by Raylan Kane
“We’re farmers too,” Trident said.
“Then you should know better than to be out in Full Dark.”
“Same could be said for you,” I said.
“Yes, and how has that worked out for you?” One of the men said.
“We’ll see,” I said.
The hunters lead us to the truck, and they’ve lined us up at the rear. They’re speaking amongst themselves in low tones. Assuredly this cannot be the end. Not for me. I may be wrong about it, but I’ve often dreamt that I am destined to accomplish things no one else in this world has had the courage to try.
“Make it quick,” Trident said to the hunters. “I'm allergic to pain.”
“No!” The clone...again.
One of the men has stepped close in front of Trident. “22 times 13.”
“286,” Trident replies.
The man’s in front of me now. “What’s 108 times 16?” He asks.
“1728,” I answer.
He steps in front of the clone.
“You say this one is simple?” He says. “He's your brother?”
“That’s right,” Trident says.
“What’s one plus one?” The man says to the clone. “Certainly you would know that much.”
“No! Come on! You’re next! Move it! Yes!”
The man has walked back over to the others. They’re whispering, and I cannot quite hear their words. They stop talking. One of the men walks up to us.
“You two are up to trickery,” he says. “We're certain you are. For starters, this one with you's a cursed clone.”
There’s more whispering. I can hear one of them speaking of the Fold they could earn by turning us in instead of shooting us.
“It’s a day for luck,” the miss says, “you two should praise the stars. On this day we need the Fold more than we need your marrow. The same cannot be said of the State. Harboring a clone is a capital offense.”
“We weren’t harboring him. We came across him, same as you did us,” Trident said.
“Trident, don’t,” I said. “It won't do any good.”
“No!”
“Tricksters indeed,” one of the men says, “he’s not your brother then? Whatever your defense, you can save it for the Magistrate in Hyll, we're turning you in.”
I can feel a gun barrel in my back. “In you go,” the miss said.
The door on the rear of the cube truck slides open and we’re shoved inside. There’s a corpse lying along one wall.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The road has become hilly and full of rocky bumps. My backside is sore from the constant thumps up and down, and the drive has barely begun. The smell of the rotting corpse across from us fills the back of the truck. I will take the smell of mouldering grass any day. Remarkably the clone is sleeping.
“They’re used to being hauled in trucks,” Trident said, motioning toward the clone. “It’s probably the most relaxing portion of their existence.”
It’s hard for me to not feel sorry for the clone. Again, I’ve never taken pleasure in consuming the flesh of another person, but I recognize the clear selfish benefit of eternal life. I’ve never been so plainly confronted with my and the rest of the planet’s dietary habit. Clones are heard about plenty, but seldom seen.
“We should be in Hyll very soon, what’s our plan?” Trident said.
“Our plan is to get out of this truck before they can deliver us to the Magistrate,” I say, “harboring a clone is a sure death sentence.”
“How do you want to go about that? Getting out of this truck?” Trident says. “That door is locked, and we’re speeding down the road. Even if we were to open the thing. They have weapons, we don’t.”
“I’m aware of our predicament,” I said. “I am not aware of a solution just yet.”
“Comforting.”
The truck has reached a very rocky stretch, the walls of the cube are rattling. The corpse leaves the floor momentarily with each bump, slamming back down with the sticky sound of bone, blood, and sinew thumping together as one on the dense steel.
The truck has lurched to a sudden stop. I can hear muffled voices. Rifle fire comes from all directions.
“Curses and rhyme what is it now? They're fighting each other?” Trident says.
“Get down low,” I command.
“Other hunters? Thieves?”
“Perhaps.”
Full Dark is a dangerous time indeed. No sooner are we snapped up, when another group of marauders likes the look of this truck. The gunfire has stopped. The clone is awake.
“No!”
“Shhh!”
Steps on gravel can be heard close by. The back of the truck slides open. Two strange, rougher looking men stand there, their faces glowing red from the taillights.
“What’s this?” One of them says.
“Out with the lot of you,” says the other.
“No!”
“Out!”
Trident and I grab the clone and we shimmy our way out.
“What happened to this one?” One of the men said pointing to the cadaver.
“He’s not with us,” Trident said.
At the front of the truck another person appears to be butchering one of the hunters we’d encountered in the woods.
“Curses!” Trident said. “What are you doing?”
“Quiet you. Your turn will come.”
“No!”
These are flesh hunters. The truck is not their primary concern, but of course they will take it too, along with our bodies. The hunters stand a small distance off. No one stands behind us.
One of the hunters nudges the one doing the butchering and points to us. “Hurry up with your cutting. We've got three others to cut and these three need doing too.”
They are careless, they have no one looking at us in this moment.
I whisper to Trident,“take the clone and make for the woods, straight behind us. Go now, hide. I’ll come for you.”
“There you are,” a man says to yet another hunter exiting the woods a small distance away. “Took you long enough,” the man says.
“You’re counting my piss times now?” The fourth man who'd exited the woods said.
“They are four, you are one. What can you do?” Trident says to me in a whisper.
“That’s not your trouble,” I say. “Now go.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Trident grabbed the clone firmly and made for the woods behind us. I ducked in around the opposite side of the cube truck.
“Hey!” One of the men saw Trident and the clone make a run for it.
He’s rounding the back of the truck, I’ve lunged at him, and he’s fired backward toward me with his elbow. Using his momentum against him, I’ve planted him flat on his back. I jump on and pull his head forward. With a hard twisting motion the bones in his neck snap and pop as his head hyper-extends past the point any head should. He has no pulse. Uncle Thereen would be proud. I did that in good time. It gives me no pleasure, but this is life and death. I take hold of the dead hunter's rifle and I worm my way under the truck.
One of the men runs and stands at the rear of the truck, I can see him pointing to the woods in the red taillight glow. “They went this way!”
In the red light I can see the hunter standing in front of me well enough. I take aim and fire.
With one shot I’ve nearly severed his right leg behind his knee. He throws his rifle forward as he falls and cries out, clutching his lower leg. The thing is still attached by a shred of cartilage. I roll out the right side of the truck and the butcher with the knife swoops downward at me. I shove the rifle upward with both hands at his chest. He reflexively drops the blade, with the rifle held awkwardly across his upper body. I flip from my back to my feet, grasp the rifle and kick the butcher away from me so I can now aim the weapon.
I duck as the hunter at the front of the truck, easily seen in the headlights, fires a clumsy, panicking sh
ot from behind the butcher. The shot blows chunks of bloody muscle and bone out of the butcher’s right shoulder, he falls to his knees in agony. While kneeling, I put the rifle barrel to the butcher’s face at just the right angle. As the other hunter walks toward me with his gun high, I squeeze the trigger, blasting a hellacious gaping cavity in through the butcher’s head, the bullet slams into the other man’s skull.
I walk around and check each of the four men, and the bodies of the others who have yet to be butchered. Only the one with the damaged leg still lives, though he's in rough enough shape he may pass soon.
“Trident,” I say, “it’s safe. Let’s go.”
Trident and the clone come up out of the woods. Trident surveys the damage. “Curses and rhyme,” he says. “You did all of this? Hay farmer my foot.”
“We have to leave,” I say. “We can take the truck into the city.”
“What about them?”
“We defended ourselves. The blackbirds can have them now.”
“Wait!” The gravely wounded hunter says. “You can’t leave me here. I won’t make it.”
“You’re a dead man anyway,” Trident says. “You’re bleeding out. Your time is short.”
“You can’t show a comrade a little mercy now and then?” The man says.
“No!”
“The kind of mercy you and your friends were about to show us?” I say.
The man grunted and lays back on the road.
“That’s what I thought,” I said.
With the butt of the rifle I slid the rotting dead body from the back of the truck and closed the door. The three of us climbed in, and I get behind the wheel.
I press on the gas and the truck revs and inches forward. We’re moving at full speed now. I’m thinking we’d be better off not holding onto a rifle that doesn’t belong to us, driving someone else’s truck is bad enough.
“We’ll have to do away with this truck before we’re too far into town,” I said.
“Agreed.”
“Whatever happens between here and Hyll,” I said, “we’re not stopping for anything.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
An hour has passed, the clone is sleeping on my shoulder. The first lights on the outskirts of Hyll are visible in the distance. The road has expanded into a multi-lane thoroughfare flooded with orange lights. There is no traffic, only us.
“There’s a small exit off to the right, coming up. I remember fueling there,” Trident said.
“Yes, I remember it as well.”
“We should pull off there. Find a place to hide this truck.”
“I have something more permanent in mind.”
The right lane exits to Green Way. There is still nothing but dense forest around us. Looming in the distance are large dark shadows that are in fact mountains cloaked in Full Dark. The morning comes sooner during Days of the Sun, but that is still hours away. As I pull off the thoroughfare we’re led around a bend to the left and through an underpass. We’ve come out the other side and there are trees close to the road. There are also no lights along Green Way.
“Quite spooky,” Trident said.
“Quite.”
Ten minutes later a clearing appears on the right with a well-lit fueling station open for business attached to a restaurant that appears empty. There are two vehicles parked, and no one fueling up.
“Here it is. What’s your plan?”
“What’s down this road, if we were to continue?”
“Nothing, far as I can remember. Might be the old way into the city, but it takes a winding scenic tour through some mountain passes. I haven’t been that far along it since I was a child.”
“Nothing but wilderness then for a good spell?”
“Yes.”
“Prime. Wait here. I won’t announce our arrival, nor do I want the truck on film.”
“Will do.”
I’m tearing a strip of fabric from my shirt, to wear as a mask, all but my eyes are concealed. From the road I cross the vacant paved area. As I approach the main entrance, through the window of the gas bar side of the building I see two people at the pay area, a beautiful young miss on the employee side, and a muscle bound young mister on the customer side. A bell rings as I enter. The two at the counter glance my way. They are both smiling and chatting in a friendly tone.
“May I help?” The miss said.
“No, thank you.” I’m trying to avert eye contact as I scan the shelves for a canister of hunter’s fuel. My mask hasn’t seemed to raise any alert with the two at the counter.
“Perhaps some clone jerky? We offer it at a low price for three more days,” the miss said.
The guilt of traveling with an escaped clone has me mentally retching at the idea of eating anything clone-like right now.
“This one asked you a question, comrade,” the mister said. “Perhaps you should answer and not be so rude.”
No one is allowed a moment of thought to themselves anymore. It’s as if trouble was meant to find me.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“Rygart it’s fine,” the miss said.
“Fine is not how I would describe it,” the young mister said.
He is taller than me, not that I care – but sizing up your potential combatant is helpful, I do it in record time these days. I’ve stopped scanning the shelves for a moment and I’m staring at the mister. The beautiful miss – curses, she is prime – she is tugging at one of the mister’s beefy arms.
“Rygart, leave it alone. Let the man be.”
“Milne, this won’t take but a moment. Mister, you owe her an apology.”
Common. I have dealt with his kind before.
“Let me guess, you’re a recruit with the local constabulary?”
“Try the Jye Regional Low Command, halfwit.”
“What? Not the High Command? Let me guess, the math tripped you up?”
The mister has charged toward me, I am standing my ground. The beauty has jumped between us.
“Rygart, that is enough! Mister, whatever you’re after, please make your selection, pay and be on your way.”
She has hold of the mister’s sleeve as she coaxes him back to the front counter. I see my opportunity to grab hold of the hunter’s fuel and run. I’ve seized three canisters and in my rush toward the door my foot has slipped. The muscular mister is upon me.
“He’s a common thief this one. Look at him!”
The man flings his arms toward me and he catches the edge of my mask and it falls. He’s grabbed hold of my right arm. I drop down using my dead weight to loosen his grip, and swing my left arm around and up, thumping squarely into his groin. He falls backward and smacks the young miss in the face. I pick up the canisters and I’m barely touching the ground as I run for the road.
“Curses, what were you doing in there?” Trident said.
“No!” The clone barks out his usual outburst.
The mister and miss barreled through the door in time to see me rev the truck and round the sharp curve ahead and hopefully out of their view.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
I’ve been pushing the speed for some time now through the trees on this narrow road. The clone is asleep again after that bit of excitement. I’ve watched the mirrors for signs of headlights following, thankfully there appear to be none.
Ahead on the left there’s a small dirt lane that disappears into the trees.
“There. We’ll go there,” I said.
“What are we doing? Why did you get hunter’s fuel?”
“We’re going to burn this truck entirely. There’s far too much evidence of nefarious deeds, wouldn’t you agree?”
“Agreed. Your idea is sound.”
We’d reached the end of the narrow dirt lane. I have the truck parked in a good sized gravel lot next to a body of water. We can hear the sound of small waves lapping the shore nearby, Trident says this is Jye Falls Lake. Trident and the clone are standing a fair distance b
ack while I pour fuel all over the truck.
“Is there enough to cover the whole thing?”
“Just.”
“Perhaps you should have taken more?”
“Clever.”
The last of the fuel drips onto the wall inside the back of the truck. I toss the canisters on the floor and jump out.
“What will you light it with?” Trident said.
“No!”
“Toss me that butcher's knife.”
“Ah. Good thought. Toss it back when you’re finished though, please.”
It took a few tries, but after striking the blade against the steel I’d created a spark that caught the fuel well and a flame emerged. The small flame curved round and caught more fuel, soon the entire truck was engulfed. With the rear door open, I’ve tossed the knife into the flames.
“Wait. I wanted that. It’s a beautiful piece.”
“It’s a beautiful piece of evidence.”
The burning truck’s lit up the lot. I can see to the edge of the lake now, and the sparks and smoke at the top of the flame are drifting upward to the stars. The inferno against the darkness of the sky is quite pleasing to the eye, it reminds me of the bonfires we’d have as kids behind our farmhouse – telling stories and snacking on jerky. That was the most fun we’d have as kids. We were never allowed to wander far in the night with the Rule of the Hunt and all. Now it’s me, Trident, and the clone doing the wandering, down through these mountain passes toward Hyll, out in Full Dark, headed wherever destiny takes us.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The hilly road leading to Hyll is a challenge for the clone who’s have no use for any kind of physical fitness in his life. Me and Trident often wind up walking ahead of the poor man when going uphill, then we’re forced to wait for him to catch up or we walk back down to collect him – it’s a process that has slowed us down.
“I can see a bit of light over that ridge ahead. See it?” Trident said.