A Savage Generation

by David Tallerman

  He doesn’t dare to touch his arm. He doesn’t like how the flesh there tingles. It feels like little static shocks, one after another, and like tiny worms crawling beneath the surface. His eyes are sore and gritty. It’s difficult to breathe, as though he’s lost the rhythm and can’t quite get it back: one moment he’s panting, the next emitting ragged gasps that leave him dizzy. Austin saw people ill with the sickness, before his mother brought him here. This is the beginning, but there’s worse to come.

  He hopes there won’t be too much pain. He’s tired of pain. That might, in the end, explain everything he’s done. He’d got so tired of pain that he just wanted to avoid it, whatever the cost. He couldn’t have done anything differently. If he could have, he wouldn’t have. Nobody makes choices, they only pretend to. That’s the difference between him and them, he doesn’t pretend.

  It’s all so clear. He’d never been supposed to live. Not here. Perhaps not ever. Some people are born to be destroyed. Maybe most people. He’s nothing special, never has been, and neither is anyone else. That’s why all of this has happened. That’s why it had to happen. The time they had was borrowed, and it’s been used up.

  His thoughts are jumbling. Still there’s that sense of clarity, but always, as Austin attempts to examine an idea, to say for sure whether it’s correct or logical, it slips away. The sensation is like watching the view go by from inside a train, or watching a train go by from inside the view. Or are those the same thing?

  From close by there comes a seismic crack, as if the walls themselves are about to tumble in and swallow him. Normally that would shock him. Now, Austin barely reacts. The noise resounds again, something hard striking against something hard with huge force. Again, again. Austin knows that he should be alarmed, but he isn’t. He knows what the noise means. They’re coming, coming to get him.

  It’s okay. It doesn’t matter.

  It won’t be much longer.

  * * *

  Doyle swings the sledgehammer, hardly aware of its weight or the jolt as its steel head rebounds from mortar and crumbling cinder block. He drags it back, tips it easily behind his shoulder, and brings it down once more, taking no satisfaction when a block caves in half, feeling only a desperate urgency, and at the same time a desperate urge to fail, so that he won’t have to face what lies within.

  Kyle helped him to select the spot. Doyle isn’t even certain they have it right. No matter. If this isn’t the place, he’ll start over somewhere else, demolishing every wall in the building if need be, picking through the rubble if that’s what it takes to find his son.

  His son.

  How can you fuck something up so badly? Or someone? How is that possible?

  Doyle swings, and the head penetrates with a crash like thunder, dragging fractured hunks of wall into the darkness. Doyle hauls the sledgehammer back with an effort, takes another swipe and another, working at the edges of the hole he’s created. Then he drops the hammer, not caring how its impact weaves cracks in the tiles, and begins to dig with his hands. He resumes with the sledgehammer, until it seems the muscles of his shoulders will burst under the strain. Chips of shattered brick slice at his face and arms. Doyle scarcely notices. Again he drops the hammer to work with his hands, clearing rubble, flinging it behind him.

  He thinks the gap is large enough. Kyle insisted that he could move around in the space beyond, but Kyle is a foot shorter than Doyle, and lightly built. Still, Doyle pushes through, head and right arm first and then stepping one foot in. Claustrophobia insists there’s no way to angle his other arm, no way to turn or back out either, yet he manages to twist, and from there to get the arm in, sliding his left leg after.

  Dust scratches at his lungs. Beneath his feet are chunks of broken masonry. Edging sideways, Doyle picks his steps carefully. If he stumbles or twists an ankle, he’ll be trapped here. Somewhere in the darkness, he can make out the faintest trembling light, a light where there should be none. He creeps toward it. Trying to judge distance is futile; it’s all he can do to see anything. Even with his head to one side, the cinder-block wall scrapes his cheek. His hands are already scratched raw, as are his knees, despite the thick fabric of his trousers.

  With the glare from the flashlight he left outside obstructed by his own body, Doyle can make out the flicker of amber light more clearly. It’s nearer than he’d thought, a mere few feet away. He pauses, entirely conscious for the first time of what it is he’s doing.

  “Austin?” Doyle calls, not loudly.

  And from somewhere in the gloom ahead, a thin voice, a voice Doyle hardly knows, whispers back, “Dad.”

  * * *

  Ben sits, perfectly still, in the darkness. Though he can’t say what he expects to hear, though stillness only makes the throbbing in his head worse, he listens with every nerve of his being.

  He’d been surprised when the whiskey ran out, surprised and devastated. But the grief had passed quickly, as he’d begun to feel sick, and then violently sick. He had stumbled from his chair to crash through three others, cracking his shins on metal and molded plastic. Unable to make it farther, he’d had no choice but to drop onto hands and knees and empty his guts down to the last drop. The vomit had been just liquid, meagerly processed by his flagging body. The raw stench of undiluted whiskey had made him want to throw up all over again. Instead, he had crawled like a frightened dog until he could barely smell it anymore. He’d curled around the pain in his belly, warding off waves of nausea. At some point he’d drifted into sleep.

  When the noise had started, Ben had imagined the building was crashing down upon him. All his terrors of disaster had risen to choke him, and he’d been certain that this was the end, the catastrophe he’d known for so long was coming. Yet as sleep had sloughed away, he’d realized those steady impacts weren’t even near. They were coming from above, and toward the rear of the Big House. Whatever they represented wasn’t a threat to him. And slowly, Ben’s first, dizzying rush of panic had subsided.

  Then he’d noticed the reek of vomit and whiskey. It was overwhelming; he couldn’t believe he’d thought he had escaped it. He’d crept on hands and knees, negotiating his way by touch alone past a stack of shelves and a table. Finding a chair, he’d flopped into it.

  The noise had seemed endless. Its rhythm was unfaltering, though interspersed with smaller sounds of devastation. Every blow carved a path through Ben’s aching head, like lightning searing between one ear and the other. He was very thirsty. He knew there must be some explanation here that he was blind to, but guessing struck him as useless. Nor did he want to leave the library, where he felt instinctively safe.

  More than once, the noise – someone working with infinite persistence to break something, he’d concluded – had paused. Each time, Ben counted the seconds until it restarted. The last time, the count got so high that Ben lost track. Then he’d decided it must be over, finally over. Whatever they were doing up there was done.

  Now he thinks about trying again to sleep. He thinks about hunting for water, to wash the dryness and flavor of sick from his throat. He thinks about moving, doesn’t. Instead, he waits.

  Maybe it’s only the whiskey. Maybe it’s the fear he’s lived with for so long that it’s grown to be a part of him. But Ben can’t convince himself that there isn’t worse to come.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  His father is just a shape, and not a reassuring one. There’s something definitely hostile about his outline, something that makes Austin want to kick and scratch and bite, anything to not be trapped in this suffocating cavity with that dangerous silhouette.

  He fights the impulse. It’s the sickness. The sickness makes you crazy, everybody knows. Except that Austin has been scared of his dad for a long time, ever since the night he executed Plan John. And Austin can only be in the initial stages. Shouldn’t it take a day, even two, to get really bad? So maybe what he’s feeling isn’t the sickness a
t all.

  “Don’t come too close,” he says. He means to warn his father. The way his voice sounds, though, scratchy and strange, the caution comes out more like a threat.

  “I won’t,” his dad says. True to his word, he stays pressed against the far wall, as far away as the space will allow.

  “She bit me.” Austin is amazed that three syllables can imply so much.

  “I’ll make sure she doesn’t hurt anyone else.”

  “Wasn’t her fault. It was me. All me.”

  It seems suddenly important that nobody should take the blame for what he’s done. He knows now that he’s misconstrued everything. He’s lied to himself from the start about every detail, every action – all bar one.

  Austin swallows. His mouth feels parched and raw. “Will…will you do something for me?”

  “Anything,” his dad says. “Let’s get you out of here, get you some help. Austin, I know I’ve—”

  “Not that.” He doesn’t intend to cut his dad off, but his mouth is bone-dry, not a drop of spit to lubricate it, and he fears that it might close up entirely, trapping whatever he has left to say inside forever. “Martin, he….” With the words jumbling in his mind, it’s harder to find the right ones than ever. “He hurt me.”

  “He hit you?”

  “Yeah. He hit me.” But he wants to explain how that wasn’t the worst. How the worst had been seeing that he meant less than nothing in someone else’s eyes, and how he’d come, day by day, to view himself the same way. How the worst had been watching himself toughen, trying to grow a skin thick enough to survive inside, knowing that in so doing he was becoming someone unlovable, someone even his own mother seemed barely to tolerate. The worst was losing hope, and beginning to comprehend that he would never have hope again, that somewhere along the line it had been taken and would not be given back.

  Many nights, Austin had wished for his dad to come and save him. And always in the back of those dreams had been the fear that, if he did, his reaction would not be sympathy but contempt, contempt for his son’s weakness. Doyle Johnson, Austin had felt instinctively, would not be so weak as to let anyone hurt him.

  He already feels like he’s said more than he can bear. All the waning candlelight shows of his father’s face is crude angles, a simplification that betrays no nuance. His eyes are dark hollows. If they detect flaws, shame, failure, there’s no way for Austin to tell.

  “He’s one of them,” Austin says. “A Sicker. I saw him. I think he’s living out there, in the forest. Maybe Mom too.” That possibility hadn’t even occurred to him. How could it not have? “He’s the reason I stole the doctor’s gun. He should die. He really ought to die. I know it won’t make anything better, but—”

  “Okay.”

  Austin doesn’t understand. “What?”

  “Okay,” his father says. “Yes. I’ll get it done.”

  Can it be that straightforward? Okay. Could he have gone to his dad and told him, and that would have been it, the end of this nightmare, right there? I’ll get it done.

  No. His dad hadn’t been there. Not before, not ever. Now he is and it’s too late. Now nothing either of them says can matter at all. “Dad,” Austin whispers, “I feel really sick.”

  “I know. We’ll get you out of here. Take you to Aaronovich.”

  “I don’t want to be a monster.”

  “The doctor can help you.”

  Austin has seen how she’s helped the little girl. That isn’t the kind of help he needs. “I won’t be me.” Except that isn’t what frightens him. If it was solely that, the notion of continuing in this body but with his thoughts and memories broken or gone, he might embrace what’s coming.

  No, what frightens him is that he will endure.

  Austin cradles the gun. Martin took him to a firing range once, a bonding exercise no doubt suggested by Austin’s mother. He recalls clearly how, even in those early days, he’d sensed that Martin would have liked to turn that gun on his stepson-to-be. Austin remembers where the safety catch is, so he clicks it off. Guns, he’d learned that day, were simple things. You just point and pull the trigger. Just point and shoot.

  He hadn’t taken the gun because he believed he would track down his stepfather. Austin appreciates that now. Maybe, on some level, he’d known then. He had only ever wanted it for one purpose. And having come to the crucial moment, he isn’t sure he’s strong enough. Even if he is, perhaps the sickness will undermine him, will make him weak. Austin cradles the gun in both hands. He thinks about raising it. He knows what you’re supposed to do, but the thought makes him gag.

  “Dad,” he says, so softly that he has no idea if his father will hear. “Do you have your gun?”

  He should say it louder. But he doesn’t know if he has the strength. He remembers everything he’d been taught that day. So easy. Just point and shoot. Only, he would have to find a way to make his hands comply.

  His father’s voice is softly spoken and impossibly loud-seeming. “Austin—”

  “Do you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then…there’s something else.”

  “Austin. Please. Put that down.”

  Austin is holding his own gun up, he realizes. “I can’t,” he says. “Can’t keep going. Not like this.”

  The grip is cool inside his palm. The rest of him is too warm, but the gun at least is cold. Just point. And shoot.

  “One of us has to do it. You or me.”

  Just point….

  “And Dad, I don’t know if I can.”

  * * *

  Kyle delivered the message to Carlita, like Johnson had told him to. He’d knocked at her door and coughed out the brief words he’d been made to memorize: words so important to Johnson, so feeble and absurd-sounding coming from him. When she’d asked him to explain, he’d had no answers. When she’d begun to cry, Kyle had wanted, more than he had already, to be anywhere else. In a pause, as she’d dipped her head into her hands, he had hurried away.

  He hadn’t made it far. Outside, uncertainty had gripped him. What was going to happen to Austin? Was it his fault? Maybe he should go back and help Johnson, or else attempt to stop him.

  Kyle couldn’t say which would be worse. So he’d remained where he was, not feeling the night’s chill, aware of nothing except the noises from within, the subdued crunch of metal on disintegrating brick. Later, there had come silence. Kyle had tried to imagine what was happening, up there within the walls – had tried not to.

  But now, the silence has been broken. All his questions evaporate, rousted by the explosion of a gunshot.

  Kyle starts toward the entrance of the Big House, without knowing why. As soon as he observes where his feet are leading him, he stops. There’s nothing he can do to help. In fact, if what he suspects is true, if Austin has shot his father, then Kyle should be running. Austin is sick, he was crazy before he got sick, and thanks to Kyle, he has a gun.

  The silence is broken once more. This time, it’s the rapid sound of feet, punctuated by muffled impacts, as though someone is careening through the lightless corridors.

  Could it be Austin? Could he have crawled out of his hole so quickly?

  The running footsteps are almost on him, and Kyle wants to run himself, but his body is momentarily unwilling. He’s near enough to the doors that all he sees is a shape, before it barrels into him and they’re both plummeting earthward. A fist grazes his jaw and Kyle flails to return a blow, striving to drive this other body away from his. He gets one good punch in, by luck more than judgment, and then the dark form cries out, and Kyle recognizes that voice.

  “Dad?” he manages, still struggling to free himself.

  Finally, his father rolls aside, gagging for breath. “Oh shit,” he croaks. “Shit, Kyle, it’s you.”

  Kyle gets half to his feet, holding himself up with palms on knees. He touch
es fingers to his jaw and winces. “Who did you think it was?”

  “Hell. I don’t know.” Ben, too, is clambering to his feet, huffing breaths that mist in the chill darkness. “Jesus, Kyle.” He fights for air. “What’re you doing out here?” Another gasp. “Did you hear a gunshot?”

  “It’s Austin,” Kyle says, struggling to work the words free through his bruised jaw. “Austin and Johnson.”

  “Johnson? How do you know?”

  Kyle hesitates, unwilling to relive the night’s horrors by describing them. “Something bad happened,” he says at last. “With Austin. Aaronovich made me tell Johnson; Johnson sent me to talk to Carlita. In case she got scared. In case something…if something bad happened to him as well.”

  His father’s breathing is no longer labored. “Why the fuck,” Ben asks, “would Carlita care if something happened to Doyle Johnson?”

  His father’s suspicion is clear; suspicion, not knowledge. Kyle could so easily lie.

  “Kyle, what message did you take to Carlita?”

  He could lie. He could say any of a thousand things.

  Suddenly his father’s hands are gripping the collar of Kyle’s jacket, rough fingers clasping too tight and too close to his throat, and though Kyle has never been afraid of his dad, he’s afraid now.

  “Kyle, I’m warning you….”

  He could lie, but he doesn’t want to. Why should he protect anyone, anyone other than himself? “Johnson said to tell her, I love you and I’m sorry.”

  Kyle knows he shouldn’t say it, even as he does. He feels every word, weighty in his throat. He knows it’s the worst thing he could have said, the one that might make this night more dreadful than it already is.

  Yet in that moment, a tiny part of him is glad. Glad because they haven’t cared, haven’t tried, and fuck them, Carlita, Johnson, even his dad – especially his dad – for letting him down. And with that thought, something cracks inside him. He remembers the secret Austin intended to bribe him with, the one Kyle refused to hear, and wonders to what extent that was because, deep down, he knew the truth.