Read Online Parallax View by Eric Brown, Keith Brooke - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Eric Brown, Keith Brooke
Ads: Link
now another dry storm was kicking up, and her decal was snowstorming with static, making any communication impossible.
The sky was alive with sheets of blue lightning, the air fizzing with electricity. There was a sudden blast, and Corrie staggered, somehow stayed on her feet.
She smelt smoke.
The lightning had struck a nearby tree and now its oily sap was sizzling, small flames lapping around its trunk, fingering their way into its oily crevices, finding sustenance, spreading, leaping higher.
“Come on,” Corrie gasped, her dry throat aching. Rachel and Sue looked ready to collapse. Their faces were hollowed with hunger, their eyes shadowed and sunken. Corrie and Tanya exchanged glances, then each took hold of one of their companions and half-supported, half-dragged them away from the spreading fire.
They managed, but a short distance ahead another wall of flames cut across the trail.
Fire ahead, fire behind. They were trapped.
Tanya was smacking the back of her wrist, as if that would free her comms decal of interference from the storm.
Suddenly, Corrie recognised their surroundings. She put a hand on Tanya’s arm, and gestured through the trees to her left.
“A river,” she mouthed. She remembered Rube’s invitation: Come on, Corrie. What have you got to hide? She remembered him stripping off, the obscene growths of plaques cut off in a neat line where the waistband of his pants had been. The lily-white flesh below, the bulbous lumps of his genitalia waving about, half-engorged, below, as he advanced on her. Come on, babe. We’re just two humans together. Meaty hands reaching out towards her as Corrie found herself rooted to the spot. Fingers hooked inside the fastening at the front of her shirt, pulling downwards, scaly skin brushing her flesh. What have you got to lose, babe? And then it was over. She’d backed away, cried something at him, and he’d laughed and backed into the river.
Fucking dyke , he’d called her, then, and side-stroked out into the open water.
Now, Tanya and Corrie dragged their two companions through the trees to the river and plunged in. The water revived Rachel and Sue, and the four women waded farther out. Corrie leaned forward into the water’s oily embrace, gave herself to it, breaststroked out into the middle and turned to watch the forest burn.
They found the abandoned settlement in the early hours of the next day. The Gargoyle males must have either perished in the inferno, or set off, already, on their southward migration.
What, then, of their honorary ‘females’?
The others were too exhausted to go on, but Corrie had to see. She forced herself along the trail. One foot, then the other, then the first again. Every step a victory over weariness and starvation.
Suddenly there were standing stones all around her. She must have been on autopilot, just one step, then another.
She looked around.
No sign of the Gargoyles. No sign that anything had happened here. She made her way to the nearest stone.
The pit wasn’t there.
Or rather ... it had been filled, covered over.
She turned through 360 degrees, bewildered, trying to get her bearings. Took one staggering step, and suddenly the ground gave way beneath her foot and she was plunging downwards.
But her landing was soft, yielding.
She was lying perhaps two metres below ground level, the dim sunlight picking out the chamber’s walls, glistening viscously.
She tried to move, but she was enfolded in the same soft, yielding substance that comprised the walls of the pit. She sank back into its sticky embrace, laughing feebly.
Something caught her eye, then, glinting in the morning light. She reached out, hooked a finger round a sliver of metal, a chain. A necklace, with a horn of plenty pendant suspended from it. Rube’s chain...
She sank back in the gloop.
She didn’t know what they did to their females to liquefy them like this; it must be part of the preservation process, she supposed. Rube would have had
The sky was alive with sheets of blue lightning, the air fizzing with electricity. There was a sudden blast, and Corrie staggered, somehow stayed on her feet.
She smelt smoke.
The lightning had struck a nearby tree and now its oily sap was sizzling, small flames lapping around its trunk, fingering their way into its oily crevices, finding sustenance, spreading, leaping higher.
“Come on,” Corrie gasped, her dry throat aching. Rachel and Sue looked ready to collapse. Their faces were hollowed with hunger, their eyes shadowed and sunken. Corrie and Tanya exchanged glances, then each took hold of one of their companions and half-supported, half-dragged them away from the spreading fire.
They managed, but a short distance ahead another wall of flames cut across the trail.
Fire ahead, fire behind. They were trapped.
Tanya was smacking the back of her wrist, as if that would free her comms decal of interference from the storm.
Suddenly, Corrie recognised their surroundings. She put a hand on Tanya’s arm, and gestured through the trees to her left.
“A river,” she mouthed. She remembered Rube’s invitation: Come on, Corrie. What have you got to hide? She remembered him stripping off, the obscene growths of plaques cut off in a neat line where the waistband of his pants had been. The lily-white flesh below, the bulbous lumps of his genitalia waving about, half-engorged, below, as he advanced on her. Come on, babe. We’re just two humans together. Meaty hands reaching out towards her as Corrie found herself rooted to the spot. Fingers hooked inside the fastening at the front of her shirt, pulling downwards, scaly skin brushing her flesh. What have you got to lose, babe? And then it was over. She’d backed away, cried something at him, and he’d laughed and backed into the river.
Fucking dyke , he’d called her, then, and side-stroked out into the open water.
Now, Tanya and Corrie dragged their two companions through the trees to the river and plunged in. The water revived Rachel and Sue, and the four women waded farther out. Corrie leaned forward into the water’s oily embrace, gave herself to it, breaststroked out into the middle and turned to watch the forest burn.
They found the abandoned settlement in the early hours of the next day. The Gargoyle males must have either perished in the inferno, or set off, already, on their southward migration.
What, then, of their honorary ‘females’?
The others were too exhausted to go on, but Corrie had to see. She forced herself along the trail. One foot, then the other, then the first again. Every step a victory over weariness and starvation.
Suddenly there were standing stones all around her. She must have been on autopilot, just one step, then another.
She looked around.
No sign of the Gargoyles. No sign that anything had happened here. She made her way to the nearest stone.
The pit wasn’t there.
Or rather ... it had been filled, covered over.
She turned through 360 degrees, bewildered, trying to get her bearings. Took one staggering step, and suddenly the ground gave way beneath her foot and she was plunging downwards.
But her landing was soft, yielding.
She was lying perhaps two metres below ground level, the dim sunlight picking out the chamber’s walls, glistening viscously.
She tried to move, but she was enfolded in the same soft, yielding substance that comprised the walls of the pit. She sank back into its sticky embrace, laughing feebly.
Something caught her eye, then, glinting in the morning light. She reached out, hooked a finger round a sliver of metal, a chain. A necklace, with a horn of plenty pendant suspended from it. Rube’s chain...
She sank back in the gloop.
She didn’t know what they did to their females to liquefy them like this; it must be part of the preservation process, she supposed. Rube would have had
Similar Books
