by Tia Wilson
“The humans can be beguiling. There is something about them that can bring out a trait in mongrels, we let our guard down around them thinking that they are they group that will finally embrace us. You know what road that usually ends in all too well,” Nasak said nodding. He lay back on the thin mattress and crossed his arms behind his head, closing his eyes while he listened.
“We lived in the ruins of an apartment block that had been built in the sixties when some local got the idea the town was going to be the next holiday retreat for people leaving the big cities at the weekends. Then they found coal right outside the town limits and that changed everything. Workers moved in by the bus load and over a few quick decades what was once a bustling town with a bright future was now a blackened mining town that no family would want to raise their kids in. People left in droves leaving only the poor and the hopeless. The mines eventually closed leaving half the population unemployed and with nothing to do all day but drink. So many of the young guys in my new family had fathers who had beaten them nightly as they took out the failings of their life on an innocent child. The whole town stunk of ash and soot, it felt like it was in your skin and covering everything around the mine,” Clarence said looking over at Nasak. “You would think you would get used to it, some handled it better than others. There was one kid in our group probably no older then twelve whose hands where chapped and red raw from constant washing and scrubbing. He would talk in his sleep, muttering about feeling unclean and needing to wash. He wandered off one night and we never saw him again. That kind of thing happened a lot to us. As close knit as we thought we where we didn't have the skills to deal with everyones problems. Everyone was drinking heavily at night, sniffing glue, getting high as cheaply as possible. We were a gang of lost souls on a downward spiral.”
“Did you like living among the humans?” Nasak asked.
Clarence studied the backs of his hands and flexed his fingers and said, “I did. They where the first group to ever accept me. My own kind thought I was nothing more than trash, I felt a solidarity with the group that I never thought I would get to feel again.”
“Do you think they would have been so welcoming if they knew what you were from the start?” Nasak said in a gentle voice.
“You know we both differ on this issue,” Clarence said.
“I’m a realist. Your time with the humans softened you to their real nature. If we ever showed ourselves to humankind we would be drugged and imprisoned. A life of painful experimentation would follow and what little life we had would be quickly over. A handful of gutter punks who treated you well isn’t enough to convince me of the inherent good in man kind. I think you are naive to even suggest it.”
“Do you agree with white bear dogma that the humans time is over and a new order should be brought forward?” Clarence asked.
“I trust the white bears even less then the humans. This talk of a world run by shifters has been a bedtime story to our kind since the very beginning. An idea to give us hope that some time we can step out from the shadows and reveal our true selves. It will never happen. How many shifters are there compared to the humans? Even with all the advantages shifters have it still wouldn’t be possible to overthrow them. The human race is the single greatest organism to ever live on this planet, shifters have no way of ever tipping the balance,” Nasak said.
“What if there where more of us, it could be possible then,” Clarence said.
Nasak let out a grunt of disapproval, he was in no humour to return to this subject again with Clarence, it felt like they had gone around in circles for years. “Continue your story,” he said signifying debate was over.
“I was with the group maybe a year when the ruptures started. I’d always had the painful rashes along my spine. One of the girls, I think her name was Ciara used to steal a salve for me from a local drugstore. For a while thats all I needed on my back, it was painful but manageable. I was drinking so much, that pretty much anything I felt was nothing more then static in the background. We used to sleep in a back room of a disused concrete factory whenever some of the local low life's got it into there heads to sweep the old apartment blocks for a chance to beat up on some of us. So on this night we where all huddled in the back room after one of the townies attacks from the night before. I distinctly remember waking up thinking I heard something ripping in my dreams, like the sound of someone slowly ripping a piece of thick cardboard. I lay there in the dark listening to the breathing of the group around me as they slept. There was probably twenty of us packed into a room no bigger than a shoe box. We needed it on those cold northern nights. I lay there thinking it was rats or something probably gnawing on the wiring on in the walls. And then bang,” Clarence said slapping his hands together, “the most excruciating pain ripped through my body. I started convulsing on the floor it was as if someone had stabbed me in the back with ten red hot daggers. I was contorting and twisting trying to reach up and pull them from my back. Everyone in the group started to wake. One of the older guys called Rousen jumped into action, he’d had a younger brother with epilepsy and he thought I was having a fit. He tried to stabilise me, get something into my mouth so as I wouldn’t swallow my tongue. Everyone was starting to panic. The younger kids where backed into the corners held in the arms of some of the older girls. I was screaming in agony, my skin gone ashen grey. Rousen tried to hold me down and when my back arched off the floor he felt them or saw them, I’m not sure. He backed away from me, eyes wide in fear. Take off your shirt man, he shouted at me, his lips pulled back in disgust. As I jerked around on the floor in searing pain I ripped off my shirt, I wanted it off my skin. I didn’t want anything touching me as I felt like I was burning alive.”
Nasak grunted in recognition of the pain that any kind of material against mongrel skin could sometimes cause when your body was in flux.
Clarence continued, “I pulled off my light jacket and shirt and was on my hands and knees panting. A torch was shining on me and people began to scream and scramble out of the room. I heard shouts of he’s a demon, or a monster as they tried to get away from me. Through tear filled eyes I could see my twisted shadow cast onto the wall and I saw them for the first time. Boney protuberances had ripped through the flesh of my back and ran down my spine from my neck to my ass. In the shadow they looked like the twisted stems of plants growing out of me. Rousen was the final member of the group to flee in terror. His last thing to say to me was, what are you? It was said in a mixture of outright disgust and terror. I saw I wasn’t a member of the group anymore, I wasn’t the same as these kids. I’d been fooling myself that I was part of a family. As soon as they saw the real me, everyone ran in terror. That’s all we will ever be to the humans, monsters ripped from their darkest nightmares. The creature under the bed or the creak coming from the wardrobe late at night. They will never accept us as equals. The humans would rather wipe us all out then trust us.”
Nasak turned over and faced his long time friend and said, “The humans fear what they cant control or understand. It is true that they see us as monsters and freaks, something to be feared. It is the shifters that they should really be afraid of. If the news ever broke about shifters living among humans, a hunt like this planet has never seen would begin. They would not stop until every last shifter was destroyed. We, they see as monsters, the shifters they would see as a threat. A human is the most dangerous animal when it is backed into a corner. They usually strike before they become trapped, they are nothing if not resilient. Do you know there was once a time when it wasn’t so clear cut that the humans would be the ones to thrive on this planet?”
Clarence nodded his head, he had heard all the old stores including the ones that all ways seemed the most far fetched.
“Can you imagine a world run by shifters? Maybe some of the calamities that befell our world would of never happened under some one else's watch. We might never know. Tell me again how you met the Fenton travelling show?” Nasak asked.
“After the first
night when the bones ripped through my skin I fled the group. I thought as myself as nothing more then a disgusting monster. I had seen the looks on my friends faces, it hadn’t been pity or sympathy. They had looked at me with pure disgust, like they had walked into a room and switched a light on and a giant many legged bug was sitting in the centre of the room hissing at them. Not one of them looked at me with pity or concern and I knew if I hung around they would have done what most people do when faced with a disgusting bug. They would have stomped and crushed me. As the pain seemed to double and then triple in intensity I stumbled out of the room trying to make my escape. Everything was in a blur as I tripped and fell and then got up again. People scurried away from me as I tried to get out of the building. A couple of times when my legs gave out and I hit the floor people seemed to materialise out of the shadows and kick me hard into the ribs. Every kick sent an explosion of pain surging down my deformed spine. Minutes before these kids had been the closest thing I ever had to a family and now they where swooping out from the shadows to hurt me like a bunch of cowards. I made it through the gauntlet of kicks and punches and collapsed onto the pavement outside the factory. I lay on the wet asphalt panting and then the first brick exploded close to my head. Chips of stone sliced though the side of my neck. Then the projectiles started to rain down around me. The kids where grabbing anything they could find as a weapon and hurling it towards me. I ran tripping and falling towards the large lot across the road. Something hit me in the back of the leg and I went sprawling onto my face and seeing stars. People shouted names at me from the dark as bricks rained down around me. I scrambled to my feet and and charged on trying to get across the broken asphalt of the lot and to the safety of the woods. It was the longest thirty seconds of my life trying to escape the missiles being thrown at me. I had gone from peacefully sleeping beside my makeshift family to now fleeing from them in terror in less then ten minutes,” Clarence said and paused.
“That’s how the humans are, how they have always been. They are a fear based animal and difference is their weak spot. Look how they treat each other over different shades of skin colour. If only they knew the kinds of things that are really out there stalking the earth. Their petty concerns would quickly be forgotten,” Nasak said stretching out on the bed. He closed his eyes as he listened to Clarence speak. He had heard his story countless times before, sharing each others pain was a time honoured mongrel tradition. No one in the group kept secrets from each other and only by sharing their weakest moments did the group grow stronger. Nasak would fight to the death for each and every one of his mongrel tribe and he knew he could count of the rest to do the same for him.
“The first few days where some of the lowest of my life. Everything I had was ripped away from me. I wandered through the forest in a fog of pain and heartbreak. I’d started to notice that boney stubs on my back seemed to have a life of their own. They would begin to retract into my spine as the sun went down, only to reappear the next morning. I was in a constant cycle of agony, stealing food from the summer cabins near the lake. Sleeping in derelict buildings at the edge of town. It was on one of my night raids to a dumpster at the back of a diner that I saw my first glimpse of the Fenton travelling show. You know the picture, we’ve all seen it. A man bare chested and howling at the moon, a deformed mix of human and bear brought to life in lurid colours. Something in my gut told me right away that the man on the poster was the same as me. It wasn’t a gimmick or a trick, I just knew that he was like me. The poster advertised that the travelling Fenton show would be in town in three days. It was billed as the ultimate spectacle of freaks, monsters and deformities. The last of a dying breed. I had to go to the show and talk to the man on the poster. Since I was banished from the white bear clan I hadn’t seen another of my kind. I had started to believe that I could integrate with the humans, be accepted as one of them. After my true self started to manifest, I knew all chances of a normal life where over. I wanted to be back with people of my own kind. It became my only chance at salvation and I thought maybe even something resembling a real life,” Clarence said and cracked his knuckles loudly.
“So many of our kind have imagined a life where they can blend in with the humans, finally belong to a group. The harsh reality is the humans would fear us even more than our old clan would. The humans would want to destroy us. The clan sees us as a disappointment and aberration that should be hidden away from sight. They think freaks like you and I would take away from the majesty of the clan. You cant have misshapen deformed creatures living amongst the regal and powerful white bears,” Nasak said spitting out the last few words in disgust.
“Then why come back to them and offer up this woman?” Clarence asked.
“It’s time for change. No more sneaking around in the shadows as if we are some kind of monster. You and I have as much right to be part of the white bear clan as any of those shifters out there. If they don't take us in we always have a more radical approach to reintegration.” Nasak said.
“You know it would be impossible for us to take over the clan. Our numbers are too small and only a few of us are trained for any kind of real combat. We wouldn’t stand a chance against them,” Clarence said.
“We have one advantage my friend. The clan see us as nothing more than freaks. They have always and they will always continue to underestimate us and our abilities. They think throwing us from the safety of the clan would weaken us, kill us off. Their mistake. We are stronger and more resilient than they could ever imagine. As long as they continue to think of us as a collection of sideshow freaks we hold the upper hand,” Nasak said lying back and closing his eyes.
They will always underestimate us Nasak thought and that is why they would never suspect that a ragtag bunch of freaks could ever have any kind of advantage over a pure shifter. Nasak knew he held the real trump card. The wooden crate and the prisoner inside that they had carried for the last month was the key to the kingdom. The creature inside was going to pay for the sins of the white bear clan. Only Nasak and one other mongrel knew who it was they had captured and he intended to keep it that way for as long as was needed.
Clarence nodded his head and knew now wasn’t the time to get into a long digression with his friend. They both knew what needed to be done and that the path ahead was dangerous for all mongrel kind.
Within a few minutes Nasak could hear the raspy breathing of his friend sleeping, each breath sounding like something fleshy and loose was fluttering. He stared at the ceiling thinking of home and his final day. A day mixed with the fear of the ceremony and a kind of reflected pride that came from his father. On that day Nasak was to become a man. Instead he became a twisted broken monster that made clan members turn away in disgust and a shared communal shame at what Nasak had become. His expulsion from the bosom of the clan was quick and brutal. I won’t go so easy on you Tulimak, he thought as he closed his eyes. I intend for you to suffer a slow and painful demise as I destroy everything that you believe is your birthright and I will pull the fabric of your family apart. Starting with your father.
9
Tom
Tom lay on his stomach at the edge of the ridge and looked across the wide open plain. The train tracks cutting across the browning grassland were the only man made thing visible. To the south the tracks continued on for a hundred miles before they crossed the ravine known as Ravens Wing to the the local nomadic people. The ravine and the bridge that crossed it was the point of no return, if Tom was still on the train by then the mission was a failure.
To the west where the train tracks snaked down from the snow capped mountains Tom could see a thin line of smoke curling up into the sky. He dialled in the binoculars and the image came into focus. It was the White Star, the train he was looking for. From this distance he could just about make out the blazing star logo on the side of the train.
Tom unzipped a pouch on the front of his flack jacket and took out a protein bar and started to eat it. I have thirty minutes before the train p
asses me by, he thought, as he chewed on the dry fruit packed bar. He finished eating and drank some water and checked the trains distance again. He still had plenty of time. Tom ran his hand over the saddle of the dirt bike. He had haggled the price down to four hundred dollars, the kid who was selling it was more interested in being payed in the mighty dollar than the local currency.
He checked again and now the train was a couple of minutes away. He traced his path across the grass plains on a small map he had and recalculated the time it would take him to clear the train and make it to the front carriage and the sleeping quarters. If all went to plan he should have a few minutes to spare before the train hit the bridge. He checked his calculations again, anything to keep his mind off the dangerous mission ahead. One last time Tom checked each item of his equipment and tightened his kevlar jacket. He was ready.
The train passed by Toms hiding spot and he threw the binoculars on the ground. He hopped on his motorbike and gunned the engine. The bike bounced down the hill and once he was on the flat hard dirt of the grass plains Tom accelerated towards the train speeding away.
The bike was engulfed in a cloud of dust as Tom drew parallel to the train tracks. The back of the train had a small viewing platform surrounded by a railing. Tom caught up and got as close to the back of the train as possible. He matched the speed and reached his hand out towards the railing. The tips of his fingers brushed against the cold metal. He stretched again and the bike hit a clump of dried dirt and he grabbed the handle bars with both hands to gain control of the bike as it shook.