Defender

by G X Todd

  ‘What?’ Jeb’s head came up. His eyes were bloodshot and glassy when he looked at her.

  Shhhhhh, the voice reprimanded

  ‘Fuck you,’ she hissed.

  Jeb’s eyes cleared and his brow came down. ‘The fuck you say?’ He straightened up, wincing at the movement, and readjusted his grip on the gun. ‘Better watch your mouth, girl.’

  What a hypocrite!

  Lacey could feel the disgust lacing those three words, coating her mind in a slimy muck. She couldn’t tell where that disgust ended and her own feelings began. It all jumbled together and she was talking again before contemplating how wise it was to share her thoughts out loud. ‘You’re telling me to watch my mouth?’ she said, her face feeling hot and swollen. ‘You haven’t stopped cussing since you first spoke to us.’

  Jeb appeared lost for words for a moment. Then he was moving, the gun whipping up too fast for Lacey to react. It lashed the side of her head, a glancing blow that cut sharply through her mixed-up thoughts, slashing them down to just one: PAIN. She clamped a hand over her brow, felt the hot dribble of blood already running from the gash the gun had opened up.

  Alex turned, her arm protectively hooking Lacey in closer while her other hand came up, palm held out to Jeb. She told him to put the gun down, to back off, they’d be quiet, they’d behave, there was no need to hit anyone, please. Lacey didn’t see anything else; she sat with her head down and her face held in her hands. Alex gathered her in, murmured soft words into her ear, but every muscle in the woman’s body was quivering and Lacey could feel the hard gallop of her heart in her breast.

  The rest of the journey was made in silence.

  Even the voice kept its peace.

  Jeb impatiently gave Posy directions – he couldn’t seem to remember where they were going. They had hit Williamstown a few minutes earlier, and Posy took a random number of lefts and rights, winding them deeper into the crumbling, grey buildings, diverting on to different streets when they met barricades made up of shells of burnt-out cars and weary-looking police roadblocks. The rubble of downed apartment buildings blocked sidewalks, spreading out into the middle of the street like spilled cookie crumbs.

  A couple of times Lacey thought she spied a flash of movement up in the second or third levels of buildings, but when she looked again there was no one. She figured it must simply be another thing her mind was making up. May as well get used to being crazy. She was sure it was a slippery slope from here on in.

  Although Lacey wasn’t familiar with being in cities, she remembered what the Boy Scout had told her. They were dangerous, he’d said. They were full of merciless scavengers and people who didn’t have a civilised thought left in their heads. In other words, stay the hell out. Alex must have heard similar warnings, because as they moved nearer and nearer to the main streets tension gradually stiffened through her until Lacey felt like she was being held by a contraption of steel cables.

  Lacey kept her gaze off the sidewalks nearest the taller buildings. It was as if flooding measures had been called into effect, sandbags piled high in barricading moats around the ground floors. Except they weren’t sandbags. Even knowing she shouldn’t look, she couldn’t keep her eyes from the piles of mummified bodies heaped at the buildings’ bases. Jumpers had rained out of the skies back then, and not a single Supergirl or Iron Man among them. They must have hit the ground with such grisly thuds. A digger, its yellow paint faded to curdled buttermilk, sat frozen with its bucket halfway raised, human limbs hanging like noodles between the tines of its fork. Nearby, a dump truck was already filled to the brim with dried-up, shrivelled corpses. Attempts had been made to remove the bodies, but time wasn’t on anyone’s side. Had the men who drove these vehicles chosen to join the dead after they began work to clear them up? Had the voices been whispering to them the whole time, chipping away at their defences until they broke and succumbed? Is that what would happen to her?

  Lacey shivered and dropped her gaze to the footwell, exactly like she had all those years ago in her grammy’s station wagon. She searched out Alex’s hand and gripped on to it, anchoring herself to the woman, hoping she would keep her grounded and sane. Alex instantly curled her fingers around Lacey’s hand in return.

  Their vehicle turned on to a narrow backstreet, tall tenements on either side blotting out the hazy afternoon sun. It was a dead-end. Lacey shifted in Alex’s hold, sitting up a little straighter, looking around and wondering where they were being taken. The jeep had almost reached the end when Posy picked up the CB mic.

  ‘Defender-One, Defender-One on the ten-four. Roger ’n’ out.’

  After a few seconds of crackling, an irritated voice came back to them. ‘Posy? Who the hell let you on the radio again?’

  ‘Copy that, tin dog. We’re a go for dockin’.’

  A sea of confused static, followed by: ‘You mean you want us to open the door?’

  ‘Roger, Roger.’

  A shout went up and a large corrugated-metal door began rolling upwards in jerks. A gap appeared at the bottom. Posy steered the jeep towards the opening, waiting until the rolling door had reached the roof before driving through. As soon as they cleared the door, the mechanism reversed direction and the door clattered shut behind them with a clanking finality that made Lacey’s teeth clench.

  The man who had opened the rolling door ambled over to them. He looked like a copy of Jeb and Posy: too thin, eyes hollow sinkholes in his bearded face. This guy was older, though, with long streaks of grey running through his bristles and at his temples.

  ‘What’s up, fellas?’ he drawled, pulling Jeb’s door open and looking in at them.

  Lacey could hardly tell what he’d said; the words were so mushed up in his mouth it was like he was trying to chew on them rather than speak them.

  ‘Need me the Doc, Lou,’ Jeb moaned, agitatedly shifting in his seat.

  Lou glanced down at the blood saturating the front of Jeb’s shirt and stepped out of the way as Posy opened his door and slid out from behind the wheel. Posy went to the rear of the jeep, a few clanks coming from behind as he untethered the dog.

  Lou nodded and drawled, ‘I’d say you were right about that, brother.’ He made it sound like brudda. ‘Hold up. I’ll go and fetch him.’ He slanted her and Alex a curiously dead-eyed look, then turned and ambled away again, mounting five concrete steps up to the loading dock and disappearing through a set of swinging doors. Lacey figured they were in a loading area at the rear of a mall; the space was big enough to accommodate three large trucks while they delivered their goods on to trolleys and forklifts that would run up and down the main concrete docking platform. Three lots of swinging doors led off from the platform, only the middle set having been used so far.

  A few more people had appeared, shuffling closer as Jeb ushered Lacey and Alex out of the back seat. Lacey put her back to the jeep’s side panel as a woman broke off from the new group and approached. It was hard to tell her age, but her skin was lined and webbed with wrinkles. She wore a ratty purple shawl over her bony shoulders, held in place by her equally bony fingers. The knuckles were knotted and sore-looking, arthritis freezing them into hooked claws.

  Jeb still loosely held his gun, and he used it to dismissively wave the woman away. ‘Don’t you fucking touch them, you old bitch.’

  The woman’s voice was as aged and crooked as her joints. ‘Ah, don’t be a sourpuss. We just want us a little feel.’ She shuffled a couple more feet and lifted one thin arm. The loose, papery skin hung like a dead turkey wattle below the hag’s upper arm, and it wobbled as she drew closer to Lacey.

  Lacey leaned away from her, revulsion twisting her mouth. If the hag touched her she was afraid she’d scream: it felt locked up just behind her tonsils, a buzzing panic so close to the surface her pores shivered with it.

  ‘Touch me and I’ll break your arm,’ she whispered.

  The hag’s eyes narrowed into glittering slits. In a split second she transformed from a frail old woman, albeit a
scary one, into a menacing, evil-spitting witch.

  Oh shit, I’ve done it now, Lacey thought dimly, all her bravado evaporating as swiftly as it had come. She’s gonna put a hex on me and I’ll drop dead.

  The middle set of swinging doors, through which Lou had disappeared, swung back outwards, and a smooth-shaven man came through. He appeared cleaner than the others, his clothes neater, and he wore an unusual rounded hat pushed to the back of his head, the kind Lacey had seen in old black-and-white photographs and her grams had told her were called bowlers. He carried a small brown leather doctor’s bag. His pale green eyes skimmed over her and Alex and came to rest on Jeb. His lips thinned in disapproval.

  ‘What happened?’ he asked. He spoke quietly, but the room had become hushed when he’d entered, all talk seeming to die down in preparation for his words.

  ‘Some fucker stabbed me, Doc,’ Jeb told him.

  As Doc stepped past her to inspect Jeb’s injuries, Lacey caught the scent of menthol, cool and fresh. Grammy’s clothes had always held a hint of peppermint (from where, Lacey didn’t know), and the man’s aroma spiked her nostrils and sent such a rush of homesickness through her she hurt with it. She would give anything to be back home, sat in her grammy’s armchair, one of their photo albums open in her lap and that fusty odour of dust and old things enclosing her like a familiar, well-worn blanket. She didn’t care that she would be all alone in that big, rambling farmhouse, didn’t care that the creaks and howling wind at night would keep her awake in her cold bed, didn’t even care that there would be a pit of gnawing hunger in her stomach that forced her to lie curled in a ball, holding on to it to make it stop hurting. She would rather that than be here with these people.

  But you’d have never met the Boy Scout, she told herself. Never have met Alex.

  Yeah, and look how that turned out: the Boy Scout shot in the head and Alex stuck here with me, as far away from my sister and niece as I’ve ever been, and waiting for God knows what other nastiness to happen, nastiness that I don’t even want to think about. Never anything good, though. Never good.

  Right in that instant, Lacey hated the world. Wished with all her heart it were gone. And failing that, wished that she herself were gone from it.

  No, the voice said sternly. Don’t think that. Not ever.

  A low, guttural growl made her stiffen. She found the dog staring up at her, its head fat and ugly, its sharp teeth bared. Posy gave its chain a harsh yank, and the mutt licked its chops and quietened down.

  Jeb hissed in pain. The Doc had pulled up his shirt and was bent over him, his long, slim-fingered hands moving deftly.

  ‘Pose, take them up to the Boss,’ a sweating Jeb said between gasps. ‘Tell him what happened to Bill. And that we couldn’t find Red but we brought these two to make up for it.’

  Posy nodded fast. ‘Sure, Jeb, sure.’

  Lacey took a last, long look at Jeb, the man glaring back at her, his brown, chipped teeth gritted behind his beard. She wanted to ingrain him in her memory, how his eyes were sunken into his face, the skin bruised in half-moon crescents beneath them, make sure she remembered how he looked right this second – like a dead man walking – because she was sure the Boy Scout had killed him. Jeb just didn’t know it yet.

  CHAPTER 3

  Posy led them through whitewashed corridors, Lou bringing up the rear.

  He’s checking out your ass.

  When Lacey turned, sure enough, Lou was staring at her butt. He didn’t even pretend to be embarrassed or guilty that she’d caught him at it, either. All he did was stare at her with his wet, dead-fish eyes. After a moment she dropped her gaze and turned away, calling him a ‘Pervert’ under her breath, not quite brave enough to say it loud enough for him to hear.

  Posy whistled as he walked, checking back on them every so often, smiling cheerfully through his patchy beard as if they were all off on a picnic together. The chain that linked Posy to his dog jangled and tinkled like sleigh bells. The dog’s claws clicked on the shiny floor as it trotted just ahead of him.

  Lacey had reached for Alex’s hand again as soon as they’d left the loading area. The woman’s cold fingers had closed over hers, holding on tightly. Now Alex drew her closer and ducked her head, pitching her voice low so only Lacey could hear.

  ‘Leave the talking to me.’

  Lacey nodded. She had no real desire to talk to these people, especially not to anyone who was in charge of them. She’d rather fade into the background and pretend like she wasn’t here.

  Good luck with that.

  She had been ignoring the voice for a while now, hoping it might go away. You didn’t talk to your crazy, not if you didn’t want it talking back. And, like Grammy used to say, ‘Ignore something for long enough and it’ll slink away like a skunk in the night.’

  I’m not a skunk.

  ‘You’re worse than one,’ she muttered.

  Hah! Made you talk!

  She clamped her lips together, dismayed that it had managed to manipulate her into speaking.

  Takes a lot of practice to shut me out. It sounded almost smug. Pilgrim was a master at it, and even he struggled.

  The voice lapsed into a heavy, brooding silence, all smoky, grey clouds that swirled morosely in and around her thoughts. She wanted to ask who or what a pilgrim was, but she wouldn’t break her silence, not even if it killed her.

  They came to a concrete stairwell and went up four flights. There, Lou stayed by the heavy fire-door, and Posy carried on down the corridor, gesturing for them to follow. He’d become chattier the closer they came to their destination. It was a nervous chatter, which in turn made Lacey nervous. Her palm began to sweat in Alex’s grip.

  ‘Oh man, Boss is gonna be happy with you two. Yessir. He likes him some fresh meat. ’Specially when it’s pretty.’

  He’d turned around to talk to them, walking backwards and not looking where he was going. He trod on the Rottweiler’s paw and the dog gave a high-pitched yelp, and Posy stumbled and cursed, dancing around it. He dropped the chain. Sensing its freedom, the dog darted off, pounding away up the corridor, its jangling chain snaking behind it.

  ‘Shit!’ Posy ran after the dog. ‘Princess, come back!’

  Princess? You gotta be kidding me.

  Lacey was thinking the same thing but stubbornly cut the thought off before the new presence in her head registered it.

  ‘Posy.’

  It was like Posy ran into a wall. The dog continued its escape, unpursued, the chain clanking and scraping along the floor as it disappeared around the corner. Posy stood stock still, his shoulders hunched up around his ears.

  The call came again. ‘Posy. Come here. I want to talk to you.’ The drawl was slow, with a timbre deep enough to cause vibrations.

  Posy turned, uncertainty and fear at war on his face. You could see the tensed hesitancy in his posture, as if he wanted to turn tail and run in the same direction as his dog, but then he came unstuck and retraced his steps, stopping outside an open doorway.

  ‘Hi, Boss!’ Posy said, too brightly.

  ‘You found her?’

  Posy’s fingers clutched bone-white on to the door jamb.

  ‘Hmm, not exactly,’ he admitted.

  There was a long pause. Lacey exchanged a look with Alex and could see deep concern in the older woman’s eyes. Lacey felt it, too, a threat hanging unspoken in the air, a brewing storm readying itself to erupt.

  ‘But . . . but we found somethin’ else,’ Posy offered tentatively.

  ‘Is that so? Show me.’

  ‘Yes. Yessir, right away.’ Posy looked back at them, his eyes big and desperate. He waved at them to come closer. ‘C’mere, yes yes, come come. I’ll show you, Boss. You’ll like it, I swear.’

  Lacey didn’t move, her feet suddenly glued to the linoleum flooring, but Alex was already starting forward, tugging on her hand to follow. Lacey gave a last look behind her, back to the end of the corridor, where Lou stood watching them, unmoving, like a reptilian
guard dog, and Lacey decided right then and there she would rather have Princess barking and growling at her than this man’s dead-eyed stare.

  What I’d really prefer, she thought, is to have my rifle.

  Gonna shoot your way out like Butch Cassidy?

  She didn’t know who that was – all she meant was she’d feel much better with a gun. Or with the Boy Scout. But thinking of him made something come unstuck inside her and a warm, traitorous pressure rise up her throat and lodge behind her eyes, so she quickly adjusted her thoughts.

  Posy stood back and ushered them into the room, waving his arm in a waterwheel motion, eager to get them inside. The hot, muggy air hit her as soon as she stepped through the doorway. They were four storeys up, yet all the windows remained closed, each one a full sheet of glass that extended floor to ceiling and offered an expansive view of the city below. It was a ruined city, crumbling from the top down like one of Karey’s awful apple pies, bits dropping off at the edges. It was still beautiful, though, especially when lit in the drowsy afternoon sun, shadows stretching lazily across streets to slink up walls and doorways. From a distance, the graffitied paintwork and murals looked like prehistoric cave paintings.

  The same soft light decorated the room’s walls in melted butter. The rest of the room was uninteresting: a cracked leather armchair in front of a low coffee table, both empty. The view filled up the rest of the space.

  The man who Posy had referred to as the Boss stood in one corner, arms folded, leaning casually up against a window. He didn’t turn to look at them when they entered but continued to gaze out over the city.

  A king surveying his kingdom, the voice said.

  Lacey didn’t think he looked like any king she’d ever seen, although she admitted to not having seen many. This man looked like one of the rednecks she’d seen in a movie one time. She shouldn’t have watched it, she knew it even as the first ten minutes played out, but she had begged and begged Karey to let her sit with her until her sister had finally caved in. It felt exciting and dangerous staying up after Grams had gone to bed, snuggled up in the dark with the TV’s volume turned right down and Grammy’s knitted blanket wrapped around their shoulders. Lacey hid behind it when the movie became too scary, but neither the blanket nor the reassuring presence of her big sister could stop the awful pig-like squeals of the rednecks’ victim following after her. Even now, after all these years, she could still hear them.