by Logan Jacobs
I thought about Dickie as I started to shred one of the blankets with my knife, and I sincerely hoped that was just some mage far away who had made the pants and not some poor soul who had watched his life and magic drain away at the hands of the blood mages. When I had enough strips, I bound Sorcha’s arm as tightly as I could, then eased her back onto the remaining blanket.
“I’ll be back soon,” I promised her.
“Grab anything useful,” she instructed. “I don’t want to set foot on that barge again. Especially in daylight.”
I nodded though she had closed her eyes and leaned back against the faded paneling. I kissed her forehead, grabbed my jacket, then climbed over the desk and picked my way back across the vast store. I passed a whole collection of wheeled vehicles with only one seat and a large cloth bag on the back. I also spotted some smashed toilets and a few pieces of rotting timber.
“Just get to the barge,” I reminded myself.
I darted back into the parking lot and moved as quickly as I could across the uneven surface. I nearly missed the barge in the dark and almost tumbled into the canal. I forced myself to stand still for a moment and draw in several deep breaths. I felt my head clear, and when I felt more like myself, I walked carefully across the plank and back onto the barge.
I stopped on the deck for a moment, as if I expected someone to come charging out of the darkness. It wasn’t a completely crazy thought. Benny was definitely dead, but who knew what type of magic the two had absorbed over the years. If a healing mage had been part of the mix, June could be knitting herself back together even as I stood there. I took another deep breath and then crept across the deck.
I opened the door to the shack as quietly as I could and then waited for several moments. The only sounds, though, were the waves lapping against the barge and something rolling around on the floor below. If June was still alive, she was remarkably quiet.
I stepped into the kitchen and looked around. I spotted one of the lamps and felt around until I found a Zippo as well. The warm glow of the oil lamp filled the tiny kitchen as I started to pull it apart. I set everything I thought would be useful on the table, including three more lighters, a block of cheese, the last bit of the pork, a pair of flasks that I filled with fresh water, another lamp, and several of June’s small vials.
I glanced at the ladder and debated whether to head into the lower deck. I realized that if Benny and June had anything really interesting, they would have kept it down below. So I took another deep breath and then slowly descended with the lamp in one hand.
I stopped at the bottom and stared in shock at what the light revealed. We’d left so fast that I hadn’t really registered what the place looked like. But the neat and pristine barge was smeared in blood. June’s mostly human body was sprawled in the door to the sleeping area, her hands and feet still caught somewhere in between dog and human. Her tongue lolled out of her mouth, and it too seemed to be stuck halfway between species.
I looked past her and saw what was left of Benny in between the two bunks. There wasn’t much left to identify him by, other than the clothes he had worn and a blood soaked braid that spread out behind him. I considered a closer look at the room, but everything was covered in blood, and probably wasn’t worth salvaging.
I tried to avoid stepping in as much of the blood as I could and walked toward the far end of the barge. I found the storage room that the Red Rovers had attacked, where the smashed lids of the crates still littered the floor. I peeked inside a few of the boxes, but all I found was the tobacco. I left that for Don Arbino to reclaim and went into the only other obvious room on the vessel.
This was more interesting, and held a small box filled with dried herbs and more of the vials, and a compact chest of drawers. There were also a pair of shoulder bags that looked like they had most recently been used for gathering the mushrooms we’d eaten. I dropped the box into one, gathered up the rest of the medicines I found, then opened up each drawer in the small chest.
There were a few crystals, which I was reluctant to take since I didn’t know their purpose, an ancient plastic bottle filled with little white pills called ‘aspirin’ which I grabbed since it said it was for pain, and a collection of small but sharp knives. After some thought, I grabbed three, wrapped them in some old cloth I found, and added those to the bag along with a full roll of gauze.
In the bottom drawer, I found a notebook. There were only a few blank pages left, but it was clear that both Benny and June had used it to keep notes. The handwriting went back and forth and described in detail every mage they had encountered.
I was tempted to leave the diary of death as well, but it held a lot of useful information on the different types of magic they had encountered and absorbed, as well as the best ways to defeat that magic. It also contained instructions on the best way to kill each kind of mage. It was gruesome reading, but with the Magesterium now looking for me, it also seemed vital.
I tossed the notebook in as well, took another look around the cramped space, and then stepped back into the hall. The smell of blood was overwhelming, and I knew the local predators would move in soon. I walked past Benny and June and scampered up the ladder. I gathered up everything I had set aside and added it to the bags.
Anxious to be away from the barge and the black magic that still seemed to permeate its bones, I stepped back onto the deck without a backward glance and practically hopped down the plank. I untied the ropes, dropped the plank into the water, and bid farewell to the blood mages as the tide slowly pulled the barge back into the currents of the canal. When it was nearly out of sight, I lit one of the lamps and turned toward the old store.
It felt like a great weight had been lifted from my shoulders as I started across the parking lot. I hummed to myself, not loud enough to carry, but enough that I was feeling pretty confident as I neared the Home Depot. I spotted an owl gliding into the nearby trees and wished it luck on its hunt. I was nearly through the door when all hell broke loose.
I heard Sorcha’s screams first. I set the two bags on top of one of the abandoned cars and bolted inside as I pulled the snub nose from my waistband with one hand and held the lamp up with the other. I cursed as I tumbled over the barrels again, but I managed to hold on to both the lamp and the gun.
Sorcha was yelling my name by this point, and as I started to run toward the service desk, I realized her voice was moving. I tried to follow it, then stopped and listened.
“Sorcha!” I called out when she went quiet. “Tell me where you are!”
“Over here!” she cried. “I climbed one of the shelves, but they’re coming up after me!”
“Who’s coming after you?” I yelled as I followed the sound of her voice.
“The rats,” she replied. “Oh, god, here they come!”
I was close now and I spotted a trail of blood drops that had to belong to Sorcha. I could hear chittering as well, and I cursed Benny and June again for bringing us to this place. I didn’t intend to escape from their bloody clutches only to be eaten by a horde of hungry rodents.
I bolted around the edge of one of the aisles and nearly tripped over my own feet as I tried to stop. I could just make out Sorcha, near the top of one of the long line of shelves. She was near the far edge, and her head swiveled as she looked for another way down.
But the floor of the aisle was filled with rats, and not the ones I had been expecting. These were enormous, nearly half my size, and they were gathered around the shelves like birds around a pile of seeds. Sorcha had grabbed a piece of pipe, which she waved at the circling rodents, but several had already started up the shelves.
I grimaced as I took in the writhing mass of rats. When June had mentioned rats, I had pictured the smaller versions that ventured out of city sewers and fallow fields at night. The giant rats were supposed to be forest creatures that hid in the darkest sections and waited for some unsuspecting creature to walk by. We’d encounter them sometimes on the trail, as they followed the sound of t
he cattle in the hopes of finding an easy meal.
“Shit,” I muttered aloud as a few of the glistening eyes turned toward the light.
One thing I had learned in previous battles with these rats was to never underestimate their group intelligence. They could work together in ways that were uncanny, and some insisted it was probably related to their magic. I had no idea if that was true, or if it was true that they hadn’t existed in the before time, but I did know we were in for a hell of a fight. And if we somehow made it out of here, we would still have to find a place to run to where the rats wouldn’t follow after us.
“Well, shit,” I muttered again as I felt a pang of regret at setting the barge loose.
“Hex!” Sorcha called out as she swung a plastic pipe at the encroaching rodents.
The mage managed to knock one of the rodents from the shelves as it stuck its nose over the top edge. The sound of its body hitting the floor startled its fellow rats for a moment, and then the pack attacked the fallen rodent as mercilessly as they attacked calves that strayed too far from the herd. Amid a writhing pile of fur, the rat’s squeals quickly died away.
That was the good news. Unfortunately, my attempts to recreate the snub nose met with disaster. Try as I might, all I could manage was the slight tingle in my fingertips. It was such an odd feeling, like the gun was almost there, and yet somehow I couldn’t reach it. I growled in frustration and then scanned the shelves for something I could use as a weapon.
“Hex!” Sorcha cried out again as she hit another one of the rats that had gotten too close. It backed away a few steps, but the others that had made the climb started to close in. I considered climbing up behind the rodents and just kicking them from the shelves, but there were more on the way up and the shelves had started to shake. The shelves wouldn’t take much more weight, and we’d both end up dead if we toppled into the middle of the pack.
“Run past them,” I ordered as I stepped to the end of the shelves. “Run down here and jump off. I’ll catch you.”
“Are you crazy?” the mage asked.
“Would you rather jump into the middle of that pack?” I replied as calmly as I could, though I wasn’t at all sure I could catch her.
Sorcha glanced over the side, where the rats were finishing up their meal. She turned back to the ones that were slowly advancing on her and swung the pipe in a wide arc. She nailed two of the rats with a sickening thud and sent a third one over the side. She sprinted forward while the others were still trying to clear out of the way of the pipe and ran toward me. I set the lamp down and offered a quick appeal to whatever god might be listening.
Sorcha hesitated at the edge of the shelves, but the sound of feet scurrying behind her convinced her to jump. She stepped over the edge with a squeal and fell toward me. Somehow, I managed to catch her, though I crashed into the edge of the shelves with our combined weight. The shelves shook and one of the rats that had followed Sorcha across the top of the unit fell to the ground in front of us.
The rat landed on its back, but it quickly rolled onto its feet and bared its teeth at us. The rat took a few tentative steps toward us then stopped. When nothing swung toward it, the rat started forward, its teeth bared as it caught the scent of blood. I tried to picture the snub nose again, but still nothing appeared. I was convinced that I was somehow limited to producing a gun only once, and I snorted at how useless my magic had turned out to be.
I grabbed a pair of poles from one of the shelves and handed one to Sorcha. We jabbed at the rat in front of us and managed to keep it at bay. After a few hits to the head and chest, the rat stopped and sniffed the air, then let out a high-pitched squeal. I knew the sound. It was a call to the other rats, and we were about to be overrun.
I set the pole behind me and tried to picture the Colt army revolver instead. I almost let out a whoop of joy as I felt the tingle in my fingers, and then the weight of the gun in my hand. I could feel the power surge through me and I recognized the eerie glow of the gun. Sorcha glanced toward me, and I saw the look of surprise on her face as she took in the revolver.
“The revolver,” she gasped, “You created it again. And it glows. I didn’t notice that before.”
“It’s hard to see unless it’s really dark,” I explained as we started to inch away from the rat in front of us.
The rat still hadn’t closed the distance, but its squeal had alerted the rest of the rats to our location. I could hear them shift as they tried to turn around and regroup behind us. The only thing that would keep them focused on something other than us was an easier meal, and we’d already seen that they were more than willing to eat one of their own.
I pointed the revolver at the rat in front of us and pulled the hammer. The trigger moved easily once I had the hammer cocked, a change from the snub nose that I’d almost forgotten about.
There wasn’t the belch of flame that I enjoyed with the snub nose, and the bark wasn’t as loud, but the bullet was just as effective. The rat collapsed in a lumpy pile. One eye was gone, replaced with a blood encrusted hole. The body twitched for a few moments, as if the brain hadn’t figured out it was dead yet.
As I picked up the lamp, I saw that matted fur was glued to the wall with a thick coating of blood and a pool of the red liquid was spreading across the floor. I kicked the body in the direction of the pack, then nudged Sorcha with my shoulder.
“Get going,” I told her. “Head for the doors. I’ll hold them off.”
Sorcha shivered at the sound of the rats moving across the floor toward the new body. She peered around the edge of the shelves, took a deep breath, and then sprinted past the row of shelves. I watched her long enough to make sure she made it to the doors, then turned toward the rats.
I could hear the sound of teeth tearing at meat and the hisses and squeals of the rats as they fought to get their share of the meal. I held the lamp up, and hordes of beady eyes turned toward me. Several of the rats lifted their noses and sniffed the air, and I knew that they had picked up the scent of more blood. Those rats that hadn’t been able to get close enough for a share of the meat yet started to clamber over their fellow rats. Others sent up a round of high-pitched sounds that was some sort of signal to the rest of the pack.
I started to back away, with the lamp in one hand and the Colt revolver at the ready in my other hand. The pack sorted itself out, and the first charge tumbled around the corner of the shelves and turned toward me. I took a deep breath to steady my nerves and waited for one of the rats to take the lead.
A fat rodent with a very long pair of front teeth and a pair of ragged ears surged out front. It bore down on me with its friends close behind. I shot for its head, and knew the bullet had found its mark when the rat simply dropped in its tracks, its legs splayed out and a line of blood trailing down its snout. Not that there was much of the snout left.
The rats behind the one I had just shot smelled the blood and stopped to sink their teeth into the latest corpse. Unfortunately, that still left a good-sized swarm with more on the way. I took aim at a rat that was crawling over the rest, but the frantic motion of the pack meant the rat was bouncing up and down in an unsteady motion. Its rump was in the air when I fired the gun, and it squealed as the bullet caught it in the hindquarters.
It kept coming, though, as did the rest of the rats. I barely bothered to aim the revolver. As soon as I had a good shot at a rat, I fired the gun even as I backed away. The boom of the revolver seemed to agitate the rats, and every time I fired, the monsters would stop, and a few would drop out of the pack. My bullets all found a rat, and even if I didn’t kill it with the shot, the rest would stop and attack.
Soon enough, there were just a few rats still coming toward me. But the alarm in my head signalled the last bullet in the gun, and I risked a glance over my shoulder. I still had a short run to the exit, and I wasn’t sure I could outrun the rest of the rats.
I looked back at the rats and took aim at the fattest one I could see. It was trundling along n
ear the back of the pack, though I noticed the rest of the rats moved to get out of its way. I pointed the gun and felt the power surge along my arm.
The rat caught my stare and stopped to hiss at me, but I had the hammer back and pulled the soft trigger. The gun cracked and another puff of smoke and sulfur drifted into the air. And then the comforting feel of the gun was gone along with the energy that had kept me moving.
The fat rat let out a long, loud hiss and tried to back away. Its front leg hung limply by its side and a geyser of blood left a trail of red through the pack. It snapped at the other rats that started to close in and more than a few found themselves with their own bloody gashes. I glanced behind me again as the squeaks and hisses grew louder. I still had some distance to cover to get to the exit, and I wondered how it could have seemed so short on the way in.
Worst of all, the rats had started forward again, and all I had to defend myself with was as an oil lamp and a knife.
Chapter 11
The knife would have to be a weapon of last resort. If I had to stab these giant rodents, it meant they had gotten too close, and I didn’t think I had enough strength to fend off the entire pack with just a single blade. I cursed the blood mages and whatever poison they had given us once more, and then tried to settle on the best alternative.
One thing all drovers knew about these large rats was that the rodents hated fire. The easiest way to keep them away from the cattle at night on a long drive through the woods was to have campfires set around the herd, or if you were lucky, you had a fire mage who could keep a controlled firewall between the cows and the rats.
I didn’t have a fire mage or even a torch handy, but I did have the lamp. A quick check inside showed the lamp was nearly full. If I could spread enough of the flaming oil around, I could keep the rats away the same way we did on the drive.
I tossed the lamp in front of the nearest rat. The glass shattered as the lamp smashed against the hard floor, and the oil spread across the concrete. The flame flickered for a moment, then followed the trail of fuel.
