Skeletal

by Emma Pullar

  Sib smiles at me like I’ve given her a compliment. If they opened her up on the mutilation table, they’d find an empty space where her heart should be.

  ‘Anyway, back to the reason I’m here,’ Sib says, as if she’s heading a meeting. ‘Dra’cave wants the Morb and Bullet wants you. Get moving.’

  Sib motions to the big men and they drag Bunce towards the door.

  ‘No!’ I shout. ‘You went too far. Now you owe me.’

  Sib raises an eyebrow.

  ‘Owe you?’

  ‘I had to kill Tess,’ I say through gritted teeth. ‘That’s your fault. You took two lives for one. Now it’s you who will pay.’

  I have nothing in mind. Why did I say those words? I wait for Sib to reply.

  ‘Killed one of your own, huh?’ She says, stroking one of her dreadlocks. ‘You could be useful to our gang, but you still have to pay the price for the weapons. Perhaps there’ll be something left of ya to salvage after Bullet’s finished with you.’

  I don’t wait to find out what the price is. My anger at Sib for having Tess mutilated boils over. Arm muscles locked, I strike. Swipe. My knuckle-knife finds the soft flesh of Sib’s stomach. I yank the blade free and lunge for her neck. I miss and plunge the other side of the knife into her shoulder. She screams and staggers backwards into the small dining table. It collapses and Sib crashes to the floor. Stupid Runner. She watched me take the weapon from the case. I lost my Galva but I still have my blades. Why didn’t she think of that?

  My eyes flick to the men holding Bunce. They don’t rush to Sib’s aid. Can’t risk letting go of the top prize that is Bunce. Sib’s back on her feet, she holds her stomach. I know I haven’t hit any major organs because she can still stand. My arm is straight as an arrow by my side, I grip the bloodied knuckle-knife tight. The weapons usually dangling from Sib’s belt are gone. What’s she gonna fight me with?

  ‘ARRRGGHHHH!’ She screams towards me.

  I’m slow to react. I yelp in pain and gasp for air, my body curls over, reeling from the punch to my ribs. I stagger to one side, bumping into the bed. I straighten up in time to see a second fist fly towards me. Sib brings it down hard into my chest. I fall back into the wardrobe, winded. Metal clatters against the floorboards. My knife! The room swims.

  ‘Skyla!’ Bunce calls out and his sneakers scuff against the wooden floor. I can’t let her beat me. Sib’s arm draws back.

  ‘Fucking bitch!’ Sib growls, ‘Should have killed you when I had the chance.’

  I stand as straight as my bruised body will allow. Swaying, I clench my fists, swing my right leg high and bring it down hard, a grunt escapes my lips as my foot connects with the Runner’s head. She lets out a yelp and I drive my left knee into her body, she doubles over. Adrenalin spurring me on, I stab my elbow into her back, driving my bodyweight down onto her. She draws back. I turn and drop to my hands and knees, searching the floor for my knuckle-knife. Mistake. I glance back. Thump! My cheekbone shatters. Blood sprays from the corner of my mouth, red splattering down my lips and jaw. I spit the metallic taste, a tooth with it. Dizzy. My body falls forwards and connects with the hard floorboards, the side of my face throbs against the smooth wood. My eyes roll back. She’s won. There’s a voice, it sounds like it’s disappearing down a well.

  ‘Skylaaaaaaa …’

  My eyeballs roll around. The lids stutter, I can’t open them. I lie there, blood seeping from my mouth like drool. My limbs are heavy, unable to move, unwilling to try. My face throbs. The floor vibrates. Thundering steps. Scratching sound. Smell of wet fur. Distant screams. A woman’s screams? Growling. My eyelids flutter open and a blurred image reaches me. Someone writhing on the floor, grey masses darting around, red, grey, and brown blurs. Sharp teeth, snouts covered in blood. More screaming, boots knocking against the wooden floor. I make out a grey tail, hear a grunting sound. My body lifts from the floor and into someone’s arms, I’m carried like a small child. I blink several times, it doesn’t clear my vision … shiny guard boots? Yes. Bunce’s sneakers follow, Sib’s lackeys’ dirty boots are next. They’re being escorted away by guards. I will my eyes to focus, they won’t, they’re shocked with head trauma.

  The dark mass on the floor isn’t moving anymore and all I can hear are slurps and snorts. My eyes focus seconds before I’m carried away. Sib lies on the floor, a faraway look in her tattooed green eyes. Her insides are on the outside, Ruinous feed on her – the two dogs rip meat from her ribs in a frenzy, like they’ve been starved for weeks. I hold back the urge to vomit and two words enter my mind. Tess. Justice. Grey gathers at the edges of my eyes. Darkness.

  32

  Back to Rock Vault

  I open my eyes. Above me, the ceiling flickers with candlelight shadows. I close my eyes and re-open them. I’m awake but not yet alert. Where am I? I spread out my arms and clasp the huge duvet that surrounds me like a cocoon. After years of sleeping on a lumpy mattress and more recently, wherever I could lay my head, the enveloping softness of this cushioned bed feels strange. Am I dead? Maybe there is a heaven and I’m curled up on a cloud. No. I’ve felt this before. I sit up too fast. The room spins. Palm to my forehead I wait till it stops. Confident I’m not going to pass out, I move my hand down and place it over my heart. Beneath the thin cotton covering my skin, my fingertips feel the round shape of the gold coin. They didn’t take my necklace.

  I wonder what time of day it is? The large window is sealed off with a steel blind. The room is lit with salt rock lamps lined up like little deities on a concave shelf in the wall behind the bedhead. Their glow is meant to evoke a sense of serenity, but my bruises tell the truth – this is far from heaven. I’m a prisoner again, only this time I’m not in Rock Vault. I don’t know whether to feel relieved about that or not.

  I throw off the squashy duvet and, holding my injuries, I slowly get up. The icy floor shocks the soles of my bare feet. This is a Morb apartment. I’m in a host room. My old host room? I spot my dresser. How long was I out? My body aches, bruises still fresh. I’ve been here hours rather than days. I touch my hand to my chest where Sib landed that second punch. I pull at the material, I’m wearing a white gown. I grasp my hair and bring a strand to my nose, it smells of flower petals. I’m clean. My fingers touch my lip and run over a bumpy scab. Someone has treated my wounds. I hobble over to the door holding my ribs and stomach, which are tender to the touch. I press my palm to the pad. Nothing happens. I’m locked in. Why am I here and not strapped to a mutilation table, or waiting for my head to be severed and skewered on the line over the trenches?

  The wall next to me vibrates with sound. I shuffle closer. A voice. Bunce? It sounds like him but I can’t make out what he’s saying. A woman starts talking, straining her low voice to reach a higher tone. It’s Mistress Vable, I’m sure of it. I lean closer to the clean white wall and her shrill voice vibrates through.

  ‘I hope you’re happy! My brother, the first Morbihan to contaminate himself and cause a crisis! You’ve polluted your body and ruined your future.’ Mistress Vable rants without stopping to breathe, her artificial parts must be struggling to keep up. ‘Do you have any idea of the ramifications of what you’ve done? Well, do you?’

  I press my ear to the wall but I can’t make out what Bunce murmurs back. The shouting continues, his reply is obviously not what his sister wanted to hear.

  ‘How could you be so selfish? We’ve been worried sick wondering where you were. Worrying you might be dead. And did you spare a thought for us?’ She pauses to take a breath. ‘Did you stop to think what would happen to our way of life, our very existence? Look at the state of your arm!’

  Silence. Then a vibration comes back to the wall.

  ‘Mother and father are too traumatised to see you right now.’

  Silence. Bunce must be talking. I strain to hear him.

  ‘Absolutely not!’ His sister bellows, ‘You can never see her again!’

  Another silence.

  ‘The authorities have ag
reed that you will remain here with us under lock and key, literally.’ Mistress Vable explains. I press my ear hard to the wall. Her voice softens. ‘That way it will be impossible for you to run away again. The Skel is to be reassigned.’

  Reassigned? Dread slithers up the back of my neck. If I’m not staying here and I’m not going back to the factory, where are they sending me? Mistress Vable bleats on.

  ‘I don’t know why they spared her life, I really don’t. And you …’ She sobs angrily. ‘You will be test subject one-four-seven.’

  ‘THE HELL I WILL!’

  Bunce’s voice crashes through the wall loud and clear.

  ‘How dare you speak to me like that!’ Mistress Vable’s voice goes up an octave. ‘You don’t have a choice! People can’t see you like this. You look terrible, skeletal! People will talk. It’s a disgrace.’

  Bunce doesn’t reply, or if he does, I can’t hear him. I press my cheek even harder against the cold concrete, jamming my ear to the wall.

  ‘You are not to leave this room.’

  After a few moments, I hear the door swish shut. I tap on the wall.

  ‘Bunce …’ I whisper to the plaster and then realise he won’t hear that. ‘BUNCE!’

  ‘Sky?’ A muffled voice comes back.

  ‘Yeah, it’s me, you okay?’

  ‘Apart from feeling betrayed by my family, I’m fine, are you okay?’

  ‘Bruised but in one piece, how are we going to escape?’

  The wall stops talking.

  ‘Bunce … I said …’

  ‘I heard you … We’re not going to escape.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Skyla, you almost died back there and …’

  Heavy boots outside my door.

  ‘Someone’s coming,’ I hiss into the wall.

  ‘Sky, don’t do anything foolish …’

  ‘I won’t, just hang in there.’ I whisper back.

  I leap back into the bed and throw the duvet over me, the door slides open. A masked guard steps into the room in full uniform and the door closes behind him. He steps closer to me and my body tenses. The guard then sits down at the end of the bed, removes his helmet and drags down the red scarf covering his lower face.

  I scramble down the bed and throw my arms around his neck. I weep into a broad shoulder.

  ‘It’s okay, Sky,’ Crow coos, and strokes my hair.

  I can’t stop blubbing. The tears keep coming. Stop it, Sky. Suck it up, you damn baby!

  ‘I thought I’d never see you again,’ I sniff.

  ‘You aren’t seeing me now, Sky.’ Crow says.

  ‘What do you mean?’ I speak into his shirt, a little scared of the response.

  ‘You look upon me as Kian, I’m not him anymore, I’m different,’ he says.

  I look skyward and search his green eyes, they’re no longer black like they were on top of The Spiral, but they also no longer shine like emeralds. They’re dull. Free from emotion.

  ‘How different?’ I ask.

  ‘This is the real me,’ he says, emotionless.

  I cup Crow’s warm cheek and search his eyes for any trace of my friend. I don’t find him. Is he really the strange bird whisperer that everyone says he is?

  ‘That bird tornado, you do that?’

  Crow shrugs.

  ‘That happened because I accepted who I really am, and you must accept your fate … for now, at least.’

  I pull away. Crow isn’t here to help me, he’s here to escort me.

  ‘What do you mean?’ I ask accusingly.

  ‘You’ve been reassigned,’ he says, a heaviness to his words. ‘I’m taking you to your new quarters at Rock Vault.’

  ‘I’m not going back there!’ I yell, and back up, towards the head of the bed. ‘No way!’

  ‘You are and you must.’

  Crow fixes me with an authoritative stare. He stands, places his beaked helmet back on his head and pulls up the scarf. His muffled voice speaks into the cloth.

  ‘Get dressed, we leave in ten.’

  I stand on the high platform, dressed in clean but tatty, second-hand city issue uniform, and wait for the Sky Train that will carry me to my fate. The sun has almost set, its orange glow mixes with the onset of night, forming purple swipes across the sky, like someone has run a paintbrush between the colours. Crow stands beside me. He doesn’t speak to me, he doesn’t crack jokes, he hardly moves. The last time we were on this platform together he was seeing me off to become a host, smiling and happy. I wasn’t happy but I wasn’t as miserable as I am now.

  Down the track, the bright headlamps of the train shine through the dark, mauve sky; two eldritch eyes judging me from the distance. So, this is it. I tried to change my life for the better and did the complete opposite. The rushing wind sweeps strands of blond out from the tight knot on my head and the loose wisps dance around my hairline. The engine grinds to a halt and a sigh of pressure releases from the great metal guts. I lace my cold fingers with Crow’s warm ones.

  ‘Come with me?’ I ask.

  Deja vu.

  ‘I have to come with you, I’m your escort,’ Crow says.

  The doors slide open, he steps inside the train, pulling me into the carriage with him. Inside it’s warm and quiet. To my right, a small Skel sits watching holo-news on a device in the palm of his hand. He’s a rail worker, his safety helmet is visible over the projected images. There are two news channels for Skels, the official one and the unofficial one. I know he’s watching Central Times because no Skel would watch the other one in plain sight. It’s circulated by Slum Lords.

  The only other commuter is an elder. Her black uniform is frayed and faded. She stares in to space, her face beaten and tired. I scoot up close to Crow. Normally, an escort guard would stand over me, but it seems Crow isn’t one for rules, just as Kian wasn’t. The train grunts to life and the sudden propulsion knocks our shoulders together. I link my arm through his. He doesn’t object but neither does he respond.

  I turn my face to the glass. My reflection looks ten years older than it did a few months ago. Out of the window, the platform shrinks away and the lights from Morbihan apartments throw spectrums through the dimly lit train carriage. I’m on the last train and it’s probably the last train ride I’ll ever take. No longer a factory worker and never really a host, my new title is ‘sanitationist’ or ‘scrub’ as the guards like to call them; the lowest of the low. I’ve been assigned as a prison cleaner, and since the prison really isn’t that clean, I have no idea what my job will entail but I know I’m not going to like it. I think of Bunce. I wonder what he’s doing now. I wonder if he has it worse than me. Test subject one-four-seven doesn’t sound like fun. I hope they don’t torture him. The test tubes inside The Spiral flash before my mind’s eye. This is all my fault.

  33

  Inked

  Crow marches me up to the main entrance to Rock Vault. The wooden planks leading over the trench water are rotten and uneven beneath my boots. Crow strides over them confidently, while I stumble along in his wake. The scarf that Crow gave me is pulled tight up over my nose and mouth. The vile trench water bubbles with death. A dozen sleek black crows are perched on the overbearing building, as if to greet their master upon his return. Their cold stares lock on to me like guns pointed at my head. I know they hate me and they’d hurt me, if it wasn’t for the bird whisperer at my side. We pass under the single streetlamp and fear stabs into my gut. I can’t go back into this palace of torture. I stop walking and Crow turns around when he notices his steps echo alone.

  ‘Sky?’

  ‘Don’t make me go back in there,’ I say, desperately.

  ‘Please, Sky, I didn’t bind you because you said you wouldn’t resist.’

  ‘I know I said that but …’

  The towering black double doors bear down and the bolts seem to grin at me – a sinister smirk. This time you’ll be trapped forever! Adrenalin races through me and panic takes over. I turn, I run. I sprint, my calves tight. Thou
ghts scream inside my head. Move faster! Run … Run … RUN!

  ‘CAW … caw, caw, caw … CAW, CAW!’

  Flapping surrounds me. I hold on to my bruised ribs and pump my legs harder.

  Feathered missiles fly at my head.

  ‘Get off me!’

  I throw my arms over my face to protect myself. Tug at my neck, my scarf is stolen. Nip at my ear. I scream. Claws dig into my hair, pulling at the bun, others scratch at my clothes. I flail my arms around to warn them of. A jab to my lip, old wound opened up. There’s a triumphant screech from the black beak which drew my blood. Panic knots in my chest. I bury my mouth in the crook of my arm to shield it from another attack.

  ‘Crow!’ I holler. He doesn’t answer.

  Murderous creatures, they’ll kill me. I drop to my knees, arms tight over my head, tuck in. Feathered wings flap around me and from all directions, sharp beaks stab at my soft skin, trying to force me to uncurl from my protective ball. Is Crow ordering them to do this? My throat constricts. My breathing quickens. Get them off!

  ‘GET THEM OFF!’ I scream.

  It stops …

  I’m lifted. Red drops fall from my lacerated lip. I uncurl, turn and thump the guard’s chest with both fists, but he doesn’t let go of me. He throws me over his shoulder and hauls me back towards the black doors of doom. I shout for help but no one comes to my aid. The doors open as we approach, like a great gaping mouth, ready to swallow me whole. I lick the blood from my lips and a familiar bitter taste swims over my tongue. Tears of despair run down my cheeks. My head hangs helplessly as I’m carried like carcass into the depths of Rock Vault.

  Once inside, Crow slams me down on my feet. He doesn’t steady me. He drops me like a sack of potatoes and strides away. I watch his silhouette as it grows smaller and his steps quieter along the dank passage before me.

  ‘Crow!’ I yell after him, my voice echoing. He doesn’t respond.