Remember Tomorrow (23 page)

Looking over his shoulder at the now distant revelers, Ryan took the wooden slat bridge and maneuvered it so that it swiveled over across the divide. It was made of a heavy wood to take great weight, and his tendons and muscles strained and popped as he heaved it around. It was at least a two-person task, but he had no option.

As it settled on the small strip of dirt in front of the door, Ryan heaved a sigh of relief. His arms and thighs ached and he let them drop for a second, breathing deeply to allow oxygen back into his bloodstream. He walked slowly across the wooden bridge, testing its strength and security with each step. It stayed firm.

Ryan was now acutely aware of his exposed position should any of the Nagasaki revelers stray from the fire. He looked over his shoulder, scanning the immediate area. All was quiet. He took the bar in both hands, testing its weight before gently lifting it, not wanting to scrape the metal of the bar against either the wood of the doors, or the metal of the retaining brackets, making any kind of noise that could attract attention to his activity.

His aching muscles protested, but he held the bar firm, gently lifting it so that he was able to clear the danger area and lower it to the ground.

Not knowing what to expect, he took hold of the doors and eased them open. As he did so, two things hit him. The first was a dim light that seemed all the brighter for piercing complete darkness. The inside of the barn was illuminated by a low tallow light that flickered and could undoubtedly be seen from the center of the settlement. Ryan pushed the door closed again, so that he blocked the light. He would have to be careful how he entered, cutting the escape of that light to a minimum.

And he would also have to take a few deep breaths before entering, allowing him to breathe only shallowly once inside. For the other thing to hit him had been the stench that escaped as soon as the doors were opened. A combination of charnel house and sewer, it made Ryan fear for what may be within.

But there was only the one way to find that out. Taking one quick glance behind him to check that it was safe, he pulled the door open a crack and slipped himself through the crack, hurriedly closing the door again.

Inside, he despaired of finding anything or anyone that could tell him anything of any use. In fact, he despaired of finding anyone alive. For the stench hit him like a physical object and was the result of the carnage within.

The barn was lit by three tallow lamps that were suspended from brackets hammered into support struts around the central section of the floor. There was an upper level that disappeared into gloom, but it was the filth around the center that took his attention.

The straw scattered as a floor covering was old, sodden with urine and covered in feces. It was also covered in the remains of bowls of slop stew, and stains that could only be blood. There were also human remains: body parts, intestines. Hands and feet were visible in the mess, some almost mummified, some seemingly quite fresh. Hanging from nails up into the roof, attached to the stanchions that held the tallow lights but above and beyond their feeble beams, he could see round objects that were virtually indistinguishable, but…could they be severed heads?

The barn was used as a slaughter and trophy house. Whoever came in through the heavy doors stood no chance of ever getting out alive. The whole exercise had been pointless. With a sigh, trying to ignore the sickened churning of his stomach, Ryan turned to leave.

It was then that he heard the rustling, far off into the darkened depths of the barn. Rats? No, it was too loud, too full a sound to be something that small. Aware that he could not use a blaster for fear of alerting anyone to his presence, Ryan slipped the panga from the sheath on his thigh, the blade gleaming dully in the fallow light.

Scanning the edge of the darkness with his good eye, he could see no signs of movement.

“C’mon, if you’re there, then attack me. If not, then I want to talk to you.”

“Why?”

Ryan was startled. It wasn’t just that his hidden companion had spoken, but it was the sound of the voice. Cracked, weary, almost hushed by strain. In just one word, the speaker had expressed pain and suffering that had driven him almost beyond endurance. It was a genuine question. Why the hell should he come out of hiding and face a man with a deadly weapon, especially when it sounded as though he had no strength left to do more than crawl.

“Why haven’t you come for me?” the voice continued.

“Because I didn’t know you were there,” Ryan replied simply. “Because I assumed this was just a slaughterhouse.”

“It is,” the voice said quietly, seemingly unable to speak at anything other than the one pitch. “It’s just that they do it slowly. Have to have their fun first,” it continued, pitch rising hysterically—or as much as it could manage—on the word
fun.

“Listen, I don’t have much time,” Ryan said urgently, taking a gamble. It was true. He had little time—for himself, for his people and for the poor speaker who sounded as though he may be on the verge of madness. “I’ll level with you. We were captured by these freaks, too. The only reason we aren’t in here is because they want us to help them mount a raid with a stolen wag. Then, they say, we’ll be let free. I’d trust Buckley as far as I could throw the fat fucker, but we’ve gone along because we’re outnumbered. What we need is information.”

He stopped, as he could hear a small, choking sound from the pool of darkness that held the speaker. It was either a sob or a laugh or perhaps even both. He waited until it had subsided and then was about to continue when the voice broke the darkness.

“You think that’s gonna help you? Listen, if I was you I’d just run like hell. Or hope you get chilled in the raid so that they don’t bring you back here. Do you have any idea what they do to us when they get us in here?”

“I think I might,” Ryan said slowly, surveying the carnage around.

“They’re the lucky ones,” the voice said bitterly. “I wish I was with them right now. I figure it won’t be long, but…”

“I’ve seen what they do to each other, I can make a guess,” Ryan said gently.

“No…no, you can’t,” the voice said with an unexpected venom. “You couldn’t even begin to imagine it unless you’d had to go through it. What they do to each other is just playing compared to what they do here. Any men they catch have to have sex with their women, and any women get raped by their men. And if they have men and women they catch, then we have to have sex with each other. They want kids, see, otherwise the ville will die. Tell me something, how many kids do you see out there?”

Ryan furrowed his brow. It was a good point. He couldn’t recall seeing any during their enforced stay. “None,” he answered simply.

“Exactly. You ask me, these inbreeds can’t have kids anymore and they use any outlanders they can get to try and have kids. And if they don’t get results, then they get bored and that’s when they start to get vicious. They play these games, see, how much any of us can take. How we act when we’re getting hurt or when anyone else is getting hurt. They ripped Malone’s guts out in front of us—he tried to hold them as they fell out of his belly, tried to grab them as they spilled over his hands. It was like trying to catch a whole load of eels that wouldn’t stay still. And I never realized that they’d make so much steam as they came out.”

The hidden voice was getting lost in his memories, his tone changing and becoming more distant. Now that Ryan was pretty sure of the fate that awaited the companions after the raid—assuming they got out in one piece—he needed to get some more details. But it was going to be hard to interrupt the hidden voice, who was now lost in a reverie of awful imaginings.

“Stacey was the next. They all raped her but she wouldn’t get pregnant. I figure those bastards are all sterile. So they cut off her hands and feet, burned the wounds so she stopped bleeding, then raped her again. Then they cut off her head and used it to throw at us. We had to catch it, or else we got cut or lost something of our own. Crazy bastards, laughing as they watched.”

The horrors that the voice had witnessed went through Ryan’s head. In his mind’s eye he could see them and it made him wince in sympathy for what the man had seen. The wonder of it was that he wasn’t totally mad already. But despite this, Ryan had other priorities and he had to press the man, change the direction of his thoughts.

“Listen, show yourself to me. Come into the light and I’ll try and help you get the hell out of here. They’re too busy to think about you today or tomorrow. You tell me what I need to save our hides and I’ll try and help you save yours. No promises—you’ll be on your own. But at least you’ll have a chance.”

There was a long pause. Ryan scanned the darkness in the direction he had first heard the shuffling that preceded the voice. There was nothing. Taking a chance, he resheathed the panga, which had previously been dangling in his palm. This gesture seemed to have an effect, as he heard shuffling again and the source of the voice moved into the light. He was emaciated, with sores and open wounds across his body. His shirt was in ribbons and his combat fatigues were ripped and torn. He had no boots on his feet and Ryan could see some of the toenails were missing. One of the man’s eyes was cloudy, but the other was clear as he fixed it on Ryan.

“I’m Ryan Cawdor. Me and four others were trekking across the wasteland when they found us. Who are you?”

The man nodded an acknowledgement. “I’m Cyrus Gill and I was a driver for Trader Simms until the wag blew a tire when we were on our way to Duma. Simms, the stupe bastard, couldn’t wait to get to Duma ’cause he had some grens to sell to the baron for big jack, so he left us. Then they came out of nowhere, like rats, and took us.”

“It’s your wag we’ll be using. We’re supposed to join a convoy and go into the ville on the back of it—will it be your convoy?”

Gill shook his head. “Too soon. Simms is probably still screwing gaudies and snorting jolt on his profits. But there’s always a lot of convoys. It’s a big stop in these parts. These crazy fuckers taking you right into the ville and not ripping off the convoy outside? Man, you ain’t ever coming back,” he said with a sad and grim laugh.

“Why? What’s it like in Duma?”

Despite the situation, a wry grin cracked Gill’s features. “Listen, it’s the richest ville for hundreds of miles. Xander’s got it all wrapped up. Half what he pays the convoys for their trade he takes back from jolt, booze and gaudies. Man’s smart and all smart barons have a good sec, right? The place is guarded and wired all around. If you start firing off in there, they’ll have you outnumbered fifty to one and chilled before you can even say your name. You want my advice, Ryan Cawdor? Don’t go—though it’d be buying the farm quicker and with less pain than living in here,” he added, indicating the barn around him.

“Buckley ain’t as stupe as mebbe you think—he’s keeping two of our people back with him, kind of a fail-safe, I guess,” Ryan said quickly. “How we get the hell out of here I’ll have to work out triple quick. But you…you up to making a run for it?”

“Do bears shit in the woods, boy?” Gill snapped back. “I dunno how far I’ll get, but if you can guarantee me no sec to mow me down, then I’ll run like I never have. I’d rather buy the farm out there than rot in here and play their next game.”

Ryan gestured and Gill shuffled closer. He was limping and was obviously weak, but seemed to have no serious impairments.

“Why did they leave you till last?” Ryan asked out of curiosity—and perhaps a touch of suspicion.

“Lucky, I guess,” Gill replied bitterly.

Ryan looked around the barn. “You’ll need boots…” His eye caught a pair hidden under the filthy straw. He reached down and picked them up, then nearly dropped them in surprise when he realized that they still had severed feet in them, the blood congealed and dried on the leather.

Biting down the bile, the one-eyed man reached into each boot and pulled out the rotting flesh and bone, dropping it on the floor of the barn. He handed the boots over to Gill, who kept his face impassive. Who could tell what had to be going through his mind? He pushed his feet into the boots and winced.

“Must’ve been Stacey’s. She did have little feet.” He grimaced without a trace of humor.

“How many of you were there, for fuck’s sake?” Ryan asked, looking at the carnage around.

“Only five. The rest of this shit was here when we got here. Guess they’re not the world’s best housekeepers,” Gill managed with a sickly grin.

Ryan ignored the gallows humor. “C’mon, we’d better get going,” he said shortly, unwilling to hang around the barn any longer than necessary.

Moving the door as little as possible to allow them to squeeze through, Ryan then closed the doors firmly, and carefully put the bar back into place. He looked around to see if there was any movement toward the barn from the center of the ville. The dwellers were still too occupied to notice.

The two men made their way carefully back over the wooden bridge, and Ryan heaved it back into place, so that it would seem to the casual observer that no one had been over the moat that night. He looked up to see Gill staring into the center of the ville with undisguised hatred in his face.

“Fuckers,” he spit, “enjoying themselves when they reduced us to meat.”

“Don’t knock it right now,” Ryan whispered. “They’re giving you the chance to get out by doing that.”

Without another word, he led the limping Gill around the moat and toward the back end of Nagasaki, away from the center of the ville. It was quiet there and dark, with the only signs of life being the slack-jawed, sloe-eyed animals that passed for livestock, watching the two men pass by with only the briefest of interest. They reached the edge of the ville without any interruption and paused at the edge of the farthest building.