“She needed an IV and antibiotics,” Tabitha said.
“Where is she?” Ricker said. His voice cracked.
“Take them to her, son.”
Son? Had anything they said been true? I opened my mouth but Ano grabbed my wrist and tapped: C-O-O-L. He shook his head at me and I could read the rest of his message easily enough: cool it until we knew more.
Kern stared at our hands and then looked away. “Follow me.”
Maibe was laid out on a cot. Inside the cell with her was a long metal pole with a bag of liquid attached. The tubing snaked down and into her arm. Her stupid pink sweatshirt was rolled up to her elbows and looking more gray than pink now. Her mess of dark hair peeked out from her hood. Relief made my knees weak. I grabbed the railing and held on because goddamn I was not going to faint in front of Kern.
Her wounded arm was bandaged. Her breath was slow and steady and she was awake.
“Hi,” Maibe said. She smiled and her skin stretched, pale and webbed.
“Hi,” I said.
Ricker pushed in beside me. “Maibe, are you okay?” He sat down next to the cot and placed his hand alongside hers without quite touching it.
“It’s okay, Ricker. I’m already feeling better.” Maibe looked back at me. “She said they let us out for the night because everything’s locked up and they don’t care what we do.”
“Who said?”
“Tibby.”
“Well, it’ll just make it easier to mob them in the morning and escape.” But anxiety snaked through my stomach. Alone with all these strangers, all these men, and nothing to lock them out. I pushed the thought aside for now because if I thought about it too hard I would have a panic attack.
“She said they won’t send in any food and they’ll turn the water off if we don’t return to our cells. Even one of us goes missing and they will punish all of us for days.”
I scowled at her. “Are you trying to tell me something?” I knew exactly what she was trying to tell me. Don’t mess it up for the rest of us.
Maibe sighed and looked at Ricker.
“She’s right,” Kern said behind me. “But there’s a whole introduction we go through and there’s more to it than just the cells.”
I whirled around. “I don’t play well with others,” I said in a snarl. I didn’t, that was true enough, but I knew I could have said it differently. Still, they needed to learn fast that no one was going to tell me what to do without earning some scars for their effort.
Kern smiled. “Then you’ll fit right in.”
Dinner consisted of spaghetti noodles, red sauce, some meatballs that looked a lot like ground up SPAM, and all the water we could drink. Everything was served cold, but it was the best meal I remembered eating in a long time.
Three rows of tables, four tables deep, filled Tabitha’s ‘greenhouse.’ Almost all of the tables were full.
We sat as a group. Kern was at a different table, but he kept looking my way. Every time he caught my gaze I stared daggers at him. I pictured running across the tables to choke him into unconsciousness, but instead I savagely attacked the spaghetti noodles. Spencer ate as if in his own bubble. Ricker and Jimmy were ravenous and chatty, Ano listened but didn’t participate much. Dylan and Corrina and Maibe sat across from me and acted like they were some weird nuclear family. I sat on the edge of both the table and an emotional cliff. People were laughing and talking and acting as if this were some community night event and everyone could just go back home to their quiet lives like the world had never fallen apart and we weren’t actually being kept prisoner.
I rose from my seat. My fingers twitched against my plate and I pictured slamming it to the floor and walking away and making sure all the people in the room learned it was better not to mess with me. I planned out how the night would go, how I would force myself to stay awake. We could all take a cell together and take turns being on watch and—
“Sometimes, when it gets really bad,” Tabitha said, standing over me. “When I think I’m about to lose control, I remember the most beautiful flower I’ve ever seen, a deep purple morning glory spread open to the sun, climbing the stalk of a yellow sunflower.”
“That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard,” I said.
Tabitha slid next to me on the bench. I froze.
“Please sit,” she said.
I did not move.
She inclined her head my way. “This is going to take a little while to explain.”
The rest of the group had stopped talking. Ano rested a hand on my shoulder. “It’s okay,” he said. I settled back down but kept my muscles coiled like a cat about to spring.
Tabitha scanned our faces. We waited to find out how bad things were going to get.
“We are working toward a cure here. That is the most important thing to know upfront.”
“You mean THEY are working toward a cure,” Corrina said.
Tabitha nodded. “Yes, and they need our help.”
“Why did they imprison us if they want our help?” Dylan said.
“Because you would not have come otherwise,” Tabitha said.
“You bet not,” Corrina said.
“It’s dangerous out there, and I understand your group came through the fairgrounds first, and you should know—that’s not how they do things here.”
“Then why is Sergeant Bennings here?” I said. “He was in charge and he seems pretty involved with things here too.”
“It’s unfortunate that he was the one to meet you off the truck. But it’s different here,” Tabitha said firmly.
I was about to speak again, but Tabitha held up her hands. “Wait, please. Let me better explain.”
I closed my mouth and waited. Let her hang herself by her own words.
“We are all here against our will. There is no use in denying it.”
I felt surprise at her words. Wasn’t she supposed to convince us otherwise? Wasn’t it her job to make us play along?
“But in some ways, the uninfected are also here against their will. The same fence that protects them from the sick outside also of course imprisons us inside. Not in the same way, no, but the world has changed, and if we do not want to become the enemy of our neighbors, we will also have to change.” She paused for a moment and scanned our faces again.
“Most everyone here has uninfected family on the other side of camp.” Her gray hair shined from recently being washed. The wrinkles around her eyes deepened as she grimaced. “It is our lot to prove to them that we deserve to work alongside them—not as their prisoners. We will not allow our neighbors to dehumanize us.”
“They already have!” I said. “We are nothing, we are less than human, something to experiment on or get rid of if we cause too much trouble.”
“If you believe that then you already are what they think you are,” Tabitha said, focusing her stare on me as if trying to peer into my soul.
“It’s not what I believe that matters, it’s what they believe,” I said.
“No,” Corrina said. “It’s what we believe that matters.”
“Yes, that’s what we believe here,” Tabitha said. “We are their prisoners. Our neighbors, our family in some cases, have taken us prisoners, but we only become the beasts they claim we have become if we also believe the lies.”
“They’re the monsters,” I said.
“They are not,” Tabitha said.
“I don’t understand,” Corrina said. “Where is everyone else? All these uninfected?”
“The camp here is split into two,” Tabitha said. “You cannot go on the uninfected side without permission. They cannot come here without protection. We work separately to keep the entire camp going.”
I turned away and looked into space, but Kern was there, across the room, staring intently, directly, at me. He moved as if to get up, but Laurel whispered in his ear and he settled back into his seat.
“But,” Dylan said, “what does that mean for us here and now? Are you saying we should just accept
this? That it doesn’t matter how they treat us, that—”
“Of course it matters,” Tabitha interrupted.
I looked away from Kern’s table and surveyed the rim of cells darkening around us in the evening light. No electricity. When the sun faded completely, everything would become pitch black. “Do they lock the cells at night?” At least the bars would offer some protection.
Tabitha shook her head. “We are only locked into the cells when the uninfected need to enter.”
We would not see anyone coming our way during the night. There would be no warning. “We’re all sleeping in the same cell.”
Tabitha inclined her head. “If you wish. There is a schedule and there are procedures and jobs that everyone shares in. We are not criminals and we will not act like ones no matter how much easier that would make it on our neighbors.” She went on to explain the work chores everyone would get assigned tomorrow, how there were still hot showers, but the toilets didn’t work because the manuals had been replaced with auto-flushers hard-wired to the electricity. She explained about the pit toilets and the rules we were expected to follow.
“All right,” Corrina said. “So we play the game—”
“It’s more than a game,” Tabitha said.
“We all know that,” Corrina responded.
“Of course you do,” Tabitha said. “I apologize.”
“So we do what we want, and then what? Wait for a chance to escape?”
“If someone escapes,” Tabitha said. “They will punish everyone here, but yes, that is your right. You could take such an opportunity and leave us to our fates.”
I turned back and slid my legs under the table bench. “How do they punish us?”
“Reduced rations, more work, taking away some of the small luxuries we have like soap, clean water for bathing.”
“This all sounds so nice, doesn’t it?” Spencer said, his first words spoken the entire conversation.
“And are they running experiments?” Corrina asked.
Tabitha nodded. “There is no other better way to test for a cure.” She stood up. “I will not ask you to promise anything. This is a devil’s deal, I know it, you know it. Everyone here knows it. But most of us are determined. We would rather die than turn into the monsters many of the uninfected already believe us to be. And we have hope that a cure will be found. Please consider my words, but of course, this decision is a personal one that only you can make for yourself. We are putting our humanity in your hands.”
At this she stood up and left the table. We were silent, stunned, thoughtful. I wasn’t going to follow the rules. The first chance we got to escape, I would make us take it. But even so, I found I respected her a little bit for being so sure about what to do in an impossible, horrible situation. They hadn’t broken her yet.
Corrina stood up from the table and said a hurried, “I’ll be back, I want to ask her…”
But she didn’t finish, only brushed her hand along Dylan’s upper back as she followed Tabitha across the greenhouse, over to Kern’s table.
“I think we should all stay in Maibe’s cell tonight and take shifts standing guard. Two people up at a time,” I said.
“This sounds good to me,” Ano said.
Ricker nodded.
Jimmy looked troubled. “You think something’s going to happen?”
I shrugged. “Maybe.”
Maibe looked up at the sound of her name. “I’m going to the bathroom.”
“Not by yourself,” Dylan said.
Maibe looked about to protest, then said, “I need someone to go with me.”
Ricker looked at the other two. “We’ll go.” He elbowed Jimmy and Ano. “I’ve had to pee for ages.”
“Yeah, me too,” I said.
“I’ll wait for Corrina,” Dylan said.
Spencer didn’t say anything but made no move to get up from the dinner table.
“Meet back at Maibe’s cell,” Dylan said. “We’ll drag some more cots in and make it work somehow.”
We left Spencer and Dylan at the table and walked through the greenhouse to a hallway that led to the toilets. It was twilight and everything had lost its color, not that there had been much to begin with. Cement ground, a few basketball poles missing their hoops, white paint marking off the court, a tall chain-link fence with barbed wire, several lookout towers with armed guards. They flashed us with their lights and then moved on.
The pit toilets were dug in the middle of the yard, walled off with plywood, and more plywood separating it down the middle. The planks were covered in artistic paint strokes and landscape scenes, including a purple-flowered morning glory vine twined around a sunflower stalk.
“Who did this?” Maibe asked.
“Tabitha,” I said, rolling my eyes.
“It looks nice,” Jimmy said.
“Why would they bother?” Ricker asked.
I thought about it and weighed Tabitha’s earlier words against the pictures in front of me. “Because she might mean what she says,” I said finally. “She’s not going to let them win.”
We used the crude facilities. Really not that bad considering what I was used to. On the women’s side were several buckets of water and a sliver of soap. I poured a scoop of sand down the hole after we finished. Ricker and Jimmy could not shut up as we returned to the greenhouse. They joked around with Maibe until I wanted to swat all of their ears, but I kept my hands to myself because I also sort of enjoyed hearing them laugh again.
Only a few people remained at the tables now. A half dozen Feebs were at a sort of bucket washing station, cleaning up the plates and utensils while a few other people scraped leftovers into a compost-type bucket. The light was almost gone, but people did not hurry. It was as if they knew exactly how much time things took and knew they still had enough time to get it all done. People—men, women, children—wandered in and out of the cells, talking in hushed tones, walking by us to use the pit toilets, brushing their teeth, hanging out clothes on the railings.
Corrina sat at a table with Kern. Dylan had joined her, but Spencer was nowhere to be seen.
“Where’s Spencer?” I said in a too-loud voice that interrupted people from their tasks.
Dylan motioned us over. “He said he went up to move the cots around.”
“Look,” Kern said, “There are some of us making plans—”
“YOU,” I jabbed my finger in the air at him, “can forget about us having anything to do with YOUR plans.”
“I think we should give it a try,” Corrina said.
“We’re going up to help Spencer,” Jimmy said, standing up.
Ricker tugged on Maibe’s sweatshirt. “Come on, Maibe. This conversation is about to go nowhere.” They clambered up the metal stairs.
I started in on Kern again, listing all the reasons why he couldn’t be trusted ever again, why we shouldn’t have trusted him in the first place, and how we should have left him and Laurel trapped on that roof. He took it too. He didn’t say a word the entire time, but he met my gaze and held it as if knowing that it was part of his punishment.
And suddenly I felt deflated and my voice lost its power and I stopped.
Gunfire erupted outside and people started screaming.
Chapter 20
Kern sprang from the table as if lit on fire. I chased him and expected someone to stop us when we reached the front doors of the jail but he slammed right through them.
People continued to shout, but the gunfire had stopped. I ran into Kern’s back. I pushed him out of the way. “Hey!” he said, but I did not care because a dreadful feeling had settled in my chest.
Out front, the open space was larger than the back, but the separation between sections was clear. Guard towers marked two parts of the fence that kept the Vs out. Another guard tower marked a section of interior fence that kept us Feebs from the uninfected part of the camp.
When they had unloaded us, the truck had blocked the layout but now it was easy to see the train tracks snaking a
longside the fence on the uninfected border. On our side there were rows of white hoop houses and piles of dirt and gardening tools. The fence on this side ran along a street with another fenced parking lot on the other side. Acres and acres of parking lot with weeds growing from the cracks.
Two guards in the tower had white spotlights blazing down onto a figure on the ground on our side of the fence. A dark, black puddle spread out around him.
The guards were screaming for us to get back inside or get shot.
I stepped forward and felt Kern grab my arm.
“Gabbi.”
I shook him off. It was Spencer in the light. Spencer in the puddle.
I stumbled to one knee because I couldn’t feel my feet anymore. Ricker and Maibe came up next to me. He turned and buried his face in her hair. Jimmy puked and I noticed somehow that a chunk of pasta had landed on my leg. I stared at this little glob because I couldn’t stare at anything else. Kern pulled at my elbow and lifted me into his chest. The warmth of his body burned me like the lights seemed to burn off the veins and webbing of Spencer’s afflicted skin and smooth it all back out so that everyone could clearly see he was really still so young.
“Careful,” Kern said, his hot breath tickling my ear. He pulled me back through the crowd, through the front doors. He told my group to follow him, quickly, don’t talk. Go into the cells and don’t say a word.
Even though he said it only to us, the entire jail filled up again. People rushed back into their cells and whispered about one of the new Feebs trying to escape and punishment and consequences.
We stuffed the six of us around Maibe’s cot. I couldn’t look at any of them. I buried my face into the rough cloth of the sheets and tried to stop breathing. What had he done? He knew they were out there. We had all been warned and even I wasn’t stupid enough to have tried to escape yet. And then I realized. He hadn’t tried to escape. He’d killed himself.
I wanted to rage at him for leaving me alone. What was the point of running away all those years ago for him to just give up now? The anger I felt warred with the suffocating feeling that came over me. I did not want to be in charge. I would mess things up. Spencer was gone.
Feast of Weeds (Books 1--4) Page 40