Throwback

by Guy N Smith

  Reluctantly Eric Atkinson left the Ouinn holding, heard her pleas echoing in his brain, driving him crazy.

  Don't leave me, Eric. I need you. I shall be back, that I promise. Wearily he set out on the return trip to the settlement beyond the Hill.

  That night they were back, a dozen of them eager to get their hands on weapons which would give them supremacy over the other tribes in the hills. If they smelled the bitch-smell then they gave no outward sign. There were plenty of women back in the camp, more than enough to satisfy their needs.

  The house was still and dark, no smoke coming from the chimney. Deserted, like every other dwelling you came upon, the occupants having answered the calling and deserted civilisation. Except that Eric knew that she was in there and this time he scented her man, a sour, stronger aroma that was borne to him on the soft summer breeze, one that made him uneasy.

  Eric laughed softly to himself; there were enough of them, there would be no problem.

  They crowded into the workshop outbuilding, grunted and hissed their delight at what they found in there. Tools and weapons beyond the realms of their limited expectation, scrabbling for possession of whatever took their fancy, examining them with childish glee.

  Eric watched them from the doorway, smelled the bitch-smell again. In there, she's in there. Help me break in, kill the male and take her. He clutched at one of them in his frustration, was pushed away. They had forgotten the bargain, were not interested in anything except what they found in this treasure cave.

  Anger. He grabbed up a hammer, swung it above his head and as he did so a blow from behind sent him reeling, catapulted him against the solid workbench, an agonising blow in the small of his back. He fell, showered spanners and the contents of a small tool-box over himself, hit the floor. Somebody kicked him, doubled him up, had him clutching at his stomach.

  These primitive burglars had what they had come for.

  If they had made a bargain then it did not exist any more because they were incapable of thinking beyond the initial haul. The one who had brought them here had obstructed them so they had struck him down. If he bothered them further they would kill him.

  He lay there, watched them shuffle back out into the night, laden with their loot; he was already forgotten as though he had not existed.

  Sometime later he followed them, but only as far as the fir spinney, skulking in the dark shadows and staring back at the outline of the house. She was in there. He didn't know who she was, not even sure what she looked like, just a shapely hairless body partly enshrouded by mist. Wanting him!

  Don't leave me, Eric.

  He heard her cry in his brain, winced because he had let her down. Because they had let him down. Guilt and frustration. He would go to her whatever, he did not need their help.

  A plan, as far as his brain was capable of forming one. He would not return to the camp, there was nothing there for him anyway. Those who wanted Marlene could have her. He would remain here, live in these fields and woods, watch the house day and night. Sooner or later either she or the male had to come outside. If it was the latter then he would kill him, creep up on him and strike him down. If it was the woman then he would grab her, carry her off into the forest. She would not struggle for had she not called to him for help?

  Eric Atkinson began to haul himself up into the boughs of one of the big pines, disturbed some roosting fowl which squawked their protest at this nocturnal disturbance, fluttered in alarm, hit the ground below with a thump and ran off clucking angrily.

  He settled down, his eyes fixed unwaveringly on that door which had barred his entrance earlier. Before long it must surely open.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  IT WAS late July before Rod Savage finally reached the Welsh borderlands. The going had been slower than even he had anticipated, involving many detours to avoid the settlements of wild tribes which had sprung up across the countryside. No fixed pattern, that was the danger, you might walk into them in places you least expected to find them. Once he had lain up in a dilapidated cowshed for three days because a number of travelling throwbacks had set up camp all around him overnight. Just when he feared lest their site might be a permanent one they had moved on,

  You could not risk getting near them. Sometimes if they caught sight of you they fled with howls of anguish, other times they stood and stared in bewilderment, began to follow you. So you did your best to lose them as quickly as possible. Once you had been out of their sight for more than a few minutes they seemed to forget all about you. But you couldn't trust them, so you kept out of their way.

  Throughout his travels Savage had continued to compile his notes. He noted the behaviour of the 'enemy', watched from cover as they killed livestock in the fields, saw how they gathered wild fruit and raided vegetable gardens. Food was plentiful for both them and himself. Deserted village shops, the shelves laden with canned and convenience foodstuffs which these people had no idea how to open or prepare. He carried a small supply with him, replenished it every few days.

  He steered clear of survivors too. From time to time he found people who for a variety of reasons had escaped the devastation of germ warfare, had barricaded themselves in their houses and were determined to repel any invaders.

  Once he was fired at with an air-rifle, a .177 slug chipping the brickwork of a low stone wall only a foot or so in front of him.

  'Keep moving, you bastard!'

  Savage saw the face at the upper window of a cottage on the opposite side of the road, an old man struggling to cock his weapon, trying to reload it with a shaking hand. Senile, trusting nobody. He couldn't blame him.

  There were isolated troop movements. Rod Savage lay and watched them from a steep hillside. Sporadic gunfire, driving the raiders out of a blazing tract of suburbia, a couple of Green Goddesses moving in and playing their hoses on the flames. Some of the mob came back to within throwing distance, hurled stones. More shots. Two or three of them dropped, the rest ran. Guerrilla warfare; Britain was likely to be this way for a long time to come.

  Occasionally Rod spied a helicopter or a light aircraft. Reconnaissance craft, maybe locating the movements of the tribes, doing a count of numbers. The remnants of civilisation had the technology to fight this war, the enemy had the advantage of numbers.

  In Herefordshire he witnessed some ruthless counterattacks, commando-style, that could only be SAS manoeuvres. Three or four attackers surprised an encampment, mowed the fleeing occupants down with submachine gunfire.

  Rod Savage almost threw up. Pointless slaughter. The area reeked of death.

  It was early August, according to the calendar in his diary which he meticulously ticked off daily, when he finally reached his cottage outside the small market town of Knighton. The building had its usual look of dereliction which wasn't surprising, the small garden a mass of lush weeds.

  He struggled with the lock and eventually the key turned. At least they had not broken in. Funny, they seemed afraid of locked houses, only raided outbuildings and open sheds.

  He spent the first day straightening the interior, preparing for a long stay. He could even be here for the rest of his life. He only wished he could find out how the rest of the world had fared. Had the States reverted to pre-Columbus days, the redskins finally taking back their land from the invading white man? Europe overrun by primitive man? Syria and Lebanon fighting a meaningless war as they had done for years, the Soviet Union paying the supreme penalty for their interference?

  Questions that would possibly never be answered because survival was a priority and you didn't give a damn about anybody else.

  He went outside, sensed a change in the atmosphere, the coolness of a late summer evening. Soon it would be autumn. Then winter.

  Winter would be the big test for everybody. The hardiness of the new race of Britons would be put to the supreme test. Would their change enable them to withstand the rigours of winter?

  Only time would tell.

  PART TWO

  AU
TUMN AND WINTER

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  PROFESSOR REITZE adjusted his rimless spectacles, surveyed the human-like creature which was chained to the wall of the small brightly-lit cell. No emotion showed on the Professor's features as he carefully checked the small syringe, plunged the long needle deep into the skin below the neck.

  The victim mouthed a mute scream, tensed, but the manacles only allowed muscle movement, expansion and contraction. Reitze pressed the plunger, waited a second or two, then withdrew the needle, handed the instrument to the white-coated man at his side.

  'We'll have to check him every hour.' He spoke flatly, a doctor perhaps concerned with a hospital patient's high blood pressure.

  'Ugly devil, isn't he?' The second man could not disguise the revulsion he felt for the prisoner. 'The original missing link, if you ask me.'

  'Maybe you're not far wrong.' Reitze stared into the throwback's eyes, saw how they rolled until the pupils virtually disappeared, egg-white without the yoke. The features were mongoloid, the body short and muscular. Water sprayed on to the tiled floor with force; the creature had emptied its bladder in its terror. 'It's like a kind of partial stroke, the brain stupefied but the body allowed full function. Just a change of skin texture, any surplus fat solidifying into muscle.'

  'You reckon we can do anything?' Westcote's tone betrayed his own lack of confidence. He had spent five years at the animal research centre in Arizona. You took a cage of monkeys and injected them with drugs which, in theory, were supposed to give a certain reaction. They seldom did.

  Most of the time you ended up with dead monkeys. The public protested so you were forced to keep your experiments under cover; you couldn't share success or failure with them.

  *I don't know.' Reitze watched the eyes closely, saw the pupils click back down into focus. 'But it's worth a try. Anything's worth a try. In theory this should soften the arteries to the brain. These micro-organisms, and we still haven't been able to identify them, produce a kind of angina. Not fatal but slowing the blood supply to the brain. If we can open the arteries up, let the full flow of blood in, it should bring the brain almost back to normal. In theory! But of course we don't know what permanent damage has been done in the meantime.'

  The victim's face was screwed up into a bestial expression of pain and fear, froth bubbling on the thick lips. Reitze wrinkled his nose. It was starting to shit itself, too. In future all specimens were to be given an enema before they were brought into the laboratories.

  Westcote handed him another syringe and he moved on to where the female was pinioned. She was unsuccessfully trying to squirm; if she hadn't been given a tranquilliser a short time ago she would have been screaming. Screams were very distracting in such a confined space.

  Reitze stood looking at her, almost gloating. By no means as hairy as her male counterpart there was less of a physical change in the female of the species, more a kind of coarseness as though she belonged to some hitherto undiscovered Amazon tribe. A predomination of the nipples, the vulva engorged like an animal on heat. Facially she was almost attractive, just a slight overall squatness of the features.

  'It would be too much to experiment on both brain and body in the same specimen.' Reitze spoke expressionlessly, he might even have been talking to himself rather than to his companion. 'The female stands a better chance of body success. A skin softener and hair remover administered internally. It was tried in Mexico a few years ago and there was one fuck of a stink when a couple of women died. The drug was banned as a result. But I guess nobody's going to make too much of a shout if one or two of these died.'

  This time he introduced the needle more gently, just a surface prick, watching her face the whole time. Teeth bit the lower lip, trickles of blood showed, dripped down on to the breasts. The eyes dilated, filled with tears. Why are you doing this to me?

  You're the first of many. There'll be hundreds more, men, women and children, as fast as the security forces can bring them in. Most'11 die but we'll keep on until we get some kind of a result.

  She was strangely placid now, beautifully moulded features serene, a hint of nobility in her bearing even when she was hanging from that stark wall. Proud. Reitze stiffened, seemed to sense it and it made him angry. You scum, we'll kill you if we can't cure you. He turned away abruptly.

  They've been hit pretty hard back home,' Westcote said. 'Virtually the whole of New York State is wrecked, mobs on the rampage the whole time. They even had to defend the White House with heavy artillery.'

  This "change" is like a rebirth,' Reitze told him. 'At first they're just stupefied, virtually an unthinking species relying on basic instinct. Then they start to get "acclimatised", for want of a better word, learn to use their limited brains. At first they ran and hid in the woods and fields, now they're saying to themselves, "Why the fuck shouldn't we have those fine houses to live in instead of stone dwellings?" We don't even know how far they'll develop. Anyway, we'd better go, I've got another meeting with the Defence Minister at three. Don't forget, check this pair every hour.'

  Westcote nodded, locked the door behind them as they left. Reitze gave him the creeps, you got the impression that he enjoyed injecting living things, delighted in unforeseen complications. These two wouldn't make it, he was sure of that. He only wished he didn't have to come back and check them out because he didn't like the thought of what he might find.

  'It's going fine,' Reitze told Rankine. 'We're now working on a series of experiments on brain and skin tissue. We'll know in about an hour how it's going.'

  'Don't forget,' the Defence Minister twitched unusually heavy brows, 'these are our people. They're not animals, you know.'

  • 'Sure.' They're worse than fucking animals. 'But we've got to test 'em. Don't forget, winter's on the way, another couple of months or so and an awful lot of 'em could well die from exposure. We don't have much time.'

  'Which brings me to our Emergency Operations which are now being circulated to the security forces.' Rankine glanced down, a hint of embarrassment. It sounded callous but probably Reitze would not see it that way; the American was devoid of emotions, compassion. 'Our forces are instructed to drive all these . . . throwbacks out of the towns and cities, scatter them to the hills and woods and keep 'em there; a lot of 'em seem to be doing that of their own accord anyway. Keep the populated areas free, stop the looting and burning and . . . well, after that we're relying on you to come up with something.'

  Reitze smiled faintly, maybe a sign that he did have an ego and it had been touched. 'Sounds OK in theory, but there's one point I was discussing with Westcote only a few minutes ago. Are these people equipped to stand the rigours of a winter out of doors?'

  'Their ancestors did, and survived.' The Defence Minister felt a little flutter in his guts; damn these bloody Yankee boffins, it would mean . . .

  'We'll have to carry out some extensive tests on them,' Reitze confirmed the other's worst fears. I'll make a start within the next few days. In the meantime, get your guys catching a few more of them. We'll need males, females and children, in good health and poor. That way we'll be able to hazard a rough guess at the survival rate.'

  Rankine nodded and refrained from repeating himself: They are our people, you know.' Right now they were in the hands of the scientists.

  Westcote glanced at his watch, saw it was time to go back downstairs. He shuffled his feet under the desk, wondered if there was any delaying tactic which would be acceptable to Reitze. He could not think of one, would have to go whether he liked it or not. 'What the fuck were you playing at, can't you even tell the time?' Scathing retribution that was ten times worse when issued in the Professor's monotone; no raving or shouting, he just spoke the truth and you knew he was right. Westcote would have to go and check the specimens.

  He descended the flight of metal stairs as if he did not ever want to reach the bottom, a step at a time, pausing, hoping that he'd hear Reitze coming, the meeting over earlier than scheduled. Passing him on the
stairs, his own key in his hand. 'OK, I'll see for myself. You can come if you want to.' Westcote didn't want to but he would accompany Reitze all the same.

  Another fuck-up but nobody would record it as a failure. Just a process, next time would show something more positive, or the time after that. One of the most important qualities a scientist possesses, Reitze had once said, was optimism. Positive thinking. But you reached a time when things aren't positive any more.

  Westcote reached the bottom step, turned left along the corridor, his feet dragging, pulling back on him. Don't go, for Christ's sake don't go, remember that time you injected those monkeys to try and speed up their reflexes. They were clinically dead but their nerves, their muscles were still hammering away like fuck! Oh Jesus!

  The door. He had the key. He could have looked through the tiny glass panel first but he didn't because what he saw inside might stop him from going in there.

  Don't look, just open the door.

  The key didn't seem to fit, that was because his hand was shaking, rattling the casing of the lock. He forced it in, exerted more pressure than was necessary; his heart missed a beat when he heard the tumblers fall. Oh God, he'd got to go in now.

  He smelted them before he saw them. Westcote recoiled, would have fled back out of that door had his legs been capable of movement; he felt like one of those soft rubber 'bendy' toys they used to sell in the shops. He clung to the open door, hung on to it for support, let it swing with his weight.

  The woman was clearly dead and it was from her corpse that the awful stench came; she sagged in her manacles, head forward, long coarse wiry hair falling out of her skull like feathers fluttering from a dead bird in a breeze, balding patches covered with red sores, oozing yellow fluid. Dripping treacly plops on the floor tiles.