"The fuck was that shit?" the shotgun-bearing young man muttered, demonstrably disturbed.
Daphne, too, wondered about the footsteps and the bizarre laughter.
"Don't know," said the larger sadist, "don't care, as long as we make it to the highway."
They continued under the dull, dark gray sky. As 49 and its scattered wrecks came into view, Daphne and the two sadists again heard the footsteps to their rear. The sound began in the woods to their left, then crossed the path and entered the woods again to the right, moving too quickly in the darkness for Daphne to get a good look at the figure. She readied herself as the smaller sadist stopped and ruffled his greasy hair, spinning his body around and taking a dozen steps forward to confront the unseen man in the woods.
"You know where you are, fucker?" he boomed with false bravado, clearly perturbed even as he puffed his chest and flexed his arms, his fists clenched.
"A.J., don't...." urged the larger one, trailing off.
With the two men distracted, Daphne was ready to take a chance and go in for the strike. She stopped abruptly, her bound hand reaching behind her to clutch the large testicles of the bald sadist who had been looking at A.J. to their rear. As a result, he slammed hard into Daphne and her uncommonly strong fingers.
She turned to gaze behind her as she squeezed. For the first second, his expression was one of simple surprise. Then, as her iron grip began to close, vice-like, around the delicate organs, his eyes bulged and he struggled to breathe or produce sounds. From the woods, Daphne heard another short ripple of laughter.
"I'm gonna fuck you up when I find you!" A.J. warned the boisterous mystery intruder, aiming his shotgun randomly into the woods as he moved farther away. Oblivious to what was going on between his associate and Daphne, he approached the treeline.
Daphne spun around, grabbing the man's thick wrist as he lifted the taser. She squeezed the dozens of bones together until his fingers relinquished their grip on the weapon. The oversized sadist let out a grunt of pain tinged with shock, his left hand moving from his injured testicles to his somewhat pulverized wrist, where Daphne had damaged the nerves and broken a few minor bones.
As his left hand went for the revolver holstered at his right hip, Daphne lunged for the taser on the ground. She bent her left knee at a hard angle, her right leg extended out behind her, until her thighs formed a straight line, parallel and low to the ground. She reached with her fingertips down past her rear end, her hands still bound behind her back, and just barely grazed the taser. Straining to reach a few millimeters lower, she grasped the weapon with her left hand and transferred it to the right just as the sadist wrangled his revolver from its holster. His entire left arm trembled as he wielded the weapon, struggling in his acute distress to aim the barrel at Daphne. She rose from her deep lunge in two steps, bringing her right knee into the sadist's already injured groin as she stood.
He responded with a low, slow moan, his knees buckling as the gun slipped from his grip. Daphne's hand darted out to seize the revolver as the sadist's body hit the ground, coming to rest in a horizontal position. She kicked the gun away into the edge of the woods, where it was obscured by debris and darkness.
To her right, she saw the other sadist begin to retreat from the woods. She noted the approaching figure as his mate lay groaning on the blanket of pine needles covering the ground. She bent down, regarding him briefly as she tased him for good measure. She took the key ring from his right jacket pocket.
"Tell Red he's dead," she whispered to him as she stood, making her way into the treeline in order to escape the detection of the other sadist. She was already uncuffed, running silently through the woods in the direction of the water treatment building, when the young man realized that she was missing.
"Where is that cunt?" she heard him demand of his partner, who was still inundated with shock and pain.
Up ahead, Daphne saw the form of the building, the straight lines of its walls visible from between the trees. To her right, nearer the road, the battle raged on between the sadists and their unknown challengers. Reports rang out, echoing up and down the road, and every so often a small explosion could be heard.
Daphne reached the facade of the structure, slipping in through the front door. The building appeared to be empty, with no lights to illuminate the pitch-black interior. She found a switch not far from the entrance, lighting up the main room. She searched the modest building, which was comprised of only two rooms and a small bathroom, other than the chamber with the waterworks. One of the rooms was the one in which she had been held captive, and the other was the large entry space littered with sleeping bags and various personal items belonging to the sadists, all scattered across the floor.
She stepped into the tiny bathroom, her hand sliding along the wall until she located a switch, flipping it on and bathing the room in fluorescent light. There was a full-length mirror attached to the back of the door. She reached behind her back, tearing away the loose gauze. Gazing over her shoulder at her reflection, she took in the image burned into her flesh. It was in the shape of a tree, composed of small burns carefully placed up and down her back. She mused that the scar left behind would last for the rest of her life, like a tattoo gifted to her by Red. For the time being, however, she didn't grant herself much thought on the subject. As she left the bathroom, she figured that what was done was done.
"Time to do the rest," she said under her breath as her eyes scanned the main room, seeking the red and black dirtbike suit, boots and helmet she had been wearing when she was captured. She wondered about her knife and the messenger bag full of throwing sticks. She supposed it was likely that the sticks were still somewhere in the building, since there was a good chance that none of the sadists were proficient in throwing them.
"That knife, though," she mouthed in the silent room. "Probably already in someone else's sheath."
She located the dirtbike suit with its matching headwear and footwear stuffed into a cabinet. She smiled faintly with relief as she pulled the suit on. She was suddenly glad for the fact that she wore an extra-small, since not many people could fit the size. She presumed it to be why the suit was still in the cabinet.
Upon the top of the five-foot-tall cupboard, she found the tan messenger bag containing her sharpened sticks and her wreath of enemy ears collected over the previous months, strung through the holes in the middle of the tanned organs onto a length of paracord. She donned the necklace, then searched the bag and the top of the cabinet. She had hoped to find her knife, but to no avail. She left the building, armored and armed, and tried not to think too much about her missing talon.
As she once again entered the cool, dark air, a powerful wave of fatigue washed over her. An irrational part of her psyche compelled her to go back inside, curl up in one of the sleeping bags and go to sleep. She sneered, shaking off the compulsion, and continued ahead, in the direction of the gunfire. As she approached the coniferous treeline, she blacked out for a few seconds, though she had continued walking during the brief lapse of consciousness.
Shit,
she thought,
was I sleeping?
It had been many hours since she had gotten any real sleep. There had only been the hazy, drug-induced visions that, while having a dream-like quality, did not offer the advantage of actual rest. There was also the matter of the substantial wound running the length of her back, which desperately wanted the chance to heal. For Daphne, it was beyond running on fumes.
Her face lit up in a delirious grin. "I'm running on revenge," she muttered. "Nothing else."
As she penetrated the treeline, she heard a distinct rustling of the compost covering the forest floor. Her hand dove into her bag, plucking a stick from its interior. She raised the pointed end toward the sound, her eyes scanning the vicinity for movement.
"We're friends," uttered a loudly whispering voice from behind a shrub about twenty feet away.
Should have known,
Daphne thought.
"Merlin?" she said, her tone hushed. "Is that you? I thought I heard you earlier."
"How'd you guess?" he asked, another round of laughter escaping him. "Is it 'cause I creep around the woods like magic?"
"Who's all here?" Daphne asked as she came near to him.
Merlin shrugged. "Pretty much all of us, I think. Merlin knows Shari protects her flock. When they took you--" He paused, imitating Shari wielding her assault rifle with a stick he reached down to pick up from the ground. "It meant war."
Daphne's eyes fluttered, and as staggered forward she leaned her weight into Merlin despite herself. She felt that she could no longer deny sleep, that she had reached a point where it would happen whether it was voluntary or not.
"Hey," Merlin said as he steadied her weight, "why not see if we can find someone who can help?" He seemed slightly sobered by Daphne's apparent incapacity.
Even in her extreme fatigue, Daphne teared up slightly, overwhelmed with the frustration of her failure to complete the objective. "But Merlin," she whimpered, struggling to lift her eyelids, "I really wanted to get Red. I wanted to make him pay."
"Oh," Merlin said softly, his eyes sad and slick. After a moment, his expression took on an ireful tone. "If your beef with this Red guy is that important to you, he must really be a turd."
"Yeah," Daphne replied with an excess of effort, unsure how she was still leaning upright against Merlin. "He is."
Merlin nodded, grimacing in distaste. "I wish there was something Merlin could do to help you," he said. After a moment, he had an idea, an excited grin lighting up his face. He reached for the backpack slung over his right shoulder. Rummaging through the insides, he took out a plastic water bottle filled with murky liquid. "Red's at the bottom of this bottle," he said as he handed Daphne the vessel. "Go get him."
Daphne regarded the bottle questioningly, swaying slightly in her exhausted state.
"There's nothing in there that Shari wouldn't do, if that helps," Merlin informed her.
After another moments' hesitation, feeling that she had little left to lose, Daphne tilted the bottle back and guzzled the unidentified liquid, resisting the urge to gag. She detected a myriad of flavors, including bitter, sweet and vaguely salty. There was a generally fermented flavor, along with the taste of dirt and earth. The consistency was gritty. Her disgust left her feeling slightly more alert and awake. As she moved the bottle away from her lips, Merlin reached out, taking it from her.
"Don't leave the good stuff at the bottom," he said, taking a fresh bottle of water from his backpack. He poured a small amount of the clean liquid into Daphne's bottle, swishing it around to mix it with the silty sediment that had been left at the bottom. "Drink up," he told Daphne, handing it back to her.
She tipped it back quickly, trying to make sure she finished it in one swallow. When she was done, she reached for the water, taking several mouthfuls to wash away some of the foul taste and grit of Merlin's mystery brew.
"How long?" she asked.
"Well," Merlin said, scratching his whiskered chin, "impulse drive should kick in within a few minutes." His grin stretched wider across his face. "But give it an hour, at best, and warp will take over. After that, there's no chance of you falling asleep 'til you ride the ship to the end of the galaxy and back."
Daphne began to feel Merlin's potion churning inside her stomach. She felt faintly nauseous, but oddly detached. She suddenly had to fight to keep the corners of her mouth from drawing upward and outward into a Cheshire-cat grin.
"Merlin," she uttered as she gazed into and through the cool, early morning air, "I feel weird." Her voice took on an empty, distant tone, as if she were hearing a transmission from Pluto.
"And exactly how does that feel?" she heard Merlin ask. She found, however, that words eluded her. They were meaningless, superfluous, even silly. As she gazed in Merlin's direction, she saw that he was smiling knowingly at her, nodding slowly. The silent, affirming exchange communicated far more than words to Daphne in her altered state.
She turned, looking around her. Colors were richer and crisper than usual, even in near-total darkness. As she watched the pine boughs rustle lightly in the breeze, she perceived meaning in their movement, meaning of which she had been previously unaware. The various nocturnal birds occupying the branches and flying between trees were suddenly undifferentiated from the woods itself. It was all one living entity. Daphne was acutely aware that she, too, was undifferentiated. She became distinctly conscious of the boots separating her feet from the earth. Removing them, she handed them wordlessly to Merlin. She was relieved to once again feel her toughened soles making contact with the bumpy texture of the forest floor. She turned her head from left to right, inhaling deeply to take in the smells around her. Her dilated pupils focused to the north, the direction in which she expected Red to be traveling.