Disappearance

by Trevor Zaple

  Sarah shook her head slowly. “No, sir, I haven’t. Should I start?” She batted her eyes modestly and looked down to her feet. This caused Taggert to burst into a raucous, braying spew of laughter.

  “Yes, girl, yes. Take him into the back room, if you want. Oh, you’ll make a fine addition to my stable, you will! See if you don’t!”

  “I’m not going to sleep with your newest whore,” Michael objected, his tone disgusted. “I don’t sleep with any of your whores”.

  “I know, I know,” Taggert replied, his voice rumbling and troubled. “You have no idea how much of a problem it is for me. Is my second a faggot as well as a nigger, I wonder?” Now the burning hatred on Michael’s face was not hidden, and Jason quailed away from it. How can Taggert not see it? he wondered, but Taggert kept grinning and laughing as though it were the funniest thing he’d ever heard. Michael stared at him, incensed, and then threw his hands up in the air.

  “Whatever,” he exclaimed, and walked towards Sarah, who had taken the time to hide herself behind her robe again. Sarah took his hand nervously and led him into the back room, shutting the door behind them. There was a moment of silence in the shop as Taggert looked around, his nose wrinkling once more.

  “How the hell can you live and work and fuck in a place like this?” he wondered aloud, and then turned his horrible dark eyes upon Jason.

  “You,” he bellowed. “You’d best learn to fire a gun quickly, since your pimping days are through. I ought to throw you to the men, so they can have some sport, but I need all the able bodies I can get these days”. Jason shook, his head lolling limply back and forth. Taggert eyed him contemptuously.

  “Like I said, lad, learn to shoot, or learn to starve. It doesn’t mean a fucking thing to me which”. Jason laid his head down on the table, his mind racing. He thought of the hospital, and the constant gunfire that echoed from it, and began to weep silently.

  Olivia finished bandaging up Mark’s torn shoulder and then slapped him fully across the face in a broadside stroke. He reeled back from the blow but did not explode in anger, like he might once have. He didn’t have the energy to fight it, and he knew that ultimately it didn’t matter. She was bone-frightened and weary of it, and Mark was close behind her. The hospital had been under siege for two weeks, and things were rapidly approaching the breaking point. The food had nearly run out, it had been said officially. Conley had stopped by every room to inform the people within that rations would be cut off within a few days. Taggert’s men had the hospital surrounded, and the Mayor had decided to concentrate his remaining forces at City Hall, to keep the invaders from the food storage. The Mayor had asked that the hospital’s defenders keep Taggert’s men from advancing, and Conley passed this message along, but he was also a man with a strong aversion to bullshit. He’d let everyone know that such a request was foolish, since there was no way that they would be able to survive an indefinite siege. They had been abandoned, no more and no less.

  “I’m sorry,” he muttered, and Olivia broke down into weeping. Victoria cried from within her crib, but neither of them went to comfort her.

  We have to talk about Victoria, he had whispered in the dark some few nights ago.

  What about Victoria? Olivia had whispered back bitterly, but her voice plainly said that she knew what it was about. The same thoughts had been plaguing her, obviously.

  We need to talk about what’s going to happen with Victoria he had continued, and even in his memory he hated the eagerness he thought he had found in his voice. Do we want her to have to suffer through starvation?

  You bastard she had hissed with recrimination. Next you’ll want to talk about killing me too. Yet the knowledge had been there, sure as the light of day. They had both wept endlessly that night.

  Now, in the full light of day, he saw that sure knowledge again in her eyes. He knew that it would have to come down to the fact, soon. The days were not getting any longer, and they were both already wracked with hunger pangs. Mark looked towards the crib.

  “Don’t you dare!” Olivia screamed, and lunged at him. He managed to sidestep her and she went tumbling to the floor, wailing and then weeping. He knelt down to help her up.

  “Get away, you murdering bastard, I don’t want you smothering me”.

  “Olivia!” he exclaimed. “I haven’t done anything, yet.”

  “Yet,” she sobbed, her voice hysterical.

  “Yet,” Mark confirmed, his fists clenching and unclenching. “Maybe I won’t have to”.

  “Maybe,” she said sourly. “Maybe you won’t have to kill our child”.

  “IT WOULD BE A MERCY!” he shouted at the top of his lungs, regretting the way his thin voice echoed plainly off of the lacquered brick interior walls. Her face dissolved into tears and she pulled her face away. Mark, enraged, grabbed at her chin and pulled her face back until he was staring into her wide eyes.

  “DO YOU WANT HER TO SUFFER? TO STARVE TO DEATH AND SIT IN HER OWN MESS WHILE WE DO THE SAME? DO YOU?” he was screamingly madly right now, but he was beyond caring. Each word numbed him more until he felt that he might be able to go on. Olivia ceased weeping and stared at him, shocked.

  “No, not that,” she whispered, her voice cracking. “Not that, never that”. Mark let go of her chin. “Not that, no, I would never want that,” she continued, her eyes unspooling. Mark ran a hand down the side of her face and she focused on him.

  “I would never want that, Mark,” she whispered, pleading. Mark nodded gravely.

  “I know,” he said, and there was nothing more to say. He left her, took up his rifle, and left.

  He was scheduled to be on the roof that afternoon, although there was nothing so hard-and-fast as a schedule to their postings anymore. Time had nearly run out for them, and their sense of order was beginning to wind down, like a clock whose gears had given out. Any of their positions would come under heavy fire regardless of how well-oiled a machine they were, and so most had stopped bothering. They would hunker down in rooms, clutching their weapons, and wait for the inevitable break-in. He heard men wander the halls at night, weeping and laughing. On the rare occasions that he had been able to sleep, he was always awoken by gunshots that split the night. In the morning, they would count the ones who had taken their own life, hauling them out and throwing them down into the basement. They would not bother to clean the blood and brains sprayed upon the wall from such incidents. There was little point.

  As he walked through the hallway and up the stairs his mind chanted a litany to him in time with his footfalls. Have to get out of here, have to get out of here, have to get out of here. It was nauseating. There was no way out. Several of the men had discussed the possibility; there had to be a way to funnel people out. Wouldn’t that be a treat one of them had said, Taggert busts in and all he finds is an empty hospital. They had had a good, honest laugh at this but it had ultimately been empty. There was no secret way out. This wasn’t a movie, and they were all likely going to die one of the most horrible deaths imaginable.

  He climbed until he was out of breath, and then collapsed upon the stairs, struggling to catch up. The lack of food was taking a definite toll on his stamina, and he wondered how long he would even be able to hold his gun. Won’t be that long from now, really he thought, and the grin on his face was positively skeletal. After a respite he got back up and hauled himself up the rest of the stairs, and up the ladder that led through the roof-access hatch.

  The winter sun was warm but the chill wind took away whatever life-giving heat it imparted. He shivered and adjusted the faceplate down on his helmet. At first he didn’t see anyone else on the roof, and he spun around, confused. Then he saw Northdancer, leaning up against the roof-access hut, smoking a cigar and staring off into the distance.

  “Glad to see you made it up here,” he said, his voice vague. Mark looked around, listening. There was gunfire to the south, a lot of it. The main entrance lay in that direction. He wondered if the assault had finally begun.

&
nbsp; “Almost didn’t make it,” he replied casually, and took up a leaning position next to the tall, gaunt man. Northdancer nodded, his stretched, lined face splitting open in a ghoul’s smile.

  “Yeah, might have been better for you if you hadn’t. Have a feeling that we all might die today, after all”.

  “It’d be better than starving to death”.

  “Yup, very true. For you and I, anyway. Your pretty wife and baby, what do you think is likely to happen to them”.

  Mark did not say anything for a long time, and Northdancer did not follow up his ominous question. They both stared off, facing west, listening to the commotion from the south grow louder. Northdancer sucked contemplatively on his cigar, nodding slightly.

  “Think that Taggert’s men’ll probably kill your baby,” he said after some time. “Not your wife, though. They’ll probably find some, uh, other purpose for her”.

  Mark clenched his fists, ready to strike at the man. Then he loosened them. He knew that there was no point to hitting Northdancer. The man was only telling the bald truth. It was distasteful, but it was there. He simply nodded.

  “Yup, that’s probably exactly what they’ll do,” he agreed. Northdancer chuckled weakly, and tossed the cigar away. It landed in the snow and hissed it’s way to the surface of the roof before it went out. A cold blast of wind blew past them, taking Northdancer’s last exhale of smoke and whipping it away.

  “Well,” he said easily, as though it were time to get some fishing done, “they won’t take me like that, the bastards”. Mark looked at him. His face was set grimly, the sun shining on his eyes and making them look fierce. It was a caricature he would always remember.

  “Take care of them,” he said. “Get them out, if you can”. He then took off running with lightning speed. His boots churned through the snow, sending clods flying out behind him. He reached the end of the ceiling, threw his arms to either side like wings, and leaped off.

  “FUCK YOU BASTARDS!” he screamed as he disappeared below the edge of the roof. There was a sharp rattle of gunfire, and then, after an eternal moment, a dull thud from far below. There were some faint exclamations, carried up on the back of an icy gust, and then there was silence. Mark stared at the path he’d carved through the snow for a moment, unable to put his suddenly racing thoughts in order. Then he grabbed up his rifle.

  “Fuck this,” he spat, and made his way back down through the roof-access hatch.

  Jason was in the street, crouching by the corner of the coffee shop that was now bedecked with broken windows and chipped-off brickwork. He was shaking, unable to control himself, partially freezing and partially too scared to believe. His fingers numbly clutched an ancient AK-47 that had to have been made when the Soviet Union was still a going concern. His face was a death-mask, an evil rictus. His crotch was the only warm part of him, and that was only because he’d urinated in his pants when the defenders in the hospital’s windows had started firing at them.

  He had watched the man to his left take a bullet above his right eye. His head had exploded like a rotted watermelon and his brains and blood were now soaking Jason. The man to his right had watched this in awe and then had begun vomiting. When he finally stopped doing this he keeled over and fell into the snow, his pile of vomit steaming beside him. Jason had found himself unable to move. He had never been a fan of the first-person shooting games, finding them to be contemptibly lacking in necessary skills. He had extended that contempt to men in combat; how much skill does it take to stand there and shoot people? he’d slathered across a dozen internet message forums. Seems like the thing to do for high-school dropouts and people who go to school on sports scholarships. Now that he was in the situation, though, the truth of the matter had fallen rather heavily on him. He lacked the necessary skill to do this. He had been found wanting. To be specific, he had found himself unable to take being shot at without becoming paralyzed and wetting his pants. He closed his eyes, praying to whatever deity might be listening for a quick, innocent death. A bullet whined nearby and struck the pavement, ricocheting past him. He began to whimper softly.

  “Are you sure that they’re in there?” he heard a faintly familiar voice ask. He opened his eyes and saw no one around him. Ahead, there were men crouched in the streets and exchanging fire with the hospital. Beside him, the vomiting man lay in the fetal position, out cold. The snow was already beginning to drift in around him.

  “I saw him not three days ago, on the roof. He had one of those riot-gear helmets on, but I could tell it was him”.

  Jason slowly got out of his crouch and pressed himself flat against the wall. The voices were coming from inside the coffee shop, and they were tantalizingly familiar.

  “How could you tell?”

  Jason edged around the wall. He moved slowly, trying to ensure that no one would see him getting away. The penalty for that was to be torn apart by his fellow ‘soldiers’.

  “Same height, same build. He was talking to whomever else was up there and he used all the same gestures he usually uses when he’s talking to someone. It’s him. Trust me”.

  He made it to the window that faced out onto Dundas and crouched below the bottom of the pane.

  “We’ll have to get underway, then. Is everything in place?”

  He peered through the window and felt a wave of sharp recognition wash over him. He’d known all along, he felt. Whore’s hair he thought. The bitch with the whore’s hair. That hawk cunt from the party.

  “Yeah, we’re ready. This is one hell of a crazy plan, you know that?”

  Whore’s hair!

  “Only plan we have, really. We could leave them behind…”

  He remembered that night that he had tracked the woman with the whore’s hair. She had been pushing a wheelchair. His angel had been in the wheelchair. He peeled away from the wall and looked towards the hospital. My angel he thought dreamily. My angel is in there, she’s been in there all along. This has all been on purpose.

  “No, we can’t. They’re friends, and we can’t leave friends behind. Barry would never have done it, either”.

  “You’re exactly right. I just wanted to make sure you were on board”.

  “Of course”.

  My angel my angel my angel he chanted deliriously in his head. My angel is there and I’ll follow her jailers to her. I’ll set her free and we can be together forever. Forever! He began to shiver, from the Arctic wind and from the influx of ecstasy.

  Mark climbed down through the roof access and made his way quickly down the stairs. Going down took far less effort than going up, and he didn’t need to stop to catch his breath this time around. He stopped on his floor and threw the door open, not bothering to check. He strode through and realized that his floor was in chaos.

  Men strode through the hallways clutching assault rifles and assorted other small arms, their faces grim and hopeless. They were heading towards the stairs, their eyes vacant. He pushed his way through them and they didn’t bother to stop him. At the end of the column of armed men was the young doctor, the brash, rude one who had helped to deliver Victoria. His face was flushed and twisted now, his eyes bloodshot. A long, ugly scratch ran from his right temple down through his chin. He was gesturing wildly and driving the men on with inarticulate shouts. When he saw Mark he latched onto him viciously.

  “You!” he screamed hoarsely. “Where the fuck do you think YOU’RE going? The fight’s that way, downstairs! You cowardly fuck, turn around and get moving! After we finish getting shot full of holes, the rest of us will eat well!”

  Mark stopped and regarded him levelly. He stood his McMillan sniper rifle on its stock and leaned against it.

  “Oh?” he asked mildly.

  “Yeah!” the young doctor shouted. “We’re going to eat your fucking kid! Gonna eat her all up! Baby meat’s gonna be tender and tasty! We’re gonna eat like kings tonight, and then maybe we’ll tie down your little slut and fuck her until she can’t feel it anymore! If you survive, maybe you’ll
even get to watch!”

  Mark decided not to waste any further time on the man. He had very obviously gone rabid, and there was only one solution to a man or animal who had gone rabid. He let the sniper rifle drop to the floor with a loud clatter and pulled out his well-worn .357 with a flourish. The doctor had just enough time to mouth what the f- before his head disappeared in a hazy red mist. The body dropped to the floor with a dull, meaty thud and Mark walked on, having already put it out of his mind. A little further down the corridor he noticed the older doctor leaning against the wall. As he got closer he noticed that there was blood and vomit on his face and scrubs. He was holding a hand to his lower abdomen, and there was a deep red soaking out from beneath it. He looked up and regarded Mark gravely as he approached.

  “He certainly deserved that,” the doctor remarked quietly. Mark nodded. “And I certainly deserve this,” he continued, pointing with his free hand to the bleeding wound he was vainly attempting to staunch with his other. “This whole thing has gotten cocked-up, hasn’t it?” Mark nodded again and the doctor laughed, the sound of it weak and liquid, as though he were laughing around globbets of blood in his throat. For all Mark knew, he probably was.

  “I killed the nurses, you know,” the doctor went on, as though he were simply passing the time of day. “Janice and Varada. That young bastard you just shot had given them to the men, to do with as they wished. Said we had no further need of them, so they could sacrifice themselves for the City and feel honored”. He began to weep, softly. “I saw their eyes, and I saw the men’s eyes. They were going to rape those poor women, and both of them knew it. They were going to rape them until they bled from every orifice and then they were going to be eaten. I could see that too. Saw the hunger in their eyes, those bastards. Holding their guns and their dicks, they were drooling. Drooling…” he drifted off and began to slide down the wall. Mark made no effort to stop him.