Simon Spurrier - The Culled

I was already tuning out. I know, I know. I'm scum. "I only got halfway through uni," she said, building up momentum for an entire bloody life-story. "Had a bit of a… hiccup. Took a look at myself. All the money, the materials. Probably got a bit too far into the whole student thing, if I'm honest. Just kind of… backflipped. Dropped off the radar. Wound up on the streets, getting by. That's where I met Claystone."

"That's the father?"

"Yeah. And then the baby came. A-and… and give him his credit, you know…he hung around. Brought in some money, once in a while. Knew who to ask, get favours. Fingers in all sorts of pies. We got ourselves a little place, no questions asked – proper little family. Even tried to clean ourselves up. Stop using, y'know?"

I tangled a finger through the ringlets of hair next to her ear, then realised what I was doing and stopped. All these little betrayals, all these guilty little things.

If she noticed, she didn't show it.

"Then The Cull."

"He died?" I said.

She laughed, bitter.

"No. No, he didn't die. Stuck about for a while. Just long enough to see little Shayla hit one. Went out every day for food and togs, came back… now and then.

"Then one day he just didn't come back at all. Left a note. 'Couldn't handle the responsibility'. Prick."

More quiet.

"Sodding cliche, ain't it?" She said. I jerked back awake, realising I'd been slipping off.

"What?"

"Single mother, whingeing on."

"Yeah. Maybe. Though it's kind of different when you can't just nip to the local supermarket for nappies."

"Exactly. Anyway." She shrugged again. "We survived. Me and Shayla."

"And Claystone?"

"Pfft. Saw him about, once or twice. Heard about him all the time. Everyone knew Claystone. He worked for everyone, sooner or later. Had a way of… of finding the best groove. Like… things got tough, he knew a comfier slot. Gold fucking medallist at living an easy life."

Her voice dripped bitterness.

"But he never came looking for me. Vanished, eventually. Wound up in the river for all I know. All I care.

"Prick. Prick! Well shot of him."

Somewhere outside the pub's shattered windows, a fox loped by with its weird baby-scream call. Bella shivered.

"You know what it's like, when your whole world is focused on one thing?"

I scowled, uncomfortable with the thought. "Yeah." I decided. "Yeah, suppose I do."

"And then six men in robes come one day and take it away from you, and kick the crap out of you into the bargain, and put things in your mouth, and tell you to behave and do what you're told, then scuttle off into the night. And then you hear that thing – that… that centre of your universe – get loaded aboard a plane and fucked-off to Yankland.

"What then, mate? What do you do then?"

I didn't answer.

We lay like that for a long time, and I could tell from her breathing she wasn't asleep.

Eventually she mumbled:

"Doesn't matter. Not your problem. But that's why I'm going."

I was already asleep, and heard it only on the fringes of a dream.

I woke up, and almost shat.

There was a face about a foot from my eyes; curved nose sharp like the edge of a scimitar, mouth tugged down at each corner, lost across a jutting chin to a network of weather-lines. Its hair – long, perfectly dark – was trussed-up in loops of red and yellow PVC-tape, so it stood upright like a tower then spilled down on either side to box me in.

From the hairline to the bottom of the eye sockets, the man was black. Not just Afro-Caribbean black, but black like ink, pressed-up tight against dark eyes that shimmered inside their puddle of shadow. But below the eyes – face bisected in a straight horizontal line across the bridge of the nose and down each angular cheekbone – the man's skin was tanned a ruddy red. He looked savage. He looked terrifying.

He looked like an ancient God of war (or rather, how I assumed an ancient God of war might look, never having met one), and in the fuzzy moments of half waking, with my whole head throbbing from the sharp pain in my scalp, I remembered the wax figures in their diorama displays in the museum, and wondered if one of them had come back to teach me a lesson for using him as a decoy.

The only detail that somewhat spoilt this scowling character's prehistoric spectacle, was the head-to-foot biking leathers in blue, black, red and white.

"He's awake." The effigy proclaimed, rising up and away from me. At a distance, he stopped being the most terrifying thing I've ever seen, and became a young man wearing face paint. I relaxed my sphincter.

"What? You what?" A familiar voice. I felt myself smiling, happy at the note of familiarity in the midst of all this oddity. Nate appeared on the edge of my vision like a man possessed, pushing the boy aside and stooping down to poke and prod at me. He was no longer sweating or shivering; a total transformation that left him grinning massively and mumbling to himself.

"Ow," I said, as he pressed his crinkled fingers against my temple. He did it again.

"Miracle." He said, grinning, cigarette hanging off his bottom lip. "That's what it is. Damned miracle. Asshole all but opened you up."

He tittered to himself.

I picked myself up slowly, fighting the urge to vomit every inch of the way. My head felt like a meteor had hit it – or possibly a speeding elephant – and judging by the dry tightness of my cheek it was appropriately blood-splattered. Added to the bandaged remains of what had once been an ear, the slashes and scars across cheeks and forehead, the aching wounds – messily fixed-up – in my left arm, right shoulder and nape of my neck, I imagined I was starting to look just as patchworked as my coat. One of these days, I decided, I was going to have to find a functioning shower.

I tottered to my feet, lost the battle with my gyrating inner-ear, and barfed like a trooper. I was hungry enough to consider asking someone for a spoon.

Nate watched me cautiously, like he expected me to fall down any second. His pupils looked even bigger than usual, pushing against the bright whites of his eyes, and he was clinging to a red plastic box – like a power drill case – like it was a lifeline. Where he'd got it and what the hell it was were queries I never got around to asking. My surroundings swam into focus, and my senses came online.

The prevailing sound was: engines.

I was back at the Wheels Mart. The same raggedy little tent, by the looks of it, that Malice met me in before. Through the tattered openings I could hear the braying crowds and see the spastic danglings of the MC, shouting out his endless stream of nonsensical bid-acceptances. The smell of cooking meat underwritten by the heady chug of noxious fumes, the whooping and arguing of punters. It made my head hurt, if possible, even more than it already did.

"Brought you here in a car!" Nate whooped, doing a little dance. He was clearly on something. "Borrowed it, yes we did. Fucking Clergy, heh!"

"What… what happened?" I murmured, wincing at my own voice. "What happened to the priests?"

"Fucked off!" Nate sat down suddenly, cross-legged, and nodded like a flapping wing. "Trucks, hidden-away. Took-off all at once. You scared 'em off! City's free!"

Then he slumped against the wall of the tent with no warning and just… switched off, smirking. He dribbled a little.

High as a kite.

Hmm.

The young man in the leathers stood nearby, leaning against a tall wooden pole, arms folded; watching it all without movement. I found myself looking for the bow and quiver of arrows over his shoulder – hating myself – and dipped my eyes back up to his own to cover the up-and-down staring.

He didn't move a muscle.

"You saved me, huh?" I said, remembering the red and blue blur behind Cy, the knife cracking through his skull.