Ian Hocking - Flashback

The weapon bucked. The tiny sound reminded him of a kiss. Catherine’s kiss in the mirror.

Damn it.

Trajectory change. Take out the phone.

He sensed the projectile swerve and pass through the plastic case. Beats of his tired heart later, the projectile returned to the gun with a gentle kick.

Cory made a funnel with his hands.

‘There’s nowhere you can run!’

Catherine—no, Jem —had tripped and fallen. Her heat stain was a distant star. She writhed. ‘Fuck you!’ came a moment later.

Cory smiled. Then dread smothered his amusement once more. Her sprawl recalled the dead woodsman, who had dropped inches from the hut, his fingers mixed with the tarpaulin. Sure , Cory thought, uneasy. The man wanted cover . But, more than this, Jem’s shape brought to mind Saskia as her dead hand slipped towards the vase next to her cot.

There was a metal mesh on the ceiling of the antechamber. And its walls.

‘I see a fine mesh.’

‘I see knots and whorls in the wood.’

‘I see a window, also covered by mesh.’

Cory watched the dissolving tusks of his breath.

He had made a tremendous mistake. The woodsman had not been reaching for cover. He had wanted the home-brewed battery.

‘Also covered by mesh.’

Cory swerved in his crow’s nest. Information streams jammed at his centre: the angle of the gun, Saskia’s likely position within the hut, wind speed, and the gloom that he had been outdone by a woman in a coma.

Saskia. Head shot .

Saskia Brandt twisted in the cot. She was past agony. Her back was shattered and her legs broken clean. Her ribs were cracked and her nose was smashed. Despite this, she was healing. Her left eye had opened and, with it, she tried to focus on the pink carnation in the vase. Then she tried to reach for it. Her arm swung like a boom. The bloody stump felt cold.

Take my hand , she thought.

They felt like the only words she knew. She did not mean take my hand . She meant-

Help? came a soft voice. So let me help you. Do you see the carnations? Reach for them. Push the vase.

The arm swung again.

Good. You touched it. That proves you can do it.

Saskia smiled.

Take my hand, she thought.

Soon. Now the flowers. Aren’t they pretty, Saskia? Push the vase.

Cory willed the projectile to go faster.

Hurry.

Beneath the tarpaulin, whose corner was closed in the hand of Tolsdorf, there was a crude pipe. At the end of the pipe was a ball bearing. A wire attached the bearing to a tractor battery and a homemade rack of beer-bottle capacitors. A second ball bearing was suspended at the top of the pipe. It too connected to the battery. The second ball bearing was held in place by string, which led through the wall to the neck of the vase in Saskia’s anteroom. As the vase fell, the string released the upper bearing. It connected, clack , with the lower. The spheres exchanged a spark. An electromagnetic pulse, its lifetime less than one quarter of a millisecond, flashed through the forest.

Cory’s orphaned bullet tumbled, lost speed, and dashed the hut like the knuckle of a night caller.

Jem watched the chalky outline of Cory convulse, then fall. The crackle of broken branches reached her a moment later. She could not begin to imagine what had happened to him. Had he been shot? She reached for her phone and brushed the snow away. The phone’s keyboard had been destroyed by the bullet but the screen was still bright and the battery compartment intact. The display was a solid block of pixels. She removed the battery and reinserted it, but the phone would not boot. Only the backlight worked.

Jem rose. Part of her wanted to find out the extent of Cory’s injuries, but she had come here for Saskia. She walked towards the hut. Her steps were high in the deep snow. She put the mobile phone in her pocket to smother the glow of its screen.

As she looked up, something moved to the left of the hut.

Cory? The woodsman, perhaps?

She paused at the last tree that provided cover from the dooryard. She waited, side-on to the trunk, breathing through her nose, watching.

Another movement.

She remembered how the darkness in that Berlin church had seemed to gather into the shape of Saskia. Could she have come back to life? The idea was

( stupid )

possible.

What are you really, Saskia?

Curiosity killed the cat.

Satisfaction brought him back.

Who had she seen?

Brought him back .

Jem left her hiding space and walked around the hut. She could hear her heart. When she saw the person-shaped shadow again, this time in front of the woodpile, and caught the eyes watching her, Jem snatched a breath and held it. Then she raised her mobile phone.

Saskia moved into the light. Her eyes were shark-dead. Their blown, trembling pupils turned away, searching the trees. A thick tongue probed a tooth gap. Jem put a hand across her mouth as she gagged. She could not shake the feeling that Saskia was still dead and that her body was being moved by strings in the tree above her. Saskia—the body of Saskia—turned. Jem watched it shuffle away on bare feet. She followed, quietly.

How could this be her friend? She had been smashed: months away from any recovery, if that were even possible. But Ego had told her about the machines in Cory’s blood that could repair tissue. The ichor, Ego had called it. Had Cory somehow infected Saskia with the substance? Why would he do that?

Around the hut, snow fell soundlessly. There was a body lying face down—the woodsman?—obviously dead, greyed out by the recent snow. Jem continued to watch Saskia as she stared at him. Was there sadness in her expression? Saskia turned and took two paces uphill, away from the hut, where she dropped to the ground. Jem was worried that Saskia had fallen. She moved towards her and touched her shoulder. Blackish blood dripped from Saskia’s nose. The jaw worked while the tongue remained still.

Gently, Jem reached for the safety pin that had fastened her tongue to her cheek. She released it. Her fear and revulsion were distant places now.

‘Talk to me, sweetheart.’

‘Take,’ Saskia whispered, ‘my hand.’

‘Of course I will. There. Now let’s get out of here.’

The face warped. ‘Take my hand. Take my hand .’

Saskia snorted in frustration and looked down. She began to dig at the snow with her stump. Jem hesitated. She was uncertain whether Saskia wished her to help. When Saskia had cleared six inches, she rocked back, gasping, and looked at Jem as though for the first time.

‘You want me to dig?’ Jem asked.

In reply, Saskia blinked.

Jem set about scooping away the snow. The surface was brittle and wet but the deeper snow was packed hard. She dug until her fingers caught a metal edge. It was a small fuel container, perhaps bearing a gallon, and too heavy to move.

‘Take my hand.’

‘You want me to open it?’

Saskia blinked again.

Jem considered the container. It was lying on its side. ‘But the fuel will pour out.’

Saskia looked at the body of the woodsman and said no more. Jem sighed, covered her nose, and unscrewed the cap. Fuel poured out and dissolved a cavity in the snow.

‘What now, Saskia?’

Saskia pushed at the container. It was almost empty, but something metal knocked against its interior. Jem turned it upside down. She shone her phone on the object that fell out.