The New Capital

by Kolin Wood

  By now, the guards above had stopped lowering the ropes and left had the General hanging there, like bait on a hook. She imagined his eyes watching the book through the holes in the cage, confused as it fell into the slippery mess and disappeared from sight. His body swung like a pendulum as the remaining stumps of his severed legs jerked with small staccato-like movements, attempting to avoid the sea of rats as they fought and jumped up at him, desperate to feed. One or two of the smaller, lither specimens had now managed to find purchase with their teeth and had begun to scale his body. She watched as one of the rats nestled in the soft skin under his chin and began to burrow there. Blood sprayed, covering the rat with a slick film which caught just the last of the early evening light.

  Finally repulsed, Juliana turned away. She wriggled a space free behind her and dropped from the fence. The weight of the crowd pushed in and she twisted and side-stepped to allow the eager mob past. Finally, she found a gap and broke free of the crush where she was able to see further than a foot in front of her. The side street where she had left Doyle hiding with the fully-laden barrow stretched off to her right and she set off down it, pulling a hood over her head, careful not to draw attention to herself.

  At regular intervals she stopped and checked behind to see that she had not been followed. At last, the street began to empty out, now far enough away from the scene on the bridge. Up ahead she spied the building she was looking for and ducked into a smashed up shop front. The glass crunched on the faded tiled floor under her feet as she stepped into shadow. In the office at the back, hidden behind a long, bead curtain, sat Doyle, his gun trained on the door. Next to him sat the barrow, still tightly strapped and piled high. He smiled as he saw her.

  “Is it done?” Doyle asked.

  Juliana opened her mouth to speak but then simply nodded.

  “Where’s Tanner?” she asked, concerned.

  Doyle shrugged.

  “Haven’t seen him since before I left you to come here.”

  Another set of footsteps sounded in the shop front behind and this time Doyle stood, his face turning ashen.

  Juliana moved next to him, pulling her knife free with a shaky hand. Her heart thudded in her chest and she suddenly felt weak at the knees. There was barely any fight in her left. The footsteps drew closer.

  “Right here,” came the hoarse reply from the darkness.

  Juliana closed her eyes and breathed out slowly as Tanner limped into view, his arm still hung in a heavy sling.

  “Didn’t think you two were going without me, did you?”

  He smiled and she returned the gesture. Doyle lowered the gun.

  Juliana stepped towards him. “You saw?”

  Tanner nodded.

  The two of them locked eyes for a moment, each acknowledging with the other that it was finally done.

  Juliana was the first to look away.

  “Night is almost in,” she said. “I think we should take advantage of the freak show out there to move away from the Capital, find somewhere to hole up on the outskirts of the city until morning.”

  Tanner reached out with his working arm and lay a hand on her shoulder. She felt him squeeze her gently.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  Juliana shrugged.

  “I just want to get out of here,” she replied. “I’m so tired.”

  “Where will we go?” Doyle said, watching the two of them.

  Juliana noticed a slight scowl.

  “North,” Tanner said without taking his eyes from Juliana.

  “The Refuge,” Juliana added, turning to look at Doyle. “There’s a trading post there. But first, there’s something that I have to do.”

  Tanner looked at her, confused.

  “I need to go back to the prison,” she said, casting her eyes over to Doyle whose mouth had dropped open in shock. “If there’s even a chance that Annabelle’s still alive in there…” She stopped, remembering that nothing she was saying made any sense to either of them. “Look, I made a promise, okay. I’m going back; with or without either of your help.”

  Doyle looked at Tanner and then dropped his eyes to the floor and said nothing. He nodded. Tanner shrugged.

  “Okay,” she said, patting Tanner’s hand with her own before pulling it free from her shoulder. “Doyle, give Tanner the gun and help me get this barrow out onto the street. Let’s get out of here before the real rats of this fucked up Utopia realise that they are still no better off than they were before.”

  With a slight moment of hesitation, Doyle handed over the rifle and Tanner took it, turning for the door. Then, as quietly as they could manage, he and Juliana each took a handle and followed Tanner through the shop out into the lively street beyond. They still had some miles to cover before the real dark set in.

  37

  The pain barely registered anymore. The spatula had been pushed deep in his mouth and secured to his tongue using a bolt, forbidding any chance of communication. The weight of the cage pulled his head forwards onto his chest, its cruel, metal barbs poking deep into his skin every few inches, covering the whole of his head, which felt as though it was on fire.

  Before him stood Teddy Braydon. His mouth opened and closed and through his last remaining eye, Cole could see him smiling, but nothing made any sense. The noise in his ears was a constant rushing sound, all-encompassing and unrelenting.

  Suddenly the view changed once more. The rope bit on his arms as they were pulled above his head and he was lowered over the edge of the bridge. It banged against his head cage, forcing the barbs even deeper into his skull. Below him, his legs itched terribly.

  A deep, red sun shone down between two buildings directly in his line of sight, bathing him in its glow and forcing him to squint his eyes closed. He could no longer remember what his body felt like not to be in pain. For days they had kept him alive, cutting and burning him. He’d watched as they took his legs; well, one of them. The doctor had administered enough drugs to ensure he was awake to witness at least the first few strokes of the saw into shin bone. The other, he had been mercifully unconscious for. Now, he was unsure which limbs remained and which had been removed; not that it mattered. The pain registered everywhere, emanating from the fiery nebula at the centre of his chest, sending occasional agonising spikes zooming through his body, sometimes en route to a peripheral limb, where it would subsequently take hold for a few moments before bouncing back. Sometimes the spikes would simply vanish, as if their intended target were no longer there, a train on a track with no station.

  Suddenly it felt like somebody was prodding him with a stick, first on one knee and then the other, and then finally both. He opened his remaining eye. The weight of the cage pulled down on his head. It took a few moments to realise that he was looking down into the rubbish-filled river below the bridge. All around him, the floor was moving. The rubbish looked alive. And then he saw them, the rats, thousands of them, for as far as his limited view would allow him to see, slithering around each other, their bodies’ slick with blood. The ground undulated like a vermin ocean and suddenly two eyes looked back at him, eyes that he recognised, eyes far too big to belong to a rat, and then a he saw the face, its mouth open, teeth bared. It couldn’t be. How did the monster find him here? Had it followed him? Maybe he was hallucinating. Or maybe it was the face chosen by the Devil himself. Perhaps the lord of death chose something appropriate to wear before rising up from Hell to claim him and lay damnation on his darkened soul.

  More prodding continued from below and this time he realised that it was probably the rats teeth, tearing chunks from his skin. He tried to scream but the bolt through his tongue pulled hard and he felt it tear open and begin to flap around. His mouth immediately filled with blood and flooded his throat, leaving him unable to breathe.

  With the last of his willpower he snapped backwards with his neck, trying desperately to pull himself away from the sea of death and those black, demonic eyes beneath him. The cage toppled on the apex of his should
ers, balancing for a few moments before the momentum forced his head back onto his shoulders, exposing his throat.

  Something pulled on his Adam’s apple. The feeling was indescribable but intense, aggressively vibrating his entire body, literally shaking the last drops of life from him.

  Relieved, General Cole gurgled his last breath and let the darkness come.

  ***

  One Six Four watched as the legions began to close in on the meat. Their tiny, sharp claws ripped and tore at his skin as they scurried about him, squeaking and biting in their desperation. He screamed a silent scream and one of the detested jumped into his mouth bringing pain to his lips and tongue. One Six Four bit down hard, relishing the pop of the tiny bones break and the gushing of warm, coppery blood as it filled his mouth.

  But he spat it out.

  The meat before him was still alive, its life not yet extinguished. All around him the screams rained down, forcing him to stay low, to allow the detested to continue their pillage of his prize. He looked up and noticed that the meat was looking directly at him through the bars of the cage, enticing him in. But he could not move, not just yet.

  Soon.

  Soon the night close in and he would claim his bounty.

  Soon, finally, he would feed again.

  EPILOGUE

  The first thing I remember was the sound of gunfire. I was kinda old enough to remember fireworks, and it sounded a bit like that. I guess Mum and Dad had done a good job of hiding what was happening to the world from me up until that point; although, I doubt I really would have understood it anyway. I had noticed that we never went outside anymore. Well, I wasn’t allowed. Dad had blocked all the windows and doors except the front ones, claiming that we were making a huge fort, and who was I to doubt him? I was a small boy and forts were my world.

  When the gang arrived I remember the look on my dad’s face. It was a look I had never seen on anybody before, although one I was to become used to from that moment on. Now, looking back, I know that it was a portrayal of sheer terror. Eyes wide, skin white, as the blood drained from his face and he turned to look at his family for the last time.

  My dad kissed me and Mum with tears in his eyes, and I was scared. I could hear screams and yells from outside. I was whisked away and locked in a cupboard in an upstairs room, my room. It was dark. I remember my mum’s perfume and her telling me to be quiet as she closed the door, plunging me into darkness. I remember shouting, this time closer. I remember my mum talking in a strange voice, then people laughing. Strange voices and strange smells. And then I remember nothing.

  Putting together the pieces I’m guessing that my mum and dad were killed trying to protect me. Doing what every parent has done since the beginning of time, trying their best to shield their children from the evils in the world. Natural instinct. Except that day the world decided to be more evil than normal.

  When I eventually did emerge from the closet in that room I found my dad dead at the bottom of the stairs with his throat cut. I had only ever seen blood on my knees and elbows before that day and I remember clearly staring at it, not really knowing how to process the image before me. The blood was black and thick, a bit like Marmite. My father’s face however, was snow white; his eyes curled back in their sockets, his mouth wide open, baring teeth, like a dog on the defensive. His hands gripped at the jagged, angry wound on his neck, scarlet trails seeping between his cold and bony fingers, obviously trying in vain to plug the flow of life as it pooled around him on the cream, deep-pile carpet. Beside him lay somebody else, somebody I didn’t recognise. They were also dead. One of the knives from our rack in the kitchen was sticking out from his chest.

  The door was open and my mother was nowhere to be seen. The furniture was upturned, their contents—toys, books, and ornaments—littering the entirety of the floor. Dark, crimson footprints had dried throughout the downstairs and, as I saw later, on the paving slabs outside the front door.

  I cried then. My body wracked as I fell to my knees at the feet of my father’s corpse and sobbed like the little boy I was. I was cold and wet, lonely and scared, and the tears soaked my thin jumper to my skin.

  It’s amazing to think that a scared little boy, barely able to reach a sideboard, left on his own in a house, with no one to show him how to survive, no parents, no rules, no one to answer to, can fend for himself. But that is exactly what I did. Kids are resilient creatures in the face of adversity. In fact, most humans would surprise themselves when put in a life or death situation. What children have on their side is a natural, unwavering curiosity to look, open, taste, and try.

  I easily learned to open the ring pulls on the food cans using one of my dad’s screw drivers that I had found in a kitchen drawer. Had the contents of the cans not been as easily accessible, I doubt I would have seen out the week. I ate everything; cold beans, tinned stewed steak, tuna, and vegetables and fruits of all varieties. I ate things I would never have put anywhere near my mouth before, and yet there I was, shaking the juice out of a can of tinned potatoes, savouring the bitter liquid on my tongue like it was a sweet and wonderful nectar.

  I rummaged and tore open everything I could find. Batteries and utensils, most of which I did not recognise, rice and porridge oats, medicines, dressings and creams, pots, pans, clothing… and chocolate. Ah, the chocolate. I ate the chocolate first. I remember being physically sick as I stuffed pieces into my mouth, and didn’t stop until it was all gone.

  To begin with, the lights had worked and the water had run. I pulled chairs in front of every switch and sink, leaving the lights on in every room to fend off the monsters lurking in the dark, jumping onto the bed so as to not be grabbed from underneath. I drank wantonly from the taps, often forgetting to turn them off. Without an adult telling you to do so, it is one of those things that can be easily overlooked. I flooded the bathroom upstairs once, only noticing when water had poured through from the ceiling above into the living room. Basically, in the early days, if I was hungry, I ate; thirsty, I drank.

  Soon however, the price for my gluttony had to be paid. It went dark and the taps ran dry. I would click the switches, not understanding the basic principles of electricity. I simply assumed the switches were broken. And, as my own basic principles were turned on their heads, so began a much more feral existence. I never washed. I never changed my clothes, and the ones I wore began to tear and fray, soon covered in food stains and human waste.

  I slept in my parent’s bed, candles burning in holders on both nightstands. I knew they were not coming back. It’s a wonder I never burned myself alive. I remember I could stare at a candle for hours. The flames would dance and send my brain surfing on a dream cloud far away. I liked that. I always felt safe being close to fire. Sometimes I would huddle around a candle in my old room and pretend to read myself stories from my old books. My reading had not progressed to a stage that I could actually read however, and my versions of the stories were far more gruesome than the originals, and almost always the hero would die. Sometimes in a pool of blood at the bottom of the stairs.

  Slowly, the supplies dwindled. I became lonely. I’d never spent more than ten minutes on my own, the entirety of my short life, and the feeling was devastating. The body of my father had, by now, decayed, and I had covered the skeletal face with his old jacket. I even got used to the smell after a while. Weirdly, it was sweet. In fact, so sweet as to be sickly. Seeing as I had not so much taken a rag to my face in over three months, I probably bore the stench of him on me.

  I created friends; some I played with, others I talked to. Hours and hours of conversations, to nothing but the emptiness of that old house. I would reason with them, ask questions, and talk through things that were worrying me. The brain can rationalise itself and come up with even the most far-fetched of solutions. Trust me, I know.

  The water eventually did run out (some food I still had), and I think it was a day or two before I finally found the strength and courage to look outside. I remember calling my mu
ms name, over and over, as loud as I could.

  Nothing. Not a car, a plane, a bird. Just silence.

  I remember feeling, at that moment, that it seemed like there were no adults left in the entire world. A realisation that I was all alone, and that if I wanted to get something done, I would have to get it done for myself. My usual tactics of tears and tantrums were not going to work anymore. I remember that day as if it were only yesterday.

  The air was cold and carried on it the smell of burning rubber, as I set out from the only home I had ever known and ventured into the city. At the end of the street I turned left and kept walking, hiding in the smashed cars and houses if ever I heard people nearby. Eventually, unable to keep going, I hid under the desk inside the foyer of a huge office building and fell asleep.

  That was where Ryan found me.

  He was old but not like my dad, and he carried a big knife. He scared me at first.

  “Where are your parents?” he asked.

  “Dead,” I told him.

  For a while he said nothing.

  “The city is no place for a young boy,” he said eventually. “I think you should come with me.”

  At first I was scared and unsure of what to do, but as I looked around at the destroyed buildings and heard the screams from outside, I knew that there was nothing left for me here.

  “Where are you going?” I asked.

  “North,” he said.

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