The Jagged Teeth Read online

  “Well, that’s very reassuring but…”

  “Kelvin!” Reimar started at the sound of his given name. “This woman needs our help. What do we do when someone needs our help?” Granny asked sternly.

  “Yes, but…”

  “No buts. That robot doesn’t like anyone. I always said you spent too much time with it. Now, be nice to the woman.”

  Bayan smirked triumphantly. Meinal’s eye flashed an indignant green as he hopefully powered up one of the various guns in his right arm with an ominous whine. He liked people. He just preferred them dead.

  Everyone turned to look at Reimar.

  He was uncharacteristically lost for words. “I’ll take you as far as the silvered river. Then you’re on your own.” He said finally.

  Bayan shrugged, “Deal.”

  Meinal and Granny looked less than happy but neither of them said anything. Granny just clucked her tongue disapprovingly as Meinal bad temperedly snapped the gun back into its mounting.

  Reimar broke the silence that followed. “So… what happened to the grey-haired dude?

  4: Ghost stories

  Dawn broke slowly. Grey clouds hung low and heavy in the air, smothering the rising sun. Foliage heavy with droplets of water bobbed gently in the still air as a slight mist flowed across the forest floor. Bayan emerged from the gloom. She moved carefully, barely disturbing a leaf as she walked quickly but delicately across the softly crunching ground.

  Reimar following behind her, much less carefully. Still slightly miffed about last night he bad temperedly stomped along, taking vindictive pleasure in tramping over the plants Bayan so carefully avoided.

  Meinal thundered along at his back, as oblivious to the vegetation he crushed underfoot as he was to the tense atmosphere between the humans, while Granny snored heavily from her sling on his back. The robot had turned his ears off hours ago, preferring instead to listen to an ancient Barry White CD he’d copied decades ago.

  They spent the morning in the forest. Mossy trees, damp and dripping, lined the route, broken only by the occasional holly bush bursting defiant red berries into the mass of green and brown. By midday the trees had fallen away behind them and the day passed quickly as they wandered across the ridgeline, still heading east away from the hills and the cold, ever downwards towards the coast. The ridge gave way to a track leading down into a forested valley, which in turn would give way, eventually, to the ocean. Through its heart ran a great silvered river, visible clearly as it cut through the land. Mountains dominated the northern sky, jagged teeth against the darkening blue.

  Away to the west, at the end of the valley, the last of the Thunder Mountains smouldered and bellowed its rage at an indifferent galaxy of stars, just starting to appear above. “That’s Ragnarök,” Reimar said softly, “and the seat of the King.”

  Bayan nodded as she took it in. She smiled softly in the wind.

  Reimar noticed the smile. He watched her, and her smile echoed across his face.

  The gentleness of the moment was interrupted somewhat by Meinal. “I HAVE SOME IMPORTANT INFORMATION,” he blared out. Bayan and Reimar both winced at the volume. Granny snorted as she woke with a start. “Wha?”

  Reimar tapped the side of his head as he frowned up at the robot. Meinal turned his ears back on. “Apologies,” he said at normal volume, “but we must be careful here.”

  “Why?” Bayan asked.

  “I have heard rumours,” the robot rumbled.

  “Lovely. But aren’t you a bit old to gossip?” Bayan said coyly.

  Meinal ignored her. “Things live in these woods. Neither man nor animal, said to be the Remnants from a society long since past. We must tread carefully, few return from this valley.”

  “Wonderful,” Reimar sighed.

  “Hmm,” muttered Granny, “wild rumours, nothing more.”

  “I’m not so sure,” Bayan said, staring dramatically out over the forest. “I’ve heard things too. The mountain is said to be cursed. A disease seeps from its belly, drives men mad.” She shrugged. “Maybe it’s a ghost story.”

  Meinal, surprised by this show of support, seized the advantage. “If we are to proceed, it might be prudent too…”

  “I’m not taking off the override, Meinal,” Reimar interrupted bluntly. “Whatever they are now, they were people once. People can be reasoned with - if they exist at all.”

  Meinal’s eye turned a stubborn red. “But, Master…”

  “You know how it works, Meinal, the override will only come off if there’s a direct threat to life. I’m not changing it.”

  Meinal subsided reluctantly.

  They continued walking down the track, descending from the ridgeline and down into the valley. They carried on until Meinal clattered to a stop, about fifty meters from the forest. The sun hung low in the sky, casting long shadows from the tops of the trees across the valley floor like finger tips slowly reaching towards the ridge. “Detecting movement,” he said abruptly.

  “Where?” Reimar asked urgently. Meinal’s head spun on its axis.

  “Everywhere,” he replied, slowly.

  “What is it?”

  “Unfamiliar bio-signature. Database presents only one close match, subject 2013…”

  “Okay,” Reimar interjected quickly, cutting him off. “Hostile?”

  “Impossible to say. The disease could have progressed much further than I’ve previously encoun… Targets closing!” He interrupted himself urgently. Haunting cries and screams sounded in the wind.

  Bayan had turned pale. “Shit!” she whispered.

  Meinal looked at the two of them. “Run!” He said simply.

  They ran.

  *

  Branches clawed at Bayan’s face, roots twisted at her feet, catching them again and again only to let them go free. She panted, her skin crawled, each breath came sharp and shallow as she twisted her head frantically to see what pursued her. It was human sized. It ran with two legs and breathed loudly as it patiently ran behind her. It was in no hurry to end the chase.

  Reimar had gone. They had split up soon after they entered the forest, losing each other in the dusk. Meinal had stayed on the hill with instructions to double back to the ridge and hide Granny.

  She stumbled on yet another root, the footsteps behind her fell at their same steady pace. Closer now. She ran on. Panic grabbed her about the throat, turning her legs to jelly and clouding her mind with a fog that mirrored the mist starting to permeate the cooling air. A huge log barred her path and she scrambled under it on her hands and knees, cutting her leg deeply on a rock. The creature stopped behind her, it sniffed the blood left on the jagged outcrop and threw back its head. A horrible, coughing bark spluttered from its mouth.

  Bayan moaned in terror. They were all around her now. Out of sight, obscured by the trees around her, she could hear branches snapping underfoot as the pack closed in. She urged herself to run faster.

  The pack was gaining ground. She could see glimpses now, flitting through the trees around her, black blurs, yellow eyes.

  A large clearing appeared ahead. In the middle of it rose a hill, on which stood a tree. The tree was barren, but its branches were not. Bodies hung from the tree. Yellow eyes surrounded it, and her.

  There was nowhere to go.

  She stumbled and fell as absolute terror paralyzed every part of her. She shut her eyes and surrendered to the night. The eyes moved closer, the breath rattled in their throats and their steps were deliberate and cold but she couldn’t move. Her consciousness was trapped in a shuddering, useless body.

  The sounds of ‘Tragedy’ by the Bee Gees suddenly blared out into the clearing as Meinal charged through the woods. Light poured from him, cascading from lights embedded all over his frame as he tore into the clearing while his one eye glowed fiercely with a mixture of orange, red and yellow like rolling magma.

  There was a pause, as every pair of eyes for hundreds of meters focused on the droid. It was broken by a scratching noise as Meinal
changed tracks. Then, ‘Fight for your right’ by the Beastie Boys blasted from the speakers in his chest. He brought his two giant fists together with a resounding clang. “Let’s boogie!” he thundered threateningly.

  There was a dull thud of metal on bone. A creature flew suddenly through the air to disappear into the forest. The sound of another blow and a second creature took flight. Meinal grabbed a third and used it as a makeshift baseball bat, swinging it left and right until it came apart in the middle like a hideous piñata.

  Meinal reached Bayan, scooped her up with one arm and held her to his chest. She clung to Meinal as he curled his arm around her protectively. He clubbed down another creature as it leapt at her. “Cover your eyes!” the robot instructed urgently.

  Bayan obeyed. A short whine followed by several blasts of light accompanied a whoosh of air took her breath away. Meinal ejected the empty rounds from the gun in his arm with a metallic clang. He put it away, then turned and lumbered off into the night with Bayan in his arms, leaving the hill, the smouldering remains of the creatures and the tree behind him.

  5: Tribes

  Reimar bent double and gasped huge gulps of air into his battered lungs. The still night air was cold enough to burn his throat on the way down. The creatures had dropped off their pursuit of him soon after he had lost Bayan, but he had not dared to stop until he was far, far away from those yellow eyes. He wasn’t sure why they hadn’t chased him. He thought about this for a moment as he caught his breath.

  He was halfway across a wide flat expanse of ice. He could see the trees behind him but nothing in front of him except blackness. Having regained his breath, he took two steps forwards. A slight cracking sound broke the still air. He sucked his breath in, holding it for a moment. No further noise. He realised the ice wasn’t about to break beneath him, relaxed and took another two tentative steps forwards.

  He just had time to celebrate his quick reactions when a noise came floating on the wind behind him. He turned and took a step backwards. Half his foot protruded out into empty space. He wobbled, waving his arms to get his balance. “Whoa!” he yelled.

  He stopped wind milling and briefly grinned triumphantly. Then a hunk of ice broke off beneath his foot and he disappeared down the black crevasse in the ice with barely a sound.

  *

  Reimar awoke. Dappled sunlight was falling through the icy crevasse above him, and he felt surprisingly warm.. The ice acted like a gigantic greenhouse. Strangely, he was surrounded by plants, flourishing in the warmer temperatures beneath the layer of ice in the small valley below. He rubbed his head. Luckily he’d fallen onto a bush of some kind that had cushioned his fall. Not that he’d gotten away completely. He could still feel a series of bruises, grazes and cuts in his back that stung as he pulled himself to his feet.

  He looked around him. Then looked again in a comical double take. Ahead of him lay a pyramidal structure nestled between the thighs of the mountain at the end of the valley. Its stepped sides grew ever wider as they proceeded to the ground. It looked like some kind of temple.

  Reimar shrugged. He’d had enough of exploring. He turned his back on the temple structure and looked around. He could see fruit hanging from the heavy branches of several fruit trees nearby. He ate his fill, drank from a stream of water flowing from the glacier down through the valley and then made for the crevasse he’d fallen into. He couldn’t remember anything from yesterday but falling through the ice.

  Once he was there, he climbed up the jagged sides until he could see daylight outside. However, he could see he would have to jump to reach the edge of the crevasse. He paused a moment, summoned up his courage and jumped.

  He made it. Just. His hands latched onto rocks embedded in the ice and he hauled his way up. A rock came loose. He slid, reached out in panic and managed to stop his fall, but he was now stuck in a far from flattering position spreadeagled against the rock face. A black-gloved hand descended from above. The fingers inside the glove wriggled impatiently. Reimar put his faith in the stranger’s hands. The hand gripped his wrist firmly and hoisted him bodily out into the daylight.

  Reimar squinted in the harsh light until his eyes could focus once again. A human sat with its back to him on a rock nearby, in the snow flecked, howling wind. It tilted its head to the left slightly to study Reimar with only passing curiosity, before turning back once more to look into the wind.

  “Who are you?” the figure asked slowly. Its voice was slow, unnatural, and tinny. Armoured from head to foot, the metal plated figure carried an odd form of beauty. Decorated with talismen’s, strips of brightly coloured cloth and multi-coloured stripes of paint, it still exuded menace. Its shoulder plates carried two emblems. A skeletal arm strewn with roses covered its left shoulder, painted in pure white and red over the black metal. Its right carried three solid white circles linked by two straight, bold lines, all gripped between the teeth of a grinning skull. A rifle hung over its back and an ornately engraved helmet covered its face.

  It was clearly rather impatient. Not waiting for a reply to its question, it pointed its finger over one shoulder and, without looking, suddenly hit Reimar with something that made his vision blur all over again as he crashed to the floor unconscious for the second time in 24 hours.

  The figure removed its helmet, revealing a strikingly pretty woman. Her hair was raggedly buzz cut short on the left side, which almost but not-quite managed to hide the multi-coloured tattoo of a dragon’s head curling around her left ear. It bared its fangs from the side of her skull at the swirling gale around it. On the right side, gently curling ginger hair cut just below her ear danced serenely with the wind. Scar tissue dotted her face, but did nothing to mar her beauty. She scanned the horizon with careful, piecing blue eyes.

  She stood up and turned to look at Reimar for a moment. She strode across the ice and bent over him. She pushed his head. It flopped back. She patted his jacket to see what was in it. Nothing much. She looked at his face. Her eyes softened slightly. He looked very young. New cuts on his face oozed slowly congealing blood, flowing slowly along the contours of his skin. She twisted sharply as a far off howl carried on the wind, then turned back to Reimar.

  *

  Reimar awoke. He couldn’t move. His arms were compressed to his sides and his legs were bound. He roared into consciousness and struggled in the gloom.

  “Hush, little wraith. The bag won’t hurt you.” The armoured figure sat away in the gloom to his left on a fallen log, the helmet how back firmly in place.

  Seated before a dying fire, she fiddled with something she held between her hands as she talked. She looked up at him and put it to one side. “It’s a sleeping bag, not a boa constrictor. Come, the fire is dull but it’s still warm.” She patted the log beside her.

  Reimar ceased struggling for a moment. His hands fiddled inside the bag, found the zip, and yanked it. He spilled out onto the snowy ground, reattached his prosthetic leg that had been placed beside him and got to his feet. He looked at the figure for a moment. She looked back. Her helmet carried an ornate engraving. A flower-strewn skull had been painstakingly etched onto the black visor. Brass coloured eyes were set into the metal and twin hoses snaked out from the sides of the skulls chin, retreating over her shoulders into darkness. The combined effect of this was rather intimidating, and it was with some trepidation that Reimar crossed over to her, his feet crunching on the newly fallen snow.

  He perched gingerly beside her. The woman picked up the device beside her and tapped it. She tapped it harder, then cursed, flipped it over and fiddled with the back.

  Reimar jumped the instant she moved. She looked at him. She turned to the fire, grabbed the helmet and yanked it to the left. The skull grinned at Reimar as she pulled it up off her head.

  The woman smiled at him, “See, little wraith? Nothing to fear.” She turned back to the device and sighed. “Do you know how hard it is to find double A batteries out here?” Reimar didn’t answer, he was still stunned; a desperately pre
tty woman was the last thing he’d expected to see under that helmet.

  “And I was this close to catching Mewtwo,” she said, indicating how close with two black-gloved fingers pinched almost together. Reimar had no idea what she was on about, but he shrugged and smiled nervously anyway. “Urm, I’m Reimar,” he managed.

  “Talia,” the woman said, still smiling. “Want some stew?”

  “Er, yea sure, thanks”

  She handed him a steaming bowl that had sat next to the fire. She picked up her own and looked at him expectantly. Reimar peered at the bowl, it smelled good, but… visions of a figure on a rock zapping him in a storm came to his head.

  Talia noticed him hesitate. “It’s good, nothing poisonous I promise, see?” She took a sip from her bowl, blowing on the spoon gently before putting it between her lips. Reasoning that she could have killed him already if she’d wanted too, he ate a suspicious mouthful. It was hot. His mouth burned. He smiled to cover up the pained expression on his face. She beamed back and started to eat with gusto. Silence reigned for a moment.