Short Stories from the Fire Hunter Universe
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The human combustion pathogen.
That was what the boy called the illness that made people catch fire on the inside. “When you have this pathogen, just being near fire will automatically set your body ablaze.”
“Even if you’re not touching the fire?” the child asked.
The boy nodded. “That’s what the people who captured me said. Last night, I saw it with my own eyes.”
“But isn’t the big war happening far away?” the child asked. “There are only villagers and cattle here. Soldiers shouldn’t have any interest in us at all.”
The boy nodded again, leading the child forward by the hand. “It doesn’t matter. There’s no such thing as innocent bystanders anymore. The war is happening far away, but it’s also happening here. It involves us now. It involves everyone. We’re all bound together by invisible chains.”
The boy and his companions walked close together, alert to their surroundings. There were eight people in this group including the child. No one ever strayed far from the group.
The child knew some of these people. They’d all lived in his village or in the town nearby. One had worked at a gas station and he’d seen one woman at the small used bookstore once or twice. A few were teachers from the school.
The boy talked to the child as they traveled. His voice was always calm. There was a certain dissociation in his tone as if he were speaking of things that had happened long ago and very far away. The child’s mother had sounded like that when she was reading him fairy tales. The boy had witnessed just as much horror as the child while fleeing the village. Perhaps he talked to distract the exhausted child—or himself.
“Our village was targeted, but not because of us,” the boy said. “The people who created this pathogen needed to test it. To make sure it would work against their actual enemies.”
The child frowned. “Why would they want to give their enemies such a terrible disease?” This idea didn’t match the child’s idea of warfare. The child thought of war as people attacking each other in cities directly. That was how the child’s teachers and family had described war before.
The boy shook his head, his expression sorrowful. “A disease like this is a weapon. You can kill a lot of people with it without using a lot of bombs or guns. You don’t even need bombs or guns if you have a disease like this killing your enemies for you.”
“But,” the child said as they struggled to match the boy’s pace. The boy was much taller than the child. “What about the children who disappeared from the town? My big brother got captured and taken away before the disease came. What happened to him and the others?”
The boy’s mouth twisted into a strained smile. “The kidnappers were recruiting people—usually kids. They want to force us to fight our own people. If we hadn’t escaped, we might have been captured and turned into child soldiers. None of those who were captured can be saved now. They’ve probably exposed them to the pathogen, in which case they’re all dead.”
***
The group took several breaks during the day to rest, eat, and sleep. Their journey seemed endless. There was no set destination. All they did was wander and rest when they dared. The group avoided towns, villages and cities. They took turns sleeping at night and watched for trouble. They survived on emergency rations that didn’t need to be cooked. The child was always hungry, and so were most of the others. They couldn’t sleep soundly at night because they were always afraid.
Sometimes the child wondered if their family had survived somehow. They’d seen the house burn, but they hadn’t seen them die. The child hoped that their family was safe. Maybe their older brother was safe, too, and it was them who’d been kidnapped. The child wished that was true.
***
After weeks of seeing no other people but the group, the child felt as if the world had truly ended. Half of the group cared for the child as if they were their own, but the other half considered the child to be a burden. Everyone had lost family and friends to the pathogen.
“I’m so tired,” the child whispered.
The group had reached the outskirts of a small town. A woman spoke to the others, who would avoid the town as usual.
“I’ll go there. I’ll bring this pathogen to the people in that town.” She smiled. Her smile was terrifying like a rictus. She looked like she’d already accepted her own death. Her face was pale and gaunt from exhaustion and hunger. She would go to the town alone.
“Go. Make your way as close to the center of town as you can,” a man said. “Before you reach it, your body will start to burn. The people will not leave your corpse alone. They will touch you to move or bury you, and then the pathogen will spread.”
The child was sad to see the woman go. She had always given the child extra nuts and roots and she’d often sung them lullabies at bedtime. The thought of her leaving and not coming back was unbearably painful. The child wanted to cling to her to prevent her from leaving, but they didn’t. The woman had the right to make her own choices. The child shouldn’t make her second-guess herself. The child hid behind the rest of the group so that they wouldn’t have to watch her walk away.
A flame flickered in the night air.
The child watched the town burn. The group was far enough away for the fire to not affect them. A column of smoke rose into the sky and blotted out the moon.
The child wondered if the woman had accomplished her goal. Had she managed to pass on the pathogen? Why would she want to do that? Had she increased the number of people in the world who caught this terrible disease?
No one in the group had the courage to go into the town and see what had happened for sure.
“Why?” the child asked. “The people in this town might not have anything to do with the disease. Killing them with it is as bad as what the enemy does.” Tears coursed down the child’s cheeks.
The boy looked at the child, his face cast in deep shadow. “It’s like I said before,” he said. “There’s no such thing as innocent bystanders anymore.”
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