The Curse: A Post-Apocalyptic Thriller (After the End Trilogy Book 1)

by Mark Gillespie

  All that was a long time ago.

  Eda stared at the dagger in her hand as the rain continued to crash down onto 42nd Street. Did she still have it in her? The ability to kill a man as easily as blinking – was it still there? She’d been living in the Complex for a long time, safe, wrapped up in community and in an environment that was well prepared.

  That little girl – when Eda thought about her, it felt like she was thinking about someone else.

  Many of the bandits lay dead on the road. The survivors, including the giant, had fled for cover at the side of the street, rushing inside the ransacked and empty buildings. Some of them had been hit and as they ran for their lives, Eda saw them clutching at a variety of wounds.

  The horse had long since bolted along with the cart and the dead ambassadors tied to the back. The surviving bandits had no way out now except on foot.

  Eda leaned her back up against the front an old Capital One Bank. For a moment, the carnage further down the street eased off. It was almost quiet again.

  Then a voice yelled from afar:

  “Come out and fight you cowardly bitches! Stop hiding behind your arrows.”

  One of the bandits stood in the doorway of a coffee shop, brandishing a short sword in the air. It was the giant. He waved the weapon back and forth like it was a signal to someone in the distance.

  “We’ll stay here all night and wait it out!” he yelled. His voice was high-pitched for such a big man – the sound so at odds with his imposing physical presence. “It’ll take more than a few bitches to get rid of us. Cowards! Let’s see you on the street, face to face with your swords in hand. What do you say?”

  Eda heard the giant shout orders to the men at his back, most of who were hidden in that same coffee shop with him. She guessed that the archers’ surprise attack had reduced the bandits to less than half their original numbers. A successful ambush but nonetheless, the surviving men were still up for a fight.

  “Be careful what you wish for,” Eda said, looking at the giant.

  Another brief silence passed. Then a sharp voice cut through the night.

  “SWORDS!”

  It was Shay.

  Eda watched as the archers called off their assault on the bandits. She saw them hurrying back along the viaduct – a long line of dark silhouettes moving under the cover of night. Soon she couldn’t see them at all.

  As the archers retreated, about twenty women in black rain cloaks marched out of the station entrance in single file. Eda saw was the katana swords in their hands, the familiar single-edged blades with the distinctive curve of the samurai.

  The warriors.

  Eda’s heart was racing with excitement.

  The warriors took up their positions on the road. The tip of their swords pointed towards the bandits, who were by now shuffling out of the coffee shop and edging towards the battleground. They were bruised and battered but there was still a little swagger left in their step. As they approached the road, the men’s restless eyes jumped back and forth between the warriors and the now empty viaduct.

  But the archers were gone.

  Lex was the chief warrior and she stood at the head of the small, female army. A former military veteran in her mid-fifties, Lex was the resident self-defense guru of the Complex. She was well over six feet tall, highly skilled with a variety of weapons, as well as in unarmed combat techniques such as Krav Maga. Her regular fencing classes were popular with the women but Eda had always held back from joining in. Group activities like that weren’t her thing.

  Maybe she’d been wrong to do that.

  The giant stood at the head of the bandits with his sword drawn. He stared over at Lex and the warriors with cruel satisfaction in his black eyes. With a grimace, he pressed a massive, red-stained hand against a gaping wound under his left shoulder. He squeezed on the wound and a stream of blood spilled down the front of his rags.

  “To hell with rebuilding the human race,” he called out. “I say we empty New York of all these murdering bitches and after we’re done, we march through this town and burn it. What do you say boys?”

  There was an angry jeer of approval at his back.

  The giant stabbed the tip of his sword off the wet road. It made a loud, clanging noise and he did it over and over again, building up towards a frantic, tribal rhythm. The others followed his lead and the sound of all those swords hitting off the road at once swelled into something terrifying and spectacular.

  He turned around to face his men. Then after a long silence, he held his sword aloft and yelled a single word:

  “CHARGE!”

  Eda jumped back as if the bandits were charging directly at her. To her surprise, the warriors on the street didn’t flinch at this sudden attack. They stood like statues as the enemy dashed forward with weapons raised and cries of bloody murder spewing from their hateful mouths.

  It was happening. A battle – a real life and death battle was about to take place on the streets of New York. The history books were full of great battles, Waterloo, Trafalgar, Gettysburg and more. Perhaps Manhattan was about to add its name to the list.

  Finally, Lex raised a hand in the air. She held it still for a moment, letting the men wear themselves out a little more.

  Then she dropped it.

  The warriors raced forwards in silence to meet the enemy.

  From afar, Eda put her hands over her ears. The two small armies crashed into one another and the metallic clash of steel against steel felt like it was scraping off the inside of Eda’s head. She’d never seen anything like this before. Even in the wild years, there’d been nothing like this.

  Shay and several other women stood near the entrance to the station, watching keenly as the battle unfolded.

  Lex and her warriors glided effortlessly through the battle like it was a dance. The men were undoubtedly bigger and stronger but it seemed like they were running solely on anger and raw strength. It was blunt force versus skill. Some of the bandits lost their footing on the wet road as they wielded the heavy short swords with clumsy abandon. Those that slipped, even just onto a knee, didn’t have time to get back to their feet before a warrior’s blade found them.

  Lex and one of her soldiers had decided to tackle the giant. They took up position, one on either side of the big man, slicing up his massive torso and adding to his nasty collection of wounds. The giant roared in pain. The women were much faster and lighter on their feet than he was. He turned to launch a counter attack on Lex but as soon as he faced her, the other warrior ran the tip of her blade down his back in a vertical line, like she was marking him. The giant howled. If nothing else, he was brave and determined. He kept moving forward, trying to hack at Lex and then the other warrior. They led him on a merry dance, their feet skipping lightly off the surface of the road. Every now and then, one of the warriors would rush in and open him up somewhere new.

  Eda watched, edging ever closer to the action. She was so focused on the fighting that she almost didn’t hear the scream behind her.

  She spun around. There was nothing but the dark road behind her.

  Another scream.

  Eda’s thoughts turned to the two frightened gardeners who’d taken off earlier.

  “Oh shit,” she said. “What’s happened?”

  She turned back to the fighting on 42nd Street. It wasn’t over by a long shot. The bandits were staging a comeback and they were sweeping forward, as if a second wind had spread across the ranks of surviving men. Some of the warriors in black were down, clutching at the stab wounds on their body.

  Eda couldn’t bear to turn her back on the battle. But she had to.

  With the dagger in hand, she turned and ran back in the direction she thought the scream had come from. She took a sharp right turn, charging up the long, empty stretch of Lexington Avenue. The battle had inspired her. The blood was surging through Eda’s veins and she was ready to do whatever had to be done.

  But it was so hard to see. There were no night torches hanging
off the buildings here like there were on Grand Central.

  Eda kept moving through the darkness. She glanced back and forth down the side streets and through broken store windows. The heavy rain slammed against her face but she kept her hood down so that she could see better.

  She approached 43rd Street, which turned off Lexington to the right.

  Eda looked down that way and stopped dead.

  She saw dark shapes on the road. Two of them were lying on their backs while the other, a big man with his sword drawn, stood over them.

  The man struck the two women with the flat of the sword, one after the other. The blows landed with a painful sounding thud.

  “Stop it!” a woman’s voice cried out. “Please stop. Leave us alone, just leave us alone. My friend’s badly hurt. You stabbed her.”

  Eda’s blood turned cold. She recognized the voice of the Asian gardener.

  “Shut up,” the man hissed. There was another dull thud as he lashed out at the woman with his boot. “I stabbed you too, remember?”

  “I think she’s dying,” the Asian woman said. “Won’t you please just stop?”

  Eda tiptoed down 43rd Street quietly. Her heart was pounding.

  The attacker had to be one of the bandits – he was a dark skinned man of about fifty at least, dressed in tattered, soaking wet denims. He was extremely overweight and there was a thick mustache under his nose. Eda wondered if he’d fled 42nd Street after the archers had appeared. Had he stumbled across the gardeners as they’d tried to make their getaway?

  The pale gardener wasn’t moving. The bandit leaned over and said something to her, then kicked her, ordering the woman to answer. The Asian gardener cried out, begging him to stop the assault. She lifted her friend in her arms, as if trying to shield her from another, potentially fatal blow.

  “What have you got for me?” the man said. “What have you got? Food, water, weapons – I need whatever you’re hiding in this shithole that’s useful. Give me what I want or I swear to God I’ll carve you both into little pieces. You want to be my lunch? Huh?”

  The Asian woman’s protests were sluggish. Was she was badly hurt too?

  “Please believe me,” she said. “We don’t have anything.”

  The man lashed out with another kick but this one missed its target.

  “Well I ain’t going anywhere till you find me something,” he said. “Get me some supplies bitch or I swear to God I’m going to turn this thing up a notch. You don’t want that to happen, trust me.”

  Eda knew she had to do something. And yet she was paralyzed with fear. She could still hear the sound of the battle raging on 42nd Street, unsure whether the warriors from the Complex were winning or being massacred.

  She kept out of sight, still gripping the dagger tightly. The weapon felt light in her hand, like it wasn’t there anymore. What was wrong with her? Where was all the fight and the fire? She couldn’t even call out – yell at the bandit to warn him off, to say something, anything, tell him that the warriors were coming.

  Her voice was gone.

  She was useless.

  And how long before the bandit saw her lurking at the end of the street? How long before he turned his attention on her?

  “What’s going on?” somebody called out.

  It was a man’s voice. A different man.

  Eda watched as a dark figure appeared in the distance up ahead. He hurried down from the opposite end of 43rd Street, making his way towards the bandit and the two women lying on the ground.

  “What are you doing Pike?” the second man said.

  The older man straightened up. He made a curt, dismissive gesture with his hands like he was swatting a fly off his face.

  “Get the hell out of here boy,” he said. “You haven’t been with us long enough to ask me a question like that. Mind your own goddamn business.”

  The other man stepped forward and Eda recognized him immediately. It was the young man – the reluctant, baby-faced bandit with the mop of curly brown hair.

  He stood there now, looking at the older bandit with an expression of pure disgust on his face. When he spoke, he did so with a peculiar, foreign accent.

  “Are you crazy Pike?” he said. “Have you seen what’s going on back there outside the train station? It’s a massacre for God’s sake. We should never have come to New York in the first place. We’ve got to get out of here. Now!”

  Pike laughed. It was a cruel, mocking sound.

  “And go where kid?” he said. “Back into that fucking desert? There’s food and water in this city. Not to mention there’s women here by the truckload. But I’ll tell ya – if I’m going back out there I’m going to make sure I’ve got me some supplies first. Maybe a woman for the road too.”

  “You’re insane,” the young man said.

  “Go away boy,” Pike snapped. “You’re getting on my nerves.” He repeated the swatting gesture for a second time and turned his attention back to the two women on the road. He kneeled down in front of them, rubbing his hands together.

  “You still with me ladies?” he said.

  He poked the pale gardener in the ribs and she didn’t move. Then he slapped the Asian woman on the back. She moved, but it was a feeble gesture.

  “C’mon,” Pike said. “I didn’t hit you that hard.”

  “Pike!” the second man cried out. “Stop it. She’s barely conscious for God’s sake. What have you done to these people? Have you stabbed them?”

  “Naïve boy,” Pike said, looking behind him. “This is how you get people to do what you want.”

  He slapped the barely conscious woman hard in the face. It made a loud clapping noise that stung in Eda’s ears and she felt physically sick.

  The gardener shrieked and fell backwards beside her friend.

  “Pike!” the other man yelled. “That’s enough.”

  The bandit was about to lunge at the woman again, this time with the flat of the sword. But before he could do anything, the young man came up from behind and locked his arms around Pike’s neck. He pulled the older man away from the two women.

  Pike looked shocked by this sudden assault. He was so shocked that the short sword fell out of his hand and dropped onto the road.

  “What are you doing you crazy bastard?” the bandit yelled. His voice was muffled under the choke.

  “That’s enough,” the young man said. “You’ve done more than enough. C’mon, let’s get out of here. We can go back to New Jersey – I know a place we can hide out there.”

  “Let go of me!”

  Pike broke free of the young man’s grip and lunged at him.

  The two men fell to the ground. They wrestled furiously, rolling around on the wet concrete in a frantic struggle. As they fought, angry voices exchanged breathless insults. Pike managed to work his way on top of the young man and pushed his hands down onto the boyish face. His thumbs pressed forward, reaching for the eyes of his opponent. The young man cried out in terror. He leaned his head back to avoid being blinded. Then with a violent thrust of the hips, he shook Pike off and sprang forward, head-butting the old man hard on the nose.

  There was a loud cracking noise.

  Pike yelped in pain and put a hand to his nose.

  Eda tiptoed along 43rd Street quietly. Maybe she could still get to the gardeners if the two men kept fighting. Maybe they were still alive.

  Her fingers clamped tightly around the handle of the exotic dagger.

  Could she do it? Could she still kill a man if she had to?

  What about two men?

  The fight between the bandits continued. The young man was on top now – he’d mounted Pike and both hands were locked around the fat bandit’s neck in another tight, unrelenting choke. He cried out as he tightened the stranglehold. It seemed like he had no intention of letting go.

  Eda watched from a distance, a hidden spectator in the shadows. It was the young man’s eyes that frightened her the most. He didn’t look like a killer and yet there he was, kill
ing one of his own in order to help two strangers who might be dead already.

  Pike’s body stopped rattling in protest. His frantic struggle slowed down to an eventual, eternal halt. When it was over, the young man fell off the bandit’s body and sat on the wet street, looking around in a daze.

  Then he looked over and saw Eda. She was inching slowly up the street towards him, the sharp dagger in hand.

  The man leapt back to his feet. His eyes remained glued to the dagger.

  Eda noticed the sword strapped to his waist but so far at least, he’d made no attempt to unsheathe the weapon.

  “I don’t mean you any harm,” he said to Eda. He held both hands up in the air as he spoke to her. With a sigh, he looked at the two gardeners lying motionless on the road.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I was too late.”

  Eda wasn’t sure if the young man was trying to trick her. Was he playing games? Was he luring her in for a surprise attack?

  “I’m sorry,” he repeated.

  They looked at each other in silence. Then, without another word, the young man turned around and raced back down 43rd Street as fast as he could.

  Eda watched him disappear into the night like a ghost. When he was gone, she ran over to the gardeners and kneeled down in a cold puddle beside them. She pulled back their rain cloaks and saw multiple stab wounds on both bodies. There were numerous cuts on their faces too. The sick, twisted bastard. How long had he been working them over before Eda arrived? How long had they been screaming before she’d finally heard them?

  She checked their necks for a pulse.

  Nothing.

  Eda jumped back to her feet and threw the dagger hard off the ground. There was a loud clattering noise but it didn’t come close to cooling the fire that burned inside. She screamed briefly and then, not knowing what else to do, pulled the hood up over her head and closed her eyes.

  She sat down beside the women again. As she whispered her apologies to them both, Eda felt the soft pitter-patter of the rain landing on her head.

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