Dead Man in a Ditch

by Luke Arnold

  “But they’re turning the lights back on.”

  “They’re making weapons. Everything else is just a side-effect. A way to pay you off. These fires don’t belong to them. This city doesn’t belong to them but they will own it if we don’t do something. This is the Human Army with a new face. This is Mortales. These are the people that ruined everything. They waged war against all that was good in the world and now you will let them claim their prize? When Niles has been buried, the fires will still be here. You can have your future, boy, but only then.”

  I raised the pickax.

  “I… I don’t think—”

  “Do it, Fetch. Because I cannot.”

  “I…”

  “Come on! Why do you think I’m here? Why do you think you’re here?”

  “Maybe we…”

  My mind is always too slow. Sluggish. It jams like a cheap motor under the slightest amount of pressure. I stood, frozen, searching for a way to reason with him, or a way to convince myself that he was right, but my head was full of aches and white noise.

  “Fetch, whose side do you want to be on this time? Theirs or mine?”

  The pickax arced through the air. It was a strain to lift but once I’d got it over my head, the weight took over and brought it down hard on the top of the pipe. As soon as the sharp point pierced the nickel, Hendricks and I were blown backwards as a stream of roaring fire erupted from the point of impact.

  The pressure peeled back the metal, widening the hole, and fire shot all the way up to the roof where it spread out like liquid and pushed smoke and ash around us. Hendricks was back on his feet before I was.

  “We best be going now, boy.”

  I scrambled up and went back the way we came, but there were voices ahead of us: shouting at each other, alerted by the noise.

  “This way!” called Hendricks, on his way to the elevator. I followed behind, breathing air that was hot and full of smoke.

  We stepped into the hanging cage. It was just like the last one and made me feel just as sick.

  “Close the door and pull the chain,” ordered Hendricks, and I obeyed. I was back to taking orders. Easier that way. No need to think or weigh up my options, just nod and oblige. I dragged the door shut and grabbed a length of chain. When I yanked on it, the whole cage dropped.

  “Shit. Wrong way.”

  Gravity had taken control, and the cage rumbled down. I pulled back on the chain so hard that it took the skin off the palms of my hands. Hendricks jammed his cane into the mechanism and finally brought it to a stop.

  “You all right?” he asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Good. Up, please.”

  I switched to a second chain and gave it a heave. We climbed back up again. The room that we had just left returned at eye level but now there was someone waiting for us.

  It was a Human man in charcoal trousers. Another of Niles’s interchangeable cronies. White shirt. No jacket or tie. In his hands, he held one of the mass-produced machines.

  “Stop!” he said. I yanked the chain again. We rose past him as he lifted his arm.

  Pop.

  I saw a flash of fire and a cloud of smoke, then the wall glided up in front of him and we continued upwards. I wrenched the chain as hard as I could to take us up to the surface.

  “Looks like the new pistols have already been issued to Thurston’s men,” I said to Hendricks. He didn’t respond. When I looked over, he was lying on the floor of the cage.

  “No!” I let go of the chain. We stopped but didn’t descend. I rolled Hendricks over and he was moaning. That was something. He was the first person I’d known who hadn’t turned to dead meat as soon as the machine had hit them.

  “Dammit, Eliah; are you all right?”

  “Positively not.”

  There was a hole in the shoulder of his jacket. I pulled it open and blood was already soaking his shirt.

  These fucking bullets. At least with bolts and arrows, they plug the wound until you pull them out.

  “Does it look as bad as it feels?” he asked.

  “How bad does it feel?”

  “Fucking awful.”

  “Then yeah, it looks as bad as it feels.”

  I took off my coat, removed my shirt, and wrapped it around his shoulder. The blood seeped through it immediately. I put a Clayfield in his mouth.

  “Bite down on that.”

  He did as he was told. I’d run out of ideas so I took his hand and squeezed it. He squeezed it back. Then I let go of my friend, grabbed the chain, and pulled on it with everything I had until we came up into the light.

  64

  I pushed open the elevator door and looked around at a completely unfamiliar room. It was a storage house. There were crates everywhere: metal boxes piled on top of each other, right up to the roof. The walls were concrete. The floor too.

  I helped Hendricks out of the cage and laid him down on the floor. The wound was still bleeding heavily. He’d need medical attention soon. His body had been through too much. He was already shivering and his skin was sweaty and pale.

  I tried to work out what part of town we were in, but the trip underground had thrown off my sense of direction.

  “Do something to that elevator first,” said Hendricks. “We don’t want them using it to come up after us.”

  I gave him two more Clayfields and then used a nearby crowbar to jam the cage door open so that it wouldn’t be able to descend.

  “Maybe there’s something here to plug you up.”

  I went over to one of the big metal crates. Even the lid took two hands to lift. Once I looked inside, I understood why.

  “Shit.”

  “What is it?” groaned Hendricks.

  “This is full of desert dust.” What I’d seen in the factory was nothing. There was enough in this crate to fill hundreds of bullets. I looked around the room and saw a hundred more crates just like this one. “There’s enough explosives here to wipe Sunder off the map. We should get out of here.”

  Hendricks only moaned in response. I picked him up in both arms, grabbed his cane, and awkwardly marched the length of the warehouse looking for any kind of escape. I just needed to get back on the streets. To get my bearings. Then… then what?

  There was a square door on the far wall, almost as tall as the building. I put my back against it and pushed but it hardly moved at all. Maybe it was barred on the other side. A cool breeze blew through the gap, teasing freedom.

  Then I saw a smaller door, off to the side. It was already ajar. Perfect. I ran over and kicked it open.

  But this door didn’t go to freedom. It went into an office. Standing inside the office were three men in charcoal suits and one man wearing brown.

  “Mr Phillips?” It was Thurston Niles. He had the most confused expression on his face and a cigar dangling from his mouth.

  One of the other men was reaching inside the jacket of his charcoal suit. There was a strange pocket sewn into the lining from which the butt of a pistol was poking out. I wished that my machine wasn’t still hidden away in Hendricks’ coffin.

  I racked my mind for a good excuse. There was nowhere to run. We were trapped.

  Thurston’s eyes fell on Hendricks.

  “Is that Deamar?”

  I looked down. Yes, I suppose it was.

  “Yeah.” I stepped into the room. There was a table by the window with nothing on it but papers so I dumped Hendricks’ limp body on top. “I chased him into the tunnels beneath the city. No idea what he was planning.” Hendricks gargled up a mean groan, playing the perfect villain. “I hit him in the shoulder and he’s lost a lot of blood. I could have let him die down there but I thought you’d want him for questioning.”

  I looked back at the room of hard, clean-cut faces. The charcoal suits were still itching to grab their hidden weapons but Thurston threw up his hands in celebration.

  “Well done, man! I knew I could trust you. Yes, quite right. Let’s make sure the bastard doesn’t die before
we find out who he works for.”

  The expressions of the other suits didn’t change but they put their hands back at their sides.

  “I should get him to the medical center, then,” I said. “I don’t know how long he’ll last.”

  “No, no, no.” Thurston patted me on the shoulder like a proud uncle. “We’ll call one of my doctors down here to get him all fixed up.”

  Hendricks rolled his head over. He was still awake.

  “Are you sure?” I said. “I can get him to the medical center real quick.”

  “My doctors are the best, Mr Phillips. If you want to know how to put a man together, the best practice is to take a man apart.” My mind was filled with thoughts of Victor Stricken. Missing fingernails. Missing teeth. Ragged rips in his ears.

  Thurston turned back to his trio of followers.

  “Call Anderson. Get him down here quick and tell him to bring his tools.”

  The tallest of the suits reached for the phone, but it was already ringing.

  They must not get many calls because it put all of them on edge. It put me on edge too. Tall Boy picked up the telephone like it was some delicate ornament, and slowly lifted the receiver.

  None of us said anything while he listened. There was nothing to read on that infuriatingly blank face.

  “Yes,” he said, “we have the intruder here. Along with the man who apprehended him.”

  The call was coming from down below. My story was going to turn to ash in two more seconds, so I only had one second to take the upper hand.

  I punched Thurston Niles right in his throat. He made a choking sound, and I gave him another crack on the nose. I didn’t have time to confirm that he was taken out, because the trigger-happy trio were making their move. Unlucky for them, their weapons were tucked into their jackets while Hendricks’ cane was already in my hand.

  I cracked the first one on the side of his face, just like Eliah had done to me during our reunion. It brought his head down to kicking height and I didn’t waste the opportunity. I used him like a football and he crumpled to the floor.

  The tall one still had the phone in his hands, so I went for the other. I rushed him, shoulder first, and drove him into the wall. There was a satisfying crack as his head bounced off the bricks, and I followed it up with an elbow to the face that turned his legs to noodles.

  Tall Boy dropped the phone and backed away to the far corner of the room, finally fumbling the pistol out of its hiding place. I wouldn’t be able to reach him in time, and from that distance he’d have to be cross-eyed not to hit me. I raised the cane, ready to throw it, but aware that it wouldn’t do any good compared to the power of the killing machine. Then I heard:

  “DROP IT!”

  Tall Boy and I turned. It was Hendricks. Not quite as passed out as he’d appeared to be. He was sitting on the edge of the table with Thurston Niles pinned between his legs. Thurston’s nose was an overflowing waterfall of blood. His jacket was open and Hendricks was holding the pistol that had recently been tucked inside.

  Now, it was tucked into the temple of the most powerful man in town.

  “I said drop it,” growled Hendricks, “unless you all want to be out of a job.”

  The tall man took a second to think about it. It was a second too long for Hendricks, who lifted the gun from Thurston and pointed it at Tall Boy instead.

  The same ear-shattering explosion. The same puff of smoke. Tall Boy’s chest coughed out a gush of blood and he fell back against the wall. He put his hands over the hole in his chest like he could use them to keep the life in. But judging from the abstract painting on the wall behind him, the hole in his back was even bigger.

  I took the guns from the two remaining suits and told them not to try anything. They didn’t look like they would but it seemed like the right thing to say in that kind of situation.

  Hendricks had his pistol pointed back at Thurston’s head. For some reason, Thurston was smiling.

  The blood was dripping over his mouth, staining the front of that fine-looking suit. Hendricks was holding him by his salt-and-pepper hair, but he looked happier than I’d ever seen him.

  “Well done, Mr Phillips. I knew I was right about you.” He licked the blood from his wet lips. “I was starting to feel disappointed in this city. It turns out there are some fighters here after all.”

  Hendricks wrenched his head back. That only made him smile more.

  “We need an automobile. You have one here?”

  “In fact, we do. Good thinking, Mr Phillips. Follow me.”

  He got up, not needing to be told to keep his hands in the air. I had a gun in each hand, and I pointed them to the men on the floor.

  “Stand up, both of you.”

  I only had to ask nicely and they did as they were told. Hendricks had already shown what would happen if they didn’t.

  We all filed out to the main room and Thurston approached a metal bar on the wall.

  “Wait!” I shouted. He turned back, all innocent.

  “This is just the mechanism for the door, Mr Phillips. A little something we brought over from one of our factories in Braid. May I?”

  I looked to Hendricks for confirmation but he barely had the energy to stay on his feet.

  “Do it,” I said.

  Thurston pulled the lever and the whole place shook with the rattling of chains. The huge door peeled open, letting cool air and morning light flood in.

  “There you are, Mr Phillips. Your automobile.”

  I’d been expecting something like the little car that Linda and I took out on the road. Maybe even a flashy number like the one Yael got to drive. But no. The entire driveway of the warehouse was filled with one big truck. It might have been the very same one that almost squished me and Tippity that night.

  It was the size of a small building. Too wide for most Sunder City streets. A dream getaway vehicle it was not, but it was all we had.

  “Get over there,” I ordered Thurston and his pack of bleeding suits, directing them to a position on the outside wall so Hendricks could keep his pistol aimed at them from the passenger window. “Get in.”

  Hendricks clambered up into the cabin. It looked like there wasn’t an ounce of blood left in his body. Once he was inside, he pointed his gun out the window back to Thurston and his men, while I ran around the truck and got behind the wheel.

  “You know how to drive?” asked Hendricks.

  “I had some recent practice.” I looked for the switch that was supposed to fire it up, but it wasn’t there. I flicked a bunch of other levers, but nothing brought the truck to life. “Not in anything like this, though.”

  “Grab the handle under the wheel and pull it towards you,” shouted Thurston, being frustratingly helpful. I did what he said, and the vehicle shook itself awake like a bear in spring. I put my foot down on the pedal and the truck lurched a few feet forward. We were good to go.

  “You ready?”

  Hendricks had his gun resting on the windowsill of the truck. He was chewing his lip, with his eyes still locked on Thurston’s smiling and bloody face.

  “Just give me one second,” he said. Breathing out so he could steady himself for the shot.

  I didn’t give him his second. I put my foot to the floor and the truck bounced out onto the road. Hendricks spun around in fury but I didn’t have time to worry about it. I was behind the wheel of a machine that was just as dangerous as a firearm but ten times as hard to control.

  “Get to the surgery,” said Hendricks, as the truck bounced over the gutter.

  “I’ll try, but I don’t even know where we are.”

  I searched desperately for street signs, taking out letterboxes and lampposts on the way. When I tried to take a turn too tight, the truck skidded to a stop. Out the window I could see the painted wall of the Sunder City printing press. We were down at the bottom end of Riley Street.

  “We’re too far east,” I said, scraping the side of the truck along the wall to get back on the road
.

  “Let’s go to yours, then.”

  “Too risky. How about The Ditch?”

  The tires hit the gutter, almost tipping us over, and Hendricks groaned in pain.

  “I thought you’d never fucking ask.”

  65

  I ping-ponged the truck up Riley Street, crashing through sandwich boards and grinding against walls in a shower of splinters and sparks. Hendricks had his hand pressed against his wound.

  “Take Sixth,” he said.

  “The Ditch is on Eighth.”

  “Might give us away if we leave the truck parked out front.”

  “Fine. Sixth.”

  When we got to the corner, I tried to turn us left but we were going too fast. The front of the truck bounced onto the sidewalk and launched us straight into the side of a corner store.

  It wasn’t like being punched. When somebody punches you, you’re the stationary object. This was like being inside a fist as it hits someone else. The sudden stop pushed all my bones into each other and my nose hit the wheel so hard that blood immediately covered my chest.

  Hendricks bounced off the dashboard as the broken windscreen rained down on his head, then he crumpled back down in front of his seat.

  “Hendricks?”

  No response.

  I stepped out on Sixth Street. It was early. Still damn-near freezing. Nobody was out on the street yet, but I knew they’d be coming. I wrenched open Hendricks’ door. He was out cold with new cuts on his face from all the broken glass. I picked him up in my arms, carried him down the street like a bride, and turned into a narrow alley. I had stabbing pains up my arms. Sticky blood on my breath.

  Shit.

  I’d left the pistols back in the truck. I was pretty sure Hendricks had dropped his. I spun around, tempted to go back for them, but it was way too risky. I gritted my teeth and kept running.

  We came up to Seventh. I peered out, hoping there weren’t any witnesses. Nobody but a paper boy on the corner looking back down Riley in the direction of the truck.

  I crossed the street and stumbled, almost losing my balance, into the safety of a muddy lane I knew like the back of my hand. I’d spent hours out there, in the early days, emptying mop buckets and taking out the trash. The smell hadn’t changed at all.