Abomination (The Pathfinders Book 1)

by Jane Dougherty

  Tully grinned and held out his hand. Ace ignored the gesture and the chill in his eyes did not alter. He clicked his fingers and the brute with the shades opened the door and whistled. Four men or boys—it was difficult to tell beneath the layers of paramilitary gear—clattered in and without a word began pushing Tully and Carla outside.

  “Just a minute.” Tully hung back. “The hole only works one way, right?”

  Ace nodded again. “At the end of the hole you came out of is the Abomination. There’s no going back.”

  “So, it’s not the only one? There are other holes then?”

  Ace shrugged. “Some.”

  “And—”

  “Look, the worms made the holes in time and space. The fucking worms just ate their way through it wherever they fucking wanted.”

  “And the gods decided which can be used by mortals,” Dog Skin uttered tonelessly.

  Ace ignored the interruption. “You go down those holes and you could end up anywhere. A billion light years from earth maybe, or just in some fucking worm’s fucking gut. Now get out before I decide to chuck you down one so you can find out!”

  Chapter Eight

  Guards pushed Carla and Tully out of Ace’s office and along the dingy corridor. The light was feeble and yellow—most of the light bulbs were dead. At the end of the corridor, swinging doors opened onto a warehouse area. A pale light filtered through the dirty roof windows revealing a bare concrete floor, an assortment of refrigerators, microwave ovens and vacuum cleaners stacked in an unstable-looking pile against one wall amid the rotting remains of their cardboard packaging. The rest of the floor space was taken up with a collection of car seats, sink units, battered furniture, metal shelving and a myriad objects salvaged from the wreckage of the world.

  “What a pigs’ house,” Carla whistled under her breath.

  The guards marched them past the ransacked alleys of a supermarket and out onto a walkway lined with blasted shop windows. Some of the shops in the mall still had intact metal blinds, most, though, had been forced and opened. They stopped opposite the supermarket cafeteria, in front of a completely empty shop that had once sold Belgian chocolates. Guard One beat on the blind with his rifle. The blind was raised with difficulty from the inside. Mechanism going rusty, Tully thought, and half-wondered why they didn’t oil it. But he was beginning to realize.

  “Inside!”

  Guard Two gave Carla a sharp poke in the back and pushed her head down before shoving her underneath the blind. Tully moved to follow her but a hand grabbed his collar and pulled him back.

  “Just her. Women’s quarters.”

  “Don’t any of you lot speak in complete sentences?”

  Guard Two ignored Tully and moved on. Guard Three jabbed him in the back.

  “Move!”

  The blind clattered back down, and with an anxious look over his shoulder, Tully followed the leading guard to an arts and crafts emporium on two levels and down the stairs, through a sort of dormitory where a filthy assortment of mattresses and quilts littered the floor. The guard stopped before a door into a small, lightless storeroom and pushed Tully inside.

  “Hold on a minute.” Tully jammed his foot against the door as Guard One made to close it. “How long am I supposed to stay in this hole?”

  Guard One took a deep breath then, enunciating very carefully, said, “Initiation ceremony.” Then he pushed Tully’s face back, kicked his foot away and slammed the door closed.

  * * * *

  Carla looked across a mess of bedding at the expressionless faces clustered at the back of the room. A big woman with lank red hair pulled back in a ponytail, heaved against the blind and crushed it back to the floor. Carla noticed she didn’t lock it. Probably they didn’t have the key, just like they didn’t have soap and hot water, she thought, wrinkling her nose.

  The red-haired woman eyed her suspiciously but without curiosity. “Kitchens,” she said and jerked her chin in the direction of one of the girls huddled at the back of the room. “Kat, take her with you. And you,” she said, rounding on Carla, “do what she says, or you’ll get a taste of this.” With a grin that revealed rotten teeth, the woman brandished a heavy flail.

  She must have found that in the lion tamers’ outfitters, Carla thought and wondered what other instruments of torture had once been on open sale in this particular shopping mall.

  * * * *

  Tully sat in the dark and ran his fingers through his hair. He was freezing cold and hungry, and he couldn’t help but imagine the kind of initiation ceremony somebody as demented as Ace would dream up. At least the solitude and the dark helped him concentrate. With the bits of information he had gleaned, he was beginning to build up a picture of this new, devastated world, and the picture taking shape was terrifying. Countless plans to escape, get Carla, get away, anywhere, formed and dissolved in his head.

  Whoa there. Calm down, mate, he thought. As his dad would say, Get a grip!

  The thought of his dad hit Tully like a punch in the gut, making his eyes smart with the pain. He saw him in the ‘garden’, the patch of trampled earth where heroic flowers battled against the odds by the wall. He saw the clutch of twisted fruit trees that yielded specky, wormy fruit, his dad digging vegetables, arguing with the yellow-eyed nanny goats that gave a stingy cupful of milk each a day.

  He saw himself picking through the wooden crate full of assorted maggoty vegetables, giving most of them to the fat rabbits nobody had the heart to kill. The cats slipping like shadows beneath the table waiting for scraps. The radio twittering, not quite on the station, and wet washing waiting to be hung up outside.

  Get a grip, Tully told himself again and wiped a speck of moisture from the corner of his eye. Tower Bridge, the Golden Gate, the Eiffel Tower might be so much scrap iron now, but Tully refused to believe in the disaster that was capable of snuffing out his dad. He had a hunch that Armageddon didn’t apply to some people. He was just deciding whether to risk betting on another hunch and jumping the guard next time he opened the door, when something hit the door with a dull thud and the handle rattled. The impact was followed by the sound of snarling and violent scratching, as though the something was trying to claw the door down.

  Instinctively Tully braced his shoulder against it. He could feel the tacky plywood shivering and splintering. The scratching stopped, and the corridor filled with the sound of shouting and the thudding of several pairs of boots. Whatever it was with the claws fled with a wild shriek. Tully held his breath, waiting for the sound of gunshot, but guessing that it wouldn’t come. The footsteps pounded past and another receding shriek rang out, followed by silence. Tully leaned against the door and realized that he was trembling. Five ragged furrows the length of his forearm had appeared at chest-height in the door, through which the pale glimmer of the corridor light filtered.

  * * * *

  “On that pallet over there. A few big cans of beans left. Bring one.”

  “Have you all forgotten how to speak, as well as how to wash?” Carla snapped.

  “Mostly. Yes.”

  Carla staggered over with the ten-kilo can of white navy beans to where Kat was opening a much smaller can of frankfurters. She opened the beans and together they tipped the contents into a stew pot of dubious cleanliness. The sausages followed.

  “How many is this for?” Carla asked. She had seen at least a dozen men and boys and nearly twice as many women.

  “All of us.”

  “Then those sausages won’t go very far.”

  “Just for the men.”

  “I might have guessed,” Carla sighed. “I suppose we ought to be grateful to get a few beans.”

  The girl heaved a world-weary sigh. “If they leave any.”

  Carla was about to ask why they let themselves be pushed about by a bunch of macho brutes who thought they were living in the Middle Ages when she took a good look at the girl. Carla had taken her for a skinny kid, but a closer inspection revealed the bony shoulders, scrawny breas
ts and haggard look of a woman, but under-developed and emaciated. Like Tully, Carla was beginning to put together a picture of their new environment.

  “There’s not much to eat, is there?”

  Kat just looked around. The warehouse was three-quarters empty. “You see much?”

  “Can’t you get food somewhere else? Find another supermarket, I mean.”

  Kat sighed. “This is Flay territory. Other places like this are in some other tribe’s territory. Not enough warriors left to fight over food.”

  “What about hunting?”

  Kat forced a wry smile. “Hunt what? Rats? Crows? Drax?”

  “Drax?”

  “Big dogs.”

  “Why not, if that’s all there is?”

  “Rats and crows eat corpses, drink poisoned water. Drax eat rats and crows and corpses. They are all sick, rotten. If we eat them, we become like them. Drax used to be dogs.”

  This was the longest speech Carla had heard from Kat. It had been a real physical effort for her, as if she had to drag the words from her memory, as if they were so rarely used they had almost been forgotten. Carla asked one last question, though she dreaded the reply.

  “So, what will happen when the food runs out?”

  Kat’s expression was dull and hopeless and she did not reply. She didn’t need to.

  Carla bit her lip, trying to hang onto the strange, obscene ideas that darted like cockroaches in and out of the shadowy places in her mind. While Kat collected plates and cutlery together, Carla lit the gas and stretched out her hands to let the heat thaw out her fingertips.

  Kat cut the gas back off with an angry gesture. “Not until you put the pan on! Not enough gas to waste it.”

  “Sorry,” Carla snapped back. “I’m new here. Remember?”

  Kat’s anger subsided into her usual lethargy. “That’s it.” She waved in the direction of the stack of gas bottles. “When they’re empty, there’s nothing left. Maybe the food will run out first. Then we can use what’s left in the bottles to gas ourselves.”

  Kat’s feeble attempt at a joke left Carla cold. “Can’t you get out of here, find somewhere better, somewhere with more civilized people?”

  Kat frowned in irritation. “I told you. There is nowhere else. There are no people anymore, just tribes. Rats and drax are everywhere. The cold wears you down. You tire. You fall. Rats or drax get you. There is nowhere, nothing else, just this. Until the food’s all gone. Then…” Kat’s eyes were weary, empty.

  “You mean the whole world’s like this? It can’t be! Even in the Ice Age parts of the planet weren’t too bad.”

  Kat glanced around nervously. “Maybe. But how would you get there before the cold or the drax kill you? Help me put the pan of beans on now or the men will be angry.”

  They lifted the heavy pan containing the contents of the tin of beans, viscous liquid included. A deep frown of consternation furrowed Carla’s forehead.

  Chapter Nine

  Tully stretched and got stiffly to his feet. He felt each joint cracking as he unfolded his legs and stamped his feet to get the circulation going again after a night spent hunched in a corner of what felt like the butcher’s cold room. Jesus! He winced as the vertebrae in his back locked again. As he jogged on the spot, he inspected the door and stared at the holes scored in it, wondering if there had been an attack by the prehistoric dog creatures and whether there were any still at large.

  The remnants of last night’s supper had congealed on the plate into what looked like lumpy wallpaper paste. The jug of water was empty. Tully’s stomach reminded him that half a plate of beans was all he had eaten in almost twenty-four hours, and he wondered if Carla had been given even that much. He knew he ought to be working out a plan to escape, but his meager knowledge of the apocalyptic world they had stumbled into made it difficult to think straight. That and the beans. His insides started to churn again at the thought.

  He put together all he knew. He and Carla had somehow fallen through a hole in time and space to a bombsite about five years after the disaster—Abomination or whatever. The world was wrecked, covered in ash, peopled by nutcases and mutant animals and it was bloody cold. Men played at being characters out of a bloodthirsty video game and kept the women locked up in a sort of servile state.

  That was what he knew. What he deduced was that Ace and his tribe were doomed to extinction. They were living off the remnants of stock in a draughty, derelict shopping mall. They had no other means of sustenance—nowhere else to go. They produced nothing, repaired nothing, created nothing. When the last can of beans had been opened and eaten, they could put the key under the door and jump down one of their bloody wormholes.

  Tully had never taken much interest in straight science. Holes in the ozone layer were one thing. Holes in time and space were another, to be classed with Star Trek and Lord of the Rings. At home, they’d talked more about pig rearing than quantum physics. Tully wished he’d paid a bit more attention in physics classes. He was sure that they’d discussed a similar kind of theory sometime. Carla would know, wherever she was.

  At the sound of footsteps in the corridor, Tully tensed into a defensive stance, feet apart and fists clenched. The key turned in the lock and the door crashed open.

  “Out!”

  A small figure in too-big clothes stood outside brandishing a too-big rifle. Tully relaxed. “Where to, Rambo?”

  “Never mind. And stop calling me Rambo.”

  “What shall I call you then?”

  “I don’t want you to call me anything. Just move!” The child’s voice rose to a nervous treble.

  “Okay, Rambo, keep your shirt on. Or is it your big brother’s?”

  The answer was a sharp poke in the back with the muzzle of the rifle.

  “Just trying to be friendly.” Tully ambled outside. “No need to lose your rag.”

  The dingy light in the corridor was enough for Tully to see the fresh bruises on the side of the boy’s face and the dirty smears left by tears.

  “Hey,” Tully’s voice softened. “How did you do that?”

  “None of your bloody business.” The boy’s voice was close to breaking. “Just get a move on or I’ll be the one that gets…”

  “That gets what? They thumped you, didn’t they?” Tully clenched his fists again, this time in anger. “Those big bastards that you went off with. That’s how they get their fun is it? Picking on the little kids?”

  “There are no other little kids. Anyway, the girls get it worse,” the child mumbled, conflicting expressions of shame and relief chasing one another across his face. The child soldier mask dropped and it was a frightened eleven year old who poured out his grief to Tully. “You joke about it, about Ace and, and…all this, but you don’t know what it’s like. Not to live like this. Every day. Knowing nothing’s going to change, except to get worse.”

  “Go on then. Tell me,” Tully said gently. “I don’t understand what happened, but until a few hours ago, I was at school. Put me in the picture a bit. I’d appreciate it.”

  The boy’s face took on a serious look, fear battling with responsibility. “The tribes is all that’s left now. You got to belong to one. Outside it’s just freezing cold and drax and other tribes.”

  “Hold on. What’s a drax?”

  “A drac. Drax is when there more’n one of the fuckers. Those dog things that got…

  That we… Outside, on the wire.”

  “Oh yeah,” Tully murmured. “Got yah.”

  “Anyway,” the boy went on, “it’s always cold, and there’s never enough to eat. At least in the beginning there was me and Kat.” His weary face brightened a little, as if just saying the name was a rare comfort to him. “But they took her away, put her with all the other girls.” He stopped as if the thought was too hurtful to bear. When he spoke again it was in a dry whisper. “They all…died, all the little kids, all the kids I used to play with. I’m the only one left. I’ll always be just The Little’Un.” He snuffled and wiped hi
s nose quickly on his sleeve. “My name’s Jeff.”

  Tully held out his hand. “Tully. Glad to know you, Jeff.”

  Jeff made a feeble attempt at a smile, and Tully grasped his hand. It was a hard, dry hand, wrinkled and coarse—not a child’s hand at all. It represented a lost childhood, and the touch of the rough skin moved Tully more than anything else.

  “Right then,” he said briskly, afraid of setting off more tears. “Let’s get moving. We don’t want to upset the King of Shit Valley now, do we?”

  “They’re going to make you fight Tab this morning, before he gets loose again.” Jeff let out the words in a rush then looked about nervously.

  “If Tab’s one of them that thumped you, I’ll be pleased to have a poke at him.”

  Jeff looked at the floor and said in a barely audible voice, “Tab got bit by a mad drac. It was Tab what tried to break your door down last night.”

  Tully got a sick feeling as his stomach sank several floors below the basement. “By fight, do you mean like fisticuffs, the Queensbury rules and all that?”

  Jeff looked at him, a puzzled expression on his face. Tully swallowed. “Can you give us a loan of your rifle, then?”

  They walked in silence down the dingy corridor, decorated with tags and smears of filth that led back to Ace’s office, throne room, or however the supermarket despot thought of his squalid den. Here and there, dark red splashes had appeared among the scrawls of graffiti. Tully was aware of Jeff’s unease as the boy broke step to speed up the pace.

  “Tab?” he asked jabbing his chin at the sinister marks.

  Jeff glanced at the wall and shook his head. “Lee. Tab got him by the throat before the others could tie him up.”

  “Funny nobody took a shot at him.”

  Jeff said nothing.

  “I just thought that seeing as how you’re all armed to the teeth, somebody might have had a go.”