by Chris Ward
‘And you were one of the gatekeepers, were you not?’
‘I suppose you could say that. I was helping him get electronics parts out of the country.’
Kurou leaned forward. His old body creaked, and as his smile faded, Tommy felt an uneasy sense of dread.
‘And now I’d like you to help me,’ Kurou said. ‘I’m working on a very special project, of which you have only seen a minor part. What I would like from you is some assistance in acquiring those items I might need to further my production along.’
‘What makes you think I can help you?’
‘Because you’re connected to what we could call the underworld, are you not? A mongoose by day and a snake by night, wouldn’t that cover it?’
‘I have connections.’
‘Ones you’ll need when the country goes fully underside up, wouldn’t you say?’
Tommy nodded. ‘It’s best to be prepared.’
‘I couldn’t agree more. However, I don’t intend to be around much longer. A crow never likes to stay in one place too long, and soon the time will come to spread my wings once more. Summer is coming, and the heat really does prickle so. You will probably see the back of me within a few weeks from now, but during that time of my occupancy, I’ll be as busy as a whole hive of little bees.’
‘Making monsters like that thing that attacked me?’
Kurou leaned back suddenly. He kicked the table and the chair spun him around. ‘Oh, you call Divan a monster? You foolish man. Divan is a work of wondrous art. A perfect alignment of human, beast, and machine. However, when one works with such unpredictable subject matter, it is inevitable that it will take much trial and error to achieve a perfect prototype. Therefore, what I require from you is a supply of raw materials.’
Tommy leaned back, finally understanding. ‘You want me to bring you people, don’t you?’
Kurou grinned, making Tommy shiver. ‘I already have the machinery, thanks to my deal with the wonderful Mr. Carmichael-Jones. And the animals will be easy to acquire. So, yes, it’s just the third part of my little triangle of optimism that I require. And I’m certain that a man of your resources will have little trouble.’
‘You’re sick.’
Kurou spread his hands. ‘Come now, we’ve been through all this. I’m not asking you to bring me your grandmother. You may select from whatever human detritus you can find. I’m sure there are plenty of people this world has no more use for.’ He leaned forward again, his voice lowering, becoming a sinister, sibilant hiss. ‘Bring them to me, sire.’
Tommy gave a slow nod. He thought about all the people he had roughed up, some of the scum he had killed himself. And others, people no one would miss if they disappeared.
It wouldn’t be hard to find people to fulfill Kurou’s fantasies, but he needed assurances. He needed proof that their partnership went both ways.
‘You want me to supply you with people to do your experiments on,’ he said. ‘What do I get in return?’
Kurou spread his hands. ‘Whatever you want which is in my power. You only have to ask.’
Tommy nodded. ‘There is one thing,’ he said.
11
Urla
The gallows looked magnificent. Urla had insisted the wooden frames be painted bright red, and they now stood resplendent in the morning sunshine. As she stood beside her car, she folded her arms and smiled.
‘Perfect,’ she said.
Beside her, holding a clipboard, Justin nodded. ‘You’ve done a fine job, Ms. Wynne. This will be a day the people will never forget.’
Urla gave him a sideways glance. The previous night had been one she would never forget, either. Justin had dressed up like a man for the occasion, but during the night he had become an animal. Now, basking in the glow of an excessive amount of sex, she waited for the procession that would seal her authority over the town, and herald a new dawn for her administrative region.
Informed by posters hastily distributed during the night, the townsfolk were beginning to arrive, herding into carefully monitored fenced areas guarded by armed DCA agents and ringed by members of the regular army from the Bristol barracks. Buses had been arranged from some of the outlying villages, and while attendance wasn’t mandatory, travel was reimbursed for anyone wishing to attend.
Billed only as a legal announcement, the first people to arrive had seen the gallows set up on a temporary stage at the back of the main town square and were beginning to show their anger. Too late to back out now, they were penned in and had no choice but to witness the coming spectacle. Urla was sure it would be a day that would live long in the memory.
‘The condemned will arrive at ten a.m. sharp,’ Justin said. ‘Would you like to give each of them a moment to speak? It might recall justice systems of the past, but it might also rile the crowd. I can have them gagged or even hooded if you wish.’
Urla shook her head. ‘I would like to have them speak,’ she said. ‘It will humanise them, therefore emphasising what we are talking away, what the law can do if it is not obeyed. However, it is likely to cause a rumpus at the front of the crowd, particularly if any of the family of the condemned are in attendance. It would be wise to double the barriers and the guard. Warn them that trouble might erupt and ensure they are heavily armed.’
‘As you wish.’ Justin scribbled something down on his clipboard pad, then hurried off to speak to an army captain standing nearby.
Urla watched the growing crowd with interest. A couple of pockets of protest had already broken out, and she signaled a guard captain to make some arrests. Within a few minutes, three men were being dragged away, while the others assumed an uneasy silence.
She nodded. If violence was what it took to pull them into line, then so be it. The great unwashed had gotten away with murder for years, forever pushing back the boundaries of what was accepted behaviour, always wanting just a little bit more, never, ever satisfied.
She waited as the minutes slipped by. The crowd swelled, but tempered by the guards and the words of warning filtering back from the front, they were subdued rather than incensed. She hoped the shock of the executions meant that everyone present would take away the same message: rules existed to be obeyed.
The time came. A police truck appeared in the streets to the square’s north, pulling to a stop behind the stage. Several armed officers unloaded the eight chosen for execution. All were hooded and bound, their arms restrained behind their backs, their legs in shackles. Urla smiled. She had wanted their identities revealed as late as possible. No families had been notified: it would make for greater shock value if someone in the crowd noticed one of their own.
The man she had chosen as the executioner stepped up on to stage. Justice Arden Law was appropriately named and had the callous, weathered look of a man who felt no mercy. She had talked through the situation with him, and he was happy to become a hated public figure if the price was right. Now, as he stepped up to a microphone, grinning like a madman, cries of anger and hatred rose up from the crowd.
‘Thank you for gathering here today,’ he said. ‘In light of recent changes to law, it has been decided that an example needed to be set. It is written into law that rules must be obeyed and every able-bodied man, woman and child be required to work toward a common good, that of the advancement of our great country. In many cases it has been found that that was not the case. Our prisons are overflowing. It is time to offload some of those who will not comply. Today you will see an example set. Eight young hooligans will be executed before you, hanged until they are dead.’
The angry roar from the crowd was deafening. Urla took an involuntary step back toward her waiting car in case a full riot broke out. Near the stage, the soldiers closed ranks, their guns raised. If the crowd surged forward, they had orders not to hesitate.
Justice Law walked along the line and pulled off the hoods. Eight pairs of groggy, blinking eyes looked up. A couple of the faces were badly bruised, but Urla just looked away. If they played up in cap
tivity they deserved what they got.
Justin had told her the captives would be drugged to ensure they didn’t create a commotion. Now, though, as the full understanding of what was about to happen hit home, some began to struggle.
Soldiers came forward to hold them from behind as Justice Law walked along the line, looping a noose around each neck. They had been specially designed on Urla’s instruction with Justin’s advice: the noose wasn’t rope but tightly wound nylon cloth, and the captives would be slowly lifted all at once, the gallows having a small pulley built into its frame. It was important that they didn’t die for some time; she wanted them slowly choked while the crowd watched.
It was callous, for sure, but a long, slow lesson would work far better than a short sharp one.
‘Do you have anything to say?’ Justice Law said to the first captive, a fat sniveling toad of a boy who was sobbing uncontrollably.
‘I didn’t do anything,’ the boy muttered. ‘I wasn’t doing any harm.’
‘Oh, but the justice system found that you were,’ Justice Law said. ‘You will die today like the scum you are.’
He moved along to the next person, but a commotion had begun in the crowd near the back.
‘That’s my boy!’ someone shouted.
Urla groaned as she recognised the voice. The butcher. Her meat order would be soured from now on. She wished she had thought to give Justin a lineup order; half the captives were runaways with no known family, but the others were well known in the town. They had inadvertently been lined up first. She waved at her nearest captain, then gave the order with a hand swiped across her throat.
The crack as the gun butt struck the butcher’s head was as loud as any gunshot. Urla gave a satisfied nod as his voice fell silent.
‘You?’ Justice Law said to the next person on the stage, and Urla wished she’d not allowed them to speak.
The girl’s face was puffy and bruised from a recent beating, but Urla could see the beauty hidden beneath the swellings and guessed what might have happened to her in the detainment block.
‘Down with the government!’ the girl screamed before Justice Law jerked the microphone away. Even unamplified, Urla heard what she said next over the crowd’s growing roar: ‘I was held down and raped in detention by two DCA scum! These bastards don’t protect us! Kill every last one before they kill you!’
Urla turned to Justin and gave him a hand signal which he had relayed to Justice Law on the stage. No more speeches. String them up.
Too late; the crowd was rioting. Justice Law operated the gallows control and then jumped off the stage as the contraption lifted the eight captives by their necks. The crowd surged forward, fighting to reach them, but the soldiers had made a line across the front of the stage. Gunfire rang out and several men fell under the feet of their comrades. The rest drew back, their anger tempered, even as other groups urged them forward from the rear.
‘Mayhem,’ Urla muttered, heading for her car. She waved at Justin to follow. It was too dangerous to stick around. She could relay orders from the safety of her office.
She had one hand on her car door when she saw the running Justice Law struck in the neck by what looked like a long arrow. She stared, horrified, as he slumped to his knees and then fell face forward to the ground. She was still staring when Justin pulled her into the car.
‘I don’t think that went down too well,’ he said, his words a measured, thoughtful estimation of what she now considered a massive royal fuck-up.
12
Patrick
Whatever they had been forced to swallow in the cells before being hooded, bound, and forced outside to a waiting vehicle, it had clearly worn off Suzanne a lot quicker than it had Patrick. He stared out at a crowd of several thousand shouting, angry people, barely comprehending what was going on. Below him, a line of fatigues-clad soldiers carrying assault rifles stood between him and the crowd, while dangling in the air in front of him was a hoop made out of what appeared to be tangled bed sheets. Only as a man with an unpleasant, sneering face walked up behind him and looped it around his neck did Patrick really understand what was going on.
Suzanne stood beside him, with Jack on her other side. To his right were five people of a similar age whom he didn’t recognise. The ugly man had held a microphone to Jack’s mouth, but Patrick couldn’t understand the words. Then someone near the back of the crowd was shouting, soldiers were pushing through the throng, and a crack like a gunshot rang out. Patrick still couldn’t shake the grogginess off, but then Suzanne was shouting beside him, and the words finally got through: ‘Down with the government!’
The noose went tight around his neck and he felt his air passage constrict. As though slapped, his grogginess left him and he snapped back to reality. He was hanging by the neck, his hands tied behind him, unable to do anything at all but stare out at the crowd as the soldiers opened fire. He saw blood erupt from holes in chests and people fall, but all he could feel was the tightening of his chest, and the realisation that he was going to die.
Then something long and thin whizzed through the air. A man died behind him with a gargle like the last water in a sink. Another followed, and Patrick felt a moment of utter weightlessness before crashing to the ground. As he lay on the stage, gasping for air, it took a moment to realise something had shot through the rope of his noose.
Suzanne still hung beside him, the others all around. He rolled onto his front, coughing, his chest heaving, then he felt something heavy land on his back legs. He heard a growl like that of a dog, then his hands were loose and something was pulling him back.
He fell off the stage, landing hard on the concrete, but he was free. A dead soldier lay nearby, a longbow arrow embedded in his forehead. On the stage, something in a robe was cutting Suzanne down then throwing her over its shoulder and leaping off the stage as though she weighed no more than a bag of sugar. It landed beside him, hidden beneath a brown robe and hood.
‘Move,’ it growled.
‘Over here!’
A man waved at him from the front of a car. Pushed by the robed figure, Patrick stumbled toward it, his feet like uncontrollable bags of jelly. He tripped and hit the ground twice before he reached the car, cutting his palms and scratching his face.
Suzanne’s head was lolling as though the drug had at last taken effect. The creature pulled open the door and shoved her into the back. It flapped a twisted, clawed hand in an indication that Patrick should follow, but he turned, looking back at the gallows where he had so nearly died, and saw a familiar shape still hanging there.
‘Jack!’
The robed figure reached for his shoulder, trying to push him into the car. Patrick tried to shoulder it aside, but it was like pushing against a wall.
‘Inside,’ it growled, but Patrick twisted out of its grip.
‘He helped us,’ he said. ‘We can’t leave him.’
The figure turned. It’s robe shifted and something rose up that had been hidden inside, a bow the length of Patrick’s arm. The creature nocked an arrow and fired. It struck Jack in the back. The boy’s body jerked once then fell limp.
‘No!’
‘Don’t … suffer,’ the figure growled, then kicked Patrick in the stomach, pushing him into the car as he bent double. As he fell, he grabbed for the robe, and for a fraction of a second the hood slipped. Patrick caught a glimpse of a canine face with human eyes and a crown of scar tissue and wires, then the creature was gone, fleeing into the streets.
The car jerked, throwing Patrick against a groaning Suzanne. The driver spun them around, hacking them in a tight circle then powering out of the square. Around a corner they came to a checkpoint, but the driver just leaned out, gave the single guard a hand slap, and then they were waved through.
As they sped down an empty street, the driver leaned over his shoulder and smiled. He had an easygoing face and a mop of curly brown hair.
‘Name’s Moose,’ he said. ‘Got a message for you. Uncle Tommy says hello and
not to worry, you’re safe now.’
Patrick rubbed his neck, sore and chafed from the noose. His windpipe felt bruised as though someone had been punching him, and he had an uncontrollable urge to keep swallowing. Beside him, Suzanne was awake, but her eyes were darting around as though unsure what was going on or where they were. Patrick squeezed her hand but she didn’t squeeze back.
‘Where are we going?’
‘Safe house,’ Moose said. ‘Best to lie low for a while. Uncle Tommy will be around in a bit to let you know your next move. I’m afraid you’re fugitives now.’
‘Who are you?’
‘A friend. You could say extended family. Now that the government’s no longer on our side, family is more important than ever, wouldn’t you think?’
‘I suppose,’ Patrick said.
‘We’ll be driving a while as I need to make sure no one’s on our tail. It might be a good idea for you to take a rest. Keep your heads down, and if we’re stopped say nothing. Let me handle it.’
Patrick nodded. He felt overwhelmingly tired, and beside him Suzanne had begun to snore. He had barely understood what was going on, but now memories of the last few minutes returned in patches: the crowd, the gallows, Jack’s swinging body, and most of all, his rescuer.
He remembered the wires, the horrifying dog’s maw with its jagged, glistening teeth.
But most of all he remembered the eyes. He had seen them before: in fact he had seen them on most of the days of his life.
His brother’s eyes.
Race.
13
Suzanne
Suzanne woke in the most comfortable bed she could remember. The bedclothes smelled musty as though no one had slept here for a long time, but the mattress was hard and the pillows soft. She rolled over, feeling the beat-up mess of her body creak and groan, then went back to sleep.