Rust: Two

by Christopher Ruz

  "Forget the girl." Fitch shivered as a fresh blast of wind rolled up the hillside. His coat was torn to shreds, and while he'd never been precious about his clothing he'd quite liked the costume piece. There wasn't much that flattered a man who was stubble and gristle from head to toe. "She's dead. You saw it."

  "She was alive. The one in the bedroom, she was dead, but the one they brought through was breathing."

  "You imagined it. Go ahead, I'll catch up."

  "No way am I going anywhere alone!"

  "Lady, listen..."

  A cry sounded from below. One of the creatures patrolling the grey plains, keening over the ruin of their convent. Fitch didn't have time to piss about - either he grabbed the chittering thing where Kimberly could see it, or he left it behind.

  "Screw it." He rolled the corpse over so the rain splashed across the hollow of its jaw. The chittering thing was still fastened to the monster's face, and he prised it off as quick as he could, wincing as it turned its attention from the dead thing to Fitch's knuckles. Its skin darkened from the white of lily petals to the deep red of old blood, and its thrumming slowed as it gorged itself.

  Kimberly jumped back like she'd been bitten. "What the hell-"

  The chittering thing was the size of a guinea pig, slick and pink and hairless, squealing in the moonlight. It lashed the air with what looked like fingers but might've been bony tentacles, each ending in a flat head like nettle leaves and each head with a tiny flatworm mouth gnawing at the air with miniature teeth.

  Fitch scrambled to scoop the monster back into his pocket, but it wrapped its tentacles around his forearm and clasped on tight like a slippery wristwatch. "You weren't supposed to see it!" he hissed. "You don't understand!" Black eyes blinked wetly, each the size of a glass marble. The tentacles were laced with suckers, leaving little ring-marks up Fitch's arm. The monster blew bubbles of spit and mucus as Fitch levered it free and stuffed it into the hip pocket of his jacket.

  Kimberly had one hand over her mouth and the other held out before her, keeping Fitch at length. "You had that thing with you all the time?"

  "I swear, it wouldn't hurt a soul. It came to me."

  "What the fuck-"

  "It saved me, lady!"

  "No. No way." Kimberly's heels skidded out on the wet earth and she fell on her ass. "No fucking way."

  "Don't-"

  She was already running, headed for the river. Fitch called after her, but she was too far gone.

  No matter. He'd catch up, as soon as he attended to one last piece of business. One last favour he owed Gull.

  Since the moment they'd stepped into the mineshaft he'd been wondering how he was going to fulfil that particular request, the one Gull had whispered outside the theatre. He could barely remember the words, but there was no way to forget the command, the sibilant that forced him to bend his knee and offer his ear for Gull to purr into.

  Mister Gull had made a request. A fair trade for the life he'd saved. Sending Fitch to Bo Tuscon's house was the only reason Kimberly had gotten out alive. Was a single severed head too much to ask?

  Fitch had a knife stuffed down his boot, an old Ka-Bar, the busted handle wrapped in electrical tape. He'd been too panicked to draw it in the convent - and hell, knives wouldn't do much good against them anyway, not when those things had a blade growing out of every finger - but it'd come in handy now. He peeled the robe back from the dead thing's torso, exposing the rotten plain of its chest. Its neck was thinner than Rosenfeld's wrist, skin broken by the hard jut of vertebrae, hard white bone bare in the moonlight.

  He jammed the knife in deep and jerked. The creature's spine gave way with a wet snap. A tug and a twist pulled the whole thing free. Slippery white worms poured from the open wound, the same things he'd seen squirming beneath the burlap sewn across its eyes. No, not worms. Something far worse, something that swelled and grasped and dribbled pale ichor across the grass.

  The monster inside the monster. The puppeteers.

  Fitch didn't have time to study them, not with Kimberly already down the far side of the hill. He took a plastic bag from his pocket, one he'd packed for just that purpose, and picked the head up gingerly. Even through the plastic he could feel the cold, jelly-like chill of the old flesh, the slick way it gave beneath his fingers. It was a relief to tie a triple-knot in the bag and tuck it inside his coat. Even hidden from sight it gave him the creeps.

  The Archer lady was a small black smudge now, headed for the river. He skidded in the muck as he raced to catch up. The fire in the convent was dying, but there was more light now, a noise worse than the screams: sirens whooping in the distance. Past the rise was the familiar glow of red and blue. Fitch didn't know who'd called them, not so early in the morning, but he knew when it was time to vanish.

  The chittering thing wound around his wrist, suckling at his thumb. He didn't look down. After seeing it eating the worms from inside the dead thing's skull, he'd decided he liked it better when it was out of the light.

  With his head down and his heart thudding in his ears, Fitch chased the dawn.

  Chapter 25

  Kimberly had been walking for what felt like an hour before Fitch caught her on the highway shoulder. The guttering light of the Pentacost Convent had vanished long ago behind the hills, and the artificial orange glow of Rustwood up ahead was almost inviting by comparison. The sun was just nodding above the rise to the east, and even through the ceaseless rain Kimberly welcomed that warm kiss on her bare arms.

  When she heard the slap of feet behind her she dug deep, ready to run again, but the strength just wasn't there. She'd spent it all in the mad dash from the convent. "Leave me alone," she said, but he closed the gap regardless. "Don't you take a hint?"

  "Thick as a brick, my old man used to say." Fitch was hunched, cradling something beneath his coat. The little pink monster, probably. Jesus, he carried it with him like it was an infant. Sick, sick, sick...

  She was too tired to fight it. Too tired to care. "What is it?"

  "What?"

  "That... fucking monster."

  "Oh. Well. She... it..."

  "Forget it. I don't want to know." She put her head down, shuddering as she remembered the thing's hairless flesh, those tiny pitted mouths. "I thought you were halfway normal."

  "First mistake, lady." Behind her, Fitch sounded broken down, sad beyond measure. "I'm as damaged as they come."

  After half an hour walking, they could make out the little gas station and mechanic that marked the edge of town. Fitch didn't dare step inside, not smeared from crown to toe with blood and ash, but he bought Kimberly a 7-Up from the drink machine with a dollar bill he had folded into his shoe. She drank greedily and whispered, "Thank you," turning away from his curious eyes.

  Half an hour after that, they were trudging through the suburbs. Kimberly's left shoe felt strangely tight. By contrast, the right felt slick, like her foot was sliding around in blister-blood. But who could tell either way, in the rain?

  Fitch tried again to apologise. She didn't reply.

  Twenty minutes later she could make out the clock-tower spire that marked the centre of town, the one that rose just behind the Department of Records. Old instinct took over. She knew the streets, as much as she wished she didn't. Left past the bakery, third street on the right past the cinema...

  Fitch stood beside her in the rain. "Why here?"

  "Because my feet hurt. And because I want some soup." She looked up at the faded wooden sign that read ROSENFELD MISSION, the letters pale as ghosts against the old chipboard. "And because she's probably scared shitless for us. Least we can do is let her know we're alive."

  "Think I should wait out here," he said, slouching in the shadowed doorway.

  "Why? Because of that thing?"

  "Nah, she'd never do Rosenfeld no harm. I've got other reasons." Fitch stiffened. "You see that?"

  He pressed against the glass, hands cupped over his eyes. The interior of the Mission was dark. Silhouettes
of long trestle tables waited in neat rows. Kimberly couldn't make out anything else, no homeless waiting for their first meal of the day, nor the Raconte twins with their creepy clone hairdos scrubbing out pots...

  "She's hurt!" As Fitch yanked the door handle Kimberly finally made sense of the shadows, the figure slumped in the furthest corner, almost hidden behind the furniture. The door was locked, the handle jammed, but Fitch threw himself against the doors with all his weight until something inside snapped and he spilled through into the hall.

  He'd rolled Mrs Rosenfeld on to her back before Kimberly caught up. "Is she okay? Is she..."

  Fitch didn't need to say a word. She could see the damage for herself - Mrs Rosenfeld was almost naked, draped in the tattered remains of her shawl. Her face was bloodied from chin to temple, left eye swollen black, lips split. She clutched at her clothes with fingers bent at lunatic angles. "Jesus. Who did this?"

  Rosenfeld groaned. When she tried to speak nothing came out. "Water," Fitch said, and ran for the kitchen, still hunched over whatever he had hidden in his coat. "Stay with her!"

  "Not going anywhere." Kimberly swept Rosenfeld's hair back from her forehead. It was stuck there with blood, matted in place. When she tried to peer beneath the old woman's robes and assess her injures, Rosenfeld snatched them back. "I'm trying to help you! Fitch, get the lights. I can't see squat."

  Fitch emerged from the kitchen, plastic cup in hand, and snapped the light switch. "Better? How's she-"

  Kimberly didn't hear the rest. She jumped back, slamming against a trestle table, mouth opening and closing, wordless. As the flicker of fluorescent lights washed over Rosenfeld's bare shoulder she'd seen...

  "What's going on? You okay?" Fitch was still kneeling beside her when he saw the same. "Christ in heaven, that's..." He lifted the cup like a weapon. "Rosenfeld, you in there?"

  She'd thought it was scarring at first, lines of white criss-crossing Rosenfeld's shoulders, like something living was trying to burst through into the light. Then she'd seen the ridges along those scars, the hard mechanical edges of steel beneath the skin. The purple bruises that marked infected flesh.

  Rosenfeld blinked, her puffed eyes opening just wide enough to reveal the whites. "I was... in a car... crash."

  "Bullshit. I've seen those scars before, Fitch, they're the same-"

  "I know. I got even closer to them than you." Fitch looked back at the door, as if deciding whether or not to run. Then, finally, he set the cup of water down close enough for Mrs Rosenfeld to grab and backed away fast. "Makes sense, how you knew the doorway would open. You're one of them, aren't you?"

  Mrs Rosenfeld wheezed through broken lips as she grabbed the cup. "Never supposed... to know."

  "How long, huh?"

  Mrs Rosenfeld's grin was full of blood. "Since I came outta the... womb of Rustwood. Didn't want to dance... to their tune." She sipped the water, spilling it down her chin. There were hard angles in the hollow of her throat, bones that shouldn't have been there. She'd never seen them before - Rosenfeld had always hidden her neck beneath the shawl.

  "Didn't mean for you to find out," Rosenfeld whispered. Her voice was clearer, the rasping gone, but there was still pain there, bone-deep. "She came for me and she'll come for you too." She met Kimberly's gaze, the whites of her eyes spotted with blood. "I'm sorry. I tried to get you home. The time was right, wasn't it? Two eighteen?"

  Kimberly's hands were clenched into tight fists by her side. "You felt the tug so strongly because it was, what? Calling you back?"

  "Think you're so clever," Rosenfeld wheezed. "You don't know the half of it. I wanted you gone, lady. Wanted you safe with your pretty little boyfriend and your pretty little home. This isn't the place for you. Isn't the place for nobody."

  Kimberly's breath was coming faster and faster, until it felt like the world was spinning around her, that the floor was tilting beneath her feet. She was the same, one of those creatures in the tall robes, Christ, they'd tried to tear her apart, tried to press their mouths to hers. They'd snapped that poor girl's neck and dragged her double through the gateway.

  And yet, she couldn't run. "What are you?"

  "Same as you, girl." Rosenfeld's smile fell away. "Almost. The beast would make us all into this if it could. I told you to run. Why the hell didn't you run?"

  Fitch took Mrs Rosenfeld's hand. Kimberly didn't know how he could touch the woman, not when he knew what she really was. "You know what the beast is? We need to know."

  "The false queen," Rosenfeld whispered. "One of two, old and new. The beast is the new one, the young one. Bold. Calls herself the true queen but she's a pretender. True queen would never make filth like me. You watch out for her. She'll gobble you right up."

  "Who is she?"

  "Not even a she," Rosenfeld said. "Just another shadow. Sent a woman here after me. One of your old friends, Fitch. You remember her? Big old glasses and a big old smile."

  Fitch reeled back like he'd been slapped. "No. She died."

  "Things never stay dead around here. I know that better than anyone." She tried to stand and her legs skidded out from beneath her on linoleum slick with blood. It wasn't red, Kimberly realised. She hadn't been able to tell in the dark but now in the harsh glow of the flourescents she could see how thin it was, almost milky-pale.

  She swallowed convulsively. "I can't do this."

  "You got no choice, girl." Mrs Rosenfeld reached for Kimberly's hand and she jumped back, skittering on her ass across the floor. "I'm not gonna hurt you. Didn't mean for you to ever know, either of you. It's not me, you understand? I'm just Rosenfeld, I'm just Mrs Rosenfeld." The old woman was crying now, and every time she drew breath strange planes rose beneath the skin of her breasts, hard-edged steel pressing outward against her skin, so sharp it looked like it'd cut through into the air at any moment. "Where're the Raconte girls? They should be here. They can help you, Fitch. Keep you safe."

  "I keep me safe. Don't need nobody else."

  "You need the girls," Rosenfeld said. "That lady in the glasses, she left a message for you, straight from the false queen. She said she misses you. Says you're her one and only. Says she'll let you sit beside her if you kneel before the end but if you keep fighting her she'll take your eyes and your tongue and keep you for a puppet. You have to run, Fitch." The tears were thick, pus-like, coagulating on her cheeks. The blades beneath the skin of her chest heaved and sank again like shark-fins rising above the surface of a choppy sea. "You should've gone home, girl. Oh Lord, I tried to send you home. I swear I tried."

  Kimberly couldn't hear any more. Not while Rosenfeld was twisting below her, the wounds in her stomach flapping open and closed like hungry mouths. Not now that she'd seen the strange way the woman's eyes bulged, like there was something pressing on them from behind, something that Rosenfeld was struggling to keep suppressed.

  One of them. One of the things that stalked the convent, or something very like it, dressed in human skin.

  Rosenfeld was still reaching for her when she ran.

  Kimberly was halfway out the door when Fitch caught her by the wrist. "Where the hell do you think you're going?"

  "She's a monster!"

  "Maybe, maybe, but she's the only one who-"

  "You used me," she whispered. "You and her, you're fucking with me. You've got that, that thing in your pocket. You knew, didn't you?"

  "Don't say that!" Fitch's grip was strong but Kimberly was stronger. "Please, don't do this. I need you."

  She kept her hands by her sides as she backed through the door. "Do what you like, Fitch. I might see you around."

  He lunged for her again as the door slammed closed, but she was already running.

  Chapter 26

  It was noon by the time the familiar white weatherboard profile of one-one-eight Rosewater came into view. The hedges ringing the front yard looked wild, swollen by the rain and bursting their beds, and the curtains were all drawn tight. It made the house seem long forgotten, a cabin
out on the edge of civilisation left to gather mildew.

  Kimberly didn't care. She didn't give a damn whether Peter was waiting inside, whether Goodwell was with him, whether they'd drag her back to St Jeremiah's. Anything but Fitch and the creature he kept. Anything but Rosenfeld.

  But the closer she grew, the more that feeling of wrongness tickled at the base of her spine. She'd hated every minute she'd been locked in that white-washed suburban prison, but she had to admit that Peter always kept the place nice. It'd glowed, soft light shimmering through heavy curtains, the lawn somehow lush despite the pounding rain always threatening to churn it into mud. Neatly trimmed hedges and well-kept rows of pink camellia that spoke of a quiet nuclear family, something cut out of a fifties comic where a well-dressed father read the newspaper while Mom cooked flapjacks in a lacy apron, kids showing the gaps in their teeth as they cracked cheesy jokes and did America proud.

  To see it going wild wasn't just sad. It left her feeling like the bottom had fallen out of the world. If someone as anal as Peter could forget to mow the lawn...

  She pushed it aside. Damned if she'd go crawling back to either Fitch or Rosenfeld. Choosing between a lying nutcase, a monster in a knitted shawl or a bitter, confused man who smelled of baby powder wasn't difficult. Christ, at least there'd be food in the fridge.

  She knocked and waited, ticking off seconds. When Peter didn't appear she banged harder, shaking the door in its frame. "Hello?"

  No reply. "Peter?" She knocked again. "Peter, it's me. Please, open up."

  Silence. She peered around the side of the house, making sure Peter's Volkswagen was in the carport. Yep, with the baby seat still strapped into the back. So unless there'd been an emergency with Curtis and he'd taken a taxi to the hospital...

  Even if the baby wasn't hers, which it absolutely goddamn wasn't, she didn't like to think of little Curtis ill or in trouble. For a moment she considered ducking next door and asking Mrs Hinkermeier if anything was wrong, but she didn't feel like facing those accusing eyes.