David put a hand on Eda’s shoulder and spun her around. He reached out and snatched the dagger out of her hand before she knew what was happening. He quickly tucked the weapon into his belt and then stared at her for a couple of seconds. His left eye twitched nervously. Eda saw regret in there, or at least she thought she did.
“What are you doing?” she asked. Her voice was tame, almost unrecognizable in its shock. “David! What the hell are you doing?”
“I’m sorry Eda,” David said. “This isn’t easy for me. But the Complex isn’t the only community of survivors that sends out ambassadors to do a job. Only here in the swampland, we call them Seekers.”
Eda shook her head, unable to stop.
“David…?”
He took a step closer.
“Back in New York you were smart enough to realize that I wasn’t one of the bandits,” he said. “It’s like I told you, I met them here in Jersey on their way to New York. What I didn’t tell you was that I went with them because I was Seeking. I was trying to single one of them out, lure him away from the pack and bring him back here. Of course, things didn’t go to plan. But I stuck around New York because I knew there were other people – your people to be exact. I knew I’d find someone in the end.”
“You dirty bastard,” Eda said. “After what I did for you. I saved your life.”
Baldilocks waved a dismissive hand in the air.
“Enough,” he said. “We don’t care about the details anymore. All that matters is that the Seeker has brought one last soul to us. You’ve done well Number 47.”
“Thank you,” David said.
“Number 47?” Eda said, gawping at David.
David leaned in closer. “Remember that Englishman I told you about? The one who raised me after the war?”
“Jesus,” Eda said, turning back to look at Baldilocks.
No wonder David had been so quiet and unassertive over the past couple of days. So useless. He’d been biding his time, the son of a bitch.
Eda glanced at the tip of her dagger poking out of David’s belt. If his sword hadn’t been in the way, she would have made a grab for it there and then. After that, she’d stick it in his throat without hesitation.
“This wasn’t easy for me,” David said. “I like you Eda, I really do. All I can say is try to think of the big picture here. This isn’t a community of crazy people like you think it is – we’re trying to repair the damage of human history. We’re trying to fix things because listen to me, Uncle Sam is real and he’s right underneath that Fairfield crater. He’s real and he can do whatever he wants with us whenever he wants. He’s already wiped eight billion people off the face of the planet for God’s sake. And how many are left? A few thousand? Less? If we don’t appease the Great One, there’s no way back for the human race.”
“Sit down Eda.” It was Baldilocks. “Please.”
Eda glanced at Frankie Boy. The dog was leaning up against her, oblivious to the unfolding disaster.
“Sit down,” Baldilocks said again.
Eda sat down on the bench. David stayed close behind her like an armed guard watching over his captive.
Baldilocks leaned over the table and Eda heard his camouflage clothes creaking. Either that or it was the old man’s bones. There was a manic glint in his eyes as he spoke.
“We have to do this,” he said, his fingers digging deep into the wood like he was hanging on for his life. “But take it from me Eda, nobody takes any pleasure in the act. I promise you.”
“Just let me go,” Eda said. “Please.”
Baldilocks edged back into his seat. He shook his head.
“Everyone here remembers the horror of those years,” he said. “The sheer horror of it. What they saw, the loved ones they lost and the manner in which they lost them. We’re hanging on by a thread Eda. We’re at his mercy, you, me, everyone. So, we do as he asks of us. Four souls a year – that’s the price of peace.”
Baldilocks was smiling again. It was like there was a switch going off inside the man, taking him back and forth between light and darkness.
“We’re so happy to see you here,” he said, staring into his empty glass. “Now all the pieces are in place for this year’s ceremony.”
Eda shook her head. “No.”
“Don’t try to fight it,” David said. He put a hand on Eda’s shoulder and she shook it off. He was standing so close behind her that Eda had to resist the urge to elbow him in the gut or somewhere even more painful. It was only a fraction of what he deserved.
“Just accept it,” he said. “It’ll be so much easier for you.”
“This is bullshit,” Eda said.
“With any luck,” Baldilocks said, getting to his feet, “this year will be the last time we have to perform the ceremony. Uncle Sam told me from the start that this wouldn’t be forever. Hopefully, we’ve repaid our debt and we can move on.”
At that moment, Number 10 walked over to the table and sat down beside Baldilocks. She poured a glass of water and pushed it across the table towards Eda.
“Now you know,” she said. “There’s no longer any need for pretense.”
“Tomorrow will be the day,” Baldilocks said, walking around the table and stopping next to David. Now they were both standing behind Eda. “We’ll delay no longer. Number 47, take the Sinner away and put her with the others.”
“Let’s go,” David said. “Eda?”
He put a hand on Eda’s shoulder for a second time and she flinched. His fingers felt like razorblades scraping against her skin.
“Number 47?” she said, looking over her shoulder. “I always hated that number.”
“It’s nothing personal,” David said.
“Save it,” she said, getting up to her feet.
Eda looked over towards the crowd. They were hovering in the distance, a sea of eyes staring back at her.
“It’s a hole in the ground for God’s sake!” she said. “You’re going to kill me because a hole in the ground told you to?”
Baldilocks signaled to David.
“Take her away,” he said. “And make sure she gets something to eat.”
6
Number 10 escorted Eda to the hut where the other prisoners were kept.
The hut was about a hundred meters north of the village. It was a tiny building, surrounded by dense swampland and almost hidden by the trees, like a secret hideaway.
While Number 10 had led Eda out of camp, David had distracted Frankie Boy with scraps of food. The poor dog still believed that David was on their side. It was enough to make Eda wish that treachery had its own unique scent. If so, if Frankie Boy knew what was really going on, he would have ripped David, aka Number 47, to shreds.
It was a nice thought.
There were two guards standing outside the hut. They stood to attention as Number 10 appeared, leading Eda through the challenge of angry branches and mud puddles. The hut looked so small – it was more like a miniature storage facility in the middle of nowhere. There was one pentagonal window on the side of the hut, which would at least allow the early afternoon light to trickle in.
One of the guards opened the door. Eda was ushered inside and she ducked her head as she passed through the small doorway. A musty odor shot up her nostrils. The smell of dirty clothes. Inside, three people were sitting on a wooden floor, which was partly covered by a pile of worn out blankets. There was a man and a woman on one side, both in their mid-to-late forties, and an older man, perhaps in his sixties or even older, on the other. As the door opened they all looked up in unison and Eda saw the flash terror in their eyes. The old man looked at Eda and then sighed. He possessed a mop of curly white hair and a large white beard that covered his neck. The beard was peppered in brown specks of dirt and as he raised his hand to block the light that flooded in through the open doorway, Eda saw that his fingernails were caked with dirt.
“Now we have four,” Number 10 said. She gestured a hand, signaling to Eda to take her place on the floor be
side the others. “I’ve got a few things to do elsewhere. But I’ll be back soon to explain what happens from here. Try to stay calm, this’ll all be over soon.”
Nobody said anything.
Number 10 stepped outside and the guards pulled the door shut behind her.
Eda sat down in between the couple and the old man. As she did, she heard the sound of someone twiddling a key in the hut padlock outside. Voices faded into the distance.
“Welcome to Hell,” the old man said, looking at Eda. He offered his hand across the gap between them. “The name’s Murphy. Joseph Patrick Murphy. Most folks call me JP. From Albuquerque, New Mexico.”
Eda shook his hand. The skin felt coarse enough to be a dangerous weapon.
“Eda Becker,” she said. “From…New York, I guess.”
The man and woman on the other side of Eda were less forthcoming than Murphy. Nonetheless, after a moment or two, the woman smiled even though it looked like smiling was the hardest thing she’d ever done. She reached out a hand to Eda.
“I’m Becky,” she said. “This is my husband Mike.”
Eda took Becky’s hand, then she offered her own to Mike. Mike took it but it was like shaking hands with a feather. It didn’t take an expert to see that Mike was in bad shape. He was wearing a red shirt, unbuttoned all the way down to the waist. His ribs were poking out and his skin was a rotten dark yellow. As he sat on the floor, he was rocking back and forth on the floor ever so slightly. There was a blanket draped over his shoulders.
Eda shifted around a little, trying to find a spot on her own blanket that didn’t feel or smell like stale puke. Something that looked like a cockroach crawled slowly towards a large ceramic plate in the corner of the room. There were a few crumbs left around the edges of the plate.
“So where did they find you Eda Becker?” Murphy said. He sat up, alert and interested. Eda heard his joints crack as he moved.
“New York,” Eda said. “I guess they found me in New York.”
Murphy nodded. “Man or woman?”
“Man,” she said. “I saved his life – biggest mistake I ever made.”
“Damn right,” Murphy said, chuckling.
Eda glanced over at the disheveled couple to her right.
“What happened to you guys?”
Mike and Becky sat close, brushing up tight against one another. While Mike only had on a shirt and pants, Becky wore a thick waterproof jacket that was zipped up all the way to her neck. Every thirty seconds or so, she would glance at Mike with a concerned expression, as if keeping track of his condition.
“We were on the road,” Becky said. “Heading back east. We’re trying to get back to Boston, Massachusetts. Mike had a twin sister there once, long before the war.”
“Has a t-t-twin sister,” Mike stammered. “Has.”
“Sorry babe,” Becky said. “Has. They were separated as kids when their folks divorced. Mike traveled west with his mom. The sister stayed in Boston with her dad who apparently was a real asshole. Then the war happened and yeah…it’s a twin thing I think. Mike’s just gotta know…he’s gotta know if she’s still there.”
“She’s alive,” Mike said in a croaky whisper. “I know she is.”
“Why’d you wait so long to make the trip east?” Eda said.
“There were a few reasons,” Becky said.
She ran a hand through her shoulder-length blonde hair. When she was done, Becky looked at her hand and cringed.
“When the time was right though,” she said, “we set off and it was alright you know? It wasn’t the great hardship I thought it would be, trekking across the country. We had food, we had water. You can always find somewhere to sleep. We hardly saw anyone on the road either – a couple of caravans migrating south, but that was it. Then we got to Jersey. We ran into someone not far from Paterson. A real nice woman, polite and considerate – you’d never suspect she was a loon agent from a cult in a million years, know what I mean? We’ll feed you, she said. Give you water. Well that skinny little bitch found us at the right time. We were low on supplies and based on our earlier encounters with people on the road we were willing to trust her.”
Murphy leaned his head over. As he did so, Eda could feel the man’s hot, rancid breath blowing on her skin. He was wheezing, like his body was broken somewhere inside.
“Where did you folks say you came from again?” he asked. “Iowa?”
“Illinois,” Becky said.
“Right,” Murphy said. “Midwest.”
“Illinois?” Eda said. “Isn’t that like really far away?”
“Yeah I suppose,” Becky said, taking Mike’s hand in her own. With her other hand, she rubbed his forearm back and forth in a reassuring manner. Mike kept on staring at the floor with blank eyes.
“We were so close,” she said. “So close to Boston and to finding out about Pam. As you can see, Mikey’s taking it quite bad. This sort of confinement doesn’t help either.”
“Yeah you almost made it,” Murphy said. The man’s voice, a natural foghorn, dropped to a whisper. “Curse these damn sons of bitches. They’re a devious mob – they send out the young ones with the innocent-looking faces. You see them on the road and there’s no fear. No threat, no harm. You even hope after all that nothingness you’ve walked through that you might have met someone normal again. Jesus Christ, ain’t that the truth? Someone good. What they’re doing is taking advantage of desperate, hungry people. They reel you in and the next thing you know, you’re here. And for what? The bastards haven’t told us anything yet! Uncle Sam. A ceremony. What the hell does that mean anyway?”
“I don’t suppose you have any news of Boston?” Becky said, looking at Eda.
“Sorry,” Eda said. “As far as I know, there’s no one left in a lot of those big cities.”
They sat in silence.
Eventually, Becky turned back to Eda.
“So what about you?” she said. “What were you doing when they found you?”
“Getting away from somewhere,” Eda said.
“Whatever it was,” Murphy said, “it probably doesn’t look so bad now. Right?”
Eda shrugged. “I don’t know.”
She watched the cockroach go to work on the leftovers.
“Where’s home?” Becky asked. “You didn’t sound too sure when you said you were from New York.”
“I don’t know exactly,” Eda said. “It was a big city, not New York, but I don’t remember what it’s called. I left town with a small caravan when I was still a kid. Eventually I ended up alone again, and that’s when I went to New York.”
“Yeah you gotta keep moving,” Murphy said. His back was pressed tight against the wall. “That’s how I ended up so far from New Mexico. Movement – it’s the only thing that keeps you alive anymore.”
“There has to be something else,” Becky said. “Something out there, somewhere…”
Murphy shook his head. “Maybe it’s best you never reached Boston in the end.”
Voices approached the hut. The four prisoners stopped talking and sat up straight. A faint whimper spilled out of Mike.
The door opened and Number 10 walked inside, leaving the two guards standing at the door. From outside, Eda thought she could hear a light rain tapping on the roof.
Number 10 wiped down the front of her camouflage jacket.
“Is everyone okay?” she said, looking at the four prisoners lined up on the floor. “I know, it’s a stupid question.”
She walked further into the hut.
“So now that we’re all here,” Number 10 said, “I’m going to tell you how this thing works. First of all, let me apologize to the three people who’ve been stuck in here for almost two weeks already – we’ve kept you in the dark, well quite literally at times. But the reason I haven’t said too much is because I don’t like having to explain this thing more than once for starters. But also, we think it’s better if you don’t know too much. Especially sitting in here all day and night. Anyway, now we�
��re four. That means we’re ready to go.”
“Please tell,” Murphy said. “I’m dying to find out.”
Number 10 looked along the line of people on the floor.
“From now on, you four will be known as the Sinners.”
There was a moment’s silence, broken by the sound of Murphy’s low-pitched laughter.
“The what?” he said.
“Sinners,” Number 10 said, ignoring the misplaced hilarity on Murphy’s part.
“W-w-what does that mean?” Mike said. He battled hard to get the words out and Murphy’s crude laughter came to an abrupt halt. Stringing a simple sentence was like a Herculean task for Mike. The least anyone could do was be quiet so he could be heard.
Becky squeezed Mike’s hand. “Yeah,” she said. “What does that mean?”
“It means that tomorrow we make our annual offering to Uncle Sam,” Number 10 said. “Sinners. That’s what we offer him. We need four people to take on the role of Sinners and I’m sorry, but that’s where you guys come in.”
Murphy struggled up to his feet. His old bones snapped and he groaned like somebody was twisting a knife into his back.
“Fuck you,” he said, breathing heavy. “Let me out of here, I’m sick of this shit.”
The guards at the door heard Murphy jump to his feet. In unison, they spun around and took a couple of steps inside the hut, their hands on the hilt of their swords. Eda didn’t like their vacant, machine-like eyes. It looked like they were bored and would welcome a little violence.
“Sit down,” Eda said. “For God’s sake.”
“Yes,” Number 10 said, staring back at Murphy. There was no fear in her eyes. “I’d do that if I were you.”
Murphy glared at the two guards with pure hatred. He got the message however and as the fire in his eyes cooled, he sat back down again.
“Like I said,” Number 10 continued, “there are four Sinners. Each one of you will have an individual role to play during the ceremony. These roles are as follows: President of the United States, the Mayor of New Jersey, Bank Manager, and Joseph Church, brother of Frank Church, aka Baldilocks.”
Eda’s brow creased and she glanced at the others, who looked equally as confused.
Mega Post-Apocalyptic Double Bill Page 22