The Age of Embers (Book 4): The Age of Exodus

by Schow, Ryan

  “Where’s Orlando?” Brooklyn asks.

  Adeline looks at me.

  “That’s a good question,” I hear myself saying, a spark of concern rising in my chest.

  Chapter Eight

  Orlando wanted to run. He even tried to run as Draven told him to do, but someone grabbed him by the backpack, swung him around and sunk a fist right into his gut.

  Bent over, gasping for air, he felt hands start ripping at his pack so he squirmed, tightened his arms to hold the straps on and stopped trying to breathe.

  The pain that followed was not exactly legendary, but it was close. Some asshat was pummeling him with a stick, something that looked like a broom handle. They struck his shoulders, swung at his arms, cracked him twice over the head, which pissed him off the first time and scared him the second time. Still, he held onto the pack until he felt his chest loosen enough for him to breathe again.

  By then the raging mob closed in on him, their wild eyes pumped with animosity, their hands turned to claws, their feet kicking him in the shins, the thighs, trying for the balls.

  He couldn’t fight them all, but he could get at least one.

  That’s the thought he kept in his head.

  Eliana said go after the soft targets first. Eyes, nose, throat, balls. Girls kicked them, jabbed them, scratched them if they were being manhandled and needed a quick escape. He had no shame.

  Making a claw of his hand, he raked across the nearest face, his middle finger’s fingernail scratching hard over the surface of an eyeball. The boy cried out. In the midst of being kicked, tugged, hit with weapons and punched, Orlando managed to knee the guy with the ruined eye right in the baby-maker.

  Then he threw an elbow and caught someone’s ribs. Another stick came down on him, and risking broken fingers, he grabbed it, started to yank hard on it. He took a dozen retaliatory fists in the face, arms and back; someone lashed out at his cheek, but he turned away and claws raked down his face, grated over his ear; someone grabbed his hair and pulled his head this way and that, which hurt like hell.

  But he had the stick, and he wasn’t letting go.

  Finally he jerked it away from the owner and that’s when he started pushing and fighting his way out of the circle. Someone jumped on his back, sunk his teeth into Orlando’s trap muscle, but he started hitting the guy to stop his teeth from breaking the skin.

  The pain, at this point, began to really take a toll.

  Fear kept him moving, though.

  He swung his body around, threw the boy off, then starting swinging and jabbing the broom handle at everyone he saw. At first they managed to avoid the shots, but only barely. Then he caught one of the kids in the head, gashing open the skin.

  Head wounds bleed the worst and this was no exception. It was like someone turned the faucet on. Momentarily stunned by what the kid’s friends were seeing, there was that critical one second where Orlando moved and they didn’t.

  He drove the stick down on two more heads, on the backs of those taking flight, right across someone’s face like it was T-ball and he was swinging for the fences. The guy whose cheek bone he just cracked…a pair of scissors fell from his hands.

  Chest heaving up and down, winded, his mouth as dry as an African desert, he found his way to the dogpile. Was Draven really underneath all that?

  He was.

  Orlando picked up the metal shears on the ground, threw the stick about thirty feet away into an empty lot, then drew a deep breath and headed for the writhing mound of deviants.

  Am I really doing this? he wondered as he gathered up his courage. Of course. I have to! Still the entire thing struck him as surreal, almost like he was having an out of body experience and he set his mind to attack mode before slipping out.

  His eyes were on backs, legs, a mass of violent bodies, all on top of his friend. Without a further thought, he attacked, stabbing backs and arms and legs, anything fleshy.

  On the other side of the pile was a terrifying looking man. His face was a nasty grimace, his eyes trained on whatever it was he was trying to smash underfoot—most likely Draven’s face. The second Orlando began mauling people, this nightmare of a man had a choice: continue to try to crush Draven or come after the maniac with the scissors.

  The look of sheer hatred in his eyes chilled Orlando to the bone.

  In that moment, everything smart and self-preserving screamed for him to run, but he didn’t. He couldn’t. Draven stayed, so he must stay. Now they were both paying the price for tussling against what started out as more than twenty-five devoted lunatics. Still, like his father used to say, in for a penny, in for a pound.

  Making this split-second decision to stay and fight further intensified the velocity of his assault. The momentary burst of adrenaline, however, amped him up at first, but now he was feeling winded, and in turn, he felt himself slowing down.

  Still, he kept stabbing bodies, dodging hands, taking shots. Someone tackled him from behind and somehow, as he landed askew, he stabbed himself through the shirt, grazing the meat of his stomach.

  He managed to roll off the scissors and onto his backpack, stab upward at his assailant, then squirm out from underneath him and fend off two more guys while getting his hair pulled hard and catching a finger in the eye.

  He blinked back hard, was socked in the head, dragged back to the ground and kicked in the butt and legs. The backpack sheltered his back from any significant damage. As best as he could, he scrambled out of it, coming up slowly but diligently. The effort cost him the last stores of his adrenaline. Making the most of it, he stabbed the closest body, then looked in the boy’s eyes as the kid looked down at the scissors sticking out of him and realized what had happened.

  Standing there bleeding, beaten, swallowed in the fog of war, he felt the wildness of his eyes, the slight jump-jump-jump of his cheeks twitching and he realized his jaw was clenched so tight he ran the risk of cracking his teeth.

  He jerked the scissors out of the boy, watched him stagger off, then turned as the stabbed, squirming pile began to come apart. He lunged for the nearest person, burying the scissors in his back, but by now the pile was settled on Draven again. Almost like the initial stab hit them all with electricity, but then sapped them of their strength.

  Were they going to die on top of Draven? Would his former neighbor be crushed to death under the masses?

  That’s when he laid eyes on the uncle once more, the only other full grown man there. He now stood his full weight on what he was sure was Draven’s head, hit Orlando with a sinister grin, then gave a startled look before belting out the most awful scream Orlando had ever heard.

  The man stepped backwards, then fell down like his leg had given out. Orlando didn’t know what happened, only that somehow, Draven was still active under the mountain of bodies.

  The settled heap of bodies came apart once again, this time everyone scrambling away from Draven, even if it put them right into him. Orlando kept sticking guys, but they were now running away, or just falling down.

  And one guy? He couldn’t get away. He was on top of Draven who was sawing through his neck with a blade. Orlando grabbed him, hauled him off.

  That’s when he saw Draven.

  Lying on his back, his scavenging companion’s body was wet and painted red. Everyone else was seeing the bodies and the blood and getting the hell out of there.

  Orlando sucked in a giant breath, felt his body drop about five degrees in temperature, then begin the adrenaline dump. Shaking, bent over, his emotions surged.

  Now that they were in the clear, he almost started to cry.

  Draven, however, remained straight-faced and stoic. He just lay there for a moment, knife in hand, a beaten, soaked mess. He didn’t seem to care about the uncle’s sharp wailing, or all the other screaming going on around him.

  Looking again into Draven’s eyes, he wasn’t convinced there was anyone home, that’s how vacant those eyes looked.

  The noise seemed to fade out for a second be
fore coming back louder than ever. Orlando felt like he could hear every single one of those teenaged boys. Not as white noise, but as individual sounds.

  For the first time, he looked around, assessed the carnage. Those who could walk, those who were still alive, were hobbling off, their hand on their wounds, their injuries apparent. He reached down, slowly took Draven’s knife from him and said, “You alright?”

  Draven just looked at him, his eyes rattled, a raw boot print stamped across his face.

  “I’ll clean up,” Orlando said.

  Wordless, Draven stared up at him, the tension now holding to his mouth and in his eyes. He’d seen this look in war movies. It was the look of a man who survived something torturous, something he should not have survived at all.

  Sickened by what he was about to do, Orlando stood, then went and sliced through the necks of a dozen wounded boys with Draven’s knife.

  All their injuries fatal but taking too long.

  “Mercy killing,” he said to himself, standing up and arching his back, working to ignore every single injury he’d sustained.

  The back of his head hurt the most.

  Lifting his shirt where he’d fallen on the scissors, he examined the wound, saw it wasn’t that bad. Nothing he couldn’t clean up later.

  Draven was getting to his feet, dripping with blood that may or may not be his. Orlando felt the lurch hit him low in his stomach. He swallowed hard as the wash of cold dread hit him.

  The lurch pulled higher in his body, his spine rolling forward.

  There was an impossible tightness in his stomach, another convulsion, and that’s when he dropped the knife, fell to his hands and knees and vomited all over the pavement. He did this two or three times.

  He didn’t even notice Draven picking up the knife. He did feel him clean the blade with two swipes on the back of his shirt while he was puking.

  Unbelievable….

  When Orlando was done retching, he looked up and found Draven by the wagon and its spilled contents. He was slowly gathering everything together.

  Orlando pulled himself up, tears and vomit snot dribbling down his face, blood all over his own hands and arms, his flesh tight and smarting where he’d been clobbered. He picked up the backpack, slid it over his shoulder in slow motion, gingerly, every single ache now amplified.

  Guys who fight a lot, Orlando heard them talk about the adrenaline dump. How debilitating it felt. He was feeling it now—the weakness in his limbs, the absolute lack of will to be upright.

  When Draven managed to get the contents of the wagon back in place, he stood and looked at Orlando. For a second, it looked like Draven had been crying, but he was so damn bloody, there was no real way of telling.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  Without a word, Draven turned and started pulling the wagon down the street, apparently headed for home. Mentally, Orlando shrugged his shoulders, then put one foot in front of the other and followed, praying for one thing and one thing only—the strength to get back home.

  Chapter Nine

  Brooklyn, Veronica and I sit on the porch out front, keeping watch on the neighborhood, sniffing the air for any hint of fire and keeping an eye on those undead zombies passing through the dirty streets of this once pristine city block.

  One group of people, a family, they stagger toward us begging for help. It’s a man who looks blackened by soot with crusted spots of blood and a gaze that says they survived something horrible. If he was stuck in a fire (which is how it looks), that was days ago. Meaning he hadn’t bathed. None of them had. The man, his wife, their three boys—what a truly heartbreaking sight.

  The man wanders into the front yard, his legs a bit wobbly, like they’d been walking for forever and were going to give out any moment.

  “You won’t find help here, friend,” I tell him, holding up a hand, then my gun. He stops walking, his jaw hanging open, unsure of what to say, too tired to come up with anything. He just turns around and heads back to his family.

  The sun is getting dangerously close to the horizon for Draven and Orlando not coming back. What the hell happened to them?

  At this point, I’m beyond worried.

  Near frantic.

  “We could have done something for them,” Veronica says. “Even if it was just give them a jug of water.”

  She’s referring to the family we just turned away.

  “Every decision you and I make in these times, Veronica, is a life and death decision. This isn’t like before.” I turn to her and say, “If you were responsible for this group, with that kind of thinking, we’d all die under your watch.”

  “That’s not true,” she says, offended.

  “Dad,” Brooklyn warns me, her expression a clear indication to go easy.

  “When you think of giving away food and supplies, I want you to look at Brooklyn, Carolina, the girls, Morgan and the boys, me, my brother, Eliana, Draven and Xavier and ask yourself, of all of us people, who deserves to die first? Would you starve Nyanath to death? Kamal or Nasr? Because they didn’t have to let us stay here. Is that going to be how you repay them? To kill them because your big bleeding heart just needs to help others?”

  “Stop it!” Brooklyn says.

  I didn’t realize how loud my voice had gotten. Yet here I am, staring at Veronica, flat out drilling her with my eyes.

  These stupid kids…

  “I’m sorry, Veronica,” I say, backing off, getting a grip. “I’m just scared about Orlando. He and Draven should be back by now.”

  “We’re all worried,” Brooklyn says. “But that’s no excuse to take things out on Veronica. She lost people, too.”

  “I don’t want anyone to die,” Veronica whispers, her eyes moist, her hands shaking.

  “I know, sweetheart,” I tell her, trying to console her, half-heartedly wanting to undo the damage I’ve done. Then again, a stiff talking-to by me is not the worst thing this girl will ever experience, not by a mile. “But you have to harden your heart, thicken your skin and know that from this point out, your decisions matter. You’re more than an adult now. You’re a survivor. And survivors don’t get spooked, they don’t get their feelings hurt, and they do not cry.”

  “Are you telling her to stop crying?” Brooklyn asks.

  “Shut up, Brooklyn,” I tell her.

  I stand and leave, walk out into the street, pissed off, ready to hit something, kick something, kill someone.

  But that’s not true.

  I just want to see my son. And then he’s there. Up ahead with Draven, pulling an overfilled red wagon. My feet take me his way, my mouth smiles with relief. I am detached, yet renewed. To think I could have lost him unleashed a new kind of psycho in me.

  “Hey,” I say, but then I stop.

  Both the boys are covered in blood and cuts. Like they went through the jaws of hell and back. But Draven…he has it the worst. It looks like he had to paw the blood out of his face, his eyes.

  “What in God’s name?” I gasp.

  “We got ambushed,” Orlando answers, his voice weary, exhaustion pulling at him. “But we got some good things.”

  “Do we have a suture kit?” Draven asks, completely devoid of any personality, or really any kind of understanding of what I’ve been through, how badly we were worried.

  “For who?”

  “Me,” Orlando says.

  My son lifts his shirt and there’s a Rorschach splotch of red, along with a puncture wound that doesn’t look bad, but looks bad enough.

  “What happened?” I ask, taking a closer look.

  Draven just wheels the noisy wagon on by, not caring about anything, his legs not even stopping for his mouth to say something apologetic or reassuring.

  “Draven got mobbed, and in trying to help him out from under a pile of freaking lunatics, I was pushed on a pair of scissors.”

  “Are you serious?” I ask. “Scissors?”

  “Someone tried to stab me with them, but then I needed them to get Draven
out. So I…started…I just…” he says, stopping and looking away. He takes a deep breath, stabilizes himself and turns to me and says, “I killed some people, Dad. A lot of them.”

  “It’s okay, son.”

  “It doesn’t feel like it,” he says.

  “What happened?”

  Leaning forward, his gaze on the thinning, departing, blonde-haired blood apparition known as Draven Alexander, he says, “Him. He happened.”

  I turn and look at Draven. He looks exhausted.

  Turning back to Orlando, he’s still got his eyes on our former next-door neighbor.

  “What did he do?”

  “He went out to die, Dad. After Eudora…I’m convinced he didn’t want to live.”

  “He looks like he’s dead already.”

  “There were twenty-five guys, maybe more. He tried to get me to go, but if I didn’t…do what I did…he’d be dead. He tried to take on twenty-five guys!”

  Jesus. Who the hell is this guy?

  “There couldn’t have been that many,” I say.

  Behind me, I hear Veronica calling Orlando’s name, and I hear the pounding feet of one love-struck teenager. Orlando sees her and smiles, and suddenly I’m feeling bad for having been rude to her. I was right to worry, though. That much I know for sure.

  “Oh my God, Orlando…are you okay?” Veronica asks. He’s a hell of a sight, that’s for sure.

  I look at him and say, “We’ll talk about this later.”

  He barely even hears me because—despite the unsightly clothes—Veronica hugs him hard enough to make Orlando wince, but not hard enough to wipe that dopey smile off his face.

  With the mounting issues surrounding long distance travel, and the excessive list of things we need to make the trip without dying, we lose two days travel time.

  That’s the downside.

  On the upside, Orlando is healing and Draven—who’s still quiet and withdrawn, but seeming increasingly agitated—still has the shadow of a boot print on his face.

  Brooklyn started calling Draven “Rubbers,” referring to the tread that left its mark on his left cheek. Judging by the look on our former neighbor’s face, anyone else saying such a thing might have eaten a five knuckle sandwich. But not Brooklyn. She’s the only person Draven will even have a meaningful conversation with.