Calmly, I pulled a black-sheathed sword off the wall and walked out the same door that I had stood staring out when I froze, transfixed by the arrows. Smoke was ebbing just above the threshold. The roof was already catching light. I stood at the balcony overlooking the dark forest. Night had almost completely overtaken the soft blue of dusk and the forest was a shield of darkness.
From the sheath, I pulled out the sword and held it up.
Then I howled like a motherfucking wolf.
I let it ring out in echo as a call for blood.
The first man to emerge from the forest was the biggest of them – Maggie the Ogre, the hulking, dagger-wielding mad man I had seen twice before. As the fire spread across the roof, the parameter of the house and the edges of the forest grew in visibility. The hulking man motioned for me to come down from the deck and join him near the edge of the forest, which I gladly obliged. Each step down I thought I noticed an extra face and pair of eyes in the forest – the darkness was pulsing with the presence of the bandits, and I knew there had to be at least thirty of them.
My feet found the grass at the end of the stairs and strolled toward the hulking man. My eyes were on everyone else in the forest I could spot; his eyes were on me and solely me. Before reaching him, I withdrew the nine millimeter gun from the back of my pants and began firing. There were sixteen bullets in the clip, plus two extra clips in my pocket, and I was going to use every one of them.
The first bullet hit the hulking psycho in the arm, causing a look of panic and confusion on his face. The wound didn’t seem to hinder or hurt him much and he tried to dive back behind the tree line. He stumbled over his large feet in the attempt and the next two bullets hit him in the back and in the back of his head. He dropped like a rock but I had already begun firing at each face I had seen in the shadows of the forest.
With each shot fired from the gun, there was a distinct sound that followed when it hit someone. As I fired the fourteenth, fifteen, and sixteenth bullet, I could tell I had stopped hitting people and that most of them had fled backward.
Eject the clip, reload with the sword still in my hand.
An arrow from directly in front of me buzzed past the trees to hit me in the chest just below my weak left shoulder. The gun fell from my hand. The smell of sulfur filled my nostrils and the taste of iron filled my mouth, a sensation that seemed to happen whenever I was seriously injured, one that I had grown accustomed to.
As I gripped the long end of the arrow and snapped it off so only a tiny hunk of stick protruded, a man came running from the forest. He had his sword over his head and clutched with both hands. It was his scream that gave away his position and a bullet whizzed past my ear to hit him in the belly.
As he fell about five feet from me, I bent and picked up the gun, pleasantly surprised to find that my left hand still worked perfectly fine. Without turning around, walking into the forest I gave a thumbs up pointed back toward the downstairs door.
Past the tree line, I found six more bodies.
Two of them had been hit with arrows.
There was another gunshot from the downstairs doorway.
The blossoming fire behind me illuminated deep enough into the forest to see that the bandits hadn’t moved to flank me or fled too far back, they just backed from the light. They formed a semi-circle around me, ten of them pointing drawn arrows; in-between each archer was another man with a sword in his hand, as if back-up.
These were the real deal.
The men that had acted hastily, that had forged away from the group – including the hulking man and the one that had run screaming – were two of the bandits I had encountered previously. The rest of them – the archers and swords’ men weren’t as dirty – they were all wearing billowy blue cloth, their sleeves hanging low.
“If you set-a down your—weapons. I will—speak wif you.”
The voice had called out from behind the line of archers and bowmen.
It had a thick Japanese accent.
I licked my lips and set down both weapons.
Two of the archers and two of the swords’ men stood aside and a tall, dark featured Japanese man walked out. He had on a similar cloth as the others, except his was checkered blue and white. His hair was up in a bun on top of his head and he kept both hands together at his waist, each tucked into the other’s billowy sleeve.
“Why are you here?” I asked him in a stern, low and menacing growl.
“You angered my family,” he said, matter-of-factly.
He continued approaching, staying just outside of arm’s length.
“How?”
“You have disrespected us,” a nearby archer spoke.
The Japanese man turned quickly to the man that had spoken and, quick as a flash, threw a tiny dagger from under his sleeve. It hit the archer in the chest and, as he backed up from the wound, the swords’ man to his right quickly impaled him; then the swords’ man pushed the meat off the end of his sword, picked up the archer’s bow and arrow, and replaced him in the same stance and position.
The gut shot bandit outside the tree line had gotten to his feet and was moving toward the forest when another shot rang out from the downstairs of the house.
There was a brief mist in the fire light and the man dropped silently.
The Japanese man sighed at this, his eyebrows raised as if it were whimsical.
“Him and his men,” the Japanese man continued, “ask-a help. I help.”
I waited for more but that was all he had.
“So what now?”
“I kill you. All your friend.”
That seemed to sum it up best for him because then he threw a dagger at me.
If it weren’t for my reflexes, his dagger would have probably hit my throat; instead, I turned and it slid across the top of my right shoulder, leaving a painful gash. In the brief aftermath of the surprise dagger-throw, our eyes met. Neither of us retreated. I could feel the archers tighten their drawn arrows, the swords’ men at the ready. The dark featured Japanese man and I stared at one another.
There was a short buzz and I was certain that was it.
The Japanese man went pale and fell over.
A moment passed before I noticed the arrow sticking from the back of his neck.
Sensei Ki-Jo was in the forest, firing from a vantage point high up.
All of the archers turned in uniform and fired their shots in the direction of that lethal arrow. Half of the swords’ men did an about-face as well, one half charging toward the shot fired and the other half charging at me.
Bent the second I noticed that fatal arrow, I grabbed the gun in my right and the sword in my left. I fired two quick shots at the charging men and they dropped, but three were still standing and flanking me. As one circled to get behind me, a gunshot from the back yard rang out and the man dropped. The other barely took notice as they advanced to the point that I had to engage them in battle. The archers had returned their attention to me, already having reached into their quivers to pull another arrow.
Steve and Travis had advanced to the line of the forest.
“Not too far to hit now, are you, bitch?—oh shit,” Travis said, noticing that I was in the middle of a sword fight with two men.
Steve fired a shot, then Travis; they both pulled back on the bolt and another round went into the chamber.
Two archers fell but all of those that remained never took their attention off me.
One swords’ man swung and caught me across the chest but the wound was shallow, as I had been backing up. The second advanced, hopping toward me now that I was wounded. With the momentum of my backward stagger, I ducked low to the ground—BANG BANG the shots rang out from behind me (I don’t know who shot) and both hit the advancing swords’ man in the chest, propelling him backward into half the line of the archers.
The second swords’ man gained his bearing with just enough time to see my sword slash at his leg. As his body fell, I grabbed him and used him to shield me from the
arrows fired by the remaining archers. One hit me in the calf and I howled in pain, the others thumping into the swords’ man’s back. Reaching my left arm out from under the side of the half-conscious but dying swords’ man’s body, I fired at every moving body ahead of me.
The clip went empty…
Nothing was approaching, nothing moving…
I finally felt safe enough to go into shock from the massive amount of blood I had lost in such a short period of time.
There were fading glimpses of Steve and Travis saving my life in the light of a burning house. They were forced to move me closer to the fire in order to see better. The house was blazing and I kept my eyes on it. The air was still and the fire rose straight up without swaying much. The flames danced as always, shuffling and flicking out, shaking and nodding and licking the black air. My eyes would flutter and they would pull smelling salts from the supply bag I had ordered Travis to grab before the fight, wafting it under my nose to keep me conscious.
In the moment after the smelling salts, there was a vivid image in my memory of whatever I was staring at:
The house slowly collapsing in on itself.
Embers in the air.
Travis crying.
And there’s a brief memory after they stopped the bleeding. It stays with me because both men took a hand, both sitting on either side of me, and they waited for me to die.
I didn’t find this out until later but I had lost so much blood that there was little hope I would survive. Steve had pumped me full of morphine from the supply bag and, while the bleeding had stopped, shock from the blood loss was surely to kill me before I ever reached a hospital. Steve had decided that the next time I dozed off, he would let me sleep.
And I did doze off again…
But Travis refused and put the salts under my nose.
The next memory I have is of the helicopter that took me to safety.
The next after that is of a rain smattered window—refocusing—Steve and Travis were finally allowed to visit me in the hospital.
When I thanked them in my raspy voice, they told me the Dingane saved me – the mercenary that Bartleby had hired to kill me, the one that had outsourced the job to these goddamn bandits, the one with the South African flag tattooed to his scalp – Dingane the mercenary had been the one to radio the helicopter. He had apparently remained in the area to track the bandits and find their leader and hideout – Charne later told me he had absolutely despised the group, following a safe distance behind them to find their ship so he could pillage it before killing them.
Steve whispered one other thing in my ear before both gave me a sad nod and left.
Once they were gone, the nurse corrected their statement:
“They absolutely saved your life.”
When she said this, I wasn’t paying attention, instead focused on the last thing Steve had whispered:
“Sensei Ki-Jo was…hit with several arrows. Some of the swords’ man survived and fled and…when they left…they took his head with them. And we couldn’t find their leader.”
the siege on philadelphia
(part one – the lead up)
NEW YORK – 5:00 A.M. MONDAY
David wakes to a phone ring – the woman on the line says it’s a 5:00 a.m. wake up call on Monday, August 20th.
He brings his legs around the side and shuffles his way around the room, clothing himself minimally before strapping on shoes and walking down into the lobby. He enters the cab. The cab takes him through the blue dawn streets of New York, pre-rush hour. It’s quiet and the lights are sad, as if they’re slowly realizing they’re no longer necessary in the new blossoming world; relics. The cab arrives at the building and David gets out.
Revolving doors. Escalator. Elevator. Cute doctor.
And she escorts him back.
The surgery ends two relatively painless hours later.
David sits up, a bit groggy. The anesthetic had been local but they gave him nitrous oxide at his request. His head feels as if it’s in a vise again, gauze stuffed on either side of his head.
“How did it go?” he hoarsely hollers, startling the doctor.
The doctor’s thin red lips wiggle.
David doesn’t hear her in the least; her face is happy, which is a good sign.
He gives her a questioning thumbs up.
Then, to his surprise, she signs to him:
“Congratulations. You are going to be fine.”
“Really?” he answers, joining her smile.
“Both ears should make a full recovery within the next two weeks.”
“Fantastic. Yay. Thank you so much.”
“You cannot go to loud events. You cannot ride on an airplane or climb a mountain – do not drastically change barometric pressure. Ears need to begin strengthening again.”
“Thank you so much.”
“Don’t take the bandages off for at least a day – replace them if your ears continue bleeding. Pus and wax will also need to be cleaned out on a regular basis.”
“Gross. Thank you very much.”
JONESBORO – 10:14 P.M. SUNDAY
Chris and Lizzy get a hotel in Arkansas. It has adjacent beds and she’s laying down, over the covers and in her pajamas, while Chris sits on the edge of his bed, cutting away at his toenails. She asks him, “Read me something.”
Chris stops and looks at her, not-quite-but-almost-flabbergasted.
“Huh?…read you what?” he sorta mumbles, turning his head to survey reading material in the room.
“I don’t know. Anything. I miss my dad and when he reads to me, it makes me feel better.”
Lizzy had been sullen after the stop in the flooded town. Knowing there was a ghost town of forgotten and abandoned lives and homes that just got flooded one day because the government felt it was economically viable was nothing short of upsetting; what if they just started deleting places just ‘cause it was economic. And it also made her miss her home, and her father, that much more. She felt incomplete and wanted to see him or even hear his voice, but it had been hard. She tried briefly but there was some sort of problem with his ears and he was going to have to wait to talk and hear her.
“Pickle, do you remember…it’s so long ago. Me an’ you’er in a nice hotel like this when you’er ‘bout four. Yer daddy was in the hospital and your uncle had to leave town an’ I’as watching you. And we stayed in a hotel an’ you kept sayin’, ‘Read me the horror book.’ And I didn’t have it. You did it every night for three nights ‘til yer daddy got released. You remember that, Pickle?”
“No…” she has the look of concentrating too hard.
Chris finishes with his toes. He brushes the clippings onto the floor. Lizzy lets out a disgusted noise.
“They’ll vacuum tomorrow.”
He opens the television guide.
“I’d rather read this than the New Testament.” He begins skimming the pages. “Let’s see…
Here’s somethin’. It’s called the Story of April Mae Junebug. Comes on…tomorrow night.
What’s it about?
It’s ‘bout…an hour and a half long. [laughs alone] Your daddy would’ve found that funny.
So The Story of April Mae Junebug…
Starts happy enough, when a young boy finds a nice girl that’s a little bit older than him. He sort of…tricks her into thinkin’ he’s older. And they become friends but they become friends secretly.
Why?
Well, ‘cause she’s from a better neighborhood. Same reason as always. Different families, different…lives. An’ everyone thinks the little boy is odd since he…he likes girl stuff, likes plays and romance and dressing up and stuff like that—when all the other boys are out beating each other up and climbin’ and gettin’ into trouble.
Your acent is fading.
Yeah, it does that, pickle.
Anyway, the girl – April Mae Junebug – she agrees to meet him near her house, out in a field nearby. So they begin camping together and having fun and
they never, you know…smooch or nothin’ gross, they just hang out an’ talk.
One thing they always talk about is the Gerlock – it was a monster that lived in the forest around her house. Every week the boy would make up some scary story about what the Gerlock was doing that week, what little boys he was eating. Sometimes it would be funny and the Gerlock would have taken the week off to go visit his monster cousins, or he’d have eaten Timmy Treble, the nasty choir boy from the church. Sometimes he’d spend the week watching cartoons.
Sometimes the lil’ boy would tell the girl a scary story about him and she’d curl up near him. Eventually he told her nothing but scary stories so she’d curl a little closer – he got really good at it, actually – but after some of the scarier ones, it got hard for her to walk home in the dark.
Anyway, one night…the police find them.
The little boy’s mother called ‘em when she found her son was gone. And they pickt him up and brought him home and she…well, she was meaner than ever to him. She didn’t like the girl or her “uppity” family. She didn’t like the boy sneakin’ out, which was more like other boys than anything else he did.
She just didn’t like the boy, I think.
[ends]
That’s the end?
No-no-no.
The boy decides to leave forever but he doesn’t tell the girl. He just says he has to go for a short time and that he’ll be back. But he asks her to do one thing for him.
[waits; builds suspense]
Okay, what?
There was a post in her back yard and he asked her to put a stuffed animal on it while he was gone. He didn’ wanna scare her so much an’ then leave, so he let her know – if there was one thing the Gerlock hated, it was stuffed animals.
Purple bein’ his least favorite.
Uncle Chris, this is so obviously you. We saw that post yesterday.
You’re too smart for me, pickle. Though the first time we did this—
When I was four?
Yeah, when you were four you didn’t figure it out, smarty pants.
What did you tell me then?
Um…I think I told you the sequel to The Story of April Mae Junebug.