Urrea nodded. “I can’t think of anything more horrible. You’re actually saying every single shambler, is aware of what it is?”
“Much worse than that,” said Karen, looking sick. “They are still connected to all five senses. They hear, smell, taste, feel, and see everything, but they are unable to exert any control over the physical body. That’s what Dr. Volker built into the plague. He wanted the person, that serial killer, to be able to experience everything after he woke up in the coffin.”
Mr. Urrea got up so suddenly that his chair fell over backward with a crash. He staggered into the bathroom and they could hear him vomiting. Gutsy sat gripping the edge of the table with all her strength for fear that she would simply fly away into darkness.
“Mama . . . ?” she whispered. “Ay Dios mío . . . Mama?”
Urrea appeared in the kitchen doorway, his eyes glassy with unspilled tears. “Do you know how many los muertos we killed during the Raid? Do you know how many we’ve killed since?”
Karen nodded. “I’m sorry, I didn’t want to tell you any of this.”
Gutsy slammed her palms down hard on the table with a sound like a double-barreled shotgun firing. Sombra leaped to his feet and began barking.
“No,” yelled Gutsy, and the dog instantly fell silent. He crept over to her, tail tucked between his legs, whimpering. Gutsy turned in her chair and took the dog’s head with both hands and leaned against him, forehead to forehead, the way she did with Gordo. She stayed like that for a long time and no one spoke. Then Gutsy straightened. “Is that what you heard in the hospital?”
“Some of it,” said Karen weakly. “The rest . . . well . . . I heard enough to know that they were testing this new mutagen on the people in New Alamo.”
“Why here?” asked Alethea. “And why us?”
Karen licked her lips. “Because they ran out of lab animals two years ago.”
And there it was.
“God in heaven,” said Ford.
“God may be in heaven,” said Karen, “but the devil is here in our town.”
“So the diseases,” said Spider, “weren’t really natural, right?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“And making Mama sick wasn’t just to shut her up?”
“No.”
“They brought Mama back to Gutsy twice,” said Alethea. “What did they think was going to happen? That seeing Gutsy would somehow wake her mind up?”
Karen didn’t answer. She didn’t have to. They all knew it was the truth.
Gutsy cleared her throat and forced herself to ask the next question. “What’s the Night Army? Are they the wolf packs?”
“They are,” said Karen, and now she looked even more scared. “But they’re not what you think.”
“What do I think?”
“That they’re just another mutation. I mean they are, but they’re not just that.” She cupped her palms around her glass and looked down into its contents. “During the End, when our army was still fighting the dead, do you know why we lost?”
“I think I do,” said Urrea. “We lost because they were us.”
“Huh?” said Alethea.
“I get it,” said Spider, but Karen explained.
“Soldiers were always trained to fight the enemy, and the enemy was always someone else. Another race, people from another country. It was ‘us’ versus ‘them,’ and the soldiers, the men and women who signed up or who were drafted, joined because they were fighting for something. Not anyone’s politics, not really. They were fighting for their families, their homes, their friends. And once they were in the field, once they were in actual combat, they were fighting for the soldiers next to them. That’s how it’s always been. I know because I was in the Texas National Guard. I was a soldier, which is how I got the job as security officer for this town. When the End happened, we weren’t fighting the Russians or North Koreans or militant religious terrorists. We were told to stop the infected—and those infected were our own people. Family members, friends, neighbors who had turned. That’s who came at us. Sure, we fought, but we only fought for as long as we could. We fought until our hearts broke. I saw soldiers—tough, experienced soldiers—drop their guns and walk into the infected, arms open, trying to hug someone they knew. Accepting the consequences, because they’d rather be dead among the people they loved than alive with only their grief, or the knowledge of who took the bullets they fired.”
She paused, drank, and set the cup down so hard water splashed on her hands. She made no move to clean it up.
“The people in the base never stopped their war. They had a medical triage center on the front lines, and they took as many soldiers as they could to try and help them. Or so we thought. The wounded were sent back to aid stations, except that was a lie. A lot of them were sent to the base. The scientists figured that they were dying anyway, so they used them. Experimented on them. Generation after generation of the mutagen. Hundreds of soldiers as test subjects. Some died, and I mean really died. A lot of the others turned. Some . . . changed. They didn’t die and didn’t completely transform. The scientists thought this was a sign of victory, a sign that they were making real progress, so they asked for more wounded. They called them ‘volunteers,’ but let’s face it, no one was volunteering.” She paused, thought about it, and shook her head. “Or maybe they did, who knows? Maybe they told the soldiers that volunteering for experimental treatments would lead to a cure that would save their family members—living and living dead. Now that I think about it, I bet that was what they did.”
“That would be my guess too,” said Urrea. “Otherwise the soldiers would eventually have mutinied.”
“They did,” said Karen. “Later. Way later.”
Ford leaned forward. “What do you mean?”
“It did work in a way, in that the mutagen they were given allowed them to keep their consciousness. They can talk and think. But the mutagen did not stop the aggression or the need to spread the disease. It actually made it worse, because the presence of the parasite in the brain drove them all mad. They are thinking parasites. They are filled with nothing but rage and a desire to kill, but they have their intelligence. They can plan how to kill. They carry out those plans too. Which is why all those camps and settlements have been destroyed.”
“That’s the Night Army?” asked Gutsy.
“That became the Night Army,” said Karen. “For a while they were leaderless, just a bunch of wolf packs, roving the Broken Lands. Then they started merging, forming larger packs. They started targeting the small testing stations and wiping those out.”
“Why? What changed?”
“They have a leader,” said Karen. “The soldiers call him the Raggedy Man, but that’s either a nickname or a code name. I don’t think they know his real name.”
“The Rat Catchers mentioned him,” said Gutsy, and told her about what they’d said at the graveside. Urrea and Ford explained about the rumors of the Raggedy Man being a god, a general, or king to los muertos.
“I don’t know that much about him,” Karen conceded. “Bits and pieces, and none of it good. All I know is that whoever he is, he’d been someone important during the outbreak, and the military went to great lengths to find his body and transport it to the base.”
“His body?” asked Spider. “You mean he was dead?”
Karen cocked her head to one side and considered Gutsy. “What’s ‘dead’ really mean these days? Whether he was a living dead or some mutant version, I don’t know. All I do know is that everyone was afraid of him, but they needed him. They needed something from him, and don’t ask me what it is, because I don’t know. They experimented on him, and I think something they got from him helped them with the latest generation of the mutagen. That’s where it all went wrong, though. Something happened and there was a mutiny at the base and all the infected soldiers got out. From what I could piece together, the Raggedy Man was either in the base and he led the revolt to break out, or he sent word for them
to break out. I’m really not sure.”
“The Raggedy Man did this?” asked Ford. “He reanimated?”
“Apparently. Or maybe he was never really dead. Again, I don’t know how. Either way, he’s out there. And he’s been bringing all the wolf packs together, and the last of the living soldiers at the base are freaking out because they think the Raggedy Man is able to control the shamblers, too.”
Urrea looked stricken, and Gutsy was afraid he was going to throw up again. “You’re saying he’s leading them? You’re saying that all the infected are now this Night Army and . . .”
“And he’s their general,” finished Gutsy.
“Sooner or later,” said Karen in a hollow voice, “the army of the dead is going to go to war with the last of the living. It’s why the scientists are trying everything they can—no matter what they have to do or who they have to hurt—to find the perfect mutagen that will stop the Night Army. That’s why they’re using so many people in town.”
“Killing them with diseases?” demanded Alethea.
“Yes, because they need fresh subjects who haven’t been out in the sun rotting for years. Remember, everyone who dies, no matter how, becomes a living dead. That means we’re all infected already, and death allows the parasites to somehow become active and dominant.”
“I want to go wash my DNA with lye soap,” muttered Spider.
“If they want fresh bodies,” said Gutsy, “why not just shoot people?”
“And risk an outright rebellion?” Karen shook her head. “No, if they did that, then everyone would realize what’s going on, and there aren’t a lot of the soldiers left to stop four thousand people if they rose up.”
“Maybe a little open rebellion is what we need,” murmured Urrea.
“Sure, and maybe you’d like to personally bury all the innocent people who would get caught in the cross fire.”
Urrea sighed and nodded, accepting her point.
“Wait,” said Gutsy, “if they’re giving people diseases, then does that mean they gave tuberculosis to Mama?”
The silence that followed her question was profound and ugly and filled with thorns.
“I think so,” said Karen. “I don’t know how any more than I know how exactly they infected my daughter. Does it matter? The fact that they did it is enough.”
“Yes,” said Gutsy in a dangerous voice, “that’s enough.”
“There’s more to it,” Karen said to Gutsy. “They keep it all quiet so everyone here in New Alamo goes about their normal lives, which makes it easier to keep tabs on them. At some point or another everyone’s been to the hospital, so Rat Catcher spies there have collected medical histories going back years. They apparently need that data. So, horrible as it is, the diseases people are dying of are their way of selecting candidates for new medical trials, making sure each person dies when they need them to die, and in a way that doesn’t raise an alarm. And then they study them after death.”
“Is that why they dug up all those graves?”
Karen frowned. “I’m not sure. I know something big is happening, and Collins and her people are acting very skittish. It could be the attacks on the settlements and the increased number of ravagers. As to why they dug up the bodies . . . maybe they want to do tests on the parasites after certain periods of time.”
“Yes,” said Ford, “that might fit. If they already have extensive medical histories and studied those specific dead at given intervals, that would fit a kind of recognizable scientific model.”
“It’s sick,” said Spider.
“No argument,” said Ford, nodding. “And it suggests a level of desperation. When the military acts erratically, it’s usually because things are breaking down. They are all about control, and sometimes they go to dreadful lengths to maintain that control.”
“Yes,” said Karen. “I agree. They’re very desperate, but they’ve done a lot of bad things all along. It’s pretty clear they think that the end result—saving what’s left of humanity—is worth the cost of the lives they sacrifice.”
“Why us?” asked Gutsy. “Why people like the Santiagos and Cantus? Why Mama?”
Karen couldn’t meet her eyes. “Because everyone they infected was either an illegal alien, or the child of one. In their eyes, you’re not Americans.”
“Which means we don’t count?” yelled Gutsy. “We’re still people!”
“Not to them,” said Karen.
The silence that followed was profound.
Finally Karen said, “That’s all I know. I have to get back to my daughter. The soldiers can’t know I’m here.” She started to rise.
“Where are the Rat Catchers?” asked Gutsy. “I need to find this Captain Collins and make her tell me the whole truth.”
“She’ll never talk to you,” said Karen.
“I’ll make her.”
“We’ll help,” said Alethea, tapping her bat. Spider nodded, and even the Chess Players agreed.
“She still has to pay for what she did to my mother,” insisted Gutsy. “So you need to tell me where to find the base.”
“I don’t know where it is. I know it’s close, but I never went there and they’re very careful about never giving a hint of where it is.”
“What about the field lab?” asked Ford. “Do you know where that is?”
“Well . . . of course . . . ,” said Karen.
“Then I’ll start there,” said Gutsy fiercely. “Where is it?”
Karen looked at her with evident surprise. “I thought you understood. . . .”
“Understood what?”
“This town . . .”
“What about it?”
“It’s not a real town. It never has been.”
“What do you mean?” demanded Gutsy. “What are you talking about?”
“This town was never a relocation center for illegal immigrants. Not really, or not entirely. Even before the End it was always a cover for something else.” She looked at each face around the table. “This town is the lab. Everyone who lives here is a lab rat.”
That rocked Gutsy.
It hit everyone. And yet . . . Gutsy could understand it now. It explained a lot about the strange rules and weird behavior.
“I don’t understand,” said Spider. “Does that mean the Rat Catchers live here?”
Karen shook her head. “Here? You think the handlers live in the same cage as their animals? They’re at the base. Now, please let me go home to my daughter.”
69
THEY SAT IN STUNNED SILENCE for a long time after Karen left.
Everyone erupted into chatter at once. The din filled the whole kitchen, but they soon realized they couldn’t be heard and couldn’t hear one another, so they lapsed once more into silence.
Mr. Urrea held up a hand. “Gutsy, it’s your house. You go first.”
She nodded and glanced down the hallway to the closed front door, as if she could still see Karen Peak. “I want to say this first,” she began. “Karen could have told us a bunch of lies and—”
“And if she did, I’ll knock her head off,” promised Alethea.
But Gutsy shook her head. “No, that’s not where I was going. Karen could have lied to us and done it pretty easily. She could have told us a lot less. She didn’t. She told us a lot. Maybe everything she knew.”
Alethea snorted. “Sure, and she could be marching right over to the town council. Or to rat us out to Captain Collins.”
“I don’t think so,” said Gutsy.
“Nor do I,” said Ford.
“Me neither,” said Spider.
“Actually,” added Urrea, “I think she was happy to unburden herself. Imagine how it must have felt to carry the weight of all that and have no one to tell.”
“That’s what I thought while she was talking,” said Gutsy.
“Which means what?” asked Alethea. “Do we trust her now?”
Gutsy considered, but shook her head. “Not if anything we say or do puts Sarah in more danger.
Other than that? Yes. I trust her.”
She waited while the others thought about it. One by one they nodded. Alethea was last, and her nod was reluctant. “It’s not that I don’t trust her,” she explained, “it’s just that she might be forced into a spot where she has to pick Sarah or us. What do we do then? It’s not like we can move to another town, because there isn’t one.”
It was an unfortunate truth.
“Okay,” said Spider, “now that we know all this stuff—and it’s a lot to swallow, I got to tell you—what do we do about it? I mean, I’d love to go find Captain Collins and kind of, y’know, beat her head in with a stick, but . . .”
“They have an army,” said Ford. “We don’t.”
“This,” said Urrea, “is the kind of conversation resistance groups have had since there have been corrupt regimes. So, like, forever. We know who the good guys are, we know who the bad guys are, but the odds are so unfair that any move we make could result in us being swatted. And I’d also like to point out that none of us have guns, and they have a lot of them.”
Gutsy chewed on that, but before she could comment, Ford spoke up. “Personally, as horrified and outraged as I am about what the scientists in the lab and these Rat Catcher soldiers are doing, I’m going out on a limb here and saying that I’m ten times more scared of this Night Army.”
Alethea shook her head. “That’s almost too big a problem to think about right now.”
“I can’t stop thinking about it,” admitted Spider.
A lot of minutes crawled by without anyone saying much. Sombra went and stood by the back door, so Gutsy let him out, then cleaned up his mess. Back inside, she set down food and fresh water for him. All in thoughtful silence.
“Alethea’s right,” said Urrea.
“About what?” asked Spider.
“There isn’t another town.”
“Thank you, Mr. Wizard,” said Ford. “Would you also like to suggest that water is wet and the sky is blue?”
“My point,” said Urrea, “is that we are faced with a choice most resistance groups don’t have. And that choice is no choice.”
“Huh?” said Spider and Alethea.
Broken Lands Page 26
