by David Tyne
Both of the O-Saints wore those tasteless hoodies, which upon closer inspection, bore the emblem of the university campus. As if that wasn’t gangster enough for them, two red bandanas adorned their stained heads, soaked in dark blood from god-only-knows where.
"...W-What's this about, anyway?" Millie demanded to know. The circumstances were certainly peculiar, especially with Ian's involvement. "How did you know about the grave? Was it you who sent that sick wheel to our door?"
They both exchanged another look, and the short one shrugged back at us. "...It got your attention, didn't it? Pastor Mitchell told us to be careful, when approaching his escaped recruits. Especially you, Miss Flowers."
Serah glared nervously at the floor of the car, realising there may be repercussions for her abandonment of their group. “What I saw, in that Medical School... How can you guys treat your own kind like a common disease? Where is your compassion, your decency?”
As the car rolled onwards for a good couple of miles, their silence made it clear that they had none. I thought it was my imagination at first, but a strange humming sound broke through the intense air from somewhere behind us. Our driver glanced anxiously at the rear-view mirror, and reacted to the sight by slamming on his accelerator.
I peered through the back window, just barely noticing a tailgating car through the darkness. The newcomer swerved unsteadily from side to side, desperately trying to catch up with us. Not even their headlights were on, following nothing but the backside of our transport.
"What the... Is this a set-up?! Call them off, now!" One of our captors yelled back at me, raising his weapon in distress.
"N-No!! We never told anyone—"
The chasing car suddenly slammed into our right side, sending us spinning across the empty road. Both machines skidded and melded together, flying out of control before they crashed directly into each other with a devastating flip.
Bracing myself against the roof, I could only wait for the frame stopped shaking. The engine had already stopped, but it felt like my stomach was still travelling a few hundred miles per hour.
"Ooh... Urgh, you guys... Is everyone okay?" I mumbled slowly, trying not to throw up. Serah groaned from somewhere, signalling that she was still conscious. I heard her attempt to help Millie up, but being Millie, she quickly shrugged her off.
"I'm fine. Jeez, hands off..." Letting my angsty friend shuffle out of the way, I crawled after her and then dragged Serah through the exit before the upturned vehicle could explode or something equally disastrous.
Luckily it didn't, but we seemed to have ruptured our fuel tank as well as puncturing one of the back wheels. The other car didn't look so great either. Two smaller shadows had managed to shimmy their way outside, keeping a wary distance from us as I recovered my cricket bat and prepared to defend myself.
"Hey, you!! What the hell are you freaks playing at?! You almost got us—”
My throat jammed, shaking my smoky vision clear. I recognised that blonde hair, seated uncomfortably next to a thirteen or fourteen-year-old boy. She noticed me barely a heartbeat or two later.
"Mister Daniel! You’re okay, I knew you would be…”
I almost toppled over when I heard her squeaky voice. "M-Me?! Beth, why did you even come here?! This isn’t a damn game, you could’ve died!!" I barked at the little girl, who retracted in surprise.
"I-I'm sorry... I just wanted to come and play with you guys. Jamie was running away as well, but then we saw those bullies kidnap everyone... So we borrowed a car, and came to save you!"
I sighed, pressing my fingers to my temples to make sense of this. "Jamie, that brat from the community centre? He's far too young to drive, you know that, right?"
The boy jutted forwards defensively. "L-Like that matters anymore!! What's gonna happen, I'll get arrested? You gonna tell my mummy and daddy? You assholes should be thanking me!" The way he said that, I realised that his parents must’ve been gone... The same as Beth.
Millie sunk down to Beth's level, placing a firm hand on her shoulder. "Sweetie, I get that you want to help… But we're with some very dangerous people right now, do you understand? You two need to go back to the community centre for Joanna, she's going to be very worried."
Beth was about to shake her head, but Jamie stepped in and folded his arms rebelliously. "No can do, lady. Car's totally wrecked... Like it or not, the safest thing is for us to come with you."
Before Millie could destroy the small boy for calling her 'lady', the two red hoodies joined us from behind, assault rifle at the ready. "We don't have time for any silly games. Bring them or don't, it doesn't matter as long as Daniel gets to our base."
The way he said 'base' unnerved me a little. "W-What do you mean? Exactly how many of you O-Saints are there?" The dark one shot his companion a glare, obviously having said too much.
"Don’t worry about that... There's someone there who wants a word with you." I connected the dots, why the message may have referred to Ian's funeral.
"...Is it Harry? Have you taken him, after everything that happened with Ian?!"
Harry was O-Negative as well, so it wasn't that much of a stretch. The two cultists glanced at each other, confused. "No, Brother Sergius is the one who told us to find someone called Daniel Walker in Danderhall. Heard you were a package deal," the shorter O-Saint shrugged at the left-out Millie.
I'll admit, if they had been upfront about who they were, I probably wouldn't have agreed to go with them. Since I was already on the way though, my curiosity got the better of me. "Well, you've found me now. In fact, I'd like to have a word with this ‘friend’ of yours as well."
As Serah plodded over to the car’s wreckage to fetch our gear, the taller captor raised his assault rifle with a warning click. "Stand back, traitor. You weren't supposed to bring weapons in the first place, never mind yourselves. We've already broken every rule on this mission — consider yourself a member of Mr Walker's party. That is the only reason you’re still alive right now."
The petite girl tensed, then took a step back. The portly O-Saint, who appeared to be the 'good cop', comforted her. "Don't worry, we've got a gun to protect you all. That should be incentive enough to stick close to us."
I didn’t even feel like asking where the cult had managed to procure an illegal firearm. Left without any choice, the seven of us marched along the barren road, blind into the night.
Whoever Brother Sergius was, he knew that Ian was at the community centre, and therefore probably knew about the rest of us as well. Even with this strange call across the country, I wasn't going to ignore what the two men had said before.
'We've been working on some serious intel', they said... If these O-Saints were messing around with ways to make life worse for people who belonged to other blood groups, it would only fuel my desire to put an end to them once and for all.
4 | I’m Selfish
Around a quarter-mile up the dark road, we found an abandoned white van parked horizontally across the road, with the doors left open. You could sense the panic that must’ve went through the driver's head, swerving out of the way as the outbreak struck the surrounding area weeks ago.
"Can one of you hot-wire it?" Millie spat with haste, bitter that we were depending on our captors to get us out of another dangerous situation.
"Hold on a sec... Hmm..." The short one fiddled with something under the steering wheel for a couple of seconds, trying to jimmy it open. The dark-haired O-Saint frowned back at us, the large group who could easily overpower him if it wasn’t for his firearm.
Millie twirled her hair nervously, struggling to think of something to say. "...So, do you guys have names?"
“No names.”
“What’s with the gun? Those are illegal, right?”
“Our sponsor has connections, in high places.”
“Who’s your sponsor?”
Our watchful guard was not amused. "That's of no concern to the likes of you, dirt-blood."
That might as we
ll have been a slap in the face to Millie, as she translated it to be another load of their blood discrimination. "...You don't even know what my blood type is! Why are you so dismissive, before you even—"
She got too close, and the O-Saint had to push her back with his barrel — I tried to catch Millie in time, but she was stubborn and avoided my freezing-cold arms. Regaining her balance on her own, the man who knocked her down gave another scoff.
"Everyone's expendable until they are tested. Even then," he glared at Serah and myself, "it's their choice to follow our path, or stray from it. Many still choose to drown themselves in their own ignorance and... impurities."
There was a tense pause before Millie all but rolled up her sleeves, trying to duke it out with the lanky man. "...Call me 'impure' one more fucking time... I dare ya!"
Fortunately, the van began to rattle as the chubby cultist poked his head around, smiling for once. "It's on! Only a tiny bit of juice left in her, though. Climb in the back, we'll find some more fuel on the way."
Taking extra care to watch over Beth and her new friend Jamie, I tried to out-glare him as he kept shooting me angsty looks. We all got into the back of the strange unmarked vehicle our kidnappers had forced us into, lost in the middle of nowhere. I reminded myself to warn Beth against doing this in the future, but this was a special circumstance.
There weren't any windows or seats; only a small caged gap to see the two O-Saints driving in the front, as well as the windshield and the surrounding darkness. It looked as though we were just in time, as the Lost drivers of abandoned cars had begun to crawl out and litter the road.
Without any regard for the van's safety, our chauffeur simply ran them over — but he never went out of his way to hit the corpses. He must have thought that it wasn't worth the effort to swerve past them.
While Millie caught Beth and Jamie up on why we really sneaked out in the middle of the night, Serah slumped down beside me as the van hit a pothole, shaking the back of the vehicle wildly.
She didn't say anything, which made me feel even more guilty. I knew exactly what she was thinking, what they were all silently whispering to themselves. "...I know, I should’ve listened. I didn't think that this would happen, okay?"
The former student nurse looked up through her glasses, and as she fixed them on her nose, I was surprised to see her smile.
"You couldn't have predicted that they would have guns, and not even I considered that the kids would show up. That wasn’t what I was going to say, though. The fact that you confronted them tonight, the fact that Beth chose to search for you... It says a lot about the kind of person you are."
I tilted my head, not sure what she was getting at. "The kind... of person I am? That's funny, the person I am now couldn't stop his own best mate from killing himse—" I paused, and glanced over at Beth happily absorbed in conversation with Jamie.
Right, she still doesn’t know.
"Another thing you couldn't change. Daniel... You keep trying to take responsibility, for matters that don’t even concern you. Yet, somehow..."
She paused to think of the right words. When she found them, she raised her head to scrutinise the ceiling of the van.
"...You have this way of speaking, that makes people want to be around you. It feels like something good is bound to happen, whenever you're nearby. Like it or not, you're the lucky charm of this group."
While I didn't like being referred to as a filthy trinket that people drag around to ward off evil, I appreciated the sentiment behind Serah's words. I made her feel safe, but I still couldn't help regretting my inability to help those around me.
Even now, I had us all trapped in the back of a van, heading to god-knows where. All because of a person who may or may not have been tied to Ian, another victim of my unfortunate 'luck’.
"I'm not special." I said abruptly. My friends turned around to face me as I stared vacantly into the hard floor of the rattling van. "...I'm selfish. I dragged everyone into this, because I wanted to know... I'm so sorry, you guys."
Millie shot Serah a look, as though she was the one who planted these ideas in my head. "Danny, don't be stupid. Ian was our friend too, y'know. Besides, it's not like we have anything else going for us! If we need to do this for you to move on, then we're all in it together... because you'd do the same for us in a heartbeat. Right, Beth?"
The little girl nodded enthusiastically in response. "Mister, don't be sad! We'll be with you all the way, and once we get home... we'll have another party! That will make you happy, won’t it?"
Jamie kept staring at the wall until he noticed that our attentions had converged on him. "...Hmm? Hell, I don't know. What she said."
As I turned back towards Serah, she gave me a confident nod of approval. We didn't need to say anything more — I had become as much a part of their lives as they had become part of mine.
We had formed such a closely-knit team over the past few weeks, and seemingly nothing could tear us apart. Regrettably, our awaiting destination would soon challenge those very words.
5 | Delay
For one everlasting second, I closed my eyes to escape the van’s maddening walls. When I opened them, the blinding sunlight was already pouring through the opened double-doors. I was alone.
While my mind stuttered to refresh itself, I grew ashamed of my own idiocy. I’m being held hostage by two strange men, and I somehow fell asleep?
Luckily, the O-Saints were true to their word. Everyone seemed to be alive and well, forming a circle around what looked like a gas pump. We must have arrived at a petrol station, but something seemed off about the scene.
As I wearily pottered over to my friends, I could already hear Millie chewing the head off of the taller O-Saint. "What do you mean, 'it's empty'?! How are we supposed to get out of here now?"
Before he could tell her to settle down, she threw her arms into the air for the millionth time and grabbed Beth’s wrist. She told them that she was going to search the interior for scraps of breakfast, and that they’d better not follow her.
While Serah calmly assessed the situation alongside the men in red, I noticed Jamie leaning against a car around a dozen yards away. Only then did I realise, I knew literally nothing about him. He was there when the community centre almost fell, one of the few who actually fought back.
Approaching him, he seemed preoccupied with prying open the car’s latch for the fuel tank. I cleared my throat to flag his attention, but he kept himself hunched in the other direction, stubborn.
"You should probably stick close, Jamie. We don't know this area very well... I know, why don't you go find Beth and Millie? They're getting something to eat, you hungry?"
The black-haired boy finally turned, snapping yet another fierce look at me. "...I'm not a fucking child. I'm thirteen." His colourful language caught me off-guard, not only because he was barely in his teens, but because he looked much younger than he claimed.
"Right. I never thanked you properly, for going after Beth. I understand you did what you had to, when you stole that car." His stare froze me in place for a second, but I shook it off.
After a second of contemplation, he slapped the car's latch back into place and stood up. "...Was thinkin' we could siphon some gas, like they do in movies? But there's nothing around to use."
“Good thinking. Maybe we’ll find something later…”
My eyes idly panned to our side, into the car that he was awkwardly blocking from my view. A grey old woman’s face was slumped against the dusty window, with blood dribbling down her forehead. Motionless, with those familiar grey eyes. I gawked at Jamie in disbelief, but he was already running past me and into the little shop where Beth and Millie had begun scavenging.
Before he walked through the door, I saw him tuck a small, bloody hunting knife into his ripped denims. Turning back to the Lost corpse, I was both impressed and concerned at the efficiency of the kill.
He didn’t even call on us for help.
----
/> After we’d guzzled down the cola and gummy bears that Beth insisted we all have for breakfast, the O-Saints instructed us to get moving. We were within walking distance of their so-called 'base', if we hurried before nightfall.
Upon exiting the petrol station, Millie pointed out what appeared to be a large camping set, tied to one car’s roof. Slinging the sack over her shoulders, she simply warned them that she refused to take any chances.
We ended up travelling across farmland for the majority of the morning until late afternoon; the Scottish grass grew in fuller patches the further we went, and the wired fences eventually disappeared below the mounds and winding hills.
The blank scenery and cow pats must’ve triggered Beth first, deciding that she didn’t want to tag along after all. "Uuurgh!! Can't we stop for a break?! We've been walking for hours!!"
I think I saw something snap behind the dark O-Saint's eyes, glaring backwards to the blissfully ignorant child. I stepped forward defensively, not needing to say anything.
If Beth wants a break, she'll bloody well get one…
He seemed to be telepathic, muttering in agreement before marching off by a couple of paces. If I had to guess, he wanted to be at a distance where he wouldn't have to put up with our 'childish behaviour'.
The small, plumper red-hoodie was much more sociable. He sat with us on the faded grass, smiling as we passed around a bottle of ginger. Jamie, who looked as moody as the other O-Saint, plonked himself down just outside of our circle, refusing to come and join us.
Serah saw this opportunity to try and find civil ground with the enemy. "...You seem nice. I don’t think you told us your—”
“Name’s Garry.” His hand extended to hers, shaking warily. “The big guy’s not much of a talker, but I just call him ‘Grumpy’.” We all heard the snort of dismissal from the outer circle, but Serah played it off with an amused huff.
