Falling Prey

by M. C. Norris

  “Scientist,” she said, blurting the word with a heavy breath, as though she’d just survived some narrow escape.

  “Scientist?” Dr. Bendu tilted his head, hitching a thoughtful eyebrow. “What sort of scientist?”

  “He’s—an engineer, I believe. Very scientifically minded. Brilliant.”

  “I’ll assess his level of intelligence myself. He’ll be working right here in the lab, under my authority. I’ve been without a competent assistant for many months now. Which man is he? Right or left?”

  “Left. Over there on the left. All the way on the end.”

  “Excellent,” Dr. Bendu replied. He gave a thumbs-up, and within a few moments Nate was cut free. He rubbed his wrists by the flickering light of the torches until he was ushered away into the night.

  Sandy knew what was coming next, and she dreaded it. Only Donovan and Margot remained. What practical use this society would have for a hawkish broker and a fashion model was difficult enough to imagine, but to further complicate Sandy’s dilemma was their selfish and untrustworthy character traits. She suspected that they were exactly the sorts of people that Dr. Bendu was screening against, and she had to come up with something quickly. The witch doctor was staring at the side of her face, and he was no longer smiling. His mood seemed to be dropping the temperature by degrees, the longer she faltered. He could sense her hesitation to endorse them. He could see that she was struggling.

  “Sandy, what I’d like for you to do instead of testifying for these people, is to testify against one of them. Survival of the deserving majority is at stake. If either of those two cannot be trusted, if they’ve displayed selfish or violent tendencies that might one day jeopardize the survival of a person of higher quality, then please, point out that individual now.”

  Her gaze swept from Margot to Donovan, and back again. It was hard to discriminate between the two, really. Dr. Bendu had aptly described both of them. They were both guilty of disloyalty. Both had behaved selfishly, in ways that did in fact jeopardize the lives of more valuable group members. However, she supposed that if she had to choose one as being more disloyal, more dangerous to a group than the other, then her choice would have to be Donovan. Margot, at least, had behaved impulsively. Her only real crime was that of failing to suppress the powerful instinct of self-preservation when her own life was endangered. Donovan’s behavior, on the other hand, seemed very much premeditated. He and Dale had been plotting the night before. They’d made their intolerance of pampering the injured quite clear. Donovan had actually taken the time to sit back in the wings, and decide to commit the ultimate form of treachery against the same group to which he’d pledged his loyalty.

  “You are protecting the lives of your friends, and the lives of everyone else in Briggstown, Sandy, by helping me cut the chaff from the wheat. Which of those two must go?”

  “Him,” Sandy whispered, lilting her chin in the direction of the man in the tattered suit with the stained sack over his head. He looked so pitiful. This was probably the lowest point in his entire life, and she’d just made it worse for him, somehow. Despite what he’d done, or might’ve done, she felt so sorry for him. She couldn’t bring herself to say his name aloud.

  “Why him?”

  “He stole from our group, drank all our rations. He burned up all of our firewood.”

  “And?”

  Dr. Bendu moved closer, until she could feel his breath on her neck. God, he was like a living polygraph machine. He seemed to be able to sense whenever she was hiding information, and he had a keen ability to extract it.

  “And—he may have killed two people.”

  “Killed people?”

  Sandy nodded. “Today. Two people who were badly injured, people whose lives we entrusted into his care.”

  “You entrusted people’s lives to this man, and you suspect that he broke your trust by murdering them in cold blood?”

  Sandy closed her eyes, and nodded. “Yes,” she whispered.

  “Sandy …” he said, crooning into her ear. He raked his clawed nails gently through her hair. “Sometimes the right thing can be so hard to do, but you’ve done the right thing for everyone tonight. Don’t you see?”

  Sandy sniffed, and nodded. What he was saying did make sense. She didn’t enjoy the job of thinning her own flock, but who else would possess the insight to point out dangerous individuals but one of their own group members? It made sense.

  Dr. Bendu turned to the window. His fist shot out like the arm of Lady Justice. The thumb flicked sideways, and it dropped into a downward position.

  Sandy couldn’t bring herself to look away, as one of the remaining two guardsman stepped forth from the shadows. She watched him slide quietly behind the pilings. Donovan tilted his bagged head as the guard drew near.

  “Are you going to send him back out to the jungle, all alone?”

  “Sandy. Weren’t you listening to a word that I said? I told you that we waste no resources in Eden. Not a single, solitary scrap.”

  The curved blade floated behind Donovan, and then swept around the pole to settle beneath his chin. Donovan’s scream was accompanied by the trill of whistles. Unseen warriors all around had been waiting for this moment. They rejoiced it. Their piping chorus charged the air with demonic energy.

  His legs played in red gouts that spewed down his stomach. The eager blade tilled back and forth through the yawning slot. When it struck his vocal cords, the timbre of his shrieks changed to sheep-like bleats, then squeaks, until the communicative organs were severed. Still, his feet kicked, while the only sound was that of steel slopping back and forth through wet folds of meat. The knife grated against vertebrae. His head lolled with grotesque flexibility, as a new stain spread over the crotch of his slacks. With a terminating crunch, his legs leapt and fell in a single spasm, as his bagged head tumbled down into his lap, and trundled a short distance across the pavers.

  Quick as a cat, Dr. Bendu had seized her from behind, pulling a blade of his own up against Sandy’s throat. Something had changed. It was as though his patient and charming ruse had been nothing but a sheepskin, and the wolf was now upon her. She could feel the burn of the razor edge nipping through the outermost layers of her skin.

  “Please, don’t!” In that moment, Sandy knew that she would say or do anything to be spared Donovan’s fate, anything but what she’d just witnessed. The irony did not escape her that the very sin for which she’d judged Margot was one she was now willing to commit.

  “Rolling heads and pooling blood,” Dr. Bendu said, purring into her ear with warm chuffs of his ineffable breath. She could feel his whiskers scratching her cheek, his stiffening pelvis pressing into her behind. The blade of the knife was pulled so sharply beneath her jaw that it was lifting her up onto her toes. “Welcome to Briggstown, Sandy. I think you’ll like it here a lot. Only one last question, Sandy. You or her? That’s it, and then we’re finished. One of you lives to see the morning sunrise, while the other will be butchered and brined in our kitchen larder. You or her?”

  “Her!” Sandy shrieked. The blade kept pulling, pulling, tilting her chin to the ceiling. She felt warm trails of blood rolling down her throat, while Dr. Bendu’s smearing fingers rubbed it all over her chest.

  “What do you mean, Sandy?” he replied, pinning her body against the windowsill with a vicious thrust of his hips. He was dangerously aroused. “Her? Her? I’m a little confused. Do you mean that you want her to live, or that you want her to die?”

  “Die!”

  “If you mean it, shout the order.” Dr. Bendu’s tongue lapped her earlobe. His free hand chased rivulets of blood beneath her shirt. “Tell the guard to cut her fucking throat!”

  “Kill her!” Sandy cried, sobbing. Tears poured down her cheeks. “Kill her!” Her own voice was a haggardly squawk, as though some witchman’s spell was changing her into a horrid form more befitting of her treachery.

  “Tell him to cut her throat. Cut it. Cut it.” Dr. Bendu thrust rhythmicall
y against her. “Tell him to cut her head off.”

  “Cut her throat! Cut her head off!” Sandy cawed his echoed words like a bloodthirsty, devilish muse.

  Dr. Bendu shivered from head to toe, obviously delighted by the power of having absolute control over another human being. After breathing deeply for a while, he began to chuckle softly. “I quite enjoyed that, Sandy. Did you? I didn’t guess you’d have it in you so soon. Did you? However, it was all just a fib. That guard would never touch her without an order from me, and I’m not ready to see her die. Not yet, anyway. I’ve got a special use for her in mind. There’s quite an important project underway that is very near completion, and I think that your naughty friend down there would do nicely as a scientific Guinea pig—if that would be alright with you, of course?”

  “Y-yes.”

  “Lovely.” Dr. Bendu said. He clicked his tongue, and sighed. “I almost forgot, the Bad Faces already staked a small claim to her, which is their right for capturing her, and delivering her to me. If you don’t give the Bad Faces what they want, then they’re liable to cause trouble around town. Get my drift?”

  Dr. Bendu lowered the knife from her throat, and Sandy collapsed upon the windowsill. She watched blood droplets fall from the cusp of her chin to flower hotly upon the beige stone. Stepping up beside her, Dr. Bendu raised his arm, and rested the blade upon his forehead. A dramatic pause was followed by a pantomimed slice across his brow.

  The guard below responded with a nod. The stained sacking was jerked from Margot’s head, and cast off to one side. Wide-eyed and trembling, she peered around the flickering plaza, but when her gaze came to rest on Donovan’s headless corpse folded strangely at the waist, Margot began to scream. Twisting her arms against her tether, she screamed and writhed against the pole until her neck suddenly straightened beneath a fistful of her long, blonde hair. Her voice lowed a mournful wail as a blade floated out of the shadows, hooked around her stricken face, and settled just beneath the young model’s hairline.

  CHAPTER TEN

  21-F

  The one who’d captured her was awarded his prize, and he placed it atop his head. Clinging to the ragged flaps of hide, he twirled his new wig of flowing blonde hair. Backlit by roaring flames, the warrior gyrated around the campfire, smeared and glistening with the rendered fat of the butchered ones. Stones rose and fell upon smoldering femurs. Heads lowered, and slurped steaming marrow from the slab. All around, painted monsters howled from frescoes in a jungle of shadows cast by firelight flickering through heaps of red bones. Here, life’s destruction was something celebrated, and haphazardly enshrined. Dancers hooted and piped their death whistles, hitching around the bonfires, clapping lithe hands to an ancient rhythm of scuffed feet brought with them to this world from another. They were a group unto their own, both bound and isolated by a common tongue that no one understood. The Africans captured the attention of the more prominent bands, whose watchful eyes observed their scalp dance, but dared not interrupt.

  Peanut crouched along the wall of the reeking cave that served as a barracks, fetid with rotting remnants of the scavenged, and the leavings of the living. Nothing was sacred here, where the strongest postured and pushed, suckling skins of palm wine as they drifted from one fire to the next, predating on the weaker. Spats of violence erupted. Blows were thrown, and articles of perceived value changed hands. There was the sense that one’s life could be deprived in an instant, and forgotten even more quickly. It was only a matter of time before the ravens fell upon him. They’d already robbed him of Dale’s pocket knife, his driver’s license, and even a handful of worthless coins, but amongst people like these, there would always be something more to take. After they’d stripped you of every worldly possession, they could still take your body, your innocence, and your last shred of hope for a better day. They would keep taking until every gobbet of marrow had been licked from your blackened bones.

  The shaved warrior from the yard came reeling out of the mob. It took a few seconds before some spark of recognition hardened his glare, and he came staggering toward Peanut. His gang remained seated by their fire, but they watched his every move like solemn spectators to some requisite rite of passage.

  “Acting all bad out there in the yard. Who bad now? Who bad now, punk? You think you want to be a Bad Face? You?”

  “Come on, T-Lo. He’s just a kid.”

  “Shut up, Gavin. How old are you, punk?”

  “Eighteen.” Peanut drew his knees up to his chest.

  “Speak up, boy! I can’t hear you!”

  “Eighteen.”

  “What they call you?”

  “Peanut.”

  “Peanut? That sound like a gangsta name, but you just a little punk.” He bent down, placed his hands on his knees, and glowered nose to nose with Peanut, breathing wine fumes in his face. “You ain’t got the juice to roll with the Bad Faces, you little punk-ass, white boy.”

  “Ain’t no races in Bad Faces, T.”

  “We the Bad Faces. The Bad Faces. You know what that mean? Mean when somebody needs cut up into pieces, we who they call. When something comes through that wall, we who they call. Blood is our business. You can’t handle it. I can see it in your eyes. Look at you. You about to cry.”

  “No, I’m not.”

  “You ain’t, huh? Still think you bad?”

  “No.”

  “No? You got to be bad, punk, but you ain’t. That’s the problem. What you going to do when one of your people needs dealt with? You’ll be the one gets to cut they head off. You think I’m playing?”

  Peanut shrugged.

  “Ha-ha. Yeah, go ahead, act bad. We’ll see. Tomorrow, we’ll see.” T-Lo rose, stumbled sideways, and then turned to traipse a meandering path back to the campfire.

  “Come here.” One of the other men beckoned to him with a sweeping arm.

  “Me?”

  “Yeah, you. Get up, and get over here.”

  Peanut rose, dusted off his behind, thrust his hands into his pockets, and sauntered over to their fire. He guessed that he was in for some more abuse, but it was probably better than sitting alone against the wall, where he felt like an easy target. He guessed that he liked the idea of having a designated group of antagonists, rather than serving as a whipping post for everyone who happened to walk by.

  The man who’d called him over leaned back on his haunches, and he looked Peanut up and down. The other warriors addressed him as Gavin. His name was muttered on a pretty regular basis throughout the cave, as though he possessed some clout. He wasn’t a big man, really. He looked just as rough as the others, tattooed, scarred and filthy, but what caught Peanut’s attention was that underneath the outer layer of grime was a keenness in the manner of his observations.

  “You need to understand what you’re getting into with us,” he said.

  Peanut suppressed the urge to reply. Gavin let his statement hang in the air for what felt like an awkward eternity, as Peanut stood over the circle of seated men like a shameful spectacle presented for their amusement. He wanted to sit down, but he wasn’t sure that he was being invited to do so.

  “It’s just blood and guts, day in and day out, without any glory. Am I right?”

  Most of the men nodded, after casting Peanut a hard look. They all stared down into the pile of glowing embers, as though they were deep in thought, or entranced by the flames. No one had anything to add.

  “Even if that sounds like a life you might want, wanting it ain’t going to be enough. At the end of the day tomorrow, we decide.” Gavin made a sweeping gesture with his index finger. “You’re rolling out with the first patrol, at sunup. Better be on your best game.”

  “Hunting?” Peanut regretted asking the question before the word had even slipped out of his mouth. Anything he said was going to be wrong.

  “What’s the hardest shit you ever seen?” T-Lo asked.

  Peanut cleared his throat, and rocked back on his heels. “My best friend dying right in front of me, on th
e first night here.”

  “How he died?”

  “Got killed by a howler.”

  “By a what?”

  “A howler.”

  “A howler? Fuck is a howler? Some kind of werewolf or something?” T-Lo looked around at his fellows, wearing a huge smirk on his face. “I ain’t knew we had werewolves in Eden.”

  “No, it’s—you know, those big, shaggy things that hunt down along the beach at night. We call them howlers, because they howl at night.”

  T-Lo laughed right into the fire. He pulled a swig from his wineskin, passed it to his left, and wiped his bare arm across his mouth. “Ain’t nothing surprises me no more. Howlers and shit. What you first called them, Dre?”

  “I ain’t called them nothing,” the enormous man in dreadlocks to T-Lo’s left replied, while sucking petulantly on the wineskin.

  “He called them, Mamaaaaaaaaaa!”

  Half of the men around campfire erupted into laughter. Although the Bad Faces seemed to advocate a kind of solidarity, there were divisions throughout their ranks. The five guys in T-Lo’s group were obviously tight, based on their joviality and body language, while Gavin’s sullen entourage was an uncomfortable contrast. The mood was precariously imbalanced. Even out in the yard, these men revealed the same quiet alliances. The other knots of warriors seated around smaller fires throughout the cave kept to themselves, rarely making eye contact with Gavin and T-Lo’s men. If there was a method of segregation amongst the Bad Faces, the rules weren’t obvious.

  “They called rexes,” Dre said, in the deepest voice Peanut had ever heard.

  “T-rexes,” Gavin said.

  “Nah-nah, I’m the only T-whatever in Eden. They just rexes.”

  “You mean, like tyrannosaurus rexes?”