Going against everything he desired, Vince buckled down for the night. Without the tarp, or a place to huddle, he felt a huge relief as he lay down against a fallen tree and stared up at a cloudless night. To him, it seemed as if the southern skies were brighter than anywhere else in the world. Even when there’d been electric lights and large cities to mute the stars and moon, he’d always thought Alabama was a little closer to Heaven than anywhere else in the world.
By the light of a low candle, one of the few he’d spared in his escape, he withdrew the notebook.
I’m almost there. I have lost track of how long it has taken me, and I have not recorded much here. The nights are warm, the cicadas are singing, and there’s a rightness in my heart. I don’t know why I didn’t come back before now. Maybe it’s because the memories of Aliyah and my family were too fresh, too painful. Maybe it was because it was easier to wander the barren and strange cities than to go back to a place they said no one had survived.
I accepted the loss of my parents eventually. Every grown child understands they will lose their mother and father someday. Yet, I never could mend the hole in my heart left by Aliyah’s death. I don’t know what kept me away for so long, but I know that nothing will stay me now. I see her when I’m awake, I see her when I’m asleep. Every place and everything is a constant reminder of the love I felt for her. The love I still feel for her.
I’m weary. My body aches and an infection has set into the wound on my arm. I can only hope that there are supplies in Northport. I can’t stand the waiting. I must keep going. The darkness be damned, I need to go home.
Vince stuffed the notebook in the old canvas bag and snuffed out the candle. He groaned aloud as he heaved the two bags over his shoulders and trudged through the dark alongside the main roads, the way home engraved upon his memory. Bittersweet feelings filled him, and he nearly wept. Home was down a dirt road, still miles away, but the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel was there.
A rustling of brush and a heavy breath sounded from his left, causing his body to turn to stone. Fingers wrapping tightly around the hilt of his knife, he paused, listening to the sounds of the night. The hairs on the back of Vince’s arms and neck raised and cold fingers of fear raced down his spine. Somewhere, hidden in the inky blackness, he could feel eyes watching him.
Raiders? No, they’d have attacked by now. Bear? No, the sound wasn’t loud enough. He took a deep breath as his mind fought the fear and tried to rationalize what he’d heard. A raccoon? Maybe a deer or—
Another snap came from in front of him, followed by a deep, feral growl. Then another came from behind. In an instant, the cicadas had gone silent and the night filled with the sounds of snarling beasts. Vince could almost feel their hot breath, and the rank smell of the animals nearly choked him. One by one, they stepped closer, large teeth bared.
Four wild dogs, each large with matted fur and brutal scars to prove their survival had been hard won, inched toward him. Vince jerked his head, searching for a way out while trying to keep his eyes on the dogs. A low tree limb hung only a few feet away—if he could only reach it.
Fear held him in place, but the snap of a sharp pair of canines at his heel sent him into action. He lunged between the two growling mutts blocking his path and felt the sharp pain of his miscalculation in his right calf. The dog fiercely shook its head, tearing cloth and skin, and Vince’s cry of pain was quickly ended by the breath rushing from his lungs as he hit the ground. Before he could strike out with the knife, the others attacked; their deadly canine’s piercing his flesh.
He flailed, the knife striking again and again, and the creatures’ howls of pain joined with his. Kicking and screaming, Vince fought hard to free himself from their jowls. Two of them went down, and the others backed away, still snarling with bloody teeth. Wounded and angry, they circled as he tried to scoot away, dragging his legs across the forest floor.
The feeling of his pack hitting something solid made him scream out in fear, and the dogs lurched back and forward at the sound. The larger of the two darted to the side and bit, catching the edge of the bag and tearing it, jostling Vince as he struggled to jerk his arm out of the way. In a moment of clarity, he brought the blade down, connecting with the base of the dog’s skull.
The animal fell dead, and for a moment, Vince locked eyes with his final adversary. Sensing defeat, it backed away, growling and foaming at the mouth as it disappeared into the brush. He knew it might return, or some other predator might come, but he couldn’t help feel a sense of saddened victory. He’d fought and won, but not without remorse.
“Sorry, old boy. I know you were just trying to survive,” he whispered to the dead dog beside him, letting his hand fall on the matted fur. Tears mixed with the dirt on his face as he cried for the lives he’d taken—both animal and man.
Vince could feel the blood running down his limbs, and as the adrenaline wore away, an aching throb burned everywhere the dogs had bitten him. He knew that another predator could happen by or follow the smell of his blood, but he couldn’t hold on to consciousness. With no reprieve from the agony eating at his body, he closed his eyes and dreamed.
The government had kept them on base for two weeks as the world died. Only five men had survived out of the hundreds there, and he couldn’t decide if he was lucky or cursed to be among them. They were told of their families and the condition of the towns they had come from. No survivors. Nowhere untouched.
“I understand your pain and your loss, men. I’m standing here with you, and I’m in the same place. Everyone I have ever loved, hated, and known are gone. This son-of-a-bitch virus has become a silent enemy, and the United States Army wants to offer you an opportunity to fight it.”
Through tear filled eyes, Vince watched as the general spoke with fierce passion. His heart was breaking, though he’d known total loss was the probability. Deep inside he had prayed and hoped that Aliyah would be alive, that she’d somehow survive against all odds—as he had.
“I will, sir.” He stepped forward, unashamed of the streams running down his unshaven cheeks. “Whatever I can do to stop this shit, I got nothing to lose.”
Three of the other men volunteered beside him, and two decided to return home. In minutes, he was in a truck, being driven farther and farther from Alabama, the life he had there, and from facing the truth of his loss.
Unable to breathe or think, Vince let the pain consume him as he held back the sobs that threatened to burst through his chest and leave his broken heart exposed and bleeding. His hands wound together, his fingers digging in until they became white and numb, Vincent bit back his feelings and focused on trying to save the future.
The sun came up on the horizon, and he could feel the warmth on his face. For an instant of bliss, the dream of the few weeks he’d spent in the medical facilities faded away. The endless tests, the horrible spread of the virus to the people there, and the loss of all faith in a cure were replaced by a moment of relief. He could almost believe that none of it had ever happened, but the pain washed away that peaceful hope.
Everything hurt. His whole body ached with a throbbing pulse, and the sensation of slowly oozing blood made his skin crawl. Nausea rushed over him in a hot wave as he forced himself upright. The dog’s body still lay at his side, its unseeing eyes staring at him with hatred, and he scrambled to get away from it. His limbs shaky and his head pounding, he used the tree to stand, turning his back on the carcass and vomiting.
Vince struggled with the cap on the canteen that always hung on his hip. The mostly empty sloshing made him cringe as he tipped up the vessel and drank it down. Despair ripped through him as he thought over his situation. It seemed so unjust to have survived a decade of hiding from the Raiders, starving, freezing, and drifting only to end up dead a few miles from his destination.
He almost sank to the ground, almost gave up, but the si
gn stood before him and reminded him that he was nearly there. The image of the big white house and the sprawling green yard transformed the hollow sadness within him into anger, and he stumbled forward—determined to die where he had once lived. Every step brought on a new rush of pain, and he turned to his memories to escape the hell of dragging his damaged body on.
Aliyah smiled up at him from her seat on the river bank, her bare feet in the water. Her voice was soft and sweet, “I can’t wait to teach our children to skip stones right here in this river.”
His dad stood on the edge of the porch, fingers tucked in the bib of his overalls. “Son, you remember one thing,” he said as he laid a hand on top of nine-year-old Vince’s head, “Life is going to get hard sometimes, but we all have our own row to hoe. You stay straight and narrow and keep the weeds out, and everything will turn out okay.”
His mom, dressed in her finest and wearing her pearls, leaned down to kiss his cheek. “I’m so proud of you, baby. So proud.” When she pulled away, tears danced in her eyes. “My son, the graduate.”
Aliyah cried. Her sobs echoed in the silence of the car, and there was nothing he could do. He wrapped his fingers around hers, thumb tracing the engagement ring, and whispered, “I don’t know what to say.”
She turned, fire and pain dancing in her eyes, “There’s nothing to say. I’m not sorry you are going, I’m proud of you. I just wish you didn’t have to leave me behind to do it.”
His feet slid in the red clay mud, caking his boots with the heavy substance and sending him down on his backside. Vince let out a loud curse as his thoughts were ripped from the past and planted harshly in the present. After he wiped his hands off on his pants, he dragged their backs across his eyes and cheeks. He’d been crying, hopelessly weeping from pain and misery.
For a long moment, Vince sat with his ass sinking into the muck and his thoughts trailing down a dark road of lost hope. He could feel his life draining away, his energy gone and his body crumpling under the swelling and throbbing pain. He knew he had to be close, he could feel it, but he couldn’t push himself up. He couldn’t find the strength to go on.
With a sigh, he gave up and lay back—curling to the side. Sobbing as if he were a child again, he whispered, “Forgive me, Aliyah. I tried to make it home. I tried to die with you.”
He cracked his eyelids to take in the last images of a world that had died long before that moment, and had to blink in disbelief. In the distance, he saw the house, roof crumbling beneath a fallen tree, yard overgrown, and fence lying in disrepair. The tragic beauty of the fallen idol made his heart sink and soar in simultaneous bounds, and pushed him to move.
Arm over arm, he half-crawled and half-dragged himself out of the mud. Closer and closer he came, his lungs burning with the effort to breathe. No more than one-hundred feet, and he would be home. He didn’t have to make it to the bowed front porch, or even to the fountain that still attempted to sputter water from cupid’s lips into the basin below. He didn’t care if he made it any further than the edge of the once well-manicured lawn.
Home! I made it. I’m here.
He struggled to his knees, the bites on his legs protesting the hard ground with screaming twinges of needle sharp pain. Moving as fast as he could manage, using everything he had left within him, he dragged himself to the shade of the live oak that he’d climbed so often as a child. Beneath its low hanging boughs, he’d kissed Aliyah for the first time, and it seemed poetic to end his life in the same place he’d felt it truly begin.
His voice barely made a sound as he pressed his palm into the rough bark near the roots where he’d carved their initials inside a heart, “I love you, Aliyah.”
He closed his eyes, tears dripping from the corners as he prepared to die. The sun glared behind his lids, the proverbial light calling him home to heaven and home to her. “Fuck you, F#, I beat you. I made it and I am going to die by choice, not because you forced that shadow on my soul.”
He pictured her face, smiling and happy. He saw her before him, still young and as beautiful as the day he’d left her. He willed his heart to stop and prayed to a God he could barely still believe in to end it for him. Vince embraced his death with a passion that he’d not felt for anything in a long time.
“Hey, Mister? Mister, are you okay?” the timid voice belonged to a child of maybe ten. Though the words were sincere and the voice sweet, the snap of the shotgun told him that he’d better be prepared to die.
“Go away, child. I’ve come here to die,” he croaked. “This was my home once, and this is where I shall remain. For me, there’s no tomorrow.”
The little girl did not reply to him, instead, she screamed, “Momma! Momma! There’s a man!”
The high pitch wail forced his eyes to open, and he stared in disbelief. The child looked no older than nine or ten. Yet, he found something familiar in the blonde hair and blue eyes, the curve of her face and the upturned tip of her nose.
She has to be, but she couldn’t be. If she were…that would mean she…they—
A woman’s voice called across the lawn, worry and fear filling it to the brim. She ran, he could see her long hair flying out behind her. Her eyes were huge, even from such a distance, and he saw the look of panic as she skidded up next to the little girl. Her hands grabbed a hold of the shotgun, and she pointed it at his face, even as her mind forced her to recognize him.
“Aliyah,” he cried, tears running down his face. “Oh, Aliyah. I didn’t know…”
Dakkar
A Tales of the Orb Prequel
H. L. Houghton
*This story is written in UK English*
Chapter One
The woman hurriedly packed her bags. She had to leave before anyone noticed she was gone. Her survival depended upon it.
With a meagre portion of dried Ranng meat, a bag of groundnuts and a handful of coarse and bitter miraweed leaves, the young woman stuffed the food into a woollen bag and hefted it onto her back. She had been hiding the food for days in preparation. No one seemed to notice the small amounts disappearing from the larder, although she suspected her mother probably knew. The bag weighed heavily on her shoulder, as heavy as her aching heart at the thought of abandoning her mother. Shiane had very little choice. She had to leave.
She tiptoed down to the front door, stopping at the little cupboard in the hallway where her mother stored tinctures and medicines for sale. She grabbed the two water bottles she had hidden earlier, after her journey to the community well, and dropped them into the pouches on either side of her bag. She threw her old, grey cloak over her shoulders, hiding her bag beneath, and made her way through the door.
The street outside was dark. It was always dark. At such an early hour, there was no need to light all of the lamps. Only a few of LeShail’s inhabitants would roam the night streets and that didn’t warrant wasting the witchlight powders. The underwater source of illumination made LeShail a curiosity to travellers. The seaside town radiated a curious shade of blue as opposed to the traditional green of witchlights used elsewhere throughout the orb. Unfortunately the bioluminescent algae, from the nearby ocean inlet, was in short supply and a small team had been drafted cultivate it, but it would be some years before they would have a harvestable crop.
Tonight the blue glow was scarce and the dark grey sky loomed overhead. Shiane could almost feel the static electricity for herself. It was sick—poisoned—and being too close to it on nights like this made Shiane feel infected. She adjusted her vision to cope with the increased darkness. Her pupils dilated once, then contracted, as her eyes began to illuminate. The additional light that her eyes emitted was restricted to a thin ring around the outer edge of her iris and shone enough to light up a few short meters ahead of her.
Her mother called them headlamps, and they were a genetic anomaly exclusive to those people who learned to exist in the dark.
Shiane shuffled across to Marianna's house. The young
girl was Shiane’s apprentice but it wasn't the bond that forced Shiane to say goodbye. No. Marianna and her baby brother were essential. They would be needed when the time came and each would give their life to protect that which was most important: Shiane’s unborn child.
"Pssst, Mari," Shiane hissed. No sound came from the building. "Pssst." She tapped at the window lightly, hoping not to wake little Cael. A soft padding sounded somewhere behind the glass, then a clink and thunk as Marianna unlocked the window and slid it up slowly.
"Is it time?" Marianna asked, her tired eyes screwed shut against Shiane’s ocular beam. Shiane dimmed her light perceptibly and Marianna wiped her eyes.
"Yes, Mari, it is time."
"Do you really have to go? Your mamma will be devastated and Thestor will be furious." Marianna leaned as far out of the window as her little body would allow.
"Listen, Mari, I don't have much time. I need to go and you know why,"
Marianna nodded glumly. "Your Dakkar."
"Yes, but I promise it will all work out, sweetheart," Shiane whispered against the little girl’s forehead. Seeing Marianna’s tears fall freely down her face made Shiane’s heart stutter. She had never thought of how her Dakkar would affect those around her and seeing Marianna’s pain made her glad she hadn’t let those thoughts swarm her mind. She never would have coped.
The Dakkar was the worst dream you could ever have. Shiane had dreamed the dream of the Dakkar upon her seventeenth birthday. The dream itself was a tradition amongst spell-weavers and particularly those who could predict the future. It was a spell-weaver’s first and most devastating prediction: The dream of their own death.
From what little Shiane knew, her Dakkar had been much more detailed than most. The events that would lead to her eventual demise started here, with this action, and ended months from now in a small room with a tiny baby girl in her arms. A beautiful daughter that she would never get to see grow up. The one positive thing Shiane took from the terrible situation was the faith that her actions would keep her daughter safe from Deacon. She would gladly give up her life in that knowledge.
After Tomorrow: A CHBB Anthology Page 27
