Fight of the Barens. Part 1.
“Okay, listen, people like Anne Frank wrote diaries, yeah. I mean, what’s the point in someone like us writing one, I mean, there’ll be hardly anyone left to read it. It’ll never get published, Emma, it’s pointless, this war ain’t gonna end.”
“It might do…” She said, hopeful, continue to write in her diary.
“Okay, if it does, do you think you’ll live to see the end of it, huh? I mean, what are the rates now, uh, three in ten people, is it, which die every day, soldiers. Well, we’re not even soldiers…”
“Okay, Mike, shut up. Every time you see me write in my diary you say the same thing. I just want a minute of silence, okay, and you’re sort of… talking, blabbing, across my moment of silence…”
“Okay, okay, sorry. Bloody ’ell, not much to do when we’re not shooting ’em things, is there?”
“Well, you could always pop round to the pub and maybe get killed on the way there…” Emma offered, sighing as Mike started to pull his gun apart and polish it, something he often did when he became bored.
“A pint would be nice, actually...”
“Pint of water?”
“Yeah, don’t think I even have that much in my flask… Maybe enough until tomorrow, if we find a water hole, or a working tap. Think we will?”
“Maybe we’ll get lucky,” Emma started placing her diary on her lap and tying her hair back into a ponytail, “maybe it’ll rain tonight. Kill two birds with one stone, eh? Maybe we can wash our hair, too, mine’s greasy and disgusting.”
“It’s all right.” Mike said, his hand fumbling with the pocket of his uniform. “I mean, you should’ve gone bald like me.” He smiled, running his hand through his hair which had started to grow into the curls he’d originally had in the photographs he’d shown her.
“You think the hairdressers around here are still open?”
“Haha, yeah -”
There was a low growl from the other side of the street, a grey figure appearing from the shadows of the buildings. She took a moment to register the creature, to calculate the time in which it’d take to reach them, to tear at them. It was just herself and Mike on this street, the patrol as they called it, looking out for the creatures which killed more humans in a day than they killed creatures in a month.
“Uh, it’s a… It’s a Baren…”
Mike got to his feet slowly, grabbing the bits of his gun in one arm before tugging at her shoulder with his free hand.
“Run!” He shouted, pulling her up, and dragging her backwards. Her diary fell from her knees, slamming against the cracked ground. She tried to pull from his grip, shouting after her diary as if it’d jump into her hand.
“Leave it, Em! Just bloody leave the thing!”
They ran around the corner, expecting the creature to follow them, expecting to be without a weapon when it attacked, defenceless. They couldn’t hear anything, its claws scratching at the ground, its low growls, but they still rushed into a building and closed the heavy door behind them.
Mike knelt in front of the door, trying to fix his gun together in the darkness.
But he couldn’t see a thing.
*
Connor nodded silently towards Abby without even looking over her shoulder. It was just an experiment; he just wanted to know if there was a pattern. She shrugged her shoulders; her pleads just echoes in his mind. All he had to do was walk through the anomaly, take a sample of the earth and take it back to the lab for analysis.
He had to do this without Lester knowing, or Danny finding out.
“I’ll shout, okay? Y’know, if I… if I get into trouble…”
“What if Danny comes?”
“I think he’s too busy at the pub. This is between us to, okay? I just need another five anomalies, I just need to know if there’s a pattern.”
“I know, you’ve been through this already. I just think you should take Becker or someone with you. Me, even?”
“I’m not taking you. We have no idea what’s on the other side.”
They hadn’t called Becker; it was a late night-early morning anomaly, his least favourite. They’d told Lester they would, though, but ended up keeping their mobiles in their pockets when they left the ARC. Now Abby stood in front of the anomaly watching Connor disappear through the dancing shards of light, regretting every lie they told.
They’d spent over four months together in the past, four months too long behind an anomaly and now she had to lock the anomaly behind him when in the past they’d longed for one to open. It was so easy for her, on this side, all the buttons and the weapons, but she couldn’t help thinking about if she was too late opening the anomaly and something happened to Connor on the other side.
How would she explain that to Lester?
*
There were no vines or plants growing through the dull bricks of the building, he noted. There was also a lack of any sort of soil, just concrete and cracks; there were no plants along the barren street.
He came to a corner and turned, noticing two stumps of wood, a backpack and a small book. The street was disturbingly quiet, windows boarded up, doors replaced with metal blocks. There was no one here.
Connor knelt beside the backpack and reached for the book, the leather cold against his skin. The word DIARY was etched on the leather. If the diary contained notes of dates, as any normal diary would, then he wouldn’t need to find a soil sample. He could just jot it down, or keep the diary; maybe it’d contain important historical notes, just like Anne Frank’s did.
He shoved it into his pocket, his trousers immediately feeling heavier as he walked further down the street. It was as if he was in some sort of film and he’d been the sole survivor of some pandemic. The only one left.
At that thought a tile from one of the abandoned buildings, a few feet away from him, fell to the ground. The slate smashed to pieces, the sound echoing through his ears, masking the sound of further scratching on the roof.
Something caught his eye on the roof, a hunched figure, scratching at the tiles. It was like a bull preparing to stampede, its claws peeling the tiles off of the roof like skin on a tangerine. Connor noticed it wasn’t looking at him; he traced the creature’s spine with his eyes and studied its hind legs and arms.
It was a future predator.
And now Connor was in its line of sight, or rather its echolocation sight. If the creature stopped digging into the roof it’d spot Connor’s heartbeat, it’d be attracted to it.
He had to leave.
Now.
*
“It’s digging into the roof, isn’t it?” Emma asked, looking up as dust fell towards them both as they huddled in the darkness.
“We’re late for the patrol report.” Mike mumbled, shaking his head in disbelief as his ears concentrated on the growls of the Baren.
“Who gives a hell about that anymore?”
“What will we say? I can’t fix my gun…” He scoffed. “Remember I told you I could do it blindfolded…” Emma nodded. “…I can’t. I said it to impress you; I thought you’d be impressed.”
“Why would I be impressed with someone who can take a gun apart and put it back together? If they hadn’t taken it apart to start with they wouldn’t have to put it back together, would they? What good is a broken gun?”
“Where’s your gun anyway?” Mike asked, ignoring her sarcasm.
“In my backpack, any chance I get not to touch the thing I’ll take it.”
“Well, someone who puts their gun in their bag is as bad as someone who takes their gun apart, okay?” He nudged her jokingly looking up at the roof as a spray of light met his glance.
“Can we shut up now and pretend we’re not here?”
But it growls grew louder; it already knew they were there.
*
Connor walked backwards, his eyes stuck to the bony spine of the creature. What was it after? Not that Connor cared, whatever it was it kept it busy and if it was too busy to notice Connor he was safe.
Clang!
Connor glanced over his shoulder at the sound and saw the saucepan full of a sickly-coloured liquid spill onto the floor. Metal on concrete, a sound to the ears of a deadly creature…
It turned towards him, looking as if it was going to pounce at any second. Connor turned too, hoping twenty minutes had passed, hoping Abby had opened the anomaly. He didn’t dare look over his shoulder; it’d be like looking at death before he met it.
Abby’s words ran through his ears as he ran words he should’ve listened to…
“Promise me you’ll come home, yeah?”
“I promise I’ll come home… I’m not going far, just to the other side…”
It was far enough...