“Put the arrow down and step away from the lady.”
The leader laughed again. Tracey wasn’t sure if it was an act or if he genuinely felt like he was back in control. The point of the arrow scratched her skin as he shook with mirth. Behind them, the cannibal called Joel laughed too, but he didn’t sound quite so sure of himself.
“Oh man… you crack me up!” said the leader. “This is no lady, she’s just a fucking whore that’s gonna die if you don’t put your hands in the air now!”
The stranger didn’t move. He just stood there, the hand holding the knife rested, relaxed by his side. He began to whistle a tune.
“What the fuck are you doing?!” the cannibal screamed, and pressed the arrow harder into the woman’s neck. A trickle of blood began to crawl its way down her throat.
“Sorry,” said the stranger, smiling, almost as if he was embarrassed. “This whole situation just reminded me of a song by Kenny Rogers. It was called ‘The Gambler’. You know it right? You gotta know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em, know when to walk away and know when to run…”
The leader looked at the singing stranger dumbfounded. Even more so when the man’s throwing knife lanced his hand with agony, knocking it away from the bitch’s throat, the arrow falling uselessly to the ground. The cannibal grabbed his skewered hand and backed away as the other man reached fluidly over his shoulder and drew his axe from its clasp.
Still humming the tune he started swinging the axe one-handed in a cross shaped pattern, slowly at first, then with ever increasing velocity. It was only when he brought his other arm up to balance the weight of the axe that she realised that his other hand was missing. In its place was a crude metal hook. The stranger didn’t hesitate as he walked towards the leader, his axe now a humming blur.
“Get him!” yelled the leader frantically to the one called Joel as he looked down, trying to pull the black blade from his skewered hand.
Still looking unsure but perhaps more frightened of his leader than the stranger, the cannibal roared and shot to his feet, charging at the stranger, the carving knife held out before him.
Tracey scrabbled towards her frightened children, grabbing the shotgun as she went. When she reached the children, she fell to her knees hugging them and frantically beckoning for Kane to join her.
The stranger elegantly stepped aside and the charging cannibal shot past him. The axe never stopped moving. The cannibal pulled up, annoyed that he had been evaded so easily. He turned and brought up the knife. Except that he didn’t. The knife was gone. In fact not only his knife, but his arm below the elbow. He looked at the stranger, puzzled as rich red arterial blood pumped from the raw stump of his forearm onto the grass.
“Sharp isn’t it?” the stranger asked, agreeably. “I bet you didn’t even feel that. Don’t worry you’ll pass out from loss of blood before it begins to hurt… I wasn’t so lucky when I lost my hand.”
He waved his hook in front of the cannibal’s face before the dying man dropped to his knees. As his life seeped from him, he didn’t have the strength to protest when the stranger pressed the sole of his boot against his chest and knocked him gently onto his back.
The cannibal, Logan, pulled the throwing blade from his hand with a pained grunt and began to stumble towards the woman and her children. He pulled up sharply when she raised the shotgun, pumping it emphatically. He raised his hands and veered away, resigned to facing the stranger.
“Please, don’t kill me…we were just having fun, we weren’t going to hurt them.”
“Should I give you the same mercy you showed their father?” he asked, the axe suddenly still in his hand and pointing in the direction of the huddled children.
“But…” The cannibals pleading face turned to a snarl and he jerked his hand, throwing the strangers own knife at him.
His aim was true. Unfortunately for him, it hit the stranger with the wrong end and bounced harmlessly to the grass. The stranger looked down at it, then back up at the cannibal, smiling.
“Phew! Nice try, but throwing a knife is really hard unless you’ve had some practice. Here...” He dropped the head of the axe to the ground and propped the handle against his thigh before pulling the last blade from his belt. He gripped the blade with his thumb and two forefingers as he held it up.
“I prefer to hold the blade like this, in a pinch grip. Then you raise your hand like so, and bring it up over your shoulder like this…” It was at this point the cannibal realised that he was in imminent danger and turned, running for the house. “And release!”
The knife took him in the spine between his shoulder blades. His legs suddenly stopped working and he crashed into the timber porch face first, before rolling back down the steps to the grass, groaning in shock.
He looked up at the stranger, struggling to breathe, his pained eyes still defiant as the man stood over him.
“Who the fuck are you?” he rasped.
“Me?” asked the stranger, bending over him. “Why, I’m the Messenger and I have a message for you… burn in hell!”
The cannibal saw the axe blade against the overcast sky and then his vision jerked violently, seeming to tumble before his gaze came to rest on the woodpile at the rear of the yard. He heard the woman’s frightened, but firm voice. “Drop it and put your hands up!”
He tried to turn over, curious as to why the stranger hadn’t killed him yet. He couldn’t move, so he turned his eyes as far as he could. He didn’t see them, what he did see in his peripheral vision was his own bloody, pumping neck. His mouth opened in a final, silent scream as sight and sound faded to black.
The Messenger held his arms in the air, his hook dull in the late afternoon light. His axe was on the ground. He had dropped it when she had ordered it, her shotgun aimed at his belly. Her hands were still trembling from the horror of the last few minutes, and perhaps, fear of him.
“Who are you Mister and what do you want?”
“I’m called the Messenger. But my name’s Luke… Luke Merritt… and I don’t want anything.”
Rain began to fall in the late afternoon light. First a few sprinkles, then a downpour of heavy fat drops.
The children squealed and he looked up at the sky smiling and then back to her. “Well, maybe just a roof over my head for the next few hours.”
“Kids, inside!” she called, without taking her eyes or gun away from him. They ran inside, eyeing him warily as they passed.
“All right mister Messenger. I guess, it’s the least I can do. But if I let you stay a while,” she said, nodding at the dead bodies. “You can help me clean up this mess before you go on your way.”
She flinched as he stuck out his good hand.
“Deal!”
Strange, but as dangerous as he had seemed just minutes ago, there was now something a little childlike about him. Something trustworthy. She lowered her gun, ready to bring it up in an instant if he looked like making a threatening move. He didn’t.
“Well, come on in, I guess.”
8
The rain that began falling that day didn’t let up for three days. Luke didn’t leave for another ten. When he did leave, Tracey Rand and her children went with him. He had told her of Manchester and she knew exactly why they called him the Messenger, he was a gifted storyteller. He related his story, the history of Manchester and the benefits of moving there with a skill that left both her and her children enchanted and sold on the idea of going back with him.
Even with his stories and the opportunity the city seemed to offer, she might still have opted to stay and tough it out if it wasn’t for one thing. Luke himself. By the end of that ten days, she was falling for him. At first she felt disgust that so soon after losing Daniel she could even think about another man, but it seemed beyond her power to control.
Luke, for his part, never encouraged or returned her affection and even when they set out for the city she had no inkling of whether he had the same feelings for her or not. It didn’t matter. She
was following a feeling and would see it through to its possibly bitter end.
Neither her nor the children looked back as they followed the tall stranger down the hill and over the barricade to their new life.
The End
If you enjoyed The Messenger, be sure to visit AfterDays.com and sign up to Scott’s mailing list to receive your free 10,000 word preview of After Days Book 1 of the trilogy.
afterdays.com
Scott’s Amazon page
The Messenger (After Days Shorts Book 1) Page 4