Carry the Flame

by James Jaros

  The slaves rolled the crane to the edge of the pit. One of them, sporting a full-size tattoo of a rib cage on his back with X-ray inked below it, hurried up to Ananda and Bliss with a harness made of burnished leather straps. One gave off a suspicious glint that Jessie hoped was nothing more than an odd reflection of torchlight.

  For the first time since she and Burned Fingers arrived, the Mayor turned to her. “Your girls will earn their keep tonight. And you are a lucky woman to see such a sight. Not all mothers are so fortunate as you.”

  Ananda screamed.

  Jester snorted at the sight of the last guy to leave the trailer. Ponytail all the way down to his bony ass. And of course, he had a gun. Everybody in the whole fucking world had a gun ’cept him. But he finally caught a big break when a woman’s delicate hand reached out and closed the door after Ponytail galloped off. One glance and Jester knew it wasn’t a guy. How sweet was that? Leaving a damn female to guard the fort, or whatever it was? Sweeeeet.

  Two hours had passed since then. Not another scum coming or going, or even in sight. Johnny got his gun and went a-marching, near as Jester could tell. He would have bet hollow points to hardtack on that one. From what he’d seen of their weapons and numbers, they’d be no match for the City of Shade. And they didn’t even know about the Russians and marauders.

  Just like that female had no idea who was gonna be a-knock-knock-knocking on her door. Jester was already climbing down the stack on the row three side so she couldn’t happen out and see him. He was feeling much stronger than yesterday when he’d climbed up. Tongue only half as thick as boot leather now, and he had himself a belly full of biscuits. All ready to do battle. He just felt sorry to have wasted all his fine reviving on a woman. But the place held secrets, and he aimed to find out what they were.

  Hey, iddy biddy. I’m a-comin’ just for you.

  He hustled around the crashed cars and looked across the thirty-foot-wide strip of sand separating him from the row with the trailer. Then he scooted over to the wide metal door, wondering what she’d try to do first. That was the great thing about having fun with a female—there were all kinds of ways of doing it. He wasted no time: Knock-knock-knock. Pause. Knock-knock.

  The handle shifted, creaking when it turned.

  Open sesame.

  Her fingers reached around the edge, and he grabbed her hand fast as a snakebite. Soon as he tried to pull her out, something banged the inside of the door, inches from his head. Sounded like a gun. But he had his knife ready, and that was a smart move because when he twisted her wrist and cut her deep, she shrieked and fired.

  Idiot. What did she think she was aiming at? She hadn’t seen more than his hand, and it was on hers. She’d panicked. That’s what she’d done. He sniffed that out. Just as quick, he seized the arm with the gun and bent it away from him like it was nothing more than a flap of sun-rotted tire.

  But he had to move ’cause someone with big ears might be around, so he kicked her belly, left her breathless, then forced the bitch onto her back and pressed his body into hers. Nice and comfy. He gave a good listen for snoops, keeping her gun hand flat on the ground and pointed away from him. Not a sound, ’cept for her trying to breathe.

  The door was open enough to throw some light. Turned out there wasn’t much to see in that old trailer. A few rusty jacks holding up the roof and all the cars on top.

  He’d been hoping for a whole goddamn arsenal, but at least he was going to get a gun. An old derringer, he saw now, an iddy biddy gun for hunting down an iddy biddy girl. Had the one barrel atop the other, which was kind of how he was with her, and how he might have stayed for the hot stirrings in his pants—if the lay of the land had been different. She was a looker. No denying that. Short dark hair that smelled good. But it was her skin that made him want to take a bite. She had the whitest damn skin ever. Like it had never seen the sun. White as sand. No kidding. How’d she do that?

  No time for asking. He pressed his knife into her neck. Blood seeped along the blade, changing the color of things fast. “I’m going to cut your head off, you don’t let go of that gun.”

  No way in hell that pistol was getting away from him. Not like the one some dying scum had buried in the sand just to make him look bad with the Mayor, no thanks to that freak, Soul Hunter. Nope, she was going to the grave knowing she’d fucked up bad in the end, ’cause he couldn’t wait to get that gun and tell her that he’d be sure to use it on her kith and kin. Might only have the one load left, but that bullet was his grubstake. It would make his every threat real. When he got the drop on another gunman—and no yard scum could match up to him; look at her, living, make that dying, proof—he’d start building his own arsenal.

  He slid his hand up to the derringer. Her fingers tensed, but he’d already figured her to put up a fight. Good luck with that shit. But the gun went off. For a full second he stared at the little pistol, a sneeze of gun smoke hanging in the air, dumbfounded by what she’d done. She’d emptied the derringer. Taken away his only shot. Done it knowing she would die.

  Greedy goddamn bitch. What was she going to do with it? She was finished. But he could have used it.

  Jester shook with rage. He pinned her arms with his knees and raised his knife, watched her face flatten with fear. At another time, with another woman, he would have had the patience to make the most of the murder. But not with her. Not now.

  The first stab killed her, but he couldn’t stop there, not after what she’d done to the King of the World.

  “You . . . fucked . . . me . . . over!” With every word, he hammered the blade home, until there wasn’t a speck of white skin on her face.

  Or his.

  Ananda couldn’t stop screaming, and Bliss wheezed a nonstop stream of profanities. The harness had barbed wire embedded in the leather strap cinched around their thighs. The tiny spikes drew blood as soon as the slave Ananda thought of as “X-ray” tightened the buckles on their legs. Now he bound them back-to-back.

  Jessie, shaking off the tormentor’s grip on her head, yelled, “Stop it!” from across the pit.

  Her outcry shocked Ananda into trying to control herself; their chained-up mom might get hurt trying to help them, and there was nothing she could do to stop whatever madness the Mayor had in mind. Ananda managed to reduce her screams to gasping whimpers.

  The short skinny slave slipped the large iron hook through a metal O-ring attached to three straps. A more muscular member of the crane team cranked on the spool, reeling in the cable, which lifted the ring and straps above the girls’ heads.

  In spite of his weak appearance, the skinny slave pushed the sisters over the edge with ease. The operator let the cable unwind for several feet, before arresting their flight with a brutal jerk that drove the weight of their bodies forward. Each barb harrowed a full inch of their flesh. Ananda and Bliss both shrieked.

  The crane’s long wooden arm moaned. Ananda hoped it would snap. Her legs felt incinerated, and she was sure a fall to the sand would be less painful than the razor-sharp barbs.

  But the crane’s moaning belied no greater weakness in the wood, and they spun about ten feet above the sand until the O-ring straps twisted so tight they released in the opposite direction. Men toasted them with mugs and metal drinking containers.

  A marauder yelled, “I’ll bet on them.”

  But when guards shoved Leisha and Kaisha toward the pit, attention quickly switched to the conjoined twins and a second crane. X-ray strapped the girls down only feet from the stands. The men pressed close, screaming “Freak show, freak show” so loudly they drowned out the twins’ screams when the barbed wire tore into their burns. But Ananda heard Leisha and Kaisha’s escalating agony when the skinny slave pushed them over the edge—and the cable snapped tight. Her own pain had subsided slightly, another red tide drawn back from the shore.

  A tall slave moved the crane’s arm that held Ananda and Bliss, sending them swinging in wider and wider arcs, like a wrecking ball before mobs, marauders,
and soldiers saw to the leveling of cities and towns.

  Across the expanse, Leisha and Kaisha swung back and forth just as fast, whirling wildly. With both sets of sisters in full motion, the Mayor ordered them raised. His command left them swaying a couple of feet above the top of the pit. Ananda spotted blood drizzled on the sand.

  “We will now have our first real contest of the night,” the Mayor announced. “Two slaves will race to open Chunga and Tonga’s pens. The loser will pay with his life and limbs. Place your bets.”

  Linden, bald head gleaming in the torchlight, stood at a broad table where men dumped their loot, arguing loudly about the value of guns, bullets, a rocket launcher, weapons of all types. They also shouted out the weights of gold nuggets and debated the relative worth of fuel, engine parts, tires, and luxuries like sunglasses, watches, boots, a neck brace, prostheses for arms and legs.

  When the betting settled down, the Mayor motioned to guards stationed over the dragons’ gates. Each group lowered a slave, roped around the waist, until the one-eyed men hung directly in front of the barriers, legs dangling like bait inches above the ground.

  “When I say, ‘Open them,’ we will see which slave gets to live, and which one goes to the larder. Keep the girls moving.”

  His command sent both sets of sisters swinging so hard the cranes’ wooden arms moaned.

  “Open the gates!”

  Ananda caught glimpses of the slaves’ frantic attempts to push aside a heavy wooden bar. The man at Chunga’s gate shoved it all the way out first, but before he could clear the barrier, the beast smashed it open, slinging the slave into the wall. But he recovered immediately, pumping his legs madly as he pulled himself just beyond Chunga’s snapping jaws.

  Then the dragon pivoted and spotted the slave still struggling to slide the bar from Tonga’s gate. Chunga sprinted with shocking speed across the open pit.

  With the beast halfway across the sand, the slave slid the bar free and started hauling himself up the barrier with the help of guards who knew better than to sate a dragon’s appetite before the big fight. Tonga slammed into the wood at the same moment Chunga smashed against it, raised up, and tore most of the meat from one of the slave’s legs. Screaming in pain and horror, the man pulled himself over the edge. The guards looked uneasy.

  The slave’s howls were quickly eclipsed by Tonga bursting the gate open. The beast swaggered out, swishing his thick tail and leaving long serpentine trails in the sand.

  “Lower them,” the Mayor yelled, pointing to both sets of girls. “Give Chunga and Tonga something to play with.”

  The harnesses dropped quickly, barbs tearing once more at their legs; but Ananda’s pain was overwhelmed by acetylene panic when she saw they were deeper in the pit than the slave when Chunga ripped his leg apart.

  As the dragons squared off with each other, the tall man working the arm of Ananda and Bliss’s crane swung them deftly above the beasts. The Komodos looked up as a stream of blood painted a red stripe over Chunga’s head.

  “Bull’s-eye. Perfect,” the Mayor exclaimed. The slave nodded in appreciation.

  The blood incited the beast, and the reptile chased the girls.

  “Higher,” the Mayor shouted. “Quick!” But the cable rose much more slowly than it fell.

  The sisters jerked their heels to their hamstrings a blink before Chunga’s mouth closed. Only then did Ananda become aware of her mother screaming, “You bastard!” over and over.

  “You see,” the Mayor roared to the men who’d stepped back from the edge when the Komodos charged into the pit, “the girls and dragons get my gladiators all worked up.” He pumped his arms as if running in place. “Everybody gets so excited.”

  He pointed to Ananda and Bliss, yelling, “Go, Chunga, go!” Then he screamed “Tonga-Tonga-Tonga” like a war cry and slapped his thighs, shaking with laughter.

  The lizards needed no encouragement but blood. It dripped from both pairs of sisters spinning and swinging within teasing reach of the giant reptiles. The exertions of the beasts turned furious, frenzied. Chunga rose on his hind legs, lurching upward to try to bat them down. Ananda shrank back as the creature’s long hard claws swiped perilously close to the side of the harness.

  Just feet away, openly awed men argued loudly whether anyone could last more than a minute with the Mayor’s monstrous pets.

  Ananda, twisting away from another of Chunga’s lunges, knew the odds of survival were dismal—and falling as fast as blood on the sand.

  Cassie gripped the heavy antitank mine in the crook of her arm. The initial stretch of cell block didn’t worry her much, but now she came to the rubble. She let the lantern hang by her side so she could see whether she’d missed any little chunks, but she’d done a good job of clearing her path.

  Quickly, though, she arrived at the first bulky length of broken concrete. It formed the end of an extrusion that extended to the bars of a cell door.

  She placed her buttocks against the rough surface, as she’d planned, and swung her left leg up, using momentum to lift herself. The hard, uneven surface dug into her bottom, but she remained so focused on protecting the AT that she didn’t notice the pain—or the lantern banging into the rubble. A five-inch shard of leaded glass broke off.

  Cassie winced, then told herself not to worry. Better than me all blown up. But she reminded herself to pick up the glass on the way back. It was too precious to lose.

  She eased herself down the other side, scaling three more large pieces of debris—avoiding falls, rebar, and the sharp severed railing—before nearing the stairs.

  A cramp seized the arm holding the mine, forcing a sharp breath. Jaw clenched, she rested the lantern, then carefully shifted the AT so she held it in both arms. The right one, she noticed, trembled badly from fatigue. She straightened it, and the cramp lessened.

  Get going. There’s no time.

  After switching the mine to her left arm, she retrieved the lantern and navigated the cracked and broken stairwell without stopping until she came to the tower. Setting the lantern to the side, with the AT once more resting on both arms, she crouched and leaned forward until her forearms pressed against the ground. With enormous care, she slipped her arms from underneath the deadly device and backed away as if it would bite. Standing, she gazed at the head-high ledge with regret. It would have been so simple to place the big mine on top of it, but William had been firm about positioning it so the force would explode upward.

  Raising the lantern to look for another berth, she saw a gap between the back of the ledge and the wall of dirt from which it protruded. It looked large enough, but setting the mine there would be dangerous. She’d either have to slide it into the opening, bumping it over dirt and rocks, or try to lift the big mine above her head and reach forward with it. She didn’t think she had that kind of strength.

  Cassie searched the rest of the tower before taking out the knife and hacking at the ledge—the only way to reach the hole. The dirt crumbled easily, and she worked diligently until she heard an appalling metallic ping. For several seconds she stood unmoving, terrified, expecting to die. Then she looked over and saw a small stone lying next to the mine. If it had struck one of the teddy bears, she would have been dead.

  She placed herself between the AT and the ledge, sweating for another five minutes before she could snug the mine safely into position.

  Perfect.

  Almost. She didn’t grasp the possible danger until she hurried to William, pausing to retrieve the broken glass, and saw a teddy bear waiting for her on the other side of the bars. It looked longer than she remembered, and made her worry aloud whether the hole for the AT was wide enough for the bear.

  “That’s a good question,” William said, sitting with a squat candle burning by his side. “I think so, but I should have double-checked.” He gripped his chin, then told her what to do. “It’ll take more time, but if you’re not sure the bear’s going to fit, you can dig another hole in the wall. But first, let’s measu
re the bear against your arm so you’ll have a good feel for its size.”

  He held up the mine, and she pressed her arm against the bars.

  “It comes almost to your elbow from the tip of your middle finger. Can you remember that?” She nodded. “When you get to the stairs, put the bear on the ground very, very carefully. Then go on up to the tower and measure your arm against the hole for the AT. If you don’t think the bear will fit easily, dig out a space a few feet away. Make sure you check that one against your arm, too. Don’t worry about digging near the AT, but the bear’s another story. That’s why you have to leave it till you’re ready. Be extra gentle when you go back to pick it up. And don’t take it into the tower if you hear the dragon. Did you hear it this time?”

  “No.” She’d been so preoccupied, she hadn’t even thought of it.

  “Good. Maybe it’s in the pit already. But keep listening for it.”

  He pointed to the bear’s belly, tied in wire that she would trail all the way to the tower. “I’ll feed that out as you go. Just don’t go getting ahead of me. I don’t want it jerking out of your hands.” Once she returned, he would give the wire a tug, pulling the smaller mine to the ground so its blast could set off the much more powerful AT.

  William slipped the teddy bear through the bars. It was a lot lighter than the antitank mine; but all of its extremities were wired, and she had to be careful not to brush it against herself or anything else.

  Alarming as that was, Cassie still had to force herself to concentrate on her way back into the prison. She was exhausted from chopping off the ledge to get the big mine into position. William had warned her that they had the hardest job. After they set off the AT, two other teams would trigger land mines in more accessible areas. Places without bars, Cassie figured. But he’d also said the tower was the most critical location, “especially tonight.”