The Search for Gram (37 page)

One week before graduation, all hell broke loose.

It was rare for us to have a family dinner.  Our mother would get the rations from the local store, sell half of them to pay for her drug habit and leave the rest in the cupboards for when we felt peckish.  There was never enough, really; it wasn't unknown for older siblings to steal food from their younger siblings.  But Trevor was feeling full of himself for some reason and he’d actually paid for a
proper
dinner, one that tasted of something other than recycled cardboard.   We were just sitting down to eat when the door unlocked and a stream of masked gangsters raged into the apartment.  Trevor, it seemed, had alienated someone during his desperate struggle for power.  That person - and I never found out who - had decided to nip this upstart challenger in the bud.

Resistance was futile, but I tried.  I knocked one of them out before four more slammed me down and tied my hands and feet with duct tape.  Trevor was slammed down too, despite his fearsome reputation.  Dare, only seven, was thrown against the wall so hard that it cracked his skull.   He died instantly, I hope.  Linda and my mother were not so lucky.  By the time they died, they’d been raped so savagely that death would have come for them anyway.  And Trevor?  I had to watch as they cut him open and bled him to death. 

I don’t know why they left me alive, when they’d finally finished their ghastly task.  Perhaps they wanted someone to spread the word, just to make sure everyone
knew
they were bastards, or perhaps the drugs they were taking as they had their fun interfered with their thoughts.  It took me hours to wriggle free and, when I stumbled over to the cot, I discovered that my baby sister was dead.  They’d put a pillow over her head and ...

My family was dead.

The Undercity doesn't encourage you to care.  I knew people who had quite happily done horrific things to their families and gotten away with them.  Trevor probably
would
have sold his younger sisters for power, if he’d been asked.  And yet, I felt a pang as I stared down at their bodies.  None of them had
asked
to be born, nor to grow up in hell.  I forced myself to close their eyes, then step back from the bodies.  There was nothing else I could do for them.

I knew there was no point in reporting the crime.  No one would give a damn.  It wasn't as if anyone in the Undercity had
friends
.  Hell, I was sure the neighbours had heard the screams, but they’d done nothing.  And I knew there was no point in trying for revenge.  I didn't know who to target, let alone where to find them.  All I could do was shower, change into something clean and search the apartment for money before leaving and closing the door, one final time.  I have no doubt that our neighbours broke in the following day and took whatever they wanted, but I have no idea what happened to the bodies.  They were probably carried to the nearest trash chute and dumped in.

Using some of Trevor’s money, I boarded a tube and set off for the recruiting office.  I was an orphan, without parents.  There was no one to grant me permission to enlist - and no one who could object.  Maybe the military would take me ...

... Because, as I knew all too well, there was nowhere else to go.

This is the end of the free excerpt from “First to Fight” by Christopher G. Nuttall. Want more? “First to Fight” is available at:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B010E9QZJG
.

Did you like “The Search for Gram?” Take a look at “Mako” from author Ian J. Malone.

A down-and-out history professor leads a team of old friends to virtual glory as the first-ever group to beat Mako Assault, a revolutionary new game that has emerged from nowhere to take the online world by storm. As a reward for their achievement, and under the guise of publicity, the group is flown to meet the game’s mysterious designer, only to learn that Mako’s intent was never to entertain its players… but rather to train them.

An epic science fiction thrill ride of action, suspense, laughter, and romance; MAKO is the story of five ordinary people rising to the challenge of extraordinary events, driven only by their faith in each other.

Reader’s Note: The Mako Saga continued in 2015 with the release of “Red Sky Dawning,” book two of the series.

What readers are saying:

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