Abomination (The Pathfinders Book 1) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Legal Page

  Title Page

  Book Description

  Dedication

  Trademarks Acknowledgment

  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

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Epilogue

  New Excerpt

  About the Author

  Publisher Page

  Abomination

  ISBN # 978-1-78651-751-7

  ©Copyright Jane Dougherty 2016

  Cover Art by Posh Gosh ©Copyright January 2016

  Edited by Jamie D. Rose

  Finch Books

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, places and events are from the author’s imagination and should not be confused with fact. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, events or places is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any material form, whether by printing, photocopying, scanning or otherwise without the written permission of the publisher, Finch Books.

  Applications should be addressed in the first instance, in writing, to Finch Books. Unauthorised or restricted acts in relation to this publication may result in civil proceedings and/or criminal prosecution.

  The author and illustrator have asserted their respective rights under the Copyright Designs and Patents Acts 1988 (as amended) to be identified as the author of this book and illustrator of the artwork.

  Published in 2016 by Finch Books, Newland House, The Point, Weaver Road, Lincoln, LN6 3QN

  Finch Books is a subsidiary of Totally Entwined Group Limited.

  The Pathfinders

  ABOMINATION

  Jane Dougherty

  Book one in The Pathfinders series

  As the end of the world begins, Carla and Tully hurtle through a wormhole five years forward in time, only to find they haven’t missed the Apocalypse after all.

  Carla and Tully are picnicking in the quad of their international high school in central Paris when the end of the world begins. They are sucked into a wormhole that spits them out five years later to find that the world is a freezing desolation but still hanging on, waiting for something even worse to finish it off. The something worse turns out to be the Burnt Man and his horsemen. Taken prisoner by the Flay Tribe to their lair in the ruins of a shopping mall, Tully is forced to become a warrior, while Carla joins the other girls as a kitchen slave and comfort woman.

  Tully might like the idea of playing soldiers, but Carla knows what is waiting for the girls when the food runs out, and it isn’t pleasant. The supermarket holy man’s vision of the return of the Burnt Man and his demon friends drags Tully back to reality. When the four fiends are reunited, the Apocalypse will really begin. Carla and Tully don’t plan on being there when that happens.

  But in this post-Abomination world where only the young and brutal have survived, where food and fuel are running out and the climate is plunging into another final ice age, there is nowhere to run—except down another wormhole, with no idea of what might be waiting for them at the other end.

  Dedication

  This book is dedicated to my grandparents, who had the same dream as Tully’s dad, to go home one day to a small town on the magical side of the Irish Sea.

  Trademarks Acknowledgment

  The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of the following wordmarks mentioned in this work of fiction:

  Tannoy: Tannoy Limited Corporation

  War of the Worlds: War of the World’s Commemorative Committee Inc.

  Rambo: David Morrell

  Star Trek: Paramount Pictures

  Lord of the Rings: JRR Tolkein

  Casablanca: Hal B. Wallis Productions

  Snow White: Disney Enterprises Inc.

  World Wildlife Fund: WWW-World Wide Fund for Nature Foundation

  Band of Brothers: Home Box Office Inc.

  Batman: DC Comics General Partnership

  Peugeot: Automobiles Peugeot

  Dior: Christian Dior Couture SA

  Doctor Who: British Broadcasting Corporation

  Gone With the Wind: Margaret Mitchell

  Kalashnikov: Kalashnikov Concern

  King Kong: Edgar Wallace and Merian C. Cooper

  Chapter One

  Tully raked his fingers through his thick black hair, an expression of disgust on his face. Even his head was sweating! The window blinds stuck out like stubby black wings, keeping off the glare, but doing nothing to prevent the scorching heat radiating up from the bare asphalt outside the building. The air throbbed with the same rhythm as the whirring fan on the teacher’s desk. Teacher? Yeah, right, he was in school. He almost remembered it was a physics class, but it was too tiring to drag out the information, so he let it fall back into the pit of magma that the heat had made of his brain.

  A crash and the sound of brittle laughter from the building site of the new sports complex nudged at his attention. Men in hardhats wiped streams of sweat from their faces and glared up at the searing brilliance of the sky before scuttling into the relative cool of their portacabins for lunch. The crane operator had already knocked off, and the metal monster was still, steel against pewter, pulsing in the dull heat.

  Tully shifted in his chair as an oppressive feeling formed and squirmed in the pit of his stomach. Had he forgotten something important? Homework? Had he locked one of the cats in his room? Couldn’t remember—too damn hot. His unease focused on the silent metallic struts of the crane that hung practically overhead, like a giant predator, waiting.

  The interminable lesson ended, and Tully rocked back in his chair, stretching arms and legs. A pen jabbed him in the back. He winced and turned his head. Carla grinned at him from the desk behind, and the nagging unease in his gut curled up and went to sleep.

  “You are awake then. I couldn’t decide if you were asleep or you’d had a stroke.”

  “Whose warped brain did it come out of anyway, the idea to have classes on a Saturday morning?” he asked, stifling a yawn.

  “Somebody-or-other Stalin,” Carla replied. “Benito, I think.”

  Together they walked out onto the quadrangle, the rather pretentious name given to the tree-bordered lawn that formed the geographical center of the school. The heat hit them like a blast from a baker’s oven as soon as the doors slid open.

  Tully cringed. “We could stay inside.”

  Carla raised her eyebrows. “It’s traditional.”

  “Traditionally, it’s not like the Gobi Desert out here,” Tully muttered, wiping sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. “Honestly, though, this weather
is getting weirder. Don’t you think?” He looked at Carla. “It isn’t just me, is it? I mean, you remember summers that were just sorta normal hot, don’t you? There’s something funny going on. Something they’re not telling us.”

  Carla raised an amused eyebrow again. “They? Is this one of your conspiracy theories?”

  “Yeah, how about this one—all those billions of Chinese leaping about for the New Year celebrations have knocked the world off its axis, and we’re falling into the sun?”

  “It could just be a global conspiracy of soda manufacturers to boost sales,” Carla said brightly.

  Tully grinned back. Carla was probably right. She usually was. Usually.

  * * * *

  The lawn of the quadrangle was as brown and dry as a Middle Eastern hillside after a tribe of desert nomads had pastured their goats on it. Groups of students picnicked in the shade of the wilted plane trees that cast welcome shadows and shed a faint leafy odor that was almost healthy, unlike the less attractive city smells of car exhaust and junk food.

  Sitting with his back resting more or less comfortably against a mottled tree trunk, Tully unwrapped his lunch. He spread the greaseproof paper package on the grass and, with a soft sigh that was mainly affection and only a tiny bit exasperation, picked up the large wedge of leek quiche. As he flicked his dark hair out of his eyes, he caught Carla looking at him. She grinned. She was always grinning. Tully had never met anyone else of such unflappable good humor.

  “What’s so funny?”

  Carla laughed. “Are you sure that’s your lunch you picked up and not something your dad was planning to fix the bathroom ceiling with?”

  Tully pretended to inspect the quiche suspiciously. “Now you mention it, I think it might be part of his relief model of the Paris Basin,” he said sarcastically. “But what the hell? I’m hungry enough to eat his Taj Mahal made out of matchsticks or his life size reconstruction of Champion the Wonder Horse.” He took a large bite—too large—and chewed energetically.

  “I’m sorry.” Carla touched his hand contritely, and Tully forgave the grin she couldn’t quite suppress. “I know you don’t like people poking fun at your dad. I love him too. He’s one of the best. But even you can’t pretend he can cook, and don’t be so spiky.”

  Carla had put on her most beguiling expression. Her whole face, chestnut hair, golden skin, teeth and bright eyes glowed. Tully could almost hear her purring.

  “Prickly.”

  “Prickly then. If you give me a piece of that quiche, I’ll share this focaccia with you. Gabriella made a ton of it yesterday in a fit of homesickness, and she’ll be mortally offended if there’s any left by the weekend.”

  “As long as you’ve got a good dentist.” Tully broke off a chunk of pastry, and rounds of undercooked leek detached themselves and dropped into the grass. “I think a couple of my premolars have come loose. Sausages he can manage, but Dad’s pastry is the ultimate deterrent. ”

  They both laughed, thinking of Jack, Tully’s big, easygoing father, who never wore anything smarter than his best jeans and a clean T-shirt, with his massive hands and farm worker’s arms, his bright blue eyes and dark hair, grizzled at the temples. He imagined him in the untidy kitchen, throwing flour and butter about, searching for the salt, swearing when there weren’t enough eggs.

  Tully’s house, four stone walls and red tiled roof, forgotten by time and the developers, sat in a patch of wasteland between industrial estates and sterile farmland. The center of a ramshackle assembly of barns and outhouses, it was the heart of the Community.

  Tully didn’t remember life before the Community, like he didn’t remember his mother except as a fuzzy warm presence. When she’d died, his dad hadn’t been able to bear the constant reminders of her—in the house, the walks they took together, the shops, the town, even the language. When a lorry driver friend had told him about this community of Hairies outside Paris, unreconstructed hippies living on a vacant lot with their own generator, their goats and their allotments, Tully’s dad was all ears. These were people who spoke a language his Molly had never uttered, in a country they had never visited, living a life on the edges of everything they had known together.

  It didn’t take long for him to pack up little Tully and everything useful, stick it in a van and leave Liverpool, England, and the ghost of Molly behind. A farm worker’s cottage with a roof that was still intact became Tully’s home. In winter, there was a fire in the hearth and icicles on the bedroom windows. In summer the doors stood open, and cats and the hot breeze drifted in and out.

  Tully was going to his fancy international school to learn how to be a Very Important Person and save the planet. Jack was doing his bit in the Community to at least destroy as little of it as possible, to make himself as innocuous and discreet as a squirrel, or a cricket, or a barn owl.

  And barn owls make lousy pastry cooks.

  Tully could have made that last observation aloud and Carla would have understood, like she understood Euclid and German. She understood him so well. Tully only felt complete when he had his arms around her, her head nestled in the crook of his arm, her hair tickling his chin. In his dad’s favorite cinema that smelled of stale popcorn, feet and a century of dust, she made him feel like the strong, silent hero in old Gary Cooper films. With her slender, almost angular, frame and elfin features, she seemed fragile, vulnerable, but like the wasp-waisted cowgirls, she was really tough as old boots.

  “Fancy the cinema this afternoon? The Champo’s showing Casablanca. Again.”

  Carla grimaced. “Not in this heat. I don’t know why the owners of that place think you can’t watch an old film without the authentic atmosphere too—sweaty armpits and hair lacquer.”

  Tully sighed. “I’m not going around the shops.”

  “Let’s just go for a walk in the woods.”

  * * * *

  The woods was Carla’s name for the brownfield area that was home to the Community. Wild flowers had first colonized the site, followed by saplings. The watercourse that had once been forced underground had broken out of the cracked pipeline and now ran free, bordered by young trees and thick brambles. Tully never really understood Carla’s fascination with the place. She spent her summers with her grandparents in the Dolomites—real, clean countryside, with fresh air and wild animals. In the woods, the soil was thin, full of pebbles and bits of glass, even if it was animated with lizards, field mice and the odd snake. In Tully’s woods, the predators were house cats, their sleek shadows and unblinking eyes often glimpsed as they prowled through the thickets. No savage beauty surrounded the Community, no forests or snow-capped mountains, but it was Tully’s home.

  “There’s something sad about this place. Don’t you feel it?” Tully asked once. “Not lifeless concrete, but not countryside either.”

  Carla just smiled and popped a blackberry into his mouth. “It’s plucky. Struggling, but not dead. The roses have come back. That’s something to be happy about, isn’t it?”

  * * * *

  “Let’s just go for a walk,” Carla said as she gathered up the remains of their lunch. Tully flicked the moist, oily crumbs of Gabriella’s focaccia off his shirtfront and settled back against the tree.

  “When Dad’s quiche has settled, then. I can’t face a bus journey until my stomach juices have neutralized it.”

  Carla joined him and lay back in his arms. Tully bent to kiss her forehead. Carla, her eyes closed, smiled up at him, sighed and snuggled herself into a more comfortable position. For a while, Tully watched the shadow pattern cast across her face by the gently fluttering leaves. Beyond their patchy canopy, the sky pulsed with a metallic sheen, crisscrossed by the vapor trails of innumerable jets.

  Tully peered through the gaps between the leaves. How long had it been since anyone had seen a clear blue sky, he wondered, or the stars in the night sky? He followed the black specks of fighter aircraft as they spun yet more trails across the already encumbered sky and wondered idly where they were going
. Jerusalem? Kiev? Teheran? Mexico?

  News broadcasts had announced more rioting in Glasgow, that Lombardy was on the point of seceding from the rest of Italy and that the Green Warriors fighting to protect the last few thousand square miles of Amazonian forest from the bulldozers had been massacred by the Brazilian army. There were so many, what the news bulletins referred to laconically as trouble spots, that the holiday industry had more or less folded. Suddenly the misery, held at bay for the tourists beyond those palm-fringed beaches of paradise, was armed and highly dangerous.

  Carla opened her eyes with a frown, and Tully shivered. The sky was clouding over. Fast. Thick gray and yellow banks of cloud, like the scum that had to be regularly removed from the surface of the Seine, bubbled up from the south. Gooseflesh prickled his bare arms as sweat cooled. The temperature plummeted. The crowd moved uneasily now. Heads turned skyward, watching the approaching cloud mass with apprehension. Lightning flickered like a faulty light fuse, and they heard the deep rumble of thunder.

  “Looks like we’re in for one hell of a storm,” Tully murmured, hoping that was all. But the queasy feeling in his gut uncoiled, reminding him it was still there, and murmured back that it wasn’t.

  Everywhere students bent to collect up their belongings or ran for cover beneath clouds that had billowed and swollen to cover the whole sky. Tully grabbed Carla’s hand and they dashed for the cloister. As they reached its cover, the sky rumbled and loosed a barrage of huge hailstones. Instants later, the white iceberg shrapnel turned stone-dark as rocks replaced hail.

  A piercing scream ripped from the middle of the quadrangle as a student stumbled to the ground, the side of his head a bloody smear. The air roared with the thunder of falling rocks, some the size of footballs, all steaming and sizzling as they scorched tracks in the grass, and the shrill shriek of exploding glass. The plane trees moaned as branches bent and cracked, and the rising wind whined in fury. They watched as four students grabbed the unconscious boy and ran with him to one of the offices across the other side of the quad.