When Gods Fail (10 page)

"I can't do that," I said.

"The hell you can't. We out number you four
to one. Give us your woman, throw your weapon down, and we'll send
you back where you came from."

I didn't believe him. Once my weapon was
down I would be dead. He had every reason to kill me, and none to
let me live. "All right," I said and lowered my rifle. "Lower your
guns first." My chest felt weak.

The old man gave a signal and the rest of
them lowered their weapons.

I kneeled down, setting my rifle on the
ground. I looked at Jenny who turned to me and gave me a wink, then
mouthed: one, two. She stepped back to my right, her left hand on
the handgun under her dress.

I reached for my two handguns, pretended to
stumble forward then flashed them out, firing at the older men in
the middle.

It was a wise choice. The two men in the
middle were the first to raise their rifles and my bullets landed
with comforting thuds on their chests. I fired three more shots
into the two men. Their rifles fell out of their hands. In my
periphery I saw the two young men jump back, then raise their
rifles. I shot the one to the left and he stumbled back. I heard
another shot go off and saw that Jenny had shot the last young man
right in the face. He collapsed, a lump of flesh.

I moved towards the men, fired into the two
old men's heads as I stepped over them and walked to the young man
I'd shot. He took shallow breaths as he scratched his chest. I
kicked the rifle out of his hand and picked it up. I was calm, a
monk who had attained Nirvana, not a care in the world. I pointed
the rifle at his face.

"How many more are there?" I asked.

He shook his head.

I pointed the rifle at his knee and fired.
He screamed. I pointed it at his balls. "It can be slow or quick.
How many?"

"Three!" He spat out blood. He was young.
Blue doe-eyes, skinny but with some baby fat on his cheeks.

"Who?" I asked.

"My mom, sister, dad."

"No one else?"

He shook his head. He was too scared to tell
a lie—I was sure of that.

"How far?" I asked.

"Don't hurt them, please."

"I won't. I promise." I jammed the gun into
his balls.

"About a mile away." He strained to keep his
eyes open. "Some water. Please."

Please...Don't. Big Lee's last words rushed
back to me—what had he meant? Don't kill him? Or was he trying to
warn me away from Jenny? That possibility ran through my intestines
like a rock, and my visual field bent, as my equilibrium was lost.
I crouched unto my haunches. I reached for my canteen and unscrewed
it. Then I handed him the water. He drank the whole thing.

"That was good." He licked his lips, a
child-like smile spread on his face as if there was a secret he
couldn't hold back. I looked around again to make sure there wasn't
anyone else.

"Anything else? Have you met any other
people?"

"No one friendly," he said.

I bent over his face to hear him; his voice
cracked.

"Other people always try to take from us,"
he said and stopped to swallow, then grimaced. "Beware."

"Beware what?"

He started to spasm. "Please, it hurts.
Everything hurts. Make it quick."

My Zen-like state evaporated. He was brave.
Even I could see that.

I pointed the rifle at his face, and he
closed his eyes. I leaned my head back and pulled the trigger.
Blood, skull and brain splattered on the ground.

I surveyed the bodies at my feet. None
moved.

Jenny stood staring at the bodies, her mouth
open. She'd done well, made me proud. I walked up to her and took
her hand in mine. "Jenny?"

She was staring at the bodies like she'd
stared at the blanket on which we first had sex.

"Jenny, please don't look." I placed my hand
on her cheek and pulled her face towards mine.

"I killed him."

"You had to."

"I killed him."

She was not as tough as I hoped. She could
shoot straight but that was it. The mother I'd killed earlier that
week was made of more resilient material. Jenny was a gentle
flower; I should have kept her at home. But, I reminded myself, if
I hadn't I would be dead.

"We have to get going. Don't look," I said
and picked up her rifle, placed it in her hand. There had been too
many gunshots. If the others were a mile away they would have heard
something and be coming soon.

I led her some way up past the bodies. Told
her to wait and went back to strip them of ammunition. My backpack
was already heavy, but that was fine with me. I packed two of their
rifles and pulled the other two apart, exposing the bolts and
firing pins, and threw those as far as I could. Then I ran back to
Jenny who stood teetering.

I took her hand and walked her out of the
orange-rock-alleyway that now stunk of blood and flesh and shit.
Once we got to higher ground there was a narrow trail that led
around a cylindrical four hundred foot peak. The land here was an
orange-brown color, and there weren't many other choices but the
narrow trail. I led Jenny down the path until it opened up on the
other side of the peak. Here the ground dropped off rapidly. In
front of us, I could see a couple of shacks that lay in a natural
divot under the shadow of the peak. I moved back behind a large
rock with Jenny. She looked scared of me.

"Are you going to hurt them?" she asked.

What could I say? "I don't know. If they
find those bodies they'll come after us. We won't be able to hide.
Always looking over our backs. Do you understand?" I said. They
wouldn't forgive me. Looking in her eyes I knew that she wouldn't
either.

She shook her head. I could see the child
with moods had returned. There wasn't going to be a way into her
mind, but I had to try. The night before had been so sweet.

"I have to go and at least see what's going
on. You stay here. Okay? If some one comes fire in the air once." I
took her hands, but they were limp. I wanted to beat on her chest
and wake her up from her little world. This was real life, and she
needed to face it. Please... Don't.

I left her and entered the depression with
shacks, three clustered around a central area that had the burn
marks of a fire pit. My eyes adjusted to the shadows. The walls of
the surrounding rock rose up ten feet on all sides—a perfect
sanctuary. The smells of life were everywhere. Voices came from a
shack; one was low, calm. There was a plot full of budding plants
not too far away. I backed into a dark corner. The entire compound
was about twenty by twenty yards wide. I watched as a father came
out with his wife. Behind them was a little girl. Three, like the
boy had said.

I raised my rifle. Was this the only way
into the future? If I took this step there would be no turning
back. Bill's face, innocent like a child flashed.

Had he let me live?

I would never know.

Please... Don't.

What had I become? And if this was what it
took to survive, to live long enough to pass on my genes to my
offspring, did I want it?

But Jenny—the look in her eyes—was all I
cared about.

Please... Don't.

What a choice.

*

Jenny was right where I left her.

"Let's go," I said and reached for her
hand.

She pulled her hand away from me. Her eyes
were blank. That frightened me. I would rather have seen the
passion of anger than that. We walked back, past the bodies,
through the night, stumbled over rocks until we were back in our
cave. She went inside and fell asleep.

It was dawn, so I stayed up and marked what
was what on the map.

I looked at the horizon we'd just come back
from. There was nothing, not a speck. I looked in the other
direction. Nothing again. I went back to the cave and rearranged
some metal sheets so we had rooms, a place for the shower. I drew a
contraption that could provide showers for us. I missed Jenny's
smile. And I wished that I hadn't killed Bill and Paul. And all the
others.

And what would death be but a sweeter caress
than what I'd experienced?

As evening came I went back in the cave and
watched Jenny sleeping. She crouched in the fetal position and
mumbled in some far away dreamland. Her face crunched up and I lay
down beside her and placed my arm over her. She rolled around and
placed her head on my chest. This affection jolted my heart, then
stroked my insides like a mother. I felt proud, happy. She had
forgiven me.

I closed my eyes and fell into a deep sleep.
In the cool of my dreams I ran into Carol, she smiled and
admonished me for not waiting for her. How? I begged. There was
nothing else I could have done.

Always going off on your own. She shook her
head. I reached for her hand and she vanished. Bill took her
place.

What happened?

You tell me.

I did what I had to do.

Did you? He ran at me with a shotgun and
vanished. Big Lee appeared and ran after me; I ran as fast as I
could, and when I turned he looked down on me. Then I was on him.
Please... Don't.

Don't what?

You know.

You were going to die anyways. You were
trying to kill me.

Please... Don't.

I woke up and realized that Jenny wasn't
next to me. Grabbed a kerosene lantern, lit it, and looked around
the cave, but she wasn't in there. I walked outside and searched
around. I couldn't see her, but by her smell I could tell she was
near. I looked up and saw her on the peak above the cave. I ran.
When I came to where she was, my lungs hurt from the exertion. She
was standing on the edge of the cliff. The drop off was several
hundred meters high. It spoke softly to me, to her.

"Jenny, you scared me. What's wrong?" I
asked and looked into her eyes. Cool, lifeless. My heart lurched
into my guts.

"I can't forget him. The man I killed."

"You shouldn't think that way. You couldn't
help it. Self defense." I tried to reach for her, but she avoided
my grip.

"I can't stop thinking about it. How can you
do it?"

"Do what?"

"Kill like you did. So well," she said.

I wasn't certain if the voice belonged to
Jenny. Everything seemed like part of the previous dream. Only the
cold air seemed real.

"I don't do it well," I said.

"You did. And I saw you with that boy. You
enjoyed it, torturing him, watching him die."

That wasn't fair. I hadn't. I only
suppressed what was a weakness inside me. How could she think such
a thing? I looked into her eyes and saw how much she hated me, was
scared of me, saw nothing to love in me. The bottom of the cliff
welcomed me. "I didn't..." Was all I could manage as a defense. "We
had to do that. They didn't want peace."

"I can't live like this."

"But you have to. We're the only ones."

"So what? What if we are the only ones? Why
go on?"

"Because we have to," I said again, more to
convince myself than anything else. "We are all there is." I
realized then that the reason I could see everything was that the
stars and the moon were out. The overcast sky was gone. A sign of
the better times to come? "See? The sky is clearing, soon things
will improve."

"And everyone we meet will try to kill us,"
she said and examined me with a sad face like I couldn't
understand.

I should have implored her that my love for
her was real, but I couldn't. Something in me was still ashamed.
"What about us?" I said.

Her look turned to disdain, then to horror.
She took a step and disappeared.

###

Other Books by the Author (along with the
sequel to this book!)
:

When Gods Fail
II

The Struggle
Trilogy

Tree of
Freedom

Satan's
Plea

About the Author:

Nelson Lowhim was born in Tanzania where he lived for
the first decade of his life. He then lived in India for a year
before finally settling in the U.S. in the state of Michigan. He
spent some of his formative years hitchhiking and hiking around the
great state of Alaska. From there he joined the Army and served for
seven years as an Infantryman in 1st AD then as an Engineer in
Fifth Group. After his time in the Military—which included many
travels through Europe and the Middle East—he came to New York and
earned an undergraduate degree from Columbia University. He
currently lives with his girlfriend in the Bronx.

Connect with me online (and tell me what you
think):

Smashwords:
http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/nlowhim

My blog:
http://nelsonlowhim.blogspot.com/

Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/nlowhim