by M. L. Giles
Just before I could enter the town, however, a noise distracted me.
I closed my eyes, trying to hone in on the sound. It took a few seconds before I heard it more clearly again: a man, screaming out in pain.
Someone was nearby. I had to know if it was one of our people or one of Aiden’s.
The noise led me to a large home store, not far from where I originally had been. It was the kind of place that sold odd bits of fancy furniture, lamps, kitchenware, and art. The usual tarted-up, overpriced crap you would find the aspiring-to-be-rich people kitting their houses out with.
I ducked down immediately after entering through its already open doors. There seemed to be more than one person in here with me. I could hear two people talking to each other. Slowly, I crept forward into the store, getting close enough to hear what was being said.
“We need to make a choice soon,” a man said. I didn’t recognize his voice. “Aiden is expecting us back before tomorrow morning.”
“I think he would like it if we brought this one back.” A woman was next to speak, again not a voice I was familiar with. “Might earn us some favour with him.”
Now knowing that these were Aiden’s lackeys, I stepped carefully, using the aisles and furniture as cover to get closer to the people speaking. Neither were in sight yet.
The man spoke up again. “No doubt it would, but this guy’s not easy to carry! Can’t we find a trolley or something to move him with?”
“Men… Quit complaining and help me carry him.”
Another voice cried out in pain. It was the voice of the man I had originally heard on my way into town. Whoever this poor soul was continued to scream in sheer agony as he was moved by Aiden’s people.
I was getting closer. Aiden’s followers were making their way down an aisle next to the one I was creeping down.
“Jesus-fucking-Christ! Put him down! Put him down!” the man working for Aiden shouted.
A loud bang echoed round the store, followed by a sharp yell from whoever they had been carrying.
“What the hell?” The female of the two shouted. “Why’d you drop him like that?”
“Because the bastard is deafening me!”
I made my way to the end of the aisle, grabbing a heavy bronze statue of a half-naked lady from the corner shelf.
Not exactly an ideal weapon, but I was making do with what was to hand.
Aiden’s goons continued debating about how to continue carrying whoever they had found.
I peered around the corner at the end of the aisle to get a look at who I’d be up against.
Seeing the two in orange and yellow gear confirmed they were with Aiden. The male’s clothes were mostly black, with spray-painted sun symbols splattered all over his incredibly short shorts. The woman wore very little, favouring to cover her skin in yellow and orange skin pigments instead. Most notably, they each had a weapon. A dented, metal baseball bat in the hand of the woman, and a black crossbow slung over the man’s shoulder with a pouch around his waist containing the bolts for it. Two of the bolts were facing the wrong way, showing their pointed tips.
I looked down towards the ground, trying to see who they had been carrying. All I could make out was the top of a head, but the skin was so badly burnt it was impossible to work out who it was from this angle.
I had to know who the victim was.
Not long after completing my examination, the two agreed to keep trying to carry their “gift” for Aiden, reaching back down to pick him up.
As soon as they lifted the hefty-looking body up from off the floor, I swiftly stepped down the aisle behind them, being careful to not make any noise.
With both hands, I lifted the bronze statue in my hands, then brought it down on the back of the man’s head.
He fell, dragging the howling burn victim down with him.
The woman lost her grip of the burnt man’s arm, letting him drop. Before she had any time to figure out what was going on, I’d dropped the statue, pulled a long crossbow bolt out of the man’s pouch as he fell, and held its point up against her throat.
She looked confused at first, then I saw her tense up, as if she was preparing to swing at me with her baseball bat.
“Try it,” I pushed the bolt’s sharp tip up against her throat, almost puncturing the skin. “I’ll have a headache at best, whereas you’ll have a nasty hole in your throat. Which one do you think is worse?”
“You wouldn’t dare… I’m with Aiden.” She put on a brave face, possibly believing that by invoking his name I would piss myself with fear and run.
Maybe it would have in the past.
I laughed, although it was somewhat involuntarily. “Oh-ho-ho! Don’t go there, bitch. After the day I’ve had, I absolutely would. Now drop the bat.”
A veil of fear glazed over her eyes once she realized using Aiden’s name did nothing to faze me.
“Please don’t kill me!” She dropped the bat, letting it clang on the solid ground. “J-Just let me go. I’ll do anything you ask. Name it!”
Only one wish came to my mind. “I want Colton back. The man your boss took from me.”
She looked hopeful in that moment for some reason. “Oh! Wait, wait! The really big guy that left here a couple of hours ago in the ambulance? I can help you get him!”
“How?” I tilted my head slightly, curious at what she had to say.
“Aiden plans to execute him tomorrow. I could be your hostage, yes? I am very important to Aiden. He will swap Colton for me, I promise!”
There was still time. Not a lot of time, but enough for me to work with.
“Colton’s at St Michael’s hospital right now? And Aiden plans to kill him tomorrow morning?” I asked.
She nodded frantically. “Yeah. What do you say? You need me, right?”
With such a wonderful on the table, how else could I answer her?
“Nah,” I said. “I doubt you’re worth anything to anyone, let alone Aiden.”
“How dare you speak to me in such a way, you piece of shit!”
She threw her foot up, trying to kick me between the legs, narrowly missing only thanks to my fast reflexes. Her failed attempt at my jewels was the only excuse I needed to drop the crossbow bolt, then throw a hard fist right between her eyes, sending her head crashing back against the shelves holding some pretty boxes.
The woman fell to the ground, lying motionless.
With both of Aiden’s people incapacitated, I turned my attention to the burn victim on the ground. It must have taken about ten whole seconds before I was able to recognize who’s face this was.
“Oh fuck… Carl?” I uttered under my breath.
Carl was breathing slowly. Most of his clothing had burnt away, exposing his charred skin. The burns on his face left him almost unrecognizable at first glance. Only a portion of the poor bastard’s face around one of his eyes remained untouched, and even that bit was missing an eyebrow.
He was an ugly sight. I reeled slightly when I saw what used to be his eyelid melted closed.
I knelt beside him, moving my hand to touch his chest. “Hey, mate. Can you—ˮ
“DON’T! T-The… burns hurt.” Carl struggled to speak. His lips were almost gone, making it hard to understand when he spoke.
“Why, Carl? Why did Colton give himself up? What happened?”
Carl tried to lick his mostly missing lips before talking. “Wendy left hotel… told Aiden no one surrendering… attacked early… Colton gave… himself—ˮ
“Easy, Carl. Don’t say anymore. I got the gist of it.” It was painful to see him struggling to talk. I had to stop it.
Wendy had caused this. All of it. She had handed Evan over to Aiden, revealed the location of the hotel, and forced a surrender from Colton, all because that bitch wanted to escape some temporary rules. What pissed me off the most, though, was that she had the audacity to call me selfish! ME! I’d have been angry with her pet boyfriend too, if I thought for one moment he had a mind of his own.
My blood boiled with rage, but I kept it suppressed for the sake of Carl.
“Did anyone else escape the hotel alive?” I asked.
Carl nodded his head once, winching in pain from the simple movement. “Some… Not many.”
I bowed my head, thinking about what I should do next. I needed to save Colton, but Carl also needed my help.
“Listen, Carl, I need to get Colton. Is there anything I can do to help you first? Maybe try to find some ointment or water? There might be a first aid—ˮ
“Kill me,” he gurgled out, making my chest tighten instantly.
Never before had I taken a life. It was hard enough to justify killing an enemy, let alone a friend.
“I can’t do that,” I whispered quietly. “Let me try finding—ˮ
“Grayson… It hurts.”
Time was running out. Colton needed me, and I still needed to get everything sorted for my plan. I was being backed into a corner.
With one hand, I hovered the crossbow bolt’s sharp tip over Carl’s exposed chest, taking aim at his heart.
“Goddammit, you homophobic, overweight, smelly asshole! Don’t make me do this.” I didn’t want to take his life. I wanted a way out of this madness. I wanted him to let me go and look for something that would help with the pain.
Any excuse would suffice!
“I saw… so many… burnt alive,” he said with a tear barely forming in his one good eye. “I can’t live with that… Please, end it.”
There it was. The understanding. He wanted to be free of the emotional pain, not the physical one. I had witnessed a single stranger being burnt alive – an image that still haunts me to this day. How could my experience compare to seeing your friends die in a fire? What sort of mental anguish was Carl in now?
Letting Carl live in physical pain just to escape the responsibility of going down this road was an act the selfish Grayson Ryder could live with. Letting Carl live with the emotional pain, however, was something else.
I sighed a deep, long breath. My hand was shaking terribly. I placed my other hand over the one already holding the crossbow bolt’s shaft, trying hard to steady myself.
“Carl?” I said in a deflated tone. “Sorry I wound you up so much.”
“Thanks… Grayson.” He twisted his lips into what I suspected was a smile. “I’m sorry too.”
Those were Carl’s last words before the bolt pierced his heart.
I stayed knelt beside him for some time after that, looking at his burnt face. He was free from this cruel new world. There was this part of me that felt jealous of him; after all, he was at peace now.
Call it strange, but ending Carl’s life felt almost like a release of my own. The selfish side of me never wanted to face the reality of having to take another human life, and yet, now that I had faced that reality head-on by stopping the pain of a friend, I felt stronger for it.
My unselfish act had opened my eyes. A long time ago, I had said to Evan, “Taking a life is wrong, no matter the reason.”
I was wrong. So very, very wrong. Reason was everything. It took ending the life of a friend to see that.
Before leaving the store, I took a moment to close Carl’s only open eye and cover his body with a sheet from the bedding aisle. After that, I killed Aiden’s two people. It brought me no joy, but it was necessary.
My reason: once they came around, they would have returned to Aiden and warned him that I was coming. I couldn’t allow anything to jeopardize saving Colton.
Doing it for the sake of Colton… That seemed like a good enough reason.
I guess I really would kill for him.
“So, this is what I would look like if I’d joined Aiden?” I stared at my reflection in the broken mirror of a small clothes shop, thinking to myself.
The man looking right back at me seemed like a totally different person, one that I felt troubled to associate myself with.
He wore— …I wore a black and gold fleece sweater which I’d spray-painted randomly with orange streaks. My jeans were a light blue that I’d also coloured up with orange paint. On my head sat a yellow beanie hat, with my hair tucked neatly underneath to hide its length. My face was smeared with the orange and yellow pigments I’d rubbed off the dead woman’s skin before leaving the store.
There was one last piece missing. In my hand was a black and orange neck scarf. I covered the lower part of my face with it and tied it around the back of my head, leaving only my eyes exposed.
That was that.
I looked like one of them. It disgusted me beyond words, but this disguise was the only safe way to move around that hospital freely.
As the eyes of the man I couldn’t recognize anymore stared back at me, I wondered how much further I could fall before getting to Colton?
Already I had endured the pain of ending the suffering of a friend, then killed the two in the store to keep my plan secret. Now, I wore the very colours of Aiden on my skin.
The scariest part of it all was I felt nothing except determination. Colton was all that dominated my mind. His safe return was the only thing I wanted now. Deep down, I truly believed he would be the answer to ending the war in my mind between sanity and insanity.
Without him, I— I…
All my preparations were done just before the night rain had stopped falling.
I’d got my disguise fully sorted; found a functioning car (this took the longest); equipped myself with a sharp, folding, survival knife from a camping store, and the metal baseball bat from the woman earlier. I’d have taken that badass crossbow instead, but I feared it might’ve made me stand out more than a basic weapon.
As a bonus, I’d stumbled upon a whole packet of spearmint chewing gum while looking in a corner shop for some food.
Not too shabby for a couple of hours’ work, although it would’ve been a lot easier if Colton’s group hadn’t raided the town for supplies already.
I made my way to the white estate car I’d found. The owner of the car had died while still inside it, leaving behind a terrible stink as a result. The keys were missing, but I knew how to start a car without them.
What kind of thief wouldn’t know that trick?!
While clearing the car of the previous owner’s bones, the distinct sound of quickening footsteps came from behind me.
I pulled out the baseball bat from inside the car and turned around, preparing to strike at the head of whoever was charging me. My tight grip on the handle of the bat faltered when I saw an elderly man limping at me with a fork in his hand, ready to stab me.
…Yup, a fork, of all things…
Just before he got too close, I crouched down and thrust the baseball bat forward, jabbing him in the stomach. The man landed on his knees, winded from my hit.
When the fork hit the floor, I kicked it to one side.
I had been fully prepared to kill him at first, but when I saw he wasn’t wearing Aiden’s colours, I stopped myself from making that mistake.
“Colton’s group?” I asked.
The man looked up at me. His eyes were bloodshot, gray hair darkened with ash, clothes burnt in small patches. The most important feature, though, was a missing left ear. I recognized this elderly man as the one who had taken his inquisitive grandson away from me at the bar.
In an act of defiance, he spat on my jeans; not that I minded, it probably added to the authenticity of the entire ensemble.
“You animals murdered my grandson!” he shouted in a rasping voice. I guessed he had inhaled a lot of smoke. “Patrick was only eight… I did so much to keep him safe, then you lot come along and drag him into the fire!”
“Eight…” I thought, replaying the moment the young lad had approached me at the bar.
“The boy, he was the one asking about his mother.” I pulled down my scarf-mask, revealing my face to him. “I’m the guy he came up to back at the bar.”
The old man got up, still holding his stomach. “Grayson?”
“Yeah.”
He examined me from head-to-toe, unsure on how to react. “Why are you dressed like those savages?”
I turned around and threw the baseball bat back into the car’s passenger seat. “Aiden has Colton. I’d like him back.”
“You’re going into that hellhole alone?”
“Well I tried calling the police but, strangely enough, they didn’t answer… So yeah, alone.”
When I turned back to face the man, he was staring at me with an open mouth. “Whoa! You’re either incredibly brave, or completely crazy to go back there alone. Especially after seeing everything they can do.”
Without saying a word, I walked round to the driver’s seat and got in, closing the door behind me.
The man leaned down, resting his arm on where the passenger side window used to be. “You got the keys for this?”
“Don’t need them.”
I performed my little trick, bringing the car to life after a few tries. I already knew it was working thanks to earlier testing.
“Guess I’ll search for other survivors from our group. And Grayson?” he said. I glanced over at him from the corner of my eye. “Show them the same mercy they showed us.”
The car I drove wasn’t in the best condition. One of the lights was broken, and the steering wheel felt stiffer than Colton that one time we— …Never mind.
A large white estate was hardly an inconspicuous choice, but all I needed was a vehicle capable of getting me within walking distance of the hospital. My intricate, well-thought-out plan was to get in there using my disguise, shove my fist so far up Aiden’s butthole I’d be able to make him talk like a puppet, then safely waltz out of there with Colton and Evan.
I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not the best at making plans – winging it is more my style.
About halfway to the hospital, I emptied the entire pack of chewing gum into my mouth. There was a chance I would be caught, so why not enjoy it while I could still breathe, right?
As I chewed away, my eyes caught a glimpse of myself in the rear-view mirror.