Excerpt: Earth Beneath

There were rocks beneath his feet, poking into his bare soles. Little pebbles with sharp edges glittered threateningly in the sickly green light. The air was more fog than oxygen, tinted so deeply it was like walking through something tangible. Lloyd breathed deeply, the screen of his gas mask fogging up with every exhalation. He was too nervous to breathe through his nose, taking short panicky breaths.
His skin felt dirty, as if he was sweating in sub-zero temperatures. He knew it could not possibly be that cold here; the water beneath the pebbles was still liquid, though dark and viscous. His body was wracked with one continuous chill.
Where there weren’t rocks, there was garbage. Posters, papers, something he recognised from the museum of earth history as styrofoam. The world was rubble carpeted in garbage.
Off in the distance, he could see structures. Skeletal, crumbled buildings, standing sadly and hopelessly like old women beyond their prime who had given up dyeing their hair or putting on wrinkle cream every night. He did not turn toward those yet, was not sure if he was ready for what he would find there.
He did not know where the light was coming from, had a faint feeling that it did not bode well, but ignored it behind his screen. The screen between him and the world which cut off the emotion that would otherwise threaten to overwhelm him. This broken world... there was something poignant about it. Something relevant not just to him but... He could not understand what was going on here, what he was thinking.
There was a BANG from far off, so far off it was impossible to think that it had anything to do with him. So far off behind his screen that he was sure it was just a car backfiring, like the cars he would see in old movies with... with? It wasn’t until the pain, the shooting pain in his right leg sprouting outwards from a tiny point, that a realisation came. He groaned, clutching at his thigh with bare hands. He had kept them in his pockets before, and the sudden air on his bare skin was almost painful, the fog wrapped itself around them.
The pain, the pain in his thigh. He looked down to see the red, the cool red of his own blood, soaking into his pant leg. When was the last time he had seen blood? It seemed so, so long ago.
“Stay where you are,” a voice said. A loud, menacing, deep voice. A voice of authority. A voice with no humanity in it. Lloyd could not do anything but comply, though he knew that he should run, or at least try to. His hands still clenched his wound, which was still bleeding, which was still soaking through the fabric of his pants. He hadn’t been prepared for danger, nor for desolateness. “If you move, you will die,” the voice said, “If you try to run, you will die.”
Lloyd had not moved, but did not bother saying that to his captor. He could see him now. Correction, could see them, a collection of men coming towards him, fully covered by black clothing and helmets through which their faces were not visible. They stomped through the garbage with as much order as if it was solid ground.
They were carrying what through his pain-muddled thoughts he could eventually identify as firearms. I wonder when the last time someone got shot was, he thought hysterically. He opened his mouth to laugh and groaned instead, sad and bloody.
His hands still clutching his thigh, he fell to the ground, onto the garbage. “I’m not moving!” he yelled, “Please, I’m not mov-“
Another gunshot rang through the air, coming so close to Lloyd’s face that he swore he could hear it ricochet off the ground beside him
“If you try to speak, you will die,” said the voice. It was the man at the head of the team who was speaking. He seemed to mean it, Lloyd thought, and wondered why he had not thought that he meant it before. I’ll die, he thought, trying the thought on for size. Trying to understand the concept.
He shot me and now I might die. He shot me and I might be dead already. There was so much blood, he thought, he had never seen so much blood. Paper cuts were his lot in life, but this, this was something different.
The man at the head of the team came up to him now, the heavy boots he wore stomping right beside Lloyd’s head. “Get up,” he said coldly. “And slowly, or-“
“I’ll die,” Lloyd said, “I get the point.” He did not know what possessed him to say it, as as second later he was rewarded with a sharp kick to his ribs. He groaned again, and the man laughed.
“I see you’re learning,” he said, “Now get up.”
“You shot me,” Lloyd said. He was delirious from the blood loss. So much blood. Do I even have so much blood?
“Yes. Unless you want to experience again I suggest you get up and stop discussing it.”
“I can’t,” Lloyd said, “Please.”
“Get up,” the man commanded once again. There was not a hint of pity in his voice. His message was clear. Lloyd would do what he said, or he would die. Lloyd would do what the man said until he could not, and then he would die. His chances were looking better and better by the second.
“Please,” Lloyd said again. Tears were on his face down, falling freely. “Please, I can’t, it hurts.”
“One would think you were unused to a little pain, boy.”
“Please, please, just please.” He pleaded hysterically, the tears becoming more and more frequent, his words becoming simply moans. The pain was unbearable. This was not an ache but a throb, a sensation that he would have described as stabbing if he had ever heard the word in a context he could apply it with.
The man sighed, as if he was a parent listening to a child’s tantrum. “I am going to count to five,” the man said. “And then I will shoot you in the head.”
“One,” the man said.
“Alright, alright, alright,” Lloyd said through a new batch of tears. He tried to sit up and found that the kick to his ribs had not been as little as his rather divided attention had made it seem. He doubled over, almost falling back to his side one more.
“Two,” the man said. His voice was casual, this was just another day, just another job. This was just another poor sucker who would soon be dead. He had time. Three seconds more of time, in fact.
“I’m getting up!” Lloyd exclaimed. He pulled himself up again, this time aided by a sudden rush of adrenaline. He pulled his left leg up to his chest easily.
“Three.”
The second leg was harder going. The second he tried to move his right leg, every nerve in his thigh protested loudly, sending sharp pains coursing through him once again. Only the fear for his life kept Lloyd moving despite these renewed sensations.
“Four,” the man said, a hint of amusement creeping into his voice. “Although you’re doing very well.”
Lloyd used every last bit of energy in his body, not only pushing himself up to his feet but jumping up. He landed unsteadily on his feet, shaking and almost falling right over again, but summoning some hidden strength to keep himself standing.
“Five,” the man said. He swung his gun up to face Lloyd.
“No please, you said I needed to get up,” Lloyd said, beginning to protest. He stumbled backwards, trying to get away while keeping in mind the man’s threats of what would happen to him if he tried to escape.
“Relax, boy, you’re not going to die,” the man replied.
There was a bang from behind Lloyd, and another burst of pain, this time from his stomach.
“Huh,” the man said, “that was some sloppy shooting.” He shrugged, letting his gun fall to his side once again as Lloyd dropped to his knees. “Well, you’re probably not going to die, anyways,” the man said. “Isn’t that fun?”
The last thing Lloyd saw before his eyes dropped closed was a crumpled flyer. A strangely familiar woman was smiling and waving at him. Above her smiling face bright white letters read, “Vote Rosa Garcia.” His grunt of surprise was not discernible from his pained moans.