by Justin Clay
We glance at each other, a bit confused. But at this point, what else do we have to lose?
Lena nods, and Eli stands, starting to lift Mason up again. We reposition ourselves to bracing his body, with Mikael ahead of us with the gun. And in this fashion we begin our risky ascent, following the mysterious figure above.
11
DOWNTOWN
I LISTEN TO THE rain pattering gently against the windowpane of Kage’s tenth floor apartment, and all I can think about is my sister and whether she is alive or not. My eyes drift to and away from the window, gazing out to the hazy, ravaged city of Cheyenne. Darkness has fallen, and the only lights throughout the city are few and far in between. I’m staring at my fist, and I realize I have had clenched for far too long. My hand stiffens when I open it. Am I that tense? Given the facts, I suppose I am.
Kage keeps the dingy apartment lit dimly with an impromptu means of a tin can fed by the crackling pages of discarded telephone book pages. The flickering light reflects off of Mason’s reposed face warmly, casting deep shadows.
Kage is a dark-skinned man in his early thirties, I’d say, although his black, textured hair is already beginning to show signs of receding. He isn’t that muscular or bone-thin either. He has managed to survive for what looks like quite a long time on his own: able-bodied enough to gather proper amounts of food, and luckily for us — especially Mason — a decent amount of weaponry and medical supplies.
He’s a man of very few words, much like Eli. But unlike Eli, his face has been much more brutalized by these savage times. A nasty scar runs up and down the left side of his face, circling his brow before disappeasring around his head. I could only wonder what had inflicted that terrible wound. Had he been involved to a fight to the end? Wouldn’t be surprising.
My eyes look from the sleeping Mason, who’s recovering after being patched up by Kage with the help of Lena — she knows a quite a bit about medical stuff. Apparently, Kage had been a doctor in the time before, he had told us while fixing up Mason. My mind reverts back to that moment earlier, when we first met him.
“Bring him in here,” the hooded man told us as he unlocked a wooden door. “And stop pointing that gun at me, boy — If I meant any of you harm, I would have done so by now.”
Mikael glanced to Eli, who barely made a nod of approval, before he lowered the handgun. The door squeaked unapologetically, welcoming us to what I supposed was the home of this man, who was dressed in drab dark clothing.
At first there was only pitch-blackness. There was the muffled fastening of the door shutting, after we all had entered the lightless room. He told us to wait a moment; there was a distinct rustling of this man’s movement, and a few seconds later coverings over the two paned windows were removed and dusky moonlit light flooded through, giving away the identity of the strange, slapdash assortment of furniture, such as an old wooden crate serving as a chair near a lop-sided table littered with a multitude of glittering findings, and other collected oddities filled the room.
He told us to rest Mason on the definitely-out-of-place plaid sofa, and as we did so, the man disappeared into a connecting room.
I noticed that one of the sofa’s stained cushions had a sizable rip in it and stuffing plopped out. Behind us, beside an immensely cramped kitchen that occupied rusted and battered supplies, the wall was splattered with a dark substance, which looked too much like blood — Now that I think about it, there is an underlying putrid scent in the air, sour enough to be noticeable. Could be rotting food, or decaying body parts, hidden somewhere. Hopefully, not the latter.
Then again, like he said he would have been hostile the moment he met us, if that was his true intent. Right? Usually people get right down to it, this day and age. Why waste time getting to know the people you intend to kill and loot from? It’s not like we had anything valuable on us anyhow — well besides the bag of weapons. Which I supposed was reason enough to do us in —
I was staring at the ominous phrase of “NOWHERE IS SAFE” scratched in the opposite wall in letters as large as my arm, when the man bustled back through, now holding a soiled white case that had on its center a bold, red cross. A medical packet. Where on earth did he find that? I suppose everything useful wasn’t completely ransacked. But it sure felt like otherwise.
The man sat the medical package onto the rickety coffee table in front the sofa. It creaked as he opened carefully, rummaging through it. When he turned around holding an antiseptic swab, Lena stood between the unconscious Mason and the stranger who was helping us.
“We need to cleanse the wound before applying medication,” he said.
“But first, we need to be able to trust you, before you do anything,” Lena replied firmly.
“What? Me not shooting at you? Helping your friend? Is that not enough?” The man seemed genuinely shocked.
“No, it isn’t,” she went on. “As far as we know you could be
playing us — luring us in. In these times, who is to know?”
The man huffed, and I wasn’t exactly sure he was offended, but he definitely wasn’t at ease. “I assure you ma’am,” he said, a rough accent noticeable, “if I were ‘playing’ you as you said, it would not involve helping your friend here — who by the way, needs help as soon as possible…Just look at him.”
The stranger was right. Mason, currently, was a sad sight: his weakened body lolled against the sofa, his face a deathly pale in the moonlight, dark blood soaking the makeshift bandages wrapped about him. He would die from blood loss soon, if we didn’t act quickly enough.
“Well, then why do you wish to help us? And who are you?”
“Lena, let the man help us if he wishes to do so,” Eli intercedes. “He is right in saying that Mason needs help as soon as possible.”
“I assure you,” the man goes on, kneeling down beside Mason, as Lena steps away reluctantly, “I will tell you everything you need to know after we get your friend here seen about…Now, if you don’t mind — I will need some help…”
The stranger made quick work of bandaging up Mason and then after went into his explanations. He said his name is Emanuel Kage, but that he goes by Kage. His age was thirty-two, and had been living by himself for quite a while out here in this city, evading the ruthless Ravagers who own the downtown area of the city. But it hadn’t always been that way. Kage had been part of a group of ten-something upon coming across the city, searching for supplies, for any manner of extending their lives — just like we had — only to meet an end similar to ours, I suppose now.
The other half of our group must have ended up downtown, in Ravagers’ domain. We told him that they were searching for medical supplies near the supposed hospital — and we had been looking for weapons, and were strangely enough very successful. Kage seemed somewhat surprised by the bag of weaponry we had stumbled upon, saying it must have been left by a previous, less fortunate group.
We asked him if there were any Infected dwelling within the city. Of course there were, but to Kage’s knowledge, they seemed to keep to themselves, slumping about unless drawn out of their deteriorating stupor by some loud noise, or any exposure to human blood. Most of the Frothers, Kage said, existed toward the center of the city and in the outskirts, many of them hoarding about the downtown area, where the Ravagers have had to set up a complex protective system. It was these same Ravagers who attacked his group, and like Mason, Kage was the only one who escaped, as far as we know. He seemed a bit cautious to tell us the entire truth, or so I gathered from his tense facial expressions.
I asked him what happened to the rest of his group, and if there was a chance for my sister to be alive.
“Those people — if you can even call them that,” he said, “are barbaric and about as indecent as anything can get. You don’t even want to know what they did with the rest of my group…Trust me. But as for your sister — she may still be alive. May be. I want to tell you she is, but I can’t, because it may not be the truth.”
And it is these
excruciating thoughts of my sister being merciless torn apart, mutilated, that clog my mind, and I can think of nothing else. Kage’s assumption of my sister’s livelihood doesn’t exactly provide the comfort I have been hoping for — but then again, I’d be a fool to think that it would. In fact, I am even more afraid now than before. But that will change.
The plans have been made. Roughly, at least. Once Mason wakes up, hopefully he’ll have some recollection of the rest of our group’s whereabouts, so we can set out and rescue them as swiftly as possible. Kage says the Ravagers hold the access of leaving the city as they have gated off every major exit — so in order to leave this place, we have to go through them — and gladly, I’ll do just that. But it won’t be easy.
“Those people are God-awful in every way imaginable,” Kage tells us. “Don’t get me wrong, but they are not faultless…They are weak in one area significantly…They aren’t that smart — or what I could gather from watching these past few months of being here…Collectively, they have the intelligence of a mound of dirt, although their leader is a bit above that, which does make sense — I suppose…Anyway, that’s how we’ll be able to escape…I’ve been meticulously planning my escape since I’ve been trapped here, watching their every move closely…Or as closely as I could, without risking capture…”
He told us the Ravagers have a nightly routine. Around dusk they set up their man-made fort downtown — where two patrol the gated wall, one manning a searchlight. And there are five of them on the ground at various positions keeping watch — the rest of them are kept up in one of the office buildings and connecting warehouses they have taken as their living quarters. Essentially, we would split up into two teams.
One would go to the wall and take out the Ravagers there, before they’d alert anyone. The other team would locate their tank, kill the Ravager guarding it, take control of it — and use the tank as a means of a diversion by blowing it up. Hopefully, that would draw more attention than that fixed to the wall, and we would manage to manually lift the gate, so our group could get through and escape.
The only problem — well, the largest one out of the many — is the time it would take to do such an operation with as many people as we have in our group, and manage to get them all safely out, considering the twenty-something numbers of Ravagers in the area per Kage’s guesstimate.
The whole ordeal absolutely has to be stealth-drive…And Kage has been waiting for people like us. Enough of us. He knew he couldn’t do it on his own. That’s why he has been waiting for so long, holding out until people like us arrived. Which was bound to happen at some point.
The idea is simple enough. We move in like shadows, take out those necessary obstacles, get our remaining members, and leave…If there should be a break in that —if we’re found out then, Kage told us we have to make as much noise as possible…That would be our saving grace. It would bring much unwanted attention. And I figure that to be the worst-case scenario. Enlisting the aid of the Frothers.
Hopefully, it wouldn’t come to that.
...
When Mason comes to — it takes a second to realize he’s awake, as we’re all lost in our worlds of thought, silent. Lena is the first to snap out of it and come to his side. She’s saying his name as he’s blinking and coughing. Mason shakes his head wearily, swallowing. His eyes widen, and his body jolts upright; he’s completely confused as to where he’s at, no doubt.
“Where the hell am I?” he says, cringing from the pain at his side, grabbing intensely. Lena tells him to take it easy and sit back down.
“You’re with us — and a man who saved your life, Kage,” she tells him quietly. “We’re in his apartment…He was kind enough to share it.”
It is quiet for a moment — even a whisper could be heard. There’s a strange creaking somewhere in the apartment that sounds like footsteps, but it is only the wind. I approach Mason slowly. I try to remain calm as I talk to him.
“Do you remember anything about what happened? Is my sister still alive?”
He doesn’t say anything; Mason’s face is like stone, his eyes unmoving as he stares straight ahead. Not at me. Not at anything. Just stares emptily.
“Mason,” I say, more anxiously. “Mason!?”
He blinks and turns to me, his crinkled face inscrutable. “I don’t know,” he says after a sigh. “The last time I saw her: she was with Terek; they were both alive…But now; I don’t know…I told them I would go and get help…That was before I got hurt by one of those lunatics.”
“So it was Ravagers?”
He nods. “Unfortunately.”
“Was everyone alive…Was anyone…?” Mikael couldn’t bring himself to finish the sentence. He’s most likely thinking of his sister too.
“It all happened so fast,” Mason says, apparently reliving the moment when everything occurred those few hours ago. “We were surrounded by those idiots…They forced us to lower our weapons; Sondra’s mother was shot…She is most likely dead…No, she is dead…I’m sorry, kid.” He was talking to Mikael, who found himself sinking toward the ground, his face growing pale.
Minutes pass by with none of us speaking to each other. I’m staring out the window, my thoughts tangled in death of Mikael’s grandmother. My face feels hot and my palms sweaty. The rain has stopped, leaving behind a dripping film, blurry the dark, dreary city scenery beyond.
Kage has left the room; I hear him rummaging. Most likely gathering supplies for our imminent journey into the darkness.
I can’t get my sister’s face out of mind. She has to be alive…She just has to.
When Kage reappears, carrying an armful of supplies and lying them down on the coffee table, Lena asks Mason if he is able enough to venture out with us. He only nods. Given the circumstances, he is the only one who knows where the other part of our group was attacked. I look over and see Kage has unrolled a massive map of what I take as the city, and he’s flicked on a small, adjustable lamp. It seems to be battery powered. He’s pointing at something, talking to Eli.
“My best bet is that your friends are being held near the downtown area,” he says, shifting his finger along the map; there’s a rustling sound of the crinkled paper. “Here’s the gated area — it’s shoddily made, so it won’t be too much trouble to cross, so long as we clear it first…But in order to do that we’ll have to draw them away…like I said before. So all we have to do now is decide who’s going where, and what to carry. We should travel light, but we most likely will not be coming back here, so be wise in what you choose, I guess is what I’m getting at.”
It is decided that Kage, Eli, and Mason will depart to find the tank and cause the diversion, while Lena, Mikael, and I will flank and take out those on the wall. But I’m thinking to myself that the probability for us to pull this off successfully isn’t very high. Maybe we will though. But my past experience tells me it’s an obvious no. Something always goes wrong. Always.
We won’t be able to save everyone, I know…But my sister has to be one of them.
...
The streets are empty, and a chilling breeze whispers through my hair like the fingers of a ghost. Hair on the back of my neck rises, and I swallow, gripping the handle of my bow tighter. When Kage comes to a sudden stop, so do we. We have been walking for twenty minutes or so, with no sign of any life whatsoever — healthy or Infected. Just nothing.
Mason is breathing heavily, and Kage glances at him.
“Remember this place?” Kage asks, his dark skin glinting in the distant lamp light. “Have you come through here at all?”
Mason looks about, questioning himself by the look on his drawn-up, shadowed face. “I don’t know,” he finally says. “It was all such a blur…I think so.”
Kage nods slowly as if anticipating that answer. “Good…Because we’re near downtown…We will be approaching a concrete building soon enough, where you,” he adds, looking to Lena, “will be able to use the sniper rifle I gave you…It’s too long of a distance for anything else�
�Eli and I will continue onward. After they are dealt with, go ahead and make your way closer downtown…We should be finished with what we need to do by then…The explosion will draw out the majority of them, however, they most likely will keep some there to guard prisoners…But it should be few enough for you to handle well. Most of you seem to be able to hold your own…”
Kage is most likely referring to Mikael when he said most. I’m not sure if Mikael has ever killed anyone…Infected, or not. Come to think of it, I don’t think he would have it in him…Unless his family is involved I suppose. Even if it’s not killing someone, we all have our own bloody baggage. You’re unable to not have it, nowadays.
Kage bids us good luck and assures us everything will be fine, although I have my doubts. Which aren’t, I’d argue, misplaced.
