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The Battlefield (part B)

3

The sun was already setting in the west when I got back to the mill. The tanned brown paint of the building was chipping, exposing the grey metal underneath. For some reason, I felt respect for the large building, even if it made the city smell like a garbage dump when it was active. It was another survivor, just like all of us.

I went in and saw Rick wandering through his knee-high forest. A bottle of beer, probably a new victim of his thirst, swung loosely in his hand. He saw me, took a long swig from the bottle, holding it at the neck, and walked toward me. I remembered our conversation earlier, how rude I was at just walking away so suddenly, and I knew I had to apologize.

"Look, Rick, I'm sorry if I was--"

His fist crashed against my jaw like a freight train. It wasn't strong enough to make me fall, but there was enough force behind it to make my knees buckle and my head jingle unpleasantly. It felt like he knocked something loose in my mouth. I stumbled and crouched down onto the floor, little pinpricks of light dancing in and out of focus.

"I hope you're happy, you stupid asshole," he snarled with exposed teeth, ears laid flat against his head.

"What are you talking ab---"

"Shut up! Because of you, Desmond went out and got a goddamn license. A _fighter's_license! How long have you been putting ideas into his head?! How long have you been screwing him up?!"

I felt sick and dizzy with fear. Everything was starting to spin in a dark and terrifying dance. Nothing seemed logical anymore.

"Rick, what--"

"We were friends, Chris. We were all friends here; we were supposed to look out for each other. I hope you're happy, you goddamn murdering bastard!"

He kicked me once, hard, in the ribs. It drove the wind out of my lungs and put me in a painful wheezing fit. He walked back to his armchair and flopped down into it, staring broodingly over his garden. With his glasses he looked like some ancient vulture protecting its own little plot of land.

My chest burned as I got up. I coughed and swallowed what I thought (with a mounting feeling of astonished dread) was blood and a tooth. Rick only stared out over his little green garden. I wanted to talk to him, to get him to understand that none of this was my fault. I went over to him trying to figure out what I would say.

He just looked at me with sad, hateful eyes. "Get out of here," he growled. "I don't want to see your face 'round here anymore. Just...get out."

I looked at him for another few seconds before finally walking away. So many things were running around in my mind, but the one thing that kept coming back to me was what Rick said.

We were friends...we were supposed to look out for each other...we were friends.

I went up to my floor, the fourth and final floor of the building. When I took the first step off the ladder I looked at the place; and it looked pathetic to me. It was the home of a hermit who didn't know anything about friends, who has never had a friend and wouldn't know what to do if he had one. The habitat of a man incapable of caring for others, who only understood one thing and one thing only; himself.

Sometimes not even that.

I felt like a stranger, an outsider. Everything just seemed wrong, but the word failed to explain how I perceived this whole mess. It was wrong. I took off my clothes and threw them aside. I needed to fucking sleep.

I crawled into bed, hearing the springs creak groan in synchrony with every muscle in my body. Reaching for the nightstand, I grabbed the radio and let it rest beside my head. It always helped me to sleep in the past. I turned it on, and closed my eyes as I heard Pretty Kitty rant and rave about things that seemed like utter nonsense, and things that were half true if you thought about them hard enough.

4

I had nightmares that night. They faded and were lost beyond memory upon my waking, which I suppose was worse than being able to remember them. I lay there and listened to the radio, wanting nothing to do with the outside world anymore. The outside world had become a foreign and unforgiving place to me now.

Just as Pretty Kitty had said in her half-crazy prophetic tirades, the day was growing hotter, much hotter than before. The heat I didn't mind, but the humidity was murder. The moisture in the air made it seem like you were walking through a syrupy gelatin. In the morning, heavy fog rolled in from the lake in the form of a sick yellow mist. It was like living inside the stomach of some hellish beast.

I guess that was appropriate. Life was starting to feel more and more like a cage anyway.

Finally, after some hour's deliberation with whatever conscience I had, I pushed myself out of bed. I realized that with some trepidation that I had to fight today. I sighed, thinking that maybe I'd see Desmond today. I went to the dresser I had specially designated for the Battlefield and put on my gear.

I didn't see Desmond, but I did everything that day. Every challenge, every match, every opponent they wanted me to annihilate, I did. I pushed myself harder than anybody else, and I didn't care about the cuts, gashes, or bruises. The blood let me know that I was working toward a goal. At the end of the day, I had won five cases of pure water and eight thousand dollars (much good the money was going to do me; it was always a good idea to keep it on hand in case fiscal policies change. They tended to do so in a post-apocalyptic economy).

Dusk came again. I was on my way home, weighted down with my remuneration, sweating in my gear as though I had walked through the Egyptian sands when I collapsed. It was that damn humidity, clinging to the city in a thin yellow veil like plaque on a child's tooth. When I came to, I was in a place I had never been before: the infirmary.

At least it had to be: machines hummed and beeped off a sterile composition, some people were moaning in unison. I was lying in a tattered and grayed hospital bed. A passing tigress threw back a curtain, gave me a swift look-over with a curious eye, and said "Congrats, Mr. Bridger. You have Idiot Poisoning."

"Excuse me?" I tried to say something, but she walked away. My gear was lying beside the mattress, so I just got up, grabbed my stuff, and left. If it was a dream, it was a damn weird one. I opened a bottle of water and took a sip. Just then I heard a voice beside me.

"Chris? Chris Bridger? Is that you?"

Maybe yes, maybe no. I pulled a curtain aside and peeked inside. It was Jeff, or at least it looked like Jeff: he appeared withered, like a tree slipping into a silent winter nap. He was wrapped from head to foot in clinical gauze that was bleeding red in some places. His left hand looked kind of shorter than it usually did...until I realized that there was no hand there anymore. It was a bleeding cloth-wrapped stump that reminded me horribly of strawberry ice cream.

"Hey, what happened to you?" I grinned, trying to be friendly. As I stepped closer, he looked up at me and smiled in a disgusted, sardonic way.

"Caught myself in a meat grinder," he said dully.

The big cat told me how he had been called to the arena to fight a number of rounds with some low-ranking fighters, slowly grinding away to make his own name in Freemason's personal guard. But when he had to fight against Sachem, he had to throw that dream into the gold-rimmed trash bin where all dead dreams go.

"The man's a psychopath," he muttered between bruised lips. I wanted to console him, but to be honest I didn't really know him all too well, and as easy to get along with as he appeared, he was still a stone cold asshole underneath. But that didn't make up for the fact that I felt bad for him. We talked for a little bit longer, but when a nurse came in to give him some pain medication I knew my time was up. I started walking away when I heard him say something.

"What?" I said, confused.

"Seven...he's got seven fingers...stay away...sev..."

And he passed into the warm shadows of unconsciousness, leaving me to walk away and wonder.

By the time I got home it was already midnight. Remembering the wonderful talk I had with Rick yesterday, I decided to take the alternate route upstairs.

I was rather proud of it, even though it was a simple dumbwaiter on the outside of the building. All you had to do was step into the little box and pull on the rope, nothing hard there. But the combined weight of my gear and the water made for some rough going. When I got to my floor I saw a pair of small black feet dangling beside a twitching black tail above me.

Placing my gear and water on my floor, I went up to the roof of the building, thirty-or-so feet above the ground. Daniel was there, his nose stuck deep into the pages of a Ray Bradbury novel. I swung my body around and sat beside him, staring up at the moon as the lake roiled and frothed with lampreys. The air was hot and wet, but I breathed it in and savored it. I glanced at the little panther, who remained completely engrossed in the book.

"I suppose you're mad at me, too," I mumbled.

"It's hard to disagree with someone when you haven't heard what they've had to say," the panther said, nonchalantly turning a page.

It was not a quiet night: below the wet splashing sounds of the limitless lampreys were the sounds of people talking, people arguing, people making out. It was a night when everything was happening.

"I don't know what to say."

"You're not off to a good start then."

There was a moment of silence when I stared out over the lake and wiped the sweat from my forehead. The wind wasn't in a very forgiving mood. After a little while, I took a deep breath and began. I told him everything, about Desmond and Carlotta and that Sachem, about the confrontation with Rick my short talk with Jeff. I told Daniel how I had bled for them, how I killed for them, and how I was redeemed by being hit. The panther never looked away from his book, but I knew he was listening.

When I was done, I took another deep breath and waited for what Daniel had to say. He read another page, closed the book with a snap, and looked at me.

"What are you looking for, Chris? Pity? Forgiveness? You won't find 'em talking to me. What you did is your concern, man. I'm sorry, but if you want to find a way out of this hole, you have to find your own way out. Have you ever stopped to think that what you've gotten yourself into is your own fault?"

I sniffed. "So you believe that everything happens for a reason."

"No. I believe that things just happen because we make them happen, and it's up to us to face or adapt to the consequences. Actions have results, and they can be either good or bad. How do you want things to turn out, Chris? If you want something good to happen you have to work for it. Carrots don't grow well without effort."

"That's not exactly a sure thing, Danny."

"There's no such thing as a sure thing, Chris," the little panther said, opening up his book again. This I took to mean that our conversation was over. I got back in the dumbwaiter and stepped onto my floor.

I slept well that night, and I didn't have any dreams.

5

I swung at the skunk's legs, trying to cripple him into submission. He jumped back and started waving his pickaxe toward the crowd; he obviously remembered that half the rank qualifications consisted of proper showmanship. When he had his back turned I picked the ideal target and threw my machete.

It disappeared into the thick trench coat, and the skunk uttered a pain-choked scream as the blade went into his leg. He went down onto his knees, dropping the dangerous pickaxe onto the Battlefield.

I walked up to the skunk (arrogant little punk) and, as per the rules of the Battlefield, asked him if he wanted to call a quits. He responded with a snarl and made as if to grab the pick axe. I reached out and grabbed the handle of my weapon, giving it a little twist. As the skunk gave a simpering growl, I asked him again, and he coincided. Another relatively bloodless win of the day.

Back in the lobby, I looked up at the rosters. Sachem, who had only been in the city for a week now, had already broken into the Destroyer rank, and in another week he'd probably be given a spot in Freemason's guard. But I've got a feeling that he wouldn't want to become a nursemaid to an old man who thought too much of himself.

In the past week, Desmond had unerringly succeeded in surprising me over and over again. Every fight he has been in, he won. Watching him the other day, I felt ashamed of that one morning when I told him not to enter. Right now, the mill had a decent enough stockpile of purified water to be able to sell it now, or maybe give some of it to Rick for his garden. I know he would be happy to discontinue his dependence on the water purification facility. The money had already served its purpose of securing a sturdy lodging position in the mill for all four of us for quite a long time.

It all seemed so great. But as I stared up at the roster my heart went up into my throat when I saw my name in one box and Desmond's beside it, a thin green line between them. Between that slim but very significant line on the computer screen was another one that led up to the topmost box, inside which was the name Sachem.

"Hey, Chris!" I looked around and saw Desmond running up to me, his jacket flapping around his thin body like bat wings. He was smiling.

"Another glorious win for our side. How'd you do?"

I said I did fine. He asked me a bunch of questions that I only half listened to, until finally I stopped him in mid-sentence and pointed up at the roster. I watched his eyes scan the display on the wall, and I saw realization fall over his face like a black cloud. He looked at me with wide eyes, and all I could do was look at him the same way. There was an awkward silence for a while, neither of us saying anything until Desmond cleared his throat.

"So," the fox muttered. "I guess whoever wins this gets to go to the finals."

"No, Des. Whoever wins gets to face a butcher."

"He's not that strong..."

"He's killed everyone that's fought him and the ones that are still alive are brain dead. I don't want to fight him as much as you do, Des..."

Suddenly the fox's face crumpled in anger. He fixed me a hateful stare and crossed his arms over his chest. "I do so want to fight him, Chris, and I'll win the fight, too. I know you don't have a lot of confidence in me, I can understand that, but that's not why I started fighting. You want to know why?"

"Des, please," I started to beg with him as other people started coming into the lobby. Some were staring.

"No! No, goddamnit, I just started this thing, and I'm going to fucking finish it! I'll beat you and then I'll beat that prick Sachem, and then you'll be eating your own words." With that he walked away, through the growing crowd and onto the Battlefield.

I felt sick; adrenaline was surging inside my body, following a livewire course. I had no idea how to get out of this, if there was any way to get out of it. Resolved with this terrible, inevitable conundrum, I went to go get a drink of water.

6

For some time, the world was red. I lay on my back, blood leaking from a cut on my head into my eyes. My body was wet and burning, and it was painful to breath. The pain was nice, though, because it let me know I was still capable of feeling, unlike my left hand, where there was absolutely no feeling whatsoever. I tried to look at it, but I couldn't move my head; it just hurt too goddamn much.

I knew I broke something, several somethings, in fact. I coughed and something wet came up (the image in my head was that of a piece of my lung). It felt like I was in my own personal hell, but the funny thing was that it was Desmond they took away on a gurney. I didn't really see his face, it was turned away from me, which was probably for the best. I could hear people shouting , but it was muffled, like they were shouting from miles away. If everything wasn't hurting so damn bad, I would've got up to see what the commotion was. In the end, I decided that what I needed was a nice long rest. Hell, I wasn't going anywhere anytime soon. I just closed my eyes and sort of "settled into myself." I opened them for just a moment, and what I saw were a bunch of grim-looking faces looking down at me. I felt weightless, and for a moment it felt like I was flying. After that, I must have fallen asleep.

When I woke up, I thought somebody was shaking my little hospital bed. Something metal thumped down with a clatter, somebody shouted, and the bed shook again. Somewhere a young woman screamed, and it sounded horribly like Carlotta. I got up with difficulty, painfully hoisting myself up off the bed. I was driven more by blind fear than by curiosity, and as the screaming and shouting continued I could also smell things. Things like burning hair and smoking cordite from gunfire, things I would rather not like to be smelling in this place.

There were muffled explosions outside, sounding like little popgun shots as the ground shook. For one brief moment I thought the world was coming to an end. I got out of bed (Sweet mother of god how bad was I?) and ignored the pain as best I could as I ripped the curtain aside and looked around.

All hell had broken loose in the infirmary. Two bodies, a tigress and an otter, were lying face up against the wall, the massive bloody holes in their chests blatantly telling the world that survival was beyond them. A long trail of blackish blood spread from one end of the building to the other. Acting out of morbid curiosity I followed the trail to the door, walking as fast as my aching legs could allow.

The infirmary was a small building that hung off the side of the Battlefield like a benevolent growth. It led from the far right side, made a bit of a turn in a small hallway, and led into the lobby. I followed this hallway, hoping to find some trace amount of sanity.

The lobby, I discovered, was just as bad as the infirmary. There were corpses littering the once clean scarlet-and-gold carpet, and a fire was raging near entrance. The blown up photographs were catching like kindling, adding to the flames. I went to one of the bodies and grabbed a knife. I don't know why, but given the circumstance I felt better with it. I picked up a gun, too. There were no bullets, but I grabbed it anyway.

There were screams coming from the Battlefield, making my fur stand on end. I saw that the doors hadn't really been forced open, more like blown off their damn hinges. I held the knife loosely in my right hand, the gun in my left, and I started to walk through the doors, still following the long trail of blood.

7

It was night, but the Battlefield was lit up by an enormous orange light. I looked up and saw a small object hovering over the field, gently falling down to the surface. I saw where it was falling to, and I walked toward it.

There were bodies everywhere, some lying face down, some slumped over the stands like drunks on a Friday night binge at Tom's Place. Some were on fire, but I tried to ignore them. I had to keep on walking to the edge of the Battlefield, the side where there was no wall and where Lake Superior spread out like an evil black blanket. I saw a row of people there, on their knees and staring out at the Lake as a tall, robed figure walked up and down the row, shouting at them in a language I couldn't understand, let alone hear.

Sachem's hood was down, and I saw his black-and-white-furred face, his insane, teeth-lined grin and blazing yellow eyes. His eyes were reflecting the light emanating from the glowing object, making them seem like they were glowing. Suddenly he stopped and grabbed one of the prisoners. He turned him around and kicked him forward, and a cold sense of awe and fear gripped me as I saw that it was Charlie Freemason. The tiger groveled and pleaded on the floor, and he looked every bit as old and inept as people said he was.

I saw Sachem smile and he spoke something in a low voice. The tiger was screaming now as he implored to the wild dog, who brought up his metal-covered arm--the thing physically shifted, actually moved before my eyes. It was so subtle I thought it hadn't even happened, but suddenly there was a terrific explosion and a flash of white fire, and the tiger's headless body fell to the floor on its side.

The arm was a cannon, a gun, but then it shifted again and it became a metal claw once more. Sachem looked up, holding up his arm as though beckoning to the floating object. It fell lower, starting to pulse with an orange glow. It flashed, and I saw that it was a little pyramid, a clear, three-sided pyramid no bigger than a microwave. It floated down to Freemason's body, rotating slowly as it dipped and turned upside down, now looking like some strange icicle. It touched the tiger's decapitated body and gave another brilliant flash, and Charlie Freemason, whose head had disappeared off the face of the earth a few moments ago, disappeared completely.

I saw an assault rifle on the ground and picked it up. They were allowed on the Field during gunfights as long as they were not too overpowering. There was a clip attached, but I didn't know if it was empty or not.

Sachem grabbed the next person and hurled them to one side. He started shouting in that undetectable language and stabbed at the air with his metal hand. The victim looked up at the wild dog. Apparently he said something that the Sachem didn't like, and was promptly kicked in the face. The fox rolled on the floor in pain, and as the light from the anomalous pyramid caught him I thought I could see his face...

Adrenaline shot through me like lightning. I almost couldn't even feel myself bring up the gun--the dog's arm shifted again, becoming a massive guillotine-like blade--take an unsteady aim, and fire.

I saw Sachem's ear explode in a red mist as the bullet tore through it. The wild dog's muzzle hung open in shock and surprise.

Then he saw me. I knew he saw me, because I felt an unyielding cold wash over me when I looked at his eyes. He gave a scream of rage and hate that echoed with horrific intensity in the Battlefield, and I saw his arm shift--

I aimed and fired again. The canine was forced backward by the power of the bullet as it struck his shoulder, he gave a scream as he tripped over one of his captives and fell in a heap near the edge of the platform. I ran forward as fast as I could, the gun bumping warmly against my leg. I felt sad, I felt angry, but above everything I felt terrified.

Sachem was getting up, growling low in his throat. He brought up his arm--it was most certainly a gun now--and I held up the assault rifle. I pulled the trigger, and the wild dog's face erupted in a burst of blood and bone fragments. It was the last thing I saw before the white object that shot out of Sachem's gun-arm exploded beside me in a flash of light and I was thrown into the stands. Darkness took over.

I woke up some time later, feeling as though my head had been put into a blender. It was still dark in the Battlefield. Sachem and the pyramid were gone, and they left behind destruction that had finally been stopped. But I didn't care about that. What I cared about was laying there by the edge of the platform.

I walked across the silent Battlefield, the place that used to bring me so much peace and happiness. I don't know why it did anymore. It used to be my little sanctuary, the one thing that I excelled at. It was just another relic now, a giant trophy to a self-destructive world.

I knelt beside Desmond, wiping away the blood that ran down his nose. I put my hand on his chest to see if he was breathing or not. It was faint and ragged, but he was still alive. I knelt down and kissed the fox on the lips; I don't know why, but it just felt...right. I decided to stay with him until he woke up. I felt tired, so I closed my eyes and just knelt there. I could sleep later, right now I just wanted to be here.

8

Merchant Street was busy today; people announced new products and consumables to the masses, some vendors closed up shop temporarily to buy things from their neighbors. Rick and I stood under the shade of our marquee, talking to an elderly rabbit about the necessity of vegetables. A soft, soothing breeze came up, ruffling the white filigree of the marquee. We sold the gentleman a good three pounds of spinach, broccoli, and some apples. Daniel was inside the building, tending to the full inventory we had stocked up, though I was sure he was reading the Joseph Conrad book I bought him the other day.

Just then Desmond ran up from the other side of the street, his guitar swinging crazily at his side. He had been singing a medley of good old songs from a time long ago, and you know what? He was a good singer, a very good one.

"Hey, Chris. Are we all set for tonight?"

I told him we were. I had secured a decent evening reservation for us at the restaurant (the owner was a stuffy old windbag who was probably just as stuffy before the war, but luckily all that money I saved up was enough; I have a lot to learn about communicating with people). I said we had to be there by 8 o' clock tonight, he told me he'd be there. We kissed, and he walked away quickly, strumming his guitar. I noticed that he had stolen an apple, but I didn't say anything. Rick was giving me an odd look. Whether it was because of the kiss or the apple, I don't know, but I didn't care as long as he was smiling.

"You know what?" I said. Rick asked what.

"It's a damn good day."