The Bastard

by V. K. Ludwig

  Oriel and Adair looked over the map, pointed at different spots and discussed options.

  “We got it,” Oriel said and waved at us. “We follow this hallway and cross through the lab, through the specimen room and then into the teacher library. It’ll save us some time.”

  “Alright.” River nodded. “Let’s just hope the other doors won’t fall out of their hinges too.”

  We sneaked along the hallway and into the lab where the men rummaged through busted cabinets and worn out drawers — with no success.

  “What’s this stench?” Adair asked once we came closer to the library.

  “Burnt diesel,” Oriel said. “I’d recognize it from a mile away. No matter how many times I clean old tanks and injection systems, you can’t rid it of the smell of burnt diesel.”

  Adair pushed the handle to the library and let it swing open. As if in slow-motion, the gap grew more substantial, and the stench more intense with every additional inch.

  He peeked inside, and his shoulders dropped. “Almost five hours in the car with River's shitty music; for nothing. Fucking bullshit.”

  “What is it?” I asked.

  Oriel pushed himself between Adair and doorframe where he froze in the spot and scratched the back of his head. “Looks like someone got way too cozy in here. River, throw me your jacket or a towel or something.”

  I parked my hands by my hips. “Why do you need a jacket? What is it?”

  “Why don’t you take something from your pack?” River asked. “You’re standing right there.”

  “Dude,” Adair snarled. “You wanted to come here, and your woman tagged along. Unless you want her to sob throughout our drive home, you better throw me something so we can cover them.”

  Irritated, I shuffled towards the door.

  “Whoa.” Adair jumped in front of me and spread his arms wide. “River! Jacket. Towel. Now!”

  I turned around, peeking at River. He opened his pack and threw the snow white blanket over to Adair. He pointed at me in a warning to stay back. Once Oriel nodded, I stepped inside the room.

  My eyes immediately darted to the blanket which draped over a rounded shape atop, spreading wider less than a foot below. Coal-black, something like a limb poked out from underneath, and bile rose at the back of my throat. Plush pushed into the corner of my view, one side smudged by soot but the other still a vibrant yellow. Just as I wanted to inspect, River’s chest rose in front of me. He shook his head, twisted expression on his face.

  “Check those books over there and see what you can find,” he said. “The ones on this side are lost forever. They’re either burnt from the fire or moldy from the water that tried to put it out. Go on.”

  I kneeled down by the cabinet on the other side of the wall and worked through the spines. Brown, green and purple, each one of them had traces of ash and soot stuck to them.

  “Here.” I pulled a few books out and handed them to Oriel. “There are a few about attention and behavioral issues. This one talks about cognitive issues.”

  Within seconds, my fingertips turned black, but I continued through the rows. I pulled a few more about childhood trauma, art therapy and even found one about seizures, although some pages had been ripped out. Better than nothing, but none of them mentioned dyslexic students.

  “We have to go to the other library,” I said and pushed myself back up. “I’m looking for something specific, and I didn't find it here.”

  “What if what you’re looking for was on the other side?” Adair asked and pointed at the coaled corpses. No way I will look that way again.

  “Could be,” I said, “but it doesn’t hurt to check. You wanted to go there anyway, didn’t you?”

  Together, the guys distributed the books among their backpacks and flung them over their shoulders, where they clashed against their backs with an oomph.

  “Let’s hurry up then,” Oriel said. “We need to leave here before Rowan sobers out, or —”

  “Shut up!” River said and turned his head towards the door. “Are those… are those footsteps?”

  Chapter 22

  The locket

  River

  Heavy footsteps shuffled and dragged over the battered marble blue vinyl tiles somewhere on the other side of this door. Too uncoordinated for a woman — they knew better and sneaked with carefully placed feet. Not this guy, however. The way he stomped his heels told me someone had his back, or he didn’t expect any visitors. I hoped for the latter.

  “Only one person for now,” I said. “Maybe we can sneak around him and go straight for the Rover. That way we avoid any and all confrontation.”

  Adair’s jaw clenched. “As soon as he smells us, he might call for backup. What if we can’t make it to the Rover? Or even worse, what if we make it and have a dozen guns pointed at us, stepping out the door with a woman?”

  “Adair is right,” Oriel whispered. “We have to snatch him, and we have to make sure he can’t get in touch with his group.”

  “You’re not going to kill him, are you?” a terrified voice pushed between our baritones. Ayanna’s face had turned into a scared grimace, her brows furrowed and her cheeks sucked into her mouth. I had to get her out of here, and I didn’t care what it took.

  “Put your hat on, gorgeous,” I said. “And try to push your hair underneath it a little.”

  As soon as Adair opened the door and eased himself through the gap, he wrinkled his nose and stared back at us. The rancid stench torched the hairs in my nostrils, and Oriel pulled his sweater over his mouth and bridge. Whoever was out there smelled like a toddler in soiled diapers. Adair held his hand up and gestured us out of the room and around the corner.

  Our footsteps resonated through the hall like a melting pot of shuffles, stomps, and sneaks. We turned back into the first hallway, and the stench grew more prominent as if the lid of a septic tank stood open.

  “There was a shadow behind that door,” Ayanna whispered and pointed at the door across from us, just a few steps away.

  Someone had taped cardboard to the other side of the window inset, probably thinking it would be smart. It wasn’t, however, immediately giving away that a stupid motherfucker had taken up camp in there. Not that we needed another clue, though; by now we stood trapped in a diarrhea brown cloud of nausea-inducing reek.

  Oriel and Adair positioned themselves on each side. I held my palm up at Ayanna and gave the door a hearty kick with my boot. Both guys entered, guns pointing and fingers on the trigger, and I pushed the woman I loved behind my back.

  “I want no trouble,” screamed a guy. A telltale sign that it was safe for us to join the party.

  The middle-aged man held his arms skyward, his face covered in scars as deep as the sinkhole by the highway. He reeked of piss and shit as if he used his pants to wipe his ass after he took a dump.

  “I-i am alone,” he stammered. “I swear it by my dead mother’s grave. I am alone, and I don’t want no trouble. Take what you will, but please leave me my life.”

  Pieces of mold-covered jerky, which rested on a metal tray by his kerosene lamp, threatened to grow legs any second now. A blue bucket stood in the corner, and the pool noodle wrapped around the rim gave it away as the primary source of the stench.

  “By the looks of it, someone else already took everything from you but your life,” I said and stepped towards him.

  The man’s face twitched, he took a step back and stumbled over a pile of paper on the ground. Defeated by his fear, his back bumped against the green-speckled wall and slid to the floor, his arms still raised high above his head.

  “We should fucking end him,” Adair snarled. “Look at him. He is dead already, he just doesn’t know it yet.”

  Tremors jerked through the man’s limbs, and tears left behind tracks of pale skin underneath a fat layer of grease and gunk.

  “Oh for fuck’s sake.” Adair flung his hair back. “I’m trying to do you a favor here, man. I bet I can see your skin drape around your lungs from here.�
��

  He stepped towards the man and used the barrel of his gun to push his stiff collar down. “I’ll help you along with your emotions and blow this bullet right through your sensitive heart.”

  Like a mirror, the light of his lamp glared at me from around his neck, where a corroded locket vibrated on his filthy skin.

  “Wait!” I shouted and stepped towards them. “Where did you get this?”

  I dropped onto my knees in front of him and picked up the heavy piece of metal which hung from a chain on his neck. All shine had disappeared from it, and I ran my fingertips over the worn surface.

  “Motherfucker!” I clenched my fist into a tight ball and punched him straight in the muzzle. Blood poured from one corner of his mouth, bright red, which diluted into a reddish brown by the time it reached his chin. “How did you get your filthy hands on my mother’s locket? What kind of deal did Roger offer you in exchange for something that belongs to me?”

  Adair picked up his gun and placed it on the man’s forehead, less than an inch above the center between his eyes.

  “No! Please!” Ayanna’s gut-wrenching scream shrieked through the tiny room, barely larger than a broom closet.

  “Please have mercy,” the man uttered. “I just wanted my sister back. Just wanted my sister back.”

  An orange puddle formed right underneath him and swept towards us in a distorted oval. The man shivered and sobbed without shame, and I doubted he even noticed he had pissed himself. Dehydrated and exhausted, his tears had run dry minutes ago, but he wailed as if he meant to drown us.

  “Enough,” Ayanna shouted from the back. “You are scaring him.”

  He jerked his head from side to side. “You can have her. He-here… take her.” He lowered his hand, pulling the locket off his chicken neck, but Adair pushed the barrel down so hard, the guy flung his arm back up right away.

  “Sister,” I asked. “What the hell are you talking about? Is this some sort of joke?”

  I ripped the thing from his emaciated body, and the familiar sound of grit between hinges crackled when I opened it. But what I found behind the weary shells made my head spin.

  “Take it, man. It’s all yours. Just leave me in peace here, and I promise I won’t make any trouble for you or your lady-friend.”

  “Don’t you fucking look at her or my friend here will make sure we leave this wall behind freshly painted,” I growled. “Turn around Ayanna!”

  “But —”

  “No, but,” I snarled. “Do as I tell you and turn around.”

  I turned the locket in my hand and held it inches from his nose. “Where did you get this picture from?”

  He shook his head in disbelief. “I didn’t mean to kill him. I asked for the necklace, and he attacked me. Are you here to revenge him? Is that it?”

  “You killed a man over this locket?” Oriel asked from the back of the room.

  “No man… you don’t understand,” he whispered. “I just wanted my sister back. I put the picture in there. The old one is still there, right underneath it.”

  Everything surrounding me blurred, and I fell on my ass less than a foot away from his piss. I stared at the locket. Green and vibrant, the background had changed from a dull gray to what might have been juicy leaves. But her warm smile and the way her big black curls slung across her shoulders remained unchanged. Definitely my mother; and definitely a photo taken at a different point. Cloudy thoughts spun around in my head, and I had nothing but a big-webbed net to catch them.

  “Her name?” I said.

  He pulled his knees into his chest. “What?”

  “Tell me your sister’s name.”

  “Katherine,” he said and sunk his head. “But I always called her Kate.”

  “He’s a fucking liar,” Oriel said. “Don’t let him mess with your brain.”

  “I’m no liar,” the guy shouted. “The lady in the picture is my sister Kate. I’m Peter if anybody cares to know. She had to leave our clan almost thirty years ago now when a young guy killed her husband, our chieftain, and then went after her and the baby.”

  Adair lowered his gun and took a step back.

  “What baby?” I asked, the blood throbbing through my veins in thick unmanageable waves.

  Peter put his arms down and rubbed his hands over his face, leaving it almost filthier than before. “The baby wasn’t born yet. She was days from her due date when she left. We helped her escape and fought back the ones who tried to follow her. God knows they wouldn’t have let her live. Everyone knows what happens to a chieftain’s children once another takes over. She died in childbirth, but I know nothing about the baby.”

  The truth cut me open like a chainsaw after a storm, and I threw myself back onto the sticky floor in surrender. Footsteps hurried over the floor, and Ayanna placed her hands underneath my head.

  “Are you ok?” she asked. “Please say something.”

  All my life I thought I had no family, and this piss crusted creature turned out to be my uncle — what a cruel fucking joke!

  “We have to go,” Oriel said. “Should I tie him to the railing on the staircase outside?”

  Ayanna’s hands stroked through my curls. “If he is really River’s uncle, shouldn’t we take him with us?”

  “Absolutely not,” Adair said. “His lie stinks worse than him, and that sure means something. I’m not going to put myself at risk for uncle Peter.”

  “Uncle?” Peter asked, but nobody paid attention to his question.

  “Look at him Oriel.” Ayanna pointed at Peter who had started to cry once again. “He is soaked in his own waste. He is starved. You are three strong young men with an arsenal of weapons on your bodies. Just how dangerous can he be?”

  “Rowan will send him away,” Adair said.

  I pushed myself up and took a deep breath. “Then let him send Peter away. But we are not going to leave him behind.”

  “Ok, whatever. He can come,” Oriel said. “But one thing… he won’t drive four hours with us smelling like that.”

  After we reached the car, Oriel rolled the windows down and hurried back to the townhouse. Ayanna grabbed my hand and gave it a squeeze, and I bit back a tear. Everything was coming together now. We would drive back to the village with my past in tow, and the woman I loved by my side — as good as pregnant with my child.

  Ayanna and I took Peter inside the home and brought three jugs of water along, as well as a thermal blanket and disinfectant.

  “Turn around,” I said to Ayanna as we stood in the bathroom while Peter got undressed and climbed into the tub.

  Stiff and crusty, we could almost lean his dirty clothes against the wall. I threw them out the window instead before they would stink up the small bathroom, and the sour aftertaste soon disappeared. The disinfectant must have burned his skin, but Peter didn’t complain and let me rub down his emaciated body.

  “Alright old man, I’ll pour water over you, and you rub yourself down as good as you can. You got fleas or lice?” I asked.

  “No nephew, nothing like that,” he answered and hid a grin behind the foam.

  Nephew. The word had a certain ring to it.

  The water poured over him in a splash and turned a greenish black, leaving behind more scars in shapes of circles, lines and zig-zag stitches.

  “So you’re… her son? You’re Katherine’s son?” he asked, his voice hopeful.

  I nodded and handed him a towel.

  “And she’s —”

  “Died in childbirth, just like you said.”

  “She loved you, you know. Sang lullabies to you while you were still in her tummy. Even scavenged far West to find you clothes, bottles and a couple of books.”

  Ayanna’s hand stroked my shoulder.

  “I told you to turn around,” I hissed. “I don’t want you to look at another naked man.”

  “I’ve seen many naked —”

  Adair almost pushed the door out of its hinges, his breath fast and shallow. “A group of guys coming fr
om behind the hospital area. They are armed. No time to dress him. Wrap him up and bring him to the car.”

  At that, he picked Ayanna up by her hips and threw her over his shoulder. She gasped, and adrenaline pumped through my muscles, but I wrestled it down. We had to get her out, and for once, I appreciated what a jerk he was.

  Shouts hollered through the air as we stepped outside and climbed into the vehicle. Our door was n’t even closed yet when Oriel kicked in gear, and the door swung shot inches in front of my nose. The tires bounced over the cracked asphalt and dodged the dead vehicles and rubble in the streets.

  Ayanna held onto the seat in front of her, her lips pressed together so hard, not a single sound escaped her. Adair kept an eye on the situation from the side mirrors, his hand stroking up and down the barrel of his rifle, ready to grab it if needs be.

  I turned back and grabbed a change of clothes, and the group of guys appeared in the distance of the hospital’s entrance. They stared after us, rifles and guns pointed. Nobody had ammo to waste out here, and we escaped without a single shot fired. Water drops rested on the leather seat, and I helped Peter into his fresh clothes which hung around his skinny body like an empty potato sack.

  Peter jerked his chin towards Ayanna. “Your wife?”

  “No, she’s not his wife.” Adair turned around and threw a death stare at me. “But that didn’t keep him from fucking her. With that being said, uncle Peter, you better don’t get too used to your nephew. Unless you don’t mind moving to the Ash Zones with him.”

  My stomach churned, and my guts twisted like a wrung out kitchen towel. Ayanna all but disappeared into her seat, her cheeks crimson but everything around it as pale as flour.

  “One year,” I mumbled into my beard.

  “What?” Oriel asked.

  “Nothing,” I said. “Just thinking out loud.”

  It’s not like I raped her. She wanted it just as much. Why did I even care? If she agreed to marry me, Rowan wouldn’t give a flying fuck about how exactly it happened.