“You as in ev—everyone else on the planet. Gangs, Colonists, d—dead, undead.”
He pauses, chewing on that for a minute. When he speaks his voice is hard. “How big of a problem is this going to be?”
I lift my head, blinking up at him. “What?”
“Can I count on your or is this fear going to make you useless?”
I shove him away from me. It’s a weak effort but he lets me do it. “It’s not a fear, it’s—screw you.”
“No, you get it together. You’re tougher than this, you have to be. No way you made it as long as you did alone if you can’t adapt.” He steps close again, his words rapid and low. “Those two girls I’m with, I can’t count on them. Nats is solid but she’s no fighter and Breanne is nothing but a pretty face. These people have taken a lot of guys from The Hive and I’m hoping to find some in here and get their help getting out, but who knows? Maybe they’ve gone native. Maybe they tried to escape and their dead.”
“Maybe they were in the colony that fell.”
He nods grimly. “Maybe. Right now you’re my only sure thing. I watched you fight when they tried to take you. Even when they had you and you knew it, you didn’t hesitate to put your knife in someone. So, please, tell me that girl is gonna be able to man up and handle this.”
I glare at him, surprised to find myself breathing deeply. Evenly. Angrily.
“Can you handle it?” he presses.
“I can handle it.” I growl.
He grins at my annoyance. “There it is, Kitten.”
I make it through lunch because I have to. Vin doesn’t say anything to Breanne or Nats about my problem but he sits us at a table on the outskirts of the room nearest the door. We eat in silence and though it’s just bread, fruit and vegetables it’s delicious.
After lunch we get “The Grand Tour” as Caroline laughingly calls it because she is just hilarious and I find that the Colony is everything I dreamed it would be.
Absolute. Pure. Torture.
This building is huge and we don’t even see all of it. Apparently a lot of it is used for “storage”, though storage of what we aren’t told. We also aren’t invited to ever find out. Most of the interior is broken up into work rooms though quite a bit of it is sectioned off as living space. There are bathrooms, though not all of them work so you have to be careful, the showers, a common area that looks like it used to be an exhibit with a large TV and some seating, the kitchens beside the cafeteria and a large open area that was probably once the main exhibit but is now filled with beds. An old green airplane hangs high above in the ceiling, something I imagine could easily snap and crash down on unsuspecting sleepers, but what do I know? There’s also a pink truck shaped like a foot. I don’t ask. In fact, I don’t ask anything. I don’t say anything at all because with each step I take through this building I panic a little more. People are everywhere, talking so loudly, constantly walking by, brushing past me, touching me to say hello as Caroline introduces us. I’m sweating rivers under the thin material of my prison clothes.
She shows us a large maintenance room where the electrical side of things is run and I finally get a reprieve from the crush of people. The generators are here, the solar batteries being charged by the panels on the roof and another set of batteries being charged by a small wind turbine set up outside in the yards. It all looks intricate and confusing to me but this is how they live. This is how they have hot running water, lights moderate heat and a functioning kitchen.
Outside is the small agricultural area we saw before. I also notice that they’ve taken the time to bring in high fences that run the three water sides of the property. No waiting for summer and swimming for freedom. How did they know? It’s almost like they’re as accustomed to keeping people in as they are to keeping zombies out. There are gardens and a greenhouse out here to be tended with small fruits and a lot of vegetables. There are also sections designated for various crops and they have livestock to be looked after; cows to be milked, eggs to be gathered.
Inside there are meals to be prepped, fruits and veggies to be canned and preserved, breads to be baked. The maintenance room needs bodies, the guards need people on rotation, there’s sewing to be done. And that’s all great. I’m actually in love with and on board for all of that. But what makes me want to scream in this woman’s fake Barbie face is that I don’t want to live here. I’m a butcher, not a baker or a candlestick maker, which, by the way, was on the tour as well. This entire community thing is not for me. I get it now, what Vin said about me earlier; I’m a wild thing. I belong in the wild, in the woods, in the streets. In danger.
When they showed me the giant room full of beds, I almost vomited. I can’t take this. It’s too crowded, too closed in. It’s too clean. Don’t get me wrong, I like being clean. I loved that hot shower and I will happily drink their milk until I get sick and die, but my problem with a lot of this is that it’s like they’re playing at normal. They’re trying to pretend that they can hide behind these concrete walls and the world outside isn’t dead and rotting at their doorstep. Their backyard is flooded with sewage and their solution is to draw the blinds.
People like me and Vin and Ryan, we live out there in the ugly and we look it in the eye every single day. We’re out there trying to reclaim what was lost while these people are hiding away, pulling us in and trying to make us part of the fantasy that all can be bright and beautiful again if we just close our eyes to everything that’s real.
I can see it on Vin’s face too. As we walk through the tour Breanne gets happier by the second. I watch as he distances himself from her. She’s lost to this place and he knows it. And who knows? If I was doing what she was on the outside then I might be quick to sign up too. I’m not judging her for wanting this. I’m not judging anyone who would. What I am judging is the way they go about it.
“I want to watch this place burn.” I say to myself.
Vin chuckles softly beside me. “You and me both, sister.”
“Is this like what you guys have at The Hive? Is everyone sitting pretty these days but me?”
“No, not even close.” He glances around the common room we’re standing in, his eyes landing on the 50in TV and brightly colored bean bag chairs. “This is almost grotesque.”
“It’s messed up, right?” I ask, glad he sees it the way I do. “It feels obscene somehow.”
“Kinda disrespectful.”
“Exactly. They’re delusional.”
“This one especially.” he mutters, gesturing to Caroline.
As though feeling his eyes on her, she turns to face us.
“Everything all right?” she asks sweetly, the hard set of her mouth not matching her tone.
Vin grins at her. It’s the same one he gave me in the van; all sex and charm. “It’s amazing.”
“We were just talking about how nice it is to be warm and dry.” I agree, smiling at her.
“Wonderful.” She doesn’t believe a word of it. “Well, that’s the end of the tour. Let’s move on to dinner, shall we? It’ll be a great chance for you to meet new people.”
We start to file out of the room, Breanne following the three pretties like a happy puppy, Nats following warily and Vin and I bringing up the rear.
“’New people’?” I whisper to him. “They’re going to separate us again.”
“You cold and wet a lot, Kitten?”
I frown at him, startled by the question. “What are you talking about?”
“Answer the question.”
“I don’t know. Yeah. Everyone is.”
“No,” he replies, his tone low. “Not everyone is. Nats isn’t. Breanne isn’t. I’m not.”
“You’re in The Hive, that’s completely different. That’s practically a Colony.”