The Ruins Box Set

by T. W. Piperbrook

  “Not all of the people out here speak our language,” Kirby explained, shaking her head. “Not everyone is from Brighton.”

  “I can understand you,” the girl said, surprising them with a clear voice that sounded just like the people in Brighton. “My friend and I were the only ones there.” She shifted in the sand as she looked at all of them, clearly in emotional pain. “You saved me. Why?” she asked Kirby.

  “Those men were trying to kill you.”

  “Of course. But they were your men, weren’t they?”

  “My men?” Kirby was confused before she looked down at her jacket, which matched those on the dead bodies. It was easy to realize what the girl thought. “Those aren’t my people. They stole my people’s clothes.”

  The girl nodded as understanding crept in. “You don’t look like a person from Halifax. You don’t wear the markings.”

  Bray followed Kirby’s gaze to the dead men, looking over the strange patterns on their foreheads. They were no less strange up close.

  “Halifax?” Bray asked. “What—or where—is that?”

  “Halifax is a settlement north from here. My people have been battling them for as long as I’ve been alive.” A flicker of anger crossed the girl’s face. “I would’ve killed them, for what they did to Anya, if I had the chance.”

  “What’s your name?” Bray asked.

  “Flora.” The girl bent down to cough, spraying some blood from her nose onto the sand. Bray noticed she had scrapes up and down her arm. Flora looked over at the dead body of her friend lying in the sand, and another flicker of pain went through her face. “Can I see her?”

  “Yes, but wait a minute,” Kirby said, unslinging her bag and untying it, pulling out a square piece of fabric and passing it to the woman. “Use this for the bleeding.”

  Flora took it appreciatively, using it to wipe her nose. Bray lowered his sword as the girl went to survey her friend’s body. Pain crossed her face again as she verified her friend was dead. She wiped her eyes.

  “Anya twisted her ankle while we were fleeing. We were hoping we could stay hidden until the men lost track of us, and then make our way back home. We got farther off course than we thought. She was like a sister. We grew up together.”

  Kirby nodded sympathetically as they all walked over to the body. “I’m sorry.”

  After staring at the dead girl in silence a moment, Flora said, “Thank you for helping me. You could’ve killed me, but you didn’t.”

  “I might’ve, if I’d found you in the ship before those men chased you out,” Kirby admitted. “This is my settlement. Or it was.” A faraway look passed through her eyes as she recalled something. “My people were killed. I suppose there isn’t much of a settlement left anymore to protect. I’m sorry for your friend.”

  “What are your names?”

  “I’m Kirby, and this is Bray and William.”

  Flora pointed at Kirby’s gun. A hint of marvel distracted her from her sadness. “Those weapons are incredible. I’ve never seen them used.”

  “But you’ve seen them before?”

  Flora nodded.

  “In one of the ships?” Kirby asked.

  Flora shook her head. “No. Other people from Halifax have them. I saw them walking the woods with them a few days ago.”

  Bray gave Kirby a knowing glance. “It looks like your guns might be gone, after all.”

  Kirby looked disturbed. “Are there more people from Halifax around?”

  “I can’t say for sure,” Flora said. “These are the only men I’ve seen in a day and a half. They’ve been tracking Anya and me for a while.”

  “How long have you been staying here?”

  “Since yesterday morning,” Flora said.

  “That’s why there were no prints in the sand,” William said, nodding and pointing at the beach.

  “We ran this way to get away from those men. That’s when we snuck into that giant water house,” Flora said.

  “Ship,” Bray clarified.

  “That word will take some getting used to,” Flora admitted.

  “It’s what we call them,” Kirby said.

  “I see that there were a lot of fresh demon bodies here, too,” William said, looking from the beach to a few dead twisted men further up in the settlement. “Did you kill them?”

  Flora looked over at William. “You mean the Savages.”

  “Savages?”

  “The men who feast on others.”

  William furrowed his brow. “We must have different names for the same thing. Kirby calls them mutants, and Bray and I call them demons. Sometimes we call them twisted men.” He shrugged.

  “They are one and the same.” Flora nodded. “We didn’t kill the Savages here. We heard them out here while we were hiding, but they didn’t come into the ship. And then we heard sounds of the Halifax men battling them. They must’ve killed them.”

  “They did,” Kirby confirmed. “I found a few more piles of bodies in some of our houses that I don’t remember leaving that way.”

  Flora nodded.

  Bray asked, “Are you sure you’re alone in there?”

  “Yes,” Flora said. “It was just Anya and I. If more of our people were in there, they would’ve come out and helped us.” Flora blotted some more blood from her face with Kirby’s cloth.

  “Not all people are as courageous as they think they are,” Bray muttered as his thoughts returned to the guns. “We should get what we came for and leave, Kirby.”

  Kirby nodded. “The noise we’ve made here will surely draw more mutants, or more people like these men. Hopefully there’s something left.”

  “Did you see any more guns like the one she’s holding?” Bray asked Flora.

  Flora shook her head. “Only the ones the Halifax men had the other day. Nothing else.”

  “Why don’t you stay here with Flora and William?” Kirby instructed Bray as she turned toward the overturned ship. “I’ll check for the guns and be back as soon as I can.”

  Kirby set off through the sand, heading toward the ankle-deep water, her boots splashing wet mud.

  “Wait!” Flora called, before Kirby had gotten far.

  Kirby turned.

  “I lost a sword and bag inside. If you see them, can I have them back?”

  Kirby nodded. “If I see them, I’ll bring them out.”

  Chapter 8: Bray

  Flora watched Bray with a look of mistrust as Kirby left. She slowly rose from her position over Anya and watched him, as if he might have other plans for her.

  “Is your nose broken?” Bray asked, pointing at it and trying to alleviate some of her fear.

  Flora nodded. “I think so. I managed to fight one of them off when they first discovered us. That gave us enough time to run.” Pointing at her fallen friend, she said, “Anya tried fighting, too.”

  Bray nodded. “Sorry she didn’t make it.”

  Bray watched Flora for a minute before he walked over to inspect the bodies of the dead men. William stayed with the horses. The first man had fallen on his side in the sand. Blood dripped from an acorn-sized hole in his head, and one on his torso, staining the sand beneath him. His eyes were glassy.

  The guns were just as impressive as when Bray had first seen them used.

  Only half realizing what he was doing, he checked the man’s mouth, expecting to see tiny, needle-like teeth, but the man appeared as normal as any man in Brighton. His teeth were yellowed and chipped, as could be expected of a man his age.

  The markings though, they were strange.

  Three lines extended from the man’s hairline onto his head, seemingly ingrained into his skin. Bray wet his thumb and tried rubbing them off, but it didn’t work.

  “What are these marks made of?” he called over to Flora.

  “I’m not sure,” Flora answered. “All their people wear them.”

  “It looks like some sort of dye.” Bray looked from the man to Flora. “Your people don’t wear marks, do they?”
<
br />   Flora frowned, as if it was a strange question. “No.”

  “How far is Halifax from here?”

  “Two day’s travel, north and inland.”

  “Do your people live close?” Bray asked.

  Flora watched Bray for a second, probably deciding what she should say. After a second of internal debate, she gave a vague direction. “Farther north.”

  “Past Halifax?” Bray asked.

  “Yes,” Flora said.

  “On the water?”

  “We live in some of the buildings that seem to be everywhere in the forest. The buildings our gods lived in, before they went to the sky.”

  Bray nodded. It seemed like her people shared similar beliefs to the people in Brighton.

  “Your relatives didn’t come from Brighton, did they?”

  “Brighton?” Flora said the word as if she’d never heard it.

  “Never mind.”

  Bray finished searching the dead man, finding a small pouch of dried meat, a knife, and some arrows. He tucked what he could into his bag, then performed the same search on the other man, finding similar items.

  “You’re not going to take their jackets?” Flora asked, frowning.

  Bray gestured at the bleeding holes in the second man’s chest and shoulder. He grinned. “Not without permission.”

  If Flora was amused, she didn’t show it.

  “Don’t worry,” Bray said. “We have no plans to hurt you. Once we get what we came for, you can go your way. Unless you feel like bringing us back to your people and giving us some food and some snowberry.”

  “Snowberry?”

  “Forget it.” She clearly wasn’t from Brighton.

  Flora watched him warily. She was cautious, like most of the people he’d met in the wild. She was skinny. Her people probably barely fed themselves, and he doubted they had the resources to take on anyone else. She didn’t mention anything about bringing them back, and he didn’t press the issue.

  “Like I said, we’ll let you go. But if you follow us, I can’t promise anything.”

  “I have no intention of following you,” Flora assured him. “I have to get back to my people. But I do owe you a debt for saving my life.”

  “A debt?” Bray grinned. He could think of a list of things he wouldn’t mind, after days in the forest.

  “Your arm is injured. Maybe I can help with that,” Flora said. “What type of wound is it?”

  “A wound similar to what these men have,” Bray said, hiding a sudden embarrassment as he looked down at his shoulder. The gunshot wound was healing, but he still felt intense pain when he turned the wrong way. Every so often, it felt like one of the scabs broke underneath the bandage. “How can you help with it?”

  “If Kirby finds my bag, I have some healing salve in it.”

  Bray grunted. He didn’t believe in half the superstitions the healers in Brighton held. “A few more nights’ good rest and good meals are all I need.”

  “What is your salve made of?” William cut in.

  “Lavender, chamomile, and some other herbs and oils,” Flora said. “I bring it with me whenever I go into the forest.”

  “Some of our healers make a salve like that, too,” William said, his face lighting up with recognition. “They boil the ingredients, and then cool them. My mother and I used to sell herbs to the healers where we live.”

  “It’s probably similar to what you use,” Flora agreed. “I’d be happy to give it to you. It might be a little frozen, though, with the cold. You’ll have to heat it up.”

  “We’ll take it.” Bray looked over at William. “Anything is better than the tree-bark tea you gave me. I don’t need any more healing liquid giving me the runs.”

  Chapter 9: Kirby

  Kirby crept carefully, trying not to splash through the overturned ship’s flooded, sideways hallway. The old, rusted behemoth smelled even mustier than she remembered. Beneath that familiar rot was the foreign, musky smell of intruders. The odor of strange men would stay here long after the waves or the mutants consumed the men’s bodies outside.

  Several times, Kirby turned behind her and pointed her rifle, verifying no other strange men had crept in and were stalking her, but each time it was just the ship creaking. Bray, William, and Flora might be counted on to warn her of danger from outside. But she knew if someone was in the ship with her, she was on her own.

  The sound of debris clanking against the ship’s metal hull—a sound she was used to—made her question the source. Every so often the ship seemed to move as its old bones settled. Sunlight dappled through tears in the ship’s wall, illuminating a rusted metal staircase, lying on its side. She passed by, noticing a sideways room where she’d hidden for days when a band of mutants too large to take care of had roamed the settlement. Thankfully they’d dispersed, and she’d taken care of them individually.

  Kirby knew most of the pitfalls to avoid. She skirted around several doorways—now underfoot, instead of on the walls—and corroded holes that were big enough to slide a foot through. She looked above her at the doors on the ceiling, most of which would be difficult to get into. She tried to determine where Flora had been hiding.

  Halfway down the hall, she smelled thick men’s sweat, and she saw a kicked-in door on the floor that might’ve been where Flora and her friend had climbed down and hidden. Inside the room, she spotted a bag. She crept downward to retrieve it, avoiding patches of rust that might cut her skin. Laying near the bag and in the corner of the sideways room was a crude sword, slightly less angular than the ones that Bray and William carried, and rusted at the edges. She took that, too, and climbed back through the doorway and into the hall.

  The cargo hold door was missing. When she got closer, she half-expected someone to climb over the empty threshold, pointing a weapon and demanding she hand over hers.

  But no one did.

  Her heart sank as she peered around the empty cargo hold, filled with empty racks, and the sweaty odor of the men who had stolen her things. Somehow, the men had gotten in.

  Chapter 10: Kirby

  “They took everything,” Kirby said, exiting the ship angrily and walking toward the beach, splashing through the water. “All the ammunition, all the guns.”

  Bray stabbed his sword in the sand. He looked as if he wanted to find a place to direct his rage, even though the closest men responsible were dead. Kirby unslung the bag she’d found in the ship’s hallway and returned it to a grateful Flora.

  “Is this your sword?” she asked, holding up the crude, flat weapon she’d found near the bag.

  “Yes,” Flora said.

  “Wait.” Bray gave the sword a skeptical look. “Are you sure we should give that back to her? It looks like she could take on an entire army with it.”

  Flora furrowed her brow, not used to Bray’s sarcasm. She slid the sword into a scabbard at her side.

  “Are you sure you checked everywhere?” Bray asked Kirby, returning to the issue of the guns.

  “Of course,” Kirby said. “I know this ship better than anyone. I’m not sure how they got in, but they did. And now everything is gone.”

  “They’ve taken many things from us,” Flora said, glancing angrily at the body of her dead friend. “They are a vicious people.”

  “We should head away,” Kirby said. “If we stay much longer, we’re guaranteed to run into someone else. Who knows how many others have scavenged here?”

  “Before I head back to my people, I promised your husband I’d help you, in return for what you did for me,” Flora said, digging through her bag.

  Kirby almost couldn’t help her laughter. “Husband?”

  Flora pointed at Bray, her lingering look of anger melting to embarrassment. “I thought…”

  “We’re traveling together. That’s it. None of us are related.”

  “She wishes she had a man as strong as me.” Bray stood up straight, glancing at Kirby.

  Kirby looked at him disgustedly.

  Flora s
aid, “I won’t ask the details of your arrangement, but this healing salve might help the injury on Bray’s shoulder.” She pulled out a small, round jar and showed it to Kirby.

  “What’s it made of?” Kirby asked.

  “It has herbs that will help,” William explained. “Flora uses the same type of thing we use back home. We won’t find those kinds of ingredients in the winter.”

  “You can heat it up and put it on Bray’s arm, to help his wound,” Flora added.

  “Where is this Halifax place these men are from?” Kirby asked.

  She listened as Flora relayed the directions. “North, a few day’s walk and inland. It would be much quicker with horses.”

  “How many people are there?” Kirby asked.

  “A lot,” Flora said with a grim expression. “Enough to fill the surface of most of these…ships.”

  Kirby’s face fell.

  Bray pulled out the sword he’d stuck in the sand. “We can go after them. Maybe we can find a way to get some of the guns back.”

  “How would we kill so many?” Kirby shook her head.

  “I saw how many demons you killed in Brighton. Why couldn’t we use the same force on these people?” Bray asked, his anger rekindling.

  “For all the reasons I told you before,” Kirby answered, annoyed. Sometimes she wondered why she didn’t leave the dim-witted Bray behind. “Besides, if these people took the guns days ago, they probably already made it back to whatever hole they came from. It will only take some trial and error until they figure out how to use them. They might shoot a few of each other in the toes by accident, but they’ll eventually learn. Once they do, we’ll never take them on.”

  “Filthy pig scratchers,” Bray said, spitting in the direction of the men’s bodies.

  “I’m as unhappy as you are. But I’m not ready to die purposelessly.”

  Bray held his tongue, but he didn’t look like he was through with the argument. She knew they would have more discussion about it later. But first, they needed to leave.

  “Where do you live, Flora?”

  Flora looked uncomfortable before answering, “Farther north than Halifax.”