New Title 1

by Millard, Adam

  “Isn’t that Terrence Brown?” Smalling said, recognising the face of the creature as it approached.

  “Oh, yeah,” said Harkness. “I recognise those bushy eyebrows anywhere. Why’s he so big and angry all of a sudden?”

  There were, Smalling thought, far more important questions than that, such as a) Why did he look like something that would be born if a giraffe and a panda got it on? b) Why was he screaming Miiiiike, or Meeeeeek, or whatever the hell it was? And c) Why were they just standing there like a couple of simpletons, waiting for the thing to slam into them at forty miles an hour?

  “RUN!” Smalling said, heeding his own advice before Harkness had a chance to get out the gates.

  The beast was a few houses back, snarling and farting as it careened after the fleeing duo. The unbearable heat didn’t seem to be affecting it, not in the same way it affected Harkness and Smalling, who had only been running for three seconds and were already struggling for breath and looking for the nearest shade.

  Weapons, Smalling thought, would have been very useful right then. As Kellerman’s enforcers, you would have thought they would have at least carried guns, but the truth of the matter was that guns were as rare as alcohol, tobacco, and hen’s teeth. Only those at the top possessed anything more formidable than a dagger, and even then there was the small issue of ammunition, and the lack thereof.

  “Is it gone?” Harkness wheezed as they turned the corner onto Coleridge Street.

  Smalling glanced across his shoulder, saw the surging beast, and said, “It’s not a fucking wasp. I don’t think it’s going to just give up because we’re running away.”

  “What’s that smell?” said Harkness, as the scent of something pungent and unholy and completely alien stung at his nostrils. A second later, the Terrence-monster’s head pushed between them, snapping at their shoulders, and for a moment, the stench worsened. The henchmen picked up the pace; Harkness was sobbing as he ran.

  “It’s the thing’s breath!” Smalling gasped, trying to swallow down the bile that had risen in his throat. “That’s what Hell smells like!”

  “We’re gonna die!” Harkness said, his bottom lip quivering like an upset child’s. “I know it, we’re going to…”

  A sharp slap across the face cut him off mid-sentence. “We’re not going to die!” Smalling said. “We’re just going to keep on running until we either lose it, or it loses interest.”

  “But I’m tired,” Harkness said. “I don’t think I can…”

  Another slap, this one hard enough to leave a red print on Harkness’s cheek. “You can, and you will,” Smalling said. “Would you rather just lie down? Wait for what’s left of Terrence Brown to bugger you senseless? Huh? Is that what you want, or do you want to keep running? To keep running until we get the better of it?”

  “How...” Harkness panted, “did…you…manage to say…all that…without…losing your…breath…?”

  Smalling smiled. “I don’t know,” he said. “Something to do with keeping the plot moving forwards, I guess. Now keep up. We could be at this for quite some time.”

  A screech from behind caused both men to falter momentarily. Smalling turned around, not sure what he would find, but what he found was one of the most amazing things he had ever laid witness to in all his life.

  They stopped running – not a moment too soon, as far as Harkness was concerned – and watched as the drama unfolded.

  “Is that a woman?” Harkness said, doubled-over, gasping for air.

  “Yes, that is a woman sitting on a horse,” Smalling said. “Can’t get anything past you, can we?”

  The woman had in her hand a large sword – Japanese, Smalling thought, but he had been wrong before, which was why he no longer purchased goods from hooded figures in back-alleys in the dead of night.

  “Blimey! She’s good with that, ain’t she?” said Harkness. “Like that Warrior Princess, Xena, I’ve heard stories about. Hey, you don’t think it’s her, do you? You don’t think it’s Xena?”

  “You’re right,” Smalling said, shaking his head, still enthralled by the cat-and-mouse battle taking place just fifty feet away. “I don’t think it’s Xena. I also don’t think it’s the fabled Buffy, or the legendary Cynthia Rothrock.” He, too, had heard the stories, the bedtime tales of vampire slayers and blonde-haired assassins, but that’s all they were. Myths, legends of a time long forgotten. Whoever this woman was, she was very, very real.

  “Maybe it’s Chun-Li!” Harkness said, hopeful.

  “It’s not fucking Chun-Li,” Smalling rebuked. “Can we just watch, see what happens? Huh? You’re starting to get right on my tits.”

  The woman, sword raised high, blonde hair flowing behind her like in those ancient, pre-Event commercials for shampoo and conditioner, manipulated the horse like a pro. Clearly, the poor horse wanted to be somewhere else, but the woman…oh, how she manoeuvred that reluctant mount.

  The giant anomaly didn’t seem to know what to do. Its cries of Miiiike! Miiiike! were now followed by question marks. It danced from side to side, looking for a way past the brave woman and her, let’s face it, less than noble steed. Each time it moved in to attack, the sword came close to slashing the stalk that was its neck.

  “Three gold earrings says the chick gets it,” Smalling said. He didn’t want that to happen, but like any good gambler, you backed the one you didn’t want to win. That way, whatever the outcome, you had something to be pleased about.

  “You’re on,” said Harkness, finally recovered from the sprint around town. “That thing is going to eat her up and spit her out.”

  They shook hands, lit thrice-smoked roll-ups, and turned to watch the battle unfold.

  *

  Red swung the sword once more, knocking the beast’s head aside with its tsuba. An inch higher and the blade would have ripped through its face, but the thing was fast – a lot faster than one might expect from such a hefty creature – and she was just grateful that she’d made contact at all.

  The horse bucked beneath her. “No, Mordecai!” she screeched. “Steady!” But Mordecai was having none of it. Steady was something he did when he was in the shade, or drinking water from a river with nary a dead body in sight; it was not something he did when being attacked by an outsized human/giraffe/panda hybrid.

  “Mordecai!” Red yelled, swinging for the creature. This time, she made contact; the blade slit a thin line on the beast’s right cheek, through which blood and white goo began to push, like a gelatinous Play-Doh factory. The creature shrilly cried and staggered back on four unsteady legs (two of which were still wearing dungarees).

  Red would have celebrated the mini-victory had it not been for the fact that Mordecai, El Oscuro’s wondrous horse from Ohio, was no longer beneath her. For a second there was only empty space, a gap between her ass and the sand, and then she hit the ground, biting the end of her tongue off in the process. Thick, bitter blood filled her mouth and she whimpered as pain tore through her entire body.

  Mordecai settled at the side of the road, whinnying and snorting, shifting nervously from one hoof to the next, as if he knew how much trouble he was in when the bandido caught up to him. The right thing to do, the horse thought, was hope that the giant mutant monster finished her off, thusly removing the threat of any punishment she would surely administer for dropping her on her ass so unceremoniously.

  Red picked herself up, spat blood into the sand, and turned to face the creature, which was still reeling from the attack on its face. “Why aren’t they helping?” she said, turning to face the two bald idiots she’d rescued. They were watching from a safe distance. “Why aren’t you helping?”

  Both men shrugged, then one of them said, “You’re the one with the sword. If it helps, we can distract it by running away…”

  She turned back to the creature, now slowly prowling toward her, almost feline, its expression one of sheer discontent, its gash spraying pink goo. It was too late to outrun the thing, which meant that she had n
o choice but to engage it. Perhaps, she thought, I could communicate with the human part of it, try to make it see sense. It was worth a shot, for the thing had, earlier that day, been walking around, doing human things, saying human stuff, generally being human. In there, somewhere, there had to be something, some retained memory, a switch that could be flicked. It was just a matter of finding it…

  “Hey, hey hey!” Red said, holding her hands out in a placatory manner. The fact that there was a samurai sword in one of them probably didn’t help matters. “Look, whatever your name is…you’re not a monster…you’re not some savage beast that just wants to kill for the sake of killing…you’re a human being, or at least you were…but something’s happened to you…something terrible, and until we figure out how to fix it…I guess what I’m trying to say is…there’s no need for anyone to die here today…enough people have already perished, good and bad, and…I don’t know about you, but I…I don’t want to be one of the dead folk…”

  “Is she talking to it?” Smalling asked Harkness as the mysterious woman’s words reached him on the breeze.

  “Why?” Harkness said. “Why would she do that? She’s wasting valuable slashing time.”

  “You were probably just a nice old man until today, weren’t you…?” Red said, circling the huge creature. It matched her step for step. “Just minding your own business…eking out an existence…here…in the hottest damn town left on the face of this godforsaken earth…and then boom!...you wind up a savage mutant…but that’s not the end for you…it doesn’t have to be…I can help you…but you have to not kill me…you’re human…and humans have the right to make choices…don’t make the wrong choice…”

  “What did she say?” Harkness asked, waggling a finger around in his sweat- and wax-filled ear.

  “She said,” Smalling replied, “’Don’t bake the long voice.’” He shook his head. “I think she’s mental. The bet’s off.”

  Red didn’t know how much – if any – of what she was saying was registering with the mutant, but she thought she saw something in its cloudy, colourless eyes; some sort of comprehension. Either that or the beast had wind and was fighting to hold it in.

  “See, you’re not such a bad guy,” Red said, lowering her guard for just a moment, but a lot of things can happen in a moment, and this was the order they happened it:

  One: The monster lunged forward, its wide open maw drooling like a thirsty bloodhound on a hot day.

  Two: Red, realising how foolish she had been, dropped down onto her haunches.

  Three: The creature farted and belched at the exact same time, proving the wind theory correct.

  Four: Red gagged and spluttered as the stench enveloped her, but she managed to dig the pommel of the sword into the sand and ease the blade forward.

  Five: Mordecai whined and grunted, and even shut his eyes, for the tension was fucking ridiculous.

  Six: The beast snarled as it came down upon the nonsense-talking woman, but not before something shivved it in the chest.

  Seven: Red screamed as the full weight of the monster landed on top of her, but the sand beneath was soft.

  Eight: One of the bald men did a little dance, as if he had just won something of incalculable value. Then, he stopped dancing, as if remembering that any bets placed were null and void, as denoted by their colleague, under the belief that one of the runners was, in fact, a few cards short of a full deck.

  Nine: The beast went, “Cor blimey, guv’nor, that really smarts,” only in mutant-speak, which Red wasn’t very good with.

  Ten: Mordecai peered through his hooves and tried to think happy thoughts.

  Eleven: The mutant began to shrivel up as the life drained from it.

  Twelve: Red could breathe again, and managed to pull herself away from the dying creature, taking the sword that had penetrated its heart with her, just in case…

  She stood for a moment in absolute silence, staring down at the mutant as its flesh contracted and its bones snapped in on themselves. In a strange way, she felt sorry for the thing. Despite her best efforts to communicate with it, it had tried to kill her. These things couldn’t be saved, couldn’t be convinced that killing was wrong, couldn’t be tamed like some circus bear.

  They had one purpose and one purpose only; to destroy as many humans as they could.

  “Whew,” one of the bald men said as he sidled up alongside Red. “That was a close one, huh? I liked the way you tried to distract it. You’re really something. Hey, you wouldn’t happen to be Xena: Warrior Princess, would you?”

  The punch knocked Harkness from his feet. Smalling, sensing she had plenty in reserve, took a step back and held his hands up, as if the sword in her hand was capable of firing rounds as well as being impossibly bloody sharp.

  “Someone tell me what the fuck is going on around here,” Red said. “Before I really start to lose my fucking temper.”

  26

  Abigail Sneve limped across the street, a beatific smile stretched across her face, her loins suitably oiled, thanks to the reluctant bandit from the night before. She’d had better – of course she had – but she’d had a lot worse, and in this day and age, you took what God gave you. You took it, and you fornicated with it, because when you’ve been around the block a few hundred times, and you’ve got a face that would make Rocky Dennis choke on his cornflakes, good sex is hard to find.

  Along the street she moved, unaware that she was being watched, that something was sticking to the shadows, remaining out of sight, at least for now. It could smell her – a strange mix that was as nauseating as it was intriguing. What was she? Why did she smell different to the others? Why was she limping?

  “There once was a whore from Kilkenny,” Abigail sang in a tuneless voice. “Who charged two fucks for a penny. For half of that sum, you could bugger her bum, an economy practised by many.” She cackled. Her toothless grin only served to intrigue her unseen watcher more, for it had never seen such terrible dental work, or lack thereof.

  “There once was a whore on the dock. From dusk until dawn she sucked cock. ‘Til one day it’s said, she gave so much head, she exploded and whitewashed the block.” Another witch-like cackle, as if these limericks were new to her, and not something she had been singing since childhood. Her mother had used to sing them to her in the crib as a way of coaxing her into the trade, and it had worked. Abigail Sneve had not matched her mother’s numbers, but her mother hadn’t had to work through an apocalypse like she had.

  Abigail stepped into The Barrel, thirstier than a world Ryvita-eating champion (other snacks made of cardboard are available). She had never seen the place so empty, and so…untidy.

  “Roooooy!” she screeched, perching herself at the bar and tossing an acorn from the bowl into her puckered old mouth. “Y’all better get out here and serve me fast. Had a hot date last night, with lots of licking and a-slurpin, and my mouth’s drier than a popcorn fart.”

  An uneasy silence answered her. After a few seconds of rattling her long, desiccated fingers on the counter, she decided to try again.

  “Roy Clamp, don’t make me come back there. Now, I’ve got plenty of currency, and I would like to spend it on booze, or what passes for booze in this here establishment, so why don’t you drag your fat ass out here before I take my business elsewhere.” There was, of course, nowhere else to take her business, since Roy’s rival pub, The Green Hen, had collapsed a little over a dozen years ago. Some said it was an insurance job, but insurance didn’t mean shit in a post-apocalyptic world. A lot of people believed The Green Hen’s sudden demise to be the work of one Roy Clamp, jealous licensee, arson expert, threat-slinger, and general angry man, though where they got that idea from was anyone’s guess.

  “What the fuck is going on around here?” Abigail mumbled, standing. “Tiny! Are you here, you big clumsy ogre!?”

  No reply.

  “Well, alright,” the whore said, moving around the bar like a spider trying to climb out of the bath. “I guess I�
�m just gonna have to help myself to all this free alcohol, then, ain’t I?” She poured herself a large scotch – absolutely no water, which was unheard of in The Barrel – and touched it to her lips. “Mmmmm. This is how scotch should be drunk,” she said, savouring the smell, enjoying the sting as it reached her nostrils. “Without the H2O.” She coughed and spluttered for a moment, licking the rim of the glass with her hairy tongue. “Okay, I’m going to drink this now. If you want to stop me, you’d better come out…”

  Nothing.

  “Down the hatch it goes, and don’t say I didn’t warn ya.” And with that, she swallowed the contents of the glass in one thirsty gulp. Slamming the empty down onto the counter as loudly as possible, she said, “Well, I guess one just isn’t enough for today. I might just pour me another freebie. And who knows what’ll happen then. Heck, I might even take this bottle over to the corner and drink the whole damn thing…for free…without paying…gratis…”

  She glanced around, expecting someone to step out and reproach her for being such a cheeky hooker, but they didn’t. The pub was completely deserted, and while that would have excited some people, it was terribly unsettling to Abigail, who had never known such an incident, and she’d been drinking in The Barrel since day dot.

  “Roy?” she said, placing both the bottle and the empty glass down onto the dusty counter. “Say something if you’re there.” It’s not a séance, you dumb bitch, she told herself. “Roy, if you are under duress, knock once for yes, or twice for no.” What if his legs are tied together? Huh? What if he can’t knock, idiot? “Roy, if you have been kidnapped, don’t say a word.”

  Silence.

  “Holy fuck!” gasped Abigail. “Roy’s been kidnapped.” This was not how she had envisioned her day. A couple of drinks, followed by a couple of games of poker, then home for a bit more how’s your father with the shy bandit – that was how she had planned it, which just went to show that there was very little use for a calendar or Filofax after the apocalypse.