by Sam J Fires
There were limits of course. They hadn’t worked up the nerve to attack a large group of people. Whenever they saw groups of survivors go by, they took to their hiding places and waited for them to pass, never knowing if they would pose a greater threat. They had no problem taking on loners, and groups of four or less were doable.
They’d heard the rumors about LA. How it was a few guns away from being fully militarized. It wasn’t even supposed to be called Los Angeles anymore.
Sheldon knew he’d be facing a challenge when he stepped inside the city. This he welcomed.
All the men were on the lookout for any guards posted outside the city. It seemed to be deserted. Just as well, Sheldon thought. A storm was on the horizon, and nobody wanted to be caught up in the middle of it.
That’s when he saw someone standing outside.
It was a young woman. No…From the looks of her in her transparent suit, she wasn’t even a woman, more like a teenager, standing there, on the outskirts of the city. Sheldon wondered what she was doing out there by herself. Then a wolfish grin broke out on his face. To the victor, the spoils…
Sheldon climbed down off his horse and walked up to her, adopting a confident swagger. As he drew closer, he cautioned his men to stay behind just a little. “What are you doing out here all by yourself, little one?”
The girl didn’t answer. She just stared at him blankly.
“Desert’s not safe for a sweet thing like you,” said Sheldon, unable to hold back his lust. “But we’ll be sure to keep you safe.”
“You think I need someone to protect me?” the girl asked blankly.
“Of course,” said Sheldon, “and in return…” He took her hand and began to move it towards his crotch, “I’m sure you can show me a good time.”
From behind him, Sheldon’s men surveyed the sight, smirking and nudging each other in amusement.
Suddenly, Sheldon began screaming in an agonized pain, a scream that became more and more high-pitched with each passing second. Then he fell to the ground, lying in a fetal position, his hands going to his groin. “Oh, God! God!”
The girl was standing over him, a bloodied machete in her hand. “Anybody else want to go prickless?”
The men looked among one another, not sure what to do. Who was this girl?
Unwilling to be turned away by a child, the group of three clambered off their horses and rushed towards her.
What happened next was akin to a dance. The girl moved at an athletic pace, dodging their blows.
One of the men came at her with a claw hammer. The girl only just managed to avoid a blow to the face. She lashed out with her free hand, grabbed the wrist holding the implement, and twisted it, causing the man to loosen his grip. As the hammer tumbled from his hand, the girl grabbed it and drove the claw end into the man’s throat, taking a good lump of flesh out with it.
She then proceeded to drive the hammer into another bandit’s head, leaving a large hole visible in the side of his head.
Having seen his two friends die so easily and brutally, the remaining man started to run away…
Only for the girl to throw her machete in his direction, burying itself into his back.
She sauntered over to the fallen man, stopped, and examined the wound as if she was inspecting the standard of her work. Then she pulled out the machete with one swift movement, before going over to the horses and petting them all.
As she started to lead the animals back towards the city, she noticed Sheldon was crawling away on the ground with one hand, his other holding onto his bloodied groin.
The girl seemed a little perturbed to see that he was still breathing.
Nonchalantly, she walked over to him and stood gazing at his pathetic attempts to escape her notice.
“Pitiful,” she said.
She grabbed Sheldon by the hair and ran the machete clean along his throat, the bite of metal drawing a gush of blood, before letting him drop to the ground.
The girl had known they were trouble the moment she’d laid eyes on them. People like that were not welcome in Travistown.
She wished that she had a few more resources with her, such as some rope. The most pragmatic thing to do would be to hang their bodies as a warning for all the world to see, like a farmer would hang dead crows as a deterrent for other crows, but there was no time. A storm was on the horizon, and she didn’t want to be at the center of it when it finally descended.
Leading the horses back into the city, the girl left her quarry behind her.
CHAPTER 3 - LEA
The poachers had been amateurs, thought Lea as she led the horses back into the city center. Hardly worth her time. Probably not worth the blood smeared all over her machete. Still, the efficiency would earn her brownie points with Travis.
Killing came easily to Lea. It was hard to believe that there was a time when she would have been appalled at just the thought.
She remembered the first time she’d killed a man. She was nine years old. She had already been living with Travis for two years. Her parents had been lost to the sandstorms long before then.
Lea had taken to hiding in an old department store, sleeping on a bed fashioned from a stack of unsold coats. When the man had found her, Lea had never forgotten the look on his face as he laid eyes on her; it was as though he had won the lottery. Thankfully, he hadn’t had the chance to take it any further. Travis had pushed him aside and looked at her with a paternal concern. It was obvious he was the leader of the group. Everyone had looked to him for guidance and instructions. One subordinate had asked Travis if he could question her, but a raised hand had silenced him.
Travis had offered a hand to Lea, assuring her he wouldn’t hurt her. Lea’s mom had told her not to talk to strangers, but her mom was no longer there, and so she had taken his hand. He took her to an apartment building, housing a lot of what Travis would later describe as his ‘tenants’, people who’d had to earn their keep.
He found an unused room and began to ask her numerous questions. How old was she? How long had she been alone? How had she survived the storms? Did she know any other survivors? She must have answered them all satisfactorily because he granted her residence in the Block — as it would come to be known as — and assured her, ‘as long as I draw breath, danger will be a thing of the past for you’.
The responsibility for Lea’s care was given over to a woman who had qualified as a childcare worker prior to the storms. Travis would make several routine visits to her over the next couple of years, finding out how she was settling in, how her education was going, what new friends she had made. Every time she had basked in the joys a small child might have known before the storms, she excitedly shared every last detail with him. Even though Travis had said he was happy for her, she noticed something sad about his tone. She wouldn’t learn until several years later that this was because her innocence would soon have to be purged from her.
That day came two years after taking up residence in the Block.
Poachers had stormed the building. At first, it had seemed like a general ‘smash and grab’ job, but then they had started throwing residents over the edge. They hadn’t known who Travis was. In those days, Lea had learned that there were two kinds of people — those who knew nothing about Travis, and those who lived in fear of him.
Travis’s justice had been swift and merciless. Being a big believer in letting the punishment fit the crime, he had seen to it that the perpetrators had gone over the edge.
Except for one.
Lea had spent much of the siege in her apartment when Travis came for her.
She remembered the moment he arrived. He had entered the flat and said, “Lea, come with me. Now.”
That was the first time he had ever given her any instructions, no ‘please’ or ‘would you mind’, but an instruction that bordered on an order.
He had taken her to where the last poacher was standing. He was being held in place by two men on either side. “Why is he standing there?”
asked Lea naively.
“What we’ve taken a lifetime to build,” Travis had explained, “it’s hard work, and in the world we live in today, a luxury I didn’t think possible.” He pointed to the remaining poacher. “But men like him…they want to do whatever they can to destroy that peace for us. Part of maintaining that peace isn’t just about better protection, but about putting a permanent stop to the people who’ll disrupt it. We don’t just do it for this one attack, we do it for all the other attacks that may follow. We need to show people that we’re not weak, and we will retaliate. This is where you enter the picture.”
Travis stepped aside, giving Lea a full view of the lone poacher. The reality of what she was expected to do suddenly dawned on her. She backed away, wanting to run out of the room, but Travis had stood his ground. Something about his face suggested trying to get away was not a good idea. “I know it may seem like a scary decision, but I promise you I’m not asking you to do a thing that anyone living in the Block hasn’t already done. A stronghold is only as strong as the inhabitants guarding it. The only way we know for certain that the Block is impenetrable is if everyone can protect themselves, and others. There will be other small children living here, most likely younger than you, who won’t be able to defend themselves. I would feel comfortable knowing that you knew you had what it takes to look after them. I would ask you to do this for me, but I feel that it’s important that you do this for yourself. Think about what you want your tomorrows to look like and what you need to do to get there. In this case, taking out the scum who would snatch it away from you.”
Lea had thought about trivial things, like sweets and playing with her friends, a toy box that had been a great comfort to her…and she pushed the poacher over the edge.
Her first instinct had been to look away, but knowing, without asking, that Travis wouldn’t approve, she had willed herself to look at him and watched as the body had splattered in the distance.
There had been at least two more attacks from poachers. Lea had managed to take out at least one of the groups, to Travis’s approval. As the body count went up, it became less about self-defense and more about going on the offense, going at them with a machete with a jagged blade gifted to her by Travis. Every time, it had gotten easier. She no longer felt the need to psyche herself up for the act. There was even a time when Travis had been concerned that she was taking pleasure in her newfound skill. Lea had assured him that this wasn’t the case, and the only thing motivating her had been cold hard pragmatism.
That didn’t stop her from carrying the body count like a badge of honor, a testament to how far she was willing to go in Travis’s service. The machete that he had gifted her nearly a decade ago was now covered with faint scratches around the handle, one for each kill. Travis had once joked that if he’d known how she’d be keeping track, he’d have given her a weapon with a bigger handle. Eventually, keeping count was no longer practical. If Lea had to guess, she would say it was now in the high double-digits.
Today’s poachers were no exception. It was hard to believe that she had once struggled to take even one life, and now she had slaughtered four in one fell swoop without a hint of remorse.
Lea returned to the apartment block she had occupied for nine years. Despite being sixteen years old, she had yet to get around to getting rid of her toys. She hadn’t played with them for years. She was no longer an innocent child. This is what the toys had become; relics of a time gone by, an innocence that deep down, Lea knew she could never get back.
No sooner had she closed the door, there was a loud banging from the other side. Rolling her eyes, Lea opened the door to find Vincent, a fellow Block resident panting and out of breath. “Travis…wants to see you, now,” he said.
“If this is about the scum on the edge of the city, I’ve already—”
“No, no,” said Vincent, who was showing an emotion Lea had never seen on him before. Fear. “I don’t know how to explain this…”
CHAPTER 4 - TRAVIS
Only a handful of people were allowed to see Travis’s garden. Only this wasn’t just any garden, this was a stunning green space, vibrant with color, on the Block’s rooftop, with views over the entire city. A private sanctuary that Travis had looked after for the better part of a decade.
Travis had always loved gardening. Before the storms, Travis had worked as a landscape gardener. He had loved the detail that went into planning a beautiful sight that people could take pride in. Having grown up in a block of apartments much like the Block, Travis’s family had never owned a garden. Perhaps that was what had motivated his choice of career.
After the first storm, when all the earth’s farmland had been destroyed, Travis went through a period of despondence. He felt as though everyone was finding their place in the new world, but he had been robbed of his.
Travis would later discover he had a purpose after all – keeping people alive. More precisely, keeping those people alive who would be useful to him. It was a task that had once felt impossible, but Travis appreciated a challenge, and that challenge was best represented in his garden. What had started as a few seedlings had later blossomed into a full-blown greenhouse, surrounded by walkways with panoramic views of the city. Every plant, every flower was cultivated with care. Travis had told himself that if he could keep plants alive in such a hostile environment, where ordinarily they wouldn’t stand a chance of survival now, then surely, he could keep a few people alive in a world where the first instinct was to tear each other apart.
Travis would come into his roof garden for moments of peace, allowing himself to picture a colorful world, the fragrance of honeysuckle and jasmine drifting pleasantly in the air. It had become a haven for when he was about to throw himself into turbulence…
“B—, I mean, Travis!” Vincent’s voice rang out. Despite the authority that Travis carried, he despised being called ‘Boss’ or ‘Sir’ or any other fancy titles. He felt that titles only existed for the egotistical to give them an inflated sense of self-importance. Many years ago, Travis had heard of a survivor – a woman – who had formed a cult of personality, attempting to rearrange the world into a pyramid, where she was at the top. The woman had died a few months into the storms. Travis was adamant he wouldn’t fall to the same mistakes.
“What is it, Vincent?” asked Travis.
“Lea’s here! She’s ready.”
Travis sighed. He loved Lea like a daughter, but he felt that every moment they made time for each other, he was chipping away at her innocence, bit by bit.
But this…this was a matter where he needed someone he could trust. Someone who could handle themselves. Although no matter who he turned to, he didn’t think anyone could make sense of the sight awaiting them.
Lea was waiting impatiently at the doorway of Travis’s apartment, desperately trying not to show the feelings of anxiousness that were building up in the pit of her stomach.
“Thanks for coming, Lea. I know this isn’t going to be easy, but I need people I can trust on this job, and you know I trust you implicitly,” said Travis in a calm voice. “Both of you, please come with me.”
Travis had had one of the lower apartments converted as a laboratory workspace. He led the way down the six flights of stairs with Lea and Vincent following closely behind.
Travis entered through the front door into a spacious room; in the center was a large metal table where the body had been placed. Vincent, despite having already seen the body, began retching. “Oh, Jesus!” he exclaimed between breaths. Lea looked horrified but didn’t take her eyes off the body.
The man was lying on his back, a rough glass wall rising from his stomach to nearly three feet high and six feet wide.
The body was already in the process of being examined by a man who was gently tapping the glass as if conscious it would break. The man had been found by Travis seven years after the storms had started. He had proven himself to be a very capable chemist, even a scientist. He’d never given anyone his name. After
nearly a year in Travis’s custody, people had given up trying to get it from him. They had taken to calling him ‘Prof’ or ‘the Professor’. He was the closest thing anyone in Travis’s organization had to a scientist…and probably the only person who could give any explanation for the abomination they were all laying eyes on today.
He was holding a petri dish containing several grains of sand. The Professor held up an old cigarette lighter and held the flame against the sand. Suddenly, flames leaped out of the petri dish, temporarily blinding everyone in the room.
It was gone as quickly as it came. “You didn’t think it might be a good idea to warn us that you were going to try and burn the building down?” remarked Vincent.
The Professor held up a hand to shush Vincent. Now lying in the petri dish was a small, uneven layer of cloudy glass.
“What the hell is that?” By now, Travis didn’t think anything he saw would be able to faze him. He hated it when he was proven wrong.
“I can’t explain this,” said the Professor, looking defeated, despite his best efforts to hide it. Travis wasn’t a man who took disappointment lightly.
“Well, I think it’s safe to assume this wasn’t an accident,” said Travis sardonically.
“No accident. Whoever did this was using specialist equipment.”
“How the hell do you get glass?” asked Vincent.
“You heat sand hot enough; you can turn it to glass, but that would require a temperature of 3,200 degrees Fahrenheit,” explained the Professor. “I just don’t understand how on earth glass can be formed by heating some particles of sand with a simple lighter. It was like lighting nitrocellulose.”