by Chris Ward
And yet … in this nondescript Somerset town, he sensed danger. The presence of a mind he hadn’t felt in twenty years, since an encounter which had left him fighting for his life as a strange, birdlike creature strolled away into the snow. It hadn’t been his first encounter with the man named Kurou, of course, but it had been his last.
Until now.
Forty years ago he could have extended his mind like lines of rope, entering and influencing anyone he chose. While he was still strong, he had nothing of the glories of his past, and he was at risk every moment he was out in the general public. Once his control was established he would hide himself away, but until then he had to do the lackey work, gaining trust, influencing voters with his words, swaying public opinion.
It was almost done. The coming election was all but a formality.
Did he really need this little sojourn to the countryside?
His instinct—and it was rarely wrong—told him to flee back to London and hide away behind the growing perimeter walls.
There was danger here, danger in the form of an old, battle-hardened adversary.
He found it hard to concentrate as Urla Wynne spoke. The woman was explaining her work, her policies, what her policing force had done to suppress the public in this remote backwater. She was trying to hide something—a mistake, perhaps—and Maxim didn’t need to read her mind to know that. In an otherwise chilly restaurant she had beads of sweat on her forehead, and her hands were never still. The man sitting beside her—her assistant—seemed to be taking delight in her discomfort, and Maxim wondered which would put a knife in the other’s back first.
With the breakfast over, he was taken on what felt like a hastily arranged local tour, out to some nearby landmarks, and then to some local building and engineering projects. He watched from the shade, staying in his car where possible, not getting too close to the public, instead feeling for their minds, trying to project warmth and comfort, hoping to sway their vote.
And as always, everything felt false and forced, but by now he was well-versed in the motions of the political monster. Do as necessary and you shall receive.
The parade was due to begin at one. Maxim Cale and entourage had the best seats in Wells from a stand erected outside the town hall, in the central square where all the parade floats would gather after making a circuit of the town. Initially they all did a loop of the town square and the great cathedral before embarking on a two-mile circuit. From his vantage point on an enclosed area with a covered awning above him, he listened as Urla Wynne described every float as it came past.
A few were electric vehicles with wooden stages built on top. Others were carts pushed by hand. A couple of horses were even involved, their riders sometimes part of the display. Farm themes, village life themes, water themes, a few historical displays, he watched them all and listened to their descriptions with an understanding smile hiding his boredom. He was already wishing this day would be over soon, that the irritating music would stop, that the costumes and the jolly smiles of the townsfolk and the local children would stop insulting him with their inanity.
But beneath it all was the fear that something was going to happen.
Something terrible.
43
Patrick
Everything felt different when he awoke. At first he thought the irritating carnival music with its tinkling bells and groaning accordions was all in his mind, then his eyesight focused and he noticed the line of floats stretching ahead of him, moving in a slow line, arcing gently around a curve in the road.
He looked down. He was wearing a garish, flowing dress. Beneath him was a hard wooden seat, and beneath that a motorised cart humming as it bumped along the road in pursuit of the carnival float in front.
The entire cart was decked out in flowers, ornamental dais, and quaint trellises hung with flickering fairy lights. A wooden sign not fixed properly, so it flexed in the breeze, announced “CARNIVAL QUEEN”.
‘Let me off of this fucking thing—’
He started to get up, but a sudden jolt of electricity spat through his lower back, making him sit back down with a bump. He opened his mouth to speak again, but the tingle returned, some kind of booby trap which would activate if he tried to escape. His memory came rushing back in a flood, and he remembered Kurou, the Huntsmen, Tommy, the numbness in his legs.
It had all brought him here.
‘Welcome back, sire.’
What Patrick had thought was a bright red toadstool near his right knee began to twist around, and he realised it was the hat of a man crouched by his feet. Kurou, his face decked out in jester’s makeup, his clothes a similar mismatch of colour, frills and ribbon, looked up at him, a grin on his hideous, painted face.
‘Your wakefulness is convenient, sire. Just in time for the grand finale.’
‘What have you done to me?’ Patrick hissed, feeling the threatening tingle of electricity.
‘I simply adapted a situation,’ he said. ‘Shortly, we will be reaching our final destination. There, the town’s special guest will crown you as carnival queen.’
‘You have got to be fucking kidding me.’
‘A jester never lies,’ Kurou said. ‘Merely dances to a varying tune.’
‘You crazy bastard. Let me go.’
‘You are free. You can get up and walk around at any time … if you so choose.’ However, I will only activate my little retainer when it is time for you to be crowned.’
‘And if I do it, what then?’
‘You will be free forever. I will be a happy jester, and long live the king!’
Patrick slumped back into his chair. The world had gone mad, and he was at the centre, held tight by the maddest man of all. As the float rumbled on, watched by cheering people lining the streets, Patrick gently tested his movement, shifting one way, then the other. Each time, he felt a slowly intensifying tingle. When he lifted one leg fully off the seat, the electrical current became so strong he lost all feeling in the limb and it slumped back to the chair.
Unable to move, he began to explore his body beneath the humiliating folds of the dress. Everything felt tight and hard, as though whatever corset he had been sewn into was made of solid steel. Braces covered his legs and upper arms, and his chest felt tight. Feeling under the material, he felt wires, switches, hard plastic pads.
A bomb.
He sat back in the chair, his resolve gone. He was wired up, unable to escape. The deal he had made with Kurou to let him go after Suzanne was almost done.
‘Aha, we have arrived,’ Kurou said, lifting one hand to shade his eyes like a ship’s captain looking for land. ‘Your journey is nearly at an end. All I ask is that you act with the grace befitting of a princess, and I will ensure that your little girlfriend and her family are safe forevermore. Isn’t that quite the bargain, sire?’
Patrick shook his head as the floats began to line up in the central square. His own, maybe controlled by Kurou in some way Patrick couldn’t see, headed straight for an executive stand outside the town hall. Urla Wynne stood up, beside her a ghost in a suit and sunglasses.
Maxim Cale.
Patrick’s heart ran cold. The rising political leader, the man many expected to win the next election by a landslide. A man who, by the non-voting youth in particular, was feared throughout the country.
‘We go way back,’ Kurou said, as though reading Patrick’s thoughts. ‘None of it is pleasant. Long have I been considered the enemy, but now I offer a gift to your country. The gift of freedom from an oppressor whose grip is something your countrymen cannot yet understand, and will not until it is too late. You, my young friend, are the messenger, a beautiful angel from the heavens who will deliver my delicate gift.’
Patrick felt a strange sense of calm as the float came to a stop. Someone was making a speech but he could no longer hear words. Could no longer hear anything except the blood pumping in his ears. He turned, not wanting to look at the face of the woman who had imprisoned and ordered him to t
he gallows, who had allowed her men to beat and rape Suzanne night after night. Nor indeed the man towering beside her, with a sunshade held over his head making him appear almost twice as tall, the man many whispered would be the end of all freedom, despite a seemingly unbreakable grip on the public vote.
He turned instead to face the gathered crowd, feeling as he did remote controls fixed to his legs lifting him into a standing position, walking him forward.
Closing his eyes, he thought of Suzanne, of Tommy, of the boat leaving for Porlock, of freedom.
And of his brother, Race.
His eyes met the glitter of familiar eyes beneath a hood halfway back across the crowd.
And the world turned once more.
‘My brother!’ he screamed, forcing himself forward, moving not for the stage where a frowning Maxim Cale was rising to his feet, a tiny plastic crown appearing no bigger than a doll’s in giant hands covered with black leather gloves, but for the garishly coloured human lifting its feet in a bizarre frog dance as he lifted a wooden flute to his misshapen lips.
‘Been a long time,’ Kurou sang in a gravelly, tuneless voice. ‘Been a long time since we danced together, at the farmer’s ball, all those years ago.’
His back arched and something flew from the end of the flute. Urla Wynne dived in front of Maxim Cale as something glittered in the air and struck her in the chest. Then, from all around came a sudden roar as fireworks burst forth from the assembled floats, shooting not up into the sky but in haphazard, wayward directions, igniting other floats, marquees, food stalls and awnings alike. In moments the entire square was a hell of raging flames and screams of terror.
Patrick’s hand closed over Kurou’s clothes and pulled him tight. ‘If we die, we die together,’ he muttered, scowling up into Kurou’s hideous visage.
‘So be it,’ Kurou said, twisting the flute around to reveal an electronic button taped to the other side. ‘Oh, Maxim,’ he called, his voice rising to a birdlike squeal. ‘Don’t stray so far. It’s time for the curtain call.’
His finger jabbed down.
44
Kurou
He was aware that he had failed from the moment Patrick turned away from the stage, jogging the surface of the cart, putting him an inch off balance, causing his dart to fly a couple of inches farther to the left than intended, allowing Urla Wynne to make a heroic sacrificial dive and take the poison intended for Maxim Cale.
A fraction. How his life had been defined by them, almost from conception. Had the rough living of his mother perhaps not contributed to his deformities, or the finding of an old robotic toy forgotten in a dump not ignited his incredible talent, or a thousand other things, he might be standing on the on the executive stage where Maxim Cale now stood.
Or maybe not.
He might be forgotten in a distant crowd, a no one.
He had been someone, that was for sure, but even the greatest of men eventually came to an end.
And a life’s work could never truly be completed until its creator’s death.
So he had missed. But he still had the bomb, his backup plan.
Something had hold of his finger, pushing it aside. Rough, strong hands, like those of a man crossed with a dog. It batted his hand like a man swatting a fly, then turned, knocking him away, hands ripping at Patrick’s dress and the brace beneath, tearing it open, pushing the boy away and turning back, powerful body and arms and shoulders pulling the bomb jacket in tight to itself as its hood fell back and the doglike snout made a shape that could have been laughter.
Kurou fell to his knees. The flute lay an arm’s length in front of him.
One single press, to extinguish it all, and end what had begun more years ago than he liked to consider.
He shrugged. There was nothing else left.
His finger reached out, snaking towards the button.
Boom.
Epilogue - Suzanne
‘Will you get the fuck into the boat?’ Dill Hedgers was saying in a voice Suzanne could barely hear. ‘We have to go.’
‘He’ll come,’ she said, looking back along the curve of the beach from the little breakwater where the boat was moored. Twilight had fallen; full dark would be upon them soon.
Tommy put a hand on her arm. ‘He’s right. There’s no more time. We can’t wait any longer.’
Suzanne turned. Kelly sat in the bottom of the little motorboat, a blanket over her knees. Frank stood on the breakwater, a look of sorrow on his face. Tommy, who had arrived yesterday and paid Dill Hedgers twice the asking price, nodded.
Suzanne took a deep breath. ‘Two more minutes.’
Dill Hedgers rolled his eyes and gave the boat’s wheel a frustrated thump. Frank looked about to say something, but closed his mouth, busying himself with a loose hem on his shirt sleeve. Kelly watched Suzanne, saying nothing, while Tommy put his hands back into his pockets.
The lights from the promenade left the beach cast in shadow. The water lapped gently at the shore.
‘Patrick … where are you?’
Suzanne glanced back at the others. No one was looking at her now. She knew they wanted to leave, but no one wanted to share in her sorrow that he was gone, that he would never return, that she would never see him again.
She turned back to the beach.
A shadowy figure walked near the shoreline, caught in intermitting lines of light and shadow. His head was bowed, hands in pockets, his feet kicking at the water. He was the right height, the right build.
‘Patrick,’ she gasped, not wanting to feel desperate, but at the same time never having felt so desperate before. ‘Patrick, come on.’
The figure walked along the shoreline, not looking up, maintaining a steady, almost casual pace. Suzanne swallowed. Her hands squeezed tight over a rust-crusted rail along this side of the breakwater. She took a deep breath, turned back to the others, and nodded.
‘It’s time,’ she said.
Epilogue - Maxim Cale
There was nothing left of the man who by various names had called himself both Professor Kurou and Doctor Crow besides a few shredded items of clothing and some scattered feathers, as though a cat had got at a bird. Maxim Cale walked through the wreckage of the carnival, his advisors beside him holding the sunshade over his head, wondering what he could do or say to somehow turn this calamity into an advantage. Everywhere he looked, people were crying or consoling, still in shock, searching for loved ones, searching for the remnants of destroyed lives.
Luck, something he would need a lot of in years to come, had saved him. As the bomb went off, the stage had collapsed, a section of scaffolding shielding him from the worst of the blast. He had suffered several flesh wounds, but beneath a fresh suit they were already repairing themselves.
Urla Wynne was dead, her body found among the wreckage, and while he appreciated her act of sacrifice in taking a poisoned dart meant for him, he was glad she was dead. He wanted no such weakness in positions of power.
Her assistant was also dead, killed privately in a moment of anger. Maxim was uncertain how he felt about that, but ruthlessness was another trait he would have to embrace in order to succeed.
And things would have to change. Once his position was assured, he would lock himself away, dictate his rule from a position of safety, a tower at the world’s end if necessary. Never again could he compromise his safety to such an extent, when there was so much work that needed to be done.
But positives. How could he gain something from this disaster?
Nearby, three DCA agents were leaning over something lying on the ground. It couldn’t be a human, because wires protruded from various parts of what was left of its body.
Maxim didn’t need to ask what it was. He had seen it moving through the crowd, the creature which had taken most of the bomb blast, saving dozens of lives, most likely including his own.
He let his mind drift.
Huntsman.
The word seemed to come from nowhere, as though it had been floating
in the air, waiting to be found.
‘Have what is left of it brought to London,’ he told his advisors. ‘It might prove of some interest to my scientists, and its technology of some future use.’
As his men got to work giving orders, Maxim Cale turned, taking in the mess scattered across the square. It would be so nice to get back to London, away from this nothing little town.
END
Thank you for your interest in my work.
Please join my READERS GROUP to get exclusive news, offers, and special discounts.
Readers Group - click here to join
You can also chat to me on Facebook at
Chris Ward (Fiction Writer)
and follow progress on new books on my website at
www.amillionmilesfromanywhere.net
Thank you for reading!