Blight of Exiles: Helix, #1

By Pat Flewwelling

Perfected by nature. Twisted by science. A miracle cure gone very, very wrong.

An abandoned forest resort should have been paradise for a creature like Ishmael. Isolated from civilization, so far removed from human eyes, Ishmael could have reveled in his true nature without threat of discovery.

But he had been abducted, drugged and marooned there without a word, sent into exile by the cryptic Wyrd Council. And he's not alone.

In this unholy quarantine, Ishmael is just another mouth to feed.

And he's no longer the apex predator.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tyche Books
• Release date: Oct 15, 2014
• ISBN: 9781928025122

Book preview

Helix:

Blight of Exiles

Published by Tyche Books Ltd.

www.TycheBooks.com

Copyright © 2014 Pat Flewwelling

First Tyche Books Ltd Edition 2014

Print ISBN: 978-1-928025-07-8

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-928025-12-2

Cover Art by Galen Dara

Cover Layout by Lucia Starkey

Interior Layout by Ryah Deines

Editorial by M. L. D. Curelas

Author photograph by C2 Studios

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage & retrieval system, without written permission from the copyright holder, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review.

The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third party websites or their content.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations and events portrayed in this story are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

Any resemblance to persons living or dead would be really cool, but is purely coincidental.

Dedication

For Tobin Elliott, who drove a ten hour return trip in winter, just so he could attend my first book launch. Here's hoping someday I can return the favour–or even better yet: that I can pay it forward.

For Michael Lorenson, who never let me settle for good enough when it came to storytelling, and for the other two Second Cup (Ir)Regulars, Trish Davidson and Greg Stroll. Thanks for all the irreverent laughs when I needed them most, you guys.

And for all those who champion the cause of adult literacy across Canada and around the globe, with a special nod toward the participants, organizers, and volunteers at the Muskoka Novel Marathon, in Huntsville, Ontario. We write so they can read.

Be sure of this, O young ambition, all mortal greatness is but disease.

Herman Melville, Moby Dick

Table of Contents

Title Page

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Biography

Chapter One

THE TRUCK LUMBERED up a steep incline, engine struggling, all tires rocking in alternation as the vehicle bumbled over rough terrain. Brakes squealed suddenly, and Ishmael rolled awake. His arms were aching and his eyes were swollen shut. He tried to sit up, but the slightest motion made the pressure in his head expand. The grinding transmission jerked into gear.

He could hear voices in the cab talking over the noise of the engine and of the rain drumming on the hood and roof of the truck. He couldn’t make sense of the words. He’d been thoroughly drugged.

Before they stopped and exposed him to the world, Ishmael had to know what state he was in. He couldn’t see his hands, because he couldn’t pull them from behind his back. Not only was he handcuffed, but the cuffs were locked to a bar behind him. His legs were shackled to a bar welded to the floor.

The truck banged to a stop, and crates slid toward the cab, crushing Ishmael’s legs. A wooden box slid off the top of the stack and crashed against the cab beside Ishmael’s face. The box broke open, pelting him with heavy, hard-edged tin cans. Voices exchanged brief comments. The truck parked, engine idling.

A door opened. Air rushed in, pushing toward Ishmael’s nostrils the scent of aftershave, deodorant, man sweat, cotton, and gun oil. Another door opened. The rain was falling hard on puddles and mud, and it was cold outside.

Ishmael brushed his cheek against his shoulder. He felt skin against skin, not skin against material, which was irksome, because he’d been well dressed when they abducted him. He rubbed his knees together and shifted his weight on the bench. He was as naked, bruised, and bloody as the day he was born. Very funny, Jay, he thought.

A thick tarp moved, and suddenly there was light. Ishmael averted his eyes, which hadn’t been swollen shut after all. His face was badly injured, but he could see.

Men spoke as if without moving their lips. Guns rattled, and someone coughed.

Come on, come on, said one of them.

Another crate came away. Ishmael had been bricked-in like the man in The Cask of Amontillado.

Do you have eyes on? someone asked.

A helmeted head appeared in the irregular block of light. The soldier aimed a carbine and gazed across the sights at Ishmael’s head.

Move, another man said, with a sense of urgency.

Other voices stated updates about their surroundings and about their progress. Voices tensed, rose in volume, and dropped in tone, as if they were alarmed by some encroaching enemy.

Aw shit, the armed man said. He’s awake.

Damn it, was the reply. Move—move out of my way.

Ishmael rolled his shoulders. The pain in his back wrenched a shout out of him, and he arched his spine. He didn’t remember when he’d gotten the laceration. He remembered most of the bruises though.

The second soldier, a scarred man, looked toward the back of the truck and asked for something technical by spelling it out in numbers and letters. He shoved the first soldier aside when another rifle was brought for him. He aimed and pulled the trigger.

A dart pierced Ishmael’s bloody shoulder. Numbness bled under the skin, down his right arm, up his neck and into his face. He gasped as if going under water. His neck gave out.

One by one, crates came away from around Ishmael’s body, while he sagged forward over his knees, succumbing to the deadening drug in his system. Drool dangled from his bottom lip. When they had cleared enough space, a man came in, squatting in front of Ishmael’s feet. By feel, the soldier unlocked the shackles; he watched Ishmael’s face with intense suspicion. The soldier looked like he’d learned many lessons the hard way: he had a deep circular scar from his forehead along the side of his nose, splitting his lip. A second scar ran from his ear to the corner of his mouth, as deep as the first cut, as if one quarter of his skull had been cut away and re-attached.

Ishmael’s foot slipped forward, and the soldier recoiled. Two other soldiers jerked their rifles up to the ready position.

Try as he might, though, Ishmael couldn’t kick the man. He couldn’t figure out how to make his feet and legs respond. His head dangled between his shoulders. It was a small mercy that he couldn’t feel his injuries, at least. They’d really worked him over.

They’d caught him completely off-guard and in public, and they’d outnumbered him by at least five to one. A by-the-numbers abduction, a bold, daylight kidnapping right out of the airport, conducted by men in paramilitary uniforms with full cooperation by airport security, FBI, and New York City Police. Ishmael hadn’t stood a chance.

They must have planned this for weeks, he thought.

The soldier reached over Ishmael’s shoulder and unlocked the manacles. Ishmael’s arm popped, and he fell sloppily to the floor, his limbs as heavy and awkward as garbage bags full of water. Get up. A boot nudged Ishmael’s bare thigh. Move! Get out!

Ishmael half-crawled, half-swam a few feet before he could move no more. Voices became drunken music in his dull ears, and he laughed to hear them. They slid him out by the arms. A loose screw dug into his hip as they pulled him along; they pulled with such force that his skin ripped and he bled across the floor of the truck bed. He fell out like a leaky sand bag onto the cracked, weedy pavement. Someone was ordered to disinfect the truck before anyone else went in. Ishmael rolled over, belly up on the ground, with his battered limbs splayed and dirt encrusting the open wound across his spine. Rain fell in his face. He closed his eyes.

He remembered a latte in a paper cup. He thought about it sitting around, getting cold at the airport. It made him angry. It had been a very good cup of coffee.

Sensation returned one pixel at a time. He took a deep breath.

No, a woman said. Then, urgently: Eyes front, eyes front! Incoming at two o’clock!

Ishmael groaned and rolled over onto his chest. A rifle shot cracked, and Ishmael covered his head with his arms. Someone shouted. More guns fired in three- and four-shot bursts. Ishmael took another deep breath, flexed his hands, gathered his knees under him.

The gun shots stopped. People were out of breath.

He’s gone, said one of the men.

You, the woman said. And you. Get back to it. Move quickly and move now. Ishmael knew her voice like he knew his own.

Ma’am, was the curt reply.

I told you we shouldn’t have waited so long to make the delivery, said the scarred soldier.

And I told you it was out of our control, she replied. His damned plane was delayed.

Damn it, Bridget, you were in on this too? Ishmael pulled his elbows under him, groaning as he moved. He felt the wind and the rain scouring the wide gash between his shoulder blades. Smaller cuts sluiced around welts and bruises. His stomach heaved.

Where are we?

Trampled weeds grew between the cracks in the pavement of a crooked road. He saw buildings on either side, white, blocky and falling down. Beyond that, there were trees. At the end of the road, a forest grew so thick it blotted out what sunlight the rain couldn’t hide. It was a forest as black as night.

Focus, said the woman to the others. Keep your head on a swivel. They’re wounded. That doesn’t mean they’re discouraged.

Ishmael coughed up blood. I . . . trusted . . .

Damn it. Get the dart gun, she said to someone.

I trusted you—

Someone slapped a fresh magazine into their rifle.

No! the woman said.

Stay down! Someone kicked Ishmael in the ribs, flattening him. He tried again to get to his hands and knees, but two more people joined the fray, kicking, beating him down with the butts of their rifles. Someone punched him in the open wound, and Ishmael jerked back his elbows. He found himself on his knees, surrounded by five soldiers.

Don’t do it, she said.

Ishmael threw out his arm, knocking over a soldier. Intoxicated and enraged, Ishmael lurched to his feet and punched another soldier in the mouth, but he had no balance. He fell against the soldier, pinning him to the ground. Hands hauled him up by the shoulders, yanking him to his unready feet. Ishmael shrugged off the grasp and ran for the trees. At least in the forest, he had a chance. At least there, he could—

A woman cut him off, hip-checking him sideways into a tumble. His left leg gave out and he collapsed to the grass and gravel. She stood over him.

His throat was raw. But . . . I trusted you.

He saw her fist.

Chapter Two

ISHMAEL GASPED AT the sting of acidic sandpaper rasping at the edges of his wounds.

Sh, a woman whispered. It’s all right.

He was lying face down on a military cot with his knuckles brushing a dirty, concrete floor. Oh God, what has she seen?

Try to relax. I’m almost done. She dipped the gritty, stinging cloth into the deepest part of the wound, and he grunted between his clenched teeth. There.

He tried to roll over, but she was sitting on his lower back.

No, don’t move. I need to reapply the bandage.

Something soft and cool pressed against the gouge, making him flinch and inhale sharply. She murmured gentle words of encouragement and patience. She pulled surgical tape from a spool and applied it firmly around the edges of the gauze. I’m going to give you something that will help you sleep.

No, he moaned. I’ll be fine, need to . . .

You need your rest.

Need to leave . . .

I’ll watch over you tonight. It wouldn’t be a fair fight. Trust in me. You’ll be safe.

Need to . . . trees . . .

Sh, she said again. She pinched the back of his arm.

No.

It’s just to help you rest, she said. She pierced his skin. There . . . She withdrew the needle and applied a fresh bandage. There. Now just breathe. He felt her hand over his shoulder. Breathe and sleep. I’ll be here. You’re safe.

Where . . . ?

Sh . . .

Where’m I?

She caressed his shoulder. You’re in hell.

HE WOKE IN the night wearing a scratchy horse blanket. The darkness was stifling, impenetrable, unlike anything he’d ever experienced before. He rolled over in search of any sign of light. It was still raining. He followed the sound of it, hoping for a window on the world. He shuddered from the cold. Someone had given him a pair of pants, but no shirt, and no shoes, so he wore the horse blanket like a cloak. He stumbled when he stepped on a tin can, which he kicked out of his way. He had no idea of the dimensions of his room, only that the floor was as cold and gritty as rough concrete, and there were leaves and twigs all over the place. He remembered the forest, the truck, the airport, the surprise arrest, and the bludgeoning from a hundred different angles; he remembered falling out of the truck, and the soldiers shooting their guns.

He didn’t know if he was still in the States.

His cautious toes found the wall. He followed it sideways until he found the window. The air smelled of pine and wet rocks, with just a hint of frost. It was a wide window, with no glass in the rotten wooden frame. Through it, he saw a pinpoint of yellow light that flickered and danced like a distant campfire, or like a swaying flashlight.

He’d been hours away from closing a multi-million dollar deal on behalf of his company, sipping on an expensive drink and brushing a speck of dust off a fine Italian suit. Now he was all but naked, wearing someone else’s baggy jeans, he was freezing, wet, bloody, bruised, sore, lost, and hungry.

This was beyond prank.

Sheet lightning illuminated the contours of a town surrounded by towering trees. Someone was in the street below: a hunchback running under the torrential rain. Lightning flashed again. The figure was gone. Thunder rumbled along the underside of mountainous, flickering clouds.

In the distance, something cried out like a woman in labour, and Ishmael’s hair stood on end. He listened intently. He didn’t hear it again.

He stood shivering beside the window, despising the rain, hating the pressurized dampening field of drugs on his brain. His feet ached from the cold floor, so he went and sat on the cot, listening, waiting for the lightning to brighten his cell, wondering if the girl was still in his room with him.

I’m not alone, he thought, which gave him comfort and made him afraid at the same time. I’m in a prison camp. Half-formed suspicions whirled like murky water around a clogged drain. Jay, he thought, but this was beyond his mischief. This was big. This was well planned. Organized.

Expensive.

He curled up on his side. There was no sign of his lady guardian angel, and he didn’t feel like getting up again to go find her.

He’d lost his contract bid. He knew that. He’d probably lost more than that, too: police wouldn’t have interfered with the abduction, not if they considered the arrest legal and there was substantive proof of something. Some heinous crime.

He needed out. He needed to find who’d set him up, find out why. There was far more at stake than a few million dollars; but that money was spoken for, too. It was his contribution to a mutually beneficial cause—if they’d been smart, they would have left him alone for one more day.

One more day, that was all he’d needed.

Whatever the reason for his abduction, it must have been urgent. And that meant something very bad was on the horizon. All the more reason, he decided, to weasel out of captivity and get back to business. Escape, recover, come back fighting.

He’d have to find better pants along the way, and get his wallet back, somehow . . .

The rain coaxed him back to sleep.

HE AWOKE TO the smell of baked beans in maple sauce.

It had rained through the night. The morning was grey and dark green, and it smelled of worms and wet Christmas trees. The baked beans, however, made his stomach growl. He sat up slowly on the edge of the cot, feeling cuts stretch and bandages pull against the hairs of his back. The sleep had helped, but he was a patchwork of bruises and untreated cuts. He wasn’t afraid of infection so much as he wanted to avoid an unpleasant reaction. His toes curled, repulsed by the cold floor. There was a can opener on the floor between his feet, and it was by luck he hadn’t stepped on it in the night. He ran his hand across his belly; it ached, but he had to eat. He found a tin can crushed in the corner. It was still sealed, but it was soup and it was as cold as the floor.

Someone coughed downstairs. Ishmael doubted it was room service. It was a man, and he was covering a song by the Village People, one octave too low.

Ishmael checked the rest of the room for any other cans, but that was it: one soup can, one can opener, a cot, and a blanket in the middle of an 8’ by 10’ concrete room, one that had no glass in the window and no door in the frame.

Outside his window was a brick and cinderblock ghost town, and he was on the second floor of a stained, white building. There was a main street that ran along under his window, pockmarked with missing chunks of asphalt and filled in with grey pools of rainwater. A rudimentary ditch ran along either side of the road, and those too were filled with rain.

An old cottage resort, maybe, he thought.

There were street lamps here, too, placed only at the intersections; either the power had gone out in the night, or they didn’t work at all. Hydroelectric wires had frayed and hung from the faces of buildings and from age-curved poles. He wondered if there was a working phone line anywhere, or a gas station, or cell phone reception.

Other unkempt streets formed t-intersections, and at every corner, there was another big building. Off to his left was the biggest of all the buildings, though the walls sloped and the roof was almost all gone. It had been painted barnyard red and olive green at some point. Above the double-doors, someone had painted a yellow pentangle with a cross in the middle. He’d thought at first maybe it had been a church, but there was another chapel off to the right. That was marginally well-maintained, painted white and sky blue. A flock of birds flew out of the broken belfry.

Ghost town? he wondered.

The road simply stopped after two more buildings off to his right, and there, the forest began. To his left, the road dropped off downhill and out of sight behind a screen of more trees.

Throw me into the middle of nowhere and expect me to walk home? he thought. Well, okay, if you want to play that game . . . But why? Why now? And why all the drama?

He stepped out of his cell into a wide hall, with rooms in all directions, and a landing leading to broken concrete stairs. He stood at the top of the cracked steps and listened. He was alone in the upper storey. A quick glance in each of the rooms showed they were all deserted. The other rooms were larger, with holes in the floor and piles of burned material in the corners. One of them had the frames of a dozen old baby cribs; the mattresses had been gutted by birds and rodents. A hairless plastic doll lounged in a corner wearing a skirt of last year’s leaves. A plant grew in a sunny spot, its roots in the concrete. The walls were black with mildew.

Prypiat, he thought. He’d never been to the abandoned city outside Chernobyl, but he’d seen plenty of pictures. But he didn’t remember the city being so well surrounded by thick forests. Abandoned psychiatric asylum?

Ishmael limped down the stairs with one hand on his ribs. The bottom floor was in worse repair than the upper storey. Pillars had broken in the far corner and the ceiling had collapsed, spewing electrical wires, insulation, and bits of plaster. There’d been a kind of bar here, and an open kitchen with green appliances from the sixties or seventies, though nothing was plugged in and everything was rusted off-kilter. Birds had nested in one of the windows.

There was a very large man in rags standing in the middle of the lobby, singing Hot Cop.

The music stopped.

The man turned his head, listening over his shoulder. This was odd, because as a habit, Ishmael made no noise when he walked, especially when he walked barefoot.

Morning, the stranger said. His shoulders were far broader than his hips, his arms thick, his chest barreled and his back hunched. He steadied his balance with a wooden cane. Smoke and steam rose from a little camp stove he’d set up on the floor before him. He stirred his baked beans with a long, thin stick. Took you long enough to get up. He wore a shredded overcoat, oilskin, like what an Australian cowboy would wear during the final days of the zombie apocalypse.

At least he speaks English, Ishmael thought. Where am I? he asked.

I don’t know, the man answered. Do you?

Ishmael stepped on an angular pebble. His stumbling weight put pressure on a bad knee, and Ishmael reached for the nearest wall. Last I knew, I was in LaGuardia, waiting for my luggage.

When was this?

I don’t know, Ishmael answered, picking the stone from his sole. What day is it?

How should I know?

You always answer questions with more questions? Ishmael hobbled closer, because the smell of the beans was driving him mad. I’ll trade you that for this, he said, presenting the soup can.

Tomato? the other man asked. He grunted. I’m allergic to tomatoes.

Then can I use your stove?

Get your own.

Ishmael smiled and said, I won’t take it anywhere, I promise.

The other man put his thoroughly bandaged hand on Ishmael’s chest and pushed him away. Ishmael blinked at him, but the older man turned his massive back, the tails of his overcoat wagging around his ankles. Over his shoulder, the other man said again, Get your own, I said.

Where?

Wherever you find one.

Ishmael looked at the soup, but his nostrils were full of the smell of meatier stuff. He needed food. His body couldn’t repair itself without it. I hate tomato soup.

Poor you.

Ishmael rolled his eyes and went to sit under the concrete stairs and opened the tin of tomato soup. It had a disappointing smell to it, and it was concentrate, the kind of soup that needed two cans of water to go with it. But there were no pots around, and even the old man cooked his beans right inside the can, like a hobo of old. Isn’t there some place I can buy something better than this?

The old man laughed. Oh God, you really are lost, aren’t you?

I wouldn’t be, if you told me where I was.

Can’t tell you what I don’t know myself. He glanced over his shoulder again. He had greying hair. Not that I care to know.

You don’t know, Ishmael said. He snorted a laugh.

What I can tell you is that if you’re in here, it means you’ve done something very, very wrong.

Ishmael tipped up the can over his mouth, but the tomato soup-paste wouldn’t budge. His hands were filthy. Can you be a little more specific? Dirt or no, he plunged his finger into the soup and scooped it directly into his mouth.

Son, the man said, if you don’t know why you’re here, it won’t take you long to figure it out. He carefully guarded his balance as he angled a top-heavy body over the stove and picked up his can of beans. He ate the hot contents in a couple of greedy gulps, always keeping his back to Ishmael. When he was done, he belched and crushed the can in one hand.

Ishmael watched the bean can fall and roll away. The old man had crushed it into the shape of an apple core.

Ishmael narrowed his eyes. You never tried to leave?

Of course I tried. We’ve all tried. The smart ones stop trying. Believe me, you can check in, but you can never leave.

There was a woman here last night, Ishmael said. A girl. Where’d she go?

She left, the man said. Asked me to guard the place while you slept.

Left? Left town?

The man chuckled. You’re up, you’re still breathing. That means I’m done here. He closed up his Coleman stove and collected it from the floor.

Wait, Ishmael said. Can’t you at least tell me your name?

The hunchback slowed to a stop. One eyebrow ridge was swollen. Everybody calls me Shuffle. With that, he exited through one of the two empty doors into the mud and spitting rain, leaving Ishmael to his soup.

Chapter Three

ISHMAEL NEEDED MORE food, and there was a forest nearby. He could solve a lot of problems at once, but he needed to know his area first. The paramilitary soldiers had shot at something, the day they brought him to this place, and Ishmael couldn’t risk getting caught with his pants down. They were the only pair he had, and they weren’t even his. He wore the blanket like a poncho, but it wasn’t enough, and when it rained, the blanket became heavy and cold.

Really does look like Chernobyl, he thought as he walked through the town, only this place had the appearance of a failed colony, and less like an established town. There was a church, a broken meeting hall, a dozen featureless dormitories like the one he’d slept in, and a smattering of smaller houses. No funfair. No swimming pool. No parking lots.

And not one sign of life along the main street.

Tomato soup wasn’t what he needed. He needed something solid, and he needed to get away from town. But first, he needed to know where he was, which direction he was facing—which way was out. Dropping him into the middle of nowhere without shackling him or locking him up, that posed no challenge. If he was free to walk it off, it was most likely that his abduction was a cruel and petty prank. One that was poorly timed. But if he wasn’t free, then he had many questions to answer before he tried returning home.

To better get his bearings, Ishmael went into the church in search of stairs to the belfry, which seemed to be the highest point in town. Within, wooden pews had been pulled out, leaving only one or two near an empty altar place. The floor was caked with dirt and years of leaf clutter. Cobwebs and shadows clung to the rafters. In the corner, though, there were signs of habitation: leaves had been piled into a large nest, too big even for a racoon. The nest looked slept in, and when Ishmael hovered his hand over it, he felt warmth, as if someone had been sleeping there and only recently evacuated. Ishmael turned where he squatted, sensing eyes but seeing no one. He was about to stand up when he spotted something on one of the remaining pews: a clean but well-used Bible, free of mold and smelling like a campfire. A bird flew out from the rafters, along the length of the church and out the broken front door.

Ishmael stood up, painfully, and went in search of the stairs to the belfry. They were behind the baptistery. There was a bell, but no rope. Timbers groaned miserably underfoot, and Ishmael wished himself as light as a feather, so as not to fall through the floorboards and bring the bell with him.

His little town was set like a tumbled handful of