Authors: Jeremy Mac
“What
now?” Bruno says as the two descend the steps in the hotel’s stairwell.
Pan
rolls his eyes. “What do you mean, ‘What now
?’
We find
that little shit and bring him back to Vincent. There’s no way around that.
We’ve
gotta
get a team of men to go with us, too.
I’ve got a feeling that he
ain’t
gonna
come quietly
either,
no matter how convincing we try
to be that we’re not
gonna
hurt him.”
“But
what if he tries to kill us? What are we supposed to do then?”
“You
heard Vincent. Under no circumstances is the boy to be killed.”
“Even if he tries to kill
us
?
We’re supposed to just stand there
and let him.”
“Look,”
Pan says, stopping where he is on the steps and causing Bruno to stop as well.
“We are
not
to kill that kid. It’s forbidden, and when something is
forbidden, you don’t do it, because when you do something that is forbidden you
can count on it just as sure as you were born that you will suffer a
consequence. So if you don’t care about the consequence, by all means, kill the
kid. But
it’s
not
gonna
be
me who’ll
hafta
answer to Vincent about it. So how
about letting me
do
all the thinking for the both of
us and try to figure out how we’re
gonna
bring the
kid back without anybody else getting killed, eh.”
“Okay
Pan. You know what’s best.”
“You’re
damn right I know what’s best. And let me tell you something else, when we
bring him back and if Vincent decides he doesn’t need the kid after all, then
it’ll be me and you who’ll get rid
of him
once
and for all.”
Bruno’s
mangled face quirks into a gnarled smile as he says, “Yeah,” and then he winces
in pain.
“Your face?”
Bruno
nods his head, lightly touching the torn and punctured skin with the tips of
his fingers.
“
Aiee
,
don’t touch it, your hands are filthy. You need to get yourself cleaned up. You
look like crap. I mean, now you do, but ay, when you’re all healed the scars
are
gonna
look tough.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, sure.
Kinda
wish
I had scars like that.”
That’s a damn lie.
“I
mean ,
I
ain’t
about to purposely get myself all busted up
for it, but you know what I mean.”
“Yeah,
I guess.”
“I’m
just
sayin
’, you know.”
“Yeah.”
They
leave the building and step into the bustling streets of Maddick. This little
town within Claxton is filled with all walks of life, from the outlaw to the
civil. Most everyone congregates outside during the day, hustling their goods
and what-
nots
at the market, buy-sell-trade, making a
living.
At
one time The New Disease ran through this place, killing several, but since
Vincent put the squeeze on it those infected are now few and far between, and
if they don’t hide their infection well enough and they are discovered they are
then killed and their body’s burned. There is absolutely zero tolerance
concerning The New Disease.
One of the last cases, and most memorable, was a gruesome massacre. A man who
had gotten into an altercation with another man,
which
ultimately led to his murder, had contracted the disease from a prostitute a
day prior to his murder. The man had been married with two children and since
he never knew he’d been infected he unknowingly passed the disease off onto his
wife. Three days later he was killed. The grieving widow began to feel ill. She
thought it only to be due to her grief.
Until it got worse.
She then figured it to be something like a common cold, and like the common
cold and similar viruses, The New Disease, in its early stages, has similar
symptoms. Many had been killed and burned when all they had was a cold or the
flu. With that in mind she kept herself secluded in her home with her children
and two close friends to care for her, thinking that she could ride it out
until she got better.
But
she never did get better, she only got worse. She lost her appetite and
acquired a cough that came in violent fits, often hacking up blood. She lost
weight rapidly and her strength abated. Her body ached in ways she never knew
possible, her muscles cramped, her guts twisted. Finally she came to terms with
what it was. Arrangements were made for her children to live with and be raised
by two close friends after what was to be her own quiet death under her own
terms in her own home. But neighbors can be nosey and the secret was leaked
out. Vincent’s police squad busted through the door and rounded everyone up.
They
were taken to the town square where she and all those present in the home were
publicly condemned to death. Although she was the only one showing symptoms of
The New Disease the others could have also contracted it somehow, but even if
they had not they were all still guilty for harboring a known infection,
therefore sealing their own fate along with her.
The
woman begged with such intensity to have mercy on her children and friends that
she hacked and coughed uncontrollably. Vincent’s men were wary of touching the
infected woman but their orders were to immediately take her and the others to
the fire pit, the men seized her by the arms and dragged her roughly onward. In
a fit of hysteria she bent backwards in a muted yell, her eyeballs bulged from
their sockets, large white globes seeming as if they could roll out of her
head. A noise came from deep within her throat, her stomach heaved, she retched,
and as she bent forward blood shot from her mouth like a busted fire hydrant.
Her small framed body thrashed out, tugging her arms against the hold the two
men had on her while shaking her head side to side in an uncontrollable rage as
blood showered red death on the two men flanking her and anyone else within
spitting distance. On-looking citizens gasped and cried out in horror. Several
men marched into the square and under Vincent’s orders drew their weapons and
commenced to slaughter the woman, her two friends, and their own men who were
covered in the woman’s blood, slaying them with swords, piercing their belly’s
with spears, chopping off heads and limbs with axes. But somehow, within the
ongoing slaughter, by the grace and selflessness of one brave soul, the two
children disappeared. Once the last of the dead bodies were gathered and thrown
into the fire pit, filling the air and sky with the thick black stench of
burning flesh, no one became wise to the two missing children.
It
is understood that if anyone discovers they are infected their best bet is to
turn themselves in to not only allow the henchman to give them a quick, clean,
and painless death at the chopping block but to also spare the lives of their
loved ones. In many cases this unwritten law has proven effective.
Regardless
of the risk it still does little damage to the economics of prostitution. In
fact, it is a thriving business. Paper currency is no longer sought after; all
old world currency is considered dead. Prostitutes now only take such things as
food, clean water, clothing, jewelry, weapons, these things have solid value.
Because men, and in some cases women as well, will always be accursed with an
insatiable craving for coitus, brothels are the best business in Maddick,
and being under the protection of Vincent himself the prostitutes of Maddick
are the cleanest, best fed, and well dressed, male or female. But they also run
the risk of meeting death much faster now more than ever. After all, it’s not
like they have an endless supply of condoms from the now defunct Trojan
Company. But the perks somehow seem to outweigh the imminent danger.
Pan
and Bruno go to one of these brothels and are greeted at the door by Madam
Jizell; a pretty Latina, and although she has a skinny frame, her breasts are
plump.
”Pan,”
she says with a sly smile. “I didn’t think we’d be seeing you again for a
while. From the way you crawled out of here last time I figured it would take a
month for those balls to refill themselves. Should I get Alexis again or would
you like to have a go with a different girl?”
Pan
grins bashfully. “Well, I, uh…” Bruno elbows him, and when Pan sees that
grotesque face he remembers what they are here for and quickly regains his
composure. “We’re not here for that. Bruno here got a little banged up and
needs to get his face cleaned and sewed up and his shoulder looked at.”
“What
do you got for me?” Jizell deadpans.
Pan
reaches into his coat pocket and pulls out a thin gold chain with a small
diamond pendent. He lays it in her open hand and she holds it up to examine it.
“Is
it real?” she asks.
“Are
those real?” Pan quips, ogling the two opulent mounds before him veiled behind
a soft wispy layer of material. She gives him a sardonic leer and then he says,
“Sometimes it’s not if something is real or not real, just as long as it looks
good, eh.”
She
steps to the side and waves them in.
Prostitutes
are everywhere: big ones, little ones, tall, short, ugly, pretty, young, and
old, of any race to your liking. Many of the girls who aren’t entertaining a
client at the moment flirt with Pan and Bruno as they walk through, mostly
flirting with Pan though, as he is well known in the brothels. He is quite the
rafe
when he can afford to be.
Madam
Jizell leads the two men to a small room in the back. Bruno is told to remove
his shirt and to sit on a table covered with old newspapers. The Madam slips on
a smock, washes her hands in a pan of clean water, slides on a pair of rubber
gloves, wraps a
surgeons
mask around her face, and
dons a pair of protective eyeglasses.
Now presenting the
reputable Dr. Jizell.
Jizell
has been a prostitute ever since she was fourteen years old, over half her life
now. With a strong desire to be more than just a common whore for the rest of
her life she earned her GED at nineteen years old and soon after enrolled in
nursing school while continuing to hook in order to pay off her schooling.
But how the world changed before she was able to live out her
dream.
She is now one of the very few left who profess in human anatomy,
medically and sexually, earning her the roles by Vincent Maddick himself as
Madam Jizell, M.D.
She
examines Bruno’s shoulder.
“What
happened?”
“I
got shot by an arrow.”
“And
your face?”
“A
dog attacked me.”
“I’m
not even going to ask.”
She
goes to a desk and opens the top drawer, plucking out cotton swabs, gauze,
iodine, and surgical tape. In the beginning she was fully stocked with this
kind of stuff and much more, including a plethora of pain killers, but lately
she’d noticed a significant dent in her supplies.
The
shoulder wound is no longer bleeding so she wets a towel and wipes off the
dried blood from around the wound. She takes a cotton swab and dunks it in the
iodine, then swabs deep inside the wound while pouring a little more iodine
over it. Bruno clinches his teeth and hisses; it hurts worse than getting shot
with the arrow did. After it is clean she packs the wound with ointment and
dresses it with a couple of layers of gauze taped to his skin. It takes a
little longer to clean and patch his
face,
it is badly
chewed from the dogs canines, needing several stitches but being less painful
as the cleaning of the shoulder wound had been.
“I
would tell you to rest up a while but I have the feeling you either won’t or
can’t,” she says to Bruno. “So with that being said, just try to keep the
wounds as clean as possible.”
“And
I’ll see you in the next few days, eh,” Pan says, a suggestive grin curving his
thin lipped mouth, eyebrows dancing up and down.
“I’m
sure,” Jizell says.
Pan
and Bruno live together in the same pad, and their own physical appearance
reflects their living quarters: Squalor. It is really nothing more than a place
to keep their personal items and to lay their heads. Each packs a few supplies
and Bruno snatches another one of his many clubs. On their way out of Maddick,
Pan recruits five men to go with them, under Vincent’s strict orders, and then
they leave into the vast city of Claxton on the hunt for a boy named Mongoose
and his dog Max.
It
is in the upper area of the northern most
end
in an
office building. Lathan has been there only once before, years ago, but he
remembers it well. He is sure that James knows of the building as well, may
have had clients who’d worked there in fact, but it is no business of James’
nor anyone else’s what his interest is with the building.
At
least not for now.
Which is why he didn’t ask about
the building, what condition it is in, and if it has residency but even if so
he is positive that what he is after will still be safely intact.
It
is the last thing he thought about before dozing off into a long, deep,
dreamless sleep. He doesn’t have many of those. He usually slumbers in broken
naps and awakes after an hour or two from a distressing dream or from the odd feeling
of being watched by someone who isn’t even in the room or sometimes he awakes
with a start for reasons he cannot understand. It’s become routine, something
he’s grown accustomed to.
The
next morning he awakes to Taya banging relentlessly on his door, bright eyed
and bushy tailed.
He
uses the bucket of water that was brought to him yesterday by the buildings
water boy to freshen up, dresses, and then leaves with Taya.
They
hop in a cycle rickshaw and Taya enthusiastically takes Lathan on a tour of the
town. It is built off of what was salvageable from the city; food, clothing,
furniture, anything beneficial. Books were transferred from one of the city’s
biggest libraries to an office building here, bringing in truckloads of
bookshelves and refurbishing the entire floor to create their own library.
Antiques and artwork were also salvaged and is now preserved and on display
within the same office building, on the second floor, serving as the towns art
museum.
With
a handful of medical doctors on call three floors of another building were
redesigned to create a hospital equipped with enough medical supplies and
intel
to treat most illnesses and injuries. Those infected
with The New Disease, who currently number twenty-eight, are quarantined on
their own floor, which if you really think about it is a friendlier form of
death row.
Several
water fountains were built around the town, connected through a piping system
from a larger one with a filtering system located in the middle of town,
supplying clean water to anyone at any time. The water system is also a
hydroelectric source for the town’s power.
Fruit,
vegetable, and flower gardens are cultivated both hydroponically within the
buildings and
solarly
on building roof tops, and
although the sky is on average overcast gray, the gardens produce well. Chicken
coops, rabbit warrens, goat bins, and hog lots are abundant as well.
Lathan
understands why the Maddick’s are overwrought with envy. He tells Taya that he
is surprised they haven’t tried to invade yet.
“They
have. They’ve tried to cross over the walls. We have men who work in shifts
that walk them at all times, like those you saw at the front gate, and if
someone tries to cross over unauthorized then they will be shot. They always
run off before any shots are made though. But one time two of them got in
somehow. Before anyone knew it they killed six people, but they were caught
before they could kill any more.”
“What
happened to them?”
“James
had them executed and strung up near Maddick.
To set an
example.”
That
perked his attention.
“Has
there been more around since then?”
“No.
But if Vincent was to bring everything he’s got then it could turn into a war
and that scares us all. We’ve got plenty guns and ammunition but Vincent
probably does too, and now that he’s captured two of our men they’re probably
being tortured for information just like my uncle said, so now it’s not a
matter of if he will attack, it’s a matter of when. Vincent may even try to
negotiate with Stan and
Jonsey’s
lives, but he can’t
be trusted, he is pure evil.”
Taya downcast her eyes.
“I can’t help but think that I would be right there with them if I hadn’t
gotten away. The things they must be going through. . .” Her brow furrows and
her chin trembles.
He
hopes like hell she doesn’t start crying. He can do without the emotional
drama. Holding her close and caressing her softly under different circumstances
would be enjoyable, she is quite beautiful, but playing comforter to a sob case
isn’t something he is up for right now.