The Black Forest

by Jennifer Martucci

  “Oh I am! I most certainly am listening! And I can’t believe what I’m hearing. I can’t believe you’re willing to sacrifice the life we have for them!”

  “They killed my brother! The Urthmen killed him! Everything they tell us is a lie!” Aaron fires back.

  “I don’t care if what these animals say about your brother is true!” Jarrod’s face is bordering on purple, he’s so agitated and shouts so loudly. “We have a good life here. We’re well fed. We have beds to sleep in. We’re safe and have a purpose. And you! You just threw it all away. Made the decision to throw it all away for all of us! How dare you do such a thing?”

  The rest of the bred humans, gaping mouths and gawking at us not long ago, are now speaking all at once. Roused by Jarrod, they’re all arguing, annoyed.

  “Do you want to give this up? Forfeit your lives and die today because Aaron’s brother was lied to? Does his death mean you have to die?”

  The word “no” is repeated and resounds throughout all of the bred humans.

  “Hey! Jarrod!” I stick two fingers in my mouth and whistle. The shrill sound gets their attention. “Jarrod! All of you!” They quiet and look at me. “What happens if any one of you falls, or gets injured? Do you want to go to the arena?”

  “The possibility of that is virtually nonexistent. We’re trained in safety!” Jarrod huffs arrogantly, as if being trained in safety prevents any and all accidents from occurring. Accidents, by definition, happen unexpectedly, unintentionally, and randomly. We can try to prevent them. But they still happen. “The odds are slim. But if you stay, all of us will die for sure. Not maybe. Not possibly. Definitely!”

  Most of the bred humans agree. They bob their heads and vocalize their agreement with what Jarrod has said.

  I don’t know why I expected a different response. None of them have been to the arena. None of them have watched friends or loved ones die. They’ve never seen death. They’ve been coddled and protected from all of the unpleasant realities of life while being used. They have no regard for the fact that they have been manufactured, like products for the Urthmen’s benefit, devoid of roots and wings. They cannot fathom loving another, not a family member or anyone else. They’ve been groomed not to. They’ve been bred to work. To produce. To solve problems Urthmen minds are too dull to solve.

  “Open the door and throw them out!” Jarrod orders.

  Stepping in front of Jarrod with the grace and rapaciousness of a deadly predator, Xan places his body in front of Jarrod. “I’d like to see you try to throw us out,” he snarls through clenched teeth.

  “Yeah,” Micah assumes his position beside his friend. “We’ll slaughter you pathetic excuses for humans before you can say our names.”

  Jarrod, not having the survival instinct or good sense to realize he should fear Xan and Micah, continues blustering. “You see? They’re animals! And they don’t belong with us!”

  “Open the door!” One bred human says.

  “Kick them out!” another shouts.

  Aaron shakes his head. “I’ve been lied to. We’ve all been lied to. I can’t. I won’t do it.”

  Jarrod’s eyes round before narrowing to slits. He puffs his chest out. “I’ll have to take matters into my own hands!” He marches to the door and places a hand on the deadbolt. Just as he begins turning it, Xan springs forward, draws his blade and drives it through Jarrod’s back.

  Gasps and cries of horror ring out. Panic diffuses through the bred humans. They step back in fear. They can’t believe what Xan’s done. I can’t believe what Xan’s done. He’s shown them we’re exactly what they think we are. My head is spinning. My mouth is dry. The world around me is surreal. Jarrod is lying face-down in an expanding pool of blood where he just stood, alive, seconds ago. “Why? Why’d you do that?” I scream the only words my brain can form.

  “He was going to let them in!” Xan yells.

  Pain flares up my neck and radiates to my temples. “You could’ve grabbed him, punched him, anything! You didn’t have to kill him!”

  Pounding at the door continues. The sound of clubs battering it. Of Urthmen desperate to get inside and kill us.

  Xan looks at the door then to me. “We don’t have time for this now! I did what I had to do!”

  His lack of remorse unsettles me to my core. But he’s right. We don’t have time to debate his decision. “We don’t. But we will in the future,” I stare straight into his eyes and promise him. “Aaron! We need to move!” I turn and look for Aaron. I find him beside Jarrod’s fallen body. He gazes down at it. His eyes are fixed but unfocused. Shock carves lines at his furrowed brow and around his mouth.

  “You-you’re animals,” he mumbles. “All of you.”

  “Aaron,” I say. His gaze flickers from Jarrod’s dead body to me. “Aaron, look at me.”

  Reluctantly, Aaron’s eyes meet mine. Puffy and filled with tears, his gaze is hard. His body trembles visibly.

  “Not all of us are, trust me,” I say.

  He stares at me disbelievingly. I can’t blame him. I’d stare at me disbelievingly, too. If I were him I wouldn’t trust me. Not after seeing Xan kill Jarrod with the ease of a trained killer. Which, in many respects, I suppose he is. The arena has conditioned him to do so. The Urthmen have conditioned him to do so. Still, I try.

  “Aaron, it’s too late anyway,” I continue, careful to keep my voice steady and my words measured. “You know as well as I do that if you open the door, they’ll come storming in here. They won’t care who’s bred and who’s not. They’ll kill us. All of us. Even you, for helping us.”

  “He’s lying!” A bred human with hair the color of flames shouts with such vehemence a vein appears on his forehead that resembles a lightning bolt. “We can’t help these savages!” He steps forward, stabbing an angry finger at all of us.

  “We aren’t all savages!” I silence him by matching his tone. He flinches and backs away. I lower my voice. “Some of us have been forced to become that. Not our choice. Not at all. In the arena, it’s kill or be killed. There is no thought. We have to survive. It’s nothing like here.” I sweep an arm out to one side and gesture to the expansive space in which they work, where they’ve been sheltered their whole lives. “But we’re all humans. Just like you.”

  Aaron holds his head in his hands and rubs his temples. Slowly, his posture straightens. He looks around at all of us. “We need to listen to him. We need to listen to…Lucas, your name’s Lucas, right?”

  “Yes.” I nod.

  “It’s too late, as Lucas has said. And maybe I did make the decision for everyone. I can apologize for it but I don’t regret it. It’s done. The fact of the matter is if we open the door, we’re all dead. The Urthmen will barrel right through that door,” he points to the dead-bolted door, “and slaughter us. All of us.”

  “That’s not true!” a female among the bred humans calls out. “The Urthmen won’t kill bred humans. They know we’re here to help!”

  Reyna steps from our group and stands beside me. Her bare shoulder brushes mine, and despite the dire circumstances, it sends goose bumps trailing up my arm. “Do you hear yourselves?” her voice is smooth and rich like heated honey. “You’ve heard what happened to Aaron’s brother. And not from us, but from one of your own, a fellow bred human.” She points to Brad. “You heard what was going to happen to Brad. He’s one of you, so you say. Would he lie to you?” She confronts everyone, looking from face to face for challenge. “Do you honestly think the Urthmen, a species that lies and takes injured men and women and throws them into the arena to fight to the death for their amusement, will spare your lives? Do you?” She glares at the bred humans. “They watch humans bludgeon each other and eat and clap and cheer as it happens. They love it. They love the bloodshed.” Her words hang in the air and the room falls silent. “Whether you agree with us being here or not and whether you agree with what was done, you don’t have a choice but to follow us at this point. If you want to live, follow us. The life you had her
e is over.”

  Discourse erupts. Many bred humans shout. At Reyna. At all of us. At each other. Some cry out for help. The sound is pathetic. Who do they believe will come to their aid? Besides us, there’s no one. The cries are useless, their breath wasted. I grow sick of it. I turn to Aaron. “Take us to the guns,” I shout above the clamor.

  “The guns?” he answers questioningly and looks stunned. “We don’t have access to them. The Urthmen keep them locked when they’re not around and watching closely.

  “Locked?” Kai repeats.

  “Yes,” Aaron replies.

  “You mean they have keys to lock and unlock the door to the room with the guns?” Kai says again.

  “Yes.” Aaron breathes the word in one exasperated breath then pinches the bridge of his nose. He shakes his head and mumbles desperate, inaudible words.

  “You mean keys like these?” Kai dangles the circular ring over his index finger, the two keys clinking as they hit one another. They’re the keys he pulled off the dead Urthman before Aaron let us into the Task Center.

  Aaron’s hands lower and his head swivels. His mouth falls open. “Y-yes. That appears to be them.” He sounds as he looks: astounded.

  “We have the keys. Now take us to the guns.” My words are a command. They leave no room for argument.

  “Okay.” Aaron’s voice is haunted. His expression frozen. He remains completely still for a moment.

  Frantic banging at the door continues. Before long, the Urthmen will revise the current plan to simply hammer at the door with their clubs

  “We don’t have time to think about this anymore!” My words jolt Aaron to life. He turns and begins walking away from the group toward a staircase. I follow him with our group and about a dozen bred humans in tow. The rest stay behind arguing angrily.

  At the top of the steps, Aaron turns left then left again, following a long hallway with walls painted a crisp white. At the end of the hallway is a large, metal door. He slips one of the keys inside the lock on the handle and pushes open the door. He steps inside and feels for a switch. Once it’s found, overhead lights illuminate a sight that steals the breath from my lungs. My lips part and my jaw nearly unhinges. I glance left and right, at Kai and Reyna, just to be sure they see what I see. They do. I’m sure. Their mouths hang open and their eyes are wide with wonder. “Oh my gosh,” Reyna breathes. I’d say the same. But words escape me. Tales of the past, of guns and ammunition and the capability to kill and protect from a distance converge with the present. Before me is a wall of guns, all hanging neatly and arranged by size from handguns to larger, more dangerous looking ones, many of which appear to be automatic weapons if my memory serves me. I’ve seen drawings, crude at best, of such guns when I was a child. Learned all about them. Never in my wildest imaginings did I believe I’d see one, much less dozens.

  Despite what I think they are, I still need to ask, still need to confirm. “Are those automatic firearms, guns that fire continuous rounds as long as the trigger is pressed or held? And if there’s ammo in the chamber, of course.” I feel my cheeks heat. I voraciously devoured stories my parents told of sophisticated weapons such as these. The pictures. The teaching and tales of wars fought, of hunting even, that wasn’t as up-close and personal as it is now. Where death, regardless of the form and species, was not at such close range.

  “Yes.” Aaron seems taken aback that I’ve identified them as such. “These are.” He points to a section of twelve on the wall, the exact ones I thought were automatic. “There are another dozen handguns, too,” he adds.

  “All of them work? You have bullets for them?” I fire my questions in quick succession.

  “Yes, they work, but we don’t have enough.” He says apologetically.

  “What does that mean?” Pike asks.

  “No enough of what?” Ara asks.

  “Bullets.” Kai’s single word snaps my wide-eyed wonder from the guns lining the wall to Aaron.

  “We don’t have tons of back up ammunition. There’s never been a need to manufacture more, never been a demand.” The regret in Aaron’s tone is palpable.

  “Aaron never let the Urthmen know they were ready for use.” A female voice, high-pitched and unfamiliar, draws all of our attention toward it. A small woman, shorter than Ara, steps forward. Her white coat hangs to her ankles and the sleeves are cuffed at her wrists. Round circles of glass connected by dark, thin wire sit before her eyes, making them appear larger. “That’s the main reason more ammunition was never manufactured.

  “What do you mean?” Reyna asks.

  The woman smooths wisps of pale brown hair from her brow. “Tell them, Aaron. Tell them the truth.”

  Aaron plants his hands on his hips and shakes his head slowly. “I-I don’t know. I just didn’t tell them.” He paces. “I never told them they were safe for use.”

  “But why?” I prod.

  “I guess I knew. I knew they were dangerous. I know they are dangerous,” Aaron corrects himself. “I know what they’ve been used for and—”

  “They’d be used to kill humans. Our own kind,” I finish for him.

  “Maybe. I don’t know.” Aaron heaves a sigh and runs a hand through his hair. “I just never wanted them to be used.”

  “By Urthmen.” Reyna’s voice tolls like a bell.

  “Yes, I suppose so. I didn’t want a deadly instrument in the wrong hands. In Urthmen hands.” Aaron throws his hands in the air and admits what both Reyna and I suspected. That despite being a so-called “bred” human and being coddled and groomed to believe he was different from and better than us, he knew. Knew on a different level. He knew what the guns would be used for, and somewhere in the cavernous hollows of his being, places he might not have even been conscious of, he resisted. He fought it the only way he knew how. He lied. He withheld information that prevented further and widespread carnage inasmuch as he could.

  “I understand,” is all I say. And I do. I really do. But I don’t pry further. Instead, I reach and grab a gun off the wall. I hold it up. “Well, there won’t be any more worry about whose hands these will be in. We have them now.” A small smile slips across my lips. I nod to the rest of our group, urging them to do as I’ve done and arm themselves.

  “How do they work?” Kai asks. He examines the gun he’s selected, turning it and regarding it curiously.

  “Whoa, let’s not aim that.” Aaron closes the distance between he and Kai and positions the gun toward the floor. “They’re all loaded.”

  “Oh. Sorry,” Kai replies sheepishly.

  “No worries,” Aaron replies in a tone that’s almost parental in nature. “When you run out of ammo, you just reload it.” He continues and others gather around, watching as he demonstrates how to reload each different kind of weapon and how to fire them. When he finishes, he stresses two points. “We only have so much ammunition, so use it sparingly. And please be careful.” Somber nods ripple through the group. Aaron continues. I’m impressed by his knowledge and mechanical skill, and the way in which he teaches. “We need to get to a truck in the vehicle garage.”

  I add to that that I’m impressed with the plan evolving in his head. He’s right. We need a vehicle. Leaving on foot is not an option. “Where’s the garage?”

  “It’s about a hundred yards away, in the back of this Center,” he replies. He holds my gaze for several seconds. This has to happen. We have to leave with the guns. Now.

  “Okay, let’s go.” I gesture for him to lead the way. He nods then turns. We follow him out the door and into the hallway. We return to the area downstairs, just by the entrance, where the bred humans continue in heated debates. I whistle for their attention. When the noise quiets to muffled mumblings, I say, “We can’t stay here any longer. Are you coming with us?” As soon as the words leave my lips, I know the answer. Knew it before I asked, in fact.

  “No, we aren’t going! We won’t help you,” the ginger-haired man shouts.

  “They will kill you,” I remind them in hop
es that it will jar them, shake the stubborn refusal to live from their brain-washed minds.

  “No they won’t! They’ll know we’re here because we refused to help you. And they’ll do what’s right. They’ll be pleased with us.” The man is unrelenting as he rejects accepting what is real.

  The headache that started in my neck and rocketed up to my temples now sears behind my eyes, throbbing through my skull in time with my pulse. Why won’t they come? Why do they adhere to the notion that their lives will be spared, that their lives matter at all to the Urthmen, even when shown the contrary? I don’t understand. Frustration overwhelms me. I simply shake my head at them.

  “Fools!” Xan shouts.

  “Please, come with us,” Aaron begs.

  “No! Absolutely not!” several people shout at once. The verdict is rendered. Their fate sealed. I’m sickened and saddened and annoyed all at once. Only about twenty of the bred humans join us and take the extra weapons we have. Only twenty decide to fight to live rather than stay to die.

  I make my way to the door. Gripping the lock with my heart hammering inside my chest, I listen as the clubs drill the door. I look at the gun I hold in my hand. I tip my head toward the door, toward the Urthmen on the other side then look to our group. “I think they’re in for a surprise.” I lock eyes with Pike then Ara, and last, Reyna. They offer nervous smiles just as I turn the lock, releasing the deadbolt.

  Chapter 8

  A high-pitched ringing sound is all that echoes in my ears and drowns out the sound of my frantic heartbeat as I turn the handle of the door then yank it open. Disoriented momentarily by the wash of blinding light pouring in, I adjust. My attention focusing on what lies before me. Urthmen. They swarm the entrance, clamoring for position to bash our skulls in. Gripping the cold metal of my gun, I do not give them a chance to do just that. Without hesitation, I squeeze the trigger.

  Power unlike any I’ve ever felt before unleashes from the weapon, spraying bullets at a rate so quick I can only aim rather than account for them. The force of the discharge jolts me. I widen my stance and watch as the world before me erupts into complete chaos. Dozens of Urthmen faces transform. Enraged expressions turn to shock as the ones closest to me fall, bullets tearing through their bodies. I’ve never seen anything like it. The ease with which they fall. The immediacy of their deaths. Pelted with bullets, holes appear and weep blood. Before they know what’s hit them, they’re dead. As chilling a sight as it is, I continue, inching forward and not releasing the trigger. Lives are at stake. Ara. Pike. Reyna. Everyone who joined us. We’re outnumbered. But the weapon in my hand offers a degree of hope that we’ll get out of here alive.