Shakers and Shadows

Chapter 2: The City

Jonas waited in darkness for the tall man and his helpers to leave in their black van, taking his deceased family along with them. He was struck with anger at the thought of those men touching his beloved parents and sister, and horrified that he couldn't bury them like they should have been. In fact, he'd probably never see them again. But he had to remain silent- he knew that alerting the tall man to his presence would cost him his life. The man was after him now, so he'd have to be especially careful. He knew he should probably get the furthest away he could, change his name and forget everything he knew about these two men. But he just couldn't. He had to get to the bottom of this; he had to know who had killed his family. He had to go to the city and find out who they were and why they wanted to kill his family and how they knew his father. He owed it to them to find out who had murdered them and... yes. Kill them. He twisted his hands. He felt as though he could kill someone now. It was only a matter of finding them. His mind worked furiously in the bitter darkness of the night, still crouched behind a lump of rock that used to be part of his home. He would have to travel to the city and use what he knew to find the men. It would be difficult but it had to be done. He decided to set off the next morning, and fell into fitful sleep, visions of two shadowed men, explosions and death filling his dreams.
He awoke when the sun rose, starting suddenly out of his fevered dreams. It was just becoming light, and the new sun casting over his destroyed home made it look even uglier than before. He walked back into the ruins and searched them for a while, desperate to find anything, anything he could take with him to remind him of home, his family and his mission. Eventually he managed to find his mother's favourite necklace in what had been the kitchen. She must have taken it off when she was cooking; it had become lodged between a crushed wall and what was left of the kitchen counter and so wasn't wrecked by the explosion. It was a large, glittering bright green stone hung on a thin golden chain. It was still fully intact and Jonas was delighted to see that the stone hadn't been damaged. He clutched it in his hand and remembered the day his father had given this to his mother, a few years ago.

"I brought this for you," His father said, revealing the necklace in his hand.
His mother gasped, almost dropping the plate she was holding. "Nicholas! You shouldn't have. It's not even our anniversary!" She fingered the beautiful glittering stone, its appearance such a dark red that it was almost black. "It's beautiful. Where did you get it?"
His father laughed, unclasping the necklace and placing it reverently around his wife's neck. "It looks wonderful on you. I'm so glad you like it."
His mother was too thrilled to realised he hadn't answered his question. "Oh, Nicholas. I'll wear this every day, thank you so much." She reached up and kissed him.

Jonas' mouth twisted into the ghost of a smile as he remembered that day. This necklace was a sign of his' father's devotion to his mother, and so it was the perfect thing to remember them by. He undid the clasp and fastened it around his neck. He thought he caught a wisp of his mother's perfume lingering on it as it settled. He had one final look around at his devastated home, then climbed back out of the debris. He started to walk away from the house, not looking back, towards the great city some miles away and his future.

Jonas had walked seven miles and it seemed as though he'd been walking forever. He was hungry and thirsty, tired and dirty. He was reaching the outskirts of the city now, he was walking through streets full of houses, and they were starting to get denser and denser. He'd only been to the city once before, and he was too young to remember. It was huge and the centre of activity for the whole of the area in which Jonas lived, but they'd never had any need to visit. He and his sister had been taught basic education from a mixture of their mother, the old computer programs and his father whenever he'd been at home. There was no need to mix with other people, and they were content with their isolated lives. What he saw here was very different. People, hundreds of them, though he was hardly in the suburbs of the city, still several miles from the city centre. Busy people rushing about, all busy, all active. The loud sounds and intense colours were so different to his quiet, idyllic home life that it almost gave him a headache. No one seemed to notice him- a filthy, ragged-clothed boy limping down the street with a dangerous glint in his eye. This pleased him, he knew it would be easier to find the men he was searching for if he remained entirely inconspicuous.
He carried on walking, and it was starting to get late when he finally arrived at what he guessed must be the very middle of the city.
Here the buildings were very tall, stretching into the sky dramatically and from all sides, looking as though they could almost touch each other up there, creating a canopy against the sun from the rest of the city. And indeed the city streets were dull with an artificial darkness created by the towering skyscrapers and narrow streets; it was not late enough for the sun to have gone down. There were people everywhere, faceless and moving, a seething mass of purposefulness. They all had somewhere to go. He looked around, taking in his curious surroundings. Someone crashed into him and pushed him roughly away, sending him spiralling into a brick wall.
"Watch where you're going!" Yelled the blur as it stormed away, quickly lost in the crowd.
Jonas held himself against the wall, and noticed it led to a small, quiet-looking alley. He sat down there beside a large rubbish bin and a broken sofa and held his head in his hands. He'd got to the city, finally. But what was he going to do now? He had a purpose- to find the men who had killed his family. But he had no idea how he was going to start, where to go, who to talk to. He supposed the first thing he could do was find something to eat, something to drink, some new clothes. He needed a wash. He had no money. Hitting his head off the brick wall, he cursed himself for being so stupid to not even consider these things before he left home. He had been so incensed by first grief, then rage, then determination that logic hadn't occurred to him, just a drive to fulfil his quest. He gave up then, sitting propped against the wall, tired and weary. He was slipping once more into an exhaustion-induced sleep when there was a large crash and the door in the wall, gone unnoticed by Jonas, burst open, and two grappling men fell out. Jonas jumped to his feet and watched as they rolled about on the ground, punching and hitting each other whenever they got the chance. One of the men suddenly got the upper hand, and pushed on top of the other, whereupon the other managed to get his legs up and kicked the first so hard in the chest that he flew backwards, crashing into the broken sofa and landing there so perfectly that it almost looked as though he was just sitting on it. The man wiped his bleeding mouth as the other rose to face him, backing until he hit Jonas. Immediately he turned and grabbed Jonas by his top, lifting him off his feet. He was a large, stocky man with a broken nose. He whirled round to face the other, still holding Jonas by the scruff of his neck. "Who the hell is this?! Another one of your little thieves?"
The man on the sofa chuckled and eyed Jonas and, speaking with a clear Irish accent, said "I don't know him, I've never seen him before. He's not one of mine."
The other man turned and stared into Jonas' face. "Who are you?" He spat. "What are you doing here?! What do you know?"
Jonas opened his mouth a few times, goldfish-fashion. No words would come.
The man on the sofa raised to his feet unsteadily. "For Christ's sake Thom, that's not really important right now is it? Come on. We're in the middle of something here. Just deal with him later."
Thom considered this, eyeing Jonas carefully. "Yeah. I guess you're right." He punched Jonas square in the face, and everything went black.

When Jonas awoke, dizzy and disoriented, he found himself tied to a chair in the middle of a small, dark, dingy room. He could feel the painful prickling beginnings of a large bruise on his face, and he'd probably have a black eye. He suddenly heard a muffled banging noise coming from the top of the room where squinting he could make out the outline of a door. The door burst open, two figures tumbling in. They both got up, dusting off their clothes. One of them, smaller and thinner than the other, turned around and checked the door anxiously, then nodded to the other and shut the door behind them. The room was plunged into total darkness once more, but Jonas heard some fumbling and then suddenly a bright light filled the room and as he squinted he saw the two figures clearly. They were both wearing completely black outfits, complete with a balaclava covering the whole of their face save for their mouth and eyes. They both saw him at once, tied to the chair sitting helplessly in the middle of the room. They moved towards him slowly. His voice, that had been so useless to him before, started working now.
"No! Please! Look, please. I haven't done anything. I don't know anything! I'm no-one! You've made a mistake! You've got the wrong person!"
He babbled senselessly at the figures. The smaller figure was bent over him, doing something to the back of his chair. The larger one stood in front of him, towering over him, and unreadable look in steel grey eyes, listening silently to Jonas' mindless pleas.
"Please! Really, I don't know a thing, I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time! I really don't know who any of you are, I..."
His appeals faded into nothing as the ropes binding him to the chair fell away. The small figure stood up, clutching at the untied ropes. The larger figure took off his balaclava to reveal a youthful, open face. "You can stop that now, alright? We're not going to hurt you."
The other person removed their hood too. "That's right. In fact," said the girl. "You could even say we're here to save you."