Chapter 34 Rampage
RAMPAGE
Einar’s silent rage at losing Lena was infectious. In combination with the collective hatred for Bonifacio’s erstwhile inhabitants, it served to dispel the fear that had hung over my archers like a grey, rainy cloud ever since the deaths at Corte.
We entered the citadel boldly, rushing in with our bows ready, and we romped through the maze of narrow alleys between tightly packed townhouses.
Confident of our advantage, we spread through the cobbled streets evenly and lured the furies out with angry shouts before converging again at a square between a chapel and an imposing grey church with a turret-like tower.
Some of us continued onward in the direction of the marine cemetery at the peninsula’s end, scouring the much less condensed part of the town, whilst others turned back towards the natural centre of the fortress, retracing our steps.
Once the furies stopped coming out to be greeted by our arrows, my splendid soldiers wordlessly split into little groups of two or three and began searching the houses one by one, kicking down doors when necessary.
Einar went alone, with an alarmingly unhinged, bloodthirsty expression, carrying an axe instead of a bow.
I, too, did not pair with anyone and focused on inconspicuous, easy-to-overlook nooks and crannies.
Overall, it was perhaps the most anti-climactic clearing we had ever carried out.
There were thirty of us and not even twice as many furies; I myself only killed three that day.
I alone came across about seven people who were already dead, shot before fully turning, by the looks of it.
Most were burly men, some dressed in bikers’ leather despite the scalding heat, but some were young women who were strikingly beautiful even in their death.
Two of them were in advanced stages of pregnancy. Our victims as well as theirs.
As the shadows lengthened on the burning, stony ground, our hunt gradually turned into a clean-up.
We carried the bodies onto a pile at the space in front of the plain, unassuming chapel.
We counted seventy-two dead; fifty-one men and twenty-one women.
Though we weren’t entirely sure about the men’s count, as some of those that Einar had come in contact with had been hacked into several separate pieces.
All those limbs separated from their original torsos may have skewed our calculations.
Our work was more or less done then, but everyone radiated nervous energy, the anticipation of a fight that never took place.
We continued to wander about aimlessly, taking stock of supplies so plentiful they seemed a miracle to us.
“Ten sacks of rice! A pharmacy’s here, full shelves!” I heard occasionally, passing through the cooling streets.
I walked on, feeling numbly tired and weightless like a ghost drifting through a city of the dead, unable to join in the excitement at discovering our new riches.
At one point, Cyril killed the final fury, a man who had been shut in a wine cellar, likely depleting its supplies in his final hours before turning.
“Renny, come and see!” Rushing in from behind, Russ threw an arm around my shoulders. “Come quick.”
He turned me around towards a long building opposite a clay-roofed church, one with a dignified, gate-like entrance.
Perhaps a town hall? Pushing me inside, Russ practically dragged me into a large, rectangular room.
Einar was already there, his broad back turned to the entrance.
He was spattered with blood from head to toe, and there was a less than sane glint in his eyes, which were fixed on the assortment of weapons laid out on tables.
Rifles, guns, revolvers, semi-automatics, types that I was unsure what to call.
A few crates of ammunition—clearly disproportionately little of it compared to the number of firearms. And right next to them, two crates of grenades.
“Damn,” I exhaled, astounded, just as Russ whooped with glee next to me, pounding my back excitedly before hurrying to take a closer look.
Einar turned to me, a jubilant smile already tugging at his lips.
“You’ll need to scrub off again,” I pointed out.
“Well worth it,” he replied smugly, despite wincing at the prospect.
“Where the ’ell is Albert?” Russ asked. “He’ll go bonkers when he sees this.”
“Of that I am sure.” I nodded, not nearly as happy about it. “How? Just how did they get all this? And why didn’t they use it for something better than robbing other colonies?”
Russ didn’t pay any attention to me, exiting the room with an additional whoop. Einar shrugged.
“I’m glad they didn’t. Because now I get to play with them.” He rubbed his hands before fixing his sight on me, the look in his eyes instantly mellowing out. “I wish I could kiss you right now.”
“So do I. Too bad you’ve decided to go into full psycho mode ...”
Some time later, just after dusk had set in, I found myself walking aimlessly towards the edge of the little peninsula.
I strolled between white mausoleums in the marine cemetery, the tombstones gleaming ominously like teeth protruding from the earth, softly moist due to the close presence of the sea.
There was a large ruin of a house that had perhaps served as an office for the cemetery at one point.
Right then, it seemed to have a different purpose altogether.
Multitudes of army green petrol cans littered the clearing at its front, and its door was open.
I entered cautiously, bow at the ready, and the fuel’s smell was sharp in my nose.
I froze as soon as I saw the person inside.
It was Albert, surrounded by a dozen or so canisters.
I had a nasty, dropping sensation in my gut for a reason I could not quite put my finger on.
“Renny!” He smiled at me, looking me unsuspectingly in the face. “This will last us forever.” He spread his arms to indicate the bounty of our loot. “I take back all I said. This plan was genius. I can’t believe it’s gone off without a hitch.”
Anger bubbled up inside of me. How could he even say such a thing? How could he not even think of Lena, cold and pale with death, wrapped in a sheet and hidden away back at the campsite? But that was Albert, compartmentalising so efficiently that it made him wholly oblivious and often inconsistent.
I said nothing and only nodded, paralysed with dread, which I was refusing to address.
“Will you help me carry some of these out or are they too heavy for you?” he asked, sizing me up. “They probably are, actually. Don’t bother. I always forget how small you are.”
He pronounced small with his characteristic hard, rounded ‘o’, and he smiled at me good-naturedly, in a way that perhaps suggested he found me cute and endearing, much like a kitten.
There was nothing sexual or even remotely aggressive in the way he stared at me, and for the first time ever, I very much wished that there were.
My terror bloomed like frost on a windowpane. Fragile, disorderly, beautiful in obscuring my clear view.
“Albert ...” I rasped.
“What? What is it?” He stopped to put down the canister he had just picked up.
He turned to face me, the urgency of my voice not lost on him.
In my mind’s eye, I saw his bow, propped outside against a wall. Albert was unarmed. And yet I had never known true fear until I lifted my own weapon and aimed at him.
“What are you doing?” he exhaled incredulously, and even in the dim light of the shed, I saw the blood drain out of his face until he was white like the polished stone of the tombstones outside.
I was looking right at him, but it was Monika’s face that gazed back at me instead of his. Monika’s tender, young face, bruised by his hand, her front tooth split in half, the salt of her own tears burning her wounds.
“I think you already know the answer to that,” I whispered, my heart hammering hard against my ribcage
“You can’t!”
“Why not?” The pressure in my neck and my head increased from the onrush of boiling blood. “Given the circumstances, why couldn’t I?” I echoed words spoken once a lifetime ago on a distant plain.
“You’d get lynched for this! You’d split up the colony! You’d start a war!”
The colour was returning to his face, and his forehead glistened. That alone made it so much easier.
“Only if someone finds out I did this,” I pointed out, hardness creeping into my voice.
Albert heard it, and his breathing got louder and shallower.
“Who do you think they’ll blame first when they find me shot?” His voice shook, and his eyes darted around in panic.
“They’re not going to find you shot.”
My eyes must have inadvertently darted towards the canisters because Albert glanced at them too and whimpered, wobbling as if his legs were about to give out. Liquid trickled down his leg and pooled yellow around his left shoe. I tried my best to ignore the sharp stench of ammonia.
“Renny, don’t,” he pleaded, his hard accent more pronounced than usual. “You don’t want to do this. I’ll not be so hard on Monika anymore. I’ll let her live on her own. Come on, you’re not this kind of person.”
His face crumbled into a wet heap.
“Oh, but I am, Albert. You said so yourself, remember? You called me a psycho. For once, you weren’t wrong.”
And then there he was, just as I was starting to think that I couldn’t go through with it. The angry Albert, the one with his ovoid face red like a baboon’s ass. And I knew then that we had reached a point of no return.
“You bitch! After all that I have tolerated from you, all your transgressions that I’ve excused ...” he roared and raised his hands, balled into fists.
Not allowing myself to hesitate for a minute longer, I let the arrow fly.
Albert collapsed to the ground, twitching for a few long seconds before lying still.
My breathing was ragged, my heart beating fast in panic, but I did not dare take a moment to calm myself down.
Every minute spent there was a minute more when somebody could catch me.
And I absolutely couldn’t allow that to happen.
Not for fear of consequences to me. Never that.
But because Einar would find out what I did if I were caught.
Convincing myself resolutely not to vomit in doing so, I walked over to Albert’s body and pried the arrow out of his eye socket, dislodging the eye from its tip before returning it to my quiver.
There was a cloth on the ground, already strongly redolent of petrol, and I put it in my pocket. I searched Albert’s pockets for the packet of cigarettes I knew he always carried on him and I took the lighter out.
Then I uncorked one of the canisters and lifted it up with effort.
Albert had been right; it was too heavy for me.
I poured petrol over the body and then all around it.
I strode outside, leaving the door open, pouring more gasoline on the ground as I went.
I threw the empty canister back inside. I grabbed a piece of wood from the collapsed roof, wrapped the soaked cloth around it and lit it.
It inflamed instantly with a whoosh, and I set it to the ground upon the flammable trail that I had created.
It caught fire, and the flames then raced inside.
Turning on my heel, I ran, passing the canisters that Albert had managed to carry out, wondering if they would be spared from the fire. I hoped so; they were valuable, and I had already robbed us of whatever had still been left in the shed.
A loud explosion behind hastened me, and I pumped my arms and lengthened my step until my lungs seared with exertion as well as with hot smoke.
I didn’t stop until I reached the centre of the peninsula, which had grown loud with celebration in my absence.
Unnoticed by anyone, I threw up violently into a trash can overflowing with pre-pandemic rubbish.