Fourth Horseman

Fourth Horseman: scene five

The cages did nothing to block either the flames or smoke, but the smoke concerned him the most. He tore a strip of fabric from his mattress and tied it over his mouth and nose. Fear and instinct commanded he open his burning eyes to grasp the situation, but the noxious smoke hung like a curtain. He fashioned a blindfold and crouched in the middle of his wire mesh cell.

The screams and grunts of the inmates stuck in the exercise yard rose between intermittent bursts of gunfire emanating from guard towers and prison walls. Take your pick, either the smoldering volcano’s belly or target practice for Johnny Law. He’d been scheduled for experimentation the next day—a fate rumor held was worse than death. Cleansing, they called it. Perhaps the fire was God’s mercy.

Next he heard the grating of metal-on-metal echo throughout the block as a section of cage doors opened. Inmates, loose on the inside now, did not celebrate their escape. Primitive, guttural noises punctuated with expletives burned his ears, same as the smoke burned his eyes.

A scuffle preceded a gurgling noise. Then the thump of a limp body occurred outside his own cage, the door of which he guessed was still shut. Oddly he could’t decide whether he wished it open. Would he be meat cooked in a smoker, or given the option choose an unknown death outside the confinement of his cage? A coughing fit overwhelmed him, and he hugged his knees tight to arrest his seizing body. Another minute inside and he knew he would be dead. God, anything would be better than this.

A fresh wind blew across his face, and he sucked in a ragged breath. He tore the blindfold from his eyes, squinting through the swollen sockets. Slashes of white light cut through the smoke, a glint revealing his cage door to be open. He scuttled forward, discovering it sliced clean from its moorings rather than released mechanically. Razor sharp edges flashed in another burst of light.

The smoke crowded him again, leaving him no time to ponder the predicament. Lurching into the tight hallway between cages, he tripped over a body. To his horror, the head was absent. Half in shock, half in awe, he froze there. Holding himself up with his hands planted in a growing pool of blood, he spotted the detached head inches away. That’s a hell of a thing, he thought.

A mammoth grip yanked him up by the back of his neck cracking his spine. “Hello, pretty. Admiring my work?”

“Not him.” Another voice rose over the tumult, masked by smoke.

“Like hell not him. When’s it become your business who’s to die and who’s to live? I’ve not hit my quota.”

“But not him,” the second voice spoke firmly as its owner stepped into view.

“You dull twit. One last time, why the hell not?”

“Because he’s your replacement.”

It was then he noticed a set of scales in the left hand of the skeletal figure before him. They tipped from balanced to wanting and a blinding white light shot out from them. Immediately the grip released him to the floor. A long gasping wheeze preceded a falling powder, and his captor was gone.

The man with the scales reached down to pull him up. “Your prayers have been answered,” he said flatly.