The Unmaker: Tower of Ayia

by Casey Herzog

  The tin wall of the shack exploded outwards as the creature smashed its way through. Dante screamed and tumbled back off his feet as a monster, that had clearly once been a human, lashed out with a clawed hand and caught his ankle. The boy kicked and struggled as he pulled his foot away, but the creature held on tight and hissed in wild fury. It was stronger than anybody had the right to be, and its eyes were two bloodshot wounds on a dirty, pale face with yellowing teeth.

  A blade slammed into its skull before it could do any more damage, Callum pushing all of his weight into the knife as he wrestled the mutant off Dante’s body.

  “That shouldn’t have been necessary,” he said, shaking his head with disgust, as he pulled the boy to his feet and got back onto his bicycle. “Let’s get out of here before the blood brings more of them out of their hiding places.”

  “Wait,” Dante urged. He had seen something within the shack the sub-human had just come tearing forcefully from. Callum impatiently hissed at the boy to leave it and follow him, but the healer waved him away dismissively. “I’m sorry, sir, but there’s something in here.” He stepped inside, past the massive hole where the improvised wall had been, and disappeared into the home.

  “Oh, come on,” Thorpe said with a grimace as he rushed to follow the boy into the house before it got any worse.

  It wasn’t necessary. The young boy stepped out of the shack just a second later, his face pale and his eyes wide. He carried something in his hand, something that made Callum’s blood freeze within his veins.

  “No…” he breathed, taking the item from the boy’s hand and bowing his head. It was a compass. The same compass he had gifted one of the others at the community before the group left on their search.

  “What does this mean, sir?” Dante asked, already making the connections in his young mind and understanding the magnitude of what he had found.

  Callum didn’t answer at first, simply shaking his head. Finally, he uttered a few hopeless words.

  “Let’s just keep looking.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The Bridge

  The healer looked at his teacher with sadness as the man rode in front of him. A large part of the man’s fire had extinguished when he’d seen the item from inside the shack, a feeling of loss passing over both of them. Clearly, the monster that had been hiding in the run-down home hadn’t taken the compass directly from the group; it had probably found the thing lying around somewhere. Most likely on a corpse, Dante thought. The sub-humans were known to still possess their human curiosity and picked up many items on their random patrols out in the wastelands, even using them if they still had enough brains to know how.

  “Sir, I think we’re getting close to the area where the gang was. I remember that bridge standing over the dried-up river over there.” He could see the tall bridge, its impressive form hanging over a tall chasm that disappeared down below into foggy darkness. He’d admired it as he walked along its expanse, managing to catch glimpses of a dry river bed beneath the mist.

  Callum grunted softly, his mind lost in thought. He hadn’t been able to get over the thoughts that assaulted his mind. They’ve been out on a thousand hunts and searches; what could have gone wrong? It was as frustrating and annoying as it was worrying. He felt anger rising within him. His people were just a caring group of adults who protected the weak and the lost in times of danger and despair. They did not deserve to be hurt or preyed upon. He checked his gun, fearing what he was capable of. Dante didn’t seem to remember much of what had happened that fateful day in that ugly, gang-infested plaza — it was for the best. The young boy’s memory had probably erased the events to keep his delicate mind safe. Callum felt much better with that bit of knowledge, unfortunately, whatever was coming would be equally as bad, or even worse.

  But he was wrong.

  As Dante rode closely behind the young, troubled teacher who had once been a soldier — though some said a man never stopped being a soldier — it all came back to him, the terrible, violent encounter that ended an intense night. Something triggered as he approached the territories the gangs called their home …

  And he remembered.

  One year ago

  He’d been separated from the others a day before, the other kids who he’d been traveling with having been caught up in a particularly violent bleaching that filled the night with the screams of sub-humans. Their desperate clawing on the doors of the hideout had made the group decide to stay in. Dante had actually been caught on the outside, but his quick thinking had managed to take him into the depths of a sewer tunnel. After following it for some time — the murky, stinking water clinging to his clothes and shoes — he emerged on the outside of Ayia’s plaza. The sun was all but set and he was hungry, his stomach hurting from its days-old emptiness. Even worse, he and his friends had heard from locals that there were several parties looking for him. It was a hopeless situation.

  Scavenging was always an option, though he could end up encountering something too dangerous to escape from. Despite the advantage of his healing, he’d never wanted to test how far his gifts could protect him from bullet or knife wounds, and he knew he could still lose his life in other ways.

  It had been a mistake from the beginning, going out alone into the plaza in the middle of the night, but Dante had been too hungry. He knew he couldn’t keep waiting for a meal, and perhaps the place would get more dangerous once the bleaching ended. No, he thought, I have to get food as soon as possible. Why had he left his only weapon, a crude knife, behind at the hideout with the rest of his things?

  An ugly, abandoned-looking store sat on one side of the plaza, behind a broken-down car with bullet holes in its windshield. The area wasn’t friendly, he noticed, so it was a matter of getting what he could find and getting out of there. There were a few wooden boxes piled up beside the entrance he’d have to check after he was done inside the actual store.

  He sprinted across the plaza with his head down, looking around and keeping his ears alert for the sound of footsteps. Nothing. He pushed the store’s door open slightly and allowed a few seconds to pass, just in case somebody fired through the doorway. There were empty cans of beans strewn across the ground, with signs of somebody having already come through. Hope began to drain from Dante as he moved from aisle to aisle and found nothing, until…

  “Yes!” he whispered, sticking his hand under one of the shelves and touching a box full of something. There were in fact two boxes: one of canned pasta, the other of sweet corn. It was a feast for a ravenous stomach; that was certain. He looked around and spotted a thin knife behind the counter, which he took and used to open the box and pierce one of the pasta cans. “Oh, wonderful,” he breathed, swallowing most of it in a single gulp before opening another can. He continued his search after eating, but found nothing more.

  The boxes outside, Dante remembered, and put the two boxes he’d found back in their place for now. Once outside, he stood in front of the pile of cases and—

  What was that? The young healer swallowed and crouched behind the boxes, peeking from between two of the cases as the sound of vehicles erupted from a place beyond the plaza. Shouts followed, angry and cruel voices that mocked and laughed. Ayia was known for its gang presence, a city with little good left within it, aside from a few helpful ‘rats’ in the shadows, as the merchants and medics called themselves.

  “The kid is here somewhere; don’t stop searching!” a voice growled. Dante jumped. The tone was clearly that of a cruel, sadistic leader. “Ah, and if you come across that guy from earlier, put a bullet in his head and be done with it!”

  Thinking of the rats, Dante thought, they’ve probably given my location away. Bastards. He looked around and spotted a shack. Someone moved inside, probably also hiding from these new arrivals. Surely, it was the mysterious ‘guy’ the gang member had mentioned. Four men were ordered forward to investigate.

  The warlord himself was a tall, ugly fellow with bionic enhancements covering half of his f
ace and one of his arms. He had six henchmen, all armed. One was coming straight at Dante, his rifle raised and pointing at the boxes as if he could see him. No, please, the healer begged silently as he prayed for the man to turn and…it’s too late.

  “Hey! Never mind! I’ve found him.” Dante’s hands wrapped around the knife in his hand as he stabbed forward several times, aiming for the man’s face. It was useless. It was torn from his grip with force, and he cried out as the man backhanded him across the face and mocked him.

  Dante felt the guy pat him on the head before another figure stepped out of nowhere and smashed the butt of his rifle into his gut. He couldn’t even cry out, the air having entirely rushed out of him.

  “Okay, that’s enough. Let’s go.” The leader threw Dante over his shoulder and he could do nothing to resist as the thug began to walk away from the plaza. And away from the food…

  Part of the warlord’s shoulder had also been enhanced, and it felt uncomfortable as he gripped him, Dante noticed as he fought to keep consciousness. His gift was already bringing him back to normal, though there was something else waking within him. Fury.

  Something happened suddenly; the man beneath him stiffened as somebody stepped out from the shack on the other side of the plaza. The sound of cocking guns followed, and the tension in the air was so thick Dante could have cut it with the knife stolen from him. He continued to kick and flail, causing the warlord to pull his metal grip tighter and clamp his steel hand down on the boy’s chest. Dante was growing angrier as each second passed. The man on the other side of the plaza spoke up.

  “I need the child. I’m taking him one way or another, so just hand him over peacefully.”

  The warlord laughed and spoke. Dante didn’t hear him; such was the pounding of his heartbeat in his ears.

  He looked up and he saw the sky. No, more importantly, he saw the moon.

  His hand curled into a fist as something shifted within him.

  As the first gunshot echoed around the plaza, the healer slammed his hands down on the thug’s shoulder and roared.

  SMASH

  The warlord cried out and seemed to collapse inwards as the enhancements on his upper body fell to pieces. The henchmen standing around turned in time to watch Dante falling to the ground on his stomach as the other man fired at them.

  It was hell. Dante cowered on the ground, dragging himself away from the screaming gang leader as bullets whizzed past above him. He covered his head, the barking of firearms and furious shouting filling him with terror as he pulled himself towards the stranger.

  “Come on!” the man shouted, “Almost there!”

  Freedom or death, the healer knew. It’s now or never.

  With one final furious and terrified scream, Dante stood and ran the last few yards.

  He looked down at his hands as his mind returned to the present.

  It had been the first and last time he’d been able to call upon whatever force he had used to break that man’s bionics. Maybe it had something to do with the moon, he thought for the hundredth time, but a voice in his head told him it was something else. Something deep within him.

  “Keep your eyes up and on the road. We’re in gang territory,” Callum scolded. The dark sky rumbled softly with the sound of a distant storm. There was a fire burning far away in the city beyond.

  Dante nodded. He looked at the man in front of him with added respect. That night, Callum had turned into a legend in his eyes. Holding off the six henchmen at once, even through the pain of multiple wounds he had received in the firefight…it was an amazing memory he’d cherish forever. Arriving at the community to heal all of the sick and wounded had been all the more gratifying because of what he had gone through.

  “There’s someone up ahead,” the healer indicated as he braked his bicycle.

  True enough, there was a figure sitting on the edge of the bridge, looking outwards with his hands clasped on his knees. He or she had to be fearless, Dante thought, as he looked at the fall once more.

  “Be cautious, I think I’ve taught you enough to know that this person is not alone by any means.” He got off his bicycle and began to push it along, resting the rifle on its handlebar. “If they give us any trouble, we deal with them in a permanent manner.” Callum felt guilty showing this side of himself to the innocent child, but there was no other choice in this new world but to adapt to the rules. Survival of the fittest.

  The hooded figure turned long before they reached the bridge, pulling down the cowl and staring at the two approaching strangers. Dante finally caught proper sight of the person. It was a young and handsome, pale white man with very closely cropped hair and a smile.

  “Hello!” he shouted over the distance separating them, the echo of his voice spreading down to the abyss below. “What an interesting view out here. I had expected to spend the rest of the day alone.”

  Callum faked a smile.

  “Sorry for interrupting your privacy. We’ll be on our way once we’ve passed the bridge.” One of his hands was wrapped around the rifle’s trigger guard, and Callum hoped the man wasn’t stupid enough to throw away his life by doing anything silly.

  “You should join me,” the man said, waving the man and the boy to a spot beside him. “There’s space for you and the lad. Plenty of space,” he said, ignoring the rifle pointed at him as if it wasn’t there. He began to turn where he sat, sliding off the rail onto the metal bridge. “You could even—”

  “That’s far enough,” Callum barked. He and Dante had finally reached the edge of the bridge and the teacher had lost his patience for the man’s cheer. “We’re going to cross the bridge and that’s that. Keep watching your view; we won’t bother you.” He signaled for Dante to cross first; the child did so nervously. The man with the hooded jacket was resting against the rail, staring at him with his creepy smile. The mask concealed part of Dante’s face, but his otherworldly eyes were still visible, a unique feature that only he possessed.

  “I see,” the man muttered. “You can keep on going then. It’s a pretty day. Too pretty to throw away my life.”

  Callum nodded.

  “Of course.” He crossed quickly, passing the bicycle to Dante and lifting the rifle with both hands. Callum wanted to keep going, but he knew something was up with the stranger on the bridge. “Who are you with, friend?”

  The other man’s smile faltered slightly. He wasn’t enjoying being treated like this.

  “I’m on my own. Like I said — watching the view,” he said with a smile as he spread his arm across the dark horizon. A flash of lightning lit up the distant sky as if to punctuate his point.

  “Are you going to keep lying,” Callum growled, “Or am I going to have to force the answer out of you?” He knew the fool belonged to one of the gangs and was probably waiting for them to leave to signal new arrivals. Heck, if a group of them isn’t nearby watching and waiting for me to lift my weapon any higher before springing out and taking us away, I’d be amazed.

  “Sir,” Dante whispered, “Let’s just go.”

  “I have a question for him,” the soldier replied to Dante as he changed his tone. He turned back to the stranger. “Very well, I wish to know if you’ve seen a group of travelers come through here. Eight men and women were scavenging for food and medicine for a peaceful community. They weren’t looking for trouble.”

  The man pretended to think for a few moments before closing his eyes and shaking his head.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, before adding, “Rare for people to come out here not looking for trouble.” He stared at Callum’s firearm as he said that, letting out a soft chuckle.

  Callum sighed and nodded, staring at the smiling man for a few more moments before turning and leaving. The soldier and the healer got onto their bikes and began to pedal away.

  “Good luck on your journeys and your search!” the man called after them as he turned back to his place on the bridge’s ledge. “These are dangerous times!”

  CHAPTER FIV
E

  Lord of Lawlessness

  Ayia began to become visible, its tall buildings and wide streets a sight for Dante’s and Callum’s sore eyes.

  “Are you aware this city was once the center of the entire movie and music industries?” Callum asked. Dante shook his head. “Back when watching a film and listening to a song on full blast were actually the simplest things one could do in a large city like this one.”

  “Which songs did you like?” the healer asked, turning attentively towards his teacher.