This Rotten World (Book 2): We All Fall Down (17 page)

Rudy's cot bowed beneath his
weight. Amanda watched him snoring away as she sat up on her own cot. The cots
were made of a lightweight aluminum frame covered with green nylon. It reminded
her of when she had been sick at elementary school and the nurse had made her
lie down until her parents could show up.

Amanda sat up and stretched her
back while she regarded Rudy. She felt sorry for him and yet oddly protective.
He was a ball of self-esteem issues and poor health, but somehow, she felt
responsible for him. He would be dead already if it weren't for her and, to a
lesser extent, Chloe.

Amanda turned her gaze to Chloe.
She too was sleeping, as calm as the dead. Amanda shuddered at the thought. She
didn't quite know what to make of Chloe. There was something about her that was
cold and almost inhuman. She seemed capable, but Amanda would rather rely on a
starving tiger to watch her back than Chloe.

It was early in the morning; how
early she didn't know, but the majority of people were slumbering in their cots
or around the arena, bundled up in blankets. A feeling of emptiness washed over
her. How many people had died in the last 24 hours? How many people were still
trapped out there. Or did she have it wrong? Weren't they technically trapped
in here?

At first, when they had been
rescued by the army, she had been happy, ecstatically happy, dodged-a-bullet
happy. But as they sat on the transport, and the medic looked at the bitten
soldier, that had all changed. The medic shook his head in silence, pulled a
revolver from his belt and put a bullet through the man's head.

At that point, someone else had
been in charge, and then came the harrowing journey to the Coliseum. She wanted
to purge the memories from her mind, but there were too many of them. Bullets
flying, limbs being blown off, and always the arms, reaching for them. If the
dead ever gained the ability to stretch like that guy from the Fantastic Four,
they would all be dead in a matter of days.

But they couldn't stretch, so
death was a slow thing. Death was coming for them in waves of plodding,
unsleeping flesh. It was paused outside, waiting for them to tire, to let down
their guard, and then it would all be over.

Rudy shifted on his cot, and she
looked at him once again. So helpless. So sad. He was pathetic, but he was the
only person she knew who was currently alive. Her parents had been unreachable
via her cell phone, and the signal had all but stopped registering by the time
she had passed out. For all intents and purposes, her cell phone was now
nothing more than a glorified calculator.

The worst part was knowing that
if everything were alright, she could have just hopped into a car and been in
Eugene in a little under two hours. Now, they might as well be a world away.
Was there a refugee camp in Eugene? Were things as bleak there as they were
here? Amanda hoped not.

Amanda felt pressure in her
bladder, so she rose from her cot. She climbed over a metal railing and hiked
her way up the concrete steps. She took a right on the concourse, and waved at
a soldier as she walked to the bathroom. She undid the belt on her pants and
hovered over the now-soiled toilet seat. She guessed the janitorial staff had
the day off... for the rest of their lives.

She was hovering there, urine
tinkling into the toilet loudly, when she saw boot toes appear underneath the
crack to the door. A sense of dread rushed through her body immediately, and
she stopped urinating out of instinct.

"Don't stop on my account,"
said a voice on the other side of the door. The voice contained a sinister
quality that sent a flood of adrenaline rushing through her body. Amanda stood
up, and hiked her pants up around her waist. She grasped the loose ends of her
belt, and that's when the man on the other side of the door kicked it in. It
was the soldier she had waved at. He was leering, his rifle flung over his
shoulder, and his teeth gleaming in the shadows of the stall. He rushed at her,
his hands pawing in places where they had no business.

Amanda pushed and fought the
man, but he was like unbending iron, attempting to smash her into the back of
the stall. She lashed out at the place where she knew the man's aggression
originated from. She threw a fist at his groin, but she didn't connect. Just
the attempt was enough to send the soldier into a rage.

The man punched her across the
jaw, and she tasted blood in her mouth. Her eyes went dark, and all she could
do was flail her arms in an attempt to keep the man off of her. But he was
stronger, and she felt the stubble of his cheek against her own skin. She
screamed, but it was cut off with a squeak as the man placed his rough hand
across her throat.

"What are you fightin' for?
It's the end of the world, baby. Live a little."

As her head spun, she saw him
reach for his own belt with his free hand. There was a sharp whistle behind the
soldier. He turned around, and then he was writhing on the floor, clutching at
his groin. As the stars cleared from her eyes, she saw Chloe kicking the man in
the face. Teeth skittered across the floor, and then there was no more struggle.
Chloe didn't stop, and by the look on her face, Amanda could tell that she
wouldn't stop for a while. When she was done, the soldier's face was no longer
recognizable, and loose teeth gleamed at her from the filthy floor of the
bathroom.

Chloe looked at her in the
stall, held out her hand, and Amanda grabbed it. Chloe pulled her to her feet
and then they walked quickly and silently out of the bathroom. They ran down
the stairs to the arena floor, and Amanda sat on the floor, pulling her knees
up to her chest and hugging them tight.

Chloe looked around the arena,
her eyes calm, and her breathing shallow. Amanda waited in silence as Chloe
scanned the area. Amanda couldn't help but see the soldier's face leering at
her, his smile impossibly shiny. She still felt his stubble on her cheek, and
she wiped at the places where he had touched her.

"You alright?" Chloe
asked.

"I think so," Amanda
said.

Rudy stirred on his bunk, looking
over at them, his eyes squinted closed like Jabba the Hut, lying on his side.
"What's going on?"

"Go back to sleep,
Rudy."

Rudy's feet lifted into the air
as he struggled to get enough leverage to sit up. He grunted and groaned,
fighting gravity and his own rubbery bulk. "What the hell happened to your
face?" Rudy said pointing at Amanda's jaw.

"Nothing happened,"
Amanda said, feeling a sense of embarrassment that she knew she shouldn't feel.

"A soldier tried to rape
her in the bathroom," Chloe said.

"What?" Rudy asked,
unable to believe his ears. His face became red, and he bounded to his feet,
quicker than Amanda or Chloe could believe. "Where is he?"

"He's already taken care
of," Chloe said. Amanda again felt a sense of dread at Chloe's words...
the coldness. But she had saved her. She had kept her from something even worse
than a punch to the jaw.

"We have to tell
someone," Rudy said.

"The man is dead. If we
tell someone, then we're next. Who do you think they're going to side with?
It's martial law out there, Rudy."

Rudy shook his head, refusing to
believe it. "It's not like that. These are soldiers; these are good
guys."

"Wake the fuck up, Rudy.
We're not safe. We might never be safe again."

Rudy sat on the cot, and it held
his weight, despite the fact that it bowed heavily in the middle. Amanda was
sure that it was about to break at any moment.

"What do we do then?"

Chloe looked at both of them.
"We play it cool. Act like nothing happened. When they start asking
around, shrug your shoulders and play dumb. In the meantime, no one goes
anywhere without someone else. We're fine down here, there's enough people
around, but we don't go anywhere without someone else."

"Even me?"

"Especially you, Rudy. You
couldn't fight your way out of wet paper bag."

Rudy looked offended.

"Don't worry, Rudy. I'll be
your shit buddy," Amanda said.

Rudy's face went red. She loved
when it did that. Even Chloe laughed a little at him.

Zeke shot upwards at the sound
of the Coliseum's PA system crackling to life. He rubbed his eyes as he looked
around, and he knew things were not right as soon as he noticed an armed
soldier standing at the exit to the concourse. His rifle was not hanging loose;
it was trained on the arena floor.

"This is Major Miller of
the United States Army. I need all civilians to move down onto the floor of the
arena."

There was a sluggish response.
It did not sit well with the unseen Major Miller. "Now, people! This is
not a suggestion. This is an order."

"What the hell is going
on?" Lou asked.

"Trouble," Zeke
replied.

The speed of the civilians was
still not fast enough for the Major. "If any civilians refuse to move to
the floor of the arena, they will be given a warning. If they still refuse to
move, they will be shot."

Zeke and Lou rose to their feet.
To their right, they saw Brian pick up his youngest and begin the awkward march
down the steps with a near comatose child bundled in his arms. June followed,
rubbing the sleep from her eyes. All around the arena people were moving,
bounding down the stairs in a rush.

When Zeke and Lou reached the
floor of the arena, Zeke turned in a slow circle. At each entrance was an armed
soldier, their rifle trained on the floor of the arena.

The PA system crackled again,
and Major Miller said, "Thank you for cooperating. I have a message for
you." The crowd of refugees looked around at each other, questioning looks
on their faces. Zeke could feel the tension of the crowd rolling over his body.

            "Up until now,
it's all been cake and gravy. But things are changing," Major Miller's
voice had a hard edge to it. "This morning, we found one of our men dead
in a bathroom stall. His skull had been bashed in."

The Major let his words hang in
the air for a second. Zeke scanned the faces of the crowd around him. One face
in particular stood out to him. It was the face of a young girl, she couldn't
have been much older than twenty, and there was a fresh bruise along her
jawline. A hollow look of fear filled her eyes. She dropped her gaze to the
floor as he watched.

"We can't have that. We are
here to protect you. And now, we have to protect you from yourselves. Vacation
is over, people. We are in a tenuous situation at best. The protocols are going
to be different now. There are no more free rides. Citizens will work for their
food, or they will not eat. You will help yourselves, or you will all die. And
for those who killed our soldier, we have a message for you. We will find you,
and you will be dealt with. For anyone who doesn't like the new protocols, you
are not prisoners. You can climb the fence out front and leave any time you
wish. We won't stop you."

Zeke scoffed at the man's words.
The man was giving them a choice that was really no choice at all. You can
either do things the army way, or you can kill yourself. It wasn't a choice at
all.

Zeke watched the young girl as
she kept her eyes locked on the floor. The fat man next to her, who couldn't
have been much older than the girl, kept looking at her and another woman. His
face had turned beet red, and Zeke could see the same look of fear in his eyes
that he had seen in the girl. Something was going on there. It could be just
your run-of-the-mill "I'm afraid for my life" fear, but he thought it
was more than that.

"... so get your rest while
you can. At dawn, we will give you all jobs, and we expect you to do
them."

The Major's speech ended without
ceremony, and the people on the floor of the arena milled about, while the
soldiers disappeared from the exits, drawing back like snakes into burrows.

Zeke watched the fat man and the
young woman. The man's cheeks blew out as he sighed a heavy sigh of tension.
Immediately, the man and the young girl began speaking with another woman in
hushed tones, their heads put together. Zeke recognized a plan being put
together when he saw it.

Lou tapped him on the shoulder
and said, "Hey, man. What do you make of that?" Lou asked.

"It's starting," Zeke
said.

"What?"

"The end."

****

Lou went to find some breakfast
while Zeke grabbed a cot next to the trio of whisperers. To the untrained eye,
he seemed to be taking a nap, his arm hanging over his eyes, and paying them no
attention at all. In reality, he heard almost every word they said. From their
conversations he was able to piece together what had happened.

The young girl, the one with the
bruise on her jaw, had been attacked. The other girl, the one with the tight
body and the dead eyes, had come to her defense. The fat man... well, Zeke
didn't know how he fit in, but he was definitely a part of it judging by his
shifty eyes, constant hand-wringing, and general skittishness.

When Zeke had heard enough, he
sat up, let his eyes adjust to the harsh light of the arena, and walked over to
the three of them. "Sounds like you guys have yourselves a problem."

They sat there, dumbfounded, as
if he were speaking to them in an alien language. Then, the one with the dead
eyes spoke, "Anything we have is no concern of yours."

Zeke squatted down and looked
the girl in the eyes. She was the leader. She was the only one he really needed
to talk to, but he spoke loud enough for the others to hear, for their benefit.
"No, it is our concern because things are about to get very ugly in
here."

"What are you talking
about?" the red-haired man asked, and Zeke could see that he was more of a
boy really.

Zeke smiled and took a pointed
look around the arena. "Place like this... it's got eyes." Zeke
nodded at a corner of the arena. A shiny black dome hung on the wall, and as
they looked around they noticed others scattered throughout the arena.
"Now those eyes may not have seen what you did, and I'm glad you did what
you did, but they may have seen something. One person goes into a bathroom.
Another person follows, and then a third. Only two come out. I'm no mathematician,
but even I can do the subtraction on that."

The young girl's face paled. The
boy turned red and looked like he was trying to swallow his own face. The
blonde girl just stared at him with those cold, dead eyes. "What do you
want?"

Zeke licked his lips. "The
way I see it, you've gotten us all into a heap of trouble here. This could have
been a fine place, for a while at least. Now it's going to get rough, but it
doesn't matter because it was bound to end up this way sooner or later. Put a
group of people with guns in charge of a group with none and bad things are
bound to happen."

"Get to the point,"
Chloe spat.

"We're gonna get out of
this place. It's doomed. We knew that from the moment we stepped foot inside.
Hell, we all know it. But we've got a plan. All we need is some numbers, some
people willing to do what needs to be done. The way I see it, you can help us,
or you can wait for those soldiers to find the right footage on those cameras.
Then they find you. Then they find her." Zeke hiked a thumb at the young
girl, "After that, they throw you over the fence, or worse."

The young girl groaned. The
blonde nodded her head seeing the sense in Zeke's words. "So what do we
have to do?"

Zeke smiled. He was glad they
saw things his way. The first thing we have to do is destroy the evidence. It's
not quite time to pull the pin on this place yet. So we're going to need some
more time."

"Jesus," the boy said.
"Will we ever get back to normal?"

"I'll take alive over
normal any day, kid." Zeke held out his hand, and the boy shook it in a
flaccid way that made Zeke's skin crawl. "Name's Zeke."

****

Katie watched Zeke talk to the
girl. From her spot in the crowd, she had been keeping an eye on Zeke. She
didn't know why. She was curious about him. Was he going to be true to his
word, and keep the physical thing just physical, or would he want more? When
she saw him talking to the blonde, she felt something that she hadn't felt in
an eon. Jealousy. Where had that emotion been? The truth was that Jason was
nothing much to look at. He was so plain, so boring, that she never really
worried about whether he would come home at night smelling of another woman's
perfume.

But Zeke. That was a different
story. Zeke was a man. Come up with any definition of what a man was supposed
to be, and you could attach Zeke's name to it. The jealousy was a surprise.
That he was talking to the blonde and that Katie actually cared was another
one. She felt as if her heart and her brain were tugging her in different
directions. She wondered if she would split in half before one side won.

Katie looked at the girl. She
had soft features, but the strength of youth. Her eyes were piercing, round and
big. She looked like one of those anime characters that her son had loved to
draw so much. Her curves were out of this world, and Katie could see why anyone
would be keen on talking to her. Hell, if Katie were a man, she would be all
over her.

But what truly bothered Katie
was that Zeke talking to the blonde was something that she couldn't control.
She had put Zeke in his place in the luxury box, taking control of the
situation and letting him know that he had no hold over her. She felt good
about that. But what she didn't feel good about was Zeke talking to this girl.
She didn't like it one bit.