Death Flag Read online

  He turned down a small back alley and then took the rear stairs up to his apartment. It had originally been a storage room above an old bakery, but the owner had renovated around the time that Madison graduated college and converted it into a small, rentable space. In its own way, it was both a blessing and curse. He’d never go hungry since the owner let him take his pick from the day’s leftovers before they were given to a local charity, but he was also doomed to smell all the delicious breads day in and day out. For someone who was even a little health conscious, it was basically a form of carbohydrate-induced torture.

  Madison found his shoes where he had left them in the bathroom, tossed them into his bag, and headed out, locking up behind him as he left. He scurried down the staircase, and he was vaguely aware of the fact that his boots were particularly loud as they clanged against the metal steps for some reason. He had just reached the bottom and turned back toward the street when someone called out to him.

  “Hey, hey! Where are you rushing off to?” a woman’s cheery voice asked.

  Madison slowed to a walk as he looked toward the source of the voice. It was only a small back alley that led to his apartment, and there was no reason for anyone else to be back there. He’d have the occasional group of kids show up to smoke or a drunk guy who passed out after having a few too many at one of the bars, but that was about it. All of the other doors on ground level had been bricked up long ago, so the only person who should have a reason to be back there was him.

  “Can I help you with something?” he asked, slightly suspicious as he spied the young woman. She was young, probably in her early twenties, blonde, and well-proportioned. She was dressed like she was ready for a night out on the town, wearing a small, black dress that didn’t even come down to her knees, hugged her body without actually revealing too much, and contrasted against her pale-white skin. She had on a pair of heels that made him question how anyone walked in those things, and she was carrying a small clutch in one hand.

  She smiled coyly. “Perhaps. I’m looking for someone for, like, forever. I thought maybe you could help me.”

  Aren’t we all? He resisted the cheesy line and instead said, “Well, you aren’t going to find anyone back here except for me. Most of the bars aren’t even open yet, and they won’t be for a while. If you had a dinner date or something, I can probably tell you where the restaurant is, but I’m afraid I won’t be much help other than that.”

  She shook her head and smiled nervously. “No, like, I’m looking for this guy. His name’s Madison, I think?”

  Madison’s heart skipped a beat as she said his name, and he scowled as he quickly ran through the list of possible places he might have met this girl. She was a bit younger than he was, though not by much, so there was a possibility he might have met her during his time at university, but it was doubtful. He hadn’t been out drinking with his friends in quite a while, so she wasn’t a jilted lover coming for revenge after a one-night stand either. Still, there was something eerily familiar about her. She was attractive in all the right ways, so he was certain that he wouldn’t forget her for that reason, and she seemed to have an outgoing personality. After all, it wasn’t just anyone who could flag down a random stranger and ask for help. He was horrible when it came to remembering names, but he could almost always remember someone’s personality and where he met them.

  “I’m Madison,” he said after a brief moment of thought and coming up blank. He felt like he should know who she was, but he couldn’t pull up anything to give him a solid clue, so he had to assume that he didn’t. “But I don’t think we’ve ever met before. I’m almost certain that I’d remember you if we had.”

  “Oh, no! We’ve never actually met like this before!” she said, her bubbly personality spilling over as she grew excited. “Well, not like, met-met, but I’m more like a friend of a friend, ya know?” When Madison looked confused, she continued by saying, “Well, okay, more like a friend of an enemy? Or was it an enemy of a friend . . .”

  “Wait. Hold on a minute.” Madison began holding up his hands for her to slow down. “A friend of an enemy? I don’t think I actually have any enemies. I mean, I might. Anything’s possible. But I definitely don’t know about them if I do. So, are you saying that you’re my friend, or a friend of someone who’s my enemy?”

  “Yeah, that one!” she said, clapping her hands together and bouncing up and down slightly.

  Despite her outgoing and seemingly cheerful demeanor, Madison was quickly coming to the conclusion that something wasn’t quite right with this girl. Something about her made him uneasy, and he couldn’t figure out what it was. It was too early for most people to be drinking heavily, but that was always a possibility. It could have simply been the fact that he couldn’t make heads or tails of what she was trying to tell him, but even if he had been able to, he wasn’t entirely sure that he would have liked what she was saying.

  “Alright,” Madison said cautiously, turning toward the street and holding out a hand like he was going to escort her back in that direction. “Why don’t you just tell me where your friend is, and I’ll see if I can help you find him.” Despite her having said that she was looking for him by name, he assumed that it was only a coincidence. There wasn’t any possible connection he could come up with that would link him to this young woman, so it had to be. Plus, he couldn’t think of a single person off the top of his head that would justly call him an enemy.

  “But, like, I’ve already found him!” she exclaimed. And then her demeanor suddenly changed entirely. She stopped fidgeting around and bouncing up and down and instead locked onto him with a frigid stare. He felt a shiver run up and down his spine, and it felt like his skin was crawling. The air around him suddenly seemed to drop twenty degrees, and it felt like he had been pierced through to the bone by a spear of ice.

  “Alright. As fun as this is, I really need to get going,” he said anxiously, turning to leave. He was somewhat nervous about leaving this looney girl hanging around outside his door, but he didn’t want to stick around either. She was seriously giving him the creeps. His first instinct was to suspect that someone was playing a trick on him, but that wasn’t likely. He wasn’t even supposed to be home right now. In fact, anyone whom he was friends with would know that he’d be at the gym this time of night.

  “No, not quite yet,” she snapped. “Ugh. It really does get obnoxious playing the part of a blonde ditz. Do you know how annoying it is to have to, like, bounce around and snap my gum all the time?”

  “What the hell?” he asked, more confused now than ever. This girl is definitely nuts. She has to be off her medicine or something. He wanted to walk away, but something was keeping in rooted in place. For some unknown reason, he just couldn’t pick his feet up and make them walk away. He wasn’t exactly scared of her, but he wasn’t comfortable either. He had a good bit of physical size on her, so he didn’t feel threatened. He just simply couldn’t make himself move.

  “Hmph.” She tossed her hair back over her shoulder, placed her hand on her hip, and smirked at him. “As I said, I’m more like a friend of an enemy. The sad part is that you don’t even realize who your enemy is. Maybe this won’t be as much fun as I thought it would after all?”

  “Seriously, lady. What’s your problem?” he asked, trying to back away. He watched her hands, afraid that she was going to pull a weapon on him, though he wasn’t sure where it would have come from. Her short, black dress was so form-hugging that there was no way she had something concealed underneath.

  “Oh, no problem!” she said calmly, tilting her head back and staring down her nose at him. “I just need to fix something first. You see, I’m actually here to deliver your punishment.”

  “Punishment?” Madison’s confusion grew along with some sixth sense telling him that things suddenly turned dangerous. “Look, I think you’ve got the wrong person, lady. I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about or who you are. You think you know me, but you’re wrong. I’ve neve
r even met you before.”

  “Humans.” She sighed disdainfully. “It’s always the same old story. You really aren’t an inventive species, you know that? ‘I don’t know you?’ and ‘Why are you doing this?’ and ‘You’ve got the wrong person!’ just get boring after the first few times.”

  “Uhh . . . Okay, how about: You’re psycho. Please get help.” Some little voice in the back of his head warned him that he was only going to escalate the situation by throwing around accusations and calling her names, but he didn’t have many other options.

  “Ooh, that’s a little better,” she purred, seemingly warming up to the insult. “Try again.”

  Madison just remained silent and stared at her, however, crossing his arms over his chest defiantly and scowling at her.

  “Oh. Pity.” She smacked her lips and loudly popped the gum she was chewing on as if to mark her disappointment. “Well, Madison, you may not realize it, but you’ve done one hell of a number on my people. It seems to be a favorite little sport of yours: hunting them down and all. But I can’t allow that type of behavior, now can I? We’re what some might call an endangered species, you know. Our numbers are only just now starting to make a return, and I can’t have you going around killing off everyone before it’s time.”

  What the hell? This lady is making it sound like I’m a deranged mass murderer who goes around hunting down innocent animals in my free time for the sport of it. That’s . . . ludicrous? That’s insane. “You seriously need help,” he said earnestly. “I don’t know if you forgot your medicine or something but—”

  “Oh! Maybe there is some fight in there!” she taunted, interrupting him before he could continue. “Now, see, to be fair. I’m going to give you the same chance you gave my people. It’s actually really simple: Stay alive. That’s it. That’s all you have to do: Survive.”

  “Lady, look, I don’t know what you’re talking about. I work in a warehouse. I move boxes for a living. That’s it! I don’t know anything about murder or genocide or your people or whatever it is you think that I’ve done. It sounds like you’ve got some serious problems, but they aren’t my fault.”

  “I won’t accuse you of taking joy in your job,” she continued, completely ignoring his argument. “You went about it with a cold and ruthless efficiency that made even me jealous, and I’m better at playing that role than anyone. It also made me sad for you. You should learn to take pleasure in your work, Madison, even if it is butchering innocent people. Do you remember how happy you were before? No, of course you don’t. I made certain of that the last time we met, didn’t I?”

  She opened up her purse and pulled out a small, round, black orb. It was small enough that it easily fit in the palm of her hand, and at first glance, it reminded him of a Chinese Baoding ball. She smiled mischievously and winked at him as she slowly sashayed over to him. He stood frozen, unable to move, as she reached up and gently caressed the side of his face, running her finger down from his temple to his jawline. A world of pain exploded inside his head at her touch, and little, explosive firecrackers went off in the corners of his vision. He felt the pressure build inside his skull as her fingernail traced its way down, and then everything stopped all at once. The pain receded until it was a little more than a dull, throbbing ache, and the little, explosive lights stopped twinkling.

  “Good luck,” she said smugly, grabbing the top of the ball and twisting the palm of her hand against it. As soon as she did, a lot of things happened all at once.

  The world suddenly got a lot colder and a lot quieter. What started off as a small chill that was vaguely reminiscent of brain freeze quickly grew until it felt like he had been plunged headfirst into icy-cold water in the middle of winter. He shivered involuntarily against the suddenly-freezing temperature as it surrounded him, and he cursed out loud at the shock of it. Shockingly, the voice didn’t even sound like his own. It was far away and muffled, like someone had digitally modified it by adding an echo effect and reverb before playing it back to him, so the only thing he heard was a heavily-modified version of himself. He realized with a start that was the same problem from before, the reason why his boots had been so loud on the metal grating as he came down the stairs: he hadn’t heard another noise aside from this woman’s voice or a sound produced by himself since he left the apartment.

  He stood frozen, unable to move a muscle, and watched in silent horror as the color drained from the world. It began with the reds and oranges in the brick buildings turning to a muted grey color and then continued with the stray weeds growing between blocks in the sidewalk and along the edges of the building following suit. He desperately twisted his head up and round to stare at the sky only to watch as it too turned bleak and colorless. Finally, when all was said and done, all he could see was greyscale. Everything around him had been turned dull, dreary, and monochromatic. And then, like ink being washed away from a whiteboard, everything ran together and disappeared from sight until all he could see was nothingness.

  He felt his heart thudding away in his chest at a record-setting pace, but that was it. He floated in a void completely bereft of all sensation from the world outside of his own body for what felt like an eternity, but in truth, was only a matter of seconds. Then, with jarring force, the world snapped back into place around him. There was a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach that made him feel like he had been dropped from an enormous height or peaked over the tallest hill on a rollercoaster, and then he felt the ground underneath his feet again. Only, it pitched back and forth. The oppressive silence was replaced with the sounds of men shouting and the ringing noise of metal being hammered against metal. He was slapped in the face by a spray of thick, salty water that stung his skin and burned his eyes, and his nostrils were filled with the acrid smell of wood and canvas burning.

  He bent over and coughed from the sudden stimuli, clutching his head and staring at the wood floor as it rolled about underneath him.

  Where in the hell am I? What just happened?

  CHAPTER 2

  Madison picked his head up and looked around him, and he realized that he had a front row seat to a bloodbath. There were men fighting all around him, hacking and slashing at each other with swords and shields, and they were bathed in a hellish red light that made them look like demons spawned fresh from the pits of hell. He watched on in mute horror as a man right beside him was run through with a sword, and then he failed to move as the body was pitched toward him. He was crushed underneath the dying man’s weight as the body crumpled on top of him, pressing him down onto the swaying deck.

  What the hell is going on?

  He grabbed the man’s body and shoved against it with the intention of throwing him off then recoiled in surprise and dropped it back on top of himself when the dying man screamed out in agony, spitting out a mouthful of blood that spilled down Madison’s chest. Bracing himself for the inevitable, a myriad of different scenarios ran through his head. His was brain was so completely overloaded with the impossibility of what he was seeing and experiencing that he couldn’t even begin to process it. Survival instincts kicked in, and all he could think of was how to safely get himself out of his present situation. He could stay where he was and play dead, he could push the guy off of him and hope to find somewhere to hide until all this passed, or he could possibly try and make it overboard.

  The problem with the last solution was that he had no idea where he was or how he had gotten there. For all he knew, he might be somewhere in the middle of the ocean days away from land. There was also another problem that needed attention if he was going to make a choice: the ship he was on definitely wasn’t anything modern. It appeared to be constructed entirely from wood, and there were definitely the remains of two tall masts and tattered canvas sails burning high above him. The types of ships that used rigging and sails for wind-driven power hadn’t been used in ages, so unless he had been magically dropped into the most lifelike reenactment he had ever heard of, he needed to figure out why technology
had suddenly regressed several hundred years.

  There was a chance he might be able to find somewhere to hide, but even then, there were no guarantees. For starters, he didn’t know one group from another, and either one was likely to run him through at the first sight of him simply because he wasn’t someone they recognized. In chaotic melees such as this one, it was just as easy to kill a friend as a foe if you weren’t careful, and someone you didn’t recognize was just as easy a target as someone you knew to be an enemy. When it came down to life or death situations, it was better to be safe than sorry since you never had to apologize if you were wrong.

  So, in the end, he grabbed up a blood-covered sword that had been dropped nearby and hunkered down underneath the dying man with the intention of waiting it out. The weight of the man’s body pressed down against him, effectively pinning him against the deck, but there was so much smoke and chaos that he doubted anyone would actually notice him there. His best bet was to hope that he went unnoticed until this was all over and then, hopefully, he might be able to explain his situation to whomever the victor was. If he was lucky, he just might make it out alive.

  He couldn’t tell any of the combatants apart at first glance, but after a few moments of watching, he started to get a good sense of what was going on. Another vessel, even larger than the one he was on, had rammed into his own, and there were men pouring over the railing of that ship and onto this one. He had just vaguely started to pick the two sides apart when a second dead body dropped down next to him with a heavy thunk. Madison was so startled by the sudden noise that he jerked around violently, automatically pushing himself away from the unseen danger before he realized what he was doing. As soon as he did, the body he was hiding under shifted with the movement of the ship, and he was left exposed.