The Reset (21 page)

THIRTY-SIX

Ben
came to first. He blinked the world into focus in the cold gloom of the cell.
His head was a sack of crushed glass, a bag packed full of jagged splinters.

“
Alice
?” he slurred, groping for
the form huddled next to him on the concrete floor. His hands were clumsy, his
tongue swollen in his mouth.

He swiped at his eyes and flexed his
fingers. After a few long moments, he adjusted to the dim light and some of the
dexterity returned to his fingers. He touched her face, relieved to find warmth
there.

He called her name again and the result,
while not perfect, was an improvement.

He put his cheek to hers. “Alice,” he whispered,
finally getting the word right.

She didn’t stir.

He willed himself to stand, taking the
measure of the cell. Thick iron bars, bordered on three sides by chipped,
molding brick. There was a dank hallway and, on the other side, a series of
similar cells.

He took a deep breath. Jesus, how long
had they been out?

After a moment, he noticed the
whispering. It was thin and constant—like static on the airwaves when the
broadcasts had ceased on the television. The white noise was all around them.

Ben went to the front of the cell. He
pressed his face between the bars, trying to get a glimpse at the nearby cells.

“Hello?” he called.

The whispering instantly stopped; the
silence was eerie in its totality. He called out again, but the only answer was
a low and throaty chuckle coming from the shadows in the cell directly opposite
theirs.

“Where are we?” he said. “What is this
place?”

“Shhh!” the prisoner hissed.

There was a moldy mattress and a
tattered blanket and a hole in the corner where waste trickled down into a
sewer of sorts. Ben touched the mattress and found it dry. He pulled it into
the shadows, gathered Alice in his arms and placed her on the mattress. He sat
next to her, stroking her hair as the whispering started again—this time more
fervently.

He listened, picking the occasional word
from the river of despair:
hopeless
,
revenge
,
death
and
hunger
.
Suicide
.

Rape.

Time crept by; after many hours, she awoke
and raised her head.

“Ben?” she whispered. He saw the
confusion in her eyes, and he kissed her and pulled her close. “What…where are
we? How long have I been out?”

“I’m not sure, Alice. Tranquilizers, I
think. Nobody’s been down here yet, and there aren’t any windows.”

He helped her stand and she took a few
halting steps as the blood flowed back into her legs and feet.

 “Roan?” she said.

Ben shrugged. He put a finger to his
lips. “Listen?” he whispered, and Alice did. She heard them; there were so many
voices it was impossible not to after you first picked them up.

“Hello?” she said, moving to the front
of the cell.

The jail went dead silent again. There
was a hoot. Then another, and another…soon, the din around them was deafening.

Alice backed away, the fear plain in her
eyes.

“Silence!” a voice boomed. “You ain’t a
pack of fucking animals, are you? Act like you’ve been around a lady before!”

The calls died down and there was a
shuffling in the dark. After a moment, a form appeared at the edge of the
shadow.

“Who are you?” the man said. Ben
squinted, trying to make him out. Was he…was he sitting down?

“My name is Ben Stone. My wife’s name is
Alice. We’re…we’re looking for someone.”

There was that throaty chuckle again.
“Ain’t we all, Benny boy?” He pushed himself forward into the light, and Ben
gasped. This man was sitting because both of his legs had been amputated. He
had a tangle of long gray hair and a wild beard and bushy eyebrows. He was
emaciated—so much so that Ben thought he could see the knobby ridges of
cartilage
between
the man’s ribs. His skin was covered with scars and
pockmarks, and when he showed them his teeth in a sickly smile (a smile that
said
Take it all in, stranger. I know how bad it must
look), they were dark
with rot.

“What happened to you?”

“Roan happened to me. He happened to all
of us. He’s still happening to us—just a little bit more, with every passing day.”

“What’s your name?” Alice said. Her
voice had softened.

“Browning. I’ve been down here a long fucking
time. Judging by the looks on your faces, I guess you already gathered that. Let
me ask you a question. Do you…do you know what season it is out there?”

“It’s winter,” Ben said.

“Is it all still—still dead?”

Ben shook his head. “It’s getting better.
We actually had a real summer last year. The ecosystem—it’s improving. Still
plenty cold and it snows almost constantly when the weather changes, but at
least it’s changing again.”

Browning nodded. “I been down here so
long that I’d flat out welcome that snow right about now. We’ve all…well, it’s
impossible to keep track of the time down here,” his eyes went blank, and the
man looked distant in that moment. “It’s been years, I suspect.”

The focus returned. “Who are you searching
for?”

“A little girl. Her name is Lucy Lawton.
One of Roan’s scouts kidnapped her a few days ago.”

Browning shook his head. “Damn. You
shouldn’t have come. You’re going to die down here. You, uh…you people didn’t understand
what happened here in Atlanta?”

“We did,” Alice said, “but that little
girl is our responsibility. We had no choice but to come looking for her.”

Browning drew a deep breath. He nodded.
“I suppose you didn’t,” he replied, “but you gotta know that this is the end of
the road for you. I’m sorry to say it, but you’re not getting that girl back. I
doubt she’s even alive, truth to tell.”

“Are you from here?” Ben said. He had to
change the subject—still unprepared to hear the man’s speculations on Lucy’s
fate.

Browning shook his head. “Oh, I’m from
lots of places. All of us are. Stayed in Boise more than anywhere else. That
was after I lost my wife back in Oregon; I’m originally from Portland. Spent
some time in Oklahoma and a few years in Virginia. There were survivors there
that were doing some good things. Probably never should have left.”

“Why did Roan put you down here?” Alice
said.

“I stole some food from one of his
cantinas. I had people to look out for too, right? But he would have had me
down here eventually, even if I hadn’t been caught. If you aren’t,” he gave a weary
nod of the head, “well, if you can’t stomach doing Roan’s bidding, he’ll find a
place for you in the stockades. That’s all there is to it. I’m just surprised
to see a woman down here. He usually has…different plans for the gentler
species.”

Alice nodded. “Yeah, I’d heard that.”

“There are
hundreds
in his
jails,” Browning said. “All men, near as I can tell. This isn’t the only
stockade in the city, you know. But all of these men…they were shut down here
by Roan and Ms. Coral. Some did some pretty terrible things, I’ll admit, but
mostly they just didn’t follow orders. You piss Roan off, you die. That’s the
new world order.”

Ben had to remind himself to breath.
Alice stared at him, saw the pained expression on his face, and she took his hand.
“Ben? Ben, honey, it’s okay,” she whispered. “We knew she might still be
alive.”

“Who’s Ms. Coral?” Ben said. He thought
for a moment he might faint.

“Roan’s woman. She’s worse than he is,
you ask me.”

“Jesus, Ben. It’s her,” Alice whispered.
“It has to be.”

Ben nodded. His color was returning.

“How many are down here?” he said.

“Fluctuates. Sometimes more than a
hundred. Right now—probably about eighty or so. You heard all that carrying on
earlier?”

Ben nodded.

“Folks’re happy there’s fresh meat.
Incarceration day always means more for the rest of us. It’s kind of a stay of
execution, I guess.”

There was another series of raucous
hollers.

“Where do you all come from?” Alice
called down the hallway. Silence. “Go ahead—talk! We’re from…from Southern
Georgia.”

“Lawrence, Kansas,” a tentative voice finally
replied.

“Genoa City, Wisconsin,” a hoarse voice
called out.

“Doylestown, Pennsylvania.”

“I lived in Ventura Beach. Back before
Southern California went radioactive.”

“Myrtle Beach. Before that, I lived in
New York City.”

Places rained down on them from every
part of the jail, weaving a tapestry of what had once been the world’s most
powerful nation.

When the last had spoken, Ben mustered
the courage to ask his question. “What did you mean, Browning? That thing you
said earlier about incarceration day?”

“You haven’t figured it out yet?” he
said, nodding at the stumps that remained of what had once been his legs. “It’s
Roan’s sick idea of sustainability. He’s feeding us from our own bodies, Ben.
Every time a new prisoner is taken into the stocks, we
all
benefit.
Especially…especially when they look as healthy as you two. Hate to say it,
bud, but there it is.

“It’s the new world order.”

Alice clamped a hand to her mouth. When
she looked at her husband, she had tears in her eyes.

Ben pulled her close and kissed the top
of her head.

“It’s going to be okay,” he whispered.
“We’re going to get out of this, Alice. We’ll be okay.”

He kept talking, kept trying to convince
himself of the things he was saying, but he couldn’t bring himself to do so.
His mind raced.

Coraline was
alive
.

He and Alice retreated to the mattress.
Browning watched them a moment longer, then slid back into the gloom of his
cell. The whispering started back up—first in trickles, and then in torrents,
the mad ramblings of men that had been reduced to speaking to themselves while
they waited for the horrors that awaited them at the butcher’s table.

“It’s going to be okay,” Ben whispered,
not even realizing he was now contributing to the bizarre cacophony that was
the soundtrack of the stockades of hell.

THIRTY-SEVEN

A
short time later the dungeon abruptly went silent as a series of opening locks
echoed down the hallway.

People were coming.

Footfalls on stone drew closer, the echoes
bouncing down the corridor. Ben and Alice pushed their backs against the wall,
trying to render themselves invisible while simultaneously curious about who
might finally be coming. It was the first variation from the monotony they’d
had in hours.

A trio of men arrived at their cell—two
armed jailers and a short man in some sort of a uniform; this little man held his
hands clasped behind his back. He wore a condescending grin as he peered into
their cell.

“I see you in there!” he purred, the
voice surprisingly deep for such a diminutive figure. “It’s all so
depressing
to see our resident Adam and Eve, just cowering there in the darkness! Come,
Adam and Eve. Come into the light and share your strange and wonderful knowledge
with us.”

One of the jailers opened the cell and
the little man stepped inside. That shit-eating grin still fixed in place, his
eyes darted about the room. “Filthy,
filthy
things, these cells! Come on,
you two. You’re expected upstairs. I must say, you have admirers in high
places. You won’t be forced to dine on the swill with the rest of these
savages. The cuisine,” he wrinkled his nose, “it’s just not very good. Am I
right, Browning?”

The little prick’s comments were met
with silence. Ben helped Alice stand up and then they were out in the hallway.
He spared Browning’s cell a quick glance as they left, and saw the man studying
him with hooded eyes. Browning gave a little nod, and Ben frowned in response.

“Quite the industrious farmers, you
two,” the man said. “I’m Warden Merrick, by the way. I’ll be your jailer for as
long as you’re in custody, and I’ll also be joining you at the head man’s table
tonight. I have to admit, I’m thankful to you both for that rare treat.”

They were herded down a corridor of abject
misery. Men, many of them terribly disfigured from the effects of the Reset,
watched their progress from their cells. A very few were whole. Most were
missing at least one leg.

One poor fellow pulled himself into the
light with just a single arm. His torso was covered with scar tissue and he
flashed them a toothless grin as they passed his cell. His eyes were
mad—simultaneously deranged and knowing. It was uncanny, and Ben felt the flesh
on his forearms pucker.

 They were almost to the door when a
forlorn howl sounded from somewhere at the far end of the cellblock. It sounded
like the coyotes Ben remembered from his years back on the ranch. Only
their
calls were beautiful. This one—it was desperate. There was a hard note of
melancholy in it.

As soon as it finished, the men loosed a
tremendous response in unison. “WHOO!” they shouted, punctuating it with a slap
of the stone floor. It was a guttural cry, and they seemed to draw strength
from it. The jailers stopped and Warden Merrick shook his head in disbelief.

He turned, infuriated.

“More of
that
nonsense?” he
shouted. “Really, Browning? Really? You too, Cook? You all just lost your chow
for the night. I certainly hope that nobody’s
hungry
down here!”

Merrick went to the nearest cell. A boy
with one leg stood against the wall, watching the warden with scared eyes. “You
too, Billy?” he said softly.

The boy knelt. He settled himself on the
concrete floor and locked eyes with the warden. “WHOO!” he shouted, slapping
the floor defiantly.

Cheers of encouragement raced up and
down the cellblock. Anger flashed in Merrick’s eyes.

“It’s coming,” Billy said in a small
voice that had a strange calmness to it. “You can’t stop it, Warden. It’s
coming, and there’s nothing Roan or anyone else can do to stop it.”

“Guard!” Merrick shouted. “Take young
Billy here to the galley.”

“No!” somebody shouted. “Let him be!”

“You bastards!”

“Let the boy alone!”

“Insolence will not be tolerated!”
Merrick shouted. “You fools—you have no voice down here in the dark! You have
nothing! Nothing!”

A jailer sprung the boy’s cell.
“Please,” Billy whimpered. “Please…don’t.”

The guard took his arm roughly and
yanked him up. It was pathetic, watching the kid—what was he,
fifteen
?—hop
down the corridor in the opposite direction on his remaining leg. Prisoners
spat at the guard. They shouted—jeers for the bull and words of encouragement
for the now sobbing boy.

“Your solidarity means your death!”
Merrick shouted. “Don’t you see that? Mark my words, you pathetic cretins—I’ll
execute every last one of you. You’re sick, all of you! You talk of rebellion!”
He spat on the ground. “Who will rise against Roan when there’s nobody’s left,
huh? When you are all gone?”

This was met with silence. Ben could
hear the warden’s angry breathing.

“Guard!” he shouted.

The jailer opened the door to the
cellblock and motioned Ben and Alice through with the muzzle of his weapon.

Merrick lingered in the doorway. This
little man was filled with anger. Anger and hatred.

“Lights!” he shouted, and the cellblock
went pitch black.

The door slammed shut behind them, and still
it wasn’t thick enough to swallow the cries of sorrow and despair that chased
Ben and Alice up the metal stairs.