So an example? That sentence trails fear down my spine.
I watch my friend carefully, trying not to panic too much and feeling wholly unnerved and unsure on what to do or say.
Tesrin and another woman had been caught stealing food from one of the food shelters. I don’t really know the other woman. I only know that she was a coward and ran away at the first sign of danger, leaving my friend to take all of the blame. I only know that she hadn’t stepped forward to help Tesrin in any way. And that Tesrin was defending her by keeping her mouth shut and saying that she did this all on her own, much to her own detriment.
Pig slop, to one degree or another. That’s what she got caught stealing. It was hardly worth the effort, even for a starving person. But hey, what’s good enough for a pig is good enough for a human—almost. Regardless, she’d gotten caught stealing leftovers meant for the pigs, and now Lee wants to use her as an example.
I look around me, watching the families huddled together, arms wrapped around one another for comfort, warmth and support. And then I stare ahead, looking at my friend—my only friend in this hellhole.
Tesrin.
Her arms are held tightly behind her back as one of Lee’s people stops her from running away. She’s shivering from the cold after being stripped down to her pants and thin T-shirt, and she’s barely able to stop her teeth from chattering together.
She’s not crying. She’s too proud to cry. And every time she sees me about to break down she glares at me because she’s too proud for even me to cry.
“I know you thought what you were doing was the right thing—feeding these people. But it wasn’t.” Lee paces back and forth in front of her, looking from his feet to her face as if the two things were connected and he is trying to find the bond between them.
Tesrin…her face impassive.
“We need these scraps to feed the pigs.”
Tesrin…her jaw clenching tight.
“To make sure that they continue to breed, to feed us all come next spring. And it’s because of that that I have to do what I see fit. I need to punish you in such a way that no one ever thinks to do this sort of thing again.”
Tesrin…her eyes hard.
“Because I won’t have my judgment questioned. If we are all to survive, then people need to fall in line.”
Tesrin…closing her eyes against her judgment.
Lee stops walking, and looks up from his shoes, staring into her face, his decision finally made. “I therefore banish you to the world outside our walls.”
Tesrin…her eyes meet Lee’s and widen fractionally in disbelief.
Tears blur my vision for a split second before I get them, and myself, under control. People around me gasp, but they don’t do anything. They don’t move, they don’t say a damn thing to stop what is happening.
“Please.” I step forward. I’m not afraid. I’m not afraid. I’m not afraid.
I am afraid. But fear makes us desperate, and fear can make us strong.
“Please!” I say louder, my voice almost a whine as I plead with him.
The family next to me stirs, muttering their disagreements with the punishment. And I have the strange idea that if I can get others to see how wrong this is, then I can stop it. I just need to stir up enough trouble to make it happen.
Lee looks over at me before nodding his head in the direction of Carter.
Carter strides forward, his face just like I remember it to be—calm, angular, firm. But his eyes are different. They hold a power in them that they didn’t before. They’re determined and full of bitterness.
We were stupid and I should have trusted my instincts. That gut feeling that was heavy in my belly. We have traded one ruler for another, and I knew all along that this was what it would be like.
It’s true what they say: the grass is always greener. Because what I wouldn’t do for Colonel-fucking-Smith right now.
Carter grabs my arm and begins to drag me away as Daniels begins to walk Tesrin toward the ladder at the bottom of the wall.
“No, no, Carter, don’t do this.” I whisper to him, hoping it will make a difference.
My eyes dart around the crowd. Surely someone will help me—help her—if I step in to try and protect her. Surely people won’t just stand by. Not after how much she tried to help them. All the things she did to keep them all safe, warm, fed…
“Tesrin!” I yell, not being able to hold back my tears any longer as I’m pulled further and further away from her.
Tesrin…
My only friend is being banished.
The only person I trust.
Banished.
Tesrin.
She’ll be dead before the end of the day.
Undead before nightfall.
“Please, Carter, please!” I pull against his grip, my words still coming out soft and breathy, barely any force behind them because the shock of what is happening hasn’t quite hit me yet.
I roll the words around in my head over and over as I fight against Carter’s grip. He doesn’t soften or relent at all. He drags me away like a fragile doll that is just an annoyance to him, almost bored, and the last thing I see before he pushes me inside one of the dimly lit tents is Tesrin beginning to climb up the ladder. The ladder that will lead her to her end. Her face is calm and collected. Firm and resolved. She is frightened. I know her well enough to know that. But she won’t show it. She won’t show the fear.
Because she is strong and proud.
I, however, am not.
I am weak. Frightened. Panicked.
Carter shoves me inside and I cry out.
“Please, stop him! Please!” I finally find my voice as I push to get past him, and in return he pushes me back, making me fall to my ass. I immediately climb back up to my feet, my heart racing and my mouth dry. “Carter, don’t let him do this. This isn’t what you wanted. I know it isn’t.”
He doesn’t say anything. Instead, he glares at me one last time before he turns away. He hasn’t spoken to me since the day he kissed me. Since I rejected him. since the day I made him feel humiliated, and this is his punishment to me.
“Carter, you wanted more than this. You wanted better for these people!” I plead again, but my words fall into emptiness, because he isn’t listening. He doesn’t care what I have to say.
I run at his back, intending to get around his body quickly and run back outside. Intending to rile the crowd up enough that Lee will be forced to stop this foolishness. But at the last second Carter turns and raises his hand. His palm meets my cheek, making a too-loud thwacking sound that rings painfully in my ears. The slap is so hard that it makes my teeth rattle and I fall backwards, landing awkwardly on my side and staring up at him, blinking away tears.
He looks down at me, seemingly shocked by his own actions. He swallows, wiping any concern he has for me away and then he turns and leaves.
I clutch at my cheek, gasping and barely holding back the sting of tears.
I have never been hit before. Not by a man. Not like this.
I stagger to my feet and creep to the doorway, pulling back the curtain as quietly as possible. The wind has picked up, whipping up dust and debris that litters the ground. Carter has his back to me, staring straight ahead, and I follow his gaze, seeing Tesrin standing at the top of the wall.
Her face is full of panic, a steady stream of tears now pouring down her face, and she wipes them away defiantly. I bite the inside of my cheek to stop myself from crying out. She was just trying to be strong for me. She didn’t want me to see her fear. I know this. I feel it in my heart and soul. I feel the gift that she was trying to give me. But now that she thinks I can’t see her, she’s falling apart; her terror is bursting from the seams.
Tesrin, my friend, wanted me to live.
She didn’t want me to see this—her, frightened.
James throws the rope ladder over the side and she is nudged forward with the butt of a gun. She takes a deep breathe, her chest rising and falling rapidly and then she climbs o
ver without missing a beat. One swift move and she’s on the other side of the wall that has protected us for so long. A wall that has confined us, and kept the dead away.
A wall that has taught me so much more about the world and mankind than I would ever want to know.
Tesrin has gone over that wall, into the world beyond.
She’s gone, and I’m still standing here. Too chickenshit to move, to go after her. To do anything.
Because I don’t want to be on the other side of the wall. I don’t want to be in that world. I would rather be in this world—this crazy prison that I call home, where I’m constantly hungry and cold. Because hungry and cold beats dead any day. It’s a world I barely recognize myself in, but still I stay because I’m a coward.
Ben would be ashamed of me. I’m ashamed of me.
Carter glances over his shoulder, his gaze connecting with mine for a brief second and then I step back inside the tent. I let the curtain fall back into place, and I sit down on the ground, my face still stinging from Carter’s slap and my heart aching for the loss of my friend.
The world has changed. Changed so much I barely recognize it or the people within it.
The world has changed and now so must I.
Death Ever After: Part Three
Chapter Twenty-One.
Three months later…
“Mom, I’m hungry.”
I squeeze my eyes tightly closed in an attempt to block everything out. I’m cold—the type of cold that bores its way inside of your fingers, making them feel that they may fall off at any moment. Though right now I would probably be happy for that. Because my hands ache. My fingers are painful stubs of frozen flesh. I pull my blanket tighter around myself, closing up all the gaps I can find, a pathetic attempt to trap all of my body heat around myself.
“I know, baby. We all are. We’ll get some food in the morning.”
I let out a bitter laugh. It’s quiet, dry, the type of laugh that’s as cold as my damned fingers. The air moves around me and I know the mother next to me is moving further away, shielding her children from the crazy mean bitch that laughs in the face of being fed.
Fuck her.
Fuck her, and fuck those kids.
We’re all going to starve to death. Who is she kidding that we’re going to be fed in the morning? Lee only feeds those that have something to offer: a skill, an item, something he can put to good use. She’s a middle-aged woman with nothing but the clothes on her back and two hungry kids by her side. She’s a homemaker. She can’t do shit. She can’t fight or build. She has nothing to offer them. And her good-for-nothing husband didn’t bother to stay alive and help out. So it’s all pointless.
Their pain.
Their hunger.
Their suffering.
Pointless.
She should have shot them when the world went to shit and put them out of their fucking misery.
But I don’t say anything. Like the good crazy woman I am, I keep my thoughts to myself.
I draw my knees up to my chest and I try to sleep. Because in my sleep—my dreams—none of this shit is here. It doesn’t exist.
In my dreams I’m sipping margaritas on a beach with Ben, with the sand between my toes and the waves of the ocean as my backdrop, and it’s fucking perfect.
“My tummy hurts.”
“Come here, let me rub it for you.”
I almost snort again. Because really, what’s rubbing it going to do? But I don’t laugh, because I’m not that mean. Not yet, at least. But I’m getting there. Mean and bitter. Yep, that about covers it.
I used to think that nighttime was the worst, that the darkness surrounding us and the drop in temperature was harder than the daytime, but I’ve changed my mind now. Daytime is worse. In the daytime you get to see all the more clearly how miserable everyone is. You get to see the bony arms of people. The sinking of their features. The blue of their lips. And the loss in their eyes. Yes, the daytime is worse. In the daytime there is no hiding from what this is and how it will all end.
I am huddled inside what used to be bunker A. Only now the roof has holes in it and the room smells of burnt plastic and metal. A fire broke out last week. Someone had thought it was a good idea to make a fire in one of the large metal trash cans. In theory, it was. But in reality it was stupid. The room had filled with smoke when people had gotten desperate for more heat. They had sacrificed old sleeping bags and tents that were riddled with either fleas or holes. But sleeping bags and tents don’t burn well, and their fumes made us choke.
People were screaming, running around to get outside…the trash can had been knocked over…there was lots of fire. Lots of flames burning high. And bunker A was reduced to a shell.
Afterwards we had cleared out bunker A and attempted to make it as safe as possible. And then we had all moved back inside again. Because there weren’t a lot of options in the compound. This walled city of death.
We have to make use of what we can, and a roof with holes in it and a soot-filled floor are the least of our worries.
I must nod off at some point, because I wake to crying—the soft, guttural moans that make me think there is a deader on the loose, and I jump, immediately alert. But no. It’s just the child, crying of a sick tummy once again. In that moment between wake and sleep, I feel sympathy for her. Sympathy for what it must be like to be a mother in this cruel, hard world. To have small children that need you constantly, who rely on you for their wellbeing. Children who you know you will let down eventually, regardless of how much you try not to.
I feel sympathy for her, because it is hard not to.
But then I am fully awake and I’m annoyed that I have been woken from my dream. That I’m not still on the beach with Ben and I’m instead curled up next to a cold, hard wall, trying to shield myself from the biting wind.
“…I know, honey…I know. Try to sleep. You’ll feel better if you sleep.”
That’s the first truth she’s spoken to her children. Because yes, they will feel better if they sleep.
*
I can’t remember the last time I ate. It was perhaps two days ago now, I think. But the mother I heard last night was correct: today we are given food. It’s not much—just enough to keep us alive, to stop us from dying and turning into deaders that will kill everyone in their sleep.
There is little food left. Colonel Smith apparently didn’t do as well with the rations as everyone thought. And now we are all paying for it.
Of course the only ones not going hungry are Lee and his men—the people he has helping him keep control of this place, our prison, our home. Personally I think that he’s keeping us starved and weak so we don’t try to overthrow him.
The weather is too bad to venture outside the walls now. The snow piles building. The wind picking up. The only good to come of the shocking weather is that the deaders can’t hear or smell us here, and Lee is using that to his advantage.
He’s strengthening the walls, sealing up all of the entrances so there is only one way in and one way out. But I have also heard talks of him closing all of the entrances up completely, to make us become completely self-sufficient. So that we are all trapped in this horrid existence with no way out.
I can’t think of a crueler life than that.
Being trapped within this dictatorship with no say in my own life.
It’s for our own good, apparently. That’s what he has brainwashed everyone into believing.
It’s all for our own good.
Go hungry today to be fed tomorrow. That’s what he says.
I don’t believe him, though, but others do. I can see the greed in his eyes. I saw the same thing in Colonel Smith and now I see it in him. That need and hunger to rule. To discipline. To own these people. Like cattle, we have no choice in our own lives anymore. We are just waiting for our own slaughter.
But it’s all for our own good. Apparently.
Two of the guards…guards, not soldiers, because I don’t see any of these men as s
oldiers anymore. Soldiers are the ones who fought for and lost our country, but at least they tried. They wanted to do good. These men are assisting in our misery. These guards, whose names I forget, are handing out bowls of what can only be described as slop—a brownish substance with the consistency of thick lumpy oats. It smells nice, though, and my mouth begins to water as they get closer. The mother next to me kneels up and reaches for two bowls that are handed to her. She gives them to her children and they dive in with gusto, and then she kneels up, reaching to retrieve her own bowl, but the guard steps away, the bowl of slop still in his hands. The other guard, the one with the tray of food, grins.
The mother looks up into their faces with confusion and I watch intently, wishing they would hurry up and get to me because I’m hungry. So so hungry.
“I need a bowl of food too,” she pleads, her hands reaching up again, and I see her nails are jagged and dirty, much like my own.
“Rationing,” the first guard says bluntly before continuing to move down the line.
“But I’m hungry! I haven’t eaten.” The mother scrambles to her feet, staring after them beseechingly.
“We’re all hungry, lady,” the man holding the tray says.
He’s reached my place in the line and he hands me her bowl, lowering it down to me. I snatch it from him without a word, trying to avoid eye contact. Feral, that’s the act I go for. That keeps everyone away from me.
The mother has come up behind him now and she touches his shoulder.
“Please” is all she says. “I need to eat.”
The guard turns to look at her, his gaze traveling up and down her body—from head to toe and back again—and then he makes eye contact with her.
“What do you have to trade?” he asks. The other guard is grinning again. His grin makes me feel anger, but I push it away—the anger—because this is none of my business. I have my food, so I scramble back into my position and begin to eat.
The food tastes foul and bitter. There’s been too much seasoning added to hide the taste of rot, but it’s warm and filling, and the action of eating makes me feel better regardless. So I eat and I forget about the mother and her children. And I forget about all of the other starving people around me. I eat and I pretend I am somewhere else. Because pretending is the only way to survive anymore.
The Dead Saga: Odium 0.5 (Nina's Story) Page 14