Legacy by Darren Hale

Legacy by Darren Hale

Author:Darren Hale [Hale, Darren]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-11-06T22:00:00+00:00


23

Tammy was aware as rough hands grabbed her and rope was lashed tightly about her wrists. They then hauled her to her feet and forced a collar around her neck. Her captors were not gentle. The collar was attached to a pole, much like that used to restrain a wild animal, and as she quickly discovered, it could be tightened with a simple twisting motion.

The journey was miserable.

Tammy’s captors urged her on mercilessly, despite the wound in her leg. The ground was treacherous, and the rain blinded her. She stumbled often, but every time she went to fall, the collar would tighten, bringing stars to her eyes.

They followed the ribbons of grey as she had done, finally coming to a place where they had converged upon an artificial causeway that speared out from the edge of the lake, forming a sheltered bay on one side and a number of massive jetties on the other, where ancient ships wallowed at their moorings nearby, having clearly succumbed to the elements and a lack of proper maintenance.

Parading Tammy like a trophy, the party of dogs and men embarked along the causeway, passing simple geometrically-shaped buildings in the form of domes, cylinders, and blocks, that had been, as far as she could surmise, storage containers of one kind or another. Heaps of grey synth-rock rose like the fins of sharks from the harbour, and it was clear from the abortive spans at either end of the causeway that this was all that remained of a great grey ribbon that had once arced overhead.

A guard nodded from a watchtower as they approached. The makeshift building was one of a couple, constructed from the piled husks of automobiles and dressed with wooden ladders and a walkway. Together, they overlooked the gate in a chain-link fence that extended across the entire width of the causeway and into the water on either side.

Following a brief exchange between guard and captors, the gate was opened, and Tammy was herded on toward an imposing warehouse adjacent to the water’s edge. The interior was, however, less spectacular, having been filled with randomly stacked crates that encroached upon its interior, making it appear much smaller than she’d expected.

And warmer…

Thanks to the few metal bins that had been repurposed as braziers.

And noisier…

The warehouse was a bustling hive of industry. Tammy could see teams of men working on a boat, possibly some kind of trawler, that had been pulled up inside, welding seams and hammering plates, their labours producing a cacophony of sounds that echoed eerily around the warehouse. An unaesthetic application of metal plates and the heavy autocannon nestled on the vessel’s prow, made it look as if the boat was being drafted into some more military role.

A few heads turned briefly in her direction but returned quickly to their work.

‘What’s this?’ A voice called from somewhere above. Tammy looked up and spotted a man lounging against the railings of a metal platform that jutted into the warehouse to the left of her.

‘A present for Two-step,’ her captor replied.



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