Shadows grow long. The sun sets in the west, and no one approaches him. Maybe Elizabeth has been successful.
A rumble of thunder echoes in the distance. Hundreds of voices mix together behind a wall he cannot see over. The movement of a thousand boots walking across boards as fires begin to burn and light up the other side of the barrier.
Snow continues to fall. At first it was a flurry, but another storm is moving in. Merchant begins to grow uneasy. Bad things happen in storms.
“Think the bitch set you up?” Snake-Eyes asks.
The ghost materializes next to Merchant. Lifting his hands behind his head, he sits and relaxes as if the empty cage is as comfortable as a new leather couch.
“She wouldn’t,” Merchant says.
“That’s what you said about Cherry Red and look where that got us.”
Merchant eyes the ghost who smiles back. The eyes on his neck continue to blink.
“Not this time. She doesn’t want to be here. I’m her only way out.”
Snake-Eyes chuckles.
“Pretty confident in yourself, killer. This time might not be so easy. These aren’t infected throwing themselves at you to die. I think negotiating may be in order this time, and if history has proven anything, it is that politics is not your strongest suit.”
Merchant leans back to get himself as comfortable as he can and sighs.
“I doubt that is what they are looking for,” he says.
The ghost picks at his teeth.
“You know, I doubt that as well, but at least they have that big fucker. I’ve finally found someone I’m willing to put my money on.”
“What money?”
“I was a rich man once,” Snake-Eyes counters.
“You also flew once,” Merchant says. “Not for very long, though.”
“Touché, asshole.”
A door made of scrapped pieces of plywood and a car hood swings open from the wall that guards all the light. The voices and cheers of hundreds of men and women echo from within.
“Now what do we have here?” Snake-Eyes asks.
Two men with rifles exit the door and approach Merchant’s cage. Infection climbs its way up their neck and ends at faces frozen solid in permanent scowls. Scars mark their cheeks below dark eyes, and their heads are shaved where tattoos decorate their scalps. Thick jackets of leather and wool bulge where their bodies have grown too large. Boots crunch in the newly fallen snow.
“Get up,” they both order.
Merchant doesn’t move.
The closest one kicks the gate. Metal rings and the bar dents an inch. Merchant does not flinch.
“Open that fucking door,” the second demands.
The first pulls keys from his pocket and works the lock. The second charges his rifle and steps back for a clean shot.
“Are you letting me free?” Merchant asks.
Both men smile.
“In a way, we are. Time for you to prove yourself.”
Merchant stands until his head touches the top of the cage.
“A woman. She was to ask for my release.”
“Fuck off. You are to come with us.”
Neither man move to pick up Merchant’s bag.
“And what about my stuff?”
Merchant steps out of his cage. He is more than a head taller than both men.
“Won’t need a bag full of shit where you are going,” the first man chuckles. “Now get your ass moving.”
No one moves.
“I said move, you monster,” the man orders again.
The second flips the safety on his rifle. Merchant doesn’t flinch.
“My bag,” he says.
“Oh, let the fucker get his shit. There can’t be anything in there that will help him anyway,” the second says.
“But the Father said—” the first protests.
“Forget what he said. You want to go tell him you had to shoot the bastard because he wanted his bag?”
Both men back up.
“Get your shit and follow us.”
Merchant nods. Snake-Eyes laughs from where he sits inside the cage.
“See you on the other side, demon. My money is on the big fucker!”
Bag over his shoulder, Merchant follows both men through the door.
A gladiatorial arena.
Merchant can feel the semi-frozen sand move beneath his boots. A mix of slush and gritty ice. The heat of a thousand bodies packed around the killing sand is as warm as a spring afternoon.
Snow turns to rain and puddles into mud across the ground. A gruesome bog filled with the souls of the damned. Tufts of brown grass break through the soil and bits of bone from fallen combatants stick out like tombstones.
Boots and shoes pound around the arena. A central podium sits to the west, the sun setting behind two risen chairs which overlook the combatants and audience. Rays of fiery red light gives the man and women who sit in shadow an aura of power that radiates from them like magic and draws attention to them like flies to shit. Merchant shifts his bag on his shoulder and looks away.
Thunder rumbles through the winter clouds, and the wind howls its cries for death. The storm has arrived.
“Ladies and gentlemen! We are blessed to have you here with us this evening,” a man’s voice bellows out above the crowd. Like trained servants, the audience falls as silent as the swaying ocean, and the man stands upon his risen dais. “Once again, we are called to the sands of judgement to caste our eyes upon the sins of another. Tonight, before you all is a monster, who among you kind and caring citizens will be forced to answer for his crimes against us, against our people, and against humanity itself.”
Merchant looks around the crowd. Fires burn brightly between aisles of people, but the fires are no match to the insatiable lust for blood he can see behind their eyes. Children dart in and out between legs to throw rocks and other debris onto the bloodstained sand.
Hefting his bag higher onto his shoulder, he turns back to the one they must call the Father.
“Here, a man stands before you accused of attempted murder and one of the worst possible offenses, rape!”
The roar of the crowd is a tornado of cries. Sand shifts and the ground shakes as hundreds of angry, bloodthirsty people jump to their feet. Shouts of vengeance and threats of violence echo into the night.
“Quiet, my people!” the Father demands. “Some of you may ask how is this possible. Fear not, my glorious people, for we are a just community and no man or woman would ever face judgement without proper accusation. Last night, in the deepest of darkness, this man was able to slip from his freely offered shelter and make his way through our revered sanctuary. It was then that he stumbled upon none other than our wonderful and respected member, Alexis. Upon seeing the wonderful and youthful beauty that she is, his insatiable animalistic lust drove him to the depths of violence where he forced himself onto her. When he was finished with his grotesque act of sexual depravity, realizing the shame he brought upon himself and our beloved Alexis, he understood the truth of his actions and was lost within a rage. It was then that he took it upon himself to try and destroy the evidence that was the woman herself.”
Boos and curses erupt throughout the gathered masses. Rotten food splatters at Merchant’s feet and several pieces of frozen cabbage and tomatoes strike him across the back. He does not move. His attention is locked on the woman beside the liar who stands upon his podium.
“Though heinous the crimes are, I want you to be assured he was not able to succeed in such a vial act as homicide. By my love for you all, our sacred Chosen was able to stop this vial beast. In the resulting struggle, Alexis was pulled from the mayhem and is here with us today.”
Cheers of joy cry out. Calls for the blessed father and his ever-growing love swoon into the air, and the man who leads them all stands taller with his arms spread wide.
“Before we see what judgement has for such a desperate creature, I am here to announce a tremendous act of love for you, my people. Upo
n examining Alexis, and treating her gently for the wounds inflicted both on her body and within her soul, I have found the miracle I knew would be given to you all. See, three weeks ago, I began to keep a secret. One that I could not reveal until its fruition was evident even to me.”
Hushed whispers roll through the crowd like a wave. Hisses mix in between and more rocks are thrown onto the field. Merchant’s eyebrow raises as he watches the lying sack of shit.
“Our great and beautiful Alexis has been blessed with child.” Cheers spread across the people. “But this will be no ordinary child. For until this previous evening, our daughter Alexis was an untouched angel of her people. The desperate act of such a monster took that gift she so carefully held to her breast, but the act was not enough to deter the guidance of your one and only God. Alexis, a virgin and devoted believer, is pregnant with God’s one true son!”
The cries of the faithful shake the walls of the arena. Chants of freedom and praise roar and the storm in the sky struggles to keep up.
Merchant puts his bag down at his feet. He won’t be needing it for the time being.
“Death to the monster!” the people chant.
Smiling like a man crowned king, the Father extends a hand and the slender woman who sits next to him stands and makes her way by his side.
“My people! Who better to cast judgement on this man than the very person who he violated and let her words go down in history for the power I bring you all shall be her words themselves.”
She is a petite woman. Starved of food and soul itself, Merchant can see her narrow shoulders hunched beneath the weight of the people who stand on her every word. Deep down, he may have once pitied her. He can feel the fire boil within his blood.
The person Merchant once was died a long time ago. Now, he awaits what he knows comes.
“Tell the great people of our community what you decree should be done to your attacker, Alexis. Show your faithful what happens when a man determines he is greater than the world as a whole. Make him understand that the people of this community will no longer stand for this kind of vile behavior,” the Father coaxes.
Stepping forward, the young woman inches to the end of the podium. Her head looks all around, and then to the ground dozens of feet below where she stands. Shoulders lift and drop with a deep breath.
“I sentence him to death by judgement in the arena,” she says.
Her command is barely louder than a child, but the words bring the crowd to a raging frenzy.
The Father wraps his arm around her shoulder and begins to speak. “Let us all be witness today to the glory which is ours! Unleash the first trial!”
Doors across the sand scream as gears grind and cages open. Merchant eyes the darkness. He can feel their hunger. The thirst for his blood is insatiable, and he knows what comes.
There is no reason to move. He cannot escape this pit without the death of hundreds on his hands.
He braces for the fight. His hands sweat. The heart in his chest slows as his lungs expand. If this is what it will take to make it out of here alive, so be it.
Let them come for him.
Twenty-One
Today
Darkness decorates the entirety of her room except for the light that shines from the hallway in square boxes on the floor. Imaginary hopscotch drawn across a hospital floor for children with one leg and little else to entertain them. Even the little green lights of the heart monitors have been darkened.
The roar of the crowd is thunder that rolls with the storm that rages across the world above their heads. Snow collects on the edges of the windows near the roof, and she can see a new layer of ice cracking its way across the glass. The sky above is gray and holds tiny shadings of light as fires burn outside.
Why can’t the whole place burn?
She smiles at the thought of their screams as the fences fall apart, and the whole area is awash in the flames of damnation. Dark silhouettes fleeing in terror as their little home of protection and false freedom crumbles beneath the weight of reality and the cold hard ice of winter.
None of it will happen now.
Not after what she has done.
Elizabeth kicks at the nearest bed and tiny rubber tires grind as the gurney rolls away.
She can still smell them. The stench of sex and sweat. Ejaculate and blood hang heavy in the air. Thirst burns at her throat, but there is nothing to drink. The taste of them is on her tongue, and her stomach rolls.
The bloodthirsty call of the arena sickens her more. He is there fighting, surviving as long as he can.
How many infected will they unleash on him?
The memory of this man, Merchant, killing without hesitation to save them both flashes in her mind. He was a machine, but he is only a single man.
Anger swells her chest, and it begins to hurt. She eyes the door. Fucking bolt locks keep her tied up like a new puppy trapped within its own crate. Frustration and self-pity takes over.
Running as fast as she can, she rams the double aluminum doors that hold her in. Pain lances through her body, and she falls backward.
Her back cracks. The skin of her shoulder is raw, and the taste of blood stains her teeth and taints the spit in her mouth.
“Fuck you, you asshole, cock sucking motherfucking tits, ass licker!”
The words roll from her mouth. Unencumbered, she continues though no one can hear her. Deep inside, it soothes the pity she bathes herself in. She would rather die out there. Not him. Not for her.
He asked her to get him out, open his cage and let him go. In return, he’d set her free. What did she do? Kill him.
Back on her feet, she screams and sends a tray of medical swabs and bandages flying into the doors. The tray vibrates and clatters to the floor.
This is useless.
There is nothing she can do.
Slumping to the floor, Elizabeth slides against the barrier that holds her in. Tears flow down her cheeks, and the cold frame of the door soothes the burning skin on her back.
What is she going to do?
Crack!
Her mind swims as the back of her skull slaps the door. Fuck it. If Merchant is going to die for her sins, she may as well go with him.
Rolling her head forward, she snaps her neck back, and her head dents the door. Stars flash in her eyes, and she becomes disoriented.
God-damnit, it hurts.
Warm blood trickles down her neck. Trembling fingers poke at the broken skin. Blood coats her fingers, and she sighs. A big, belly emptying release of emotion.
Another roar of the crowd disturbs the night. The voices of hundreds of guilty murderers ignite the fuel that boils in her belly. Grabbing wildly with her hands, she finds purchase around the handle of an unidentified object. It could be a knife, it could be a fucking spoon.
Elizabeth rears back and throws the projectile. Metal clangs as it strikes one of the gurneys.
“Fuck!” she screams.
The small scratching of rubber and metal answers her as one of the bed shifts where it was hit. She looks up with another roar of the crowd.
Gently, she taps her head back into the doors. Pain races through her skin but the doors vibrate. They don’t move. No matter how hard she hits them with her head, they will not open, but maybe?
Scrambling to her hands and knees, Elizabeth slips on her own blood. Soft shoes squeak on tile floor as she makes it back to her feet. Bloody fingers grip cotton sheets, and she pulls the nearest bed against her body.
Too close, not enough distance.
Elizabeth heads for the farthest wall.
One of the beds rests a dozen feet below the windows on the wall. Turning the gurney, she positions herself until her back and feet can be pressed flat against the stone that is cool against her skin.
Biting down on her lip, she lets the blood and anger fill her mouth. She won’t have many chances at this. Fury sends waves of heat and exhilaration through her legs. She pushes with everything that she has.
&
nbsp; Her legs pump. Her shoes slip but she doesn’t go down. Two inch tires stick and wobble as the bed barrels across the room.
She aims for the center of the doors. Rolling her shoulders forward, she gives it everything she has.
Aluminum crashes into aluminum. Bars buckle and facial bones crack against railing. Door frames bend and Plexiglas pops out.
Elizabeth falls to the ground.
She is dizzy.
Her nose is bleeding and a ringing tortures the inside of her ears. She rolls onto her belly and struggles to open her eyes. Through a broken nose, she can smell the dust that has collected against the corner of the wall. It is salty and stale. Cleaner burns her throat, and she wants to vomit.
A thin stream of light infiltrates the room.
“Fuck!” she screams, beginning to cry and let herself go.
Her battering ram has buckled in half. An opening calls to her, but it is no wider than a thin, malnourished child.
Elizabeth curls up on the ground. Blood pools beneath her cheek, warms her neck, and itches her ears that scream with the cry of bent metal.
She has to find a way out. Somehow, there has to be a way to leave this room.
A roar shakes the ground, and the clouds above answer with an explosion of thunder.
Elizabeth loses her minds. In a rage, she climbs back to her feet, grabs the destroyed bed and crashes it back into the door. Metal shakes and begins to dent even more. A second piece of Plexiglas falls and bounces across the floor.
Uncontrolled rage is unleased against a hospital bed that is streaked with fingers of blood and tears.
Bang!
The accordion crumples against the barrier that holds her in. She retreats and throws herself again. Pain is washed away in the fury of pent-up rage and self-pity.
Bars crack and snap fastenings. Bolts break and hexagonal nuts roll across the blood-streaked tile. The opening to her freedom is wider, but still not enough.
Elizabeth grabs a leg from the bed’s frame. Thrusting with everything she has she jams it between the locked door. Jagged edges cut her skin, and her grip is slippery with the salty life that drains from her body.
Traveling Merchant (Book 1): Merchant Page 20
