White and Other Tales of Ruin (25 page)

“
Absolutely, Sir,” I said in a slow monotone, and the woman snorted.

Something made the coach sway slightly, and I heard a couple of coughs as people tried to ignore the sick movement in their stomachs. I glanced at the window, waiting for it to brighten again and terrified at what I would see, but it remained dark.

I wondered where Laura was right then. It felt strange thinking of her, because it was almost certain that she wasn’t thinking of me. At most I was an invader in her memory. In a way I wished that I could forget as well, but she wasn’t in pain, wasn’t burning or being shot. I sent love to Laura, knowing she wouldn’t hear it but doing it for myself. It didn’t help, but I pretended it did.

The windows brightened and I thought we were back. Back
where
I wasn’t exactly sure — somewhere deep in the Welsh mountains, perhaps — but at least our journey was at an end. The view from the window was wonderful, a mountainous rural paradise, and I sat back and smiled as the coach moved slowly through the scene.

So come on, I thought, show us pollution or global warming or deforestation or disease or death. But the image remained pure, the trees and shrubs and flowers and grasses grew lush and healthy. Things weren’t so bad after all. There were a lot of people much more worse off than me. What this meant for them I tried not to consider, because this trip was all about me, and for the woman across the aisle it was purely about her, and so on, and so on …

If thinking that way worked I was not about to argue.

It was only as I noticed the shapes slung between the trees that I realised we still had some way to go. They came into focus, my breath hitched, my heart stuttered. And I knew it wasn’t a holo or a movie or an act.

It was more than that. I knew for certain that this, all of this, was far more real than anyone could have guessed.

I knew, because I recognised one of the shapes strung up on the barbed wire.

Laura.

“
Laura!” I strained in my seat, fighting against the straps. I needed to press close to the window, closer to Laura, just to make sure it was her. Her hair was tangled in a knot of wire above her, arms flung out and bleeding where they were tied, legs dangling. I recognised the dress she wore … she’d first worn it on her thirteenth birthday. I’d bought it for her. Expensive. And even before the party started she spilled orange juice down it, and she started to cry because her party was spoiled. I’d told her that it was the girl, not the dress that mattered. The girl inside …

“
Laura!” I screamed again. The strap was biting into my waist as I reached for the window. The coach was moving along slowly, and other hanging figures were coming into view. Some of them were still but for the movement of birds and other carrion creatures, but most of them still moved where they hung, each movement drawing more blood or further cries or moans.

Laura moved.

I sat still and watched, and just as she passed out of sight behind a thick clump of trees she shifted again, her mouth falling open into a scream I heard from afar.

“
That’s Laura out there!” I shouted, having no comprehension of how this could be so, simply knowing that it
was
. I could no longer see her but her scream remained. “That’s
Laura
!”

“
Hey, I’m sure you didn’t see

”

“
Don’t tell me I don’t know my own daughter!” I shouted at the woman, and she flinched as if slapped.

I looked back at the window and it was fading to black. The atmosphere had changed. The coach jerked slightly, as if struck from one side, and the windows flared brightly again for a couple of seconds before blacking out. They’d only let us see some of the pain and suffering out there this time, and I was sure I’d glimpsed something even worse happening ahead.

Perhaps they didn’t like what I was saying.

“
She’s still alive,” I said, kicking out at the chair in front of me. “Hey! You! My daughter, she’s still alive on those trees. I have to get her!”

I saw the man’s tuft of grey hair turn as he tried to lift himself to look at me, but we were too securely fastened. “It’s a holo, a make-believe. It’s not really happening. And if it is your daughter maybe she’s an actress, perhaps they paid her to act

”

Perhaps, I thought, but then I remembered the pain I’d seen on her face and the scream I’d heard. Laura was
my daughter
. I’d seen her in pain enough times — scraped knees, toothache, the broken arm when she was nine

to know that she could not have been acting.

I wished that she
had
been taken away by a sect.

I grasped at the strap around my waist and pulled. It did not budge.

“
Are you sure it was her?” the woman said.

I nodded without looking up, still tugging at the strap, trying to find where it was buckled. I thought of Janine on her death bed, how the panic in her eyes had been for the daughter she was leaving behind, not for herself.

I hated myself for not looking after Laura.

There was a sighing noise from somewhere along the coach, and a few indrawn breaths. Footsteps approached along the aisle. The passengers were silent once more, and I felt a shadow approaching.

“
Positive
?” the woman hissed.

I stopped messing with the strap and looked across at her, just as a dark shape manifested between the two seats in front of us. “It was Laura,” I said.

The thing leant down towards me. It looked like a huge beetle, with a hard shiny skin and a head twitching with several small antennae. Somewhere in there, perhaps, was a man or woman, but just then I felt as if I was looking a denizen of Hell right in the face. I’d never seen anything like this before.

The thing clicked and clacked, reaching out one black hand and offering me the open end of a stun-gun.

Kill me, I thought, they’ll kill me for seeing what I’ve seen …

…
or perhaps they’ll just add me to it …

And then it flipped on its back, hands grasping at air as the woman stretched her left leg and kicked its ankle. “I reckon you’ve got maybe three seconds,” she said, crouching back in her seat as if afraid to touch the thing again.

I looked down at where the shape was struggling on the floor. Thoughts rushed at me as I decided what to do first

Are there more of them? Does it have protection software? Is it going to kill me?

and for the half-second it took these to whirl through my head the world stood still. Its armour seemed to impede it, and when it reached out to grab my chair and haul itself up, I kicked out at its hand. The armour was as hard as metal and I gasped as pain dug through my foot.

The thing paused, looked up at me, antennae twitching, perhaps signalling.

I kicked again, using my heel this time, connecting squarely with the dark visor. I heard a crack and but hoped it was artificial. The thing flung one hand up as it rolled back. I reached out and grasped its wrist, twisting, feeling the armour harden under the contours of my hand, the stun-gun slipping from its grip


I had maybe a second left until the thing shook off its confusion and came for me.

I kicked again, three times, aiming at the visor every time. It was constantly trying to rise, only my kicks keeping it down. I stop kicking, up it gets, I thought. So I kicked yet again, and again, glancing at the mean-looking black stun gun in my hand, trying to figure out how the hell to use it. There was a silver button and what looked like a trigger, again in silver, so I leaned over, forced the barrel end against the thing’s cracked visor and pressed both.

The button must have been a voltage booster.

The thing

and I really hoped there wasn’t a man or woman in there

only twitched for a second or two before it lay still, smoking.

“
What’s going on back there?” I heard someone shout, and I welcomed the distraction. Looking down would mean seeing what I had done, and I was afraid that it was a very bad thing. The normal stun guns carried by law enforcement were designed to do just that: stun. From the stench of hot meat I was afraid that this one had done much more.

“
I’m getting off,” I said.

“
Don’t be mad!” It was the man in the chair in front of me, still unseen, thinking he knew best.

“
My daughter’s out there,” I said, “and she’s bleeding and dying. Besides, I thought you said it was all false.” I paused, he said nothing. “I’m getting out,” I said again. Maybe I was trying to talk myself out of it.

“
If there’s one of those … things in here, there’ll be more out there. Lots more.”

I felt around with my fingers, trying not to look because I didn’t want to see whatever damaged, dead thing lay inside the armour. I’d heard about genetic alterations, gene mutation … I’d heard about it far too much. I didn’t want to see it as well. My fingers scraped the smashed visor and I tugged free a loose piece of composite.

“
You sound like you’ve seen

“ I began, but then the dead thing moved.

It hissed, expelling a stinking breath right up into my face. And I heard a voice, soft and persuasive, deep inside my head. This was much more personal than the voice that had introduced the horrific scenes. This was not only inside my head but inside
me
, reaching out from places I’d forgotten or tried to forget, sounding like my poor dead Janine and my dying Laura combined … and it was telling me to sit back down.

You don’t want to get up.

You don’t
need
to get up.

“
Don’t listen to it,” the man in front said, and the injured thing at my feet growled a stinking threat up into my face, stinking and angry.

“
How do you know —” I began, but then I stamped back down on its face, feeling my boot heel striking something soft. Inside me, the soft voice grew harsh before fading away.

“
What is it?” I hissed, starting to hack at the strap around my waist with the rough-edged plastic. My own blood spotted my trousers.

“
Demon,” the man said.

I stopped for a second and glanced up, but even his hair was out of sight. “You’re just kidding me, right?” I started sawing at the strap instead of hacking, and the heavy threads began to pop apart. The thing at my feet moved, I stamped again, and the man gave me his answer.

“
No. And yes, I suppose. And yes, I have been here before.”

The woman across the aisle snorted. “And the prize for the most ridiculously confusing answer goes to …”

“
I won’t tell you my name,” he said.

“
I don’t think she was expecting you to.” The threads were parting faster now, and I guessed I had maybe thirty seconds to go. Then all I had to do was exit the coach, dodge however many more soldiers, droids or demons there were, find Laura where she was strung up between trees, get her down and navigate my way out of Hell.

Easy.

I laughed manically as the strap popped free. Standing up, I saw the coach for what it really was. As wide as the coach on a train but much longer, so long that perspective stole the end from sight. And all the way along, chairs like my own sat at each window, with a narrow aisle in between.

I turned around and the same sight greeted me, except this time there were shocked faces watching me from each chair. I caught a few peoples’ stares, even though I tried not to. There was interest, anger and resentment in equal measures, and I realised that those who had no idea what had happened here must be blaming me for their tour being halted.

“
How the hell do I get out of here?” I asked, stepping into the aisle and glancing over the chair at the man in front of me.

“
Same way the demon got in,” the man said. And I wondered how he could talk at all.

I’d once seen the results of a speed-bike crash. The rider had been thrown against a wall and was a broken, shattered mess. Limbs askew. Shape changed. I never thought I’d see the same in someone living.

“
Huh?” I uttered stupidly. I could not form words because what I saw stole them from me. He was so badly battered and misshapen that it must have hurt him to live.

“
Up there,” he said, nodding back over my shoulder.

I turned and looked along the aisle, noticing a dark patch in the ceiling which could only have been a trapdoor. “Do you know the way?” I asked turning back.

His face did something that may have been a smile, and he shook his head. “I’ve been out there once before,” he said, “thinking I could change things, imagining I could help the hopeless. That’s how I got this.” He didn’t point to anything, but he didn’t need to. I could not make out where parts of him started and ended. Tears burned in my eyes and throat, but I guessed that he probably wouldn’t appreciate them at all.

“
So up there is out?” I said. And I thought, out of where? Out of the coach and into the forest and barbed wire and Laura? Or out of Hell? Back into that waiting room perhaps, the stunning woman standing by the wall painting and pointing out intricate details of cruelty and pain I hadn’t noticed before.