Wally

by Rowan Massey

“You’re so nice,” I said, smiling a little.

  “You’re so worth it.”

  I rolled onto my back to look up at him. It wasn’t much like him to say something like that. When I saw the tear streaks on his face, I pushed myself up onto my elbows, worried.

  “I’m okay,” I told him. “Spitz will be fine, right? I probably worried too much. Nando is…but he has Spitz’s back so…I shouldn’t worry. It will be fine.”

  Doc looked away. “I want you to be rested. You’ve had an extremely hard time this week. Please just come upstairs. I’ll take care of Fiona.”

  With effort, I pushed myself into a sitting position so that Doc could help me to my feet and take me inside. Going up the steps felt almost impossible, but Doc kept encouraging me and telling me I could do it. We went all the way up to the third floor, and I fell onto the bed before thinking about the blood. I put a hand to my face and head to see how much there was, but Doc didn’t seem to care. He pulled down the blankets, unlaced my boots and took them off, then I curled up. He covered me like I was a little kid. My eyes went shut, and I could already feel the sleep coming, but he asked me to take a sleeping pill anyway. He said I’d sleep a full twelve hours. It meant I could skip waiting to find out if Spitz was okay, so I took it with a glass of water.

  “Let Fiona sleep in here,” I said before he left the room. “She’ll be freaked out staying at your house.”

  He said okay, and I went into a sleep without dreams.

  I woke up with Fiona beside me, braid half undone and tangled, her face blank with sleep. She was still bloody too.

  There was no clock in the room, but I definitely felt like I’d slept for twelve hours. My arms and legs were stiff and aching. I got out of bed and wondered if I’d really been so used to my stomach being empty before Doc had hired me. I felt gutted with hunger pangs, nauseated. But I headed for the bathroom, drank some water in the sink, and got straight in the shower instead going to the kitchen. I was filthy and groggy, and I figured it would loosen up my sore body. The heat of the clean water was like an orgasm on my skin. I would have stayed longer if I wasn’t thinking about sandwiches.

  When I got out, I found my clean clothes fast so Fiona wouldn’t wake up and see me in nothing but a towel, then got dressed in the steamy bathroom. When I got to the kitchen, Doc was there cooking something that smelled great.

  “Potato soup,” he said, turning to me. “I heard the shower and knew you two would be hungry. Is she awake yet?”

  “No,” I said, and sat at the table. “I remember the first time I ate your fancy food. Seems like a year ago.”

  “It does, doesn’t it?”

  He got out a bowl and filled it with soup for me. As soon as it was in front of me, I started trying to eat, even though it was too hot.

  “Slow down,” Doc said, sitting next to me and blocking my spoon from going into the bowl again.

  I groaned and sat back, too impatient. We were quiet for a moment, and doing nothing kept me from forcing myself not to think about Spitz.

  “Nando took our phones,” I said. “That’s why I couldn’t answer.”

  “Oh, well I’m glad you weren’t ignoring me.”

  “I need to call Spitz,” I said, hinting that I needed his phone, but he got up and poured us both glasses of tea.

  “Call him after you eat,” he said.

  There was something about the way he said it. I sucked in a breath that didn’t feel like it was reaching my lungs.

  “Did you hear any news? Did he get hurt?” I asked, standing and walking around the counter to him. I grabbed his arm and made him look at me, but when I saw his face, I hit him. I didn’t know why, but I was hitting him, punching and slapping. He tried to defend himself only but trying to catch my arms.

  “Stop it!” I said, feeling confused, terrified. I pushed him hard. “Get away from me!”

  His eyes watered, and I hated him for daring to cry. I hit him a few more times before running out of the room, not knowing where I was going, but I noticed the hatch wasn’t locked, so I pulled it open, letting it crash to the side, and ran downstairs. I was going towards the mice. Yeah, that was the spot.

  Down more stairs, into the lab, and I had my hands on their bins, running my palms over their homes until I got to the one who reminded me of Nando. I slid open the lid and took him out. I looked at his crooked face and started to squeeze. I squeezed until he struggled and blood ran out of his nose. Doc’d voice was shouting in my ear. His grip was on my wrists, pulling my hands apart until the mouse dropped to the floor, not dead, but unable to run away.

  Now I was the one being crushed, Doc’s strong arms around me so that my own arms were pressed into his chest. I screamed, finally insane, after everything the world had done to me. I screamed and screamed.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  I was sitting in the living room with the muted TV on, staring out the window at completely empty streets. Doc had sedated me, even after I’d furiously told him not to. I’d fought him and screamed all sorts of things at him until he had two of his men hold me down on the cold lab floor while he injected me in the arm. It had kicked in fast, and just like that, I saw no reason not to go upstairs with Doc holding my hand as if I were a toddler who’d thrown a tantrum.

  Fiona had been brought downstairs to sit next to me on the sofa. She was shaking and making weird squeaking noises, hiccuping, her face smeared with blood and tears. I realized she’d heard all my noise and had probably thought she was up next for whatever torture was happening.

  Instead of sitting in the armchair, Doc sat next to me on the sofa. He had washed his face, and his beard was wet, eyes shot with red. He took my limp hand in his and squeezed.

  “When I heard what was going on,” he said slowly, taking a deep breath, “I called Avi. He pulled some strings. Citizen Gardens was told to find all of you and keep you alive. By then, I guess you two were heading home. They found Spitz and Nando while you were dancing. Spitz had been shot in the stomach and leg. Nando was with him, but he ran. They tried to save Spitz, but it was too late by the time they got him across the border. They were attempting to reach a medical tent, but he had already passed away by the time they got past the walls.”

  I looked over at Fiona, and she was as still as I was. Had they sedated her? But no, she was just frozen. Instead of crying or anything, she was just staring out the window.

  “Okay,” she said, her voice broke so that half the word turned into barely a whisper.

  Both Doc and I watched her, waiting for a bigger reaction, but maybe she had expected it all along, or maybe she was just breaking down like a burned out machine.

  “Everyone in this part of town has found a way to evacuate,” Doc said softly. “We’ll be fine for now, but we need to leave in the morning. The police are disbanding soon.”

  It took us a few long minutes to come up with a reaction to that news. I was swimming through his words, slowly finding their meaning.

  “Dad said if I go off fielders we’ll leave town together. He said that a couple days ago. So if he’s still here, I’ll just go with him,” Fiona said.

  “You’ll go off fielders?” I asked, still feeling nothing.

  She turned her head to me and nodded. “Just for a while.”

  “Does he know where you are?” Doc asked. “Have you contacted him.”

  She shook her head. “Nando took my phone.”

  “Why don’t you give me his number?” he said softly.

  He took his phone out, and she gave him the number. He stood and left the room. A minute later, we heard him in the clinic talking on the phone.

  “We’re splitting up?” I asked.

  She shrugged. “We have to.”

  That seemed bad. Really bad. But nothing connected to my emotions. My heart should have been aching, but it was stuffed with cotton. She put her arm around me and rested her head on my shoulder.

  “You’re the best friend I’ve ever had besides Spitz,” she said.
>
  “You too. I love you.”

  “Love you.”

  Fiona’s dad showed up quickly. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen him, but he looked ragged and nervous, wiping at his face and nose constantly, looking around the place like it was dangerous and looking at Doc like he couldn’t believe he existed.

  When we said goodbye, there wasn’t much to say, so we just hugged. Fiona clung onto me until her dad started pulling on her. I felt tears on my shoulders, but she wasn’t sobbing. She wouldn’t let go. They gave us more time, and more, and more, then finally forced us apart, Doc gently holding onto me while her dad desperately dragged her out the door. I stood in the doorway, and she stared at me with wide eyes until her dad pushed her into a car and drove her away.

  Would I ever set eyes on her face again? I didn’t know. She was probably wondering the same thing.

  Doc led me away from the door and asked if I wanted to go to bed. When I didn’t have an answer, he put me back in the living room.

  “I hate telling you this,” he said, sitting beside me and rubbing my hand, “but you should know…Spitz’s body is with the others from the battle. He might have already been buried in a…a shared grave that they used for civilian casualties. They clean up quickly because it hurts their image…”

  A grotesque story I’d heard years back floated up from the deep memories in my brain. There were mass graves during wars that had never touched us, but now and then, we heard things. There was only one detail that had caught my attention and stuck in my mind because it was so horrifying.

  “Face down?” I asked.

  “What?”

  “Was he buried face down?”

  “I don’t think…no, no of course not. They were all buried as respectfully as possible.”

  His hand was squeezing my knee, my shoulder, pushing damp hair off my forehead, trying to comfort me. Despite being sedated, something pushed up from my chest, asking me to react.

  “No,” I said, slowly shaking my head. I tried to wet my tongue. My mouth was dry. “When they make mass graves they just toss them in. Some of them end up face down for eternity. Sometimes they do it on purpose. We have to get him out.”

  I stood on legs that didn’t want to do what I told them, my knees threatening to let me fall to the floor. I needed my jacked and hat. We had to go out there and dig him up. No fielder should be buried that way. He needed to look at the sky.

  “No, Wally,” Doc said. “Listen, I made sure. I called and made sure it was a good burial. Understand? Trust me.”

  Was he lying just to stop me? I couldn’t tell.

  “I want to see him,” I said. “I should sing for him.”

  Doc dropped his head until his chin hit his chest, and he swallowed hard a few times.

  “Don’t worry,” he said in a raspy voice. “We can sing for him here. He’ll hear us.”

  I thought about that, then nodded. Maybe he was right. I didn’t believe in the afterlife or anything, not exactly, so maybe just the fact of singing for him was the point. We sat back down.

  “Why don’t we sing right now, son. I’m not as good, but I’ll sing with you. ‘Another One Bites the Dust’?”

  “Can I have my jacket first?” I asked.

  “Sure, just wait here.”

  I relaxed into the sofa while he got up and went up to the third floor for it. The sedative tried to make my mind empty, but I kept thinking about whether Doc was lying to make me feel better. Spitz could be face down in the dirt, not even wrapped up in a sheet, strangers’ bodies rotting over his. Could Doc have really made sure?

  When he brought me my jacket, I took the big safety pin Spitz had given me off the collar where I’d left it and held it in my fingers.

  “He gave me this,” I said.

  Doc nodded, but it probably seemed like a weird gift to him. I started singing slow and smooth, careful to hit every note perfectly. When I got to the lyric about machine guns and bullets, I started to see why Doc reacted the way he did to violent songs. I decided this would be the last time I sang “Another One Bites the Dust”. I held the the last note before the main part for as long as I could, then Doc joined me. All the lyrics seemed perfect for the way Spitz had died.

  I put the pin back on my jacket when we were done and leaned into Doc’s chest. He held me like that for a long time, until the sun went down. He must not have given me a lot of sedative, because it was already wearing off. My heart ached.

  “Can I have some soup down here?” I asked.

  “Of course,” Doc said. “You don’t want to come upstairs?”

  “No, not yet.”

  He paused, probably wondering why, but he went upstairs to get my soup anyway. As soon as he was gone, I got up and went to the door, shrugging my jacket on as I went. The keys had been left in the lock when Fiona left. I opened it slowly so he wouldn’t hear, and stepped outside. I had somewhere to be. It was my last chance to see my home. As of morning, I’d be living in New York, dealing with god knew what.

  I headed in the opposite direction I usually would to get there. I’d take a long way around so that Doc couldn’t stop me. The walk would be long, but there were some bills in my jacket pocket, and I stopped to buy a food bar on the way. There was still money for fielders. Maybe I would buy one for Spitz too, just for the memories.

  A block from the field, two girls ran past me. In the dark, I couldn’t tell if they were fielders. Considering what had been going on, I braced myself for trouble, expecting to spot looters or something, but the closer I got, the more I realized something bigger than that was going on. There were sounds. Shouting. A few more people ran past me.

  No.

  Not the field.

  I sped up into a jog. When the field came into view, I stood blinking and squinting in the middle of the street. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen the field without all the lights on. I could only see a little by the streetlights around the edges. Somebody was coming from the other end of the field with a flashlight, and I headed that way, not knowing who or what I was headed for.

  When I went past the volunteer station, it was abandoned. It looked like it had been looted or something. The back of the van was open and empty supply tubs were out on the ground.

  Then I stumbled over something and looked down to see I’d kicked someone in the head. I knelt down to help, touching his shoulder, but he was dead. A fielder. He must have had a drop. No, there was too much blood. I wasn’t sure.

  I kept going, and when the flashlight came near enough, I waved.

  “Hey! Hey!” I shouted.

  The flashlight paused, then headed for me. It was two guys, but I couldn’t tell who. It wasn’t until I saw their colors that I knew they were Dreads. I backed up a step. They had their big guns, but I couldn’t see much else.

  “Looking to buy some fielders?” one of them asked, and the other laughed.

  “Yes,” I said, not knowing what was funny. “Where is everybody?”

  He lowered his light so that I could see his face without the glare and then pointed it out over the field. “They’re right here. Look at them. They all dropped. Such a fucking shame. Still want your dose?”

  There were lumps everywhere on the dark ground. I couldn’t see very far, but he was right, the crowd was there, but they were all dead. Something inside my body snapped while something in my head clicked into place. It made sense. Everything was over. Of course it was.

  I took a bill out of my pocket and gave it to the two guys, not even sure if they were dealers. “Two, please,” I said.

  They gave each other looks, then burst out laughing at me because I was clearly insane, but they took my money and gave me two pills from a dispenser.

  “It’s poison, kid,” One of them told me. “Barkley decided it was time for one last fuck you before he had to give up Emporium to those shits. He’s trying to wreck everything valuable before they take over. All the kids who didn’t drop because they were on Doc’s stuff got
a bullet.”

  The other guy lifted his gun and pointed it at me, which somehow didn’t scare me at all. “So do you want the pill or the bullet?” he asked, grinning. “Or you could just leave.”

  “Pill,” I told him, and turned away. I stepped carefully, trying not to trip over anyone else. They laughed, but the one with the light caught up to me and gave it to me.

  “I think you need this more than we do now. You’ll want to see our handiwork.”

  They wandered off, chatting and walking with a bounce.

  All of my friends were dead or gone. I wasn’t sedated anymore, but I was numb. This was simply the end for me. For all of us. It hadn’t come the way I’d expected it to, but it was here.

  I walked between their legs and arms, avoiding stepping on a girl’s bloody and muddy hair, looking down into the dead eyes of a boy who was probably about eleven years old, only a little younger than when I’d gotten started. The field was a crowd of hundreds of corpses. There were no volunteers in sight. No dealers. No dancing. No light. The silence howled in my ears.

  They had all bled from their heads, like always, but it looked like a lot more blood than usual. Instead of long streams of red down their faces, they were masked in it, and it covered their throats. Their hoodies and jackets were soaked. I crouched over a scrawny guy my age and touched his face. I wanted to sing for all of them, but there were too many. His mouth was gaped open, and his lips and teeth were dark red. It was clumping and drying up in there, and something was wrong with his tongue. It had been cut up. No, it was chewed. He’d chewed on his tongue until it bled all down his chin and throat. Looking around at the bodies surrounding him, I saw that all of their mouths had bled. Had they all chewed their tongues? It must have been the poison making them do that.

  “Another one…” I sang, forgetting that I’d said I’d never sing it again, barely getting the words out at all, “…bites the dust…”

  I had to dance. It was the only thing left. Even if I ended up like them, I would die dancing on the field like I’d always wanted to. If they had cut their heads, it started out normal, so Barkley must have mixed the poison with fielders. I wanted to think they had all danced before they dropped.