by Rick Wood
How had she fallen asleep?
She lay on her back on the sofa, Boy soundly asleep, his arm draped across her chest. His breath puffed against her chin and she never felt smaller.
A muffled bang sounded from outside the house.
Was that what had woken her up?
Another bang.
Was this it?
Were they outside her house?
Had they seen her? Were they coming for her?
She gently lifted Boy’s arm from around her and shifted his much greater weight away. She stepped over his tall body and placed her feet gently on the carpet. Even though her feet wouldn’t make a sound, she stepped lightly anyway, instinctively being cautious.
She paused and listened.
Another muffled bang, but it wasn’t in the house, nor was it against the door or the wall.
She crept to the window, moved the curtain marginally apart, and peered out.
She could see little in the darkness. She squinted and peered and struggled to see where the noise was coming from, but then another muffled bang came, and her eyes quickly directed themselves next door.
Graham’s house.
Three of them. Big, burly men. Knocking on his door. She didn’t recognise any of them.
“Come on, Graham,” one of them said. “You knew it was your turn.”
Your turn?
She had no definite proof of what that meant, but she made a quick assumption and stubbornly stuck to it.
Looking back at Boy, she hesitated.
Could she leave him alone?
Next door, one of them barged open the door.
She couldn’t let them get to Graham.
She grabbed the front door key, rushed to it, unbolted and removed the chair she’d propped against it, and flung herself out.
She took a moment to lock the door, then buried the key in her pocket.
There was no point being subtle, no point sneaking up on them—what help would that be?
“Oi!” she shouted.
Two of the men looked at her. Where was the third?
“What’s going on?” she shouted.
“Go back inside,” said one of the men. “This doesn’t concern you.”
“It does, what are you doing?”
“Go back to bed,” said another assertively. “You don’t know what you’re messing with.”
From the doorway came the third man, dragging out Graham, his arms interlocked between Graham’s elbows.
“No!” Cia shouted, and rushed to this man, trying to pull him off Graham.
“Cia, stop,” Graham said. “It’s okay.”
“No!” she repeated.
It was not okay.
Whether or not Graham knew what they were doing, it was not okay.
She needed Graham.
He was the only one who understood her, the only one she trusted with Boy.
They couldn’t hurt him, they couldn’t.
One of the other men pushed Cia away. She fell onto her back but quickly launched herself back up again. She punched the third guy’s head, repeatedly; even though it had little effect, she did it, until one of the others pushed her away.
“Back off!” he demanded. “This does not concern you!”
“Get off him!” Cia said, ignoring the objections.
“Cia,” Graham said, in as calm a voice as he had ever used. “Please. It’s okay.”
“No, it’s not,” she said, and continued battering at the man holding him captive.
“Will someone deal with this bitch?” said the third man.
One of the other men stepped forward, and she swung her fist so hard into his Adam’s apple he fell to his knees and choked.
“Cia!” Graham shouted, but she ignored him.
She jumped onto the back of the man holding him captive and dug her teeth into the side of his neck. He tried to shake her off, but she dug in, and allowed herself to be swung about, clinging on and digging in further.
The man couldn’t help but scream out, and she noticed a few twitches of curtains in the house across the street, but she didn’t care. She continued to bite, to cling on, until she felt blood run through her mouth and trickle down her chin.
“Someone fucking get her off me!”
One of the other men tried to pull her off, pulled at her with all his masculine might, but it was no match for her determination.
She dug her canines in and relished the taste of red; it was what she was used to. These people were bigger and stronger, but they had not fought the fights Cia had.
Graham stood, looking at her somewhere between fright and astonishment. She willed him to run, but he didn’t. He just remained, poised between telling her to stop and thanking her.
Then she saw one man lift a large plank of wood.
A thud against her skull and she saw nothing, feeling only the gravel against her head as she passed out.
Chapter Forty-Three
Cia was growing tired of awaking to an unfamiliar circumstance.
She tried to regather her thoughts, to fight the drowsiness, the grogginess. She was in her house, in her bed, she knew that. She could see Boy, his blurry figure, organising his toy dinosaurs across the room.
“Hey,” came a voice.
Any lethargy was replaced with alarm.
Ryker sat on a chair beside her bed.
She went to get up, to fight, feeling her lip curl into a snarl.
He raised his hand and said, as coolly as he ever had, “It’s okay, I’m not here to hurt you.”
He paused, poised between lying down and sitting up.
“How do I know that?”
“Because if I was going to hurt you, then I would have done it when you were asleep.”
She lay back down, cautiously, her head feeling heavy. She still kept her eyes on him, her body twitching in readiness to fight at any moment.
“I take it you need some answers,” he said.
“Yeah. Yeah, I think so.”
“What happened to Graham last night, he… well…”
Ryker seemed to be struggling, so Cia completed the sentence for him.
“Was being sacrificed to the creatures?”
Ryker looked confused.
“Just like you did to Hades, too, right? Yet, you said he was going on a mission.”
Ryker smiled. “In a way, he was.”
Cia frowned.
“In a way?”
“This isn’t a perfect design, Cia, but it’s one that keeps us living.”
“A perfect design?”
“We were going to tell you all this. Eventually. We could hardly just explain that we sacrifice people as soon you enter, could we?”
“Why not?”
“Because then you would leave. You wouldn’t settle in. You’re far more likely to stay once you’ve decided this is your home.”
“So you’re conning me then?”
“No.”
“And how long until it’s me you sacrifice? Huh?”
Ryker hesitated. He shifted position and seemed to choose his words carefully.
“All throughout history,” he said, “people have sacrificed what’s precious to them to their gods. Their best lamb, their daughter, what have you—it has been something necessary to keep peace.”
“You think these creatures are your gods?”
“You don’t?”
“They are predators. Animals. They aren’t divine or immortal.”
“And they came straight from Hell, Cia. We are positive of that. They may not be the gods we want, but we’ve got them, and we need to appease them.”
Cia’s jaw hung open. Was she actually hearing this?
“And, to answer your earlier questions, how long until we choose you—we rarely, if ever, choose someone who is unwilling.”
“Rarely?”
“Normally it’s someone who has consented.”
“Normally?”
He took a moment.
“The more pre
cious the sacrifice, the longer they stay away. If we offer them someone older–”
“Like Graham,” she interrupted.
“Fine. Like Graham. If we offer them someone like Graham, then we have days. Someone younger and we have weeks. Someone loved and useful and precious, well, that could give us far longer.”
“So you’re bargaining with other people’s lives?”
“It isn’t perfect, Cia, far from it. We know that. But this is how we survive, how we keep our community safe.”
“Is that why the Wasters still attack you? Because they are the ones that serve the creatures, and they are envious that you are serving them instead?”
“We believe so, yes.”
She rested her head back. This was a lot to take in, and she had a migraine coming.
She leant her head to the side and looked at Boy organising his dinosaurs, so blissfully unaware, just as she had been less than a day ago.
“So what, you don’t have to sacrifice anyone else for a few days now?”
“Well, no. We tend to do all of our sacrifices in one go. So we may sacrifice someone else, and someone else, and the time we have accumulated to be left in peace adds up. Every few months, well… We have to do this again.”
“Why not sacrifice Arnold? Surely killing your leader would give you far more time?”
“We need a leader, Cia. And, besides, we wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for Arnold.”
“That’s bullshit.”
“That’s the harsh truth. Hades knew it. And Graham knew it.”
Boy paused, looked back at her, smiled, then returned to his activity.
“We really want you to stay, Cia. You’re a great asset to us. We really hope you will adjust and–”
“How could I stay, knowing I’d be looking over my shoulder the whole time, wondering if I was next?”
Ryker looked down, taking a big, deep breath, and shrugged his shoulders.
“No reassurance I can give you will ever make you feel secure. You’ve just got to believe what’s worth sacrificing to protect this community.”
She scoffed and shook her head.
“Or would you rather be out there?” he asked, pointing to the walls outside the window. “Would you rather face potential death every minute of every day?”
“We survived pretty well out there, thank you.”
“Yeah, and how much longer would you last? And what would be the point, Cia? In here, you stand a chance at a real life. So does Boy.”
“We’ll take our chances.”
“Seriously, Cia, I urge you to reconsider–”
“I said, we’ll take our chances,” she repeated.
Ryker stopped arguing. Her resolve was strong, and she would not be dissuaded, and she could see that he knew that.
“We will gather our things and leave in a few hours.”
Ryker reluctantly nodded.
“I really think you’re making a big mistake,” he said.
“You can go now.”
She looked at him with those cold, cold eyes. She was angry, not just at him, but at how she was going to lose the life that was just too good to be true.
How could she be so stupid to think they could have something resembling a normal life, that society could exist as it once did?
Society had ended.
The world had ended.
This was what it was now.
Ryker stood. Looked to Boy. Looked to Cia.
“I said, you can go.”
He did as he was told, turning and walking out of the room.
Cia put her pillow over her head so Boy couldn’t hear her crying.
NOW
Chapter Forty-Four
Cia isn’t even sure she feels anything anymore.
So much death rests on her hands, and she feels none of its weight.
All these bodies are indirectly because of her.
She feels love for Boy.
But all those other emotions she expects to suffer as she endures the human condition… guilt… solace… despair… she feels none of them.
She is comfortably empty.
It is time to leave. She has looked around long enough.
But she can’t.
Despite the void she feels, there is something in her that makes her want to punish herself, makes her want the streets of murder to make her feel guilty.
She wants to force herself to look at it, so she will feel bad.
She seeks a face that would make her feel such a way, a familiar face, someone she felt some kind of attachment to.
And she finds it.
In the living room of the house that was once her home.
Christoph.
His old eyes looking tired and vacant, and his worn-out jacket looking livelier than him.
Christoph, the man who had helped her.
The man she had trusted.
The man who had betrayed her first.
She wishes he hadn’t. Oh, how she wishes he hadn’t.
He was the one person she wishes didn’t have to pay for the sins of the society he was so embedded in.
But he knew, just as they did.
And he had his part in it.
And this is a death that she could not blame on any other creature—she could only blame it on herself.
She had confided and opened up and grown because of their conversations.
Now, there he is.
Laying there with his eyes up.
Her first kill in the community.
Her hands took this life.
This life was her responsibility.
It had been the onset of her rage.
And it had only been the beginning.
THEN
Chapter Forty-Five
Boy sat on the floor of the living room. Reading words he had only just learnt from a man who could no longer teach them.
She allowed him to continue reading, hesitating to leave. It was a hesitation that gave him his final few moments of community, of a feeling of safety. He loved it here and it would be tough for him to understand.
But hopefully, he would.
Someday.
She packed the final set of clothes into her bag and zipped it up. Then she placed the knife she had removed from beneath her pillow, so full of optimism, at the front. The bag was tough to zip, and she wasn’t sure how much she should condemn herself to carry it, but she wanted to keep some luxuries.
She’d come to like them.
A gentle tap on the front door caught her attention.
She didn’t answer it, but that didn’t matter.
A few seconds went by and the door creaked open, just slightly, just enough for Christoph to push his head in.
“Cia?” he said, his voice kind, calm, so in contrast to the community’s beliefs.
“I’m in here,” she said, deciding she had nothing to lose by letting him say goodbye.
He closed the door behind him and shuffled in.
“I was wondering if maybe we could talk,” he requested.
“Okay.”
“Maybe… away from ears that might overhear.”
She glanced at Boy.
They could go into the kitchen. He’d be okay. It was only in the next room. She’d hear if anything was wrong.
“Fine.”
She walked through to the kitchen, leant on the side and folded her arms. Christoph stood in front of her, his hands clasping one another. He seemed to struggle for words, which felt odd for a psychiatrist, a supposed expert in human behaviour.
“I take it you know,” Cia said, tired of waiting for him to start the conversation.
“Do you mind if I have a glass of water?” he asked and, without waiting for confirmation, took a glass and gulped down the entire thing in one.
He was sweating. And, as he turned back to Cia, she noticed he was fidgeting.
Cia went to ask what the matter was, but she had to know if he knew.
“Do you know about the sacrifices?”
>
He looked at her, holding her gaze, a visage of worry.
“Yes,” he finally answered. “Yes, I know. Most do.”
“And you’re okay with it?”
“I wouldn’t necessarily say that.”
“But you allow it to happen?”
“What would I do otherwise? Object?”
“Why not?”
“And if my objections were successful, which I sincerely believe they would not be, what then? The creatures would batter down the walls or leap over them and kill everyone in here. It’s a minority for the majority, I’m afraid.”
“The minority?” Sudden flashbacks of herself fired into the forefront of her mind; quite a few years younger, being denied entrance to the sanctity while her dad went in ahead of her, because of her mixed heritage, because she was a minority. “It’s funny, isn’t it? Whenever the many decide that they must sacrifice things, it’s the minorities who are the ones to fulfil the obligation.”
“You’re a smart girl, Cia. No—a smart woman. Your intellect will be wasted out there.”
“I’ll take my chances.”
“It’s a shame, though. Could I have another glass of water?”
He filled up another glass and drained it. His fidgeting was becoming more erratic. He was now shifting his weight from one foot to the other, looking around with beady glances.
“What’s the matter?” Cia asked. Surely he couldn’t be that upset at her leaving?
“I really do wish you would reconsider.”
“It’s not right, Christoph.”
“But I really…” His voice drifted off, and he wiped his forehead on the back of his sleeve.
This was strange.
Odd.
Perturbing, even.
He was far too nervous. Why was he so nervous? It was as if he…
Cia froze.
Boy.
She went to leave the kitchen, but he sidestepped into her way.
“What are you doing?” she growled.
“I’m so, so, sorry Cia. They made me do this.”
“Do what?”
“I really did not want to betray you. I–”
She barged Christoph out of the way and returned to the living room.
An empty living room.
“Boy?” she shouted.
No answer.