by Jon Cronshaw
Abel swallows and nods.
“You back?”
“Yep.” Abel leans down and throws more wood onto the fire.
“What happened, bro? I thought you were clean?”
Abel shrugs and looks towards the flames. “They must have been right,” he mumbles. “You never really get clean.”
The bony man shakes his head and places a smoke-stained hand on Abel's shoulder. “That's too bad, bro. You gave me hope. It's too bad.”
An involuntary twitch quivers at the corner of Abel's mouth. He frowns and looks around at the cars. “I need to find somewhere to stay.”
The bony man nods. “You got any plez? Just one. Just to keep me going.”
Abel opens his hands. “I got nothing. All out.”
“Come on, bro. Just one. That's all I’m asking.” He drops to his knees, tugging at Abel’s coat.
Abel sighs and shakes his head, pulling away. “I swear, I haven’t got any.”
Anger flashes across the bony man's face, his purple eyes bulging with rage. “Yeah? Screw you.” He spits on the ground.
A couple of dealers look over. Abel moves across to his left, making sure he’s obscured by the smoke. “You look after yourself,” he says, looking back at the bony man.
He zigzags around the trucks and cars, avoiding the wandering dealers and keeping out of the way of other addicts.
When he’s about twenty metres away from the campervan, he ducks behind a burnt-out car, raising his head occasionally to catch a glimpse of the dealers huddled around the trailer of a wrecked truck. He counts four of them, all of them with rifles. They stand between him and the campervan.
He gets up and knocks into a man when he turns. “So sorry,” he says, reaching down to help him up.
“Get your damn hands off me,” the man says, turning to Abel.
They stare at each other for a long moment.
“I thought you were dead.”
The wizard staggers to his feet, stumbles back a few steps, and gives Abel a haunted look. “I am.”
The wizard’s robes hang tattered and frayed, limp and filthy, his eyes rimmed with purple. Skin droops loose off his face. His fingers tremble.
“You on plez?”
The wizard nods. “What you want from me, man? We're done.” He goes to leave.
Abel grabs the wizard’s shoulder. “I thought you were dead. This isn't about you. That’s not why I’m here.” He drops his hand and nods towards the campervan.
“You still on with that? I'm glad I left you, man.”
“What happened?”
“You happened. You ruined everything.” He glares at Abel.
“You can't blame me for this. We tried to help those kids because it was the right thing to do. But this...” He makes a gesture towards the wizard. “That's not my fault.”
“Remember when I asked you about plez? Remember when you told me how wonderful it was? How it was the most amazing feeling you ever experienced?”
Abel clenches his fists. “I also told you how hard it was, how it ruined my life, how it nearly killed me.” He shakes his head. “This isn’t on me.”
The wizard turns as if to leave and then charges shoulder-first into Abel's gut. They tumble to the ground and the wizard mounts him.
Abel curls his legs and arms into a defensive position as he gasps for air, stones digging into his back. The wizard pummels him with punches and elbows, snarling as he swings his arms wildly.
Abel rolls to his right, hurling the wizard off him and sending him crashing headfirst to the ground. The wizard screams out in pain.
Breathless, Abel forces himself to his feet and places a boot on the wizard’s throat.
“Don't hurt me, man,” the wizard gasps, waving his hands.
Abel looks around to see a pair of dealers readying their rifles. “Damn it,” he says, removing his foot. He yanks the wizard up by the elbow. “We need to go.”
The wizard looks over to the dealers. “You think I’m coming with you?”
“I’ve seen them kill for less. Trust me.”
The wizard holds Abel’s gaze for a long moment and then nods. They turn and run, racing through the Grid until they reach the highway, the night sky closing in as they disappear into the shadows.
They make camp at the edge of a clearing about fifteen minutes north of the highway. The campfire spits and crackles. Abel prods it with a stick.
“Where's that dog of yours, man?” the wizard asks, leaning with his back against a tree.
Abel swallows and stares into the darkness. “She’s dead,” he says flatly.
“That's too bad. She was a good dog.”
“Yep.” He sits on the ground next to the wizard and looks up at the stars. “I can't believe you ended up on plez.”
“You don't look so clean yourself.”
He shakes his head, smirking.
“What's funny?”
“I'm still clean.” He turns to the wizard. “I used berries to make my eyes purple. Thought it would keep the dealers from suspecting.”
The wizard laughs and looks at the flames. “I miss this,” he says. “Travelling the roads with you was alright, man.”
Abel takes a deep breath through his nose and clenches his fists. “Why did you run out on me? Why did you take my stuff?”
The wizard shrugs, shifting his gaze down to his broken fingernails. “I don't know, man. Things got a bit crazy. I was hurting. Needed to pay you back.”
“Pay me back for what?” He turns to the wizard, narrowing his eyes.
“Getting me shot.” The wizard points to his limp shoulder.
“Right,” Abel says, gritting his teeth.
“It seemed wherever we went, we’d get into some sort of trouble. I was in pain. I was angry. I blamed you, man. So I left. I wasn't thinking straight.”
They stare into the darkness for almost a minute before Abel speaks. “I went back to Town,” he says, turning to the wizard. “Ended up that a couple of the kids we freed were from there.” He reaches into his backpack and pulls out a folded polythene sheet. “Big Ned gave me this to say thank you. I want you to have it.” He drops the sheet onto the wizard's lap.
The wizard looks down, grips it, and looks up. “Thanks, man.”
“He was really pleased that you got Mister Fluffy to live and it helped save his boys.”
A snort of laughter erupts from the wizard. “I'd forgotten all about that thing,” he says, slapping his knee. He wipes a tear and smiles.
“How did you end up on plez?”
The wizard tenses and rubs the back of his neck. “I don't know, man. Some raiders took my mule and set fire to my cart. I was hurting. I ran into this dealer on the roads. She gave me some plez, said it would help with the pain. She didn't even want nothing.”
“Sounds about right.”
“Thing is, you were right. I took it and it was amazing. I’d spent so long talking about magic, but this...this is real. It’s like nothing else.” The wizard licks his lips. “You know this, already.”
Abel says nothing.
“Next day, I started to feel tremors. All I could think about was getting more plez. It took me a day to get to the Grid. I gave them pretty much everything I had for a couple of crystals. It seemed worth it.”
Abel shakes his head, staring down at his hands. “I'm really sorry.”
“I wandered round for a bit then got into one of those old cars. I lit up. Don't get me wrong, it was still amazing, but it wasn't quite there, it didn’t reach that pinnacle. So I took another one. And another. And another.”
“You never get the first high back,” says Abel, adding another few branches to the fire. “You’re always chasing it. But you never get it back. Everything else is just...”
“Flat.” The wizard hunches over and sobs. “I can’t get it out of my head, man.”
Abel moves close and puts an arm around him. “I know,” he says. “I know.”
After several minutes, the
wizard sniffles and sits up. “I want to help you, man. This is no life for a kid. You got a plan?”
“Yep.”
28. The Whale
Abel stashes his coat and rucksack in a fern bush at the side of the road, taking his knife and leaving his pistol behind. “You okay?” he asks, handing one of the pans to the wizard.
Sweat drips from the wizard’s brow as his lips tremble. He runs his hands over his face and nods. “I'm alright. Starting to get a bit twitchy. Just got to keep focused.”
They walk side-by-side on the highway towards the Grid, the first moments of sunrise emerging behind them, reddish purple fingers creeping into the darkness ahead.
“You still want to do this?” Abel asks.
“Don't ask me that, man.” The wizard nods towards the Grid. “If I stop to think about it for too long, I know I’ll change my mind.”
“Right.” Abel wrinkles his nose at the stench of the sewerage ditch. He moves to the edge and looks down at the filth. Gagging, he lowers himself down, sewerage coming up to his waist.
“What you doing, man?” the wizard asks, running over.
“It's the only way to get around the back of that van.”
The wizard screws up his face and picks something from his hair. “Yeah, but, man...”
Abel wades through the filth, resting the saucepan on his shoulder as he slowly trudges forward. He coughs and splutters as he tastes the stream, gulping as it stings his eyes. He follows the ditch round to the right and looks over his shoulder as the wizard moves out of sight.
Lowering his head, Abel's chin hovers inches above the surface. Something like bone crunches beneath his feet. He fumbles for a moment with the matchbox gripped between his fingers and the saucepan's handle. “Damn it.”
After five minutes forcing his way through the filth, the ditch curves round to the left, becoming shallower with every step.
He looks across the cars, searching for the wizard as the rising sun shimmers across exposed metal. The fires from the night before lie in ashy piles. Thin streams of smoke rise here and there. Tightness grips his chest.
A few people shamble around at the other end of the Grid, most asleep or in a stupor inside cars. He catches a glimpse of a quick spark as someone lights-up. He places the pan on the dry ground and heaves himself up from the muck.
Shuffling along on his belly, he crawls across the dusty ground until he reaches the back of the campervan. He cups his hands around his eyes and looks though the window, finding the van empty apart from a couple of wooden crates brimming with tiny purple crystals.
His breath catches in his throat as the adrenaline surges through his body. He daubs the van with napalm. He lights a match and staggers back as bright white flames engulf the van.
Heart thundering in his chest, Abel turns his attention to a nearby truck. He checks the trailer is empty, then daubs its sides, and sets them ablaze.
He charges between the truck and the campervan. The fires burn ferociously around him as a gathering crowd of addicts stands and stares.
He runs over to the truck where the slaves are held and shoves open the shutters. A group of confused faces stare back at him, their eyes rimmed with purple. Shouts come from behind him and a bullet whizzes by. “Damn it.”
He barges through the crowd as the slavers make chase. Glancing back, he sees two of the slavers pursuing him. A third slaver, approaching from the left, loads his rifle with agitated urgency.
Abel dives, rolling underneath a truck before emerging from the other side.
“You did it, man,” the wizard says, watching the flames. “Look at those things burn.”
“I need to get those kids out.”
The wizard nods. “Go.”
“I can't. There are too many...”
“I'll distract them. Go. Now!”
Abel scrambles to his feet as the wizard charges through to the Grid's southern-end. He takes a wide arc through the vehicles and jumps when cars behind him explode in an inferno of napalm.
When he reaches the truck, the kids are already outside, looking around in confusion. A flicker of recognition passes over their faces as Abel holds out his hand. “Come with me,” he says. “Take each other's hands. Come on.”
The kids frown and share bemused glances.
“Now!”
The kids link hands and snake their way through the Grid towards the highway. Cars and trucks burn to the south. Some addicts tip over vehicles, start more fires, and turn on dealers.
Reaching the highway, Abel looks to the far end of the Grid to see the wizard standing on top of a truck. He flicks globs of burning napalm at the slavers as they circle him. The truck catches fire. The slavers let off gunshots. The wizard drops to the ground.
Abel calls out.
29. Sanctuary
The kids stagger in a confused line as Abel leads them east along the highway. They follow along wordlessly, passively, the road behind them clear. A scattering of addicts wander on the road leading towards the Grid. But no one from the Family follows.
Abel turns to address the kids, looking at their desperate faces, their pitiful, purple-rimmed eyes. “We need to keep going. You’re going to be safe. You’re going to be free. But we’re not there yet. It’s going to be hard, and I need you all to work with me and help each other.”
They walk along the highway as fights break out in the distance and more flames climb from the Grid. The sky behind them fills with billowing black smoke.
Abel slows and looks around for the bush where he stashed his backpack. Finding it, he puts on his jacket, checks his pistol, and heaves the backpack onto his shoulders. Turning to the kids, he smiles. “Do you know Trinity?”
The kids stare back at him with blank expressions.
“That's where I’m taking you. You'll be safe there.”
One of the kids cracks a half-smile and stares at Abel with big green eyes. “Thank you,” she says with a scratchy voice.
“Come on,” he says. “We've still got a way to go.”
It's almost midday when they reach Trinity. Sal greets them at the gate. “Christ, Abel, you smell like a sewer,” she says, holding her nose.
He shrugs and steps aside, revealing seven scrawny kids with sickly expressions and tattered clothes. Sal's hand moves down to cover her mouth.
“I freed them, Sal.”
She shakes her head and blinks away a tear. “You have to get Jacob to look at them.”
“Before anything, I think we could all do with a drink and something to eat.”
“Of course, of course. Come inside. All of you.”
The kids stare at Sal with a nervous look. “It's okay,” says Abel. “You're safe now.”
When Abel’s eaten, washed, and changed his clothes, he goes to see Jacob, the surgery door open when he approaches. The sound of laughter comes from inside. He leans around the door to see a couple of the freed kids playing with a roll of bandage.
Jacob looks up from his desk and smiles. “You really came through for these children.”
“I wouldn’t have been able to do it without the wizard,” he says, sighing. “They killed him.”
Jacob pushes his fingers together and leans back in his chair, looking down his hooked nose. “Perhaps I underestimated him.” He looks around at the kids and makes a grim smile. “He sacrificed himself for all these lives. He was truly doing God's work on Earth.”
“Perhaps,” says Abel. “I just wish I could have saved him too.”
Jacob nods. “Not everyone can be saved.”
Abel looks down at Pip’s body resting on the floor as he stuffs the last of his clothes into his backpack. There’s a knock at the door. “Come in.”
Sal leans in, offering a warm smile. “You did what you set out to do, Abel. We’re very proud of you.”
“You’re going to look after those kids, aren’t you? I need you to take care of them, teach them right.”
Sal steps over Pip’s body and places a hand on Abe
l’s arm. “We’ll help them to be free from plez and point them in the way of the Lord.”
Abel shakes his head. “Just teach them to read and to do right — for me.”
“Like it or not, I know you are doing God’s work. If you lead them here, you lead them here for a reason.”
“Please, Sal. If the kids want to be into this God stuff, let them. But don’t put it on them. They’ve been through more than you could understand. Just show them kindness and let them trust you. Don’t make it about God.”
Sal tilts her head, looking deep into Abel’s eyes. “Okay,” she whispers. “They’ll have a home here, and we’ll do all we can to help them.”
“Thanks, Sal.”
She looks down at Pip, running a hand along one of her dreadlocks. “Would you like us to bury her?”
Abel takes in a deep breath and licks the dryness from his bottom lip. “I’ll take her with me. Not sure what I want to do yet.”
Sal leans forward and embraces him with a long hug. He feels her warmth against his chest, her breath against his ear. She kisses his cheek and pulls away. “You take care. You’ve had sadness, but you’ve also seen first-hand that there can be hope. Take hope with you on your travels. Do right.”
Abel nods and lifts Pip’s body under an arm. “I will.”
30. Ashes
Abel heads east along the highway, Pip’s body draping stiff over his shoulders. He takes a right and heads towards the place where the wizard discovered the quad bike. The trees lining the road stand in a silent vigil, the air still around him.
When he reaches the edge of the old town and the lawnmower shop comes into view, he looks around and raises his hands. “Hey,” he calls out. “Little girl?”
There's no sign of anyone, so he moves deeper into the town. Scanning across the tops of buildings, his gaze sweeps across broken windows and alleyways, searching for movement.
He walks around the bloated corpses of the man and woman from the Family, their bodies swarming with flies and stripped of clothes.
“Little girl?” He looks around again and lowers Pip’s body to the ground. He takes off his backpack and pulls out a blanket and a couple of food tins. “This is for you. I wanted to say thank you.”
