by David Coy
“You sit down!”
“I am sitting down, asshole.”
Habershaw clamped his eyes closed hard and shook his head. This was ridiculous. “You’re impossible.”
“I want answers,” she said coolly. “I want to know what we’re going to do.”
“Joan, I don’t have the answers.”
“But you don’t even want to find them,” she said. “You don’t give a shit.”
She got up from the table and started to clear it. He just stared at her, waiting for her reaction.
This was typical of him, she thought. Bill Habershaw, the center of the universe—responsible for all things good and bad. And since he was responsible, the universe and all things in it must blame him when things don’t go right. All she wanted from him was some enthusiasm, some open anger about the situation—to beat on the table with her and get damned mad. She wanted him to be on her side.
“Look,” she said kindly, “it’s not your fault we’re in this mess. Just forget it, okay? I’m frustrated is all. I want to know what to do. I shouldn’t blame you for not having the answers. Let’s go to bed. Maybe tomorrow we can discuss it again; and between the two of us, we can think of something.”
“Yeah, sure,” he said spitefully.
“Yeah, sure,” she mocked.
* * *
That night they lay in bed, eyes closed, but wide awake. They lay and listened to the bugs banging into the sides of the shelter and buzzing against the screens. An especially big one hit like a rock, then they heard it buzzing in a stunned circle in the soft dirt, its wings sounding like a broken machine.
“That was a big one,” Joan said, using the opportunity to break the ice. She tried to put just a note of amusement into her voice but didn’t know if it worked.
“Yeah,” Bill kinda laughed back. “Sounded like a big black and orange one.”
“Yeah, but what kind of big black and orange one?” she asked with a crooked grin.
They chuckled a little.
They lapsed back into silence for a moment, and Joan heard him take a deep breath. That was a good sign.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“Me, too,” she said.
“This is so fucked up . . . so fucked up.”
She felt his foot reach over and nudge hers. She patted his in return with a sideways tap or two.
“I’m scared,” she said in a low tone. Her voice was almost a whisper.
“This is very serious,” he said. “The Council is in full control now. Smith’s not even on the Council. You’re right about our contracts. They don’t mean shit.”
“What are we supposed to do, Bill? My guys are all screwed up about it, too. They don’t even want to come to work. Even Mike. You know how even-tempered he is. He’s all messed up over this.”
With a rustle of sheets, she turned on her side to face him. Bill lay there with his hands folded, like a corpse, on his chest.
“You know what it’s like now?” she asked. “It’s like there’s two classes of people—the haves and the have-nots. Know what I mean? The Bondsmen have all the food and stuff, and the nice place to live, and we have shit—just this plastic shelter and just enough food to keep us alive. We’re slaves.”
“So what’s so different than it’s always been?” he grinned, with gallows humor. “We’ve always been slaves.”
“Well, the difference is that now it’s so goddamned clear cut, you know? Before it wasn’t so noticeable somehow. Of course, contractors never had jack shit, but everybody thought everybody else had jack shit, too, so it wasn’t so important, right? Now we find out that there’s this group of people with everything, and they’ve gotten that everything by our labor, not theirs—and our lords and masters are right here in plain view. Just right over there.” She pointed into the dark with an outstretched arm.
He drew a breath.
“That’s an old problem. Very old.”
“Yeah, but its one thing to read about it in history books and another to be living it, right? I mean, think about it. It’s like the Incas with Machu Picchu—just like that. The priests and shit get this incredible retreat where they can pray and screw and stuff. The whole place is built by slaves, but the slaves can’t even take a shit in it. All they can do is haul these rocks up a goddamned mountain for these bastards—on foot. If they don’t haul rocks, they get their wiry asses thrown off the mountain. This is just like that. Just the same.”
Deep breath. “It’s not that bad,” he said.
“It’s pretty bad.”
“Yeah, it’s bad.”
“So I say we storm the goddamned place and take it over,” she said. “What have we got to lose?”
“What are you talking about?” he said, his head turning slowly toward her.
“Revolution, Bill, revolution. We get some weapons and storm the place en masse. It could be over in minutes. It’s been done before. Vive les Contractors! Yeeha!”
“You’re full of shit,” he grinned.
“I know. But it’s fun to think about it.”
She turned on her back and mirroring Habershaw, folded her hands on her chest. They lay quietly for a long time, still awake, listening to the planet’s nightly cacophony. Images of fighting, killing and starvation played out in their heads to the rhythms of the jungle clicks, whistles and clattering wings.
“The little scene you described probably took place a thousand times recently,” he said.
“Yeah, I guess it did,” she said solemnly.
“No winners. All dead.”
“Yeah . . .”
* * *
The next morning seemed hotter than usual. The sun smothered the landscape with its thick red arms. As she walked to the truck, Joan shunned its embrace with a scowl.
She wondered what she’d tell the guys today and decided that she had no idea. It all depended on the looks she got when she opened up the office. She was their leader and part of her job was to instill confidence. Some days she couldn’t do it. Today was one of those. Her dark thoughts and the heat conspired against her and broke her pleasant facade, cracked it open, and left the angst beneath it plainly visible. Maybe she could get it back in place before they detected how very wrong things were.
Mike and Peter were screwing around outside, just like always. She could see them poking and jostling at each other, showing their true ages. Mike’s limp made him look especially vulnerable in the match, but he held his own. Some of the newer kids were there, too, watching the mock fray from container tops like bored imps.
She saw her chance and took it. Maybe she could defuse any thoughts of contracts and useless, profitless effort by throwing them off guard. Perhaps she wouldn’t have to deal with it for a while, not this morning, anyway.
“Hey!” she yelled. “What did I tell you about that kind of shit on the dock! Go out in the field and screw around if you feel like screwing around!”
“Sorry,” they both said almost in unison.
“That’s good. Be sorry,” she said opening up the office.
She called the whole crew in and jumped right into the day’s jobs without ceremony. If she acted pissed and rushed enough, she figured, they wouldn’t be able to ask her any questions about anything. She wouldn’t have to stumble over answers she didn’t have. When she was finished, she shooed them out like puppies. “Get to work,” she said. “Go on. Get to work.”
It had been months now since they first heard of the Collapse on Earth. It had taken awhile to get their minds back on level ground after the depths of fear, grief and horror they’d occupied over the news of it. Peter had been the hardest hit; he’d been extra close to his family.
They said there were survivors, but not many. Peter was sure his family members had perished. He couldn’t be truly sure like one could be sure of a thing one could see, but he had made up his mind, and it was his reality. It caused him a gnawing grief. She felt he was trying to face both his intense personal losses and the unimaginable, massive losses; working
it out, perhaps just a little at a time.
Mike had no family that Joan knew of, except a brother he rarely mentioned. His father had died some time ago. Joan considered herself the closest thing to family that Mike had. She wasn’t supposed to have a favorite, but Mike was hers. He was a good worker, regular, and just a good kid. She would adopt him if she could, but that wasn’t necessary really. They were close enough, and she could keep a motherly eye on him without actually holding the official title.
She was pouring her second cup of coffee when Mike hobbled full speed through the door. The look on his face told her immediately something was very wrong.
“Joan! You gotta help Peter!”
“What?” she asked, yelling.
“Come on! He’s got something on him.”
She groaned inwardly. It was always something on this planet—something hideous to bite, stab or cling to you or infect you. She raced out with her guts in a knot. There was no telling what it was.
“Where is he?” she yelled at Mike’s back.
“Over under the dock!”
The crew was huddled over a section of dock a few meters from the edge, bending down or on their hands and knees to look through the grate. One of the newer kids, Bobby Fellows, had a long piece of aluminum conduit and was jabbing down through the grate at something beneath it. From beneath the dock came a high-pitched, modulating whistle that grated on her nerves. A few of the workers had their hands over their ears to shut out the piercing sound.
“Die!” Bobby yelled. “Get off him!”
“What is it?” Joan demanded, getting down on her hands and knees to look.
“He dropped the key to the lift and went under to get it,” one of the workers explained. “That’s when it got him.”
“Die!” Bobby said, “Unnhh! Unnhh!”
“Stop, Bobby!” she ordered.
She brought her face down to the grate and looked. Peter had both arms wrapped around one of the uprights and was holding on for dear life. His right leg was wrapped with dark tentacles. She traced the tentacles back to the globular body a meter behind him. The creature had its other tentacles wrapped around another upright and was trying to pull Peter loose. Each time the creature contracted and pulled, Peter’s leg rose up from the tension.
“What is that?”
“We don’t know,” Mike said, “but it won’t let go.”
“We’ll see about that.”
“Peter!” she yelled. “Peter can you hear me?”
“He won’t answer. He’s drugged or something,” someone said.
“Shit! Give me that pipe,” she said to Bobby.
She lifted the rod up and slipped it through a space directly over the creature’s body and guided it down until it rested right on it. She jabbed down at it and tested the consistency.
“Tough as leather. Here. Everybody put your weight on this,” she said taking a high grip. “Now, on three. Ready? One, two, three!”
In unison they rammed the rod down. She could feel it pierce the creature’s skin, slide through and into the ground underneath it. There was a single shriek-like whistle.
“Hold this,” she said to Bobby. Bobby held on and gave it another sharp jab or two.
She got down and looked. The creature had let go of Peter’s leg and was flailing aimlessly around the pipe jammed through its middle.
“There. Pull on that for a while!” she shouted, fury in her voice.
She ran to the edge of the dock, jumped down and started under it on her hands and knees. Peter was still clamped to the support with both arms. His eyes were closed as if he were asleep.
“Peter,” she said pulling at his arms. “Peter, it’s me. Let go. Let's get you out of here. Peter?”
He just groaned and held tighter.
“Goddammit . . .” she muttered, frustrated and afraid.
He wasn’t about to let go. Some survival mechanism had taken over his entire system and glued him in place.
“Peter!” she yelled at the top of her lungs. “Peter! It’s Joan! Let go! It’s all right! It’s dead!”
She pulled at his arms, and then watched one eye slowly open and felt his grip on the upright lessen a bit. A moment later, she was able to unwind his arms and get him moving. Mike and another kid scrabbled under to help her, and they soon had him sliding toward the edge of the dock and open air.
“Uh, Joan?” a kid named Larry said from above. “I think you’d better hurry up.”
Joan looked up through the grate and saw his eyes fixed on the jungle’s edge. She turned and looked over her shoulder. It looked like a dark mass, like flowing mud from a distance. She squinted to sharpen her focus and could make out the individual shapes of the brethren of the thing under the dock moving on them from the jungle.
“Screw this!” she cursed. “Move! Get him out of here!” She felt for the phone in her shirt and found the spot that should have held it flat and empty.
“Shit! Tommy, go call security! Run! Go!”
They pushed and wrestled Peter up onto the dock. Joan picked him up and fast-stepped toward the office. When she turned around to look, she saw the creatures flowing up over the edge of the dock like a dark wave.
“Hundreds . . . hundreds . . .” her voice cracked in astonishment.
They made it to the office, clamored inside, closed the door and locked it. Tommy was there with a phone in his hand. “They’re on the way,” he said.
No sooner had he put the phone down when Joan heard the first shots being fired. The sound confused her.
She put Peter down on the floor and went to the window to look. She was expecting a few of the security guards with their little pistols. What she saw was some kind of special weapons squad, in dun-colored uniforms, charging in from the direction of the cloister firing at the intruders with automatic rifles. In a matter of seconds, the gunfire sounded like a steady buzz. They were amazingly efficient. The bullets hit the dark shapes by the hundreds, sending red and wet material in all directions until the air was filled with spray.
In a matter of minutes, the squad had decimated the swarm of whatever’s, leaving chunks of dead things strewn over the dock like so much meat. When it was over, the soldiers walked around the mess, spraying bursts into a creature, here or there, that still moved.
Joan went outside to get a closer look and approached one of the men.
“Thanks,” she said. “Those things are vicious.”
The soldier turned on her without a smile. “Go back inside,” he said, his voice even and without emotion.
Joan was taken aback. She was only thanking him for saving her life. “I was just . . .”
“I said get inside,” he repeated with malice. His voice sent a chill down her spine.
Joan turned and started back to the office, then stopped and took another look. A crowd of contractors had begun to form a rough perimeter around the battle, and the soldiers had moved on them now, pushing and shoving them with their rifles. They were rough about it; too rough in Joan’s opinion. She watched as one of the men, an electrician she knew only as Dirk, shoved a soldier back with both hands.
Without warning, the solider dipped his rifle’s muzzle at him and shot him in the chest. The brief burst sent a bright spray of red behind him. His body crumpled like a sack onto the dock’s grate.
“Hey!” Joan yelled. “Hey!”
“Get inside, lady!” the one in front of her said.
“But he shot that man!”
The soldier turned his rifle on her causing her to take a deep breath. She walked backwards a few feet, then turned stiffly and walked through the office door.
“Those guys mean business,” Mike said.
“Did you see that?” Tommy asked, innocent disbelief in his voice.
“Christ,” Joan said. “They’re killers.”
What she’d just seen put to rest any latent notion she had about storming the cloister. These were the Council’s private guard—mercenaries hired to protect it from t
hreats natural or otherwise. She hadn’t even known they were there. Nobody had.
* * *
That evening she related the story to Bill, who’d already heard most of it from Lavachek, who’d heard it from someone else by phone moments after it happened.
“I should have guessed they had something like that,” he said. “There’s never been a shortage of soldiers ready to work for whoever pays. Especially now.”
4
His soul swam wounded to and fro in the currents of pain for eons. A veil torn, shredded, black as night wrapped him tight and blurred the demons that swam with him, wings ragged. Cruel, they caressed him with anguish and pulled him to pieces over and over. Clever as well, they left a tiny bit of his mind intact, carefully in place as a hated remembrance, like the clock from his grandmother’s house which rocked and ticked, rocked and ticked without end. A million times he willed death to come, and to help it, he yanked free of their demon’s grip like a terrified child, then dived and forced himself deep to drown. But the demons pulled him up and revived him with suffering yet again. He pleaded in babble, with words without meaning, but they understood his senseless cries and rocked their heads to the rhythm of his lament, their smiles rotten with hate.
Then, without warning, the demons vanished. They vanished as if washed away by a flood of clean water, and the pain with them. For another eon the dim thought that sweet death had finally overtaken him glowed in the twilight of his relief. As time passed, life and the feelings of life slowly filled the void. Finally, he felt breath come into him like a strong, warm wind.
* * *
“How’s he doing today?” John asked, looking down at the stranger, as if he weren't there.
“I’d say he’s much better actually,” Donna said. “His pulse is normal, his breathing is regular, and I’ve got his electrolytes well within the normal range. If I could weigh him, I’d say he’s maybe put on a little weight. I keep getting the idea he’s trying to move from time to time. I’m thinking about starting some physical therapy, you know, exercising his joints, but I’m not looking forward to that.”
