Darren Wearmouth: Critical Path

She had run off shortly after Charlie had sacrificed himself, and Denver had never forgiven himself for not being able to find her.

The shadow and movement, he knew, was something bigger than a dog.

He crouched to a knee and brought up the rifle, placing the butt into the crook of his shoulder and bringing the sights to his left eye.

Layla had already dashed to the side behind a broken trunk and shot him a glance.

With the movement of a shrub and the twang of a broken branch, a figure moved into the clearing, with another closely following behind.

He was there—again. This was the third day Maria had felt the bed sink and her body rock inwards to the new weight. The weight created by Gregor.

She clutched the edge of the sheet and tried to pull it up to her chin, but it wouldn’t budge.

Gregor’s hot breath warmed her back, making her whole body shiver with repulsion. She closed her eyes and stifled a scream. She didn’t want to antagonize him. She’d seen and heard a lot of stories about what he’d done to people who got in his way. Despite that, she couldn’t just give in.

Although growing up on the harvester and not knowing a great deal about human reproduction, she was aware of how it worked. They were forbidden to sleep with one another on the ‘generation ship,’ and since she came out into the wider world, she had kept herself away from the increasingly hungry gaze of Gregor.

It didn’t help that Denver had started to spend more time with Layla. With him around, Gregor stayed away. She suspected the latter had a certain fear, or at the very least, trepidation, of the former.

Denver cut an imposing figure with his height, and since the croatoans left to go north and they all started to settle into a decent lifestyle, his previously wiry, skinny frame had bulked out.

Something Gregor clearly envied.

Realizing that he wouldn’t go away, Maria turned around to face him. The bastard was leering at her with a predatory look in his eyes. The bile rose in her stomach at the thought of him touching her.

She kept the sheet tight against her body.

Luckily, the temperature during the night had dropped and she’d put on her uniform for extra warmth, not wanting to waste the energy of firing up the heating generators.

“You’re in my room,” Maria said, trying to make a point without instigating an outburst. “I’d prefer it if you knocked first.”

“We’re all friends here, aren’t we?” Gregor said, leaning his head on an elbow as he stretched out on her bed as though it were his. “Denver and Layla are off on a jolly jaunt. I thought you and I could… well, start the day off in traditional fashion.”

Backing away as much as she could given the tautness of the sheet, she had no other option but to play into his quite obvious trap.

Even though she was new to the world at large, she’d spent the last month at Freetown conversing with other men and women from the other farms who had come here to help get the place up and running. She had learned quickly and picked up a lot of information of how society was before the alien uprising.

She also learned just what kind of man Gregor was.

“And what exactly is this traditional fashion?” she asked, already knowing the likely answer.

Gregor leaned in, grinning, exposing his rotten teeth. His gums had started to recede and turn black at the edges ever since he started to chew the root as though it were a gourmet food. “Back in our day, the elder male—that would be me—was charged with making an adult of the younger women, especially if they were from out of town. It was a popular mating ritual. Since you’re effectively from out of town, being stuck in the harvester all your life, and given you’re younger than me, it’s kind of up to me to bring you into adulthood.”

“No,” she said, tensing. “I’m sure the tradition means a lot to you and your people, but I don’t observe that. I don’t think it would be appropriate to—”

Gregor sat up and grabbed her by the arms. He flung his leg over her waist and sat down on her, pressing her into the bed, pinning her arms to her side. “Now, now,” he said. “No need to be polite around me. We’re all friends here, and friends stay close.”

“You’ve been chewing too much root again. Get off me!” She struggled, but the frenzy in his eyes extended to his determination to dominate her. She tried to kick out and unbalance him, but he just rode her like one of the men she’d seen on a video daring to ride a bull.

Going limp, she turned her head and clenched her jaw, “Okay,” she said with a whisper, waiting.

Through her side vision she saw him grin with satisfaction. He let go of her arms and started to unbutton his gray farm-issue shirt.

Taking the opportunity, she twisted her body to the side and pushed him away with her freed arms.

He fell back onto the bed in a heap.

Thrashing, she kicked out to get loose from the sheets, but he was already on her, laughing, enjoying her struggles.

Just as he grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her back to the bed, a knock came from the door.

A young man burst in and shouted, “They’re dead! They’re all dead!”

The midday sun beat down on Gregor, warming his head and shoulders amid the breeze generated by the momentum of the hover-bike.

Luckily for him, when the croatoans abandoned the farm and headed north, they did so in such a rush they left a number of their vehicles behind within the human-controlled warehouses.

For the first time in a few weeks, the sky was clear of clouds. Even the familiar orange hue gave way to bright blue skies. A quicksilver flash of memory bubbled up, providing him with a picture of his homeland. He was a child then, standing atop an old crane. He had climbed it in order to gain membership to the gang he would later go on to lead and turn into the biggest crime syndicate in Armenian history.

When he arrived home, his father belted him across the back of the legs. One of the dockers who knew his father—everyone in that old town knew Vladimir Miralos, an infamous drunk and washed-up street thug—tipped him off to his son’s stupid display of bravery and daring.

Vladimir needn’t have required an excuse.

Gregor’s very presence was enough to incur his father’s wrath.

But the fucker was dead and buried now, by Gregor’s own hands. Only so much belting a child will take before he cuts his father’s throat in his sleep.

The whine of the hover-bike’s engine and the touch of Maria’s hands on his hips pulled him back to the current day, and he found himself cheered by the exhilaration of the ride and the prospect of some interesting news from Denver and Layla.

Even after the two-and-a-half-hour journey from Freetown, he felt refreshed. They’d apparently found something that would give everyone renewed focus.

A new threat.

Good. They needed a threat. Everyone had got too lazy, too organized.

They thought they could make a quick change of things, but Gregor knew better. Like any conflict, attrition often won the war.

Besides, he couldn’t stand all the fucking politics and nicey-nicey bullshit.

For too long he found himself bored.

Especially since Layla had taken over proceedings.

But then what did he care anyway? The bitch could do what she wanted; he had someone else to occupy his attentions now. A fitter, younger, more naïve model who wasn’t some damned anthropological expert.

This one didn’t have an answer for everything and would be easier to bring on side. He just needed a little more time with her.

With Denver realizing he had a pair of balls and taking a fancy to Layla, poor little Maria was left abandoned and in need of a friend—a special friend.