The Looters

It was around 9am on a nice, sunny Monday morning when the Looters came to my area. Max told me vague details about them; you can always see them coming because they only wear red, they don’t actually want to hurt us but they will if they have to, and most importantly do not speak them on any account. I asked Max why the last point was the most important, and he shrugged and said it was just what his dad had told him. Then he was quiet, banging the toe of his shoe into the ground. Max kept a photo of his dad in the lining of the cap he always wore, only removing it for the purposes of wiping his brow or laying his head on his pillow. You’ll be able to see them coming, he repeated.

But I heard them before I saw them.

The drummers, Max told me, always stand in the back.

As I watched the mass of red moving closer, like a slowly spreading pool of blood, I could just make out large drums strapped to the people walking at the back of the group. You could hear their steady beat some ten minutes before the procession appeared at the top of the hill on the edge of my area. They paused for a moment there, surveying the area as though planning their route of action. The drummers kept drumming.

I felt Max press something into my palm. I did not need to look to know what it was. My sister’s locket. Just as Max felt safer constantly carrying his father with him, I felt safer with her heart-shaped locket in a bottom drawer. I might lose it, otherwise. But not now; now it was safer with me.

The Looters had spilled into the area. Max and I watched from a window on the second floor. I could see them running in and out of houses a stones throw from the house Max and I were in. Some of the residents had retreated to the top of the hill. Others stood listlessly on the street. One man, I noticed, lay motionless in a front garden. And the drummers kept drumming.

I linked my arm through Max’s, and asked him to tell me again.

They don’t want to hurt us unless they have to, he said, and do not speak to them on any account.

The Looters always moved as a pack. They had covered a third of the area already, moving ever closer to the kitchen I now stood in with Max. I flicked my sister’s locket open and shut listlessly. Max had asked me, when I first showed him my prized posssesion, why there was no photo inside. I didn’t have time to get one, I said, it was the only thing I could grab and she had left it empty. She didn’t even like it; it was a cheap one, probably made of aluminium, given to her one birthday by our Aunty. Only I could see, as she opened the gift, the way her brow furrowed slightly. Then Max had showed me the photo of his dad. It is terribly ironic, he had said, that your sister did not like that locket, because dad never liked this photo either.

The drumming became louder. The procession was moving closer.

What will we do when they get here? I asked Max.

He shrugged his shoulders again and said, obey them.

And all at once it had begun. I half expected a rush of people to storm into the house, smashing windows, yelling, guns pointed at us. But the only sound was of the drums. Three men in dark red robes walked through the front door at a leisurely pace.

“Hello,” one turned to us and bowed his head. I was about to greet him back when I met Max’s eyes.

We watched them search the house. They seemed to take longer than I thought they would. I squirmed as one carried away the blanket Max and I shared each night. I bit my lip as they took away my journal.

Something seemed wrong. They were muttering to each other, glancing occasionally at Max and I. Then the one that had spoken previously came forward.

“Are you two trying to be funny?”

We said nothing, and looked at the floor.

“Out of this whole house I’ve only got two sentimental items. Usually people have at least ten. Are you trying to be funny?”

We said nothing. The drummers kept drumming outside.

“Nice hat,” in one swift motion the man had removed the cap from Max’s head and placed it on his own. Max’s mouth fell open but no sound came out.

He turned to me, “you’ve got something too, don’t you?” He was not impolite. He spoke softly and casually, as though asking a customer if they would like a receipt. “I’m not sure what, though” he remarked, and cocked his head to one side as he stared at me.

I was about to offer it up to him when Max grabbed his cap back and made for the front door. I saw him fall before I heard the gun fire.

I heard Max wimper on the floor - they had shot him in the shoulder. Before I knew what I was doing, I was crouched beside him yelling at the three men, telling them to just take it all and leave.

I watched their eyes shine under their red hoods, as though they were amused with me. They stepped over Max on their way out, remembering to take the cap with them too. Max had stopped making noise.

They were walking out the door to join their group when I called to them. All three immediately whipped around with guns armed. I know I’m not meant to speak, I said, but just have it. I tossed the locket to them, and one man stooped to collect it from the ground. As he rose, I swear I saw him nod at me in some kind of acknowledgement.

They started the fire a few hours later. I couldn’t see the cap or the locket amongst the wreckage. I hoped they would be with each other. You could hear the crying into the early hours of the following morning. Some wept for fathers, some for sisters, some for their own children. It was only when the last embers had died that the drumming finally stopped.