Toxicity (19 page)

“What the
fuck
are you
doing, you sexual fucking deviant?” she snarled.

“Urh, erh, what’s going on?”
Svoolzard sat up. He rubbed at his eyes. He coughed. He clutched his whacked
skull.

“You, you bastard molesting dirty
fucking pervert; what do you think you’re doing?”

“Ahh, ahh, ah! I see! I was
dreaming, Lumar, and, obviously, you were the delight in my dream...”

“Well you were a
dog
in
mine, you disgusting bastard pervert.”

“Will you
stop
calling me
a pervert!”

“Well only a
pervert
attacks
a girl in her sleep...”

“I didn’t
attack
you, I
was giving you some special Svoolzard loving...”

She stared at him. Stared at him
hard.

He sensed her total and absolute
RAGE.

“If I wanted some Svoolzard
personal loving,” she said, coldly, “I’d fucking ask for it. Now, I suggest you
sleep outside. In the jungle. With the other insects. Because next time, my
sweet, I’m going to cave your pervert head right in.”

“But, but Lumar! After all we’ve
been through! We were lovers...”

“No, you bought me.”

“That wasn’t the way it felt at
the time. I could see the love in your eyes...”

“That was the reflection of
yours, Svool. And it wasn’t love.”

Svool crawled onto his knees,
scowling. “You know something, Lumar? When we were together, back on
The Literati,
I truly believed we had something there. Of all the thousands of girls who’ve
shared my bed, and my drugs, I thought of you as something special. Yes, you
were appointed by the PR company, to no-doubt help keep my manic needs in
check; but, well, if ever I was going to marry one of my many ladies, it was
going to be you.”

Lumar stared at him, in silence,
for long, long moments.

“Get out,” she said.

“What, into the jungle?”

“Yes, into the jungle.”

“But it’s cold out there.”

“Not as cold as in here.”

“There’s ants and things. They’ll
bite me.”

Lumar loomed close. “Trust me,
Svool, whatever awaits you
out there
is nothing - I repeat,
nothing -
compared to the hell I’m going to give you in here. Get out now, before I
crack open your skull and fist-fuck your rancid brain.”

~ * ~

THE
DAWN LIGHT was creeping through the jungle like twisting snakes in the air. A
stench of putrefaction from rotting vegetation and...
something else...
filled
their nostrils. The jungle was filled with pockets of cold air, which chilled
their skin, and then they’d rise from a seemingly random area into heat.
Svoolzard wondered, with a strange shiver, what caused these odd temperature
fluctuations; because it wasn’t the sun, which kind of pointed the finger at
some kind of weird pollution. Temperamental temperature toxicity.
Great.

“It’s up ahead,” said Zoot.

“The deserted village?”

“Yes.”

“Is it safe?” said Svool,
frowning.

“As safe as anywhere else in this
jungle,” said Zoot, voice neutral.

“That doesn’t answer the question,”
said Svool.

“It’s not terminal,” said Zoot.

“Good.”

“Well, not short-term, anyway.”

“You’re not filling me with
confidence!”

Zoot gave a machine
buzz.
A
kind of digital sigh.

“Shh,” said Lumar, who had moved
up ahead and crouched behind a fallen tree. She parted sap-sticky fronds and
gazed at the village ahead.

She could make out three
buildings and part of a deserted roadway. The buildings were small, rough-built
from some kind of amber stone filled with tiny, glittering minerals that caught
the early sunshine and sparkled. The roadway was dust and still contained
tracks and ruts.

“It’s not been deserted long,”
said Lumar.

“Why do you say that?”

“The jungle would have reclaimed
it by now. The jungle needs to be kept at bay; cut back.” She looked at him. “The
jungle invades like an unwanted pervert. It has to be fought off. Slapped down.
Put out of its misery. Time and time again.”

Svool averted his gaze, instead
watching the deserted village.

“Zoot. Do you detect anything?”

“No movement. No life.”

“So it’s safe?”

“Ye-eees,
but I’d still err on the side of
caution, Svoolzard. This world is alien to me, also. Potentially, there are
factors I could never comprehend. You must be careful.”

“But no big pussy cats?”

“No big pussy cats,” said Zoot.

They crept through the thinning
jungle, and Lumar had been right. There was still evidence that the jungle was
being cut back using blades. Trees and vines still showed scars.

They walked out onto the roadway,
looking around themselves as they turned slowly in the dust, surveying the
angular stone buildings. Windows and doorways were bare, black holes. Each
building had a gently sloping roof made from... Svool frowned.

“What is that? Up there?”

“You mean the roofing tiles?”

“Yeah.”

They all stared.

“That one,” said Lumar, slowly,
pointing, “is made from pan lids.”

“Cooking pans?”

“That’s how they appear. Look,
you can see the plastic handles on the lids.”

They stared again. “That’s
fucking weird,” said Svool. “Who makes a roof out of pan lids? And anyway, they
wouldn’t interlock. They wouldn’t form a protective barrier against the rain.
It just... it just
wouldn’t
work.”

Svool turned. “Look at that,
there.”

“The walls?”

“Yeah. They’re made from... glass
bottles. Kind of fused together.”

Sunlight glinted on different
colours of glass. “And the roof is, well, it’s made of interlocking panels this
time. Only each panel is a TV screen. Bolted together with straps made from old
belts.”

They stared some more.

Svool moved to the house with the
pan-lid roof. Stooping, and wrinkling his nose at some incredible stench, he
peered inside. Glancing up, he saw chinks of light glinting through the badly
fitting roof tiles. And yes, it was confirmed, pan lids made possibly
the
worst
ever roofing slates imaginable to man.

“It would appear these buildings
have been repaired,” said Zoot, as Svool emerged from the building. He was
carrying a pair of pants and boots, a shirt, and an old, tattered felt hat.

“What you got there, soldier?”
grinned Lumar.

“Some clothes.”

“What’s the matter? Tired of
being a stick-naked savage?”

“Let’s just say I’m tired of you
staring at my ass,” he snapped.

“Touchy, touchy. Go on, then,
dress up in your curious alien clothing.”

And Lumar was indeed right. The
pants, although only down to Svool’s knees, had thigh panels reinforced with
suede. The boots were black and battered, with spurs on the heels which jangled
as Svool pulled them on. He threw his battered, homemade palm-frond sandals
away into the jungle in disgust. He struggled into the shirt, which was too
small for him, and coarse against the burns - fire- and sun— that covered his
shoulders and back. But at least it was protection from the sun. And finally,
he pulled on the broad-rimmed felt hat. He felt foolish, standing there in his
new, worn, oddly-stained clobber; but it beat being naked.

“How do I look?”

“Like an idiot?” suggested Lumar,
with a giggle. She composed herself. “Sorry. Sorry.”

“Fuck off.”

“What’s that?”

“What?”

“That badge, there.”

Svool looked down. There was a
silver badge with five points attached to the shirt. It read: SHERIFF.

“Whoo har, Sheriff Svoolzard,”
cackled Lumar.

“Fuck off!”

“Hey, Law Maker, don’t be using
offensive language like that!”

“Well, you’re just taking the
piss.”

“You’re giving it away, mate.”

“Listen, I need protection from
the sun! Another day like this and I’ll have no damn skin left on my shoulders;
understand?”

“Just our luck to stumble into a
weird jungle tribal village.” Lumar grinned. She glanced at Zoot. “What do you
think has been going on here, Zoot? Hmm?”

“This is an old village. The
construction style and materials -
original
materials - date back
several hundred years. But the buildings have been patched-up, repaired by an
incompetent using whatever junk they could find to facilitate such repairs. Or
indeed, in their eyes, probably enhance the quality of the buildings.”

“Is it junk they’ve found in the
jungle?”

“Possibly. It is common knowledge
that occasionally junk containers crash, be they airborne or land- and
sea-based. I believe the philosophy of the Greenstar Company in these
situations is to leave any crashed vessel where they lie. Effectively, the
vehicle becomes just another dot on the chart of waste recycling.”

“Recycling?”

“Yes,” said Zoot. “Recycled from
working vehicle to non-working vehicle, and left there until such passing
strangers see fit to recycle it further.”

“That would explain that, then,”
said Svool, stopping in the dust and pointing at another building which had
been repaired with car body panels. It looked like a third-rate Transformer.
Wings and doors had been patched onto random sections of the house, and several
buckled car bonnets made up the roof. Headlights were mounted above the door.
The windows had been filled with old tyres, then concreted around, so that the
house had round rubber portals.

“That is depraved,” said Lumar,
knuckles tightening on her sharpened stick.

“Yeah, let’s hope nobody’s home,
eh?” said Svool, grinning weakly.

“That’s not even funny.”

“What makes you think I was
joking?”

“Come on, sheriff, let’s check it
out. See if your pardners are here.”

Svool stared at Lumar. “Any more
jokes and you can sign in for a stand-up slot at the Pig & Perkin.”

“Well, you certainly provide me
with enough raw material,” she said, giving him such a dazzling smile and a
toss of her green dreadlocks that his heart fluttered. She strode towards the
door of the car/house and peered inside. She turned back to Svool and Zoot. “It’s
been inhabited. Recently.
Very
recently.”