The Charred Lands: Apocalypse of Fire (8 page)

The barn still
stood, that’s where Toby and Amber had stayed, under my
instructions. If only I had told Florence to hide in there too,
perhaps she’d still be alive now.

Despite the
blistering pain in my head, I slowly staggered to my feet, the
world around me spun as I desperately tried to gather my balance. I
scanned my surroundings; I couldn’t see a single living soul around
me. Dexter’s charred corpse remained sat in the harpoon turret,
just as Grandpa and Antonia remained where they fell. But my mother
was nowhere to be seen. I didn’t see what had happened when the
dragon crashed down upon the farm house, for all I knew, the
monster could have landed directly atop of her, or worse; she could
have been crushed by any number of the debris that had been sent
flying when the farmhouse collapsed. The Haven grounds were covered
from one end to another in bricks, wood and glass. Not too far from
where the building had once stood lay a large pile of rubble. I
couldn’t help but imagine my mother’s broken, tangled corpse under
it.

“
Mum?” I called out, my voice croaky and dry. I felt ready to
pass out as I began stumbling towards the barn, the world around me
continued to spin.

“
Toby? Amber?” I tried, once again I was met with nothing but
the sounds of Haven’s walls crackling under the flames.

I stumbled up
to the barn door and almost collapsed against it. My entire body
felt weak and my head throbbed like nothing I had ever felt before.
I held myself against the door frame and looked inside. I felt like
my heart had been tore from my chest when I realised that neither
of my siblings were inside. I noticed that several of the guns and
other supplies from before were gone. This gave me hope, though
only a little.

I knew neither
Toby nor Amber would leave here on their own; or would they be
strong enough to take even one of the automatic machine guns – that
meant an adult had been here. I could only pray that mother, Andrea
or even Laura had took them out of harm’s way.

“
Hello?” I tried one last time in case somebody was hiding away
inside, but just as I suspected, nobody replied. As far as I could
tell, everyone had left. But why did they leave me? Did they think
I was dead? The more I thought about it the more the blistering
pain inside my skull intensified.

With a sigh, I
decided that the barn was empty. I turned around to scan the yards
of Haven once again. Still, nothing moved. The dragon’s humongous
tail had managed to knock down a part of the wooden fence that
belonged to the farm animals, they had either been herded away by
someone or all ran away. It felt strange to see the farm yard to
empty.

Even hard to
comprehend, was the fact that a dragon, twice the size of the farm
house lay atop of what was left of the building – the very building
that I had spent my entire life growing up in, the same building
where I had instructed Florence to wait for her protection, when
all that met her was a horrible, crushing death. There was nothing
here for me anymore. Nothing in the farm house was salvageable, of
that much I was certain.

Haven had
fallen. The main house was destroyed, the walls were burning and
several of the small shacks that housed some of our people had even
caught fire. Forty-two years’ worth of growing, building and living
had been reduced to rubble in less than twenty minutes. It was
tough to swallow, but nowhere near as hard as it was to even begin
to comprehend the loss I had just encountered. My Grandpa was dead,
of that much I was sure. I had always somewhat prepared myself to
lose him, because of his advanced age, but for all I knew, every
other citizen of Haven could be dead too. They were my family,
every single person who lived in Haven. I had spent my entire life
on this planet around them. Though I didn’t share my blood with
every one of them, I would have happily spilt it for their
sake.

Then something
occurred to me. Several years ago, I had been told of an emergency
meeting place, should anything like this ever happen. Just over a
mile away was an old forest rangers cabin. It was deep within the
trees, away from any real roads – nobody would ever stumble across
it. We always kept it stocked with emergency supplies and a few
magazines of ammunition. Everyone from Haven had been told about
this place and given directions. I had never personally been there,
though I had a rough idea of which direction to head in. My bet was
that anybody who had fled haven would make their way there and wait
for the others. That’s what I hoped anyway.

I took a long,
hard look around Haven’s grounds before heading towards the gates.
I was about to venture outside alone, for the first time in my
life. I didn’t know what, or who was waiting for me out there – I
could only pray that I could find my family.

I made sure my
gun was loaded and the safety switched off as I jumped over a small
pile of charred wood where the walls had once been. As I stumbled
away from the burning Haven, a sinking feeling began to heighten,
deep inside my stomach. I headed on down a dirt path, only looking
back after a few minutes of walking. Already Haven was beginning to
disappear into the distance, I doubted I would ever see it again. I
knew that life would never be the same from this point on. Any
remains of my childhood had been destroyed, all that waited ahead
for me now was hardship and suffering. Very few people lived
comfortably in The Charred Lands. I happened to be one of those
lucky enough to be born into a stable environment, with a loving
family around me, but no more. For the time being, I was injured,
alone and soon to be lost. I couldn’t even begin to think what my
next move would be, should I be unable to find the ranger’s
cabin.

Chapter
Ten

I walked for
what felt like hours. Each step seemed as though I was dragging my
feet through a thick mud puddle, every muscle in my body ached and
the pain in my head was relentless. My legs felt like tree stumps,
every step seemed to nearly drain me of energy. I had never felt
this destroyed in my life. From a quick feel around, I had realised
that whatever had knocked me out cold had also given me a nasty
gash. Dried blood stained the entire left side of my face, as well
as pretty much half of my already scraggy t-shirt. My body felt
like it was ready to give up on me. In reality, I had only probably
been walking for twenty minutes at an excruciatingly slow pace when
I finally collapsed against a tree. Not only was I physically
exhausted, but I was mentally drained too. My glasses had been
broken beyond all hope of repair. Without them, my vision wasn’t
too bad, but I often struggled to read and suffered from headaches
– reading wasn’t a problem out here in The Charred Lands, but a
headache toppled with the nasty gash on my head might be quite a
problem. I felt like my late Grandpa probably did on a daily basis.
That thought suddenly filled me with a great sadness.

I pushed
memories of my Grandpa to the back of my mind as I forced myself to
my aching feet once again. I couldn’t allow myself to stop, not
only would my body stiffen over, but my mind would be given the
time it so badly needed to properly process today’s events. I
couldn’t afford for that to happen, not yet anyway. There would be
a time to mourn the dead, but that time would come when I find some
level of safety. I couldn’t afford to break down, not out here in
the middle of these woods. That could be fatal. I had to do
something I had never been able to do in the past – turn off my
emotions.

Before I had managed even three steps I heard something just
off to the right, behind a small row of bushes. I shot my head in
that direction and aimed my gun on the foliage. I thought back to
when I had shot the dog on my first recon – I had to be steadier
this time. I couldn’t afford to be trigger happy, knowing that my
family were likely wondering around this area too. For a few
moments I stood in utter silence, barely able to take a breath for
risk of making a sound. Then I noticed the blood. The leaves of the
bush were coated in fresh
blood
. As much as I didn’t want to
risk attracting something hostile, I knew I had to do something. I
couldn’t risk leaving a fellow Haven citizen to potentially bleed
to death in the bushes. I took a deep breath and started slowly
pacing towards the blood stained bush.

“
Hello?” my voice coming out as nothing more than a
whisper.

“
Zachary?” A weak voice called back from out of sight. I
recognised it instantly.

“
Dad!” I almost screamed, suddenly the pain coursing through my
body subsided as I charged through the bush. And there lay my
father on the other side. His clothes bloody and his face pale. My
father lay resting against a tree, judging from the puddle of blood
around him, I would hazard a guess that he had been lay here for
quite some time.

“
What happened?” I cried, collapsing to his side. I placed a
hand on his pale face. His skin was cold to my touch, as if all
happiness and life had been drained from his body.

“
Timothy… He shot me.” He coughed, sending a shower of phlegm
and blood flying from his mouth. Even talking was a great
difficulty. Before I was able to even begin to comprehend what he
had just said, he spoke again, “What are you doing out of Haven?” A
thousand questions began to rush through my mind, but still I
managed to regain enough focus to give him a reply.

“
We… we were attacked. Haven’s been destroyed, a dragon did
it,” I said, deciding not to tell him about Grandpa. Hearing such
news in his current condition could finish him off. From the look
of his cold, pale face, he didn’t have long left, I didn’t want one
of the last things to run through his mind to be the fact that his
own father had just died a terrible death... I sensed a great pain
in his face, from the news. He let out another grimace of agony,
this time more emotional than physical.

“
Where have you been shot?” I asked, turning my attention to
more urgent matters.

“
My stomach. But don’t worry about that Zach. Even if we had
Haven, I’d still be a goner. I’ve lost too much blood
already.”

“
Don’t say that!” I almost spat, pounding my fist against the
tree he sat up against.

“
It’s happening, alright?” He said, sounding surprisingly calm.
That’s when I realised – he had already accepted his impending
death. Tears immediately formed in my eyes.

“
You were just waiting to die here, weren’t you?” I sighed,
biting my lip to save me from erupting into a whaling torrent of
tears and sobs.

“
Yes. But I’m happy that you’ve found me, now perhaps my death
won’t have been for nothing. You being here, it’s comforted me so
much. The thought of slowly bleeding out against a tree all alone
scared me.” He half smiled.

“
Why did he shoot you?” I finally asked, the question had been
burning itself in my head ever since father had told me of his own
brother’s betrayal.

“
We had an argument. I couldn’t just stand there whilst he
destroyed the eggs…” He sighed.

“
So your own brother shot you over the fucking eggs!?” I spat,
feeling my great sadness slowly begin to be replaced by anger. How
could Timothy do this!? I knew that the pair didn’t fully agree on
the best course of action for the eggs, but now it seemed as though
it was all for nothing anyway. Haven had been destroyed, and I’m
assuming it happened before Timothy and father had even confronted
each other over their disagreements.

“
Well where are Brandon and Ruby?” He finally asked, getting
yet another pressing question off my chest. I still had so many
more to ask, but judging from my father’s increasingly sporadic
breathing, something told me I simply didn’t have the time to ask
them all. I began quickly chalking up a mental list of all the
things I needed to ask him, not only about what happened, but any
final questions about surviving alone in The Charred Lands.
Directions to the ranger’s cabin would have been useful
too.

“
He pulled his gun out and shot me without any warning, Brandon
and Ruby tried to pull out their weapons to defend me, but before
they even managed to ready their weapons Timothy had turned on
them. I watched him put a bullet right between Ruby’s eyes. My own
fucking daughter.” My dad spat, before erupting in a coughing fit.
So now Ruby was dead too. Seeing my Grandpa dying at the hands of
the dragon hurt. It tore my heart out, but it was easier to
comprehend than trying to imagine just what would have possessed my
own uncle,
Ruby’s
own uncle to murder her in cold blood. A small, dark part of
me had always been prepared to lose my grandpa. He was an old guy,
especially in this day and age, but not Ruby. Then my mind turned
to my brother. I waited for my dad to finish his coughing fit
before asking, “What about Brandon?” I finally asked, with a gulp.
I was dreading his answer.

“
Timothy shot him too, I’m not quite sure where, but he fell
behind a bush and didn’t come back out… Think of that what you
will. Timothy quickly destroyed all of the eggs, all but one,
before running away like the coward he is, leaving me to bleed
out.”

“
Why did he spare one of the eggs?”

“
I was holding it when he shot at me. Truth be told, he might
have even been aiming for it when he fired. I don’t know, perhaps
I’m just trying to find a logical explanation as to why my own
fucking brother shot me. Your Grandpa’s going to murder him; he
absolutely adored Brandon and Ruby. That’s if he’s stupid enough to
head back to Haven without a fucking brilliant cover story.” He
sighed, his voice sounding weaker and dryer by the
minute.