Dusk Territories: Always Burning

by Munden, Deston

  Graham held his breath, keeping a good grip of Dagon’s head. He twisted the creature’s neck. It wasn’t enough. He fought the beast off for a moment, gaining a free hand. Before he even knew it, he had removed shemaugh from his neck. His fingers and arm did the rest of the work, tightening the cloth around the neck, and twisting it like a lever. The bone on the creature was far too strong to break, but the maneuver did cause the creature to yelp in pain. Or at least try to yelp. The water quickly entered the feline’s mouth, choking it better than Graham could ever could. It went limp in a minute, life sucked from it eyes.

  With a margin of pride, Graham grabbed a tooth from the elongated fangs and tore it from its gums. Blood rose to the surface. Graham stabbed the animal over and over again. This wasn’t an act of cruelty, but persuasion. The Beastmaster—assuming that he couldn’t connect visually with the beast—would think he was dead. If he could, oh well. If he couldn’t, well that would be nice. Battle was brutal, and he was about to show him how different the two of them were in battle. He swam up to the surface, hand grasped tightly on the fang of Dagon. It was a perfect makeshift knife. Not as good as a KA-BAR, but it would have to do.

  Graham emerged from the water, pulling himself to the surface. His clothes were heavy, but mental anger fueled him. Beastmaster was still a healthy length away, but he could see the eyes of the man getting larger and larger with every step. Apparently, he couldn’t connect optically with the beast—only emotionally. The moment that Dagon’s connection was gone shocked him, but he probably assumed that both were dead. Blood of that volume would convince anyone of that. He was wrong, and Graham was right.

  “How did you--?” Beastmaster mouthed. He knew he had to act and he had to act fast. The charmer sent sharp beaked, mutated ravens soaring towards Graham. He should have quit.

  Graham dashed towards his target, moving out of the way of their flight lines. A flash of white stabbed each of them. Head, stomach, and their wings had been taken down with almost inhuman like movement. He knew wasn’t quite human, not anymore. His actions knew what he had to do. He forced himself to think as well. A man couldn’t let his thoughts rule his movement completely. There needs to be some consciousness.

  A shower of black feathers and pink inners ended the aerial assault. Graham gave one last stab, chopping a long mutated raven in half through the open beak to the tail feather. By the end, his entire body was covered in blood: his own, Dagons, the birds. But there was one that he didn’t have on his palette. He planned to correct that, now.

  Alas the chance escaped him. Beastmaster was nowhere to be seen.

  “The bastard ran.” Graham couldn’t doubt the man, in retrospect. Proficiency in combat of both the gun and hand to hand stacked the odds in his favor. The master’s power over animals would become irrelevant without said animals. Dagon was probably his favorite, the birds a good secondary. Graham had one weapon, but could use it in a thousand different ways. That weapon would never leave him, until it rested forever.

  He wiped the entrails of the birds from his body, and let his mind calm. He had to admit, he wasn’t used to not having pure adrenaline running through his body. But something had replaced it, something deadly. It was a calmness that you couldn’t achieve with life pulsing through you. Death stayed with him. It cuddled up beside him, kept him safe with its dark black coat and long scythe. His heart never raced, fatigue didn’t course through his veins. It was too good to be true, it had to come with some sort of—

  And he felt it then.

  Graham was hungry. It wasn’t like a normal hunger. His mind and body starved. He fell to his knees, writhing in the abyss of that desire. “What the hell,” he said pushing back the need, only for it to get wider in his attempt. He didn’t want a cooked meal, but something raw, natural, and filled with life. That unnerved him. Why would he want that? That would make him no different than the cannibals. He struggled with the thought a bit more. “You have to survive,” he told himself. Survival had coupled with death as his protectors.

  His mind wandered for a while looking at the dead corpses that Beastmaster’s team was feasting on. He shook his head. He looked to the dismembered bodies of the cannibals. They were undeserving animals.” Graham slammed his fist to the ground. “Damn, you’re not like them. They don’t deserve that, even though they’re pigs.” His fingers graced on one of the black birds, not quite dead. “ Dammit,” he growled. If he didn’t eat something, whatever this blood haze was, this abyss would drive him insane…or kill him.

  With resentment, he grabbed the black bird by the tail. He closed his eyes, trying to ignore the futile cheeps from the bird. You have to survive. Don’t think about it. He took his first bite with a horrible crunching sound as he bit into the large breast of the bird. His teeth, crushed through bone, muscle almost too easily from a man of a human jaw. Layers and layers of the flailing creature fell by the sheer strength of his yellowed teeth. The taste was almost euphoric. The flavor was strong; almost intoxicating unlike any food that had ever settled in his stomach. He could taste the pulse of the creature in its stringy meat. It was like he was reliving the creature’s life as he crunched through the body. He could feel it fly, the way it moved, the way it lived through his chewing. Nothing was left after he was done.

  He tore through several more, mind ignoring the dead ones for the living ones before none was left. At the end, he sat back, belly full. The growing abyss in his stomach and brain subsided, giving life renewed back to his body. A pang of guilt accompanied him soon after. He needed life to live. The films never explained that. Maybe because it was fiction and this was Graham’s reality. But he knew, a small part of him knew, that if he didn’t eat he would go mad or die. He didn’t want either of those, especially while people needed him.

  This is just great, he thought getting to his feet. For now he needed to focus. The hostages, right. He needed to save them. That would get his mind off that moment, if for a little while.

  Graham scanned the surroundings again. Ragnar would have taken the stone cave at the rim of the lake. He lumbered to the cave, taking small steps at a time, watching his boots. At least his body wasn’t aching. After every battle with his Marines, he would feel incredibly stiff everywhere down to his ass. It wasn’t that bad minus the horrible hunger part. At least he could just move on. It was a good thought, a satisfying one. “Looks like I won’t be getting old, eh, Private,” Graham said grinning.

  Private Kingsley always joke him about his age. He never thought that he would miss those men this much.

  He made it to the mouth of the cave. The inside was illuminated by torches in endless rows along the walls. Stalactites hung from the ceiling, dripping clear water on the copper-colored stone in thin rivers that ultimately led back to a clear water pool on the side. High towers of bones and large splatters of dried blood stamped the lair as a cannibal, no the Cannibal’s lair. However, there were some pieces of the resident that felt more like a person lived here instead of a brute.

  Wooden bookshelves lined the back wall. Graham went to inspect the literature. There were many classic titles, philosophy text, and an obscene amount of medical books. The bed, fashioned out of wood, straw, and some cotton, was hefty like a giant slept there. Beside it was a rugged nightstand, and upon that was a sculpture of a woman made entirely out of bone. Graham wanted to see more of the sculpture, but the sound of breathing stopped him from doing so.

  “Is someone there?” The voice, a young man cried out.

  “Juvencio, shut up,” a woman replied, her voice deadpan, almost bored. “If there’s going to be anyone here, they’re going to be here to eat us. Simple fact.”

  “Don’t say shit like that,” Juvencio shrilled.

  “It’s the truth of the matter; we just need to accept it. Drifter knows we got here on our own and we have to get out on our own.”

  “You’re like his main homeslice, though…” Juvencio whimpered.

  “I’m replace
able, expendable, and useful to a point. No need to—“

  “Plenty of soldiers make that statement, doesn’t make their lives any less valuable.”

  The tense breathing and clattering of metal was proof they hadn’t expected a response at all. Graham wheeled around a lofty stalagmite to see an iron cage hanging above a small gulch. Within the cage were two people. A lady sat slumped against the cage, blonde hair tumbling down her neck, head cocked to one side. Only in cargo pants and a ripped tank top, the woman looked out of place in her majesty. Her pale skin was accented by fierce green eyes, which stared to her companion with a bit of annoyance.

  Her partner, a young frail looking man, stood against the bars of the cage. He pushed his black messy hair from his face, the strands drenched in sweat. That could be said for his entire body in fact. In the rich torchlight, anyone could see that his light brown skin was glistening with perspiration. His dirty brown jumpsuit was equally soaked. He bit his lip noticing Graham for the first time. Gore for his fight with Dagon and meal thereafter still hung from his body. Juvenico’s face told his terrified story.

  Juvenico took in a deep breath. “Heron!”

  “What?” Heron barked back. “And please stop swinging this cage.”

  “You see that?”

  “He’s kind of hard to miss.”

  “What’s that even? Urgh. Jesus…” Juvencio paced the small cage, rocking it ever so slightly. “We’re gonna be eaten…by…by…that! Why do you have to be right?”

  Heron glowered, giving no inkling on whether she was horrorstruck or not. “It could be worse,” she said aside to Juvenico.

  “It could be worse?” Juvencio shouted.

  “Yes.”

  “How in the hell could this be any worse? I’m not seeing the worse in this!”

  “’Cause I’m obviously here to help,” Graham interrupted.

  “Yo. We can’t trust this dude!” Juvenico said, rocking the cage a bit more. “He just looks like a guy that could eat us!”

  Before Graham had experienced the hunger, rebuking the fact would have been easy. Now, he couldn’t. In fact, even a part of him feared that he would accidently slip. So, he remained quiet, trying to keep the peace with the two captives with amity. “How about this, I’ll get you some weapons. I’ll hand them to you through the cage when I get you down. Then you’ll be armed in case you think that I’m some monster. But I am only here to protect you and get you back to the Drifter. I didn’t fight a group of cannibals just to find a meal.”

  “Juv, he has a point,” Heron said, waving off the conversation like it was a bother.

  Juvenico pursed his lips. “Fine. But I’m taking those weapons before you let us out.”

  “You’re such a pussy,” Heron muttered under her breath.

  With a swift nod and a swifter laugh, Graham searched for the control mechanism. His keen eyesight spotted a sight of the small wooden wheel and lever. He jogged towards it, looking carefully. Ragnar had somehow made a pull system. The level was attached to a web of ropes, each to a different cage. The wheel was marked and numbered from left to right according to the positions. Graham took a glance towards the cage that hostages were captive in, and back. “Three,” Graham said aloud, grabbing the handle. He cranked the wheel.

  Bit by bit, the third cage sailed across the dark chasm of the cave. The lever and wheel took an immense amount of strength, probably meant for Ragnar himself. Graham was even forced to take a few breaks to make sure he could get them across safely. A few minutes later, the cage made a satisfying clunk as it hovered over a stable piece of land where all the ropes met, the landing area.

  “There’s a switch to your left that will descend us,” Heron noted.

  Juvenico’s arched an eyebrow. “How’d know that?”

  “Watching. Maybe you should try it sometime.” It’ll give you a break from talking.”

  With a flick of an adjacent lever, the cage came crashing down. Heron had enough sense to grab on a bar before it happened. Juvenico, however, had finally let go of bars at the wrong time. He slammed his head against the top of the cage, almost knocking the man unconscious. He stumbled around, holding his head and seeing stars. “Damn…you could have warned me about the fall…”

  “Or you could have watched and prepared yourself,” Heron said as mockingly as her flat voice would allow her.

  Graham laughed at the witty comment before approaching the black barred cage. He observed it. The lock was sturdy, taking wild precautions to insure security. It would take him a while to pick the locks. That was if he could pick a lock. He had many skills in his arsenal, but the ‘art’ of lock picking had never been one of them. He clinched his teeth. “Going to get the key.”

  “Not going to happen. Beastmaster and Ragnar are the only ones that possesses one, but don’t worry about it.” Heron shrugged her shoulders, “Just get us our weapons; Juv’s revolver and my sword. Ragnar usually keeps personal items from his captives—or meals whatever he prefers to call them—in a chest. It’s not locked from what I have seen; no one here would touch anything that’s not meat. It’s near his bed—the large one.”

  “Very observant,” Graham responded, nodding.

  “Yeah, how’d you see that from here?” Juvenico turned to his companion, who sighed.

  Heron gave a low snicker. “If you stopped panicking for the past few hours, maybe you would’ve seen it too.”

  “You don’t have to be a bitch about it,” he whispered.

  I’m amazed they haven’t killed each other yet. Graham thought before saying aloud, “Don’t kill each other before I get back.”

  “Oh, he wouldn’t be able to kill me, hon.”

  There was no rebuttal to her fact, so Graham could only assume that it was true.

  In silence, Graham doubled back to the conclave he had gone to earlier. At the foot of the bed was a long chest; as messily made as the nightstand. It was made of a nicer wood pine or oak, adorned with lungs of a man. Drawing upon his strength, Graham push the top of the chest open revealing a large content of items. More books, penciled drawings, and a thick leather strapped journal sat in one corner alone. The other side, however, was cramped full of things. Guns, belts, grenades—almost everything for anybody looking for surviving in this cruel world—sat packed within the container.

  “Which ones are yours?” Graham shouted. If someone hadn’t heard him by now, they weren’t going to be a challenge in a battle.

  “The silver broadsword is mine.” She wasn’t shouting, but her voice was clear enough.

  “The Remington Model 1858 is mine, with the red and green ribbon tied to the vintage hilt.”

  “That’s incredibly specific,” Heron remarked.

  “I don’t carry a sword there are probably thousands of revolvers in that barbarian’s chest, chica.”

  Indeed, Juvenico was right. There were probably thousands of revolvers and plenty of other hand pistols within the chest. Only through luck, Graham managed to find the man’s signature piece. Heron’s sword was incredibly easy to find in comparison. The long silver blade sat within the pack of much more modern weapons. The negligible amount of swords and axes that Ragnar had collected was nothing in comparison to the guns. Graham picked her weapon up, experimentally. He wasn’t some swordsmen, but he knew in the right hand, this could probably do some damage. The weight meant he had to carry it with both hands, so he placed Juv’s pistol underneath his belt.

  As much as he wanted to check out the contexts of the journal or the drawings, he decided against it. One, he didn’t have enough time. Two, it was more personal than he needed to know. Getting to know a potential enemy was great, but knowing how they worked personally could be counterproductive. No matter what wrong they’ve done, there was always a person behind it. It was better to keep the enemy as nameless, formless even, as possible. Guilt cripples a man from making the right decision for themselves or others.

  He returned to t
he two allies in the cage. “As promised,” he placed the sword down, and handed Juvenico his pistol through the thick bars. Juvenico, surprised at the gesture, weighed the gun in each hand and inspected it. “Not sure if I could get that blade within the bars like that.”

  “You don’t need to,” Heron said, pushing Juvenico out of her way. “I have enough…confidence that if you were to do something foolish that I’ll pummel you.”

  “You didn’t pummel Ragnar,” Juvenico mocked.

  “Because you were such a great help,” she retorted quickly, and the small man shrunk back to his normal meekness.

  “Getting out of there’s going to be difficult without—“

  Graham would have finished his sentence, if he hadn’t been interrupted by the screeching sound of metal. Heron had a grip on two of the bars, pulling them apart as though they were butter. When they met another bar, she pushed that one aside too. The hole she made got larger, and larger, and larger until it was large enough for the both of them to walk through without a problem. He arched an eyebrow as the two hopped out of the cage.

  “Why didn’t you do that earlier?” Juvenico asked.

  “We were over a chasm filled with pointy rocks, rushing water, and most likely mutated crocodiles or something. Where exactly would we go?” Heron said, picking up her broadsword. She clicked the sword back into its sheath already on her back. Ragnar had seen no need to take the harden leather when the blade itself was in his possession. “You need to think things through a bit more.”

  “It’ll help you not get killed,” Graham added.

  “Eh. Whatever…gotta name brother.”

  “David Graham. Marine Corporal before all this happen,” Graham motioned to his body. “Believe me, I’m just trying to figure this all out too.”

  Heron gave him a legitimate facial expression for once, one almost of empathy. “Aren’t we all?”

  “Yeah.” Juvenico wiped the sweat from his brow. “Juvenico Ramos.”

  “Heron.”