The Post-Humans (Book 1): The League (37 page)

His broken body bumped and grazed along the coarse ground.

The pain made him feel as if he was going to pass out.

Dereck tried to speak or make sense of where he was being dragged, but his eyes kept closing, trying to sweep him up into a dizzy sleep.

He could tell he was on his belly, and the second figure had taken his right wrist, and was pulling him as well.

He tried to note landmarks that appeared around him, but he couldn’t say exactly where he was.

Bins.

Garbage.

Dank doorways…

One moment he would feel water under him, the next he could see that his body was collecting rubbish as the people dragged him, plastic bags and burger wrappers. Then there was the stairs, or a shelf, he couldn’t tell. When they stood still he watched droplets of his own blood mix with the water on the surface of the concrete below his face.

He couldn’t recognize the half reflection he could see in the street lit puddles.

Eventually everything disappeared.

Dereck blinked in the darkness and tried to move.

His body was still and numb.

Looking about in the dim light he could make out white specks that must have been bits of rubbish.

It was too dark for night, so he assumed he must have been underground. “
Hello?
” he whispered. “
Hello?
”

Something moved in the dark and there were the padding sounds of bare feet on wet concrete.

A figure came forward shyly.

It was naked, too short for a grown man, maybe a child. As it crept into the dim light Dereck beheld its inhuman features. It mostly looked like a twelve-year-old boy, but it had no hair, was thin and its jaw was set strangely and it had no lips. “What?” Dereck exclaimed in disgust.

That’s when he noticed the eyes, they were sky blue with no whites, and they bulged out of odd shaped sockets. The pupils were big and black.

Dereck almost involuntarily tried to crawl back away from the monster, which was odd, he thought, seeing he was trying to bring The Blind into this realm.

He felt and heard a familiar crunching behind him and dared to look at what he was sitting in.

Garbage, piles of garbage.

He turned back to where the creature had been and it was gone.

This was when he passed out again.

He could see a few silvery puddles of water around him when he woke.

He tipped his body to the side and pulled himself along so he could reach one of them.

His body screamed in pain, but he was able to focus, he felt awake, and he knew he was thirsty.

The puddle was shallow and he couldn’t see it from above in the dim light, he had to feel for it. He put his head down and began to suck the cold sour water from the ground with his split lips.

He felt grit in his mouth but he didn’t care, he needed to be hydrated.

“Need food?” A gravely voice said from behind him. “Food, for you.”

Dereck rolled onto his side to see the source of the voice. It was a man squatting in the dark, looked in his fifties or sixties wearing just a pair of dirty jeans. He couldn’t make out the man’s face, but he could just make out a tangle of long hair and a wrinkled leathery face.

“Who are you? Where am I?” Dereck stammered as he sat himself up against his pile of garbage.

“No name. Eat.” The man held out some cooked meat that smelled incredible.

Dereck took it with a shaking swollen hand and began to gnaw on the steak that he had been given.

“Happy they find you.” The man said.

“Who found me?” Dereck croaked between mouthfuls.

“Pale ones, fast ones, blue-eyes. They no name that I know. Old ones…” The man smiled and sat on the concrete and pulled a grey plastic shopping bag into the dim light and began rummaging.

“Blue eyes? I…dreamed a creature with blue eyes was here.” Dereck muttered as he recalled the face I the dark.

“Yes, that blue eyes. Many here.” The man said as he pulled what looked like a loaf of bread out of his bag and began to eat.

“Where are you from? I don’t know your accent.”

“Where?” the man paused to think. “Everywhere. Many place.”

“Aren’t you cold?” Dereck could see that the man was shirtless, his chest bare except for abundant hair.

“Cold? No. I bring you to feast fire. Others there. Not far. Others like me.”

“Homeless people?” Dereck inquired.

“Homeless? No and yes. Many home.” The man shrugged.

Dereck finished the cooked meat and closed his eyes. He had no idea he had been hungry.

“More?” The nameless man offered.

He held out what Dereck had thought was a loaf of bread; it was in fact a massive dripping roast. And Dereck’s mouth watered at the thought of more. Then he realized that he had discounted the idea of hygiene since he had woken. In his normal wealthy life he was quite fussy about taking food from any individual, and taking some meat from a dirty man in what looked like a sewer was a surprise to him.

“How am I eating this? And why do I want more? This isn’t like me! I should be trying to get to a hospital, not hiding down here, wherever this is.” Dereck tried to examine his surroundings again.

“No going back to them, Zirro. Blue-eyes bite you, save you. Help heal.” The man shook his head vigorously.

“What do you mean
no going back?
I’ve got the money to pay you, if you want money. I need you to get me to a hospital!” Dereck yelled.

Another man crept out of the dark. He had scraggly hair and wore an old flannelette shirt, jeans full of holes and two odd shoes.

“He’s awake then, eh?” The new man said to the one sitting with the plastic bag. The one sitting nodded and put his food away into the bag.

“Welcome, Zirro.” The newcomer said, nodding to Dereck.

“Are you going to help me or what?
I have money!
” Dereck demanded of the second man.

“Ey, ey, calm down. You ain’t goin’ nowhere. You been hurt, and the pale one fixed you up. There’s no goin’ back when you’re bit. They chose you. It’s honour to be chosen. And you are Zirro, we know your smell.” The new man said nodding.

“Pale one? The blue-eyed monster? It bit me?”

“No monster; enochi, sire of vampyr. Old blood. They help. And you need help. You were broken. Now you are like them, at least a little bit,” the man smiled.

“Vampire?” Dereck shook his head. “What are you saying?”

“That’s why you like the meat. You want more yes? That’s man you eat.”

Dereck stared at the plastic bag that the first man kept close.

He knew he wanted more.

“Come and join us Zirro. We have longed for your company at the feast. It is great honour. Even blue-eyes will follow you.”

“Why do you call me zero?”

“It is a name, like king or strong one. You are one of the two. Long time has passed while we wait for you. No man’s medicine will fix you. Come with me, join us.”

Dereck was silent.

He was in too much pain to move and he could not escape the strange men if he tried.

He nodded slowly.

Both of the men came forward and lifted him between them, and together they carried him through the dark to a flickering golden place. There was a campfire and the smell of cooking meat.

The two men brought him to padded chair that had been taken from a ruined car, which felt like heaven to his broken body.

In the open chamber there were several more of the homeless people talking and fighting over scraps.

Over the fire and on the grubby concrete floor were the bones of several beings that Dereck suspected were not sheep or pigs. The smell was a mix of garbage and filth combined with roasted meat, and the smell of roasted meat was alluring.

Dereck wanted more.

“Bring me more meat. I need my strength back.” And the first figure carrying the plastic bag reached in and brought out the lump of roasted flesh.

Zero, King, Leader, does that mean I have an army?

Dereck felt his split lips start to bleed as he grinned. There was something different about him, he could feel it, and it felt good.

Thank you for taking the time to read my first book!

The League
was not always this story, but I’m glad it has finally culminated into this book, the first of at least three.

The League
began as a series of drawings and paintings that I did during my University years. These depicted endless landscapes of melting organic structures. They were my portraits of the human subconscious. They first appeared in my drawings during my High school years and then more complex and more refined over the years that followed. When University was over I found myself feeling very small and insignificant. My creative drive was extinguished by my new and overwhelming need to survive in a realistic world. For many years creativity was suppressed to make way for new work skills and relationships with the people that had become part of my adult life. Not until years later was I able to express myself visually again. After a studying to become a teacher with my wife, I was thrown into an altogether different adventure. I was able to re-explore the passions that drove me as a student; I was able to explore who I was, creatively and connect with some of the most talented and interesting people I will ever meet. Teaching art to high school students has given me the chance play a part in their creative journeys, the same way my art teachers were there for mine.

The original drawings that inspired
The League
begun in 2010 when I began to draw again. They began as subconscious landscapes and insect-like monsters, but steadily I began to pull away from these abstractions and I began to illustrate my own comics. I was never happy with the resulting pages, but the narratives drove me to complete page after page of these. These began as post apocalyptic adventures in the Australian wasteland. The next comic I set my heart on creating was to be more personal, with a main character based loosely on myself in a world where my organic landscapes crossed over with reality. This was scrapped after several pages, but I was set on the idea. In 2014 myself and fellow artists and author Ben Langdon and Cat Bailey opened a studio workspace. This was when I decided to write the script for my next comic. In this studio
Athan Harper
and
The League
were born. Pages became chapters and chapters became a novel and this novel has become an exciting new chapter to my life.

So, now I say thank you to the people that have helped and supported me. Firstly I need to thank my wife, Donna Bassett. She and I have had an incredible adventure so far and I’m sure that we have all kinds of great things in store for the future. If I hadn’t met her I would never have reached the place I’m in today. The people, the places and the experiences I have had since I met her would never have come to pass without her taking this ride with me. She has encouraged my creativity to blossom into achievements I have never imagined possible. She has been there to discuss my ideas and to edit drafts of my stories since this began.

Secondly I would like to thank fellow author, Ben Langdon. He has inspired me to push myself beyond my familiar means of creativity. The stories and characters that I have harboured in my drawings can finally be born into narratives of their own. He has been my proof reader editor and mentor since this journey began and I look forward to working with him in the future to create new stories for Kalamity Press.

I’d also like to thank Brian Healy, Jill Perkins and Megan Langdon for their input. They have been editors and advisors during the creation of this story. Their experience of great literature has been invaluable to the production of this story. I cannot thank them enough for their advice and the precious time they have spent proof reading.

Lastly I would like to thank my friends and family for your never-ending encouragement and support. They have inspired everything about my writing and my creative since this journey began. The journey that I have undertaken has been driven and inspired by our lives together so far and the future we will all experience together. You have shown me that there is a place for all of us in this world and I will never tire of searching for mine.