I slept fitfully sitting up. Close to dawn, I could hear one of the guards whisper to Tanya, "Hey, bitch, go over and sit with the kid. He needs you." I saw her walk over, then I dozed back off.
In the early morning light, I looked over again. The guards had dispersed at some point in the night, and I could see Tanya and Popcorn clearly. They both were asleep. Tanya was sitting up, leaning against the back wall of the cell, like I was. He was lying across her lap, on his side, turned slightly toward me.
As the light grew brighter, I could see them more distinctly. The way they were sitting, the morning light actually shined brightly across them. Popcorn was in as bad a shape as I had imagined he would be—bruised and bloodied from head to toe, lips cut and swollen, one eye swollen shut. The psychological or spiritual wounds that I couldn't see were probably much worse. Bathed in the morning light, his brutalized body graceful now and still, her beautiful and loving face bent toward him, both of them suffused with the peace of sleep and the vivifying glow of the sun—they could not have looked more like a pieta if they had deliberately staged it.
After a while, the prison began to stir with the more mundane and profane forms of life that dwelt in it. Eventually, we were led outside to stretch and spend some time in the light and fresh air.
While passing through the shattered remains of the guard room and entrance in order to go outside, Popcorn tripped on the doorframe and fell sideways, onto the floor of the control room. I reached down for him, but he batted away my hand. He scuttled a little ways with his left hand clutching at his side. His right hand was stretched out in front of him, and then he swept it around and out to his side, all the while making noises as if he were in pain.
I was so overcome with pity for him, I could almost have summoned up the strength and courage to fight those monsters again right then and there. One of them almost provoked me to it when he came up to see what was going on, and looked as though he was going to hit Popcorn. But the boy finally got up, bowing submissively to the guard, and we proceeded outside.
Out there, I paced back and forth; the two former prison guards sat off by themselves, and Popcorn refused any compassion or intimacy from Tanya now in the daylight hours, in front of others. She sat by herself, and he retreated to a corner by a wall and sat with his back to us the whole time.
When we went inside, Popcorn sat on the floor of his cell the rest of the day with his back to the outside. One certainly couldn't blame him for spurning all human contact, when so-called humans had so successfully broken him and dehumanized him more thoroughly than the undead ever could. Ill-fed and depressed, with my whole body aching and one eye swollen shut, I myself could do nothing all day but pass in and out of sleep, sitting up in the cell, and repeating my new favorite prayer from the night before: "O Lord of hosts, that judgest righteously, let me see thy vengeance on them."
Toward evening, with deer again roasting on the fire outside, it seemed to darken early in the prison, and thunder could be heard faintly in the distance. I smirked and grunted, the only right way to register enjoyment of a dark and deadly irony. The kind of sudden, violent summer storm that swept through this time of year seemed perfect for what I thought was coming that night.
Looking over at Popcorn's battered and bruised back, I had gotten my own thousand yard stare. And it was not out of pity for the undead, as I had felt it so many times before. It was out of rage and disgust for the living. And I felt some of the raw, primal energy of outrage and revulsion that Frank had tapped into the night before.
Tonight, I would help see God's vengeance extend even here, to the deepest pit of this manmade hell. God and I had let this place be stained with innocent blood, and I blamed both of us for it. Now it was time for these walls to be painted with the blood of the guilty, the way hell was supposed to be, with righteous judgment and richly deserved, never-ending punishment.
I looked heavenward. "Give me the strength, God," I said quietly. Thunder boomed closer. I clenched my fists and could extend them without as much pain as before. I looked outside my cell and could focus a little better with my one good eye, enough to have a little bit of depth perception.
I nodded. "Thanks," I said. "That'll do."
* * * * *
We were again treated to the barbaric venison feast outside, though there was none of the fruit liquor this time. I was grateful not to smell its nauseating odor this night, but it meant the inmates would be sober and better able to fight us off. I guess I didn't care at this point. We all ate ravenously as storm clouds swirled above us, though as yet no rain had fallen.
When I looked at Tanya, I felt sure that I saw a look of defiance and determination. I hoped it was the same look she saw on my face. And I hoped that it would end somewhat differently for us than it had for poor Frank.
With Frank dead, and me and Popcorn beaten into bloody pulps the night before, the Pit crew didn't seem to worry about our ability to fight them off. They had two guards on Popcorn, but only one on me and Tanya, as before, with several more hanging back, ready to jump in if necessary.
With the prison now in semi-darkness, punctuated by flashes of lightning, Copperhead descended the ladder and approached Tanya's cell. He too seemed satisfied that there would be no uprising, as no bodyguard accompanied him. He even felt optimistic enough to stop and taunt me before going in to Tanya's cell.
"Big storm tonight," he said with his mock cheerfulness—though, of course, I'm sure the prospect of sadism and degradation really did make him feel cheerful. "But I'm sure you'll still hear my new black bitch screaming my name when I show her how a real man gives her some hard lovin'. Ain't nothing gonna be loud enough to drown that out once I get all up in her shit." He guffawed. I prayed it would be his last.
As Copperhead bated me, another group of pedophiles entered Popcorn's cell. I made no move toward the door. Better not to raise the alarm prematurely; I felt sure that Popcorn or Tanya would attack the monsters at any moment, and that would be the signal for me to jump in and do whatever I could before they beat me to death. I still assumed it would end with my death, though I hoped to take more of these ugly bastards with me than poor Frank had.
The lightning flashed, and I only counted to five before the sound of the thunder rolled through. The storm was getting close.
I stared intently at Popcorn's cell. Both guards had gone in with the visitor this time, I assume to administer another beating if necessary. Popcorn must've timed his attack just right, though, as I heard one of them yell, "Shit! Look out! Little bastard's got a…"
This switched abruptly to a gurgling scream as a huge arc of red shot out between the bars to splatter on the floor outside the cell.
"Get him off me!" another man yelled. "Get him off me!" This also trailed into another horrible scream.
Neither the inmates nor I had thought Popcorn would improvise a weapon, though, in hindsight, it was hard to believe we'd overlooked the possibility. Prisoners had been turning practically anything into a weapon ever since there were prisons, and usually with much less motive than Popcorn. If a man could spend weeks making something into a knife to kill another man for a pack of cigarettes, then certainly someone fighting against torture and humiliation could be counted on to fashion something sharp and deadly.
It suddenly hit me that when he'd stumbled that morning, it was all a ploy so he could hunt around on the floor for a piece of glass big enough to do the job. And judging by the screaming, it was just the right size.
I came out the door of my cell and went for the guard. It was the same guy as I had fought the night before—an ugly, bald, squat little bastard. He came at me with the rebar and a long, rusty knife.
We both snarled as we collided. I grabbed both his hands, and we wrestled for the weapons. He tried to kick me in the groin again, but I turned slightly to the side, and it did nothing; I tried to headbutt him, but he pulled back, and I grazed his nose, to no effect.
The adrenalin and the outrage pushed me on, but he
was better fed and stronger, with a lower center of gravity. Neither of us could gain the upper hand.
On the tier above us, more men came out to watch. If some of them came down to help, as they had the night before, then it would all be over just as quickly as it had been then.
But as we struggled there, Copperhead come staggering out of Tanya's cell, with her hanging onto his back and screaming like an avenging fury. I couldn't exactly see, but she was strangling him from behind, with something wrapped around his neck. I guessed it was her shoelace, something else they'd overlooked in their laziness and stupidity, and which my naiveté had been unable to identify as a potential weapon.
He couldn't grab her, and he was staggering about now, looking for someone else to hit her for him, but it wasn't working. The guard in front of her cell, who carried the baseball bat with nails that had killed Frank, couldn't get a good shot at her, and he couldn't decide whether he should help the guy who was fighting me.
So Copperhead threw himself back against the bars of the cell, slamming Tanya into them with all his weight. I didn't think it was going to work, judging by how determined she looked. It also made it impossible for anyone else to take a swing at her.
When the crowds above saw Copperhead's predicament, they did not rush down the ladders to his aid. Instead, the same cheer as the night before rose up—"Kill! Kill! Kill!" This time it was punctuated by thunderclaps that were louder and closer each time. Clearly, the inmates were not only lacking in intelligence or a work ethic, but also in loyalty. It was hardly surprising—a place fueled exclusively on testosterone, barely-cooked red meat, sodomy, and fear would surely be lacking in those other qualities.
I suppose if Copperhead somehow came out on top, they could always claim later that they were cheering him on, so it made double sense not to get involved, but instead to enjoy the show. They regarded Copperhead fighting for his life as just an unusual and therefore very enjoyable entertainment—which, to be fair to them, was exactly how he would've regarded them in a similar situation.
This unexpected cheer also made the Pit crew hesitate. Several who had rushed to Popcorn's cell were now backing away and looking up at the crowd. Without a leader, and with its loyalties divided, the animalistic mob was much less frightening, and much less effective at either inflicting pain, or even at defending itself.
Perhaps our fight would last a bit longer than the previous night. I still assumed we would all die, but it now looked as though we had a real chance to kill Copperhead and several of the Pit crew. I could easily—no, gladly—accept that outcome.
Chapter Eighteen
But at the moment, I was still locked in a struggle with the guard. This ended abruptly when Popcorn flew in from my right and grabbed the guy's left arm. Popcorn was snarling like a beast and was already covered in fresh, hot blood from the men he had stabbed. He climbed up on the guy I was fighting, holding onto him and biting his forearm, as he plunged a shard of glass into the guy's neck. I was showered with blood as it shot from the guy's neck and came flying off the shard as it repeatedly slashed up and down.
The guy screamed and staggered backward. I grabbed the rebar away from him as he collapsed. He fell to his knees, with his left hand clutching at his neck, blood pouring from between his fingers. The crowd's chant of, "Kill! Kill! Kill!" crescendoed, but I hardly needed any encouragement. There could be no mercy, both for what he had done, and for what he would become if I let him bleed to death. The last thing we needed was a zombie in here.
I brought the rebar down on his head once, then again when he fell onto his face. The crowd above us let out a cheer, just as they had when Frank was being murdered last night. As one might have expected, their cheering did not indicate approval of the winner, but merely excitement and near orgasmic joy at the maiming and killing they were witnessing.
Popcorn stood up beside me. Now his face and especially his mouth were covered with blood. It was even streaked throughout his long, wild hair. He was panting and licking his lips like a wild, rabid beast, which was not far from what he was at that moment. I couldn't say I blamed him, or even that I found the behavior all that disturbing, under the circumstances. I think anything short of drinking the blood or consuming the flesh of his tormentors would have been defensible, even decent, behavior.
I looked over, and Copperhead was still throwing himself backward against the bars of the cell, smashing Tanya into them. It didn't look fun for either of them, but she clearly seemed to be holding her own, and he seemed to be weakening.
The guy with the baseball bat finally decided to make a move toward me and Popcorn. I think at this point it was mostly an attempt to fight past us and just climb out of the Pit altogether. Good. We were no longer on the defensive, and we even had the crowd's support, if not their sympathy, for I doubt they had any. Maybe we wouldn't die that night.
The guy swung the bat at Popcorn, who nimbly jumped out of the way. He swung the bat at me, and I swung the rebar to counter it. The rebar stuck between some of the nails, so that we were then wrestling over the weapon. Popcorn dove for the guy's throat, but this time the guy let go of the bat to defend himself. They wrestled, and Popcorn continually slashed at his arms and throat. I disentangled the rebar from the bat and smashed the guy across the head with it once, then again, then one last time after he'd fallen. The crowd cheered wildly.
I handed the bloody rebar to Popcorn and took up the bat myself. With no more Pit crew near us, we finally ran over to help Tanya. She was wheezing and sweating from being slammed into the metal bars, but it was obvious now that she could feel the life ebbing from her tormentor. She looked at me, her teeth gritted, lips pulled back in a snarl, her eyes filled with rage, her mouth right next to his ear as his swollen, grotesque face turned blue.
He too was looking at me with his bugged-out eyes, and I imagined they were pleading, but I couldn't be sure. Perhaps worse, I'm not sure I would've cared whether or not they were. Worse still, the thought flashed through my adrenalin-soaked brain that if they were definitely pleading for mercy—something from which Frank and Popcorn had so bravely refrained—it might make what we all knew was coming next even more delectable. And I cringed, for the prospect of wreaking vengeance and punishment on this piece of filth was already terrifyingly sweet.
"You know, Jonah," Tanya hissed, "you probably don't know this, since you're not some inbred, redneck asshole who crawled out of some swamp—but you got to hit a snake in the head really hard if you want to kill its stupid, sorry ass."
I swung the bat back to deliver the blow. It was the cruel, up close and personal type of execution that a sadist like Copperhead would've found especially enjoyable, so I tried not to revel in it too much. But after the suffering of Frank and Popcorn, it was just plain impossible not to. You had to allow human nature some visceral, fleshly enjoyment from curing such a disease as Copperhead, like lancing a ripe boil, or even picking at a scab. I would've been much more inclined to show mercy to one of the undead.
Above us, the chant of, "Kill! Kill! Kill!" rose to an orgiastic crescendo.
"Die, you stupid son of a bitch." I slammed the bat into his forehead. The glitch and crunch was much louder this time than it had been with Frank, close as I was. I pulled the bat back, wrenching the nail loose from his skull, then Tanya shoved him off with a shriek of disgust as the crowd above us went wild. He fell onto his face with a thud that was barely audible above the cheers.
Tanya and I were panting, and our satisfaction was so intoxicating that we paused along with Popcorn to watch the puddle of thick, dark blood spread out from under his face. I looked at Tanya, and the bliss was almost of post-coital quality.
At that point, I really didn't care if the other inmates put my head on a stick. I'd sent the ruler of this pathetic little hell to the real thing. If anything else good ever happened to me now, or even if I just kept breathing for a few more minutes to enjoy this victory, then that was just gravy, and I'd put it on my list of things that h
inted at a God interested in the guilty being punished. He had, at least, answered the prayer I had made when I buried Frank the night before.
The three of us stood there a moment, panting and covered with the warm and sticky blood, before two more screams tore through the prison, accompanied by lightning flashes and nearly immediate thunderclaps. The cheering above us stopped suddenly.
The screams were long, piercing, as though from people who were being torn apart, and at the exact same moment that I heard them, I inhaled the strongest odor—even over the nearly overpowering metallic smell from all the blood—of rotting flesh. And then I could hear the other sound—a low and persistent moaning.
I really didn't want to, but I slowly turned around, away from Copperhead's body, and I saw that about forty feet away from where we stood, extending all the way back to the entrance to the prison, the ground floor was packed with swaying, shuffling human shapes. It must've finally started raining, as steam was rising off of them, as if they were soaking wet.
At the next lightning flash, I could see their rotten, undead visages—their blackened teeth, bloody mouths, foggy eyes, mottled flesh, and matted manes of straw-like hair. And though some were at present occupied with devouring two of the Pit crew, those in the vanguard were staggering toward us with their usual lack of coordination, and complete superabundance of determination and focus.
Defeating sadists and rapists only to be confronted by an army of the drooling undead—this place was about as close to hell as I hoped I would ever get. Now it seemed that we were most definitely going to die that night. It seemed it would be a lot quicker than I had previously imagined, but every bit as horrible, too.
I made sure to tack on a little extra prayer right then—that my guts were torn out and eaten before Popcorn's and Tanya's, so I wouldn't have to see that happen to them. No, wait, that would be selfish and unfair. But it didn't seem right to pray for them to die first. What the hell, I guess we could leave that part up to the Lord, as He always seemed to have the part down where innocent people died horribly, so I stopped praying and started to back up slowly.
Dying to Live Page 18
