by Casey, Ryan
“If you do what your mum says, I’m sure you can fight for as many kingdoms as you want.”
Oscar smiled at that. Then he walked off, headed upstairs. Harriet pecked him on the head as he passed her. “I’ll be up soon, sweetie.”
She looked back over at Martin, then. Walked back to the sofa. Sat down. “So come on. What’s bothering you?”
Martin didn’t want to open up, but he felt like he didn’t have a choice anymore. “It’s just… the incident in the woods earlier. I can’t stop thinking about it.”
Harriet sipped her brew. “The shit with the bad folks?”
“See, that’s the thing. I don’t… I don’t know that they’re bad.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Martin sighed and inched forward on the chair. “All I’m going on is something I heard. Something about… revenge. Revenge for something that happened. And then these people… they didn’t look like savages. They had children. And then there was something Harold said.”
Harriet frowned. “Harold? You’re gonna tell me he’s some evil overlord who’s secretly plotting our downfall? Give me a break.”
“I’m not saying that at all. I just… Look. He started talking about making mistakes. Making some bad decisions. And how he’d always act in the best interests of the community. No matter what that entailed. And it just got me thinking. Got me wondering if maybe he did something we don’t know about. Upset some people out there. I don’t know.”
Harriet sipped her tea again. Didn’t speak for a while. Looked like she was really mulling things over.
And then she broke her silence.
“Harold’s a good guy. He wants what’s best for all of us.”
“I’m not doubting that.”
“Then what’s the problem here?”
Martin opened his mouth. He felt like he had something to say, but the words just weren’t coming out.
“I’d say you’re just being paranoid. Reading too much into something there’s nothing to read about. Just… let it slide, Martin. And you know what? Maybe do what he says. Maybe don’t go wandering out there. Only what I’ve been telling you the last few damned months, after all.”
Martin looked up at Harriet. Thought about what she said.
And he half-smiled.
“I’ll do my best,” he said.
He turned. Looked out the window. Over towards the pink sky of the setting sun.
Over towards the trees.
He didn’t care what Harold said.
He didn’t care what anyone said.
Tomorrow was a new day.
A new chance to investigate.
No armed group on the horizon was going to get in his way.
And neither was Harold.
Chapter Nine
Martin saw Ella in the trees.
It was morning. A bright day. Warm sun against his skin. The smell of pine trees in the air, so strong, so fresh. He could taste something. Something fresh on his tongue. The taste of barbecued meat. A full stomach. Fuller than he’d felt in a long time.
He saw Ella up ahead. He couldn’t see her face, but he knew it was her. Those bright white Stan Smith trainers. That Channel Orange hoodie, whatever Channel Orange was. That long, dark hair and that slim physique.
Except he couldn’t see her face. He couldn’t make it out.
If he could just get closer to her, if he could just see for certain...
He tried to clamber his way across the ground. But every step he took, he felt the ground grabbing at his ankles. Dragging him down. Trying to pull him into the earth below. Swallow him up.
He looked back up. Saw Ella was further away. Foggier now. Harder to make out. Harder to reach.
“Ella!” he called.
But his voice wasn’t as loud as he’d intended. He didn’t have the energy. Couldn’t muster the effort.
He had to put all his energy into climbing through the woods, getting closer to Ella. Making sure she was okay...
He battled across the forest floor. Ella grew murkier, muddier, and more distant. “Ella!” He had to stay focused. He had to keep going. He had to keep on trying.
He heard something, then. Movement behind him. Voices. Voices telling him he was a failure.
You lost her.
You failed her.
You let her go just like you let Gary go.
Irresponsible. Irresponsible!
“No,” Martin said.
He turned around. Trampled further across that ground.
And he looked up and saw himself getting closer.
He could see her smile now.
See that gap between her teeth that he always used to tease her about when she was a kid.
“It’s okay, Ella bear,” he said. “I’m here. I’m here.”
He stomped further and further away from those evil whispers, closer and closer towards Ella.
And he felt his hope rising.
He felt himself believing again.
You’re not a failure. You’re not going to let her go. You’re her dad, and you’re here for her. You’re...
When he reached her, she was facing the other way.
She stood there. Tall. Slender. Arms around the front of her body.
“Ella?”
She looked around.
And when she did, Martin froze.
She smiled at him. Maggots ate at the bloody holes where her eyes used to be. Black fluid pooled out of her mouth, oozed down her chin. And blood trickled down her wrists, where deep cuts etched their way down.
“You let them take me,” Ella said. “You let them take me. You abandoned me. You did this!”
Martin staggered back. “No!”
But Ella took a step towards him. “You did this! You did this!”
Martin stumbled back even further. But he heard the whispers turn to shouts. He felt the hands from the ground grab his ankles, hold him in place. Dead hands. Greying, decaying, dead hands.
He watched Ella creep close to him, watched her lift those bloodied hands towards his face.
And then he heard a bang.
He opened his eyes. Stared up into the darkness. Sweat pooled down his body. His heart raced. He gasped for breath, over and over.
He put a hand over his face and felt himself shaking. A dream. A stupid dream. That’s all it was. No need to lose his mind. No need to go crazy.
He closed his eyes again. Lay there, totally still in the darkness. No chance he was getting back to sleep tonight. He’d had dreams like that before, and he’d spent the rest of the night wide awake. Wired.
But at least it was only a dream.
At least it was—
He heard a shout outside.
He opened his eyes. Looked up into the darkness again.
Another shout.
And another.
Like something was going on out there.
Like something was...
He heard Bruce growl, and he remembered the bang.
He thought it was in his dream at first. But he should know from past experience waking up in the middle of the night that it probably wasn’t in his head.
But if it wasn’t in his head... what was it?
He sat up. Edged over to the corner of his bed. He didn’t want to look outside his curtain. He didn’t want to see what was going on out there.
But he knew he had to.
Because there were people he cared about here. People like Harriet.
He didn’t want anything to happen to them. Didn’t want to think they were in any kind of danger.
He thought of the group in the woods. The armed group. And just the thought of them made his skin crawl.
He walked past Bruce, who growled away. “It’s alright, lad. It’s alright.” He patted him. Edged further towards the curtains. Towards the inevitable. Towards whatever he was about to find.
He stopped. Stood there a few seconds. Heart racing. Still shaking from the adrenaline of the nightmare.
And then he took a deep breath and pulled the curtains aside.
When he saw what was outside, cutting through the darkness, every muscle in his body went weak.
The newly constructed wall was in tatters. Flames ripped through the street. Debris covered the sides of the roads.
And there were people lying there too.
Covered in flames.
Missing limbs.
Screaming.
Suffering.
He stood there, a bitter taste filling his mouth, and he listened as those screams grew louder, as that disarray and that panic grew stronger and stronger.
And the more he stood there, the more he watched people race out into the streets to attempt to control things, he couldn’t help thinking of the group in the woods.
That bald man.
The smile on his face.
The revenge he spoke of.
The revenge Harold insisted he knew nothing about.
He looked into those flames, listened to the ear-piercing screams.
And he knew right then that things were never going to be the same again.
Chapter Ten
When Martin stepped outside, he felt like he was walking into a war zone.
The dark of night looked blacker than ever. The air was clammy, not helped by the warmth from the flames in the air. The scene in front of him was like something off that TV show, Chernobyl. Flames creeping up the streets, engulfing the terraced houses alongside them in their deathly grip. Buildings that so recently stood tall smashed to pieces. Air thick with ash and smoke.
And people.
People lying in the middle of the street. Burn wounds covering their bodies. Other people on the side of the road, clutching at the stumps where their limbs once were. Crying out. Screaming.
All Martin could do was stand and stare into this gaping hole in the wall. The taste of vomit in his mouth. The smell of burning strong in the air. Burning flesh.
All of it increasing his nausea. His sickness.
All of it making him want to turn around. Run away.
But all of it making him absolutely certain about what’d happened here.
It was a bomb. No doubt about that. He’d seen the destruction bombs could cause when he was in the Middle East. You’d assume an explosion like this was a clean job. People incinerated in an instant. No worry about them suffering any longer than necessary. But Martin had lived long enough and seen enough to know that wasn’t the case. Bombs were messy. They left people disfigured. In agony. Dismembered.
Suffering.
Martin looked at the scene ahead of him, and he kept thinking about Harriet. About what if she’d had the house on the end. If she’d been caught up in this.
How lucky she was.
“Martin?”
Martin looked around.
Harold walked towards him. Covered in sweat. Tears rolled down his face. He looked like he’d been crying.
Martin nodded. “Harold.”
Harold stood to his side. Stared on, looking at the bodies, at the mess, at the disarray. And at that burning inferno right up ahead. An inferno he couldn’t see beyond, as people threw water at it, tried to ease it off.
“I just don’t understand who would do this,” he said. “My city. My people. Good people. Who would do this to us?”
Martin wanted to ask Harold the same question. Truth be told, he knew already. The people he’d seen in the woods. The armed group. The one he’d had a chance at neutralising. They’d done this. They were responsible.
They walked through the street together, closer into the inferno, closer towards the blaze. Bruce was with Harriet and Oscar at the other end of the street in a designated safe zone. A safe zone within a safe zone. Typical, really.
They walked past bodies covered with towels. Other people being attended to by the limited medics they had on offer. And Martin wanted to do so much to help. He wanted to step in.
But he felt like he couldn’t.
He felt like there was nothing he could do.
He stopped when he saw Moira sitting there, propped right up against a lamppost.
Moira was a good woman. She looked after a lot of the animals here. Always cheery. Always polite. Martin had never seen her without a smile on her face.
But right now, she stared into nothingness.
A blank look on her face.
The half of her face that wasn’t burned away.
He walked over to her side. Put a hand on her shoulder.
And then he heard her flinch.
Felt her move under his touch.
She looked up at him with fear. With agony.
And then she opened her mouth.
Blood trickled out.
She tried to say something.
And then her eyes went blank, and her body went still.
Martin looked away. Shook his head. A bitter taste filled his mouth. He wanted to do something. He wanted to step up. He wanted to help.
But he felt helpless.
He looked up into Harold’s eyes, and he saw something. Another tear rolling down his face. A guy who cared about this city. A guy who was at a loss about how to look after it. About why this had happened. And about how to defend it.
And for a second, he felt bad for Harold. Bad for ever judging him or doubting him.
’Cause this was his home. And he gave a shit about the people here.
He stood up. Put a hand on Harold’s shoulder. “We’ll fight through this. We have to…”
He stopped.
Because he saw something.
Something in the distance.
Something beyond the flames. Beyond that broken wall. Beyond the chaos.
He walked away from Harold. Walked towards that heat. Towards that burning, intense inferno.
“Martin?” Harold called.
But Martin didn’t hear him.
He couldn’t.
All he could focus on was what was ahead.
All he could focus on was what was in the distance.
He reached the broken, burned-up wall, and he stopped.
He saw people out there. People in the distance. People with guns.
That bald guy. The smile on his face. The flames flickering in his green eyes.
And then he saw something else.
Someone else.
Someone standing right behind him.
He couldn’t make her out properly. Couldn’t see her face.
But he could see her tall, slim physique.
He could see her long, dark hair dangling down her shoulders.
And he could see her bright blue eyes.
He stood there, totally still.
All the screaming, all the destruction, all of it disappeared around him into nothingness.
And he said the word he never thought he’d say again.
“Ella?”
Chapter Eleven
Martin saw his daughter standing in the distance and everything around him faded into the background.
The night was dark. The only light came from the fires raging around the walls of the shelter. It was hot. So hot that Martin felt sweat pooling down his face. All around, he could hear shouting. Crying out. Screaming. The horror of the attack unfolding right around him.
But he couldn’t focus on a thing inside the shelter.
Because he saw Ella standing there in the distance.
“Ella?” he muttered.
He staggered forward. Kept on coughing as thick smoke filled his lungs, as the warmth of the orange flames grew all the more intense. His eyes stung. He blinked, rubbed them a few times, not sure whether he’d really seen her, not sure whether he’d truly seen what he thought he’d seen. Just a hallucination. Just a trick of the light. Just in his imagination. It had to be. That was the only explanation.
But when he rubbed his eyes and looked ahead, he saw her again.
She was less clear now. The smoke was thicker. The moon drifted behind some chunky grey clouds, suppressing its light. He couldn�
�t make out her face. It was distant, hard to place. Which made him wonder if this was one of his dreams. ’Cause that’s what this felt like. A dream. A confusing dream.
He stood there, and he heard a voice behind him. Harold. Walking towards him. Covering his mouth. “Martin? You need to get away from there. It’s—it’s dangerous.”
But as Martin looked back at Harold, then back at that flaming opening that’d been blown to pieces where the wall once was, he knew he only had one choice.
He knew there was nothing else he could do right now.
Even if it put his life in jeopardy.
He took a deep breath of fresh air and ran towards that opening.
“Martin!”
He ran past the torn, bloodied limbs of people he once knew. He saw bodies. Bodies staring up at him in various states of suffering. Some of them had painful looking burn marks across their skin. Others looked cooked, charred like they’d been barbecued.
And as much as Martin tried to hold his breath, it was the smell that really got to him. That burning smell. Like meat that’d been left in the oven way too long.
It horrified him. Made him feel sick.
But he couldn’t let it slow him down.
He couldn’t let it stop him. Not right now.
He had to get to Ella.
He had to get to her, and he had to know she was okay.
Why she was out there.
Why she was watching.
He had to get her from those people.
He reached the opening in the wall. Flames danced all around him. Even though they weren’t touching him, his body felt ablaze. And if he didn’t get away from here quick, he would be. His eyes were on fire. His heart raced. He couldn’t hold his breath much longer. And he couldn’t see much in the distance anymore.
Behind, he heard more shouts. More calls to him to come back.
But he stood there, and he knew that was out of the question.
He thought about Harriet. Oscar. About how Harriet said he needed to let go. He needed to look forward. He couldn’t let the past define him.
But Ella was out there.
There was no changing what he’d seen.
So he held his breath and lunged through that mouth of fire, and into the unknown.
It all happened so quickly.