by L. A. Cruz
A shadow passed over her food and she looked up. It was Colonel Gates again.
“So how are you feeling now, Corporal?”
“Still a little lightheaded.”
The Colonel nodded. “Do you mind if I sit?”
“Go ahead.”
He sat down. He had no tray. “Major Greene got back to me this morning with the lab results.”
“And?”
“He says you’re a bit low on vitamin D, iron, showing signs of anemia, and your triglycerides, are bit off, as well as your liver numbers, but thanks to these cheery walls, we’re all in that boat. He says that when you go on leave, you should make sure you get plenty of sunshine and try to eat more than just cereal for breakfast.”
“So I’m okay?”
“He said he saw nothing out of the ordinary.”
“But what about the bruise?”
“You probably bumped it in your sleep. The iron deficiency made it look worse than it is.”
Helia exaggerated a breath of relieve. “Whew, I feel like I dodged a bullet. Thank you, sir.”
“Vigilance," Colonel Gates said. “That's the key down here. Vigilance. In all aspects of life.”
“Yes, sir.”
With that, the Colonel left the mess hall. Helia watched him leave, her eyes landing on Dunning’s.
He had been looking her way, but the moment their eyes met, Dunning looked away.
IT WENT like that for the next week.
Every day after breakfast, Helia went into the bathroom stall, drew blood, and filled up the tube. The hole in her forearm became black and blue, and she did her best to wash out the needle with soap and warm water.
In the shower, she did the same with the tube, as the last thing she needed was an infection and a giant, crusty pustule like she had seen on the arms of some of Manny’s druggie friends. Before long, the needle spot began to look like she had used it as the pillow on top of which she did some knitting.
By the fourth day, Manny was coming up to the cell bars without her needing to whisper her arrival. It was a Pavlovian-dog response. He would let his jaw hang open and she would feed him through the tube.
By the end of the week, he had gotten stronger. He no longer hobbled and his skin grew tighter and smoother. His body re-grew itself in the places where it had decayed and the holes mended. He looked taller than he had ever looked before and now stood a few inches over her. His stinking rags fell off his shoulders, but his muscles were strong and supple. Even his face started to look like her brother again, a downright miracle.
Helia, on the other hand, was going in the opposite direction. She had bad headaches, was lightheaded all the time, stooped over, and deep, dark rings were forming under her eyes. Her dark skin, once her advantage underground, turned paler than the rest of the Keepers. By the time her monthly cycle hit, she had barely any blood left.
Manny was bleeding her dry.
ON DAY SIX, after breakfast, Dunning came out of the mess hall and grabbed her by the arm. She had been headed to the bathroom for her daily bloodletting.
“Corporal Crane, hold up,” he said.
The week of silence had built to a deafening roar and his voice was jarring.
“I understand why you told the Colonel what happened in the shower, I really do.”
“But I didn’t—“
“Look, I get it. I do. We all have to cover our own asses. I’m not happy about it, but I understand. I hope we can still be friends. Or at least associates. Respect, you know? This tension is killing me.”
She didn’t know what the hell the Colonel had told him. Maybe he had twisted her words and Dunning had confessed. But at the moment, she hardly cared. Not now. She didn't have the energy for introspection, nor for worrying about someone else's feelings. All she could think about was sticking that needle in her vein, draining herself, and watching her brother recover.
“Good. Friends,” she said curtly and pulled her arm away and went into the bathroom, leaving Dunning standing there by himself in the hallway.
THE NEXT MORNING, as she stopped in front of her brother’s cell, she paused a moment longer before the feeding. She had gotten quite good at using an extra square of toilet paper to plug up the end of the tube and at wiping the excess blood off her palm so the other guards didn’t notice.
“Manny,” she whispered.
After feeding from the plastic vein, her brother would usually slink back into the darkness. But his brain was growing stronger, his flesh healing, and this time, he raised an eye.
“Do you recognize me?” she whispered. “I’m your sister.”
Manny said nothing. He licked the excess blood off the corner of his mouth and slunk back into the darkness.
STANDING THERE AGAINST THE WALL, passing the time, Helia let herself smile. Manny was coming back to her. There was recognition there. She had saved him. She was damn sure of it.
She’d give him a few more days and then she’d go to see the Colonel. She’d have to bring it up eventually, for it was only a matter of time before the other Keepers grew suspicious of the miraculous recovery in cell twelve.
She rehearsed the conversation. Rehabilitation, she’d say, is possible.
The Colonel would grunt and scratch his head like an ape.
She say that if he weren’t willing to consider a change in protocol, she might have to take it up with her Congressman while she was away on leave.
That would make him mad enough to fling his feces.
But then she had another thought, one that made her heart sink. She hadn’t considered leave. What would happen to her brother while she was gone? Certainly, they wouldn’t let a growing creature thrive.
She had a sudden vision of the other Keepers marching into Manny’s cell with pitchforks. With chain saws. With torches.
The only way to save him was to get Dunning on her side.
CHAPTER 32
Even if she wanted company, the other Keepers kept their distance. They raised an eyebrow every time she passed her table, afraid they’d catch her disease or something. Certainly the rumors about the blood test, about her coughing up blood, about her withered limbs and sallow complexion had made her anathema.
Could she blame them? She looked horrible.
And so, each day she ate alone, trying to cram enough calories into her belly to keep herself vertical. Unfortunately, overeating was fruitless; the bloat and nausea from the effort kept her in a perpetual hunch.
One day at lunch, a shadow passed over her tray. It hovered for a moment. She knew without looking up that it was the Colonel.
“A moment, Corporal?”
“Yes, sir. But can I finish eating, sir?”
“I think that’s part of the problem,” he said.
“Am I running up the defense budget?”
“Come with me. We’ll talk.”
ON THE WAY to the living quarters, Helia ran the possibilities. Despite her fading state, she was still attending to her duties. Maybe she was consuming too much food. Or maybe the Colonel was simply being a typical male, more concerned about her weight than his own.
Helia took a seat in the usual hard chair beside his cot.
Colonel Gates shut the door. “I don’t like to beat around the bush, so I’ll just say it, politically correct or not. You look like shit, Corporal.”
“Yes, sir.”
He studied her. “That doesn’t offend you?”
“I’m not a delicate flower, sir. The truth is the truth.”
“Right. My thoughts exactly. How are you feeling?”
“I’m fine.”
“You don’t look fine. You’ve been stuffing your face every chance you get, but don’t seem to be gaining any weight. Food services tells me that you're eating for two.”
She stared at the floor. “Yes, sir. I’m just trying to get my blood numbers back under control. Doctor’s orders.”
There was a long, awkward silence. He stood in front of her and seemed to sway on the cool
draft coming from the crack under the door.
“I don’t buy that,” he said eventually.
“Sir?”
“I said I don’t buy it.”
“What don’t you buy?”
“I think you’re pregnant.”
The audacity of the statement and its impropriety caught her off guard and she laughed. He was so far off the mark it was ridiculous. Typical male lizard-brain. The Colonel saw a woman who was not feeling well and immediately assumed it was some kind of “female” problem. Earlier, she had dismissed the unbuttoning of the trousers as mere stupidity, but at this, she drew the line. It was no longer possible to respect him.
“I’m not definitely not pregnant.”
“If you are, you need to disclose it. Immediately. It’s better I find out now than you cover it up when that baby starts to show. We don’t have any maternity battle dress uniforms on hand.”
“Whose baby would it be?”
“I think it’s rather obvious, isn’t it. Unless you’ve been making the rounds.”
“I am not pregnant!”
“Keep your voice down, Corporal. Don’t forget who you are talking to.”
“I think I know my body, sir. This is highly inappropriate.”
“If you haven’t noticed, we don’t play by the same rules down here. I could care less about what’s appropriate or not. That politically correct shit is for people who have the luxury of sunshine. Every single day, we are on the front line. One mistake and our flesh will rot.”
“If you'd like to call the doctor back down here to give me an exam, go right ahead. I have nothing to hide.”
He sighed. “No. That won't be necessary.”
“Good.”
She sat in silence. Colonel Gates scratched the back of his head and cracked his neck.
“There is one other thing.”
Helia’s heart had calmed down after defending herself, but now it revved back up. She closed her eyes, anticipating another chauvinistic blunder.
“The control room tells me that you’ve come to taking a pause in front of cellblock twelve. Every day. Apparently, it’s becoming a bit of a routine. Is there something in cell number twelve that interests you?”
Helia swallowed hard. “Yes, sir.”
“You don’t deny it then?”
“No, sir.”
“May I ask why?”
“The inmate in cell twelve seems to be growing stronger.”
“Yes, you're not the first one to notice that. It’s been reported. Isn't that inmate the one who you and Dunning delivered?”
“Yes, sir. It seems, he's getting better. I was hoping maybe, if you didn't object, sir, that I could attempt to communicate with him.”
He laughed. “What the hell do you mean by ‘to communicate’? Do you want to teach him with flashcards? Or maybe I'll bring down a few iPads so you can teach him his ABCs—a new one for each time he time he scratches through the screen. Or maybe you want to breastfeed him. This ain't no place to be a Florence Nightingale, Corporal. That rotting pile of flesh killed twelve people. You understand me? Twelve.”
Helia was silent. “I didn’t know that.”
“Now you know. Twelve senior citizens. He slaughtered them at an HOA meeting.”
Helia looked down at her boots. That wasn’t Manny. Couldn’t have been. And even if it were, it was the disease, not her brother. She noticed that there were a couple of red splatters on the toe of her boot; she retracted her foot and hid it under the chair.
“To answer your questions, no I will not allow you to try to communicate with that thing. We do not pay you to think down here. We pay you to follow orders. That is your sole duty. If you want to think, go get a civilian job. Here, we keep the population safe. And it's working. The bastards are dying out. We’re ahead of this epidemic, and the last thing we need to do is try to save them.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Okay, you’re dismissed.”
She stood and opened the door.
“Just so you know, I’m going on leave next week. It’s been a long time. Too long. My absence will make SFC Dunning the highest ranking man in here. You are to follow everything he says, no matter what happened between the two of you. Is that going to cause a problem?”
“No, sir,” she said meekly.
“Good. Get out of here.”
CHAPTER 33
That night Helia lay on her cot, half awake, half dreaming. The inmate in the visitation room in her dreams had turned into her brother and she was feeding him directly. At the vending machine, she paid for two vials of blood and then she attached them to her breasts as if they were two giant…
Her eyes popped open. The siren was raging, the room flooded red.
In the dark, two shapes got up and put on their boots and headed for the door. Pinder and Dunning.
“Oh, that’s okay, don’t bother getting up,” Pinder said with a sarcastic smirk as the two of them passed by Helia’s cot. “I’m terribly, sorry to wake you, princess.”
Helia was too groggy to think of a decent comeback.
Dunning shrugged, a look of disappointment on his face. He closed the door behind them and they were both gone.
The siren kept wailing. She would have helped if she had the chance. She buried her head in the pillow and tried to tune out the guilt. After ten minutes, the siren finally shut off, but by then, it was echoing in her ears.
Helia rolled onto her back and closed her eyes. Might as well salvage a few hours of sleep. She was right on the edge of drifting off, when the siren went off again.
She sat up. Another one? “What the hell?”
Pinder and Dunning still had not returned.
She debated getting up to see what was going on. But without another suit, there wasn’t much else she could do.
The siren rang for another ten minutes and then shut off.
She lay back down and attempted one more time to go back to sleep, but then the siren rang again. She groaned.
“You have got to be kidding me.” Three new arrivals in one night.
Still Pinder and Dunning had not returned.
Now, she was fully awake. For the next three hours, she listened for any signs of distress in the hallway. The siren kept going off and by the time it was time to get up for the first shift, she had counted nine new arrivals.
So much for “getting ahead” of the situation.
She was pulling on her boots when Pinder and Dunning finally turned. Dunning collapsed on his cot, exhausted, his hair matted with sweat.
Pinder sat on the edge of her cot and unlaced her boots. “How was your rest Sleeping Beauty?”
“Uneventful. How’s the situation?”
“Taken care of.”
“If you want, I’ll take your shift today,” Helia volunteered.
Pinder looked up from her laces. “Really?”
“Yes,” Helia said and stood. “I got it. Get some rest.”
Before leaving, she glanced at Dunning. He was face down on his cot.
SHE WALKED the cellblock toward her post at the far end. The cages were teeming with activity, the whole day room loud with growling and snarling.
She paused at her brother’s cage. In sharp contrast to the other inmates, he had come to the bars and was standing there quietly, his jaw hung open in anticipation.
Helia angled herself away from the camera and whispered, “Manny. I need some kind of sign from you. If I’m gonna keep doing this, I need you to say something.”
Manny's nostril flared. And he bared a sharpened tooth. He had been grinding it against the concrete.
“Manny, please,” she whispered. “Say something. Or else there's no blood today.”
He growled.
“Speak to me.”
He snarled.
“Fine,” she said and turned her back.
He made his lips form an O. A sound, not much more than a whisper escaped. It sounded like “On.”
She turned around and came ba
ck to the bars. “Did you say something? Say it again.”
“On.”
“On?”
“One.”
“One? What does that mean??
“One,” he said again. She was pretty sure it wasn't just a random sound escaping his mouth, not just a gurgle of digested blood, but a real attempt to communicate. He raised a finger and pointed to her palm.
“Dat.”
Manny was as American as they came, but in a household where their mother never pronounced her th’s, dat meant that.
“That? What does that mean? What are you pointing at?”
Manny just stood there, his bottom lip quivering. Hungry, she was sure. But she wasn't going to give in, not so easily.
She remembered trying to teach him how to speak when he was little and using food as an incentive. When he didn’t get what he wanted, he would slam the tray in his high chair in frustration.
“Manny,” she whispered. “Do you recognize me? Your sister?”
He growled and reached forward and tried to grab her arm, but she stepped back. All he wanted was the blood.
The Keeper who had been watching from the wall, ran over to assist her. “What’s going on? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine," Helia said. She went to shoot her brother a glare, but he had retreated to the darkness.
“Are you crazy? Don’t get so damn close to the bars. They’re all revved up today. All of them. It’s a madhouse.”
“Probably a smart idea,” she said and headed for her spot on the wall, the morning’s blood getting cold inside her sleeve.
CHAPTER 34
After taking Pinder’s shifts that afternoon, Helia went to dinner. Pinder and Dunning were sitting at the same table.
Helia took her food from the counter—an ice cream scoop of buttered green beans—and passed their table. She looked directly at Dunning. He looked horrible. Sleep-deprived. Deep bags under his eyes.
“Do you mind if I sit here?” she said. The plea felt as desperate as looking for a seat in the high school cafeteria.
