by Rick Wood
“Did she like science too?” Cia asked.
“Ah, she pretended to. She listened to my waffle as much as I chose to waffle at her, and she would say she found it interesting, but, honestly, it was her art that she loved.”
“She liked art?”
“Oh, yes. Paintings, galleries, she even did a few herself.”
“Where are they? Can I see them?”
He looked down, regretful.
“I’m afraid not.”
“Why?”
“I threw them away.”
“Why would you throw them away?”
“I really wish I hadn’t, Cia, I really wish I hadn’t. But at the time, I wasn’t thinking straight, and each of those paintings just reminded me of her spirit, and her love, and her passion, and – well, I couldn’t bear to look at them anymore.”
“You could have just put them in the attic.”
“I know. And I wish I had.”
Cia bowed her head, a moment of reflection.
“But there is one thing I kept,” he said, pointing out a framed poem on the wall. “Have you ever wondered where that poem came from?”
She walked toward the poem. It was entitled After the Devil Has Won. She read it and instantly loved every word. She read it a second time, then a third.
“Is there anything else you want to know?”
“Yes,” she turned back to at him, those innocent eyes wounded, as if she was about to say something that she wasn’t sure how to say.
“What is it?”
“Do…” she tried, but couldn’t find the words.
“It’s okay, you can ask me anything.”
“Do you,” she tried, “I mean, would you ever leave me, like Mum did?”
“Mum didn’t leave you, darling.” He wrapped her in his arms.
“I know it wasn’t on purpose. But she’s not here. You won’t ever, like, be hit by a car, or ever not be here, will you?”
He shrugged his shoulders, unsure how to answer that.
“I – I…”
“Please say you won’t.”
“Fine. I won’t ever leave you.”
“Ever?”
“Ever.”
“You have to promise.”
She raised her hand and held out her little finger. He entwined his with hers.
“Say it,” she told him.
“I promise.”
“No, you have to say it fully.”
He smiled. What a kid. As stubborn as him, and as imaginative as her mother.
“I promise I will never, ever, ever leave you, Cia.”
She smiled and put her arms around him, squeezing him tightly.
“Thank you, Dad.”
“That’s okay,” he said.
And he meant that promise.
He truly did.
NOW
Chapter Twelve
Night turned into day, like it always did. Though, if someone were to say it was still night, there could be little objection – the grey clouds still hovered like an unsettled argument, masking the blue skies with sombre darkness.
Cia had moved herself closer to the girl during the night. The girl seemed to give no reaction to the pain of losing her legs, which either meant that the pain was over, or she was so in shock it hadn’t registered yet. Either way, Cia could see the girl was clearly dying, her eyes lilting and opening and dropping in and out of consciousness at regular intervals. In all honesty, it was amazing that she had lasted this long – but the last thing Cia wanted to see was a poor, suffering, innocent girl slowly dying alone. So she moved next to the girl and, although she couldn’t release an arm to put around her, she still managed to push her body close so the girl knew that someone was still there.
A sudden commotion distracted Cia, and she watched with caution at the Wasters dancing and jumping and hollering and generally acting like something spectacular was about to happen. She was worried this meant they were coming for her, that her time had finally arrived, but no – one of them led a creature in, rope around its neck.
Cia couldn’t believe what she was seeing.
It was a Maskete, except smaller. A baby. From the size of the adults, Cia assumed the small size of this creature meant that it had just hatched. The Wasters all rushed around it, encircling it like a ritual, dancing and shouting and making those horrible gutteral noises. The creature itself cried and shouted, but to no avail – no one seemed to be coming to its aid.
How on earth did they manage to catch this beast?
As if reading her mind, the girl answered her question.
“It’s a runt,” she said.
“Pardon?” Cia responded, surprised by the girl’s talking, and her awareness.
“That’s why they have it. It was an offering.”
“An offering?”
“Look at its foot.”
Cia looked at the baby Maskete’s foot and, sure enough, it was limping on something that hadn’t fully grown. Its claws hadn’t developed, its foot was half the size of the other one, and in the commotion of trying to run its slanted walk became apparent.
“So what, the parents didn’t want it?”
“No… They don’t want a runt, so they give it as an offering… For their service…”
“A Maskete gave the Wasters this thing? One of their own?”
No response.
Cia turned back to the girl, and the girl’s eyes were closed once again. Cia wasn’t surprised. That brief conversation was the most movement she’d seen in the girl, and it must have taken some energy.
She watched the Wasters and the baby Maskete carefully, watching how they treated it. They teased it at first, tormenting it, prodding it from behind, then rushing behind it when it turned. It seemed as if the Maskete was unable to tell when something was behind it.
One of them ran in with what looked like a machete and hacked its good foot off.
The thing fell to the ground and screamed out, a long, high-pitched, painful screech that hurt her ears. The Wasters just laughed, jumped on each other. If they had enough awareness about them, Cia imagined they’d be giving each other high fives and chest bumps, but as it was, diving over each other and making delighted croaky screams was the best they could manage.
Cia never imagined she’d feel sorry for a Maskete. Or any of these creatures, for that matter. But she did.
They hacked off its other leg and it fell to the ground where it writhed and wriggled and squirmed and cried. It even tried to flap its wings, but they evidently didn’t work, as they got it nowhere.
One of them snuck up behind it once more, grabbed the back of its infantile head, and sliced their machete-like weapon across its throat. It squawked and squealed for a minute, then stopped. Cia then watched as they dragged its body, tied rope around its bloody neck, and hoisted it atop a tree branch. They danced around the crying creature as it faded to a carcass, screaming and celebrating.
A few of them climbed up and removed the Maskete’s claws, tucking them into their rags for use as a weapon.
“That’s horrible,” Cia said, turning to the girl.
The girl didn’t respond.
In fact, the girl didn’t move at all.
The chest that had previously risen was now still. There was no breath from the girl’s mouth against Cia’s bare arm, no tiny wriggles in the girl’s body, and no moans in her unconsciousness. She was finally free.
One of the Wasters ran up to them on all fours with that same deep-throated cackle. Cia backed away as it grabbed what it came for – the girl. They dragged the corpse – what was left of it, that is – away by the hair.
Cia watched as they ate the final parts and went to sleep.
She comforted herself that the girl was at least dead before the last supper. Any thought that meant she didn’t have to ruminate on what they might be having for tea the next day.
Chapter Thirteen
Somehow, Cia slept. She couldn’t tell whether it was mental exhaustion or being p
hysically drained that caused such lethal fatigue, she just found herself helplessly slipping into an unwanted slumber. She had hoped she wouldn’t fall asleep, wishing to stay alert, but sleep took her without warning and made her its prisoner.
Her own screaming woke her up. The first thing she noticed was a hand pressing over her mouth to suppress and muffle her shouts.
She looked up. A Waster. It was still dark. He’d mounted her. He stank of ageing fish. His saliva dropped onto her face in gulps. He was unlike the muscular Wasters that had chased her earlier – he was thin, scrawny, gangly; his skin was stretched over his prominent ribs.
A jolt of excruciating agony hit her.
He had something in his mouth. Something he was chewing.
The pain. Her hand.
She twisted her head to the right.
Half the skin from the back of her hand was missing.
She looked back to him. He swallowed. Spat out a small piece of bone.
She screamed again, but he muffled it once more. He took a piece of rope leftover from the dead girl’s bondage and wrapped it around the lower part of her face, tight enough that the rope went into her mouth and wedged between her teeth.
The pain was intense, yes, it soared up and down her hand – but the part that caused her the most pain was the sight of it. What it looked like to see a mess of bloody scrapes and exposed muscle.
She came to terms with it quickly. She had to. She figured, at least I’m left-handed. She hated herself for the poor humour, but she was going to lose more if she didn’t adjust herself accordingly.
She looked around herself, expecting to see a gang of them waiting. They weren’t. They were still gathered around the lessening fire, all of them asleep.
She quickly understood why this Waster didn’t want her making noise.
He wanted her all to himself.
The Waster grinned and ripped off the rags around his waist, discarding them, his penis flapping about like a dying fish.
She turned over and tried wriggling away. He grabbed her hair and lifted her head back, and she could feel him close to her, hard, against her buttocks.
She tried to scream, then decided it wasn’t a good idea to wake the rest of them. She had far better chances against just one.
She turned over again so she was facing him, and she tried to punch him, throwing both of her bound hands toward his face, but she only managed to brush his chin, feeling the grease against her fingertips, her hand leaving a splodge of her own blood against his lip.
He licked it away, his greying tongue poking out, flicking like a snake’s tail and wiping away its leftovers.
She swung her head, hoping to headbutt him, but he just moved his head back and chuckled. He was enjoying it, she could see that. All of her struggle, it was just exciting him further.
He used both of his hands to try separating her legs and she took the opportunity to squirm out of his reach, climbing to her knees, attempting to crawl away.
He grabbed her once again but in an unexpected, instinctive movement, she leapt behind him and dove upon his back.
He tried to shake her off. Too late. She’d tucked the rope between her wrists around his throat.
He stood, and she wrapped her legs around his waist. Being pressed up against his rough, perverted flesh repulsed her but she had to keep going, had to hold on, keep strangling him. It was her only hope. The only way.
The best chance she had of getting back to Boy.
She clasped her fingers together behind his head, stretching the rope across his gullet. He tried to shout out, but the pressure of the rope was tight enough that he couldn’t make a sound; his voice was trapped, lost with his breath. He reached out for the rags that he’d thrown from his waist, a loose Maskete claw attached to them, curved and sharp. But it was too far away. And she was squeezing too tight.
How long did she have to stay like this?
How long would it take?
She’d heard that people go unconscious after fifteen seconds, but that was turning out to be a lie. This had been far longer than that, and the Waster was still thrashing and twisting and twirling, trying to shake her off.
She held on tighter. Her thighs squeezed against his waist, his coarse skin scratching her crotch, her hand bleeding. Now she’d looked at the wound it stung even more, but she ignored it, pretended it didn’t exist, it wasn’t there, it was just a graze, just a prick, she had to keep strangling, had to keep–
The man jumped onto his back, collapsing on her. This winded her and, for a fleeting moment, her grip loosened, but she tightened it again, tightened it before he could have any more oxygen.
She’d never wondered what it would be like to kill a man. She’d wondered what it would be like to kill a Maskete, or a Thoral, or a Lisker, even though she knew that she’d never have the ability.
But a man?
Then again, was a Waster still a man?
She supressed all guilt, all reservations, all hesitations – she couldn’t face such ethical dilemmas now. She couldn’t.
She had to kill this man.
No, she had to kill this Waster.
She had to.
Or Boy would…
Would Boy even still be there?
Would he still be where she left him, two nights later, still whispering the poem?
Would he even have survived?
Would he even still be–
No.
Stop it.
Can’t think about it now.
Focus.
The Waster was now on his knees, clutching onto her arms, trying to rip them away, but his grip was softer, lessening, his strength fading.
Was this it?
Was she nearly there?
A final croak and splutter and the body fell limp. A dead weight, suddenly far heavier than it had been before.
She didn’t let go yet.
What if this was a trick?
She knew it wasn’t, but what if it was?
She tightened, kept strangling, kept restricting the throat of this obvious corpse.
She needn’t have.
And, once she realised that, she let the body drop and it thudded to the ground like a bag of weights.
She glanced to the sleeping Wasters. All of them snoring, spluttering, vile noises of their abhorrent sleep.
She searched the Waster for something, anything, a weapon or a sharp point that would help her out of her bindings. The man had nowhere to hide anything, there was nothing covered.
Then she remembered. In his discarded rags there was a Maskete claw.
She rushed toward them, grabbed the claw, and positioned it so she could work through the rope. It hurt her wrist, having to move with such energy in such a difficult direction, but she broke through the rope, freeing her arms, then did the same with her ankles.
She looked back at the group of Wasters. They were all asleep. She could go back and slit the throat of every one of them.
But what if one of them stirred?
What if they caught her?
And what if she couldn’t do it?
That’s when she realised what she had done. She looked at the body, laid on his front. No longer moving. Or twitching. Or grinning.
She shouldn’t feel bad, especially with what this thing was trying to do – but this Waster was once a real man. He’d probably had a job, a wife, some kids. He’d probably had everything, but sold his soul to the creatures to save himself.
He’d made his choice.
Then again, she’d never had to make a choice like that. Could he have known what life would be like after he gave up his soul?
Did he even know what he’d become? Was there a memory of his former self?
She pushed the body over so she could see his face. His absent face, so recently sneering, his wandering hands so recently searching. His face, whilst obscured with the mask of wrathful servitude, could have been friendly once. He could have been a friendly neighbour, or a crazy uncle.
/> And she ended that.
And those words hit her like an aching jaw around her heart.
I killed a man.
No, don’t dwell on it. Time to go. Time to escape.
But she couldn’t.
The thought had paralysed her.
And she couldn’t run. She couldn’t turn. Couldn’t move.
That’s when the first Waster woke up.
Chapter Fourteen
A silent night, disturbed by a disgruntled Waster, waking from a disturbed slumber.
Cia stood over the body of a man she had just asphyxiated to death.
No, not a man.
A Waster.
She had to stop calling him a man.
No, she had to stop calling it a man.
As far as she was concerned, she’d just killed one of the monsters. She’d just acted in self-defence to save her own life.
So why was it she couldn’t move?
The Waster stood, looking around the mass of sleeping cannibals as if wondering why he was awake. He looked to the fire, which was now just a few sparse flickers of amber over burnt logs.
Move, dammit!
She had to. She had to move, do something, because in a moment he would look, he would see something had changed and, even though the darkness would conceal the change for the immediate moment, he’d investigate, and he’d find her, and he’d give her a fate worse than death.
She dropped to the floor.
What else could she do?
She still gripped the claw she’d used to free herself, its point sharp and threatening.
She crawled along the rough grass to the tree she had previously been bound to without moving her eyes from the Waster.
He saw the commotion. She looked right at him, but the amber remains were lighting his face, nothing was lighting hers, so she was safe; for the moment, she was safe.
She moved to a crouch behind the tree.
Empty shadows barely visible moved, and the crunch of a dead leaf under foot grew closer.