赤裸裸的滑稽故事

Alice made her way along the shadows of the building. At first, she didn’t understand why Tomas had acted so nervously and insistent about her sticking to the shadows. But once she had cleared the main house and reached the beginning of the city, she understood.

Autumn was on fire.

She pressed herself to a wall and clung to the shadows as she looked out into the chaos.

Men and women laughed and drank as they beat others to the ground. As they threw bottles lit on fire into buildings, and watched them burn.

All around she could hear the screams of the people losing their homes, businesses, and their lives.

An image appeared in her mind, it a was girl, no more than ten years old. She had beautiful dark brown skin, and pale green eyes. She was crying.

This girl needed her, she was trapped.

Alice shook her head. No, that wasn’t now, not this version.

Alice closed her eyes, taking a deep breath and pushing down the revulsion and the desire to try and save the ones she could. That little voice in her head agreed, but it told her that if she tried to save them, she would only join them in death.

It killed her to ignore the shouts for help, but she needed to survive, she needed to get out of Autumn, no matter what.

It took a long time for her to clear the main part of the city. She heard an alarm sounding from the main house that she recognized as a call to arms.

Alice assumed that meant that Tomas was gone, and they were hunting for her now.

She ran hard and fast, trying her best to stick to the corners and the shadows but desperately hoping to put distance between herself and the main house.

Hearing motorcycles revving and the shouts and hollers of the drunken idiots that were riding them getting closer, Alice had no choice but to duck inside a building.

It was a small run-down old house, it didn’t look like anyone lived there, but then again, she was at the edges of the slums, and a lot of the places where people still lived appeared abandoned.

She held the door shut with her hand and crouched down under the window as the lights of the motorcycles painted the walls.

There was a soft sound coming from the next room, a sniffle, and a sob. Someone was here. As the last light and revving engine passed the street, Alice planned to leave. But the sound drew her attention.

She carefully and quietly made her way into the next room.

A small gasp from the corner drew her attention to a little boy, no older than seven or eight, hugging his knees to his chest. He wore old torn and dirty clothes. His hair and face were covered in mud and muck. The tears he shed were the only lines of clear skin she could see. His eyes were wide with terror.

“It’s ok,” Alice whispered, with a gentle smile. “I won’t hurt you.”

She lifted her hands up to show him she had no weapons, she got down on one knee and didn’t move any closer.

“Are you here alone?” she asked.

The boy sniffled. She wasn’t sure if he would answer. Finally, he shook his head that he wasn’t alone.

Alice looked around the room with her eyes but saw no one else.

There was thump and a groan of the wood from above them. Alice glanced up and then back down at the boy. He had huddled his face into his knees, and the tears had been renewed.

“Is that someone you know?” she asked softly.

He looked up at her, a mixture of fear and sadness in his eyes. A look she recognized.

“It’s my sister…” the boy whispered. He swallowed and then added. “And a scary man.”

Alice clenched her jaw.

“Did your sister go with the scary man?” she asked, keeping her tone even.

The boy nodded.

“He said if she went with him on her own… he wouldn’t hurt me.”

Alice smiled at the boy.

“I’m going to go check on your sister, you stay right here, ok?” She spoke gently.

“But what about the scary man… he might hurt you,” the boy said.

Alice smiled as she stood up.

“I can be pretty scary too,” she said with a wink.

Alice left the room and silently made her way up the stairs. The first two rooms were empty, but she could already hear the disgusting sounds that came from the third.

Even from the doorway, Alice could already tell the girl was dead, but that didn’t stop the bastard on top of her from continuing to defile her body.

Her eyes scanned the floor around her, she found a small shard of glass and picked it up carefully.

She moved into the room. He was completely oblivious to her presence until the moment she grabbed the back of his head and shoved the small shard into the bottom of his jaw.

“You are lucky there is a boy downstairs who doesn’t need the memory of your screams in his head. Or else I would have made this slow and painful,” she hissed as the creature made choking sounds.

She pulled the glass back out and then swiftly ran it across his throat.

He sputtered and then fell back.

The boy would have heard the sound, she needed to get back to him before he got concerned and came to check for himself.

Alice looked down at the girl, she reached down and closed her eyes.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “You didn’t deserve this.”

Alice turned and went to the doorway. She looked back at the girl once more.

“I will take care of your brother; I will make sure he gets away from this hell. I promise.”

Alice hurried down the stairs and found the boy again. She crouched down in front of him and tried her best to give him a warm smile.

The boy looked up and then away.

“My sister is dead, isn’t she?” the boy asked quietly.

Alice closed her eyes and nodded.

“Yes,” she said.

“The scary man?” he asked.

“He is also dead,” Alice replied, wondering if the boy would be scared of her now.

The boy nodded.

“Good.”

***

Alice and the boy, whose name was Stefan, continued their way to the eastern border. They moved between the houses and stopped many times to either catch their breath or hide from those hunting them. Alice had told him where they were going, about the car and where it was located. She wanted him to know, just in case.

“Alice,” Stefan called to her quietly.

“Yes?”

“Thank you for saving me,” he said.

“Don’t mention it,” she replied, looking out for anyone in the street before they crossed.

The riots and chaos seemed to have mostly been kept within the main part of the city. Many of these roads were either abandoned or empty enough for them to go unnoticed.

“Alice,” Stefan called again, once they had returned to the shadows.

“Yes?”

“I’m not alone,” he said.

Alice furrowed her brow and turned back to him.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“My sister and I weren’t born in Autumn,” he said. “We came from Blue Reef.”

“Blue Reef… I thought they…”

“Most of the pack died,” Stefan said. “The wolves from Savage Cove, they attacked and almost everyone died. But they caught my sister and me, and a few of the other kids. My mom had tried to help us escape. But we all got caught and brought here.”

Alice swallowed. Children of Blue Reef brought to Autumn… those Savage Cove bastards.

‘Where are they?! What have you done with these missing kids!’

Alice gasped as she heard her own voice in her mind.

But what kids? Who was she yelling at?

“My sister and I got out of the house this afternoon,” Stefan began, drawing Alice’s attention back to the present. “We were looking for food for everyone. They barely feed us anything. But we got trapped after those people started fighting and lighting things on fire. Then that guy found us…”

“How many of you are there?” Alice asked, trying to keep his mind focused on facts, hoping to lessen the pain of his loss until there was more time for it.

“With me and my sister, there were only six of us. So, I guess, there’s five now.”

“And your mom?”

Stefan shook his head.

“She tried to hold them off, but there were too many.”

Alice pulled Stefan close and hugged him.

“Take me to them.”