by Andrew Gates
I stopped for a moment in the middle of a long hallway to lean down and catch my breath. I was not necessarily out of shape, but that didn’t mean I was in shape either. Running was not part of my regular routine, let’s just put it at that. I panted like a furry dog on a sweltering day. Hopefully, I’d lost whoever was trying to kill me.
“Holy shit,” I said to myself aloud. “What just happened?”
I’d never been shot at before and I know what you’re thinking: didn’t you live in Philly? Yeah, yeah, enough with the Philly crime jokes (save those for Camden). Seriously, I’d never been shot at before, so you could say this was a “virgin-moment” for me.
I shook. I tapped my feet. I blinked my eyes. In all senses of the word, I was panicked. But I knew I had to keep my cool somehow.
Footsteps echoed from the direction of the wedding chamber. I looked to the source of the noise as a Marsh man quickly rounded the corner, wielding some sort of staff in his hands.
Naturally, I turned and ran the other way.
“No, don’t go!” the man shouted at me. “I’m not here to hurt you! I’m here to protect you!”
I didn’t know who to trust, so I just kept going. I ran as far and as fast as I could until my lungs would not allow me to run anymore. The Marsh man caught up to me faster than I care to admit.
“Stop!” he said. He grabbed me by the shoulders and spun me around, staring me in the eyes.
I tried to get away, but I was just too tired. I stumbled and fell to the floor.
The man kindly reached out his hand and I stared up at him. There was a warmth in his eyes. I didn’t know if I could trust him, but if he wanted to kill me, I figured he would have done it by now. I instinctively grabbed his hand and allowed him to help pull me up.
“I have him,” the man said.
“What?” I replied.
“No, not you.”
“What?” I repeated, still not following.
“I’m talking to someone on the radio, not you,” the man explained.
“Oh.” That made sense.
“Yes, I have him here,” the man continued, obviously still talking to someone else. “He is, thankfully, unharmed. Meet at my location. We are not far from the ceremony. I’m sending a tracking signal now.” The man faced me. “How are you?”
“Are you talking to me now?” I asked.
“Yes.” He nodded his head.
“Uhm… if I’m being honest, I’m a bit scared. Someone shot at me.”
“I saw,” the man replied. “But stay with me and you’ll be safe. My name is Draug. I am part of the royal guard. More guards are on their way.”
“Draug. Cool name,” I said.
“Thank you. It was given to me by my parents. But that is not important right now. Your safety is my current priority. The man who shot you is a radical, a known terrorist in the Marsh Colonies. Somehow he must have slipped through our security. I can’t believe we missed him!”
“Did you catch him?”
“I’m afraid not,” Draug replied. A look of regret formed across his face. “He slipped into the crowd during the chaos. He’s still out there somewhere.”
“Damn. That’s bouge,” I said, lowering my gaze to the floor.
“That’s what?”
“Bouge. It means ‘that sucks’,” I explained, meeting Draug’s eyes again.
“What sucks?”
“The fact that the shooter got away. That sucks.”
“Sucks? You mean to wrap your lips around someone’s fingers?”
“No, not that. Look, never mind. Forget it.”
“I cannot forget about sucking. It is an important part of our culture,” Draug replied. “Why do you wish for me to forget about sucking?”
I didn’t even bother responding to that. There was no use even trying to explain. I simply waved my hands and switched to another topic.
“When will the other guards get here?” I asked.
“They should be here soon. I just sent my coordinates.”
As if right on cue, four more guards suddenly rounded the corner. Each of them carried similar staffs in their hands. They approached me with worried expressions across their faces.
“Draug, it is good to see you safe with Princess Mayra’s groom,” one of the guards said.
“What is the status of Princess Mayra?” I asked, hoping that one of these guys knew what happened to her.
“You need not worry about her. She is safe, like you. I would be more concerned about Queen Kevin,” the same guard replied.
“Why? What happened to Queen Kevin?”
The guard lowered his head and took a short step forward. He let out a deep sigh, then met my eyes.
“The shooter got a few shots off. Luckily none hit you, but one struck Kevin. The blast was fatal. I am sorry to inform you, sir, that your Queen is dead.”
“My god,” I muttered. “Not Kevin.”
I hardly knew Kevin, but for some reason, her death hit me hard in that moment. I didn’t know what to do or say. My muscles felt weak. My heart raced.
“I know this is difficult news to hear,” Draug said, stepping forward and placing his hand on my shoulder, “but we need to keep you safe now. Our priority is to move you as far away as possible from the shooter.”
I met the guard’s gaze and slowly nodded my head. I couldn’t say much in that moment, but I understood.
“Right,” I replied. “Lead the way.”
Hiding from a Killer
Draug and his fellow royal guards led me to a secure room aboard the Tuna. Once inside, I took a seat beside a long table and leaned down with my face in my hands. I could feel the sweat cover my trembling palms.
“Here, drink this. It will calm you down,” one of the guards said as he dispensed some sort of orangish/yellowish liquid from a container and poured it into a glass.
I leaned forward and accepted the glass from the guard’s hand. The drink smelled pleasant enough. I took a sip and smiled. Sure enough, it seemed to do the trick. I instantly felt much calmer.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Fruit of the cow,” the guard replied.
“Fruit of the cow? You mean milk?” I said. This certainly didn’t taste like milk. It was far too acidic.
“No, we would not dare milk a cow! To get close enough would be suicide! I don’t know what you call cows on Earth, but on our world, cows are powerful and dangerous monsters. They have six limbs, long tusks and claws as sharp as spears.”
That seemed to be the answer to everything. I rolled my eyes and placed the glass down onto the table next to me.
“Damn, here we go again! Everything is dangerous. Are there any animals that people actually keep as pets around here?” I asked.
“Yes, of course,” the guard replied. “Common household pets include things like tigers, wolves, cobras, raptors, sharks and hamsters.”
“Well at least you have hamsters. That part makes sense.”
“Yes, hamsters make popular guard animals,” the guard confirmed.
I sighed, not wanting to ask what a hamster looked like in this culture.
“So… anyway, if I’m not drinking milk, then what is this?” I asked. I took another sip of the delicious beverage again.
“That’s simple. You are drinking urine.”
I spat it out immediately.
“What?” I asked as I placed it back on the table.
“Urine. Do you not use this word in your culture? It is what we call the liquid excrement stored in the bladder, which is evacuated through the-”
“No, we use the word. We just don’t… drink it,” I explained, interrupting the guard mid-sentence.
“Stow your talk of urine and bladders,” Draug said in a serious tone. He stared down at some sort of monitor in his grasp.
“What is it?” I asked, glad that Draug was forcing us to change the conversation.
“I am monitoring the status of our shooter. It seems the Marsh police and royal guar
d are both unable to locate the fugitive aboard the Tuna,” he explained. “However, there has been a report of a break in at the medical wing, not too far from this location.”
“The medical wing?” I repeated. “What does that mean?”
“It could be an injured bystander from the shootout in desperate need of medicine,” Draug began.
“Or?” I knew there was more to this.
“Or it could be our shooter,” Draug explained as he let out a deep breath. “He could have been injured in the chaos and now seeks medical attention. Perhaps a wedding attendee managed to harm him in some way prior to his escape.”
“What should we do?” I asked.
“You shouldn’t do anything,” Draug responded. “Stay here and do not leave. I will go to the medical wing and investigate. Hopefully it is nothing.”
“Good luck, Draug,” the other four guards said in unison.
Draug nodded back to them, then promptly exited the room.
Once he was gone, one of the guards sighed and motioned to the tub of cow piss.
“I’d like some of that,” he said.
Gross.
“I hope it does not bother you to sit here and wait for danger to pass,” one of the other guards said, taking a seat next to me. I was happy that this guy started talking, because I really didn’t want to think about cow pee for another second.
I shook my head.
“It’s fine. It’s not my first time waiting out danger like this.”
“It’s not?”
“No,” I replied.
“When have you been in this situation before, I wonder?”
“Well… maybe not a situation exactly like this, but there was this one time…”
August 1976: A Tangential Flashback Sequence
The year was 1976. It was August on a Monday and, as a lonely single man, I did what we lonely single men do: I visited a local dining establishment by myself. It was in the evening and the place was about to close soon, so few people were out and about.
Okay, that makes it sound fancier than it was. I suppose I should clarify: this was a McDonald’s.
I know it’s not the best place to eat, but it’s cheap and fast and Philadelphia was full of them. I had my order down whenever I went. I would always get a quarter pounder, which was one of their newer sandwich items, with fries and a cola. Yum!
So here I was with my regular order, sitting in the McDonald’s at nighttime when suddenly a dude busted in dressed with a ski mask on his face and a bag in his hands. Now if this was the dead of winter or something, then maybe the ski mask thing might be justified, but this was August. I knew instantly that there was no way this was going to go well.
As you’d expect, he was a robber.
“Everybody, stay calm and nobody gets hurt!” the man shouted right away.
There weren’t a lot of customers in the restaurant at this time of night, but those who were there all got down and quiet, myself included. The staff meanwhile, froze. They put their hands to the air and didn’t move a muscle. They seemed petrified.
The robber moved to the front desk.
“Alright, guys. I want the money to go here in this bag!” he demanded.
The kid behind the counter must have been like 17 or 18. He eyed up the burglar, then lowered his hands from the air as the look of fear slowly washed away from his face.
“Wait…” the kid said. “Darrell, is that you?” He leaned forward, as if studying the man through the mask.
“No, it’s not me, Rick. Just put the money in the bag!” the burglar replied. He sounded frustrated. “And get me some of them extra knives and forks.”
“You want me to give you money and knives and forks?” the kid repeated.
“Yeah, cheese weasel, do what I say!” the burglar shouted back.
“Holy smokes, that is you, Darrell!” a young woman said, emerging from the back. She did not appear the slightest bit worried. “Can’t stay away from the gig, huh?” she asked.
“No, Cindy, it’s not me! Just tell Rick to put the money in the-”
“Wait… do you guys know this man?” one of the older customers interrupted. He was dressed in a suit and tie as if he had just come from a late night at the office. He calmly stood up and joined the others at the front desk.
“Yeah, this is Darrell. He works here,” the woman explained.
“No, I’m not Darrell! Stop saying that, guys!” the frustrated burglar said. “Quit bogarting the money!”
“Dude, we recognize your voice. We literally work with you. We know what you sound like,” the kid retorted. “Did you really think we wouldn’t know it was you?”
Then another man came from the back and stopped next to the burglar. He was considerably older than the others and had a nametag that read “manager”.
“Darrell,” the manager said. “Why are you robbing your own place of work?”
The burglar turned to face the manager and stared him in the eyes.
“I… I…”
“Take off that stupid mask, Darrell,” the manager demanded, pointing to the ski mask.
The burglar did as he was ordered. The look on his face showed that he was ashamed of himself. It almost reminded me of the look a guilty toddler gives to their parents.
“I’m sorry, sir. It won’t happen again,” he said. He faced the floor, as if too ashamed to make eye contact with his boss.
“It had better not.” The manager sighed and patted his employee on the shoulder. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“My next shift isn’t until Wednesday.”
“I’ll see you Wednesday, then.”
“Okay. Sorry, sir.”
“That’s alright, Darrell. Just don’t do it again.”
“Alright.”
And with those words, the burglar turned and slowly walked back out of the restaurant.
That’s exactly what happened. I kid you not. I remember it like it was yesterday.
And that, my friends, is the only other time I sat in a room waiting for danger to pass. It was a bit tangential, I know, but hell, what are you going to do about it? It was an interesting story, right?
Will it come back and be relevant for the story later?
Nope. Sorry. Deal with it.
Live Animal Storage
“That tale is one of great intrigue and suspense. Thank you for sharing it with us,” one of the guards said after I had told my McDonald’s story.
“I agree. Your storytelling abilities are strong!” added another.
“Thank you,” I replied. “I appreciate it. But I’m sure as royal guards, you all have way more interesting stories than I do.”
“Not really, no,” said another. “Our tales mostly involve following VIPs around. There is not much else to say. We rarely see much action. Days like today are… an anomaly.”
“I see.” Somehow those words did not quite put me at ease.
Pew! Pew!
Suddenly I heard some sort of laser gun shots blasting from the hall. I sat up and the guards instantly turned to face the door, grasping their spears tightly in hand.
“What was that?” I asked.
“Clearly someone is firing a weapon,” one of the guards noted.
“Clearly,” I repeated.
One of the guards cautiously pulled on the door handle. He opened it up and stepped out into the hallway with his spear tightly grasped. He did not get far before a laser blast singed the front of his chest, causing him to jump back in shock.
“We’re under attack!” one of the guards shouted.
“Subdue the attacker, now!” cried another.
Two more guards rushed out of the room, leaving me with only one remaining guard for my protection (just my luck, it was the one with a glass of cow pee). Within seconds, I heard the sounds of bodies drop against the metal floor of the hall.
Though I could not see anything from where I sat, I knew instantly that the attacker had taken out the remaining guards.
&nbs
p; Now it was just me and the pee drinker.
I shivered in horror. I could not remember ever feeling so afraid, so vulnerable. The world around me seemed so quiet and I stared straight at the doorway, not wanting to look away for even a second. It was as if I were transfixed.
Pew! Pew!
More laser blasts erupted from the hallway, but the sound of weapons fire didn’t last long. Within seconds, it quieted down again. Before I knew it, the world was still and silent once more. It stayed this way for a few seconds.
Then, something happened. A bloody pink hand curled around the frame of the door. The guard angled his spear forward, ready for anything as I quivered in the back. But as the figure rounded the doorway, I realized that it was not the attacker. Instead, it was Draug.
“Draug!” I said, sitting up. I was so relieved to see him. My heart fluttered and I let out a deep exhale of relief.
The guard lowered his spear and took a few steps toward his colleague.
“Draug,” the guard said, “you come at a most needed hour. The others have all perished.”
“They have,” Draug confirmed as he limped into the room. Half his body was covered in blood. “I saw the attacker. He was just outside this very door, but I managed to scare him off with a few shots of my own.”
Draug tossed his bloody pistol onto the floor and fell on the tabletop. Blood covered everything.
“What happened to you?” I asked.
“I found the attacker in the medical wing. We battled, but he was better armed. I managed to steal one of his pistols, but only after being badly injured in combat,” Draug explained. He coughed as he spoke. “Rather than kill me at the end of our fight, the coward ran off. I knew instantly that you were in danger, so I came as fast as I could. Unfortunately, I wasn’t fast enough.”
“Three of our group may have perished, but the VIP is still alive. The objective is safe,” the other guard said.
I could not help but shiver at those words. Was my life really more important than the life of the three guards who died for me? Or, for that matter, the life of Queen Kevin, who died in the crossfire?