Arcadia (Book 1): Damn The Dead (20 page)

“Ross, what happened over there?”

Ross shrugged. “I missed it, boss. I was orientating McKinney here. We were talking. I was telling her how we do things around here, how everything works. Next thing I know, lights and sirens are going off.”

“You didn’t catch anything going on, Mister-Know-It-All?”

“Sorry, boss. I didn’t see anything.”

“How about you, McKinney? I know you saw something.”

“I was talking to Ross,” Char said, careful to keep a steady pace on her mill. She wasn’t sure if she’d just been warned. She didn’t want to miss out on dinner.

“Who threw the first punch?” Lou said.

“They were punching each other?” she said. “I missed it. Are they okay?”

Lou stared at her. For the first time she was thankful for the mask. There was no way he could clearly see her eyes. Not with the plastic faceplate, and not with her bouncing up and down while she walked on the mill. He couldn’t see her eyes, couldn’t read her expression, and he wouldn’t notice the extra sweat that dripped from her temples and rolled down the sides of her face.

Lou walked away from them and stopped in front of Chris.

The siren was silenced. The spinning red light stopped. The guards moved the men to bikes at opposite ends of the line of equipment.

“Look ahead, and keep walking,” Ross said.

Chapter 29

“How are you holding up?” Frank sat down at the picnic table next to Chris, and across from Ross and Char. The same way they’d sat for breakfast. It was about repetition and consistency. She figured if she sat, say, in Chris’ spot, it would throw the three of them off kilter.

“Me? How about you? I watch you work that wheel all day. I have no idea how you keep at it like that,” Char said. She stared at the brown pouch on her tray. She was not in the mood for chicken fajita again, but was so hungry it didn’t matter what was inside.

“Beef ravioli,” Chris said.

Char tried to smile. “Cold?”

“They have heaters. You add water. It’s a chemical reaction. It will heat the entree,” Ross said. “Like this. Watch.”

He laid his pouch over the side of the tray at an angle, and poured a small amount of his water into it.

She glanced around. Everyone was doing the same thing.

“Takes a few seconds, and in a minute or so, the ravioli will taste like it just came out of a microwave oven,” Chris said.

“A weak microwave oven,” Frank said. “When I was a kid, I’d open a can of Chef Boyardee, grab a fork, and sit in front of the television eating them cold, right out of the can. What? They’re no different from this. Pre-cooked before being packaged.”

Chris nodded his head from side to side, as if deciding whether to add something to the conversation. “I did the same thing, but with hotdogs. I’d cut open the package, take one in each hand, and just eat them raw.”

Char touched the bag. It was pretty warm. She emptied the ravioli onto her tray. She didn’t need to blow on it before eating it, but it was warm and tasted better than if she’d been forced to eat it cold. “This isn’t so bad,” she said.

While they ate, she waited for them to bring up the fight. Frank had practically been ringside for the entire thing. No one mentioned it. She left it alone. She glanced over at the table where Gonzales sat. He wasn’t there. It was as Ross had suggested. He was forced to work through dinner as part of the punishment.

The idea of spending three years in prison was daunting, to say the least. If anything, these guys were teaching her how to behave. The lessons she picked up on would help her survive in the Cog.

“So where is this underground river?” Char said, hoping it sounded like a casual question.

“The Roanoke?” Frank said. “There’s a few paths behind the cells that lead to it.”

“That’s so weird,” Char said. “I never knew rivers could run underground.”

“There are many places, on most continents, with underground rivers,” Chris said, “and there are even a good handful of rivers that flow south to north.”

“South to north?” Frank said. “That’s ridiculous, not to mention impossible.”

“It is so possible. You are thinking of north as up and south as down. Most people do that, but north and south are just directions. It’s about the elevation. If it is higher elevation in the south, then naturally the water will flow north. Up in New York there’s a river called the Genesee. It flows south to north,” Chris said.

“I know that river. I’m from Rochester. Originally,” Char said. “The Genesee was just a few miles from where I grew up.”

“Small world,” Chris said.

Some of the beef was cold in the next bite full. She cringed. “Got an undercooked piece,” she said, taking a sip of water to wash it down. “Where does the Roanoke let out? I mean, it can’t run forever underground can it?”

“The Albemarle Sound,” Chris said.

“That’s not where it comes out of the mountain, that’s where it empties into,” Frank said.

“What’s an Albemarle Sound?” Char said.

“It’s like an enclosed body of water. It’s just before the Atlantic,” Chris said.

“We’re nowhere near the Atlantic,” Char said.

“We’re not. It’s not where the Roanoke comes out of the mountain, like I was saying,” Frank said.

Ross held up a hand. “Why are you so interested in the river?”

Char furrowed her brow. “Because it’s interesting,” she said.

Ross used his tongue to dig at food in his teeth while his hands tousled with a napkin. “Two things, kid. You listen, and you listen closely, okay? One, this is your first day here. Day one. Relax a little. Learn the ropes. It’s important you get yourself as acclimated as possible. You got me on that? And two, whatever it is you’re thinking, stop thinking it.”

“You don’t know what I’m thinking,” she said.

“No, and I don’t want to know. What I am saying is, stop thinking it. It’s for your own good.” He picked up his tray and dumped the wrappers into a garbage basket by a cart for empty trays. “Let’s get back to work. Finish this shift up. Come on.”

#  #  #

Of everything she had seen the last several years, enslaved infected might be the most disturbing. Harnessed monsters working to power a small town. It was ludicrous. If it caught on, though, it might change the way the world ran. She tried to picture Manhattan back to normal with the giant video displays and the hustle and bustle of people on the New York City streets, while beneath the subways, hundreds of thousands of infected ran on treadmills.

Ludicrous.

“You awake, kid?”

Char was in bed, under her blanket. The voice came from the wall. Ross.

She thought about ignoring him the way he’d ignored her the last leg of their shift on the mill.

She pulled back the blanket and carried it with her to the wall. She sat with her back against it, toward the front by the bars.

Lights had gone out nearly an hour ago.

6 A.M. would come fast. She couldn’t sleep anyway. “I’m up.”

“I’m sorry about earlier, at dinner.”

“Nothing to be sorry for.”

“I jumped to conclusions,” he said.

She didn’t respond to his statement. “What did you do up top?”

“Janitor. I sweep and mop floors, clean johns, empty trash,” he said. “I took pride in the profession the mayor assigned. I have a high school education. Not a diploma, but I got close.”

There was something in his tone of voice that contradicted what he’d just said. “What did you do to get in here, Ross?”

Silence followed. His turn not to respond.

She was about to ask him how long he’d been sentenced when he spoke up.

“I beat up my wife,” he said.

She stared at the bars. She wanted to see his face. It couldn’t have been easy for him to admit. Remorse dripped off the words. “Why?”

“She loved me,” he said. It was not the answer she’d expected. It was by no means an explanation. “I was never good enough for her. That never stopped her, though. She never tried to make me feel stupid, or like less of a man. It was the exact opposite, actually. She bragged about me to her friends. The things she’d tell them were always true, it was just that she made the mundane sound spectacular.” He changed his voice, made himself sound like a woman. “He mows the straightest lines when he cuts the lawn. He painted the trim around the shutters like Picasso.”

Char just listened. He was talking. She wasn’t going to interrupt.

His voice was normal once again. “She didn’t do it to be mean, she wasn’t trying to belittle me. I think she’s just always been proud of me, but me, I didn’t like it. Every time she bragged, I took it personal, like a dig. You see, she went to college. Earned a teaching degree. What’s the mayor do? The most logical thing. He gives her a job as a teacher. There aren’t a ton of kids in Arcadia, but there’s enough. She’s teaching little kids, and elementary kids, and sometimes high school aged kids, and loving it. We’d get home from work at roughly the same time, and you know what killed me? I’d ask her how her day was. You know what she’d tell me? That it was good. That was about it. It was good. Then she would ask me about my day. I’d try the same thing, you know. I’d say it was good. She wouldn’t let me off so easy. She’d ask specific things, like if I’d overheard any juicy gossip, or found any embarrassing letters in the wastebaskets. When I tried to get her to tell me about her day then, she might tell me a few things, downplaying what she did. She tried to anyway. What she didn’t know was that the love for her job was in her eyes. It sparkled there. Glittered,” he said.

She hoped his wife didn’t take a beating for loving her job. She couldn’t imagine a reason why a husband should ever hit his wife. There couldn’t be one.

“I’ll admit it, after a while, she had me convinced. She made me believe in me. That was when one day while I was sweeping up someone else’s mess, I heard the rumors. I got home that night. I was first home, actually, and I went into our place and I sat at the kitchen table, and I waited. I didn’t have to wait long. She walked in, saw me sitting there and knew —she just knew— something was wrong, so she asked me. I told her I’d heard she was having an affair. I was staring at her, watching her reaction. Figured if she lied I’d be able to see it in her face, or the way she moved her body, or something. She told me, though. She said straight out that she was. She did the strangest thing then, she sat down at the kitchen table across from me and began telling me everything about it. How it was another teacher at school; how they oftentimes combined their classrooms and taught together; how they spent so much time together outlining lessons, and that it just happened. Only, once it happened, they both realized that it felt right and didn’t want to stop. While she’s talking, while she’s telling me all of this, I get up and walk over to her, and I just punch her in the face.”

Char didn’t know she was crying until a tear fell from her chin onto her wrist. She sat hugging her legs tight to her chest.

“I don’t remember too much more. The only thing I know, is I hit her more than once. While I awaited my trial, she spent time in the hospital. Broken nose, split lip. She missed work. I don’t think she wasn’t able to go to school as much because she was too embarrassed to go. She told me she didn’t want the kids seeing her all bruised up and swollen, and when she told me this, because she came to see me while I was in that holding cell at City Hall, when she told me about not wanting the kids to see her it was gone. In her eyes. That sparkle was gone. Her eyes were flat, dull. They were lifeless like anyone else who realized life was mediocre at best. I did more than beat her physically, I crushed her mentally. I stole her joy away.”

He had to be punching the wall behind her; a steady thud of fists against solid walls. She heard his sobbing. She had no words to console him.

Her mother had cheated on her father.

Char’s father never beat her mother.

Like her father, she never forgave her mother for ruining their family. “Do you have kids, Ross? You’ve not said.”

The thuds against the wall stopped.

“No. No children.”

“How long have you been down here, Ross?”

“Two and a half years,” he said.

What was waiting for him in a month when he returned up top? A broom and a mop? Hopefully, not a wife. “I’m going to bed, Ross.”

“Good night, kid.”

She ignored him, climbed back into bed, and pulled the covers up to her chin. There was no way she’d fall asleep, she thought, as she closed her eyes, her breathing evened out, and she fell asleep.

Chapter 30

Char woke up before six. She had to use the bathroom. Holding it wasn’t an option. She figured with everyone else still asleep, she’d have some privacy. That she’d waited this long amazed her. There were still lights on, but her cell was mostly in shadows. She sat on the toilet. Her urine came out like a waterfall. It sounded like a fire hose spraying into the bowl as she emptied her bladder.

Her body odor was raw. She had not heard mention of showers. There had to be a place to get cleaned up. She was surprised she hadn’t been advised otherwise.

She put on her Carhartt and set her gloves and mask onto the bed next to where she sat.

When the lights came on inside the prison, she was ready. She stood by the door to her cell and waited for Kyle Newstead.

She heard his footfalls on the walk.

She listened as Ross greeted the guard.

At her cell, Kyle said good morning. His mask sat on top of his head. “You’re up bright and early. Trouble sleeping?”

“Not at all.” She appreciated the civility. The Cog was bad enough. There was no reason the guards had to be jerks, too.

“Stand outside your cell,” he said.

“And wait for the nod,” she said.

He smiled.

She’d comply, follow the rules, and fly under the radar. She figured in to time at all, the novelty of having a female prisoner would wear off. No one would notice her. She was counting on that.

Staring straight ahead, she swore she felt Ross’ eyes on her. He had to be trying to gauge how she’d respond toward him based on the story he’d shared during the night. At this point, she wasn’t sure how she felt. It changed things. That much she knew. Burning bridges was not the route she wanted to take.

Below, Gonzales Morales stepped out of his cell and stood with his hands folded passively in front of him.

Newstead gave the nod.

Char turned and followed Ross down the staircase. She passed the tables where Gonzales and his gang sat, and sat down in her spot on the bench, across from Frank and Chris.

The men talked, attempting to engage her in their conversation. She provided enough of an answer to questions asked, but mostly kept quiet. Her attention was on a guard leading Gonzales away from the tables toward the elevator that led down to the work area.

They were not going to feed him breakfast either, she realized.

She grabbed the granola bar from her M.R.E. and casually slid it up the sleeve of her Carhartt. Frank caught it. She saw it in his eyes, and knew it by the way he immediately looked away.

“How’d you sleep?” Chris asked. “Like a baby?”

“Pretty well,” she said.

“How do your legs feel?” Ross said.

“A little sore,” she said.

“Thing is, it seems to be the second morning that is the worst.” Chris set his wrappers onto his food tray. “At least that’s how it had been for me. Day two, painful.”

“Same,” Frank said, crunching into his granola bar. He chewed with his mouth open. Char was forced to look someplace else, otherwise, she might get sick watching him.

“You’ve been unnaturally quiet,” Chris said to Ross.

“Did a lot of tossing and turning last night.”

“You don’t look too hot. Coming down with something?” Chris said.

“Need a flu shot?” Frank said, and let a burst of laughter erupt from his mouth, bits of granola generously scattered across the table.

“What’s the deal with showers?” Char lifted her tray. “Want me to take yours?”

Chris shrugged and handed her his tray. “Thank you. I appreciate it.”

“Welcome.”

“Every other day. There’s a locker room the guards use. We shower tonight in groups of four after the shift ends,” Ross said.

She made her way around the table and knew it must appear obvious that she’d avoided interaction, and even eye contact, with Ross. When she returned to the table and said, “It’s bad enough having a toilet on display. I’m not showering with everyone. If they think I am, they’ve got another thing coming.”

#  #  #

Char hated the elevator rides. The shaft was just wide enough to fit the car. The men were so big that she felt trapped between them. Breathing inside the mask was unnatural. She kept gasping. The sound attracted attention. The others would turn toward her, and then turn away. It was just enough that it made her uncomfortable and self-conscious.

Stepping out of the car was a relief. It even helped her breathing. The Cog was so well lit, and the ceilings so high that a lot of her claustrophobia subsided in the work area of the prison. She preferred it to where her cell was. It felt more as if she was inside a factory and that beyond the walls might be a parking lot, and a Wal-Mart. She supposed thoughts like that would help her achieve a mental happy place, somewhere she could eventually escape to while passing time.

Three years’ worth of time.

Lou Kilmer held a clipboard and directed each prisoner to a work station. “McKinney, you’re on the mill again. Ross, you too.”

Chris and Frank were already on this level, and working. Frank was at his wheel and Chris on a bike.

Gonzales was on a bike again. It was on an end. As she followed Ross toward the mills, she stopped and introduced herself to Gonzales.

He kept pedaling.

“I’m Char. I didn’t get a chance to meet you yesterday.”

He stared at her.

His head wobbled slightly side to side while he pedaled.

She held out her hand.

He stared at it.

She couldn’t see his eyes. Char was confident they bore holes through her skull.

“McKinney, get to a mill!” Kilmer pointed the clipboard at her.

“I was just introducing myself,” she said, risking further reprimand. She looked back at Gonzales, and then down at her still extended hand.

He shook her hand, but did not say a word.

“Mingling time is over, McKinney,” Kilmer said.

Char lowered her head and walked away. She climbed onto the mill next to Ross and started walking.

“What the hell was that?”

“What was what?” Char said. She looked straight ahead. She power walked.

“Slow down.”

She didn’t.

“Why would you have gone over there? I’m trying to do you a favor, kid. You don’t want to be interacting with Gonzales or any of his people.”

She turned her head. “Why?”

“You just don’t.”

She concentrated on the walk.

After several awkward moments of silence, Ross said, “You did not do that. Tell me you did not bring him food?”

Char looked at Gonzales. He snuck bites of the granola bar she’d handed off.

“He missed two meals,” Char said.

“Because he started a fight,” Ross said. “You bring anything for the other guy? The victim?”

The victim would never be able to help her get what she needed. Gonzales was different. He was exactly what she wanted. Ross was getting out in a month. Gonzales, like her, might as well be serving a life sentence down here.

#  #  #

She stood under the nozzle. The water was not hot, but neither was it cold. She felt the dirt washing off her skin. It was never suggested that she would have to shower with the other prisoners. She just had to go last. Almost better than the shower, was the bathroom stall. She was allowed to go to the bathroom without anyone watching, it felt like freedom. There was no way she’d be able to wait two days to go to the bathroom. Newstead said as long as she was quick about it and ate her meals quickly, he’d let her use the bathroom after breakfast and dinner as well.

Civility.

After rinsing the suds out of her hair and the soap off her body, she toweled dry and dressed in fresh clothing. While she zipped up her jeans she thought she heard something. A howl. It was different from an infected moaning. She wasn’t sure where it came from. She picked up the towel and continued to dry her hair as she walked around the small locker room. There were three rows of lockers. Some had Master combination locks on the handles.

The air vent was above a waist high cabinet. The sound she heard was wind.

She dropped her dirty clothes and her towel into a hamper, as instructed and left the sanctuary of the locker room.

Three years was two years and eleven months too long.