Dusk Territories: Always Burning (24 page)

The four men reached the center of the hamlet, if you could even call it that. There were less than a dozen ruined buildings that “sheltered” a few remaining families. Only a few of them had roofs over their head, even those were not shelter from the elements that battered them on a regular basis. Women and children, clothed in tattered rags, scrapped for resources around town. Some resorted to savaging on the scar itself, despite its health risk.

The men of the town hunted and foraged from day break to sunset. They came back with meats and roots most of the time. Whether that was meat from animals or other means, Graham couldn’t know. He didn’t want to know. These people were trying to survive.
Only a few months ago, I couldn’t stomach that.

A small fire within a rusted barrel sat smoking in the middle of the town. An older man kept warm by the flames, hands almost diving within it like it was water. He greeted them with mournful eyes.

“Good.” His voice felt as lost as his expression. “The Drifter’s men are here.”

“Is something wrong?” Graham said, leveling his gun.

“Supplies are here.” The words were directed to no one, but the heavens. “I thought—nevermind. Just please, help my little girl.”

“You have a name?” Graham helped him to his feet, pulling him up by the arm carefully.

“Jacob.” He was no older than fifty, but he looked so aged and broken up close. His grey hair was as thin as his body, olive skin broken, eyes sunken. The entire town looked like this. The children even seemed years older than they were. “You are a new one. I never seen a dead one before. Do you bite?”

“Occasionally.”

Jacob gave a grim smile at the dark humor. “What the hell doesn’t anymore? Come on….” He paused. “If you want to, I know you’re busy.”

Wood was the first to follow, much to everyone’s surprise.

They followed suit to a house on the corner. At one point, it was two stories. Now, it looked as though a knife cleaved it completely in half. The top floor was exposed, only some remains of rooms that were once lived in comfortably. Jacob opened the door smoothly, allowing everyone to enter one by one. Funny enough, he left the door open. No one wanted to be in a locked room with a stranger; it was begging for a fight.

He led them through the corridor. There were more than enough people in this house. It reeked of human odor, vomit, and worse. Most didn’t even live in this area and was just staying for tonight. In the far corner, a woman spewed blood on the floor. On the worn couch, a man covered in tumors lied down, breathing his last breaths. Countless were sick, pale, yellowed. Graham gritted his teeth.

They stepped over a pile of sleeping and pained men to enter a side room. Compared to the rest of the place, this room was clean. The furniture was covered in dust, yet still intact. Light purple curtains draped over the window, despite the large crack on the second floor allowing in some exterior elements. A small bed was tucked into the corner. On that bed was a girl, coughing and sweating. Jacob pulled up a chair and sat beside her. Wood stood beside him, looking down.

“What’s wrong with her?” Graham asked.

“Z-12,” Tyrus responded. “She’s either going to become a demon or she is going to die a very horrible death.”

If Graham could go pale, he would of. Instead, he growled.

“Anything that we can do?”

“We have some pain killers that may help in the—“

Forrest didn’t finish his sentence when Wood had brushed past him. “Where are you going?”

“Gettin’ some medicine. Be back.”

“Wood?” Graham asked turning to him. “What did you do before all of this? Before you killed those people even?”

Wood grinned, lazily. “I taught science.” And with that, he was gone.

Forrest and Tyrus stole glances at each other, amazed at that revelation. Graham just nodded.

“We need people like him,” Jacob said, wiping the little girl’s brow clean of sweat. “We need people like all of you. Hell. People that can protect us, get us back on our feet…no matter the cost.”

No matter the cost,
Graham’s mind whispered. He looked over to the girl. She was frail and quivering. Pain, she was in pain. She never wanted this. Heck, months ago the worst pain she might have had was a paper cut from her homework. Then why was she becoming a casualty in this? Why was this world so messed up?
So messed up that a little girl has to struggle through life without a chance.
She didn’t choose this life, so someone, somewhere had to make it better for her.

The dawn had to start with him.

_

“Samson.”

Celine entered the old club with a clean sweeping motion, ignoring all the patrons. Old music from the fifties and sixties played in the back as people gathered to get a drink. Or a different type of pick me up. A dance floor was in the middle, only touched by the loosest of people. Unsteady benches and stools sat in the club, but only a few people used them. The rest of the throng stood and talked in the haze of smoke their cigarettes huffed. Samson sat on the edge of the room, drinking his beer alone. A few unclothed women and men surrounded him, but he paid no mind to them. He was too in love with his mug.

“Samson,” Celine repeated, pushing the women and men aside. One scoffed.

“Excuse me, do you belong here?” The dark haired woman said, looking at Celine with angry glares.

“Leave my presence.”

“Don’t tell me what to—“

The woman’s words came to a cold stop, eyes caught into a trance-like state. Celine didn’t use her power often like this, it was demeaning. However, she hadn’t the time or the patience to deal with a two-bit hooker with a chip on her shoulder. “You will leave us. If your girls and men cannot follow the same directions, I want you to kill them.” Everyone in ear’s length went pale. Samson just sipped his beer.

“Yes…” the dark haired woman said in response.

“Got it. Get along, now.”

The thrall of a woman quickly grabbed her associates and disappeared back into the throng of people, leaving Samson alone. Celine pulled a seat for herself, and crossed her arms.

“You could have just asked them to leave,” Samson said, taking another sip.

“At least I didn’t kill her.”

“It crossed your mind.”

“It doesn’t matter what crossed my mind, Samson.”
Well, it did crossed my mind but that’s not the point.
Celine took a deep breath. “Do you know what is going on with Conjurer and River?”

“And Brink,” he added.

Celine glared, mouth twitching angrily. Samson put down his mug. “Brink was there. Why was my brother there?”

“Apparently, he has taken interest in the Drifter.”
“Does he know about Graham?”

“I couldn’t tell you. All I know is that Conjurer and Brink are conjuring something nasty for the Drifter at the Tear. I couldn’t tell you what that was. Whatever the Drifter is trying to find out, they want to bury it.”

Celine nodded, rubbing the small white jewel on her necklace. “They don’t know what they are getting into.”

“And you do? Last time I checked, we should be considering the Drifter’s pursuit for the truth as a threat as well.”

“Don’t talk about things you don’t understand, Samson.”

“Don’t understand or unwilling to be shared?” The man took the scorn with pride, picking up the beer again. “You’re going to have to choose a side before
he
finds out.”

“He’s not going to find out…” Celine leaned in forward, eyes fixed on Samson. “He won’t find out, right, Sam?”

Samson knew better not to test Celine. He could already feel the cobwebs cluttering in his mind. Her power was frightening. In one moment, your mind could be in her possession. One moment, she can crush it. All she needed was a space as small as a crack in the door. More often than not, like a draft, she found away in. Then you were gone. She had you. Only the strongest of the strong minds and some mutants could resist her power. Samson was neither of those things, especially after his third beer. “Do you understand? He
won’t
find out about my involvement.”

“I-I understand,” Samson choked.

And with a simple toss of her hair, the needles in Samson’s mind was gone.

“I would never betray you, Celine.”

“Brutus might’ve told Caesar that plenty of times. Yet, it didn’t stop his knife.”

Embarrassed and a little frightened, Samson drained his mug dry. Looking down, he asked: “How did that other one come back? Graham was it. Why are you looking after him?”

Celine didn’t feel she needed to answer this, but she did. “There are things that I have not been told. However, I supposed that Graham
knew
. He doesn’t remember. I doubt that he ever will now.”

“So you tried to get them from a dead man?”

“And what resulted was him getting up. An unexpected turn of events of my power, I guess. His resolve to live must have been unique. Now he’s part of this horrid game. If Brink or higher members of our organization finds out about Graham’s state, they will become threatened. They will work hard to kill him. We need his part of the truth. We need to figure out how this…exactly happened. Even if that means—“Celine took a deep breath. “Even if that means waking the giant. That’s why. Happy.”

“I would have been happier if you didn’t just try to brain rape me.”

“Oh please. That could have been plenty worse.” Doubtless, it would have been. Tapping into the brain was simple work for her now. Yet her potential lied mostly in a much more dangerous part of the mind. So in fact, she took it easy on him.
Things could have been A LOT worse
. She dove into her pocket, producing a key. “Give this to the bartender. It’s for the supplies to the north of
town. That should pay for any more rounds you might want to take up. But, I do expect you back watching Conjurer tomorrow.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Good. I’m glad that we understand each other. Now if you excuse me.”

Of course, she didn’t need permission. Celine shoved herself from the seat, leaving the man alone collecting the fragments of his pride. She had too much stu
ff on her mind now to help him pick them up. What was a single man’s self-esteem in comparison to the problems she had to fix?
Graham,
she thought. Somehow, his piece of the puzzle was still missing.
Everyone’s running out of time, the countdown has begun.

14

The Countdown

“The road less traveled is the best road. What if that road was a dead end; what if it only led to gnarled trees and a bottomless swamp, what then?”

Endless pushups helped him keep his sanity.

Graham slept the previous night, something that eluded him in the past few. He thought the taste of human flesh in his mouth would have finally settled in. It didn’t. Honestly, he hardly felt anything on that front. He did feel something else. That dream, an ambient rain in a dark wooden room with only a chair and a few windows, stayed with him through the morning. Even now, the non-existent pattering caroled in his eardrums.

So, he trained to get it out of his system.

Still unsure if it helped his body any, exercise was the only way he knew how to cleanse his system. He had gone through several different routines. He broke many of his human limits by a significant amount of sets. The thought of the sheer power felt intoxicating. If not for the hunger, he would have pushed harder. But, then again, if he had something readily to eat, that wouldn’t have stopped him.

Finishing his three-hundredth push up, Graham plopped backwards on the floor. There he just sat, staring up at the sky above him. This was his home now. Somehow through all of this, he wished that his squad—at least one—was alive. That hope, like many others, crumbled into dust in his mouth. Now, he was surviving like the rest of the world. The only thing that was pushing him was his objective. At first it was just finding the truth. That wasn’t all he wanted now, was it?

Blood is what he wanted; it is what he always wanted. He took his military job seriously in the past, almost to the point that his social life crumbled. Corporal Graham was a good soldier. But, David was a horrible civilian. His biggest fear was what he would do after he was out. That fear was misplaced. What really bothered him lied somewhere else. He didn’t want to leave the military for one reason.
I never made a difference.
There were too many people being hurt, too many people that needed protection to sleep soundly at night. Someone needed to make that happen for the masses. Someone had to get their hands dirty.
That I’m willing to do.

Graham pulled himself to his feet, using the metal railing of the bunk as leverage. The Moonlight Marches were tough territories. He needed to be equipped lighter than he was before. His choice kept it simple: a black tank-top, light body armor, grey cargo pants, and boots. He chose to abandon his SAW. It was an effective weapon, especially in a squad and preemptive strikes. It wouldn’t work in these conditions. He needed something quicker light weight. Raleigh provided him with almost any weapon under the sun. After plenty of thought, he swapped his LMG for a M4 Carbine and a pistol his secondary. The weapons felt comfortable in his hands. Some may say too comfortable. Only a few guns felt this right.

After getting a few things from his truck, he headed back to the hamlet. They were still in the general area of the village they delivered rations to earlier. Jacob showed them hospitality. This time the caravan wasn’t comfortable. Everyone was stiff, almost like statues. Perhaps they had gotten relaxed before.
A mistake that cost 35 lives. Don’t act like you weren’t in fault, Mr. Protector.
Drifter drilled into their heads not to be. Yet, it happened. They were never as sharp and aware as they were now.

Morning still hugged the world with its reddish glow. The air was dry, tasting of metal and oil. Sentries saluted Graham as he briskly headed for the Drifter’s caravan. Much to his surprise, the white-haired man was sitting outside having a morning snack of crackers and water. He abandoned his normal broken lens glasses for a pair of round, classic sunglasses. His long white hair was messy, sitting under his straw hat like a shaggy curtain. Drifter pushed the glasses on his face, preparing to sip the mug. “Mornin’ Mr. Graham.”