CHAPTER SIX: ENDURE
It took several minutes, but Carter managed to get his breathing under control. His dry eyes flicked over to the corpses of the two men he had just killed. His gut soured upon seeing the bloody, grisly state the bodies were in. He knew that they deserved to die. They were rapists, thieves, and murderers, after all. But they were still the first people he had ever killed and that fact alone made him sick to his stomach.
When he was a young child, he had been prone to torturing and killing animals. Nothing major, just insects and small birds he had managed to get his little hands on. He could still remember the intense focus his mind had felt at the time whenever he cut the wings off of a fly or stomped down upon an injured sparrow. He was a kid so he didn’t know any better; he just wanted to see what would happen. Of course, he eventually grew out of such juvenile cruelty as all children were wont to do. He had felt a lot of guilt at his actions years later, his now adult mind confused at just what exactly had been going through his young head when he had committed such acts.
Carter sighed, looking away from the carnage he had created. His body felt exhausted, his arms and back aching terribly. The knuckles of his right hand stung. His dark eyes examined the blood covering them, noting that some of the red liquid belonged to him. The skin atop his knuckles had been torn and ripped, damaged from colliding with Weasel’s face over and over again. They dripped thick red fluid off of his fingers and down onto the cavern floor below where it was steadily forming a small pool. He should probably do something about that.
The dark-haired man remembered the handkerchief he had wrapped around his left palm to staunch the bleeding from when that monster in the forest had bitten him. Carter pulled off the white fabric from around his left limb, the thin cloth sticking tightly to his skin with dried blood. The act was almost like peeling off a second layer of skin, and he felt like a snake shedding its old scales. The handkerchief had all but been fastened to him by the congealed blood that stained the once pristine white fabric brown.
Thankfully, the bleeding from the bite had stopped. Under the cloth, the numerous puncture marks caused by the monster’s needle-like teeth had scabbed over and closed, so that was good. Less good was that the skin around each wound was pale and sickly looking. He dearly hoped that it hadn’t gotten infected.
Despite the state of his hands, Carter felt no immediate fear. He knew he should have been more concerned about his well-being, seeing as he was in the middle of the woods, and leaving such injuries untreated could lead to serious infection. But at the moment he just felt too exhausted, both physically and emotionally. Not only had he suddenly found himself on another planet or dimension, but he had been attacked by monsters, kidnapped by medieval bandits, saw the brutalized bodies of two innocent people, and then ended up killing two men on his own. After such events, his torn-up hands did not seem very important in the grand scheme of things.
Carter grimaced, then took the blood-stained handkerchief and began to bind it around his bleeding right hand. The still-moist cloth felt disgusting, but it should staunch the bleeding.
After he was done binding his wound, he felt lost as to what to do next. He stood and made his way toward a barrel that was situated in a corner of the cave. He had seen Weasel and some of the other bandits come to this barrel to refill their water flasks. Inside the wooden cylinder, he found it almost filled to the brim with clear water. He ignored his inner voice warning him that clear did not always mean clean and dipped his left hand into the cold liquid. He filled his dirty palm with cool water before sipping up several handfuls to quench his thirst. Afterward, he used the now slightly reddish water in the barrel to try to clean himself, splashing it onto his face and trying to scrub off the thick layers of dried blood from his hands. He was not very successful.
Looking around the cave some more, Carter spotted the small, black shape of his cell phone lying on the cavern floor, left there by the careless bandit, Teeth, some hours ago. He picked up the device and examined it for damage. Aside from a few scratches on the glass face, he was relieved to find that it was relatively unharmed. Carter stuck the phone inside his jacket pocket and went about to look for his other belongings.
He began searching the chests and crates that were piled up along the far wall of the cave, well away from the cooling corpses at the center of it. Most of the wooden crates were empty, probably once filled with stolen goods that the gang had since sold. In one small chest though, Carter found the rest of his purloined materials. His apartment and car keys were there, as was his wallet, which the goons had barely glanced over when they had first taken it from him. The same couldn’t have been said for his wristwatch, which had garnered a lot of attention from the thugs. It was just a cheap, thirty-dollar analog watch that he had bought at Walmart, but those fools had acted like it was a Rolex. A fight had almost broken out between the bandits, who each wanted it, but Ugly intervened. The gang leader had settled the matter of ownership by taking the watch for himself, and none of the others dared to complain. Frankly, the loss of the watch wasn’t much of a problem to Carter since it had been cheap and he had several more like it back at home. It had no real value, so it really didn’t matter much to him if Ugly kept it.
What did matter was the item he found at the bottom of the chest. Carter breathed a sigh of relief as he picked up his wedding band, its silver surface glinting softly in the cave’s dim torchlight. He had almost attacked Weasel when the bastard had pulled the ring off of his finger while they were searching him for valuables. Only a warning glare from Ugly and the sight of the thieves’ weapons prevented him from doing something stupid.
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Carter pulled the ring on and let out a relieved breath at the familiar feel of the metal settling around his finger. He had worn the thing every day for the better part of twenty years, so he hadn’t felt whole without it.
Along with his stuff, he found other items in the chest. There were scraps of what was once a pretty green dress, spotted in several places with what could only have been blood stains. This garment obviously belonged to the dead mother, whose unkind fate along with her son’s made Carter’s stomach ill. He quickly turned his eyes back towards the center of the cave whereupon his angry gaze swept over the bandits he had killed. His eyes passed the sorry sight until he found the bodies of the mother and her son, laying still and silent in a dark corner of the cave near the area where he had been tied up. A tinge of rage flared up in his chest upon seeing their broken, defiled forms, his earlier guilt at killing Weasel and Fatso vanishing, only to be replaced by regret. Regret that he had killed those two bastards so quickly. Regret that he couldn’t return even a portion of the pain and fear the mother and son had suffered at their hands. Regret that the other members of the gang might get away with their crimes.
He once again felt sick, this time at the fact that he had been unable to help the mother and son. Why? Why did horrible things happen to good people while pieces of shit like Ugly and his gang continued to thrive? What the hell was the point of living in a world where ugliness like this happened every hour of every day? What the hell was the point of living at all?
Stop.
Carter forced his dark thoughts away. He noticed that his cheeks were wet and clumsily wiped away at the tears with shaking hands.
Breathe.
He took a deep breath. Exhaled. Then breathed in again.
Endure.
Carter gritted his teeth, then reached into the chest and pulled out the tattered dress. He could not help the mother and son, not now. But he could still give them a small bit of dignity in death. He walked across the cavern, past the bloody bodies of the dead bandits, taking care not to step onto any blood puddles again. He grabbed Weasel’s blanket as he swept past, making his way to the slain mother and son. Once he stood over the pair and their pale, still forms, Carter covered their nakedness. He wrapped the young boy in the rough gray blanket while he placed the billowy form of the dress over the mother. It wasn’t enough; in fact, it was damn pathetic. The two deserved to be buried. But Carter knew he didn’t have the time to do so. Ugly and his gang might return to the cave at any moment. He needed to flee, and soon.
Carter muttered an apology to the two, regretting his inability to do better. He then moved quickly, first picking up and putting on his shoes, then quickly searching the cave for anything else he could use. He found a locked chest near the back of the cave in the area where Ugly had set up his sleeping area. The chest was small with a padlock sealing its latches. Thankfully, the lock looked old, so Carter used a nearby rock (not the one he used to bash Weasel’s face in) to break it open. After the fifth strike the lock shattered. Inside the chest, Carter found what looked to be the gang’s stockpile.
The contents were several small burlap bags, each of them bulging with what felt like metal coins within. Carter opened one and saw that his guess was right; inside were coins of various sizes and composed of different materials. The smallest coin was about half the size of a penny, but was thinner and made of what looked like real copper. The tiny coin was also blank and wasn’t marked at all. The next largest was about quarter-sized and made of what seemed like iron; the black coin composed the majority of the coins in each purse and had the regal profile of a man on one side and some strange lettering on the other. The rarest of the coins were made of silver and gold, each of which was larger than a silver dollar. These held a fiery bird on one side and crossed swords on the other.
Carter looked down at the small chest filled with coins and grimaced. So this was all that the lives of the mother and son were worth. As well as the gang’s other uncountable victims. A small pile of copper and iron with some bits of silver and gold thrown in. Carter was never good with money so he hardly knew how much these coins were worth back home. What he did know was that whatever the amount was, it was definitely not enough.
He wanted nothing more than to find the deepest pit in this world and toss the chest of ill-gotten wealth down into it. But he held himself back, knowing that he shouldn’t do that. He was in another world, after all. He had no money, no job, no documents, and no identity here. He had nothing but the clothes on his back and the small number of trinkets he had brought over from home. It would be extremely stupid to throw away all this money. He would definitely need it in the future.
Besides, stealing it from Ugly and preventing him and any of his sick gang from using these funds appealed to him somewhat. It was a small, shallow victory, but he would take it.
Sadly, the chest with all the coins was too heavy to carry. Carter thought for a moment before swiftly tearing open all the bags and dumping their contents into the interior of the chest. Once all the bags were empty, Carter sifted through the coins and began picking out the silver and gold pieces. He put all of the more valuable coinage in one of the bags. Eventually, Carter found himself with a small pouch filled to the brim with silver and gold coins. It really wasn’t much, just 13 gold coins and 41 silver, which made him even more disgusted at the gang’s actions; so much carnage for so little gain! Despite his indignation, the dark-haired man shoved the pouch into his jacket pocket and stood up. He looked down at the copper and iron coins left inside the small chest, frowning at their contents.
Carter frowned, then lifted a leg and kicked the side of the chest. The small container toppled over, flipping onto its side and causing the hundreds of coins within to spill out onto the cavern floor. The crash of the wood and scattering of the coins echoed loudly around the cave’s high walls.
It was petty, but it also served a purpose. If Ugly’s gang was too busy collecting the coins off the floor, they’d be too busy chasing after him. Carter kicked at the coins some more, scattering them across the cave further. Once he was satisfied that his would-be pursuers would be adequately occupied, he made his way out of the cave. He forced himself not to look back at the mother and son, lest his guilt at failing them return.