From Oblivion's Ashes

by Michael E. A. Nyman

  One thing you had to say about the Captain. If you were his soldier, he picked on you, he tormented you, pushed you around, challenged you, and generally made you wish for his horrible death on a minute-to-minute basis. But once he did, you were his punk, his soldier, and he wouldn’t tolerate anyone else fucking with you. Embarrass him, and you’d wish you were never born. But maintain proper military protocol, hold discipline, remain polite at all times, and the Captain would have your back, come what will.

  A very stern conversation had followed with Henley at the start of the next day. T-Bone was only permitted to watch from a distance, but he could see that the gist of it had left Henley completely defeated. He was pretty certain that the Captain invoked the name of Marshal at least once, and he had definitely pointed out the surveillance cameras and the presence of one of New Toronto’s finest.

  Whatever he’d said, Henley confined his future tirades to the job when he chose to acknowledge T-Bone’s presence at all. It was far from a perfect work environment, but it was no longer unbearable.

  But then, there was that member of New Toronto’s finest, or the cop, as T-Bone had come to think of him. Paul, or something like that, was something of an enigma, a silent, slouching wallflower, and he was the only other person in New Toronto who had admitted to possessing skill as a butcher.

  Henley, when he wasn’t expressing his everlasting hatred for ex-cons who most certainly had it coming, was a major talker. Since he wouldn’t talk to T-Bone, or at least not about anything civil, he barraged a mostly complacent Paul with endless conversational tidbits. Since cleaning the pig and the sheep carcasses were two-person jobs, Henley arranged for him and Paul to work as a team, leaving T-Bone to work on the sides of beef that had already been hanging for two weeks in the cooled down, semi-refrigerated area.

  This was fine with T-Bone. Not only did it free him up from having to be around Henley, but it kept him well away from the distasteful business of actually slaughtering the animal. To Henley, it had become routine to the point of boredom, while Paul showed no more of a reaction than if he’d been tying his shoes. Let them have it, T-Bone thought. Cutting up the already prepared side of beef was far more his speed, tantamount to cutting up a big steak into a bunch of smaller steaks.

  It also gave him an excuse to ignore Henley.

  “I used to save all these little bits in a bucket,” the butcher was saying in his conversational shout. “I’m talking about the shit even hot dogs wouldn’t want. You save ‘em, put ‘em up in a cooler, and take ‘em fishing. Ye gods, I miss fishing. Doesn’t look like I’ll get to do that anymore, not with those alien thingies taking so naturally to the water. D’j’ya ever do any fishing?”

  It took a few seconds for Paul to realize that the question was meant for him.

  “No,” he said.

  “Best thing in the world,” Henley sighed. “Man versus fish, the way the sea god intended. It’s all fresh water fishing around here, and it’s not the same. Give me the smell of saltwater and seaweed, the ringing of the bells, HA! Anyway, I’d dump the innards into the water – like chum. It’s important to get a nice spread – and damned if that didn’t bring the little beasties swimming from every corner of the ocean. Sure, it brings the sharks too, but that just adds to the competition. Ever had a shark on your line, Paul?”

  Again, there was a brief pause. “No,” Paul repeated. “I’ve never fished.”

  “Here, pass me the bone saw. Pity. You missed out, son. But, listen to me, eh? Salt’s in the blood, and there isn’t a Maritimer that came to the west that didn’t pine for the ocean they left behind. First, my brother came to be the manager of a boat dealership. Then, two of my cousins went west, only they kept going west to get work in the tar sands. Now hold the ribs… there… while I pull…”

  Crack! Crack!

  “Nicely done, Paul,” Henley said approvingly, putting aside the bone saw. “You’ve got a real knack for this. If you ever get tired of serving and protecting, come see me. Anyway, where was I? Right. Going west.”

  Like a man idly aware of a radio talk show playing in the background, T-Bone let Henley’s words sweep up the emptiness around him. T-Bone’s own eastern roots gave Henley’s ruminations a special resonance, and he found his thoughts transported back to younger days, sharing his first joint with his sister and her boyfriend on the wooden steps to their rental’s back porch. There had been good days, though they’d been rare. Talk of the sea conjured up more memories. Days at the beach. Time spent with childhood friends searching the shorelines for things that had washed up on shore.

  “Time was,” Henley continued, “you couldn’t swing a dead cat in Toronto without hitting a Newfoundlander like me, or someone else from the Maritimes. Guess that ain’t true anymore. Let the blood flow into the catchers down there, Paul. No need to get any on you if you’re careful. Now sometimes, you meet an easterner that doesn’t miss the ocean nor the landscape. It’s my opinion that they weren’t never easterners to begin with.”

  “I met one once,” Paul said suddenly.

  “Well, and now you’ve met three,” Henley went on, pointing a cleaver and an irritable expression at T-Bone, “if you want to include numb-nuts over there. And who’s to know? You may have met more of us without-”

  “No,” Paul interrupted, his eyes flickering to his glove-wrapped hands which were covered with blood. “I meant that I met an easterner, a beautiful, young woman out of Halifax, who never wanted to go back east. She came into my shop on Jarvis to get out of the rain, and we ended up talking.”

  “Beautiful, eh?” Henley shook his head. “Probably came out to the Big Smoke hoping to make it big in fashion or acting. The good-looking ones almost always do, and then wind up working in a department store. Or was she following a boyfriend?”

  “Neither,” Paul answered, looking lost in thought. “She was running away from something. Her step-father, if I remember correctly. She didn’t have any skills or any talents, other than being beautiful. I offered her a job in my store, but she said she could make more doing… doing other things. She did let me take her up on a trip to Wasaga Beach on the southern tip of Georgian Bay.”

  “Suddenly, the man feels like talking,” Henley quipped with a grin. “No surprise it’s the memory of a pretty girl that brings out action in a man. Hah. When hasn’t that always been true?”

  Paul glanced over at him, like he’d almost forgotten that Henley was there.

  “Well,” he admitted uncomfortably, “she was a beautiful girl. She had this long, reddish-blonde hair, sparkling blue eyes, and… and she had the saddest smile I’ve ever seen. I knew from the moment I saw her that…”

  His eyes flickered back to his bloodstained hands.

  “… that she would become important to me. The way she looked in the moonlight is almost impossible to describe. Fragile grace. Slender shoulders. Bethany had this tattoo of a blue butterfly on her right shoulder. I don’t know what kind of ink was used, but it reacted to the moonlight in a silvery-”

  He was interrupted by the sound of T-Bone’s cutting knife clattering to the floor.

  “Pick that up, you clumsy blockhead!” Henley bellowed at T-Bone, whose eyes had gotten wide and frightened. “Do you have any idea what kind of germs are all over this floor? You’ll have to wash it thoroughly before you go back to work!”

  “S-s-sorry,” he stammered back, swiftly bending down to retrieve the knife. His eyes met Paul’s, and he looked away. “I… I was just startled, that’s all.”

  He licked his lips.

  “Hey, Paul,” he asked, gazing at the tabletop. “Is there any chance that this girl… Bethany? That was her name? Any chance her last name was Bonham?”

  Paul blinked at him, surprised by the question. His eyebrows furrowed as he stared at the young man across the room.

  “Um. Hmm…” he said, making a show of trying to remember. “No, I don’t think so. Horowitz, I think it was. Bethany Horowitz. Why do you ask?”

&n
bsp; “And who invited you into the conversation anyway?” Henley pressed.

  “Really?” T-Bone tossed the knife into the sink six feet to his right and laughed nervously. “Really? Because the girl you’re describing, Paul, is a dead ringer for my sister, Bethany Bonham. Tattoo and all. Does that sound like a bit of an amazing coincidence to you?”

  “Yes,” Paul said, looking troubled. “Yes, it does. Do you think the woman I knew may have been your sister? That she lied to me about her name?”

  “You tell me, Paul. She disappeared about three years ago.”

  “Well, there you go,” Paul said, turning away and getting back to work. “The last time I checked, the woman I knew had gotten herself a job at a Best Buy and worked her way up to middle management.”

  You’re a liar, T-Bone thought, but he couldn’t pin a finger on why he thought this way, even as his doubts shifted back and forth. You did know my sister, and now you’re trying to cover it up! Or maybe… memories just got me thinking on it, and…

  “Excuse me, Paul?” said a voice from the door, and T-Bone looked up to see the lady cop.

  “Krissy!” Paul answered, smiling broadly and looking glad to see her. “What brings you down here? Wait. Let me get these gloves off, and I’ll join you and… and I see that you’ve brought Luca with you.”

  “Hey, Paul,” Luca grunted, peering into the room dubiously. “Henley. How’s it going down here?”

  “Good, good,” Henley said, all thoughts of remonstrating T-Bone forgotten as he swept forward effusively. “The meat is perfect, and we’re going to have a feast like no one’s business on Christmas Eve. Little secret. I’m grinding up some beef so that the kitchen can make several platters of meatballs. They have four different recipes they want to try out already.”

  “Henley,” Luca said, his eyes falling on T-Bone, “you just became my favorite person. I’ll have to stop by the kitchen to make sure those losers know how to make a meatball, Sabbatini-style. Hey, T-Bone! Th’fuck’s the matter? You look like you just ate a three-day-old cheeseburger!”

  “I’m fine,” T-Bone snapped.

  A brief but noticeable silence followed this outburst.

  “He’s been like this the whole time,” Henley said, glowering over at him. “Now that he’s no longer ‘Mr. Big Man’, he doesn’t want to have to work along with the little people. I don’t know why Marshal bothered with these losers. They’re not good for anything, and we’re better off without them.”

  T-Bone bit down on his tongue and controlled his anger.

  “I’m ready,” Paul said, free of his butcher’s gear. His eyes swept the room, falling for the briefest of pauses on T-Bone’s accusing stare. “May I suggest we step out into the hallway? The smell isn’t so bad out there.”

  “You don’t have to ask me twice,” Luca said. “If you ask me, we didn’t build this place far enough. You can smell it two floors away. How the fuck you guys can stand it is beyond me.”

  “You get used to it,” Henley shrugged. “And you’re right. The location is temporary and in the Spring we’ll be moving to one of the other buildings. Marshal doesn’t think it’s a good idea to have an abattoir this close to where the children can stumble in on it.”

  Luca barked a laugh.

  “We’ll have Paul back to you in just a few moments,” Krissy said. “I just need to go over a few police matters with him.”

  “Take your time,” Henley said, waving. “Or keep him, if you want to. The man’s a natural-born butcher, but most of the two-person work is already done. If you want his help with something, numb-nuts and I can take it from here.”

  “Maybe,” Krissy said, glancing over at ‘numb-nuts’, surprised at the lack of a reaction from T-Bone. “Thanks Henley. You’re doing an important job.”

  T-Bone remained silent as the three of them left.

  “You better get back to cutting meat,” Henley growled, “or I might just find it in myself to inform your precious Captain what a piece of shit you’ve been, badgering Paul like that. Eh? Yeah, you just had to be a part of the conversation, didn’t you? Just couldn’t keep your mouth shut.”

  “I didn’t do nothing,” T-Bone snarled, his head snapping around to meet Henley’s glare with one of his own. “And that pig knows something about my sister! You heard him! His description fits her to a tee, butterfly tattoo and everything. She came to Toronto and nobody ever heard so much as a peep from her after that.”

  “Your sister,” Henley sneered. “And what, I’m supposed to believe she was some sort of big actress type? What, was she fucking Scarlet Johansson?”

  “No,” T-Bone answered, soft and deadly. “She was a whore.”

  Henley jerked backwards in surprise.

  “She... she used to dream that she could be something better,” T-Bone continued, trying to ignore the stinging sensation in his eyes. “She… she wanted better. She tried. But when she ran away from our stepfather, she… There are some things, you just never escape from, okay? Some people were just meant to live in this world’s asshole, and not all the fucking pain or tears are ever going to wash them out. But, whatever else she was, Bethany was my sister, and she was the only person in the whole fucking world who ever tried to be nice to me, who ever…”

  The words died in T-Bone’s throat. He clenched his eyes shut, and shook his head as if to clear it.

  “Hey, you know what? Fuck it. You’re right, Henley. I’m a lazy piece of shit that doesn’t deserve any better. So why don’t you just fuck off, and I’ll get back to work, all right? I’ve got meat to cut.”

  For a few seconds, Henley just stared at him, at a loss for words.

  “Just get back to work,” he said finally. “We gotta get this done for Christmas.”

  He turned and left. T-Bone went back to work, slicing the meat with his newly-washed, diamond sharp cutting tool.

  Chapter Thirty-Three: Day 93: Proper Butchery

  Randy sat with his back against the drywall feeling vaguely tired. Sally and Denise sat near him, as they usually did. As the overall number of children had increased among the community, the three of them had formed a sort of informal gang inside the larger group.

  When it had just been the three of them, Ms. Wyatt had kept them busy, mainly in the hospital but also at First Canadian helping with the general clean up and errand-running. Her three former students had greeted these duties with a kind of mixed enthusiasm. On one hand, it was good to be involved in things, and the workday helped keep your imagination from dwelling on the horrible monsters that roamed the world just outside your hidden door.

  On the other hand, Randy spent most of his time at the end of the day in a state of exhaustion. Sometimes he was too tired even to play in Brian and Kumar’s gaming league. There was an unending list of rules to follow, from storing, double-sealed garbage bags to reporting even the slightest bit of damage to the soundproofing layers, no matter how minor. And for his part, Randy could go through the rest of his life without ever seeing another bedpan, and that would be just fine.

  But it wasn’t all bad. There were perks to being the first three children on the census of New Toronto. All three were surprised to find that being first accorded them a certain degree of authority. Frightened and confused new arrivals looked up to them, regardless of age bracket, if only because Sarah, Denise, and Randy already knew all the rules, the expectations, the people, and the things kids could get away with.

  Sarah took to bossing these newcomers around with great delight, liberating Randy and Denise from the honor of being her usual targets. Indeed, it was her attitude, unassailable and filled with purpose, that drew resentful boys around Randy like lost soldiers to an itinerant general, while resentful girls tried to shield themselves with Denise. Despite these divisions, however, nothing could break up the clique of three. Fate had thrown them together, and now circumstance had made them closer than brother and sisters.

  There were other perks as well.

  During the course of their
helping out at the hospital, Dr. Burke had taken Sarah under his wing. For all her personality flaws, Sarah was highly intelligent, hard working, and self-confident, all which brought her to the doctor’s attention. Sensing an interest in her, he’d made her a kind of protégé, teaching her and instructing her in proper patient care, how to prep a syringe, how to recognize drugs from medications, and so on. Never in a million years would such an opportunity be available before the outbreak, but the dire shortage of skilled helpers had forced the good doctor into making some compromises. She had a long, long way to go, of course, but the practical side of her instruction had started now.

  Of course, the notion that she might one day be the community’s doctor had, in Randy’s opinion, inflated Sarah’s already swelled head to galactic proportions. Fortunately, as members of her inner circle, Randy and Denise escaped the worst of her behavior.

  As for Denise, Brian had welcomed her into his hydroponics program. She didn’t have ‘adult powers’, but like Dr. Burke, Brian made sure that Denise spent a great deal of time working as his personal assistant and gopher. Denise, who was usually a very quiet girl, would go on and on every night about how they were going to be growing all kinds of fruits and vegetables, or at least, she would until Sarah decided that she’d talked enough, and that the attention had veered too far from her own eminence.

  And Randy? To Randy had been given the single greatest honor, to work with Marshal himself, learning the ins and outs of electrical circuitry, solar panels, signal towers, and remote control construction. As happy as both girls were, Randy knew they were both secretly jealous. Marshal was the Supreme Leader, and Randy enjoyed a certain level of enhanced stature by being his apprentice. Even more of a bonus was that Randy showed an aptitude for such work, and felt an undeniable surge of satisfaction each time he succeeded at a task.

  Randy’s heart, however, belonged somewhere else.

  “Students!” Ms. Wyatt’s stern voice rose above the general noise and conversation. “Thank you, students! Yes, that means everyone! You three! Please move in closer! I’ll take that, thank you!”