The Decaying World Saga (Book 1): Tribes of Decay (19 page)

The room beyond opened up below them into a massive bowl. The entire floor space was covered in evenly spaced cages, most of which were already occupied. The group was led down a wide set of stairs into a central row between the cages and the faces of the captives were revealed. Hands launched out between the bars, some in a morbid state of decay. The screams came next, mixed between a swell of moans. Rowan pressed in toward the center of the aisle, forcing Jonah between him and Erin. They stopped midway across the floor at an open cell.

“Get in.”

A moment later Rowan stood looking back at the locked door from inside the cell with Jonah on one side, Erin, and Garret on the other side. The soldiers were kind enough to cut off the ties around their hands after the door closed. The group bunched in on one another as zombies reached in through the sides of the cages on either side. The soldiers disappeared and the terrible sounds circling the cage swallowed up the new arrivals. None of them was certain that the undead army assaulting the compound was any better than the living that had a hold of them now.

19

It took a full day for Mia to find her place. She had no idea how long they would be held in their current quarters or when they might be allowed entry into the rest of the colony, if ever. She refocused her attention on those around her. Mia walked between the bunks, spending time with every remaining member of the tribe. Jacob stayed close to her, but always remained quiet.

The response Mia received was dramatic, empowering, and terrifying at the same time. It was hard for her to grasp how these same people saw her as a young girl only days before and now they looked to her for direction and guidance. Most of them where happy to have food in their stomachs while a few waited for answers on what lay ahead. Mia was as honest as she could be, promising to share any information she received from colony residents and their commission.

The tribe was left alone to wonder about their future with only one interruption. The woman entered wearing similar clothing to Connor with only a red wrap around her arm to indicate her purpose. She pulled a fully stocked cart behind her as she made her way between the rows of cots. Mia followed her at a distance, but didn’t interrupt.

The woman never introduced herself or made much small talk, but she appeared to know which members of the tribe had an ailment. A number of her instruments lit up in some fashion when she put them to use. Few of the tribe’s injuries were life threatening, leading to a common prescription to stay off their feet for a few days. In all, only Jacob refused to be examined. The woman didn’t put up much of a fight, shrugging her shoulders at him before quietly excusing herself from the room. The lights running down the center aisle dimmed the moment the door closed.

“You think they’re going to come and tuck us in?” Jacob asked then laughed at himself. He burst into a coughing fit as the laughter died away.

“You going to be okay?” Mia asked. “You should have let her look at you.”

Jacob shook his head, while trying to control his cough.

“She can’t help me,” he insisted once he got his breathing under control. “I’m as fine as I can be.”

Mia’s face scrunched up.

“I doubt that very much.”

He found his cot and took a seat. Mia sat down across from him. She looked down the long, open space and watched as most of the tribe slipped into their beds. She was grateful that they wouldn’t have to worry about being attacked while they were asleep. At least she assumed it was nighttime.

“I don’t know how anyone could live without seeing the sun every day,” she said. “How many of these colony people do you think there are?”

Jacob shrugged.

“I can’t imagine it’s a huge group,” he said. “That Connor of yours said he’d been here all his life. My guess is they, at least the original group, started out pretty small when the infection first began. But that’s not what makes me nervous.”

Mia pulled her legs up onto the cot then laid back, slipping her hands behind her head.

“So, go on,” she said. “Spit it out.”

Jacob cleared his throat then picked up an open ration bag near his feet and poked through it.

“You don’t know what it was like when the infection started,” he said, settling on some half-eaten crackers. “The government, the people who were in charge,” he explained, “they lost control pretty quick. We were left to survive on our own. That included the military. My guess is a place like this was set up for a particular purpose. Research,” he decided. “Looking for a cure, no doubt.”

Mia sat up.

“Like pureblood?”

“No, not like that,” he said. “They wouldn’t have known such a thing existed, although I doubt it did back then. They would have tried to create something.”

“Create blood?” she asked, lost in the conversation.

Jacob shook his head.

“I don’t think I know enough to be able to explain it to you,” he admitted. “That’s not my point anyway. Once the people who were assigned here lost contact with the rest of the government, they would have been on their own to decide how to move forward.” He finished the crackers and laid the rest of the rations on the top of his footlocker. “A lot of things could have gone wrong. They have everything they need to sustain themselves. That’s a lot of power for a small group.”

“I’d don’t see how that’s so bad for us.”

“What have they been doing all this time?” he asked. “Cheyenne’s not that far away, why haven’t they ever made contact with your tribe?”

Mia popped up as the answer came to her.

“They’re hiding.”

Jacob nodded.

“Hiding from what?” she asked.

“That’s a good question.”

Mia had enough conspiracy theory for one day. She laid back down without another word, closing her eyes the moment her head hit the pillow. A vision broke through the darkness of her mind, pounding her in the heart as it appeared. Jonah came first, followed by Rowan then her father. She squeezed her eyes as tight as she could, trying to make the images go away.

“It’s going to be okay.”

Mia opened her eyes at the sound of Jacob’s statement. He hadn’t moved. He sat motionless, watching her with a sad smile barely visible through his beard and mustache.

“You don’t know that,” she said.

He nodded and the smile vanished.

“I guess that’s true, but I can hope.”

“I thought you gave up on hope,” she countered.

That made him smile again.

“You got me there,” he said. “I see you and I see what could have been. You may not realize it yet, but you have the strength to make it.”

Mia heard an echo of her father in Jacob’s words.

“You have the strength to help the people you care about,” he added.

She nodded, not wanting to take the conversation any further. Mia shut her eyes and was glad to find the visions gone, at least for the moment. Jacob shifted in his cot, apparently following her lead. He took a familiar, elongated breath before rolling over in the opposite direction.

“Good night, little lady.”

Mia grinned and then fell into a restless sleep.

♦

The fear of the dead subsided long before the hunger pains. It was difficult to tell how long they’d been in their cage, but Rowan guessed it couldn't be more than a day. The little bit of sleep they managed to get blurred the line between reality and exhausted illusion. The dead had no quit in them. The zombies in the cells on either side never stopped reaching for the living. Their moans were constant and the horrifying sound was enough to drive a sane man mad.

Rowan had to stop Jonah from lashing out at the decaying hands. The boy was having the most difficult time of all of them. Erin hadn’t spoken since the cell door closed and that concerned Rowan more than anything else did. She’d positioned herself on the floor, directly across from the entrance, pressed up against the bars behind them. Garret tried unsuccessfully to figure out the small pad on the door and gave up in a fit of rage. They were all wondering if they’d starve to death before anyone came back to check on them.

“What do they want from us?” Jonah asked.

His voice shook when he spoke and his eyes said that he was on the verge of a mental breakdown. He’d asked the same question more times than Rowan could count, but the truth was he had no idea.

“We have to hold on,” Rowan said, but even he was tired of hearing the answer. “There’s got to be something,” he added as he gave in to his own frustration.

Rowan examined the cell door for the third time. The small pad the soldiers used to open the door gave no indication of how it worked. He turned his attention back to the cells across from them. He'd noticed something different about the occupants in the next row over. The figures paced within their cells, neither moving frantically nor jerking oddly. However, their skin was a quick identifier. A hard stare at each of the cages revealed that all of the occupants appeared to be infected. Naked and exposed, both the women and men possessed the ash-gray skin of the disease, accented by the darkening veins underneath.

“Why are they so calm?”

Garret’s question was a good one. Rowan shook his head.

“Maybe they’re dying,” Rowan said. “If they’re not feeding…,” he drifted off when the answer of how they might be fed popped into his head, “…what about that one?”

Rowan settled his sights on a woman near the end of the row. She looked back at him with a haunting stare that he guessed matched his own. Her face looked like someone who’d seen too much horror for one mind, but she was surely alive. Rowan couldn’t ignore her nude body nor could he overlook the series of sutured cuts lining her arms and the spaces between her ribs.

“Hello?”

The woman didn’t move.

“Can you hear me?”

She remained as still as a statue, never taking her eyes off him. Garret found the cell.

“I don’t think she—”

He fell silent when the woman grabbed the bars. Rowan tried again.

“How long have you been here?”

The response was slow. She began pushing and pulling herself back and forth; her movements speeding up as she opened her mouth. A shrill rose from her throat that ripped through the surrounding moans with a disturbing effect. Her rocking increased until her head flung violently forward. Her forehead hit the bars with such force that the skin tore open on the first strike. She continued until the impacts finally knocked her back, sending her onto the floor, out cold. Jonah’s words crept out of his mouth in a disturbing rhythmic tone.

“I think we’re going to be here a long time.”

He was proven wrong a moment after the last word left his lips. The walkway running around the entire edge of the circular chamber came alive with movement. Half a dozen soldiers followed a man dressed in tan-colored cloth. He was clean shaven with close cut hair. His bronze skin placed him as an outsider even among his own people. His overall state of cleanliness was startling by comparison to nearly everything around him. The procession descended into the bowels of the space by the stairs at the end of the central row. A moment later and the entire group stood directly in front of Rowan. The man in front examined them through the bars without speaking. Once he was satisfied with what he saw, he motioned at the cage and glanced over his shoulder at one of the soldiers before stepping out of the way.

“Line up and face the rear of your cell,” he said with an accent that made it difficult to comprehend. “Place your hands between your backside and the bars.”

“What are you going—?”

The man put his hand up and cut Garret’s question short.

“You will do precisely as you’re told or you will be exterminated.” He waited for Garret, Jonah, and Rowan to comply before he continued. He took one glance at Erin and appeared to understand her state immediately. “My name is Himu and I am the assistant to Doctor Olric. You will be processed now.”

Rowan fought the urge to resist as one of the soldiers slid ties over his wrists then pulled them tight. They bound each of their hands before opening the gate. A pair of soldiers lifted Erin from her seated position before the entire group headed back to the central stairs. They were led away from the main entrance, along the surrounding platform, stopping short of a wide exit.

No one spoke. Something told Rowan he’d receive a painful response if he voiced any one of his growing list of concerns. There was something in Himu’s choice of the word
exterminate
that added a new horror to their situation.
Kill
, would have been bad enough, but exterminate gave the impression that he viewed them something less than human.

They were led through a series of halls each one as nondescript as the last. There was a sterile cleanliness to everything. Rowan was continually reminded of the artificial light and the wonderment of what life must have been like before the infection. The end of their trek came at an impressive metal door. The thick monstrosity took two soldiers to get it open after Himu ran his fingers over a series of buttons on the wall.

The group was forced into a single-file line with Rowan at the head. Someone shoved him in the back with little guidance. The space beyond the door was smaller than the cell-laden containment area, but no less impressive. One entire wall was comprised of rows of screens, some black, others displaying a series of characters. Several waist-high tables separated the room, an assortment of tubes and bizarre machines running the length of each tabletop.

“Let’s break them up along here.”

Himu’s voice was no less cold than it had been on their initial encounter. Rowan was shoved again and he caught sight of his companions. A row of cells made up the majority of the opposite wall along their entrance point. Small in both height and width, it was apparent that the captives were expected to remain standing. Rowan stepped into the cramped space and left to figure out how to spin around on his own. The final lineup left Jonah on one side of him, Garret, and Erin on the other side.

“You may leave now.”

Himu’s dismissal met with a quick response and the spacious lab returned to a haunting silence.

“How far have you come?”