The Dying & The Dead 2 (30 page)

Chapter
Thirty-Two

Baz

He’d retched until there was nothing
left in him but a gaping hole. It was one that, acting as Tammuz, he used to
fill with apples and figs from silver trays, and he’d pop them into his mouth
while he made decisions that had meant death for hundreds of people on the
Mainland.

Bodies covered the streets of Kiele
around him. Some clutched at tears in their flesh and wounds on their arms and
legs. Some laid back and breathed, watching the sky with the kind of gratitude
a person can only feel after he’s survived a battle. One man, with a beard
covering a weak chin and eyes that looked as empty as the greying sky above
him, was on his knees. He leaned forward and then vomited onto the cobbled
pavement.

Baz heard a din of groans and cries. Lieutenant
Hanks trotted around on his horse and shouted orders at his men.

“I want the women and children taken
away. Runts, you’re to carry away the dead bodies of our men and bury them
outside town.”

“What about the others?” asked a
soldier.

“Kiele’s corpses, you mean? Burn
them.”

Thirty minutes later Baz watched as
the other Runts poured liquid over a pile of bodies. One of them pressed a
torch against the edge, and soon flames leapt among the corpses, the heat
scorching skin and bubbling flesh. The smell drifted over to him and made him
gag, but he knew that Hanks was watching him, so he didn’t turn his head.

He’d never be Tammuz again, he
realised. He needed to get back to the Dome, but after everything he had seen,
he knew he’d never be able to make the same decisions. His Tammuz mask would
feel too constricting now, and he knew that the darkness of the Grand Hall
would weigh on him. He thought about everything he’d done when he was Tammuz.
This was his fault, he realised. What right did he have to inflict this on
people?

Maybe it wasn’t quite true that he’d
never be Tammuz again. The fact was that as Baz, he was powerless. As Tammuz,
maybe he could do something. He could get back to the Grand Hall and make
decisions again but this time he’d make the right ones.

Later that night, the bonfire of
bodies had simmered down and only wisps of smoke drifted from the charred
remains. The night sky above them was dark and menacing, and Baz felt it might
fall down on him at any moment.

He’d thought that maybe he could
escape in the confusion after the battle and make his way to the Dome, but
Hanks was too organised. He didn’t even allow his men an hour to rest before
organising watch duties.

Baz found himself awake in the early
hours of the morning, keeping lookout over streets that once would have seen
the footfall of the living, but now were stained with blood.

Ronnie Alderson walked over to him.
Baz was happy to see that his friend had survived the fight, but something had
happened to his leg. He took limping steps across the streets and stopped a few
feet away. It was far enough that if any other soldiers or Runts walked by, the
two of them could separate.

“Never seen it so dark before,” said
Ronnie. “You don’t really get a good view of the night sky in the Dome.
Something nice about it.”

“Oh yeah?” said Baz.

Ronnie nodded. “Darkness like this,
someone could just vanish into it. If they chose to, that is. It’d be a while before
Hanks or the others even noticed.”

“I wonder if anyone ever deserts from
Hanks’s unit,” said Baz. “Seems like tonight would be the perfect night to do
it.”

He saw movement in the window of a
house across from him. A group of Capita soldiers were in a room with two
women. He couldn’t see the women’s faces clearly, but it was hard to miss the
looks of panic. One soldier crossed the room and drew the curtains. While the
Runts were on watch, the officers had other things to do, it seemed.

“Wishful thinking,” said Ronnie. “A
man would be crazy to try and escape. I’ve heard what Hanks does. Apparently
they caught a deserter in their last campaign. Think it was in a town called
Red Scaife. You know the one?”

Baz nodded. He knew Red Scaife all
too well, because he’d given the go ahead to attack it. Another Tammuz decision
made with the benefit of not facing the consequences; of not seeing the blood
or hearing the screams.

“So they caught this guy making a
break for it in the middle of the night,” Ronnie continued.  “Had two packs
with him, one full of rations, the other full of books. They think he was just
going to hole up somewhere and read novels and eat like a pig. God knows if he
had a plan beyond that. Bugger didn’t get far though. Two officers brought him
back. Apparently he begged for his life, and Hanks agreed he could keep it. But
he made the officers scoop the guy’s eyes out with their knives.
‘Give him
his books back,’
Hanks apparently told him afterwards.”

This was the kind of man that the
Capita used and Baz, or Tammuz, had employed them happily. The Five utilised
men like Lieutenant Hanks and Charles Bull to carry out the dirty jobs that
they needed doing, but weren’t prepared to do themselves. It was easy to sit in
the Grand Hall and order the slaughter of a town, because you didn’t have to
smell the blood as it spilled from slit throats or listen to children crying
because their father has just been impaled.

“Anyway, I’ve got better things to
worry about,” said Ronnie. “That’s why I can’t just go running into the night.
I figure if I’m careful, I’ll be able to get back to Louise and Curtis.”

Ronnie looked at him. Baz felt
sadness welling up in him. How many more men like Ronnie had been conscripted
because of his orders? It was easy to look at soldiers as plastic figures on a
map, and push them this way and that as you saw fit. Problem was, each of these
men had lives. They had families who would miss them.

“Thing is,” said Ronnie. “What’ll
Louise think about me? You know, with what happened to me?”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m fucking infected, Baz. I’m going
to be eating flesh the rest of my life. Think she’s just going to be like ‘
That’s
ok, honey. Pass the lump of flesh here and I’ll cook it for you with some
potatoes.’”

“No.
She’s gonna be disgusted. God knows
if she’ll even have me back. And even if she does, what sort of marriage will
it be? We won’t be able to have sex again. What if I spread it to her? What if
I get a cut and one of my kids accidentally gets my blood on them? Will they
get it too?”

He stood up.

“I’m sorry, Baz. I’m getting worked
up, but I know it’s not your fault. I better get back to my post.”

As his friend walked away, Baz felt a
shiver creep inside his uniform. The fabric of the Capita shirt itched his
skin, and his shoulders ached from carrying his pack. The battle had spiked his
veins with so much adrenaline that he didn’t think it would ever wash out, and
if it did, he worried it would leave him empty.

Without thinking, he walked away from
his post. He went down the street and past what used to be a pub called ‘The
Torben Inn.’ He turned left and stepped into a dark alleyway where rainwater
dripped from a gutter. He didn’t know where he was going, just that he needed
to get away.

“Where are you going?” called out a
voice behind him.

He turned. A Runt stood in the mouth
of the alleyway with the pale moonlight on his face.

“For a piss,” said Baz. “That okay?”

“You’re a bit far away from your
post.”

“Yeah, well, I’m a shy guy.”

The Runt laughed.

“Knock yourself out.”

When the Runt left, Baz leaned
against a wall and felt the cold stone on his back. A raindrop fell onto his scalp,
before running down his forehead and over his face. If he’d gone much further
away from his post and been caught, the Runt would have gone straight to Hanks.
They were all so scared of their commander that they would drop someone else in
it without even thinking, just so that they never faced his wrath themselves.

He thought about everything he’d seen
over the last day. The men and women dying in battle. Children stampeded by
horses. Capita officers taking wives away from their husbands and using them
for night time entertainment. The people of Kiele were fine before the Capita
invaded.

He realised that the Capita weren’t
bringing safety to the Mainland. That might have been Tammuz’s motivation when
he gave the order, but as Baz he had seen that the men on the ground had
different desires. The Capita were expanding their empire in the name of greed,
and Tammuz was the one lifting the fork.

He’d served the Capita for years, and
where had it got him? Conscripted in the army and serving as a Runt. He had to
do something.

Across the town square, beyond the
houses and the shops, was the police station. He knew that the two Kiele
leaders, the man with the smile on his mask and the one with the ginger hair,
were being kept there.

~

Baz walked through the police station
and toward the cells. He wondered if anyone had seen him leave his post, but he
was getting beyond the point of caring. As he approached a door that led to
where the two Kiele men were being kept, a Runt stepped in his way.

He’d seen this Runt before. When the
unit stopped for a rest, he’d always sit on his own. He’d eat his rations and
then, as if he was still hungry, he’d chew his fingernails down to the skin.

“Hanks said nobody’s to go back
there,” he said.

Baz smiled.

“And Hanks is the one who sent me
here. We’re moving them to somewhere…more soundproof. I think you know what
that means.”

The Runt seemed unimpressed.

“Nobody told me.”

“Sorry,” said Baz. “I forgot that the
Capita runs its orders through you. Do you want me to tell Hanks you won’t do
what he says? I’m sure he’ll be happy. He might promote you to sergeant just
for having balls.”

The Runt sighed. He reached into his
pocket and pulled a ring of keys. He handed them to Baz and then stepped aside
and walked over to a chair against the wall. He sat in it, and then lifted his
index finger to his lips and chewed on the nail.

Baz pushed the door open. The holding
cells reminded him of a zoo, and the smell wasn’t much different. On his right
was a wall with a poster on it. It was of a young girl in a dress, and she
looked like she was in a bar. Her face was smeared with blood. Two cells were
on his left. They were barely big enough for the men in them to pace around.
Baz imagined himself locked in them, and he felt his chest start to contract.
He’d never liked small spaces, and the only reason he coped with the tunnels
under the Grand Hall was because he knew it was the only way to get out.

“I need to get to Kiela before we do
anything,” he heard one of the men saying as he approached them. “She’s gonna
be out of her mind.”

“Since when did you give a shit about
her?” said the other.

“She’s my daughter.”

“After three years I’m surprised she
even remembers you.”

They stopped talking when they saw
Baz.

The man with the ginger hair walked
to the bars of his cell and gripped them. He shook them as if he could pull
them part. His face burned red with rage, and spit flew from his lips when he
spoke.

“Think you can make me say anything?”
he told Baz.

Baz put the key in the first cell.
Before turning it, he looked at the man with the smile on his mask.