The Bleeding Crowd

by Jessica Dall

  “Where are you going?” Ben called after her.

  She didn’t stop.

  “Ben.” Jude looked at him

  Ben kept walking.

  Heather sighed. “I’ll go get her.”

  Even with the head start, Heather had no trouble catching her.

  Dahlia started before she had a chance to speak. “I could have let him die, you know. I should have let him die. Then I’d be back home in my room with central heating rather than in the middle of this damn forest running around on a fool’s mission.”

  Heather released a breath. “You know he didn’t mean anything by what he said.”

  “How would you know?”

  “I’ve known him for years now.” She moved in front Dahlia to make her stop moving. “He acts, well, like a bastard sometimes. That’s how he deals with just about any emotion he doesn’t want or doesn’t knows how to deal with. It’s how most of the men are.”

  “Wonderful personality trait.” Dahlia stopped, but didn’t look at her.

  “He really does care about you.”

  “Oh, it seems like it.”

  “He cares enough to be hurt that you wouldn’t help him when he asked.”

  “He never asked,” she said. “You did.”

  “Earlier.”

  She shook her head. “That had nothing to do with me. That was them needing someone on the outside to help.”

  “They had Des and me,” Heather said. “We weren’t completely outside, but we didn’t need you. Ben wasn’t even supposed to contact you again.”

  “That’s supposed to mean something?”

  “If you know Ben it does.”

  “Well, obviously I don’t then,” Dahlia said. “Not that that should be a surprise.”

  “We could get by if you wanted to leave,” Heather said, “but we really could use your help, Lia.”

  Dahlia frowned, finally looking at her. “Lia?”

  “People call you Lia, don’t they?”

  “Yes.” Dahlia nodded. “How would you know that?”

  Heather paused. “I knew you when you were younger.”

  “When?”

  “You probably don’t remember. I was in Rose before you went Silver.”

  Dahlia just continued to look at her.

  Heather sighed. “You see...I’m your sister.”

  Dahlia couldn’t find a way to answer that, the silence stretched on awkwardly.

  “I used to check in on you every so often,” Heather continued. “Have you never been to the pedigree room?”

  “Can’t say I’ve ever had an interest in genealogy.”

  “Our mother was a fan of plant names,” Heather said. “I went to the room a couple of times before I was shipped off. There are several other sisters around, Laurel, Holly, Ivy...we’re the youngest, though. I’ve never been able to track down the others.”

  “But...” Dahlia paused unsure what to say. “So, we’re related.”

  Heather nodded. “You haven’t noticed that we sort of look alike? Brown hair, light eyes...thin features...”

  “I suppose that would happen, wouldn’t it? Some sort of genetic similarity...”

  “Family resemblance.”

  Dahlia frowned.

  “Never mind,” Heather said. “We need to get back to the group.”

  Dahlia shook her head.

  “Come on, Lia. Forget about Ben. The rest of us need you and, right now, you need us.”

  Dahlia paused, but released a breath and nodded, letting Heather lead the way back. “You knew me when I was a baby, then?”

  “Well, I had my own life, but when I was wondering around in the tunnels...I’ve run across you before. Checked up on you every once in a while.”

  Dahlia looked at her and then looked straight ahead. “That’s more than a little creepy.”

  “Well, I was shipped off because of my sexual preference. You were the most like-me-person around so you were the easiest to live vicariously through.”

  “I was the non-lesbian you?”

  “There’s nothing wrong with liking women, you know.”

  Dahlia didn’t respond. “Am I related to anyone else in this ill-fated little group?”

  “No.” Heather shook her head. “Well, Des is my spouse, but officially that means nothing, so...”

  “Spouse?”

  “We’ll explain the whole marriage idea to you when we don’t have to keep moving.” Heather smiled to herself. “It means we’re committed to each other, platonically, romantically, and sexually. We’re monogamous.”

  “You only have sex with each other?”

  “Yeah.” Heather nodded.

  “How does that work?”

  “What work?”

  “Sex,” Dahlia said. “Well, not just sex, but your...I mean, you’re missing some of the logistical necessities.”

  “That’s a discussion for some other time,” Heather said.

  * * * *

  The first night sleeping outside was the hardest for Dahlia. If she hadn’t been drained from the stress and forced march she wouldn’t have slept at all. The nights that followed weren’t any more comfortable, but at least she became more familiar with it. In the twenty years she had lived, she had spent a grand total of one night sleeping outside before joining this group, and that had been on an astronomy field trip far too long ago.

  After a couple nights, she remembered why she hadn’t thought of that trip for years. It was a simple case of psychological repression. Some women found going out and sleeping in the woods enjoyable. They called it ‘communing with nature’ or what not, but Dahlia had hated every moment of it. From the moment they had pitched the tent to the moment they were safely inside the van that had taken them home, she had been miserable.

  Of course, now, by some cruel trick of nature, she spent nights on end without even so much as a tent or any nearby source of running water to allow her to wash her face let alone anything else. Her hair felt disgusting, heavy, getting to the point where it could stay in place just from the holding power of the oil in it. As soon as they found a river, a pond, or even a puddle at this point, she was going to find a way to wash her hair and the rest of her. None of them smelled very attractive after three full days of walking.

  In an attempt to skirt any guards looking for them, they had taken a curved path, sending them in the wrong direction. Now they were trying to make up the lost distance and find their way back to the coast with some sense of certainty. That coupled with Dahlia’s lack of athletic stamina had stretched what should have been a day and a half of walking into one that lasted far longer than anyone wanted.

  Dahlia hurt. She had walked to work most days when the weather was nice, but their eight to ten hour days of walking up and down hills in the cold at a pace she could just manage left her body sore and tired. It made each morning harder and harder to force herself up and walk. Her calves felt like balls had been placed under the skin. The muscles refused to relax even when she sat. Even without carrying her medical bag or the emergency pack that Des and the older men switched off between themselves every hour or so, her shoulders ached. She didn’t know how the others managed carrying supplies other than the fact that they knew they had no other choice. The water they carried tasted stale and the bars that served as their daily rations were dry and powdery, but they needed both, if only to fill their stomachs enough to keep going.

  When they stopped for the night, Dahlia flopped down on a patch of grass, not able to care about the dampness the cold air had left. She left her legs folded under her, her limbs not willing to exert enough force to move her weight off them. Abel sat almost as exhausted. The rest of the group gathered around Des, waiting for her to pull out the map they had and attempt to place where they were.

  They talked in hushed, hurried voices and decided something, then moved away from their huddle. Des pulled some of the bars from the pack and one of the canteens. She passed the canteen to Heather and began breaking the bars in half.r />
  “All right. I think we’re within five miles...” Des looked at Dahlia. “Eight kilometers, off from where we want to be. As long as we keep moving fast enough, we should be there in an hour and a half.”

  “You mean today?” Dahlia stared at her, aghast. Des nodded.

  “Oh, well, if one of you wants to carry me, I’m sure we could be.” Dahlia rubbed her legs.

  Ben looked as though he were going to say something snide, thought the better of it, and moved to the opposite side of the small gulley they had settled into between two hills.

  Dahlia glanced at him and then leaned to stretch her back, setting her jaw to avoid a wince.

  A half of one of the bars Des was handing out was in front of her when she lifted her head again. She followed the arm up to the man’s face before offering a small smile. “Not hungry.”

  “You have to be.” Jude sat next to her. “You’re burning enough calories walking every day. You need to eat.”

  “Calories.”

  “Oh.” Jude frowned, his face scrunching as he tried to remember something. “Units of energy transfer...kilo...”

  “Kilojoules?”

  “There we go.” Jude smiled. “Point is, if you don’t eat, you’re going to pass out. Then one of us really will have to carry you.”

  Dahlia sighed, but took the bar, studying it for a second. “At least tell me you agree that these things are disgusting.”

  “Not any worse than what we have at the camps.” Jude shook his head, taking a bite of his half.

  “I’m shocked you didn’t revolt earlier.” She broke off a piece with some struggle, popping it in her mouth with a grimace. “It takes like sawdust.”

  “You’ve eaten sawdust?” Jude smiled.

  Dahlia swallowed, making a rather unattractive face, while trying to get the powdery substance off her tongue. “Well, it’s what I imagine sawdust tastes like.”

  “Damn, that would have been an interesting story I’m sure if you had.” Jude looked across the camp.

  Dahlia followed his line of sight, watching Ben quickly look away. She sighed. “He is such a child.”

  “He can be,” Jude said. “Good leader though”

  “Really?” She looked at Jude. “It seems like you’re the one doing most of the leading here. You and Des.”

  “Wait until we actually have to fight.” Jude shook his head. “He’s a brilliant fighter.”

  “That’s something to brag about,” she said with sarcasm.

  “It is when you have to fight for your life,” Jude said. “Believe me, you’re going to be glad he’s on our side. Des too for that matter.”

  “Rest of you can’t fight?”

  “We can, just not nearly as well as Ben. His body just takes to it, you know? Like his muscles are into it. The rest of us have to think about it.”

  “That why he has all those scars?”

  “Well, we all have our scares if you didn’t notice.”

  “Can’t say I was ever looking for them.”

  Jude twisted, pulling his shirt up slightly. “Turf war. Five years ago.”

  Dahlia pulled the shirt up more, touching the scar on his side wrapping slightly to his back about halfway between his shoulder blade and waist. “You were lucky. It hit your rib. A couple centimeters in either direction and you would have had a punctured lung.”

  “Well, we made it through.” Jude pulled his shirt free and turned to face her again. “For most of us, half of it is skill and the other half is just pure dumb luck.”

  “Not for master fighter over there?” Dahlia motioned with her chin.

  “Well, he wasn’t always trained, but a good part of his luck comes from skill now.”

  “I’m not sure that sentence makes logical sense.”

  Jude smiled.

  Dahlia took another bite, forcing it down before looking back at Jude. “I don’t know how to fight.”

  “I think we all figured that.” Jude nodded.

  “Means I’m dead weight in a fight unless one of you gets hurt.”

  “Can’t imagine having a doctor with you is ever a bad thing.”

  “Heather could do most of what I do.”

  “You think she could have gotten our chips out?”

  Dahlia nodded, not feeling the need to make his point for him except to say Heather was capable of it. She looked at the slight bump under his shirt where the gauze was. “Your arm’s functioning fine?”

  “No complaints.” He lifted his arm slightly.

  “Take off your shirt.” Dahlia nodded. “I’m going to take a look.”

  “What?” He frowned.

  “I’ve been a bad doctor.” She motioned for him to remove his shirt. “I should have checked to make sure it’s heeling properly long before this, but with everything else...off.”

  “Now generally I’d expect dinner first.” He pulled his shirt off.

  She knotted her eyebrows, waiting for an explanation.

  “Sorry, just a joke.” Jude looked at her.

  “I figured,” she said. “I just don’t get it.”

  Jude brushed it away without explaining.

  Dahlia pulled the gauze back gently, sucking in her cheeks as she studied the site.

  “Jude hurt?” Heather moved over to them.

  “Just checking how he’s healing,” Dahlia said. “Do we have enough water to let me wash it?”

  “I think we passed a stream a little way back,” Heather said.

  “Really?”

  Heather nodded.

  “Get some water and boil it if you can. Filter it if nothing else.”

  Heather nodded again.

  Dahlia turned back to Jude, looking at the scab over the surgery site. Her eyes moved to his shoulder. “You have one too.”

  “What?” Jude frowned, craning to look at his shoulder.

  “Ben has the same scar on his shoulder. The one that looks like a snake.”

  Jude nodded. “We all do, if you haven’t noticed.”

  “Why?”

  “It shows you’re a part of the group,” Jude said. “We have snakes. There are others, you know, like one eye, horns...”

  “You scar yourselves on purpose?”

  “It’s an initiation thing.”

  “It’s barbaric.”

  He looked at her earlobes. “You punched holes in your ears. Any different?”

  “I didn’t have to pierce my ears to prove I was part of a group.”

  “It’s all body modification.”

  “Did you at least have something sterile to cut with?”

  “Why would we? Everything about us is barbaric right?”

  “I said the practice was barbaric, not that you were.”

  He sent her a look.

  She ignored him, waiting for Heather to bring back the water and boil it enough to sterilize it. She washed off any of the extra dried blood, looking at the cut. “You’re a quick healer. Seems to be a trait among you men.”

  “The slow healers don’t survive,” Jude said. “Natural selection I suppose you could call it.”

  Dahlia didn’t answer and finished washing his shoulder. She glanced at him before getting her medical bag. “I’m going to put a small bandage over it just to be safe, but it looks like it’ll be just fine.”

  The other men lined up without being asked. Other than a mild infection on Zechs’ part, there didn’t seem to be any problems.

  Dahlia allowed a small smile. “I’m good.”

  “It would seem so.” Jude nodded. “But what...?”

  “What, what?” Dahlia frowned.

  Jude just looked at Ben.

  “If he wants help, he can come here.” Dahlia put the supplies away. “He has legs.”

  Jude shook his head. “You’re perfect for each other.”

  “What?”

  “You’re both needlessly stubborn,” Jude said. “One of you is going to have to blink first, you know.”

  “Blink?”

  He shoo
k his head. “If one of you doesn’t try to open communications first, both of you are going to be not talking forever.”

  “Why should I have to talk to him? He’s the one who has issues with me being here.”

  “You know that’s not what he’s upset about.”

  She scoffed. “I love how everyone here has an opinion on how Ben and I relate to each other.”

  “Well, we’re sitting in a forest. There’s not much else to do.”

  Dahlia shook her head, using some of the water to splash her face, considering trying to clean her hair some before wondering if having a wet head was wise. “So, what makes you think it’s my job to go over there?”

  “You’re a woman, aren’t you?” He smiled. “Diplomacy is in your genes.”

  “All you equal rights men need to stop playing on stereotypes when they’re handy for you if you want to be taken seriously.”

  “It’s your duty as a doctor to take care of your patients, isn’t it?” He switched approaches seamlessly.

  Dahlia pressed her lips together tightly, but forced herself upright, picking up a couple things from her bag. “Watch my bag, won’t you?”

  “Where do you think it would go?”

  “Right.” She stretched her back a little. “Force of habit.”

  Ben looked away as she moved over to him, not bothering to acknowledge her as she sat next to him.

  “Shirt off,” she instructed without pretense.

  He did as instructed in silence.

  She sighed at his response. “You’re going to have to talk to me eventually, you realize?”

  He didn’t respond.

  She shook her head and peeled the bandage off slowly. “Fine then. Be a child.”

  His jaw tightened. “You and Jude seem to be getting along.”

  She glanced at his profile before looking back at his shoulder. “He’s a nice man. I can see why you’ve kept him as a friend.”

  “Can you?”

  She frowned at the tone of his voice. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  He shrugged with one shoulder.

  “You know, you have no reason to be like this.”

  “Like what?”

  “So petulant.”

  He snorted.

  “Fine,” she snapped. “You seem to be healing fine. Keep doing what you have been.”