Retribution - Book three of Beyond These Walls: A Post-Apocalyptic Survival Thriller

by Michael Robertson

  Spike had never felt so small as he stood in the line of six with the other competitors, the attention of so many people boring into him. Since he’d arrived back at the training area, one of the new team leaders took his bags while another rushed him to the ring to join the other five. They didn’t blame him for arriving last, because he couldn’t control when his carriage collected him, but it didn’t change the fact that everyone had to wait. It didn’t make his entrance any less of a spectacle. And now this: Sarge digging him out in front of an arena filled with spectators by both reminding him, and telling them, of his past failures. Heat flooded his cheeks, but he said nothing.

  Sarge hobbled as he walked up and down in front of the trainees, the muddy ground squelching beneath his steps. “As always, we promise these games will be harder, faster, and more violent than any you’ve seen before. Whoever wins the next apprenticeship will have to sweat blood for it.”

  A reflection of his own apprehension in the faces of most of the other cadets, Spike looked down the line until he got to Hugh at the other end. The one he’d expected to be the most nervous, the boy clenched his jaw and stared back at the audience as if issuing them an open challenge. Whatever had happened to him during his month away, the scared boy from national service had been shed like dead skin: stockier, braver, and from the look of him, more determined.

  “We’ve been working on these trials for months now, and we can’t wait to show them to you,” Sarge continued.

  Did he have children like Bleach—Dave—did, or did Sarge spend his entire life in the national service area? Maybe they didn’t offer him time off on account of not having to go beyond the wall. He’d hardly earned it.

  Sarge introduced the competitors, starting with Hugh. “He may look like a lab rat, but this boy has come on so much in the past six months, and looking at him now, he might even stand a chance of winning the trials. Hugh Rodgers!”

  Spike joined the others in looking down the line at his friend. His expression remained unchanged, his attention still fixed on the crowd.

  “James Swank. He did well to keep his head when many around him lost theirs. A calm and composed candidate who should go far.”

  It looked like James tried to follow Hugh’s lead, although his brooding glare gave off the appearance of a child rather than a competitor. Maybe he realised it, because he lifted a limp hand and waved instead.

  Despite the tall bleachers encircling the arena, the wind still blew strong enough to throw Fran Jacob’s curly brown hair into her face. She did nothing to prevent it as Sarge introduced her. “One of the smartest cadets in training, what she lacks in speed and muscle, she more than makes up for with guile: Fran Jacobs.”

  The crowd had remained quiet to let Sarge speak, but then he got to Ranger. In the month they’d been away, and because he’d had so many other things to think about, Spike had wondered if his hatred for the boy had diminished. However, as he looked at him now, his heart hammering, he balled his fists, desperate to throw them into his thick face. As if backing him up, the crowd booed.

  “He can’t hold a flame to his dad, but then who can? The protector’s son: Magma’s boy.”

  Again, Ranger looked as if he tried to mimic Hugh, but Spike saw in his wince that Sarge’s introduction hurt. He came into the trials as the favourite. On top of that, he had to carry the weight of his dad’s legacy, and Sarge hadn’t even named him. Hopefully, he’d buckle from the pressure.

  It took about thirty seconds for the crowd to quieten down, and as Spike looked at the red jeering faces, his legs shook. One person away from being introduced, and then after that, he’d have to perform in front of them for the trials. Even worse, he’d have his loved ones watching on. What if he made a total fool of himself?

  “I’ll be honest with this one.” Sarge looked Liz up and down. “I’m not sure why she’s here other than to make up the numbers.”

  Clearly still pumped from Ranger’s introduction, the crowd laughed.

  “Maybe she’ll surprise us all. Liz Barber.”

  A low blow, Spike watched Liz turn as red as her hair. When Sarge closed down on him, his stomach flipped, his palms sweating.

  “Now this one wasn’t my choice.”

  Spike glared at Sarge.

  “But this here is the second-chance kid. The rule breaker. Romeo, risking his life to save his lover. It’s just a shame he’s not the favourite to get through this, because he’ll never see her again when all’s said and done. William Johnson.”

  Spike looked out at the crowd, and his stomach continued to turn backflips. As much as he wanted to react to Sarge’s goading, it would do him no favours.

  “One last time, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, please give it up for our six candidates.”

  This time, the crowd erupted, the sound hitting Spike in a wave that felt like it could burst his eardrums. Disorientated and dizzy, it wasn’t until one of the new team leaders grabbed Spike’s arm that he saw they wanted to lead him away. While leaving the ring, passing over a wooden hatch in the ground, he watched the crowd. Whatever else happened, he’d have to get used to them.

  It took for the team leader—a woman no more than five feet six inches tall but with biceps as thick as Spike’s thighs—to lead them to their dorm before anyone spoke. It seemed futile to try to communicate over the noise coming from the arena. The team leader pointed at the room on the left and said, “Boys.” She then indicated the room on the right. “Girls.”

  Spike pointed at the room in the middle. “Who’s in there?”

  “Sarge.” Before anyone could ask her any more questions, the fierce woman left.

  If the looks on the faces of the other cadets were anything to go by, all of them had found the experience overwhelming—all of them save Hugh. The boy had the same dark look in his eyes, and he currently had his glare fixed on Ranger.

  James Swank led the way into the boys’ dorm while the two girls walked into theirs. He turned to face the others as they came in and said, “Everyone here calls me James—which I really hate; only my mum calls me James—because we’re going to be together for a while, can you all please call me Jamie?”

  Spike and the other two boys shrugged. “Sure,” Spike said as he looked around the room. Similar to the one he’d stayed in when they were in team Minotaur, it had little more than two bunk beds in the plain wooden space.

  Hugh walked over to one of them and threw his bag on the bottom bunk.

  When no one else moved, Spike went to his friend and claimed the bed above him. Waiting for someone to say something, he relaxed to see Ranger and James accept the other bunks.

  “Look,” Ranger said.

  While fixing on the boy, Spike felt Hugh tense beside him. The air damn near crackled from his emanation of pure wrath. Not for the first time, Spike looked at his friend. He had muscles that weren’t there four weeks ago. His eyes were sunk much deeper into his skull, ringed with dark shadows. His thick hands were balled into fists, his knuckles cut and swollen. What had happened to him?

  Ranger looked at Hugh, his mouth half-open. After a few seconds, he said, “I want to say sorry. I was an arse during national service. I lost my shit because of the pressure. What you saw wasn’t me.”

  Words he’d never expect to hear from the arrogant prick, Spike watched him, all three of them letting him continue.

  “I just want you all to know I’m here to compete. Of course I am. But I want to win this fair and square, as I’m sure you all do. I won’t be the cause of any drama. I’m here to get my head down and get on.” He held his hand in Jamie’s direction. They shook.

  When he did the same to Spike, Spike paused for a moment. He finally took the boy’s hand and looked into his eyes. The nasty kid from national service appeared to have left him. Maybe the situation had screwed him up like he said. Maybe he didn’t need to understand or care why he behaved how he did. As long as he kept to himself, what did it matter?

  Ranger walked over to Hugh an
d offered him his hand. “I’m sorry for everything that’s gone on.”

  The same tension in the air, Spike could have sworn he heard the fizz of an electrical current as the two boys locked stares. Although, the aggression only went one way; Ranger was uncharacteristically submissive.

  Instead of shaking his hand, Hugh turned his back on the boy and unpacked his bag.

  Back to Spike, Ranger said, “And I wanted to tell you how much I respect you.”

  “For what?”

  “For not telling me about my dad coming second the year he did the trials. You knew about that all along, didn’t you?”

  Spike nodded.

  “You’re a class act. Many people would have been dragged into my nonsense and struck some low blows. You kept your integrity.”

  The words and demeanour of the boy he despised utterly derailed Spike, and he offered no reply as he watched Ranger go to his bed on the bottom bunk and unpack his things. Maybe the trials wouldn’t be as stressful as he’d anticipated. Then he turned to Hugh again and watched the boy for several seconds. Maybe he’d anticipated drama from the wrong person.

  Chapter 18

  Despite all the chatter around him, Hugh shut it out, focusing on folding his top and stuffing it into the small shelf space that had been allocated to him for his clothes. Storage had been limited when there were three of them in Minotaur’s dorm. Now they needed to fit four into the same space. It left him with the challenge of squeezing everything he’d brought into one cubic foot.

  Even folding clothes proved difficult with his cut and swollen hands. Hugh clenched his teeth as every action sent a throbbing pain up his forearms, but the sensation also reminded him James would be okay. Lance’s pulped face flashed through his mind. The boy’s eyes had been swollen to slits before he’d left him, the moonlight making the blood on his face glisten. What must he have looked like this morning? Who found him? Did they even care? The vile shit got what he deserved.

  Hugh picked up a pair of trousers and folded them next. His thoughts went from the blood coming from Lance’s nose to the last time he’d seen Elizabeth, her top lip crimson from whatever they’d done to her behind that wall. It didn’t matter how he wanted to remember Lance, his mind always returned to him and Ranger laughing at the demise of the girl he’d fallen for.

  As Hugh forced in more clothes, his hand scraped against the shelf above. It made his fingers twitch and spasm from the electric jabs running through them.

  It took for another person to enter the room for Hugh to break away from his work. When he turned to see Sarge in the doorway—the rough vet staring disgust at the cadets—he waited for the man to speak.

  “Lunch in ten minutes, boys.” Fran and Liz stood behind him.

  Although Spike, Jamie, and Ranger left the room, Hugh remained so he could finish unpacking. A job almost complete would drive him mad, and Sarge said they had ten minutes. In the room on his own, he dragged another top from his bag, breathing in through his nose as he folded it. The muscles in his upper body tensed as he relived the beating he’d handed to Lance. The crunch of bone beneath skin. The grind of pulped cartilage. The boy would look different forever because of his beating. It would help him remember the time when he stuck his neck out too far.

  Where Hugh had been oblivious to the background noises when the boys were in the room, the squeaky floorboard in the corridor outside went off like an alarm. He turned in time to watch Ranger enter.

  Although Ranger smiled, his dark eyes didn’t. Even when pretending to be happy, he clearly couldn’t shake his sardonic sneer. “Look, man, I think we got off on the wrong foot.”

  The muscles in Hugh’s body locked when Ranger stepped closer. The threat of a shake started beneath the surface as images assaulted his mind. Blood belching from a deep wound. The diseased. Ranger’s sneer. Lance. Elizabeth.

  Ranger led with his hand again. “Come on, man. Let’s shake on it and move on, yeah?”

  A deep, gaping cut. Punches rained down on a smug face. Screams and cries as Lance took a beating on his way to being battered unconscious.

  “I wasn’t myself over the past few months.”

  Elizabeth turning into a diseased. Her twitching limbs.

  No more than a foot separating them now, Ranger glanced down at Hugh’s clenched fists before looking him in the eye again. He smiled. “You don’t need to cry. I’m not going to hurt you.”

  The sting of tears, Hugh clenched his jaw hard as if it would help him keep everything contained.

  “I’ve said I’m sorry.”

  When Hugh didn’t reply, a flicker disturbed Ranger’s facade, the change in his expression emanating from his sneer outwards. A ripple of poison that started small until it owned his face. “Spike would have done better, you know?”

  It snapped Hugh back into the present moment.

  “He would have saved Elizabeth. He’s a hero. He wouldn’t have run back with his tail between his legs.”

  The knife going into the boy in woodwork’s stomach. Deep red blood.

  “Were you anywhere near as brave as him, you would have made sure the girl you loved survived. But you were too busy looking after yourself, weren’t you?”

  The swelling on the back of Hugh’s hands throbbed with a heavier pulse than before. The tension of his tight grip ran up his forearms, and he shook, his world blurring with his tears.

  “There’s no use in crying, boy. That won’t help. But I can give you a piece of advice that will.” Ranger then moved so close their faces were almost touching. “You’d best sleep with one eye open from here on out. I’m going to make your pathetic little life hell in these trials. I’m going to ruin you.”

  The same creaking floorboard in the hallway, Ranger looked over his shoulder as Spike walked into the room, his face returning to the one he’d worn when apologising to them. “Spike! Are you okay?” A flick of his head in Hugh’s direction, he said, “Hugh and I were just chatting, trying to clear the air, you know?”

  Despite Ranger’s words, Spike didn’t look like he’d fallen for them, keeping his attention on Hugh and remaining in the doorway while Ranger left the room.

  The fire died down. Deep red blood. Elizabeth. Lance. Ranger. The diseased. The shake slowly left Hugh. He didn’t know how many times Spike had tried to say it already, but from his tone, it didn’t sound like the first time. “Hugh? Hugh?”

  “Uh …”

  “Is everything okay?”

  Hugh nodded. “Yeah.” He laughed. “Fine; why wouldn’t it be?”

  “What did Ranger say?”

  “He’s trying to connect with me. I’m just not ready for it, you know?” The deep belching wound punched through his mind. Twitching limbs.

  “I know, mate. Come on, let’s go and eat, yeah?”

  The last top from his bag, Hugh folded it and shoved it into a space it had no right fitting into. It scraped the back of his hands again and made his eyes water more than before, another round of spasms snapping through his fingers. Before turning to Spike again, he rubbed his eyes, sniffed a wet sniff, and followed his friend from the room.

  Chapter 19

  Spike’s stomach bucked as he threw up his breakfast on the muddy ground. The crowd roared with laughter while he stretched his mouth wide to help him breathe. It might have seemed like a cruel reaction, but the spectators were there to be entertained. The cadets were on their fifth lap, and they’d not yet given the audience a reason to get excited.

  The path around the outside of the arena ran a circuit of about eight hundred feet. Not very far on its own, but enough when in front of packed stands, and when added to the tasks they had to do in the centre between laps. Hugh ran ahead of everyone, Ranger behind him, and Spike next. Throwing up had helped him clear the lump in his stomach. He’d eaten too much that morning.

  A look behind at Fran, Liz, and Jamie, Spike saw red faces and tired gaits that reflected his own lethargy. Liz and Jamie appeared worse than Fran, glowing like beacons�
��although, most of that could have been on account of their pale complexions. Even Ranger in front of him looked to be struggling, stumbling occasionally as he squelched through the muddy ground. The only one who appeared in control was Hugh. The pacemaker. The rules of this trial saw cadets eliminated if they were still on their previous lap when the leader completed the three tasks in the centre and started their next run around the ring’s perimeter. They were close to that happening, the sound of the spectators rising with their excitement.

  Still over one hundred feet to go, Spike gasped as he watched Hugh start the challenges in the centre for the sixth time. The boy wore a fixed expression as he ran to the first task. Lumps of grey rock like Spike had seen in the fallen city, they all had metal bars protruding from them, which made them easier to grip, but heavier to lift. Six were lined up in size order, and the first to arrive at them got first choice of which one to pick. Hugh picked up the largest rock again, lifting it over his head as if it weighed nothing.

  As Hugh moved on to the next station, Ranger arrived at the first and picked up the smallest lump of rock. In the face of Hugh’s strength, it made him look like a coward. The crowd’s jeers were so loud, they made Spike’s ears ring.

  The third one to reach the lumps of stone, even the second smallest sent a violent shake through Spike’s arms as he raised it above his head, his eyes stinging beneath a waterfall of sweat. The crowd seemed neither impressed nor annoyed. He scanned the hundreds of faces to try to locate his dad and Matilda. Nothing.

  As he reached the second station, Spike watched Ranger run to be with Hugh at the third. Magma’s son now moved like a diseased, his tired legs stealing his coordination and threatening to send him crashing to the ground.

  Press-ups. Hugh had done five, Ranger ten, Spike had to do fifteen. They did them on the wooden hatch in the centre of the ring. It covered what Spike could only assume to be a pit of some sort. It reminded him of Billy Groves, and as he gritted his teeth, pushing through the pain in his upper body, he imagined the boy banging to be let out.