by C.G. Banks
to the idea that privacy wasn’t something I was gonna be enjoying much as long as I was here. I just kept moving back toward the darkness. More shadows started thrashing about but my ruffles was up now and I half-wanted some broke-down mudhead somebitch to just try any little thing. For that matter you coulda brought on a nest a Red Eyes. They were gonna get just as good as they gave. But that wasn’t it. In fact it wasn’t nothing but a party. A buncha naked motherfuckers, men and women or what used to be, acting like they used to when they looked a helluva lot better. There was even a coupla stand-around motherfuckers like me soaking it all in, standing around drooling and looking like all the sense had drained outta them on the day they were born.
The Hump of the Dead.
I beat a fast track away from all that shit, the rotten dicks and swollen pussies, because every thrust and shake brought back the memory of those two I’d royally fucked up not that long ago for the same damn thing. Somebody was gonna get their dick tore off if I stayed around here much longer. And remember, I didn’t want to cause a stink. If the motherfuckers were clear-headed enough to man an entrance gate, they just might have certain rules against what I was thinking about doing. When in Rome and everything, I figured, and just moved on down the line. I finally found a tight little niche set way back away from the others and pressed up tight with my back to the corner. And then I just stood there until daybreak, staring off down the alley.
One thing that hit me right off the bat was night and day didn’t make a helluva lot of difference here. In the country the mudheads mostly stayed outta sight during the day but here not so much. Again I wondered just what in hell I’d thought to get by coming here. Things were all kinda dim in my brain about what I’d been expecting but there wasn’t much I could do about any of it. I’d come in through the gate and now I wasn’t exactly sure how I’d go about getting out.
I left the niche and headed back down the alley. Paused by the place where the zombie orgy had been going on last night and looked around. There wasn’t sign one of the mudheads that had been here. There were a few scraps of clothes but other than that, nothing. I made my way back out to the street.
The first thing I wanted was a big hat of some sort. The sunglasses were okay but they weren’t enough to keep the creepy-crawlies off my backbone. And even though there weren’t many mudheads wearing hats, there were some. I had a mind to make it one more.
So I went looking. Found a mall a coupla blocks down from where I’d spent the night, both double-doors smashed and knocked off their hinges. There were already a lot of mudheads inside and I squeezed through the entrance to join em. That’s when I got the most terrible wave of nostalgia. Here I was wandering around in a strange city, surrounded by mindless fucks in a mall. I made my way through the broken glass and trash to a bench and sat down. A knee-high pool was right alongside but there wasn’t a taste a water in it. Just a heap a muck with a few scattered bones thrown in for good measure. Where the water used to slide down, a concrete wall was dry and splattered with blood and it looked like something of an artistic bent had tried to scratch a design for God knows whose viewing pleasure. All it did was make me sad, and just a little bit more than a tad red-assed.
Here it was after the End of Everything and all these idiots could do was wander around with earphones stuck in their rotten ears, most of em staring down at the dead phones in their hands. Fucking creatures a habit, walking around holding hands and pretending to be interested in the shit that hadn’t been completely fucked up since all hell broke loose. I kinda half-expected some ghoul Santa Claus to come strutting through with a gang of mudhead kids dragging behind. All the sheeple continuing to graze…I’m telling you, it didn’t make me very proud to have once been part of the human race. Maybe what I was now was actually better.
What a world.
When the bitterness of nostalgia ran thin I got back up and started walking again. It took just a little while to find what I was looking for: The Dome Palace. Of course the doors had been broken down here too, and there were a few mudheads milling about inside fucking with this or that. One of em was sitting in a chair with a cap on each foot, turning them first this way and then the other. For just a moment there I thought I was gonna snap and stuff both of em down his rotten throat but again I played it cool. I hadn’t seen any Red Eyes yet but I could almost smell those motherfuckers, and hell, from what I’d seen out by the gate, maybe they were the new mall security now. Rip this motherfucker’s head off and I might find myself down in the basement getting ready for a barbeque.
I saw a hat with a yellow smiley face sitting on a table that was splashed in blood. It had mostly missed the hat but one perfect little circle a blood had hit that smiley face directly between the eyes like a bullet hole. I snatched it up and crammed it down low on my head until it was almost touching the sunglasses. Then I slouched outta there and back to the street not feeling half as happy as the image I was trying to project.
I got into the flow of traffic and paced myself with the others, dragging one foot like it ailed me. Then it happened. While I was stopped at a corner waiting for another buncha ass-draggers to pass by in a cross direction I was suddenly aware I was standing mostly by myself. I say mostly because the only other ones near me were Red Eyes. There musta been about ten of em and as I stood there sweating blood I had a sudden wonderment as to how these sombitches had managed to come on like this without my knowing.
But of course it was too late for all that right about then.
One of em stepped right up to me face to face. All right, I thought, here it comes. It reached out with its black, rotted hand and pulled the hat off my head. With its other hand it plucked the sunglasses off my nose. And there I stood, pretty much naked to the crowd. The Red Eyes stepped closer and I knew there was no way I could take em all. Visions of those dump trucks passed before my eyes and I told myself that, well, the run had gone on longer than I’d thought it would.
The one in front of me continued staring, his head moving from left to right like he was scanning pictures of me and then relaying them on down the line to someone else. Then instead of lighting into me, he backed off a step and the others kinda faded from around me more toward where he was standing. Then he began to walk away, them following. I thought now what the hell’s this? and he turned back, a small grin on his face I swear to God.
And motioned for me to follow. The others were already in tow and I really didn’t see any alternative. I moved along with em, all the while looking right and left for an escape route. There were none so I kept on moving. Every once in a while the head honcho would turn to make sure I was coming on and then he’d turn back and continue along.
We pushed through the crowds, bumping mudheads outta the way as we went. Wasn’t long before we came to this big, stand-alone building with a sign out front. Even though the writing didn’t make any sense to me it appeared to be a police station. Or at least it had been. There were less mudheads milling around and suddenly Red Eyes were the main thrust of business. Those motherfuckers were just about everywhere. And the thing that really got me, the one that set my mind to wondering, was the fact that every one of those somebitches had on a police uniform. Like they’d raided the closets inside. A few of em, I noticed with a lot of misgivings, even carried assault rifles. I figured at least a few bullets probably had my name on them, whatever my name used to be.
The whole group a us pulled up short at the entrance and the one who’d pulled off my cap and sunglasses began chattering to another of the Red Eyes who was obviously standing guard. He seemed to understand whatever the hell it was being said to him, and then he craned his neck to get a better look at me. I just stared ahead silent, waiting for the ax to drop.
We were waved through the gate and inside the building. The ones who’d picked me out on the street moved into a tight pattern around me and we continued on down a long hall with a buncha closed doors on both sides. All I could hear was the clop of boots on the tiled floor. At the end of the
hall there was a set a double doors, strangely still intact. The head Red Eye pulled one of em open and stepped aside so we could pass within, and I was herded through like cattle to a sledgehammer. I was pretty sure this musta been the way down to the basement but when I got inside I realized it wasn’t.
It was just a mostly empty room. Clean even. No broken glass or blood splashed around on the walls. There was a desk piled high with a lot of paperwork and an empty chair behind it. On the walls hung several pictures from the Time Before and I thought it interesting that they were all even hanging straight. It’s funny the little things you notice when you figure you’re walking your last mile. Then I was grabbed by the arms and manhandled over to the only other piece a furniture in the room, a big metal chair that I noticed was bolted to the floor. There wasn’t no use fighting the whole buncha them so I didn’t resist. It reminded me a pictures of electric chairs I’d seen a few times because it had straps all up and down it which they used to bind me till I could barely move. I began to wonder what electricity would do to a dead body as they finished up and all moved back to admire their work.
Not a word was spoke, not even in that nasty chattering shit the head Red Eye had used with the guard outside. They just stood there looking down at me like I was a Thanksgiving turkey. Once again I remembered the long walks in the woods I’d just recently given up and wondered what the hell I’d been thinking coming here. Then they all turned away and left through the door we just entered.
It give me a little time for reflection.
I’d just about resigned myself to the flames when the door came open again and in walked a Liv-er. And a woman at that, with a lab coat. The smell of her flesh hit me like a thirty pound medicine ball and that chicken bone was back in an instant. I actually jerked forward on instinct to get at her but she musta been used to that sorta shit because she just stood where she was, almost smiling, just outta reach. I tried to get ahold a myself. Realized how crazy this shit was. She’d just come through the same door a whole passel a Red Eyes had left through a minute before and she was still alive and in one piece. In my rather large understanding of those fucks she shoulda been nothing but a long string of intestines and blood strung out on the floor. But here she was, smiling, looking down at me like I was a kid sent to the principal’s office.
She said something I didn’t get and walked over to the desk. Passed around behind it and opened a drawer. Pulled out a little kit and set it down on the crowded surface amid the sprawl of papers. I just sat there drooling like the world’s biggest baby. I could smell the blood running underneath her skin and just imagined sinking my yellow teeth into her until the bells and whistles rang all the way up to heaven. But if I was worrying her she didn’t let on.
She said another little thing to me and opened the kit. I watched her draw out a bottle of something with a label on the side and a long syringe with a gleaming needle poking outta one end. She took her eyes off me and proceeded to fill the syringe with whatever the hell it was in the bottle. All I could see was that it was clear.
Then she came around from behind the desk, holding up the syringe in one hand and pulling the desk chair behind her with the other. She dragged it straight over to me and left it about two feet away. Right about then I knew why the chair was bolted to the floor because if it wasn’t I’da been on her like stink on shit. The smell of her blood was about to pop my gourd.
She sat down in the chair, pulled it a little closer, and without another word she leaned over and sunk that needle in my arm. I watched as she depressed the plunger and then the room and everything in it went away.
I came back still strapped to the chair. But something was different. I couldn’t put my finger on it right off but then I finally did. I could understand a little a what people were saying. Don’t ask me how. There were about eight Liv-ers in the room with me, including the woman who’d poked me in the arm. They were talking and even though I didn’t get everything I began to pick out certain words. Seemed they were discussing some sorta plan but when they noticed I was back they kinda quieted up.
The woman came over and sat down in the chair that was still sitting in front a me. She leaned over real close, studying me like I was a bug underneath a lamp. “You understand me?” she said.
All I could do was nod my head a little.
She smiled again. Reached over and patted my hand, and for the first time I didn’t feel like rippin her apart. I just felt tired, empty. Figured right then I kinda knew what sleep had been like. But real sleep, not just closing my eyes and kinda drifting away for a while. I could almost imagine myself curled up on a couch somewhere or in my old bed at home. Just fixing to close my eyes and head off to dream-time.
I looked back at Lady Lab Coat.
She turned to one a the men in the room and said something that escaped me. Then she stood up and left the room real quick. The other Liv-ers stood around looking at me like I was expected to perform a circus trick, but I just looked back and tried to keep myself from fading away again.
The one she’d talked to said something to the others and two of em separated from the crowd and started fiddling with the buckles and straps across my arms and legs. Well this is their ass, I thought, as the pressure came off, but when I tried to stand I couldn’t. It felt like there was a sack of concrete sitting on my shoulders. I moaned real loud when they pulled me to my feet but it didn’t have no effect on them. I just stood there like a dripping towel in the bathroom, barely keeping my pins under me.
The one Liv-er closest to me, the one who had a firm grip on my arm, turned to face me and said, “Let’s go.” I tried to look like I heard but I don’t think it made any difference. Somebody else opened the door and they steered me outta the room and back down the hall. We fetched up near one of them closed doors we’d passed on the way to the back room and I stood there while one of the men fumbled with a clutch a keys he pulled outta his pocket. Then he unlocked the door and the men on both sides walked me inside.
It was dark and there was a bed in the middle a the room and they laid me down. I tried to run against em but it was no use. I was as weak as a babe. When I was flat out on the mattress they backed away and stood in the shadows around the bed, looking down at me and mumbling stuff under their breath that I couldn’t make heads or tails of. Then they turned as one and left the room. Lying there in the darkness I heard the lock snap into place and then I was gone to the darkness again.
I guess it was the light that brought me around the second time. All I know is I was laying there like the dead and suddenly it wasn’t dark no more. I opened my eyes and after a coupla minutes I was able to fix on the bulb hanging naked from the ceiling. Then the lock snapped again and Lady Lab Coat came back inside. Alone this time. She stuck her head down in front of the light and I tried to focus on her face.
She said, “I guess you’d like to know what’s going on?”
I mumbled something that sounded to me like fingernails scratching down a chalkboard but it didn’t affect her none. She didn’t even back away from the bed when I started squirming around like I was gonna get up. I could feel an anger building inside a me but it was like somebody had it on a leash and was pulling hard so it didn’t get away.
She said, “I’m one of the NWO and you are at our headquarters.” Then she got quiet like that little bit a bullshit shoulda been enough to make me slap my forehead and suddenly realize the run a everything. It didn’t. She musta seen the question in my red eyes because she smiled and nodded her head. “I see the injection’s working,” she added, though again, I hadn’t the slightest notion what she was talking about. Maybe I’d grown a long devil’s tale outta my ass while I’d been out and she was fixing to grab it and swing me around a little. Shit, at that point nothing woulda surprised me. “Things have been a bit out of the ordinary lately, as I’m sure you’re aware of,” she said, again in that very gentle voice like she was talking to a kid or something. “But things are beginning to take shape as we thou
ght.” She reached over and put a hand on my rotten arm and I felt a jolt run through me. For just a minute a picture a me leaping outta bed and ripping her throat out hit me full-force but it was like a balloon that got a needle stuck into it. I collapsed back on the bed and lay there breathing like a fish left on a dock.
“There, there,” she said, backing away again. “I know all this is very strange but don’t worry. Things will come around to making sense. It just may take a little longer than you’re comfortable with.” She slapped her hands together once for emphasis. “But we have to leave that where it is now. You have something that needs to be done.” Then she pointed over to one corner of the room and now I saw the clothes rack with the police uniform. She motioned toward it and said, “When you’ve got the strength, please get up and put those on. Leave your dirty things on the floor here and meet me in the hallway when you’re ready.”
And with that she left the room, though I did notice she left the door open a crack.
I don’t know how long it was but after a while I managed to sit up and put my feet on the floor. Another little bit later I stood up and moved over to the clothes rack. I shucked off the rags I was wearing and put on the uniform. It fit perfectly. And there I stood, obviously one of the new policemen for this fucking NWO, whatever the fuck that was.
I walked over to the door and pulled it the rest of the way open and stepped into the hallway. Lady Lab Coat was staring down at something she had in her hand but when she saw me, she stuffed it into one of her pockets and smiled again. Then she motioned for me to follow and for some unknown reason I tried to walk straighter as we went on back out to the lobby.
When we got there I saw a buncha other Red Eyes standing around in military precision dressed just like I was. And not a one of em was trying to kill her. I stood where I was and watched as she said something else to another lab coat, this one a man with a tablet in his hand. He nodded and marked something on his paper then turned to leave through the front door. The rest of the Red Eyes followed behind him and when the woman turned and gestured at me, I went along too.
A big SWAT-like vehicle was parked outside with the back doors thrown open. The guy with the tablet walked over and stood by the rear of the vehicle. The group of Red Eyes I was trailing made straight