Alive

by Scott Sigler

I shake my head. “That’s not what I meant by help it, Bishop. You have to end its suffering.”

  He looks at me, a tortured expression on his face.

  “You mean kill it now? Why? It’s going to die anyway. Why can’t we let it die?”

  Why? Because I don’t need memories to know right from wrong. Because Bishop insisted on hunting this animal to exhaustion. Because if I was a better leader, I would have stopped him from hunting it in the first place. Because Latu was hurt and we should have stayed with her. Those and a hundred other reasons, but there is one reason that stands out above all others.

  “Because it’s not humane,” I say.

  The pig lets out a high-pitched whine. It tries to get up, but can’t.

  I feel a cool tickle on my cheeks. I touch there, look at my fingers…tears. I couldn’t cry for Yong, but I can cry for a pig?

  The knot in my chest is as hard and tangled as the branches we crawled through to get here. Just as sharp, just as jagged.

  That voice in my head stirs, the one that said Crying doesn’t fix anything, the one that told me to always attack. It’s a man’s voice, swirling up from somewhere in my hidden memories.

  It says, Choices have consequences.

  The voice is right.

  “You wanted to hunt it,” I say to Bishop. “So finish the hunt.”

  He says nothing. The pig continues to whine, each small sound a pointy stick jabbing into my soul.

  Knife shaking in his hand, Bishop kneels next to the pig. It tries to lift its head. Its hooves twitch—it wants to run because it knows what is coming, but it has nothing left with which to fight. Even now, with blood seeping onto the grass, this animal wants to live.

  In that way, it is no different from us.

  We know the pig can bite. Bishop isn’t taking any chances. His free hand shoots out, pinning the black furred head to the ground. Bishop leans forward, using his weight to hold the animal still. The pig squeals and grunts, breaths ripping in and out. The legs kick a little bit more, then it stops struggling.

  Bishop presses the knife’s edge against the pig’s thick neck.

  I wait.

  I wait some more.

  The pig’s eye looks up at me.

  “It’s terrified,” I say softly. “It’s hurting. Please, finish this.”

  The knife hand trembles.

  I see the muscles in Bishop’s shoulders twitch and bunch up. He’s trying to cut, but his hand won’t obey.

  He lets out a soft little moan.

  Bishop knows how to hunt. He knows how to throw a spear. He knows how to hit people and how to yell and scream.

  But he doesn’t know how to kill.

  He lets go of the pig’s head and sits back on his heels.

  The animal is still breathing. Each breath is a spasm of torment. I can’t let this continue.

  “Give me the knife.”

  Bishop’s head snaps up. He looks at me like I am a total stranger. “Just let it die on its own.”

  I hold out my hand, palm up. “Give it. You’ve never killed anything before.”

  Bishop stands. A wave of anger visibly washes over him. He leans toward me, trying to intimidate whether he knows he’s doing it or not, but his anger isn’t because of me—he’s frustrated, furious with himself, and will take it out on anyone or anything.

  “No, I’ve never killed anything before,” he says. He sneers. “Have you?”

  I look into his eyes, and I nod.

  There is a moment of disbelief, then his anger drains away. He knows I am telling the truth.

  “What did you kill?”

  “A boy,” I say. My voice sounds like it belongs to someone else, someone incapable of emotion. “His name was Yong. He attacked me.”

  It was an accident, I didn’t mean to do it, he gave me no choice.

  Bishop is stunned. He is the biggest, he is the strongest, he is the loudest. And me, tiny little me, has done something to another human being he can’t even do to a wounded animal.

  “You killed,” he says. “A person. You killed a person? You can’t…I don’t understand. But…how?”

  While he stammers, the pig suffers. We’ve talked long enough.

  I hold my hand out again.

  “I killed him with that knife,” I say. “That’s how. Now give it here.”

  He offers it to me. He forgets to do it hilt-first. I reach around the blade and take the knife from him.

  I kneel next to the pig.

  “Hold it down,” I say.

  Bishop kneels, again presses the big head to the grass.

  I put my hand on the pig’s shoulder. It’s warm. I can feel the thump-thump of its panicked heart pounding through its body. Yong died because I stabbed him in the belly, but it took a long time. I can’t do the same to this animal; it has suffered enough.

  I slide my hand to the thick neck. The muscle there is so firm, almost as solid as wood.

  Something tells me this is where I should cut.

  I rest the knife’s edge against it.

  “Em, don’t,” Bishop says in a voice so quiet I barely hear it even though he is right at my side.

  It would be easier to let the pig die a slow, agonizing death. But I’m not going to do the easy thing…I’m going to do the right thing.

  The pig’s eye swivels: it looks at me.

  “I’m sorry,” I say.

  I lean in and slice the blade forward.

  Filthy black fur and the muscle beneath it part with no resistance. There is a frozen moment where the cut sits deep and empty, then it fills with blood. I push down harder as I draw the blade back.

  Blood spurts out onto the grass, splatters across my face and arms. The pig kicks hard, as if realizing—too late—that this is the end. Bishop throws his body on top of it, weighs it down. The pig twists and tries to bite. Bishop’s hands clamp tight on the animal’s muzzle.

  The pig squeals louder than ever before, and keeps squealing. I want it to die, please die, I need that sound to stop.

  Bishop is crying, big sobs that shake his big body.

  I’m crying, too.

  I slice forward again, then back again, pushing down with all my strength.

  The pig’s squeals fade, turn into soft grunts.

  After a moment, the animal falls silent.

  The pig’s eye is still looking at me, but there is no longer any life in it.

  I’m numb. I didn’t think it would be like that. I didn’t know what to think, I’m not sure if I thought at all…but not like that.

  I don’t know how much time passes before Bishop slides off. He sits next to me. He takes me in his bloody arms and squeezes me tight. His forehead presses against my neck. I drop the knife and I hold him.

  We hear footsteps approaching. We both look up: El-Saffani is there. The twins stare down at the pig, stare at the two of us sheeted in blood.

  Bishop and I get to our feet.

  The twins talk together, first the boy, then the girl.

  “We followed the trail—”

  “—the bloody footprints made it easy—”

  “—and found where you went through the hole in the door.”

  Their heads angle down at the same time. They look at the pig, then at Bishop, their eyes bright with astonished admiration.

  “It’s dead—”

  “—you killed it, Bishop—”

  “—you are so brave.”

  Bishop shakes his head.

  “I tried, but I couldn’t do it,” he says. “It was Em.”

  The twins turn their gaze on me. They still have that hard stare, but now there is something different about it—I am no longer the enemy.

  Bishop could have lied, could have said he killed the pig and they would have believed him, but he didn’t. He told the truth, instantly and without hesitation.

  The pig is dead, yet the horrific squeals still echo in my head alongside Yong’s cries for his mother.

  My body, my mind and my spirit, they
are all spent. I can’t think. I can’t even feel, and I don’t know if I will ever feel again.

  We have food. We have water, probably, but something nags at me. Something is wrong.

  I stare at the twins, trying to figure out what it is.

  Then it hits me.

  “Where’s Latu?”

  “Back where she got bit—”

  “—she said she was fine—”

  “—she told us to come after you.”

  My fists clench instantly, so hard my fingernails are daggers punching into my palms.

  “You left her?”

  The twins look at each other. They are little kids again, kids who suddenly realize they’ve done something bad.

  “She wanted us to help you get the pig!”

  “Because everyone is so hungry!”

  “She has a torch—”

  “—with extra rags—”

  “—she said we should go!”

  They left her, alone and wounded.

  I hear an animal grunt. The noise spooks me, makes me look down at the pig to see if it has suddenly come back to life. No, there is no life there, and never will be again.

  A second grunt. My eyes flick up at the sound: there, to the left, just past the tall grass in a cluster of trees that are heavy with red fruit.

  A pig.

  There are more of them?

  A second pig head appears.

  Then a third.

  I feel cold inside, icy and brittle—how many pigs are there?

  The third one grunts.

  That grunt rolls around my exhausted brain, looks for a connection. Back when we were chasing the pig in the hallways, I heard a grunt like that—a grunt that didn’t come from our quarry.

  That trip to the farm, what the man in the funny hat said…more of his words flash through my mind, and when they do, I realize why all those coffins were empty.

  “Latu,” I say.

  I snatch up the knife from the grass and I sprint for the thicket.

  TWENTY-TWO

  Sharp branches scratch my face, my arms and my legs, snag in my hair. The pain doesn’t matter. I have to get to her as fast as I can.

  I’m through the thicket and in the room on the other side of the wall before I realize I didn’t bring a torch. That doesn’t matter, either—I’m not going back.

  I crawl through the hole in the stone door and emerge to total darkness. That awful smell is here, but I barely notice it. Left hand on the wall, right hand holding the knife, I run. The hallway is straight and I was just here; other than pig’s blood, there’s nothing on the floor to trip me up.

  Is Latu’s torch still burning? Did El-Saffani leave her enough greased rags? I’m desperate to see the light of that torch, to see her—I want it so bad I try to wish it into existence.

  Faster…I must run faster. I try to sprint, but my body simply won’t let me go full speed through the absolute black, as if I might run into something new, something I didn’t see on the way here.

  How could the twins have left her alone?

  But it’s not El-Saffani’s fault. I left, too, chose to go with Bishop instead of staying with my wounded friend. She was bit, her shoulder all torn up and bleeding…why did I go with him? I wish I could take that decision back.

  Without light, there is only sound: my wet, filthy socks slapping against the floor, my fingertips sliding along the wall, my rapid breathing that can’t suck in air fast enough to help my burning lungs and screaming muscles.

  Latu will be all right. She has to be. She told me to go, she said she would be fine.

  Up ahead, a pinpoint of flickering yellow stands out like the brightest star in the night sky. It’s still far off down the long, straight hall, but I’ve almost reached her.

  The light grows brighter, larger. It’s from a torch—a torch lying flat on the floor. Past the torch…is that Latu? Lying on her shoulder, maybe? I can see she’s moving a little and my heart explodes with relief. She could still be in trouble, but if she’s moving she’s not dead.

  Almost there. She’s twitching a little. She’s alive.

  “Latu! Are you okay?”

  At the sound of my voice, she stops moving.

  Motion from something by her legs. Something black.

  Six round, glistening spots pop into existence, dance in the torchlight.

  Eyes.

  Pig eyes.

  Latu wasn’t moving at all. The pigs were moving her.

  No…this can’t be happening. That slice of memory from my trip to the farm becomes clearer. The man in the funny hat was telling us that pigs will eat anything—grass, dirt, bugs, crops, meat, cloth, wood…

  …even bone.

  That’s why the coffins were empty, and that’s why the pig was in the coffin. It was looking for food.

  Newfound strength floods me. I scream with rage and hatred and fury, a scream that would make even Bishop turn and run. I rush at them, at her, at the torch, sprinting and waving my knife in front of me. The pigs scamper away, grunting as they vanish into the darkness.

  I reach Latu. I stop.

  Tears blur my vision. I shouldn’t have left her. I want that moment back I want it back please let this not be real….

  Wishing won’t help, and crying doesn’t fix anything, because reality is what it is.

  Latu’s dead face stares up at nothing.

  I am standing in a pool of her blood.

  The pigs ripped her to pieces. Her shirt—what’s left of it—is a mess of red-soaked white.

  They tore open her stomach.

  They shredded her shoulder, the bitten one, chewing away so much muscle that I’m not sure if the arm is still attached or if it’s just lying in the right position to make it look like it is.

  Parts of her are scattered about the hallway, lying among the bloody hoofprints of her killers.

  They ate her feet. Her feet. Sticks of red-smeared broken white jut out from where her ankles used to be. I see gnaw marks on the bones.

  The pigs murdered her.

  The pigs devoured her.

  The pigs are food for us. We are food for the pigs.

  Did Latu scream? Did she fight? I will never know.

  I lean against the wall. My shoulder presses into a carving of a man harvesting wheat. I close my eyes.

  I want to go to sleep. I want to go to school. I want to take a bath and put on clean clothes. I want Dad to cook me dinner. I want O’Malley’s sandwich, Yong’s pasta with cheese, I want Aramovsky’s cupcake.

  Why won’t someone come for us?

  Because…because we’re not loved. That has to be why. We are discarded. We are unwanted. Our parents, they left us in this nightmare. They left us alone.

  It stinks in here. It smells of pig shit and death.

  I use the backs of my hands to wipe away tears.

  Latu’s dead eyes are looking at me. I know they are. Looking at me, blaming me.

  My tears come faster, harder, making my sight shimmer, making Latu waver. Her face, it changes.

  Now it’s Yong.

  How many more will die, Em? he asks. How many more like Latu and me?

  “I don’t know,” I say. “I don’t know how many.”

  I wipe the tears away again, harder this time, and look down at the body. It’s not Yong. It’s Latu. And she can’t talk to me, because she’s dead.

  Things could have been different. I can’t remember school, but I know I used to go to one. What if I’d met Latu in class? We could have sat at the same table at lunch. We could have played together at recess.

  I would have invited her to my birthday party.

  She would have invited me to hers.

  Is it still our birthday? I don’t know. There is no day down here. No night.

  Latu and I would have been friends. Best friends.

  We would have been kids.

  But we’re not kids. We have been thrust into these older versions of ourselves. This body…I’m different in it. I can’t reme
mber details, but I didn’t cry this much before. I know I didn’t. I never wanted to touch a boy’s chest. I never got so angry I wanted to hurt someone, like I wanted to hurt Yong.

  Is it my fault Latu is gone? Yes. And Bishop’s fault? And El-Saffani’s? Yes, even Latu’s fault, too, because she insisted on coming when I told her to go with O’Malley. Choices have consequences. We all own a piece of the blame—but only a small piece, because we wouldn’t have made those bad decisions if someone hadn’t put us down here in the first place.

  The people that did this to us, they are the ones responsible. Latu’s death is on their hands. So is Yong’s. All the pain and hunger and thirst, all the blood, it’s their fault.

  I want to find out who they are. I want to make them pay.

  Footsteps echo down the hall. Human footsteps.

  Moments later, I see the torchlit faces of Bishop and El-Saffani. They stand there, shocked, staring down at Latu’s mutilated body.

  Bishop looks at me. “Pigs?”

  I nod.

  “It’s horrible, she—”

  “—must have screamed so much.”

  If I yell at El-Saffani for leaving Latu alone, it won’t make any difference. It won’t bring her back, so I stay silent.

  I squat down on my heels. I don’t kneel, because I don’t want Latu’s blood on my skin. I reach out and take her left hand. It’s free of blood, somehow, and it’s still warm.

  “I’m sorry,” I tell her.

  I realize I said those same words when I cut the pig’s throat, and that infuriates me. The people that put us here…I want to cut their throats. I want to kill them all.

  I rest Latu’s hand on her chest. I don’t touch her right hand, because two of the fingers have been chewed off.

  When I stand, I look away, and I will never look at her body again. I choose to remember Latu with her frizzy hair flying because we’re on a swing set, side by side, laughing in the sunshine during recess as we dare each other to go higher and higher.

  “Bishop, take Latu into the dome room,” I say. “Put her on that stone circle, and bring me the spear.”

  He pauses for a moment, then bends to scoop up my friend. I don’t watch.

  “El-Saffani, put a new rag on Latu’s torch and give it to Bishop,” I tell the twins. “Fix your own torch as soon as you’re done. Divide the remaining rags into two piles. Bishop and I will take half, you’ll stay here with the rest.”