Lazarus Rising

by David Sherman

  Prisoner 9639 tried to rise out of the chair to stand at attention, but Rudolf waved her back down. "That rule will only apply when you leave this room. Do you understand?"

  "Y-Yes," 9639 answered, "M-Mister Over—"

  "Overstormer. Now. Tell me about yourself. Do you have any special training or skills? Be honest, 9639. Don't tell me you're a scientist when all you really are is a peasant."

  Prisoner 9639 admitted to being a member of the City of God and said her father was a farmer at New Salem and that they had miraculously survived the attack at the Sea of Gerizim. "I have no particular skills. I helped my mother and sometimes worked on the farm with my father."

  "You know how to shoot."

  She thought quickly. "We used those rifles for hunting. My father taught me the skill."

  "Are you married?"

  "No, Overstormer."

  "Boyfriend?" Rudolf grinned.

  "No, Overstormer."

  "Hmmm. A pretty young girl like you? Hard to believe."

  "Overstormer, how—how long will I b-be here?"

  Rudolf smiled. "You will never leave here, 9639. You killed a man of the Special Group while he was acting in his official capacity and wounded several others, one seriously. You are lucky they did not kill you on the scene. Your case will be reviewed at the highest level. A decision will be pending shortly. Life?" He held up his right hand. "Or death?" He held up his left hand and made the motion of weighing her fate. "The best you can hope for is life."

  "But—But those men attacked us! They killed my mother. I was only defending—"

  One of the guards gripped 9639 behind her right ear and pulled upward. The pain was so intense she quickly rose to her feet, then struggled to catch her breath when he let go of her.

  "You forgot to ask my permission to speak, 9639." Rudolf smiled. "Now. You will be assigned to a barracks with other female prisoners. Each barracks is under the direct control of a prisoner who has been specially designated as barracks chief. She will assign you a place to sleep and explain the other rules of Castle Hurse to you. You will obey her as you obey the members of my staff. Do you have any questions, 9639?"

  Prisoner 9639, white-faced, cheeks tearstained, glared at Overstormer Rudolf for a moment and then shouted, "May God damn your soul to eternal hellfire! May God damn all of you! Hear me, Lord! Damn these monsters, damn—"

  When Prisoner 9639 regained consciousness, she was lying in a bunk in one of the women's barracks.

  Back in his office, Overstormer Rudolf entered a note in her file. Good-looking girl, he thought, shame to kill someone so pretty. He thought of his own daughters and his lovely wife. They were having staff over tonight for a dinner party. He would arrange for some talented prisoners to provide the music. There were two former concert violinists among the prisoners at Castle Hurse just now. They would be delighted to play for an extra ration. It was important to maintain the attributes of civilization in a place like this, separate the official world from the private world.

  Overstormer Rudolf lit a cigarette. Back to work. Well, he was only a jailer. He initialed the sheet and closed the file. In the morning he would send it to Wayvelsberg with the others.

  In the file he had written: "Plucky girl. Break her."

  Prisoner 9639 awoke on her bunk. A hulking, short-haired woman loomed over her. "Rise and shine, my beauty," she rumbled.

  "Please...?"

  "My name is Munglo Patti, chief of Barracks Ten. When I say ‘shit,’ you shit. Now get your pretty ass out of that bunk and stand at attention!"

  Painfully, Prisoner 9639 staggered to her feet. Munglo Patti carefully inspected her. She carried a thick, leaden truncheon with which she prodded 9639, not particularly looking for anything, just toying with her. "You're a real mess," Patti snorted. She nodded at a woman who stood with a pile of clothes in her arms. "Strip," she told 9639. Slowly, 9639 began to take her clothes off. "Underwear too." Patti stood by impatiently, tapping a booted foot on the floorboards. "Change into these clothes."

  The other woman, a mousy type with furtive eyes, quickly deposited the clothing on 9639's bunk and stepped back out of the way. It was then that 9639 noticed she was wearing a green brassard on her right arm.

  "Hurry!" Patti urged impatiently. "The others will be back from their work shifts in a few minutes, and then we'll have evening roll call."

  Prisoner 9639 slipped into a loose-fitting gray smock that reached down to just below her knees and sealed up the front. She slipped her feet into ankle boots a size too large for her, then looked at the yellow armband and slipped it over her right sleeve. "Good!" Patti exclaimed. "You're a political. You get yellow. We crooks get green." She laughed. "And the religious crazies wear pink. You'll see them, but at a distance. They're quarantined."

  A shapeless duffel coat with a hood completed the outfit. "Slip the armband on the outside of the coat, idiot!" Patti said. Awkwardly, 9639 did as she was told. "Okay, beautiful, here're the rules in one quick lesson. We have roll call three times each day—dawn, noon, and dusk. Be there. Only excuses are sick call, work, the commandant's order, or death. When I call out your number, answer, ‘9639 present, Barracks Chief!’ No ad-libbing, no stuttering, hear me?

  "We eat twice a day, after morning and evening roll call. You won't get fat on the food they give you here. If they don't execute you and you get to learn the ropes, there are ways to get good food and other things you might need. The doctor will inspect you tomorrow. He'll decide if you're able to work, and then the commandant will assign your work detail.

  "Whenever a staff officer passes by, you are to come to attention. Never speak to a member of the staff without permission, and use that person's rank when addressing him or her. There's a chart of Special Group and penal service ranks on the wall by the latrine. Memorize it. If you slip up, you'll be beaten. Punishment at Castle Hurse ranges from a verbal admonition to death. Believe me, sweetie, the latter is the preferred method around here, makes for fewer mouths to feed. None of us will ever get out of here alive, and the commandant, who is responsible to no one but his superiors in the Special Group, does not care if we live or die. Here, we are all enemies of the state. And let me tell you, sweetie, you politicals are on the lowest rung of the ladder, even below the religious crazies. So keep your mouth shut, follow the rules, don't cause any trouble, and you might live awhile longer. Otherwise, it's Suburbia for you for sure."

  Munglo's face became animated when she lectured. Her black, squinty eyes glistened, her face reddened, and saliva flecked her lips. Her high cheekbones turned her eyes into narrow slits when she was angry, and she was always angry. She had a stocky, very well-muscled body. As barracks chief, she was solely responsible for discipline in her barracks, and for performing the job well she received preferential treatment from the commandant and his staff. She was ruthless, and more than once had beaten a transgressor to death with her truncheon. She had to, to maintain her position. Otherwise she knew she'd be relieved and go before the firing squad.

  Munglo Patti had been a prisoner at Castle Hurse for five years. Her crime was murder.

  A whistle shrilled. "That's it. Roll call. Out into the street!"

  It was overcast, damp, and misty. A cool wind blew down the street between the barracks buildings. About a hundred women in four ranks stood in front of 9639's barracks. All along the street other women were also standing in ranks. Farther off, in another compound surrounded by a high, apparently electrified fence, was the men's compound, and hundreds of them were also standing rigidly in ranks. Ten-meter-high guard towers were spaced at intervals along the fence.

  A stormleader stood huddled in his greatcoat, a voice projector in one hand. He raised it. "Barracks Chiefs! Begin the count!"

  Slowly, Munglo Patti walked down the ranks, checking each prisoner off her roster as she called out her number. Several times Patti used her truncheon, leaving unfortunate women doubled over and retching. Prisoner 9639 began to perspire. How did Patti tell her to re
spond at roll call? Dear God, she couldn't remember! Was it...? No! Should she request permission first before responding? Oh, dear God, what am I doing in this terrible place? She thought of her family, her friends, her home, and tears flowed down her cheeks.

  "Stop whining like a snuffling little mama's girl," Patti grated. She nudged 9639 with her truncheon, and shouted, "9639!"

  "Prisoner 9639 present, Barracks Chief!" she croaked. Patti checked her off her list and passed on down the rank.

  "Easy, girl," an older woman standing to 9639's right whispered without moving her lips. "The bitch ain't so bad if you stay out of her way."

  Patti whirled and stomped back to stand in front of 9639. "I have very sensitive hearing, ladies! What the hell did you say? I heard somebody whispering! Who was it? You, 9639? You'll do. Goddamnit, no talking in ranks!" She slammed her truncheon into 9639's left shoulder, glared at the women standing rigidly in the rank, then went on with her count.

  "Sorry," the woman to her right whispered.

  Eyes blurry with tears, holding her left shoulder with her free hand, 9639 nodded. "It's okay," she whispered.

  Finished with her count, Patti took up her place four paces to the front center of the first rank. "Report!" the stormleader shouted. Each barracks chief reported her count. There were twenty barracks buildings in that section of the prison compound.

  "Barracks Ten! All present and accounted for!" Patti shouted when her turn came.

  But still the roll call went on, as recounts were demanded to resolve discrepancies and the stormleader's questions about absences were answered. Several times he stopped the reports to hold whispered conversations with his sergeant. It began to rain and dusk closed in. Still, the hundreds of women stood there at attention. The men, they could see, had long since been dismissed.

  "Barracks Chiefs!" the stormleader announced as the last vestiges of daylight faded. "Dismiss your prisoners!" By now they were drenched, shivering in the cold.

  "Follow me," the woman who'd been standing to 9639's right said. Prisoner 9639 noted she was a green-armband inmate. The woman took her elbow and guided her between the barracks buildings toward a huge wooden structure into which long lines of women were disappearing. "Time to eat," the older woman announced.

  Inside the dining hall each woman took a tin bowl, a spoon, and a tin cup out of bins and stood in the serving line. Indifferent cooks, also prisoners, handed each person in line a slice of black bread and ladled out soup and a weak concoction called coffee as the cups and bowls were held out. The two found seats on a bench at a long trestle table and sat down. "My name is 9606," the woman announced as she spooned the soup into her mouth.

  Prisoner 9639 did not realize how hungry she was, even though the "soup"—a greasy concoction of tepid water, thin strips of tasteless meat, and soggy "vegetables"—was sickening. The "coffee" tasted like swamp water. But 9639 consumed it all in under a minute. "What's your name?" she asked 9606.

  "Never ask a prisoner that! The only person who has a name among us is our barracks chief. That's a privilege they get for taking the job, and one reason she's killed to keep it. And if you find out someone's real name, never use it. If you are overheard, you will be beaten senseless. We exist here only by the numbers they've given us. We have no other identity. You get used to it. You may wonder why 9606 is standing next to 9639. That's because the women with the intervening numbers are all dead. They never reissue numbers."

  All around them women ate their meal amid loud conversations. Several fights started—over what, nobody knew—and the combatants, rolling on the floor and pulling each other's hair, were objects of high amusement. The fights ended as quickly as they started. "May I ask why you are here, 9606? You seem to be a decent person," the newcomer said.

  Prisoner 9606 shrugged and slurped the last of her soup. "Embezzlement, 9639. I worked in the administrative offices of the Fathers of Padua sect. I skimmed quite a bit off their accounts for myself. They gave me life." Prisoner 9639 mouthed the word "life" in astonishment. "Yeah, life," 9606 confirmed. "That was ten years ago. That's right, ten years in this hole. That was before even our Great and Wonderful Leader appeared on the scene to ‘free’ us from the clutches of the sects." She laughed cynically and lowered her voice. "These sonsabitches are all alike, 9639. All alike." She paused and regarded the bottom of her soup bowl. "Take that stormleader this evening. Whenever that bastard is duty officer, he loves to hold us in formation until way after dark, just inventing reasons to keep us in ranks. The worse the weather, the more he enjoys himself. Someday I'm going to cut his goddamned balls off for him."

  "You'll have to stand in line, dearie," a painfully thin woman sitting next to 9606 said. "I'm 9432." She held out her hand to 9639.

  "You'll like 9432, 9639," 9606 said. "She's in here for manslaughter. Cut her husband's equipment off and fed it to him." Then 9606 laughed so hard she started coughing. The coughing brought up spittle flecked with black and red. "What I wouldn't give for a cigarette now," she gasped.

  "He didn't die," 9432 added, "but they gave me life for it anyway."

  "I love my husband," 9606 offered after she'd gotten her breath back. "We were a team. He's over on the men's side. I think. Maybe he died. He got life, same time I did. What did you do, 9639? You don't look ‘political’ to me."

  Briefly, 9639 explained what had happened back at New Salem. "Whew!" 9432 exclaimed, "killed one of them, huh? Honey, it's Suburbia for you for sure!"

  "What's Suburbia? Patti said I might go there. Is it like—like solitary confinement or something?"

  Prisoner 9606 glared at 9432. "That's a remote section of the prison compound," she answered after a brief hesitation. "It's where the executions are held. We call it ‘Suburbia’ because that sounds better than calling the place what it really is—you know, like ‘kicked the bucket,’ ‘bought the farm.’ When someone says, ‘She's gone to Suburbia,’ well, you know what that means. But honey, if they were gonna execute you, they'd have done that already. At least not until your case can be reviewed. You know that within the last few months the dossiers of all new female prisoners are personally reviewed by someone at Wayvelsberg Castle?"

  "What, or where, is Wayvelsberg Castle?"

  "It's the Leader's headquarters."

  "Why?"

  "Who the hell knows—or cares? Maybe they're looking to get laid up there," 9432 cackled. "But hell, old hags like me and 9606, we've got nothing to worry about!"

  "What do we do now?" 9639 asked.

  "We turn in our utensils and go back to our barracks and they lock us in," 9432 said. "And remember, never, but never, keep the flatware! They inventory it after every meal, and if they find any missing, the guards tear the barracks apart until it's found. You can take a spoon and turn it into a weapon if you work at it hard enough. Remember this too: terrible things are done to people here, but nothing, nothing, is permitted that is not authorized specifically by either the commandant or the duty officer. So if a guard rapes someone or beats someone up on his own, he's in trouble. And suicide is against prison regulations."

  "At twenty-two hours sharp the lights go out," 9606 added. "Between now and then we can do what we like, provided we do it inside our barracks. What is your work assignment, 9639?"

  "I don't know yet. Munglo told me I'll get that after I see the doctor tomorrow."

  "Can you do anything special? Workwise?"

  "N-No. I helped a bit with the farming—"

  "We have a farm here. You could go there," 9606 said.

  "Try to get into the kitchen," 9432 volunteered. "It's indoors and you get better rations. I'm on the compound beautification detail myself. I'm outdoors a lot but the work is easy."

  "The porcelain factory isn't bad either, especially if you can get into the offices," 9606 informed her. "I worked there for several years. I was a glazer, put high-fire glazes on things. We used calcium or barium as flux, you know? ‘Feldspathic’ glazes, they were called, since we used feldspar as a sou
rce of alumina and silica. I kept the kiln at 1250 degrees centigrade. Hard-paste porcelain, is what it was. I think that's where I picked up this goddamned cough." She smiled wistfully. "Now I'm in the laundry." She sighed. "The best thing about the factory," she brightened, "is that you get to meet some of the men and people from outside. The contacts you can make at the factory can get you stuff you need in here."

  "Don't get assigned to the clay quarries," 9432 advised. "You ride there in a closed van and they work you in all weather. Mostly that's for the male prisoners, and they don't last long out there."

  "What about our barracks chief?"

  "Patti?" 9432 responded. "She's not a bad sort. She has to be hard to keep her position, and we all respect that. Stay on her good side and she'll look out for you."

  "How do I do that?" 9639 asked.

  The two older women exchanged glances. "Just obey her orders."

  Sleep did not come easily to 9639 that first night at Castle Hurse. Her fellow inmates continued whispered conversations until well after lights out. It was after midnight before she finally dozed off.

  She was awakened by someone's hands on her. At first she didn't realize where she was. "Don't say anything," Munglo Patti whispered in her ear. So this was what "looking out" for a fellow inmate meant? She fastened her teeth on Patti's earlobe and bit down as hard as she could. "Aarrgghh! Bitch! Bitch!" the barracks chief shrieked, and broke off her contact. "You're dead! You're dead!" Patti screamed, holding a hand to her bleeding ear.

  "Good!" 9639 shouted back. "Kill me! I don't care! I've killed real men, and devils, devils in armed combat, you monster. Do you think I'm afraid of you? Put your hands on me again and you're out of a job around here!" She wiped Patti's blood off her lips and spit.

  "You're dead! You're dead!" Patti screamed again, then turned and ran for the latrines.

  Someone began to laugh. "Good work, girl," an inmate whispered.

  "You'll be gone in the morning, new girl," someone else said, "but by God, we won't forget you very soon!" Someone at the far end of the room began to applaud softly, and then all the women joined in.