by M. R. Carey
“I’m fine now,” Melanie tells him in the same pragmatic tone – as though they were discussing some problem external to both of them. “But I can smell all four of you. Miss Justineau and Kieran a little, you and Dr Caldwell a lot. If I can’t go out to hunt again, you’d better find some way to lock me up.”
Gallagher looks up quickly when Melanie says she can smell him, but he doesn’t say anything. He’s looking a little pale around the gills.
“Handcuffs and a muzzle aren’t enough?” Parks asks.
“I think I could pull my hands out of the handcuffs, if I had to,” Melanie tells him. “It would hurt, because I’d have to scrape the skin all off, but I could do it. And then it would be very easy to get the muzzle off.”
“There’s a specimen cage in the lab,” Dr Caldwell says. “I believe it’s big enough, and strong enough.”
“No.” Justineau spits out the word. The anger that went to sleep while Melanie was talking yawns and stretches, awake again in an instant.
“It sounds like a good idea,” Parks says. “Get it ready, Doc. Kid, stay close to it. Like a hop and a jump away. And if you feel anything…”
“That’s absurd,” says Caldwell. “You can’t expect her to self-monitor.”
“Any more than we can expect you to,” Justineau says. “You’ve been itching to get your hands on her ever since we left the base.”
“Since before that,” Caldwell says. “But I’ve resigned myself to waiting until we reach Beacon. Once we’re there, the Survivors’ Council can hear us both out and make a determination.”
Justineau is two syllables into an obscene rejoinder when Parks claps his hand down on her shoulder and turns her round to face him. The brusqueness of it takes her by surprise. He’s almost never touched her, and never since his abortive pass on the roof of Wainwright House.
“Enough,” he says. “I need you in the engine room, Helen. The rest of you, you know what you’re doing. Or you should do. The kid goes in the cage. But you don’t touch her, Doc. For now, she’s off-limits. You cut her, you’ll answer to me. Trust me, all those slides you spent last night making up will not survive the encounter. Understood?”
“I’ve said I’ll wait.”
“And I believe you. I’m just saying. Helen?”
Justineau lingers for a moment longer. “If she comes near you,” she says to Melanie, “just scream and I’ll be right there.”
She follows Parks all the way aft to the engine room, where he closes the door and leans his weight against it.
“I know things are bad,” Justineau says. “I’m not trying to make them worse. I just … I don’t trust her. I can’t.”
“No,” Parks agrees. “I don’t blame you. But nothing’s going to happen to the kid. You’ve got my word.”
It’s a relief to hear him say that. To know that he recognises Melanie as an ally, at least for now, and won’t let her be hurt.
“But I’d like you to do me a favour in return,” Parks goes on.
Justineau shrugs. “Okay. If I can. What?”
“Find out what she really saw.”
“What?” Justineau is mystified for a moment. Not angry or exasperated, just at a loss to understand what Parks is saying. “Why would she lie? Why would you even think that she …? Shit! Because of what Caroline said? Because she fancies herself as an anthropologist? She doesn’t know shit. You can’t expect psychopaths like the junkers to make rational decisions.”
“Probably not,” Parks agrees.
“Then what are you talking about?”
“Helen, the kid’s talking hairy-arsed nonsense. I’m pretty sure she saw something last night. And it was probably something that scared her, because she’s really sincere about wanting us to leave. But it wasn’t junkers.”
Justineau is getting angry again. “Why?” she demands. “How do you know? And how many times does she have to prove herself to you?”
“None. No times. I think I’ve got a pretty good handle on her now. But her story doesn’t hold together at all.”
He picks up one of the manuals he’s been working from, which he’s left lying on the cowling of the generator, and sets it aside so he can sit there. He doesn’t look happy.
“I can see why you wouldn’t want to face up to this,” Justineau says. “If they followed us from the base, it means we screwed up. We left a trail.”
Parks gives a sound that could be a laugh or just a snort. “We left a trail you could follow facing backwards with your head in a bucket,” he says. “It’s not that. It’s just…”
He raises a hand and starts counting off on his fingers.
“She says she saw all men, no women, which means this is a temporary camp. So why don’t they put up a perimeter? How come she can walk right in there and walk right out again without being seen?”
“Maybe they have lousy security, Parks. Not everyone has your skill set.”
“Maybe. And then we have those guys conveniently coming in just at the right moment and saying they’re following someone. And the tattoo. Private Barlow, back at the base, he had that same word on his arm. Some coincidence.”
“Coincidences happen, Parks.”
“Sometimes they do,” Parks agrees. “But then there’s Rosie.”
“Rosie? What’s Rosie got to do with this?”
“She hasn’t been touched. We found her standing right here in the street, and there isn’t a mark on her. Nobody tried to jack the door open, or to lever out one of the windows. There was all that dirt and grime on her, and not so much as a handprint or a smudge. I’m having a hard time believing that fifty junkers could walk through here and not see her. Or that they could see her and not want to take a look inside. Come to think of it, I’m having a hard time believing that you and Gallagher managed to do your foraging yesterday without bumping into them. Or that they didn’t see your flare. If they really are following our trail, they’re missing a hell of a lot of tricks.”
Justineau is looking for counterarguments, and finding some, when she runs right into the one piece of evidence that Parks didn’t see. Those sidelong looks at Caldwell … it was as though Melanie was really aiming her story at an audience of one all along. Talking to the doctor over the heads of everyone else in the room.
So she doesn’t argue. There’s no point when she’s more than half sold. But she doesn’t let it rest there either. She’s not going to go off and interrogate Melanie without knowing what Parks’ play is.
“Why did you do that then?” she demands. “Back in there?”
“Why did I do what?”
“Order a lockdown. If Melanie is lying, there’s no danger.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“But you didn’t try to get to the truth. You acted like you believed every word. Why?”
Parks takes a moment to think about that. “I’m not going to bet our lives on a hunch,” he says. “I think she’s lying, but I could be wrong. It wouldn’t be the first time.”
“Bullshit, Parks. You don’t second-guess yourself like that. Not from what I’ve seen. Why didn’t you at least call her on it?”
Parks rubs his eyes with the heel of his hand. He looks really tired all of a sudden. Tired, and maybe a little older. “It meant something to her,” he says. “I don’t know what, but unless I’m dead wrong, it’s something she’s way too scared to talk about. I didn’t push her, because I don’t have a bastard clue what kind of something that might be. So I’m asking you to find out, because I think you can get her to tell you what scared her without making it any worse for her than it is already. And I don’t think I can. We don’t have that kind of relationship.”
It’s the first time since Justineau met Parks that he’s actually surprised her.
Without thinking about it, she leans forward and kisses him on the cheek. He freezes just a little, maybe because where she kissed is mostly scar tissue, or maybe just because he didn’t see the move coming.
“Sorry,” Justineau s
ays.
“Don’t be,” Parks replies quickly. “But … if you don’t mind me asking…”
“It’s just that you talked about her like a human being. With feelings that might sometimes have to be respected. It felt like that was an occasion that ought to be marked somehow.”
“Okay,” Parks says, trying that on for size. “You want to sit around and talk about her feelings some more? We could—”
“Later maybe.” Justineau heads for the door. “I wouldn’t want to distract you from your work.”
Or get your hopes up, she adds to herself. Because Parks is still someone she mostly associates with blood and death and cruelty. Almost as strongly as she associates herself with those things. It really wouldn’t be a good idea for the two of them to get together.
They might breed, or something.
She goes through into the lab where she sees that Caldwell has already set up the specimen cage. It’s a fold-out structure, like the airlock, but sturdy. A cube of thick wire mesh about four feet on each side, supported by solid steel uprights that lock into place in brackets set into the walls of the lab. It stands in the forward corner, where it doesn’t impede access to work surfaces or equipment.
Melanie is sitting in the cage, knees hugged to her chest. Caldwell is doing very much what Parks is doing with the generator – overhauling a complicated piece of equipment, one of the largest in the lab, so deeply and completely absorbed that she doesn’t hear Justineau come in.
“Good morning, Miss Justineau,” Melanie says.
“Good morning, Melanie,” Justineau echoes. But she’s looking at Caldwell. “Whatever you’re doing,” she says to the doctor, “it’s going to have to wait. Go take a cigarette break or something.”
Caldwell turns. Almost for the first time, she lets her dislike of Justineau show on her face. Justineau greets it like a friend; it’s really something to have got through that emotional barricade.
“What I’m doing is important,” Caldwell says.
“Is it? Too bad. Get out, Caroline. I’ll tell you when you can come back.”
For a long moment they’re face to face, almost squaring off against each other. It looks like Caldwell might go for it, damaged hands or not, but she doesn’t. It’s probably just as well. She looks bad enough right now that a stiff wind would knock her down, never mind a stiff punch in the head.
“You should examine the pleasure you take in intimidating me,” Caldwell says.
“No, that might spoil it.”
“You should ask yourself,” Caldwell persists, “why you’re so keen on thinking of me as the enemy. If I make a vaccine, it might cure people like Melanie, who already have a partial immunity to Ophiocordyceps. It would certainly prevent thousands upon thousands of other children from ending up the way she has. Which weighs the most, Helen? Which will do the most good in the end? Your compassion, or my commitment to my work? Or could it be that you shout at me and disrespect me to stop yourself from having to ask questions like that?”
“It could be,” Justineau admits. “Now do as you’re told and get out.”
She doesn’t wait for an answer. She just bundles Caldwell to the forward end of the room, pushes her through into the crew quarters and closes the door on her. The doctor is so weak that it isn’t even hard. The door doesn’t lock, though. Justineau waits there for a moment or two in case Caldwell tries to come back in, but the door stays closed.
Finally, satisfied that they’ve got as much privacy as they’re going to get, she goes back to the cage and kneels beside it. She stares through the bars at the small, pale face inside.
“Hi,” she says.
“Hi, Miss Justineau.”
“Is it okay if we…” she starts to say. But then she thinks better of it. “I’m coming in,” she says.
“No!” Melanie yelps. “Don’t. Stay there!” As Justineau puts her hand on the door and slides back the bolt, the girl scrambles to the other end of the cage. She presses herself hard into the corner.
Justineau stops, with the door half open. “You said you could only smell me a little bit,” she says. “Is it enough to be uncomfortable for you?”
“Not yet.” Melanie’s voice is tight.
“Then we’re okay. If that changes, you tell me and I’ll get out. But I don’t like you being in a cage like an animal with me out there looking in. This would feel better for me. If it’s okay with you.”
But it’s clear from Melanie’s face that it’s not okay. Justineau gives up. She closes the door and locks it again. Then she sits down and leans her shoulder against the mesh, legs crossed.
“Okay,” she says. “You win. But come on over here and sit with me at least. If you’re inside and I’m outside, that should be fine, right?”
Melanie advances cautiously, but she stops halfway, evidently fearful of a situation that could spiral quickly out of her control. “If I tell you to get further back, you have to do it right away, Miss Justineau.”
“Melanie, there’s a wire-mesh screen in between us and you’ve got your muzzle on. You can’t hurt me.”
“I don’t mean that,” Melanie says quietly.
Obviously. She’s talking about changing, in front of her teacher and her friend. Ceasing to be herself. That prospect scares her a lot.
Justineau feels ashamed, not just about the thoughtless comment but about what she’s come here to do. Melanie must have lied for a reason. Breaking down the lie feels wrong. But so does the thought of some new random factor out there that Melanie wants them all to run away from. Parks is right. They have to know.
“When you went into the theatre last night…” she begins tentatively.
“Yes?”
“And saw the junkers…”
“There weren’t any junkers, Miss Justineau.”
Just like that. Justineau’s got her next few lines already prepared. She stares stupidly, mouth open. “No?” she says.
“No.”
And Melanie tells her what she really saw.
Running between the mildewed seats and across the booming stage. Naked as the day they were born. And filthy, although their skin underneath the dirt was the same bone white as her own. Their hair hanging lank and heavy, or in a few cases standing up in spikes. Some of them had sticks in their hands, and some of them had bags – old plastic bags, with words on them like Foodfresh and Grocer’s Market.
“But I wasn’t lying about the knives. They had those too. Not stabbing knives like Sergeant Parks’ and Kieran’s. Knives like you might cut bread or meat with in a kitchen.”
Fifteen of them. She counted. And when she made up the story of the junkers, she just added forty more.
But they weren’t junkers. They were children of every age from maybe four or five to about fifteen. And what they were doing was chasing rats. Some of them beating the floor and the seats with their sticks to get the rats running. Others catching them when they ran, biting off their heads and dropping the limp bodies into the bags. They were much faster than the rats, so it wasn’t hard for them. They made it into a game, laughing and taunting each other with shrieks and funny faces as they ran.
Children like her. Children who were hungries too, and alive, and animated, and enjoying the thrill of the hunt. Until they sat down, at last, and feasted on the small, blood-drenched corpses, the big ones choosing first, the little ones pushing in between them to snatch and steal. Even that was a game, and they were still laughing. There was no threat in it.
“There was a boy who seemed to be the leader. He had a big stick like a king’s sceptre, all shiny, and his face was painted in lots of different colours. It made him look sort of scary, but he wasn’t scary to the little ones: he was protecting them. When one of the other big kids showed her teeth to one of the little ones and looked like she was going to bite him, the painted-face boy put his stick on the big kid’s shoulder and she stopped. But mostly they didn’t try to hurt each other. It seemed like they were a family almost. They all knew each
other, and they liked being together.”
It was a midnight picnic. Watching it, Melanie felt like she was looking at her own life through the wrong end of a telescope. This was what she would have been if she hadn’t been taken away to the base. This was what she was supposed to be. And the way she felt about that kept changing as she thought about it. She was sad that she couldn’t join the picnic. But if she hadn’t gone to the base, she would never have learned so many things and she would never have met Miss Justineau.
“I started to cry,” Melanie says. “Not because I was sad, but because I didn’t know if I was sad or not. It was like I was missing all those kids down there, even though I’d never even met them. Even though I didn’t know their names. They probably didn’t have names. It didn’t seem like they could talk, because they just made these squeaking and growling sounds at each other.”
The emotions that cross the little girl’s face are painfully intense. Justineau puts her hand up against the side of the cage, slides her fingers through the mesh.
Melanie leans forward, letting her forehead touch the tips of Justineau’s fingers.
“So … why didn’t you tell us all this?” It’s the first thing Justineau can think of to ask. She skirts around Melanie’s existential crisis with instinctive caution, afraid to confront it head on. She knows Melanie won’t let her go into the cage and hug her, not with that fear of losing herself, so all she has is words, and words feel inadequate for the job.
“I don’t mind telling you,” Melanie says simply. “But it has to be our secret. I don’t want Dr Caldwell to know. Or Sergeant Parks. Or even Kieran.”
“Why not, Melanie?” Justineau coaxes. And gets it as soon as she’s asked. She holds up her hand to stop Melanie from saying it. But Melanie says it anyway.
“They’d catch them and put them in cells under the ground,” she says. “And Dr Caldwell would cut them up. So I made up something that I thought would make Sergeant Parks want to go away really fast, before anyone finds out they’re here. Please say you won’t tell, Miss Justineau. Please promise me.”
“I promise,” Justineau whispers. And she means it. Whatever comes of it, she won’t let Caroline Caldwell know that she’s sitting right next door to a new batch of test subjects. There’ll be no culling of these feral children.