Dominion

by Doug Goodman

  The lost boys circled the cots together and fell asleep.

  Inside the arena, time got kind of funny, so they weren’t sure how many days they had been there when the soldiers finally returned, bringing medical personnel with them. They were all wearing masks, which Val joked could have been for disease or stench. One time in the dark, maybe a few days or a few weeks or a few months – nobody was sure of time in there – Alyssa told him, “You’d think you’d get used to the smell. God, it’s still horrible. It permeates.”

  The day the medical staff entered the arena, they brought in privacy dividers. Everybody got in lines and waited. They filled out forms. Aidan was the first of the group to be checked over.

  The medical staff started by checking for temperature and then checking the eyes, ears, throat and pulse. He halfway expected his medical person to tell him to turn and cough. He was checked for rashes, too. He peed into a cup. This all felt weirdly normal and comforting, like he was going for his annual physical.

  During the check, all Aidan’s scars were documented. “I could have used some stitches for that,” Aidan said when the medical person examined his missing finger.

  “You’re lucky you didn’t die from infection.”

  Aidan shrugged. “Wait till you see my back.”

  “Your back? Can you remove your shirt?”

  Aidan did, and the man did not say anything for a while. Aidan thought maybe the man had left the room, or fainted. He glanced over his shoulder, and the man was staring with terror at Aidan’s back.

  “Mincemeat, right?”

  “You have endured as much, if not more, than anyone else I have met,” the man behind the surgeon’s mask said.

  Aidan thought of Mike and Kirk. Then he thought of the torture of Val and Colt and Dre at the hands of the wargs, and he shrugged off the medical person’s comment.

  “Many have had worse. Besides, we’ve come a long way.”

  The man looked at the clipboard and found Aidan’s home address. “Houston? That is a long way. Well, I don’t see any reason not to pull you out of quarantine. I hope you can find the peace here that you were not able to find in Houston. Welcome to the Tooth, Mr. Fannin.”

  After the checkups, most everybody was herded into a mass at the near end of the stadium. None had died in the arena. Only a few were still under further quarantine. Five out of forty.

  Salves had been placed on burn wounds, and antibiotics given to everyone with cuts. Everybody was directed into another bus that took them the rest of the way into Denver.

  The settlement was buried deeper into Denver than some of the gopher holes that his aunt and uncle had to deal with at their ranch in West Texas. No wonder the monsters didn’t come for them. First, they had to pass through two lines of razor wire, which probably wouldn’t be too difficult. If a warg can take rifle shots, razor wire is probably like dental floss to them. But then it got tougher. There was a moat of liquid fire that wreathed its way through Denver’s downtown area. Once they passed through the flaming moat, they had more razor wires, a ring of mines, and another ring that was completely empty. This was the one ring that confused Aidan the most.

  “What’s in there?” he asked a nearby soldier, who just laughed but didn’t say anything.

  The black tower shot up like a giant triangular tooth growing out of the diseased gums of the Earth. Aidan noticed that this triangular shape was a trick of the eye. The upper stories had collapsed upon themselves, giving the tower the angled appearance.

  “This is all for defense?” Aidan asked.

  “Preservation,” the soldier across from Aidan said. She was a redhead, maybe 25 years old. She had a badge sewn to her uniform. It looked like an M and an H intersected. A snake was wrapped around the letters.

  “What does that mean?” Aidan asked.

  “It means when you sleep at night, I keep the nightmares away.”

  “My name’s Aidan.” He extended his hand.

  “Don’t hate me if I don’t take you up on your offer for a handshake. What you see is an extension of your friendship, but I see the finality of war. I see a severed hand that will stick in the back of my mind even after I’ve finally placed it as yours. So please forgive me for not shaking your hand, but I don’t need that on my conscience.”

  Aidan put his hand in his pocket. Alyssa rubbed his shoulder, and they tried to look outside.

  The bus came to a stop in front of the tower. Most of the glass had been blown out and shattered. A large sculpture of Atlas had lost its world, so it seemed the air was burdening the titan. The fountain he sat in was filled with fallen leaves. On each corner of the tower, paneling had been added, perhaps to hide a large weapon.

  As people began unloading, a man in a worn suit jacket came running through the broken front doors. He had a small crop of hair haloed around the base of his head and a bookish, professorial look to him.

  “No! No! No! No! Send them back. We’re not ready!” the man said.

  Behind came another soldier, but he wasn’t wearing a helmet.

  “John, the time is up,” the soldier said. “We gotta do this.”

  “But Quincey, we don’t have room for them. We are tight on food, water, clothes, and space. At least in the arena they had all those resources.”

  “The arena is a deathtrap.”

  “It is not. It is our salvation. These people weren’t even properly quarantined. How long were they in the arena – five days maybe? You shouldn’t have let them out. Five days isn’t enough time to know for sure they don’t have any communicable diseases. Just one of these refugees comes in here with the flu or the measles or something worse, and it will spread throughout the whole Tooth. What do we do then?”

  “Standard treatment. Quarantine, wash our hands thoroughly.”

  “With what water? We’re already on tight water rationing as it is. You want us to use our reduced water supply to wash?”

  “I’ll handle this, John.”

  “You bet your ass you will, cause it’s not my problem.” The man with the clipboard, who was apparently “John,” looked at the forty refugees and said to them, “You hear that? You’re not my problem!”

  Alyssa leaned over to Aidan. “Does that sound like anybody?”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Aidan said. “Consider the boot thoroughly on the other foot.”

  The military man stepped towards the refugees and said, “My name is Colonel Quincey Weatherford, and I apologize. Everything John said is true. We are on food and water rations, and most of you will end up sleeping in hallways with your arm for a pillow and your clothes for a blanket. But that arena is a disgrace for a quarantine zone and a deathtrap. So welcome to the Black Tooth. It used to belong to a global finance group. Now it is our refuge and our safehaven. We have spent the past 6 months barricading human civilization in this tower to protect it from the monsters out there. Rule Number One: We will do anything to keep our safety. If you compromise that safety, you will be given back to the wilds. Do you understand?”

  After a chorus of head nods and yeses, Colonel Weatherford pointed to Aidan and the other lost boys.

  “You four – the lost boys. Come with me.”

  As soon as they were out of earshot, the Colonel turned on them. “You’re the Boy Scout,” he said to Aidan, then added, “You all are the ones that evil mutt called the Warden of the West wants.”

  Aidan didn’t even try to disagree with him. He knew that this was all told to the Colonel on the great psychic monster grapevine. To tell the truth, he wondered why he hadn’t heard anything sooner. Were the other refugees just ignoring that fact, or were they too tired to want to turn him in?

  “I don’t know what he wants with you, and frankly I don’t care. I want peace and separation from those monsters.”

  “You intend to hand us over, don’t you?”

  “Is there a reason I shouldn’t? Are you anything but a gigantic risk to the stability of this settlement?”

  “We’re leverage
if anything happens,” Val suggested.

  “No. You’re a reason for them to attack. And if they do, I want you forewarned, I will hand you over in a second if I think it benefits the Tooth. Until then, you are free to come and go throughout the settlement as you see fit. Obey our rules, which is the basic stuff – no stealing, not murdering, no raping – and I will let you live here. Disobey those rules, and you will find yourselves sent to Casa de Black Fang. Understood?”

  “What about John?” Aidan asked. “He seems ready to get rid of us already.”

  “John thinks you guys dead in the arena would have been better for everyone. He has different opinions than I do on how to keep the peace around here. Don’t worry about him now, though. He’s probably moved on to a newer problem du jour.”

  “So what do we do now?” Val asked.

  “Now, you go get a bath. Five days in the arena, and you kids smell every inch of it.”

  Despite the need to ration water, the four were given all the hot water and cleaning supplies they wanted. Aidan shaved his head down again, and Alyssa shampooed, rinsed, and repeated for about twenty times. Val didn’t take long at all. He wasn’t comfortable with the way his body looked naked. In the weeks since he had left Bridgetown, his body was changing more obviously. It was almost impossible to ignore the curve of his breasts. This wasn’t the body he wanted. He didn’t shower any longer than he had to.

  After the shower, Val and Alyssa gave each other haircuts. Val asked to have his hair cut short. It made him look “butch,” but he preferred that to womanly. Aidan teased him a bit, and Val punched him in the arm playfully. Then he presented Alyssa. Her hair was tapered in the back and about fifteen inches taken off. It had started to clump, and there were no combs or brushes in the arena to take care of her hair. She looked spectacular.

  “I like it,” Aidan said.

  “Stop it. I look dreadful. Half my face won’t move, and now I have this giant scar over my ear. I’m ugly!” She started to cry. Aidan hugged her while she sobbed. “I know it’s stupid. I’m looking at you with your back and your missing finger and this jagged thing all over your face, and I have no right to complain.”

  “Shush. Don’t talk like that. Of course you do. And you know what? I think it looks beautiful. I like it. And I love you, and I’m still attracted to you.”

  “Really?”

  “Hell, yes.”

  New clothes were left out for them. “Your old clothes will be burned or ripped up and placed in Molotov cocktails,” the woman who watched over the showers told them.

  After they dressed, they went out into the building’s main atrium. A golden garland hung from the second-floor balcony. Giant wreaths were placed above the elevator shafts and at the old guard’s table. Most impressive of all was a two-story tall Christmas tree with a star adorning the top. Red and green and silver balls hung from its metal limbs. Oversized boxes of cardboard wrapped in stock Christmas paper and bows were placed underneath the tree. Everywhere they looked, it was Christmas.

  “Awesome!” Colt yelled.

  “Did you know?” Alyssa asked.

  “I didn’t, but I guess I should have known. It was Thanksgiving when we were at Bridgetown. Has it only been a month?” Had it really? Aidan wondered. It felt like years of wandering through small towns.

  “You know what,” Val said. “I don’t care. If it’s Christmas time, I’ll take it. When is Christmas?”

  “Tomorrow is Christmas Eve,” came a voice from behind them. “You almost missed it.”

  They turned around and saw Jax, Riley, and Peter. Alyssa screamed and jumped into Jax’s body. “I knew we’d see you again!” she said.

  “Missed you, too,” he said as he hugged her.

  Colt put his arms around Peter and held him tight. “Don’t do that again,” he told his older brother. “Ever.”

  “Okay. I won’t.”

  Aidan hugged Riley. “Good to see you again.” Then she hugged Val.

  Aidan went over to Peter. He looked different. “What happened to you? A gopher get your ear?” he asked, pointing to Peter’s right ear, which was missing most of its lobe.

  “New Mexico, bro.” Aidan clapped him on the back. It had been less than a month they were separated, yet his brother seemed taller, more mature.

  An hour later, they were sitting in a conference room that was decorated with giant western portraits of cattle being driven north and men riding horses. Amid the western chaos, silver and gold bells had been stapled to the walls. They glittered in the lamp light.

  The lost boys sat huddled around a small electric lamplight, hot cocoa in their hands. Jax was talking.

  “We made it to Albuquerque before we could go no farther west and had to turn north,” Jax said, his voice strong in the night. “Snakes and Gila monsters and something we call ‘Morning Star’ cause it has arms and tails like one. Freaky thing. Then we went north. Up in Colorado we were picked up by a roaming caravan like y’all. We’ve been here ever since, which has been about three weeks. We look after kids mostly. I teach taekwondo, Riley cheerleading, and Peter gymnastics. We’re like the most kick-ass PE teachers these kids ever had. When we aren’t doing that, we help out by gathering food supplies.

  “Once a week we go with the soldiers out into the burbs. We raid the stores for anything we can find, and then the Humvees and Strykers bring them back here. Every once in a while a food-gathering trip becomes a person-gathering trip, which John hates to no end. He thinks we are almost out of rations, but I’ve seen it. We’re stockpiled for like, two or three months.

  “But what’s it like here?” Aidan wanted to know. “What’s it really like?”

  Jax glanced nervously at Val, then said, “It’s no Bridgetown, if that’s what you’re worried about. No ritual sacrifice. Nothing like that. These people really have no connection to the monsters except the psychic link that everyone but us seems to have.”

  “Any explanation for that yet?” Val asked, wanting to change the subject.

  “None yet. John and the Colonel know about it, but they got no more explanation than the doctors we’ve seen. I guess it’s just one of those things. Personally, I’m happy for it. I don’t have to see their awful shit, and I won’t get the tumor everyone else develops from this psychic crap.”

  “Watch the language,” Peter said.

  “Oh, yeah. Your brother – he’s been a real treat, Aidan. Always trying to keep my tongue on the good side of the Lord.”

  “It’s Christmas time,” Peter said with a little more sternness than Aidan could remember, “Show some respect.”

  “Christmas. What a concept,” Aidan said. “This whole thing is taking me by complete surprise. It’s like walking into a Disney movie or something. It’s so weird. I half-expect Santa to come riding out of the sky, giving AKs and IEDs to all the good little boys and girls.”

  “You know what we need to do?” Aidan asked. Without waiting for answer, he reached into his back pocket. “Not sure how I was able to keep the wargs from catching this when we were at the camps. Guess I was lucky I taped it to my journal the day we were picked up.”

  He slammed down a bag of some dice. Everybody’s face lit up. Even the girls smiled through their upturned eyes and covered mouths.

  “You guys are such dweebs!” Riley said.

  “Maybe so, but this time, y’all are getting into it, too.”

  They played as late into the night as they could. They fought demons and dragons and found buried treasure hidden deep inside secret vaults. One by one, each player dropped out to go to bed. Finally, it was just Aidan and Peter still awake. Peter had the dice in his hand.

  “I’m sorry I left.”

  “I was angry with you for a long time, but I understand. You had to do what you had to do.”

  “I didn’t find Mom or Dad.”

  “I know.” Then he pulled out an old wedding photo of his parents. It, too, had been taped to his journal. Now it was dirty and faded. Mom and Dad wer
e standing in front of a tall cake. Dad was dressed in a tux, and Mom was in her wedding dress. Mom had a golden retriever leashed to her hand.

  “I haven’t seen this photo in ages. Where did you get it?” Peter wanted to know.

  “One time, back in the subdivision, I went back to the house, and I grabbed a few photos. Some of Mom and Dad and Mike. When we left, I grabbed this one, though. At first, I wasn’t sure why. It’s not like I could use it to help someone ID Mom and Dad. But now I think it’s cause of how happy they look. I want to be that happy some day. I think I can be.”

  “You know what makes them look so happy?” Peter asked.

  “What?”

  “They’ve got each other. When I see you and Alyssa, I think you two have that. One day, I’m going to have it, too, but she’ll be a Sports Illustrated Cover Model.”

  Aidan seemed to be thinking of something while he smiled at Peter, so Peter said, “You’ve found the right girl.”

  “I’m going to marry her.”

  Peter didn’t wait a second to respond, and when he did, he made it sound as natural as the sun rising and setting. “When? Christmas would be perfect.”

  “That’d be lame. Besides, we haven’t settled down yet. I want to wait until we find the right place. I have a feeling we’re almost there, if we just keep going a little farther.”

  “I’m glad for you, bro. I think you both will be as happy as Mom and Dad.”

  “I hope so.” Aidan studied the photo in his hands. “I want to get rid of this photo.”

  “Why?” Peter’s voice was pained. “It’s the only thing we have left of them.”

  “Man, you know that isn’t true. I see Mom and Dad every time I look at us. I ever tell you why Kirk and I went into the woods together, back when y’all met the dryder?”