Gallows Humour | Watty's 2023

The Beginning of the End

Ugly purple clouds billowed over the ocean, turning the waves dark and sharp. Light crackled between the crevices. The wind was picking up, drawing the storm closer, carrying on it the prickle of ozone and sea salt.

The sun sank below the horizon, a simmering orange bubble that made the ocean seethe. Foam coated the overgrown banks and clung to the barnacles swarming the dilapidated bridge. True was trying not to focus on the way the bridge swayed. They crouched in the growth, waiting. Their pack weighed on their shoulders, comfortable and grounding, although their possessions had all been removed to make room for Radio's explosives. They held their shovel across their lap, a water bottle of gasoline hung from their belt, and a shard of glass hid under their sleeve, bound to their arm by a stretch of old cloth.

Radio Silent crouched on their blind side. They kept Jonesy well within their sighted side, and Eliza was somewhere behind them, in a tree, chewing on something that True felt was better not to ask about.

Somewhere north of the fungus house, Cal walked the spider-silk thin line of an alliance that would be dead at the end of the night regardless of which side won. He and half the civilians were biting their blades, sharing war space with Allsaint and his coven of dwellers until the time came to spring the trap.

Across the city, at the new fake After Market, waited Big Valdivia and the rest of the able civilians, save for a handful that had been sent off into hiding places with the young, the elderly, and anyone who couldn't fight. Earlier True had watched Cal send Mu off with a gentle shared headbutt. It felt too personal to spy on, so they'd turned away, and the next time they'd seen Mu he'd been strolling into the long grass with Little Valdivia on his shoulder.

Soon the Factioneers would be leaving for the After Market. There should have been an exodus earlier, but trampled vegetation showed the first group had left ahead of time. It was fine, the Factioneers had still left, the pieces were all still in place. It just made True's skin itch that things were off course already.

Big Valdivia hadn't sent the signal she was supposed to by the time they'd left. Another of the reasons for the unease swelling in their stomach. They rubbed the trench in their side. The jab of pain focused them. It was hot to the touch and ached something fierce. Unsurprising. They'd caught infections from cleaner, smaller injuries. It wasn't going to kill them in the next few minutes so they shoved it way back under a pile of other things they were ignoring, like that bridge. And the deep ache in their head that felt like a railway tie being pounded through their eyeless socket.

"There they go," Eliza whispered. Sure enough, strutting along the bridge was a mini hoard of Factioneers. They walked in silence, the scuff of their patched clothes and clump of their boots were the only sounds they made. No sk-flps, True noted with a more than fair share of bitterness. They squished as far down into the underbrush as they could get. Held their breath as the war march passed, eye sharp and darting over the Factioneers.

There, bringing up the rear, Otsana's obnoxious, white-streaked hair. Good, she would come home to smoldering ruins, the way they had, if she came back at all.

The Faction had made it past their hiding spot, not so much as a glance in their direction. When the group was out of sight, they would move.

A twig snapped.

True's glare whipped toward the sound. Enemy? Wild animal? Stranger? Jonesy. True tried to kill him with their thoughts. He made a show of cringing and easing off the stick crushed under his knee. The psychic murder attempts redoubled.

Turning a watchful eye on the Factioneers, they tightened their grip on their shovel. The group marched on, miraculously unaware of the ambushers a mere few feet from them. All except one. Otsana had slowed, dropping off the tail-end of the pack. Her sharp eyes skimmed over the clumps of brush they hid in. At any moment, she would spot them and the gig would be up. True's hand drifted to a backpack strap, preparing to shed the extra weight. Their shovel was beginning to feel like a knife they'd brought to a gun fight.