The Meek (Unbound Trilogy Book 1)

by J. D. Palmer

  I have a purpose and it is terrifying.

  A new strength diffuses through my body. The fears and doubts from before have melted away. Why they were there in the first place is an enigma to me. I have been tested, tried, pushed to the edge of my abilities. I have survived captivity. Torture. I know what I am capable of and I know what I am not. These men no longer hold any power over me.

  Chapter 19

  Wing makes trips out to see me at the latrines. Spending an overlong time taking a piss in order to sneak me extra food and water. Sometimes he swings by the condo when he thinks no one is looking. I try to tell him not to get himself in trouble. He laughs.

  “It’s the Mexican life.”

  Wing tells me about the fights. He tells me that the pit has had a fight, sometimes more than one, every night for the past three days. He tells me all about them, reenacting every blow while detailing the altercation that lead to the gladiatorial match. Some of the fights are the essence of petty; a stolen magazine or a slight to one’s mother. An accusation of laziness or a drunken argument. Sometimes it has more to do with status than any real beef, someone simply wanting to climb the chain and have a more desirable job. Sometimes it’s simply to prove oneself since there is nothing better to do.

  I wasn’t here beforehand, but judging by the horrified excitement in Wing’s words, things have escalated since Beryl arrived. Since my fight with Theo. As if she now waits, with bated breath, for stories of the fights and the emergence of the most agreeable suitor. As if she has secluded herself so that someone might prove themselves worthy of her attention.

  I sleep on Beryl’s couch. We chat, or I chat and occasionally she whispers a word or two. But I don’t last too long before passing out.

  I sleep the deep sleep of the physically exhausted. But I still dream.

  Even with a newfound calmness, a new perspective, my subconscious still manages to find my fears. My regrets. My monsters.

  Tonight I walk the open road. Beryl is with me, walking behind me and to the left. I keep slowing to allow her to catch up and walk alongside me but she always slows her gait to keep her distance. There are forms in the road ahead. I know that they are people but I’m slow, too slow in my dreamscape to do anything. I lift my arm and point, as if this will do anything, my hand heavy, moving as if through water. And one of the bodies sits up, slowly staggers to its feet, one bloody hand clutching its abdomen. It’s Stuart, his lips and teeth stained with blood even as he leers at us from twenty feet away. I turn to Beryl and see her bringing a gun up to her head. I lunge towards her, fighting the sluggishness in my arms, but something is holding me back. Something is holding me down onto the pavement. Manacles around my wrists and a weight on my chest driving me into the road—

  I awake to a banging on the door. I sit up, still in the grips of the dream, arms up and searching to shelter myself from the attack.

  Beryl’s door opens and her silhouette appears at the top.

  Another knock, more urgent.

  Beryl comes down the stairs, a knife in her hand. I didn’t know she had a knife.

  I open the door, just a crack.

  “Har, it’s me.”

  John’s form takes shape as my eyes adjust. I open the door but he doesn’t come in.

  “Har, you have to help. Please. They’re making Steven fight. They are, they said, they…”

  It’s the first time I’ve seen words fail John.

  “Why is he fighting? Who?”

  “Chris. He’s fighting Chris, I don’t know why. We have to go, it will be starting soon.”

  And what exactly do you want me to do?

  I look at Beryl. She sits on the steps, watching, knife in her hand. She watches me, and she doesn’t make any move to stop me, even if I decide to go to another beating.

  “John. What do you want me to do?”

  “I… I don’t know. I didn’t know what else to do.”

  It takes me a second to realize that he’s referring to me. Coming to get me was the only thing he could think of to do. I would be flattered if it wasn’t plain that I was a last resort. A stick of dynamite to put out a fire.

  I look him in the eyes. Try to see if he fully grasps what he’s asking me. What he thinks will happen if I show up there and try to put a stop to another fight.

  He does.

  And I do, too.

  I know it’s futile. But I owe these men. They are family, if I’m being honest. And if that means taking another beating…

  So be it.

  I give Beryl a grimace and a wave and walk out with John before she can say anything.

  Not that she would.

  I’m barefoot. I feel more comfortable this way. As if shoes and even my clothes are hindrances, obstacles that prevent me from knowing the ground, the wind, the change in the air.

  “What are they fighting about?”

  John continues to hustle forward and ignores me for a second. Then, “I don’t know.”

  “Chris say something about Beryl?”

  John heaves a sigh and clears his throat and flaps his hands.

  “I don’t know, Har. I don’t fucking know. Theo said they were fighting about something and needed to go to the pit. That’s all I know.”

  I want to tell him how unfair this is. I want to tell him how much of a hypocrite it makes him. To ask for me to do this goes against everything he has chastised me for.

  But I know he knows it. I know that he is casting his morals aside out of love for his brother. Steven is the most important thing in his life. I get it. We don’t want to be monsters. But sometimes, we are willing to be monstrous.

  And we are saved.

  Steven meets us in the middle of the sand before we make it to the pit.

  His nose is bloodied. Hair disheveled. Dark marks on his neck and he cradles his right hand.

  He smiles.

  “I was just coming to see you guys.”

  John loses it. All of his fear and frustration are vented out of him to make room for his relief.

  “What were you doing? Why fight? Why fight here? Do you understand what you are doing? That you are undermining what we are trying to build…”

  Steven weathers it with a look that belies just how often he has seen this display before.

  “You have to know, brother…” John loses steam. A silence.

  “I just want you to be safe. But don’t…” A glance at me. “I’ll talk to Don. Make sure there aren’t any problems.”

  He strides away, Steven too slow to stop him or unwilling. We stand there in the sand, stars visible through clouds for the first time in awhile.

  “You okay?” Steven asks it of me. As if I’m the one hurt.

  “I’m fine. You?”

  He snorts. “I actually feel pretty good.”

  “What was Chris’s problem?” I can’t help myself. I want to know if he threatened Steven. Or Beryl. What that fucker said. What he did.

  Steven starts walking back to our house, flexing his swollen wrist of his right hand. His silence is one I can’t figure out. Fury? Hurt? Murder?

  “Theo made us. We were arguing… But Theo made us fight.”

  Theo.

  The name is all anger and fury and hate to me.

  And fear.

  “Arguing about what?”

  He shrugs, holds up his wrist.

  “It’s over with now.”

  We walk a bit longer, a silence that is easy between him and I.

  “I’m sorry.”

  I say it because it’s true. I haven’t been nice to these guys. I haven’t made it easy for them, at least. When I think on it, I haven’t tried to see it from their side once. Everyone is a friend or an enemy and is treated as such. What about two brothers just trying to survive? Did I put him in this position?

  He stops, and for a second I think he’s mad. Mad that I would try to cover all the strife with two little words. But then he hugs me. He hugs me and then we walk back in silence.

  We we
re so full of words. Before this. So full of bullshit. Or more full, I don’t know. Everything labeled and examined or put on social media. And now.

  Now nothing needs to be said.

  The next couple days creep by. Scabs open and stick to sheets and pillowcases. Bones throb and ache. Bruises transform from purple to black to yellow. Each day I dig out in the hot sun, sweating through heavy layers of clothing in place of suffering a sunburn. I don’t wish to add to my list of maladies.

  At night I make two plates of food and go eat with Beryl. Those are moments of respite that go by too quickly. I sleep and I dig and I see Beryl for half an hour. That is my day. Sand and dust and the seldom brush of a misty kiss off of the stoic mountains.

  And always the sun.

  This morning Theo drove a truck up to where I was working. Men filled the cab and lined the back, all wearing grins. Without a word they got out and trotted up to my trench. Ten sets of pants dropped as they pissed and shit in the shallow line in the earth. When they were done Theo walked up and stood next to me. “Ain’t deep enough. Fill it in and start a new one.”

  I do his bidding. For now. Recklessness can come later. For now I am content to skulk in the shadows. Lick my wounds until I regain my strength.

  I am patient.

  I remember being a freshman in high school and wandering into the locker room after school. The football team was there. Huge men, athletic and tall, bearded and hairy. They showered and talked about women and shoved each other around and there was a wrestling match as two men, overloaded with hormones and testosterone, fought to prove their dominance. I remember being in awe of these giants. I was but a kid then. Now I’m surrounded by these same children, children who think they are men and understand this world.

  A storm creeps in, a slow dark mass that announces its arrival the day prior before finally drenching Camelot with a heavy downpour. Work grinds to a halt. At least for the rest of them. I still dig dutifully. Part of me knows that I don’t have to continue, that I have an excuse. But rain reminds me of home. Reminds me of Jessica. Reminds me that I’m fucking alive.

  I load a plate of food for Beryl and sit in the corner. As soon as tasks are assigned for the next day I head off to Jimmy’s condo and spend an hour with her. The doctor has run every test he can think of; hair samples, blood, urine. He has written down the color of her eyes and that she is right-handed. He compiles data and makes vials of different colored liquids.

  Jimmy is getting desperate, he hovers over the doctor’s shoulder and demands more tests. I can tell he isn’t sleeping well. Dark bags have taken up residence beneath red-rimmed eyes. He has stopped shaving. He’ll spend hours locked in his office with Evelyn before emerging to march quickly around the camp, pausing to examine things or help repair something miniscule.

  He tells me that Beryl is free to walk around as long as we don’t try to leave. I think he would like her to show herself. Perhaps communicate with the men in her limited fashion. Something to quieten them. They are becoming angry with her. What used to be drunk protestations of love outside her window have turned vulgar and now, in turn, to something darker and more primal.

  We stay in her room. Neither of us wants to deal with the men outside. Fuck ‘em.

  She notices the change in my demeanor. A change even from before I was knocked down into the sand. Not confidence, per say, just less fear. And she feeds off of it, growing more confident with small sentences.

  We plot to leave soon, regardless of what happens with the little girl. The moment she leaves that room, alive or dead, is the moment in which we will have to tell a community of savages that we are taking the last woman alive away from them.

  The clubhouse is boisterous tonight. Men laughing and telling jokes. Others are arm wrestling and a group of men laugh uproariously as one pushes another against a table and humps him vigorously. A tremor passes through the room, a shaking that doesn’t fit in with the normal turn of the world. A man dives beneath a table, barely making it beneath before the shaking stops. He is berated for being a pussy and a fight breaks out. The men form a ring around them, ale spilled over the table and onto men too drunk to care. They scream at the combatants, advice or insults or just screams primal. The men fight until one bloodies the other and Don yells at them to stop and then the two are dragged apart.

  The door opens and a grinning pair of idiots wheel in a dead cow. At least ten bullet holes cover its hide spreading from haunches to belly to neck. They present it as if it were a trophy animal hunted in the Serengeti.

  Everyone loves it.

  The men are getting drunk and out of control. Fast. Jimmy takes his food and leaves the room, a look of disgust on his face. Don sees this and rushes to get the business out of the way. He raises a hand for silence as he stands at the front of the table. He holds up a notebook and makes a show of perusing it. “I need a group to go out with Jimmy to the substation, we are having issues with… Well damned if I understand anything about it.” The men laugh. “But I guess Jimmy needs some hands. Alderman? Ben?” The two men nod and Don goes back to the list. “Latrines?” Laughter as he pretends to scan the room for volunteers. “Alright, Harlan, it’s all you.”

  I nod and pick up the plates of food and head for the door before he is done speaking. I’m not out to provoke a conflict. At least that’s what I tell myself. But I am healed, physically, for the most part. Fed. And the beast inside has grown weary of waiting for things to come to a head.

  “Hey fucker. Hey! How’s Beryl?”

  I turn around. Theo lounges in the corner. Alderman stands behind him shaving his short hair into a mohawk. Theo is casual, arms lightly clasped over his stomach, but violence emanates off of him. How did he know her name? I look at John and he turns guilty eyes to the table.

  “She’s fine.” I turn to go again.

  “Why don’t you bring her down? Introduce us?” The men look from him to me, suddenly excited.

  “Not tonight.”

  Theo slams his huge hand down on the table, the man with the razor backing away. “I’m getting real tired of you disrespecting us.” A chorus of agreement. Don takes a step back. He isn’t going to put an end to this.

  I look Theo in the eye, give a shrug. “Don’t worry, I’ll be gone soon enough.”

  “Maybe you should leave now.” Theo keeps tilting his head from side to side and shrugging his shoulders as if I wasn’t aware of just how keen he was to fight.

  “Soon enough,” I say again. I know I should be careful here. But part of me, the animal part, is rising to the challenge, anxious to let itself be known again. I’ve been expecting this even though I know it’s foolhardy. Just because I don’t carry the shame from the fight before doesn’t mean I have abandoned my pride.

  “What’s keeping you?” Theo spreads his arms wide, looking around the room as men nod. “We’d all like to know.”

  Fuck. “My friend is helping out Jimmy and his situation. After that, we are leaving.”

  Theo looks around, eyebrows raised dramatically. “Do you speak for her?”

  “I do.”

  Theo holds his heart as he feigns being hurt by my words. “She got something against us? Food? Lights? A group of fucking warriors willing to protect her?” The men pound on the table at these words. “Perhaps if she got to know us she would want to stay. I, for one, can tell you that I’d treat her real nice.”

  His last words drip with sexuality. Other men stand up. Add their own voices. “Not unless she sees me, Theo. I’d treat that bitch like a queen.”

  I try to leave as the men begin to bicker back and forth. A beer bottle hits the wall by the door and shatters, covering me with foamy ale and bits of glass and causes me to drop the plate for Beryl. “We ain’t done with you, pussy.”

  I turn around. It’s silent now. Theo stands with arms crossed, a grin across his face. The rest of the room stands up, a half circle forming as if in answer to some order long ago given. John rushes into the middle. “Hold on guys
, this is not necessary—”

  Theo uses one meaty arm to casually toss John out of the ring. I hear him yelling, struggling to get back into the center. The men push him away. I think someone hits him. They want blood tonight.

  “We here are survivors. We are a community. But you are a parasite. You don’t contribute. You don’t talk. And you don’t belong here. So here’s the deal. Pack your shit and leave. Right now. Alone. Or I can give you another taste from my dick you white bitch.”

  Logic and the beast war within me. Beryl and I had taken steps to getting out of here. We had made plans about where we would go and what we would need in order to move quickly. And we had talked about where we would meet should we be forced to split up. Maybe I should go now. Hover on the outskirts of Camelot and trust that she would find a way out in the next night or two.

  I step forward and the ring swallows me.

  Part of me is thankful. The moment I feared has now come and all choices have been taken away from me. And deep down I wanted this. A fight in the light rather than slinking away in the dark. Lupine eyes scan the crowd and a feral grin creeps across my busted face.

  I take my shirt off. I hear mutters as more of my scars are revealed; deep bites and lines from belts and chains stand out in contrast to the scars around my neck. My side is still a mottled coat of black and yellow bruises. Theo stands tall and confident in the middle, dwarfing me in height and muscle. They think to punish me for my audacity. Or for my selfishness. Or just to punish something to vent their own frustration with a lonely world.

  They don’t understand. We’ve all lost loved ones and seen the ravages of the downfall. We are all new to this bleak landscape. Strangers casting about for something to hold onto. But these are children, Theo merely the biggest bully on the new playground. Bigger than me.

  But I have a new perspective. I have traveled through hell. And I don’t play by the same rules anymore. He wants to fight me to hurt me, to shame me in front of the others.