by Andy Monk
And she’d come here, to this rarest of things, an inhabited alternate, and one that had mirrored her Earth for billions of years until the late nineteenth century. They’d only just begun to explore it, to research it, to discover what had happened to it and to map its fissures to see where else they might take humanity to reveal more wonders.
And after she’d stepped between worlds John Xavier Quayle had become a man who didn’t think life was so priceless after all.
She closed her eyes against the unchanging message on the screen and hugged her knees. She listened to the wind blowing the grass around her and the plaintive songs of distant birds and tried to fight the fear coursing through her veins as insidiously as the Mayor’s black candy had done.
She couldn’t go home. She was trapped here with the twisted remains of a man she’d once loved and whatever the hell the Mayor was.
Quayle’s words echoed around her head. Most she could barely remember; the shock of finding him here coupled with her horror and disbelief at what he was saying had drowned out a lot of what he’d actually said. His justification for what he’d done. It didn’t matter. It all boiled down to him disagreeing with what The Facility had been doing. Maybe he was right, he probably was. But being right didn’t justify planting bombs. God, hadn’t there been enough of that insanity in the world? The righteous killing in the name of their absolute belief. A belief that was the only one that mattered. Mattered enough to kill and destroy.
John Quayle had been a man of principle and decency and, above all else, humanity. And he’d somehow turned into a fucking terrorist.
Cece wanted to run, but there was nowhere she could run. She was attuned to the rhythms of the fissures and could slip through easily enough, but with no beacon to lock on to she could end up anywhere, there were plenty of lifeless Alternates that wouldn’t even have enough oxygen to keep her alive until she could find another wormhole, or one of the Blasted Worlds where the radiation would kill her in seconds even with her augmentations. Wherever she ended up she would be alone and the chances of finding her way back to her world were effectively zero.
Still, that almost seemed better than staying here with John X Smith. And Sye for that matter. Who knew what he might try to pump into her to get her to love him next time.
And then there was the Mayor of course.
No Signal Detected.
No Connection Enabled.
She tapped her fingers and stared off towards the distant horizon. Unsettled, as she always was out here, by the way it slashed across the bottom of the huge sky made alien by the lack of steel and glass clawing up into it.
It took her a while to realise she was whistling a Rolling Stones song…
The Farmer
“Stop!”
Black-Teeth twisted around, snarl still fixed beneath the blood.
The knife was close enough for the network of scratches and tiny blooms of rust on the blade to be visible. Black-Teeth looked like he was going to carry on regardless. He didn’t seem the kind of guy who did anything much besides what he wanted to.
The knot of killers parted before a tall man in a black uniform. Unlike most of the raiders he was clean shaven and his clothes didn’t look like he’d lived in them for the last month. His hair was cropped short, though not short enough to hide the sharply receding hairline.
He’d never seen a soldier before, but the newcomer looked much like how he’d imagined, right down to the shiny silver buttons on his tunic.
“What’s happening here?”
Black-Teeth jerked his head, “This one did for Hector, now we’re gonna do for him.”
“And what happened to your face, trooper?”
“Kid head-butted him, Captain,” one of the others answered when Black-Teeth just wiped a hand across his bloody face.
“Let him go,” the Captain ordered.
“Yes, sir,” the men pressing him back against the wall immediately stepped aside and it was all he could do to stop himself sagging to his knees. Black-Teeth stayed right where he was, knife raised. He looked like he was still weighing things up.
Sye’s gaze flicked between the blade and the newcomer.
“Trench…” there was a low growl in the Captain’s throat.
“Yes… sir…” Trench dropped his arm to his side and stepped back into the crowd, tapping the flat of the blade against his thigh.
The Captain’s eyes lingered on Trench until the knife was sheathed, his attention then turned to the body on the ground – Hector - a bloody halo darkening the dirt around his head.
“How did he kill him?”
“With this,” a man with a huge greying moustache tossed the blood-stained hammer onto the ground at the Captain’s feet, “just came running outta nowhere howling like a banshee, sir.”
“And what were you planning to do in recompense?”
“Nail him to the wall and flay him,” Trench spat, before holding his nose and snorting some more blood onto his shirt.
The Captain’s attention finally swivelled towards Sye. If he’d been hoping for some mercy there was none to be found in the man’s eyes, which were flat and cold.
“You got some balls,” the Captain’s thin lips curled around each word, his tone measured and precise, “attacking armed men with a hammer. Balls, but likely no brains.”
A couple of snickers escaped the onlookers.
“They killed my Ma,” he shot back, the words hurting him more than Trench’s knife ever would.
The Captain looked him over, wheels turning behind frigid eyes.
“We’ll send him back to the Host,” the Captain decided, with a final curt nod.
“But he killed Hector!” Trench protested.
The Captain’s head snapped around, “Then Hector was a damn fool who deserved what he got. Pissing around with his head wedged up his ass before a cleansing was finished. He was weak and stupid and not fit to wear the sash of the Scourge.”
He glared, first at Trench and then at the other men in a slow sweep. None of them met his eye.
“Fire makes us stronger, gentlemen.”
“Fire makes us stronger!” the ragged knot of killers retorted as one.
He turned his freezing glare back on him, “It’s your lucky day, son. You’ve got a chance to play your part in building the New Nation. Oh, happy day! Welcome to the Scourge,” the Captain gave him a toothy smile that didn’t sit naturally upon his angular, austere features.
And then punched Sye in the face.
*
The Captain was called Miller. He heard one of the men call his name as he’d lain on the ground, hands tightly bound, while the only home he’d ever known was ransacked and set alight. They left the corpses of both his Ma and Hector where they’d fallen.
He drifted in and out of consciousness until he was hauled to his feet, and put on a horse. There were around twenty men in the group, all wearing black sashes, save for Miller who rode out front of their ragged little column.
Trench rode at his side. Every time he glanced sideways the man flashed a black-toothed grin through his blood-flecked stubble. He quickly stopped looking.
He twisted around once in his saddle to look back at his farm. Smoke was billowing from all the buildings. He couldn’t see his Ma anymore. He’d been born in the farmstead, had worked every day in the fields and barns, he’d hoped to bring his wife there one day and to raise children together, he’d fully expected to die there. Now there was nothing but smoke and flame, tomorrow they’d be nothing but ash and cinders.
Ma was gone too. No more smiles, no more scolds, no more cooking his dinner and scrubbing his clothes, no more toiling every hour of daylight on her beloved farm, no more fruitless search for a girl crazy enough to want to marry her son, no more reading by the candlelight or darning socks in the evening. No more sitting next to the fire together too exhausted to even speak to each other. No more laughter, no more tears. No more comfort, no more advice, no more love.
No more an
ything.
His eyes filled with water and he raised his eyes heavenwards, but there was no explanation coming from that direction, only a buzzard circling overhead. He closed his eyes and let his chin fall to his chest.
They rode for a couple of hours, seemingly in no great hurry which didn’t make much sense, Hawker’s Drift would be sending men sooner or later, so why hang around?
He decided to keep his eyes closed and his head down. He tried to catch what he could from the men, but nobody was saying a great deal. Someone was whistling tunelessly, which kinda grated after a while, but it was the least of his grievances.
He didn’t know who these men were, why they’d attacked his farm or what they wanted. All he knew was that they’d killed his Ma and he had to figure out a way to keep himself alive long enough to kill as many of the bastards as possible.
Despite the pain and ringing in his head from being struck first with a rifle butt and secondly by Miller’s fist, he dropped off into a troubled doze which he awoke from with a start only when he found his horse had stopped moving and someone slapped his back.
“Beauty sleep’s over…” Trench hissed, before hauling him from the saddle and dumping him in the grass.
“Get on your feet before I dirty me boots with you.”
Wincing from the fall which he’d been unable to break with his tied hands, he managed to stand up before Trench could kick him in the face.
Men and horses were milling around as Trench grabbed his arm and marched him forward. There were far more men here than he’d been riding with. Some were sprawled on the grass, while others were gathered in little knots talking and laughing. There were at least fifty men here, all wearing a black sash save for Captain Miller, who he spotted talking to a couple of older men. Like most of them, they looked the type he wouldn’t have taken the next table to if he’d come across them drinking in Jack’s.
Trench pushed through men who cursed and spat at Sye, and led him towards two men cradling rifles who were standing away from the main group. As they got closer he could see half a dozen figures were huddling in the grass at their feet.
“Shit, what you got there Trenchie?” One of the men grinned from beneath a drooping moustache, pushing back his hat.
“Ain’t nowhere near pretty enough…” the second rifleman, a skinny black kid younger than Sye, with an over-sized kerchief tied around his neck and a front slung holster on his belt.
Trench shrugged, “Miller’s orders. Staved in Hector’s head with a hammer, Capt’n decided to send him back to the Host and see if he’s got what it takes.”
Moustache spat through his teeth, “Frankly, I was hoping for more pussy…”
“Lucked out, just an old bird and this streak of piss…” Trench’s eyes moved to the figures huddled in the grass and licked his lips “…see some of the others had better fortune on that front?”
“Sure did,” the black kid grinned, revealing his missing front teeth, “but don’t go getting greedy Trenchie, no one touches em again till Captain Miller say so.”
“Fuckin’ Miller,” Trench growled, but in a lower voice.
“We’re in hostile territory…” the older man said, pronouncing each word carefully.
“Well, make sure this one doesn't have no fun with em before the rest of us get a go at breaking em in…” Trench shoved Sye forward hard enough to make him stumble. The black kid caught him by the arm, his fingers digging into his arm.
“Hector was a friend o’mine, blondie,” the kid’s eyes grew wide as he tilted his head to one side.
“Put him with the others,” Moustache ordered, “no grudges for killing the weak, you know that.”
“Yeah, I know…” the kid snorted “…fire makes us fuckin’ stronger.”
Sye fixed his gaze at his feet, every one of these men seemed to be taut with violence, eager to strike out at any moment.
“Don’t look like he got the right stuff to me, Trenchie?” the kid looked at his friend.
“Me neither, we were gonna nail him to a wall and flay him…”
The kid laughed, high-pitched and nasal, “That sounds like a proper party for Hector… maybe we find ourselves another wall sometime? What you say Trenchie, you got a hammer and nails someplace?”
“Sure do…”
“Enough!” Moustache barked, jerking his head back towards the main body of men who were setting up some kind of rudimentary camp for the evening.
“Sure, Zeke, sure…” Trench turned away, tapping the hilt of the knife hanging from his belt, “you take care of my boy for now.”
Zeke watched him stroll away, before turning his attention back to the kid, “We got orders. No playing games.”
The kid nodded and shoved Sye forward, when he reached the other prisoners he kicked his legs away and sent him crashing to the ground.
“Fire makes you stronger, asshole,” he spat, walking backwards to Zeke, all the time pointing his rifle one-handed at Sye.
He managed to sit up, hands still tightly bound with coarse rope. There were four young women and a girl of eleven or twelve huddled together, each looking as dazed as he felt, several sported bruises or split lips, all were red-eyed except one who looked a few years older, though she was probably only Sye’s age
He recognised a couple of them, but the names wouldn’t come. He guessed they were all from outlying farms and homesteads like him. He supposed Ma had tried to get him hitched to all of them at some point.
The thought of Ma sent another stab of pain through his guts. He wanted to curl up into a ball and cry, but he stopped himself. He guessed these girls had all suffered today, suffered even worse than him given they were all young and pretty. They were all wearing torn clothing. He looked away.
“Sye Hallows, isn’t it?” the older of the women asked. The side of her face was bruised, though it was partially covered by honey-blonde hair hanging long and tangled to her shoulders.
He stared at her, but a name wouldn’t come. Maybe the blows to his head had dislodged something, maybe he didn’t want to know, maybe he just wanted everybody to move on and leave him in the grass, forgotten and discarded.
“Yeah,” he finally managed with a small nod.
“Sally…” she replied. He guessed he was staring blankly at her.
“What… happened to you?”
“A group of men attacked my home, killed my parents and my fiancé, burnt the place to the ground.”
“Same,” he whispered.
“They rape you too?”
He managed to shake his head. Sally’s eyes were blazing, her anger a palpable thing. Where the other women were pinned beneath the weight of their loss and pain, Sally had set hers afire and wanted to burn the world with it.
“Why didn’t they kill you?”
“They were going to… going to nail me to a wall and flay me… but their Captain stopped them… I dunno why…”
There was no reaction on her face, she just shuffled in the grass. Like him her hands were tightly bound, but otherwise she was free to move.
“I killed one of them with a hammer…” he added, “…they spared me cos of that, but I don’t know why.”
“At least you got one of the bastards…” Sally gave him a thin smile, before hissing, “…and that’s what I’m gonna do if I get the fuckin’ chance…”
*
It was nearly sunset when Miller came to inspect the prisoners, accompanied by Trench and a couple of other men Sye hadn’t seen before. The two guards, Zeke and the young kid, who was called Keaton, had fallen in step behind Miller. They’d been joking with each other beforehand, but they fell silent as soon as they saw Miller approaching.
Sally was sitting next to him, the others huddled together behind. Her head was raised and she was focused on Miller. He reckoned if she could get her hands on a hammer she’d go for the Captain there and then. He concentrated on his feet and wished she was sitting next to someone else.
Miller stood and examined them. T
he other men shuffled about in the grass, Keaton scratched the back of his neck and looked bored, but the Captain didn’t twitch a muscle. He stood straight as a fresh plank in his too clean black uniform, the silver buttons gleaming in the rays of the lowering sun. Cold, calculating eye lingered on each of them in turn.
“I’d have hoped for more,” he said finally.
“Ain’t many young women out here, Captain” said one of the newcomers, a middle-aged man with a shaven head and rough, blurred tattoos covering the backs of his hands and around his neck.
“We must make the best of what we find…” Miller gave a curt nod, “they’re young enough, but are they strong enough?”
“The boys that took em started breakin’ em in,” the tattooed man answered, “reckon they’re strong enough.”
“All of them?”
“Save the little un, dunno about her,” he nodded first toward the young girl in the group and then Sye, “and him.”
The men sniggered, except for Miller who walked over to the girl.
“What’s your name?”
“Laura… Beerens…” she replied, her voice thick and quivering.
“Has any man had intercourse with you today?”
She looked blankly up at him.
Miller pursed his lips, “Has any man been inside your panties today?”
Laura swallowed and shook her head.
“Good. If any man does, you tell me and I’ll hang him,” Miller glanced up at the distant featureless horizon, “as soon as I can find a tree to string him up from out here anyway.”
“You gonna hang the men who raped me?” Sally demanded as Miller returned to the others.
A cold, humourless smile turned his thin lips. He looked at the tattooed man, “Now she, Mr Horowitz, is strong enough.”
He could feel Sally trembling next to him, but she didn’t say anything else.
