Bad Timing Page 8

  The other man's eyes flicked to his. "Yeah," he said gruffly. He looked at Johnny, his mouth chewing, as if unsure whether to spit out or swallow his words. "Look, if that stupid tart gave you the impression I needed your help, that's her problem. I can look after myself."

  Johnny grinned, reading the subtext of the other's words. "It's okay," he drawled. "She's not my type, and you sure as hell ain't."

  The other man snarled at him, revealing large, white teeth. "If you think it's funny..." he began menacingly.

  But Johnny had spotted something in the distance, a glitter on the horizon that didn't seem entirely natural. He grasped the other's arm to silence him. Joe's aggression instantly switched away from Johnny and towards the rest of the world. "What is it?" he demanded.

  Johnny shaded his eyes from the midday sun, and peered into the distance. "Settlement," he said finally. "Can't tell much from here, but it looks old."

  "Settlement?" Joe squinted into the distance, but his eyes could never match Johnny's. "I thought this shit hole was uninhabited."

  Johnny dropped his gaze and prepared himself to wait for the rest of the group to catch up. "Apparently not," he said.

  8 / GHOST TOWN

  They approached the village slowly and cautiously, Red covering their right flank, the Sloth their left. It seemed quiet, dead almost, but appearances generally meant jack. As they drew nearer, Johnny was able to make out more and more details. He saw that the settlement was small, consisting of no more than a hundred buildings, separated by earth paths and grouped around a small structure - which looked like a well - in the central square. The buildings themselves were simple log cabins. Thin strings of smoke rose from some of the chimneys. Of the inhabitants there was no sign.

  Beneath their feet, the ground had also changed. The flowing grass of the savannah had gradually given way to shorter cropped green scrub surrounded by low fences. Within these fields, scrawny sheep could be seen grazing, zigzagging and moving round the field at an absurd pace, like a film that had been speeded up for comic effect.

  After the paddocks came the fields, filled with crops like wheat and maize, looking parched and brown in the tropical sun. And after the fields came orchards, hardy trees hung with fruit of every imaginable shade and shape, only some of them looking fit to eat. The Blimp took all of them, though, shoving as many as she could into her mouth and stuffing the rest into her pack. Johnny could hear the buzzing of insects in the branches, but they sounded small and safe, not like the titanic super-bees of the jungle.

  They took extra care in the orchards, aware that the limited forward visibility would make an ambush very easy. The other Strontium Dogs hung back while Min Qi Man crawled forward on his belly to scout ahead. But the trees were as empty of people as the fields and paddocks had been.

  Then came the village itself. Emerging from the trees, the mutants gathered in a huddle as they inspected the buildings in front of them.

  As Johnny had surmised, they weren't much to look at. Little better than shacks, each probably large enough to hold only one room. Outside there were cooking pits, some with pots of what smelt like stew bubbling over their open flames. Elsewhere, between the houses, brightly coloured dresses and trousers hung from washing lines, slapping wetly against each other as they swung in the wind. But still no people.

  The silence, which had been peaceful on the plains, was unsettling here. Haunting even.

  "What the hell's going oan?" Middenface hissed. The hand which wasn't holding his blaster was rubbing the lumps on his head, a clear sign that he was nervous. "Can you see anything with yer eyes, Johnny?"

  Johnny focussed the power of his alpha rays, sending them out from his eyes to scan the scene ahead of him, to peer through the walls of the houses, penetrating where ordinary vision could not. He saw tables filled with food, chairs, dried fruit hanging with bunches of dried flowers. There was a strange, subliminal sense of motion, like the flicker of movement on a vid-screen which hasn't been properly tuned in. But, apart from that... "Nothing," he told Middenface.

  Min Qi Man too was scanning the village, crouched on all fours, his eyes wide and unblinking. "Does the old frog miss the fly because he is too blind, or because he is too slow?" His swords emitted a high-pitched metallic whine as he drew them from his scabbard.

  Middenface looked at the simian mutant in disgust. "Dae ye ever speak plain English, man?" he asked.

  "The monkey's right," Johnny said to his partner. "They may be here. They may just be moving too fast for us to see."

  One-Eyed Jack had only spared the village a cursory glance. Now his bright blue eye, and the dark black pit beside it, focussed on Johnny. "Can't keep on moving forever, can they? Sooner or later, they've got to stop, and then we've got a clean shot."

  Johnny shook his head angrily. "There'll be no shooting," he said, his voice hard, brooking no argument. He turned his head to encompass all the Strontium Dogs. "You got that?"

  "Since when do you give orders round here?" One-Eyed Jack sneered. "Those losers-" he nodded dismissively at the members of Team X - "may have voted you their leader, but the rest of us are under no obligation to do what you say. I'll shoot whatever I damn well like."

  "Fine, you do that," Johnny said, turning away from him. "And I'll shoot whatever I damn well please, and I'm telling you now, it won't be these villagers."

  Behind him, he felt One-Eyed Jack's simmering anger, but he was confident the other mutant wouldn't let it boil over. Too many of the other Strontium Dogs were on Johnny's side. Johnny turned to them now. "We need to search this place," he said. "Spread out, go carefully, and don't disturb anything. The only thing we're interested in is any sign of O'Blarney."

  The members of Team X all nodded, and prepared to move off - glad, Johnny suspected, to be given orders rather than be asked to think for themselves.

  "And what if we do see anyone?" Red said. "What if we're attacked? Are we 'allowed' to fire then?"

  Johnny narrowed his eyes at her, angry that she'd chosen this moment to play politics. She saw his expression and shrugged, her own softening a little.

  "I'm not saying shoot first," she said. "I'm saying shoot when we have to."

  "Thing is," Johnny said, "if these people are here and we can't see them, they can kill us whenever they want and we won't be able to do a damn thing about it."

  "Helmaboab!" Middenface rolled his eyes good-humouredly at Johnny. "Cheer us up, why don't ye?"

  "No, he's right," Red conceded. "If we can't beat them, best bet is not to provoke them in the first place. Right?"

  Johnny nodded. "Right."

  The other mutants, who had stopped in their tracks to watch the confrontation, visibly relaxed. Only One-Eyed Jack looked angry at Red's capitulation, his one good eye narrowed to a glittering blue slit. He didn't say anything, though. He knew when he was outvoted.

  "All right, spread out, look in the houses," Johnny said. "If you hit trouble, shout out. Otherwise, meet on the far side of the village in an hour."

  The Strontium Dogs nodded and headed off, fanning out through the village, most with weapons drawn. Red sketched a mocking salute to Johnny as she passed, then grinned. That damn woman he thought, you never knew what to expect of her from one second to the next.

  Middenface was the last to leave. "Want me tae watch yer back?" he asked Johnny.

  Johnny shook his head. "No point. If whoever lives here decides to attack me, there'll be nothing you can do."

  "I wasnae thinking aboot them," Middenface said. "I was thinking o' that Jack scunner. He'd as soon mollificate ye as look at ye."

  Johnny smiled slightly. "In that case, better off keeping an eye on him, aren't you?"

  Middenface smiled back at him. "Right ye are," he said, then loped off in the direction One-Eyed Jack had taken. Johnny was sure One-Eyed Jack would spot Middenface and would know he was being followed, but that didn't bother Johnny one little bit. He wanted the other man to know that he couldn't get away with anything
on the sly. In his experience, a close watch kept many a villain honest.

  The other Strontium Dogs had headed off to left and right, so Johnny took the path straight ahead, making for the well in the village centre. As he passed by the houses on either side, he felt again that subliminal sense of motion. Now and then he felt a breeze brush against him as if something small had whisked by faster than he could see. He felt his flesh rising up in goosebumps, the hairs standing to attention all along his arms and at the back of his neck. He knew he was being watched, that all around him invisible eyes were trained on him, and it made him feel twitchy and reckless. His hand itched to reach for his gun, to spray lethal incendiary rounds into the houses until they burned to a crisp and the invisible watchers with them.

  But he didn't. Knowing that the most dangerous thing he could do would be to provoke the ghostly inhabitants, he carefully kept his hand away from his holster. He could only hope the other Strontium Dogs were showing the same restraint.

  The Blimp had been holding her gun in her hand, spinning round to direct it at every slight noise she heard. Her trigger finger was so twitchy, though, that after a while she put the weapon away and folded her arms over her chest to keep them out of mischief. That Johnny Alpha had been right. No sense calling out to trouble when enough trouble was already on the road looking for you. She liked Johnny. He seemed like a straight-up guy, said what he meant and meant what he said. Wasn't so sure about Red, though. She owed her, no doubt about that, and she felt bad over the harsh words she'd said to her when they first talked. But that didn't mean she had to trust the other mutant. Didn't mean she had to forget the fact that the other mutant spelled "Danger" with a capital D.

  Middenface, now, he was a different story. He was another plain speaker like Johnny. Not a deep thinker maybe, but a good man. And he was without that aura of sadness that Johnny had, that sense that his shoulders were weighed down with responsibilities too heavy for any one man to bear. Not that Middenface was frivolous, she thought, picturing the hard lines of his body, the confident way he held himself, and the lethal speed with which he could move when he wanted to. No, Middenface was...

  She stopped her train of thought as she realised that for the last few minutes her nose had been playing host to just about the most appetizing smell she'd encountered in a long time. It seemed to be coming through the half-open door of the house in front of her.

  Her stomach rumbled, begging her to fill it, and she unconsciously took a step towards the door. With a big effort, she stopped herself. They were supposed to be reconnoitring the territory, not shopping for lunch. But, without realising she'd done it, she took another step and a moment later she was inside the house.

  The interior was far more homely than the outside, the walls hung with all manner of drapes and fabrics, in simple floral patterns. They were pretty enough, but she only spared them a glance. Because, sitting in the middle of the floor was a large polished-wood table. And sitting on that table was a feast. There were platters of steaming vegetables, dripping with hot butter. Beside them sat bowls of rustic bread rolls, giving off the delicious yeasty smell of fresh baking. And, the pièce de resistance, in the very centre sat a whole roast animal, something like a pig with horns, a large apple jammed into its mouth.

  The Blimp's salivary glands went into overdrive. She fought her conscience for a moment, but not a very long one. The people here obviously had plenty to spare. And besides, the place was empty. Who would ever know?

  Johnny had made it to the well. The sense of presence here was stronger, but the sense of menace less. It was no longer a feeling of being watched, more a sensation that people were getting on with their own lives somewhere just out of sight.

  The well itself was a simple covered affair, made out of rough-hewn stone. Someone, though, had surrounded the base with a ring of little yellow flowers. Their nodding heads seemed to smile cheerfully around at the village. Johnny found himself relaxing slightly. Maybe he was making a big mistake, but he didn't think these people were any sort of threat to his mission.

  He noticed that a large wooden trough sat beside the well, nearly half full of water. There was a dipping cup beside it, also wooden, its handle worn smooth and shiny from what must have been years of use. The sweat was dripping from Johnny's forehead, and his mouth felt parched and dry. He hesitated a moment, but then decided that the kind of people to plant daffodils round their well wouldn't be the sort to deny a thirsty traveller a draught. He dipped the cup in the water then poured it into his mouth; the liquid was wonderfully cool as it gushed down his throat.

  It was when he carefully put the cup back down and raised his eyes that he saw her.

  Careful not to make any sudden moves, Johnny rose to his feet. She was standing less than two metres in front of him. There was something almost out of focus about her, a slight blurring like a photograph taken by an amateur. But he could see enough to know that she was young, little more than a child. Her hair was an auburn brown, tied back from her face in two ponytails. The face itself was pretty but a little bland, as all faces are that have seen too little of life to have the personalities that inhabit them etched into their features.

  The girl's mouth suddenly moved, a circle of darkness appearing and disappearing in its centre faster than his eyes could really follow. A strange, high-pitched buzzing emerged, but no recognisable words.

  Johnny shook his head. "I'm sorry," he said, speaking slowly, "I can't understand you." Then he realised what a fool he was being - he needed to speak quicker, not slower, if she was going to hear his speech as anything other than a low drone. "We don't mean you any harm," he continued, forcing the words out as quickly as he could. "We're only passing through."

  For a moment, he thought he saw an expression of frustration on the young woman's face. Then, as quickly as she had appeared, she disappeared.

  A moment after that, Johnny heard a scream from somewhere on his left and then the sound of something heavy crashing into something breakable.

  Swearing, he set off at a run towards the source of the noise, the strange apparition temporarily forgotten.

  Ladybird pulled at her arm which was held in her father's vice-like grip, but it was no use. Steadily, he dragged her away from the man, the man who over the last few months had come to be the most important thing in her life.

  He was heading away from the well now, looking towards the source of some commotion near the village hall. She had come to know his movements well, his strange slow ways, as she had watched him make his ponderous way towards their village. And so she guessed that, despite the fact that he was moving no faster than a snail, he was - by his own standards - running.

  She would have watched longer, but her father tugged her round the corner and out of sight of the square.

  A few more paces and her father stopped, spinning her to face him. His usually placid face was twisted in anger, the expression of a parent who fears for his child.

  "I thought I told you to stay away from him!" he shouted.

  "I did," she said mutinously, although it wasn't true. After her father had caught her sneaking away from the village when she should have been tilling the fields, he had instructed her sister to keep a close eye on her. And he had told her that if he ever caught her following the Glass People again, he would force her to postpone her sacred Gap Year, the time when her people traditionally roamed the planet trying - as the scriptures instructed - to "find themselves". Cancelling her Gap Year was the most serious threat he could have made, but it hadn't stopped her creeping out in the middle of the night to find her man and watch him for a few precious hours.

  "Then what do you call that?" her father was saying now. "Endangering the whole village when we'd already agreed to stay out of their way."

  "But he'll be gone soon," she protested. "It's my only chance to talk to him."

  Her father's face twisted in fury. "I don't want you talking to him!" Then, as if realising that anger was getting him nowhere, he ma
de a visible effort to calm down. "Sweetheart, you're young, you don't understand. These Glass People are dangerous."

  "How do you know that?" she said, sticking her lower lip out on a pout. "You've never met one before. No one has. Until five years ago we all thought they were just a story."

  "We know because Brother O'Blarney told us," he said firmly.

  Ladybird hung her head. She knew there was no answer to that one.

  Red was the nearest, so she got there first. Drawing her blaster as she ran, she barrelled into the door, dropped to her knees and took aim.

  But the only thing she could see was the Blimp, slumped against the far wall, her eyes fluttering open and shut for a few seconds until, finally, settling on shut. The mutant's head slumped to her chest, and as her muscles slackened in unconsciousness her hands loosened their grip and the two large hunks of meat they had been clutching flopped wetly to the floor.

  It wasn't difficult to guess what the Blimp had been doing before whatever had happened to her happened. The centrepiece of the room was a large table. Red could see that it had once groaned under the weight of a huge feast. Now it looked like the carcass of a wildebeest after the hyenas have finished with it: torn and bloody. Perched in the middle of all this was the skeleton of some pig-like creature.

  It was clear where the meat which had once cloaked the skeleton was now to be found. The Blimp's stomach, moving slightly as she breathed, was twice the size it had been when Red last saw her. Although she was nowhere near the behemoth whom Red had first met, she was more recognisably the same person.

  It seemed pretty obvious to Red what had happened. If she'd been the person who cooked that feast, she'd have been none too happy about what the Blimp had done either. The inhabitants of the room might just have meant to push the large mutant gently away from the table - but at the speed they were moving, a gentle push must have been like being hit by a ten-tonne truck. The Blimp was lucky to be alive. And, Red was sure, her attackers were still here, moving, watching.