The Grief Team (9 page)

Ferria d’Mont unwrapped her long graceful legs and allowed the boy to slip out of her. He remained collapsed on her chest, his bruised, soft mouth against her neck, breathing in quick gasps. The intensity of his orgasm had overwhelmed him and he did not resist as Ferria gently pushed him onto his back beside her. Slowly, he curled into her side, intent now on sleep, slipping a thin arm covered with downy hairs across her chest, his nail-bitten hand coming to rest against the underswell of her plump left breast. 

His name was Roy Glyn, he was one month shy of fourteen years of age, and he considered himself extraordinarily lucky to have been chosen by Ferria d’Mont  for this unforeseen but highly enjoyable initiation. Here, in this lady’s apartment high in the E.C., Roy was now eight hours into the most incredible day in his life as a Wildkid. 

At one o’clock that afternoon, suddenly and without expectation, Roy Glyn’s interest in watching the after-lunch game of Galaxatron on the Jumbotron in SkyDome had been terminated. He was pulled from his chair, B241, shackled, and roughly treated by two Yellowbands who whisked him into a CleanBus for a fast ride through the GoArea to the Pickering Town Centre. On arrival, he was taken upstairs to the TV Studios, where he was deposited in a windowless room, later to be stripped, washed and examined by a nasty woman who put a finger up his bum and then played with his penis until it got hard. She had slapped him when it did. 
             

Hours later, hungry and thirsty, he was given a sandwich and a drink. When he’d finished, he was given a large box and told to put on what was inside. It was a clown costume, one especially made for his age and size. Another woman, one with purple fingernails who chewed gum, painted Roy’s face like a real clown and even glued on a shiny plastic red nose. Then he had been taken quickly along several corridors only to approach a large steel door where he was told to stop. Three minutes later, the door opened and Roy Glyn, SkyDome ‘Kid, found himself onstage live as a contestant on Countdown to Horror. 

Ferria traced a long red lacquered nail along smooth white skin, across the flat pubis, noting the limited response of the limp little penis in its bed of dark blond hairs; the red nail traced higher, across the belly up to a nipple where, pressing harder, a thin line of blood appeared. The boy moved, groaned in protest, but Ferria was already pressing her thumbs into the softness of his throat, sliding the weight of her hips across his pelvis as she did so, absorbing his increasing struggles, loving them, loving him. She released her hands when the panic in the boy’s wide blue eyes dulled and the orbs began to turn upward.

Supporting his neck, Ferria expertly applied mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, watching the blue fade from Roy’s lips and the sudden expansion of his lean chest. In the first moments of his returning consciousness, she held her forefinger firmly against his lips to indicate that he should not speak. Then she released him and sat cross-legged on the bed; the charms of her body relaxed and her face became calm and serious.

“Roy,” she began, her tone light and easy. “I think you know what Arnie the Headsman had planned for you tonight, don’t you?” 

Roy nodded but didn’t speak. She could see that he was scared, but he was also beginning to think. For a Wildkid, he was not bad-looking and certainly not as dirty as the pictures of the ones she’d seen on TV.  He looked perfectly ordinary once she had taken his clothes off to inspect him for radburns. He hadn’t appeared abundantly gifted upstairs—presented as he was, still in a daze after barely escaping from Arnie’s axe—but the producers of Countdown to Horror had assured Ferria, after the show when they delivered her purchase to the main entrance, that this Wildkid had been selected in the first place for his docility and basic intelligence.

“You’ve got nothing to worry about with Roy Glyn,” they said.  “He’s a mild one, does what he’s told.  He’s feral-birth, that’s for sure, but particularly mild. Mind you, he wouldn’t be here if he wasn’t appropriate. We’re very strict about whom we select. The show isn’t just about blood, you know, despite what the Chronicle says.”

Ferria, who had stunned the program’s viewers—some 97.7% of available adult citizens, according to the Chronicle—not thirty minutes before by stopping the axe at the Two-Inches-To-Death-mark, had nodded her agreement with the producer’s assessment.  Arnie the Headsman, who’d rarely cut so fine before, had been sweating profusely but his expertise earned him a standing ovation from the ‘studio audience’ of one. Ferria had, of course, been the only ‘live’ member of the audience and it had thrown the host of the programme for a brief spin before the cameras were turned on Ferria and she was awarded the prize. 

Not everyone approved of good money being spent just to save the worthless life of a Wildkid and the Stream had been filled, probably was still filled, with hundreds of messages as citizens across the malls wrote suggestions and threw them in. ‘Rules have been broken,’ said the messages, ‘and scum has been denied its logical end, Mr. Kraft.’

Ignorant of the ruckus she had created, Ferria knew that her actions were unusual but was counting on the support of Elias to suppress any problem; in particular, any interest in the event on the part of the Grief Team. To Elias, she would explain how she simply lost control of her emotions, stopping the axe so that she might save a helpless victim from a bloody death. And even if he was a Wildkid, couldn’t he be saved?  She would promise to help her little charge earn his way into the Stage Four programme. At least that was the approach she would begin with. In the end, even if she had to fuck Elias every day for a year, she needed Roy Glyn.

“I have just brought you back from death a second time,” Ferria said.  “I have given you back your life twice.”  She smiled, moving to cuddle against him, her chin resting on his stomach as she held his eyes.  “In return, there is something that I want you to do for me.” Her hand waved lightly across Roy’s boney chest, his eyes  lost inside hers. 

“I’ve had a dream,” murmured Ferria, “a magical dream about a boy who’s a lot like you, Roy. I think he must be sick because I watch him cough a great deal.” Ferria paused and used her left hand to ensure Roy’s penis was paying strict attention. “I want you to go Outside. I want you to find this boy and bring him here to me when you do. And if you do….”  Ferria turned her head and began artificial resuscitation on what instantly became Roy Glyn’s new decision-making apparatus.     

Little Arthur Connors never knew what hit him. One moment he was leaning over the railing on the fourth floor of the E.C., looking down on the gaggle of mallshoppers—just like his mother had told him a thousand times not to do!—and the next, he was falling, flailing, screaming, dying at the instant that his head cracked against the marble floor. His mother’s screams erupted in the stunned silence, alerting dozens of mall-lookers, Mulls, and Crones who battled each other to witness the gore. It was thirty minutes before Bluebands from the Grief Team restored order. Someone had the presence of mind to fetch a syringe from Ned’s Cornucopia of Drugs next door and sedate the delirious Mrs. Connors. She was also being assisted by the presence of Emmett Strachan, her neighbour, who happened to be passing by at the time of the accident.

A man needs time to himself on occasion, time when he can slow his affairs down long enough to examine in more detail some of the more pressing, amorphous situations in whose gelatin he is hopelessly suspended. On such occasions, significant matters in question demanded a high degree of brutal, cold honesty which, it then followed, would lead to shock, fear, horror, anger, desperation, what-have-you...until the basement is reached. Low, but no lower. Upon this then is built a new structure, one of peace and hope, of cherished love ones and better, happier days, and of self-redemption. But, in the rebuilding of the truth, there is often rotted wood employed for lack of wood at all, and yet the carpenter presses on, relentless in the construction of his artifice, closing the door upon himself in the end to live inside his house of deceit.

Emmett, who had himself provided the required amount of impetus that little Arthur Connors had needed to fly from the railing, was very aware that he had deliberately committed an irrational act. He had responded automatically to the sudden urge within him, ignoring whatever instinctive alarms the mind produced to prevent just such an irrational thought from being enacted. He had out-and-out pushed Little Arthur.  Not with malice! No malice intended! But it was now a fact that little Arthur Connors would no longer be taunting his son, Marcus. That at least was truth.

Later on, Emmett made certain that a distraught, suicidal Mrs. Connors received the deluxe package at the Crematoria along with her grieving husband. It was the least he could do under the circumstances.

Mutt picked his way along Lakeshore Boulevard, avoiding the collapsed sections of the old Gardiner Expressway, a concrete and asphalt monstrosity once elevated above the boulevard and, as late as June 13th, 2001, thickly-congested with automobiles. At three o’clock in the afternoon on that day, the expressway had finally fulfilled numerous local predictions of its imminent collapse. Now, some twenty-odd years later, from his vantage point atop a vast chunk of soot-soaked concrete stabbed with rusted reinforcing rods, Mutt was inside the pale of terror that was SkyDome, the holding pens for hundreds of Wildkids. He knew what SkyDome was...a very bad place where the men-in-blue took you.

To Mutt’s immediate right lay several broken sections of the former-finger-in-God’s-eye, the C.N. Tower. A hundred yards further on, a scant sixty feet of its vast base still stood, a stunted digit. A Quebecois terrorist cell had accomplished this with four hundred and thirty pounds of high-yield Semtex-Plural in the opening days of the First War of Canada. The Tower, fatally bitten by the explosion sixty up from the base on its south side, reacted in true Canadian logging fashion and heeled over like a Douglas fir, slamming against adjacent architecture—the glass webbing of Thomson Hall shattered like porcelain under a biker’s bootheel— with a force equivalent in proportion to that of a hammer wielded against a grape. The Tower had fallen down and could not get up again. Claims that videotape of the revolving restaurant detaching itself and flying much like a frisbee into Lake Ontario ran rampant in the ensuing weeks, but none was ever broadcast. 

The results were catastrophic: 6,118 dead, 4,001 injured, property losses uncountable. The scope of the disaster sent the people of Toronto into the streets, enraged at their government’s failure to protect them from such a disaster. Teenage gangs and criminal elements torched, looted, and murdered at will until the Canadian Army entered the city and took some semblance of control. Twelve members of the provincial government were dead along with another 8,881 of their fellow citizens. The Premier, having survived the attempt on his life by the thinnest of miracles, remained on life-support systems in a private clinic, unable to weigh his future quality of life for himself.

Such an horrific response by an angry, vengeful citizenry toward government officials was the subject of much debate in neighbouring municipalities, resulting in mass resignations at all levels: local, provincial, and federal. Chaos and anarchy followed the flight of police forces, whose own losses had reached dire proportions. Throughout, the unbelievable events in Toronto were carried live by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation as the war with Quebec raged on. In Ottawa, a coalition of extremists, running the gamut from Act Out to a local costumed looney known as Zod the Impaler, declared themselves in power. Ultimately, all factions agreed to be led by a former Saskatchewan wheat farmer, Fooku Haardvar, whose family was nationally-known for their invention of the high-fibre, fat-and-cholesterol-free confection fondly called the Cow Patty.

Haardvar then flew to Toronto where he appeared in public just long enough to be assassinated. Conditions across the nation were perfect for Meilgaard’s doomsday cocktail and, by the time citizens began dropping in their own excresences, the Government of Canada, as it was known to exist, ceased to exist.  

Mutt squinted in the September sunshine, his senses alive to any sound or movement. This close to the Dome, Mutt was extra-extra-careful about pressing his luck. It would not do to be captured...again. Mutt the Wildkid was, incomprehensibly but nonetheless in fact, the only known wastrel to have once been in the clutches of the Grief Team and now free once more. Blissfully unaware of this fact, as he was of most things, he lowered himself into a squat, tossing a smooth stone from dirty palm to dirtier palm.

He was boney-lean under his ragged T-shirt and shorts with thin sturdy legs ending in decrepit running shoes. The sun had darkened his skin to the point when you couldn’t see the forest of freckles unless you were up close. What you did see were radburns on the tops of his cheeks, angry red crescents which he continued to pick at until they bled. 

Mutt scratched his mane of copper hair. The number tattooed in his left armpit, courtesy of his first visit to SkyDome, was a ticket to oblivion and he knew it. Not getting caught was Mutt’s only safety and although he was only nine, he was Outside-savvy. A feral child, Mutt’s instincts had the edge of an X-acto blade. On this fine morning, he was checking vidkam installations to make sure they remained inoperative; it was a scheduled priority for Mutt, for a well-thrown stone or small chunk of concrete meant that the Eye of the Grief Team remained blind to Mutt’s activities and, in particular, his whereabouts. It had been three days since he had last smashed this particular eye along this particular stretch of the Lakeshore; so close, as it happened, to his home.   

At ground level, purple loosestrife, beautiful in wave upon wave along the lakefront, was chief of the local weeds and all other manner of vegetation which taken root. In some areas, assisted by crumbling buildings and hundreds of abandoned, rusted cars, veritable walls of vegetation had grown. Each of these natural barriers had been assessed by Mutt over the months since his escape and he had patiently investigated four different escape routes for himself, ready for the day when the first scent of chemicals wafted through the ozone, heralding the imminent arrival of a Grief Team task force. In the meantime, as he did every day, Mutt existed. 

Right now he was hungry. The Eye was still blind—a long squinting look picked out the cracked lens—so it was time to hunt for food; his scrawny body hadn’t seen a decent meal in three days and the fish in Lake Ontario had become more adept at avoiding his quick hands. If some canned stuff didn’t show up soon on his scavenger hunt, he was going to go looking for somebody a lot smaller than he was and... Mutt froze. 

There were two shadows stretching across a large grey mass of concrete not ten yards from him, shadows that had to be connected to intruders hiding behind what was left of one of the massive expressway support columns. Shadows waiting for Mutt! Waiting for the chance to bash him in and kill him! Wildkids! His bright pink tongue darted out to lick sunburned lips and a grimy fist rubbed at the stream of snot flowing from his left nostril. With a quick jump off the concrete slab, Mutt landed lightly on his feet and went scurrying soundlessly into the weeds along the left of the old Boulevard, approaching the column from the other side where he might see and judge these shadows. 

Cathy Latimer had been Outside for seven days. To begin with, she didn’t know where she was except that it was all awful and very, very frightening. Taken by force out of the Children’s Mall, her last image of Mother had been a shattered, bloody face; Father was a crumpled lump leaning against a broken cabinet.  These were the pictures stamped grotesquely in her memory, along with a parade of images and dangers in the dark as her abductors, identical blond-haired twins whose names she now knew as Slide and Glide, finally reached their dirty campsite in a derelict bus, not far from the mountain of rubble that had once been the Oakville Ford factory. After two days of maltreatment, Cathy had reached the point where her bruised, tired body just couldn’t produce any more tears. She wanted to be home...home now, please! 

Slide and Glide had left Geeto, their red-haired leader, back at the scene of the attack, a victim of Gordon Latimer. Geeto’s name had been harshly invoked numerous times by the twins as Cathy was hustled from one abandoned location to another, always crying, pleading with them that she was too tired, her feet hurt, she was hungry, she wanted her parents...

On the third night, when they had advanced east along the Lakeshore as far as Mississauga, Slide ‘n Glide did bad things to her in the darkness inside a house where the deathstink from a recently-barbequed WK wasn’t too bad. The red sun went down early and the September chill came stealing in. In the morning, there were spots of blood on the faded linoleum where Cathy cowered, shivering, as the twins scratched, snorted, and slept on a nearby mattress. Cathy did not understand. Why didn’t these awful Wildkids honour the child? Where was Daddy? Where was Daddy?

My Daddy’s dead... 

That morning, the twins had taken her hand once again, pulling her along as they hustled from building to building, always in sight of a large body of water to their right, a view which she knew must be Lake Ontario. That made her feel a little better, for she remembered  the time when she and Mother had looked in a book called an atlas and Cathy had traced a finger around the entire lake. Mother had told her that what her little finger had done in a few seconds on the page would take weeks to do if she had been walking. Was that what Slide ‘n Glide were doing? Were they going to walk around the entire lake? Cathy did not think that she could do that, not if she was going to be hungry and tired and with her feet beginning to hurt so bad.

At the end of the fifth day, Cathy was sheltering in a house on a street where a faded, crooked sign read ‘Robin Hood Lane’. The twins had simply disappeared. Slide had muttered something about Missawga before he and his brother had left to scavenge for food, a usually fruitless exercise which consisted of breaking into houses already ransacked years before by survivors looking for canned goods. A day later, a desperately-hungry Cathy finally screwed up her courage and left the house to look for them. 

She went fifty yards before she turned tail and ran back to the house, only to spend another night with strange noises and frightening cries spurring her imagination to evoke terrifying images of enormous, vicious animals prowling outside in the darkness. When dawn came at last, she could stand it no longer and on swollen feet she slipped out of the house and began to walk, keeping the hot sun at her back and the occasional glimpse of blue water on her right. Unlike Slide and Glide, who had made a point of keeping away from the weeds and detritus littering the roadway, Cathy drew some small comfort from the notion that the road, if she followed it long enough and especially if she was a good girl, would lead her straight back to Daddy who was Outside right now searching for her.

But my Daddy’s dead...

“Here kitty, here kitty!”  Cathy stretched out her dirty fingers, coaxing the dubious, dirty-grey animal to come closer so that she might pet it. It took ten minutes of patience on her part but she was finally rewarded when the cat, sleek on the plentitude of rats, mice, and other vermin which had long since assumed ownership over what humans had abandoned, inched closer, closer, finally allowing Cathy to run her hand along its back, purring as it adjusted to this stranger. Cathy continued to pat and caress the grey kitty, tears of gratefulness flowing down her bright pink cheeks as it came closer still, mixing scents, identifying her as, if not a friend, then at least not an enemy. All the loneliness inside her reached out and took comfort from the loud purring. She was not alone after all.

“Cat likes you,” said a voice. 

Startled, Cathy dropped the grey kitty. She stood, making little fists as she prepared to fend off an attack. There was a boy, older than her, at least twelve. He was standing, arms at his sides, looking at her from a distance of ten yards, his eyes squinting in the sun. A filthy red T-shirt with a yellow M, at least a size too small, was glued to his scrawny frame, mis-matched with a pair of emerald green track bottoms and a tattered pair of black running shoes. He carried the straps of a small, faded blue backpack over his left shoulder.

“Don’t you try to hurt me! My Daddy is coming to get me soon and... and if you try to hurt me he will... he will...,” she searched for the awfullest thing she could think of, “he will cut off your pee-thing.”

The boy whose pale facial features and mop of tangled, unruly dark hair provided stark contrast for bright blue eyes merely shrugged.

“Wasn’t going to hurt you.”

Cathy studied the boy’s face carefully. He seemed calm, not threatening and unpredictable like Slide and Glide had been. Slowly she lowered her little fists into her lap where they found the grey kitty’s fur again and began to stroke slowly.

“Is this your kitty?”

The boy nodded. 

“Does he have a name?”

“Cat, I guess.” Without warning, the boy’s hands flew to his chest, where they pressed against the spasms of a harsh cough. After several long seconds, he released a dark, coagulated spittle, taking gulps of air in short gasps as his hands hugged his body.

Cathy watched in alarm as the boy finally straightened and his breathing slowed to a loud wheeze.

“You need some med’cine,” said Cathy helpfully. “Daddy will take us to the pharmacy in the E.C. when he comes.” 

But my Daddy’s dead, isn’t he?

She watched as the boy took several steps toward her and then hunkered down, resting on thin haunches, his breathing becoming gradually less laboured. The grey kitty, reluctant to leave the two warm little hands which continued to stroke it, nonetheless responded to the boy’s proximity and, meowing loudly, crossed the gap separating the two children. It rubbed its sleek body against the boy’s legs, purring loudly.

“I’ve never seen a cat,” Cathy admitted. “There aren’t cats in the malls…only Rhonda.”

“What’s a Rhonda?” asked the boy.

“A cow.”

“Oh.”

“Cat isn’t a very good name,” said Cathy slowly. “If it were my cat, I would call him Grey Kitty.”