“OK. Here’s the deal. We want to use you for our own purposes.”
“Hey, don’t tell it to him like that.”
“Why the hell not?”
“You’ve got to sell it.”
“I’m not the one who was a used car salesman before the EMP.”
“Don’t knock it. It was a real job. More than you ever had.”
“Well I wouldn’t call it a noble profession.”
“Knock it off you two, or we’re never going to get this done.”
Art was starting to differentiate the voices coming out of the plastic bag masks. The one who’d just spoke was the more serious one. The other two, both male voices, seemed to be at odds with each other.
“What do you want me to do?” said Art.
“First I’ll tell you what we’re all about,” said the more serious one.
Art tried his best to look eager for information. It was hard when almost every part of him hurt. His existence was almost nothing but pain. His head still throbbed and his vision was getting blurry again.
“We’re a resistance group. If you take a step back from your activities in this so called militia, you’ll notice that nothing good is coming of it. We can’t let what’s left of our culture dissolve into nothing more than a terroristic group of semi-militants, hell-bent on taking whatever they want at any cost.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” said Art, managing to speak the words despite the pain.
“Don’t think I’m buying your act for a second,” said the man. “But we’re going to make you an offer that’s going to be very difficult to refuse.”
“No need for that,” said Art. “I’ll do whatever you want. Just stop hitting me.”
The blow came suddenly, smashing again into Art’s stomach, right on a particularly sore spot.
“Why the hell’d you do that?”
“I dunno. I thought he deserve it.”
“Cut it out, you two. That’s the last time I want to have to warn you.”
“Sorry. Won’t happen again.”
“Good.”
The serious one was clearly the leader.
“Just tell me what you want me to do,” said Art. “I can’t take getting hit like this anymore. They beat me up all the time in the militia. Just today, Sarge gave me a really good one right on the head. Still hurts like hell.”
“Who’s this Sarge? What’s he like?” The serious one spoke with an interest that Art hadn’t heard yet.
“He’s…” Art was trying to think through all the fog in his head. Surely he knew something about Sarge worthy of telling.
“Come on, out with it.”
“Just tell him.”
“Guys…” said the serious one, as a warning. “Let him think.”
“I don’t know,” Art finally said. “I’m sorry. All I know about him is that he’s a mean son of a bitch.”
“You don’t know his name?”
“They only call him Sarge. Or the Sergeant. I think he might have been in the military. I don’t know. He doesn’t live with us. He just comes in and gives us orders. He’s the one who gave me this special assignment.”
“You think it’s him?”
“No, his name isn’t Sarge.”
“You ever hear of a man with a strange name. Goes by the name of Kor, or something like that?”
“Yeah,” said Art. “Sure. Everyone’s heard of him. He’s the leader.”
“Have you ever seen him?”
“No,” said Art. “Of course not.”
“Why not?”
“Why not?” said Art. “Because he’s above all that. He relays his orders through the chain of command. I’m at the bottom.”
“So you get your orders from this Sarge?”
Art nodded. His neck strained, pain rushing through it, as he did. His vision seemed to getting blurrier.
“He’s nodding off.”
“Throw the water on him.”
“What? And waste all that water?”
“Fine, just hit him again.”
More pain. Right in his stomach again. They’d hit him with the hard sock.
The pain was all that was keeping him from passing out. That blow had sent the adrenaline flowing through him once more.
“You get your orders from Sarge?” This time the serious one was barking at him.
“Yes,” said Art, nodding as vigorously as he could. He didn’t want to nod off. He didn’t want to be hit again. “Just please don’t hit me again.”
“Is there any chance you could get close to this Kor? The leader?”
Through all the fogginess, Art’s thoughts suddenly took a turn. He suddenly understood what this was all about.
And it was so absurd and farfetched that he laughed, a sickly demented laugh coming from deep in his guts, making the little stomach fat he still had left jiggle, his abdominals shaking, sore and painful.
“So you want me to kill him? Is that it? Is that what this is all about? Your plan was to kidnap one of us, someone from the militia. Happened to be me. So you torture me. Not for information. But you want to somehow turn me psychologically, and then send me back out there, get close to the leader and just kill him. Just like that?”
Speaking all those words had completely exhausted Art. He could barely keep his head up. It began to slide to the right, his neck too fatigued to support it properly any longer.
“That’s about right. We want you to kill him.”
“Look, I’d happily….”
“He’s too tired.”
“No wonder. You were hitting him too hard.”
“Me? You were the one really giving it to him.”
Art knew he didn’t feel right. It wasn’t just the pain. It was something else. A new sensation. Maybe he was about to die.
He didn’t fight it. He didn’t care if he lived or died now. It’d been too much. The stress of constantly wavering between clinging to life and the urge to take his own.
He passed out, his head lolling off to the side, unsupported by his neck. His world went black as he fell into violent nightmares. The story of the dreams was strange, involving various weapons, unknown persons, blunt objects, and more violence than he’d ever experienced even in his real life. And he’d experienced a lot.
12
“Tell me who you are,” said John. “This is your last chance. Or I shoot.”
“We’re nobody. We’re not armed. Don’t shoot us, please.”
“There’s no reason to hurt us.”
They were middle-aged men wearing ragged clothing. They had dirty hair and dirty unkempt beards. They looked almost like hobos in the movies, the sort of person that had, in a way, died out a long time ago, those men who would hop trains and travel from place to place with their belongings tied up in a handkerchief on a stick.
“Be more specific,” said John.
They gave their names. John didn’t even listen. He knew that their names didn’t matter at all.
“What’s your story?” said John. “Did you know this man here?” He gestured with his head to the dead man lying there with a stream of blood trickling out of him.
“We don’t know him.”
“But he’s been following us. I think he was after us, not you.”
“So you’re suggesting it was all just a big misunderstanding? That it wasn’t any kind of set up?”
“No, no. Nothing like that. Sorry you got in the middle of it.”
“He almost killed me,” said John. “What did he want from you?”
“The same as everyone else. Food, I guess. Maybe water.”
“Why didn’t you help me?”
“Like we said, we’re not armed.”
“Not armed? Not even a hammer?”
“Nothing.”
“You could have used your hands.”
“We’re pacifists.”
John was stunned.