Made sense.
Carl was Fern’s driver. He was supposed to pick her up at O’Brien’s bench but that wouldn’t be until after she’d cleaned the farmhouse. And so here he was driving around, killing time, cruising the back roads. Scouting for Silentia, checking for any sign of law enforcement. Made sense. Driving around was less suspicious than waiting at the side of some desolate road in the middle of nowhere.
Carl’s handsome face had lapsed into a mask of horror. There was a phone pressed against his ear.
Morgan saw it and sprinted at the car.
Carl was screaming into the phone at the top of his voice.
“MORGAN’S OUT! He’s out. He’s on the road to Cromness, heading south. Ten minutes from the house. Get back here! You need to get back. NOW!”
Carl saw Morgan coming at him and his eyes lit up with fear. His body jerked backwards, the red snakes attached to his head swirling around furiously. He threw the phone into the car and reached for something on the passenger seat.
Morgan saw the glint of steel just in time.
That first shot whistled through the air but missed. Carl was clearly rattled by Morgan’s unexpected return from the grave.
Morgan wasn’t surprised to discover that the terrorists had muzzled their guns with silencers. It was only fitting.
Another shot missed.
Morgan abandoned the attack on Carl, veering towards the edge of the road as fast as he could. He vaulted over a scraggly hedge, crash-landing into a field of soft grass.
A volley of bullets chased him all the way.
Morgan bounced back to his feet. This was it. He’d landed in the green desert, a vast ocean of rugged hills and abandoned farmland.
He was standing in a giant field that climbed upwards at an imposing angle.
“Stay where you are!” Carl yelled from the road. “Stay there or you’re dead Morgan.”
Morgan heard Carl’s boots scraping over the loose stones that peppered the road. He was looking for a way in.
“Fuck yourself,” Morgan hissed.
He charged uphill, gritting his teeth and clenching both fists. There was a sharp twinge in his knee but he ignored it. What choice did he have? As he ran over the long grass, he ducked his head and dodged and weaved like a boxer, hoping to outsmart any bullets that chased after him.
This first hill was steep but mercifully short. Morgan reached the top, breathing heavy. He looked over his shoulder. Carl wasn’t even halfway up yet.
Morgan took in the surroundings. Apart from the occasional road slicing through the landscape, it was a craggy green void – hills and fields and rocks merging into one another. There was no end to the monotonous scenery, which was cloaked in silence.
Morgan jumped over a pile of crumbling stones, the remnants of an old wall. He ran through another field, a desolate mess of long stringy grass. Then he was going back uphill again. The tall grass swayed in the breeze, cheering him on. When he reached the top of the second hill, Morgan saw a road in the distance. It was a possible escape route. Could he make it down there in one piece?
What the hell choice did he have?
He began the descent, his bad knee flaring up with each step.
“Aaagh!”
Morgan grimaced, fighting through the pain. But he was slowing down.
He climbed over a spiky, naked hedge that ran through the middle of the field. The hedge stabbed Morgan over and over again, leaving him with minor cuts on his hands.
Morgan turned around.
He saw Carl’s bright red dreads flapping around as he the man hurried through the barren field.
The terrorist was gaining on Morgan.
“Shit.”
With a groan, Morgan studied the environment. He had no idea where he was. Not a single clue. Running around the green desert was like being trapped in a giant labyrinth – it was the same thing at every turn and what’s more, it never ended.
On the other side of the hedge, a long field stretched out. It was flat for about a hundred metres before forming the base of another short hill.
Morgan shook his head. He couldn’t run across an open field like that, letting Carl take shots at him. Not with his knee teetering on the edge on the oblivion. And not with the nearest road still so far away.
He had to do something.
Morgan had only one idea and it was batshit crazy. He should have been certified for even thinking it. At short notice however, it was the best he could come up with.
He yelled in agony and began to stagger across the field. Morgan yelled for a second time, loud enough for Carl and everyone else in the quiet lands to hear. He limped, staggered and reached the centre of the field. Clutching a hand to his side, Morgan pressed down on an imaginary wound.
He spun around a little. Then he dropped onto his good knee and fell flat onto his belly. Another howl of agony. Morgan began to worry he was overdoing it. Ahhhh, to hell with it. He’d show these method actor killers a thing or two about putting on a performance.
Morgan clawed at the dirt, dragging himself forward. He hoped that Carl was watching.
The crawl came to a sluggish end. Morgan let his head fall onto the grass, while at the same time his right hand ploughed through a mound of soil, the fingers folding around a small rock, the size of a golf ball.
As he lay there, Morgan’s limbs jutted out at peculiar angles. Dead people shouldn’t look too comfortable.
His eyes froze, staring into nothingness.
Carl approached the fallen Morgan a couple of minutes later. He came from behind, Morgan’s blind spot, which meant that Morgan only had his sense of sound to tell him where Carl was.
There was nothing to stop Carl from shooting him in the back and calling game over. That’s why this batshit plan was batshit in the first place.
Morgan listened to the man’s feet. Carl’s shoes made a slow, crunching noise as they trod over the grass.
Closer.
Carl performed a cautious lap of Morgan’s body.
Morgan’s eyes focused on the red and white Adidas shoes that encircled him in slow motion.
He could feel the young man’s intense stare. Hear him panting, trying to catch his breath.
Was Carl checking for signs of blood? Morgan’s twisted arm blocked the site of the imaginary wound, the wound he’d been clutching before he fell.
If Carl wanted to make sure, he’d have to come closer.
If it was Morgan up there he’d have fired off a test shot by now. Just to make sure the dead man was really dead. Carl was in Silentia, which meant Carl wasn’t stupid. Was there some other reason he hadn’t pumped Morgan full of bullets? Was he out of ammo? Or had Reggie ordered the young man to take Morgan alive? That wasn’t a crazy thought. Maybe Carl had been aiming at Morgan’s legs, trying to incapacitate him instead of kill him. Reggie Ward, still fuming after the way Morgan had treated his family, wanted his prisoner back alive and well, so he could resume the torture.
Carl kicked Morgan on the leg. It was a tap and Morgan didn’t flinch.
“Shit,” Carl mumbled.
The man sounded pissed. Frightened.
At last he knelt down. Morgan could smell the man’s breath blowing on his face. Warm gust of peppermint. Was Carl keeping his breath minty fresh for any special reason? For the lovely Fern Ward?
Carl leaned in closer.
Morgan’s arm lashed out like a whip. He unclenched his fist and threw the small rock from point blank range, aiming it square at Carl’s face. Morgan put as much weight behind the shot as he could from a lying down position.
It was a clean hit. Carl yelped in surprise and pain, collapsing onto the grass with both hands covering the bridge of his nose where the rock landed.
“Son of a bitch!”
Morgan leapt on top of the fallen man, grabbing hold of Carl’s shooting arm. Morgan twisted the arm backwards towards the opposite shoulder. Carl howled in agony. The gun fell out of his grasp, dropping onto the grass. Morgan swat
ted it away while continuing to manipulate the man’s limb with ease.
He twisted the arm further.
Carl screamed.
Morgan finally let go of the armlock and threw a torrent of punches, landing them on body and face. Carl tried to fight with slashing elbows from the bottom but Morgan was the bigger, stronger man. Morgan had been in more fights than he could remember in prison. He knew what he was doing.
A hard punch to the chin knocked Carl out cold.
Morgan pushed himself off the young man, shaking out the stabbing pain in his right hand. There was already a little blood forming at the tips.
He picked up the gun and checked the magazine. Empty. Morgan patted Carl down for spare ammo but he had nothing else on him except a phone and a black wallet with dozens of bankcards in the inside pockets. Morgan pulled a few of the cards out. There were different names printed on the cards, which suggested Carl, or whatever his real name was, was a man of many identities.
Morgan tossed the wallet onto the grass.
He stood up, doing his best to ignore his sore knee. With a grunt he kicked Carl on the leg, checking that he was still out.
Carl didn’t so much as whimper.
It was only a small victory. Morgan was still hopelessly lost in the green desert and if he was ever going to get out alive he’d have to get moving. Whatever juice he’d picked up at the farmhouse, it was wearing off and fast.
He started walking away when he heard something in the distance. Something that chilled Morgan’s blood.
It was a faint humming sound in the distance.
Cars.
Morgan spun around frantically, looking in all directions. When he saw nothing he climbed further up the nearest hill for a better view.
There it was.
On both sides, several small convoys patrolled the quiet lands. The cars were specks, travelling in groups of five or six vehicles, all of them racing at high speed. Even from afar, Morgan sensed their urgency.
Morgan stood watching. He felt like a bleeding swimmer being encircled by sharks. He had to get off the hills. On the road at least he stood a chance. There was no cover on the hills and maybe on the flats he could find a ditch or something like that to hide out in.
There had to be something.
He gazed downhill at the nearest road, which twisted through the landscape like a giant serpent. Six cars were on that road. Soon they’d be gone, which offered a window of opportunity if the road stayed clear before the next patrol showed up. Morgan had to time his entry perfectly. And once he was back on the road, well, he’d take it from there.
How did they find him so fast?
Did Silentia have trackers on their phones. If so, Reggie and the gang were probably bearing down on Carl’s signal, assuming quite rightly that where Carl was, Morgan was.
Did they have binoculars?
Were they looking at him right now?
Morgan dropped down onto his belly. He slithered along the grass, going back downhill the way he came. It felt ridiculous but if he stood up a sniper could take him out for sure. All of a sudden the thought of reaching that road, any road, felt like a pipe dream. Carter Morgan was doomed to slither the quiet lands for eternity. Hunted by Silentia.
When he reached flat ground he crawled past Carl who was still out cold. Reggie picked up the phone and smashed it into pieces, using the same rock he’d hit Carl with.
But was it too late?
Were Silentia already closing in on him?
Morgan’s eyes roamed across the unwelcoming landscape. He didn’t know how far away they were. He didn’t know what side they’d come from.
Panic began to set in.
Now Morgan knew what it was like to be hunted.
He crawled faster. The crawl mutated into something else. Morgan climbed back to his feet and ran almost doubled over, hands over his head, his upper body running parallel to the ground, at least as far as flexibility permitted. It was a flimsy shield and on any other day it would have looked comical.
He’d lost all sense of time. Just like before when he’d been stranded in the quiet lands after the crash. It was this place. It was the silence. It did terrible things to a person’s mind.
Morgan heard a noise at his back. Voices. It sounded like voices. But from where? He straightened up and his eyes skipped back and forth over the desert. He spun around, again and again. All he could see was the strange shape of Carl lying motionless on the grass.
Morgan was paralysed with fear.
“Where the fuck are you?” he snapped. “Show yourselves, I know you’re here.”
He envisioned Silentia emerging from all sides, a silent army traversing the quiet lands like a plague. Coming for him. And when they caught him they’d drag him kicking and screaming back to the cupboard under the stairs. This time they’d throw away the key.
Morgan didn’t know which way to run. He was back in a cage, albeit a bigger one.
“Where are you?” he whispered.
At last they appeared on the crest of the hill, a phantom army sliding through the mist.
Silentia.
Morgan counted twelve of them. Seven men, five women. And there was Joseph, standing ahead of the others. They stopped, looking down at Morgan with cold contempt in the field below. It was a drawn out stare off, at odds with the urgency of the situation. Morgan gazed up at them, all those people who wanted him dead. Needed him dead.
At least now he knew which way to run.
Joseph raised his pistol and took careful aim at Morgan.
Morgan made a run for it. He veered left, not knowing where this sudden change in route would take him.
Bullets zipped past his head.
He was climbing uphill again. His legs felt heavy and sore. It was a slog to the top. Morgan was gasping for breath, his emergency reserves on red alert.
He looked for the nearest road. In the distance he saw five cars travelling at high speed.
Surely they could see him.
Morgan tilted his head in confusion. The convoy wasn’t stopping. It was clearing out. Didn’t they have binoculars? They had to be able to see him from down there. They must have known that Joseph was shepherding the escapee towards the road. Wasn’t that the plan? All those cars had to do was stop on the road, form a barricade and wait.
Game over.
Except that it wasn’t.
Morgan had no idea why the cars kept speeding down the road. It was as if they couldn’t get away fast enough.
Maybe he could run for that road.
Or could he?
Morgan glanced over his shoulder. The twelve terrorists were climbing the hill, covering ground like it was a flat race track. They were in good shape. Fit, strong hunters of men.
Meanwhile Morgan’s energy levels were fizzling out fast.
He looked at the empty road in the distance and knew he had to let it go. His pursuers were too close for him to make a run in that direction. The road was still too far away and they’d shoot him easily on the descent.
Morgan howled in frustration. Was there no way out of this green fucking desert?
He took a right, tearing downhill and emerging onto a long field. Morgan climbed over a stretch of wire fencing and found himself at the foot of yet another short, steep hill. These giant mounds were blemishes on the land. If Morgan got out of this alive he didn’t ever want to see another fucking hill in his life.
He began his ascent, gasping and occasionally dropping onto his one good knee.
His body was breaking.
Behind him, Silentia were jumping the wire fence.
Morgan battled up the steep incline. When he reached the peak he realised that he was close to another road. Morgan clung to hope. This had to be the way out. He couldn’t run anymore. At the base of the hill he saw a thick hedge, surrounded by a cluster of stooped trees that hid the majority of the road.
“Alright then,” Morgan said. “Let’s do this.”
Morgan hovered over t
he edge of the murderous slope.
He heard voices at his back. Getting louder. The terrorists were working their way up the incline, tireless in their pursuit.
Morgan stared longingly at the road, at least the little of it he could see behind the foliage. He was about to turn into a human Easter egg. He’d seen people doing this on TV, doing it for fun for God’s sake so it could work. It had to work. He’d run part of the way downhill and for the rest of it he’d allow his body to roll like the aforementioned egg, building up enough speed to outpace his pursuers and their bullets.
It was a crazy plan for a crazy day. What choice did he have?
Morgan stepped forward, peering at the descent. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes and…
“FUUUUCCCCCCK!”
He ran down the slope, his insides rattling. Morgan lost his balance and as he went down he shielded his face with his hands, his forearms taking the brunt of the fall.
He curled up into a ball, picking up speed, his body crashing off the disused farmland like a human boulder. He had no control over anything. If the quiet lands wanted to smash him into smithereens there was nothing Carter Morgan could do to stop it.
“AGHHH!”
Morgan heard the piercing rip of bullets flying past. At least he was presenting a difficult target. Morgan was rolling downhill so fast that Joseph and his cronies might as well have been trying to shoot a fly in a hurricane.
Whenever Morgan felt his momentum slow down, he’d leap back to his feet and sprint until he fell over again. It was a game of run, fall and roll.
He barrelled downhill at an ungodly speed.
Morgan had no idea how much time passed before he reached the lower slope, just above the base. It felt instantaneous from top to bottom of the small hill. He jumped back to his feet and charged towards the hedge and stooped trees. The last barriers before the road.
He dragged his leg over the grass like a cripple. Still zigzagging to the best of his abilities, trying to confuse the shooters.
More bullets whizzed past him.
He was slowing down. He didn’t have long.
They’d hit him, any second now. Morgan braced himself for a bullet in the back.
He tried to jump the hedge but his leg held him back. Morgan didn’t have time to think of an elaborate Plan B. He pushed his way through the sharp branches, armed with nothing but brute force. It was like trying to climb over a schiltron on an ancient battlefield, countless miniature spears stabbing at his face. Morgan cried out in pain. His face and hands were cut in a thousand places. His shirt was torn.
The Dystopiaville Omnibus: A Dystopian Sci-Fi Horror Collection Page 14