Cynthia and Kara hadn’t got far before there was a dull thump.
Kara turned to look at Cynthia, but her eyes rolled and she collapsed on the ground.
Tony was standing in the shadows with a glowing white grin.
“Thought you’d lost me?” Tony teased.
Cynthia prepared to defend herself, but Tony was too quick. The rifle butt hit her in the side of the head and the ground rushed up to meet her.
“Look at you,” Tony said as he approached. “A frightened animal, hiding in the woods.” He lowered the gun barrel at her head. “Pathetic. This is where we differ, Cynthia Abell. You and your kind, hide in the shadows and cower in shame. They call you ‘Post-Humans’, as if to say that you are the next genetic step for human evolution. Yet,” he grinned, “time and time again I find myself in this position; the dominant species.”
Tony lowered the gun and stepped over to Kara who was groaning as she regained consciousness. He bent down and picked her up by the back of her t-shirt and dragged her a little further away and then knelt down next to her.
“Kara, my pretty. You’ve done your work, now it’s time to retire.” He stroked her hair and looked across at Cynthia. “Look at her. This is like getting to visit the last thylacine or seeing the last mammoth. She’s an endangered animal that no one wants. Did you know that humans throughout history have wiped out many different species, because they simply couldn’t live with them? They did it in Europe. There were lions there once. In Tasmania it was the thylacine.” He laughed. “You girls are like the tigers; dangerous, but beautiful. You’d all be much more appreciated in a museum.”
He dropped the rifle on the ground and pulled a knife from his belt. “Don’t mind me, I get excited by this bit. Slaying the dragon.”
He pushed the knife into Kara’s shoulder with a wet crunch. In the darkness, a black-red stain began to spread beneath her sky blue t-shirt.
Kara’s eyes were wide and she waved about trying to push Tony out of the way, but he was strong. She tried to make a sound, but her voice didn’t come.
Cynthia crawled over as quickly as she could, hissing through her teeth.
Tony let go of the knife and picked up the rifle. He then thrust the stock forward.
Thump.
He hit Cynthia, square in the face and she fell backward and the stars swam.
“Stop…” She spat.
There was a sharp, copper taste as blood quickly mixed with her saliva. She choked and swallowed, trying to take a breath
In the background, she heard another dull crunch, as the knife was plunged into Kara’s body again.
I need to stop him…
“Get…away from…her,” she stammered through bloody teeth.
“Oh,” Tony turned to her apologetically, “I’m sorry, are you two friends now? Have you united against the common cause?” He pulled the knife free of Kara’s chest and stood. “You better have her then.”
Get picked up Kara by her short black hair and tossed her bleeding body on top of Cynthia, knocking the breath out her.
The girls were a bleeding heap on the grass and dead leaves. Kara’s face was against her ear and Cynthia could hear her shallow breathing.
“He…elp…me.” Kara choked.
Cynthia’s blood boiled and her heart pounded, as she rolled Kara’s perforated body gently onto the ground. She used all the strength she could muster just to get to her feet. Her world still spun and it was difficult to focus.
“I think,” she said, as she wobbled on her feet. “That you are the one that needs putting down, Tony Carlyle. You are the epitome of everything that is wrong with this world and human kind.”
Tony grinned, unfased, and tossed the rifle into the sand nearby. “Come on then.”
Cynthia took deep breaths and used her training to focus. She needed to beat him and to do that; she would need to touch his skin. His arms and hands would be the key places.
Lunging forward, she lashed out with her fists first; one, then the other, over and over.
Generally, she prided herself for being quite good at fighting, but Tony was no amateur. He had obviously spent time practicing too. Her blows were easily parried and knock aside.
A sly kick, with the right leg, followed by a frenzy of punches, left and right. She was finally landing some blows.
Focus was the key.
Another kick to the side of his leg brought him to his knee, but he followed it with a punch to her stomach that sent her stumbling back. He was bigger and stronger than she was.
“Thought you had me, eh?” He grinned again. His face was still clean and luminous in the dark.
He took this moment to pull on a pair of soft black vinyl gloves. His fingers stretching and flexing inside them as he stepped toward her.
This was not good.
Cynthia blinked and tried to take deep breaths of cool night air. She was losing focus, the blow to the face, he had delivered with the rifle, had left her sick and dizzy. This was not her best moment.
Tony took advantage of it.
Cynthia tried do block his swing, but he grabbed her wrist instead. He kicked out at her left thigh, landing the kick right where she had been wounded by Mirage’s steel pin.
She was about to cry out when Tony’s vinyl-wrapped fist hit her in the face.
The punch was all it took.
She slumped onto the ground.
Her head making a dull thump as it hit the sand. She prepared to defend herself, but one of Tony’s heavy boots stood on her right arm, pinning it to the ground.
“Get…off…” she groaned.
“Shut up…” was all Tony said as he knelt over and hit her in the face again.
Then again.
And again.
And again.
The pain began to float away.
Everything became soft.
Cynthia felt like she was floating, like a sea bird gliding over the sparkling waves. It was beautiful and familiar. She floated in eternal ether looking around at the drifting stars, trying to see if she had been here before. Surely she would remember being in such a beautiful carefree place.
She closed her eyes and opened her arms wide, so she could fly over the waves.
She was like an albatross, soaring through the salty sea breeze. The wind was in her hair and the sparkling golden sunset before her, warmed her face.
She would fly to it.
That was where she needed to be.
Opening her eyes, she looked at her bird reflection on the water. She was a regal animal: Mistress of the Forever Ocean.
She watched the way her reflection flickered and shimmered as it passed over the rippling waves.
Her tail was growing.
She looked more carefully. Her tail was definitely growing. She wasn’t a great albatross anymore.
She swooped in closer. Her feathered breast only an arms length above the sparkling water.
Her reflection was still changing.
Her tail grew long and her wings became thin. She was a woman again, naked and flying. Her long blonde hair, whipped about in the air, as she flew.
She squinted at the woman in the sea, her reflection, the woman she used to be. Her eyes were cold and hard like steel and her muscle was tempered to fight. She was strong.
But she noticed the strength being sapped away. The muscle tone faded and her blonde hair grew streaks of dark crimson and rusty smears. Her clothes took shape, materializing and covering her young body.
Memories were assembling, like a window shattering in reverse.
She knew the girl beneath her. The pale pink t-shirt was the same one she used to wear to bed, so were the boxers covered with smiley faces. She had made those in her textiles class at school.
It’s young me…
Spreading colour was concealing the girls face and clothes now. Spreading further and further.
Red, blood red.
She knew the girl was herself and she knew when this was.
The scenario began to form behind the reflected body of the young Cynthia.
This was her home when she lived with her mother years ago.
This was the night when her mother’s boyfriend came home drunk and loud. This was the night she watched her mother get beaten for the last time.
This was the night the change happened.
The shaking.
The aching.
The headache.
Then the beating.
This was the first time Cynthia Abell died.
Cynthia’s eyes flew open.
She could barely see through the blood that covered her face and clung to her eyelashes. She could feel the humming throb of her body repairing itself, but she couldn’t wait for it to finish.
Kara.
She pulled herself up on aching limbs and suppressed a groan.
Tony was kneeling over Kara, with the knife in his hand, cutting.
Cynthia shakily got t her feet and stumbled forward.
Tony heard her and turned around, knife ready.
“What?” His eyes were wide. “You’re dead.”
Cynthia said nothing. The time for words was over. This was the same as that night all those years ago in the kitchen of her mothers house, except Kara was in the place of her mother and Tony was in the place of her mother’s abusive boyfriend.
The first life she took.
Tony turned on his knees, ready to attack her, but he hesitated. He just watched as Cynthia stood over him covered with blood, her face, unrecognizable.
“You’re dead,” he repeated.
“No.” She said as she lunged at him. She gripped at his face and forced him backward onto the ground.
She struggled on top of him holding his face while he hit her in the ribs with one fist and stabbed her in the stomach with the knife. He stabbed over and over. Cynthia clenched her teeth, but felt no pain.
The stabbing ceased and Tony’s eyes grew wide, the knife dropping from his shaking hand.
Cynthia felt something new and powerful growing inside her. A rush up her spine, like a million ants coursing all over her skin.
Then came the heat.
Her skin began to burn and throb. It was exquisite energy that ran through her broken body. The stab wounds in her stomach throbbed and stopped bleeding.
She leaned over Tony’s face so he could watch the broken bones in her face rearrange and repair themselves.
His eyes flitted about in terror, as he was forced to watch the bones moving under the skin of her swollen face.
He watched as the open tears in her skin pulled themselves back together.
The blood-shot and bruised whites of her eyes grew pale and bright.
She stared down at him with sparkling blue eyes filled with intent and malice.
He groaned as he tried to move, but his body was limp and immobilized. Cynthia’s hands on his cheeks were heavy, like they weighed a ton.
He was helpless and trapped.
“I…am…not…weak.” Cynthia hissed into his ear.
That was when she began to kill him. She did it slowly. Tony would have felt like he was being skinned alive, his skin coming away with great difficulty, while she used a mental butter knife.
Agony.
His face told her, that he was being punished. His eyes were wide and rolling about. His mouth wide, open in a silent scream. He would have passed out from the pain, but she took away his ability to do that too.
He would feel everything, she was making sure of it.
Finally, Tony’s life began to run out.
He stopped moving and his eyes were frozen wide. They glinted like wet stone in the dark.
She wasn’t going to waste anything. She would take every spark of life from his body.
Her pale, blood stained fingers gripped his face firmly, until his face began to glow pale in the shadows. Eventually his features were bluish and stiff. There was nothing left. He was a husk. He would never hurt anyone again.
Cynthia let go of his face and sat back.
She hated herself for what she was able to do, but she was happy that she was able to make this man suffer to the last.
This was his penance for every Post-Human life that he had taken.
Kara!
She dragged herself off the still body of Tony and crawled over to Kara’s still form. She was covered in blood. The knife wounds were too deep and too many. There was no first aid kit and the closest hospital was too far to even consider.
Tears burned Cynthia’s eyes. She blamed herself for this.
Then Kara choked.
She was alive, at least for now.
Cynthia didn’t have the strength to carry her back to the truck; she didn’t even know where the truck was. And it was so dark; she would never find the way. She would have to try and help her now.
Cynthia wondered; if she was able to take the life from someone, could she give it back?
She looked at her pale, shaking, blood stained hands.
She had to try, or Kara would die before any help arrived.
She leaned over Kara’s body and placed her bare hands, one on Kara’s throat, the other on her stomach. She took a deep breath and concentrated. She focused on letting the energy flow out of her body into Kara’s.
She could still feel the tingling all over her skin and she could feel her wounds throbbing as they healed, but she needed to share that power.
Please, please…
Nothing at first.
Then, a breath.
Kara sucked in a deep breath of air and Cynthia could feel that something had changed; the tingling energy that filled her body was circulating through Kara as well. She was like a dialysis machine of energy. The tingling energy flowed like a river between each of them, as if they were a circuit, a perpetual waterfall of flowing power. She felt Kara’s body throbbing as it repaired itself the way hers did.
With every second that passed Kara’s breathing grew stronger.
Cynthia was beginning to feel tired and weak, like her ability was wearing thin. Like she was pouring water from a vase and now she had reached the bottom. This was all she had.
She pulled her hands away and looked at Kara’s body. The wounds were closed and she was breathing. She had done it. Now she could rest.
Rest.
Cynthia tumbled backward onto the leaves. Her eyes were closed and she was asleep before her head hit the ground.
Kara slowly opened her eyes.
It was still dark.
Her body ached and she pulled an uncomfortable stick from beneath her back. She rolled to the side to pull it out. And that was when she saw Cynthia on the ground next to her.
Kara crawled over and knelt next to Cynthia’s body. Her eyes were wide with terror.
She looked around the clearing and noticed Tony Carlyle’s body, still and lifeless. He was dead then. She couldn’t remember killing Tony. The last thing she remembered was seeing Cynthia being beaten to a bloody pulp.
She looked at her body.
She had been stabbed and beaten. She remembered that too, but the wounds were gone. Not even a mark on her skin to prove it had happened, but her blue singlet was covered in blood, most of it drying and sticky. Cynthia saved her.
She wasn’t sure how, but Cynthia had saved her life.
Kara tried to lift Cynthia’s body. To drag her somewhere safe, but she had no strength. And where would she take her?
They were in the dark in the middle of nowhere. There was nowhere to go, and Cynthia was too heavy.
And where was Courtney?
The scrubland was quiet. There was the sound of night birds in the darkness. Otherwise she was alone.
Nowhere to go and nothing she could do for her friend.
But her anguish was broken.
At first there was just the distant crunching of twigs and the swish of something brushing against leaves. It could have been an animal, but Kara wasn’t sure what kind. She was no expert on Australian fauna. Ther
e was something about the sounds that was familiar; they were human footfalls crashing through the brush.
Muffled voices.
“Through here… It’s Kara, I know it!”
She knew the voice.
“Kara!” Kara’s brother Ryan pushed through the tall, dark branches that surrounded the small clearing and the torchlight flashed about and seared her eyes.
She sobbed as she looked at her brother’s silhouette in the dark. She was filled with so much relief. Of all the fates that she had been imagining as she sat there in the dark, seeing her brother’s face was not one she expected. They were saved. Cynthia was saved.
“Cynthia’s hurt, she won’t wake up.” She stared up at his wide-eyed face with tears streaming down her cheeks.
The two men settled the torchlight on the stiffened body of Tony Carlyle. His drawn features looked tortured, like he had died in the throes of incredible agony.
Ryan dropped to his knees and took his sister in his arms. “Are you hurt? There is so much blood, are you hurt?”
She shook her head. “Cynthia needs help. Courtney is somewhere out here too.” Ryan looked at Cynthia’s unconscious body then looked up at Matt who was standing over the three of them.
“Courtney?” Matt looked confused.
“Mirage. Courtney was called Mirage.” Kara said, wiping her eyes.
Matt looked around. “She’s here?”
“Yes. She is one of us. We escaped together.” Kara said as she pushed Cynthia’s long blonde hair out of her sleeping face.
Matt nodded.
“What do we do with her, Mr Claire?” Ryan gestured to the unconscious woman.
“Why is there so much blood?”
Matt shook his head. “She’s not like us. She heals differently, I’ve seen it before, but not like this.” He looked around the clearing, realizing that there was no way they would be able to find their back to the car in the dark. The desert was too big and distances were too deceptive. “We’ll have to do what we can here. We will get her back in the morning.”
Matt stepped away from the others and fished his mobile phone out of his pocket.
No reception.
He looked down at Cynthia Abell; so pale and fragile.
It would be a long night, but at least they were alive.
Deadfall: A Post-Humans Story Page 20
