Tear it apart. It's the first draft.
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The haggard looking man in brown rags filled the room with the sound of his dying breaths. Warm air crackled as it made its way over the phlegm in his throat. It was eerily peaceful, the soundtrack of things to come. His judgment would arrive soon enough. I wonder what he did to end up in this place. His glossed eyes and expressionless face didn’t show it, they didn’t show anything for that matter, but I figured he was wondering the same thing as he stood hunched over in the corner. He felt as much a part of this place as the 13th century moss covered bricks that made the walls of the cell we were standing in. Just standing there in the corner staring at the floor like he expected it was going to open up and swallow him whole. His mannerisms were too damn convincing. He was waiting, waiting to be swallowed up. I began to wonder if I should go stand somewhere else. The place smelled of a combination of wet clay, iron and moss. Water droplets could be heard as they made contact with the cool stone floor. There wasn’t a whole hell of a lot to look at. A single glance captured nearly all the eight foot square cell had to offer. One barred window in the center of the far wall that seemed its only possible function was to let in light; as the glass behind it was not opaque enough to see through. Some stairs in the center of the cell that went down, darkness was their only destination I could be sure of at this point. The burning white eyes of my earthly deceased grandfather came as somewhat of a shock.
We were here to take him back. Back from hell, or whatever this fucking place was. He stood there leaning against the wall. Exasperating sighs, a string of drool made its way from his mouth onto the brickwork. His words trailed off into a long and slow half cough half chuckle as he attempted to slur the raspy sentence, “it… it was my time.” All I could do was answer him with a look that was a combination of puzzlement and disgust. His words were drowned out by his own heavy breathing. He looked as though he was in a drunken stupor, standing there leaning with his left shoulder against the wall, drooling on himself, facing me. His head bobbed and stirred around in a sort of figure eight motion as if he was drifting in and out of consciousness-it wouldn’t have surprised me. I tried not to stare at his eyes which seemed at the time as white and large as a pair of cue balls.
I diverted my attention downwards at his hands and feet which were bound with white strips of cloth that seemed far too clean for this place. The sound of approaching footsteps: three militant looking types made their way up the stairs dressed in camouflage uniforms carrying with them enough firepower to start a revolution. I was either with them or they with me; it didn’t really matter. I didn’t even want to know who or what the hell they’d been shooting down there only moments ago. It had sounded like they were well on their way of starting that revolution. But I could see the dimples breaking through Jones’ unshaven face, grinning as he pushed fresh rounds into the clips for his M4A1 carbine; sitting on the stone railing that surrounded the stairs.
Click. Click. Click. He displayed more compassion pushing those rounds in than he had in the basement a short while ago I imagined. My mind wandered as I told myself things were going to be okay.
Telling convincing lies can be hard, telling them to yourself can be damn near impossible. You have to leave that shell, break that bond between what is actually reality and what you tell yourself is reality. And once you accomplish that it’s hard to ever go back. I looked away from Jones, as a smile crept across my face. My glance moved across the floor, my head shaking in amusement, none of that rhetoric seemed to matter then.
The carbon blade made little noise as I divorced the rags which bound my grandfather’s feet. After he was cut loose D unfolded the collapsible wheelchair behind him. He grumbled most of the way but promptly went back to his semiconscious state after D and I set him down. Standing up I retrieved the .45 Long Colt from the back of my waistline. The Peacemaker. I could not see the reddened impression the spool had made against my back while it waited tucked in my belt but I could feel its presence. I knew it was there. Just like I knew someone who wasn’t supposed to standing right outside the cell doorway was in fact standing, right outside the cell doorway. Looking over my shoulder I could see Mick standing by the stairs. The barrel of his M249 SAW watched guard. Jones had finished loading his clips, and was now wiping blood off of his bayonet. Prematurely I thought. A line of saliva stretched to make contact with my grandfathers flannel shirt as I brought my line of vision back to the cell entryway. I followed the gun around the corner to greet the man standing there. He too was dressed in rags, but his eyes were only filled with pain not that piercing white emptiness. We’d made eye contact for a brief while. Momentarily I shared that pain with him, his gaze was so intent. And though he did not speak his eyes had said everything. Although I wished then that we could take him with us, out of this place, my feelings did not change the fact that we could not. My eyes must have been doing some talking of their own as he diverted his gaze to the floor. The sound his hand made as it slid down the wall made me wonder if his palm weren’t made of sandpaper. His head drooped and he turned to shuffle his way back down the hallway. He did not look back but paused only briefly at his cell doorway before disappearing. I asked the team if they were ready to go but it came out as more of an announcement. “You ready to roll gramps?” Jones had said as he stood up. His gloves muffled the dull click the selector switch made as it went from safe to full auto.
The rolling wheels of the chair hummed as we made our decent down the long hallway. None of us talked. There are no guards in this place. There are no doors to the cells that line the hallway, only a 4 foot wide break in the walls. We pass four of them on our way to the large gunmetal gray doors at the end of the corridor, sunlight sneaking through the cracks. I push them open, and we are greeted by a sea of people outside-all of them making their way towards the door in a half hurried half curious pace. Though they have the demeanor of a zombie mob from a bad 70’s horror film, it’s apparent that they are no such group. It is now even more apparent that this place is death. This is where the dead come. Everyone in this place, minus my team and I are no longer living in what we would consider the real world. Or what’s left of it. We are here to take my grandfather back from the dead, and all those who are not coming back to the real world with us are understandably very curious as to what’s going on. Jones and D begin to carry my grandfather down the stairs, chair and all. Mick and I scan the expressionless faces of the approaching crowd. They seem to be walking across the cement lot faster now, as they close the gap to the stars. My eyes are drawn back to a face that doesn’t fit in. His face is angry. My eyes divert from the frown on his face to the gun in his hand; which is now making its way past his hip into some half assed aim at my team. I turn back to catch my team still struggling down the stairs. Mick now has the back of the chair and Jones and D are shuffling down the stairs sideways on either side of it. I can feel time start to slow down as the hair on my arms stands up. I look back to that face which is now smiling at me, the teeth rotting in its skull. I draw a long breath and exhale nearly half of it before holding it there in my chest. The Colt has become an extension of me. Fused in my palm, the ivory grip is just as much a part of me as the tip of my index finger that is moving from the safety to the trigger. My jaw clenches as I squeeze; wiping the anger off the approaching mans face. His skull mushrooms outwards as if it exploded from the inside out. Absolute chaos ensues. “We won’t have time to leave now!” D shouts. The expressionless faces close enough to see what is happening begin to run. The curious ones further back begin running in to see what is causing the commotion and when they find out they quickly loose their interest. All the while the angry faces in the crowd keep appearing. I squeeze off another round. My heart is racing but my breathing is slow, and angry. I feel an involuntary smile spread across my face as I let the adrenaline induced euphoria take over me. Four more angry faces, I try and shout over the gun fire, “I NEED MORE BULLETS!” D doesn’t hear me, which makes sense as the casings from Mick’s SAW are now falling to the ground nearly as fast as the ensuing would be crypt keepers. “BULLETS!” I shout again. She hands me a plastic bag full of .45 long colt rounds. We are running now, amongst the crowd. Like lions in a stampede. Night is falling fast. I turn to look back; the darkness is closing in- approaching us faster than we are approaching the forest that surrounds the cement lot we are running down. “WE NEED TO MOVE!” I yell, the veins bulging in my neck. And just then I feel warm blood splatter on my left arm. D grunts and I scoop her up her falling body as Jones catches the runaway wheelchair. “SHIT!” I make a hard right as the rest of my team barley makes it into cover of the trees with my grandfather. Now they are gone. Everyone is gone now except for me and Danielle. And she’s on her way. I can feel the life slipping from her with every step I take, cradling her in my arms. “Do you want to see it?” I ask. She looks up at me with a weary smile and we turn around. In the distance the building we made our departure from not so long ago. Behind it the night skyline of the lit up buildings not from our world leaves me in awe. I’m about to tell her something but she’s already gone. I sling her carbine over my shoulder, take the PDA from one of the pockets on her army green MOLLE vest and grab the rest of the ammo.
I’m alone now. It appears that this place turns into a shitty, run down, normal looking carnival at night. Normal of course, minus the bright yellow Slip & Slide. Which is currently being used by a group of teenage girls. But after sampling all the fruits this fucked up place has to offer it shouldn’t be too unusual. Everything here is out of the ordinary, and therefore in a profound way nothing is. But for some reason they do not fit in. There presence in this place is the most disturbing thing I’ve witnessed so far.
Christmas lights twinkle in the nighttime sky forming lines above me, making a weird sort of cobwebbed ceiling in this circus from hell. I stop at a cotton candy stand next to a swing set being used by more teenage girls, but leave abruptly when the thing behind the counter begins making gurgling noises at me. I hear the squeaking of chains from empty seats of swing sets in the cool night air. I look back at the empty cotton candy stand, through the service window illuminated with yellowed light from the single bulb fixture that clutches the ceiling. My hands deposit a fresh round in place of the spent as gray smoke still dancing from the end of the barrel floats upward. I watch it disappear into the empty black sky. I stand there for a long time gazing into the night sky. My mind begins to wander and tell myself that everything is going to be okay.
