by M. D. Massey
They untied me and marched me into a back room in one of the quonset huts, then took turns beating me bloody. I don’t know how long it went on, because I passed out a few times; all I know is I came to tied back up to the post in the middle of camp, beat all to hell and unable to see out of one eye. My entire face was swollen, I had blood all over the front of my shirt, and it felt like I’d been kicked repeatedly in the balls. My kidneys felt like a horse had tap-danced on them, my ribs ached so bad that it was hard to breathe, and even my arms, thighs, and calves hurt.
I knew from experience that one of the dangers of getting a beating as severe as I’d received was getting rhabdomyolysis from all the muscle-tissue damage. Even through the fog of the concussion I’d suffered during the beating, I knew I was probably going to die from all the muscle proteins that were being released into my bloodstream. I had no idea what “the pit” was or how it was going to be used to punish me, but I found myself seriously wishing they’d just shot me and been done with it.
I had no idea what time it was when they cut me down, but I was barely able to stand and had to lean on the militia to my right to remain on my feet. As I did, I heard a familiar voice whisper in my ear, “Man, you sure messed up good. Your face looks like a sack full of hammered assholes, you know that?
I looked up out of my good eye. “Ratcliff, glad to see you’re up and about.”
He barked a short laugh. “Hmph. I suppose I have you to thank for that, although I want you to know I pissed myself while I was out.” I looked around and saw the detail was made up of guys from the Swamp. They huddled around me, making it look like they were still cutting me down, while Ratcliff gave me a drink of water from a canteen.
“Why’re you helping me?”
Ratcliff grimaced. “Helping you? Shit, son, there ain’t no helping you now. You made your bed. But honestly, I don’t have anything against you, and figured I’d at least do you the kindness of one last drink before you go to the pit.” They dragged me over to a field stretcher and laid me down in it.
Ratcliff spoke up again. “You know the colonel’s pissed that those two worked you over like this. He said that the pit was punishment enough for you. Guess that’s why he has us doing this detail.”
I grabbed Ratcliff’s sleeve. “What’s ‘the pit’?”
He shook his head and slipped something in my hands. “You don’t want to know. But use that if you decide it’s better than the alternative.”
I felt the outline of the thing he’d slipped me, and recognized the contours of a lockback folding knife. I tucked it in my pocket and made certain that the outline couldn’t be seen. I closed my eyes, and within a few minutes I heard the sounds of many pairs of boots crunching over gravel. I cracked an eye and saw that the entire militia had been assembled in the central area of the compound. Ratcliff and the rest had left, and I could see one or two of them lined up in formation with the rest of the militia. I laid my head back down again, deciding that I should try to recover as much strength as possible before they sent me off to whatever fate the colonel had in mind for me.
Colonel Leakey hobbled up in front of the men on crutches, with SGM Marsh close behind. The colonel spoke, and his George C. Scott voice rang loud and clear. “This man you see before you is a traitor, and a deserter. He is also a killer, a liar, and a reprobate.” I reflected that few of the people present actually knew what a reprobate was, and almost had to laugh at Leakey’s choice of words.
“As is our tradition, we do not shoot or hang traitors and deserters. No, because this is a war that we fight, not amongst ourselves, but against the forces of hell that have descended upon this Great State of ours. So, for those who want to aid and abet the enemy, there is only one punishment suitable for such persons. And that is, that they should become one of them.”
I struggled to grasp that last bit, and had to play it back in my mind to be sure I heard correctly. The colonel’s voice rang out again in the still silence that followed his brief speech. “Take him to the pit.”
A four-man detail carried the stretcher out of the compound, accompanied by a squad of militia carrying rifles. The sergeant major came along; however, the colonel stayed behind. The lot of them marched a few miles south and east of the compound, out to a residential area just the other side of the base perimeter. They stood me up, and as they did I saw there were several metal shipping containers stacked in an odd array behind what was once a very nice upper-middle-class home. I noticed some old discarded pool furniture lying around, as well as a wooden swing set that was tilted at an odd angle, with one of the legs sunk into the ground such that the swing seats on that side were touching the ground.
They walked me at gunpoint up to a ramp on the edge of the shipping container wall, and the low moans that I heard from the other side told me exactly what they had in store me. I laughed to myself, and allowed them to march me up a ramp to the top of the wall; once I reached the top, I could see that the “pit” was an old half-drained swimming pool, with murky green water in the end closest to me, and a half dozen or so zombies milling around in the shallow end. I noticed as well that two of the deaders in the pool were wearing faded and torn Army fatigues. Apparently, I wasn’t the only person who’d deserted the militia recently.
I looked around me and saw pity in a few of the soldiers’ eyes, but mostly I just saw indifference. I knew there would be no clemency for me, no last-minute reprieve, no mercy based on common human decency here. I glanced down in the pool below and saw that a few of the deadheads had noticed us, and that they were starting to moan at a higher pitch. These deaders were hungry.
I looked over at the sergeant major, who was eyeing me with a cold heartless stare, and shot him a bloody grin. “I’ll see you in hell, Marsh. Tell Leakey that old Scratch sends his regards.” Then I turned around and jumped into the deep end of the pool, straight into the murky, algae-covered waters below.
- - -
That concludes Episode 3 of THEM Season 1...
Find out what happens to Scratch, Gabby, The Doc, and Bobby in Episode 4!
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
M.D. Massey has been a soldier, an emergency room technician, a fitness trainer, a truck driver, a martial arts instructor, a cook, a consultant, a web designer, and a security professional. He also spent six weeks in law school before deciding that, if he was going to lie for a living, he’d do it honestly as a fiction writer. M.D. lives in Austin, Texas with his family and a huge American Bulldog who keeps him company while he writes the sort of books he likes to read.
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