier.

  Rick doesn’t object. Doesn’t push her for more either. Perks of having good looks, I guess. Rick opens his mouth to speak, but she beats him to it.

  “Make a move on me and I’ll ram your balls down your throat. Girls shower first. No peeping. I’ll get along with you, not the other way round. Got it?”

  Her eyes are hard. The only answer she wants is a yes. She won’t settle for less. So I stare at her blankly while the rest nod their heads in unison.

  “Ren?” she says pointedly.

  With an attempt to smile, which resembles a grimace more than anything else, I nod.

  With introductions over, we unpack and change out of our uniforms. Raine disappears into the toilet only to reappear later dressed in a T-shirt and shorts. Very short shorts. I look away before she catches me staring. Rick isn’t so lucky. He isn’t very smart either. Before he even finishes whistling, Raine’s heel smashes into his right temple, knocking him to the ground. He gasps and slides back on his ass, narrowly avoiding her foot, which slams down between his legs.

  “Hey, enough.”

  I can’t bear to watch any further. She fixes me with a cold glare.

  “Shut up, asshole. You gonna report me?”

  “No. But you’re noisy. If that monk catches you, we’re all in for shit so pipe down a little.”

  She raises an eyebrow. Almost smiles but catches herself before she does.

  “That monk…”

  Slowly, she lifts her foot and steps back. Rick, a look of relief on his face, breaks out into a brilliant smile.

  “You know, I don’t dislike that part about you.”