Close now.
Scales of infection wrap around the back of the red right ear of the man on the left. No hair pokes out from beneath a fluffy winter cap, while the one on the right is a few shades darker but still red with cold. Longer brown hair ruffles in the breeze where it breaks for freedom from the cap stretched over his skull.
Ten feet away, and her hands are as cold as ice. She’ll have one shot at this. Quick thrust through the base of the skull and the first will drop without being able to get a word out.
Confusion.
That will be the only thing that will save her. If there is a god in this world, she needs him now. They have yet to notice her approach. She slinks into the shadows, trying to calm her breath and work her muscles for the strike. Once the first is down she will need to pounce like a cat on top of the other. He’ll probably call for help, maybe even scream, but she’ll cut his throat out as fast as she can. He’ll die from his wounds, probably fast, but it won’t matter to her. She’ll already be on the run. Rifle in hand, she’ll be lost to the wastelands before any of the others catch on and can follow her tracks.
They probably won’t even try.
Confidence as high as it will ever be, she moves forward with purpose and on as quiet toes as she can produce.
Five feet now.
The man’s scaly neck sticks out like a ‘come stab me’ sign, and she lets the blade inch out into the world. They still do not notice her. So much for being guards.
“How are you doing tonight, beautiful?” the guard closest to her asks.
Neither man move. She is frozen in place.
“Gets mighty cold this far away from the fires. You sure you aren’t lost?” he continues.
Anger and fury loosens the chains that bind her.
Driving forward she screams and shoves the knife forward, killing edge aiming for his spine.
In movement lost in a blur, the man spins and the attack misses harmlessly over his shoulder. A stiff leg kicks out, and her feet are swept from beneath her. Firelight and darkness spin before her as the frozen ground races to catch her.
“Umph,” she moans as the hard earth beats the bones between her shoulders.
The first man is on top of her now. Iron grip squeezing her wrist.
Pain and fire races through her arms. She can feel the bones begin to crack.
“Bitch is trying to stab me in the back.”
Her hand shatters like ice as he drives it into the ground, and the blade skitters away.
The second guard watches from above. Smiling with eyes as dark as the night sky.
“Let go of me, you stupid fuck!” Elizabeth screams.
Lightning flashes across her face as the one who pins her down backhands her.
“Stupid fuck? Who’s the stupid cunt who tried to walk up behind me in clear sight and stick a knife down my back, huh?” the guard mocks.
His weight is crushing the breath out of her. She tries to shift and kick, but his grip tightens on her arms, and he pins her legs down with knees that are driving into her thighs like blades.
“Let me go!” Elizabeth orders.
Both men laugh.
“Oh, we’ll let you go,” the one on top of her says. He looks up at the other guard and winks. The second one sneers and nods his head in agreement. “But first, we are going to have to teach you a lesson for what you tried.”
He squeezes her arms harder and pain erupts up through her shoulders. She goes to scream but another backhand snuffs out the words.
Thick meaty fingers are now covering her mouth. She can taste the dirt, the sweat, the infection. Nails scratch at the skin of her belly as her sweatshirt and undershirt are pulled up into a ball. Thick legs drive down into the pavement, stretching her legs apart as far as they will go.
She tries to scream, but her words are muffled. Her heart races, and she bites down until she tastes blood on her tongue. A look of pain pinches the man’s face, but he won’t be deterred. Fabric begins to stretch as the man struggles with the buckles that hold her pants tight.
“Fuck this shit,” he says.
No longer settled with undoing the bindings, he begins to tear the fabric instead. Tears run down Elizabeth’s face, and she tries to swing at the man’s head. Dead fingers crunch on the guard’s shoulder, and he swats her away like a fly. Excruciating pain pierces her arm as the other man crunches his thick boot down on her wrist. Her eyes roll into her head as her arm goes dead to the shoulder.
“Oh, come on, not going to fight anymore?” the one on top of her mocks.
He begins to undo the zipper of his jeans.
She is barely conscious. The sky is a black stream, and the fire light of torches is slowly beginning to slip away.
“You are going to enjoy this, you little bitch,” the man says before the weight that holds her down is lifted from her.
Boots kick in the air and breaths come out in a gurgled choking as the guard hangs in the air by his throat. The Chosen holds him suspended beside her, his monster hands squeezing and crushing muscle and bones. The guard’s face is cherry red, swelling, and he looks like he is going to pop. The other guard backs away. His face is as white as snow and his duty and friend are forgotten. Elizabeth rolls to her side. Vomit erupts from her mouth, and she curls into a ball.
Words she imagines were meant to plead for his life sound more like wet and squishy slaps of the tongue. The Chosen will have none of it. She can see fire behind his eyes, and it scares the life out of her. Fear begs for her to crawl away. Do anything that will separate her from his fury, but her body is useless. The numbing cold of the winter isn’t enough to stop the pain, and her hand is swollen to more than twice its size.
Bones crack like rock candy, and the guard’s body begins to convulse. The Chosen holds him like he is nothing more than a child. A few moments pass, and the man stops moving. The monster looks down at her, the fury in his eyes burning through her before softening. He turns back to the dead man hanging from his arm. With the slightest of grunts, he lifts the body over his shoulders, and with both arms, throws the guard over the fence like a used-up trash bag.
Dead weight hits the ground like a rock, and she watches as the arms and legs slap the hard earth as he rolls into the snow. The other guard is nowhere to be seen. She is alone with the Chosen. He turns and looks down at her. She couldn’t run if she wanted to, her body wasted and broken. Arms thicker than she is reach down, and his meaty paws slip beneath her. Like a baby, he lifts her from the ground, and her head rolls until it is cradled by his shoulder.
Warmth pulses through her body and clothes. The man’s skin is on fire. He says nothing to her as they make their way back toward the hospital. He does not carry her through the bonfires where her broken form will be on display for everyone to see. Turning down a side alley, he traces the steps she had taken herself. How had he known? Did he follow her? She can’t think on the possibility that he had followed her without her knowing.
Pain pulses from her shoulders to her feet, so intense parts of her figure death would be much easier. But not her face. Warmth and the gentle softness of fur comfort her face as the rocking of his steps pushes her to sleep.
Ten
Five Years Ago
A week passes by. Three hundred and fifty miles of walking, hitchhiking, and sleeping on the side of the highway, and Merchant finally arrives. The trip was not easy. Road blocks and military checkpoints. Though the insurgency of rebels has been pushed inward across three states, the government of the United States can no longer take any chances, and most of the people’s civil liberties are a fleeting memory behind obedience and curfews. Here, in the western lake region of what used to be New York State, the war and its casualties can be forgotten. If only for a little while.
Stones crunch under the weight of his boots, the soles rubbed smooth and small puffs of dust lifting beneath his feet. The single strap of his Army bag pulls down on his shoulder as Merchant traces steps he has not taken in close to a ye
ar. Blue sky lights the way ahead, broken by scattered puffs of white pillows taking their time as they crawl across the day and the leaves dance in the gentle breeze that cools itself against his skin.
Merchant is home. A quarter mile of drive is all that separates him from what he needs to know. A tunnel of oaks and maples pull at him from both sides, the songs of birds that have never sounded sweeter welcome him as each step draws him closer. The memory of his own death, his guts spilling out, and the taste of that woman’s breath is a distant nightmare. A voice deep inside of his head tries to remember the last words spoken to him, but walking here in the warm sun and cooling shade fills his heart with such a feeling he knows nothing can go wrong in this world.
A smile inches across his face. Pulling at the corners of his lips as he can already see in his mind’s eye his boys running down the porch to see who can get to him faster, and his wife smiling as she waits for him to reach her. That bright brown hair, those ruby red lips. The blood in his veins quickens at the thought of holding her again and what they’ll do tonight when he finally calms their sons enough for them to fall asleep. Her perfume is in his nose. Lilac mixed with the sweet smell of grass and fresh air that filters through the private forest edge they decided to let grow so that their home could be an oasis away from the dangers of the outside world.
Little more than a dozen yards now separate him from where the drive opens to the front yard and the beautiful view of his home and rolling fields of grass. Two dozen acres, purchased with hard years of military service, life out in the country is coveted by few as there are no jobs or amenities out here like there are in the cities. There isn’t a store for miles, and the nearest town is over an hour away by car.
Private.
Serene.
Safe.
This is what they call home. Until the day they die, this would be theirs.
Inside, down in his belly, Merchant feels a tightening. A sharp pinch that races from his gut and causes his heart to jump. He grimaces and places his hand over his chest. He can feel the heat radiating from his skin. It is only excitement he tells himself. He hasn’t seen in his family in too long. Shaking out his arms, he quickens his pace.
The sweet smell of late summer grass and the approaching change of fall begins to fade as it mixes with something that burns the inside of his nose. He can taste it on his tongue. Acidic and strong, he fights the urge to spit on the ground to clean it away from his teeth.
Ash!
Racing now, he drops his bag and rounds the corner where the drive opens to a gentle slope of lawn that ends at the wraparound porch of his house. The grass is there, green and swaying as the gentle breeze moves the blades, bending them until they are golden beneath the warm sun, but the house is gone. Gray support beams are charred and broken as they spear the open sky with contempt. Black soot and ash scar the open ground, the foundation and basement are gaping holes that swallow all that he has come to love.
Merchant runs forward.
The horror he finds worsens as he gets closer. There is nothing left. Every inch of the house is gone. No walls remain. The boards, the memories, all of it turned to ash and dust. Green grass fades to black dirt and broken pieces of wood. He falls to his knees where the front door once stood. Half of the left frame still stands, the broken piece cracked with heat and splintered as it stands against the test of time where all others fell.
Where is his family?
He looks for any sign of their Jeep, but he is alone. Maybe the house burned down in an accident and they are staying with friends up in Buffalo. Reaching for his phone, the knowledge that they are lost to him sinks in before he remembers he no longer has his phone. The wind picks up and swirls the smell of death into his face. Tears run down his cheeks, and his chest throbs with each sobbing breath.
Why?
He pushes himself off his knees. Walking around the foundation of the house, he looks for any evidence of how this happened. Deep inside, he knows exactly what happened, but he must prove it to himself. Around the back, where the kitchen opened to a screened in mudroom, he finds only melted plastic and scarred boards. One of the pieces of plywood, painted a lighter blue than the sky above his head, lies too far from the house. The bottom corners are scorched, but the panel is intact except for a hole punched through it.
Larger than his head, Merchant sees what he does not want to see. Small pellets, lead buckshot wedged between layers where the shot went through and took out a part of the wall. Dark stains of blood run along the underside. Streaks of gore telling the story of someone’s gruesome demise at the end of a shotgun.
She must have fought back.
Merchant grabs the board and hurls it in to the yard. Picking his way through carefully, he steps closer to the foundation and looks to see if there is anywhere he can make his way down. There is no way he can reach the bottom easily. Heat and flames melted the stairs that had come from the central hallway of the house. He can see the bottom step, bent beneath the weight where the first floor has fallen.
Glass and other debris is scattered on the basement floor. All that is left of his life. Digging his fingers into the stained walls of stone, he lowers himself gently until his boots find the hardened cement floor. The smell of fire and dust is too heavy down here. He pulls his shirt over his nose and now all he can smell is sweat and ash. His eyes burn with tears and pollution. Small chunks of wood and cold embers break beneath his feet, and his skin is beginning to turn gray beneath all the dust.
The black scars of the fire are everywhere. He can feel the heat that destroyed his home. Like the pits of Hell, they never had a chance. Toward the back, he can see where the largest boards caved in. Maybe something he can save will be there. Burned and broken, the lumber rests against the basement stone at an angle, shielding whatever may have survived the wreckage.
Everything cracks and crumbles as he pulls the remnants of his life away. Piece after piece falls, and he can see that beneath, everything is dark and scarred like the rest of the house, but he continues. There has to be something that remains of his life.
Ice shoots through his body, and his lungs cough uncontrollably. Merchant falls to his knees and several broken boards fall against him, but he pushes them away like annoying bits of cloth.
His two boys.
They cling to their mother for safety.
His wife.
She holds her sons to her chest, trying desperately to shield them from the flames that took them all.
Their bones are charred and brittle. Empty skulls look at him. Vacant eyes begging to know why. He does not see the skeletons. Images of their last moments flash before his eyes.
Their fears and their screams. The tears that run down his cheeks are not his but theirs. Why did he let this happen to them?
Fury erupts inside of him, and he grabs the last few pieces of broken wood beside them and hurls it across the house. Dust and ash scatter to the wind, and he turns back to the only people in this world he loved. His father’s shotgun rests against his wife’s leg.
Yes, she did fight back.
The stock is burned away and the barrel is dented with heat, but he can see there are no more rounds left. She fought till the end, and then they left them down here to burn.
Fucking cowards.
Merchant reaches forward and touches the tips of his fingers on his wife’s hollow skull, the indentation where her cheek used to be is cold and empty. He closes his eyes and can feel her soft hair fall across the skin of his arm and the warm smile she always had when she closed her eyes to his touch. Pain and tears burn holes into the backs of his eyes. He wants to die. Lay down and perish right beside his family, but he knows he can’t. Just like that woman had said, there was something he has to do.
Pulling his hand away, the bones of his family shift, and his wife’s head drops to the side. Inside of her chest, still wrapped around her neck, Merchant notices the slightest shimmer of light. Gently, he lifts her remains and wraps a finger aroun
d the chain that still holds her tight.
The necklace he had given her the day he had left for his last assignment. He was going to retire. They had saved enough to live a long and happy life as long as the wars stayed to the west.
He unhooks the fragile silver and puts the simple chain and horse shaped pendant into his pocket. Looking to the sky, there is still several hours before the sun falls below the horizon. The men who did this have no respect for family or the dead. Merchant will not leave his loved ones to rest within the ashes of their home.
Three hours pass by the time he returns to where his driveway meets the front yard. Fresh mounds of dirt with piled rocks mark where his family waits for him to join them. A large part of him wants to go now, let his guts fall out one more time and lay beside them in the earth. But the woman is correct, there is still too much for him to do. Lifting his Army bag from the ground where he had dropped it, he pulls the silver chain from his pocket and looks at it in the evening light.
A red sky ignites fire along the polished metal, the horse on it spinning beneath his hand. It is such a simple beast, yet beautiful and full of power. A pale crystal reflects from the body of the animal, and the tiniest red ruby eyes look at Merchant as the pendant sways back and forth. Opening his bag, he drops the necklace inside and slings the one good strap over his shoulder. Fabric pinches his skin as the sack is much heavier than he remembers, but he will not be slowed as he walks back toward the highway. There is still so much for him to do.
There are no roads this far into the plains. There are no people and no towns. Rolling hills of white snow stretch for miles in all directions, and Merchant is no longer certain which way they are going. Inside, he can feel the pull of the highway, old Interstate 80 calls to him from behind so he guesses they are moving north. Cherry Red leads, her face bundled beneath three scarfs, and her red hair blowing in the wind. Dark glasses shield her eyes from the sun that shines across the white glass and burns their eyes raw. His bag sits heavy on his shoulder, pinching at his skin, and his jacket flaps open with every gust of wind as he follows.
Traveling Merchant (Book 1): Merchant Page 8