Rust: One

by Christopher Ruz

  Goodwell coughed. "Empty your pockets."

  The boys responded like automatons. Martin only had a plastic baggie of weed, but Dylan and Taram each had a spray can tucked inside their hoodies, the nozzles still wet. Goodwell sighed. "Why'd you paint those things, boys? Tell me it was a joke."

  The kids didn't reply.

  "Something someone in school told you to write? A dare? What does it mean, anyway? The true queen lives? You making a joke about the English?"

  Taram and Dylan were silent, but Martin spoke in a voice that was far too deep. "She sees you, Detective."

  "Excuse me?"

  "She sees you and she will take you for her own when this is done." Martin grinned, showing small white teeth behind his plump lips. "She offers you a truce."

  Goodwell shuddered. He turned from the three boys, hands clenching and unclenching in his pockets. Then he leaned in close to Taram and peeled his left eyelid back.

  Beneath the bottle-green shine of his iris, something squirmed. Something long and thin, thin as fishing wire.

  Goodwell checked the other two boys in turn. They were the same. There were threads beneath their irises, worming deep into the jelly of the eye. Dylan had three, but that didn't mean there weren't just as many working their way through Taram and Martin's brains.

  He stepped back, wiping his hands on his slacks. "It got you good, didn't it?" he whispered. "Well, shit." The boys hadn't moved. They didn't even blink. Now that they'd been exposed, there wasn't any reason to keep up the pretence. "How'd you catch it? Someone put it into you? Or did it call you down to the convent?"

  The boys were silent. They swayed on the balls of their feet, heads bobbing in time. Goodwell swallowed the lump in his throat. "How come your parents don't see? Has it got to them, too?"

  Taram, the thin Pakistani kid, licked his lips. His hands hung slack by his sides and spit shone on the end of his long, pink tongue. His hair was plastered to his forehead by the rain. "It came," he said.

  "Yeah."

  "From..." He pointed up.

  Goodwell stared at the sky, at the thick grey cloud blanketing the farm. Rain splashed on his cheeks.

  "Goddamn," he whispered. The rain tingled on his lips, and he spat in the dirt between his feet until the taste of it was gone. "That's how it gets in, huh?"

  The boys didn't reply, but all three smiled in unison. They still hadn't blinked.

  "And how do I get it out?" Goodwell said. "Is there a cure?"

  The three boys were silent. Goodwell sighed. "That's how it is. You're not gonna let those children go, are you?"

  Dylan shook his head. "They're mine. All the children are-"

  Goodwell drew his pistol in one smooth motion, pressed it to young Dylan's head, and fired.

  The boy was slammed back against the side of the barn. He twitched, went limp, and slid down to the grass. The front of his head was caved in like he'd been hit between the eyes with a hammer. The back of his skull had vanished completely, reduced to a red ruin of brain and bone.

  Beside him, Taram and Martin blinked. They shook their heads, as if suddenly waking. Martin's pudgy lips were pursed, like he was trying to form a word sitting just out of reach. "I," he said, and then, "Shit! Oh god, please don't, please-"

  His voice was high pitched, pre-pubescent. The throaty grumble of the beast had vanished.

  It didn't matter. Goodwell knew the games it played.

  He shot Martin in the throat and the boy fell, his breath bubbling out, clutching at his neck as if he could hold the blood inside. Taram was already running, screaming, but Goodwell was faster. He shot the boy through the back and he tumbled, clawing at the grass.

  Goodwell stepped over Martin's body. The pistol was slippery in his hand and his heartbeat was a mechanical thud in his ears. His trigger finger was numb as he stood above Taram and sighted on the nape of his neck.

  Taram rolled over, eyes wide. "Pleeeeeease-"

  The crack of gunfire was colossal. It echoed off the hills and through the trees.

  Taram slumped.

  Goodwell went back to his car and sat behind the wheel. He waited for his heartbeat to slow. It took a while to eject the magazine of his service pistol and, haltingly, reload it with rounds from the box in his glove compartment. Then he rested his forehead against the cool grey plastic of the steering wheel and grit his teeth.

  He could feel a headache swelling behind his left eye, but it soon passed.

  The rain was coming down heavy, spattering across the windshield. He took a plastic poncho from the back seat before venturing out again. He dragged the boys one by one by their feet across the soft grass to the old well. The skin of Martin's ankles was still hot against Goodwell's palms, and he swallowed bile as he hauled the boy up and over the rough stone lip.

  They tumbled one after the other into the black. There wasn't a splash so much as a wet thud as they landed. The crack of bone echoed up the well, and Goodwell had to turn away and clench his fists to keep from vomiting.

  Then, finally, he set the wooden cover back over the well and weighed it down with heavy stones. He didn't think there was much chance of the boys crawling back out, but in Rustwood it was better not to risk it.

  The road back to town was winding and Goodwell's grip on the wheel was shaky, but soon the old Hill family farm was a smudge in the rear view mirror.

  The sun was setting. Fire bloomed behind distant mountains. Rustwood lay below, picturesque in the rain, all the winking car headlamps like Christmas lights, flashing in sequence. It was oddly soothing.

  Goodwell tried to remember his last Christmas in Rustwood. The images were there - memories of candles and tightly coiled green ribbon, Hannah smiling, paper tearing under his hands - but he couldn't remember the presents themselves, or what she'd said, or even what they'd eaten that night.

  It was all too long ago. Before things had started to go wrong. But now, with the first blush of dusk eking across the town, it seemed to Goodwell that everything would be alright.

  The false queen would fall, along with all her servants. The one and only queen, Goodwell's queen, would rise.

  Rustwood would prevail.

  THE END

  OF RUST: ONE

  Thank you for reading Rust!

  This novel has been one hell of a ride for me. It's been years since I first found myself thinking of Rustwood, years since I started crafting the characters that would become Kimberly and Fitch and everyone else in that crazy town, and to finally have the first major story arc complete is... well, liberating. Scary, but liberating.

  I know it's cruel to leave the story on a bit of a cliffhanger, but RUST: TWO is available now through all major ebook retailers! So if you're after more meaty, squirmy horror, check it out!

  Rust: Three will launch through all major ebook retailers in late 2015.

  EXCUSE ME? TAKE ALL YOUR OTHER STORIES AND BURN THEM. MORE RUST, PLEASE!

  You know what? If this is your opinion then I'm not even mad. I'd love to sit down and bust out the next books of Rust from start to finish. And you know what else? There's a way we can make this happen.

  It's pretty simple. Tell people about Rust. Leave a review on Goodreads. Talk about Rust on Facebook and Twitter. Make your friends read episode one, at gunpoint if necessary. Got a blog? Write a quick article about Rust. Don't like writing for your blog? Drop me a line and I'll whip up some content for you.

  Talk about it in book clubs. Gift episode one to a stranger on Reddit. Print a copy of the prologue and slip it into someone's newspaper. There are hundreds of ways to spread the word about Rust. In return, I make you this promise.

  If I wake up one morning and see that Rust is now my most popular story... that you and all my other readers want it more than anything else I'm writing... then I'll drop all my other projects and commit to Rust 100%. Every day, every night, every spare moment, will be Rust.

  It'll be crazy. It'll be hectic. It'll be awesome.

  BUT WHAT WILL I DO
UNTIL THEN?

  Sign up for my mailing list! It takes ten seconds, and it comes with a promise - no spam, no marketing pushes. You'll be notified of new releases, giveaways, and nothing else. You can sign up by following this link, or by heading to www.ruzkin.com. Seriously, it's easy!

  TELL ME YOUR SECRETS! WHAT IS THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THIS CHARACTER/THIS PLACE/THE CHITTERING THING?

  If you've got questions, email me through christopher.ruz@gmail.com. If I can answer without spoiling the plot, I will! If I can't answer, then I'll still take note of what plot points you're most concerned about, and will make sure to give them twice the attention when the time comes.

  Thanks again, and make sure to read Rust: Two! Until then, take care. I couldn't keep writing these stories if not for your support. You're fantastic.

  Sincerely,

  Christopher Ruz

  Other Titles by Christopher Ruz

  Kimberly Archer died in New York and woke in Rustwood. She escaped the man pretending to be her husband and fought her way out of Bo Tuscon's basement of horrors. Now, with Fitch by her side, she wants answers.

  But Rustwood won't give up its secrets so easily.

  Powerful forces dwell in the sleepy mountain town, and their servants have sharp fingers and bloody smiles. There are worse things than death in Rustwood...

  Rust: Two is available now!

  Cezar didn't come to the prison colony known as the Pike for rehabilitation. He came for revenge.

  Ten years ago, Cezar witnessed mutiny and murder aboard a colony starship. He survived, and with the aid of the enigmatic Doctor Milan he's worked his way into the Pike to kill the man who led the rebellion: the warden himself. But before he can get his hands around the warden's neck, he has to deal with the prison gang known as the Song, a Buddhist preacher with a suspicious interest in Cezar's past, and the creature lurking in the mines at the heart of the Pike... a monster that devours men whole and that may, in a way, be instrumental to Cezar's plans...

  Cezar has his fists and a head filled with Milan's combat circuitry. The warden has a platoon of armed guards. The only way out of the Pike is death.

  The time has come for karma and blood.

  The Eighteen Revenges of Doctor Milan is a psychedelic science fiction novella in the tradition of Michael Moorcock and Alfred Bester.

  Richard and Ana are on the run.

  As a young soldier, Richard led a rebellion that installed the King's sociopathic Magician as the new regent. Now, after forty years of tyranny, Richard has fled the kingdom with his mute daughter in tow, escaping into the desert wastes where magic still boils in the clouds and demons walk the dunes inside the bodies of men.

  The Magician isn't far behind, and he's brought a pet: the Culling, an undead tracking dog with a taste for blood. But Richard has his own weapon, stolen from the Magician himself: the calcified heart of a demon, which he hopes to trade back to its original owner in exchange for sanctuary. What he doesn't know is that his daughter, Ana, is far more valuable than the stone. She was the last piece in the Magician's grand weapon, and he'll tear the desert in half to get her back...

  Century of Sand is available through all major ebook retailers.

  Lonely AIs, Peruvian parasites, graffiti activists and far-future memory swapping meet in Future Tides: The Collected Works of Christopher Ruz. Future Tides collects of all Christopher Ruz's short works from 2007 to 2011. Cyberpunk and space opera sit side by side with award-winning tales of heroin addiction and swords-and-sorcery fantasy in this 18 story, 60,000 word compilation. Future Tides includes three previous collections - PAST THE BORDERS, THE KING & OTHER STORIES, and NOTHING TOO DANGEROUS - as well as an exclusive scifi short: FRONT PAGE CAPTION.

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