A dozen talons pierced Kizzy’s shoulders. The wings flapped above her, sending feathers and dust down into her eyes. The red hooded sweatshirt tightened and the ground fell away from beneath her. Iris came roaring through the balcony door as Kizzy and Diego were lifted up and over the edge of the railing. Kizzy felt the flames at her back and could smell burning feathers. The talons that gripped her right side became limp and fell away. The crows holding her left shoulder flapped harder to make up for the loss but Kizzy continued to fall. She became weightless as her stomach went into her throat. Glancing down, it was fifty feet to the harsh concrete. More crows swung in and snatched her up, and again she felt the sweatshirt tighten. She looked to her left. Diego hung from the talons of five crows with a terrified look on his face. Kizzy peered back over her left shoulder to see Iris spraying flames up into the swarm of crows that poured over the building. The scorched black birds fell to the earth. But the swarm was large and soon Iris was left alone on the balcony. She grew smaller and smaller until finally Kizzy left the jungle that had once been a great city. Far out ahead of them, over the deep dark woods laid mankind’s last settlement, and Kizzy’s only hope.
24
Henry’s breathing was labored through the life support machine. His skin was gray and pale like an old white leather jacket pulled over a skeleton. It made Leo feel sick to his stomach to see him like that. Henry’s eyes slowly opened and he nodded with great effort. Leo was surprised he was even conscious.
“You alright chief?”Leo asked as he approached the hospital bed, looking down and realizing with a deep empty feeling in his gut that Henry’s body ended at his lower abdomen. Leo blinked rapidly and looked back up at Henry’s eyes, keeping his gaze there, trying desperately not to appear shocked.
Henry shook his head slowly side to side.
“You needed to talk to me?”
Henry nodded weakly. He strained to reach for an Epi pen that sat on the table next to his barely touched food. Leo quickly grabbed and handed it to him.
“Are you sure you want to do this now?”
Henry firmly took the Epi pen from Leo’s hand and pressed it to his side. The needle shot a cocktail of adrenaline and vitamins into his veins and within a few seconds the color in his skin became peachy and fresh as if he were perfectly healthy. He shook his head and his eyes became alert and clear, but his jaw and hands shook like relapsed junky.
“I’ve only got a couple minutes so this has to be quick.”
“Yeah, what do you know?”
“It was one of my employees Milo Savage,” Henry said as he scribbled something on a piece of paper. “He came in and left a box on the floor. Was wrapped up like a present, had a bow on top and everything.”
He handed Leo the paper, it was Milo’s address.
“Do you know why he’d want to do it?” Leo asked as he took the note.
“No idea. People are starting to go crazy, Leo. We were never meant to live like this for this long, the whole city’s going to fall apart. That girl killing Banshee really did a number on this place. You can feel it. People are talking, and I mean even the old timers, the ones who know better, about just ending it all.”
Leo shook his head. “I used to think I could do something, but I’m starting to give up hope.”
“Everyone’s got this pent up aggression,” Henry said, then began to cough, deep and thick like it was dislocating something in his throat. “Everything below my belt gets blasted away and the sad truth is, the only things I’ll miss are my legs.”
Leo just kind of nodded. Henry leaned up in his bed and whispered. “I’ve got something to tell you Leo, but you got to close that door first.”
Leo stood up and quickly walked and closed. What was Henry up to? He scurried back down to the chair next to the bed.
Henry was up on one arm, starting to shake real bad and his skin was going pale again. “I’m only going to tell you this because you’re on the committee and you need to know the whole truth of the matter. What I say doesn’t leave this room, and whatever it makes you feel you have to swear to do the right thing. The smart thing. As a committee we have a lot of power and we have to be the ones thinking long term about things. Is that clear?”
Leo nodded and wiped his sweaty palms on his starchy uniform pants.
“Norman Chang, the fella who runs the theater, always with the sparkly bow-tie. He showed me the video of what happened in the dressing room that night Banshee was murdered. The girl, well, she was assaulted,” he paused for a moment as if he were trying to regurgitate a stone. “Sexually.”
Leo went numb and sat back in his seat. All the chasing he had been obsessed with the past few days was suddenly bleached into a different light. “So it was self defense?”
Henry nodded with closed eyes.
“You know, I almost wish I didn’t know that.”
“Self defense or not Leeeeo she still k-killed a guy.” He was beginning to convulse as the color drained from his face.
“Yeah, but there’s got to be a point where she’s free from blame.”
“Think of the precedent we’d set... if we let her go free,” Henry’s breathing was labored again, his voice weak. “Back when we lived 80 years and... and there were a few billion of us we could afford to be more.... lenient. There’s too much to lose now... she has to pay... so does... Milo.”
He passed out on the bed. The same pale ghost of half a man that Leo saw when he first entered. Except a little closer to death, a little more hopeless. Leo glanced at the note in his hand. He’d have to make his first arrest as the Chief of Police before the day was out. He only hoped this case would be a little more black and white.
∞
The inside of the church was damp and dimly lit. Candles flickered in a corner, casting a shaky half light over the stone floor. Kizzy sat waiting in a stiff wooden pew.
Her hands were in tense fists on her lap. Her stomach, a knot of anxiety. She just wanted to get out of there. With a sort of morbid fear she had realized that Father Morrigan was the one who controlled the crows. He had killed her best friend, and now by extension Banshee and her own mother lay dead because of it. It all went back to Morrigan. He tore her life apart. All she wanted to do now was run.
Standing before her was a six foot tall rusty metal box with a black key and lock in it’s center. Kizzy wondered what it was for. It was ugly and didn’t appear to have any function.
To the right was a blank wooden door and the silence coming from the room behind it was deafening. Diego had been dragged through that doorway, his face full of pure fear. The terror in his eyes was all Kizzy could think of. No matter what happened, she would make sure he would never feel pain like that again. He meant everything to her. His smile, his walk, his eyes. They were all so precious for some reason.
Finally when the door opened, Father Morrigan came strolling out wiping his hands with a towel.
“Did you have a fun ride?” he asked. He grabbed a steel chair and pulled it next to the box in the center of the room.
“Where’s Diego?” Kizzy asked, her voice trembled.
“He’s in the back,” he said, pointing with his thumb to the doorway.
“What did you do to him?”
“Don’t worry,” Morrigan said. “You’ll decide what happens to him.”
“How?”
Morrigan turned his attention to the box and rubbed his hand up and down the rusty metal. There was a glimmer of pride in his eyes. “Do you know what this is?”
Kizzy shook her head. It just looked like a metal version of the crates that she would send into the city.
“It’s a Hell box,” said Father Morrigan. “Do you know what it does?”
“I don’t want to know.”
“Don’t worry,” he said. “It’s a justice maker. Befor
e the Enoch pill, only good people were rewarded with eternal life. When they died they would go to a place called heaven. And the bad people would go to a place of punishment called hell. That sounds fair doesn’t it?”
Kizzy shrugged.
“Well it was fair,” said Morrigan. “And perfect. But nowadays no one dies and even the bad people live forever. They do whatever they want and they get rewarded for it. It’s not fair to the good people, you see?”
“People can still die,” Kizzy said. She had seen it herself, all to often.
“You’re exactly right,” said Morrigan. He stopped for a brief moment, a grieved expression cracked on his face. Then the dead stare came back to his eyes. “You’re very smart Kizzy. You know, I could have been whatever I wanted. I would have been a great artist if it wasn’t for the plague. But I was occupied with my ministry, and the Holy Cross Organization needed my help. When the plague came, the army evacuated us here, right on top of the main Enoch Pill factory. And I helped them build this city. The walls, the canals. I helped them establish the supply crate routes to the country. I helped them with everything. But they never let me do the one thing that I was most qualified to do.”
“What’s that?”
“Decide who gets the pills,” he said with a smile. “I know the rules of right and wrong. I studied them in the seminary. I’m the only person qualified. You understand that I’m not being unreasonable, don’t you?”
Kizzy cautiously nodded, although it did sound unreasonable. Why should he decide who lives? It was best just to give him what he wanted.
“And so that brings us back to the box. You see, the Enoch pill messed up a lot of things. But one thing it did right was bring hell to our doorstep. Most people used to think it as a fiery place of torture and torment. But that’s wrong. It’s actually very dark and very quiet. It’s just you, alone with your thoughts, completely shut off from any of god’s light. And all you have are the memories of your sins. That’s what makes it torture.”
He patted the box with pride. “And this beautiful creation gives you the time to think with no distractions. No light, no sound, no nothing. It’s so quiet that you start to hear your heart sucking the blood through your veins. Most people can only stand it for 15 minutes before they have anxiety attacks. Or so they tell me. And the best part is, the box gives you everything you need to survive. The Enoch pill in gas form, food and water intravenously. Supposedly the lack of stimuli turns your brain to mush within a few months.”
“Why are you telling me this?” Kizzy asked.
“So you’ll know just how uncomfortable Diego will be.” Father Morrigan put his thin fingers to his lips and let out a whistle.
A man in green came from the darkness of the back room with his arms wrapped around a struggling and twisting Diego. The man effortlessly pulled him towards the hell box. Kizzy jumped up from the pew and grabbed hold of the man’s arm, trying to pull Diego free. The man simply continued his movement as if she was made of feathers, dragging her along the stone floor. Father Morrigan opened the box door and the man in green shoved Diego inside.
“Watch those fingers!” Morrigan declared as he closed the door and turned the key. Its hinges hissed as it vacuum sealed. Kizzy lunged at the box and tried to feel for a place to pry it open, but the metal had become one solid piece.
“Let him out,” she growled. She began to march towards Father Morrigan, her hands in fists at her sides. She would gouge his eyes out if she needed to.
Father Morrigan stood still, distantly smiling. The man in green grabbed Kizzy around the waist. She tried to twist and turn but got nowhere. Instead she boiled.
“I’ll take him out,” said Father Morrigan, “As soon as you help me with that one little thing we talked about.”
“I’ll kill you,” Kizzy said.
“Then he never comes out,” Father Morrigan said as he waved the key.
“Put me in instead,” said Kizzy. She looked at the box and imagined Diego suffering to death inside.
“No, I need you alive sweetheart. Remember you’re the only one who can get to Enoch. And I need you to deliver a little present.” From the floor he lifted a small white box that was covered in wrapping paper and had a red bow perched on top. “You’ve got two hours before the hell box locks forever.”
Kizzy looked at the present in his hand. “What’s inside?”
“A request,” he said. “To stop all the injustice.”
Kizzy looked at the rusty box. Was Diego pounding at the walls inside, begging to be let out? She snatched the gift from Morrigan’s hands.
“Good choice, sweetie,” he said. “Come, we don’t have much time.”
They led Kizzy down the aisle towards the entrance of the church. Above the door Kizzy noticed a stain glass relief picturing a naked woman who seemed to be handing an apple to a snake up in a tree. Kizzy felt like the woman in that picture, a naked delivery person. Out in the parking lot, a large black Cadillac sat waiting. The man in green opened the back door for Kizzy.
“Where are we going?” she asked stopping in her tracks before she entered.
“To the factory,” Father Morrigan said.
They drove in silence down the empty city streets. Kizzy felt the cool leather seat with anxious fingers. How long before Diego began to lose his mind? The panic was probably starting to set in. She noticed how much she missed having him with her. He was like a steadiness at her side.
They came to a large fenced in open square. A gate with two guards blocked the road ahead. The man in green stepped on the accelerator and the car lunged forward, the engine growling louder and louder. The guards dove out of the way as the car smashed through the iron barrier. An alarm sounded. Father Morrigan quickly turned and looked to Kizzy. “You have 2 hours and 40 minutes,” he said. “Come back with a signature, showing he received the delivery and you and Diego will be able to go free.”
“I don’t believe you,” said Kizzy.
“Why would I lie to you Kizzy? What would I have to gain?”
“I don’t know,” Kizzy said, staring out the window. “I don’t know you. I don’t know what you want.”
Morrigan smiled. He reached into his pocket and took out a knife. “I think you lost this.”
Could it be? Kizzy took it from his hands and looked it over. It was her deer antler knife. The last time she had seen it, it was sticking out of Banshee’s ribs. “How did you get it?”
He looked her right in the eyes. “I’m just trying to do what’s right Kizzy. And what you’re doing is extremely important. The way things are, it’s unfair to the good people and rewarding to the bad.”
Kizzy bit her lower lip. Was it really right deciding who lived and who died? It didn’t seem like it. But he wasn’t completely terrible was he?
But then she thought of Diego alone in that box. Going along with Morrigan’s plan was the only way of getting him back.
The man in green sped the car up to a short concrete structure and slammed on the breaks. He reached back and opened the door.
“Where do I go from here?” Kizzy asked looking outside. The armed guards were approaching from the gate.
“Down the hole!” Morrigan shouted.
Kizzy jumped from the vehicle and sprinted towards the well. The alarm continued to shriek in the air. The car sped back towards the gate, narrowly missing the approaching guards.
Kizzy reached the concrete well and held on tight to the box. She climbed up onto the edge and peered inside. How could she get down there? There was no ladder, no rope, just a sheer rock face leading into darkness. The hole was large, about ten feet in diameter. She looked for a button or anything that could be of use.
The guards in the distance screamed to back away from the well. Kizzy didn’t budge and they fired a warning shot. The concrete she stoo
d upon busted loose from the wall and she fell face first into the darkness.
All the air was sucked from Kizzy’s lungs as she surged through the darkness. Expecting to meet some hard surface, she put her hands up in front of her face. All of a sudden she crashed into a soft springy mass. Her hands sunk into the small fuzzy pods and immediately she recognized the smell of the Enoch beans. So this was their entry point to the factory. The added weight of her body must have tipped some sort of scale because a light began to flash and slowly she and all the beans started to sink down into a large metal funnel.
They slid through a metal shoot and into an open bright, white room. Kizzy was practically buried beneath the green and white beans. Big black letters on the wall read “(E)N2OCh Industries”. A faint alarm sounded as a red light flashed to life. A white and black robotic arm dropped down from the ceiling. Kizzy tried to burrow further into the beans but the arm reached in and snatched her up by her left leg. Her head and body dangled underneath it’s tight grip. All of the blood in her body rushed to her face. She reached up and tried to free herself from it’s robotic fingers, but the arm shook her until she fell back upside down. As it pulled her away from the bean pile Kizzy reached out and managed to grab hold of the gift from Father Morrigan. As she was carried towards the end of the room, a section of the wall slid up into the ceiling revealing another smaller chamber. The robotic arm flung Kizzy inside.
She slid on the white plastic floor until she crashed hard into the far wall. The door she slid back down into the floor. Kizzy was alone in silence. Another arm popped down from the ceiling. It opened up it’s black metal fingers to reveal a white orb with what appeared to be a security camera in its center. It came in close, inspecting Kizzy from top to bottom. She lifted the present and held it up to the camera.
The Enoch Pill Page 25