Carry the Flame

by James Jaros

  “Go on,” he called to her softly. “We’ll be out of here in a little bit, and then you can hang out with Miranda and Steph.”

  The girls had promised to wait by the entrance to the catacombs, probably with Denton. The boy followed them everywhere, but no one followed anyone into the catacombs unless they had to.

  Like me.

  Cassie held the teddy bear in the crook of her right arm, as she had the bigger mine, with the lantern back in her left hand. She thought she knew every step by now, but still moved cautiously, though not slowly enough: the wire pulled on the bear’s belly. She halted in mid-step.

  “Stop!” William hissed at the same instant. “Think, Cassie. Think!”

  Slower than ever, she advanced down the cell block, no longer looking at the remains of men. Right by the stairs, she thought she caught something move. She held out the light but saw nothing. Shadows, she told herself.

  She set aside the lantern, this time near the door to the tower. She pretended she was putting a baby to bed when she laid the teddy bear on the ground. But she still held her breath when she pulled her hands away.

  Hurrying, she scaled the stairs with the lantern, burdened with little of the fear she’d faced on her first trip. I’m almost done!

  When she reached the tower, she placed her arm against the hole with the AT. Yes! She could have clapped.

  Cassie hustled down the stairs, lifting the bear as gently as she could. In fact, she held her breath so long as she slowly stood that she became dizzy and staggered sideways. With two deep breaths, she steadied herself.

  Scared, but balanced, she ascended to the tower. She wasted no time moving directly to the opening with the antitank mine—and saw her mistake as soon as she managed to angle the bear’s ears and feet in without brushing them against the edges of the opening: the space was just wide enough, but it looked too shallow; she might not have left enough ledge to hold it. One of the bear’s arms stuck out, along with the bottom half of its leg. Then she noticed the wire hanging from the bear, and felt an almost imperceptible pressure against her hands—a few grams of weight that could spell her doom.

  She was too frightened to let go, and too afraid to withdraw the extremely sensitive mine, fearing it would blow up with the slightest shock to any of its intricately wired limbs or ears. She felt like someone who’d climbed into a tunnel but couldn’t get back out. In this horrific borderland of indecision and terror, when she knew nothing but the power of a child’s consuming panic, she heard the dragon. Its pounding steps were muffled, but grew more distinct every second.

  She stared at the teddy bear, imagining the blast.

  Go! Get out of here.

  No. Don’t.

  But she had to move, first dropping her hands so she could catch the bear if it fell. Even that impact might blow up the mine, but if it hit the ground, she’d surely die. The cheerful-looking bomb tottered on the edge of the opening. Cassie feared the weight of her own breath. She picked up the lantern, aware again of the dragon—the pounding. But at this moment, the wire scared her more.

  Don’t touch it, she warned herself as she headed for the stairs, knowing just brushing the strand could pull the bear down.

  She moved alongside the wire, eyeing it intently with each step she took. One stair shy of the cell block, the wire crossed her path. She stopped.

  As she lifted her foot to clear it, she spotted what she thought was the same odd movement she’d spied on her way back to the tower. But she was closer to it now. She held out the lantern, shivering sharply when it illuminated a huge black snake with yellow spots glowing eerily in the candlelight. The reptile slithered slowly under the wire, where the strand draped diagonally across her path from a chunk of concrete onto the stairs. She closed her eyes as hard as she could. She never wanted to see the creature again.

  Go away. Go away.

  Still clamping her eyes shut, Cassie cried out, desperate to drive off all the horrors descending on her at once. But her outburst added a new fear—of a fatal vibration—that pried them back open.

  In the breathless quiet, the mines didn’t go off. But the snake was still moving. It had to be at least ten feet long. Is it going to get me?

  Her hands shook worse than ever. The lantern’s unprotected candle flickered precariously by her side. She smelled the dragon and almost choked. The pounding grew louder. At any second the mines could blow up, burying her in the prison. She’d turn into bones like the ones she’d seen in the cages. Her head felt crushed by pressure, crazed with the darkest dread. She wished she could tear it off.

  Her gaze lowered to the wire, as she knew it must. She had to step over it and hurl herself past the snake. But where was the serpent? It had stopped moving. Was it gone?

  Alive with hope, she held out the lantern again. At the shadowy edge of its throw, no more than six feet from where she trembled, the reptile’s thick head turned and looked right at her.

  Cassie jerked backward, tripping on the stair behind her. She fell to her bottom, just missing the wire with her hip—the last thing she saw before the candle went out.

  “William?” she said, wishing she could shout his name. “William?” Whimpers that brought no response.

  The dragon’s incessant pounding made her heart race.

  Stand up.

  She was dead if she didn’t. At any second the snake could brush against the wire and set off the mines. Or it could be heading toward her now.

  It was staring at me.

  Fear of being buried alive with the snake brought Cassie to her feet. She tried to remember where the wire crossed her path, the big step she would have to take—the one that could spill her onto the horrifying snake. She was petrified it would whip around, wrap her tightly in its chilly grip, and eat her head first. That’s what they did. Head first.

  Terror of the snake, dragons, and land mines launched Cassie wildly into the blackness. In the eternal second before her foot could touch down, she felt a lacerating emptiness that could have been death for all its final desolation—and heard a moan erupt from the tortured shell of the joyous child she once had been.

  Mom, Dad, Jenny, Maul.

  The dragons were back in their pens, each lured by an arm of the slave who’d lost the race to open their gates. Jessie had turned from the man’s butchering, delivered in full view of the appreciative crowd in the stands. Her tormentor watched so intently, he never noticed her looking away. The slave screamed but once. She hoped he’d been shocked into oblivion before he bled to death. She wished no less for herself.

  Jessie’s daughters, and Leisha and Kaisha, were hauled from the pit and lowered to the ground. X-ray unbuckled the harnesses. Blood covered every inch of the girls’ legs and feet. Ananda and Bliss staggered when they walked, and held each other up. They’ll be together, at least for this.

  Jessie gazed at the pit, where blood appeared in clear crimson lines, or smudged by the dragons, then raised her eyes to the gates and the men in the bleachers. Everything seemed surreal, as if she were no longer living her own life, but a horribly imagined one. She could make no rational sense of what she was witnessing in this glut of bricks and mortar in the Great American Desert, only that it had emerged from the devastation of her species and reflected that holocaust with harrowing fidelity.

  She heard the Mayor speak. His words didn’t register fully, but numb with terror she followed Burned Fingers down the ladder. Two swords stood upright in the sand. They looked medieval, and gave her no hope. Short of a rocket launcher, she would soon be dead, and Ananda and Bliss and the other children would be left to the desires of these abominable men.

  The Mayor towered above them, holding a short torch in each hand, no doubt to better light the bloodletting.

  “Put the slaves in place for our big fight,” he ordered with unfamiliar formality.

  Guards once again lowered roped-up unfortunates to the front of the gates.

  “Show our female gladiator how you will count down,” the
Mayor commanded a guard with sparse facial hair.

  Dutifully, the man spoke up: “Three hundred, 299, 298, 297—”

  “Stop,” the Mayor interrupted, directing his attention back to Jessie. “If you are still fighting when he gets to zero, Ananda will live. But if one of my dragons gets to you first, the last thing you will see will be me throwing your little girl into the pit. Just five minutes saves her life.” He smiled at Ananda, who looked shocked. “If a mother cannot save a girl’s life, what good is she?” Then he shook his head at Bliss. “I am sorry to say that nothing can save a porn queen’s life. But Catch the Queen is very much fun for my guards, and life is difficult for them.”

  Jessie hefted the weighty sword, wishing she had the strength to throw it through him. That was what she wanted for her dying vision.

  The Mayor turned to the bleachers. “Men, place your bets on who will win: Jessie and Ellison, or Chunga and Tonga?” He laughed heartily. “So now that we have had our good joke, bet the times each will survive. Will they last to two hundred fifty? Two hundred? One hundred?” he said incredulously. “You can bet the number of wounds they might give my pets, too, but I think a better bet is who will be eaten first. And do not forget the little one.” He waved at Ananda. “Will Jessie save her, or will my pets get an extra sweet treat tonight?”

  Bliss raised her arms, smeared with blood, and thrust her middle fingers at the Mayor. A guard grabbed her. She pushed him away. He stumbled as she whirled back around and jabbed both fingers even higher, staring defiantly at the despot.

  The Mayor whooped with delight, calling off the men who were seizing her.

  “Oh, you will be a great porn queen. I can tell.”

  “Fuck you,” Bliss said in a voice so steely that it startled Jessie, but it thrilled her, too. “Fuck every last one of you,” Bliss yelled, shoving her fingers at the men in the bleachers.

  She darted to the pit and leaped. The Mayor glared at Bliss as she picked up the second sword. Then he ordered her out.

  “I’d rather die,” Bliss said, placing her wrist on the weapon’s sharp edge.

  “She stays,” the Mayor announced, as if it were suddenly his idea. When the tormentor started to protest, the Mayor cut him off: “There are others. Take your pick. Take two. I like her down there.” His gaze returned to Bliss. “She may be a good fighter. And there is more to bet on.”

  His words were met with cheers from the stands. The Mayor took a sword from a guard and tossed it into the pit so all three of them would be armed. Burned Fingers grabbed it.

  Jessie edged over to Bliss, asking her softly, “What are you doing?”

  “I’m changing the odds.”

  “Not enough. We’re all going to—”

  “Die. I know. But I’m dying down here with you. Not up there with those fucking bastards.” Tears ran down Bliss’s cheeks, the flames of her rage. Jessie couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen her cry.

  “Come here.” Jessie took her firstborn in her arms and held her as tightly as she’d hugged Ananda hours ago. With death so imminent, her life as a mother felt strangely complete.

  She looked up at Ananda, gripped by a guard since her sister had jumped, and mouthed, I’m sorry.

  For everything, Jessie added to herself. For your rotten life. For the world. For the days and weeks to come.

  Her youngest shouted, “I love you, Mom. I love you, Bliss.”

  Jessie yelled back, “I love you, too.” Bliss tapped her heart and pointed to Ananda as strongly as she’d pointed her middle fingers at the Mayor.

  While men finished their raucous betting, the Mayor threw his torches to Burned Fingers and Jessie. The marauder caught his, but she fumbled hers, almost singing her hand. It sizzled out on the sand.

  “Grab it quick,” Burned Fingers said to her.

  She picked up the torch, and he lit it with his. Then he gave it to Bliss.

  “It’ll keep the beasts away,” he said to her, “till it burns down. When that happens, throw it at them. Try to hit them in the face. Blind them. Whatever you can do.”

  The handle of Jessie’s torch already felt so hot she doubted she could hold it for more than a minute or two.

  “Everybody get ready,” the Mayor bellowed. When the bleachers quieted, and he held the gaze of dozens of men, he yelled, “Open the gates!”

  The roped-up slaves struggled furiously to slide the wooden bars aside. Jessie didn’t believe in God. She didn’t believe in heaven. But she did believe in hell.

  Chunga exploded out first again, smashing the gate into the wall so hard he knocked the slave unconscious. The man hung limply from the rope, but the guards pulled him up unscathed. The lizard swung his long neck around, surveyed the pit, and bolted. He shunned the flames of the torchbearers for the slave who had just opened Tonga’s pen and was climbing up the barrier, escaping with his limbs intact—for now.

  Frustrated, the beast bugled. Then he turned and swept his thick tail over the blood-streaked sand. Tonga slammed open his gate, moving up alongside his brother. The two giant lizards separated then, without hesitation circling wide of their prey. Jessie guessed they had done this many times.

  “Stay close,” Burned Fingers said. “Back-to-back.”

  The three of them formed a tight circle. Then Jessie heard, “Two hundred eighty-seven, two hundred eighty-six . . .” and knew the countdown had begun. She didn’t know about Burned Fingers, but she was sure that she and Bliss were fighting to save Ananda. She had told her girls many times that she loved them more than life itself. Now she wanted to show them the meaning of those words for as long as she could.

  Sweat lines formed in the blood on Jester’s face. He was so angry he could have killed her all over again. He grabbed the crappy derringer from her lifeless hand and almost threw it at the trailer wall, ’cause there sure weren’t any other guns around there. Arsenal? My ass. He searched her for ammo. Didn’t find any, and tossed aside the empty derringer.

  But in the corner of his eye he spotted a dark patch on the floor toward the end of the trailer.

  What the hell? A wooden hatch cover lay closed before him. He opened it, worrying about a booby trap, but felt a wave of cool air instead. Moist air. Like you could drink it. He smiled when he spotted a ladder made of rope and bones. He was going to like this place, even if the reception so far hadn’t been the best. Using up that last bullet was a crime. He’d never met anyone so selfish.

  He tested the rope with his foot. Felt pretty damn strong. But before he started down, he heard an explosion. Kind of muffled. But a big one. Then two more.

  Jester didn’t know what they were for a few seconds, but then he heard the telltale signs and almost ran out of the trailer. A thunderstorm! Just the way people always said they sounded—like bricks tumbling in the sky. Exactly. Must be a lot of lightning ’cause those bricks were still a-tumbling.

  He hated to miss a good thunderstorm, fat drops splashing on his parched skin. Enough to make a man run around naked hooting at the sky. But the wet air down below promised the sweetest rewards of all.

  Chapter Eighteen

  A deafening rumble raced through the cavern. William grabbed the steel bars, trying to steady his arms and legs. His lone candle flickered as the ground itself seemed to run from the coming onslaught.

  The teddy bear mines he’d just disarmed jiggled eerily, insentient creatures come brazenly to life. Only William’s gaze remained fixed, staring in shock at the ceiling as the violent reverberations heralded a screeching rupture. He glimpsed a torch whirling through the air—a falling star in the belly of earthen blackness—then tried mightily to shield his head from rocks and dirt and bricks and mortar—and the ubiquitous bones that formed the crude rebar of the City of Shade.

  He yelled Cassie’s name, but glimpsed neither her slight shape nor heard her cries as rubble pelted him mercilessly and put out his candle. He could not even hear his own screams.

  Where is she?

  It was his las
t thought in the ruin of darkness. Tons of cavern ceiling collapsed the bars and slammed him to the ground, caging him forever in death.

  After the big black snake tripped the land mines, the reptile whipped around and wrapped Cassie in its monstrously powerful grip, pinning her arms to her sides, leaving only her head free. She shrieked from the crushing pressure, bulging eyes on the dark ceiling as it opened wide to a fiery show of cascading torches, tumbling flames that flashed on the creature’s open mouth. The snake’s gamy breath coated her face as it reared back its head to strike. The girl bent forward, trying to bury her features in the dark scaly skin. The serpent’s forked tongue flicked the back of her neck as rock and dirt and sand pummeled the beast. It snapped at the assault, its thick body shielding Cassie from an initial deluge that surely would have killed her. Then it released her and tried to fight the ferocious, all-encompassing enemy.

  Cassie rolled away blindly, sickened and nearly insane with terror. Rocks and bricks struck her back and dropped her to her knees. She rose and staggered away with her hands clamped on her head, veering from a ball of flame that landed by her side before seeing it was a torch. She snatched it up as a hollow voice echoed, “Run! Run!”

  “Where?” she screamed, before realizing the distant command issued from the collapsing world above her, not the death-riddled confines of the catacombs.

  She swept the torch through the air to try to find a familiar marker—the bent steel door or cracked stairwell—but saw only that the torrent of shattered ceiling had slowed. Then she lowered her stricken gaze and spotted a glint in a great creature’s eyes, and saw at once that they weren’t the snake’s distinctive slit-shaped horrors. These were dark circles.

  “Dragons,” she whispered, loathing the word, never again a fanciful wonder of childhood fantasy.

  What she’d heard about the giant man-eating lizards frightened her as much as the snake, and she bolted in a direction that she hoped would take her to William. The Komodo would never fit through the bowed-out bars, but the torch illuminated so little of the destruction—and left her with so much fear—that she considered climbing the rubble up to the City of Shade. But the piles fell short of the gaping ceiling, and she knew little more than the cruelty of that dark realm with its fallen torches, ruled by men who’d imprisoned her friends and murdered Maul. She wanted to return to the river, the waterfall, the sun-splashed gardens, vivid memories that sparked her greatest worry: that she would never live long enough to see her Eden again because she was trapped forever in a cave-in with a dragon and a monstrous snake. Her fear worsened as the glinting eyes drew closer.