R.Scott Bakker: Disciple of the dog

The stars lent a chill to the air.

I saw Fucknut’s partner, Dipshit, little more than a silhouette leaning against the wall next to an opened door. He was blowing smoke and watching it, which meant he was either bored or scared shitless. The spark of his cigarette floated along an arc anchored to his elbow. I watched it swing up to his lips, burn bright, then swing down to his thigh, and flick…

I held the flashlight high enough to discourage any peering. Dipshit, I could see, was another chain-on-his-wallet fucker, just as skinny as Fucknut but with more of a Sid Vicious look. Anger as fashion.

“Where the hell did Dutchie go?” Dipshit said, finally turning toward me. “He forget your smokes or something?”

I raised the lamp to his face. He cursed, actually swatted at the glare. Then about a pace away, I tossed the light at him, kicked him square in the nuts. I tagged him with a strike on the temple as he doubled over. In all honesty, I’m not sure he was breathing when he hit the ground. The convulsions suggested a direct hit.

What can I say? They don’t make Nazis the way they used to, I guess.

With both Fucknut and Dipshit tucked in for bed, I figured it was time to draw my gun. I stood in the darkness of the door opening, ears pricked. I heard the drone of a masculine voice reflected off hanging metal surfaces. Reverend Nill, I decided.

This was about when the farting started. What was it about these dead factories?

I stepped across the cracked concrete of the threshold. I paused, my senses tingling at their limits. The air smelled of dust and the trademark Manning-family reek: shit and potato chips. Details of the interior resolved as my eyes adjusted to the absence of the flashlight: a strewn floor, the hint of cavernous walls, and a dim subterranean glow emanating from around a corner. I heard laughter sucked hollow by open space.

I was standing in what looked like a warehousing annex. You would like to think you could step into an abandoned factory and easily guess what it once manufactured, but the fact is, everything has become voodoo in this world. Precious little makes sense to the untrained eye anymore. Hydradyne, I knew, would be as much a riddle to me in broad daylight as in the pitch of night. Some shelving had crashed to my right-that was pretty much the best I could do, identification-wise. It made an obstacle course of my way forward, or so I imagined, because I couldn’t see jack shit.

With one hand out to paw the spaces before me, I moved to the left. I followed a track of rollers-like the kind they use to feed your groceries out to your car-along the wall, toward the truncated glow. My breathing was even, my steps measured, and except for the low, doggish whine of a second fart, I moved without making a sound.

The voice was clearer now.

“Can you talk now? Huh, bitch? Do you think you can talk like a sane, rational, fucking bitch? “

A moment of ain’t-no-such-thing laughter. Definitely Nill, but more winded-almost breathless.

A feminine cry pierced the dark, shrill with rage and terror.

Molls…

I would like to say that I remained professional at this point, that I behaved with cold, consumer detachment, but the fact is, I began running. Only dumb luck saved me from making a noise kicking or slamming into something, because I could see little more than the gleam of the roller track next to me. I whisked through the black, felt the aura of unseen obstructions fall away harmlessly.

I slowed to a creep as I approached the corner. The illumination was bright enough to airbrush the lines of my automatic. I always feel better when I can see my gun, for some reason. Never had much stomach for abstract instruments of murder.

A second or two passed before my eyes digested the complexity of the scene. It was a receiving bay of some kind. A series of catwalks and grilled floor platforms caged the air above the cluttered floor immediately before me. A single kerosene lantern on one of these platforms was the only source of light, casting fishnet shadows across the bare floor and rubbish below. I could hear its hiss hardening the silence. The greater factory fell into darkness beyond, another derelict arena blasted hollow by unfathomable economic forces.

I saw Molly, bound and gagged with tape, kneeling, burnt white in the glare of the lantern.

And I saw him, stripped to the waist, covered with a sweat-shiny array of comic-book tatts. Reverend Nill, the post-industrial demagogue. I imagine Brenda, my old sociologist girlfriend, would have some kind of interpretative paradigm to explain him. A kind of psycho-social parasite feeding off the resentment of the uneducated service castes. Something like that. You can only reform the economy for the sake of numbers instead of people for so long, I suppose.

That was when I wondered about Johnny…

My eyes clicked down, around. I noticed the unattended shotgun leaning against three stacked pallets.

Something scuffed something behind me.

The bat chipped the back of my skull, but I was already diving-an old mortar-attack reflex. Even still, it rang my bell hard enough to send my automatic skidding into the black. I crashed face first into debris. There was a bag of something in there, probably concrete mix or something, powdery soft and hard all at once. A jutting nail ripped the meat of my left palm, but I wouldn’t realize this until afterward.

I kick-rolled onto my back just in time to catch the next bat swing in the shin-a fucking stinger. But better than catching it with my face like the batter intended.

Johnny Dinkfingers loomed above me, graphed by lattices of light. A giant man out for giant revenge.

I had caught him pissing or something-away from his weapon, which was why he was still alive. Now, with me down in a crab defending myself with my legs, the best thing he could have done was simply leap for his weapon. He had the drop on me, plain and simple. But the thing was, he already thought he had the drop on me. After all, he had the bat and I was down on my ass. And more importantly, after his humiliation at the pig roast, he had something to prove to himself. The cheapest way to save face is to scar another.

So he came at me, swinging the bat wildly. Teeth clenched, eyes wild and exultant, he looked like something out of a Viking nightmare. I scrambled back, fending his strikes as best I could, but largely taking it on the shins, retreating into the gloom… to the point where I hoped I would find my gun.

We have this psychic connection, you see, me and my government- model Colt. One second I was clawing the floor blindly, then, Why hello there, little buddy…

I was up on my feet, depressing the trigger, plugging him in the face.

Bam-bam-bam. One-two-three… He teetered, held up by some residual brain stem activity, then crashed forward to the floor. Petals of blood bloomed across the dust.

Score.

He looked like a drunk licking up a spilled Caesar.

“Johnny?” Nill called from immediately above. “Sound off, brother!” With the light next to him, I imagine we must have looked like rats battling in shadows.

“He tripped,” I replied, my automatic still tingling in my hand. “Fell on three bullets.”

If you haven’t noticed, I tend to talk too much.

Rubbing the back of my head, I slowly backed out from under the platform to where Nill could see me pointing my Colt directly at him. He reflexively pulled Molly tight, using her as a shield. I have to admit, she looked hot, her mouth taped, her arms bound behind her, as sweaty as a cold beer on a humid day, wearing only a tank top and boxers-like something out of those boner detective mags I used to “read” when I was a kid.

Nill, on the other hand, looked positively desperado. I understood instantly: he was one of those guys with only two gears in his emotional transmission. Challenge him a little and he seems utterly invincible; challenge him more than a little and he starts putting with his driver.