August Burning (Book 2): Survival (15 page)

“Umm. Well.” And Bennett couldn’t think of a good reason, so he went.

As Agis seated himself back at the head of the revelry, there was greed in his eyes.

…

“Shhhh, she’s coming back.”

The dame burst into the room with a crisp, assuming air. She held her graying head high, with pride. “I couldn’t come sooner. It appears most of you idiots have managed to spread some venereal diseases around by banging like jackrabbits. In addition, there’s some lice, malnourishment, and…who’s been setting the broken bones around here?”

Adira croaked. “I have.”

The dame’s eyes thinned. “Well, that’s been the ray of sunshine in all this rainy weather. You did a good job.” She referred to a notebook. “My prognosis, is that three, and possibly four of your ribs are cracked. Now, considering you have not gotten an infection or died by this point, you will probably be fine. Your breathing is troubled, to say the least, but I obviously can’t do an x-ray. I can only use my hands, and my knowledge, which, lucky for you, is quite considerable. I don’t know what you idiots were doing…but…are you crying dear?”

Adira bit her trembling lip, and struggled to contain the wells of tears that were building around her eyes.

Jaxton moved to her at once, resting his hand on hers. “She’s a little sensitive, is all.” He absentmindedly moved his hand to her thigh, but she recoiled.

Annabelle came closer, peering at them and pursing her lips. “How did you obtain these injuries?”

Jaxton’s mouth hardened. “None of your business.”

Annabelle’s mouth twitched. “I’m going to give you painkillers. You need to keep breathing deeply as often as you can, or else you could get pneumonia, and, die.”

Annabelle turned to leave. “Another thing. If you want my help again, don’t lie to me and tell me she fell off a horse.”

Jaxton dug his nails into the futon.

…

“Everyone has a place. We’ve got a list of jobs here, and they must all be filled. I hope to do this with volunteers, of course.” They could see his breath on the air. The day was bleak, and cold. Winter was coming.

Agis had gathered them, one hundred in all, on the roof of the school.

“Night guards. You will rotate guard shifts among yourselves, and you will patrol the roof, and all exits from dusk till dawn.”

Wilder looked to Duke, “You’re not that fat anymore, you know.”

“You’re a breath of fresh air, did you know that?”

“I’ve been told all the time,” Wilder whispered.

“Good to see you’re back to being you,” Duke grumbled in reply.

Wilder stiffened. “No, not yet pal. Not a day goes by when I don’t think about Tessa.”

Duke nodded, “I know bud.” Agis droned on above their voices, detailing the latrine pit teams.

“Where’s Jaxton?”

Duke sighed. “I don’t know man, I think he’s still with Adira. Night and day.”

“We need him back. Someone is filling the void.”

“This Agis guy, doing a pretty good job, though, isn’t he?”

Wilder examined the crisply dressed officer. “Fuck this. Want to go back to that one huge house with the glass chandelier and smash it?”

Duke groaned in mock disapproval, before instantly warming. “Game on.”

The pair turned to leave, and began strolling toward the hatch in the roof. Wilder felt its frigid metal at the same time a hand touched his shoulder. It was a burly officer with a red face, shivering in his winter uniform. “Stay a while. Lieutenant Agis is just finishing up.”

Wilder recoiled at the man’s touch. “Get off me. We’ll be going.” He went to touch the hatch again, and a boot stomped down on it.

“Just a few more minutes, please.”

Wilder and Duke exchanged wary glances. “What’s your name?” Wilder challenged.

“Bill.”

“Bill.” Wilder tapped him on his name-tag. “Bill Beaumont.”

“That’s it. Come on back to the group here.”

“Laissez-nous tranquilles, connard.”

“What did you just say to me?”

“Really? So you managed to pick up their manners but not their language?”

“Alright that’s enough. Back to the group.” The burly officer grabbed Wilder by the arms and dragged him across the rough, gritty roof.

Wilder struggled furiously and broke free. The others began to stare.

“What is going on?” A pasty ginger with crooked yellow teeth approached.

“Will, I was just reminding these men of their social obligation here.”

“What the fuck is it with you guys’ names…” Duke muttered, eyeing the
Hernandez
tag on Will’s uniform.

The pasty man drew closer, his yellow teeth flashing. His right hand dropped to his belt, where there was a heavy metal baton. “Listen here.”

Bill sniffed, and Will stopped. He turned back, and saw near thirty people were watching the exchange. Will took a measured step back, and smiled effortlessly. “I’m sure you men have important things to take care of. We’ll be sure to put your names down for something. Carry on then.”

Wilder stared at the red-haired man for another few seconds before descending into the warmth of the school.

…

“I mean he’s doing good things. Organizing people. There’s a different atmosphere here, now. People have hope. Real hope they can touch too, not just some blind…clinging….”

“Real hope they can touch? What in the
fuck
does that even mean?”

“We don’t have to worry about food for the first time in weeks! The Citadel is protected.”

“Doesn’t something about them strike you as a little off?” Liam spat as he talked, unable to get the images of Harley’s frolicking last night out of his head.

“What do you expect? No one is totally sane any more. If you go outside for too long, you’ll eventually come across other humans who want to eat you. How can anyone be normal with that knowledge?”

Harley sat on the old nurse’s office chair, colored aqua blue, and sorted pills and creams into various bags. They were to combine their resources with Agis’s.

Liam leaned back. “This isn’t
our thing
anymore. It’s someone else’s and there is something off about them. Mark my words.”

“Democracy is overrated.” Harley snapped. Her arrogance annoyed Liam more day by day. She had created a niche, and filled it with zest. The newcomers had flocked to her.

Liam rose, angry from being inside his own head too much, and kissed her hungrily. Feeling the anger, he took her then and there, in that old office. She sprawled out on the cracking leather and met him halfway, with her own fury that boiled just beneath the surface. When he was done, he collapsed on top of her, panting with exertion and sweat. He smiled, feeling he had done well. That smile evaporated as he saw her expression of ambivalence. Harley shrugged, put her clothes back on, and went back to sorting pills, as if nothing had happened. Liam sat next to her like a hungry dog, trying to think of something to say.

There was a solid knock on the wooden door. “Am I disturbing you?” It was Agis, polished and crisp, with a modulated tone that was undeniably pleasant to hear.

“Not at all, come in.” Harley gave her best smile. “We’re running low on painkillers, I think people raid the stash…but there are a fair amount of antibiotics…no one has been going outside and getting hurt since the cold. I hope you have some more though, now with over one hundred people.”

Agis waved his hand casually. “Not to worry. We have a supply.”

Liam stared the man down, as Harley continued to beam.

Agis took a seat next to her. “But I didn’t come here to ask about the drugs.” He looked to Liam, and back. “I hear you were both in the engagement, with those…hillsmen, the savages.”

Liam groaned inside, and Harley cut him off. “We were. We fought them, under Jaxton, beat them back.”

“Were they infected?”

“They had all been bitten. They had weapons, and there was something different about them. They weren’t so mindless. They did not attack on sight, for one, and they had some rough semblance of organization.”

Agis mused, stoically. “Could you show me where they are?”

“Yes.” “Yeah.” Liam and Harley answered at the same time.

Agis made sure to look at each in appreciation, though Harley only seemed to notice him looking at her. He rose to leave.

“What will you do with them?”

He turned, slowly. “We will not live in this school forever. A time will come when we retake the entire town. Perhaps….we can reach an accommodation with those things. Perhaps not. Thank you for your help.”

After the door had closed, Liam noticed Harley biting her lip.

…

Elvis scrutinized the meat. It looked pulpy. When he poked it, blood oozed out. He could eat it, or he could go back to the Citadel. He tossed aside the empty lighter. For twelve hours he had scoured the houses around him for gasoline, for a lighter, for anything to start a fire. He had returned to the modern abode in failure.

He slammed his fists on the granite counter-top, furious he couldn’t even live alone. He was a failure, in all senses of the word. At night, he lay shivering under a half-dozen blankets. In the day, he stalked around the forest of dead leaves like a leopard, and rose firing maniacally when he spotted a small woodland creature. Now he heard, and felt, his aggravated stomach yelling abuse at him. He had to eat. There was nothing to lose, right? Right you are Bennett, right you are.

Elvis snatched the rabbit’s flesh and brought it to his mouth. The blood was dripping onto the hunting manual. He could still see fluffs of hair and skin stuck to the body. His hand was shivering, but his teeth sunk into the pink flesh. He chewed fast and viciously, willing himself not to puke. The sensation of the raw rabbit meat was so unlike anything he had ever consumed he was sure it would come back up. Two bites later, he launched it against the wall, and stumbled back into the bedroom.

His fingers fumbled for the bottle of painkillers. He downed four more, the last of the stash. Lying spread eagle on the satin bed-cover, he closed his eyes in peace. But the second he did, like always, the images of his father and mother being eaten to death ambushed him. His eyes snapped open. He was so tired. But he couldn’t close his eyes. Staggering to his feet, he snatched his rifle from the pure white mattress. His steps took him thru the sliding glass door out onto the wooden deck. He held his hand up to block the sun, and breathed deeply, feeling the frigid air ripping into his lungs. The last rays of light illuminated the stark landscape, a mass of grays and browns that stretched for miles till it ran into the western valley wall. As he eased down onto the deck, the sound of his groaning was the only noise in that lucid air.

He raised his rifle, and aimed at a whiff of cloud. He squeezed the trigger five times, unloading the clip. With each shot the weapon rocked back against his shoulder, and the thunder that followed snapped and rolled across the desolate forest. They would be coming soon.

As the sun crept away from him, he considered what he would tell his parents, were he to see them again. Had he possessed another bullet, he might have ended it all there and then, such was the shame that filled his heart. Tears came unbidden to his eyes, but there was no reason to wipe them away. They tumbled down his cheeks and fell on peeling paint. He had failed his family, and he had fled from his friends. He felt a slow-rising horror captivating his feeble limbs, inch by inch. As the space between the tree-trunks grew dark, he contemplated his after-life.

He contemplated the concept of nothing. That there was nothing after this. And he breathed a little easier. Elvis exhaled deeply. There was a scratch on the wood behind him.

An infected man stood there, drawn by the gunfire. He was emaciated, so feebly fleshed that his arms were sticks with ball joints covered with a thing coat of rubbery, bruised flesh. The man closed the distance to Elvis within two seconds, and Elvis did not try to run. The man opened his mouth and closed down on Elvis’ forearm.

He knew this was the end. He felt the man’s grimy, bleeding hands clawing at his clothing. The eyes were dilated to the extreme, great big orbs of black vapidness. The filthy wife-beater that hung on the skeletal frame hung like drying laundry. He hand no pants on, and his penis had been chewed off, Bennett noticed with ambivalence. He looked to the sky, where the pinpricks of light were fighting to emerge in the blackness. He would go away, and that was it.

Except he felt a queer sensation on his arm. It didn’t hurt as much as he expected. Elvis clung to a fistful of slimy hair and yanked backwards. There was a ring of red on his arm, but no broken skin. The man had no teeth, simply rotting gums that seethed with pulsing bacteria. In disgust, Elvis kicked the man and heard the ribs crack. He stepped on the seething creature in anger, furious this one final thing had gone wrong, even still.

The stars had bested the clouds. There was a tapestry in the sky above the two struggling mortals that was timeless, ageless, a sky seen for a thousand lives of men before, and for a thousand lives of men after. And Elvis considered an even more terrifying possibility. What if he was wrong? What if his family was right there, just waiting for him on the other side? He considered them. They had probably forgiven him. They would forgive him, and still he would never have paid for the crime he committed. Nature was still offended, he was sure. This man had no teeth.