Lydia has her hands on her hips.
– Are you? Terry, even if, if we were the kind of people who would use, are we even talking? The kind who would use genocide as a threat. What then? How long does it take then to shut it down? And the kids? What about?
Terry squints.
– Shut down what?
She points east.
– The hole. The damn hole. That was the deal. We come here and then we go to Queens and save those kids. Now. It’s time now. We do it now.
He lowers the hand holding the vial over his head.
– I can’t, I don’t know, the lack of. Is it just too much for everyone to see? This vacuum is going to have to be filled, and we’re set up to fill it. But look what happened here in this place. The starving. Look at how unbalanced the island is right now. Well, come on, we have to, things have to be mellowed out. We have to assert control. We do that two ways. We, has no one read history but me?
He curls his fist around the vial.
– We use force or the threat thereof.
He tilts his head east.
– And we use bread.
– And yeah, sure, we’re gonna shut it down, but it has to be gradual. We can’t just turn off the spigot. We scale back. The breeding, OK, yes, the breeding we can stop that. But the ones who are already there, well, it’s not like we’re equipped to deal with them anyway. So. Sometimes it’s all about expedience.
I find what I’m looking for in my pocket and start fiddling it around.
Lydia’s fists are white, balled at her sides.
– I want you to repeat that.
Terry licks his lips.
– Sometimes it’s all about expedience.
Lydia’s fists come up to the points of her hips.
– That had best not have been meant the way it sounded, Terry.
He sighs.
– Don’t let your naiveté get the best of you here. Try to remember, if you can take a second away from all your self-righteousness, try to remember how recently you were tied up in a closet. Try to remember that the only reason you were let out was because it was, yeah, expedient. Because, I don’t know, because the universe is mysterious and just a few hours ago it looked like the Society was on the verge of collapse and your cooperation was needed to save it. Well now, I don’t know, but things look like they have changed. Some new balance has cycled in and you don’t have any Bulls outside backing you and the Society needs cohesion right now, not your exclusive sexual orientation-based politicking that always gums up the fucking works.
– I have a bomb in my hand.
They look at me.
Hurley shakes his head.
– Tis a cell phone.
I shake my head.
– It’s a bomb. And it’s ringing.
I put Chubby’s phone to my ear.
– Digga. It’s Joe. I just killed Predo. Yeah. And his enforcers were just slaughtered at the Cure house. Yeah. The Secretariat is exposed. Run a fleet of Escalades down there with your rhinos and the whole turf will be yours. Yeah. Kill the fuckers now. Sure. My pleasure. I owe ya for not killing me.
I snap the phone closed.
– See, it’s a bomb. It just blew up Terry’s new balance of power.
Terry points the gun that killed Amanda at me.
– If I didn’t think, I don’t know, that it would be easier for you if I shot you right now, Joe.
He lowers the gun.
– But I think I’d rather, and I believe I’ve earned this over the years, I think I’d rather have you starve to death. Just because it will hurt more.
He shakes his head.
– That’s the kind of emotion you’ve brought me to.
– Yeah, I know the feeling.
He keeps shaking his head.
– And it’s all so, what a waste of, all so useless, the gesture. It’s not like, what Digga, you think Digga won’t see sense? You think?
I think it’s getting pretty hard to think. I think about the only thing I can think about right now is my hunger and how much it hurts. I think the smell of Amanda’s blood is making us all a little feverish in here. But I try not to think about it too much because it’s making me dizzy and I don’t want that. I want to stay in this chair. Stay here for just the few minutes more that it will take for her blood to spoil in her dead veins, for it to become useless to the Vyrus. I want the stab of that temptation gone. Before I lose out to it.
I rub my eye.
– Sorry. I think? Right. Yeah. What I think. Yeah. Well, what I think is Digga declared war as soon as he heard about the hole. So, expedience, that’s not really his gig. That other.
I point at the vial.
– Yeah, sure, you make him believe it is what it is, and yeah, he may dance your steps. But you’ll never get a chance to make that threat.
He shoots Lydia, one round, stomach, it pushes her back two steps, she sits heavy, both hands over the hole, dragging her heels back and forth over the floor.
– Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
He looks at me.
– OK, I don’t know, but if we can all agree now that Lydia isn’t going to be stopping me, and that you, controversial turn of phrase coming up here, that you are effectively crippled right now, then I think we can also agree that I can make whatever threats I deem necessary, whatever means to the end, because I don’t see who, unless you mean Ben over there, and, Ben, if you make any move I’ll shoot you and your woman because at this point your collective symbolic value is about zero and I’m not the superstitious type so I don’t, you know, have high hopes that she’s carrying the savior. So, in the absence of I don’t know what, Joe, I don’t see where anyone here is going to complicate this rearrangement of power and social values within our community.
I point.
– Hurley is.
Hurley draws his head back.
– An it’s mad ya are at da end, Joe.
Terry’s lips go thin.
– Your brain is boiling, Joe.
It is. My brain is boiling. I have a fever. I’m not sure I’m sweating anymore. Moisture all used up. Skin feels like ash. Touch me and I’ll flake and float away.
I drink whiskey for lubrication.
– Just that Hurley’s of the old school. Germ warfare, extermination of the species, that’s not his thing.
Hurley hooks his thumbs in his suspenders.
– An of course it ain’t. Now, I’m all fer a war, on an intimate scale, mind, a straightaway settlin’ of differences when diplomacy has failed, but every man has his limit, don’t ya know.
I almost laugh, but my throat’s too dry.
– Funny choice of words. I was just thinking along those lines.
He flips his fingers.
– An what worry o mine is it anyway? None. Terry boy, he sees fit ta shake his saber and bug his eyes at Mister DJ Grave Digga an treaten him a bit wit a fate worse dan death, well, so be it an all. Fer goodness sake.
He snaps his suspenders.
– Tis not like he would do it.
Lydia kicks her heels against the floor.
– Hurley.
She loses the words, coughing, but nods her head up and down.
Hurley waves the nods off.
– An yer just feelin’ sore, Lydia, because ya didn’t have yer way. An I know yer worried ‘bout dem kids in Queens an all, but we’ll take car o dat. Dis expedience Terry is talkin’ about, dat word, dat word means we’ll do it quickly is all. Yer just makin’ tings more complicated dan dey is.
– Terry sold zombies to the Chosen in Brooklyn, Hurley.
He frowns, brows drawing down so low they almost cover his eyes.
– Be careful now, Joe. Terry may want ya ta die slow, but if I lose my temper listenin’ ta foul rumor, I won’t be responsible.
My head, it feels like my scalp is a blister. More whiskey for that.
– So maybe I’m provoking you, Hurl. To make it quick. All the same, I gave Terry the zombie juice years ago. It was in these dentures the Horde kid’s dad made. Crazy, huh? Remember that time you saved me from Predo and his goon? Think hard. All that shambler trouble at the time? Doctor Horde was behind that. Terry used the teeth to make a few shamblers, sold them in Brooklyn. That’s where the new ones came from.