Doria Falls

by Michael Pierce

  “What do you see?” Logan asked.

  My back was up against the metal wall with my gun pointed skyward in front of my face. I gripped the gun tightly with both hands. My hands shook. Then my knees. I glanced beyond the wall again. Eli still stood there alone, unaware of my presence—of my intent to attack. But my feet wouldn’t move from their planted position. Then I remembered to click off the safety.

  It’s now or never.

  “We can’t stay here,” Logan said. “What are you doing?”

  I glanced over one more time—just as another soldier jogged up to Eli.

  “Are you crazy?” the new soldier yelled. “Get your helmet back on. Where’s your partner?”

  “Dead,” Eli said and slid the helmet back over his head.

  “Come on,” the other soldier said. “I’ve got your back.” They both took off in the other direction, away from me.

  I banged my head against the wall. My knees weren’t shaking anymore.

  “What?” Logan asked.

  “I couldn’t do it,” I said.

  “Couldn’t do what?”

  “What the hell?” Bruno was suddenly right behind Logan. He had blood spattered across his vest and up his neck. “Nicholae said to stay inside.”

  “The body count is piling up in there. We’re just as safe out here,” I said. “I saw the rest of my group headed for the trees. We’d be safer to follow them.”

  Bruno spun and shot another soldier rounding the corner of the building behind us. The first shot hit the soldier in the knee, swept him off his feet, and spun him in the air like a grotesque dance move. Bruno walked up to the man writhing in pain, ripped off his helmet, and buried one more bullet in his skull.

  “God damn,” Logan said. The handgun at his side was shaking, and his fingers were twitching.

  “Well, let’s get going,” Bruno said, peering around me and the corner I was stationed at. When it was sufficiently clear, we ran to the next building and squatted down against the metal.

  My eyes diverted to all sides frantically, trying my best not to be taken by surprise. I felt confident the rest of our group was safe after reaching the woods. A nearby spike was jutting through the leg of a young woman, but she was no longer screaming like Logan had been. The bullet hole in her forehead had put her to rest. Logan saw what I was looking at and shook his head uncomfortably.

  “That could’ve been me,” he whispered.

  Bruno gestured for us to run for the next building; and I couldn’t get away from the dead woman fast enough. We turned at the intersection and crouched against the closest wall. There was still plenty of gunfire from all sides, but the screams were dying off like the last kernels of popcorn in the microwave. My heart pounded, anticipating some of those bullets coming for us. More posts and dead bodies littered the ground. I didn’t recognize anyone I saw, and I scolded myself for finding some relief in that realization.

  While Bruno surveyed the area around us to see where all the closest soldiers were, I gazed through the wall of the building across the path.

  “The prisoners are still in there,” I said. And just beyond that building four more soldiers were patrolling. If they turned right at the edge of the building, they would be on us in thirty seconds.

  “I know,” Bruno answered. “I see them.”

  “Well, we have to do something. We can’t leave them here. They’re lucky they’re still alive. How long before their luck runs out? Minutes? Seconds?”

  “One of them doesn’t look so good.”

  That’s when I noticed the older woman who’d been talking with me, sitting on the bench with a post sticking through the top of her shoulder. There was no blood since she had just been sitting there when the object was fused to her. With the post between her arm and the side of her body, it didn’t look like it had done major damage to her insides, but she still seemed to be in great pain. The others in the cage were knelt around her, trying to help keep her calm.

  “Bruno, they’re innocent,” I pleaded.

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “Because I was there, I was where they were,” I said. “They couldn’t have made it up.”

  “What if Alexandria prepped them on just such a situation, to tug at your heartstrings? Ever think of that?”

  “We need to go,” Logan said. “In there or away, but we can’t stay here.”

  The four soldiers behind the interrogation building turned left, away from us. But as soon as I breathed out a sigh of relief, two more of Kafka’s soldiers rounded the corner from where we’d come, guns out and pointed at us. We all began shooting. I don’t know who hit whom, but both soldiers flew backwards, spraying blood from a knee each.

  “I’m going in there!” I yelled and rushed into the building holding the prisoners.

  Bruno was already running toward the fallen soldiers to finish them off. Logan stood between both of us, frozen in place, seemingly unsure of whom to follow.

  I already knew there was no one else waiting to surprise me in the building, and outside the far walls were clear as well—for now. I shut the door behind me, accepting the very real possibility that no one would follow me in.

  As soon as the younger woman in the cage saw me, she left the older woman’s side. “Please, you have to help us. Deborah is—is hurt,” she cried, frantic, and looked as though she were almost willing to throw herself against the bars rather than remain locked up any longer.

  I looked around the room, foolishly, as if there would be a switch to lower the bars. But I knew what was holding the electric bars up, and I needed to reach deep inside if I wanted to have any chance of turning them off.

  The door burst open behind me. For a second I thought I was done for, but quickly realized it was only Bruno and Logan rushing in.

  “Kid, do you ever listen?” Bruno growled.

  “We have to help.”

  The younger lady was crying louder now. The three men cowered around the woman bonded to the bench.

  “There aren’t many gunshots anymore,” Logan said. “It’s making me nervous. Are we pushing them back or—”

  “Or are we all dead?” Bruno said, finishing Logan’s thought. “I don’t want to find out. We need to go, follow the group into the woods.”

  “Then let them out and let’s go,” I demanded. “Let’s not lose any more time.”

  The purple lightning bars sank into the floor and disappeared, freeing everyone inside except for the older woman. The younger woman ran out fervently, desperate to get beyond where the bars had been. The three men remained huddled around the older woman, who was slipping in and out of consciousness.

  Bruno stomped up to the woman and placed a hand on the arm that looked more like a growth from the post sticking up through her shoulder. He quietly said something and pulled her toward him, freeing her from the post and the bench with a loud pop—and they both fell to the floor, her on top of him. And then I saw blood pooling around his head.

  The older woman didn’t have enough time to scream before two more pops went off, and just as suddenly two holes appeared in her back, blood spreading through the fabric of her shirt.

  I didn’t know what was happening. Logan and the younger woman were frozen in place. The world around me began moving in slow motion, reminiscent of my intoxicating encounter with Anna at Desiree’s party. Anna. Her face burned its imprint in my conscious thoughts once again, a death sentence to my concentration.

  The teenage boy and the man I had seen interrogated by Nicholae were on their feet. From their position, they seemed to know exactly what was happening. The skinny man with the fiery red hair and matching beard rose slowly from his squatting position. He mysteriously held a gun in each hand, the barrels of which still leaked trails of smoke from the last two shots. Two more rang out. The man with red hair was then the only one left standing at the far side of the room. He looked me in the eyes for the first time and stepped over several sprawled-out limbs.

  “One more tra
itorous Lorne out of the way for a while,” he said with a smug look on his face like this were all a friendly game of chess. “Your kind is dropping like flies. Wouldn’t you agree, Oliver?”

  “Who are you?” I said, my gun flying up to meet both of his.

  Logan’s was now raised as well, with the younger woman retreating behind him.

  The man had a gun pointed at both Logan and me, and he obviously wasn’t afraid to use his—or Bruno’s—as I soon realized where he’d gotten them from.

  “I’m a real member of the Royal Guard, not one of the new recruits that Nicholae was whining about.” He paused, eyeing the young woman, the only living member of their captive group. “Shouldn’t one of you have a gun on her as well?”

  “I’m not with you!” she howled.

  I glanced to Logan.

  “Are you sure?” The man with the red beard smirked. “She could reach out and break your neck at any moment—on my signal. We thank you for our freedom. We’d like to repay you for your generosity by not having to hurt you.”

  “There is no we!” the woman screamed, but Logan was already slowly backing away from her.

  He wasn’t yet willing to turn his gun on her, which was good because we needed them both aimed at the man with the red beard. She tried following him for protection, but Logan waved her back.

  “Stay where you are,” he said. His gun remained steady, but his focus, distracted.

  “If you just come with us all peaceful like, I can take you to Kafka with the dignity you deserve.”

  A figure stepped through the back wall, sliding through the bench and dead bodies like a ghost before emerging into view entirely. My attention was drawn to the man just for a second—Mr. Gordon!—but it was long enough to give him away.

  The man with the red beard glanced over his shoulder.

  Mr. Gordon disappeared in the same instant, leaving the man to wonder what I’d seen.

  “If you’re from the Lorne Royal Guard, then you can’t hurt me too much before bringing me before Kafka,” I said confidently.

  “You’re right. But I can hurt him.” The man fired the gun pointed at Logan, who dropped to the ground the moment he heard the bang!

  Mr. Gordon reappeared, now standing a few feet behind the man with red hair.

  I didn’t hear Logan cry out. He gasped instead. Crouched down, in a last-second effort to dodge the incoming projectile, he stared into the point of a suspended bullet hovering a few inches from his face. His legs shook, his face white as milk, and he collapsed onto his side as all the muscles in his body gave out at once from the shock of the near-death experience.

  The man with red hair, wide-eyed in absolute shock, looked over to me with stunned silence as if unwilling to believe what I had just done. Then the two pistols he held were ripped from his hands as if being pulled by an enormous magnet and flew back, over his shoulders. He spun around, finding himself face-to-face with Mr. Gordon and vanished a moment later.

  I cringed at the sound of hysterical laughter now coming from Logan.

  “Impeccable timing, Daniel!” He pushed himself back up to his knees and carefully plucked the bullet from the air. He briefly eyed the tiny killer, and then stuffed it in his pants pocket.

  “Where are the others?” I asked.

  “By the falls. They’re hidden and should be safe for now,” Mr. Gordon said. “Who’s she?”

  “Autumn,” the woman answered, her voice not much more than a squeak. She had the slender, curve-less figure of a boy and long blonde hair with layers of ringlets at the tips. With her arms wrapped around her stomach like she was cramping or nauseous, she stood alone, at what she seemed to think was a safe distance from all of us.

  “Is Autumn coming with us?” The question was directed at me.

  I didn’t believe what the man with the red beard had said about her, about them working together. She looked too scared and innocent to be with him or one of them. Her big brown eyes had no visible malicious intent anywhere in them.

  I nodded, but checked with Logan to see if he agreed.

  “We can’t leave her here,” Logan said.

  “Thank you,” she said, her voice wavering but getting louder now. Tears welled up in her eyes.

  We trusted her enough to take her with us, but not enough to hand over a gun. Mr. Gordon kept the two he’d confiscated from the man with the red beard, sticking one into the back of his pants, and keeping one at the ready.

  We followed him out of the building and headed for the next intersection. The air was eerily quiet now. All the wails were gone. We made our way through the maze of posts, many of them empty, but enough with caught bodies to keep reminding me of the massacre we were still attempting to escape. A few people had died from the spike wounds themselves, but a majority of the victims were easy marks for the invading soldiers.

  We made it to the edge of the camp without running into any more of Kafka’s men, and at the perimeter, we passed the final posts and the last of the skewered bodies.

  “Where are Nicholae and the other Lornes?” I asked as we entered the trees.

  “I don’t know. He must still be in there.”

  “Nicholae!” A man’s yell carried over the buildings.

  We all froze. Looking back, I couldn’t see anything, just empty buildings and empty walkways, and the littering of fallen bodies.

  “Who’s that?” Logan asked.

  I ventured off the trail, heading toward the edge of the closest building, toward the voice.

  “Oliver, don’t,” Mr. Gordon whispered.

  I reached sight of the next pathway between buildings, just in time to see four of Kafka’s soldiers pass between the two buildings, heading in the same direction. So I kept going, trying to catch up to them.

  “Nicholae! I know you can hear me!”

  At the next building intersection, I found the gathering I was looking for. At least ten soldiers were posted in a semicircle. A tall man in charcoal-gray suit pants, a white dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, a dark tie, and a bulletproof vest stood across from them with perfect posture. His hands were clasped behind his back. On one hand, I saw the edge of a tattoo. I could only see a few lines, but I knew what it was and realized I’d seen the man before. His face turned slightly so I could clearly see his profile, confirming what I already knew—it was Lazarus Lorne.

  I waited for him to yell again and then noticed someone step out from behind him. A teenage boy, who looked no older than me in black pants and a black V-neck shirt, came into focus. Tattooed stripes of varying thickness like the rings on a tree trunk extended down both arms, all the way down to his wrists, one of which was adorned with the open-mouthed wolf head.

  “Nicholae! This is your last chance.” It was the boy yelling; it had been his voice from the beginning. He gestured to the soldiers and a few of them left. “It’s her life!”

  Lazarus and the boy were standing before a young girl. She sat, her short legs splayed out, propped up by a post jutting from her upper back. Her head hung limply forward and her chin rested on her chest.

  I recognized the girl, too.

  Dear God...it was Julia.

  “We’re too close,” Mr. Gordon whispered from behind me.

  The bushes and tree trunks around us provided cover and our noise of sneaking up didn’t alert anyone. In an effort to heed Mr. Gordon’s advice, I crawled back a few steps and positioned most of my body behind a tree trunk. The others in the group did the same and spread out among the neighboring trees.

  Looking back to Kafka’s men, I watched the boy step forward and kneel before Julia. Her head swayed slightly, proving she was still alive, but just barely. The post had done a number on her. However, she was special. The soldiers hadn’t shot her like all the others. They saved her for Lazurus—but it wasn’t him stepping forward, it was this boy with windswept black hair. He cradled her chin in one hand and lifted her head to align her face with his. He was saying something to her, but I was
too far away to hear. While still speaking, he unfastened the strap of a knife sheath on his belt. The hilt glistened like it was made of gemstones. And the long blade, one side a razor and the other serrated, beamed in the sunlight.

  The boy slowly brought the sharp tip of the blade to her lips, and continued speaking to her.

  My heart was pounding. I wanted to do something. Mr. Gordon should be doing something. But he hid behind his tree, same as me. Our entire group would be no match for Lazarus.

  The Lorne boy slid the blade of the dagger up the skin of her cheek, not hard enough to draw blood, and positioned the tip at the crease of her right lower eyelid. Still talking, he held the dagger to the edge of her eye.

  If I couldn’t do anything, I wanted to at least hear what he was saying to her, the final words she’d ever hear—or at least until her next life.

  Several shots rang out, severing the silence. Two of the soldiers in the semicircle fell.

  The boy bolted upright that very second, facing where the shots had come from. The veins and muscles on his tattooed arms bulged.

  A moment later another shot was fired and Julia’s head fell limp again after an explosion of blood and skull fragments.

  I threw my hand over my mouth to stifle a yell.

  The remaining soldiers dispersed in several directions, leaving Lazarus and the boy standing alone in the intersection.

  “Well played, Nicholae!” the boy said. “Died to live another day. At this rate we’ll be feuding until the end of time.” He re-sheathed the dagger and gestured something to Lazarus.

  Lazarus seemed to be working for him. This boy was obviously important.

  “Who is he?” I whispered to Mr. Gordon.

  “We need to go.” Mr. Gordon said. He was already backing away from his tree, with the others following.

  “Who is he?” I insisted.

  “The bogeyman.”

  I glared at Mr. Gordon, not sure if I’d heard him right. His face was gaunt and he gestured for me to follow.

  I had heard him right. I had never seen such fear in Mr. Gordon’s eyes. My mouth went dry, my throat constricted, and my fingers twitched against the bark of the tree. It was more than just a cover now. I needed it for balance. I knew all of this was leading me to Kafka again, but that knowledge didn’t prepare me for the reunion.