Dog Blood

by David Moody

  Joseph gets up from his seat and crosses over to the window, making sure he stays well out of my limited reach. He stands on tiptoes and looks down.

  “And that leads me to the main part of my sermon this morning.” He grins. “Pay attention, Danny, you need to listen carefully to this! You see, when I stopped trying to fight, life started to get better again. That might sound like bullshit to you, but it’s true. I was already resigned to the fact that things were never going to be easy again and that nothing I could do would bring Jess and Keisha back, but I realized that revenge wasn’t the answer. You can’t fight fire with fire, you know what I’m saying?”

  He moves away from the window and paces the length of the short room.

  “Then I found the people here, people who’d all reached the same conclusion as me. And I realized that it doesn’t matter what made any of this happen, all that’s important now is putting a stop to it before it’s too late. So that’s what we’re doing. We’re trying to end the cycle. I think of us like a firebreak, you know what I mean? When they’re trying to stop a forest fire spreading, they sometimes burn a strip of land farther ahead. Then, when the fire finally reaches it, there’s nothing left to burn and it dies out. We’re like that. We’ve all done our share of fighting. Our battles have been fought. So when people like you reach us with your hate, there’s nothing left to burn. We’re putting the fire out. Stopping things from getting any worse.”

  He sits down again and stares straight at me. What’s he thinking? Does he actually believe any of the crap he’s just been spouting? I look back into his dark brown eyes, and all I can think is that I want him dead like I’ve wanted all the rest of them dead. But there is a slight difference here. All the others I’ve killed looked back at me with hate in their eyes, but not Mallon. There is something different about him. Is there any truth in any of what he’s just said, or is it total bullshit? Is he just preying on me? Wearing me down and fucking with my mind before he goes in for the kill? He’s probably trying to catch me off guard. As soon as I lower my defenses, he’ll attack.

  He starts speaking again.

  “Doesn’t matter who you are or what side you’re on, everybody is conditioned to react to the hate in the same way. It’s all about self-preservation at the expense of everyone and everything else. Everybody fights. Everybody wants to survive. That’s why everything fell apart so quickly—at the first sign of trouble we all turned on each other to protect ourselves. And despite all the noise and bullshit that was thrown around at the start, do you know which side was worst of all?”

  Instinctively I shake my head, still held down by the wide strap.

  “We were,” he says, answering his own question. “And we still are. Did you see anything of the massacres we carried out? Gas chambers, for crying out loud! We spend years educating generation after generation about the Holocaust and how we can’t ever let it happen again. Then, when it suits us and we’re the ones facing the threat, we forget everything we’ve always believed in and resort to genocide. Thousands upon thousands of men, women and children slaughtered … I tell you, Danny, it makes me feel ashamed to be human.”

  Christ, could there actually be some substance to what this guy’s saying? Don’t be stupid, I tell myself, he’s Unchanged. In the sudden silence I try to concentrate on the dripping water in the corner again, doing all I can not to let myself get suckered in by Mallon and his mind games.

  “Question for you,” he suddenly announces. “What’s going to happen if we just let things run their course?”

  He waits expectantly for an answer, knowing full well I won’t give him one. More to the point, I can’t. The future is something I’ve only dared to think about in my quietest, darkest moments. Until recently the virtually constant adrenaline rush of fight after fight after fight has been enough of a distraction. Surviving today has been more important than thinking about tomorrow.

  “What happens if we don’t break the cycle? Where’s this all going to end? If I trusted you enough to take off your chains and let you walk outside, all you’d see would be rubble and ruin. We’re not safe here—no one is anymore—but we’re in a better position than most. The world’s falling apart, but the people here are getting stronger. We’ve been sifting through the debris looking for people like you, Danny, to rehabilitate. We’re going to form that firebreak and stop the pain and hate from spreading.”

  He gets up quickly, as if he’s just remembered he’s supposed to be somewhere else. He moves closer to the bed as he pushes the chair back, and his sudden proximity makes me react. I quickly reach out for him with my left hand, but the chain snaps my wrist back when it reaches full stretch. Mallon doesn’t flinch, but I can see him watching me over his shoulder. He did that on purpose to see if I’d bite. I watch him intently as he moves toward the door and try to maintain my aggression. I’ve been forgetting myself.

  “That’s enough for now. I might bring you some more food and water in a while. Until then, just try to relax. Build your strength up. You’ll need it later.”

  What the hell did he mean by that? He quickly crosses the room again and replaces the board over the window. The impenetrable blackness returns. Can’t stand it like this. Don’t leave me in the dark again, please. He stands in the doorway, looking at me, waiting for a reaction. He starts to close the door.

  “Wait—” I say, surprising myself with the sound of my own voice, but it’s too late. The door’s shut and Mallon’s gone and all I can hear is the dripping in the corner.

  23

  IT FEELS LIKE AN eternity has passed before he comes back again. He enters the room hurriedly and doesn’t look at me or speak. Unusually, he leaves the door open. I can see two other Unchanged men waiting outside, and my pulse starts to quicken. Is this my execution party? But that goes against everything he said earlier. I don’t know what to think. I’ve lost track of what’s bullshit and what’s fact.

  Mallon removes the strap across my forehead, then lies on the floor and does something to the chains holding my arms and legs down. I try to lift my head and look, but I can’t see anything. He’s out of sight under the bed for a couple of minutes doing Christ knows what; then he scrambles back up and brushes himself down. He stands on the other side of the room and looks at me.

  “There you go, you can—”

  Before he’s even finished his sentence I’ve realized the shackles have been detached from the bed frame. I swing myself around in a sudden single, painful movement and use my weight to throw myself forward and stand up. My legs and arms are cold, numb, heavy, and unresponsive, but I know this is my chance to kill him. I raise my aching arms and stretch a length of chain between them, ready to wrap it around the fucker’s filthy neck and squeeze the life out of him. I lunge, but he sidesteps easily, then sticks out a foot and trips me. I fall quickly, too fast to put my hands out and stop myself. My left shoulder clips the edge of the chair, and then my head smacks against the wall. I roll over onto my back in agony, head spinning and vision blurred. Mallon stands over me. He looks down, shakes his head, and tuts.

  “Do you think I’m stupid?”

  He moves the chair out of the way and sighs with disappointment.

  “Honestly, Danny, weren’t you listening to anything I said earlier? Haven’t you worked it out yet? The more you struggle and fight, the less you’re going to achieve.”

  In the confusion of my pathetic, fumbled attempt to attack, I managed to kick the door shut. It opens again, and Mallon gestures for the two men outside to come in. One of them, a huge, evil-looking bastard, grabs the chains hanging from my wrists and hauls me up onto my unsteady feet with worrying ease. If he’d been like us, I think to myself, he’d have been a Brute. He grips my arms tight, and it feels like I’m being squeezed in a vise. There’s nothing I can do about it. The other man walks toward me and puts something over my head. It’s a pillowcase, I think, thin enough for me to be able to breathe but thick enough to block out the light and stop me from seein
g. The chains around my ankles are padlocked together. The floor is cold and wet under my bare feet.

  “Stay calm and keep your temper in check and you’ll be okay,” Mallon says. “Fight back and you’ll regret it.”

  Is that a threat or just a warning to play by his rules? Whatever, the slight glimmer of hope I’d been feeling since Mallon’s earlier visit has gone now and has been replaced by fear. What are they going to do to me? I’m completely at the mercy of these foul bastards, and there’s nothing I can do about it. I feel like a failure, ashamed that I’ve been beaten by the Unchanged. Even if I did manage to fight them off, I’m still bound and chained. I’d never get away.

  “Move,” the huge man standing behind me grunts in my ear, his voice deep, loud, and emotionless. He shoves me square in the middle of my back, and I fly forward, barely managing to stay upright and not trip over the chains between my feet. I almost fall, but one of the men—it might even be Mallon—catches me and pulls me back up.

  Head bowed, all I can see is my dirty, shackled feet. My legs feel leaden with pain and weak with nerves as I realize this could be my final walk. All that crap about not fighting fire with fire and trying to break the cycle … it was all lies—a cheap, pathetic ruse to keep me occupied and catch me off guard. And the worst thing of all is how easily I fell for it. I should have seen through the bullshit. They were just trying to keep me pacified to make it easier for them to kill me when they’re ready. What am I walking toward? A firing squad? A stoning? The room where I’ll be given my lethal injection? I try to stop—try to turn around and fight my way out of this—but the fuckers surrounding me are having none of it. They restrain me, but they don’t strike back, not even allowing me the satisfaction of going down fighting. When I stop struggling again, they relax their grip and let me walk on alone. The journey to my final destination feels endless. I think about Ellis, and then about Lizzie, Josh, and Edward, and the pain and frustration is too much to stand. I start crying like a fucking baby, sobbing and shaking and pathetic.

  We turn right, and I trip through another doorway, stubbing my toe on a low step. This must be it. I’m led across a wide, open space by one of the men before being stood still—exposed, prone, and vulnerable. I feel him tugging on my chains, removing the shackles from my feet; then I hear the clink of metal on metal as another chain is wrapped tight around my waist, then attached to something behind me. I wait and listen as he walks away again, heading back in the direction from which we just came. I’m left here alone, swaying slightly, wrists still bound, my heavy legs still stiff and aching after endless hours of inactivity. I lean forward until the slack is taken up and the chains become tight enough to support my weight. I look down at my bare feet and the grubby, years-old carpet, crying pathetic tears of anger and desperation that bounce and splash off the floor. What will I see when they uncover my head? Will they even bother? Maybe they’ll just shoot me blind. I picture the two men standing at the other end of the room on either side of Mallon, both of them holding guns aimed in my direction. They could fire at any second. These might be my last few seconds of life. My legs feel like they’re about to give way, but I’m determined to stand proud and defiant and face this like a man. But this wasn’t how it was supposed to end …

  The pillowcase is whipped off my head and dropped on the floor. I close my eyes for a split second, then open them wide again and look up. Mallon is backing away from me. He’s the only other person here. I’m standing alone in a large, open room, chained to the back wall by an industrial-strength bracket. The fear starts to lessen, and uneasy, tentative relief takes its place, but I know it’s not over. Just because he hasn’t killed me yet doesn’t mean he’s not still going to. The room is bright and cold. There are windows along one wall, but they’re too far away and too high to see through. I can see the very tops of distant trees and the squally, rain-filled sky, nothing else.

  Mallon watches me intently, then turns and leaves. The temporary relief immediately disappears with him. What happens next? Is this another gas chamber? There’s no pipework or exhaust fans that I can see, but there are red and brown splashes and stains on the grubby wall behind me—blood, shit, and Christ knows what else. There are two filthy buckets over to my right, one of them full of water. Waterboarding? Torture? But I don’t have any secrets or restricted information, so what can they hope to get from me? Or is it worse than that? Is Mallon about to start playing masochistic games with me? Rape me, even? Whatever he decides, there’s nothing I can do about it. But when it happens I’ll fight the fucker until either he’s dead or I am.

  He’s back, this time carrying more food and a pile of clothes. My last supper?

  “Move back,” he says, watching me carefully. “Right up against the wall.”

  I do as he says, shuffling backward but not risking turning around. Mallon edges forward to the spot where I was standing, watching me constantly. He puts down the clothes and the food, then moves back again. He sits down a safe distance away.

  “Help yourself.”

  Stunned, I can’t help speaking. “What?”

  “I said help yourself. The food tastes like shit today, but it’s warm and it’s better than nothing. And the clothes are from a dead man, I’m afraid. But hey, they don’t stink of piss like yours do!”

  I don’t move. He gestures for me to come closer, and I slowly start to edge forward, moving like a bear circling a bloody lump of fresh meat in the middle of a trap. Is the food I’m shoveling into my mouth poisoned? It wasn’t before. I sit down cross-legged and start eating, too hungry to care. I can’t tell what it is I’m eating, and he’s right, it does taste like shit, but that doesn’t matter—it’s food. It’s finished too soon, and I wash it down with another bottle of stale, lukewarm water.

  “Better?” Mallon asks, stretching out on the floor and appearing surprisingly relaxed. “I’ll get you some more later. There’s soap and water for you to wash with in one of those buckets over there. Scrub yourself down, Danny. Get rid of the stink and try to make yourself feel human again.”

  I don’t argue. I get up and move over to the buckets. They’re just inside the reach of the chains. I take off my soiled shorts and rip off my shirt (the shackles on my wrists preventing me taking it off any other way), then start to wash. There’s an inch of disinfectant at the bottom of the other bucket, and its purpose is obvious. I drag it closer to the wall, turn my back on Mallon, and squat and shit. I wipe myself clean on the torn clothes I’ve just discarded.

  I wash myself as best I can, then dry off with a blanket that Mallon throws over to me. I pull on a pair of trousers that just about fit, then wrap the blanket around my shoulders to keep warm. I walk toward Mallon until the chains are at full stretch. Bastard just sits there and looks up at me. He knows I can’t reach him.

  But then—to my complete amazement and disbelief—he throws a bunch of keys and some other stuff out of reach and stands up. He waits, psyching himself up; then he walks closer, so close we’re almost touching.

  “All we need—” he starts to say, but I shut the fucker up. I grab his collar, spin him around, and slam him down on the floor. He tries to fight me off, but I brush him aside. He’s had this coming for too long. I drag him nearer to the back wall, his stumpy, pudgy, pathetic limbs flailing, then take up the slack from the chain around my right wrist and wrap it around his neck. He splutters, showering me with foul Unchanged spittle, and his already bulging eyes grow wider still. I pull tighter, feeling his life slipping away, focusing on the image of him lying dead at my feet.

  “Kill me,” he says, his breath a hissing, choked whisper, “and you’ve lost everything.”

  I pull harder, feeling the chain digging into his neck, constricting his windpipe and cutting off his air supply.

  Then I stop. What did he say? Is he right… ?

  He flops over onto his front, gasping for breath, and starts to crawl away. He’s barely gone a yard when I snap myself out of this stupid malaise. I reach o
ut, grab his leg, and drag him back, feeling myself getting stronger by the second. I roll him over and form my hand into a chain-wrapped fist. I’m ready to smash it into his face when he speaks again.

  “Break the cycle.”

  I punch him, just catching his jaw as he turns his head away. I straddle his out-of-shape body, a knee on either side to stop him moving, ready to end his miserable life. My left leg is wet. He’s pissed himself with fear.

  “Now who stinks of piss?”

  I lift my fist again, and he raises his arms to cover his face.

  “Please, Danny. Show some control. Kill me now and they’ll leave you chained up here to rot.”

  I pull my fist back even farther. If I hit him this time I know I’ll finish him.

  “Think about your family. Think about what you could do if you got out of here.”

  Bullshit.

  Is it?

  He’s right about one thing—I’m still chained to the wall and I can’t escape this room. And I know he only mentioned my family for effect, but how can I do anything to help Ellis if I’m stuck here and left to starve? I can see the keys on the floor, well out of reach.

  Against my better judgment—against everything I feel and believe—I stand up and step back. Mallon scrambles to safety, holding his mouth and spitting blood onto the floor. Is the fucker going to leave me here now? He staggers away, then stops. Still rubbing his jaw, he turns around and grins, blood covering his yellow-white teeth.

  “You did it! I knew you could!”

  “What?”

  “You did it, Danny. More to the point, you didn’t do it.”

  I don’t understand. He sits down, exhausted, breathing heavily. I walk as far as the chains will let me.

  “I gave you a chance to kill me, and you didn’t take it. You almost did, but you stopped yourself. You held the Hate.”