Endworlds - Nicholas Read [30]
As he sat and lifted the cutlery, he gazed dreamily out the window. The black ink of space glided past, white specks of stars in the distance, the massive bulk of Jupiter’s orange bands spanning both horizons below as the jet rotated to dock with a coupling manacle on a craggy moon-base, surrounded by a swab of verdant terraforming moss.
At the jolt of unison, the boy sensed movement in the cabin behind him, the thumpity thump of his heart growing steadily louder.
Sliding from the cushions he walked slowly through the jet, past a jumble of steel boxes incongruously strewn on the otherwise pristine floor, padlocked shut. He wanted to look into these boxes. In this dream state he knew their contents belonged to him.
Yet the most rearward seat beckoned him on, facing the opposite direction so that it obscured his view of the figure therein. He could hear the visitor now, above the booming in his head. A gnawing of bone, the slurping of succulent juices, a snap, snap, snap of serrated scissors.
As he edged closer the boy felt a rising chill, a tightening in his gut.
He sensed danger here.
His instinct was to run, but as he turned for the door an obsidian wall filled the cabin, blocking his retreat.
It crept towards him like a living thing, a black gloss sheet made of geometric triangles and cubes that hungrily absorbed the deck, the seats and the walls of the jet as it lurched steadily onward.
As the living wall advanced, he was obliged to inch closer to the dark stranger in the last seat. Now at an angle where he could see past the curving neck of the chair, a blue-green opalescent arm covered in reptilian scales could be seen stabbing chunks of rotting meat into a fanged snout, nostrils flaring at his approach.
Beside the man-lizard, just out of sight past the heaving saurian chest, a glimpse of a pink leg draped by grey school uniform. A girl’s leg, held intractable by a giant clawed mitt.
For some reason his heart jumped at the sight and he let out a gasp.
The serpentine head twisted in his direction with a wicked leer, shucked bones dropping with a hollow clatter from between the yellowing daggers than lined its mouth. Green eye slits narrowed and shone with unmistakable menace. No, more than menace. This was hatred, directed at him as for an old foe delivered to a final reckoning. Face to face with the monstrous apparition, the boy could only stand and gape.
Where the black wall of angles now pressed urgently into his back, his skin turned into ash. An arm, now a leg vanished as the pounding thumped ever louder, drumming out all else.
The last vision to register as eyes and brain ceased to be was that craggy dragon’s head cocking to one side as it spoke a tone that started low and ended high, carrying with it the intent of both mockery and instruction. Against the din in his head, the word crested like the elongated fizz of surf hitting the shoreline.
“Sly-y-y-z-z-z.”
THE NEXT MORNING after being escorted by Hummer to a row of hot showers in a wide tiled area filled with steam and other young bodies of mixed gender, Eastwood’s companions from the previous evening formed a square around him and marched together to a communal dining floor.
There were no set meal times underground: food was available around the clock, just as the Longcoats might be called upon at any time. Dozens of teens, some uniformed, some garbed casually in sweats and hoodies, milled to and fro. It was clear the Longcoat base was a hive of activity, well directed, with more than a tinge of urgency in how the people moved from one activity to the next.
“Hungry much?” Vector asked him as Eastwood absently piled food onto a tray until the resultant mound threatened to topple over. Indeed he was. And tired, despite nearly six hours of rest. Like a poultice sucking out poison, sleep had drawn forth an unending succession of