Scratch Lines

by Elizabeth Blake

  “I'm fine,” she said, breathy.

  I could barely breathe. Ribs busted. A hard clot of pain bunched at my hip. Solid whiplash wrung my neck. Dizziness swam over me like murky rapids.

  I collapsed onto my ass. Searched for my lost gun. My fingers groped through warm pools of blood and possibly urine. The Jericho laid by the rear tire. I picked it up, set it on my chest like a teddy bear, and laid back. So nice to rest on cool pavement. No stars, no moon. Just a blank canvas.

  The clot of pain in my lower body became aggressive, growing, pulsing. I bled. Someone screamed. I couldn't be sure it wasn't me.

  “Need an ambulance here,” I slurred. Light found me. The one at the end of the tunnel? How trite.

  Hands hoisted me. Felt me up, groped at my clothes, and cut the vest away. The sequence jumbled. Faces looked empty. I dreamed I was riding my motorcycle through the desert, but the sand rose up and pitched me off a cliff. I jolted.

  In the ambulance, mere moments had passed. My guns had gone missing.

  “Hey!” I said, outraged. A thin sheet covered my chest.

  “More clothes, less hands,” I lectured. Did I really need four people fondling my injuries at once? I looked down. Bruises as purple as plums ran in an arc over my aching breasts and ribs. Punctures from at least three teeth marked where the vest ended above my hip. Medics used a pump to suck blood from the wounds, like pulling out snake venom.

  “Take it easy, Durant,” a medic said. Pudgy red-head who loved eyeliner and hated brushing her hair, hands like God's masseuse.

  “Ay, Liza, how ya been?”

  “Better than you, sweetie.”

  “Ha. I'm okey-dokey. Head hurts a bit but—woo! Not like I need that anyway, right? Off with their heads! Queen of Hearts said that. Rather heartless, point of fact.”

  “Jesus, guys! Who gave her morphine? Amateurs,” Liza complained. “She's an addict, you assholes.”

  Yeah, she'd been patching me up for years.

  “Can you see bone?” I said.

  “Clean enough, mostly flesh, but you need to hang tight.”

  “Where's Yvonne?”

  “She's in the ambulance behind us.”

  I frowned. “Thought she was fine.”

  “Routine,” Liza assured me.

  “I need to check on my truck,” I said. “It's brand new.”

  “Don't worry about it. Everything's fine.”

  “And my guns.”

  “Not a chance, sweetie. Not ‘til you're off that morphine. You know what it does to you.”

  “Ha, ha, ha. Huh. Yeah. Morphine. Um...”

  I forgot what I was going to say. Floated merrily along a drug pathway.

  * * *

  Woke handcuffed to the bed in a quarantine ward.

  I hate that!

  They collared me with a fat iron band bearing inward-facing spikes. Standard q-ward policy. Drugs, also part of procedure, put my body at war. Flesh clammy and cold, veins scalding. Morphine, hot, hot, scorching tunnels in my body, burrowing and burning and bruising.

  My knuckles ached, ribs screamed, bruises hurt, and hip throbbed. My whole body raged from being rubbed down and sanitized. My mouth was dry. I squinted at my surroundings. Sarakas slumbered in a nearby chair. I thought, if he springs me, we can grab some beer and sleep it off at my place.

  “Psst, Sarakas,” I whispered. He didn't wake up. “My blood hurts. Let's get pizza!”

  He didn’t move. Had they drugged him? The whole world was against me.

  “What good are ya?”

  I fumbled for something to throw at him but fell asleep. Woke later, blinking under fluorescent lights. My groin ached down to the bone. I had a pain in my ass, too. That made me chuckle. Of course, my skull region was fuzzy. I pushed aside the thin sheet and papery hospital gown to inspect the bandages. Nothing seeped through the gauze. I peeled back the bandage and hissed as cold air bit the wound. The bite left a comet-like laceration and the flaps had been stitched together. My backside probably looked similar. If I had not been wearing a vest, the mutt would have bitten me in half.

  I gingerly released the bandage. I'd survive, but had I finally been contaminated? The disease could be storming through my veins, hijacking my body, and turning me into one of them. Thinking about it could drive me crazy.

  The handcuffs left rash-red abrasions on my wrists. I'd been struggling in my sleep. Maybe if the bastards didn't pump me full of morphine and chain me to the goddamn bed!

  “Hey!” I said.

  No answer.

  A good patient would lay quietly and behave, but I wasn't in the mood. My flesh was tired and anxious, nauseated and hungry. I didn’t see any water nearby. Fascists.

  I did not want to be there. I wanted a cheeseburger with extra cheese.

  I reached around the head of the bed and felt for my chart. Squinted at free-floating letters until they settled into neat marching order. Morphine. Yep, definitely. Wow. More than the pain warranted. Assholes. What's worse is I didn't feel as much of the drug’s impact as I should. My body sucked it up and expected more. The hospital also injected me with a stampede of penicillin and GorgonBlood.

  GorgonBlood didn't actually contain blood; it was a watery growth hormone/steroid combination which theoretically advanced healing. Inconclusive and varied results led me to believe it was mostly a vitamin shot, but PerfectChem made a killing on the stuff. The drug seemed to confuse a body as much as help and shouldn't be given to someone being monitoring for a supernatural rate of healing. Now I wouldn't be able to argue that my recovery wasn't the result of diseased blood.

  Assuming I wasn't contaminated.

  Full moon on Tuesday.

  I touched the irritating collar and glared at the barred iron door of q-ward. Weeks in this little prison cell? If the so-called medical practitioners didn't get serious about getting me on my feet, I would throw a quality tantrum.

  No call button. No phone. I was isolated. What better time to test my legs?

  I hoisted myself up, which hurt. Amazing how the core was involved in everything my body did. Burning pain stabbed through the morphine.

  The bed was coming with me, partly for support but also because I was handcuffed to it. With the bedrail in one hand and the IV stand in the other, I made my way to the door. Slowly. Huffing, puffing, about to fall down.

  Discovered a new caliber of pain all over again. I was a nimrod who forgot what agony felt like until I was surrounded with it, and its intensity always surprised me. I ached every day, but flat-out pain was a revelation. Did nothing to ease my temper.

  I whacked the door with the metal IV stand.

  “Yo! Open up. I wanna chat with my physician. And I want water.”

  The door's little window slid aside. A female pair of eyes appeared. “Get back or I'll zap you.”

  Threatened with a stun gun already? I was barely getting warmed up.

  “Jolt me and I'll piss, then you'll have to change my ugly paper dress. Matter of fact, I don't see a bedpan in here. Maybe you want me to mark my territory?”

  “Back away from the door and sit down.”

  “Aren't we the Queen of England?” I said, fully aware I made no sense.

  “Sit.”

  “Oh, fine. You're clearly scared of me. Chicken.” I huffed and threw myself back on the bed, sucking in a breath as the wounds bitched. My ass hurt, too. A mutt had munched on my ass again.

  The door slid open and a nurse in a tight green hazmat suit entered. The outfit reminded me of latex bondage wear, complete with a face guard mask.

  She held a syringe.

  “Hold up there, sister, I was thinking—”

  “Security!” she said.

  “Jesus. C'mon. You don't wanna give me that.”

  “Oh, I do. I really do.” She jabbed the needle into the IV bag attachment. Her eyes gleamed triumphantly above the mask. She must know me.

  “You look like you want to get something off your chest,” I said.

 
; “You're an asshole.”

  “We must have met before.”

  “You threw a bedpan at me. It was full.”

  Her story didn't sound familiar, but I believed her.

  “Maybe you deserved it,” I said.

  “I don't think so. I think you were piss drunk. I also think you're simply—”

  “An asshole. Glad we covered that. If I'm such an ass, why are you dressed all sexy? Trying to impress me, are ya?”

  She huffed and turned on her heel.

  “Go with red next time!”

  She slammed the door. I was making friends.

  The morphine she had added to the IV chugged happily through me. My brain floated like a handful of balloons released into the summer sky. Someone came back and forth, and I might have threatened them and demanded ice cream. Finally, toward the end of that fading high, a familiar face appeared.

  “Are you okay?” Yvonne said.

  “Oh yeah, peachy. Apricots, too. You?”

  She stood at the door, frowning, staring at the dehumanizing collar around my neck.

  “How could those boys...aspire to be diseased?” she said. “Why would anyone do that? I understand the misguided people who stupidly think they're protecting loved ones. Mutt sympathizers are one thing, but this! The Freki kids wanted to be monsters. How does anyone become so twisted?”

  “I don't know.”

  “It's unforgivable. I'm glad they are dead.”

  I had nothing helpful to contribute and she was clearly upset.

  “Yvonne, did something else happen?”

  “Wesley’s room is down the hall. Some mutt ate a third of his body. He's in a coma, and they don't expect him to survive. Unless he stirs, his plug-pull is scheduled for Friday.”

  “Who?”

  “Wesley, the new recruit in team D.”

  I tried to recall a face for the name but drew a blank.

  “Jesus, Kaidlyn. Wesley, the recruit who introduced himself by his first name. You placed bets on how long he'd make it. Three weeks.”

  “Oh, okay.” I gave up trying to remember what Wesley looked like.

  “He lasted about three weeks,” she said.

  “Oh. Coincidence no doubt.”

  “Can you at least pretend to give a shit?”

  Yvonne was primed for an argument. Surely she couldn't think it was my fault the dude died.

  “I didn't realize you two were so close.”

  She glared at me, eyes hot and hard. I knew what was coming.

  “How long did you give me? When did you predict I would die?”

  “I don't remember. I'm not a freaking oracle.”

  “Go straight to hell, Kaidlyn.” She walked out and slammed the security door behind her.

  I yanked the morphine drip out of my arm. No more bounding merrily through drug-induced clouds. Time to sober up.

  Chapter 15

  Rainer

  Mrs. Crowley deserved an award for being the greatest grandmother in the world. She exuded joy, light, and warmth. Everyone said she baked the greatest cookies, but I never had the chance to taste one.

  And now she was dead.

  When I heard Benjamin had shed and been put down by the FBHS (fascist butt-huffing sissies), I hacked the security cameras in the house. Mrs. Crowley hadn't yet received the news. I watched her cloud of white hair as she meandered back and forth in the kitchen, always baking, constantly cooking, and trying to appease the appetite of those growing boys.

  Little mutt bastards.

  Benjamin Crowley was on a heavy diet of Oxy, weed, and junk food. A year ago, he tried to join with Erik, but their personalities didn't mesh. Erik's kennel didn't involve enough beer, skateboarding, and anarchy to satisfy Benjamin, who wanted to be top dog of a fun boy's club.

  Erik had kicked him to the curb. Told him to grow up. Apparently that hadn't happened.

  Benjamin recruited on the streets, promising to “bless” loyal followers by passing on the disease. Erik claimed he'd put a stop to it. He should have done more, sooner.

  Agents came, delivered the news, added the family to a sub-human list of potentials, and tagged them like animals.

  Poor Mrs. Crowley.

  The youngest boy, Seth, was the one who actually killed her. Maybe it was the stress of losing his brave big brother, but the kid finally broke. Lost all humanity and went for the throat. His brothers weren't fast enough to stop him. Once blood hit the open air, the whole gig was up. All three boys shed in a frenzy.

  It happened so fast. Seth attacked before I could fake a 911 call. I was a helpless bystander, stuck in my chair, body stiff with terrible yearnings. I wanted to join them. The older boy, Stanley, won her scraps in a quick scuffle, and then the younger mutts began to hunt.

  Durant and her partner stopped them. I watched from a street camera as the older Crowley boy attacked Durant and shook her like a rag. She killed him anyway.

  Thank goodness.

  Now she was in q-ward, again. Part of me hoped the disease finally contaminated her. Lycanthropy might change her position on slaughtering unfortunate civilians. Nah. More likely, she'd kill herself at the first sign of infection. Ritual suicide remained popular among L-pos agents.

  Poor Ms. Crowley. I replayed the footage as Stanley dragged her entrails across the room. He hunkered down to eat, rocking the corpse in a sick motion. Muzzle deep in yummy juice and meat, he looked pleased with himself. He ate pleasurably before gunfire drew his attention, and then he abandoned the bones and rushed to aid his brothers.

  God, I was so hungry.

  My gut rolled sickly. Hunger clawed at me as I considered the bloody remains. I tried to watch objectively. Tried to remember that Mrs. Crowley was a lovely, kind maternal person...

  All that meat, going to waste. I knew how it would feel in my mouth. Slippery fat. Fibrous tendon. Crisp, crunchy bones.

  I clamped my teeth together. They slashed like a row of anxious soldiers awaiting battle.

  Skin itched, paper-thin and breaking.

  The beast was coming.

  I tried to ignore it. Meditate. Think of something else, something calming. A prayer. A hymn. A rhyme. I struggled to recall any part of the Blessingway ceremony.

  “'Sa'ah naaghéi, Bik'eh hózhó.”

  My voice was torn and worn and rough, like dry corn being ground to meal between flat stones. My knuckles swelled and crunched against each other. Skin stretched taut and tore over my head, shoulders. Panic hit me. The panic of someone about to vomit in a public place when there isn't a trash receptacle. About to be pained, miserable, and ashamed all at once.

  Seek calm. Inner peace.

  Shit.

  I threw back the chair and ran toward the changing room, jabbing my finger against the key pad. The thick door slid open and I tossed myself inside. Tripped. Fell on all fours. An evil spirit shrieked and wailed through my boiling blood. Metaphysics: the inexplicable, deplorable, uncontrollable. Magic filled me like a demon. My throat burst open as the disease sacrificed my flesh to the beast.

  The door slid shut, locking me in.

  Just in time.

  I screamed.

  Chapter 16

  Kaidlyn

  I remained trapped in the iron room for ten days, sleeping, cursing, and exercising as much as I could bear.

  The crushing bite had sorely agitated my often-broken ribs. The scored flesh on my hip was healing nicely but not quickly enough to indicate contamination. Supposedly. The doctors agreed to my release after injecting me with a slow-release morphine chip and prescribing a month’s supply of GorgonBlood and Oxycontin. The chip meant I'd be a slightly high for a week, and then I'd have to get sober again.

  The heavy iron collar left an irritated red ring around my neck like a noose. Most people would be relieved to be free of the insulting, dehumanizing thing. The collar didn't bother me because I knew the truth; I was not free, period. The tag remained, ever present, ever monitoring, guarding the property of Big Fed. Collar or tag,
there was no difference.

  Shit, I needed a dozen cold showers, another attempt at sobriety, and a brand new book. After being locked in the equivalent of a prison cell, reading blacklisted literature seemed like the best possible way to celebrate my release.

  Of course, I couldn't afford crap with people stealing funds from my accounts. I'd have to sell old contraband to finance something new, meaning I'd have to find a supplier without getting shot for treason or terrorism.

  Shouldn’t have been driving, given the morphine influence, but Sarakas didn’t answer the phone. I resigned myself to drive the speed limit for once.

  I wanted a mindless task, something normal, so I went grocery shopping. I loaded a shopping cart full of bagged food and protein bars and desperately avoided the liquor aisle. I didn't run into trouble until I tried to find almonds.

  An obese, overwhelmed Hispanic woman allowed her rug-rats to run wild, screeching and sprinting up the aisles. One boy in a ketchup-stained shirt dumped product into my cart every time I wasn't looking. Like it was a game. I turned my back and the shithead sprinted to my cart and dumped in packets of peanuts. Then potato chips. Those I kept, but nonetheless he got on my nerves. I heard the pitter-patter of little feet and spun.

  Grinning, he dropped a box of sugary cereal into my cart.

  I hate cereal.

  I seized the nuisance by the shirt and lifted him.

  “Back off, runt,” I snarled. He paled. I put him down before he started to cry and wheeled my basket away. Could have sworn I heard laughter. I turned, but no one was there.

  The wide-eyed boy ran down the aisle to find his mother.

  Jesus, Durant. You're accosting children and hearing voices. If you're lucky, you can blame this on the tricky morphine.

  I needed an AA meeting, but going home and sleeping in my own bed held more appeal. Maybe, if I was lucky, Zelda would bring me something sweet. Chocolate cake could fix anything. I rushed through the checkout and took my load to the parking lot.

  A post-it note with familiar, stylized writing sat on my side mirror. Being publicly recognized by my pirate, whom I've never met, chilled me. As scary as looking down the barrel of a gun. I read the note without touching it.