“Please stop screaming,” I begged her.
And she did. Just my asking was enough. She stared up into my eyes as if she was looking for something more.
I tore off my shirt and ripped it up for bandages. I wrapped a strip of cloth around her leg, and she groaned and started to retch. I looked down and saw her leg was a real mess. Part of her femur was sticking up through the skin above her knee. The edge of the bone was sharp and jagged.
Mary would tell me later what had happened. Bonnie had been up on the second floor of a house when the zombies came. They had flooded in through the front door, blocking the stairs. Bonnie, the oldest of the three of them, had helped Mary and Addison out a window. They’d still had to jump down a ways, but they’d landed in a bush and they were okay. When it came time for Bonnie’s turn, there’d been no one to help her, and the zombies were almost on top of her. So she just jumped. And missed the bush.
That was how she’d broken her leg. Why she hadn’t been able to run.
“Hold on,” I told her. She nodded a little. The bites all looked superficial—the zombies had just taken off some of her skin. The leg wound and the blood loss were the serious injuries. If I could keep her from bleeding to death, I thought, we could make a splint for her leg, maybe even find some plaster and make a cast.
“Move out of the way, Stones,” Adare said from over my shoulder.
I turned around and saw him blocking out the sun. He had a pistol in one hand, and the barrel was pointed at Bonnie’s face.
I grabbed the barrel and pushed it away. “She’s going to live, Adare. She’s going to be fine,” I insisted.
“Bullshit. Look at her.” He stared pointedly at me, then sighed and reached down and grabbed my arm. I fought him off and tore some more strips off my shirt. The one I’d wrapped around her leg was already soaking through.
Kylie came over and looked down into Bonnie’s face. The younger girl stared up at Kylie with pure hope scrawled across her features.
“She’s infected,” Kylie pointed out.
“So am I. So are you,” I told her, tying a bandage around Bonnie’s arm.
“No,” Kylie said, just stating a fact. “We’re positives, but that just means we might be infected. She definitely is. She’s going to become a zombie, if she lives.”
“It’s the right thing to do,” Adare told me. He grabbed my arm again, and this time he was serious about it. He pulled me to my feet, and there was nothing I could do to fight him off. He was so much bigger than me, so much stronger.
“So what?” I shouted. “So she’s infected—it could be twenty years before she goes zombie!”
“Or it could happen tomorrow, while we’re asleep,” Kylie said.
“It’s the law. It should be the law,” Adare said. He dragged me up until we were face-to-face. “You think I like this?”
He held my gaze, his eyes locked on mine. When I heard the gunshot so close to us, I realized what he was doing. Distracting me so I didn’t see Bonnie die.
“You bastard,” I said, wanting to spit in his face.
“Gotta be, sometimes,” he told me, and then he let me go.
CHAPTER 35
After that there were six of us in the SUV.
Adare drove on, and nobody said a word. Nobody except me.
“You could have saved her,” I kept telling him. “You said the one thing keeping you sharp out here was looking after your girls.”
“I did,” he admitted. He took a piece of beef jerky from his pocket and started chewing on it. “And that’s exactly what happened back there. I took care of Bonnie when she needed me the most.”
“That’s bullshit,” I said, even though I could feel how tense he was, sitting next to me. How close he was to telling me to shut up. Or worse. “We could have saved her. I was bandaging her wounds—if you had let me finish—”
“If I’d let you touch her any more, you probably would’ve infected your own idiot self,” he said. “Leave it, Stones.”
“No. No, I won’t leave it. You killed her.” Even I knew that I was taking things too far. But I couldn’t let this go.
From behind me I could hear the girls whispering among themselves, but I had no idea what they were saying. Whose side they were taking. I doubted Kylie would come to my defense—she’d agreed with Adare, after all. She’d thought killing Bonnie was the right thing to do.
I’d lived nineteen years in a world where everyone agreed on that. Where people who were exposed to the zombie virus were routinely put down. I’d listened to the first generation explain why, countless times. I’d heard their stories about the crisis, and how the only way people survived was by being more brutal than they thought possible. By learning new schools of viciousness, and staring reality right in the eye, and doing what had to be done. They always made it sound so noble. They weren’t killing innocent people, they were putting an end to their suffering. They weren’t slaughtering their friends and family. They were protecting their communities.
I’d heard them talk like that and just assumed it was true, assumed it was necessary. But nobody had ever done it right next to me before. And nobody had done it to somebody I knew and cared about while I stood by, helpless.
Unless you counted when Ike killed my mother.
Maybe that was why I couldn’t handle this.
“I’m gonna give you one last chance, because I know you cared for Bonnie, and I respect that,” Adare told me. “But I want you to see it from my side, okay? I was a lot closer to her than you, and I did what I did out of love. And just think about what this means for me. I’m going to have to go to the trouble of finding a new girl, and that’s going to cost me plenty.”
I was angry at myself for my part in Bonnie’s death. I was angry at the world for being as fucked up as it was. But none of that could hold a candle to the rage I felt toward Adare at that moment.
“You murdered her,” I told him. “You child-fucking bastard.”
Adare had never seemed cooler. More composed. He pulled the SUV over to the side of the road without a word. Stopped the vehicle, and shifted it into park, and for a second we all just sat there, listening to the engine ping as it cooled down.
Was he going to make me get out? Had I pushed him too far finally? I thought maybe he might just shoot me right there, just to shut me up.
Instead he opened his door and leaned one leg out as if he was going to jump out and check the tires or something. Before he stepped out of the vehicle, though, he reached over and grabbed a big handful of my hair and dragged me out with him, dragged me across the driver’s seat and out into the cold air outside the car. It hurt, but I was suddenly so afraid I couldn’t feel much pain.
He threw me down on the shoulder of the road. I tried to roll to my feet, but he planted one boot on my chest and held me down. He didn’t put his weight into it, which might have crushed my ribs. He just wanted me to stay put.
“Okay, Stones. That’s it,” he said.
“Listen,” I tried, but I have no idea what I planned on saying after that.
“I didn’t want this,” he told me. There was a tinge of sorrow in the words. “I wanted you to be one of us, and be happy with that. I thought that stunt you pulled back at the helipad was just the last of your city softness wearing off. Lord knows the wilderness is like sandpaper for your soul, and that’s got to be rough. But I thought you were getting over it. I thought I could make you into something I’d be proud of. The son I always wanted.”
“Son?” I repeated.
“Sounds kind of stupid, I know. But that’s what keeps me going. I’m a family man. Me and the girls, we stick together, and they help me stay sane. It was a lot of estrogen to be carrying around, though. I thought another guy in the car would even things out a little. I assumed,” he said, his voice booming, “you would figure things out in y
our own time. But you’ve always gotta be testing me. You got some weird ideas in your head, and when reality doesn’t conform to them, you get mouthy. Mostly I figured that was high spirits. But nobody—no fucker on Earth—gets to tell me how to take care of my girls. Your shit ends now.”
“What are you going to do to me?” I asked. It seemed a given he was going to abandon me there in the middle of the wilderness. I wasn’t sure if he intended on beating me to a pulp first or not.
He had other plans, though. “Get up,” he said. “We won’t do it here. It’s not safe. There’s a place I know. Get your fucking ass up on your fucking feet!”
I hurried to do what I was told.
“Put your hands behind your back,” he said. He pulled my knife out of my belt, then reached around me to unbuckle the belt, too. All kinds of sick horrors wafted through my brain, but he just looped the belt around my hands and pulled it tight until my wrists ached. Then he marched me around the back of the SUV and opened up the back. A small cargo space lay back there, behind the last row of seats. He shoved me inside and then slammed the door on top of me, bruising my shoulder.
The car started up again. I couldn’t see where we were going.
We drove most of the day like that, until I couldn’t feel my hands anymore, until my legs were cramped from being twisted up in the cargo space. I was thirsty by the end of it, my lips chapped and my throat burned. I was starving.
Mostly, though, I was just terrified.
CHAPTER 36
I was half delirious when the back door of the SUV opened again and I tumbled out. Night had fallen by then. I had no idea how far we’d come. “Where are we?” I asked, my voice breaking because my mouth was so dry.
I could hear water rushing furiously nearby, and around me were walls of rock streaked with lichens. Ahead of me was a narrow path leading to a door set in a wall of concrete. It was hard to make out anything else by moonlight.
“Hydroelectric plant,” Adare said. “Stopped working a long time ago, of course. But it’s tough to get to—before the crisis, the government didn’t want people messing with the turbines. Which means the zombies can’t get down here either, not without breaking their necks. So it’s safe. Every good looter has a couple places like this, places they know they can hole up in an emergency. It’s not exactly livable inside, but we won’t be disturbed.”
“You brought me here to—to teach me a lesson,” I said.
He walked ahead of me and opened the metal door. “Well, come on,” he said.
I looked back at the car full of girls. Kylie was handing out food and water inside. I licked my lips, even though I knew there would be none for me.
“I’m more trouble than I’m worth,” I said. “Just let me go.”
“Go? Go where? You don’t even know where you are, Stones. And you wouldn’t survive a night out here. There’s no road sign to crawl up on, not this far off the beaten path.”
“I’ll take my chances. Please. I’ve been a thorn in your side. Do you really want me to stick around?”
“We’re gonna make it all okay,” he told me. “Now come inside. It won’t be as bad as you think, I promise.”
Beyond the metal door was nothing but darkness.
I walked ahead of him into the smell of rust and mildew and pervading damp. He lit a lamp behind my head and the shadows moved around, shifted like hibernating animals getting out of the way of some irritant. This was a place that had been dark for a long time.
There was a chair in there and a plastic cooler partially covered in dark slime. A hook and dozens of heavy iron chains hung down from the ceiling. Adare tossed my knife onto the chair and then grabbed the belt that secured my wrists. Spinning me around, he lifted me in the air and looped the belt over the hook. Then he let me go.
My body dropped, held up only by the belt around my wrists. Gravity pulled down so hard on me my arms twisted in the sockets of my shoulders. It was excruciating—like having a spike shoved deep into each arm socket at the same time. I am not ashamed to say I cried out.
That pain alone wasn’t what Adare had in mind, though.
It was just a way to keep me still.
“What I’m about to do,” he said, his voice soft in that moss-furred place, “should never be done in anger. I want you to know I’ve forgiven you. I’m not doing this because you pissed me off, Stones. I’m doing it so we can be friends again.”
I couldn’t speak. Couldn’t breathe.
When he pulled my pants down, I found I could still scream.
“You don’t need to do this. I’ll go along, I swear,” I told him. Maybe, I thought, he was just trying to scare me. Maybe this was all going to end in a laugh and an unpleasant memory. Sure.
He ignored what I’d said. “I heard they were doing this out west, in California. They call it ‘gentling,’ like they invented it, but it’s a real old technique. They used to use it on harem guards, back in ‘A Thousand and One Nights’ days. And of course they did it to sheep and horses for thousands of years. A horse that gets this treatment, it’s called a gelding. They’re supposed to ride a lot easier, and buck less.” He dug in his pocket and came up with a length of twine. “I’m going to wrap this around your scrotum real tight, so no blood gets in. Your balls are going to swell up pretty bad, but then they’ll just . . . die. I don’t know if they’ll eventually fall off or just kind of shrivel up.” He shrugged. “Either way, they say there’s no real chance of infection, and that’s good, right?”
“You’re doing this because I called you a bad name?” I asked, trying not to whine. Trying to make myself sound as reasonable as he did. “That seems kind of like an overreaction.”
He grabbed my testicles in one hand and looped the twine around them with the other. He pulled the loop tight. Then tighter still.
I felt the swelling start almost instantly.
“Please, Adare. Please,” I begged.
He tied a knot in the cord. Twisted it, and tied it off again.
I couldn’t catch my breath. My body seized up and my chest hitched, my lungs feeling like they couldn’t move, like they were frozen in place. The swelling in my groin made it feel like my testicles had doubled in size. Like they were going to pop.
“Please—just one more—one more chance—” I babbled.
“Hang in there, Stones,” Adare said. And then he picked up the lamp and headed for the door and I knew he was going to leave, that he was going to leave me there in the dark until it was done. Until I was castrated.
Before he could get to the door, though, it opened with a creak. Kylie stood there in the doorframe. Her face was as blank as ever. “I heard somebody scream. Is everything okay?” she asked.
“All shipshape, kid. Go back to the others. I’ll be there in a minute. I think it’s going to be Addison tonight. I need a little purity to get this nasty taste out of my mouth.”
“Okay,” she said. She glanced up at me. I tried to catch her eyes, but she was staring at my crotch. “Oh,” she said. “That looks painful.” There was no inflection in her voice at all. The sight of what Adare was doing to me made no impression on her, I could tell.
Still, I begged her for help. Or I tried. All that came out of my mouth was “Ky, Ky, Ky,” as I tried to find the breath to form her name.
She turned away, not even acknowledging me. But then she stopped before going through the door. “Adare,” she said.
“Something up, girl?”
“What you did for Bonnie.” She seemed to have to think about the words before they came out of her mouth. “Back there. That was wrong.”
“That’s one opinion,” Adare growled. “You know what they say about opinions. They’re like assholes—they all stink.”
“You’re not good to us. You tell yourself that,” Kylie went on. “But you’re not. You’re a monster.” She
might as well have been asking him what he wanted for dinner, for all the emotion in her voice.
Then she pulled a pistol out of her pocket and shot him in the chest.
CHAPTER 37
The sound was enormous, even in that moss-lined room. The flash from the barrel blinded me. When I could see again, I could look at nothing but Adare. He was staggering across the floor, one hand clutched against the wound in his chest. Blood streamed out from between his fingers. His head was bowed, but he was still very much alive.
“You’re going to regret that, little girl,” he growled. “Give me that gun. Give it to me right now.”
I expected her to shoot him again, right away. It was the obvious thing to do. She’d come this far; if she didn’t finish him off now, he would surely kill her—or worse—in reprisal. The only smart thing for Kylie to do was finish him off.
Instead, she turned the gun around in her hand so she was holding the barrel and held it out to him. An actual expression was showing on her face, a kind of emotion, but not the one I expected. She looked surprised, mostly. Embarrassed. As if she’d just woken up and found herself like this, having done something she was ashamed of.
He started to shuffle toward her, clearly weakened by the gunshot wound but in no danger of keeling over.
She held up the gun, her head lowered. She was looking at the floor and nothing else. She was trembling.
Then she looked up at me, acknowledging my presence for the first time. “You made me do this,” she said, and she almost looked angry.
“Kylie,” Adare said. “There’s nothing done here can’t be fixed, but we’ve got to do it together. You hand me that gun.”
She turned and looked at him again, and it was like she’d never seen him before. Then her face hardened. “Oh, shut the fuck up! Pedophile!” she screamed.
She lifted the gun and shot him through the left eye. His head jerked around and twisted to the side. He started to sink to the floor. She shot him again in the chest, and he dropped like a bag full of tools. She shot him one more time, but I think it was just rage, not because she thought he might still be alive.
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