Legend of Mace

                                                                                      By

Copyright 2011 Daniel J Williams

He was a man of many burdens, haunted by the voices of those who had fallen. 
In the middle of a dead city, no one witnessed his latest actions. Few survived to witness anything anyway, living or dead. Walking to the edge of a small pond, Mace stared silently at his reflection. The man that gazed back seemed foreign to him: Foreboding, dark.

Gone was the fit, clean look of a few years back. Bending down to rinse the blood off his arms, Mace gazed intently at the figure staring back. Scooping water up with one hand, he let it trickle down his forearm. The blood washed back into the pond and left a slowly spreading blush that made his appearance shimmer and appear more menacing.

In the back of his head, Father McCann’s voice echoed.
“To embrace the darkness only leads to destruction.”
He’d tried to resist it. He’d tried hard. The darkness lived inside him, though, breathed inside him, and there was never any rest for the wicked. 

Moving silently to the corpses, Mace bent down to gather their weapons. All three men carried some type of firearm. As he checked them, none were fully loaded, one completely empty. They’d drawn first, though, and left him no choice.

Barely acknowledging the bodies before him, he ticked off a number in his head: 87. Those three brought his kill count up to eighty-seven men or women, taken down by his hand, since leaving Kansas.

A part of him didn’t want to kill. He gave them fair warning. Maybe the look in his eyes spooked them. Maybe his apocalyptic appearance made them edgy. Maybe he goaded them into it. In the end it really didn’t matter. They fired first. One shot. It was the last they would ever take.

After picking through their meager possessions, Mace stuffed their valuables in the saddlebag of his large black Harley Cruiser. Going back to the pond, he slapped cold water on the back of his neck, then on the sides of his head. Two years back he’d shaved his skull into a Mohawk. Not only did it give him a fiercer look, but it kept his head cooler through the hot Texas summer. Maybe it didn’t. He didn’t know. Or really care.

He briefly smirked as he recalled the looks on the kids’ faces when they’d witnessed his new ‘do. A week later over half the boys shaved their own heads. Two weeks later they all did. They started calling themselves the Alamo Ninja Mohawk Warriors, defenders of Apocalyptic Neverland.

He fired up the Cruiser, letting it purr quietly as he scanned the horizon. Fixed with a custom muffler, the noise was soothing to the nerves. Streets that defined death were all that surrounded him.

On an early morning patrol, he’d spotted the men from a distance. They’d pulled their weapons as soon as he approached. He tried to reason, but they wouldn’t stand down. The one dumbass took a shot and it was over.

After Kansas, he spent every waking hour building, planning, scavenging or killing to make sure their compound would never fall. It was
the only thing that kept the darkness in check. He’d gained forty pounds of muscle in the last three years from heavy lifting, yet still couldn’t quench the bloodlust.

Camp life revolved around survival. Serving as camp instructor, Jade taught the kids to fight. She used her own technique for self-defense: a blend of boxing, kenpo and jujitsu. It became a regular part of their training routine. Archery and machetes replaced weaponry because of ammo reserves. Spears and javelins proved as useful as slingshots to the properly-trained warrior. Mace embraced it all.

So far he’d outfought, outshot, and outmaneuvered any poor son-of-a-bitch he'd co
me across. Sooner or later he figured his luck would run out and he’d be forced to meet his maker. It was the one thing he feared.

He looked towards the sky and felt nothing. “I know what I am,” he said without emotion. Bo’s voice whispered inside his head. He heard it often.
“You brought that shit into my camp!”
It was all his fault.

Mace stroked his fingers through his thick black goatee, then took one last glance at the dead men. He’d posted their heads on stakes as a warning to others. He put the bike in gear and rolled the throttle. The bike gunned up the embankment and briefly took air before it hit pavement and rolled fast towards their latest compound.

“Shawn, c’mon, take just one bite.”

Mace walked through the door of their abode as Jade struggled to feed the boys dinner. They’d converted one of the officer’s quarters at the Alamo into their home. As soon as he walked in on his family, Mace felt the darkness ebb, and he longed to experience the love that used to be so easily shared with them. All he could do now was pretend. He felt nothing.

“Everybody being good in here?” he asked, doing his best to appear jovial.

Jason was out of his chair immediately. Running to give him a strong bear-hug around his leg, Jason looked up in adoration. “I’m being good. Shawn’s being a pirate!” He turned towards his brother and pointed. “Watch.” Shawn squirmed in his baby seat and threw a handful of food in their direction. It barely made it past the kitchen table.

“See?” Jason said, sticking his tongue out at the baby. Jade wiped Shawn’s hand and said tiredly, “Little man, you need to settle down and eat.”

Mace tousled Jason’s Mohawk then lifted him up, throwing him on his shoulder. “Shawn is part pirate, Jason. That’s the problem.”

Mace winked at Jade and she looked away. Her greatest fear was that Shawn would have some sort of health or emotional problems. Being born after Mace was poisoned by the toxin, they had no idea how it might affect Shawn’s well being. Now that the infected were dying off, they also weren’t sure if it meant a premature death for Shawn and Mace.

Eyeing the body-armor vest, Jade bit her lip. She could see the mark the bullet left. “You run into trouble?”

He caught her focus on the vest and tried to change the subject. “Nothing too serious. It looks like you had more trouble here.”

“You were shot, Mace,” Jade said as she rose to look at the mark more clearly. “How could that not be serious?”

“I want to see it!” Jason yelled from atop Mace’s shoulder. He tried to scramble down Mace’s body and pressed a foot against the injury. Mace winced and grabbed him around the armpits, placing him squarely on the floor. He tried to hide his anger over the move.

“It’s nothing,” he said tightly to his family. He took a slow, deep breath, trying to keep himself levelheaded.

“Where, Daddy?” Jason yelled excitedly, looking at Mace’s body for some sort of bullet hole. “Where was you shot?”

Mace tried his best to appear calm as he took Jason’s finger and placed it on the bullet-mark. “Right there.”

Jason pushed on it and the pain felt sharp, yet warm and comforting. “Are you okay? Does it hurt?” Jason asked much softer, staring at the mark.

“Only a little.”

“Did you kill the bad guy?” he asked, looking up.

“Unfortunately, I didn’t have a choice.”

A wail suddenly filled the room as Shawn got tired of being ignored. Jade moved back towards the baby-chair where Shawn waited with another handful of ammunition. “Bwaaah!” he yelled as he threw food in his mother’s direction. A piece of corn caught her cheek and she drew a frazzled breath as she wiped it off and plucked him out of the high-chair. “Time to get you cleaned up,” she said as he wailed harder. She was three months pregnant with their third child and in need of a vacation.

“I’ll see if Yvette can give you a break,” Mace said as he moved towards the front door. He could only take so much of family life. He wanted to help, but Jade understood his limitations. He’d talk to Yvette then hit the training center.

Walking through the Calvary Courtyard, Mace watched as a dozen kids stopped training to stare. He’d reached a mythical status in many of their eyes. The kid that Woody sparred with stopped to gawk and Woody clobbered him with an elbow to the jaw. The kid dropped.

“Didn’t look fair to me,” Mace said as he passed. The kid on the ground rubbed his chin while keeping his eyes trained on Mace.

“You never drop your guard,” Woody answered with a mischievous grin. “They’ve got to learn that.”

“Just what have I created?” Mace chuckled. Even though it had been over three years, Woody still recalled Jacqueline asking the exact same question. He’d been Peter Pan then. Peter Pan no longer existed. At only eleven, he looked years older. His face grew solemn as he reflected on his past. “A leader,” Woody answered seriously. “One who won’t allow his soldiers to die needlessly.”