Free Paradise: An Apocalyptic Novel by Nicholas Erik Page A

remembered all this, her teeth grinding together, still starting at Pierre’s ruined body, the shallow, halting breaths wracking his frame.
    “You okay?” she asked in a low voice, which seemed like a stupid question. He was half-dead, but somehow he still managed to look up at her and smile.
    “Screw ‘em,” he said, “I’m fine.” This was loud. The group had heard Melina’s question, but at least it was respectful. Pierre had thrown gas on the fire; now they’d both pay. The whip came crashing down, and the rifle butt smashed into Melina’s spine.
    Two grunts of pain tore out across the jungle, but they fell on deaf ears. Again the blows came, like droplets in a rainstorm—incessant, powerful, driving with a purpose unknown to anyone but the hands of the men who gave them.
    “Stop,” Pierre gasped, after a minute, two, maybe ten—time stood still out here, and the only way they knew the days were flowing by was from the group’s constant updates and status reports. “Please.”
    Silver slammed the whip down one last time, and then threw it into an open cabin door.
    “You’ve learned your lesson, I see,” he said, gleeful that he’d broken Pierre. “Take them away.” The bald man dragged Pierre’s quaking body into the makeshift prison, and Melina’s guard followed suit. The door thundered shut, and the two were enveloped in almost total darkness. The windows had been boarded, and the fire outside cast little slivers of shadowy light through the cracks in wood.
    It wasn’t even enough to see their fingers, just enough to keep them from going insane.
    Some time later, a woman came to the door, as she always did, and slid some food towards them. Melina’s eyes burned from the influx of light, even though the fire was now just a heap of orange embers.
    “Here,” she said, quiet, unlike the three others, “I’d make it last. They’re not going to give you anything tomorrow. Think you’re holding out.”
    “Thank you,” Melina said, then her arm shot out, grasping the woman’s hand. She could feel the woman pull back in shock, but she didn’t flee. Melina’s grip was weak from exhaustion and hunger. The woman squeezed her hand, and Melina said, “Please, let us go. You’re one of the good ones.”
    The woman just shook her head, red hair bouncing along her shoulders. At one point, she’d been young. It might have only been a couple years prior; but time, experience, it had weathered her face with a certain hardness. Not wrinkles or crow’s feet, just the weight of what she’d done to survive. The woman turned back and locked the door behind her.
    “At least tell me your name,” Melina called as the woman walked away, “please.”
    She turned around, and, as if thinking it over, paused in place. “Clara,” she said, like it’d been awhile since she’d said it aloud, “my name’s Clara.”
    “Nice to meet you, Clara,” Melina replied, “I’m Melina.”
    “That’s a pretty name,” the woman responded, and then hurried away, as if she’d already said too much. Clara . Melina rolled the name around on her tongue, whispering it in the darkness like a weird mantra. Someone with that name couldn’t be bad—right?
    She went to sleep, comforted by this delusion. She didn’t touch the food. For now, the name would be enough to keep her alive. Pierre groaned and tossed around on the dirt floor nearby. His wounds were dressed—an act of cruelty, more than anything else, so that he could keep taking more punishment. It was almost impossible to sleep with the pain, but the fatigue took him anyway.
    Sleep is egalitarian like that; no matter what your troubles, it’s always willing to whisk you away and allow you to forget reality. But only for a moment.
    Silver stole a hasty glance at the rising sun and murmured something underneath his long, powerful breath. He’d long ago given up the luxury of a watch; the sun now told him everything that he needed to know.
    And he needed to