by Jeremy Mac
Twisted City
By
Jeremy Mac
All rights reserved
To my grandfather for his unwavering devotion in helping me get Twisted City ready for publication
TWISTED CITY
Cataclysmic events rock the world, bringing with it a wave of panic and destruction civilization has never seen. Cities tear themselves apart, governments crumble, countries wither and die, and to add to the catastrophe a deadly virus simply referred to as The New Disease follows in the wake. Many survivors adopt a resilient ruthlessness to equalize their modern nature with that of the world of today for the sake of survival. But there are still those who dwell within the remnants of yesteryear, desperately holding on to a thread of hope for a better tomorrow.
Claxton, once known as the City of Cities, has divided itself into two opposing sides. The north side, now named The Pinnacle, has rebuilt itself to nearly economic perfection within its concrete and steel environment with fully operational farms and gardens and a perpetual supply of purified water.
The south side, Maddick, named for the man who leads them, is infested with all walks of madness and criminals from what was spat from the bowels of the old world, and they are all overwrought with bloodlust and envy. The Pinnacle is barricaded within high walls, the front gate is the only access, armed guards walk these walls and gate around the clock, but The Pinnacle has been breached before, and with the right instrument, it can be breached again.
And then a stranger to the city shows up in a pristine vehicle loaded with food and weapons. But the mysterious stranger hasn’t come to battle nor to barter with either side. The reason for his sudden presence runs much deeper than anyone can imagine, and he will do whatever it takes to fulfill that reason.
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1
“It is time,” a voice croaks from bed. There is no fear in the voice nor sadness, only something close to blessed resignation.
Maybe the weather has something to do with it.
Late yesterday morning the sky grew dark and gave way to drizzle that slowly progressed into a storm of hard rain throughout the day. A steady cold chill stings the air.
Yes, maybe the weather has something to do with it.
After a long moment of silence the voice calls to Lathan again, a bit louder this time, almost as much as he can manage without going into a fit of coughs, and Lathan, solemnly staring off through the rain beaded second story window, twitches his head to the side.
He’d heard the old man the first time. He always heard him, even at deathly whispers. He’d even heard those same words in his own dreams. They’ve haunted him, and he hoped that he would never have to hear them in the woken world. But now, for the second time in a row, he just did.
Lathan continues to watch the rain flood the once pristine yard down below, hoping the old man will grow tired enough to fall back to sleep and perhaps by some chance of mercy die in peaceful slumber. But his own good instincts tell him that he will not be afforded such mercy.
“We both knew that this day would come, sooner or later,” the old man says. “We’ve prepared for it.”
Lathan turns to face him. “Sleep tonight. The rain will pass and tomorrow will bring a day filled with the sun and blue skies. A beautiful day.”
The old man gives his best grin, once a grand expression but now grim with features eerily intensified by the play of light and shadow from the candles stationed around the room, knowing that the younger man’s optimism is fruitless but appreciative for it nonetheless.
“I’ve seen plenty of beautiful days,” the old man refines. “I need no more.”
Lathan leaves the window and goes to stand at the side of the bed. Placing his hand on the old man’s forehead, bone dry and cold to the touch, he smooth’s his long white hair back. The old man turns his gaze upward, cobalt blue eyes once so vital but now sunken deep into their sockets and full of pain, and gives his young friend a small reassuring smile that says, It’s okay.
“Close your eyes,” Lathan finally says. “Let the rain vanish from your mind and go to that place you love so much, wherever it is, filled with bright sunny days.”
The old man closes his eyes and his mouth begins to move in silent prayer, taking him to that very place, a long way from here and long ago, where there is no disease and no sorrow.
Gathering as much courage as he can, Lathan quietly pulls the sword from its scabbard and holds it firmly above his head.
“And no more pain. You are free my old friend.”
The sword slices through the air, making good on the promise he gave early on, swiftly separating the head from the body.
And for the first time since it began to rain a streak of lightning flashes across the night sky.
2
The manor is old, and even though it is the worst of times, it still gleans a certain degree of beauty reminiscent of better times.
But beauty no longer has a natural place in the world. All that is left are empty shells of what had once been, turning the masses into an ugly violent world.
There were never any plans for him to stay at the manor. It was understood long ago what he is to do after the old man’s death. If the old man had had his druthers Lathan would have been gone long ago. But the younger man wouldn’t hear any of it, he was going to stay and care for him for as long as it took.
He douses what little gasoline he can spare around the downstairs rooms and then sets it afire. It stopped raining before dawn and although the sky remains mostly gray nowadays he believes it won’t rain again for a while. The entire thing will burn down without a hitch, extinguishing its lore and legacy forever.
In a SUV loaded full of necessities he leaves the burning manor for the city.
3
If a city exists in biblical hell, Claxton mirrors that city.
Streets are filled with abandoned vehicles, wrecked and vandalized beyond present repair. Any unit within all residential buildings is available to anyone for the taking. What were once department and grocery stores are now mostly empty, ravaged by looters, with broken store front windows and doorways. Dead bodies in all stages of decomposition due to The New Disease or by the hand of another lay in waste everywhere. People fight and kill for anything at will and without consequence.
Lathan maneuvers the SUV slowly down the s
treet, cautiously weaving it through the chaos of past and present. Most people who are out on the street, living breathing husks, watch him with great avidity as he passes by. It chills him to the bone. The city itself, what it has become with its dilapidated streets and skeletal buildings pocked with black honeycomb windows, doesn’t have a great effect on him, but those intense stares from these walking husks of people, and not just at him but at the vehicle he is driving, is what unease’s him the most. They speak volumes, as if to say, “You knew this was going to happen and now that the world is no longer as it once was you’ve come out of hiding with your lavish vehicle to mock us. Well, maybe we’ll just have to do something about that.”
He taps the gas pedal a bit harder, speeding up a little in case someone suddenly decides that they want a new SUV, fully loaded, with a surprise stock of food and water and enough weaponry to supply a small army. Durable the SUV is but far from susceptible to small firearms and Molotov cocktails.
A few city blocks ahead someone finally lets him know how they feel. He slows down some and watches a horribly emaciated woman draped in tattered clothing carrying what looks like a small child while walking into the street toward him. She moans in agony as she says, “Please help me and my child. He’s just a little boy.” She holds up what is in her arms to show him. “He needs help. Please help us. Please! Please!” She shakes as she wails. The childs head hangs limp from its body, its shriveled leathery skin clings to its skeletal frame, the eyes have shrunken into its sockets, and the lips of its mouth are stretched away from what were once pink gums but now are brown with rot.
The woman is clearly out of her mind and just looking at her annoys him to no end. He can easily put her out of her misery but the quick thought of how others may react holds him, especially if there are those around who may care about this crazy woman. Doubtfully, but you never know. Best not to rock the boat.
And then out of nowhere, Whack!
He about jumps out of his skin when the brick comes thundering down on the hood of the SUV.
The woman continues to wail, baring brown and blackened teeth and wide yellow eyes as she approaches closer, making her way toward the center of the street before him.
Lathan looks in all directions, trying to locate the source of the brick, when another comes smashing down onto the bottom right-hand corner of the windshield, creating a splintered web that shoots a crack across the windshield. Lathan then sees where it came from; someone is throwing them down at him from a second story window in a building to his left. He can only see a dark figure, unable to tell its gender. Not that it matters. The first one startled him but the second one flat out pissed him off.
Lathan grabs one of his hand-cannons, rolls down the window, aims, and without hesitation squeezes off a round and almost instantaneously a small explosion of dust and rock erupts from the assailants hand.
Stunned but unharmed the assailant scuttles away from the window like a desperate rat and into the safety and darkness within the back of the room.
The woman goes dead silent and stone still at the sound of the gun. Her bottom lip quivers and her skinny frame twitches as he steadies the handgun directly at her face. After she takes this in for a moment he decides that she isn’t all that crazy after all, nor a threat, so it would just be a wasted bullet. He rolls the window back up and drives through.
4
The good order of humanity has definitely fallen by the wayside, allowing law of the land to bloom. Oak foundations of traditional morals and values are reduced to splinters, and any basic or common right people once had has been crushed and tossed out the window like yesterday’s garbage. Bitter reality of a third world machine is now in full swing.
Lathan comes to a four-way and stops. He’s now in the big and tall part of the city; skyscrapers galore. He knows where he needs to be but getting there is the thing. The street up ahead is congested with all sorts of stuff; he thinks he can see two overturned buses a couple of hundred yards away and offhandedly wonders how and why that happened. To the right of him doesn’t look much better. The left is about his best bet.
Just when he is about to make a left turn something to his right catches his eye; a young woman who doesn’t quite fit the current civilian mold, dressed in black fatigue pants with a matching tank top and combat boots. Her brunette hair is pulled back in a ponytail. She seems to be lost and in distress, walking quickly and watchful of others as if being followed. Lathan watches her for a moment, and when she’s about twenty yards away two men come out of nowhere and attack her. The bigger of the two snatches her up and carries her off as if she is merely a sack of potatoes. Both men are grizzle faced and filthy, their clothes are old, stained, and torn. The smaller of the two leads the way, pumping his feet up and down in a miserable attempt to dance while wringing his hands together punctuated by an ugly, black toothed grin on his dirty face, grunting in guttural laughter as he thinks about the nasty things he is about to do to this young-tender of a woman.
She fights the big man carrying her but he is too strong for her. He slaps her on the ass now and again as she screams for someone to help her but no one will. Those who see this either watch with unconcerned interest or ignore them altogether. She doesn’t have a chance, they will rape her again and again until they grow tired of her and then they will likely kill her.
Not his problem. He needs to get to where he is going and then out of the city with as little problem as possible. He has his ride, and if something happens to his ride and he’s unable to find another one then that will make for one hell of a walk.
Just take your foot off the brake and drive on. It’s not your problem.
Her screams pierce the outside walls of two buildings as the two men turn down an alley. The alley may as well be a dark cave in the middle of nowhere leading down into hell itself.
Dammit, this is all you need.
He pulls the SUV over to the right, jerks it into park and snatches the keys out of the ignition, cursing himself all the while. He reaches behind the seat, grabs his katana, and steps out of the SUV and locks the door before he leaves. He’ll need to make this quick.
The biggest man has her on the ground, her arms pinned under one hand as he rips away her clothes with the other hand. Her screams reduce to helpless whimpers and moans, tears stream down her face, she realizes her fate. The smaller man stands behind them with his shirt off and is in the process of pulling his pants down. The man on top of her rubs and squeezes her breasts roughly as if he were kneading dough and then pinches one of her nipples very hard, causing her to yell aloud. He pulls himself up and pins her arms down with his knees, putting his crotch at her head. He takes out his erection and begins taunting her with it and laughs as she moves her head side to side, trying to avoid its stinking grime from touching her lips and face. The man standing behind them becomes very excited and starts to shake with anticipation.
Lathan makes no attempt at being subtle. He walks up and in one deft movement unsheathes his katana and whirls it around.
The smaller man drops like a felled tree, his decapitated head rolls into the side of his rapist buddy’s leg with the excitement still frozen on his bodiless face.
Confused by how his friends head suddenly becomes detached from the rest of him, the big man turns as he lumbers to his feet. First he sees the body on the ground and, between the shoulders where the head used to be, the blood spitting out in time with his still beating heart, and then he stands face to face with a clean looking man wielding a long shiny sword.
“It ain’t polite to point,” Lathan says, referring to the big man’s little man, still exposed and sticking straight out before him.
“Huh?” the man utters dumbly.
A twist of the wrist and Lathan whooshes the katana in front of the man’s mid-section and a chunk of meat hits the ground. Before the rapist can react Lathan spins around and slices open his thick neck. A waterfall of blood gushes out as he slams both hands over the deep cut. His eyes bulge
, he opens his mouth wide to yell out but no sound comes.
The girl crab-crawls backward on feet and elbows, her bare breasts bounce as she wiggles away.
The rapist falls to his knees and then to one hand, holding the other hand to his bleeding neck in a desperate attempt to stanch the flow. The thought that This wasn’t supposed to happen flits through his mind, and then in a matter of seconds he falls flat on the ground, succumbing to the inevitable.
