The Cull - A Cry in the Darkness

Photo by Brad Helmink on Unsplash

I hesitated for good reasons. Whatever waited for me outside the bus I didn’t know. Bringing a vulnerable child with me was a great risk.

But the woman clung to my feet and wouldn’t let go, pleading with me to stay, desperate, and then she prayed to the god she so dearly believed to change my mind.

Sighing, I momentarily closed my eyes to think things over, to shut her praying voice away from my abysmal mind devoid of emotions.

It was too bothersome.

For a fraction of a second, I wished I had never turned around to find the woman there. Why would she even want my help?

I was a stranger to her, an unfamiliar face, what if I hurt her child? Was she too blinded by dread to consider all options and the consequences her choices would bring?

I reopened my eyes to take a second look at her pallid and hardened face fraught with worry.

I found the boy staring at me out of the corner of my eyes then, cautious, yet much to my surprise, probing as well.

He was clinging to his mum for dear life. I could tell right away that he didn’t share his mother’s misbegotten sentiments and would rather stay here with her than follow me. As he indeed should.

But he was also curious about me, this person his mum wanted to entrust him to.

I wasn’t a good person, though, and certainly not gifted with handling children. I never thought of myself as a maternal spirit. Perhaps he could see that too and was therefore wary of me.

Of course, Helen would have disagreed on that point and said the opposite. She and I were more than just aunt and niece, after all. Ee were close friends.

In the end, the woman didn’t give me a choice. She wasn’t going to let me go, and I wasn’t about to abandon a pregnant woman, whose only purpose was to protect her offspring.

I sighed, then nodded to show her my resignation. Only then did she let go. I rubbed my sore ankles.

The woman was in such pains to keep me put that she dug her nails into my skin and engraved a small, circular mark on it.

She pushed the reluctant boy into my arms. I snatched him as he was about to lose his footing and brought him closer than I wanted.

He smelled of jasmine and vanilla, a combination of fragrances, which was pleasantly surprising.

I never used perfume and otherwise found any kind of smell unpleasant. But this one surprised me in a good way despite the dire circumstances we were in. It smelled like innocence.

He looked up and stared at me like a lost sheep in need of shelter and protection, like a baby still suckling his mother’s sore breasts, too good for this evil world filled with filth, sex and weeds.

I pitied him. I didn’t even know why. I forced a half-hearted smile so he would become at ease, and much to my surprise, he returned my smile.

As I turned around to face the woman and bid farewell, I didn’t know it would be the last time, even though I did doubt she would make it out of here alive.

I also wondered at that moment, as our eyes locked and we made a silent pact, whether we would ever be rescued or simply succumb to our ill fates.

But I couldn’t ask these things to the poor thing, who clutched to her belly and wished upon the stars for a miracle. A sparkle of hope was all she needed to keep her sanity intact.

Even so, I didn’t consider for one second that she truly believed – blindly so - her own beliefs. We were as good as dead.

One only had to look around the gore and mayhem around to know this. Yet she seemed so hopeful and full of gratitude.

I wanted to puke my gut out.

While heading to the front door, the boy seized my hand and hugged it tight.

I didn’t like it. I hated to be touched, especially this abruptly. But it didn’t feel right to tell that to a kid, who may have just lost his mother forever.

I could cope with this much physical contact. It wasn’t going to kill me. I was the adult here so I ought to play my part.

His palms were sweaty and cold. His rigid veins contracted to supply his hammering child heart. Scared.

Callous I sure was but heartless I was not, and never had been throughout my entire life. I was just… weird.

Helen used to do that too at that age, clinging to me like a moth in search of light whenever we went to a playground a few blocks away.

Unlike her peers who’d run around freely with no care in the world, she would keep close to me – far more afraid than anyone her age should be and an absolute coward.

She reminded me of a combination of my big sister and me; split in half, almost, shy of strangers yet unbothered if left alone.

Then again, blood was thicker than water. Had I not known better, I’d say my sister had borne herself – duplicated herself, if you will, into this world but put strains of my genes hither and dither while at it.

I think I was the reason Helen was such a coward. I used to tell her scary stories about child abductions and bestial wolves disguised in human flesh to keep her from talking to strangers lying in wait for sweet flesh.

But I only wanted her to be safe in a world filled to the brim with evil. I had to.

She was kind and gentle at heart, a sacrificial lamb for those who purposely lurked in the darkest hours of the night to take her innocence away, if not her life, from the face of the earth.

I’d rather she fear me and everyone else than fall victim to the hands of those pieces of shit.

She was the most precious thing in this entire world in my eyes. She was the last drop of innocence that reminded me of a time long gone and past, of my own childhood and my lost dreams that vanished along with it.

No, I’d rather she live as a coward forever and be safe than turn stiff and cold somewhere where I could never find her.

“Don’t look,” I told him as we stepped out of the bus and found our surroundings riddled with dismembered passengers as far as our eyes could see.

A lot of them wore gowns, but it was far from the majority I had to admit. Some were severed in half, others decapitated so that their heads lay inches away from their mutilated bodies, while others were shot and then purposely disfigured.

Moreover, from what I could gather in that short period, some cadavers had been lying there for weeks – if not for months. This wasn’t the double-decker’s first trip to this place.

The antsy kid closed his eyes as I instructed and buried his face in my shielding arms.

Now and then, a blood-curdling shriek would emerge from within the forested area to the right of us. Then we would hear laughter and see flashes of lights from the depths of the forest, where the screams reverberated.

I didn’t know where to go at first. My immediate thought was to hide. Yes, hide, but where?

I couldn’t possibly trek miles on no end with a kid stuck to me. I didn’t even know where the roadway led or which direction to go.

I couldn’t risk anything. I promised the woman I would keep her son safe. There was no way he’d make it to the nearest town – wherever that could be.

After considering every possible course of action, I decided to venture to the opposite side of the roadway.

This side of the woods was denser, and I hadn’t heard a single scream come through from it.

It looked as if most of the passengers ran straight into the nearest place possible when the massacre broke out. That is, the right side of the roadway where the forested area was less dense.

I call it a massacre for a reason.

Those black-capped men, whoever or whatever they were, didn’t bring us here for rehabilitation. They brought us here to slaughter us – bump us off and blow our brains out.

These people were not acting on a whim either, no, nothing like that. They were fully equipped to spill blood.

It was a systematic death toll – a death sentence from the higher-ups to cleanse society of people like us.

“Is anne die?”

I was helping the boy climb over the slope at the side of the roadway when he asked me this. This was the first time I heard his quivering voice without an ounce of malice and could tell right away that he had pondered on this question ever since we left the bus.

He knew. He knew that he would no longer be able to see his mum alive. But he wanted me to confirm it, perhaps comfort him with a lie like adults were supposed to do.

But I wasn’t that type of adult.

“I don’t know. I hope not.”

“She- she afraid, there, it dark.”

I followed his gaze to the double-decker bus. He was only five years old, so why did it feel like I was looking at a grown-up?

“I know. Let’s go. We shouldn’t stay here for too long. I’ll go get your anne later. Hmm?”

He nodded. I couldn’t tell the truth in the end. I couldn’t bring myself to do such a cruel thing to a half-human.

I caught up with him as he advanced through the bushes. Something about his dejected gait and slouched shoulders kept bothering me.

“She’ll be okay. I promise.”

He glanced at me but didn’t respond. He knew I was lying. That was when something in my pocket buzzed. I reached into my pocket.

I had forgotten all about the phone. It was a notification from my calendar – a notification of my niece’s upcoming birthday next week.

There was no reception, though.

The boy stopped short, his eyes were wide with utter disbelief as I caught a glimpse of him out of the corner of my eye.

I lifted my eyes off the screen. This was the first time I saw this expression on his face.

“Phone! Phone!” He jumped up to snatch it from me. “Call police! Anne need help!”

“It’s not working, buddy.”

“Not work?”

His wide eyes turned sad in an instant. I patted his shoulder to comfort him.

“You want to go home that badly, huh?”

He nodded.

“Me too. But we can’t do that if we’re too loud, okay? Do you understand what that means?”

“Police come and help anne if we quiet. And little brother.”

“Little brother?”

“Anne say he come soon and play with Ali. He come and play, right?”

“Why not? He’s got such a great big brother. Can I play with you too – even if he doesn’t come?”

He leapt into my arms and hugged me. It happened so suddenly that I wasn’t even prepared for it. I didn’t see it coming.

As I hugged him back, memories of my niece flooded back to me. I missed her. She must’ve grown so much these past fourteen years.

I’d probably not be able to recognise her if I were to see her again. But it was okay. I had no right to complain after what I did.

I had it coming. Helen was better off without someone like me. She was an angel. I was a demon. I would corrupt her.

As we ventured deeper and deeper into the forest, we found a cave at an outcrop. The entrance was hidden by tangled vines and moss-covered rocks. If it weren’t for the kid, who let go of my hand and dashed towards it, I would’ve completely missed it.

Without knowing what caught his attention at first, I scurried after him and found myself amidst a group of other survivors. Five of them.

Amina, she was there too. But she wasn’t supposed to be here.

Continue.