Sombre Read online

  Captain Andrew Feister was already calling to the barkeep, he turned to Halliday, eyes alight, twisting his barber shop mustachio with his thumb and index finger. “Your poison is hoppity scotchity and dry-dry if I remember correctly, ha-ha!? Am I right?”

  “Yes, but just one,” Halliday said forcing half a smile, “I have to get down to Wilder, she’ll be missing me.”

  Andrew Feister was quite the obnoxious fellow. He laughed at his own terrible jokes and considered himself a sort of suave and debonair airman, when he really wasn’t. He was just odd. He was balding, but didn’t wear it proudly, combing it over in wet, oily strands across his scalp. In the company of women, his poor sense of humour really came to the fore. He was now surrounded by three women. Puffing out his chest, he handed Halliday her drink.

  “There you go, have a swill at that. Mixed it myself … ha-ha! No, I didn’t … ha-ha! But enjoy that won’t you.” He finished, nodding to himself.

  Knowing him far too well, the spiky haired Recalcitrance Bexley shook her head and gave it to him straight, “It’s just a drink Andrew. It’s not like she’s in some sort of debt to you. You haven’t done her some massive favour. You have only made her feel like she has to stand here and listen to you waffle on while you tell your shitty jokes!”

  Halliday hid a smile behind her glass and said nothing.

  Lucretia laughed out loud. “Ha! She’s got you pegged, hasn’t she? Oh, how you ballooners struggle to be nice with mixes’ in you!”

  Snorting, Lucretia eyed Halliday’s chest as she drained the rest of her glass. “So, Halliday how’s your kill rate? Are you getting some flesh under those pretty nails? I notice your clock hasn’t advanced much. Are you actually doing what you’re supposed to do here in Sombre? You and that silly little horse you have down there …”

  “I quite like Wilder,” Recalcitrance countered, “she’s clever and her machinations have to be admired, if you must travel Sombre on land, she would be quite the companion.”

  Halliday smiled at the ballooner, “she is good and fast through The Byways as well. Never flinches.”

  “Never flinches?” Lucretia smiled darkly, “Oh, that’s rich! She’s a skittish thing, Halliday Knight! That would drive me batty. I see her run like a rabbit when I come anywhere near her.” Lucretia sneered and clicked her fingers at Orty, “another, barkeep!” She burped. The ever-quiet barman slung a towel over his shoulder and fished out a tall glass.

  Halliday sipped from her glass and watched Orty. To her, he always seemed sad. His big bald scone shone in the down lights, the ever-present white t-shirt hugging his soft and pudgy frame – his silver Beating Clock set to three. She wondered how he’d even managed the few strokes that he had? What possible trouble could a barkeeper get into that would cause a Mender re-build?

  “You’re low, Halliday, another one?”

  “What?” Recalcitrance’s offer caused her to look away.

  “Oh, yes please.” Halliday said without thinking, realizing she had been in a bit of a stupor just then. This was going to take her well beyond her standard five drinks, but that last one had tasted better than the ones before. She knew Orty wasn’t suddenly doing a better job; her taste buds were just a little less fussy now. She accepted the drink and listened as the wildly annoying Lucretia St Aimes waxed on about her latest exploits. It was all getting hazy; all guns and revving motorcycles and kills, chopped up bodies, visits to the unappreciative Menders. Halliday hadn’t needed to say anything, she just smiled and nodded while the Death-Witch leered at her and sipped her scotch. She was quite full of them. Too full.

  She really needed to go to the toilet.

  S

  Hope woke up with a full bladder and a god-awful pain in the stomach. With blurry vision she looked over at her bedside clock - 3:20 - hideously early a.m. Still another 4 hours of sleep to go.

  Swinging her legs out of bed she touched down on the carpet and stood up – feeling very giddy. “Damn!” she whispered. This had happened the other time Halliday had drunk herself under the table at The Ruptured Spleen. She stumbled to the door and switched on her light. Things were getting urgent, swinging the door open she ran for the bathroom across the hall.

  Halliday Knight loved a drink way too much.

  CHAPTER 6

  A Disgruntled Horse and Girl on a Mission

  Hope’s stomach settled somewhat after peeing and she fell back asleep. And as always, her rite of passage picked up where she had left it.

  Aunt Sophie’s wedding nightmare had taken an unexpected turn.

  The chapel had cleared. Everyone had left – or been removed. Hope was sitting cross-legged on the floor. Dark red bloody stains covered her dress. Her mother had done a thorough job on her.

  She surveyed the state of the room. A bride and groom shaped singe-mark stained the carpet next to her, a horrible, coagulated black. Slippery looking blood covered the pews. Crumpled burnt flowers were scattered everywhere. The fires were petering.

  Hope was all that was left.

  She felt guilty, as if the whole massacre was her fault somehow. How was that fair? Kate was the cause of all this! Her damn sister had a mouthful of gasoline, for god sake! Spat it at the bride and groom! She was the first to start stabbing everyone!

  Feeling incredibly sorry for herself, she peered down at her dress again and cleared her throat. Her mother had told her that this was what happened when you didn’t stay clean. Right now, she felt very unclean. Is that what she had meant by that? And why did it even matter? This was a nightmare, just a nightmare. Like some discarded, larger than life flower-girl horror doll, she sat alone in a burnt-out wedding chapel soaked in blood. None of this was real. It was a bad dream. Yet the guilt still gnawed at her.

  At the front of the chapel a door slammed. There was whispering in the foyer - maniacal. “She’s unclean. Unclean! Unclean that one … What to do with the unclean? What to do with the unclean? Unclean! Cleanse the unclean!”

  Hope began sobbing uncontrollably.

  Someone was coming.

  S

  “Wilder, come here! You willful, cow!”

  Halliday stood at the bottom of The Unexplained Mountain and called for her generally faithful Machanihorse. She was more than a little bit drunk and Wilder knew it.

  “Oh, how we judge though, don’t we!”

  There was a snort from somewhere behind the parked balloons and speed trucks. The machanihorse wasn’t coming. Halliday could picture her standing there, judging her - so could her Other-selves apparently,

  “You need to not drink so much, Hope’s Halliday! I could hold my scotch!”

  “Wilder always loved me, drunk or sober!”

  “Tell her you’ll have Hamish give her an oil-bath. She hates those.”

  “They are good for her though. She can be such a stubborn thing.”

  “Whatever … she’ll bloody well come when I call her,” Halliday said mostly to herself. She sucked in air through her teeth and strutted with purpose through a shadowy laneway of Gatherer vehicles.

  She found her aggravated horse standing under the sole tree.

  Wilder was tall - 19 hands. Her machinations were impressive, gear and cog-work at each shoulder and knee-joint. Her long face was part-metal armour, part equine. Three glass gauges sat just beneath the Beating Clock at her chest – measuring her oil, her steam and her petroleum levels. Her coat was shiny Buckskin, black legs and silvery black mane. She was all horse, yet she was all machine as well. She snorted and stomped her left hoof at the ground on seeing her master.

  Halliday couldn’t stifle a smile, “Ah, Wilder, be nice please. I have only had a few drinks – I will ride you well, I promise.” Tying her blond locks in a make-do ponytail, she approached and the machanihorse stood still for her, with stubborn obedience. She mounted the mare and sheathed her sword in the saddle’s holder. She kept her Remington on her hip.

  “So where are we to wander while we wait? Maybe Sombre has forgotten us, eh?”
Halliday mused giving Wilder a small kick in the side.

  The two were only metres from the parking lot when Halliday’s thoughts were invaded. “My nag, I spoke too soon …” Her body went rigid in the saddle as she held her head. Wilder stopped and waited while her master received her orders.

  Halliday spoke aloud, “Hmm … there is a Nightmarer in The Hills, girl. Not our favorite part of Sombre by a long way, I know, but we shall make the best of it, yes?”

  Wilder leapt into action. Halliday held tight to the reins as the machanihorse turned in a gallop and charged from the clearing, steam blowing from her nostrils, shoulder gears whizzing and spinning from her intricate inner piston-work.

  “Faster you lagger!” Halliday shouted with drunken thrill.

  Reaching The Unexplained Mountain’s dusty outskirts, the atmosphere warped and the two slipped into The Byway.

  S

  The Byway was Sombre with its volume set at its loudest. It screamed. It invaded the senses.

  Infinite and immense; The Byway was a Gatherer’s greatest tool – an ethereal path through Sombre’s great nightmare machine. Solid road at its surface and an ever-altering sky above. Every city and town - and the miscreants and killers that filled them - flashed by, hundreds at a time, with a strobe light flicker. The Byway could be ran through, flown through and driven through, and in Halliday and Wilder’s case, ridden through … at a ridiculously high speed.

  Halliday had regretted calling her machanihorse a lagger. The mare seemed to want to go faster. She felt every drink she’d just had at The Ruptured Spleen threaten to make way to the surface in a very undignified way. The constant barrage of imagery and white noise made her head spin. She shut her eyes, “Uggghhh!”

  The Byway vanished suddenly and gave way to darkness. Wilder slid to an abrupt stop, and Halliday was thrown forward, grappling for her mare’s mane.

  Feeling giddy and extremely ill, she sat upright in the saddle and breathed deeply, “Good god.” She eased herself off and touched down on a muddy slope near the foot of The Hills. “Well, I definitely received my come-uppance then, didn’t I.”

  With her hands on her hips, she swallowed down another wave of nausea. She walked around the machanihorse a few times in a bid to recover.

  An indignant Wilder stood perfectly still.

  “Bleeding judgy thing, you are …”

  She puffed the cold air and peered up at The Hills. Not that she could see a great deal of anything. Night was only going to make this mission harder. She knew she had to move. Time was running out for her Nightmarer.

  “A couple more burps and I shall be good to go.”

  She wondered what poor unfortunate had landed here this time. She had found all kinds in the past: postmen, cashiers, makeup artists, good for nothing lay-a-bouts, drug addicts, town drunks – she had just found a policeman. Whether they were these people in their waking lives or not was anyone’s guess. That was who they were in Sombre.

  She was ready. “Okay, my nag. Let’s go find our troubled dreamer, eh?”

  Picking a way up through the trees, Halliday and Wilder set off. The ‘phwssh, phwssh, click - phwssh, phwssh click,’ of Wilder’s shoulder and knee mechanisms, along with the cracking of twigs under her hooves, held a lone clarity.

  The Hills were ominously quiet.

  “Has our target already perished, I wonder?” she thought aloud.

  Halliday’s machanihorse just snorted, shook and nodded her head.

  “Negative nag, aren’t you? Ha! Check your mood! I had to take time to settle myself down back there, Wilder, or I may have been sick all over your neck! I did you a good turn!” Halliday said pulling her Remington from the saddle holster, “it is quiet though.”

  There was a howl in the distance. Followed by an ugly chorus of pitchy barking. “Ah, a pack, signs of life. That is encouraging.”

  With a steam-filled cough, Wilder ploughed through scrub and bramble, crossing makeshift paths. Halliday blindly ducked and weaved in the saddle, doing her utmost to avoid getting caught in the branches.

  Human voices had joined the hunt above, guttural, with a mangy pitch – lots of ‘wahoo’s!’ and yelping, cracking branches and general untidiness filled the air.

  “Ah, the Whitely’s, vile little gnomes! We shall have to be at our best, my Wilder.”

  One hand tightened on the rein, the other squeezed the gun resting across her hip and saddle. Suddenly, the echo from the Whitely’s and their dogs seemed to be everywhere. The hunt was close.

  “Whoever dreamt up these odd little strangers in the first place was a deeply disturbed individual, Wilder. You must agree?” Halliday said not expecting any sort of answer. She spoke to herself a lot in these situations. She felt in control. The alcohol in her system finally wearing off.

  The machanihorse took a left turn with purpose and mounted a rough path. With another shot of nostril steam, Wilder went into a trot as new screaming pierced the air, unmistakably female.

  “That would be our Nightmarer, Wilder. We might still have time! Quick, now – we can bring her in in one piece!” Halliday thrilled. For once, maybe she wasn’t too late!

  With another turn of speed, the two kept on in the direction of the discordance ahead; hungry shouts and barking canines - and screams from a nightmaring female.

  The path elevated and the wood darkened. Loose powdery dirt caused Wilder to fall into a jaunty trot. Eyes peeled; gun at the ready for the first sign of action, Halliday tasted the night’s chill and licked her lips.

  “Nothing, yet,” she narrowed her eyes, “They will come, and we’ll be bloody ready, my nag!”

  Introducing themselves with phlegm coated barking and hacking, a pack of five dogs, sprinted around the corner. Even in the darkness, the black oily coats of the beasts shone. Ears were pinned back, snarling mouths housed yellowed fangs. There wasn’t an eyeball between them; just empty cavities where their eyes should have been. Nightmare dogs.

  “Stop!”

  Wilder obeyed and Halliday jumped from the saddle, and instantly recoiled.

  The smell of excrement was overwhelming,

  “Oh, good lord, Wilder!”

  She could handle blood and burning flesh – but poo she always had a terrible time with. “Oh, that’s dreadful!” She covered her mouth and nose with one hand. The other had already drawn her sword. Learning from the devil imp’s at Denivens Hell, she thought a sword would be more effective on creatures like these.

  Yet she was losing her mettle, she actually felt faint.

  She cough-cried, “Ugh! Why did it have to be poo? Bloody animals! You’re all such … such … bloody animals!” The dogs circled, ready to pounce.

  “Get a grip, Halliday!” She yelled at herself as she backed away. “But they’ve been rolling in poo! Probably their own!”

  An Other-self chimed in with some helpful advice, “Oh, good god, Hope’s Halliday! Get on with it! Yes, we don’t like poo. Just try not to get your hands on them, or your clothes. Don’t let them touch your skin at all. If you miss with the blade, just kick them with your boots.”

  Wilder had scampered up the hillside to clear the way.

  The five mangy creatures lunged.

  Gritting her teeth, sword strong in her hands, Halliday slashed with sharp short strokes, taking the heads of two. Almost dancing in her bid for avoidance, she kicked another away with her size 8 boot and rammed her sword through the gaping jaw of its friend.

  “Wilder, I haven’t been touched! Not yet! Faeces free!” Halliday chimed loudly, as the last dog bolted straight for her legs. She jumped just in time. Changing tack, she ran straight for the creature as it kicked up the dirt and came at her. She lunged and lopped the head off and skillfully side stepped to avoid any touching on the follow-thru.

  Wilder was already at her side and she mounted the mare in a second. Charging around the bend, the terrain descended and dipped into a small gulch. “Whoa, girl!” Halliday pulled on the rein.

  Th
e scene was almost comical in its simplicity.

  The Nightmarer was up a tree. A few dozen Whitely’s and their eyeless dogs were at the foot of the tree. They wanted her down. She didn’t want to come down. They weren’t the greatest climbers. Podgy little bodies with stumpy legs and arms, on the surface the Whitely’s wouldn’t have qualified as the most intimidating of Sombre’s citizen’s. Men and women alike, their clothing and bodies were impossibly dirty. Mucky faces wore crooked, mostly toothless scowls.

  But Halliday knew them as dangerous trash of the highest order. Hungry types – hungry for a kill. All carried an array of hunting knives. She was fairly sure cannibalism would be frowned upon by The Menders – and equally sure the Whitely’s couldn’t have given a flying toss about such things. This girl in the tree was in trouble and destined for a stewing pot in some Whitely hollow in these very hills.

  Feet on shoulders, the Whitely’s were forming an awkward looking ladder. The tree was a high one. Without a protruding branch to be seen as any way up, Halliday couldn’t help but wonder how the girl had managed to get up there in the first place? “She climbed that tree like a monkey, Wilder!” she stated with awe.

  She could make out a white and red striped skirt, matching socks and white trainers – for some completely inexplicable reason, the colours the girl wore looked familiar. “Hmm, we need a plan, my nag,” she rubbed her chin. “The only way I think I’ll be able to get up there is by standing on your back … she will be untrusting for sure … I will need to introduce us properly.”

  Her attention went to the Whitely ladder. “And I am sure I will need to shoot some of the dirty little things. Make a statement they will understand.”

  “Don’t belittle the Whitely’s. If you shoot even one, Hope’s Halliday, the rest will come at you so fast, you won’t have time to pull the trigger,” said one Other-self.

  “Protect your horse, Halliday. I would have always thought of Wilder,” another chimed in.