by David Coy
Don’t shoot her. For God’s sake, don’t shoot her.
Two more guards raced past him into the interior, no doubt to round up Donna and Eddie.
The mercenaries were efficient. Within minutes, they had all four of them bound at the wrists and just above the elbows. They had been especially rough about binding them, and the entire time, Donna had cursed silently at their grinning faces.
They’d had the decency to let Rachel dress before forcing her inside, but John was worried about the way they looked at her. One of them, a short man with a salacious grin, couldn’t keep his eyes off her.
“So now what?” John asked, then added, “You would have done the same thing in our position.”
“Shut up. No talking,” the one who acted like the leader said.
“You could at least tell us why you’re arresting us,” Donna said bluntly.
“Shut up,” the man said again. “Keep it up and the last thing you’ll hear from me is bang.”
Donna felt the iciness in his voice press on her spine, and her lips involuntarily pinched together.
They knew why the soldiers were there and where they were taking them. John, Rachel and Donna would be taken back to face charges for the murder of Ed Smith’s alleged nephew, Joe Devonshire and the other man, Kelly. Eddie would be shipped back to Earth, or what was left of it, for his thievery. It was a miracle they’d gone this long without being caught. John turned to Donna and said so with a look. He got the same in return. It
was inevitable, had been just a matter of time, and they had both known it.
The penalty for murder was death.
He wondered if Smith had been close to his nephew. It wouldn’t make any difference, but he thought it anyway.
He heard Rachel’s gasp, and the image of a seizure flashed in his head. When he looked at her, she was staring at the opening.
There at the entrance, under a hideously blue robe with gold trim, was the unmistakable and crooked shape of Jacob. He limped down the slight incline and came up behind the squad’s leader, as if seeking protection from the captives.
“You . . . ” Rachel said. “You’re the one . . . ” When she said it, it was if all the air went out of her.
“I have you now,” he said directly to Rachel. “I have you. God has willed it. You will not escape me this time.”
“You . . . ” she said again weakly. There was no air in the room she could breathe.
John opened his mouth to speak, but the leader shot him a warning look.
“I have you all,” Jacob said. “You are all mine now. This planet is mine and all that lives upon it. It is mine to do with as I choose . . . as I choose . . . for my pleasure.”
The sound that came out of Rachel was a groan; a long undifferentiated sound like a deep, far-off horn. John felt her leg go stiff where they touched. Then, as if he’d already seen it in his mind, he watched helplessly as she pitched forward onto the floor in a full seizure, her body vibrating from head to toe.
* * *
This time, Rachel went to a place where the air was as thick and as tangible as muddy water. Her legs and arms pumped while the fear and panic of the chase beat in her heart. The thing that chased her was formless, but she knew it just the same. No species, no creature, no living thing was more despicable or loathsome. She wanted to turn her head, and by sight in her dream-mind’s eye, give form to the revulsion for only an instant.
She stopped and turned.
Her scream erupted from deep down. Up and out it came, pulling her insides behind it in a visceral trail that left her empty. Her barren shell floated aimlessly in the muddy water until it was sucked in, swallowed whole by the vile thing in a single gulp. She felt herself inside it, churning around and around, then the vile thing coughed her up in pieces barely connected and that wriggled obscenely.
She groaned.
* * *
“Rachel . . . wake up,” John’s voice gently coaxed.
She heard his voice and saw the light above. The light was pale, green, unnatural. She squinted against it. She felt his firm leg under her cheek and felt his warm hands on her arm and head.
“Where are we?” she asked.
“In a jail—of sorts,” John said.
“It’s a shelter they’re using as a jail,” Donna said, with a tone of weary indifference. “It’s got bars over the windows and everything. Bastards.”
“I’m hungry,” Rachel said weakly.
“I’ll make us something,” Donna volunteered. “They left us some food. I think it’s my turn anyway.”
“Looks like they caught us,” John said after Donna left. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault,” she said.
“I could have been more vigilant.”
“No, don’t . . . ”
“I wasn’t watching. It was my job to watch.”
“Don’t blame yourself,” Rachel said, almost begging.
He stroked her forehead and ran his hand over her thick hair.
“They’re probably going to execute us,” he said finally. She smiled a wry smile.
“That’s funny?” he wanted to know.
“He’s not going to kill us.”
“How do you know?”
“I dreamed it.”
Her seizures were always accompanied by dreams; bizarre dreams that she would interpret on waking as something meaningful like an ancient shaman would read in bones tossed on the dirt. He and Donna had learned to humor her and listen. It seemed to soothe her to listen to her dreams.
“Tell me,” he said.
“I dreamed I was being chased.”
“I hate that kind,” he said, an impish smile beginning to form at the corners of his mouth.
Rachel didn't find any attempt at humor to be appropriate. “The thing that chased me was horrible.”
“They always are.”
“He wants us,” she said.
“Who?”
“Jacob.”
“Why does he want us?”
“To change us.”
“To change us to what?”
“I don’t know that part.”
He stroked her again. “Okay, we’ll figure that part out later, then.”
“Okay.”
“Okay.”
He felt her grip on his leg go rigid. “I’m scared,” she said, “Really scared.”
“Me, too.”
Her grip tightened a little.
“John?”
“Yes?”
“Could you kill me if I asked you to?”
The question felt like a blow to his head. The way she’d put it, the tone of her voice told him it was not a rhetorical question. She’d meant every word. He felt tightness in his throat. He was afraid that when he spoke, nothing would come out. “Hush . . . ” he said. “Rest now.”
“We have to get out of here,” she said. “We have to get out.”
“There’s nowhere to go.”
“Yes, there is. We can live in the jungle like before.”
“No, Rachel, we can’t. We were barely living as it was.”
“Then we’ll find a new place, somewhere that bugs hate. We’ll . . . we’ll steal a shuttle, and we’ll find a new place just like before.”
“There’s no way out of this thing, Rachel. It’s got bars all around it, top to bottom.”
“Oh, God, we have to get out.”
“Rest . . . ”
* * *
As usual, she ate as if she were starving. Nothing seemed to diminish that peculiar trait. While John and Donna picked at their food as if it were something curious, Rachel pounded hers down as though she’d been starved.
Eddie didn’t seem to be taking imprisonment too badly, but he had learned early on to shut his emotions down and just coast when he wanted to—when he needed to.
“When’s our trial do you think?” Donna asked.
“Won’t be a trial,” Rachel said into her tray between bites.
Paraphrasing Rac
hel’s dream, John explained what she meant.
“A dream?” Donna asked when he was done.
“A dream,” John said.
“Why just us?” Donna asked.
“Not just us. Everybody,” Rachel answered.
Donna got up from the table and gave John a knowing look. John pursed his lips. Her dreams were starting to get to Donna. Her eating and her seizures were starting to get to Donna. This whole mystical, bullshit viewpoint Rachel had was starting to get to Donna.
“They’re gonna kill us, Rachel,” Donna said with an unusual harshness. “Get used to the idea.”
“You may hope they do,” Rachel said.
Donna glared at her. “Screw this,” she said. “I’m going to bed. Put your dreams up your ass.” Her blue-brown eye flashed at them like ice in the sun.
“We’re not supposed to fight at the table, remember?” Rachel said as a matter of fact.
“I’m not at the table. Goodnight,” she said and stomped off.
Eddie just hunkered down and hoped the fight didn’t get any worse. He didn’t like it when they fought. They didn’t do it often, but he still didn’t like it.
They were being held in an old, abandoned shelter. It wasn’t very clean inside, but it was bug-tight and large enough to accommodate them. Donna stomped down the hall and picked the first bedroom as her own. The bed had sheets on it; and when she went into the bathroom, she found more items for personal hygiene in the sink, rather than on it. She picked the items out and put them away. That done, she sprayed down the dirt inside the shower stall and took a long hot shower. She hoped she’d run the hot water out for the rest of them.
It was barely dusk, and they’d been cooped up in the shelter all day with nothing to do but sit and wait for Rachel to wake up. Donna wasn’t at all tired, but she went to bed anyway.
Eddie could tell Donna had taken the first room because the door was closed tight. Rachel and John had the second already so he took the last one, the small one in the back. Compared to what he was used to, it was nice. He sat on the bed for a while then climbed up on the bed and looked out through the bars covering the window. It was almost dark. The bugs were starting to get active; the jungle was getting noisy. A few of the smaller bugs had started banging into the screen.
Eddie was on the brink of sleep when he heard the voice at the window.
“Eddie,” the voice said in a whisper. “Eddie Silk. Hey. Wake up!"
“Wake up, asshole,” another voice added.
“Don’t call him that,” the first voice said in an apparent desire to protect.
“Well, he is one.”
“Eddie. It’s Mike. Hey.”
Eddie recognized the voice. His first impulse was just to bury himself in the sheets.
“Eddie,” Mike said, a little more persistent. “Hey. Wake up.”
Eddie figured they’d just keep at him until he answered, so he stood up and put his head close to the window. On barrels stood Mike and Peter Ho, dressed in net suits. Mike was smiling at him.
“Hi,” Eddie said.
“Hi,” Mike said. “We saw them bring you in this morning. You’re a regular outlaw, mister.”
“Yeah. I’m an outlaw. Look at me.”
“They say that nurse and the guy you’re with are killers,” Peter said.
“Maybe, I don’t know about that. They've treated me all right.”
“They say they blew the heads off two guys and stole a shuttle,” Peter went on. “Is that true?”
“Don’t know about that either.”
“Boy, you don’t know much, do you?” Peter said.
“Nope,” Eddie replied.
Peter tapped Mike on the arm with the back of his hand. “I’m gettin’ outta here. You can talk to this outlaw if you want. See ya later.” He jumped down from the barrel and trotted off.
Eddie just stared off at the jungle. Mike scratched at the side of the shelter with a finger. “Joan was worried about you,” he said.
“Can’t help that, now can I?”
“Nope. Guess not,” Mike said.
Eddie didn’t know what to say next. All he could think about was how Mike was going to look getting down from the barrel with his crippled leg—the leg he made crippled. He didn’t want to see that. He could easily turn away when the time came, but he’d still see it in his mind. He wanted to say something, but the words didn’t come.
“I got that infection that killed Geary.” Mike said it like he was showing Eddie a good scar he’d earned. “That nurse in there saved me. The other lady, too. It hurt some for a while, but it’s okay now. He stomped his bad foot lightly on the barrel top. “See, it works,” he said and smiled.
“Yeah,” Eddie said.
“I don’t even mind it now.”
Eddie nodded his head and stared past Mike into the noisy jungle.
“The guys call me clubfoot,” Mike said. “I don’t mind.”
Eddie’s mind reeled. He was so sorry. If he hadn’t sent Mike into the jungle that night, Mike'ud be perfect. He’d be the perfect kid he was supposed to be if he hadn’t lied to him and made him do his dirty work. Mike had trusted him, admired him. Now here he was, all eager and friendly and forgiving as always.
“I’m . . . a . . . ” Eddie began.
“Joan was saying she might be able to speak up for you and maybe get you off.”
Eddie swallowed. He wasn’t sure that’s what he wanted. “Tell her to save it,” he said.
“Huh?”
“Tell her to save it. I don’t want to get off. I’d like to go back to Earth anyways. I got family there.”
Mike knew Eddie had no family and everybody knew there was no Earth to go back to.
“There’s lots of work to get done, Eddie. They say we’re moving the whole settlement to the ocean. We could sure use your help. Everybody says so. Wish Eddie was here to do this, wish Eddie was here to do that, they say,” and he smiled. “You sure do have lots of things waiting for you to get done.”
Eddie cheered for a moment, but the feeling went out like a snuffed candle.
“Well, I gotta go,” Mike said. “I’ll come back tomorrow night if you want.”
Eddie nodded slightly.
“Okay,” Mike said; and before Eddie could look away, he jumped down from the barrel to the ground. His weak leg gave in a little when he hit, but he kept his balance. He turned around and looked up at Eddie with a big grin.
“See? Didn’t hurt,” he said and limped away.
Eddie went back to bed and curled up into a tight ball. He’d never felt so alone or so ashamed. The night felt oddly cold. He lay awake and shivered and thought nothing. He slept some in spite of his shivering and woke just at dawn and watched as the sun cast a dull red line along the top of the window. He watched the red line broaden and brighten as the sun climbed higher, and the jungle’s sounds, like his thoughts, died to nothing. Finally, when the world was quiet once more and the heat from the sun had warmed the wall, he rose from the bed. He was glad the night was over. He hoped Mike would come back the next night so they could talk.
* * *
Donna didn’t seem too angry with anybody anymore, and she even smiled a little when Rachel poured the coffee. Things were back to normal as far as Eddie could see. They had a big breakfast that John and Rachel made.
“So what’s it going to be, Rachel?” Donna asked. “How long is Jacob going to keep us here?”
“A very long time,” she said without much emotion.
Donna held her tongue. She smiled stiffly.
The guards brought food every other day, and plenty of it. They would knock gently on the door as if they were interrupting. Then the door would open, and one of the guards would unceremoniously carry in a big box full of meals and drop it on the floor.
They weren’t allowed outside except for one brief period every day to walk around, always under guard. The shelter was a good distance from the rest of the settlement, and they were kept to the jungle
side so they couldn’t tell much about what was going on in the settlement itself. Flanked by at least two guards, they’d sometimes walk up to the jungle’s edge and down a ways. Then a guard, like a slow, two-legged herding dog, would turn them back toward the shelter. For the most, all they did during these exercise sessions was walk and kick at stuff on the ground. Sometimes, John would do some jumping jacks and push-ups, huffing and puffing loudly, just to mock the whole thing. Sometimes, Rachel would find an interesting "something," usually organic, to pick up and examine. At times, when Donna was feeling especially nervy, she’d pop off questions to the guards she knew wouldn’t—or couldn’t—answer, like, “When do we get to go home?” or “How’s your boss, Jacob?” She never got an answer, of course, and she’d drift close to Rachel with a snotty look and say, “Then kiss my ass," under her breath. They’d both giggle.
The little guard who ogled Rachel was one of the regulars on these outings. He kept leering at her like he was going to eat her. Rachel ignored him, but it got under John’s skin. “Hey, why do you keep gawking at her like that?” he demanded angrily.
The smirk dropped off the guard’s face.
“It’s okay, John,” Rachel said. “Never mind.”
“It’s not okay. The guy’s a dick,” he said loudly.
The guard just glared at John but didn’t say anything. He also stopped gaping at Rachel.
“That was weird,” Donna said when they got back inside.
It puzzled all of them. “I thought he’d at least whack me with his rifle butt,” John said with a little grin. “I guess I must have scared the shit out of him.”
Rachel had an idea why there had been no retribution, but kept it to herself. It was obvious to her that Jacob had told the guards to take good care of them. He wanted them healthy. It was that simple. She didn’t have to tell the others her reasoning. They figured it out themselves. The next day on their walk, Donna decided to give it a real test. She was in one of her foulest moods and the timing was just right.
