Andrew remained sick for a time, and we watched over him while he recovered in my bed; I’d taken to sleeping on the floor—Dave visited often and Gemma came whenever she could sneak away from the watchful eye of her father, the Bosses, and their servants. The young man’s wounds were terrible, easily beyond my expertise (although I had some field experience, I was sure at times that Andrew would die) and he spoke often in his sleep, and he said Gemma’s name all the time. I fed him heartened soups when I could and gave him water, but his eyes remained unfocused like he was staring off into the great beyond somewhere. Gemma grew more worried with every passing day, and she tried to rouse him from his stupor, but nothing she did could breach his strange daze and Dave, whenever he came, helped me lift the boy, check that he wasn’t developing unnecessary sores, and he would aid in replacing Andrew’s bandages.
During his recovery, I stayed home often—more often than ever—and I would remain awake well into the night and smoke tobacco, lighting one cigarette off the last and theorizing his recovery. There was a night where I stood by the door with the entryway left partly open and blew smoke from its crack into the open air, and then I heard the boy speak and he said, “That smells.” I turned to see him sitting directly upright, eyes lucid but watery. Then he shifted into the blanket and immediately fell to sleep again. It was then that I knew the boy would live; still he slept hard, and still when Gemma came, he did not respond to her prodding, but his health seemed inevitable.
It rained twice while the boy was in bed and each time, the people in town grabbed up pails or stained washtubs and caught the brief downpours and some stood out in the falling rain and watched the zigzag lights shoot across the plump gray sky while I remained afraid that Leviathan might show or that any false shadow on the horizon might be that awful dragon, but each time my worries were proven unfounded.
When Andrew awoke in full force, he asked me for his severed hand, and I returned it to him in a wide mouth jar and he examined it and thanked me for keeping it; the dead thing was rotted, and bones began to emerge from the flesh around the fingertips and knuckles.
Gemma came and her presence had become a custom and upon him seeing her, he recoiled and told her to leave him be, but she couldn’t and instead went to him on the bed where she’d sit on the edge and reach out with her own scarred hands and he’d tell her, “Leave me alone.”
She wept, but the boy kept a stern expression, and she nearly stopped coming once he’d made himself clear that he no longer loved her.
It had been a week since Gemma’s last visit and nearly three since me and Dave first brought the boy to my home and I finally asked the boy in the bed, “Was it necessary to hurt the girl like that?” It was night out and through a crack in my room’s door, I could see the faint push of the moon’s milk splash light.
“I’m here because of her,” he told me.
“You’re here because of her father.”
“He hates me.”
“Do you hate her?”
“I couldn’t hate her ever.”
“Are you trying to protect her or yourself?” I asked.
“It could be both, but I don’t wanna’ talk about it. I think I’d like to go west though. It’d do me good to get out on my own, away from here.” Andrew pulled himself into a sit in the center of the mattress, moving slowly for his injuries, and draped the blanket around his shoulders then pulled the covering in close near his throat. “I don’t think I like it here—there’s nothing stopping me leaving either.”
“You’d certainly die on your own.”
“Then I’ll wait for those weirdo, pointed hats and I’ll ask them to take me with them.”
“Maybe.” I thought of how I’d told Suzanne I’d visit in a month’s time since their last arrival in Golgotha and the time had nearly come. “Perhaps we ought to find you a chaperone.”
More days passed us by, and Andrew felt better to remove himself from bed and properly bathe and I showed him the dosage he should take then let him look after his own medication. His spirits remained low while his cheeks ran with more color and although he hobbled about, he seldom went from my home and kept to himself—on more than one occasion, I tried to get him to go to market with me and he refused each time. Andrew’s brooding nature was an illness I couldn’t help and maybe that’s why whenever Dave came with the mutt—he’d taken to calling the animal Trouble due to the dog’s nature of going where it was forbade—Andrew’s face illuminated at the dog and the dog would go and rest its head between the boy’s knees whenever he sat and look up and the boy rubbed the dog’s ears and whispered to it secrets that he didn’t care about sharing.
Gemma came again and this time she was not the fawning doll of affection, but angry and rightly so; she’d pushed into my home after a light knock and Dave and Andrew and Trouble, and I each turned to see who might enter the already cramped room. The girl shut the door gently behind her then stepped quickly across the room, removing her head wrap. “You’re leaving?” she asked while pointing a finger at Andrew’s chest; the poke to his breastbone made a sound and her stance was aggressive, and she towered over him where he sat on the edge of the bed with Trouble at his feet; the dog merely lifted her head and examined the people. “I could kill you.”
“They already tried that!” Andrew spit with his words. “Besides, who told you that?” His eyes shot to me where I’d taken up leaning at the corner near the door.
I shook my head while Dave shifted nervously from his right foot to his left foot.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said. Her hands shook while she made them into frustrated claws. “How could you?”
“Go home.” The young man spoke dully as his eyes went dim.
“I’m going with you,” she said.
“The hell you are,” I spoke up.
Gemma pivoted then cut her eyes at me. “Why not?”
“Did you fuckin’ forget what happened last time? You ain’t going anywhere.”
“Do you really think my father would actually let everyone go without water until they die?”
“You know him, don’t you?” I said.
She sighed then sat on the bed alongside the boy.
Andrew shifted from her then said, “I don’t want you to come with me. Stay here,” then he added, “Stay away from *me*.”
Gemma left, not even caring to return the disguise to her head in her hurry; once she was gone and there was no indication of her return, Dave spoke, “You did the right thing.” He clenched his jaw.
Me and Dave went to Felina’s at night if only to have a place to go where we could speak without the boy’s ears; he’d had enough trouble as of late and did not need to be caught amid a coup. We’d left Trouble with him and although he’d given us a concerned look, the boy merely shrugged and went to playing tug-o-war with the mutt on the end of an old rag. The brothel had become a meeting place for me and him where we would go and whisper—it had been a long time since I’d had anyone to do that with on a regular basis.
Dave had informed me that his friend—the one that worked in the basements alongside the Boss’s stores—wanted to meet in person to plan our next moves. It should also be good, on the chance that anything happened to Dave, I would know the face of the man.
Felina’s first floor was empty besides us, and the barwoman bathed in candlelight, and not a peep came from upstairs; we’d taken up in what had become our usual table and each object and person were caught in dancing ribbons of orange light.
“I’ll be gone for weeks,” I warned Dave, “I won’t be able to help you till I return.” It was true; the travel to Alexandria would take a long time, and longer still if Suzanne forced me to hesitate.
He nodded as Felina brought us our water and then leaned in close, took a sip, then nodded again, seemingly stuck in thinking. “You don’t mean to slip out on me, do you?”
I shook my head. “I’ve got a person to see. Whatever transpires here and the aftermath, I want to see them one last time if it means I’m to throw my life away on this uprising you’ve got.” I took my own cup and drank it in one go then set it away.
There was a long pause where he rubbed his thumbs along the rim of his cup and stared into the pool there; he opened his mouth as though to say something then shut it again.
“I keep my deals.” A chill pushed through me.
“I know. Who would’ve thought I’d trust you?” He smacked his lips.
“I’ll come back.”
“I know.”
“I mean it.”
He finished his own water. “Let me go with you.”
The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
“Hm?”
“You’re taking the boy out west, out to where the wizards are, huh?”
“Sure.”
“Well, I’d like to go and see if they’d care to send any aid.”
I fought a smile. “They don’t fight. They’re soft folks.”
“Still.”
“Still what? I just told you. You’re not going to raise them to start a war. They’re traders, pagans—liars too. Proactive violence is something they don’t condone.”
“They couldn’t give us some—I don’t know. Don’t they have like spells or something they can teach us?”
I caught a surprised laugh in my cupped hand. “You think—It doesn’t work like that.”
Dave began to fidget in his seat. “You don’t haf’ta make me feel stupid.”
Without even realizing it, I reached out with a hand and put it on his shoulder for comfort, “Sorry,” I quickly withdrew the hand, “It’s not like that.”
“Well, what is like then?”
Just then, the door to Felina’s pushed in to reveal a haggard gentleman, pale, angular cheekbones, and deep eyes; it could only be Dave’s friend from the basements. The man came to our table and sat across from us, keeping his hands together and massaging his knuckles in front of his chest then leaning forward preparing a whisper; Felina, from her post behind the counter, shot a glance to us gathered, but otherwise continued in her own concerns, reading some book she kept with her.
“I’ve got something you should see,” said the man.
Dave grinned, but I did not care for the cut of the man’s gib, and I sat a bit straighter in my seat—Dave greeted the man warmly, “Mills, this is Harlan.”
The man shot a glance to me then a small nod, “Yeah, I know him.” Mills directed his attention back to Dave, “I’ve got something you should see. Outside. Right this moment.”
An ethereal dreamlike pause fell across the table, and I felt lightheaded and even Dave’s demeanor changed. There was a brief smile that fell across Mills’s face, but it was gone just as quickly as he shifted in his seat.
Finally, I spoke, “You could lie better.”
“I’m not lying,” protested Mills.
“How many are there?” I unsheathed the knife from my belt and traced my eyes across the dark and windowless room.
Mills opened his face, incredulous, and then shut it and slumped on his seat. “What are you talking about?”
“How many are waiting outside for us? Are they here to kill us or do they intend to capture? Say it plain and don’t try to deny it.”
“You fella’s are paranoid, huh?” said Mills.
Dave stood and put a hand on my shoulder, but I shirked it away, and the man chewed on the inside of his mouth then said, “Mills, please tell me you didn’t turn us in.”
“I wouldn’t,” said Mills. He scoffed. “There’s no way I would. How could you even think that?”
“Did they tell you you’d be safe? Did they tell you that everything was fine? I’ll tell you something—nothing that happens in this town’s fine. If you can’t see that.” Dave drifted off. “Well, Harlan,” he directed his attention to me, “What now?”
“We could skin him,” I brandished my knife and Mills recoiled. “I’m kidding. If those troopers are outside waiting on us, then we’ve got bad trouble on our hands. If we don’t do something quick, they’re liable to kick that door in and spray us dead.”
“You could go quietly,” offered Mills. “That Harold likes you pretty good,” he nodded at me, “I don’t think they’d hurt you bad.”
“So,” I said, “He admits at last. What’s the number? How many wall men did those jackals send?”
“Just the Sheriff. He wanted to talk. When I spoke to him, he seemed more pleasant than most.”
Dave moved to the counter where Felina was and he began saying something to her, hushed.
“What’s the Sheriff want?”
“He said he wanted to talk to you.”
“I don’t’ have a thing to say to the man.”
“I believe it. I believe he wants to talk with you and nothing more.” Mills seemed tired.
I kept my knife at the ready.
Dave returned to the table and stood beside Mills where he sat, “She said there’s a back way out,” said Dave.
We moved and Mills remained, but Dave rounded the table far more quickly than I believed him capable, pulled Mills to his feet by the scruff on the back of the man’s neck and without too much protest, Mills was our captive.
“I’ll scream,” said Mills.
“If you do, this blade’s going straight up your ass,” I said.
The three of us, in a strange marching line with Mills in front followed by Dave then me, rounded Felina’s counter and we followed the woman into the backroom where she lived; in the far corner was a bed with a sink—standard amenities—a few old books, and an exposed closet off the wall where clothes hung. She ushered us toward the rear of the room, furthest from where we’d come, and pushed a doorway into the warm black night that smelled of chicken feces.
Dave directed a whisper to the woman, “They might hurt you for helping us. Come with us.”
“Fuck ‘em,” she said, then pulled the door shut with her still on the other side.
We were there in the dirt street on the backside of the brothel, and it was quiet and empty—most of the exposed windows down the lane were black save the hydro towers. We took off, Dave keeping one of Mills’s arms pushed high on his back so that the man couldn’t move too far off the directed course.
“Where do we go?” said Dave, “Aw hell, I don’t even know where to go!”
“This way,” I said.
“Where are you leading us?” he asked.
“I’ve got to get my things.”
“You’re going home? They’ll be waiting there, won’t they?”
Just then, gunfire erupted from the direction of Felina’s; it was a short spurt, followed by perhaps shouting, then another volley of gunfire and then it was quiet.
Dave shifted on his feet, still holding Mills, like he intended to rush back; I put a hand on him and shook my head.
“Where do we go?” Small terror melted with his voice.
“We’ve gotta get out of town.”
“They’ll shoot us from the walls.”
Mills mumbled, “Well you can just leave me here.”
Ignoring this, I said, “All of my things are home,” then I thought to add, “What about Andrew? If they’ve already ransacked my place, they’ve surely killed him.”
“Trouble too,” said Dave, “Oh god.”
Then the bells over the hall of Bosses rang and my stomach twisted; lights in homes began illuminating in response to the ruckus and denizens stepped from their places, looking up and down the way. We stood there in the street and for the first time in a long time, I was frozen. Dave pushed on down an alley, Mills protested in saying that his arm was broken (it wasn’t) and I followed, totally bedazzled.
In the rush, Dave let go of our prisoner and directed me to keep the man and then he asked, “Have you got matches—a lighter? Something!”
I fumbled in my jacket pocket and produced a lighter; Dave snatched the thing from me, and we moved on further down the alley, further from the bells—along the way Mills cursed us and Dave flinched and balked at every person we moved by in the shadows, for they might be a wall man. People began screaming and more gunfire rang out—this time ahead of us; we spilled out of the alley into an opening which connected several narrow streets where two soldiers were standing over a body in the dark; Dave stopped ahead, and we shrank back into the alley then pressed ourselves against the exterior wall of an abode where the overhanging catwalks kept us in shadow.
One of the wall men kicked the unmoving body then fired another round into it; the corpse spasmed momentarily. If I had a softer heart, I would’ve vocalized the reason for the killing, but I knew because I’d seen it happen before; when killing started, those with the will to do so always stepped to the occasion. They’d heard the same gunfire we’d heard and decided not to be left out. The wall man fired another round into the body and for a flash, his face was illuminated, and I could see he was young—even if the millisecond of glow had twisted his expression in a wild blaze.
“Lemme go!” hushed Mills, popping me squarely in the groin with his free hand.
As he launched away from us in the shadows, I huffed forward, swiping my blade wildly, eyes blurred; with reckless thought, I would’ve gone after him, but Dave reached out to stop me and Mills charged toward the wall men in the square opening; I think he shouted something at them—maybe it was about where we were hiding and about how we’d been terrible captors.
The traitor danced with the echo of gunfire and the soldiers had a new body for target practice. The wall men paid us no mind in our poor hiding place—wilder gunpowder screams filled the night air and blood began to drift on the wind.
I’d not even noticed Dave holding my hand in the dark as we took to crouching behind rubbish pushed to the sides of the alley. “We’ll split up,” said Dave, letting go of my hand.
“Wait,” I slid my back up the wall to stand, putting my knife away, “That sounds like a terrible idea.”
“I know,” he said, both of us remaining in shadow, close enough that our shoulders were touching, “I’m heading towards the hall.”
There was a long pause; more shrieks echoed around us in that narrow passage and then I nodded.
“To the basements. To the gunpowder. I’ll try and catch you near the gate. If not.” He shook his head. “Goodbye tinman.”
Dave launched himself incredibly quickly from the shadows then moved the way we’d come from, keeping low and weaving. I soon followed, and I believe I saw him circling around one of the hydro towers in the ensuing chaos. A young boy was shoved into the moonlight where the brace of a rifle met his head; a woman was declothed then beheaded; an infant was sent through the air from the end of a mighty swing where it met the exterior wall of a storage shed. I saw them all and in the fury of the wall men, I lost sight of Dave and I kept to the darkness and held in my screams to remain unseen.
Doubling back some around the area by Felina’s where the buildings opened some, I saw Boss Maron barking orders, a club used to point before he put it to use against bewildered citizens. The night was cool and lonely, as I’d been accustomed, I moved quickly and without worry—survival reigned supreme in the labored breaths I inhaled through Golgotha’s blood-soaked streets where people pushed by or hid in the darkest recesses; a few times I happened by an open window and saw people scrunched in a corner on their haunches with their eyes closed and sometimes they prayed. Upon nearing the stairs that led to my home—the steps mere minutes away—a man scrambled around on his hands and knees. Thinking I could propel over him, he caught my foot and I stumbled and twisted around, ready to stick him with my knife; the man threw himself at my waist, clinging around my hips with locked arms, begging up at me with blood in his face. Moonlight caught the shine of his own mishappen brain exposed along the right side of his shattered skull. “Help! I’m on fire!” screamed the man, foam clung to his mouth, “Water! I’m burning!” I bit my lip and shoved the man off and he continued scrambling madly in the dark till he found a tub of stagnant water—knee high—precariously pushed against the wall of a nearby alley and plunged his head into the murkiness and he did not move again.
With focus, I rushed on, passing by executions in the streets, screams of mouths ground in the soil beneath boots, and all the while the moon hung between the shadows of the tall buildings, swathed in a gown of mist in a sky of absent stars so the night stretched like the void it was.
Coming to the stairs that led to the catwalks where my home was, a pale hand, stained dull red, shot from the darkness beneath the steps and held onto my ankle—a yell escaped me and I stumbled back, kicking at the hand with my free foot. The hand recoiled, cursed, then Gemma removed herself from the space beneath the stairs; scarcely, I could make out the face of Andrew still there in the darkness and the low growl of Trouble and the chaos fell away for a moment, and I asked the girl, “Are you hurt?” examining the blood on her clothes, on her hands. “What are you doing here?”
“I killed him,” she said while Andrew came from the recesses, the mutt at his side; the boy had my old shotgun slung over his shoulder, “I killed him,” the girl repeated, “So I could go. He’s dead.” Her eyes were far, and her fists hung at her sides.
“You’re all alive?” My quivering words barely registered to myself over the wails and clacks of war toys and a wall man began to pass us by, chasing after a boy with a long-flamed torch pushed over his head by his scrawny arm while he caterwauled a primitive shout into the night—the wall men stopped at us.
The soldier’s eyes reflected amidst the overhead catwalk shadows, and his facial hair was thin enough to be a stain and he raised a pistol to my face, and seeing the black hole of the barrel I merely closed my eyes, wincing, waiting for it. “Get inside. Please,” said the man before I cracked my eyes to see the openness he’d filled was empty, the clank of his gear rattled in his absence before disappearing after him.
“Might’ve killed you,” said Andrew.
I shook the thought from my head. “We should go.”
Gemma rubbed the dried blood down the front of herself, “He dropped so fast.”
“Shh.” I grabbed the girl’s hand and the boy followed at a restrained pace, the dog sniffing after, tail pulled between its legs, and I happened to notice its ears perking at whatever sound when I’d glance to be sure they came. We gave the hydro towers a wide berth, keeping to the western side of town till we met the buildings nearest the wall where there was relative quiet from the devastation; onlookers still pushed their moonlight glazed faces from apertures and watched us go and some called after us, but we ignored them. “Keep up!” I urged the youngins, “Don’t dally! Don’t fall behind!”
“It’s hard keeping this fucking thing and watching the dog!” said Andrew.
I reached over, slid the gun from his body, and put it across my chest in both hands. “Did you happen to grab any of the ammo?”
His refusal to answer made me slip the strap over my shoulder and we carried on till we met an alley that slithered to the opening of the southern square where the gate was. We hung in the darkness by a dead metal wagon of crates covered by a stained blanket and then I was at a loss. Smoke met us and I was sure there was a fire the way we’d come. Perhaps it was for the smoke or fire or the blood, but upon nosing out from the corner that led into the square, the snipers on the wall too began firing their weapons and I was certain they’d seen me and were shooting at me for a moment, but upon freezing in my position, I realized the people on the wall’s ramparts fired at something beyond; a volley of them resounded and I felt the others pull in close to me so we were all clumped and touching and the dog had gone from flinching to shivering for each round was so quick after the last. Surely, if Dave intended to meet me there at the square, he’d be there—my eyes scanned the black scenery.
“Mutants!” a woman on the wall shouted to her comrades, “More ‘en I’ve ever seen! Get your asses up here!”
The kids babbled something, and I hushed them and told them to stay in the darkness while I moved forward where large gashes of bluish moon threatened to betray my location and I moved to the unguarded electrical switch—surely they’d close it back soon enough—opened its door and flipped the switch and the grinding of the gate coming to life was never so loud before as its clockwork innards did their job. I could only imagine the bafflement of the wall men. I motioned for the kids to follow, and Gemma lifted the dog up in her arms, still making better pace than Andrew. The sound of boots rattling on the wall overhead came and someone fired down at me, but I pushed back towards the wall and the dirt ground between me and Gemma erupted spits of dirt. The girl shrieked, coming to a halt so the boy slammed into her, and they both stumbled in a mess, and caught one another without falling. Trouble yelped.
I pushed from my spot, gathered them in my arms and we moved like a strange centipede to the opened gate where we slid through to immediately be met by a meridian of glowing yellow eyes perhaps fifty yards out. The mutants, things once human but twisted by some greater demon, fought over one another in their lurch with jagged motions, pale in the moonlight without hair and thin skin that clung to bald heads and mouths blackened from filth and teeth nubbed from the circular grinding of their jaws; the creatures came with their homunculus growls, their hunched backs, their lizard quickness. They came for the direction of the open gate and all I heard were screams and the scuffle of our shared balance as we took across the blue horizon of open space and I ushered across that expanse with the black ruins on the horizon and the smoke rose over the starless sky and although I was certain we’d be shot dead in the back, providence saved us—no, it was Dave.
The earth trembled beneath our feet, and I heard the confetti of rubble on rubble and the earth itself screamed and I knew Dave had done what he’d set out to.