Kindred

**MalReynolds** · 10-20-2007, 10:47 PM

Re: Kindred

See, the way it was before the event, it was pretty nice, I suppose. It was nice for me, I think. From what I can remember. There’s not much to it. You lived day to day, but in a different way. Each day, you tried your senses, you tried to put them to the test, and tried to find something to hold on to. It was a challenge finding a challenge.

Type setting, not a challenging job. It was mainly lining up type and making sure each page had the right number of words before an article went to print. Sometimes, we were in charge of books, which was a little better. It helped to break apart everything.

But you dirtied your hands. You sullied them, and then they washed clean when you hit the pillow, nothing permanent about it. Nothing to grip, hold on to. It was easy to wake up a new person, fresh, clean, without worrying. Nothing to grip in to your mind, to sink its claws and make you think.

Existence was hard to justify.

And being a type-setter, justifying things was part of my job.

-

I do tend to over think things. Claire grabbed my hand. She was alone. It was nothing more than someone alone reaching out for contact. She did not know who I was, but she knew that I didn’t try to harm her, and maybe that was good enough. I looked at her so she did not have to look at herself. One set of eyes was enough. I would be her judge, I would hold her accountable. And she would hold my hand.

-

She still had a firm grip on my hand when we woke up a few hours later. She had managed to move closer to me, our bodies touching through cloth. Her eyes fluttered open and I was startled by just how blue they were. She smiled, and I pulled my hand away from hers.

“Good morning,” I said, my voice dragged over a grater.

“Hey,” she said, swinging her feet over the edge of the bed.

I stood, and slung my coat on, straightening it over my shoulder.

She put her feet on the floor and started to put her shoes on – the only thing she had taken off the night before. Staring at her naked feet made me shake my head.

“You okay?” she asked, tying one of the laces.

“Fine,” I said. “Just trying to figure something out.”

“What?”

“You’re coming with me, right?” I asked.

“I have to tend to the store,” she said, pausing briefly. “I can’t leave.”

“They’re going to find you eventually,” I said. “Judge and I, we can protect you.”

“Maybe I deserve to be found.”

“Well, we can debate this as long as we’re out the door in a few minutes. I never liked staying in one place too long.”

“Compelling. I’m staying.”

“Short of carrying you out of here kicking and screaming, there’s no way –“

Claire stood, facing me. She took a step forward, standing on her toes so that our noses were almost touching. “No way.”

“Fine,” I lowered my volume, and stepped back.

I sighed, and stared at her. Her red hair had become disheveled in the night, despite the fact that we had not moved but inches. She held herself like she was so much older than fifteen. She blinked a few times, staring at me, before her eyes moved to my feet, and to the door.

“God,” she said.

“What?”

“Smoke.”

A thin tendril made its way under the door, rising. A shadow pooled under the door like ink, and soon a thick curtain of black smoke rose.

“I don’t want to alarm you, Claire, but I think this building might be on fire.”

I touched the door and frowned. It was warm. The doorknob was probably hot.

I pulled my gun out and slammed the butt against the knob, knocking it off. The door politely swung open.

Fire, like ivy, was crawling the walls, licking the ceiling.

“Come on,” I said. “No shop to tend to anymore.”

“Who did this?”

I shook my head. “Who else? Raiders. We have to go before they figure out there are people alive in here.”

“Raiders?”

“Yeah. Now lets go.”

I didn’t wait for her to put up a pithy defense. I grabbed her by the hand, and pulled her into the hallway.

“Keep your head down. Trust me,” I said, throwing my coat over my head. “And cover your mouth.”

I kept my grip on her arm tight, and we danced between the walls, which were seemingly alive, malevolent.

The stairs were no better. After setting one foot down, I took a tumble, letting go of Claire so I wouldn’t drag her down with me. I hit the landing hard, sprawling out.

“Come on,” I managed to say, pulling myself up. My pride took the brunt of the pain.

She gingerly set a foot down, and the stairs retorted by collapsing.

I motioned for her to move to the railing.

“Now trust me and jump,” I said.

Without hesitation, she swung her legs over the side and dropped into my arms.

“Hi,” she said.

I set her down, and pulled her by the arm towards the front door, the smoke blocking most of my view.

The sun was painfully bright when I threw the doors open. It was difficult to bring anything into focus. The skyline was a haze of stinging white, almost a mirage to my weary eyes.

I began coughing when the fresh air hit my lungs. It immediately started a fight with the smoke that had managed to find its way into my body. Claire was hacking, and was turned, doubled over, coughing in fits, to watch her house burn. Fire broke from the windows like stunted arms thrashing in the morning sun.

“Where are the Raiders?”

I shook my head. “They either ran, or they’re snooping around. Either way… Let’s get out of here.”

“I want to watch it.”

“What?”

“My life burn.”

“Welcome to the new world. Baptism by fire, that’s a fitting entry. Now let’s go.”

She didn’t argue. We began to walk down the main drag, towards the outskirts of Koger, the sleepy hamlet that would soon be ablaze with hate and confusion.

**Specforces** · 10-21-2007, 08:38 AM

Re: Kindred

Mal, I just want to say that I am a fan of your writing. Thank you.

**MalReynolds** · 10-21-2007, 09:03 PM

Re: Kindred

Before the world ended, I lived in apartment alone, but had a frequent female visitor. She had kind eyes, and laughed at my mangled sentences. She found them charming instead of repulsing. She admired my lazy eye and thought that I was the best person she knew. But I always felt it was insincere. There was no way someone like her could love me, and my constant suspicion drove a wedge between us.

The only problem with our relationship was that I could not trust her, because I could not look at myself with the same eyes. But she was looking at me more than enough. I never looked at her like that, because I was too busy with myself.

When she died, I wasn’t home. I was at work, and when I saw her slumped over, it didn’t surprise me.

Eventually, I forgot her name, lost it to the wind. But she remembered me as Gerry.

-

Judge sat on an old aluminum trashcan that had seen as much action as he had. The can looked like it had been thrown through a couple of street side windows, dents on every side. Judge had matching scars over his face. We both had the same coats on.

“Where the hell were you?” He said, standing. His long white hair fell around his shoulders, his bald spot shining in the morning sun.

“Had to make sure she was okay,” I said. Claire had been hiding behind me, but I pulled her in front of me.

“What’s this?”

I explained to Judge about Claire’s brother and her mom, who had died in the fire. Judge seemed unsympathetic.

“Next time you pull something like that, I leave you behind.”

“Sure thing,” I said. “Even though you said to try and find survivors.”

“Yeah, well,” Judge said, squinting and staring at his feet. “She good with a gun?”

Claire spoke up. “Yes, sir. Can’t survive long without one, I don’t think.”

“You have one?”

Claire shook her head. “I kept it under the counter in the store. Fire took it.”

Judge sighed. “There’s a gun store I scouted about a mile away – it’s probably been picked clean, but I’m running low on ammo. How you doing, Shovel?”

Claire turned and stared at me. “Shovel?”

“Yeah. It’s a nick-name.”

“Gerry?”

“It’s a Christian name. Either one is fine by me,” I said. I lied. From Claire, I preferred Gerry.

“Okay, Shovel,” she said, giving me a shove, “How are you doing on ammo?”

“Almost empty,” I said. “I think 2 shots, but I haven’t had to fire my gun in a while. The safety has been on for almost three months.”

“We’ve gotten good at surviving,” Judge said, smiling. “Of course, he’s just slow on the draw. By the time he has his gun out, I’ve usually already dealt the justice.”

“He’s just prone to violence,” I shot back.

“At least I didn’t hit you in the face with a shovel.”

“Again with the shovel thing!” I said, throwing my arms up, and grinning. “How many times do I have to apologize?”

“Until my face gets fixed,” Judge said, starting to laugh.

“Oh, boy, the shovel did more good than damage,” I said.

“Let’s go,” Judge said, turning. “We have some ground to cover. And the store, it’s worse for the wear.”

I saw what he meant when we got near.

Next to the building was a large black mass that shimmered in the sun. It took me a few minutes to realize that they were garbage bags, and a few seconds later, the horrifying smell let me know what they were filled with.

“Jesus,” I muttered, taking my shirt and pulling it over my nose. “That’s terrible.”

My eyes watered something fierce. I looked over at Judge, who was keeping his head down, and Claire, who had her arm over her face.

The store looked relatively safe, from a distance.

Once we moved closer to the store, though, it was a different story. The black pile of bodies in garbage bags was enormously high, and I just knew that in the mess somewhere, Claire’s brother was wasting away.

One of the bags on top was still moving. It wriggled, and fell from the top, rolling down the side, displacing the bags that had been on top of it. It slammed against the ground and stopped moving.

“God, they haven’t been gone long,” Judge said. “Let’s turn back. This is no good.”

Before I could agree, the three of us heard the roar of an ATV behind us. Without a seconds hesitation, we ran for the front door of the store.

-

The Raiders are… They’re not inhuman, but they’re not passionate about anything except carnal pleasures. They could have been businessmen before the world ended, but the lack of authority, the lack of reservations turned them quickly into sociopaths.

What made it worse was that Judge and I had a girl in tow – it didn’t matter how young she was. They would not show any kind of restraint. They would not acknowledge the playful flirtation or any resistance.

The world was theirs, and they made it very clear that we were just living in it.

If they want something, they take it. And unless you’re in any position to defend yourself, you let them take it and hope they leave you alone or kill you quick.

Judge and I thought that perhaps we had walked in to a trap when we burst in the gun store. We ended up staring down the barrel of a very large shotgun, and a large man with panicked eyes and a bushy red beard looked us over.

“Get out,” he said.

“No,” Judge said. “We have Raiders on our heels.”

“Good. Then get out. Take your girl with you. I get enough trouble from them, dumping bodies back there.”

“We’re just looking for a place to hide, because –“

“Because of the girl. I know. Sister? Wife? Indentured person? Don’t care. Get out.”

Judge took a step forward and brushed the gun aside.

“I’ll shoot you,” Big Red spit.

“You would have shot me if you had the bullets by now,” Judge said. “Now, I’ve got something that you don’t. I have,” Judge said, removing his firearm from his waistband, “a gun that not only works, but has the ammunition to function. Now, we’re looking for a place to crouch down until they’re done dumping bodies, and then we’ll help ourselves to whatever bullets you might have that’ll fill my partner’s gun. Maybe a spare firearm for the little missy, if you’d be so kind.”

Big Red swallowed hard. “You’re just like they are, except you talk too much.”

Judge laughed. “No. I didn’t shoot you. I didn’t take your wife, and I didn’t leave a heap of bodies behind your livelihood. I’m just a drifter, passing through with my friends. When we leave, if you’ve been courteous, you’re more than welcome to come with us.”

Red tried to answer, but the door dinged open. I threw my coat around Claire and pulled her close to me, standing behind Red. Judge stepped forward.

The Raider had on a what was once a white wife beater, but had now been stained several kinds of earthy colors. There were sweat rings under the armpits, and two large guns strapped to his hips. He had makeshift sheaths, and in those sat two very large knives. He had a series of ‘X’s carved into his forearms, and had his right ear gauged. His left ear was missing completely.

“Hey, X,” Big Red managed.

“Who’re your new friends?” X asked. His voice was thick with a southern drawl.

“Just drifters, that’s all. Trying to find some weapons, I think.”

“They look strapped to me.”

“Yeah, well.”

“Why’s he fidgeting?” X motioned to me.

I had tried not to move. I had tried to keep my arms crossed in front of me, to keep Claire from wriggling, but when I threw my coat over her, her arms had been bent at a funny angle. She eventually gave in and moved them.

“They’ve got a girl,” Red said, matter-of-factly. I saw Judge sigh.

“Open your coat, boy,” X said.

I complied, and Claire turned to face him.

“I got you a girl, that should be worth something, right?” Red asked.

X responded by unsheathing one of his blades and driving it into Red’s chest. Red gasped a few times, sputtered, flopped like a dying fish. When Red finally hit the ground on his back, X stomped on the hilt of the knife a few times, driving it deeper and deeper until there was a loud crack.

Judge had drawn his gun, but X pulled his up first.

“I’ll kill you quick if you just hand her over.”

Claire moved forward. “I’ll come without any fuss if you just leave them alone,” she said.

“You’re in no position to negotiate, woman,” X said.

Claire pulled my gun up to her side, not aiming at X, rather, herself. She hadn’t been fidgeting to get comfortable. She had been going for my gun.

“How cold do you like them, X?” She asked. “I’ll be warm for about an hour. That enough for you? Would it be worth it to throw me away like that?”

“Plenty more women like you out there,” X growled.

“Young like me?” She asked.

X’s eyes widened. He started to grin real slow, and that’s when I brought the broken shotgun against the side of his head. The butt of the gun bounced off of the gauge in his ear, tearing the lobe out at the bottom. The thin disc of metal clattered to the ground, and he reached up, screaming, clutching the side of his head.

Like a bat, I swung the gun at his chest, and he fell hard against the window, cracking it. He was howling like a wounded animal, clutching himself, thrashing on the ground.

I grabbed Claire by the wrist, and followed Judge, who was running towards the back of the store. We threw the back door open, and ran into the mountain of trash bags. They formed a tight corridor against the building, trapping us inside.

Without a seconds thought, I dove into the pile, pushing bags aside, trying to make room for myself. Claire followed shortly after me, and Judge brought up the rear.

The bags did not separate easily, and the weight of the thousands of bodies bore down on us as we sat. The stench was unbearable – enough to melt eyes and burn faces – but we persevered. It felt like hours – and it could have been – that we sat, breathlessly, watching the back door. It opened, and through the strained vantage point inside a mountain of the dead, I was barely able to make out other Raiders, entering, exiting, looking for any sign of us.

After a few hours, their numbers dwindled, and they stopped coming out of the back door entirely.

The silence became as unbearable as the stench, but the sound as we crawled out was far worse. The squeaking of the plastic bags against each other, a brazen sonata, a requiem for those killed that was entirely one note. It was a high pitched warble, as if the dead were calling for us to stay with them instead of departing.

Under the cover of moonlight, we entered the gun store.

Judge was dismayed to find that if there had been any ammo left when we arrived, that the Raiders cleared the rest out. They left Red propped against a counter, knife stuck in his hand, pinning him in place. They had carved his face, lacerations running parallel, giving him whiskers like a cat and made his face the general color of his beard.

-

After the world ended, I ran.

The way I saw it – there would be no one left to read whatever paper I helped put out, so I didn’t have a job anymore. And there was no one left to look at me, so no one relied on my visage. I was a ghost, and I acted as such.

Using darkness, I would steal into houses and clean them out for food. I would take shelter where I could find it. I was as close to a Raider as you can get without crossing over. I did what I did out of necessity. The Raiders… They work for fun. For power.

I did it to survive.

But eventually, I lost my tongue. Having no one to speak to for some time will render one mute.

The shovel I found, the constant companion until Judge… I had come across 2 Raiders digging a hole to bury someone in, but that someone hadn’t been dead yet.

I managed to get one of them with a rock, caving their skull, and I wrested the shovel from the other, who I managed to take down with a few firm swings. But by the time the dust settled, the person they were to bury, their life had ebbed from their body.

I kept the shovel as a reminder to what I could become if I wasn’t careful.

**MalReynolds** · 10-22-2007, 04:54 PM

Re: Kindred

The three of us reeked of death as we departed the gun store. We made sure that we were at least an hour out of town, secluded in a thick set of woods, before we even considered stopping. I leaned against a tree and hunkered down.

“Where are we going?” Claire asked. Her voice was now shy, not commanding as it had been back at the store.

“Just places,” Judge said, finally.

“Anywhere in particular?”

I shook my head. “Never anywhere in particular. We’re just drifters out here.”

“I smell terrible,” she said.

“We all do.”

She sighed. “You got any other clothes in your pack, Shovel?”

I slid the pack off my shoulder, onto the ground. There were a few changes of clothes inside, but nothing that would fit her in the least. I threw her a pair of pants, a shirt, and a knife.

“You’re going to have to tailor those up yourself. They’re filthy, though. Cleanest thing I have is that blue shirt I got from your store, if you want that.”

She didn’t have time to answer. I had already pulled the shirt off and tossed at her.

“I’ll wear that beat up white one. I have my coat here.”

“You sure?”

I nodded. “It’s no problem.”

We tried to find a place to wash – after a few minutes of wandering, we came across a small creek that cut through the forest trestle.

“You can get cleaned up around the bend,” Judge said, “In case you’re shy about cleaning up in front of fellas. But if you’re not back in a few minutes, one of us is coming after you.”

“Alright,” she said. She was pulling her faded red shirt over her head before she had even completely disappeared behind the tree line.

“What is her deal?” Judge asked.

“She’s messed in the head, I think. Been a long time since she’s been around people that haven’t wanted to hurt her or take her.”

“You took her,” Judge said.

“You know what I mean. Take her in a fashion unbecoming of a gentleman. But she’s strong. She’s got a good will about her.”

I pulled my shirt off and waded into the creek. It only came up to my knees, but I ducked down and submerged myself. Judge followed suit.

I hated watching him disrobe. His body didn’t match – he was nothing but a set of scars that didn’t quite even out. His chest and stomach were covered with poorly healed lacerations, his back doubly so. It looked as if he had been whipped a thousand times. I had asked him one time about the scars, but he skirted the questions.

“Where are we going?” I asked him.

“Today… I have no idea.”

I sighed. “You usually have some idea.”

“We’re running on empty out here, Shovel. We’re almost out of bullets. The next time we come across Raiders like that… Probably going to be our last. Maybe we should head to a church, make our peace.”

“You think that helped anyone else that was around during the end? You think they’re happy? I wonder if they are.”

“Hard to tell,” he said, “without going there yourself. I don’t think I’ll quite make it to the pearly gates, though,” he grimaces as he began to scrub his arms.

“You’re a good shepherd,” I said. “I think you’ll do just fine in His eyes.”

“Maybe. Maybe not,” Judge stood, and walked out of the water, drying himself with the dirty shirt before bending over the bank and scrubbing it out.

I climbed out, but could not put my white shirt in the water without it falling in tatters, so I left it on the shore and threw on my other pants.

“If you’re about to get taken,” Judge said, “I’ll kill you.”

“I know.”

“You’d do me the same courtesy, right?”

“Of course. Same goes for Claire?”

“I reckon. Go check up on her.”

“You sure? She’s a girl. She takes longer at these things then we do.”

“Make plenty of noise. Give her time to cover up. Although, the way she was pulling her shirt off, I don’t think she’s the shy type.”

I sighed and stood up, pulling my trashed white shirt on. I made my way up the creek, to the bend.

“Hey, Claire, I’m coming around. Everything okay?”

There was no answer.

I took a step out and saw her standing there, in the creek, looking in my direction, stark naked. She had been crying – her eyes were red and puffy, her cheeks dirty in the right places despite being thigh deep in water.

“God, sorry, you didn’t say anything and,” I pulled my hand over my eyes, “and so I just walked out and thought that maybe you were in trouble.”

“What’s the matter, Shovel?” She asked. Her voice was trembling. “You never saw a woman before?”

I coughed. “You’re not a woman, Claire. You’re a kid.”

“By whose standards? I’m grown more than any other girl I ever knew.”

“It’s just – no. Put come clothes on and come on out.”

“Look at me,” she said, “Or I’m not going.”

I counted to three and pulled my hand away from my face, keeping my eyes locked against hers. Her red hair was wet, falling around her shoulders, a contrast of fire on top of snow.

“This scar here,” she said, pointing to below her left breast. There was a long red scar that ran completely along her rib line that had healed pretty well. “That’s from the first person I ever killed. Take a look at that and say I’m not grown.”

I broke gaze, and stared at the water. “Just put some clothes on and come out, please.”

Claire began to laugh softly. “Jesus, Shovel, you act like you’ve never been around – “

“I have. Just put some clothes on.”

“You’re too easy,” she said, stepping out of the water. She grabbed the blue shirt from a branch and slid the pants on. She walked over to me, topless, going toe to toe to me like she had back at the store, standing up tall so that our noses were almost touching.

“Thank you for saving me,” she said, “at the store.”

She pulled the shirt on, and stepped around me, back through the bend.

I counted slowly to ten, trying to get my composure. My face was flushed and I was blushing.

I hadn’t been around anyone in that capacity for some time, and it shook me quite a bit that she was so open, that she was showing such interest. And it bothered me that deep down in the back of my mind, I didn’t want to say “No.”

-

Before I went to talk to Judge, she walked over to me, her hair still wet. “Don’t feel so bad. I turned sixteen today, if that’s what you’re worried about. Age of consent where I’m from.”

I tried to look at her with sympathetic eyes, but I’m afraid they came off as contemptuous more than anything else.

“She was fine,” I called out to Judge. “Getting dressed as I came around the corner.”

“Good,” he said. “There’s a clearing a few yards this way, we can camp there tonight. We’re losing sunlight. Claire, you think you can handle finding firewood?”

“No problem,” she said.

“Shovel, get some rocks together.”

I nodded, and set to it.

-

The fire burned bright, matching the setting sun for intensity as it disappeared behind the horizon. The smoke drifted up, and through the haze I saw the stars arrive.

Claire was sprawled out on my coat, and Judge was relaxing against his pack. I had my rucksack behind my head. I kept staring at the stars, thinking that maybe, on this night, something would happen.

There were no trees to block my view, and if I sat absolutely still, it felt like I was drifting upwards to that ethereal, milky beyond. That I could reach up and touch a star, burn my hand and become one with the sea of black.

Judge coughed a few times. “You awake, Shovel?”

“Drifting in and out,” I said. “Stars look nice tonight.”

“You always think the stars look nice.”

“Always nicer than where I am, I guess. Grass is always greener.”

“The stars run together for me,” Judge said. “I can’t see worth a damn anymore.”

I sighed. “You think about where we’re going?”

Judge rustled, and I turned to look at him.

“Any idea at all?”

“No. We’re going to try and find another town. More supplies.”

“That’s a plan.”

“The Raiders have taken over most places, though. That’s the problem. Finding a place that’s still standing, that still has anything worth salvaging… It’s getting hard.”

“We found something in Koger,” I said.

“The girl?”

“Yeah. Not everything is a wash.”

-

I had fallen asleep, listless, but was awakened by the sound of foot falls behind me. Twigs snapping, leaves rustling, general noise.

I snapped to attention, sitting upright and knocking Claire off of my chest. Some time in the night, she had moved over and put her head on me.

The man ambled out of the woods, head between his hands. He damn near panicked when he looked up and saw me by the embers of the fire.

“God,” he said. “Oh, God.”

“No, no, we’re not Raiders,” I said, kicking a branch at Judge, who stirred. “We got company, old timer.”

“Please don’t kill me, please,” the man begged, dropping to his knees.

“Don’t worry about that,” Judge said. “Stop begging. It makes you look worthless. We’re not going to kill you. Where you coming from?”

“Koger. They torched it. God, they torched the entire damn town.”

“We got someone from Koger,” I told him. “We got out when the fire started. We were lucky.”

I stood, knocking my coat on top of Claire.

“What’s your name, friend?” Judge asked.

“Zed. Who’re you?”

“Drifters. I’m Judge, and this is my friend Shovel.”

“Why do they call you Shovel?”

I sighed. “Because I used to beat people to death with a shovel. Why do they call you Zed?”

“Because my parents hated me.”

I smirked. “You cold? The embers still giving off some warmth.”

He crawled over and laid next to the dying fire.

“How’d you get out?” Judge asked.

“Chaos. There were a few stragglers in the town, I guess just looking to survive, and uh… One woman with the sickness was wandering the streets. I guess the Raiders got to her.”

I grimaced, thinking of Claire’s mom, wandering around the streets in a rabies induced rage.

“And I just ran. I didn’t stop. I threw blind punches. I even tried to take one of their vehicles. Almost died trying. Almost.”

“And you ran?”

“Past the pile of bodes near the fun store.”

“I think you mean ‘gun’ store,” Judge corrected him. “My vision is dead, too.”

Zed smiled. “Where are you all headed?”

“Somewhere away from here.”

“Good. They took the Mall and turned it into a Circus,” Zed said.

“Jesus,” Judge coughed. “Are you serious?”

I was confused. This was the first time I had heard the term thrown around.

“That’s what the word in Koger was before it got torched.”

“Then we’ll head east. Away from that abomination”

I didn’t bother asking. “I’m going to try and get back to sleep,” I said. “Wake me when we’re ready to move out.”

“Of course,” Judge said.

I laid back down, putting ample space between Claire and my body. I slept on the hard ground, letting her keep my rucksack as a pillow. I turned, and looked at the stars, the color draining out of my life until I couldn’t keep my eyes open anymore.

**ShastaTwist** · 10-22-2007, 05:33 PM

Re: Kindred

You're amazing.

**MalReynolds** · 10-23-2007, 05:02 PM

Re: Kindred

I tried to force myself to dream, which is a foolish endeavor. I drew nothing but nightmares about Claire and what harm might befall her. Judge was a nonentity in these dreams, hanging in the sidelines like the coach of a child’s soccer team, clapping his hands while I tried to defend us against an infinite number of invincible terrors.

Judge was gently shaking me awake, which was a kind enough awakening.

His words, however, hit me like a leather glove.

“The girl’s gone,” he said, as soon as my eyes fluttered open. “And so is Zed.”

“What?” I shot upright like a bolt.

“Zed and I talked for a few more hours after you passed out,” Judge said, offering and arm and pulling me to my feet. “He was trying to wear me down. Trying to get me to fall asleep before he could. He took Claire.”

“How do you know?”

“Because when I wouldn’t fall asleep, he hit me with a tree branch. When I came to… She’s gone.”

“Where the hell is she?”

Judge threw his coat on. “Some place we ain’t following.”

I laughed. “Good one. Where is she?”

“I told you once, Shovel. Someplace we ain’t going.”

“Maybe not you, but me, yeah. I’ll follow. And if you know, you’d best tell me, Judge. Don’t keep this from me.”

“If I tell you nothing, you won’t get hurt.”

“If we don’t get Claire back, I’ll be hurt.”

Judge sighed. “No. Absolutely not.”

I thought about my gun, but Judge pulled his before I had a chance. He didn’t look at me, rather, he stared at the ground intently. “I don’t want to shoot you, but if I think you’re going to try and get the answer from me with your gun, you’d better think twice.”

“We just leave her with Zed, then? Come on, Judge! Have a heart!”

He looked up from the ground, and stared at me. His eyes were steely and cool. “What do you even know about her?”

“Not enough to risk my life.”

“Then why?”

“Because that’s who I am, Judge.”

He stared at me for a few more seconds. “When I found you, you tried to kill me with your namesake. You remember that? You took a swing to knock my head off. You were going to loot my body and move on.”

“And you pulled me from that. You saved me from being a Raider.”

“Being a Raider and being a psychopath… They’re the same. Raiders just have numbers. I pulled you back from the edge because I saw someone worth saving.”

“What puts me so far above her?”

“You were my second chance, Gerry.”

When he used my name – my real name, it stung. It was no longer an argument. He was pleading with me to stop the foolishness, to just move on. To forget the girl and go back to the way things were.

“What do you mean?”

“She’s probably at the Circus. That’s a place you don’t want to be.”

“Okay.”

“The Circus is a building big enough to house a ton of Raiders. They typically take shopping centers… And put people on display. They have shows in the store fronts. It’s an isolated section of carnal pleasures, of evil pleasures. Zed was looking for a way in. He found his ticket with Claire. He’s in with the Raiders now because of her, and she’s… She’s going to be put on display.”

I thought about her smile, teeth covered in braces. “And we just leave her.”

“I can’t go there. I said you were my second chance. There’s a reason I wouldn’t go in to Koger with you.”

“Come on, Judge. I can’t do this alone.”

“Back when the world ended, I took sides, and one of the first raids I pulled was on Koger. I rode with a group of ‘em, in to town. And… There was a small boy. He was outside of a store, waiting for someone, and like a hawk I picked him up and threw him into the back of our truck, laughing the entire time. We all took turns kicking him, spitting on him, hanging him out of the back of the truck by his arms. We were not gentle and we did not waver. None of us killed him direct – he died of dehydration. Couldn’t have been a day over seven.”

I swallowed hard. “You…”

“And when I tried to break off from the Raiders, when I began to feel remorse, after the first Circus – before it had a name – they beat me until they thought I was dead. They hit me with walking sticks they had found in a hobby shop. The biggest one had a doorknob at the end. They flogged me over the back again and again with it, and left me dying outside. The elements almost took me.”

“And then you found me. I was on the edge, and you pulled me back. Correcting your mistake.”

Judge sighed. “There’s not a day that went by where I did not feel guilty for the crimes I have committed, where I have tried to repent. And I am still trying. If you go to that building, you will die. Claire will die.”

“You killed her brother. The least you can do is… Come with me.”

“I know what goes on there. I know, because I’ve been there. I’d rather take my chances with the wilderness than try something like that.”

“Then give me your gun. Help me even the odds.”

Judge shook his head. “No. Even the bad men need to survive out here. If I give you my piece, I might as well strip naked.”

“Then this is where we part ways. When I find Claire, I’ll tell her what I know about you. I don’t suspect the next time we cross paths that she’ll be amicable towards you.”

He smiled. “Then maybe she should be Judge.”

He turned and began to walk to the edge of the clearing.

“Hey,” I called after him. He turned. “What’s your real name?”

“Demons don’t have names, not anymore,” he said, turning back, and shuffling into the forest.

-

I made my way due east until the tree line broke. I was on top of a hill that overlooked a small shopping center. It was surprising to see so many vehicles lined on the outside – almost filling the parking lot. I stared as a car approached, and made my way down the slope, waving my arms to flag it down.

The driver was in a leather jacket, with aviation goggles set firmly against his eyes.

“I need to speak to you,” I said.

“Make it quick.”

I reached into the vehicle and pulled the man out. “I need your car.”

Before he could protest, I delivered a solid kick to his chest, and he blacked out.

-

I rolled up the front doors – they were guarded by two large muscle-bound idiots who were denying entry to anyone without sufficient barter to get in. Luckily, the vehicle I had was more than enough of a trade to get them to move away from the door.

The circus was naturally lit, sunlight streaming down through the skylights over dying or dead palm trees. I made my way through the barren food court, pushing dusty tables and chairs out of my way, the scraping noise shooting from the walls. In the center point of the mall, a makeshift stage had been set up, with a large crowd surrounding it, listening to the speaker.

As I approached, I quickly covered my face as I recognized the man. X was delivering a sermon. His distended lobe swung loose, hitting his cheek every time he turned.

“… And the wares are for sale. Whatever you have left after paying to cover to get in here,” he said, “Will be more than sufficient. And we have a special treat. At the end of every hour, we’ll hold a raffle with a very nice prize. Young… fresh… MEAT!”

The Raiders burst into cheers. I half heartedly applause. Whatever they had planned with her, they hadn’t started yet.

I scanned the crowd, looking for the one face that might be able to tell me where they were holding her. I couldn’t find Zed anywhere.

I turned, making my way to the employee-slash-bathroom area, when who should I catch jaunting around the corner like he was a made man, but the very scum that I was looking for.

“Breathe and I kill you,” I said, pulling my gun out. “Scream and I kill you.”

I pushed my hand against his mouth, shoving him back into the bathroom.

“Where is she?”

“Who?!”

I slapped him across the face with the butt of my gun. “Lemme ask you again. Where is she?”

Zed shook his head. His head shook even harder as I brought the barrel against his nose, shattering it.

“GOD! I DON’T KNOW!”

“Where… Are they keeping her? Don’t make me take the safety off.”

Zed looked at me, trying to plead. I had no sympathy. “X’ll kill me if you take her back – you can’t do this to me.”

“I can’t take your life? I can’t give your life to someone else? What the hell do you think you did? Now… Where… Is… She?”

My arm felt tense as I pulled it back, pointing the gun directly between Zed’s misty eyes. It was taking everything in my power not to drive the barrel into his soft face, but I wasn’t a killer. I hadn’t been since Judge saved me. Judge… had always been the killer.

“They’re keeping her in the toy store. They said they had to do cosmetic work before she was ready.”

“Now we’re getting somewhere. Pull your shirt over your face like a good Raider and take me there. Say you forgot something or she nicked your wallet. You lie and you get me in the room with her, and then maybe we can be friends. Maybe.”

“Please, no.”

“Or I can kill you where you stand.”

-

We walked anonymously through the throngs of Raiders, who were window shopping. In each store front was a different woman – broken, defeated, body covered with bruises. Eyes without hope. Nude, but stripped of their will to live as well as their clothes.

I couldn’t watch as Raiders would walk into the store fronts and pull the women back, hands working furiously at their belts.

Zed tripped as I gave him a shove to hurry him forward. “We don’t have all day,” I whispered. “Come on.”

We stepped into the toy store. The carpet was red, plush. The toys had long since been cleared out, the shelves a haunting testament to the past. We walked past empty rows of shelves to the door to the employee lounge, where two guards stood.

“She stole my wallet,” Zed said, trying not to choke on his own blood. “We need to get in there.”

His voice sounded distant.

“We? Who is ‘we’?” One of the guards asked.

Zed turned around and was surprised to find that I had left him. He was even more surprised when I appeared behind the guard, coming up from behind the shelf, bringing my backpack down on his head. The other guard turned, but I swung the bag up, knocking him into Zed.

“Good lord, what do you have in there?” He asked.

“A shovelhead. I keep it as a reminder.”

“Of what?”

“In case I want to wake up and be just like you,” I said. “Now, sleep.” I smacked him across the face with the backpack, and he dropped to the ground.

I could hear classical music faintly playing through the door, and I looked in through the window. I saw Claire – naked, strapped to a table, wriggling as a large man hunched over her. Her mouth was forced open with a device, and she was trying her hardest not to scream.

The large man took pleasure in his work. In one hand, he held a pair of pliers, and with the other, he pressed down on Claire’s head.

He took the pliers, pressing them down into her mouth, scraping the needle point against her teeth with abandon. The pliers rammed into her gums, causing blood to well. He opened the pliers lazily, and fixed them over one of her brace brackets, pulling away hard. Claire’s head jerked forward, but his hand held it in place.

She began to cry hard as he put the pliers back to her mouth.

I watched as he took the free bracket and drop it onto a side table, aside a dozen others.

Her mouth was red. She kept coughing as blood would leak into her throat.

I gripped the doorknob, but it wouldn’t open.

I saw him going back for the last bracket, and I snapped. I kicked the door in, and he looked up shocked. Claire stared at me, unblinking, without acknowledgement.

“Who’re you?”

I vaulted over Claire, bringing my feet against the fat man, knocking him against a sofa. I threw him to the ground, and began to dance a jig over his throat. He sputtered at first, providing a rhythm to my dance, but he soon stopped trying. His hand fell limp at his side, the pliers sliding out of his open palm.

I walked over the Claire and pushed my hand against her forehead, running my fingers through her hair.

“Come on,” I said, pulling the device out of her mouth. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”

I started to work on the restraints. When she had one arm free, she pulled up and set her other arm loose herself. I walked to the corner, where they had left her clothes, torn and ragged, in a pile.

“Get dressed.”

I picked up the clothes and was going to throw them to her, but she came up from behind me, and pulled me in close to her.

“Thank you,” she whispered, her voice hoarse. “Thank you.”

I pulled her against me, my hands on her back. “Come on,” I said. “We can’t stay here. We have to get out. They’re going to notice something’s wrong once the raffle starts and you’re not here.”

Claire quickly put on the pants and shirt, spitting on the ground. She took the ‘dentists’ water bottle and rinsed her mouth out, spitting the bloody water onto the fat man.

“I was a prize?” she said, pushing her hair behind her ear, not meeting my gaze.

“Yeah.”

“Well then,” she said. “Are we meeting Judge on the outside?”

“He said… He said he would try to meet us.”

“He’s a good man.”

I paused. “Yeah. I guess he is.”

**MalReynolds** · 12-7-2007, 01:46 PM

Re: Kindred

I grabbed her by the hand and we moved into the toy store front, stepping over the two unconscious men on the ground. I cast a backwards glance towards the dentist, the first man I had killed in so long, and was terrified that I felt nothing about taking his life. No compunctions. No ill effects. My hands were not shaking, and my eyes were livid with fire.

Claire stared down at Zed, who was collapsed against the wall.

“You do that?”

I shook my head. “Yeah. I had to get in there. Had to get you.”

Before I could object, she had pulled my gun from my side and fired a shot into his chest. The slow rise and fall of a man asleep came to a stop. His blood ran under him towards my shoes and her bare feet.

“Well, not exactly quiet.”

Claire stared up at me. “I’d do it again.”

I nodded. “I know you would.” I put my hand on her shoulder, feeling the soft fabric from the blue shirt that only 2 days ago I had almost stolen.

We both heard the trump of boots in the hallway, and saw the shadows before the Raiders. They bolted around the corner, trying to find the source of the noise – X was leading the pack. I pulled Claire into the shadows, wresting my gun from her hand.

“You don’t have enough to take all of them,” she whispered, leaning close to me.

“Just wait.”

X spotted the downed men on the ground and quickly rushed up, in the center aisle. A small number of his men followed him. As they crouched over the two guards and Zed, I used the wall to brace myself and kicked the shelf in front of me forward, toppling the metal girders onto the Raiders.

“Now, run!” I grabbed Claire by the hand as the shelf began to move upwards, the men underneath only pinned momentarily. Claire and I made it into the main hall, the neck of her shirt torn, falling over her bare shoulder.

I paused briefly to assess the situation.

There were at least a hundred Raiders between us and the entrance I had come in. I turned, and looked down the hall, deeper into the mall. There were still Raiders, sure, but the chances seemed slightly more even.

We bolted in that direction, our feet hitting the tile. Claire tried her best to keep up with me, given that she had no shoes. Her feet slapped the ground, each step sounding more painful than the last. She was jamming her heels with reckless abandon.

We juked in and out of the Raiders, trying to find another exit. Everything in the air began to blur, back and forth, back and forth. The store windows began to ebb in front of me, eek out and drain. The world was black and white again.

Claire pulled my hand toward a service door, and we broke through into a concrete hallway. I slammed the door behind me, and shoved a broom through the door handles.

“You didn’t think this through, did you, Shovel?”

I was panting, my hands resting on my thighs. “I’m going to be honest with you, Claire. No, no I didn’t.”

“Why’d you come for me?”

“I didn’t figure you would like the way they would treat you. Judge helped me think about what it took the be a person. Helping you – I guess that’s just what makes me human. You’re a kindred spirit in all this, you know. You’re one of the people that saw the end of everything, that lost it all. And you’re here. I saw the end of everything, and I almost lost myself. To find someone else out here, I just – that’s someone worth saving.”

“What about Judge? How come he didn’t help you?”

I smiled. “Well, saving you is human. But Judge isn’t an idiot. It’s a numbers game.”

The Raiders slammed against the door behind me, the broomstick buckling.

“Come on, we have to find a way out of here.”

“What if this dead ends?”

I pulled my gun out. “I have two left, I think.”

Claire offered a half smile, her red stained teeth showing slightly through her pink lips. “Rough day...”

“Tell me about it,” I said, pushing past her and walking down the hall.

There were offshoots every five or so feet, and the hall was lit only by flashlights that had been placed upright and turned on. I mused to myself about the importance of keeping a hallway like this lit, why anyone might do that, and Claire picked up on it.

“They keep it lit, because they need to see, right?”

I nodded. “And they need to see, because what’s down here is important.”

“Where they bring the merchandise in, I suppose?”

“You were brought in, weren’t you?”

She nodded. “But they bagged me. I couldn’t see a thing, otherwise I’d be helping you out more.”

“And leave it to the Raiders to line the hallway with flashlights instead of relying on them to carry one themselves. I guess if they kept flashlights on their person, they’d barter them away for something.”

After a few minutes, I realized I was walking myself in circles trying to find the way out. I reached and touched the right wall, and began to follow it around ever corner. A few seconds after rounding a bend, I heard the distinct sound of wood snapping a few yards back.

“Time to hustle,” I said.

I began to jog in the darkness, my hand pressed lightly against the clammy stone wall, moving as quickly as I could while making sure Claire was behind me.

As we took a corner, my hand brushed against something new. Not stone, but metal. I reached down, and felt a cold push-bar.

The door swung open to the outside world. The sun burned my eyes – everything was overexposed and I could not tell where exactly we had stepped. I shook my head, trying to force my eyes to adjust, but they would not. I walked out into the world of lines and brightness, with Claire behind me.

“We’re outside,” I said.

“It’s bright.”

I raised a hand over my forehead, blocking the over hanging sun from shining into my eyes, and they began to fill in the lines and bring me back to my reality.

We were in the side lot of the building, where a truck would come and unload boxes of goods. There were dozens of cars and trucks lining the sides. Claire and I were on a platform by the metal door, our feet on the same level as the hoods of the cars.

I grabbed her hand and we stepped out onto the sea of metal, careful not to fall between the cracks of any onto the pavement below. At this moment, I wished I had not traded in the car I had stolen.

“How are we going to get out of here?”

“We have to walk and hope they don’t catch us,” I said, dropping off of the last car, and holding out my hand to help her down.

“You said you have two left, right?”

I grimaced as her feet hit the pavement. “Yeah.”

We turned and began to walk through the grassy field to the steep embankment where I had spied the Circus in the first place. We had barely made it half way when I heard the fine purr of an engine behind me.

X was sitting pretty atop a windowless Jeep, a machete pulled up by his side. He was glaring at me from across the lot, and he tapped the side of the beast twice to get it to move. It jolted forward as if it were unfamiliar with the terrain.

Without thinking twice, I scooped Claire into my arms and bounded across the field, taking the hill as fast as I could, hoping that the Jeep wouldn’t make it past the embankment.

The trees, I realized, were too thin to provide enough cover. I ran to our makeshift camp site from the night before and turned, gun drawn. Two shots – One for X, one for Claire. They could do with me what they wanted.

The Jeep entered the field and stopped. X just sat atop the Jeep, staring. He reached up slowly and touched his ear where I had torn his gauge out, and laughed. He tapped the side of the Jeep twice as he had done in the lot, and it began to move forward.

X was immediately caught on an overhanging branch and held back as the Jeep moved forward. He fell backwards, into the tall grass, which shielded him from my view. The Jeep did not stop.

“Run, Claire,” I said, pulling the gun up next to me. “Run. Right now.”

“No,” she said, grabbing my hand. She laced her fingers with mine – I closed my eyes and thought back to first meeting her, how deceptive she had been trying to keep me with her. I held her hand right back.

I took aim and fired at the Jeep, my first shot going wild and hitting the door. It tore out the handle, and the door flew open, but the Jeep did not slow.

“One shot,” I said, the Jeep moving closer.

“Take your best one,” she looked up at me.

I took aim and fired at the Jeep again, the bullet bouncing harmlessly off the grill.

“Well,” I paused. “Damn.”

Claire pulled me to face her, and brought her hands up to my cheeks. I moved forward, resting my forehead against hers, and waited.

“Thank you,” she said.

“For getting you killed?”

She did not answer. I opened my eyes, and out of my periphery, I saw the shape move from the tree line. It was fast – moving very fast towards the Jeep. I pulled myself away from Claire and watched as the shape bounded into the open door of the vehicle. A second later, there was a loud noise, a gunshot, and the Jeep veered off course. It hit an errant branch on the ground and began to flip once, and again, and again, until it came to a violent rest against a tree.

The engine choked and sounded like it had squirrels running on it, when Claire and I approached. I dropped my bag down to my side, ready to swing at anything.

The shape moved from the back of the Jeep slowly. It was crawling. The hands I saw first were bloody, shards of glass embedded in them. They bled out as the person put force on them. Eventually, their arms gave out, and I reached in, hoping to pull them.

Somehow, in the back of my mind, I knew the entire time – the second I saw the shape to the second I saw his face – that it was Judge. I pulled him from the mess, and laid him out. He stared up at me, vacantly, his eyes blood red.

“Hey, Judge,” I said, kneeling next to him. Ice picks shot into my stomach. “Hey.”

“You were always a lousy shot,” he muttered.

“Could never hit anything worth a damn,” I smiled. “Don’t try and talk.”

“You found it?” he asked.

“What?”

“Something worth fighting for. Something worth dying for?”

I nodded. “Yeah, I suppose I did, Judge.”

He smoked up at me, his teeth crimson, some missing. I assumed they were laying complacently in the Jeep. “I did too, Gerry.”

“Oh.”

He began to laugh. “Not much for the sentimental.” His laugh turned into a wheeze.

“Yeah, well.”

This time, Claire had hung back, staring at the shape on the ground. She was trying to comprehend everything that had just happened. I stared up at her, and she stared back at me. I motioned for her to come closer.

“Did you tell her?” Judge asked, before she walked into earshot.

“I didn’t have the heart to kill you like that,” I said.

“Go get my gun from the Jeep,” Judge said. “I had to stab the driver and I just – the ol’ law giver.”

I nodded, and walked over to the Jeep as Judge talked to Claire. I reached into the driver’s side and felt around, my hand moving over the corpse of the driver, until I felt the cold metal of the gun in my hand. I pulled it out, and walked back over. Judge was coughing, his body wracked by the paroxysms.

I checked the clip.

“You ready, old man?”

Judge nodded.

I did not hear the shot, nor did I feel the recoil in my arm. But the casing flew past my face, and the slide clicked back into the locked position. Judge’s head jerked backwards.

“Come on,” I said. “X is still over there. We can take him out while he’s unconscious.”

Claire stared down at Judge.

“What did he tell you?”

“To look after you. Not to break your spirit.”

“I need looking after?” I asked.

“He thought so.”

I walked over to the trees where X had fallen unceremoniously from his throne atop his steed, but he was not lying in the grass. There was a mark where he had hit, and the signs that he had risen to his feet.

“X fled. Probably went to regroup. We have to get out of here. We don’t stand a chance if we hang around.”

“I know where we can go,” Claire said behind me.

“Where is that?”

Kindred

Kindred

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