Molly - Part 1

Chapter 16

The lights were strange to Molly Smith. They reminded her of blood, running through channels. When she moved she was apart from herself. This body was strange to her now that it was coming in contact with the earth. Out here, everything was organic. Everything moved and had a voice. It was incredible to Molly.

Three men were digging into trash. They wore strange black garb and dogs circled around them, though Molly did not think they were pets.

One noticed her. He wore a mask with a tube running out of the mouth. No eyes. Just blank, black slates.

"Holy shit."

The trio broke apart, circling her.

"Where the fuck did you come from?" one of them said, his black eyes going from her feet to her head.

"Strange," she whispered.

They glanced at one another.

"What?"

"I know that I want to kill you."

He snorted, the sound strange beneath the mask. "Lady, I don't know what fucking hole you crawled out of, but you better fucking shut up."

"Are you going to help me?"

She knew that they were readying their guns: a shift of the hand, a cough to mask it. She hoped the question would put them off-guard.

"Yeah," the man said, slowly. "Yeah, we're here to help. That's why we're here in the first place."

Their hearts were beating fast, and despite the masks Molly could see them watching her not in lust but in sure-hunger.

"You are addicted to it," Molly began. "You came here to put right what was wrong. You became insane. You drank all the poison and now you have to sate yourself by drawing it from different hosts."

"What the fuck is this?"

"You were once policemen, or something like it. But as all institutions of justice must reckon with, this a broken world and we are all broken people."

"Look lady, why don't you--"

She snapped forward and punched the one talking in the throat. He garged something horrible, then fell on his side. The other tried to fire, but he fumbled at the last second, long enough so that Molly could come up to the other man and snap his arm around.

"Jesus Christ," he screamed.

For a second they stood there, Molly forcing her prisoner not to move by silently threatening to break his arm, his companion still aiming with his gun. Slow-witted, the poison surely taking its toll, Molly could see the man holding the gun slowly realizing he could just shoot them both--body rigid, fingers fluttering against the stock

"I didn't know it had gotten this bad," she said.

"Believe it, bitch."

He dropped the gun, hands splayed as he fell. Molly twisted the other one around and shot him with his own gun.

Now: nothing. The silence was incredible, though not complete, the moaning of a dying race echoing in both synthetic and organic vibrations.

There was another one. He didn't seem like the others. Desperate, yes, but with something like a soul. He had no mask and though he was clearly strained there was a sort of simple ease to his face so that Molly did not feel the desire to defend herself--a dangerous game, but again Molly didn't think he was like the ones with the masks.

Monsiuers. That's what they called themselves now. Molly thought this was funny, though she couldn't say why.

There was a leyline running beneath them. It gave further insight. She trembled, not because of the cold.