by Steve Feasey
‘They’ll know. There won’t be a log of you coming in through the gate. That’ll set alarm bells ringing.’
His daughter gave him a long look. ‘I thought you might know someone who could help with that.’
Cowper was about to say something when another thought struck him. ‘How will you get back in? Afterwards, I mean. I doubt very much that you’ve managed to train your simian friend to go back in the other direction at your beck and call. So how were you planning to return?’
Tia shook her head, avoiding meeting his eye. ‘I don’t know. I hadn’t really thought that far ahead. The most important thing to me right now is that I get myself embedded with the Mute population and start to put together the story of what’s really happening out there. I’ll shoot for a few weeks, edit it all together and then find a way back inside so that you can show it.’
His daughter’s choice of words struck him. ‘Embedded? War reporters are described as being “embedded”, Tia.’
‘You don’t think war’s been declared on the mutants, Daddy?’
That stopped him. He looked across at her. When had his little girl grown up into the beautiful, intelligent young woman he saw before him now? He was reminded of Regan again. The two were even more alike than he’d thought.
‘When I said I wanted to be a reporter, you said you’d do everything you could to help me. Reporters report on injustices, Daddy. That’s what they do. If that means they have to bend the rules and perhaps put themselves in danger sometimes, then that’s the price they have to pay.’
‘I can’t talk you out of this, can I?’
She shook her head.
He sighed and waved the screen of the comms unit back to life.
‘Who are you calling?’ Tia asked, concerned.
‘A friend. Somebody who can tell us straight if this monkey-brained idea of yours could actually work.’
Brick
Rush sat on his haunches, perfectly still, behind a large mangled wreck of concrete that might have once been a building of some kind before this world was almost annihilated all those years ago. What was left of the structure was now covered in foul-smelling chokeweed, but the mutant boy hardly noticed the stench as he held the spyglass up to his face, taking in the terrible scene in the distance. Dotty made a hurghing sound beside him, and he blindly reached out with one hand, placing it upon the stocky little creature’s back, urging her to be quiet. She trembled beneath his touch, but not from fear; in the week or so they’d been in the Wastes, Rush had come to realise the rogwan was almost fearless. No, Dotty was merely responding to the horror and revulsion the boy felt at what he was witnessing through Tink’s telescope.
The mutant marauders had almost finished the sacking of what had once been a trading outpost of perhaps thirty or forty people. From the description Tink had given him, he knew it had to be the Tranter Trading Post he’d been sent to find in his dream; it was also clear that he’d arrived too late. Whatever he had been supposed to discover here would be gone now; the place’s former inhabitants were all either killed or captured, the buildings ransacked and razed to the ground. Of the former inhabitants, the dead were the lucky ones. Those still alive had been forced into three large cages that sat atop wagons drawn by massive horned creatures. These gargantuan beasts chewed the cud as they stood harnessed, seemingly oblivious to the death and destruction their masters had meted out all about them.
Although too far away to make them out, Rush could imagine the despair on the faces of the unfortunate captives. Close up, they’d witnessed the terrible brutality that Rush had thankfully only caught glimpses of, sickening scenes that had left him feeling hollowed out and wretched. The attackers were one of the new breed of cannibal gangs that roamed these lands, and Rush knew it was pure luck he too had not become one of their victims.
Last night, cresting a low hill, he’d spotted the small settlement off in the distance. He stopped, observing the place and weighing up his options. He’d already been travelling for a long time, sticking to his plan of moving under the cover of darkness, and the stretch between him and the little colony looked bleak and barren, with little or no concealment. Nevertheless, he was getting desperate for food and water, having long since eaten all the dried meat Tink had left him. Despite Dotty bringing him back the odd morsel from some of her hunts, Rush was dreadfully hungry and getting weaker by the day. It was a toss-up whether to cross the desolate landscape separating him from the trading post in the dark, or wait until the morning, and his decision had undoubtedly saved his and the rogwan’s lives. He’d made his camp in the shelter of the ruins he was now in, eschewing a fire and huddling down with his blanket around him. He’d eventually fallen asleep, not coming to again until just before sunset, when the attack came.
They had taken their time, the mutant marauders. They easily outnumbered the traders, whom they killed at will, often toying with their prey, prolonging their agony and suffering. Eventually, bored, they set about dispatching the people of the settlement in horrifying ways, laughing and shouting as they went about the murderous business. Now, with the sun long past its zenith and making its way towards the horizon, they looked as if they were preparing to move out.
Dotty growled softly, and this time Rush took the small brass telescope from his eye and looked down at her, glad for an excuse to drag his focus away from the stomach-turning events that were finally coming to an end in the distance. The rogwan stared back at him, her squat, compact body rigid. Her dark tongue flicked out and her lips peeled back to reveal the razor-sharp black teeth that lined her gums. He’d learned that there was another set behind the first; these curved backwards slightly to hold on to prey larger than herself, and she stretched her mouth wide enough for them to be seen too. Shuffling around on her short legs, she bumped her head against his leg before turning to look in the direction of the outpost.
‘I know,’ Rush said, reaching out and placing his hand on her again. He could feel how tense the muscles were beneath the rogwan’s scales and rough fur. ‘But if we go down there now, we’re as good as dead too. We’ve got to wait, Dotty. We’ve got to wait until the bad people have gone.’ He shook his head and sighed, hating himself for what felt like cowardice. ‘I don’t like it either, girl, but we don’t have any choice.’ Her long tongue flashed out again, the rough surface rasping his skin. He guessed that, like him, Dotty was thinking about the poor unfortunates in those cages. Tink had told him there were rumours that ranches had been set up somewhere in the Wastes, ranches where humans were bred as food. He shuddered and hoped the people who’d been taken captive were not going to end up as livestock.
‘Just wait, girl. That’s all we can do,’ he said, reluctantly putting the spyglass back up to his face.
Only after Rush had witnessed the last vehicle in the caravan of death roll out of sight over the horizon did he and Dotty emerge from their hiding place and make their way across the plain to what was left of the outpost.
The landscape was every bit as bleak and hostile as he’d imagined, and the searingly hot day had given way to a bitterly cold night. What little that did grow here was the same dreary and oppressive grey colour as the earth it emerged from, and Rush remembered Tink’s description of the Blacklands. Both places were a testament to the time when man had made a concerted effort to wipe himself off the face of the planet, scarring the terrain for ever.
Rush and Dotty were almost upon the ravaged settlement now. Neither had any real wish to go into the place, but without the water he hoped to find among the ruins, Rush knew they were in big trouble. As they reached the outskirts, the smell of death hit them, the rogwan’s reaction being to blow a blast of air out of her nostrils and make low rumbling noises that perfectly echoed Rush’s own unease. So when they found that the stone well at the edge of the settlement had not been destroyed or deliberately contaminated, he almost cried out in joy. The water had a strong metallic tang to it, but to Rush it tasted divine. His thirst slaked, he left Dotty
with her head in the bucket he’d drawn up for her and reluctantly went off to explore – he needed to find food and somewhere to sleep before the temperatures plummeted further.
Standing in what might have once been the centre of the settlement, he turned about him, taking it in. Whatever he’d been sent here to find was either gone or destroyed.
A big half-moon hung low in the cloudless sky, its light transforming the world into an eerie silver-and-black monochrome of harsh, sinister shadows. He tried to ignore the dark patches on the ground, some of which were still wet. Greasy-looking trails of the same darker colour led away from these patches, where something had been dragged off. What had once been a community of hard-working traders was now a ruin, and he wandered through the rusted metal, broken timbers and tattered plastic sheeting that had once housed the people of this place. A howl in the distance made his heart jolt, and he stood stiff and rigid, staring off in the direction of the noise. It went unanswered. Eventually he allowed himself to breathe again. The last thing he needed now was for a pack of werfen to turn up.
Something moved in the air overhead, and moments later the first of the winged carrion creatures arrived, swiftly followed by others, drawn there by some silent signal. Within minutes the skies were full of great bats and birds and strange amalgams of the two. He turned to look as a group of the ugly creatures landed, folding leathery or feathered wings along their backs and hopping about clumsily in search of the cannibals’ leftovers.
The stone that left Rush’s sling shot out, bullet-like, making a sharp crack! when it connected with the skull of the nearest creature. The clagbat gave a brief cry and flopped down on to its side, where it lay perfectly still. The other creatures about it scattered momentarily but quickly returned, not bothering to move too far away even when Rush walked over and picked the carcass up. Clagbat wasn’t particularly good to eat, but it was better than anything else on offer, and he and Dotty had made do with a lot worse. The rogwan was among the scavengers too now, chasing them back and forth and making that low, irritated sound. Rush frowned. Dotty didn’t usually waste her energy on such creatures, but this time she seemed intent on keeping them away from one particular wreck of a building. He hurried over to her, and when she saw him approach she ran about in a small circle, came a short distance towards him, then returned to the wreckage.
‘What is it, girl, hmm? What have you found? Is it food?’ Rush stepped forward. Despite the protests his undernourished body made, he began to pull back planks of wood and sheets of canvas, throwing the debris off into the shadows all about. A cold wind blew, and he shivered as it rapidly cooled the sweat on his head and neck. After about ten minutes he finally stopped. There was nothing there. The only thing he found were two tubes sticking out of the dry earth, their tops curved over and down. Dotty was sitting looking up at him expectantly, head cocked to one side. He was about to berate the rogwan for wasting his time and effort, when he heard a noise. He stopped and stood motionless, unaware that his carriage and bearing mirrored those of his four-legged companion. Then he caught it again. There was something below the ground where he stood. He glanced at those tubes again, frowning. When he stamped his foot, his heart quickened; the sound was all wrong. Quickly getting to his hands and knees, he clawed at the canvas sheeting he’d assumed was simply a floor covering, pulling and tearing at it until he revealed a door flush with the ground. There was no sign of a handle, so Rush cast about him for something he could use to open it. Dotty began hurghing again.
‘All right! I can see what it is,’ he said, speaking half to himself, half to the rogwan. ‘You know, it would have been a lot easier if you’d helped a bit with the digging and shifting, instead of sitting there like some lazy dollop!’
He needed to be able to see. He hated the idea, but he was going to have to use his torch; the light would shine out like a beacon in the darkness, signalling his position to anyone who might be about. If any member of the cannibal gang had hung back from the rest of the group and happened to look in his direction, they’d know there was someone still here. But there was nothing else for it. He dug about in the hide rucksack Tink had given him and came up with the device. He wound the little handle on the side a few times before flicking the switch, covering the cracked, yellow lens at the front with his fingers to muffle the glow as much as possible.
Down on all fours, he forced his fingertips into a small gap along one edge of the hatch door. Gritting his teeth, he sucked in a huge breath and heaved upward with all his might until he finally managed to pull the thing up before letting it crash to the ground on the other side. He shone his torch down on the person curled up in the pit down there. He’d expected to find a small child hidden away in the bolt-hole. Instead it was the biggest person Rush had ever laid eyes on.
The great, hulking figure knelt, face down, in the underground pit. His hands, fingers interlaced, were clasped behind his head as he rocked back and forth a little, mumbling the same phrases over and over again to himself: ‘Stay-in-the-hole. Don’t-come-out-till-Ma-tells-you-it’s-safe. Stay-in-the-hole. Don’t-come-out-till-Ma-tells-you-it’s-safe. Stay-in-the-hole. Don’t-come-out-till-Ma-tells-you-it’s-safe.’ His voice was incredibly deep, like two vast boulders grinding against each other.
‘Hello?’
‘Stay-in-the-hole. Don’t-come-out . . .’ The man continued to intone the words.
‘Hello?’ Louder this time. Rush looked about him at the once inhabited little settlement. Whoever ‘Ma’ was, she wasn’t coming back to tell the giant anything. He turned his attention back to the hole.
‘What’s your name?’ he asked. ‘You can come out now. They’ve all gone.’
A pause in the mantra, then the instructions were repeated in full one last time before they stopped altogether. Rush was about to say something else when that rumbling bass voice came from the hole again.
‘Brick.’
‘What?’
‘Brick. Sounds like “stick”, but with a b.’ The big man sounded out the letter: ‘Buh.’ He paused, a frown momentarily creasing his brow. ‘And a ruh. Buh, ruh, ick.’
Rush frowned. Despite his size, Brick clearly wasn’t very bright. When Rush spoke again, he did so as if he were talking to somebody much younger in years.
‘Why don’t you come out of there? The bad people have gone now.’
‘Not allowed to. Not safe.’ Brick shifted a little, but remained huddled over his knees, hands still firmly clamped to the front of his face. ‘Is it dark?’ he asked.
‘Of course it is. It’s night-time.’
A long, low moan drifted up out of the hole. ‘The dark. The bad people came with it. Ma knows Brick hates the dark, but she still put him in the hole. “For safety,” she said. Brick gonna stay here till the dark gone. Then Ma will come back.’
Rush was about to say something else when another long, ululating howl drifted out of the night. This one seemed closer. He stood perfectly still, scanning the shadows out in the distance. The werf that had called wouldn’t be alone. The creatures hunted in packs and loved to attack at night, when their keen eyesight and sense of smell helped them to locate their prey. They were being drawn to this place by the smell of the blood, just as the voltores and clagbats had been, but unlike the winged beasts, the werfen would attack the living too, especially if their prey were few in number. Dotty also stiffened and stared out into the shadows.
‘You can’t stay there,’ Rush said, looking down into the hole again, his anxiety levels rising.
‘Not safe in the dark!’
Rush looked at the little plastic light in his hand. Tink’s generosity had astounded Rush. The light, like the spyglass the trader had left him, was an antique. He hated the idea that it might get damaged or broken, but it was the only thing he could think of that might help right now. He gave the little handle on the side a few more twists and the bulb glowed brighter in response. ‘Here, Brick. I have something for you.’ He jumped down into the pit and pushed the d
evice next to the man’s head, bathing it in light. The giant turned round to look directly into the bulb, gratefully grasping the torch with both hands. He made a soft mewling sound. Rush guessed Brick to be about twenty years of age, maybe a little more. Despite this, he doubted the big guy could look after himself if left out here alone.
‘That’s better, isn’t it? Light whenever you want it.’
The werf’s call was answered. This time the sound was definitely nearer. The animals were surrounding the place, preparing to attack from all sides. Rush straightened up and peered over the top of the hole. Despite his weariness, he knew he had to get away. He’d have one last go at getting Brick out, and if that didn’t work he’d have no choice but to abandon him. He’d have to lie to the gentle giant.
‘Ma’s not coming back, Brick.’ That much at least was true. ‘She had to go away with the bad people. She didn’t want to go, and before she was taken away she said to tell you that you had to come out of there. She told me to let you know that it was OK to leave the hole now. She said to tell you that you’re a good boy and that she loves you and that she’s sorry she didn’t get a chance to say goodbye.’
He stopped and waited, hoping his choice of words might ring true in some way.
‘It’s Maw, not Ma.’
‘What?’
‘You said Ma. It’s Maw. Sounds like four, but spelt with a muh.’
‘Right. Maw. I must have misheard her.’
‘Brick.’ The big man said in that loud sobbing moan again before slowly rising to his feet. Standing, he was even bigger than Rush had first thought. ‘Maw said that? Safe to get out?’
Rush gave him a shrug.
Just then the torchlight began to dim and Brick’s face transformed into a stricken mask of panic.