by Peter Liney
I don’t know how it happened exactly—I guess Lena had become completely disorientated. The Bitch kinda leaped at her, there was a bit of a struggle, and suddenly they both disappeared.
I couldn’t have been more surprised if night had turned into day. For a moment I just stared, then slowly made my way over to where I’d last seen them.
I should’ve guessed, what with the more varied terrain, the sheer drops: the two of them had gone over a bit of a cliff and were now lying in a clearing some twenty feet below, neither of them moving.
It’s amazing what the human body can do when it has to, when it throws off the restraints of common sense and lets blind instinct take over. I was in so much pain there was no way I could make it down there—but I did. I went over to the side where it wasn’t quite so steep—it wasn’t exactly an easy way down, but it was a damn sight better than the sheer drop Lena and the Bitch had gone over. All the time I was calling out to Lena, hoping for some sign of life, but there was none.
Just over halfway down I came to a point where I had no other choice but to jump. Jesus, I’ll tell ya, I landed on my good leg but you wouldn’t have known it. It gave way beneath me and I collided with the ground, my left knee smashed, my right leg in pulsing agony.
I struggled up and hobbled over to the pair of them, grateful that in the clearing at least there was some light. I went to push aside the heavy bulk of the Bitch, to get those damn prosthetics as far away from Lena as I could, but suddenly it wasn’t her I had to worry about, it was me. One of those huge hands shot out and grabbed me around the neck, pulling me toward her so my face was almost touching hers—gazing into the eyes of the wolf, the grin of the crocodile.
“I said I’d make you pay,” she snarled, “and I will. First the little maid, then you.”
She brought her elbow up and slammed it into my face so hard I thought for a moment I was gonna pass out. I think she was trying to subdue me, to reduce me to a state where I’d offer no resistance and she could do what she’d threatened: kill Lena as brutally as she could, then do something even worse to me.
It went through my head that I might’ve had some slight cause for hope, that after fighting with Lena and taking that fall she might be weakened, but as soon as I started to tussle with her I knew I was wrong. It was like trying to stand up to an avalanche: rocks and boulders pummeling into me, smashing my outer shell, squashing out my innards. I did everything I could to fight back; despite my leg—despite my age—I swear I hit her as hard as I’ve ever hit anyone in my life, but still she kept coming. For sure, since that last time I’d crossed her she’d had further modifications done. There was this sense that she didn’t have any weakness anymore, that the human part of her was almost the equal of the prosthetics.
Just as before, she picked me up, gave a triumphant roar as she lifted me over her head, like she was the Queen of the Jungle, and threw me across the clearing to bounce off the cliff face. Jesus, the last time I weighed myself I was two hundred and twenty-seven pounds, but I felt like a ragdoll being tossed around by a Great Dane. Before I could recover, she was at my side and once again kicking me, grinding her heel deep into my wounded leg, trying to cause as much pain and damage as she possibly could.
I hollered so loud, I damn near frightened myself, but she just ignored me, picking me up and throwing me at the cliff-face again as if trying to stick me to the wall with my own blood.
I tumbled to the hard ground and this time stayed there. The Bitch stomped away into the night, giving me a few moments of precious respite, but within seconds I heard this scuffing noise and turned to see her dragging an unconscious Lena across the ground by her hair.
“I promised you,” she said.
I couldn’t believe it, even of her: she seriously intended to kill Lena right in front of me, to perform some foul atrocity that would be the last thing I witnessed on this Earth before she killed me too.
“Leave her alone!” I cried, my voice bubbling out through a mouthful of blood.
She slapped Lena across the face a couple of times, I guessed ’cuz she reckoned it was gonna be a whole lot more fun if her victim was conscious and screaming. When there was no reaction, she just carried on as if, with what she had in mind, she was pretty confident Lena’d come around soon enough anyway.
She paused, turning to smile at me as if to indicate our moment had finally come, then grabbed Lena’s hand, dug her foot into her armpit, braced herself and started to pull. She really was gonna do what she’d so often threatened: tear Lena apart limb from limb.
Just as she’d hoped, the pain brought Lena around and she gave out with this loud moan as if she’d been yanked back from the torture of another world to the pain of this. I heard her body crack, maybe even her shoulder threatening to dislocate.
But it’s like I said, it’s amazing what you can force your body to do sometimes. I shouldn’t have been able to get up from where I lay, not in the state I was in, but with Lena screaming, I reckon I would’ve attempted to raise myself from the dead. I staggered over, looking for something harder than my fist to hit that monster with. Somehow Lena had managed to wriggle free, kicking Nora Jagger off, scrambling away on her hands and knees, but the Bitch leapt at her, jumping on her back and grabbing her around the neck, getting her in that full nelson she was so fond of, and I knew the time had come.
I spotted a rock, not really big enough for what I needed, but hearing Lena gasping for air, fearing it was all over, I picked it up and smashed it down on the Bitch’s head as hard as I could.
I was right—it wasn’t substantial enough. I’d tried to compensate by hitting her harder, but had ended up not striking her cleanly, and though she slumped over, she was back up almost instantly, those crazy eyes a mushroom cloud of fury as she turned on me, screaming every foul threat she could think of, pounding fists and feet into my battered body before grabbing me, lifting me up over her head once again and throwing me through the air as far as she could.
It was where I landed that finally alerted me to where we were: half-in, half-out, of a pond. We were in the clearing where George had attacked Lena, where all the birds and animals gather to drink, and not that far from the Commune. For a moment I thought about just shouting as loudly as I could, summoning my last bit of breath and strength to try to attract someone, but she already had hold of me again and was about to launch me through the air once more. However, she slipped on the mud at the edge of the pond and suddenly both of us were in the water.
It was deeper than I’d anticipated, maybe four feet or so, and at night, not all that welcoming, but it did kinda even things up a little. She wouldn’t be able to leap around so much, or kick me with those damn legs of hers—in fact, looking at it that way, she’d lost fifty percent of her armory. On the other hand, I wasn’t exactly that light on my feet either, on land or in water. But for whatever reason, it’d become a very different contest, with both of us flailing and missing, losing our balance or slipping on the muddy bottom of the pond, disappearing underwater, bursting back up, launching ourselves at each other over and over again.
I’ll tell ya, I was that exhausted I could barely defend myself, but she wasn’t a lot better. Time and time again she just stood there staring at me, gasping for air, and once more it went through my head what was sustaining all that extra power, that I was up against the engine of Arturo’s prize heart.
It reminded me of that occasion out on the Island when I fought De Grew, the leader of the Wastelords, that sickening moment when I knew I was beaten, not by him, but by Time: that I was just too old for that kinda thing. Though to be honest, even at my peak I doubt I could’ve coped with Nora Jagger. She came at me again and crunched me with a half-open flailed fist to the side of my forehead, blood instantly streaming down my cheek. She was more or less hitting me at will now, trying to bludgeon me to my knees, to drown me, not showboating anymore, no longer intent on giving demonstrations of her superior strength, but so exhausted she just wanted it ov
er.
Again she paused, filling her lungs with as much air as she could, examining me for damage; behind her a little moonlight was reflected on the pond, then she exploded toward me one last time.
It felt so damn brutal, so overwhelming, blow after blow raining down on me, I couldn’t even be sure she was still alone, that some of the Bodyguards hadn’t arrived from somewhere. I could feel my legs beginning to go, that I was on the point of toppling over; I begged myself not to, knowing if I did I was finished, but I didn’t seem able to stop it.
I was underwater before I knew it, the sound of splashing, a distant cursing and a fading consciousness the last things I would know. She had her hands on my shoulders, holding me under, and I simply didn’t have the strength to fight back.
What happened next, I really couldn’t tell ya, only that I felt like a spring that’d been unexpectedly released. I burst through the surface of the water, still alive, still functioning, while Nora Jagger was gaping at me with, I swear, the ugliest expression I’ve ever seen on a human face.
I didn’t get it, not one scrap—what the hell was going on? Why had she let me go? Was this another facet of her torture? Was she playing with me? But that look on her face, that expression—Jeez, whatever it was, she was every bit as shocked as I was.
We stood there staring at each other, her mouth falling ever wider. What the hell was it? Then she looked at her shoulders, first left, then right, and I began to understand.
Even in the dark I could make out some kinda movement around the top of her arms: a squirming where the prosthetics met flesh, and I remembered that time she’d reattached her arm at Infinity, how it’d seemed to wriggle back into place. It was the worms the Doc had told me about—the superworms. For some reason they were relinquishing their hold, rejecting the prosthetics and leaving the host. Any number of these long, thin, slimy white strands were emerging from her sleeves, slithering over the top of her collar and dropping out of her tunic—I’ll tell ya, it was enough to make ya wanna throw up. But I still didn’t get it: Why? What’d happened? And in that moment I suddenly realized I had a familiar taste in my mouth, from when I was underwater, and that it explained everything.
The birds and animals didn’t come to that pond for water—they came for salt! That was what I could taste. It was a salt-water pond that they used to balance their diets—that was what was so special about it. But salt was the one thing the Doc’d told me that superworms couldn’t cope with.
The Bitch felt one of her arms beginning to come out of its socket and made a grab for it with the other, but that dislodged, too—both of them slid down her sleeves and into the water and there was nothing she could do about it. She went to turn, I reckoned to make a run for it, but she was too late; her body just pivoted off her legs and she toppled over into the water; desperately trying to right herself, writhing from side to side, doing all she could to survive, and you know what, I’m not exactly proud of it, but I left her there to drown. Well, not so much “left her there” as remembered about Lena and couldn’t think of anything else. I slipped my way outta that salt pond, glancing back as I reached the bank, seeing that female devil bobbing around face-down. Jeez, rise up, World! Rise up and celebrate! Ding-dong . . . the Bitch is dead!
Lena was in such a state, it made me wanna cry out just to look at her. She could hardly move, was covered in blood, and one eye was so badly swollen you could barely see it.
“Lena! Are you okay?” I asked, though clearly she was anything but.
“I’m fine,” she said bravely.
“She’s dead,” I told her. “It’s all over.”
“Thank God,” she sighed, her mouth for some reason looking slightly askew.
“We’re near the Commune,” I informed her. “The pond, d’you remember? I can carry you back.”
“In the dark? With your leg?” she said.
“We can help each other,” I told her.
For a few moments we didn’t speak, I think allowing ourselves a little time to recover. I gave her the gentlest kiss I could on the forehead.
“Where is she?” Lena asked.
“In the pond,” I told her, glancing over, for a moment puzzled at not being able to make out Nora Jagger in the dark. Then I saw the limbs and torso had blown over to the far side and were bumping up against each other, for all the world like some macabre spare parts sale.
Lena tried to struggle up to see if she could walk, but couldn’t even get upright.
“It’s okay,” I told her. “I’ll bring someone back.”
For a moment I just stood there, not wanting to leave her, not after what had happened, but what choice did I have? “You sure you’re okay?”
“I am now,” she said, squeezing my hand.
I kissed her once more, promised I’d be back as soon as I could, then, after finding myself a branch to use as a walking stick, headed off.
But it wasn’t easy—a long way from it. I had a fair idea where the Commune was, but I’d only been out that way during the day, and there seemed to be a lot more trees at night, more dips and swells in the ground, and every single stride, whether up, down or sideways, was punished by a body already choked with pain. Having said that, the further I went, the less that became the issue—I really hadn’t liked leaving Lena back there. I knew I had no choice, that I had to seek help, and of the two of us I was in better shape, but even though the Bitch was dead, the thought of leaving Lena alone near her body really didn’t sit well.
It was almost beyond belief that after all the people who must’ve wanted to kill Nora Jagger, she’d been brought down by worms—well, not even worms, by a grain or two of salt. They say everyone has a weakness, but who would’ve ever guessed at that one?
I paused for a moment, taking yet another pain break, letting it subside before moving on, but for some reason couldn’t bring myself to continue. This was more than just understandable anxiety, something was nagging at me, telling me to go back.
The thing I didn’t get was that Nora Jagger knew about the risks of salt water—we’d seen it the day she turned back when we were in the river—so why hadn’t she done something about it? Even if it was an insurmountable problem that none of her whiz-kids could solve, you would’ve thought she would’ve insisted on some provision in case she did ever accidentally find herself in salt water.
And the more I thought about that, the more it didn’t make sense, the more I felt this panic starting to build inside me. I told myself not to be so stupid, that bearing in mind what we’d been through, it was no wonder I was still feeling uneasy—everything was fine, it was over, the Bitch was dead—but it was no use. I turned and started to head back, cursing myself for being a fool, but hopping and limping back to the clearing as fast as my bloodied and beaten old body would carry me.
As I approached the pond my first thought was that I fully deserved all the names I’d been calling myself, that I’d really let my imagination give me the run around. I could see the shadowy bulk of the Bitch’s trunk still in the same place, like some dead dog laid out there, her prosthetics all around her . . . What the hell was wrong with me? I was about to limp over to Lena, to explain and apologize if she was awake, or hightail it out of there if she wasn’t—when suddenly I stopped.
Had that body been that far outta the water? I thought the wind had just blown it to the edge . . . I started to make my way around the pond, knowing that I just had to look, I had to confirm she was dead, once and for all. But I hadn’t gone more than half a dozen paces before I saw a movement, as if the corpse was slightly rocking back and forth. At first I thought it was some kinda natural phenomenon, probably the lapping of the water, but as I got closer, I saw something else that really shook me: those worms were starting to mass around her again, like they were being called home, and as I watched they started squirming back into their sockets.
Oh, Jesus, no!
She began to rock more violently, I guessed ’cuz she’d heard me coming and was doing
what she could to get an arm back into place. I started to run toward her, ignoring my pain as I went slithering through the mud, desperate to get to her before she succeeded—but I was too late. She jammed one arm home, leaning on it, squashing it in amongst the worms, and after that it was just a simple matter of inserting the other.
I still thought I might be able to stop her; that if I could reach her before she got those legs on I had every chance—but she had a real shock in store for me. She had these kinda wristbands on her arms, I hadn’t noticed them ’til she began to twist them, dialing them back and forth; I heard them click into place. She then turned toward me, put her hands together and pointed the index fingers in my direction, like she was gonna shoot me or something.
Don’t ask me why, but I knew at once what it was. I also knew that it was all over . . . that the Bitch had won.
I had the briefest of moments when I felt this pain zip through my head, this sense that my brain had been removed or maybe majorly diverted. I knew what it was, but then it was gone, and I knew nothing more.
The Boss was lying beside me, looking up, studying my face intently, and I bowed my head so as not to meet her gaze. She told me to put her legs on, to be careful of the worms, not to harm them, and ’course I did what she asked.
“Come with me,” she said, and led me across the clearing. There was an injured woman lying there who I vaguely recognized—but she seemed to know me really well. Or maybe it was a case of mistaken identity? For sure she knew my name, but she was coming out with all kindsa weird stuff, getting really hysterical. I didn’t understand it at all.
“Clancy, no! No!” she kept crying, and then, oddly, “Clancy, it’s me!”
