Molly - Part 1

Chapter 10

Crystals yawning, and there she swam with the tide. She was completely nude and her hair reached to her thighs so that she seemed like some hitherto unknown pagan god borne from the wicked dreams of men long dead.

He crawled out of the mire and extended a hand, but she did not help him. Now she seemed evil, her starlit-hair expanding, her eyes twin-lights forming into moths strained against heaven.

There was nothing good here. It had been taken by forces unseen and unheard.

Sean awoke from his dream, sucking in a panicked breath. He listened. Outside, someone was moving around. It sounded like trash being picked up. Sean went to the window and risked opening the hatch a little to see.

Black boots. The type they stepped on you with.

"Well why the fuck didn't anyone try blowing it up?" Sean heard someone say.

"What do you think will happen if we blow up one of the cores? Are you a fucking idiot? Are you brain-dead? Seriously, you have to let me know."

A muffled snarl. "Fuck off."

"Hey!"

Sean fell back, and there coming out of the poison was a man. He wore a leather coat and he was wielding a shotgun almost as big as he was.

"Why you rats out here?" the newcomer bellowed.

"Stop aiming that thing at me."

Sean climbed up as fast as he could to the second level, ducking low and coming up to a black window, just barely managing to see the two monsiuers and the man holding the gun. The newcomer seemed paranoid, looking over his shoulder in a weird, sudden twitch that never seemed to happen with reason.

"I told you to stop fucking--"

The monsieur was lifted off his feet, crashing out of view, followed by the shattering of glass.

"You're going to fucking die for that!"

"You rats need to learn manners. Without 'em, you're just cancer."

"Jesus--"

Sean could hear the dead monsieur's convulsions.

"You can come out now, if you'd like."

Sean froze, then with a shaking hand opened the window.

One of the monsieurs was still moving, though he was on the floor and was covered in so much blood he was more red than black. The other was certainly dead, most of his head tapped to the side of another apartment wall.

"Thank you," Sean said, clearing his throat and swiping one of the monsieur's machine guns.

The newcomer hesitated, then clicked his tongue and walked off to take care of the lingering monsieur.

"Sorry."

He pressed the nozzle of his shotgun to the monsieur's head, and then it was over; Sean didn't have the heart to look.

"Squeamish?" the newcomer said, going over and wiping some of the blood off his gun, using the rags of the dead monsieur. "Surprising. It's been a while now. Have you been holed up like the others?"

"Yes."

"Ah. I'm Dawson, by the way."

Sean shook his hand. "Sean."

"Okay, good. Introductions over. I need to keep moving. Too many lights."

Sean blinked, then blurted, "Are you high?"