A Shrouded World (Book 7): Hvergelmir

by Tufo, Mark

  Churchill’s meaty paw smacked into my stomach; I couldn’t believe this was when he wanted to continue our Hatfield-McCoyish feud. I was working on catching my breath, his hand down low, near mine. It was open, he wanted the box and the stapler. I was hesitant because this was the first weapon I’d had in my hands in weeks, and, well, I was handing it off to an unproven ally.

  “Are you sure?” I asked him as much as I asked myself. We were running out of time; they would be upon us soon. I handed them over. He lifted a large slab of skin, more like a scale, now that I’m thinking upon it, and placed the objects there. If the dismay on his face was any indication, it wasn’t a comfortable experience, but there was no bulge; looked to me completely undetectable. Maybe if the world returned to normal, I could employ his services as a drug smuggler. What poor import officer was going to have the courage to check him out anyway?

  Instead of their anger petering out, the whistlers appeared to be working themselves into a frenzy. Swaths of workers were going down in heaps, screams of pain and cries for help rang out. I’d take fake falling down and writhing in agony, but if they started to deliver punches and kicks to the detriment of myself, I wasn’t going to lie there and let it happen. I’d suffered enough indignities at their hands; payback, however brief, would be forthcoming. I saw Churchill’s expression change, and I followed suit. Bob was already sloughing over. I stayed as quiet as I could, pseudo-suffering in silence. It seemed that the louder something cried out, the more the whistlers gravitated toward that being and delivered more injustice. Almost like a dog with a squeaky toy—they loved the noise because something primal within told them this was their prey that they’d caught; it appeared to have the same effect on the whistlers.

  There was something off to our right, looked like a huge, fat, white centipede. It was on its back, its legs flailing about, a loud buzzing sound coming from its legs as they scraped together, like a cicada during the heat of a summer night. The whistlers kicked and stomped it until a brackish fluid leaked out from a multitude of spots on its body. They came through four more times that day, but none quite as close as the first. Twenty-four aliens had paid the ultimate price for my actions. I felt a modicum of guilt, but was unsure as to what I could have done differently. If not for the caps they adorned, perhaps we could have risen as one and rebelled. I had to appease my consciousness with the thought that those poor souls had not died in vain, as I would find a way to take down this entire operation. It was the sacrifice of the few for the multitudes that had gone on before them and were still to come. It sounds good in theory: in practice, it still smarts plenty. I had to figure that the others here felt the same way, as none had given me up. That night, Churchill stayed close. When we were done for the evening, he, without hesitation, relinquished my prizes.

  “Bob, can you get rid of his cap?”

  His eyes stayed on mine for many long seconds; a lot of discussion was passing between us without a word being spoken. I got the feeling he didn’t agree entirely. Who could blame him? Churchill had tried to kill me a few times now, and to un-slave him…who could know the consequences? But he’d also saved me. If I’d been caught with the whistler equipment, they would have killed me, plain and simple, there would not have been a trial to prove my guilt. Then he’d given those weapons back, and it’s for sure he didn’t have to; I could never have taken them from him. I knew it was asking a lot of Bob, the process seemed to take an enormous amount of energy to perform, and, for whatever reason, my “friend” wanted to do whatever we were going to do tonight. Much like everything else going on in this fuck-tastic place, I didn’t know why, just that it was necessary.

  “Milk.”

  “I know, Bob, but I think we can trust him, and I don’t know what you have planned, but I would think we’d be better off with more help than less.”

  He sighed, or I guess it was a sigh, sounded like a broken kazoo with petroleum jelly slathered on the opening, giving it more of a wet squelching sound, something like someone who had eaten a bad street taco made with mystery meat might give off twenty-minutes after consuming. The kind that made you doubt whether or not your underwear was still free from shitty debris.

  Now the other side of the equation. “Church? Bob here can get your cap off.”

  “Kill cap?”

  Compared to Bob and Churchill, I had the vocabulary of an English poet. My guess was it was due to the limited translation abilities of the devices worn. I wanted to rip the thing out of my throat as it was irritating as hell, but then we would not be able to communicate, and that would be much worse than Bob’s one-word answer to everything and Churchie’s desire to kill everything.

  “Yes, kill cap. It hurts.”

  “Kills?”

  This could be a problem if I couldn’t get him to distinguish between the two words. I figured a visual representation might be better. With a modicum of effort, I unseated the front of the cap, to show my shaved scalp underneath. Which, by now, sported a stubby, wiry inch of itchy hair. I can’t say he looked incredulous, I mean how could I tell? What sort of facial expressions does a Komodo dragon have?

  “Kill cap.” He thumped his enthusiastically.

  “You heard the…whatever he is,” I told Bob.

  Bob sluiced toward Church, who, despite looking like he wanted to make a run for it, stood his ground. I don’t know why Bob was so feared or revered; the way the others had initially responded to his presence led me to believe his reputation proceeded him. Church looked to be in immense pain as Bob worked his deconstructive magic. I felt more than a little ill when Church was completely disintegrated, not because he was going so much, but because that, at one time, that had been me. To know I’d been wholly dissolved was terrifying. How could I be entirely sure he’d put everything back together the right way? Who knows what could be screwed up internally. Was I, even now, leaking blood out my improperly attached left ventricle?

  The process took longer than I’d thought. I watched the slow-motion train crash unfold for a couple of hours, then I went on a perimeter check before finally succumbing to exhaustion. Not entirely sure how much time had passed when Bob shook me awake. Churchill was standing, but he appeared to be in a great deal of pain, and Bob, if he had legs, would have been wobbling.

  “Milk.”

  “Seriously? It’s time to go? Wouldn’t it be better if we waited until tomorrow? You look exhausted, buddy.”

  He didn’t respond verbally, instead moving his eyes quickly back and forth, his way of a head shake.

  “You good to go, Church?”

  “Kill—” he hesitated. “Kill them.”

  I knew who them were, and I was all onboard.

  “Let’s get this show on the road.”

  Bob led the way, which was a good thing. In my time in the mines I had not strayed far from my initial insertion point. First was because when one has a Bob to watch one’s back, it’s wise to stay close. Second was a worry of running into whistlers, and third was the flat-out exhaustion. Even if I was doing the bare minimum of work with the equipment issued, the lack of oxygen made it difficult to feel a hundred percent, and that was one more reason to keep the apparatus on. Instead of going the way we’d initially come in, Bob was heading, I guessed, deeper into the maze and tangle of the cavern system. For the most part, the creatures we passed were asleep or pretended to be; it made perfect sense not to attract attention when three unknown individuals are headed your way. Occasionally, we were under the watchful eye of a worker, but none impeded our progress, as slow as it may have been.

  Church was dragging his left leg and listing to that side, yet he kept moving. Bob had told me the general direction we needed to go before letting his eyes sink low in his head area. This effectively meant I was leading the charge, or more like the parade of clowns. I could only hope that, when Bob once again took the lead, I hadn’t hopelessly got us lost and placed us right back where we’d started. Nothing had changed much during our migration, except for the
creatures we passed; they looked older, more hollowed out, like the deeper into the expanse, the longer they’d been here doing this mindless work, getting hope sucked out of them. It was easy enough to imagine that whatever words they used to represent hope had been completely burned from their souls. I’d take desperation over the quiet pointlessness of these creatures' surrender.

  The whistler horn bleated the start of a brand-new day. They got up and grabbed their tools, not one so much as cast a sidelong glance our way. Bob picked up his pace, which wasn’t saying a bunch. Church was falling behind, scraping against the wall as he tried to keep himself upright. I was looking back to see how my traveling companions were doing, I turned quickly back to the front when I heard the whistler. He was less than ten feet away and walking straight toward us. Aliens fell away as they convulsed in shock and pain. I raised my stapler-clad hand and fired five rounds into his mid-section and chest. He folded over as I kicked up. The front half of my foot sank deeply into his face, the resultant crunch was both satisfying and disgusting. That was all great and fine until the other half-dozen with him witnessed the same thing. The two closest weren’t the quickest on the uptake as they repeatedly fiddled with the controlling boxes.

  The four behind understood and were quick to draw their weapons, though only two were in a position to use them. Staples were whizzing around in that small enclosure. I grimaced as one ripped through the top of my shoulder; it didn’t lodge in but scraped the skin. I didn’t know how much of the toxin would seep in from the contact and didn’t want to wait until I found out. I used the one I’d initially shot as a shield, keeping his folded over body in front of me as I pulled that trigger as fast as my finger would move. I felt a little woozy, but wasn’t sure if it was due to the staple or the extra exertion from the battle.

  Churchill had found a reserve of strength and surged forward, whether to protect me or to exact a small measure of revenge, the outcome was the same. A whistler had its head smashed against the rock wall, and I was spared a barrage of staples as Churchie swung out a huge arm. The resulting splatter of brain matter soaked all of us nearby. He was in a great deal of pain from the sheer number of staple hits and was slowly falling over as the poison took hold. Bob had become a stapler cushion himself, absorbing a dozen or more of the projectiles. If they had any effect, he didn’t let on as he moved in, dissolving portions of whistlers as he made contact. Two went down into a sludge-filled pile, one had a gaping wound in its side, the other lost half its head. Meanwhile, I’d put the rest down with my barrage of shots. It was a fucking mess, and Church was out of the fight as he slouched down.

  “Fuck,” was the best I could utter as I looked around. Bob was in no shape to get rid of the evidence. And neither of us could drag Church to somewhere safe. If they’d gone crazy for one missing whistler, a fire squad’s worth was going to drive them into a frenzy. The workers nearby that had been dropped at the beginning of the activity were now staggering to their feet, paws, or whatever appendage they used for locomotion. I was concerned that we might come under attack from them because of the retribution that was sure to follow.

  “Milk.”

  “I know, Bob, I know we need to leave. What about Churchill?” He said nothing, I knew what his silence meant. Whatever this mission was that we found ourselves on, we needed to go and now. It was not the first time I’d lost a member of my team while out on a mission, and it would not be the last, but allies were so hard to come by on this alien world. Letting one go was especially difficult, even if less than twenty-four hours ago he had wanted to kill me. The worst part of it was, he was still alive. As harsh as that sounds, if he was dead, his troubles were over and my decision to leave him made. Hell, who knows what Bob and I were getting into? Church was better off. Yeah, that was a justification if I’d ever thought one. He could live out the rest of his natural life shooting pulses into the ground and hoping he didn’t get a random beating just for being in the wrong spot.

  Something akin to a standing salamander, albeit a five-foot-tall one, moved cautiously toward the group of fallen whistlers. When it realized neither of us were going to stop it, it ripped the stapler out of the guard's paralyzed hand. Now the question was, would it try a slave-izens arrest. Instead, he tucked it away before scurrying off. Another creature, encouraged by the first, ran up and grabbed a weapon. The consensus seemed to be we could go about our business, all they were interested in was arming themselves. The staple gun wasn’t going to do shit about the control boxes the whistlers carried, but, much like me, maybe they felt better having the means to defend themselves.

  I had crouched a bit to be face to face with Church, his eyes were open as he looked at me. “Thank you, and I’m sorry, I am, but we have to go.”

  “Kill.”

  He could have meant kill him before we left him in such a vulnerable position, but I think he meant the whistlers.

  “I will, we will.” I squeezed his shoulder. I was going to miss his most succinct prose. I’d dated women in my life who, for whatever reason, had to fill every possible moment of silence with dialog, like their lives depended on it. That, maybe in their version of a horror movie, it wasn’t silence that mattered but rather noise. Noise threw the monster off the scent. I don’t know how it worked; I’m just modeling a half-formed analogy. Where I’m going with this is, now it appeared that fates were balancing the equation out. I had been traveling with two creatures that had maybe a handful of words between them. In combat, less can be more, but this was close to insane.

  Bob formed an arm and reached out to squeeze Church’s other shoulder, much like I had. I thought perhaps I had taught him a human mannerism of consolation. It was better. Bob’s arm was distorting and spreading out over the entirety of Church’s front half. It was beginning to look like an Office prank, but instead of Dwight’s stapler being encased in Jell-O, this was an entire being.

  After the whistlers had been picked clean of their weapons and control boxes, the other aliens separated from the area, wanting to put distance between themselves and what was sure to become a killing ground once another patrol happened by. I was antsy to get going; I’d been involved in enough crimes to know that it was not wise to hang around and see how it played out. There would be no Miranda rights reading here. Had a good idea of what Bob was doing, had no idea how long it was going to take. Churchie was slowly stirring as Bob drew out some of the poison. It felt like half a year, but five minutes later, I was helping Church to stand. Bob himself looked like he could use a propping up.

  “This is insane. How are we possibly going to be able to do anything like this?” Church was taking halting half-steps with my help, and Bob couldn’t keep up. We were half-smashed caterpillars hoping to escape a robin’s beak. We’d rounded a couple of bends, no longer able to see our handiwork, but not a safe enough distance away when the mechanical arms began their food delivery service. Bob shot out two appendages and pulled two of the drones into his body, crushing the canisters as he did so, displaying his strength while also eating as quickly as possible. There was going to be a couple of starving workers somewhere. The protein infusion helped my friend out immensely.

  When Bob was done, he grabbed two more and cracked them open like a chef might an egg, then handed them off to Church and me. I remember back in the day when McDonald's got in trouble for the pink slime they were injecting into their hamburgers. They’d said it was safe for human consumption, but you know, so are cockroaches. Right now, I would have dipped my entire head into a vat of that off-red hued mucus rather than eat the congealed grey matter I was looking at. There was hair, scales, and tiny bits of bones in there. My biggest fear had come true. I had a sudden flash of Charlton Heston at the end of Soylent Green; we’d been eating the ground up chunks of those that had fallen. Fundamentally, I’d known that all along, but visual proof is different. Church was going to town, holding the canister above his head and sucking it down like he was shotgunning a beer. Even reaching his fingers in to pu
ll out the stuck orts.

  “Kill?” he asked, pointing to mine.

  “Have at it,” I told him as I handed it over. They were in better shape for the sustenance, but neither was what I would call spry. Church had no sooner finished his second offering when an alarm sounded. Not a traditionally loud siren sound, more of a steam whistle sound. The workers looked terrified, gonna go out on a limb and say they’d experienced one before. Church and I looked to Bob for direction; he started moving farther along the way we had been traveling. We came to a splitting of the path and, without hesitation, he took the left-hand side. I could only hope he knew what he was doing, though, I hadn’t the slightest idea how that could be. Church had widened the split Bob had created in the canister so that he could reach his large hands deeper, lest he miss some gooey morsel.

  He was half paying attention to where we were going, as the other half was spent looking for more food. It shouldn’t have come as a shock to any of us when he walked right into a whistler that had emerged from a side tunnel. If I gave even one fuck about whistlers, I would have felt horrible for the bashing this one received. Church swung the canister over the top of his head and crashed it down onto the top of the whistler’s skull, embedding it right between its eyes that then vacated their sockets like a clown shot from a cannon, and the cannon had a ball in it so there was a spray of blood to accompany the ride. Those hideous backward-facing knees cracked from the exertion, and the whistler collapsed. I was thankful that Church didn’t retrieve his gore covered canister.

  We were running, or, I was; not sure what to call what Bob was doing. We took so many twists, turns, lefts, and rights that I’d never be able to find my way back. I had a moment of panic, and then I almost smiled: where the hell would I be trying to get back to? Still, I’d come to know my small parcel where I worked, and there’s always an odd sense of comfort in that. I wonder if that is something other species share or if it’s uniquely human? I would have asked Church, but he was busy scraping brain matter off his arm by rubbing it against the wall. I was thinking about him not giving our trackers another way to follow us but left it alone. Maybe those in pursuit would take it as a warning and not a challenge. Either way, fuck ’em; I still had a ton of staples. The strange lighting in the caverns began to dwindle, and before I knew it, we were moving in absolute darkness.