The Saffron Malformation

by Walker, Bryan

  Arnie collected the bag of ammo from the car and popped the trunk where there was another before the trio headed back to the others. They meant to find a way inside and wait out the Angels of the Brood. It was better to be near the truck since they could all fit in that if they needed to. Of course if it came to that most of them would be in the cargo hold but it was a better fit than the car.

  Reggie put his boot to the door and it splintered around the lock and flew in with a bang. The big man looked over and smirked, “Looks like my key still works.”

  Quey chuckled and started inside while the big man hustled back to the truck to collect the rest of the guns. The bag of weapons slung over Quey's shoulder sat uncomfortably so he shrugged and adjusted the strap with his hand as he scanned the vacant lower floor of the cabin. The air was stale like an old tomb. The windows were covered with a thin layer of grime that dulled the world beyond into a sepia blur. Despite the brilliant sunlight outside, the room was filled with a dismal haze. The floors were warped and the walls had cracks and chunks were missing here and there. To his left was a room that would have been used for dining once. There was an elegant lighting piece hanging from the ceiling caked in grime and chipping with neglect. Through another doorway Quey saw the kitchen. He moved toward it, checking the first light switch he came across. It did nothing as he flipped it on and off and he was not surprised.

  Rachel and Dusty climbed the set of steps onto the porch and stopped in the doorway. “Lovely choice my dear,” Dusty said, throwing his arm around Rachel’s shoulder. “A real fixer upper opportunity here.” She leaned into him once, giving him an armless hug, then stepped inside.

  Quey looked about the kitchen. There was a stove, a refrigerator, a dishwasher and plenty of counter space and cabinets. Along the wall to his left, next to the fridge, he spotted the cabin’s interface. After pressing the boot button three times and getting no response he decided the house was either powerless or the computer had been taken out when the place was abandoned.

  Through the window over the sink Quey could see Arnie, Rain and Leone hurrying across the barren ground toward the cabin. He turned and went back into the main part of the lower floor where Dusty was looking out the window facing the main road.

  “Find anything?” Dusty asked, looking over his shoulder.

  Quey shook his head.

  “What is it?” Rachel asked peering at him. Dusty turned his full attention to his friend and noticed it too. The man was tense and Quey wasn’t the sort who lent himself to such a condition lightly.

  Reggie ran in with the last of the weapons.

  “Quey?” Dusty asked, enticing his friend to answer the ladies question.

  Quey shook his head and looked at them each individually. “Something isn’t right.”

  “What?”

  Quey locked eyes with Dusty and shook his head. “I don’t know. Place don’t feel right.”

  “Look man,” Reggie said, “If you’re having second thoughts-”

  “Too late for that,” Rachel informed them, looking out the window.

  The three of them stepped toward the glass and saw part of the convoy rolling down the main road. There were three cars and a half a dozen motorcycles.

  There was muttering outside, Rain and Leone arguing about something, but it came to a stop when they stepped inside after Leone got the last words in. “I still say it was.”

  Quey shushed the boy sharply and immediately felt silly for doing so. The lake was big and the brood was at least a kilometer away, there was no way they’d hear him at that distance. Still, bickering was annoying and this was no time for it.

  The boy silenced instantly and the trio joined the rest of them watching the road just as the convoy settled to a stop. Everyone’s heart skipped a beat or two and the house filled with a funereal silence until Quey broke it.

  “Everyone on the second floor.”

  The group hurried up the stairs that went from the living room to a landing, then on to the second floor. Boards creaked and groaned under their weight as they marched loudly into the upper level. There was one room at the end of the hall that had a view of both the main road and the road that ran past the front of the house. They gathered there and hunkered down on the floor.

  “Don’t move about too much,” Reggie said in a soft voice, not because he was worried about the brood hearing but because he wanted everyone to stay calm. “They might spot movement if they’re looking for it.” After that he started opening the bags and checked the guns, making sure they were loaded with one in the chamber.

  “We’ve got things hid pretty keenly,” Quey said. “Hopefully they’ll get bored and mosey along, but until then we have to stay hidden and ready.”

  Reggie held up a shotgun and when Quey looked at him his eyes gestured toward Arnie. Quey nodded and Reggie handed the young man the gun. “Arnie, I know you had some trouble with this bit the last time we ran into it but you did good nonetheless,” Quey told him. Then he asked, “Think you can hold yourself together on it again?”

  Arnie swallowed hard and looked at Rain who reassured him with a supportive smile. “I will,” he said and looked to Quey.

  “Good, now that shotgun’s not gunna be of any use save if something is inside already. That happens you send a spray down those steps you understand. That’s all I want out of you.”

  Arnie nodded and thanked Quey with his eyes. He’d been given the job of last resort. Shoot the raiding party heading up the steps. If it came to that things had gone past bad and were coming up fast on totally fucked.

  “How about you?” Reggie asked Rain. “Can you shoot?”

  Rain looked at the big man hesitantly.

  “She can shoot,” Leone answered before she could and she looked at him. There was something that passed between them. ‘We’re not supposed to talk about that,’ might have been it.

  “Yeah,” she finally agreed, her voice was a ghost of its former lively self.

  Reggie handed her a rifle then asked, “Can you handle a handgun?”

  She nodded so Reggie handed her one. Quey looked at her and it saddened him to see the situation had stolen her animated presence. Looking at her now he saw nothing in her that resembled a cartoon. She was simply a woman, worn ragged by a rough patch of life, struggling and doing her best to keep her and her brother alive.

  “Here,” Quey said, pulling a small pistol from his bag. After checking the chamber he flipped it in his hand, caught it by the barrel and handed the butt of it to Leone. “Shooting starts,” he began and Rain interrupted him with an emphatic, “No!”

  Leone was staring at the weapon with wide eyes. His heart was racing. Quey started again. “Shooting starts you get in that closet over there,” he indicated the door along the wall behind him, “and you sit tight. You don’t come out, no matter how long you hear nothing until someone comes to get you.” Rain was watching him. He could see her face shifting through a range of emotions. She cycled through angry, sad, worried, terrified, hopeful and hopeless with each tick that passed. “That door opens you don’t wait, you open fire because if one of us means to open it we’re going to knock, three two one on the door first, copy?”

  Leone was staring at him, breathing heavily.

  “Copy?” Quey asked again, firmly.

  The boy nodded and Quey jabbed the gun at him. The boy took it and set it in his lap.

  Quey noticed that at some point Rachel had crawled to the window and was peeking out at the main road. “What are our friends doin’ out there?”

  Rachel shook her head. “Sitting.”

  He joined her and took a gander of his own. “Seems like less than what rolled into town.”

  “Probably some stayed back to have a poke around,” Reggie offered.

  Quey settled next to the window with his back against the wall and his knees drawn up a bit. It reminded him for a brief moment of his time spent sitting outside the robotics compound. “Looks like we wait.”

  “They
’re splitting up,” Rachel almost shouted. Quey looked up and over his shoulder at the main road where two of the bikes and one of the cars rolled ahead and slowly vanished down the hill and into the trees.

  “They’re being thorough. Rigs probably still back in town giving it a good once over.”

  “What about them?” Rain asked, indicating the cars sitting on the road.

  “Eventually they’ll come rolling around these parts looking for anything out of place.” Quey could see the nervousness jittering through her body. He smirked and added, “But they won’t find anything.”

  “It’ll be just like that time we spent at Gozen pier,” Dusty said and a moment later he and Quey were both laughing.

  “Oh man,” Quey said as his laughter subsided. “I hope not.”

  “It wasn’t so bad,” Dusty protested.

  “Not for you, you weren’t the one who got shot.”

  “You lived,” Dusty smirked and they both laughed again.

  “What happened at Gozen Pier?” Rachel finally asked.

  “Yeah, I haven’t heard this one,” Reggie said with a smirk.

  “Nothing,” Quey replied. “Just played peek-a-boo with three very angry men.”

  “They weren’t angry,” Dusty interrupted, “Until they caught you in that shed.”

  “That was a misunderstanding,” Quey protested.

  “How did they misunderstand exactly?” Dusty asked.

  “You know good and well I wasn’t looking to find that guy’s wife in the bath?”

  “I don’t think it was the husband that cared so much, seemed to me it was her brother doing all the shouting and chasing,” Dusty added.

  “Yeah, suppose you’re right. Though it didn’t help, you making those derogatory observations regarding her weight.” Dusty laughed again as Quey thought for a moment and said, “You know we never did find out why that third guy was so mad now did we?”

  Dusty laughed and shook his head. “No, but he was shouting crazy.”

  “His face was so red,” Quey added, gesturing with his hand. “Man I thought it was going to pop. Literally, I said to myself, this guy’s head is really gunna explode.”

  “He just kept shouting and shooting his gun.”

  Quey shook his head, “Yeah, never have been back since.”

  After a moment Reggie piped up and said, “I can’t believe you almost got yourself shot over a fat chick.”

  “She wasn’t fat,” Quey corrected. “Chubby maybe.”

  “What were you looking for?” Leone asked.

  The laughter subsided and Quey and Dusty looked over at him.

  “In the shed. Why were you in there?”

  “Crime,” Quey said bluntly.

  There was a moment of silence. “You been shot a lot?” Leone asked.

  “Once or twice. Nothing I can recommend.” The air was heavy and so he decided to lighten it a bit. “Of course that was nothing compared to Dusty here, who’s never even been almost shot… save one glorious time.”

  “You’re not telling this story again are you?” Dusty asked with an embarrassed groan.

  “What happened?” Rachel asked. He shot her a glance and she shot a playful one back.

  “Almost got himself shot by a man in a dress.”

  “It was a woman!” he protested.

  “Right,” Quey said sarcastically, “If that was a woman, then I’m gunna stick a farm animal in a tutu and have my way with a ballerina.”

  Quey told the story about how Dusty’s bit of slight of hand during a card game took a turn on him. The drag queen pulled a small pistol from under the table and fired at him. It was close range but Dusty wasn’t even grazed. After that Rachel seemed to sit closer to him as Reggie told a story of his own. This one wasn’t about being shot. It was about how boring soldiering can be from time to time. After that Leone coaxed Rain into telling a story about a creepy guy they met at a hotel once who tried to talk her into making a necklace out of strands of a woman’s hair. Apparently he’d been collecting them for some time. She’d refused his request and they left the hotel quickly the next morning. They talked for a long while, glancing every so often at the two cars and four motorcycles staying put on the main road. The stories didn’t matter, that they passed the time and gave them something else to ponder did.

  “Still doing nothing,” Rachel said after another look through the window.

  “There’s something I need to know,” Rain said, “And it seems now’s as good of a time as any.”

  “What's that?” Quey asked her.

  She shrugged emphatically with her lips pulled tight and her eyebrows raised. She let her hands fall against her thighs and asked, “What are we doing here?”

  Nodding slowly Quey told her everything that had happened since he met Ryla in the waste. “Remember the robot in the back of my truck?” he asked and she nodded. He explained how he was taking it around gathering data from as many points as possible and transmitting it back to the girl in the robot factory. He told them about her theory as to the lifespan of the planet and watched as their eyes widened and they grew very still.

  “Blue Moon claims these towers are their way of fixing the planet. I want to get inside one and send whatever it’s doing back to Ryla, see what she makes of it.”

  Rain was nodding slowly, her eyes drifting to Leone. He knew she was counting how old he’d be in five years and it was breaking her heart. “You think it’s true?” Leone asked.

  Rain shrugged, “I don’t know anymore.”

  “I have to pee,” he told her.

  “I’ll go with you,” she said and they walked out together.

  Quey’s eyes widened when he saw them stop just down the hall. Leone said something to his sister and she hugged him tight before he went into the bathroom and closed the door. “Fuck,” Quey said softly to himself, then stood and went to her. She didn’t look at him. She watched the floor.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t think.” He shrugged. “I forgot.”

  Rain nodded. “It’s alright. I know what kind of man my father is.” She looked at the closed bathroom door, rocking against the wall with angry nervous energy. “He does too.”

  He touched her arm and part of her wanted to let him pull her against him the way he did that morning in the Dine Out parking lot. With Arnie’s arms around her she felt love, compassion, and a bit of comfort. That morning in front of the Dine Out she’d felt safe. It was a feeling she wasn’t used to. When he tried to move toward her she spoke.

  “My father is a very bad man.” Quey started to speak but she didn’t let him. “I know this. Not all of his qualities are bad. Many of them are good. Things someone should admire. You are not a bad man,” she looked up at him. “Maybe in another world you shot the tires out of my van and things are very different now.” He smiled down at her. “You gave Arnie the shotgun because he won’t be able to use it,” she said matter-of-factly because she knew it as well as he did. Quey nodded. She shrugged and her face softened, reassuring him in a way as she said, “I like that about him.”

  “I know,” he said. “I recall you saying something like that and I mean to respect it. But you’re one of my crew, and that means from time to time I might take an interest in your well-being.” He grabbed her and pulled her against him. “Might even give you a hug if I deem you in need of one.”

  She chuckled, sunk against him and took the comfort he offered for a moment then stepped back and smiled up at him. “Okay,” she said.

  The bathroom door opened and Leone stepped out. “It doesn’t flush,” he told them.

  “That’s alright,” Quey said. “Go on back in there. Something I need to talk to your,” he started to say mother and stopped. “Rain about.” He nodded and obliged. When Quey looked at her she was making fun of him with her eyes. “What?”

  She shook her head. “Truth is,” she admitted, “He probably wouldn’t have noticed if you’d have called me his mother.”

  “Bet
he wouldn’t at that.”

  “So what’s this thing we have to talk about?”

  Quey looked at her, a hard seriousness in his eyes that made her take notice. “I didn’t give him the gun cause I mean for him to shoot anybody. I gave it to him so he’d understand that if something does happen it’s serious. It needs to be treated as such. If we’re going to make it through any sort of conflict we need him to listen and understand.”

  Rain nodded. “You’re right.” She met his eyes with an intensity of seriousness of her own and said, “But I do the bad things. I handle the ugly stuff. I do it, not him.”

  “I should have warned you before we took you on. The path this crew is set on seems flanked with bad things. And there’s a whole lot of it left ahead. After this passes if you want to take your leave I’ll have no qualms about it.”

  Rain chuckled. “The Brood’s here on account of me,” she told him. “Your path’s no uglier than mine. Least your path comes with a plan and a bit of purpose,” she added. Before he could respond she was already halfway down the hall.

  Another hour passed before the sun began its final decent toward the horizon. Rachel and Rain had gone downstairs to the cooler. They made some sandwiches and got some water because it was something to do, to keep their minds off what was lurking outside. When they were finished the group ate them in silence for much of the same reason.

  All the stories that could be told had been and time had worn on them. Chewing slowly, they ate their food and waited.

  That’s when the Broodlings finally made their move.

  “They want to see what they can before nightfall,” Reggie said calmly as two bikes started slowly down the road that ran around the lake.

  “There’s nothing for them to see,” Quey said but he wasn’t sure if he was assuring them or himself.

  Crowded near the windows, trying to look without being obvious, they watched the motorcycles roll so slow Quey was amazed they didn’t fall over as the men on them scrutinized every centimeter of world off to either side of the road. They stopped at the first cabin and stared at it.