Skin on My Skin

by John Burks

  There was no joy in Fortress. These people were just as dead as the rest of us.

  I certainly didn’t expect the multitude of Preacher logos. There were flags ruffling in the breeze displaying the same image I’d seen out in the city and the logo was painted everywhere you turned. There were even flyers stapled to the trees displaying the cartoonish image of a man in a wide brimmed hat with a beard. The words ‘The Preacher Lives’ were written everywhere. It was very disconcerting and I had no idea what to think about it. Did these people worship the Preacher? What sort of crazy shit was going on here? Add to that the fact they’d apparently been searching for me for a long time and I was more than a bit numbed by the overload of information.

  I paused, walking slower, and watched as a man outside in one of the fields stood, a crazy look on his face. The fields were spaced so that the edges were at least twenty feet from the next. The people, in the fields, didn’t wear bio-suits and it was the only way they could work without contaminating each other. The man turned around slowly, looking for something. His eyes were wide, crazed. He locked onto the man working in the next field over and took off at a sprint, running towards him. Even as he neared the boils began on his skin and his legs became puffy. The other man didn’t notice until it was too late and the runner tackled him.

  “What the hell?” I asked, inadvertently. The guards followed my gaze. One raised his rifle, took aim, and fired through the plastic sheeting of the tunnel, dropping the running man with three shots. The man he was running towards started to run himself, right up to the point the guard shifted his gaze and fired two more shots, dropping him. The whole thing had taken place in less than five seconds. Five seconds and two men were dead. I wondered if they were better off that way.

  “Keep moving,” the guard spoke over his suit’s crackly external speakers.

  I suddenly regretted my decision to trade Jenna for seals. This wasn’t a place for her. This wasn’t a place for anyone. I’d often wondered what it would be like to live in Fortress, with other people, and now I knew. It was a graveyard filled with slaves. There was nothing to do about it now, though, and I’d have to continue through the motions until I could leave. I didn’t know what I was going to do about the seals, but I couldn’t force Jenna to come back to this place. Besides being completely wrong, I knew I’d never sleep another night in my life if I did it.

  The guards led me into the tunnels and the normal folk cleared the way, exiting at the nearest airlocks as quickly as they could. There wasn’t just a lack of joy in Fortress, there was a fear so thick you could smell it in the air. The tunnels split and we followed one that was in much better condition towards the center of the park. There, in a tall stand of oak trees, were half a dozen mobile homes, all joined by containment tunnels. This was where the power rested, I knew. This is where I’d find the boss.

  The guards led me into the biggest trailer and sat me on one side of a hermetically sealed wall. The interview area was plain and I sat on a metal folding chair. Just on the other side of the wall, however, was opulent. I faced a large, mahogany desk. Behind the desk, on the walls, were paintings I was sure had come from the many museums of New York. Before the plague they had probably been worth a lot of money. To collect them now only was only meant to show the boss’s power. He had everything. He could worry about the fancy things. To one side was a stack of old looking wine bottles separated by gold bullion bars. The boss wanted the person sitting where I was to know what the deal was. It was stupid, though. The wealth represented the old world and the old ways. The gold bullion was worth little to nothing. Someone my age, who’d grown up with the Preacher’s Plague, would not trade for it. The booze, maybe, but not the gold.

  If the old world wealth in the back of the room wasn’t enough to impress and intimidate, the man I knew to be the boss the moment I laid eyes on him, was. The boss came in the room dressed in the most spotless piece of bio-armor I’d ever seen. It wasn’t just that the armor looked new. It did. But it had also been customized. The helmet was painted with the Preacher’s logo over the visor, giving it the appearance of a face. I couldn’t see behind it. The rest of the armor was painted in the same red and black colors the logos and flags were. Whoever the man behind the mask was wanted to give the impression that he was, in fact, the Preacher. I wasn’t prepared to accept that, but the red bio-suit was unnerving.

  “Nice suit,” I said in echoes of the smart assed conversations I’d had with my father over the years. I had to put on the air of defenses because I was scared shitless. “Love the paint.”

  “Thank you, Jack,” the man responded. His voice was distorted over the suit’s speakers and it sounded, for all the world, like those toys that were around when I was a kid that made you sound like Darth Vader. It did little to decrease my fear level. I was ready to bolt.

  “How do you know me?” I demanded, trying to push the fear aside. “Where did you get that picture of me?”

  The man laughed and it was eerie, considering his suit did not move. “Oh, you know. One of our patrols wandered across the camera, I’m sure.”

  “But why were you looking for me? You were the one following me in the ruins, right? Or your people?”

  “I don’t have the faintest clue what you’re talking about, Jack. As for as why we were looking for you… that is my fault, really. The picture from the old camera evoked some nostalgia in me. I wondered, over the years, what had happened to you. We are always looking to help the poor survivors of New York.”

  I stared silently, unsure of what to say. The boss of Fortress was the ultimate bull shitter. I didn’t believe a word he said, but I was too afraid to pry further. I shouldn’t have come in the first place and now all I wanted to do was run away. I’d have to play along until I could get out of the place.

  “I understand you’ve come to trade for the return of some of our property, correct?” My old phone, with the pictures of Jenna, was on his desk. “As well as the location of our attacker?”

  “Yes,” I said quietly.

  “I have to tell you that this is probably the largest trade our facility has ever conducted. And I cannot begin to tell you how much we appreciate you facilitating the return of our property. But I am curious. You’ve already worked out the details with the Banker. Why, then, did you ask to see me?”

  I wanted to see the man behind the visor. I wanted to know who was pretending to be the Preacher. I desperately wanted to look the man in the eyes. But I wasn’t going to and some nagging sensation inside told me I’d be better off not knowing whom it was.

  “I need assurances.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “If I bring her to you, I’ll get my seals.”

  “Seals are a small price to pay for the return of our property. Let’s be honest here, Jack. You know how valuable she is. You know what lengths the cretins out in the ruins would go to in order to possess her. So let’s not kid about this. I want her back. Her presence has been missed. I will gladly give you a set of seals for her safe return. I’ll give you a dozen sets of seals if that is what you desire. That you claim to know the location of our attacker is simply a bonus. As they say, my friend, you are holding all the cards. Tell me what it is you want and I will make sure you have it.”

  “Okay.” I said. They were giving me what I’d asked for. The boss had as much as admitted that they would give me anything I wanted. But I was still hesitant. I didn’t want to bring Jenna to them. I still felt like I’d made the most horrible mistake in the world.

  “So bring her to us. We will make our trade and you can go about your way. I do not understand the problem.”

  “I need other assurances.”

  The man sat immobile behind the desk, which made it impossible to see what his emotions where. “Such as?”

  “That Jenna won’t be hurt. I don’t want her to be hurt.”

  The man chuckled. “What, exactly do you think we are here at Fortress?”

  I thought about the tw
o men I’d seen shot. “I don’t really know.”

  “Then why don’t I show you, Jack? Let me show you how we are working to a new future, a new world built out of the ashes of the old. Perhaps then you may even want to join us.”

  Join them? The thought had never even crossed my mind other than in fantasy. When he said it, though, it just made me want to run even faster.

  “Back through the door, friend,” the boss said and I could imagine a sinister smile behind the painted visor. “And let me show you the wonders of the future.”

  It's a People Farm, Bud

  I followed the red bio-suit wearing, Preacher wannabe out of the mobile home and into the remains of Central Park. He walked with his hands behind his back, like a general on parade. Somehow the suit radiated power and influence. I sensed the apprehension the few unsuited workers we ran across had when they saw the man. I was just as nervous. We didn’t have any guards with us, but I could feel the sights of the guns in the distance.

  “Do you know we are doing here, Jack?”

  “Surviving,” I said, but didn’t add, “Like everyone else.”

  “No. Everyone else is just surviving. They are mere rats feasting on the corpse of the old world. We are thriving here, Jack. We are preparing for the future of the human race. We are the line in the sand. What we have built here will ensure the very survival of our species.”

  “I don’t know if anyone has told you or not, chief,” I told started. The cockiness I was trying to put out was a poor cover for my own fear and nervousness. “But the human race is done. We’re extinct. You just refuse to believe it.” I stopped then, realizing how much like my father, in those last desperate days before he went full tilt retard, I sounded.

  There was a dark laugh. Why do all the people in authority in Fortress laugh like evil villains from some cheesy old movie? “I knew a man who once talked like that. He was adamant that he’d destroyed the world and, you know what? He’d had a noble cause and that cause had escalated beyond his control. It drove him to the brink of insanity. He was right, though. He had destroyed the old world. You were, what, eight when the Preacher’s Plague struck? How much of that world do you actually remember?”

  “I was eight,” I agreed. “I was watching cartoons and riding my bike.”

  “Of course. The innocence of youth. But I remember that world. I remember the world that friend of mine wanted to destroy. It was rife with filth from one end of this stunningly beautiful planet to the other. The Lord gave us this world, Jack, and we trashed it. We allowed the homosexuals and the communists to run it over with their vile lies. We allowed them to take what the Lord gave us from us. The Preacher’s Plague fixed that. There are no more homosexuals in this realm. None. But the plague went further than that, Jack. It erased all of the evils, leaving only the strong to survive. That’s us. We are the strong. The meek will not inherit the earth, Jack. We will.”

  I stayed quiet. I had learned, from my father in the end, that it was often times best just to let the crazy people be crazy.

  “That man, the friend of mine, he began the Preacher’s Plague. He cultured it in a lab and set it free across the world in a single day. He was a genius. He wished nothing more to eradicate the filth, as he saw it, from the world. And he succeeded at that. He succeeded better than he could have ever hoped for, yet when the plague, at God’s direction, reached out further, taking more of the filth, it took babies from mothers, husbands from wives… it was the great culling. And though that culling was what the Lord intended when he guided the Preacher’s hands, the man fell to his knees and wept at what he’d wrought. He did not understand God’s plan, then. That man just very nearly died from the misery of it all. It was hard, then, to see what the end result would be. The Preacher, back then, didn’t have the clarity of vision to see how the world would be reborn under his plague. He very nearly died.”

  The Preacher was dead. I knew that. He had to have been. I couldn’t believe that the man who’d started this hell on earth was still alive. It just wasn’t fair, in a cosmic sense. Not that any of it was. I didn’t know what crazy smack this guy was talking, but it didn’t matter. I just needed to get out of there and then I’d figure something else out. I could handle crazy. I’d handled it in containment with my father for years. This was nothing new to me.

  “And behold what we, the Preacher’s People, the People of Fortress, have accomplished,” the man said with a sweeping motion of his arms. He apparently saw God’s new kingdom on earth. I saw a shit hole.

  He led me further into the park to where they’d built a massive wooden bar out of scrap wood. The building was long and wide. There were guard towers at each of the four corners. Several guards patrolled the perimeter of it, making it the single most guarded place in Fortress. A large door separated the outside world from the inside, but, strangely enough, it wasn’t an air lock. I didn’t understand that.

  “You see, the Preacher was sure that he’d, as you said, caused the extinction of mankind. He himself had a child and this was not what he’d envisioned. When the plague jumped genders, he knew he had to do something. He went into hiding and prayed. He asked for direction.”

  “And then you guys figured out there were Touchers,” I said for him.

  “Exactly right, Jack. We discovered that not everyone was subject to the Preacher’s Plague. Some said they were angels, sent to us by the Lord, to continue the human race. A Toucher actually found him, Jack, on the verge of death and she nursed him back to health. She was just a child, then. But she showed the Preacher the way. She told him there had to be a hope and he, a scientist in the old world, had to figure that out. That became the Preacher’s mission, Jack. He had to figure out how to have children. This,” he said as we finally neared the door to the barn, “is the result of that vision. I must warn you. Our mission is not finished. But we are so close to victory. You could help us with that, Jack. We need more men like you.”

  We stepped through the door and I was at once taken by the absolute and overwhelming smell of feces and urine in the big room. The man in red, the fake Preacher, didn’t seem to notice and I missed my bio-suit and its filters once more. The building was open, like an aircraft hangar, but divided with rows of cubicles. Each of the glass cages was about ten foot by teen foot, each with an airlock doorway. Each also had a light and, as the fake Preacher guided me further into the otherwise dimly lit building, I saw each also had a person inside.

  “Welcome to the Nursery,” the man told me. “Welcome to the future of mankind.”

  The first vessel we walked up to contained a young girl. Her skin was twisted like she’d been ravaged to the point of death by the Preacher’s Plague. A naked man held her to the ground, taking her roughly from behind. The girl screamed, but it wasn’t pain. She was angry, like a feral animal, and tried clawing at the naked man.

  “It can be a bit much to take in, at first,” the red suited man began. “The children of the Touchers are… they are unique. The virus does something to their basic DNA, changing them. I suspect God is shaping them to be more in his image. It’s the most amazing thing I’ve seen. It’s evolution from one generation to the next.”

  The man looked up and smiled darkly. This wasn’t about science. This was rape, plain and simple. The girl couldn’t have been more than ten years old.

  “She doesn’t look like an angel,” I quipped. Just as it had been with Big Woody back in Club Flesh, when he’d killed the woman through sex, it was hard to take my eyes away from the scene before me.

  “No, she doesn’t, does she? Her generation is transitional. We are still searching out the right genetics to…” the man paused, searching for the right words, “make the transition a bit more smoother. The plague had corrupted so much of our DNA, at this point. Only God’s chosen will survive this. It is the way it is meant to be.”

  I numbly walked down the aisle, stopping at the next vessel. All of them had to be children. Even if the Preacher had managed to kick-start h
is program right after the start of the Plague, the oldest kid in the Nursery couldn’t have been any more than fifteen. But looking at the monstrosities in the cages, you wouldn’t think that. The thing I was staring at looked like a smaller version of Big Woody. His heavily muscled body was covered with Plague scares. His hair was wild and, when the kid turned to look at me, snarling. He was feral, no more than the bear I’d killed days before. That’s what they were doing. They were raising monsters. He rushed to the glass as if to attack me, only stopped by the transparent barricade dividing us.

  “It’s hard to look at, at first,” the red suited man said softly, armored hand on my shoulder. “But we are making great progress. Our stock of Touchers is, obviously, quite limited. Only something like one in a thousand were immune to the Preacher’s Plague. Sadly, fewer still of them are women, and even fewer of those are women of childbearing age. We need every one of those angels that can give us children to continue doing so. It is the Lord’s plan.”

  I was speechless and could not take my eyes from the kid. He was like a wild animal in that cage. My guide stepped to the cage and tapped the window.

  “Hello, Brian. I’ve brought someone to see you. Meet Jacky,” the man said, using a nickname that chilled me to the bone. “He knows where your mother is, Brian. Aren’t you excited?”