The Forsaken - The Apocalypse Trilogy: Book Two (2 page)

“Oh, shit! Harry, hold that bitch. Knock her
down for Christ sake,” Yellowskin barked at the man who held the
woman. Dawn bit at the hand that gripped her arm, but it twisted
away from her teeth. She felt the fingers slip from her leg and
wrap around her other arm. Her captor pulled her wrists back until
she screamed.

“What this?” Yellowskin squatted in front of
Dawn. His penis was out and its mottled purple head almost touched
the ground. “She look like a midget, but she no midget!”

“Know what I think?” her captor speculated.
“Don’t laugh or nothing, but I think she one of them forever kids.
They say there’s no more, but look at the skin!”

“Well she’s no fucking elf.” Yellowskin wiped
a grimy hand across his forehead. It came away bloody. “Look what
you done now, you bad itsy bitchy. Hit old Jimmy with rock. And he
only out to grill up a fun piece of pussy over there.” He laughed
as Dawn struggled. “Now, you been bad, itsy bitch. We got to teach
you lesson…”

“Maybe she worth money. Think Authority want
her? Maybe Prime?” The thin man squeezed her arms. “If she one of
them kiddies then she rare as gold. Feel the skin!”

“I figure she be worth money if we careful
how we
teach
her.” Yellowskin laughed sickly then slid a big
calloused hand over Dawn’s ribs. “And she well fed too… plump and
firm.” He looked back down the alley to where the other thin man
struggled with the woman. “Hold that bitch, Harry!” Dawn heard a
muffled affirmative. Then Yellowskin turned back to her, both of
his hands came together between his legs with fingers wriggling.
“Maybe we double the fun…”

“That’s enough!” The order rolled up the
alleyway. Yellowskin turned quickly rising.

“Shit!” he bellowed. “This fucking alley is
busy!” He took a step or two forward. Dawn tried to see past him.
“What you want?”

“Let her go!”

Dawn recognized the voice.

“Mr. Jay!” she screamed. A dirty hand slapped
over her mouth. Dawn bit down on the thumb. Heavy fluid sprayed
into her mouth. The thin man shrieked, released his grip. Her feet
hit the ground flashing. Yellowskin threw two big arms out to catch
her, but youthful nerves and muscle easily dodged them. In seconds
she was wrapped around Mr. Jay’s denim-covered leg. She looked up
at him, tears in her eyes; but his gaze stayed steady on
Yellowskin. Then her friend turned to the shadow where the third
man struggled with the woman on the ground.

“You too.” Mr. Jay’s voice was even and calm.
“Let her go.”

“Fuck off!” the prostrate form grunted.

Mr. Jay slipped a finger under Dawn’s chin.
His green eyes stared intensely into her face. The brim of his top
hat framed his head like a halo. “Go now!” Seeing her inner
hesitation, Mr. Jay shook his head. His eyes burned toward Dawn’s
attackers before he repeated. “The way you came, Dawn.
Now
!”

Dawn started backing away. She could see
Yellowskin approaching from the darkness of the alley. His large
hands were folded into heavy fists; his round blotchy belly was
thrust out like a battering ram. “So that your little piece of pie?
Take her and fuck off. We understand. We all need some from time to
time fur or no.” Dawn turned. After ten steps she heard Mr. Jay
speak—his tone was even and calm.

“I’m sick of people like you…”

The forever child ran back toward the
hideout. As darkness closed around her something like lightning
banged against the bricks.

3 – The City of Light

Perpetual cloud obscuring the City of Light’s
upper reaches discharged constant oily gray drizzle from its leaden
interior. The rain frothed darkly as it struck the oblique asphalt
Skyway ramps before rushing down them in a dirty black torrent. A
roar echoed up from the shadowed streets far, far below. Since the
Change the rain had been almost constant. The City’s face was
scrubbed raw.

So tireless was its onslaught that the City’s
inhabitants had come to predict their daily lives based solely on
the type of rain that would fall. During a three-week period in
October, Ocean rains boiled in from old Atlantic, the Eastern Sea.
Orange and yellow dust suspended in sheets of ugly, red-veined
cloud that flashed lightning identified these. Where they
originated and of what they were comprised none knew. But for their
duration, bullets of highly acidic, slightly radioactive rain
sheered through the days, the drops as hard as granite.

Unpredictable Winter rains howled in from the
north rarely, but when they wanted entered unopposed. Harsh, cold
winds splashed a black slush onto the myriad streets and thundered
against the high-rise glass. Accompanying rapid freezing and
thawing crumbled the City’s bricks and streets to ruin. Because of
this it was said that the Winter rain was harder on the City than
on those who lived within its walls.

The same could not be said for what the
spring brought. On occasion Killing rains would come. Terrifying
storms screamed up from the south driving tidal waves before them.
Hurricane force winds turned the Eastern Sea to froth and mist as
the sky roared like apocalypse. People died during the Killing
rains—the lowest sections of the City from Zero to Two flooded in
areas despite the seawalls, and the ocean snatched people from the
sidewalks.

Of the varieties of rain that fell upon the
City, two were most common. The first came in on a wind from the
west. Desert rain from the wilderness collected over the City in
thin gray clouds. They would shed some drizzle, and sporadic
sprinkles constantly. The Desert rain accounted for those rare days
when no rain came at all. The second was the most common of the
City’s precipitation. Nine times out of ten Standing rain was what
fell from the sky. It needed no season and bore no special
vehemence. Clouds collected heavily over the metropolis, all wind
would cease, and a steady, endless rain descended on the cityscape
like a dark curtain.

This was the first day of a Standing rain
that fell on the heels of three blissful days of Desert. The cloud
cover was low, wrapping the tallest buildings in darkness where
they protruded from the Carapace—a mammoth patchwork of waterproof
materials inlaid with intricate channels and reservoirs. It was
added decades before to funnel the tons of water that fell each day
and to protect construction workers who coaxed the city skyward. It
was dark and gleamed dully with moisture. Humped in places, massive
sections of convex graphite and plastic were interconnected by
cables and constantly winched upward to keep pace with the City’s
growth. It offered poor protection, being tattered in places by
savage winds, and was under constant repair. It looked like the
broken shell of an ancient monster.

Life in the City was hidden. At first glance,
the City of Light’s name appeared to be a misnomer since the glass
skins of its many skyscrapers reflected weak gray in the daytime
and flickering streetlight at night. At second, having gauged the
spirits of its inhabitants, the name would be exposed as a
marketing ploy and little more. Perhaps there had been a time when
light of a physical or metaphysical nature existed there; but no
more.

Beneath the Carapace, the City contained
within its soaring gothic arches the very best and last of what
humanity had to offer the world after the Change. True there were
other cities, other living strongholds in what remained of Europe,
Asia, Africa and others; but none could challenge the grandeur that
the City boasted. The last of the best resided there, as safe as
any could be in the madness that life had become. Most believed
that the end had arrived—that human history had halted, others
thought some new and terrible age free of human domination was upon
them all. Only the insane, faithful and foolish still believed that
the Change heralded a new beginning. But the Change had come, and
in time so had the City.

The City of Light was the offspring of the
dead island-city that now protruded from the Eastern Sea some few
miles from shore. This had been flooded out by the storms that
followed the Change, and never recovered. Global Warming
accelerated not long after the Millennium turned, when the clouds
had rolled in, the rain began to fall, and the waters of the earth
rose up to permanently drown the world’s coastal cities.

The City of Light had its humble beginning as
a mainland borough of the metropolis now submerged. The jagged
corpse of its parent could still be seen rising above the water.
Though it was impossible to lay the blame on the ocean alone. The
early days had seen a valiant stand made by its citizens—massive
dikes were built that held. But then came the terror of the rising
dead, the horror of the true believers and the violence of the
everlasting Jihad. And the fear set fires, and what remained burned
before it flooded. The ruins were still inhabited some said, but
none who went there returned to say by whom.

The City of Light’s enormous perimeter was
guarded by fifty-foot cyclopean walls on the north, west and south,
and claimed the sea as its guardian to the east. In its early
years, the City had grown outward for many miles, spreading up and
down the coast, and marching inland unchecked until its edges
scraped terrifyingly against the vast wilderness that was growing
there. Something primal happened then, as though the denial that
any growth represented could not overpower the truth of what the
mainland had become. So much had changed in the world, that the
City’s designers were possessed of no valiant response, only the
gut reaction of throwing up the walls.

With a perimeter defined by fear, the City of
Light had nowhere to go but up. Its early leaders easily covered
their cowardice with triumphant words and phrases. “Now marks the
ascent of humanity.” Decades after the Change the City’s fathers
had laid claim to all the land that once had been North America,
and since its population was now disorganized or dead, there were
none to argue against the outright exploitation of its vast
resources. So the inland cities and states were used as raw
material and the City climbed into the sky.

The City of Light grew rapidly. After the
disenfranchised millions had salvaged what they could, they
abandoned their sinking island city and flocked to the shores to
set about constructing new homes for themselves—building on and
expanding what they found there. Following the raising of the
walls, some twenty years after the Change, ground level had grown
dangerously overpopulated and construction began on another level
that arched over it on massive legs of steel and concrete. New
structures were built upon this, casting ground level into
darkness—but electrical power was plentiful then, and city people
were acclimated to artificial light.

Survivors kept coming from all points of the
compass, and soon this first level was filling to claustrophobic
proportions. A second level was constructed, and more buildings
launched into the sky on top of this. Another twenty years and then
fifty more passed. Level after level was added as the inland
population traveled to the coast for sanctuary—their smaller towns
and cities dying under the onslaught of the Change.

Years later, long after high prices and
scarcity had dimmed reliable electric light for any but the
wealthy, the City’s original landscape on its lowest levels was
lost. Where its first streets and neighborhoods had been now lurked
trackless shadowy paths—ground level had been renamed “Zero.” The
oldest buildings had become massive foundations for the terrifying
towers built upon them. The City of Light continued its charge
upward at the endless gray. Construction was unabated, no sooner
would a tower be finished and incorporated into the Carapace, than
its designers would begin the blueprints for its expansion.

Such constant, rampant physical delineation
and disparity encouraged a social twin. The poor were relegated to
the City’s lowest levels: Zero, One and Two. Three and Four were
for the middle class. The highest from five to seven were reserved
for the rich and powerful. Over the dark shrouded streets
alternately hugging the upper levels and swooping down to the
streets below were built the arching Skyways, flying ribbons of
concrete and asphalt that kept the City’s sky-dwelling citizens
from having to lower themselves to the levels and populace that
dwelled below. And so skyscraper was built on skyscraper, and tower
upon tower. Ever upward the City flung itself, as though its
populace feared the very earth that had birthed it.

4 – The Power of Pain

The assassin was not a religious man.
Stroking out his final hundred pushups he focused on the primal
forces that kept him alive. Metaphysical muttering did nothing to
augment his formidable survival skills. There was more truth in the
pools of sweat that had formed around his straining hands than
could be found between the covers of the Bible or other religious
work. And so spare was his existence, so dependant upon the
unobstructed view was he that anything that did not directly assist
him in staying alive was rejected outright.

Instead he honed his mind and body like a
knife—whetting its edge on any obstacle life threw at him. He had
to be the perfect machine to interact with other tools—the weapons
of his trade. And he was the integral part—the engine for the
killing systems he had designed. Religion and philosophy encouraged
irrational thinking, and he had no use for it. The closest he
possessed to a spiritual life was his knowledge of pain.

He was exposed to its power before he could
talk, and had since depended upon it as his sole employer and
greatest teacher. He didn’t consider himself able to possess faith
in anything else. The assassin had moved through his life with hard
actions in an environment too strenuous for anything metaphysical
to survive. He was a contract killer. He killed, and tried to stay
alive in the process. Childhood had hardened him to viciousness,
and from it he had learned to give and receive violence while
gaining a tangible thrill from both activities. That was the power
of pain. It punished and it rewarded. There was something
reassuring in the assertion of his dominance. It was a pleasure
killing people who would kill him and he received great
gratification from the blows he absorbed in return.
Pain was
life
.