by Griffin, Gen
“Shut up,” Gauge snapped. I cast a sideways glance at him. I wasn't entirely surprised to see that he'd freed his ax from his belt. He was holding it out in front of him as we approached the first occupied cage.
“I'm just-.”
“Hush.” The words came from Seth this time. His shoulders were visibly tense as we walked down a narrow walkway that divided several rows of cages. Most of the cages at the front of the room were filled with nothing more than thick dust.
A lump in the cage ahead of us stirred. Something at the back of the room whimpered.
I reached for the knife that Seth had given me to carry. I wasn't all that great at defending myself in hand-to-hand combat. I would have been more comfortable with a long sword or the machete I'd carried when I joined the Scavengers. Seth had said there was nothing more conspicuous than a teenage girl toting a machete through the center of the city. I hated to admit he was right. Still, I was wishing for my trusted, rusty blade as we walked up to the cage.
The figure huddled on the floor appeared to be made out of rags and lumps. I couldn't tell if it was a man or a woman. The smell of body odor indicated that the person hadn't had access to a bath in quite some time. I started to step closer to the bars so that I could get a better look, but Gauge pulled me back. “Don't get within arm’s reach.”
“What?” I blinked at him, confused. “My mom could be in one of these cages. I need to be able to see.”
“Stay out of arms reach.” Gauge was holding me by the back of my denim jacket. “Understand?”
“Seth?” I looked over at him questioningly.
He shrugged. His good eye was scanning the room around us while the dead white one stared off into space. “Do what he says, Pilar.”
I frowned but stepped slightly back from the cage. The lump stirred again. “Mom?”
No response. The smelly human in the blankets rolled so that we couldn't see its face. It appeared to be cowering against the concrete floor.
“I don't think that's your mother.” Lola wrapped her fingers around my wrist. “Let's go check the rest of the cages.”
“Okay.” I followed her towards the next occupied cage. The man inside of it was glaring at us from underneath the narrow cot bed that had been set out in the corner of the room. He was too big for his hiding place and dirty, bare feet with cracked and bleeding toenails were visible despite his efforts to hide away. It was either the saddest or most terrifying thing I had ever seen. The filthy man peered out from under the bed and growled at us like a rabid dog.
“Holy hell,” Gauge whispered.
“God isn't in this room with us,” Seth corrected him almost absently.
The man under the bed snarled again and snapped his chipped teeth at us.
“Not my mom.” I turned my cheek and hurried towards the next cage, which turned out to be empty.
“What is this place?” Lola was cowering next to Gauge's elbow. She was careful to stay away from the empty cage behind her. “That man. What happened to him?”
“I don't think-,” Seth started to answer her but a cold, choking laugh cut through the darkness around us.
Seth and Gauge both tensed. Seth pulled me in between them, pushing me until I was standing shoulder to cheek with Lola.
“Who's there?” Seth held his sword out in front of him.
“Seth Ra. I didn't think you'd come for me.” The laugh turned into a rasping cough. The noise bounced off the walls, amplifying the desperation in that cracking voice.
“What the hell?” Seth hissed under his breath.
“Over there.” Lola pointed to a cage near the very back of the room. A stooped figure was leaning against the bars of the cage with one skeletal arm extended towards us.
“Who are you?” Gauge demanded. He stepped around Lola so that he was standing next to Seth instead of at his back.
The caged man laughed again. “He knows me,” he rasped.
“No, I don't think I do.” Seth steeled his shoulders and began walking towards the cage. I followed on his heels because I was afraid of whatever other nasty surprises might be lurking in the darkness,.
The man in the cage had sticky, dark hair that looked like it had been adhered to his skull with blood. He was thin like a skeleton and his skin was so dry that it appeared to be flaking off in chunks. He had on a torn old military style jacket that exposed his bony ribs. Eyes the color of gold were sunken deep into the dark hollows above his cheekbones.
His hand had a clawed appearance as he reached towards us. “Help me, Seth.”
Seth stopped a few feet short of the caged man's outstretched arm. “How do you know my name?”
The caged man laughed bitterly. His teeth were dropping from his mouth like bits of candy from a busted piñata as he giggled.
Seth took a step backwards, looking unsettled. “Pilar, unless you see your mother in here, I think we should go.”
“Pilar?” The skeletal man's head snapped up so fast that I thought his neck was going to break. He pressed his face hard against the metal bars that held him captive. “Pilar?”
I froze where I stood. There was something eerily familiar about the way my name sounded coming from this monstrosity's cracked, bleeding lips. I forced myself to look at him. To see beyond the rotting teeth and bleeding gums. To see beyond the open wounds that were weeping ooze down his exposed chest. “Drake?”
The caged man smiled and gestured at Seth with his clawed hand. “I should have known you'd deserted me for him.”
“Drake?” Seth repeated the name with undeniable horror in his voice.
“Didn't even recognize me, did you?” Drake leered at us through his sunken eyes. “I would have expected better from you, Seth.”
“What happened to you?” I couldn't stop the question from spilling from my lips.
“What happened to me? You want to know what happened to me? You have the balls to ask what happened to me?” Drake let out another burst of harsh laughter. “You happened to me, you little bitch.”
He spat the last word at me and several of his teeth came with it.
I didn't even realize I had taken a step towards him. Gauge yanked me backwards before any of the blood that laced Drake's breath could land on me. “Stay back,” he snapped.
Drake giggled. “He's right, Pilar. I'd hate for any of my contaminated blood to get on that pretty skin of yours.”
“Contaminated blood?” Seth was rapidly pulling himself together, but I could still see his shock at what Drake had become.
“What do you mean, I happened to you?” I focused my attention solely on the monster that Drake had become.
“You ruined my life, Pilar. Everything was all set and perfect until you came walking into my life whining about how your parents had gone missing and the Powers That Be didn't give a shit.” Drake leered at me through the bars. “Pretty Pilar on her quest to get answers. All you had to do was die. The Powers That Be promised me it would be easy. Take you out into the wild, scary world outside the Cube and let you get torn to pieces by a horde of zombies. Just a dumb, clumsy 15 year old girl with frizzy hair and big feet. Easy to kill. Easy to forget.”
“You tricked me into trusting you. You tricked me into loving you.” I couldn't help remembering the way his lips had felt pressed against mine less than two months ago. Bile rose to the back of my throat. “You betrayed me.”
“I betrayed you?” Drake laughed again. “You betrayed everyone in the Cube when you abandoned the Scavengers and ran away with the high priest of the Church of Chaos.”
Gauge made a surprised, choking noise.
“I didn't abandon my fellow Scavengers. You murdered them.” I focused all my attention on Drake. “Just like you were planning on murdering me.”
“I was following orders,” Drake snapped.
“Looks like following orders did you a lot of good.” Seth stepped up so that he was in between me and Drake. He gestured at the cage that Drake was trapped in. “Is this how the Cube rew
ards their loyal generals when they're done with them?”
Drake snapped his bleeding gums at Seth. “Fuck you, Seth. This is all your fault. Yours and hers. If you hadn't interfered with my business, I'd be walking free through the streets with beautiful women on my arms and plenty of money in my pockets. Instead, I'm rotting to death in this dungeon.”
“By 'interfering in your business', you're talking about the part where I saved Pilar's life?” Seth crossed his arms over his chest.
“She wasn't supposed to live!”
“I wanted her alive.” Seth drew the blade of his sword across the bars of Drake's prison. “Unlike you. I don't want you alive.”
Drake laughed bitterly, the chuckles turning back into a hacking cough. He doubled over against the bars, bloody spittle running out of his mouth and onto the concrete. “It hurts so badly. You never warned me that it would hurt.”
“What hurts?” Seth appeared baffled.
“Changing,” Drake hissed the word at Seth.
“Changing.” Seth's lips parted and then shut again abruptly. He looked at Drake's oozing, shaking form and shook his head. There was horror in his voice when he spoke again. “Changing into what?”
“A better version of you,” Drake whispered. “Bud promised me that I could become a better version of you. He said I'd be immune to zombies. He said I'd be stronger and more powerful than you've ever thought about being.” Drake gasped out the last few words as more blood dripped from his mouth onto the floor.
Seth knelt down on the ground so that he was still nearly eye-level with Drake. “Bud promised he'd turn you into me?”
“He tricked me,” Drake hissed in between two bursts of coughing. “He asked me if I wanted to be a part of something bigger than the Scavengers. He said our doctors had finally figured out the secret you've been guarding so carefully for so long. He said they had developed a new serum that would allow us to change without undergoing all the nasty side effects.” Drake lifted one clawed, twisted hand and pointed at Seth's ruined eye.
“The Powers That Be have figured out how to achieve the change?” Seth looked appalled.
“Are you blind?” Drake snorted and more blood oozed out of his nose. “The serum doesn't work like Bud promised. I let him inject me and a few weeks later, my body started rotting from the inside out.”
“Oh my god,” I whispered.
Drake looked over at me. “First it didn't seem so bad. My stomach hurt a little bit and I had a headache. Then my nose started bleeding. Bud said it was just side effects and to take it easy, they would pass.”
“Drake-.”
“And then I started pissing blood and my skin started peeling off in layers.” Drake held up one arm. His sleeve feel back to reveal a huge strip of missing flesh. “I went back to Bud and told him this shit was killing me. He looks right at me and tells me that maybe the doctors don't have the serum just right just yet. Then he threw me in this cage and left me to die. He hasn't been back here in more than a week. I guess he's gone back to the Cube.”
Seth took a deep breath and then exhaled slowly. He bit his lip and stared at Drake. “After all you've been through, why would you want to be changed now?”
“Don't waste my time with stupid questions.” Drake eyed Seth warily and then eased backwards so that he was sitting instead of kneeling. “You can't expect me to believe you just wandered into Bud Moon's compound and broke into the laboratory on a whim.”
“Actually-.”
“We're looking for my parents,” I cut in.
Drake cast a sideways glance at me and shook his head. “Still desperately searching for Mommy and Daddy?”
“I need to know if they're alive or dead.”
“Most people would have given up by now.”
“Where are my parents, Drake?” I crossed my arms over my chest and glared at him. Current condition non-withstanding, Drake had pretended to care about me and then tried to lead me to my death. I hadn't forgotten the way his knife had felt when he'd stabbed me in the back. “If anyone would know, its you.”
Drake chortled back another gurgling laugh. “I underestimated you, Pilar. We could have been good together.”
“You dropped Cya off a bridge into a horde of zombies. You chopped Kennedy's head off and left it sitting on top of his boots in the woods. We were never going to be good together because I never would have willingly gone along with the crimes you committed.” I swallowed a lump in my throat and took a deep breath.
“Says the girl who is standing beside the high priest of Church of Chaos.” Drake's hollow eyes peered into mine.
“I don't lie to her,” Seth snapped. “She may not always approve of what I do, but Pilar knows-.”
“Where are my parents, Drake?” I put my hand on Seth's shoulder and hoped he'd take the hint to shut up.
Drake shook his head at me. “Your dad got sold in the meat market. He's probably dead by now.”
His words stung but I took a deep breath and forced myself to focus on getting the answers I needed. “And my mom?”
Drake gave me a wide, toothless smile. His tongue had turned black inside his mouth. “Your mom is here.”
“Here?” I spun around and began scanning the empty cages surrounding us.
“Not in this room. There's a second room of cages two doors down. Your mom was being held there when I was brought in.”
“You're sure?” It took every bit of willpower I had in me not to immediately bolt for the door that would take me back into the hallway. I scarcely dared to hope that mom was still alive.
Drake nodded. “She was here when Bud brought me in.”
“Seth, I need to go-.” I began to turn towards the door.
Seth caught my wrist. “You can wait for me. Five minutes isn't going to make a life or death difference. Drake hasn't answered my question yet.”
“And I'm not going to,” Drake snarled. “You really expect me to believe you had no idea what you were walking into when you came here?”
Seth shrugged his slender shoulders and then stood back up. “Believe what you want, Drake.”
“I heard that the people who run the Cube are planning on overthrowing the king and taking the city for their own,” Gauge spoke unexpectedly, startling me.
“What?” Seth gaped at Gauge.
Drake chuckled again. He pointed at Gauge. “You aren't as dumb as you look, big boy.”
“Wait-,” Seth held up one hand, his attention focused solely on Gauge. “Run that by me again.”
“Rumors have been going around for a couple of years now. Folks say that Bud Moon and his people have been conducting experiments up here. You telling me that you really had no idea?”
“Experiments?” Seth repeated. He looked down at Drake's oozing, bleeding form. “I don't know anything about any experiments. Or I didn't before now, anyways. Lola, what is he talking about?”
“I don't know,” Lola said in a hushed tone. It was the first time she'd spoken since we'd seen Drake. “Gauge doesn't tell me everything the way Jeremiah used to.”
“Tell me what you know about the experiments,” Seth said to Gauge.
Gauge sighed. “Everything I've heard has been rumors. Nothing reliable enough to stake my life on until today.”
“You came with us because you wanted to see this place for yourself,” Seth said.
Gauge shrugged. He appeared to be completely consumed by his own thoughts. “The first time I heard someone say that Bud Moon and his cronies were trying to create zombie-human hybrids, I thought it was a bad joke. The second time I heard the rumors, it was from a guy who used to landscaping up here. He said he's seen dozens of people go into the bunker and that none of them ever come back. He said this building wasn't a hospital for sick humans, it was a slaughterhouse.”
“That's insane,” Seth muttered.
“No one wants to live in the Cube anymore,” Drake sounded almost regretful. “The canned food is running out. People are getting restless. The priso
n cells we live in keep getting smaller and smaller. Just ask Pilar. She can tell you.”
Seth glanced at me and I nodded. “Living conditions in the Cube suck.”
“It's only a matter of time before the people revolt and the Powers That Be lose everything. Why do you think I was trying to get out of the Cube and retire to the city?” Drake slurred his words slightly. Bits of blood and gore were still slowly oozing from his lips. “Everyone in the Cube is a week away from starving to death. People are getting tired of living that way. They want out. Not to mention that its getting harder and harder to hide that we're taking dozens of people out of their homes against their will every month and sending them to slaughter.”
“The disappearances.” Everything was starting to make sense to me.
“The disappearances,” Drake confirmed. “Did your precious Pilar ever tell you what she did to get a death sentence from the Powers That Be?”
Seth frowned and then shrugged. “If she did, it didn't stand out in my memory.”
“She stood up in the middle of an assembly and spoke out against the Powers That Be. She drew attention to the disappearances. Not just the disappearance of her parents. All the disappearances. Bud Moon thought there was going to be a riot right there in the auditorium. She got the Sheeple all worked up. She got them thinking about exactly how many people had gone missing from the Cube without a trace. She got them asking questions that shouldn't be asked.” There was no mistaking the hatred in Drake's sunken eyes.
“Sheeple?” Lola asked.
“You don't want to know.” I swallowed the lump that had grown in my throat.
“Its the term they use for the people they take to slaughter,” Seth explained.
“Oh god. That's horrible.”
“No worse than slaughtering people for a profit,” Gauge replied. He looked back down at Drake. “About a year ago, a zombie got loose in the city. It wasn't a normal zombie. It was smart. Human smart. It knew how to run. How to hide. How to use weapons. The killing started right outside this compound and we followed a trail of corpses almost straight to the outer wall of the city. I wasn't a part of the group who caught the thing and killed it, but I know people who were. They said it begged them not to kill it. They said it was babbling about the Cube and Bud Moon. Yammering on and on about how everyone in the city was going to die a horrible death when the Powers That Be finally made their move on the city.”