by D. J. Molles
“You ever hear of hardtack?” Chalmers asked, breaking off a small piece of his loaf and putting it in his mouth. It crunched beneath his teeth.
“No.”
“Hardtack biscuits were a staple of a Confederate soldier’s diet during the Civil War. These are fresh baked, but the ones they had were dried so they would keep longer and they were so hard you could break a tooth trying to bite one.” Chalmers smiled. “Eventually, these will get that hard, too, and then they’ll keep for a long time. You have to break them up and cook them with some water to make them edible, but it’s a simple and easy way to feed a lot of people. Easy recipe, too. Just two parts flour and one part water and then you bake and dry it out.”
Clyde watched the other man chew noisily for a moment, then realized he was probably expected to do the same. He broke a piece from his loaf with some effort, then put it in his mouth. He didn’t want to break a tooth like Chalmers had mentioned, so he approached chewing with care. The bit of hard biscuit in his mouth didn’t have an unpleasant flavor, but it was simple. Like saltine crackers.
He chewed and swallowed. Hoped he wouldn’t be expected to eat the whole thing right then and there because he was sure it would take longer than he wanted to be in the house with Deacon Chalmers. And the girl. The girl, still sitting there in the drum of water, watching them.
Don’t look at her.
“Do you know Nicole?” Chalmers asked casually.
A bit of hardtack seemed caught in Clyde’s throat. “Excuse me?”
Chalmers gestured to the young woman in the water. “Nicole. Do you know her?”
Clyde finally looked at her.
The conversation now focused on her, she lowered her gaze. Staring at nothing in particular. A false façade of demur, with tension like a dry branch underneath. Clyde considered lying, but then thought, What if he already knows? What if he knows and this is just a test? Maybe he’s testing my honesty. And “a righteous man is honest, even to his own undoing.”
Chalmers had quoted that scripture many times.
Clyde nodded once. “Yes. I know her.”
Chalmers smiled. “Good, good.” He walked around the counter that divided the kitchen and dining area. He stopped in front of the drum, standing close to it. One hand idly scratched at his chest, the other still clutched the hardtack biscuit. Chalmers regarded the girl in the water, as he sucked food from his teeth.
Nicole seemed frozen stiff, even in the steaming water.
“Stand up,” Chalmers said, his voice blank. “Let me see you.”
She hesitated only momentarily, then stood. Clyde stared at the water running over her pale skin, sheeting off her small breasts. He looked away, shame causing his face to burn. He instead watched Chalmers, who seemed to be inspecting the girl with a critical eye. If he derived any pleasure from the sight of the girl, he did not show it.
He stepped up to her, leaned over, and inhaled deeply. Not as a man smells a woman, but rather how you would sniff to find if something was offensive or not. He took her wrist and raised her arm, this time checking her armpit. Then he looked behind her ears. All the while Nicole simply allowed him. Her face was a practiced lack of anything. When Chalmers let go of her wrist, it simply flopped back down to her side.
Chalmers nodded, ruminating. “And you cleaned your lady parts?”
“Yes,” Nicole said, her voice as expressionless as her face.
Chalmers smiled again and then turned his attention back to Clyde. “Cleanliness is close to godliness, so they say.” He walked back over to the counter and set his biscuit down there. “If I didn’t make these poor girls bathe every once in a while, Lord knows what kind of filth they would be living in.” Chalmers’s eyes hazed over and his finger rapped twice on the countertop. “The dirty bastards out there wouldn’t see to it, I’m sure of that.”
Chalmers seemed to recover himself. He turned partially, and spoke over his shoulder. “Nicole, you’re done. Please dry off in the bedroom.” He wagged a finger, as an afterthought. “Remember not to leave the house without me.”
It was an important warning. Because if she were caught outside without an escort, at the very least she would be beaten and dragged back to the cages. But there was always the possibility that she would be shot to death. The holding cages were overcrowded, and young wombs tended to be weaker, and therefore less valuable to them. Besides her age, all women were to be in their designated areas, or they needed to be with a man.
Chalmers waited, staring at the brick of dried flour that sat on the countertop. As he watched it, an ant meandered across the counter, in search of things to take back to its colony. It came to the hardtack and seemed to consider it for a moment, but eventually turned and made a new course for easier fare.
Over Chalmers’s shoulder, Clyde could see Nicole getting out of the water. It splashed and trickled noisily, and then was silent. She took a large blanket and draped it over herself, and then she quietly padded out of the room with a sharp glance in Clyde’s direction and tightly pursed lips.
When she was gone, Chalmers leaned his elbows on the countertop. “So. The new recruit.”
“Yessir.”
“Having problems with him?”
Clyde gave a partial shrug. “He’s cooperative. To a point. But he doesn’t want to talk about the group he came from. And I’m not sure the… alternative methods are going to be effective.”
“Oh.” Chalmers stretched his back languidly. “They’re always effective. Just takes time. However, I understand your hesitation. After all, I’ve made this man your trainee. Your tagalong. So do you torture him and hope for forgiveness later? Or do you approach it with a softer hand?”
Clyde remained silent. Chalmers seemed to be mulling something over.
“Maybe it was a mistake to ask you to do this,” Chalmers said absently.
“I can do it,” Clyde insisted.
Chalmers held up a hand. “Clyde, it’s not a lack of faith in your ability. I think you were right to come to me. This man is a unique situation. And perhaps we need to come at him from a different angle.”
“Okay.”
Chalmers scratched his chest again, his fingers disappearing into the gray fur. “I think I have a good use for Mr. LaRouche.”
LaRouche sat in the tent, very quietly. His hands remained folded in his lap. Shoulders slouched. His eyes affixed to the dirt. He was thirsty again. And his hunger was becoming a different animal in him. For a time, hunger makes itself known through physical pain. But after a while, it gives up on sending signals and hijacks your entire brain, so that all you can think about is what you might be able to eat. Leaves. Bark. Dirt. Anything.
LaRouche was still a ways off from that point of desperation, he thought. But he noted that the physical pain seemed gone. Now he just felt empty and couldn’t stop counting the days since he’d eaten last. That was the majority of his thoughts, like the vast mass of an iceberg below water.
The tip of the iceberg—the more lucid thoughts—were of fear and dread and morbid curiosity.
Are they going to torture me to get me to talk about Wilson?
I can take a beating.
Depends on what they’re beating. And what if they have other ideas?
Prisoners in Soviet gulags would be tortured. They would beat their dicks with rubber hoses. Sometimes they’d shove glass thermometers into their cocks and break the glass with a hammer. Holy fuck. What if they do that to me? I can’t do that. I can’t handle that.
Everybody breaks. That’s what they told me in training, right? Everybody breaks.
No shame in it.
But then you will have betrayed them twice.
Twice a traitor. You should feel double the shame.
God, I wish I was dead.
He was beginning to sweat, despite the cold. He could feel it at the small of his back. In the palms of his hands. There was a part of him that wanted to go, wanted to test and see if he was truly free to leave. But Clyde’s wor
ds still hung on him like steel chains: Where would you go? Would you go back to them? Would they take you back? Would they forgive you for what you did?
We are your family now.
There was a part of him that was drowning. Flailing about and failing miserably at treading the waters of his new reality. Its head was underwater more often than not at this point, but every once in a while it would thrash its way above the surface, take a deep gulp of air, and shout, panicked, This isn’t you!
And then it would sink into the water again.
And it would just be LaRouche, staring at a great emptiness, wondering where survival ended and morality began. At some point far behind him? Or had he yet to cross it?
Footsteps.
LaRouche’s gaze sharpened and he looked up at the wall of the tent, where he could see the shadow of the man that was standing there, presumably to keep an eye on him while Clyde was gone. The shadow sidestepped and half-bowed. LaRouche heard a mumbled, “Morning, sir,” and then two more shadows sprawled out onto the wall of the tent. Then the tent flaps were ripped back.
Clyde and Deacon Chalmers.
Here to torture you. To put glass thermometers in your cock…
Deacon Chalmers was holding a plate of something in one hand. Another bottle of water in the other.
A trick. Going to try to bribe me with it.
Before letting the tent flaps closed, Clyde leaned out and spoke to the shadow still hovering on the tent wall. “You’re good. Thanks.”
The shadow nodded, then disappeared.
LaRouche found Chalmers’s gaze for a moment, but then couldn’t help himself—he stared at the plate. The smell of it was filling up the tent now, and LaRouche swallowed as his mouth began to water. Seeing a possible end of its misery, Hunger stabbed at his gut again.
Chalmers walked to LaRouche, stood in front of him. He seemed to be sizing LaRouche up. Taking the measure of him as deliberately as a tailor fitting him for a suit. Closer now, LaRouche could see what was on the plate. Some sort of hash. Gray meat in strings and bits. Some starchy thing, finely chopped. Potatoes, possibly.
LaRouche was desperate for it.
Esau, prepared to sell his birthright for a bowl of soup.
But Chalmers made no deal with him. He placed the plate directly into LaRouche’s hands, set the bottle of water onto the ground at his feet. LaRouche stared at it in disbelief. There was no utensil to eat with and his fingers dove into the food, grabbing a handful of it, then halting. He looked up at Chalmers, like a dog asking permission of the master.
Chalmers smiled. “Please. Eat.”
LaRouche shoved the handful into his mouth. His stomach ached for it.
“I won’t tell you what kind of meat that is,” Chalmers said, almost teasingly.
LaRouche chewed twice, then paused, looking at it.
Chalmers laughed. “Don’t worry, it’s not human.”
And that was all LaRouche needed to hear. He continued cramming it into his mouth. Dog, cat, rat—he didn’t really give a shit at this point. As long as it wasn’t two-legged meat. The most instinctive taboo in the world. And on some level it reassured him that the Followers had not crossed that line.
While he ate, Clyde and Chalmers watched him. Chalmers with something like amusement. Clyde with something like impatience. LaRouche ignored them both. He ate so fast the food seemed to back up in his throat and he had to take a gulp of water to clear it, clutching the plastic with dirty fingers still coated in food. As some of the food hit his stomach, the urgency died and he became a little more aware of himself. And of the two men watching him.
He slowed, looking up at them from underneath furrowed brows. Chewed, swallowed, stopped, with still a bit left on his plate. He went back and forth between Clyde and Chalmers, and then down to the nearly empty plate in his lap. Then back to Chalmers. He cleared his throat.
“What is this?” he asked, his voice thick with disuse.
“It’s food.”
“No.” LaRouche sat up a little straighter in his chair. “I was told I wouldn’t get any food until I’d been… tested. Why are you feeding me now?”
Chalmers crossed his arms over his chest, his face taking on a serious quality. “I am going to test you, LaRouche. That is true, and I will not lie to you about it. But the way that you’ll be tested will be… different.”
SEVEN
P IS FOR PLENTY
THEY HAD PREPPED THREE of the five I-beams necessary for the second cut when the sounds of the first shots reached them. Wilson was halfway through negotiating himself to the fourth I-beam, Gilmore crouched behind him, holding the hooked pole and waiting for the next load of explosives to be sent down. The sound of the gunshots rolled up the river at them, effortlessly gliding against the flow of water, bouncing off the wall of trees at each bank.
It was the sound of the .50-caliber M2, chugging away.
Both of the men snapped their head in that direction.
“That’s ain’t five miles out,” Gilmore said. “I’d say that’s within a mile of us.”
“Fuck my life,” Wilson completed his movement to the next I-beam. “You think it’ll give us enough time?”
“I have no idea.” Gilmore made a megaphone with his hand. “Hey! Hurry the fuck up!”
From up top, Dorian yelled, his voice strained. “It’s on the way!”
The bag dropped behind them. Wrong side.
Gilmore swore under his breath. “Other side!” he bellowed. “We’re on the fourth I-beam! Go to the other fucking side! Jesus!”
Cursing and shouts from up top.
The sixty-pound sack of explosives hauled up and away.
Wilson’s right calf twitched and threatened to cramp. Perhaps he should have had some water when he had the chance. His mouth was dry, but in that cold, gummy way you get during a winter day. He squatted down and balanced on his feet, letting his hand off the frigid steel and blowing some warmth back into them.
Was there anything worse than waiting when you had no time to wait?
Yes. Probably. But not much.
Down the river, the chatter of gunfire continued. Was it closer now, or was that his imagination?
This is bad. They’re coming. They’re coming and I’m stuck under a fucking bridge. How much time do I have? Should we just go with what we have? Do we risk it?
Either way was a risk. Staying and trying to complete the charges was a risk. Going with a half-assed detonation was a risk. This was just pure, unadulterated shit. Damned in both directions, so you might as well pick one and run with it, but whatever you do, pick it fast and don’t waste any time.
“All right.” Wilson ducked his head so that he could make eye contact with Gilmore. The other man’s face was lined and tense. He was chewing his lip mercilessly. “When we finish this fourth I-beam, I want you up top setting up the lines and prepping the detonation. Can you do that?”
Gilmore considered for a few beats. Then nodded. “Yeah. Let’s do that.”
“Should shave a few minutes off.”
“What if you’re not done with the fifth I-beam by the time they hit the bridge?” Gilmore’s eyebrows twitched up. “What if you’re not at a safe distance?”
“We’ll figure it out,” Wilson said, dismissively.
Dorian’s voice from the top of the bridge again: “Coming down!”
The green bag swung down again, this time on the side closest to them.
“There we go.” Gilmore extended the pole and hooked the rope, then pulled it in until Wilson could get his hands on it. They wasted no time. As soon as Wilson got the bag open, he shoved all the det-cord over to Gilmore and then began smashing bricks of explosives into the side of the fourth I-beam. Gilmore had the other three beams already connected. He laced a new line of det-cord in with the others, then spooled it out and began wrapping the uli knot.
They worked to the background noise of gunfire.
They should be getting farther away.
L
eading the infected away from us, not toward us.
Unless it’s not working.
Gilmore must have noticed the closeness of the gunfire as well. He looked up from his work, peering down the river, trying to see if anything was visible. “We don’t have a lot of time here,” he mumbled. “I’m not saying half-ass it, but I’m saying we need to hurry the fuck up.”
Wilson grabbed two bricks of C4, smashed them against the steel. “Can’t go much faster.”
“Just gonna have to finish it up sloppy,” Gilmore snapped. “It’s fucking explosives. Not rocket science. It’s not fucking complicated.”
Wilson slid the remainder of the C4 over to Gilmore. “You sure about that?”
Gilmore passed the det-cord. “No. I’m not. There’s a strong possibility we might fuck this up. But if we try to do it perfect, it ain’t gonna happen at all.”
“We’ll get it done,” Wilson said, but his confidence was shaken.
Down the river, the chug-chug-chug of the M2 fell silent.
They didn’t stop working. Almost as though they had expected it and did not need to ruminate on what it meant.
“Out of ammo,” Wilson muttered, using his knife to cut into the C4 and stuff the uli knot in. “Maybe they got their attention.”
“Yeah. Maybe.”
Wilson trailed the det-cord down and gave himself a length before cutting it off. “All right, this side is prepped. Get up top and get the detonator ready.”
Gilmore swung under the I-beam and edged past Wilson. He grabbed up the rope and quickly untied it from the green seabag. Then he fashioned it around him, much like Wilson had done. Then he gathered the seabag into his lap. Wilson watched him for a moment as he gathered the other ends of the other det-cords and connected the newest two lines.
“Pull me up!” Gilmore shouted up top. There was a pause. In the silence, Gilmore looked at Wilson again. “Don’t waste time down here.”
“I got it,” Wilson nodded.
The sound of a diesel engine again. The slack was taken out of the rope and Gilmore gingerly lowered himself, trying to reduce the amount of swing once he was pulled from the cement pylon. Then he was out over the water, watching the last I-beam go over his head and making sure he didn’t bang up against the substructure of the bridge as they hauled him up.