Chapter 20: Disease

For the first time ever, it was raining. Russell, Melanie, Sebastien and Belle had stopped off for the night on Ironwalk, because, as Russell said, “It'll be impossible to see in this rain, let alone arrange all those wires.”
Russell stared glumly out the window at the rain, pounding deep into the ground, laying bullet holes across the floor. Though the tower was less than a mile away, up on the hill, where it should be directly viewable, he couldn't see it. The rain was a curtain which he couldn't see though. He couldn't see what he was doing, or what he wanted to do. He licked his lips and turned back to see Sebastien and Belle talking quietly, heads inclined towards each other. He didn't know what they were talking about but from the look Sebastien had just given him, he thought he had an idea. He smiled back at the pair and they forced grins across their faces briefly, so shining tooth grinned at shining tooth across the squalid bar.

The bar, Belle had assured him as they entered, had never been this busy. Men and women were packed into the tiny bar and the guy serving drinks looked ecstatic – like he'd never seen this much business before. The people couldn't be any different. Bedraggled, wet from the rain, hair long and matted – they looked like all the people Russell had seen on the island, only far damper than usual. They crowded at the windows and peered owlishly into the fog of rain, muttering terrible things about the future of the island. They had all seen the rivers, they had all seen the downpour – they knew that the end was near and the first thing that they could think to do was drink themselves to death first. These people were the choked-up spittle of the island, dribbling from bar to bar, constantly on a look-out for their next drink. All they could do when they saw Melanie was shake their heads and wish for a better tomorrow for the kid which would never come.

“Why do we always go to bars, anyway?” Sebastien grumbled. “It never leads to anything good, does it?”
“Well, we needed a place to stay.” Belle offered consolingly. “And besides, whats the harm, right?”
“Well, you would say that.” He answered harshly, swigging his vodka critter and wincing every time the drink pressed through his throat.
“So do you have any more ideas about how to knock him off?” He asked Belle after a moment, lowering his voice even lower.
She looked at him conspiratorially for a moment, then whispered “We can't do anything yet. We don't know how that girl explodes, we could... set it off, you know?”
Sebastien nodded. “We definitely need to find out how it works.”
Belle looked shocked. “It? It? Sebastien!” She hissed. “Thats still a little girl you're talking about, no matter what she does, or whats happened to her!”
“I'm not so sure.” Sebastien creaked, his voice barely audible. “She's more of a monster than a human.”
Belle shoved him.
“You're talking shit. Theres something wrong with her, sure, but nothing... well...” she was lost for words. “I don't know, Seb. I just can barely believe she can hurt anyone!”
“Believe it.” He replied darkly.

Upstairs, asleep, Lester dreamed of electric sheep and scorpion tails. Then all of a sudden he was back. The old nightmare. Him and his crew. There was he – young, with far more hair than he could even remember having, long and brown and matted from years of exploration through the dense bristly undergrowth of the island. There was Dietrich, Dresdens hulking father, who rippled with dense, tense, dangerous muscle and who was clothed in clinking armour collected from the various animals he killed and gutted for their iron skin. He was always a wild one, Dietrich. Fairly sober till they got back to the bar, but then... Lester remembered one time when he had ran into the bar red with rust and blood, topless, mud stretched across his bare chest, bits of iron wool clinging to the hair on his chest, and proceeded to smash three or four wriggling vodka-bugs together over his head and lick up the falling alcohol. He was drenched in booze and glass for the rest of the night because nobody would get him a towel, or even a bucket of cold water – he had to trudge out to sea by himself to clean his wounds and Lester could still remember him screaming as salt water seeped into the wounds the glass had made.

After that... who had it been. Christ, it had been a long time. There was June, that hawk-eyed bitch with the glasses bigger than her face for analysing the alphabets scribbled across the pipes in the rust deserts. Who else... Lead, of course, that wiry kid he had picked up picking his pocket – or trying to anyway. He had ended up being pushed into all sorts of weird places. Lester smiled at the of the shit they'd gotten out of because Lead had managed to crawl someplace and flick a switch for them, like that time he had let them out of that abandoned prison somewhere in the mines of cogs under the island. In fact, it was him who'd first got them access to the key. It was in the most desolate place on the island, more than the rust deserts, where nomads sometimes wandered, more even than the tesla fields, where electricity leapt between every blade of grass.

It wasn't grand or anything. He remembered being distinctly unimpressed by the whole place, but there weren't many places on the island they hadn't explored and this place looked, frankly, as good as any for collecting a few mouldy artefacts lying in the dust. Dietrich had thrown a bunch of the rubble aside, to allow them through, and he had seen something heaped under the rubbish. It was a door. A metal door, brushed silver to differentiate it against the hard bronze of its surroundings. Whilst the ground around it flashed as vents opened and closed and steam hissed out, the door appeared to be completely sealed... It had been Philip who had finally worked out how to open it. Lester shuddered in his sleep. He would prefer to forget about Philip.

Russell was still staring out into the rain. His tankard was untouched by his side. He looked at it and smiled. He thought it was kind of odd how these people were all so averse to getting swallowed by the tide, when they drowned themselves in alcohol every night whether they were in danger of dying or not. The night was late, and the conversation poor. He fielded the occasional question from interested passers-by who asked him about Melanie, and he told them that he had found her in a field. They chuckled, passed on, and he was left with his untouched drink, staring out the window, late into the night, watching as drops clung to the window, screaming and squeaking down, trying not to reach the sill-

Behind him Sebastien yawned. Russell turned and saw him hug Belle tightly - slightly too long for them to be just friends – wave awkwardly at Russell and head upstairs. Belle rolled her eyes and sauntered over to Russell. She wreathed a hand across his shoulder. “Aren't you glad he's gone, right?” Russell looked at her, and smiled, and saw a skeleton where a person should be.
“You're supposed to be his friend, you can't really say that, can you?” He replied.
Belle looked behind her.

Philip didn't always come with them. Half the time he was back with his family. He had a five year old kid now, and he was very happy with her, and he spent more and more time with her and his wife instead of exploring the island with them. It was sad, in a sense. Lester just wished he quit one mission sooner. He opened the door in the ground, the hatch, and saw a little metal box inside it. The box was about the size of a fist, and was decorated ornately. It was red and gold trim laced around the edge of it. He picked it up gingerly and showed it to the others. The idiots crowded round, staring at the box. It exuded innocence, like nothing was going to happen when you opened it, and Lester didn't trust it. He stepped back just in time. Philip turned the key and the box fell apart in his hands, the walls flaying away into the decaying sunlight like dust motes through a light beam. Inside it was nothing. They leaned in for a closer look. Then, something happened, almost inperceptably. The world got a little dimmer, a little more sepia. A chill wind passed through them. Then nothing. The wind picked up a little.

Then came the explosion.

“I can say whatever I want now he's not here, can't I?” She grinned impishly at him.
Russell looked at her. He looked her up and down, saw the way she simpered over him just enough to make it sickening, saw her laugh a little too loudly at his jokes, saw her eyes stray slightly too long over him and knew he could do what he wanted with her. He turned so he was facing her fully, and stood so he was a whole head taller than her. He said nothing for a long moment, then picked up her chin so she looked directly up at him. “Russell...” she began, but he put his finger to her lips. “Not here...” he murmured, and ran his hand down her arm and took her hand and pressed his other hand into her hips, drawing her close to him. Their curves ran against each other and he whispered in her ear “We have unfinished business.”

Then he took her outside.

Then he pushed her against the wall of the bar outside, and held her tight against it. He kissed her, roughing his lips against hers and fumbling his hands up and down her shaking torso. The rain spat out of the blackened, cracked sky and shocked the ground around them. It tumbled and span through the wind and puddles leapt and spasmed in the harsh moonlight around them. She moaned loudly and pushed his head into her porcelain neck and he licked up it to her ear and bit her and his hands ran through her and down her like the rain soaking them both. He tore at her shirt, ripped her open, fucked her against the wall, her nails clawing at his back and-

He was the only one left alive. Relatively unharmed, his death choked by Dietrich, who lay on top of him, a bloated corpse. He threw his dead team-mate off him and gazed in horror at his ribboned face and cavity-chest. Lester was covered in blood. It dribbled across his chest. Then out of the box roared something new, something he had never seen before – Lester was scared. He had been having this nightmare the exact same way for 20 years now, what had changed?! The apparition spat into the sky like a geyser, and splattered itself across the island. It was black and red and inside it was nothing but bad memories-

They hung against each other after they had finished, each leaning on the other for support, filthy sweat soaking in between them. Her forehead lay on his open chest and his hands ran up and down her thigh idly. Then, without warning, he slammed her against the wall again. His hand flicked up from her hips to her throat. His hand dribbled rainwater as she choked against the hard metal.
“You can give up the act now.” he growled at her.
Her eyes searched him, wide and afraid.

Sebastiens door cocked ajar. A slit in the darkened room opened up across Sebastiens face and a shadow poured in. He awoke blearily, his eyes blurred and confused. “What..?” he mumbled distractedly, before noticing who his visitor was.
“M-Melanie!” he stuttered, drawing his bedsheets tighter around her. He had seen what she had done. Around her he saw the aura of a thousand corpses.
“Sebastien.” Melanie answered. She walked forwards slowly, and hopped up onto the bed besides Sebastien. He looked mortified to see her, which made her smile. “Sebastien.” She sighed, melodramatically. “This might be quite difficult to explain.”