One Last Drink
She sang and her words melted away a thousand worlds. Their remains congealing into amber treacle fluidly pouring its way across the vast expanse of an infinite cosmos. Space itself turning to ink and swirling in endless motion, embracing the divinity of her form. With flowing blonde hair resting on nimble shoulders, its golden ends kissing small freckles that shone like stars in a milky white sea. He sank back into the wooden bench, eyes glazing over as they fell upon the curves of her body. Beautiful, standing there beneath a dying night, her radiance breathing life into the winds forever blowing across the summer crops. Her voice rose in synchronicity to her body’s sway, both twirling with the rise and fall of her performance, each cord plucking the emotions of all who watched, their feelings flowing like the undulating tides of a warm summer sea. All around an audience sat beneath the stars; lovers cosied together on hay bales with their fingers entwined while children rested on the sands. All with eyes dazily forwards, entranced by the softness of her voice. The gentle press of a tiny hand brushed into his own palms and he sank back once again. Letting his Sons fingers be encompassed within his own. Letting the waves of her voice carry him; a siren call lulling him through the flames. He blinked and the world burned. The flames that licked at skin blistering and boiling with the screams of villagers echoing in chorus to some demented choir, all shrieking with twisting limbs and melting eyes and she stood in the centre of it all untouched; singing with the softness of an angel amidst the burning spires of hell. His Sons hand had vanished, turning to ash sifting between his fingertips and he tried to scream but tendrils of smoke coiled their way down his throat, unable to move unable to breath he could only witness. She looked at him with tears of black streaming down pale cheeks and her arms like decaying branches clawing their way from the cinders of ruin, were reaching towards him with skin dripping like wax. All the time she never stopped crying, she never stopped singing. save us, seven hells damn you save us…
His chest heaved back and forth, gasping in mouthfuls of air, fingers burying into something solid in attempt to stop his body from swaying. Bard winced as the world came bleeding back into visions of reality.
“Ah good sir, you return to us once more.” Mr. Eldritch stood over him, his usual black suited trousers, black shoes, black shirt, black waistcoat, black bowler hat, all blurring into a black stain on Bard’s vision.
“The pill. Just gi’ me the pill.”
“Ah yes of course, here you go sir.” Bard felt the small capsule press into his mouth, rolling across his tongue and down his gullet.
“Not a moment now,” gestured Mr. Eldritch in his ear.
The room ceased in its endless spinning and Bard found himself staring into the reflection of his glass; the grey clouds of his one eye gradually returning back in from the corners of reality. Somnium come downs are always the worst. He retched, spitting out thick strings of brown fluid that coiled into the tin bucket by his side. All feeling had returned; the burnt taste of ash and stomach bile came with it.
“And finally he transcends once more from celestial being into man,” Mr. Eldritch taunted, gesticulating and speaking always as a creature far above his own caste, a glorified drugs peddler.
“Wud you shut up a bit.” Bard waved a hand at Mr. Eldritch before pressing his fingers into his temples, applying pressure in a vain attempt to subside the throbbing ache gnawing its way through the inside of his head.
“Bard, known famously for his manners,” Mr. Eldritch lowered his spindly frame to remove the burner, boiling chamber and breathing pipes from the table. He paused, lifting a transparent tube before his eyes inspecting the familiar purple powder burnt around its edges, “you should remember who measures your doses.”
“an’ you ought remember who’s payin.”
Mr. Eldritch turned his head and smiled “and pay kindly you do sir.”
Bard reclined back in his seat as Mr. Eldritch’s elongated limbs skittered over the table gathering the last of the utensils. Mr. Eldritch rose and tipped his bowler hat in salute, “I shall signal when they arrive,” the black ponds of his lifeless eyes stared for a moment before he turned and weaved a path back behind the bar.
Bard glanced down at the bottle of whiskey on the table and poured a healthy measure, his hands trembling at her voice still resonating within the confines of his head. save us. He downed the fluorescent liquid and carried on pouring; turning his ear to soak in the sounds of Brown Jenkins Tavern. The constant slamming of cups on tables, the tinny juke box plucking its misery through broken speakers and the wailing crescendo of drunkards dribbling their nonsense. During the rare quiet lulls you could hear a chorus of whores groaning from behind the numerous locked doors that riddled the Tavern. Every inch was crammed with the unwashed labourers of Gulch’s workforce; all draining their miserable lives through mouthfuls of cheap ale and psychedelic narcotics. Bard noticed a Dwarf hunched over in one corner, its great beard infested with grime from tip to root, hanging down above overalls stained in oil. The two fingers he had left were wrapped around the handle of a tin cup and the Dwarfs eyes peered forever into its depths. Bard spat another wad of bile into the bucket at his feet, watching as the wad lost its shape and became one with the rest of the filth.
Bard’s eyes drifted over to Anorra slumped in the chair opposite him. Her eyes still flitting beneath their lids, lost, drifting amidst the worlds clawing out from the edges of the universes conscious, un-intoxicated spectrum. He booted the table, smirking as Anorra’s head rolled back before lulling forward and hanging loose above the rags draped over her shoulders. Even when unconscious her face was scolding; ten years of prying an existence living out the darkness of Gulch’s back alleys does that to a kid. Bards fingertips trailed the scar cut deep into his cheek, he smiled, the girl could look after herself at least.
A jarring of metal rattled behind him as the Taverns steel shutters were dragged open, exposing its dwellers to the outside. The guts of the Tavern convulsed against the bellowing of blast furnaces, their insatiable roar reverberated across the tin walls before the shutters slammed shut once more, drowning out the plague noise of a thousand factories swallowing the outer rims of the City. In the momentary quiet, heavy footfalls squelched upon ale soaked duckboards. Dink… Bard focused and with his right hand he poured another glass of whiskey, purposely spilling some over the rim of the glass and across the table. Dink… He stiffened his back and began swaying a little, motioning round in a drunken arc to face the bar where Eldritch was leaning with long white fingers resting on an empty bottle. Dink… Eldritch’s finger fell for the third time signalling that three of them had entered. Bard slowly manoeuvred his left hand beneath the table and felt the grip of his nailgun enter his palm.
He exhaled deeply; time for another fucking show. Spitting great wads of drool he swiped the bottle of whiskey from the table and glared at Eldritch, “Oi, fuck stick. Gimme anoth’ furrin drink.”
“Sir, I regret to inform you but I believe you have had enough. This is quite the respectable environ_”
“You, you alf bred mongrel, bring me my damn_,” Bard bit hard into a capsule stored behind the back left molar in his mouth, the taste of piss bubbled up across his tongue. His stomach clenching as torrents of stomach acid once again found their way spilling from his open mouth.
“Please sir if you’d kindly leave.” Eldritch lifted one finger for a mere second, the signal Bard had been waiting for, the target was here.
“Yer a furrin_” Bard felt an enormous hand grab around his throat, lifting him with ease, Eldritch’s figure disappeared from sight as a monstrous grasp slammed his head down against the table top.
“You be quiet terran man.” The putrid stench of rotting fish and stale sweat invaded his nostrils causing water to stream from his eye. Bard strained through the tears, the reflection in his now toppled glass confirming three assailants in total; two terrans, one male, one female, both carrying their weapons brazenly across their shoulders and one heavy; a fucking troll which happened to have its fist clenched around his throat.
“Rumours been floating round that you’ve got water here. Mr. Eldritch?” The male strolled into Bards view and stood beneath a set of oil lamps; a blood red Mohawk flickered beneath the firelight, illuminating dozens of scars laced into the shaven parts of his skull. The numerals XLVII were tattooed upon his forehead. “We run this territory now,” raising his arm to shoulder height the male levelled a sawed off shotgun at Eldritch’s head, “you know how this goes.”
The taverns conversations seized at the sight of the shotgun, only the broken jukebox rasped on, plucking its tin can chords across the room. Bard began writhing beneath the crushing fist as each note echoed within his skull. His vision blurred as the Tavern slowly began twisting into the semblance of an animal shed, its occupants shedding their clothes, contorting into shapes of wild beasts all frothing at the gums, rabid and wild and only good for the slaughter seven hells damn you he gasped for air, screwing his eyes shut to visions of their screaming bleating tongues. Moments passed before he opened his eye, relieved at the sight of Eldritch confidently leaning on the bar with complete indifference to the sawed off shotgun pointing at his face. Somnium was a bad idea, the drug’s effects still festered beneath the surface.
“Sir, we are located in the outer rim of City Henderson,” Mr. Eldritch’s voice carried like silk into the ears of his aggressors, “If it is water you seek then you are approximately four hundred and forty kilometres from the white walls of the Elysium districts.”
A single shot thundered through the tavern, its deafening curse resonated across the tin walls. There was a wet smack of a body collapsing to the floor. Straining out the corner of his eye, Bard followed the tendrils of smoke uncoiling upwards from a bloodied crater torn into the back of the Dwarven factory worker. The dwarfs’ frame lay in ruin; the dark black stains on his overalls swallowing an over flowing tide of red crimson while his two fingers remained, forever clinging to one last drink.
“Don’t play dumb with us Eldritch.” The female strolled into view, standing over the corpse with a plasma cutter smoking at her hip. “We like this place,” she smiled, rolling the tip of her boot across the mangled body beneath her, she then prodded at the Dwarfs charred flesh before idly meeting Mr.Eldritch’s gaze “it’d be a shame watching it burn.”
Bards fingers twitched; there the bitch is. Shimmering blonde hair, short cropped and tied to one side with a streak of red dyed down the fringe. Sparrow eyes perched above a twisted nose, flitting around the tavern assessing its occupants. XLVII stained the skin just below her left ear. Bard ran his eye over her; a petite frame, delicate almost, the flowing curves spoiled only by plasma fuel cells strapped diagonally across her chest. Gretna fucking Hummingbird. Second lieutenant of the infamous Forty Seven and more importantly, a tenacious little beast worth fifteen hundred credits dead or alive. And there she was, overconfident, with a spent plasma cell and only two thick bastards to guard her. Bard couldn’t resist the urge to smile.
“Wud yew lift yer fat and’ off me. Stinkin trolls gud for nowt nowhere on Gulch.”
Gretna shot him a glance, “be quiet you old fool. Do you want to die today?”
Bard continued blubbering drool across the table, “Trolls ar nowt but the shit pipe o Gulch, things only good for shuvlin the shit o’ better species. Ought t’_”
Gretna turned from him, waving a dismissive hand at her Troll henchman. “Silence him Zrudrom.”
Iron clad fingers clenched the sides of his head as the Troll raised him clear from the table, suspending him in mid- air, ready to slam his face down through the wood pulverising his skull into mush upon the iron floor. Bard’s grin widened, the mohawked degenerate hadn’t turned from Eldritch and the arrogant little bird hadn’t bothered to reload her plasma cutter. His fingers danced over the latch of his holster, pulling the nailgun free from its casket he aimed down at the Trolls head and fired. The sound of his nailgun drowned beneath the deafening moans of a Troll, wailing in pain as its skull split into fragments before toppling forwards and cracking its head wide open on a steel table. As Bard fell with the Troll, he re-aimed his nailgun at the spinal column of the Mohawk and fired again in mid-air. In an instant the man’s neck was reduced to nothing more than strings of flesh barely clutching his head to his body. He dropped his shotgun, clutching his neck in a futile attempt of stopping warm blood pumping through cold fingers. Another bolt exploded the back of the man’s skull and he collapsed, spasming in a pool of blood, slowly forming a red froth as it mixed with ale upon the iron sheet floor.
Bard crouched as his feet hit the iron plating, raising his nailgun to level with the Gretna’s forehead. Gretna pivoted on her heel, ducking simultaneously as Bards next shot glanced the side of her temple. Her eyes widened and her mouth twisted into a snarl as she lifted her right arm, a concealed pistol shot forth from within her sleeves landing between her fingertips and she fired. Pain, nothing but pain. Agony searing from within, the mind catapulting into overdrive struggling to grasp the multiple sensations caused by a 9.5mm round bursting its way through the chest cavity. Bard’s feet gave way and he felt something crack the back of his head as he fell into a slump against the wall. A warm, wet sensation trickled down from his chest and across his stomach as the world began spinning worse than any Somnium hangover. The little bitch was laughing; stood amidst the blurring faces of thugs and wasters hiding behind their poisons. Bards vision started to fail as the world melted around him, his life draining with the colours disappearing before his eye. He blinked hard. The vertigo passed, Gretna was pacing towards him, reloading her plasma cutter as she moved. His right hand fumbled for the grenade he had tucked beneath his rags but all too quickly she stood at his feet.
“You goin’ to kill me girl?” Blood trickled between the gaps in his teeth.
“Pretending to be a drunkard. I should have recognised you sooner Bard,” Gretna primed her plasma cutter, flicking a switch on its left side the fuel cells began whirring into life, “I suppose I should be honoured they sent you after me.” Bard grit his teeth as he felt the barrel press beneath his jaw; its smouldering heat seared into his skin as the stench of burning flesh stalked its way into his nostrils. “Well old man,” Gretna jammed her spare hand into his open wound, “to think I’ll be the one who kills you.”
Bard looked past the plasma cutter pressing against his throat and past the viscous cow looming over him. Ignoring the pain he smiled at the reflection in a mirror just beyond Gretna’s right shoulder. “Fifteen hundred credits,” he exhaled with relief. Gretna shot a glance to her left where Anorra was still sitting. The bitch’s lips twisted into a grimace, her eyes twitching as anger raged beneath the mask of her face. Gretna opened her mouth to speak but a deafening blast stole her words; teeth ripping from their gums as her skin flayed exposing raw flesh now emblazoned in fire. A guttural scream bubbled up from a hole burning its way through her throat as her eyes melted beneath hair engulfed in flames. Gretna crumpled to the iron duckboards, her head nothing more than a smouldering ruin of bloodied pulp and bone.
Anorra strode into view and bending down, she began sawing the right hand from Gretna’s tiny body. “You got yourself shot.”
Bard could feel her smirking over her shoulder as the crunch of Gretna’s bone gave way beneath her saw. The Devastator Hand Cannon he’d gifted to her dangled at her waist, cordite smoke billowing from its maw.
“Drunk and drugged he said. Never see us coming he said.” She turned; holding Gretna’s lifeless hand in her own she then rummaged beneath the rags draped around her shoulders and produced a small metallic scanner. The device hummed with static as she traced it over the palm until finally a sweet little chime rendered an identification number on its display. “I love that sound,” she grinned, “fifteen hundred credits right here.”
He coughed up blood, “You were asleep. You’ll be lucky to see three.”
She lifted one eyebrow and frowned at him, “five hundred and I’ll give you this,” in her other hand she produced a silver syringe with a translucent liquid held in its chamber. “I killed the bitch and besides,” she cocked her head to one side, “be a shame for an old man to die.”
“Little swine,” he coughed again, the bitter tang of copper trailed across his tongue as blood swirled in his mouth. Behind Anorra the taverns occupants had returned to their drinking, idle conversations droning forever on in an inexorable wave of hopeless noise. The brave few who’d dared try and pry the possessions off the dead now retreated back to their seats with black eyes and broken noses, skulking away from Mr. Eldritch who now towered above the bodies strewn across his taverns floor. His spindly arms ordered his henchmen to gather up the dead before glancing down at Bard, “And pay kindly you do sir.” Eldritch tipped his bowler hat in salute then dragged the Trolls bloated carcass in one hand bleeding across the duckboards. As Anorra injected the stimms into his neck, Bards eye followed Mr. Eldritch’s course. The eight foot creature lurked across the taverns floor, his suit shining with a peculiar iridescence as he passed beneath the oil lamps flames. Their flickering glow danced shadows across skull white fingers stalking out from within the black fabric, more bone than flesh, clasped around the ankle of the dead troll, towing its weight with ease. Mr. Eldritch slid behind the bar, took one last glance around his Tavern, then vanished behind a bolted steel door. Branded into its surface read the words; no exit.”
“You ever wonder what happens behind there?” Anorra asked.
Her eyes had followed his gaze and she remained inspecting the door. Bard turned from its looming presence, a barrier, blocking out the rest of the tavern from dead corpses, bone white fingers and whatever happens beyond.
“It’d pay you not to wonder kid.”
Bard winced at the pain as Anorra helped him back up into his seat, the hole in his chest already beginning to close as the chemicals weaved their way through his blood stream. Staring out the window, he witnessed the post sixteen hour shift fallout of workers spilling from their factory floors. Thousands of feet carrying haggard bodies beneath the shadows of fabricated metal structures that tower ever higher into oblivion. Trudging onwards to their shanty hab block life, a cold portion of gruel to look forward too if they survive the journey back to whatever hell they call home. A shot rang out within the crowd, another corpse in the street, another gangster paid. Somewhere the rich drink wine behind barb wired walls; the crowd dispersed once again, continuing their endless march to nowhere. Something caught his eye and he let out a gasp, stumbling backward in his seat as he turned away.
“I said Somnium was a bad idea,” Anorra boasted as she eyed him, still toying with the severed hand on the table.
Bard smiled, ten years old and already trying to call the shots. He disregarded her comment and plucked the hand from her little fingers, “Come kid, lets get paid.”
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The Home Front 