Two Page Shorts by Nick Venom (top reads .txt) 📕

white tee. The blazer was a size too large, fitting over the top of his faded jeans. He had white skin that was whiter than I ever saw. His eyes were deep blue, a rich shade of color. A pointed nose resting in between, connected to his lips as skinny as dimes. Above his nose were faint wrinkles on his forehead. He looked to be in his late thirties.

“We can’t afford to screw this up.” The man approached our cell as Floyd did. Both men bowed their heads to Floyd, who enjoyed the respect they were giving him. 

“Raise your heads, let’s focus on the deal.” Floyd impatiently said. The men raised their heads, staring at Floyd.

The first man started, clearing his throat before speaking. “My name is Rudd Anderson. My partner here is Judge Bright. Judge is his first name, not his profession.” Rudd pointed at Judge, a black man with a muscular physique. Judge wasn’t as tall as Floyd but neared his height. He had a large nose that connected to his thin reddish lips. Unlike Rudd, he had a scruff on his chin -  a budding beard. His eyes were golden, not hazel like Floyd. His eyebrows were raised as if he was questioning Floyd.

Judge stepped forward. “We are here to buy slaves, those people in particular.” He pointed at us.

Floyd bit his lip, staring at us. He seemed to be contemplating the offer. “Before I sell them, why those people?”

Rudd took the question. “We need experienced people. I heard from some guards and a man named Lawson that they were soldiers before they were jailed.”

Floyd nodded his head. “They were, but they’re on death row.”

“For two months?” Rudd questioned. “I know death-row prisoners sometimes lived years before they were finally killed, but that was the Old World. In the New World, wouldn’t dangerous people be killed instantly?”

Floyd nodded, squinting at them. He was irritated by his question. “If you want to punish people, death is a… release. Keep them a-alive and they suffer.” He sounded robotic, almost as if he was reading a script written by somebody else. It was not his own words. 

Judge nodded. “We need them. What do you want for them.” He asked bluntly. Rudd snapped his head to Judge, surprised by him.

He turned back to face Floyd. “What my partner means is that we request these people, so we want them. Shall we begin negotiating?”

Floyd smacked his lips, turning away. “Fine,” He barked. “Follow me to my throne room-” Throne room? Floyd’s ego was higher than the moon. “-and we’ll discuss there.

Rudd and Judge followed after Floyd, leaving our sight. They disappeared around a corner, leaving us. 

“We’re being sold as slaves?” Salinas asked from behind me. I turned to face him, finding both Garfield and Luna staring at him. “How did we go from death row prisoners to slaves?”

“Why couldn’t he kill us?” Luna whispered. She had lost her voice after a sudden attack. Guards, a month ago, were fed up with our complaining and attacked us. Salinas’s wound reopened, bleeding heavily from it. Everybody else, including me, faced bruises and cuts, but nothing fatal. The guards would be executed for killing us, but hurting us remained on the table.

“Keep quiet. Who knows what will happen.” Garfield muttered, now a skeleton. We were rarely fed and when we were, it was only a state loaf of bread to split between the four of us.

I nodded my head, kicking my feet against the cell floor. I scooted against a cell wall, resting my head on the cold cement as I waited for the bad news. I knew it was coming, but when was another question. Well, it doesn’t matter anyway. We have already lived for two months with our lives being hovered over us like a dog treat we could never grab. 

The others did their best to relax and found success in different degrees. Garfield sat against the cell wall, Luna sat in a corner, scrunched up into a ball, and Salinas in the middle of the cell; he was the most anxious one of us.

I closed my eyes, waiting for the bad news. I counted every second and minute until I heard the sounds of footsteps approaching us. It wasn’t one set but several.

Elliot opened the cell, allowing the guards to push past him and grab us. A pair of guards grabbed Garfield, turning him around and handcuffing him. Three other guards came to deal with us, handcuffing us in succession. 

“Well, it seems like we won’t kill you, but…” He smiled creepily. “... but I wouldn’t be surprised to hear about your deaths sooner than later.” He remarked while directing the guards out of the cellblock and towards our new masters; Rudd and Judge.

The guards kept an eye on the four of us, moving us out of the cell blocks and into the sunlight. The light was weirdly nostalgic. It almost felt like a dream to see light again. It was… strange.

“Here are your slaves,” Floyd said, pointing at us.

“Thank you,” Rudd said. “We’ll take it from here.”

Floyd glared at Rudd, dismissing him. He turned away and walked off, leaving Elliot to finish the transaction. 

“Four slaves, two girls, and two boys. All experienced soldiers that deserted during a mission. They were later found and jailed. Since then, they’ve been on death row.”

I gritted my teeth. They really want to paint us as deserters. Even though they’re the ones who started firing on us and gave us impossible tasks. Recapturing an entire town when it had been taken over by the undead and with only half a group? Even seven groups wouldn’t have worked.

Rudd and Judge nodded. Judge turned to face the pick-up truck he had running. He slid into the driver’s seat, sticking out a thumbs up from inside the cab. 

Rudd nodded, seeing Judge’s thumbs up. “Okay, thanks.” He said. He pointed at Garfield, telling him to jump into the bed. Garfield hesitated, not bulging a muscle.

“You’re going to disobey your master?” Elliot asked, smiling. I could tell he was waiting for another opportunity to beat Garfield without resistance.

I took a few steps towards Garfield. “Don’t cause trouble. Maybe they won’t be as bad as Elliot and the others. Anywhere except this place will be better.”

Garfield nodded, still glaring at Rudd.

“Garfield, we have a better chance of escaping with them than here. We’ve already tried to escape and we couldn’t find anything. Let’s go peacefully.” This got to Garfield, who nodded his head and relented. He dropped his glare and his head, stumbling towards the bed. He loaded himself into the bed before helping out Salinas behind him. Salinas turned around and helped Luna then myself into the truck.

Once we were loaded and secured, Rudd turned away from Elliot and jumped into the passenger’s seat. He turned to Judge, which I could see from the small window in the back of the cab. “Let’s go. Ashfield needs us.”

“Got it. Let’s hurry before night.”

“Always.”

Judge glanced at his side mirror. “I don’t want to be back here again.”

Rudd shook his head. “You know we’ll be back. We’ll have some problems to fix.”

Judge glanced at me, noticing I was paying attention to their conversation. “Okay, quiet down before they hear. We don’t want-” I couldn’t hear the rest over their whispers and the rapid winds. 

I decided to give up hearing their conversation, lounging on the bed. The others did the same, all of them looking drained. None of us were in the right mindset. How could we? We were no longer soldiers with a purpose. We became survivors, soldiers, warriors, deserters, then slaves. We were at the bottom - and there was no way of climbing up. 

***

We arrived at our new home, a community of several tens of blocks fenced in by a large metal wall. It was enormous - several times our height. 

The main gate, two sliding black fences, opened up for the truck. Judge eased on the throttle, carefully entering the gate and heading to a parking lot area off to the side of the gate. There were vehicles already resting in the parking lot, ranging from Smart cars to jeeps to a couple of humvees to five semi-trucks. 

As Judge parked the truck, I could see the inside of one of the semi-trucks, seeing it empty. Whatever was in the truck was long gone. 

Judge and Rudd jumped out of the truck as three people approached us. The first person was a man, who looked to be in his late fifties, wearing a tuxedo. He looked stiff in the outfit, clearly uncomfortable with it. 

“You’re back early.” The man started, approaching the truck. I could see the bags under his eyes and the wrinkles on his forehead. He had flatter features than Judge or Rudd, his body slowly disintegrating. Either his health or lack of food was the cause.

“Yeah, we managed to get the death row prisoners out, but I noticed a lot of cells with prisoners,” Rudd said. He approached the man, a pistol hiding in his hip holster. 

The man nodded. “Get them cleaned up and fed.” He told the man standing next to him, who resembled a boy more than a man. 

The boy nodded, looking like a younger version of the man. He turned to us, extending his hand out to me. I ignored his hand, jumping off the truck by myself. I turned around and helped Garfield and the others out. 

With everybody out of the truck, we stared at the man and Rudd. Rudd stared back, surprised at first. However, he quickly understood our fear. “Don’t worry, it was never our intention to make you our slaves. It was the only way of getting you guys out of that god-forsaken fort.”

Garfield stepped in front of me. “Why did you take us out of there? We were on death row, wouldn’t we be dangerous to you?”

Salinas crept up to my right, standing in front of Luna, who had rarely talked since we appeared. She lacked her emotions. She was nothing but an empty corpse. I wonder what they did to her.

Garfield took my attention off Salinas and Luna, watching as he took another step towards Rudd. “And what is your intention?”

Rudd nodded his head, understanding his questions. Before he could speak, the man jumped in. “I’ll answer his questions, this is my plan, after all.” The man started.

“No, I’ll do it, Leader.”

The man shook his head. “I’ll take it from here.” He took his attention off Rudd and onto us. He gave us a small smile before clearing his throat, starting. “My name is Maxwell Horse, the leader of this community of Ashfield. I understand your worries and concerns and I know I owe you more than a simple apology.” He bowed his head. “I knew about Alpha Fox’s cruel treatment towards their people for a long time now, almost four years, but I lacked… No, I chose not to save you all before the leaders of Alpha Fox got their grubby hands on you.”

Rudd, Judge, and the third person approached Maxwell, but he waved them off. “It’s okay.” He raised his head. “Firstly, I entrusted Rudd, one of my loyal friends, to make a plan with Alpha Fox’s leaders and have them sell their people to us. This was a front we used to get people out of the fort before we begin our actual operations.”

“Why us? Why death-row prisoners?” Garfield asked.

“Yeah, why not the guards or the normal people? Any of them would kill to be saved from the fort.” Salinas chimed in.

Maxwell shook his head. “It may seem weird, but choosing death-row prisoners was part of the plan. We want to avoid having people die under this operation, so anybody who was set to die soon would be the ones we save first.”

“Even so…” My voice cracked, trailing off. Garfield glanced at me, nodding his head. He was consoling me. It helped me muster up the strength to continue. “Even so, why do you need us? What could we do