Smack-dab, in the Middle of Nowhere (Waste Stories #1)

29. ...Run in Circles, Scream and Shout (Part 5)

Escaping the giant mob of angry cultists was not as easy as Phoenix had hoped. But then, he wasn't sure what he was expecting. The last mob he escaped from was a shambling mass of zom-bee-infected humans, who had suffered the horrific, mind-rotting sting of the zom-bee. They never ran, but just sort of moved forwards. It could only be described as movement, for no other word fitted the strange, limping, struggling surge that was a zom-bee hive.

But these cultists were different. For starters, they were alive - that was the real problem. Easily remedied in most situations, mind you, but unfortunately Phoenix had a mission here, and it didn't involve blowing up their stupid village. No, somehow he had to go from fleeing in terror to saving the day and winning the girl.

...he filed this under "Future Problem".

Cultists swarmed out of every nook and cranny imaginable, some even dropping from the sky. Phoenix ran as though his life depended on it, which was made far easier by his life depending on it. His breath detonated out of his lungs in ragged, heavy bursts, his boots pounding hard on the Starry Place's dusty roads.

The entire village had, over time, somehow coalesced on Mount Butt's rocky slopes, meaning every single street was some degree of steep and horrible. And the village huts themselves were rudimentary at best, cobbled together from scraps of whatever the hell was lying around at the time of construction. They wound down the slope in a vast network of dirty streets, all of them aiming vaguely for the entrance to the village where Phoenix first encountered Fabbelous and etc. earlier that day.

Phoenix was oddly disappointed at how normal everything looked, even as it streamed past him in a total blur. Scattered between each of the huts were streets paved with dirt and the occasional pile of shit, not the bones of the Starry People's enemies as one might expect. There were crates scattered here and there, plus plenty of cats, and wandering between two houses a bit further down, something that seemed an odd mix of both. Phoenix couldn't see any torture cages or implements of horrible star-themed death anywhere, but there was a well a little ways back up the road he now fled down. Maybe they like, you know, could throw people in there or something.

Bah, he thought. It was wishful thinking, Phoenix knew. At least they all dressed the same. You couldn't have a good cult without a uniform.

Momentarily alone, Phoenix threw himself behind a particularly dumpy hut made of multi-coloured planks and old robes, catching his breath and stuffing it back in his lungs as it tried to abandon his body for good. Sweat hung off his brow in beady, dirty clumps, and piled up in his armpits and crotch waiting for someone to dare take his clothes off. He allowed himself the simple pleasure of wheezing horrifically as he tried to think. How does one go from killing the leader of a group to having their complete, undivided adoration? And what had even happened with the Constellator?

Bert must be having a much easier time than this, he thought. Phoenix had always found bandit leaders much more agreeable.

Then he heard the myriad claps of feet that signalled impending doom, carried on the raging soundwaves of "Over here", "No, over here", "No, over here - I said it first." It was time to move, then.

Scooping up one final breath for the road, Phoenix darted out from his cover and made for down the hill. He wasn't sure where he was going, but he needed to lose these losers so that he could think properly. There was bound to be somewhere to hide in the village. The bedroom of a lusty maiden, perhaps, who would gasp in shock when she found him straddled across her bed, but quickly succumb to her deep-seeded, forbidden desires and make wild love to his tired body. Phoenix would also accept a lusty squire, or pretty much anybody. So long as they took the edge off and didn't rat him out.