"Ready?" Chad asked.
The 3 boys looked at each other.
Their eyes betrayed fear...and determination.
"Let's do this," one of them said.
The leaves crunched under their feet as they parted bushes and avoided thorns. They could have taken the highway, but they didn't want to be seen.
The gang was used to stealth missions, but they never thought they would be sneaking up on their own home.
As they got closer, a familiar smell wafted over them. "Mum's making her chicken roast again," Addy said with a twinge of sadness.
"She always burns it," said Sumen.
"Always," Addy agreed.
They didn't bother to knock.
"Boys! What a pleasant surprise!" their mother greeted them. "Would you like some lunch? I'm making chicken roast, I can make some more."
"No thanks, ma. We're not hungry," Chad said.
"But you have to taste some. Come on, let me give you a spoonful each," their mother insisted. She picked up three plates and swiftly distributed food across them. She pushed the plates towards them, almost forcing them to eat.
The boys looked at each other. It was time.
Chad quickly pulled out a gun and shot his mother in the chest. She barely had time to react. The other 2 boys didn't even flinch. This was part of the plan.
Sumen threw all the food into the sink. Addy pulled the body outside and started a fire.
"Come quickly. We don't have much time left," said Chad. He was the oldest, and the other two found it natural to listen to him. With a fire blazing behind them, they made their way to their neighbour's house.
The town of Shonja used to be a normal, happy place. Until The Plague began, children would grow up to become teenagers, then grow into adulthood and gradually die of old age. Normal. Their problems were trivial—a stolen item or two, a couple of accidents here and there, and maybe the odd sprinkling of troublesome drunkards. Now, however, it was a different story altogether.
The Plague had started to infect the city about five years ago. The river spread The Plague to the village of Shonja. Those infected stopped growing physically, but their organs were slowly deteriorating. The worst part was that the infection numbed their pain system. The victims wouldn't even feel their organs killing them from the inside. The people lived a seemingly normal life, not knowing that everyone and everything they touched was getting infected as well. Pretty soon, the entire town was infected.
Shonja was a popular tourist destination. It had all the works—hills, beaches, waterfalls, natural hot springs and the finest restaurants of the country. People flocked to Shonja whenever they had a few days to spare. They interacted with the locals, stayed with some of them, drank and ate with families...and got infected as well. Within 3 years, people had started dropping dead across the country. The numbers were only increasing.
The best scientists of the country had been called to work on an antidote. But this infection seemed incurable. The only thing to do was to prevent it from spreading—by killing it at the source. So the government put together a team of assassins. These assassins were recruited right out of middle school, no more than teenagers. Due to the delicate nature of the job, their parents weren't informed. Armed with guns and poisons, these young men went around the country killing anyone infected.
These boys knew that such constant contact with infected victims would kill them eventually, but they didn't care. Better them than innocents.
6 months later.
The assassins had been successful. They had killed every infected person on this planet, except themselves. That was the last part of the program. It was the hard part. Maybe not harder than killing their own families, but hard nonetheless.
The government had wanted to reward these brave young men, but it was forced to eliminate them. Not doing so would risk a second spread of The Plague.
There was no other solution. The team of assassins were all on a bus now to the execution hall. Each sat gloomy, getting ready for their own demise.
The 'execution hall' was nothing but an abandoned factory. They would each be given an injection and pass away painlessly. The entire process was run by a machine and a couple of robots, so that no humans would contact them and get infected.
Addy, Chad, and Sumen sat next to each other, looking as gloomy as the other assassins.
As they neared the execution hall, the driver of the bus stopped. One of the tyres was flat. The 3 brothers volunteered to help him change tyres. The others, too scared of their impending death, did nothing but sit and wallow in self pity.
Suddenly, the bus exploded. The earth shook with force and the smoke grew black. Sadly, there was no one other than the assasins for miles around, so help never arrived. Within a few minutes, the fire had consumed everything. The only thing it left behind were ashes.
3 weeks later.
"Addy, give me a hand with the roof, would you?" said Chad.
They were trying to make their makeshift hut not-so-makeshift. This was their home now.
Sumen was fixing up the fence. They lived somewhere deep inside the forest, so they needed to keep wild animals away. The boys were quite enjoying all this work. It made them feel alive. It helped them forget the guilt of bombing their colleagues. It also helped ease their guilt about faking their deaths.
They knew they were all going to die soon anyway. They were definitely infected. But they'd rather live out their lives and die on their own time than be shot. Considering all the people they had killed before, it was unfair that they got to live and the others didn't. But this they were okay with. The others spread infection. They didn't—they kept themselves enclosed inside the forest with zero human contact. At least, that's what they told themselves when they couldn't sleep at night.
They had tried to save the driver of the bus, but he had been too close to the bomb. The three brothers had managed to run far enough away from the bus that they escaped with very minor burns.
Now that they had all recovered, it wasn't so bad living in the forest—probably because they had a fourth person with them. It was part of the plan.
A familiar smell wafted over from the kitchen. "Boys! Dinner's ready! I've made chicken roast today!"
Liked the story? Let me know in the comments. I'd also love it if you could share this with your circle.
If you want more stories like this delivered directly to your inbox, you can subscribe to my weekly newsletter.
Comments