by G X Todd
‘Hey, Pose. Who’s the tall drink o’ water?’
Posy didn’t even look over at the old woman, which appeared suspicious as hell to Pilgrim, but no one else seemed to notice.
‘Um, new guy,’ Posy muttered to the floor. ‘Yep. He’s new. Boss just got done clearing him.’
‘Oh yeah? What’s your name, sweetcakes? Got yourself a woman?’
The narrow-faced, wiry guy spoke up. ‘Chrissakes, Dolores, leave the fella alone. Why’d you always gotta be such a skank for?’
‘Fuck you, Frank!’ The old woman threw an open soda can at him and it clonked off his head, its fizzy contents erupting in his face. He shot up from his seat, his chair crashing to the floor, and yelled a long stream of abuse at her. For an old-timer (although Pilgrim suspected she wasn’t as old as the wrinkles suggested), she had an impressively coarse vocabulary herself, which she hurled right back at him. The younger, wild-haired woman had risen with Frank, one arm cradling the baby while her hand tried to wipe the soda off his shirt. She was slapped for her trouble and quickly sat back down, her head bowed in contrition. A guy with a tidier, plaited beard laughed, picked up the fizzing soda can and lobbed it at the table of captives. It hit the wall with a thud and cola exploded, splashing the dark-eyed woman in the face. She twisted her head aside, squeezing her eyes shut, but gave no other reaction. The older man angrily swept the can off the table and glared over at them. It landed on the floor, dribbling the last of its contents on to the linoleum as the guy with the plaited beard continued to laugh.
The distraction was helpful, and Pilgrim and Posy made it past the occupied tables and were almost in the clear before another voice pulled them up.
‘What’s going on, Posy?’
Posy stopped walking, and Pilgrim clenched his jaw, forced to stop next to him. It was Buzzcut. He’d levered the knife out of the table and was holding it nonchalantly in one hand.
‘Hmm. Showin’ him the kitchen, Pike. Tha’s all.’
‘What for? There’s nothing back there. We picked it clean already.’
Posy didn’t reply. He obviously couldn’t think fast enough to come up with an adequate lie.
‘He wanted to show me the walk-in freezer,’ Pilgrim answered. ‘Said it’d be a good place to lock up fresh meat.’ He made sure to say ‘fresh meat’ in a significant way and reached over to pat the seemingly unconscious girl slung over Posy’s shoulder. Pilgrim hadn’t been able to figure out a way he could bring Alex back through the dining hall to meet up with the girl without these people becoming suspicious, so Lacey got to come along after all.
Buzzcut smiled, an ugly curling of his lip to show he’d caught the inference. What few teeth he had left were brown and chipped. ‘Fresh meat, eh? What kind we talking about here?’
‘Young meat,’ Pilgrim clarified. ‘Very tender.’ He knew Lacey was listening to every word, but she remained limp and motionless. He could barely register her back move with her breathing. ‘She put up some fight.’ He plucked at his bloodied shirt for emphasis.
‘You sure we need to lock her up right this second?’
Pilgrim understood what the man was asking. Wasn’t there time to take a look first? Maybe get a little feel?
‘Your boss wanted her locked up, safe and sound. I’m just following orders.’
Buzzcut snickered. It was a dirty, depraved sound. ‘I get your drift – Boss’s laid his claim already, eh? No matter. There’ll be plenty of time to get a sample later.’ He jabbed the knife at them, waving them on. ‘Go ahead and show him the freezer, Pose. Don’t want him thinking we’re not the accommodating sort.’
Posy nodded jerkily, turned and went to lead Pilgrim through the swinging kitchen door.
‘Watch out for Doc in there,’ Buzzcut called after them. ‘He just took his own meat through. Didn’t look half so fresh to me, though.’
The men around the tables laughed.
CHAPTER 9
As soon as they were in the kitchen, Posy bent and set the girl back on her feet. Pilgrim handed her the rifle, and they both turned on their flashlights. All this was done wordlessly. Pilgrim nudged Posy in front of him, prodding him to lead the way, and they walked in file – Posy, Pilgrim, Lacey – past stainless-steel counters and centre benches, pot racks and bains-marie, alongside an array of six-burner oven ranges, three pizza ovens and a line of commercially sized dishwashers along with three pot-wash sinks, to the two storage rooms at the back. One was used to hold dry goods, the other was a walk-in freezer. The four-inch-thick steel door to the freezer was open, and light came from inside, pooling out on to the floor.
A strange hissing noise, like a brief, sharp release of pressurised gas, slashed through the air, a harsh ssshhhht that ended as quickly as it had begun. Another one quickly followed. Then a third, and a fourth.
Posy faltered, and Pilgrim poked him with the barrels of the shotgun to encourage him forward. A low, metallic creaking came from inside the freezer, like the muted clanking of iron manacles. Posy halted in the door’s opening. The man didn’t make a sound, but Pilgrim saw him stiffen.
‘Posy.’ The voice was quiet, composed, as if he were in the middle of flower arranging or crocheting and not in the process of interrogation and torture.
‘Doc,’ Posy whispered.
‘What do you want? I’m busy.’
‘Th–there’s a dead man here lookin’ for you.’
Pilgrim shoved Posy into the room and out of his way. What he saw in that walk-in freezer made his mind reel unnervingly, his senses shrinking back as if they were shadows thrown into a blazingly bright room. He was snatched upwards, his perceptions ripped outside of himself, and they dived across that small space and slammed into the man in the bowler hat.
Through Doc’s eyes, Pilgrim saw himself. He stood in the doorway, the shotgun in the other Pilgrim’s hands pointed disconcertingly right back at him, and again his mind lurched drunkenly as he struggled to comprehend that he was seeing himself from someone else’s eyes – and yet another, smaller part of him was back in his own body, watching Doc, understanding the fact he was inside the man, hitching a ride. His sanity unravelled a little, then, the duality of his consciousness fracturing him, sending him two ways at once. He see-sawed, the yawning space between the two polarities pulling him apart, and then it stopped and locked into place.
From inside Doc, he observed the blanched expression on his own face, the ugly shock in his eyes – even the bloodied left eye, where the haemorrhaging redness had crowded in on his iris.
I see you, Agur, an unknown presence whispered to him from a dark corner of his mind.
No, not his mind. Doc’s.
Pilgrim felt like he’d been spotlit, caught where he shouldn’t be, and there was a brief struggle as he tried to slither his way loose and go back to where he belonged, but claws held him fast, dug into him, wouldn’t let go.
I see you, Agur, that unknown presence whispered again. I. See. You. What are you doing here? How are you here?
Giving an almighty psychic heave, Pilgrim wrenched free, the divided part of his mind shooting back across the small space, retreating fast. With a nauseating roll, he was thrust back inside his own body, his stomach muscles clenching as he reeled, his left knee almost buckling. He breathed heavily, inhaling that heavy smog of spilled blood, and stared back at the behatted man, but Doc appeared unaffected by what had just happened.
What was that? he thought shakily.
A voice, said his own, the one he was slowly growing accustomed to. An Other. This man is just a puppet.
Pilgrim was glad to hear this voice again, its presence strange yet familiar, a growing part of him, much like Voice had been. He never wanted to hear again the other awful sibilance of that unknown presence which had whispered to him from inside Doc’s mind. His eyes slid to Lacey, fear gripping him. It had sensed Pilgrim immediately, a trespasser in its domain: could it as easily sense Voice and how he’d come to be in the girl?
I don’t think
so, his voice answered. Not yet. She must be careful.
The warning weighed gravely in his mind and sent another shiver of apprehension through him, but he ruthlessly reined in his spiralling thoughts. Everything was hanging by a thread, and some things hung by decidedly less.
In a lot of ways, the scene before him was reminiscent of how Pilgrim had first found Alex, hanging in the shower at the motel. Except that had been the handiwork of two amateurs, and this was the work of a professional. Alex was naked and strung up by her wrists, and it was a good thing she was, because the time-consuming act of fastening her hands together and lifting her on to the meat hook from the ceiling was probably the only reason she hadn’t been carved down to the bone already. She was covered in darkly clotted blood, every inch of her, as if a barrel of the stuff had been dumped over her head. No clean patch of skin remained. New blood continued to dribble from the deep lacerations on the woman’s breasts and sides and flanks.
She hung limp, all her weight dangling from her pulped wrists. Not even Lacey’s agonised cry could induce a reaction from the flayed woman.
You’re too late. She’s already dead.
But she wasn’t dead. Pilgrim noted the shallow breaths that moved the woman’s chest and the quick pulse of her heartbeat in the soft hollow below her sternum.
The man they called Doc stood behind Alex, holding a long strip of leather. Pilgrim didn’t need to see the stripes of blood on his hand and arm and face to know he’d been using it to whip her. Other than the leather belt, the man was unarmed. Doc’s clear green eyes cut right through Pilgrim like an ice adze through a frozen pond.
Pilgrim realised he was shaking, as if the freezer unit were turned on and pumping out chilly air. It wasn’t. It was warm inside the room.
‘Step away from her,’ Pilgrim said quietly.
The man didn’t respond. He simply wound the leather strip back in.
‘I said, step away.’
The movement was shocking in its suddenness; Doc’s arm whipped out, the leather strip whisking through the air and striking Alex’s back. Blood misted. The light dimmed for an instant.
Lacey cried out as if the strike had landed on her. She brought her rifle up to bear on the bowler-hatted man.
‘Stop.’ Her voice broke.
Doc regarded the girl calmly and slowly wound the red, dripping strip back in. ‘Hello, Lacey.’
‘What’s wrong with you?’ she whispered.
‘Wrong? Nothing’s wrong. I’m glad you’re here. We wanted to speak with you.’
‘Please, just give me back my friend.’
Pilgrim heard the quaver in the girl’s voice, and he understood why. There was something wrong with this man. He was dangerous, even more so than Dumont had been.
‘Don’t you feel it?’ the man said, lifting his hand to the air. ‘The world is changed. They’re here to stay now, and there’s nothing anyone can do to stop them. They hide in us, like sleeping dogs.’
‘No,’ the girl whispered. ‘No, you’re wrong.’
The bowler-hatted man smiled. ‘I’m not wrong. You hear. I know you do. And judging by how you conversed with it after our little visit with Jebediah, it’s a well-developed one. That worries me. You’re so young, much younger than Red – how are you so young with such a mature voice?’
Were these words coming from the man himself, or were they being fed to him by the other thing living inside? It didn’t matter: Pilgrim was beginning to see everything clearly; he’d been trapped inside a rain-washed car, all the windows blurred opaque with sheets of misty water, but he’d found the windshield wipers and now they were feverishly working. This group was actively expanding its numbers, gathering in strength, and in other parts of the country similar groups were no doubt doing the same, each one encouraging (forcefully or otherwise) anyone who could hear a voice to join their ranks. All for one central purpose: they were readying themselves for a war. All people, everywhere, regardless of whether they heard a voice or not, would have to fight to keep their place in the world. The Flitting Man was tidying up the remainders, sifting out the voices, finding his people and leaving all others to perish. And it wouldn’t be some faceless battle with unknown soldiers on each side, a battle Pilgrim could stay out of. No, everyone around him would be forced to join: young, old, men, women. Everyone. Including Lacey.
He’d known she was different from the start. She’d been an empty, defenceless vessel, waiting for Voice to jump into her. All the elements had aligned: the shot Pilgrim had taken to the head, her unique ability to house a voice, Voice’s strength. It was a perfect storm. And if this man or, more accurately, the voice that lived inside this man, ever discovered such a thing were possible, this knowledge could potentially be disastrous, not least of all for Lacey. They’d turn her into a lab rat, poking and prodding until they had extracted every last scrap of understanding they could about her.
‘We have lots to talk about,’ Doc told her.
‘She’s not going to talk to you,’ Pilgrim said. ‘No one is.’
The man’s head cocked, his green eyes sparking so that for just a moment they were flat and inhuman. ‘You’re not what you appear, either, are you? What an intriguing pair you make.’
Pilgrim knew this man wouldn’t listen to reason. It wasn’t in him to – the steadiness of his hands, his detached demeanour, the otherness in him, were all evidence of something lacking. His humanity, perhaps. Pilgrim wondered if a scuffle, probably a loud one, would bring the people in the next room rushing to investigate. (He couldn’t chance firing his shotgun in such a confined space, not with Doc standing so close to Alex: the buckshot might hit her.) He wondered, too, which side Posy would fall on in the event of a fight. Posy could go either way, but Pilgrim suspected his long allegiance with these people would define the man’s instinctive reaction, and it would favour neither Pilgrim nor the girl.
If you think you can end this quietly, you’re deluding yourself.
He wasn’t in the game of deluding himself.
And you’re weakening. I feel it. You’re not strong enough to fight anyone.
Flexing his hand, trying to still its fine-motor trembling, Pilgrim kept his good eye trained on the behatted man. Lacey, standing on his left, was lost in the dark graininess of his failing eyesight. He only knew she was there because of the harsh rasps of her breaths and the long, slim barrel of her rifle – up and pointed in Doc’s direction – which had entered Pilgrim’s narrow field of vision.
Pilgrim spoke into the silence. ‘Dumont won’t be talking to anyone, either.’
Doc stilled, the leather strip momentarily forgotten in his hand.
That hit something.
‘In fact, he’s done all the talking he’ll ever do. Even to the voice in his own head.’
The only sounds were the tinking drips of Alex’s blood on the floor and the multiple strands of their breathing. Posy sat watching them from where he’d slid down against the wall. Pilgrim imagined he could feel Lacey’s gaze, too; not on him, but boring down her rifle’s sights like a laser, zeroed in on the man who was hurting her friend.
‘He doesn’t hear a voice,’ Doc murmured. ‘He never has.’ For a split second something tightened across the man’s features. ‘What have you done to him?’
Pilgrim hadn’t been wholly convinced this man was capable of feeling strong emotions, but now, with Doc’s head slowly lowering and the brim of his hat casting a shadow over his piercing, emerald eyes, Pilgrim thought that maybe there was more to him than merely coldness and control.
There’s always more. Dig for it.
‘Oh, I didn’t do anything,’ Pilgrim told the man. ‘But the large pane of glass that crushed his skull did plenty.’
With that, the dam quietly broke. The man didn’t flinch or make a sound, but he slowly shook his head from side to side, an almost ponderous motion.
‘I will not,’ Doc muttered. He shook his head more forcefully. ‘I will not.’
‘Brains eve
rywhere,’ Pilgrim added.
‘NO.’
In the shadows beneath the brim of his hat, something slid out from behind Doc’s eyes and a blind was dropped. What lived behind it was a terrifyingly visceral animal. It manifested itself not in a direct attack, which Pilgrim was anticipating, but in a tumult of unexpected violence directed at Alex.
Doc let out a throat-tearing howl that made Pilgrim’s hackles rise and his jaw clench, and attacked Alex in a savage flurry of blows, the leather strip crackling with a manic energy as it hissed and cracked, flesh tearing from the woman’s back on each lash. It was as though Doc understood exactly how best to hurt them, because, as the whip snapped and ripped and shredded – Alex flinching and shrieking awake, the whites of her eyes flashing wide open – Lacey screamed.
A gunshot went off, loud enough to vibrate the bones in Pilgrim’s head painfully. He’d already lunged forward and was reaching for Doc’s striking arm when the man staggered back, a hole appearing above his right eyebrow.
‘Not the head!’ Pilgrim shouted, but it was too late. Like a faucet turned to full spigot a stream of blood flowed out and sheeted the side of Doc’s face. It filled his eye to overflowing. His bowler hat had been knocked askew and now it fell, tumbling to the floor, where it rolled away on its brim. Doc didn’t seem to notice the loss of his hat, and he made no attempt to stop the blood decanting from his head – his hands shuddered at his sides, the belt falling from his grasp, its end coiling like a dead snake over his foot. And while Doc’s right eye brimmed with blood, iris lost behind a sea of red, his other, cut-glass green eye gazed coldly past Pilgrim to the girl.
She stared back at Doc, a small curl of smoke rising from her rifle’s muzzle as she silently watched the man bleed.
Her first blood spilled.
To Pilgrim, that sounded ominously like an omen of more to come.