WIPE (A Post-Apocalyptic Story) (17 page)

“He has a gun!” Maze says.

A sermon I’ve heard a million times jumps into my head. It’s Father Gold’s voice:
Besides metal, many atrocities angered God in the old world. Before the age of technology’s inexorable advance, there was gunpowder.

“How?” I ask, but Maze doesn’t have time to answer—one of the shadows, lanky and quick and with a spear in its hand, turns toward us, as if it can see us behind the bushes.

My first instinct is to run, but Maze says to stay still and she holds her knife out. I buck every instinct I have and force myself to stay put, following her lead. The creature pauses as another flash of light and thunder erupts behind it, the bang almost deafening. Through the moment of light, I see the man’s red face and bright eyes—his stare directly on us. As soon as darkness returns, I see his shadow lower—his body and the spear straightening out directly at us. A soft word comes from his mouth, something in another language, and then he charges. Maze jumps away and I roll onto the ground in the opposite direction. Screaming fills my ears, and then, in the blackness the form is right on top of me. It’s the same as before, but this time, from the corner of my eyes, I see more of them surrounding me—long dark horrible forms crowding in. And then it comes, before I can move my hand at all to stab up—a shattering pain in my injured leg. The knife drops from my hand as I shriek, and the red man just rises up off of me, pulling his spear back out of my leg. My hand jerks down and finds warmth and wetness, blood over my fingers, and I can think of nothing but the desperate hope for another flash and thunder of the gun, or for Maze to spring out and save me, but the next thing I know, hot arms coil around my legs and my belly and lift me off the ground.

“Bleeds!” says the red man’s voice. And then, against the sound of distant screams and fighting, I’m bouncing up and down, deep into the woods. I hear one more gunshot, but it’s too faint now to matter, and the only thing I can think is that I’m dead.

Branches whip me and I hear the running of other feet all around. For a moment, as I try to twist and free myself, it crystallizes in my head that they didn’t kill me, but that it must be for something worse that they’re taking me. And then, all I can do to ignore what’s happening is imagine my wound—I picture the blood I’m losing, and how I need to reach down and touch my calf to find out, but I can’t, because each time I flex my arm, attempting to reach down, the Nefandus cinches my body tighter and grunts his disapproval. My head presses against sweating skin, and the rank odor of his body fills me with nausea. I twist my head, trying to see starlight, but he quickly cranks my neck back down, like he needs the world to remain dark for me. And all I want to do in the world is see if Maze is running after me. Or is she’s being carried away with me. If somehow we’re in this together still. But there is nothing to see, and only the terrible smell and the darkness and the panic rising in my chest that, before very long, every last bit of my blood will have drained onto the forest floor, and that will be the great forgotten ending of my life.

Chapter 10

When I come to, everything is still dark. In just a moment, shapes around me start coming into view. It’s the first shape I recognize that calms me—it’s Maze. Here, taken just like me, lying in a crumpled mess near a small fire. And then I take it all in—the many small fires, all around us, and the tall shadows flitting between dark trees. Each one shuffling about in some kind of orchestrated dance. I watch, my head swimming in fog for what seems forever—and only after the red men start chattering loudly do I remember my leg. I tell my hand to check the wound but my hand won’t move—all of my fingers are tight, tied behind my back. I try to move my legs but find the same sensation. I’m completely bound. And then, as flickering light brings Maze into clearer view, I see the dark lines coiled around her legs. We’re both tied up.

            The chatter dies down suddenly, almost at the same time as the strange dancing movements stop. And then I see why. Enormous walls of soft blackness blot out the woods. Hulking shapes with spears rising from their heads, antlers sprouting in every direction—Red Horns. They march forward in a row, uniform and quiet, massive, and then, they just sit on the ground near the fires. The rest sit too, in a circle around the antlered ones, and then, in a very strange language, they begin to talk. It’s nearly impossible to take anything away from it but the tone—they sound calm suddenly, unlike the guttural chanting. Like they’re having an intelligent conversation. Even the big ones seem to be talking. And as they speak, it dawns on me that there is a possibility that they are entirely human—as if until now I’d thought that the Nefandus were aliens, otherworldly nightmares spawned from some hellish portal. They’re just people—covered in red, implanted with antlers, but people, following some strange dogma, just like Garren had said. A polar opposite of the Fatherhood, or perhaps some complement of it. But I wait and listen, hoping for any words that I can understand. There’s nothing. Even still, I can’t stop a fleeting thought that rises in me—the idea that they’re really just people behind costumes, and that since they didn’t kill us, kept us alive for some reason, there is still hope. I remember for a moment that one of the lanky ones spoke English to me once. And maybe they do understand English, and they’ll talk to us, and they’ll be able to reason perfectly fine. They’ll find out we aren’t God worshippers, or Resistance members—that we’re just trying to find our way out to the great big cut in the sky—the tower that everyone on this planet must have a word for, an awe for, a desire to know more about. And it’s when I’m filled with these ideas, and the feeling that I have to act soon while I have hope because there might not be much time left, I speak:

            “Hello.” I say it softly. And then, when I realize I’m speaking so weakly that no one can hear me, I try again. It’s the third time I say it that I notice some of the dark faces turn in my direction. One of the creatures rises and walks over, and then, the rest resume their strange conversation, completely ignoring me.

            He gets close enough to look at my face, then kneels down to me.

            “You are alive,” he says.

            “Please don’t kill us,” is all I can choke out.

            “It is a very special kind of death for you. There is eternal honor in it.”

            “No—please—no.”  

            “To be sacrificed for the second coming of Baal-zebub—I would that it were my own honor to take tonight,” says the voice, and then, he just rises and leaves me. I call after him to no avail. And all at once, the horror of it—realizing for certain we are going to be sacrifices—makes me start crying. I can’t help it. The sobs twist my throat up but it’s uncontrollable. My body shakes and I try to quiet myself again but I can’t stop it. None of the Nefandus pay any attention to me though, and I only stop when I hear the sound of my name. It’s almost as if it comes to me from a dream—it’s Maze’s voice
.
Somehow she’s awake, and she’s rolled closer to me.

            “Wills,” she says again. My eyes watch her squirm slowly over the dirt, and then I look back to the circle of red men by the fire to see if they notice. Not one of them looks back.

            “They’re going to kill us,” I tell her.

            “They haven’t yet,” she whispers. And then, with more effort than before, she throws her body, pulling it almost against mine.

            “I’m going to try to turn around, so our hands line up,” she says, and I already know—she thinks we can escape. That she can just untie us and we’ll walk right out of this.

            “I lost my knife,” I tell her as she presses in closer.

            “I don’t need it,” she says.

            And then, the moment she twists around, putting her back against mine as I roll over too so that we’re back to back, I hear the shout. It’s anger, and though I don’t understand the words, I know what’s coming. The kick comes suddenly out of the darkness, lightning drilling into my chest. I cry out, and then I hear Maze cry too—a sharp squeal of pain that wrenches the air from my lungs. She cries again as the man kicks her twice, and then I hear the dragging—her body being taken away from me. When I turn again, I barely see her in the distance, curled under a tree. The red walker kneels down and I know right away—he’s tying her to the trunk. And without another moment to let the pain settle, the red one comes back, lowers again so that I’ll hear, and speaks to me:

            “It is better to be fully awake,” he says. And then, he’s away again. I look at Maze, and I see her face moving, as if she’s silently mouthing words to me. I shake my head, letting her know I can’t tell what she’s saying. And then, after she looks at them, checking to see if they’re paying attention to us still, she says it loud and clear.

            “I don’t know what to do.”

            I hear the real message—it’s in the way she says it. She’s scared. And for the life of me I can’t remember ever seeing her scared. The sound of her fear sinks in hard and crushes me. There’s nothing left. No hope of salvation.

            Suddenly, without my own willing it, a lifetime of brainwashing kicks in—the kneejerk reaction that’s been programmed into me—an instinct I’ve been conditioned to have and have fought against for years—to pray to God for help. My mind spins with the prayers of the Fathers—their pleas for divine mercy. I try to push the thought out of my head like its poison. And as the Fathers’ voices leave my head, I realize I’ve seen enough now. Enough to be convinced that it is only us who can get us out of this alive, and even if Maze is giving up, I’m not going to. I won’t surrender to God’s will and have faith, or to Maze’s ability to solve everything anymore. I’ll do it myself.

            I begin to work my wrists, testing just how tight the rope is, and how much wiggle room they’ve left me. When I find enough to maneuver along the ground with my hands, I start to slide back along the ground, grating against the dirt, then pausing and waiting and watching, searching, hoping to crawl onto a rock. Anything sharp to start rubbing. And as I search blindly, all I can wonder is how long it will be before the sacrifice starts. Part of me thinks they’ll do it in a few minutes, but then, after another half-hour of fruitless writhing passes, I think they’re going to wait. That they’ve collected us to be brought somewhere else, to be sacrificed tomorrow, or maybe even the next day. It’s a determination I’ve never felt before in my life, but for all my furtive squirming, I find no rocks. Just soft soil. Nothing to cut the rope against. And my resolve slowly starts to die out.  

It’s what feels like hours later when I hear loud noises start up. The guttural chants again, telling me that the Nefandus have started to stir, and when I look toward the fires, I see a body being dragged. I start to choke up, because I realize it must be Maze and they’re going to kill her first. But then I see clearly the face—it’s Logs. They’re pulling him along and he looks completely lifeless. I watch his body hump up and down over bumps and think about how much pain he’s in. But then it dawns me—he’s already dead.

            The next thing I know, before I can take any more stock of what’s happening, I’m surrounded. They tug at my feet first, and then another one swoops in and lifts my shoulders. For all of my effort, they just cinch my body tighter. All the time I spent rubbing my wrists against the ground has done nothing to loosen the ropes, and it’s all I can do to watch the back of Logs’s head. I twist around, looking for Maze, wondering if it’s time to start screaming yet—some kind of last-ditch call for help. Like Garren will be right there in the forest with his gun to save us. But there’s no one—not her or anyone else. Just the hot throng of the Nefandus and their incoherent grunts and the blackness of night.  

I can’t tell how far they’ve hauled me into the forest when I see the long slab of granite. A gray table under the starlight, wide enough to lay several bodies across. And there on top already is Maze. Her eyes are pasted to the sky, and one of the Red Horns is standing over her. It’s what’s in his hand that causes the first shriek to erupt from my gut: a long sickle of sharpened wood and metal, fastened with wrappings to a spear like the others carry. He swings it wildly. I expect him to drive it right down into her at any moment, but each swipe misses her, and I realize it’s another dance.

            The moment the shriek issues from my lips, the walkers snarl and tighten harder, burning my arms and bruising my neck with their fists. Pain ripples down my body, stifling the next cry I try to make. But the first shriek was enough to draw Maze’s attention. Even as she seems to recognize me, her eyes are glazed, and her mouth moves slowly but nothing comes out. It’s some kind of one word reply to my presence. And then it hits me—she mouths it again. “I’m sorry.” Just enough to tell me in her last breath that she blames herself for what’s about to happen to us.

            They lay me down on the table next to Logs, his body between me and Maze. In one loud chant and movement, they start to flip us so that our bellies are flush against the rock, and then the singing begins. At first it starts with the same inaudible chanting, but then it turns to a beautiful melody, and the words become clear. Some of them I recognize. Against the volume of the song and the words, footsteps start to clap around the table, a frenzied rhythm of red bodies. Some of them, when I can crane my neck up a bit, are holding big cups. Others whip their spears around wildly, up and down with the beat of the song. But it’s the words. They slice right through me.

            “
And Satan said unto his disciples: Go now, and eat the flesh. It is my body, as it is theirs, and it is given up for you!”
says a single, booming voice.

            And then, in concert the rest reply: “
Laus sit Satanas!”

            The booming voice returns, “
For Saint Baal!”

            And then, twisting my neck back to see a red form stepping onto the table, I watch the Red Horn raise his sickle, turn its point toward us, and thrust down as hard as he can. The noise from Logs, causing me to realize instantly that he’s not dead, cuts through me. It’s a watery gurgle of extreme agony, but his voice is shredded of life that fast, and the scream dies away. The sickle rises again, and a frenzy of the red arms gather by the edges of the table, lowering their cups down. I can barely see it, but that quickly, I understand—the blood pools out from Logs’s body and runs along sloped rivulets carved into the table, carrying what was once Logs’s life down tiny streams to the waiting cups. The crouching figures bob up and down in sharp motion, singing “
Sanguis Satanas”
over and over. The sickle stabs down again and impales Logs’s body, spraying liquid drops of heat into my eye, making me blink and lose sight of everything. I bat my eyes to see again, certain that I’ll be next. But before the Red Horn moves to Maze or me, there’s the sound of sawing over top of us. I try as hard as I can, but I can’t see a thing. Through Log’s still body, whose only remaining life is the warmth of his blood, emanating out and over me somehow, I can no longer see Maze.