Abomination (The Pathfinders Book 1)

by Jane Dougherty

  Jeff was still silent.

  “I suppose you were afraid of hitting poor old Lee. Or maybe you didn’t want to waste your ammo.”

  Jeff chewed his lip and his eyes flicked away as the old fear returned. “You shut it now,” his voice dropped to a hoarse whisper. “Ace is in there with Joe, the twins and the Holy Man. If they hear us talking—”

  Jeff threw open the door and nudged Tully inside. Tully refrained from making a wisecrack and put on a worried expression, which, in the circumstances, was not difficult. Ace was sitting with his boots on the desk, a riding crop he obviously intended for a swagger stick resting on his knees. Joe, a red-faced brute with big square hands and small, deep-set eyes stood behind him, next to a couple of thin-faced individuals who could have been brothers.

  The character with the dog-skin cape, who Tully took to be the Holy Man, stood before the desk, an impressive assortment of key rings, bottle tops and dog teeth strung around his neck. Ace said nothing but stared at Tully, a mocking smile twisting his pinched features.

  Dog Skin spoke first in his flat, expressionless drawl, “Initiation into the tribe as a warrior will take place today before the assembled brothers. You will fight a proven warrior. If you are worthy, the gods will give you victory. Take the amulet.” Dog Skin held up a yellow fang threaded on a dirty piece of string.

  Tully eyed it skeptically. “Don’t I get anything a bit more useful,” he asked, “like a Kalashnikov?” Dog Skin’s blank expression didn’t change. Tully’s question was obviously not in the script. “Not even a penknife?”

  Ace fingered the various blades dangling from his belt. A half smile flickered around his lips. “Maybe. Now put on the pretty necklace and get out.”

  Tully glared at Ace. His jaw worked as he clenched his teeth in anger, biting back the acid reply, keeping his fists under control. Ace returned a sardonic little smile and his eyes glittered with a malevolent intelligence, unlike the brutish lethargy of his guards. The violence stimulated something buried deep in Ace’s character, something that kept his sickly, fragile-looking body burning with a feverish intensity. Ace was insane.

  Tully’s rising anger clenched the muscles in his arms and hands. Jeff gave the back of his jacket a warning tug.

  “Take him to the mess and get him something to eat,” Ace added as an afterthought. “He’ll need something in his belly before he meets Tab.”

  Joe grinned broadly, revealing yellow teeth and shrunken gums. Tully was glad to be out of range of his breath.

  Chapter Ten

  The evening meal was as bad as Carla had expected it would be. The few beans that were left, the girls ate in silence, chewing slowly to make them last. They cleared up slowly too, speaking only rarely, to save their energy. When they had finished, the redhead supervisor—slave driver, Madam, or whatever—picked out a handful of girls who were escorted to the men’s quarters by two guards. Carla had seen the red-haired woman’s eyes linger on her before they passed to the next girl, and she held her breath, as if not breathing would make her invisible. Later, the girls found her a pile of dirty blankets to sleep beneath and she curled up around her nausea for the darkest hours of the night.

  She was mortally weary, but sleep was a long time coming. In spite of the awfulness of her situation, the squalor and hunger and the fear she felt all around her, Carla could only think about Tully. She saw his face, his beautiful blue eyes, and how they hadn’t looked into hers when she’d needed him. In her mind, she reached out to hold his hands that were stuffed into his pockets as he struck a brash, confident pose. She had cringed in pain and humiliation while he’d swaggered and faced up to Ace. He had even offered to shake his hand, the hand that had slapped her, as if he couldn’t see the evil the oozed out of him! Tully was a joker, could be a bit of a smart alec, but he was kind and tender and…thoughtful. Or he had been, in the world they’d left behind.

  When she finally fell asleep, it was with the feeling that her world had shrunk to what went on inside her head. Even her body, she feared, would soon be taken away from her.

  * * * *

  Carla was the first to wake. The rank smell of two-dozen unwashed bodies in a confined space filtered into her consciousness, dragging her out of an agitated sleep and into a reality filled with dread. The wake-up call was a sharp slap from the red-haired woman for the sleeping shapes around her. The stirring and yelping rippled across the room, waking the girls out of her immediate reach.

  Carla shrugged off the dirty blankets with a shiver. The air was glacial. She had had the good sense to sleep fully dressed. Consequently, she still possessed her sheepskin jacket. The other girls wore a dismal assortment of clothing, most of which came from the supermarket stock. Five years had passed since the Abomination, as they called the disaster, maybe more. In the unchanging cold and twilight, who could be sure how much time had gone by? Five years wear and tear on supermarket clothes, five years accumulated dirt and sweat… It wasn’t surprising they all looked so ragged.

  Kat had looked enviously at Carla’s clothes—clean, expensive and warm. She explained how the mall had been ransacked after the Abomination, leaving them with just the rubbish. Bit by bit, piecing together the information gleaned from Kat’s disjointed sentences, and deducing more from what she didn’t say, Carla was building up an idea of what the Abomination meant. Most of the men had left, following some sinister-sounding leader, to join a more powerful tribe, leaving Ace and a few misfits with their women in the abandoned wreck of the supermarket. A few tribeless men had joined them, a few more fell out of the several wormholes in Ace’s territory, but gradually they were dwindling, weakening. Soon they would all die.

  “Where are the children?” Carla had asked. “Most of you are young, the boys treat you like…like sex slaves. In five years I can’t believe there haven’t been a few babies born. Where do you keep them?”

  Kat looked away and the habitual glazed look came into her eyes. “There are no children. The ones who survived the Abomination…died in the early days. There have been no more. Maybe there’s something poisonous in the air, maybe something nature’s using to wipe us out.” She turned weary eyes to Carla. “Isn’t it just as well?”

  Chapter Eleven

  Something to eat turned out to be cold beans.

  “We get this slime for breakfast too? Isn’t the condemned man supposed to go to his death on a big juicy steak with all the trimmings?” Tully complained as he pushed the beans about on his plate. “Like bloody slugs,” he muttered.

  Jeff reached into a pocket of his tatty jacket. “Here,” he said shyly, holding out a stump of frankfurter. “I couldn’t finish it last night. Have it. I’m sick of the sight of the things.”

  Tully grinned and took the rather fluffy sausage. “Thanks, Jeff. You’re a real mate.” He stuffed the frank into his mouth before he changed his mind and chewed, trying hard not to let the taste linger on his tongue. He swallowed with an audible gulp to get rid of it. “Ah! That’s better. I feel like I could take on King Kong now, with one arm tied behind my back.”

  Jeff laughed, a quick, sharp little laugh more like a fox’s bark, but Tully could tell he was loosening up, losing some of his anxiety.

  “Well then, now we’ve got that over with, I suppose it’s off to the Coliseum.”

  “The wha’?”

  “Where I get to beat Tab to a pulp, before he sinks his poisoned fangs into my gullet.”

  Jeff frowned. “Tab’s not really human anymore, you know. The Holy Man says the drac stole his soul when it bit him. He says you can do whatever you like to Tab and it won’t matter because he’s no better than a drac now.”

  “Explain something to me.” Tully was curious. “Where does this Holy Man of yours get his information from? I mean, I’ve met a few drax and I’d say they’re as likely to have souls as Ace is. Who writes the rules for the Church of the Holy Slagheap, then, The Green Goblin or Venom? No, don’t tell me—he hears voices.”

  Jeff gave hi
m a curious look. “How did you know?”

  “Inspired guess. Seriously, though, when the world’s just a pile of cold rubble, there’s no sunsets, no birds singing, nothing to get spiritual about, what do you want a Holy Man for?”

  “All the tribes have a Holy Man. All different. All…creepy.” For an instant, Jeff’s face took on a haunted look before brightening again. “Ours isn’t a bad ’un. He says he sees visions. Fiery angels speak to him and tell him what we should do.”

  “Like thumping little kids and arranging combats to the death? Like locking up women as if they were dangerous sub-humans?”

  “Ace says we’re to do as the Holy Man says.”

  “And the Holy Man very conveniently has visions that suit Ace, I suppose?”

  Jeff gave one of his fleeting smiles. “I remember when the Holy Man arrived. He was just a skinny runt and his glasses had got broke. Ace was going to chuck him outside and watch the drax chase him, you know, just for a bit of a laugh. And the new one—I forget his name—throws hisself on the ground and starts threshing about and shouting out stuff about angels and deep pits. When he’s finished, he tells Ace he’s been visited by four fiery angels, and they’ve given him a vision.

  “If you’d seen Ace’s face when he said the bit about the fiery angels! Anyway, Ace told him to shut up. Then he said he could stay. The little prick’s been arsing around in a drac skin ever since. He didn’t even kill it. It was Dan killed it, and he was bit in the shoulder and it got infected and he died. The Holy Man couldn’t even see a drac straight, never mind kill one.”

  “Well, all I can say is, I hope your religion’s going to be a comfort to you in your last moments,” Tully said facetiously. “Because the last moments for all of you are approaching pretty fast.”

  Jeff looked pensive. “We’re going to die, aren’t we? Tully, listen. I’ve heard them talking about what will happen when the food runs out. I’m scared.”

  “Personally, Jeff, I’m not going to hang around here to find out. I’m going to get Carla and we’re going. If you’ve any sense, you’ll come too.”

  Jeff looked down mournfully at his feet. “Join one of the big tribes? They wouldn’t let me in.”

  Tully snorted. “I mean going, leaving, getting out of this place altogether. It’s rotten and brutish and it’s dying. We’ll go south, somewhere warmer.”

  “But—”

  “Anywhere’s got to be better than this, Jeff. Anywhere.”

  * * * *

  “They want us to watch too.”

  “Why?”

  “Why anything? They just do.”

  Carla was getting sick of the lethargy around her. Of course she could understand it. What did the women have to fight for? A day off duty to go play with the drax around the razor wire traps? Treasure hunting in the rubble hills? Volcanic ash snorting? But Carla had always imagined that a desperate situation pushed people to desperate actions. If they were all doomed to die anyway, why did they allow the end to be so degrading?

  Kat was looking at her with an unusual interest, staring unashamedly as she sized her up. “You’re pretty, you know, and young. Not tired-looking and worn out like the rest of us. Flo will be sending you to the men soon, I shouldn’t wonder.”

  Carla blushed to the roots of her hair. “Flo can go and get herself buggered!”

  “You can’t stop her,” Kat said quietly, apologetically. “The guards will just come and get you.”

  Carla leaped to her feet. “If you all just said no, what could they do?”

  “They have guns. They’re stronger than us.”

  “They only send two guards. If we rushed them, we could get their guns. That would even things up a bit.”

  Kat reflected. “What if they shoot?”

  “Frankly, I’d rather be dead than live like you do. They couldn’t shoot us all anyway, not if we took them by surprise.”

  “You’d have to shoot Flo.”

  “Just watch me!” Carla was getting angry. She shouldn’t be doing this, trying to lead a revolution of reluctant sex slaves. Why couldn’t they do it themselves? Why hadn’t they already done it?

  Kat leaned closer to Carla and spoke slowly, detaching each word as if she was explaining something to a particularly obtuse child.

  “When we get our two guns, we kill the two guards, then we kill Flo. There are another twenty armed men in Ace’s Tribe. Suppose we kill them too. Outside there are drax and rats and other tribes, stronger than Flay. Outside it’s cold. Look at our clothes, our shoes. We have no food. Nobody has any food. So, we knock on the Stranglers’ door, or the Kushas’. Maybe they haven’t already started eating their women. Maybe. Maybe they’ll let us sleep with them until their food runs out too. Is that what you want? What’s the difference, Carla? Why fight to end the same way?”

  * * * *

  The underground car park was lit by the harsh light of big projectors that ran off the store generator some practically minded warrior had had the decency to get working before he’d upped and left years previously. Tully looked at the faces around the barricaded circle where the combat would take place. Most were young or youngish. Certainly there were no grandfathers and no babes in arms. All were white and male, and all were armed—they weren’t taking any chances with Tab. The women would be herded in to watch the men disport themselves just before the bell sounded.

  For the occasion, Ace had allowed a couple of cases of beer to be distributed and the alcohol fumes were already rising to heads unused to it, provoking the kind of mindless shouting and roaring that Tully associated with notorious football fixtures. Everybody wanted to see the fight, many would have to be held down to stop them joining in.

  Two sentries had been posted outside, black boys with woolly hats and dreadlocks. They wouldn’t be best pleased, Tully thought, missing the fun. Then it occurred to him that those were the only black faces he’d seen, which, given what he knew of the suburban neighborhoods before the Abomination, was strange. An uncomfortable thought struck him, that maybe those two always got the bum jobs. Maybe that was the only reason they were in the tribe at all.

  The faces were getting red and congested, and the air was thick with condensed breath when the women crept in. They tried their best to slip in unnoticed, to take up position in the shadows behind the projectors, but they were unable to avoid the obscene comments and gestures that greeted their appearance. A couple of the men rose unsteadily and lunged in their direction, but a sharp word from Ace sent them slouching back to their places.

  When they settled down, Ace rose to his feet, his cheeks flushed an unhealthy pink, his pale eyes feverish with excitement. “Today,” he shouted in a voice made strident by the alcohol, “is a great day for the Flay tribe. After the unfortunate accident that befell the one we knew as Tab, the gap in our ranks is about to be filled.” He grinned. “Or not. Depending…” There was a burst of raucous laughter from the men. “Whatever the outcome, though, the rest of us are in for a good time.” Ace raised a beer can to his lips and drank noisily, his Adam’s apple yo-yoing while beer dribbled down his chin.

  As he sat back down, Dog Skin jerked to his feet in his usual zomboid state and clapped his hands. “Bring in the candidate for initiation. Joe, Matt, bring in the beast.”

  A couple of tribesmen pulled back one of the barriers and Jeff, his face white as a sheet, nodded at Tully and nudged him into the arena.

  “What about that Kalashnikov then?” Tully called to nobody in particular. Ace just sneered. Dog Skin didn’t even hear, and Jeff held out empty hands in an apologetic gesture. Tully peered through the shadows until he caught sight of Carla. He waved and shouted through cupped hands, “See you after the show!” He couldn’t tell if Carla smiled. He didn’t have time to wonder, because Joe and Matt were back, and what they had with them turned Tully’s bowels to water.

  The thing that had been Tab, a heavy-set man of twenty-five or so, was straining at his bonds. They had strapped a chain strangle collar a
round his neck and fitted a basket muzzle around his face. His hands were tied behind his back and his legs were hobbled. As Tab shuffled into the light of the projectors, the small crowd fell silent, cringing back from the bloodshot gaze and the snarling and snapping from the region of the muzzle.

  “Hey,” Tully yelled. “You’re not expecting me to fight that unarmed, are you?”

  No reply from Ace.

  “Don’t you want a new recruit?”

  Still no reply.

  “Ah, shit! Give us a break, will you?”

  Matt and Joe moved away from Tab. Light reflected on knife blades as they cut the ropes tying the creature’s hands and legs together before leaping out of the arena. Matt hesitated then slithered his knife across the concrete floor to Tully. Ace opened his mouth to bawl him out but instead just shrugged. It might make the fight more interesting.

  Tully moved cautiously toward the blade as the Tab thing ripped away the muzzle and threw it to one side. Hair sprouted in patches across his face, deep-set eyes shone feverishly beneath a heavy, bristling brow, and Tully couldn’t help but stare at the fingers and the nails that had grown curved and sharp as scimitars. He thought of the door to his prison scored right through and tried not to panic.

  A final lunge and Matt’s knife was in his grasp, though it gave him no reassurance. Nothing short of a bazooka was going to do that now, and Tully’s heart continued to sink into his bowels, along with the contents of his stomach. The ex-Tab was bigger and heavier than Tully. He had the strength of a madman, and what was more, he was mad—mad dog mad.

  Tab did not pounce, as Tully had expected, with wild, uncoordinated movements. He stood, shifting his weight from foot to foot, holding his head slightly on one side, like some great, demented bird. His eyes followed Tully’s movements, full of animal cunning.