James was facing the opposite direction from his mother.
Off in the distance, he spotted a flash of a yellow sweater.
There was no doubt in his mind. It was Sadie’s sweater.
His sister had been taken away.
Rage boiled through him. His blood felt hot and his hands felt ice cold.
He acted without thinking.
He sprinted forward, right through the middle of the mob.
Hopefully Sadie was still alive.
If not, there’d be hell to pay.
Either way, there’d be hell to pay.
“James!” Someone was shouting after him.
But his mind didn’t even register who it was.
“James!”
An older man, with a grey beard and a long ragged overcoat was swinging something right at James head.
James ducked just in time, avoiding what looked like a long metal pipe.
The old man lost his balance and went tumbling down into the dirt.
James sprinted forward through too many people to count or really take note of.
His mind was a blur of rage and revenge. Everything was a cloud.
Maybe it was the fog of war, where the events would soon dissipate from his memory, becoming nothing but the cloud vapor of the violence.
The ground was filled with the partially-uncovered roots of the barren trees. The roots laced together, intertwining in unanticipated patterns.
The toe of James’s sneaker snagged on a root, and he went down.
As he fell, time seemed to slow down. He saw his sister off in the distance. Her hair in the sun. Her yellow sweater. He saw her face twisted up in a cry for help as someone dragged her away, through the trees, disappearing from view.
She was alive.
For now.
James hit the ground hard. His nose smashed into the dirt. Blood gushed forth from it.
Someone was already upon him, some desperate person who had once had dignity and been part of a community, who was now reduced to nothing but an animal. An animal who would do anything to get ahead.
What did they even want?
What could they really gain by throwing themselves on James?
The man was heavy, his weight pressing onto James, taking the breath completely out of him.
Someone else was trying to pry James’s rifle from the one hand that still held it. James held on as tight as he could.
But he couldn’t hold on forever.
The metal of a knife blade flashed in the sun. Close to James’s face.
The heavy man had drawn it.
James had to make a decision. Either fight for the rifle or fight against the knife.
Meanwhile, gunshots rang out rapidly throughout the air. His mother and John and Cynthia were there, fighting for their lives. And James couldn’t help them.
He was about to die.
James let go of the rifle, knowing it’d be a problem he’d soon have to overcome.
But if he stopped the knife, at least he’d be alive to face it.
The knife was close to his face.
With his free hand, James gripped the man’s wrist and pulled hard, twisting it back with all his force.
The big man screamed out.
The knife fell to the ground.
James formed his hand into a fist and smashed it into the man’s nose, bringing his fist back with all the force he could.
James felt the hot blood from the man’s nose flowing freely over his hand.
It wasn’t enough. The man pressed down on him.
The only advantage of being trapped like that was that he was shielded from the rest of the mob.
More gunshots rang out. A body near him collapsed heavily. From his position on the ground, he saw the bare feet first, and then the torso falling into view, the neck going limp and the head collapsing on the ground. The woman’s lifeless eyes stared, wide open, right at James.
James needed to get out of there. Time was passing. Sadie was getting farther away from camp.
James’s hand reached for his knife. But he couldn’t get to it. It was in his pocket and the weight of the man was too much to get his hand in there.
James leaned forward, his mouth open wide. He tasted the blood from his nose. He ignored it. Soon he’d be tasting more blood.
He got his mouth around the man’s finger. Fast, before the guy knew what was happening.
James bit down hard. As hard as he could, right below the first knuckle.
His teeth hit something hard. The bone. More blood. Gushing. Hot.
The man screamed, shifting his weight, trying to get his fingers and hand out of the range of James’s mouth.
Meanwhile, the man’s other fist was pummeling into James. Hard. James hadn’t even noticed the blows. Had he been receiving them all along?
His mind was a dark cloud.
Hatred swarmed through him. Hatred for what these men and women had become.
How had they let themselves get this far?
But was he really any better?
Look what he was reduced to.
The man’s shifting weight gave James access to his knife, his hand sliding into his pocket, his fingers wrapping around the knife handle. It felt good in his palm, the synthetic scales of the fixed blade making him feel like he could get out of it.
It was his out. His solution.
James drew the knife from the sheath, using his fingers to keep the sheath steady against the pulling pressure.
It was a simple knife. Max had found it among the pot farmer’s possession and given it to him.
James also had a folding knife that his mother had given him, a Buck 110, in his back pocket. Even if he could have gotten to it, he’d have had to unfold it one handed, which was a tricky feat. His mother swore by those knives, though. Then again, they’d been for hunting. Not hand to hand combat.
James could only move his arm from the elbow up. He drove the knife swiftly as hard as he could into the man’s side.
The knife was buried deep in his side, blood seeping up around the edges of the wound.
The man finally still, James started wiggling himself out from underneath him.
Something crashed into his head. There were people all around. He was completely at the mercy of pure luck as he got out from under there, with the mob swinging things all around.
Fortunately for James, they weren’t in the least bit coordinated in their efforts. They were completely haphazard, nothing but pure chaos.
James stood up, panting, completely exhausted. The corpse of the heavy man lay there. Maybe it wasn’t a corpse. Not yet. There might have still been some life left in those dead-looking eyes.
James was too exhausted, too confused, to take proper note of his surroundings.
He saw it too late.
A machete coming at him. Metal gleaming off the point of the two-foot long blade. A woman wielded it, only a couple years older than James himself.
Everything was happening slowly again. The adrenaline was coursing through him, trying to get his exhausted, depleted body to react.
But James was too slow.
He was moving out of the way, but his feet felt like they were made of lead. He stumbled.
The blade was closer and closer.
James didn’t hear the single shot ring out. There were so many of them. The air was nothing but the deafening ring of gunfire.
The shot struck the woman in the heart. Her body began to fall, the machete still swinging towards James.
The blade missed James’ side by mere inches.
He’d never forget the look of surprise and disappointment on that woman’s face. It was as if she knew she’d been shot, as if she was a child who’d been robbed of the delicious chocolate she’d been promised.
James didn’t look back to see who’d done him the favor.
There were people all around him.
He sprinted through them. They couldn’t necessarily tell him from themselves.
Not that they didn’t fight between themselves.