The Human Zoo (Book 4): The Ruin Nation

by Wood, Kolin

  “It’s nothing, just some rubbish,” Juliana said, as she blocked the sight and turned to survey the rest of the space.

  The darkness had formed walls around them. A single light source, so faint as to easily be confused with a trick of the eye, flickered over the far side of the room, and Juliana stopped as she spotted it.

  “There,” she whispered, pointing.

  She felt Becca move closer to her in order to follow the line of her finger.

  “What? I don’t see anything.”

  “Over there. The light. Stick close to me.”

  She set off, jumping as her foot collided with something on the floor.

  “Shit!” she hissed. “I dropped it.”

  The glow stick, surrounded by a small green halo, now lay a few feet from where she was stood. Juliana listened as hard as her ears would allow; her hand out flat behind her to hold Becca in place. Surely somebody heard that?

  The seconds ticked by and nothing happened.

  Confident that nobody was coming to investigate, Juliana bent down and groped about in the dark with her fingers.

  “What in the fuck is that?” she muttered under her breath.

  Her searching digits brushed against an object. A metallic bowl of some kind, its surface still wet with the remains of something sticky. Repulsed, Juliana retracted her hand and brought her fingers under her nose to smell the substance on them. Her stomach twisted and then shrivelled like a raisin at the all-to-familiar stench of blood on the turn. Sour saliva flooded her mouth. Quickly, she wiped the gooey mess on the front of her jacket and stood, making a mental note not to touch her face with that hand until she’d at least had the chance to rinse it off. Who knew what diseases she might catch should she accidentally stick her fingers in her mouth? She had seen the result—what with the numbers and now with the things that had chased and attacked them at the pavilion—and there was no way in hell that she was bowing out like that.

  She turned to face Becca, her voice low. “Careful, there are bowls and plates on the floor ahead. We are going to need to tread careful.”

  She turned back just as a booming laugh echoed from the direction of the flickering light. Again, her heart fluttered in her chest. “Slide each foot before you step, but move as quickly as you can. Hold onto me and hopefully we can follow a single pathway over there.”

  Immediately, she felt Becca grip onto her shoulder through the thick padding of her jacket and she reached up to give the girl’s cold hand a reassuring squeeze. Then she took a few sliding steps and bent down to pick up the glow-stick.

  “Got it. Let’s go.”

  She set off again, this time more carefully with Becca maintaining pace behind her.

  They crossed the space without incident, slowing as they approached the opening to yet another corridor. At the end, it opened up into a room where a bright light flickered from within, casting a pale orange glow on the surrounding, damp concrete walls.

  “Soon, young man. Soon it will be your time,” the voice, soft and unnerving said.

  “That’s him,” Becca whispered, louder than Juliana would have cared for. “That’s Tidus.”

  Juliana felt her fingers tighten around the trigger of the gun. A feeling of dread swam in her stomach like a parasite.

  Time? Time for what?

  She began to move toward the voice.

  “Juliana!” Becca hissed behind her.

  But Juliana ignored the girl, stepping as lightly as she could manage through the damp basement of the building. Her legs were now moving of their own accord. Anger, like a geyser, bubbled deep within. She did not stop until she was sure that the light from the candle had lit up the pale skin on her cheeks.

  “Hold his head still,” the soft voice said.

  The bright light in the room burned temporary scars on her corneas.

  Juliana blinked.

  Before her, with his back to her, stood the tall man from the entrance.

  Tidus.

  His white bald head looked like a boiled egg above the flowing dark robes. Four other people—minus the robes but with the same shaved, egg-like quality to their heads—stood, two on either side of him. She had been right about there being five of them, and her brain struggled to compute as her rapidly adjusting eyes took in the rest of the room.

  On the far wall, three sheets of blood-splattered, chipboard formed a cubicle. Two severed, rotten arms hung from chains attached to a metal hoop on the ceiling above it. In the foreground, shrouded in the shadow of one of the men, Juliana noticed a shotgun mounted on a tripod-like contraption and pointed at the cubicle.

  It’s an execution chamber.

  “Hold him still!”

  A low, howling moan, like a dog begging its bullying master for forgiveness, snapped her attention back to the circle of men. Infuriated, Juliana took two steps forward and walked into the room.

  Chapter 29

  “Get away from him, you sick motherfuckers!”

  As if unsurprised by her sudden appearance, the four men to either side of Tidus turned slowly, and she noticed, before their faces became masks of shadow, that their expressions were calm and disinterested. Tidus remained, hunched over, clearly unfazed by the interruption.

  Another begging moan.

  “I said, MOVE!” Juliana’s arms shook and her palms felt so sweaty that she feared she might drop the gun.

  This time, the tall man in the centre turned to face her, his movements measured as the others’ had been. And, as with the others, the backlight from the candle plunged his face into shadow. Even so, Juliana could tell by the flex of the muscles on his face that he was smiling.

  “Hello,” he said. The voice was silky and delicate, and she thought that the man would be capable of delivering awful things without emotion, much like a priest at a funeral. “Can we help you?”

  The calmness unnerved her. Juliana felt a flutter of fear across the nape of her neck and down into the pit of her stomach. From the corners of her eyes, she was unable to see Becca stood behind her and hoped that the youngster would have the foresight to remain hidden, at least until they saw how the scene was to play out.

  But still, the men before her did not move.

  A roll of sweat, chilled by the cool air of the dank basement, tickled the skin under one of her eyes. Juliana pulled the gun so tight into the crook of her arm that it ached. She had two shots in two barrels. There were more cartridges in her pocket but no way of re-loading them. Two shots at close range; plenty enough to put these freaks away. She straightened her spine and stood as tall as she could manage.

  “You can help yourselves by stepping away from the boy.”

  The laugh came again, only this time it was soft and gentle. “Boy?” Tidus said. “Why, this is not a mere boy. I think you are mistaken.”

  A low moan sounded from behind them and Juliana was sure that she noticed some of the muscles on Tidus’ face twitch.

  “This, my dear woman, is a vessel! Plucked from obscurity amongst the common stock and elevated to heights unknown!”

  The rifle kicked hard as Juliana twisted the barrel a few degrees to her left and pulled the trigger. The spray of shot caught the two men at close range and lifted them off their feet, sending their bleeding bodies flying into the shadows, beyond the reach of the candlelight.

  Spit flew from Juliana’s mouth as she breathed out hard through her clenched jaw and gritted teeth. She’d heard enough. She released the trigger and flicked the catch to reload the other barrel and then turned to face the remaining three men.

  Stray slithers of flickering light momentarily lit up the features of Tidus’ face as he turned to follow the path taken by his two felled men. Juliana saw with surprise that he was, in fact, far younger than his voice and mannerisms would have people believe.

  “Unnecessary,” he said, with the same emotion as if he had just watched a child throw unwanted food on the floor. When he turned back to face her, his eyes looked to be glowing.

 
In the space left by the two downed men, Juliana was able to see a pair of naked, blood-covered legs, dangling from the end of a table. The sight of the body incensed her.

  She screamed and pulled hard on the trigger again.

  But this time, nothing happened. The slippery steel held tight against her finger.

  Juliana glanced down at the gun with her feelings a mixture of shock and panic. She pulled again, using all of her might, but still the jammed mechanism held firm.

  Unseen by Juliana, Tidus nodded and before she had a chance to react, the two remaining men at his side were upon her, gripping her tightly by the arms and legs and slamming her down on her back on the hard, wet floor. She tried to squirm but the men were strong. Hands like pneumatic vices, pinned her to the cold cement.

  “Get the fuck off of me!” she screamed, but her voice was cut short as a large hand circled her neck and began to squeeze. Desperately, she tried to suck in a breath, but the grip was too tight and she felt her eyes bulge. A shadow darkened the space between the two men holding her down.

  “Damnant quod non inttilligunt (They condemn what they don’t understand),” Tidus muttered with a sigh, and the pressure on her neck increased. “Why don’t you people understand? The end is here, already. There is no point in trying to fight. I’ve already seen it—the end of days. Tonight is merely an offering of thanks for that what is coming!”

  Fury lit a match which set Juliana on fire. She was sick and tired of crazy men talking crazy shit. If they were going to kill her, then so be it. She’d rather be dead than listen to any more of their crap.

  Kicking out with her legs, Juliana began to thrash around wildly.

  The hand around her neck released her as the space above suddenly grew less dark and she knew that Tidus had stepped away.

  “Very well then. Two for the price of one!” he said from across the room. “Pick her up and bring her over here.”

  Still writhing like a pinned snake, Juliana was forcefully rolled over onto her front and lifted so that she was standing on her two feet once again. She chanced a look in the direction of the black doorway, relieved to see nobody standing there. She hoped that perhaps the girl had taken the opportunity to run and made her own sacrifice worthwhile, but she doubted it. Not that it mattered. Every day of breathing was another day of suffering as far as she was concerned.

  Greasy strands of hair, like wet curtains in front of her face, marred her view. Her nose twisted upward, pulling her top lip into an angry snarl. The shotgun lay discarded on the floor at her feet and inwardly she cursed it. One more shot and they would have been on their way out of there by now. One more fucking shot.

  The two men at her sides manhandled her forward. The flowing tresses of Tidus’ robe came into view and she looked up, taking in his face properly for the first time. His head was long and angular, shaved fully bald but for a faint whisper of hair fuzz that shone like silver moss on a stone in the candlelight. His eyes sat deep inside their hollow pits, dark and devoid of emotion. The smile on his lips pulled his face into an ugly shape, almost arrogant under his up-turned, pig-like nose.

  Before her, the boy’s naked body remained hidden behind him, all but the naked legs which seemed to twitch as she glanced at them.

  “Torturing kids, that your thing then, is it?” Juliana spat, shaking the hair from her face and lifting her chin to face him full on. “You sick fucks always find a way to make excuses for your perversions, don’t ya?”

  But the smile remained. When Tidus spoke, it was with the same calm and slow voice as before. “Perversions? Oh, I promise you, my dear lady, there is nothing more perverted than the blind grovelling that you refer to as following God.”

  The way he said the final word hinted at some malice underlying the calm, coolness of his exterior. Juliana forced a smile of her own. “Yeah, well I don’t follow that sadistic fuck, either.”

  Tidus stepped aside, and for the first time, Juliana was able to see the body of the boy on the table. A large section of board balanced on crude piles of blocks. He had been tied face down with his arms stretched out to either side of him. Blood covered his hands and pooled on the board beneath, and Juliana realised that they had been fixed down with large, rust-covered nails. A bucket of dirty-looking, soapy water sat on the floor. Half of the boy’s dirty-blonde hair had already been shaved off, and the wet knife responsible lay on the table next to his face. He had turned away from them to face the wall beyond.

  Juliana felt her throat constrict as, for a moment, she thought that he might be dead. But then his legs twitched again and she noticed the slightest rise and fall of the space between his shoulder blades. She sighed.

  “We’ll make this one quick. There’s so much fire in her that I don’t want to waste it.” Tidus said, as he continued over to the other side of the room. “Put her head on the block.”

  Juliana was dragged across the room to a spot where the concrete turned from swamp green to dark black. Three more, large concrete blocks sat in a solitary pile about six feet from the wall. The entire surface of the top block was coated in dried blood and littered with fragments of bone, like icing and sprinkles on some macabre, horror-house birthday cake.

  A partly smashed fourth block lay discarded on the floor by Tidus’ feet and, with a groan of exertion, he scooped down to pick it up.

  “Quickly,” he puffed, pulling the stone into his stomach for support.

  One of the men on Juliana’s flank stuck out a leg and forced her forward. The sharp floor scraped her knees. Fingers pulled on her hair as a hand gripped her by the back of her head and pushed her down into the sticky, glutinous mess. A sharp shard of skull bone jabbed her painfully in the cheek.

  Calmly, Juliana took one last, deep breath and closed her eyes.

  Finally, it’s over.

  She breathed out, slowly, listening to it intently in order to block out the sound of the words being said above her. Any minute now, the rock would come crashing down and crush her head. She wondered if she would feel any pain.

  When the rock did not come immediately, she opened her eyes and saw the piles of blocks holding up the make-shift bench. Blood had stained through the bottom of the boards and now dripped steadily to the floor on one side.

  More words that she didn’t understand sounded above.

  Sadly, she took in the boy.

  He had turned to face her. The hair on the top side of his head had been roughly shaved off, and as she studied him, she noticed something there, a mark on his forehead.

  Dirt, perhaps? she thought as her mind scrambled to make sense of what she was seeing.

  Her heart rate increased.

  She looked again, but this time let out a scream as she saw herself staring back.

  Chapter 30

  His hands throbbed like nothing he’d ever known before. Even turning the frozen earth on the farm, when he’d worked so long and hard that the skin had peeled back from his palms and his nails split down the centres, nothing compared to the pain that he was experiencing now. He’d watched the first one go in: a dirty, rusty brown nail about four inches long. It pierced the skin and parted the bones beneath his fingers easily, only stopping when the pointed tip hit the board beneath. The hammering had increased then. Occasionally, the man wielding the stone would miss, resulting in a blow which either crushed his fingers or pulled on the hand, tearing the skin and widening the wound inflicted by the nail. The second one had not been as bad, the pain having to compete with the first. In an attempt to distract himself, John looked away.

  Blood covered the whole room like a glaze. A pair of severed arms hung from chains attached to a single hook on the ceiling. The arms were badly decomposed but it had not stopped him from noticing the single brown, leather band attached to the left wrist.

  Ryan’s leather band.

  Cold realization rushed in. He felt sick. His eyes took in the cubicle, the gun on the tripod, the blood… A small sob escaped his lips.

  The bastard had
dragged Ryan in here and hung him up like a deer to slaughter.

  He gagged as he remembered butchering the large stag, the blood and the meaty ripeness of the smell mixed with the salt carried in off the sea… the look of pride on Ryan’s face when he’d walked in…

  He stopped struggling then.

  Without Ryan, Murph, Becca… He thought about his friend. What had they done to Becca? He hadn’t even been able to protect her.

  The men had been partway through shaving his head when he heard the woman come in. The blunt knife had cut and chaffed the tender skin of his skull but he had barely registered it against the pain in his hands and the sadness in his chest. Her voice had rung like a bell in his head and made his heart race. He didn’t exactly recognise the voice and yet, somehow he did. Something about it had stirred inside of him; pulling at him in places that he didn’t understand.

  The blast from the gun had made him jump and torn the diamond-shaped head of one of the nails partially through his right hand. Hot blood sprayed his face and over his shoulders and back as two shapes were blown back and away from him, out of his line of sight. It dawned on him then that the woman was here to kill Tidus. Hope flickered like a dying ember.

  Momentarily, he’d considered yanking his hand free, and had even pulled to the point where he felt it start to give, but then he’d heard Tidus speaking and turned his head in time to see the woman jumped on and forced to the ground. Whatever her intentions had been, she too, had failed. He then let his hand be for fear that they would only hammer it back down again.