Reuben

The ‘Great Thirst’ Desert

Sand tasted bitter in my mouth as I pushed my spade down into the stagnant dirt. Sweat pooled under my hair and trickled into my eyes, but I had nothing left inside me to even blink it away.

I didn't care.

On and on I dug. Time had become meaningless—every day stretched out like a blanket, cursing our dreams and turning them into one hot, sticky nightmare.

Do you know when my favourite time of day was? Just before I fell asleep. That point when your eyes are closed and your mind goes all hazy, and your thoughts sort of drift around, free as a bird.

There were no birds any longer. Only dust. I sank my spade deeper still.

'Reuben . . . Reuben! Let's get out of here, come on. Shift's over.'

That's me, isn't it. Reuben. Funny—I guess I was at the stage where I was so mind-numbed with boredom, I could forget my own name.

'Coming, Jake.'

Of course, I was coming. Where else would I go?

*

I sat in the mess-hall, stuffing my portion of rations into my mouth in a disgusting display of ill-manners. My mother would have been appalled. Thinking of my mother halted my gorging for a moment as I gazed at the slop, but I looked up just in time to spot Jake's spoon inching towards my bowl.

'No way. Not on your life.' I snatched my bowl away like a cat defending prey. That's not to say the slop tasted good. It didn't. It tasted like wet dog food, just without the flavour or texture. To imagine eating dog food. . . My belly rumbled. When me and Jake were kids, we found an old shack buried in the rubble. There was no food inside, no running water, nothing of value—the robustans had taken it all. The only things left were dog food tins—robustans had no need for such petty things as dogs. Hounds for killing, maybe, but not domestic dogs, with their bounding energy and loyalty.

Meaningless character traits in a modern society.

Oh, how we dined on that dog food. Those tins lasted us weeks.

'But I'm starving, man,' Jake moaned. 'Just give me the last dregs, please.'

'No.' Brotherly love only went so far. I'd be no use to Jake dead.

'Kah!' A whip snapped through the hushed human chatter; everybody fell silent. I shovelled the last of the slop into my mouth before I could draw attention to myself. Seko, one of the highest ranking robustans in our slave camp, had begun roaming up and down the aisles, glaring at us all like we were termites in a mound he had just trodden in. And that he was not happy about.

'El vesto mi to kahandi.' Seko's long, jagged features moulded into a sneer. He beckoned another robustan from the other end of the hall and approached an older woman, her crooked back bent over the low slab of wood set on the dusty ground: our table. Her eyes darted, wary and skittish. I could see her legs twitching, itching to run.

'Run, Esther.' Jake's breath stroked my cheek, soft as a feather. It sent a chill down my spine.

Jake didn't know any more than I did what the robustan was saying. It didn't matter. Nothing they ever said was good. Not when it came to us, the human slaves.

Another robustan, Megiaji, came over. He was taller than Seko, his features soft, unlike most robustans faces that looked chiselled as marble statues. He almost looked too perfect, like some sort of divine being far above and beyond this world. And yet, what Megiaji lacked in physical harshness, he more than made up for in harshness of character.

'TELLO de hava. Tello, albry a TELLO.' Megiaji's whip sliced through the air with astonishing speed, before any of us even had the chance to register what was happening; Esther screamed. Blood splattered the table top. Megiaji lowered his whip again, and again, and Esther's screaming filled our ears and our hearts and I turned my face away, tears blurring my vision, unable to stand it anymore. Jake's arms wrapped over his head, blocking out the world.

The worst part was not knowing. Why? What had Esther done to deserve it? None of us knew. None of us could guess. She was just sat there, eating her slop, the same as everybody else. Her granddaughter sobbed beside her, soaked red from head to foot.

When it was over, Seko tugged Esther's body from her seat, and dumped her onto the floor. We watched, shaking. Megiaji muttered into Seko's ear and Seko nodded; as abruptly as he arrived, Megiaji strode away, cracking his whip to clean it. A trail of blood speckled a path behind him.

'Finto.' Seko's bark snapped us out of our reveries; we grabbed our bowls, jostling each other, fighting to throw them in the cavernous washing-up basin and get the hell out as fast as we could. Meal times were risky, and this day was proving no different.

The crowds surrounding the basin began to clear and, slower than my peers, I dropped my bowl inside. I was watching Sara, the granddaughter, rocking on the floor beside crooked Esther's body. When she and Jake were small, they'd played together, digging holes in the sand. They used to make my mother laugh, always up to no good; they'd follow me around, pestering me, and Esther used to stroke my hair, shushing me when I complained.

I glanced up; Seko might have been long gone, but another robustan could take his place at any moment. I hurried over to Sara, ignoring Jake's squeaks of alarm. I yanked her upright, her legs buckling under her, and unceremoniously dragged her away, just like someone did to me when my mother died. Sara fought me for only a few seconds—her teeth half-heartedly trying to sink into my hand covering her mouth—but then she gave up, and flopped against me. Letting me drag her away.

*

We worked the night shift immediately after dinner. The irrigation system we were fixing was taking longer than anticipated; too many workers had been pulled to fix the camp's out-of-date defences. Although, why the robustans needed defences was anybody's guess. What were they so afraid of? A rebellion? Not likely.

Arguments between robustans in charge of defences and of irrigation had become our latest entertainment. Their voices grew sharper and faster, spitting words like bullets. But Defences won in the end; in compensation, it was decided that the (now shrunken) irrigation team were to work long into the night as well as through the day.

You'd think the night shift would be preferable to the day, for obvious heat-related reasons. You'd be surprised. For a start, it's really hard trying to install underground piping when snakes keep jumping out of holes to bite your arm off—this doesn't happen so much in the scorching heat of day. It's okay when it's the glossy snakes, they don't scare us anymore, but the venomous puff adder can be a real bitch if you piss it off. But worse is the cold. Not what you'd expect, huh. Cold, in the desert? Well in winter, it can get below zero. And we didn't get a change of clothes. No handy hat and scarf for us mugs shovelling dirt all day and night.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

At around three in the morning we finally clocked off, chucked our shovels into the shed and sloped back to camp. Jake and I shared a room with the rest of our tribe. We bickered amongst ourselves for blankets before sinking onto the floor, falling asleep the second our heads hit the dirt.

Imagine it. Dirt, dust, sweat and blood, all squished together under the 'Great Thirst's' sun . . . I won't bother trying to describe the smell.

Everyone was their normal state of irritable when we were woken up the next morning. The sirens wailed as we trooped to collect our morning rations, carrying our flasks with us to stop off at the well. The queue was enormous.

'You okay, kid?' I stepped into line behind Sara, who was standing there, world-weary with bloodshot eyes. She shrugged, refusing to look at me. I didn't press her. I understood.

We shuffled forwards, the line taking forever. We passed the time by muttering to each other under our breaths; there was gossip. One of the guys on defences had been caught spying on the robustans. He was beaten to a pulp, but he managed to survive, and even caught a glimpse of the rusty television inside the robustan office. According to him—before his teeth were smashed in—there was some sort of commotion in the neighbouring town. The authorities were activating the military. We were fascinated, of course. I'd never heard of the military do anything other than a culling.

But gossip could only keep us entertained for so long and Jake was getting impatient. To be honest, so was I. My sand-paper tongue kept brushing the roof of my mouth, the unpleasant stale taste of yesterday's slop refusing to fade. I needed water.

The water we drank from the well was a murky brown. Sounds healthy, right? The robustans wouldn't have touched it if their lives depended on it. Our lives, however, did—and we didn't have the luxury of being fussy. But now, people were being fussy. As I got closer to the well, I could tell something wasn't right. People were almost raising their voices, arms waving in agitation. Sara refused water altogether, taking one look down the well and walking straight past, shaking her head. I took her place at the front of the queue, not prepared for the sight awaited me as I peered inside.

It explained the particularly long queue this morning.

A meercat had died in the well.

How the bloody hell it had got in, I have no idea. Its legs were broken, bent outwards at strange angles, and blood had poured into the water, staining it red. The smell was overwhelming, the buzzing sound of flies filling the air; Jake leant over my shoulder and cried out.

'Seriously? That's disgusting.' His nose wrinkled up as he cringed backwards away from the stink. 'Dammit, Reuben, what the hell are we supposed to drink now?'

Old Abel behind us clearly didn't give a damn. He pushed us aside, dipped his flask in, and strode off towards the ration pit, grumbling about "slow, bumbling idiots". He didn't even glance at the water inside. We watched him glug several great gulps from the flask; Jake shuddered.

We hadn't noticed Seko creeping up behind us.

'What are we supposed to drink?' Jake whispered again, more to himself than anything. His hands buried into his hair as his breathing quickened; I grabbed his arm to try and pull him back but Seko was faster. Stronger. Healthier. With a sweep of his arm, Seko flung me aside—I landed in the dirt with a thud.

Seko's sharp, piercing features loomed over me, and my heart went cold at his expression. The almost-smile playing on his lips. The flared nostrils. Those perfect, coin-round eyes narrowed into slits.

'Hell no. You do not hit my brother.' Jake rounded on Seko. The gleam of madness sparkled in his eyes. My heart skipped a beat; no one spoke to the robustans that way. Has Jake lost his mind?

'Stop it, Jake, it doesn't matter.' I clawed myself out of the sand and grabbed Jake's arm, pulling with even more urgency than before. 'We're sorry,' I turned to Seko this time, backing away and stumbling over my feet. 'He doesn't mean anything by it—'

'Like HELL I don't! I've had it, Reuben, I've had it with these maniacs thinking they can treat us like crap all the time—you don't get to do this, you don't get to do this to us, Seko—'

SMACK. With one swoop of his fist, Seko socked Jake in the mouth.

Jake flew back into the sand, landing heavily on his back with a yelp; then Seko was on him. His knees pinned Jake to the ground as his fist pummelled up and down, up and down; Jake's legs flailed, kicking up the sand. Useless. Pointless.

What do I do? My words were trapped, too terrified to escape; my little brother was being beaten to a pulp right before my eyes and I couldn't do a damn thing about it. I was too stunned, frozen. My brain in lock-down. My brother! My baby brother!

Something shifted in my brain; I tried to wrench Seko off, but he backhanded me in the nose. He was too strong; pulling his arm was like pulling lead, unmoving, unforgiving. I span around wildly, searching for anything, anything to help—without thinking I grabbed a shovel lying on the ground and swung it with every ounce of my strength.

The blade sunk deep into the side of Seko's skull.

A gasp echoed, rippling through the sand. Followed by the loudest silence I have ever heard.

Momentum caused the spade to swing itself right out of my hands; Seko staggered back, his eyes wide and popping, failing to believe that a human, a mere human, had been able to hurt him. Our eyes locked, and there was something, a flicker, of what looked like fear but it couldn't have been—before it faded into nothingness. Seko collapsed in a heap of blood and brains.

I sank to my knees beside Jake, and vomited every ration my gut contained onto the blood-stained sand. 

*

'Reuben? Reuben?' Someone was shaking me, but I wrenched my shoulders away and gave in to another wave—

'Reuben get a grip! Before the other robustans find us. Come on, boy, we need to move Jake. Reuben?'

The sound of Jake's name reached me like nothing else could. Wiping my mouth on the back of my hand, I glanced at my brother lying in the dust and my heart leapt. His face was already swelling, a mask of bruises and blood, and his eyes were closed . . . but there, there was the gentle rise and fall of his chest. I shook my head, desperate to stay calm. Breathe. Breathe. A small group of anxious faces had gathered in the background, but it was elderly Abel who knelt by my side. He took my face roughly in his hands.

'You've got to get out of here, Reuben. They'll kill you for this, you know that.'

I nodded feverishly. I knew. I had killed a robustan. They would rip me apart, tear limb after limb from my body, gouge out my eyeballs, any form of torture I could possibly imagine, before finally killing me. But not before they killed Jake, of course. I would be forced to watch.

I had to get out. I heaved Jake onto my back, staggering under his weight, and looked around for an idea, any idea. I had to hurry; the sounds of our fight must have carried if the crowd forming around us was anything to go by, and we would only have minutes before the robustans at the ration station were alerted.

'Right,' I whispered. 'It's going to be okay, Jake, I promise. I've got you.'

'What are you going to do?' Abel's voice was low and gruff, but I could hear the concern behind it. I looked him straight in the eyes.

'I'm going to steal the ration van, and get the hell outta here.'

I expected him to be shocked. But all he did was look at me with grim resolution.

'Right.' Sara was pushing her way through the crowd; she grabbed the blood-ridden shovel from the ground, hoisted it over her shoulder and offered me her hand. 'Then I'm coming with you. We're the walking dead here anyway. What have we got to lose?'

I swallowed, taking Sara's hand gingerly, as though it could bite me. Her fingers closed tight around mine and a feeling long-forgotten swelled in my chest.

'Well, if we're doing this, we better get going, kids.' Old Abel pointed to the van, parked innocently behind the sheds. 'We ain't got much time.'

There was no time to even process what their support meant to me. With the gaggle of watchers-on staring open-mouthed at our backs, we hurried towards the van, gagging at the smell of the sleeping huts. We hunched by its side as Sara smashed the blade of the shovel onto the chain securing the back doors—one, two, three times. We heard a yell.

'Hurry!' With Sara's help, I heaved Jake into the back of the van; Abel was already settled in the passenger's seat, and I raced round to the driver's side. Three robustans were already sprinting across the plains by the side of the shed, pointing and shouting; my fingers fumbled with the ignition as the alarm went off. Sara was there in a second, hurling the blade down into the recognition-sensor. The beeping stopped instantly; Sara raced for the back door and I flicked the starting switch—the van revved into life. I yanked the gear stick backwards but the van didn't need me, it knew exactly what to do.

'Just drive, drive!' I yelled, and the van lurched backwards into the path of the robustans, sending them flying in all directions.

'Get us out of here!' Sara screamed. The van jerked forwards with a jolt, and everybody collapsed; we sped off into the distance with old, gruff Abel whooping next to me like a man a quarter of his age.