“Bullshit.” It was Oleg, head of the New Odessa crew. He was big and ambitious, trying to make a name for himself. “My boys saw him first. He belongs to us.” He looked around at his men with a big smile. “You can have him when we’re done with him. If there’s anything left.” A soft, mean chuckle spread through the crowd.
Dmitri’s skin flared a dull red, his bioluminescent implants responding to his anger. He stepped up to Oleg, who flinched in spite of himself. “I said he’s mine,” he whispered, the thin sibilance of his voice somehow carrying to the edge of the crowd. “One more word and the forest will have you.”
The two stared at each other for a long moment, and then Oleg looked away. “Fine. Take him,” he spat. “What would we do with a soft little bitch like that anyway?” He smiled around at his crew, but none of them would meet his gaze.
Dmitri gave a laugh. “Follow me, boy,” he said, and trailed after him through the parting mob.
Nobody fucked with Dmitri. When they dropped him, some guys walked off, right into the forest, just to get away from him. He was connected, but that wasn’t really the whole story. Rumors followed him around, shit horrible enough to make even the old camp lifers, guys who had seen mankind at its very worst, shake their heads in shock. He was thin—almost to the point of emaciation—like all of the rest of us, but everything else set him apart. Prison tattoos and ritual scars covered him from the top of his shaved head down to his feet. He was nearly black with them, elaborate, gothic designs that the experienced could read like a book—robberies, murders, mob allegiances made and broken—the whole history of his criminal life painted on his flesh. He had rows of bioluminescent implants embedded in ridges from the top of his head and down his arms, legs and torso, and they flashed away underneath the tattoos, like lamps through smoke. And when he looked at you, it was like he was looking at some kind of farm animal, like you were a carcass hanging on a hook and he was idly wondering how much you would fetch per pound.
• • •
Dmitri approached me a few days later. I was sitting at the perimeter, staring through the mist toward the edge of the forest. I went there a lot, killing time right at the camp boundary where you could feel the hum of the electrodes. There were no fences, just the fear of the forest to keep us in, and the electric field to keep it out.
When I first got to the camp, and the hunger really started getting a grip on me, I dreamt only of food, of long tables piled meters deep in greasy red meat. Then I began dreaming of the hunger itself, of dying slowly of a desperate dissatisfaction, of never having enough. Lately, though, I had started dreaming of the forest, and I didn’t like to think about what that meant.
“You spend a lot of time out here,” he said softly. I hadn’t heard him come up behind me, and I started when he spoke.
“I’ve been watching you. You’re out here all the time, looking at the forest. In the camps, that means one of two things. Either you want out, or you’re about to give yourself to it. Which is it with you?”
“You shouldn’t be talking to me.” I was a political prisoner, at the very bottom of the prison hierarchy. Dmitri was breaking one of the great camp taboos, associating with a lower caste member like myself.
Dmitri laughed in my face. “Who is going to stop me? I do what I want.” He looked out into the drizzly evening. “I can get you out of here. Do you want to go?”
“What? Out of the camp? How?”
“How do you think?” He nodded toward the gray forest that crowded the perimeter, where the electrodes got too weak to keep it out. “Through that.”
“Through the forest? I thought it was impossible.”
Dmitri tilted his head up. Beneath his jaw were tattoos of two men’s heads, done with red and black ink. Their faces were contorted in an expression of horror; their eyes closed. He pointed to them. “Do you know what they mean?” he asked. I shook my head. “I’ve gotten through it twice. The only man in New Russia. I’ll take you.” He paused, looking me up and down. “It’s probably a lost cause. I don’t think you’ll make it. But if you’re interested, come to my hut tonight.”
I looked back out at the forest. It wavered in and out of focus in the rain, gray and silent. When I turned back around, Dmitri was already gone.
• • •
I wandered aimlessly around the edge of the camp until nightfall, my mind restless. The forest had a horrifying reputation. Just the idea of it was enough to keep all of these hard men starving here in the mud and squalor. But life in the camp, especially for a political prisoner, was hard. Over the years a number of my friends had been sent to the camps, and none of them had come back. I didn’t want to die here, slowly starving in the constant drizzle and the stinking filth.
I made my way to Dmitri’s hut. The boy was waiting for me outside. He pushed me through the vinyl curtain that made up the doorway and followed me in. The place was palatial by camp standards—a patchwork of corrugated metal and plastic sheeting, big enough for three or four men to lie down comfortably. Some fragments of packing crates burned in the corner, giving off a choking black smoke and a little bit of warmth. Dmitri was sitting against the wall near the fire, his skin pulsing idly green.
“Ah, my political,” he said jovially as I entered. He held out a bottle. “The camp’s finest. Drink.”
The murky liquid inside smelled sour and chemical. It was excruciatingly hot going down my throat, and it hit my prison-starved stomach like a fist.
The boy took the bottle from me and sat down next to Dmitri. “So,” Dmitri continued, “you’re interested in leaving after all.”
“I might be. But why me? I’m just a political.”
“A political with powerful friends. Friends who apparently miss you very much. Getting you out would be worth a lot of money to me.” He leaned forward and passed me the bottle. It was no better the second time.
“How do I know this isn’t some kind of setup?”
“Your friend Andrei told me to tell you that if you didn’t have a talent for politics, you would be sucking some owner’s perfumed cock right now.”
I nodded. It was an old joke between me and Andrei.
“And that Nadja isn’t going to wait forever.”
“Bastard,” I muttered under my breath. “Who is going?”
“You, me, and the boy.”
“And what about…” I paused.
“The cow? You can say it.”
“What about the cow?” I asked. Everyone had heard the stories.
“Hey, boy!” Dmitri nudged him. “Boy, tell him what I taught you.”
“Come on, Dmitri,” he said. I looked closely at him for the first time since he was dropped. He seemed to be recovering from the initial camp shock—there was a flicker of life in his eyes. But he still looked young and vulnerable, like some sort of baby animal.
Dmitri leaned toward him and hissed, “Tell him, just like I taught you.”
The boy shifted a little. Nobody ever felt comfortable being too close to Dmitri. “If you don’t know who the cow is, you’re the cow,” he said.
Dmitri laughed, a dry, dead sound. “Very good. And who is the cow?”
He gave Dmitri a sullen look. “I guess I am.”
Dmitri clapped his hands. “Excellent.” He turned to me. “You see? He knows his place. And you two will have a lot to talk about in the forest. He’s political, too.”
I looked at him incredulously. “Him? Political? He’s an owner.”
“Was an owner,” he corrected me. “These idiot children of privilege. You know what he did? He got caught fucking a boyar’s wife.”
“That makes him stupid, not political.”
“It was love,” the boy said defiantly.
“You see?” said Dmitri with a smirk. “Love.”
“She was married to him, but she didn’t love him.”
“Tell him the whole story, boy. Tell him how you got caught.”
“I told him. Gregor. Her husband. I told him.” It ca
me out in a low mumble.
Dmitri took a drink and laughed uproariously. “You see? He walked into the drawing room of a boyar and said ‘I am the stupid boy who has been fucking your wife, and I would like a walk in the meat forest.’”
“I told him that I loved Ilse, and that she loved me. And that an honorable man would let her go.” There was a note of stubbornness in the boy’s voice.
He reached over and pinched the boy’s cheek. “Isn’t he wonderful, political? Perfect, really. Meat like a cow, brain like a cow.”
“Leave him alone, Dmitri.” I was shocked to hear my own voice.
Suddenly, Dmitri was on top of me, his hand around my throat. His skin glowed an angry red under the tattoos. His face was inches from mine. I couldn’t believe how quickly he had moved. “What did you say to me?”
“Leave him alone.” I could feel my throat vibrate under his hand. “He hasn’t done anything wrong. He doesn’t deserve your bullshit.”
Dmitri’s breath was hot and bitter. The bioluminescent nodes rippling under his skin gave his face a dull, red illumination, making empty sockets out of his eyes. He pushed me away roughly, banging my head against the metal wall of the hut. “Idealists,” he spat, sitting back down. “God save me from idealists. You would even save this empty, useless little boy here? An owner? An idle parasite on your saintly workers?”
“He can’t help how he was born. He doesn’t know better. He could be reeducated.”
“Yes!” Dmitri clapped. “Reeducated. Maybe in a camp just like this?” He leaned forward. “I know you, political. You think you are so superior. So much better than me. A hero to us all. Fighting for truth and justice. But you are no different. You know what the exiles say? Everything eats: the forest, the prisoners, the exiles, the workers, the owners, the gangsters. Even you, political. Everybody, everything in the world is clawing, scratching, killing, eating. Don’t fool yourself into thinking you’re special.”
“No. We’re different. I’ve never…”
“Killed anyone? I have. Many times. It’s not such a big deal. No problem at all, really. You’ll find this out, too. We’re the same. I kill for money, you kill for ideas—or you will very soon. Does that make you so much more special?” He leaned back against the wall, his anger already forgotten, his skin pulsing a cool blue. He closed his eyes. Tattooed on his eyelids were two grinning skulls. “You make me tired. Leave me alone. Both of you.” I stood up to leave, and he opened his eyes and looked at me with his impassive butcher’s gaze. “There’s a food drop tomorrow. We’ll get our supplies from that, and then we start walking. Meet me at the drop site at dawn. And get some rest. Tomorrow will be the worst day of your life.”
Back outside, in the darkness of the night, the unceasing drizzle felt slimy on my skin, as if blood was falling out of the sky instead of rain.
• • •
Dmitri and the boy were already at the edge of the drop zone when I got there. Men stood around, puffing up their chests and trying to look fierce. I had never been this close to a resupply before, and it made me nervous.
The three of us stood in silence, waiting. As the dim light of a camp dawn began to grow, the place started to buzz with a cold, prickly feeling of anticipation, equal parts fear, aggression, and animal need. Dmitri cocked his head, and then I heard it, too: the growing whine of the approaching gyros. “It would be best if you stayed well to the side,” Dmitri said with a smile.
Suddenly, five great crates plunged out of the sky, breaking open on impact. Supplies spilled out into the mud, and with a roar, everyone charged toward them. The drop zone was instantly in a state of riot as the men scrabbled around for boxes of rations. The prisoners batted at each other with sticks, or clawed and bit and scratched like animals. Anyone who picked up a ration package would be instantly set upon by two or three other men, and beaten until he dropped the food. Then another man would pick it up and the cycle would continue. Dmitri plunged into the chaos like a man swimming in a rough sea, punching and kicking men out of his way, pausing every once in a while to examine the contents of a box. Finally, he stooped, picked something out of the mud and walked back toward me and the boy, stopping a few more times to pick up cartons of food. Near the edge of the riot, a man ran up to Dmitri and tried to pull the food away from him. Dmitri, with only one arm free, gave him a vicious blow to the throat. The man fell to the ground and lay still.
When Dmitri got back to us, he tossed us each a box of rations. It was a vast fortune. Extravagant wealth. More food than I had seen in one place since they had delivered me to this place. “Eat this now,” he said. “You will need it. And you, too.” He nodded to the boy. “We have to keep all of that luxurious meat on your bones.”
I ripped open one of the boxes and started stuffing the food into my mouth. My hands trembled as they tore at the food. I couldn’t eat it fast enough.
Dmitri watched with amusement. “Don’t you want to see what else I got?” he asked. From under his shirt he pulled out a metal canister with a brass pipe attached to one end. He looked at it admiringly. “They used to call these blowtorches. It’s a real antique.” He gave us a thin smile. “Blowtorches are very nice to have in the meat forest.”
He turned and walked toward the edge of camp. The boy and I followed a few meters behind him.
“Thank you for sticking up for me last night,” the boy whispered to me as we walked.
I nodded and looked away. “It’s the only nice thing anybody’s done for me here. Dmitri’s wrong. You are different.” His earnest sincerity was almost painful. “And you know, Dmitri’s got a temper, but he’s all right, really.”
“He is not all right.” I snapped. “He is...” I stopped as we reached the camp perimeter, where Dmitri stood waiting.
“Okay, children. From now on we live by forest rules,” Dmitri said. “Once we get into the forest, we have to be constantly on the move. Keep walking. We can’t stop, even for a moment, until we reach an exile clearing. Don’t touch anything with your bare skin. The moss is the worst, but everything is dangerous. It can get through clothing in thirty seconds or less. With bare skin, it’s faster.”
“Exiles. Do they really exist?” I asked.
“Oh, yes. Traveling with them is the only way to get out of the forest. They know how to deal with it. But they’re a very touchy people. They need to be handled carefully.”
“And how long to the nearest clearing?”
“It’s impossible to predict. One day. Two days. Never. It’s not easy. If you don’t think you can walk for a day and a half straight, you’ll probably die out there. Do you still want to go?”
I looked back through the mist at the camp. Sheets of rain hid much of the squalor, but every once in a while the wind would blow the smells our way—garbage, shit, blood. “Let’s go,” I said, and we stepped across the invisible line marking the maximum amplitude of the electric field.
• • •
The forest was as gray as it looked from the camp—gray and completely silent. Great coniferous trees stretched upward. The forest floor was marshy and soft, and we slipped constantly in the mud. There was downed timber everywhere, and Dmitri led us on a circuitous line through the maze of fallen trees. This went on, monotonously, for hours, and we started to get careless. The boy was the worst, used to the easy life in the city. He began to trip and fall onto the forest floor, sometimes lying there for a few seconds until Dmitri would kick him to his feet with a few curses.
“You can’t stay still, not even for a few seconds. It’s everywhere, even if you can’t see it.” Dmitri would give the boy a push, and we would move on again in silence.
Every once in a while we would happen on a corpse. Still dressed in rotting prison clothing, standing or sitting where the forest got him. When we came on the first one, the boy stood stock still. “Jesus,” he whispered.
I looked into the thing’s face. It was sickeningly lifelike, a raw, red facsimile of the man it used to be, as if his skin ha
d been flayed from him where he sat—a sculpture of a man carved out of raw meat. As I looked, it seemed to pulsate and move. Dmitri pulled us away. “This one is still pretty active. Not very old. Maybe you knew him. The new ones are the most dangerous. They wake up faster.”
“People talk about it, but it never seemed real until now.” The boy was pale and shaken.
“The glory of the meat forest,” Dmitri exclaimed as we walked on. “A massive fungal mat. Millions of square miles. It underlies all of the taiga. That’s why it’s such a wonderful place for the owners to put all of their prison camps. It eats everything it touches.”
“It’s horrible,” I said.
“So judgmental, political. It is merely following its nature. As do I, and you, and yes, as does our beloved cow.
• • •
Toward midday, Dmitri allowed us to pause for food. “Keep your feet moving,” he said. “Touch nothing.”
We started eating, walking in place, trying to keep from touching anything for too long.
“I almost killed you last night, political.” Dmitri said as we ate. “It was the businessman in me that spared your life.” He laughed. “You see, I have values, too.”
“That’s not a value. It’s greed.”
“Oh, what’s the difference? We each have our guiding principles.” After a pause, he said, “You know, if we make it out of here, we should keep in touch. I know what you politicals are like. You’re so noble and pure at the beginning. But then reality gets in the way. You start to cut corners, make compromises. That’s when you will need someone like me. I think we will come to value one another greatly. Men like you are very good for business.”
“I don’t want anything from you, Dmitri.”
He gave me his mirthless smile. “You wanted out of the camp. Your first compromise. The first of many. But enough. Let’s get moving.”
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