by Nancy Isaak
* * * *
The Crazy looked up at me, pain wracking his face. He was lying on a cot, uncuffed, not bound; we knew that there was no chance of him escaping.
“Are you…Mother?” he asked, as I sat down in a chair beside him.
I nodded. “Some of the guys call me that, yes.”
He reached out a hand; it was covered in blood. I took it, holding it gently.
“I’m…Abraham.”
“That’s a beautiful name—Abraham.” The kid’s bangs had fallen over his eyes and I reached out my free hand, moving them out of the way.
“I miss my family,” he said, quietly. “My dad…my mother.”
“I miss mine, too.”
“Sometimes…” He coughed—his face once again contorting with pain. Almost reflexively, his hand tightened around mine, relaxing only when the spasm had passed. “Sometimes, I wish…I wish I hadn’t…come here…should of…stayed home…but…but there was…no one…just me.”
There was a catheter in the boy’s arm, with a line leading off it to a bag of saline water that was hung above the bed. Jay came forward now, carrying a needle. Trying not to let Abraham see, she pushed the needle through the plastic bag—squirting its contents into the saline.
“Where do you come from?” I asked Abraham, trying to distract him.
“…Bakersfield.”
“A desert boy,” I grinned.
He grinned back and I tried not to react when I saw the blood between his sharpened teeth.
Removing the needle from the bag, Jay moved away—walking over to where Porter was standing in a corner, watching. She reached out and he took her into his arms, holding on tightly as she cried silently—shoulders moving up and down, shuddering with each tormented sob.
I felt Abraham squeeze my hand and I looked down at him once more; his face was relaxing, the lines of pain smoothing out. “It…doesn’t…hurt…anymore.”
His eyes began to flutter, his breaths moving farther and farther apart. As his eyes finally closed, I leaned forward and kissed him on his forehead.
I didn’t think Abraham would notice—but he did.
When he spoke, his words were so soft, I could barely hear them.
“Thank…you…Mother.”
* * * *
I didn’t have time for tears.
The moment I rose from beside Abraham’s death bed, Erroll came racing toward me. He had been standing impatiently in the doorway, waiting for an appropriate moment to interrupt.
“You need to come to the cage,” he told me. “Shawnee’s team has brought in another prisoner!”
* * * *
“We found him over near Pavilions,” explained Shawnee.
Like the rest of us, she was exhausted, her shoulders bowing with fatigue. “Dude was hiding under a couple of bodies. Like he pulled some dead Crazies over top of him, the coward. It was little bro who made him. Saw the pile move and figured someone was under there.”
I looked over to where Wester was sitting against a wall; Hannah was seated on one side of him—Ethan on the other. Meanwhile, Lily sat beside her brother, Pugly held tightly in her arms, while Lance sat beside Hannah, holding Kanga in his cage.
All five of the young kids looked wide-eyed and traumatized as they stared at the Crazies milling around inside of the cage.
“Get those kids home,” I told Shawnee. “They’ve seen enough. I’ll take care of the prisoner.”
She nodded, heading toward the group, motioning them up and away—almost as if she was herding them. “Come on, little rats…time to put you in your nests.”
As they disappeared into the increasing dark, Kieran came over, nodding toward the cage. “You want me to get him?”
I nodded. “Be careful. Get Pauly to help you.”
Hearing his name, Pauly jumped down from the wall he and Florenza were sitting on. They had been eating sandwiches and watching the activity around the Crazies’ cage, as if it was the evening’s entertainment.
“Should we take him into the mansion,” asked Kieran, “or do you want to question him somewhere else?”
“Right here,” I said. “I think this needs to be done in front of them.”
With a small movement of my chin, I motioned to the Crazies in the cage. Like the Locals who surrounded them, the Crazies had gone mostly quiet—watching me—knowing that something very serious was about to happen.
* * * *
I had been worried that the other Crazies might try and protect Mateo.
Surprisingly, they did nothing of the kind.
Not one of them moved to help their leader as Kieran and Pauly entered the cage. Instead, they stepped away from the brooding Hispanic—parting like a school of fish exposing a shark.
“Bruja!” yelled Mateo, as he was pulled out of the cage. His hands had been handcuffed, but he still tried to kick and bite at Kieran and Pauly. “Your bitch…she a bruja, man…a witch…fallen angel maybe! Only way she could of won—it’s ‘cause she uses black magic!”
Pauly shoved him onto his knees in front of me, using his knuckles to tap on Mateo’s head. “It’s because she uses her brain, dipwad!”
Mateo glared up at me—hatred seeping out of his every pore.
He was half-naked, wearing only a loin cloth and—horrifyingly—what looked to be a breastplate made out of finger bones. His hair had been shaved off, leaving only two thin lines that crossed diagonally at the back of his head—X marks insanity.
“Hello, Mateo,” I said, softly. “I don’t think we’ve been introduced. My name is Kaylee and I am the wife of Jacob and the mother of this tribe.”
“That’s right, asshole!” I didn’t know who had spoken; it could have been any one of the many Locals who surrounded the cage. When I looked up at my guys, they all nodded, murmuring their agreement, urging me to continue.
In front of me, meanwhile, Mateo spit on the ground. “Bruja!”
Pauly smacked him a good one, right across the back of his head. Mateo immediately reared back, glaring at him. “I kill you, pendejo!”
“You can try, Rat-e-o,” grinned Pauly.
There was scattered laughter, ironically, coming from inside of the cage. When I looked up, I realized that most of the Crazies had moved forward; their hands were clutching the bars and they were watching us very closely.
“Would you look at that, Mateo?” I murmured. “I don’t think your guys like you very much.”
He immediately spun around and scowled at the guys in the cage. A few of the Crazies stepped back, melting behind their compatriots. Most held their spots, however, watching carefully.
“Your guys don’t respect you,” I continued. “And when they don’t respect you, Mateo—they won’t follow you. They won’t protect you…and they certainly won’t die for you.”
“We’d die for you, Mother!” came another voice from the crowd.
Other voices echoed the sentiment; a rising chant that warmed my heart. I looked around at my guys—these young boys who had fought with me today—who had fought for me.
A welling rose up inside of me; a feeling of such intense love and pride.
Then, I looked back down at Mateo—into his ugly, insane eyes.
There was something dead inside of him, I realized; his humanity, if he had ever had any…was gone.
What I was looking at—was pure evil.
* * * *
“Brandon’s gonna’ get you!” Mateo hissed at me. “He’s gonna’ find out you got me. And when he do, bitch…he’s gonna’ come get me. You’re gonna’ see—that dude—he’s got big plans for you, bruja. He told me what he’s gonna’ do to you, girl…told me how he’s gonna’ use you…make you last a real long time.”
Angered, Kieran moved forward, his hand rising up, about to hit Mateo.
I reached out and placed a hand against Kieran’s chest, stopping him. “I’ve got this.”
Not liking it, Kieran backed away slowly. Cammie moved up beside him, reaching out for his hand. Ther
e was a lot of blood on her shirt and I noticed that her eyes were red and full of tears; she had been helping with the wounded and appeared to be barely keeping it together.
“Take Cammie and go home,” I told Kieran.
He looked at me confused; there was no way that he would leave me with Mateo this way.
“Go now!” I ordered. “She shouldn’t be here for this.”
Kieran still didn’t understand.
It was, instead, Florenza who came forward and took Cammie’s other hand—pulling her away.
“Come on, chica,” she cooed. “We delicate flowers need our beauty rest, don’t we?”
Silently, Cammie allowed herself to be led away, shoulders slumped, tears finally falling from her eyes. When she and Florenza had disappeared through the outer walls, I turned back to Mateo.
And—pulled out my gun.
* * * *
“You have one chance,” I told Mateo. “One chance to give me a reason not to exterminate you.”
He looked up at me, smirking. “Bitch…you crazy. I don’t gotta’ tell you nothing! Don’t you get it, yet? I’m protected…no one’s killing me today.”
I cocked the gun—pulling on the slide and letting it click back in place.
“Ooo! Now I’m really scared, bruja,” he snickered. “Like you gonna’ be scared when Brandon comes for me. Like you gonna’ be scared when he catches you, when he makes you his bitch…when he be your master!”
“The reason, Mateo,” I said, quietly. “You still haven’t given me a reason to spare your miserable life.”
He hissed at me, then—pulling back his lips and exposing his teeth, all of them filed down into points. “When Brandon’s done with you, witch,” he sneered, “I will drink your blood. I will tear the skin from your neck, bruja…and I will…”
Mateo never finished his curse, because I shot him.
One bullet—right in the center of his forehead.
* * * *
There was silence in the courtyard.
No one spoke—no one moved.
Mateo’s body lay at my feet, blood pooling beneath his head. Beside me, Kieran and Pauly were motionless—shocked—their mouths hanging open.
A whimper.
I turned toward the cage; the sound had come from one of the younger Crazies.
He looked terrified, was struggling not to cry. The others in the cage around him were just as wide-eyed, obviously fearing that what had just happened to Mateo was destined to be their own fate.
Holding the gun at my side—but pointed at the ground—I moved toward them. They all took a step back—nervous, uncertain.
I stopped just in front of the cage—no more than a foot from its bars. “Do you understand what I just did?”
A few of the Crazies shook their heads. The others did nothing, just watched me warily.
“I killed a beast…I put something very evil out of its misery.” I moved even closer, placing a hand on the bars, looking in at each prisoner in turn. “What I put down over there…that beast…it did things too horrible to comprehend. To allow that kind of evil to exist in this world—for even one more moment—that was something I simply couldn’t do.”
The kid who had whimpered—a boy of about eleven, with a shaved head and freckles on his nose—nodded slightly. “Mateo was scary,” he squeaked. “He hurt one of my friends…and then he killed him.”
Another Crazy—this one about fifteen—moved forward, stopping only when Kieran shook his head at him, patting the gun at his waist for emphasis.
“Mateo said that we were in hell,” the kid told me. “He said that we were all sinners and that the devil owned us now.”
“We were supposed to drink blood,” spoke an older boy from the back of the crowd. “It was to make us immortal, so we wouldn’t disappear. If you didn’t do it—drink the blood—you were put into the Arena.”
“But we didn’t drink the blood,” the 15-year old quickly added. “We just pretended.”
Most of the Crazies around him began to nod.
The little freckle-faced boy, however—the one who had whimpered—began to cry. “I did it,” he sobbed, agonized. “I thought I was supposed to!”
* * * *
The kid was absolutely terrified when I had Kieran and Pauly pull him out of the cage. He was unable to stand on his own two feet—his knees buckling in fear—so he had to be held before me, tearfully awaiting his fate.
“Sophia!” I yelled.
She was at the side of the crowd, her hands nervously worrying her rosary beads. When I had shot Mateo, I had seen her lower her head and cross herself. Now, she came forward, making a wide circle around Mateo’s body—her head turned away, so that she wouldn’t have to look at it.
When she reached me, she simply stopped and waited.
I turned back to the young Crazy. “What’s your name?”
“Louie,” he whispered in a shaky voice—his eyes lowered, looking only at the ground.
“Well, Louie…this is Sophia and I’m trusting her to take very good care of you. She will start by taking you over there and getting you some soup.” I waved Erroll over. “And this is Erroll. When you’re finished eating your soup, he and Sophia are going to help you get cleaned up and into some new clothes.”
The young boy’s gaze finally lifted from the ground. He looked up at me, still wary—yet, hopeful.
“But,” I continued, “if you go with Sophia and Erroll, it has to be because it’s your choice. Because when you go with them—it will mean that you’re becoming a Local, one of us. Are you ready for that?”
“You’re not going to hurt me?”
I shook my head. “Not unless you’re evil.”
He immediately began to cry again—this time, tears of relief. “I’m…not…evil. I’m…not!”
* * * *
Once Louie had left with Sophia and Erroll, I turned back to the Crazies who remained in the cage. They still looked nervous, but the terror had left their faces. If anything, they looked more confused now than anything else.
“You have a choice to make,” I told them. “For those of you who are not slave owners, who do not believe in the taking of blood, who believe that, even in this new world, there should be civility and common sense—that we should take care of each other, that we should be good and kind people wherever possible—I offer you sanctuary.”
The 15-year old immediately came forward, placing his hands on the bars, his face eager. “I want sanctuary…please. Oh god, please give me sanctuary!”
Others in the cage nodded their agreement; a few of them even began to cry.
From the back of the Crazies, however, the older kid who had spoken before pushed forward to stand in front of me.
“We don’t want to die,” he admitted, “but how can we be sure that you’re telling the truth? How can you be sure that we’re telling the truth?”
As he spoke, he reached up and ran a hand slowly across his forehead, brushing his bangs out of his eyes. His movements were precise, his eyes staring directly into mine. I suddenly realized that he was trying to tell me something.
Then—I saw the star between his fingers.
“I can’t be certain that you’ll be telling us the truth,” I said, looking quickly away from his hand, before anyone in the cage noticed his tattoo. “Whoever decides to join our tribe, however—if they haven’t done evil—they will be given that chance. But know this—you all will be separated. You will be monitored at all hours of the day and night; a tribemate will be assigned to each of you, who will go with you everywhere. You will also not be allowed in certain areas, or to travel by yourself, or to associate with each other—until we feel you can be trusted.”
“How long will that be?” asked one of the older Crazies—a kid with a bloody cut across his cheek.
“Until we feel you can be trusted,” I repeated.
“And you promise that you won’t kill us?” asked the kid with the star tattoo.
“I do not,
” I said, truthfully. “This was a peaceful tribe before you came here. This will be a peaceful tribe again. And I want you to understand that I cannot abide violence, that I hate it. But if any of you do anything that harms any one of my guys—or hurts this tribe—I give you my solemn promise that I will throw you right off that cliff over there. And if you somehow survive the fall—then I will climb down and shoot you right in the middle of your forehead—just as I did that piece of trash over there.”
A few feet behind me, I heard Pauly chuckle. “Looks like a Barbie doll—kills like a G.I. Joe.”
“For tonight,” I continued, “for your own safety and ours, the majority of you will remain in this cage. The younger ones will be released immediately, however, as soon as volunteer tribemates are assigned.”
“We’ll take one of the little guys.” Nate and Xavier came forward. They were both still wearing their wet suits, their hair sticky with drying salt.
“I was worried that you were still out on the ocean,” I said—relieved to see them safe and unharmed.
“We came in when the flares went up,” said Xavier. “In case you needed us.”
I gave both of them a quick hug. “You guys did good. I’m so proud of you.” Then, I motioned toward the cage. “Which one?”
Nate pointed to a little East Indian kid with a black mohawk; he was no more than ten, his face streaked with tears.
“Can you swim?” Nate asked the boy. “Because me and my brother mostly live on the water.”
The kid nodded slightly, but was still too scared to actually speak.
“We’ll take this one,” Nate told me.
Inside of the cage, the kid shrank back—his eyes going wide with terror. Another older Crazy—about sixteen—moved in front of the little guy, as if protecting him from Nate.
“It’s okay,” I assured them both. “We don’t hurt people in this tribe. Nobody is allowed to touch you if you don’t want to be touched. Nobody is allowed to make you do something that you don’t want to do. Every one of my guys knows that, if they do touch you in a way that makes you uncomfortable, they will answer to me.”
