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Post By The Hooded Hood says Happy New Year Sun Dec 31, 2006 at 12:05:10 pm EST |
Subject Destination – Part Eight Originally Destination, Part 7 |
In Reply To Anime Jason hopes this is good Sat Dec 30, 2006 at 02:05:31 pm EST |
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| Destination – Part Eight Paramaribo was a sweltering 112 degrees and the wet season only made the heat humid. The eleven children were packed into a space eight feet by five, the only furniture a broken toilet bowl. The window was barred. The children reflected the mixed ethnic base of Suriname, the former Dutch Guiyana – Hindoestanen, Javanese, Maroons, Creoles; but they all whispered in Dutch. They didn’t make much noise. The men who’d bought them from the villages along the Tapanahomi were quick to quieten disobedient slaves. Mostly now the four boys and seven girls huddled miserably and dreaded the moment that the door would open again. In the kitchen of the derilict former colonial house the six gangsters on babysitting duty smoked and played cards. The buyer would be turning up later but there was time for another round. It wasn’t like the merchandise was going anywhere. None of them was expecting the knock on the door. Carlos slid a Ruger MK III Hunter from his holster and slid to the side of the door. “Who issit, man?” “I’ve come with information,” came back a confident deep voice. “Your codewords are Clockwork Orange, by the way.” Everybody had their weapons out now. “This gotta be a double-cross, Carlos,” Christophe warned. “Mister Escobedo must’ve found out about us skimming on the drug take.” “Chu think?” hissed Carlos. “Just cover the door. And watch the back too.” He swung the door open and glared at the unassuming man lounging with his back to the balcony lintel. “Hi,” the Doomherald said, smiling like a shark. “In,” Carlos growled, pressing his revolver into the stranger’s temple and dragging him inside. “The Ruger KP 678H MK III,” Exu noted. “Six and seven-eights inch barrel, thirty four ounces. It’s killed seven hundred and twenty-two thousand three hundred and sixteen people since it was first created.” “Smart guy,” snarled the gangster, pressing the muzzle harder into his captive’s cheek. “You have no idea,” the Doomherald agreed. “I mean literally no idea.” “You said you had a warning,” Christophe called out. “You want to live, man, you tell us who you are and what chu know. How you be knowing where to find us?” “Oh, I can always find murderers,” the former God of Murder assured the gangsters. “Even if the smell wasn’t a giveaway.” “You won’t be so funny when I blow your face off, man,” Carlos threatened. The Doomherald took the gun off him and threw him across the room to collapse the shelves above the sink. “I’m bored of that now,” Exu noted. “I have a short attention span.” Five other weapons in the room misfired at once. “I know about you because Charles Escobedo knew about you. He intends to kill you because you haven’t been honest little criminals. That means I can know about you too. Where are the children?” Christophe pulled a bowie knife from his forearm sheathe. Bowie knives don’t jam. “How chu know about the kids?” he demanded. “Mister Escobedo, he don’t talk to nobody about that.” “Slaves for the factories and the brothels,” Exu guessed. “Meat for sale. No family to help them, no future except to be murdered in slices, day by day. The hardest kind of death.” The room suddenly seemed cold despite the tropical climate. Five men began to wonder what was in the room with them. One moaned softly. “Die, man!” Christophe shouted. He lunged forward. Exu caught his outstretched arm, bent it back at an impossible angle, and twisted the knife so it slowly entered the gangster’s guts. The other men began to scramble for the doors. None of them made it. “Amateurs,” said the Doomherald. Only Carlos remained alive. He dragged himself up and retrieved his gun. “Mister Escobedo will kill you even if I don’t,” he promised. “Mister Escobedo won’t be coming,” Exu answered. “I visited him before I came here. Him, all his staff, all his household.” He idly flipped Christophe’s bowie knife in his hand. “That only leaves you.” Carlos had the gun but he saw death in the stranger’s eyes. “Why?” he begged. “I’m trying to cheer up a friend,” Exu replied as he delivered the blade with pinpoint precision. The children flinched away from the door as he opened it. “It’s okay,” he told them. “You’re free. Here’s money. Here’s a phone number. Ask for someone called Ebony and tell her what happened.” They didn’t understand at first. They looked at the man in the leather jacket warily, waiting to be hurt. Exu had to stuff Carlos’ money into a child’s hand. “Find a phone,” he reiterated. “Ring the number. Good things will happen after that, I promise. And when they do, deliver a message.” The oldest boy closed his fist on the cash. “What message?” he asked at last. “Who to?” “Tell them what happened. Tell them what’s in the kitchen. And tell them that you’d all be dead and worse than dead if I hadn’t come. If somebody hadn’t done what they did to save my life before that.” He turned away. “She knows what it’s like to be where you are. She knows how hard things get at the extremes. Tell her she didn’t go there for nothing,” he commanded. “She?” But the Doomherald was gone. Original concepts, characters, and situations copyright © 2004 reserved by Ian Watson. Other Parodyverse characters copyright © 2004 to their creators. The use of characters and situations reminiscent of other popular works do not constitute a challenge to the copyrights or trademarks of those works. The right of Ian Watson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. |
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