by Dan Stout
A human roughneck hung from the ceiling, a thick chain shoved through his abdomen and twisted back and around to encircle his neck. The few bulbs in the shack left the room mostly in shadow, and Myris’s flashlight beam swung across it, revealing and hiding details in turn. The light illuminated the dead man’s heavy cold-weather overalls, the oil-stained dirt beneath his nails, the gas mask that obscured his face. My blood chilled as Myris’s light swept across the tank on the roughneck’s back. I pointed it out to the others.
“You see that?”
Ajax stared at it, then glanced around the perimeter of the room again.
“That’s from the lab.” I looked out the window. “If Harlan gave it to his whole crew, there could be another dozen madmen running around out there.”
Hemingway swore. “You think the whole crew is gassed up?”
I indicated the twisted form of the corpse. “Does that look like self-defense to you?”
Myris swept the room with her light, illuminating the corners to be sure no surprises were waiting for us.
“Okay.” Her voice had only the faintest quiver. “So we go back to the car and radio in.”
“If we can get a good signal. If we can make it,” I said. “If they can break anyone away from the lockdown in the city.”
“We need reinforcements,” said Ajax. “We can’t control a crowd, especially not if they’re in some kind of Squib rage.”
Through the grime-covered window I saw movement. “Two o’clock,” I whispered to the others.
A figure in a breathing apparatus limped between buildings. The roughneck carried an ax and his head swiveled continuously back and forth, a beast tracking his prey. Abruptly he stopped, threw back his head and arms, and bellowed like a gladiator in an arena. His war cry was muffled by the mask, making the sound even less recognizably human. A moment later more shapes appeared around the edges of the other buildings. Some of them shuffled but others bounded, moving in great leaps like oversized rabbits.
Ajax scanned their mounting numbers. “I don’t suppose they’re going to get their heads straight any time soon.”
“Kinda doubt it.”
From a distance came the sharp crunch of metal and glass being destroyed.
Hemingway motioned to us. “Stay here,” she said, and dashed to the outer room of the toolshed. I followed behind. Peering over her shoulder I could just make out a snow-obscured figure on top of our snow-runner, beating it with what looked like cinder blocks in each hand. As I watched, he struck one of the tracks. A hydraulic line burst with a loud whuff and a spray of pressurized fluid.
Jogging back to Ajax and Myris, I broke the bad news that we wouldn’t be driving back as planned.
“I count eight of them out there,” said Jax. “Plus the one on the car, and that guy.” He indicated the man hanging from the ceiling of our small sanctuary. “How many workers do you think they had here?”
“A dozen,” I said. “Maybe more. But we should plan on another five or six roaming the grounds. As well as Harlan and his goon.”
A scream rent the air. Across the yard two of the maddened roughnecks began to fight. They rolled over one another, clawing and growling. There was a quick movement, and one of them twisted the other’s head with an almost inhuman strength. The sound of the neck bones snapping didn’t make it through the corrugated steel walls, but I felt it in my gut. In all the stories of Squib smell I’d heard, there’d never been anything quite like this. Whatever Heidelbrecht had done when he’d bottled the Squib smell had also made it more intense.
Ajax shuddered. “This is not good.” He looked at me, then at the chain-wrapped corpse. “So if that hose gets loose on that canister . . .”
“It won’t,” I said.
“Right. But seriously, though. If it does—”
“Then knock me out. You don’t need to kill me, just incapacitate me long enough to get me clear of the fumes. A little secondary Squib stink never killed anyone.”
Ajax didn’t laugh. He and Myris exchanged a look, and he was about to say something else, but Hemingway had rejoined us.
She cursed softly. “Why did they put on the masks?”
“Safety drill?” I said. “Who’d pass up taking a break from work to try out some new equipment?”
Myris adjusted the shoulder strap of her weapon. “Makes sense,” she said. “And now that they’re on, the workers probably think of them as safety items. They’ll wear them until the gas runs dry.”
I peered through the window at the men driven mad by Harlan’s gas. “Maybe we can wait them out?”
Outside, the whole group of roughnecks crowed with joy as the victor of the fight dragged his victim’s entrails across the yard, leaving a crimson gash through the snow. As they bellowed their approval, flames erupted from one of the other buildings.
“Or possibly not,” I admitted.
Hemingway pulled her gum out and stuck it on the side of the repair station’s workbench.
“Well we’re not getting out in the vehicle we came in,” she said. “We either need to find another way out or find a more defensible building.”
It was hard to argue with that. Ajax stretched his legs, keeping warm in the bitter cold. “Okay. What’s the most secure building in this compound?”
“Probably the doghouse,” I said.
Myris looked away from the madness outside. “What?”
“It’s what they call the operations center. It’ll be right about . . . there.” I pointed at a building with only slightly nicer finishes than the rest of the compound. “That’s where the supervisors and suits decide what they’re going to screw up next.”
Jax checked out the building. “Oh, yeah, your upbringing doesn’t show at all.”
“You said operations center,” asked Myris. “Would they have a radio that could reach Titanshade?”
“It should,” I said. “The trick is getting to it.” I looked at the others. “It’s a dangerous walk, but it’s our best bet.”
Ajax adjusted the hood on his thermal coat and sighed. It was a low warbling note that spoke of determination and acceptance.
“Then let’s do it,” he said. Myris and Hemingway traded a look, then each nodded their assent.
“That’s it?” I asked.
“Yeah,” said Hemingway.
“No discussion of the many reasons this is a bad idea?”
“Would it matter?” said Myris.
I shook my head.
Ajax shrugged. “Then let’s not waste time on it.”
Stepping forward, Myris said, “Alright. I’ll take point. You three stay tight to my back. Watch the rear and flanks. We’ll skirt around that clump of them and head for this doghouse.”
I didn’t answer, other than to whisper a curse. The others followed my gaze out the window. Across the yard one of the roughnecks—the one who’d taken to jogging around on all fours—was headed straight for our shelter, face contorted behind the plastic visor of the gas mask. Myris and Hemingway faded into the shadowy corners of the room, while Jax and I pulled away to the sides of the window, each of us pressing our backs to the wall and hoping that the roughneck would lose interest before he reached our shelter.
There was silence for long enough that I let out my breath, then a thunk against the wall directly behind me. A pause, then another thunk. Something was striking the outside of the building right below my waist.
I glanced at Jax. He was checking his revolver.
Thunk.
I checked my weapon as well.
Thunk.
My partner looked to me. I nodded.
We both stepped back, weapons raised, to face the window. On the other side of the glass what looked like the entire rig crew stared at us, in various levels of damage and insanity. Directly in front was the one with the ax. He stared in at us, and we stared at him. In
his left hand he held the head of the man just killed in the square.
Thunk.
The head crashed through the window, and the tide of enraged roughnecks followed. I fired and the ax man jerked, then jerked again as Ajax hit him as well. He dropped as the other crewmen rushed past him, keening and gibbering meaningless noises.
We retreated, keeping distance between us and them. In the storage shed the pistol reports were deafening, and a loud buzz quickly filled my ears, turning down the volume of the screams and gunfire to a low roar.
Hemingway stepped beside me, and Jax backed toward us. Myris’s shots came in quick bursts of three, clipping the floor of the shed, where the impacts sent splinters of plywood spraying up into the press of roughnecks. A disciplined, well-trained reaction to subdue a crowd. It would have worked against most mobs, but the roughnecks weren’t just any crowd. Each of them was physically imposing, and even without the effects of the canisters they had the kind of strength that comes from a life of hard labor. With the added effects of the Squib canisters not even the fear of death could stop them. They came on, and the warning shots turned to takedowns, striking their feet and legs. The front row pushed onward, numbers behind pressing them forward, chanting nonsense syllables as they swung improvised weapons in the confined space of the toolshed
We fell back, Myris trying her best to lay down suppression fire as the rest of us dropped toward the door. I kept one hand on Myris’s shoulder as I retreated, allowing her to back up at a measured rate.
One of the roughnecks almost reached Hemingway on her right, but I squeezed off a round that caught the man in the hip, shattering the bone with an impact that should have dropped him to the floor. But instead of falling, the roughneck pawed at the wound, seemingly more confused than anything. He looked back at me, face twisted behind his plexiglass mask, and shuffled forward, swinging his useless leg alongside him, blind to the pain. He probably would have kept moving forward if he hadn’t been clubbed aside by another roughneck, eager for his own chance at our throats.
There were two quick pops behind me. I risked a glance, and saw Ajax firing at two shapes that darkened the doorway. The workers had blocked our retreat.
Myris screamed, and her shoulder jerked in my grip. I spun around to find her fighting off a roughneck who clawed at her with what looked like a fistful of nails, pushing aside her hood and tearing into the plating along her skull. She tried to scramble away, stepping on my feet as her disciplined shots turned wild. Automatic fire sprayed the ceiling, and Myris’s flashlight illuminated the dead roughneck hanging from the rafters swaying to and fro as he was struck by errant bullets. Tightening my hold on Myris’s shoulder, I stretched to the side and fired into the man attacking her. The roughneck let up for a second, long enough for Myris to push him back and finish him off with a burst into his stomach. She was free, but the right side of her face sported long, bloody gouges from her skull plates to her biting jaws.
She nodded her thanks, and resumed laying down fire. Muzzle flashes lit her profile, and blood glistened as it seeped across her face.
Above us the dead man chained to the ceiling observed the chaos with gouged-out eyes, and I told myself that I’d imagined the metallic pings of bullets hitting his canister, that the smell of cinnamon was all in my head.
Someone bumped into my back. I jumped, loosening my grip on Myris, and found Ajax directly behind me, backing away from the shapes at the door. I tried to provide support in two directions, and failed at both. There was a tug, then Myris’s shoulder was no longer under my hand.
Her screams started even before I turned back around. Myris was dragged down and away by multiple hands, each of her limbs stretched in a different direction. One arm twisted, turning and bending unnaturally. When it snapped, the shattered bone created a bulge in the middle of her coat sleeve. She cried out, desperately screaming unrecognizable words. Maybe the names of parents or lovers, or maybe it was only screams of agony. The sound was terrible, until someone got a hand over her throat. Her biting jaws still swung, silently fighting, then suddenly stilled as another roughneck brought a wrench down on her head.
I unloaded my gun into the crowd. I wasn’t trying to incapacitate any longer. Fear and rage had eliminated any remnant of discipline. Two more roughnecks dropped. That left three in front of me, and two behind. Cinnamon burned my lungs, and a surge of adrenaline coursed through me. I felt a smile spread across my face.
I pulled a speed loader out of a flap on the side of the heavy jacket, thankful that they were designed to make such actions easier.
A roughneck bore down on me before I could reload. He swung a piece of scrap lumber pulled from a doorframe, twisted nails at its end gleaming in the beam of Myris’s flashlight as it bounced crazily across the floor. I dodged the swing, but he caught me with a shoulder. I dropped my speed load.
I shoved the man back, bringing up my other hand in a tight uppercut, using my revolver as a blunt instrument, feeling the impact as it struck his jaw. My broken finger twisted in its splint, but I barely registered the rush of pain that followed. Instead, the taste of cinnamon flooded the back of my mouth, like being force-fed a pastry. My stomach knotted and I hit him again. I kept hitting him long after he stopped moving. Then I turned to the rest of them.
There are moments after that I don’t remember. I know I ran forward, I remember the impact as one of the workers ran into me. I know that I walked away from that fight and I suspect the other guy didn’t, but I don’t know anything more than that.
I do remember the next one, the short guy, built like a fireplug. I remember the arc of his arm as he swung a hatchet up at me. I remember Jax suddenly appearing between him and me, and I remember pushing past even as he crumpled around the impact of the hatchet. I remember watching the worker hit the floor and lie still, and seeing Jax hit the floor while I kept moving. And I remember laughing—laughing—at the joy of it all.
I spun, looking for more attackers, but none of them were on their feet.
I turned back, and saw a Mollenkampi sprawled on the floor, his back against the wall, legs sprawled out in front of him. A human woman lay near him, cradling her head, bloody blond hair sticking to a wound on her temple.
The Mollenkampi looked up at me, gasping, bleeding while he pushed himself between me and the human woman. He fumbled with something in his hand, pushing small cylinders into larger ones. My nostrils flared as I breathed in the scent of his blood. It didn’t have the flavor of cinnamon, the irresistible tang of Squib blood, but the sight of him made me rage nonetheless. My hands were trembling, but I wasn’t sure why. I flexed my fists and felt something sticky and thick clinging to my knuckles. I knew enough not to look at them.
I took a step toward him.
Another.
He was talking, but I couldn’t make out what he was saying.
I realized I knew him.
He was a college kid. He’d stood beside me when he didn’t have to, when so many others hadn’t. His face was alien, foreign. My teeth ground together and hatred surged inside me, a sensation so strong it felt like it was clogging my throat and racing up the sides of my head.
One more step. My hand was in the air. He was disgusting; he was my friend.
I hesitated, a long moment while I couldn’t take my eyes off his exposed throat and the hole there that kept talking, talking, talking . . . It was too much for me to process. I rushed forward. His arm came up but I was already past his prone form, stretching and jumping through the window the roughnecks had shattered.
Outside I hit the ground hard. I pulled to my hands and knees and my stomach clenched, disgorging my most recent meal of coffee and candy bars.
I scooped up clean snow by the handful and wiped it over my mouth, feeling it melt and wash away the vomit. But the sense of horror remained. The scent of cinnamon was gone, and with it the fog in my head began to lift. I was lucky the
exposure had been brief. I risked a glance behind me.
Myris was dead, Hemingway badly injured. She and Ajax were down, still in the shed. Jax was so fast, but with his arm injury, he hadn’t been fast enough. At least he’d been conscious, and still moving when I left the shed. I didn’t know if Hemingway was affected by the Squib smell, but I couldn’t risk going back while the broken canister still pumped out gas. My only choice now was to go for help.
I squinted and felt for my sunglasses. I’d lost them in the fight. Luckily the glare wasn’t as bad in the compound, where the buildings broke up the vast field of white ice. My revolver was on the ground. I picked it up, emptied my spent shells and reloaded. I had six rounds in the cylinder and another six on the remaining speed loader in my pocket. It’d have to do.
Struggling to my feet, I forced myself to move toward the doghouse.
Thunk.
I turned. On his hands and knees, the roughneck who’d alerted the others to our presence backed up, then threw himself into the storage shed again.
Thunk.
His gas mask was shattered, jagged pieces of plastic visor tearing deeper into his mangled face with each new pounding. One eye was already gone. His teeth were exposed in sections, where he’d chewed away his lips.
Thunk.
His jaws worked up and down as he backed up. I could see the small nub of a tongue in the back of his mouth, the rest gone like the dog’s in Heidelbrecht’s lab. I wondered if he had a family, a kid at home.
Thunk.
Someone waiting for his return.
Thunk.
Waiting like Jermaine Bell’s family had waited for him.
Thunk.
There was a crack and something in my hand kicked backward. I looked down and saw the chill wind tear a wisp of smoke from the barrel of my revolver. The weapon given to me to serve and protect the people of the city. Dully I registered that I only had five shots left in the cylinder.
My stomach clenched again, but there was nothing left for it to reject. So I faced the doghouse and started walking again. Somewhere, in the back of my head, I knew I’d hear that thunk until the day I died.