Sebastien paced back and forth at the edge of the crater, stamping his feet as he went. Rust crumbled beneath his feet. “Where could he have gone?!” he shouted angrily, wringing his hands. He looked out at over the rented ground, and into the distance. “Where are you, Russell..?” he muttered at the air. “Where have you gone?”
“He must have run.” Belle said, a little sadly, behind him. “He must have realised what he'd done, and ran to save his own skin.”
“Well, we knew that.” Sebastien spat irritably at her. “We know he went, we know why he went.”
“Maybe... maybe he went back to Ironwalk.” Belle volunteered.
“What?” He twisted back to look at her.
“Maybe he's left us because he wants to go back to Ironwalk. You know, he has his kid, why does he need us anymore? Maybe he's gone back to his own world.”
Sebastien looked back to Ironwalk, far in the distance.
“Ironwalk... that selfish...”
“How did you... what are you..?” Russell stumbled back and fell over, staring wildly at his... or what he thought was his daughter.
Melanie looked down at herself, studying her arms like she'd never seen them before. “I wonder how this happened?” she murmured, Lesters voice crawling through at the edges of Melanies sweet tenor.
She looked up at him and Russell didn't see his daughter.
“This might turn out to be very useful, Russell!” Melanie beamed up at him. “I thought I'd died!”
“I thought that there was nothing I could do.” Melanie turned back and looked at her own reflection.
“I saw the light, Russell. I felt wind rushing through my hair, I felt sun on my face. I felt...” she sighed. “I felt a horrible sense that I had unfinished business.”
Then she turned back to Russell.
“But here I am! Here I am.” She pounded her knuckles together and grinned at him. “I can still save the island!”
Russell stared at him. He had said nothing.
After a long moment he said, slowly, “Whats happened to Melanie?”
Melanie looked confused. “I'm not sure,” she murmured.
Russell sat up and looked hard at Lester. Melanie. Whatever.
“So it was you who sorted out those wires?”
“Pardon?” Melanie asked quizzically.
“Those wires, back down by the wire-grove. You put them back into order?”
Melanie got up and started walking away up the hill. “I have no idea what you're talking about, Russell. Now come on!” she hollered at him, and pointed up the hill. “We've got a way to walk still to get to Ironwalk.”
“Whats an Ironwalk?” Russell shouted back at him as he got up to hurry behind him.
“Where we first picked you up. With the tower, remember?”
Russell nodded, then came up behind Melanie and picked her up.
“What are you doing?!” she spluttered as she was picked up.
“I walk faster than you do.” he told her firmly, hooking her up onto his back and walking on.
“Where do I go next?” he asked.
A day passed, where nothing of note happened. Russell walked Melanie further, and Sebastien and Belle walked round the crater and towards Ironwalk. The tides rose and fell and rose a little higher than before, waves stabbing further and further up the shore. Rust encroached. Time passed.
The television flickered in the cold moonlight and Russell and Juliet stared sullenly at the images across the screen. Both of them looked straight ahead. Neither of them looked at each other. The images moved on. A baby monitor crackled to the side of them and Melanie howled out of the speaker, her screams prickling the inside of his head. Russell moaned inwardly and slumped forwards a little. Juliet rolled her eyes and leaned back in her seat. “Your turn.” she said. Russell closed his eyes and got up. He clumped up the stairs, feet idle in their movement Melanie was howling in her bedroom, a precocious four-year-old. She was sitting up in her bed and crying tears streaming down her face, face red and burning. As he reached the top of the stairs he rolled his eyes and put on a false smile. Grinning, he threw open the door and leapt in. "Melanie, baby! Whats wrong!" he cried, cradling the girl in his arms. She sobbed into his arm. "D-D-Daddy!" she stammered. "There was someone in the window!" He looked outside, confused. There was nothing but the pounding rain, streaming against the window in only the way strong rain and howling wind can, battering the window like a man enraged, beating the glass like it had oinsulted him. There was certainly nobody there. He looked back at his daughter, shivering trembling and sniffing back more tears. "Theres nobody there, melanie!" he said calmly, holding her again. "nothings wrong. Whats the matter with you, huh?" She looked out the window, and he picke duper up so she could see herself. She saw that there was nobody there herself, and her sobbing lessened. Her face returned eventually to a normal colour, and soon she was pretty much back to normal. He smiled at her and she, eventually, after a long while, smiled back at him. Nothing happened between them. There was no spark between them. He helped her and she was helped, but that was it. He looked into her eyes without love, and saw only his own guilt staring back at him. His lip trembled slightly, but he bit it back and turned away. Without looking at her he asked her "Everythings alright, is it? Isn;t it?" She nodded but he didn't see it and left. The television had stopped flickering downstairs. He wondered dully what had happened and went downstairs, expecting to see Juliet sleeping, crying, whatever. As he looked, he saw Juliet slammed against the wall.
She hit the wall hard, and the picture next to her cracked and fell down on the ground. Books on the shelf next to her fell to the floor. Russell saw in slow motion as a man to the side pulled a gun out, He looked scared and the gun trembled silver in his hand. The eyes beneath his balaclava were mad and staring, the skin red with sweat. “Don't make me do it! Just get out of my way and let me out the house, damnit!”
“Alright, alright!” Juliets face was red with tears. He walked forwards and his trembling hand ripped the necklace from around her breast. Russell gasped.
He had gotten Juliets necklace for her months ago. A wedding present for her. He remembered that he had to take a second job to get her the necklace. He remembered a day shift at his office, a day of being trodden on by 'superiors', and a night of secret burger-flipping, of being abused by pricks with no hope. He remembered how he forewent food occasionally to pay for his diamond habit and how eventually he had given it to her, presented her the fantastic necklace, gold-plated, glass diamond, and how she had smiled. That half-hearted, grimace of a smile where the smile was more of a proof of his inadequacy. The necklace looked out of her breast at him ever since, and reminded him of that terrible terrible smile which proved how he wasn't a man. That necklace proved everything he hated about himself.
It snapped. The necklace trickled into the air and dissolved into gold atmosphere, The burglar stuffed the diamond into his pocket and ran his gun up under Juliets chin. She went up onto her tiptoes and whimpered as the barrel stuck into her face. Russell stepped down and the floorboard creaked. The burglar twisted around, his eyes bulged and his finger pulsed on the trigger. Bullets ricoche'd past his foot and planted themselves in the carpet, and the noise, the horrendous bang flashed through the house. Russell slammed his shoulder to the side, flattening himself against the wall as more bullets ripped the air past him. Juliet ducked down and hid, face in her hands, nails raking her forehead, “Russell! Russell, save me! Help me!” she pattered and Russell leapt forwards. He shoulder-barged the burglar into the door and the glass cracked in the door. He ripped the burglar ontot he ground and punched him hard in the mouth, and the gun flickered out of his hands and onto the floor across the room.
It smoked by itself and Juliet screamed aloud as Russell pushed the burglar out of the way and dived for the gun. He fell and reached out for it, and his fingers scraped it before the burglar stomped on his fingers and he felt them crack beneath the steel boot. He cried out in agony and his fingers arched back in pain and shock. The burglar kicked him in the side of the head. He reached down and picked up the gun as Russell held his head in pain, blood trickling between his fingers, and Juliet screaming in the corner. The burglar stood, the side of his face split with glass, and he grinned a wide grin and raised his gun to Russell. “Now stay down, man, and you'll stay alive.” He whipped the gun around the room and yelled aloud “Nobody needs to get hurt!”. The gun trembled in the moonlight and it sparkled. He moved to the exit, slowly, pointing his gun alternately at Russell on the ground and Juliet crumpled by the door.
He leaned for the handle.
Juliet barrelled her shoulder into him from below, knocking him back, and leapt on top of him, scraping at him for the glass diamond. She cried at him, tears dripping onto his face, “No! No! No!”
He pulled his gun to his side, struggling with her on the floor, ornemants falling like raindrops around them.
Russell watched helplessly as a bullet ripped through her, spewing blood onto the wall behind her. She slumped onto the barrel. The burglar dropped the gun, staring at his own hands in horrified fascination, Blood dribbled from his fingers. He stumbled backwards, cried out and tumbled out of the room.
Russell picked himself up and stumbled forwards, dripping blood over the corpse of his wife. He looked down, bent over her.
He felt nothing but guilt.
Wednesday, 25 November 2009
Monday, 23 November 2009
Chapter 16: (No Mans Land)
Russell awoke with a start, and immediately rolled over and coughed up seawater. It spluttered onto a fine dusting of water already around him. He could see that ground nearby had sprung a leak and was sprinkling water around. He was in what looked like a grotto, with a veil of over-hanging wires preventing him from seeing outside. He tried to sit up and moaned as his back split, rushing pain up and down his spine. He twisted a little so he had better access to his back and ran his hand up and down it, trying to find a source of the injury. He was surprised to find that he was topless, but nevertheless found a curved scar running along the small of his back. He traced it with his fingertips and felt blood trickle down him. He winced when he saw a massive throbbing purple bruise on his leg as well, though apart from that he appeared to be uninjured.
All of a sudden, he remembered. He remembered the sinkhole, the ironbeaks, and Lester, and Melanie, and- where had Sebastien and Belle gone? Where, for that matter, was Lester and Melanie? He managed to pick himself up, wincing as he did so, and went towards the hanging wires. He spread them apart, narrowly avoiding being sparked by a plug lounging on the end of one of the wires, and saw a river. He was under an outcropping of what looked like a fuselage – the cliff was studded with port-holes, leaking rivets studded to the outside. Inside the outcropping was filled with water. Russell looked at the river and knew that it was bad. The sides of the river were cracked and broken, like a monsters dry lips, and red with rust. He leaned forwards and poked the edge and it fell in, crumbling away at his finger and slipping into the water. He leapt back, startled, and made sure he was on bronze and not red earth before he continued to look around. He was in a quiet, secluded grove, turned orange by the way the sun filtered through from far above. On either side of him were cliffs, sheer cliffs, with small wires running in and out of them, spindly and weak-looking. He looked closer at one and realised that it was plugged into the cliff. He unplugged one of the wires and the cliff behind him flickered and turned black and white. He unplugged the next one and the river, and rust-red riverbed, became a bleak grey. He played for a while, unplugging various wires across the cliff until he was entirely surrounded by black and white. Only he was coloured in, though to look at his pale cheeks and dull clothes, you almost couldn't tell the difference.
He looked for another wire to pull out, and found a thicker one, leading to three different sockets. He pulled them, and the noises around him disappeared. Where once had been the now-familiar background thumping and grinding, tearing, gentle splashing of water, the clunk of metal against metal, a distinct electric hum, the crunk of pistons, the hiss of steam, the noises of engines everywhere, was nothing. It was like his ears had been taken off when he ripped away those cords. He panicked and checked for his ears, which to his relief were still there, but in his haste he had dropped the cords. They lay there, bundled in with all the cords he had unplugged before. Russell silently panicked, as a brown blur in a sea of iron grey. The sunlight highlighted grey on him as he picked up a plug at random and plugged it into the socket on the cliff. Instantly his ears were filled with a harsh, dissonant buzzing, like a chainsaw at the back of his head. He gasped and the intake of air sounded like the crunch of gravel and the roar of jet engines. He panicked like a mustang and ripped out the missile-launch noises of the plug, and tried another. Nothing happened. There was no sound. He tried to speak, and nothing came out. Two seconds after he closed his mouth his words popped into the air. He gasped and a second a half later his gasp erupted into sound. Experimenting, he muttered a “hello world” to the grove and a second later it appeared. Half a second after he muttered “oh, this is so strange” it happened. Then finally he was in time with his words, and he grinned, because everything was back to normal. He tried to speak again to prove it to himself and found, however, that his words had escaped into the air before his mouth had opened.
The world around him roared around him before he opened his mouth. How did the plug know what he was going to say? He heard the ripping of the plug as it came out before he saw it, or even thought of it. Back in his soundless void, Russell was happy. He didn't like the thought that he had no idea how that plug knew what he was going to say. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply, and received a sharp poke in the ribs. He opened his eyes and looked down, and saw his daughter, saw his Melanie, looking up at him sternly. His eyes widened and his stomach leapt, and he leant down to squeeze her, but she pushed past him to the cliff. Hands on her little hips, she looked the cliff up and down and then leant down and picked up a wire. She went along all the layers that she could reach, plugging the colours back in. Russells eyes were wide as he saw his daughter at work. She turned to him and motioned something he couldn't understand. She rolled her eyes and plugged the sound back in. It rushed to him as one, all the sounds of the past two minutes rolled into one, like a slap in the face. When it had finished, his daughter said to him, “Lift me up!” and she held her hands high so he could grab her beneath the arm pits and lift her across the cliff. He passed wires to her as she plugged them back in and directed him where to go. As she went she explained to him that you needed to put them in properly, or else she'd let him do it. It was a very delicate operation, she muttered to him through the wire in her mouth. When she had finished, Russell put her down and stared at her.
“What?” She asked.
“How did you know how to plug all the colours back in?” He asked her seriously.
She looked at him quizzically for a moment, then up at the cliff, humming with power and colour, then down at the floor where wires used to be. Then she looked back at Russell. “Well its obvious, isn't it?” She asked him.
Russell laughed and hugged his daughter close. Grinning widely, he looked deep into her eyes. “No, but seriously, Melanie, how did you do that?”
Once again Melanie looked at the wall and then back at him. “Its not difficult, dad!”
Russells mouth hung open. He wondered if he was dreaming.
Lester did say children were special on this island.
On the other side of the sinkhole, Sebastien awoke. He ached all over. What had just happened... what he had just seen, couldn't have been real. Dresden... dead. Lester... his stomach turned over. No. He must've been dreaming. It couldn't have happened. It wouldn't. Lester wouldn't leave him. Lester couldn't leave him. Lester had been his father, his future, his past, his life. If Lester was gone... but it didn't do to dwell on dreams. He dwelt on it anyway. It had been a terrible dream. He had never seen an ironbeak before, and that was one hell of a first meeting. He knew that they normally only lived up in the currents way above the island, where the magnetic flow was strongest. It took a strong pull to bring them down to earth. That Melanie... but of course, he had been dreaming. He had seen her scream and the ground around her had shattered and crumbled and splashed like a cannonball into the ocean. He saw Lester scramble, shriek, pull at the falling floor, snap his fingernails on the rivets, roll his eyes, spit madly, and slip into the oblivion below the island. He saw Russell... do nothing. He hadn't saved Lester. He hadn't even tried. Then... what had happened? He was gone. This sort of thing often happens with dreams. Bits don't make sense, so your brain tries to compensate by inventing explanations. When he awoke, he liked to think that he would be back in his bed. He liked to think that Russell had been a dream entirely – that Belle was unencumbered with the first child on the island for twenty years, that Lester and Dresden were alive and sleeping next to him, even that Belle had never propositioned him on the greasy floor of their local.
He wished away his parents deaths and everything bad he had done in his life, and opened his eyes.
His stomach was a bloody mess. Belle was dripping tears into the wound as she fixed up a bandage around it. As she looked up, she saw that Sebastien was awake and her face broke into a watery smile. “Sebastien!” she cried. “I thought... you too...,” she turned away, blushing, “Not you too...”. Sebastien shuddered. “Then you mean, that wasn't a dream?”
She looked at him.
“They're really dead?”
Her lip trembled, and her face shone with tears, and she nodded a terrible nod, as though it cost her everything she had.
The bottom dropped out of Sebastiens stomach. His mouth hung open, dry. He looked behind him and saw a crater, swimming with sludgy water, bloated fatty corpses floating on the surface. He could see struts and girders and chains and cogs and wheels underneath the island, and he felt sick, like he was looking at a bubonic sore, an open wound, his mother nude.
“Lester!” he whispered at the apocalypse.
He flashed red. His muscles burst at the thought of it. His brain twisted. His tongue fell out of his mouth and flopped on the ground like a disfigured fish and he couldn't speak. Bitter tears stung his eyes but he wiped them away, and turned to Belles shining face.
“He did this!”
Belle said nothing. She bit her lip and looked down.
“He did this! You know he did!”
She said nothing.
“Russell!” He screamed at the sky. “Russell! You bastard!” and he slammed his fist down onto the ground and it crumbled beneath him and fell away and he could see the tide washing beneath the island. His knuckles bled. “Russell did this. He did all of this. He could have saved Lester. He could have stayed at home. He could have not run away. He could have stayed true to his daughter.” He pumped. He throbbed. He felt angrier than he had ever felt before, like his heart was going to grow and grow until it fell out of his mouth and split him at the seams. He threw his fist into the sky and howled, “I'll get you for this, you selfish bastard! I swear, I'll get you! If its the last thing I ever goddamned do!” and then he was on his knees. He beat the floor and cried, angry tears dripping onto the rusting floor.
Russell was walking alongside the river, closer to the dangerous riverside than his daughter, who was beside him. Their hands were clasped tight in each others hands. He felt happy. He looked down at his daughter and smiled warmly, and she looked back and gave him Juliets smile. His wife was looking back at him. He shook his head to clear it and looked back at his DAUGHTER. Back at him looked someone entirely different.
“Russell? Russell!”
Melanie was speaking in exactly same voice. It was completely different. It was slower, and more cautious. “Russell, is that you?” Melanie was staring at him. “Why are you so tall?” Russell looked back at her, very confused. “Melanie? Whats wrong babe?” Melanies face showed confusion as well.
She turned around, and looked behind her, then cocked her eye at Russell. “Melanie?” she asked. “Who are you talking to?”
Russell squatted next to his daughter and looked her up and down. “Whats gotten into you, Melanie, huh?”
“Will you stop-” began Melanie, but then she looked down and gasped.
“Why the hell am I wearing a dress?”
“Don't swear, Melanie! I think those villagers must've dressed you in it.”
Melanie looked angrily up at Russell, and opened her mouth to speak.
Then she stopped. Then she looked down her own top. Then she examined her own arms. Then she ran across to the river and stared intensely at her own reflection.
“What the fuck?” she whispered.
“Melanie!” Russell stormed, picking Melanie up. “You do not-”
“Russell!” interrupted the girl. “I am not Melanie.”
“Of course you are-” began Russell, then he recognised the new cadence of her voice.
Melanie was dropped.
Russell stepped back a few paces, horrified. “Lester?!”
All of a sudden, he remembered. He remembered the sinkhole, the ironbeaks, and Lester, and Melanie, and- where had Sebastien and Belle gone? Where, for that matter, was Lester and Melanie? He managed to pick himself up, wincing as he did so, and went towards the hanging wires. He spread them apart, narrowly avoiding being sparked by a plug lounging on the end of one of the wires, and saw a river. He was under an outcropping of what looked like a fuselage – the cliff was studded with port-holes, leaking rivets studded to the outside. Inside the outcropping was filled with water. Russell looked at the river and knew that it was bad. The sides of the river were cracked and broken, like a monsters dry lips, and red with rust. He leaned forwards and poked the edge and it fell in, crumbling away at his finger and slipping into the water. He leapt back, startled, and made sure he was on bronze and not red earth before he continued to look around. He was in a quiet, secluded grove, turned orange by the way the sun filtered through from far above. On either side of him were cliffs, sheer cliffs, with small wires running in and out of them, spindly and weak-looking. He looked closer at one and realised that it was plugged into the cliff. He unplugged one of the wires and the cliff behind him flickered and turned black and white. He unplugged the next one and the river, and rust-red riverbed, became a bleak grey. He played for a while, unplugging various wires across the cliff until he was entirely surrounded by black and white. Only he was coloured in, though to look at his pale cheeks and dull clothes, you almost couldn't tell the difference.
He looked for another wire to pull out, and found a thicker one, leading to three different sockets. He pulled them, and the noises around him disappeared. Where once had been the now-familiar background thumping and grinding, tearing, gentle splashing of water, the clunk of metal against metal, a distinct electric hum, the crunk of pistons, the hiss of steam, the noises of engines everywhere, was nothing. It was like his ears had been taken off when he ripped away those cords. He panicked and checked for his ears, which to his relief were still there, but in his haste he had dropped the cords. They lay there, bundled in with all the cords he had unplugged before. Russell silently panicked, as a brown blur in a sea of iron grey. The sunlight highlighted grey on him as he picked up a plug at random and plugged it into the socket on the cliff. Instantly his ears were filled with a harsh, dissonant buzzing, like a chainsaw at the back of his head. He gasped and the intake of air sounded like the crunch of gravel and the roar of jet engines. He panicked like a mustang and ripped out the missile-launch noises of the plug, and tried another. Nothing happened. There was no sound. He tried to speak, and nothing came out. Two seconds after he closed his mouth his words popped into the air. He gasped and a second a half later his gasp erupted into sound. Experimenting, he muttered a “hello world” to the grove and a second later it appeared. Half a second after he muttered “oh, this is so strange” it happened. Then finally he was in time with his words, and he grinned, because everything was back to normal. He tried to speak again to prove it to himself and found, however, that his words had escaped into the air before his mouth had opened.
The world around him roared around him before he opened his mouth. How did the plug know what he was going to say? He heard the ripping of the plug as it came out before he saw it, or even thought of it. Back in his soundless void, Russell was happy. He didn't like the thought that he had no idea how that plug knew what he was going to say. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply, and received a sharp poke in the ribs. He opened his eyes and looked down, and saw his daughter, saw his Melanie, looking up at him sternly. His eyes widened and his stomach leapt, and he leant down to squeeze her, but she pushed past him to the cliff. Hands on her little hips, she looked the cliff up and down and then leant down and picked up a wire. She went along all the layers that she could reach, plugging the colours back in. Russells eyes were wide as he saw his daughter at work. She turned to him and motioned something he couldn't understand. She rolled her eyes and plugged the sound back in. It rushed to him as one, all the sounds of the past two minutes rolled into one, like a slap in the face. When it had finished, his daughter said to him, “Lift me up!” and she held her hands high so he could grab her beneath the arm pits and lift her across the cliff. He passed wires to her as she plugged them back in and directed him where to go. As she went she explained to him that you needed to put them in properly, or else she'd let him do it. It was a very delicate operation, she muttered to him through the wire in her mouth. When she had finished, Russell put her down and stared at her.
“What?” She asked.
“How did you know how to plug all the colours back in?” He asked her seriously.
She looked at him quizzically for a moment, then up at the cliff, humming with power and colour, then down at the floor where wires used to be. Then she looked back at Russell. “Well its obvious, isn't it?” She asked him.
Russell laughed and hugged his daughter close. Grinning widely, he looked deep into her eyes. “No, but seriously, Melanie, how did you do that?”
Once again Melanie looked at the wall and then back at him. “Its not difficult, dad!”
Russells mouth hung open. He wondered if he was dreaming.
Lester did say children were special on this island.
On the other side of the sinkhole, Sebastien awoke. He ached all over. What had just happened... what he had just seen, couldn't have been real. Dresden... dead. Lester... his stomach turned over. No. He must've been dreaming. It couldn't have happened. It wouldn't. Lester wouldn't leave him. Lester couldn't leave him. Lester had been his father, his future, his past, his life. If Lester was gone... but it didn't do to dwell on dreams. He dwelt on it anyway. It had been a terrible dream. He had never seen an ironbeak before, and that was one hell of a first meeting. He knew that they normally only lived up in the currents way above the island, where the magnetic flow was strongest. It took a strong pull to bring them down to earth. That Melanie... but of course, he had been dreaming. He had seen her scream and the ground around her had shattered and crumbled and splashed like a cannonball into the ocean. He saw Lester scramble, shriek, pull at the falling floor, snap his fingernails on the rivets, roll his eyes, spit madly, and slip into the oblivion below the island. He saw Russell... do nothing. He hadn't saved Lester. He hadn't even tried. Then... what had happened? He was gone. This sort of thing often happens with dreams. Bits don't make sense, so your brain tries to compensate by inventing explanations. When he awoke, he liked to think that he would be back in his bed. He liked to think that Russell had been a dream entirely – that Belle was unencumbered with the first child on the island for twenty years, that Lester and Dresden were alive and sleeping next to him, even that Belle had never propositioned him on the greasy floor of their local.
He wished away his parents deaths and everything bad he had done in his life, and opened his eyes.
His stomach was a bloody mess. Belle was dripping tears into the wound as she fixed up a bandage around it. As she looked up, she saw that Sebastien was awake and her face broke into a watery smile. “Sebastien!” she cried. “I thought... you too...,” she turned away, blushing, “Not you too...”. Sebastien shuddered. “Then you mean, that wasn't a dream?”
She looked at him.
“They're really dead?”
Her lip trembled, and her face shone with tears, and she nodded a terrible nod, as though it cost her everything she had.
The bottom dropped out of Sebastiens stomach. His mouth hung open, dry. He looked behind him and saw a crater, swimming with sludgy water, bloated fatty corpses floating on the surface. He could see struts and girders and chains and cogs and wheels underneath the island, and he felt sick, like he was looking at a bubonic sore, an open wound, his mother nude.
“Lester!” he whispered at the apocalypse.
He flashed red. His muscles burst at the thought of it. His brain twisted. His tongue fell out of his mouth and flopped on the ground like a disfigured fish and he couldn't speak. Bitter tears stung his eyes but he wiped them away, and turned to Belles shining face.
“He did this!”
Belle said nothing. She bit her lip and looked down.
“He did this! You know he did!”
She said nothing.
“Russell!” He screamed at the sky. “Russell! You bastard!” and he slammed his fist down onto the ground and it crumbled beneath him and fell away and he could see the tide washing beneath the island. His knuckles bled. “Russell did this. He did all of this. He could have saved Lester. He could have stayed at home. He could have not run away. He could have stayed true to his daughter.” He pumped. He throbbed. He felt angrier than he had ever felt before, like his heart was going to grow and grow until it fell out of his mouth and split him at the seams. He threw his fist into the sky and howled, “I'll get you for this, you selfish bastard! I swear, I'll get you! If its the last thing I ever goddamned do!” and then he was on his knees. He beat the floor and cried, angry tears dripping onto the rusting floor.
Russell was walking alongside the river, closer to the dangerous riverside than his daughter, who was beside him. Their hands were clasped tight in each others hands. He felt happy. He looked down at his daughter and smiled warmly, and she looked back and gave him Juliets smile. His wife was looking back at him. He shook his head to clear it and looked back at his DAUGHTER. Back at him looked someone entirely different.
“Russell? Russell!”
Melanie was speaking in exactly same voice. It was completely different. It was slower, and more cautious. “Russell, is that you?” Melanie was staring at him. “Why are you so tall?” Russell looked back at her, very confused. “Melanie? Whats wrong babe?” Melanies face showed confusion as well.
She turned around, and looked behind her, then cocked her eye at Russell. “Melanie?” she asked. “Who are you talking to?”
Russell squatted next to his daughter and looked her up and down. “Whats gotten into you, Melanie, huh?”
“Will you stop-” began Melanie, but then she looked down and gasped.
“Why the hell am I wearing a dress?”
“Don't swear, Melanie! I think those villagers must've dressed you in it.”
Melanie looked angrily up at Russell, and opened her mouth to speak.
Then she stopped. Then she looked down her own top. Then she examined her own arms. Then she ran across to the river and stared intensely at her own reflection.
“What the fuck?” she whispered.
“Melanie!” Russell stormed, picking Melanie up. “You do not-”
“Russell!” interrupted the girl. “I am not Melanie.”
“Of course you are-” began Russell, then he recognised the new cadence of her voice.
Melanie was dropped.
Russell stepped back a few paces, horrified. “Lester?!”
Sunday, 22 November 2009
Chapter 15: Nobody Loves Me And Neither Do I
Outside, things were bad. Ironbeaks were everywhere. Russell could see from the corridor people ripped to shreds by hordes of ironbeaks. Guttural screams filled the air and the cries rose to a cacophony unlike anything he had heard before. It was like a living thing and it breathed inside his head. Behind him the corridor was collapsing, pipes twisting inside themselves and bunching together like a magnet was pulling them towards the centre. As they ran the sphere roared like a vicious dying monster, metal tearing and pulling itself apart. It cried and screamed like it was being beaten, like its lungs were being ripped out. The floor beneath Russells feet swept apart right behind him and he had to leap through the door to avoid falling into the floor. He caught his breath for a moment outside, closing his eyes and breathing in chunks, but a sscream rapped at the side of his head. "Russell! C'mon, we have to GO!" Lester cried, aiming his fists over the hill. He picked up his pace and began to jog to keep up with them. All around him was destruction. Ironbeaks were doing everything they could to destroy the people surrounding them. The floor curled up like a carpet and wrapped itself around people, sucking them into the floor. Trees exploded, showering golden sparkling light over the riot. Microphones hidden in the bronze grass sqwawked and stuttered and licked at the air and Russell wrapped his hands around his head in an attempt to keep the noises out. Behind him the ground was lifting up and he picked up his pace, running to keep up with the others but falling, falling behind. He cried out, flinging his hand out and Lester heard him. he twisted sharply and saw what was happening - the floor had curled round Russells feet and brought him to a complete stop. He screamed and threw his hands in the air, and Lester barrelled towards the source of the disturbanc. A man ran past him, his face a running, rotten blur of what it used to be and he pushed the thing which used to be human out of his way. It fell into the dirty ground and was set upon.
Lester reached Russell and things were bad. Russell cried plaintively and Lester set about helping him, ripping tendrils of vicious metal off his wrists, ankles, and pulling Russell and his child free. Russell wondered briefly if the child was more important to Lester than he was. He wondered if he was just being rescued because he was collatoral, and he realised with a start that he was still the one who had brought him and his daughter into this filthy world, of crackling constant static and filthy dirty murder-birds where everybody hated him and wanted a piece of him, either his dick or his soul. He saw Lester and wanted to punch his face, his handsome, rugged face which had helped him out so many times before. What the hell was he thinking, bringing Melanie here It was his problem, what had he done to provoke him into stealing his daughter? His breath quickened as he was dragged and he thought that maybe God just hated him. As he was dragged along, Lester biting at writhing metal with his vicious fists, Russell thought. He thought that nothing he did could have deserved this. He had lived an honourable life, a quiet life, a life of letting other people go first, of standing aside when people were mugged, of letting other people run the world, save the world, enjoy the world. His daughter, his wife and these new friends had robbed the world of all that he thought he could have enjoyed from it. As Russell thought, Lester cried and bit back his tears as Ironbeaks tore at his skin.
One moment of happiness, of falling in love and into each others arms, and into the happiest moment of my life, and then it was gone, it had been ripped from him by harsh reality.
Lester shouted at Russell for help, and he realised that he had to. Russell got up and and made to run beside Lester – he had gotten barely more than five paces before he realised that Lester wasn't there. He twisted his frantic head back and saw Lester on the ground, beating off the winged magnet bastards. Russell tripped in his haste to turn around, but stood momentarily, frozen by his dual conscience. Could he let Lester die when he had saved his life so many times? Or could he let him live for bringing him here, for almost letting his daughter die, for forcing Russell to live his own life by giving him something to fight for? He was framed by the setting sun, cogs wheeling behind his back, twilight filtering past him, as everything stood still. Lester kicked and screamed in slow motion. A bird bit and flicked off bits of Lesters legs, his flesh, muscle, bone, skin, with a sickening slowness and methodical eye. Russell analysed impartially.
Lord knows he had to blame someone for the situation he was in.
His hair flickered in the wind. And he set off, his eyes focused on doing something worthwhile with himself, of saving a life finally.
The ground flexed its chest beneath him and tore open and black water spilled out. Lesters eyes widened in fear and surprise and he screamed “It's started!” It bled out of the rusted scar in the ground. Russell was ripped from his reverie and leapt towards Lester, as water splashed around his boots. He grabbed an Ironbeak and slammed it into the ground. It hit the water with a soft splash and fell apart instantly. His and Lesters eyes locked and Russell pulled him into the water, now gushing to around his ankles. Birds faltered and disintergrated around them, wings falling apart into cogs and bronze pipes like that as the magnet at the heart of the bird died. The birds sagged first, then carried on sagging like they had been humping their shoulders and the shoulders had fallen off. Lester dusted the remains of the fine cogs off him, and smiled at Russell. “For a second there,” he said, “I didn't think you were going to come.” Russell said nothing, but smiled back, a little falsely. He felt terrible. He could have let this man die, could have stopped his heart from pumping blood. The raw power in his hands at that moment was almost too much to bear – the responsibility of knowing that though he saved Lester, he could very easily not have made him see red for a moment. Neither of them moved for a moment, two blossoms in a hurricane.
Then Melanie opened her mouth and started to wail. Russell was surprised because he thought that she was asleep, or unconscious, but her cries told him different. He let her on the ground, and the tips of her dress began to soak. She howled and suddenly everything around them was still. People half-dead from bird pecks sat up, and saw what was going on. When they realised that Melanie had awoken, screams started in the distance. “Its happening again!” cried a man to Russells right, and he twisted around, tripped on his own feet and ran away at full speed. Fear slowly spread through the crowd like Melanies cries. The ground beneath their feet reverberated with it. The ironbeaks, who had stopped their assault and had watched Melanie, opened their mouths wide, clacking their beaks wide apart, and emitted a vicious caw as well, splitting the twilit air with a crushing sonic blow. There was nothing but the scream and the terrible cries of the birds as they lifted into the air as one, avoiding the drifting water on the ground below. They circled overhead, as the villagers raised a temporary hallelujah.
Melanie was hunched, shoulders bowed, standing stock-still and shaking as she screamed, face staring down at the ground, eyes wide and bulging. Tears streamed down her cheeks as she howled. Russell reached out a tender hand to try and calm the child, but he felt a resistance through which he couldn't put his hand. He tried harder, forcing himself on his daughter, and felt boiling blisters rip up out of his skin, as if they'd been waiting underneath to puncture his hands. His fingers bled as he tried to touch her, the skin flaking away at the tips as he edged his fingers closer and closer to her. He screamed too and pushed forwards with an almighty effort, finally touching his fingertips to her shaking shoulders. The ground splintered beneath her. The water tumbled out like a clogged drain, wet and choking, and the entire valley opened up. Cracks fissured through the bronze, and the ground shrieked as it tore open, an inhuman noise made by metal on the verge of collapse. Massive sheets of metal bent downwards, doubled over with pain as it drowned. Lester scrabbled at the metal as it bent downwards, his fingernails wailing across the floor, biting into rivets and rusted chunks.
Russell cried plaintively as Lester disappeared inside the hole, howling for assistance.
Around him, the ground shattered like broken glass and the valley became a sink-hole. People grabbed their families and prayed as they were swallowed by the water. The raging tide leapt up at them and nibbled playfully at corpses floating on the rising sea.
Russell was lost on a wave.
Lester reached Russell and things were bad. Russell cried plaintively and Lester set about helping him, ripping tendrils of vicious metal off his wrists, ankles, and pulling Russell and his child free. Russell wondered briefly if the child was more important to Lester than he was. He wondered if he was just being rescued because he was collatoral, and he realised with a start that he was still the one who had brought him and his daughter into this filthy world, of crackling constant static and filthy dirty murder-birds where everybody hated him and wanted a piece of him, either his dick or his soul. He saw Lester and wanted to punch his face, his handsome, rugged face which had helped him out so many times before. What the hell was he thinking, bringing Melanie here It was his problem, what had he done to provoke him into stealing his daughter? His breath quickened as he was dragged and he thought that maybe God just hated him. As he was dragged along, Lester biting at writhing metal with his vicious fists, Russell thought. He thought that nothing he did could have deserved this. He had lived an honourable life, a quiet life, a life of letting other people go first, of standing aside when people were mugged, of letting other people run the world, save the world, enjoy the world. His daughter, his wife and these new friends had robbed the world of all that he thought he could have enjoyed from it. As Russell thought, Lester cried and bit back his tears as Ironbeaks tore at his skin.
One moment of happiness, of falling in love and into each others arms, and into the happiest moment of my life, and then it was gone, it had been ripped from him by harsh reality.
Lester shouted at Russell for help, and he realised that he had to. Russell got up and and made to run beside Lester – he had gotten barely more than five paces before he realised that Lester wasn't there. He twisted his frantic head back and saw Lester on the ground, beating off the winged magnet bastards. Russell tripped in his haste to turn around, but stood momentarily, frozen by his dual conscience. Could he let Lester die when he had saved his life so many times? Or could he let him live for bringing him here, for almost letting his daughter die, for forcing Russell to live his own life by giving him something to fight for? He was framed by the setting sun, cogs wheeling behind his back, twilight filtering past him, as everything stood still. Lester kicked and screamed in slow motion. A bird bit and flicked off bits of Lesters legs, his flesh, muscle, bone, skin, with a sickening slowness and methodical eye. Russell analysed impartially.
Lord knows he had to blame someone for the situation he was in.
His hair flickered in the wind. And he set off, his eyes focused on doing something worthwhile with himself, of saving a life finally.
The ground flexed its chest beneath him and tore open and black water spilled out. Lesters eyes widened in fear and surprise and he screamed “It's started!” It bled out of the rusted scar in the ground. Russell was ripped from his reverie and leapt towards Lester, as water splashed around his boots. He grabbed an Ironbeak and slammed it into the ground. It hit the water with a soft splash and fell apart instantly. His and Lesters eyes locked and Russell pulled him into the water, now gushing to around his ankles. Birds faltered and disintergrated around them, wings falling apart into cogs and bronze pipes like that as the magnet at the heart of the bird died. The birds sagged first, then carried on sagging like they had been humping their shoulders and the shoulders had fallen off. Lester dusted the remains of the fine cogs off him, and smiled at Russell. “For a second there,” he said, “I didn't think you were going to come.” Russell said nothing, but smiled back, a little falsely. He felt terrible. He could have let this man die, could have stopped his heart from pumping blood. The raw power in his hands at that moment was almost too much to bear – the responsibility of knowing that though he saved Lester, he could very easily not have made him see red for a moment. Neither of them moved for a moment, two blossoms in a hurricane.
Then Melanie opened her mouth and started to wail. Russell was surprised because he thought that she was asleep, or unconscious, but her cries told him different. He let her on the ground, and the tips of her dress began to soak. She howled and suddenly everything around them was still. People half-dead from bird pecks sat up, and saw what was going on. When they realised that Melanie had awoken, screams started in the distance. “Its happening again!” cried a man to Russells right, and he twisted around, tripped on his own feet and ran away at full speed. Fear slowly spread through the crowd like Melanies cries. The ground beneath their feet reverberated with it. The ironbeaks, who had stopped their assault and had watched Melanie, opened their mouths wide, clacking their beaks wide apart, and emitted a vicious caw as well, splitting the twilit air with a crushing sonic blow. There was nothing but the scream and the terrible cries of the birds as they lifted into the air as one, avoiding the drifting water on the ground below. They circled overhead, as the villagers raised a temporary hallelujah.
Melanie was hunched, shoulders bowed, standing stock-still and shaking as she screamed, face staring down at the ground, eyes wide and bulging. Tears streamed down her cheeks as she howled. Russell reached out a tender hand to try and calm the child, but he felt a resistance through which he couldn't put his hand. He tried harder, forcing himself on his daughter, and felt boiling blisters rip up out of his skin, as if they'd been waiting underneath to puncture his hands. His fingers bled as he tried to touch her, the skin flaking away at the tips as he edged his fingers closer and closer to her. He screamed too and pushed forwards with an almighty effort, finally touching his fingertips to her shaking shoulders. The ground splintered beneath her. The water tumbled out like a clogged drain, wet and choking, and the entire valley opened up. Cracks fissured through the bronze, and the ground shrieked as it tore open, an inhuman noise made by metal on the verge of collapse. Massive sheets of metal bent downwards, doubled over with pain as it drowned. Lester scrabbled at the metal as it bent downwards, his fingernails wailing across the floor, biting into rivets and rusted chunks.
Russell cried plaintively as Lester disappeared inside the hole, howling for assistance.
Around him, the ground shattered like broken glass and the valley became a sink-hole. People grabbed their families and prayed as they were swallowed by the water. The raging tide leapt up at them and nibbled playfully at corpses floating on the rising sea.
Russell was lost on a wave.
Saturday, 21 November 2009
Chapter 14: Panasonic Youth
Together they neared the entrance. “Did I tell you my name?” the stranger inquired. “I really don't care,” Belle answered. The stranger laughed and told the trio that he was called John. They entered a room which was filled with people. People laughed. There was a buffet table. Streamers decorated the wall and funky lights hung from the walls. It looked almost like a hastily-prepared school disco, save for the middle, because in the middle Melanie, his daughter, hung like another streamer from the ceiling. The room was four or five storeys tall and the top two floors were curled with girders, pipes, steaming vents and rust. It was here that his daughter hung, limp, like a slab of meat. Russell gaped. John sidled up to him and said in a smarmy whisper, “Sure, she looks cute now, but you shoulda seen her when she was surrounded by ironbeaks!” Belle felt Russells fist clench and elbowed him hard in the ribs to remind him to keep his cool. So with a great deal of effort Russell looked up and managed to see another woman instead of his daughter. “Isn't it the same with all women? They look fine till you take a closer look.” Russell felt Belle tense and felt a warm flush of satisfaction.
“Preachin' to the converted right here, buddy,” John answered happily. Russell noticed his use of the word 'buddy' and felt angered that he was using Lesters word. He wasn't sure if he liked Lester or not but he sure preferred Lester to this peasant goon.
John eventually drifted off into the party (were they really at a party?) and Belle pulled Russell into a corner. He looked at her and she looked sternly back at him. “'Isn't it the same with all women'? What are you implying?”
Russell sneered at her. “As if it isn't obvious.”
Dresden gave Belle warning eyes but she didn't stop.
“Clearly its not. Care to explain?”
“You damned well know!” Russell exclaimed and turned away. She twisted him round and looked straight at him. “Russell – what Sebastien said-”
Dresden pushed them apart and, standing between them, said firmly “Later!” before gesturing up at the limp form of their prize above them. “What do we do about her?”
After a while, Belle said “Maybe if one of us tries to find our way up to the girders on the third floor?”
All three of them put their hands forward.
“I'm the smallest – I could crawl through any small gaps.” Belle said.
“I'm the strongest – I could carry her down.” Dresden said.
“I'm her father!” Russell said, somewhat hurt.
Around them, the party echoed, hollered voices bouncing off the pipes above and making everything sound slightly tinny.
Dresden shook his head. “There might be guards. When I collect her theres going to be uproar... she needs someone to protect her.” He pushed his chest out to its fullest. “And frankly I think I'm the best at that.” Russell went to argue, but saw Dresdens argument and backed down. He bit his lip and nodded. Dresden smiled and looked around. “Alright. I can see a private exit over there.” He turned to the other two. “And I'll need a distraction to get there. Can you do it?” He didn't wait for a response, and leapt into action.
Russell looked at Belle, who shrugged, and-
“You need good parents so you don't dick your life around, Lester. If I hadn't met you I might've died!”
Lester licked his lips, but said nothing, a tear shining down his face. He stroked Sebastiens shaking form absent-mindedly. Even so, for the first time, his fingers running along Sebastien felt electric. The boy was full of a potential he had never seen before, not since he had picked him up. Sebastien had always been bright, happy, relatively unemotional. To see him now, wracking ten years of emotion out of himself at once, or to imagine how he could have locked that door-
Sebastien felt like his ribcage had collapsed and his bones stuck out of him. Every time he breathed in he felt all the air he had denied his parents rushing down his throat, and a vicious guilt overtook him and boiled his brain inside his head. He was running all over himself.
Lester felt a raw energy from Sebastien, muscles coiled beneath steel panelled skin, like the kid was ready to explode. He gripped Sebastiens shoulder as his pained sobs began to cease. “C'mon, kid. When you're ready, we're needed.”
Sebastien swallowed hard. His voice was nasal with phlegm and repressed tears. “I'll give Russell another chance. If he really does love his daughter... then we have to help him. We have no choice.” Lester smiled and helped him up. They embraced briefly, and Lester gripped Sebastiens shoulders tightly. He drew him away for a moment so they were looking into each other. “Lets go,” he whispered, and they began a run, pounding the ground beneath their feet. The earth moulded to them. They could do anything.
Russell stepped forwards. "Listen up! belle hissed in his ear. "What are you doing?" "Run with me," he murmured back. "Listen! This is very! Very! Important!" He hung for a moment in the centre of the crowd, with everyone watching him, chocolate bars and bits of meat held poised in hand as they watched him speak. Nobody moved. "This... this food is poisoned!" A few people gasped, and a lot more put their food down, or dropped it, or spat it out, so that chocolate leaked into the floor. Russell saw Dresden sneak his way towards the exit on the other side of the room, urging his way through people. "Th-thats right! He continued, a little frantically, his hands raised high. He gulped. People were staring. "Its poisoned!" "How do you know?" Called someone from the back of the room and there was a mutter of scared assent. "How do I know? How do I know, you might well ask!" He gibbered and Belle sighed and stood up beside him. "Because we poisoned it!" She cried as Dresden slipped into the room at the back. the small cry the guard made as he was knocked unconscious went un-noticed as everyone was paying them attention.
Russell stared at Belle. "What are you doing?" He hissed. "Run with me." she smirked at him and then back at the assembled punters, mouths wide open and crumbs dribbling out. "Thats right! We're here to kill you for killing that little girl! Or should I say..." and she unsheathed a wicked grin, "Our lord!" Someone screamed in the back. "What on earth are you talking about?" demanded John, stepping forwards. "You said you were from Ironwalk!" Belle spread her hands wide. "We live beneath ironwalk, in the great drill-warrens! We have taught the drills to be our friends, and controlling all of them, and all of us besides, is that woman!" And she pointed at the meat suspended above them. "That queen of queens!" "Then its true!" someone else cried melodramatically from the back. Russell gaped. He had no idea whether this would work. "But you took her from us! Right at the cusp of our plan!" He cried, their voices writhing together in the five storey sphere and bounding round so everyone knew what they had done.
The room began to fill with a mindless gibbering as people realised that they had been poisoned. "And now we come here to take out revenge, and our queen as well!" Belle hollered triumphantally. "Nothing can stop us now!" She glanced upwards and saw Dresden clambering ably along the girders above them. He dodged another guard, picked him up and threw him backwards into the grate. he dented it and fell, unconscious. Knowing they only had to keep up their act a short while longer, Russell stepped forward again. "Thats right! And you fools gobbled every last drop, like the ingrates you are! You silly bastards!" and he cringed at his own inept insult. Belle rolled her eyes but knew that Dresden was at this very moment untangling Melanie above them. She glanced up and grinned at him. He shot a triumphant thumbs up back at them and turned around. The girder snapped.
Dresden fell.
Everything was chaotic.
Sebastien pounded the bare iron ground, his boots scummed with rust and tears and blood and bile and his eyes stung as he ran against the wind. Lester hurried along besides him and they grinned at each other as they ran and knew that everything was going to be alright. Sebastien rounded the next hill and with a flourish pointed at the sphere, in the near distance. All they had to do was run down and they were upon it. Sebastien had never seen the sphere before, despite his explorations of the island, and what he saw he considered perfectly normal. Lester arrived shortly afterwards, panting slightly and breathing deeply on his knees. He saw the sphere and his eyes turned to saucers. “Oh no...” he muttered.
The sphere was surrounded by Ironbeaks. The birds fluttered around the place like demented things, flapping themselved into the panels. They broke themselves apart trying to break down the sphere, but as the pieces, cogs, gears, wheels, turbines, propellors, broken twisted wings, fell to the floor the magnetic centre of the bird hummed and it refitted itself so the bird could try for another assault on the gargantuan ball. They wriggled into the holes in between the panels, or tried to as it crackled and thundered through anything which touched it. Lester licked his lips.
"So, Lance wasn't lying. Melanie attracts Ironbeaks."
He looked at Sebastien, whose lip trembled at the mention of the winged monstrosities. "Those are ironbeaks?" He said hollowly. "Those..."
Lester steeled himself, balling his fists. "Sebastien, I know why you want to go and save Melanie, to try and make sure that Russell is going to be a good father." Sebastien said nothing. "But you don't have to!" And here he turned to Sebastien, clapping him on the shoulder. "Nobody would think any the less of you if you just went back now. It will all be fine!" Sebastien shook his head violently. "I can't do that."
They both looked at the sphere in dismay as the outer layer was felled by the ironbeaks, the metal tearing up and floating into the sky. There was a fantastic metal tear as a team of ironbeaks ripped open the sphere like an onion. A crackle of lightning fell out and stabbed violently into the air, incinerating a number of ironbeaks but one got through and managed to burrow deeper into the metal.
"Shall we?" Lester said after a moments hesitation.
Sebastien breathed deeply, and nodded. "We don't really have a choice."
By the time they got inside the sphere things had gotten from bad to worse. There were sheets and flakes of metal falling from the edge of the sphere like confetti. He knew that if this had happened here, at Oceanside it would have been horrendous. He could imagine... but there wasn't time for that now. Pipes splintered inside the corridor and sheets of steam billowed out, clouding the interior of the corridor. They barrelled through it and onwards up the corridor, to where their friends were.
"Dresden!" Belle bounded forwards, slamming strangers out of her way in her mad rush to get to her fallen friend. She knelt by his side and wiped the hair from his eyes. With a quiet sob she looked him up and down. She saw that Melanie was curled protectively in his massive arms. With barely a shake, she picked up the unconscious girl and passed her to Russell, then returned to her fallen friend.
Russells world fell out beneath him again. He looked into the sleeping eyes of his daughter and saw Juliet, and then he grasped her tight. He couldn't leave her behind, even if he wanted to. As he felt her soft skin press against him, he felt a warmth he hadn't felt for years rush through him. His head buzzed and sagged at the same time, and he held his daughter tight. Melanie breathed easy. Russell breathed easy too. Dresden didn't breathe at all. Belle just sobbed. She pounded against his chest. She howled to the rafters, and pounded some more, stamping her fist into the ground and wailing. Dresdens chest no longer rose and fell. He was still. The rest of the world moved around him, passed him by, chattered as he kept quiet, got angry and scared as he stayed calm and withdrawn, fought and killed as he did what he needed to do to survive. Though, of course, he didn't need anything to survive any more except something to keep the maggots away. Melanie shifted in Russells arms. He felt something pointed at the side of his head. Something long and pointed. A snarl to the side of him spat "Put the bitch down, or I'll skewer you."
“Don't you dare, Russell! Don't you goddamned dare leave that girl ever again!” The voice rang out in the massive chamber, silent now, as everyone watched. Sebastien stood in the doorway, with Lester behind him, as smoke poured out from behind them. “You stand up for her!” He cried. Russell clenched his eyes shut as he felt the sword tremble beside him, the point digging into his temple.
Nobody moved for a good ten seconds. Russell trembled, Melanie hugged close to him, his assailant, furious, sword at Russells head, Belle, silently watching from the floor. Sebastien, analysing from the doorway. At ten seconds, he smiled. “Russell,” he began. “I think I was wrong about you-” but he was unable to finish his sentence. Two guards came from his side and threw dirty daggers at his throat. Another went for Lester, but he was too quick and barrelled his shoulder into the approaching guard, knocking him into his two comrades on their way to subdue him. He grabbed the swordmans weapon and grappled with him for it – Russell dived out of the way, daughter in hand, as the two fell, fists falling onto face and chest and arm and leg, kicking scratching. Belle leapt forward to help but the crowd, stronger now, settled in around her and suffocated her actions before she could do anything. She fell into the mob with a brief cry and her and Dresden were hidden.
The swordsman was on top of Lester now, and punched him square in the mouth. Lester fell back with a cry, blood trailing from his mouth and the guy sneered a victory and put his sword against Lesters throat. They were caught. All that was left was Russell, and his daughter, hugged against him. He could protect her from the world. Could he protect her by running, by pounding bronze till he got home? Could he run away again? She breathed on his arm and
He was back in his safe place. The last time he had been truly happy. Waves lapped the shore outside and crawled around the base of the stairs, moulding the banisters. Russell sighed contendedly, and pulled the sleeping Juliet a little closer to him. She moaned softly in her sleep and padded her arm around his back. He fell asleep on her shoulder, or he was awake and lying next to her. When dreams and reality collided you could do anything and wish for anything and it would happen and nothing mattered all of a sudden. All he knew about or cared about was the soft breathing, the rise and fall of Juliets heaving chest, the sweat and passion still hanging in the air. He could feel all of her and be happy, and felt like he was at one with her. Her chest rose and fell-
The exact same way that Dresdens didn't anymore, since he fell, since the crack that broke his spine and shattered his lungs, since the five storeys pulverised him. His last act was to save Ju- Melanie. Russell wondered for a moment whether he would do the same, whether he would fall back-to-the-floor so he would collapse into a stain on the ground but cushion his baby daughter, or would he use her as a ribcage shield.
Happy place happy place. He was with Juliet, the seas outside-
Were going to rust this island until it sank below the surface and never mattered to anyone again because anyone who could have cared would have rusted along with it.
I dont care about this place.
Russell wanted to go home.
He almost didn't notice when Melanie was taken, but he noticed alright. As soon as his second heartbeat was ripped from him he noticed, and he screamed and ran towards the baby-snatcher, not because it was Melanie, not even because it used to be Juliet, but because he needed something to anchor himself to the real world, he needed some reminder that he had made an impact on someones life, even if it ruined it, he needed to know that he hadn't wasted everything. Selfishly, he cried for his daughter as guards restrained him and bound him alongside the other. Tears streamed down his face as his proudest achievement was held aloft in front of the pillar in the middle of the room.
Sebastien looked at him proudly.
A massive grinding echoed from beneath them and the assembled crowds started a low hum. It grew louder and more sonorous as the pipes picked it up and echoed the noises back at them. “Oh no...” muttered Lester. Before them, the pillar was rising up from the ground. Gears below it ground and sprung and creaked, moaned, bit at each other as the pillar rose until it pierced the roof. Melanie, in her bundle, was held before the rising shaft. The night sky crackled above them, and the pillar hummed with the energy of the entire island. All across the island, wires hung limp, lights flickered off, the moon stopped its relentless assault across the sky. The entire sphere vibrated with suppressed energy, violent, powerful energy. Russell could taste electricity in the air. “No!” he cried to the humming masses, and was smacked sharply about the head and neck by one of the guards. Screens flickered on all over the pillar and through them you could see the entire island, the metal room illuminated by thousands of flickering images. The sphere was omniscient and it could be sated with a sacrifice, and none better than the girl who had killed so many with her filthy birds.
Raised aloft, Melanie woke and began to howl. Her scream scrambled the air around her, so that the person holding her felt his fingers blister and begin to fall away. Melanie hung there in the air, as the air around her sparked and crackled like a thunderstorm. The sky tore open above her, as the pillar split the ceiling. The sphere had been compromised. Birds poured in, and people screamed and began to run from the room. The guards surrounding Russell, Sebastien and Lester disappeared, leaving nothing but traces of scar from the daggers drawn at their throats. They awoke to action immediately – Russell ran forwards to get Melanie. Before he touched her he could feel her pulse, feel her heartbeat in the air around her, feel blood flowing through her arteries, feel millions of nerves spark breaths and movement and thought and, eventually, relativity.
The sky above them fell in on itself, and caved magnificently, huge chunks of the ceiling falling – from Russells point of view – as slowly as a feather. He grabbed Melanie, feeling his hands sting and blister for a moment, and screamed to his team, his successful team, “Lets go!”
Belles eyes swam with tears as she looked back at the corpse of Dresden, already birdfood. She brought out a hand to grab him, but ironbeaks snapped at her fingers and Sebastien pulled her away, shouting “Theres no use! Theres no use!” She was pulled to the door, and together, they ran down the corridor, pistons pumping and steam washing the air around them. The ground beneath Russell split and he tripped, but Sebastien caught him by the arm and pulled him up. All the while Russell gripped Melanie like she was a precious diamond, his most precious possession.
“Preachin' to the converted right here, buddy,” John answered happily. Russell noticed his use of the word 'buddy' and felt angered that he was using Lesters word. He wasn't sure if he liked Lester or not but he sure preferred Lester to this peasant goon.
John eventually drifted off into the party (were they really at a party?) and Belle pulled Russell into a corner. He looked at her and she looked sternly back at him. “'Isn't it the same with all women'? What are you implying?”
Russell sneered at her. “As if it isn't obvious.”
Dresden gave Belle warning eyes but she didn't stop.
“Clearly its not. Care to explain?”
“You damned well know!” Russell exclaimed and turned away. She twisted him round and looked straight at him. “Russell – what Sebastien said-”
Dresden pushed them apart and, standing between them, said firmly “Later!” before gesturing up at the limp form of their prize above them. “What do we do about her?”
After a while, Belle said “Maybe if one of us tries to find our way up to the girders on the third floor?”
All three of them put their hands forward.
“I'm the smallest – I could crawl through any small gaps.” Belle said.
“I'm the strongest – I could carry her down.” Dresden said.
“I'm her father!” Russell said, somewhat hurt.
Around them, the party echoed, hollered voices bouncing off the pipes above and making everything sound slightly tinny.
Dresden shook his head. “There might be guards. When I collect her theres going to be uproar... she needs someone to protect her.” He pushed his chest out to its fullest. “And frankly I think I'm the best at that.” Russell went to argue, but saw Dresdens argument and backed down. He bit his lip and nodded. Dresden smiled and looked around. “Alright. I can see a private exit over there.” He turned to the other two. “And I'll need a distraction to get there. Can you do it?” He didn't wait for a response, and leapt into action.
Russell looked at Belle, who shrugged, and-
“You need good parents so you don't dick your life around, Lester. If I hadn't met you I might've died!”
Lester licked his lips, but said nothing, a tear shining down his face. He stroked Sebastiens shaking form absent-mindedly. Even so, for the first time, his fingers running along Sebastien felt electric. The boy was full of a potential he had never seen before, not since he had picked him up. Sebastien had always been bright, happy, relatively unemotional. To see him now, wracking ten years of emotion out of himself at once, or to imagine how he could have locked that door-
Sebastien felt like his ribcage had collapsed and his bones stuck out of him. Every time he breathed in he felt all the air he had denied his parents rushing down his throat, and a vicious guilt overtook him and boiled his brain inside his head. He was running all over himself.
Lester felt a raw energy from Sebastien, muscles coiled beneath steel panelled skin, like the kid was ready to explode. He gripped Sebastiens shoulder as his pained sobs began to cease. “C'mon, kid. When you're ready, we're needed.”
Sebastien swallowed hard. His voice was nasal with phlegm and repressed tears. “I'll give Russell another chance. If he really does love his daughter... then we have to help him. We have no choice.” Lester smiled and helped him up. They embraced briefly, and Lester gripped Sebastiens shoulders tightly. He drew him away for a moment so they were looking into each other. “Lets go,” he whispered, and they began a run, pounding the ground beneath their feet. The earth moulded to them. They could do anything.
Russell stepped forwards. "Listen up! belle hissed in his ear. "What are you doing?" "Run with me," he murmured back. "Listen! This is very! Very! Important!" He hung for a moment in the centre of the crowd, with everyone watching him, chocolate bars and bits of meat held poised in hand as they watched him speak. Nobody moved. "This... this food is poisoned!" A few people gasped, and a lot more put their food down, or dropped it, or spat it out, so that chocolate leaked into the floor. Russell saw Dresden sneak his way towards the exit on the other side of the room, urging his way through people. "Th-thats right! He continued, a little frantically, his hands raised high. He gulped. People were staring. "Its poisoned!" "How do you know?" Called someone from the back of the room and there was a mutter of scared assent. "How do I know? How do I know, you might well ask!" He gibbered and Belle sighed and stood up beside him. "Because we poisoned it!" She cried as Dresden slipped into the room at the back. the small cry the guard made as he was knocked unconscious went un-noticed as everyone was paying them attention.
Russell stared at Belle. "What are you doing?" He hissed. "Run with me." she smirked at him and then back at the assembled punters, mouths wide open and crumbs dribbling out. "Thats right! We're here to kill you for killing that little girl! Or should I say..." and she unsheathed a wicked grin, "Our lord!" Someone screamed in the back. "What on earth are you talking about?" demanded John, stepping forwards. "You said you were from Ironwalk!" Belle spread her hands wide. "We live beneath ironwalk, in the great drill-warrens! We have taught the drills to be our friends, and controlling all of them, and all of us besides, is that woman!" And she pointed at the meat suspended above them. "That queen of queens!" "Then its true!" someone else cried melodramatically from the back. Russell gaped. He had no idea whether this would work. "But you took her from us! Right at the cusp of our plan!" He cried, their voices writhing together in the five storey sphere and bounding round so everyone knew what they had done.
The room began to fill with a mindless gibbering as people realised that they had been poisoned. "And now we come here to take out revenge, and our queen as well!" Belle hollered triumphantally. "Nothing can stop us now!" She glanced upwards and saw Dresden clambering ably along the girders above them. He dodged another guard, picked him up and threw him backwards into the grate. he dented it and fell, unconscious. Knowing they only had to keep up their act a short while longer, Russell stepped forward again. "Thats right! And you fools gobbled every last drop, like the ingrates you are! You silly bastards!" and he cringed at his own inept insult. Belle rolled her eyes but knew that Dresden was at this very moment untangling Melanie above them. She glanced up and grinned at him. He shot a triumphant thumbs up back at them and turned around. The girder snapped.
Dresden fell.
Everything was chaotic.
Sebastien pounded the bare iron ground, his boots scummed with rust and tears and blood and bile and his eyes stung as he ran against the wind. Lester hurried along besides him and they grinned at each other as they ran and knew that everything was going to be alright. Sebastien rounded the next hill and with a flourish pointed at the sphere, in the near distance. All they had to do was run down and they were upon it. Sebastien had never seen the sphere before, despite his explorations of the island, and what he saw he considered perfectly normal. Lester arrived shortly afterwards, panting slightly and breathing deeply on his knees. He saw the sphere and his eyes turned to saucers. “Oh no...” he muttered.
The sphere was surrounded by Ironbeaks. The birds fluttered around the place like demented things, flapping themselved into the panels. They broke themselves apart trying to break down the sphere, but as the pieces, cogs, gears, wheels, turbines, propellors, broken twisted wings, fell to the floor the magnetic centre of the bird hummed and it refitted itself so the bird could try for another assault on the gargantuan ball. They wriggled into the holes in between the panels, or tried to as it crackled and thundered through anything which touched it. Lester licked his lips.
"So, Lance wasn't lying. Melanie attracts Ironbeaks."
He looked at Sebastien, whose lip trembled at the mention of the winged monstrosities. "Those are ironbeaks?" He said hollowly. "Those..."
Lester steeled himself, balling his fists. "Sebastien, I know why you want to go and save Melanie, to try and make sure that Russell is going to be a good father." Sebastien said nothing. "But you don't have to!" And here he turned to Sebastien, clapping him on the shoulder. "Nobody would think any the less of you if you just went back now. It will all be fine!" Sebastien shook his head violently. "I can't do that."
They both looked at the sphere in dismay as the outer layer was felled by the ironbeaks, the metal tearing up and floating into the sky. There was a fantastic metal tear as a team of ironbeaks ripped open the sphere like an onion. A crackle of lightning fell out and stabbed violently into the air, incinerating a number of ironbeaks but one got through and managed to burrow deeper into the metal.
"Shall we?" Lester said after a moments hesitation.
Sebastien breathed deeply, and nodded. "We don't really have a choice."
By the time they got inside the sphere things had gotten from bad to worse. There were sheets and flakes of metal falling from the edge of the sphere like confetti. He knew that if this had happened here, at Oceanside it would have been horrendous. He could imagine... but there wasn't time for that now. Pipes splintered inside the corridor and sheets of steam billowed out, clouding the interior of the corridor. They barrelled through it and onwards up the corridor, to where their friends were.
"Dresden!" Belle bounded forwards, slamming strangers out of her way in her mad rush to get to her fallen friend. She knelt by his side and wiped the hair from his eyes. With a quiet sob she looked him up and down. She saw that Melanie was curled protectively in his massive arms. With barely a shake, she picked up the unconscious girl and passed her to Russell, then returned to her fallen friend.
Russells world fell out beneath him again. He looked into the sleeping eyes of his daughter and saw Juliet, and then he grasped her tight. He couldn't leave her behind, even if he wanted to. As he felt her soft skin press against him, he felt a warmth he hadn't felt for years rush through him. His head buzzed and sagged at the same time, and he held his daughter tight. Melanie breathed easy. Russell breathed easy too. Dresden didn't breathe at all. Belle just sobbed. She pounded against his chest. She howled to the rafters, and pounded some more, stamping her fist into the ground and wailing. Dresdens chest no longer rose and fell. He was still. The rest of the world moved around him, passed him by, chattered as he kept quiet, got angry and scared as he stayed calm and withdrawn, fought and killed as he did what he needed to do to survive. Though, of course, he didn't need anything to survive any more except something to keep the maggots away. Melanie shifted in Russells arms. He felt something pointed at the side of his head. Something long and pointed. A snarl to the side of him spat "Put the bitch down, or I'll skewer you."
“Don't you dare, Russell! Don't you goddamned dare leave that girl ever again!” The voice rang out in the massive chamber, silent now, as everyone watched. Sebastien stood in the doorway, with Lester behind him, as smoke poured out from behind them. “You stand up for her!” He cried. Russell clenched his eyes shut as he felt the sword tremble beside him, the point digging into his temple.
Nobody moved for a good ten seconds. Russell trembled, Melanie hugged close to him, his assailant, furious, sword at Russells head, Belle, silently watching from the floor. Sebastien, analysing from the doorway. At ten seconds, he smiled. “Russell,” he began. “I think I was wrong about you-” but he was unable to finish his sentence. Two guards came from his side and threw dirty daggers at his throat. Another went for Lester, but he was too quick and barrelled his shoulder into the approaching guard, knocking him into his two comrades on their way to subdue him. He grabbed the swordmans weapon and grappled with him for it – Russell dived out of the way, daughter in hand, as the two fell, fists falling onto face and chest and arm and leg, kicking scratching. Belle leapt forward to help but the crowd, stronger now, settled in around her and suffocated her actions before she could do anything. She fell into the mob with a brief cry and her and Dresden were hidden.
The swordsman was on top of Lester now, and punched him square in the mouth. Lester fell back with a cry, blood trailing from his mouth and the guy sneered a victory and put his sword against Lesters throat. They were caught. All that was left was Russell, and his daughter, hugged against him. He could protect her from the world. Could he protect her by running, by pounding bronze till he got home? Could he run away again? She breathed on his arm and
He was back in his safe place. The last time he had been truly happy. Waves lapped the shore outside and crawled around the base of the stairs, moulding the banisters. Russell sighed contendedly, and pulled the sleeping Juliet a little closer to him. She moaned softly in her sleep and padded her arm around his back. He fell asleep on her shoulder, or he was awake and lying next to her. When dreams and reality collided you could do anything and wish for anything and it would happen and nothing mattered all of a sudden. All he knew about or cared about was the soft breathing, the rise and fall of Juliets heaving chest, the sweat and passion still hanging in the air. He could feel all of her and be happy, and felt like he was at one with her. Her chest rose and fell-
The exact same way that Dresdens didn't anymore, since he fell, since the crack that broke his spine and shattered his lungs, since the five storeys pulverised him. His last act was to save Ju- Melanie. Russell wondered for a moment whether he would do the same, whether he would fall back-to-the-floor so he would collapse into a stain on the ground but cushion his baby daughter, or would he use her as a ribcage shield.
Happy place happy place. He was with Juliet, the seas outside-
Were going to rust this island until it sank below the surface and never mattered to anyone again because anyone who could have cared would have rusted along with it.
I dont care about this place.
Russell wanted to go home.
He almost didn't notice when Melanie was taken, but he noticed alright. As soon as his second heartbeat was ripped from him he noticed, and he screamed and ran towards the baby-snatcher, not because it was Melanie, not even because it used to be Juliet, but because he needed something to anchor himself to the real world, he needed some reminder that he had made an impact on someones life, even if it ruined it, he needed to know that he hadn't wasted everything. Selfishly, he cried for his daughter as guards restrained him and bound him alongside the other. Tears streamed down his face as his proudest achievement was held aloft in front of the pillar in the middle of the room.
Sebastien looked at him proudly.
A massive grinding echoed from beneath them and the assembled crowds started a low hum. It grew louder and more sonorous as the pipes picked it up and echoed the noises back at them. “Oh no...” muttered Lester. Before them, the pillar was rising up from the ground. Gears below it ground and sprung and creaked, moaned, bit at each other as the pillar rose until it pierced the roof. Melanie, in her bundle, was held before the rising shaft. The night sky crackled above them, and the pillar hummed with the energy of the entire island. All across the island, wires hung limp, lights flickered off, the moon stopped its relentless assault across the sky. The entire sphere vibrated with suppressed energy, violent, powerful energy. Russell could taste electricity in the air. “No!” he cried to the humming masses, and was smacked sharply about the head and neck by one of the guards. Screens flickered on all over the pillar and through them you could see the entire island, the metal room illuminated by thousands of flickering images. The sphere was omniscient and it could be sated with a sacrifice, and none better than the girl who had killed so many with her filthy birds.
Raised aloft, Melanie woke and began to howl. Her scream scrambled the air around her, so that the person holding her felt his fingers blister and begin to fall away. Melanie hung there in the air, as the air around her sparked and crackled like a thunderstorm. The sky tore open above her, as the pillar split the ceiling. The sphere had been compromised. Birds poured in, and people screamed and began to run from the room. The guards surrounding Russell, Sebastien and Lester disappeared, leaving nothing but traces of scar from the daggers drawn at their throats. They awoke to action immediately – Russell ran forwards to get Melanie. Before he touched her he could feel her pulse, feel her heartbeat in the air around her, feel blood flowing through her arteries, feel millions of nerves spark breaths and movement and thought and, eventually, relativity.
The sky above them fell in on itself, and caved magnificently, huge chunks of the ceiling falling – from Russells point of view – as slowly as a feather. He grabbed Melanie, feeling his hands sting and blister for a moment, and screamed to his team, his successful team, “Lets go!”
Belles eyes swam with tears as she looked back at the corpse of Dresden, already birdfood. She brought out a hand to grab him, but ironbeaks snapped at her fingers and Sebastien pulled her away, shouting “Theres no use! Theres no use!” She was pulled to the door, and together, they ran down the corridor, pistons pumping and steam washing the air around them. The ground beneath Russell split and he tripped, but Sebastien caught him by the arm and pulled him up. All the while Russell gripped Melanie like she was a precious diamond, his most precious possession.
Friday, 20 November 2009
Chapter 13: When Acting As A Wave
They approached the sphere slowly, for it was an intimidating thing. It was a massive metal sphere, rippling with wires streaming over it like waves on a scabbed ocean. The metal gleamed in the sun, and it towered above the scant metallic vegetation sprouting beneath it. It exuded power and the fact that it was better than you. It seemed to be breathing – rising and falling, like a pacemaker or a piston. Steam billowed from vents at its feet, wreathing the filthy rust in smoke which cloaked it. There was a small entrance directly ahead of the three of them.
Belle muttered “They'll be in the centre, and hopefully it should be fairly easy to get there. We can pretend that we're more villagers, coming to watch the sacrifice.” She shuddered. “...and we can grab your daughter then. Alright?”
Russell nodded, and Dresden grunted. Belle smiled at him, “I bet you're looking forward to seeing her again, aren't you?”
Russell turned away. “Not if she's spread across the floor. I want to see her alive.”
She grabbed his hand. “You will. We'll get her out of here, alright?”
He bit his lip and thought a moment, before ripping his hand from her grasp. “I hope so.” Then he walked forwards towards the entrance. Belle looked at Dresden, who said nothing and looked straight ahead. “Whats with him?” She asked him.
“He's probably just worried.”
“Probably?”
“Well.” Dresden looked at her. “He knows why you slept with him.”
Belle took a sharp intake of breath. “How does he-”
“Sebastien told him.”
She bit her lip. “I wasn't quite honest with you guys.” She sighed. “I guess I thought that if you just though that I wanted him for his power, then you wouldn't respect me any less.” She looked up at him, and was glad to see that he was smiling at her.
“So... you do like him, then?” He asked her slowly.
She grinned. “I do. He's interesting.”
Dresden humphed. “Each to their own. I think he's really boring.”
They grinned sheepishly at each other like teenagers.
“Don't tell him yet though, he has enough on his mind.” Dresden told her.
“I guess.”And with that they ran to catch up with Russell.
“You're pregnant?”
“Thats right!” Juliet beamed and grasped Russells hand tighter.
Juliets mother was near-speechless, and so she just ran forward and hugged her daughter, bringing her into her arms. “Thats... thats wonderful news, Julie!” Russell smiled as well – a little awkwardly, because he had never met her mother before. It was quite a way to introduce himself.
“Well come in, come in!” Her mother ushered them through into the whitewashed hallway, decorated with ugly brown furniture and pictures of awful 1930's seasides. A faded purple carpet led to a staircase embellished with a white stairlift for her husband, the machine a gears-and-cogs gash into the wall. A small door on the right led into a living room, with copies of the daily mail piled up on coffee tables and side-drawers. Two filthy chairs and a chalk-red sofa inhabited the floor and more faded pictures had crawled up the walls and arranged themselves. A television covered in dust sat in the corner – it was one of those old boxy ones, with air-holes for the TV to breathe. They only had VCR and the VCR only had Dads Army. Their CD collection was made up of free compilations from Sunday newspapers.
Upon the death of her mother, Juliets mother had moved into her home to house her husband, who had been hit by some disease the previous year and now sat covered under as much dust as the TV in the corner on one of the moth-eaten chairs. If his chest hadn't risen and fallen in little juts Russell would have sworn that he was dead. As he studied him, however, he realised that the husbands eyes were following him around the room, staring out of the corpse surrounding it. It looked like eyes sneaking out of a painting. Russell imagined being trapped in your own body like that and shuddered deeply. He thought to himself that in some ways he wasn't so different. “Now!” Juliets mother said in a business-like tone. “Juliet, you come help me make teas, and Russell, you can keep Roger company, alright?” Juliet kissed her father on the cheek as she passed, said “Good morning, daddy,” and went into the kitchen to help her mother.
-
Russell tried hard not to stare at 'Roger' and looked straight ahead, his fingers drumming against his thigh.
-
“So how did you meet him?” Juliets mother asked her daughter in the kitchen, crawling in empty bottles. “We'd been introduced by a friend a couple of weeks before, and then we met up again at a beach party a month ago.”
“And by met up, I assume you mean-”
“Mum!”
“Well?”
Juliet blushed. “Well, yes. Otherwise I wouldn't be-”
“Yes, dear, I know all about it.”
Juliet said nothing for a moment as the kettle fizzed next to her.
“I just worry.”
“About what?”
She said “I'm worried about the relationship. I mean... I can't give up the baby, not to an orphanage or the internet or whatever, and I can't get rid of it-”
“Why can't you abort it? If you don't want it?”
Juliet was shocked. “Mother! I can't kill a child! A baby! What if it had my eyes?”
She said nothing, and wrung her hands, like she was moulding her next words before she spoke.
“I'm just worried that if we weren't having this baby then I wouldn't be with him.”
“You don't have to be with him anyway though, do you?” Her mother asked, putting down the sugar pot in between two wrung-dry bottles of whisky.
“I don't have a job, mother! And I won't be able to get one with a baby! And...” she blushed again. “Its not like he's a bad guy. He's nice – I like him, otherwise I wouldn't have slept with him! But, all the same...” she looked through the wall at where he was, staring into space. “I don't want to take him for a ride.”
“Well, you like him good enough don't you?” She asked.
“Yeah...”
“Love grows. If you nourish it.” Juliets mother put a hand, with the vaguest of wrinkles beginning to crawl across it. “If you stay with him, you can learn to love him. Theres nothing wrong with starting like that.”
Juliet let a smile slip across her face.
“Really?”
“Really.”
Outside Russell stared at his hands.
The corridor inside the sphere groaned and sprung. It was a gleaming, silver-white. For the most part. Every now and then along the corridor the white panels had fallen away and rusting grey pipes filled the void, rumbling and spurting steam into the corridor. It was dark in the corridor, lit only by streams of floerescent lighting the villagers had laid. Lit only from below, the three of them looked at each other and saw strangers. A man approached them from the other end of the corridor. “Hi!” he said brightly. “You're just in time! Come quickly!” And he ushered the three of them forwards, shuffling and awkward. As they walked he looked at them. “I'm not sure if its the light, you know, but I could swear I've never seen you three before.”
“Oh, we're not... we're not from Oceanside,” Belle covered. “We're from further east, down near Ironwalk.”
“Uhh-huh.” The stranger said.
“Say.” said Russell suddenly, breaking the acid silence. “Why is it you're sacrificing this... this girl?”
Belle kicked him, so the stranger wouldn't notice but so he would.
“Why? Well haven't you heard? The news has spread all over the island!”
When none of the three said anything, he continued. “This girl appears on a hillside, right? And shes wreathed in lightning. Its melting the ground around her, its that bad. I mean, if I had found her then I'd have left her obviously, dont get me wrong-”
“Obviously” said Belle curtly.
“But the Doctor found her and took her home. When she shivered she sparked. Someone said she was a robot, but either way she was sick cos she kept on coughing and shivering and sparking and lighting the village up... but we dealt with it, and we all mucked together to help her out and settle her in. Looking back on it now... any one of us could have been killed by that devil.”
He shuddered at the thought.
“Anyway, though, one day, we find a bird, right? And you know what that means-”
“An ironbeak?” Dresden interrupted.
“Thats right!” The stranger said enthusiastically. He seemed to be enjoying telling his tale immensely. “And you know what Ironbeaks do, obviously.”
“No?” Russell inquired, and Belle kicked him again. “Yes you do, Russell!”
Russell glared at Belle. “Indulge me.”
“I think she already did.” Dresden muttered behind them, and Belle kicked him as well and explained to Russell. “Ironbeaks are little flying magnets with big fuck-off jaws. If they get on you in a pack they can rip you to shreds but they only do that in self-defence. They're normally really nice, but you can't go near them at all.”
“Why?”
“Because of the magnet! It messes everything up. It rips the ground from under your feet. It sends electronics crazy – speakers start spluttering everywhere, wires start twitching around and try to grab onto things, engines start, animals go stir-crazy – it messes shit up, Russell, believe me.”
“How can you not know what Ironbeaks are?” the stranger asked warily.
“He was raised by smokers, if catch my drift,” she implied at him. “He's clinically retarded.”
“Oh!” The stranger seemed satisfied by this, and continued with his story – which he clearly wanted to get back to.
“And basically the ironbeaks came for Oceanside. The port was absolutely decimated. The houses were... and the people...” He stopped a moment. “Quite a few died. The ironbeaks seemed to be trying to protect Melanie. They killed everyone around her. We had a right trouble fighting them off. Thats why we came here, the sphere is the only place which can repel those things. Thats why we always keep the door closed, you know?”
We didn't close the door.
Lester picked through the rubble on the hilltop, picking his way past a propeller embedded in the ground, which was crawling with wires like vines, and called out again, “Sebastien! Sebastien! Sebastien, come out, where are you?” The sun wrote glares onto the harsh ground and left purple dancing across his vision. He recognised this place. He had found Sebastien here all those years ago. He had been in a bad place then. After causing that explosion, he had left his team, his family and his friends and gone in search of himself. On this hill, he had found it. The seeds of his responsibility, which grew from one baby to one teenager and beyond, and then to an entire island and the life of a little girl. Here he had found himself and started again. Before he found Sebastien, seven years old, wandering the hills all bloody and alone, bawling his head off, he didnt know what to do but the boy gave him hope, once he'd been cleaned up. He smiled at the memory and redoubled his efforts to finds the fruits of his labour, scanning the area because he was sure he had seen Sebastien escape up here. The kid scrambled like Lester twenty years ago – it had been very difficult to keep up up the winding pipes which made up this hilltop.
He could hear snatches of sobbing on the wind, carried through the pipes and vibrated till it filled the whole hilltop. The hill was crying along with Sebastien. This was bad – he needed to find the kid and get back to the sphere, because they couldn't save Melanie without him. They needed him to save them, just like Sebastien, then and now. It was impossible to find out where the crying was coming from, because it was coming from everywhere thanks to the sonics of the area. The tears of Sebastien filled him and rumbled through him. He bunched up his fists.
“Seb-” he began again but heard a crash to the side of him and whipped round before the pipes and the wind picked it up and made it impossible to make out.
He saw that a panel had fallen away and made towards it. Underneath he saw a shaking foetus. Sebastien was curled up, arms over his face. He made no attempt to hide as Lester peeled back the panel.
Neither of them spoke for a long while. Lester looked at what was for all intents and purposes, his son. Sebastien licked his lips, running his tongue across the cracks and stubble of his lips. Tears had leaked across his face and it shined. Eventually, after a length that lasted an eternity, he spoke. His words poured through Lester and emptied him. He was left shaking as badly as Sebastien, as his son spoke: “My parents didn't die. I killed them.”
Lesters eyes were wide. He didn't speak but let Sebastien pour out his heard. He began his story emotionlessly, his voice a flat monotone drawl, echoed through the hillside.
“My parents argued. I remember that sometimes I wouldn't get fed for up to a week because their arguments were so bad. They used to forget about me. I had to go to the venders by myself. They would fight. My... my mother lost an eye one time because of a fight. He ripped it out.” A tear dribbled onto the pipes beneath him and steamed away. “I was with them one time when they fought. I didn't like to be with them when they were together. When ever they were together they bit and scratched at each other. They stayed together, just about, for my sake, I think. One time my father came back from glassing for a night. You could see the vodka stains dribbling down his chin.” Tears fell thick and fast from his eyes. They dripped into Sebastiens mouth and he felt them on his lips. His voice cracked suddenly and instead of the slow flatness his voice had been it rose higher and faster. “He was drunk. He could barely walk. Him and my mother started a fight, and... and they let loose one of the pipes. Their house filled up with gas and something sparked. There was nothing I-”
He stopped for a long moment.
“Thats a lie. I could have saved them. I could have done something, I could have... but instead, I locked the door.”
His voice boomed out over the island.
“I kept them in there. I dont know if they made up in their last moments or if they were biting each others throats out till they burned to death. But it was because of me. I wanted- I needed to get away from them. I didn't care if I lived or died. I just couldn't be with them any more. I killed them.” And with that his voice cracked entirely. “I killed them, Lester.” He croaked, his voice bleeding out over a razor throat. “My parents are dead because of me.”
Belle muttered “They'll be in the centre, and hopefully it should be fairly easy to get there. We can pretend that we're more villagers, coming to watch the sacrifice.” She shuddered. “...and we can grab your daughter then. Alright?”
Russell nodded, and Dresden grunted. Belle smiled at him, “I bet you're looking forward to seeing her again, aren't you?”
Russell turned away. “Not if she's spread across the floor. I want to see her alive.”
She grabbed his hand. “You will. We'll get her out of here, alright?”
He bit his lip and thought a moment, before ripping his hand from her grasp. “I hope so.” Then he walked forwards towards the entrance. Belle looked at Dresden, who said nothing and looked straight ahead. “Whats with him?” She asked him.
“He's probably just worried.”
“Probably?”
“Well.” Dresden looked at her. “He knows why you slept with him.”
Belle took a sharp intake of breath. “How does he-”
“Sebastien told him.”
She bit her lip. “I wasn't quite honest with you guys.” She sighed. “I guess I thought that if you just though that I wanted him for his power, then you wouldn't respect me any less.” She looked up at him, and was glad to see that he was smiling at her.
“So... you do like him, then?” He asked her slowly.
She grinned. “I do. He's interesting.”
Dresden humphed. “Each to their own. I think he's really boring.”
They grinned sheepishly at each other like teenagers.
“Don't tell him yet though, he has enough on his mind.” Dresden told her.
“I guess.”And with that they ran to catch up with Russell.
“You're pregnant?”
“Thats right!” Juliet beamed and grasped Russells hand tighter.
Juliets mother was near-speechless, and so she just ran forward and hugged her daughter, bringing her into her arms. “Thats... thats wonderful news, Julie!” Russell smiled as well – a little awkwardly, because he had never met her mother before. It was quite a way to introduce himself.
“Well come in, come in!” Her mother ushered them through into the whitewashed hallway, decorated with ugly brown furniture and pictures of awful 1930's seasides. A faded purple carpet led to a staircase embellished with a white stairlift for her husband, the machine a gears-and-cogs gash into the wall. A small door on the right led into a living room, with copies of the daily mail piled up on coffee tables and side-drawers. Two filthy chairs and a chalk-red sofa inhabited the floor and more faded pictures had crawled up the walls and arranged themselves. A television covered in dust sat in the corner – it was one of those old boxy ones, with air-holes for the TV to breathe. They only had VCR and the VCR only had Dads Army. Their CD collection was made up of free compilations from Sunday newspapers.
Upon the death of her mother, Juliets mother had moved into her home to house her husband, who had been hit by some disease the previous year and now sat covered under as much dust as the TV in the corner on one of the moth-eaten chairs. If his chest hadn't risen and fallen in little juts Russell would have sworn that he was dead. As he studied him, however, he realised that the husbands eyes were following him around the room, staring out of the corpse surrounding it. It looked like eyes sneaking out of a painting. Russell imagined being trapped in your own body like that and shuddered deeply. He thought to himself that in some ways he wasn't so different. “Now!” Juliets mother said in a business-like tone. “Juliet, you come help me make teas, and Russell, you can keep Roger company, alright?” Juliet kissed her father on the cheek as she passed, said “Good morning, daddy,” and went into the kitchen to help her mother.
-
Russell tried hard not to stare at 'Roger' and looked straight ahead, his fingers drumming against his thigh.
-
“So how did you meet him?” Juliets mother asked her daughter in the kitchen, crawling in empty bottles. “We'd been introduced by a friend a couple of weeks before, and then we met up again at a beach party a month ago.”
“And by met up, I assume you mean-”
“Mum!”
“Well?”
Juliet blushed. “Well, yes. Otherwise I wouldn't be-”
“Yes, dear, I know all about it.”
Juliet said nothing for a moment as the kettle fizzed next to her.
“I just worry.”
“About what?”
She said “I'm worried about the relationship. I mean... I can't give up the baby, not to an orphanage or the internet or whatever, and I can't get rid of it-”
“Why can't you abort it? If you don't want it?”
Juliet was shocked. “Mother! I can't kill a child! A baby! What if it had my eyes?”
She said nothing, and wrung her hands, like she was moulding her next words before she spoke.
“I'm just worried that if we weren't having this baby then I wouldn't be with him.”
“You don't have to be with him anyway though, do you?” Her mother asked, putting down the sugar pot in between two wrung-dry bottles of whisky.
“I don't have a job, mother! And I won't be able to get one with a baby! And...” she blushed again. “Its not like he's a bad guy. He's nice – I like him, otherwise I wouldn't have slept with him! But, all the same...” she looked through the wall at where he was, staring into space. “I don't want to take him for a ride.”
“Well, you like him good enough don't you?” She asked.
“Yeah...”
“Love grows. If you nourish it.” Juliets mother put a hand, with the vaguest of wrinkles beginning to crawl across it. “If you stay with him, you can learn to love him. Theres nothing wrong with starting like that.”
Juliet let a smile slip across her face.
“Really?”
“Really.”
Outside Russell stared at his hands.
The corridor inside the sphere groaned and sprung. It was a gleaming, silver-white. For the most part. Every now and then along the corridor the white panels had fallen away and rusting grey pipes filled the void, rumbling and spurting steam into the corridor. It was dark in the corridor, lit only by streams of floerescent lighting the villagers had laid. Lit only from below, the three of them looked at each other and saw strangers. A man approached them from the other end of the corridor. “Hi!” he said brightly. “You're just in time! Come quickly!” And he ushered the three of them forwards, shuffling and awkward. As they walked he looked at them. “I'm not sure if its the light, you know, but I could swear I've never seen you three before.”
“Oh, we're not... we're not from Oceanside,” Belle covered. “We're from further east, down near Ironwalk.”
“Uhh-huh.” The stranger said.
“Say.” said Russell suddenly, breaking the acid silence. “Why is it you're sacrificing this... this girl?”
Belle kicked him, so the stranger wouldn't notice but so he would.
“Why? Well haven't you heard? The news has spread all over the island!”
When none of the three said anything, he continued. “This girl appears on a hillside, right? And shes wreathed in lightning. Its melting the ground around her, its that bad. I mean, if I had found her then I'd have left her obviously, dont get me wrong-”
“Obviously” said Belle curtly.
“But the Doctor found her and took her home. When she shivered she sparked. Someone said she was a robot, but either way she was sick cos she kept on coughing and shivering and sparking and lighting the village up... but we dealt with it, and we all mucked together to help her out and settle her in. Looking back on it now... any one of us could have been killed by that devil.”
He shuddered at the thought.
“Anyway, though, one day, we find a bird, right? And you know what that means-”
“An ironbeak?” Dresden interrupted.
“Thats right!” The stranger said enthusiastically. He seemed to be enjoying telling his tale immensely. “And you know what Ironbeaks do, obviously.”
“No?” Russell inquired, and Belle kicked him again. “Yes you do, Russell!”
Russell glared at Belle. “Indulge me.”
“I think she already did.” Dresden muttered behind them, and Belle kicked him as well and explained to Russell. “Ironbeaks are little flying magnets with big fuck-off jaws. If they get on you in a pack they can rip you to shreds but they only do that in self-defence. They're normally really nice, but you can't go near them at all.”
“Why?”
“Because of the magnet! It messes everything up. It rips the ground from under your feet. It sends electronics crazy – speakers start spluttering everywhere, wires start twitching around and try to grab onto things, engines start, animals go stir-crazy – it messes shit up, Russell, believe me.”
“How can you not know what Ironbeaks are?” the stranger asked warily.
“He was raised by smokers, if catch my drift,” she implied at him. “He's clinically retarded.”
“Oh!” The stranger seemed satisfied by this, and continued with his story – which he clearly wanted to get back to.
“And basically the ironbeaks came for Oceanside. The port was absolutely decimated. The houses were... and the people...” He stopped a moment. “Quite a few died. The ironbeaks seemed to be trying to protect Melanie. They killed everyone around her. We had a right trouble fighting them off. Thats why we came here, the sphere is the only place which can repel those things. Thats why we always keep the door closed, you know?”
We didn't close the door.
Lester picked through the rubble on the hilltop, picking his way past a propeller embedded in the ground, which was crawling with wires like vines, and called out again, “Sebastien! Sebastien! Sebastien, come out, where are you?” The sun wrote glares onto the harsh ground and left purple dancing across his vision. He recognised this place. He had found Sebastien here all those years ago. He had been in a bad place then. After causing that explosion, he had left his team, his family and his friends and gone in search of himself. On this hill, he had found it. The seeds of his responsibility, which grew from one baby to one teenager and beyond, and then to an entire island and the life of a little girl. Here he had found himself and started again. Before he found Sebastien, seven years old, wandering the hills all bloody and alone, bawling his head off, he didnt know what to do but the boy gave him hope, once he'd been cleaned up. He smiled at the memory and redoubled his efforts to finds the fruits of his labour, scanning the area because he was sure he had seen Sebastien escape up here. The kid scrambled like Lester twenty years ago – it had been very difficult to keep up up the winding pipes which made up this hilltop.
He could hear snatches of sobbing on the wind, carried through the pipes and vibrated till it filled the whole hilltop. The hill was crying along with Sebastien. This was bad – he needed to find the kid and get back to the sphere, because they couldn't save Melanie without him. They needed him to save them, just like Sebastien, then and now. It was impossible to find out where the crying was coming from, because it was coming from everywhere thanks to the sonics of the area. The tears of Sebastien filled him and rumbled through him. He bunched up his fists.
“Seb-” he began again but heard a crash to the side of him and whipped round before the pipes and the wind picked it up and made it impossible to make out.
He saw that a panel had fallen away and made towards it. Underneath he saw a shaking foetus. Sebastien was curled up, arms over his face. He made no attempt to hide as Lester peeled back the panel.
Neither of them spoke for a long while. Lester looked at what was for all intents and purposes, his son. Sebastien licked his lips, running his tongue across the cracks and stubble of his lips. Tears had leaked across his face and it shined. Eventually, after a length that lasted an eternity, he spoke. His words poured through Lester and emptied him. He was left shaking as badly as Sebastien, as his son spoke: “My parents didn't die. I killed them.”
Lesters eyes were wide. He didn't speak but let Sebastien pour out his heard. He began his story emotionlessly, his voice a flat monotone drawl, echoed through the hillside.
“My parents argued. I remember that sometimes I wouldn't get fed for up to a week because their arguments were so bad. They used to forget about me. I had to go to the venders by myself. They would fight. My... my mother lost an eye one time because of a fight. He ripped it out.” A tear dribbled onto the pipes beneath him and steamed away. “I was with them one time when they fought. I didn't like to be with them when they were together. When ever they were together they bit and scratched at each other. They stayed together, just about, for my sake, I think. One time my father came back from glassing for a night. You could see the vodka stains dribbling down his chin.” Tears fell thick and fast from his eyes. They dripped into Sebastiens mouth and he felt them on his lips. His voice cracked suddenly and instead of the slow flatness his voice had been it rose higher and faster. “He was drunk. He could barely walk. Him and my mother started a fight, and... and they let loose one of the pipes. Their house filled up with gas and something sparked. There was nothing I-”
He stopped for a long moment.
“Thats a lie. I could have saved them. I could have done something, I could have... but instead, I locked the door.”
His voice boomed out over the island.
“I kept them in there. I dont know if they made up in their last moments or if they were biting each others throats out till they burned to death. But it was because of me. I wanted- I needed to get away from them. I didn't care if I lived or died. I just couldn't be with them any more. I killed them.” And with that his voice cracked entirely. “I killed them, Lester.” He croaked, his voice bleeding out over a razor throat. “My parents are dead because of me.”
Chapter 12: Two Weeks Of Rain Two Weeks Of Light
Russell hadn't seen much of the beach in the light of the moonlamp, and in any case any location hadn't mattered to him when he had been with Belle, but now he saw it... Lester was right. The beach was rusting away. It was a windy day today, and the wind pounded against the rough, scabbed metal like a gigantic fist, like it was knocking for someone on the other side of the world and it was tearing the door down. Its fingers clawed up the ragged shoreline and raked across the rivets and lines between slabs of iron. It sunk and rose, and dripped, broken, into drains scattered across the beach. Russell looked into one as they passed. It sloshed at him, near full to the brim with salt-water. Lester saw it too and muttered about how it needed emptying. Scattered across the beaches were massive constructions – the one they passed looked like the top half of an oil rig, all boiler and steaming vent on rusting vicious legs. In the distance Russell saw a crane gripped into the rusted beaches by massive lengths of wire, like they were binding it to the ground. As the wires twitched the crane slowly moved, occasionally raking itself across the beach like a windmill. It moved jerkily but organically, like it was having a bad dream.
“This is it.” Lester stood by Russells side. “These are the beaches. We travel along these to get to Oceanside, where your daughter is.” Russell smiled. He was looking forward to seeing that kid again.
His kid. He needed to remember that, jesus. He was her father. What the hell were they doing here if not saving her? He stopped a moment to think. If he really didn't care about her then he should tell them.
“We're one step closer to saving your daughter. Its not far from here.” Sebastien patted Russells shoulder affectionately then brought it down, bringing Russells ear to his face. “Well?” “Well what?” Russell asked defensively, though he thought he knew what was coming. “Well I told you!” Russell smiled at him, and brought his voice to a whisper. “I know, and I took heed of your warning! But I thought to myself, if thats the kind of girl she is, then she'll be using protection, won't she? She'll be on the pill, won't she?”
Sebastien looked at him quizzically. “Sorry?”
Russell rolled his eyes. “She'll be using contraception, so I'm cool, its all cool, isn't it? I don't have to worry about it.”
“Contra-what?” Sebastien asked.
“Contraception!” Russell answered, warily. “You know! To stop more kids!”
“What would be the point?” Sebastien asked. “Why would she want to stop having a baby? Is that what you do where you come from?”
why would she want to stop having a baby?
“What do you mean, 'why would she want to stop having a baby'? I'm a stranger, pretty much!” He answered, a little desperately, now actually looking at Sebastien. “Of course she wants to stay safe.”
Sebastien laughed. “Russell, every man on this island is sterile! Theres no point in... protecting yourself. Hell, I think the main reason she fucked you was because she knew you could give her a child.” he patted Russell on the back. “But the look on your face says that it was a good lay, right? Thats whats important, right?” There was a knife edge of sarcasm dripping through his sinewy tones. Russell had never heard Sebastien unpleasant before and he didn't like it.
He was left squatting alone on the hard cold beach he had poured his soul into the night before.
She knew you could give her a child
Had what just happened really happened?
Had he been played? Had he just been screwed over by Belle? Or by Sebastien, for telling him. He was happier not knowing and he was pretty sure Belle wouldn't have done...
He felt a hot surge run through him. He couldn't believe it. Everything had disappeared around him. What he had thought was getting over Juliet was running back into her again. A beach. A pregnancy. Another betrayal.
Women.
Lester called for him and he looked up, and made to follow. His feet trod cold along the metal pathways. His breath cut through him in ragged scratches, climbing through his throat with pickaxes. He hated himself for failing again. Ahead he heard a noise, and he jogged to catch up to find Lester, Belle, Sebastien and Dresden searching along the ground again. They searched through thin reeds of waving wires hanging from the ceiling and the ground until Lester called “Don't worry, I got one!” He came out carrying a plastic headset, scratched and rusted from growing in the ground. Russell smiled a moment – he thought that he wouldn't be surprised by anything he found in this world any more. Lester grabbed the end of the headset, and plugged it into a squawking pillar. He rammed the other half onto his head and spat into the mike “Sorry for the delay. Whats the message?”
“Lester?”
Sebastien could have sworn he had heard that voice before. With a jolt he remembered the last time they had gotten a call through this system. Last time it had been good news, but the mans voice was not so jovial this time. His voice cracked like he had been punched in the throat. “Lester, I'm so glad I have you finally! I take it you've heard the news by now?”
“What news?” said Lester.
There was a long pause.
“You haven't heard?”
“Haven't heard what? Tell me!”
“Lester... the village... Oceanside... its a ruin!”
The air went still.
“Its that girl, Lester! Ever since she got here! There was nothing... nothing I could do!”
“Whats happened, goddamnit?” Lester spat into the microphone.
“They... they took her. The villagers. They're going to sacrifice her to the sphere.”
“Bastard!” Lester shouted and he cracked his knuckles against the metal pillar. “Why the hell didn't you stop them?”
“Because, Lester! Because she's evil!”
Sebastiens eyes widened. He looked at Russell, who looked like he had been hit by a train. His eyes would have ran blood if they could.
“Evil...” Russell murmured.
“She attracts those goddamned ironbeaks!” The speaker crackled.
“Thats impossible, Lance, and you know it.”
“Its not, I swear!” the speaker groaned and seemed to carry on speaking only with an immense effort of will. “Wherever she goes, the ironbeaks follow!”
Lester turned to those assembled before him. Russell looked confused.
“Russell, the sphere is where the masses assemble. Its... it powers a bunch of stuff around the island. All wires lead to the Sphere.”
He looked at Sebastien, who licked his lips slowly and then spoke.
“I don't think we should go.”
Everyone stared. Russell punched him in the mouth. Sebastien staggered back, blood dribbling down his chin. “How dare you!” Russell shouted. “My daughter is in there!”
Sebastien wiped his chin with his sleeve, and raised his fists. “We all know that you don't give a shit about your daughter.”
how did he know?
“Thats not true!” Russell exclaimed.
“Sebastien-” Lester cried, and Belle drew in her breath. Dresden moved to stop him, but Sebastien batted him away.
“Why the hell would you care for your daughter when you don't care what happens to her family?! How the hell can you claim to love her when you're tearing your family apart?”
Russell stepped forward “What are you trying to say?” Dresden put a comforting hand on Sebastiens shoulder and squeezed to comfort him. “Don't, Seb-”
“Fucking around behind your wifes back!” Sebastien screamed, his face beet red. “Sticking your dick wherever you want! Just because shes not here right now you think you can do what the fuck you like? The hell kind of way is that to raise a child? You're supposed to be sick with worry and you're doing things like that?” He spat on the hard ground and it ran into the ocean and left a trail of cancerous rust. “You don't care what happens to that girl.”
Russells fists were clenched and his nails bit into his palm like he was biting himself. “My wife has been dead for half a year-”
“The hell does that matter?!” Sebastien bawled. He wasn't even looking at Russell. Tears were streaming down his face and he was staring through a haze of hatred so thick all he could see was a prick.
Russell took a deep breath and started “I care very deeply for my daughter-”
“Then go and get her if you care that much! But I won't be party to you ruining your daughters life! I won't see it happen again!”
“Again?” Lester asked.
Sebastien turned to Lester and his eyes were filled with tears. “Lester...” He tried to speak but nothing came out of his throat but garbled chokes. He screwed his eyes tight shut, screamed “I'm so sorry!” and picked up and ran, his shoes pounding on the bronzed earth, ran and ran so it echoed around him. Lester looked behind him in consternation, then turned to the other assembled, their eyes wide.
“Russell. Belle. Dresden. You go ahead to the sphere. I'm sure theres nothing wrong with that kid that a couple of soft words won't fix. We'll be along as soon as we can, but someone needs to get to the sphere new. We'll split up.” He drew a deep breath. “I'll be along with Seb as soon as we're able. I'll knock some sense into him.”
He looked at Russell and placed a hand on his shoulder. “You'll get your daughter back, I swear. I swear to God. I'm gonna save your daughter, and I'm gonna save this island with her, and everything will be alright.” He swallowed. “Everything will be alright again. I'm gonna save everything.” Then he picked up and ran after Sebastien.
“This is it.” Lester stood by Russells side. “These are the beaches. We travel along these to get to Oceanside, where your daughter is.” Russell smiled. He was looking forward to seeing that kid again.
His kid. He needed to remember that, jesus. He was her father. What the hell were they doing here if not saving her? He stopped a moment to think. If he really didn't care about her then he should tell them.
“We're one step closer to saving your daughter. Its not far from here.” Sebastien patted Russells shoulder affectionately then brought it down, bringing Russells ear to his face. “Well?” “Well what?” Russell asked defensively, though he thought he knew what was coming. “Well I told you!” Russell smiled at him, and brought his voice to a whisper. “I know, and I took heed of your warning! But I thought to myself, if thats the kind of girl she is, then she'll be using protection, won't she? She'll be on the pill, won't she?”
Sebastien looked at him quizzically. “Sorry?”
Russell rolled his eyes. “She'll be using contraception, so I'm cool, its all cool, isn't it? I don't have to worry about it.”
“Contra-what?” Sebastien asked.
“Contraception!” Russell answered, warily. “You know! To stop more kids!”
“What would be the point?” Sebastien asked. “Why would she want to stop having a baby? Is that what you do where you come from?”
why would she want to stop having a baby?
“What do you mean, 'why would she want to stop having a baby'? I'm a stranger, pretty much!” He answered, a little desperately, now actually looking at Sebastien. “Of course she wants to stay safe.”
Sebastien laughed. “Russell, every man on this island is sterile! Theres no point in... protecting yourself. Hell, I think the main reason she fucked you was because she knew you could give her a child.” he patted Russell on the back. “But the look on your face says that it was a good lay, right? Thats whats important, right?” There was a knife edge of sarcasm dripping through his sinewy tones. Russell had never heard Sebastien unpleasant before and he didn't like it.
He was left squatting alone on the hard cold beach he had poured his soul into the night before.
She knew you could give her a child
Had what just happened really happened?
Had he been played? Had he just been screwed over by Belle? Or by Sebastien, for telling him. He was happier not knowing and he was pretty sure Belle wouldn't have done...
He felt a hot surge run through him. He couldn't believe it. Everything had disappeared around him. What he had thought was getting over Juliet was running back into her again. A beach. A pregnancy. Another betrayal.
Women.
Lester called for him and he looked up, and made to follow. His feet trod cold along the metal pathways. His breath cut through him in ragged scratches, climbing through his throat with pickaxes. He hated himself for failing again. Ahead he heard a noise, and he jogged to catch up to find Lester, Belle, Sebastien and Dresden searching along the ground again. They searched through thin reeds of waving wires hanging from the ceiling and the ground until Lester called “Don't worry, I got one!” He came out carrying a plastic headset, scratched and rusted from growing in the ground. Russell smiled a moment – he thought that he wouldn't be surprised by anything he found in this world any more. Lester grabbed the end of the headset, and plugged it into a squawking pillar. He rammed the other half onto his head and spat into the mike “Sorry for the delay. Whats the message?”
“Lester?”
Sebastien could have sworn he had heard that voice before. With a jolt he remembered the last time they had gotten a call through this system. Last time it had been good news, but the mans voice was not so jovial this time. His voice cracked like he had been punched in the throat. “Lester, I'm so glad I have you finally! I take it you've heard the news by now?”
“What news?” said Lester.
There was a long pause.
“You haven't heard?”
“Haven't heard what? Tell me!”
“Lester... the village... Oceanside... its a ruin!”
The air went still.
“Its that girl, Lester! Ever since she got here! There was nothing... nothing I could do!”
“Whats happened, goddamnit?” Lester spat into the microphone.
“They... they took her. The villagers. They're going to sacrifice her to the sphere.”
“Bastard!” Lester shouted and he cracked his knuckles against the metal pillar. “Why the hell didn't you stop them?”
“Because, Lester! Because she's evil!”
Sebastiens eyes widened. He looked at Russell, who looked like he had been hit by a train. His eyes would have ran blood if they could.
“Evil...” Russell murmured.
“She attracts those goddamned ironbeaks!” The speaker crackled.
“Thats impossible, Lance, and you know it.”
“Its not, I swear!” the speaker groaned and seemed to carry on speaking only with an immense effort of will. “Wherever she goes, the ironbeaks follow!”
Lester turned to those assembled before him. Russell looked confused.
“Russell, the sphere is where the masses assemble. Its... it powers a bunch of stuff around the island. All wires lead to the Sphere.”
He looked at Sebastien, who licked his lips slowly and then spoke.
“I don't think we should go.”
Everyone stared. Russell punched him in the mouth. Sebastien staggered back, blood dribbling down his chin. “How dare you!” Russell shouted. “My daughter is in there!”
Sebastien wiped his chin with his sleeve, and raised his fists. “We all know that you don't give a shit about your daughter.”
how did he know?
“Thats not true!” Russell exclaimed.
“Sebastien-” Lester cried, and Belle drew in her breath. Dresden moved to stop him, but Sebastien batted him away.
“Why the hell would you care for your daughter when you don't care what happens to her family?! How the hell can you claim to love her when you're tearing your family apart?”
Russell stepped forward “What are you trying to say?” Dresden put a comforting hand on Sebastiens shoulder and squeezed to comfort him. “Don't, Seb-”
“Fucking around behind your wifes back!” Sebastien screamed, his face beet red. “Sticking your dick wherever you want! Just because shes not here right now you think you can do what the fuck you like? The hell kind of way is that to raise a child? You're supposed to be sick with worry and you're doing things like that?” He spat on the hard ground and it ran into the ocean and left a trail of cancerous rust. “You don't care what happens to that girl.”
Russells fists were clenched and his nails bit into his palm like he was biting himself. “My wife has been dead for half a year-”
“The hell does that matter?!” Sebastien bawled. He wasn't even looking at Russell. Tears were streaming down his face and he was staring through a haze of hatred so thick all he could see was a prick.
Russell took a deep breath and started “I care very deeply for my daughter-”
“Then go and get her if you care that much! But I won't be party to you ruining your daughters life! I won't see it happen again!”
“Again?” Lester asked.
Sebastien turned to Lester and his eyes were filled with tears. “Lester...” He tried to speak but nothing came out of his throat but garbled chokes. He screwed his eyes tight shut, screamed “I'm so sorry!” and picked up and ran, his shoes pounding on the bronzed earth, ran and ran so it echoed around him. Lester looked behind him in consternation, then turned to the other assembled, their eyes wide.
“Russell. Belle. Dresden. You go ahead to the sphere. I'm sure theres nothing wrong with that kid that a couple of soft words won't fix. We'll be along as soon as we can, but someone needs to get to the sphere new. We'll split up.” He drew a deep breath. “I'll be along with Seb as soon as we're able. I'll knock some sense into him.”
He looked at Russell and placed a hand on his shoulder. “You'll get your daughter back, I swear. I swear to God. I'm gonna save your daughter, and I'm gonna save this island with her, and everything will be alright.” He swallowed. “Everything will be alright again. I'm gonna save everything.” Then he picked up and ran after Sebastien.
Tuesday, 17 November 2009
Chapter 11: The Dark Trail
She sat herself squarely between the two men on the bench, and exuded an aura of a secret plan, like a wife glaring at a husbands secretary. “So, boys,” she began, and Sebastien groaned, picked up his drink and left to go stare at the bar next to Dresden. “Whats his problem?” Russell asked angrily. “We were talkin' just fine, and then he goes off an-” he squinted at Belle. “Do I smell or something? Is that why he left?” She purred at him “You smell just dandy to me.”
Russell said nothing for a moment.
He was vaguely aware that Belle was flirting with him, sinking through the viscous fog of his drunken brain. He remembered Sebastien warning him that... what was it, “when she says she wants to get to know someone, she means it biblically.” Russells head giggled, because he knew that that meant sex. It had been a while since he had flirted with anyone, but not doing something just cos you've never done it before... well, he used to do shy away from doing shit all the time, but he used to be teetotal as well. Life goes on, he thought to himself. But how to prepare a flirt? His mouth curled into a vapid smile and he thanked her for her compliment, and they sat a short while in the ambient awkwardness that Russell became used to from everybody. He licked his dry, cracked lips and made to speak, but Belle stopped him. “Your names Russell, right?”
“Uh-huh-” Russell slurred.
“Whats your kids name?”
“My- my kid?” what kid?
Oh
Melanie.
“M-Melanie.”
Belle looked at him for a moment, then looked away and heaved a deep sigh. She toyed with her sleeves and bit her lip. If Russell was sober (or a famous film director) he would have noticed she was overacting, but as it stood, he reached over and put his hand on her shoulder. He gazed into her as best he could with the awkward angle and asked, “Are you alright?” Her lip trembled vigorously and she thrust herself away. “Absolutely! I'm not crying!”
Now, Russell could see that from the lack of stains on her cheek, but the fact that she said it with such conviction made it a little weird. “You're crying?” he murmured.
“No!” She stuck her chin up away from him.
“Why are you crying?!” he tried to turn her around, pushing on her beautiful shoulders, but to no avail. “Ben! B-Belle!” he pleaded, beating his fists against her stand-off back. Slowly, she turned. Her eyes burned and swam with the tears of someone who tried really really hard to cry. The redness around her eyes, the tremble of the lip, the tears – she was crying! “You are crying,” he said, a little obviously.
“I... I'm sorry,” she murmered, burying her head into her breasts, “It-Its just...”
“What?” he asked, leaning closer into her.
“Its... its just...”
“What?!” as he leant his face against hers, and felt the wetness of her face on his.
“Oh!” She cried and threw her hands melodramatically into the air. “Its just you remind me so much of...” she seemed to be struggling for words. Was she too overcome by emotion? “...of Bill.”
“Bill? Who's Bill?” Russell asked, entirely non-plussed.
“Bill was my ex-husband.”
Lester, Sebastien and Dresden watched from afar. “What is she doing?” Sebastien asked angrily, beating his bottle into the tabletop.
Dresden said “Maybe she likes him.”
Sebastien glared at him. “Maybe. Or maybe she just wants to get her goddamned rocks off on that poor guy. I tried to warn him!”
Dresden muttered “You got a bad impression of her. She's not so bad.”
Sebastien turned to him. “Oh yeah, and what would you know of it?”
Dresden started angrily, pushing his bench backwards as he stood to throw a punch but Lester threw up his hand to stop them. “She wants a baby.”
Both of them stopped in their tracks, Sebastiens lapel wrapped in Dresdens pinched fists, unbalanced and shaking as they threatened to fall over.
“What do you mean, 'she wants a baby'. Are you serious?” Sebastien asked, almost in a whisper. “Thats...”
Dresden slackened his grip and Sebastien descended.
They all looked at Belle as she seemed to burst into tears.
“That poor girl... It must be hard, with all the men here...”
All three men looked at each other, then down at their own groins.
Somebody coughed.
Belle sniffled a trickle of well-acted snot back into her nose and turned to Russell. “Oh, you must think I'm such a mess...” she mused. She knew he didn't.
He didn't. “I don't. I think you're beautiful.”
She smirked and her eyes narrowed. Now he was in her sights.
“Oh...” and with that she threw her arms round him. Her fingers clutched his neck – she could feel the base of where his spine met his skull. It was like she was inside of him. One arm fell down to his waist and she made to 'fall'. He caught her. He gazed into her eyes and he was in love again, for the first time. He could take her to the beach, and sift the sand through their fingers, and run with her through the grass, and land and get dirty in the mud. They could kiss in the rain, they could touch fingertips, they could rip each other clothes off because clothes weren't important when you both knew there was beautiful, warm skin underneath and run yourself all over her. They could be together and intimate and wonderful forever. He saw it in her eyes, in the way they bled tears. He lifted her up so they faced each other and then nothing happened for a short while. He wondered if there had been anything there but then he saw her lips twitch and felt an electric crackle between hers and his, like they were drawn together. He moved forward urgently and awkwardly and she moved to kiss him as well, but withdrew at the last moment – leaving his lips hanging in the air and feeling the wind run in between them.
“Not here...” she murmured and took his hand and they left the sanctity and safety and security and boredom of the real world behind. His hand exploded at her touch, ripples running along it and up his arm and he felt more alive now than he had felt in years. He could feel every wave and undulation of her hand as it clutched his tightly, the two of them slipping over bronzed earth towards the beach. The sound of lonely feet clapping the ground reverberated through the sky. The sound of waves lapping against metal is different to how it sounds when it slaps sand. Its not so wet, and it sounds more like a struggle. Water through sand seeps, water through metal battles. Nowhere else does the sea clink gently in the wind, like rolls of chain. It was gentle, and vast, and patient. It had to be. Russell saw its lengths and breadths and depths and realised how massive it was. But before he could think on it further he was drawn into a frantic kiss with Belle, who gripped the back of his head and forced him on her. He wrapped his arms round her and they fell together onto the beach. It cracked beneath them. Waves sopped at their feet. She kissed him, hard, and Russells head swam. His body was electricity and his lips were conductors to the most wonderful pleasures. He was aware of all of his body, and longed to become fully aware of hers, the beauty beneath him. He could feel her thrust herself at him under him, and he wanted to explore her in layers. He kissed down her neck, brushing his lips across the nape. She giggled and moaned, and bit her lip as he moved down. He wanted to be completely enveloped in Belle, and never to have to worry about anything ever again. Everything was dangerous and beautiful and in vivid colour and he could do anything.
She kissed his neck, and bit into it with a moan as he moved his hands about her.
His neck burned. It felt like her lips were acid, like his neck was steaming and bubbling where she had left it. It felt like betrayal. He saw in his head, the car, the kiss, the way-
The way he and Jack had followed the car in Jacks, Russell shaking his head over and over. He couldn't believe what was happening. How could she do this to him? How could she cheat on him, fuck him over, kissing that man-
Belles kisses fell lower on him, onto his exposed chest, her chin nuzzled on his stomach-
“Russell, you're over-reacting. I'm sure theres a rational explanation for-”
“You know, Jack, it would be rational to assume that she wouldn't want to be with me. I mean, look at me. Look at what became of us.” Russell looked back at Jack, in the back seat of the car, small and demure, like the car was too big for him.
“What galls me is the cheating. Its like she doesn't respect me enough to tell me when its goddamned over!” He slammed on the steering wheel and the car squeeled out of control, bumping into the next line of traffic.
“Shit! Russell!”
“I know, jesus, Jack! Shut up or get the fuck out of here!” Russell cried as he steered the car back into the right line of traffic. Horns flared up like a symphony behind him as he cracked the glass beside him with a bleeding fist.
“I don't care anymore, Jack, this is it, this is the final goddamned straw.”
Russells head throbbed like a spluttering heartbeat. It flickered and died, and burst with mad activity. His skin crawled, like it wasn't his own, like he was in someone elses body, the body of someone who had a cheating slut of a wife. He couldn't believe it still, though another part of him told him he had always known it. Every phone call he didn't enough about, every time she left the house. Who knew if she was going shopping, she could be being rammed by twelve strangers for all he knew. For all he cared. This was over. This was it.
The same anger welled up in him, the anger of a life wasted and the guilt of a foreign kiss poisoning the nape of his neck.
He hurt, all over. Laying stock still, like a corpse, the body of a man whose will had long since left him. Guilt coursed through him. He no longer needed blood or food or love when he had been motivated solely by guilt since his wife died and before, even. Guilt for his daughter, guilt for his family. It built up inside him, rising from the tips of his toes, flooding his legs, his knees buckling, and as it rose past his waist he became impotent once more and his stomach twisted over and his throat was ripped out of him. The guilt became almost paralytic, like he was having a moral heart attack. His heart flailed inside him and died.
Belle had noticed that Russell had stopped. For a moment she thought he had passed out or something. She poked him and looked curiously at him. “Russell? Is something the matter?”
Her voice was like nails on a chalkboard, but he searched out for her in the fog of his brain and groped for her. She was the way out of this. She was the key. He could power through this. And with that he grabbed her wrists and split them apart, forcing her open. He kissed her, roughly, passionately, a different man to the one he was before. He ripped the lapel of her shirt, and ripped her asunder, her flesh pouring out from her clothes in torrents and he was with her and he could force himself through the guilt, no matter how tightly it pulled at him.
Russell said nothing for a moment.
He was vaguely aware that Belle was flirting with him, sinking through the viscous fog of his drunken brain. He remembered Sebastien warning him that... what was it, “when she says she wants to get to know someone, she means it biblically.” Russells head giggled, because he knew that that meant sex. It had been a while since he had flirted with anyone, but not doing something just cos you've never done it before... well, he used to do shy away from doing shit all the time, but he used to be teetotal as well. Life goes on, he thought to himself. But how to prepare a flirt? His mouth curled into a vapid smile and he thanked her for her compliment, and they sat a short while in the ambient awkwardness that Russell became used to from everybody. He licked his dry, cracked lips and made to speak, but Belle stopped him. “Your names Russell, right?”
“Uh-huh-” Russell slurred.
“Whats your kids name?”
“My- my kid?” what kid?
Oh
Melanie.
“M-Melanie.”
Belle looked at him for a moment, then looked away and heaved a deep sigh. She toyed with her sleeves and bit her lip. If Russell was sober (or a famous film director) he would have noticed she was overacting, but as it stood, he reached over and put his hand on her shoulder. He gazed into her as best he could with the awkward angle and asked, “Are you alright?” Her lip trembled vigorously and she thrust herself away. “Absolutely! I'm not crying!”
Now, Russell could see that from the lack of stains on her cheek, but the fact that she said it with such conviction made it a little weird. “You're crying?” he murmured.
“No!” She stuck her chin up away from him.
“Why are you crying?!” he tried to turn her around, pushing on her beautiful shoulders, but to no avail. “Ben! B-Belle!” he pleaded, beating his fists against her stand-off back. Slowly, she turned. Her eyes burned and swam with the tears of someone who tried really really hard to cry. The redness around her eyes, the tremble of the lip, the tears – she was crying! “You are crying,” he said, a little obviously.
“I... I'm sorry,” she murmered, burying her head into her breasts, “It-Its just...”
“What?” he asked, leaning closer into her.
“Its... its just...”
“What?!” as he leant his face against hers, and felt the wetness of her face on his.
“Oh!” She cried and threw her hands melodramatically into the air. “Its just you remind me so much of...” she seemed to be struggling for words. Was she too overcome by emotion? “...of Bill.”
“Bill? Who's Bill?” Russell asked, entirely non-plussed.
“Bill was my ex-husband.”
Lester, Sebastien and Dresden watched from afar. “What is she doing?” Sebastien asked angrily, beating his bottle into the tabletop.
Dresden said “Maybe she likes him.”
Sebastien glared at him. “Maybe. Or maybe she just wants to get her goddamned rocks off on that poor guy. I tried to warn him!”
Dresden muttered “You got a bad impression of her. She's not so bad.”
Sebastien turned to him. “Oh yeah, and what would you know of it?”
Dresden started angrily, pushing his bench backwards as he stood to throw a punch but Lester threw up his hand to stop them. “She wants a baby.”
Both of them stopped in their tracks, Sebastiens lapel wrapped in Dresdens pinched fists, unbalanced and shaking as they threatened to fall over.
“What do you mean, 'she wants a baby'. Are you serious?” Sebastien asked, almost in a whisper. “Thats...”
Dresden slackened his grip and Sebastien descended.
They all looked at Belle as she seemed to burst into tears.
“That poor girl... It must be hard, with all the men here...”
All three men looked at each other, then down at their own groins.
Somebody coughed.
Belle sniffled a trickle of well-acted snot back into her nose and turned to Russell. “Oh, you must think I'm such a mess...” she mused. She knew he didn't.
He didn't. “I don't. I think you're beautiful.”
She smirked and her eyes narrowed. Now he was in her sights.
“Oh...” and with that she threw her arms round him. Her fingers clutched his neck – she could feel the base of where his spine met his skull. It was like she was inside of him. One arm fell down to his waist and she made to 'fall'. He caught her. He gazed into her eyes and he was in love again, for the first time. He could take her to the beach, and sift the sand through their fingers, and run with her through the grass, and land and get dirty in the mud. They could kiss in the rain, they could touch fingertips, they could rip each other clothes off because clothes weren't important when you both knew there was beautiful, warm skin underneath and run yourself all over her. They could be together and intimate and wonderful forever. He saw it in her eyes, in the way they bled tears. He lifted her up so they faced each other and then nothing happened for a short while. He wondered if there had been anything there but then he saw her lips twitch and felt an electric crackle between hers and his, like they were drawn together. He moved forward urgently and awkwardly and she moved to kiss him as well, but withdrew at the last moment – leaving his lips hanging in the air and feeling the wind run in between them.
“Not here...” she murmured and took his hand and they left the sanctity and safety and security and boredom of the real world behind. His hand exploded at her touch, ripples running along it and up his arm and he felt more alive now than he had felt in years. He could feel every wave and undulation of her hand as it clutched his tightly, the two of them slipping over bronzed earth towards the beach. The sound of lonely feet clapping the ground reverberated through the sky. The sound of waves lapping against metal is different to how it sounds when it slaps sand. Its not so wet, and it sounds more like a struggle. Water through sand seeps, water through metal battles. Nowhere else does the sea clink gently in the wind, like rolls of chain. It was gentle, and vast, and patient. It had to be. Russell saw its lengths and breadths and depths and realised how massive it was. But before he could think on it further he was drawn into a frantic kiss with Belle, who gripped the back of his head and forced him on her. He wrapped his arms round her and they fell together onto the beach. It cracked beneath them. Waves sopped at their feet. She kissed him, hard, and Russells head swam. His body was electricity and his lips were conductors to the most wonderful pleasures. He was aware of all of his body, and longed to become fully aware of hers, the beauty beneath him. He could feel her thrust herself at him under him, and he wanted to explore her in layers. He kissed down her neck, brushing his lips across the nape. She giggled and moaned, and bit her lip as he moved down. He wanted to be completely enveloped in Belle, and never to have to worry about anything ever again. Everything was dangerous and beautiful and in vivid colour and he could do anything.
She kissed his neck, and bit into it with a moan as he moved his hands about her.
His neck burned. It felt like her lips were acid, like his neck was steaming and bubbling where she had left it. It felt like betrayal. He saw in his head, the car, the kiss, the way-
The way he and Jack had followed the car in Jacks, Russell shaking his head over and over. He couldn't believe what was happening. How could she do this to him? How could she cheat on him, fuck him over, kissing that man-
Belles kisses fell lower on him, onto his exposed chest, her chin nuzzled on his stomach-
“Russell, you're over-reacting. I'm sure theres a rational explanation for-”
“You know, Jack, it would be rational to assume that she wouldn't want to be with me. I mean, look at me. Look at what became of us.” Russell looked back at Jack, in the back seat of the car, small and demure, like the car was too big for him.
“What galls me is the cheating. Its like she doesn't respect me enough to tell me when its goddamned over!” He slammed on the steering wheel and the car squeeled out of control, bumping into the next line of traffic.
“Shit! Russell!”
“I know, jesus, Jack! Shut up or get the fuck out of here!” Russell cried as he steered the car back into the right line of traffic. Horns flared up like a symphony behind him as he cracked the glass beside him with a bleeding fist.
“I don't care anymore, Jack, this is it, this is the final goddamned straw.”
Russells head throbbed like a spluttering heartbeat. It flickered and died, and burst with mad activity. His skin crawled, like it wasn't his own, like he was in someone elses body, the body of someone who had a cheating slut of a wife. He couldn't believe it still, though another part of him told him he had always known it. Every phone call he didn't enough about, every time she left the house. Who knew if she was going shopping, she could be being rammed by twelve strangers for all he knew. For all he cared. This was over. This was it.
The same anger welled up in him, the anger of a life wasted and the guilt of a foreign kiss poisoning the nape of his neck.
He hurt, all over. Laying stock still, like a corpse, the body of a man whose will had long since left him. Guilt coursed through him. He no longer needed blood or food or love when he had been motivated solely by guilt since his wife died and before, even. Guilt for his daughter, guilt for his family. It built up inside him, rising from the tips of his toes, flooding his legs, his knees buckling, and as it rose past his waist he became impotent once more and his stomach twisted over and his throat was ripped out of him. The guilt became almost paralytic, like he was having a moral heart attack. His heart flailed inside him and died.
Belle had noticed that Russell had stopped. For a moment she thought he had passed out or something. She poked him and looked curiously at him. “Russell? Is something the matter?”
Her voice was like nails on a chalkboard, but he searched out for her in the fog of his brain and groped for her. She was the way out of this. She was the key. He could power through this. And with that he grabbed her wrists and split them apart, forcing her open. He kissed her, roughly, passionately, a different man to the one he was before. He ripped the lapel of her shirt, and ripped her asunder, her flesh pouring out from her clothes in torrents and he was with her and he could force himself through the guilt, no matter how tightly it pulled at him.
Sunday, 15 November 2009
Chapter 10: As Dead As Leaves
They walked. And they walked. As they walked Lester began to tell Russell about the island. What did he want to know? Everything. He learned about how they ate first, as it had been a couple of days. “Heres a good spot!” Lester said to him, and the group stopped. Russell stared at what they had stopped at. It barely seemed possible. In front of them was a vending machine, buried in the hillside. He looked across at Lester and grinned. “This is a joke, right?”
“What do you mean?” Sebastien asked. “Its not a joke, its really easy to use – look, I'll show you-” and with that he began to search around on the ground. He found a wire hanging out of a crack and grinned. “Here we go-” and ripped it out. Dangling from the bottom was a coin – a pound coin. It glimmered darkly in the evening light. “And then you just put it in this slot,” he said, inserting the pound coin.
He chose a Yumyum bar, clicking 3-C into the machine and out it dropped. He ate it hungrily, and discarded the wrapper onto the ground. Russell tensed. “Aren't you going to throw it away?” He asked tersely. “Why would I do that?” Sebastien asked confusedly, and he pointed down at the wrapper. A group of little creatures had gathered around the wrapper. They were shaped like a ring, with a propellor in their midriff and little legs. They took turns squatting on the wrapper, ripping it to shreds, then they shared a feast of shavings. Russell gaped. “The only thing is,” Sebastien continued, “Is that whenever you do this it makes waste, and nothing eats that stuff.” He pointed at a large pile of silver coins Russell had failed to notice. He squatted himself and looked at them, and saw a pile of soot-blackened 10, 20 and 5p's. He grinned and took some of the silver, and put it into the machine. Belle shouted out “What the hell do you think you're doing? You'll jam it, you idiot!” But she was cut short as another Yumyum bar fell out of the dispenser at the bottom.
Nobody moved a muscle.
“That... how did you-” Sebastien spluttered. “How could you have been sure that was going to happen?” Lester cried, advancing on Russell. “This is the only vender for about two miles. Theres a village further down the road which relies on this thing! They might have starved if that hadn't worked!”
Russell was dumbfounded. “It always works like this where I come from!” Lester looked as if he wanted to hit him. “Food is valuable here, Russell. You can't mess with it...”
He paused for a moment. “Then again... its not like theres an infinite number of coins in the universe. This discovery could be really important, for when we can't find any more golds. Show me again how it works?” And Lester squatted next to Russell and was taught about the value of coinage.
Further along the road he was taught about water (“It comes out of these taps here, y'see? But for the love of god don't get any on the ground. If we spill much more the entire area around the tap could split and fall into the Below..”) and clothes (“We call them 'knitters'. Cos they knit. No idea where they get the wool from...”). With time they got to a small village called 'Moran' and decided to hold down the fort for the night. Russell entered and marvelled. It was beautiful, in a way, the same way a deserted building could be beautiful, Chernobyl could be beautiful, the leftovers of a gang war could be beautiful. It was essentially a shanty-town – people had utilised some of the animals in the area as saws to cut sections from the beach and collect them into make-shift houses, where they slept. The houses rusted and croaked in the wind, as this was one of the highest points on the island. People spent most of their time outside, as their houses were decrepit and smelled of the sea. Russell smelt the sea and let it fill him. It trickled down his nose and sank into his pores. The pungence of the seaweed which infested Brighton beaches had gone and left only the rather high and cold smell of rust to mingle with the salty tang of the sea. He licked his lips. He had forgotten how much he had missed the sea. He could feel it all over him. The sea really was taking over this place. As they descended into the village, Russell realised how ram-shackle it actually was. The people looked happy enough – they were lean, from their meager diet, and tough. A wiry people, they imitated their landscape to the nth degree. But the houses were flakes, flakes of rust hung together with netting and the stink of the place. It seemed viscous enough to act as a glue, in any case.
A couple of the houses were more substantial than the average rust-shack, but Russell was disappointed when it was into one of these ginger-delicate houses he was led into. He was awkward about entering, like he couldn't touch the sides or it would fall apart. Lester apparently was due a favour by the man who owned this house, so they would be staying here for the night then heading onto the moors in the morning (the quickest way to the village Melanie was staying in). He was all for not leaving the hut, but Belle dragged him up. “C'mon, theres a bar further in!” she said happily. “I'm really not-” began Russell but she cut him off. “Absolutely not, theres no better way to get to know team-mates!” and she hoisted him up, ignoring his cries of tiredness. He slumped, defeated, then headed off after them into the darkening night. But before he could get too far, Sebastien stopped him. “You should probably know that when Belle says that she means to get to know someone, she means it in the biblical sense.” Russell said nothing, but looked after the disappearing redhead. “Is there a problem with that?” His mouth was wide and grinning but his heart burned when he said that... he remembered that disappearing car, and the wet stain of Juliet's lipstick on another man's neck. He gritted his teeth and battered through his guilt. She was dead. She'd been dead for two or three months now. Everyone else had gotten over it. Why the hell couldn't he?
His mouth carried on without him. “I mean, you would, wouldn't you?” Sebastien looked down, scarlet. Russell wanted to get away from the nerve he had evidently stomped all over, and continued along a different thread as they continued walking. “So how come you guys are working together for this?”
Sebastien smiled. “I've been with Lester as long as I can remember. My parents were killed a long time ago – I can't have been older than five. Lester said that he found he wandering around up on those moors over there,” and he pointed over the hill. “I've been with him pretty much ever since. He taught me about the island. I think, apart from him, I know the most about the island here. Even so...”
Sebastien looked sheepishly over at Russell. “I don't even know why I'm telling you this. You must have the sort of face you can tell a secret to.” Russell raised an eyebrow and Sebastien continued. “But I never knew about... about that thing with the bomb. He never told me it was him who did it. He's never taken responsibility for it before.” He looked ahead, misty-eyed. “He must finally be beginning to accept it.”
Russell wasn't sure what to say. “Thats a good thing, though, right?”
“I guess,” said Sebastien. They continued to walk in silence a while.
It was later. Russell wasn't sure if his head was because of the tiredness or the alcohol. Either way, he was a different person. He asked the bartender again if he would show him how he poured the elixer – he was fascinated by it, even if he only tolerated the drink (it stung worse than anything he had tried before). The bartender rolled his eyes and left his line of vision for a moment before returning with a wriggling, spiked creature which waved as it moved, because its rear end was a syringe filled with a red-pink liquid. The bartender held the fist-sized creature upside down, and cracked its hind-quarters against a funny corkscrew style thing in the table in front of him. It squeezed the creature dry like a lemon. After it had been drained, the creature was dropped and landed hard on the ground, before stumbling away, one of its legs not working properly. Russell laughed raucously, clapping his hands and Sebastien laughed with him. Russell didn't care for anything right now except his new friends and his next drink. Melanie could go hang, he couldn't remember the last time he had had fun since that slab of meat had been born. What had she done here but make him worry?
He thrust his daughter from his mind and continued to watch the liquid as it was distilled, enthralled. Lester watched him a moment, then turned to talk with Belle. Dresden sat alone further down the bar. He took his drinking seriously and solemnly, keeping away from other people as he did it. He liked to concentrate on it. Lester said to Belle “so what is it?”
“What?” she answered distractedly. “What is it about him?” He asked slyly.
“Who?”
“You know who! You've been looking at him since we found him.”
“What, Russell?” she asked. “Have I?”
He laughed. “Don't tell me you haven't noticed!”
“Well, I'm not ashamed of it,” and she giggled. “I mean, he's not a bad sort, is he? I mean, once he's loosened up.” They both stopped to look at him and Sebastien high five over some long-forgotten in-joke.
“It took some plying, thats for sure. At least he's enjoying himself for once. I'm surprised he can – I'd be sick with worry for that girl, if it was me.” Lester smiled at him. “I envy him, having a family like that.”
“My thoughts exactly,” said Belle, and she eyed him hungrily.
“Belle, you know perfectly well that people can't concieve on this island.”
She looked at him and for the first time he saw it in her eyes, a madness which only came out when her eyeballs were dripping with alcohol.
“Maybe its just the men here. He comes from a place where the men aren't castrated by definition. Just by virtue of his birthplace he's manlier than everyone else here.”
Lester grinned. “Even Dresden?”
“Even Dresden. He can bring life into the universe. With nothing more than himself and a partner. How much more goddamned powerful can you be?” She sipped her drink. “Any bozo can kill someone. It takes something a bit more special to do the opposite.”
He smiled at her. “You really believe that?”
“Absolutely. If we can stop the decay of the island by me seducing that guy then I see no reason not to try. Hold my drink.” And with that she passed off her drink to Lester before he could say a word and advanced towards the drinking, happy couple.
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