Daughters of Death (Postmortem Anomalies Book 2)

by Josiah Upton

  I nod.

  “Good. I don’t think I’ll ever see you again.” His mouth forms a grim smile. “Thank you again, Zaul. What you did is saving her from that facility, from this place. I’ll never forget that. And I’ll make sure, when she comes back, that she knows your name.” He removes the needle from my arm, placing the blood-filled glass bottle on the counter behind him.

  “I love her,” I blurt. So absurd, something like me confessing that to something my Prisoner only regards as food. But if this is the last time I see him, I need him to know. “A couple months ago, I didn’t think love was ever a possibility for me. And I know I’m not the kind of boy any father wants loving their daughter, but I do. Please tell her that.”

  “I know you do,” Gordon says, turning back to me, removing the latex gloves from his hands. “And I will tell her. But there’s one more thing I have to do before I go, and hopefully it will take care of that suspicion you mentioned.” He lifts his wrist, grasping his bracelet with his other hand. “I’m sorry, Zaul. Good-bye.”

  He twists the metal ring, its light turning red to green. My body jolts and convulses, pulling up against the restraints. Trying to break free, but going nowhere. As my flesh cooks, I hear Gordon screaming and pointing at me. He even uses the word “Ugger”, and a long list of expletives that humans deem offensive. If there was any suspicion that an APA employee is in league with a Hybrid Reanimate, this should take care of that.

  Finally, Collars enter the room and pull Gordon away from my seven foot vicinity, cutting off the electricity choking my neck. He continues screaming all the way across the laboratory, playing the act until the very last second. He gives me one final knowing look, and a nod, before he disappears.

  Chapter 26

  Zaul

  The low hum of overhead fluorescent light digs into my ears as I march down the hall. Back in the clutches of the facility. I’ve already recovered from the electrical grip on my neck, and from the punishing blows dealt by the Collar agents that came to Gordon’s unnecessary rescue. That’s not on my mind right now. The note stuck to the inside of my jumpsuit, faintly carrying Genny’s scent, is what occupies my thoughts. That, and the fear that the containment officers escorting me will discover it.

  “Did you enjoy your holiday, 1822?” Krecker asks, a few feet behind me. “Your other Brains buddies are still over there, probably eating up a buffet of bloody deer entrails. You would have joined them, but then you went and broke the rules, and now you get a Shock ‘n Lock. Do you remember the rules, Ugger? Never, ever touch an APA agent.”

  “I thought the rule was to never touch a containment officer,” I say. “That’s what you told me my first day here.”

  “True,” Krecker answers. “But for almost all the Uggers enjoying an extended stay at this five-star facility, containment officers are the only APA agents they will ever see. How was I supposed to know you’d join Tran’s club of ‘higher-functioning’ freaks? Sure, I had my guesses, with your Corridor results. The way you were talking like you were one of us...”

  He chuckles, and I tense up. The more I hear his voice, the more I want to turn around and rip out his throat. “I figure you’d use those smarts and know to keep your hands off that fatso Cure scientist, though,” he continues. “And I’m not stupid, I know he’s the one who called you in on New Independence Eve. So when you went after him, was it for revenge?”

  I stop and turn to face Krecker. The other officers back up and instinctively grab their remotes. Krecker holds up a hand, smiling as he awaits my response. “I didn’t…” I start to say, but know that if I deny putting my hands on Gordon – which I actually didn’t – it might ruin the act, and agents might start digging back into the events of the day he turned me in.

  “You didn’t what?” Krecker asks, hands on his hips as he leans forward.

  “Nothing.”

  “That’s right,” he says, straightening up. “Nothing. And that’s what you are: Nothing. You’re lucky I let you talk as much as you do, and that’s only because it provides just a shred of amusement in this god-forsaken hellhole. All your brothers in Sludge; eating, moaning and shitting on everything. It’s almost like you’re a breath of fresh air. But don’t think for a second you’re any more special than the rest. I don’t care who you were before, what Tran thinks you are, or what that brain inside your head can do. At the end of the day, it’s all about making sure me and my men get home alive, and paid. You break the rules, you pay the price. And I will not hesitate to put you down if you…”

  Krecker’s tirade falls off, and his eyes drift to something in the distance behind me. “Oh, great…”

  I turn to see the object of his frustration, and for the first time I sympathize with him. Caesar is walking towards us quickly, a wicked sneer on his face. I’ve been fortunate enough to avoid his wrath ever since his father reigned him in, but it feels like that is about to change. My thoughts immediately go to the note in my shirt. Unconsciously, I place my hand on my chest, as if to protect it.

  “Don’t stop on account of me,” Caesar says once he’s a few feet away. “Your speech was just about to get good.”

  “Captain Ortega,” Krecker says as he steps forward to greet Caesar, all the passion gone from his face. “I was just escorting Number 1822 to the Lock.”

  “There’s been a change of plans,” Caesar says, bringing his icy gaze to me. There’s very few people I believe I would attack if I had the chance. He is one of them. He points to Krecker. “You and 1822 follow me. Everyone else, get back to the Common.”

  “But he broke the rules,” Krecker says. “He put his hands on a Cure agent during his blood sampling.”

  “At the moment, I don’t give two shits about the rules,” Caesar barks. “Or about the Cure. Do you work for them, or do you work for me? Quit yapping and move. We’ll bring him to the Lock when we’re done with him.”

  Done with me? What does that mean? With Caesar behind whatever is about to happen, I can only envision him and Krecker throwing my lifeless body into an isolated Lock cell, left to rot. Again, my only concern is other officers finding Genny’s note when they pull me out. As desperately as I want to read her words, I really wish Gordon hadn’t put me in a position that could jeopardize her future if one little thing goes wrong. At this point, I don’t even think I care about dying. A blackness, a void to end a life that should not have come back. I just don’t want Genny to suffer.

  Krecker sighs heavily, then nudges me from behind to get moving. We arrive in the kitchen. I have no idea why Caesar has brought us here, but I assume the fact that the space is empty has something to do with it. No one to witness what is about to happen.

  “Lock the doors,” Caesar tells Krecker once we are inside. My blood starts pumping. “I’ve already got someone that’s gonna wipe the surveillance feed. And there shouldn’t be anyone in here for another hour, but I just want to make sure. Don’t want to be interrupted.”

  “What are you going to do?” I ask. “Kill me? That’s what you want, right?”

  “What I want and what’s going to happen are two very different things,” Caesar says, a spark of what I believe the humans call psychosis glowing in his eyes. “If I got what I wanted, every Ugger across the nation, registered or not, would get a bullet in their head. I’d have all their bodies dragged down the highways and piled up in the Common. Then I’d set the building on fire. I’d use the flames to light my cigar, celebrating the final purge of the Sludge.” He grits his teeth. “That’s not going to happen today.”

  He reaches into a freezer box next to the Juicer, pulling out a large steel pipe. Wisps of white vapor come off its surface, looking much like smoke. “This is what’s going to happen. Yesterday, I had APA internal investigators turn my house upside down. They ripped into my furniture, they tore into my walls…” His nostrils flare, his upper lip curls. “They trashed my Grandad’s war memorabilia. All because they got an anonymous tip, saying I was selling black market ‘tine out of
my house. Thank God I’m not in the business anymore, ‘cause they didn’t find nothin’. But now I’ve got eyes on me, and someone in the APA willing to get me crucified.” He walks closer, gripping the pipe tightly. “You told me no one else knew. So either you were lying, or it was you that ratted me out.”

  “I didn’t tell anyone…”

  “Wrong answer.” He clenches his teeth, and swings the pipe into my ribs with all of his strength. I feel a crack in my chest and fall to the floor. It only takes my Rage a second to realize what happened, and fills my body with a fire too wild for whatever chemicals are left in my system to contain. I get to my feet, a little unstable, but ready to leap at Caesar with no regard for the consequences. Before I can lunge, Krecker sets my collar off with a shock. I’m back on the floor. With the two of them working together, there’s no way I’ll be able to fight back.

  “Who did you tell?” Caesar asks again.

  “No one,” I groan. He strikes again, on my knee, three times.

  “Was it Tran?”

  Arm.

  “My father?”

  Stomach.

  “Speak, Ugger!”

  “I didn’t tell anyone!” I growl, my body throbbing in agony. “Maybe somebody else knew and talked, but it wasn’t me!”

  “Oh, you mean like Gibbs?” Caesar asks, his breath heavy. He rotates the pipe in his hand, threatening to strike again. “That’d be the first suspect, wouldn’t it? Locked up in prison for Hybrid black market crimes, he’d have nothing to lose ratting on me. Maybe even break some sort of deal for privileges, in exchange for info. But I paid my old buddy a visit this morning. I found out he didn’t talk… and made sure he never will, either.”

  Panic overcomes my pain. Despite his coldness, his distance, Gibbs was the only one in my undead life for four years. I can’t pretend him being in danger doesn’t concern me. “What do you mean? What did you do?!?”

  “We’re getting off topic, Zaul.” He swings the pipe again, this time on the side of my head. It doesn’t knock me out, but my brain throbs, the outer edges of my vision darkening. When Caesar starts yelling again, his voice sounds dull and far away. “Tell me who you told!”

  “I-I-I didn’t,” I say, though wishing I actually did, so that I would have a name to give him, and end this. I look behind me to Krecker, holding the remote firmly in his hand. I know he hates Hybrids – that must be a minimum requirement to work in a containment facility. But the look on his face indicates he’s not in complete agreement with how Caesar is handling this.

  Perhaps he’s not in agreement with other things Caesar has done.

  “Maybe it was another containment officer who talked,” I suggest. “Do all of them know you were selling Mortetine, or is it just Krecker?”

  The officer clenches the remote tighter, his eyes squinting. “Are you accusing me, Ugger? I have to say I don’t appreciate that.”

  “Me neither,” Caesar says. “My men have so much to gain being loyal to me, and even more to lose for betraying me. None of them are that stupid!”

  He swings the pipe repeatedly all over my body. I stop counting after the seventh blow. And Krecker throws in a few shocks at random, as punishment for accusing him. When the assault is done, there is no more Rage left in me. It’s all been beaten out. Somehow, Caesar has managed to back my Prisoner into a corner, like a scared and confused animal.

  “Last chance,” Caesar says between labored breaths, the skin on his face shining with sweat. “Tell me who you talked to.”

  I don’t know what else to say. I am certain I didn’t let anything slip to Robert or Tran, and all the other options seem ruled out. The only loose ends left are Gordon or Genny, but why would they do that? I told them Caesar had cut off our Mortetine transactions and stopped dealing. Telling the APA on him would be a waste of time, and only risk provoking an already volatile man.

  But whether or not they did it, I don’t dare utter their names to him. He already asked about them in that junk room, and I swiftly denied their knowledge of his drug operations. I don’t want to push his suspicions one inch in that direction.

  “You’ve got nothing to say?” Caesar asks. I remain silent. He spits on my face, then looks to Krecker. “Sit tight, I’ll be right back.”

  He disappears into one of the kitchen’s back rooms. A moment later I hear a high-pitched mechanical whirring from the doorway. I’m reminded of Gibbs’s wheelchair, but I know I’ll never hear that sound again. He might not be alive anymore, and that’s my fault.

  Caesar returns, driving a small yellow platform on four wheels, with a long arm and hook hanging over the front of it. This must be the crane Director Ortega mentioned, used to drop larger animal carcasses into the Juicer. He parks it, hops out, and grabs the hook at the end of the crane’s arm, pulling it down to me.

  “What are you doing?” Krecker asks, some anxiety in his voice.

  “We’re stringing this Ugger up,” Caesar says, pulling the cable to get more slack.

  “We’ll need something to hang him by,” Krecker says. “Should we cuff him?”

  “No,” Caesar answers, pulling up the jumpsuit fabric at my foot. “Just get your remote ready.”

  His hand grips my ankle, and my Prisoner snarls at his touch. With his other hand he pulls out a large knife from his belt, holding it up for inspection in the bright kitchen light. Then he plunges it into my calf.

  Chapter 27

  Zaul

  Caesar’s knife slices through skin and muscle, digging deep until the tip pokes through the other side. The pain shoots up my leg, through my nerves and into my brain. My howls echo off the kitchen walls. After the initial trauma, my body reacts, lurching up to attack, to grab Caesar. But Krecker hits me with a shock, and I’m down again. Prostrate and powerless.

  “Don’t let up on him!” Caesar instructs. “We ain’t done yet!” He pulls the hook and cable closer to my gaping wound, and feeds it through. Even with the electricity convulsing me, I’m still very aware of the torturous mutilation of flesh occurring below.

  Once Caesar is finished, he walks calmly back to the crane, and pulls a lever. The cable retracts back into the crane’s arm. When it’s nearly taut, he calls out to Krecker over my raving cries. “Alright, stop the shock!”

  The voltage ceases, and my body lies limp. But now all my attention is on the pain in my calf, and anticipating the immense pain that will come next. The cable is pulled completely straight, and I begin to feel the tugging on my leg, lifting me upwards. My entire weight pulls down on the hook and cable, the bored flesh of only my calf supporting me. The room turns upside down, and my dangling body rotates to give me an inverted view of Caesar sitting in the crane. There have only ever been two feelings he has instilled in me since I first met him: fear and hatred. Sometimes all of one or the other, sometimes a mixture of the two. But right now I feel both of them to a level I never thought either could reach. What makes a man capable of such cruelty?

  “Don’t squirm,” he says. “You wiggle too much and it just might tear your calf in two. You freaks can come back from a lot, but I’m not so sure that will heal. Also,” he says, looking down at the crane’s controls. He cranks another lever, and the arm jerks into motion. “You won’t want to fall.”

  The arm keeps moving, lifting up and rotating over, until my head clears the top rim of the Juicer. I panic, desperately reaching up to my leg. But the frantic motion makes me sway, digging the cable deeper into me. If getting out alive is even an option here, I need to calm down.

  When I’m suspended directly over the center of the Juicer, the arm stops. Caesar orders Krecker to the crane, then quickly climbs the stairs, standing at the control panel. He hits the black button, the top opens, and I look down into the dark pit.

  Please don’t turn it on, please don’t turn it on…

  The steel beast roars to life. Sharp metal columns spin, a high-pitched squeal shrieking from below. This machine will end me in an instant, devouring me whole. And
then, my processed parts will mingle with the other dead animals, reduced to a gelatinous goop, and devoured through feeding hoses by the hungry Hybrids waiting in the male and female Commons. I assumed I wouldn’t live long in this undead life, but an ending like this was far beyond my imagination.

  “I’m going to ask you one last time, Zaul,” he yells over the noise. “Who did you talk to about our deals? What sniveling rat wants to destroy me?”

  I don’t have a name to give. But if I remain silent, I’m going head-first into that Juicer. I have to say something. “Your father!” I scream, my head throbbing. I’m not sure if it’s the squealing of mechanical parts that causes it to ache, or all the dark blood that gravity is bringing down to it.

  “You told him?” Caesar asks with raised brows. “When?”

  “Uh…” I say. I’ve had to come up with plenty of stories in my double life as an unregistered Hybrid, but it’s hard to do that when dangled above imminent death. “It was, uh… I just did, alright!”

  “You’re lying,” Caesar says, his lips curling with malice. He turns to Krecker and nods. The arm starts to lower.

  “Wait!” I scream. The edges of my vision start to darken like they did when that steel pipe hit my head. It’s getting harder to focus. Caesar motions to Krecker, and the crane arm stops. “Why? Why would I say anything? I already knew you were done dealing, so there wouldn’t be anything to find in your house! Look, it had to be someone who knew your operation, but didn’t know you stopped dealing. Who would that be?”

  Caesar squints his eyes, puckers his lips. “You make a good point. But the only ones that fit that bill would be my men, and they wouldn’t turn on me…” He pauses, a wild look forming in his eyes. “Or maybe it was your little girlfriend’s dad.”

  “No!” I yell. My heart seizes. I suddenly forget about the Juicer screaming at me from below. “I told you, they didn’t know anything!”