Preface
The dark shapes appeared out of nowhere. They morphed from the forest and were everywhere, surrounding us. Sam looked up from where his finger was tracing the outline of my jaw, wiping some dirt from my skin. The smile of laughter on his face at yet another of my mishaps, turned to startled horror as a gun was thrust into our faces. I sensed Sam’s body tense for just a fraction of a second before he jumped forward.
“Run, Grace!”
I heard a gunshot crackle through the air. A primitive instinct for survival sprung into life and I turned to run. Dazed and confused I stared into blazing eyes of fury and intent.
This was my end.
The word “No!” split the air as Dark Death came to me.
Chapter 1
Death was cold and hard. It was damp and dark. Searing pain stole thought for seconds, minutes, hours. It was eternal, but there was no peace in death at all.
I felt as though my lungs were still taking in oxygen, moving in and out, burning in my chest, but my eyes would not open. Low moans emerged from deep within the darkness. Someone was in pain. The sound rent the air as though the soul was slowly being torn from the body and nothing was left behind, but more horror and more pain. I wanted to feel sorry for them, to offer them comfort, but my own suffering was all consuming.
It was then that I realised the anguished moans came from within me. I was in the depths of hell. A hard blow cut through the black pain and embedded in my side.
“Get up, bitch!”
Another blow struck me.
I tried to rise, as Satan demanded from behind the curtains of hell, but I soon came to know that I hadn’t reacted fast enough to the command as another blow struck me in the side, this time slightly higher than the other blows, bringing me flat to the ground again. I had yet to open my eyes.
“Please” I moaned. “Please.” It was no more than a whisper through thick lips. As I tried to rise, my body told me that I had been beaten to death.
Another blow.
“Get up, NOW!”
I tried, at the same time bracing myself for the continuing blows that I knew would be reined upon me.
“Enough!” A second voice commanded, just as threatening. I sensed that the threat was not for me. “Bring her out”.
Something grabbed my hair and yanked me to my feet. My knees buckled beneath me, but the grip on my hair yanked my head upwards and my body had no will, but to follow.
“Stand up, bitch, or god damn you, I’ll kill you here!”
Kill me? This wasn’t hell?
Not yet.
I tried to remain upright. Rough hands lifted me up and pushed me forward. My eyes tried to force their way through the darkness. Only one eye crept open. The other was swollen shut. I stumbled forward. The light was suddenly hard in my face. A hand in my back shoved me forward and I sprawled across the floor. I laid there. Let the blows come, I would not rise again. I wanted it over.
“Why is she here?” It was a female voice emerging out of the mists this time, filled with just as much loathing and anger as the other voices I had heard.
“Joshua.”
An angry explosion of air cursed the air. “Why was he there? He usually doesn’t hunt”.
“He wasn’t hunting. He was checking the perimeters with Jeffrey and they crossed our path. We had downed the male and were about to take out the female when Joshua appeared. He said to bring her back. He said she might be useful anyway.”
An angry explosion of female air followed. “Useful? A Paradisiac? Only as worm food.”
Paradisiac. My mind raced, the adrenalin of pain clearing a pathway. Only an Anomaly would use that term. Natural selectionists who opposed the policy of gene selection that was utilized universally now.
“That can be arranged soon enough.” The rough hands pulled me up again and dumped me onto a chair as though I was a broken rag doll. I raised my head for the first time and saw that I was seated inside a cave, a cavern, its walls lit by solar lamps. Satan obviously has all the mod cons. Six people, four men and two women were standing looking at me, like I was an exhibit in the museum that Sam and I had visited last week. Oh God, Sam! Where is he? Had he escaped this? My mind told me no. Was he their captive too?
I forced my swollen lips to part, not yet able to focus my sight. “Where is Sam? What have you done to Sam?” I whispered in a voice that seemed to be so far away and to belong to someone else.
“The separatist with you?” He spat the words at me. “Gone.”
“Gone?” He had escaped! Thank God he was safe!
“Dead”. A female spat the words this time.
The word sliced my heart. “No!” Not Sam, no, no, not Sam. Sam. I wished that Death would come now. I couldn’t bear this pain.
“Welcome to the real world, spawn!” the male laughed.
“Bastard!” I spat back furiously. I raised my head higher and looked into the face of my tormentor. Anyone, anything, that could kill so easily didn’t deserve to exist.
His hand rose from his side and struck the side of my face. More pain shot through my body. I didn’t mind this time. It lessened the pain in my heart for Sam.
“Enough, Tom!”
I had heard the voice before, commanding the devil to stop its torture of me. I squinted through the pain and the light and saw a man, tall, muscular, thick dark hair. Tall, dark and handsome came to mind. Anywhere, but here . He was wearing blue jeans, and a long sleeved navy shirt with the sleeves rolled back to just below his elbows.
“She won’t be any use to us if she can’t speak.” It was a voice that commanded easily.
“How can this green-beard be of use to us?” My eye could focus more clearly now and I turned towards the voice. My torturer, Tom, was slightly shorter than the dark haired man. He looked like a paler older version of him. Less muscular, meaner. He stood a hair’s breadth from me and I could smell his body odour. I saw his clenched fists, and knew he would gladly snap my neck in an instant. It was just the other man that held him in check.
Green-beard. I hadn’t heard that phrase since high school. Richard Dawkins ‘s selfish gene theory, that gene selection might cause individuals with the same genes to favour each other. It had been rarely discussed since the early 21st century, when gene selection had become so easily performed.
“Well, we won’t know until we actually speak with her will we?”
“Joshua is right”. An older man carrying himself with such confidence that I was instantly aware that he could be nothing but a leader, entered the cavern. He stood looking at me, as I had tried to move in my chair, away from his glaze, but the pain that shot through my body halted any action I could take and I had gasped audibly. I felt dizzy with pain. “If you beat her to a pulp, the results won’t be very productive, for anyone.”
Joshua. So the tall man with the commanding voice was the one who had stopped them killing me in the forest alongside Sam. I didn’t feel like thanking him. In fact, I would have gladly clawed his eyes out. To start with…
I felt as though I could throw up at any moment, hopefully onto Tom. I tried to draw air into my lungs to keep back the nausea, but the movement of my ribs just brought another gasp to my lips. Broken. More than one.
“She needs a doctor” Joshua stated. I knew his voice now, it had a unique rich, deep timbre. I doubted if I would ever forget any of their voices, in this lifetime, or the next.
“Oh dear, If only we had one, ” snorted the female sarcastically.
The one corner of my mouth that could move freely, twisted into a slight ironic smirk. “I am a doctor” I said. Not that it was going to help me, I thought, as the darkness claimed me again and I felt myself slipping from the chair.
copyright reserved by the author 2009
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