“Come in!” he finally said, and walked back into the house. Roy and Girish looked at each other, shrugged and then followed the man into the house.
The house was a sight to behold. It was filled with books – loads and loads of them. Huge wooden shelves filled with books, stood in the front room. The couch, the dining table, every accessible place and even the floor was brimming with massive tomes and volumes of books, old and new. They carefully tiptoed, trying not to step on any of those huge, fat piles of books. In the centre of the room was a table and chair.
“Do not touch anything!” the stranger said as they stepped in.
“Who are you?” Roy asked him.
“I am the Librarian!” the stranger answered.
“That explains the mountains of books,” Roy said. “But you got a name?” he asked.
“There is no use for names anymore in this End Age,” the Librarian said, sitting down on the old chair by the round table which was located in the room in the midst of the sea of books.
There was a typewriter on the table and a huge bundle of papers by its side.
“Aah…so no name, like that Purohit of the Sinless” Roy offered.
The Librarian immediately picked up his shotgun and pointed it at Roy.
“Do not ever again compare me to that ignorant, superstitious wasteland tyrant,” he glowered. “I am a man of knowledge.”
Roy put his hands up, “As you say, chief!”
The Librarian lowered his shotgun. “Now, tell me. What are you fools here for?” he said running his hand through his thick curly black hair.
“Just looking for some supplies,” Girish told him.
“The truth, fuckers! It's the books...isn't it? You want to steal my books?” The Librarian asked them, his hand on the trigger of the shotgun again.
Roy and Girish shook their heads.
“We didn’t know you had books in here, man,” Roy said.
“We were just looking for supplies, trust me. By the way, what are you writing?” he asked looking at the typewriter.
The Librarian hesitated for a moment and then answered.
“Our story,” he muttered.
“I am documenting the human history of this apocalypse,” There was an air of pride in his voice. “Without internet, pre–purge technology, or people constantly writing about the things that are happening, there should be someone to document everything for future generations. I had to take the task upon myself.”
Girish asked, “That’s great...what's it called?”
“Volume one is called 'The Dawn of Kalki'!” the Librarian said proudly.
“Awesome! Can we have a look?” Roy asked.
He was not much of a reader earlier but the chief of his Thuggee pack once taught him the value of knowledge.
The Librarian's hand immediately clamped on the bundle of papers.
“No!” he said, alarmed. “It’s a sacred endeavour. It's not yet finished. Not for everyone's eyes.”
Roy had seen enough people driven to madness by the wasteland and its horrors and knew not to engage in their madness. Madness at its core is a bundle of ideas and like most ideas, is highly contagious.
“So, do you have any supplies you want to give away?” Roy asked, veering the subject away from the madness.
“We are a large group. We need as much as we can get,” he added.
The Librarians grip on the papers loosened and he said, “I have a stock of canned food in the top floor. One of you can go and take a few.” he said looking at Roy, “Only one of you. I'll stay here, watching the other one,” he said picking up his shotgun and pointing it at Girish.
“C’mon, man! You can trust us. We are not here to harm you. Girish maybe as dumb as a Crawler but we are pretty harmless,” Roy joked.
The Crawlers' transformation made them fierce animals with tough hides and sharp spines, claws and teeth, but it also made most of them mindless beasts. Their brains turned more primitive and their vocal chords changed too, giving them the ability to growl but hindering high speech functionality. Only their leader, the behemoth everyone calls ‘Priest Eater’ is rumoured to be capable of rudimentary speech and intelligence.
Roy’s humour seemed to be lost on the Librarian.
“You have the ways of Thuggees on you,” the Librarian said to Roy. “Fancy swords, and all. I didn't survive the apocalypse by taking stupid chances,” he said.
“Only one of you goes!”
Roy looked at Girish and nodded. Girish nodded back.
There better be good supplies, Roy thought to himself as he climbed the spiralling steps. Supplies worth all this trouble.
He reached the top floor expecting an array of canned goods but what he found was an empty attic.
He looked around, surprised.
The moonlight shimmered through the window. He looked down at the backyard through the window and then he noticed it.
There were mounds of dirt as if bodies had been buried in the backyard. More than a dozen.
He knew the End Age made everyone bury their loved ones in their backyard, but more than a dozen was too unlikely. He immediately realized the horrible truth.
They were in the house of a killer.
A chill went down his spine, as he realized why he was sent up alone. The Librarian wanted them separated. He was about to run back downstairs to save Girish, when he heard a terrible sound downstairs.
The sound of a shotgun going off.
SINNERS AND KILLERS
Saatvik stumbled onto the main hall, as his captors pushed him forward.
He had an athletic build, but his captors were equally strong. He had wandered onto their little colony in South Mumbai a few hours ago during a roaming mission.
All he could gather was that they called themselves ‘The Sinners’.
His hands were tied behind his back and his young face couldn't hide his fear as much as he wanted to. It was some sort of a wedding hall as far as he could tell. The marble floor was rusty–brown due to all the dust that had accumulated over the long years. Huge red curtains hung on the side walls, which were as tall as a two–storied building.
Saatvik's footsteps echoed in the massive hall as he trudged in with his sturdy shoes. He remembered the General's words –“A roamer's best friends are his shoes”.
There were around thirty of them in the hall. Survivors –men and women who looked like they had been through hell. They all looked at him upon his arrival. At the farther end of the hall, in the centre, was a throne, the kind of which is used in weddings to seat the couple. It was a massive, crimson cushioned chair with intricate gold coloured carvings of birds and Goddesses crawling along its edges.
And on the chair, sat their leader, a man with such a forceful aura around him that Saatvik could almost feel himself drawn towards him. He wore rugged, brown boots and dark cargo pants with pockets strewn all over. An unzipped grey jacket with a white fur collar covered his muscular torso. His chiselled face was accentuated by a clean shaven, sharp jawline and his long flowing hair descended like a dark curtain over his strange, pale grey eyes which matched his jacket.
And to Saatvik's utter surprise, beside him strolling around the throne were great wild boars with huge tusks. The brown, hairy beasts patrolled the throne, growling dully and grunting occasionally.
Strangely the leader carried no weapons on him, as if the boars were the only protection he needed. He looked at Saatvik with his strangely arresting pale gaze and said,
“Well, hello there!”
His voice was the most exciting thing Saatvik had ever heard. The diction of it, the calm flow, the deep sound; it was simply musical.
The captors pushed Saatvik towards the right side of the throne and forced him to his knees. He then saw that there was another prisoner in the hall to the left of the throne. He looked like he was one of them –savage and weather–worn. He too was down on his knees with his hands tied behind his back.
The leader stood up and looke
d at Saatvik's captors.
“He is not one of us! This is no way to treat a guest now, is it? Free him!” he said in that magical voice of his.
They untied Saatvik and he sat down on the floor.
Then the leader asked him, “Do you know who I am?”
Saatvik shook his head.
“Well, you see, I don't have a name that I can give you,” the man said. “But they call me the Nameless One or sometimes the Purge Walker. What is your name?”
“Saatvik”
“Now that we are introduced, Saatvik, if you will please excuse me, I have some business to take care of, before I can attend to you,” he said pointing his arm towards the other prisoner.
“Enjoy our hospitality in the meantime,” he said, and walked over to the other prisoner and squatted low so that he was on level with the prisoner who was on his knees. The prisoner was looking at the floor, whimpering and shaking.
The leader said softly, “Ajay, I heard you don’t want to be a part of us anymore?”
The prisoner didn't reply. His shaking worsened.
“Let me ask you something, Ajay,” the Nameless One said calmly. “Have you ever sinned?”
Silence.
“C'mon, look at me,” the Nameless One said and put his hand under the man's chin and lifted it up. But the man averted his eyes. Whimpering and shivering.
“LOOK AT ME!” the leader bellowed. It was a scream so chilling and terrifying that the entire vast hall seemed to tremble.
The prisoner looked at him with eyes full of raw terror.
“Good,” The leader said. “Now, tell me...have you ever sinned?”
The man shook his head.
“C’mon now, don’t be shy! We are among friends, aren’t we? Lying is a sin too. Have you ever sinned, Ajay?”
The man nodded now.
“And you know your God is out there...” the leader pointed his muscular arm towards the north, towards the Beam.” …who kills everyone who sins. Don't you?” he asked with a calm that was as cold as the air in the great hall.
The man nodded again.
The leader began calmly, “And here I am...protecting you from getting killed...from this...this...divine punisher of yours and YOU SAY YOU WANT TO LEAVE?” he screamed into Ajay's face. “YOU SAY YOU WANT TO BETRAY ME?”
Saatvik looked on in shock as the leader grasped the man by his neck and lifted him off the ground effortlessly, with his right hand as he stood up. The leader's eyes were different now. Even stranger than his grey eyes. They looked like the eyes of a wild animal. Like that of a boar.
“No! Please,” the prisoner screamed, kicking his legs hard in the air as the Nameless One held him by the neck above the ground.
And then in a swift moment, which would haunt Saatvik's memory forever, the leader plunged his other hand into the prisoner's chest. Ajay screamed as the arm forcefully tore through the flesh and his rib cage. Blood splattered onto the leader's face. Chunks of meat and bones fell on the marble floor as the leader swiftly withdrew his arm from Ajay's insides. He was clutching the red beating heart of Ajay in his hand.
The floor was bathed in blood. Ajay had stopped twitching and kicking. The Nameless One threw his lifeless body to the floor and tossed the still beating heart to the prowling boars, which quickly surrounded it and started tearing away at it.
The blood–soaked leader now turned to Saatvik. He walked up to him, his boot marks wet with blood and shining bright red on the marble. Drops of blood trickled down his arm, marking his path as he walked. Saatvik tried crawling away but his captors held him from behind. The Nameless One squatted beside him and then slowly licked away the ample blood which trickled down his arm.
“Mmm...That's some nice blood. What a terrible waste,” the Nameless One sighed deeply.
“So...Saatvik, right? What's your story? Who are you?” the leader asked as if nothing had happened.
“I am … a...a roamer,” Saatvik sputtered.
“Roamer? Hmm, interesting! What’s a roamer, Saatvik?”
“I...I gather news for the Forgiven.”
“The Forgiven, aah!” The Nameless One pondered in recognition and turned to his followers to proclaim. “Fellow Sinners, we have one of the Forgiven among us,” he chuckled and turned back to Saatvik.
“News, ha? I think you got enough news for today!” he laughed lightly, pointing to the lifeless body of Ajay.
It was the coldest laugh Saatvik had ever heard. But it was strangely re–assuring. As if it was the manic laughter of a crazy psychopath but then the psychopath was on your side –your team.
Then suddenly, as if the leader had heard Saatvik's thoughts, he said, “That’s right. No need to panic. I am on your side.”
Saatvik's eyes widened, “How did you kn–”
“Shhh, listen to me!” the Nameless One said and placed his blood–soaked finger on Saatvik's lips to silence him.
Saatvik could almost immediately feel his lips wither and become lifeless – as if the very touch of the Nameless One was death itself.
Saatvik looked on with a strange sense of wonder and terror, devotion and disgust as the leader's eyes turned boar–like once again as he said, “Let me ask you something, Saatvik.”
The Nameless One grabbed Saatvik's hair tightly and then in his deep, hypnotic voice, he asked,
“Have you ever sinned?”
The wooden floor creaked under Roy’s feet as he ran towards the window.
He could hear the struggle downstairs. He knew he couldn’t go down the stairs now. He had to surprise the Librarian if he were to tip the odds in his favour.
There was only one way. He blindly ran into the window, his right elbow first. The glass shattered with a loud clink as the window broke and shiny sharp shards of glass rained down. Roy winced as he pulled out the pieces of glass stuck in his elbow.
He climbed out the window into the night sky. The cold night wind hit him in the face as he looked down to the ground, thirty feet below him. He had leapt great distances before. Pradeep would often joke that he was half an ape. He was famous for his agility and his strong legs, but he knew he couldn’t jump all the way down without breaking something inside him.
His eyes then found the ventilator of the bottom floor– an open wound in the wall. He leapt down from the window, his jacket flailing behind him like a cape.
He turned around in the air just in time to use his right hand to grab the opening in the ventilator like a hook. He knew he couldn’t use it to stop his fall entirely, as an impact like that would most probably dislocate his shoulder. He felt his fingers grab the opening and his body slowing down –immediately he let go, so that his arm wouldn’t take the entire impact of the fall. He got what he wanted. He had slowed down a lot. He landed on the ground like a cat –on all fours. Nothing felt broken.
He got up and ran towards the front porch as silently as possible –and there it was –his katana, shimmering in the silvery moonlight like a mirror in the dust. He picked it up as he sneaked up the porch to the front door. He could hear the struggle inside the house. Sounds of the Librarian and Girish stepping on and tripping over books interspersed by occasional gunshots.
Roy kicked the front door and barged in, his katana raised. He found the Librarian facing away from him, his shotgun pointed at Girish, who seemed to be bleeding from his arm. Roy swiftly grabbed the Librarian from behind and slid the katana under his neck and held it there firmly.
“Drop the gun!” Roy ordered.
In a flash of movement, the Librarian pushed the heel of his gun into Roy’s face and the laminated wooden rear end of the gun thudded against the bones in Roy’s face. Roy reeled back, clutching his nose. Warm blood dampened his hand. The Librarian sprung around, ready to shoot him. Roy’s reflexes knew what to do. His katana cut the air like a razor and swept across the shotgun. The next moment the shotgun was missing its barrel and the Librarian was missing his trigger finger.
The dismembered barrel of the gun an
d the finger fell to the ground as the Librarian screamed like a hungry Crawler and fell to his knees as blood spurted out of his hand. Roy stood panting and bleeding from his nose. Girish swooped onto the screaming Librarian and pinned him to the floor. The Librarian’s spectacles cracked and little shards of glass decorated the floor.
“NO!” the Librarian screamed, his eyes blazing under the broken glass.
“That was my writing hand! MY WRITING HAND!” he sobbed, clutching his bleeding hand with his left hand.
“You are no writer,” Roy said, wiping the blood off his nose. “You are a murderer.”
“NO! I had to protect my books. They all come for my books. To steal them away from me. I had to protect them!” the Librarian shouted.
“We told you we had nothing to do with your books,” Roy said.
“You thieves always lie. Especially you Thuggee scum,” the Librarian spat onto the floor.
“That’s it, nutjob!” Roy said clenching his teeth in anger.
“Don’t let him go,” he instructed Girish and dashed out of the house and came back with a rope fetched from his backpack on the motorcycle.
He then grabbed the Librarian by his legs and dragged him across the hall, through the river of books to one of the wooden pillars. As Girish held the Librarian’s hands around the pillar, Roy tied them up using the rope.
“Are you ok?” Roy asked Girish, looking at his bleeding arm.
Girish nodded. “Just a flesh wound,”
Roy squatted behind the Librarian and took his injured hand and placed his katana below it.
“Now tell me, you crazy bastard. How many people did you kill? You do realize you still have a lot of fingers to lose in your writing hand, don’t you?”
“Didn’t count! Doesn’t matter,” The Librarian said, flinching in pain.
There was no remorse on his face.
“I would kill anyone who is a threat to my books. You wouldn’t understand,” he said. “Books are containers of ideas, and sometimes, ideas are more important than lives.”
Roy pushed the katana closer to the Librarian’s hand, drawing a little blood. For a moment, he held it there with the blood slowly crawling down the blade, but then pulled it away and stood up.
Sinners- The Dawn Of Kalki Page 6