Sondranos: The Narrative of Leon Bishop (19 page)

“
A thousand
bullets?” Kayt asked when Abilene was out of range.

“
I was
feeling it. Don’t make fun of me. Besides, it’s Abilene. She has a
little notebook in her desk where she writes down peoples’
questions about her homeland – she was originally from the colony
off Europa. Only, she never writes them down the way they were
said; she writes them the way she heard them. That way she can make
the person who asks the questions seem as vastly unintelligent as
possible, and make herself seem the genius. I once asked her if she
spent time at the beach, and she wrote down in her book that I’d
asked ‘isn’t Europa one large beach?’”

I held back a laugh. It struck
me that I’d just allowed Annalise to take charge of what I’d been
attempting to do from the beginning.

“
Whatever we
said to her just now, she’s going to change to make herself look
better. Most people trust her. Anything she gives them will be
treated like it’s gold.”

“
This could
work,” I said. “We just have to have a plan by the time she comes
back to us. And hope everyone is in on it.”

“
Are you sure
about that?” Annalise asked.

“
Call it
obscenely optimistic. Let’s just hope the car is ready before we
all get pieces of our spine removed.”

“
Lise, Leon –
look,” Kayt tapped us on the shoulder, and instead of pointing, she
nodded towards Annalise’s house. Lancaster stood on the porch. He
watched us all, his gaze darting between the front door as he
pulled it slowly closed, and the Belovores circling us.

“
Don’t be an
idiot,” I muttered; however, Lancaster had already begun his
approach.

Lancaster had
his plan.
I was certain neither Davion nor
Melanie knew about it. He stumbled out of the porch and towards our
group. He crossed over the yard and into the neighbour’s before
Vertebrae saw him; Lancaster then alerted the other Belovore by
waving his arms. All eyes were instantly drawn to him. Kayt
chittered and grabbed my elbow, stabbing me with nails that must
have been chewed on recently. Annalise tried to move forward, to
make eye contact with him, but failed. Lancaster advanced on the
Belovores. Chest-Plate turned to face him, sucked in a breath, and
held it. The act pushed out his plates and made him resemble a bear
deciding how to maul its prey.

“
Don’t be
aggressive,” I whispered. Lancaster couldn’t hear me, but I had no
illusions about that. It was more for myself than him. Neither
Annalise nor I saw him as the boy Kayt described.

To us, he was a boy striding
towards three monsters holding dominion over a large group of
terrified people. It was courageous, even though his intention
might have been in the wrong place. Third watched from a spot
behind our crowd as Chest-Plate and Vertebrae took the lead. Third
huffed, deep and throaty in his chest. It sounded like a dog
coughing something up. Chest-Plate swivelled around and spat out
something even hoarser, to which Third and Vertebrae both
responded. Vertebrae joined Third on the other side of the circle.
They both stood still and rigid. Chest-Plate smiled. The appearance
of his whitened teeth made me shiver.

“
Belovore,”
Lancaster began. “I have a deal for you.”

Lancaster made no aggressive
moves. He stopped just a few feet short of arm’s length of the
hulking beast. His legs shook, and whenever he tried to look our
way, his pupils jumped and twitched. Sweat coursed down his
cheeks.

“
What do you
have for me?” Chest-Plate roared.

“
I want you
to give me one of your prisoners,” he said.

“
They are not
my prisoners. It is only because of a deal our Elder made that some
of you will survive. If I had my way, you be scattered across the
landscape to feed the crops.”

“
The girl,
for two more.”

“
Two more,
plus yourself. No girl. You die if our Elder denies your
forgiveness.”

Lancaster closed his eyes, and
started again. “You must want something. There has to be something
you need. I can find a way to give it to you, if you just give me
what I need.”

“
Since when
does a human need to acquire another human to get what it needs?
Hasn’t it taken enough when it works together?”

“
I’m not sure
what you mean,” Lancaster said. “But I can assure you, it will be
worth your while.”

“
Don’t move,
Lancaster,” Annalise mumbled.

Chest-Plate turned to Vertebrae
and Third in what I could only assume was his way of looking for a
response. He got nothing. He stomped forward, his foot rumbled the
ground, and he opened his arms wide as if to invite violence. This
was when Lancaster jumped – he balled his fists and closed his
eyes, raising his hands to protect himself. Kayt cried out as
Chest-Plate growled and let out a thin exhalation. Before Lancaster
knew it, Chest-Plate lunged, swiped the claw of a chelimb across
Lancaster’s throat, and pulled it back just as fast. The claw
hadn’t needed much room, so Lancaster never felt the chelimb
reaching between his upended arms towards his throat. Blood arched
away, across the street. Lancaster opened his eyes as he gasped for
breath. He fell to his knees as the Belovore stood over him.

It was the
first time
I’d ever seen someone I knew
die. And it was nothing. Lancaster had tried to stand up for us;
rather, he tried to sell us out – but at least he’d been doing
something. Kayt, Annalise and I had allowed ourselves to be
captured, and stood in the crowd talking. Yes – we’d been learning
more about the Belovore threat, but we hadn’t been doing anything.
Our story had left our control as Abilene spread it through the
crowd.

One thought continued to recur,
as it does now.

I’d been travelling with
Lancaster for hours. I’d heard stories about him, and watched as
Davion talked him down from foul language. Everything I’d needed to
know about the boy was right in front of me, and had been. He was
scared of being himself: he’d been rejected by Kayt, and was afraid
of losing her; he felt the need to be brave beyond stupidity. This
was a man on the cusp of discovering who he wanted to be, and now
that had ended. And yet, when I watched him die, I felt nothing.
That is what continues to haunt me. I would learn more about him
and the kind of man he hoped to become, but only after his death.
His life became retrospective.

“
Lancaster!”
Kayt yelled. She tried to push away from us, but Annalise grabbed
her. I couldn’t feel anything around me. The next thing I heard was
Abilene yelling out to the crowd, telling them to
attack.

This was not what we’d planned.
I’d hoped for some kind of coordinated attack, or at least the
semblance of a plan. Abilene had taken it into her own hands.

Chest-Plate turned from
Lancaster’s body and stumbled backwards as at least half of the
crowd tore at him. The rest divided towards Third and Vertebrae
behind us. We were almost trampled in the charge. I wanted this to
be more organized. I’d hoped that Abilene would come back to us and
say when they were ready, to which we’d reply with some sort of
cohesive plan of attack. Instead, we had mass chaos. I could see
that the crowd was closer to forty. It should have been as easy to
control as a classroom.

Mine and Annalise’s eyes locked
in the middle of the screaming crowd - Annalise looked at me as if
to add: ‘did you think they would trust us with their lives?’ Kayt
side-lined us and ran to Lancaster. I saw her start talking to him,
but all I could hear was the sound of people scrambling against the
Belovores, attacking without regard to anyone else. Chest-Plate and
the other two growled as they started swinging at the oncoming
crowd. Out of the corner of my eyes, I spotted Abilene hurrying her
two daughters away from the scene. She fled in a direction that
would have taken her towards the tree-farm. Depending on whether or
not the Belovore Davion had hit was alive, they would certainly
survive another day.

Chest-Plate fell within the
first seconds of the attack. The Belovore had been swinging, but to
little effect, as the rest of the crowd grabbed him by the arms,
slowing his attacks. Someone had grabbed his chelimbs and tore them
off. Another group had dislodged the plates across his torso,
severing them from the body beneath. The same man who’d torn the
chelimbs off wielded one of the dismembered limbs and stabbed
Chest-Plate through the open wound. Chest-Plate tumbled to his
knees, and then landed face-first into the pavement. It had taken
no more than a minute to kill the Belovore, and no less than ten
people to do the job.

The rest of the crowd swarmed
the other two Belovores, but in the distance I could see more
Belovores coming. They’d let their own prisoners go, and ambled
towards the crowd like they knew victory would be assured once they
arrived. The female Belovore I’d seen earlier walked faster than
the rest, and three or four more sped up to join her – also
females. They looked far angrier than the males, and more powerful
even though their armour seemed lighter.

I knew, then and there, that
the neighbours would get slaughtered.

“
Run,” I
yelled.

My voice cracked, but I yelled
it again. Annalise picked up the signal. She started pushing people
away, telling them to book it, to move, to go anywhere they might
be safe. A loud crash from Annalise’s garage registered in our
ears, but failed to make us turn around. The frenzy of the crowd
tearing at the Belovores as they swung and pinched and roared
against the outbreak of violence kept us trained on what we needed
to do.

Kayt sobbed over Lancaster,
holding his head in her arms. I felt a lump in my gut weighing me
down. Annalise and I picked her up, noticing the car streaming
towards us. Kayt fought back, trying to keep hold of Lancaster.
Lancaster’s head tilted to the side as if he was watching us
leave.

Melanie screeched the tires to
a halt next to us, barely missing a quartet of people who were
tearing at Third. Four lay dead at his feet, while three continued
tearing at his plates.

Melanie yelled for us to get
in, but we didn’t hear her – her lips and the way her eyes scowled
told us enough. Annalise pushed Kayt into the backseat first with
Davion. He grabbed and pulled her in. Annalise went next, and I
followed. I shut the door while Melanie accelerated. It seemed as
though everyone else was too preoccupied with the fight to notice
our car.

The wheels screamed against the
pavement. We were propelled backward, pushing us into the seats.
The noise of the car leaving was enough to rouse a few of the
people in the crowd. Most of them had taken off – but the ones who
had a score to settle remained. Third was finally on the ground,
his plates torn off, revealing a thick, sticky mess of muscle and
blood. He squirmed, rolling like a turtle on its back. Vertebrae
had gained the upper hand, killing two, while the rest of his
attackers had fled.

“
We have to
go back!” Kayt yelled. She twisted in the seat and out of Davion’s
grasp. She tried to reach for the door, but Davion pulled her away.
“We can’t leave him there.”

“
The boy was
an idiot,” Davion said.

“
Don’t you
ever talk like that about Lancaster!” Kayt swung at him, missed,
and then leapt, pounding her fists against him. In the small space
of the backseat, the power behind the punches was minimal. Davion
took the blows and raised his hands to let them come. They landed
loudly through his robes, and nobody moved to pull her
away.

We all knew what was coming.
The breakdown. She would start crying and say she missed him –
that’s how it was supposed to go. Some of us wanted it to happen.
It would have given us permission to break down over everything
that had happened in the last few hours. Only, that’s not what
happened. Kayt pulled her hand to her other side and swung. She hit
Davion in the jaw with the back of her hand. Blood jumped from his
lips, and Kayt fell back into her seat. Her chest rounded up and
down with each severe breath of air she stole.

No tears fell.

In the distance, the sight we
left behind was of more people running from their homes as the
Belovores went to join the fight in the centre of the road.
Annalise and I watched them from over our shoulders as Melanie took
to the road, not bothering to stay in the lines. There was no
magnetic lock to keep the car steady, so she took advantage of the
curves to gain speed. It wasn’t long before Covenant Street was far
behind us.

We couldn’t save them all, but
maybe those who’d escaped would survive. That’s what I told myself.
It would be two hours before anyone would speak again.

I am not proud
of
who I was. Regret is something I feel
on a daily basis. It stows away in the back of my mind when I wake
up, prepared to spring out and steal whatever moments of happiness
I have to feed upon, ready to survive another day.

I don’t know what happened to
any of the neighbours in Covenant. I do know that they managed to
take down Third and Vertebrae before the others arrived. I would
like to think that they took the smart path and ran before any
other Belovores joined the fray. I can pretend that they didn’t
think they’d be taking them down one by one, because even I knew
then that it was impossible. Abilene probably made it out, with her
daughters in tow. The old man and his granddaughter might not have
made it. I could have opened the door and yelled for everyone to
climb on, or in, but that would have freed up the Belovores. Or
weighed down the car, preventing our escape.