Luis was right.
The show was a runaway success.
Christmas could only cover his eyes in horror as Luis danced among a group of chained undead, passing within inches of their jaws and hands, laughing all the while — and then giving himself to them. Letting them bite his shoulders, his arms. And he bit them back. The audience always reacted to that. They saw it as a last act of defiance against the plague. Eviscerato became a hero.
Before Luis’ performance, there were others. Spinner, the tightrope walker, would traverse a taut rope suspended over a cage full of hungry dead. The mute Fire Juggler would hurl his torches toward the tent ceiling while the Strongman, with his massive hammer, crushed the legs and bodies and heads of attacking rotters.
Christmas appointed Nickel to be the zombie handler. It wasn’t common to refer to the undead as “zombies”, but Luis felt it spiced up the show. When it was time, Nickel would slip a noose over the neck of each rotter and lead it to its place in the act. Chained to a rolling platform for Eviscerato, or caged beneath the tightrope, or trussed and blindfolded to be released into the Strongman’s playground.
The rotters were easy to find in the badlands. Ferals usually hung around ghost towns. They often gathered in packs, following one another as if someone had a clue as to where the meat was. They were usually underfed and in bad shape. Simple to catch.
It seemed all too easy, all too convenient, that these aberrations of nature now provided the means for John Christmas and his employees to live. It sickened him how they had shattered their values and cut out their souls in order to fit the undead into their wretched existence.
Spinner fell from his tightrope into a pit of rotters. Nickel was savagely bitten. The Strongman lost his footing one evening and was trampled before the others could clear the undead away; his eyes and mouth filled with tainted blood, he’d stalked without a word from the tent and never spoke again.
And Luis…
Luis only smiled.
“Your attention please! It’s time for the man of the hour! The dancer among the dead! The King himself — Eviscerato!!”
Christmas gestured toward the tent flap. He waited. They waited. All was silent.
Then Eviscerato leapt into the tent, throwing his arms in the air, eliciting a deafening roar from the crowd. He danced toward the center ring, waving gaily.
“My dear, dear friends!” He cried, still smiling, blood dripping from his chin. “Tonight I have such a special treat for you.”
As the performer gave his spiel, Christmas glanced outside the flap. He saw the Strongman there, waiting, but oddly postured in the shadows, his great hammer dragging in the earth behind him.
Nickel was closer. The light revealed his face.
He stepped into the tent and pulled the flap down, and he was dead and Christmas saw it and the audience saw it, then the canvas began to blacken as the tent was set aflame and the Strongman stormed into the seats for his meat.
And Eviscerato danced, and danced, and danced. Through the fire and the smoke and the blood he performed, in his mindless, gleeful reverie; he danced until all the colors swirled together and swam, together, in chaos.
One / Dear Mom
February 16th, 2109
It’s only the third week of the tour and I’ve already learned so much — about everything, not just the badlands and the war but the plague itself. I’ve even learned some things I never knew about the Great Cities. I don’t know if you’ve heard it back home but they’ve taken to calling the safe zones the “Great Cities” now, not just because most of them are on the Great Lakes (save for our Cleveland) but because the Senate is trying to raise morale among the people. The message is that America is still here. We still have something to fight for.
You wouldn’t know it from touring the badlands. Our convoy has passed through at least a couple dozen ghost towns. Not a soul in sight, not even a rotter. But I don’t guess the undead would have any use for an unpopulated city, would they?
We’ve seen a few badlander communities. They’re shanty towns set far back from the highway and the ghost towns. No one has approached the convoy at any point. They don’t trust the Senate. That’s why Gillies has come out here. He’s a brave man, Mom (divorced too, FYI) and it’s an honor to be his aide. I’ve spent most of every day with him. That’s how I’ve learned so much in such a short while.
He says that the Great Cities region will be expanded to include St. Paul to the west and Lansing to the east. They’ve decided that Chicago will be the capital city. All in all, parts of seven former states will be inside the Wall when it’s complete. Senator Gillies says there are big plans in the works for Cleveland, too. I don’t know what, so don’t ask! Maybe I’ll know by the time I get back.
I’m putting as much as I can into this letter because there’s no postal service beyond Utah. Can’t trust that a lone rider will be safe any further south. We’re rolling through the Utah desert as I write this. The Army commander says there’s a large group of badlanders out here, and Gillies wants to stop and talk to them about the Great Cities.
Why would anyone choose this wasteland over civilization? That’s what I’m going to ask them. Maybe they just don’t know about the work being done.
Gillies said that the withdrawal could begin as early as 2111. The Wall won’t be finished then, but that’s actually a reason why he wants to pull the troops out of the badlands. The Wall’s completion would be safeguarded by the military, and then I guess it would become their job to patrol it. The withdrawal is just another reason why everybody should be heading north now.
The most interesting discussions we’ve had, though, have been about the undead. They supposedly only outnumber us by five hundred to one now, but that’s because the human population has dropped so sharply. However, the Senate maintains radio contact with Europe, and they say things might actually be worse there than here.
The plague virus isn’t just a virus. It doesn’t behave that way. Gillies believes there’s more to it, something otherworldly. Some people turn only hours after being bitten while others take weeks. There’s no real proof that it has anything to do with biology. It could just as well depend on one’s spiritual constitution, and that’s what he says it is. You know what? I believe it, too.
That’s why Gillies calls the plague God’s judgment. Even though it began on an Army base what, 102 years ago — he says that their tampering with nature is what brought on the Lord’s wrath. He’s a very spiritual man. I think most of the Senators are, but especially Gillies. His father was a religious teacher at a place called Seminarium Vita. He told me that his father died trying to minister to the undead.
It’s also because of the virus’ otherworldly energy that the rotters have a sort of aura about them. I’d never heard about that before but I know now that it’s true. I’ve seen dead insects rise in a rotter’s wake. Sometimes, at night, the soldiers hang bags of fireflies around the perimeter of our camp. I’ve seen the bags light up and start thrashing seconds before a stray rotter walked into camp and into a hail of bullets. Yes, even though bullets don’t kill rotters, the troops still use guns. They shoot out the rotters’ knees and then torch them. (Sorry if that seems morbid. I thought it was interesting.)
You remember when I read Darwin to you? His observations are present in the undead. Not just undead animals, but people too. See, if a rotter feeds often enough, it can “regenerate” tissue. Anything from skin to bone to brain matter, they can grow back. Those undead lead the packs and get stronger, while the others rot away… Senator Gillies says that some rotters have the potential to relearn things like speech! Wouldn’t it be awful if a rotter looked and sounded like a healthy human being? Luckily that’s only in theory.