by Matt Drabble
Caleb did a quick mental calculation and decided that he could probably get Quinn and himself out of the door and to safety before Morrison fired, but his concern now was for Gwendolyn. The woman had put herself in harm’s way and he couldn’t just abandon her, but maybe he could force Quinn back out into the hallway beyond this madness.
“Don’t even think about it,” Quinn hissed in his ear as he tried to reach for the door handle.
“Oh, this is getting tiresome,” Morrison moaned.
“Shut up!” Caleb barked back.
“I’m tired,” Torvan said softly. “I... I can’t think straight.”
“Let me have the gun,” Gwendolyn cooed. “Here, take this,” she said, offering him a small pewter hip flask. “Take it.”
“What is this? War or a picnic?” Morrison demanded.
“Take it,” Gwendolyn insisted and pressed the flask into Torvan’s hand while taking the gun from it.
“Drink, my love. Drink the gods’ nectar,” Gwendolyn insisted.
“Okay. I’ve had just about enough of this,” Morrison said menacingly, turning his weapon to the couple.
“Don’t you dare!” Caleb said, swinging his towards the dealer. “Are you really so stupid you can’t see a way out here?”
“Well maybe I don’t care!” Morrison laughed back. “Maybe I like it here and I don’t want to leave. Say, is that the hooch from the basement?” he asked as Gwendolyn raised Torvan’s elbow to make him drink. “I could go for another hit of that stuff,” he continued. “Pass it over.”
Torvan drank deeply from the flask, his face a mask of confusion but Gwendolyn was insistent and wouldn’t be denied.
“That’s good,” she soothed. “Good.”
“Hey, don’t hog it all,” Morrison said, stepping towards them.
Caleb opened his mouth to try and reason with Morrison but Torvan’s reaction stopped him.
The giant man went from an almost trancelike state to a wild explosion of sound and movement. He doubled over and roared in agony.
He flung one arm out blindly and struck Gwendolyn in the chest, sending her spinning across the room. On instinct, Caleb moved towards her and intercepted the woman before she smashed into the wall.
Torvan was screaming in pain now and there was a white foam spilling thickly out of his mouth and splattering on the floor at his feet.
Morrison took a step away from him, watching intently with great interest.
Outside the door, there was suddenly movement and noise as Niners finally came to investigate.
Quinn grabbed a chair and ran with it to the door, slamming the high back up under the door handle, creating a lock of sorts.
Fists started to bang against the door with increasing ferocity as they heard Torvan’s cries of pain. Voices were raised on the other side as the Niners desperately tried to gain access.
Caleb set Gwendolyn down and moved her behind him. Torvan was now charging blindly about the room, flashing out his mighty arms and smashing furniture in his wake.
Caleb knew that Gwendolyn had poisoned Torvan, but he’d been hoping for a quiet death, not this whirlwind of violent motion.
“I CAN’T HOLD THEM!” Quinn yelled from the door as she held the chair in place.
Caleb ran towards her just as the door burst open and Niners started to stream through the gap.
Morrison started to fire blindly at the emerging figures but Torvan’s, spinning body slammed into him, sending him flying into a bookcase.
Quinn fell away from the door before Caleb could reach her to help, and instead, he reached down and grabbed hold of her collar before yanking her clear of the men now pouring into the room.
He shot a Niner, who had burst through the broken door and swung towards Quinn with a wicked-looking knife. The bullet struck home with a revolting effect as the man’s eyes were blown out the back of his head in a red shower.
More men were trying to force their way in, and Caleb fired wildly into the throng, steeling himself against the disgust he felt at the damage and trying to remind himself that it was him or them.
Someone threw a spinning axe through the doorway with an expert arm, and it struck home into Caleb’s shoulder. He screamed in pain as the homemade blade buried itself in his flesh up to the bone, and he dropped the gun onto the floor as blood started to flow.
Quinn moved around him and snatched up the weapon, firing it into the axeman’s face as he lunged at Caleb with a second axe plucked from his robe’s belt.
His face exploded at such close range, showering them both with blood.
Caleb’s shoulder was on fire with the pain as he crawled away, and Quinn now kept him behind her.
There were shouts and cries from everyone in the room. Morrison was screaming insults, Caleb was yelling at Quinn to get clear, Quinn was yelling back at him to get clear, and then Torvan roared.
The giant’s voice boomed louder than anyone else’s, and in that moment, everything went quiet. All attention turned to Torvan and Caleb could see that the man didn’t look good; how he was even still standing was a mystery.
Torvan’s face was deathly pale. There was white foam mixed now with vomit splattered on his chin and running down his shirt, the mixture staining his grand Niner robes. His eyes were wild and bloodshot and his whole body seemed to be trembling with either pain or rage or a combination of the two.
“I am the light. I am the chosen. I am the will of the Divine Nine,” he said, his voice gaining in volume and intensity. “I am their envoy, a herald of their coming, and their word flows through me.”
Caleb and Quinn cowered a little now. She still held a firearm but her brain wasn’t working well enough to fire it. Torvan seemed like he was 9 feet tall now and dominated the room.
Morrison didn’t have the same mental block, but his gun clicked empty as he tried to keep firing.
The room stank of gun smoke and blood as the broken doorway was filled with bleeding Niners from Morrison’s hand, but there were still more trying to get in.
Gwendolyn was holding one limp arm that looked broken. She tried to speak groggily, but Torvan silenced her quickly.
“YOU SHALL NOT SPEAK, HARLOT!” he screamed at her, and her face went white.
“Your true colours have shone through on this night, child. Your blood is not pure and you are undeserving of this place and of their love. The devil flows through you, child, and I am ashamed to say that I was taken by your deception.”
Caleb tried to move, but Quinn held him firmly in place, keeping one hand applying pressure to his shoulder wound.
“Stay very still,” she whispered.
“The gods have spoken to me, and they have decided to spare my life,” Torvan continued after he’d spat a large glob of something from his throat. “But they will demand a sacrifice of biblical proportions to set the record straight. Our books are firmly in the red, my children, and it is up to us to settle our debts.”
Caleb watched the Niners at the doorway, their faces rapt with love and obedience. The doorway was narrow, but there seemed to be more of them outside in the hallway - far too many to fight.
“Come, my brothers,” Torvan announced to the men outside. “Come to me and we will bathe in the death of the invaders together. We will taste of their flesh and drink of their blood and toast the gods!”
This drew a large muttering of approval from outside the room and now they started to force their way in, dragging the dead and wounded out of the doorway.
“Caleb?” Quinn asked, but he had no immediate answer.
Gwendolyn was sitting on the floor, clutching her broken arm. “Please,” she whispered.
“Ah, the forked tongue of the harlot,” Torvan said, favouring her with a look that chilled the room.
He crossed the room to stand over her.
“An agent of the devil was sent to us, my brothers,” he said to the Niners behind him. “The devil sent us a traitor, a whore, an assassin, but you have failed, haven’t you
, whore? You cannot comprehend the power that flows through me. Your poison is nothing but honey to my lips when the gods imbue me with their power.”
“Please stop,” Gwendolyn called out to the men entering the room. “You have to know that this is wrong. This isn’t the way. This isn’t what we were taught, what we believed; this isn’t what our father would want.”
“I am the Father now, child,” Torvan said gently as he knelt down and took her face in his hands. “I am the All Father now.”
Gwendolyn started to scream as Torvan squeezed his hands together. Her voice rose higher and higher to deafening levels before her skull cracked like an egg between Torvan’s huge hands and caved in.
Caleb didn’t know if Quinn had any shots left in her weapon, but he didn’t want her to risk whatever she had left until Torvan moved closer to them and she had a better shot.
He looked over and saw that Morrison was trapped under a collapsed bookcase, pinning him to the ground.
“This is our home,” Torvan said, standing up straight again.
He walked over to Morrison’s pinned body under the bookcase.
“This is our land, given to us by the Nine Gods AND WE SHALL DEFEND IT WITH OUR LIVES AND SOULS!” he bellowed.
“You sure do like the sound of your own voice, don’t you?” Morrison asked from his trapped position.
Torvan looked down at the man and smiled. “I thank you for your sacrifice.”
With that, he raised one very large boot and sent it crashing down with deadly force onto Morrison’s upturned face.
He stamped down over and over again, each time punctuated with cracking bone and a wet splash. He stamped down until Morrison’s head was nothing but flat bloody pulp.
“I SAY WE OFFER UP THESE BLASPHEMERS IN THEIR NAME BEFORE WE RUN THROUGH THE REMAINING SHEEP OF CLAYTON!” Torvan screamed maniacally. “I SAY WE BURN THEIR HOMES AND THEIR BODIES IN A FIRE SO BIG THE GODS WILL NOTICE US AGAIN AND BESTOW THEIR LOVE UPON US!”
A Niner stepped forwards from the group and handed Torvan a huge battleaxe, one that they both recognised as the weapon that the giant had used to kill his father. He hefted the axe almost lovingly in his hands and softly caressed the wooden handle.
Quinn and Caleb were wrapped together on the floor now. She raised the gun, as Torvan strode slowly over to them, and prayed one last time for help.
She took careful aim at Torvan’s head as the man moved towards them and pulled the trigger, but nothing happened except an empty click.
“Our gods are the truest faith, heathen.” Torvan smiled coldly towards them. “They stand watch over their children and protect those who serve in their name. I am almost jealous because now you shall get to meet them in person, although I imagine your judgement will be swift and deadly.”
Caleb and Quinn held each other from their seated position on the ground as Torvan closed in along with the horde of Niners that still kept coming through the door.
They both shivered through fear, knowing that there was nothing left to do but die. Nothing they could do would slow Torvan. Nothing they could say would reach him. Nothing would stop him now, and after they were dead, the rest of the island would surely follow.
They both closed their eyes and waited for the killing blow, unable to do anything but hold each other, and then the world exploded.
----------
Dale was holding his own, or at least that’s what he’d been telling himself.
The Niner in front of him was starting to wheeze with the effort of the fight but Dale was struggling more. He had a multitude of wounds across his body, stabs and slashes that were leaking more blood than he would have liked, and he was starting to feel woozy.
The Niner was at least a foot taller than him and outweighed him by a considerable margin. The man was also armed with a short-handled knife and seemed to know how to use it properly.
To his credit, Dale had gotten his own licks in. The Niner’s nose was bloody and one eye blackened, not to mention the fact he was walking with a limp after Dale had not been afraid to land a few blows downstairs.
Dale climbed back to his feet and swayed worryingly as the Niner circled in close again.
He had to keep one hand clamped down on a nasty stab wound in his side to try and stem the blood flow, but his hand made for a poor bandage.
The Niner jabbed forwards again and Dale managed to slip out of reach, and for that he was grateful; he wasn’t sure how many more stab wounds he could endure before he dropped for good.
He’d set the plunger down a few feet behind him and it still sat there, a last chance ultimate deterrent to threaten any sane person with. The trouble was that despite his threats and then pleas, the Niner had yet to speak, let alone acknowledge the predicament.
“Just run,” Dale tried again, not liking the wheezy whistle sound coming out of his chest. “Why don’t you just run?”
The Niner answered by stepping forwards again with his bloody blade held out in front of him.
Dale lurched out of reach and suddenly found himself with his back to the tunnel entrance and the Niner next to the plunger. He could feel the soft night breeze on the back of his neck and freedom was calling his name.
“Why don’t you just run?” his father asked, reappearing for the first time in a while.
“I thought you were gone. I thought I’d seen the last of you,” Dale said, gasping for breath.
“Well I’m still dead, if that’s any comfort to you.”
“A little,” Dale admitted.
“You’ve got a chance now. Look,” the old man pressed. “You could just run. You’re all alone now, son. The others are dead and gone. There’s no one to challenge your version of events. How about it?”
“You mean the coward’s way out?”
“It is what you do best.”
Dale thought about the words. There was undoubtedly truth in what his father was saying, however much he didn’t want it to be so.
The Niner had stopped moving now. The large rotund man was staring intently with his head slightly cocked to one side as though aware he was only hearing one side of a conversation.
“I want to be a good man.” Dale sighed heavily. “I think I always did.”
“Wanting isn’t being.” His father shrugged. “Bravery is for the others, Dale - those too dumb to understand the way the world works.”
“Is that how you lived your life?”
“Generals don’t fight on the front lines, son. Someone has got to be the brains behind the brawn. Someone has to run the show and let the monkeys dance, my boy.”
“And that’s how you see me?”
His father answered by throwing his head back and laughing riotously while Dale had to stand there bleeding and take it. The Niner was forgotten to him now as he fought the only true enemy that had ever mattered to him.
“You a general,” his father said, wiping the tears of laughter from his eyes. “That’s a good one. You are neither the brains nor the brawn, Son. You barely register on anyone’s scale.”
“Then what am I?”
“You’re a monkey - a dancing one, maybe, but you’d struggle to carry a beat. You have my name and that’s been good enough for you to exist here, for a while at least. But you even managed to screw that up, didn’t you?”
Dale wanted to find an argument to fight with, but there wasn’t one he could muster. The old man was right. He wasn’t fit to carry the Clayton name, and when he’d tried, he had only succeeded in running the mill into the ground and slowly strangling the life from Clayton itself.
“So why not run?” his father pressed. “You get back to town, find a way to raise the alarm and find yourself a nice quiet hole to hide out in. You can tell everyone that you fought the good fight here today. You can be as colourful as you like. After all, no one is going to contradict you.”
“But I’ll know.”
“So what? I’m not saying that you’re completely without talent, son. You were able to spend
all these years fooling yourself into thinking that you mattered. I’m sure that in a few days, weeks, or months, you’ll have convinced yourself that you’re the hero of this story.”
Dale had to admit that his father made a good point. He could picture himself doing news interviews after the cavalry had rode in to save them. If he could reach the mainland, he could call in the police or better yet, the army. He’d come out here on a wave of local patriotism, one that now seemed ridiculous and quite frankly out of nature.
“You know it makes sense, son,” his father cooed in his ear.
The thing was that Dale knew it did. His father’s voice now sounded far more like his own than these crazy actions. That fog of rage he’d had since he’d left town seemed to be fading now.
He looked down at his blood-soaked hand which was clamped to the wound in his side. He was running around dark tunnels fighting lunatics while trying to blow up a monastery like some kind of dumb action hero. None of this suddenly made any sense to him anymore.
The wind on the back of his neck was calling to him hard now. The Niner in front of him offered nothing but a black lonely death without witnesses. No one would even know what he did here today; he would simply be another missing person amongst many, lost and forgotten.
“That big old bugger doesn’t look much for chasing now, does he?” his father added, seemingly feeling Dale’s will wavering. “I’m betting that if you get out of here, he might not even bother following, not now he’s gotten a look at that plunger. See?”
Dale looked at the Niner for the first time in a while and saw that the man’s attention was now pointed down at the apparatus near his feet. His eyes followed the wires back into the tunnel and he seemed to sense the danger there even if he didn’t know what he was looking at.
“There, that fat bastard gets it,” his father pressed harder. “You run and he’ll stay. You know I’m right. You know it makes sense.”
Dale almost left there and then. His left foot even took a step towards the tunnel entrance. He half turned and now felt the outside breeze on his face, soft tickling fingers drawing him away. But something was starting to tickle at his brain: a thought was desperately trying to be heard.