The pub smelled of dust. So much wood in the place, it also reeked of rot. The funk of decay in most buildings suggested they were one strong gust away from collapse. Although, amongst all the ruin, Flynn saw a bar that ran along one wall and still shone with the varnish of years ago. It had a matte look to it because of the sheer amount of dust, but it was only one wipe away from looking as good as new.
The small amount of remaining carpet squelched beneath Flynn’s steps, each squish aggravating a smell of stagnant water. The areas by the windows had none left at all. No doubt years of soakings had chewed away at it, leaving small patches scattered across the concrete floor like scabs.
Much like the offices, the pub had broken tables and turned-over chairs. It gave an impression of an existence in the old world that was sedentary to the point of stagnation. Flynn spoke to Rose in a whisper. “Vicky told me that cigarettes and alcohol ran out before food did. Apparently people were more concerned with getting pissed than they were with eating.”
“I don’t suppose many people expected to live that long. Better to be drunk when the diseased chow down on you than sober.”
“Did any of the communities you were in have alcohol?”
“No,” Rose whispered back.
“Brian wanted to start brewing some even though Serj was always against the idea. He said tensions ran high enough without complicating things with booze. I’d imagine Brian’s probably started his own brewery now.”
Rose didn’t reply. Instead, she exited the pub. Flynn returned to looking around as he followed her. The area outside still looked clear.
They entered another office building that sat next to the pub. Another useless, tall block filled with broken desks and chairs.
They’d walked about halfway across the ground floor when a loud thud sounded above them. Flynn pulled in a sharp breath and froze. A look at Rose and he saw her with her mouth wide as she stared up at the ceiling.
Suddenly a rush of footsteps ran through the building. The ceiling shook like it could collapse. Fuck! Rose mouthed.
Flynn looked around and saw a cupboard. The door had been ripped off, but with no light in there, they could probably hide out in it. They didn’t have many choices. When the thuds hit what sounded like stairs leading down to them, he grabbed Rose’s arm and dragged her over to it.
Chapter 28
As Flynn and Rose huddled in the darkness of the cupboard, they listened to the footsteps from the floor above run down the stairs. The slap of feet against metal rang through the building. It sounded like at least ten people heading their way.
To get himself as deep into the shadows as he could, Flynn pushed against the wall and pulled Rose back with him.
The cupboard’s lack of windows left it poorly ventilated, the reek of dust so thick in the air Flynn could taste it. He ruffled his nose against its stench.
When a voice called through the building, Flynn felt Rose jump next to him and his pulse spiked.
“Stay there!” it said. It sounded like the Queen.
The sound of the Queen’s footsteps stomped towards them and Flynn pushed against the wall. Not that it would get him any farther away from her.
Flynn balled his fists to get ready to fight. It didn’t matter how many guards she had with her, he wouldn’t go down easily, and he’d make sure he took her down with him.
When the Queen appeared in front of the cupboard, Flynn’s heart kicked and the breath left his lungs. He felt Rose press into him to get away from her.
A deep scowl on her angular face, the Queen stopped in plain sight. But she didn’t look at them. Maybe she didn’t know they were there. Although, they couldn’t surprise attack her now. Too many guards waited out of sight.
Wide-eyed as if driven by mania, the Queen looked to be in a hurry as she re-righted one of the toppled desks. She then pulled down her tight-fitting trousers and knickers, and bent over it, pointing her bare arse out behind her.
“What the fuck?” Rose whispered.
As repulsive as he found the woman, Flynn couldn’t look away.
A second set of footsteps walked over to the Queen. When Flynn saw him come into view, he assumed he was her new toy boy. Younger than Flynn by a few years, but probably in his twenties, he had a pale complexion and looked nervous. He didn’t need telling to pull his trousers down, his penis hanging limp when he’d freed it. No wonder he looked scared. She’d rip the fucking thing off if he didn’t perform.
“What are you waiting for?” the Queen barked as she looked over her shoulder at him.
Thank god Flynn had avoided that.
The boy shook and stammered, “Um … um …”
“Don’t fucking ‘um’ me. Fuck me, you useless prick!”
The boy grabbed a hold of himself and massaged his penis. He stared down at it as if offended by the way his body had betrayed him.
“I’ll heal up if you don’t fucking hurry!”
The boy walked close to her, whimpering as he tried to enter her.
“What’s fucking wrong with you?” the Queen said. After standing up, she grabbed his cock and the boy gasped.
As painful as it looked, it seemed to do the trick.
The Queen bent over again. The boy had better luck the second time.
Only about two minutes passed while Flynn and Rose watched the Queen and her victim. The desire to run out and kill her burned within Flynn. Something about not being able to see the guards had him thinking he could do it. That he could rescue her latest prisoner. Like a child when they closed their eyes and thought they were hiding; if he couldn’t see the guards, they weren’t there. But they were and he needed to keep his head.
A loud gasp rushed through the office and the boy quickly pulled out of the Queen. He grabbed a hold of his penis, pushed her top up to expose her bare back, and ejaculated over it. The strength seemed to leave him as he fell on top of her, panting with his release.
Not that the Queen stood there for long. In one fluid movement, she spun around, threw the boy off her, pulled a knife from her belt, and pressed it against his throat.
His semi-flaccid penis hanging down, the boy snapped board stiff and stared at her. The colour had returned to his face from the few minutes of exertion.
“What the fuck was that, boy?” the Queen said to him.
A warble ran through his words. “I’m sorry, it was too quick.”
“It was fucking quick, but that’s not what I’m talking about.”
“What?” The boy gasped, a frown crushing his face.
“You came on my back.”
“That’s what we’re supposed to do. I didn’t want you to get …” The sound of the wind ran through the office for a few seconds, highlighting the silence left by the boy.
“Guards!” the Queen shrieked, so loud it echoed out into the streets beyond.
The thunder of footsteps ran into the place and several royal blue guards appeared in front of Flynn and Rose. Did the Queen know they were there? Was this one of her twisted games where she suddenly revealed that she knew she had an audience?
“Take him to the plaza,” the Queen said, her voice already calmer than before.
One of the guards took the Queen’s blade from her and kept it pressed to the boy’s throat. She stared straight at him and spoke in a low voice. “Walk. Now!”
Trousers around his ankles still, the boy tried to shuffle away.
“Pull your fucking trousers up, you moron,” the guard said to him.
Once the boy had pulled his trousers up, the guard led him away.
When all of the guards and the Queen had gone from their view, Flynn heard Rose release a quiet sigh.
Chapter 29
Rose moved with far more grace and stealth than Flynn, so he let her lead the way as they followed the Queen, her victim, and her band of bitches from the office block.
What Flynn had just witnessed had made his head spin, so he needed Rose to do the thinking for both of them at that moment. He�
�d been in the situation the boy was now in, but he hadn’t quite put it together as rape. In his ignorance, he’d not thought a woman could do that to a man. But now he’d seen it happen—and seeing the tormented state of the poor boy afterwards—gave him a new perspective.
They had waited about thirty seconds before emerging from the cupboard. If the Queen had known they were there, she surely would have set a trap for when they came out, but they hadn’t met any resistance so far.
The party walked at a fast march, so Flynn and Rose had to move at a similar pace to keep up. They hung back far enough to be out of sight, the group ahead creating enough noise to make them easy to follow. Mostly heavy footsteps, he also heard the occasional wail from the young man. God knew what they were doing to him. Or what they planned to do to him.
At the front of the office block, Rose peered out into the abandoned street. She then pulled back and stood aside so Flynn could do the same. He saw the group walking down the middle of the road, taking a path that led them deeper into the town.
If Flynn and Rose followed them directly, they’d make themselves far too easy to spot. Instead, they moved through the shadows, only exposing themselves as they slipped out of the office building into the shop next to it.
A long line of shops stretched ahead of them. Each large display window had already been smashed with no sign of ever being there. It meant there wouldn’t be any glass to give them away by popping beneath their steps.
Many of the boy toy’s screams were indecipherable to Flynn when he’d been farther away, but as they got closer—the shops offering the perfect cover so they could move nearer to the gang—he heard him more clearly.
“Please,” the boy said, twisting against the tight grip one of the royal guards had on him. “I didn’t mean to. I didn’t think. Please!”
They got to the point where the crowd in front were only a few metres ahead, so they waited where they were, the strong wind rushing into the empty shop and blasting them with the grit and dust it picked up from the ground.
Both Flynn and Rose watched the Queen and her crew disappear down an alleyway between an old hotel and more shops.
The large abandoned hotel cast a long shadow. The office blocks were one thing, but something about hotels, hospitals, and other twenty-four-hour buildings gave Flynn the creeps. He could barely remember a time when they were operational, but even the look of them showed him they were places that were designed to always be busy. They now stood utterly silent, a ghost of what they once were.
Although the obvious move, it didn’t make Flynn feel any less apprehensive to watch Rose burst from the shelter of the shop they were in and sprint out into the road in the direction of the huge building. A weary sigh, he fell forwards into a jog as he followed after her.
The vast, high-ceilinged foyer had the same smell of dust and mould that every other building had. The large wooden desk at the front stood as resilient as the bar they’d seen in the pub. A layer of dust coated its glossy surface, dulling its shine.
On one side of the foyer, Flynn saw two large metal doors. Once elevators, they now stood as rusty wrecks, a slight parting down the middle of them from where they could no longer hold their form. The red of their decay bled into the off-white walls surrounding them.
Rose moved through the space on her tiptoes. When Flynn followed, his footsteps were the only ones to make a noise. She had the flight of an assassin. Him, the flight of a hippo.
A few seconds later, Rose disappeared from sight as she ducked through a doorless entry leading to the rooms on the ground floor.
The dirty brown and red carpet might have muted Flynn’s footsteps when he followed her, but the smell of it rotting hung heavily like it had at the pub. The reek of decomposition filled the air, so thick it damn near stuck to Flynn’s sweating skin. Also, like in the pub, large patches of carpet had been eaten away beneath the smashed windows. Those spots had clearly borne the brunt of the elements over the years. How long would it take for nature to conquer the entire synthetic monstrosity? Or maybe the hotel would collapse before the carpet vanished. Either way, the slow chew of entropy would turn everything to dust eventually.
Were he not trying to keep the noise down, Flynn would have asked Rose if she’d been there before. She moved through the hotel like she knew the way. Greyhound quick, he had to fight to keep up with her.
Rose turned a sharp left and Flynn followed her. Although he saw the dead end in front of them, she hadn’t turned around, so he didn’t either.
Doors leading to old guest rooms lined either side of the corridor. Hopefully they were empty. The group they followed with the Queen and the man had far fewer people in it than rode into the town. In such a big place, they couldn’t even begin to guess where the others were.
A window frame at the end of the corridor looked small enough for them to peer out of and still remain hidden in the dark shadows a step back from it. Hopefully it would give them some kind of insight as to what the Queen planned to do with the boy and where she kept her prisoners.
Rose had already looked out and watched Flynn when he caught up to her. He copied her, remaining in the shadows as he stared through the empty window frame. He gasped at what he saw: a large, open, cobblestone plaza. The memories of restaurants and cafes still clung to the crumbling wrecks around the space. A fierce bonfire burned in the middle with an empty spit over it. But worst of all, he saw the pregnant woman they should have saved.
A group of hunters were there, holding onto her, but the Queen and her bitches weren’t. At least they’d found a large part of the Queen’s party and some of the others had already left the town. Hopefully the rest stood in front of them at that moment; they didn’t need any nasty surprises hiding in the shadows.
When Flynn pulled back from the window and looked at Rose, she glared at him. It seemed clear what she meant by her look. It said shut the fuck up and don’t do anything stupid.
But he couldn’t ignore the pregnant woman, still bound by her wrists and under the watchful eye of several guards. He’d failed her once; could he really do it again? Her boyfriend had died because of Flynn’s cowardice. If they could save her this time, maybe it would somehow make up for his earlier failings.
Flynn looked back at Rose to see her stare at him like she’d swing for him. And he agreed with her, he really did. It would be madness, hell, it would be fucking suicide to help the woman. But would his conscience let him walk away a second time?
Chapter 30
It took for Flynn to look out of the window again to see one of the hunters had a knife pressed against the pregnant woman’s throat. As she stood there, she bit on her bottom lip as if fighting against her desire to cry out. What would have started as a pilgrimage to somewhere safer than where they’d been had turned into her being dragged behind a horse, witnessing her lover’s murder, and now facing death at the hands of one of the Queen’s lackeys. All with only a few days left before she gave birth.
Still soaked from the rain, the woman’s top hugged her huge bulge. Surely Flynn owed it to her and her unborn child to help them. Another glance at Rose and she still stared at him. It felt like she could read his thoughts.
Flynn looked away from the woman and he suddenly saw it. A hole had been hacked into the ground in the plaza. A large hole, large enough to drop an entire car into. It had a rusty grate over the top of it. The grate had been bolted shut. The hole had been filled with water, and along the grate’s bars were the clasped hands of at least ten people. It looked like ten women from what he could see.
The desire to help the woman ebbed away at the sight of it. Flynn’s pulse ran to the edge of a panic attack. If he ended up in there, he’d drown.
Several deep breaths helped blunt the claws of his anxiety. Flynn didn’t have to step out of the hotel. At present, they were hidden well enough from the guards. He wouldn’t end up in that pit unless he chose to reveal himself.
The sound of the Queen’s voice made Flynn jump
. It ran through the plaza, but he couldn’t yet see her. “Put her back!”
The hunter with the pregnant woman kept the knife to her throat and looked in the direction of the sound. “Huh?”
“Are you fucking deaf? I said put her back.”
The hunter looked like he wanted to question it again and Flynn silently willed him to do so. Give the Queen someone to focus her fury on rather than the woman. But he clearly had the good sense to keep his mouth shut. He walked over to the pit and dragged the pregnant woman with him. The crack of the bolt snapped through the plaza, followed by the groan of the large hinges as he lifted the grate up.
The exhausted faces of all the women in the pool looked up at the guard. Some of them looked close to giving up, their eyes half closed with fatigue. How many lay at the bottom already?
The hunter waved his knife at the pregnant woman and she climbed into the pool.
Just watching someone plunge into water made Flynn’s stomach lurch. But at least they had more time to rescue her. He wouldn’t give up on her. He owed her.
The hunter let go of the grate and it crashed back into place. The jangly sound of it played with Flynn’s already frayed nerves and a gentle shake trembled through him.
Suddenly the Queen came into view, twisting Flynn’s anxiety up another notch. They were so close to her, but if they remained where they were, she wouldn’t be able to see them. The darkness of their corridor gave them enough shadow to hide in and still watch.
The Queen then pulled away the knife she held to the man’s throat and shoved him towards one of her hunters. She stared at him as she said, “We’re going to cook him today.”
“Please,” the boy said as he twisted against the hunter’s grip. “I didn’t realise.”
“Well, you’re an idiot, then,” the Queen said. “Either way, I don’t want you near me.”
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