Pahnyakin Rising (11 page)

Shepherd glanced to the next picture and called, “Miranda Carter.”

The crowd did not separate for Miranda.  She angrily pushed her way from the near-front of the crowd. 

This woman was already confrontational.  She pressed the silk scarf she had folded over as a headband over her dreadlocks. 

Instead of taking the picture from Lyle, the woman attempted to scale the side of the stage.  She clawed at the wood as two guards grabbed her upper arms and pried her away from the raised platform.

“Escort her out of here,” Shepherd barked.  “She can come back in when she’s calmer.”

“I won’t be calmer,” she screamed.  “I will never forgive you, Dresden.  You told me it would be okay.  Look at what you did.” 

The woman snatched the drawing from Lyle and shook it in Dresden’s direction.  Tears formed in the teenager’s eyes as she viewed the wavy picture of Miranda’s husband. 

“Jacob died for your stupid decision.  You promised us it would be safe.  You looked me in the eyes and promised me, Dresden.”

Dresden did not have to know these people to feel their pain, to be consumed with guilt over something she knew she did not do.  It wasn’t the person she was now, at least.  What had she become in the future?  She was viewed as a deadly, cold, shoot-now-ask-questions-later killer, and the realization of what she grew to be was overwhelming.  Her chest tightened and she gripped Dodge’s hand.  He turned his head to look at her, praying this was the moment, but she was staring at the ground.

“I said get her out of here,” Shepherd repeated.  He snapped his fingers towards the front exit.

Miranda’s yelling continued as two guards dragged her kicking and screaming out of the building.  Dresden glanced to her left and could see the woman pacing on the front sidewalk.  In the building, the crowd revolted.   

“Just stop,” Nick ordered in a failed attempt to control his people.  There were still several more papers on the podium. 

“This isn’t right,” someone shouted.  “It isn’t right that you punish one of us and you let that thing up there live.”

“Calm down,” Nick repeated, growing impatient with the uproar.  “People.”

Shepherd sucked his lips inward and slammed his palm on the podium before reaching to his back waistband and retrieving a Smith & Wesson 500 Magnum.  He flipped the safety switch and pointed the gun towards the 20-foot-high ceiling. 

Dodge, without hesitation, spun Dresden with a hard yank against his chest and tightly pressed his dry palms against her ears until the shouts of the crowd became garbled and fell silent with a muffled bang of Shepherd’s revolver.  The girl lifted her gaze and their eyes met.  Her lips trembled and she fought tears.

“You’re okay,” Dodge shouted unevenly. 

The ringing in his ears left him unable to hear clearly.  Dresden turned to see the crowd dissipating where fluffy gray cotton candy chunks of asbestos were falling to the ground.

Nick returned the revolver to his waistband.

“We’re not doing that again,” he threatened the crowd.  “There’s going to be some order here.”

He paused and Dresden touched her fingertips to where Dodge’s palm had covered her right ear.  Her skin was still warm and her cartilage ached from the pressure he had applied.

“I ordinarily would not do this, but I am someone who listens to my flock,” said Shepherd to the crowd.  “We need answers, and we’re going to get them today.  Dresden is going to take the microphone and answer questions.”

The girl frantically turned to Dodge with wide eyes.  “I can’t do this.”

“You have to,” he urged.  “Let them know you’re going to lead again.”

“But I can’t be a leader.  These people hate me.”

“Come up to the podium,” Shepherd directed.

She looked to him and shook her head in refusal. 

“Dresden,” Dodge persisted, offering her a gentle push, “you’re digging a deeper hole here.  Go over there and say something.”

“Why can’t you?  You know what’s going on and they respect you, right?”

“Because of you,” he blurted out incredulously.  “Go.”

The crowd stirred with whispers until she turned and approached the podium. 

She bit her lip as she stood in front of the stand.  Three times she looked to Dodge for answers but returned her focus to the people in front of her.

“I-I,” she stammered.

A man at the back of the room shouted, “Where have you been?  Why did you kill all of those people?”

Her mouth hung open until her lips were dry.  With every passing second of her hesitation, the crowd grew more unsettled.

“I’m not the person you think I am,” she blurted out. 

As the crowd grew frustrated and some of the audience members booed her and shouted, Dresden turned to see Dodge’s hands covering his face in disappointment.  He groaned and shook his head.

“I’m not a killer,” Dresden said in an attempt to tame the crowd.  “I don’t remember a lot of what happened here.”

The people were quieting and it became obvious, as she repeated her story in her mind, that she had to make up something.  She had to play the part if she wanted to live. 

She lied, “What I thought was the right choice before was clearly not.  You people have paid the price, and it’s despicable to see me standing in front of you with little recollection of this community.”

Some shouted in agreement, their words spreading like poison throughout the abandoned factory.

“I’m not one hundred percent.  I need time.”

“You’ve been gone a year,” Eleanor said as she looked at Dresden.  “How do we know you’re not one of them?  You show all the signs of being reprogrammed: you have memory loss and you wouldn’t kill that Uni.” 

The woman addressed the crowd.  “Why is Shepherd letting her live when it’s clear she has a Pahnyakin directive now?”

That was all it took to disturb the people.  They nodded and shouted.

Eleanor’s voice continued to rile the people of Easton.  “We need to throw her in the Rising, let her feel what we’ve felt.”

Dodge reached the podium as the audience clapped and jeered.

“Move,” he instructed Dresden.

He pointed to a thin, balding man in the front row.  “George,” he said.  “Do you remember when Lina tried to sneak out and do her own run?”

The man shifted uncomfortably but nodded.  His cheeks were on fire.

“And what did you do?  Huh?” Dodge hissed as the crowd listened.  “You came to us.  And Dresden went out and ended up with a sprained wrist and almost got herself killed because your daughter wanted batteries for a game.  For a video game,” he emphasized, “when everyone in this damn room knows it’s impossible to make any of that kind of crap work anymore.  And we never said anything to anyone.”

Lina, fifteen and taller than her father, opened her mouth to speak, but Dodge cut her off.

“I don’t want to hear it.”

He pointed over the crowd and to his left.

“And Megan.  What happened when you hit your head outside of these walls and had amnesia for three days?”

There was a muffled, sheepish reply that Dresden could not understand.

“That’s right,” Dodge said heatedly.  “Dresden lied for you and stayed up with you day and night to make sure you were okay.  She didn’t try to kill you.  She
trusted
that you were you.”

He pointed to Dresden.  The girl stood with her hands clamped over her abdomen.  She wanted to throw up. 

“Can one person in this room honestly tell me this woman has not saved your life in one way or another?  How many of their attacks did she foil? How many times has she risked her life to make sure we all had food and water? And now you people are acting just like the man that you all complain about.”

Shepherd took a step forward. 

“Yeah,” Dodge said furiously, “I’m talking about
you
.  How many people have we lost since Dresden’s been gone?  How many more do we have to lose?”

He addressed the crowd again.  Dresden noticed a long knife poking out from under the hem of his shirt.  She had not seen him attach the knife to his belt loop before the two left the house.  She squinted her eyes at a bulge at his left ankle.  He was carrying multiple weapons.

“Look, I’ve lived through the pain with you.  Russ was a good man.  Jacob was a good man.  Peter, you lost Lillian, and I’m sorry.  And as confused as I am that the woman I thought was dead for a year has shown up—as
angry
as I am for what she put me through, put us through—I know she is what we need, and you know it, too. We all make mistakes, and nearly every single person in this room has put someone else in danger.  But she has always been the one to dig us out of it.  We’re dying here, guys, whether you want to accept that or not.  I know this woman better than anyone, and I can tell you this is Dresden. ”

Nick shoved Dresden aside and pushed to the get to the podium.  He stood at Dodge’s left and asked, “Then why couldn’t she kill it?  And why doesn’t she remember anything?”

Dodge hesitated.

“That’s right,” Nick laughed.  “Because she’s one of them.”

“She needs time.”

“No more time,” a woman from the audience screamed. 

Dodge faced what was left of Easton. 

“Give me a week.  If I can’t work to restore her memory, to prove to you this is Dresden, I’ll throw her to the Rising myself.”

Dresden was shocked.  She could not tell if Dodge was sincere or not.  Would he really hurt her, or did he honestly possess that much faith in her that he knew he would not have to?

“A week is too long,” Nick countered.  “I can’t put my people at risk any longer.”

“But you can throw them to the Rising and let the Pahnyakins pick them off?  I’m responsible for her.” 

“A week is too long.”

“Then three days,” Dodge offered.  His voice softened and he looked to Dresden before announcing, “And if I’m wrong, I’ll go with her.”

-12-

It was, obviously, a proposition that brought Shepherd great joy, one that he would not argue.  And why would he?  It was a two-for-one deal in which he was highly confident he would get rid of the stubborn thorns in his side without having to lift a finger; they would ruin themselves to the people of Easton, prove on their own that Dresden was incapable of leading again because that was not Dresden.  It was only a matter of time before she followed her directive.  Shepherd quietly stirred the thoughts in his mind and told himself he would put an end to that as soon as it happened.  Until then, armed guards would be stationed around the perimeter of Dodge’s home, giving Dresden very little chance to escape in the night to go through with the mass slaughtering Shepherd was positive the Pahnyakins programmed her to complete.  Unsurprisingly, Dresden did not protest the presence of guards.  Shepherd knew she wouldn’t.  The girl was playing the part of an innocent, pouting her lips and producing glossy eyes of sadness to win over Easton. 

Dodge fought the order, but Shepherd put it to a vote at the end of the emergency town meeting and what Dodge wanted was no longer relevant to the scheme of things.  It was clear his credibility was slipping.  He expected as much, but he was in disbelief over the amount of the animosity towards Dresden when she had saved many of their lives more times than he could count.  Easton would not be standing if Dresden had not stepped up all those years ago.  Her presence in Easton kept the Pahnyakins at bay.  Unfortunately, her death offered the creatures an opportunity to systematically destroy the town.  It was a game of revenge to the Pahnyakins.  If they wanted Easton’s inhabitants dead, it would not be incredibly difficult for them to do so; although there would be a great battle-complete with a few skilled warriors-the brains and brawn of the town had been long taken from the scene.  Now the creatures played a game with what was left of Easton’s people. 

After the voting, Dodge found difficulty in translating Dresden’s apathetic body language to emotions.  He never remembered this side of her. 

The two were escorted from the pottery factory before the rest of the crowd.  Both were expecting physical retaliation from Miranda Carter, but she sat on the edge of the sidewalk with her head buried in her veiny hands and wept loudly, the echoes of her sobs carrying half a block. 

Easton’s streets were not empty; guards dressed casually and bundled in rags to stay warm against the dropping temperatures paced up and down the sidewalks.  As Dresden followed Dodge to his home two blocks away, she would occasionally see a guard walking in the backyard of a random home.  The town’s people had stepped up and formed their own military.  It left a sore knot in the teenager’s stomach.  There was no government presence in this town.  The people of Easton were alone in this fight, even though she could not fully understand exactly what kind of fight it was.  The entire situation was surreal, a joke.  Other than a town left in shambles, the girl saw no immediate threat.

“And we’ll start you off at the range.  I know they just made a new batch of mock exoskeletons yesterday, so you’ll have something to practice on.”

Dresden’s walking slowed.  She shivered as a cold breeze pierced the back of her neck and lifted her head to give Dodge a puzzled expression.  How long had he been talking to her, scheduling her day?

“Huh?”

He bugged his eyes.  “The mock exoskeletons.  You’ll learn on those.  Carmen figured out a way to strengthen the epoxy and make it closer to the way theirs are fused.”

The teenager puckered her lips and carelessly shrugged.  “Okay, whatever.”

Dodge huffed.  “And then I think we need to work on your combat.”  He offered a light chuckle.  “Now that I know you won’t whoop me, maybe it’ll make practice a little easier for me.”

“Fine,” replied the girl.  She resumed her steps and never noticed Dodge did not move.

“What is your problem?” he asked gruffly. 

“I don’t have a
problem
.  Oh, you know, other than waking up on a bridge-that was all there when I passed out, by the way, being stripped naked, being thrown in a cage with a Uni, and—.”

Dodge raised his hands.  “Okay, stop.”

“Stop?” Dresden asked with raised brows.  “You want me to stop?  I can’t freakin’ breathe, Dodge.  I still don’t know what this is all about.”

“What more do you want, Dresden?  Huh?  You want me to draw you a picture of what’s going on here?  You want me to show you the burn pile?  That’s where we put our dead because we don’t have enough space, time, or energy to keep burying the people we send out there.”  He pointed to Easton’s north side, where Dresden had ridden her bicycle the night before.  “What is it that you want?”

“I want you to show me,” she shouted.  “Show me.  Stop telling me and show me because none of this is real.”

He shook his head and ran his thick hand through his shaggy hair.  “My god, I don’t think I’ve ever been so stressed out by you.”

“Well,” she said bitterly, “I’m
so
sorry that I’m such a big damn inconvenience to the makeshift bar you had going on back at your house.”

“Don’t do that.”

“Don’t do what, call you out on the truth?  It really doesn’t look like you had anything going for you, other than piling my crap up in a dark room and drinking yourself stupid.”

A small flock of five black birds scattered from the tree above them with his yell, “Because of you.”

“What did I
do
that was bad enough to make this entire town hate me?” she shrieked. 

The crowd had been released from the factory and some gathered with looks of shock and amusement to watch the argument.  None of them had ever witnessed a disagreement between the two. 

“You took those people out there and got ambushed. 
You
translated that message from the Pahnyakins. 
You
recruited a group of followers. 
You
promised
everyone
that everything would be okay.  You promised me that you didn’t need me out there for that run.”  Although Dresden could not imagine that he could shout any louder, he did.  “You left us here to die.”

“You left me here without you,” he stated in pain.

“Dodge,” she started shakingly.

“Don’t.  Just don’t.  You want me to show you what’s going on here?”  He stepped forward and grabbed her by the upper arms.  “You want me to show you?”

“You’re hurting me,” Dresden winced to the man who stood over her with frustration in his satiny eyes.

“Then do something to stop me,” he angrily encouraged her. 

“Please,” Dresden cried.

He shook her shoulders and her entire body became unsteady.  Her feet wobbled on the pavement.

“Dodge,” she yelled.  “Stop.”

“
Do
something to stop me, Dresden,” he repeated with a holler.

Without much thought to her actions, Dresden grabbed Dodge’s left hand with her own and twisted his wrist to his right.  She placed her right hand directly above the higher back of his elbow and firmly shoved down with as much force as she could exert.  An overflow of anger and vengeance took control and she lifted her left kneecap to his lower abdomen. 

Dodge crouched inches above the ground and coughed as he fought to catch his breath.  He let out a panting chuckle as the crowd murmured. 

“See?” he asked with a grin.  “That’s your start.”

Embarrassed and overwhelmed with confusion and irritation, Dresden felt her eyes fill with burning tears. 

“I hate you,” she sneered. 

“No you don’t,” he laughed. 

Dresden stared begrudgingly at him before turning and walking briskly towards the north end of town.

“Where are you going?” Dodge called.

The girl did not respond.  Her walk turned to a wobbly jog.  She was determined to reach the edge of town, to leave Easton and find answers to the questions burning in her brain.

“You can’t go alone,” Dodge shouted.  She could tell, by his nearing voice, that he was chasing after her.  “Dresden.”

She continued to jog.  With every step, the pain in her ankle became less noticeable.  She would not allow a superficial injury hold her from discovering the world Easton feared now.

“Dresden,” Dodge grunted more insistently. 

He snatched the back of her flannel shirt and pulled her to a halt.

“You are
not
going out there alone.”

“Why?” she screeched.  “Why won’t you just let me go?  Nobody wants me here, anyway.”

“I will
never
let anyone or anything take you from me ever again.  Do you understand that?  You are not going out there by yourself.”

Dresden erupted in tears and spoke erratically.  “I have to go out there.  I have to get back to that bridge and find out what the hell is going on here.”

“Then we’ll go together.”

Dodge bent over and pulled an eight-inch double-edged spear-point black knife from the cuff of his boot. 

He extended the knife’s black-tape-wrapped handle to her.  “Take this.”

“I can’t do what you do, Dodge.  You know that.”

“Take it,” he insisted feverishly.  “If we’re going outside of these walls, you’re definitely not leaving empty-handed.”

“Dodge…”

“Take the knife,” he urged.  “You’ve done more with less.”

“I haven’t, though.”

“Take the knife!” he shouted. 

Dresden jumped.

He shook the knife in his hand and spoke slowly.  “I wasn’t out there then.  That’s not happening again.  Take the knife, Dresden.  Stop fighting this and just take it.  Please.  I can’t do this again.  I can’t go through this again.”

The tip of Dodge’s triangular nose grew red and his squinty almond eyes became wet.

Dresden, with softened eyes, took the knife from him.

-13-

The gate ended at least 12-feet in the air and rusted nails peeked out from its uneven pine edges.  There was no way it was constructed in less than a month.  Two men staunchly stood at each side of the gate and held m16s in their arms.  They stood proudly and alert.  To each end of the fence, that was splattered in blood and ran from one edge of town to the other, Dresden could see crumbling wooden perches.  One tower was still smoldering. 

Dodge nodded to the gate and said to the man on the left, “Open it.”

In response, the black-haired man appeared nervous.  “You’re taking her out again?  For good?”

“No,” Dodge stated.

He eyed the guns.  The weapons were used to slow the Pahnyakins, but very rarely could a gun be used to finish one off.  The beings’ tough exoskeletons blocked bullets and made it difficult to end their lives.  It had been better under Dresden’s rule.  Living under Shepherd’s law meant drawing out the fight and putting Easton’s people in constant danger.  By the time the townspeople heard gunshots, dozens of Pahnyakins could march through town.

“Does Shepherd know about this?” questioned the guard to Dresden’s left. 

“It doesn’t matter what he knows,” Dresden announced.  “I’m going.”  She puffed her chest.

The guard’s stance melted.  He relaxed his shoulders and his green eyes darted to the ground. 

“Sorry,” he said sheepishly.  He looked to his partner.  “Help me get the gate open for her, man.”

The guard on her right hesitated. 

“I don’t know if this is a good idea.”

He kicked at a crack in the road where the gate stood.  Outside of the slatted gate she could barely see a heavily damaged edge of a sign she knew once read, ‘Goodbye from Easton, Indiana.’

“Open the gate,” Dresden directed.  “Now.”

It brought her a sick sense of pleasure, the way the guards lost their sense of self and fell to their knees to bring her wishes to reality.  She was far from power hungry, but the very thought of arguing her wishes left the teenager unnerved.  It was refreshing to see someone finally doing what she said.

Dresden turned to Dodge and pointed to the few cookie cutter houses behind the gate.  “Why do these houses have bars on the windows and the rest of the houses in town don’t?”

He looked to where she was referring.  “Because they’re guard houses.  Only guards live in houses around the perimeter of the town to cut down on lives lost in the center of town- you know, where we live.”

She nodded.  “Smart idea.”

“Well, it was
your
idea, so…”

The teenager ran the pad of her index finger over the top of the blade in her right hand.  Its metal was sleek and cold.  She felt awkward holding it, unable to think of a resting place for it on her body.