The Feral Sentence- Complete Box Set

by Shade Owens

  “You’re right. This isn’t okay. What’s happening here is beyond disgusting. These people are playing with our lives for money. You should be outraged. I know I am.” Saliva sprinkled out of my mouth and into the air, but I didn’t care. I was fuming. And to think that the corrupt government took part in this game made me sick to my stomach. “So whatever anger you’re feeling, bottle it up and get ready to use it on the son of a bitch who did this.” I pointed at the dead woman without looking at her.

  Women nodded with determination, their jaws clenched and nostrils flared.

  Stepping toward the body, I bent forward and rested the back of my hand against her forehead. It wasn’t cold, at least not yet, which meant this killing was recent.

  “Check the other cabins—all of them,” I ordered, and the women scattered throughout the Village.

  Before I could step out of the tent, Fisher appeared, leaning against the slanted doorway. She brushed her slick black hair back, scratched her forehead, and sighed. “You should get some sleep.”

  I stared at her as if she’d told me one plus one equaled ten. Was she insane? How could I sleep knowing some trained killer was inside our Village?

  “All right, all right,” she said and threw her hands in the air. “After we catch him, you should get some rest. You’re a mess, Brone.”

  What did she mean by that? A mess? Did I look as awful as I felt? Probably. My muscles ached so much I wanted to vomit. Over the last three days, I’d gotten little, if any, sleep. I was still functioning solely because of my adrenaline and will to survive.

  “Let’s just finish looking for prints,” I said, brushing past her.

  She followed me as I headed toward the back wall, and we continued our path from earlier with our weapons in front of us. The problem with searching for prints on the interior wall was that if he had run up with some sort of cable or climbing mechanism, he would have jumped from grass onto wood, which meant there was a good chance prints would not be visible.

  We’d seen them on the exterior wall because the prints were muddy. There was a good chance that the wet grass inside the Village had cleaned the soles of his shoes. We weren’t looking for muddy prints—we were looking for wet prints, which gave us a narrow window to work with.

  If we didn’t find them in time, they’d dry out. Or, they’d already dried, and there was no way of telling whether or not he’d left.

  I was about to share my thoughts with Fisher when she let out a soft whistle. Turning sideways to look at her, I threw my chin out to say, What is it?

  Without a word, she aimed her gaze toward the wall beside her. What was she trying to show me? I didn’t see anything. So I moved closer, squinting to try to figure out what I was looking at.

  When I still didn’t see it, she said, “Don’t you have perfect vision, Archer?”

  Ignoring her comment, I took another step forward. At last, I saw it. It was barely visible, and I couldn’t even understand how Fisher had managed to see it, but there it was. Right against the Village’s wooden wall was a faint outline of a boot’s print. It was so faint that it looked like nothing more than the texture of wood grain.

  “How the hell did you see that?” I asked.

  Shrugging, she said, “Honestly, I’m not sure. It’s almost dried up. Look, there’s another one.” She pointed a bit higher this time, and sure enough, the faint outline of a boot’s heel was several feet higher. “Guess he’s gone.”

  Our eyes locked. Was he? How did we know for certain? Prints on a wall didn’t prove anything, as much as I wanted them to. This guy wasn’t an idiot. What if this was a setup? What if he’d intentionally left prints without leaving the Village?

  “What’s up?” Fisher asked, no doubt realizing my mind was racing. “What’re you thinking? Talk to me.”

  “What if this is a trick?” I said. “What if he isn’t gone?”

  Fisher’s eyelids flattened. “When’s the last time you ate?”

  I scowled at her. “What does my diet have to do with—”

  “Brone, you’re exhausted. It’s all over your face. I think you’re overthinking this one a bit. The dude’s gone.”

  “How do you know?” I said. “If he left, how the hell did he get past the electric fence?”

  “Maybe he left when we shut it off,” she pointed out.

  I scoffed. “So, what? He’s been camping outside the wall ever since we reactivated BlueVolt’s fence?”

  Fisher stared at me but didn’t say anything.

  Goddamn it. This was getting too complicated. There were too many possibilities without any certainty. I hated that. And I hated to think that maybe she was right—maybe he’d been playing us far longer than we knew.

  “No,” I blurted. “It doesn’t make sense. There’s no way he crossed back over into the jungle. The whole point of this game is to get as many kills as possible, right?”

  Fisher nodded.

  “So why try to run away when you have a bunch of live bodies right at your fingertips? He’s playing the long game, but there’s no way he gave up and fled the Village.”

  “Well—” Fisher said, rubbing her chin.

  “What?” I asked.

  “What if he has the winning score? That’d be reason enough for him to back off and try to survive.”

  Impossible. As far as I knew, he’d killed one of us, while Player 1’s green counter displayed 16 kills. No way had he caught up to Player 1. At least, not unless he’d found other clans or stray women in the jungle.

  “I doubt he does,” I said, but the truth was, I couldn’t be certain. Holding my breath, I tapped my cheek as if it would somehow help me think better. “Let’s go see Player 1. If his score isn’t green anymore, it means someone else is beating him. If that’s the case, then Black Panther’s winning, which means that maybe… just maybe, he did back off.”

  Without hesitating, I twirled on my heels and darted toward Player 1’s cabin.

  CHAPTER 7

  “Are you fucking kidding me?” I said.

  Fisher didn’t speak. Instead, she stood there with two hands gripping her waist and tight lips that translated to, Well, he’s useless now.

  With his wrists still tied behind his chair, Player 1 lay flat on his side, eyes open and skin as white as the moonlight shining through the cabin’s door.

  “That didn’t take long,” Fisher said.

  “He refused medical help,” I said. “It was only a matter of time before the infection spread or before he bled out.”

  Fisher cocked an eyebrow at me. “Why do you sound so pissed off about it? The cabrón’s dead. Ain’t that a good thing? He killed a bunch of our—”

  “Yeah, no…” I said, shaking my head. “I mean. I’m glad the son of a bitch is dead, but I still wanted him alive for intel. Besides, I promised my women they could tear him to shreds after all this was over. Now they won’t get to.”

  A sly smirk pulled at the corner of her lip, revealing a short canine tooth. “Geez, Brone, you’ve changed. You’re upset because women won’t get to literally tear a man apart.”

  Although nothing about this situation was funny, I couldn’t help but smile at how ridiculous I sounded—Fisher was right. Who the hell had I become?

  “Come on,” I said, “help me out.”

  Bending forward, I grabbed Player 1 by his uniform vest and arm and pulled back as hard as I could. Fisher did the same until we managed to place him flat on his back, revealing the death counter on his chest.

  In bright green digits, it read, 16.

  “So he’s still winning,” Fisher said.

  Inhaling deep to catch my breath, I nodded. The simple act of shifting his body over had drained me. Fisher was right. I needed to sleep as soon as possible. Yet I wasn’t certain I’d ever fall asleep—not while we were in danger like this.

  “You okay?” Fisher asked.

  “Yeah,” I said, still breathing hard.

  In the distance, I heard my name being called out.<
br />
  “Where is she?”

  “Brone!”

  “I saw her go in there.”

  Footsteps approached the cabin, so I stepped out to find a woman running toward me. Her mouth hung open and her chest puffed out as she breathed heavily.

  “B-B-Brone,” she said, sucking in a lungful of air. “Th-there you are.”

  Why did she look so distraught? Then, I realized she wasn’t alone. Behind her, next to our main gates, a small crowd had formed, and women closed in with bowed heads and curious gazes.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  “There’s been another attack,” she said.

  Clenching an arrow in my hand, I glared toward the crowd. “When did it happen? Did anyone see the attack?”

  She shook her matted hair and looked back. “N-no. I found the body. It’s one of your guards, Brone. I have no idea when this happened. The other guards beside her didn’t see anything, either.”

  “How the fuck is that even possible?” I stomped forward, wanting to punch the woman in the throat although I knew she wasn’t responsible for the attack.

  I hated feeling this enraged, but I couldn’t help it.

  “I-I don’t know, Brone. No one knows.”

  “Are any other guards hurt?” I growled.

  “N-no. B-b-but—”

  “But what?” I snapped.

  “There’s something else, Brone.”

  I glared at her intently without saying anything. If I opened my mouth, I might say something I regretted. Exhaustion was no excuse to treat my women like shit.

  “It’s… it’s the electrical box.”

  I clenched my fist so hard my knuckles cracked. “What about it?”

  “W-well… Someone… It’s broken.”

  CHAPTER 8

  For a moment, I forgot about SkullCrusher and Black Panther. All that mattered was that the electrical box was damaged. At one end, wires had been cut, and on top, the wire connecting the solar panel to the power box itself had been severed.

  How had this happened? My heart pounded so hard the thudding radiated into my head. While not having our electrical fence up and running was beyond dangerous, my one thought was that our hope of ever being able to advance technologically with electricity was now nothing more than a shattered dream.

  Was the box beyond repair? Had we truly lost our chance at getting light? Heat? Cooking technology?

  “Brone?”

  I must have stood there for several minutes, imagining a dark future stuck in our archaic ways. That box had changed our society’s entire outlook. And now, that outlook was nothing more than wasted hope.

  “Brone.”

  This time, it was Fisher’s voice that pulled me out of my daze. She had a way of doing this; every time she spoke, I was inclined to listen. Maybe it was the close and trusting relationship I’d developed with her, or maybe it was that every time she spoke, there was a sense of purpose in her tone. Anything she said was worth listening to.

  “I get this is shitty, but we need to act fast if we plan on catching this asshole,” she said, staring intently at me.

  As always, Fisher was right. I’d simply have to set my emotions aside and deal with the facts.

  “Where’s Zelda?” I asked.

  Fisher glanced back toward the Village. “I’m not sure, I saw her a few minutes ago. I’ll find her.”

  Zelda was a burly German woman with years of experience working with electrical equipment. She’d worked alongside her father—a skilled electrician—in the small town of Bacharach, Germany, when she was a young girl.

  Though she hadn’t obtained her license, she knew everything about electricity—circuits, amperage, voltage, watts, wiring… which were all things I knew nothing about. Zelda was the woman responsible for helping us set up the electrical box inside our Village walls. If there was anyone who could fix the damage Black Panther had done, it was her.

  Fisher came back with Zelda walking by her side. She walked in long strides, her thick arms swaying back and forth. Her massive size, serious demeanor, and rough-sounding accent made her seem intimidating, but Zelda was a kind woman at heart. Even when she wasn’t frustrated, the way she carried herself and the way she spoke made everyone think she was pissed off.

  Despite her constant scowls and permanent frown, there was a soft look in her eyes that spoke to me. Deep down, she was more sensitive than anyone knew.

  I was also fond of Zelda for her name alone, which always brought me back to my early childhood when I’d spent hours every day playing my favorite game—the 2077 edition of Nintendo’s The Legend of Zelda.

  “Vat is it?” Zelda said, her tone coming out as harsh as usual.

  Pointing at the damaged box, I raised both eyebrows. “I don’t know how this happened, but Black Panther managed to get ahold of it.”

  She stepped forward, sighed heavily, and leaned the weight of her body onto her knees. “Dummkopf,” she said, hovering her finger over the damaged wires. Although I didn’t speak German, the way it came out of her mouth made me assume it meant something like moron or idiot. “He knows nossing about electricity. He cut vatever he could, probably as fast as possible. I’m surprised he didn’t kill himself.”

  With arms crossed, I stared at her furrowed eyebrows, her rounded back, and her fast-moving eyes. “Can it be fixed?”

  She let out another long breath through her big nostrils and without looking away from the box, nodded slowly. “Yes, I should be able to fix zis for you.”

  “How long will it take?” I asked.

  Without warning, she grabbed the entire box with one arm and stood up straight. The thing easily weighed over fifty pounds—I knew because I’d asked Fisher to help me carry it.

  “Not sure,” she admitted. “I vill tell you vonce I’m done.”

  It wasn’t like I could order her to work faster. Zelda was the only woman I trusted to work on this thing. A few other women had stepped forward, proclaiming that they’d once been contractors and hired to do anything and everything from home renovations to pool installations to electrical wiring. While I didn’t think they were being dishonest, I wanted the best there was in the field of electricity—not a Jacky-of-all-trades.

  As Zelda pulled the box up to the Village’s wooden wall, I turned to Fisher, squinting as the morning sun blinded me.

  “We need to keep looking.”

  “We are,” she said. “Women are everywhere, Brone. They’re climbing the towers, moving bushes around… They’ve gone into every single cabin.”

  “What about the rooftops?” I asked.

  “They’ve already checked those.”

  I felt like my lungs were going to explode. I hated this feeling of uncontrollable rage, and I hadn’t felt it in so long that it scared me. What if I blacked out again as I’d done several years ago?

  And why was I even feeling this way? Two years had passed without any incidents. I’d healed, hadn’t I? Or, was this what Proxy had talked about during one of her educational sessions? She’d gone in-depth about PTSD, which seemed to shake up the women. It was almost as if some of them hadn’t realized how much they were suffering, and to hear Proxy’s explanation of their feelings somehow validated them.

  She’d given everyone assignments—tips to deal with symptoms and methods to cope with the pain it brought. The plan was to lead women on a healing path, especially after everything they’d gone through.

  Although I’d denied it for so long, it eventually made sense to me. I may not have served in the military, but the gruesome and horrific things I’d seen were traumatic. No human being should ever witness the things I’d seen. Some nights, I’d wake up in a cold sweat with a graphic image in my mind and wonder if it was a memory or some twisted fabrication pieced together by my damaged brain.

  The pain, the suffering, the torture… All of it still haunted me, as much as I wanted to believe it was too far in the past to matter. As Proxy had explained it, PTSD didn’t just go away—at leas
t, not in most cases. She’d gone on and on about how even years later, a single trigger was enough to bring someone to their knees.

  I remembered the word trigger; the crowd of women had blown up into an immature conversation about guns, probably to mask their discomfort and pain.

  I’d been standing at the back of the crowd, arms crossed over my belly and eyes focused on Proxy as if she were the only woman standing at the center of the Village.

  * * *

  “Maybe you’re mixin’ up your words,” one woman said. With a partially toothless grin on her face, she turned to her friend, elbowed her in the ribs, and let out a choppy laugh. “My doc told me that those soldier folk are the ones who get PTSE—”

  “PTSD,” her friend corrected, leaning into her.

  “I understand,” Proxy said, “but your doctor was mistaken.” She paced back and forth with a hand behind her back as if she’d practiced teaching her entire life in preparation for this very moment. Either that, or she’d been a teacher in the real world. While I didn’t want to pry, I’d always wanted to know how Proxy got herself on the island. She appeared so level-headed—so calm by nature.

  With her free hand, she pointed at the clouds. “Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is often believed to be a mental illness that is limited to veterans. This is not true.” She paused, her glance grazing the tops of everyone’s heads before landing on me.

  Several years ago, Proxy had attempted to explain this to me, but I’d been too defensive about it to let it sink in.

  “Anyone can suffer from PTSD,” she went on. “Seeing a pet get hit by a car could be considered a traumatic event. Anything that causes severe distress—”

  “What about your husband throwin’ your kid off a bridge?” one woman shouted.

  Everyone’s eyes doubled in size, and the woman standing next to her wrapped an arm around her shoulders.

  Without showing any emotion, Proxy nodded. “Absolutely.”

  “What about seeing a suicide bomber blow up in pieces?”

  “That too,” Proxy said.

  “Or your friend getting stabbed in the throat by a fuckin’ Norther.”