After the living closed up the tent, Truman and Ramona leaned against each other, her thin shoulder just touching his between the bars. Her presence wasn’t nearly as comforting as the beatific look on Dalia’s innocent face, but it was more solid and longer lasting.
“You got that asshole good, Truman,” she said after a while. “Showed him he’s not all that.”
“He was stupid,” said Lou, though Truman couldn’t see him in the darkness. “They call Lou stupid, but plenty of them are dumber. Talk too much. Talk all big, when they don’t know anything. Another minute and maybe Lou would’ve pulled his chain out of the ground. Go over and help Truman break the little lawyer-man. Tear his stupid arm off. Lou would give it to Truman to gnaw on for days and days, just like old times before.”
Ramona chuckled. “Don’t make me hungry, Lou,” she said. “Most days I don’t think about it. But yeah, he was yummy looking. Juicy. Him being such a dick would make it tastier, too.” She turned to Truman. “But your little friend was right—it’s gonna be bad tomorrow for you.”
“It’s all right,” Truman said. “I knew I shouldn’t do it. I knew they’d do something to me. I’ll be okay.”
She tilted her head down a little, and even reached between the bars to touch his cheek. She hadn’t done that before. “I hope so, Truman. We need to send you back to your woman before they hurt you too bad here.”
Women had the oddest ideas about intimacy and trust and when to bring up certain topics, Truman decided, not for the first time.
“What are they going to do?” he asked. “It can’t be that bad.”
“Electricity,” she said. “It hurts.”
“The cattle prod?” That had been bad, but nothing unendurable, and it didn’t last long.
“No,” she replied. “Big thing, like a bed. They’ll strap you to it. Keep zapping you over and over. They like to watch. You’ll have a big crowd.”
That definitely sounded like something the living would do and enjoy. It still seemed like something he could survive, though Truman couldn’t remember feeling electricity before that time with the cattle prod, so he didn’t know exactly what the effect would be.
“Yes, that’ll hurt, but I’ll make it.”
Ramona nodded, still stroking Truman’s cheek and chin. “You might,” she said. “I never felt it. Neither has Lou—right, Lou?”
“No,” came the reply from the darkness. “They never did that to Lou. Lou only pretends to be mean. They like that. But he never hurt someone here. Truman did, ‘cause he’s braver than Lou. Truman needs to be extra brave and strong tomorrow, though.”
Ramona smiled at Truman and lowered her voice so the other dead man couldn’t hear. “He looks up to you, I think,” she whispered. Then she raised her voice to a normal volume. “He’s right,” she said. “One guy they used it on didn’t make it. I mean, he did, at first, but he was all messed up after. Couldn’t talk or move right. That was the end of him. Remember him, Lou?”
“Martin,” said Lou. “They called him Rat Boy. Tall, skinny, pale kid. Bad people saved up all the rats they’d catch around here. Starved them till they were crazy, mean, mad. Then they’d drop Martin in a big, metal tub with them. They’d put a metal grate across the top, so poor Martin couldn’t get out, but the people could see him and the rats. It was loud, him and the rats rolling around, biting and screaming. He’d have to fight them so long, before he’d get them all. Bite their heads off. Tear them in two with his hands. So many of them. So much blood all over him. Martin hated it. I told him it’s not so bad, it takes them a long time to save up so many rats, and he just sits around the rest of the time. But he hated it too much. He tried to get away. They zapped him. He was slower after that. His hands and face twitched. Next time with the rats, he couldn’t fight them so good. They got him. Nothing left. Just rats. Then the bad people got them, too: poured gas in the tub and set it on fire. More screaming from the rats. Smelled bad too.”
Ramona turned and again leaned her shoulder against Truman. She lowered her head as she snaked her hand between the bars to lace her fingers with his. “You’ll survive tomorrow, Truman,” she whispered. “Then we’ll work on getting you out of here.”
“You too,” he said. “And Lou. You shouldn’t stay here either. We all should go.”
She tightened her grip on his hand as she nodded. “I think we’ve been lazy. I don’t know what we’d do out there.”
“You’re just scared. You’ll go somewhere. It doesn’t matter where.”
“You have someone to go to, Truman. That’s different. Lou and I don’t. But maybe you’re right. Sometimes it’s pretty bad here. We get afraid of what’s outside, though.”
“There’s so much space out there, so many places with just dead people, or sometimes even with no one at all. It’s not perfect, but it’s better than here. You have to try.”
“We’ll see, Truman.” They were silent for a while.
“Did you like to drive cars?” Ramona asked finally.
Truman had to think for a minute. He had no specific memory of the devices, though when he’d seen wrecks of them lying around, he often thought how large and graceful they looked.
“I don’t know,” he answered. “I’m not sure I did. But it might be nice to try again.”
“Yeah. I don’t see how we could.”
“You never know. We do a lot more than we used to.”
“That’s true. I think I liked to drive. I wonder what kind of car I had.”
“When you get out, you’ll find a car and learn how to drive it.”
“I might. Where will you and your woman go?”
That thought had been bothering Truman lately. “I don’t know. I hope we can find Will and Rachel—those are the living people we were with. We were happy, the four of us. But I don’t know where they are, or if they like it here, and I don’t know if we’ll be able to find them. I don’t know how to find Lucy, either. But I have to. And you have to get out too.”
They sat quietly after that, and Truman considered how much time they—and all the billions of people like them—had spent, making plans that never happened. More importantly, he wondered whether those fruitless plans were what made all the inevitable suffering endurable, or whether they added to its agony and wretchedness. He supposed he only had until the following evening to find out, though perhaps even then it’d remain a mystery, a tantalization forever beyond his grasp, always shifting between comfort and mockery.
Will had lived most of his life in a world where corpses get up and walk around, so there weren’t many situations he would describe as “unbelievable.” The scene back at the truck stop, however, would be one of those.
Nothing made sense. Mike lay on the ground near the fuel pumps, clutching at his face with his one hand, blood gushing out between his fingers. He thrashed around, making sounds that varied between screaming and moaning, but all of which degenerated into bubbling and choking as they forced their way up through the torrent of blood.
Jake knelt next to him, uninjured as far as Will could see. Five corpses were sprawled on the ground near them, all shot in the head. None of them wore the striped shirts, but were bare-chested and filthy. The three lying face up had fresh blood around their mouths. Garrett was rummaging in the back of the wagon.
“Hold him down,” Garrett shouted. “He’s gonna go into shock soon.”
Will held Chris back and they approached more slowly, Will looking around to make sure there were no more attackers. As he got closer, he could see that Mike’s free hand had the pinkie and ring finger torn off. What was left of the appendage was twisted around, twitching, blood still flowing out from the wound. His jacket had been pushed up around his armpits, and his stomach and sides were covered with deep gashes, also bleeding profusely. From the amount of blood pouring from his face, Will figured his nose or cheek must’ve been torn off. The dead often went for the soft parts like that. But now Will could see there was a rope around his ankles. What was that about?
Regardless, Garrett was right—shock would set in any second with that kind of blood loss, and death in just a few minutes. There was no way they could stop all that bleeding, even if they were regular wounds and not infected, fatal bites.
Garrett finally turned from the wagon, approaching them with a clipboard full of papers. He didn’t look scared, but definitely shaken and frustrated. “You two—stay put,” he shouted as he pushed past Will to get to Mike. “And this time really keep an eye out.”
“What the fuck happened?” Chris said. Unlike Garrett, he sounded like he was about to piss himself.
“Shut up. Busy. Jake—I told you to hold him down.”
Garrett kneeled down next to the wounded man, holding the clipboard above him. “Mike, Mike, stay with me,” he said. “We don’t have long. This is the release form. I know we have it on file back at the office, but we need final consent if the person’s still conscious, in case someone wants to change their mind at the last minute. It doesn’t look like you can sign it, but we’ll need some form of consent if your family’s gonna get the payment. It can be verbal, but you have to answer the questions. Do you consent to pre-natural termination?”
After another gurgling scream, Mike grew quiet, until he made a sound like, “Yub.”
“Okay, just two more. Following termination, do you hereby request corporal harvesting, with the value of such goods harvested to be paid to your estate, at the fair market value to be determined at the time of procurement?”
A moan and what sounded like another affirmative response.
“Okay, last one. You must be aware that all material harvested will be used for any and all purposes, to be solely determined by the City Council of New Sparta, with no further consultation with you or your estate, and no possible retraction of this request for harvesting. Do you understand this and give your full and final consent?”
The answer this time trailed off into what might’ve been sobs, or maybe just labored breathing.
Garrett stood up. “All right. Jake, step back from him. Mike, we’ll give you a couple minutes to get your thoughts together. But we won’t let you suffer long. Don’t worry. And don’t worry about your family. That money will help them out a lot.”
Will and the other three moved away from the dying man. “Where the fuck were you two?” Garret said.
“We found some dead chick. It couldn’t walk. He wouldn’t shoot it,” Chris said in an angry, frightened blur.
“What?” Garrett looked between them, seemingly confused. “Fuck it. That doesn’t matter now. We just need to get out of here fast once we’re done with Mike.”
“Done with him?” Will couldn’t help but ask. “What happened? I don’t know what you’re saying.”
Garrett shook his head. “We were way over there, by the caps to the fuel tanks. Mike moved to find another one, and he stepped on some kinda snare.” Garrett pointed up at the canopy. A rope hung there from a pulley, with the other end attached to a big weight on the ground. “Can you believe that? They had a snare rigged up. Not just digging pits, but pulleys and knots? They’re not supposed to be able to do shit like that. Damn thing yanked him up and as he was dangling there five of them jumped out. They were all over him before Jake and I shot them all. Fuck, what a mess.”
“This is all his fault,” Chris said, pointing at Will. He was really whimpering now, almost on the verge of tears.
“Yeah, new guy acts weird,” Jake chimed in. “Never wants to shoot anything. I don’t know about him.”
“What?” Will said. “I didn’t ask to go over there. I didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Shut the fuck up, all of you,” Garrett said. “You’re being a fucking pussy,” he said, pointing at Chris. “And you,” he turned now to Will, “you’re just creeping me out. Something not right about you. Take the fucking rifle and finish Mike and let’s get out of here.”
“Finish him? What’re you talking about? You can’t just shoot someone.”
“Hey, I did it enough before you showed up,” Jake said, kicking at the dirt.
“Me too,” Chris sniffed. “Well, just the one time, but still.”
Garrett glared at Will, taking a step closer. “He consented, and we have to do it now or the body’s no good. Think of his family—they won’t get paid. Don’t you have any compassion for them?”
Will backed away from him, dazed, completely overwhelmed now by what he was saying. “Good for what? What’s going on?”
“What do you think? I told you they feed the City Patrol zombies. What’d you think they feed them? Body’s worth a lot these days. But it can’t be walking around. It’s got to be all the way dead. So go shoot him in the head and maybe I won’t write you up and you’ll still have a job tomorrow.”
Will shoved the rifle at Garrett. “No. I don’t care. I’m not doing that.” He turned and started walking.
“What’re you gonna do? Walk back to town?”
“Yes.”
“You’re fucking crazy. You won’t get back until after dark, and they’re all over the place out here.”
“They don’t scare me.”
A few seconds later when Will heard the muffled shot, he half wished the bullet had been going into his brain and not Mike’s.
The children had done their job well. Lucy expected more dead people to come streaming from the ruined, burning town to attack their group, but as the dust and smoke drifted away, she saw only a few scattered figures, wandering away from them. They moved singly or in pairs, scattering into the fields, disappearing into the woods and over hills. In a few moments, everything was silent, except for the light wind stirring the grass. Lucy couldn’t quite decide if the dry, even sound was grating or soothing.