Nine Meals
Page 10
Alma and the man turned and began to walk toward the flap of the tent.
“Let me down!” Bray yelled. “I’ll kill you, too. I’ll kill every last one of you, goddammit! I won’t stop. I can’t stop.”
***
Bray’s head dropped down and then lurched back up. He had trouble focusing his one good eye.
He was thirsty and tired and weak. He had lost the feeling in his hands and feet and his arms tingled now down to the elbow.
These people are cruel.
He mustered enough strength to squirm again on the post, but it did little to make him feel a better. At least he was still trying, still fighting.
That was all he had.
His head dipped again and jerked up. Standing near the flap of the tent was a shadowy outline of a woman. He blinked, his head swaying from side to side. He flicked at his dry lips with his tongue and said weakly, “Who is it?”
There was no response. She just stood there. Motionless.
He blinked again. He thought, perhaps, his mind was playing a trick on him, but he called out faintly again. “Who are you?”
There was no response. She moved slowly forward.
“Do you have food? Water?” Bray pled. His captors had provided the bare minimum for his survival, but he craved more.
There was no response. The woman inched closer, her features pushing into a stream of light that filtered through a hole in the canopy of the tent.
Bray backed his head away and closed his eye at the sight.
“Hello, Blackburn.”
Bray opened his eye and peered upon Halle, a hole in her neck where he had stabbed her, blood caking the collar of her shirt.
“Do you have anything you want to say to me?” She asked.
Bray shook his head. “You’re not here. I’m having a hallucination. That’s all.”
“I’m here, Blackburn. And I want you to say it.”
Bray closed his eye tightly again. If he could, he would have poked that one out so as to not see her again.
He heard nothing and slowly lifted his eyelid.
She was gone.
Another figure stood near the flap of the tent. She inched closer and thrust her face into the light.
“I want you to say it, too,” Hope said. Her coat was covered in dried and fresh blood.
“Say what? That what I did was wrong? It wasn’t. You were dangerous.”
“Did I need to be put down like a rabid dog? Like you will be?”
Bray shook his head.
He heard another voice. “You need to say it, man.” Walter pushed himself into the light, a red caked to his ample gut. “I just wanted your help.”
Then another voice. “You were my friend, my partner. I would have welcomed you in to our community.” Coe shook his head, a hole in the soft flesh of his neck. Blood poured from his mouth as he spoke. “Protect and serve.”
Bray lowered his head and spoke through gritted teeth. “Go away. All of you. I regret nothing.”
He lifted his head and they were gone.
Bray took a sigh of relief and began to chuckle.
Then, he saw her.
She walked slowly toward him, a scowl on her soft face. Her ratty sweatshirt was covered in blood and she had a PayDay bar grasped tightly in her right hand.
“What about me? Do you regret what you did to me?”
Bray’s lips quivered as she stepped slowly toward him. He tried to speak, but couldn’t.
“The decision has been made. You will be dead by nightfall,” she said. “This is your last chance.”
“Last chance at what?”
“Absolution.”
“What do you want from me?” Bray pled, squirming on the post.
The girl circled him. Her eyes were searing against her wan face.
He felt her hot breath on his face. How can that be? She’s not really here. “I just want you to say it.”
“Say what?” Bray cried. “What do you want me to say? Please. Tell me!”
“You know what I want you to say. God is merciful. You should be grateful for that. All He wants. All any of us want is for you to say it and you will be absolved.”
His lips quivered and his heart fluttered in his chest. He knew it. It was something he was never able to utter—to anyone, really. This specter demanded the words, wished to pry the sound from his vocal chords, to be shaped by his lips and flung by his tongue outward for all to hear. It was a simple phrase.
The girl’s face still hung close to his, her bloodshot eyes drilling into him, her nostrils flaring, her lips pressed tightly together. “If you say it, all will be absolved. It will be your last confession. You can die in peace. You can be with your wife again. All you have to do is say it.”
Bray wept. He cried so hard he thought he may just shake himself off the post. Then a feeling washed over him, cleansed him, made him whole again.
Could it be that easy? After all I have done, could it really be that easy?
He calmed himself, took a deep breath and found peace, something he had sought all his life, but had never grasped until now.
He spoke softly, confidently. He said the words with conviction.
“I’m sorry.”
The girl smiled and backed away.
“I forgive you.”
Other works by this author:
Nine Meals
2014 B.R.A.G. Medallion winner for excellence in Indie publishing
When the sun belched and the power grid failed, it was only nine meals until the end of the world.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00IE0T608
Solo
New release
The end has come. Or is it just beginning?
Solo finds himself in a desolate world known to him only as the After. His memories from Before are gone … except for the haunting recollection of a woman—Eye Lyds—and a fleeting knowledge that he was a monster, a particular kind of monster.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00RE7K0X4
The 17
Zack Earnest will die today.
That’s okay. He’ll be back from the dead tomorrow.
YOLO? Not here. Here the rules of life and death don’t apply.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00LVRDC38