Group Hex Vol 1

by Andrew Robertson

  Thomas looked at her, frowning and speechless.

  “But don’t worry, they only come out at night. It won’t happen to us. It takes months of living here to accumulate enough toxic waste in your brain tissue to cause madness.”

  Thomas took a breath and sighed. “Well then. We’d better get moving if we want to get out of here before dark.”

  Ren turned away, and walked around a corner to her left. Thomas was appalled that after only a few blocks conditions deteriorated even further than what he saw outside the gate. Houses that hadn’t collapsed due to destructive weather, or fallen in on their foundations, were burned to the ground, blasted apart, or looked like crushed piles of rubble. It reminded Thomas of news reports he had seen as a child following major hurricanes. This scene had a decade and a half of decay heaped upon it as well. The street was littered with debris and keeled over streetlights. Car hulks stripped of any useable material were at all angles.

  Streams of sickly fog wafted by throughout the ruined neighborhood. Thomas sniffed the air. It reminded him of when the power at the institution failed, several dozen eggs had become rotten, and he used bleach to clean out the fridge that contained them. The foul air was sparser than the tear gas he had experienced in the city, but he felt his eyes water slightly, and a scratchiness caught in his throat. The area looked like a giant child played with a city play set and threw toys all over it, then lit it on fire. Lawns that weren’t piling over with garbage looked like burnt meat, or emitted steam from what was probably buried waste products. No life stirred here. Thomas strained to hear any familiar sounds, but not even a bird’s chirp or the buzz of a fly met his ears. If the area before the barricade looked like a conventional warzone, this was more like a nuclear-charred bomb crater.

  After passing through the former cluster of homes, they moved into a block more recognizable as something that has once been a retail strip. It too was cluttered with trash and debris, as if a great force had punched the entire area from beneath, forcing loose items up everywhere. Windows of storefronts were smashed in. Nearly everything had long since been looted or destroyed, leaving the hollow remains covered over with years of toxic rain, filth, and dust. A dismembered display mannequin hung stiffly out a store window. Its bald head looked at them with empty eyes. A wisp of dirty, pink fabric hung from the top of the shattered glass frame above it and swayed in the breeze as they passed.

  Ren stopped and took a drink from her canteen. She upended it and the last few drops of liquid dripped into her mouth. It was clearly empty. She looked around, frowning. “Damn it,” she grumbled.

  “Do you know where to go?”

  Ren continued to walk. “We should stay out of exposed areas. It gets dangerous after dark here.”

  “You already said that, and you didn’t answer my question.”

  “I’ve been through here before, more than once. I told you. They weren’t pleasant experiences, but yes, I know where we’re going. I never go through this place if I can avoid it. Around it, but not through it.”

  “You said we didn’t have to worry until after dark.”

  Ren swooned momentarily. Her secondary eyelids blinked rapidly. “Ghosts. This place is a graveyard,” she said. She steadied herself against a bullet-riddled and graffiti covered wall.

  “Are you all right?” Thomas asked.

  “How many bullets in your revolver?” was the only reply.

  “Um,” Thomas said, and spun the chamber. “Five, looks like. Also have the nerve disruptor.”

  “Good. Should probably keep them ready.”

  Thomas looked at her warily, “Okayyy?” he said, drawing out the second syllable. “I’ve already got it ready though. We talked about this.”

  “Sorry, just a bit dizzy. Might be best to have weapons ready and not need them, rather than need them and not be ready.”

  “Should I be worried?”

  “No. You’re with me,” she said, smiling weakly.

  Thomas looked at her with obvious concern. “I meant about you.”

  “Just dehydrating. Need to find a clean water source, and there aren’t any here. We’ve got a few hours to go. No time to waste,” she said, and stepped past him. She took a deep breath and continued walking, seeming more composed.

  Ahead of them, Thomas saw movement. For a moment he thought what Ren said about ghosts was meant literally as he saw what looked like the revenant of a long-deceased store patron exiting a shop door. Ren stopped as she saw it too. It wasn’t a ghost, but a woman who might as well have been one. She stared blankly ahead and across the street. She looked emaciated and malnourished. Her ashen skin was covered in infected sores and blemishes, and her head was devoid of hair save for a few stray strands of gray flitting limply in the breeze. Her clothes were barely more than torn and smeared rags that hung on her slight body.

  The nearly skeletal woman turned toward Thomas and Ren with a sickly lurch. She looked through them with dull gray eyes. Infection or cataracts blotted out her pupils. The woman’s mouth hung open, slack-jawed, as though she were sleepwalking. Thomas felt pity for the unsightly figure, but held his weapon at his side, unsure of her intentions. Ren, somewhat woozy, slowly pulled her extendable baton from its pouch.

  Thomas heard the crunch of gravel and trash under foot behind him. He cautiously turned to see more of the pitiful forms appearing from other storefronts. Like the woman, they appeared starved, gaunt, pale, and had the same diseased eyes. He whispered to Ren without turning his head. “You said they only come out at night.”

  “Maybe a food shortage. They might be hungry,” she replied.

  Thomas felt a prickling of sweat under his shirt. His heart beat faster as though it had suddenly become much warmer. Nervousness pounded through his brain. Fight or flight. There’s way too many of them. Something startled him, but it was not the castoffs. Suddenly, and just for a moment, he saw what Ren saw: her view of the castoffs, and what ran through her brain. Imminent attack, defense, move to one, and then the other, and run.

  Ren whispered, “Don’t move until…”

  The frail woman in front of Ren stepped forward, and dragged her feet as she moved. She increased her pace. Her cracked, scabby lips curled back to reveal rows of filthy black and broken teeth as her face contorted into a grotesque sneer. Ren snapped to attention. Her lethargy was gone. She whipped her asp baton to the side, extended it, and brought it up in a single circular motion to the woman’s head with a sharp crack. The castoff jerked back, but returned toward Ren with surprising speed. Ren immediately met her with a gunshot-fast, side kick brought up and out into the woman’s stomach. The castoff was launched back and onto a shard of dusty glass protruding from a store window. Impaled, her skeletal frame went limp. Thomas turned back to the others on the street and saw them all draw in. Others stumbled forth from storefronts. Thomas heard only raspy breathing coming from their slack mouths. Their heads were tilted back as they tried to see from their milky eyes. Thomas raised his pistol, but Ren pulled him by the shoulder and guided him back.

  Her voice was calm and clear, “Don’t fire. It’ll only draw more of them. Follow me.”

  Ren moved past the body of the glass-impaled woman toward a male castoff in a torn and faded business suit. Thomas was on Ren’s heels. The man raised his arms as if to attack, but Ren ducked and swept a kick through his legs, which sent him to the pavement. Ren and Thomas ran away from the horde without stopping. The castoffs formed a disorganized mob as they all moved toward the pair. Thomas looked over his shoulder at the disheveled crowd. Their movement was slow. Many of them stumbled, unable to run at a full pace. Several tripped and fell. The rest of the group trampled over them. Ren and Thomas pulled ahead, easily evading the castoffs.

  Ren led Thomas down a side street toward a row of partially intact houses. Her head shot back and forth as she looked for a door. She tried to step toward a house, but swooned. Her legs wobbled. She held a hand out and looked ready to fall. Thomas, hearing the mob approach
ing, looked behind them and grabbed Ren. He threw her arm up around his shoulder and hauled her toward the nearest building. It was a house with a huge hole blasted in the roof, that otherwise looked intact. Rotted boards covered the broken windows and front door. Thomas pulled Ren, but her limp legs barely pushed along. He then propped her against the doorframe and looked over his shoulder.

  The castoffs were still around the corner. Thomas’s hands shook as he yanked boards from the door and tossed them aside. He grabbed Ren, and with a grunt kicked the door in. He pulled her inside and fell back with her against the door. Ren barely moved. Thomas heard only the sound of his own huffing and puffing.

  He helped Ren into a sitting position beside the door. Thomas crept around to the front window on his knees. He peeked out and tried to quiet the sound of his breathing. The sound of shuffling feet, and the dry breathing that sounded much the same, came closer. The group piled by in front of the house. Their heads rolled back and forth as they tried to locate their prey. The castoffs filed by, tripping and righting themselves, and disappeared down the block. Thomas sighed. He turned away from the window and sat against the wall. What was that before we ran from them? What did I see? Ren’s perspective? That can’t be right.

  Ren’s voice arose from behind him. “Mostly blind. Cataracts. All of them. They can barely see. Just eat whatever they fall into. Don’t have a high life expectancy.” She coughed.

  Thomas kept his pistol ready, but the noise was gone, and he assumed the threat had passed. He stood slowly and looked around the room. The building looked at first glance to be in the same shape as the boarded-up house they waited out the storm in before the barricade. The ceiling above was speckled with mildew, and had caved in from the far corner. The floor was dotted with holes as well. Some were from simple rot and decay, others looked like the deliberate work of humans or mutants. Thomas heard the echo of water dripping into pools below. The walls and floor were encrusted with years of mineral deposits, and yellow chemical soot that had leaked down from the blasted-open roof.

  A set of stairs that looked partially collapsed, but passable, led to a second floor. The carpeting had decayed into blackness. Thomas turned to Ren. “I’m going to check around this place. I’ll be right back.” Ren’s only response was a limp nod. He drew the nerve disruptor, held it at his side in his left hand, and held the pistol out in front by his right. He moved down the dark hallway past the stairs, toward the back of the house. Plaster fallen from the ceiling crunched underfoot, and the floorboards groaned ominously. A half-meter wide hole gaped through the floor, but was easily stepped around. Thomas remembered his flashlight. He pocketed the nerve disruptor, drew the light, and switched it on. He shone it around the hall, then down into the hole.

  The basement was badly flooded. In the shadows the dark waters moved when liquid from the floor above dripped down. His light barely penetrated the surface, but he saw nothing indicating inhabitants. Green swirls of toxic contaminants drifted back and forth. A rusted water heater leaned off-kilter against a wall that was covered in thick black fungus mingled with orange mineral deposits. Chunks of debris floated in the darkness. Thomas let out a sigh when he saw no evidence of anything threatening below. No creepy sharks, eels, or giant water striders. Still …not falling down there. Ren wouldn’t be much help getting me out.

  He clicked off the light and put it back into his pack. As he moved back from the hole he thought he caught a glimpse of movement in the corner of his eye. No, that was my own reflection. Wasn’t it?. He continued past a doorframe. The door was torn out. Must have been a bathroom. The inside was a mess of smashed porcelain and plaster. Thomas felt his heart jump as he looked at one of the inside walls. It was streaked with long, brown smears of dried blood. He felt his breath shorten and his pulse pounded in his ears. He looked back and forth and aimed the pistol around. He moved to the kitchen, and met only an empty room with more debris. To the side of the boarded windows Thomas saw a door that must have led to the basement. In the kitchen debris Thomas saw a few cooking implements, a mixing bowl, and a few filthy plastic bags, nothing more. Shreds of curtains above the window frames flitted in the fog that drifted in from outside. Stay cool. That blood is long dried. Hopefully from ages ago.

  Thomas backed out and turned around for one last look at the blood. Years old. Whatever happened is long over. Still... He turned and crept up the stairs. The wood was soft with rot and pushed in slightly under his feet. He felt with each foot as he stepped in order to find more stable spots until he was at the top. The railing along the top floor platform had been stripped out some time earlier. Thomas assumed it had been done for use by looters. At one end of the platform was a former master bedroom, empty of all but plaster chunks. Behind him was another bedroom. Here was where he saw from outside the house that the roof was missing. Thomas saw dark clouds overhead, and a gust of foul-smelling wind hit him in the face. This is silly. If anything were up here and tried to run at me, it would probably just fall through the floor. This place is so unstable I’m surprised it hasn’t collapsed already.

  He heard a noise in the distance, probably a few blocks away. Shots, gunfire, engines rumbling. Trucks? It sounded like men cheered loudly in the distance, shouting something he was unable to make out. He stepped around the edges of the bedroom, avoided the rotted holes, and reasoned that the center of the floor would be most likely to collapse. Peering around a broken chunk of wall where a window once was, he didn’t see anything. He heard the sound of engines a few blocks away and something else. Human voices yelling? At whom? For what?

  Thomas crept carefully back downstairs by the creaking stairs. Ren had slumped forward over her legs and looked unconscious. He crouched beside her. “Ren?” Thomas sat her back up against the wall into a sitting position. He put a hand to her face and realized he hadn’t yet touched her skin. It was surprisingly smooth, but not at all slick like a normal salamander’s. He realized that if she weren’t dehydrated, her skin would be moist with a substance poisonous to humans. Lucky for me, not for her. Her eyes fluttered half-open.

  “Water. Just need water,” she said groggily.

  Thomas stood up, and felt frustrated at his inability to do anything for her. “You don’t have a filter do you? There’s water in the basement but it’s green and looks badly contaminated.”

  “No. Can’t risk it. Might die like this. Just get me out of here.”

  Thomas fidgeted with nervous energy as he looked back and forth. “I heard people out front. I’ll get water from them. They must have water. If they look hostile, I’ll sneak over and steal some.” He pulled Ren further away from the front door, and sat her in a position facing it. “Just keep your gun out in case anyone comes while I’m gone.” He reached down to draw her machine pistol for her and put it in her hand across her waist. “I promise I’ll be right back.” Thomas sighed, backed away from her, and then turned to open the door. He peeked out. When he was satisfied nothing was waiting to attack, he slipped out.

  THE SHAFT

  Nancy Kilpatrick

  Celie could not bring herself to appreciate the air shaft. She didn’t give a damn what happened tomorrow. Dust motes trapped in the concrete shaft could float back and forth forever in the sunlight, for all she cared. It was now, this minute, her first night in the apartment, that peering up her skylight at the slab of vertical tunnel overhead made her feel just how oppressive darkness could be. Until someone on a floor above switched on their bathroom light.

  Pale yellow pierced the gloom immediately surrounding that window. It didn’t affect the rest of the shaft nor last very long, still, it irritated her even more than the absence of light. Someone could be watching. She needed privacy.

  She lit three candles and turned off her bathroom light. The claw-footed tub nearly overflowed with rose-colored bubble bath. She hesitated then gingerly stepped in. Steaming water scorched her flesh and only mind over matter kept her from yanking her feet out. Instead, she bent, then sat and finally,
sucking in air loudly through her teeth, submerged herself to the neck. I need this, she insisted, willing the pain away.

  Above, another light flicked on. Annoyed, she glanced up. Second floor. The tenant she’d been informed was “old Mr. Morrison”. She heard hoarking, then the toilet flush, the ordinary sounds human beings make. The light went out. He couldn’t see her. Anyway, he was on the left side of the air shaft. Even if he opened his window the few inches the drop chains allowed, he wasn’t at a good enough angle for the tub or toilet. Or her. And the candles helped.

  But she wasn’t worried. This first night of independence, out on her own in the world, filled Celie with excitement and nearly obliterated the paranoia her large and meddlesome family had instilled in her. She was the youngest of the backward brood and, she knew, the most impressionable. Maybe that was why a small worry gnawed away at her insides the way the hotter-than-hot water burned her skin. Hell, I can take care of myself, she thought stubbornly. She glared up the vertical tunnel. The blackness felt dense.

  Celie coated one arm with suds and tried to concentrate on watching the iridescent pink bubbles pop, one by one. Moving in the hot water irritated her sensitive skin so she massaged the back of her neck slowly then rested her head against the plastic air cushion suctioned to the tub rim.

  Tension drained. Eyelids fell. Pipes knocked.

  Her eyes snapped open.

  She hated this, when it was so late and she was half asleep and everything looked unnaturally bright. Stark. Suddenly she was angry with herself for not taking a modern apartment. She’d been so eager to put distance between herself and her intrusive relatives. Escape was more like it. And she’d had this idea, now, in retrospect naive and romantic, that old inner city buildings are charming, intimate and anonymous.