by Wilson, Mark
The three men survived and worked together to ensure each other’s safety, but this was the limits, the remnants of their formerly close bond. The absence of the once-ubiquitous banter and levity pained Cameron, and James knew this. Harry seemed unaffected. For now, it was enough for James that he was out in the sunshine with his friends, and relatively safe for the time being. Little pleasures mattered a lot these days.
Headed out to Liberton, they hoped that walking a little further afield from their usual perimeter of a mile or so might bring a few badly needed items their way. Cars were useless now, their fuel long since run dry or their bodywork decayed. They sought weapons, candles, duct tape, cotton balls and Vaseline for burning, soap, toothpaste, perhaps some new boots, and a dozen or so other items that made daily life a little easier.
There were plenty of residences nearby and although most would have been ransacked by some of the fenced communities that had begun to establish themselves in the area, experience had taught them that tinned food and fuel had been the most sought-after items in the early years. Now, with all these items spoiled, the hard-wearing, more practical objects left behind were more in demand.
Inwardly, James hoped that the team’s long journey together might assist in healing the rift between them. Harry in particular had closed himself off from his friends for so long, James had forgotten what the man’s voice sounded like or how his face had conveyed anything other than blank disinterest or aggression.
After searching a dozen houses, the team sat amongst the overgrown grass and atop the odd toppled gravestone in Liberton cemetery. Fenced and walled-off around its perimeter, it was a relatively safe location for a short assessment of their haul. Cameron spread a light, plastic tarp out on the ground and the three men began decanting the items each had scavenged onto the clean area.
Knives, a hammer, two screwdrivers, some duct tape, bandages, antiseptic and some bleach were amongst the items they arranged and distributed between their backpacks without speaking. Harry strolled off with his share, without an upwards glance. Resting his back against a black marble stone he looked out into the cemetery, away from his comrades, and tore at some dried meat.
James sighed and gave a covert signal to Cameron. Go talk to him. Cameron shook his head and busied himself with sharpening a blade. The deliberate scraping of the blade along the wet-stone did little to ease James’ tension.
A scrape from the gate, the only entrance to the cemetery, brought the three men to their feet and into a formation that gave visibility to each part of the overgrown enclosure. Each of them had at least one weapon in hand and another close on standby by the time they reached full standing position.
James, facing the gates, said quietly, “Nothing yet.”
“Clear,” Cameron said.
Harry nodded once sharply that his section was clear.
A man strolled through the rusted iron gates and took a few steps into the thick, high grass. He was young, perhaps twenty-five years old, and very tall – closer to seven feet than six and dressed entirely in black. His ebony hair was tied in a tight bun atop his head. The young man exuded tightly controlled violence as he moved his lidless eyes over each of them.
James hid the revulsion he felt at the man’s appearance as he scanned his face, taking in the black raven tattoos that covered most of the visible skin and the raw-looking ragged wounds where his upper and lower eyelids had been removed. Tightening his grip on his blade, James repositioned his feet by a minute amount. Sensing the change, Cameron turned to face the young man in black, followed by Harry.
“Christ sake,” Cammy cursed quietly from the corner of his mouth, “another bloody nutter.”
James felt a prickle of foreboding move along his neckline. Cameron stepped forward, pointing with the tip of his blade at the gate behind the man.
“On your way, son,” he shouted across the cemetery.
The man smiled. Not a playful smile but a predatory grin and slipped through the gates, back-stepping so as to keep his eyes fixed on the three friends.
“Arsehole,” Cammy said, shaking his head.
James nudged him with his right elbow, bringing him back to the moment as a group of men and women, also dressed in black – some tattooed, all armed – rushed through the gates and sprinted towards them.
Cameron and James tightened up their formation, expecting to feel Harry push into their back from his position. Instead, their team-mate slipped past them, a slash of metal in each hand flowing towards the group of assailants, mere feet from them now.
A jubilant yell broke from him as he cut a path through the first of the group he reached.
“Wonderful of you to visit,” he whooped and began greeting each of them in turn as he stabbed, slashed and gouged his way through their ranks.
“Good to meet you. Hello, my friend. Love the jacket…”
It was the first time Harry had spoken in a decade. Each sentence was punctuated by a wound or a death. The joviality he drivelled as he butchered the ranks of living bodies was simply horrific. His voice was a whisper, only just audible above the slicing of flesh and splashing of arterial blood.
James took the time to share a moment of startled bewilderment with Cameron, before both men joined the now cackling wildman who’d brutally killed ten of their attackers in as many seconds.
Joining the melee, James and Cameron adjusted quickly to fighting as a pair rather than a trio. They didn’t have much choice: Harry was busily taking apart two men in the most macabre fashion. Certainly any sense of duty he felt to cover his friends’ backs was of lesser importance than carving as many pieces from the men he was fighting.
His laughing had become one long screeching cackle that filled the air and chilled James’ bones. Whoever the man fighting beside them was, his brutality and selfishness in battle made him a stranger to his friends.
When it was done and the men and women who had attacked them were dead or had run back through the gates, James felt hot tears burn a streak of salty cleanliness through the grime on his face.
James fell to his knees, oblivious to the puddle of blood in which his knees disappeared, and yelled at the red-haired maniac who was removing the scalp of one of the dead women.
“What the fuck is wrong with you, Harry?”
Harry ignored him and finished his surgery, before standing to turn to James. He smiled down at James congenially.
“Why dear boy, I’m simply indulging myself… venting a little, one might say,” he said, casually twirling the scalp and hair on his index finger. “Perfectly healthy outlet,” he grinned.
James vomited into the pool of blood beneath him. It wasn’t the brutality of Harry’s actions that sickened him. Nor did the lack of care the formerly reliable teammate paid to his friends especially bother James. It was that he stood there, red hair matted to his face with blood, hands caked in human gore, so thoroughly exhilarated. So very pleased with himself.
James felt Cameron hook a hand under his armpit and help him to his feet. Both of them glared at Harry venomously. Harry tucked the woman’s scalp into his rucksack and rested his rear on top of a gravestone. Picking at his fingernails with the stiletto blade he said, “This is the world now, and it’s a damn sight more interesting than the one we’ve waded through all these years,” he said. “I’ve rested long enough.”
James’ spirit sagged, but he could sense Cameron’s anger growing beside him.
Cameron stepped forward a stride. Before either he or James could react, Harry had rushed them. A brutal front kick to James’ chest sent him sprawling backwards. He skidded a full metre into the dry grass. By the time he was back on his feet, James found Harry with his stiletto blade under Cameron’s chin. Cameron stood tall, glaring down his nose at their manic teammate.
“I suggest that you mind your place, Cameron,” he whispered, slowly prodding the tip of his blade into the soft flesh under Cameron’s jaw bone. Harry spared a glance at James. “My goodness, look at the fun we a
re having already, Jimmy.”
Removing his blade with a flicking cut as it left the skin, Harry’s eyes danced with merriment as he stepped back from Cameron. Tucking his blade away he lifted his eyebrows, in a your move gesture.
James placed his hands, palms up, at his waist.
“Harry…”
“No!” the fledgling maniac interrupted. “I told you before… Harry’s gone.” He fought back rising laughter, not wanting to lose himself in the amusement of who he’d been. The ridiculousness of his former life.
He performed a grotesquely mocking little bow as though presenting himself.
“You may call me Bracha.”
Chapter 3
“Bracha?” James asks.
I’m too busy choking back the rising anger to say a word. He performs a showy bow, bringing his head to his knees, twirling his hands at his sides.
“Pleased to meet you, dear fellows,” he laughs inanely.
I swallow a lump of heated bile and turn my back on him, just in time to catch sight of the man with the missing eyelids strolling casually through the gates once more. He’s applauding and nods respectfully at us.
“Gentlemen, I’d like to invite you to parlay. Your skills,” he motions to his butchered comrades, “are impressive.”
The man turns to Spike.
“Bracha, is it?” he asks.
Spike winks at him.
“Indeed. And you are?” he asks.
The man in black ignores the question. “Bracha… ‘God’s chosen’ in Hebrew, I believe.”
Spike’s bearded face breaks into another toothy grin. “Exactly so, my dear boy.”
The man nods serenely and retreats. As he backs away through the gates once more, Bracha scoops up his golf club and follows him, practically skipping after the man in black.
James looks across at me and I sigh, conceding that we may as well follow, out of the habit of shadowing Spi… Bracha if nothing else. As James and I emerge out onto Liberton Brae, the gathering of people shocks us.
A sea of tattooed faces, each carrying ravens of differing types and number, looks towards us. The people of this… tribe, or community, are each attired similarly to the young man with the carved eyelids. Boots, denims, jackets and T-shirts – all black. Perhaps five hundred are present. Their number is startling. People do not tend to travel in large groups in this city. Too much noise, too many Ringed.
At the front of their number, flanked by twenty or so large, strong-looking men, is a flotilla. With its brightly coloured sides and raised platform, it looks like something from a gala day parade. Atop the barge is a dead man. Reanimated and bound to bamboo poles, he wears a Manchester United Strip – number seven emblazoned on its back – complete with shirt, shorts, socks and football boots. The man is held in place by wire and catgut, held in a pose that mocks, or perhaps celebrates, his former life. An arm raised for balance, the other at his side, one leg firmly bound to the bamboo pole, mimicking standing, the other raised to kick a partly deflated premiership football at his feet.
Despite the advanced decomposition, the hungry snarling and the horrifically permanent look of his bonds, the man is still recognisable as a very famous former-footballer.
“That who I think it is?” James asks in a whisper, nodding at the restrained Zombie.
I nod once then jut my chin along at Bracha, who is hopping from foot to foot in admiration at the spectacle.
The man in black steps forward, giving me the best look I’ve had at him so far. He’s younger than I first thought, definitely no older than twenty. Up close his height is imposing; I guess him at around six-ten. He’s athletically built despite his size, body all coiled springs of speed and efficient power. From the way he moves, the bunching and tensing of muscle under his black clothes and the lightness of his step, I can see how dangerous the man is. This is a powerful fighter and a seasoned one.
“My name is Somna,” he says simply, his voice soft, totally at odds with his appearance. He gestures to the men and women gathered in the road. “These are my people, The Exalted.” His hand rests lightly on the flotilla. The bound Zombie snarls and bites at the air. “And this is our king.”
My gut lurches as my brain whispers to me. We’re fucked.
This guy, despite his youth, is immensely dangerous and completely in control of the moment. James doesn’t look any more optimistic than I do, but keeps close to Bracha. Loyal to a fault, our Jimmy. I slip a blade discreetly from a sheath on my forearm into my palm, top resting on my hand, the hilt held under my cuff. From our position – backs to the cemetery gates, front and side routes closed off by Somna’s people – it’s clear that we have only one egress: back into the cemetery and hopefully find a low wall or fence we can scale.
I watch Bracha slip around the flotilla on light, skipping steps, assessing the bound Zombie-king.
“Just wonderful, my boy. Simply spectacular presentation. So imaginative, but authentic also,” Bracha says cheerily to the leader of The Exalted.
Somna steps towards Bracha, eyeing him. James’ body tightens in response. Bracha simply steps into Somna’s path and takes the man’s right hand in his own.
“Well done,” he gushes, pumping away with the handshake.
“It is a mark of respect to our God-king,” Somna says to him gently. He’s still deciding whether Bracha is genuinely excited or mocking him and his king. “A tribute to his former life and a throne for our king.” Somna’s drying eyes, bloodshot and lidless, remnants of muscles straining to blink in the bright sun, move over Bracha once more. His body tightens. Something is about to happen.
Bracha, of course, reads every twitch from the man. He performs one of his ridiculous little bows, half courtesy, half oriental stiffness.
“So perfectly appropriate, my friend. Lovely.”
Somna relaxes, nodding his gratitude. They wander around the flotilla, Bacha admiring the king, Somna sharing his tribe’s credos. As they exchange words, I signal James to back up a little towards the cemetery gates. This situation has turned to shit too quickly. We need to be leave. He ignores my signal and keeps his eyes on Bracha.
“Our king converses with only me. By His command, we have been charged with a sacred duty. The rigours and demands of serving our king are not for everyone, but to execute our mission, we need people.” He places a hand on Bracha’s shoulder, then cuts us a look. “We have two openings at present, Bracha. Choose one of your friends.”
He raises his eyes to us.
Despite everything, the decade of silence and detachment, the mocking, his brutality with The Ringed, my own certainty that the man I once admired so much had been damaged beyond repair, I still expect a signal from him. Some look or gesture to tell us, his lifelong friends, his intentions before he attacks Somna. I expect him to move through The Exalted, join us in fighting them off. Be a unit with us. Same as always.
Instead I see his eyes glaze. He looks bored.
Tossing a hand over his shoulder, he turns his back to us and fixes his eyes on the bound king.
“I’ll leave that to you, Somna my friend,” he says. “You decide.”
The men and women of The Exalted do not wait for a command, they move on us as one. The three metres between the nearest armed man and I gives me a spilt second to look across at the mask of horror James’ face has morphed into. Betrayal, disbelief and simple pain are etched there. Fortunately, his instincts snap him back to the moment in time to step back and pull his face away from the slashing hack of a wood axe.
We move together, kicking and slashing at only those killers who are within reach of us or who might block our path. As soon as the first wave of assailants is down, we each turn and run into the graveyard.
“Only one need die,” Somna yells to his tribe as they pursue us.
James and I zig-zag, sprint and leap around and over gravestones and crosses, dozens of armed killers on our heels. James cuts a look at me as we sprint towards the shortest wall at the north of the
cemetery. He’s trying to tell me something, but his expression is unreadable to me.
We both hit the brick work at the same time and scramble up over the slick, mossy surface, landing with a roll on the other side The Exalted crash against the wall, their number and momentum preventing the fastest of them from slipping up the surface as quickly as James and I did. Their lack of training halts their progress for the moment, but they’ll get some bodies over the wall soon enough.
Landing on Wolridge Road, we form up back to back, scanning the length of the road. Mercifully, none of The Exalted are on the street. James tugs at my sleeve and points up Orchardhead Road. I nod once and follow him north at a sprint. As we cut a left along Orchardhead Loan, I hear people landing on Wolridge Road behind us, having scaled the cemetery wall. Cutting through the bungalows and out onto the main thoroughfare of Liberton Brae, we sprint for one full mile, emerging onto Old Dalkeith Road.
Slowing to a fast run, James and I silently dispatch any Ringed who get in our way until we reach Bridge End, where we use the alley to take shelter in a dilapidated Royal Mail depot. As we catch some breath back, each of us secures the building and eliminates any evidence of our entering the site before slipping into what was once a side office in the building.
I’m reasonably confident that we’ve lost our pursuers. Despite their number and obvious menace, none of the tribe looked to be individually very capable. If they had trained men, military or even police force in their ranks, we might have some visitors soon, but we should be able to rest for an hour or so.
James sits in the corner, back against the wall, heels at his butt, head resting on his knees. Hs body moves with each sob. Crying seems like a reasonable response, so I choose a wall, mirror his pose and join him in mourning Captain Wales. Mostly, though, I weep because I’m finally free of the bastard he’s become.