The Charred Lands: Apocalypse of Fire (15 page)

“
How can you be sure?”

“
I looked for a while. We even had a meeting point should Haven
have been destroyed but they never shown up. I can only assume
they’re… gone.” I sighed, with a tear in my eye. I thought back to
Oliver’s twisted lesson, in way’s he was right. Men don’t cry – The
Charred Lands is a place for men, not boys.

“
What about everyone else?”

“
My dad died right in front of me. I saw my Grandpa burnt alive
a few feet away too. It was horrible.”

“
You’re a brave kid.” Lizzie said, giving me a half smile, more
out of pity than anything. But even that was enough to make me feel
somewhat better. I guessed that was a close to a compliment as the
girl was ever going to give me.

“
Thanks.” Was all I could think to reply.

After that we
spent the next few hours travelling in silence once again. We would
stop off and have a drink every hour or so, but conversation never
really got interesting again. We were all too concerned with the
task at hand. I couldn’t help but imagine what was waiting for me
in Warrington. A war, no doubt. But was this Lynette Kerslake going
to help me with my quest? Or would she be like Oliver and Phil? I
didn’t know. But with every step we took towards Warrington, my
apprehension grew.

My thought
process was interrupted when Conrad jumped to the ground, ushering
me to do the same. I didn’t see what spooked him, but I did as
instructed anyway.

“
Don’t make a fucking sound.” He hissed at me, his eyes wide
with panic. I scanned the skies, expecting to see a dragon circling
above, but instead I saw nothing but black clouds and smoke. Then I
heard something, and it sounded close. A horrifying, high pitched
screech rang out from behind me. Slowly, I crawled closer to
Conrad, feeling vulnerable even five feet from him. His eyes were
locked on something behind me. I reached him and turned my head,
desperate to see what had created such a hideous sound.

I almost
didn’t believe my eyes at first. Though they had been described to
me many times before, my imagination had never been able to create
something has hideous as these. Two Fiders, each the size of a car
charged at one and other. Much like the dragon, they were coated
with thick, rocklike armour – only brown in colour this time.
Aesthetically, I couldn’t see a single different between the
creatures and a regular spider, the humongous size being the only
difference appearance wise. Each of their eight legs moved in
perfect synchronisation as the two beasts sped across the
woodlands, carefully sidestepping and twisting around trees as they
charged for each other. I was relieved to see that they hadn’t
spotted us, at least, yet.

The two
creatures continued to let out whaling, high pitched screeches
until they clashed. Like an unmovable object hitting an unstoppable
force, the impact was deadly. A loud crunch rang out as they
collided. Each frantically swing their arm sized pincers at each
other, whilst an orange larva like substance spat from their
hideous mouths.

“
We don’t have time to watch this, come on, Zachary!” Conrad
whispered, already rising to his feet, he grabbed me by the arm and
dragged me away. We ran for a good twenty minutes before the sounds
of the two animals battle faded away. It was another hour before I
finally felt at ease again. All the while I had half expected to
see the victor of the fight come hunting us. They ran at a
ferocious speed, there was no way we could have out run it.
Luckily, neither of the Fiders came looking.

The rest of
the journey was relatively uneventful. We camped at night, and
during the days we seemed to walk and walk forever, as though we
were going around in circles, but Conrad was determined, he knew
exactly where we were heading. I had the utmost confidence in him
to get us to our destination as quickly as possible.

Before long,
the sounds of gunfire began to appear in the distance. As we came
closer and closer to Warrington, the sounds grew louder. It really
did sound like we were entering a battleground.

Finally, after
two days of travelling we reached the end of the woods. An old main
road was what welcomed us. It was lined with old, rusty cars.
Hundreds of vehicles stretched on as far as the eye could see, each
terribly burnt with their own human remains inside.

“
An Elder dragon swept across here and fried hundreds of people
as they fled the town back during the early days of the Rise.”
Conrad explained, as though reading my thoughts.

I took a deep
breath and began to cross the main road, carefully tiptoeing
between cars and around debris. Across the road awaited Warrington.
I took a deep breath as I scanned the destroyed town. Each building
had been nearly burnt down or blown up, it looked like a war zone.
It was hard to tell what damage had been caused by a dragon, and
what had been caused by the ensuing war.

“
Are you sure you want to enter there?” Conrad asked, stopping
just short of the edge of the road. I could by his mannerisms that
he wasn’t too keen on heading into Warrington, and after seeing
what it looked like first hand, I couldn’t blame him. Yet more
death and destruction awaited for me in Warrington, I was sure of
this. But that wouldn’t deter me, I had my mission, and every
single thing I cared about seemed to rely on it. Finally, we had
reached Warrington. That was the first phase of my quest complete.
Now I had to find Lynette Kerslake and the second phase could
begin.

I waited for a
moment, thinking things through in my mind. An explosion erupted
somewhere further into the town.

“
Yes.” I finally replied, taking off walking towards Warrington
before Conrad could reply. I was determined to see this
through.

Chapter
Eighteen

I was
surprised to find the streets so deserted. We had walked through
the town and down numerous streets for ages before eventually
decided to stop off in what had once been a pet store. The streets
were littered debris of all kinds. Human remains were a frequent
thing too – long rotten to nothing more than bones though, so it
wasn’t too unnerving.

“
The fighting is taking place in the town centre. That entire
area is walled off, it’s where most of the people in Warrington
live. I’ll be surprised if we bump into anybody in the outer limits
of the town centre, but still, keep your guard up.” Conrad
explained as he closed the rusty pet shop door behind us. The room
was full of old dusty cages, most of which either busted open or
containing animal remains. It was a sad sight, but nothing I
couldn’t handle. It looked as though nobody had been inside here
for decades.

“
Why did you tell us to stop?” I asked.

“
I left something here on my way out, just in case I ever
returned.” He explained, rooting around behind the counter with
Lizzie still attached to him. His statement destroyed my assumption
that the place had been left untouched for quite a
while.

“
What is it?” I asked.

“
This.” He simply replied, placing a handmade bomb of some kind
down onto to table

“
Why would we be needing that?” I asked, my eyes fixed on the
explosive.

“
You never know. It may save our lives in a desperate time.” He
smiled, giving it Lizzie to place in their backpack with their
other supplies.

“
Do you think you’ll need any more ammo on hand?” Lizzie asked
me, feeling around in her backpack for extra ammo clips.

“
I don’t think so.” I said. I had been given three clips for my
handgun, which was to be kept at the ready at all times now that we
were in Warrington. I really hoped I wouldn’t be needing anymore
ammo than that.

“
Alright. We’re ready to go.” Conrad said, heading straight
back out into the streets. I let out a sigh and followed him. I
didn’t like walking around in the open like this, but for the time
being it was our best option. We couldn’t really talk much out
there, unless it was absolutely necessary – every sound had the
potential to alert hiding thieves, murderers or soldiers to our
location. We planned on avoiding those kinds of people for as long
as possible, though it was almost a certainty that we would come
across a few once we reached the town centre.

The closer we
got to the centre of town, the more our surroundings seemed to
become damaged. We were even beginning to stumble across relatively
fresh corpses. Men, women and children of all ages were scattered
across the streets.

“
This looks like The Saviour of Man has already swept through
this area. There used to be quite a few friendly people living in
this area, looks like they’re all dead now.” Conrad explained. I
couldn’t help but internally laugh at how ironic their name was.
The Saviour of Man were the ones doing this to people. Murdering
civilians to make Warrington their base of operations, it sickened
me.

“
Why is this happening?” I asked, feeling a little more
confident about talking now that the sounds of the gun battle only
a mile or so away was drowning out most noise.

“
Their leader is a man named Wesley Theon. He’s a selfish,
arrogant man according to rumours. They feel they’re capable of
destroyed the Dragon population, but feel that to do so, we, the
people, must give them anything and everything that they so
require. In this case, they wanted Warrington as their base of
operations. Of course, the people refused, and now this has
happened.”

“
People killing people, its madness. It’s times like this when
we need to band together, not pull apart.” Lizzie sighed from over
Conrad’s shoulder.

“
That used to be an old sports stadium.” Conrad said as he
turned onto a main road. Now all that remained was a large pile of
rubble. I Saw the words ‘Halliwell Jones Stadium’ written on an old
banner, but I didn’t have a clue what that meant. But it was what I
saw ahead of the remnants of the stadium that really caught my
attention.

A large patrol
of men, some thirty or forty people long, even from this range I
could see that they were all armed to the teeth.

“
Fuck.” Conrad muttered, pulling me off of the road.

“
Which side do they belong to?” I frantically asked.

“
I don’t plan on finding out.” Conrad said, trying to open the
door to a house. It was locked. He took a deep breath before
charging at it, shoulder first. The door splintered into pieces as
he burst inside.

“
Hurry up!” He whispered as he disappeared inside. I didn’t
need to be told twice, almost sprinting into the small terrace. The
interior was dark and desolate, the wall paper had long been ripped
from the walls and pretty much everything inside had been coated
with dust.

“
Here, lie down in here.” Conrad hastily whispered, ushering me
into the front room. He had already placed Lizzie down on the floor
– I quickly lay down beside her whilst Conrad crouched up to the
dirty windows to keep an eye on the squad.

“
Are they definitely heading in our direction?” I dared to
whisper. Conrad didn’t reply, instead he continued on staring out
the cloudy, dank window.

“
They’re close, don’t say a fucking word.” He said, lying
down.

We lay in
silence for a few minutes before the sounds of footsteps and
conversation drifted from outside. All I could do was lay there,
gun in hand and hope that they passed. The patrol didn’t seem to be
in any rush, it was a good five minutes before their mumbled voices
disappeared.

“
Right… I think they’re…” Conrad began to whisper before a
voice shattered the silence of the house.

“
Don’t fucking move!” A deep, powerful voice bellowed out from
the hallway. Everyone shot their heads to the door; where three men
stood, all with their guns trained on us.

“
Throw your guns to the ground.” The same voice commanded. I
looked to Conrad, reluctantly he threw his rifle down. I gritted my
teeth, before doing the same.

“
Just who are you guys, Saviour of men?” One of them
asked.

“
They are, we should shoot them! Then bring their scalps back
to Lynette.” The youngest one said, the last of the three to
speak.

“
Wait!” Conrad pleaded, raising his hands in the
air.

“
What?”

“
Lynette Kerslake?” He asked.

“
Yes, what is it to you?” The oldest of the trio asked, raising
an eyebrow.

“
I know her. She’s my friend,
please
, take us to her!” He said. The
three men exchanged glanced between one and another before the
oldest nodded.

“
Carl, send word to Lynette that we have someone who wishes to
see her, and be quick about it.”

“
Yes dad.” The younger one said, before
disappearing.

“
It’s a good job you got me in a good mood.” Carl’s dad, the
apparent leader of the trio smiled.

For a good
twenty minutes we remained completely silent, being held a gun
point by the pair. From how they looked, I could only assume that
the other boy was Carl’s brother, and also the older man’s son. It
made me think about my father and my brothers, filling me with a
great sadness.

“
So, how did you find us?” Conrad asked, almost laughing; his
voice sounding considerably less nervous than it had done
before.