The Charred Lands: Apocalypse of Fire (9 page)

Hearing him
talk of Grandpa pulled at my heart strings like something horrible.
My dad was dying, of that much I was sure. I didn’t want to burden
him with the knowledge that even more of his family had died. He
needed to die thinking happy things.

“
Where’s the egg now?” I asked, scanning the immediate
surroundings for one. The small opening was filled with fallen
leaves, blood and dirt, but no eggs.

“
I’m glad you asked, son. I dropped it about a five minute walk
away; it was getting too heavy to carry. I need you to look after
it.” He said, suddenly he didn’t seem like a dying man - instead he
seemed one hundred percent focused and determined.

“…
why?” I asked.

“
You know the stories of Mogbane? They’re true. Out there in
The Charred Lands, he rides atop of his dragon like a king. If
Haven
is
destroyed, then I think it’s your best shot of having a
comfortable life. Take the egg to The Church of Fire; it’s up in
the mountains near Manchester. Once you get there, you will have
two options. Either live with the people of The Church and raise
your dragon and sore through the skies alongside Mogbane, or
alternatively you can sell the egg. They would pay a very, very
handsome price. It would be enough to earn yourself citizenship to
Light Legion.” He said, finishing with yet another coughing fit.
This time his breaths became more wheezy and short, I knew he
didn’t have long now.

I could hardly
believe the things my dad was telling me. I had heard plenty about
The Light Legion, but never in all of my life did I suspect that I
had a chance of gaining citizenship there. It was perhaps the
largest community in all of The Charred Lands, with an estimated
population of five thousand. They live in a vast system of
underground tunnels and cleaned out sewage systems. All manholes
and entrances have been secured and welded shut, leaving only the
one entrance. Due to their monumental population, they have long
stopped taking in new citizens. Apparently hundreds of innocent
men, women and children have died on their door stop, begging for
entrance up until their final breath. But of course, everyone had a
price, especially in The Charred Lands. If I could retrieve the
dragon egg and sell it to The Church of Fire, I would likely be
able to come up with enough funds to earn entry for pretty much
every surviving citizen of Haven. But The Church of Fire was a
long, long way away. This was no hour trek, this would take days,
or even weeks – and that’s assuming I didn’t get lost along the
way. I knew I had to retrieve the egg and keep hold of it, for now
at least. It was my father’s dying wish, I couldn’t betray that.
Besides, this seemed to be me only option at the moment anyway.

“
Alright. I’ll take the egg to The Church of Fire.” I smiled,
stroking away a single tear from my dad’s cheek. His skin was now
even colder to my touch. I didn’t like that at all.

“
Thank you. You’re heading in the right direction for the
ranger’s cabin too; it’s about ten minutes away.” He smiled, before
something in his eyes changed. Suddenly his smile turned limp and
the fire in his eyes seemed to die.

“
Dad?” I cried, giving him a quick slap on the face, but he
didn’t react, instead his head slumped forward as his entire body
fell limp as he let out an elongated exhale.

“
Dad!?” I yelled once again, this time twice as loud. He was
dead. I felt instantly nauseous and weak as I wrapped my arms
around him. I locked him in a tight embrace. I didn’t want to ever
let go. I squeezed and squeezed, I squeezed as though hoping to
force life back into him. I felt like the child that I really was.
I cried for hours as I hugged my dad.

After what
felt like a life time I finally released his limp, cold body from
my arms and stood to my feet. I wiped away a torrent of tears from
my cheeks and turned around. Instantly, I felt lightheaded - before
so much as five steps I passed out.

Chapter
Eleven

I must have
been out for quite some time. The sun above had long disappeared by
the time I finally came to. The skies were hidden by the black
smoke of fire, this time likely hailing from what’s left of Haven.
Though I couldn’t be sure, for a moment I thought I may have seen
the twinkle of a star above. My Grandpa always meant that seeing a
star in The Charred Lands brought good luck. Luck. Even thinking of
the word made me churn a little inside. There was no fucking luck
in The Charred Lands – only death, suffering and loss. All you can
do is survive, luck doesn’t play into it. Sooner or later, everyone
here is going to die; today made me positive of that.

I looked to my
dad, he was lay in the exact same position as he had been before I
passed out. It pained me so much to see his limp, unmoving corpse
lent against the tree. It was so much harder to look at him than it
had been with my Grandpa. At least with my Grandpa, the fire had
burnt him beyond recognition, but the corpse leaning against the
tree was still very much my dad. He looked just as he had when he
was alive, only now… he wasn’t. I kept expecting to see him wake
up, as though he had been sleeping the whole time. But he wasn’t
going to wake up. He was going to rot and decay until he was
nothing more than a pile of dirty bones. I couldn’t stand to think
of his rotting corpse decomposing away against that tree. For a
moment I thought of burying him, but I couldn’t stomach touching
him.

With tears in
my eyes, I stumbled to my feet and practically ran away from my
father’s resting place, I couldn’t stand to look at his body
anymore. I felt like another moment besides his corpse would have
driven me insane. I charged through the nearest bush, heading
towards where my Dad had told me he left the one remaining Dragon’s
egg.

It took me
less than a few minutes to stumble across the large, white shell.
Even in the darkness it stood out for all to see. From what I could
remember, dad had rescued the whitest shell of the lot. Only now, a
red bloody hand print marked it’s otherwise perfectly white
surface.

I stared at it
for a while, wondering exactly what I was going to do with the
thing. Just as father wished, I would take the egg and head to the
ranger’s cabin. Hopefully here I would find other survivors from
Haven, then we could come up with some answers as to what our next
move might be.

I picked it
up, immediately struck back by how heavy the thing was. It was
incredible to think that inside this thing, was a baby dragon. The
spawn of the monster that was responsible for destroying my home
and murdering some of my family and friends. I suddenly felt a
great urge to smash the egg against the nearest tree and piss on
the foetus that it spilled, but the thought soon subsided. It was
my dad’s dying wish that I look after this egg. It was because of
this very egg that my dad was dead. Timothy shot him because of
this fucking egg. Despite how much I wanted to smash the thing
right there and then, I gritted my teeth and resumed my journey to
the Ranger’s cabin.

It was hard to
navigate my way down the small dirt path between the condensed
woods, the thick black clouds above completely drowned out any
light from the moon and the stars – night time in The Charred Lands
was almost always pitch black. Tonight was no exception. I kept
hearing noises all around me, rustling of bushes, crunching of
twigs, but never did I see anything. I knew that wildlife in these
parts were pretty scarce, which left me with two things in my mind.
The noises were either from a volcano monster, or a monster spawned
from my own frightened imagination.

Then another
thought occurred to me, it could be something much, much worse. It
could be my uncle, Timothy. I didn’t know what either I, or he
would do should we bump into each other. The urge to tear him limb
from limb for destroying half of my family would be almost
overwhelming, of that I was sure.

Would he kill me? I really don’t know. But one thing I did
know is that I
would
kill him. I’ve never killed a man before, even the thought of
taking a life made me feel physically sick, but Timothy was
different. Up until today I would have given my life for him – as
would my father -, I would have done anything for him, because he
was family. But not now. He was the devil to me. This man was just
as bad as the beast from the sky.

I continued on
down the dirt path as I played out thousands of scenarios in my
head. Every time I heard a noise from off the path I would imagine
myself being attacked by any number of malevolent beings. I thought
about how I would quickly throw the huge dragon’s egg aside, aim my
weapon and shoot dead whatever was attacking, or jump into the
cover of the trees and dodge their bullets as I ran away. Of
course, I doubted in reality either of these two would happen. I
was a coward at heart; a coward alone in a harsh, deadly land. I
felt any remaining hope inside me begin to drain. The ranger’s
cabin really did feel like last chance saloon right now.

Despite how
close my dad said the cabin was, it seemed to be hours before I
eventually stumbled across a building just off of the small dirt
path. The dragon’s egg had long turned my hands sweaty and arms
achy. I stopped just short of the cabin, realising the door was
slightly agar. A thin ray of light shone through the door frame –
all of the windows had been covered up, aside from the thin strip
of light, the cabin would have appeared to be in complete
darkness.

I carefully
placed the egg down in a bush as I readied my weapon. Taking slow,
hesitant steps I tip toed towards the cabin. I was completely
divided by contrasting emotions. Part of me felt full of joy that
it appeared as though someone was inside the cabin, perhaps it
would be my mum, brother and sister! Then again, it could be
someone else. Timothy, raiders or murderers. As I had always been
instructed to, I checked that the small handgun was ready for use
before aiming it at the door.

“
Hello?” I called out, instantly regretting it. I
did
have the element of
surprise on my side, but not anymore. I cursed aloud at myself as I
listened to any sounds from the cabin, but it remained completely
silent. That didn’t do much to help settle my nerves.

“
It’s Zachary.” I decided to add; just in case someone from
Haven was hiding away inside, suspecting that I may have been
hostile. For a few seconds I remained hopeful of hearing my
mother’s voice shout out in joy, but once again, nobody replied.
Content that nobody inside was going to alert me to their presence;
I took a deep breath and approached the wooden cabin door. I felt
like calling out once again, but I knew it was no good. Instead I
completely focused on listening out for any sounds coming from
inside.

I slowly
reached out and grabbed the door handle before pulling the stiff,
old wooden door towards me. It opened with a creak that seemed to
echo around the woods. A flickering light shone from the inside, if
the cabin was empty now, then somebody had definitely been here
recently. With the door wide open, I stuck my head inside. What I
saw shook me to my core.

I managed to
hold my stomach until I reached a nearby bush before I unleashed a
torrent of puke for the second time in recent days. I wiped away a
few remaining juices from my lips as I turned back to the cabin. I
could hardly believe what my eyes had seen. Though I only glanced
inside for a brief moment, I saw in every tiny bit of detail, in
all of its horrifying glory.

Though I
wasn’t certain, I thought I knew exactly who the two corpses inside
belonged two. I prepared myself to face the gory scene once again
as I approached the cabin for a second time, fully stepping inside
this time. I felt my entire body begin to tremble as I walked
towards the first of the two corpses in the ranger’s cabin. Lying
atop of a foldable bed was a girl, a pillow masking her face and a
thick puddle of blood under her, matting her long, blond flowing
hair. The sheets were stained red, with a single bullet hole
cutting through the pillow which rested on her face. Though I was
still yet to see her face, I was now positive as to who the girl
had once been. I recognised her clothes. I decided I didn’t even
need to move the pillow to know that it was my twenty-three year
old friend from Haven, Laura Olsen. And behind her, sat up in a
chair with a handgun clutched between her dead, cold fingers was
her mother, Andrea. A mixture of blood, brains, and hair matted the
wall behind her. A torrent of dried blood dripped down from her
gaping mouth. It didn’t take me long to deduce that had happened
here.

This was a
murder suicide. Though I understood what this was, I couldn’t
understand why, or even how. How had Andrea been able to murder her
own daughter? I looked at the daughter’s lifeless body. She looked
completely relaxed, as though she could have even been sleeping
when Andrea placed the pillow over her face and blew her brains
out. I bet she didn’t have a clue what was happening. Andrea then
turned the gun on herself, ending their misery and pain once and
for all. I did somewhat envy them a little – it was over for them
now. They didn’t have to go on, struggling with the loss of their
family, their friends and their home. They wouldn’t have to face
The Charred Lands. They were at peace now. It seemed so easy.

Despite how
much their bodies disturbed me, I decided to stick around for a
while. I had a few reasons for this; firstly I wanted to make sure
there was no chance of my mother, or anybody else for that matter,
stumbling across the cabin. Everyone knew about this place – I
didn’t understand why nobody else had come. Secondly, I was
exhausted. Passing out hadn’t allowed me to rest at all, I was
still physically and emotionally drained. A small dusty couch sat
across the room from the Olsen’s, I could lie here and face the
wall, and not have to worry about opening my eyes to the
slaughter.