Sombre

  Hamish nodded, “You’ll have to use your Gatherers to help you control it. Pick people of use. You’ll need speed and ingenuity on land. You’ll need to be swift in the air as well. Wilder can stay here.” He patted the mare on the nose, “she can have some well-earned time off.”

  Straight away Halliday thought of Recalcitrance, her Dave Bi-Plane – that would cover the air and ingenuity. The thick moustache, reddish-blonde hair and sideburns of Drew Drucker the Speed Trucker came into her mind. The Australian man had the best of the Speed Trucks. He wore too short-shorts and a ratty blue singlet – she didn’t know him so well, but had always seemed a genuine fellow, if not a little roughly spoken. He would do for anything necessary on land.

  “This is a lot to ask of me, Hamish. Why me? Why not another Gatherer? We all have similar skills?”

  “Because you have been chosen and you’ll do what your told!” Hamish said like a father. He shut his eyes and rubbed his temples. He was agitated. “This needs to be stopped! Look around you! The current rate of resident attrition can’t continue. This department cannot cope as it is. Sombre can’t destroy it! It isn’t from Sombre! Sombre can only control its own. You will use your Morphia and you will like it!”

  Feeling well scolded, she mumbled an, “okay.”

  In a soberer tone, Hamish continued. “Oh, and one other thing. Captain Andrew Feister is missing.”

  Halliday was confused, “No, he isn’t, Hamish. I just saw his balloon pass over Ginnifer West! He appeared to be on a mission.”

  “No, he is gone. He’s flying, but he isn’t on any mission. He’s nowhere at present. We need him back here, so we can put him down, put him right again – reconfigure his clock and mind. He has lost sight of who he is. This is bad for a Gatherer. Everyone in Sombre knows their place. This is especially bad for Andrew Feister.”

  “Oh, agreed. He is a loopy individual. I’m not at all surprised,” Halliday nodded.

  “On his last drop he was all over the place, Halliday. Now he is missing. I am only speculating, but I can’t help but think that Ether has gotten to him in some way. He isn’t the strongest in personality, you know.”

  “What? Are you kidding me man! He is a headstrong and overly verbose, dill! An extremely unattractive chauvinist! Even worse when liquored up!”

  “I think you’ll find that most of that is show. Andrew Feister suffers from incredible anxiety. He needs regularity. If he has had any sort of run in with Ether, he may have fallen to pieces.”

  “So, he is really just a wobbly sort of fellow? Hmm … I wouldn’t have thought,” she mused.

  “It’s all brittle bravado. You’ll need to look out for him.”

  Halliday stretched, performing a mock yawn, she scratched Wilder on her snout, who had nuzzled into the crook of her neck. “Well, Hamish, anything else why we’re at it? You seem to think you can just keep showering Sombre’s problems all over me.”

  Unfolding his arms, he stood and placed a hand on each of her shoulders, looked straight into her eyes. “Halliday Knight, I told you, you were meant for more – this is more. You are Hope’s Halliday, for better or worse. I think you can safely assume that your Hope Kelley is feeling the effects of Ether as well.”

  “I know she is,” Halliday admitted. “I recognize things I shouldn’t. Things that I haven’t seen in Sombre at all.” She pictured the butchered lips on the citizens of Ginnifer West. She had seen the cuts before – just not in Sombre.

  “Best to assume that everything you see and feel from now on, Hope will be experiencing some sort of form of as well, in her daily existence.”

  Taking his hands from her shoulders, Hamish raised his eyebrows and a smile formed on his lips. “This is quite the burden on you, Halliday.”

  “Yes, it is! Do not be so smug! It is not appreciated!” She fumed. “It’s all very well for you, isn’t it, clever man? You are the cleverest of all! From the comfort of this office you set me these tasks!” She threw out a hand in exasperation and accidently flicked Wilder in her left eyeball, the machanihorse whinnied and snorted her disapproval. “Sorry, nag.”

  Hamish gave her a quizzical look.

  “Good god! From the comfort of this office you say! The same office being bombarded by death and mutilation minute after minute! Of complaining, overworked menders? Yes, quite the vacation I’m having here, Halliday!” Shaking his head, he began rubbing a thick solution into his hands, his focus had turned to the benches. He’d had enough of her. “Remember, I’m working for Sombre, just as you are. But you are special, Halliday. You are something else again, not just another run of the mill Gatherer … take it as a compliment.”

  “And I will ask you again - why me, Hamish?”

  “You happened upon Hope Kelley.”

  S

  Hope woke up on the floor, staring at her bed.

  CHAPTER 29

  Jerry Cowle, Signing Out

  Parker Wright had changed - changed a hell of lot.

  In what had only been a handful of days, she had all but completely ostracized herself from the old Parker.

  It had all been an exercise in letting go.

  She had let go of that impossibly high rung she used to cling to on Centurion’s social ladder; she’d let go of judging the world so indifferently; let go of thinking her shit didn’t stink as well. The biggest was letting go of that hideous, cheerleading, rich-bitch persona. And it was just a persona after-all; she wasn’t rich, she was lower middle class at best. After her parents split, things tightened up and her mother, store manager at Stiletto Shoes, rented the tiny, three-bedroom unit the Wright’s called home. The dwelling was stuck behind a group of the crappiest shops, in the absolute anus of town, Lower Pento.

  Indeed, a lot of what she had brought to the Centurion Sparks was an act, a forthright acknowledgement that she could match it with those girls physically and socially, and she did, but now she couldn’t have given less of a shit about them if she tried. Her attitude was still undisputed, and forever would be. Parker Wright still had plenty of bitch about her, and she loved it, she owned it.

  But mostly, she loved her surprising new friendship with Hope Kelley. Bizarre and unexpected; the chances of the two of them being brought together was as likely as a spaceship crashing into the Centurion school bus. And as messed up and random as Sombre was - had it all been for the better? Bet your ass it had. As strange as it was to even think it, she had something to believe in now. She had Sombre. The nightmare world was something out of the ordinary. Ordinary was boring. Ordinary made her angry. The extraordinary threw plenty of curveballs. Curveballs were real. A part of life.

  Jerry Cowle. Now, that was a curveball. What was his part in all of this?

  Any contact with Jerry was a possible opportunity to try and find out. She had math with him.

  She’d told Hope, to keep an eye on her phone.

  Parker had chosen a seat a few rows behind him; next to Josie Myer, a ‘Spark’, who gave her a cool glance, crossed her legs and hid behind her blond hair.

  Parker was an above average math student. Math was black or white, right or wrong, one correct answer, which you either understood or you didn’t – no bull.

  Miss Tandecker addressed her classroom of twenty-five,

  “So, students, looking at the ordered pairs below, is the relation between these numbers considered a function?” she drew bracketed numbers and arrows to the domain and range, with a well-practiced hand on the white board. “I need you all to figure out the range and a positive output in order to find the negative.” Capping her blue marker, she turned to her class and smiled, she flourished her hand, “go to it, you have 15 minutes before lunch.”

  Parker gave her calculator a glance, then the equation on the whiteboard, then Jerry. Thankfully, he had been quiet all through class. She texted Hope - nothing yet

  She picked up her pen with her right hand and began keying in numbers on her well-worn Texas’ with her left.

  Five minutes in, th
e relative silence of the room was interrupted - well, it was for her and Jerry.

  She felt the chill that no one other than her and Jerry would have felt. She heard the ticking that no one other than her and Jerry would have heard.

  Dressed in his black parka, wet pale face and dripping hair, Ether slipped across the floor. Jerry let out a low cry, “… no!”

  The class looked up in unison.

  “Shut up Jerry, we’re trying to concentrate!” Wade Rig, the blond burly quarter back said to a few nasty giggles. The new Jerry Cowle had demons and his classmates knew it, and typically, it didn’t stop them from being assholes.

  “Shhh!” Miss Tandecker shot from her desk. “Ten minutes left, I expect a correct answer from everyone.” She gave Jerry a look that read part pity and part concern. The class settled.

  Parker watched on with her heart racing as Ether leant over Jerry’s desk. Leering at him expectantly the creep showed Jerry a blade and pointed it at his mouth.

  “No,” Jerry whimpered again, this time lower.

  Ether whispered, and Parker could hear every word, ‘come captain, time to go, bring Jerry or I’ll slit him open right here in front of everyone.’

  Jerry’s hand shot up. “Miss Tandecker, could I go to the bathroom, I’ve answered the question.”

  The teacher nodded. Jerry stood. In ghostly silence, Ether led the way to the door.

  Parker watched on and gulped. For a moment she wondered who in hell this ‘captain’ was? Then realized she was stalling. There was no time to waste. She had to move. Quickly penning her answer, she got up, slinging her bag over her shoulder.

  Miss Tandecker put her hands in the air in a gesture of ‘what gives?’

  “It’s almost lunch, Parker. What are you doing?”

  Parker walked toward her teachers desk, pinched at the fabric of her skirt awkwardly and whispered, “Monthly girl emergency. Heavy flow on.”

  Miss Tandecker shook her head, “lovely.”

  Parker rushed out the door. In the hall she whipped her phone from the side pocket in her bag and tapped hurriedly – ‘Jerry on the move!’

  S

  “Please hand in your ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ essays at the end of tomorrow’s class, my wonderful students,” Miss Sparrows sat at her desk and lowered her glasses. “As I’ve mentioned numerous times, this will contribute a big chunk to your end of year score.”

  The bell rang for lunch and the room rose as one.

  Hope made a mental note in her very cluttered mind. She had to finish the stupid book then scratch out something that resembled an essay. Well, it wasn’t a stupid book; it was a classic. She just had far too much going on at the moment and this was just another thing to do.

  Last night’s adventure in Sombre was a taxing one, and she had a bruise on her hip to prove it. She had no idea how long she had slept on the floor after rolling off her bed but was surprised the impact hadn’t woken her. Although she shouldn’t have been surprised. She seemed to only wake up when Halliday needed the toilet. Sombre sparing her the indignity of wetting the bed.

  Miss Sparrows peered up from her laptop as Hope passed her desk. “On top of things are you Hope? I expect fifteen hundred meaningful words. On Word, pen on paper, iPad. This will be your first major thing you’ve done for me since you’ve arrived here. I’m looking forward to reading it.”

  Hope’s phone pinged in her bag. Parker was already on the move.

  “Uh, yeah. Almost finished, just a few paragraphs to go,” she lied as she cleared her throat of a whopping great phlegm-ball.

  Miss Sparrows wrinkled her nose at Hope’s ill-timed dislodgement. “Yes, good, well don’t get sick will you.”

  Smiling awkwardly, Hope left the room. She rummaged in her bag for her phone. Her hand shaking a little, she read the last of Parker’s messages.

  ‘meet me at the water tank hes here’

  Reaching for the salad wrap in her cool pack, Hope palmed the hallway door and hit the one o’clock sunshine, heading straight for the uninhabited outer boundary of Centurion. Shaded by a clump of fifty-foot Alder trees planted just past the fence-line, the big grey circular water tank sat right alongside the groundskeeper shed – an area absolutely no one went. Jerry Cowle must have really wanted to be alone.

  Hope saw her friend leaning on the wall of the tank. She waved. Parker kicked off from the wall. Hope’s senses searched for a name for the smell that suddenly hovered at her nostrils – she settled on hot grass and public toilet. Parker walked toward her, pinching her nose, she kept her voice low. “Bit stinky here isn’t it? Couldn’t imagine anyone but birds and pedophiles hanging this far out.”

  “Where’s Jerry?” Hope said.

  “Behind the shed. Pretty sure Ether led him here. The fucker came into the classroom and asked him to leave, just like that!” she added and grabbed Hope by the arm. Dragging her a few feet to the right she pointed. Hope could make out an arm and a pale leg in tan shorts.

  “What’s he doing?” Hope shoved the last of her wrap in her mouth and stuffed the Health & Co, paper-cellophane packaging in the hip pocket of her shorts. She rubbed her hands together and moved toward the shed, hunched over and tip-toeing.

  Parker followed her. “This is stalking isn’t it? We’re stalking this dude, aren’t we?”

  Feeling the danger, Hope cleared her throat and answered in a hushed tone, “We have to. This could be big. I think Jerry could be someone in Sombre. Halliday just had a massive talk with Hamish the Mender about how closely our dream lives and real lives exist to each other’s.”

  “He probably is. That’d make sense,” Parker agreed, “but why Jerry? And not that I’m complaining, but why me, for that matter? We’re nobody in relation to you, Hope. Well, I am, I suppose. I mean we hang out now … we’re friends.”

  Parker’s words may as well have been an embrace. Hope felt a tiny flutter of happiness in her chest; she wasn’t about to make a thing of it, though. She breathed the moment in just for a second, then moved on.

  The two reached the edge of the shed. Hope picked at a splinter in the wooden paling wall and listened in. Jerry was sobbing. Pretty pathetically, it had to be said. Faint words were being spoken between sniffs.

  “Poor guy,” Hope said.

  “Bit piss weak …” Parker shrugged. “Needs to toughen up a bit.”

  Jerry cleared his throat and coughed. He bent over and put his hands on his knees.

  Hope couldn’t bring herself to share in her friends callousness. Jerry had been through a lot. He had lived through an attack from a ghoul from another existence, was still obviously being taunted by said ghoul. Sombre had scathed him badly.

  She whispered, “Halliday went to a town to gather a Nightmarer and everyone’s lips were cut up just like Jerry’s were.”

  “Oh, shit! Really?”

  “Really,” Hope answered whipping her glasses off. She huffed on the lenses and wiped them on her shirt.

  “Jesus! He’s spotted us!” Parker hissed.

  Hope rammed her glasses back on, almost impaling her eyeball with a temple tip in the process. “Ow, shit!”

  Jerry was facing them.

  A weird smirk crossed his lips. He fixed his gaze squarely on Parker and rubbed his hands together. Jerry was staring at Parker as if for the first time and spoke as if he had never met her – but really liked what he saw. He opened his hands in an imploring fashion.

  ‘Oh, and who are you my swan? Did that scoundrel scar you in anyway – hurt that beautifully etched chin of yours!’

  “What?” Parker said lifting an eyebrow.

  “I have been ripped down from the skies on nothing more than a flukey-fluke of a whim, by a miscreant of the lowest form!” Jerry fluttered his eyes and flashed some badly maintained, plaque-stained teeth, in what was meant to be a winning smile,

  “But my fortune has changed for the better, because you, land dweller, are a catch of the uppermost picking!”

  Jerry took a step tow
ard Parker, who in turn took a step backward.

  “No one picks me, asshole.”

  She looked to Hope bewildered. “Shit! Jerry’s lost his fucking marbles! Do I need to slap him?”

  Hope could only give her an unhelpful shrug and an equally unhelpful, “ugh …?”

  Jerry continued on earnestly,

  ‘Have you ever courted an airman, my swan? My craft boasts speed, flame and firepower. Falling to your knees, you would surrender to the skies, guided by the most dexterous, yet tender hand that would ever touch your skinny-skin!’

  “Ew! That all sounds completely lecherous, Jerry. Back away, now! Scuzz-ball!” Parker threatened and uttered to Hope, “What are we going to do, he’s going to touch my skinny-skin! Ha!” She laughed in spite of her situation.

  Hope suddenly knew who this was. “Oh, god! You’re Captain Andrew Feister!” she blurted taking a step back. “So that’s who-”

  As if Hope had only just arrived on the scene and had a voice worth listening to, Jerry paused in his pursuit of Parker and swung his attention her way. He didn’t speak, he just stared. Lowering his eyes, his shoulders dropped. He then turned and walked back in the direction of the groundskeepers shed.

  “That stopped him,” Parker said. “Who’s Captain Andrew Feister?”

  “A balloonist Gatherer, bit of a chauvinist, harmless though. Hamish has just told Halliday that he’s missing – that he’s MIA.”

  “And now he’s here? In Jerry Cowle?”

  “I guess?” Hope said mystified.

  Hope and Parker watched on as Jerry walked straight through the boundary fence, as if the wire mesh was merely a mirage. He headed into the trees beyond.

  With a telling look to each other, they followed.

  In a dramatic turn, daylight died in an instant and a fog swept the area. The familiar chill was back. Ticking sounded out in the distance like a calling.

  “This is all sorts of trouble, isn’t it?” Hope said to Parker.

  “Yup,” Parker said and grabbed Hope’s lower arm.