Alyssa Cooper
Alyssa Cooper
The little boy trails behind his sister, dragging his feet through the dirt. His name is Asher, and he is eight years old. His chin bangs on his chest as he walks, and periodically he heaves a dramatic sigh. Every pebble he comes across, he kicks into the trees on either side of their path.
He moans petulantly, “I don’t want to walk anymore. Why couldn’t I stay at the barracks?”
The woman glances at him over her shoulder. Her name is Martha, and life has left her looking much older than her sixteen years. She clenches a rifle in both hands, compulsively clicking the safety off and on. “You wouldn’t be safe there,” she says again. He has asked this question many times since their journey began. They left before sunrise, before even the earliest risers at the barracks would be awake. They escaped into the dark. “Not without me. It’s not like the village.”
Asher kicks a large rock with particular violence, smiling in satisfaction as it thumps against a tree and dislodges a huge chunk of bark. But then he remembers himself, and he pouts again. “But I like the soldiers,” he says, “They’re my friends.”
Martha bites down on her bottom lip, and then mumbles, “I know.” She does not argue. He is right, but only partially. Some of the soldiers they have left behind, the ones with easy smiles, who were loyal to the general, really were their friends. There were others, though, that she was not so sure of. She had been haunted by the ones who kept to the shadows, who would speak only when spoken to. Their eyes were either stone dead or strangely hungry, and once the general had been captured, it wasn’t safe for Martha or her brother to stay.
But she doesn’t tell Asher this. He is still so innocent, and she will not be the one to break him.
“I would have been good,” he insists, swinging his arms and legs wide. “I wouldn’t have gotten into trouble.”
Martha’s eyes scan the forest around them. With every step they take closer to Invictus City, the chance of finding danger in the woods grows exponentially. So far though, they have been lucky. They have been undisturbed.
“It’s not your fault,” she tells him, distracted. “It’s just not safe. Okay?”
Asher knows that his sister’s tone denies argument. He juts out his jaw, trudging along behind her. He counts the puddles in the path until the numbers get jumbled in his head, and then he lifts his eyes to scan the trees for birds. He blinks in surprise when instead he finds a sophisticated camera fastened to a high branch.
The first strange tickling of what he will soon know as fear starts just below his heartbeat. It grows. He takes two skipping steps to catch up to his sister. “Martha? Where are we going?”
Martha has seen the camera too, but she doesn’t let her eyes linger, and she does not look for more. It’s safer if the people watching do not know that she can see them. She had not expected their surveillance to extend so far beyond the city gates. “We’re going to Invictus City, remember?”
His eyes are still scanning the trees, counting out the cameras. “Why?”
Martha looks over her shoulder, watching her brother’s darting eyes. Her palms begin to sweat, her grip on the gun growing slick. “Asher,” she says very quietly, “Eyes down, okay?”
The boy’s brow furrows in confusion, but he doesn’t question her. His eyes lock on a faraway point on the horizon.
Satisfied, Martha turns forward. “I think the general will still be there.”
“Really? Are we going to see him?”
The elation in his voice only strengthens her resolve. She nods. “We’re going to bring him home with us, Asher.”
He begins to hop from one foot to the other, his arms held out to the side like wings. He hums a song that the general must have taught him, the sound starting low and gaining strength. Martha recognizes the melody, but no matter how hard she tries, she cannot remember the words. For a moment, she is the lost in the reverie he weaves with his gentle voice. She almost smiles. But then the song is over. The weight of the rifle settles back into her hands, and Asher asks, “How long will it take to get there?”
Martha is sure she sees a shadow moving between the trees at their left, but when it doesn’t reappear, she shakes her head. “We should get to the gates before dark tomorrow. We’ll have to make camp tonight though.”
“Do we have to walk the whole way?”
Martha stares at him, at her strange brother who has never had a horse, or a bicycle, or a car, and she cannot help but smile. “How else would we get there, Asher?”
The boy shrugs dejectedly. “They had trucks at the barracks.”
Her face hardens resentfully. “We’re walking.”
He tries to pout as they continue, but within moments, he is flapping his arms again, every slight forgotten. He sings more of the songs he learned in their small village, harvest songs mostly, his music carrying them down their path.
Her eyes scan the forest without rest.
When the sun begins to sink toward the horizon, Martha stops her brother, and together they move off the path to find cover in the trees. They move far enough into the forest to be hidden from anyone who may take the main path past their campsite, but not far enough to lose sight of it in the dark. She knows they will not be hidden from the cameras, and yet the forest gives the illusion of privacy. For the first time, she sets down her gun, lifting the strap from around her chafed neck.
Asher slumps gratefully to the ground, settling back against a broad tree trunk as Martha slides the heavy pack off her shoulders. She folds down beside the boy and hands him a canteen. He drinks greedily while she digs through her pack for dried venison and small loaves of bread, the only supplies her aching conscience would allow her to take from the barracks. Asher tears through the food with a ravenous fervour as Martha chews small mouthfuls thoughtfully.
She has never been to Invictus City before. She was born in Whispering Peak. But she is sure that she can find her way there, find her way through those labyrinthian streets, and if she is careful, she knows that she can bring the general with her when she weaves her way back out.
No one in Invictus City will see a young woman and her little brother as a threat. They will pass unnoticed.
Asher eases in between her thoughts. “Martha?”
She hands him another piece of venison, taking the canteen he offers. “Yeah?”
“Why are we going to Invictus City alone?”
Martha sips the water slowly, trying to buy herself more time. When she is finished drinking, she devotes absurd attention to twisting the lid back on the canteen.
Asher persists. “Wouldn’t people at the barrack want to help us? Monroe and Tallis loved the general too. A bunch of them did.”
Martha reaches out and squeezes his knee. “They have their orders, Asher. Rescue missions are too dangerous right now. You’ll understand someday.”
He considers. “Martha?”
“Yeah?”
He looks up at her with his bright blue eyes, so big in his tiny face, so knowing. “Aren’t you a soldier?”
“Of course. But some things are more important than orders.”
Asher nods solemnly. “Because the general needs us?”
With an unsteady hand, she gives the canteen back to him. “Yeah. That’s right.”
They chew in silence as the sun slips beneath the horizon. Before the darkness has a chance to solidify around them, Asher’s hand tentatively reaches for hers. He has considered himself too old for such comforts for a long time, but Invictus City, even the road that leads there, breeds fear. He asks nervously, “Are we going to sleep on the ground?”
She squeezes his fingers reassuringly. “We’re going to sleep in the trees.”
“In the trees?�
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With deft hands, she unlatches two bedrolls from the top of her pack. “Do you remember when we used to go hunting with the general?”
He nods.
“I found our old bedrolls in his quarters at the barracks. We can sleep up in the branches, that way if there’s anything on the ground, it can’t get to us.” She passes a roll to Asher. “Get that on your back, and let’s start climbing. It’s already getting dark.”
Stringing a rope through the straps of her pack, she tosses the end over a branch and hoists it up into the tree. Behind her, Asher starts to climb. He pulls himself easily from branch to branch, years of experience on his side, and Martha follows quickly after him, her rifle and bedroll slung across her back. Ten feet off the ground, Martha stops, squeezing a thick branch tightly between her thighs. She reaches up to tap Asher’s ankle. “Stop there and start setting up your bed roll. I’m going to set up down here.”
She listens to the sounds he makes in the dark above her, blind and fretful. “Do you remember how all the straps fasten?”
His voice is exasperated. “Yes Martha.”
After a moment more of his struggling, Martha flicks on the flashlight mounted on her rifle and, unclipping it from the barrel, she shines it into the branches over her head. An instant later, she hears the final clasp click into place.
Sheepishly, he calls down, “Thank you.”
Martha extinguishes the light and begins to fasten her own bedroll to the tree. By the time it is secure, the sun has disappeared, taking the last of the light with it. She turns her eyes to the sky, but this close to Invictus City, the stars are smothered in pollution. She can’t find a single familiar constellation, not one marker that could lead her towards home. The sky between the knotted tree branches is not black, but a dark, yellowed grey.
As the dark and the silence begin to gain weight, Asher’s fingers find the drawstring at the top of his bedroll. He twists it between his fingers, knotting the ends over and over again, listening to the shifting sigh of the unfamiliar forest all around him. He can’t slow his breath, can’t silence his fear. Although he wants to be strong, wants to show his sister how he’s grown, when an owl screeches through the night, he yelps. He slaps one hand over his mouth to stifle the sound.
Martha’s voice calls out from below, “Asher?”
His cheeks burn hotly, and he is glad she cannot see him. “I’m okay.”
“What happened?”
“I…” He glances around in the dark, to make sure he hasn’t missed any evil hiding in the trees. “It was just a bird, I think.”
“You have to try to get some sleep, Asher. We have a long way to go tomorrow, and we have to leave early.”
But his heart has taken up residence in his throat, and he can’t force it down. Tentatively, he asks, “Martha?”
She grunts acknowledgement.
“Will you sing for me?”
For anyone else, she would refuse. She hasn’t given in to music in years, her soul wrung of its song, but Asher asks so little. She cannot deny him such a simple request. Racking her brain for any trace of a song, she remembers the melody Asher had hummed only hours earlier. She still can’t find the words, but maybe what she remembers will be enough. She hums for her brother, a soft reprise, closing her eyes. She remembers her father working golden fields, leading a team of horses under a bright, summer sun, always singing. She remembers him smiling. But that was a long time ago, even before Asher was born. The memory fades away, and Martha is wrapped in darkness, the boy snoring softly above her. She lets the melody die on her lips, settling in for her own restless night. She lies awake, clutching her rifle, as above, her brother dreams of lush green fields and the crystal blue skies of Whispering Peak.
The boy wakes in terror, all at once, and if not for the straps holding his bedroll in place, would surely have fallen to the ground far below. For a moment he can’t remember what has woken him, but then it comes again, a horrible howl piercing the night. The sound cuts through the forest, running through the trees toward them. Asher’s blood freezes in his veins, and he pants for breath past the knot of fear in his throat.
He has never heard a sound like that before.
When the howling falls away, the silence it leaves in its wake is unnaturally thick. All of the animals in the forest are holding their breath, praying for salvation, to be passed by. Asher tries to remember how high they have climbed. He wonders if it will be enough.
He takes advantage of the silence, and asks in a tremulous voice, “Martha?”
“I’m here, Asher.” Her words come from directly beneath him, just as they did before he fell asleep, and her voice is sure and steady. The rush of relief he feels is instantaneous, flooding his body like a warm sea. As long as she is still here, he knows he will be safe.
“What’s going on?” he asks, “What’s that sound?”
Martha’s voice is grim when she speaks. “It’s just the Invictus City guard dogs. Try to get some sleep.”
The howling picks up again, and the fear comes back full force, a softening in the boy’s belly. “Guard dogs?”
“They can’t get up here, Asher,” she tells him reassuringly. “Usually they don’t even come this far into the woods, they’re meant to guard the gates.” She doesn’t know if this is true. She has heard of the dog packs from raiders, but all their stories sounded like fairy tales, lacking in facts and details. She never thought she’d see one. Even the bravest raiding teams do their best to avoid the genetically altered creations of the Invictus City scientists. She hates the sound of fear in her brother’s voice, though, and she will do anything to slake it. “They just keep people from sneaking into the city at night. They won’t bother us if we don’t bother them.”
But the howling is getting closer. Asher can hear the crash of large bodies through the underbrush, bodies either too large to move quietly, or too dangerous to feel the need to. Probably both. He listens to the path they wind, closer and closer, and he is sure they are hunting him. Their howls have stopped, but they are coming closer. Soon, he can hear their breath, he is sure he can even smell it, and below him, his sister frees her legs from her bedroll. She brings her rifle to her shoulder without a sound, peering down the barrel, struggling to make sense of the tangle of shadows far beneath them.
All at once, silence falls. Asher strains his ears, but the sounds of cracking branches and rustling leaves have dropped away to nothing. The night is thick.
Have they stopped moving?
All Asher can hear is the sound of his sister’s breath in the branches below. He counts his heartbeats, waiting, waiting, waiting, praying he has just woken from some horrible dream. He tries to stay quiet. He tries to be strong. But in the suffocating bubble of silence, moments seem to pass like hours.
Finally, he can stand it no longer. His lips part, and, barely a breath, he whispers, “Martha?”
His voice ignites a frenzy. With snapping jaws and scrambling claws, a pack of monsters swarm in the dark beneath them, snarling and spitting as they tear into the tree trunk. Too terrified even to scream, Asher clamps his hands over his ears. He presses his back against the thick tree, feeling the shudder that goes through it with every collision in the dark, clinging desperately to his unsteady world.
When a creature leaps from below, scrambling up the branches so that its teeth snap shut only inches below Martha’s ankles, Asher can smell its rancid breath. Through the blinding darkness, its vicious fangs glint like steel. The boy screams. Even when the monster trusts its weight to too slender a branch, crashing to the ground below, he cannot reign in his terror.
Asher’s sister is not a woman who gives in to fear. She steadies her rifle, aiming at empty space, and waits. When the monster leaps again, teeth snapping once more for her feet, she pulls the trigger. In the branch above her head, Asher gives a small shriek; the bright white light of exploding powder had illuminated the creature’s face. It lasted only an instant, before a mass of blood and go
re took its place, but he has seen more than enough.
They can’t be real.
When the body hits the ground, the pack begins to howl, mournfully at first, and then with violence, with rage, until the chilling sound breaks down into snarls, and moans, and strange, excited yips. Martha clicks on her flashlight, and with determination, she trains the beam down. Asher wraps his arms around the tree branch, pressing his face into his bedroll and peeking over the side. He can only look for a moment. The sight of them is too much for his frail mind to bear.
Martha, though, is stoic. She looks into the eyes of the beasts as they clamber over each other, slathering and whining. They look like wolves, crawling on all fours and covered in hair, with long snouts and pointed ears. They move like wolves. And yet… in their noses, their lips, their pliant tongues, there is something strangely human. Their eyes, filled not with animal rage but with something more refined, are chilling. And their hands, when they recover from the shock of the light and resume their mad scramble up the side of the tree, are most certainly human. Covered in hair and clawed, but with fingers.
Martha draws in a deep breath to harden her heart. She takes aim at the first creature and pulls the trigger without hesitation. She moves on to the next, steadying her hands before she fires again. She spares only a single bullet for each set of eyes. Asher flinches with every crack of the gun, biting down on his bedroll to keep from screaming. He cannot watch. He won’t.
The gun fires seven shots. He waits for an eighth that never comes.
In the aftermath, Martha scans the carnage with her flashlight. As the wheezing, gasping breath of the only creature to survive the fire storm finally fades away, the silence creeps back in. Asher lifts his head suspiciously, straining his ears. He is sure that the quiet is a ruse, meant to trick them. His muscles stiff and twitching, he waits for the next attack. But slowly, the sounds of the night begin to reappear, first crickets and then the rustle of mice and squirrels through the underbrush. He peers over the branch, watching the path of Martha’s flashlight across the ruined faces of the monsters below.
Whispering Peak Page 1