“They?” he said. “Capital ‘T’? So, who are They? The government? The military? The evil Galactic Empire? The Bliderbergs? God himself?” he looked up to the sky, his eyes moving jerkily as if counting the stars. “You know what I was before? An anthropologist.. I lectured on ancient civilisations, specialising in social and political aspects, how the organisations in an old civilisation can affect us as well, even if there are no direct links whatsoever. Harmful, eh? Dangerous? ‘They’ must have thought so. Because they stole me away and — ”
“My daughter never did anything that could have been a threat to anyone.”
“No. No. Maybe not. Well, that’s my ‘threat’ theory blown out of the water. Not that I ever really believed it anyway.” He smiled and I knew that he was playing with me now, perhaps enjoying my discomfort and pain and confusion because he’d passed up the chance to barb me.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe… well, someone controls all this.”
“Really? What if it
“Don’t be stupid. God is dead, didn’t someone once say? Besides… if I ever did believe, that’s been wiped out since Laura was taken away from me.”
“Si Dieu n’existait pas, il faudrait l’inventer.”
I raised an eyebrow, partly in surprise, mostly because I hated being condescended to. I wasn’t about to ask him what it meant, but he told me anyway.
“If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent Him. Voltaire.”
“Great,” I said. “My life is now full. And you? You believe in God? Living here, like this — ”
“What else is there for me to believe in? The goodness of Man? Give me a
“You have medicines, though? Bandages?”
“Same provisos as the food and drink. Today… probably not. Let’s face it, you brought the storm and rotted our food. I hardly think there will be plasters and sterile gauze for you.”
“I hope you die,” I said. It surprised and shocked me, and it was a stupid thing to say. He could kill me here and now. He was mad, after all.
Black Teeth didn’t even register the comment. He looked out over the landscape, perhaps scouting for trees to use for tomorrow’s work.
“I need to get away from here,” I said quietly, turning to go. “I need to help Laura.”
“The reason I spared you,” he said, “was because I thought you’d know the way out. You’re an alien, you should never be in here. For me you were… hope. That’s all.” He turned to me, and the sudden change in his expression was startling. In the starlight he looked like a little boy who had lost his ball over a neighbour’s fence, and now he was asking for it back. Innocence hid the blemishes on his skin and the murder and madness in his eyes.
I shook my head and his expression changed again.
“So what?” I said. “Are you going to barb us now? Now you know I can’t help you?”
“I should. We should. They look up to me because I’ve been here longer than any of them. They’ll call for it. You should go.”
“You’re helping me again? Why?”
“I’ve never got to talk to any of the people we barbed before. Never known them as anything other than fodder.”
“Not even my daughter?”
He looked at me, his eyes dead and resigned to worse than death, and suddenly I wanted to leave as soon as possible, run, run aimlessly from these terrible, pathetic people.
“She was asking for you all the time I strung her up,” he said.
I turned and left him instantly, not allowing myself time for thought or reflection. It was the only thing I could do.
“Through the cave,” he called after me. “A tunnel. Don’t come back out this way, otherwise you’re our fodder again. Go elsewhere. At least then it won’t be me who has to kill you.”
I didn’t acknowledge him. I didn’t want to see the into the eyes of the man that had seen my daughter begging for me, and done nothing to help.
Inside the cave, eyes were upon me. I looked into the face of the woman who’d been washing Black Teeth, and there I saw envy. Someone else, a young boy with an old man’s face, seemed ready to kill me. A woman touched my ankle as I walked by and looked up, and I wondered whether she wanted me to kill her. The copulating couple at the rear of the cave still going at it, noisier now, and their cries and grunts added a surreal background to my walk to Laura and Chele.
I knelt down beside my daughter and touched her face. She was still unconscious.
“We need to leave,” I said.
Chele shook her head. “She’s unconscious, not asleep. We shouldn’t move her far.”
“I’ll carry her.”
“Nolan, she’s not a little girl anymore, and — ”
“Believe me,” I said, looking into Chele’s eyes to add emphasis, “we need leave right now.” I held her gaze for a few seconds and nodded.
She looked around the cave, her eyes glittering fearfully in the weak torch light. “Which way?”
“Through the cave. Down there to the back, there’s a tunnel.”
“What makes you so sure?” Chele looked where I had indicated, and I knew what she was thinking. There was very little light back there, and the only people who’d apparently ventured that far were the fucking couple. And what
Threat was as prevalent in the cave as the sounds of sex and the smell of rot. Out there, through the cave mouth, I knew that there was very little left.
“We have no choice,” I said. And I hated that. “Come on, help me lift Laura.”
We picked her up and hoisted her onto my shoulders, so that I was carrying her in a fireman’s lift. There was movement around the cave. The people were fidgeting as they realised we were preparing to leave.
“It’s pitch black back there,” Chele whispered.
I started across the uneven floor, moving away from the oases of light and towards the humping lovers. I heard Chele behind me, and I wondered whether she’d follow me over a cliff and into a pool of molten rock.
Laura was heavy, but the weight was almost comforting. It bore down to let me know that I was helping my daughter at last. She wasn’t as limp as I’d expected — her arms lay tight down my side, and her legs were all knotted muscle — and I suspected that she was waking up. In a way I wanted her to remain unconscious for a little while longer, at least until we were away from these people.
They were standing now, some of them mumbling, others just watching. I only recognised a few words; food, water, bastards, barbed, stupid. They had no hope, no future, no life, and we were responsible for them not having anything decent to eat or drink tonight.
The rutting couple were louder than ever, and now I could see them, pale like landed fish. Beyond them was the black maw of the tunnel. The poor light threw their rampant shadows behind them, huge and monstrous, as if they were some mythical horror guarding an underground tomb.
I passed by the final group of people gathered under the last blazing torch.
One of the copulating couple began to scream, the other grunted, both voices androgynous.
I lowered an arm from around Laura, walked calmly between two people and lifted the torch from its rudimentary wall mounting.
“Take this.” I handed it back to Chele, making eye contact with first one, then the other person I passed by, challenging them to confront me. If they did, there was nothing I could do to protect myself. The only defence I had was my bluff and bluster. So I stared, trying not to let my fear show through.
Another scream from the couple. They’d been rutting for at least fifteen minutes, and the climax seemed a long time coming. There was nothing titillating in the sound, only sickening, because it was more a cry of pain than anything else. Maybe it always had been.
Chele led the way towards the tunnel, and as we passed the screwing couple they let out their final,
