Surviving the Dead 03: Warrior Within

by James N. Cook

  Chapter 20

  Maggots

  I had to give the Legion credit; they had quite the operation going.

  The crew I worked with consisted of fourteen men: two to dig new sections of tunnel, four to install the support beams and ventilation pipes, and the rest to haul away dirt. Most of the jobs rotated out from day to day, but for the first five days, all I did was carry buckets.

  It was tedious work that first week, to say the least. Bucket after endless bucket. The dirt we dug out of the ground was stored in the warehouse, where another crew, working only under cover of night, would haul it away and dump it in a nearby lake. The pace of dirt coming out of the ground was always faster than the pace at which it could be hauled away, which explained the huge piles accumulating on the warehouse floor. Not that it mattered, really. The warehouse was massive, and the piles only took up a third of the floor space.

  On the rare occasions when it was my turn to carry buckets up the ladder, I noticed that there was a huge stockpile of ventilation pipes, wooden beams, and other materials on the opposite end of the floor. Where the Legion had gotten all of it from I had no clue, but it looked like enough for at least a hundred miles of tunnel.

  The other captives and I worked, ate our one meal a day, drank our inadequate supply of water, and slept on wooden pallets down in the tunnels, all under the watchful eyes of Legion guards. There were only three of them, rotating out every four hours, but they were heavily armed and under orders to execute anyone who so much as thought about starting trouble. As long as we stayed quiet, kept our heads down, and did as we were told, the guards left us alone. I think they found the duty to be only marginally less miserable than those of us doing the actual work.

  In those first few days, I noticed that there was very little talking among the captives. They only spoke to one another in the course of work, and even then only in whispers. And only when absolutely necessary. I tried starting up conversations with a few of them, but they just gave me a horrified look and scuttled away. On one occasion, one of the guards saw me doing it, and rewarded my efforts with a rifle stock to the kidney.

  “Don’t you know the rules, maggot?” He laughed as I dropped my bucket and fell to the ground. “No talking. Period. Let me catch you doing that again, and I’ll beat you to fucking death.”

  Lacking anything else to do, other than backbreaking slave labor, I devoted my time to studying each Legion soldier and assigning them a name. Some of them I learned from overheard conversations, and others I simply made up based on some quirk or physical attribute. I didn’t name them because I cared who they were, or because I felt the need to humanize them. It was simply a means of coming up with an accurate count.

  From what I gathered, there were sixty men stationed here at the warehouse, and another fifty that patrolled between underground bases along the perimeter of Legion territory. This location seemed to be one of the least popular ones among the soldiers, and I always heard them complaining about how long it would be before they rotated out to a place they called Haven. It struck me as a remarkably innocuous name for a den of thieves, rapists, and murderers.

  Sometimes, as I listened in on conversations, I had to resist the urge to grin. The information they were giving me was invaluable. Much of it I had already learned from Grayson Morrow, but I also gleaned new data that would be immensely useful once the offensive against the Legion began in earnest.

  At the end of the fifth night, as I was sitting on my pallet and finishing off a meager bowl of beans and mutton, a familiar voiced boomed out through the darkness calling to the guards.

  “Where is being the maggot I bring?” Kasikov asked. “I am wanting to be speaking to him.”

  One of the guards gestured with his rifle, and the big Russian made his way over.

  “You are being alive. That is good,” he said. “Are you knowing what tomorrow is?”

  I kept my eyes down and shook my head.

  “It is being Sunday.” He squatted down in front of me, hands dangling between his knees. “We are to be having sport on Sundays. There is being prizefight.” He held up his fists and punched the air a few times. “There is being great reward for winner.”

  He leaned in close and placed a hand under my jaw, almost gently. I raised my face to look at him. His gray eyes were only a few inches from mine, and I could see the cruelty that lay behind them. Cold and empty as the winter sky.

  “I am thinking you are to be winning,” he said. “You will to be competing, or I will to be coming back here.”

  He smiled, devoid of mirth. Just a movement of facial muscles, bereft of feeling. I couldn’t help but wonder how many Vasily Kasikovs there were in the world. Empty, hollow creatures with a black pit where their heart should be.

  “If I am coming back here, I am not being so nice next time. Da?” His hand tightened on my jaw, strong as a steel vise, until it became painful. I nodded my understanding, and the pressure stopped.

  “That is being good,” he said quietly, and stood up. “So, how are you liking it here in the mines, eh?”

  I shrugged, and looked back down.

  “It is okay, you are having permission to speak.”

  I looked up. “Honest answer?”

  The Russian nodded.

  “This place sucks my sweaty asshole.”

  It took him a moment to translate that, and when he finally did, he burst into a fit of laughter.

  “That is being funny,” he said, bent over with his hands on his knees, still chuckling. “ ‘Sucks my sweaty asshole.’ I am to be remembering that.”

  He reached down and clapped me on the shoulder. “Be sleeping well tonight, maggot. Tomorrow, you make good fight.”

  With that, he turned and strode back down the corridor out of sight. I watched him go, and felt laughter struggling to burst out of me. I allowed myself a quiet smile as I lay down on my pallet.

  You’re right on that account, Kasikov, I thought. I do love a good fight.

  *****

  The next morning, they awoke us all at the same time, lined us up, and chained us together.

  “All right, maggots. Get moving.”

  The guards kept their guns trained on us as we marched single file through the tunnels. When we reached the ladder to the warehouse, they unchained us from each other, but left our manacles and leg irons in place. When it was my turn, I climbed up and joined the others in a cluster near the hatch. Five armed guards were already in position waiting on us. Kasikov was one of them, and when I walked past him, he gave me a little wink.

  One of the guards said, “Okay, over to the circle. You know the drill.”

  The other prisoners started shuffling to a corner of the warehouse near where the women were kept. I followed, the chains on my legs hobbling my steps. The guards stopped us at a yellow circle, roughly thirty feet across, that looked to have been painted on the floor by hand. The patrols from the nearby satellite bases must have been called in, because nearly a hundred Legion soldiers surrounded the circle. From the way they were loitering on blankets and lawn chairs, it looked as though they were waiting for a party to begin.

  A few feet away, Lucian and his retinue lounged on patio furniture drinking from bottles of whiskey and groping slave girls. I saw the blankness of the girls’ stares, the tear streaks on their faces, and had to fight down the urge to rush Lucian and his gaggle of psychopaths.

  “Sit down, maggots,” a guard said. We all complied.

  Lucian dumped the girl off his lap, took a pull from his bottle, then set it down and walked into the middle of the circle. He smiled, stood up straight, and held out his hands as if he were speaking at a business conference, and not addressing a group of starving, dehydrated slaves.

  “It’s that time again, little maggots. Time for you to show us what you’re made of. Time to shake off the chains that have bound you your whole miserable lives, and learn how to live like men.”

  The troops around us went silent as he spoke. Lucian’s
grin would have been right at home on a shark.

  “Are you tired of working in the mines?” he went on. “Tired of digging in the dirt all day? Tired of being hungry and thirsty and exhausted all the time? Well, here’s your chance to do something about it.”

  He waved a hand at the Legion troops around us, and over at his entourage. “You see, most of these men were once like you. People who wandered into our territory uninvited. People who violated our borders and had to be punished. People who paid for their trespasses by putting in hard labor and contributing to our little society.”

  Stepping closer to the edge of the circle, he smiled down at us. “This is a new kind of nation you’re living in, my friends. A nation where the strong thrive and the weak are subjugated. A nation where a man can exist as he was meant to. Not beholden to the erratic whims of women, or laws that were passed without his consent, or some arbitrary code of morals laid down by a god that doesn’t exist. This new nation is governed by the simple, undeniable laws of nature. There are no suits and ties. No credit card debts, or mortgages, or student loans, or taxes, or any of that shit that used to ruin men’s lives. No nagging wives, no PTA meetings, no homeowners associations, no politicians telling you what to think. No preachers, no cops, no judges, or lawyers, or Jehovah’s-fucking-Witnesses knocking on your door. All that shit is gone. It’s not coming back, and I for one, say good fucking riddance.”

  Every Legion troop in the warehouse applauded loudly at this, whooping and hollering. Lucian put his hands on his hips and grinned.

  “Now, you’ve all been through the crucible. My men have beaten you, and worked you, and broken you down. Right now, you probably hate me for it, and if I’m honest, I don’t blame you. In your place, I’d hate me, too. But mark my words, gentlemen, if you survive this, if you prove yourself, if you’re strong enough to join my Legion, then one day, one bright fucking day, you will thank me. You will thank me with a song in your heart, and tears in your eyes. Because I’m going to show you what it means to truly live. I’ll show you what it means to shake off the fear, and the doubt, and the sentiment that’s been shoved down your throats since the day you were born. I’m going to show you how to be strong. To rise above the false gods, and false morals, and false beliefs that have crippled you since you were old enough to think. I will teach you to be the men you were meant to be. You will learn to strike fear in the hearts of lesser creatures. I will teach you to be warriors of the FREE LEGION!”

  The troops cheered even louder this time, enough to make my ears ring. They clapped, and howled, and stomped their feet. Meanwhile, the slaves sat quiet and still. Most of them kept their heads bowed, staring at the ground in resignation. But a few looked up. A few stared at Lucian with a strange light in their eyes, as though he were a beacon in the darkness. The same look was on the Legion troops’ faces as they cheered for their leader.

  So this is how he does it, I thought. Starve them, beat them, break their spirit. Put them in a miserable, hopeless place. Then offer them a hand up. Offer to let them join the club. Bring the deepest, blackest part of their soul to the surface, and feed that animal exactly what it’s always hungered for.

  Most people who survived the Outbreak stayed alive by either joining a community, or by staying on the move. The people chained up next to me were all probably the latter. They had spent the last two years on the run, constantly in danger, never able to truly relax, or feel safe, or have any peace of mind. Theirs had been a life of hardship and fear. A life of hunger, and exhaustion, and constant, unyielding pressure. A life that held no joy, no comfort, and after all that they had suffered through, their only promise for the future was a lonely, painful death. In light of that, what Lucian was offering didn’t seem all that bad. In fact, it sounded downright exciting. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t tempted.

  But then I thought of Allison, and the way the morning sunlight turned her eyes honey brown. I thought of Gabriel, and the strength I had drawn from him, and how he had helped me transform into something greater than the sum of my parts. I thought of Brian, and Tom, and Sarah, and all the friends I had made in Hollow Rock. I thought about the scars on my side, and the looks on the faces of those two militia troops’ families as we laid them to rest. I thought of Ethan, and Andrea, and Stacy, and the people from that abandoned warehouse in Alexis. I thought of all this, and felt resolve harden in my chest, burning away the last tendrils of doubt.

  Lucian walked back to his chair and sat down. At a gesture, the girl he’d shoved to the ground climbed back into his lap. “Tommy, get us started.”

  The fat man waddled over to where we sat and looked us over. “Any volunteers? Any of you pussies got a pair of balls on you?”

  One of the prisoners a few feet away from me raised his hands. Tommy looked at him and grinned. “All right, we got one. Anybody else feel like bein’ a man today?”

  A few other hands went up, mine among them. Tommy rubbed his palms together. “Looks like we got some fights. All right, maggots. On your feet.”

  Those of us who had volunteered stood up. A quick count told me there were six of us, a nice even number. A guard went around and unlocked our restraints while the others kept weapons trained on us.

  “Lose the shirts and the shoes. You can keep your pants on.”

  The six of us took off our filthy, mud-crusted shirts and tossed them in a pile with our boots. Tommy set up a few chairs on opposing ends of the circle, separated us into two groups, and ordered us to take seats. Another guard came around with a can of bright orange spray paint and painted numbers on our chests. Mine was three.

  Tommy wrote our numbers on a piece of paper, tore it up, crumpled the pieces into little balls, and rolled them around in his hat. He dipped his thick fingers in, drew out one, and then another.

  “One and six. In the circle, let’s go.”

  One was a black guy, broad-shouldered, about my height. Maybe mid-thirties. Strong-looking. Six was shorter, older, and had the loose skin of someone who had undergone rapid, drastic weight loss. In spite of being outsized, his eyes shone with a fierce intensity, ready to fight. He shuffled back and forth on his feet, clenching and unclenching his fists. The two men stood barefoot on the concrete, the paint of their numbers running down their torsos, and stared each other down.

  “There are no rules, ladies.” Tommy stepped out of the circle and took a seat. “Anything goes. Fight’s not over until one of you is unconscious. Go ahead whenever you’re ready.”

  The Legion troops began cheering and chanting. “Fight, fight, fight, fight …”

  I thought, This isn’t an army. It’s fucking junior high.

  I almost laughed.

  The two men circled each other, hands up in loose boxing stances. Neither one looked like he knew what he was doing. One, being the taller and stronger of the two, decided to take the initiative. He darted in and threw a flurry of punches at Six’s head. Six blocked clumsily, and stumbled away. A bad move, backing straight up like that. One pursued him, trying to punch around his arms, and finally settled on slamming two hard uppercuts into his opponent’s stomach. The smaller man’s breath left him in a rush, and he sagged to the ground. One grabbed him by the hair, reared back for a knee strike, and brought his leg forward once, twice, three times. Six slumped backward, his nose shattered, and his front teeth missing. Tommy stepped forward and kicked him in the ribs. He didn’t move.

  “We got a winner!”

  He held up One’s hand and walked him around the circle. The Legion troops’ applause thundered throughout the warehouse. Over the ruckus, I heard the voices of a few men walking through the crowd with notebooks, shouting for people to begin placing bets.

  “Who wants to pick One for the win? One for the win. Place your bets …”

  Men in the crowd began gathering around the bookies and shouting wagers at them, betting bottles of booze, weapons, food, and time with their slaves. I shook my head in disgust.

  Tommy rooted around in his
hat again and drew two more numbers. “Two and four, get in the circle.”

  The next two men looked evenly matched. They were about the same age, same height and build. Tommy gave the order to commence, and they tore into each other. Their fight went longer than the first one, neither man able to gain an advantage over the other. Finally, Two threw a sloppy punch that missed its mark, his feet slipped in a puddle of sweat, and he went down on his face. Four jumped on his back and applied a chokehold. Seconds later, Two was out.

  The crowd cheered again, and the betting increased in volume and intensity. The warehouse began to have a carnival feeling, all of the troops drinking, and getting rowdy. As Two’s unconscious form was dragged out of the circle, Tommy motioned to me and Five. We stood up, strode into the circle, and squared off.

  Five was tall, maybe six-two or six-three. Even half-starved, he outweighed me by at least twenty pounds. From the corner of my eye, I noticed that Kasikov had pushed his way to the front of the crowd and was watching me with a smug grin on his face. I looked at him, and he nodded to me, shaking his fists.

  “Aaaannnd FIGHT!” Tommy shouted, red-faced with excitement.

  Five advanced cautiously, hands up, feet shoulder width apart. He didn’t move like the others, clumsy and unsure. His steps were even, he didn’t cross his feet, and he kept his elbows tucked in tight. This one had some training. From the way he stood, I was guessing some kind of kickboxing. I brought my hands up and began circling.

  He was right-handed, so I circled left and switched my stance to southpaw. Keeping my hands just below eye level, I moved in and feinted a jab. He took the bait and sidestepped to slip it. I pursued and fired a left-right combination at his floating ribs. He had expected the punches to go high, and had his forearms up over his face, which worked out great for me. I turned my hips into the punches and was rewarded with a pained grunt from my opponent. He tried to counterpunch with a right hook, but I ducked it and circled away.