End of the End

by Paul Kane, Simon Guerrier

  “Maybe they’ve only just come back?” offered the Ranger who’d made the coffee, a man with pinched features Robert knew as Hurst.

  “Maybe,” said Robert rubbing his chin. “But why not follow these men out and attack them as well?”

  “Perhaps they like the cover of the forest,” Jack mused. “You of all people should be able to relate to that.”

  Or perhaps they’ve been trained, thought Robert. Perhaps they’re following some sort of orders?

  “Monstri, monstri,” one of the Italian men was shouting again.

  Monsters? It was the most ridiculous thing Robert had ever heard. “Is that what you think as well?” he asked Cole. “That these things are... are monsters?”

  Cole shrugged. “Hard to say without taking a closer look at one, and I’m not fucking going back in there to do that.”

  “Then I guess there’s only one thing for it,” Robert said, turning.

  Jack grabbed his arm. “I hope you’re not thinking what I think you are.”

  “I’m going to get Cole here his closer look,” Robert informed him without missing a beat.

  “You can’t be... Robbie, you saw what they did to the Lince!”

  “My eyesight’s not what it once was, but I’m not blind yet, Jack.”

  “Then—”

  Robert placed a hand on his shoulder. “Stay here, and shore up the defences. We need to know we can keep them out if they try again.”

  “They didn’t have much luck with that the first time around,” his friend said, knowing it was no use arguing with Robert once his mind was made up.

  Robert clapped Jack’s shoulder. “I’ve done my fair share of hunting in my time,” he said with a smirk. “I’ll be fine.” Although he was far from convinced.

  THERE’D BEEN NO way of hiding his approach, so Robert hadn’t even bothered trying. No sneaking in, no ninja-style tactics. If they hadn’t followed the men up to the outpost, then chances were they wouldn’t go for him. Yet.

  So he just walked up to the edge of the forest. Robert stood there for a moment or two, glancing sideways at what remained of the Italian personnel carrier. They’d certainly done a number on it, and this close it looked even worse. Robert pulled up his hood, stared at the treeline from under it, then took an arrow from his quiver and slid it into position.

  “Now you see me,” he muttered under his breath, briefly looking down at his sword on one hip, the bag that linked him to his own forest back home hanging from the other. Then he prayed that this place would embrace him in the same way Sherwood had done.

  And he was gone, away into the trees.

  He kept his breathing low, his muscles flexed, and his tread light. Here, amongst the foliage, he blended in, became invisible. Robert pressed himself up against a trunk, peering around it. He could sense the presence of those things before he even saw what came next. Cole had been right, there were a lot of them. And they seemed to be everywhere.

  Then they opened their eyes. Red in the darkness, they almost glowed. Dozens of pairs of crimson orbs, all searching for him. For this intruder who had so casually strolled up and knocked on their door, then snuck inside like a thief. For a moment it made him think: about all those times he’d said to Stevie that those monsters of his weren’t real, then looked under the bed, in the closet, to reassure the kid.

  Had he just been reassuring himself all along?

  There was no such luxury this time, not now he was being confronted with those eyes. Robert couldn’t deny the existence of these monsters. He heard the faintest of movement from above, and looked up. One was clambering through the branches. It was a move he’d employed many times in the past, keeping above ground so you could see your enemies. Robert tilted his bow, following the outline of the figure. What was it, some kind of ape? A trained ape? Like Poe’s orang-utan, or something out of an old sci-fi movie he’d seen as a child?

  But if they were monkeys, then where was the organ-grinder? Robert wondered. It stopped directly above him, and he leaned back into a crouch so he could shoot.

  Crack!

  Robert cursed the bones in his knee, letting out a “Shit!” as the thing hurled itself at him, plummeting through the branches. There was neither the time nor distance to shoot, so Robert improvised. He fell backwards onto the ground, lifted both his legs—bringing them back and bracing for the thing to land on the soles of his boots. As it did, Robert flipped it over his head and straightened his legs.

  His position had been given away. He scrambled to his feet, aware that there were figures behind him as well as in front. Robert turned and loosed three arrows in quick succession, which he knew hit their mark. Nevertheless, the figures didn’t go down. They just kept on coming.

  “What now, old man?” he asked himself, as they surrounded him.

  He let off a couple more arrows, in various directions, but again they didn’t slow the creatures down one bit. Hell, if machine-guns and pistols hadn’t done anything, what had made him think his arrows—which he’d relied on all these years—would be any different? If he’d been in Sherwood, then maybe. But the pouch at his belt just wasn’t going to cut it this time, he feared.

  Almost on him, coming from all sides. This was it, he was never going to see Mary or April again—

  He felt hands on him, tugging him backwards.

  “Come on! Move!” It was an American accent, his old friend’s. Jack was pulling him out of harm’s way, having broken through the ring, smacking the creatures left and right with his staff. You couldn’t argue with brute force and leverage. By his side was Azhar, cutting a swathe with his razor-sharp scimitars. “Didn’t think we’d let you have all the fun, did you?” shouted Jack.

  Robert remembered his own blade now, shouldered his bow and pulled the broadsword free of its sheath. He flung it left and right, punching another one of the creatures in the side of the head. “Look out!” warned Jack, and Robert spun—just in time to impale one of them on the end of his sword. It slid up the length of it, still squirming. Christ these things are strong, thought Robert. Then it shuddered, and finally fell still. So, they canbe killed!

  He was about to kick it off, when Jack stopped him. “Cole never said his sample had to be alive, did he?”

  He hadn’t.

  “Let’s leave this party, shall we?” Robert suggested, withdrawing with his friends on either side of him, dragging the body—their prize—along with them. Once they were a few feet away from the things, they turned and ran as quickly as they could—hoping that their pursuers wouldn’t follow them out. If they were wrong, though, they were screwed. Jack took the body and hefted it across his broad shoulders with a grunt, after handing Robert his staff.

  They’d guessed rightly; the creatures were now pulling back. Robert risked one last glance backwards into the forest and thought he saw something else apart from the ‘monstri.’ A robed figure, wearing a hood.

  “The organ-grinder,” he spat through clenched teeth.

  “What are you jabbering about?” asked Jack, as they spilled out into the light again, tumbling forward and ensuring they were out of reach.

  Jack dumped the hairy body in the back of the waiting truck they’d used to reach the forest, then climbed in himself. Azhar was next, followed by Robert. “Drive!” Robert called to Ranger Poynter in the front.

  Jack repeated his question as they set off: “What do you mean?”

  “I mean I reckon I know who’s behind the attack on this outpost,” he told his friend gravely. “And if I’m right, we’re all in a lot more trouble than I thought.”

  APART FROM THE Rangers and NRI keeping watch at the walls—the remaining Lince had been used to barricade the broken gates—the rest of them gathered around the table the dead beast had been laid out on. In total, there were something like a dozen of their number left, not including Robert, Jack and Azhar.

  Stretched out, the thing looked less ape-like and more human. Still naked but covered in hair, it more closely resembled
some kind of deformed caveman than anything else. Muscles bulged abnormally as well, like they’d been inflated with a bicycle pump.

  “If you’re saying that the Morningstars might be behind this, then yeah, we’re definitely in trouble,” Jack had said when Robert told him what he’d seen.

  “Morningstars?” Lagorio had asked, voice rising. “We have heard of these people. They are in league with the Devil himself!”

  “They’re just men,” Robert said. “We’ve fought them before... I’ve fought them before, one-on-one. Actually, one-on-several. They’re incredibly strong and are driven—most fanatics are—but they’re still just men.”

  “They have raised demons!” This came from one of the Italian soldiers who’d made it out with Cole.

  Robert turned to the medic. “What do you think, doctor? Is that what they’ve done?”

  Cole, who had been busy examining the corpse—lifting the hands to study the sharp, elongated nails, peeling back lips to reveal ragged teeth, peering at the bloodshot eyes—stood back and rubbed the top of his head again. “No, he’s human enough.”

  There was an audible and collective exhalation of breath, including—Robert was surprised to find—his own. “So what—?” he asked.

  “He’s been experimented upon. If I had access to a lab, I could draw some bloods and tell you exactly what this poor sod had been given. There were all kinds of Chembrews knocking around after the Cull, that did all kinds of things to you: gave you enhanced vision—if it didn’t send you blind—altered your perceptions. Some were developed by the military, like the Perf-Es or Meg-Grade PCP.”

  “English, doc,” said Jack.

  Cole sighed wearily. “There was a lot of stuff going on behind closed doors, gentlemen. You heard rumours but... When the shit hit the fan, people who shouldn’t have had access to it suddenly did. And that’s not including DIY drugs off the streets. Dealers are like cockroaches, not even an apocalypse can get rid of them.”

  Robert was familiar with some of the crap that had been around after the Cull. While Bill was busy setting up his legal trading systems, there was a whole underground that relied on the fact that people wanted to forget their lives before, or at least make this one tolerable. They’d done their best to try and stamp it out, but there was only so much the Rangers could cope with.

  “But this... I think we’re dealing with something else here. Maybe an extrapolation of some of those, a refinement? Some kind of animal DNA mixed in there? It’s hard to say without looking through a microscope, without being able to run the proper tests.”

  Robert folded his arms. “The effect is clear enough, though. It’s made them wild, stronger even than the Morningstars. And they don’t appear to feel any pain.”

  “But they’re under the control of those bastards?” Jack spat.

  “That’d be my guess,” said Robert. “Or maybe they’re just in the process of training them?”

  “You mean this is some kind of trial run or something?” Jack said. “And we’ve wandered slap bang into the middle of it.”

  “The location’s definitely remote enough for something like that.” Robert pointed to those red eyes. “Is it possible that whatever drug concoction they were given could also enhance their sight, even give them night vision?”

  “Like I said,” Cole answered with a nod, “even back then, some of the shit could do all kinds of things to you.”

  Jack leaned against the wall, adjusting the baseball cap he wore, though somehow it always ended up in the same place on his head. “Would certainly explain why they’d stop at the treeline. If they’re sensitive to it, there’d be too much light out in that field for them.”

  “At the moment,” Robert said. “But it’ll be night soon enough.”

  “And our only way out is through that forest path,” Cole reminded them, though it hardly needed saying. “Fuck doing that again!”

  Robert shook his head. “Doesn’t look like we’ve got any options left then. We batten down the hatches and wait for them to come to us, maybe pick them off as they do.”

  “But you said...” Lagorio began. “It’s just that there are so many of them, signore. And they got in here already once.”

  “That’s when these guys were caught with their pants down,” said Jack. “Probably overnight or early morning. We know they’re coming.”

  Robert wasn’t sure if that was a blessing or a curse.

  Which was why he was so twitchy as they stood and watched that forest right now on the battlements, the sky growing increasingly dark.

  “Why don’t they just make their goddamn move?” Jack had asked not long ago. Now here they were and how the big man must have wished he could take those words back.

  Because that’s when they’d seen them again: the eyes, glowing at the treeline. More than ever before. Advancing now across the field. So many that Robert lost count.

  The monsters. The human monsters that someone, somewhere had created, according to Cole. Here they were, and Robert knew.

  Knew that nothing, absolutely nothing, would ever be the same again.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  THINGS WOULD NEVER be the same again, Mary knew that.

  How could they be after what she’d found out? After what she’d stumbled upon that late afternoon? April was seeing a friend after school that day, so Mary had decided to go and have a chat with Sophie. Maybe she could help, get Sophie’s take on what was happening between her and Mark. She’d never been one for interfering, in fact she liked to think she had a pretty good mother-in-law relationship with the girl, but she hated seeing them like this. Hated seeing Mark like this. Yes, he needed to get a handle on his jealousy, but at the same time Sophie needed to realise that some of her actions were a little... unwise. She was a friendly girl, nothing wrong with that—but some men saw that as a green light. Mary had witnessed this kind of thing for herself.

  So, knowing Mark was away for a while, she’d knocked on their door and waited. No-one in. Mary checked the rest of the castle, but couldn’t find her anywhere. Next she looked in the grounds, curious as to where Sophie might be, more than anything. She even asked at the gate to see if the girl had left—they’d have logged her out, provided an armed escort to wherever she might be going. None of them left the castle without one of those in tow. Sophie hadn’t gone anywhere that they knew of.

  She did a bit of asking around, in the hopes that someone had seen her at some point. If they hadn’t, then Mary needed to report it. People going missing at the castle always set alarm bells ringing because of what had happened to Mark a few years ago: kidnapped by Shadow and taken to Sherwood to be exchanged for Robert. And with the place on alert anyway...

  Then she bumped into Ranger Abney, who was up and about again today, though still looking a bit peaky. Mary asked him how he was feeling. “Okay now, thanks. I guess it must have been something I ate.”

  “I don’t suppose you’ve come across Sophie on your travels, have you?” asked Mary. “Only I can’t seem to find her anywhere.”

  Abney smiled. “Oh, I saw her not long ago up near the stables. I assumed she’d been seeing Mark off.”

  Mary uttered her thanks, not mentioning the fact that Mark had taken a horse and gone around midday. She headed off in the direction of the stables—it was at least a place to start looking. Sophie had probably decided to go for a walk or something around the grounds; it was a nice day after all, and they’d been cooped up inside the castle most of the winter. Any excuse to get out into the Spring sunshine after months of darkness and snow. At least there had been a sighting of her, which meant that she hadn’t been captured—thank God.

  She reached the stables, not actually intending to go in herself, just to use it as a starting point, but then she’d heard the giggling from inside. It sounded girlish, childish even, and for a moment Mary wondered if April and her friend were playing where they shouldn’t be again. She’d been told on several occasions how dangerous it was in the stables, that
a horse could kick out and seriously hurt someone, if they were spooked.

  She imagined the voice of her late brother David in her head, although she hadn’t heard him for such a long time now. I really don’t like the looks of this, Moo-Moo.

  Tentatively, Mary stepped inside.

  There were only a couple of horses around at the moment, making the place look quite bare. It had been re-designed a few years ago to accommodate more animals, though even then they’d had to convert a house near to the castle to keep more as an overspill. Today, most of the horses from here had been taken. There was hay everywhere, extending into the shadows at the back... and that was where the giggling was coming from.

  “April!” Mary called out, effecting her stern ‘mum’ voice—which actually also worked on Robert, she’d found. “April, if that’s you—”

  The giggling stopped.

  “Don’t make me come in there and fetch you!”

  Mary heard a man’s voice then, followed by shuffling noises. She frowned, a different kind of alarm going off now, then marched through the hay to the back of the stables. It was hard to see at first, but as her eyes grew accustomed to the dimness, she caught sight of a familiar face. One she’d spent the past hour looking for.

  “Sophie?” she said.

  The girl was on her feet now, stepping forward fully out of the shadows. She was adjusting and smoothing out the yellow, knee-length dress she had on. Pulling it down to knee-length, where it had been hitched up.

  No, I don’t like the looks of this one little bit, Moo-Moo.

  “Sophie, what—” But even as she was saying it, Mary knew exactly what was going on. Her mind grasped for other explanations, but none came. So she just asked in an even tone: “Who’s back there with you? Booth?”

  Sophie look puzzled then, almost outraged that Mary could think such a thing. “This isn’t how it looks,” the girl replied.

  “How it... I asked you a question,” Mary snarled. Then the man joined them, stepping into the half-light himself, and her mouth fell open. Mary almost couldn’t get the name out: “Chillcott!” Bloody Chillcott and that sour bloody face.