The Pod

Chapter 4

Chapter 4 - 19th July 2017

Something in Shade was spinning, replaying events that had already passed. It liked doing that but it usually stuck to his childhood. Which was why his eyes widened.

Grubby features fixed themselves on him. They looked like they could once have been plump yet they had, over time, acquired a lesser stuffing. It wasn't the weight that scared him - that would've been hypocritical with a mother who had been skinny and an uncle who had sworn he had a beer belly. No, there was something wrong with it. Something so drastically wrong that he heard Vic gag behind him as she rose to her feet.

He gasped for air, his neck arching and his head making contact with a cold surface beneath him. As his chest heaved, the rest of his body was paralysed. The brief moments he left the state of spinning over and over were like the snippets of time a drowning man had with his mouth above the water.

The man with the grubby face let out a low sound and pressed his mottled skin up close. "Thought we told you and your little friend to get off our land," he grumbled, to the tune of a rather vocal unrest in his companions (who surrounded them, all with damaged appearances).

"Take a chill pill, we just want to pass through." Vic held both hands up.

Chapped lips stretched into a 'smile'. "Can't prove it, though, can you? If I let every piece of scum like you through 'ere, who knows what they could do?"

Shade swallowed and glanced back at his friend. The Indian American was rooted to the spot. In the hands of their enemies were pointed weapons. Granted, they still had their own but an inept 21-year-old and 18-year-old paled in comparison to the leader and his four-person back-up team. Not to mention how fragile the suits seemed when confronted with the array of sharps. Running was out of the question; they were stuck in a part of the road where there were no turn-offs and the main road have been sliced in two by something similar to the earlier pile of rubble (only not quite as tall).

With an abrupt intake of breath, he made an attempt to wrench open his eyes. A tiny gap appeared between the two lead weights through which air gave his eyes frostbite. They snapped shut once more without the energy to keep them open. His lips seemed fused together and he was blind to the outside world. For all intents and purposes, he felt like he was pinned to the only surface for miles around while its temperature drilled into him and the wider world of stale air closed forced on him the sensation of exposure.

So there was no chance of escape. Their four other 'enemies' had assumed a semi circle opposite them. Shade's shoulder was still held firm, the suit dipping where the fingers were and inflating in between. "What do you want?" The man of filth narrowed his eyes, tilted his head and tightened his grip - to which the seemingly younger man cried out. "I mean, what do you want us to give you so we can pass?"

"A bribe? Well, you're not the coward I thought you were. That's for sure..." His opponent smirked (his mood correlated with the tightness of his hold, soon to be discovered by Shade when the hand on him relaxed). Then he turned his head to face his teammates and asked, "Well, what do you say? Do we take the kid's bribe or not?"

Shade tried to refrain from biting his lip and sprouted the first idea he could think of. "We have food." 

"And so do we. Otherwise we'd 'ave eaten you by now," he remarked, drawing laughter out of his companions. "Try again, something better this time." 

Eyes narrowed, he raked them over their bodies. "Look, you might have food but it doesn't look like you have that much." Shade patted his pockets and watched them with his head held high. The grip on his shoulder lessened once more. "You wouldn't even have to show it to your leaders, you could keep it for yourselves."