In the End (Starbounders) (4 page)

Chapter Ten

“What the hell are you doing?” he asks in a loud whisper, waving me to the door. “Get in here before they find you.”

I pause for just a second before I hurry back to the room. Jacks shuts the door, his face scrunched. “You’re covered in dust. Where did you go? You were supposed to stay here.”

He looks at the knife I’ve been clutching the whole time.

“I’m not going to tell on you. Put that away.”

I hesitate, then sheath it. I’ve got no choice now but to trust this guy.

“Quick, clean up before Doc comes in here.”

He motions to the sink, where I quickly wash my face, the dark material of my synth-suit hiding the rest of the dust.

“Where were you?” he asks.

“I told you. I’m looking for someone. I thought I could just take a quick look around to see if I could find him.”

“And?”

“I found a disorganized file room. . . . Tried to look up Tank’s file so I could find out what he did exactly, but it wasn’t there.”

“You could have just asked me.”

“You were being pretty vague. . . .”

“I don’t like to talk about it.” Jacks looks down at the floor. “I have his file. If you promise not to wander off again, I’ll let you read it.”

“Why would you take Tank’s file?” I ask. He looks at his feet but doesn’t answer. “Can’t you just tell me what’s in it?”

He pauses. “He likes to hurt girls,” he says, his face full of pain. Jacks takes a deep breath—and it feels as if he is sucking all the air out of the room.

“So, where’d you go, anyway?” I ask, trying to forget about Tank for a minute.

“A couple of guys were anxious for entry. It happens.”

The lights flicker and I glance at the ceiling. “What’s up with the electricity?” I ask.

“The electricity is powered by a diesel generator and only used for the perimeter wall . . . and the Warden’s suite. The rest of Fort Black is dark.”

“And you allow weapons inside?”

“Yeah . . . it’s not like there are rules, really. People have to defend themselves.”

He sits in a chair and stretches, allowing me to see that one wiry-muscled arm is patterned in tribal symbols surrounding a tree on his bicep, its roots hanging down his arm, reaching toward his hand. The other has a bright scene that is too cluttered to make out from where I sit, but I spot a bright gold ribbon that winds from his wrist and up his arm, disappearing under his sleeve and showing up again on his neck, peeking out of his collar.

I’m still trying to make out the tattoo, when I realize he’s been speaking to me. My eyes snap up to his face. “Sorry, what?”

“How did you make it here?”

“I ran.”

He crosses his arms. “Come on. You owe me. I could have had your ass out the door just then.”

“That’s true. Thanks.”

“So?”

I think for a moment. How did I make it here? Because the Guardians taught me how to survive. But I can’t talk about New Hope. For one thing, I don’t know what would happen to me if I did.

I shrug. “Luck, I guess. Plus I’m fast. And smart.”

Jacks laughs. “Are you sure you haven’t been here before? You definitely talk the talk.”

“Well, like you said. I’ve made it this far.”

Jacks stands and goes to the counter. I tense, remembering the potassium chloride. I get ready to spring up and run for it, but Jacks just grabs a cup from the cabinet. He fills it with water from the tap and brings it to me.

“Uh, thanks,” I say warily, but I’m starting to trust Jacks. When I had him pinned, he never tried to fight back. Instead he stayed cool and talked me down. He doesn’t want to harm me. If he did, he could have told Pete to shoot me or let Tank have another crack at me.

“Well water. You get used to it.”

I take a sip and wince at the rusty, metallic taste. As I force it down, the door bursts opens and Doc and the man in the Stetson hat walk into the room. The wannabe cowboy is in his midforties, and has dark hair and a well-kempt beard. His bushy eyebrows nearly meet the hat pulled low on his forehead.

“Hello again, Amy.” Doc smiles thinly. “This is the Warden. He’s come to welcome you to Fort Black.”

“Hiya, Amy,” the man says with a heavy Texan accent. “I hope my nephew has been taking good care of ya.”

My eyes flick to Jacks in shock.

Jacks is the Warden’s
nephew
?

Jacks’s voice cuts through. “I have. As you can see, she’s still human. There’s no need to worry.”

“Not yet . . . but it hasn’t been the full twenty-four hours. It is important we take precautions,” Doc says, not meeting my gaze.

The Warden, on the other hand, looks me up and down. “Well, Jacks has given his word to watch her for any change, and Doc says she’s free of the Black Plague.” He smiles, and for a moment I see his resemblance to Jacks. “If you have any trouble, you just let me know,” he tells me. “We’ll find you a place to stay if you want.”

“I’m fine,” I say quietly.

The Warden ignores my statement and looks over my shoulder to Jacks. “Jackson, you take care of this little girl, ya hear?”

I stifle an incredulous snort.

“Bye now.” The Warden dips his hat to me and leaves, followed by Doc.

Once the door closes, I turn to Jacks, who’s awkwardly avoiding my gaze. “Your uncle’s the
Warden
?”

He shrugs and nods, looking down as if embarrassed.

I study him. He didn’t tell Doc or the Warden about my disappearing act. He seems sincere, not guarded the way Rice always was when he was trying not to tell me the truth about New Hope and the Floraes.

“Look, if you’re this hooked up, you must know how to get to this guy I’m looking for.”

“I know some things,” Jacks says. I look into his eyes. The intensity of the stare he gives me back makes me blush and look away. I can still feel his dark eyes on me.

“Well, maybe you know him. Ken Oh?”

He shrugs. “I’ve run across a couple of guys named Ken, I guess. Ken O, though? Like the initial
O
?”

I shake my head. “No, that’s his last name,
O, h
. He’s Japanese-American and might be working as a doctor or in a medical job.”

He thinks for a minute, then shakes his head. “I don’t know any Asian guys named Ken . . . and Doc’s the only doctor I know of, and I’m his only help.”

Frustration wells up. Suddenly an image of Baby strapped to a table flashes through my mind.

“Then I’ve got to look myself. Am I clear to go inside?”

“Almost.” He stands and shakes his arms out. “Have a seat.” I sit back down on the examination table. He opens a drawer and pulls something out, plugging it into the wall. I realize it’s a tattoo gun. “I just have to mark you clean.”

I think of the scar that Rice and Baby share on the back of their necks. They were marked as part of an experiment. I swallow. “I don’t want a tattoo.”

“Sorry, but if you want to come into Fort Black, you need the mark. It lets everyone else know you’ve been tested and you don’t have the Pox.”

“And what is that, exactly?”

“It’s like the chicken pox, but you break out in black bumps. It’s extremely contagious. You don’t want to touch the victim at all, especially not any of their sores. They either die or get better. Only about half make it.”

“Sounds fun,” I mumble. “So this tattoo . . . Will it hurt?” I wince at my weakness. After all that’s happened to me, why would a silly tattoo bother me so much?

Because it’s not my choice. It’s Fort Black’s.

“It’s not too bad, but you’re going to have to take off those gloves.”

I look at my hands. They aren’t gloves. They’re part of the synth-suit. I stretch down the fabric of my suit, the same as I did when Doc wanted to take my blood, freeing my arm through the neck hole. The material bounces back to my body, making it look like an off-the-shoulder spandex top.

I sigh and hold out my hand. “I suppose I must just screw my courage to the sticking place.”

Jacks looks at me blankly. “What?”

“It’s Shakespeare.” Rice would have known Lady Macbeth’s famous quote. “It just means I have to stay strong. My father loved to read Shakespeare. . . . I used to read a lot of his plays, for fun.”

“Sounds like a laugh riot,” he mumbles. “Here”—he holds my wrist gently—“it sort of feels like your skin is being scraped with a really dull knife. It only hurts a little.”

Right. A little. I force a smile over the pain.

“What other tats do you do in here?”

“A lot. People like to look tough. And the women get tattoos once they’re claimed. . . . They get their man’s name on their arms to show they’re under someone’s protection.”

“You’re joking.”

“Nope . . . There aren’t a lot of women here. This used to be a men’s prison, and last year a lot of the women died from some superflu that Doc couldn’t cure. He came up with an immune booster and injected them all, but most of them died anyway. It’s easiest for a woman to find a protector and keep safe.”

“What about the Warden? Isn’t he in charge? Shouldn’t he protect people?”

“My uncle . . . He’s just out for himself, really.” Jack’s tone changes yet again, and he shakes his head. “He keeps the walls guarded and has Doc keep track of the diseased, but he doesn’t do anything to keep things peaceful. I think he likes people scared. It keeps them from realizing what the real problems are, like him. Only murderers get punished. Everything else is allowed to sort itself out. He doesn’t protect anyone unless he sees an advantage to it.”

“Charming.” I’m seeing the Warden in a new light.

“All done!” Jacks removes the needle from the tattoo gun, throwing it away before placing the gun back in the drawer. I study my wrist: there’s just a small black square. It didn’t hurt that much. I place my arm back into the synth-suit, the material forming back against me like a second skin.

Jacks looks me over. “Hey, do you have any other clothes? That skintight catsuit thing you have on now will get you a lot of unwanted attention.”

I shake my head, crossing my arms over my chest. I know the suit leaves little to the imagination; I left the clothes I was forced to wear in the Ward where Kay dropped me, and my pack didn’t have room for anything else.

“Well, walking around here with that on will make you a target.” Jacks peels off his shirt, revealing more tattoos over a well-muscled chest and stomach. My face reddens when he catches me staring.

“Here, put this on for now.”

Jacks hands me his shirt, which I pull over my head. It smells pleasantly worn. It’s too large, but I tie it off at my waist, so I can still easily reach my gun and the knives sheathed on either thigh.

“I can lend you some sweatpants later if you want,” Jacks offers, and I nod. I could always wear my synth-suit under my clothes. Part of the perks is that it seeps the sweat away from your body, keeps you dry and cool, and doesn’t need to be washed. It was designed for long-term wear. Also, I’ll feel safer with it on, in case I have to leave Fort Black in a hurry, or if I’m ever alone with Tank again.

“Are you going to keep those gloves on? It’s pretty hot outside.”

I smile and hold up my hand and wiggle my black-clad fingers. “Not gloves . . . They’re attached. . . . Or why wouldn’t I have just taken them off when you tattooed my wrist?”

“I don’t know. . . .” His face reddens. “I wasn’t going to ask. . . .”

I can feel my own face heat up and wonder what’s gotten into me. “Here, look”—I pull up my hood and cover my face—“it’s all one piece. The hood attaches to the neck with a Velcro-type fastener . . . except it’s quiet.” I don’t know why I feel the need to babble.

He’s staring at me with an amused look on his face. I pull my hood back down and stare at the floor. “Why don’t we just go?” I say awkwardly.

Jacks nods and leads me down the corridor, opposite the stairs, back to where I first met Tank and Pete. Two different men are standing guard. I get the same leering reaction from them I got from Tank and Pete, though. So much for the camouflaging magic of Jacks’s shirt.

“This the fresh meat?” one calls to Jacks.

The other chimes in. “You’d better claim her fast, Jackson,” he says, as if I’m not even there. “She looks sweet as pie.”

I shudder and look at Jacks, who ignores them and opens the inner door for me. I hurry through, only to be brought up short by the bright sunlight. I shield my eyes as Jacks stops next to me. He turns and smiles grimly.

“Welcome to Fort Black.”

Chapter Eleven

The first thing that hits me is the smell. The stench of unwashed bodies, of too many people and not enough space. Gagging, I put my hand over my nose and mouth.

“You’ll get used to it,” Jacks tells me. He grabs my hand.

“What are you doing?” I ask, pulling away from his grip.

“Trust me,” he says, taking my hand again. “You don’t want to look unclaimed.”

I look at him for a moment, then let my hand relax in his as he leads me through the open yard, crowded by a maze of shacks made of plywood and cardboard, with a few tents mixed in. People live so closely here that even the fact that they’re out in the open doesn’t get rid of the stink—or maybe it’s just the walls that keep the air oppressive and unmoving.

I try to place my feet on what little concrete is visible around the hovels, but there’s barely any room to walk. I drop my hand from my face and force myself to start getting used to the smell.

“This was the exercise yard,” Jacks explains. “It’s where the people with no skills live, and the children with no parents.”

“That’s awful.”

“No argument from me,” he says grimly. We keep walking.

“Where do
you
live?”

“In the cells. That’s what being the Warden’s nephew gets you. That and my cushy job as Doc’s assistant.”

“But you don’t know anything about medicine?”

“I’ve got the basics, enough to help Doc with his examinations. Mostly I take notes for him. Make sure he doesn’t get hurt.”

“So you’re his bodyguard, too, then.”

He shrugs. “Bodyguard, secretary, gofer,” he says. “Pretty much whatever he needs.”

A gunshot sounds from above and I flinch, involuntarily squeezing Jacks’s hand tighter. “Probably a Florae outside,” he says. “They try to shoot them before they reach the walls.”

“The gunshots only bring more.”

“This isn’t exactly a quiet place,” Jacks says. “They’ll come anyway. But the walls keep them out.” He’s right. Fort Black must attract any Florae within a ten-mile radius. I start to ask why they don’t use the crossbows, then answer the question myself, remembering how ineffective they’d been against the Floraes chasing the cyclist.

As I look around at the flimsy structures these people call home, I see a man shoot up out of a cardboard box. He collides with me. I barely feel the impact against my shoulder, but it knocks a
humph
from him and sends him staggering. He nearly goes down before scuttling away without a word or glance back at me. He’s painfully thin—obviously malnourished—and the sharp stench he leaves behind him has me gagging again.

I shake my head, taking a look at the people around me. They’re not all as bad off as that man, though, and some of them do turn their eyes to me as I pass—wide, frightened, desperate eyes.

They’re just people, trying to survive. They don’t want to create a perfect society or further the human race. They want protection from the Floraes, and given all that I know, maybe that’s better than anything New Hope has to offer.

Jacks continues to pull me along, and I follow, clinging to his hand. I need to find Ken, and Jacks can help me with that. Maybe I don’t need to find out what else there is to know about this awful place. Jacks holds my arm as I leap over a pool of sewage. A man pushes by Jacks and stops dead in his tracks when he sees me. He’s all sinew, gleaming black eyes and rotten teeth.

“Well, hi there,” he says with a leer.

Jacks knifes between us. “She’s mine,” he says quietly, nose-to-nose with the man. Jacks’s face has hardened into a mask. It’s the same expression he wore when he spoke to Tank and Pete. The man with bad teeth doesn’t argue and gives me one final glance before moving on.

“Yours?”
I ask as we resume our trek through the chaos of the exercise yard, as if nothing had just happened.

“Listen, it’s just how it works. I told you. Do you want a bunch of ex-cons fighting over who gets to own you?”

I shake my head. Subservience—even fake—doesn’t come easy, but if it means my safety, I’ll let people think that I “belong” to Jacks.

A child scurries by me, and I feel his small fingers brush over my hip and rest on my pack. I grab his arm and he looks at me, wide-eyed and innocent. He can’t be much older than Baby, and my heart softens. I take a protein bar from my pack and give it to him. He scowls and runs away without a word.

Jacks watches this interaction with a strange expression I can’t quite place. Does he approve, or is he thinking I’m weak?

“You have food?” he asks.

“Some . . . and a few other things.”

“You’re better off than a lot of these people. They have nothing to barter.”

We continue to make our way through the pathetic shanty-town. Emaciated children eye us warily through the holes in their boxes. Because of the crowds, progress is slow.

“What do they eat?”

“They grow mushrooms and edible flowers if they can find a few bare inches that get sun. A few—the brave ones, or the desperate ones—go outside the walls to gather berries and any other free-growing food they can find. Some catch rabbits and squirrels.”

Despite myself, I cringe. I thought I was done eating squirrel.

“How big is Fort Black?” I ask, remembering when I asked Rice that same question about New Hope, and was shocked to learn almost four thousand people lived there.

“About two thousand people, all crammed into the space of six football fields. It’s crowded, but it’s better than being outside.” He motions around him. “These walls are thick on both sides of us—they keep the Floraes out.”

“So it’s like a double wall?”

“Yeah, exactly. Here.” He pulls me toward the side and up a flight of wooden stairs to the top of the wall. It’s comparably empty here. A man stands with a rifle, surveying the empty expanse that is the world outside Fort Black. He glances at us and offers Jacks a curt nod. On the wall, Jacks leads me to the front so I can look out over the prison. As we walk, he explains that the corridor in between the two walls used to let the guards get from one end of the prison to another without going into the prison itself. It runs around the whole facility, three floors high. Most of the rooms in the wall, former offices, serve as guard quarters, handy for Florae control, just a flight of steps or two from the top of the wall.

Jacks stops suddenly and turns, motioning for me to look. I gasp. The entire prison is laid out before me. The front half is the exercise yard, which Jacks says people just call the Yard. It’s about the length of a football field, a hundred yards or so, but squared, taking up the front half of the prison. From this vantage point, it’s even more disturbing than it was walking through it. Desperate bodies everywhere. People are packed in so tight that even from up here it’s hard to spot pavement.

Beyond the Yard are three large gray concrete buildings. “Cellblocks A, B, and C,” he tells me, pointing each out in turn. “I live in the middle one there: Cellblock B.”

“What’s that?” I ask, pointing to a relatively empty area to the left of Cellblock A.

“That’s the Arena. . . . You should avoid the Arena.” He points to the opposite area on the other side, next to Cellblock C. Instead of an open area, it’s occupied by another tall building, but this one is black. “And that used to be the cafeteria, library, and visiting center. . . . See how it’s connected to the side wall? In the back is the parking garage, and visitors would check in, be escorted through the wall, and taken to the top floor. Prisoners would have to go through the bottom and three security checks before being brought to the visitor area.”

I take it all in. “And what’s in the back, past the buildings?”

“The Backyard . . . don’t laugh. And don’t go there, either. The corridor at the back and the rooms above it are blocked off now, used to quarantine people recovering from the Pox, and as a morgue. Doc took over almost all the offices in the front wall to keep track of who came and went, and to monitor their condition, trying to stop infections before they spread.”

A man with a rifle walks past us, searching the horizon for Floraes. “And the guards will let me leave if I want to? Anytime?” Once I get to Ken, we’ll need to go straight to New Hope.

“Yup. Anytime. But you’d really choose hungry, flesh-eating creatures over a protected, walled complex?” He’s looking at me as if I’m crazy. “I’d take a prison full of criminals over the Floraes any day.”

“Yeah, well, you don’t have a three-hundred-pound sociopath named Tank sweet on you,” I say. Why would anyone stay here? But then, I have my sonic emitter, synth-suit, and Guardian gun, and I’ve been to trained to fight the Floraes. Any normal person would just want a place to escape Them. They would gladly trade the Floraes for a place with high walls, regardless of the people inside.

“What about you?” I ask. “Did you make your way here after all this started?”

“Actually, I was here when the infection broke out.” He looks at me, but I remain motionless. “I had this great shop in downtown Amarillo—you should have seen it. At first I just loved that I could practice my art, but after a while I got sick of the local crowd. A lot of people don’t understand that tattoos are more than just a thing people get when they’re drunk or want to look like a rebel. They can tell a story. It’s more than ink on skin; it’s a window into a person’s past. It’s an art.”

“So tattoos were your passion.”

“They still are. At the time I wanted to study everything I could about the art. Different techniques and practices. I had the start to an amazing portfolio. I was supposed to study tattoo practices in the Pacific Islands. I had my plane ticket and everything. Then my uncle suggested I start by studying some prison tats and their meanings.”

“Interesting form of research.”

“I almost brushed him off and said I’d do it after my trip. But my uncle can be very convincing. He said I should come here first, talk to some of the prisoners. It was only an hour’s drive, so I thought, why the hell not? I could visit him before I left the country and do some research. Kill two birds with one stone. I didn’t know being here would save my life. It’s like my uncle somehow knew what would happen. He was desperate to get me out here.”

“Were you scared?”

“No . . . My uncle helped me out. Also everyone liked that I was a professional tattoo artist. Anyone with tattoos wants to show them off, especially if they let everyone know what a badass you are.” He smiles. “I’m not going to say it wasn’t tough at first, though. Everyone was scared of what was going on. Some guards went to go find their families. The Warden decided to let the prisoners out. He said anyone who wanted to leave could go. A lot ran.”

“But they’re dangerous criminals. . . .”

“Amy, it was the end of the world. The Warden said that the criminals weren’t any more dangerous than the Floraes. And with everyone dead, who was left for them to hurt?”

“I was left out there. There are others. . . . Not many, but—”

“Look, my uncle isn’t exactly a stand-up guy. . . . He knew the prison wasn’t going to be getting any new food shipments. He thought he could get rid of some people. The problem was a lot of the worst criminals stayed. The ones who left were mostly in for petty crimes.”

“Did they know the danger?”

“Some didn’t want to believe it. People were saying aliens, others said zombies. Some of the prisoners thought it was bullshit, or maybe they just wanted out and thought they were bad enough or strong enough to survive. I went up the stairs and walked the top of the wall. I saw for myself. One by one the Floraes killed them.

“Except no one was calling them Floraes yet, just creatures. The monsters were everywhere. The guards tried to help, shooting to clear a way for people to escape, but it was no use. That’s when we found out people could change if they were bitten. One guy started turning into a Florae while he was being fed on.” He lowers his voice. “Some tried to get back in, but we couldn’t let them. We were all so scared of the Floraes getting inside. It would have been a bloodbath. I haven’t left the prison since I came here.” He shrugged. “There’s nothing for me out there anymore.”

“The rest of your family?”

Jacks shakes his head, his face darkening. “My parents got divorced when I was little. My dad . . . He wasn’t really around at the best of times. I mean, he’d send us money and call on our birthdays, but we never really saw him. My mom died just before the infection broke out. Cancer. My dad offered to take my sister, Layla, but I was eighteen, and wanted her to stay in the same house and school. So I became her legal guardian. . . . We got along really well. She was so excited for our trip. Thought it would be the best summer vacation ever. She thought she would come back and go into school the coolest ninth-grader because I agreed to let her get one tattoo.”

“So she’s here? Your sister?”

He shakes his head and looks down, his jaw tight. “She didn’t survive Fort Black.”

We’re quiet for a moment, and I try not to imagine what it would be like to lose Baby forever.

“I’m so sorry. You have your uncle, though. Here.”

“Yeah. Right.” Jacks snaps back to the present and motions around us. “If you ever need to get out of the Yard fast, come up here to the wall. . . . There are stairs all along the perimeter now. They’re new. Built a few years ago. That’s why they’re wood and not stone.” I nod and continue to look down at the human chaos below.

My heart pounds against my chest as I look out at the crowd. It’s so different from New Hope. So much more . . . free, unplanned. And frightening.

“So now I know the layout. . . . Tell me about the setup here. Prisoners, guards, and random survivors—all mixed together?” How would the guards cope with living side by side with men they were once in charge of?

Jacks nods. “Anyone good with a rifle becomes a guard now and gets to shoot Floraes all day.”

“You said helping Doc was one of your jobs. Does that mean you also shoot Floraes?”

“No. I’d suck at that. My second job is still tattoo artist. Tattoos are in high demand,” he tells me, perking up. “People trade food and clothes for them.”