Phoebe Beech Ch. 01: Glasgow
AUTHORS NOTE:
Phoebe Beech is the third part of a trilogy. It takes place immediately after Jessamy Beech and Tamsin Beech. If you haven't read those, this isn't really going to make a lot of sense. For those who have read them and need reminding of Jessamy's first encounter with Reivers, please refer to Jessamy Beech Chapter 03: West Highland Way.
2020 has been a totally crap year for everyone. I'd like to think that along with other Literotica authors, we've gone some way to making things just a tiny bit more bearable by offering some escapism. Keep safe and here's hoping for a better one next year.
For those who don't know. MRE - Meal, Ready to Eat, a self-contained, individual meal in lightweight packaging.
. . .
For more than a decade, Dylan McNeish's three older brothers had been the scourge of their East London estate. Hardly a week went by without the police hammering on the rickety door of the three bedroomed house they shared with their mother, in response to some complaint or accusation - real or otherwise, made by one of their neighbours.
Later in their teens, shoplifting, beatings, muggings and handling unlicensed firearms were all blamed on the brothers Andras, Bran and Cadell McNeish. Most of the finger pointing by reliable, upstanding pillars of the local community. But when it came to actually providing witnesses or evidence, the police more often than not left empty handed and increasingly frustrated that the McNeish brothers were still going unpunished.
The brothers all had different fathers who'd had no part whatsoever in how the boys were raised. Whether or not that was a blessing no-one would ever know. So it had been their poor mother who'd decided during a rare episode of sobriety to name her sons alphabetically. Andras's father, she thought, may have been Welsh. She wasn't a hundred percent sure. It was difficult to remember from the brief handful of hours they'd known each other. So how better to name her sons than with good, wholesome Welsh names?
Not that Dylan had been aware of any of that. As the youngest, he'd been born at the height of 2020's pandemic. So even when Russia launched the missile that would crack the rogue asteroid Thanatos in two and plunge the world into an apocalyptic nightmare, he'd only been eighteen months old.
Andras McNeish - then seventeen, had stolen a gleaming white BMW X7 right out from under the owner's nose at a Barking petrol station's forecourt that evening, and proudly picked up his three brothers to take it for a spin - Dylan included. They'd been speeding north along the M11 with no particular destination in mind, swigging stolen lager and gleefully listening to a growing number of police sirens bearing down on them. When what could only be described as the gates of hell opened in their rear view mirror.
A fiery chunk of the Thanatos asteroid - the size of a twenty storey office block, hurtled down from orbit and in an instant wiped most of London and its inhabitants from the face of the Earth - their mother and three bedroomed house with the rickety door included. More shit scared than he'd ever been in his life, Andras had floored the accelerator as a boiling black cloud of ash and debris had swallowed their pursuit mere yards behind the BMW, and the shockwave that followed threatened to sweep their vehicle clean off the road.
As the days passed and the horrifying extent of the global disaster became apparent from sketchy news reports, Bran and Cadell had suggested they leave baby Dylan with someone more qualified to care for him - at one of the numerous refugee centres hastily set up in England's north. Andras had refused to even consider that as an option and declared that whatever happened, the McNeish brothers would stay together.
The first winter had been horrendous. As martial law was declared, the frequency of the meteorite strikes increased and the temperature plummeted. As the sky grew darker the four brothers moved into a deserted farmhouse somewhere near Stocksbridge on the outskirts of Sheffield - foraging, scavenging and stealing whatever food and extra clothing they could from the locals. Andras killed his first man at eighteen over nothing more than a dented tin of Heinz baked beans, but more soon followed as the McNeish brothers earned a name for themselves. Despite the hardship and lack of food, Dylan grew. Strong and remarkably healthy.
As the more law abiding locals starved and food grew scarcer still, the brothers stole a vehicle and moved farther north to Carlisle, joining a gang of cutthroats from across the Scottish border led by a terrifying individual named Rab.
Reivers they called themselves. After the raiders along the Anglo-Scottish border between the 13th and 17th centuries. Their ranks had consisted of both Scots and English, and back then they'd robbed and plundered with complete disregard for their victims' nationality.
With half his bald head tattooed with a vivid blue scorpion, a police issue Heckler & Koch MP5 hanging from his shoulder, and an impressive ginger beard decorated with plaits and small bones, Rab had certainly looked the part. Revelling in the collapse of society, his Reivers pillaged any community within striking distance - killing the men and taking their womenfolk prisoner.
The next logical step wasn't taken by one individual Reiver but rather by a desperate number of them, as after another few months they came to realise the food supply was all but exhausted. With no sun for weeks on end, little would grow, and with more and more mouths to feed, the Reivers couldn't afford to waste anything.
Being taken prisoner by the Reivers had once meant a much shortened life of slavery and brutal torture. Now the reality became too awful for anyone sane to even contemplate.
Still the McNeish brothers stayed together, showing nothing but loyalty and devotion to one another to the exclusion of all others. Despite this, Andras rose through the ranks to become one of Rab's most trusted lieutenants, leading raids as the growing band of Reivers moved first to Kilmarnock then on up to Tyndrum - the ill-equipped remnants of the British army powerless to stop them.
It was when Dylan was around eleven years old - a feral scrap of a boy, that his eldest brother's raiding party brought home three prisoners. A terrified woman with hair the colour of flames called Merida, an unconscious man and a younger blonde girl who appeared half starved, but nevertheless regarded them all with the calculating gaze of a predator.
In a benevolent mood, Rab had declared that captives would have the chance to fight for their freedom. Single combat would provide the Reivers not only with entertainment but an opportunity for their warriors to hone their skills. It had come as a huge surprise when the skinny blonde girl herself had challenged their champion ...
CHAPTER ONE: GLASGOW
"Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie, o what a panic's in thy breastie! Thou need na start awa sae hasty, wi' bickering brattle!"
Scribbled verses of Robert Burns. Pages of incomprehensible graphs and diagrams, charts and handwritten notes on coloured post its shuffled before her eyes. A pile of glistening red entrails with bits of white fur sitting in a stainless steel bowl morphed into a dead white mouse sitting in the same bowl, face deformed and intestines bursting through its skin. Then a third mouse - this one sitting upright, washing itself. Regarding her with milky, sightless eyes ...
Phoebe Beech jolted awake, gasping for breath and covered in a sheen of cold sweat. The dreams were becoming more frequent and more vivid. If it wasn't seeing Leonid Denisovich getting his head smashed in, it was the nightmare with the mice.
"No' the fuckin' mice again," Phoebe groaned. She tugged her blanket up over her legs and reached for her plastic mug of water. With no windows in her corner of the cathedral's crypt, she couldn't tell if it was morning yet or still night - the only feeble light coming in through the ornate cast iron grates in the vaulted ceiling. And with no other prisoners there was no-one to even ask. Meals seemed to come at random intervals - delivered by a broken looking man who never spoke or so much as made eye contact. So there was no reliable way to even measure the passage of days. It seemed she'd been a prisoner for weeks.
It was late spring, 2065. She knew that much. Phoebe wrinkled her nose at the ever present stink of rotting meat. The Reivers had given her plenty of water and a blanket. They'd also let her keep most of her clothes. Though Needles, the leader of the raiding party who'd brought her here to Glasgow had taken her sealskin jacket as a souvenir. It seemed to be permanently cold in the ruins of the old cathedral of St Mungo's - the crumbling stonework leeching the warmth from the very air making the temperature drop quickly at night. Whenever night was. Evidently the Reivers wanted her kept alive, if not in comfort.
Tamsin must have failed.
That realisation struck Phoebe like a physical blow every time she awoke. She had seen the explosion with her own eyes. Seen the nuclear mushroom cloud boiling into the sky over the mountains. It had to have been one of the aircraft carrier Baekdusan's missiles that had wiped out Fort Augustus while she and her captors were at Corrour station. If her cousin Tamsin and the resistance were gone, Phoebe was on her own. There'd be no-one coming to rescue her.
The bolt on the heavy oaken door at the crypt's entrance rattled. And a moment later, orange light flickered across the mouldering stone walls as someone carrying a torch descended the wide steps into Phoebe's prison. She shielded her eyes. Was today the day? Had the Reivers finally grown tired of feeding her their bland bread and undercooked fish and decided to dispose of her?
Phoebe prayed that they might at least make it quick. She'd much rather die a quick death like Leonid than be gang raped, tortured or eaten a piece at a time over the course of months.
Expecting the usual man that brought her food or one of the other brutes, Phoebe was surprised to see a woman. Slim, pale, perhaps a few years older than herself, with long black dreadlocks and as far as Phoebe could tell every single square inch of skin - except her face, covered in tattoos. A mound of screaming skulls crawled up one bare arm and across the woman's shoulder and throat, merging with fiery eyes glaring out from a twisting column of smoke descending the other. She wore grease stained black leather trousers, a black halter top that fought to restrain an impressive bust and a pair of vicious looking kukris sheathed at her thighs.
As the woman's feet crunched on old bones that had tumbled from tombs long ago split open in the crypt's walls, she regarded Phoebe coldly down the barrel of a MP-443 Grach handgun, "On yer feet."
Phoebe stared at the Grach, wondering if it had been hers. She couldn't quite place the accent. It wasn't northern England or south west. More like a combination of Scots and something else. But Phoebe had to admit there were lots of places she'd never been.
"GET ON YER FUCKIN' FEET!" the woman's face hardened as she strode forward and shoved the Grach's barrel against Phoebe's head. She'd been too slow and the woman unused to repeating herself.
"O-okay! Okay!" Phoebe raised her hands and clambered quickly to her feet.
"Now move," snarled the woman.
"Wh-where are ye takin' me?" Phoebe asked, dreading what the answer might be.
In response, the woman shoved her forward towards the steps. Phoebe stumbled, barking her shin but remained standing.
"Up the fuckin' steps. MOVE!"
Wherever it was she was being taken, it might finally reveal just who had taken her prisoner, Phoebe realised.
. . .
There had been a stone building on the site since 1136, but construction on a larger cathedral hadn't begun until 1197. As far as Phoebe could see, the existing Glasgow Cathedral - dating from around 1560, had only suffered moderate damage from the meteorite strikes. Surprising, considering the devastation across the rest of the city - Clydebank was now a two mile wide lagoon where the river had burst its banks, Maryhill utterly flattened by a blast wave.
A piece of the Thanatos asteroid the size of a filing cabinet had torn through the cathedral's roof and smashed a deep crater in the marble floor dividing the nave from the choir - collapsing two thirds of the crypt beneath. But the 225 foot tall spire and whatever else remained stood solid and proudly intact. In her time alone, Phoebe had considered trying to tunnel her way out of the crypt through the rubble, but realised that trying to shift tons and tons of the massive blocks of stone would be futile. And once the only door was closed down there, she was effectively sealed in.
The tattooed Reiver woman continued to shove Phoebe impatiently from behind as they ascended up worn steps into the main cathedral. Sunlight streamed in through the high stained glass windows - making Phoebe shield her eyes as it cast shards of rainbow across the checkered marble floor.
"Look who it fuckin' is," called a familiar voice. Renton. The huge Reiver who'd killed Leonid Denisovich back in Drumnadrochit, "where you takin' her Eil?"
Eil? Was that the woman's name?
"None o' your fuckin' business rat-dick," Eil or whatever her name was led Phoebe around the edge of the gaping meteorite crater at the cathedral's heart, with Renton following. Fifty feet across and at least twenty deep, crumbling tombs and a massive slab of black marble teetered around the lip ready to fall into the midden below. All kinds of waste had been cast in by the Reivers making a pit of stinking garbage.
Past makeshift shelters they walked, a rudimentary forge, ancient stonework defaced by Reiver graffiti and clan markings, crates, barrels and other supplies. And Reivers. Dozens of them - both men and women, instantly stopped whatever it was they were doing to stare. Proud locals - Weegies, and she guessed, whatever waifs, strays and malcontents had joined their ranks over the years.
"Ye're quite the celebrity," Phoebe's captor pushed her again as they rounded one of the cathedral's immense stone pillars.
Back at Fort George, they'd had warm showers, a working generator and livestock. But it seemed the Reivers had done nothing whatsoever to rebuild. Regressing rather than developing. Phoebe had spotted slaves tending the Reivers' fields at Milngavie and Bearsden when she'd been brought in but that, it seemed, was the extent of how far they'd come. If these primitive, savage people decided to invade the east, would the entire UK become like this?
Some unidentifiable meat roasted on a spit over an open fire, browning and sizzling as it dripped fat into the flames. Phoebe stared, hoping it wasn't what she thought it might be, conscious and a little sickened that her mouth was watering regardless.
A tall muscular man with black hair and full beard shot through with grey, paused in unstrapping his armour and looked up questioningly, "This her?"
Phoebe glanced from him back to the tattooed woman. The same emotionless eyes. The same nose. It was quite possible that he and she might be related. She noticed other individuals around the fire. Needles - leader of the Reivers who had captured her, with one or two of his raiding party - Spud, and the orange haired one they called Irn Bru. Also a scrawny man with one arm and a horribly disfigured face where one of his eyes had been.
The black bearded man immediately grabbed Phoebe's jaw and roughly tilted her head back to study her face. Grey eyes bored into hers. He was a little over six feet tall, she guessed. Not as solidly built as Renton, but whoever this Reiver was he didn't carry an ounce of fat. He might be in his forties or even early fifties but certainly knew how to take care of himself. Steel mountaineering crampons with meticulously sharpened points had been strapped to the backs of his wrists and forearms.
Phoebe concentrated on the manufacturer's name printed red on the yellow crampon ties as she tried not to panic. GRIVEL, over and over again. She wondered if the Reiver could even read.
"Beech," he growled.
Phoebe didn't know how to react, so simply nodded.
The dreadlocked woman kicked Phoebe's legs away, making her fall to her knees, "SHOW SOME FUCKIN' RESPECT!"
The bearded Reiver squatted down in front of Phoebe so they were eye to eye. What she could see of his skin was clear of tattoos or the scarification that some Reivers used to decorate themselves. The only marks being from old wounds. Gunshot wounds. Knife wounds.
"S'pose you're wonderin' who the fuck I am?"
Phoebe looked him in the eye for just a moment, then had to glance away.
"I'm Dylan McNeish. I've only just got back from a raid. So apologies for keepin' you waitin'. The lady pointin' a gun at you is my daughter Eilwen."
Eilwen McNeish holstered the MP-443 Grach and moved to stand by her father. Dylan McNeish immediately snaked an arm around her slim waist and pulled her against him.
"What ... wh-what ... are you gonnae do wi' me?" Phoebe stammered. Her mouth felt dry. Her voice hoarse with terror.
Eilwen spat, "WHATEVER THE FUCK WE WANT, BITCH!"
"Ssh Eil," Dylan McNeish lifted his daughter's face towards his own and tenderly kissed her lips. To Phoebe it didn't seem the kind of kiss a father would give his own flesh and blood. But these people were Reivers. Normal boundaries and rules of decency didn't apply, "you'll get your chance," he turned back to Phoebe, "now, a little bird," he nodded towards the one-eyed man cowering beside the fire, "tells me you're a Beech. Related in some way to the bounty hunter ... Jessamy Beech?"
Phoebe tried in vain to hide her shock at hearing her mother's name. Where was her mother? Was she even alive? Had she managed to track down her sister Ada? "Y-yes."
McNeish absent mindedly ran the pad of one grimy thumb along his daughter's bottom lip, "Who exactly are you to her?"
What would be the use in lying? The one-eyed man - whoever he was had obviously told the Reivers she was a member of the Beech family, "I'm ... I'm her daughter."
Dylan McNeish released Eilwen and stepped backwards. He delightedly clapped his hands - the sound echoing in the vast space of the cathedral, "DAUGHTER! Oh wow! That is fuckin' rich. That's poetic fuckin' justice right there that is."
Eilwen glowered and pulled out one of her kukris.
Was this it, thought Phoebe frantically. Was she going to die here and now? She was a hunter, not a fighter. There was no way she was going to be able to escape this, "So wh-what are ye gonnae do to me?"
As Renton grabbed her from behind, Eilwen caught hold of Phoebe's left hand and slammed it back against the nearest pillar.
"What are we goin' to do to you?" smiled McNeish, coming closer as if stalking prey, "what are we goin' to DO to you?" he nodded to Eilwen, "we're goin' to make you fuckin' bleed. We're gonna fill every second of what's left of your sorry fuckin' life with pain. You'll honestly wish you were dead. By the time we've finished with you, you'll beg us ... to let you die."
As Renton held her, Phoebe squirmed with every ounce of her strength. Twisting, kicking. But it was no use. Holding her wrist, Eilwen raised the shining blade of her kukri and ...
SNICK!
... sliced off Phoebe's little finger.
. . .
Phoebe awoke with a start as a pan of cold water was thrown in her face. Lack of decent food, shock, exhaustion and the excruciating pain from the amputation had combined to make her pass out.
Renton dragged her to her feet. Drying blood ran down her wrist and arm as she held her hand up to survey the damage. A clean cut. But thankfully the Reivers had cauterised the stump while she'd been out. If she was to live for a decent period of time as their prisoner they wouldn't want her developing an infection straight away. Her entire hand throbbed dully as if it had been plunged into hot ashes.
http://www.killermovies.com/forums/member.php?s=&action=getinfo&userid=155292
https://vizu.kontribune.com/articles/6
http://gpete.blogs.keysight.com/2015/05/water-effects-with-function-generator.html
https://forums.embarcadero.com/profile.jspa?userID=256028
https://www.quibblo.com/user/gratuitici
http://www.abstractfonts.com/members/742211
https://www.codechef.com/users/gratuitici
http://www.cplusplus.com/user/gratuitici/
https://sharesome.com/xikifuru/