In the growing light, I could see the Skel's wild, bloodshot eyes glaring at us as I tried to cover my nose in a futile attempt to keep out their disgusting odour.
I glanced at Nanako, at her eyes wide with dread, and I was terrified. For myself, of course, but much more so for her. I couldn't bear the thought of the Skel working her to death as a slave.
The irony of our situation didn't escape me either. After waiting two torturous years, Nanako had finally found her way back to me, and in spite of my amnesia, we were reunited. But what was the point of her great perseverance and effort if it was to end like this?
This could not be happening!
Refusing to be cowed by our grotesque captors, I tried to stand, and succeeded with Nanako and David's help. Clutching his chest and grimacing in pain, poor Shorty only rose to a kneeling position.
"You okay, Shorty?" I asked.
"Never been better," he said while nursing his ribs.
Branches cracked and leaves rustled behind us and a fourth Skel – the one who had been following us – came to stand behind us.
"What've we got 'ere?" he asked his companions in a guttural voice. (A little side note here: literally every second word spoken by Skel is some form of expletive or another. And as I won't use such words myself – most of which would make the most hardened Custodian blush – there's no way I'm repeating them here.)
"Skips and Slant-eyes out for a morning stroll," replied the largest of the three in a rasping voice. Two twisting ram's horns adorned the sides of his human-skull helmet, lending him the appearance of the devil himself.
"The sheila's all dressed up with nowhere to go," grunted another as he stared down at Nanako, who was wearing her Akihabara anime-character outfit, with pink-fringed wig, black and blue zebra stripe top, pink lace dress, torn pink tights, and knee-high black boots.
Ram-Horns grabbed my jaw and turned my face from side to side as if he was examining livestock. With my fever, bandaged head, and arm in a sling, I must have been a real sight. "This Skip's one foot in the grave."
"Whack him, he's no use like that," said the brute behind us.
Ram-Horns pointed his crossbow at me but Nanako stepped between us before he could shoot.
"Don't you dare touch him," she hissed.
"Get out of the way, sheila," Ram-Horns shouted.
"Don't kill him!" she pleaded desperately. "I'll nurse him back to health and mark my words – he'll be the most productive worker you've got."
"Is that right?" Ram-Horns scoffed as he lowered the bow. He turned to his companions and laughed. "Sheila's got spunk. Just the way we like 'em."
"Time for some R&R, then," growled Guttural-Voice from behind me. He stepped closer and reached for Nanako.
"Me first," Ram-Horns declared as he grabbed Nanako's arm with his free hand and dragged her behind him towards the closest house. Although the massive skeleton-armoured beast dwarfed her, Nanako frantically tried to break out of his grip, kicking, punching, and tearing at his bone armour, even scratching his exposed neck.
Desperate to save her, I flung myself at the Skel and reached for his neck. Well, that's what I was trying to do. In reality, I did little more than stagger for him with my arm outstretched.
Another Skel battered me back towards Shorty and David with a swipe of the back of his bone-covered hand. The strike sent excruciating waves of pain shooting through my chest. Shorty caught me and helped me remain on my feet.
Ram-Horns kicked open the house's rotten wooden door, and Nanako, who was still clawing ineffectively at his bone armour, went into a frenzy, cursing him in a mixture of English and Japanese. "Let go of me, you stupid baka, you stupid aho! Hanashiteyo!"
Ram-Horns suddenly let go of her and she fell to the ground in a heap.
"The sheila's a Jap!" he exclaimed to his companions in surprise.
"Yeah, so what?" Nanako said as she sprang back to her feet, staring defiantly up at the bone encased apparition towering over her.
"So you can rack off," he snarled.
"I can go?" she asked incredulously.
"That's what I said, ain't it?" he asked as he turned from her and stomped back towards the rest of us, clearly disappointed.
Even in my fevered state, I watched this scene in a state of stunned disbelief. How had the Skel recognised my wife was speaking Japanese? And more, why was he letting her go because of it?
Nanako stood there for a moment and then rushed back to my side and put her arm around my waist. For a moment, I considered telling her to go, but as there was no way she'd do it, I didn't waste my breath.
"You stupid or something? I said ya can go, so go already!" Ram-Horns shouted in her face.
"I'm not leaving my husband, or my friends," she shot back, although her voice was quivering.
"Suit yourself, stupid Jap," the Skel grunted before turning to Guttural-Voice. "Get the truck."
Feeling light-headed, I tried to sit, but Nanako held me tighter. "You gotta stay on your feet," she whispered, "Show them how sick you are and they'll kill you."
Knowing she spoke the truth, I gritted my teeth and took strength from her support, but I couldn't help but wonder if there was any point. If they dragged me into slavery, there'd be no medicine or respite to rest and recover. In such conditions, my infected wound would cause a slow, painful death. If they popped me now it'd be all over in an instant. But then I noticed Nanako and her determined expression, and I knew I had to keep going – for her, if not for me.
"Hey, how come the Skel said you could go 'cause you are Japanese? How did he even know you were speaking Japanese?" I whispered.
Nanako glanced at Ram-Horns and shook her head. "I really have no idea, Ethan, not a one."
We heard the truck long before we saw it, with its shockingly loud, roaring engine and constant backfires. And when it lumbered into view, I wasn’t sure what shocked me more, that degenerate savages such as the Skel had trucks, or that such a piece of absolute junk was still running. It was rusted through in more places than not, the engine was running on half cylinders, welded on cyclone-wire fencing formed the sides of the truck, and great clouds of black smoke billowed from the exhaust.
When the truck stopped, Ram-Horns and the two other Skel on foot grabbed us and shoved us towards it. "Get in the back," they barked.
My companions and I shared fearful glances. We knew that once we got on that truck, there would be no turning back, no opportunities for escape, and no future except to be worked to death.
"Look, thanks for the invitation," Shorty said to Ram-Horns solemnly, "but if it's all the same to you, I'll pass. Thanks."
The Skel grabbed Shorty by the upper arm and all but flung him into the truck.
"You don't have to get all nasty about it," Shorty said as he sprawled onto the dirt encrusted, rusted floor of the truck bed, bruising his knees and elbows.
David and Nanako quickly helped me get in and climbed in themselves. One Skel got in the cabin with Guttural-Voice, while Ram-Horns and the fourth got in the back of the truck with us. Not wanting to breathe in the truck's exhaust, we moved up to sit with our backs against the cabin.
With the sound of grinding gears, the driver carried out the most inept three-point-turn I'd ever witnessed and then drove west into Lilydale. The vehicle had no working headlights but the Skel apparently didn't care.
Nanako sat beside me and watched me with heartbreaking concern. She placed an arm around my shoulders in an attempt to cushion me from the battering me as we bounced around unmercifully in a truck with virtually no suspension.
My whole body ached from the fever and my throat was parched. I'd have given anything to get a drink right then. A glance at our captors glaring at us through the eyeholes of their modified skull helmets sent a shudder of revulsion through me. There was no hope of those monsters giving us a drink.
"What are we gonna do?" David shouted over the sound of the coughing, roaring engine.
"Sit back and enjoy the ride?" S
horty shouted back with false bravado, and we all knew it.
I wanted to encourage them to escape should they get a chance, but there was no way I could make myself heard over the truck, so I let the thought slide.
We fell silent after that, lost in our fearful deliberations. Nanako placed a slim, bronzed hand on my forehead, frowned, and spoke into my ear. "How you feeling now?"
"Not one of my better days," I admitted.
"You hang in there, you hear me?" she ordered.
I nodded.
I lost track of time as the truck rumbled and rattled down cracked and pot-holed roads, even slipping in and out of feverish half-sleep a few times. Dawn gave way to early morning, revealing a partially overcast sky. I wasn't sure in what direction we were headed, but as we went, I began to see signs of ever worsening devastation.
At first, it was just windows blown in, and I don't just mean some or most of them like in the eastern suburbs because of vandals and foragers – but all of them. Then came evidence of fires that had raged out of control. Terrible fires that had completely gutted houses, factories, and high-rise office towers and residential blocks. Vehicles were burnt out wrecks. Their rusting, wasted shells littering the roads.
The devastation got worse as we continued: roofs had collapsed, buildings were reduced to massive piles of rubble spewed halfway across roads, and the trees were either blacked husks or simply devoid of all foliage. Shrubbery and wild grass was still prevalent, however, sprouting out of every crack in the road and from every patch of exposed dirt as it reclaimed a land that had previously been stripped of all life.
I had never been here before, but I knew where we were. We were in the one place in Melbourne that no Newhome forager had ever set foot in. The one place we had purposely avoided for a hundred years. I also knew that should we continue in this direction we would eventually come across mile upon mile of absolute wasteland, where the buildings were so utterly destroyed that not even one brick remained upon another.
We were in the southeastern suburbs. The place where the nuke struck a hundred years ago. What I didn't get was why the Skel were bringing us here?
Chapter Three
The destroyed buildings to our left suddenly gave way to the last thing I expected to see in this place. Field after field of irrigated market gardens, growing several varieties of vegetables. They were tended by dozens of stooped, emaciated men and women. Their skin was sickly and covered with sores and bruises, and their threadbare clothes were little more than rags. Standing watch over these wretched souls were Skel overseers, bellowing at any failing to work fast enough, or lashing out at them with knotted whips.
My three companions rose slowly to their knees and stared with horror at this glimpse of hell on earth.
"You’ve gotta be kidding," murmured David.
"Shoot me dead," Shorty stammered, perhaps the first time I'd ever seen him serious.
Nanako looked on silently, her beautiful dark brown eyes wide with dismay. She turned back to me fearfully. I could tell what she was thinking – not of the hell that awaited her from slaving under such conditions, but of me – of my chances of surviving even one day due to my infected wound. I looked into her grief stricken eyes, and I loved her. And I felt for her too, for what she would go through in trying to save me. Not to mention what she'd go through when I was gone: she was still traumatised from when I was shot two years ago.
If only I wasn't so weak! Thanks to my injuries, I wasn't able to keep her safe in these most horrific of circumstances. If I was well, I could find a way out of here one night, since I could see in the dark. But I was completely useless like this.
"Why on earth are the Skel running market gardens here? Isn't this place like completely radiated or something?" Shorty shouted over the truck's roaring, backfiring engine.
"Yeah, won’t they all die from radiation poisoning?" Nanako added.
"No, the danger of that would be long past," David shouted back. "What I want to know is why the Skel even have all these crops. Aren't they supposed to be nomads?"
The sprawling fields of vegetables came to an end. With the sound of squealing breaks, the truck slowed and came to a stop before a ramshackle community centre with a jimmy-rigged roof made of rotten wooden planks.
In the sudden absence of ear-splitting noise, I was able to answer David's question. "We apparently don't know as much about the Skel as we thought," I said weakly. "They have trucks, crops, and an actual settlement? We always assumed they were nomads because they raided all over Victoria and no one knew they lived like this."
"And now we know why," Shorty said, "It's because the settlement is here, in the one place we've always been too afraid to set foot in."
"Shut ya traps and get out of the truck!" Ram-Horns said as he clambered to his feet and pointed his crossbow at us.
Nanako and David helped me to my feet, the effort sending my head spinning. I wished the drive could have gone on forever. But now that I was standing, I examined our surroundings, taking in what was left of the community centre, the Skel standing guard at its entrance, and the ruined street that stretched out before us.
Suddenly a tremendous sense of déjà vu overcame me. That I'd lived this moment before in exactly the same way. Somehow, it was happening all over again. As I tried to understand how such a thing could be possible, a vision of crystal-clarity popped into my mind.
I saw a ruined street – this very street from what I could tell – and the bodies of many people were sprawled on the ground. The memory came and went too fast to make out many details. But I saw one thing clearly. A young Asian man who had been shot in the chest. He wore military camo-fatigues, but they were nothing like those of Newhome's Custodians.
As the vision faded every single nerve ending in my body spiked with adrenalin. It felt like a million tiny electric shocks radiating all over my body. Then I felt the sensation of falling helplessly down a very deep elevator shaft with my stomach leading the way. A moment later, my stomach snapped back up into place with an explosion of utter agony that felt like a thousand knives stabbing home. And then the complex-partial epileptic seizure was over, leaving me dazed and confused.
I rocked unsteadily but remained standing thanks to Nanako's firm grip around my waist. I wondered what the memory from my lost year could possibly mean? Had I really been to this very Skel settlement before? Who was the dead Asian soldier laying on the road? And the other bodies, who were they, who killed them?
"What are you gonna do with us?" Nanako demanded from Ram-Horns.
"Brand you and stick you in the fields. Now get off the truck and into the Com Centre!" He suddenly grabbed her by the upper arm. "You should've racked off when you had the chance, sheila, you're gonna regret comin' here."
Nanako yanked her arm from his grasp and helped me get out of the truck. Shorty and David jumped down to join us, then Ram-Horns and his companion jumped down too. They shoved us impatiently towards the community centre building.
That's when I noticed the big black 4WD parked on the other side of the road and the five Asian soldiers wearing military camo-fatigues standing beside it. In my fevered state, the significance of this escaped me until one of the soldiers, wearing the stripes of a sergeant, suddenly strode angrily towards us.
"Woah, woah, woah, hold it right there, Skel,” he shouted at Ram-Horns at the top of his voice.
"What now, Jap?" Ram-Horns growled back belligerently, clearly offended.
"What on earth are Hamamachi Rangers doing here?" Nanako whispered in shock.
I looked at the Rangers with renewed interest, and then I jerked as though I'd been struck. These five Rangers wore the exact same military camo-fatigues as the dead man did in my seizure-evoked memory. And that sent my head spinning. Could that young man have been one of the men in my Ranger squad that was wiped out two years ago? Nanako said they'd all been shot.
I could ponder these thoughts all day and not work out what they meant, so I cleared my mind and wonde
red why these particular Rangers were standing so casually in the midst of a Skel settlement. Councillor Okada said the Japanese shot Skel on sight, so what was this?
"We have a deal," the Ranger sergeant shouted at Ram-Horns. "You don't encroach on our lands and you don't take our people. And these four are our people."
I widened my eyes in astonishment. Us four? Great, the Rangers knew who we were – fugitives wanted by Hamamachi for acts of terrorism. So if the Skel handed us over, they'd take us back to Hamamachi to be executed to appease their paranoia. Talk about getting out of the frying pan and into the fire.
The hulking Skel glanced at us and then turned back to the Ranger. "What do you take us for, Jap? The blokes are a Chinaman and two Skips. The sheila's a Jap – we told her to rack off – but she tagged along anyway."
"That's because you nabbed her husband. Not all of our citizens are of Japanese ancestry."
"So take her and the husband, but we nabbed the other two fair 'n' square," the Skel replied.
The sergeant gave him a steely glare and stroked the trigger of his assault rifle. "You're not listening, Skel. These four are our people. Now hand them over!"
The other four Rangers moved away from the vehicle to saunter towards us, weapons held loosely in their hands. Seeing this, the other Skel who captured us hefted their weapons and walked towards the Rangers. Several other Skel, including the two guarding the community centre, noticed the confrontation and approached too. The Rangers were now outnumbered two to one.
"They're ours, Jap, so back off before you get hurt," Ram-Horns declared.
The Ranger sergeant lifted his assault-rifle slightly. "Are you going to throw away our pact over this? Over two guys I've told you are our people? One call from me and all your Smartphones turn off. Is that what you want?"
That comment hit me like a punch in the gut. The Japanese were supplying the Skel with Smartphones. But why? The Skel were evil, a blight that had terrorised Melbourne and Victoria for nearly a hundred years.
Forager - the Complete Trilogy (A Post Apocalyptic/Dystopian Trilogy) Page 24