[Sticks]

This is a 1993 rework of a story I wrote in 1988. Again I did it in episodes. Let me know how this compares with my Mystical Realms Sagas and tails

Return of a Lone Stranger

Chapter 1

The Eastern Ghost town

The dust flew in the air which whistled round the buildings of Holburn Junction, which creaked in the wind. Long empty soft drink and lager cans rolled across the deserted street as the wind blew long discarded litter. As the weather rolled in from the coast in this once prosperous part of town, an odd black headed gull wandered around the rubbish looking in vain for scraps. A second came down to eek out a meagre existence, also in vain. The exhaustion of the fishing grounds due to over fishing and pollution had meant a severe decline in the bird's natural diet. The birds that are left would no doubt be wiped out by the approaching winter. Neither of the two pathetic specimens noticed a figure off in the distance along Holburn street that was approaching on an old clapped out bicycle.

The lone figure, dressed in a dark green anorak, came riding up the street. As he reached the last roundabout before the old town centre, he caught sight of the skyline that was once familiar. He hadn't seen this view for over twenty years. He stopped to look at it just after the roundabout and then he looked to his right, and looked down towards Great Southern Road. Once this road was a great thoroughfare, now it looked liked it hadn't been used for years. He caught sight of one solitary cat as it scampered across the road in the distance. This brought back a memory to this lone cyclist, of a man he once knew in this part of the town, that man had owned a cat, whose name he could no longer recall. They were dead now, murdered the pair of them, except everyone else thought it had been an accident waiting to happen.

A vehicle seemed to approach up from Great Southern Road. The lone cyclist ducked behind the shell of the building that once was considered a local bar. The cyclist gazed as the vehicle that looked like an old car, rose into the air and flew over the houses on the western side of the street. Who ever owned a hover car was either very wealthy or very crooked, usually both. The cyclist watched the craft vanish into the distance; this had been the only other transport he had seen for five days. As he remounted his cycle he looked at the old shops that used to trade here. Boarded up, virtually everyone. Those not boarded were gutted long since by fires, accidental or deliberate he could not tell. All he knew, was that no one cared much any longer.

The two gulls flew up to the top of the deserted church building. Still no food. They then headed out for the coast, then swooped down half way down Union Street on what seemed like a morsel. As the first gull landed, it did not notice the wild cat, which jumped on it, in its own desperate survival in a city that was going out with a whimper.

The lone cyclist tried to peddle up the hill of what was left of Holburn Street. The bicycle was heavy and awkward so the cyclist found himself walking the bike. As he did so, he gazed at all the deserted buildings that littered the street. The town here seemed to have died economically a long time ago and only the empty shells remained as a testimony to man's craving to butcher the landscape with hideous eyesores. They had become rundown with the years of neglect, pollution and unremitting UV that streamed through the occasional hole in the ozone layer.

As he reached Holburn Junction he got back onto his bicycle and looked at all the deserted shops. He started to ride down Union Street, the main street of the city where most of the business locally was conducted. As he cycled the memories of a town long ago and a people long since gone echoed loudly above the howl of the wind. The cyclist stopped just before one of the abandoned churches and paused to remember happier times. The thoroughfares that used to come from this street were once busy with people, now they rang out with the silence of desertion, dereliction and decay.

The stranger dismounted and looked around. He had been to this place before when it was the hub of this part of the world. Now it seemed, that developments elsewhere and the perpetual depression were killing the place off and turning it into just another Ghost town. Soon the town would disappear from the maps altogether. Perhaps in a hundred years no one would ever realize that it had ever existed. He remembered the last two towns he had just ridden through several hours earlier. They had become deserted, devoid of all human life. He wondered how long before this town would eventually go the same way.

His reminiscences drowned out the sounds of foot steps in the distance, coming from a side road.
"Has it really been this long since I was supposed to have died here?" The stranger muttered to himself.

"What brings you here? Stranger", shattered the cyclist's thoughts as he tried to see from where this utterance had come. He must have imagined it. No one would live here now, would they?. Where there was once a throng, was now populated by rubbish and the occasional rodent. An abandoned car rusted quietly in a forgotten side street.

A sound came from behind him. The cyclist turned around. Another figure was walking down the main street slowly, eyeing the stranger that had just rode in. The second man carried what seemed like a shot gun, and wore a cloth type cap, and an old tweedy suit.
"Are you riding in alone, stranger?” asked the second man as he removed the safety catch from his gun.
"Why do you ask?" asked the cyclist as he started to move his hand towards his saddlebag.
"Keep your hands away from that bag, stranger" said the second man as he levelled his gun at the cyclist.
"That's not the customary welcome I remember when I was last here twenty years ago, since when did people start threatening passers by with guns"
"Things have got rougher in twenty years" said the man with the gun, There's rumours of white slavers coming in, and we don't want any of their kind"

The cyclist looked at the man on foot, his tartan was that of the Ferguson clan. The gun looked like an old hunting rifle rather than a shot gun. Quite old but just as lethal.
"I'm not with any one, as far as anyone is concerned, I am just a lone stranger" he told the man on foot
"Why are you here, people only leave?"
"A matter of honour to be sorted out with an American in this town"
The man on foot put the safety catch back on his gun. "Anyone with a grudge against those guys can't be all bad" he said
"So the Americans have been throwing their weight around recently then?" Asked the cyclist
"It's a question of who is the worst, the white slavers or the US forces.

This seemed strange to the cyclist, in his day the Americans were welcomed, especially during the time when the production of oil was still in its heyday. They always brought in revenue and jobs. Those from the military bases hardly impacted on the lives of people in this part of Scotland. Now it seemed as though they had out stayed their welcome. The oil was virtually gone. With the resumption of the cold war, the military contingent had increased. He had heard how the town of Stonehaven had been requisitioned by US marines as a new army town. All the locals had been removed, virtually at the point of a gun. During times of emergency in this part of the country it was to be American forces that would keep marshal law. Obviously the drills that he had heard of were only too frequent. Even though the military were under the local civilian police during such practices it was no wonder that there was a deep resentment. It would seem that he would not get much trouble from the locals, for what he had to do.

The walker walked slowly towards the rider. The rider's hand moved slowly into his bag he had with him. The walker continued to walk up to him. Both men eyed each other as the wind blew old bits of paper around them. "You pick a miserable day to ride in" Yelled the man who had come in on foot.
"I know, but its always been like this at this time of year"
"Not always "
The man on foot took out a packet of cigarettes, lit one for himself then offered one to the cyclist. The cyclist declined. The wind seemed to be getting stronger
"What happened to this part of town “ Yelled the cyclist above what seemed like a howling gale, "it's all closed down and decayed"
"It moved years ago." replied the man on foot "in fact the whole of the city is closing down. They say in five years time it will be utterly deserted, like one of those ghost towns of the old West"
"I once lived in this town "The rider yelled above the wind" And you say its moved away and now it's dying"
"That's right The developers came in and built the shopping complexes, the whole part of this town here died and everyone had to move because the shoppers would not walk up this far" Answered the stranger on foot.
"And "asked the cyclist, "What happened to those centres ?"
"Two went under last year, only one remains" Answered the man on foot
"What about the Bon Accord centre, is that still open?" The cyclist asked with an air of concern in his voice, anticipating that part of his twenty year quest might end in failure.
The man on foot spat into the gutter, "that monstrosity is still open, though not for much longer, they say that's what killed the west end off in the end"
Slowly the cyclist pulled out an old dog eared map of the town and tried to open it in the wind. The map was about twenty five years old, but it still gave a reasonable plan of the city. They were both at the western end of Union street, facing in towards the rest of what was left of the City. Looking around again, the cyclist saw that the place where he was standing had become a rat infested slum.
"Where is the remaining part of the city now? I have my business to attend to."
The man on foot looked at the cyclist's map, "Its all moved to the shopping centres on George street" Answered the stranger on foot as he pointed them out on the map. The cyclist looked up and down the street again. "Of course with centralised shopping the little guys could not compete and so they must have gone to the wall.

"What brings you here then" enquired the cyclist.
"I'm on the patrol against white slavers, we're sure the yanks are in league with them" answered the man on foot, "just to satisfy their lusts" the man added with an air of contempt"
"Well I wouldn't know about that" said the cyclist, "my beef with them goes back before the white slavers ever appeared on the scene"
"My name is Joe Ferguson" Said the man on foot "What's yours?" he added as held out his hand to the cyclist
"They used to call me Steve Gryson here during my day, before the oil declined."
Joe's face paled when he heard this "Not the legendary Gryson" he said in horror" you can't be, he was killed with his accomplices over twenty years ago, to prevent some catastrophe"
"As Mark Twain put it, News of my death has been greatly exaggerated"
"That means your back for vengeance, if that is true"
"I like to think of it as justice, like I said it's a matter of honour" Said Steve Gryson" and I have some unfinished business to attend to."
"I wouldn't put it past those yanks" Joe said, still in some state of shock. In his day he had remembered how the US air force had justified their draconian action to save the universe as it seemed. If this man on the cycle was who he claimed to be, then he was the most dangerous man in the world. He had to do something. He slowly lifted his gun up, carefully taking off the safety catch. Steve had turned round to get back on his bicycle and was putting the map back in the saddle bag. Suddenly The man and the cycle had vanished into thin air. Joe looked on in awe at where the cyclist had been. Steve Gryson or his ghost was back in town

Joe did not notice a figure entering the abandoned music hall further down the road as the winter night drew in. The Music Hall had once been the centre of all the main social events, but now it had been left to the rats and the dregs of humanity that still clung to this doomed to die town. This was where Steve would have to camp out here along with a few of the homeless that had not yet drifted away. He gazed around the its once proud interior of the main hall, a tear forming in his eye as he remembered how things were before.

This town brought back many bad memories, especially of his murdered colleagues and a female student. She had almost been a soul mate with regards to her morals in the sea of student immorality, even if they never quite saw eye to eye over the subject of religion. Perhaps they were lucky, they never had to see the sudden landslide of society in an accelerated decline. They never had to live through the time when the world had teetered on the brink of world war three.

The main stage in the main room was strewn with litter, rats running around his feet. They used to have concerts here, he had been to one once, it had been sponsored by a local radio station, now defunct for a children's charity that had been folded for ten years. No one gave a damn any more. The dog eat dog world had taken on a new level of ferocity as it became a literal matter of life and death. He counted only five other people in the hall. They had not noticed Steve coming in, he thought he might quietly observe them, after all at least one person had welcomed his return at the point of a gun. Maybe it had been unwise to mention his name. Who knows what lies of the American military still held credibility. He examined the five figures closely, there were four men, of the age of about forty to fifty sitting round a portable fire for warmth. There was a young woman of about twenty to twenty five. She looked kind of thin compared with one of the men, even through what appeared to be an old dirty grey sweatshirt.

"You know what we want you to do if you want any of this grub" said one of the men to the woman. He was wearing what looked like an indistinguishable tartan hat, "I haven't seen a naked woman in months" the figure added menacingly.
Steve watched from the shadows, as the women removed her old grey sweatshirt. She was wearing a white laced bra underneath. Steve could see that the woman had been crying. What were these men up to. Steve noticed that the oldest man of the group of four did not look comfortable with this behaviour either. The man with the tartan hat was obviously the leader of the group, and not from this part of Scotland either.
"And the rest, we want to see a lot more if you want to eat" The man in the tartan hat said to the woman.

The women looked almost like the female student that had been murdered twenty years previously. Steve felt he could not allow this woman to suffer this humiliation. As the woman in the hall was about to remove her bra for the gratification of the man in the tartan hat, Steve stepped out from the shadows. "You don't have to do that, I have food to share with you" he addressed to the women. She stopped.
The man in the tartan hat stood up and went to threaten this intruder who was trying to spoil his fun. He saw a forty four year old man with a green anorak, with a hand in a back pack come shoulder bag. "Who asked you to interfere, shorty, I want her to strip off, and please me". The man then thumped one hand into his other palm "What are you going to do to stop me"
"You can put your things on and come with me" Steve said to the woman, ignoring the man in the tartan hat.
The women looked at Steve, then at the man in the tartan hat. Steve was five foot seven, the other man was six foot tall. She removed her bra, and began to remove her trousers and other underwear. The other three men sat in silence, they only wanted to shelter here, they didn't want to become involved. The man in the Tartan hat turned round to gaze at the woman he had coerced to strip, he never knew what hit him as he sunk to the floor.
"Like I said, you can put your things back on" said Steve as he put his stun bolt gun back in the bag.
The women started to put her clothes back on. Steve caught sight of her body, she was becoming emaciated. No wonder people had lost their dignity. He pulled out a HIGH-ENG biscuit and handed it to the women.
"But what will happen when he wakes up" asked the women
"He'll be out for about fifteen hours, find one of the other rooms, stay there, be long gone before he wakes up." replied Steve
"Thank you" Said the oldest man ,"he's one of the most vicious thugs around"
"Only because you let him" Steve said curtly as he and the woman departed what was left of the main hall. It seemed to Steve, that moral decline was as rapid as the decline of the whole of the world into stagnation, except for those parts of the world that were once classed as developing, and of course the new independent state of Luna Cit.

"I'm Steve" Steve said as he introduced himself to the woman he had just rescued.
"I'm Katharine, I was sold to that man a week ago by my guardian" said the woman, her voice indicating that she had come from Shetland.
"Why?"
"The crops had failed. We were starving, we had no choice" answered Katharine
"Well, that is no way to treat people, but now you should be free of him"
"Where can I go? He will find me again"
"With full power on the stun bolt gun, with luck it will be days before he will remember you" Steve said, then handed her a wad of cash and a small card. "Take this, get the coach tomorrow go to the address on the card, it was a bolt hole for me once"
Katharine squinted at the card in the fading light, "I can't read" she told Steve.
"I'll give it to the driver and speak to him and he will help you get there. I think its getting late, we need to find some of the other rooms"

After finding a room for himself and another for Katharine from two of the old meeting rooms, he took off his back pack and unrolled his sleeping bag. He found a spare blanket and handed it to Katharine and returned to his chosen room. Tomorrow he would continue his twenty year search for Justice, for those of his friends, long since murdered on the orders of one of the most powerful countries in the Western Block of free states, now called Western Bloc. He had only just arrived back in time before the town had died. But for now he had to rest after nearly twenty four hours of riding on an old bicycle. As he settled down for the night, he thought about what he had said to the man on foot. A lone stranger, that was rather appropriate. He was supposed to be dead. He was alone in the world and a stranger to its lost values. He was in fact the Lone Stranger, and now he was back, to search for answers in a town he was once fond of in happier times. He had finally returned to Aberdeen.