The Wounded (The Woodlands Series)

by Taylor, Lauren Nicolle

  One of the men kicked in what was left of a wood-framed sofa, breaking it into pieces and building a fire in the center of the room. I could hear Gus sharpening his knives and getting ready to skin the animal outside.

  Joseph walked into the kitchen and turned on the tap, leaning down to drink as the water slowly turned from brown to clear.

  Tonight we could relax, or at least try to. Tomorrow, it was a short drive, and then we would hike into thicker woods towards the Superiors’ compound.

  Smoke puffed gently past the rafters and into the air. The moon was a cut C-shape, barely casting any light. Delicious smells filled the room as Gus fried large saiga steaks over the fire.

  “That’s what you get for messing with me,” Rash said, staring at the steak between his hands. Gus leaned dangerously close to the fire and snatched the steak from Rash’s greasy fingers.

  “That’s what you get for disrespecting your food,” he growled through his bristled beard.

  Rash blinked in shock, fully expecting Gus to hand it back, which he didn’t. I searched through my pack and handed him a packet of crackers and some cheese.

  One of the Survivor’s chirped up, his voice rough and cheery, “And that’s what you get for messing with Gus!”

  We all laughed as Rash sulked and swore over his meager dinner.

  The Survivors’ faces were masked in firelight, smudging shadows under their eyes, which shone orange, like they were monsters. Kind-hearted monsters. They joked and jostled until the conversation turned to the mission. The laughs burned off their faces and the ready soldiers returned.

  I let their talk transform into stories and fairytales. I knew my part. I would let my imagination shelter me tonight.

  As evening changed to nighttime we all shifted and yawned, separating into the various rooms to sleep.

  Rash whispered to me as we parted at a doorway, “Can I trade partners with you? That Gus guy and me have a personality clash. You know, we just don’t… gel.” He rubbed his palms together. He didn’t really mean it. And maybe we weren’t supposed to joke about this stuff but this was his way of saying ‘I’m sorry it has to be you.’

  I shook my head, “And you and Joseph, you think you gel?”

  He tipped his head and slapped my back, “Point taken Soar,” and sidled off towards another room.

  We rolled out our sleeping bags, and once inside Joseph flipped onto his back and fell asleep immediately. I lay on my side with my arms close to my chest, thinking about Orry, wondering what part of the sky he was watching, what he was doing, and worrying. Apella pierced my thoughts in small snatches. She would always be a mystery to me. Images appeared of when we’d first met underground, her hair always a curtain hiding her from the rest of the world. She kept so much inside for so long, and now she was buried with her secrets. I sighed and rolled onto my back. Staring at the sky, I listened to the men and Olga snoring around me.

  I blinked, and a shadow crossed my vision briefly, like a cloud that was there one minute and gone the next. Then something hit my face. My fingers grazed something hard and grassy. A coil of rope.

  A black figure landed beside me with the lightest thump, covering my mouth with a leather-clad glove. His face was shadow, his voice light, melodic and almost cheery. “Shh! You don’t want to die, do you?” An accent I’d never heard before. I shook my head vigorously, my face stinging from his tight grip, my eyes trained on the sliver of silver I could see at Joseph’s throat. Black shadows tumbled from the sky, accosting every Survivor and clamping down on their faces before they had a chance to scream.

  *****

  The muffled surprise of Survivors bounced off the insides of their assailants’ hands. Some managed to get upright. Sneakers scuffled across the moldy carpet, making zooming noises. The Survivors strained and shoved against a solid, skilled foe. We were fighting shadows. The enemy darted, disappeared, and popped up behind you, always avoiding the punches. Some Survivors jumped out of their sleeping bags and fell forward, tangled by their own feet. Fists swung out and connected with black mist. It was a bundle of black cloth and flesh. There were too many. They were too fast as one by one, our men’s throats were grabbed tightly and arms wrapped around necks in an unbreakable hold. We pulled our feet back as we were dragged into the street, still struggling and flapping about futilely like fish in a net.

  As we passed the door and were forcefully led down the path, I watched Matthew’s head forced to bow forward at the pressure of the hold. His teeth gritted, he slammed his head back in a flurry of golden brown and head-butted the person strangling him. The shadow let go, cursing, and holding their now bleeding nose, but we were so outnumbered that by the time Matthew had managed to stumble forward a few feet, someone else had a hold of him.

  All the while, I was silent, my captors damp hand still tight over my mouth, my eyes bugging out as I watched my friends break free only to be caught again like flies in a web. It was a mess of scrabbling bodies and shadow. But the shadows were winning. They were in complete control.

  One of them stopped and turned to us, all still fighting against our bindings and getting nowhere. “Hey!” He held a Survivor by their dark brown hair, jerking his head back violently, exposing his throat.

  Joseph yelled, “No!”

  Gus screamed, “Wait!”

  But the silver edge nipped swiftly at the young man’s skin, a red line appeared, and then blood poured from the wound. He dropped to his knees and slumped forward, landing awkwardly on the ground with one cheek pressed to the pavement in a soundless prayer.

  “Who’s next?” the shadow yelled in an accented tone.

  Our eyes darted from side to side, trying to connect and tell each Survivor not to move, not to fight. I caught Rash’s expression, and it reflected my own terror.

  Everyone stopped struggling. Our own wills slumped as the poor Survivor had. Joseph strained against the vice-like grip to get to him, two men attempting to hold him back. They let him go suddenly, and he stumbled forward into a puddle. I gagged when I realized it was blood. He lifted the man’s head, which lolled at an unnatural angle, and swore. Then he was hitched up by his underarms and dragged away from the man. A Survivor I hadn’t even learned the name of yet, dumped in the street, lifeless like so many other inanimate objects that had been left behind. He was part of the prams and shopping trolleys now. I strained my neck, watching him as we were dragged further away, hoping he might move. But as the distance gained, he became a pile of immovable clothing, nothing more.

  Joseph walked slowly, trying to stay in line with me, his eyes angry, his muscles begging for a fight. I shook my head and gestured towards the motionless man in the street. Not now.

  As we were pushed further down the road, my eyes moved frantically from Olga, who was struggling to keep up, to Pelo, who strode proudly down the street, not letting them see his fear, to Rash, who looked bewildered and frightened. We were prisoners.

  I couldn’t believe we’d assumed we were alone in this world. This big world. It was so drummed in we didn’t question it. We were stupid.

  Our sneakers dragging and limping across the broken-up road were the only noises save the breath of the men guiding us. They were intent and silent, walking quickly through the center of the town and out the other side, where buildings five-stories high gleamed with unbroken windows turning towards a browning patch of overgrown lawn in a semi-circle. They were glum-looking buildings, despite being intact. I glanced up, noticing a white clotheshorse dangling over one the balconies, only to have my head pushed back to my feet. At the base of two of these grey buildings, we turned sharply and squeezed into the narrow gap between them. We bumped and scraped as our arms grazed the dimply, rough render and then popped out the other side into an old basketball court. I grinned stupidly, envisioning them challenging us to a game—my mind was hysterical. The men stopped dead.

  Fabric rustled, and then what little I could see was blacked out as sacks were thrown over our heads. We were prod
ded in the back and forced to walk forward.

  *****

  I counted our steps to five hundred, and then gave up. When we finally stopped, earthy and unfamiliar smells filled my nose. Metal scraped against metal, and the people spoke in a language I didn’t understand. A lot of shushing and swaying filled the words, making it sound fast yet comforting, despite the situation. Female voices dominated the conversation. I heard a child cry, and it spiked my heart. Where were we?

  My captor pushed me roughly to the ground, one hand still pressing deeply into my shoulder blade. They grabbed my arms and yanked them back, tying my hands tightly around a small tree. Someone’s fingers grazed my lower back reassuringly.

  “Rosa, is that you?” Joseph whispered through the cloth.

  “Yes,” I sighed.

  The sack was ripped from my head, and a pour of warm, golden light hit my eyes. Leathery tents formed a circle around three fires. Dark-haired women with plaits snaking down their backs squatted over large, metal pans, scraping and shaking. Their clothes were layered and dark. The men wore black. The smell wafted towards me, and I licked my lips without meaning to.

  “What do you see?” Joseph asked from the other side of the tree, as I watched the men walk towards the women cooking, leaning down to kiss them and smell the food.

  “Um, I don’t even know how to explain what I’m looking at,” I said, my eyes widening as a small child ran from a tent to his mother’s arms. She mussed his wiry hair, blew on spoonful of food, and fed it to him, cupping her hand under his chin lovingly. “What can you see?” I asked carefully.

  “Trees, chickens, and horses.”

  Trees, chickens, and horses?

  “Can you see the others?” I asked.

  “They’re all tied to trees just behind you,” Joseph answered.

  I craned my head, but all I could see was the tip of one sneakered foot. I couldn’t tell whose it was.

  One of the women closest to me snapped her head towards in our direction, like she’d only just noticed us. She turned to the man who’d just kissed her and shoved him, her words fast and angry. The man shrugged and gave an explanation, which she didn’t seem to like the sound of since she slapped him. He grabbed her wrist and I winced, expecting him to hit her back, but he just laughed and helped himself to the food she’d been cooking.

  She shook her head, scooped some food into a metal bowl, and made her way towards me.

  Her eyes were crinkled, her skin as dark as my own but with a more yellowish tinge to it. Her hair was silken black, almost blue, like the wing of a crow. She held a spoonful of food to my lips. I tried to decline, but she shoved it in my mouth anyway. I swirled it around, the complexity of the flavors bursting in my mouth.

  “What’s going on?” Joseph asked, trying to shift his position. He soon found out as the woman shuffled around to him and force-fed him some of her soup.

  “Just eat it. You saw what they did to that guy back there.”

  “His name was Ansel,” Joseph said sadly between mouthfuls.

  She fed all of us, throughout the day. Groups were led to the toilet and then tied back up. The day passed dusty and kind of hot, despite the ice creeping around the edges of the camp. They kept their fires so high and strong it fought back the weather.

  The day ebbed, and night flowed.

  A child of maybe eight or nine dragged a handful of coarse-looking blankets through the dirt and up to us. A woman stood back from him, hands on her hips, eyeing him carefully, proudly. He looked back at her, unsure, and she nodded. He gently draped a blanket over each of our laps, averting his eyes. When he got to me, I tried to catch his eyes and smile at him. He narrowed his eyes and smiled back, revealing a mouthful of fangs, each tooth sharpened to a point. I shuddered. The woman who was watching approached us, tapping the young boy on the bottom and ushering him away. She then proceeded to tuck each blanket awkwardly up to our chins. Then, through a series of hand gestures, ordered all of us to sleep.

  I tried to keep my eyes open but once the guards were posted and the fire had burned down to amber coals, my heavy head dropped to my chest, my chin grazing the rough rug, and I was out.

  The morning was filled with clanging and water boiling. Children played in front of me, as I struggled to comprehend what I was seeing. This was a small community of people who all looked very similar. They were certainly not All Kind; they were Own Kind, descended from the same race.

  With nothing to do except sit and observe, my eyes soaked in the details of this tiny tent town. They had simple dwellings and no technology. Small vegetable patches decorated the spaces in between and in front of the tents, and I watched the women harvest what they needed for our food as they cooked. It was like we had stepped back in time to thousands of years before the war. This was how humans eked out a life when there was nothing to help them. I appreciated the idea, but these people were not kind. They were animalistic. The children fought with teeth bared, the men were rough with each other and even rougher to us. Only one woman fed us and not out of kindness, it was her assigned responsibility.

  Gus tripped one up with a protruding foot to get attention. The middle-aged man he tripped, hissed and jumped up agilely, about to walk away. “Wait! What do you want from us? Why are you holding us here?” Gus clamored. The man smiled, giving me chills, and looked past the circle towards the sharp-looking trees. Woods so thick that they held together like a bundle of kindling. He shrugged and shook his head, unwilling or unable to answer. The trees weren’t offering one either, so he moved, kicking dirt in Gus’s face when he was a safe distance away.

  An hour later, I stomped the earth as the one who grabbed and threatened me in the brick building passed. Everything was still there, our packs, our handhelds, and my link to Orry. “You.” He stopped and turned, smiling and revealing a mouthful of gaps where teeth should be. “Yeees,” he said in a heavy accent.

  He knelt down, and I noticed his face was smudged with soot and dirt. His breath smelled of the strong flavors of last night’s dinner. I had to try. “What do you want with us?”

  He cocked his head to the side, thinking over his answer. His hand went to my face, his strong fingers digging hard into my jawbone as I tried to resist. “Preeeetty,” he kind of whistled through his teeth. He ran his hand down my shirt collar to my breastbone. I pushed my chin to my chest anxiously and looked up, locking eyes with the young man, with dark brown lips and narrow eyes. “You didn’t answer my question,” I said in a hard tone.

  He removed his hand and dusted it off on his muscled thigh. “Waiting. All Kind will tell.”

  I found myself squirming and twisting my wrists at his words. “Did you hear that?” I threw behind me.

  “I did,” Joseph answered tersely.

  These people answered to the Superiors.

  *****

  Mid-morning I was released to go to the toilet under the supervision of the young man with whom I’d had my enlightening conversation. I snapped my shoulders when he touched them, recoiled when he smoothed my hair, but he just shrugged and smiled at me with tarry gums.

  When I returned, I was tied up but, this time, we all faced inwards toward the center of the camp. My unwelcome friend grazed my cheek with the back of his sandpapery hand and left.

  The fires reached into the sky. The women swept the dirt that was threatening to become mud out to the edge of the camp with grass brooms, while a man placed rocks in a tight circle. I turned to Rash who, for once, had a serious expression on his face. Everyone’s gaze was turned towards the circle, all hoping we weren’t going to end up like Ansel.

  As I watched puffs of dust pluming and spraying against the trees in a red spritz, I began to understand more about what this culture was based on. Violence.

  Two men stood at the edge of the rock circle on their toes, like it was an abyss that would swallow them. Two women took their shirts and placed their palms to the men’s chests, leaving two chalky white imprints like the claw marks of a giant
cat. It was primal and savage, until she reached up on her tiptoes and gave him a peck on the nose. I raised my eyebrow and turned to Joseph. He was deep in thought, turning something over in his head as he stared past the circle and into the thickly wooded trees beyond the camp. The men placed two items at the edge—a worn, leather jacket and a heavy iron pot. I stifled the need to shout at them ‘What the hell is going on here?’

  Then they stepped into the circle and I was lost to the performance, the viciousness, the aggression of two men clawing and scratching at each other. But lightly. The balls of their feet pushed up and danced in the dirt, yet barely touched it. The movements were swift, the kicks gliding through the air in sweeping arcs.

  The Survivors eyes watched in equal parts horror and fascination. Except Olga, whose usually wobbly face was serene and expressionless like she’d shut down and was playing an alternate event in her mind.

  You found yourself rooting for one or the other. I liked the look of the smaller man; he had sharp teeth, two that looked almost like fangs, and this wild, exuberant expression on his face like he savored the harm he was receiving. The bigger guy was slower but stronger, continually lashing out and having his swings ducked.

  The small one flashed a pointy grin and ducked under a powerful punch, which threw the big guy off his balance. Reaching in, he slammed the big one in the side in several sharp, almost elastic punches. I gasped like I felt it, the wind knocking from my ribs. The big one gasped for air and doubled over, coughing blood. The small one took the advantage and brought his knee into the big one’s face with a sickening crunch. I cringed at the sound, like biting down on a shard of rock in your lettuce.