Tar: An apocalyptic horror novella

by Iain Rob Wright

  Finn nodded hello and kept his arms by his side. He wanted information not aggro. “I’m looking for Dominic, you seen him?” He stated the question in a way that made it seem like he knew Dominic and they were friends.

  But the skinhead-bouncer didn’t buy it. “What you want Dom for?”

  “Just want to talk to him about something.”

  “I don’t know you, mate, so I suggest you piss off.”

  Finn raised his eyebrow and looked confused. “What’s the problem, fella? I just want to talk to him.”

  The thug jutted out his chin. “Lotta people want to talk to Dom, mate. Don’t mean they get to.”

  Finn took a step forwards, which prompted the skinhead’s colleague to move in front of him. “Where you think you’re going, mate?”

  “I’m going in there to talk to Dom,” said Finn in a voice several shades harder than his prior tone. “Now, you can either tell me where he is or I’ll snap your friend’s elbow.”

  The skinhead laughed, almost bellowed with amusement. Perhaps it was the fact he held half-a-foot of height over Finn and two stones in weight. Whatever it was he found so funny, he didn't laugh when Finn doubled him over with a jab to the throat and grabbed him in a hammer lock, shoving up on his wrist until his elbow snapped. The noise the big skinhead made reminded Finn of the wounded seven-year-old girl he’d dragged out of a post office in Belfast. Agony made frightened children of men.

  The skinhead’s colleague pulled something from his inside pocket. From the glint alone, Finn knew it was a blade. “You’re going to want to think twice about that, buddy.”

  The thug didn’t heed Finn’s warning and thrust the knife at his chest. Finn hopped back and the blade missed its target, leaving its wielder unbalanced. Taking advantage, Finn used the palm of his right fist to shatter his attacker’s nose, aiming the blow down onto the bridge rather than up against the septum—he didn’t want to kill the guy. Not unless he had to.

  With both thugs on the floor weeping, Finn sauntered in through the pub’s open doorway. Hearing the commotion outside, the pub’s inhabitants were already looking his way as he entered.

  Finn waved a hand. “Can a fella get a drink?”

  “The fuck are you?” a stumpy guy behind the bar asked.

  “The name’s Finn. I’m looking for Dominic. You fine gentlemen seen him?”

  There were maybe nine people in the bar, but no one spoke or announced themselves as Dominic. Finn took the moment to survey his surroundings. The carpet beneath his feet was worn and tacky. Bloodstains melded with ancient chewing gum and mushed-up peanuts. The walls, too, were stained and the ancient wallpaper peeled in multiple places. The air smelled of piss and stale beer.

  “Dom isn’t here,” said the guy behind the bar. “I suggest you bugger off before he sees what you just did to Gaz and Tommy.”

  “Oh, them?” Finn looked back out at the pavement. “That was a misunderstanding.”

  “Yeah, right,” the barman replied.

  Finn cleared his throat and looked around the room again, making eye-contact with everybody present. He didn’t want to give the impression he was intimidated by any of them. In fact, he wanted them to be intimidated by him. After what he did to their two friends outside, he saw he had already achieved his goal with most of them.

  “Could somebody tell me where Dominic is, please? I’d be much obliged.”

  The barman picked up a dishcloth and started wiping down the bar. He pulled a face. “Can’t help you, mate.”

  Finn took several steps and stood directly in the centre of the room. “Tell me where Dominic is, right now.”

  “Or else what?” someone in the room asked.

  Finn turned and met eyes with the person who had spoken—a dirty-looking kid in an Arsenal shirt. He gave the man an answer. “Or else I start asking questions you people won't like.”

  “What questions?” the barman asked.

  Finn took another step forward. A guy to his left with shaggy blonde hair and a scorpion tattoo under his left eye flinched at the proximity but didn’t retreat. Finn was near enough to strike the man if he wished, but for now he would stick with words. “I’ll start asking questions about my sister, Marie. Anybody know her? Somebody beat her to death. I got here one day after. You can probably imagine how I feel about that.”

  The room went silent. Nobody spoke or even blinked. It was enough to tell Finn that these men had known Marie. The reason for why he stood there facing them down was a mystery no more. From the looks on their faces, they didn’t know whether to fear Finn more or less. Was he mad from grief, or a man looking for retribution?

  “She was a good girl,” said Finn. “Would’ve given you the shirt off her back. Although, maybe some of you here tore it off her back. She was naked when someone dumped her on my doorstep. Not sure if that means she had a friend who cared enough to take her home, or a tormentor twisted enough to want her family to see what was left of her.”

  The barman stopped polishing the bar and folded his arms across his chest. “Don’t know any Marie, mate. Think you've got the wrong pub. Sorry for your loss, though.”

  Finn nodded and turned towards the door. “Thanks anyway.”

  “No problem.”

  Finn felt the air deflate behind him as he headed for the door, but just when he was about to exit, he turned to the nearest table and dragged it across the open doorway. “Okay, last chance, fellas, because I’m losing patience. Don’t know if any of you have noticed, but time is pretty slim for us all, so I don’t intend on wasting any of it on you bunch of halfwits.”

  “Careful,” said the barman with a scowl.

  “No, you be careful,” said Finn, “because the next words out of your mouth will either be Dominic’s location or I’ll wipe that bar spotless with your ugly mug.”

  The barman chuckled defiantly, but decided against speaking. That was good. It meant he was taking Finn seriously.

  “Think you should leave, mate,” said the guy with shaggy blonde hair and the scorpion tattoo.

  Finn allowed his hands to dangle by his sides as he moved to stand in front of the guy. “Did you get that tattoo before the world ended or after?”

  The guy shrugged. “Before. So wha—”

  “Then you’re a bigger bloody idiot than you look.”

  Before the idiot had time to reply, Finn grabbed him by the wrist and twisted. He tossed the guy over his hip and brought him crashing down on top of a circular wooden table and left him lying, dazed, amongst the kindling.

  The bar erupted.

  Those unsure of what to make of Finn were distinctly informed. They came at him in waves. Finn caught the first attacker—the kid in the Arsenal shirt—with a swift kick to the knee, dropping him to the dirty carpet. He followed it up with a spinning backhand that shattered the jaw of a meathead who could have been Mike Tyson’s twin. Like ‘Iron Mike’, the guy had a glass jaw and was out for the count. Finn's next attacker managed to land a blow hard enough to make Finn see stars. He barely kept his balance enough to stay upright and dodged the next blow only by millimetres. The thug was small and wiry with a body more like an athletic girl than a man’s, but the snapped end of a pool cue he wielded evened up the odds.

  Finn ducked the length of wood just as it was about to make contact with his temple. Then, from a crouching position, he lunged forward and tackled the man’s thighs. The two of them fell to the ground in a heap and Finn got the power position on top and rained down blows.

  Reducing the man's face to rubble—like someone had Marie's.

  The rage overtook Finn. Fury ran through his veins and came out his fists.

  Finn was too focused on violence to see the kick coming at his face. The thick boot caught him under the chin and launched him backwards. For a second or two he saw only black and white spots, but he recovered quickly and sprang back to his feet. First thing you learned in a bar fight was not to stay on the ground.

  Finn faced off against a guy
of similar size and strength. Like Finn, this guy looked useful with his hands, and much calmer than his rushing colleagues. Finn raised his fists. “You seen action, brother?”

  The other man nodded. “Afghanistan, twice.”

  “Thought so.”

  “You?”

  “You don't want to know.”

  Finn waited for the ex-soldier to attack, wanting an opportunity to size up his opponent before committing to an attack of his own, but it appeared the ex-soldier had the same idea and the two of them spent several moments circling one another.

  Finn could tell the guy wouldn’t go down easy.

  But neither would he.

  This could be the guy who killed my sister.

  The ex-soldier scored the first blow, catching Finn with a jab to the mouth that made his upper lip swell. Finn’s counter-attack missed, and he absorbed a second blow to the ribs from an angry right fist.

  Guy hits like a cannon.

  Finn feigned to his left, making as though he would throw a jab, but cancelled the blow before it came. It was convincing enough to make his opponent defend, so Finn danced to his right and let loose with an almighty haymaker from the opposite side. The ex-soldier was powerless to avoid the well-aimed blow to his temple, and his legs turned to jelly the moment it landed. He might have been an Afghan vet, but he dropped like a boy scout.

  The rest of the men still standing in the pub decided against getting involved then. They stood at the edges of the room and eyed Finn fearfully. The only man anywhere close to defiance was the bartender who glared at him from behind the safety of the bar.

  Finn approached the bar and leaned over. “Now, are you going to tell me where I can find Dominic, or not?”

  “Fuck y—”

  Finn reached out and grabbed the bartender by the neck and smashed his face down on the bar. He then proceeded to drag the man’s ugly face through the dirt before letting him crumple to a heap on the floor. Finn turned to face the remaining men. “Now,” he said. “Who the hell is going to tell me where I can find Dominic?”

  3

  FIRE

  Nobody in the bar claimed to know where to find Dominic, and Finn was inclined to believe them. They were the ones who had been too afraid to fight, so it was unlikely they had the spine to lie to him now. The men brave enough to fight nursed their wounds, in no mood to try for round two. That might change if Finn hung around too long.

  I’m not leaving with nothing though.

  The most Finn got so far was an admission that Dominic owned the pub. What that really meant was that he’d moved in when the previous owners disappeared. For a while, Dominic pushed gear from behind the old oak bar and made a profit from whatever alcohol had been left behind. After supplies ran out, he’d used the place as a dosshouse, allowing people to hang out on the worn sofas and stools so long as they made themselves useful. The men in the Hobby Horse were Dominic’s friends and acquaintances, yet none of them had seen the man for two or three days.

  Probably since he killed Marie.

  Finn wasn’t satisfied to leave yet, so he told the fearful men he was going to take a look around. Nobody argued. After a cursory inspection of the bar, and a peek in the pub’s backroom, Finn went upstairs to check the flat that Dominic had been living in since the old owner left. The upper floor was cleaner and less stinking than the bar below but still a filthy den. Crushed beer cans and broken bottles cut into the threads of the worn, beige carpet, and someone had pissed up one wall. Finn shook his head. What had got into people? They were going to die, yes, but didn’t they want to go out with some dignity instead of acting like animals?

  Finn believed in God—had been fighting for Him his entire life—but the last few months had made him see that mankind deserved no place in heaven. Those few deserving of an afterlife—like Marie—were victims of the wicked now. How could there be a God who would allow that?

  A shattered bulb swung overhead. The electricity to power it had died more than a month ago, and the televisions stopped broadcasting a month before that. News of the world’s demise came not, as one might expect, from the Prime Minister or the President of the United States, but from the head of the Australian government. The female head of state had been light on details but stated in no uncertain terms that Australia would perish within days, and that the rest of the world would follow. They had screwed the pooch big-style, was the summary to be gleaned from the Australian authorities.

  Great Britain and other nations sent their top scientists to Australia, but they either came hurrying back or were not heard from again. Before long, aerial photography showed Australia was an oozing grey blanket of tar—a blanket that was spreading to cover the entire globe. For weeks, the world gawped in horror at scenes of the Pacific Ocean disappearing, along with all marine life. Birds unlucky enough to land in the muck became that muck. One of the most horrifying scenes Finn witnessed before the televisions went dead involved a pod of dolphins trying to escape the creeping grey death. After avoiding it for hundreds of miles, they fell to exhaustion and became ensnared. The news did not cut away as the beautiful creatures bleated in agony and turned to sludge. It was then Finn questioned whether God existed.

  Finn crept along the corridor. A life of fighting house-to-house in small skirmishes had made his training automatic, and even though he doubted there would be danger, he couldn’t take chances—his wiring wouldn’t allow him. A grungy bathroom lay on his left, his right an empty bedroom. The covers on the double-bed lay crumpled, and one pillow rested on the floor. It looked like the bedroom had once been nicely decorated, but now dirt and black dust clung to everything. Family pictures hung off the wall, but Finn did not want to look at them. He didn’t want see the smiling faces of children, or a loving wife, and have to think about their fates. Had the mother died first, leaving the children to wander the streets scared and alone?

  Like Marie.

  There was one more room ahead, and Finn expected a living room. He approached the door in a crouch, keeping his footsteps slight. If anybody still remained in the flat, they had to be inside this room. There was nowhere else.

  Finn reached out to open the door but found it locked. Seeing no way not to announce his presence, he banged on the door. “Hey, is anybody in there?”

  “Hello?” came an immediate reply. “Who’s there?”

  The voice sounded young, like it belonged to a boy.

  “My name is Finn. I’m looking for Dominic.”

  “He’s not here.”

  Finn took a moment to decide what he wanted to do. He didn’t want to be nasty with a child, but he was looking for the man who killed his sister. He didn’t have time to mess around. “Look, can you let me in, son?”

  “No.”

  Finn tried to stop a growl escaping his lips, but was only partly successful. “Let me in or I’ll kick the door in.”

  “Good!”

  “What do you mean, ‘good’? You want me to kick the door in?”

  “Yes! I’ve been trapped in here for two days. I can’t get the door open.”

  Finn glanced at the keyhole and frowned. The boy was trapped in there? Who had locked him inside?

  What did it matter?

  “Okay, son. Stand back.”

  Finn moved and checked the ground in front of him. A trodden-down box of sanitary towels crunched underfoot and he kicked it out of his way so he wouldn’t slip on it. He took two deep breaths, tensed his abdomen, and then ran at the door, dropping his shoulder so it struck directly above the lock.

  Pain!

  It became clear why the young boy was trapped. The thick, wooden fire-door had a heavy lock fitted—the previous owner must have been security conscious to fit a lock to an interior door. “Hold on, kid, this is gonna take me another run at it.”

  Finn heard the boy shuffle out of the way. This time Finn prepared a longer run-up—half-a-dozen steps. With a different plan in mind, he picked up speed with every step forward before leaping up into th
e air. He put all of his weight and speed behind his right foot and planted a flying kick right up against the handle. The door burst open so hard that Finn ended up stumbling upon landing and ended up on his back. There was no time to be embarrassed—he didn’t know for sure who was in the living room—so he quickly rolled up onto his knees and jumped onto his feet.

  All that faced him was a young boy, about twelve years old. Scraggly brown hair and pink smiling lips.

  “Nice to meet you,” said the boy. He looked malnourished. Every kid left alive looked malnourished.

  Before Finn spoke, he gave the room a cursory glance. All seemed clear. There was a small kitchen, but he could see into it from where he stood. “What are you doing here, kid?”

  “Dominic caught me stealing, so he locked me in here to deal with when he got back. He never came back.”

  At the sound of Dominic’s name, Finn’s hands curled into fists. “You know Dominic? Where is he?”

  The boy shook his head. “He was supposed to be back yesterday. Told me he was going out to get some booze. One of his crew found some in an old supermarket warehouse at the edge of town. Said he would have more power than anybody left alive in the city once he had the only booze left. People are scared, and all they want to do is get wasted, he said.”

  Finn crossed his arms and thought for a moment. “What did you steal?”

  “Tablets.”

  “You some kind of junkie, kid?”

  The boy shook his head adamantly. “No way, I don't touch that stuff. My mum taught me. I get headaches though—migraines—and my mum gives me aspirin to help. I just took some from Dominic’s stash. He has people bringing him tonnes of stuff so I didn’t think he’d notice. He went crazy at me though when he caught me taking them.”

  Finn saw the finger marks around the kid’s scrawny neck and sighed. He took in the filth in the living room and felt sick. The kid had been forced to piss and shit in the corner like an animal because the windows were barred—rough pub in a rough area, it made sense. “When did you last eat, kid?”