The Charred Lands: City of Ash

by Josh A. Murphy

  “Well it’s impossible to tell when we’ll find another dead boy’s backpack again, so I think we should make a better effort to try and ration what we have. Hell, I’m as hungry as you but I’m thinking with my head, not my stomach.”

  With that, she fell silent. Instantly, I began to regret being so coarse with her, I guess she didn’t exactly deserve such a harsh attack. I watched her stare off into space, as though I wasn’t even in the room whilst I considered apologising – after all, I guess tonight was an appropriate time to celebrate somewhat, for myself at least. I was alive, I had reached Manchester. For me, that was massive. I couldn’t help but spend some time reflecting on all those that I had come across along my journey - so many interesting characters, each with their own story and lives. Some of those weren’t with us anymore, for better or worse. Reflecting back on all this was bitter sweet for me; it pained me to think about my family and friends from Haven, or Conrad and Lizzie, but then I thought about people like Oliver and Phil. So far I had managed to create my own, interesting story – and something told me that it was far from complete. I had a long journey ahead of me, and no doubt Manchester would provide some of the most difficult times.

  “I understand, I guess.” Azaria finally said, after over an hour of silence. Her voice came as a surprise to me, and for a few seconds I struggled to remember what she meant.

  “What?”

  “What you did to Wayne… I don’t blame you.” She sighed. I stared at her, tears were already beginning to form in her eyes. All I could do was nod. It wasn’t forgiveness, but it was close enough. It was all I needed to help my conscience.

  Just as I was about to reply, the skies suddenly opened up. The sounds of rain smashing against the small store filled the room. As usual, I found it to be strangely peaceful. I used to love the nights in Haven when I could drift off to sleep, listening to the sounds of the rain hitting my bedroom window, even out here, it did a little to relax me.

  “We should probably get some sleep; we need to make some solid progress tomorrow, I don’t feel so bad about travelling now we’ve got a little protection.” I said, gesturing to my new revolver. It had grown dark outside; another day in the Charred Lands had passed, and I was still alive.

  “Here, have this.” I said, throwing Davey’s old clothes to Azaria. They stunk something awful, but they would make a sufficient pillow for her.

  “Thanks.” She simply smiled softly, this being the first time she had shown any kind of positive emotion towards me since Wayne’s attack. I watched her settle down in the furthest corner from Davey’s blood puddle, before I picked a place to sleep. I lay down against the stockrooms cold floor and stared at its dark ceiling. The rain outside was soothing, it almost made sleeping rough just about worth it. I was almost beginning to get used to sleeping on hard ground. I couldn’t believe how much I took a mattress for granted. Yet another one of the small comforts that my family were able to provide me by creating Haven all those years ago. I knew all of this would be worth it though – Legion of Light had lasted and prospered for a long, long time. Once I was there, I stood an honest chance at actually enjoying a comfortable life once again; I just wished my family could be there with me too.

  My eyes began to feel heavy, the room darkened as I slowly began to drift in to a dream – but something quickly snapped me back into reality, dragging me from my sleepy, relaxed state like a smack to the head, throwing the reality of my situation in my face, as though I was being mocked by the Charred Lands.

  At first, I thought it was another bolt of lightning, but I quickly realised it was rapid gunfire from outside, and it was close. I instantly shot up, expecting someone to kick the door down at any second.

  “The fuck was that?” Azaria almost screamed, she too shot up.

  “I don’t know.” I calmly replied, pulling out the revolver, the gunfire continued in short bursts, and it was getting closer and louder.

  “Should I check it out?” I asked, figuring someone might be in trouble, or in need of rescue. Azaria remained silent, simply giving me a shrug. I had expected her to be all for me going on a rescue mission since I had done that very same thing for her only the day before.

  “I’ve got to at least check it out.” I mumbled, without waiting for a definitive answer from Azaria. Slowly, I rose from my chosen sleeping spot for the night and tiptoed towards the stockroom door and pressed my ear against it. For a few seconds, I stood in complete silence, too scared to even breathe, as I listened out for any sounds from inside the store.

  “I don’t think they’re inside the store.” I said without an ounce of confidence.

  “Wait, Zach…” Azaria whispered as I reached for the handle.

  “What?”

  “Be careful.” She murmured; and with that, I opened the door and made my way back into the store. I stared through the shop window, the rain outside was falling heavily, clouding my view of the world beyond the store.

  Suddenly, I could hear voices from outside, "We need to get inside!” A deep, frantic voice screamed. I quickly readied my revolver as I took cover behind one of the shops shelves. I took a deep breath, and aimed it, ready to defend our temporary home. For what felt like an eternity, I stood completely motionless, squinting against the rain to make out anything outside; reluctantly, I took a couple of steps forward, desperate to see what was going on outside. As I neared the window, the people outside fell into view. At first they were only dark shadows, but by the time I reached the shop window, they were almost completely clear.

  “We need to make a stand, we’re too far away from the squad!” I heard another man scream in response – it was hard to hear them over the sounds of the rain battering the world.

  I did my best to remain as low as possible, I couldn’t risk any of the men seeing me, I had no idea who, or what they were fighting. Until I had enough time to gauge them, I didn’t want to attract either the attention of them, or whatever force they were fleeing. I quickly realised that it was the latter that I most needed to avoid - A Fider; much bigger than the two that I had seen in the fields near Warrington rounded a corner. It stormed down the street, its eight legs all running in perfect synchronization, with its many eyes all locked on the frightened men.

  “Fire!” one of them screamed. All at once, the men squeezed down on the triggers of their large automatic weapons. A barrage of bullets were sent flying right at the creature. A small amount of orange, lava like liquid erupted out of every bullet hole, yet they seemed to cause the creature no harm. Within seconds, it was upon them. It swung one of its right legs at the first man, one minute he was stood there, fearlessly firing his weapon at the creature in a futile attempt to put it down, the next he was dead. With one quick blow, the creature decapitated him. I watched his head bounce down the puddle ridden street as his body somehow managed to remain upright, still firing from the automatic machine gun for a few seconds, until it eventually fell backwards, sending a hail of bullets into the direction of his fellow survivors. The headless man’s bullets ripped apart another two of the men before the Fider had even reached them – they were dead before they even hit the floor.

  “Get the fuck out of here!” One of the three remaining men commanded in a scream, already turning and running. For a few seconds, the other two continued firing before finally giving up and taking pursuit of their comrade. Before one had even taken three fleeing steps, the Fider seemed to grab him with its pincers. He let out a harrowing scream before it pulled him back, opened its mouth and shoved the top half of him inside – his screams became muffled as they continued on inside the creature’s mouth for but a second, until it bit down. It cut straight through him, like he was nothing. Everything below his waist dropped, spraying blood and spilling guts to the floor. I stared at the scene, eyes wide and mouth open. The Fider shown signs of incredible strength, speed and horror.

  The last of the two men charged around a corner and disappeared out of site. For a few seconds the Fider remained whe
re it stood, chewing the top half of its latest catch, before taking off after the last remaining member of the small squad. I didn’t fancy the poor guy’s chances of making it very far.

  I was completely numbed by what I had just seen. I witnessed dragons extract their damage on mankind before, but even that wasn’t as horrible as what the Fider was capable of. They were six well-armed, tough guys, but it made such easy work of them. Suddenly my mission began to feel a little more impossible than it already had. I was well aware that the cities were riddled with Fiders, but never had I imagined that they would be such hideous killing machines. Compared to this beast, the ones that Lizzie, Conrad and I had come across in the fields were nothing but babies.

  Without realising, I found myself staring at the street, replaying the massacre over and over in my head, even long after the rain had stopped falling. It was such a horrific sight to behold; body parts littered the street outside, each drowned in their individual puddles of blood.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  “Are you ready to explain what happened yet?” Azaria asked. We had awoken some time ago, yet this was the first thing to be spoken. I had found myself struggling to get to sleep – and that wasn’t because of the hard floor. Images of the massacre of the night before had replayed over and over in my mind. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t force them to the back of my mind whilst I focused on something else. Instead they plagued my thoughts, and finally – my dreams. Azaria had instantly questioned me about it when I returned to the stockroom, but I was in no mood to discuss it. Instead, I simply told her I would explain in the morning, before doing my best to try and get some sleep.

  “Take a look for yourself.” I muttered, deciding that any explanation that I could offer wouldn’t accurately depict exactly what had unfolded.

  I felt groggy – more so than usual. For a while I lay awake, staring at the ceiling. I guess I was partly too afraid to get up in knowledge that I would soon have to face the outside world.

  Of course, I had always been aware of Fiders, but seeing one so big inflict such devastating damage with such ease was a bitter pill to swallow. We were but a few walking hours into the city and already we had come across one of the creatures, I couldn’t help but shiver at the thought of how infested the city may get as we travelled deeper in to where the creatures had apparently come to make their nests.

  “Have you got a plan?” Azaria asked, rooting through our freshly packed backpack for something to eat for breakfast – I wanted to snap at her and tell her to save our supplies, but I bit my tongue, still feeling a little bad for being so harsh last night.

  “Just sit tight in here for a moment. I want to scout the street and make sure it’s safe.” I explained, though that was true, I also wanted to check out the remains of the fallen men. Our luck had been kind in terms of supplies since we hit the city, so I guessed it would be worth checking out the dead men. We had a decent supply of food – for now at least – but it was ammo that I was worried about. I had one clip of handgun ammo, but no handgun, as well as twelve bullets for Davey’s revolver; but that was it - at very least, I hoped to be able to arm Azaria with something I could find on the dead men. They had automatic machine guns, and seemed quite willing to use their ammo, with any luck they would have died before they spent the majority of it – I couldn’t even begin to imagine how much good having one of them would do for us. Not only would they be effective at putting down any threats, but they would also go a long way to scaring off any potential attackers; no doubt a thug with a small sidearm wouldn’t be quite so willing to attack us if we were armed to the teeth with automatic firepower.

  “What if the people with guns are still out there?”

  “They aren’t the threat anymore, trust me.” I said, firmly.

  She stared at me for a few seconds, before she seemed to explode with absolutely no warning, “Do you know what? I don’t fully know if you know what you’re doing. You don’t seem to have any survival knowledge, Zach. You seem like you’re going from pillar to post, thanking the stars above that you were lucky enough to fluke surviving. Look at you; you’re not a survivor – Wayne was a survivor. You look like a boy that’s lost his mummy and daddy.” She screamed, once again the hatred for what I had done to her boyfriend returned for all to see.

  For a few seconds I stood in silence, staring at her. The slightest urge to put a bullet between her eyes began to creep up from within, but I quickly doused the flame. Yesterday I had let her anger go unopposed, but this time it was just too much, “Firstly, I am a boy that’s lost his mummy and daddy. I watched them fucking die in front of me just over a week ago. Secondly, Wayne isn’t a survivor. He’s a fucking pancake at the bottom of a bridge, I am a survivor – I’m alive. I’m fucking alive and Wayne isn’t – so if Wayne’s so fucking brilliant, go back to the bridge and take a running leap and join him!” I yelled at the top of my lungs. I couldn’t be sure, but for a second I thought a few of the metal shelves in the stockroom began to shake at the sheer volume of my voice.

  For a few seconds, we stood in silence, staring at each other with clenched fists, as though we were each waiting for the other to say something. Her face was a picture of rage, frown marks appeared to be a permanent fixture of her face. Slowly, the anger began to turn to sadness as her eyes filled with tears, but I wasn’t interested, “So if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to risk my life for us, again.” I smirked, storming out of the tiny stockroom.

  As I once again crept through the store, I found the world outside to be damp and grey. Davey’s rotten corpse remained exactly where I had left it, albeit a little wetter now; and of course, the Fider’s victims remained where they had fallen too.

  I took a deep breath, and climbed over the shops window ledge and placed my feet on the wet street outside. It felt strange to be back out in the open, instantly the feeling of being watched returned.

  I hesitantly approached the first corpse, wary of both the skies and the ground. Of course, there was every chance that the dragon from yesterday, and the Fider from last night were still within the area. The ground was riddled with puddles and body parts from last night’s massacre; it looked like something straight out of a bloody nightmare.

  A severed head lay some ten feet away from the body that it had once belonged too, whilst two severed legs lay in a puddle bloody rainwater – two other bodies lay near the headless corpse, both riddled with bullets. I approached the first of the bunch, this being one of the men who had fallen to friendly fire – he was a large, muscular man. One of his eyes stared blankly at the sky above, whilst the other had exploded as a bullet tore through it, before exploding out the side of his head, covering the asphalt in all kinds of gooey mess. He looked like he had been a tough, experienced survivor – they all did for that matter.

  As much as it repulsed me to do so, I leant down and reached inside his pockets – both of them were empty, but it was the ammo belt wrapped around his waist that I was more interested in. I had spotted it straight away but decided to save it until last. I unbuckled it and pulled it from his damp dead body. Much to my annoyance, the belt was empty – no wonder these men found themselves making a last stand. In his left hand, he held a small machine gun - the name of which I didn’t know. I pried it from his fingers and inspected the weapon. I checked the weapon vigorously before deciding I was confident enough to use it – carefully, I popped the clip out of the weapon – it was near full. I couldn’t help but smile. This weapon would do a world of good – not only that, but I prayed that his companions also had some weaponry. The machine gun had a strap too, I carefully placed this over my shoulder, it was heavy, but even when added to the weight of my backpack, it was bearable.

  I quickly moved on to the next corpse. I said a little prayer as I approached, begging that this fallen man’s eyes were shut. There was something about a dead stare that made me shiver. It was so unnerving – it almost made the corpses seem alive, as though they were watching your every move, judging
and damning you for taking their belongings. Luckily – his eyes were very much closed. I began to scan his corpse, though after a few minutes I decided that he had nothing of value on him. He had the same machine gun as the first corpse that I had checked; I popped the clip out of the gun once more, but this one was empty, I saw no use in taking his weapon, so I tossed it aside.

  Finally, I moved onto the final corpse – the headless one. I had been building myself up to this guy. I supposed I didn’t have to deal with his unblinking, ghostly eyes – but instead I had to deal with a bloody stump between his shoulders where his head had once been – I’m not sure which was worse. Just like the second corpse, he too was out of ammo too.

  I stood up and let out a sigh – I had been hoping for much more than that. One machine gun with less than half a clip wouldn’t last long. Sure, the weapon was a great show of force, but I had seen people train with machine guns back at Haven, and I knew just how fast they went through ammo. I had been hoping to find another handgun – Azaria had been raised in captivity, therefore I doubted she had any weaponry experience whatsoever, so I didn’t want to go giving her either of my weapons. I was no sharp shooter, but I had received limited training back at Haven. I felt better knowing I had the weapons.

  I decided no good would come from searching through the bottom half of the other man, anything useful would no doubt have been consumed by the Fider. So with that, I headed back into the store; climbing through the shop window proved to be much more difficult this time around, with the added weight of the machine gun. I almost fell over as I climbed over the window ledge. It felt good to be back inside - I felt less vulnerable in the store.

  “Are we ready to go?” I called out to Azaria as I approached the stockroom – of course, she didn’t reply – and that was no surprise to me.

  “Ready to go?” I repeated, a little annoyed, as I stormed into the stockroom – only, it was empty. I stood there for a moment, numbed by shock.