by Pete Aldin
"You'll show us on a map?" said Kyle.
"Yes."
"You won't lie and try to stall for time."
"No."
"You'll give us accurate numbers?"
"... Okay."
Da Silva dumped Jimmy in the chair that Kyle had occupied earlier. Slapped the back of his head.
Jimmy slumped forward with his arms over his head again.
Then Da Silva and Miller half-carried and half-dragged Woodsy from the room.
Kyle went into the hall, held the door for Erikson, leaned in again. "Don't be mad at Woodsy, Elliot. He's not our kind of man. Someone will be back for you later. There's water in the tap. Drink it. Lots of it." He started pulling the door shut. "You'll need it."
14
Erikson was right outside, or maybe the regular chuffs of fabric on the other side of the wall were coming from the brutish Miller. The SERPs weren't taking chances with an unlocked door.
The tiny dark eye of the camera warned him off action. Even if he could use a chair or drawer or some part of them, the hostiles would be ready. He slumped against a wall and tried to think. Nothing came to him. Unless one of these assholes made a mistake, there were no plays to make.
It took some time for Jimmy to move. In a single moment, he went from catatonic to manic, jumping to his feet, pacing a while, before drinking from the tap as Kyle had suggested. Wiping his mouth, he said, "You wanted them to kill me."
Maybe if he got his bootlaces off under the table where the camera couldn't see, tied them together. Miller had a collar on his armor, but Elliot might get a garrote over the top. He realized belatedly that Jimmy had said something. "What?"
"You wanted them to kill me."
"No way, Cochise."
"You did."
"I didn't want the rest of our people getting in the same trouble as us."
Jimmy huffed and dropped back onto his chair. For a half minute, he whispered to himself and then he asked, "What's happening to Woodsy?"
How the hell did Elliot know? "They might kill him. After he gives them the info." Jimmy put his hands in his oily hair, his elbows on the table. Elliot continued, "Or they might take him with them when he shows them where we live. They can use him as bait to get our people to drop their guard."
Or maybe—just maybe—Woodsy would lie and buy them all some time.
For all the good that would do in the end. How in Christ was he going to get out of this room, this building?
They'd taken his dive watch; he felt an hour creep past as Jimmy muttered and smoothed his hair and worried at the splint on his fingers, and Elliot fought the urge to turn over tables and chairs.
What was Angie thinking now, doing now? They'd been inside the walls for over twelve hours. Would she have left? Would she wait?
"What will they do to us?"
It took a moment to recognize the question wasn't rhetorical. Elliot said, "You and I are fit and strong. They'll make us work for them."
If we're lucky.
It was the most likely reason Kyle had left Elliot his fingers and toes, elbows and knees.
Another hour slid by. And then footsteps, voices. The door swung out and two stubby SIG MCX barrels poked in at them.
"Stay where you are," Miller rumbled unnecessarily. He and Erikson flanked the door and Da Silva entered, tossing two sets of handcuffs onto a kitchen counter.
"Sorry to keep you. Put these on."
"Where's Kyle?" Elliot asked, unmoving.
"On his way to your place." His brows rose in triumph. "Put the cuffs on."
Jimmy slid from his chair and complied. But Elliot said, "Why?"
"Why? So you don't try anything and get yourself killed. We need you."
Yeah. Need you to not leak your brains on our floor when we shoot you.
"Told you," Elliot said to Jimmy and joined him at the counter.
The trio of cops marched them up the stairwell to ground level and out the main entrance. All the interior security stations had been wide open, unattended and the front doors whirred shut and locked electronically behind them. In the fresh air, another two cops waited in the parking lot beside a white panel van with police lights and markings.
"Never seen a divvy van?" Miller explained, "You ride in the back."
The night sky was clear, the air cold. Jimmy had started shivering the moment they stepped outside. Elliot was shivering by the time they reached the "divvy" van. They'd both already stripped down to t-shirts when captured. No one had offered them anything warmer from their packs.
Those packs were long gone, along with their weapons.
Both squeezed inside the back of the vehicle which was as white inside as out, with two hard plastic benches along the sides. No handholds. No windows besides one fore and one aft, shuttered from the outside. The interior light was on, allowing Elliot a clear view of Jimmy's terrified face as the door locked behind them.
"It's okay, kid. Follow my lead. We'll get through this."
Jimmy showed no sign of understanding this.
They traveled reasonably slow for fifteen minutes. Elliot had expected a rough ride, but it was smooth: he doubted the car had exceeded fifteen miles an hour at any time. When they stopped, another vehicle's door slammed outside before the divvy van's occupants got out to join whoever else was out there. Several minutes' conversation followed. Elliot smelled cigarettes. Another car's brakes squealed nearby. More doors slammed. More voices joined the group.
There came a clatter at their door and it swung out. Streetlights glowed around an asphalt lot. A white building showed past the line of six cops armed with cattle prods, tasers or MCXs. Elliot exited first, and turned a full circle, taking in the sights before a powered-down cattle prod jabbed him in the back.
"That way," said Erikson.
They were in the parking lot of the small regional hospital Elliot had seen on the map. This was Pankhurst, then. Across and down the street were homes, what looked like a library, a small school, six stores, a park. Every third streetlight worked. There were cars in the lot: sedans, SUVs, utes, station wagons. And an armored truck, a variation on the old BearCat. Another BearCat was out in the street. The trucks looked extra bulky around the wheels—tire protection? Sure: the SERPS had frankensteined both vehicles: plates welded over tires with a few inches clearance above the asphalt, more plates attached to the fronts to form cow-catchers. Had Kyle taken one of these behemoths to Settlers Downs? Had he taken two? How many could tiny Tasmania have had?
"Keep up!" Miller barked and Jimmy staggered, catching up to Elliot's shoulder. The six cops fanned out, sheep-dogging them toward the end of the hospital building.
"Not going inside?" Elliot asked. "No checkups? Shots?"
A cop said, "I wouldn't say 'shot' if I was you." Others cackled.
Elliot faked a laugh of his own. "Good one. But seriously, if you want Jimmy to work well, you'll need to set that finger. Da Silva said you had a surgeon and nurses."
"Shut up, dickhead."
"Kid's got one good hand," drawled Miller. "All he needs."
Some more cackling.
They'd reached the end of the building. Herded, Elliot turned the corner, expecting some kind of corral where they kept their workers—and heard the sound coming from the far side of the building, around that next corner. Crowd burble. Not a large crowd—thirty or forty. And though the paths were unlit down this edge of the property, light bloomed from around that corner.
Erikson pointed. Elliot tried to control his breathing and continued on. But the low thrum of anxiety that had buzzed in his chest since they'd been caught now flared into something wilder.
They came around the corner into an outdoor lunch and recreation area. Well-lit by portable floods. Small squares of overgrown lawn. Picnic tables and bench seats, all pushed back now, because someone had dragged in bleachers. Two sets of them, six rows high and wide enough for ten people per row. They were about one third full. Most of the people up there wore police utility
belts. A few were civvies, warmly dressed but without visible weapons. One of those was Glenda; no sign of a daughter. She didn't look at him. On the left front row shivered six skinny workers—
Peasants, he heard in Kyle's voice.
He and Jimmy received a drunken cheer from a few of the cops seated—Elliot now noted bottles passing around. Erikson and Miller poked them in the back to get them moving again. Jimmy started muttering nonsense, fretful, picking up on the mood if not the intention.
And what was that intention?
Either we're watching the entertainment, or we're it. The presence of a stage attested to that.
He thought of it as a stage because there was an audience. But really, from this angle, from the side of it, it was a box. Constructed from the same mishmash of wood and steel panels as some of the Jericho walls had been. Presumably the box would be open at the front, open to the spectators.
Elliot caught a whiff of rotting meat, of old blood. His heart rate was already elevated; the stink set it to racing.
Da Silva awaited them where the path rounded the front of the box. His thumbs tucked into his belt. Chest puffed out. Grinning. Elliot imagined smashing those teeth with a rifle-butt.
Da Silva jerked his head toward the box, the stage.
Elliot moved no closer to it. "Jimmy is a good worker," he said. "Obedient. Fit."
The big SERP dropped his shoulders, stepped over to speak quietly. "Mate, he probably is. And we could do with the both of you. But the truth is, the Boss doesn't trust you. And neither do I. He's a whacko, and you, you have an unpleasant look in your eye. Constantly. Plus, from what Woodsy told us, we'll soon have another thirty-odd adults to replace you. So ..." He stepped back and gestured to the box. "This."
"He's a kid," Elliot tried.
"Ya never know," Da Silva replied. "Give it a chance. This might turn out okay for him."
"Winners is grinners," Miller said.
Da Silva added: "And winners get dinners." It was obviously something they'd said before. Obviously something they'd done before. Which made what was happening systemic, routine. Evil.
Da Silva said, "Elliot and Jimmy, you trespassed on our land, broke into our facility. We don't have courts or prisons anymore. This is kind of it. So..." He took another step back, gestured again. "If you please."
Elliot took Jimmy's elbow and led him reluctantly around the front of the box. "I gotcha, Cochise," he told him. The kid's eyes were glued to the crowd of laughing, jeering cops. He made a little whimpering sound. But Elliot was only interested in the stage. Three solid walls ten feet high and smooth on the inside. The floor...
Shit shit shit.
The floor was a grate, thirty feet by thirty. The kind that might cover a sewer pit or drain. Which might have explained the smell—except for the rust-colored stains that weren't rust, and a couple of clumps of hair and skin. A patch where Elliot first trod was a little sticky. The space beneath the grating caught some of the floodlight beams, illuminating it to the floor about six feet down. It shimmered, slick with puddles from recent rains—or perhaps a hosing down—though the grate was dry. Its bars were three inches wide, just wide enough to get a foothold on, but they were going to make movement precarious. On the back wall of the box, two weapons lay across a shelf made of thick nails driven into one of the wooden panels. A yellow plastic t-ball bat—a kid's toy—and a foam-dart gun, a toy.
Holy Christ, these people are insane.
Prodded by real gun barrels, Elliot pulled Jimmy fully onto the grate, helped him pick his way to the middle and then stopped him. The bars were just wide enough to balance on if they were careful, the gaps between them wider, eight inches by eight.
"What's going on, Elliot?" Jimmy whispered.
Out on the path, Da Silva was raising his hands for the crowd to cool off.
"We're about to find out," Elliot replied, and only hoped it'd be deaders they'd be fighting and not each other. There was no way he was killing this boy. He'd choose suicide-by-cop before he chose that. "Stick near me and do as I say."
"I ... I dunno what to do."
"We've got this. You've got the juice to do this, kid. Just damn-well stick close."
As the crowd began to still, a lone voice, a female voice, coarse, hoarse, called out, "I'll have the taller one! What's left of him!" Half the crowd laughed. Not the civilians. Nor the poor workers on the front row.
"All right folks," Da Silva boomed. Obviously Kyle had provided thorough mentoring in the art of theatricals. "All right. My turn to talk. Ladies. Gentlemen. The rest of you. Welcome to Night Court."
Some cheers.
"Tonight's proceedings will be a little different. As you can see." He favored Elliot with a brief grin and wink before continuing. "Our regular surviving prosecutor is taking a night off with the Boss's permission. Lucky bugger. So we have two sets of defendants tonight. For the benefit of the two behind me, either of whom might survive this, I will elucidate."
Some Ooo's at the fancy word.
"Defendants One and Two there were caught breaking into Jericho and—even worse—breaking into the medicinal reserve."
A chorus of naughty naughty and shame from the crowd.
"We've interviewed them and find them to be complete and utter arseholes. And thus, their fate will be decided by the Night Court."
He shifted attention to the hapless people on the front row, who cowered under his gaze. Elliot noticed now a cop was seated either side of these six, each with an electrified cattle prod, powered on ... and that there were more trash-weapons on the concrete path in front of them: a garbage can lid; a child-sized plastic garden chair; half a broom, its handle snapped; a vacuum cleaner pipe and head. His stomach churned, bile in his spit.
Da Silva called, "Defendants Three, Four, Five and Six! Please stand!"
Four of the workers got to unsteady feet, one of them kicked off his chair by the audience member behind him. Two men, two women. The women clutched each other's hands, pressed together at the shoulder. A man and woman remained on the bench, wringing their hands.
"You four are accused of stealing food from the warehouses and of planning an escape. Ironic. One set of defendants wanting in. One wanting out." A ripple of obliging laughter among the crowd. "Well, we can't have either. Hence tonight's proceedings.
"You two—" He pointed at the pair on the bench. "—are our court reporters and will report what you see back to the other workers. Then everyone will stay up to date on what happens when you break the law.
"And you four—" he indicated the others "—need to get your arses onto the arena. Now."
Trembling, the four citizens selected weapons from the path. Elliot moved a couple of grid squares toward the back wall, then paused when Jimmy didn't follow him.
"Kid," he barked. "On me."
Jimmy took one backward step without taking his eyes off the people joining them on the grid—for a heart-lurching moment, Elliot thought the kid would slip and make himself an easy target. But his footing was as sure as a mountain goat's. Elliot glanced toward the toy gun and bat, more interested in the nails they lay on. Jimmy could have the bat. The other defendants were picking their footing onto the edge of the grid, taking their time. If he could worry at a nail, get it out ...
Unnecessarily now—for the idea was clear—Da Silva called, "Last one standing becomes our new 'prosecutor'. They get a good meal, a shower and a comfy bed. So let's see some spirit, defendants."
"Last one ...?" Jimmy looked to Elliot.
"Nothing to fear from me, Cochise," Elliot told him. Forgetting about the mock-weapons behind him and the nails holding them, he chose a more useful option. He unbuckled his belt and pulled it out through the loops. He let his empty SIG holster and bayonet-sheath drop, heard them splash in a shallow puddle six feet below his boots, the sound a bleak reminder of what he'd lost. Winding a part of the belt around his fingers, he left the buckle to dangle loose with a good twelve inches of leather free to swing. He told Jimmy,
"We're in this together. Let's find a way to the path. We can hurt a couple of these cops before they take us down."
Jimmy swallowed and faced front.
To even get close to those bleachers of cops, they had to get through four innocent citizens who were carefully finding their footing on the steel gridwork. Innocent or not, like Elliot, they would be more inclined to hurt strangers before hurting friends. They had no reason to pity him. Or the kid.
Da Silva moved to the seat between the remaining workers on the front row, called out again. "Any of you leave without my say-so—any of you—and it's this." He held up a pistol.
Sonofabitch. So much for that idea.
"Jury!" called a spectator and another mimicked her.
"What's that?" Da Silva put hand to ear in pantomime.
"Jury!" called some others.
"Oh, yes, how could I forget?" He called louder and into the pit, "Release the jury!"
Locks clanked in the hollow space beneath Elliot's feet; steel doors scraped open. A strong waft of rot carried his way. Lit by the spotlights above, ten or more undead people staggered into the pit.
And they looked a helluva lot fresher than the ones that killed his dog.
15
"Go get the bat, Jimmy! You remember what I told you at the Blueberry Barn about working with a stick?"
Jimmy wasn't listening, fixated on the movement below him, he dodged aside and landed safely two bars over while a blackened hand stretched up through the floor where he'd just been.
The two male workers took a few careful steps forward. The one to Elliot's right held the trash can lid, the other the vacuum pipe. The women just stood together on the first row of squares, cowering, clutching at each other with the hands not holding weapons. On a better day, Elliot might reason with them, talk them into rushing the cops with him and getting at least one of them. But this was not a better day. This was a FUBAR day. One of the worst in an endless stream of them.
"Jimmy! Listen to me! You remember what I taught you about fighting with a stick?"
Jimmy's head snapped up and around, then back toward the two men. The floor sprouted dirty hands and forearms now, the deaders reaching, clawing, clutching before withdrawing to try again elsewhere as they tracked the moveable feast above them. The man with the pipe was forced to jump aside, mimicking Jimmy. His landing was not as graceful and he had to bob down to regain balance.
