by Alessio Cala
"He went out to check the snares this morning," Frank replied. "He not back yet?"
"No. He woke me before he left and said he'd be back by dawn."
"Okay calm down a second. I'm sure he's not far. Who was last on watch?"
"Derek."
"Then let's go talk to Derek."
Kara offered to tend to Annie and Sam. Frank kissed Annie on her forehead and told her to rest while he escorted Tracy in search of Derek. They lowered their heads as they left the shallow shelter and stepped out into the dipped inlet of split land that was now littered with dirty rainwater. The rain had stopped but the dark clouds still loomed over them in warning of its return. They climbed the steep stretch of rock to where Tracy was posted the previous evening. Derek was there. He sat with eyes shut, shoulders back into the comfortable groove of a smooth boulder. His fingers were interlocked and rested upon his bulging gut.
"Wake up," Frank said sternly. He nudged Derek's boot with his feet and repeated it once more. Derek grunted and took his time sitting up. "What?"
"What are you doing? This is how you take watch for everyone?"
"You're all awake, what's the problem?"
"Where's Barry?"
"How the hell should I know?"
There was no time for this. It may have been a good opportunity for a lecture but it was wasted on a man like Derek. Frank marched past him and Tracy followed him up into the forest. Tracy had helped him set the snare traps the previous evening. She knew the locations and together they visited them one by one to find him. There were three trapping locations. The first one was empty. The trap had sprung but there was no sign of any game or a trail to indicate otherwise. It had most likely sprung by accident in the wind of the night. The second trap was still primed. It was in an odd location. He hadn't used the surrounding foliage to funnel a route to the trap like the previous one. It was left close to a large rock formation. He thought Barry knew better. This wasn't his usual work. Maybe the conditions and lack of rest had clouded his judgement?
"Let's move on to the last," said Frank. Tracy guided him around the rock formation and together they circled back over the highlands above the cavern. They kept a close eye for cracks in the earth and on occasion they had to jump between gaps that would prove a nasty fall had they misjudged their steps. The last trap was located north of the camp on a narrow path where the dirt had eroded between the brush. The trap had sprung but not an animal in sight. Frank knelt in front of it and studied it carefully. The twigs were damp and tiny pigments of blood coated their surfaces. The pigments of red spread out in specs across the tall grass nearby.
"This one caught something..."
"Then where is it now?"
"I don't know, maybe a fox or something found it before we did?" Frank lifted his head and scanned the woodland around them. Nothing but more trees and grass. He stood up and began walking ahead of the snare trap.
"Maybe he–"
Something interrupted him. As he stepped forward, a sharp object crunched beneath his boot, the distinct shattering of glass. He lifted his boot and saw the object beneath. It had sunken into the dirt and the light shimmered off its surface. He squatted with broad knees and saw a short frame around the glass that he could raise it from. He lifted it and held it up for a better view. He heard Tracy gasp over his shoulder as she too witnessed what he had discovered. The frames were bent and the lenses had shattered. These were Barry's spectacles.
The group had packed up their limited provisions and regrouped where Frank and Tracy had discovered the glasses. Derek crouched down the same way Frank did and studied the area.
"No prints, you sure these are his?" he said.
"Of course they're his!" Tracy shouted from a distance.
Frank held her back and urged her to be quiet. Mike stepped in and began scouting the land around the trap. He strode with the assault rifle loosely in his grasp.
"There's prints."
"Where?" Derek asked.
"You're just not looking hard enough. See here, where the grass is trampled a little?" Mike kept low and tracked his finger along the newly discovered trail. "Hm. There's more than one set of tracks here," he continued.
"Think we can track them?" asked Frank.
"We can try."
"Hold on a minute," Derek interrupted. "We're already way behind schedule. We're so close to the harbour and you wanna go on a wild goose chase now?"
"He helped us get this far, we're not leaving him behind."
"Please. He's been a liability ever since we left the cabin."
"You shut your mouth." said Tracy. Frank could see her removing the rifle from over her shoulder. He quickly held it tight to stop her from doing anything she might regret. Derek scoffed at her quick temper. "Easy there, love, you'll hurt yourself handling that thing."
"We're looking for him and that's final. Anyone who has a problem can take it up with me," Frank ordered. He marched right up to Derek, his face only inches away from the oaf's. He stared directly into his eyes. A brief moment of silence loomed over the two men as they stared off in the middle of the forest.
"Do we have a problem here Derek?"
Derek frowned, agitated. The tension between them over the journey had led to this. He could see his jaw clench through his skin. Derek grunted and turned his back on him.
"Let's get a move on," said Frank, his eyes never leaving Derek.
Annie breathed heavily. Her nose was blocked so the only way of breathing was through her mouth. Frank fiddled with the unlit cigarillo in his hands. Where are you, Barry? Autark wasn't safe anymore. He needed to get Annie off the island, Sam too. He imagined them sailing over the Atlantic towards Newfoundland and wondered if they could ever return, if things would ever go back to the way they were. He had moved his entire life to Autark. Leaving it all behind would be tough, he wasn't sure he could ever adjust to normal life again, but then again he may not have a choice. He took Sam's hand and they followed Mike's lead. Kara was by his side. He overheard Mike quietly teaching Kara of things to watch out for when tracking in the woods. He was glad that Mike was here. The man had saved his life on more than one occasion and he was certainly pulling his weight.
The trail led them straight to the edge of a ridge up ahead. They continued walking to the edge and Frank hacked away at the last layer of dense foliage with his machete. As he sliced into the brush, it split open like a gateway that revealed something spectacular; a grand vista of the north-eastern coastline. The drop over the edge could have been no more than fifty feet. He looked down into the remaining forest and tilted his head up. There it was, sitting comfortably between them and the Atlantic Ocean: The military base.
Sam sat down by the cliff's edge and began sketching in his book. His eyes were still, fixated on the base ahead. He didn't look down at his drawing at any point, only the base. The harbour was concealed by the forest but it should have been located on the other side of the base. Frank took Barry's binoculars from Tracy's belt and peered through them. One side was completely black and for a second he had forgotten about his eye. He ignored it and continued scoping out the base. "Seems quieter than I imagined..."
"What do you see?" asked Mike.
"A few guards posted at the gate, towers and perimeter. Don't see the slaves though. Wait." He looked closer at the gate. "There's a truck." The truck pulled up to the gate and the raiders waved it on through. It passed the gates and drove up the runway towards a concrete building at the other end. It stopped and two raiders exited on either side. The driver moved round to the rear and before he could open the tarp cover, another raider hopped out from the rear and pulled something out. It flopped down onto the concrete. It was Barry.
"Oh Christ..." he whispered to himself.
"What? What is it?"
"Barry..."
"What? Let me see," said Tracy, snatching the binoculars from his grasp. No more words escaped her. She may have wanted to talk but she couldn't.
"Don't worry, we
're going to get him back," said Frank.
"And how we gonna do that?" asked Derek from behind.
Frank faltered in his speech. He had to think hard about what he would say next. "We'll figure something out. We'll sneak in, I don't know yet. All I know is the harbour can wait. We're not leaving without him."
"The harbours just on the other side, we can find a way around. You sure you wanna risk your life for a bloody drunk?"
"We are doing this," Frank replied. Tracy lowered the binoculars and he felt her hand grip his forearm tightly. He turned to Annie who gave him a look that he had never seen before. It was doubt, there was no denying it. He didn't want to believe it but it was so obvious. It could not have been mistaken for anything else. He struggled to look away, so unexpected, but then he was distracted. He felt something tug his jeans and it took a while for it to really register.
Sam handed Frank the book. He took it and studied the sketch. It was more detailed than his previous sketches, a complete layout of the base. Seeing it in the flesh must have struck something inside of him. "Can I rip this one out, Sam?" Frank asked politely. Sam nodded. He reached up and tucked the pencil back into Frank's knapsack. Frank ripped the page from the book and returned it to Sam. He handed the sketch to Mike. "Can you work something out from this until we get there?"
"Will do," Mike replied.
They set off along the ridge's edge to find a way down to the forest below. Frank had hoped it wouldn't be like this. He wanted to go to the harbour as much as the others. He knew what they were doing was dangerous. The odds were against them and they had heard nothing from Javier or the LPA. It wasn't like he hadn't thought about it; leaving Barry behind. He could never do it though. The guilt and regret would rot him from the inside out for the rest of his life. Barry was his friend. Things were different now and he knew it. They would have to infiltrate the military base after all.
TWENTY
"You people. You people come to this land from all corners of the earth. You come here — to the heart of this world — board its shores and claim it as your own. I have never seen such blissful ignorance or any such hypocrisy as I have these past few years. You discover such beauty, such wonderful land that has been untouched for centuries and what do you do? You wipe your arses with it as you do with every other country this world has known and then you have the audacity to point the finger at us? At least we are honest. That is partly why we are here after all. You think we are all that different? We conquer with force because we do to you as you did to those before you.
Autark... such ignorance from such filth.
You never stopped to think that maybe this land had a history of its own, that it had a name of its own and people of its own. You never once thought of that, did you? Well that is why we are here; to remind you of what it is like to have your entire life's work and legacy taken away from you in a matter of months. For thousands of years, countries like yours invaded the world and sucked your own cocks at our doorsteps, ranting and raving about just how great you really were. If they didn't bend to your will you conquered them and claimed them as your own or at least polluted their culture with that of your own. Things are different now. Our ways may be cruel but at least we have respect for those who have walked the face of this repulsive world before us. We are merely thieves. We carry no legacy for ourselves but we deliver justice and irony to those who are too blind to see the error of their ways, and that is precisely what we are doing here today. We are taking something that was never yours to begin with. You have forgotten that true liberty — true freedom — comes at a price."
He listened carefully to the words under the confined darkness of the black burlap sack over his head. His breath was heavy and deep and he felt the meshed burlap rough against his lips as he inhaled. Footsteps circled him as the voice spoke. It was a man's voice; an articulate man with a chiselled foreign accent, Hispanic, Latin or otherwise. His wrists were bound behind him and the rigid posts were firm against his bruising biceps. The footsteps drew nearer. He felt the coiled rope around his neck loosen and the darkness was swiftly pulled away from him to unveil the bright light ahead.
Barry squinted at the spotlight suspended over him. Everything was soft, blurred edges that melted into each other like an abstract painting. His eyes would never focus with the absence of his spectacles. A striking black silhouette stood over him in the centre of the light. He blinked to adjust but nothing changed.
"Oh, I do apologise," said the man. He reached up for the lamp which sat on a swinging arm that pivoted in all angles. He pulled it low to the ground and aimed the light upward and in doing so the entire room transformed into a menacing nightmare of crooked shadows and bright pale eyes. "I almost forgot you struggle to see as it is."
In the corner of his eye, Barry saw the other figures standing in the wings, watching, observing their master perform before them. He was a little clearer now; a tanned individual with brown wavy hair, clean shaven and a distinct feature that caused his skin to crawl the moment he laid eyes on it. The entire right side of his face was marked with the remnants of a past disaster. The skin ashen and shrivelled, scarred from the burning of the flame. Barry probably wouldn't have noticed with his terrible vision but it was so prominent, particularly across his cheek and forehead.
"It's okay to stare, I get it every time I see a new face," he said, clocking onto Barry’s ogling eyes. "It happened when I was young and my village was raided by pirates. My father and I lived on a farm and had our fair few encounters with cattle rustlers. They put us down on our knees in the barn by the trough that the cows drank from and asked where we kept our savings. We didn't have much but my father was a stubborn man, he wasn't going to give them a penny. They took the brand iron from the furnace and God did it glow, that vibrant orange, like molten lava. In the end it was his stubbornness that did this to me. They questioned him again, this time with the iron only inches away from my face. I could feel the heat melting away at my skin before it even touched me. But yet again, my father refused to comply. They pressed the hot iron against me and dragged it down across my peeling face. I can still smell the burning today. They dunked my head into the water and held it there for some time, and when they pulled me out, my father was already dead." He stopped to watch Barry's reaction. He didn't react, just looked down and away, distancing himself from the horrendous tale.
Within seconds the burnt man helped himself into Barry's jacket pockets. He searched inside and out until he stumbled across a steel container close to his chest. He held it there in the pocket for a second, guessing what it could be before removing it and putting an end to his curious little game.
"Of course," he muttered. He held the whiskey flask up into the light and bellowed out in laughter. He unscrewed the lid and shifted himself side on to Barry. Barry hollered at the sudden tugging. His captor clamped his clawed hand over Barry's bald head and yanked it back. All he could see was the warm yellow light against the dull ceiling. The burnt man wasted no time. As Barry's mouth gaped open in agony, he felt the burning sensation of alcohol flood down his gullet and windpipe. He choked and gagged but the liquid refused to stop flowing. He tried spitting it back up but the burnt man held his head firmly and there was nowhere for it to go. All he could do was swallow and endure the blazing inferno engulf his insides. When it was finally down to the last drop, he was released. His head shot forward and he coughed the whiskey out onto the dusty concrete floor.
"You mustn't waste it," argued the burnt man. "You're supposed to savour your drink, enjoy it." Barry heard the flask clank into the shadows and before he knew it, a tightened fist pounded his gut and he thought his stomach would come rushing out of his mouth.
"What brings you so close to these parts?" asked the burnt man. Barry didn't reply. He sat with his head down, dry heaving at the floor like a regurgitating cat.
"When somebody asks you a question it is common courtesy to respond."
The burnt man stood in front of Barry and le
aned in. He lifted Barry's head by his chin and looked into his eyes with a hypnotic gaze. "Do you know who I am?" Barry shut his eyes tight and pulled away. "Oh come on," the man continued. "It's not that bad. It doesn't matter, it isn't important. The real question is: Who are you?" There was a delay in his voice after every word, as though to contain his excitement. He began to circle Barry again as he spoke, his stride both elegant and leisurely. He was eloquent in his speech and did his best to articulate his cause, not that Barry took any notice. "You're not LPA, that's for certain... Are you with Paraíso's people? No that's right. I'm very sure we killed all of them already. Unless you managed to escape of course, but I doubt it." He glared closer on his second round and this time there was some semblance, a glint in his eye. "No. It can't be. The huntsman? Yes, I see it now. The man who brought me my meals– well, not directly of course but you killed them nevertheless."
Barry said nothing.
"Word around Autark is that you killed some of my scouts who came to collect the weekly share. That wasn't very nice."
"It wasn't me."
"Of course it wasn't you; look at you, but thank you for admitting that you're not alone out there. So come on now, who else is cowering out there in the woods?"
An uncomfortable silence lingered. The burnt man waited for some time before continuing.
"You're being very rude. Now I've spared your life, that is extraordinarily rare in dark times such as these. I've taken you in, offered you beverages and this is what I get in return? Personally I'm offended but I will take exception seeing as you have been out there for so long. I'm surprised you've made it this far. May I ask what has kept you going all this time?"
Barry kept his head down and his eyes shut. He didn't want to listen but he was bound with no alternative. The heat from the lamp settled a sticky sweat across his brow that dripped onto the bridge of his nose and glided down the insides of his cheeks.