ATTN: Coming from a multicultural family in a diverse community, I respect all walks of life and all branches of faith people believe in. This piece of fiction was created to ask questions and stimulate discussion not to offend people of a particular faith.
Isolde,
For Her
The world was a
different place. Gone were the technological advancements of a civilised age.
Rubble and bone littered the ground, piercing the feet of those who sought to
survive. We lived in constant fear in a land suffocated by smog and ash from
the fires that consumed all we once held dear. Or at least that’s how I
remembered the world, before they took my eyes.
They had burst
through the barricade I’d set up during the night. The Beasts, the last
remnants of the religious heretics that set the world aflame with their
scaremongering, had taken up residence nearby. The door flew off its hinges and
they swarmed in screaming, their arms flailing. Mary screamed beside me and retreated.
I plucked up my rifle as quick as I could and fired a shot. Down to three, I reminded myself. One of
them grunted and collapsed but it wasn’t enough, they were upon us. Their hands
groped for my neck, nails digging into my skin. I tried to push them off, panic
bubbled inside me. Mary screamed again. One of them began to light a fire,
their grisly features made that much more terrifying in the flickering light.
They were humans once, now they resembled a pack of wolves, hairy and feral.
Their backs hunched over, their finger nails were long.
“Richard!” I glanced
over as best I could and saw the pack dragging Mary across the floor, whatever
clothes she had on her were torn. The beast on top of me grumbled something in
a guttural language to one of his brethren. Not
her, she’s all I have left! I thought as I pushed harder.
“Without pain, there
can be no penance,” the beast grumbled at me, his breath was rancid and hot.
Another one shuffled over, a bottle in his hand which he handed to the one on
top of me. They both looked at me as they pressed the bottle against my face,
the molten glass burned. I screamed. My skin began to bubble as he pulled the
bottle away and uncorked it with his teeth.
“May this oil help
you see the father in a true, pure light,” he groaned as he poured the hot
liquid into the whites of my eyes. I screamed again and woke up alone.
My hand instinctively
went to the bandage I had wrapped around my wounds before setting out. Making
the bandage from my sleeve was easy; using the last of my vodka to disinfect
the mess in my eye sockets was much more difficult. A cold breeze stabbed my
skin like sharp needles, it howled in the darkness, chilling me to my very core.
Now I walked through a valley of death, shrouded in shadow and darkness but I
was not afraid. I had her with me.
Mary. Her face swam before me; raven
hair framed her fierce green eyes. I took a deep breath and her scent tickled
my senses. I had followed her perfume this far. It guided me through the
darkness, a breadcrumb trail leading me back to her and her warm embrace. The
perfume she wore was called ‘Isolde’; we found a box of it in a ruined
warehouse a few months ago. Apparently Isolde smelled of blueberries. Before
the war they had produced a male fragrance, ‘Tristain’, but we never found any.
I smelled again and found myself inside her, her sweat on my lips, her breath
rushing past my ear. I could feel her drawing me in as I devoured her odour.
“I’m coming, Mary,” I
said out loud. I had to save her. I wasn’t going to leave her to those beasts. We were meant to be together, I told
myself as I pushed off the rubble with my rifle.
“My rifle is my
life,” I mumbled. I smirked when I realised what I had done. Echoes of my
Lieutenant’s voice rippled in the darkness. He used to bark that phrase at us. You have no idea how true that is, LT.
Checking weapons for ammo, stripping them down or inspecting them came easy to
me – they made us do it blindfolded. I trapped the butt of my rifle in my
armpit and set off carefully through the darkness. The rubble of civilisation
strewn across the floor made for a difficult terrain to traverse; the floor
would ungulate and dip unexpectedly. My ankles and shins bore the bruises of my
tumbles.
Blueberries led the
way; every so often I would take a deep breath and feel closer to Mary. Her
love acted like a shield, keeping at bay the nagging fear and doubt of what was
out there in the night. There used to be groups of travellers, tradesmen and
hunters looking to trade their wares for something in return. They’d often tell
stories of demons walking the earth, their eyes as bright as fire and of men
practising dark arts to raise their loved ones to warm their beds once again.
It had been six months since I last saw someone other than Mary; we’d locked
ourselves away when we found out the beasts roamed close. We’d once hidden in
the attic, huddled close in the dust. I still remember how red her cheeks had
gotten from running up the stairs. We were playing hide and seek, must have
been no older than seven. We’d always been together.
An image of a
crucifix flickered in my mind, like a weak bulb expending its last reserve of
energy. The beasts had taken residence in the nearby church; I had to laugh at
that. They were the ones that slaughtered innocents in the name of their God
and subsequently believed that he had abandoned them. That was where I was
heading, my gun in my hand, vengeance warming my heart. They’ll pay. Back in the civilized world I wouldn’t have dreamed of
taking up arms against a civilian but we were no longer in a world governed by
rules or laws. No faceless set of morals guided our day to day lives anymore,
this was survival of the strongest, kill or be killed and the beasts had failed
to kill me.
My leg slammed into a
hard surface. I tumbled forward and hit the rubble. Instinctively I reached out
for my rifle that fell beside me to make sure I still had it. For a moment I
just stayed still, my heart thumping as fast as a drum. Anger burned in between
my teeth, I allowed myself to seethe for a moment before taking a deep breath
to calm my nerves. I imagined lying back in green pastures; the smell of
freshly cut grass filled my nostrils. I would never see a green field again,
that warm green glow you get when the sun rises. Blueberries tickled me once
more, Mary’s smell bade me to get up but it wasn’t until I tried to get to my
feet that I noticed something wrong.
A sharp pain stabbed
through my left leg as I tried to move it. My only pair of jeans, tattered and
sweat stained clung to my leg, warm and moist. I slowly reached down with my
hand, the pain got worse the further I got towards my knee and then I felt it.
Old, cold and rusted, a piece of metal had lodged itself in my skin and worked
its way under my kneecap. Pain throbbed in time with my heart. I tried to keep
calm. I’d already used my left sleeve to bandage my eyes so I turned to the
right; I ripped the sleeve off my shirt and took another deep breath. I grasped
the grotesque jagged piece of metal with my right hand and… one, two, three… pulled it out. It slid
out with ease, the motion nauseating; the metallic smell of my own blood
mingled with rust saturated the air. I quickly tied my sleeve around the wound
and pulled tightly, the pressure felt comforting.
I laid back and
brushed away beads of sweat and bits of dried blood off my face, my heart still
thudding. I reached out for my rifle and used it to help myself up. It clinked against the floor as I used it
as a walking stick. I dragged myself onwards; no amount of pain was going to
stop me from rescuing my beloved. As I staggered in an unknown direction,
guided by the faint smell of perfume, I couldn’t help but remember an image of
Mary. She glided down the aisle dressed in pearly white. Lace and netting complimented
her wedding dress, her green eyes shone through a vale, even covered they
sparkled magically.
The ground began the
slope upwards, the strength in my wounded leg continued to seep away but I
pushed on. My arm, outstretched in front of me, began to ache. Each step was a
step further into the darkness there was no light at the end of this tunnel. My
head began to spin, being suspended in eternal darkness caused my sense of
direction and balance to become erratic. The blood loss wasn’t helping matters
either.
“We’ve always been
together,” I mumbled to myself, my words were slurred as if drunk on love and
determination.
“I know,” I answered
back.
The hill began to
relent, I felt the air open up around me and the ground levelled out. In my
head I was stood atop a tall mountain, the decent a vertical slope down. A gale
rushed around me. I leaned onto my rifle to steady myself and took a tentative
step forward as if dipping my toe into a pool. A soft noise in the wind roused
my courage; a bell hanging in a large tower rang softly – the church… Mary!
My heart leapt, but
it wasn’t in joy. It was more of a lurch as I felt my foot slip. I was in a
free fall, my hand clutching my rifle. Cold air slapped me time and time again
as I fell for I don’t know how long. Finally, science brought me back down to
reality. The floor hit me the hardest; the wind was knocked out of me as I
continued to tumble bouncing off the surface. Bits of glass and rock impaled my
skin until mercifully it was over.
A white light began
to fade into my vision. It flickered and struggled as the darkness fought it
off. Was I dying? I heard the soft
bell toll again, closer this time. People always said stay out of the light but
I didn’t have a choice, it was overwhelming me. Apart of me did want to just
give up….
Something grasped me
around the neck and the white light took over.
***
A cold slap made the
whiteness dissolve, my face dripped. My back was against a hard surface, it was
warmer than before. I tried to move my arms to find them bound to something.
Something hard and coarse scraped the skin around my wrists.
“You must leave,” a
voice uttered from the darkness. It was the same guttural growl as before. I
recognised it. Anger bubbled up inside me like lava and I erupted.
“Mary! Give her back
to me; give her back to me now!” My voice echoed in the room, it must have been
quite tall and cavernous. I shouted and screamed until my throat tightened and
I felt like throwing up.
“Quiet, fool… You
must leave and never return.”
“Fuck you!” I spat back
with all the venom and hatred I could muster. “I’ll kill all of you, I swear to
you. I will rip you apart and gorge on your blood you sons of bitches!”
He made a sound that
resembled a chuckle.
“How? I have your
weapon,” he muttered something I didn’t quite make out and then I heard footsteps
getting closer to me.
I licked my lips as
if I was ready for a meal.
“Yes, that’s it come
closer,” I said, ravenous. A second one laughed as he made his way towards me.
I felt a thick, heavy hand strike me violently across the side of my face.
“Is this close
enough, godless?” he asked, his breath hot and surprisingly sweet.
Another eruption of
anger exploded out of me, I snapped forward with my head and bit into him; any
part of him it didn’t matter. Warm liquid filled my mouth and dribbled down my
chin. I pulled back, bits of flesh fell from my lips as the beast howled and
cried. I spat back a mouth full of muscle and tendon and screamed. The sound of
gurgling and retching indicated that I had hit the throat. Good.
“He’s just the first!
I’ll get you all! You should have killed me when you had the chance! You’re
pathetic!” I couldn’t stop the anger kept flowing out of me, all my frustration
and fear. “He left you, he left you to die!”
“Enough!” This voice
wasn’t like any of the others. It was thick with emotion and soft, it was the
voice I had been longing to hear for so long. I heard a door close, the beast
was still dying nosily in the room somewhere, I didn’t care, fuck him.
“Abraham, leave us a
moment please,” Mary said. “Take John with you and ease his pain.”
I heard them shuffle
out wordlessly, the one I wounded still moaning in pain. The door clicked shut
again.
“Mary?”
“You shouldn’t have
come here, Richard,” she said softly. I felt her get closer to me. “How did you
find me?”
“Blueberries,” I said
with a slight smile. “What… let me down… we need to get out of here.”
“You need to leave,
sweetie.”
“What? Mary… what’s
going on? I c-came for you, let’s…” She touched my face, the warmest and
lightest of touches. I felt my legs weaken, the hair on the back of my neck
stood on end.
“I don’t agree with
what they did to you but they’ve been kind to me,” she said in little more than
a tender whisper. A sudden urge came over me, I leaned forward again, my face
covered in blood to kiss her. My lips met hers but she withdrew. “No, we
can’t…”
“Why not?”
“It’s wrong! Because…
I don’t have to let you do these things to me anymore…”
“I know… I know I
might have… started it but I know you liked it, I felt it… how can love be wrong?
“I’m only human,
Richard. It had been six years since anybody had touched me, kissed me… any one
would have enjoyed it, that doesn’t make it right.”
“Love is love…
haven’t I kept you safe and made you feel good and… why won’t you just come
with me?”
“They look after me
here Richard. They’re well stocked with provisions,” her voice began to crack
with emotion, “you can’t stay with us though. As much as it breaks my heart to
say this, you can never come back.”
“I’m not leaving
without you.”
The door opened
again. I heard Mary shuffle away.
“How is he?” she
asked the newcomer.
“We’ll bury him in
the cemetery at dawn.” It was Abraham, I recognised his voice in an instant now
and the anger reared its ugly head inside me again. I heard him walk towards
me.
“Richard, I tried to
warn you. I tried to send you down the righteous path and give you a chance to
atone for your sins. Yet, here you are.”
“Unchain me and I’ll
begin to atone, right after I rip your throat out. I don’t know what you
bastards have done to her but…”
“What we did? We
rescued her from your sinful ways. We provided her with warm shelter,
protection, food and a chance to rebuild a life… what did you give her Richard?
You kept her locked away in fear and raped her…”
“Sinful? You’re the
ones that attack and kill people in the night! Don’t you dare sit there and
judge me in your high and pious seat, fuck you!”
“I’ve had two chances
to kill you and I have not taken them yet on both occasions I have lost a
brother to your rage! Even now, I cannot bring myself to pull the trigger on
your rifle.”
“You blind me and
disguise it as a blessing… don’t make me laugh, I know all about your God and
his ways.”
“I find that hard to
believe.”
“What kind of God
would put guns in the hands of children or let planes fly into buildings as
innocents went about their day to day lives? What kind of God would make me and
the person I love most in this world siblings? A cruel one, that’s what. If he
ever existed, he’s left this place and all of us to rot.”
“He gave us a chance
to start again Richard. That’s what you fail to see. He gave us a new
perspective on life, as I tried to do for you. We will rebuild our lost
civilisation. For years we’ve struggled to survive but we’re in a good place
now. We have food and supplies to last us for generations, medical supplies and
the ability to bring children into this world. Mary’s child will herald a
dawning of a new age.”
“Mary’s what…? You’re
pregnant?” I asked, breathlessly into the darkness. Her voice replied, meek and
afraid.
“Even the sinner may
contribute to his divine plan. I took pity on you Richard; I could have left
you out there to die from your wounds. I watched you stagger around, blind,
your rifle propping you up. But it was my compassion that led me to bring you
in, clean you up and tend to your wounds,” Abraham prattled on, I had lost all
interest in him, my rage had subsided. All I wanted was Mary.
“Mary… why didn’t you
tell me?”
“What good would it
do?” she answered softly. “You can’t be involved in the child’s life.”
“Because I have to
leave… because I’m a sinner… You’re both full of shit. You sit there and talk
of pity and compassion and yet you’re throwing me out. You beasts will never be
able to achieve anything anyway, look where religion got you the first time!”
“My hair may be long,
my teeth rotted but there’s only one beast here. May God have mercy on you
Richard, my mercy has limits. Here,
give this back to him, I’ll wait for you inside.” I heard a click and then
something small, heavier than a pin, dropped to the floor. Heavy footsteps came
towards me and fumbled with the chains around my wrists. My arms finally fell
back down to earth, they were heavy and lifeless. I could scarcely lift them. I
heard the footsteps fade away, followed by the click of the door handle
indicating that Abraham had left.
“You’ve got the gun
haven’t you?” I asked glumly. Mary didn’t answer. “You’re pointing it at me
aren’t you?”
“Richard… I will
always love you but…”
I held my breath. I
couldn’t quite tell how long went by in the eerie silence. I waited for the
white light to consume me once again. If falling in love with the wrong person
was a crime then so be it. I would pay my price gladly; I didn’t want her to be
afraid of me anymore. I loved her too damn much.
“There’s a door to
your left,” she said finally. “I’m leaving the gun at your feet.” I heard her
place it on the floor and then retreat to the door. It clicked open. “I’ve left
you a bullet.”
“Will I see you
again?” I asked, my lip trembling.
“I… don’t know,” she
said, her voice straining. She closed the door.
I fell to my side,
utterly exhausted. The floor was warm wood, clean. My limp arms fell in front
of me; the tips of my fingers brushed the rifle. I grasped the butt and slowly
dragged it towards me with all I had left. I used the rifle one last time to
help me sit up. My rifle is my life.
I felt like crying. Can I even cry now?
I wondered. Can someone cry without
tears? The butt nestled perfectly in between my crossed legs. I ran my hand
up the smooth barrel and reached the rough edge, worn away by the unorthodox
use. I opened my mouth and stuffed the barrel inside, until the tip touched the
ridge of my gums. I’ll sin so she doesn’t
have too. My rifle is m- the white light took over.