The Debt

by Natalie Maddern

Isaac pushed the glass with one hand, his other grappling with the handle. His fingers slid off the metal. Again. Again. His palms were sweaty, and the drizzle wasn’t helping.  

He knew they were coming. He could hear them moaning. Sense them closing the distance. Smell their flesh.

Breathe. 

Slow down. 

Grip the handle. Pull down. Push. 

The pack was gaining on them.

He threw his weight against the door, slamming his shoulder against the surface. It gave a little, and then gaining momentum, swung open. He tumbled inside, reaching back at the last moment to grab the boy’s t-shirt, pulling him in behind him. 

With his last bit of energy, he pushed the door closed and dragged a nearby table in front of it, barricading them inside. He collapsed against the table leg and closed his eyes. He could hear the pack banging against the metal. The rhythm was irregular, punctuated by the sound of rotting bodies slapping together in the scrum, fluids smearing against the hard surface of the door. As long as they were quiet in here, the pack would move on. They would become distracted by something or someone else. 

He glanced up. Perhaps he and the boy could set up camp here for a while. These places always had restaurants and mini-bars. Hell, there might even be the chance of sleeping the night in a bed.

“I’m hungry,” said a small voice.

Isaac looked up at the boy. His face was gaunt, dominated by his sharp cheekbones and the black circles beneath his eyes.

So am I, kid, he thought. So is everyone. So is the pack that chased us in here. 

Using the table leg for leverage, he hauled himself to his feet. 

“Let’s see what we can find,” he replied. “Keep your eyes peeled, your steps quiet, and your weapon ready.”

The entrance lobby had been serviced by large skylights, and the building became darker the deeper inside they ventured. Isaac reached into his backpack and dug out his torch. 

He’d been here before, he realised, but the last time it had been the music that had lured him in. He remembered hearing somewhere that the melodies on the slots were designed to hook you. Something about them all being set in C Major so they sounded in tune, even when they weren’t. Even back then, the world had been trying to trap him. 

The pair stalked silently through the casino, scanning each space for movement. Listening for the moans and inconsistent gait of the roamers, or the deliberate, careful, quiet steps of other predators. Alert to the distinct scent of the rotting compared to that of the unwashed. 

Isaac glanced back and checked on the boy. He was copying Isaac’s stride, but his thin arms were wavering from the effort of holding up his hammer for so long. His brow was furrowed, his bottom lip jutting out with the effort of concentration. Isaac anchored the corners of his mouth against the smile that was threatening to appear. It was important that the boy was aware of the danger. He needed to survive. 

Working from memory, Isaac located the bank of restaurants that had once provided enough variety that punters could have all their needs met without leaving the floor. Together they wove between tables and upended chairs, following the torch light. Glass shards and dirty cutlery crunched beneath their boots. The table and carpet were littered with abandoned plates, thick with mould and colonies of fungi. Isaac felt his stomach lurch as the smell got inside his nose. He took shallow breathes through his mouth, silently swatting the flying insects away from his face.

Each time, they persevered through the dining areas into the kitchen storerooms. 

Each time, they swept the torch light across the shelves. 

Each time, the shelves were bare. 

Isaac heard a muffled sob behind him. A sniff. A wobbly sigh. 

Shit.

The boy was tall for a nine-year-old, like his father. The hunger, the loss and the desperation of the last twelve months had aged his face, and it was easy to forget that he was still a kid. Not that Isaac knew much about kids before all this anyway, and definitely not about ones who cried.

He looked down at his hands, giving the boy a moment to compose himself. His palms were calloused and stained with dirt and blood, now as permanent a feature of the landscape of his skin as the freckles and hair that covered the backs. He ran his thumb over the scar that ran the length of his left hand. He’d been older than the others when he’d started his apprenticeship, having mucked around a bit after school, chasing girls, and cars, and cash jobs. Then he’d ended up with seven stitches on his first day on the tools. The others had given him so much stick about being a sook because he almost fainted, but Marko had ripped into them for it. Taken him to the hospital. Told him it would be okay. He’d known right then, and every day after, that he’d do anything for Marko. 

Isaac turned to face the boy. 

“We’ll check the rooms. There’ll be mini bars,” he said. “Come on. It’ll be okay.”

Isaac had forgotten how big this place was. He led the boy through room after room filled with blackjack tables and roulette wheels. The beam from his torch reflected off playing cards and poker chips, winners and dead hands that had been discarded without discretion when everyone had fled. He tucked his crowbar into his belt, bent down and picked up one of the chips, tugging gently to release it from the dried blood that had glued it to the floor. It was yellow. One thousand dollars. He turned it in his fingers, running it back and forth along his knuckles. 

He looked up to see a figure standing in the darkness before him. 

“Shit,” he gasped, and the chip fell from his hand. He yanked his crowbar from his belt and cast his light at the figure. 

The spotlight illuminated a life-size Egyptian Pharaoh guarding the entrance to a room of slot machines. Isaac laughed softly with relief. An oversized plastic scroll unfurled above the Pharaoh’s head inviting punters to “Embark on an Egyptian adventure but beware the Pharaoh’s curse.” 

“Can’t be worse than this,” he muttered to himself. 

The roamers at the door weren’t that different from the mummies he’d obsessed over when he was a boy. He shone his light up and down the statue. It was wearing a blue and golden striped head cloth with flaps that hung to its shoulders and a grave expression. One hand clasped a small scroll to the Pharaoh’s chest, the other gripped a long hooked spear, just like the pictures in a book he’d gotten for Christmas one year when he was about the same age as the boy. 

“Hey,” he said. “Check it out… Liam?”

The room was silent. 

“Liam!” he hissed, “Where are you? Shit! Liam!”

He swept his light in all directions as he raced back through the casino, weaving between the dark shapes of the blackjack tables and roulette wheels. 

He couldn’t remember where he had last seen Liam. The boy was so quiet.

He caught his hip on the sharp corner of a poker table. He heard his pants rip and felt his pocket become lighter as something fell out. More important to find Liam now. He could go back for whatever that was later.

As he rounded the corner, something moved just out of his direct line of sight, and his attention was drawn to the far side of the room. A sunlit landscape, dotted with boulders, ferns, and shrubbery. A glimpse of honey-coloured fur catching the light. Liam was a silhouette against the brightness, his palms pressed against the glass.  

Scanning the area as he went, Isaac darted across the casino floor, until he was at the glass enclosure where Liam was still standing, mesmerised.

“Shit Liam! What the hell were you thinking! I can’t keep you safe if you just wander off!” he scolded, struggling to keep his voice low. 

“Look,” whispered Liam without breaking his gaze. 

Isaac ran his hand across his face, rubbing his eyes. Liam was just a kid, and even though he was hungry and dirty and tired, he’d somehow found something that he could consider extraordinary. He owed it to Marko to let Liam be a kid, even if it was only for a couple of minutes. He tucked his crowbar back into his belt and rested his hands in his pockets. 

“Yeah,” he replied. “I forgot they had lions here. But I reckon there used to be three. Two girls and a boy.”

Now that he thought about it, the lions that he remembered had been majestic beasts.

Prowling around the enclosure, lazing in the sunshine, splashing in the pool. The lionesses had roared at the spectators from the overpass. The male had pissed at them from behind the glass. 

This one wasn’t like his memories. She was on the skinny side. Her hip bones jutted out and her fur was a bit patchy. Isaac looked more closely at the enclosure. He could see scratches on the glass and metal surrounds, and what could have been the remains of the other lions scattered in the back.   

“Dad likes lions,” said Liam. His fingers circled the hammer head tucked under his belt. “I mean, he liked them.”

Isaac looked at the boy’s reflection in the glass. He was so similar to his father. He had Marko’s eyes. Compassion balanced with just a shadow of hardness to let you know he wasn’t a fool. But Marko had let the compassion win out when he had gone back for him instead of staying with his family. If Marko had left him to take care of himself, maybe Liam would have been able to share this moment with his dad who liked lions, rather than some guy who was his dad’s apprentice ‘before.’

“You remind me of your father, you know,” said Isaac.

The boy shifted his weight from one foot to the other, but didn’t reply.

Isaac considered the enclosure again. Something wasn’t right. It had been a long time for the lioness to survive on her own in this place, even if she’d had a large meal before the people left. Even if she’d eaten the rest of her pride. 

His eyes landed again on the bones. Some tuffs of fur. A scrap of fabric. He leaned forward, pressed his forehead right against the glass, and squinted. There, mixed in amongst the bones, were the remnants of a skull. 

Liam turned and looked directly at Isaac. “Can we eat it?”

Isaac blinked. The boy had become harder over the past twelve months than he had realised. Before he could figure out how to answer Liam’s plea, he heard footsteps approaching. Deliberate, careful, quiet. He grabbed Liam by the arm, pulling him close. 

“You run and hide. Quietly. Hold your hammer in your hand in case you have to use it,” he said. “Don’t come out until I call you. It’ll be okay.”

He didn’t give the boy a chance to respond, shoving him back towards the shadows of the casino, away from the sunlit enclosure. 

“Go. Now.”

            Isaac turned towards the footsteps. The glass wall of the enclosure was at his back. His hand rested gently on the end of the crowbar tucked in his belt. He hoped that it would stay there.

“You can’t eat her.” 

The man stepped into the light. He wore a thick, rusty beard and a tattered polo shirt, with the casino’s logo embroidered above the left breast. The words “Pride-lands Experience” had been printed underneath. 

“I’m just passing through. Needed somewhere to wait, to shake off the roamers,” said Isaac. He raised one hand, palm facing the man, but left the other on his crowbar. “I don’t want any trouble. I don’t want to hurt her. I’ll go. It’ll be okay. I’ll go.” 

“I can’t let you leave,” said the man. “You’ll come back. There’s nowhere else. They always come back. I raised Mahalia since she was a cub. She’s a good girl, but she’s hungry. I can’t let you leave.” 

The man raised his hand and pulled a long blade from the sheath attached to his waistband.

Isaac saw the man lunge at him at the same time that he heard the combative thump of the lion pawing at the glass. The knife sliced back and forth through the air, in an attempt to close the gap between them. The lioness’s claws gouged at the glass, over and over, as she dragged her paws down the surface of her enclosure at his back.

Isaac reached for his crowbar, but it caught on his belt loop, tangled between the leather and the fabric. The man lunged again. 

Isaac gasped as the blade dragged across his middle, his shirt providing no resistance. He staggered back, falling against the glass. His legs gave way beneath him. He slid down the glass, collapsing in an uneven lump on the carpet. 

He could feel his pulse pounding in his stomach.  

I hope the boy ran. It’ll be okay.

He could hear the lioness battering the glass behind his head.

I hope the boy is hiding. It has to be okay.

His belly felt wet, his shirt sticky against his skin. 

I hope the boy is safe. I’m so sorry Marko.

He looked down and saw his body, bent over on itself and leaking fluid from between the folds. As his eyes registered the injury, waves of pain radiated through his abdomen. 

The man stood motionless, watching him die. 

Liam appeared silently behind him. Isaac’s stomach dropped. Liam was supposed to be hiding, supposed to be surviving. He wasn’t supposed to come back. He wasn’t supposed to make the same mistake as his father. Isaac was supposed to repay the debt he owed Marko, not incur more.

Liam crouched down, pulled the hammer back and delivered the blow to the side of the man’s right knee. The leg buckled and the man tumbled forward. His scream was loud and raw. He curled up awkwardly on the ground, clutching his leg and writhing in pain.

Isaac could see a flash of colour on his left, then his right, then his left, as the lioness paced frantically behind him.

Liam stepped closer to the man, lifted the hammer high above his head, and lined it up with his target. The sunlight flashed off the metal as it whipped through the air, connecting with the back of the man’s head. 

The man looked directly at Isaac, his eyes popping wide with surprise. He fell face first against the carpet, with the hammer wedged in the back of his skull. The golden carpet beneath the dead man’s head grew darker as the blood flowed from his body.

Isaac sobbed as he watched the boy stand over the body, still and unblinking. Like a warrior, his cheeks were now adorned with blood splatter, his face void of emotion. Liam nonchalantly wiped the blood from his face with the bottom of his t-shirt.

With a final sob, Isaac’s head fell forward on his chest. His hands fell away from his wound, coming to rest on the carpet.

Liam, aroused from his trance, dove to Isaac’s side. His hands searched for the wound amongst the mess of blood, and guts, and fabric. His hands pressed down, putting pressure everywhere and nowhere at once, in an attempt to stop the blood escaping from his mentor. 

Isaac’s chest stopped rising. His blood stopped pulsing out of the gash. Liam pulled his hands away, and sat back on his heels, looking at Isaac. 

“Don’t worry, Isaac,” he said. “It’ll be okay.”

He wiped his cheeks with the bottom of his shirt. This time, the fabric came away damp with tears.

Liam tried to remove his father’s hammer from the dead man’s skull, but it would not budge. He rolled the man over and undid his belt. With one foot on the man’s torso, he pulled off the sheath and threaded it onto his own belt. He picked up the knife, wiped Isaac’s blood off the blade using the man’s polo shirt, and slide it inside the sheath. 

The lioness watched him, then turned and skulked away behind the rocks.

Looking at his mentor for the last time, he picked up Isaac’s crowbar, and tucked it against his right hip where he used to keep his father’s hammer. He grabbed the backpack and the torch, wiped the lens clean, and flicked the light on. 

Liam walked alone into the darkness, scanning the signs until he found the stairwell. He was hungry and tired, and upstairs there might be mini bars for raiding and beds for sleeping.