the mortis (22 page)

Lee makes her way across the Lavelha grounds to the Makoa.  Pas
t the accumulation of bodies—the sheer number, the loss immeasurable.  She keeps her eyes focused forward, and as soon as she reaches the tower she scans the facade from a sheltered position behind tree cover.  Incredibly, the structure of the building itself has barely changed since she last saw it three months prior; somehow it’s remained virtually untouched by the surrounding ruin.

When she feels ready enough, she pulls the mask over her mouth and nose and smoothes it down.  She secures the duffel in the understory of the woods where she can find it again,
then she steps out of the trees and slowly approaches a west-facing service entrance, a simple unmarked white door with a keyed twist knob. 

She doesn
’t hesitate.  She tries the knob and it’s unlocked, just as she was told it would be, so she opens the door and strides through.  The child told her to act as though she belongs there, to walk in knowingly.  It’s not unusual for the bad man to take a new girl, the child said.  Just don’t let him lay eyes on you.  And if any of the other girls ask you for your name, remember, always, you have no name.  You are Hanna, that’s all.  Only Hanna.

Lee enters a darkened hallway lit only by a line of blue lights embedded at intervals alon
g the baseboards, both sides—the kind of lights that are meant to guide you to an exit when the power fails.  The walls and the floors are made of unfinished grey concrete, and there are naked bulbs strung along the ceiling, fixtureless and blackened.  Everything is industrial-looking, especially in the near dark.  When she walks forward her footfalls echo, and her heart is beating with enough pressure that her pulse makes an audible clicking sound in her throat, like a metal valve opening and closing, rhythmic. 

She makes her way
through.  Passing nondescript doors, unpainted fiberboard composite, all of them closed.  Supply closets or pump rooms or electrical breaker panels or maybe the endpoint of a multi-floor trash chute, maybe laundry, who knows.  She walks to the end of the hall and finds another closed door with a posted sign marking it as a stairwell—she opens the door, enters, and starts to climb.  The child told her that if her husband is still living, he will be confined somewhere on the fourth floor. 

Lee
ascends.  Her cadence is measured, unhurried.  I belong here, in this building; this is a chore I am doing because I was assigned to do it.  I am a part of this.  She pauses at every landing to listen for a moment through the heavy fire door before continuing upward. 

At some point between the second and third landings she picks up
on the sound of someone else’s footfalls in the stairwell, someone above her position.  The sound of a stranger’s descent toward her.  She doesn’t stop or turn back, as much as she wants to; instead, she keeps climbing, taking steps at the same steady pace.

At the third-floor landing Lee encounters a woman carrying a tall white bucket in each hand.  Seedy blonde hair, a washed-out pinafore dress.  The child told her about this woman, the one with the paint buckets: she called her the Feeder.  From what the child said, the Feeder was supposed to be finished with her feedings early in the day, long before now.

The Feeder stops her descent when she sees Lee.  She stands on the last step under the cold blue outage lighting. 

“
Who are you,” the Feeder asks, and the tone she uses is challenging, aggressive.  She has the same slurred diction as the child.

Lee is ready for the question. 
“I am no one,” she answers. 

“
No one.”

“
No one.  Nothing.  I am Hanna,” Lee says.  She mumbles out the words, intentionally running them together, and when she speaks, her head is slightly bowed.  She makes no eye contact.  

“
You’re a new one,” says the Feeder.

“
Yes.”

“
When did you come?”  The tone hasn’t softened.  Everything is delivered with an edge.

“
This morning.  Early,” Lee says.  She clears her throat.  She isn’t used to the sound of her own voice filtered through the dust mask. 

There
’s silence between them.  Lee can feel the woman’s eyes fixed on her, boring in.

“
Why are you here,” asks the Feeder.

“
Here?”

“
Up here.”  The Feeder gestures to the stairwell.

“
He sent me,” she says.  “To help.  If you need it.”

“
No.  He didn’t do that.”

Lee starts nodding. 
“I wouldn’t be here without his word.”

The woman sets both buckets down on the landing. 
“Come on, then.  We’ll go see him together.”

This isn
’t working.   The Feeder starts walking toward her. 

On instinct,
Lee steps backward and snatches at the hem of her dress, hitching it up over her hips, and she pulls out the handgun.  She levels it, aiming at the woman’s face.

The gun is empty, but the sight of it is enough to make the woman stop short. 

“Pick those up,” Lee says.

The woman turns her head and looks at the buckets.

“Do it,” Lee says.

The woman stares at her for a moment, then goes back to the buckets and takes one in each hand.

“Turn around.”

The woman does.  Now she is facing upstairs, the way she came. 
“What the hell are you doing,” the woman asks. 

“
Don’t talk.  We’re going upstairs.  Go.”  Lee grinds the gun muzzle into the woman’s back and pushes her forward. 

They climb together.  Lee takes the gun
away from the woman’s spine but she keeps it close by.  Every few seconds, the woman turns her head to one side, trying to look back. 

As they approach the fourth floor, the woman says,
“What do you want?” and her tone has shifted toward concern, toward worry, which is a good thing. 

“
You brought a man here recently,” Lee says.  “To this building.  Take me to him.”

“
A man?”

Lee steps forward and grinds the muzzle into the nape of the woman
’s neck, parting her hair with it.  “Take me to him.”  Lee presses hard, twisting.  Digging in.  She’s lost nearly all of her closely-held restraint.

“
Okay.  Okay, yes.” 

“
Goddamn right, yes,” Lee says.  “Go.”

They come to the fourth level, and the woman leads Lee down the hall to around the midpoint.  The same hall someone may have walked down once upon a time to fetch ice from a machine, back when machines made things for you.  They stop at a closed door mantled with different locks, a ghastly assortment of them.  A Master padlock and a hasp, a notched privacy chain.  A long bike cable running from the panel to the wall.  The woman is standing a foot in front of Lee, facing it all, motionless.

“This is it?” Lee asks.

The woman pauses.  After a time she nods. 

Lee stares at the door—allowing herself to take in the absolute barbarity of the creation, the sheer will that must have been required to transform a luxury suite into a prison cell, especially now, with resources being at a premium. 

“
This is what you did,” Lee says quietly, almost to herself.  She is shaking her head.  “This is what you took the time to do.”

The woman doesn
’t say anything in response.  She just faces forward, holding both buckets with straight arms.

Lee takes one step and leans in toward the jamb, keeping the muzzle trained on the woman
’s neck.  “Baby, it’s me,” she says through the door.  “It’s me.  I’m coming in.” 

Lee waits.  After a few moments
of silence she steps back, still listening for a response, but she hears nothing. 

Lee uses the gun to push the woman forward. 
“Open it,” Lee says. 

“
I can’t.”

“
Do it,” Lee says.  “I’m telling you.  Open that door.”

“
Listen to me.  I can’t,” she says.

And without thinking, Lee lifts up the gun and brings the grip stock down sharply onto the woman
’s scalp at the back of the crown, hard enough to split the thin flesh open, to draw immediate blood.  The paint buckets drop to the carpet, and the woman cradles her head with both hands.  After a time she goes down on one knee, then both.

No one speaks.  Lee is breathing deeply, trying to calm herself, to maintain some semblance of focus.  The woman stays where she is, alternating between probing the wound and bringing her hand around to check the extent of the bleeding, the output.

“The man was your husband,” the woman says after a while.  It’s less a question than a statement of plain fact.

“
Is.  Not was.”

The woman nods slowly. 
“I respect that it still matters to you,” she says.  “That it means something.  In this world, especially, being what it is.”  She pauses and checks the bleeding again.  “But I’m here to tell you: you can go ahead and walk away from this now.  Head high.  Without a lick of guilt about doing it.  Just walk.  There’s still time.”

“
Get up,” Lee says.

“
I won’t say a word to anyone.  That I saw you, I mean.”

“
You will,” Lee says.  “I know that you will.  But we’ll be gone already.  Now get up.”

The woman remains on her knees, facing the door.  She tries turning her head to establish some form of meaningful eye contact, but Lee presses the gun muzzle hard into her cheek above the mask-line, pushing her face forward, focusing her on the task.  The woman raises her hands up feebly in
a staged show of surrender, some kind of false appeal. 

“
You want to take him out of here,” the woman says.  “I understand.  But listen to me: there’s nothing left to take.  He’s gone.”

Lee moves the gun back slightly, removing it from the woman
’s cheek.  “What the hell does that mean, gone?”

“
Sick gone,” the woman says.  “He lost himself to it.  All the way.  Gone.”  She makes a zip-whistle sound with her mouth.

Lee doesn
’t respond.  The woman tries turning her head again, and this time Lee doesn’t stop her—they make eye contact.  Her watery blue irises over the graying fabric.  The woman says, “You had to know he had it in him.  You had to know that.”

“
Get up.  Now,” Lee says.  “Look at the door, not me.”

The woman turns away.  She shakes her head sadly, and then she lets out an affected sigh and gets to her feet.  As she does, she keeps her fingers on the wound. 

“Listen,” the woman says.  “Please.  He fought against it, but it’s over.  He’s crossed the line you don’t come back from.  And if you’ve survived out here for this long, you know what line I mean.  So just walk away.  You did all you can do.  You honored him.”

“
Open the door,” Lee says. 

The woman abruptly turns to face her. 
“I told you: I can’t.  You wouldn’t want me to.”

“
Turn around,” Lee says.  “Turn around, now.”

The woman does; she faces the door again. 

“Open the goddamn door.”

The woman hesitates. 
“They’re sick,” she says.  “They can’t be out here.”

Lee stares at the back of the woman
’s head.  The blood caking, matting her lank, straw hair. 

“
You put him in with the rest of them,” Lee says. 

The woman doesn
’t say anything.

“
Is that what you did?  You locked him in with them?”

“
It wasn’t me.  I don’t get to decide.” 

Lee is about to raise the handgun and use it on the woman again,
to hammer her down, but then she stops.  She listens.  There is the sound of movement—a writhing—on the other side of the door.

There isn
’t time for any of this. 

“
Give me the keys,” Lee says.

The woman lifts her hands weakly again. 
“I don’t have them.   I was going back downstairs for them.”

Lee shakes her head.  Christ, Jesus, help me.  She takes a step forward and starts running her palm along the woman
’s sides, her legs, keeping the gun muzzle in contact, always, but there’s nothing.  The keys aren’t there.  Lee straightens. 

“
Open the buckets,” she says.