Sombre

  She drained the balance of her drink. A hand was placed on her shoulder, making her startle, she turned.

  “Halliday, can I get you another. I’ve just arrived.”

  It was the friendly face of Dave Bi-Plane. She gasped inwardly as she realized she wanted to embrace him - something she had never wanted from Dave before. She went to leave her seat, then stopped herself, “Oh, oh yes please, my Dave.”

  He raised his thick eyebrows toward Recalcitrance who nodded her head.

  “She’s been drinking them quickly, Dave. Pull up a pew. We could use you in this discussion.”

  “One for you as well?”

  “My word yes,” said Recalcitrance.

  Dave returned, skillfully holding the three drinks in his large hands, he took a seat next to Halliday. “What are we talking about my fellow Gatherers.”

  Halliday swept her hair from her face again, lisping a little, she spoke in a low tone. “Something’s coming Dave, something big and ugly, cold and dangerous; an evil from somewhere other than here! Not Sombre! The more I think on it, the surer I am of it. It’s ice, Dave! Cold as a thousand deaths! It spells major trouble! I’ll bet Wilder’s left leg on it.”

  Dave gave her a doubtful look. Then he gave Recalcitrance an even more doubtful one. “Well, this sounds like an interesting one to tip my dollar into.” He said. Swigging his lager, he wiped froth from his upper lip. “Halliday, you are in clever company here. If we can’t get to the bottom of this, I’ll be amazed. I’m in a good state of mind tonight. Managed two clean drops to the Menders today,” he gave himself two thumbs up.

  “Right! Well done Dave Biplane!” Recalcitrance high fived her fellow air Gatherer, flashing him a winning smile, “Where were you at?”

  “You’re so pretty Recalcitrance,” Halliday interjected, grinning.

  “Thanks, Halliday! Where, Dave?” she said butting her stub into an ashtray.

  “You’re welcome,” Halliday mumbled and hiccupped.

  Dave smiled at Halliday, “Anyway. Yes, one in Minor Removed - plenty of land to drop the plane out there. A track jogger on The Never-Ending Rail; this one was having one of those mindless nightmares where he couldn’t leave the track. Of course, The Black Spectral was about to run him down.”

  “You’re good, Dave, you are,” Halliday nodded to herself assuredly and gave him a wink.

  “And you’re well on your way, aren’t you,” Dave raised his eyebrows, “you’ll fall off your bloody horse Halliday.”

  “I know. And she won’t pity me even a little … evil cow.”

  Recalcitrance lit another of her pencil cigarettes. “So where was the other, Dave? I do love to hear about clean gathers, it’s the rigid believer in me.” She shuddered, “My last Nightmarer had quarter of a head once I got him into the basket. Just a bit of jaw on a neck stump, terrible.”

  “You won’t believe it,” he smiled as if he didn’t quite believe it himself. “The Twisted Fairground out in Bleeder.”

  “My god, man! That is a good gather!” Halliday said and shoved him in the shoulder.

  “Woman or man?” Recalcitrance blew smoke into the air.

  “A teenage boy, a speedy thing – thankfully. I had to shoot a few Psyclowns. You know what they’re like. The kid had lost a hand, but I’m still calling it clean.”

  “As you should! That’s an easy fix,” Recalcitrance said clearing her throat. “I’m empty. We’re all empty - think we need another round before we get into Halliday’s fix. I’ll go.”

  Halliday just sat and felt her face buzz. She was on her way to a wild sloshing, she knew this. Orty had been mixing them well tonight. She turned to her Dave Bi-Plane, found her chin with her palm once again and rested on it. “Scared me Dave, you know. I don’t scare easy, do I?”

  Dave considered this as he eased his heavy jacket off and placed it over the chair. “No, you don’t as a rule. You have plenty of pluck Halliday.”

  “I have plenty of pluck, Dave,” she affirmed, her eyes followed her scotch and dry as it came sliding onto the table. “Thank you, Recalcitrance, you are a spiky haired wonder. I like the spikes so much you know,” she added.

  “Thank you, my girl. Let’s get into this now, Halliday,” the balloonist gave her a wink, “You have two clever heads eager and ready to listen.”

  Halliday sat for a moment and sifted through the alcohol-fueled fog in her head. She was interrupted,

  “She’s as drunk as the town wino,” an Other-self stated.

  “How many has she had?” said another Other-self.

  “Five without a pee. She’ll need a pee shortly.”

  “Go away and let me concentrate, you lot!” Halliday said shutting her eyes tight.

  Recalcitrance raised her eyebrows at the non-directional outburst. Dave nodded knowingly, “the Other-selves.”

  “Oh, I forgot she had those! Ha, ha-ha! Poor thing.”

  With a deep sucking in of air that made her feel a little sick, Halliday was finally ready. “It was bodied you know. It was a solid thing. It was ticking.” She gestured to her Dave Bi-Plane placing her hand on his upper-arm, “Mr. Bi-Plane, I know I’ve had my share this evening, but I wasn’t even partially sauced when this happened. Tonight’s saucing is a direct bi-product of this event, in fact.” She pursed her lips together and rubbed her nose.

  “What was Halliday? We still haven’t the information required from you to take it to this table we have here,” Dave said rubbing his index finger on the well-scratched up wood.

  Halliday found her mouth and sucked from her straw. “Empty, tell Orty.”

  “We will,” Recalcitrance nodded.

  “Well, everything in Sombre can be seen and felt, can it not, you always see the Beating Clock at least? This thing doesn’t have one. It touched my back. It wanted me to know it was there. It was so cold! Deathly cold. A creeping violator! And it was causing a ticking in my ears like a time bomb!” Halliday shuddered.

  Dave furrowed his brow, “so it was a ghost of some sort, that causes ticking? I’m finding it hard to imagine it, Halliday.”

  Recalcitrance lit another skinny cigarette. “I must admit that I have been drawing a blank as well.”

  “It’s not a ghost, you two! It’s bleeding well there! Sombre has its ghosts! You know this! Bloody ‘Polter Town’ is filled with them – but you can still see the blighters’ clocks. Everything has a clock! Everything belongs – this doesn’t!”

  “The clock is a good point,” Recalcitrance agreed as she stood up from the table to get another round. “And the ticking wouldn’t have been your Beating Clock either. The clock beats, never ticks. A ticking clock would be so terribly typical,” she rolled her eyes as she walked off, “Oh, the irony of it all!”

  “I wonder what it could be?” Dave said stifling a burp with the back of his hand, “I don’t think you would have imagined it. Halliday Knight doesn’t make things up.”

  “I can’t lie, Dave! Well, I can, just not very well. I fool only the very dim-witted.” She gave him a coy grin, “never the likes of Dave Bi-Plane, though.”

  “Yes, definitely not the likes of me.” He raised his brow and smiled. “Hmm …” The airman went into quiet thinking mode. His expression changed. Nodding slowly to himself he looked at Halliday. “It’s actually quite frightening, Halliday, I agree. To put a bit of a dramatic spin on it; this thing could be anything. It could be a sickness. It could be the start of a plague. What if it was to wipe us all out? If we can’t see it, we can’t really stop it.”

  Recalcitrance was back with the drinks. “I see the conversation has turned serious. Where are we at?”

  Dave nodded a thank you to Recalcitrance, “We’re at sickness and/or plague. Weighty stuff.”

  “A creeping death plague person. It had a body. It was as tall as I!” Halliday sipped from her seventh and mumbled, “Orty is mixing these well tonight …”

  “Did you hear anything, Halliday? Did said ‘creeping death ticking time bomb plague
person’ make any noise?” Recalcitrance said through a puff of smoke.

  “Not an utterance-Recalcitrance! O-Oh, I’m rolling out my rhyming words now! I best slow down on these or I won’t be able to get a leg over Wilder at all!”

  Dave flashed her a knowing grin, then darkened. “I think we need to consider this as something serious. Let’s not spread the word just yet. It’s all too vague right now. I think it might be best just to see if anything happens to either of us. It could just be Sombre throwing us a curveball, who knows? Sombre does do that from time to time.”

  “Hopefully,” Recalcitrance said running her hands through her hair. She butted out her smoke and gave a clearing cough. “My clock is at five.” She tapped the glass timepiece on her chest. “I’m trying desperately to keep it there - as we all are.”

  The conversation lulled, and Halliday finally realized how full her bladder had become, “too the loo for me.”

  She stood and her headspace was invaded. Swaying, she pressed on her temples. “Damn it! A job.”

  “Go get em’ girl!” Dave called from the table with well-intended mirth as she hurried to the lady’s room. As she pushed open the door, she heard him add in soberer tone, “but be careful!”

  CHAPTER 19

  Rats

  Stepping out of the elevator at the foot of The Unexplained Mountain, Halliday was as filled with as much Dutch courage as she possibly could be – seven wonderfully well-mixed scotches filled.

  She had a job to do – the creeping death plague person would just have to make way. This is what she told herself, (Dutch courage was such a wonderful thing.)

  Puffing heavily, she paced toward the tree where she’d left Wilder. As was typical, the mare was nowhere to be found – but this time the reason was obvious. The familiar dull grumble of a revving twin exhaust.

  “Oh, for all the rot in Sombre, woman! Leave my bloody horse alone!” Halliday yelled and ran east towards the exit. Dust was being churned equally by tyre and hoof as Lucretia St Aimes chased a distressed and kicking Wilder in circles around a Speed Truck. Raven hair flowing over the aptly emblazoned, ‘Death-Witch’ on her black leather jacket, Lucretia giggled like an evil child. Halliday pulled her Remington and fired a shot in the air. “Stop it you prig of a person! I’ll fill you with bullets!”

  “But she’s such an easy stir-up, Halliday Knight! Such a spine-less nag!” Lucretia span up more dirt and raced the heavy bike closer to the machanihorse’s rump.

  Halliday had no time for this. Taking aim, she fired a shot, and with a loud ping, hit metal just below the tank. Lucretia skidded to a stop and instantly killed the motor. Kicking the stand, she jumped from the bike. Hair hanging over her face, arms straight down, hands were balled into fists.

  “Ho-ho! My word, you must have a death wish, Halliday! No one takes a shot at my bike!”

  Swaying a little, Halliday kept the Remington focused on the nasty piece of work coming her way. “Well, no one ever tries to run my ruddy horse down either - except you, idiotic woman! I haven’t got time for this. I’m late for a job, I’m quite full of liquor, which always effects my judgement. If you don’t want a bullet in that acid tongued head of yours, you’ll hop straight back on your godawful contraption and leave us be!”

  With unmistakable intent, Lucretia swept her hair from her face and pulled her own gun from a holster at her belt. “Ha-ha! You’re a pretty thing, Halliday Knight – you have me covered there – but you are nowhere near the killer I am! Are we going to start this up properly!” Lucretia’s barrel smacked Halliday’s to one side and she fired a shot missing her right ear by an inch. She laughed savagely. “That was an intentional miss, Halliday. The next bullet I lodge in your forehead.” Eyes wild, Lucretia’s stark white features were fiercely pernicious under her black mop of curls. Her intent was obvious; her barrel didn’t waver.

  Sucking her bottom lip, Halliday held her ground. Sweat on her brow, she felt the sobering rush of adrenalin churn her gut. “Damn you woman! I just want to get on my bleeding horse and go do my job!”

  “Apologize for the cheap shot at my bike!”

  “Wilder! Here, nag!” Halliday called to her mare. With lots of snout clearing snorts, a very disheveled Wilder was at her back. Halliday eased her gun down. “Very well. I am sorry. There. That will have to do. Stop chasing my horse, you bully.”

  Lucretia lowered her barrel and gave Halliday a stony look, “no promises.”

  Halliday wondered what she got out of scaring Wilder. “You are a strange one, Lucretia St Aimes.” Ramming her gun into Wilder’s saddle holster, she jabbed her foot into the stirrup and threw herself over and on.

  “Go have a drink and calm yourself down, you look pale and in need. Onward, my nag!” Giving Lucretia a final disapproving look, she kicked Wilder’s sides and the machanihorse obeyed.

  As Halliday left the lot, Lucretia caught her completely off-guard, hollering a question. “Halliday Knight! Have you ran into ‘Ether’ yet?”

  “Who?”

  The Death-Witch just laughed. Halliday couldn’t stop … but she wanted to.

  The nasty piece of work knew something.

  S

  A Gatherer couldn’t pick and choose assignments. Sombre chose for them. Halliday and Wilder were on their way to quite the unsavoury town.

  Steigler was a disgusting place. A town riddled with rats. Awful rats. Nightmarers ended up in the town often as these vermin were at the source of so many bad dreams. Sombre had towns with spiders, mice, reptiles in their all sorts, diseased dogs and mangy felines – and rats. Steigler had rats.

  Halliday’s thoughts weren’t with the approaching, Steigler, at all. That wretch, Lucretia St Aimes, had a grip on her mind threads. Through the whooshing noise and movement of The Byway, Halliday yelled loudly to her galloping Wilder.

  “That beast of a woman threw me sideways there, my nag! Ether. She said Ether! I hate speaking to her, we all do! But I must find out what she meant!”

  The distorted rush of colors disappeared and with a loud bang, Halliday broke through onto a cobblestone road and eased Wilder to a stop. They were at the hilltop entry to Steigler. Halliday knew they were probably too late to spare the Nightmarer.

  “Damn it, Wilder! Damn that obnoxious monster and her unctuous motorcycle!”

  Her head felt only a little thick from the drink, she had recovered well. From a saddle pouch she grabbed Wilder’s tin ankle covers and jumped down.

  “These will stop the nibblers my girl,” she spoke to her mare, “Ether. She said Ether. And have I met him yet? Or her? She didn’t say … it could be a her?” Halliday tried to focus, as she fastened the clasps, she eyed the half-eaten village below. Her flesh crawled as her eyes followed the grey, white and black patchwork of furry movement; a constant rodent epidemic running riot - squealing, hissing, and squeaking. Rats chewed everything, buildings were mere skeletons of limestone walls, open roofs and gaping, windowless frames.

  “We’re off to the vile rat-races, my Wilder. Sadly, I think we’ll be left with only a Nightmarer corpse,” she sighed as she mounted then added, “Positive, stomping movement, horse! That should keep our way clear and stop them running up your legs!”

  Wilder set off in a busy trot with Halliday standing up in the saddle. As they approached, the four-legged, snivelly citizens of Steigler seemed to grow in number. The infestation littering the cobblestones, running on every rooftop, jumping from windows, magically spewing from underground boroughs in the drain work. The stench of faeces and rot was overbearing. “My word, that’s offensive,” she said.

  Slumped in the doorway of a distillery building, a well-mauled corpse was being run through like a rat plaything; through the eye cavities and mouth, rats by the dozen discharged through a gnawed opening in the poor man’s stomach. His shoes had been eaten off his feet, his feet almost completely eaten from his ankles.

  “I shall name him Barry Shoeless, Wilder,” Halliday said callously. “Poor fellow. I don’
t think he is our Nightmarer somehow, though. Rats work quickly, but not that quickly. Barry is quite the abused cadaver. He has been here for a time. I will mention him to Hamish when we drop this one off.”

  Halliday was hit in the side of the head by a rat.

  She startled, “Uh! How-?”

  Another landed on her leg, claws digging into her dress. Leaping from the rooftops, they were mounting an attack.

  “Eeeeeeeek! Get off you smelly thing!” She tried shaking it off, but it dug in and began crawling. She writhed in the saddle. “Wilder! No! You dirty-!”

  Rats were landing on the machanihorse’s back. Rearing up on her hinds, Wilder began puffing steam into the air and whinnying madly.

  “Whoa, girl! Whoa I say!” Halliday grazed her sword over Wilder’s hinds flicking the vermin off.

  Should she just turn back? Call in a failure?

  “You can’t, Hope’s Halliday! I never ran, you coward! Get off your bleeding mare and show some gall!” An Other-self rang in her head like an alarm.

  The Other-self was right. She jumped from Wilder and pumped three shots from the Remington to the bricks – this caused a scattering.

  “Get to the high ground, Wilder. Go on, I will handle this one alone.”

  With a quick and tight turn, the machanihorse galloped back from where they came.

  Wincing, Halliday pulled a wriggling rat from her skirt and threw it down. Now she was on foot and armed with her weaponry, she felt in control. Her Other-selves boastful wisdom sometimes came in handy. She fired more rounds at the cobblestones, her bullets the ultimate repellent. Kicking a well gnawed door open, she entered an old millinery supply shop. She took a quick look around at the shredded clothing material, the faeces stained benches and the few thousand rats running riot over the floor.

  “A rat-queen!” Halliday exclaimed, taken aback by the state of the filthy looking female proprietor; Beating Clock stroking high in her chest, the woman sauntered around behind the sales bench, her split brown hair was down to the middle of her back, straggling rats climbed the strands. She wore a rat covered-fur coat. Occasionally she smacked her hand down on the bench and brained a rat for good measure. She had a long pointy nose and she sniffed it hard, a grinning mouth full of pointed teeth. White eyes were like liquid marbles – the woman was as blind as a bat and as mad as a loon.