Edge of Chaos

by Jack Lewis

  Heather grabbed the end of his pickaxe, gripped it with both hands, and grunted as she dragged it further away from him. How did he manage to walk around with this thing? Even lifting it was an arm workout.

  Charles stopped struggling and became so still he could have been asleep. Heather faced him. The creamy white of Charles’s eyeballs stared back from the holes in his mask.

  “You understand what they’ll do when they find you?” he said. “What they’ll do to your daughter?”

  Heather hugged her arms close to her chest. What was she going to do? Thinking didn’t bring her any closer to an answer. Every solution ended with her in the depths of a Capita dungeon.

  “You have to kill me,” Charles carried on. “If you let me go, I’ll come back with the full force of the Capita, and I’ll make you watch me slice your daughter’s throat.”

  He nodded as if in agreement with himself, the beak of his mask rising and falling like a vulture pecking a corpse. “Yes, If you kill me, your problem goes away. For a while, at least.”

  What was his game? He was supposed to be angry, not calm. His serenity chilled the room, a wind sneaking in through cavities in the wall.

  “Do you want to die?” she said.

  “Don’t we all, in a way?”

  She ran her hand through her hair. “Shut your face a minute.”

  She stared into the hall. Kim and Eric were downstairs in the living room. The afternoon sun had set, and darkness streamed through the windows and covered the walls and floors. Behind her, Charles spoke.

  “You have my knife, Heather. Don’t deny it. You found it while you tied me up.”

  He was right. As well as his pickaxe, Charles carried a machete in a leather strap around his waist. The handle was brown, with yellow smiley face stickers on it.

  “Pick up the knife, Heather.”

  Maybe Charles dying would solve all her problems. She picked up the machete from Kim’s bed. How many skulls had it had cleaved open? How much flesh had it sliced?

  “Now stand in front of me and take off my mask,” said Charles. His voice goaded her, and he spoke so quietly she thought it may have been a voice in her head. “Come on, Heather. You don’t have all day.”

  She grabbed hold of the sides of his mask. The leather felt like it was alive, as though a creature had attached itself to Charles’s face. Rather than fight it, the bounty hunter accepted it, and they had fused as one.

  “Untie the straps,” he said.

  Why am I listening to him? At the same time, she couldn’t stop.

  “Don’t worry,” said Charles, his voice a whisper. “The air in here won’t infect me.”

  She unwound the mask from his neck. She took hold of a fleshy part of the mask under his chin and lifted it. She heard a hiss as she pulled it away.

  “So this is the real Charles Bull,” she said.

  His skin was grey and clammy, and the bridge of his nose was red from where the leather pressed. His face unnerved her, but not because it was strange. Charles Bull, stripped of his mask, looked normal.

  For a second, she was looking at a human being. His cheeks puffed out, and his nose was red. His jawline was losing the fight as his skin fattened. The skin below his chin wobbled when he lifted his head.

  The lack of a mask robbed his face of its menace and replaced it with sadness. She stared deep inside him, at an endless, dark tunnel.

  “See the lines that run across my Adam’s apple?” he said.

  His voice sounded different without his mask. It was clearer. Seeing his lips move made his voice less threatening, and more like a desperate man’s whisper.

  It reminded her of seeing her grandfather an hour before he died. He was an angry man most of his life. Heather dreaded visiting his house, and she faked stomach aches to avoid going. Despite a life of bubbling temper, an hour before he died, the volume of his voice dropped lower than it ever before, and he whispered tender words to his family.

  Was the same thing happening Charles? Stripped of his power, facing death, had the fight left him?

  “Heather. My neck.”

  A jagged red line ran across the flappy skin on Charles’s neck. It stared at one side, bridged his Adam’s apple, and ended at the other. It looked like a smile drawn across his neck by a knife.

  “Is that a cut?”

  He nodded. “There’s nothing you can do to me that hasn’t been done already.”

  She couldn’t kill him. It wasn’t that he was invincible; It was something inside her. No matter how close she brought the knife to his skin, she couldn’t make the cut.

  She walked downstairs. She wanted nothing more than to grab her daughter and give her a hug so fierce it hurt. They’d gather whatever supplies they could and get out of there. Maybe Wes knew somewhere they could go.

  The living room and kitchen were empty. It wasn’t a large house, so there were few places to hide.

  Where were they? The soldiers were long gone with Heather’s food, and the kids had been silent for a long time.

  “Kim, Eric?” she said. “Don’t mess around.”.

  She checked behind the arm chairs and couch, as if the kids had learned the octopus-like ability to squeeze into small spaces. Movement flickered in the corner of her eye. Through the patio doors, two small figures had their backs to her.

  “What the hell are they doing?”

  Her heart froze in her chest. Ice spread over her arms and her legs. She was so tense the slightest movement might shatter her into a thousand pieces. Outside, Kim and Eric held hands and stared at the sky. In each of their free hands, they held their masks.

  She flung open the patio doors. They were standing next to the mess of mud that had once been her crops. Kim turned around, her mask-less mouth open.

  Heather gasped. It was the first time she’d seen her daughter’s bare face outside the house. She never let her take her mask off in open air, and she rarely took it off even indoors. To see her breathing unfiltered air made her feel sick.

  “Get your masks on and get inside, now.”

  “Don’t worry it’s –” Eric began.

  Heather cut off his words by shoving him away. She turned back on her daughter. The ice melted from her veins, her anger disappeared. Now, stabs of fear poked her body.

  She needed an AVS. She needed to test the air and see if it was infected, but she hadn’t been able to find hers for days. She enforced a mask policy indoors, and she sealed their bedrooms at night. If a mask broke, she’d get one from Wes or one of the other traders, so it wasn’t a big deal. How wrong she was.

  The rational part of her mind hid while another part flew into crisis mode. The outside of her vision blurred, and thoughts flashed through her brain too fast for her to catch. She made sure Kim and Eric were in the living room, and locked the patio doors. She walked away without saying anything, her throat so choked that words wouldn’t come.

  She went upstairs, each thud getting louder with each step. It was windy outside, so the virus could easily have been airborne. It meant as Kim breathed, the virus could have crawled into her mouth and infected the cells of her body.

  Charles greeted her with a nod.

  “Have you got an AVS?” said Heather.

  “You’re safe indoors.”

  “Have you got one?”

  “In my pocket.” He jerked his head to the side. “I’d get it, but I’m a little tied up. You’re lucky; this is my last one.”

  She took his AVS out of his pocket. It didn’t alarm her to be so close to him now. As much as she feared him, something scared her more. What if the air was infected?

  She ran down the stairs. When she got into the living room, the children stared at her. She had no words for them. Instead, she walked outside. The cool breeze flapped at her hair and sent a chill through her. She held the AVS in the air.

  Please don’t be infected.

  She pressed the button and the green led blinked.

  Please be clean. Please be clean. I’
ll do anything. I’ll give myself up. I’ll let them take me to the Capita dungeons. Let her be safe and let the air be clean.

  The AVS whirred and processed the air. Time slowed as the metal gadget in Heather’s hand analysed her chances of a happy future. If the air’s infected, so is she. If it isn’t, then she’s safe.

  It stopped whirring. Heather’s heart thumped against her chest. She put her hand over it. She wanted to close her eyes, but she couldn’t. Was the ground shaking? No, it was her legs.

  The AVS lit. Five red blinks.

  She fell backwards into the glass of the patio door, slamming against it so hard it wobbled. She slid to the floor. She brought her head forward and smashed it back against the glass. Why now? Why today, after years of being careful?

  The patio doors opened, and the children came into the garden.

  “Fucking hell, Kim. Why?” said Heather.

  Kim sat next to her mother. “I wanted to know what it was like.”

  “It’s my fault,” said Eric.

  Maybe she should leave Eric here, and run away with Kim. It would be fitting punishment for what he’d made her daughter do. What was the point in helping people if it made a mess of your own life?

  She got to her feet. After a mad rush through the house, she found herself upstairs and in front of Charles again. His wore the suggestion of a grin on his chapped lips.

  “Is there a cure?” she said.

  “You’re wasting time,” said Charles. “You need to leave. My soldiers will look for me.”

  “Stop messing about. Has the Capita found a cure for infection?”

  Charles rolled his eyes. “The Capita has borders to guard, Heather. A land to run. People to serve. They don’t have time for a cure.”

  She was close to slapping him again. “Don’t fuck around. Everyone knows the experiments they do. They must have something.”

  The bounty hunter looked her up and down. He was peeling away her layers of defence, staring into her secrets and shameful emotions. “You look fine to me,” he said.

  She tasted the salt of a stray tear that trickled onto her lips. “It’s Kim, alright? She took off her mask and the air’s full of it.”

  Charles closed his eyes. He stayed silent for a few seconds. When he opened them again, his grin was gone.

  “There’s a cure. It’s not palatable to most.”

  “They found a cure and they’re holding it back?”

  “You don’t understand. The people aren’t ready for it.”

  She moved closer to him until only a couple of feet separated them. She held the knife in her right hand and pressed it against his cheek. She could pierce his skin with one small movement, and it would feel great.

  “Your knife doesn’t scare me.”

  He wasn’t lying. He may have looked more human without his mask, but there were some emotions he just didn’t feel. Threatening him wouldn’t get him to talk.

  She threw the knife against the wall on the far side of the room, where it clattered to the floor. “Fuck!”

  Her chest ached, and her throat closed when she tried to breath. She stared into Charles’s eyes and tried to see the human in him. She tried to do to him what he did to others; she tried to peel back his layers and see him from the inside.

  “Tell me,” she said. “Please. For my daughter.”

  He shook his head. “It’s not that simple.”

  “Spit it out.”

  She was aware of how strained her voiced was. It was more an agonised wail than a collection of words.

  “It’s human flesh,” he said.

  Silence. She couldn’t feel the beating of her heart. She was numb. “What?”

  Charles cleared his throat. “Eating the flesh or drinking the blood of one who is already immune. That’s the only cure.”

  “You mean – “

  He nodded. “The mouth-breathers, Heather. Their flesh and blood.”

  The information swelled her head, but at the same time, she couldn’t retain any of it. She wanted to sink to the floor and close her eyes, but only thoughts of Kim slipping into a coma kept her body from folding in on itself.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “If someone thinks they have been infected, they can eat the flesh of the immune. You know; the mouth-breathers. They must do it before they enter the virus coma.”

  “Some don’t get infected after a coma. They might eat human flesh for nothing. I don’t understand.”

  “That’s the price you pay if you want certainty,” said Charles.

  There was nobody in the world she would protect more than Kim, and she told herself she would do anything for her. But what about the boy? He was immune. The cure lay in his flesh. Could she do what she needed to make sure Kim was okay?

  I’m not a monster. I can’t do it.

  There had to be another way. What about Wes? Didn’t he say he was trialling a cure for the Capita? It was worth trying. She didn’t know how long it would be before Kim fell into a coma, but she had to go.

  “If you’ll excuse me,” Charles said, “I need to leave.”

  “You’re not going anywhere,” said Heather.

  “Oh, I think I am.”

  Something scraped behind her. Charles rose out of his chair, and the ropes flopped to the floor.

  She looked at the ropes. Why hadn’t she listened more when her father tried to teach her about knots? Damn it. I wish I’d been better. A better daughter, a better parent.

  Charles crossed the room, grabbed her shoulders in a firm grip, and slammed her into the wall. Pain exploded in her back.

  “You don’t understand what the Capita will do to you,” said Charles.

  His menacing voice boomed throughout the room. He trembled with anger so tremendous it seemed to shake the walls.

  “You’ll die in the dungeons,” he said. “Your death will take weeks. Your daughter won’t be so lucky. She’ll wither away her last months on the farms. They’ll drain her blood and cut the flesh from her body, but she’ll live. They’ll keep her alive if her little body keeps giving. She’ll suffer so the Capita infected can live.”

  Charles grabbed his pickaxe as though it was a twig.

  Eric appeared in the doorway. Without a second for pause, he launched himself at Charles. A screwdriver glinted in his hand.

  “Eric, wait!” said Heather.

  He stabbed a hole in the bounty hunter’s arm. There was a thud as Charles dropped his pickaxe, and Heather thought the floor might collapse under the weight.

  She got to her feet. The knife was too far away, and her shoulder ached. The metallic tint of blood rolled on her tongue.

  Eric plunged the screwdriver back into the bounty hunter’s arm again and again. Blood spurted over the carpet and walls. He went to stab Charles again, when the bounty hunter pushed him away. The force was so strong that Eric staggered back and fell to the floor.

  Charles picked up the axe with his good arm. Heather backed away. He’s going to slaughter us all. It’ll be a bloodbath.

  Instead, Charles grabbed his mask and stormed out of the house.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Heather

  The smell of rotten food hung in the air as she crossed into the trader district. Wispy smoke drifted from the chimney of a house a few streets away. A few days ago, she had watched a horse and cart carry Capita soldiers down the street. She hoped there wasn’t a repeat today.

  Wes’s house lay ahead of them. She thought about the room with the beds. She remembered the dread that crept across her chest as bare feet padded across the floor and a black figure moved toward her. Wes was taking money to help the Capita with their cure trials. She hoped their new cure, whatever it was, worked, and didn’t involve ingesting flesh.

  As she got closer to Wes’s house, a nostril-tingling smell of fire overpowered the aroma of food. Black smoke rose above the roof, but Wes’s house wasn’t on fire. The smoke came from behind it.

  “Will I be infected, Mum?” said
Kim.

  “I don’t know,” she said.

  “You’ll be fine,” said Eric.

  She glanced at Kim’s face. The skin around her eyes sagged as if something was pulling it down.

  Wes’s house had been emptied. Marks on the floorboards showed where his desk had once rested. The book case was gone, and the chairs that lined the side of the room had vanished. Sprinklings of smashed glass lay near the door, as though Wes had dropped something and not bothered to clear it up.