Lipton assumed that Frost’s men thought of him as a special kind of prude: part asshole, part genius. A man oblivious to all things fun. One who would never stoop to their level and partake in a quest to defile himself during another one of their endless drunken gatherings.
Yet, they couldn’t have been more wrong. He’d purposely kept his true self hidden from their prying eyes. They were always watching him. Always judging. Never taking a moment off.
The truth was, he’d been known to hit the bottle before The Event changed the world. He knew firsthand that theoretical physicists can party with the best of them. More so after they learned their government grant had been renewed with no strings attached.
He missed the old days when you were paid for nothing. You never had to produce anything, as long as there was a glimmer of hope in your research. That was the key to keep the cash flowing from the government trough. A glimmer. Just sprinkle in a modicum of results in your progress reports and the higher-ups were happy.
But that was then.
This was now.
“Almost done,” Horton said, smearing more of the black on Lipton.
Lipton was sure there was never a mention of female Scabs. Only males. Helena must have been an exception. She was rare. Possibly valuable. Others of her kind would most certainly be looking for her, assuming they were the ones responsible for the scars across her skin.
He wondered if Frost and Fletcher knew female Scabs existed. There’d been no mention of it in the crosstalk Lipton had picked up. Then again, it was possible his boss had his own secrets, beyond the ones Lipton had already discovered without Frost’s knowledge.
Lipton had more he needed to relay to Horton, but not with this Helena person at his side—the same person, albeit a loose classification, who was rubbing black across the backs of his inner thighs, approaching Lipton’s version of the No-Go Zone.
Helena’s hands continued on, skipping the one area of his body no one else’s touch should ever penetrate.
Lipton studied Horton as his hands worked the black. Horton was clearly compromised, unable to see the threat next to him, literally and figuratively.
It meant Lipton would have to keep his plan quiet until the right moment came along. A moment when the female Scab was no longer inside Horton’s circle of trust.
Lipton was certain she’d turn on Horton, eventually. Animals do that. More specifically, wild animals. Once she did, that’s when Lipton would make his move and read Horton in.
Helena grunted three times, smacking Horton on the shoulder in the process.
Horton looked at her. “What?”
She pointed outside the window and to the right, just beyond a string of parked cars. Each was gray with heavy rust spots across their hoods, no doubt due to the freezing temperatures the past decade. Well, that and the acidic nature of volcanic ash.
Whether it was mafic ash or felsic ash, it was all categorized by its silica content. Lipton had read all the papers. Sampled his own deposits. Crunched all the numbers. Salts, acids, and sulphuric acid are never kind to man or machine.
He’d also detected trace amounts of radioactivity after The Event first ravaged the planet, though those readings were no longer present. He wasn’t sure if the radiation was part of the cause or simply an aftereffect. No way to know without more data.
Helena pulled Horton down, then did the same with Lipton, all three of them peeking over the ledge of the windowsill, its glass missing.
A second later, a gang of at least twenty Scabs moved into the neighborhood—all men, of course—each carrying some kind of hand weapon. Knives mostly, but a few held garden tools and pipes.
He watched them spread out like a swarm of bees in search of pollen—blonde, female pollen, he figured, with endless scars, like Helena, and a face that could stop a clock.
Lipton grabbed Horton by the neck, pulling him close to whisper into his ear. “I told you she would set us up.”
Horton pointed. “Look, Doc. What do you see?”
“Hunger, obviously.”
“No, you idiot. Look. Don’t assume. They don’t know where we are; otherwise they’d be making a dash straight for our position.”
“They could simply be avoiding a direct path on purpose. You can’t know what they’re thinking.”
“So now you’re calling them clever? Like they have intelligence? Which is it, Doc? Are they animal or human? Can’t be both.”
Lipton didn’t have a response.
Horton didn’t wait for one. “If she wanted us dead, she never would have led us in here or had us mask our scent. Trust me, she’s on our side. You just need to accept it and put your prejudices aside for once. Not everyone is hiding something.”
Right then, Lipton noticed a change outside. The Scabs had altered their course, heading directly toward their position inside the house. He motioned to the window. “I’d say that confirms my suspicion. Maybe you should let the grownups do the thinking from now on, Einstein.”
Horton whipped his head around, his eyes glancing at the course correction outside first, then he aimed them at Helena. “Did you do this?”
She didn’t respond, her eyes fixed on the activity outside.
Lipton smacked Horton on the shoulder to get his attention. “What do we do now?” he asked, letting his eyes drop to the weapon in Horton’s hand. “There aren’t enough bullets in that gun. Not unless you shoot one of those infamous magic bullets from the Kennedy Assassination and take them all out at once.”
“We run. That’s what we do. There’s got to be a back way out of this place. Come on, follow me.”
Horton went to stand, but Helena pulled him down. She pointed out the window.
When Lipton followed her finger, he saw a shadow blur into the foreground from the right. It was a man covered in a wrap of clothes, like a winterized toga that was open down the front, with what looked like body armor underneath.
His face was covered with a hoodie and his hands were fast, damn fast, as he wielded two curved swords, moving them in an over-under circular pattern, his hands gripping their leather-wrapped handles.
He slipped into the center of the hunger gang with the grace and speed of a fearless Ninja. The Scabs spread out and circled him, showing an excess of jagged teeth.
The man kept moving his swords, waiting and watching, as if he were baiting them to make the first move.
Then it started.
They came at him.
First in singles, then in pairs, each of them snarling with a weapon in hand.
He unfurled his swords in seemingly all directions at once, slicing at the threats coming his way, never remaining in the same spot for more than a heartbeat or two. Only once could Lipton see the curve of the man’s blades as they minced skin and bone, blurring together faster than bullets could fly.
Reaction was impossible for the Scabs in such close quarters, their numbers working against them. They were too close, allowing the man to use his extended reach, cutting through several of them with one swipe, his balance like that of a feral cat.
Three of the Scabs held back, looking dumbfounded, as their brethren met their demise with the speed of the wind.
Limbs were separated from bodies.
Trunks were opened up, spilling intestines into a growing pool of tissue and muck.
Arteries were severed, releasing their life-giving blood in geyser-like sprays, pulsating with each frantic heart-pump.
A few heads were liberated, too, no longer attached to the bondage of their frostbitten bodies.
Lipton couldn’t help but picture the underside of a lawnmower, its blades whirling with power, carving up and spitting out anything that came within its reach.