Chapter 16
Things over the next couple of weeks are quiet. Dolph regains his strength and I am able to move him from the infirmary to the house. Things have an odd sense of normalcy, cooking dinners with Ravyn, sitting around the table and talking wandering the streets and meeting all The Colonists. If it wasn't for the fences surrounding the town and the presence of a few armed citizens keeping watch, it would seem like any other day in suburbia.
About a month after being reunited I wake up in Dolph's arms. I groan at how bright the light streaming into the room is. I try to close my eyes against the harshness but it seems to be searing through my eyelids. I sigh, giving up on going back to sleep. I carefully disentangle myself from Dolph's arms so as not to wake him and go over to the window and gasp. A brilliant blue sky and bright winter sun is reflecting off a sparkling fresh blanket of untouched snow. It looks so serene and peaceful, a view I haven't seen in months.
I smile, closing the curtain to the block the light. I glance back at Dolph who is still sound asleep. I quickly brush my hair and throw on some clothes and sneak out of the room, quietly closing the door behind me. I tip toe down the stairs, carefully avoiding the squeaky stair. I walk into the kitchen opening cabinets trying to see what we have in the house that I could make everyone for breakfast. I manage to scrounge up the ingredients for pancakes. Living without electricity for even just that short stint at the arena it already feels foreign to have it back. Being able to take a hot shower and cook, I will forever be grateful for solar panels.
The gridle is just warm enough when I hear someone making their way down the stairs. I turn and grin when I see Dolph. "morning." I say to him as he reaches the bottom of the stairs, he smiles at me and replies "morning" back to me. He crosses the kitchen to me and I wrap my arms around his neck kissing him gently. "How did you sleep? Any pain?" I question brushing his bed hair behind his ear, tracing a pink scar by his right eye. "A little, but it is bearable. It hurt me more to wake up and find you gone." He flirts running his hands down my back till they are resting on my hips. "Oh? Is that so?" I ask closing my eyes as he kisses my neck. "Mmm, that's nice." Breakfast forgotten I stand on my tiptoes crushing my lips to his, my hands working their way into his hair. His hands wander up and down my back drifting up under my t-shirt.
We get so into the moment that we both jump back startled by the sound of a clearing throat. My cheeks burn in embarrassment at the sight of Ravyn and Tyler standing in the doorway smirking. "Having a bit of breakfast?" Ravyn teases me and I flip her off grinning, "oh shut up." I mumble, still blushing. The teasing and friendly banter continues as we all pitch in to make some breakfast and eat.
After breakfast Dolph and I bundle up and head out into the snow to go do our jobs inventorying supplies that get brough in from scouting missions. The scene is like something out of a postcard. Untouched snow blankets the ground, glittering in the sun that peaks through the clouds. The world is so silent without the ever constant hum of electricity, traffic and airplanes. It's almost eerie. "I don't think I'll ever get used to how quiet the world is." I say linking my arm through Dolph's to try and get some warmth as we are walking back to the house during sun set. "Who knows, maybe someday there will be planes in the sky again and we will be on them traveling the world to entertain the masses". Dolph says and I sigh dreamily. "God, I hope so. I miss being in the ring so much." I sigh leaning my head on his shoulder. We round a corner near the edge of the wall, "what's that?" Dolph asks pointing and I follow his gaze to some scaffolding leaning against the wall with a ladder propped up. "It looks like a watch tower," I answer, "remind you of anything?" I ask grinning elbowing Dolph gently in the ribs. "The cat walk," Dolph answers with a smirk, "shall we?"
We climb the ladder and sit with our feet dangling over the edge just like we did for so many nights at the arena. We talk as we did then, huddled together against the cold watching the sunset I lean my head against his shoulder closing my eyes. "You know…maybe the silence isn't so bad." I sigh snuggling closer to Dolph.
The silence is broken by a blood curdling scream. "What the fuck was that?!" I ask, my heart pounding in fear. The scream is still echoing in my ears, joined by the sound of doors opening from all around as everyone leaves their homes to go investigate the scream. "We should get down there." Dolph says standing up and holding out a hand to help me up. We scramble down the ladder and join the group of people trying to find the source of the scream. "J!" I turn to see Ravyn and Tyler headed our way. "Thank god you are okay!" Ravyn says sounding relieved. "I heard the scream and thought it was you." She adds. "I'm okay, I don't know where the scream came from." We follow the crowd, someone hands us some flashlights as we search.
Soon we hear someone yell "over here!" and everyone starts running off in that direction. There is a crowd gathered around the side of one of the unoccupied houses in the neighborhood. I stop dead in my tracks, my hand flying to cover my mouth in shock. The scene in front of me is like something out of a horror movie. The previously pristine snow is now covered in blood, steaming in the winter chill. A woman's body is nearby, gutted. Their face is battered and bruise that I'm not sure who it is. I scan the crowd trying to take inventory of anyone from our group to make sure we are all accounted for. I feel bad but I breathe a sigh of relief to see everyone. "Who has a flashlight?" Meg asks, I hand her mine. She finds a path around the blood and goes over to the body, kneeling down next to it, "it's Penny." She announces sadly and I recall the girls face. I'd only met her once. She stands up and the beam of her flashlight catches something on the wall. She scans it with the beam of her light, "The Entity is displeased. We are coming." The words are written in blood. "It's those Legion nutters!" spats David. My heart is pounding as I turn to look at Dolph. He's starring at the message on the wall, his expression is unreadable. "Ok everyone, go back to your homes, David, I think it's time we put those watch towers back in use." Meg says and David replies with a nod and assigns some of his people to take first watch as the crowd departs silently. I take Dolph's hand, pulling him away from the grizzly scene.
We follow Ravyn and Tyler into the house where we just stand in the entry way not having any idea what to do with ourselves. "So…" Tyler says breaking the silence, "those freaks are coming here? Do you think it's because we escaped? Do they know we are here?" Dolph shrugs, running a hand down his face, "I don't know man. Like you said they are freaks." "Meg and her group knew about The Legion. It sounded like they have dealt with them before. They have to know they are the only other group in the area...they have to at least suspect that you are here." I say. "Well, then they really are crazy. We out number them! There was maybe only a dozen or so of them at that warehouse." Tyler says sounding encouraged but I'm too busy watching Dolph. "Babe…what is it?" I ask. The haunted look in his eyes is making me nervous. "There's more than 12 of them…and…and they have a hoard of creatures at their disposal. That's how they "sacrifice" to their so-called entity. They claim to be able to control the hoard. If that's true…if they bring them here and they get inside the walls we are done for."
I stand in the hall staring at Dolph in complete shock, my brain unable to process the news he just told us. "If…if that's true…we have to let Meg and the others know. Everyone here needs to know so that we can come up with a defense plan." I ramble nervously. "J's right. They could come back tonight. We can't keep this to ourselves." Ravyn adds. Dolph nods, his expression still haunted a we head back into the night to go find Meg and tell her what Dolph knows.
We return back to the house after delivering the news and head our separate ways to try and get some sleep. Dolph and I are silently getting ready for bed, he hasn't said a word since we left Meg's. I watch him out of the corner of my eye as he sits on the edge of the bed, head hanging. I sigh sadly and go sit next to him, "Dolph…tell me what's wrong." I ask gently, placing a hand on his thigh. He let's out a breath, "if they breach the walls we are done for. When…when they took me from the others…they were going to sacrifice me to their hoard…they strung me up by my wrists and hung me over those…those things. I could feel them grabbing at my feet. They were doing some sort of crazy ritual when all of a sudden, they got sidetracked. It must have been you guys entering the building because they took off leaving me hanging. I managed to swing myself from over the pit of creatures to the ledge around it. That's how I got most of my injuries, I ate the landing hard. Then I got the hell out of there…the room…the noise of all those creatures…it was deafening…I hear it echo in my head when things get too quiet…the idea that that noise could appear on the other side of these walls…it terrifies me…if they do come…I fear our luck my actually run out."
He looks directly into my eyes with the last statement and a chill run downs my spine. I've never heard this much fear in his voice before. I take his hand, and lean my head on his shoulder "I refuse to believe that." I tell him trying to have confidence in my voice. "After all we have been through, not just as a couple, but this whole group…and now we have The Colony on our side…I think we can win. We can live and be happy. Hell, maybe you were right earlier, maybe things will be normal again and we will be traveling the world again entertaining the people." He shakes his head, "No." I say firmly, grabbing his face so that he has no choice but to look me in the eye. "I have to keep believing in the group because the moment I give up on us is when we really will die, and I am not ready to die and I sure as shit don't want to live without you so you better not be giving the fuck up either." I squeeze his hand tight driving my point home. "I…I won't give up." He finally says, still sounding broken. I pull him into a hug doing my best to comfort him. We move so that we are laying down and I hold him until he falls asleep.
Things are tense the next morning as Meg calls a town meeting. She assigns all the watch duties, distributes weapons and even shares the escape plain in case things go so far south that we have to abandon The Colony. This is apparently something they have planned for before. The kids in town will hide in the house closest to the evacuation point in hopes that they will be away from the fighting.
In my short time with The Colony I've never seen them so tense and militarized. I can see how they have managed to survive this long though. They are a well-oiled unit when it comes to protecting the town and its people. They have an engineer living in town, the same one who designed the walls, he comes up with a way to reinforce the gates, hopefully keeping any creatures out. The homely feel The Colony briefly held for me is gone. The site of their people walking around with guns, even teaching us how to shoot is unnerving.
Two days pass since the message was left on the wall, we don't let our guard down. On the third night, Dolph and I stumble numbly up the stairs after having finished our shift on watch in one of the towers. It was a bitter night and I had no feeling left in my limbs as I strip off my shoes. I'm too cold and tired to change my clothes as I collapse into the bed with a groan, my fingers and toes starting to burn as the feeling begins to return.
My eyelids drift close, but only for a moment because out of nowhere there is in earth rattling explosion. I'm instantly awake again. There is a brief moment of silence as the echoes of the explosion die off before the silence is replaced by screams and gunfire. I fly out of bed throwing my boots back on. I glance at Dolph and with a nod we grab our weapons. We meet Ravyn and Tyler in the hall and together we rush out of the house. A full moon glows in the cloudless sky, smoke from the explosion curls up into the sky. We run towards and round a corner straight into a scene out of a war movie. Gunfire and hand to hand combat is happening everywhere.
Blood stains the snow, bodies of creatures and colonists litter the ground as the battle rages. Ravyn, Tyler, Dolph and I all exchange a look, not having time to say the things we want to say to each other, but also not having to say it because we all already know, before we charge head on into the fray.
I have a hand-crafted machete in my hand as I rush to the front lines hacking and slashing at ever creature that gets in my way. I turn from the hoard and come face to face with one of The Legion members. She is wearing a shapeless white mask with a crude drawing of eyes and a menacing smile. The Legion member is just standing there staring at me, the blank stare on the mask freaks me out as she tilts her head to the side. She raises her knife and charges at me with a yell. I dodge, falling into the snow, I roll popping back up to my feet, ready to doge the next attack. Sure enough, she comes charging at me again. With the snow its hard to get my footing and I don't get out of the way quick enough and her knife catches me in the upper arm, slicing through my coat down to the skin. I cry out, grabbing at the wound.
The Legion girl is relentless as she charges again in a feral frenzy, breathing heavily, like a shark smelling blood in the water. I raise my weapon ready to fight back. I swing as she gets close but I miss. She is back on me within seconds, swinging her knife and screaming like a maniac. I do the only thing I can think of and taker her out with a drop toe hold. I struggle with her trying to get her knife as he just screams. She gains the upper hand on me, pinning me to the ground. I keep struggling in an attempt to keep her from slashing my throat.
From out of nowhere the girl is knocked off me as Ravyn tackles her into the snow. The knife flies out of her hand and Ravyn pins her down. "J! Get her!" She yells to me as I raise my weapon with trembling hands. "Come on!" Ravyn urges me, struggling to keep her hold. Over her shoulder I see Dolph fighting and I'm suddenly filled with rage remembering what they did to him. I close my eyes and plunge my knife into her. "J! Come on! We need to keep fighting." Ravyn says, pulling me back to my feet and to reality.
The battle rages all night then long after the sun comes up. I stagger over the bodies, my whole body aching from hacking down creatures all night. I'm scanning the battlefield not only looking for Dolph and Ravyn, I hadn't seen either of them since the early hours of the battle. I gaze around looking for them and any creatures that may still be moving. I see a creature still twitching so I kneel down to plunge my weapon into its skull. I stand back up stretching my aching back, gazing around. "J!" I turn at the sound of my name, relief running through me and all my pain forgotten at the sound of Dolph's voice and the sight of him standing with all our friends. I stumble over the bodies to him, he looks okay, tired and dirty, but unhurt. I collapse into his arms so glad to see him. "I told you our luck hadn't run out." I murmur.
It takes a few weeks to clear all the bodies but we get The Colony cleaned up and the walls rebuilt. We go really lucky, the deaths the group suffered were minimal and we managed to destroy all The Legion and their hoard. The wall quickly gets rebuilt stronger and better than ever. Dolph, Ravyn, Tyler and I start learning how to truly live and warn our way as members of the is weird to feel so domestic but at the same time oddly normal. I lay in bed at night with Dolph and start to think that maybe life really can be normal again.