He was only dreaming the football game.
After that, nothing in the dream shocked him. He was completely unsurprised when the ball began to wriggle warmly in his arms. He held it out, still running, and saw that it was a child, his child, curled into a fetal position, legs folded against its chest, thumb in its mouth. It had hair like dark wool and flawless olive skin. Its lashes lay like moth antennae against its perfect pudgy cheeks. It was beautiful, a beautiful baby-- he looked-- boy! It was a boy! A beautiful baby boy!
He clutched the child to his chest, pressed it to his heart, wrapping his arms protectively around the baby, and continued toward the end zone. Linebackers and defensive backs were converging to stop his advance, and it was not at all alarming to see that they were all zombies, every single one of them. Their flesh was grey and tattered, their uniforms torn to shreds. They had worms twisting from their nasal cavities and sharp broken yellow teeth. They came at him, fingers curled, bone jutting from the flesh of their fingertips like sharp little gray claws. Snarling. Chomping their teeth. Eyes gleaming with madness and violence and hunger.
The end zone was just steps away, and then he leapt across it, holding his baby to his chest…
And he woke up.
I did it! I saved my boy! he thought, sitting upright.
Excited, still half asleep, he brought his child away from his chest, wanting to look at it some more, love it all over again, and realized it was just his wadded up bedding.
At the sight of it, he felt an irrational, but no less keen, sense of loss. He put the crumpled sheet aside, his eyes suddenly hot and stinging. He almost wept, and then the feeling passed, and he laughed at himself, shaking his head.
Just a dream, dill-hole, he thought.
His baby, boy or girl, was still inside its mother, a mass of cells, slowly materializing into a living human being.
Actually, babies, he reminded himself.
Since he’d been imprisoned in the breeding facility, he had impregnated about a dozen women. Roo was only the first—beginner’s luck, some of the other women had teased. Yet it was Roo’s child he had dreamt of, maybe because it was his first. He had never gotten a girl pregnant before Roo, though he had slept around quite a bit before he started dating Naomi and was only ever moderately careful about birth control, as young men usually were. Regardless, Roo’s unborn child was the only one he felt a real connection to, but that just made it worse, knowing what was going to happen to the baby when it was born.
Unless I can get us out of here, Brent thought.
Ah, yes… The Plan.
Sleep had not made it any less nebulous.
He had given The Plan over to his subconscious mind, hoping his brain would work on it while he slept. He had found, over the years, that this sometimes worked-- when he was studying for an exam, or needed to make an important decision-- but The Plan had not grown any clearer while he was sleeping. Quite the opposite, actually. Escape seemed even more unlikely this morning. What could Harold really do, even if he retained some of his living human feelings? Maybe, if he was still Harold, and they had months to conspire on some kind of escape plan, he might be able to help Brent escape, but a giant herd of deadheads was marching in their direction.
Brent had questioned the kid again last night, and while the boy had admitted that he hadn’t seen any tanks or vehicles with his own eyes, was just going by what Cool Luke had told him, he had insisted it really was the biggest herd he’d ever seen, and he had watched it overrun a similar breeding facility in Missouri. He had watched through a pair of binoculars, he said, while the herd swarmed over the place like a plague of locusts.
It all seemed quite hopeless, but Brent wasn’t ready to give up just yet.
It all depended on Harold.
He spent the rest of the day waiting for Harold’s shift to commence.
Had he thought time was slow in this place before? Waiting for his old friend to report for duty made time slow to a maddening crawl. It took months for the sun to trek its way across the sky. It was years before the brilliant orb slid into view through the skylights of the supermarket. He spent the day playing cards, chain-smoking the generic brand cigarettes the zombies had supplied them with, talking through the wall with Muriel, and later Roo, who did not seem to have a firm grasp of the ugly reality of her situation. She mostly just talked about baby names.
When Brent cautioned her, very reluctantly, that the zombies might not let her keep the baby, she said, “I know, but I’m going to name it anyway. I’m going to name them all. That way I’ll know what to call them when I die and go to heaven.”
Her reply had roused nearly every emotion his heart was capable of producing: sadness, horror, love, anger, fear, loss… He couldn’t speak for a few moments after that, and then he could only say, in a halting and half-choked voice, “That’s… nice, Roo. I think that’s a good idea.”
He talked to Muriel about her escape attempts. He wanted to know the details of every attempt she had made. When he mentioned escaping across the roof, jumping down outside the fence behind the store, Muriel put the kibosh on that idea.
“It’s too far down,” she said. “The ground slopes back there so the delivery trucks could back in and unload their pallets. It’s a two-story drop onto concrete. You’d break your legs.”
“How do you know that?”
“I escaped through the stockroom one time.”
“How?” Brent asked.
“When Charlie helped me escape,” Muriel answered. “There’s a big set of double doors here on the women’s side of the building, back where the bakery used to be. The doors let onto the stockroom and the loading bay. There are some offices and equipment rooms back there, too. The deadheads keep it chained shut, but Charlie slipped me the key one evening while it was storming and I let myself out. The thunder covered the sounds I made unlocking the padlock. I snuck out the back door and waited in an empty house until he got off duty and then we ran off together. I might have gotten away for good, but one of the other girls noticed the door was unlocked and told a guard. They did a head count and realized I was gone.”
“My god,” Brent said wonderingly. “Why would she tell the guards that? Why didn’t she just try to escape?”
“Scared, maybe. I don’t know. You ever hear of Stockholm Syndrome, Brent?”
“I… think so. That’s where hostages fall in love with their captors, right?”
“Yes. Your aggressor becomes less threatening if you identify with him. I don’t think it happens consciously. It’s a kind of coping mechanism, so you can continue to function in a traumatic situation. It may even be a survival mechanism. If your captor comes to empathize with you in return, he’s more likely to release you unharmed.”
“That’s fucked up.”
He couldn’t see her shrug, but he heard it in her voice. “Well, it is what it is. Half the women over here see themselves as partners in this enterprise. They don’t view themselves as victims. They see what they’re doing as a necessity. They believe it’s the only way we’re all going to survive. Us and the zombies.”
“My God,” Brent gasped.
“You’re in danger of doing it yourself,” Muriel said.
That shocked him.
“What? What do you mean?”
“With your friend Harold,” Muriel said.
He had told her what he was hoping, that Harold was like her would-be zombie savior Charlie, still somewhat human.
“You’re pinning all your hopes of escape on this Harold fellow,” Muriel explained. “You’re hoping he’s retained his living personality so much you may see things that aren’t really there.”
“You mean like fool myself into believing he’s the same old Harold, even if he’s not?” Brent asked.
“Essentially.” Muriel paused for a beat to let Brent think about that, then said, “Just be careful, hon. Don’t let what you hope to see cloud what you do see. Try to be impartial.”
“All right,” Bre
nt said, and he really meant it. He nodded, stroking his beard thoughtfully. “Thanks. I’ll be mindful of that.”
And then Muriel put her lips to the crack in the wall and whispered, “But if he is still good, the key to the padlock is in Hinkle’s office. That’s where Charlie got it when he helped me escape. It’s hanging in a key box under a label that reads S.R. At least it was. They may have heightened security after my last breakout.”
He nodded, thinking how strange it was to speak—to even think—of the zombies by name. They were not human enough to have names. They were monsters. At least, that’s how he’d always thought of them before. They had always been “its” to him before, “things”, never “hims” or “hers”, never Tom, Dick or Harry. But that was before he’d learned that Harold had come back. Harold would never be an “it” to him, even if he had gone bad.
“Thanks,” Brent said again, and Muriel’s lips vanished from the hole in the wall. Her cheek and hair slid past the hole, and then she was gone, leaving him to his waiting.
He didn’t have to wait much longer.
He was sitting at the card table playing a game of rummy with the kid, when he heard the old familiar voice. “Not too bad, I guess,” Harold said, speaking to one of the other guards. “The pain medication helps a little, but I’m getting used to it. I’m learning to ignore it, as much as I can, anyway.”
The sound of his old friend’s voice-- a little rougher, a little deeper in pitch, but undeniably Harold’s voice-- made Brent jump a little. He had been distracted by the kid’s banter and had not noticed the shift change.
Brent forgot all about the cards in his hand, the kid’s near incomprehensible chatter, and concentrated on what the guards were saying.
“Yeah, the pain is the worst,” the other guard was saying. It was the one named Brooks, if he remembered correctly. Sandy had said that a zombie named Brooks would be training Harold tonight. Cyclops had gone home for the day (presumably to soak his rotten feet again) and Sandy was off.
“Does it ever get any better?” Harold asked.
“No. The drugs help, but the pain never goes away. Neither does the hunger. But look on the bright side, Red. You’re immortal now, so long as you eat. You’ll never have to worry about getting old or getting sick, and the only thing that can kill you is a traumatic injury to the brain. So it’s not all bad.”
“I suppose,” Harold said.
“What’s yer getya?” the kid asked, scowling at Brent over his cards. “It’s yer turn, dude.”
“Huh? Oh, sorry,” Brent said, and discarded a jack.
Max snatched up the jack with an exultant smile. He laid it down with a pair from his hand and discarded a 4 with a chortle. “Gonna lose anuddern, dude,” he crowed.
Brent was only mildly interested in the game before, was just playing to pass the time, but now it was an annoyance. He lost on purpose, then strolled over to the stack of cigarette cartons on the back counter. He still had half a pack sitting on the card table, but he wanted a look at his friend.
Harold was standing in front of their cell door, dressed in the standard olive uniform all the guards wore. He was turned three-quarters away, hand resting lightly on the butt of a nightclub that was belted to his hip. Brent didn’t know what he’d expected Harold to look like. Gaping sores, dead and rotting gray flesh, he supposed. But Harold looked just like he always had: frizzy red hair and beard, a bit of a paunch, muscular shoulders and arms and a flat middle aged man’s butt.
Brent leaned against the counter opening a fresh carton of cigarettes, taking his time doing it and looking at Harold from the corner of his eyes.
The other guard was saying something to Harold in a low voice, tilted toward him conspiratorially. The one named Brooks was built much like Harold-- short, compact, paunchy-- but had the gray crenelated flesh of the veteran undead. It leered as it muttered to Harold under its breath, and Harold nodded and replied with a polite chuckle.
Brent’s hands were shaking. He fumbled a pack from the carton and dropped it. Bent down to pick it up.
Harold turned then and looked into the cell at him.
He winked his left eye.
Brent was staring. He could feel himself staring. He knew he shouldn’t, but he couldn’t help himself.
The other one, the one named Brooks, leaned around Harold and peered into the men’s quarters with a quizzical expression. Harold widened his eyes, and Brent managed to shake off his shocked paralysis and walk casually back to the card table, packing the cigarettes against the side of his hand.
“That’s your old buddy, ain’t it?” Brooks asked as Brent returned to the card table.
“He was,” he heard Harold reply archly. “He’s just meat now. I’d eat his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti.”
“What kind of beans?” Brooks laughed in surprise. “I never heard such a thing! You’re hilarious, Red!”
He doesn’t really mean that, Brent thought, sitting down. He’s just trying to cover for me. I was gawking at him like a fool.
“Yeah, that’s me in a nutshell,” Harold said. “Regular Jay Leno over here.”
Brooks laughed some more, a truly hideous sound, like fingernails scraping rapidly up and down a chalkboard.
The kid was playing cards with Ian now. Neither of them noticed the way Brent’s hands trembled as he slid a cigarette from the new pack and lit it.
“Well, you ask me, you did right by him,” Brooks said, after he had sobered. “Your buddy would be dead if it weren’t for you. Look at him now. He’s got food and shelter and free pussy every night. That’s more than we get. You don’t owe him nothing. Don’t even feel bad about him being locked up in here.”
“Oh, I don’t,” Harold said, and then, eerily echoing Muriel from several hours before: “It is what it is.”
Brent eavesdropped on Harold and Brooks for the rest of the evening. They did not speak a lot after their initial conversation, and most of it was just shoptalk: schedules and duties and things of that nature. But every now and then, Harold would drop a tidbit of information that seemed meant more for Brent than for the zombie who was training Harold for his new position. He would raise his voice a little when he said it, or step closer to the door so that his words were more easily discernible. For instance, Brent learned that it had taken Harold months to attain a guard position at the breeding facility. Cooley was worried that Brent’s presence in the camp would strain Harold’s loyalties.
“I told him there wasn’t going to be a conflict of interest ‘cause I’m not conflicted,” Harold said. “I’m a resurrect. He’s meat. I’ve got to look after my own best interests. Besides, I used to work in security in the Before Times. I was in law enforcement for almost twenty years before the Phage.”
Later, Harold related to Brooks the circumstances of his return from the dead.
“I always thought I was immune to the Phage, but I guess I was a carrier,” Harold said. “I came back just a few minutes after the Reapers killed me. Not quick enough to keep them from gnawing on my arm a little, but I don’t hold any grudges. I’m just glad I came back, and that I came back with my mind intact.”
It was a lot of information to digest, and Brent was distracted later when it came time to attend to his duties.
His partner for the night was a woman named Jasmine Sinclair. She was an attractive young woman, lithe, fair-skinned, with short coppery red hair, but Brent was preoccupied with his plans to escape and had a little trouble rising to the challenge.
Jasmine exploded angrily when he couldn’t get it up for her, which never made it easier, but he didn’t take offense. She, like Roo, was down to her last strike before they punched her clock for infertility. She had every right to be upset.
“Don’t you think I’m pretty?” she demanded. “Don’t you like girls anymore?”
“It’s not that,” Brent started to explain, but she was too frantic to listen any further.
“You’re supposed to be the lucky charm
!” she exclaimed. “That’s what all the women call you. Now what am I going to do?”
“I’m sorry,” Brent apologized, cheeks burning in the dark. He was tugging on his dick determinedly, but his cock was as floppy as a lasagna noodle, and he didn’t believe it was going to firm up anytime soon. “This has never happened to me before!”
“Uh huh,” Jasmine snorted. “I’ve heard that before!”
Luckily, Max had finished with his partner, and being young and full of sap, volunteered to fill in for Brent. “I’ll geddit!” he volunteered. “I’m still rarinago!” And Jasmine abandoned Brent’s mattress with a contemptuous sniff.
Brent accompanied the kid’s first partner out to the card table, his cheeks burning with embarrassment.
“Don’t worry about it,” the woman consoled him. “Happens to the best of us.”
Even as he made his excuses, he felt like a complete and utter failure, but even as he stewed in shame, the wheels in his head were spinning rapidly. The Plan was finally coming together-- his plan to get out of this lunatic asylum! It had become a thing he thought he could see now, no longer some formless mass he could only sense, like an unidentified object in a lightless room. It was still a bit hazy, some of its details still floating in the murk, but it was a real thing, and it seemed to him that it was totally plausible, that it not only might work, it probably would work!
But it all depended on Harold getting him that key.
Harold observed as the women were lined up, checked for insemination, and passed through the door. Brent sat at the table and smoked, wondering if his old friend would look in his direction, and then he did, and he had a sick and somewhat embarrassed expression on his face as the other zombie rooted around in Jasmine’s underpants.
The women were returned to their cell. Harold followed Brooks from the men’s billet and they closed and locked the door. Brent finished his cigarette and rose. His heart wasn’t just pumping fast, it was pumping hard, like a fist squeezing one of those rubber stress balls. He walked to the cell door and peered out at their zombie guards.
Harold looked alarmed. Brooks narrowed his eyes and bared his teeth.
Cattle (The Fearlanders) Page 17