Odium II: The Dead Saga

by Claire C. Riley

  “Well?” he prompts.

  Oh, he actually wants me to reply. “Who?” is all I ask.

  The man laughs. “Who? Who do you think I’m talking about?”

  I swallow hard. “Fallon?” I ask, confused.

  The man laughs again: a deep, gravelly sound, followed by coughing. “No, not Fallon. Your boy, Mikey.” He pauses again, and I want to scream ‘enough with the dramatic effects already!’ but instead I keep quiet. “Why do you think Mikey likes to see you in pain?”

  “He doesn’t,” I snap. “And he would do everything he could to stop this.”

  Another laugh. I can feel the cool air shift around me as he walks behind my chair. I want to follow the sound but instead I stay as still as a statue, only flinching a little when his hands come to my shoulders and he slowly massages them.

  “Really? You think so, huh?”

  “Yes,” I reply quietly.

  A shiver works its way up my spine, the urge to peel this creep’s fingers away from me becoming harder to resist. My ears perk up at another noise: a belt buckle being shifted, moved—or undone. I grit my teeth, trying to swallow the acidic bile in my throat. Fear clenches in my gut, and I open my mouth a fraction to take a deep, steadying breath, readying myself for what is to come.

  A loud snap by my ears draws a short, sharp scream from my lips. A belt, his belt—leather, I presume—cracks in the air, and I scream again and flinch away from the sound, nearly falling off my chair in the process. The man laughs again and pulls me back onto my seat.

  “Sit on your hands.”

  “What?” I whisper with a gulp.

  “Sit on your hands,” he orders again.

  I comply immediately, his tone telling me that he’s not fucking around anymore. My teeth chatter painfully, not from the cold that has worked its way into my soul, but from fear. I feel his hands near my head and then slowly he begins to lift the black cloth bag away from my face. My eyes open painfully, and I quickly squeeze them shut and then reopen them as my vision begins to focus. I take in my surroundings: a small shell of a room, barred windows, gray walls, dirty concrete floor. I look straight ahead of me and realize that I’m looking at my own reflection. A large wall is in front of me with a huge dirty mirror on it, reflecting back my own frightened image, and I’m shocked and scared by what I see. I’m pale and visibly shaking, my hair a rat’s nest of black tangles. My one good eye wide and glassy, the other swollen closed. I look behind me to a large beast of a man standing and staring at me—literally a beast of a man. His face is ravaged, the skin sewn over his left eye, and part of his cheek missing: a deep gouge where his flesh once was. His hair hangs lankly around his face. He smiles at me and my breath snags. Horror lurks behind those eyes.

  His hand reaches out and he lifts up the back of my top. I shiver again, my skin covered in goose bumps from his touch and from the freezing air. He smiles again, a throaty sound of satisfaction coming from the back of his throat. I squeeze my eyes closed when I see him raise a large brown belt, and I wait with gritted teeth for the pain to begin.

  It’s only seconds later when the first lash rains down on me, causing me to scream loudly. My back burns, pain vibrating from the red welt that is no doubt now standing to attention. Another crack of his belt sounds out right before it lashes across my back, almost like he’s taunting me with the sound. The pain is worse this time, and I scream, gagging on the sound. After the fourth I beg for him to stop, the tears leaking from my eyes no matter how much I don’t want to cry. After the seventh I struggle to breathe. After that I lose count.

  Nothing happens for what seems like an eternity. My breath comes in great, wracking sobs from my chest as I heave and fight the pain. I hear him tut, and I wonder what the hell I could have done now. I haven’t moved, I’ve done everything he told me to, so why the tut? A new sound makes my eyes open.

  I stare straight ahead, watching him leering at me. My flesh is pure white and trembling, yet he looks like he’s having the most fun he’s ever had. I swallow and choke on a sob as his large meaty hand reaches for my hair, grabbing a clump of it roughly as he drags me backwards from my chair. I stumble and almost fall to the ground, only his hand on my hair keeping me upright.

  It happens so fast.

  I scream.

  He laughs.

  And he continues to pull me backwards as I claw at him, screaming and crying until he throws me forward against a dirty bed that smells of mold and filth. My face buries in the rank material and I can hardly breathe. I look back over my shoulder as he comes toward me, one hand working the button on his jeans, and he says, “Why does your boy want to see you hurtin’, baby?” He smiles.

  I spit at him. “Fuck you,” I whisper.

  He smiles again.

  Chapter 2

  It’s relentless. That’s all I can think as the door screeches open and they come for me again. Not a day to recover or time to banish the memory of dirty, groping hands on me, causing me pain and making me beg for mercy. Emily cowers in front of me, but I jut out my chin and push her behind me. I can’t imagine anything worse than this—than what they’ve already done to me—so fuck it. Fuck them. And fuck the world. I snarl as two men stand in front of me, the shadows from their bodies falling over Emily and me.

  One of them chuckles and as their arms reach out, I brace myself for them to take me, brace myself for more pain and torment, but instead they reach for Emily. I’m stunned as she screams in fear, her eyes wide like saucers, and then I scream and grab for her also. They laugh at us and I kick out at them, grabbing for her again as she reaches for me.

  “Not her! Please not her! Take me, take me, please.”

  A sharp kick to my ribs sends me sprawling backwards, but I’m up and moving for them again with the sharp taste of copper in my mouth and my breath burning through my lungs. The door shuts and I’m locked back into darkness again, with only my tears and my memories of what they previously did to me to fill the empty space left by her.

  “No,” I sob. “Please, God, no, not Emily.” They’re going to break her down, tear that innocence away from her, and destroy who she is. “Please, NO!” I bang against the door with my fists and scream, feeling the gash at my mouth pop back open with a painful pinch and fresh blood ooze from it. “Please!”

  I slide down the door to my knees, and cry. I cry for her and I cry for Mikey. I don’t understand why he would let them do this to us, but I have my trust in him. He wouldn’t just abandon us. The worthless self-pitying part cries for me, because I know that if any of us make it out of this alive—which I doubt we will—none of us will ever be the same again, and that is the saddest thing of all.

  Chapter 3

  Two days, I estimate, I’ve been here alone. Two days in the cold and the dark with no word from Emily or Mikey. Two days of pissing in a bucket and shivering in the corner—lucky for me, my bowels are empty anyway. I guess that’s the bonus of being starved. My right eye has decided to open back up today; it’s both painful and a relief to know that it still works. I want to be using this time to exercise and get strong—like in the movies, where the woman does a hundred pull-ups and builds up her body strength so she looks like a miniature wrestler—but every part of my body is bruised either externally or internally. I know my pride certainly is. I stopped worrying for Mikey when I returned and he didn’t. In my head I’ve accepted that they have probably killed him, so imagine my surprise when the door finally opens and he waltzes in, looking every bit the comedy villain: dark stubble covering his chin, red, blood-stained knuckles, bulging biceps, and all wrapped up nicely with a cold expression.

  I stumble to my feet, my eyes sore from the glare coming from outside. “Mikey?” I ask, even though I know it’s him—I’m not fucking stupid or something. I may have been beaten to near death, but all my mental health is still in place. Or at least that’s what the voices keep telling me.

  “You’re alive!” I run toward him. “I knew you were and I knew you wouldn�
��t leave us. I fucking knew it,” I sob.

  He meets me halfway, striding toward me quickly and wrapping his arms around me as I bury myself into him. The heat and strength in those arms dissolves every bit of willpower I possess and I cry, tears pouring from my eyes while I wail like a banshee into his chest. The surge in emotions only lasts a minute but feels like an hour, and I pull away, embarrassed. His face is calm and collected, not an inch of emotion showing. Even his warm eyes seem cold as they look me over.

  “They took Emily!” I trip over my words, my eyes glaring at the man in the doorway. I push away from Mikey. “What did you do to her?” I sob, heading toward the dick by the door like a protective mama bear.

  “She’s fine, Nina. She’s working.” Mikey grabs me by the waist and pulls me back to his chest.

  I look up at him, fear gnawing at my stomach. “What?” The worst thought pops into my mind. “Working? What do you mean, working?” I spin to get at the guard again. “You better not have touched her!” I scream.

  Mikey catches on to my train of thought. “No, not like that,” he rushes to clarify. “She’s helping out around here, cooking and cleaning.” He strokes my cheek carefully. “She’s fine, I promise.”

  I stand back to assess him. How does he know all this? How can he be so calm about it? Has he been lapping it up in luxury while I’ve been living in squalor? And what about Emily—working? Which more than likely means she’s being looked after, fed, watered, and has somewhere other than the floor to rest on. I look down at myself, finally smelling the stench of both this room and me. I look him over, finally seeing the long scars up his arms and the shadows of bruises on his face, but even those are healing. “Where have you been?”

  He shrugs his shoulders, like I’ve asked him the time and not where he’s been the entire time I’ve been being tortured. He looks behind him at the guard and then back to me.

  “I’ve been working—preparing.” He looks away guiltily.

  “Preparing for what?” Bile rises in my stomach, dreading what he’s going to say next.

  “Preparing to break into the walled city,” he says calmly.

  I shake my head at him, confusion and shock covering my features. “But…no, Mikey.”

  He backs away from me, turning to stare at the doorway, his arms folding across his chest. “I don’t know why you want to protect those people, Nina.” He turns back around, his eyes narrowed. “After everything they did to you.” I hear the tremor in his voice, though; he’s not tricking me.

  I grind my teeth. “So what? I’m over that.”

  “No you’re not, and you never will be.” His own teeth are grinding now, the muscles working at his jaw line. “You don’t understand, Nina.” He shakes his head.

  “I understand that you’re siding with these animals, and you think that’s a better option. Look what they have done to me.” Tears spring to my eyes, but they aren’t sad tears. I’m fucking angry—furious, even.

  Mikey walks to the doorway, his shoulders hung low. “I didn’t come here for to fight with you, Nina. I wanted to check that you were okay after…” He swallows without finishing and I know what he was going to say, but neither of us voice it.

  “Well, I’m not okay. I won’t be okay if you do this. You’re condemning all those people to death if you help the Forgotten, Mikey. You can’t do this.”

  “It’s already started, Nina.”

  I run to him, looking up into his face. “What do you mean?”

  “We…” He rubs a hand down his face and I see a crack in his demeanor, a sliver of the man I thought I knew, and then it’s gone and his cold façade is back. “We’ve destroyed one of the cities already.”

  It takes a moment to comprehend what he’s saying. “You’ve destroyed one already?” I whisper and he nods. “And what about all the people?” I ask as I grab his arms and try to get him to look at me. “Mikey, what about all the people? What happened to them?”

  “What do you think?” He steps back, his eyes staring into my face, searching for something. He must not find what he’s looking for, because he pushes away from me and walks toward the door. “I’m trying to protect you, Nina.” He chokes on his words.

  I shake my head. I can’t think; my thoughts are scrambling for something to grip onto. “I think you’re a murderer,” I whisper. “You killed all those people! How could you?” I shout after him, my voice cracking on the last word.

  He turns his head ever so slightly, not really looking at me but directing his words to me nonetheless. “Better them than us.” He walks out the door as he says, “Better than you.”

  “I’ll never forgive you for this, Mikey. Never.”

  We stare at each other and I know my words have cut him, but instead of saying anything else he shuts the door, and a second later I hear the key turn in the lock.

  “Don’t fucking walk away from me, Mikey!” I shout again, tears flowing down my cheeks. “We said we would help them, not kill them.” I sob loudly. I feel sick, weak, and exhausted, and as the world spins around me and goes gray and then pitch black oblivion, I swear to myself that I will never forgive Mikey for this.

  *

  I turn over, pulling the covers over my head. I don’t know what that annoying sound is, but I am not getting up. I’m staying right here until lunchtime. I pull my knees up to my chest, flinching at the pain in my ribs, and my eyes spring open. It’s dark, but then I’m buried beneath a warm duvet so that’s to be expected, I guess. The thought registers as my hand fumbles with the cover. A duvet? I struggle to find the exit to my comfy cocoon, and when I do, things are different.

  Gone is my dark cell of doom. Yes, of doom. Don’t fucking judge me. Instead, I’m in a real bedroom. Well, I’m in a room with a bed, windows, and books in it, so it’s the closest to a real bedroom I’ve been in in a long time.

  I slip my feet out of bed, wary about where the hell I am and how the hell I got here. I scramble over to one of the windows and look out, my eyes stinging by the brightness of the world. I’m in a little town of some sort, with people milling around. There are shops and trees, and there’s even a fucking park bench! My stomach lurches, making me feel nauseous from hunger and more than a little confusion. I turn and look around my room in confusion, my eyes finally landing on a tray of food on a large, round, wooden table in the middle of the room. I jog to it, ignoring the pain in my ribs and ankle, and dive straight into the food: scrambled eggs and fresh fruit—slightly cold scrambled eggs and berries, anyway.

  I start eating, grabbing two handfuls of the food and shoving it quickly into my mouth before realizing that there is silverware I could use. With a shrug of my shoulders I continue with my own way of eating. It’s quicker this way, and I haven’t eaten in days.

  I belch loudly as I devour the last of it, gulping down the glass of water in one go, and then sit at the table and stare at my empty plate. I don’t understand what’s going on. Where is everyone? Where the hell am I? Am I not going to die now, or is this just a tease—another form of torture, maybe? A sliver of hope to be dashed from me at the last moment because their other forms of torture weren’t working on me. I want to laugh; clearly they didn’t realize how close I was to breaking.

  The last thing I remember was passing out by the door, with my ass going numb on the cold concrete floor. I look down at my feet, seeing dirty socks with holes in them instead of my well-worn Doc Marten boots. Standing abruptly, I set about looking for them. I’ll kill them if they’ve taken my boots. They’re mine; they were my last gift from Ben. A sob builds in the back of my throat, and when I see my boots by the side of my bed, I let it out in relief. I quickly go over and put them back on, making sure that the fraying laces are nice and tight, and then I continue my search of the room, finding nothing but a bathroom and a closet with no clothes in it.

  I stand back at the window, frowning out upon this strange new world. There are a couple of children running in the little streets, playing jump rope and kicking
a ball. A woman is pushing a baby buggy, and I can see the small movements of an infant within it. I watch as the people go into the shops and come out with purchases, arms laden with fruit and packages. What the hell are they buying? I don’t understand what’s going on. How can things be like this? How are they living like this? I pull myself up to sit in one of the window boxes to get a better view of my surroundings.

  When I look down from my window, I can see great stone steps leading up to large double doors. There’s a sign out front, but from this distance I can’t read what it says. My eye is still tender from being swollen, and I’m glad I can still see from it, even if the vision isn’t what it used to be yet. Maybe it never will be. I guess I should be grateful to be alive.

  Grateful? I almost laugh. Grateful is the last thing I am. A sob builds in me again. Watching these children, mothers, and fathers walking around free and happy makes me think of the old world. I’d do anything to go back to that world, that life. Things were so much simpler then. Not to mention I was never chased by deaders or fucking lunatics.

  The sound of the door opening behind me makes me jump, but I don’t get down; I stay exactly where I am, watching and ready. Ready for what? I have no idea, and as usual, there’s nothing I can do anyway. I wear a snarl on my damaged face, my fists ready by my sides, ready to attack anyone that comes near me. So when Emily comes in, I nearly fall from my seat in shock.

  “Emily?” Yes, this sounds like déjà vu, doesn’t it? That’s what I was thinking, as the image of Mikey coming in to the other room comes back to haunt me.

  “Nina.” She runs over to me, arms open, tears pouring, like a little lamb running to slaughter. I say that not because I’m mean, but because I’m bad fucking luck and I have only seemed to make things worse for her since we met.