The Scream of Feyer: hitching a ride with a suicide bomber

by Steve Hammond Kaye

  SEVEN

  10 June was Feyer’s birthday, but the Avoiders had never let celebrations break the routine of their fight for survival. When Feyer’s small unit had fragmented from the main Harz pack, she had preserved the climate of abstinence and the woman had managed her three Avoiders with a rather puritan aloofness.

  She looked at her reflection in the cracked mirror that was hung on the cellar wall. The daylight was only faint in the shadow-realm that she lived in, but she could still discern her painfully thin physique and the scar that marked her face. The woman felt miserable. After her nightmare, she had decided to venture out during daylight hours, despite her initial fears of being recognised by the MC-Project. She didn’t join the others in the queue for provisions, opting to wander the outskirts of Goslar instead.

  Feyer managed to obtain food for her pack in her role as a loan scavenger and her successes often matched the collective haul of her fellow Avoiders. She was contemplating which area of town to raid when a voice disturbed her.

  "Hi Feyer, I’ve got you something."

  The woman turned around to see Blackwell standing in the doorway to her cellar area. He was holding a small package in his hand. Her stern leadership qualities came to the fore as Feyer defensively interacted with Blackwell.

  "What have you got me? Are you talking about provisions or what?"

  "No - screw survival for one minute Feyer. I’ve got something for you."

  "What the fuck for? Presents went out with the fucking ark you know. Who the hell wants to give gifts in our cesspool of an existence?"

  "I do."

  The couple fell silent for a moment and then Blackwell nervously handed his pack leader the wrapped package. He had broken Avoider protocol by breaking into a boarded-up jewellery shop instead of the disused food stores that provided essential items. His heart had ruled his actions in this instance. He knew the date of Feyer’s birthday when he had asked her during their previous liaison and as the woman unwrapped the Amethyst necklace he waited for her hard exterior to bite.

  "I’m right out of dinner parties at the moment Blackwell! When the fuck am I going to wear this?"

  "In my dreams."

  The answer knocked the woman back. The sincerity through which it was said represented a golden moment in a grey landscape and for a second the briefest of smiles flickered on the woman’s face. Feyer then returned to her defensive nature, although by using Blackwell’s Christian name, her true feelings were indicated.

  "Born too late Dean! I don’t quite figure out how Amethysts fit in with survival provisions, but ok – for a second you’ve cracked your Ice-Maiden. Now I’m sorry, but I’ve got to scour the maps of Goslar, so that I can re-route you three when you hit the food stores. We can’t keep hitting the same areas because they’ll smell us out if we get locked in a routine."

  Dean persisted in his romantic interplay.

  "Are you going to wear it for a second Feyer? Can I fasten it around your neck?"

  The woman looked to the heavens and released an exasperated sigh. Once again she attempted to dampen down Blackwell’s fires of attraction.

  "For fucks sake Blackwell! Two questions! No and no – ok?"

  "Fine Feyer. Just keep the necklace then, so you can think of me on dark lonely nights!"

  The pair laughed – a rare sound to hear amongst Avoiders. The woman then playfully punched Blackwell and when he started to spar back, he turned awkwardly, slipped and fell arse-first to the cellar floor. The fall temporarily winded him, but his cheeky grin soon returned when he saw Feyer doubled up with laughter. He tried to squeeze his rare advantage.

  "Any chance of a walk on the lower slopes, group-leader?"

  The warm-hearted impudence of Blackwell made the woman drop to her knees with further bursts of laughter. Eventually she recovered her senses and spoke again. Her pragmatic sense of duty returned, but she had been softened.

  "Get real Dean! What the hell are you on about? Who the fuck goes walking nowadays?"

  "More people than you think. The three of us have found out a lot about the lives of the wasted, when we’ve joined ranks with them during the day.

  "Look, can I show you what I mean?"

  "What about the others?"

  "They’re already out on their Goslar beat. I told them that I was going to cover a different section of Goslar today."

  "You’ve got it all figured out Dean haven’t you? I guess it’s years since anyone wished me a happy fucking birthday. This is a one off though Mr Blackwell. I seem to remember saying that once before, but I mean it this time. If my rank stays here when I walk with you, it must remain our pact and when we return to this cellar, my status will likewise return. Are we agreed?"

  "Yes."

  After Feyer put on a headscarf to cover her distinctive black hair, the pair left their Goslar residence. They walked a few metres apart when they were in the streets of town, but this distance was reduced when they started to walk across the pasture that led onto the lower Harz slopes.

  When Feyer and Blackwell walked through the lush grass, they started to feel a sense of release and a mutual bonding. They were now walking parallel to each other with only a few inches between them. Dean Blackwell turned to look at his colleague and she flashed a rare smile in his direction. Feyer then decided to take charge of the situation. She grabbed the man’s left wrist and moved across him to bring their walk to a temporary halt. The woman placed both hands around the back of Blackwell’s neck and he gently lowered his head to meet her narrow lips. As Feyer’s eyes closed her soft tongue gently traced the contours of Blackwell’s bottom lip and then both of them entered into a deep embrace.

  The pair had kissed for a couple of minutes when approaching sounds interrupted them. Coming towards the couple were up to a hundred of the wasted Prerogative Three victims. At first Feyer was puzzled by the ordered procession, but then Blackwell shed some light on the anomaly.

  "This is what I was on about Feyer. They walk the lower slope pastures everyday, whatever the weather. It’s almost as if they are answering a calling of some kind. I know that the bliss-slaves are shot-away neurologically speaking, but what you’re about to witness will make you think for a moment. Their ignorance of anything evil has given them a naïve collective beauty. Watch you’ll see what I mean."

  The couple remained locked in each other’s arms as the wasted generations started to file past them. Most didn’t speak to Feyer or Blackwell, although the isolated few murmured beautiful as they went by them. Every single Prerogative Three victim shared one commonality – proffering the familiar diminished smile when they saw the pair. Towards the end of the procession, a small number of children flitted amongst the adults and for a few brief moments, Feyer regretted the self-abortion that she had undertaken.

  When the last person had past them by, Blackwell spoke again.

  "We’ll give them a few minutes Feyer and then you’ll be able to see the wasted in their playground."

  The procession continued to walk up a rough track through the pasture and had shortly, collectively disappeared into the dense waist-high undergrowth. The pair started to follow in their footsteps and as they held hands, unfamiliar warmth started to glow in the heart of Feyer. Neither of them spoke to each other because they didn’t want to arrest the silence that echoed the intensity of their new-found sanctuary. The track started to become steeper, until a little summit was reached. When Feyer looked downwards she saw a view that was so beautiful, it took her breath away.

  The wasted had found their nirvana adjacent to a small pool on the fringes of a fir copse. Some of them swam in the deeper water, whilst others decorated fir trees with the dark purple flowers that were dotted all around them. The children tried to make garlands for their hair and they let out a shrill laughter when they were thwarted with the difficulty of the task. The scene reminded Feyer of some of her childhood memories. In a way the view in front of her held even more significance though, because it involved universal p
articipation when compared to her domestic memories. It was a natural celebration of life in a world that had been soured by perversion.

  After the couple had surveyed the wasted for a short time, Blackwell pulled Feyer down the grass slope toward the pool where some adults were bathing. When they reached the bank of the pool Dean started to shed his clothing and intimated through his eyes that Feyer should do the same. She laughed at Blackwell’s obvious non-verbal innuendo and then started to join him in the act of undressing. The pair entered the water and stood amongst the ranks of the wasted, feeling pure in their nakedness.

  Feyer dived underwater and was joined by Blackwell at the bottom of the pool. As the pair held their breath, they linked arms and exchanged tongues for a fleeting moment. Then both of them returned to the surface and bobbed up and down whilst extended French kissing took place. One of the wasted crashed into the pair in mid-embrace, but all three of them laughed off the collision – two through reason and one through delirium. Feyer then decided to initiate the next move. She felt warm between her legs despite the chilled water.

  "I guess I’m in the mood to thaw down my barriers for a moment Dean. Do you want to re-enact our one yesterday in that fir copse over there?"

  "I’ve been praying for that line Feyer – I thought I’d blown my chances."

  "No you haven’t. Spontaneity doesn’t come easy for me you know! I’ll be your ice maiden as soon as we hit Goslar again so I guess that this is my way of saying take me while you can!"

  As the couple left the water, they linked hands and headed for their evergreen sanctuary. They remained naked and when they contacted the verdant covering of the copse floor, Feyer felt like the first couple for a brief instant. The sounds of laughter and joviality were now muted as the throng was a hundred meters away and the seclusion of their evergreen retreat gave them a private intimacy. This feeling increased the sexual undercurrent that existed between them and as they lay on their evergreen carpet, love consumed them. This was a first for Feyer.

  When the pair had traded tongues in the pool Feyer had felt raunchy, even mildly decadent as the nakedness around her had hade her feel as though she was partaking in an orgy of sorts. Now that she and Blackwell were alone together, this feeling had altered to take on a much more deep satisfaction. He ran his hands down her back, using gentle strokes that were the antithesis of the wild groping that the pair had previously inflicted on each other. Sex on that one previous occasion had been good, but it had been delivered via lust with any love being an absent stranger. As Blackwell moved on top of the woman she parted her legs, gradually at first, but wider when she was ready for him. She started to rhythmically anticipate her penetration by raising her arse some inches from the copse floor. Dean made her wait for a few seconds longer, not wanting the cherished liaison to end too soon. He was savouring every moment and to him penetration would mark the beginning of the end. He knew that the old Feyer would sure enough come back when they returned to Goslar. She had stated that this would be the case and so Dean felt that further kissing could stall this transition and temporarily prolong his ecstasy.

  Eventually though he too succumbed to temptation and he gradually started to move inside Feyer. She let out a muffled gasp against his right cheek and the pair then devoured each other’s tongues with heightened fervour. When Blackwell achieved full penetration, the pair engaged in an athletic bout of lovemaking that soon had sweat glistening on their faces.

  Feyer was very wet between her legs and when Blackwell felt her dampness on the tops of his thighs, he knew that his ejaculation wouldn’t be long in coming. His penetrative strokes then quickened and when Feyer came in a rhythmical frenzy, he followed suit, shooting his sperm deep into the woman he loved. During his climax, Blackwell had gently bitten into the woman’s ear and his hot saliva had triggered another orgasm in his temporary lover. The pair lay silently in a state of mutual satisfaction. Dean wished that they could engage in a relationship of a more lasting significance, but he felt that their moral affinity wouldn’t survive in the social pollution around them. He would always dream though, until his worst fears were realised.

  Feyer was the first to stir from the light slumber that had claimed the lovers. She gently removed Blackwell’s arms from her frame and then she stood, arching her back in the process. She smiled at the late-afternoon sunlight and reflected on the beautiful images she had seen that day. She could still discern sounds from the paradise in the lowland beneath the fir copse and then another sound entered her aural awareness. This sound was known to Feyer and it represented a dark antithesis to the laughter below her.

  The Apache Black-Slayer was the latest attack helicopter to be utilised by the MC-Project and the drone of its rotor blades were instantly recognisable to those who feared pursuit. This had been the sound that had cut through the laughter and the woman roughly awoke Blackwell, to tell him of the impending threat. The pair ran to the fringes of the copse and surveyed the approaching choppers. The craft seemed like vultures in movement and their black colour gave them another sinister dimension.

  The two choppers started to approach the sky above the lower slopes, where the wasted still bathed. Feyer tightly grasped Blackwell’s arm as she deduced the heinous action that was going to take place.

  Their collective nakedness had given the pair a quasi-innocence before, but now it represented vulnerability for the couple. The copse was even more of a sanctuary now and although both of them initially wanted to warn the bliss-slaves of the military killing-machine coming their way, the wasted hadn’t retained mental comprehension of anything negative. Subsequently their warnings wouldn’t make any sense to the ranks of the innocent. Even evasive action would be an alien concept to them!

  The two helicopters moved over the lower slopes and hovered directly above the bathers. The noise was quite tumultuous and the downwind whipped up small waves on the surface of the pool. The craft were less than forty metres above the ranks of the wasted when the firing started. Feyer and Blackwell had returned to their sick planet.

  The choppers could easily have undertaken the massacre in less than twenty seconds, but the four pilots were on a sport-cruise and were determined to savour every ounce of the bloodshed. The co-pilots had opted to use powerful game-rifles and the slow reload factor associated with this weapon would prolong the agony for Blackwell and Feyer. One of the craft had the tag-name 'Skum 10' daubed on the side of it and it was the co-pilot of this chopper who claimed first-blood in the killing spree.

  The powerful hunting rifle unleashed a three-inch shell that went straight through the eye socket of a sixty –year-old woman. The trajectory of this bullet continued after the initial impact and smashed the hip-bone of a teenage onlooker. Feyer screamed at the evil that had taken over the sky.

  "You’re the spawn of the devil, you fucking cunts! Jeez Dean – the bastards are going to slow-kill the entire lot!"

  Feyer was correct. That was exactly what the four pilots had in mind and as the massacre continued both she and Blackwell found that they couldn’t turn away from the killing spree. The pair weren’t morbidly curious; they just found the horror so overwhelming following the beauty that they had recently shared. Their paradise had effectively been raped by the MC-Project – the scourge of what was left of society. The co-pilot in the untagged chopper eventually tired of his single shot weapon and he started to spray machine-gun fire down at the targets of innocence.

  As the wasted bodies started to pile up, areas of verdant pasture grass became red with the deluge of blood. The wasted remained oblivious to the threat, pointing up at the choppers with smiles on their faces. They even made gesticulations to each other, mimicking the rotor blades as they sped round. The pilots laughed at this ignorance, especially the guest co-pilot who had come to witness the sport. He was enjoying his European placement and had specifically asked to become involved in a massacre of the wasted. He wanted to see the fruits of his hard labours paying dividends. He was after all the aut
hor of the plans behind the destruction of the wasted. None other than David Tavini was the guest in question! The MC-Project front-liner was in his element as he partook in the slaughter. He sprayed machine gun bullets down at the ground with a wild abandon, laughing manically as his victims fell. He killed a mother, father and young daughter in one particularly devastating burst of fire and his fellow pilot slapped him on the back, heartily applauding his accuracy. Tavini couldn’t resist a callous comment to celebrate his murder of a family unit.

  "Call me Mr three-in-one Raz! I’m fucking primed for killing out here. Jeez I fucking love life. Did you see their pathetic smiling faces when I made them eat lead? Viva our new - world pal! We’ll eventually get bored of this sitting-duck target practice, but right now it’s heaven man!"

  Feyer slumped down against a fir-tree. There was nothing that she or Blackwell could do. They were both still naked, without any guns to hand to fire back at the helicopters. They also knew that they carried the visual location of their colleagues back in Goslar – in their main MC vaults. There was no choice, but to sit out the massacre.

  Eventually just the Apaches could be heard and the craft then simultaneously started to gain altitude. The choppers did a final once-over of the massacre location, before beginning the flight back to Designation base M in Hanover. This was the appointed venue for the temporary residence of the American front–line division.

  After the choppers had departed, Feyer and Blackwell left the copse. They had got to collect their clothing and provision bags from the banks of the bathing pool. As the pair went down the hillside a sight of extreme devastation met their eyes. The wasted lay dead all around them, splayed out on the grass and an unnatural silence was the background for each portrait of death. Feyer had hoped to find some people who had escaped the summary executions, but in her heart she knew that each person had lost the ability for reasoned flight due to the neurological alterations that had been performed upon them. Death had subsequently claimed the totality of the group. When the pair walked amidst the corpses, they started to reclaim their belongings. Fresh blood soiled the garments in both cases and each Avoider fought against the mounting nausea inside them. One image eventually made Feyer fall to her knees and sob at the evil that had taken place. Two infants lay slain, holding hands with smiles of apparent release on their faces. Both had garlands in their hair and this image of juvenile peace rocked Feyer to her core. She stared savagely back to the copse of intimacy and let her anger achieve a form of catharsis through Blackwell’s presence.