Deceit: Post-Apocalyptic Dystopian Thriller - Book 3 (Caustic)

by Brian Spangler

  “Isla Jenkins,” she said, and slammed the journal closed. Shaking her head, she searched the lab—looking for someone, anyone. What kind of joke is this? Whose idea was it to play with her? She pushed her eyes to the lights on the wall, frowning when she again found them black. With her fingers nestled between the pages, she opened the old journal again. A tear wet her cheek and fell onto the page. She didn’t like being teased. Reading the journal, she found the penmanship forced at first, awkward, but farther down the page, it had become smooth and practiced. Her teardrop blossomed where it landed, taking with it some of the ink, creating a budding flower. Isla’s hands tensed when she saw what was next to the flower: the corner of the lab page had been torn away. And it wasn’t just the first page; the corner had been torn from all the pages.

  Isla quickly fanned the pages; the air turned her cheeks cold. She continued until she got to the first blank page. Its corner was still whole. She raised her brow, understanding. The practice of tearing the corner of a completed page helped her to find the next blank page. Torn corners were completed days. She put her hands together, raising them so that her fingers rested on her lips. How could she know that? How could this be her journal?

  She considered. If this thirty-year-old journal was really hers, then the torn piece from the new journal would be the same size: no bigger, no smaller. Losing patience and needing to know, she pushed the torn piece into place. While the old journal’s pages were yellowing, the torn piece was a near-perfect fit. Isla put the back of her hand to her mouth.

  “This can’t be!” she gasped.

  Shuffling her feet, Isla felt a bitter taste fill her mouth, felt heat rise from under her collar. Her heart was beating hard, rapidly, causing pain in her chest. Her head became heavy and her ears were ringing. When the room turned on its side, she was sure her heart was going to stop. It was happening again, and she couldn’t stop it. Her reality was slipping from her—she didn’t know what was real, and what wasn’t. She turned once to the lights, finding them quiet, silent, and she wondered if she’d ever heard anything from them at all.

  A tear dropped to her chin. The cold touch on her face, alone, reminded her of what the blade had felt like the night she had pressed it onto her skin. Isla searched her thoughts for Nolan, her chosen, hoping his face would help her, but the images of him were fleeting, leaving as soon as they came. Instead, she saw his death. She saw what she’d done, and then she fell to her knees, gasping against her tightening throat. Isla gripped her hands together and cried into them.

  Her lab was suddenly too small. Its walls and ceiling were closing in on her, trapping her in a never-ending cycle of nightmarish repentance. She was losing her mind again. It was the simplest explanation; the easiest explanation. She was still mourning the loss of Nolan, and her mind wasn’t going to let her forget what had really happened to him.

  “I’m sorry. Nolan, I’m so sorry for what happened.” Her words echoed as she curled herself into a ball on the metal floor. She shut the light from her eyes, welcoming the touch of the cold against her body. She let the exhaustion take hold of her, and she stopped trying to understand what was real and what wasn’t.

  Maybe I’m still on the steel table, and the mortician is standing above me. Maybe that would be best. The smothering heat on her face and neck began to recede, and the thumping in her head quieted to a dull ache. She didn’t want to understand; not anymore. She only wanted to disappear, even if it was for just a short while.

  7

  Janice’s legs began to stiffen as she made her way to the farming floor. She pushed through her reluctance, lifted her knees against the uneasiness that weighed down her step. As she approached the room where James would be presented for the rite of cleaning and passing, she kept in her mind and heart the memory of the day that they’d made their bond. The memory helped, but still, she had to stop a moment to try and rest the temptation to cry. While it had been twenty years, she’d been surprised by the strength of the grief. And as she walked and relived the short life they’d had together, she considered that maybe she was supposed to feel this way.

  Though in all that time apart she hadn’t spoken to James, or so much as seen him even once, she couldn’t help but feel nervous. She assumed that James must have deliberately kept his distance from her, made an effort to avoid even the most casual accidental encounters; and maybe that was for the better. Janice wondered if he’d ever seen her and turned away at the last second, changing direction to avoid her. Maybe he’d even been to her classroom, stood just outside the door, listened to her work. The notion was nice, and warmed her, but Janice shrugged it away, realizing that she’d never know.

  Shaking out her hands—they’d gone clammy—a nervous flutter rumbled inside her. At one point, she had to stop and stretch out her arms, taking in a salty breath, thinking that it was absolutely silly that she felt this way. But he was her chosen, and as much as she wanted to hate him for having left her the way he did, she couldn’t deny that choosing was forever, and that maybe he just didn’t see it that way.

  An old habit came to her then, surprising her: she wrapped an arm around her middle. She thought of their years together, their years of trying to have a baby; their years of trying to fulfill their bond. She felt a subtle twinge of pain, but it was nothing like the heartbreak that had almost destroyed her. Janice winced, stopping again. Though it had been twenty years, some scars hurt forever.

  Their time trying wasn’t all bad, of course; certainly not at first. Thinking of their first years together, she lifted her cheeks in a smile. It was just a tiny smile, the kind that’s reserved for memories that are private, intimate. Though her womb stayed empty, ending their bond, the love in her heart for James had never faltered. Her chosen was dead now, and she’d see him through his passing, as was expected of her.

  Before she realized it, she’d reached the farming floor and the room where James would be presented. At once, the nervous flutter turned and twisted, knotting her insides as she squeezed her hands, trying to relax. She found the Commune mortician, seeing the back of him, hoping that his eyes were warm and welcome. She needed them to be. The mortician turned and nodded his narrow head in a kind gesture of respect. She felt thankful relief, having found comfort in his face, and dipped her head. She then took his outstretched hand in hers. It occurred to her then that she knew the routine, and she wondered how wrong it was to know it so well. Were there a lot of folks who’d experienced the ceremony?

  As she counted the number of passings she’d attended, an awful realization came to her: the two of them were alone. Scanning the room, she saw that, other than the mortician, nobody else had come to James’s passing.

  And there was no silver steel table. Confused, Janice looked up into the mortician’s face, wanting to ask if they were in the wrong room. But when a door she hadn’t noticed opened, she saw the end of the table with two pale feet hanging off its edge. Janice grabbed her mouth, as if the air had been suddenly pulled from her body. One of James’s feet was a tortured mess of broken skin. It was discolored, almost black, and turned inward in a manner that was unnatural. As she looked upon the rest of his body, she saw holes in his coveralls filled by protruding bone and skin, eclipsed with the drippings of dark blood that had long since dried.

  Janice had to turn away. She suddenly wasn’t sure if she’d be able to perform the cleaning—not with his body like that. Most of it was broken, unrecognizable. Even with his coveralls still on, she could see that he’d died horribly, and not at all in the way she’d expected.

  “How… how did he die?” she asked, her words hanging up in her breath. The mortician didn’t turn, but kept his posture and stance straight and upright, formal. Instead, he stretched a long arm behind her, resting his hand on her back. She thought his touch felt gentle and oddly calming.

  “He jumped, ma’am,” the mortician answered, his tone flat and absent emotion. “Two days ago, he jumped from the executive floor, and landed in the courtya
rd. Shall we get started?”

  But Janice didn’t want to get started. She didn’t want to see her chosen’s broken body. Choosing is forever, she thought, and then a sense of wishful guilt followed. For the first time since their bond, she wished that she’d moved on when he’d broken it.

  Janice gulped the dryness from her mouth and tried to hold back a tear. But as she turned to fetch the cleaning bowl and decomp salts, the tears came. They besieged her, as though she and James had never broken their bond. She looked back at her chosen; she looked at the dried blood on his coveralls, and at how he’d bled from where his bone pierced his skin. From his legs to his arms to his sides, large stains blotted his coveralls. The blood must have run, pooled along him, beneath him, as he lay on the ground of the courtyard.

  James bled. Was he alive after he hit the courtyard floor? Janice stopped and considered what awful thoughts must have been going through his mind during the last minutes of his life. Taking a deep breath, she turned to face James’s body and shuddered. She then began the task that she was there to perform: cleaning her chosen’s body.

  ******

  The mortician thanked Janice for attending, swallowing her hand in his while giving her a small shake and another nod of his head. Standing tall, he announced to the empty room that the rite of cleaning and passing for James Sundref had concluded. The mortician added another thank you—his voice softer, and more directed at Janice—and she nodded, understanding that it was ritual for him to have announced, such as he did. Her eyes swept around the empty room, landing on the small door that would soon open to receive James’s body, and she tried to imagine what was going to happen once James was on the other side.

  Janice felt the thump of the mortician’s foot as he tapped the floor twice. On cue, the receiving door opened to reveal an area of the farming floor that Janice had never seen before. When it was open as far as it could go, she was overwhelmed by the earthy smell. The odor was pungent enough to make her eyes water, and it caused her to back away. But the mortician was standing just behind her, and she found that she’d backed herself onto the tops of his feet. The mortician said nothing and, instead, motioned toward the door, where a concert of gloved hands gestured, waiting to receive a body.

  Uncertain what to do, Janice glanced up, finding the mortician’s kindly eyes. With a gentle touch, he guided her toward James’s body. As they moved closer, the malodorous bite seeping from the door grew stronger, weighing on the air, forcing her to cover her mouth. For a moment, Janice feared that she would retch. The mortician spoke a calming word or two and patted her back, assuring her that she’d be fine.

  Janice wondered how the earthy soil worked: how it changed the human body to feed the plants. She tried to keep her mind on the academic aspects of what was going to happen. It helped relax the turning in her stomach, and thin the stinging in her eyes. How often had she been asked in class by a curious face or two? More than she could remember.

  More tears stung her eyes, trying to wash the stench of death from her sight. Janice gulped the air, holding it inside, while pushing James toward the small door. The mortician’s face remained still, unchanged, and she considered how often he’d attended the ceremony. Daily? Maybe more? He was used to it, immune to the smell of human decomposition.

  Through the opening, eager fingers gripped the air, finding nothing, until Janice moved James closer. The sight was disturbing: gloved fingers opened and snapped shut, hungry for his body. Once James’s body was within their reach, the gloved hands took a firm hold of him, pulling on his feet. His broken bones snapped back into place, the tension of his dead muscles having released and set them loose. Janice flinched when the sound clapped in her ears. She closed her eyes when his naked body sounded a protest, sliding across the metal table.

  “Thank you again for attending,” the mortician said, breaking Janice’s stare. “I wasn’t certain if you’d received the message.” While his expression remained warm, his eyes regarded her with the somberness his role carried in the commune.

  “I appreciate that you found me,” she answered, but was uncertain how she really felt. “I’m glad to have been here.” She turned her head toward the empty room once more as she spoke, and then exited. I hope that’s the last of them, she thought, and wiped her brow. At least for a while.

  Janice welcomed the Commune air, and breathed deeply until the salt pinched her insides with congestion. She was only vaguely aware of the ringing afternoon bell as she considered the rest of her day. Her classroom would be dismissed soon.

  A young woman with a child tethered to her side approached, rushing to reach her. Janice Gilly knew the face of the woman, but more than that, she recognized the little girl: the resemblance to her mother was uncanny. The mother of the child was Mary Berger, who had been a somewhat bright student. As Janice remembered, though, she had been more interested in what others were doing than in what the lesson plan held for the day. Janice hadn’t seen the young woman since she had turned seventeen and had chosen.

  Empty seats in the back rows of the classroom were quite common. While the names of her students changed, she’d often seen their faces coming back in her younger students.

  From the back row, to the front row… it’s a miracle, really, Janice thought, and considered the improbability of how their Commune had been able to survive all these years. But we do. We survive.

  Mary’s little girl gave Janice a long look, as though wondering who this person was standing in front of them. Janice motioned a subtle greeting, but the child shrank back behind her mother’s leg, peeking out just enough for Janice to see her eyes. Janice put on one of her better pre-school smiles in the hopes of staving off the little girl’s bashfulness, and in an instant the girl’s eyes warmed. Soon, the young girl was playing, wrapping her arms around her mother’s legs, no longer caring who was around them.

  “Mary, how good to see you!” Janice exclaimed, and then knelt to meet Mary’s daughter. “And I see you’ve been busy, haven’t you?”

  “Hi, Ms. Gilly,” Mary answered, breathless. “I’m sorry to rush, but I’m on my way, and wanted to catch you here. I… I mean, catch someone here.”

  Janice stood, she could feel Mary’s need to speak to her like heat coming off her body.

  “I’m sorry?” Janice asked.

  Mary closed her eyes and then started again. “Well, you see, I didn’t exactly know who I’d find here today,” Mary said, her tone relaxed and her breathlessness gone. “But, Ms. Gilly, I had no idea it’d be you. I’m so sorry. I didn’t know he was your chosen.”

  Janice nodded, appreciating the sentiment. She then became curious. “Thank you, Mary,” she started, and laid her hand to her heart. “But how did you know James?” she continued, and then peeked down to Mary’s daughter. The girl held the tether strap tightly, her pudgy fingers white, while she rested her weight on it, rocking back and forth. When Janice turned back, she found that Mary’s face had grown pale, her lower lip dipping as her stare stretched blankly ahead.

  At once, Janice understood the connection, and a knot of regret formed in her belly. Janice hoped that Mary’s young daughter hadn’t been there, that she hadn’t seen anything. She’d hoped that nobody saw James leap to his death. But the hope wasn’t realistic, not with a courtyard that was almost always busy.

  “You were in the courtyard that day… weren’t you?” Janice asked, pressing her hand on Mary’s arm, thinking it would console her. Mary fixed her eyes on Janice, shaking her head at first, and then nodded.

  “I’d never seen anyone die before,” Mary began to say, her eyes wandering again. “He just fell… out of nowhere; he landed a few dozen hands from us. I heard the sound of something falling, and then breaking, and… and he was alive.” Janice listened as Mary talked, and tried to remain the teacher, holding Mary’s arm, caring for her as if she were eleven again and someone had pulled her hair. But Mary was talking about James, her chosen, and Janice imagined him falling and crashing to the
courtyard. The images became too much, and Janice pushed her face into her hands, holding back the tears for only a moment before giving in.

  She felt the warm touch of little hands wrap around her leg, and heard a young voice calling out to her mother, asking why the lady was crying. Mary’s hands came next, embracing Janice as she sobbed a final time for James. When her eyes began to dry, she looked back to Mary, ready to hear more.

  “Thank you, Mary… thank you, and your lovely daughter. Thank you,” Janice whispered, sniffling, and then leaned to pinch the little girl’s cheek. When Janice was met by the little girl’s uncertain eyes, she stroked the girl’s cheek, assuring her that she’d be fine.

  “He didn’t live long,” Mary blurted, and sought out Janice’s eyes, anxious to tell her more, to finish what she’d started to say, and then be on her way. “Your man, he was alive when he landed. We went to him, to help, but he only lived for a few minutes.”

  There was only one question Janice could think to ask. “Did… did he say anything to you?”

  Mary pushed her eyes up, and shook her head. “No. Well, hardly anything we could understand, except your name, your first name. He said it once, and then he mumbled about bringing something back, and then he was, well, dead.” Before Janice could say another word, Mary reached into the front pocket of her coveralls and produced a small pouch.

  The pouch was made out of old coverall pieces, cinched with a torn strand of fabric, keeping hidden whatever was inside. Mary pushed the pouch forward, letting it hang from her fingers. Janice looked once at the pouch, and then back to Mary, who by then had jutted a quick nod of her chin, motioning for her to take it, as if it were criminal to hold onto it a minute longer. Janice reached up and accepted the small pouch.

  “Was this his?” Janice asked, lifting it between them.

  Mary responded with another nod, and then answered, “But, before he jumped, something else fell: small pieces. I didn’t recognize what they were. There weren’t a lot, but there were enough for the kids to run around the courtyard, grabbing at them, making a game of it, the way kids do.” Mary shrugged and fixed a nonchalant look in her eyes. “And we didn’t think anything of it. None of us did. I didn’t even bother to look at what the kids were chasing after. But then your man fell, and when I went to him, I saw that he had one of the pieces in his hand,” Mary continued. She looked once to her daughter, and then back to Janice. “When I saw what he held in his fingers, I knew I had to get them all, to put them together. So I collected the pieces from the children. Ms. Gilly, I don’t understand what it is. I’ve never seen anything like it. And… well, I don’t think I want to hold onto it. So… maybe you can take it?”