Fights amongst the mob individuals had broken out. It was complete chaos, complete pandemonium.
James got past the last one. He was in between the barren trees. Up ahead, the pines started.
There was no sight of Sadie.
James was out of breath. His rifle was gone. He reached for his handgun.
It was gone too.
Someone had taken it.
25
Art was alone in the room. Sarge had left, without telling him what he’d kept him alive for. The candles had long since gone out.
No light came in from anywhere. It was pitch black. Art couldn’t see a thing.
The corpse of his friend still lay there on the floor with a bullet hole in it. Art could smell it. What little material had been in the bowels had evacuated, creating a wretched stench.
It was the smell of death. It seeped into Art’s bones and his mind.
He was still tied up. His legs and arms were impossibly stiff. He desperately wanted to move them.
His mind was turmoil. There was no point in even thinking anymore. He was far beyond the point of wanting to die or wanting to live.
He’d been psychologically reduced to nothing.
Nothing but the desire to move his arms and legs.
He passed the time by staring into the darkness, curling and uncurling his fingers, wiggling his feet back and forth. Whatever he could move, he did. It was the only thing to do.
No memories or thoughts came to him.
He was nothing.
His mind was nothing.
A creaking sound lit up his mind.
What was it?
He must have been imagining it.
“Must be something nothing,” said Art, mumbling like an incoherent drunk to himself.
The sound continued.
Another sound. A footstep.
“Must be close to dying… dying… dying,” he muttered. “Hallucinating. Starting to hallucinate.”
More creaking. More footsteps.
“Going nuts. Going nuts. Going nuts.”
To distract himself from the hallucinations, Art started humming. Not even a tune. Just a flat nothing of a melody, devoid of anything resembling musical notes.
“Shut the hell up, you moron,” said someone.
Art didn’t recognize the voice. It sounded like it was coming from mere feet away from himself. He saw nothing in the darkness.
He closed his eyes to distract himself from trying to look. He couldn’t tell the difference whether they were open or closed.
“Now the voices are coming,” said Art.
He started humming again.
“Can’t get me. Can’t get me,” said Art, punctuating his insane humming with more words. Just for something to say. Just because.
“Get off that damn humming,” said the voice, its tone harsh and frantic.
The voice was starting to sound real. Very real.
“Are you real?”
“Of course I’m real. Just shut up and listen to me. I don’t have much time.”
“Who are you?” said Art. He was beginning to entertain the possibility that there was a real person in the room speaking to him.
“It’s Janet, idiot. Remember me? I’m in your regiment.”
“Janet… Janet… Don’t know,” said Art.
“I gave you a candy bar once when you were about to pass out from hunger. Remember the raid on that gas station? And you saved my ass by shooting some son of a bitch who’d pulled a knife on me.”
“Oh…” said Art. “Yeah, I know a Janet. Still don’t know if you’re real, though.”
“Knock it off, Art. We’re all going to die. There’s no need to make such a fuss about it just because it’s your time.”
Art hadn’t even been aware that the voice was female. Now he heard it. It was softer, higher-pitched than Sarge’s voice, the last voice he’d been heard before being trapped in this room with a corpse.
“Damn, it smells horrible in here.”
Art mumbled something unintelligible.
Art felt Janet’s hands on him. They were rough, rather than soft. Moisturizers were a thing of the past. Office work, without getting your hands dirty, was also a thing of the past. Janet had been out there with Art and the rest of them, doing whatever Sarge told them to do. They hadn’t had a choice.
“So you’re really real?” said Art. “Unless I’m hallucinating feelings now. Physical feelings, I mean.”
“Of course I’m real, idiot.”
Art heard a knife flicking out and locking into place.
“You’re going to slit my throat or something?”
He said it with the mildest of interest. It didn’t matter much to him.
“Just shut up and let me cut these…”
Art felt the tension as the bindings dug into his wrists. Then the pressure released and suddenly his hands were free. But his arms hung limply at his sides.
He felt like he was Sisyphus, forced to do the same pointless thing over and over again. Only he had it worse than Sisyphus.
When all of Art’s bindings had been cut, he slumped forward onto the floor. Just like before.
Something hard was being pressed against his lips. Then the water started flowing. Janet was holding a bottle of water to his lips as he lay face-up on the floor, trying to get his body to work.
“You’re in rough shape, and it’s not going to get any easier.”
“What do you want from me?”
“I want to kill Sarge.”
“So go do it. What do you need me for?”
“I need your help.”
“Get someone else. I’m not exactly the most physically fit right now.”
“You’re the only one desperate enough to help me.”
“Seems like everyone’s always trying to get me to kill someone. When do I get to decide anything for myself?”
“When this hellish existence is over. And we both know that’s not going to happen. Your life hasn’t been yours since the EMP. And neither has mine.”
“Why do you want to kill Sarge so much?”
“He killed my brother. And my father… and my husband.”
“The whole family, eh?” Art was too far past the point of normal experiences to feel any sympathy for her words. To him, they were just that, just words.
Janet gave him a vicious slap across the face. It stung terribly.
“You going to help me or not? Because I don’t have any problem ending you right here.”
“Whatever,” muttered Art. “I’ll help you. The other guys wanted me to kill Kor or something insane. I guess I’ll settle for Sarge. They’d be happy about that, I guess. Maybe not as happy if…”
“What in the world are you talking about?” snapped Janet. “Now we don’t have much time. We’ve got to sneak you out of here before morning before they come for you.”
“Why are they coming for me?”
“It doesn’t matter. Forget about that. Because I’m getting you out of here.”
“Where are we going?”
“Somewhere where you can get your strength back.”
“Just tell me the plan,” said Art. “I can’t handle all this. Give it to me straight. If you want to kill Sarge, why not just wait for him here with me? I’ll be the bait. Whatever, I don’t care. You do your thing and I do mine. If I get shot, whatever…”
“Sarge is never coming back here, you moron,” said Janet. “This whole place is going under. It’s on suicide mission status.”
“I’m not even going to ask what that is.”
“The point is, Sarge has moved on.”
“Why don’t you just go do this thing yourself? Go shoot Sarge in the head. Shouldn’t be hard.”
“He’s got bodyguards. I need you to take them out.”
“Whatever,” muttered Art.
But he was getting more enthused by the minute. It wasn’t that he liked the plan. He could have cared less about the actual goal or outcome.