Tar: An apocalyptic horror novella (4 page)

Finn ducked the length of wood just as it was about to make contact with his temple. Then, from a crouching position, he lunged forward and tackled the man’s thighs. The two of them fell to the ground in a heap and Finn got the power position on top and rained down blows.

Reducing the man's face to rubble—like someone had Marie's.

The rage overtook Finn. Fury ran through his veins and came out his fists.

Finn was too focused on violence to see the kick coming at his face. The thick boot caught him under the chin and launched him backwards. For a second or two he saw only black and white spots, but he recovered quickly and sprang back to his feet. First thing you learned in a bar fight was not to stay on the ground.

Finn faced off against a guy of similar size and strength. Like Finn, this guy looked useful with his hands, and much calmer than his rushing colleagues. Finn raised his fists. “You seen action, brother?”

The other man nodded. “Afghanistan, twice.”

“Thought so.”

“You?”

“You don't want to know.”

Finn waited for the ex-soldier to attack, wanting an opportunity to size up his opponent before committing to an attack of his own, but it appeared the ex-soldier had the same idea and the two of them spent several moments circling one another.

Finn could tell the guy wouldn’t go down easy.

But neither would he.

This could be the guy who killed my sister.

The ex-soldier scored the first blow, catching Finn with a jab to the mouth that made his upper lip swell. Finn’s counter-attack missed, and he absorbed a second blow to the ribs from an angry right fist.

Guy hits like a cannon.

Finn feigned to his left, making as though he would throw a jab, but cancelled the blow before it came. It was convincing enough to make his opponent defend, so Finn danced to his right and let loose with an almighty haymaker from the opposite side. The ex-soldier was powerless to avoid the well-aimed blow to his temple, and his legs turned to jelly the moment it landed. He might have been an Afghan vet, but he dropped like a boy scout.

The rest of the men still standing in the pub decided against getting involved then. They stood at the edges of the room and eyed Finn fearfully. The only man anywhere close to defiance was the bartender who glared at him from behind the safety of the bar.

Finn approached the bar and leaned over. “Now, are you going to tell me where I can find Dominic, or not?”

“Fuck y—”

Finn reached out and grabbed the bartender by the neck and smashed his face down on the bar. He then proceeded to drag the man’s ugly face through the dirt before letting him crumple to a heap on the floor. Finn turned to face the remaining men. “Now,” he said. “Who the hell is going to tell me where I can find Dominic?”

N
obody
in the bar claimed to know where to find Dominic, and Finn was inclined to believe them. They were the ones who had been too afraid to fight, so it was unlikely they had the spine to lie to him now. The men brave enough to fight nursed their wounds, in no mood to try for round two. That might change if Finn hung around too long.

I’m not leaving with nothing though.

The most Finn got so far was an admission that Dominic owned the pub. What that really meant was that he’d moved in when the previous owners disappeared. For a while, Dominic pushed gear from behind the old oak bar and made a profit from whatever alcohol had been left behind. After supplies ran out, he’d used the place as a dosshouse, allowing people to hang out on the worn sofas and stools so long as they made themselves useful. The men in the Hobby Horse were Dominic’s friends and acquaintances, yet none of them had seen the man for two or three days.

Probably since he killed Marie.

Finn wasn’t satisfied to leave yet, so he told the fearful men he was going to take a look around. Nobody argued. After a cursory inspection of the bar, and a peek in the pub’s backroom, Finn went upstairs to check the flat that Dominic had been living in since the old owner left. The upper floor was cleaner and less stinking than the bar below but still a filthy den. Crushed beer cans and broken bottles cut into the threads of the worn, beige carpet, and someone had pissed up one wall. Finn shook his head. What had got into people? They were going to die, yes, but didn’t they want to go out with some dignity instead of acting like animals?

Finn believed in God—had been fighting for Him his entire life—but the last few months had made him see that mankind deserved no place in heaven. Those few deserving of an afterlife—like Marie—were victims of the wicked now. How could there be a God who would allow that?

A shattered bulb swung overhead. The electricity to power it had died more than a month ago, and the televisions stopped broadcasting a month before that. News of the world’s demise came not, as one might expect, from the Prime Minister or the President of the United States, but from the head of the Australian government. The female head of state had been light on details but stated in no uncertain terms that Australia would perish within days, and that the rest of the world would follow. They had screwed the pooch big-style, was the summary to be gleaned from the Australian authorities.

Great Britain and other nations sent their top scientists to Australia, but they either came hurrying back or were not heard from again. Before long, aerial photography showed Australia was an oozing grey blanket of tar—a blanket that was spreading to cover the entire globe. For weeks, the world gawped in horror at scenes of the Pacific Ocean disappearing, along with all marine life. Birds unlucky enough to land in the muck became that muck. One of the most horrifying scenes Finn witnessed before the televisions went dead involved a pod of dolphins trying to escape the creeping grey death. After avoiding it for hundreds of miles, they fell to exhaustion and became ensnared. The news did not cut away as the beautiful creatures bleated in agony and turned to sludge. It was then Finn questioned whether God existed.

Finn crept along the corridor. A life of fighting house-to-house in small skirmishes had made his training automatic, and even though he doubted there would be danger, he couldn’t take chances—his wiring wouldn’t allow him. A grungy bathroom lay on his left, his right an empty bedroom. The covers on the double-bed lay crumpled, and one pillow rested on the floor. It looked like the bedroom had once been nicely decorated, but now dirt and black dust clung to everything. Family pictures hung off the wall, but Finn did not want to look at them. He didn’t want see the smiling faces of children, or a loving wife, and have to think about their fates. Had the mother died first, leaving the children to wander the streets scared and alone?

Like Marie.

There was one more room ahead, and Finn expected a living room. He approached the door in a crouch, keeping his footsteps slight. If anybody still remained in the flat, they had to be inside this room. There was nowhere else.

Finn reached out to open the door but found it locked. Seeing no way not to announce his presence, he banged on the door. “Hey, is anybody in there?”

“Hello?” came an immediate reply. “Who’s there?”

The voice sounded young, like it belonged to a boy.

“My name is Finn. I’m looking for Dominic.”

“He’s not here.”

Finn took a moment to decide what he wanted to do. He didn’t want to be nasty with a child, but he was looking for the man who killed his sister. He didn’t have time to mess around. “Look, can you let me in, son?”

“No.”

Finn tried to stop a growl escaping his lips, but was only partly successful. “Let me in or I’ll kick the door in.”

“Good!”

“What do you mean, ‘good’? You want me to kick the door in?”

“Yes! I’ve been trapped in here for two days. I can’t get the door open.”

Finn glanced at the keyhole and frowned. The boy was trapped in there? Who had locked him inside?

What did it matter?

“Okay, son. Stand back.”

Finn moved and checked the ground in front of him. A trodden-down box of sanitary towels crunched underfoot and he kicked it out of his way so he wouldn’t slip on it. He took two deep breaths, tensed his abdomen, and then ran at the door, dropping his shoulder so it struck directly above the lock.

Pain!

It became clear why the young boy was trapped. The thick, wooden fire-door had a heavy lock fitted—the previous owner must have been security conscious to fit a lock to an interior door. “Hold on, kid, this is gonna take me another run at it.”

Finn heard the boy shuffle out of the way. This time Finn prepared a longer run-up—half-a-dozen steps. With a different plan in mind, he picked up speed with every step forward before leaping up into the air. He put all of his weight and speed behind his right foot and planted a flying kick right up against the handle. The door burst open so hard that Finn ended up stumbling upon landing and ended up on his back. There was no time to be embarrassed—he didn’t know for sure who was in the living room—so he quickly rolled up onto his knees and jumped onto his feet.

All that faced him was a young boy, about twelve years old. Scraggly brown hair and pink smiling lips.

“Nice to meet you,” said the boy. He looked malnourished. Every kid left alive looked malnourished.

Before Finn spoke, he gave the room a cursory glance. All seemed clear. There was a small kitchen, but he could see into it from where he stood. “What are you doing here, kid?”

“Dominic caught me stealing, so he locked me in here to deal with when he got back. He never came back.”

At the sound of Dominic’s name, Finn’s hands curled into fists. “You know Dominic? Where is he?”

The boy shook his head. “He was supposed to be back yesterday. Told me he was going out to get some booze. One of his crew found some in an old supermarket warehouse at the edge of town. Said he would have more power than anybody left alive in the city once he had the only booze left. People are scared, and all they want to do is get wasted, he said.”

Finn crossed his arms and thought for a moment. “What did you steal?”

“Tablets.”

“You some kind of junkie, kid?”

The boy shook his head adamantly. “No way, I don't touch that stuff. My mum taught me. I get headaches though—migraines—and my mum gives me aspirin to help. I just took some from Dominic’s stash. He has people bringing him tonnes of stuff so I didn’t think he’d notice. He went crazy at me though when he caught me taking them.”

Finn saw the finger marks around the kid’s scrawny neck and sighed. He took in the filth in the living room and felt sick. The kid had been forced to piss and shit in the corner like an animal because the windows were barred—rough pub in a rough area, it made sense. “When did you last eat, kid?”

“I don’t remember. Almost a week ago? I had chewing gum a few days ago.”

Jesus
. “Do the men downstairs know you’re up here?”

“Probably, but they don’t have a key, and they don’t make a habit of crossing Dominic. They would’ve let me die before letting me out.”

Finn paced the room, clenching and unclenching his fists. This Dominic was a real piece of work. It went further than Marie. This guy used and abused people like they were playthings. Men like Dominic had been monsters even before the end of the world.

But was Finn any better?

I’ve done things too.

Finn turned to the kid. “Come on, let’s go find you some food.”

The kid looked like he would burst into tears, but bit his lower lip to fight it. “T-Thank you.”

“Don’t cry on me,” said Finn. “I’m just getting some grub down you, and then we part ways,
once
you tell me everything you know about Dominic and where this supermarket warehouse is.”

“Deal!” The boy nodded and followed Finn into the hallway, but when they passed the bedroom, the kid stopped. “I... just need to get something before we go.”

“Hey, I’m not hanging around, kid!” Finn was very mindful of the bar full of men downstairs who wanted him dead.

Those cowards and bullies left this kid up here to rot. Just give him a minute to get what he needs.

The kid hurried into the bedroom and Finn waited just outside the door, but his curiosity led him to peek inside. He thought he heard the boy snivelling and wondered if he had gone inside to do his crying in private.

“Hey kid,” Finn stepped into the bedroom. “I seriously don’t have time to hang around while you cry. I need to get out of—” Finn froze when he saw the dead woman lying on the floor at the foot of the bed. Her neck was twisted at an awful angle. Her face was beaten flat. Some beast had used her body as a sick canvas. “Christ! Who is she, kid?”

The boy wiped his face with the back of his forearm and turned around to face Finn. He shrugged his shoulders like he didn’t care. “Just some bird Dominic was fucking. I don’t even know what her name was, or that she was dead.”

Finn frowned. “Then why did you come in here?”

The boy opened a nearby dresser, and from the middle drawer he plucked something out and held it in front of him—a pack of pills. “My headache still hasn’t gone away,” he explained. “It’s probably never going to now, but these should help a little.”

Finn raised an eyebrow
. Kid stepped over a corpse just to get some aspirin. That's cold
.

“Come on kid, let’s get going.”

“Okay, coming. Thanks for letting me out of that room. I thought I was going to die in there.”

That’s because you would have,
Finn didn't say out loud
. Now you get to live a few days longer until you die.

“No problem, kid. What’s your name?”

The kid smiled, betraying that two of his front teeth were broken. “My name’s Minty. Pleased to meet you, Mr Finn.”

Finn just nodded and led the boy downstairs.

Minty?
Stupid name.

T
he men
in the bar grouped together when Finn reentered. The two suited thugs from outside had come inside, but the skinhead with the snapped elbow slumped in a chair and moaned deliriously. They all stared at Finn like a poisonous snake.

“You’re a bleedin’ psychopath,” said the barman, his nose a bloody mess and leaking down his open-collared shirt. “You can’t bowl up and start sparking people out.”

Finn had to laugh at the man’s hypocrisy. “Are you shitting me, fellas? You feckers are a bunch of thugs. Bad luck for you, I’m a bigger thug.”

The barman didn’t snarl anymore, but he shook his bleeding head defiantly. “We’ll fucking kill you for this, mate. You’re a dead man.”

“Is that right, now? Tell you what I think, mate. I think I’m going to find that gobshite Dominic and slice his throat. Then I might come back for you bunch of eejits—make sure none of yous had anything to do with what happened to my sister. What d’you think about that, mate? Come on, kid.”

The men in the room parted as Finn cut through the room. The kid stayed close to him like a lamb with its mother.

“Hey,” someone said. “You ain’t taking Minty anywhere. He’s with us.”

Finn looked at the kid and saw desperation in his eyes.
His name really is Minty? Seriously?
“Now the kid's with me.”

“He belongs to Dominic.” The ex-soldier stepped forward again, recharged and ready for round two. This time he carried a big nasty knife—a Ka-Bar.

“Go on now, Minty.” Finn put a hand on the kid and moved him towards the exit, then stepped up to the man holding the knife. “Way I see things,” he said, “when you own something, you take care of it. I found this kid half-starving and trapped in a shit-stinking living room. I suppose you knew about that, did you?”

The ex-soldier sneered and patted the flat of the blade in his hand. “He belongs to Dominic. Walk away now, you thick Mick, and I’ll forget about you knocking me out. I’ll let you walk out of—”

Like a viper, Finn struck. He grabbed the knife with both hands before the other man even realised what was happening, and before he could make a sound, Finn twisted the blade and shoved it into his heart. He caught the soldier's sinking body and eased it to the ground. As the man’s heart seized and the last of his breath escaped his lips, Finn whispered into his ear. “You deserved better than this.”

Finn took a moment, then wiped the Ka-Bar on the dead man’s trousers and stood up with it. The other men looked terrified, but he slid the blade into his belt loops and folded his arms. “Just what I’ll be needing to do your man, Dominic. Now, does anybody else want to do something stupid? I can always use more weapons.”

The other men in the bar didn’t move a muscle. Their eyes bulged so much that it looked like they might fall out and roll across the carpet like snooker balls.

Finn nodded and uncrossed his arms. “Good. Then Minty here will take a week’s worth of food from wherever you have it stashed. And no naff leftovers, he’s taking the best you got.”

This time the barman did as told without so much as moving his mouth. He opened a cabinet and started piling crisps and bar snacks into a carrier bag. The whole time he kept his eyes on the dead ex-soldier in the centre of the room.

The guy had been their biggest tough. Now he was dead.

Finn had broken them.

Minty stood on the bar rail and leaned over. Pointing, he said, “And that chewing gum. Throw that in.”

The barman did what the kid told him. The chewing gum went into the bag.

Finn was getting antsy. The men were defeated, but it only took one flash of confidence to have one of them try to stab him in the back. “Come on, kid, before I have to lamp somebody else.”

Minty snatched the carrier bag and raced towards the door like he had just robbed a bank. Finn strolled after him. Had killing become so easy it didn’t even get his blood racing anymore? An unwelcome thought, but one, thankfully, that disappeared as soon as Finn entered the dusty atmosphere outside.

Minty wasted no time tucking into the carrier bag he deposited onto the picnic bench, yanking open a bag of crisps and devouring them in handfuls. Food was too valuable to pass up, so Finn grabbed a bag of peanuts and shovelled them into his mouth. For a moment, they were silent as the two of them ate.

“We can’t hang about long, kid,” said Finn between mouthfuls.

Minty spoke with his mouth full. “I know. Those guys will kill me for this.”

“Fuck ‘em. They’re not as tough as they think they are.”

“I’m just a kid. They’ll…”

Finn frowned. “They’ll what?”

The kid shook his head, fighting back tears. “Nothing. Can I come with you?”

“No.”

“Then you should have left me in that room to die.”

Finn studied the kid, tried to make out his expression. Something was going on that Finn didn’t understand, but clearly the kid was vulnerable. His clothes stank and it looked like he hadn’t eaten well in a month. If Finn left him, the kid would be at the mercy of the wolves.

So what? Everybody's screwed. I don’t owe this kid anything.

Marie would have helped him.

Marie would never turn her back on a kid who needed help.

“Goddamnit! Fine, you can tag along, but only until we're enough away from here for those guys to lose your scent. Then you’re on your own. Not my problem.”

The kid finished his crisps and looked at Finn. “You’re going to kill him, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” said Finn. “He murdered my sister.”

“Marie was your sister?”

Finn glared at the kid. “You knew her?”

“I-I think so. She had an accent, like you, but it was almost unnoticeable. You only heard it when she joked about. She was nice.”

“Do you know what happened to her?” Finn asked. He had to force himself not the grab the kid by the neck and scream in his face.

Hold it together, Finn.

“No. I’m sorry. If you think Dominic hurt her though, you're probably right. It's a bad idea going after him. He's a lot tougher than the guys in the bar.”

Finn nodded. He didn’t have proof that Dominic murdered his sister, but circumstantial evidence piled up, and having someone who knew the man confirming that he was a monster gave Finn the vindication he needed.

“I need to find this warehouse, Minty. Can you tell me anything about it?”

“He said it was one of those places that flogs everything cheap for people to sell on.”

Finn nodded. “A wholesaler?”

“I think it was called Latif’s, or something. Sounded like an Indian word.”

“Okay,” said Finn. “That’s a start, I guess. Let’s ask around and see if anybody knows it. Make yourself useful or you'll be gone.”

Minty nodded, put his remaining food back inside the carrier bag and tied a knot in the handle. “Okay, I'm ready!”

“What kind of name is Minty, anyway?”

Minty tore into his carrier bag and pulled something out—the pack of chewing gum he'd demanded from the barman. With a smile he said, “My mum said I’d end up smelling like mint. It kind of became my nickname.”

The way the kid's eyes lowered sadly suggested the woman he was so obviously fond of was no longer around. Finn had been about to ask for the kid’s actual name, but decided he liked ‘Minty’ just fine.