Fury
Rising
Jeyn Roberts
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Text copyright ©2016 by Jeyn Roberts
Cover photograph ©2016 by Suzie Designs
All rights reserved. Published in the United States and Canada by JR Books LTD.
Visit us at JeynRoberts.com
Fury Rising by Jeyn Roberts
ISBN-13: 978-1530633319
ISBN-10: 1530633311
Dedicated to all the readers.
This one’s for you.
Nothing
Welcome me. Welcome you.
I am speaking to you from the end of times.
Who am I? Am I Nothing? Or am I everything I’ve grown to despise. Am I still human? Alive? Do I still live and breathe? Or am I just a vessel, an empty cardboard box that stores the memories of a boy who died a long time ago.
I’m tired.
Very, very tired.
Should I continue to speak to you in riddles, or should I push all those silly thoughts away? Should I confess to all my crimes? Share all my dreams? My passions?
What do you want to know?
Do you want to hear how it ends? How the world ends? You’ve already got the basic idea. You know about the monsters beneath your bed. The ones who crept into our minds, destroyed our cities, and brought forth the end of mankind.
But I can tell you more.
I can tell you about it.
Before there were gods. Before mankind walked the earth. Before the first dinosaur crawled out of the ooze that transformed this great earth into what it is today. It existed. It has always existed. Just like the sun will shine in the sky tomorrow, just like the clouds will form and reform. It will always be there. You cannot destroy it. It can’t be stopped by a single bullet, a virus, or all-powerful love.
All you can do is wait until it grows bored and goes away, leaving behind death and destruction. Leaving behind the army of mindless drones, thousands of them ready to do their master’s bidding. Like ants protecting the colony, long after the queen has evacuated.
Without darkness, there cannot be light. That’s how the game is played. One can’t live if the other were to wither away and die.
The Baggers have been busy little ants. They are working hard to transform the world to fit their best interests. But no matter how hard they try, they will never get rid of the light. It will always shine, seeping in through the cracks, refusing to lie down and die.
And all those times evil has risen in the past. It will fall again. Either goodness will find a way to break free, or the evil will awaken, frown upon all it’s created, and simply destroy it all over again.
Like a record spinning around and around and around.
We never learn from our crimes.
Not I, said the fly.
Who am I?
I am Nothing.
Learn from me. Don’t make the same mistakes as me.
There is always light.
Find it.
May
Nine months after the Earthquakes
The Baggers are winning
Colin
He stood before the two Baggers, both of which had guns pointed straight at his face. But Colin wasn’t worried. He knew they’d be more than happy to listen to what he had to say. They’d welcome him in with open arms soon enough. So what if Colin wasn’t one of them. He wasn’t a Bagger, but that shouldn’t matter. Those monsters were more than willing to deal with regular folk as long something tasty was put on the table. Supply and demand. These days toilet paper was more valuable than money and bartering never went out of style.
Colin didn’t really like the way the Baggers had taken over everything. The whole putting humankind into slavery and killing everyone who opposed them thing wasn’t his cup of tea. But he had to admit they got things done. They had a goal and he understood the importance of keeping commitments. They would listen to him. Oh yes, they would.
They’d treat him with respect once he had his say.
Colin was tired of a lot of things. The past winter had been particularly bad with a ton of rain. Spring hadn’t been much better. Even worse now that Aries had decided they needed to change their system and they were living outside like a bunch of stupid hippies in a commune.
“It’s too dangerous to stay in Vancouver,” she’d said back in February. “I think it’s time to go into the bush. Not too far, we need to be close enough to find food. Let’s face it; none of us know the first thing about hunting. Until we learn, or get people who do, it’s not even up for discussion. We need to be safe. Far enough out where the Baggers can’t find us.”
The idea was preposterous, especially when there was a gigantic city full of houses, all of which were currently unoccupied. So what if the Baggers were still doing door to door checks to remove bodies and search for survivors. It’s not like they could physically check every damn house in the lower mainland. It would take years to go through them all properly. The Baggers may have the humans on the run, but they still weren’t that large. They couldn’t be everywhere at once.
But somehow Aries was in charge and everyone else was too brainwashed to think for themselves. Even with that idiot Mason stuck in the prison compound, she still had a group of faithful followers more than happy to suck up to her. Everyone else might have been frothing at the mouth to go join her in the woods, where they could freeze their asses off sleeping on the hard ground, but Colin had different ideas.
The world was gone. Everything Colin had grown up with, all the luxuries he used to take for granted. He’d convinced his parents to buy him a laptop a month before everything went to hell. He’d gotten a new iPhone for his birthday too. He had more than one gaming system with enough first-person shooters to keep him from being bored. He used to spend countless hours surfing the Internet, chatting with Sara on Skype, and basically wasting time instead of studying. He still managed to get decent grades, so his parents left him alone.
Now his laptop was probably still on his desk in his bedroom and the Internet was unreachable. Video games seemed stupid, especially when there were real life threats instead of fantasy, and both Sara and his parents were a memory that faded more and more each day.
Looking back at it now, how simple and pointless his life was. But it had been his and he’d enjoyed it. He liked being a part of the drama club, even if their teacher had been more inclined to pick plays with female leads. It had been a luxury waking up around noon on weekends and holidays. He’d loved spending sunny days wandering around Stanley Park with Sara holding his hand. Rainy days were spent lounging on the couch, eating potato chips, and watching television.
He knew Aries hadn’t liked him. She never had, but she’d tolerated him for Sara’s sake. For Colin, the feeling had been mutual. He always secretly thought Aries was a bit of a stuck up, but he’d hung out with her because it made Sara happy. They’d existed, side by side, sharing the person they loved.
And Sara had been pretty much the best part of being alive.
But she was gone now and nothing Colin could do would ever bring her back. She’d died the first night, when the three of them had been heading back to school for theatre rehearsals. The big earthquake had hit, the one that doomsday profits had been warning the west coast about forever. A massive quake, worse than anything anyone in their tinfoil hats could ever imagine. That had only been the beginning. The horror that came next caught everyone off guard. Something awakened deep inside the minds of a small percentage of the population, turning people into crazy killers. Baggers. Within a few weeks, all of
humanity had been tossed out the window and millions of people were dead. Billions. The entire world was nothing but a wasteland now, a playground in which the Baggers were in charge. The Kings of the Castle. Leaders of the Pack.
A New World Order.
Sara’s body was probably still rotting away on the bus where he’d left her. What did it look like now? Was she nothing but a decayed pile of goop? Or had the Baggers already cleaned out the area, dragged her body away and burned it with the others? Either way, Colin tried not to think about it too much.
What made it worse was that Aries lived, whereas Sara died. Looking back, Colin wished he’d never gone to the school where he’d found Jack and Joy. When he’d stepped off the bus, he should have gone far away from everything and everyone he’d ever known. Maybe then he would have had a chance of actually having a decent life. Being stuck with them, all the people he’d grown up with, it only made him angrier. They made him remember everything he’d lost. Every damn time he had to deal with Aries, he’d think about Sara. Jack and Joy only made things worse now that they were a couple. If he’d gone downtown instead of the school, maybe he would have met up with a different crowd. People he could have had a decent shot with, instead of being forced to relive his high school memories over and over. He wouldn’t have to be reminded of who he once was, hell, who he still was, every time he looked at Aries’ stupid face.
Yes, he could admit that maybe it was the school that saved him. There was always the possibility that he could have died if he’d tried to strike it on his own. Colin didn’t like to think about that. He didn’t want to have to admit that maybe Aries was responsible for him being alive this long. He wouldn’t be able to look himself in the face if he thought he actually owed her.
He’d been thinking about leaving for a long time now. The big question was: where would he go? There were other survival groups hiding out in the city, they’d met up with several, or seen them at a distance at one point or another. But joining a new group wasn’t that simple. Everyone was suspicious of newcomers, especially when there wasn’t a foolproof way to tell who was Bagger or human. Not all of them had the telltale sign of black veins in their eyes. Some still passed for human. Besides, joining a new group wouldn’t free him. As long as Aries was somewhere in the city, Colin would always face running into her again. And knowing her, she’d do everything she could to try and poison others against him.
Colin spent a lot of time fantasizing about heading south, making his way down the coast towards California or even as far as Mexico, but fear always held him back. He didn’t know the way. Without gas stations, how would he travel without walking the entire way? What about the Bagger gangs they’d heard about? Scavengers, kicked out by the city group for being too feral, monsters worse than anyone could imagine. They set up roadblocks and traps along the highways, hiding and waiting to torture the people they captured. Bodies decapitated and tied to road signs as warnings to those who dared to venture into the wilderness. Groups of insane Baggers, resorting to cannibalism, not even waiting until their victims were dead before they began tearing the flesh off of bodies.
They’d all heard the stories, whispered from one group to another. The cities were far safer than the rural communities. Travel should be avoided at all costs.
Clementine said that was a load of crap, she’d gone across the entire country with Michael. She said the Baggers started those rumors just to keep people from spreading out too far. Clustered together, they’d be easier to hunt. Either way, Colin wasn’t sure he wanted to take that chance. As much as he hated to admit it, he was safer in a group. He wasn’t a fighter. He’d never spent weekends with his Dad camping in the woods. He’d never fired a gun or thrown a knife. His idea of roughing it meant going two days without a shower. No, groups were the smarter choice. And Colin had every intention of staying alive. So after a lot of thinking, he made his decision. If he couldn’t beat them, or escape them, or find a way to get to a non-Bagger community, he’d join them. If you form an allegiance with the strongest person in power, you’ll never get hurt.
Of course that meant proving himself worthy. He had to find a way to show the Baggers, to make them see him as an equal. To allow him access to the downtown condos they now occupied. They’d turned on all the electricity. They even had hot water if the rumors were to be believed. Television and DVD players. Coffee pots. Cold fridges and stoves for cooking. Living in luxury, while Colin slept, with tree roots jabbing him in the back.
No, that was going to change. Right now. He smiled at the Baggers, ignoring the weapons pointed at him. They’d be handing him keys to his own private residence soon enough. All he had to do was deliver the goods.
He’d gotten up early that morning and snuck out of the campground before anyone else woke up. Slipped past the kids who were supposed to be on guard. Stupid idiots couldn’t spot a person sneaking through the woods unless they wore a bright clown suit and screamed at the top of their lungs. He’d gone down to the water where they kept the boats, pulled one of the kayaks free and headed out before the sun even began to rise. The water had been a bit rocky, but nothing he couldn’t handle. After about an hour of paddling, he’d touched down on the shores of Second Beach. After that, he’d basically headed straight down Davie towards the Plaza of Nations. It felt good to walk in the middle of the street after spending so many months creeping around in the shadows. He had nothing to hide. If the Baggers found him first, he knew they’d be more than happy to escort him the rest of the way.
By the time he got to the Plaza of Nations, the group of prisoners had started to stir. The compound wasn’t nearly as overcrowded as before, but there were still a decent number of people behind the barbed wire fencing. Aries and the others had done a failed rescue mission a few months back. They’d freed a bunch of people, many of which now lived with them in the park. But some hadn’t escaped or the Baggers had rounded them back up. Also because of the raids, there were always new victims to find.
As horrible as Aries’ reign might be, Colin had to admit this was worse. Stuck in the dirty concrete area, their own urban campground, several people huddled together under an open tent where a few were cooking breakfast. The majority walked around in filthy clothing. They washed their faces from a bucket where the outdoor stage stood. He could smell the stinking port-a-potties from across the compound. The ground was muddy and garbage covered everything. Even in the corner, where they’d attempted to plant vegetables, the pathetic green plants looked withered and on the verge of death. Colin frowned as the smell of burnt oatmeal wafted through the air. He scanned the crowd, pausing for a moment to appreciate a blonde girl who might have been pretty if she wasn’t covered under a layer of dirt. She caught his eye before glancing away. Colin smiled before moving on. He was looking for Mason and maybe the freak, Daniel. As far as he knew, Daniel was still hiding out somewhere in the city, but Colin could always hope. He didn’t spot either of them and that made him slightly depressed. He would love to see the look on Mason’s face, the exact moment of realization when Mason would learn that Colin was about to betray them all. Sweet justice.
The Baggers met him at the gate. Surprised and suspicious, they raised their weapons, maintaining a reasonable distance. Colin didn’t blame them. Surviving humans didn’t exactly show up on their doorstep without being dragged and beaten first.
“I have information for you,” Colin said. “I want to see the guy in charge.”
The Bagger looked him up and down before turning his head and spitting some tobacco juice at the fence. “What makes you think Leon’s got time for the likes of you? Why don’t I just save you the trouble and kill you instead?”
Colin stood up straighter, ignoring the urge to run. “Because I have news for him. Something he wants to hear.”
“Tell me.”
“No. I want this Leon guy.”
The Bagger spat again. “Look you little pissant. You’re gutsy, I’ll give you that. Either that or you’re really stu
pid. You got some nerve coming up to the gates like this. I’ll give you a hint. You don’t look like you could even lift a box of tissues. You’re not even worth the time to bring into the camp. I’m in a good mood this morning and feeling lazy. Now bugger off before I change my mind and shoot your ass.”
The conversation wasn’t going at all the way Colin planned. The very thought that a Bagger might be too lazy to kill him wasn’t something he’d even considered. Once he got over the shock, the anger set in. How dare this little lap dog think Colin wasn’t a threat? Sure, he may not have the dexterity that Daniel had, or Mason’s strength, but Colin wasn’t someone to be overlooked.
“Look,” Colin said. “I want to talk to Leon. Now go get him for me. I have what he’s looking for.”
The Bagger leaned forward and sent a big glob of tobacco stained spit onto Colin’s shoe. Bringing his gun around, he pointed it straight at Colin’s chin. “And what exactly is that?”
Colin stepped forward until his skin pressed up against the metal. “Tell him I can give him Aries.”
* * *
They brought him into a large room on the second floor of what used to be the casino. It was a nice set up. Black leather couches spread out across expensive looking rugs. Paintings covered the walls, fancy stuff, pictures of the Vancouver skyline lit up at night. Granville Island during the day. The ocean at Stanley Park with a beautiful pink and orange sunset in the distance. A signed Vancouver Canucks jersey framed behind glass. Colin sat down on one of the couches and put his feet up on the glass table, kicking aside some magazines. It was like he was waiting in a talent agent’s office, about to be offered a major role in a movie. All that was missing was the sexy receptionist sneaking peeks at him from afar.
In this room, Colin could almost close his eyes and imagine things were back to normal. He smiled to himself. This was how things were supposed to be. He’d had so many ideas. After graduation, he’d planned on going to acting school and making a name for himself. Getting a role on a major television show or movie. He had been talented. A good actor. Everyone always said so. He’d even had a line in a local commercial. He could have been somebody.