The Bone Puppets: A Hard SciFi Zombie Soldier Story Page 6

  “If Mom…If she was put away in a brothel...Then, how do you know for sure that Reece was your dad, too? You’ve been talking this whole time like he was…” Elias knew he wasn’t going to like the answer to this question. Riff shifted.

  “Reece…Our dad…reserved Mom for his use only. They never divorced exactly. So all the times that she was forced to…to you know.” Riff wouldn’t say more. Elias nodded.

  “She was stronger than I even remembered. To be able not to break after being forced to touch that elephant…After what he did…” Elias scratched the wall, fighting with himself. He must not break down.

  “That she was. Which was our Dad’s Achilles’ heel, and ultimately what did him in at the end. See, Elias— Mom, she took measures with me. She knew that I was the one that was free. Because I was the boss’ kid, I had a few special privileges as a child. Yes, I grew up in a casino brothel, but I was marked as ‘hands-off’ to the patrons. On top of that, I was allowed to come and go if I wanted to, as long as I didn’t leave the City. Mom managed to find people, people who didn’t ‘bow the knee’ to the Crescent if you will. They started networking together and well…They worked it out where I did leave the City through an Underground Railroad thing they arranged. I had a private tutor from outside the walls.” Riff’s voice cracked as he filled with terror. Elias reached out and clamped firm fingers around his wrist.

  “You’ve almost told me. Come on,” said Elias. “Take it from somebody who knows…Who learned the hard way in life. It will be easier once you’d said it.” He swallowed. Elias focused his calm, hoping that it would fall over Riff in turn. He’d never had the chance before, but now he knew. He had full fraternal rights over Riff’s livelihood. From here on out, he would be his brother’s keeper, the steward of his soul.

  “My tutor, Elias…He um… He was the Alchemist.” Riff grew quiet. Elias sat bolt upright.

  “Oh…” said Elias. He remembered this name.

  Even after all the measures his father had taken to transform him from a man-child and into Frankenstein, there were still some fragments of life and hope retained in his deep psyche. The Alchemist was one such scion of hope.

  Some had called him “the Prophet” some had called him “the Earth’s Contender.” His true name had been Ezekiel Day. To this date, he had been the only one to stand up to the Crescent monarchy. He’d vocally called the young successor, Queen Nali, out on her family’s practices. He’d warned her that a storm was coming if she didn’t abolish her father’s former sorcery.

  There were many legends about what happened to the great Prophet. No one knew for certain. Well, no one, except possibly Riff Walklate.

  “You knew…You personally knew the Final Prophet?” Elias’s jaw dropped. Riff smiled.

  “Yes, and the experience changed my life. Some say it even gave me new life. I hope you don’t think that this Witchdoctor’s grotto and understanding the source of sorcery is the only answer to our common struggle, man. See, just as there is evil power in the world, a power that derails the purpose of faithful men…There is also righteous power from a higher place. A light beyond the darkness that shines into the darkness, even though said darkness can never hope to understand. That’s the reason why I’m here. I was groomed for that purpose, ever since I was old enough to stand. Mom knew that I would be the one to save you. That you would need saving so that you could be the man that our father never was. Just as our father led us to betrayal and compromise, you can lead us into a glorious revolution.” Riff clapped a hand on Elias’s shoulder.

  The proof was in the things that Riff had just said. It sounded word for word, even the pauses between, exactly like something Ezekiel Day would have said.

  “You…All along you knew. Even when you and I stumbled into Yim’s circle like the scared little kids we were…” Elias shook his head. Something unique had happened to Riff for him to be so coy and also be carrying such an impossible secret.

  “Well, I must admit, I was running like Hell when I came to be where we are now. I was every bit the scared little kid you were. Ezekiel used the Righteous Power he had found, that he claimed to have acquired from something he found, ‘in the heart of Africa’s greatest mountain’. He called it the ‘Kilimanjaro Sacrament’ or the ‘Equalizer’. Its power was raw and emanated a force unlike any of this other scary crap that you see walking around you. He did something to me with it. Used it to like turn my bones to gold and precious metals. Ever since, as many times as I’ve been captured or nearly killed on the streets…The Crescent’s agents were never able to turn me into a Bone Puppet.” Riff was talking faster now, trying to keep his voice low to hide his excitement.

  Elias was trying to process everything he was being told. Today he got his little brother back. Now he learned that he’d been transformed by the Final Prophet’s power into something bordering on the divine. The automatically made him a target of the entire world’s correctional forces, should the secret come out.

  “Okay, so you came to see to it that Mom’s plan for my redemption panned out. You knew that when you had the right time and had gained my trust you could give your secret. You didn’t know me but she did. She had enough faith in me that I would champion your cause. That even though this powerful gift the Final Prophet gave you before his mysterious demise would make you the world’s most wanted contraband, you would be safe. Because I would split Hell wide open protecting you until you used it.” Elias felt dizzy. His mother, his guardian angel…She had known him better than he knew himself. Even though she’d been separated from him for most of his life.

  “Oh, she believed in you alright. Enough that after Teach disappeared, she…She took measures into her own hands. I don’t know if anybody ever told you what happened to our dad. I’m sure they came up with a more honorable ending for him. He got what was coming to him in spades. For the last time, he went to ‘do business’ with Mom, if you know what I mean. And she killed him. She knew what the cost would be for doing the leader in. She took her chance anyway. I was smuggled out of the City by her people. On that day, I knew I would never see her again.” Riff tucked his knees up under his chin.

  Elias sat there in the darkness letting this testimony wash over him for a moment. That his father had met such a just and such an obscure ending was more than anything he could have hoped for. That coupled with his mother’s faith was enough to give him the strength to join Riff’s secret rebellion. It was much easier to ally himself with the ulterior motive of his own brother than the obscure vengeance reasons of a double-crossing Road Queen. Somehow he’d always known that she would just be a means to a greater end.

  “You believed in her and she believed in me. That’s more than enough reason for me to take my rightful place in the sun. So here’s my thought. We stick it out with Yim until we get to Africa. We find the source of the evil power, seek to understand it but swear off its use. Because we’ve got your secret weapon. So, the smarter purchase, in my book, is to figure out how the Witchdoctor’s mumbo really works so we can figure out how the Prophet’s mojo can trump it.”

  Elias smiled. He laced an arm around Riff’s shoulders. Riff looked up at him. They were thankful for the darkness. If anyone else saw this, it would be mistaken for weakness or some kind of lover’s attraction. They couldn’t show emotions. Yet their humanity dictated some kind of soulful expression was in order. The darkness allowed them to have physical, familial endearment contact for the first time in their lives.

  Riff smiled. Elias could feel his lips turn upward in the dark, so close was he that his faintest motions were detectable. There was a great deal of contentment in this small “family moment”. The world was void of all that had been natural to it once. Even the sky, once blue, had lost its natural grace. Things that would seem completely conventional in an ordinary setting were pure miracles now.

  “I agree with you. We stick it out with Yim. Only thing is, Yim’s got to tango with the great kind of the vampires. Plus, we’re still in jai
l. So, like…What do we do?”

  Riff leaned out of the corner. The light hit his face. Elias let the moment go as quickly as it had come. It wouldn’t mean as much if he lingered in it. Its rarity was what gave it influential power. Elias would need all the power he could get his hands on if he was going to become the man his mother dreamed he’d be.

  “I have an idea,” he said. “I know of someone who just might take me up on the offer too. See, I was a child in captivity not all that astronomically long ago. The guard that brought us down here…We need to place a call.” Elias got up on his haunches and crawled forward. He wanted to make a deal with young Madeline.

  *****

  Chapter 8

  Yim wasn’t as impressed with Elias’s plan as Riff had been.

  “Walklate, you’ve always pushed asinine behavior to the Nth power. But you honestly think that a trained guard of the Blood City is going to help spring us out, based on your word alone that she can COME WITH US?!” Yim bit her cigarette in half trying to keep her voice down.

  “Look, you don’t have to agree with the method of my madness. There is a method to my madness all the same. Do you or any of your guys have a better idea? I’d love to hear it!” Elias clenched his fists. He startled himself. This newfound purpose was empowering, but to what end? If they did successfully escape this dungeon, Yim would be back at the official head of command once more. She would have time to exact her iconic revenge on whoever she pleased to. If Elias played his cards wrong, he’d rack up offenses that would certainly be worthy of capital punishment when they were on the ground once more.

  “You’ve got heart. That’s what I picked you for. Make no mistake, I could have crushed your skull under my boot heel when we first got you. You were an origami trash prince teen with knobby little knees back then, sport.” Yim winked. She reached in her cigarette package and pulled out one more of the precious smokes. It annoyed her that she’d lost one in her moment of bafflement at Elias’s grave stupidity.

  “Yes, which makes me the perfect candidate to speak with her. We don’t have a lot of chances and we’re almost guaranteed a brief interrogation before we head to First Street’s snack bowl. At least if it goes according to the Reece Walklate Interrogation Protocol. Which they put in place for me…” Elias licked his lips. He nodded.

  “Listen, Yim. In the grand scheme of things, I’m nobody. Totally a tourist attraction. If I have weird requests, they blame that on my TV-dinner brains. Just let me try, okay? If it doesn’t work…” Elias shrugged.

  “If it doesn’t work,” said Yim, “then I kill Riff.”

  Meredith Yim smirked. Elias froze. Had she heard their conversation?

  “Sounds fair enough to me,” said Riff dryly. “What’s it called, like a life trade? Besides, I’d rather you do away with me then be Vamp-chow, sweetheart.” Riff straightened his jacket collar, plastering the most affected smile on his face that Elias had ever seen.

  “What does he have to do with anything?” Elias shook his head, laughing it off like Yim was redundant and crazy.

  Yim smiled and blew a mini smoke ring through her nostrils.

  “Mm, well, Elias…I don’t know how to outline this for you. You never exactly had the normal childhood experience. When a kid comes of age, they have a few little kiddy things they have to break ties with. You know, like a childhood stuffed animal or a blanket. Thumb sucking. The generals…” Yim paused. Elias slapped on a poker face, but maybe too late. He could have shown some emotion in the split second that he tried to process what she was insinuating. A second’s worth of emotion was all the Road Queen would need to turn her theory into scientific law and run with it.

  “Look, it’s like this. Riff is your little buddy. Your pal. Your stuffed teddy bear that’s been road-hauled a few times and has its eyes popping out,” said Yim. “Whatever you wanna call it, he’s your crutch. He’s holding you back from joining me at the top of the food chain.” She smiled and smoothed her pants legs.

  Elias had never been so close to breaking her jaw as he was this moment. He drew a shaky breath. God, he was an emotionally compromised person living in a world of pure savagery! How could he keep his thoughts from showing on his face?

  “So, there has to be a coming of age for you,” she continued. “Your true potentials are starting to show, but so are your character flaws. You care too much, Elias. You’re not hard enough. You’ll break too easy if something happens to him. Losing a teddy bear is a rite of passage for a child into adulthood. If you fail, I’ll make sure I do it for you. Rip off that Band-Aid. It will be like killing two birds with one stone, you see. You’ll have learned that there are consequences for failure in this division and come of age all at once.” Yim smiled and went to Riff. She took his neck in her fingers.

  “So, when you come back and I hear alarms wailing away in the darkness above me, saying that the child guard turned you over to her superiors…I will twist and squeeze. Riff’s pencil neck will snap and his cruel time on the face of this scalded rock will be over. Everybody benefits some way from that, don’t you agree, Riff? After all, a mud puppy like you can never rise from mud as deep as you’re stuck in, hmm?” Yim shook Riff’s head fiercely from side to side, saying “No.” Her crew laughed, cracking jokes either in their assorted pidgin languages or in English that was so riddled with explicit verbiage it was impossible to distinguish their meaning.

  Elias went rail stiff. He locked gaze with Riff and Riff winked. It was in that moment that Elias realized how dire his circumstances were, in all reality. Here was his kid brother, long lost and just recently found, who’d been saddled with the burden of coup d’état since he was old enough to toddle. Here was said kid brother throwing his life away for their mother’s cause, believing wholeheartedly in Elias’s persuasive power. This was the testament of how youthful Riff truly was—and how naïve. For Elias had no guaranteeing power that the girl guard Madeline would listen to his offer! He had faith, but the world wasn’t always as hope would have it. Belief alone wouldn’t make good things come his way. There would be days when he would cry out for deliverance and no one would come to save him. Those days had already come.

  So what gave him the power to believe, knowing this? How could he have the courage to let his little brother go on believing in him now, even though he could essentially be signing his death sentence?

  Because, in the end, the only thing Elias Walklate had left of his humanity was his ability to believe that there was some moral good left to humans. That he could appeal to the essential that had once upon a time created all men equal. That there was a heaven to gain and a hell to shun. That he could escape this life he found himself confined to if he didn’t give up.

  “Right, well, then…Send me up. I’ll make a believer out of her, man. No worries.” Elias pressed his fists together.

  “Do you see me breaking a sweat?” Riff rolled his eyes. Yim pressed her thumb in the base of his throat, strangulating him partially.

  “Let’s hope you don’t. Wouldn’t want your odor to attract the Sweepers early.” Yim snickered and turned to Elias, winking.

  “Alright, Mr. Walklate. You’re officially at bat. Make it count. You only have one person to lose, eh? Next time you won’t get off so easy.” Yim tossed Riff by his neck into the other men’s arms.

  A door high above them opened. Delancey came through it.

  “Alright, you maggots. It’s time for the interviews. The post-mortem last rites thing you’d like to say to the world type thing. Who’d like to go first?” Delancey’s eyes zeroed in on Elias. He hopped up and down, hand raised like he wanted to answer for the class.

  “You? What’s a worthless little maggot like you got to get off his chest, huh? I’ve been there for your real life story. Wasn’t too much to write home about!” Delancey rolled his eyes. Elias stopped.

  “Mm, I know. I’ve got a lot of mesmerizing fictional things about me I wanted to bring before the world. I’m going to need someone with the imagin
ation and passion to remember them all. Young…preferably female so she’ll be into the whole romantic part…” Elias swung his arms side to side. He tried to make himself chipper and bordering on insane.

  Delancey glared down upon Elias with hate and confusion in his eyes. Then a sadistic smile overtook his feature. He nodded.

  “You…sick, glorified-TV-dinner bastard. You want to get in real close with a little trick before you die, huh? Sentimental as you are…” Delancey cackled. “Sick little bastard. You want me to let you put your hands on the frisky little guard that brought you down below, eh? Think you can score some skin, real living skin, before you kick it? Alright…Well, she’s the perfect little hoe for that job. Yo, Maddie!” Delancey cupped his hands around his lips.

  Madeline approached from several ranks back. She hung her head. Her face burned red with shame.

  Elias felt his stomach leap to his nostrils. What had been a simple theory had materialized before his eyes in the most brutal way possible. Now he could see her for so much more than a bargaining chip, someone on the other side that he could use as leverage. Now she was a woman, a young girl at that. Someone who had been just as used and abused by these scum as he had been.

  If there ever was a moment in his life when he had felt small, now would be it. Because he had brought her further embarrassment. All for a plan that was doomed to fail anyway.

  Madeline stopped in front of Elias. Her eyes burned with hate. He had known that ruinous loathing himself once. He’d felt the same for Delancey, for others. So much hatred had filled his life that he despaired of ever feeling the warmth of compassion.

  Now this was about more than the mission. Elias never thought it was possible to be torn so many ways at the same time.

  “Right this way, Mr. Walklate.” Madeline stood to a crisp attention. She held up the manacles.

  This time, Elias dispensed with jokes. He puts his hands up willingly. He could feel the searing eyes of everyone in the room as she clicked them shut around his wrists. Cat calls started along with whistling. He heard a few people giving him pointers on all he should do when he had her alone.