The Year's Best Australian Fantasy and Horror 2014 (Volume 5)

by Kaaron Warren

  When I could slip out in the early mornings, I met him at the Wall, brought nutrient wafers to the children.

  One morning he met me with a bundle of cloth in his hand. He unfolded it, moved my hand to trace the shape of what lay there. Two small clockwork mechanisms, a meshwork of cogs and gears that vibrated at my touch.

  Nataneal lifted one of the mechanisms and pressed it to my not-eye. The gears shivered, and I felt the teeth of cogs pressing into my skin, seeking purchase. Small points of pain flared, and for a moment, I saw Nataneal’s face. He was beautiful, his eyes a bright, clear colour that I could not name.

  The gears shivered again, and the mechanism fell away, leaving me in my darkness again.

  Nataneal caught it neatly. “These are only a prototype. They can be modified.”

  I pressed my hand over his. The metal was warm between us. “I’ve seen all I need to. And you have beautiful eyes.” I rose up on my toes to kiss him, then pressed our joined hands to my stomach. The clockwork eye shivered again. “I think our daughter will need them more, if she is to walk in two worlds.”

  “She will change everything.” Nataneal pulled me close. “Things are moving quickly. Seeds are growing in the outer and inner Cities.”

  “‘When the Angel flies, you will all be free’?” I asked. “I hear them chanting it outside the Sun House.”

  “We’re painting it, too, anywhere we can. They remove the words, but we simply paint them again.” He kissed the top of my head. “Before, things would have been so different. We would live together in a house, raise our children together. Sleep in the same bed every night. There would be no Mothers, no Towers. Just us.”

  “Maybe it can be that way again.”

  He was silent for a long time. “Maybe.”

  * * *

  When my pains began, I was alone. It was night, and none of the Mothers would be due to enter the Sun House until morning. I thanked the Angel for that small mercy.

  Beneath my mattress were the clockwork eyes. Their vibrations had comforted me through many sleepless nights, my daughter always turning in my womb, hands pressing out, reaching for them. I slid the eyes out now, cupped them in my palm.

  I went to Nataneal’s hidden place. He was awake, and waiting for me.

  There, hidden from the City, our daughter was born.

  She slipped into the world easily, and she did not cry. Nataneal slid the clockwork eyes into her empty eye pits. A sound like blinking, and then I heard the gears tighten.

  I felt her smile, felt her clockwork eyes move from her mother to her father. And we were a family.

  Nataneal produced a small curved knife. Not quite one of the Mothers’ crescent knives, but not an ordinary knife, either. We cut her first arm scar ourselves, marking her birth.

  * * *

  Nataneal called her Lucia. He said that it meant “light”.

  We remained in the hidden place as long as we could, curled in each other’s arms as Lucia fed and slept and fed. If we could have, we would have stayed there forever. But nothing remains forever. Even the Angel, Nataneal said, would fall to dust one day.

  All I knew is that I wanted Lucia’s life to be different to mine. I didn’t want her to know the Moon and Sun Houses. I didn’t want her to be Chosen. I wanted her to know a different world. One, that, perhaps, Nataneal’s revolution could begin.

  So when someone knocked at the outside of our shelter and summoned Nataneal, I was glad to let him go.

  “The angel will fly,” he said, kissing me, kissing Lucia. “The angel will fly, and we will all be free. Stay here. I will return.”

  * * *

  It was an accident that undid us.

  I’m not certain, even now, what it was that did it. Lucia’s flailing hand as she fumbled for my breast, my own knee as I crouched to change her. But I know that the clockwork mechanism that sustained the warm skin that hid us from the City was broken. It ticked once, twice, sighed and was silent.

  The light and shadow of the City flared into life in my inner vision. And for the first time, I “saw” my daughter. Brighter even than Nataneal, and flickering in an ever-changing spectrum of colours.

  I held Lucia tight, unsure of what to do. There were other rebels hiding in the outer City, but I had no idea where they were. So I froze, and waited, and hoped that Nataneal would return.

  It was the Mothers who came, the ticking beneath their robes filling the small space. Lucia began to cry.

  They reached for us both, their hands like stone.

  * * *

  Even the Mothers, cruel as they were, could not bear to waste a living, almost whole human.

  They gave me a choice. Lucia could have numbers set into her arm, could serve the City as I did. Or she could be given over to the Angel, a place found for her in the inner City.

  I heard the things they did not say, and I chose the Angel. If they had given her numbers, they would have torn out her clockwork eyes, perhaps found some way to scar her inner sight, as well. No Father would ever want to look upon clockwork as they lay with her.

  In the Angel’s shadow, perhaps someone would take pity, let her keep her eyes.

  And soon enough, the Angel was going to fly. And we would all be free and none of this would matter at all.

  * * *

  And so I entered the inner City again, passed through the gate opened by a Walled child. I called out softly as I passed, but there was no answer from within the Wall.

  When I stepped into the square between the Towers and Dormitories, I stopped, my arms tightening around Lucia. For unlike last time, when the City had been still and dark, there was light and movement. A flash up in one of the Towers, bright as Nataneal’s flame. And outside one of the Dormitories, a girl, her light shining green and blue and red. Almost whole, but for shadows wreathing her hands.

  I smiled at her, allowing myself one moment only of thinking that she could be my older daughter. I wanted to go to her, see if the beating of her heart matched the one in my memory, but there was no time.

  I crossed to the Angel, laid Lucia down in the shadow. Making certain that the Mother waiting at the gate could see me, I leant down, pressed my cheek to my daughter’s chest, memorised her heartbeat.

  * * *

  They kept me alive afterwards. As punishment, perhaps, or as an example to others.

  I was sent to haul water, to scrub floors, perform any menial task the Mothers could think of. I did whatever they said.

  And I waited, the memories of three heartbeats dancing through my mind.

  * * *

  And so, sun cycles passed.

  There were whispers, and occasionally I caught a glimpse of flame—of a whole person, a Chosen—flitting amongst the shadows of the outer City. I did not see Nataneal, but I heard his heartbeat always in my mind, and I knew that he lived. That he was working with the rebellion, seeking to free us all.

  Then, one morning I awoke and saw his flame waiting at the Wall.

  I slid from my bed, from the hall. No one stirred.

  Nataneal’s light was dull, eaten by shadows at the edges. When I wrapped my arms around him, I felt his bones pressing out against his skin.

  I started to tell him about Lucia, but he pressed his fingers to my lips. “I know. It’s the safest place for her. And I’m going to get her back.” He kissed me quickly. “It’s today, Nine. The Angel is going to fly today. We uncovered a cache of weapons, and we’re going to use them to make her fly. And everyone will see, and they will know to rise up. And we will all be free, and we will be a family. You and me, and both of your daughters.” He kissed me again, more gently this time. “Wait here, Nine. I will return.”

  I sat down, my back to the Wall. The cool brick warmed as the sun rose, then began to cool again.

  I heard Nataneal’s voice, amplified somehow: “When the Angel flies, we will all be free!”

  The explosion, when it came, was quieter than I had expected it to be. Like something falling hard against sof
t sand, like the world inhaling. A moment later, a wave of heat prickled across my skin, and then, in the darkness behind my not-eyes, light flared. Pure white, it was brighter than anything I had ever seen, making even the flames of the Chosen seem dim. In the wake of the light came darkness, deep and thick and absolute.

  I waited for my sense of the world to return, to be able to “see” the Wall, the Towers. There would be lights and colours, soon, too, as people saw the Angel fly and began to rise up.

  Everything was black.

  There were other sounds, short sharp barks that I could not identify. And then, only silence.

  * * *

  And so, I wait.

  I run my fingers over the scars on my arms, on my legs, count them over and over. I listen to the ticking of my clockwork Heart. The night passes, and it begins to slow, the silence between ticks expanding.

  Everything stays black. Everything stays silent.

  Nataneal will return soon, and he will bring my daughters, and we will be a family, and we will be free.

  I just have to wait.

  The Bullet and the Flesh

  David Conyers and David Kernot

  Camouflaged in military issue fatigues overlaid with body armor, Harrison Peel sprinted with stealth along the savanna rise. Ahead, a Zimbabwean farmstead burned like a pagan bonfire in the reds and oranges of a pre-morning light. Dark columns of smoke twisted and contorted skywards. Flames licked like mad tongues from square holes where there had once been windows.

  Up close, Peel crouched, gazed along the scope of the cocked M4A1 assault rifle on full automatic fire. He could smell blood, the aftermath of a killing almost unbearable in it obviousness. The scent of scorched petroleum was stronger.

  Advancing, Peel discovered the first body. The well-dressed man in civilian clothes had been cut down by a volley of bullets, but the empty gun holster highlighted the victim was experienced in violence. The wounds in his chest were close together suggesting the work of professional soldiers.

  Peel marched on, suspecting an ambush at any moment. Instead, he counted further bodies, two, three, four . . . all put down by precision gunplay. He identified a shiny shard of glass clutched in the hand of the fourth dead man, recognized it as a diamond of significant size. Not sure what to do with it, Peel pocketed it. Diamonds were the currency of a war-torn Africa, and this one had to be worth a hundred thousand US dollars or more.

  Frantic movement, thrashing from under a pile of corrugated iron sheets startled him, unnatural sounds as if something wet and long shaped flipped on the earth under it. He imagined a survivor rolling in their own blood but the noise was all wrong.

  Cautiously, terrified, Peel stepped toward the discarded metal.

  In a bizarre circle around the shaking iron were more corpses. Unlike the other bodies there were no bullet wounds, rather death had been by dismemberment, flesh ripped from their bodies and scattered near and far. An arm here, a leg there, Peel identified a Zimbabwean National Army corporal chewed from the waist down, the lower part of him missing. It was as if he had been eaten.

  None of the body parts moved as they should. The only sound came from a under the corrugated iron sheet. Whatever it was, it was rattled its cover and tried to remain hidden. It was too small to be a man. Perhaps a young child?

  Peel raised his rifle when he heard another man run toward him from behind. He turned quickly, weapon leveled, and relaxed when he spied his field partner, Emerson Ash, who had approached the carnage from the opposite direction to Peel.

  “All clear,” Ash stated for the record. “I count three down, two ZNA soldiers and Abdul Farzi.”

  “Shit!” Peel nodded. The man they had come to extract was now a corpse. “Farzi you say?”

  Ash nodded. “‘fraid so.”

  This was bad news but in this moment Peel focused on securing their position. He trained his weapon back in the general direction of the iron that continued to rattle.

  “Something still alive?” Ash pointed his M4A1 assault rifle on the iron and took a cautious step forward. He too was decked in dapple-green camouflage fatigues and body armor. Both men were former Australian Army soldiers—they knew how to run military ops by the books and could plan the basics of any tactical military operation in their sleep—but their roles in the current geopolitical environment were as covert operatives, field agents employed by global intelligence organizations. Different sides of the same coin, thought Peel.

  The flopping wet shape wouldn’t let up thrashing. It sounded increasingly to Peel like the death-throws of a snake with its head cut off, and tapped randomly against the curved iron shell covering it. It was too big to be a snake, too small to be a man. He didn’t want to go near it, but he had to.

  “Cover me,” Peel said to Ash and edged forward cautiously, weapon raised and his eyes fixed on the view through the weapon’s advanced combat optical gunsight. The sweat on his shaved head was almost unbearable as it rolled along his face and hung precariously off his nose and chin in an irritating way.

  “Roger that,” said Ash.

  At the sheet, Peel kicked it over.

  The shape was like a headless snake, but it was no snake. The thrashing thing became violent and aggressive now it had been exposed. It resembled a branch or a vine, a moss covered tentacle tapered at one end, shredded by bullets at the other, and lined with a dozen snapping, salivating mouths in place of branches. It thrashed like a whip at Peel, narrowly missing him, unable to gain purchase because whatever it had been attached to was long gone, but still very much alive and threatening.

  Peel and Ash didn’t hesitate, they released volley after volley of 5.56mm rounds into the mass until it was cut to pieces. Now it thrashed as smaller, less effective parts.

  Yet the mouths still snapped and salivated.

  Ash took a thermite grenade from his webbing and looked to Peel. “Fire in the hole?”

  Peel nodded and they both moved backward from the threat. Ash lobbed the grenade and the two men sprinted. The galvanized iron and the creature detonated in a flash of heat, flames and debris, incinerating whatever it was they had discovered until it was no more.

  “Did you smell petroleum?” Ash asked after the flames had died down.

  Peel nodded and reloaded his weapon.

  “I reckon the ZNA took out that farmstead with man-portable flamethrowers,” said Ash. “I reckon that’s what the petroleum smell is from.”

  “Maybe they used flamethrowers to put down the rest of this creature.”

  “Maybe.”

  They strode from the destroyed remnants of the farmstead and Peel admired the striking contrast as the sun rose above the distant rolling hills dappling the African savanna, the granite kopjes, and the wooded landscape in vibrant earthy colors. The landscape was pristine and unspoiled in comparison to what they had just witnessed.

  Peel stopped at the top of the hill. “We were too late,” he said, voice a low, barely audible growl. “I wanted Abdul Farzi in custody . . . before he gave up whatever weapon his was selling to the ZNA.”

  “We will have to find another way, Major,” said Ash.

  “I’m no longer a Major,” said Peel.

  “And I’m no longer Sergeant Ash, and yet here we are, sir.”

  Peel nodded, recognizing Ash’s desire to revert to military protocol. This was a military field op and how things were done. “The weapon, did you see it?”

  The former sergeant shrugged. “Nothing I recognized.”

  Peel paced, his frustration grew with each second they did nothing. “Intel said Farzi was selling a weapon of the ESB kind, an Extra-terrestrial Sentient Being. In other words, an alien horror like we just saw.”

  “Yes,” Ash’s eyes lit catching Peel’s meaning. “You think we just found part of it?”

  “Seems likely. So the buyer, Colonel Nambutu, has it? The rest of it?”

  “I’m guessing so.”

  “And the blood is fresh.”

  “Also correct, s
ir.”

  Peel took in another quick scan of their surroundings. The landscape of undulating savanna woodlands, and low rolling hills and granite outcrops would be perfect for an ambush, and yet . . . Peel had an idea.

  “Ready the Jeep, I’ll be back in a minute.”

  “Roger that.” Ash took off in a double march down the hill to where they had hidden their vehicle. Peel didn’t wait and sprinted up a granite rise. He clambered onto the suspended layered boulders that were like pinnacles, and scared away the baboons who used the rocks for the same purpose he wanted, as a look out.

  High on a rock, Peel scanned the savanna. It didn’t take long to spot the dust trail of three Zimbabwean National Army troop trucks. He took their position and general direction, and scrambled back down to where Ash gunned their vehicle.

  Peel clambered into the passenger seat and set his assault rifle down. “I’ve got him.” He gave Ash the coordinates of Colonel Nambutu and the trucks, and they took off at breakneck speed along a dirt road.

  Peel wiped the sweat from his head and remembered why they were here. It had started with an unexpected telephone conversation in London, then a National Security Agency briefing in Cyprus where Peel had met up with Ash, followed by a military flight direct to Francistown Airport in Botswana. After that the two had crossed into Zimbabwe illegally, because surprise was required, time was against them and their presence had to be deniable.

  “Ash, tell me. The Cambodians develop a covert biological weapons program involving extracted alien matter from hell knows where. The Saudis buy it. They sell it to the Zimbabweans via Abdul Farzi. But why the ZNA, they have no money?”

  Ash shrugged. Pell knew he concentrated on the road because they were driving fast and the deep potholes threatened to flip the vehicle.

  Peel massaged his forehead. He didn’t need a headache today. “I’m sick to death of fucking governments playing with alien horrors they can never control.”