Desperate By Dusk

by Alexander Salkin

  With Ramone being understood as the biggest threat, the remaining upright monk approached Jessie, menacingly holding the business end of a pike between the two of them. "What's wrong, fat stuff? No weapon?" the cultist sneered, making feinting jabs at Jessie.

  "Guess not," Jessie mumbled, not interested in dignifying his opponent with a snappy comeback. It was very much in his ballpark to come up with some kind of derogatory insult, but his mind was focused elsewhere.

  He was mindful of the weapon being prodded at him. Namely, where the monk held it upon the haft, how much reach it possessed, and how fast the man could maneuver it. Being made primarily of iron, it didn't look to be the lightest weapon one could wield by far, but it probably carried a great deal of momentum when thrust. For a time, Jessie did nothing but keep a safe distance.

  The cultist took it as the abject cowardice of a visibly out of shape man, knowing he was unarmed in a weapon based fight. "This is shameful, Drifter. Do you think you're going to win simply by avoiding me? You have all the agility of a drunken pig. I'm not even trying very hard here."

  "And I haven't even begun," responded Jessie boredly. "Cocky little shit, aren't you?" And with that, Jessie stepped backwards, quickly rolling his shirt up over his head, and sliding it off into his hand.

  The cultist paused, visibly shaking his head under his mask and limp pointed cap. "Wha… what are you even doing? Trying to disgust me into running away? I don't want to see your gross looking body."

  Jessie stood there in his belted jeans, dirty sneakers, with his shirt in his hands. While he wasn't obese, he was chubby, solid, and unimpressive looking, save for a natural mild tan. "Too bad, it's hot out here," he said, fibbing. "And I'm waiting for you to get serious. You run your mouth more than anything else. I'm getting the impression you're the neophyte of the group. Maybe some kind of glorified choir boy playing at being a big man? I'm a big target, c'mon. Can't you hit anything?"

  "Hmph! Have it your way, dog." The cultist charged in to close the distance Jessie had made, driving his weapon towards the soft exposed belly of the Drifter. His squat opponent merely stood there, waiting.

  As the sharp points of the Y shaped pike drove towards Jessie, he gripped his shirt with both hands, extended them to either side, and stretched his shirt out. He then fell backwards on purpose, carried by the momentum of his attacker, as the prongs ran into the cloth. When they did so, Jessie twisted and tumbled down on his side, which caused the shirt to tangle around the head of the weapon, throwing off the aim and wrenching the haft from the grip of the cultist.

  The monk sputtered, suddenly finding his pike disarmed, with most of it laying on the ground and the other portion of it tucked under Jessie's arm, with the prongs still tangled in his wound up shirt. "Huh…?" was all the cultist could respond with.

  Jessie looked back, grinning devilishly from the ground and slowly stood up, now gripping the pike as he used it as a support to rise easier on his bad knee. "Now who's unarmed?" he asked, pulling the shirt off and aiming it on the now pensive cult member.

  "How did you do that?" the man asked him, bewildered. It was such a strange improvised tactic.

  "I'm overweight. Not stupid," Jessie sneered.

  "Yes, well… what are you going to do with that now, hm? You're no warrior with that physique. I bet your life is soft and easy, too. Do you really think you can stab another person with that? To kill someone?"

  Jessie's expression deadened of all satisfaction. His face soured and he glared back, tightening his grip on the pike. "It's no gun. But I think I'll manage. I've heard this gets easier after the first time."

  "Wait, what?"

  Jessie yelled and drove the weapon into the stomach of his opponent, eliciting a terrible scream, causing the man to buckle and desperately grip the weapon's head. Jessie pushed into his guts with surprising force, causing the cultist to stumble to the ground, where upon Jessie pinned him to the dew ridden earth like a butterfly on a cork board.

  "Tell me how useless I am! Tell me I can't do things!" Jessie spat in froth as he yelled. "Tell me how easy my life has been again! I want your all seeing insight on this subject!"

  But the man could only gurgle and choke. In his anger, Jessie had gradually run him through, oblivious to almost everything else around him. And as the man belched blood inside his hood, hemorrhaging out in the name of his god, Jessie could only imagine his smug uncle beneath that hood and cap.

  And the thought of it made Jessie recoil, as he suddenly shivered, releasing the weapon. His opponent twitched and howled, weakly thrashing and trying to remove the embedded pole arm. The squat man took several steps back and became aware again that he was in a fight with several and he wasn't alone. It was as though someone turned the volume back on in his head, whereas he knew only what his tunnel vision showed him moments ago. And there he was, back on that night with the guys at the Green Militia base, feeling sick to his stomach over what he did. Except this time was a bit different, for this man wasn't made of mud on the inside. He was as real as anyone else. And Jessie realized it had happened again.

  In a distracted fugue, he wandered off haltingly towards Simon, after he found his friend was not faring well. But his eye lingered back behind him several times, watching the senseless suffering he had caused. The disgust within himself prevented him finishing the man off cleanly, something he also knew to be a mistake. Enemy or not, he did not want to see him suffer. And yet he still did nothing.

  Ramone's last opponent managed to cut sleeve of his leather jacket in but a prior moment, drawing a small trickle of blood from a grazed wound on the dark haired man's elbow. Irritated but scarcely affected, Ramone grabbed the pike before the cultist could withdraw it. He then kicked the man in the gut with a vicious size thirteen biker boot, making his foe loose his grip. Discarding the archaic weapon behind him, he grabbed the robed monk and body slammed him to the earth, making a resonating 'thumph' noise. Patient and unyielding, he kneeled on leg on the man's chest and began pummeling his face to satisfaction.

  These men were not fighters, in spite of all their holy bluster. They were used to facing those who didn't know what they were doing, such as the fearful, and meek. Ramone was none of these things. He found his senior year classmates back in Dresden Port High School were far more scrappy than these zealots.

  He made no effort to kill them. He realized maybe he should have, given how vile they seemingly were to Rio, but it wasn't something he saw in himself to do. The dog he attacked didn't seem long for the world and from the looks of it; even his friend could tell they were suffering, probably without much use beyond tracking down whatever infidels these lunatics preyed on. That said, he wasn't beyond dealing a great deal of damage and if one were to die from complications, he wasn't going to lose sleep over it. In his book, a severe beating was justified here. He had been in more than enough fights in his lifetime to not hold back a punch or fear taking one. None of this was new, only the packaging was different.

  Discarding the beaten cultist on the ground, he looked to the others. He saw a shirtless Jessie tackling a pike bearing monk that had stabbed Simon rather painfully. Simon himself had a lot of blood staining his hoodie, more than Ramone would have hoped to see in a friend. As for the cultists, there were no others beyond the ones Ramone defeated, save for a horribly impaled zealot on the ground, stuck with his own pike to the ground. The Italian cringed, listened to the dog-like wet coughs that sounded all the part of blood vomit from the lungs. It looked to be Jessie's opponent, from the position of things. It seemed… excessive, even for a man who just bludgeoned some of these lunatics with little restraint.

  Jogging his way to Simon as Jessie threw the other man to the ground and started ground fighting with him, Ramone cast a glance to the porch of Chester's cabin. Rio stood on the short climb of stairs, merely watching impassively, clutching her mysterious book. But she was not hurt and for that, Ramone was glad. He knew in his heart that he likely laid into these men that much harde
r because of the scars done to her. His father had very much been in the school of thought of protecting those weaker than himself and it was something he imparted firmly in Ramone's upbringing.

  Reaching the scuffle, he thought to interject and finish off the remaining cultist, but Jessie seemed to have it in order. It wasn't well known, but Jessie had a great deal of forearm and hand strength thanks to his tinkering and repair work. Brawling on the ground where speed and dodging weren't issues, Jessie wasn't at any particular disadvantage now. Despite that, he let his shorter friend deal with the cultist out of catharsis. He had a look of adrenalin in his eyes and he was visibly quite agitated. Ramone wondered if it was due to Rio, Simon being stabbed, or the likely guilt he felt over what he did to the other monk. He had not forgotten Jessie's bout of melancholy over having shot the Clayforged at the Green Militia base, when he still believed he had killed a human being at the time. Maybe it was all things combined.

  Simon groaned, suppressing his obvious pain as best he could. He tried removing the pike head, but it only hurt more and he couldn't easily remove it. Ramone crouched down and examined the situation. It wasn't extremely deep, but it was more than a simple flesh wound. The wound also appeared to be aggravated, either of the struggle or from Simon trying to pull the thing out.

  Ramone was no doctor and knew only some basic first aid. But as much as the piercing iron hurt Simon, he knew that extracting it would probably cause further bleeding. And here they were on a world away from home, surrounded by hostile entities with not so much as a cartoon faced adhesive bandage at their disposal. Still, he couldn't leave it there either. The shape of the weapon was unwieldy and the weight was anything but light. There was no way to move Simon around with the prongs still in his flesh.

  "Rio!" Ramone called out, over the sound of Jessie battering the head of his opponent. "He needs medical attention. Is there anywhere safe around here we can get some? Bandages, antiseptic maybe?"

  The young woman shook her head, her black hair sashaying. "They will kill him if they find him. This entire territory is theirs alone. If I go to fetch some, I will not be able to return you either."

  Ramone sighed. "I hate this place. Simon, how are you holding up?"

  Simon grit his teeth, unable to find a comfortable position on the ground. "Been better... mmph. Sorry, I'm not really a fighter. I let my guard down after dropping the dog."

  "I know. The whole Voice thing."

  Simon winced and shook his head. "Nah, man. I wasn't really all that tough even before this Drifter business, Ra. You know that."

  "It's not important," Simon's long haired friend dismissed. "Look, I don't know when we're going back, but we gotta do something about this. We're not going to be able to stay here. If more of them come, it's going to be that much more difficult to fight them off. We'll be down a man and we haven't eaten in a while as is."

  "I'm sorry," Simon apologized again.

  "Not as sorry as I'm going to be. Because I gotta pull this thing out, Simon. We can't move you around like this. Not gonna lie, it's going to hurt like hell."

  Simon managed a beleaguered smile. "Ahh… it'll be like pulling a Band-Aid off the hair on my arm. It'll be over and done with. Besides, this is actually quite unpleasant, if you couldn't tell."

  His friend chuckled, glad to see Simon had some semblance of composure to retain his humor. By now, Jessie arrived, still bare chested. He was stained with spatters of blood, but whether it was from the impaled zealot or his last opponent, it wasn't clear. "How is he?" he asked quietly, crouching down and looking like he was simmering down.

  Ramone shifted slightly. "He's going to be screaming in a second when I slide these prongs out. Then we need to bandage him asap or he might bleed out. Can you get some cloth from those idiots? I want to make a tourniquet."

  "Sure thing," said Jessie grunted, starting back up.

  "What about you? Are you alright?" asked Ramone.

  "Just a small cut on my hand. Nothing serious."

  "Yeah, well… I didn't mean like a bruise, Jess. How are you?"

  The stout one paused and together they looked at his last opponent. The zealot was out cold on the dirt. Then they looked at the impaled monk and found his gurgling had ceased and he breathed no further. Jessie lingered a despondent gaze back and continued on with his work gathering cloth for Simon, saying nothing.

  "Goddamnit," Ramone uttered. He knew it was probably going to be an issue later. Jessie had more of a conscience than anyone would assume of someone so verbally hostile.

  Rio then approached and knelt next to Simon and Ramone. "Use my sleeves if you think it can help. They may at least sop up some of the blood."

  The two boys glanced at her curiously. "Are you sure?" Simon asked, wincing still. "I mean, I'm sure we can get enough from those men."

  She nodded somberly, her abyssal eyes half open. "I was not able to do anything just now. And it was not from fear. But you fought not only for yourselves, but for me too, it seemed."

  "Of course we did," Ramone said. "It's pretty clear that these people are abusing you."

  She made a confused face to that statement. "Abusing? They are abusing me?"

  "Well… aren't they?" Ramone asked, puzzled by her response. "They're the ones hitting you, aren't they?"

  "Yes."

  "And they were going to punish you just for associating with us, right?"

  "That is also correct."

  "Then how is that not abuse? And… not for nothing, but it doesn't look like you get to eat much."

  She closed her eyes and gradually nodded. "Also true. I drink my water from the fields and pumps. I eat what scraps they leave out, if I am able to manage it."

  "What do you mean?"

  "If I venture into town, I may be pelted with stones. Whipped with a crop. Cut or beaten. They leave scraps out in bowls by some houses. I have to compete with the dogs for what there is. And the dogs are already desperate."

  They were quiet for several moments, unable to fathom what was wrong with this world that caused random people to harm this girl. "Where are your parents?" Simon asked, increasingly forgetting about the weapon lodged in his body.

  "Sacrificed to God."

  "Uh… huh. No one watches over you?"

  "Not in the way you are thinking. If the townspeople beat me too harshly, the priests will allow me to recover in one of the temples for a day. Then it resumes again."

  "They do this to other children, too?" He still wasn't sure how to consider her.

  She shook her head. "No. Just me."

  "I don't understand this place… why are these people treating you like some punching bag. Is there some mark of shame over your family name?"

  Rio, again, shook her head no. "Far from it. My parents were honored. The priests asked and their sacrifice was willing. You do not understand. It is my role to be the town's scapegoat. It is my task to endure what they do."

  "Why you? What's the point?"

  She raised her gaze at Ramone. "If I endure enough, God will descend from the Black Sun and manifest within me. Then God will walk the world in the flesh and bestow fortune to the pious here. I am an ordained Vessel of God, Drifter. As much as a man might be a shoemaker or scribe. It is an unfathomable honor, they say."

  "If you take enough of their abuse… god will dwell within you?" Simon asked. "Er, has this happened before?"

  "Long ago, it is said to be. Many are unworthy or have given up. My village has made a point of tightly following the scriptures."

  "Then that book you're carrying…" Ramone trailed.

  "Among things, yes," she said.

  By now, Jessie had returned with numerous strips of cloth. The boys were a bit haunted by what they had been told and it took them a moment to snap back to the reality of Simon's injury. Rio still offered her sleeves, unaffected by her own story's recital. They looked to her again, feeling uncomfortable taking what little this girl had, but she nodded and presented her arms again. "I want to help
."

  They didn't understand as much as they would have preferred about her. In many ways, Simon and Ramone wondered if they knew her even less now. But it would have to wait.

  CHAPTER 23

  The business of dressing Simon's wound was short, and anything but pleasant. Although the weapon wasn't lodged terribly deep, it was a lot worse than a mere cut. They had Simon bite down on a stick (just in case) and after making certain the prongs weren't hooked by comparing the weapon to other the pikes, they were quickly removed. Simon groaned, nearing snapping the stick in half, as Jessie held him still and Ramone with the help of a now bare armed Rio, staunched the blood from the holes made into Simon's ribs and shoulder. With Rio changing out the cloth rags as needed, Ramone fashioned a tourniquet of sorts for his friend's shoulder. It wound up not being too bad, but the rib injury was much more stubborn to seal.

  By the time they were done, there was a great deal of bloody rags lying in a heap. Simon was visibly flushed, but bandaged, and any awkward mutterings about cauterizing were put to rest, at the risk of accidentally making things worse. They were aware; however, that there was a chance his wound might get infected later. But short of time and options, the matter had to wait. The boys agreed they were now more willing to take a chance confronting the Clayforged at a public hospital when they returned than to stay in one spot longer and get sacrificed.