by Sam J Fires
“You can’t do that! You can’t let that out on the world, it’ll be a God-damned apocalypse.”
To which Ally responded calmly, without making any eye contact with Jacob, “This is an apocalypse Jacob. We are living in an apocalypse now.”
Jacob pulled his hand free of hers. “You can’t control that sort of thing or what people will resort to under those circumstances. The savagery which might ensue after if just one of your assumptions is incorrect is unimaginable.”
To this the Methuselah responded quoting Nietzsche.
“Only as creators can we destroy.”
Jacob scoffed and rolled his eyes. “When fighting monsters don’t become one.”
Adam interjected. “I knew he couldn’t take it. I’ll lock him up.”
“There are no prisoners here,” the Methuselah responded. “But unfortunately, you will not be allowed to leave alive, Jacob.”
Ally began to weep. Jacob looked at them all with disgust and stood up quickly before sitting down again.
“And what will you do with the quantum computers and the internet of things. What will stop survivors or AI for that matter from reconstituting the quantum world?”
“We’ll take them apart manually,” Adam replied. “And throw them into the ocean or stack them up into heaps for people to see that mankind conquered what once tried to conquer mankind.”
Jacob had had enough. He stood up and began to walk toward the main entry of the building. Ally pulled at him, screaming hysterically, trying to do what she could to stop him. He could not bring himself to look at her but grabbed her briefly and hugged her tightly one last time before planting a kiss on her forehead.
Others came to watch the spectacle unfolding, including Olly.
Jacob stopped not too far from the door and bent down and beckoned Olly to come toward him. He kissed his son before telling him, “No matter how bad things become, always look after your brother and mother.”
Olly began to weep, not fully understanding what was happening but promised his father he would do his best. Jacob found himself blinking back tears too. Jacob then passed through the door and began walking down the stone driveway toward the big black gates.
Ally had fallen to her knees, clutching her bulging belly, and was sobbing on the paving of the driveway upon which Jacob walked. Jacob turned around one last time and yelled out for all to hear, “I won’t let you do it! I will not let you do it!”
Bryan looked at Adam and the order were given to one of the guards. There was a loud bang and Jacob dropped to the floor.
Ally let out a shrill wail and continued to sob quietly. Bryan then addressed everyone loudly.
“He kept his word and we kept ours. He would not part from his family but through death. He came to die, only to live for the first time. Jacob has wrestled his Angel and, in his honor, shall be remembered as a hero amongst us.”
Olly stood petrified. Loud explosions always disturbed him from that day onwards.
CHAPTER 8
FINALE
W e have been driving in the camper for a few hours, with each member of the family asking us a barrage of questions.
“How old are you boys and what are you doing out on these roads all alone?” asks the mother.
“I’m seventeen, and he is ten years old.”
The mother asks again, “What are you boys doing all alone? Where are your parents?”
“Our father died shortly before he was born” I gesture with my eyes toward my little brother. “And our mother died during child labor with him.”
“Oh, you poor dears,” she responds.
I wonder where this woman has come from. The father then asks, “What are your names boys?”
“I’m Olly, and he’s Israel.”
The mother moves to where I’m sitting and she starts straddling me provocatively while her daughters merely look on disdainfully.
One of the girls starts to pray, and the other girl says eerily “It’s because we left God. It’s all because we left God”.
I look up at the mother’s face and it suddenly morphs into my late mother’s. My head is now burning like a volcano as I look to her husband in the rear-view mirror but see my own father’s face, covered in blood.
The girl continues to pray, her words getting louder and more insistent.
The wife, my mother, begins to grind her body against mine and I close my eyes against the confusion of this horror and the throbbing in my head. I feel her hand reach down and cup my genitals and then a searing pain roars between my legs.
I begin to scream in primal fear and I force my eyes open.
I’m bound to a board, set upright and surrounded by dozens of Heap Sharks and a Heap Lord.
The Heap Lord leers at me. “You’re far too old to become a Heap Shark but now that we have your balls you’ll make an excellent concubine.”
“As for your little friend who escaped, have no doubt, we’ll have his balls too.”
CONTINUED IN BOOK 2 ‘SHARK TACTICS’
SHARK TACTICS
Book 2 of the Scavengers Series
Chapter 1
A Leap of Faith
The hook had struck Olly’s head and he dropped, unconscious.
O ne of the sharks who had been bearing down on him now grabs one leg and begins to drag him off to some level of hell reserved for scavengers like us.
Blood is gushing from where the hook struck his head, leaving a trail as the shark drags him away. My brother, my protector and my mentor, is being dragged to an unknown future and I’m powerless to help. For the first time in my life, I am alone.
But I don’t have the luxury of self-pity.
The other sharks have now gathered at the base of the wall below where I stand and look up at me menacingly. More sharks begin to arrive, some with long sticks in their hands. I can’t make out exactly what these sticks are. One shark raises something to his mouth and blows into it and the unmistakably haunting call of a horn echoes throughout the dim evening.
The sharks grow in number, many of them now carrying long sticks in their hateful hands. I try to analyze the situation from where I’m standing, trying to figure out what to do but my ten-year-old mind isn’t really equipped to produce a valid solution. Olly would know exactly what to do.
The sharks with their sticks begin to step back from the wall and form a long line. They move in silence and with a determination that strikes more fear into me than if they were shrieking and yelling.
An older shark arrives and stares directly to where I’m standing, and his evil eyes burn into me. The sharks have also brought brightly lit torches which burn furiously against the dim backdrop of the heap. The torches remind me of the Molotov cocktails in my satchel.
I lower myself to my haunches so I’m perched above where Olly and I had previously fastened the satchel. I remove one of the cocktails along with the matches we had been keeping for the past three years.
The older shark below takes one of the torches and walks along the line of the stick-bearing sharks. Each Junior Shark extends their stick for him to dub with the torch. The edges of the sticks flare, then catch alight. I have no idea what this ceremony means but the scene fills me with a mix of awe and terror.
Then, without warning, the older shark yells in an unfamiliar language and the Junior Sharks begin firing their flaming spears at the wall. At me.
The javelins come flying in one tremendous barrage. I have youth on my side and I’m nimble, and I know instinctively to drop to my belly and make myself as small a target as possible. None of the flaming missiles strike me directly but one does pierce a loose piece of the cloth I’ve wrapped into a mask around my head. The turban I’m wearing quickly catches alight and I have to rip it from my face. I discard the flaming cloth quickly, dropping it to the ground below but I notice that every shark beneath has their steely eyes trained on my bare face, studying every curve and line, recording it all.
I’m in more danger than I thought, and I s
trike the first match in order to light a Molotov cocktail, but my hands tremble too furiously for the little stick to maintain a flame. I strike a second match which merely crumbles against the strike strip on the box. A third crumbles too and in a panic, I drop the box and all its contents spill to the ground below.
The sharks are readying to release a second volley of flaming javelins in my direction. I hardly survived the last assault and some of the javelins which struck the wall still burn brightly below. I look at the one burning closest to me, the one which forced me to unveil my face and an idea suddenly dawns.
I lower myself again and reach down to the burning javelin with a Molotov cocktail in hand. The flames of the javelin lick the cloth stuffed into the top of the bottle and suddenly the weapon is activated. I stand quickly and fling the bottle at the line of sharks below who are readying to fire their javelins at me again. The flaming missile manages to strike one shark who bursts into flames and grabs the shark next to him, setting him alight too. They panic and run into others.
Some of the sharks nearby, unaffected by the flames, look panicked and are about to break their ranks when the older shark yells something and they regroup.
The sharks break into three groups. One tends to the fire that has broken out, the second tends to their comrades who have caught alight and the last group look as though they are readying to fire another round of javelins. But I’m faster.
I release my second missile into the air. This time the sharks track its trajectory as it flies and they’re able to evade it just before it hits the ground.
They’re all transfixed on the flight of the missile, so entranced by this one projectile that none of them notice that I’ve fired a second. The first missile acts as a decoy for the second which strikes at the feet of the sharks.
A fire breaks out, sharks’ legs and feet are catching alight and they’re rolling around, trying to dampen the fire. The older shark roars again but looks directly at me and this time I hold his gaze.
He barks some orders loudly and a few sharks run toward the base of the wall and begin to climb. I fumble inside the satchel and realize that I’ve used up all the Molotov cocktails.
The sharks below are climbing at an ever-increasing rate. I look around urgently and see the hook and rope I’d had thrown down to Olly. I turn around to look down to the ground outside the heap wall. I consider jumping but know that on hitting the ground I’ll most likely break an arm or leg, or worse and not be able to escape.
I check on the progress of the sharks and my breath comes in short gasps as two or three are almost upon me. Almost atop the wall. I shove my hand into the satchel again but there’s nothing useful inside. There’s no way out.
I’m about to take my chances and jump when another idea creeps into my mind. An inspiration. I thrust my hand into the deep pocket of my black pants and draw from it a dark bed sheet. Olly and I would always say that getting in was the easy part, it was getting out that was the challenge. When we went on our scavenges, we would both carry bed sheets to wrap up the items we retrieved. Whoever mounted the wall first would then pull up the items tied in the bed sheet tied to the rope. We would sometimes do this exercise four or five times in one raid in order to get everything on top of the wall.
I quickly turn and pull one of the javelins out from the wall, shaking it rapidly a few to put out the fire at its top. I then take out the bed sheet and shake that out a few times. On the far end of the wall one of the sharks has reached the top and is running towards me. I have to be quick. No time to panic. I tie the two adjacent corners of the bedsheet to the straps of the satchel and slide the javelin beneath its straps before tying the other two to the javelin. I slide the satchel onto my back.
The shark who has mounted the wall is almost upon me now and another two have reached the top. Ideally, I would have waited for a powerful gust of wind before jumping.
I have faith. I close my eyes and leap.
Chapter 2
Well of Despair
I t was a day like any other, but different in so many ways. Bryan was always the first to awaken within the compound, but he had slept far longer than normal, only stirring when arrows of light penetrated the bedroom curtain and struck his face.
He had struggled to sleep. He always struggled to sleep but last night had been a particularly restless one for him. He had decided to reveal their plans to Ally later today. He had been grooming her for months, but Ally was a special breed of human. She thought for herself and had a very rigid moral code engraved on her soul.
But he had to tell her. He needed someone to succeed him and measures had to be put in place, and soon. He had begun to feel the numb, tingling sensation in his hands which had previously taken away his ability to walk. Whatever needed to happen, needed to happen quickly.
Adam was not an adequate successor. He was loyal and competent, but he was extreme and the purpose of everything they had been planning for years was to end extremes. No more poverty. Or pain. No more extreme men. Such an era, Bryan knew, would need more ‘Allys’ than ‘Adams’.
He spent most of the day in his study, staring out of the window but seeing nothing. He tortured himself with repeated questions ‘Are we right? Is this right?’
He removed his pipe from the drawer of the desk where he sat. The pipe had belonged to his grandfather and had been given to him by his mother when he was a young man. He had never smoked it but always kept it with him, placing it between his teeth and chewing whenever he had difficult problems to mull over.
He could hear Ally laughing in the garden below as she taught the children. They all seemed to enjoy themselves more when she was around. Everyone at the compound had taken to her. Bryan knew that, above all else, it was her sincerity which charmed them.
Ally had come to them a shell and been restored to her full powers in their care. Under his care. Bryan wondered how many more souls there were out there who could be restored by some good old-fashioned human contact.
Many years ago, there had been a psychologist called Harry Harlow who was active a long time before Bryan’s time. Dr. Harlow, like all the alienists of that day, sought to do something groundbreaking. And he did.
His most famous experiment was the ‘well of despair’ wherein baby monkeys were alienated from other monkeys, including their mothers, for long periods of time. Ethics aside, the monkeys were left permanently scarred by the experiment.
In many ways the internet was a ‘well of despair’ and Bryan had always found it strange how something that had initially been meant to connect humans had ultimately left them so disconnected and alone.
Bryan’s first book, his most treasured child, sought to draw a parallel between the baby monkeys in Harlow’s well of despair, and humans in the age of social media. The theory of the work was that there was simply no substitute for actual human contact. That connecting through these new technologies was psychologically damaging and churned out stunted, spiritually impoverished people who could be herded wherever one pleased.
The book was published in 2009. The book was stillborn. Though much of the content of the work had borne out to be prophetic, it had still not received the attention it deserved and Bryan had gone on to create a more commercial and lucrative career in motivational speaking.
It wasn’t until sometime in 2021 that Bryan received fan mail from a teenager who called himself “Adam”. Adam, his single fan, had continued to write to Bryan regularly and though he was enthusiastic, it wasn’t hard for Bryan to see how damaged the boy was. After months of corresponding, the two eventually met and grew a strong bond. Bryan was not one to discard broken things. As the years went by Adam sometimes exhibited a semblance of ‘normality’ but all in all he was severely psychologically damaged.
Adam was born to a loving mother and father and he epitomized their highest hopes and mutual love. The first seven years of his life had been picture-perfect. Then his parents began to fight, and eventually each skirmish escalated more and more
until one day, when Adam was nine, he woke up to a loud bang and the clatter of the crockery in the kitchen.
He called out for his parents, but to no avail. He began to cry lonely, quiet and fearful tears as the scuffling continued. After a few minutes he was able to summon up some courage and made his way down to the kitchen where he found his mother’s silhouette looming over his father with an old, metal fire poker in her hand.
The two had evidently got into another altercation and his mother had come out on top. She berated Adam loudly, screaming at the top of her lungs before breaking down into tears.
Adam’s father regained consciousness, packed his bags, and left.
It would be years before Adam would hear from him again, but the ensuing years were a nightmare. Sometimes his mother was his greatest ally, but more often than not she was his greatest nemesis. She would be normal for long periods of time, then lapse into fits of aggression. She began to lie more and more frequently, tell fantastic stories which she seemed to genuinely believe; stories about trips they were going to take overseas, stories about a new business she was starting, stories about just about anything.
Her erratic behavior intensified more and more until inevitably she was let go from her work under the suspicion that she had committed some negligence or act of fraud. Having to deal with her in the evenings had been a lot for the pre-pubescent Adam to bear, but now that she was at home all the time it was even worse.
So Adam followed in his father’s footsteps and packed his things and left home. He wasn’t scared. He knew exactly where he was going. He was on his way to his father.
He was twelve at that time and had somehow convinced himself that on his arrival his father would immediately understand why he’d come. That his father had been always been waiting for him. He was able to track him with ease using various social media accounts and managed to hitchhike to where he was staying.