Days Gone By
Written By: Wolvespire
Chapter 1: Yesterday’s Tomorrow
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Someone once said that today is tomorrow’s yesterday, so it must follow that today is yesterday’s tomorrow. Today can’t be if it had not been for yesterday.
It is this thought that consumes me lately. On this night which finds me sad. Today my son comes of age. He turns 18 and we would not know each other now if we passed on the street. I miss Ghany.
I have written a story in my spare time…what little of it I’ve allowed myself all these years, but I could never find the opening I wanted. The story is a companion to my other writings, which, as I think of it, probably no longer exist. They were probably destroyed by the evil queen of Zoot when they took power. All that work, that heart, those memories….gone.
I always wrote my adventures, but I never once wrote the beginning of my saga. Only references to it now and then. Lately though, I’ve been thinking more and more about the simple life before the virus, a time when all I have to survive was my father’s rage. Ebony once took those memories from me in a misguided act of love, but a spiritual event in my life, which brought me face to face with my first daughter, and her friend, my old enemy the Guardian, gave me those memories back. Their spiritual intervention made my memory whole again, and finally I remember my life exactly as it really was.
But for now, I suppose I should speak about how my life is now, and not how it was. Boring though it is, I should comment on current events of my life.
I live in a three room shack I built on a stretch of land that my friend…what was his name? Oh yes, Raven…The shack is built on a stretch of land that he showed me. It is far from everything. Nearly a week’s walk from the city, and three days walk from any place Amber ever knew about.
In this little shack I live with Tiffani, known more often as Gattaca. I think I’m cruel to her, because for the first six years we lived here, before a harsh winter storm forced a change in the arrangement, we slept in separate rooms.
Even though we sleep together now, there have been few moments of passion between us...only twice have we made love. Its my fault because I feel guilty afterwards, guilty for my wife. I know this hurts Tiffani, because I see it at night when she turns away from me after trying to hold me. I am selfish sometimes though…sometimes late at night, I cuddle close to her and I pretend that she is my wife, my Trudy returned to me.
I live out my days by farming. Tending the land and growing and harvesting crops. There are no animals though, because we can’t afford for a chance passerby to be drawn here by the noise. We are well hidden from the King and Queen here, and I wish to keep it that way.
Trudy…now there was a woman. Beautiful as a single rose in a field of briars, sweet as fresh honey. She could be violent as a hurricane in a foul mood, but as gentle as a summer breeze mostly.
Of all my memories of her, only three really stand out in my mind. First, the way the light reflected in her eyes when I proposed to her by the lake. Second, and most beautiful, the look of pure love in her eyes when I woke one morning to see her holding our daughter Lianla close to her breast, feeding her milk from it.
The third memory is much more troubling. It is of the last words Trudy said to me. I had seen her after Zoot’s takeover of the city. I had my face covered and was wearing a voice changer the Techno tribe had left behind, but still she knew me. As she was being dragged away by Chosen loyalists, guards of Zoot, she screamed at me. “Run Lex…just run!” Why did she call me Lex?
God! The virus changed everything. It made my best friend crazy, it turned my sister into a leader, nearly destroyed two women I love. And me, oh the virus brought me full circle. From a meek, gentle boy into a cruel, evil and troubled soul, to a man of honor, a father, a husband. What a story I’ve already lived.
It was written once that a beginning was a time to make certain the balances were in order. Now that I have my beginning, here is my story.
Chapter 2—Grey:
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“IF YOU’VE LOST YOUR NERVE, THEN YOU CAN PACK YOUR THINGS AND STOP WASTING MY FOOD, WATER AND MEDICINE!” The angry voice came, cutting like a knife in the early morning briefing.
“I haven’t lost my nerve Paul! You’ve lost the plot!” I say, raising my voice in anger at what has been said here. “We were never supposed to make slaves of people! We were offering them a home until things could get back to normal again.” I yell at him. Our companions Ice, Jay and Ved, remain deadly quiet around the table between us.
“THESE PEOPLE don’t want to play house anymore Brain! They want to love you, take what they want from you and leave! They will hurt each other…themselves; they will…break each other’s hearts if given the chance!” Paul screams back. He gets up and walks to a window and says “It has to stop…civilization has to become civil again.”
“So, it’s to be slave masters instead of saviors is it?” I ask in a voice of controlled rage, and then I say “Civilization hasn’t had the first bit of civility since the time of Egypt and Rome! I hardly think we’re the ones to bring that about again!”
Like I’d said nothing Paul says “I’ve decided we need uniforms. I’ve drawn up a few ideas.” Then he passes out stacks of papers to us. I throw mine against a wall and get up from the table. “Where do you think you’re going?” Paul asks.
“I’m going to my room! I have more important things to do than attend a fashion show.” I yell at him. “I have security measures to think of so our slaves don’t kill us when they find out they’re slaves.”
Paul yells “If you leave this room, never let me see you again.”
I leave the room anyway. Paul, or Ram, since that’s what he likes to be called, doesn’t see my pain. How could he know my hurt? He has his home, his sister…he doesn’t need to be depressed. I pack my bag and I leave a note addressed to him.
“Ram,” I wrote. “Alone and afraid, a blind man walks into the desert to die.” He would not miss the reference, or the meaning that I’d sooner die than become the thing he’s trying to force upon me.
So I walk…following the street signs that will take me home.
*-*-*-*-*-*
It’s been three days. This trip didn’t seem like it took so long by car. Just over a day I think. Of course I didn’t have to hide from potential attackers for hours at a time then. This is the longest I’ve been on the move at a single stretch…nine hours, since I left the base.
I stop dead as a noise in the bushes beside the road catches my attention. I see movement and walk up to it. “Who’s there?” I demand. I’m so scared. They’ll kill me…I can’t defend myself.
A girl comes out, helping a second, hobbling and bundled mass. “Please don’t hurt us.” The first says. “We’re alone; hungry…my sister is sick. Please don’t hurt us.” Then the second looks and me and feverishly says. “You, you’re…”
“I’m a friend, I won’t hurt you.” I say. “I don’t have food, but you can find shelter a few days west of here. Do you know where the airbase is?” The one that’s not sick says they do, they went there as children for a tour. I eye their bag with many valuable things inside and I say “When you get there, tell the boss that Shaitan sent you.” Then I knock over the healthy girl and take the bag and run. I turn once to see the girl picking up her sister. I laugh to myself how easy they were to fool.
*-*-*-*-*
The night after robbing those idiot girls, I’m on the hill overlooking home. I stumble to the top of the rise looking at the city. Earlier in the day 3 people stole the bag I took from the girls and dumped out everything they didn’t want and beating me in the process. When I passed out, I dreamed I was a beast, killing with my hands and drinking blood.
I’m caught by a noise in the city….what is it? A SIREN! There’re adults there! Some made it through. I look and see the flashing light of a police car, along with several points of light caused by fires burning. It reminds me I have to build a fire…I have to be warm, have to sleep off my pain. I haven’t eaten in days…I’m so hungry!
I look through the items left from the bag. A few dresses, other clothes and four small picture albums. I look around for wood. One of the few things I know is that I have to have wood if I want to build a fire. Finally I have enough wood, and then remember that I have to have something to light the fire with. I remember that rocks spark if you hit them together right, so I find some and try it.
After what seems like fifty tries, I give up and, angry, I look up at the sky and scream. “WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE!?!...taking everything from us, and leaving us alone!” I pant in angry bursts. “I’ll show you...SHOW EVERYONE! I’ll kill everything you didn’t! I’LL SHOW YOU A GOD!” I pick up the dresses and other clothes and throw them around screaming as loud as I can. I hear something hit the ground and look around to find a Bic lighter. I smile when I find it works. Finally I have fire!
I look at the dark lines of the city with my back to the fire and slip into a mood as black as the night. “Kill all of you.” I mutter. “Stop you from hurting me…hurt you all.” I say quietly.” I fall asleep repeating “Take your blood…I’ll drink your blood.” I’m delirious from hunger…so long since my last meal.
*-*-*-*-*-*
The next morning I wake with a figure standing over me. It’s a boy my age in a black coat with black hair. “Food…” I say in pain, then “Drink…” The boy bends down and gives me a fair portion of food, and a couple of mouthfuls of water. He says nothing, just goes away. Had it not been for my relief in eating, I wouldn’t have believed it happened.
I walk slowly because of my injuries, but I get to just outside the city by midday. I find a row of houses…here, the Fieldings’, a few houses up, the Laza's house lay in shambles…two houses up from that, the house SHE lived in. Then, a mile away from that, but like it was another world, I find home. Without thought I crawl inside the empty house. Up the stairs to the room that was mine. The house looks so clean. I fall asleep and my mind opens old memories of this place.
“Charles! Stop hitting the boy…what did he do?” My mother said, walking in the house and finding dad beating me. She picked me up off the floor and sat me in a chair.
As mom forces dad into another room, my father angrily growls “The boy spilled soda all over the carpet!” I heard my mother ask “So that was reason to beat him half to death Charles?” Dad says “Katrina, I don’t need another lecture.” Mom says “No! You’re going to listen to this. The boy is scared of you! He’s your son Charles…he needs a father, not somebody using him as a target for their fists. I know you can’t help it sometimes, but if you’d stop drinking, it would help.”
Just then my sister had come home and heard mom and dad fighting, then saw me. “Oh Jaymes…what happened?” What she’s really asking is ‘Why did dad hit you this time?’ I point to the soda on the floor. She says, “Come on baby brother, lets get you cleaned up.”
Suddenly I’m waked by a jab to my side. I hide my face and in my sleep daze I say “I’m sorry, please don’t hit me, I won’t do it again.” I hear and snap and shuffling of feet, and then feel two hands move against mine and remove them from my face.
“Oh it’s you.” I hear, and when my eyes focus, I see her sitting there on the side of my bed. “Maddy?” I say in disbelief.
“It’s just Moz now. What are you doing back here?” She asks, right to the point and irritated. I hear the clutter of activity all around the house.
I tell her I got kicked out of the place I was staying at and decided to come back, and then I ask her how she got back here by herself.
“I had a guy, then after we broke up, I decided to I wanted to bring our brother back home. Some of the girls came with me from the place I was at.” She says, reminding me of our baby brother…she apparently hasn’t named him yet. I ask her about this.
“You still haven’t named the boy? Where is he?” I ask. Moz sticks her head out the door and yells “Bring me the baby Ariya.” I see Moz’s figure, distorted in the light…she gained a lot of weight.
“Sis, you look like you’re…” I say before being told “I got an infection back there in the other town, made me get pretty big.” I reply to her “I’m sorry sis, are there any permanent effects from the thing?” She tells me she just has to lose the weight and she’ll be fine. Moz thanks the girl named Ariya as she brings our brother.
“It’s big.” I say to Moz as she holds him. For some reason, seeing the child makes me angry. “Why haven’t you named it? The thing’s almost a year old.” I say, almost contemptuously.
Moz says “IT is a little boy Jaymes, not a thing, and I haven’t known what I should call him…it hurts to think about what they would have called him.” She sighs a sigh of hurtful memories.
She hands me the baby and asks, “So, how’s your friend Paul?” she plays with our brother’s fingers as I hold him and she makes little baby talk noises to him. This furthers my angry mood, making the rage grow inside.
“I don’t have a FRIEND named Paul, but if you mean that boy I lived with when I was on the base, then HE’S still alive…for now.” I say. My voice reminds me of my dad’s after he’d drink a lot.
“Okay…” Moz says. “I don’t think I want to know.” She tickles the baby’s feet, then says “I guess we’d better give this kid a name, hadn’t we brother?” as she smiles at it in my arms.
I shove him back into her arms and I say “Whatever! I don’t really care” Then I tell her I want food. “Just as soon as we name our brother.” She tells me. I growl at this. “Alright, whatever you say Moz! Let’s call him Ghani. G-H-A-N-I! The name means Spoil of war, or something won in combat.” Then I say “No wait, that’s for a girl….change the ‘I’ to a ‘Y’…can I please eat now?”
One of the girls outside yells for Moz to come out. She hands Ghany off to me and I say “Wait a minute, you promised me food!” She smacks me and says “After I take care of this. I’m a leader now!” Her smack drives my rage over the edge. I follow her outside the house with my eyes burning a hole in the back of her head.
“What is this?” She says as she walks outside and sees two girls holding a boy. I notice the boy is the one that fed me this morning.
One of the girls says “He was stealing from the stockpile. We caught him and restrained him.” Then she throws Moz a sword. “He had this on him.” Moz admires the sword and hands it to me. “What do you think?” She asks.
The man laughs and says “What a tribe…the women fight and the men tend the babies…cute.”
I look at my sister and say “Let him go. He helped me this morning.” As I feel the balance on the sword he carried.
One of the girls holding him protests. “We can’t! He was stealing our food Moz. We have to handle him.” I start breathing heavy and walk up to him with baby in one hand and sword in the other. “I want you to remember this.” I say as I lash out with the sword, gutting one of the girls, then withdrawing the sword and slashing the second girl to death. “Leave.” I tell him, and then I turn to face my sister as he runs away. “There, it doesn’t matter why he was here now. Can I have that food please?”
My sister orders her people to stop as they’re coming at me and she says “Oh, you’ll get your food…then pack your things and get out. I don’t want to see you again…EVER!” She takes Ghany from me forcefully, then walks away.
Chapter 3: Interim
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It has been a few months since the day my sister ordered me from her tribe. THE MOZQUITOS! How original! Promising me food, then giving me only three pieces of bread…ME! Her own brother!
“Dad would be proud of you Madison! You’re as cruel and unfeeling as him!” I yelled at her as I walked out of her ‘base’. “Maybe you’d like to break one of my ribs while you’re at it!” Pointing to the left side of my body, I say “Here…this one was HIS favorite”
She said nothing to me, didn’t shed one tear, didn’t smile, and didn’t move. She just held our brother and watched as I walked away. The only good thing that came from that visit was me finding my black jacket that Tiff gave me after she came to my house one night looking for Moz and found me there. The coat was her dad’s and she wanted me to take it.
Since that time, I’ve been scrounging for food, beating those weaker than me, and scaring those younger than me.
One time, I met a little girl carrying a basketful of food. She was walking beside a cow. I jumped at her, scaring her and I ordered her to give me the food. She said no, and I watched her eyeing the cow carefully.
I took my sword and I held it at the cow’s head. “What’s this thing’s name child?” I asked with menace in my voice.
“Blue…Bluebell.” The dark haired child said nervously. “What are you doing to her?” The girl asked, to which I replied “I’m thinking. You wouldn’t want Bluebell to be my lunch would you?” I ask, and then tell her to give me her name. “It’s Cloe.” She says, adding “Don’t eat Bluebell!” I tell her that I won’t if she gives me her basket and leaves. She does this and as she’s leaving she yells back “You’re a bad man! You’re as bad as Zoot and Lex!”
“Zoot, eh?” I think to myself. “That’s a name to be feared. I’ll have to find him and kill him.
I was soon to find however, that killing Zoot would be more difficult a task for me than I thought. My first encounter with Zoot was a thing of legendary proportions, though nobody ever heard about it if they weren’t there.
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I had asked around, and ‘persuaded’ people to tell me what they knew about Zoot and his movements. So, one morning I woke up early and I went to a place I was told Zoot would be driving through. I found out that the siren I heard that night was him, not adults.
With my old army hat hanging down over my eyes, and my sword held in front of me with both hands, and my black coat flapping in the breeze, I stand in the middle of the road. Watching…waiting. Finally a crazed grin spreads across my face as I hear the siren in the distance and getting closer…the signal that Zoot is coming to his death.
The car turned the curve in the road and sped towards me. I did not move. I stood staring at the people who were visible through a hole cut in the top of the car. The boy yells something I can’t understand and the car comes to a sudden halt and two people on skates let go and come speeding towards me. I don’t move as they come at me, but when they get close enough, I knock one out with a kick, and I decapitate the second with the sword. Zoot’s companion whispers something, and then disappears into the car.
Zoot jumps from the car and walks toward me, and is followed by the rest of his group. His gaze turned to look down at the ground. “It’s dangerous for one man to be out on the street without markings. What is your tribe?” he says, opening a dialogue between us.
“I have no tribe…soon there will be no tribes.” I say. “I intend to wipe out all the tribes.” Confident and angry I am as I stare at the boy who is somehow familiar. I stare at him and do not let my eyes wander to those who surround him.
“Really?” He asks. “You, one man will destroy all the tribes of the city?” he says jokingly. “I hardly believe you’d do such a thing…Jaymes.” He laughs at me and his people follow his lead.
“WHO IS IT KNOW’S THAT NAME?” I demand of this Zoot, who’s down turned head barely reveals a smug grin on his face. I step forward, placing the sword at his neck. “Give me all the food you have.” I order. An order which is received with a roaring laughter from the boy.
“People earn the food I give them.” Zoot says, still not looking up at me. That same grin on his face, mocking me…just like everyone! All of them who thought I wasn’t important enough…all the people who haven’t died yet at my hand! “What will you do to earn a meal Jaymes?” He asks.
“You only live because I haven’t killed you yet Zoot.” I say to him, trying to intimidate him. His eyes lock with mine when he says “I LIVE, because I haven’t chosen to die yet!”
When his eyes meet mine, I see him…him that took her from me, defiled her. “You!” I yell, and as I do his people move closer to me. I can’t kill him yet…maybe I can get close to him though. “What will I do for a meal?” I ask with seething hate on my face. I look back and forth through the group and pick one of them and stab him in the throat. He falls on my feet and bleeds on my shoes from his wound. I look at Zoot then and say “I’ll have his share.” Then I reach down and let blood from the wound fill my hand and drink it.
Zoot laughs at this and orders his people back to the car. “Very good Jaymes!” more laughing, “Very good indeed. You’ve earned a meal…and a chance.” He turns and starts to walk to the car.
“A chance to what?” I ask him, now taking the time to survey his band of soldiers, and to wonder about the girl in the car. That can’t be her. Where is her…it can’t be her.
Zoot’s answer to my question is one that would change my life, and cultivate my rage. “A chance to earn more food.” He said.
*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
Four days after my first encounter with Zoot and I’ve just come back from a little raid, only three were killed and none of them mine. I take the meal I’m offered and go to a railcar by myself. While I eat, I think of her, and I slip into anger and I mumble. “Took her from me…stole her.” I mumble. “Kill you…make her clean again…Martin.”
“Don’t let him hear that name.” A smoky voice says from behind me. “He’ll kill you if he does.” I turn towards the sound, still chomping heavily on my meal and see the dark outline of Zoot’s companion from the car. This is the first time since that night my eyes gazed on her.
“I can kill Martin anytime I feel like it.” I say, then the girl says “Zoot is more dangerous than Martin. He WILL kill you…Jaymes.” When she says my name, I look closely at her.
“No!” I say, backing away. “It can’t be. It can’t be.” For the first time since I was very young, I start to sob. “Ebony?” I let myself be taken by jealous anger again. “He stole YOU from me too! STOLE YOU BOTH!” I’ll have his blood on my sword for it!” and I jump up to go find him.
“Shh…Quiet Jaymes.” She says as she hugs me. “It’s been so long…I’ve missed you so much.” She says, then tells me why she came. “He sent me to find you. He’s punishing a food stealer.” She squeezes my hand softly before I jerk it away. She says “I have to treat you…harsh. He’s possessive.”
Just ignore me.” I say. “Or laugh at me like you did in school. You were good at that.”
When we get back to the meeting area, Zoot says “Good, you’re here…the punishment can get started.” I look to see a large pot of steaming water on a fire, and a child of maybe five years tied to a table.
Bound and gagged, the child tries to get loose. Zoot says “The weak must suffer!” The rest of his hoard, Ebony included, repeat this. Then Zoot takes the water and pours it on the child’s bare skin. I cringe as the child cries out in pain. I notice Ebony watch me before I turn to leave. I should have enjoyed the pain of the cries, I wanted to, but I couldn’t.
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Months went by and there was no further one on one contact with Ebony. There were raids, and my body count rose quickly. One day though, there was a raid on a tribe called the Mallrats, and Zoot went, leaving Ebony and I to stay behind.
I’m laying on the bed I made myself in my own little railcar, things have changed for me so much. The day Zoot punished the child by scalding him with boiling water changed something inside me. I still have rage for all that this world has done to me, but something is different.
“Can I come in?” Ebony asks from the ground at the door of the car. Her regular leather outfit having been left off in place of baggy pants and an old shirt. I tell her she can come in, and then help her up.
“It’s nice to have a day off, isn’t it?” she asks, sitting beside me on the pad I use for sleeping. “We haven’t had the chance to be alone in months.” She says
I shake my head back and forth while I whittle a stick and I tell Ebony “A day off is a day I don’t eat. I’d rather be out killing these, what are they called? Mallrats.” I add, “Best I remember, the mall had a heck of a food store.”
She takes some food from her pocket and hands me some “One of the perks of having the queen like you.” She says, doing something I’ve almost never seen…smiling. God, that smile…
“You know, Zoot is afraid of you.” Ebony tells me, acting like it will make some difference to me. “But I,” she says. “Like you a lot. I have for a while now…a very long while.”
One thing leads to another and Ebony and I are wildly making love. I can’t believe that like nothing she melted my anger and I just gave in to a secret urge for her. This is only the second time I’ve been with a woman. The first time ended…rather poorly for me.
When we’re done, she lays against me, holding tightly to me, and I lay with my gaze fixed on the roof of the railcar. I’ve wanted Ebony since high school, so why do I feel so bad about it now? I lay there and I tell her how the punishment of the child made me feel.
“GET UP!” Zoot’s voice booms at us and he jumps into the car, pulling Ebony up and throwing her outside. He pulls me to my feet and says “What do you think you were doing?!?”
I look at him calmly, not letting my disgust show…this is the moment. “I was enjoying my day off before you interrupted, thank you.” I smirk at him as my hand drops down for my sword. I’m silently terrified when I find it not there, then I remember I’m naked.
“Well I hope you did enjoy it, because its over now! You have a raid to get ready for!” Zoot says to me, anger apparent in his voice. “And if you don’t do a proper job, you’re never eating again!”
Still smirking, and barely containing my anger I ask “And what, Almighty Zoot, is the mission?” The sarcasm in my voice makes him glare at me all the harder in his anger.
“You’ll be going to the woods. I’ve heard about a tribe there. You’re to go and convince them to share supplies by any means necessary…and it better be good!” he says loudly. “Take as many people as you need.”
So, I gather 11 of Zoot’s finest, and I say “One more! Who wants to go?” I see a blonde boy in the back come up. “I’ll fight.” He says “For the glory of Zoot!” He raises his arms above his head and says “Power and Chaos!” I look at Zoot. “Its your raid.” He says.
I look at the boy and decide to send Zoot a message. “Attack me.” I say to the boy. “What?” The boy says. I reply “Are you deaf fool? I said attack me!” I growl. The boy looks at Zoot and says “Master?” Zoot tells him to attack me or he’ll kill him himself.
The boy runs at me and I easily side step him, and hit him in the stomach. I back up and he gets up and runs at me again. This time I greet him with a kick to his knee, then shove him to the ground. The next time he gets up, he tries to punch me. I block. Second punch I grab him with both arms and pull him past me, and turn to face him. Third punch, I grab him and pull him over. He gets back up. Forth punch I grab his left arm until I feel a snap/crunch and hear him scream.
Zoot immediately orders someone else to go with me then says “Back in line Jaffa.” And then he tells me what I’ll need to be looking for on this raid on the woodland tribe.
*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
The journey to the woodland tribe is a quick one, and Zoot’s little band of Locos and myself catch the tribe here completely by surprise. I could be diplomatic, but after the way Zoot pulled Ebony and I apart, I feel like being violent.
The others in my group are knocking down and binding the members of this tribe, but myself, I have a much more fun way of dealing with them. One boy goes down from a stone to the head, another dies from a stab to the heart. A mother and her baby die when my sword goes through child, into mother and I twist the sword, spinning the baby around with it. My bloodlust kicks in and when I’m done, only four are left alive.
Through heavy breathing and the pulse of adrenaline, I hear laughter. I look down at my feet to see a child of maybe two years holding a cat and giggling, and waving at me. “Tree!” she says, laughing more. I bend down and let out a screaming yell at her as I take the cat from her and rip its head off as it screams in pain. I throw the bleeding body of the cat back at the child. Her screaming fills my ears as one of the Locos says “We have what we came for.” So, with that, we leave.
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On the way back to Zoot, all I could think of was that little girl, and the pure excitement I’d gotten from her terror. What kind of person have I become…terrorizing little girls, thinking for months about why I didn’t enjoy watching a 5 year old get burned so terribly that he died 2 days later? What am I?
When we get back, Zoot asks me the same thing he does after every raid. “What did we do to earn a meal today?” This time, however, the answer I give is one that surprises both he and Ebony. “Nothing…nothing I did today deserves a reward.” I walk away with no meal.
Ebony finds me some time later with my things packed beside me and leaning against the rail yard fence. “What is it?” She asks, holding her head against my arm. I sigh and say “I don’t like what I’m becoming. Its time to be something else.” Then I kiss her cheek and say “Goodbye Ebony.” She kisses my hand as she slips a bag into it. “Some food. Good luck finding what you’re looking for.” As I walk away into the night, I hear her whisper behind me. “Be careful guardian angel.”
Chapter 4: Solace
Six weeks yesterday since I walked away from Zoot in the middle of the night, and nearly six months since my sister casually tossed me aside to fend for myself. EVERYTHING IS SCREWED UP! It’s been nearly a month since my last hot meal from the ‘generosity’ of the mallrats tribe in the middle of the night. I was almost caught sneaking around in there as I passed the Home Designs store. There was a damn baby there and my noise woke it! Its mother woke and I watched in the dark as her shadow moved and then whispered “Momma’s here.” This conflicted my emotions terribly, because on the one hand I wanted to break the child’s neck for waking someone, but on the other, something that waked in me the day I terrorized the woodland girl wanted to sooth this mallrat child, to tell it everything would be okay.
My sword broke during a fight one when I swung at an attacker and hit the side of a building while I was drunk. The boy and his friends beat me so bad I couldn’t walk for two days. During those two days, I received my first tribal markings when a girl with pink and blue hair wandered onto my hiding place, sat with me for a while and gave me a blue line down the center of my face. A kiss to my right cheek left an imprint of her lips on me. She put a small ‘Z’ on my forehead as she was walking away, seeming dazed and lonely. She said to me “You’re mine now.”, and then walked away. I’ve never seen her again.
Now, a month later, garbage heaps provide what meals I can find, and everything of value I can find is traded so I can look for comfort in the bottom of bottles. I am my father’s son, I know, because I have taken to drink like fishes take to water.
Tonight, I traded the last things that connected me to my pre-virus life. My mother’s wedding ring, which had been in the family four generations and was intended for my wife one day, and a coin my grandfather gave me on my 13th birthday. Telling me that it represented fate….that life was the flipping of a coin, there are always two paths you can take. Now, that coin is taking me down the path to drunkenness. I drank until they cut me off and I begged, begged for just one more drink. All the while I was wondering if my father acted like this before his death.
They wouldn’t serve me, so I just sat there angry and looking for a fight. I watch as a group of thugs run in and grab a box of items traded for drink. This is the fight I’ve been looking for. I move fast even though I’m drunk and I catch them as they’re at the door. I grab them and slam them together, causing them to drop the box, then I throw them outside and pick the items up and hand the box to the waitress, then I sit down.
A moment later the waitress comes up and says “What’ll ya have? Boss says the rest of the drinks are on the house.” I look up at her, noticing her exquisite beauty and I tell her “Tequila, straight…and conversation if you’ve got any.” She says she’ll see what she can do, then comes back with the drink. “Can’t do the conversation though, but I’m off in a couple hours if you’re still around.”
After finishing my drink, I left for a bit to walk off the effects of the alcohol. I heard a few people talking about Zoot’s latest escapades and the little tribe wars going on in the city. “Worthless mumblings.” I tell myself. “Zoot is mine to control whenever I feel like taking him down. The Locos would crumble and I could take the weaker tribes.”
When I go back to the bar seeking the waitress, I hear noises of a struggle and loud voices, though I cannot make out the words, so I go inside to find out what’s going on. What I find is the bartender/owner yelling about tips being short while he has the waitress bent over a table in front of him. Looks like I caught this freak with his pants down.
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I jump on the table as I scream, and I kick the piece of garbage in the face, then I jump down in front of him and I grab the ball bat I know he keeps behind the bar. I hit him in the stomach with it, then I go for his head. My mind is clouded from too much drinking and when I swing, he ducks and I hit the girl in the neck. I watch her slump to the floor and I stare at her, completely horrified at what I’d done. Anger takes me as I beat the bartender until his skull is shattered and his brain is mush. Then I pick up the girl and I run as fast as I can drunk and carrying her.
I ran as fast as I could to an empty part of the city, this girl on my back. Finally, completely exhausted, I set her down on the ground and I look at her in the moonlight. She is so beautiful to me…so beautiful that I start to feel strange, and I want to…do things…I walk over and I put my hand on her pants, ready to tear them off her. I stop suddenly and make myself get things to burn for a fire. When that’s done I start to light it, but I find the little yellow Bic I stole from those girls doesn’t work anymore. I throw it silently away
I once again glance at the girl and I move slowly over towards her, and place my hands on her again. I start to rip her shirt, but once again, I stop. Then a few minutes later I go to it again. This time, I mutter “I could…you’d never know…take you right here, then leave.”
I jerk back when the girl says “This is the third time now. You aren’t gonna rape me, so stop acting like you are.” In answer to my astonished gaze, she says “I was awake the whole time…even when you killed Rev.” Then she says “I gotta find a new job now thanks to you.”
“Fine way to show appreciation! You know I could still rip your clothes off and take you right here.” I say, annoyed at her lack of respect. Her answer is one that, as I think back now, is probably why I liked her so much right from the start. With her arms raised above her head, she lays flat on the ground and in a monotone voice says “Well, if you’re going to, hurry up and get it done. I’d like to get it over with so we can talk some.”
I stare at her for several seconds and then I burst out laughing. “You…you’d really let me, wouldn’t you?” For the first time in a long time, really smiling and really laughing…Almost happy.
She smiles and says “No, I’d kill you in the middle of it, but you wouldn’t do it…its not in your heart.”
“HOW DO YOU KNOW WHAT’S IN MY HEART YOU PIECE OF TRASH!” I yell at her, angry that she’s sitting there trying to analyze me. Seeing the fear in her eyes at my outburst makes me sorry I did it, but I say nothing, just stare down at the ground.
Regaining her look of calm, she says smoothly and evenly “Perhaps instead of trading insults with each other, we should introduce ourselves. I think its only fair I know the name of the man that saved me.” She smiles warmly and says “My name is Ticia. Thank you for saving my life.”
I just look at her, falling into the habit of not trusting anyone and being angry and I just simply say “Name’s Jaymes.” Then I look around at dirt and trash on the ground to avoid looking into her eyes.
“Well then Jaymes. Maybe you would stop sitting there moping like the world just feel apart.” Ticia says, just looking at me like she’s measuring me for a suit or something, her voice such that it feels like it could warm a man on a cold winter day.
As a police siren echoes in the distance, I look up at her and I say “In case you hadn’t noticed woman, the world has fallen apart around us.” Adding “Smell that? That’s where there weren’t enough Adults to clean up the other adults when they died. I’d say the world has fallen apart pretty well.”
“Okay!” Ticia yells. “Here are the rules! ONE: I have a name! If you want to talk to me, you use it! I’m not woman, or babe, or doll, or not even HEY. Use my proper name, or don’t talk to me. TWO: You’re not to be moping around like a scared little school girl! If you plan on it, leave now and don’t bother me anymore. THREE and most important: If you threaten me, I will hurt you badly…not kill you, but I will hurt you to the point you can’t care for yourself and will die here.” Are these rules understood?
I jump up, and she follows my lead and I move towards her slowly, my eyes locked with hers in a death stare. How dare she act like she’s going to tell me what I will or won’t do! I throw a series of punches at her, but no kicks. Finally after nearly five minutes of blocking everything I throw, she grabs my arms and kicks me in the sack. “So, are you ready to listen to me now? Your fighting style is lacking, so I can do that to you anytime I want to.” She says.
I close my eyes…the first thing close to a real friend I’ve had in months and I’m trying to push her away. “I’m sorry. I don’t know any other way to be. I didn’t mean it.” I sigh to her as I hug my arms to myself, feeling suddenly cold.
She comes to sit beside me like nothing in the world happened, and she wraps her arm around me. “Then we’ll have to teach you a new way to be, won’t we Jaymes?” She smiles at me so warmly.
“Why would you want to?” I ask. “I’m nothing more than a waste of space. Not good for anyone.” I tell her that I’d be totally worthless if I wasn’t violent and full of anger. It’s kept me fed.
“Nobody is worthless. We’re all good for something. You can learn skills you don’t have…and you don’t have to kill for food. You just have to be nice to people. Learn to trade.” Ticia tells me. I mutter that I know how to trade just fine. “Yeah, but you need to learn not to trade yourself into a drunken stupor.” I sigh.
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The weeks pass by and Ticia and I walk together. She’s tolerant of me, keeping me in check and from hurting anyone. She’s nursed me through several drunk spells, being so caring though I know she hates it.
I get to know her very well. She tells me that she’s looking for her brother, who she hasn’t seen for a long time before the virus hit. She misses him so terribly that she reminds me how much I had missed Moz right after Ram and I began our little tribe. I feel for her, but at the same time I feel guilty and angry over the way I treated Moz when I first found her. I see her and her tribe out in the city often enough, but I never contact them.
“What is it with you and the Mozzies, Jaymes?” Ticia asked one day. “When we see them, you stare at the leader intently, never taking your eyes off her for anything, but then you don’t do anything else, but sit around for hours looking at the ground.” She asks with genuine concern in her voice. My answer comes as a “Nothing…its just that I….nothing.”
I decided to just walk away one day…I didn’t want to leave Ticia, because I’ve never eaten better than when I went with her to trade for food. She knows a farm! Her and the girl that owns the place came to an understanding, so the farm girls give her a fair amount of food every now and then.
I just decided that it was time to walk away. I took some of the food in the middle of the night, left Ticia a note saying I was so sorry, and I walked away. Of course, we all should know where the food went. It went not in my stomach, but it went to a bartender for a bottle of something. I didn’t even bother to care what I was drinking.
I was coming full circle again, but the worst was still yet to come in my life
Interlude—Fatherhood:
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I know that what I write here is not part of my story, but as I lay here thinking of my son coming of age, I am consumed by thoughts of the private moments I spent during my all too brief time with his mother. My beautiful Trudy, taken from me by Zoot, possibly never to be seen again.
One night, long ago, while Trudy was pregnant with Fire, I lay holding Trudy. I was awake, and she sleeping soundly until I felt the life inside her moving. This caused her to stir, and I heard her letting a small yawn out.
“Hi there mom.” I said to her softly, kissing her neck when I did so. “Oh Jaymes.” She says. “I’m sorry I woke you. I didn’t mean to.” Then she puts her hand on mine.
“I was already awake love. I was just thinking.” I tell her as I squeeze more tightly to her, holding her against me in the darkness. Still I feel the baby move inside her and I say “It seems this little one feel’s daddy’s restlessness darling.”
“What’s wrong Jaymes? Are your dreams coming back?” Trudy asks, moving to lay flat so she can see me in the darkness, Looking up at me with a look so full of love. My right hand is still held on her stomach, just above her navel.
“No honey, its not about that. I’m just thinking about how I’m not going to make a good father.” I say, with my voice a tone of sadness and hurt.
“Jaymes!” Trudy gasps. “You’re going to make a wonderful father. You already are. Ghany and Li-Li are happy as any two babies can be. That’s because you’re such a wonderful dad.”
“I’m not. I’m just mirroring what I’ve seen you do with Brady. I mean, what happens if I start acting like my parents. That’s dangerous Trudy.” I say “I’m so scared of being like that baby.”
She smiles and she says “No, you won’t ever be like that. You’re a good dad to all our children.” She holds my hand that’s on her stomach and says “See, you’re already being a good dad to this baby.”
“What? How?” I asked her. Unsure of what exactly she meant. I’m not doing anything special as far as I know. How can I be a good dad to a baby not even born yet? I think to myself.
Trudy holds my hand tighter and says “The way you’re holding me. I don’t even think you realize it, husband, but the way you have your hand on my stomach. You never hold me like this. The only other time you did was when I was pregnant with Ghany and Li-Li. You started holding me that way the night I told you I was having them, and you held me that same way every night afterwards. The next night we slept together after their birth, you stopped, and didn’t do it again until 3 weeks ago, when I told you we were having another baby.” Trudy smiles when she finishes.
“You see Jaymes.” She tells me, “By holding me that way, you’re telling everyone…Me, yourself, the world, and your growing child that anyone who wants to hurt the child will forever have to go through you first. I think its lovely. I also think its lovely that love for your child is so deeply ingrained into you that you don’t even know you do this.”
I smiled at her that night, thinking of how well she knew me, and how I could hear in her voice that she had perfect love and faith in me regarding our children. That’s when I told her a story that you who are reading this chronicle already know.
“Baby, I think I should tell you something.” I say, nervously, meekly. Afraid of what this will do to her. Across the room, I hear little Brady stirring in her sleep. Trudy tells me “You can tell me anything darling.”
“A long time ago honey. Long before you guys found me…at least I think it was a long time before you found me. I snuck into the mall late at night to get some food. Well, as I was sneaking through the mall, I found my way right out there.” I say, indicating just outside of our home. “There were boxes there at the time, and lots of junk I didn’t know about. Well, I make a few noises and they woke a baby up.”
Trudy interrupts to say “You mean that you woke Brady up?” The answer I give is “Yes, I found out later that she was the only baby here at the time, so it was Brady.”
Then I continue. “At the time, I was filled with constant rage Trudy. When she cried, and I saw the person move to her and get her and tell her ‘Momma’s here’. I was so angry Trudy, because of the noise and my own stupidity. I wanted to kill them both at the time. It took all I had not to.”
Trudy tenses up momentarily, but then relaxes. “Well, the past is the past. We all have things we’ve done we’re not proud of, and I know that you’d never kill Brady. You’d destroy anyone who tried.”
“Yes baby, I would…without hesitation.” I say, then we both silently drift back off to sleep…I held my hand over my baby, and I said silently to it. “Nobody will ever hurt you while I’m alive baby.”
That was Fire…and now I lay beside Gattaca, wondering if I broke that promise to her. Wondering if she’s alive or dead, and if Zoot is hurting her.
Chapter 5: Changes
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When I left Ticia, it was in a desperate time. She taught me many things about myself. She taught me that that rage was a part of life, that negative emotions were okay as long as you didn’t act on them. She taught me that the meek of heart could survive as well as anyone else.
“Why did I leave you?” I ask into the darkness. “My warrior princess, I need you.” I say, pleading for Ticia’s return like she could hear me. My heart is suffering a raging storm, and that storm is mirrored in the happenings of the city.
I heard a group of people one day say that Zoot was missing, and had been for some time now. Worse yet, the few people coming into the city are claiming to have seen a new tribe far outside the city that invoke Zoot’s name in their ceremonies. Hearing that Zoot is thought to be dead makes me angry because I didn’t kill him…besides the fact that in simpler times, he was like a brother to me.
I was witness some time ago to a ceremony that the Locos did where Ebony said Zoot came to her in a dream and told her to be the leader, and she held up his ‘talisman’ to prove her point. WHAT BS! I saw Bray give her that stupid necklace the previous day. I almost stood up and told them that.
All these events, along with horrible loneliness, led to one thing…drinking. Lots and lots of drinking. However, I wasn’t left to myself like I had been in the past. Word got around about me killing that bartender, and that I was a Loco, and everybody started showing up wanting to try their luck. Almost every night it was a fight…always a fight.
Some fights I won, most though, I lost terribly, and the more I fought, the more of a reputation I got, which led to more fighting. This kept happening until one day it became too much and I just couldn’t fight anymore. I stopped fighting one day and let three boys just beat me until I fell unconscious.
It had been after a heavy bit of drinking, and I was very hung over. I was laying against the side of a building and was barely able to move. Two boys came up to me and obviously recognized me as I stared up at them with that blank look one gets from drinking too much.
I stumbled to my feet, and then stood there, still looking blankly as I stared at them. One of the boys convinced the other to leave me, that I wasn’t worth fighting drunk. When they turned away, I stabbed one in the neck and tripped the other and kicked him to death.
I wanted to run away, but I simply wouldn’t. I sat back down and I sobbed. This is not how Ticia would want me to live…she will hate me for this. What am I going to do? I ask myself. I can’t stay here.
So I got up and I stumbled away. It doesn’t take long for me to reach the edge of the city. If I had been sober, I would have noticed them, but as it is, I don’t notice until too late the eleven people following me. Don’t see them until they have me on the ground beating me.
As I fall into unconsciousness, I see many people chase off my attackers, and hear a girls voice say “Puma, Oak…pick him up, he’s coming with us.”