The War Within #1: Victims

by Rodham Perry, Marcus

  “I’m fine.” he stammered out. He looked around, searching for his weapon. Thomas nudged his shoulder and caught his attention. The .45 was in the boy’s hands.

  “You let it fall,” he said, handing him the pistol. “You did it. You killed them all.”

  Asimov only nodded, feeling too hurt — and half-cooked — to say more. They went out into the hallway, covering themselves with wet towels to protect from the fire that was beginning to spread through the apartment. There was no Shade standing alive in the hallway — now it was time to leave before more of them appeared.

  They descended the stairs carefully. Asimov’s knees ached as he stepped carefully through the bodies stretched out on the stairs, their lifeless eyes still open, glazed, and staring at him with something like an accusation.

  “That’s our killer,” they seemed to say.

  In some places the stairs were so crowded with bodies that the only way was to step on them, breaking that strange silence with the noise of flesh and blood being crushed by his boots. The noise came to terrify Asimov when he realized he was literally stepping on the virus that could turn him into one of those monsters.

  Dear God, let there be no hole in the soles of my boots.

  Arriving on the ground floor, he stopped and looked around. There was no living Shade lurking in the shadows, waiting for them. Apparently, those he didn’t kill on the stairs had been slaughtered and shattered in that explosion.

  He turned and looked, not at Olivia, but at the boy.

  “Your offer still standing?”

  Thomas exchanged a quick glance with Olivia and then nodded. You could tell by the girl’s face that she was far from enjoying the idea, but she didn’t stop the boy this time.

  “Do you want to come with us?” Thomas asked.

  Before Asimov could respond, everyone heard a scream, loud like a trumpet.

  Asimov immediately began scanning the immediate vicinity while the roar echoed — it was that same cry he heard that morning when he was hiding under that pickup truck. But this time it seemed closer.

  Asimov gritted his teeth. Surely there were more horrors in that world than he could imagine, and he didn’t want to be there to meet them.

  “Ilha Bela, did you say?” he asked, and Thomas nodded. Asimov started walking. “Well, I think we’re going to need a car.”

  THE CRIMSON PRINCE

  The rain hadn’t stopped.

  In point of fact, it seemed that it would only increase, water dripping down his bald head and causing him to lose his balance on the wet ground. By then he was so dirty with thick black mud that it was almost impossible to recognize him as a human being. He had never seen rain like this before, not with that force.

  A lost wind moaned among the black trees above him. Bruno didn’t look back, his mind filling the darkness with sinister figures, a fruit of both what he had seen and of primitive terror. Though free of pollution, the air of the landscape exuded fear.

  His fear.

  Bruno bared his teeth as his lungs began to ache, the leaves passing through him, whipping his face and arms. He had lost his gas mask on the run, and his arm was numb; also, the pain still persisted and he was limping. Still, he continued on, struggling against the branches that grabbed her legs and pierced his body.

  Flee the city wasn’t easy, but as soon as he reached the forest he was no longer chased by the city monsters — the woods belonged to the Prince, and the rivals would only invade that territory in large numbers. He was surprised, however, that he had managed to get there wounded the way he was, but a man can do anything when the urge to survive is strong enough.

  Even betray his own kind.

  Without warning, he came to a clearing at full speed and skidded to a sudden stop, falling on his butt on the ground.

  Three shadows were standing before him — only that they weren’t shadows, not even men. They no longer belonged to the human race.

  They were all bigger than him, stronger and faster — white like the moon, with their large distorted bodies and reptilian eyes. They were monsters, real monsters. They growled and rushed at him. Bruno crawled back. If the Shades recognized who he was, they didn’t seem to care.

  “No, no!” He lifted his arms in an instinct, already feeling his body being torn by the things. The three of them advanced, but at the last moment they stepped back like dogs threatening to attack a person, just to change their minds at the last possible second.

  Bruno opened his eyes. The monsters were still around him, and he felt like a little girl staring at three wolves. Why didn’t they tear him apart when they had the chance? Bruno took almost a minute to understand: it was the armband, now all muddy and almost unrecognizable on his arm.

  It meant his alliance, his role as a collaborator.

  He just had to pray that the bastards remember that. Bruno got up slowly, never looking away from them. The monsters made way for him. After a moment’s hesitation, he moved on. Those three were sentinels, which meant he was near the Hive.

  Bruno followed slowly, closely guarded by the predators. He tried to clean the armband, but even then he didn’t feel safe — such word has stopped having any meaning in recent weeks. He had lost everything in the outbreak — his parents, his daughter, his wife. All that remained was his life, and Bruno didn’t want to die.

  He wanted to live at all costs, even if he had to be the slave to the same horror that had butchered his family. Since then, he had lived only in fear — fear of contracting the disease, fear of starvation, fear of being shattered by monsters just for fun, fear of everything.

  One of the sentries leaped forward, disappearing into the trees. When the creature returned, it was accompanied by twenty others. Most of them look like walking corpses, their gray flesh appearing to be rotting.

  They approached Bruno snarling, hands balled into fists, shoulders trembling every time they breathed. Here and there, however, he could see the white ones — lions among cats in essence, with a more athletic musculature and abominable deformities. These ones were the elite — stronger, faster and smarter.

  Bruno stopped walking, feeling a cold in the spine. Even thought that amount of creatures didn’t represent even 1/3 of the Hive, it was still too much, and he wasn’t allowed to move on. Things were wrong, even a stupid coward like him could notice that.

  “What did you do?”

  Bruno turned toward the voice, and when he did that, a big man hit a fist on his belly, knocking the air out of him and making him bend in agony, hugging his ribs and gasping. When he recovered, he saw a woman, flanked by other six big men.

  Despite being at least a head smaller than the men, there was no doubt that she was in charge. She was lean and dry as a stick, with a mass of light hair, a hawk nose, and dark eyes. In Bruno’s opinion, that woman was dangerous as the monsters, and now she was staring at him with her arms around her waist and her face frowning.

  “Where are the others, huh?” she asked. “Where’s Fabio? Daniel? Where are the others, goddamn?”

  Bruno only shook his head, and Vanessa Alves cursed. One of the men hit Bruno on the belly again, and he fell to his knees.

  “Do you have any idea what he is going to do to us?” Vanessa snorted. “You just had to bring the girl. How hard is it to bring a girl?!”

  “It wasn’t my fault!” Bruno cried, huddled on the ground and with his hands upright, defensively. “We were attacked!”

  He told all that happened, but when he had finished he saw no mercy in the eyes of the woman or her companions. They were never friends, actually. They could serve the same demon, but they weren’t the same — Vanessa and her gang have always been bad, criminals and addicts, while Bruno had been the father of a family, a good citizen. If the world was still the same, they probably would have never ended on the same side. And “side” was a very redundant term in those days. They were coworkers, pets of a devil — what would happen when the owner got tired of his pets?

  “How many attacke
d you?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” he replied, and fearing another punch he quickly added, “I think it was just one.”

  Vanessa hesitated at that. Then the woman, who always seemed about to explode, grabbed him by the ears and looked into his eyes.

  “One?” she said softly, disbelievingly, and then shouted “ONE?! You were SEVEN! Are you saying that one guy killed six of you?! And you, you little shit, instead of fight, decided to flee here?! You are afraid to die, huh?!”

  “What did you want me to do?” Bruno spat the words and then regretted it. The slap he got in return might well have ripped out all his teeth. The fist that followed, then, almost knocked him out.

  Bruno shrank down, trying to hide his head and face between his shoulders. Vanessa kept beating him, cursing him with a deep voice, muffled by anger. But there was fear in her voice too. All of them were still alive, being spared by the Prince, because they delivered the young ones to the creature. Every seven days, they had to give at least one young woman or one young man as an offering, or else...

  And now the deadline was over and they had no offerings. Vanessa kept beating until her fury subsided, overcome by fear as the whole woodland seemed to come to life in a chorus of terrible screams, coming from the throats of the creatures. In Bruno’s mind, they shouted “Kill! Kill! Kill!”, but the monsters’ growls weren’t in the woman’s favor.

  No, the screams were for him — the Prince was coming.

  Finally, Vanessa looked down at Bruno.

  “I won’t answer for you,” she snapped. “I won’t. It was your mistake.”

  “No, no, no...” Bruno stuttered, grabbing the woman’s hand. His eyes pleaded, but neither she nor the other collaborators would or could help him. “Please don’t leave—”

  “Too late now,” Vanessa spat, pulling back and looking away. She put on her gas mask, and the others collaborators imitated her. Seconds later, there was the roar — it was loud as a siren, causing all the beasts to fall silent.

  Vanessa retreated, leaving him alone, terrified and condemned. Bruno looked at the monsters around and he thought about running away, but he knew it was useless. His eyes caught movement in the depths of the forest — a dark being passed through the ranks of monsters. Notwithstanding the size, it moved so softly, so silently, that it seemed to hover above the ground. The other creatures retreated, not daring to touch it.

  That was the Crimson Prince.

  The thing was bigger than anything Bruno had ever encountered before — a real giant, demonic, whose herculean height made the world look small and reduced Man to an insect. The cloak covering the muscles of the thing’s body was bright red, revealing only the claws, sparkling like steel, and a head with no hair and devoid of color, translucent. However, the monster was splattered with blood, covered in red.

  The collaborators gave space for it, fleeing from its presence like rats and fearing to touch the cloak as if it were something poisoned. Soon the figure rose, menacing, above the thin silhouette that was Bruno. The world waited in silence, holding its breath.

  Bruno could only flinch as the Prince leaned over him, the huge golden eyes seeming to spark fiery sparks, the boiling breath spilling from its mouth and nostrils. Bruno was rigid like a statue, frozen with fear; not a single sound came from his mouth. The Prince looked deep into his eyes, and cocked its head slightly to one side, growling.

  At the last moment, Bruno managed to open his mouth and pleaded, “No, wait—”

  An explosion of blood, the sound of chopped meat and broken bones — it was all over in a matter of seconds, pieces of Bruno flying everywhere. The Prince rose again, its face smooth and the arms now covered with the man’s blood. The forest seemed to fly into a rage, the ranks of Shades roaring and clapping their feet on the ground. Some of the creatures threw themselves over that pile of flesh and bones, fighting for the food, while the remaining crowded around the Prince like primitive beings worshiping a god.

  The Prince addressed the collaborators and Vanessa and the others got down on their knees, leaning forward on the floor, their faces hidden in the mud. Fear and defeat exhaled from their bodies like a stimulating fragrance.

  “Just one day,” Vanessa pleaded, her voice squeaking, not knowing if her words would do any good. Could a sheep trade with a lion? Regardless, Vanessa didn’t stop talking. “Only one day, only one! We will bring others for you! Just one day!”

  She could hear, above the noise of the rain, the flap of the demon’s cloak brushing the mud — a red cloak, painted with the Prince victims’ blood. Vanessa cringed even more, with no wish to touch the mantle.

  For a time without end, she and the other collaborators remained bent on the mud, under those menacing burning eyes. All they could do was lie still in their terror, the icy water of the rain pounding against their back.

  “One day...”

  The voice sent a shivering shiver down Vanessa’s spine. The Prince’s gurgling voice, rising from the depths of its torso, seemed to explode directly into her mind. The being approached, looming over her. Keeping her face down, Vanessa could feel the creature’s hot breath pounding against the top of her head.

  “Look at me...” The big voice echoed.

  Vanessa closed her eyes to strengthen herself first, then reopened them and lifted her head. The Prince looked at her from top to bottom. Vanessa’s face stretched in sheer horror and she didn’t dare to breathe in the presence of the monster, frightened of being decapitated. She couldn’t look away.

  “One day...”

  Then the Prince was gone, along with its servants. Vanessa and her associates were alone in the woods. Above them, the rain carried on, paying no attention to those events.

  THAT’S OUR DEAL

  Stealing a car was easy. There were several at their disposal, although the word “steal” might be too strong — you can’t steal from the dead, right?

  Keep repeating this until it becomes true, Asimov thought. Not that it mattered, of course. The car was an old Volkswagen, the driver was Asimov, Olivia was sitting in the back seat and Thomas came in front as a navigator — he got there first.

  They should get to São Sebastião in less than an hour if there were no problems on the road. God knew Asimov had no reason to drive as if he were doing a tour, and he just didn’t go even faster because of the rain, beating against the windshield, limiting his vision. Good thing there weren’t too many impediments on the road on the road. The BR-101, officially named Rodovia Governador Mário Covas, provided the only road that cut across the Litoral Norte, the Northern Coastline, running along the sea and serving as the main and virtually unique connection between the cities of the micro-region, and was basically deserted.

  Here and there they were forced to dodge some bumpy car, but otherwise, there was nothing ahead. To their right were houses, restaurants, hotels and inns, all abandoned and in ruins; to the left were the beaches, all empty, abandoned as the one in which he had awakened that morning. Asimov shook his head — in that region lived almost 300,000 people; could it be that they were all dead?

  “What happened to your head?” Thomas asked, out of nowhere.

  Asimov’s mind left his thoughts and he returned to the present. Thomas stared at him eagerly. He had removed his wet blouse and sweaty sneakers, letting his stinking feet breathe a little. The boy, like Asimov and Olivia, was drenched by the rain.

  “I was shot,” Asimov replied, turning on the heater. Although that was the coast, that day was particularly cold.

  Crazy damn weather…

  “I thought a headshot means death for good,” Thomas said.

  Asimov shrugged. “The bullet skipped off the skull. It can happen.”

  “It hurt too much?”

  “It still hurts a lot.”

  “Who shot you?”

  “Good question.”

  Thomas scratched his right shoulder, and Asimov saw a bandage on his shoulder. “Did you get hurt?” he asked.

&nbs
p; “That? No. It was an injection I took...”

  “Thomas…” Olivia shifted in the back seat. Asimov glared at her in the rearview mirror. She watched him, the suspicion and fear evident in her face, even now, even after he had saved her life twice that day.

  “So...” he began, “Why Ilha Bela?”

  Olivia bit her lip before answering. She definitely didn’t know how to act. Why so secretive? What was she trying to hide from him, after all?

  “There’s a Navy ship near Ilha Bela,” Olivia said resignedly. “They are catching survivors; it’s our only chance to get out of here.”

  “How did you know that?”

  “We heard the message on the radio.”

  “Hmmm...” Asimov turned on the car radio, “How often?”

  “You won’t hear anything. They stopped sending the message a few days ago.”

  The lie was so obvious that he wondered if she was even giving in to the effort to try to deceive him. It was almost an insult. “If that’s the case, how do you know they’re still there?”

  “It’s what I hope.”

  “Right...”

  “Damn right.”

  Asimov gritted his teeth. That conversation wasn’t going well. It would be better to try another approach. “Those men who attacked you,” he said. “Who were they?”

  “Collaborators…”

  “What?”

  “Some people... they’ve changed sides.” Olivia began to ramble, her mind going back in time and visiting uncomfortable memories. “They’re working for the Shades now.”

  “How do you work for something that wants to kill you?”

  “Don’t ask me.”

  “And that mess this morning?”

  “We came across a traveling group a few days ago. In the end, it turned out they weren’t travelers,” The young woman shuddered and swallowed hard. “They were all crazy. They said Thomas and I were a kind of ‘offering’. ‘A sacrifice for the Prince’, one of them said.”