Rust: Two Read online

  Rust

  Two

  by Christopher Ruz

  Copyright © Christopher "Ruz" Hayes-Kossmann 2014 All Rights Reserved. No part of this document may be reproduced or copied without written consent from the author.

  Cover photography courtesy of Marcus Ranum: mjranum-stock.deviantart.com/

  Christopher Ruz - Author and Designer

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  Table of Contents

  Previously, in Rust: One

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Other Titles by Christopher Ruz

  Previously, in Rust: One

  In Rust: One, Kimberly Archer was living in New York with her fiance Aaron when she was pushed in front of an oncoming C-Train. Moments later she woke in Rustwood, with a husband she'd never met before and a baby she couldn't remember having.

  Committed to St Jeremiah's Hospital under the watchful eye of Doctor Keller, Kimberly faked the symptoms of post-partum psychosis to gain release. She immediately ran from her 'husband' Peter Archer and infant son Curtis, but quickly found that all roads lead back to Rustwood.

  Kimberly met a ragged man named Fitch who claimed to know the secrets of Rustwood, but she rejected his assistance, believing him crazy. Kimberly attempted to flee over the mountains, while Fitch built pipebombs and molotovs in his basement in preparation for an assault on Rustwood.

  Meanwhile, other forces were in play. Detective Goodwell, initially assigned to Kimberly's case, was actually reporting to the power that rules Rustwood. A monster was also stalking the streets, puppeting innocent nurse Bo Tuscon and forcing him to kidnap and kill strangers. Drawn by the strange energy surrounding Kimberly's arrival, Bo set his sights upon her as a fresh target.

  With his only companion a strange creature living in the hip pocket of his jacket, Fitch soon found himself pursued by a posse of hunters. They chased him to the eastern shore of Rustwood and cornered him in the coastal caves, where he fought them off with pipebombs. The leader of the hunters, a suited woman in bug-eye sunglasses, was killed by a colossal monster in the depths of the cave that scissored her in half with slick claws.

  Fitch escaped. Kimberly wasn't so lucky. At the peak of the mountains, Bo Tuscon caught and dragged her back to the abandoned house he'd made his home. Upon waking, Kimberly discovered Bo's plans to use her as the next shell for the creature growing inside him.

  Fitch's attempts to track Kimberly led him to an old acquaintance, Mister Gull, a man of great and subtle power. Gull took some of Fitch's blood in exchange for locating Kimberly. Meanwhile, Detective Goodwell and Peter Archer were also trying to locate Kimberly. Their only lead was Fitch's pickup, seen several times near the Archer's house.

  Fitch found Bo Tuscon's house in time to help Kimberly escape. Together they fought Bo, crushing him with a refrigerator, just as Peter and Goodwell arrived. Fitch, wisely, vanished into the night.

  Days passed. Kimberly endured her 'husband's' attentions while Goodwell monitored her from a distance. Fitch returned to ask for Kimberly's assistance in fighting the forces of Rustwood, and after finally killing the 'clicker' that had been living in Bo Tuscon's throat, Kimberly agreed.

  As Kimberly left Peter Archer's house, a hooded figure stepped from beneath a tree, set on making Kimberly hurt. Finally, Detective Goodwell tracked down a trio of teenagers responsible for graffiti left across Rustwood. He found they were servants of the False Queen, the entity opposing his master.

  With no way to cure the teens, Goodwell shot them and dumped their bodies down a well. Shaken by what he was forced to do, Goodwell assured himself that he served the right master, and that through his actions the original, true Queen of Rustwood would prevail.

  The story continues...

  Chapter 1

  She remembered knives. Serrated blades dragging across her skin. Muscle parting and peeling back like sheets of Christmas paper, revealing neatly wrapped bone.

  A shape in a black cowl leaned over her, breath sour with engine oil. "All new," it whispered. "Ready."

  Then came the blessed darkness. The dreamless sleep she hoped would become death.

  And-

  Listen.

  She woke.

  It felt like she'd spent years in that black space but some hind-brain instinct told her it'd only been days. Her heartbeat skipped and thrummed. Sometimes it stopped for a minute or more, and she wondered if she was truly dead this time or whether she'd be trapped in that limbo forever, dragging bloodless limbs, pawing at door handles with dead grey fingers. Then a sudden thud, a whap like a lock slamming home, and her pulse would resume.

  The heartbeat was all she could hear. It echoed in her ears and off the walls. It vibrated in her molars. But sometimes, in those longer gaps, the minutes or half-minutes where all was still inside her, she could hear something larger, something much worse.

  A grinding noise like teeth meeting concrete, bone shaved away by stone. Something huge was watching her in the darkness. Tasting her scent.

  It was hungry. She could read its intentions by the heat steaming off it. But it wasn't coming any closer. Didn't dare? Scared of her, so tiny and useless and broken? No. Scared of losing control. Scared of swallowing her down before it'd used her.

  It needed her. Even now, it was desperate.

  And

  She blinked. For the first time in days, her eyes opened. The stink was gone. Chill on all sides made the hairs on the back of her arms stand tall. Her heartbeat was slow but steady. She counted five beats a minute. Just enough to keep her moving. Not so much that she'd get pretensions of being anything more than a puppet.

  She was lying on her back, naked. It'd been a long time since she'd been naked. Since she'd had any concept of modesty or fear. All she could see was grey. Grey soil ceiling overhead, grey rock walls on either side. A faint light somewhere up ahead, white and cold.

  Mould in the air. Mould, and the steady trickle of running water breaking through the mud. Even this far underground - there was nowhere else she could be, not with every breath so thick in her lungs and the ceiling carved directly from the rock - you couldn't escape the Rustwood rain. The tiny seeds of her master dripping, dripping, dripping.

  She knew where they'd left her. The question was, why? All she could remember were the waves. Salt on the tip of her tongue. Fingertips bruised by the coastal cliffs...

  "Fitch."

  The word sounded strange. Like her tongue wasn't used to making sounds. A dead root of muscle contorting into unfamiliar shapes. "Fitch," she said again, tasting the single syllable like it was a curse. She'd been chasing him, her and three companions. Then an explosion, the heat curing her skin. She'd smelled barbecue as her companions burned. Then came the monster in the black, that great claw scissoring out of the shadows...

  "I died." Impossible. And yet, she could remember the sensation of her guts unzipping across the rock floor of the cave. Sand in her wounds. Her last bubbling gasps as she drowned on her own blood.

  She tried to stand and realised she was lying on a plinth of steel. No, something less refined, pitted wi
th rust, eaten through in places like moth-chewed wool. A mining cart turned on its side, wheels fixed in place by decades of grit. An altar to subterranean industries, she thought, and had to hold in laughter. That was the sort of poetic bullshit she'd have spat out in a previous life. A life...

  A sudden, stabbing agony behind her eyes left her curled into a ball, screaming. A voice in her head whispered in soothing tones. "Forget it. Forget it all. Come to me."

  The pain faded. She wiped her nose, smearing blood and tears across the back of her hand. The voice was right. Those memories were all false, anyway. Stolen. She didn't need them. All she needed was to obey.

  The soil was soft beneath her bare feet. She shivered as mud slid between her toes. She didn't need her sunglasses, not down here. Her legs felt odd. Each stride was a little shorter than she was used to, and her knees were stiff. Her stomach ached, too. Worse than the time she'd taken a stray bullet in the hip during hunting season, back when-

  No, no, no! I promise, I wasn't thinking about it! I swear!

  The voice chuckled in the recesses of her mind. It urged her on. She stumbled, dragging one hand along the wall for balance, fingertips brushing rotten beams and the scars left by picks and hammers. The light grew stronger, and she found herself squinting, wishing for those bug-eye lenses. She looked down at herself and the scars crocheted across her naked chest. Thick wires of tissue running across her breasts and down her sides, sawing back and forth over her palms. The huge wounds up her wrists where they'd added raw-edged bones, the first of many little surprises hidden beneath her skin. All the damage she'd taken while running errands for her strange master, chasing runaways, being stabbed, bludgeoned, roasted black by pipe bombs...

  The largest scar ran across her stomach, just below her navel, continuing around her waist until... Yes. When she followed it with her fingertips she found the two ends met at her spine, just above her tailbone. Above the scar she was pink and freckled. Below the scar she was oyster-pale.

  Her naked, stumpy legs. Her knees that clicked like they were fifty years too old.

  The beast had repaired her. Stitched dead flesh into place. Made her new.

  Good.

  The light had grown so intense it felt like it'd shatter her eyeballs inside her skull. She covered her face with her hands but the light still broke through. She was weeping, although she didn't know why. There was nothing left inside her to cry with.

  It was too much to bear. She fell to her knees in the mud as the form beyond the light came clear. "Please," she whispered. "I did all I could. He-"

  The light spoke in a voice composed of the roar of a thousand insects. "Rise, my faithful."

  "He had bombs. The guardians killed my men. We didn't know."

  "You did as you were told. A good soldier." When the light spoke it stole her breath away. The buzz was in her lungs. It made her want to cry and vomit and worship all at once. "And now you fight again."

  "You gave me new legs," she whispered. "You're too kind."

  "Don't waste my gifts." The voice was horribly sweet. It made her tongue tingle. "She is important. Bring her to me intact. Her companion is dangerous. Break him. Make him worship me before the end."

  "And her family?"

  "They'll soon know my grace."

  The light faded, and as it dimmed she saw great blades snapping closed on the air. Forelegs of steel and bone twitching manically. A carapace the size of a delivery van suspended from diamond filaments.

  She blinked, and it was gone.

  Water dripped ahead of her. The steady tattoo of damp breaking through the mines, turning the earth to mush. It was a beacon summoning her onward.

  She forced herself to stand. The new legs were shaky but they'd do. After all, they were a gift, and gifts were to be treasured.

  The path wound upward, switching back upon itself. The oak ribs holding the ceiling aloft became twisted, stained with muck, sprouting new green shoots and bending away from the walls. The closer she got to the surface, the more life leaked down into that black place.

  She tasted smoke on the air. Not a fire, but the peppery scent of candle-smoke.

  The slope levelled out. Up ahead was a thin line of light. The edge of a doorway. She fumbled for a latch but found none. The wood was puckered with lumps and gashes like open wounds. Heavy oak, too heavy for any normal woman to shift.

  She was no normal woman. The things they'd put inside her, the coils of bone and spring-wound muscle, slammed against the door. Stone hinges ground together. The door eased open.

  She understood where she was the moment before they reached out to take her hands. The flicker of hundreds of tiny flames welcomed her back to the surface as women with faces hidden beneath deep black cowls ushered her onward.

  The Pentacost Convent. She knew it only as a sore growing on the skin of Rustwood, a foul spot best avoided at all costs. She'd glanced at it across the river months before, through heavy lenses, and even then it'd left her with a headache. Now she was inside, bathed in candlelight, the flames reflecting slickly off pillars of granite and sandstone. The floor canted as it sunk into the soft earth - or perhaps it was the mines below, falling inward inch by inch and taking the rotten convent with it.

  Her first step inside the convent left her reeling. A thrumming like the steady thud of an electrical engine pressed on her eardrums and stole her balance. She sagged against the doorframe, eyes squeezed shut as that terrible hum shook her bones and clicked her teeth together.

  A hand rested on her bare arm. A cold hand, slick as steel.

  The pain behind her eyes receded. She let the hand lead her.

  She surveyed the convent through eyes opened to slits. The figures were assembled in two long rows, guiding her from the darkness of the cavern through the cold stone belly of the convent. She didn't bother meeting their eyes - if they even had eyes, beneath those heavy cowls. She knew her place and they knew theirs. They were wetnurses, and she the hunter.

  She had the strangest feeling that they recognised her. Impossible. She'd never been in the convent before. Never traded words with these servants. But still, there was something terribly familiar about their silence. The vaulted ceiling and the boarded windows felt like home.

  Nobody spoke to her. All were silent as they led her to the great oak double-doors and out into the rain.

  The cool wash across her cheeks was such a shock that she staggered back against the doors. She turned her face to the clouds and opened her mouth wide, drinking it in. The rain splashed off her cheeks, ran between her breasts, puddled in the soft earth around her feet.

  In those last moments, deep in the coastal caves, as the creature in the dark had snapped closed around her waist, she'd thought she'd never feel the rain again. Strange, how she needed the feeling of rain on her shoulders. As much as she hated it, she'd grown used to the constant growl of stormclouds. The thought of never blinking water from her eyes again or feeling her shirt sticking to her back left her wishing she'd killed that asshole Fitch in Rustwood High, stabbed him through the spine when she'd had the chance.

  This time it'd play out different. She'd get some new clothes, some glasses to hide the abominations in her eyes. Track the woman. Split her away from Fitch. Burn the places where they slept and hid. Hound them until they begged for mercy.

  This time, there'd be no mistakes.

  Chapter 2

  They were halfway across the street, crossing from the shelter of a red-brick alley towards the Rosenfeld Mission, when Kimberly was dazzled by the sweep of police-car headlights.

  She raised one hand to shield her eyes, frozen in the centre of the road like a startled doe. She knew she had to run but her legs wouldn't obey, even as she screamed in her head they'll take you! They'll give you back to him!

  A hand squeezed her arm. Fitch tugged her, hissing "Scoot!" in her ear. It was the jolt she needed, skidding on the wet macadam as she threw herself back towards the alley. Fitch was a few steps behind, tumbling aroun
d a dumpster and pulling his coat up to hide his face.

  They waited together, panting, shoulder to shoulder, as the patrol car passed. Kimberly caught a glimpse of the man behind the wheel: buzz-cut, straight-backed, wreathed in cigarette smoke, the hollows of his eye sockets lit from below as he sucked deep and tapped off ash.

  The engine grumble faded. Fitch sighed, wiped the water from his eyes and eased out from behind the dumpster. "Knew they'd be watching. Tricky bastards. Shouldn't ever have talked to that detective, I'm telling you-"

  "Get down!" Kimberly shoved Fitch to the ground as lights skimmed along the blacktop. The patrol car was reversing, reversing...

  It stopped at the mouth of the alley. Kimberly squeezed low against Fitch, trying to fit into the small square of cover provided by the edge of the dumpster. She counted off long seconds. Her heartbeat was so loud she was sure it'd carry through the rain. They'd hear her any moment, crack open the door and step into the storm with flashlights in hand...

  The engine coughed and the patrol car moved on, tail-lights fading into the evening shadows.

  Kimberly counted to fifty before she crawled out from behind the dumpster and crept to the end of the alley. The street was empty, lit only by the pale orange cast of streetlamps. On the far side of the street, shadows moved behind the curtains of the Rosenfeld Mission. A man lay in the doorway, blanketed in newspapers. From across the rooftops came the mourning cry of an owl hunting in the nearby park.

  "You okay?" Fitch wheezed as he got to his feet in a series of slow, painful, marionette motions. "Not getting too drowned?"

  Kimberly grimaced, shucking her jacket collar up around her cheeks as the rain pattered off her crown and down the back of her neck. A month before she'd cursed under her breath every time she woke to find the rain still sheeting down, cloud crawling from horizon to horizon, every square inch of sky slick and grey and drained of hope. Now it was just wallpaper. The concept of clear skies, the memory of sunshine, were as distant and alien as her fiance in New York. The warmth of his skin, the taste of him. Even his name was hard to hold for more than a second. Aaron? Yes, his name was Aaron. She knew that much.