The slapping shoes grew louder.
Her blonde hair brushed across my eyes, stinging them, then she looked at Dylan. “Over here! There’s an infected loose over here.”
Memories of our love and friendship might haunt me for the rest of my life, but these people I still cared about whether I wanted to or not—they no longer saw me as human.
Something yanked her off me.
My vision cleared.
Dylan held her back from me, protecting her from my infection.
I didn’t give in to the pain at his actions. I could feel sorry for myself later. Now my only goal was to survive.
I jumped to my feet and ran, but my head left me dizzy and unstable and I knew I weaved from side to side. Dylan appeared, arms outstretched, standing in my way, blocking my path, ensuring my capture. It felt too much like the embrace we had shared, and the ghost-memory of a moment ago overlaid this moment and I wanted to cry out at this last betrayal. I had expected revulsion, disgust, distance, but not this. Not this.
And then I teetered too far in one direction and welcomed the familiar feeling of an oncoming memory-rush. It took over as the guards rushed into view. It took over before I hit the ground, before Dylan caught and held me down for the guards.
Chapter 22
I awoke with a desperate thirst for water, my tongue thick and dry, and with memories of all the deaths in my life crowded on top of each other, my parents, acquaintances, those I had murdered. When I became aware enough to notice my surroundings, I saw they had locked me in a cage much like the one I had helped Dylan escape from. Exactly like that one. It was the same one.
A guard held a rifle crooked in his arm and stood at attention a few feet away from the bars, in the shadows. The spotlight filled my cage, making it difficult to discern what lay beyond its edge.
Ghost-memories materialized in front of me. Dylan and Jane outside the cage, the looks they exchanged, as if they knew each other better than I knew either of them.
I jumped up from where I’d lain in the grip of memories and startled the guard into an alert stance. I wanted to run and beat away their faces. Those looks. I paced up and down that small cage with barely enough room for four steps together. Not enough room to hold back the memories. When I moved I smelled my own mix of sweat and fear, as if my cleansing hot water bath had never happened.
I shook the bars in frustration.
The clanging metal echoed through the building.
The guard lifted his rifle and pointed it at my feet, but I knew it would take less than a second for him to change his aim. He stared at me, unblinking.
I sunk into myself almost instinctively and smelled the metallic residue of handling the bars. The light likely threw my papery, infected skin into high relief for the guard.
I raised the back of my hand to my cheek, wondering what he thought as he stared, wondering how old I looked now and whether the disease stalled its aging or if it continued to progress. His stare reminded me of my creaking joints, my fragile bones, my list of injuries.
I shook the bars again.
“Stop the noise,” he said.
As if by their own mind, my spindly-knuckled fingers grasped the bars again a third time. The metal clang took several long seconds to fade into the darkness. I never looked away from the guard's stare.
He stood straighter, shifted his rifle position, took a step toward me, crossed the edge of the light. I still couldn’t tell if he was a grizzled veteran or a young and cocky recruit.
I shook the bars a fourth time. His outline became rigid and the rifle moved. I bet the butt now lay against his shoulder.
I silently dared him to kill me and readied myself to shake the bars again, out of spite, out of despair, out of plain stubbornness.
“Stand down,” said a voice from outside the perimeter of light.
I shielded my eyes.
The guard stepped out of the way, rifle now at his side, a salute at his forehead. “Yessir,” he said into the darkness.
“You’re Corrina.” It wasn’t a question, but a statement of fact. His voice sounded full of gravel and somehow familiar. I shivered.
“I’m sorry we had to cage you like this, but you put up quite a fight. He never mentioned you were such a spitfire.”
“Where's Dylan?”
“Safe, for now. He’s made some poor decisions, but he’s still valuable to us. We’ve lost too many good people in the last few weeks. Too many to those animals. Dylan is one of the few here who knows how to work the electronics. It’s an interesting predicament.”
“Who are you?”
“Apologies. We rarely have time for niceties these days, but it’s still rude of me. I’m in charge here. You may call me Sergeant Bennings.”
I expected him to show himself, to step into the light and reinforce the authority he carried. He did not. It angered me. “Show yourself, Sergeant Bennings.”
The blobs engaged in whispered conversation, then, “No, that will not be necessary yet,” Sergeant Bennings said. “The doctor still doesn’t know how contagious your kind is—”
“My kind?”
“Please do not interrupt me.”
Silence reined.
I thought I heard the creak of soft, aging bodies pressing against other cages.
Finally, Sergeant Bennings continued, “The infected are dangerous and our science staff was drastically reduced last week. Because of your kind—”
“I did nothing!”
A long pole and a disembodied hand appeared in the light and snaked through the bars. Light glinted off the pole's metal surface as the blunt end jabbed into my ribs. The breath was knocked out of me. I fell to my knees gasping for air.
“Please do not interrupt. I know sometimes it is difficult for your kind to understand language now, but there are other ways of helping you remember.”
Tears leaked out of my eyes and I cursed myself for showing such weakness. Under the lights, I could not hide the glisten of saltwater. I was a zoo animal and Sergeant Bennings the bully someone had let loose inside.
“I am not an animal,” I said between gasps. My papery hands wiped the tears away and I stood on shaky legs. Damn his shadow.
“You are somewhere between an animal and a human,” Sergeant Bennings said. “The doctors are trying to find out exactly what, but that venture has not yet succeeded. Your kind—the aged, yet walking and talking kind—are in some ways the least and most dangerous. Easy to overcome with force, yet the dual infection allows you to think—”
“That’s not true. I’m hu—”
Another thud in my ribs and I heard a crack. A burning sensation bloomed on my side. Taking a deep breath intensified the pain enough so I saw spots.
“The old, locked-in bodies are to be pitied, yet must be eradicated so as to not infect others. The ones most dangerous, the ones who seek out violence, are the most predictable and, except for a few mistakes early on, the easiest ones to protect ourselves from. But things like you, yes, you are the most dangerous, the most likely to make people doubt the rules that protect us here. The most likely to spread the infection, like a rabid dog not yet frothing at the mouth. Like the mad cow packaged into a thousand different freezers, a time-bomb waiting to decimate what’s left of humans. It’s quarantine procedure. Not that it matters so much on a city level. The disease has likely gone around the world. Still, we must all do what we can with what we have.”
“Why bother telling me all this?”
“I am curious about how much human is left in your type. And you’ve been outside the fairgrounds recently. I wanted to appeal to your sense of duty to humanity. We need information that you could provide. The outside conditions, the numbers of various infected, whether certain resources remain intact. I thought to see whether there was enough human left in you to help us.”
“All I see are men with guns imprisoning and murdering those less fortunate.”
“We’re holding out, surviving. Protecting the human bl
oodline or DNA or whatever the doctors call it. To keep humans, human. As many of us as we can.”
“I am still human,” I said. If I could explain to him what it all felt like. Tell him about Maibe and Spencer and Gabbi. We might be sick, but that did not mean we could not feel or love or hate—or remember.
“No, I’m sorry. That’s not going to work.”
“I can explain—”
A sharp prod made pain explode in my ribs and drove me back to my knees.
“Please answer one question. A yes or no will be sufficient. Please think carefully about your answer. It is more important to your…safety…than you can imagine. Did you come here with others like you?”
I thought about Maibe and the pink something I’d glimpsed what felt like days ago, but had only been hours. Spencer, Gabbi, the pup-boys, they were not supposed to be here, they were supposed to have taken care of their police officer and left. I hoped it was so.
“No,” I said.
I received another jab of the pole. It was the Sergeant’s monstrous metal finger, the stick poking a decrepit lion.
“Yes. As I expected.” He spoke too softly for me to hear for a moment, then, “I promised Dylan I would at least try to help you see the human parts that still exist inside of you. I promised this knowing I would fail, but I always keep my word. He will be disappointed.”
“Dylan? Are you there?” Had he watched through all this and not said a word, not tried to stop it?
“Of course not. I am not a monster. You may have aged thirty years, you may have to be executed, but he can still see parts of his wife in you. I would not put any healthy human through such a thing.” He paused and lowered his voice. “Still, he will be required to watch your execution like everyone else.”
“My execution?”
“Usually we shoot those like you on sight, or send you to the camps, but people need a reminder of the rules. The New Year is almost here and there have been too many close calls over the last few days. You showed up at the right time.”
I wanted to ask about the camps, but the shuffling of shoes against concrete told me he was leaving.
“Wait! That’s it? No…no…trial?” I said.
The shuffling paused. “No, of course not. But you will get several chances to wrestle with whatever humanity you have left. Our doctors will check you over and add your medical information to our growing database. We are trying to find a cure for this. Whatever you think of me and my methods, there is a noble purpose behind all of it. My remaining advisors and I will ask you to share any information you have gleaned from your trek through the city. But I can’t say I’m hopeful. It’s easy for your kind to degenerate into a rather self-serving brute of an animal.”
“And if I share information?”
“Then you can die knowing you helped to save humanity. Guard, she may receive water but none of the food we have left.”
He did not wait for a response but walked away with what looked like three other outlines. My original guard stepped back into the edge of light. He seemed to smirk.
“Do you enjoy killing grandmothers and sisters and aunts and brothers?”
The smirk left his face and something more dangerous glinted in his eye. “Sometimes.”
The pain in my ribs felt unbearable. I'd bet money that at least one had cracked. I still smelled the metallic odor of the bars on my hands. I still smelled me and all the mud and panic of the last hours. I wondered what Sergeant Bennings had meant about whether I’d broken in with others. I hoped Maibe and Spencer and the others had found safety. In an insane world, people like them made sense. People still willing to do right, regardless of the danger it put them in.
Or maybe Sergeant Bennings was right. Maybe I deserved whatever came next. Maybe I’d deserved all the names at school, deserved losing my mother and father, deserved Jane’s idea of friendship. Deserved losing Dylan.
But part of me rebelled at my cowardliness. It didn’t want to give up. It didn’t care whether Jane or Dylan cared.
What mattered was I cared. What mattered was I believed the people who had shared my life—the people less fortunate than me, the people who couldn’t take care of themselves anymore—deserved protecting. They did not deserve abandonment or death and it didn't matter if they could not, or would not, return the favor.
I slept fitfully. The spotlight never flickered in its intensity. They would not allow me any privacy and I used the latrine bucket in full sight of the guard, though he gave me the decency of looking away. They provided me enough water only to drink, but I used some of it to wash my hands. Each action caused my shoulder wound to flare in sympathy with the pain in my ribs.
In the morning, the dark gray interior of the warehouse lightened to medium gray from the bit of sunlight that entered through the bay of windows. There was no hiding my skin as I used the latrine bucket, but to hell with hiding anymore.
In the dark, with the spotlight shining on me, I had felt isolated and alone and in a small place. Now I could see the cages I had first walked by in search of Dylan. Dozens of cages spanned several rows. Most of them contained at least one Faint. I didn't want to believe that Sergeant Bennings really did kill every Feeb he encountered, but the surrounding cages implied this was the truth. I tried to find the old woman both Dylan and I had ended up helping but could not. I wondered why he’d tried to help her, or if I even remembered the situation rightly.
When the guards came, two of them wore white latex suits with masks. I swore Stan was one of the guards even with the mask making it impossible to be sure. If Stan was one of these pillowed-up freaks, he didn’t say a word to me, didn’t look me in the eye. Just as well, any actions from him might otherwise tempt me to spit and share my vaccine. He did not deserve it.
They brought the stick back. But I saw it wasn’t only a stick. They’d found a dog catcher noose. Maybe the same one they'd used on the old woman. They hooked that noose around my neck, forced me out of the cage. Each step woke up nerves that had gone numb overnight, igniting my chest and shoulder with burning pain. My stomach grumbled because they had not wasted any of their resources by supplying me with breakfast. But my guards had eaten. I could smell the coffee at least one of them had drunk before coming for me.
Chapter 23
“We will be moving you now. It’s best if you cooperate.”
My muscles tensed, but I knew I was too weak to put up a fight. A part of me didn’t care beyond thinking about Dylan’s last betrayal. He had thrown me away and yet I wasn’t angry. I was sad.
The nylon braiding of the noose tightened into my skin. This was their way of telling me to stop while one of them opened the doors. No warning, just the same pressure you might use to rein in an unruly horse.
Sergeant Bennings waited on the other side of the door. He ushered me and my guards outside. “Follow me,” he said.
We left the warehouse, crossed under a cement pathway, and Sergeant Bennings opened the door to another building. I stumbled and anticipated a choking, but the man holding my noose accounted for my stumble and moved with me to keep me comfortable. I did not understand this kindness, but that’s what it was.
Sergeant Bennings held the door open. “This way, please.”
“And do you feel so sure of yourself, you don’t wear a suit? How can you be so sure I can’t infect you from here?”
“I trust my men,” he said.
“Dad? Dad!” A young voice yelled out.
A boy, maybe fourteen, wearing a black jacket and a dark beanie pulled low over his head with little sprigs of brown hair escaping it, ran to us.
“Alden! Don’t come over here,” Sergeant Bennings said. He dropped his hand from the next door and allowed it to close. He nodded at the two men holding me. “Stay here.”
“Yessir.”
Sergeant Bennings loped a few yards away until Alden caught up to him.
Even though Sergeant Bennings lowered his voice, I could clearly hear his conversation. I wondered if he
knew that and spoke so loudly on purpose.
The boy had lanky brown hair. A gray stripe circled his dark beanie and set off his dark eyes. He looked young, his features set in that typical angsty, almost sullen, teenager frame, ready to demand something unreasonable and deprecate you for your response. But maybe I was being unfair, maybe I only wanted to think so badly of him because he was the son after all, the son of a man capable of hanging people and doing who knew what else to people like me.
“I told you not to come over this way,” Sergeant Bennings said.
“There’s trouble at the gate,” Alden said.
“Why didn’t someone else come? Why did they send you and not one of my soldiers? And what were you doing at the gate? I told you not to go over there either!”
“I can’t just sit and do nothing. Not with mom…the guards needed me. They sent me because there was no one to spare. And I stayed safe. I stayed out of sight like you taught me. I didn't—”
“Stop, Alden.”
I wondered what Sergeant Bennings’ first name could be. I tried to picture the mother, the woman who could love someone like him.
Alden bowed his head when Sergeant Bennings’ hand touched his shoulder. “Just—tell me what’s happening.”
“There’s a rush of people, of the sick ones. The guards aren’t sure what drew them in, but they’re having a hard time, and it looks like something is organizing them.”
“What did you say?” Sergeant Bennings asked.
“I don’t know—that’s what they said to tell you. It doesn’t look random.”
I shifted my weight from one leg to the other. The cold was starting to sink into my legs, stiffening my knees. My animal handler did not move, other than to flick his eyes at me. Definitely Stan. Even with a mask covering most of his face, the lines around his washed out blue eyes were instantly recognizable.
“It must make you feel so good, knowing you’ve got the best of me now. I left you, and now this is payback,” I said to him in a low voice.
His eyes squinted in a pained expression. “I’m sorry, Corrina. This is not by my choice.”
Feast of Weeds (Books 1--4) Page 24