Keepers of the Flame

by McFadden III, Edward J.

  “You really think that’s a good idea? You have no idea where it leads,” Hazel said.

  “True. But there might be something good down there,” he said.

  Darkness pressed in around them. “I don’t know. It’s going to be hard enough to find our way out of here as it is. We did good. I say we retreat and come back another day when we have some bark rope with us. That way we can run a guide line.”

  Randy harrumphed, but said nothing.

  Rusty pipes ran along the bulkhead, disappearing into darkness. The pipes were made of metal, and he would trade their location to a crew that could come in and salvage them. Hazel and Randy only cared about the light stuff, things they could use or trade without getting harassed by their parents or the council. Only islanders authorized by the council could salvage the Eco, and if a fire master discovered what they were doing, they’d be stuck hauling everyone’s wood for six months.

  Randy sighed. Hazel knew the sound well. He’d made a decision.

  “I’m going to try,” he said. He tightened the rag covering his nose and mouth, then bent and pried off the cover. He banged his head as he squirmed into the duct, grunting and panting as he did so. Dust bellowed from the opening, and the sounds of Randy’s struggle echoed throughout the wreckage.

  Hazel coughed and sneezed, dust and dirt filling her nostrils.

  A voice echoed back through the duct. “Looks like the metal is crushed ahead. Don’t know if I can get through.”

  “Come back then. If you get stuck, we’re screwed.”

  “Don’t be bezoomny.” He grunted and the metal ductwork popped as it flexed.

  Hazel stood in the darkness, the sound of breathing and the faint rumble of the ocean filling the silence. After a minute, she yelled, “Randy? You OK?”

  “Umm. I think I’m stuck. You jinxed me.”

  “How bad?”

  “I can’t move.”

  “Great. Now what?”

  Silence.

  “I’ll tell you what we’re gonna do. We’re gonna leave his Hendricks ass.” Ben Hasten grabbed Hazel by the arm. He’d crept up on her in the blackness. “I thought I told you to stay away from him?”

  “Thought you might be worried because we came in here,” Hazel said. She could have gotten badly hurt, but his feud with Randy’s dead grandmother was still in full swing for him.

  “Don’t talk wise.”

  Hazel’s arm hurt. The old man was still strong, but she didn’t cry out or say anything. She wouldn’t give the drunk the satisfaction.

  “Hello?” Randy’s voice boomed down the duct.

  “What were you doing in here? You’re not allowed in here,” Hazel said.

  Ben was silent in the darkness, then he sparked a torch.

  Ben’s eyes were red with wine, but she saw doubt there. Fear.

  “Don’t tell me about authorization,” Ben said. “I feared for you two so I followed you in. Being a good grandparent and all that shit. And I’ll take this…” He grabbed her case and the sack of salvage. “Let’s go.”

  Hazel stood her ground.

  “I said let’s go. Now,” Ben said.

  “I’m not leaving him here.”

  “Why? This is poetic justice. They teach you what that is in that silly school?”

  Hazel said nothing.

  “Hazel? Who’s there with you? Are you OK? Hazel?” Randy yelled.

  “I’m gonna do to Sarah’s grandson what she tried to do to me. Now let’s go,” Ben said. He lunged forward grasping for her arm, but missed and fell.

  “Shit!”

  Hazel laughed and danced back and almost tripped on a ceiling light. She looked down on her grandfather with pity. If her father, Peter, was with her he’d say, “He don’t mean it. He’s just drunk.” But Hazel thought he did mean what he said. She thought he meant every word.

  Ben’s flame winked out, and the passageway went dark.

  “Get him out if you can, then meet me outside. Follow the piping,” Ben said, and she heard him move away.

  That hurt more than anything he could have said. He left her there in that place when she needed his help. He didn’t care about her. All he cared about was a fight he’d lost a long time ago.

  Hazel stuck her head in the duct and saw nothing but blackness. “You there?”

  “Yeah,” Randy said. “Who’s there?”

  “Nobody. Relax. Pretend you’ve been sucked under by a wave. Let your body go limp and take in a deep breath.”

  She heard the duct pop as it flexed.

  “I moved a little. Hang on.”

  Hazel waited in the darkness as Randy worked himself free. It took an hour, and he was dripping blood and covered in dirt and rat shit when he emerged empty handed for his efforts. She went to hug him and then thought better of it.

  “Grab the stuff and let’s get out of here,” Randy said.

  “About the stuff.”

  “What?”

  “My grandfather was in here and he took it from me,” Hazel said.

  “Great,” Randy said.

  They followed the pipes out. It was slow going in the dark, but as they got closer to the entrance hole, the darkness thinned and they went faster.

  They exited into the midday sun, and Hazel rinsed the crud off her face and hands.

  “Here he comes,” Randy said.

  Hazel looked up to see her grandfather stalking through the shallows toward them. She scowled when she noticed he no longer carried their salvage. A small crowd had formed on the beach behind him and people were coming out of their shacks.

  Ben went right by her and grabbed hold of Randy. “Where’s your pa, boy?”

  “Shit don’t mean shit,” Randy said.

  Ben slapped him hard and Hazel yelped.

  “That all you got, old man?” Randy said.

  Ben glared at him and said, “If I catch you with her again, I’ll kill you.” He turned, grabbed Hazel by the wrist, and marched off toward shore, dragging Hazel through the ocean.

  Chapter Twenty

  Year 2075, Pass Christian Armory, Mississippi

  Tye sat with his back to the courtyard door, soaking in sunrays that peeked over the parapet wall. It was chilly, and his muscles ached and his joints screamed. Six years of confinement had taken its toll on all of them, but he more than the others. According to Tester’s ongoing calculations he’d turned sixty-eight a few weeks ago, April 15th, tax day. Where had the time gone? He’d left on a cruise while on leave, and now he was going to die a prisoner in Mississippi. He hadn’t seen that coming.

  Axe’s shock-trained virals always watched, and their unseen eyes tracked him at all times. The walls of his prison were climbable, but took great effort and skill, and getting to the top had gotten him shot in the leg. With no medicine, it had taken six months to recover, and his leg still hadn’t healed right. Despite this, the climb hadn’t been a total loss. He’d seen across the top of the armory and learned the reason they occupied the courtyard. Their portion of the prison was surrounded by the viral’s space and the maze of hallways and locked doors Milly took to get to the courtyard passed through the Uruk’s prison. The courtyard had five doors; the one they used and four others that were locked and unbreakable. They led into viral territory, so he didn’t see the point of trying to get them open. Without weapons and as weak as they’d become, he didn’t see a way they could fight through.

  Tye’s head ached, his eyes hurt, and his legs weighed a thousand pounds each. The same walls, the same food. Nothing to do but fantasize about home, about the people they’d left behind. Rain clouds gathered overhead. April showers bring May flowers.

  Jerome had taken ill and died last year, but Tye lost track of when. Every day blended into the one before and the day after. Wake and go sit in the courtyard, wait for Milly. Eat, sit, sleep, shit, and repeat. The food was good, and he moved around, but mentally he was as sharp as a cloud.

  Tester and Ingo still thought they’d make it to the final guidesto
ne, and they chortled and laughed like life in the armory was a waiting room outside a big party, and soon they’d join the fun. Axe had taken everything from them, including the map and book containing the calendar information, but Tester had pointed out neither mattered. They knew where they were going, and Tester continued his tracking of the days via etch marks in a stone wall behind a cabinet.

  The prisoners spent most of their time outside in the courtyard, though there was nothing there except a few straggly shrubs, a table, and some chairs. They kept track of the stars, scratched games in the dirt, told tales of home and before The Day. The interior of the armory was large and dirty, but they had running water and a toilet and shower.

  Tester was a tough old bird, but Robin and Ingo weren’t doing well. Robin had hidden away within herself. The confinement had worn them all down beyond anything he’d ever experienced. Tye remembered his days on the battlefield, and they’d been harsh and gruesome, but fast. Imprisonment was a game of the mind, a long con, and after six years of being caged, Tye was losing his grip, and Robin teetered on insanity. Ingo refused to get caught up in the doldrums. Instead, he talked endlessly of the turtle, not eating or sleeping enough, and wasting away. He preached how their imprisonment was just part of the turtle’s master plan, and that everything would work out. He described his vision of the five of them standing before the turtle over and over, fine tuning each detail of the scene in his mind’s eye.

  Tye worried most about Milly, who had checked out. She came most days, but they had stopped conspiring over a year ago. She said Axe never touched her, and didn’t make her do anything she didn’t want to, but it appeared she was being drugged.

  Over the years the fellowship made several attempts at escape, none of which even approached success. He’d climbed the wall three times and got shot the last time. Tester dug a tunnel and almost drowned. Then they focused on the way Milly entered their prison. They tried sending someone else back instead of Milly. Milly pretended to lock the third door as they stormed the passageway as she made her way to the second door. She’d tried to attack Axe when he had all three keys. They’d been defeated every time, and Tye had given up trying to figure it out. He waited, trying to stay alert so that when a crack formed, he could take advantage of it. A crack always formed. Time saw to that.

  There was a knock on the door and Tye inched over on his butt out of the way. Milly came through and closed the door behind her. She didn’t say hello, or good morning. Nothing. She walked to the center of the courtyard where a table sat under a decayed and half collapsed cupola and placed the supply crate on the table and sat down. She found the handcuff key on the table, released herself, and placed the handcuffs before her and waited.

  When she spoke, Tye was startled. Milly hadn’t used her voice in so long it cracked and gave out on her. “The fu… cke… er is sick. He’s gonna die.”

  Tester stopped mid-sentence, and he and Ingo stared at her. Even Robin looked away from her nothingness and turned to Milly. Tye smiled. They’re in there, hiding beneath years of callus, but his friends weren’t all gone yet.

  Tye sat next to Milly and was soon surrounded by the rest. “Take seats guys. Eat.” Tye said, then he whispered, “Act normal. Keep your voices low.”

  “He th…rew up blo… ood last night. I saw it. He’s cou… ghing all the time,” she said.

  “We don’t know how old the fart is, but perhaps it’s his time. That would be a stroke of luck,” Robin said.

  “Would it? I don’t know where the keys are,” Milly said.

  Tye sighed. He’d known early on that Milly killing Axe with her bare hands was the only way they were getting out, but Milly couldn’t do it. She wasn’t a killer, and the two times she’d tried to incapacitate Axe she’d been beaten badly. “You need to take him down when you leave,” Tye said.

  “With this,” Tester said. His eyes shifted to Tye, and he nodded. With the deft handedness of a card shark of old, Tester slid her a garrote made from wire he and Tye had foraged from a basement wall. They’d worked in the pitch-black for two weeks, feeling around the crumbling walls looking for a way out.

  “How did he look when he brought you here?” Tester asked.

  “Fine. He still went through the entire routine. Still hoods me even though he knows I know the entire place like the back of my hand. It’s like he’s caught in a loop and isn’t aware of it.”

  “Like us,” Robin said.

  “Except we know we’re on a hamster wheel,” Tye said.

  “What?” Milly said.

  “Nothing.” It still amazed Tye that memories from the gone world still came to him regularly. Old sayings, things nobody under forty would understand.

  “Some of the virals are just wandering off and he hasn’t done anything. We should wait. When he knows he’s going to die, he’ll tell me where the keys are and give me the shock-box,” Milly said.

  “Yeah, sure,” Tye said. “We’ve been here over six years, Milly. Six years of my life spent in a cell because this nut-ball misses his dead daughter.”

  “We talk sometimes,” Milly said.

  “About?” Tye said.

  “The gone world. He talks about his memories as though I was with him. Like the time we went to Disney World. He remembers it vividly, what I said, did.”

  “You mean what his daughter did,” Robin said.

  “Yes, see, he even has me doing it.”

  “We’ve heard all this crap before,” Tester said.

  Tye took an apple from the crate, and the others followed his lead and dug in. They ate in silence for a short time, everyone waiting for him to lay out the plan. Tester ceded control to Tye, as he was skin and bones and looked three weeks dead.

  “You have feelings for him?” Tye said.

  “In a way. He wasn’t a bad man before The Day, Tye. You have to remember that,” Milly said.

  “Yes, but it’s not before The Day.”

  “He told me my future, warned me of how I’ll die,” Milly said.

  When nobody spoke, she continued. “Adaline was eighteen. A track star, whatever the shit that is. Blonde hair, blue eyes. He showed me pictures. Way prettier than me, but there is a slight resemblance. The gone world hung on a little longer in these parts, and Axe retreated to the armory where he worked as a janitor. It was a museum of sorts and was scheduled to be demolished. His wife, Loretta and his two sons, Braydon and Curt, were killed by the diseased as XK119 ravaged the land.”

  They’d all heard that part, but judging by the tears rolling down Milly’s face they were about to get something new.

  “They took Adaline from his arms. Made him watch as…” Milly cried, and Tye put an arm around her shoulders. “When they were done using her, they tore her apart while he watched. His white-hot rage freed him. He killed twenty-three virals. Their skulls are still mounted on sticks around his house.”

  “We didn’t do that to him. We didn’t cause XK119,” Tester said.

  “No. We also didn’t live through the savagery of those times. He talks in his sleep, and I’ll tell you, we’ve seen nothing compared to the final days. It was kill or be killed.”

  Tye remembered the pictures on the TV in the Oceanic Eco’s conference room all too well. Those memories were distant, but sharp, and Tye understood Axe, even if he was appalled by the man. “Right. Which is why you need to take him out now. He’s going to die anyway, why do we have to die with him? Let’s go over everything again, find you the perfect moment to strike. He still locks you up when he gets the keys?” Tester said.

  “Yup. Hooded and handcuffed so I can’t prepare for an attack while he’s gone. He’s a machine. I stopped paying attention a long time ago,” Milly said.

  “You’re going to have to take him while hooded after you go through the second door,” Tye said.

  “How will I see?”

  “We’ll cut two small slits in your hood, position it so you’re not blind. Put the cuffs on real loose so you can slip out. Or you ca
n use them. Take him from behind with the garrote or the cuffs and don’t let go until he’s dead. Then come get us. Be sure to grab the shock-box.”

  Tye spent most of the following three-and-a-half hours coaching Milly and building up her confidence, but Tye had the same problem he’d had for the last six years. Milly agreed with everything they said, but she wasn’t a killer. In defense of her life, from twenty feet away with a gun, she’d managed. Fighting in close quarters with a powerful man and taking him from behind and choking the life out of him was something else altogether.

  She forced him to go low. “Don’t forget he killed Peter. Blew his head off right in front of you,” Tye said. “In cold blood. Then shot Kat. In cold blood.”

  Milly moaned and looked at the ground.

  Tye was tired, and Tester took over drilling her. She fought them, but Tye knew this was nothing more than Milly selling things to herself. Axe’s sickness changed everything, and he thought Milly would do what needed to be done this time. “Four hours are up,” he said.

  Milly rose and brushed off her pants. She looked at Tye, then the others in turn, and smiled. Tye put her hood on and positioned the eye-slits. Then he put on the wrist restraints as loose as he could and slipped the key in his pocket.

  “Be right back,” Milly said.

  Tye was confident Milly could do this. He knew she could. She was metal through and through, but she didn’t come right back.

  Milly didn’t come back at all.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Year 2075, Pass Christian Armory, Mississippi

  Milly walked the hallway hooded and cuffed as she had over a thousand times before, her right hand tracing the wall as a guide. It was important she did nothing different. He was watching her. Axe called for her to stop, and she did, counting the seconds in her head. He took twenty ticks to get from his observation point to the door. A lock turned, the bolt slid free, and the door creaked on rusted hinges as it swung open. A rush of rotten air hit her hood.