And over it all, Jamie’s despairing screams.
The yells receded until they carried him out the doors.
“Think they’re going to kill him?” Ian asked.
“Probably,” Brent said, walking toward the partition. He bent his mouth to one of the gaps in the wall. “Muriel?”
“Hang on,” an anonymous woman said.
A couple minutes later, Muriel said, “Hello?”
Brent smiled. She had said it like a woman answering a phone.
The women’s chanting of “fresh meat” had died away. He could still hear Jamie wailing, but it was very distant now.
“So, uh, what are they doing to Jamie?” Brent asked.
Muriel was quiet a moment, then said, “He’s being punished.”
“How?”
“I’m not sure,” Muriel said. “Maudelle and several other women demanded to speak to Cooley this morning. They told him they wouldn’t cooperate anymore if he didn’t punish Jamie for what he did to Vickers.”
“And he went along with them?” Brent asked.
“I think he was planning to do it anyway,” Muriel said. “He didn’t even bother to argue with them. Just nodded and walked away. And he’s not the type to tolerate demands.”
“All right,” Brent said, nodding. “Thanks, Muriel.”
“No problem.”
He started to turn away.
“One other thing!” Muriel called.
“Yeah?” he said, bending his ear to the wall.
“Roo’s pregnant,” Muriel said. “I know you have mixed feelings about what you did with her, but I thought you should know. They were probably going to cull her soon. You’ve bought her a little more time. If she can carry the fetus to term, they’ll probably keep her.”
“All right,” Brent said, cheeks flushing. “I’m happy for her.”
And he was, even though he felt guilty about sleeping with her. He was glad she was pregnant, that she would get to live a little longer, despite what the zombies would do to the child. As long as she survived, she had hope—hope, someday, of escape, or delivery from this nightmare place. They all did, so long as they were still breathing.
Too nervous to return to sleep, Brent walked to the card table and sat. He grabbed Vickers cigarette pack and shook a cigarette out of it. “Last one,” he said, putting it to his lips.
“There’s more stacked over there,” Ian said, pointing to the line of counters against the back wall. There were several cartons of cigarettes stacked up back there, but that wasn’t what Brent had meant by “last one”.
Brent lit the cigarette and inhaled, staring at the flame of the lighter for a moment. He was surprised the deadheads would allow them such a thing: access to fire.
Such a simple thing, fire.
Man had possessed the art of fire making for tens of thousands of years, perhaps even hundreds of thousands of years. And yet it was so powerful, and could be turned to such devastating effect.
I could burn this place down, he thought.
But that would be no escape. The zombies would try to evacuate as many of the internees as they could, but the odds of anyone escaping in the chaos were slim to none, and there would be casualties. A huge number of casualties, probably.
Not fire, then.
For the next two hours, Brent sat and pondered escape.
Perhaps he could convince the other internees to rebel. There were only three or four dozen zombies staffing the facility. They were armed, but there was at least twice as many living human beings imprisoned here. If they rose up against their undead masters, violently and all at once, surely they could take the camp from their jailors. There would be losses, of course, but once they had taken over they would have weapons, vehicles, and the facility’s fortifications to defend themselves behind. The interior walls were a problem, but not an insurmountable one. They were shoddily crafted. It would take little effort to tear them down. Or they could launch their assault when the zombies brought the women to the roosters for breeding.
But could he convince his fellow inmates to rebel? As horrible as their living conditions were, the internees seemed to have come to terms with their circumstances. Security was a powerfully seductive thing, and they were safe so long as they were fertile and did not make trouble for their zombie overlords. They had food and shelter, warmth and routine, and all they had to surrender for it was their freedom… and their babies.
Roo is pregnant, he thought. With my child.
He had wanted children when he was younger, before the world ended. He and Naomi had discussed it, if not often, at least every now and then after they got engaged. They had debated children’s names, how many they would like to have, all the common things a couple discusses after they’ve decided to build a life together. But then the Phage had come, and it had devoured mankind with all the pitilessness of an exotic flesh-eating virus. Then Naomi had died, and all thought of children, of even having a normal life again, fell away to dust. All he ever thought about after that was survival. His future, and all the plans he’d attached to it, had retracted to a small dim light at the end of a long and featureless dark tunnel, like looking through the wrong end of a telescope.
My child, he thought. And they’re going to eat it.
He felt like throwing up.
He did not hear the front doors open and close, though he did sense a slight perturbation in the building’s air pressure. A moment later, several women cried out, and he heard a stir among the female internees, little sounds of shock and rapid whispers, like autumn leaves swirling in a breeze.
“Ian!” Brent called, rising from the table, and the lanky black man poked his head from the butcher’s station. “They’re bringing Jamie back, I think,” Brent said, and a strange look spread across the young man’s face. He had hoped the zombies would kill the man who had murdered his friend.
The lock of their cell door rattled. Brent heard Jamie moaning deliriously. The door swung open and two guards marched in, dragging the murderer into the room. He was hanging from their arms as he had the day before, his head drooping. They dragged him to his mattress and threw him down on it, then withdrew. Their path was marked by a trail of blood.
“Jesus,” Brent whispered, approaching the man sprawled on the mattress.
Jamie was pale, his body spattered with dried blood. The former real estate broker looked up at Brent as he approached, his eyes half-lidded and unfocused. He grinned his rotten-toothed grin and croaked, “She was right.”
“Who?” Brent asked.
“Maudelle,” the man said. “She told me… it wouldn’t be good for me… and she was right.”
Brent didn’t bother asking the man what they had done to him. It was quite obvious. His legs were missing from the knees down. They had cut off both his legs. The stumps of both limbs were wrapped in bloody, seeping bandages. The flesh of his thighs was red and blistered where they had burned him cauterizing the wounds.
“They cut off my legs,” Jamie said. “Cut them off and ate them. And they made me watch. They made me watch!”
He screamed that last, tears rolling down the sides of his face like globs of lantern oil. He screamed it again and again until at last he lapsed into unconsciousness.
22. Humanity
Ian thought they should let Jamie die, and the former real estate broker would die—without question—if the two of them didn’t care for him, but Brent found that he could not do it. He could not let the man just lie there on his shit, piss and bloodstained mattress and die. It was probably the smart thing to do, in light of the things Jamie had done, but something in Brent cried out at the thought of letting a helpless man die, at the inhumanity of such a thing. His humanity, in this vulgar little circle of Hell, was just about the only thing Brent had left. If he relinquished that, he would have nothing. He would be nothing.
So he nursed the injured man.
When Jamie surfaced from whatever lightless abyss his conscious mind had retreated to, Bren
t dipped a cup of water from their water bucket and kneeled down beside him. He lifted Jamie’s head and held the cup to his lips.
“A little more,” he said when Jamie coughed and turned his head away. Jamie shook his head no, but Brent insisted. “Yes, a little more.”
Jamie drank. He sighed when Brent laid his head back down, then looked him directly in the eyes and said, “They cut off my legs.” His voice was a weak whisper, hardly a voice at all, but the words were matter-of-fact, his demeanor sober.
“I know,” Brent said, setting the cup aside.
“They held me down and cut my legs off with an axe,” Jamie said. “After that, they… they burnt the ends with a torch. They were laughing, some of them. Then they ate my legs. I tried to look away, but they held my eyelids open. Made me watch. I watched them eat my legs. Cooley said I didn’t need legs to fuck. Not that any of the women will want to fuck me now. Not after what I did to Vickers. They all hate me now.”
“I’m sorry,” Brent said.
Jamie laughed weakly. “You apologize a lot.”
“So I’ve been told.”
“It’s my own fault,” Jamie said. “I know it is. I brought this on myself.”
“That doesn’t matter,” Brent said.
Jamie nodded. “Yes, it does. I want you to know. I want you to know that I know. When they were dragging me outside, I knew it was nobody’s fault but my own. A strange clarity comes over a man’s mind when he experiences mortal terror. Everything becomes very still and clear and vivid. I think I went a little nuts when you came here. I was afraid to die and it made me crazy, but I’m not afraid to die anymore. I think I’d rather die now than live like this. I probably will die. They didn’t exactly sterilize the axe before they chopped off my legs. But that’s okay. I think it’s my time now. And I’m probably going to hell for what I did to Vickers.”
“You’ll live if you want to live,” Brent said. It was the only thing he could think of to say. Jamie smiled condescendingly. “You want another drink of water?” he asked, and when Jamie shook his head no, Brent rose and walked to the counter and set the cup down.
“I’m cold,” Jamie said. He was trembling all over, his teeth chattering.
Brent went into the butcher’s station and grabbed his blanket. He scooped up Vickers’ blanket, too. Ian, lying on his mattress on his side, eyed Brent like he was a madman. He shook his head when Brent met his gaze, dreadlocks falling across his eyes.
“I’m starting to think you’re the crazy one,” Ian said, pushing his hair from his face.
“Maybe I am,” Brent replied.
He went out and put the blankets over Jamie.
“Better?”
“Y-y-yes,” Jamie chattered. “This is shock, isn’t it? I’m going into shock.”
“Probably.”
“I’m going to die tonight, aren’t I?”
“I don’t know.”
The women came shortly after that. Just two of them tonight. Maudelle and a lady named Patricia. Brent and Ian did their duty by them, then went out to the table to smoke.
Maudelle sat with them, glancing at the trembling man occasionally as she nursed a cigarette. The women weren’t supposed to smoke or drink, but none of the guards criticized them if they partook of the devil weed or had a slosh of whiskey during their breeding visits.
“I was mad at him,” she said in a low voice, gray smoke twining up from her liver-spotted hand. “I wanted him to be punished, but damn! That is harsh! I heard they made him watch while they ate his legs.”
“That’s what he said,” Brent replied.
Maudelle shook her head. “Damn!” she said, with an unbelieving titter. She looked ashamed.
“It’s what he deserves, though,” Ian said forcefully.
Nobody bothered to debate him.
Brent went to bed shortly after the women left, sure he would find Jamie dead in the morning, cold and blue and lifeless, but the man was still clinging to life when he arose. He was white as chalk and trembling, but he was still alive.
“Can I have some more water?” Jamie asked when Brent exited the bunkroom.
“Sure.”
He scooped a cup of water, brought it to the man.
“I had some pretty weird dreams last night,” Jamie said after he had drunk his fill.
“What did you dream?”
“That I broke out of here and made it Home. I had my legs again. I guess they grew back. I climbed over the fence and made it all the way Home, but Vickers was there, guarding the gate to the city. He was like that crabby doorman in The Wizard of Oz. You know the one that was guarding the entrance of Emerald City?” He laughed, his eyes far away. “He popped his head through that little door, too, just like the guy in the movie. Had the same funny mustache. Curled up at the ends. As soon as I saw him pop his head out, I knew I wasn’t getting in. I wasn’t even going to ask him to open the gate, but Vickers called out my name like I was his long lost brother. Told me to come right in, said everyone was waiting for me. My wife, my sisters, my mom and dad. Said they were all waiting for me inside, everybody who ever loved me.”
“That’s pretty fucked up,” Brent said, smiling a little, and Jamie burst out laughing.
“Yeah! Yeah, it is!” he agreed, grimacing at the pain in his leg stumps. “Oh! Don’t make me laugh, guy! It hurts too much!”
“Sorry.”
“Stop apologizing,” Jamie wheezed. “At least you’re trying to help. Ian would let me lay here and rot.”
“Yeah, I would,” Ian said, walking from the butcher’s station. He crossed the room to the toilet area and took a long piss in their piss bucket. The patter of his voiding went on and on.
“I don’t blame him,” Jamie said in a conspiratorial voice. “I’d do the same thing.”
“Are you hungry?” Brent asked. “There’s still plenty of slop from last night.”
Jamie laughed and then cried out, clutching his thighs above the bandages. “Stop, man! I mean it! Stop making me laugh!”
“Sorry. Well, are you?”
“No. I’m actually kind of nauseated.”
“You need to eat something.”
“Later,” Jamie said. He reached out with his blood-streaked left hand and patted Brent on the knee. He seemed to be drifting away again, exhausted by their interaction. “I promise. I’ll eat something… later.”
“All right,” Brent said, rising from his knees. “I’m going to hold you to that. Get some rest. If you need anything, just give me a yell.”
“Ohhh…kayyy…”
Ian’s interminable piss called his own bodily needs to mind. Brent walked to their toilet area as Ian was finishing up. They swapped places, and Brent pushed down his boxers and voided his bladder. Ian lingered by the panel that separated their toilet from the main room, but Brent was not self-conscious. They had been cellmates for weeks now. They had seen one another wash, fuck, fart, shit and piss. They would need medical instruments to get any closer. Modesty, Brent had learned following a football injury, was the first casualty of institutional confinement, be it hospitalization or imprisonment.
“I’ll be honest with you,” Ian said, watching Brent piss with casual disinterest. “I thought long and hard about smothering that legless bastard this morning. I could have done it easy. I woke up an hour before you did. I was going to roll up my blanket, sneak out here and hold it down over his face. He’s too weak to fight back.”
“So what stopped you?” Brent asked.
“You, I guess,” Ian said.
“Me?”
“I was afraid you’d be disappointed in me if you ever found out,” Ian said. He laughed in embarrassment. “I think I have daddy issues. I always seem to latch onto older men. I guess I really miss my old man. He was a great dad.”
“I’m not that much older than you,” Brent pointed out. He finished pissing, shook off, and tucked himself away. He turned and looked Ian in the eyes. “Is that the only reason you didn’t kill him? You di
dn’t want to disappoint me?”
“I guess not,” Ian said, after a moment of thought.
“What else stopped you?”
“I don’t want to be like him,” Ian admitted. He ducked his head, as if he were ashamed of his moral superiority. “If I did it, if I killed him, then I’d be no better than him. Or them. Right now I am.”
Brent put his arms around Ian and hugged him. The young man stiffened at first, shocked by the intimacy, and then he relaxed, and he put his arms around Brent. He patted Brent on the back.
“That’s why I’m looking after him,” Brent said. “That’s the only reason.”
Ian nodded and they separated.
“He’s probably going to die anyway,” Brent said in a low voice, looking across the room at the man. “I’m pretty sure nobody cleaned those wounds before they bandaged him up. In fact, I’m surprised they aren’t infected already. He might even contract the Phage. I’ve seen people catch it when they’re sick or injured. I guess their immune system can’t keep up. We’ll have to put him down if he changes. Or give him to the deadheads and let them deal with him.”
“Yeah, my dad caught the Phage after he had the flu,” Ian said. “He caught the smart strain, though. Put his gun in his mouth after he came back so I wouldn’t have to do it.”
“Sounds like your old man had brass balls,” Brent said.
“He did,” Ian grinned.
“Let Jamie live,” Brent said. “Don’t kill the good man that’s still inside of you.”
“Okay,” Ian said with a grave nod. “But I’m not nursing him.”
“That’s all right,” Brent said. “I’ll do it.”
That evening, after the women had visited—a heavyset teenager named Becky Hannigan and a forty-six-year-old named Veronica Hall, who was a local news anchor before the Phage—Brent fed Jamie a couple handfuls of food. After feeding the man, Brent went to the guard at the door and asked for some rags to bathe Jamie with. The guard, who possessed just a little more flesh than the skeleton warriors in Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger, smashed his fist against the fencing and snarled at him.
Cattle (The Fearlanders) Page 13