Adamson approached the furthest guard tower and, laying his hand on the railing to guide him, walked up the gangway to where the guard stood watch. As the clock rapidly approached midnight, it was almost time for a change of the guard shifts. As part of his unending job description, he made it a point to dismiss and greet each and every one of the guards at the beginning and end of their shifts. While it seemed like a formality, the ritual served a couple of purposes. One—it made each man feel connected to the whole, made him feel as if his oftentimes boring work was appreciated. Two—it was a chance for Adamson to look each guard in the eye and silently assess him for cracks in his veneer. The job these men were being asked to perform was both exceedingly boring and exceptionally dangerous. It was boring in that they ended up watching over an area where literally nothing happened… until the time came when something happened and life got real hazardous, real fast. The gig went from mind-numbing boredom to critical mass like that.
It was not a job many could perform. A lot of men were lazy and undisciplined— a dangerous combination that meant death for them and potentially everyone else. If that happened, it was a situation where the Watcher could potentially become the Watchee. Even though The Dead seemed dim-witted, they were forever vigilant having all the time in the world to watch and wait and scheme. Death was a finality that no longer mattered in their world. It was a concern that had been quite unceremoniously wiped from the table.
Now all they had was time; time and their ever-present hunger.
As he stepped into the relative cool of the tower, Adamson saw the guard on duty turn to greet him. Miller was the guy’s name and he was a trusted employee who’d managed to adapt to the job’s requirements and make it work. A kid in his late twenties with short-cropped hair and a reddish complexion, he had this open-eyed gaze like he was in constant amazement at what Life had to show him. Adamson liked the dude and considered him to be someone he could trust.
"Miller," Adamson said in lieu of a more formal greeting. "How’re things?"
Miller smiled that dopey smile of his beneath a set of standard issue night vision goggles. Realizing they were there, he reached up and pulled them off. Once they were clear of his face, he set the bulky headpiece into the frame mounted on the wall to the right of the minigun.
"Everything’s a-ok here. The dumbfucks are doing what the dumbfucks do best," Miller said. Even though Adamson disliked the term "dumbfucks," he knew that there were worse euphemisms used by the guards for the UDs. He also understood that the use of those types of things were coping mechanisms which were necessary for the men to distance themselves from the reality of their occupation.
"Next shift is gearing up now," Adamson explained, "your relief should be along in a second."
Adamson stepped up beside Miller and looked out over his pen.
Spread out before his eyes was an undulating sea of dark motion made up of hundreds of roaming bodies. There were eddies and slipstreams within the mass as the crowd aimlessly moved about inside the enclosed corral. It was a tide of the undead that, at one time, would have meant certain death for anyone unlucky enough to come up against it. Now it was just an ocean of reanimated meat. A low chorus of moaning acted as white noise and seemed to come and go like the soft crashing of waves against the shore.
As Adamson looked out over the darkened corral, it never ceased to astound him how many there were or how tenuous the balance of power remained.
"In so many ways, these are my children," he said softly. "They’re all I have left…"
"Excuse me, Sir?" Miller asked.
Adamson was shaken out of his reverie and looked up as if embarrassed. He quickly shook it off and returned to business.
"Nothing… anything going on that you think I should know?"
"Well, I wasn’t going to mention it, but…" Miller said and looked back out over the heaving crowd.
Adamson turned and looked at him sternly.
"If there is something going on that I need to know, Miller, I need to know it. Out with it, please…"
Miller took a quick, almost nervous look around the small space within the guard tower and lifted his gaze to Adamson’s. He looked like a kid who was about to tattle on a sibling.
"Well, the priest has been coming around a lot lately and doing his thing near the pens."
"Handel?"
Miller nodded and stared down at his feet. "He comes in like this, usually late at night, and hangs around toward the back of the building in the walkway there. Some of the guys are saying they hear him," and he raised his obviously concerned eyes to meet Adamson’s, "talking to the UDs."
Adamson knew the man well. He’d come to the League a few years ago after having spent his life as a priest in some place Adamson couldn’t remember. There were rumors of him having gotten into some kind of trouble with the diocese for reasons no one ever talked about. He’d come onboard as a Psych Counselor and was supposed to help the fighters come to terms with the reality of what they were being asked to do here, but he still carried himself like a priest. He was a guy who looked a lot older than his already advanced years, but that wasn’t too terribly abnormal. After everything that had happened in the world, who didn’t have a few extra wrinkles and grey hair?
Adamson took a moment to look deep into Miller’s eyes, plumbing the man’s depths for any hint of malevolence or manipulation. Finding none, he turned and directed his gaze toward the back of the building. Beyond the undulating crowd and the ever-present fencing, he could just make out some movement deep within the veil of the shadows.
"Ok," he said with a sigh, "I’ll check it out." He patted Miller reassuringly on the shoulder.
Miller nodded and stepped up to retake his position on the minigun. Slowly, as if deep in thought and already feeling bad about reporting the priest’s activity to management, he lifted the night vision goggles from their stand and pulled them on.
Adamson took a couple of steps toward the walkway and stopped.
"Miller…" he said paternally, "you shouldn’t feel guilty about telling me when something’s happening that’s out of the ordinary. If someone is fuckin’ up he puts all of us in danger."
Miller nodded and smiled with relief.
"We clear on that?"
"Yes, Sir. Clear as crystal."
Then, it was Adamson’s turn to nod and he turned and walked back down the walkway and into the gloom.
~ * ~
Father Handel stood with his small briefcase in hand in the shadows behind the Main Pen and carefully looked between the slats into the dimly lit expanse of the enclosure. Dark figures swayed in the half-light, rocking back and forth, moving from side to side. As always, the acrid odor of death was pervasive in this place, but every so often an extraordinary wave of putrescence would waft between the corrugated lengths of metal and assault his senses anew. This was an odor he’d come to know well ever since the dead had risen. God knew, he’d lived with it long enough at St. Joseph’s. It had become inextricably linked to what he considered his mission.
As he gazed into the undulating crowd, the face of a child pressed itself up against the chain link. It was a small boy, no more than nine or ten, who stared out at him with an unnerving mixture of open-mouthed wonder and abject hunger. His face was an utter mess. Long raking slashes tore down his right cheek, the white of his skull visible through the coarse separations of his anatomy. Coagulated blood was splashed and caked across what was left of his ruined features.
"Dear God," Handel softly whispered, "so many of Your children. So many… and so lost."
He pulled himself away from the boy’s unwavering gaze and with renewed vigor got back to the bit of business which brought him here. He set his valise on the ground and carefully opened it.
"O Lord," he intoned in a hushed voice, "who has said, ‘My yoke is sweet and my burden light,’ grant that I may so carry it as to merit Thy grace."
The priest removed from the case what looked like a thick crimson scarf. Th
e material was deeply colored and had a cross embroidered in gold thread at each end. Holding it aloft, he kissed each end where the cross was stitched and held it to his forehead.
"Protect me, O Lord, so I may resist the assaults of the devil and cleanse my heart with the Blood of the Lamb so that I may be deserving of your eternal reward."
He laid the scarf around his neck so that it draped down his chest. Softly, he whispered, "Restore to me, O Lord, the state of immortality which I lost through the sin of my first parents and, although unworthy to approach Thy Sacred Mysteries, may I deserve nevertheless eternal joy."
He then withdrew a small bottle filled with Holy Water and held it gingerly in his hand.
Now, more or less prepared for the ritual to come, he turned his back to the pen and carefully ran his hand along the wall, searching for the small nail he’d placed there on a previous visit. Finding it with his fingertips, he reached into his case once more and pulled from it a silver crucifix. He kissed the figure on the cruciform and gently hung it from the nail.
He returned his attention to the pen and noticed several more of the dead had gathered around the child, all staring out at him from between the slats of the fence. They must have caught wind of him and that was what drew them to the spot. His body’s odor had undoubtedly acted as a lure which enticed them one by one to come to where he now prepared to cleanse them of their sins. He knew he’d have to be both quick and careful if this was going to go as smoothly as it had in the past. His primary concern, of course, was that he not get himself bitten. Thankfully, he had some experience in this regard so he wasn’t too worried. Secondarily, he knew Adamson and his people did not fully understand or approve of his reasons for being here now, doing what he was about to do. Well, maybe Adamson. There had been some discussions regarding The Dead’s salvation before. He might be willing to overlook it, but The League would surely have taken a dim view.
But that was a concern best left to another time.
He carefully poured the Holy Water into his hand and splashed it as best he could onto the faces of the gathered dead. Then, he did it again. Most of the fluid landed on the fence and softly reflected in the dim light, but some of it made it through and hit the open-mouthed faces of his intended targets.
"Is any among you sick?" he said, quoting from the Book of James, in a subdued voice. "Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord; and the prayer of faith will save the sick man, and the Lord will raise him up; and if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven."
In the half-light, the dead continued to stare at him hungrily.
"Oh, Heavenly Father," he continued, "we call upon you to heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils: freely ye have received, freely give." The irony of the "raise the dead" line was not lost on him, but by now the words were flowing freely from his lips and could not be stopped.
"And into whatsoever city ye enter, and they receive you, eat such things as are set before you: And heal the sick that are therein, and say unto them, the kingdom of God is come nigh unto you."
One of the dead, an older man of about fifty, pushed his way through the crowd gathered at the fence and pressed his face against the chain link. He mashed his features against the metal and let out a sigh that reeked of the tomb, a smell of decaying anatomy and of blood freely spilled. His grue-stained fingers wound their way between the links and gripped the metal fervently.
Pausing briefly, Handel looked the man in the eye, the pupils cast opaque and milky in the faint luminosity. Slowly, the man opened his mouth and pressed himself even tighter to the fence, as if he was trying to push himself through the grating. His blackened tongue raked across swollen, bloated lips and he painfully pulled air into his lungs.
"A-a-a-a-a-a-a-a," and he paused and then breathed out, "me-e-e-e-e-e-ennn."
Father Handel smiled to himself and continued to give The Dead their Last Rites.
Adamson came around the far end of the pen and heard Handel whispering long before he ever saw him. Through the shadows, he was able to make out his silhouetted form lit by the sparse ambient lighting. Moving forward he walked slowly, hoping to get an idea of what the priest was up to and why he was going about it with such secrecy. From some of their past conversations, he thought he might have a pretty good idea. As he got closer, he heard Handel’s low voice drifting out of the blackness.
"And they cast out many devils," Handel said, "and anointed with oil many that were sick, and healed them."
Adamson then saw Handel pour something into his hand from a bottle and toss it at the fence. He punctuated what it was that he was saying with this motion again and again. From where Adamson was, it appeared as if the priest was splashing the liquid onto the fence as well as whatever lay beyond. It was then that Adamson caught sight of the crowd of UDs that had gathered on the other side of the barrier. There must have been a dozen or so huddled around where the priest stood. The weird thing was that they weren’t acting excited or aggressive in any way. They simply stood and stared as if transfixed. One of them pressed his face against the chain link and Adamson could just make out the thing’s lips moving, almost as if it were trying to speak.
Whatever was going on here was weird and Adamson didn’t like it one bit.
"Handel?"
The priest turned abruptly at the sound of his name. The bottle he was holding slipped from his grasp and hit the floor with an eruption of liquid sloshing out from its open mouth. The expression on the man’s face was like that of a kid who’d been caught stealing money out of his mother’s purse—embarrassment and guilt all wrapped in one wide-mouthed gape.
"A…A… Adamson," he said and his voice quivered nervously.
"Mind if I ask what you are doing here?" Adamson inquired, having come closer to view the makeshift altar that had been created. A silver crucifix hung from a nail driven into the wall behind where Handel stood. The priest was dressed in an elaborate clerical gown and a small leather bag laid on the ground at his feet. Whatever he was up to, it was obvious he’d put a lot of planning into it.
"I… uh… I…" he stammered and then abruptly regained his composure and stood erect. "I am giving them…" and he looked around as if unsure of exactly how to explain… "the Last Rites."
"You’re… what?"
"We’ve talked about this before, Jeffrey… These are still God’s children and they deserve some level of our sympathy. The League refuses to acknowledge that. I cannot."
The two of them had indeed had discussions about Handel’s theories on The Dead and, every time they did, Adamson found it difficult to believe what he was hearing.
Sympathy?
From all of his time working with The Dead, Adamson had learned one thing—these were dangerous and unpredictable creatures with no sense of humanity left in them, much less a soul. They were, in many respects, like tigers that had developed a taste for man’s flesh. They could appear docile, but it was only because they were looking for an opening through which to get their claws into something. Something solid. Something wet. Any semblance of their humanity had been stripped away long ago.
"Do you know the trouble you could get into—the trouble I could get into—if you end up getting yourself injured… or worse? If someone were to find you here they’d think you’d gone nuts."
"I know. I know. But these are—these were—still people, first and foremost. They are not monsters. They are people who have been changed, transformed if you will, but they still deserve to be given absolution by the Lord God."
"Father… with all due respect… Are you out of your fuckin’ mind? Yeah, ok… They were people… once… but whatever they were, whatever it was that made them them, was burned away a long time ago." Adamson ran his hand over his face in exasperation. "Dammit, how many times must we go over this?"
Handel shook his head in disgust. He simply refused to believe what he was hearing. He’d seen it, seen i
t with his own eyes. The Dead… they understood, they remembered. Hadn’t one of them tried to speak to him just a moment ago? What he’d heard was not some random vocalization. It was the completion of a prayer… which suggested comprehension and context.
"Look, Father…" Adamson continued, "back in the day, I was holed up in a restaurant’s store room for a few days. One of these things broke in and stumbled around the kitchen for a few hours. It rattled pots and pans, it broke open the door on one of the walk-in refrigerators, and from the sounds of things, it was making itself quite the little banquet. When I finally got up the nerve to sneak a peek into the room I saw it hacking away at its own hand with a meat cleaver. The fuckin’ thing chopped off one of its fingers and was stuffing it into its own damned mouth."
Handel looked away and stared at the group of UDs through the fence. Their open and empty expressions met his. The one who’d spoken was now stupidly chewing on the metal wire of the fence.
"These are not intelligent beings, Father," Adamson said with as much sympathy as he could muster. "They are mindless killing and eating machines. No offense, but God turned his back on them a long time ago; back when they all went flat-line."
"No… you are wrong."
"No, Father… I am right. These creatures are without both intellect and soul. They are empty shells which act like people for only as long as they can get their filthy hands on us. The sole thing keeping them from ripping you apart right now is that they can’t figure out how to get through that fuckin’ fence."
No Flesh Shall Be Spared Page 16
