S.W. Tanpepper's GAMELAND, Season One Omnibus (98 page)

I just don't get it.

At the bottom of the steps we turn left and enter a darkened hallway. The candlelight throws wavering shadows along the wall as darkness oozes forth from the framed pictures hung there, then retreats back into them like molasses when we pass. I look at them as we go, at the faces of people who once owned this home. But the white-haired man and woman look like nobody special. We pass and already their faces are forgotten to me, the old Haves, now stripped of all they had and turned over to those who want nothing but to be left alone.

A dark doorway stands open to one side and we pause there while Brother Matthew searches for another key on the chain. The air drifting out smells of damp earth and for a moment panic shoots through me. I don't want to go down into that basement. But Matthew inserts the key into a door on the opposite side of the hallway and I breathe out in relief. I step forward, but Sister Jane stops me.

Matthew enters the room, leaving us in darkness. I watch as he grabs a box from a shelf, then comes back out. He closes the door and relocks it. Printed on the side is the word INFECTION, and my heart begins to race.

“
What's that?”

“
Test kits. We want to make sure you're not carrying the virus.”

“
I'm not.”

He doesn't answer. Instead, he crosses the hallway and begins to descend the stairs into the basement.

“
Where are we going? I don't want to go down there.”

“
You wanted to meet Father Heall, didn't you?”

“
Yeah, but why down there? Why doesn't he come up here?”

“
It's all right, sweetie,” Sister Jane says, and a memory comes back to me of Nurse Mabel:
Can you hear me, honey? It's okay. I'm here to help you.

I lurch backward reflexively. Sister Jane's grip tightens on my arm. I could still easily escape if I wanted to. “Shh,” she says. “You'll be fine. It's nice and cool down there.”

“
I don't…I don't want to.” I can feel myself shaking.

She glances at Brother Matthew, then at the other man, who shrugs and keeps going.

“
But—”

“
You'll be fine
,” Sister Jane whispers. “
I promise.
” She nods encouragingly, and still I hesitate.

“
Miss Daniels,” the unnamed man says, turning. He gives me a warning look, stopping me from asking how he knows my last name.

Your Link, dummy. They took your Link. Remember?

“
Please, isn't there any other way?” I beg. My heart is racing. Something bad dwells down there, I just know it. “I don't want to. I'm sorry. I'm sorry I changed my mind and I don't want to go down there I
justwanttogohome
!”

“
Is that her?” a voice calls out from far below. A shiver passes through my body. I've never heard a voice like it before, full of despair and longing. Visions of dark places and horrible, nameless things come to me. And suddenly I have no strength left in my legs, nor any will to flee. I feel myself slipping to the ground. If Sister Jane weren't holding me up in her iron grip, I'd simply slide the rest of the way down the stairs.

“
No,” I whisper. “No, I can't.”

But they propel me down into that dark place that smells of dirt and wetness, and the cool air brushes against my cheek, a comforting contrast to the stifling heat upstairs, and yet I feel no comfort in it, only the cold, stifling oppression of death, of dead things. Of dying.

I shake my head and plead over and over again, but they won't listen to me. They half walk, half carry down until we reach the bottom. And I see we're in some sort of old wine cellar, except the racks now stand empty, their square black eyes staring out at me, their orderliness seeming to mock the chaotic panic welling up inside of me. We pass through the maze and somewhere my rational mind wonders at how much wine might've been stored down here and what might've happened to it since the evacuation. It's all gone. Not even a trace of the wine smell remains.

We wend through the wooden cages toward a distant light that twinkles out at us, a bulb, cold and harsh, deep within the cellar. A figure passes in front of it, blocking the light, as we turn, left and right and right again through that labyrinthine cellar, deeper beneath the house until we come to an opening where the bulb dangles and a shadow sits hunched over a table in front of it, his face hidden in silhouette. I look over at Brother Matthew and notice that he's blown out the candle in his hand.

The man sitting there looks up and sighs. He opens his mouth and takes in a breath.

“
Jessica Daniels,” he says, and his voice is dry, sounding like the echoes of memories once stored in wooden crates. “Sit down. It's time we finally met.”

 

“We are in the middle of a war,”
Father Heall tells me. He takes a sip of some strange kind of tea—steam rising up out of it—and sets it back down. I can smell the brew all the way across the table, the bitterness of it. It makes my eyes water. More herbal crap, I think. He sees me looking and his next word evoke images of witches and wizards: “
Artemisia vulgaris
,” he says. “Also known as wormwood. It helps suppress the appetite.”
No shit
, I almost say; it's doing a good job suppressing my own appetite.

He had apologized for the theatrics, profusely, as Brother Jasper swabbed the inside of my cheek for a DNA sample. And I'd sat there obligingly blinking away the tears from the brightness of the light. The swab was the first indication that things weren't as bad as I'd imagined they were going to be. If it had been a needle, I might have freaked out.

“
we just want to be sure you're not infected,” Brother Matthew had said.

“
I am a wanted man,” Heall explained, as if expecting forgiveness for using such terrifying methods on me and Micah. “In times such as these, times of war, we generals are targets.”

The words had made me think of my grandfather. “
You're
a general?”

He'd chuckled and waved the others away. Brother Matthew had brought him his herbal brew, then followed the others out, leaving us alone. After all the precautions and the harassment—the EM blast, the imprisonment and the secrecy—it had seemed almost suspicious that they'd just leave us alone like this, as if testing me, daring me do something.

“
I am but one general on one of many fronts. My death would simplify things for the others. My death or worse. I don't think I need to explain.”

“
Who? What people?”

“
Well, as it turns out, some people very close to you.”

Grandpa?
I immediately think. Yet, I don't think I'd ever heard him mention a man named Father Heall.

Delusions of self-importance
, I think. But then, of course, if Heall really does have a treatment for the disease, it would make sense that both Arc and the government would want him dead. Maybe that's what he's talking about.

“
What kind of war?” I ask.

“
A war of many agents, my dear. A war of wrongs.”

“
But not you. Because you're on the side of right.”

“
Each of us believes we're on the right side.”

Add paranoid to possibly delusional.

I squint across the shiny wooden surface, but the light is too strong and it reflects off of it and into my eyes. I'm still unable to make out any details of his face.

“
How do you know
I
won't try to kill you?” I ask.

“
I'll be honest with you. I don't know. You might. I strongly suspect your friend wants to, this Mister Sandervol.”

“
Yeah, well, to be honest, I've been having doubts about him myself.”

He laughs suddenly, a quick, sharp bark that startles me. The laugh of an old man who, despite all this talk of dying, doesn't sound at all afraid of it.

And he is old. The hair on his head is thin and wispy, long and scraggly in a way that indicates advanced age, and he has the stooped features of man who long ago gave up trying to stay fit. But despite all this, there's also a sense of strength about him, of barely constrained energy and power.

“
I just want to help my friends,” I tell him. “That's all I want.”

He chuckles. “You have your brother's sense of purpose, you know that?”

“
Eric?” I say, before I can stop myself. “What do you know about him?”

But he brushes the question away, as if satisfied with the information he's tricked out of me, the name of another family member to add to the list of details he's already extracted from his search through my belongings. It's unfair, and so I remind myself to be more careful answering any more questions.

“
Tell me about my son,” he says. His voice is soft, reverent. He turns slightly toward his cup and I catch something shine on his cheek. A tear. He's crying. It makes me suspicious. “Tell me what happened to him. Did he…suffer?”

“
What did Micah tell you happened?”

“
Your companion's answers were rather unsatisfactory, Jessica—may I call you that?”

I shrug.

“
He wasn't very forthcoming to my inquiries.”

“
Well, considering what you've put us through.”

“
This is a war,” he reminds me. “I need to know if I can trust you, so, please, just answer the question and we'll move on.”

Just answer
. That's what Micah had told me when they brought him back:
Just be honest with them. Answer the questions.

But what he'd meant was:
Don't give them any extra information
. I can picture him sitting in this very chair and keeping his answers short and lacking in specifics. Cool and collected. But I have never been comfortable lying. I've always wanted to please.

“
How did Enoch die?” Father Heall asks again.

“
I don't know anyone named Enoch. I knew a man named Stephen who said he worked for Arc. How can you be sure it was your son?”

“
Describe him to me.”

I sigh, then do so, repeating what we told Brother Matthew. I guess at what I think Stephen's age was, his height. I talk about his pronounced cheekbones and his dirty blond hair, his green-brown eyes. I try to avoid saying how crazy he was, or how much of a liar and deceiver he was. How…pathological. At first I'm sure it's not going to be the same person, but the more I say, the more Father Heall seems to shrink in his seat, as if my every word confirms his own darkest fears. Finally he throws up his hand and whispers, “Enough.”

“
He said his name was Stephen.”

“
Yes, I know. He wished to be known by that name.”

“
Why? Brother Matthew mentioned—”

“
How did it happen?” he interrupts.

“
He was bitten. Badly.” I reach a hand up to my own neck in reflex, as if expecting to find a hole there. Father Heall covers his face with his hands. “That's when he attacked me.” I swallow and try to suppress the rage welling up in me at the memory. “He was a…It was a very vicious attack. I don't think he was himself even before then. Definitely not after. He seemed…I don't know, angry at the world. And at Arc. He didn't feel appreciated by them.”

“
Did he ever try to extract your blood?”

“
What?” The question throws me for a moment. “No. But he did try to inject me with something, the virus, I think. It's not clear. No, wait. That was before. Anyway, Like I said, he was— I don't think he was himself. He was infected, crazy. The virus made him go mad.”

“
No.” He holds up his hand and tells me to stop. “You're wrong.”

“
I'm telling the truth!”

“
I'm sure you think you are, but you're still wrong. The bite didn't drive him insane. He already was.”

Silence fills the room. It fills the space between us, an electric wedge, a buffer between us that has the potential to both protect and harm.

“
I loved my son,” he finally says, settling back into his chair. “But I lost him long ago. It seems to be a recurring curse of mine. He wasn't the first.”

I don't know what he means by that, so I keep quiet.

We sit like that for several minutes, him drinking his tea and me watching him drink it.

“
Father Heall,” I finally say. “I really just—I mean, I don't want to sound rude. I'm really sorry about your son, but I've answered your questions. My friend doesn't have much time. So, if you can help me, then—”

He holds up a hand. “Only the worthy will be helped.”

I stare at him for a moment, anger rising up inside of me like hot, greasy vomit. I'm tempted to jump across the table and throttle the old man. “I don't know what you mean by that,” I say, measuring my words carefully.

“
I'll soon ask you to make a difficult choice. It will be the first of several you will need to make. Your decisions will determine whether you and your friends are worthy.”