Teddy noticed right away just how outnumbered the officers were.
People glared at the officers angrily as they passed and some spat on the ground at their heels as they walked away. A few muttered obscenities at their backs.
The officers didn’t seem to pay the people any attention and hurriedly pushed their way through the crowd.
Teddy kept his back against the doorframe and watched as the people on the sidewalk passed.
The bustling sidewalks were an entirely different scene from what he witnessed the night before. Children were laughing and running between people’s legs while their haggard mothers yelled and chased after them. A group of teenagers sat around a small barrel fire strumming a country song on an old beaten-up guitar while a couple of young giggling girls sat cross-legged in front of them. Groups of men and women engaged in conversation as they walked while some couples strolled down the footpath holding hands as if on a leisurely morning stroll.
Perry stood next to Teddy and gestured out at the crowd.
“See? It’s really not so bad here,” Perry insisted.
A few passing in the crowd gave Perry the same type of dirty look that they gave the officers, but he pretended not to notice.
“Where is this place located anyway?” Teddy asked, curious.
“Kansas,” Perry said, chuckling. “We’re about fifty or so miles west of Wichita.”
Teddy stood bewildered by the news.
He couldn’t believe that they had taken him all the way from Arizona to Kansas.
“Is it always this crowded?” Teddy asked as he stared into the sea of faces.
“It’s getting worse,” Perry admitted.
“Finding Ein is going be tougher than I expected…”
A man brushed past Teddy and bumped hard into his chest with his elbow.
Teddy stumbled back and caught himself against the wall.
The man hurried away without even attempting an apology.
“Hey, asshole! Watch where you’re going!” Teddy shouted at the man. He balled his fist and started to step forward, but Perry put a hand on his shoulder to stop him.
People nearby stopped mid-conversation and hurried past Teddy while the teens playing the guitar stopped and looked over at him expectantly.
“Don’t start a fight outside!” Perry warned. “It’s not worth it.”
“Why not?” Teddy growled as he pointed towards the officers who had their backs turned. “The cops don’t seem too worried about much of anything.”
“The ones on the ground aren’t the ones you have to worry about,” Perry explained. He pointed up at the massive concrete watchtower that stood in the center of the camp. “If you start a scene and one of them up in the control center sees you, they’ll send a team to scoop you up faster than you’d expect.”
Teddy looked up at the tower’s mirrored windows and scowled. “Whatever,” he grumbled. “That prick wasn’t worth it anyway.”
Disappointed, the teens went back to playing their music while the rest of the passing crowd resumed their loud conversations.
“You can’t go around starting trouble,” Perry warned. “This isn’t that kind of place.”
“Thanks, dad,” Teddy said.
Perry frowned.
Attention, a soft female voice announced over the camp’s PA system. The dining facility will close in fifteen minutes.
“Come on, we have to hurry,” Perry said as he started walking ahead. “I’ll give you the lay of the land as we walk.”
Teddy funneled through the crowd and followed Perry with his hands in his jacket pockets.
“These buildings we’re passing are all other dorms. We’re not supposed to go inside. Got it?”
“Uh-huh,” Teddy muttered disinterestedly as he stared at the passing faces.
“Oh! Then there’s the nightly curfew rule I need to tell you about. It’s pretty simple, but—”
“Uh-huh…” Teddy repeated.
Perry walked in front of Teddy and didn’t stop talking as he pointed out different buildings and waved towards different sections of the camp.
Teddy tuned him out and didn’t hear a word of what the man said—he couldn’t pay attention since his mind was preoccupied with finding Ein. He studied the faces around him carefully. Very few made eye contact and nobody bothered to exchange the usual bullshit pleasantries.
Makeshift street stalls had been set up in the alleyways between some of the dorms and along the footpath running in front. Shopkeepers shouted and haggled with customers as they bartered over old clothes, weathered books, and raggedy shoes. Old men gathered a small crowd of onlookers as they sat on crates and smoked stale cigarettes while playing checkers and backgammon. A couple of elderly women were beating rugs strung up on a clothesline with sticks, while little children chased around mangy dogs.
It surprised Teddy just how much of a community was starting to spring up.
Of all the different people he passed, he didn’t see anybody who even resembled Ein with his purple hair and youthful face.
Perry stopped walking and turned towards Teddy with his arms across his chest. “Are you even listening to me?”
Teddy froze as soon as he looked over and saw the frustration in Perry’s face.
“No, not really,” Teddy admitted.
“This is important!” Perry protested. “This is your orientation!”
“No offense, but I really don’t care,” Teddy said, holding his hands up. “All I’m interested in is finding Ein and getting out of here the first chance I get. You can come with us if you want—I don’t care either way.”
Perry chuckled, shook his head, and kept walking.
“Something funny?” Teddy asked as he followed after him. “I was planning on—”
He was interrupted when a laughing young boy zoomed around his legs while a little girl angrily chased after him.
Teddy stumbled and almost tripped.
“I know exactly what you’re planning. Do you think you’re the first one?” Perry asked without turning around. “Don’t you think that that others have tried walking off of their work detail as soon as they got on the other side of the fence?”
“Why does any of that matter?”
“I can show you better than I can tell you.” Perry grabbed Teddy by the wrist and led him down the sidewalk as fast as he could, pushing his way through the bustling crowd.
Teddy was barely able to keep up. His wrist started aching from how hard it was being squeezed. He tried to pull his arm free, but he couldn’t break the man’s grip—Perry was deceivingly strong.
Perry led him around the corner of one of the barracks and into a massive concrete courtyard.
A gathered crowd of crows started and took flight. They cawed loudly as they retreated for higher ground.
Unlike the footpaths, the courtyard was chillingly empty and silent.
Perry let go of his arm and pointed ahead.
“Look!” Perry shouted.
Teddy’s angry expression fell flat and his jaw hung open as his gaze focused on the structure in the middle of the courtyard.
Countless corpses with burlap sacks covering their heads dangled from wooden gallows high above a platform in the middle of the courtyard. The bodies were in various stages of decomposition and had been badly mutilated by the hungry wildlife. Crows with dried blood caked on their beaks sat on top of the gallows with their feathers ruffled and stared down at Teddy with beady black eyes.
“Jesus Christ…” Teddy muttered with disgust as he took a step towards the platform.
Placards hung around each corpse’s neck and Teddy studied each one in abject horror.
Sedition
Murder
Terrorism
Rape
Larceny
Teddy noticed that a few disarmed FEMA officers were even strung up with the same word written on their signs: mutineer. He stepped closer and didn’t notice the red line painted around the perimeter of the platfor
m.
Two officers bundled up in peacoats and black wool balaclavas stood to the side of the platform carrying rifles. They stared at Teddy as he encroached closer towards the red line.
Perry walked up behind Teddy and placed his hand on his shoulder. “Careful… If you cross that red line, it gives them an excuse to put you up there with the others.”
Teddy stopped walking and stared up at the stiff corpses as they dangled in the chilly breeze.
“There are so many,” he muttered quietly.
“If it is a scare tactic, it is an effective one,” Perry said. “Every day you pass this main courtyard and you see new people strung up every time. Fear keeps order and order keeps the peace… All of that talk you were spouting off about running away will only lead you here. They’ll call you a terrorist or claim you committed an act of sedition, but at the end of the day it would end the same way for you.”
Teddy looked up in silence at the bodies, studying each one.
“Then there are the ones slain outside the walls,” Perry continued. “In a sense, they’re the lucky ones. They end up eating a bullet and never get turned into a public spectacle.” He forced a weak smile and his tone lifted. “But, if you keep your head down and mind your own business, you can have a nice life here—just like me.”
Teddy said nothing as he carefully searched the dead.
“Do you see your friend?” Perry asked.
“No, I don’t think so,” Teddy said. “It’s hard to tell with their heads covered like that, but I don’t think he’s up there.”
“Good.”
“Both of you move along!” one of the officers ordered.
“Come on,” Perry said as he placed a hand on Teddy’s back and led him away. “Let’s look in the dining hall.”
Teddy walked with Perry towards a long gymnasium-sized building situated on the other side of the courtyard. Government propaganda posters were pasted on the building’s walls. One of the posters showed a smiling man in a FEMA police uniform holding a child in his arms with the caption: Here to help you. The poster was vandalized with a black sharpie and had ‘don’t believe their lies’ scribbled sloppily across it.
Two civilians wearing red armbands peeled away at the poster while an armed officer supervised.
“What’s up with that?” Teddy asked as he stared at the poster.
“That’s just the work of opportunistic thugs pretending to be freedom fighters,” Perry explained disgustedly. “Aside from little art projects, they’re not much of a headache in the camp, but they cause real trouble in the city.”
“They seem to be making some type of impression, whoever they are,” Teddy said.
“Their leaders have silver tongues. Chain-link fences can’t stop charismatic whispering I guess.” Perry shrugged. “The fact is that we’re doing well in here while folks out there suffer just to survive.”
Teddy looked over his shoulder at the gallows in the distance. “If you call this living well, then more power to you.”
Perry didn’t respond.
People funneled into the dining facility’s double-doors while a small group of officers stood watch nearby. A middle-aged man and his wife exited the dining hall and approached Teddy and Perry.
The middle-aged man glared at Perry’s red armband with disgust. “Fucking collaborator!” He leaned forward, retched up a wad of yellow phlegm, and spat it on Perry’s chest.
Perry froze and looked down as it ran down the front of his jacket.
“Charley! Don’t!” the woman said as she grabbed the middle-aged man by his shoulders and pushed him away from Perry. She looked over her shoulder at the officers near the entrance with concern. “Let’s go before he calls his friends.”
“He’ll burn with the rest of them!” the man said ominously as the woman led him away. “Just wait and see…”
The couple quickly disappeared into the crowd while Perry stood motionless with Teddy.
“You’re just going to let him disrespect you like that?” Teddy asked.
Perry took an old handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped the phlegm away as best as he could. “People are frustrated.” He tucked the handkerchief away. “I’m a target because of my armband. If someone did that to a cop, they’d get beaten—or worse. If they do it to one of us, nothing happens if the cops don’t see.”
“I don’t understand the significance of the armband,” Teddy said.
“They are what dorm custodians wear. We don’t have to work on details,” Perry said as he started walking towards the dining hall doors again. “We watch after the dorm… Clean up… Do orientations… Things like that. We help keep the peace as best as we can. The cops have a certain level of trust in us, so naturally people think we’re snitches.”
“Are you?” Teddy asked as he followed him.
“Am I what?”
“A snitch.”
Perry chuckled. “No, I don’t see nothing and I don’t know nothing.” He smiled. “I’m happy enough watching over the dorm, but a lot of the others don’t share my view. Some of the orderlies think that they’re an honorary officer and give the rest of us a bad name.”
“I couldn’t stay in here and play house—I’d get out of here the first chance I got and would never get stuck cleaning toilets.”
“Orderly work isn’t for everybody… I suffered enough outside, so I’m not in a hurry to go back out there.”
Perry pushed open the building’s double-doors and stepped inside. He held the doors open and waited for Teddy.
“Smells like cabbage soup again,” Perry said, sniffing the air. “I was hoping they’d make some morning hash.”
As soon as Teddy stepped inside, a strong, lingering odor of rotting eggs immediately overpowered his olfactory senses. He grimaced and covered his nose with his hand as he looked around.
Throngs of people filled multiple rows of tables that took up the expanse of the windowless room. Fluorescent tubes dangled from the ceiling and an American flag hung proudly on the wall next to the flag of the Department of Homeland Security. Faded propaganda posters displaying happy families were plastered under the flags. A serving station was manned by cooks wearing yellow jumpsuits and hairnets who ladled out food. Children ran in-between the tables, playing, while their parents hastily ate what they could. A few groups sat huddled at their tables far away from the others and engaged in a hushed fervent discussion. A handful of men and women wearing red armbands walked between the tables, eavesdropping as they passed through the crowd.
Community safety reminder, a recording said over the dining hall’s PA system. If you see or hear anything suspicious, report it to the nearest law enforcement officer or dormitory orderly.
Three officers wearing riot gear stood in the far corner of the room with their rifles across their chests as they stared uneasily out at the crowd.
To Teddy, the setup was hauntingly familiar.
Perry walked past Teddy and headed towards the serving line.
“Do we have seating assignments or anything?” Teddy asked. He noticed all races were mixed together—something he hadn’t seen back at USP Tucson.
Perry gave him an incredulous look and smiled. “No… I’m not sure what you were used to back at your last spot, but it’s really not that bad here once you get used to the routine.”
“I’m all too familiar with routines, trust me,” Teddy said.
Perry gave him another quizzical look and kept walking.
Teddy carefully looked at the faces gathered around the tables, but he didn’t see Ein anywhere.
They each grabbed plastic trays and waited in the serving line as the cooks hurriedly handed out sloppy bowls half-full of overcooked cabbage soup. A heavyset man with hairy arms grunted and practically hurled a bowl of soup onto their trays and the man at the end placed a plastic cup of off-color water next to their bowls.
An officer stood behind the serving line and watched the entire operation carefully.
Perry walked
towards the first open pair of seats he spotted while Teddy followed.
Teddy glanced down at the brown water and frowned.
“This looks worse than what was in the bathroom,” he grumbled.
Perry chuckled and sat down. “It’s discolored because they treat it with iodine. Safe to drink, don’t worry.” He picked up his bowl and sipped his bland soup.
Teddy glanced anxiously around the room.
“Do you see your friend?” Perry asked.
“No, I don’t…”
“Maybe you’ll have better luck at dinner. We’re at the end of breakfast so he probably already came and went.”
“It’s hard to see much of anything with so many people in here.”
Dining hall closes in five minutes, the woman on the PA announced. Please finish your meal and bus your tray to the nearest station. Work call will begin soon.
People started getting up with their trays and walked towards the exit. Parents grabbed their kids by their arms and pulled them towards the door despite their protesting screams to stay behind and play with their friends.
“You don’t have much time, so hurry up if you’re going to eat,” Perry stressed.
Teddy took a sip of the water and grimaced. He sat in front of Perry and pushed the cup of water aside.
“You get used to the taste after a while,” Perry said. He took a greedy drink. “The city’s water treatment plant is back up and running… Hopefully they’ll extend a pipeline to us out here in the country.”
“That may be so, but in the meantime I think I’ll pass on the water…”
Perry grinned and quickly finished his. “A day of work will change that attitude real fast.”
Teddy sipped his soup and gagged from the rancid taste—he quickly spit it back up into his bowl. He sat the bowl down, leaned back, and let out a frustrated sigh. “Well, fuck it—I guess I’m not eating!”
“Once again, a good day of work will change that,” Perry said. He slurped down the rest of his soup and slammed the bowl down with a belch. “The food is hit or miss. Sometimes it isn’t half-bad, believe it or not, but as of late it has been getting pretty bland.”
H7N9: The Complete Series [Books 1-3] Page 38
