Forager - the Complete Trilogy (A Post Apocalyptic/Dystopian Trilogy)

by Peter R Stone

  Tamura's hand-to-hand combat skills were better than mine, and he wasn't hampered by chest and head wounds. I did the only thing I could do to give me an edge. I switched off the torch. That left him and everyone else – except for me of course – in pitch blackness.

  The sergeant rushed me, except I'd already stepped aside. I changed the torch to my right hand and smacked it on the side of his head as he went past. Clutching his head with one hand, he spun about and delivered a flurry of strong punches towards me. I danced back from his strikes and lashed his arms and fists with the torch, causing bruises to mount up. Soon he'd leave his defences open and then I'd take him down.

  But my concentration was broken when Reina screamed out a Japanese kiai battle cry. I turned just in time to see Reina catch Nanako and slam her into the wall. She followed this up with a right hook to my wife’s left temple, and then wrapped her hands around her throat and began to strangle her.

  I didn't know if she was trying to kill her or just knock her out, but there was no way I was gonna risk Nanako's life, not even for the mission.

  I couldn't remember learning karate when I was a Ranger, but it was obviously ingrained in my system. As I charged Reina I let my instincts take over and delivered a back-foot front-kick to her lower left ribcage. I heard several of her ribs fracture as she was spun around to face me. Crying out in pain, she let go of Nanako, who promptly slid down the wall and collapsed in a heap on the grime-covered floor, where she remained, motionless.

  I stepped closer to Reina and buried my fist in her solar plexus, dropping her to the floor where she writhed about in agony as she laboured to draw a breath.

  I checked quickly on Nanako and sighed in relief when I found that both her heartbeat and breathing were normal. She was just unconscious.

  Remembering the sergeant, I spun back around to find him and freaked out when I saw he'd retrieved his sniper rifle from David. He couched the rifle against his shoulder and then reached up to change a setting on the scope.

  "A day-night scope," I wailed softly to myself as Tamura aimed the rifle right at me.

  "You can see me, can't you, Jones – you can see me as plain as day," Tamura declared with. "I always wondered about your uncanny ability to flush out Skel ambushes, even in the dark. What are you, some kind of mutant freak? We should have killed you when we found you instead of bringing you back. Abominations like you shouldn't exist. You know that, don't you?"

  "You're right, I can see in the dark," I replied as I transferred the torch to my left hand. "But I'm no mutant." I thumbed on the torch and pointed it at his night scope, blinding him.

  The sergeant panicked and fired, but I'd already moved to my left and dropped to my knees. The heavy bullet whizzed past my head and hit the door behind me, causing an explosion of wooden splinters as it went straight through.

  The sergeant immediately drew back the rifle's bolt and loaded another bullet, but in one smooth motion, I drew my combat knife and threw it at him, where it buried deep in his chest with a thud.

  The sergeant grunted and collapsed, the rifle clattering noisily to the floor beside him. I cursed, angry with him and angry with myself. I hadn't wanted to kill him. I wanted to bring him back to Newhome as a prisoner.

  I rushed back to Nanako and noticed Reina was gone. She must have slipped out the door when I was fighting the sergeant.

  Reaching my wife's side, I was relieved to see she'd regained consciousness, although still pretty dazed. I ran my hand over her temple and throat, checking her bruises in the torchlight. "You okay, Nana-chan?"

  "You mean apart from the splitting headache and my neck feeling like it's been crushed in a vice?"

  "That's my girl," I said as I helped her to her feet, relieved she was alright. If something had happened to her on this mission, there'd be nothing left for me to live for.

  I grabbed Shorty, who was kneeling beside the door, holding his nose and moaning in pain. "You gonna make it, Shorty? You sound like you're gonna die."

  "That Ranger witch broke my nose!" he complained with a distorted, muffled voice.

  "It'll make a nice trophy-wound – now get up and help David – Reina's probably gone to get the Skel, so we've gotta move and move now!"

  Shorty helped a somewhat groggy David to his feet, Nanako grabbed her bow and arrows, and I grabbed my pistol and retrieved the sniper rifle.

  Angry Skel voices shattered the still night air and we heard many footsteps heading our way from outside.

  Shorty grabbed David's bow from the floor, pressed it into his hands, and turned to me in a panic. "Jones, we gotta get out of here!"

  But the Skel reached the side entrance before we'd even taken a step. They spied us immediately since my torch was still on and charged us en masse, shouting their foul-mouthed curses.

  "Too late!" David wailed.

  Nanako didn't hesitate, firing her bow again and again, until the Skel leading the charge had several arrows sticking out of his bone armour. But he kept on coming.

  I knew we'd stand no chance against the Skel in the close confines of the corridor, so I knelt down and aimed the sniper rifle at the Skel stepping carefully over the bomb in the doorway. I fired. The heavy bullet went straight through the hardened bone armour covering the warrior's chest, and he collapsed right onto the booby trap wire.

  I only just managed to drop the torch and rifle and cover my ears before the bomb went off. There was a tremendous bang, and the blast shredded several Skel with shrapnel and knocked the rest over.

  I retrieved the torch, snapped it off, and slung the rifle over my back. "Okay guys, up against the left wall and follow me – we're out of here."

  "But how can we get out with the Skel running around everywhere?" David asked worriedly.

  "By doing the last thing they'll expect – we're gonna walk out the front door and go straight to Newhome."

  "But..." David began.

  "If you hear any Skel coming from ahead, just press yourselves against the wall and freeze. They won't be able to see us."

  "I can't see us," said Shorty.

  "We'll be fine once we get back to the foyer, now come on." I moved off, with my companions following.

  We moved quickly but quietly up the corridor and into the foyer, and then went to ground as several Skel rushed in from the street. And just as I expected, they didn't notice us in the near pitch-black room in our black clothes. They went straight past us, heading for the side exit where the bomb had gone off.

  Once they were gone, we slipped out through the main doors and into Crown Street, where the column of burnt out Bushmasters and G-Wagons sat motionless in the pale moonlight, a silent reminder of the Custodian's folly. Keeping close to the apartment block, we crept to the end of Crown Street and stole inconspicuously into no-man's land.

  As we made our way towards North End's eastern wall, I went over Sergeant Tamura's words again and again, considering his claims that I'd been found half a mile from the rest of my platoon with my pistol in my left hand and a hole in my head. His accusation that I'd tried to kill myself went round and round in my mind.

  His words, and their ramifications, chilled me to the core. If what he said was true, then what kind of person was I two years ago? Did I lead my team into a trap and then abandon them? And then try to kill myself instead of accepting the consequences of my actions? I could go nuts trying to work this out, and the snippets of memory I had retrieved of those events didn't help in the slightest, other than to confirm I'd been there.

  I tried to force these paranoid musings from my mind when we approached the secret door, which was still hidden in a cloak of darkness. The floodlights on the walls hadn't been switched back on yet. Otherwise, Skel gunmen in the ruins could have spotted us when we tried to sneak back in to Newhome.

  I switched on my radio and requested access to the town, and the secret door swung open instantly. Sergeant Xiao and two squads rushed out and escorted us through the door and back into safety.

 
Captain Smithson was waiting for us, as alert as ever. "Report, Jones."

  I unslung the sniper rifle and handed it to him. "The sniper has been eliminated, sir."

  A collective sigh of relief spread through the Custodians present. Newhome was finally free of the sniper's reign of terror.

  "Job well done – all of you. That Skel sniper could've been the death of this town."

  "The sniper wasn’t no Skel," Shorty said.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  "Then what was he?" the captain demanded in shock.

  "A Hamamachi Ranger, sir," I replied.

  "A Ranger? But why? I mean, I know we suspect the Japanese are behind the Skel attacks and giving them phones, guns and explosives, but they've never taken direct action against us before. Mrs. Jones, can you enlighten me as to why your people are doing this?"

  Nanako looked at me in alarm. Colonel Kim had been very clear we weren't to mention King's attempt to nuke to Hamamachi to anyone.

  "You'd best ask that question of the general or Colonel Kim, Captain. They know the reason," I replied.

  "You will tell me right now, Jones."

  "Sorry, sir, we are under direct orders not to divulge that information," I explained.

  The captain stared at the four of us in a new light. "Something happened on this trading trip to Hamamachi that is not common knowledge, I take it?"

  "Something like that, sir," I replied.

  "Can't believe they're keeping something like that hidden from their own captains," Smithson grumbled, and then gave his attention back to us. "Looks like you guys encountered some resistance. What happened?"

  "We tried to capture the sniper and his spotter and bring them in," I explained, "But when we got down to the street they kind of resisted."

  "And then what happened?"

  "Ethan happened," Shorty said simply.

  "Did you know these Rangers, Mrs. Jones?"

  "Yes, sir. Pretty much everyone knows everyone in Hamamachi."

  "Did you experience any conflict of interests when you discovered they were Japanese and not Skel as you expected?" the captain asked Nanako.

  She pointed to the bruises on her head and throat. "None whatsoever, sir, and neither did they, apparently. They tried to kill me."

  "We'd better get those bruises looked at, and your nose too, Shorty," the captain said, and then led us to a Bushmaster waiting nearby.

  * * *

  The hospital emergency department examined Nanako, David and Shorty. For once, I hadn't been injured, only bruised. Nanako and David were given a green bill of health and discharged after CT scans revealed no fractures or internal head traumas. Shorty's scan came up clear too, but the hospital recommended he receive surgery to manually realign his broken nose. He turned them down, saying it was a memento of a night he never wanted to remember but always would. That was awfully deep for Shorty.

  After that, we were taken to Custodian Command and debriefed. The general and other senior officers were satisfied to hear the sniper was dead, but were concerned Corporal Sato got away. Nanako assured them the corporal had not been given sniper training, but they weren't entirely convinced and decided to wait twenty-four hours before declaring the crisis over.

  After that, we were dismissed.

  * * *

  We stepped out of Custodian Command into the chill morning air and saw that the sun's first rays had begun to light up the eastern horizon.

  "Well it's been fun – no, really – but I'm gonna go sleep for the rest of the day," Shorty said. He walked off, caressing his nose.

  David made to leave, but stopped suddenly and turned back to face us. "Next time you want to go on a harebrained mission like that, Jones, don't invite me."

  "That goes for me too, by the way," Shorty hollered.

  "I can't make any promises," I replied.

  Shorty gave me the bird and then he and David walked off.

  Now that the threat of the sniper was over, Nanako and I meandered down empty, quiet streets hand in hand. The town was only beginning to stir, and most of the people would remain indoors today anyway.

  Long shadows reached out from ten-story apartment blocks, blocking the sun from view. And although a great weight had been lifted from my shoulders with the sniper's departure, another had taken its place. Was I responsible for the deaths of my Ranger teammates? Did I really attempt suicide because of it?

  We were suffering from mind-numbing exhaustion by the time we got home. More derogatory notes were pinned on the door but I tore them off without even bothering to read them.

  We staggered into the apartment, showered, and literally fell into bed. Nanako lay on her back and to all intents and purposes, looked dead to the world. I ran my hand gently down the side of her face, taking care to stay clear of the ugly bruise near her temple. I frowned as I examined the bruising around her throat. I should have shot Tamura and Reina the moment we located them, rather than trying to take them prisoner. I totally underestimated the Rangers and that was a mistake I wouldn't make again. It was entirely my fault that Nanako, David and Shorty got hurt. If I ever came up against Rangers again, I’d shoot them on sight.

  Nanako's eyes fluttered open and she rolled onto her side to face me, her lustrous black hair spilling over the pillow. "Tamura had to be lying about you attempting suicide, you know that, right?"

  "He said I led my team into a Skel ambush."

  "That's impossible and you know it," she declared, though I could see the doubt in her eyes. Like me, she was trying to convince herself that everything Tamura said was a lie. "He was making all that up to distract us – and it worked."

  "I hope you're right." I sighed deeply, wondering if I should tell her about the memory fragments I had retrieved of that fateful day.

  "I'm sure I am." Nanako snuggled closer and threw her arm around me.

  And then she was out like a light, her arm twitching erratically on my chest. I rolled onto my back and stared at the ceiling with Tamura's words running around and around in my head, haunting me.

  I normally couldn't sleep during daylight, but I hadn't slept almost at all in the past twenty-four hours, so it came eventually...

  ...the nightmare began with a faceless Custodian hunting me relentlessly through the eerily empty aisles of the Recycling Works storage rooms. It didn't matter if I ran or hid, he always found me, bringing his assault-rifle around to shoot. Although it was dark and I could see him with flash sonar, he tracked me with uncanny accuracy.

  The dream changed into seemingly random components of things I'd never seen, conjured by my subconscious mind or perhaps even memories from my missing year. I dreamt of a steel works, and the staff quaking with fear as they knelt on the floor. Masked gunmen – my Ranger squad and I – threatened them.

  I saw a large green truck in a very familiar street with buildings that were little more than rubble. I dreamt of a Ranger sergeant – my commanding officer – standing beside that same truck. I watched, horrified, as I gunned him down without mercy. The repugnant, skull-adorned head of a Skel warrior loomed before me while humanoid shapes flitted between us with disjointed steps. Another Ranger – one of my squad mates and a close friend – stood near the back of the truck. I shot him dead too. The nightmare lurched and twisted. I saw a third Ranger, a young woman, glowering at me as I held the fourth Ranger in our squad upright by his collar. He was gagging and struggling to breathe. And while Skel and the humanoid shapes swam in and out of focus around me, I shot that female Ranger as well...

  ...with a cry of heart wrenching anguish I tore myself awake and sat upright, panting for breath. I was drenched with sweat and my heart was racing. Sunlight still poured through the drawn curtains.

  Nanako woke instantly, sat up, and put her arms around me. "What is it, Ethan? What's wrong?"

  "I shot them!" I wailed as I turned to her.

  "Shot who? What are you talking about?"

  "It was me – I'm the one who shot them," I said as the images from the
dream continued to align with the memory fragments from the seizures. Together they accused me with a finality I could not deny.

  "Who, Ethan, who did you shoot?"

  "The other members of my Ranger squad – I'm the one who shot them."

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Nanako took my trembling hands in hers and shook her head vigorously. "It was just a bad dream, a nightmare."

  "No, it wasn't. The memories that have accompanied the seizures I've been having lately were glimpses of the scenes I just saw in the dream," I explained in near panic. Guilt and condemnation threatened to crush me beneath their combined weight. I felt so wretched.

  "Seizures you've been having lately? You didn't tell me you've been having more seizures," Nanako said, frightened.

  "Because they didn't make any sense, they just confused me. But now I understand them. My Ranger squad was not ambushed by Skel – I killed them."

  "No, Ethan, you can't have!"

  "When the Skel captured us two weeks ago and took us to their territory, the place looked strangely familiar but I couldn't work out why. Now I know why – I've been there before. That was where I shot my teammates. And it confirms what Sergeant Tamura said, that they found their bodies in the same street where they rescued us two weeks ago."

  "But that's Skel territory. Ethan, you know you can't trust dreams. How do you know it wasn't Skel who killed your team?"

  I jumped off the bed and paced up and down with my hands clenching and unclenching as the horror of the truth continued to seep in deeper. "There were Skel there too! I saw glimpses of them in the dream, but it most definitely wasn't the Skel I was shooting at."

  "Ethan..."

  "Wait, there's more." I lowered my head in shame. "I've had another memory – a dream – as well, one I've been denying, even to myself. My Ranger squad and I surrounded what was supposed to be a raiding party encroaching upon Hamamachi lands. But they were refugees, I was sure of it. They had taken refuge in an old farm and had set three armed sentries, one of which was a teenage girl. The sergeant told me to shoot the girl."