by David Tyne
"N-No, there's... no time... Hnng! C'mon!" I heaved myself forwards, immediately face-planting into the black carpet of dead leaves.
Despite his obvious hatred of me, our last remaining captor had a job to do. He allowed me the use of his shoulder as I propped myself up against him, while Serah took Jamie's catatonic hand and soothed his thousand-yard stare.
Grumpy led us through the eerily-empty streets of Queensferry, our footsteps the only resonance throughout the rustic village’s untouched cobblestone streets. It appeared as though the gunfire had led most of the infected away, exactly as we thought it would. Shame that it cost us the only compassionate O-Saint that ever existed.
The town was mostly residential — a few tacky shops every now and then, the occasional supermarket where gentrification had begun to spread like a disease. Honestly, the locale was a little underwhelming. I expected more from the place where those notorious blood-nazis had set up their pretentious base.
"Brother Sergius... How does he know us, exactly?" I demanded, one last time. My sulky shoulder-support offered no answer. We had been snaking our way East through the abandoned roads and alleyways, hopelessly lost. Before anyone could ask our tour guide for directions, we came to a small lookout facing the coastline.
"Wha..." Beth breathed in awe, still cowering behind Millie and Jamie.
"...Oh my goodness!" Serah raised her hand, covering an offended gasp. "You really think that much of yourselves, don't you?!"
Finally being able to observe their base after such a long journey, I found the end result to be both impressive and debilitating, an inner conflict I refused to address. I had truly underestimated the driving force behind these nut-jobs, after all.
Gazing out towards the sea, the dark water appeared to mirror the night sky as the moon danced between the air and its velvet surface; the stars encapsulated both worlds, glittering like diamonds from above and below. The vibrant river lapped tenderly against the strongest red-steel pillar, belonging to one of the most famous landmarks in Scotland.
The Forth Railway bridge was now lit by a dozen bonfires and barricaded with sharpened poles, barring entry. Shielded on both ends by massive metal gates, they were composed entirely of scrap metal taken from god-knows how many vehicles. Cars, boats, disused trains and other various indistinguishable objects, like a knitted patchwork of welded materials.
They had commandeered the entire suspension for themselves — the O-Saints were still expanding their shanty town upwards into the iconic-red frames, claiming the country’s most famous man-made structure as their own.
As we approached the body-littered entrance, my eyes drifted over to the other well-known bridge in this area, the often-confused Forth Road bridge, running parallel to the train tracks. I couldn't see any lights, but the golden coin of a moon shined brightly enough for me to see the jerking heads of possibly hundreds of Lost.
Bumping into each other as they all met in the centre, some of the infected toppled downwards into the distant waters below every couple of minutes. It was easy to tell, listening for the splashing noise which echoed throughout the entire town.
Back to our bridge though, the front 'gate' of this base was littered with the fallen Lost, implying that there used to be a rather large build-up of them. At least, until our gunfire drew them towards the fields that overlooked the coast. You're welcome, I thought bitterly.
Banging the butt of his assault rifle against the door, Grumpy had apparently completed his mission. As soon as the gate opened by the smallest crack, he slithered his way inside and was never to be seen again.
'Goodbye to you too', I considered saying, but in all fairness, I had just inadvertently caused the death of his friend. Any sarcasm on my part wouldn’t have been well-received.
No one came to greet us at the gate, and it seemed that we were free to either enter or simply leave — Serah wouldn't allow me to reconsider, marching me through and sitting my backside down against the metal tracks. We needed someplace safe, so that she could take a look at my half-eaten leg.
While that may have been an exaggeration, she still managed to patch me up using half of my torn trouser leg as a tight bandage. Relieved, I turned my concerned glance over to Jamie, who stared listlessly out towards the sea.
He seemed to be in a much better state of mind now, away from the horde. He caught me looking at him, scoffing as he recoiled in shame.
"...I don't want to hear it." With that, I officially had nothing to say to him. Hopefully he would come around in his own time, but I wasn’t going to offer help to someone who rejected me at every turn.
Something else caught my eye, forcing me to stand up on one leg. My gaze darted to the space between two upturned cars — a chaotic corridor of sorts, where a red-hooded figure peered through at us.
"Who's there?! My name’s Daniel Walker, and I wanna know who called us out!" I spat at the figure in a daze. Once he stepped into the light of the nearby bonfire, I recognised his grotesque skin before anything else.
Serah also had an adverse reaction to the disfigured man, recoiling in disgust. "N-Not that psychopath! What are you doing here?"
Pastor Mitchell let a wide smile spread across his torn-up lips. "Relax, Miss Flowers. This is a safe space... Even for the unwelcome trash you brought along," he nodded over to the kids. “Our grand scheme is of a much higher priority. Certainly more important than ridding the new world of one or two impure rats."
While I wanted to believe that they wished us no harm, the whole situation still smelled fishy to me. Ignoring our upturned faces, Mitchell continued with another of his dull speeches.
"In the interest of cooperation, I believe Brother Sergius has requested an audience with you. I do hope you have matured since our last meeting, Mr Walker. We won’t tolerate anymore tricks on your behalf."
He motioned his lumpy, wounded hand courteously to the left, ushering us through a passageway between stacks of piled-high tires. The ‘walls’ indented into little alcoves, where random O-Saints glared up at us with suspicion in their eyes.
What are these, dorm rooms? How can they even breathe in here?
We finally came to a larger opening, a living area fit for some kind of cult executive. A peculiar, black-hooded figure lay on an impromptu mattress, wearing a dark shadow where his head should’ve been.
Don't they normally wear red? All other questions seemed irrelevant as the built man stood to tower over us, almost expecting to see through the obscure shade covering his face.
"Brother Sergius, your entourage is here." Pastor Mitchell grinned through the doorway.
"Good."
The voice was gravelly and deep, but held a trace of someone I could barely put my finger on. Then it hit me, just before he raised his large hands and tossed back his hood, revealing his identity.
Harry lunged forwards and grappled my head with two fists, slamming my entire body into the wall of rugged metal. My leg wound instantly tore open once more, gushing blood through the bandages. "Fuck!! Harry... What are you—"
He yanked my shirt in the opposite direction, making me fly across the room as the children and girls watched in suspense and disbelief. Harry's darkened leer bore a hole through my skull, almost setting me on fire with unadulterated fury.
"I’ve waited a long time for this, Danny-boy. I think it’s about time I killed someone you love, for a change."
9 | Brother Sergius
My long-lost friend drove his fist into my stomach once more, dropping me to the bridge’s floor. My winded lungs failed to function, the air bleeding out of me. I couldn’t even register what he was saying, whether he was the same Harry from way back then.
"Y... You can’t... be serious," I puffed, anticipating a crushing drop-kick at any second. Instead of pulling a finisher, he yanked me onto my feet and slammed his bloodied bandana against my forehead. His eyes raced like a wild bull, not showing any sympathy for my broken state.
"Course I am. Here with my brothers, I hav
e control, I have power..." He thrust his entire arm into my face, knocking my own mind outside of my body. "And now, I have revenge. You and that bitch let Ian die... I’m gonna make sure that you pay for his suffering."
He cast his frenzied glare towards Mitchell, who gleefully watched the horrendous display over the shoulders of my frozen companions. That man always seemed to be stuck somewhere between a preacher’s kindness and some form of bloodthirst.
"Mitch, book me some time in ‘The Box’. I wanna take this fucker apart... privately."
While the mad Pastor clapped his hands and hopped out of the room, Harry dragged me by the collar with a fatal silence surrounding him. My feet lazily clung onto each rung of the train tracks as I was wrestled forwards, left entirely at his mercy.
My friends were speechless — the quiet ones, anyway. Millie ran after us, only able to scream at Harry's massive back. "You can't fight like this!! After everything we did together, don't you remember how close you guys were? Is this what Ian wanted for you?!"
I could barely hear her over the grinding of the thug’s teeth. Pulling me into an old train carriage, I quickly realised it had been severed from the rest of the train. Stitched up with scrap metal to form a tight box with only one door, it was clear that we’d entered the O-Saints’ interrogation room.
Why do they need a place like this? What is their endgame here?
Harry turned around to face Pastor Mitchell, one last time before closing the door. "No one touches the dirt-bloods... I want them for myself. Keep 'em inside my quarters till I'm through with this one."
The Pastor nodded enthusiastically and ran off, enthralled in the chaos Harry was creating. He shut the door with an almighty bang, sealing us off from the outside world. It was just my severely-beaten self, and the brute who could finish me with a single punch if he wanted.
Harry stared at me for a cold second, sizing me up as though I had a shred of fight left in me. He leaned in closer across the booth’s table, examining my pupils like an invasive fortune-teller. Then, to my complete and utter astonishment, a small chuckle broke through his stone of a face, bursting out into a fit of laughter.
"Bwhahahaaa!! Haa, oh man... The look on your face, bro!"
I raised my eyebrows quizzically, unsure of whether he was about to start hitting me again. He waved his hands over himself, apparently motioning something about his attire. Whatever it was, it hadn’t clicked yet.
"Huh?" I spat out my mouthful of blood so that I could talk. "...Harry, I'm really sorry—"
He slammed down hard on the carriage table between us, frustrated at whatever I wasn't getting. "C'mon! Do you really think I would become one of these freaks, just because they asked nicely or some shit? Like hell I'd do that to you guys... Not after what went down in that Medical School."
I was starting to pick up on his trail, but my mind still swirled from being blasted around so much. Even if I hadn’t been a Lost’s chew toy earlier, I wouldn’t have stood a chance against the thug.
He noticed my exhaustion, scratching his neck without apology. "Did I go too far, back there? Had to make it look realistic... Let me spell it out for ya — in here, I’m ‘Sergius’. The O-Saints needed someone sane, someone tough to recruit new members."
He sighed with a squint, as though I was costing him an expensive explanation. Honestly, I found it surprising that he was even alive, given his mental state the last time we’d met.
Someone sane, huh? They got the wrong guy for the job.
“We thought you were... gone.” I looked down at the table, refusing to meet his friendly gaze. He didn’t seem to understand, probably assuming that we’d be happy to see him.
“And now I’m back!” He grinned once more, leaning back in his seat. “Hope you don’t mind, I sent two of my goons to pick you guys up… I needed a distraction to bail outta here, so I brought the team back together. Just like the good old days.”
“The good old days?” I laughed, not from a place of amusement. “You butchered Ian’s dad. Beth saw that shit, we had to clean everything up... and now you want to play happy families? Maybe you do belong here, with these goddamn sadists.”
“...I’m telling you man, I ain’t like that.” He seemed to reach forward, but I flinched involuntarily. His hand withdrew, defeated. “Ian messed me up, I know. It still gets to me... But things are different now. I’ve got a new purpose, working against the Saints from the inside. Took a while, but I’ve found some huge dirt on them.”
“How do I know that you’re telling the truth?” I asked, knowing that he was. I just had to hear him say it, to know where his own motives stood.
He just smiled, and shrugged. “Not much to lie about these days. I got all of that nasty shit outta my system, when Ian died. I’m over it.”
There was a clear crack in his voice, telling me that he was not okay. He wanted to be though, and that would have to do. My fingers wrapped across my own face, still wincing at the burning stings of my open wounds.
“Beth is in danger, right now. We all are, after you dragged us out here. Please, tell me you had a reason for doing this.”
“A fuckin’ good one.” He reached into his pocket, slamming a chunky CB radio onto the table between us. “But first, I’m gonna need you to play along. Still not out of the woods yet.”
“What?” I rasped, my vision starting to blur into pixels once again. I saw Harry’s black-and-red form melt away from his seat, and float around to meet my squinting eyes.
His solid fist raised, and I realised that I was about to have the consciousness knocked clean out of me. The Pastor and his cronies would be expecting to see me in some form of disrepair, after all… Brother Sergius had to do his part.
“Sorry, bud. If you could try and scream a whole ton, that’d really help me out.”
10 | Puppet Master
I felt her weight on top of me, light and encompassing. Drifting in the darkness, floating on the water’s intangible surface. She held onto my chest, the lonely rock breaching through a sea of absolute nothingness.
“Wake up, Daniel… Please, wake up.”
Whether it was her lips or the bracing wind that touched me, I felt that kiss planting itself on my neck. It almost made me sad, that I instinctively rolled into her embrace. As though my body was admitting how much it needed her, physically. How weak it was, knowing she’d be taken away soon.
“You’re hurt. Let me help you.” Another gush of cold air blasted into my face, relieving me of my burning grief. Funny, how quickly the process changed… The grieving used to come before the loss.
Inevitability was a fickle thing. Already preparing for Millie’s death, even in the exclusive safety of our black void. All I could do, in my empty state, was hope that my end would arrive much sooner than hers.
----
"I think he’s coming around. Daniel..."
I opened my eyes gently, seeing the blurry shape of a woman perched over my black-and-blue body. Serah’s glasses glinted in response, and I realised it was her close breath that I’d been sensing. I found myself patched up with cloth in various places, looking more like a ratty ragdoll than a bold survivor.
It felt like it was morning, but the sky over our heads loomed a depressive shade of dark-blue. Dawn was steadily approaching on the horizon, probably within the next hour or so.
Oh, for the love of… Won’t this night ever end?
On the note of my surroundings, we’d apparently elevated ourselves higher onto the metal framework of the Forth railway bridge. Untrustworthy wooden planks had been set up to create a second level for the O-Saints’ regrettably-impressive structure.
Before I could question how Serah had managed to pull me up an entire storey, I quickly caught onto Harry’s presence along with the others. It was strange to see the team’s powerhouse standing around like old times, but in my current condition, it was more than welcome.
Millie and Beth were obsessing over the thug, talking excitedly about our adventures
since they had last met. He must’ve explained himself while I was out, but Beth didn't seem to be intimidated by his presence at all. In fact, she seemed to be completely past it and was even smiling along with him.
It didn’t surprise me. That girl was adapting to the world around her at an alarming rate, even better than I was. As much as I wanted to call that one of her strong suits, I simply couldn’t.
My entire body lurched, trying to sit up on the wobbling shanty town’s wooden platform. There were no wrecked cars or tires that could exist on this level; just a flat plane, to lay back and stare at the fading stars.
"Take it easy... You're really in no shape to—" Ignoring Serah's cautions, I creaked upwards and staggered slowly towards the edge. I wanted to look down at the now-crashing waves, but that was when I sensed that something was wrong.
I recognised the ominous presence long before it materialised at the top of the ladders. I turned away with intimidation, knowing exactly who this aura belonged to. I had no reason to believe that the owner made it all the way here, secretly hoping that he’d gotten himself devoured in a ditch somewhere.
Millie reacted violently as well, sheltering Beth from the horrific figure as a sly grin crept along his face. Just small enough, to hide his own ill intentions.
"Well, well… Isn't this a grand reunion? My old scavenger team, back together again."
My hazy vision could barely make out the black figure's trench coat, but surely enough, emblazoned on his chest was the meticulously-polished badge stating his name and rank.
"You can fuck right back off to whatever hell you crawled out of, Superintendent Burkley."
His stone-cold face glared directly at me, which seemed to emit an eerie glee at the same time.
"Oh, kid... Look around. We're already there."
Bracing myself between Harry's sturdy frame and the overhanging red steel, the whole bridge seemed to tremble as Burkley stepped closer... The macabre air associated with this man was comparable to standing in front of the devil himself.