Earthbound (The Reach, Book 1) (35 page)

“Not that one.  Get one with the wool liner.”

“Why?”

“Just do it,” he snapped, tossing the maintenance uniforms under a bench.  “And hurry up, unless you want to find your own way from here.”

Ursie did as he instructed, choosing a coat lined with the same putrid wool, and slipped it on.  It reached down to mid-calf, her dark jeans jutting out from where it ended.  She
jogged to catch up to Knile as he reached the door.

“I can’t imagine how many old men have drenched this thing in sweat since it was last washed,” Ursie said sourly.

“There’ll be something nicer to wear later, I promise,” Knile said sarcastically.  He snatched a cap from a nearby bench and wedged it down on her head.  “Keep your face down.  The less people who think you’re a kid, the better.”

When they emerged from the room there were four workers dressed in sky-
blue shirts and grey trousers heading down the corridor toward them.  Knile took Ursie by the elbow and guided her in the other direction.

“Hey, Frankie!” one of the workers called after them.  “Thought you had the w
eek off.”

“Frankie?” Knile called casually over his shoulder.  “Nah, man.  I’m Pete, down from Section Fourteen.  Just droppin’ back some tools Lenny borrowed on Thursday.”

“Oh, sorry,” the man said.  “Thought you were someone else.”

Knile waved but did not stop to chat further.  “No probs, man.  Have a good one.”

“Yeah, you too.”

They hurried on to the end of the corridor and up a flight of stairs.  More workers were heading downward and one of them eyed Ursie suspiciously, a dowdy woman whose blue shirt strained at the seams to hold in her considerable girth.  The woman’s eyes flicked across to Knile, who smiled casually, and then back to the girl.

“Morning,” she said slowly, somewhat warily, Knile thought, but she continued on her way regardless.

At the top of the stairs, a group of men and women in the azure uniforms were shuffling through a doorway.  Inside there came the sounds of heavy machinery starting up.  These folk paid no
attention to Knile and Ursie, chattering away at each other over the clamour of saws and orbital grinders.

They’d made it past the bulk of the crowd when Knile pointed furtively to the next staircase he wished to climb, and Ursie changed her course accordingly.

Then out of nowhere, the man with the star tattoo on his cheekbone appeared around the corner just in front of them.  His gaze passed over them without recognition, but then he did an almost comical double take, his eyes becoming wide with surprise.  He reached into his jacket for his gun, but Knile reacted first, leaping forward and slamming the man across the chin before he could draw the weapon. The man grunted and dropped heavily, and as he lay stunned, Knile slipped his hand to the holster and took the gun.  At a glance, he thought it might have been a 9mm semi, but at that moment he didn’t really care.

Then Knile was running, jamming the pistol into his belt, pushing Ursie onward and up the stairs.

Someone cried out in alarm and Knile looked back to see the man groggily swinging a smaller pistol in the air, one that he’d taken from an ankle holster.  The weapon discharged, the round slapping harmlessly into the roof, and now everyone was screaming.  Everyone was running.

This might work in our favour
, Knile thought as they reached the top of the stairs. 
No one’s going to take any notice of a man and a kid while the lunatic with the gun is holding court.

But his optimism was short-lived.  At the end of the next corridor there was another man in a similar
get-up – the same jacket and shirt, and he was holding a gun at his side.

“Here!” Knile commanded, yanking Ursie aside as they changed course again.  “The place is crawling with these bastards.”

They ran past a series of doorways, and Knile scanned the labels on each as he tried to determine what lay beyond.  He stopped abruptly at one
and produced the tiny silver implements he had used many times over the years to pick locks.
  He fidgeted at the
keyhole for a few seconds and then the door
clicked open.  They went inside.

Behind them, Knile could hear the footsteps of their pursuers closing in.

30

Ursie was immediately struck by the stench.

Crowding in behind Knile, she was unable to see anything past the bulk of his shoulders and the folds of the black long coat he had donned.  Now, as she was
accosted by this putrid miasma, she wasn’t sure she wanted to see what was in here.

The first image that her mind conjured was a room crowded with rotten corpses, and the thought made her want to puke.

“It’s poison!” she gasped, fumbling for her respirator.

“No,” Knile said, turning to close the door behind them.  “Look.”

Ursie lifted her head to see a long, broad room that stretched off into the distance for some way.  It was dimly lit by a smattering of spotlights that created thin shafts of illumination, like glowing yellow pine trees punctuating the darkness.  The roof was low and
tight, and Ursie could vaguely see more of those gaping holes that Knile had told her about in the roof, making it look like a block of swiss cheese.

The place was cluttered with a latticework of thin beams, both vertical and horizontal, a whole network of them, and Ursie wondered if Knile had led her into some kind of maze.  Then her gaze dropped further and she saw a pair of large, glinting brown eyes staring right at her from the gloom.

She gasped and fell back, clutching for Knile.

“Take it easy,” Knile said, unconcerned.  He snatched up his flashlight and pointed it in at the wall nearby.  “Haven’t you ever seen a cow before?”

Ursie steadied herself and looked over again at the eyes peering through the wooden beams at her.  On closer inspection, she could now see the outline of the cow’s face and the bulk of its body beyond.  Glancing about, she saw that there were many, many more of them, standing quietly and regarding her with a kind of dull impassiveness.

“What are they doing here?” Ursie said.

“They live here,” Knile said, walking away urgently with his flashlight still trained on the wall.  “It’s one of the livestock pens.”

Ursie clamped two fingers on her nose to block the smell.

“I think one of them died,” she said, her voice nasally.  “Maybe more.”

“That’s just the natural fragrance of the pen,” Knile said.  “I guess when you combine all the cow dung, the gases that are released when their stomachs break down that shitty grain mix they’re forced to eat–”

“It’s probably better if I don’t know,” Ursie said.

“Right.”  Knile reached an orange box on the wall, a distribution board, and used a screwdriver from his bag of tools to pry it open.  Inside was a column of circuit breakers, most of which had been flicked to the off position.

“What are you doing?” Ursie said.

Knile seemed to scan the faded labels on the breakers, dragging his finger down as he muttered the names to himself.

“Trying to find the exit,” he said.  His finger ceased its descent, resting on a label that read
Funnel2
, and he flicked the breaker to the on position. Some distance away a white fluoro clicked on, revealing a broad, horizontally segmented door set in the far wall.

“That should lead to the meatworks,” Knile said.

Ursie raised an eyebrow.  “And?”

“There’s more places to hide that way,” Knile said, closing the distribution board.  “More chances to lose these guys.”

“As long as we don’t fall into the mincer.  What–”

Ursie stopped and turned back to the entrance.  There was the unmistakable sound of something scratching at the outside lock.

“Shit,” Knile said, flinging open the distribution board again.  He jammed the screwdriver into the first breaker and snapped it free of its screws with a sharp wrenching motion, then went on and did the same to the second, then the third.  Behind her, the overhea
d cones of yellow light began to wink out.

The scratching on the door ceased, and then a moment later there was a loud, resounding thud as whoever it was tried to force the door.

“We need to move!” Ursie hissed.  The livestock began to shift, agitated, their hooves stomping and scraping on the hard flooring as they shied away from the banging at the door.

“One second!” Knile said, moving down the line of breakers and snapping them off into his hand.  There was another thud at the door, and a woody cracking sound as the lock began to give.

“Hurry up!” Ursie said.

Knile reached the last breaker, tearing it off into his palm and then flinging the handful into the air, out above the pen, where they rained down on the unsuspecting cattle, causing several of them to jump and make disgruntled groans.  He grabbed Ursie by the hand and led her toward the nearest pen, ducking between a gap in the beams and sliding through to join the animals inside.  The beasts shied again, their dull eyes suddenly wild, and then Knile clicked the flashlight off and plunged the room into darkness.

A moment later the door gave way under the force of another thunderous blow, and it crashed open with a loud metallic clunk that resounded throughout the room.  A swath of white light from the hallway outside cut across the herd like the headlights of a car on a moonless night.

“Here,” Knile whispered, never letting go of Ursie’s hand as they kept low and headed toward the large door at the other end of the room.  “Don’t rush, and don’t make any sudden movements.  We don’t want to give away our position.”

Shadows danced in the doorway and then they heard the clear voice of a man ring out.

“Start looking,” someone said.

“I’ll find the lights,” added another.

“Shit, how many are there?” Ursie said.

Flashlights seared into the blackness overhead, cycling past like lighthouse beams and illuminating the backs and shoulders of the beasts around Knile and Ursie.  There were footsteps as one of the men came nearer, and then the sound of the distribution board creaking open.

“They’ve mashed the panel, Jordan.”

“Spread out,” the other man said.  “Find them.”

There were more shadows in the doorway, and the sound of others entering.  Hushed voices.

“Keep heading toward the entrance to the meatworks,” Knile whispered, and Ursie nodded.  As the flashlights swept across again, she noted in some remote part of her brain that these beasts did not seem particularly healthy.  Their hides were patchy and mottled with sores, and many of them seemed to be afflicted with some sort of scaly black skin condition that engulfed the entirety of th
eir hind legs, making it appear as though they’d been standing with their rumps in a fire.

I better not catch some goddamn disease in here
, she thought, even though at that point in time such a concern came a far-
distant second to the problem of the men with guns.  One of the cows flicked its ears as she passed as if shooing away some unseen gnat, staring at her impassively.

“Knile?” a loud voice suddenly boomed from the doorway.  Ursie stifled a gasp and then went thumping into Knile’s back as the cow next to her knocked her askew in its fright.  There was the sound of many hooves stamping and shifting on the floor again, and then the voice returned.  “Knile, I know you’re in here.”

Knile looked back toward the doorway to see the silhouette of a man towering above the cattle, perched on one of the highest rungs of the cow pen like a stockman of old keeping watch over his herd.

“Stay low,” Knile cautioned.

“Knile,” the man went on.  “My name is Alton Wilt.  I’m a businessman who recently took an interest in your… activities.”  Wilt’s voice was deep and commanding as it rang out across the pens.  There was also an uncompromising quality about it that made Knile deeply uneasy.  “I have a proposal for you.  I’m here to tell you that you can still walk out of this room alive.”

Yeah, right
, Knile thought.