“A friend, huh? All the working girls hang out near dorm twenty, but they ain’t cheap and they ain’t clean,” Roger said with a grin. He poured himself another cup.
“Not that kind of friend,” Teddy dully responded.
“I was just kidding around, hoss,” Roger said. “Didn’t mean any offense.”
“None taken, don’t worry. It’s just been frustrating… I’ve walked this entire camp and I’ve found no sign of him.”
“What does this friend look like?”
“He’s a skinny white kid with purple hair. In his twenties, I think. His name is Ein.”
“Sounds like he’d be hard to miss in a crowd…”
“You’d think so, but nobody I’ve asked has spotted him. Have you?”
“Can’t say that I’ve met or seen an Ein—sorry.” Roger tilted his head back and emptied the cup with a single swallow.
“Didn’t think so…” Teddy stood up and warmed his hands by the fire one last time. “Thanks for the drink.”
Roger belched, wiped his chin with his forearm, and struggled to cap the bottle.
Teddy stuffed his hands in his pockets, turned, and headed back towards the dorm.
Roger gave a heavy sigh. “Hold up a second… I might be able to help.”
Teddy paused and looked over his shoulder.
“When’s the last time you saw your friend?” Roger asked.
“We were separated right after the train. He went into one stall and I went into another. That was the last time.”
Roger frowned and looked down. “I was afraid of that… That’s when it always happens…” He stopped and reached down to pat Zoey. “I wouldn’t waste too much time looking around out here.”
Teddy blinked, taken aback. “What in the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“It means that he’s not out here in the dorms,” Roger explained with a solemn expression. “Knowing where he is won’t help you though because you’ll never be able to get to him.”
“Then where is he?” Teddy asked as he took a step towards Roger.
“He’s with the others up in the administration building.” Roger thumbed towards the five-story building on top of the hill near the edge of camp.
“That doesn’t make sense,” Teddy said. “Why would they take him there?”
“I don’t know,” Roger admitted. “All I know is that the people who they take in there are never seen again.” He paused and looked down into his empty cup. “Regular people like us can’t go in there on our own. Maybe the red bands can go as they please, but not us.”
Irrational anger bubbled inside of Teddy. “Come on now! That’s horseshit!” he shouted. “Besides, how in the hell would you know that?”
“You’d be surprised what the cops will tell you in exchange for some booze,” Roger explained, voice slurred. “I’m sorry, I really am—but your friend is gone.”
“You’re drunk.”
“That doesn’t mean that I’m wrong.”
Teddy waved a dismissive hand at Roger, turned, and stormed towards the dormitory.
“Hey, wait!” Roger called out as he held the bottle up in the air and waved it goofily, but Teddy ignored him and kept walking. He nearly fell off of his crate and sent Zoey into a barking fit.
In the midst of all this, a shrill tone reverberated across the compound through the camp’s PA system. The people who were gathered around the fires and gaming tables groaned, stood up, and started saying their farewells as the final hands were dealt and cigarettes were snuffed out.
A voice announced over the PA: Nightly curfew starts in thirty minutes. All residents must return to their dormitories prior to commencement. Violators are subject to arrest and prosecution. Thank you for your cooperation.
As Teddy approached the dorm, his heart raced and he felt heat radiate off of his reddened face. His hands trembled in his pockets and he felt the thin veins along his neck protruding and pulsating.
At first, Teddy thought that he was angry at Roger for spewing such nonsense, but he started to realize that it was something else entirely—he was afraid that the man was right.
He had searched the entire damn camp, so where else could the kid be?
The building was the only place left aside from the distant expensive looking farmhouse that he had spotted a mile or so past the fence, and he doubted that they would allow the kid to room in some fancy farmhouse.
Teddy looked over his shoulder at the building on the hill. At first glance, it was nothing special—just as plain and ordinary as any other structure.
However, the longer that he stared at it, the more ominous it seemed to become.
Teddy looked away and continued towards his dorm, thinking. The prospects of a quick escape were dwindling and he felt himself become even more disillusioned.
Even worse, it felt like someone was picking away at his skull and tossing lit matches down his throat.
Teddy massaged his left temple with one hand and placed his other against the door’s sensor.
A green light above the sensor flashed as his RFID chip was recognized. A computerized voice announced: Sanders, Teddy—dorm twenty resident—access granted.
The door swung open and Teddy staggered inside.
The dormitory lights were dimmed and the air churning out of the suspended ventilation shafts was only slightly warmer than the wintry air outside. Just a handful of workers had come back and were wrapped in blankets on their bunks either sleeping or had their noses buried in books that were most likely stolen from the empty offices back at the capital.
Teddy wandered towards his bunk while delicately rubbing his crooked nose and stretching his back. Whatever hooch Roger had concocted was more potent than he had expected—his head swam and his vison was starting to become blurry.
Nobody seemed to pay him any attention as he staggered further into the room, but that suited him just fine.
He glanced towards one of the communal showers and saw Perry entering with a hygiene kit tucked under his arm.
Teddy was desperate for answers and he figured Perry would be the best one to provide some. He took off his jacket and threw it on his bunk, nearly falling over in the process. He turned, and hurried after him, stumbling.
Perry stood at one of the washbasins brushing his teeth and staring at himself in the mirror when Teddy walked in.
Teddy stood next to him and put a hand on the counter to maintain his balance.
Perry leaned over the basin, spat, and rinsed his mouth in the running tap. He stood back up and looked over at Teddy. “How was your first day?” he asked as he rinsed off his toothbrush. “You don’t look so hot.”
“I don’t feel so hot.”
“Then go lay down and sleep it off,” Perry said. “I’m not going to tell anybody that you’re drunk, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“Not until I ask you something.”
Perry looked at him. “Ask.”
“What goes on in that building?” Teddy asked in a slightly slurred voice.
“Which on?”
“The tall one at the front.”
Perry’s expression fell flat and he turned to look at himself in the mirror once more. “I already told you… It’s an administrative building with a health clinic inside.”
“Yeah, I know what you said,” Teddy replied, aggravated. “I want to know what goes on in the administrative side.”
Perry carefully put his toothbrush away inside his kit and pulled out his dental floss. “How would I know? I’m not allowed in there.”
Teddy leaned closer and narrowed his eyes. “I think you’re lying to me…”
“And I think you’re drunk.” Perry took some floss out of the dispenser and opened his mouth.
Teddy slapped the floss out of Perry’s hands, grabbed him by his collar, and spun him around. He pinned him up against the basin and stared into his eyes. “Listen, stop playing games! I want to know what goes on in there! They don’t need five fuck
ing floors to house a bunch of paper-pushers stapling forms together, in order to manage this pathetic camp!”
Perry broke Teddy’s grip and shoved him hard in the chest.
Teddy, surprised by the old man’s strength, stumbled backwards and landed against the wall. Disoriented from the alcohol, he struggled to get back up.
“I already told you that I don’t know what goes on up there!” Perry exclaimed. “If I knew something, I’d tell you, okay? Sure, I heard rumors, but that’s all they are!”
“What rumors have you heard?” Teddy asked exasperatedly, nearly pleading in his rapidly deteriorating state. He finally managed to get back up on his feet.
“I’m not in the business of repeating dangerous rumors,” Perry snapped in an irritated tone.
Teddy stared at him, perplexed. “Dangerous?” He held his hands out at his side and stumbled sideways. “How are rumors dangerous?”
“Fools that get caught talking that conspiracy jive end up on the hangman’s noose.”
“Why?” Teddy asked with his back against the wall to keep himself stable. “What are they afraid of?”
“Rabblerousing,” Perry quickly answered. “Rumors stir discord and get people riled up—just like you are riled up right now.”
Teddy, head swimming, kept quiet.
Perry turned towards him and gave him a disappointed scowl. “If I knew where your friend was, wouldn’t I’d tell you?”
“Would you?”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“Well…” Teddy’s voice trailed off and he gestured towards his red armband.
“Fuck you!” Perry spat. He turned his back towards Teddy and started packing up his hygiene kit. “If you want to go and spread nonsense then don’t look for pity when they come to take you away.”
Perry tucked the hygiene kit under the crook of his arm, walked to the exit, and stopped just at the doorway. “You’re drunk, so I’m giving you a pass for what you pulled off tonight… However, if you lay a hand on me again it won’t be the cops that you have to worry about. You feel me?”
Teddy stood in stunned silence—he had underestimated the old man.
“Life isn’t perfect in here, but you have a second chance,” Perry continued. “The people running the place aren’t perfect, but they’re playing the best hand they can with the cards they were dealt. Why don’t you try cutting them—and yourself—some slack?”
Perry left the room without another word.
Teddy, woozy, leaned against the wall and tried to regain his composure. After several minutes he staggered out into the dorm.
Perry had already disappeared to his bunk across the room from Teddy’s.
A wobbly Roger entered along with a handful of others before the curfew commenced.
Teddy lurched across the room towards his bunk as he tried to think through his mental fog.
Despite Perry’s assurances, what he had witnessed during his first day told him that the administration didn’t give two shits about the civilians.
Maybe Perry could lie to himself, but Teddy refused to do so.
He was almost certain that they had Ein locked away in the grey building, but the problem was that he hadn’t the slightest clue about how to get inside.
Teddy plopped down on his bunk and cupped his face in his hands, closing his eyes.
The room felt like it was spinning.
Before he dealt with anything, he knew that he’d have to rest his eyes for a moment.
“Just rest ‘em a little while,” Teddy slurred quietly to himself. He rolled over on his back with his arms over his head and his eyes closed.
In a few moments he was fast asleep—snoring loudly.
CHAPTER 9
NOVEMBER 26th
7:05 AM
Orange sunlight filtered through thick, low clouds as a biting breeze whistled across the camp. A thin layer of ice covered the dormitory rooftops and coated the tents and stalls that had been set up in the alleyways. It was much colder than the day before and many had opted to go inside instead of occupying the makeshift shops and gambling tables. The bazaars—clusters of haphazardly strung tents that occupied some of the alleys—were mostly vacant.
Teddy walked along the footpath with his hands stuffed inside his pockets and a woolen muffler wrapped around his throat that covered his mouth. He wasn’t used to the cold and he was cognizant of the fact that winter’s true savagery was yet to arrive.
Others milled past him, bundled up tightly in jackets and blankets. They spoke in muted tones and their conversations had a certain surreptitious undertone that he hadn’t noticed the morning before.
Teddy noticed a stark change in the atmosphere that had seemingly happened overnight—a nearly palpable nervous tension that seemed to pervade the very air itself. He first noticed hints of it during dinner, but it seemed worse as the sun rose again. He didn’t think that he was the only one who noticed since most of the officers avoided the footpath and stuck to the catwalks that connected the guard towers.
The officers leered down below and walked in pairs.
Maybe, Teddy figured, people were starting to realize their own precarious predicament, and the government’s façade of being a shelter in a storm was starting to chip away like bad plaster. Still, he didn’t think the civilian population was much of a threat. He pegged the vast majority of them as weak, broken creatures who longed to feel safe again even if it meant giving up their very freedom. Sure, they were annoyed and irritated, but they weren’t the type to do anything other than bark and yelp like irritable lapdogs.
What he did fear was the officer’s response to any perceived hostility or aggression since most of them appeared to be little more than trigger-happy rookies. He didn’t want to get caught or find Ein caught in the crossfire so in his mind it was all the more reason to get out sooner rather than later.
Teddy heard a pchit pchit noise next to him and smelled chemical vapors. He glanced over and saw two men hastily spray-painting something on one of the dormitories in an adjacent alleyway. The words said, in sloppy sprawling lettering: DON’T BE A SLAVE! RI—
Their message was interrupted when one of the men saw him staring at them and quickly alerted his friend.
The other man dropped the can and then both of them darted off down the alleyway.
Just a lot of ineffective barking and yelping, as Teddy had guessed.
He looked away and kept walking with the crowd towards the dining hall.
“Hey!” a voice called out from behind.
Teddy turned around and saw Roger lurching towards him while Zoey trotted happily at his side.
Zoey barked and ran towards Teddy, tail wagging.
Teddy crouched down, smiled, and patted her head. “You’re a happy girl, aren’t you?”
She licked his cold fingers and then sniffed his hand greedily. After realizing that he didn’t have any treats to offer, her excitement ebbed and she looked up at him with reproachful eyes.
“Naw,” Roger said, rubbing his aching forehead. “She’s just a furry mooch.” He whistled at her. “Come on, girl. Stop begging.”
Zoey lowered her ears and then turned back towards Roger.
“I swear, she thinks the world revolves around her,” Roger said, chuckling. His face was pale—his eyes bloodshot. He looked down at her and wagged a finger. “You’re a mess, do you know that?”
Zoey tilted her head and looked at him, ears perked up.
“I don’t know… She looks better off than you do right now,” Teddy said with a grin.
“I’m not arguing with that one.” Roger groaned. “My mouth feels like sandpaper and I feel like a truck ran over me.”
“Drinking doesn’t agree with you…”
“Maybe, but I don’t plan on quitting anytime soon,” Roger replied defiantly with a goofy smile. “How are you holding up this morning?”
“I’m fine.”
“That’s not good then.”
“How so?”
&
nbsp; “Because that means that you didn’t drink enough!” Roger slapped him on the back.
Teddy chuckled, turned, and continued walking down the footpath.
Roger and Zoey followed.
“I drank enough to make an ass out myself last night,” Teddy said.
“That tends to happen when good alcohol is involved. I don’t remember much after you stormed off… I, uh, didn’t mean to piss you off. Being tactful was never one of my finer qualities.”
“It’s frustrating—that’s what this whole fucking situation is.”
“I understand, hoss,” Roger replied with a nod. “If you are worried that you made an ass out of yourself, then don’t think twice about it. I had no business flapping my lips. ”
“It had nothing to do with you,” Teddy said. “When I went back inside, I acted stupid and went off at Perry.”
Roger thought for a moment and then raised a bushy brow. “Old Perry? The orderly?”
Teddy nodded. “I grabbed him and demanded to know more about that damn building you told me about… I was sloppy drunk and stupid… Could hardly stand.”
“How did that go?”
“About as well as can be expected,” he said with a shrug. “He denied knowing anything and then scolded me about spreading rumors or something.”
Roger laughed. “Old Motherfucking Perry.” He shook his head. “World-class liar and world-class snitch.”
“It seemed to me that he was telling the truth,” Teddy said.
“Good liars always do.” Roger spat on the ground with disgust. “I already told you about that one… He’s a coward who wouldn’t leave this place even if you paid him. If the fence ever fell down, he’d be the first one out there trying to put the bitch back up—never trust a collaborator.”
Teddy chuckled.
The men turned a corner and followed the crowd down the main footpath leading past the gallows towards the dining hall.
Teddy looked over at the gallows and noticed that a fresh batch of corpses were swaying in the wintery air. He turned towards them, took a few steps off the footpath, and stopped.
Two officers were posted in front of the gallows and watched him with their rifles across their chest.
H7N9- The Complete Series Page 44