Sombre

  “Lower Pento,” Hope answered as she sliced through her gravy- soaked veal. The day’s events hadn’t upset her appetite at all, just the opposite, she had a cavern in her gut that just had to be filled.

  “Hmm, Lower, eh?” Her father raised an eyebrow. He cleared his throat. “She do drugs?”

  “No! She’s a cheerleader, well, she was … she’s awesome! You wanted me to have a friend!” Hope said swallowing a large mouthful of meat.

  No one had reported Jerry missing yet. They would, it had only been five hours since he vanished. Was he dying a slow death in Sombre somewhere - or worse still, The Isolate? There was a lack of Jerry Cowle on planet earth. She was under no allusion that today would be the end of it. The school knew she and Parker had left the grounds; they would know Jerry had as well. When there he was nowhere to be seen, the authorities would come calling.

  A disturbing mental image invaded her thoughts; what she saw of Jerry /Captain Andrew Pfeiffer before everything blew away in the wind. Bleeding from his side and from his shoulder, his lips had been re-mutilated. His eyes were sunken in his pale face; distinct black shadows in the sockets gave him the appearance of a failed, masked comic book villain. She wondered how much more of Ether’s brutality Jerry could possibly survive.

  “Parker sounds like an epic bitch,” Kate said wrenching her from her thoughts.

  “She’s not!” Hope said pointing her fork at her sister. “Better than most of the idiotic cattle you hang out with!”

  Devan Kelley chuckled and had to cough. “Sorry, I like that - idiotic cattle… but Hope, you need to be careful. No skipping school please. And as your mother said, we’d like to meet this girl. Size her up. She’s older. Generally, an older friend will have some influence over you.”

  “She’s only a year older,” Hope said.

  “Ha. A year’s enough, Hope.” Her mother said pairing her knife and fork on her empty plate. “You do a lot of growing in your 16th year, let me tell you - in all sorts of ways. I was a shocker.”

  “Really? What ways? Give us the juice, mother!” Kate raised her eyebrows, rested her chin on her palm and waited expectantly to hear about all of Evelyn Kelley’s sins of the past.

  Their mother looked sideways. “That can wait until you’re 16, I think.”

  “Yes, I think that would be best left at least ‘til then …” their father said and took a sip of his wine.

  A wave of tiredness hit Hope, the day’s events taking their toll. She yawned, lifted her glasses and rubbed her eyes. “Parker will be happy to meet you all I’m sure. I’m beat, no dessert for me, thanks. Can I be excused?”

  Her mother nodded. “Tomorrow, Hope. I would like to meet her, tomorrow, okay?”

  “Okay,” Hope agreed.

  Her mother’s past had just been spoken of. It suddenly occurred to Hope to ask. “Mom?”

  “Yes?”

  “You used to play a song a lot when I was younger. ‘Dream a Little Dream of Me,’ didn’t you?”

  “When you were a baby. It was a nap song my mother used to use to settle me with as well. Mama Cass’s version is the best version. It seemed to work on you too. Why do you ask?” Evelyn blinked her eyelids.

  “Oh, I just heard it, that’s all.”

  “Mama Cass choked on a sandwich and died, you know,” her father mused flicking his empty wine glass with his finger.

  “No, it was a heart attack,” Evelyn corrected him.

  “Oh?”

  Hope let them have the discussion and left the room.

  S

  Showered, mostly cleansed from the mayhem of the day, an exhausted Hope hit the pillow with semi-dry hair. As her conscious mind waited for the inevitable fall into Sombre’s clutches; lingering thoughts, drifted in her headspace like persistent ghosts.

  Ether wasn’t dead or gone or destroyed. She’d be a fool to think that. Could something like that even be killed? Ether was a force. A thing that could travel through her sleep into her waking world. It showed her that psychotic version of her mother from her rite of passage nightmare. Something that belonged and should have stayed in her unconscious mind. It had taken on her own form in that house; warned her of wasting her existence. Was she wasting her existence really? She thought fifteen was pretty young to making that call.

  One thing she felt certain of – change was at hand. She wasn’t scared of it. She should be, but she wasn’t.

  Hope fell asleep, defiant, ready to face her destiny.

  S

  This was the end of the nightmare, it had to be, it simply couldn’t go on any further.

  Hope stood in a darkened room, the walls and floor were all dirt and earth. There didn’t appear to be any sort of door to speak of. In the middle of the room stood a large, rectangular glass cabinet. Hands on her knees, she squatted down and peered through the glass. It was an ant farm, yet it wasn’t an ant farm, just similar. It was a display, a showing of her unceremonious end. At the top of the display, she could see the empty cemetery, steamy mist filling the grounds, party of relatives long gone. A cold dark blanketed the paths and tombstones. Scanning the glass, she watched herself buried six feet down in a hole; door on a hap-hazard angle, compounded by dirt. Her head had slid down and sat atop her sloppy body bits, wedged between earth and burial door. Scanning closer she could see her head was actually slightly upside down. Her mouth was open, she had no nose left.

  Drawing her eyes away from the form of her messy cadaver she peered up with dread. The roof of the room began to fall. Heavy bits of earth pounded down on her head and shoulders. She felt her neck break.

  This was the end.

  Hope Kelley, discarded, forgotten, buried and hidden away forever.

  S

  Halliday had named her Gatherer’s for the mission and they had come.

  Drew Drucker The Speed Trucker drove his black and sleek eighteen-wheeler, ‘The Devil Incarnate’, in top gear, powering along the endless tarmac that was Loew Avion. Her dress clinging to her legs against the g-forces, hem flapping behind her, Halliday stood ready on the speed truck’s shiny, flatbed trailer. Recalcitrance Bexley with token skinny cigarette in the crook of her mouth and a business-like Dave Biplane, busied themselves locking the heavy metal manacles on Halliday’s wrists. Two ten-foot lengths of chain snaked along the trailer bed ending in slip hooks clasped to a wrought iron bar at the trailer’s front.

  Hamish the Mender had said the situation called for The Morphia. Halliday Knight’s unfathomably violent and out-of-control monster, was a mere weapon, dangerous to herself and anyone within spitting distance of her. When it was time to engage her monster, it would have to be constrained.

  Dave Biplane’s Biplane sat parked at the back of the trailer, rotary engine running. Colonel Em Contusion stood next to it, hands on hips, staring at the Sopwith Camel’s spinning propeller, as if willing it to fly – and quite dumbfounded as to why it wasn’t.

  “It’s okay, Em,” Halliday called over, “Poor thing, you do look very confused with all of this,” she said to the Hell-Flyer as she shook her wrists, testing the weight of the manacles.

  She thought Em had coped very well so far, but this was all probably far too much for her small mind to cope with; as above was a veritable plethora of all that the Hell-Flyer loved and existed for.

  A Sombre-sonic roar from an endless convoy of aircraft.

  Every species and style cluttered the skies of Loew Avion: oddly shaped blimps, air balloons, Zeppelins, old clunker bombers, helicopters, spitfire jets and hideously over-overstated airliners. All crammed against the other, all heading west toward a brilliantly setting sun; as if in a rush to some sort of aviator-invite-only convention at the end of the world.

  Halliday admired Recalcitrance Bexley as she puffed on her skinny cigarette, looking all robust in her fitted leathers and spiky haired perfection.

  Pocketing the key to the left manacle, the aviatrix gave a doubtful sideways glance to Em Contusion.

  “Halliday, my most p
recious counterpart, I don’t mean to be overly judgmental, but why in the world have we invited the Hell-Flyer along? I mean, she seems a bit of a wonky noodle.”

  She pulled round a chrome cigarette stubber on her belt and rubbed the used black filter across it. She flicked the butt away.

  Halliday sighed, forcing a sympathetic smile Em’s way,

  “She is my burden I’m afraid. And she is quite a lot more than a wonky noodle, Recalcitrance - that would be putting it mildly. We can speak quite derisively of her and she won’t have the slightest idea. If she wasn’t here with me, she’d be bloody well crashing her plane and costing herself strokes. Really, I haven’t got the time to explain it any more than that.”

  “Will she walk straight into my propeller?” Dave said with concern. “She’s standing very close.”

  “She might just yet,” Recalcitrance agreed.

  “I wish she’d tie that hair back,” Dave said.

  “I’d doubt she’d know how,” Recalcitrance observed.

  “Yes …” Halliday said trailing off in thought. She found it all very curious. The noise from the air was ferocious in volume, yet they could hear the other speak clearly. Had Sombre given them some sort of extra sensory ability for communication? She could even hear Drew Drucker’s wildly out of tune and obnoxious singing as he drove his beastly truck.

  Her next curiosity; the constant ticking sounding throughout Loew Avion, rising well above the aircraft thunder, it had been their calling here. This ticking she now knew belonged to Ether. And she was sure her Hope could hear it in the waking world as well.

  “This ticking could give a girl a headache.” Recalcitrance said as she rubbed her hands down her leather pants, “It is taking all of my patience not to go batty with it.”

  “I just want it gone,” Dave said bitterly.

  Halliday knew the monster had hurt him deeply, and it was more than just strokes on his Beating Clock, it had damaged the cut of his jib, his gall, his gullet. Dave had hardly cracked a joke or a smile since the mission had started.

  “So, we are ready, Halliday. What is the plan? Loew Avion has no end, Drew Drucker can drive on and on until his bleedin’ rig runs out of its fuels,” Recalcitrance said with hands on hips. She raised her eyebrows, “I haven’t even had the pleasure of meeting this ‘Ether’ miscreant. In fact, I’m only here because you wanted me here, Halliday. Risking my hide for you …”

  “Ah yes, but let’s not forget, for Hamish and The Menders as well,” she said her voice breaking a little, she cleared her throat, “Hamish is convinced that my Morphia is the only thing that will stop Ether. Bullets will halt it, but not kill it. Ether can attack physically and mentally; it is quick with a blade. I have seen it enter a Nightmarer, take ownership and play with the body in the most savage fashion.”

  “You keep saying ‘it’, Halliday,” Recalcitrance queried.

  “It is an it!” Dave broke in, “It’s no man. No man at all!”

  “Steady on Biplane, you’re spitting your words,” the aviatrix said. “We know it maimed you.”

  Halliday grinned at the exchange. “Dave’s right, Recalcitrance. But it needs to be one while it’s in Sombre. And it’s a very fast and lethal one. I’m going to catch it and destroy it! Well … The Morphia will. “Oh! Look!” Halliday pointed.

  All eyes on the trailer suddenly went to the sky as a familiar balloon plummeted like a bag of trash, basket dangerously sideways, no fire, a distorted, ‘PFFER’ on its eggshell coloured nylon. With a heavy crash, the whole of Captain Andrew Pfeiffer’s ride broke up all over the tarmac.

  “Stop! Drew! Stop, man!” Halliday yelled rattling her chains. Drew Drucker obeyed the command and The Devil Incarnate slowed to a stop, around two hundred feet from the wreckage. With a ‘phwssh’, a door slammed, and Drew hopped down from the cab.

  Dave was the first to speak. “Andrew will be finished. That thing dropped like a sky anchor.”

  “Yeah, he’ll be rat-shit … that’s why I’ll take wheels over wings any day,” Drew said in his rough Australian, hands on his hips.

  Recalcitrance used the opportunity to light up another skinny cigarette. She blew smoke sideways and said coolly, “No wings on an air balloon, Drew … I’m stating the obvious there.”

  “You know what I mean …” he said.

  Halliday stared at Drew from her vantage point on the trailer. He was a bean pole of a man - she thought his look terribly odd; long thin legs that finished with heavy brown boots; so very short blue shorts and a faded blue singlet, red hair with an unfortunate cowlick at the back and a thick red moustache (the colour she supposed couldn’t be helped) although the thickness could. She couldn’t help but wonder, had anyone ever explained to Drew how to dress himself?”

  “Another Gatherer down. Do we even bother checking on the man? The Menders will be along soon enough,” Dave said turning toward them. “We should stay on track.”

  “That’s quite callous of you Mr. Biplane,” Halliday said letting her chains go limp. She was a little disappointed, but not at all surprised given what her Dave had been through.

  “Oh, there you go! He walks!” Recalcitrance said. Everyone (barring Em, she was still far too perplexed by the grounded bi-plane) watched on in disbelief as Andrew Pfeiffer rose from the wreckage of his craft and came at them in a hunched and brisk walk. At twenty paces from the trailer, the airman lifted his head, his mouth was set in a sneer.

  “Jesus, he has war in his eyes,” Dave observed, “well and truly peeved.”

  “Captain Andrew! We have been looking for you! You have been missed,” Halliday tried, her voice a little too high - like a whistle. Andrew seemed to register the greeting, yet his expression didn’t change. She then realized how odd she must look. “Oh, I’m quite a sight aren’t I, all bound up,” she shook her chains. She suddenly had a need to relieve herself. “Bugger … how does one use the toilet whilst in chains? Recalcitrance?”

  The aviatrix didn’t answer.

  Dave yelled, “guns!”

  The two jumped from the trailer.

  Andrew Pfeiffer produced two Exaggerated pistols.

  He opened fire.

  CHAPTER 32

  The Airborne Beast

  Captain Andrew Pfeiffer’s Exaggerated pistols dwarfed his hands, smoke poured from the chambers as he unloaded round after round.

  Recalcitrance and Drew Drucker returned fire, using the trailer as cover.

  “Oh, ha, ha, ha! Watch the chickety - chickens run! I’ve tried to run! But you see, you can’t run! It won’t let you! It needs! And it takes and takes!” Andrew yelled grinning darkly.

  Halliday could see he was a man at the end of his tether. Fortunately, he was an incredibly bad shot, or he just didn’t have the will or presence of mind to aim. A moving target, she ran all around the trailer bed, as much as her chains would allow her. Intermittent bullets pinged off The Devil Incarnates bullet proof cabin; filled the empty spaces of air above and around her counterparts on the ground. She pleaded to the unhinged aviator, “Andrew, we’re here to take down Ether! Stop shooting at us! We’re on your side!”

  “Ha! You fool! You’re all fools! There are no sides anymore! Don’t you see? Aaaggghhh!” Andrew cried and staggered backward as a shot from the rifle of Drew Drucker hit him straight between the eyes. Andrew continued to shoot more stray bullets as he completely lost focus, swaying sideways, blood pouring down the bridge of his nose. “It’s no use anymore … Oh! We aren’t any-body anymore … w-what’s a Gatherer in the f-face of thi-this!”

  “Quit it, Andrew! This will only end with your bullet riddled corpse hitting the tarmac! You’re just creating more work for us you dolt of a man!” Recalcitrance said as her own bullet punctured his shoulder. She ducked down under the trailer as Andrew aimed in the direction of her voice and unloaded more rounds.

  Ceasing fire, Andrew steadied, wrenching his jacket open awkwardly with guns still in hand, he exposed a gaping hole in his chest. His Beating C
lock had been cut out. Crying, spitting blood from his lips he spoke to his fellow balloonist, “Recalcccc … iiitra … see w-what it does, wha-what it can do …”

  Another bullet from Drew Drucker blew Andrew’s throat open. Pistols falling from his limp fingers; like a hurt child, Captain Andrew Pfeiffer covered his face with his hands and collapsed.

  Dave Bi-plane was first to the body. “Quickly, someone help get him up on the trailer!” Recalcitrance grabbed him by his boots and the two lifted the dead man up onto The Devil Incarnates’ bed.

  “Oh, good form, Dave!” Halliday cheered. She had noticed Dave hadn’t shot at Andrew Pfeiffer at all. She could only guess he thought two against one was enough. She liked Dave Biplane – she admired everything about the man.

  “He had no control over any of that – I know he didn’t,” Dave said grimacing.

  “So, that’s our first casualty,” Drew Drucker said eyeing the corpse on his flatbed. “Seen ‘im at the ‘Spleen – talks like a bit of a loon actually,” he chewed something in his front teeth and then spat it out, something brown. “Do I drive now?”

  Halliday turned up her nose then just stared at Drew Drucker. Her opinion of him had taken quite a nosedive. She marveled at how different the two men present and still standing actually were. Other than the letter D, they had nothing in common - Drew Drucker, not even a speck of dirt on her Dave Bi-plane’s boot heel.

  “Somethings come over the man’s balloon, look!” Recalcitrance said her voice reed thin. She pointed her burning skinny cigarette at Pfeiffer’s wreckage.

  Seemingly of its own accord, what was left of the balloon’s basket and crumpled canvas envelope slid across the tarmac. As if by magic, a yellow gas flame ignited in the burner, the canvas caught fire and the Pfeiffer balloon shot up like a flaming turned-up umbrella.

  “Well, that’s just not something a balloon does, is it?” Recalcitrance mused.

  The Pfeiffer balloon continued its ascent and re-entered the heavy air traffic of Loew Avion, vanishing between the strange pairing of a massive black airship and a white Cessna Skyhawk.