Post by Admin on May 2, 2016 0:05:14 GMT
After the 'needless to say' line, there's a cut to the silhouette's point of view for the majority of the post.
Needless to say, I was all but blind to the silhouette emerging from the adjacent alleyway, pointing a semiautomatic rifle at me. I didn’t even know or care.
The dark figure standing in the shadows watched the boy collapse like a heart attack victim in the middle of the road, apparently at the sight of the burning faction trucks. The silhouette’s finger lay comfortably on the trigger, ready to blow the unexpected and unsuspecting stranger away soon enough.
Whoever he was, he was unfortunate to have come here with her on watch duty. The silhouette knew there was no room for mistakes or free chances in times like these.
Better to play it safe. Better to not even give him a chance to fight.
The trigger ready finger nudged a millimeter down before halting once again. The silhouette paused, squinted through the shade of the alley.
He was… sobbing? Was that guy sobbing himself a damn river on the pavement?
Now, the silhouette was confused. Stumped, even. Her frozen trigger finger didn’t follow through with her mind’s command.
That was when a second stranger appeared on the road, dashing to the sobbing boy’s side. The new girl, no older than 18, saw the wreckage of the vehicles and the impaled soldier dangling above the crater speckled street – a warning sign to any and all trespassers.
For a moment, the silhouette simply stood in mild curiosity of these two strangers’ actions. One lay curled up and catatonic to the world around him while the girl looked away from the carnage in utter disgust and sadness.
The silhouette puzzled. But… why cry over these blasted bastards?-
“Tomoe, wait!!” Catt’s voice splintered the silhouette’s concentration. The girl on the street snapped her head around to see the once inconspicuous shadow in the alley, pointing a gun at her. The girl’s eyes practically grew to the size of limes.
DAMNIT KATT! DAMNIT HESITATION!
Even as she cursed Catt for arriving too early, Tomoe, the silhouette, knew she wouldn’t be able to kill the two strangers on the spot anymore. If she had been just a bit quicker, she could’ve done the job and slated it on self-defense bull shit just like before. No witnesses or morals necessary.
But now Catt rushed to shadowy Tomoe’s side, seeing the two intruders up close now. From Catt immediately raised a peace rallying palm up to consul the girl in headlights. Tomoe’s semi-automatic remained unwaveringly trained on the girl. The boy still showed few signs of emotional management, but still, who knew if all of this was just a diversion?
Tomoe’s suspicious eyes probed the site for any possible tricks these strangers could’ve devised. Meanwhile, Catt spoke. Without any restraint.
“What are you doing here? What’s your name? What is that guy doing, wiggling like that on the concrete? Why aren’t you answering me?” Catt sputtered out like a popped bike tire. She paused. “My name’s Catt.”
Damnit Catt.
Tomoe’s eyes narrowed at the stranger girl, just standing there with nothing to say. Like… like an amateur spy kid. Another run of the mill child soldier that had been plucked from the blood fields and sent into a suicide scout mission. An unwilling puppet of the factions… That could’ve been us.
“She asked you several questions. Are you going to answer one?” Tomoe warned through gritted teeth. That little lemon head would be gone if she kept up a few more seconds of this silent treatment.
“Tomoe, please. Put down your gun, you’re scaring her,“ Catt turned to her weapon wielding comrade.
“Catt, shut up. Turn your head back to the intruders in front of you,” Tomoe interrupted. Catt obeyed, unwilling to argue for now. At least that’s something not stupid, thought Tomoe. Tomoe continued, still standing safely in the shadows, neither side willing to step closer to the other. “Well, isn’t this nice. We have a kid losing his f-ing mind and another that refuses to talk.”
The girl glanced at her fallen partner, then at Catt, then at the gun, and finally at the silhouette holding it. Her deceptive little face gave off nothing short of terror.
Catt tried once again, “Tomoe, calm down. The rest of the guys are on their way now. We’ve already notified them that–“
“I said, shut up!”
It was enough that Catt was practically spoon feeding the strangers information. Now the girl seemed to be testing Tomoe’s stunted temper, mouthing words she couldn’t quite make out. She was speaking but with the volume cranked to zero. Funny how much Tomoe hated charades.
“She’s, like, mute, Tomoe! She can’t speak,” Catt cried out.
“Yeah? Can you even tell what she’s trying to say?” Tomoe found herself and Catt in a conversation as if the girl wasn’t standing right in front of them.
“…C-Can’t p-peek?” Catt strained her numbered neurons.
“For the love of god, Catt. ‘Can’t speak’,” Tomoe sighed. The girl standing in the street looked relieved. By a hair.
From behind both Catt and Tomoe, a familiar spoke, “Who do we have here? Travelers?”
Catt, of course, turned around to greet Malachi, who was coming up to the two sentries no doubt with a large sum of their troop. Judging by the clomping footfalls of the band emerging from the deeper alley, there was a safe dozen of them approaching. But Tomoe didn’t look back. Her personal philosophy maintained that the second her eyes left that mute (and/or lying) bitch, one of the two strangers would pull a gun out.
It had happened once, and she wasn’t about to let it happen again.
Hopefully, by now, everyone is where they were supposed to be, and a few of our own have clear shots to the street from the rooftops. But you can’t count on others all the time, can you?
“Tomoe and I spotted two strangers running into town,” Catt chirped helpfully, relieved to have the cavalry at their side.
So I see,” Malachi said, his well-built figure coming to stand by an unflinching Tomoe, as he took an investigative gaze at the strangers on the road. He spoke authoritatively to the girl, “Who are you and why are you here-”
“She’s mute, Malachi,” Catt interjected helpfully.
Malachi put up with her annoying voice a lot better than Tomoe, cause his initial reaction wasn’t to say ‘shut up Catt’. It was a surprised and somewhat skeptical, “Really? Is that so?”
Throughout Malachi’s entrance, the girl maintained her silent standing, only moving to nod when he said this. For only a moment, there was nothing but the steadily dying flames of the warning sign to fill the air with timid crackles, and Malachi thought while everyone else waited patiently.
“Well, we need to search you before anything else can happen,” he said after a short length, his words directed at the girl still. As long as Tomoe had known Malachi, he always gone about the stranger meeting business with a very personal approach. But that was just what he did. The girl didn’t move for fear of the countless things she rightfully should’ve been afraid of.
Four previously selected boys, all clothed in the unofficial clothing of an Appalachian souvenir shop, broke from the group hanging behind Tomoe and Malachi and fast walked over to the two travelers. They quickly patted her down, top to bottom to top, without any resistance and yanked the boy up from the pavement like a boneless chicken and did the same to him.
While they held nothing concealed directly on them, the searchers quickly found a glock held in one of the backpacks’ side strap. The backpack itself had been discarded several yards from either of them, and Tomoe had seen the boy drop it before he himself fell to the concrete. A packed up tent. A smaller pack for the girl. Tucked inside of that bag were more cans and a little board game box. Tomoe couldn’t see the name from here though, not that she cared.
After a minute, the searchers looked up and Malachi spoke again to the girl. The searchers set the boy back down, and he slid his arm pathetically over his face as he lay sprawled out on his side. He could move some.
“So, how are we going to get to know each other if you’re mute and your partner’s taking a nap?” Malachi inquired, not gently but not unkindly either. Odds were that these were just mentally unstable wanderers. Still, Tomoe’s gun refused to lower by the power of instinctual compulsion alone.
The girl had lowered her arms to her sides now, flanked by underage guards loyal to only Malachi. Her eyes swerved over to her pack which sat a yard or two away from her feet, pressed together from the nervousness of the interview. Those bright green pupils pointed at the board game lying on top of the pile of collected and accounted stuff.
“You’re looking at the… scrabble game? You want to play scrabble?” Malachi asked dryly.
From behind me, Eraldo piped up to help (though much less annoying in doing so than Catt), “She wants to speak through the letters, no doubt. That’s the only reason someone would bother to pack a board game while on the road, eh?”
“Is that true?” Malachi checked the girl. She nodded vigorously. Malachi, in turn, cued a boy to reach down and pick up the item in question. He opened the box which contained nothing other than the regular wooden letter pieces and folded up board. Nothing dangerous. She accepted it and quickly went about laying the accessories flat on the ground. She looked back up at Malachi, waiting.
“What is your name?” he asked experimentally, stepping forward in order to see the tiny scratched out letters she was hastily selecting and laying out. As far as Tomoe could see, it spelled,
MYRA
Scratching his head in response to such a rare situation, the equable Malachi asked again, “What are you two doing here? And why is he acting like this?”
After a thought, he added, “And are there anymore in your crew, Myra?”
After less than half a minute, she had scrambled out a couple lines,
HIS NAME IS RYKER
She pointed to her pitiful partner before continuing.
WE ARE ALONE
LOOKING FOR HIS BROTHER
She paused before swapping around some words and breaking others up to free additional letters to create the next line. She hesitated, glanced at the burning trucks, then back at the board as she spelled out,
RYKERS BROTHER WAS TAKEN BY REDS
DID ANYONE SURVIVE
She slowly looked back up at Malachi who stood rather stiffly at this news. He cleared his throat and half turned to the wreckage as he explained, “Red Redemption… they rolled through here yesterday. And we, uh, were ready for them. We had mines. Grenades. Blitzy stuff Eraldo cooked up. We made sure almost no one was able to survive the first minute of the ambush-“
“Almost no one?”
The guy on the ground, Ryker, had made a noise, which was surprising enough for Tomoe to whip her gun barrel around at him. The other guards had reacted in a similar fashion. It was as if the kid had woken up from the dead – he had suddenly and unexpectedly peeled his face off the concrete and was staring straight at Malachi. Even to Tomoe, who stood studying from afar, it seemed his eyes were alight with an exhausted yet dagger like potency.
“…Ryker, is it? As far as I know, there were no survivors. We set their trucks ablaze then picked off the ones that attempted to flee.”
“There were… people on those trucks. Captives they were taking to the blood fields. Captives. Innocent people!” With that, Ryker started to get to his feet like a swaggering drunk out for blood. A couple guards rushed over to pull him right back down to his knees before he tried something stupid. He didn’t try to fight but opted instead for a dark stare into Malachi’s eyes, which remained calm and steady.
“I’m sorry. But we take no chances here,” Malachi stated a moto shared by both Malachi and Tomoe. “Once the fire breaks out, it’s impossible to tell who’s captor or captive. Everyone’s washed red. Either from the uniform or the flames, everyone’s red. And when it comes to getting even with the Redemption Rats… it’s very personal.”
At this, Malachi’s words changed from their usual tint of kindness to a frigid tone of icy hatred. Tomoe could see his posture become rigid with memory.
“Once America became complete hell, we were taken from our miserable camps in the blood fields and separated from what family we had left. They told us we were being tested to see if we were fit to join the ranks. They trained us in camps that made the fields seem like paradise. They forced us to mutilate the disobedient kids and torture men from other factions until they cried like the children that we no longer were. We had to escape, so we did. Because of Eraldo, a few dozen of us were able to survive out of the hundreds that attempted escape. If not for his plan, we would’ve numbered zero. And now that we’ve found a way to survive on our own, we do whatever we can to get back at them. Whenever they cross us.”
He paused and looked around him, as he rose from his self-induced trance of recollection. He spoke to everyone now, as if he were some great, Shakespearean speech giver, “While we don’t have a name or a color or a flag, we define ourselves through retaliation on them. No chances.”
Another silence ensued, broken only by the background of the simmering truck bonfire. Ryker lowered his head and allowed shade to cover his expression for a moment.
“Not everyone was killed though,” Catt interloped. After hearing Malachi’s monologue to the kid, Catt’s interjection seemed really anticlimactic. Just about everyone turned to look at her except Tomoe, of course. Catt suddenly got mousey as everyone’s eyes trained on her; she was whispering something no one could hear.
“For god’s sake, Catt, speak up,” Malachi said, clearly surprised that for once he wanted her to talk up. Unless Catt slipped into one of her quiet episodes, she never needed a reminder to yak.
“Well, I just remembered a few of them reaching the town limits. I don’t know if someone else went after them or if they got away,” she confessed.
“You’re telling me you saw several of them just leave? And you did nothing?” Malachi reproached her, clearly hearing this news for the first time.
“I thought Jacob or the others were going to go after them. It’s their job to chase down the ones that make it past… I thought someone…”
“If you saw it, it was your job to report it,” Malachi said curtly as she trailed off. He looked to the rest of the group, “Did anyone else here see a few get aways yesterday?”
No one spoke. Tomoe herself had not. Just by quickly eyeing the others around her, Tomoe could tell there were a few besides Catt that had seen crumbs fall and done nothing to clean them up. They wore it blatantly on their faces like shameful masks.
“I see,” Malachi confirmed with a scowl, contemplating those runts’ incompetency. “In that case, it appears that there is a chance, however unlikely, your brother was on those trucks… and escaped with his life.”
A light appeared in Ryker’s eyes, dispersing the ocular fog that had previously dimmed them. He slowly got to his knees, careful not to test the guards on either side of him. Myra seemed much more hesitant to believe in those chances but softly watched Ryker to see what he would say next.
He looked past Malachi’s wide figure at Catt and asked, “Where did they go?”
“I, uh, I saw them leaving to the northwest, taking Schelling Road out of town. They were only specks in the distance, but I could tell they were hurrying further into the mountains.”
“And you know what lies on the other side of that mountain range, right?” Malachi asked. Ryker shook his head.
“The blood fields. Red Rat’s nest itself. Less than 50 miles northwest from here is the very hell we escaped from,” he explained. “If they make it back before you can reach them, the chances of you seeing your brother becomes as good as zero. That is, if he even is one of the few that escaped in the first place.”
He took a moment, considering this. Then he said, “Thanks. I’ll be on my way, if that’s fine with you.”
The subtle bitterness in his quick farewell could be detected even by Tomoe.
Myra looked unenthusiastic at his decision, turning between Malachi and Ryker who was already stepping away from the guards and eyeing the sign a distance away that pointed him in the direction of Schelling Road. Malachi watched with a set expression as the guy picked up his fallen stuff and headed out with a new air of purpose. Tomoe finally began to lower her semiautomatic as the girl scampered after her partner, unpacked scrabble board clutched to her chest.
Everyone knew the drill now. Jacob and Vincent would see to it that the strangers left the town and didn’t try to stay or do something crazy. Since the chance meeting had gone strangely but smoothly, everything would go back to business as usual. Everyone in the crowd returned to their posts or escapades, including Tomoe.
As she hastened back to her perch at the top of the West Brook Apt. Building (without Catt of course. She was busy having a talk with Malachi), her finger dropped away from the trigger, though the aftertaste of the peaceful encounter and her unsatisfied craving lingered for much, much longer.
I tried to act as if the encounter with this nameless town never happened, and I quickened my pace to get back out onto the road. I let few thoughts enter my mind at the moment. Only the mental propaganda that would strengthen my resolve to continue onward was permitted, until all I could think was a constant drone of ‘There’s a chance. There’s a chance. There’s a chance.’
I could hear Myra coming up behind me. I didn’t turn to her even as she started rapidly poking my shoulder to slow down.
When I refused to stop, she eventually just blocked my path. Suddenly very tired of having to deal with anyone at all, I complied and stopped walking.
She observed my halt and set the scrabble back on the ground to spell out another time killing message.
“Myra, please! If you want to come along, then come on. If not, get out of my way. I can’t afford to stop till night,” I said. Even to my desensitized ears, my words seemed far too cold and detached. But I just wasn’t in the mood. The bastards had gotten a day’s head start, and we (or perhaps just I) needed every second possible. Looking at Myra’s simple message made my insides churn heavily with the truth in its ambiguity.
WE DONT KNOW
“What do you mean, we don’t know? We don’t know if Leon’s alive or if he’s sizzling into an unrecognizable pile of ash on Malachi's warning sign? We don’t know if the survivors are still following this road? Or if they called in another truck to carry them off and they’re already in the heart of red territory? Or if they all died sometime last night?” Ryker demanded. “For all we don’t know, there could’ve been a mix up, and the trucks burning in this town aren’t even the FUCKING ONES THAT TOOK LEON AT ALL!”
For no reason at all, my leg swung around and kicked the damn board game across the concrete. It spun and came to a rest several yards away, scrabble pieces plinking around it like pattering rain. It had been more than a decade since my little league soccer days, but apparently I still had some foot skills.
Myra remained crouched in place for a second or two more before she crawled over to where the pieces lay scattered over the road. She picked them up patiently and meticulously while I stood still. She was out of my way now. I could easily take a walk now…
But instead, I came over and began awkwardly helping her place the tiles back in the box. I wanted to tell her I didn’t mean to do that. I wanted to apologize for talking to her like she was luggage slowing me down. Because in truth, I did care whether she came with me or not, even if she was little more than living baggage. But in the end, I didn’t try to say anything, and she tried to spell something out.
I WILL GO WITH YOU
ONE CONDITION
I waited. She spelled the next line carefully. I looked.
IF LEON ISNT ON THIS ROAD OR IS DEAD
YOU CANT GIVE UP
The idea that we were following a fake trail was one my subconscious had become accustomed to, not my waking, thinking mind. Not ten minutes ago, I had basically checked out entirely, unable to move until that Malachi’s words gave me hope. Simply put, I didn’t want to think about it. So for now, in answer to Myra’s condition, I replied a bland and brisk,
“I won’t.”
I didn’t look at her for moment or two in which I can guess she was giving me an eye. I stared down Schelling Road, past the rows of quaint town shops and to the sprawling blue peaks beyond. At length, she became satisfied with my answer (at least for now), and I heard her sliding the final pieces into the box and packing it snugly into her pack.
She got up. I got up. Glancing back at her, I saw her watching me. I let her. I walked on, and soon enough, she matched my pace. Simple as that.
Needless to say, I was all but blind to the silhouette emerging from the adjacent alleyway, pointing a semiautomatic rifle at me. I didn’t even know or care.
The dark figure standing in the shadows watched the boy collapse like a heart attack victim in the middle of the road, apparently at the sight of the burning faction trucks. The silhouette’s finger lay comfortably on the trigger, ready to blow the unexpected and unsuspecting stranger away soon enough.
Whoever he was, he was unfortunate to have come here with her on watch duty. The silhouette knew there was no room for mistakes or free chances in times like these.
Better to play it safe. Better to not even give him a chance to fight.
The trigger ready finger nudged a millimeter down before halting once again. The silhouette paused, squinted through the shade of the alley.
He was… sobbing? Was that guy sobbing himself a damn river on the pavement?
Now, the silhouette was confused. Stumped, even. Her frozen trigger finger didn’t follow through with her mind’s command.
That was when a second stranger appeared on the road, dashing to the sobbing boy’s side. The new girl, no older than 18, saw the wreckage of the vehicles and the impaled soldier dangling above the crater speckled street – a warning sign to any and all trespassers.
For a moment, the silhouette simply stood in mild curiosity of these two strangers’ actions. One lay curled up and catatonic to the world around him while the girl looked away from the carnage in utter disgust and sadness.
The silhouette puzzled. But… why cry over these blasted bastards?-
“Tomoe, wait!!” Catt’s voice splintered the silhouette’s concentration. The girl on the street snapped her head around to see the once inconspicuous shadow in the alley, pointing a gun at her. The girl’s eyes practically grew to the size of limes.
DAMNIT KATT! DAMNIT HESITATION!
Even as she cursed Catt for arriving too early, Tomoe, the silhouette, knew she wouldn’t be able to kill the two strangers on the spot anymore. If she had been just a bit quicker, she could’ve done the job and slated it on self-defense bull shit just like before. No witnesses or morals necessary.
But now Catt rushed to shadowy Tomoe’s side, seeing the two intruders up close now. From Catt immediately raised a peace rallying palm up to consul the girl in headlights. Tomoe’s semi-automatic remained unwaveringly trained on the girl. The boy still showed few signs of emotional management, but still, who knew if all of this was just a diversion?
Tomoe’s suspicious eyes probed the site for any possible tricks these strangers could’ve devised. Meanwhile, Catt spoke. Without any restraint.
“What are you doing here? What’s your name? What is that guy doing, wiggling like that on the concrete? Why aren’t you answering me?” Catt sputtered out like a popped bike tire. She paused. “My name’s Catt.”
Damnit Catt.
Tomoe’s eyes narrowed at the stranger girl, just standing there with nothing to say. Like… like an amateur spy kid. Another run of the mill child soldier that had been plucked from the blood fields and sent into a suicide scout mission. An unwilling puppet of the factions… That could’ve been us.
“She asked you several questions. Are you going to answer one?” Tomoe warned through gritted teeth. That little lemon head would be gone if she kept up a few more seconds of this silent treatment.
“Tomoe, please. Put down your gun, you’re scaring her,“ Catt turned to her weapon wielding comrade.
“Catt, shut up. Turn your head back to the intruders in front of you,” Tomoe interrupted. Catt obeyed, unwilling to argue for now. At least that’s something not stupid, thought Tomoe. Tomoe continued, still standing safely in the shadows, neither side willing to step closer to the other. “Well, isn’t this nice. We have a kid losing his f-ing mind and another that refuses to talk.”
The girl glanced at her fallen partner, then at Catt, then at the gun, and finally at the silhouette holding it. Her deceptive little face gave off nothing short of terror.
Catt tried once again, “Tomoe, calm down. The rest of the guys are on their way now. We’ve already notified them that–“
“I said, shut up!”
It was enough that Catt was practically spoon feeding the strangers information. Now the girl seemed to be testing Tomoe’s stunted temper, mouthing words she couldn’t quite make out. She was speaking but with the volume cranked to zero. Funny how much Tomoe hated charades.
“She’s, like, mute, Tomoe! She can’t speak,” Catt cried out.
“Yeah? Can you even tell what she’s trying to say?” Tomoe found herself and Catt in a conversation as if the girl wasn’t standing right in front of them.
“…C-Can’t p-peek?” Catt strained her numbered neurons.
“For the love of god, Catt. ‘Can’t speak’,” Tomoe sighed. The girl standing in the street looked relieved. By a hair.
From behind both Catt and Tomoe, a familiar spoke, “Who do we have here? Travelers?”
Catt, of course, turned around to greet Malachi, who was coming up to the two sentries no doubt with a large sum of their troop. Judging by the clomping footfalls of the band emerging from the deeper alley, there was a safe dozen of them approaching. But Tomoe didn’t look back. Her personal philosophy maintained that the second her eyes left that mute (and/or lying) bitch, one of the two strangers would pull a gun out.
It had happened once, and she wasn’t about to let it happen again.
Hopefully, by now, everyone is where they were supposed to be, and a few of our own have clear shots to the street from the rooftops. But you can’t count on others all the time, can you?
“Tomoe and I spotted two strangers running into town,” Catt chirped helpfully, relieved to have the cavalry at their side.
So I see,” Malachi said, his well-built figure coming to stand by an unflinching Tomoe, as he took an investigative gaze at the strangers on the road. He spoke authoritatively to the girl, “Who are you and why are you here-”
“She’s mute, Malachi,” Catt interjected helpfully.
Malachi put up with her annoying voice a lot better than Tomoe, cause his initial reaction wasn’t to say ‘shut up Catt’. It was a surprised and somewhat skeptical, “Really? Is that so?”
Throughout Malachi’s entrance, the girl maintained her silent standing, only moving to nod when he said this. For only a moment, there was nothing but the steadily dying flames of the warning sign to fill the air with timid crackles, and Malachi thought while everyone else waited patiently.
“Well, we need to search you before anything else can happen,” he said after a short length, his words directed at the girl still. As long as Tomoe had known Malachi, he always gone about the stranger meeting business with a very personal approach. But that was just what he did. The girl didn’t move for fear of the countless things she rightfully should’ve been afraid of.
Four previously selected boys, all clothed in the unofficial clothing of an Appalachian souvenir shop, broke from the group hanging behind Tomoe and Malachi and fast walked over to the two travelers. They quickly patted her down, top to bottom to top, without any resistance and yanked the boy up from the pavement like a boneless chicken and did the same to him.
While they held nothing concealed directly on them, the searchers quickly found a glock held in one of the backpacks’ side strap. The backpack itself had been discarded several yards from either of them, and Tomoe had seen the boy drop it before he himself fell to the concrete. A packed up tent. A smaller pack for the girl. Tucked inside of that bag were more cans and a little board game box. Tomoe couldn’t see the name from here though, not that she cared.
After a minute, the searchers looked up and Malachi spoke again to the girl. The searchers set the boy back down, and he slid his arm pathetically over his face as he lay sprawled out on his side. He could move some.
“So, how are we going to get to know each other if you’re mute and your partner’s taking a nap?” Malachi inquired, not gently but not unkindly either. Odds were that these were just mentally unstable wanderers. Still, Tomoe’s gun refused to lower by the power of instinctual compulsion alone.
The girl had lowered her arms to her sides now, flanked by underage guards loyal to only Malachi. Her eyes swerved over to her pack which sat a yard or two away from her feet, pressed together from the nervousness of the interview. Those bright green pupils pointed at the board game lying on top of the pile of collected and accounted stuff.
“You’re looking at the… scrabble game? You want to play scrabble?” Malachi asked dryly.
From behind me, Eraldo piped up to help (though much less annoying in doing so than Catt), “She wants to speak through the letters, no doubt. That’s the only reason someone would bother to pack a board game while on the road, eh?”
“Is that true?” Malachi checked the girl. She nodded vigorously. Malachi, in turn, cued a boy to reach down and pick up the item in question. He opened the box which contained nothing other than the regular wooden letter pieces and folded up board. Nothing dangerous. She accepted it and quickly went about laying the accessories flat on the ground. She looked back up at Malachi, waiting.
“What is your name?” he asked experimentally, stepping forward in order to see the tiny scratched out letters she was hastily selecting and laying out. As far as Tomoe could see, it spelled,
MYRA
Scratching his head in response to such a rare situation, the equable Malachi asked again, “What are you two doing here? And why is he acting like this?”
After a thought, he added, “And are there anymore in your crew, Myra?”
After less than half a minute, she had scrambled out a couple lines,
HIS NAME IS RYKER
She pointed to her pitiful partner before continuing.
WE ARE ALONE
LOOKING FOR HIS BROTHER
She paused before swapping around some words and breaking others up to free additional letters to create the next line. She hesitated, glanced at the burning trucks, then back at the board as she spelled out,
RYKERS BROTHER WAS TAKEN BY REDS
DID ANYONE SURVIVE
She slowly looked back up at Malachi who stood rather stiffly at this news. He cleared his throat and half turned to the wreckage as he explained, “Red Redemption… they rolled through here yesterday. And we, uh, were ready for them. We had mines. Grenades. Blitzy stuff Eraldo cooked up. We made sure almost no one was able to survive the first minute of the ambush-“
“Almost no one?”
The guy on the ground, Ryker, had made a noise, which was surprising enough for Tomoe to whip her gun barrel around at him. The other guards had reacted in a similar fashion. It was as if the kid had woken up from the dead – he had suddenly and unexpectedly peeled his face off the concrete and was staring straight at Malachi. Even to Tomoe, who stood studying from afar, it seemed his eyes were alight with an exhausted yet dagger like potency.
“…Ryker, is it? As far as I know, there were no survivors. We set their trucks ablaze then picked off the ones that attempted to flee.”
“There were… people on those trucks. Captives they were taking to the blood fields. Captives. Innocent people!” With that, Ryker started to get to his feet like a swaggering drunk out for blood. A couple guards rushed over to pull him right back down to his knees before he tried something stupid. He didn’t try to fight but opted instead for a dark stare into Malachi’s eyes, which remained calm and steady.
“I’m sorry. But we take no chances here,” Malachi stated a moto shared by both Malachi and Tomoe. “Once the fire breaks out, it’s impossible to tell who’s captor or captive. Everyone’s washed red. Either from the uniform or the flames, everyone’s red. And when it comes to getting even with the Redemption Rats… it’s very personal.”
At this, Malachi’s words changed from their usual tint of kindness to a frigid tone of icy hatred. Tomoe could see his posture become rigid with memory.
“Once America became complete hell, we were taken from our miserable camps in the blood fields and separated from what family we had left. They told us we were being tested to see if we were fit to join the ranks. They trained us in camps that made the fields seem like paradise. They forced us to mutilate the disobedient kids and torture men from other factions until they cried like the children that we no longer were. We had to escape, so we did. Because of Eraldo, a few dozen of us were able to survive out of the hundreds that attempted escape. If not for his plan, we would’ve numbered zero. And now that we’ve found a way to survive on our own, we do whatever we can to get back at them. Whenever they cross us.”
He paused and looked around him, as he rose from his self-induced trance of recollection. He spoke to everyone now, as if he were some great, Shakespearean speech giver, “While we don’t have a name or a color or a flag, we define ourselves through retaliation on them. No chances.”
Another silence ensued, broken only by the background of the simmering truck bonfire. Ryker lowered his head and allowed shade to cover his expression for a moment.
“Not everyone was killed though,” Catt interloped. After hearing Malachi’s monologue to the kid, Catt’s interjection seemed really anticlimactic. Just about everyone turned to look at her except Tomoe, of course. Catt suddenly got mousey as everyone’s eyes trained on her; she was whispering something no one could hear.
“For god’s sake, Catt, speak up,” Malachi said, clearly surprised that for once he wanted her to talk up. Unless Catt slipped into one of her quiet episodes, she never needed a reminder to yak.
“Well, I just remembered a few of them reaching the town limits. I don’t know if someone else went after them or if they got away,” she confessed.
“You’re telling me you saw several of them just leave? And you did nothing?” Malachi reproached her, clearly hearing this news for the first time.
“I thought Jacob or the others were going to go after them. It’s their job to chase down the ones that make it past… I thought someone…”
“If you saw it, it was your job to report it,” Malachi said curtly as she trailed off. He looked to the rest of the group, “Did anyone else here see a few get aways yesterday?”
No one spoke. Tomoe herself had not. Just by quickly eyeing the others around her, Tomoe could tell there were a few besides Catt that had seen crumbs fall and done nothing to clean them up. They wore it blatantly on their faces like shameful masks.
“I see,” Malachi confirmed with a scowl, contemplating those runts’ incompetency. “In that case, it appears that there is a chance, however unlikely, your brother was on those trucks… and escaped with his life.”
A light appeared in Ryker’s eyes, dispersing the ocular fog that had previously dimmed them. He slowly got to his knees, careful not to test the guards on either side of him. Myra seemed much more hesitant to believe in those chances but softly watched Ryker to see what he would say next.
He looked past Malachi’s wide figure at Catt and asked, “Where did they go?”
“I, uh, I saw them leaving to the northwest, taking Schelling Road out of town. They were only specks in the distance, but I could tell they were hurrying further into the mountains.”
“And you know what lies on the other side of that mountain range, right?” Malachi asked. Ryker shook his head.
“The blood fields. Red Rat’s nest itself. Less than 50 miles northwest from here is the very hell we escaped from,” he explained. “If they make it back before you can reach them, the chances of you seeing your brother becomes as good as zero. That is, if he even is one of the few that escaped in the first place.”
He took a moment, considering this. Then he said, “Thanks. I’ll be on my way, if that’s fine with you.”
The subtle bitterness in his quick farewell could be detected even by Tomoe.
Myra looked unenthusiastic at his decision, turning between Malachi and Ryker who was already stepping away from the guards and eyeing the sign a distance away that pointed him in the direction of Schelling Road. Malachi watched with a set expression as the guy picked up his fallen stuff and headed out with a new air of purpose. Tomoe finally began to lower her semiautomatic as the girl scampered after her partner, unpacked scrabble board clutched to her chest.
Everyone knew the drill now. Jacob and Vincent would see to it that the strangers left the town and didn’t try to stay or do something crazy. Since the chance meeting had gone strangely but smoothly, everything would go back to business as usual. Everyone in the crowd returned to their posts or escapades, including Tomoe.
As she hastened back to her perch at the top of the West Brook Apt. Building (without Catt of course. She was busy having a talk with Malachi), her finger dropped away from the trigger, though the aftertaste of the peaceful encounter and her unsatisfied craving lingered for much, much longer.
I tried to act as if the encounter with this nameless town never happened, and I quickened my pace to get back out onto the road. I let few thoughts enter my mind at the moment. Only the mental propaganda that would strengthen my resolve to continue onward was permitted, until all I could think was a constant drone of ‘There’s a chance. There’s a chance. There’s a chance.’
I could hear Myra coming up behind me. I didn’t turn to her even as she started rapidly poking my shoulder to slow down.
When I refused to stop, she eventually just blocked my path. Suddenly very tired of having to deal with anyone at all, I complied and stopped walking.
She observed my halt and set the scrabble back on the ground to spell out another time killing message.
“Myra, please! If you want to come along, then come on. If not, get out of my way. I can’t afford to stop till night,” I said. Even to my desensitized ears, my words seemed far too cold and detached. But I just wasn’t in the mood. The bastards had gotten a day’s head start, and we (or perhaps just I) needed every second possible. Looking at Myra’s simple message made my insides churn heavily with the truth in its ambiguity.
WE DONT KNOW
“What do you mean, we don’t know? We don’t know if Leon’s alive or if he’s sizzling into an unrecognizable pile of ash on Malachi's warning sign? We don’t know if the survivors are still following this road? Or if they called in another truck to carry them off and they’re already in the heart of red territory? Or if they all died sometime last night?” Ryker demanded. “For all we don’t know, there could’ve been a mix up, and the trucks burning in this town aren’t even the FUCKING ONES THAT TOOK LEON AT ALL!”
For no reason at all, my leg swung around and kicked the damn board game across the concrete. It spun and came to a rest several yards away, scrabble pieces plinking around it like pattering rain. It had been more than a decade since my little league soccer days, but apparently I still had some foot skills.
Myra remained crouched in place for a second or two more before she crawled over to where the pieces lay scattered over the road. She picked them up patiently and meticulously while I stood still. She was out of my way now. I could easily take a walk now…
But instead, I came over and began awkwardly helping her place the tiles back in the box. I wanted to tell her I didn’t mean to do that. I wanted to apologize for talking to her like she was luggage slowing me down. Because in truth, I did care whether she came with me or not, even if she was little more than living baggage. But in the end, I didn’t try to say anything, and she tried to spell something out.
I WILL GO WITH YOU
ONE CONDITION
I waited. She spelled the next line carefully. I looked.
IF LEON ISNT ON THIS ROAD OR IS DEAD
YOU CANT GIVE UP
The idea that we were following a fake trail was one my subconscious had become accustomed to, not my waking, thinking mind. Not ten minutes ago, I had basically checked out entirely, unable to move until that Malachi’s words gave me hope. Simply put, I didn’t want to think about it. So for now, in answer to Myra’s condition, I replied a bland and brisk,
“I won’t.”
I didn’t look at her for moment or two in which I can guess she was giving me an eye. I stared down Schelling Road, past the rows of quaint town shops and to the sprawling blue peaks beyond. At length, she became satisfied with my answer (at least for now), and I heard her sliding the final pieces into the box and packing it snugly into her pack.
She got up. I got up. Glancing back at her, I saw her watching me. I let her. I walked on, and soon enough, she matched my pace. Simple as that.