Sheep and Wolves

by Jeremy C. Shipp

  I’m going to do a great job, and then I’m going to get my needle badge, and then I’m going to show it to my father. He’s going to hold me and tell me that he’s proud of me.

  I need this badge.

  *

  Once again I dream of falling, and I wake up on the floor.

  “Come on, guys,” England says, without his usual fake accent. “Hurry up.”

  “Who died this time?” Nigel says.

  England doesn’t answer.

  We follow him to the fire pit.

  Hamilton isn’t smiling anymore.

  I throw up on England. He doesn’t care.

  Hamilton dangles there, naked, skewered by the sheep spit. But he’s not a sheep. He’s one of us.

  Mike wraps a leaf around Hamilton’s small penis, and holds it on with one of her hair bands. “That’s better.”

  “Go to your rooms!” Kent says, rushing in front of Hamilton. He waves at us with a machete. “Go to your rooms now!”

  That’s what we do.

  I sit down next to Nigel on the bottom bunk. My muscles loosen. My teeth relax. My stomach doesn’t say a word.

  “I can’t believe he’s gone,” I say. “He was annoying, but he didn’t deserve this.”

  “The others we cooked on that fire didn’t deserve it either,” Nigel says. “No one deserves it.”

  “That’s different though,” I say. “They’re only sheep. Hamilton was a wolf like us.”

  “So we have the right to torture and kill anyone who isn’t like us?”

  “Not the right, really. It’s just the way things are. The world is really overpopulated, and we’re a natural defense mechanism.”

  “Is that what your dad tells you?”

  “Well…yeah, but I believe it.” My gut’s starting to churn again.

  “My dad says that every person we kill did something really terrible in a past life. He calls us knights of karmic justice. Everyone’s got their reasons, but reasons aren’t good enough.”

  I’m silent for a few moments, as a little spotlight shines inside my brain. “Nigel…did you—”

  “Did I kill Hamilton?” He shakes his head. “I haven’t killed anyone since I got here, and I’m not planning to.”

  All I can think to say is, “You’re going to get in trouble.”

  So I do.

  *

  Kent dragged me across the camp by the arm, and that’s why I’m wet and muddy. He also told me, “Hamilton was like a brother to me. He helped me kill my parents. Do you know what kind of bond that sort of thing creates?” That’s why I pissed and shit my pajama pants.

  He’s standing over me with a bloody machete, breathing hard. I notice his trophies on the nearby shelf. Scalps and dried ears mostly.

  “Did you do it?” Kent says.

  I shake my head.

  He kneels on top of my legs and presses the blade against my forehead. “Mike says she saw you sneaking outside her cabin, heading right towards Hamilton’s place.”

  “That’s not true,” I say, shitting my pants even more. “Mike’s a liar. Everyone knows that.”

  “Yeah, and that’s why I haven’t sliced your fucking neck open already.” He stands. “Then again, she might be telling the truth this time. How do I know?”

  “I didn’t do it,” I say.

  “Not just anyone could take out Hamilton. He was a monster. But you. You’re better than most of the others here. You could have done it.”

  I can’t help but smile.

  He stares down at me and shakes his head. “Go back to your room. I need to think.”

  On my way out I hear muffled cries coming from his closet. Probably two children, a boy and a girl. I know how Kent thinks.

  *

  There’s no denying it. That’s Hamilton’s keycard in Nigel’s hand.

  “You killed him,” I say.

  “I’m not like that anymore,” Nigel says. “I found this in the mud.”

  “You killed Hamilton so you could free those stupid sheep.”

  “I am going to free them, but I didn’t kill anyone.”

  “Kent’s going to kill me because of you!” I race forward and trip on the mud before I can touch Nigel.

  “I didn’t do it,” Nigel says, and heads for the Barn.

  “Help!” I say, louder than I’ve ever been in my whole life. No one leaves their cabins. Not even England. As far as they know, Kent’s murdering me, and they don’t want any part of that. I don’t blame them.

  I do, however, blame Nigel.

  So I follow him into the Barn.

  Nigel’s already in the cage, snipping cable ties with a wire cutter.

  “If they hear you crying, they’ll come in and kill us,” Nigel says.

  The children only cry harder.

  “Fuck,” Nigel says.

  I stand there, watching him for a while. He looks so full of himself. So happy. But he’s not the great guy that he thinks he is. He’s going to get everyone killed. All the campers, Kent, our parents. Me.

  And for what? A few stupid sheep who’re already too traumatized to be worth anything to society.

  I pick up a finishing gun from a nearby table and make sure it’s loaded. It is. I cock it.

  “You have to run away as fast as you can,” Nigel says. “Keep running until you can’t run anymore. Then hide. The people who find you will take you to your moms and dads.” Nigel’s looking right at me and the gun as he’s saying all this.

  I lift the gun.

  Would I really kill one of my best friends?

  Well, maybe I’m possessed by the spirit of the ghost kid. Maybe Nigel’s the one who killed him years ago and this is his final revenge.

  What I know for sure is that I don’t want to kill Nigel.

  I need to.

  Reasons are good enough.

  I aim and fire.

  I fire again at one of the sheep who’s running right at me, or the door, I’m not sure which. I hit him in the neck. I must have hit the carotid artery because he’s gushing.

  Most of the sheep run away. Some don’t.

  I walk over to Nigel.

  He’s saying, “Hello kitty. Hello kitty. Hello kitty,” with a bullet hole in his head.

  I don’t think he’s ever even owned a cat.

  My muscles tighten. My teeth clench. I feel like shitting and pissing and throwing up, but there’s nothing left inside me.

  I’m no good at being strapped down on a cold metal table, waiting for the inevitable.

  “We have to get out of here,” I say. “Nigel let the sheep go. They’ll find help and the cops will come after us.”

  “No,” Kent says. “The sheep won’t make it. The Camp is located here for a reason.”

  “I…I didn’t kill Hamilton. It was Nigel. I had to—”

  “No. Mike killed Hamilton. England saw the whole thing. He agreed to tell me who did it if he could slaughter the culprit himself. I agreed. She’s next.”

  I wondered who was in the bag he carried in. It must be her.

  I picture England sliding his hunting knife across Mike’s stomach and all the campers gasping. England will love it.

  Whether or not Mike actually killed Hamilton is anyone’s guess.

  This can’t be happening to me.

  “If you kill me, my dad will eat you alive,” I say. I want to scream the words, but I’m almost whispering.

  “Your dad won’t do shit,” Kent says. “I know him. He cares a lot more about himself than he does about you. If he ate me, every parent mentor of every kid here would be after him. Anyway, your father will expect me to kill you. You broke the most important rule. You killed Nigel.”

  “But…”

  Kent gags me before I can say anything more. It doesn’t really matter. I’d probably just beg for mercy and then when I don’t get any, I’d tell him that I hate him. I’d tell him that he’s going to burn in hell.

  Maybe I do tend to kill adults while I’m sleepwalking and dreaming of
slaughtering my father. That doesn’t mean I did anything wrong.

  Kent blasts me with his nail gun.

  Most of the kids gasp. Some laugh. And that hurts more than the nail.

  Kent’s not doing this because he wants to. He doesn’t want to cause me as much pain as humanly possible. This is about need.

  I’m going to be an example that no one will ever forget.

  This is all Nigel’s fault.

  American Sheep

  One moment you’re prepping your flesh-stick for a heaping dose of midget porn, and the next you’re lying face up in a room packed with disemboweled sheep while something’s sucking on your ass.

  Like me, you stand and find you were sitting on the open mouth of a small tube. An air-sucking tube, like you’d find in a mail-room or Costco. These tube-holes wheeze at you from all over the floor, all over the walls, the ceiling. They’re color-coded. Numbered. you must be insane.

  “Apothegm #223,” a voice says. “All inhales must exceed two seconds.”

  It’s a man’s voice, coming from the speaker mounted to the wall.

  “Apothegm #223 has been transgressed. Liberate the sheep now.”

  A plastic container shoots out from one of the ceiling tubes, and falls directly into one of the floor tubes.

  “Damn it,” the man says.

  A few moments later the container bursts from the wall. This time it lands safely on some bloody wool.

  I’ve never smelled a room full of dead sheep before, but the scent is too real not to be.

  My eyes dart around like I know what I’m doing. Like I have a plan. Maybe one more blink of my leaking eyes and I’ll remember I’m actually a secret agent or an alien. Not a website designer with a degree in philosophy who hasn’t thought about the meaning of life for over two years.

  Or.

  Maybe this is hell.

  Maybe this is heaven.

  Maybe the lion won’t play nice when sleeping by the lamb.

  What I know is that there aren’t any windows. There’s a door, but I don’t check to see if it’s locked. Fuck fight or flight. I feel like standing here in my Spongebob boxers, staring at my hands.

  “Liberate the sheep.”

  For some reason, I think he’s telling me to bring them back to life, so I say, “They’re dead.”

  “Liberate the sheep.”

  His voice is assertive, but soothing. Like the speaker of an audiobook. You don’t want the reader’s mind to wander, but you don’t want to scare anyone away either.

  “Where am I?” I mean to say, but I actually say, “Who am I?”

  And he says, “Liberate the sheep, Pith.”

  That’s not my name.

  “Open up the cartridge,” the man says.

  I try the door, finally, but it’s locked.

  “Open up the cartridge.” This time it’s me talking. I open the blood-smeared plastic container and find knives, saws, scissors, tubes, funnels, and a laminated instruction manual. English on one side. Spanish on the other.

  It tells me how to drain the blood. How to cut up the flesh into long, skinny strips. How to saw bone. It tells me which bits go into which holes. It tells me good luck. It tells me to remember my goggles because safety always comes first. It tells me Made in America.

  *

  Orange Tube #27 eats the last of the intestines, and I realize that I’m drugged. It’s rather obvious to me at this point, because I should be screaming. Not working.

  I shouldn’t even consider this work.

  The decomposing elephant in the room is the fact that the drugs inside me will eventually wear off.

  Then where will I be?

  I’m afraid that I’ll still be here, coated with blood and gut juice, only clear-headed and scared shitless.

  My only hope. If you count sheep to fall asleep, maybe you un-count sheep to wake up.

  Three, two, one.

  The last eyeball rockets away through Blue Tube #3.

  I did the eyeballs last, because they made me feel less alone.

  “Apothegm #184,” the man says. “You must wear knitted sweaters every day except Flag Day.”

  The only shirt I’m wearing is made of dry blood.

  “Apothegm #184 has been transgressed.”

  A rumbling sound molests my ears. It doesn’t get louder, but it sounds angrier. I imagine the tubes blasting me with water. Mountain spring water. Cleaning me.

  Cleansing me.

  Saving me.

  But instead of water, they vomit the sheep back at me. Bones and organ chunks punch me from all sides. Wads of wool pelt me. Strips of flesh slap me. I’m breathing blood.

  As a kid, I thought a toilet or a bathtub could whisk me away from my loving home if I wasn’t careful. Now, I wish the tubes would take me. I wouldn’t mind the sewers. I wouldn’t mind the diarrhea rivers or the giant rats or the orphaned alligators. Give me mole people. Give me radioactive mutants. Give me anything, so long as I can understand what the fuck is going on.

  “Go to Room 9,” the man says. “Not an Apothegm. Just some friendly advice.”

  *

  Outside, I’m in a hallway with art on the walls.

  Paintings. At a time like this.

  I want to burn them all.

  Part of me wants to make a run for it.

  Part of me knows that when the man said, “Just some friendly advice,” he really meant, “Do it or you’re dead.”

  It’s surprising how perceptive you can be when your world’s turned upside-down and inside-out.

  No, my world’s a fucking Mad Lib.

  I wake up to a room filled with (adjective) (noun).

  Disemboweled sheep.

  Inside Room 9 there are (adjective) (noun).

  Cannibalistic clowns.

  But no, inside Room 9, there are actually dead bodies. They’re each lying on their own bed. Some more decayed than others.

  I vomit and scream at the same time, and it’s a messy combination.

  “There’s a small device planted somewhere in your body,” the man says. “Try to enter Room 1, and you’ll die. Room 1 is the only way out.”

  “Fuck you!” I say, because there’s nothing else to do.

  “Apothegm #42. All words beginning with the letter F must not be spoken aloud. Apothegm #42 has been transgressed.”

  Now it’s time to (verb) the (noun.)

  *

  I don’t want to eat the soup.

  The air smells too much like death, and the taste of the soup somehow overwhelms the stench of the air, but the door closed and locked behind me and I can’t get out. The soup is almost black. It has no texture. It tastes runny. What it ran out of, I don’t want to imagine. Though I do.

  To make the soup, I imagine you dump the worst things you can imagine into a blender. Then you do research to find more obscure horrible things, and add those to the concoction as well. Then you let the blender run for three days straight.

  “Eat the soup, Pith.”

  I don’t want to eat the soup.

  Suddenly, or maybe not so suddenly, depending on how long I’ve been holding my spoon, music erupts around me.

  Patriotic music. At a time like this.

  I want to snuff out the entire orchestra.

  America the Beautiful.

  God Bless America.

  This Land is Your Land.

  The National Anthem.

  The National Anthem again.

  I notice that it’s in alphabetical order.

  I notice that I’ve spewed the dark fluid back into my bowl.

  I notice that it hasn’t stopped me from doing my job.

  *

  Apothegm #398. You must not blink more than 10 times per minute.

  The soup starts out as a punishment.

  Now it’s a reward.

  Now I flatten dead chickens with a mallet for a bowl of that black ooze.

  Apothegm #1077. You must not bend your elbows from 5AM to 9PM.

  Days pass. />
  Weeks.

  When I think the word months, I start to cry.

  Apothegm #75. You must not have a spleen.

  The only reason I do the jobs is so that the door will open. So that I can go to another room and do a different job. Sometimes the new job is better. Sometimes worse. It doesn’t matter.

  There are moments of crippling terror, but most of the time I feel numb.

  Apothegm #218. You must be of European descent at all times.

  I work because the jobs are there to be done.

  I eat the soup because it’s there to be eaten.

  I talk to the man because he talks back.

  I’m only alive because I’m not dead.

  *

  My routine shatters when I enter Room 12.

  “Sit down,” the man says. “Join me.”

  It’s him, sitting at a table topped with a cluster of gourmet foods and fine china and unlit candles. The table legs are shaped like dolphins.

  They’re swimming. At a time like this.

  I don’t want to hurt them. I love animals.

  “You,” I say. A very sick part of me is happy to see him. “What are you doing here?”

  “I’m trying to have dinner with you.” He toasts at me with his wine glass.

  For the first time I notice the leash he’s holding with his other hand. I notice the dog by his side. Not a pit bull, but a friendly-looking dog, like the man himself.

  “We’re having veal parmesan,” the man says. “No soup.” He laughs.

  So do I. The sound makes me want to stick a fork in my neck.

  And then, it hits me like a kick in the balls. I know this guy. At first, I’m sure he’s a second cousin. Then, I remember.

  “You’re that Senator,” I say. “You’re supposed to be in jail.”

  “You’re supposed to be at the movies with your girlfriend.”

  “I don’t have one. You’re supposed to be in jail.”

  “Let’s not repeat ourselves.”

  This is him. That corrupt asshole who committed treason after treason, and now he’s sitting there in his fucking suit, staring at me.

  Somehow, I feel betrayed. I thought I was dealing with an ordinary psychopath. But this guy, he fucks over billions of people in his sleep.

  I thought I was special.

  “I imagined you shorter,” the Senator says. “Fatter. They told me you work on computers.”

  “With computers.” This is my rebellion. Pathetic.