He shook his head and slowly came to his feet. “We have propane gas. We have no water other than the few bottles in the lounge and we have no power.” He studied her carefully. “The safest place to put a generator would be the roof. Even if you locate one, you would need help getting it placed and the power cords run to the lab.”
She pressed her hand to his chest and held him back. “First, I’ll look in the basement. There’s a strong possibility that there’s a generator in place. If so, I’ll either start it and the grand majority of our problems are solved, or I’ll find fuel for it. Either way, I can handle that part on my own.”
He shook his head vehemently. “No. Basements are dark and we know where the enemy prefers to remain.” He swallowed painfully and patted his pockets for the analgesics. “My throat is so raw.”
She gave him a weak smile. “Mine is starting to feel better. Maybe it’s nearly over.”
“Or maybe you are trying to change the subject.” He stiffened slightly and squared his shoulders. “Either way, you will not be going to the basement without another pair of eyes to watch your back.”
She sighed and nodded. “Fine.” She looked up and smiled. “But first, another cup of go-juice. If I have to run for my life, I’d rather do it caffeinated.”
Simon rifled through the boxes and plastic bottles. He’d hold one to his face and try to make sense of the markings but they were unfathomable.
He twisted the lid off and poked through the thin, foil tamper indicator before holding it to his nose. He wasn’t sure the name of what he was looking for, but he was more than familiar with the smell. Bottle after bottle he’d open and toss aside until he found the smell he was looking for.
Finally, Simon tilted a bottle back and chewed at the bitter aspirin, praying that whatever it was called, it would help with his sore throat and aching head.
He reached for the bottle of brown liquor and washed the bitter paste down, grimacing as the liquor burned both his throat and his belly. He sat down heavily and placed the bottle between his legs. He stared at his people, sleeping in the shadows, their quick breathing reminding him of a panting dog.
He took another long pull from the bottle then screwed the lid back in place. He pushed up from the floor and made his way to the bags of dog food that served as his bed. He lay down next to the lone, thin woman and she turned over instinctively, wrapping her arm over his middle.
Simon stared at her and something caused him to reach out and tuck a stray strand of her thinning hair behind her ear. He stared at her and knew that at one time in her life, she’d been pretty. Maybe it was the bone structure of her face. Maybe it was the fullness of her lips. Perhaps it was the way that she carried herself with authority. Whatever she had been definitely wasn’t the body that she carried now, but there was something about her that told him that in a previous life, she outclassed him.
He smiled to himself as he reached down and tugged his belt loose. He worked his pants down before grabbing her and rolling her over. After a wee bit of aligning, he thrust himself into her and held her bony hips as he pleasured himself at her expense.
She never woke as he did what he wanted. He continued to rut like an animal in heat. Simon smiled to himself as he thrust into her. She may have outclassed him at one point, but from where he was lying, she was his property now.
He had this nagging feeling that his situation was only temporary. He could feel that the entire structure of his new kingdom was tenuous at best. Somehow it all felt…wrong.
He could only remember small bits of how things were. Mere flashes of the way things used to be. But he knew himself and he knew that he was not a nice guy. If this new world of his came to an end tomorrow and things went back to the way they were, this stick of a woman would always know that she was owned by a real man.
Regardless of what the future might hold in store for him and his people, she was his now, and he intended to get as much use from her as he wanted.
While he still could.
Chapter 13
Hatcher watched the colors overhead fade from orange to red as the sun slowly set. He watched the sky begin to darken through his office window as a low murmur in the dining room built up to an almost fever pitch. He pushed away from his desk, his face a mask of concern as the voices carried down the hallway.
He pushed open the doors to the dining room to find a large group of anxious people yelling at someone.
“Our kids need that medicine.”
“This thing is spreading! Now I’ve got it, too!”
“You can’t just TAKE our medication from us!” “Everybody is getting sick!”
He pushed through the crowd to find a flustered Vicky Sue, slowly backing away and trapping herself near the old salad bar. “I-I can’t help it.” Her head snapped toward her brother and she pleaded with her eyes. “They’re demanding the meds back, Danny.”
Hatcher stepped between the crowd and his sister, his face a scowl. “What the hell is the meaning of this?”
“She’s got new medicines!” A scruffy looking man that he didn’t recognize yelled. “I was on guard duty when they brought them in.”
A woman stepped forward, her face reddening. “I don’t care if the antibiotics are outdated. It beats nothing!”
Hatcher held a hand up to stop them and tried to hurriedly think of a viable excuse. He came up empty, yet somehow he doubted that honesty would help in this situation.
“I ordered her to take back the medication,” he stated firmly, his eyes challenging the crowd.
“Who died and left you in charge?” The scruffy man asked. “I got kids that need those pills, dammit. Who are you to say that they can’t have it?”
Hatcher squared his shoulders. “You don’t approve of the way I run things? You are free to leave whenever you like.” He stepped closer, setting his jaw. “I’m not Simon. I’m not forcing any of you to stay here.”
The man lowered his voice to a menacing growl. “Your way or the highway?” he scoffed. “That sounds a lot like Simon if you ask me.”
“Then leave.” Hatcher raised a brow at him.
“Seriously, Mr. Hatcher,” a woman pleaded, stepping between the two men. “Our kids are sick and some of us are catching it, too.” Her hands shook and her lower jaw quivered. “Why won’t you let them have medicine?”
Hatcher inhaled deeply and blew it out slowly. He felt Vicky’s hand on his shoulder and her soft voice whispered, “Just tell them.”
Hatcher hung his head and pinched his eyes shut. “I ordered the meds recalled because…” He trailed off, his mind fighting him.
“Because?” the man asked, his tone sarcastic.
Hatcher looked up and glanced at the faces in the crowd. “Because what you are experiencing is the government’s attempt at a cure.” He allowed the crowd a moment to murmur amongst themselves, intending to continue his explanation before the scruffy man attacked him.
“And you didn’t think to share this information with the rest of us?” He stepped closer, his anger rising.
Hatcher seemed to grow taller, daring the man to close the distance. “Yes, I did.” He turned and raised his voice. “I didn’t want a false hope to destroy what we built here.”
“Why would you want to keep that from us?” The woman looked almost insulted.
Hatcher slowly nodded. He raised his voice again so that everybody could hear him clearly. “Imagine if I’d come to you and announced that the government had released a cure.” He paused and stared into their collective faces. “You tell your kids that the worst was over and that soon everything could be back to as close to normal as we could make it.” He set his jaw and slowly shook his head. “Then imagine that their ‘cure’ didn’t work.” His features hardened. “How do you explain that to your children without dashing ALL hope?”
“You had no right…” the scruffy man stated. “And how does that give you the authority to take their medicines?”
“Because they said th
at it needed to run its course in order to work.” He tilted his head to the side slightly, studying the man before him. “They put a recording on a loop and Big Mike picked it up on the radio.”
Voices began to murmur again and he held a hand up to stop them. “Yeah, we got the radio going and it’s the first broadcast we’ve detected. And yes, I gave the order to keep it all under hat.”
“You’re worse than Simon.” The man spat on the ground before turning and working his way through the crowd.
“Yeah? Well don’t let the door hit you on the way out.” He pulled a chair over and stood on it so that those in the back could see him. “Any of you who want to leave, go for it. Nobody is going to stop you. If you seriously don’t like the way I’m running things here, then by all means, get out.” He took a deep breath and tried to count to five to get his emotions under control. “Somebody has to be the leader here. I didn’t ask for the job but it fell in my lap. Since everybody looks to me to come up with the answers, I took on the responsibility.”
“You should have trusted us with the truth,” the woman said quietly.
Hatcher looked down at her and nodded. “I probably should have. But it was my choice. I felt it was better to keep the details secret in case the whole thing backfired.” He stepped down from the chair and turned to her. “But the offer still stands. If you aren’t happy here or think you can do better on your own, be my guest.”
He pushed his way through the crowd and back to his office. It took every ounce of his reserve not to slam the door and he stood behind his desk, his hands shaking.
“That went over like a fart in church,” Roger stated flatly, pulling Hatcher from his thoughts.
“You heard?”
“Who didn’t?” Roger snorted as he sat down. “But I can see where they’re coming from.”
“Oh, can you now?” Hatcher ground his teeth. “Those…ungrateful…”
“Hey, easy now.” Roger poured a cup of old coffee and sat down across from him. “Just put yourself in their shoes. Wouldn’t you want answers if there was a cure and your fearless leader kept it from you?”
“Yeah, but…what if it doesn’t work? What if a month from now we’re still facing the Zulus and nothing has changed?”
Roger sipped the mud that smelled faintly of burnt coffee and shrugged. “Then that’s the new reality. They’ll adjust.”
“Maybe they will. They’re used to life kicking them in the balls.” Hatcher sat down but leaned across his desk. “But the kids aren’t used to having that kind of rug pulled from under them.”
Roger nodded slowly. “So it’s for the kids?”
“And the adults who are too immature to act like adults.”
Roger smiled at him. “Me? I already knew.”
“You’re not funny.”
Roger set the cup down and sighed. “Look, man. I know that you feel like you have to protect them. You feel like you have to act as some kind of buffer between them and what’s happening out there. But you got to remember, to each of them, they are the main character in the play that is ‘their life.’” He met his gaze and gave him a soft smile. “Just like you are the main character in your life.”
“Rog, I get that. I really do.” Hatcher sighed and slumped into his chair. “I just wish that they’d try to put themselves in my shoes once in a while.” He ran a hand over his face and hung his head. “Thanks to our efforts, we’ve brought them from the stone age to this.” He motioned with his hands. “They’ve got hot and cold running water. Three squares a day. Electricity, for shit’s sake.”
“And they helped to build it all.” Roger stood slowly and picked up the coffee cup. “You were the man at the helm, but they were the ones swinging the hammers. You didn’t do this by yourself.”
Hatcher gave him a ‘duh’ look. “I know this, Roger.”
“I know you do.” He took a sip of the burnt coffee then dumped the remains back in the pot. “Just try putting yourself in their shoes once in a while.”
Hatcher groaned as he leaned back in his chair. “I can tell you this…I’d be a lot more grateful than they are.”
Roger raised a brow. “Would you?”
Kevin McAlester gripped the plastic tray in his hands and stared at the offerings in the chow line. He pointed to the gray mystery meat and tried not to wrinkle his nose when the cook plopped it on his plate. He watched as they shoveled portions of canned vegetables and a brown colored gravy into a mess before waving him on.
He sniffed absently at the plate and shook his head. “I never would have thought that a TV dinner would sound good, but compared to this…”
He sat at a table and picked at the offerings. Flashes of bloody, raw meat flashed through his mind and his mouth watered spontaneously. He sat up straighter and tried to identify where the image had come from. In his mind he could easily identify the color insignia of the man that he’d murdered and eaten in his stateroom.
Rather, the man that he imagined that he’d killed and eaten.
He shoved a forkful of the mystery meat into his mouth and fought the urge to gag as his jaw went through the motions of chewing. He closed his eyes and let the image of the man’s ruined neck flash through his mind and for a brief moment, he could taste the rich, coppery blood as he ripped succulent chunks of flesh from the still warm corpse.
He swallowed the mystery meat and imagined tasting the familiar flavor of raw human as his memories overrode the signals his taste buds sent to his brain.
He smiled to himself and shoved another forkful of the flavorless patty into his mouth, his jaw barely chewing before he swallowed, his imagination relaying the flavor of human flesh to his brain again. He began to rapidly shove more and more of the food into his face when his attention was broken by nearby laughter.
“Damn, you must really like this shit.”
Kevin opened his eyes and glanced to a young sailor sitting further down the table. “What?”
“The way you’re shoveling that stuff down, you must really enjoy this crap.” The sailor picked at the food on his own plate.
Kevin glanced down at his food and was momentarily shocked that it wasn’t raw, bloody human flesh. He glanced back to the sailor and gave him a weak smile. “The faster you eat it, the less you can actually taste.”
The sailor snorted a laugh and raised a glass of the generic fruit-flavored drink that they called bug juice to him in a mock toast. “I’ll drink to that.”
Kevin smiled broader and tried to put himself back into the lustful mindset he had been in. The harder he tried to imagine the food as something else, the more elusive those thoughts became.
“I keep telling myself that it must be some kind of food or they wouldn’t be allowed to serve it.” The sailor appeared almost flustered as he lifted the grey patty from his plate. “But nothing will convince me that this is real food.”
Kevin sat back and gave him a smile. “Just keep telling yourself that it’s a bacon cheeseburger. Maybe you can convince your mind that it really is.”
The sailor shook his head and plopped the meat back onto his plate. “Yeah, no. That ain’t happening.”
Kevin tried not to stare at the large vein pulsing in the young sailor’s neck. He felt his mouth watering again and he gave the kid a gentle smile. He slid his tray down the table and scooted directly across from him.
Extending his hand, he said, “I’m Kevin. Kevin McAlester.”
The kid accepted his hand and shook it. “David Eubanks.”
Kevin smiled again. He sat back and wiped his watering mouth with the paper napkin. “It’s nice to meet you, David.”
Simon stood at the open doorway of the store as the darkness fell on the silent town. He patted Clyde’s arm and motioned outside. “It’s time. Go find me the rest of the Quee. Bring them here.”
Clyde cocked his head to the side and blinked at him. “More Quee.”
Simon nodded. “All of them.” He turned and looked to all of the hunters. “Find them
all. Bring them here. Kill whoever you have to, but bring them all.”
The hunters stiffened slightly at the order and glanced to each other. Clyde finally turned back to him. “Kill who?”
“Whoever leads them; anyone who refuses.” Simon smiled. “We need to gather all of the Quee together.” He sniffed at the air and pointed into the darkness. “Quee are stronger together...” He slammed his hands together and interlaced his fingers. “Together. As one.”
Clyde barked at the other hunters and they all trotted into the darkness. Simon watched them fade from view and turned to look back at the people he had gathered. “Soon.”
Chapter 14
Hatcher rolled his sleeves down in the chill night air. The sentry manning the front gate nodded to him. “You okay, boss?”
“Yeah.” Hatcher squinted as he peered into the inky blackness. “Anything happening?”
“Not tonight. Quiet as a graveyard.”
Hatcher shivered slightly. “Anybody leave?”
“Sir?” The guard turned to him, confusion painted across his face. “Should I be aware of anything?”
Hatcher shrugged. “A few got word that I had their meds recalled. They got butthurt, so I told them to leave if they wanted.” He glanced at the man. “I was just curious if any had.”
The guard sighed and shook his head. “None that I’m aware of.” He toed a small rock at his feet. “Can I ask why you had their meds pulled back?”
Hatcher gave a long sigh. “I’m sure you’ll hear the rumors soon enough.” He sniffed at the chill air and leaned against the main gate. “People have been catching a sore throat. Mild fever. That kind of stuff. Vic thought it was strep and handed out antibiotics.”
“Makes sense.”
“Yeah, well…turns out that the symptoms they’re suffering from are tied to the government’s attempt at a cure.”
Caldera 8: Simon Sez Page 10