Ran (Book 1): Apocalyptica

by Joshua Guess

  In that way I led the trucks toward town. I didn’t think about the process as it was happening, I just let it happen. I found every small eddy and current in my surroundings and used them to my advantage. I gained distance here, lost some there, and kept the Reavers hot on my tail the entire time. The chase was close enough that I don’t think many, if any, of them drew back on their blood lust long enough to think rationally about the situation.

  I can make that assumption because I know none of them saw the trap coming until it was too late.

  It wasn’t in the middle of town. That would have been too on the nose. It was, however, very important I draw them to a place closed-in enough to work as a trap, but not so remote it would arouse suspicion. As poetic as it would have been to close the jaws on them in Agatha Square, the center of town, that kind of symbolic shit is for kids who think the real world is a place where bad people always lose and good people always win.

  Or worse, that the world is really that black and white.

  Instead I pulled into a small park lined by woods on two sides, giant gnarled old trees, and a thick concrete pumping station on another. The park itself hadn’t been well taken care of by the city or the residents who used it, leaving the large tract of sand beneath the aging playground equipment full of stones and twigs and rusting metal.

  My previously serpentine driving went ruler-straight as I throttled down. Going too fast when crossing sand was a terrible idea, according to the laws of physics. I also knew that the preparations we’d made for this moment require me to move over a precise area of the sand, and I’d practiced doing it a few times. Result: going over forty miles an hour risked missing the mark, and that would simply not do.

  I threaded the needle, rooster tail of sand flying up from my rear wheel. As I passed just to the right of the tall swing set, in the space between it and the climbing dome, I looked back. My timing could not have been better.

  The pair of trucks followed single-file. The one right behind me was fine, but just as I looked back, the rearmost truck stuttered and flipped sideways as if punted by a god. Bodies flew in every direction as it spun and turned, the shrieking of crushed metal and damaged pistons filling the air as sweetly as any Mozart piece.

  The park entrance was framed by two especially large trees, and one of them hid chains secured to its largest branches. We’d carefully cut away anything capable of snagging or interfering with the travel of those chains, then laboriously attached and raised the engine block of a small car.

  Whoever was sitting up in the tree had good timing, too—they’d pulled the pin at just the right moment to release all that potential energy into a fist of metal that annihilated one of the chase vehicles in a single hit.

  If this sounds familiar, that’s understandable. Maria had mentioned it as a tactic, her inspiration being Return of the Jedi. Yes, we were using tricks taught to us by Ewoks. I ask you not to judge; the classics have that status for the simple reason that they’re very effective. Nuclear weapons might be the most powerful destructive force ever devised by man, but a weight plus gravity plus a fulcrum is simple, reliable, and devastating when used correctly.

  The lead truck didn’t miss this development. The driver tapped the brakes fairly hard, which on pavement would have been exactly the right thing to do. Unfortunately for everyone in the truck, by that time they were on the sand behind me. The truck had a lot of momentum, which carried it forward.

  I saw it hit the trap, and the floor dropped out of the world.

  Not for me. I was past it. But the truck’s immense weight broke through the sand-covered plywood covering the trench we’d dug. It wasn’t all that large as trenches went, two feet deep and three wide, but that was more than enough to stop the thing dead. All that kinetic energy had to go somewhere, though, and the bodies on and in the truck didn’t have any say in the matter.

  Screams joined the sound of twisting metal as people sailed through the air in every direction. Several slammed against the swing set, one man bending in half as his spine met steel crossbar at high speed. I could hear the grisly crunch of his vertebrae popping like corn from forty feet away.

  The trench burst into flames, which caused a major panic among the injured still trapped in and near the truck. We hadn’t come to play softball; the hole contained a sort of homemade napalm and a remote starter powered by a battery. The leaking fluids from the front end of the truck only made the fire dance faster.

  I pulled the rifle from its cradle and raised it to my shoulder, intending to pick off the least injured Reavers first. Other shots began to ring out from the shooters hidden in the trees surrounding us. Our numbers weren’t large, an intentional move to keep potential fatalities to a minimum, so counting me only four people from our group were present. Three of us had rifles. The fourth had released the chains.

  Our carefully-laid plans went all to hell before I could aim my first shot. Tangles of bodies erupted from the damaged trucks in the space of a few seconds. A few of those thrown free staggered to their feet. All told, at least eight survivors stared me down with voracious hunger in their eyes. I watched as bullets tore through the flesh of the foremost pair, but the damage barely moved them.

  They rushed toward me, all at once.

  I’d brought the bike to a stop, and thanks to the sand I couldn’t just peel out. With a measured breath I fired a handful of rapid shots at the crowd and let the rifle fall on its strap as I turned to ride away. Time seemed to crawl and race simultaneously as I goosed the throttle, giving it just enough to start me moving without causing the wheel to spin out.

  If my life were a movie, this would be where I shake off one grasping hand, maybe letting go of the rifle as fingers snag its strap. I’d roll forward just fast enough to get away, leaving fewer enemies behind me than before, but enough to still be a problem down the road if not an existential threat. In that film, I’d look back at them over my shoulder and, depending on the director, either smile in victory or maintain my badass reputation by staying grim and stoic.

  But this isn’t that movie.

  A Reaver sprinted at me like Usain Bolt on PCP and speared me off the bike with a flying tackle, biting off part of my right ear in the process.

  Well, fuck.

  32

  There are bad days, and then there are days when a sorta-zombie does a Mike Tyson and leaves you permanently asymmetrical. The last thing you want to deal with on those days is a desperate fight for your life, but crawling into bed with a pint of ice cream and a good book wasn’t in the cards.

  My skin flared with heat as my pulse ticked into overdrive. Adrenaline and dopamine dumped into my system. My right hand danced at my waist as I rolled with my attacker, coming up with my knife.

  Fact: a severed aorta will lead to unconsciousness in ten seconds due to loss of blood pressure. Death follows within a minute.

  I cut that asshole deep enough to feel the top of my knife rake his spine. The blade wasn’t just sharp, it was irresponsibly sharp. I’d used my kit to hone the edge until Jem could shave hair off his arm with it. The messy tangle of wires and tubes constituting a human belly posed no challenge.

  Blood poured down the side of my head as mister bitey and I rolled apart. A cartoonish volume of the stuff gushed from his belly. I got lucky again; a pair of Reavers peeled off with that same ravenous gleam in their eyes and made for the easy, dying target.

  Coming to my feet, I tossed the knife to my left hand and snagged my pistol with my right. I didn’t posture or threaten, knowing neither would be effective. I just shot. Two more Reavers fell under my gun, five rounds through the barrel before the rest of them rushed me.

  What followed over the next thirty seconds defies easy description. You can’t explain a brawl any easier than a cat fight. It lends itself to poetry better than hard fact. I fought like I was possessed, all whirling limbs and constant twists. The Reavers came at me with fists and teeth, but I wasn’t like the victims they picked off one by one out in t
own. I’m not some brave soccer mom who hustled her kids into safety when the world went to shit, or a pimply teenager finding the first glimmers of valor inside him.

  In the puffs of sand kicked up by our fight, the grains finding their way into every piece of clothing and every square inch of my body, I was an armored death machine. Hands and teeth can’t fuck with Kevlar and ballistic plastic. Where the Reavers operated on rage and hunger, I had years of learning from my scars and a powerful urge to live guiding me.

  I fought hard, but for the first time I harnessed the raw power the Shivers gave me instead of falling prey to it. Which also let me fight smart.

  One Reaver, a woman, wrapped an arm around my neck from behind. I dropped my center of gravity and twisted my hips without conscious thought, chucking her into one of her buddies. Another grabbed at me with both arms extended. Like most men, his focus was entirely on upper body strength. While I’m no slouch in that area, I’m not all that bulky or powerful. In a contest of pure power, I’d lose.

  I kicked him in the balls as hard as I could with my steel-toed foot. The high, breathless squeal that whistled from his constricted throat was a thing of beauty. I followed through with a brutal elbow to his temple when he bent double from the pain.

  I’ve learned martial arts from several people. The man who taught me Judo lived by the code that there’s no such thing as dirty fighting, only different ways to end the fight. You pick whatever works best.

  I was in that same hyper-present state of mind from the motorcycle ride, deep in the zone where my coordination worked in flawless tandem with my training, when a voice like death itself cut through the air.

  “YOU,” it bellowed.

  At once, every Reaver still alive froze, then made themselves small. Bewildered, I looked around for the source.

  It was Len. Of course it was. He was still regaining his feet, having been thrown from the front truck. I guessed he was in the back, judging by the distinct lack of ‘oh shit I was just thrown face first through a windshield’ damage.

  My onetime captor had changed in the weeks since my visit to his basement. He hadn’t escaped the crash entirely unhurt; there were cuts and scrapes. The sleeve of his shirt was torn away, revealing arms laced heavily with scratches outlined in the faded black of Nero.

  I already knew he was the head asshole at the Reaver Ranch, but seeing him as he was then confirmed it. He was the alpha predator, obvious by his bulk. He ate as much as his disease-driven hunger wanted, and Nero wasn’t a slouch when it came to putting all that protein to use. Len fairly rippled with heavy muscle, deep red stretch marks showing on his exposed bicep where the skin hadn’t had time to expand properly. Even so, he was vascular. Like, Hugh Jackman vascular. He had so little body fat that he seemed like a cartoon, something drawn by an amateur with no idea what a healthy adult male was supposed to look like.

  I met his eyes, which were wild and bloodshot. No, that wasn’t exactly right—the whites were now completely red. Solid red, as if tinted that color. He stood thirty feet away, but had he been closer I was sure I’d see narrow threads of black running through them.

  “Me,” I said. I waved a hand at the bodies around us, then sang, badly off-key, “So you had a bad day…”

  “Make your jokes, cunt,” Len snarled, his voice badly broken. I could almost hear the blood running down his throat. “I’m going to eat you alive.”

  I tried not to shudder at the way his body tightened, muscles twitching. “Yeah, well, my last boyfriend said almost the same thing, but his skills in that area were not as advertised.”

  I actually heard one of the shooters in the trees laugh.

  Thanks, apocalypse, I’ll be here all week. Assuming Len didn’t tear my neck apart with his teeth.

  One of the things I’d stressed to the team was not to shoot anywhere near me if I ended up in this situation. I wasn’t afraid to take risks, but I’m not the girl who’ll yell for someone to just take the damn shot, either, if it means I might be the one catching the bullet. Not if I stand half a chance of walking away when the dust settles.

  Len growled, a rumbling burble deep in his chest, and burst forward almost faster than I could track. Whatever trance had put the fear of God into the other Reavers broke then, sending them into action once again.

  I tried to grab and raise my rifle but Len covered the distance too quickly for me to aim. His arm lashed out and hit my wrist hard enough to deaden the nerves in my hand. His other fist caught me in the left hip. How he didn’t break fingers punching that spire of bone, I have no clue, but fuck me it hurt a lot. My whole body twisted on its vertical axis like I’d been clipped by a small car.

  He was pure, unadulterated fury.

  Fact: at a certain level, power simply matters more than tactics, strategy, or intelligence. You can move the world with a big enough lever, but you have to be perfect. Anything less and the world just crushes you.

  That was what I faced: overwhelming force. Strength too fierce and unrestrained to be redirected or even deflected very well. He punched me in the shoulder, in the breast, in the gut. I vomited explosively at the last, spraying his face and chest with the remains of my morning oatmeal.

  Another fact: most people will recoil instinctively at certain stimuli, especially being exposed to the bodily fluids of another. Nurses with years of experience can’t stop themselves from this reaction any more than you or I could.

  Len was no exception. His iron fists and piston arms did him no good against my intestinal karate.

  “Argh,” he grunted in disgust as he staggered back, wiping away the stinking vomit from his eyes.

  I took that opportunity not to take a breath, but to draw a slim knife from my belt and jam it into his leg. I took the extra second to aim and put the blade into the joint of his knee, sliding it with great prejudice down behind his kneecap.

  I’ve been beaten severely more than once in my life. Physical pain and I are old chums. So I know without doubt that the Shivers makes pain sharper. Whatever advantages it gives us come with a cost.

  His bellow rattled my chest, but it also made me angry. Angry in a way that was new and immediate, a hateful magma scorching my veins. I expressed it by scything a knee into the side of his head, knocking Len over onto his side, still pawing at the knife jammed behind his patella.

  Gunshots rang out again, my team making sure the fight with Len was one-on-one. It was a good call on their part, because I was getting laser-focused on the dude.

  When I stepped forward and drew back my leg to kick him in the throat, he punched me right in the vagina.

  I nearly fell over. “You fucker,” I gasped.

  The next thing I knew, he was on his knees holding my own knife, which plunged toward my heart. I raised my left arm to ward him off, and the blade went through a gap on the armor all the way up to the hilt.

  I screamed. Loudly. Being stabbed is not a fun day at the spa. And oh, yeah, I was absolutely mentally present for that. The sense of the world and I flowing together in happy unity extended to having a length of steel rammed through my arm by a psychopath.

  Rather than let him regain any balance or momentum, I sprang forward and launched myself at Len bodily, folding my legs up and slapping my knees together as I slammed into him. Much like lofting an engine block, even the kinetic energy of a smallish woman will knock most guys on their ass.

  I landed awkwardly, and we got to wrasslin’.

  Hundreds of hours of ground work prepared me for that moment, but even so I was sorely pressed to stay alive. What Len lacked in practice or skill he made up for in being slippery as a greased snake and ludicrously strong. I would go for a joint lock that would let me apply enough leverage to break a limb, and he’d punch me in the ribs hard enough to make my heart stutter. Chokes were equally worthless, because any time I went near his neck, he’d snap at me or just dig his fingers into my muscles until I screamed.

  It wasn’t even as pretty as a mixed martial arts match, so it
certainly was no master class. We writhed and struggled, exchanging labored grunts and pained cries as sand ground our skin to hamburger.

  I kneed Len in the junk again, and the burst of rage was almost nuclear. He grabbed me and shook me, then slammed me onto my back hard enough to knock the wind out of me. In the stunned second it took my system to catch up, he got his hands around my neck and squeezed, bending his elbows nearly ninety degrees and bearing down on me.

  I choked out meaningless sounds and felt like a complete fool. How many times had I practiced for this exact moment? Dozens? Hundreds? I knew at least five working defenses for it, but the attack was so fast and brutal that every one of them flew from my mind, rational thought frightened away like startled birds.

  The world began fading to black at the edges. I raised my hands to push him away, but they were heavy. So heavy. My fingers could barely reach his face even though the distance was perfectly manageable. My mind cleared even as my consciousness began fracturing, and I tried to gouge out an eye.

  My stupid, weak fingers were shrugged away as if I were a child.

  Perhaps spurred by my impending death, Nero gave me one last burst of adrenaline. The world sharpened a bit, dots once more making a picture instead of being random bits of information. My arms, barely maintaining their position in front of me, came into focus.

  As carefully as I could, I let my right hand fall, trying to make it look like I was finally giving up the ghost. My right hand came to rest on my left forearm. Right on the hilt of the knife stuck in it. I didn’t even try to pull it out—the mechanics of it were nearly impossible, and there wasn’t time.

  Instead I grabbed my left wrist and used my right hand to guide and give the hit power, and drove the slim knife handle into Len’s left eye socket.

  33