No Future Ch 76

LXXVI

Sick and Sore

Eugenie

2102

For all her life until now and especially after having travelled south to London, Eugenie had lived in fear and dread of gangs and most especially gang members. Wasn't gang culture just one of the many reasons why everything was shit these days? Rape, violence, theft and murder: no one could pretend there was anything virtuous in the activities of England's many gangs whether they were based in Central London, Nottingham or here in the Outer London suburb of Uxbridge.

So why was Eugenie now a fully initiated member of one of the most notorious gangs in all London known by the almost ludicrously innocuous name of

The Youth Club

?

It wasn't that her membership was merely casual or superficial. The proof of this was the crude U-shaped tattoo etched across the blue stubble of her shaved forehead and pate. She was attired in a peculiarly feral uniform threaded through with feathers and furs that gave gang members an untamed appearance. She'd submitted to the excruciatingly long, undeniably messy and rather painful mass gang-bang that was the mandatory initiation rite for all female members of the Youth Club. She was rechristened with the gang name of

YouTube Chick

. This was a phrase whose ultimate meaning was lost on Eugenie but which she understood was extremely obscene. She'd become versed in phrases and symbols whose meaning and significance was deliberately obscure to anyone not already a member of the Youth Club and whose real purpose was to announce her allegiance to other gang members in awkward situations. The one rule of conduct that bound members of the gang together was that no one member should knowingly kill, rape or main another without the consent of other members of the gang. It was a security of sorts that Eugenie treasured in these lawless days.

This precarious protection against violence wasn't the only privilege of gang membership and it wasn't the principle reason that Eugenie had sought out membership when she'd stumbled into Uxbridge town centre. This came after a long hazardous journey around London's outermost perimeter along the electrified fences that fortified the M25 motorway. The fence wasn't there only to protect motorists from the unwanted attention of the mendicant poor and desperate. It also served as a firewall against the spread of plague across the Republic's town and countryside. Eugenie soon discovered how foolish it would be to was to approach the electrified fence. This only served to attract the attention of armed guards and their exceptionally vicious genetically-enhanced dogs. She'd come across the bodies of other travellers who'd ventured too close to the high fences that protected the privileged few from the unwashed and poorly fed majority.

It wasn't because Eugenie was especially drawn to the London suburb of Uxbridge that she'd made the journey from Epping Forest. In fact, she had no reason to expect that the London Borough of Hillingdon would be any better than her original home. Her trek wasn't one she'd have willingly chosen.

After more than four years, the plague that had forced Eugenie to leave her home in the East Midlands was still devastating England just as it was the rest of the world. Eugenie had heard that it was the nation's worst such pandemic since the Black Death, but as there had been several other such outbreaks in the last forty or so years that had been compared to the infamous Mediaeval scourge the comparison had become increasingly stale. However, Eugenie knew for sure that it had devastated her life and those of everyone she knew. The only people safe from the virus were those wealthy enough to live in the fenced-in villages and suburbs that Eugenie could never enter. The wealthy might occasionally fall victim to the plague but they had access to hospital care, air-conditioned homes and plenty of food. All that must surely have helped them keep the worst of the contagion at bay.

The civil authorities generally ignored Eugenie and her companions. They were no more protected from violence or theft than they were persecuted for vagrancy. The English government's main concern was to address the anxieties of the ever-diminishing number of people still eligible to vote: a privilege wholly dependent on property-ownership. As long as Eugenie didn't trespass into streets and districts that had restricted access she was as invisible to the authorities in the Outer Suburbs as she'd been in Central London.

All the same, when a fresh incident of the plague was reported in the vicinity of Theydon Bois, it was the presence of people such as Eugenie that swiftly attracted the attention of the Contagion Control Police who'd been directed to the London Borough of Waltham Forest to round up and evict all vagrants and non-domiciled residents. There was a rumour that they would be transported to the plague-ridden city of Milton Keynes where a slow and painful death was almost certain.

There was no coordination or plan to their escape when Eugenie and her friends first spotted the armed police run over the fields towards the woods where they lived accompanied by their ferocious dogs. Those who ran the slowest, such as Tamara, were left behind to the policemen's mercy. Eugenie, Tinkerbelle and Andy raced through the woods towards London's Metropolitan Border until their path was blocked by the electrified fence that ran alongside the M25 orbital.

For the next few weeks Eugenie and her friends followed the fence westwards as it circled North London. There was little to eat and the only places where they could shelter were in the overgrown woods and fields that now belonged to no one. They had to make the occasional diversion around obstacles to their path such as the turnings off the M25 and the private estates hidden behind armed defences that were even more insurmountable than those protecting the motorway. When Eugenie walked past the well-mown lawns, the roads free of potholes and the private shopping malls that were the preserve of only the privileged few, she felt both anger and envy that so much of England's wealth was concentrated in so few hands. Had it always been like this? Maybe the disparity in wealth was just somewhat more obvious nowadays after all the ravages of economic collapse, climate change, foreign war and, of course, plague. Eugenie had heard that there had once been a golden age in which ordinary people could afford to fly by aeroplane to foreign countries for nothing more than personal pleasure and when every household had reliable access to electricity and water.

Eugenie was alone by the time she'd reached Uxbridge. Andy was last seen running for his life from a huge, slobbering genetically-enhanced guard dog that would probably eat him if it had the opportunity He'd been rather too optimistic when he ignored the warning sign outside an orchard and allowed his hunger to exceed his common sense.

Eugenie didn't know what had happened to Tinkerbelle after a night when they'd slept on different floors of a disused watchtower on the perimeter of a now derelict farm. There was no sign of her friend when Eugenie woke up. It was quite likely that Tinkerbelle had been abducted even though there was no sign of struggle. Isolated communities that were short of women were known to go to extraordinary lengths to ameliorate the gender ratio. It was also possible that Tinkerbelle had left of her own accord. She'd become increasingly depressed ever since Andy had run away. The two of them had been very intimate.

So by the time Eugenie arrived in Uxbridge, she was desperately lonely as well as hungry and weary. Was it any wonder that when she saw Billy Bollocks—as he'd been christened by the Youth Club gang—that she would be drawn to him? It wasn't for his apparent charm or good looks so much—of which there was a complete absence—as it was for his possession of a bag of groceries that he'd stolen from a woman as she was leaving a heavily defended supermarket complex. Eugenie didn't know the details of how he'd acquired the groceries, but in any case she didn't really care one way or the other. She'd not eaten anything substantial since she'd trapped and skinned a rabbit several days earlier.

Billy Bollocks would have been a truly unexceptional looking young man if he wasn't so extravagantly tattooed: especially around his shaved head. His aggressive personality wasn't expressed in either his physical stature or his height, as he was actually rather shorter than Eugenie, but rather by his eccentric clothing. He was flamboyantly adorned in feathers, fur and slogans stitched into the leather and denim that affirmed his gang loyalty. He had an ugly scar across one cheek and over a left eye that was notably dull and expressionless.

"What I wouldn't give for a bite of that," said Eugenie boldly as she walked up to Billy in clothes that were as ragged and eccentric as his, but less from design than mishap. She pointed at a can of Heinz Alphabet Soup and a Ginster's Cornish Pasty.

Billy glared at Eugenie with an expression that lightened his general expression of hostility with a touch of amusement. He held an army knife in one hand that he could easily use to ensure that Eugenie would surrender everything she had irrespective of whether there was a likelihood of reward. He smiled grimly.

"What are you suggesting then, you slut?" he asked.

"A bit of this," said Eugenie who pulled up her skirt to reveal that she wasn't wearing any knickers. "I'm a good fuck," she added, in case that wasn't enough of a hint.

"I'm sure you are," said Billy, who contemplated the wild unkempt hair between Eugenie's thighs with some interest. "But I bet you'll only want to fuck if you get to eat first."

"I'll have more energy if I do," Eugenie conceded. "Otherwise I'll be too weak to give you as good a fuck as you deserve."

Billy considered this. "Yeah," he said. "That makes sense. All right. We'll fuck after. Just don't get any ideas about running away when you've eaten. This knife's killed plenty in its time. See the notches. Each one marks a scalp. I can be a really mean fucker if you cross me, you slag."

"A deal's a deal," said Eugenie who nestled down beside Billy and waited her turn while he took first shares of all the grocery items that he'd stolen.

Eugenie honoured her compact. Well, she'd be stupid not to, even though a fuck was about the last thing she'd really wanted. She hoped that her faked moans and occasional reciprocal thrusts would further endear her to the aptly named Billy Bollocks.

It was obvious that he'd taken a shine to Eugenie however qualified her affection was towards him. He was an aggressive lover who fucked hard and snorted as he did so. He thrust his cock as deep into her cunt as he could and shoved his filthy oily fingers up her arse at the same time. He'd seen plenty of pornos, so he splattered his semen over her face and onto her chest although it really wasn't necessary and certainly wasn't something that Eugenie enjoyed.

She followed Billy back to where he lived with the rest of the Youth Club gang. The neighbourhood was spread over a number of suburban houses in a cul de sac at the end of a long street that had been chosen because it offered a good strategic view of any approaching hostile gang. Eugenie wasn't exactly welcomed by the other gang members and Billy didn't make it especially easy for her. She could see that the gang was a tight group of people, many related to one another, and that they were automatically suspicious of outsiders. But Eugenie was hungry. She'd not slept on a mattress for many months and she didn't care anymore who she had to fuck to get what she wanted.

At first, she only had sex with Billy, but Eugenie knew that she'd soon be kicked out of the relative comfort of the four bedroom house with en suite bathroom and conservatory if she didn't spread herself more widely amongst the company.

So she built up the trust of the Youth Club gang by being open with her body and sharing all the drugs that passed by. Of course, it would be stupid to be known only as a slag, so she also helped the other girls do the housework and cooking that was expected of them when they weren't lying prostrate on a mattress with their legs in the air. As time passed she won enough trust that associate membership of the Youth Club gang became pretty much inevitable.

And now she was one of those who not so long ago she had feared and despised. She was one of the parasites on ordinary people who were unable to fend off the violence, theft and bullying that was doled out by the Youth Club, just as it was by the many other gangs in North West London. But as she chewed on the food that was stolen and got high on the drugs that were the subject of the most nearly legitimate commerce the gang was involved in, she knew that when she went to sleep it would be indoors, on a mattress, and out of the rain, the sleet and the wind. She mightn't be able to choose who she would have sex with and she might have difficulty reconciling her lifestyle with her conscience, but she now had a lot to be grateful for.

For all the aggravation, pain and humiliation of gang rape, non-anaesthetised piercing and home-made tattoos, it was all worth it when Eugenie considered the other alternatives that she'd got to know so well after having slept under bushes, huddling under the dark shadow of ancient overpasses and in abandoned barns. She had enough to eat, she had somewhere to sleep and she now had a loyal group of friends who would take huge delight in using their knives and cudgels to cripple or maim anyone foolish enough to assault her.