by Mark Lingane
“Mmm, fresh meat,” the man said. “Untainted.” He flicked his tongue over his lips.
Sebastian shied away from the apparition.
“And behind door two is …” The man wrenched off Melanie’s hood. “Oh, yes, I’d like some of that.” He leaned in close, closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. “Mmm.”
“Get away from me, sicko.” She tried to step away, but the guard held her firmly.
The man had scraggly brown hair. He was thin, but not overly. His face was slightly round, and he had a friendly demeanor. He had a goatee that was beginning to gray. He wore a colorful shirt, with a variety of large flowers printed on it., and green shorts that fell just below his knees. They appeared too big and hung low on his hips. On his feet, he wore a pair of leather sandals.
In all aspects, he looked ordinary, Melanie thought. Dull. Someone you might trust because they didn’t have the imagination to be mean to you.
“I’m the Hunter,” the man said, “Welcome to my pad. Or, as I like to call it, the Prophet’s Paradise.”
The room was large, taking up the entire floor of the circular building. White tiles stretched from glass wall to glass wall, giving the floor a marble sheen. The view was expansive, reaching out to the mountains in the west and the plains to the south. Behind the ornate throne was a large raised bed that could have comfortably slept six. Several painfully thin girls lay on the bed, their eyes dull but hungry.
The Hunter threw his arms wide and circled the room before stepping over to the bed. He lifted one of the girls’ faces and tickled her under the chin. He sighed and pushed her away. She rolled over toward another rake of a girl.
An enormous glass tank was suspended over the bed, full of bubbling green liquid. One solitary steel beam kept the tank in place. On the side of the tank was a yellow circle with three black triangles in it. Famish was printed on the side in six-foot-high letters.
“That’s an accident waiting to happen,” Melanie whispered.
Sebastian was distracted by the girls draped over the bed; he thought they looked normal … ish. “Those girls don’t look Famished,” he said.
“They’re gifts from nearby towns, young ladies who are in the early stages of turning. They’re such presents, aren’t they? They make such a wonderful trade.”
“Trade?” Melanie said.
“That’s what the free-trade agreements are all about. They provide me with what I want, and I let them be free, until I get bored or they run out of trade.”
“That’s horrible,” Melanie said. “You plunder the area for its resources and give nothing back.”
“Welcome, baby, to the world of corporate trading and pharmaceutical investment. But really, how horrible is it? They come to me, often the spoilt overweight offspring of the gentry, and within weeks, they look fabulous.”
“Why are they nearly naked?” Sebastian asked.
“When you look this thin and fantastic, why would you want to cover it up? Dare to bare. If you’ve got it, flaunt it. Shake your moneymaker. Yeah, baby, yeah. We’ve got a million sayings for exactly the way they’re behaving. We’ve always encouraged it, adored it.”
“What are they doing to each other?” Sebastian said.
Melanie held her hand in front of his eyes. “Nothing.”
“What we’ve found is that, when people are starving, they become very tactile. They crave sensations. Smell. Touch. Taste. It nearly drives them wild. Of course, I’m not one to complain if their cravings need to be satisfied.”
“God, the way you talk makes me feel unclean,” Melanie said. “You … interact with them in that state, when they’re turning? You’re playing with fire, and you’ll get burned.”
“It makes it exciting, doesn’t it?” He clapped his hands together and rubbed them vigorously. “This has been going on for centuries. The science behind it is proven, I can ride the wave of danger. Oh, the thrills are exquisite.” He tapped his fingertips together as he stared at the two of them. “We have such wonderful devices.”
He lifted one of the girls’ arms and showed them her wrist. She wore a black band with a large green light flashing away. “This measures their blood count. When the light turns red, they have a day or two before they turn. And when they turn, I free them.”
“Free?” Melanie said skeptically.
“I free them into the performance ring below where I can watch the entertainment. It’s an interesting display,” he said, tapping his fingers on his temple, “before they sink their teeth in.” He let out a low laugh. “You should watch it. It’s like nothing you’ve ever seen. Kind of weird. Kind of sick. But totally, undeniably, irrefutably, impossible to take your eyes off.”
He twirled away, clapping his hands above his head. “Anyway, enough about me.”
He slouched down onto his pretend throne and swung one leg over an armrest, spreading his legs wide. “What brings you two young people to my wonderland? Are you also gifts? I can see the girl certainly could benefit from some Famish.”
“Hey, I’m not fat.”
“We’ve come to ask for you to release the cure. Our cities and towns in the west are suffering because of it,” Sebastian said.
“There is no cure. Why would there be a cure?”
“We heard—”
“I say there’s a cure, because people want to believe there’s one.”
“What do you want?” Sebastian said.
“I desire a little ruby wine and a book of verses, just enough to keep me alive.” He watched his ladies insinuate themselves around each other. He sighed.
“In that case, we’ve come to stop you.”
The Hunter let out an incredulous laugh. He picked up a large silver pistol from under his seat and waved it about in front of them. “And how are you going to do that?”
“We have a plan.”
“A plan, how intriguing.” He sighed, and let his gaze drift over to the glass walls. “Maybe not. You don’t look like people who could come up with an exciting and crazy plan. Look, I could talk to you all day, and I might not get bored, but my ladies will. And if they get bored, their minds wander down to their primal desires. And, if I’m not there, it could get messy.” His voice warbled erratically, and he seemed overcome with manic energy.
He stood up and nodded to the guard by Sebastian’s side. “I’d be lying if I said this little tête-à-tête was fun, but you can comfort yourselves knowing you were the most interesting people I had to kill today.”
The guard pushed Sebastian forward. His knee buried itself in the back of Sebastian’s leg, and Sebastian found himself kneeling in front of the Hunter, who placed the gun against Sebastian’s head.
“Kid, plan or no plan, I ain’t giving up my lifestyle for anyone.”
Melanie screamed and struggled against the guard holding her. The Hunter gave her a wink. He cocked the hammer and fired.
Sebastian blinked.
75
IN THE ONE moment, in the one blink of time, Sebastian disappeared, leaving his bonds piled on the floor.
The Hunter also blinked, disbelieving what he had just seen. “Where did he go?” he shouted. “Where’s that little brat?”
Melanie was smiling, tears streaming down her face. “He’s behind you.”
“What?” He spun around.
Sebastian was standing there with a pained expression on his face. He looked as pale as a ghost. And blood was weeping from every part of his body. “Now I understand,” he said.
The Hunter snatched the pistol from beneath his seat and raised it with a shaking hand. He fired.
Sebastian disappeared again and reappeared slightly further away, his face as pale as before. He raised his hands and thrust them toward the Hunter. His eyes glowed white. A beam of light so bright, so strong, erupted out of his hands and shot across the room. The force of it lifted the Hunter up and smashed him into the far wall, pinning him there. His body turned a bright white, split into a million white pieces, and exploded.
> Sebastian raised his hands toward the guards and blasted them away.
Melanie stood shivering before him. “What happened?” She was barely able to speak. “What’s happened to you?”
He spoke to her, but she wasn’t listening.
“Your eyes,” she whispered. “Your body. The blood.” She wiped her hand down his arm and stared at it.
He spoke again, but she stood immobile, numbed by the experience. He grabbed her wrist, and the manacles holding her crumbled to rust. She felt a surge of electricity arc through her body, forcing her back into the moment.
“I said we have to go,” he shouted. “This place is about to go ballistic.”
The chains snapped free and the infected charged at them.
The pistol was still on the floor. Sebastian concentrated. He felt the weight of it, felt the molecules switch, and he had a copy in his hand. He pulled the invisible trigger. An invisible bullet seared across the room and through the head of the first infected. He twisted and fired a second.
The room went quiet. There was a creak from above.
A disembodied voice echoed out: Self-destruct in five seconds.
Melanie spun around and yelled at Sebastian, “Would he really have done something so totally mad?”
“I think they call it the nuclear option. If you lose, then everyone loses.”
Five …
The tank above the bed began to crack. The base shattered. Famine™ liquid and shards of glass hung in the air, waiting for gravity to take notice.
Four …
Sebastian wrapped one arm around Melanie’s waist and leaped onto the throne.
Gravity took notice. Glass and liquid rained down in a deadly cocktail. The liquid started to pool, waving back and forth, rocking the floor. The waves intensified. The floor creaked.
Three …
Sebastian looked at one of the chains that had held the tank. He cleared his mind and held out his hand. The magnetic force flipped, the molecules twisted and he could feel the chain in his hand. He swung the end around his head and flung it upward. It flew over the crossbeam. The floor creaked.
Two …
Sebastian saw a small stairwell behind the elevated bed. Holding Melanie tightly, he swung out over the liquid, landed on the bed, and kicked away the girls who clamored after him. He jumped into the stairwell as the liquid rolled over the bed, drowning the girls, pouring down the stairwell.
One …
One story down, they emerged in a large circular room with dark and ominous doorways leading off in all directions. Some had portcullises that had been lowered. Worryingly, some hadn’t. Sebastian spotted a larger doorway straight ahead. It had a large lock on it. He cleared his mind and it blew apart.
There was a moment of peace when everything stopped for a moment, suspended in time. Dust hung in the air; sweat paused in its fall to the floor; hesitant looks were cast over the shoulder; and there was fear in the eyes. Then the entire floor exploded. The glass walls blew out into the street below. Then the floor above them cracked and the entire contents of the tank came crashing down.
Sebastian kicked open the door and burst out of the performance ring into a dark chamber with a solitary seat in a semi-reclined position. Manacles with short chains were set into the floor next to the chair legs. Ahead was another great wall of glass with views over the city.
There was another explosion and the glass in front of them exploded. The liquid poured past them. Sebastian leaped through the shattering glass, his hand holding tightly to Melanie’s, and out into open air, twenty stories up.
Sebastian reached out and grabbed a steel girder that was part of the structure of the floor. He wheeled around in midair, and a moment later they were dangling off the beam. The Famish liquid poured past them and out into the waiting world below.
Melanie looked down at the vertiginous view. Her eyes were wide with terror. Sebastian tried to pull her up, but her hands were slippery. He heaved, and tried to get a better purchase on her. He tried again, and eventually had his arm around her waist.
The glass in the floor below them blew out, then the floor below that. And like dominoes, the glass in the entire building exploded from top to bottom. Girders started to creak ominously. They looked down at the curtain of glass spraying outward, and the bodies of the infected jumping from the floors to a certain and flat death.
“I hope they’re not running from something we don’t know about,” Sebastian said.
“What are you holding onto?”
“A girder.”
“The one that’s bending?” She looked at his hand. It was flat against the exterior of the building. “You’re not actually holding on.”
“Not really, but I didn’t want you to worry.”
The girders creaked again.
Melanie looked down. “How do we get down?”
“Like this.”
76
THEY PLUMMETED TOWARD the ground. Melanie closed her eyes, hugged Sebastian tightly, and screamed. Into his ear. She screamed for ten floors until she ran out of breath, took a breath then screamed for another ten. She opened her eyes and saw Sebastian’s hand sliding down the girder, glowing white-hot.
They reached the bottom and he jumped free. His hand was in a bright white ball. He shook the ball away, revealing his hand unharmed.
“Sebastian, what is going on with you?”
He gave her a quizzical look.
“He shot you, in the head, at point blank range. How did you do that?”
“How did I do what?”
“Move. You were in one spot, then, without moving, you were in another spot.”
He shrugged, further infuriating Melanie. “It’s one of those mega-tesla powers I’ve got to work out. But it’s good knowing I can do it.”
“And the blood.”
He looked down at his arms and saw the blood. He looked surprised, like he wasn’t expecting it. He staggered back with his head spinning. This time, she caught him. She wiped her hand across his face. He was unharmed under the blood and grime, and normal.
“It’s like you’ve been rolled in blood. But you seem okay.”
A scraping of metal nearby refocused their attention on escape.
“Let’s get our bikes,” she said. “They pushed them somewhere where there was gravel.”
77
THEY RACED AROUND the base of the building, looking for their bikes. The ground was littered with bodies of the infected. They found a large storm-water drain that ran under the building. The walls of the building had been in disrepair for centuries, and the concrete at its base had been broken into gravel.
“This is the best option,” Melanie said. “But I can’t get those sounds out of my head from when we last went through.”
“It was probably nothing. Leaking pipes or rats, or something.”
She wasn’t convinced. “As long as it wasn’t spiders.”
They jumped down onto the gravel and made their way into the dark tunnel.
“Oh, the smell,” Melanie said. She slapped her hand over her mouth and nose.
Narrow cages lined both sides of the tunnel. Infected filled them all, each with a black wristband showing a bright red light. They tried to keep away from the grasping limbs.
“No spiders yet,” Sebastian said, cupping his own hand over his mouth. “Are spiders really worse than these?”
“You bet,” she mumbled from behind her hand.
As they made their way along the narrow path in the middle of the tunnel, long arms reached out for them, trying to stroke them as they passed. Some snatched at them, trying to grab them, but others looked like they just wanted to caress them.
“You don’t know on how many levels I find this creepy and disgusting,” Melanie said.
Their bikes glimmered at the end of the tunnel, where another metal chamber rose up through the building. Or would have if the building had been whole.
They found their masks and slipped them on, taking deep brea
ths for the first time in what felt like an eternity. They suited up as quickly as they could. Melanie caught a movement out of the corner of her eye, her vision distorted by the goggles and the low light. She turned and froze.
Out of the darkness crawled a five-foot-tall spider. It rose up before her. It bared its fangs and lunged forward.
“Spider!” she shrieked.
Sebastian wheeled around, grasping the hilt of his sword. He ripped the sword out of the sheath on his back. “It’s not a giant spider, just a bunch of reflective bits of metal. You’re freaking out.”
He kicked the pile of metal and it crashed to the ground. As he stepped back toward his bike, something moved under his foot.
There was a click.
Melanie secured her exosuit.
There was another click.
Melanie spun around.
The clicks rolled down the passageway. There was a rusty creak. The infected were crawling out of the cages. They looked hungrily at them, inching their way down the tunnel.
“My turn,” she said.
She rocked back the Gatling gun mechanisms and smiled. The roar of the guns echoed in the passageway. Melanie ran after the infected, firing and chasing them through the tunnel and out into the streets. She laughed as she unleashed round after round into them.
“I’ll give you thin!” she shouted.
Sebastian followed behind her on his steambike. “Stop running after them and shooting them. They’re not rabbits,” Sebastian shouted.
“No, rabbits are smarter,” she shouted back over her shoulder.
“Rabbits can’t kill you,” he said. “We’ve only got a couple of hours of light, and I don’t like our chances if we’re stuck out here. Remember what Abi said. Let’s get back to the Fortress.”
“Okay. I’ll get my bike.” She disappeared. There was a brief outburst followed by more gunfire.
“What are you doing now?” he shouted.