The Darkening Days of John Mann

by Charles Barrow

  Mann didn't watch the beating Gunnar received from two of the brothers. He feared he might betray concern. Chenko didn't watch either, though Mann suspected he was enjoying the sound of fists on flesh, his one good eye never left Mann. It appraised him for minutes perhaps trying to marry the tales he'd heard of a chaos bringer to the dishevelled and defeated figure before him. Mann held the stare and returned it, making his own study.

  Chenko was clearly dangerous, everything Mann knew about him and had witnessed in this room spoke to that. Back in Brighton his reign was ruthless, and Mann had been warned not to underestimate him. Gunnar was clearly in fear of him, as were the butcher and the townsfolk here. Mann could see the cruelty in Chenko's face and in his thin lips drawn tightly over small teeth.

  'Contend, O Lord, with those who contend with me; fight against those who fight against me.'

  The brothers laid off their assault on Gunnar, they themselves were breathing hard from their labours while Gunnar lay groaning on the floor still. They had relieved him of the blade he had held plus the two at his belt before the assault had begun but Mann knew well they had not left Gunnar defenceless in their hurry to visit injury on him.

  Chenko drew in a deep breath as if he may speak but no words spilled out. Something about this small moment, Chenko's brief indecision, sparked a thought in Mann's mind that he couldn't quite catch hold of. He looked about him again, all the brothers were some distance from him. They feared him, kept their distance and remained wary. Even here in this room when he was trussed and his threat contained the Russians were uncertain of him. It was an ace in his hand, another was that nobody ever wanted him dead. He was no use to anyone dead.

  'Those who would seek my life set their traps, talk of my ruin, all day long they plot.'

  Chenko finally ended his silence with words directed at Gunnar, 'How does it work?' Gunnar remained silent on the floor, nursing his hurt, perhaps unaware that Chenko was even speaking to him. Uri aimed a vicious kick at Gunnar's thigh. Gunnar yelped and groaned. 'Don't keep me waiting again.' Chenko said quietly and deliberately.

  'He carries the choke,' Gunnar said through gritted teeth, 'he has it in him.'

  'And can pass it on?'

  Gunnar nodded. Mann watched Chenko's reaction, a slow dawning awareness. The elusive thought that Mann had had earlier began to take solid form. The brothers acted as a pack with Chenko at their head, that much was plain. A wolf pack? No, he saw no wolf cunning here. Sure, the Russian was blunted by wine and weed at the moment but Mann could see no quick wit in his face at all. He'd seen the lack in his hesitation earlier. If a problem couldn't be solved by a burst of violence then he stuttered because there was no guile or finesse in him. He held sway by fear and threat and savagery alone. Or perhaps by agreement, Mann reasoned. An attack dog on a very long leash. But then wouldn't Gunnar have known this? Not if he'd been too blinded by the red mist of revenge to see it, thought Mann.

  Chenko finally turned his good eye on Gunnar, 'I need proof he is the Cobra.' He said.

  A thrill of fear and fascination passed through the room at Chenko's request. All the brothers were suddenly impatient for a spectacle now and even the women seemed curious until the youngest brother suggested one of them could serve as the sacrifice. 'The blonde one smells like an old sow, let it be her.' He goaded.

  'One of the children.' Suggested the pock-scarred brother, who then laughed at his own suggestion.

  'Those goods are already paid for.' Said Chenko,

  Mann stiffened at the mention of the children. Did Chenko act as broker alone for their fate, had David been sold onwards too?

  Chenko turned to scrutinise the women for a long moment. They whimpered and jostled with each other to be the one best hidden at the very back of their huddle, pushing forward, as they did so, their choice of offering. Mann saw the terror in the eyes of the girl they'd betrayed, the one he'd first seen on Chenko's lap. She gibbered with fright and Chenko stared at her, his face blank. He beckoned to her and for a moment she looked as if she might disobey him, her head twitched as if she might shake it in refusal. Chenko's arms fell slowly to his sides and he stood very still, unblinking, unmoving. Mann felt the wave of anger that pulsed out from the Russian towards the girl who had been about to refuse his wish. She took a half step backwards as if the force of this anger had unbalanced her and then a narrow smile slowly curved her lips. She must have a fierce will to survive, Mann thought, to push down all her fear and revulsion and dredge up this one offering that might save her. A once hard learned lesson forced her forward on uncertain legs across the room to stand before Chenko, holding her smile that, Mann guessed, held an unspoken promise. Chenko lifted his hand and slowly brushed away a hank of her hair that had fallen across half of her face. 'Lou', he cooed. In any other place, from any other lips, this whisper, this gesture would have held tenderness. In this room Chenko imbued it with a sinister promise of his own, a promise that she would rue her hesitation of moments ago. He continued to stare at her for a moment and then he nodded his head curtly, indicating she should rejoin the rest of the women. Perhaps they had been clever after all these women, with their choice of victim. Chenko clearly favoured Lou and still had unfinished business with his butter fat farm girl. He turned to the brother who had still yet to speak and spoke himself, one word, 'Sam.' The mute brother, Pyotr, nodded and took a wide berth around Mann to leave the room.

  In the hush that followed, Gunnar pulled himself to his feet, using a table for support. He nodded at Mann, 'He will need to be riled.' he said.

  Ah, now we come to it, thought Mann. Gunnar would not have failed to notice, as he had, that when the mute brother left the room a gun went with him.

  Gunnar came to a stoop beside Mann where he had crashed down onto the low table after taking the left uppercut to his jaw. He pushed his face into Mann's and Mann could see writ all over it the beating that Gunnar himself had taken. A deep cut had opened above one of his eyes, and the cheek below it was slick with blood. There was a tremble in his hands as he grabbed Mann by the collar and hauled him upright, 'On your feet freak.' Gunnar hissed through split and swollen lips, and as soon as Mann was standing, unsteadily, Gunnar slipped behind him and hooked an arm around his throat, applying pressure enough that Mann felt his airway narrow and his vision blur.

  He had not been so entirely under another's control since his days in the tank. When first Penn and then Russell had decided how his days spooled out. John had at least been safe around Penn, and he'd always had the measure of Russell. She stood in opposition to everything that he had wanted for himself. But here, now, in this room, under his companion's control, Gunnar was an unknown. Keen had cautioned that no one knew where he stood, but he had stood four-square with John until this point and he had to believe they still sought the same goal. But what if Gunnar had been playing a different game all along, leading him here for a final hoodwink?

  The pressure at his throat eased slightly, almost imperceptibly but enough that he could draw in a full breath. His blood ceased to pound in his skull and his vision cleared and as it did the room swam back into focus. Chenko and his two remaining brothers were wrapt in fascination, unable quite to fathom how this show before them would play out. 'I can feel the heat off him now,' Gunnar crowed, 'Where is your brother with Sam?' His question broke the trance that held the Russians and they turned to each other in query. Gunnar took advantage of their distraction and Mann felt Gunnar's free hand at the knots binding his wrists. The rope loosened by some small degree.

  'Sorry for the beating.' Gunnar hissed into Mann's ear and the rest of his words were lost in the booming echo of gunshots from the street below.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Russell had directed Vincent to park the car behind the laboratory building, it was always the least busy part of the Facility and so it proved tonight. Apart from the guards who had waved Vincent through the front gates of the compound, they had seen no one else even as they’d led the stiff limb
ed Keen through the dark corridors of the lab block and locked her into the tank.

  Russell now sat in her dimly lit office, looking at the ruination of all her files on the desk in front of her. Someone had ransacked the place in her absence, looking for something specific, destroying everything they considered irrelevant. She wondered if Smith had ordered the search once her absence had been noticed. The Colonel didn't cleave to the idea that the search for a vaccine was viable but she bet a dime to a dollar that her research data about John was the target here. What no one knew was that most of it had been destroyed in the arson attack years before nor that she still held most of it seared safe in her memory. She wondered why Vincent had not returned with word from Smith. She hadn’t expected a tickertape parade but she had hoped that the news of her return with John's pregnant woman, news she had radioed ahead from Keen’s own home, would at least have prompted some response from him. She might need his support for her continuing work if someone like Secretary Hunt came sniffing around. Thoughts of Hunt reminded her of something she had intended to retrieve. She crossed the room to a small cabinet on the wall, the door stood open, its contents had been checked and rejected in the search of her office because it seemed only to contain soap and wash cloths. Russell reached behind a stack of soaps and retrieved the hand phone she had hidden there days before, after she had taken a call from Hunt and he had offered her an ultimatum. She buried the phone in the pocket of her coat. Perhaps it would help to solve one of the mysteries floating about her. The other mystery that still weighed on her was Keen.

  ‘John Mann’s pregnant woman.’ She said it aloud, and shook her head in amazement. Could John impregnate a woman? She surely hadn't been tupped by a monk. But if John had even attempted such a thing she would die in minutes wouldn't she? Years before Russell had run a battery of tests, some that had shamed the teenage John but which had been vital to her research. Based on that evidence this scenario wasn’t possible, but as she herself had reasoned recently, a decade had passed since she’d performed those tests and it was possible in theory that John's biology could have changed in the intervening years. She was a scientist and she knew that absolutes didn’t exist, after all John Mann should never have survived exposure to the virus in the first place.

  She thought of the pregnant Keen and touched the tender bruise on her own cheek that the younger woman had left there only minutes before. Even with guns trained upon her she had flown like a hellcat at Russell when Vincent had forced her at gunpoint into the glass tank. A blow to Keen’s head had quieted the tramp and Russell hoped she now nursed her own aching bruise.

  ‘You would lock me in here of all places?’ Keen had said.

  ‘A return to the scene of your crime.’ Russell had replied.

  ‘It's your filthy work stains these walls.’

  ‘I kept John safe in this tank, I protected him as he grew to manhood, John Mann as you know him was born in this room, thanks to me.’

  ‘You are deluded, now as then.’

  ‘I bore him no ill will.’

  ‘You were the Mother of his suffering is all.'

  Russell had to admit a sneaking regard for the younger woman’s courage. Once Keen had realized she was a trophy of worth she had immediately tested her own value against a bullet from Russell’s gun and had launched her attack. Well, she'd found her answer, Russell wanted her alive for now, both as bait for John and to undergo tests herself.

  The sound of raised voices in the corridor outside caught Russell's attention and she wondered again where Vincent was.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  'They who seek my life will be destroyed. They will be given over to the sword and become food for the jackals.'

  It was the gunfire that made the difference in the end. Mann and Gunnar had a fixed purpose, and were set to act, the Russians were hobbled by over confidence and thrown into confusion at the sudden sound of the guns.

  Gunnar responded first, he pushed hard at Mann's back, propelling him forward. Mann, for his part, lowered his head for the charge as he felt the binding at his wrists fall away.

  Mann barrelled head first into Feo, who managed to fire off a wild shot into the ceiling before Mann fell on top of him. Mann snatched a dart from beneath his lapel and slapped it into the Russian's neck as he bucked beneath him and before Feo could roll free and scramble for his fallen gun.

  Pain exploded in Mann's jaw and a bright green flash of light stole his sight for a moment as Uri's boot stamped down upon his head. His skull rang from the blow, muffling, distorting the screams and shouts in the room.

  He ripped the black tape from his mouth and gulped down a lungful of precious air before shielding his head with both arms from another vicious kick aimed at him. The dart tagged Feo was on his feet, visibly shaking and fumbling with the gun, Mann saw him wipe at tears blurring his vision. Mann swung a kick into the side of the Russian's knee, saw his mouth open wide in a cry of pain and watched him topple back to the carpet, his gun skittering under a table, both of his hands now fluttering at his constricting throat.

  Mann scrambled to his feet and shot a glance at Gunnar tussling with Chenko. They were locked in a macabre embrace with a blade flashing above their heads, held in their joint, desperate clutch.

  Mann swung around to face Uri who had seized up a poker to use as a club. The Russian circled away and he followed, moving always forward, pressing an attack. A muffled burst of gunfire sounded from somewhere in the house below distracting Mann alone for a crucial moment. He was grabbed suddenly from behind. An arm snaked around his neck, choking off his breath, a hand pulled at a large clump of his hair, tearing it at the roots. One of the women was on his back. He'd been naive to assume the women had all been there against their will and this one, at least, was willing to join the fight in defence of the handsome young brother. Mann span around trying to dislodge her but she held fast and now Uri was moving in towards him, poker held high in readiness to deliver a crippling blow.

  This has to end now, Mann thought, if another of the women joins the fray I'll sink under the weight of numbers. Mann spun again, putting his back to Uri, putting the woman between himself and the Russian. The poker's vicious swing hit her a glancing blow and she screamed, full bloodied, and her arm loosened about his neck. He tried now to twist out of her grip but she held fast despite her agony, held fast to the collar of his great coat. Uri swung the poker again and it caught Mann full on the forearm, he felt a bone give in his wrist and a sickening pain swamped him, almost robbing him of awareness. Heat flared in his chest like a petrol fed flame, clearing his head in an instant. He shucked himself free of his coat, and the woman with it and ducked another whistling swing of the poker. Drawing himself back up, his broken arm hanging limp and useless at his side, he saw Uri and the woman circling around him, looking for an opening. She held his own coat wide open like a net to wrap about him, Uri made stabbing feints with the poker to drive him towards her.

  'Their swords will pierce their own hearts, and their bows will be broken.'

  The woman hissed and leapt at him, hoping to swamp him in the coat. Mann met her charge face on, bringing his head down in a fierce butt to the bridge of her nose. He heard her bones fragment under the force of the blow and she dropped to the floor, insensible. He turned immediately to meet Uri's assault. The poker was raised high again to bring a crushing blow down on Mann's head. He grabbed at Uri's arm and held fast, slowing the speed of the poker's descent as the young Russian seized Mann's shirtfront and pulled him close. Face to face now, Uri roared in rage and frustration and John Mann hawked a gob of spit into the Russian's mouth, which snapped shut, in reflex, too late.

  'And my enemies will lick the dust.'

  Stunned by what Mann had done, Uri paused and blinked in bewilderment before a look of horror washed across his face and he spat fiercely onto the floor, gagging as he did so. He let go his grip on Mann's shirt and Mann eased himself around and behind the youngster, to hold him tightly about the
neck with his good arm. The Russian kicked and tried to pull away in panic but Mann held him fast until he felt a spasm pass through the youngster, and then another, and then heard him choke once. Mann pushed Uri aside, he stumbled for a moment and fell to his knees, fighting for a breath he'd never swallow.

  John Mann stood, swaying slightly, amid the wreckage of the room, his chest heaving with his ragged breathing. His head swam from the ringing blows he'd taken and the throbbing agony in his arm. He looked about him, casting a quick glance at the few women left hiding in the shadows at the windows; he looked for threat and saw none. Then he looked at Gunnar on the floor, slumped against the wall, his face stone grey and still, his chest slick with blood. Mann blinked rapidly to clear the darkness massing at the edge of his vision.

  Chenko lay sprawled on a nearby day bed, a bloodied knife still in his grasp, another blade buried to the hilt in his neck, just beneath his ear. His eyes fluttered and his breath came in rasps. For a moment his rapid gasps were the only sound in the room. Then Lou broke from the whimpering huddle of women and came forward unsteadily to where Chenko lay and reached out trembling fingers towards the handle of the knife.

  'Wait.' Mann's voice was a ragged whisper, and Lou stayed her hand for a moment. 'Ask him where the boy David is.' Before Mann could continue Lou took a hold of the knife buried in the Russian's neck and twisted it sharply. It was as if she had flicked a switch. Chenko stopped breathing and his eyes closed shut in the same moment. She withdrew the knife slowly and held it up before her eyes, watching blood drip from the length of the blade, as if she needed to see this proof that the Russian was dead.