by Poe, S. B.
“What’s that for?”
“That little tree. Cut that thing off right there.” The soldier put his hand about five foot up a new growth oak.
Ramey took the axe and hacked at the spot until the tree cracked and fell.
“Let me see that.” The soldier took the axe from Ramey and whacked at the tree at an angle, forming a crude point.
“Alright. Hold this.” He handed the axe to the other soldier. “Grab him. Like this.”
The soldier looked at Ramey and stood on the other side of the rotter. He put one hand under the strap across the front and the other on the strap around the things neck.
“I’m gonna release this strap and this thing will fall forward. Just hold on to the neck strap and lift him up. One, two, three.”
The soldier released the strap and the rotter fell forward. Ramey held onto the strap around the things neck and did as he was told. He lifted up. Before Ramey knew what was happening the soldier spun in front of the rotter, lifting it by the waist and slammed its back against the sharpened stake he had just made.
“Oof.” The soldier said as he forced the rotter onto the stake.
“Damn, couldn’t even get it back out the other side. Look at that shit.” The other soldier said.
Ramey stepped back a few steps and watched. The rotter was a foot or so off the ground, hanging on the sharpened stake, as the other soldier walked up to it. The stake had gone through most of the rotter but not quite all. Ramey watched as the soldier took his knife and cut around the skin that had stretched holding the stake. The rot covered wood burst through the small opening and the rotter slid to the ground.
“Hell, you can’t even lift them off the ground weak ass bitch.” The first soldier said.
“Who was that?” Ramey asked.
“That? That’s the last guy who asked a bunch of questions.” The soldier said. “Let’s go.”
The soldier led him back through the gates to the cabins. The two old women seemed almost surprised to see him.
“What was that?” He asked after the soldiers had left.
“What did they have you do?” Agnes asked as she wrinkled her nose.
“Shit, I don’t know. We hung a rotter up on a stick. I guess.” He replayed the events out loud.
“Nothing else? No trips to the doctor? No shots?” Julia asked.
“No. What the hell are you talking about?”
“Alright. You’re the first man that made it this far. Most of them don’t spend more than one night in the cabins.” Agnes said.
“If that.” Julia added.
“They get shipped to the infirmary, that’s what they call it, to see the doctor.”
“She’s trying to find a cure.” Julia added. “That’s what she says.”
“And she only uses men?” Ramey asked.
“So far.”
“She told me when I first got here that I was gonna be the first woman but she changed her mind. Told the soldiers, told Gideon I had already been exposed to the virus. Told them I wasn’t a good candidate.”
“Why?”
“Don’t know. She never told me. But she ain’t stopped trying it on men.”
“How do you know?”
“Cause she injected something into my husband the next day. I watched them wheel him out on a dolly, gnashing his teeth at them as he went. They turned him into a goner.” Julia said. Ramey looked for a tear but didn’t see any.
“And there’s been at least two more since. The guy you just hung up on a post was after you, so they skipped you.” Agnes said.
“Why?”
“See, you get told you get to live and the next thing out of your mouth is a question. You living a charmed life son. A charmed life indeed.” Agnes said.
Her and Julia shared a cackle before sitting down at the table to eat. He stood in the doorway for a few more minutes and decided they were right. Enough with the questions. Do the work. Eat the food. Live. Hell, that’s not too bad compared to the last six months. Maybe these old girls had figured out the safest way to survive the end times. Slavery.
“That’s a nice story and all but it don’t really explain how the hell you got the way you are now.” Ed spoke without looking up.
Ramey snapped back into the moment and looked around. He had drifted out as he spoke. He could no longer focus his eyes but he could see the three shapes around him.
“You’re right.” He said. “Anyway, I kept my head down for the next few weeks. It was pretty much the same thing. They had me hang up three more rotters, I think. Then it all went south.”
“What happened?” Vernon asked.
“Not sure what started it. The first time I knew something was wrong was when I heard all the yelling coming from the infirmary.” Ramey drifted into the story again.
He paused and listened. He didn’t recognize one of the voices but he didn’t have too. He knew who it was. The girl. He had seen her a few times. Agnes said she was the one that started all this. She was special. He didn’t know what that meant until he saw her walking among the dead. He did a double take but she was definitely on the dead side of the fence and they weren’t bothering with her. Some were even following behind her, a procession of the dead. Now he could hear her voice raised above the others. She wasn’t happy about something to do with the soldiers. Or the soldiers did something. He strained to hear, slowly drifting from the porch of the cabin closer to the infirmary side of the fence. The door to the infirmary burst open and Bannon, the lead soldier, stepped outside.
“You, what’s your name, Ramey? Come here.” He bellowed.
“Probably best I don’t. I’m…” He started. Bannon chambered a round into the pistol in his hand.
“Come here or I can come pick up your body and bring it over here.” Bannon said.
“Sure.” Ramey walked through the gate into the door of the infirmary. He hadn’t been inside any further than the entryway. Bannon pushed him down the hallway and grabbed him by the back of the neck. He turned him into one of the rooms. The woman doctor who Ramey had talked to only once stood in one corner. The girl stood in the other. Seated at the little table was Gideon. Ramey had seen him coming and going once or twice but they had never spoken.
“Get in your ass down here Day.” Bannon yelled down the hallway as he pushed Ramey through the door.
“What are you doing Bannon?” The doctor asked.
“I’m done with your bullshit. I’m especially done with his bullshit.” Bannon kicked the table Gideon’s elbow was resting on. “We’re gonna have a final exam. And then we’re done.”
“What does that mean? We’re done.” Gideon asked.
“It means that I’m done with you, I’m done with all this.”
“Why? Why can’t you just let us keep trying?” The doctor asked.
“Are you fucking kidding me? I’m tired of living like rats. I’m tired of raiding fucking tourists, picking over the scraps and hauling back prisoners for you to experiment on. My guys and me are done with that. We’ve seen what it’s like out there. We have lived like peasants long enough. Me and the boys are about to start living like kings.”
“What about the dead?”
“What about them? Maybe this is the lucky batch. Maybe this is the one that does the trick.” Bannon said.
“I told you we’re still trying.”
“Well try it on this one. And you better hope it works.”
“What does that mean?” Rachel asked.
“I don’t guess it’ll matter much to you, but your brother there, and the doc, it’ll matter a lot to them.” Bannon shoved Ramey into a chair. “Give it to him.”
The doctor turned and walked over to the table in the corner of the room. She grabbed a metal tray and brought it to the table Gideon was leaning against. Ramey saw the two syringes.
“Give me one of those.” Bannon said.
The doctor grabbed both syringes and examined them. She handed one of them to Bannon. He held it up to the light
. It was slightly yellow. “So this is made from her blood right?” He asked.
“Yes. Her plasma.” The doctor swabbed Ramey’s forearm.
“Your sister right?” He turned to Gideon.
“Yeah, so?”
The doctor injected the syringe into Ramey’s arm.
“So let’s see how it does for you.” Bannon slammed the other syringe into the side of Gideon’s neck and plunged the plunger.
“NO. STOP.” Rachel screamed. Gideon reached up and pulled the syringe from his neck and looked at it. He swung it at Bannon but missed. The pain in his chest knocked him off his feet and his ears rang from the sound of the pistol shot. His back hit the wall and he slid down to the floor. Rachel jumped down to his side and cupped his face. He was dead before their eyes met.
“No, no, no.” Rachel cried.
The doctor backed into the other corner and sat down in the chair. Ramey could feel his arm burning from the injection. He looked down and could see the dark blue streaks forming where the needle had pierced the skin. The pain shot up his shoulder and he jerked in his seat.
“You killed him. YOU BASTARD.” Rachel lunged towards Bannon. He swung his foot and kicked her in the stomach. She hit the ground hard.
“Sit the fuck down.” Bannon said. “He shouldn’t have took a swing at me. But I was probably gonna do that, anyway.”
“Fuck you.” Rachel said.
“Nah, it kinda works out better this way. I’m gonna lock y’all in this room now. Your brother is gonna wake up dead here in just a minute and you’re gonna have to choose whether you want to save old doc over there or if you wanna keep dead brother around.”
“You’re just leaving us?” The doctor said.
“Sure, even if y’all make it out of this room, y’all ain’t got a chance in hell out there.” Bannon said.
“And you do.”
“Hell sweetheart, I’m fixing to run this shit.”
Ramey heard the door close and heard the sound of hammers briefly securing the exit. His head was throbbing and he could hear his own heartbeat in his ears.
“Gideon’s coming back.” He heard Rachel’s voice.
The walls of his lungs felt heavy and he forced air down his windpipe in huge gulps. His eyes closed tight and he felt the liquid squeeze between his lids. His head felt like it was going to explode and he could feel wet trickle out of his ear. He tried to reach up to wipe it away but he couldn’t feel his hands. He felt the world slip away.
“So whatever they gave you, that girls blood or something, turned you into this?” Vernon asked. “What happened to the others?”
“I don’t know. I woke up. It may have been minutes later or hours or days. I really don’t know. But the whole place was empty. Well, that’s not true. It was empty of the living. It was full of the dead. But I didn’t see any of the dead that looked like any of the living I had seen before. All the soldiers were gone. The doc and the girl. I never saw Gideon again. And I never saw Agnes or Julia either. Like I said, I don’t know how long I was out.”
“How did you make it out?”
“The dead think I am one of them. Just like you did.” Ramey said. “I wandered back up the road from the lake. About halfway up, standing in the middle of the road, was that horse. It was just waiting on me. I zonked out a couple of times riding it and hit the ground. That hurt so I figured out how to tie myself into the saddle. Worked great until my fingers got useless. The feeling comes and goes but for the last few days it’s been mostly gone. I couldn’t do anything but sit there. The horse just kind of wandered where it wanted to. It found its way here.”
A Return
6
Bridger walked down the middle of the street. He left Evelyn asleep and found his way out the back door heading towards the gate. The sun was almost at its highest point and it felt good against his upturned face. He scraped his hand over his head. Almost time to get the razor out again.
“Feeling okay?” He looked over at the red hair coming down the driveway ahead of him.
“Yeah, no biggie. Just ate something. I felt better by the time I got home. I got a few hours sleep to boot.” Tilly said as she fell in beside him.
“Raj?”
“Still sleeping.” She said. “Where you headed?”
“I was gonna head down to the gate and just climb up. Maybe take a shift.”
“Ham and Scott are on right now.”
“Just two kids?” Bridger raised his eyebrow.
“I give them the middle of the day. If something happens, at least most everyone’s awake already. They gotta learn. We all gotta learn.” Tilly said.
They rounded the corner and Bridger could see the bus ahead. Two folding chairs sat side by side on the roof.
“Hey, anything to see?” Bridger called up. Scott stood and turned to talk. Ham shifted in her seat slightly before returning her eyes back out over the barricade.
“Nope. Been quiet so far.”
“You heard from Ed or Cameron?” Bridger asked.
“The hunting party?” Scott smiled. “Nothing so far.”
“Who’s next on shift?” Bridger turned and asked Tilly.
“Charlie and Jennifer. They’ll be on soon.”
“You got this figured out don’t you?” Bridger looked at her. He thought about the first time he met her as she climbed out of that crushed car.
“I’m trying.” Tilly said.
“Don’t short yourself. Kate told me why she wanted you doing this. She said you were like having me around.” Bridger said. “She’s wrong. You’re better at this. You’re perfect for this.”
He glanced up at Scott and then back to Tilly. He was surprised. Tears rolled down her cheeks and when his eyes met hers, she broke into a broad smile. She leaned forward and wrapped her arms around his neck and hugged him tight. He pulled back and looked at her.
“I’m sorry.” She chuckled cried. “That was just such a nice thing to say. It just means so much. Look at me. I’m a mess. Thank you.” She hugged him again and quickly turned and walked away.
Bridger stood there not knowing what just happened. He looked up at Scott and Scott’s eyes were as wide as Bridger’s felt.
“That was weird.” Scott said. “Never seen her like that.”
“Me neither.”
“I don’t believe it.” Ham said as she stood.
“I know, right? She never acts like that.” Bridger looked up at Ham. She turned and looked at him before turning her head back towards the road beyond the barricade.
“Not that. That!” She pointed. “It’s Cameron. And he’s riding a horse.”
Bridger swung the gate open and Cameron led the horse through the gate. Charlie had left early to get Jennifer from the big house before their shift started and Kate had decided to walk with them to the gate. They arrived just as Bridger closed the gate shut again.
“Is it really her? The same one?” Ham said as she moved around the animal.
“It is indeed. She has confounded the prognostications.” Cameron said. “But she has had a rough go. Let us take this saddle off quickly and let her rest. Here, I’ll show you.”
Cameron quickly undid the buckle and loosened the straps. He slid the saddle over the side and set in on the ground. He had expected to find terrible saddle sores on her back but although there were a few inflamed spots that had healed, it seemed that the saddle had not worn so badly or that someone had removed it often enough to help. He wondered what stories the horse could tell. He slipped the bridle off her head and slipped a loose rein around her neck.
“Here, she’ll follow. Lead her back up to the green spot between the houses. She should be fine. I’ll join you shortly.” He said as he handed the lead to Ham. “Thank you.”
Ham smiled when the horse stepped towards her as she tightened the lead. She led it back towards the center of town. Cameron watched for a few steps before turning to Bridger and the others.
“We need to find Raj. There is a man out the
re. The others are with him. He is sick.” Cameron started.
“Sick? What’s wrong with him?” Kate asked.
“Not sure. It’s hard to explain but he has the appearance and disposition of the dead. Yet he is not.” Cameron said.
“Wait here. I’ll go get Raj.” Bridger said as he trotted away.
“I’m sorry, the disposition of the dead?” Charlie asked. “What does that mean?”