by Kolin Wood
As Frank undid his belt to free the quiver, John’s eyes flicked down to the large knife on his hip. He wondered if he had taken it from the same drawer that they had found theirs in, back at the farm. Clearly, he had left in a rush, having not found the rifle that John now carried. Or perhaps he had a stash of guns hidden somewhere close by—a scenario more likely the case. The farm had been well armed. John had seen a few of the blackened bodies holding a gun of some kind, but had been unwilling to pry the smouldering metal from their burned fingers. Besides, he’d heard the ammo popping in the blaze and, knowing nothing much about guns, had assumed that they would have sustained some damage in the fire.
The quiver and the knife joined the pile on the floor at Frank’s feet. He stood up straight, his hands palms up and his fingers outstretched. The smile returned; he started to chuckle while giving a slow shake of his head. “Might as well put that gun in your mouth and pull the trigger, boy.” he said.
But John would not be intimidated. Momentarily, he considered shooting him and putting an end to the threat, but at that moment he could not bring himself to murder the man in cold blood. “Move, Frank.”
Frank peered around him at Becca and flicked his tongue like a serpent. Then he took several long strides backward, maintaining eye contact with John. “See you both real soon.” He turned and began to stroll away from them, a pump and swagger to his walk, as if he had not a care in the world.
John and Becca watched him go. Not once did he look back. Soon, he was nothing but a speck on the road before he disappeared into the tree line at the edge of the forest.
Suddenly in shock at his own behaviour, John lowered his arms in a slump, the rifle now pointing at the dirt. His mouth felt sandpaper dry and yet the rest of his body was clammy with sweat. Beneath his rib cage, his heart banged a triumphant rhythm. That’s what you get when you mess with me.
Slender arms suddenly gripped him around the waist and he felt the nubs of Becca’s breasts push into his back as she pulled him into a tight embrace. He could feel her body shivering.
“You okay?” he asked.
Behind him, Becca said nothing but he felt her head nod between his shoulder blades.
They stood like that for a while before, reluctantly, John stepped away from her, breaking the moment. “We’d best get moving.” He turned to watch her as she bent to scoop up the bow, quiver, and knife from the ground. She stepped to the side of him and stashed the knife in the bag on his back, all the while keeping her eyes fixed on the tree line where Frank had disappeared. Then she scooped a denim shirt from the top of her bag and put it on.
Together they turned back in the direction of the Refuge. With their weapons raised and a nod of mutual agreement, John and Becca began to make their way deeper into the city. Neither of them spoke as they walked, both sets of eyes on either side of the decaying street. From somewhere not too far off, they heard loud, incoherent shouting. Suddenly, the bright sign that had welcomed them in did not hold the same happy appeal as before.
Chapter 12
The man beside him screamed and the voice raked sharp fingernails across Doyle’s eardrums. With pain emanating from every joint and muscle like hammered pins and the glands under his neck swollen like water-filled balloons, Doyle put shaking hands up to his face. He rubbed at his clogged nose and tried to wipe his sticky eyes. Even in the dark, he knew that he was bleeding profusely. The blood constricted his throat and stung his eyes when he tried to open them. When he did manage to, the darkness of the room hid all but the faintest of shadows around him, but he knew from the rattling breaths that there were many more of them locked inside with him. He could smell the salty rankness of their sweat-covered bodies and taste the coppery bitterness of the blood that coated the slick floor.
The sickness had struck them all swiftly and without warning. It had been late, sometime during the night, when the first screams had sounded, dragging him from his fever-filled slumber. At first, the disorientation had been such that he had figured it to be any normal night—screams from nearby, the feeling of illness brought on from the after effects of over-indulgence—nothing there to surprise or even intimidate him in the slightest. But as the pain-filled howls continued and his consciousness returned, he realised that things were far from normal. The cardboard he lay on was sodden with sweat and blood from his own body, and he was shaking so hard that every part of him, including his jaw, was wound tight like a coil of wire. The howls continued and soon others joined in, adding their own painful melodies to the terrifying mix and giving the room the same stressful ambiance as an accident emergency ward in a busy hospital.
The enlarged lymph nodes in his neck forbade Doyle from doing anything but lie flat on his back. Sharp blades sliced through him with every shake of his fevered body. With fire in his veins, he somehow managed to bring his hands up to cover his ears, conscious of the almost inhuman rate of his heartbeat and struggling to breathe through the rivers of blood running into his face.
I’m dying. Please, Christ, forgive me.
Visions of his life showed themselves to him in a wide panorama behind his eyes. Visions of people and faces, family and loved ones, flashed and popped, soon lost in the maelstrom of madness infecting his mind. He felt sadness and relief, loss and gain, fear and yet, an almost surreal sense of calm.
And then, in a surge of white heat that gripped a hot fist tightly around his brain, Doyle felt no more.
Chapter 13
Nobody stopped them from entering the Refuge. The streets wound on and on, the buildings increasing in density until they found themselves walking amongst other people. Shops and cafes turned out their wares from dilapidated shop fronts, brightly painted signs welcomed guests with offers of organic produce. From one particularly well decorated establishment, John was sure that he heard music being played softly from a stereo in the background.
He walked on, eyes alight with wonderment, his mind clouded and surreal. The Refuge had transformed itself in the years since he was last there; granted, his memories of that time had already began to wither and fade. Gone were the dirty streets and dangerous looks, the continuous sound of gunshots and permanent sense of threat. Instead, a community had been born, one where people looked each other in the eye and greeted each other good afternoon, one where they played music! The apparent normality of the city disarmed him, stoking memories so far forgotten that they no longer felt like his own. It felt as if, at any minute, somebody would jump out, tear away the curtain, stab him in the guts, and yell ‘Ah ha! Fooled you!’. But they kept on moving and the people kept on smiling until they found themselves in a bustling market square. All around them, a sea of tents covered stalls and areas where people were sat, talking and laughing, eating and drinking. He remembered a fountain, and searched the space until his eyes picked out the cracked grey top, poking over the top at the centre of the space.
John turned to Becca. “I… remember this place.”
With her own sense of wonderment etched on her features, Becca nodded. “This… is incredible!”
An old woman caught John’s eye and waved him over. Becca shrugged and followed.
“Can I get you anything, dears?” she said with a yellow smile.
John glanced down at the table. Amongst the produce there were different types of fresh fruits and vegetables, some beginning to spoil, others plump and ripe. “Do you have any fresh water?” His stomach growled, but it was his head and throat that hurt the most; the constant banging in his brain reminding him of how thirsty he was.
The woman pulled back another sheet covering a large, green plastic water tank with a grey spout at its bottom. “Freshest in the market,” she said.
From the corner of his eye, he saw Becca look up at him. “How much?” he asked.
Dropping the sheet, the woman smiled again, her eyes twinkling at the exchange. “Depends,” she said. “What you got to trade?”
Trade.
The knot between his shoulders danced a happy
dance as John shrugged the bag to the floor. His legs seized mid-bend and he doubted whether he would be able to stand up again. He searched the bag, reaching to the bottom to pull out one of the assorted blackened and unlabelled tins that they had procured from the food stores at the farm. He offered one to the old woman who took it, turned it over in her hands, and then put it to her ear to shake it. When she looked back at John, he shrugged; it was a lottery for them all.
The woman lifted the plastic lid on a box at her feet and dropped the can into it. Inside, John caught a glimpse of many other, unidentifiable cans.
“I’ll give ya one bottle,” she said. “Sound fair enough to ya?”
Without a clue as to whether the deal was a good one or not, John simply nodded. Evidently, there was plenty more food on offer in the city. They still had a few cans plus a bow with which to hunt in the forest, should the need take them.
“Give us ya bottle then, lovey,” she said. “Plastics ain’t part of the trade. Unless, of course, you gonna drink the whole thing here and give it back to me?”
Becca tapped him on the shoulder and handed him one of their own, the warm dregs of which she had already upended on the dirt at her feet. He smiled at her and passed it over.
The woman set the bottle at the nozzle and turned the tap. Clear-looking water poured freely from it, filling the bottle in a matter of moments. She stood and handed it back. Becca took it from him and held it up to inspect.
“You ain’t gonna find nothing floating in there, dear,” the woman said, unaware that floating objects were the last of Becca’s concern.
Becca threw telling eyes over to John to let him know that they would not be touching it before they had boiled it and then followed with a nod.
“Good. Sees, I told ya. Nice and fresh. Now, is there anything else that I can help you dears with today?”
John looked around at the throng of people. A few stares caught his eye. “I am looking for someone,” he said, hopefully. “His name is Ryan. He’s tall, has dark hair…” Even as he was saying it, he knew that his effort were fruitless. Never had he expected there to be so many people in the city.
The woman’s slack face told him his answer before she opened her mouth. Ever the sales woman, she pushed to keep the exchange going. “Know lots of people, I do, seen lots come and go…”
But John just smiled. It had been worth a try.
“We need a place to stay,” he said, looking around. “And it needs to overlook the square; that’s a must.”
Colour found the old woman’s cheeks once more as power was returned to her. “I know just the place. Cleanest in the city and good price too, cheap, cheap!”
Internally, John laughed as an image of a bird popped into his mind, but he pushed it away. He was so tired that he felt like he might collapse. “Fine. Please, point us in the direction of the place.” He hoped that if he could somehow locate the same building that he had stayed in with Ryan all of those years before, he might have some luck locating his friend. After all, he had a hunch that it had been the girl that Ryan had met there all those years ago who had set this whole chain of events off in the first place.
The woman smiled.
***
“It’s somewhere down here,” Becca said, pushing her way through a densely congregated crowd on the edge of the square and turning down a street.
John followed, relieved as the intensity around him dropped immediately. He had never been around so many people, not that he remembered anyway, and even though the atmosphere appeared calm and jovial, the press of the crowd made him feel apprehensive.
Wearily they trod, following the woman’s sketchy directions down one street and then turning back to try another. This side of the city square the signs were far less frequent and nowhere near as colourful. People moved quickly and with more purpose there than in other parts they noticed. Eventually, just as John thought that his legs were unable to take another step, Becca stopped outside a tall and large, red building with once-white concrete steps and dark iron railings. A sign at the front simply read ‘Rooms for Trade’.
“Red building with railings,” Becca said. “This is it. What do you think they’ll want for a night?”
But John did not reply. He simply stood looking up at the building, his eyes wide with memories. The faint flicker of a candle emanated from one of the lower windows. The others looked empty, dark and ominous. But the white steps and red brick definitely held… something. Suddenly, he was sure that this was the place. The urge to vomit gripped him tight.
“This is it,” he said. He felt Becca step closer and the touch of her hand on his back.
“Come on,” she said, taking him gently by the hand. Together they began to climb the steps.
They were three from the top when the front door burst open with a loud bang. A man, bent double at the waist and with a dirty mane of blonde hair covering most of his face, charged through it and fell to his knees on the landing in front of them. He was shirtless and John saw the muscles on his back contract tight as he heaved loudly. Vomit spewed from his mouth, pooling beneath his face which was now only a few inches from the concrete. He heaved again, sucking in a ragged breath as he clutched his hands to his sides. A pitiful moan sounded from beneath the clump of hair. Vomit dripped liberally from it and the rest lay in the puddle anyway.
“John,” Becca said, the tightness of her sudden grip on his arm informing him of her seriousness.
John followed her stare down to the pile of vomit which he noticed was orange and tinged red with streaks of blood. With nothing left to expel from his body, the man dry heaved one last time and then rolled over onto his back, at the same time uncovering more of his face. The visible skin looked a deep, yellow in colour.
“It’s happening.”
He felt the tug of her hand urging him back down the steps. Concern and fear were etched into her pretty features. But he could not turn away now; not when he had come so far. More aggressively than intended, John tore his hand away from hers.
“I can’t,” he said. “Not until I know.”
The sadness in Becca’s eyes was apparent as she continued to back away down the stairs. “Please, John.”
But he shook his head. Before he even knew what he was doing, he had walked up the final few steps. The man now lay on his side, panting heavily, but John paid him no heed as he stepped over him and walked into the dark entrance of the building without looking back.
Chapter 14
The potato cakes were stodgy and lacked seasoning, but they were still a welcome source of nutrition for Juliana, whose stomach felt shrivelled to the size of a raisin. Beside her, Tanner ate with gusto, clearing his own plate in a few, large bites. The pair of them had even stretched to afford themselves a cup of black, unsweetened tea, and the combination of the two made for a pleasant enough breakfast.
Out front, the small shop had a selection of oddly-matched chairs and even tables complete with parasols. A largely vegetarian selection made up the menu, sourced—so the woman running the place had told them—from the garden that she tended on the flat roof of the shop building.
A nice set up, Juliana thought as she sipped the hot tea. Civilised when compared to the night before, where the fare on offer had consisted solely of grilled rat meat and alcohol. The street they now found themselves on had a completely different ambiance. It held an air of calm and spirituality about it, unlike anything Juliana had felt since visiting the quaint villages and countryside destinations of long-forgotten family holidays. Other small establishments, each with its own identity and yet consistent with the laid-back theme of the rest, populated the narrow, cobbled and sleepy street. For the second time since arriving at the Refuge, Juliana felt safe.
Tanner gulped down the last of his tea and pushed the chipped plate across the table. When his eye caught hers, she could tell that he too felt the same disarming pretence of normality.
“Excuse me, love,” he said, wiping his mouth with the back o
f his dirty hand and holding it up to catch the attention of the woman who ran the place.
Seeing him, she smiled and ambled over, her kind face a worn bed of worry lines. In one hand she held a large, red watering can, which matched the neckerchief holding her hair up. “Yes, dear? I hope the food was to your liking?”
Tanner nodded his agreement and Juliana backed up the claim. “Spot on,” he said, making a circle with his raised fingers to show the woman that everything had been perfect.
“Good!” she said, clearly pleased. “I’ve been trying to perfect those cakes for some time now; what with the lack of seasoning and spices, makes for a tricky time.”
“Well, these were some of the best that I’ve tasted,” Tanner said with a wink and an awareness that he’d never tried them before.
The woman blushed, touched her hair, and then beamed, warmly. “Oh, you are so very kind. What is it that can I do for you?”
Juliana noticed the small flirtation and sat forward, annoyed. She spooned the last mouthful of food into her mouth and set down her fork onto the plate with a satisfied clatter. “The Church of Ruin. We are trying to find it,” she said, with the careful approach of a charging bullock.
Beside her, from the corner of one eye, she noticed a small scowl from Tanner. Clearly he did not appreciate the blunt nature of her tact.
Immediately, the calm demeanour of the woman changed, replaced instead by a look that was cold and suspicious. Glancing back and forth between Tanner and Juliana, she reached out slowly to collect up their plates.
“What would you be wanting with that place?” she said.
“Oh, so you know of it then?”
“We… are looking for a lost friend,” Tanner said, quickly cutting Juliana off less she decided to do any more harm. “He got into a bad way and we haven’t seen him for a few days. Somebody told us that the man in charge there, Tidus, might know something of his whereabouts.”
