Chapter 8: Memory Pain

Ash couldn’t sleep.

Throughout the night, he kept thinking about the man he shot. While it took a fraction of a second to end the man’s life, that moment seemed like an eternity. Even now, laying on the cold tile floor, Ash could see the gang member coming into view, the flash of his black muzzle, and Sander falling to the ground. Ash could feel the trigger against his index finger. The sensation of that curved sliver of metal never left his skin.

While Ash couldn’t see the damage he did, he glimpsed the corpse. When he went into the backroom of the gas station, he saw the bodies of the gang members lined up as though they were stalks of corn, ready to be husked. The first man had his head blown apart by Kiara’s pistol. The second man had his chest punctured by a constellation of buckshot. The third man, the man Ash killed, had been shot right through the neck. Ash saw how the deluge of arterial blood had stained the man’s undershirt.

Ash couldn’t sleep.

He tossed his head in the other direction. He opened his eyes, seeing the ghastly grey interior of the gas station. The glimmer of the moon pierced through the windows, cobwebbed by bullet holes. It seemed as though the broken streaks of glass crawled toward Ash like a spider ready to devour him. The lines crept closer and closer. Ash could not bear it. He shifted his back to the moonlight, only to catch sounds emanating from the backroom. He approached the doors, and placed one hand upon them. He pushed and peered into the room, expecting the dead bodies to be lined along the floor. He saw nothing. They had disappeared.

Ash walked into the darkness of the room. He heard no noise apart from his own stilted breathing. Each breathe felt heavier than the last, deeper than the last. He filled his lungs with the night’s air, only to discover the sounds of breathing were not his own. Slowly, he turned his head.

There, in darkness, stood three figures with pale skin, drained of blood. The man with a hole in his neck tried to speak, but choked on his own blood. He gurgled a single word: “A-a-a-shhh…”

Ash woke up in a fright. He tried to clam his hyperventilation, starring at the ceiling and sensing the wetness of his cloths. He sweated through every layer. The crisp cloudless air of the semi-desert trickled into the room. It chilled him and he began to shiver. Ash crossed his arms over his chest as though he could hug himself into a sense of safety, into a regaining his innocence.

He grew uneasy. He took off his sleeveless jacket and his undershirt and wrung them of moisture. He grabbed the plastic water bottle beside him and drank a little. Like in his dream, the spiderweb of moonlight approached him. Ash’s mind relieved the nightmare. He needed to check the backroom. He got up and pushed the backroom door. As he opened them, moonlight flooded into the room and illuminated the mostly naked corpses. Ash let the door swing to a close.

“I am okay,” he whispered to himself repeatedly.

He returned to the main room and approached the window he shot through. The distant plains gave him a certain sense of comfort even though they struck him as foreign. Ash began to doubt if he would ever return to his old life, his life in a dense urban metropolis, a city that seemed unfathomably futuristic compared to this world.

Ash wandered back to his sleeping spot. He noticed Sander sleeping propped up in the one of the corners. The shotgun lay across his chest. Sander must have fallen asleep during guard duty.

Ash placed his wet clothing on the cold tiles and laid upon it, adjusting the canvas bag he used as a pillow. He had never so uncomfortable. He was cold, wet, and frightened.

* * *

Ash awoke to the sound of laughter. He rolled from his makeshift bed mat and went outside.

He rubbed his eyes of the crust that had formed during the night. His eyes hung with the heaviness of an insomniac, but the early morning sun jostled him into wakefulness.

Sander and Kiara were sitting by a fresh campfire. Bright smiles shone from both of their faces.

Sander reclined with his back to the sun. He had removed his shirt, which had been stained by the blood of shoulder wound, and let his body warm with the desert. He had also rolled the cuffs of his pants, which, in truth, seemed to be a mere patchwork of rags, up to his knees. These improvised shorts made him look like a beach-goer on vacation, and not a man nearly killed in a gunfight and stranded from the concepts of time and place.

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Kiara, on the other hand, sat with her back against the wall. She did not wear the leather jacket from yesterday, but remained in her off-white tank top. Like Sander, she had rolled up the cuffs of her pants to three-quarters of its length. Her feet dug into the arid solid around the campfire.

“Good morning, sleepyhead,” Kiara greeted him with a tease. She pulled her mid-back length hair into a ponytail. “Are you going to join us for some breakfast?”

Ash took a moment to adjust to the situation.

“Yeah,” he said with foggy-headed uncertainty. Absent-mindedly, he paced beside Sander and dropped beside him.

“Tough night?” Sander asked

“Yeah.”

Sander offered him a skewered chunk of pronghorn.

Even though Ash felt his stomach rumble with hunger and could feel his mouth salivate at the food, he could not bear to eat cooked flesh. Every time he brought it close to his face, the thoughts of his gunmanship exploded. He killed that antelope. He killed that man. Will he eat the meat of the antelope? Sander already discussed skinning the antelope to trade its hide for ammunition. He could take the horns and hooves and use them to barter. Have they not done the same thing with humans? Kiara and Sander looted the gang members. They stripped them down to their underwear. Every item without immediate use would be sold at the market.

Ash could feel a surge of vomit halt within his chest.

“I can’t,” Ash said. As he put down the skewer, Kiara snapped it from his hand.

“Well, I won’t let that go to waste,” she said, taking a big bite of the meat.

“Kiara was telling me about her little hideout here,” Sander said. He twisted toward Ash. “She said that when she arrived, the previous survivor had already died. The guy had set up a base in the ceiling with a bunch of gear. He even set up rain barrels on the roof.”

Ash remained silent. He couldn’t image talking so joyfully about the dead.

“When I arrived, all I had was that pistol,” Kiara said. “And only one bullet. I kept thinking that I would have to use it on myself. I’d rather die then go back to The Cuffs.”

“The Cuffs?” Sander asked.

“Yeah, that’s what we call Cuffley.” Kiara took a vicious bite from the skewer.

Ash remained quiet, enjoying the sun warm up his torso. For a split moment, embarrassment filled him as he realized that he was sitting shirtless in front of a woman. His cheeks blushed at the thought, but he took comfort in the fact that Sander sat similarly unclothed.

“Is that’s where you’re from?” Sander asked?

Kiara chewed thoughtfully before placing the skewer on the ground. Her tongue moved inside of her mouth and against her teeth. Her face flashed a grimace of disgust.

“No,” she said. The word was spoken with a depressive edge that broke Ash’s heart. He knew her story would reflect the cruelties of this virtual world.

“I was taken to The Cuffs against my will.” Kiara sighed. “I was taken from the highway, going toward Pellmell. I needed medicine for my father. He had the Affliction, so my sister stayed with him. I thought I could get something to make him feel better. Maybe cure him. I dunno. Then, on my way to the city, those low-lives caught me. Tied me up and took me to The Cuffs. Most captives they sell. Not me. The leader of their crew wanted me all for himself.”

Kiara adjusted her posture. She looked into the breakfast fire in silence.

“Well, I escaped. I survived. That’s better than most of them.”

Ash looked at her face. Kiara showed no visible emotion. Her face became frozen with recollected sorrows. He glanced to Sander, to gauge a proper reaction. What could they do?

Kiara broke from her stupor with a slap of her knees.

“That scumbag got it, though,” she said standing up. “Slit his throat at night and watched him bleed.” She spat on the ground and walked into the gas station.

“I’m sorry, kid. I didn’t know that would go over poorly.” Sander said. “On the plus side, I think she trusts us.”

Ash remained wordless.

“Am I to leave the solitude of prison and find myself back in the company of silent?” Sander stretched out on the dried grass behind him. The rough blades of grass tickled his skin. He gazed into the nearly cloudless sky.

“Life’s good, kid. We just do a lot of struggling.” Sander plucked a reed of long grass and stuck it into his mouth. He rolled it between his teeth. “But, if you survive, that’s the greatest thing on earth. A victory worth savouring. You can feel bad for her -- I do, a little -- but she endured. That is the only thing that matters.”

Sander propped himself on his bad shoulder, wincing as he did it. He looked Ash straight in the face. His eye squinted in the sunlight:

“But don’t forget: she ain’t real.”

Sander fell back onto the grass. He closed his eyes and allowed the sun to consume him, to tan him.

Ash looked at the small fire wither into a pile of soot.

“And, kid,” Sander said into the sky. “If you go inside, bring me some water, will you?”

* * *

The rest of the day passed uneventfully.

While Ash wandered like a lost soul, Kiara and Sander planned. They decided that the three of the would take the motorcycles and make their way to the closest settlement. There, they would sell as much as they could. Together, they gathered everything of use into the main room. Kiara brought down her stash from her ceiling hide out, while Sander carried all of the gang member loot, including the contents of the motorcycle saddlebags. They made a list of their inventory, arranging everything into two piles: “Keep” or “Sell”. The two of them debated over a few items, but always found a compromise.

Once done, Sander properly skinned and fleshed the pronghorn. While he wouldn’t be able to tan the hide out here, but he could barter for a good price. Kiara tested the each of the motorcycles, finding the one she preferred the most, before returning and helping Sander cook as much meat as possible.

After a large feast, in which Ash manage to force down a few bites, they enjoyed the sunset and prepared themselves for their journey. Tomorrow morning, they would reach town.