The Charred Lands: Apocalypse of Fire

by Josh A. Murphy

  “Do you have any sleeping stuff in that bag of yours?” Conrad asked as he returned to the small campsite.

  “No…” I sighed.

  “You’re welcome to my tent then. I’ll stay on watch for tonight, just in case your kidnappers find us.”

  “Are you sure?” I said, feeling guilty.

  “I’m not using it, so you may as well.”

  “Thank you… and thank you for everything else too; I’m pretty sure they were going to kill me.” I said I as I made my way towards the tent. Inside was another foldout chair, I decided to take this out and hand it to Conrad, he would be needing it throughout the night I imagined.

  “It’s alright, I like to think that any other decent human beings would do the same, too.”

  “It depends how many decent people there are anymore.” I sighed.

  “There’s plenty of nice people about – it’s just a shame that for every decent fellow there seems to be ten maniacs.” He laughed.

  “I heard that The Charred Lands has a shoot first, ask questions later policy?”

  “Oh it does. But if you keep someone from killing you for long enough to get to know them, you’ll often find them very nice.”

  I couldn’t help but laugh at that. I figured this wasn’t too bad – I had a safe place to sleep for the night, a stark contrast to how I was expecting the night to play out just over an hour ago. By now my eyes had grown heavy, even keeping them open was a struggle.

  I thanked Conrad and Lizzie one last time before retreating to my tent. I fell asleep within moments.

  Chapter Sixteen

  I slept like a baby, not once during the night did I wake, or even have so much as a single nightmare. I felt a little guilty when I woke up, annoyed at myself that my loved ones hadn’t plagued my dreams. I was fully expecting to think about them every single night for the rest of my life, yet already, after two nights, they were absent from my dreams. Come to think of it, I couldn’t remember a single dream from the night. Perhaps I did dream of them, but my memory repressed them. I guess I’ll never know – still, I couldn’t shake the feeling of guilt.

  I joined Lizzie and Conrad outside, who were already having breakfast. They told me that I had slept in – they had been waiting around for me to wake up before having their breakfast, but finally they grew tired and gave in. I didn’t really mind.

  After I finished my breakfast Conrad quickly packed away the tents, ready to move on.

  “Where are we going now?” I asked.

  “After we left Warrington, we’ve just kind of been travelling around from place to place, I guess ultimately, we want somewhere permanent to stay.” Conrad explained.

  “I can’t come with you… But I would really appreciate it if you would come with me.” I said, after taking in a deep breath.

  “Excuse me?” Conrad said, raising an eyebrow.

  “There’s something that I must do. I don’t know if I’m capable, brave enough, or even smart enough to do it alone, but I will die trying, if I must.” I said – doing my best to sound as assured as I could.

  “Well, what is it?” Conrad asked, growing ever more interested.

  Without saying anything, I reached into my backpack and pulled out the dragons egg, I held it out for them both to see. For a few moments, we stood in silence as they stared at it, wide eyes and open mouthed.

  “Is that a…” Lizzie began to ask before I cut her off, already knowing what she was about to ask.

  “Dragon egg.”

  “How on earth did you come across this?” Conrad asked, taking a step closer to me – I took a step away. He shot me a look of disgust for doing so, as though I didn’t trust him.

  “My entire family died for this.” I said.

  “What are your plans with it?”

  “I’m taking it to The Church of Fire. Once I get there, I can either join them, or sell it for a very, very lucrative price.”

  “What good is money in The Charred Lands?” Lizzie asked, as though I was stupid.

  “I don’t want money. I could barter for something of value off them. They would easily give enough for the three of us to pay our way into The Legion of Light. We would still have enough left over to live very comfortably there too, I would imagine.” I explained.

  “It’s going to be a perilous journey, boy.” Conrad said, scanning me with his eyes and giving his grey beard a rub as he began to think my proposal through. I expected that it would have taken more convincing than this, but then again I guess they had nothing better to do with their lives. I knew exactly what he was thinking. He didn’t think I had it in me to make it to The Church of Fire alive. Truth be told, he was probably right – but that didn’t mean I was going to quit and give up my dreams of living in peace at the Legion of Light.

  “That’s why I need you.” I said.

  Conrad looked to Lizzie, who looked back at him. For a moment then stared at each other in silence, as though communicating through thought. Finally, Lizzie nodded her head.

  “Very well. We shall come with you to the Church of Fire.” He smiled, reluctantly.

  I couldn’t help but let out a sigh of relief.

  “Now, do you know the way?” I asked, unable to stop myself from nervously laughing.

  “Of course not.” Conrad replied, letting out a laugh himself, “But I know someone who does.” He replied, his face suddenly falling flat and emotionless, that gave me a bad feeling.

  “Who?”

  “Her name is Lynnette Kerslake; she’s still living in Warrington.” He sighed.

  As much as it pained Conrad to say that – it was exactly what I had been hoping. It saved me spending the time trying to convince the pair that the best option was to head into Warrington. Now they knew that they had to. That was good for me.

  We spent a good hour or so searching our immediate surroundings for any signs of wildlife that we could hunt and use for food, but found nothing. Conrad had explained that the journey to Warrington was a two day one, we did have enough supplies for the trip – but they would need to be very carefully rationed. Should we stumble off track or encounter any unexpected delays, then our supplies may become an issue. He told me that their trip outside of Warrington had been relatively uneventful until he stumbled across me, and suspected that it would be the same going back, which gave me great confidence.

  A little demoralised from our poor hunting efforts, we set on our way down a small dirt road in the woods. It was quite surprising just how far away from anything Haven had actually been. I knew it was in a secluded area, but it almost seemed as though the woods stretched on for miles and miles, with no signs of civilization anywhere to be found.

  My feet had become sore and blistered, I had no idea how Conrad was able to keep going without complaining once, having all of their supplies, and Lizzie over his shoulders. He really was a relentless, mammoth of a man. All I had to carry was my backpack with a few supplies, and the dragon’s egg. I couldn’t even imagine how he was feeling having to carry Lizzie plus all their gear.

  We had been walking for less than half an hour when we stumbled across them. Two, healthy looking deer. We stopped dead in our tracks as we watched the animals eat something off of a bush, just to the left of our path. They were no more one hundred feet away from us, still oblivious to our presence. Without saying a word Conrad crouched down and placed Lizzie besides him, along with the rest of their supplies before turning to me.

  “You take one, I’ll get the other.” He said, pulling out his rifle from the bag of supplies. He then grabbed the handgun from his waist and handed that to me.

  “I can probably take one out from here with the rifle, when the other scatters, you hunt it down. Don’t stray too far, if you’ve not got it after five minutes, head back to us, okay?” Conrad said. I knew what this was – it was a learning exercise. I nodded my head, ready for his challenge. I knew even an experienced hunter would struggle to catch the second dear after it had been startled, but nevertheles
s I would give it my best.

  Still kneeling, Conrad aimed the weapon. He took but a few seconds to line up the shot before he squeezed the trigger. His aim was true, I saw a bullet hole explode in the side of one of the deer, but it didn’t drop it. Letting out a scream, it began staggering away to the left, whilst its companion took off running to the right.

  “Go, Zach.” Conrad urged, giving me a pat on the back. With that I took off running in the direction that my deer had headed. I left the well-trodden path and stepped into the woods. Twigs and branches snapped under my foot – I knew that would be a problem, did I find myself closing down on the animal. I took a second to scan around, just up ahead, some hundred feet away, I saw my target. I crouched down a little as I tiptoed towards it.

  I closed in on the animal, which calmly ate from another bush, as though forgetting about its wounded friend all together. I came to a stop and readied my handgun. Every sound I made sounded like a tiny explosion to me, as I flicked the safety off, I felt almost certain that the noise would alert the animal to my presence, but amazingly, it didn’t

  I took a deep breath and aimed – it was still quite far away, but a lucky shot could bring the animal down, even from all this distance. I didn’t fancy my chances of getting much closer without startling it again.

  Then a twig snapped behind me. The deer shot its head in my direction before scampering once more. I felt myself rill with rage.

  “You said I could have five minutes!” I spat, turning around to face Conrad. I almost felt my bowls give way when I saw Oliver and Phil standing over me, each with that old familiar sinister smile splitting their face.

  “Enjoying a bit of hunting, pal?” Oliver asked, using that same, calm, friendly voice as he always did.

  I didn’t reply, instead I swung my gun around towards them. Before I could squeeze the trigger, Phil kicked his feet, sending a cloud of dirt directly into my face. I fell backward with stinging eyes, hitting the ground with a thump. I felt the back of my head strike a rock and trickle of blood instantly pour down the back of my head.

  I felt a boot place itself on my wrist, clamping it to the ground.

  “Let go of the gun, mate.” Oliver said, pressing down harder and harder on my wrist with each second. As much as I didn’t want to, I knew I had to release the weapon. If I resisted he would no doubt crush the bones in my wrist, and that would just be the start of it.

  “It was a bit shitty what you did to me.” Phil said, limping towards me. With my free hand I rubbed as much dirt from my eyes as I could, still things were blurry but at least I could see a little.

  “Fuck you.” I said, refusing to go along with their sick games. I couldn’t help but wonder how many other people they had done this too. I wasn’t going to lie down and beg for my life from this pair, that’s exactly what they wanted from me – I wouldn’t be giving it to them.

  “We were willing to teach you our superior way of life, Zachary.” Oliver sighed, dropping down to one knee, still he kept a foot on my wrist, pinning me to the ground. He placed his right hand around my throat, but did not squeeze. Instead, he leaned forward and whispered in my ear, “When Phil gets baked he gets… well let’s just say he gets friendly.” He said, keeping his hand around my throat.

  I turned to see Phil taking his top off. I grew cold inside when I realised what this was.

  “No, please…. You can’t do that.” I said, knowing that my pleading would do no good.

  “I can’t stop him, and neither can you.” Oliver said, as though he was some kind of innocent party in all of this. Despite this, I began to struggle a little. Every time I moved, the pressure on my wrist increased, it felt ready to snap but that didn’t stop me. I kicked out my legs and hit Oliver with several puny blows with my one free hand, but it did nothing. My punches hardly even caused him to flinch. I fell flat and silent, gasping for breath as he began to tighten his grip around my neck.

  “Don’t fucking move.” I heard a deep, husky voice bellow out. I turned my head to see the kind of thing miracles are made out of. Behind Phil, stood Conrad. He pressed his rifle against the back of Phil’s head.

  “Put your hands up, fucker.” He said. Phil did so without hesitation, raising his hands in the air and standing like a statue.

  “And you, get off the boy.” He instructed, turning his eyes to Oliver.

  “No fucking chance.” He said, pulling out his gun and placing it against my temple. I felt the cold steel press against my head. It was honestly one of the most terrifying experiences of my life. A single squeeze of the trigger and I would be dead. I felt my insides turn into one giant knot. Then the feeling disappeared. The fear was replaced by something else. Anger.

  Without thinking about my own safety I drove a knee hard into Oliver’s groin, he let out a yelp and loosened the weight on my wrist a little. I saw my chance and I took it. I pulled my hand from under his boot and quickly knocked the gun away from my temple, only a moment before he squeezed the trigger. The handgun fired a shot off into the air, sending several birds scattering – better birds than my brains. The sound of the gun was deafening, for a few moments I could hear nothing but white noise as the sound of the gun shot seemed to echo around my skull.

  I turned my head, as though looking for advice on what to do next from Conrad, just in time to see him fire his own weapon. Blood exploded out of Phil’s left eye socket before he dropped to the ground, like a stinking sack of shit.

  By now Oliver had recovered from the shock of the knee to his groin, he tightened his grip around my neck to the point where I began to struggle to breath, but before he could place the gun against my temple, I sent two fingers flying into his eyes. I felt them sink into the sockets before he pulled back in pain, clutching at his face. I heard the gun drop to the ground besides us. I reached out for it, but before I could grasp the weapon, Conrad swing his rifle through the air like a baseball bat, striking Oliver on the side of his skull. Finally he fell from atop of me and collapsed to the ground, blood already purring down his face from a large gash above his eye.

  “No, wait…” He managed, before Conrad brought the weapon down once more, this time striking him in the mouth. Blood erupted from his mouth as he coughed up shards of broken teeth, but Conrad wasn’t done there. I looked away as Conrad continued to bring the weapon down, over and over again onto Oliver’s skull. Eventually the sounds changed from a crack and a crunch to what could only be described as a wet smack. Finally, after a good minute of intensive pounding, Conrad stopped. I slowly turned my head to face the horrors, wanting to take it all in in its gory detail. I didn’t know why, but I knew I had to look. Oliver’s head looked like a smashed pumpkin. Hardly anything remained of his skull, only broken bones, bits of squashed brains and a few remaining ginger hairs. This time I wasn’t sick. I almost fucking smiled.

  Chapter Seventeen

  We walked in silence for the next few hours. I couldn’t help but relive what had happened a thousand times over in my head. Each time I thought about what I could have done differently, or how things could have gone wrong. But at the end of the day, I was quite proud of myself. I was alive. I think despite everything, I handled myself well. Once again I found myself eternally grateful to Conrad. I couldn’t find the words to adequately describe how thankful I was for what he had done for me. It made me feel psychically sick to even think about what could have happened had he not shown up.

  “So, what happened to your home?” Lizzie finally asked, destroying the silence of our walk. I didn’t know if she was genuinely interested in me and my back story, or if she was just looking for something to break the silence.

  “We were living in a place called Haven, there was just over twenty of us there. Half of them were my family. But then a dragon attacked. It was an Elder.” I sighed. Lizzie didn’t say anything, instead she remained strapped over Conrad’s shoulder, waiting for me to continue.

  “I didn’t see everyone die. I got knocked unconscious, and when I woke up e
veryone was either dead, or missing. I think my mother and little brother and sister got out of there, but they’re gone now.”

  “How can you be sure?”

  “I looked for a while. We even had a meeting point should Haven have been destroyed but they never shown up. I can only assume they’re… gone.” I sighed, with a tear in my eye. I thought back to Oliver’s twisted lesson, in way’s he was right. Men don’t cry – The Charred Lands is a place for men, not boys.

  “What about everyone else?”

  “My dad died right in front of me. I saw my Grandpa burnt alive a few feet away too. It was horrible.”

  “You’re a brave kid.” Lizzie said, giving me a half smile, more out of pity than anything. But even that was enough to make me feel somewhat better. I guessed that was a close to a compliment as the girl was ever going to give me.

  “Thanks.” Was all I could think to reply.

  After that we spent the next few hours travelling in silence once again. We would stop off and have a drink every hour or so, but conversation never really got interesting again. We were all too concerned with the task at hand. I couldn’t help but imagine what was waiting for me in Warrington. A war, no doubt. But was this Lynette Kerslake going to help me with my quest? Or would she be like Oliver and Phil? I didn’t know. But with every step we took towards Warrington, my apprehension grew.

  My thought process was interrupted when Conrad jumped to the ground, ushering me to do the same. I didn’t see what spooked him, but I did as instructed anyway.

  “Don’t make a fucking sound.” He hissed at me, his eyes wide with panic. I scanned the skies, expecting to see a dragon circling above, but instead I saw nothing but black clouds and smoke. Then I heard something, and it sounded close. A horrifying, high pitched screech rang out from behind me. Slowly, I crawled closer to Conrad, feeling vulnerable even five feet from him. His eyes were locked on something behind me. I reached him and turned my head, desperate to see what had created such a hideous sound.