Emily slouched as she moved past full tables of bruised soldiers, their swollen eyes focusing only on their plates. They whispered amongst one another, discussing things Emily didn't understand: command turns, insertion, the darkness. She tried to listen, but the farther she walked, the more their voices faded beneath a growing laughter. She didn't notice she had left their territory until the sound became too much to ignore. Sitting at the tables around her now, raucous soldiers, who could have been models with their impeccable skin, hooted, yelled and pointed at the bruise-faced soldiers. She walked faster.
Then a sting ripped across the back of her thigh, and a deafening pop echoed through the mess hall. She thrust her hips forward, squealing loud enough to grab the attention of everyone near her. The pile of slop slid from one side of the tray to the other as she tried to keep it from splattering on the floor. “Yeah, you shake it, girl,” someone shouted. Soldiers cawed with laughter.
She steadied the plate, lowered her head and continued toward the backmost table. This place was obviously meant for her, the soldiers neither bruised nor standing out with obnoxious behavior. The new recruits had a little kids' table.
Before she sat, a tray clanged down beside her. “Ma'am,” Damon said.
She pressed her arms against her body, fighting the urge to hug him. “Hey, Damon.”
“Looks good, doesn't it?” He sat and shoved a forkful of mush into his mouth.
“Maybe I could throw up,” she whispered to herself.
“What's that?”
“Nothing.” Emily claimed the seat beside him and scooped up a chunk of the goo. She dangled it in front of her face. A thin strand of the slime crept off the side of her fork as if it tried to slither for safety. She wouldn't have been surprised if it did.
“It's good,” Damon said.
When she put the fork to her mouth, the substance oozed over her lips and wrapped around her tongue. Soon the oatmeal-textured paste absorbed every drop of moisture in her mouth. She grabbed her cup of water, slamming it against her mouth and almost breaking her teeth. Half the cup later, the aftertaste of pure salt faded. An MP near the back of the mess hall was watching her. He tapped the baton hanging from his belt and then made a scooping motion toward his smiling mouth. Emily forced down three more bites.
Meanwhile, a few soldiers at her table whispered to one another and stole glances of the ass-slapping group. As they shared their information, a grapevine of turning heads made its way toward her. The whispers reached to Damon, but he simply nodded before continuing to slurp at the goo.
“What did he say?” Emily asked.
Damon swallowed a mouthful without chewing. His throat bulged. “Nothing important. Most of it was wrong anyway.”
“Can you at least fill me in?”
“He told me why the soldiers on the other side of the room don't have bruises.”
“And?”
“He said they were officers, but he's wrong.” Damon glanced over his shoulder. “They're the defenders.”
“So why don't they have bruises like everyone else?”
Damon stared at Emily's half-eaten plate. “Defenders are trained soldiers. They also get the higher ground and better weapons.”
“Yeah, so?”
“Did you ever read anything about military tactics?”
“I must have missed that class in high school. Shit, Damon, I can't even remember high school. Explain it to me like I'm a child.”
“We are children to them.”
Emily glared at him.
“Okay,” he said. “Like a child.” Four soldiers leaned over the table, obviously wanting to hear for themselves. “We're the mice. We want cheese. The cheese is on the top of a mountain that's nearly impossible to climb. The defenders—they're a rabid cat. Not only is the cat on top of the mountain, it's also sitting on the cheese.”
“So we don't stand a chance?”
“Nope.”
A bruised guy limped by the table with an obvious grimace of pain on his face. Emily's grip on the fork seemed nonexistent, and it slipped through her fingers, clanged against the tray and bounced into the pile of mush.
Damon eyed her leftovers again. “Do you mind?”
“Go ahead. I'm not feeling so hot. Think the MPs will mind if I go back to my room?”
“Take your tray,” Damon said as he scooped off the last pile of slop. “Never let them see you leave without it.”
“Oh, thanks.” Emily did just what he said.
During the walk to her room, Emily passed more bleak and damaged faces. Not a single higher-up patrolled the hallways, and no one made sure she entered the correct, unlocked door. Margaret was lying in bed, awake now, as she read a stack of letters under the desk lamp light. Two deep cheek bruises, chocolate in color, mirrored the brown of her eyes, and her lips were swollen from her nostrils to chin. Emily bit her own lip, holding in the gasp.
Margaret dropped the letters into her lap. “Hi.”
Emily extended her hand. “You must be Margaret. I'm Emily.”
She shook Emily's hand with an almost unnoticeable grip. “It's Maggie.”
“Oh. My friends call me Em.” Emily glanced at her bag of old clothes. Who calls me Em?
“Nice to finally meet you, Em.”
Emily's thoughts broke, and she turned back to the girl. “You aren't sleeping?”
Maggie looked at the digital wall clock—18:47. “My Sim starts soon. But don't worry. You'll get used to a few hours of sleep. After orientation, that's all you get.”
“They work us that hard?”
She shook her head. “We lose that bad.”
“Yeah, I heard about our horrid chances.”
“You might go a week before you actually see who kills you. I know I did.”
“How long have you been here?” Emily asked.
“Twenty days.” Maggie's eyes shifted to the ceiling. “Or is it twenty-one? Yeah, it must be twenty-one. Not all of us got a three-month reprieve in our deals like your group. I guess they wanted to space out the arrivals.” When she smiled, a white crack in her lips began trickling with blood.
“Anything you can tell me about the Sim? Any pointers?” Is there anything that will keep me from looking like you?
“Stay with your group, and you might live longer than five minutes.” She tucked her letters inside a drawer below her bed. “You'd better get some sleep. Five A.M. is wake up. At least you have orientation. That's a vacation compared to what comes after.” She turned off the light and vanished into the hallway.
Emily slipped off the boots and, still wearing the fatigues, lay in her bed. She stared at the dark ceiling, afraid of the approaching sleep. A stuffed bear could no longer tell her the nightmares weren't real.
Emily walked on the side of a deserted road. In the distance, plumes of smoke rose from the debris of flattened towers and buildings, which surrounded a flawless Washington Monument, its tip rising above the remains, into the gray sky. The air tasted of ash, and a breeze penetrated the cotton of her tank top.
“Em,” a girl's voice called. The sound rustled by her ears as if carried by the wind. “Em, please don't blame me.”
“Where are you?” Emily shouted. Her voice echoed.
“When you wake up, please, don't blame me. Please, please, please.”
“I don't understand? Who are you?”
The voice didn't answer.
Emily followed the road until the saw sign—Washington D.C. 10 miles. Abandoned cars, some of which were burned out, littered the ditches and embankments. Up ahead, the blot of the sun dropped below the hazy skyline. Hours must have passed, but the distant smoke and fires never seemed to get closer. She turned and stared down the miles of deserted road that led away from the city. I should go back.
“Yes,” the voice said. “Go back.”
“Why?”
“Em, go home.”
Then a shrill pierce of a siren cracked the air. It grew louder.
Her eyes shot op
en. She leapt out of bed, shoved her hands over her ears and stared at the megaphone in the ceiling corner. Pressure built in her brain as she staggered to the door. “What the hell is that?” She barely heard her own voice.
After about ten seconds, the squeal ended. “Shower call,” Maggie said, and inched out of bed, her breaths short with each movement.
Emily stood over Maggie, holding her hands inches from the girl's arms. “Are you okay?”
Maggie didn't answer and began sliding off her fatigues. “You get five minutes.” The shirt dropped off her back and revealed sickle-shaped patches of brown, black, red and yellow flesh.
Emily couldn't force herself to look away. “Wh—where are the showers?”
Maggie, now fully nude, opened the door and paused. “Down the hall. On your left.”
“And you go outside like that?”
“There are only females in this wing. Even this place has some privacy.” Maggie stepped through the door without showing a hint of worry.
Emily undressed, grabbed a bar of soap and stepped into the hall. She tried to mimic Maggie's confident stroll, but her arms crept upward, covering herself in a subconscious attempt at modesty. About halfway down the hall, she jumped inside the shower room door.
More than two hundred girls were standing under chrome nozzles on the far wall. A blanket of steam rose to the ceiling and blurred their bruises and scars. Emily stumbled across the soap-laden tile floor until she secured an empty spot in front of red button labeled ON.
She pushed it.
Scalding water ejected from the showerhead, and Emily's arms glued instinctively to her side. The bar of soap fell victim to gravity. Her legs took on a life of their own, staying in the same place but attempting to run an imaginary marathon. A squealing whimper climbed through her clenched teeth.
Then the water sputtered to a slow trickle.
A robotic, female voice crackled over the loud speaker. “Orientation shall commence in the east wing at Oh-six hundred. Please, be punctual.”
Emily looked at the wall. The Army had apparently mounted a clock with a blood-red LED display in every imaginable location. It was 5:13. The shower room was already empty by the time she made it to the mirror, and she scowled at her bald-headed reflection. “They wake me up at five A.M., but I don't need to be anywhere until six? Like it's going to take me forty-five minutes to get ready.” She turned on the faucet and washed her face. “My hair probably found a shallow grave in some landfill or on some old dude's head. And I'm pretty sure the duffle bag didn't hold a secret cache of make-up. Oh, wait, I need to select an outfit.” She lifted her arms as if she held two invisible hangers. “Let me see, should I choose green or, I don't know, green?” She walked through the door. “I'm sleeping in tomorrow.”
In the hall, towel-clad girls scurried to their rooms. Others, already dressed, lined up along the walls. “Five minutes, ladies,” a woman shouted, followed by a piercing crack of wood on wood. Emily's toes dug into the carpet as a masculine, female officer jogged down the hall and slapped a baton against each door. “Get your asses in gear, now.” The officer slid to a stop in front of Emily, who fumbled to keep her grip on the towel. “What are you waiting for? Move it. If you aren't lined up in front of your door in five minutes—” She glanced at the wall clock. “—four minutes, I'm dragging you into the hall, and you can run with nothing on but your towel.”
“Run?” Emily swallowed. “I can't run. I have asthma.”
“I wouldn't care if you had arthritis in every joint. Or two peg legs.”
Emily hesitated, frozen.
The officer slapped the baton against the wall, less than an inch from Emily's head. “Go.”
Emily sprinted to her room and yanked out a clean, pressed set of fatigues. Maggie leapt on top of her bed and laughed as Emily held her pants up with one hand and hopped across the room, trying to slide her free arm through the shirtsleeve. Her eyes never left the clock until she tied the last shoestring.
Emily and Maggie lined up in front of their door a few seconds before the hall clock flashed 5:20. The officer twirled her baton and gave a disappointed huff—probably upset because she didn't get to drag anyone out of a room. “Right face. Thirty minutes, ladies.”
And the soldiers ran.
Emily smacked her forehead. Why didn't I see this coming? She had examined the halls, studied the white doors and could probably guess their spacing within a few inches. She could even make it back to the barbershop or mess hall by memory. But how could she have missed the one glaring detail about the base? A black streak in the center of the carpet stretched farther into the distance than she could see. Hundreds of boots pounded the floor, exposing more of the underlying black rubber.
Around the five-minute mark, a burning sensation crept up her side. She heard a dull pop come from inside her boot, which constricted around her ankle. Emily expected soldiers to start passing her anytime now, but she passed them instead. A young man, speckled in red and purple bruises, jogged as he held a towel around his waist with a death grip. A few doors down, two girls helped a sobbing teen to her feet.
Fifteen minutes in, more soldiers hunched over in an attempt to fill their lungs, while others limped or hopped on one foot. As her own breath grew short, Emily reached in her pocket and pulled out the inhaler. She shoved the tip in her mouth, squeezing the metal vial.
Nothing.
She made a mental note to visit the pharmacy and pushed through the pain.
Down the hall, an overweight girl lay on the floor and gripped her knee. Two officers hovered over her, their batons held high, ready to strike. “Get up, you worthless hack,” one shouted. Before Emily rounded the corner, the hall echoed with the crack of wood against flesh and violent screams. She cringed at the sound of each hit. Emily closed her eyes when she passed three identical scenes.
“Good run,” an officer shouted. “Head to your scheduled rooms.”
After limping to the south wing, Emily worked her way through a crowd of soldiers who scrunched their faces in tight grimaces. They each held a bottle of some pink substance. A few chugged down the liquid in one go while the rest took labored sips. Near the orientation room door, she passed a table covered with hundreds of the full drink bottles. Her chest and stomach both burned at the thought of anything other than air touching her lips.
“No shakes allowed in orientation,” a stocky officer said. He waited at the door and instructed each soldier to leave the empty bottles on a tray near his boots. Emily didn't have a shake, so she walked into the orientation room, but before her second foot touched the carpet, someone grasped her arm and jerked her back to the hall. Her head snapped forward, chin bounced off her sternum. She let out a short cry. “Where's your shake?” the officer asked.
“I'm not hungry.” Her tone was uncertain.
He shoved her toward the table, and Emily stumbled until her forehead smacked a mass of soft flesh. Pink liquid shot out of a muscular soldier's bottle, splattering his face and oozing down his chin and neck.
“What the hell?” the soldier said. He grabbed the front of Emily's shirt with his left hand and lifted his right fist. She squeezed her eyes shut, preparing for the blow.
“No,” the officer said.
Emily opened one eye and saw the officer's hand around the soldier's wrist. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
“But—” the soldier objected.
“She has one minute. If she doesn't finish her shake by then, she'll drink all of them—and she'll lick it off your shirt.”
The muscular soldier nodded, his slight smile telling Emily that he was agreeable with that proposition.
Emily reached out and slowly wrapped her fingers around a glass container. The officer and soldier hovered beside her while she watched a bubble eek to the liquid's surface. She eased the bottle to her mouth as the muscular soldier pointed at the pink ooze on his shirt and licked his lips. Emily turned up the bottle.
Of the many broken images in Emily
's past, she remembered with clarity the day her mother caught her eating crayons. It seemed like the thing to do at the time, an interesting new flavor, especially the Neon Carrot color. She even remembered, at four years old, the morning she saw the neighbor's dog eat grass and decided to try it herself. But she couldn't recall a day in her life when she wondered how chalk might taste. She knew it now.
After the last ounce of liquid slid out of the bottle, Emily's mouth dried up more than the Sahara. The officer and muscular soldier sighed, then walked away.
“Hey,” someone said in a raspy voice.
Emily turned, almost knocking the bottle out of Sarah's hand. “Hey, you.”
Sarah lifted her finger, apparently asking for a moment, and finished off the shake. Her tongue hung out of her mouth, eyes narrowed and a dull gurgle came from her throat. She pounded the top of her fist into her sternum and gasped for air.
“You okay?” Emily asked.
Though her eyes watered, Sarah nodded. “Let's hurry so we can get a good spot.”
In the orientation room, auditorium seats stretched upward in a slope of more than fifty rows. Emily followed Sarah until they reached the third to last section, where Sarah rushed toward two empty spots. When Emily sat in the stiff chair, her stomach sloshed with warm liquid. The lights blurred, and their streaking beams seemed to reach for her. She leaned forward, pressing on her stomach. Don't puke, she thought. Not here.
“He's cute,” Sarah said, and pointed at a dark complexioned guy in the front. She directed Emily's attention to another. “So is he. Him, too. Ooh, look at that one.” Emily nodded at each of Sarah's selections, taking her word for it. The spinning room made it impossible to see any detail except for the skin tone of each baldhead. For a moment she closed her eyes.
Once she opened them, the room had steadied. Sarah continued pointing out her opinion of hot guys, but Emily now searched the pasty scalps for any of her other companions. In the front row, a bald Raven puckered her lips subtly and listened to Damon boast about something inaudible. He inched closer to her, and Raven scooted in the opposite direction. Definitely not Casanova at work. She checked the room again but still couldn't find Matt.
Walking Ghost Phase Page 7
