by Sam J Fires
She repeats her previous move, leaping and jabbing her sword of fire at the Shark Lord’s head. He swings even more wildly to block this attack and stumbled backwards, momentarily losing his balance. While he is tipping back, she walks briskly and assertively towards him and swings the torch at his legs. To his credit, he blocks this attack, but looks so uncomfortable doing it that I actually let out a nervous laugh.
The embers continue to waft with each swing of the torch. Mosh keeps up the momentum, swinging her torch consecutively and deftly at the shark who can only backstep and wildly swing his machete. The Shark Lord has probably never been in such a situation in his entire life and must feel a sense of dread. He swings the machete wildly at Mosh’s head, one of his few attacks, but she evades it with ease, merely twisting her shoulders and leaning back slightly before feinting to the side and driving the torch at the shark’s legs again.
The two are locked in a fiery dance of life and death and, though the battle could still go on, things are not looking good for the Shark Lord who has been reduced to evading attacks and wildly brandishing his blade.
Mosh’s dominance in the engagement is so evident that I’m sure that the shark will eventually try and run off, but he swings his sword desperately at her midriff and she merely pirouettes out of way, swinging her torch at his head and forcing him to duck under the flaming sword. The intensity of the dance increases and Mosh forces the Shark Lord to go tumbling backwards with a powerful direct jab of her blade against his blade.
He stumbles backwards, turning at the last moment and placing his free hand on the ground to keep from going down. He forces himself up and turns to run towards Mosh, swinging wildly, and each time Mosh neatly pirouettes out of his way, laying hard blows on his legs, abdomen and his back in the process.
The shark changes tactics and jabs the machete directly at her head, but all she does is turn her upper body, once again evading a killer blow. She strikes the Shark Lord with an elbow to the nose, and he stumbles backward yet again. She jogs in a semi-circle around him, then leaps at him, aiming the torch at his head, and he leans back but this time loses his balance completely.
Having the fighter's eye that she has, Mosh understands this and quickly catches the wrist holding the machete. At the same time, she strikes his arm with her torch. All of this, combined with his loss of balance, forces the shark to let go of his machete. He hits the ground hard and rolls onto his belly, pushing himself up onto his feet intending to flee, but it’s too late. Mosh is at his heels.
She drives the tip of his machete directly into the heel of his foot and the shark buckles over, howling in pain. He tries to get up but falls over on his sliced Achilles tendon. Realising he can no longer run away he begins to crawl as Mosh strolls behind him. He can’t get away and he knows it.
He rolls onto his back to face Mosh and begins to speak in English “P…p…please. P…p…pplea…” he whimpers, crying pathetically. Tears stream down his cheeks “Mercy, mercy,” he moans, between sobs pleading for his life.
Mosh looks down upon the bully with contempt and says, “This is mercy,” and then quickly drives the shark’s machete into his head. From my position on top of the wall, I sigh in relief.
All that is left now is for Mosh to make it to the wall. All the other sharks are in terrible chaos as the fire continues to blaze.
At last we are home free. Mosh looks up at me and smiles but then suddenly she lets out a piercing cry and gropes around behind her back. She turns quickly, ready to defend her life once more and sees a child, no older than four or five. The child has stabbed her in the back with a sharp piece of metal.
“Mosh. Ruuuun!” I scream, but Mosh stands motionless, looking into the face of the little girl.
A second child of about the same age comes running at Mosh with a longer piece of metal which pierces her abdomen, and then a third and a fourth child descend upon her. She drops to the ground, looking up at me. By now the wounds she has sustained are fatal and both she and I know this.
Mosh rolls over onto her back and lies staring up at the stars. Two of the children have picked up something heavy and are making their way toward her. The two kids stand over her, holding the heavy object above her head.
“This is mercy,” she calls out, and closes her eyes.
I know she’s feeling peace for the first time in her life. I realise that she knew that she would never make it to the FF commune, but her children will be safe there. “Even in this world, kindness multiplies. If we could just…”
She gestures to me to go.
I close my eyes tightly, blinking away a tear and then descend the wall, rapidly disappearing into the thick crowd of the border city inhabitants.
Chapter 8
HAVE MERCY
I arrive at the designated meeting place at the outskirts of the border town to find nobody there. No kids. No Olly. They’ve all gone. I wonder whether some sharks beat him here and seized them too.
I scan the area, trying to look for some indication of what might have happened to everyone, but I can’t see anything at all. Tears well in my eyes, and I wonder whether everything we’ve just endured has been for nothing. I turn to watch the heap glow red and orange on the horizon. It is a beautiful sight, both literally and symbolically.
I look down at the border town in the valley adjacent to the heap and wonder what the inhabitants will do now that the heap had been destroyed. I can only hope they will move on to another heap, either collectively or as individuals emigrating to whichever border towns they can get to.
I’m lost in my grief when from the corner of my eye I notice a figure emerge from the shadows. Startled, I turn sharply and face the figure, ready to fight for my life. I have no weapons and no cover, but I’m too exhausted to run.
The figure approaches casually, as though it has no intention to do any harm whatsoever. I remain on guard right up until I can make out exactly who it is.
Macey.
Like Zaf, Macey was one of Mosh’s nearest and dearest, a confidant and a friend. She looks at me quizzically and then with terror.
“Where’s Mosh?”
I instinctively look down.
Macey gasps. “You left her. You just left her?”
She throws herself at me in a blind rage, tackling me off of my feet. My body strikes the ground hard and the wind is knocked out of me as she then jumps onto my chest knees first and starts pounding me with her fists. Unlike Mosh, she’s not a fighting prodigy and, despite her rage, doesn’t do much damage to me.
I just let her pound out her anger until she breaks down into a desperate bout of howling sobs, interspersed with gasps for air. She eventually climbs off me and sits beside me, holding her knees to her chest as she quietly cries for her friends.
We sit there until morning.
The blazing flames against the horizon have since died and the border city is now covered in a coat of soot. Macey finally speaks again.
“What happened? Did that shark kill her?”
I shake my head. “Nope. Not at all. The Shark Lord was no match for her. Didn’t even scratch her.”
Macey smiles. “Then what happened?”
I breathe in and out deeply, looking up at the sky before speaking answering. “After she finished him off, a shark stabbed her in the back. She could have run or fought the shark off, but when she turned, she just froze. I screamed for her to run but she just froze.”
Macey looks at me, puzzled. She knows Mosh would never just abandon the children and allow herself to be killed. “What do you mean by ‘just froze?’”
I understand her confusion. “She just froze. Mosh just stood there looking at a little kid…”
“A little kid?” she cuts into my response.
“Yes, little kid. The shark was just a young child. She just stood staring at the child and then they all jumped her, and she just lay there until they were… until she was…” and I finally begin to cry.
I cry for a while and then
speak to Macey again. “What happened here? Where did everyone go?”
Macey smiles. “That was your brother.”
It’s my turn to be puzzled.
“As soon as we got here, he was on edge. Speaking crazy about some machines.”
“Machines?”
She chuckles. “Yes. I’ve seen that sort of rambling from trauma before.”
Olly traumatized was not something I had ever thought about before but being trapped and tortured would traumatize anyone. He was so thin, so frail.
Macey speaks again. “A guild of Heap Lords I can believe, but machines through which they talk…” She begins to chuckle, but I sit up sharply and look her square in the face.
“Macey, what exactly did my brother say? This is serious.”
“He said that the Heap Lords kept machines from the past that they use to speak to each other across the world.”
“Macey, we need to go quickly. Where did Olly and the kids go?”
Now Macey looks worried. “Your brother took the kids and went ahead. They’ll meet us not far from the commune at a place he said you would know. He said ‘think of that family’.”
My blood runs cold and my heart threatens to stop.
Chapter 9
THE NUCLEAR FAMILY
W e were on the run. We had raided a heap and managed to get out without too much incident, but it had been a close call. We were worried that we had been spotted descending the wall and had to abscond from the border town a lot sooner than usual.
The incident which took place with the family was something that Israel and I never spoke of, but it was something which bothered us both profoundly.
The events of that day haunted me each and every night. Israel would hear me screaming and moaning in my sleep, sometimes apparently calling out our mother’s name and all other sorts of things which made no sense to him. My nightmares tended to intensify just before and after a raid. Something about the danger of the raid would cause my dream cycle to spike. It was almost as though my unconscious expected that something would happen to me as retribution for that day.
The family had been nice enough, or foolish enough, to stop and give us a ride. It had been a nuclear family, like the families of old. At first, we were sceptical that it was all an act. We thought that the family was trying to lull us into a false sense of security and then would prey on us when we expected it least.
After speaking to them though, especially the father, my doubts almost evaporated. The family had lived on a farm in the countryside during the initial outbreak and had been able to sustain themselves for a long while after. Eventually, it became necessary to leave and find shelter elsewhere due to security issues with the farm becoming a target for roaming “vagrants and other characters”, according to the father.
After they left their homestead, they were able to find accommodation with an FF commune that was still functioning at the time. Unlike the commune that Israel and I had been forced to flee from, this commune had not been overrun by Z strain vectors and instead had continued to operate for years after.
The family, however, had been forced to leave as the father had fallen into dispute with the leader and had been foolish enough to stand his ground. He told me that they were in search of another FF commune to take them in. In turn, I told the father that we had come from a commune that had been overrun by Z vectors. The father then asked why we didn’t go back.
I was stunned by the question and didn’t answer. The father asked again. “Why haven’t you guys gone back? Those Z strain Zombies only live a couple of months without food and then starve to death. Provided you guys sealed it up after leaving, those things would have long since died and yes it would take a major clean to get the place up to living standards again but then you’d have a safe place to live with its own water source, power systems, land to farm, all behind safe closed walls. You’d even have ammunition too.”
The father continued, “look if you could take us to the commune with you, we could help you get it up and running again. Form our own little community. Decide who we let in. There’s even a radio system in there which we could use to communicate and trade with other FF communes.”
I began to feel hopeful and agreed with the father that we would begin to make our way to the FF commune.
We had been driving in the direction of the commune for a while and were almost there when I began to have doubts about the father.
“We know nothing about these people,” I’d whispered to Israel. “Once they get what they want, why wouldn’t they just kill us in our sleep or worse. We should take some of their supplies and abandon them tonight and go on raiding and looking for Rose.”
Late that night as the family slept, we raided their supplies and were about to leave when one of the daughters woke up, but in a dazed state didn’t recognize me and began to scream. The whole family awakened in a panic and the father grabbed his shotgun and pointed it right at my head. The mother shone her flashlight on my face and the father assumed that the FF commune had been a tall tale meant to mislead them.
“You were going to kill us in our sleep,” the mother said.
The father cocked his shotgun. “Was that all bunk? The FF commune? A story to lull us into a false sense of security so you could slit our throats as we sleep and steal our stuff?”
I responded calmly. “The commune is real. We’re not far from it, and you can still go there. We just can’t come with you. We have a friend to look for.”
The mother panned the torch from Israel to me and the father nudged his weapon into my face. “Rubbish. If that’s so, why are you stealing from us?”
I’d tried to remain calm. “The stealing was wrong I admit, but the commune is right here. I can give you the house entry code and you can scale the front gate and get in and get the place up and running again.”
The father laughed. “Fool me once…” He ushered us towards the door and out of the camper van as he and his wife followed us out into the cold night. The man told us to get on their knees and we obeyed. I started to speak, but the man shouted loudly, silencing us.
I thought it was the end, but both parents of the nuclear family were so focussed on me that they hadn’t noticed that Israel had filled his hands with dirt. He stood up quickly and threw the dirt at the father’s face, directly into his eyes. The mother then went for Israel and the father fired a wild round but I managed to tackle him to the ground and began to struggle with him.
The gun went off again and I stood up, covered in pieces of the father's flesh and blood. The mother, who had been overpowering Israel, rushed to her dead husband’s body.
Israel and I stood observing the scene when the daughters emerged behind us and huddled over their father’s lifeless body. Israel looked at me and I gestured for him to get the supplies from the camper van. Israel took the supplies and we slowly receded into the evening, leaving the remnants of the nuclear family alone to fend for themselves, to die by themselves.
Chapter 10
LAST REMAINS
I t had taken a little over three weeks for Macey and me to reach the dreaded spot where Olly and I had abandoned the fatherless family.
No matter at what pace we marched, or how few breaks we took, we simply were not able to catch up with Olly and the children, but when we reach that terrible site, we found him waiting.
He looked as though he had been camping here for a few days already and he confirmed that he had been waiting for us and was beginning to worry.
“Where’s the blonde ninja?” he asks, but neither Macey nor I answer and that is enough for him to know what has happened. “Did the shark get his comeuppance?” Olly asks and I merely nod.
Olly looks at Macy. “The children are fine. They’re all at the compound. It was a painful mess on the inside, but we were able to get in cleaned up in the first three days after getting here. When you guys still weren’t here, I became really worried that Israel had forgotten about this place.”
&nbs
p; We are both so weary and Macey can’t restrain herself any longer. “Are we going to the compound now or what?”
Olly breathes in deeply and gives Macey the directions to the commune letting her know that if she leaves now, she will get there by nightfall.
“Aren’t you two coming?” she asks us.
“Not right now,” Olly says. “We have some unfinished business here, but we’ll meet you guys tomorrow.”
With that Macey hugs me tightly and begins to walk down the long-deserted road in the direction of the commune.
I turn to Olly and look at him sadly. “What are we doing here?”
“That night has bugged me for a long time. I used to dream about it, I even dreamt of it the day the heap sharks caught me. I’m sure you’ve heard me in my sleep.”
I nod solemnly.
“I found him. There was no sign of the camping van. The wife and kids probably left in that and I hope that wherever they are, they’re fine.”
“None of that was your fault Olly,” I try to reassure my brother. “They overreacted and it was us or them.”
Olly shakes his head. “They trusted us, and I decided to not only run but to steal from them. They weren’t accustomed to road life, they were scared.”
I stand up and hand Olly a shovel and walk to a spot where he has already begun digging. We continue to dig quietly for about an hour before he climbs out of the hole and picks up a ball of rags from next to his tent. He gets back into the hole with the bundle and unwraps it.
My eyes widen in surprise when I see it’s a pile of bones and a skull.
He takes the skull and lays it at the one end of the hole and then neatly piles the rest of the bones next to it. When he’s finished, I boost Olly out of the hole and climb out myself. We shovel the dirt back into the hole until it passes the brim and forms a small mound. Olly tells me to fetch some rocks he had collected to form a border along the circumference of the mound.