Carry the Flame

by James Jaros

  The Mayor laid the M–16 on the bed with the muzzle resting on the pillow. The weapon looked strangely human. He sat beside it. “You come to me,” he said to Bliss in his silkiest voice. “I want you to take your eyes off that young man. A girl so beautiful, she can distract young men and make them wish they kept their eyes where they belonged.”

  From what Bliss had observed, just about any girl could turn the eye of an older man. The Mayor’s gaze traveled the length of her.

  “I am a man of vast wisdom,” he added. “Not like your mother or father. I am an elder of an ancient tribe, so old you cannot imagine. You listen to me, and I will tell you things you never knew. Come over here. Your world will grow. So will you.”

  Bliss feigned interest as she stepped past the younger girls, including her sister. She offered Imagi a comforting pat and wished she hadn’t. The child grabbed her arm tightly. Bliss worked herself loose, to the amusement of the Mayor, and moved on, looking for a weakness as she approached him. She needed to stun him long enough to hurl herself past his sizable body, grab the rifle and kill him.

  As for the girls, she would yell for them to get down and hope for the best. She didn’t see all of them getting out alive, not after their raw panic during the raid. If the M–16’s magazine was full—and her mother was meticulous about such life-and-death details—she could mow down the Mayor and his guards and grab the kids. Some of them were a year or two older than Bliss, but seemed like children to her.

  Broadening her smile as she moved toward the Mayor, she calculated that as long as she stayed close to him—even clawing his eyes out—the guards wouldn’t dare shoot. They would have to drag her off, giving her precious seconds. And she knew how to use them.

  Bliss weighted her last step, then launched herself at him, stabbing her fingers at his face.

  “Stop!” a guard screamed.

  The Mayor reared back, drawing away from her—and the M–16. Good-good. But he covered his face before she could rake his eyeballs. She reached quickly for his crotch and squeezed his testicles, twisting them fiercely and yanking hard enough to uproot a bush potato. He yelped and sucked air loudly.

  She rolled over him, pulling her limbs tightly inward to give him less to grab, then seized the weapon, surprised at the ease of recovery. But even in his agony the Mayor’s hand was fast as a wasp, forcing the barrel deep into the pillow.

  “Down,” Bliss screamed at the girls, and pulled the trigger, hoping the gunshots would shock him into letting go. White, brown, and gray goose down exploded into the air, showering the two of them. The canvas wall ten feet behind the bed jittered from the fusillade, but the rifle claimed only feathers and canvas. Though gasping, the Mayor’s other hand gripped her neck. His thumb, brute as a club, dug deeply into her throat, disabling her instantly.

  She released the weapon and stabbed at his eyes again, this time feebly.

  “You should not do that,” he said, voice husky with pain.

  A guard dragged her off the bed and forced her facedown on the floor. For the first time since the attack on the camp, she had failed to work her will. She thought they would kill her right in front of the girls—give them a good lesson. She would have.

  But the Mayor, breathing more evenly, prodded her with his big toe, his manner jokey, though his voice still sounded strained. “You look like the woman in the special pit, the one who tried to attack me. But she did not get so close.” His eyes drifted to the M–16,. “I thought you would do that. That is why I say to you, ‘Come to me.’ ” Bliss didn’t believe him.

  He glanced at the other girls. “They are not killers, but you,” he squinted at her, “you are so young and you are a killer. Why is that so? What makes you want to kill a man so fine as me? Like mother like daughter?”

  Bliss didn’t answer. Guards rushed in and pushed aside the girls.

  “It is okay,” the Mayor said to the reinforcements. “They are good girls. Only this one, she is a problem.” He nudged Bliss’s back with the whole of his foot, and waved over a guard, whispering in the man’s ear. The guard pulled a length of rope from his belt and tied Bliss’s hands behind her back. Then he grabbed her hair and dragged her away.

  “You two stay.” The Mayor pointed to the guards he wanted. “The rest, go.”

  After they filed out, the Mayor studied the girls. “You are so sad. Are you worried about your friend? Do not worry about her. She could get you killed. You do not need her. Or maybe you are worried the big black man will pull down your pants and hurt you? Oh, yes, that is what you are thinking. I can tell. But this is not so. We are not like those crazy believers. We do not touch girls like you. We like you so much it makes us sad to sell you to those crazy white men because we know they will hurt you. It is a pity, but do not worry because we will see you again. Some of you, it is true, will die giving birth, but most of you will come back to us. That is right. We sell you, you have a baby, and then we take you back, like the girl with the dragon. She had a baby with the crazy men. But it did not live. So many babies die, too.”

  He paused, suddenly cheery: “Yes, you will come back. But that is a year or two from now and you will be so much older and all used up, and we do not like you so much then. And to be the honest man I am, I have to tell you that you do not like us so much, either, because you blame us for sending you away. It is not a nice world for you then. But I will not tell you bad news now. Now is the time for joy.” He nodded at the guards. “Have them bring food and water for these fine girls. Something tasty. And bedding.”

  He smiled at his prisoners again. “After you eat such good food, we will have to tie you up, but this is not so bad, and you can sleep by my side. I like such company, to hear you breathe and smell your sweet breath. Girls are so wonderful. You make me so happy.”

  With alarming quickness, he turned to Ananda. “You are the sister and daughter of the ones who attacked me. You look just like them. Would you hurt me?”

  Ananda stared without speaking. I’d kill you, she thought.

  “Of course you would hurt me,” he said. “You would do whatever you could to save your sister and mother. That is only natural. I understand. So I am going to have to watch you most carefully. I will keep you and your special friend close by me tonight.”

  Only then did Ananda realize she was holding M-girl’s hand—and remembered her mother’s warning that some men became agitated by seeing affection between women.

  “No, I want you to come to me right now,” the Mayor said, as if admonishing Ananda. “Here.” He nodded regally to a spot in front of him.

  “Don’t do it,” M-girl whispered.

  “I won’t hurt you. Come here.”

  “Don’t.” M-girl pulled Ananda closer.

  “You defy me?” the Mayor asked M-girl. “Then you come here. Bow to the Mayor.”

  “They kiss,” Imagi shouted, glaring at Ananda and M-girl. “Kiss, kiss, kiss.”

  “No!” Ananda snapped, staring back at Imagi.

  M-girl wrenched herself away from Ananda and walked up to the Mayor, bowing.

  “Why do you do this for your special friend? Why do you take her place? Because you love her?”

  Don’t say, Ananda implored silently.

  “Because you are the leader,” M-girl said.

  “No, that is not why you do this,” the Mayor said. “You do this because you love her. I do not understand this. Why do you love a girl but not a boy?”

  Imagi stirred. Ananda threw her a furious look.

  “Boys do terrible things,” M-girl said evenly with her head still bowed.

  The Mayor laughed. “This is so true, but girls kill with Wicca. Is this not so?”

  “The girls get Wicca from men.”

  Back off, Ananda thought. Or he’ll kill you.

  “The crazy believers give you Wicca,” the Mayor said. “We do not.”

  “What do you do to us when we come back after having babies?” M-girl asked in the same neutral voice.

 
Ananda caught herself leaning forward for the Mayor’s answer, but he clapped his hands and offered his biggest smile yet.

  “Now is the time only for joy.”

  Cassie heard the desert stir, a frightening rustle that rode the sand and drew closer every second.

  Her instincts, honed by all the threats and terrors of her young life, turned the muzzle away from her chest and out into the darkness. She held the revolver with arms outstretched, just as Ananda had shown her when they used their hands for pistols and fired their fingers at imaginary killers.

  What she feared now looked no more real than the savages she’d conjured with her friends. Only starlit-speckled darkness stared back at her. But the rustle grew louder and began to lose its softness. It sounded like metal. It sounded like machines. It sounded like man.

  “Who are you?” she cried. “I’ve got a gun.”

  She stabbed the darkness with the revolver, pointing left, right, center, but saw nothing. She turned around. Nothing. She wanted the moon, the pale glow that robbed the land of secrets, but the moon had disappeared days ago. With enormous dread—the dead weight of final fears—she accepted what was drawing nearer: Ghosts! She spoke only to herself, frightened of giving the phantoms even greater power if she were to say the word aloud. But the fear infected her panic till it was shouting inside her head: Ghosts! Ghosts! Ghosts! Coming to get me.

  She stared as hard as she could, trying to see them because if you looked really hard, you could see them. You could even feel them—if they passed through you. She shivered for the first time in many minutes, and her skin felt as clammy as it had since she pressed the gun to her chest. Do it. Don’t wait. Kill yourself. For the first time acknowledging in the harshest terms what she had to do.

  “Mom, Dad, Jenny, Maul,” she repeated softly. Gaining strength from the sound of their names, the memories of each. They’re waiting for me.

  But before she could turn the gun back on herself, she worried the ghosts were waiting, too. What if they’d come whispering across the land to snare her at the moment of death, long before she could reach the stars? That’s what ghosts did. They gathered their own and kept them. Forever.

  The eerie noise grew louder. But ghosts didn’t sound like machines or metal or anything made by man. She stared at the darkness so hard her eyes teared, as blinded by the night as they were by the glare of day. But movement snagged her attention, and she saw hunched figures darker than the desert spread out on the sand. They looked much larger than her. Maybe six of them.

  Monsters?

  She backed up, tripped, and fell on her bum. She struggled to stand and lost sight of them. She blinked hard and wiped her eyes.

  “Don’t come any closer.” But she was murmuring to herself, too scared to shout. She looked at the gun. Even after Maul’s death, she could scarcely believe little bullets could kill such big beasts.

  Where are they? She’d lost sight of them. Did they move?

  “I’ll shoot. I will.” Pleading mostly with herself. She thought about running—You’re fast—then spotted the dark outline of one of them rising. The others stayed down. Cassie aimed and tried hard to yell, but her words were swallowed by the noise behind her. She spun around, still saw nothing, but the sound was so loud it shocked her ears. So loud the dark figure now standing had to shout, horrifying Cassie with the realization that a human—the most dangerous animal of all—was approaching.

  “Don’t shoot, don’t shoot,” a woman kept yelling. “Listen to me. That’s a motorcycle. You don’t want the man on that motorcycle to catch you. He’s with the Alliance. Does that mean anything to you? The Dominion?”

  What man? It was all Cassie could think. She turned back toward the screaming engine noise. She didn’t see a man or motorcycle, but the sound was like a wounded, screaming animal. She pointed the gun at the woman, shouting, “Who are you?”

  “We heard a shot,” the woman yelled back. “We’ve come to help. We’re not with them.” She stepped forward. She wore a dark hooded cloak.

  “No!” Cassie screamed. “Don’t move.” She shifted sideways to try to look both ways at once.

  “Don’t shoot,” the woman repeated when Cassie pointed the gun toward her again. “He’ll hear it.” She inched closer.

  “Go away,” Cassie cried. She looked over to see the silhouette of a bizarre vehicle racing toward her. Not just a motorcycle: A cruel looking cage was attached to it—and she saw the heads of two men, one behind the other. The man in back pointed to her, and the motorcycle slowed.

  The woman leaped at Cassie, pried the gun from her hand and then fired twice at the men. Her hood fell back, and the second muzzle flash lit tight curls of white hair that spilled past her shoulders, and sharp features gaunt with terror. She pulled Cassie toward the other dark figures, all of them rising, running.

  Cassie stumbled in the sand. The woman caught her and yelled, “Come on. Go!”

  Cassie raced past her into the darkness.

  Chapter Eleven

  A bullet plunked sand inches from where Cassie staggered up the dune. She pumped her short skinny legs over the same stretch those terrifying men had swarmed down to attack the caravan and kill Maul, the desert swallowing her every step. She looked back and saw a muzzle flash blaze in the darkness. In an instant almost too quick for time, sand sprayed against her bare calves, stinging like jellyfish, the only sea life she’d ever seen. The white-haired woman hunkered behind her, firing back at a big guy by the motorcycle.

  Another shot ripped into the sand. Cassie hurled herself left, lost her balance, fell.

  She thrust out her hands to stand, burying her arms halfway to her elbows, then fought frantically to climb back to her feet.

  She forced herself forward, hoping she was as hard to see as the woman and the others who’d crept toward her. But they’ve got dark stuff on. Cloaks. Hoods. Cassie’s white-blond hair caught the starlight and flashed like a beacon. Features that had blended into the desert when Maul’s killer crouched only feet away now turned her into the most visible target. She felt a second, even more powerful urge to surrender—“I’m a girl. Don’t shoot!”—and claim the perversely founded immunity of her sex. But the darkly clad figures started disappearing over the top of the dune, spurring her on. She lunged forward, scrambling feverishly on her hands and feet like a bear cub.

  More gunshots raised the fine hairs on Cassie’s skin. She worried it was the first savage hint of a bullet’s pain, but a glance over her shoulder showed her that she was slowly gaining ground. So was the woman, firing as she backed up the dune.

  Cassie pawed her way higher. She was still bent over, zigzagging the way Ananda had shown her and the other girls. It had turned into a game when they played it a few days ago, all of them pretending to shoot marauders and crazy Christians, then running away.

  Now Cassie was reliving hers for real, barreling right to left before clambering straight for the top—still about thirty feet away. A bullet left a spoon-sized divot so close to her hand she might have scooped the lead from the sand. “Don’t hurt me,” she wept, “I’m a girl.” But her voice was faint, more desperate than defeated.

  The dune steepened. She lost a half step for every one she gained. Like digging the trench all over again. But she clawed her way to the top, frustration and fear so overwhelming she threw herself over the summit, heedlessly spilling down the other side till she heard men shouting and more gunshots—in front of her. She jammed her knees and elbows into the soft slope to stop her tumble.

  Confused, gasping for air, frightened, Cassie curled up and stared into the blackness, searching for muzzle flashes—some hint of the destruction to come—then looked back up the trammeled dune for the murderous threat chasing her. Another shot issued from beyond the crest. She hugged sand and tried to stop shaking.

  A gravelly voice shouted from below, “Stop, or we’ll kill you.”

  Me?

  Who was yelling? Not a cloaked one. She could just now make out the
ir silhouettes as they threw themselves to the sand at the bottom of the dune. Cringing on the slope, she felt like a target pinned to a wall.

  A hammer cocked on a revolver—she’d never forget that sound—breaching a short-lived silence. More gunfire exploded. Six or seven muzzle flashes in rapid, almost uncountable succession lit the fearsome faces of the rabble who’d attacked the caravan. They were shooting from less than a hundred feet away.

  Sand kicked up near Cassie. Her heart quailed. She couldn’t go forward. She couldn’t go back. Stunned, unmoving, she watched two of the cloaked men chewed up by another burst of firepower. One screamed, drawing more shots that stilled him.

  A strong hand seized Cassie’s arm and dragged her to her feet. She filled her churning lungs to scream but it was the woman, pulling Cassie to her side to shield her from the shooting below.

  “Hold this.” The woman shoved the hem of her cloak into Cassie’s hand, “and stay with me.”

  They raced down the dune, angling away from the firefight.

  “Cover us,” she ordered her cohorts in a muted voice, but it might have set off shots that erupted volcanically. Bullets buzzed so close to Cassie they could have been wasps hazing her head. She squeezed the hem, still protected by the woman’s body, but found it hard to keep up with her long legs.

  They fled to the desert floor a couple hundred feet from the gun battle. The sand was firmer there and they moved faster. Bullets no longer buzzed so loudly. Cassie wanted to know who the woman was. Where did she come from? Where was she taking her? And most of all, what did she want from her? Because she knew that somebody always wanted something from a girl—and it was never good.