Banished

Russell Ramsey’s handcuff’s clashed against the splintered table when the judge entered the courtroom. The pain in his back was a sharp twisting dagger, and when the judge looked at him he gritted his teeth. Cold air seeped in through the cracked windows.

“Have I inconvenienced you Mr. Ramsey?”

“No Ma’am.”

“Because this isn’t the first time you’ve found yourself in my courtroom is it?”

“Second time.”

“It’s the alcohol again isn’t it?”

“I’m trying to stop.”

“Yet you were seen last night stumbling home while your child was alone.”

“I had just lost my––”

“I know what happened.”

The judge’s voice reeked of disappointment. She pointed her finger at Russell, her wrinkled skin sagging from the bone like a curtain. An electrical drill echoed from outside.

“I just want to take care of my family. That’s all that matters to me.”

“This courthouse does not believe you, and we cannot afford the risks that you bring. The evil that exists outside these walls still thrives. Mr. Ramsey, you are no longer welcome here.” 

The judge left the desk and returned to her office without looking at Russell again. A security guard, who’s voice trembled, told Russell he had an hour to get his belongings from his house and leave.

                                                                       ***

Russell limped down the courthouse steps toward his son who was sitting with another security guard on a bench. Wet snow descended onto the sidewalk, visible only because of the streetlamps and searchlights that lit the compound, and when Russell dropped to one knee and extended his arms Simon looked away.

“Do we have to leave Dad?”

“I made some mistakes Simon.”

“But I don’t want to leave.”

“I promise this will be the last time.”

Russell wiped the snow from his Navy issued boots. Pushing forty now, it had been ten years since he retired, and even thought the boots tore at the seams and treads had flattened he felt stronger wearing them.

“It’s dark outside the compound isn’t it Dad?”

“It’s dark everywhere. That’s what happened when they came. No one has seen the sun for years.”

“I’m not leaving.”

He grabbed Simon by the wrist, but Simon brushed it away. Ran back toward the house. Russell limped after him, his head a tight knot after last night’s hangover. As Russell went after him, the pain in his leg lit up like fireworks. He passed the steel walls of the compound where there was a shift change at the sentry towers. Every once in a while you’d hear the screams from outside the walls, and the corresponding barrage of gun fire. That’s when you knew another one of them was dead.

The house was silent as they packed, and when they were done Russell carried his and Simon’s backpack, enough food for three days, water, tents, kerosene, and matches. The trek to the next compound should only take a day, but Russell wanted to be sure they’d have enough supplies.

Walking down the porch steps, Simon raised his hand, slapped his neck as though killing a fly. When he looked down specs of blood scattered on his hand.

“What happened?”

“Something just bit me.”

“You’ll be alright. Let’s go.”

At the gate of the compound, the guards looked at Russell and Simon as though they were already dead. When the gates opened Russell felt around his waistline, making sure the .38 caliber was secure. The security guard handed him the torch, told him that if that flame goes out they won’t last long. The gates opened. Russell reached for his son’s hand, but he was already walking away, halfway to the tree line.

Russell carried Simon through the woods, feeling his shivering body and listening to his shallow breath when distant footsteps echoed in the woods. He put Simon down, waved the torch in a 360 motion. He knew they were out there.

Ahead of him was a concrete building with dead vines draped across its facades. With each step Russell limped, his feat sinking deeper into the thick snow. His headache was gone, but the stress of the trip ate away at him, the lack of alcohol sending his hand into a tremor.

“I can help him.”

The man stood in the window of the abandoned building. He wore a black coat, and his face was tattooed with butterflies. His hands were clasped together as though in prayer. 

“Stay away from us.”

“I’ve seen it before. The sweats. The boils on his face. How long has he had this?”

“Three days. We were supposed to be at another compound by now.”

Rusell thought of reaching for the revolver in the waistline of his pants, but the nausea had been so bad so he could barely see.

“He doesn’t have long left. And I can help him.”

             “I can find my way.”

             “On that limp. And against what’s following you. If you say so. I feel bad for your child though, I’m sure he wished he had a father who ––”

             “Don’t say another fucking word.”

             The man climbed out from the window. He carried two bottles of water, chocolate bars, and a small bottle of whisky. Without saying a word, Russell picked up his torch and followed the man inside the building.

             Inside, the man introduced himself as John. He walked over to Simon. Touched his head and listened to his heart.

             “This is how people are dying now. Its not the invaders, not the invaders at all.”

             “Can you just fix him?”

             Nervousness filled Russell’s voice. He stopped himself before he was done speaking, not wanting to reveal his level of concern.

             “I don’t have what’s needed.”

             “Then we are leaving.”

             The man stood up from Simon and walked over to the door and closed it.

             “I can’t let you leave. Not yet. Don’t worry. We will fix your son but it won’t be me who does it.”

             “Then who?”

             Russell crossed his arms. Hate filled his veins like water in a dam. Hate for letting his son get sick and hate for himself for getting lost and for trusting this man

             “Before I tell you, I need your gun.”

             “What?”

             “You walked into this church with a gun. I need it. My God’s won’t allow it. If you want to save your son you’ll do as I ask.”

             Russell clinched his fist. He took a deep breath, watched the falling sweat on his son’s face. Russell’s feet were stinging with frost bite and his hands were so hard from the cold that pulling the revolver from the waistline of his pants and handing it to John was much harder than it should have been. When Simon’s eyes closed John pulled the rope off the brick walls First he tied Simon’s hands, and then his feet. When John was done, he said to Russell, I want to tell you a story.

             “It was two weeks before the invasion when I responded to the call. A domestic. Multiple shots fired. We had been to that house before so I had my guard down a bit. Not the perfect attitude for a cop like myself. Anyway, this apartment was on the 34^th floor and elevators were out. By the time I get to the door I’m exhausted, and that’s when the first bullet hits me. When I fall down, I see a man standing over me, his gun pointed right at my face. I found out later this man had raped four children and some of the parents had been covering for him. Anyway, I hear him pull the trigger and later I wake up in the hospital bed.

             Simon coughed. His arms moved against the duct tape, and his chin quivered. John stroked his hair, sending the darkness of Russell’s anger to the depths of hell.

             “When I wake up in the hospital bed, it’s the day before the invasion. Come to find out a SWAT team was just behind me that day in the apartment building. They had shot the guy who’d shot me. By some miracle I had woken from a coma, but the doctor told me I would most likely succumb to my injuries. And then the invasion. I remember seeing it on TV. The cruisers overhead that everybody dismissed. The reports that the invaders didn’t want to be here. That they were being forced against their will, but somehow quickly all of that changed. And when the Eaters, as we started to call them, came into my room, my injuries finally did me in. I only know this because I felt it. You know when you are dead because it’s a feeling you’ve never felt before. And that’s when it happened. I could feel the Eaters, reaching out toward heaven, bringing me back. When I woke, the Eaters was gone, but I was alive.”

             “I just want you to untie my fucking kid and let us go.”

             “I will make a believer out of you.”

             John walked toward Russell.

             “I’m not a believer in much of anything anymore.”

             “Then let me show you the power they offer us.”

             When John had gotten so close that Russell could smell his breath, he pulled a knife from his jeans and shoved it, slowly, into Russell’s abdomen. John shivered. Russell’s skin absorbed the knife and when he pulled it back out blood spewed onto the floor.

             “Congratulations. You too shall be healed.”

             Russell watched as John picked Simon off the floor. Outside, John screamed toward the woods, telling the darkness and the waving trees and the cold wind that we have another believer, we have another believer. Then he looked at Simon and said, “they will come heal you soon.”

             And that’s when he heard them, the shrill cry from the darkness. The snapped branches on the forest floor, the black and thickened arms that rose high above the tree line. When John closed his eyes, Russell sprinted across the porch, the pain turning Russell’s eyes to water. He pulled his pistol from the waistline of John’s pants and cocked the hammer back. Before John could say anything, Russell aimed at John’s head and pulled the trigger.

             When they stood in line at the new compound, an overweight woman with rotting teeth pushed Russell in the back. He turned around, stroking the hair on Simon’s head. They had ran all night, and it had been at least a day since Simon had said anything.

             “Stay the fuck back.”

             “Can’t you see your kid is dead. There are people in this line who need medical care.”

             “He’s not dead. You say that again I’ll rip those teeth from your mouth.”

             Russell pressed his ear to his son’s chest. He listened for the thump thump, thump thump. He was so sure he could hear it. So sure. Not a doubt in his mind.

His boy was still alive. When he looked back at the line, there were still at least 100 people ahead of him. The pain in his leg was outdone only by the stab wound that bled onto the snow, the specs of blood marking his spot.

             The shift changes on the wall occurred twelve more times before Russell got to be second in line. Simon’s hands were cold. He couldn’t hear him breath. He whispered to him, telling him that he loved him and that he just needed to hold on a little bit longer and everything would be alright. And after the person in front of him was done, Russell got to the front of the line. He felt the strain of the three days wash from his shoulders. He felt as though he could safely put the torch down, if only for a minute. And that’s when the person working the medical kiosk told him that they’d run out of the medicine Simon needed. That the man in front of him was the last to get it.

             “I told you. Dead,” someone said behind him. “Just like she told you.”

             Russell turned around. Held his torch out so that it burned the face of the man who spoke, and just before the man screamed, the compound alarm rang.  

             Russell lifted his shirt revealing the bandages filled with blood. Tiredness set in as blood left his body. His toes had gone dumb in the cold, and the snow was so thick that he could barely see. Still, he followed the man who had been in front of him in line to the 34the floor in an apartment building.

             The tiredness in Russell’s body grew to nausea. Several times as he climbed the stairs he vomited. When they reached the floor, you could hear the barrage of gun fire coming from the compound. Usually the skirmishes didn’t take this long. A minute or two at most.

             Russell put Simon down on the floor next to the apartment. His eyes weren’t moving and his lips were dry. Then he knocked on the door, and no one answer he knocked again. Finally, the older man answered.

             “You were the one standing behind me weren’t you? I’m sorry for what those people said.”

             “I need the medicine.”

             “Well I can’t give it you.”

             “I need the damn medicine. Now.”

             On the bed behind the older man was a young woman, perhaps no older than fifteen or sixteen. She had a rounded belly, and pills lined her bedside table.” 

             “The medicine, its for her. She’s pregnant. She needs them just as much as the next person. This damn thing. Everyone has it.”

             “You have one more chance.”

             Russell pulled the revolver from the waistline of his jeans. His shirt was filled with blood. Outside, he could see the men on the compound wall, firing below. That’s when the girl placed her hand inside the bed sheets and a bullet rang out from the room. Feathers scattered across the splintered floor. Russell fell, slamming his head, the bullet hitting him in his abdomen. While he was down, he fired two shots. Killing the pregnant girl, and the man in front of him. The girl’s revolver lay on the floor, covered in bloodied fingerprints. Russell went to the old man and grabbed the pills from his pocket.

             When Russell walked back into the hallway, Simon lay on the floor. He pulled the pills from his pocket and the last bottle of water, which only had a few sips left. He said, “Here. Drink.” And Simon drank.

             The sirens rang and louder guns joined the fight as Russell put his arm around Simon. For the next few hours, until Russell passed away, he listened as his son’s heartbeat grew louder, the boils on his skin disappeared, and his breathing normalized. The torch next to Russell was nearly out, and that’s when he saw a young couple in the hallway. They held a candle, it’s light flickering in the darkness. What they said to Simon and what Simon said to them Russell couldn’t tell. Only that Simon hugged him and whispered to him as he stood up from the hallway, and ran toward the stairs because a dark shadow followed behind them.