by Dhar, Mainak
'You've been very brave, now I need you to be brave a little bit longer. Remember how we used to play piggy-back?'
Alice nodded, trying to blink away the tears.
'I need you to ride piggy-back on me. Grab on as tightly as you can and whatever happens, don't let go. Can you do that for me?'
Alice nodded again and Gladwell hoisted his daughter onto his back. She suddenly spoke out.
'Doggie. I can't leave Doggie. He tried to save me.'
Jones whispered in the darkness.
'I see him. Alice, we can't carry him. We need both our hands to fight these Biters.'
Alice began to protest when Gladwell shushed her.
'I'll get him.'
He picked up the puppy and placed him in the bag hanging on his left side, where he had placed a flare and an extra clip for the pistol.
'Guys, close ranks.'
With the practiced precision of men who had fought several battles together, Jones and Sunil took up position. They had their backs to each other, forming a triangle so that no attacker could get to any of them from behind, or indeed get to Alice unless one of them fell.
Gladwell saw that they were up against perhaps a dozen Biters. Part of him wanted to make a run for the settlement. Taking out a dozen Biters with gunfire from the safety of the settlement's walls was like shooting fish in a barrel, but he knew that would risk attracting more Biters, and if the patrol had been right, and there were thousands of Biters moving through the Deadland, it could mean the settlement being overrun by sheer numbers.
No, they would have to make their stand here, and go back to the settlement when they were sure there were no Biters around. As the Biters closed in, Gladwell took out the silenced pistol from his belt, where he had hung it. He aimed and fired and the night was punctuated by a slight popping noise as a Biter took a bullet straight to the head and went down. He moved his aim left, at another Biter who was coming at him, and the Biter's roar was cut short by a bullet that entered the side of his forehead. A third shot brought down another Biter and while Gladwell had successfully thinned the odds against them to some extent, now it would have to come down to hand-to-hand combat. Gladwell tucked the pistol back in and took the knife in one hand and axe in the other.
'Alice, close your eyes, dear. You don't have to see this.'
But Alice couldn't keep her eyes closed. She watched as the first Biter came towards her Daddy—a tall creature who was naked except for a loincloth around his waist, his chest and stomach torn open when he had been turned. She watched as her daddy stabbed out, the knife going in through the Biter's cheek, and brought the knife out in a rapid motion as the axe swung down, cutting through the Biter's scalp as he went down. She watched as her Daddy then swung down with the axe again and heard the peculiar sound of a sharp weapon rending apart human skin and bone.
Next to Gladwell, Jones had kicked down a Biter and then sliced the throat open of the next one before smashing his skull with the axe. Sunil was busy as well—he was not as fast or skilled as Jones was with knives, but he was big, a large hulking giant of a man who stood well over six feet tall, and had supposedly been a bouncer or bodyguard before The Rising. He had his axe in a two-handed grip and decapitated the first Biter that came towards him with a single blow. Blood sprayed across his face as the next one lunged at him. He broke the Biter's leg with a single, well-placed kick. Biters could be put down permanently only with a shot or severe trauma to the head, but a broken leg meant the Biter lost his balance and fell down to one knee, and within a couple of seconds, his head was lying next to the rest of his body.
Gladwell was going about his task in grim silence. Stab, slash, cut, kick. Turn to face the next Biter. Kick him down, slash across the neck, axe across the top of the head. His arms were moving as if of their own will, and Alice was watching every single kill, every spray of blood, every decapitated head.
Finally, Jones whispered, 'It's done. There's no more coming.'
There were bodies and body parts scattered all around them, and they were all drenched in the blood of the enemies they had slain. Alice had not said a single word, not cried out once. She could feel her father as he breathed hard through the exertions of the battle, she could feel his shoulders move as he swung his arms and she could feel the sweat that rolled down his neck as she clung to him. She could feel the wetness of the blood that had sprayed onto her face when her daddy had cut a Biter's head off.
Gladwell lowered his hands down by his side, his shoulders burning. He spoke in a hoarse whisper.
'We're going home, sweetheart.'
***
'How is it out there?'
Gladwell sat down heavily as Jo took his gun and backpack after he came back from his patrol the next morning. He had seen a lot since The Rising, but the wholesale massacre of a settlement still made him pause.
'We got lucky. A settlement some four kilometers out to the East got hit. Maybe someone panicked and fired or maybe they were careless. The Biters swept through them like a swarm of locusts. We just found small body parts, not even a whole human body.'
Jo closed her eyes as she realized just what a narrow escape they had the previous night. As more patrols had gone out at daybreak, it was clear that the main body of the Biter horde had passed them, and only a few stragglers had come close, the ones Gladwell and the others had killed while rescuing Alice.
'You know what's weird, Bob?'
Gladwell held his wife close, glad that he was alive, that they were all alive, to be able to enjoy such simple pleasures. But what Jo said next made him wonder what truly was going on.
'Sunil came back with his patrol a few minutes ago, and they met some people hiding out in the forest up North where they were cut off from their settlement last night. They swore that they saw Biters disappear into the ground.'
'Honey, I'll talk to him. The last thing we need are more stories about Biters spreading in the settlement. We all survived today, and let's be thankful for that. How's Alice doing?'
He felt Jo tense as she replied.
'She didn't sleep much. Kept waking up and screaming all the time you were gone.'
***
Alice's Daddy walked in and sat down next to her. Her face was still streaked with tears, and she looked at her Daddy and began sobbing again.
'Daddy, Doggie...'
Gladwell took her in his arms and kissed her head. They had come back to find that the puppy had died, probably of a broken neck after the Biter had flung him against a tree.
'Sweetheart, I'm sorry about him and I'm sorry that you had to see what you did last night.'
Alice looked at her daddy, her eyes filled with guilt.
'Daddy, Doggie saved me. He fought that Biter, but I couldn't save him.'
It broke Gladwell's heart to see his little girl have to go through things that no child should ever have to endure, but unfortunately he also knew that The Rising had meant more than just the end of the world as they had known it—it was also the end of innocence, the end of childhoods spent sheltered from the ugliness that lurked in the world around them. Alice had come face to face with that ugliness, something that the rational part of Gladwell's mind knew was inevitable, but not at such an early age.
Alice sobbed in his arms. 'Daddy, I was so scared.'
Gladwell thought back to the heart-wrenching sight he had seen when he had reached. His little girl, standing defiantly in front of a Biter, throwing a rock at it to try and save her dog.
'Alice, look at me.'
She looked up at him, her eyes still brimming over with tears.
'There's nothing wrong in being scared. I was also scared last night. Being brave doesn't mean not being scared, but what we do when we are scared. Some people just think of themselves, but others stand up for those they care about. They put the fear aside and try and help others. I saw you throw that rock, and I was so proud of you. You may have been scared, but you were very brave. Do you understand that, sweetheart?'
&
nbsp; Alice nodded, though the tears still flowed.
'Now, try and get some sleep and we'll have lunch together.'
Alice listened to her daddy and went off to sleep, her head on his lap. She dreamt of Biters with their skin flapping open, of heads being split open by axes, of blood spraying all over her face, but she also dreamt of a little puppy who had given his life to save her, and she dreamt of how good it had felt to throw the rock at the Biter.
When she sat down for lunch at the large community dining room, Alice tore into the bread and soup that was their meagre meal. She had not eaten since the previous night, and now she ate wordlessly as Gladwell and Jo looked on. Jones was at an adjoining table, and as he finished his meal, he began calling out to the older kids, and Jane shuffled along hesitantly to join the afternoon lessons in firearms and unarmed combat that Jones taught.
Gladwell watched his elder daughter join the other kids, and he knew that it was but a matter of time before she would have to do her share and join in patrols out in the Deadland, foraging for food, sweeping for Biters or bandits. As Jones walked by, he just nodded with a smile at them and lovingly tousled Alice's blonde hair.
'You doing good, darling?'
Alice looked up at him, not a hint of a tear on her face now. Instead, Gladwell was surprised to see a look of resolve on her tiny face that he had never seen before.
'Uncle Jones, when will you teach me how to fight Biters? I don't want to be scared next time I meet one of them.'
***
SIZE AND TEARS
Alice watched in goggle-eyed fascination as the boys and girls drilled with Jones. He had them sitting in a circle and was lecturing them about Biters before the afternoon's exercises began. At seven years of age, Alice was still too young to join the classes, but she would hide nearby and listen and watch. She had been asking Jones for some time to teach her, but he had always refused, saying her Daddy wouldn't want her to start her training before she was a few years older. That seemed so unfair to Alice. So what if she was just seven? She knew she could run faster than any of the other kids, and she was the only kid her age who had actually seen a Biter up close. These kids heard lectures about how to kill a Biter—she had seen it for herself when her Daddy, Jones and Sunil had fended off Biters to protect her.
The kids in front of her got up and stood in a circle around Jones and he called two of them into the middle. One was a boy called Ram, who was ten, and another was Vineet, a year older.
'Remember, with a Biter, no point in getting fancy. Go for the legs, unbalance him, and then finish the job.'
Alice had to stifle a giggle as Vineet tried to do his best Biter imitation, with a loud growl followed by moaning noises. Jones tapped him hard on the shoulder.
'Cut that out! This won't seem so funny when a real bloody Biter is ripping your head off.'
That shut up all the kids. Vineet lumbered in towards Ram, trying to grab him with his arms and snapping his jaws in to bite as a Biter would. Ram swept his legs but could not move the larger boy and soon was grabbed in a bear hug.
'Game over, kids. Ram just joined the undead or had his guts pulled out and torn apart.'
Jones took Ram's place and asked Vineet to come in again. His right leg swung out in a blur of motion and in a second, Vineet was on the ground. He then repeated the action in slow motion.
'Move your right shoulder in to get into position. Plant your left leg for leverage, and then sweep your leg in, aiming behind the knee. If you just kick out at random like Ram did, you'll just have a pissed-off Biter in front of you. Now what do you do when you have a Biter down on the ground?'
'Go for the head?'
Jones turned towards the kid who had ventured the suggestion.
'Very good. But not just tap him on the head or punch him like you might a human in a fight. You need to smash his head in, with a knife, axe, rock or whatever you can get your hands on. That needs strength which kids your age still don't have. That's a very good and practical reason why we don't send kids out on patrols till they're older.'
Alice was watching and moving her own legs, imitating Jones, when Jane came up behind her.
'I've been looking all over for you. What the hell are you doing? Didn't Mom tell you that we were going to plant some tomatoes today?'
Alice groaned inwardly. Her older sister could be such a pain at times. She would just do whatever the grown-ups had asked her to do. How boring to be out there, planting tomato seedlings in a straight line in the garden they had set up in the back of the settlement. How much more fun would it be to learn how to fight with Jones—or even better, to actually go out on a patrol and come back laden with food, weapons or supplies for the settlement. Or better still, go head to head with Biters and defeat them. Alice wasn't sure she could bring herself to smash a Biter's head in, but she had been paying attention to Jones' lessons, and she was sure she could bring a Biter down and run so fast he would never be able to catch her.
'Alice, are you even listening to a word I said?'
That snapped Alice back to reality and she reluctantly joined Jane as she walked back towards the garden. Alice's Mom was there, along with a dozen other women and an equal number of younger kids. They had furrowed the ground and were now busy putting the tomato seedlings in. Alice was handed a bunch of the small cups and pots into which the seeds had been planted a couple of weeks ago. Small green leaves were now visible, and Alice knew that now they had to be put into bright light. It helped that it was sunny all day, and then at night, the grown-ups would bring some bright lights in to shine on the seedlings.
As Alice got to work, she thought that the only saving grace was that her favorite soup was tomato soup, so at least there was something to be gained from this drudgery.
Most of the others had left for lunch break, and Alice had just two cups left to plant, so she said she would join them in a minute when she finished. That was when she heard the voice she dreaded hearing.
'Hey, Goldilocks! What's the pipsqueak doing today?'
She groaned when she turned to see a boy walking towards her. Jones Jr, or just Junior to everyone at the settlement, the only son of the same Jones who had been her Dad's friend and the instructor in unarmed combat to all the kids in the settlement. Jane was a few feet away, and she hissed at Alice.
'Just keep your mouth shut and he'll go away.'
The problem with bullies like Junior was that it was hard to avoid them by just shutting up. They sought out those they thought they could bully, and for Junior that list was pretty long. He was eleven years old, but very big for his age, so his size played a role in it. But so did the fact that he was Jones' son, and so thought that he could kick anyone's ass. To compound his delusions of machismo, he had shot a Biter they had stumbled onto on his last patrol. It was whispered that there were four adults with him and they took out the Biter, and all Junior did was to fire a bullet that hit the Biter somewhere in the leg, but those were all unnecessary details he didn't get into. Take all of that together, and you had a kid who spelt nothing but trouble for those smaller and weaker than him.
'So, Blondie. Why is that you get a nice house in the middle of the settlement just because your Dad thinks he's the big shot?'
Alice looked at him, a hard glint in her eyes. Nobody messed with her Dad and got away with it. 'Why is it that you don't even have a name of your own and are just called Jones Junior? Did your Dad think you were too ugly to be given a name?'
The problem with Alice was that she could never keep her mouth shut.
Jane shouted something, but all of Alice's attention was focused on the big boy now making his way towards her, his hands clenched into fists.
'I'll teach you a lesson, you yellow-haired witch!'
Alice remembered what she had heard Jones say in one of the many classes she had watched surreptitiously.
Don't watch the fist. Watch the shoulder.
Even before Junior had started his punch, Alice knew what was coming from the
way his right shoulder rolled back. She remembered the morning's lesson and moved in, turning her right shoulder in and planting her left foot as firmly as she could. As Junior's right hand swept out to deliver his blow, Alice struck with her right leg, aiming behind the knee just as Jones had taught.
The shock of being attacked by a little girl so much smaller than him probably did Junior in more than the actual force of the kick Alice landed. He stumbled back and fell in an ungainly heap on the ground.
'I'll...'
Before he could complete his threat, a deep voice boomed out.
'Junior, get your ass back here!'
Junior got up, glaring at Alice as he ran towards his father. Jane was now shouting at Alice. 'What's wrong with you? Why do you keep asking for trouble? Couldn't you have just kept your mouth shut?'
Alice ignored her sister. She would never understand. She would never know how important it was to stand up for yourself, even if you got the crap beaten out of you. Alice planted her last cup and got up to see the elder Jones standing there, watching her intently. She thought she saw a smile forming at the corner of his lips.
***
'Bob, we need to talk about Alice.'
Gladwell suppressed a smile. This was a familiar conversation starter between him and Jo, and one which invariably had an unhappy ending. It was all too familiar—Alice had gone and got herself into some trouble again. Gladwell would say that she was just spirited, Jo would ask why she couldn't be more like Jane, and the conversation would then rapidly spiral downwards.
'What happened, Jo?'
'She hit Junior. His mom came and told me.'
This time, Gladwell couldn't stop the laughter. 'That boy is a bully. If Alice put him on his ass, good for her, and he's a sissy if he's going and complaining to his mom about being beaten by a girl smaller than him.'
