Rage Within (29 page)

“But I don’t wanna.” She immediately flung her arms around him again, clinging on with all her might.

Two Baggers stepped into the day care tent, looking around, their eyes falling on Mason. The lady beside him tensed, her fingers shaking as she tried to keep hold of the empty porridge dish. The first Bagger nodded in Mason’s direction and motioned for Mason to follow.

Again? What now?

Mason gently unwrapped Casey’s fingers from his arm. “See those kids there?” He pointed over at a corner where some other children were playing with a few scattered toys. Most of the items looked broken and shabby. “You should go make friends with them.”

“Okay,” she said reluctantly. He waited as she walked over slowly and sat down next to a little boy about her age. The boy smiled and handed her one of his broken Hot Wheels cars. When Mason was sure she was fully distracted, he stood up and walked slowly over to the Baggers, using the last of his strength to try to maintain his dignity by not wobbling.

“Come on,” the Bagger said, a smile on his face when he noticed that Mason’s legs were shaking. “Time to put you to work.”

*   *   *

Work turned out to be cleaning duty. They herded Mason into the back of a white van with a few others. They were not given anything for protection. No gloves. No coveralls to keep them clean. No disinfectant. No masks to keep from breathing in tainted air.

Instead, they were driven several blocks to Burrard Street and dropped off at one of the large buildings that used to specialize in waterfront property that overlooked English Bay.

“Here’s your job,” the Bagger said. “You go in and get the bodies. Bring ’em out and dump ’em on the street. When the truck comes, you load the bodies up for removal. Nice and simple. No talking. No making friends.
Comprende
?”

“And I so wanted to get to know you,” a girl whispered sarcastically behind him. Mason found himself grinning for the first time that day. He couldn’t help but think she’d fit in well with Aries and the others.

“You know the rules,” the Bagger continued. “We do a head count when we’re done. If any of you are missing, the entire group dies.”

“Have they ever followed through on that?” Mason quietly asked the girl behind him.

“Two groups so far,” she whispered. “Brought back to
camp and shot in front of everyone to prove their point. Both times they found the deserters too. You don’t want to know what they did to them. It wasn’t pretty.”

*   *   *

Several hours later, he stood on the seventh floor, covered in sweat and smelling like rancid flesh. The window in front of him was gone, lost in the earthquake. Nothing but an open hole, where a small breeze did very little to fix the smell permeating the carpets and furniture.

The toes of his sneakers stuck out over the ledge. Looking down, he could see the white van, tiny in the distance, and two of the prisoners carrying out a badly decomposed body.

He could jump.

Would it be that easy?

Yes, it would. He knew that he could solve all his problems in one quick step forward. There would be no more pain. No more hiding. No more having to deal with the darkness that kept drifting across his mind, no matter how hard he tried to push it aside.

No more self-loathing.

But then there would be nothing.

And he wasn’t ready for that.

The sun was going down and he had a perfect view of the bright yellow ball as it slowly sank into the ocean. In the distance he could see one of the offshore islands, a small dark glimpse of land at the edge of the horizon.

If he could get out of this, he might try and convince Aries and the others to head for the islands. Joy had told him the coast was full of them, the biggest being Vancouver Island. If they headed far enough north, they might even be able to find ones that hadn’t been touched by the Bagger nightmare. They might find people. They could start a new civilization.

He could picture them living in a small cottage, one that had to be heated by firewood in the winter, and in the summer they’d have a garden. They could learn to survive in this new world; both Michael and Clementine had grown up around hunting. Mind you, Mason had never shot a deer and he wondered if he’d be able to do it.

Nice thoughts.

Unreal as they were, they were more than enough to keep him from going over the edge.

Besides, if he did that, then the Baggers won. Mr. Leon would smile that big grin, knowing that he managed to get under Mason’s skin. And everything he’d done since burying Chickadee would have been a waste.

Turning away from the window, he stepped into the room, his back to the brilliant sunset. His nose wrinkled at the smell. The bodies spread out on the floor before him had been there for a long time. There wasn’t much left to make them recognizable. It was better that way.

He went into the bedroom and stripped the sheets off the bed. It took extra time, but he wasn’t about to touch them without having some sort of protection. Once he’d wrapped them up, another prisoner appeared and helped him carry the first body down the stairs.

Once upon a time, elevators used to make everyone’s lives so much easier.

The street was steadily growing dim and the shadows lengthened as the remaining daylight came to an end. They tossed the body in the street, piling it up against the others.

On the first floor they’d found seven people. Two were children.

On the second floor they’d found ten. They also found two dogs and a hamster in a cage.

The third floor brought sixteen.

And so on.

The pile grew.

The Baggers weren’t in sight so Mason decided to take a break. “I’m going to use the toilet,” he said to his partner.

“Your death wish,” the other guy said before heading back into the building. “Just don’t make it mine, too. You’d better come back.”

He went around the corner, wondering how far he could walk before the device on his leg started to make noise. Would it be loud like a siren, or silent? Probably not a good idea to try and find out.

He did his business next to a garbage bin and zipped up his pants. Only then did he notice the movement out of the corners of his eyes.

He looked up, catching a quick glimpse of blond hair.

Blushing, he quickly ran his hands along his pants to make sure everything was closed. How long had Clementine been watching him?

She was too far away to talk to, and he couldn’t take the risk of calling out to her. But she was looking right at him and she waved quickly to let him know she’d seen him. He glanced around to make sure no Baggers were sneaking up on him and waved back. She didn’t stick around. Turning a corner, she disappeared into the shadows.

It was hard to ignore the warmth growing in his stomach. Clementine would tell Aries, and she would come for him. It was dangerous to feel this happy, especially when he knew they’d be risking their lives for nothing.

The good news was he wasn’t alone.

The bad news was he wouldn’t be able to go back with them.

ARIES

The funeral was brief. They stood in a circle in the backyard, everyone silent and lost in their own thoughts. Even Jack was there, brought out and supported by Joy, who stuck to him like glue. His useless eyes stared up at the sky, a dark frown etched on his face as he stared at something he could no longer see.

Colin of course refused to go. “You’re all a bunch of hypocrites,” he said. “Those other girls died and all you did was toss them in the Dumpster.”

Aries and Clementine had returned to discover that both Emma and Janelle had died while they were gone. Larisa and Claude had removed the bodies from the house by themselves without saying a word.

But Colin’s comment had really brought out the anger in Larisa. She actually went over and smacked him upside the head. “Don’t you dare,” she said. “You didn’t know them. I did and it was my decision. And we didn’t dump them in the trash; we merely transported them to a place where we know the Baggers will come and collect them. If Aries and the others want to bury Nathan, I’m all for it. You were friends.
But don’t you dare criticize me for my decisions.”

They stood in the garden, the hole beneath them, Nathan’s body wrapped in blankets found on the second floor. The yard was silent except for the sobs coming from Eve.

Aries couldn’t cry anymore. Her eyes were dry. She wanted to try and explain it to Eve, but she couldn’t find the right words. It didn’t help that when Eve looked at her, there was nothing but hatred in her eyes. Aries had felt she needed to be honest when she told Eve. She’d only be damning herself further if she lied.

Her fault.

And she was as dry as a bone.

“Maybe someone should say something?” Joy said.

No one spoke.

“I’ll do it,” Jack said. He stepped forward, carefully escorted by Joy. Everyone turned to him, waiting for the right words to make the funeral proper.

Eve sniffled and blew her nose with a tissue.

“I didn’t know Nathan for a long time,” Jack said. “In fact, I’m kind of sorry I ever got to meet him at all.” He turned and faced Eve, drawn to the sound of the sniffling. “Because if none of this had happened, we wouldn’t have met both of you. And I still lie in bed and try and wish this new world away. All those ‘what ifs’ and ‘if onlys.’

“But we’re here, and now one of us is gone,” he continued. “And I guess in a way we should be thankful that we’ve lasted this long without more deaths.”

Joy reached out and took his hand.

Aries nodded. “We’ve done the best we could.”

“We have,” Jack agreed. “At least that’s what I keep telling myself. But this isn’t about us. It’s about Nathan.” He turned and stared blindly at the grave. “Nathan and I had some great
talks, but it’s only now that I realize I didn’t know anything about him. I never knew his favorite band. Or what he was studying in school. I never knew if he had a girlfriend.”

“He did,” Eve said. “But she was a bitch.”

Joy covered her mouth to hide her smile.

“So in honor of Nathan, who I hardly knew but still liked,” Jack said, “I suggest we get everyone ‘home’ and make this our one and only casualty from here on in.”

“Here, here,” Aries said.

They lined up and hugged Eve, and Aries tried to pretend that she didn’t believe the younger girl had given up, even though her embraces were weak and she refused to look anyone in the eye. When it came to Aries’s turn, Eve turned her back and moved away.

“She’ll get over it,” Joy whispered in Aries’s ear. “You’ll see. She just needs time.”

“No, she won’t,” Aries said. “But that’s okay. I wouldn’t forgive me either.”

One by one they took turns with the shovel until Nathan was buried.

*   *   *

“I found Mason!”

Clementine burst into the room, followed by an eager Raj, their arms filled with bags of goods taken from both the liquor and hardware stores.

“Really? Where?”

“He was part of a cleaning crew just over the bridge,” Clementine said. “They’re making him and a bunch of others bring out the bodies from the condos.”

“Others? Was Daniel there? What about Graham’s little girl?”

Clementine shook her head. “Sorry, I looked, but I didn’t
see either of them. That doesn’t mean anything, though.”

Aries nodded.

“Meanwhile, we’ve got lots of work to do if we’re gonna pull this thing off,” Raj said as he began grabbing liquor bottles out of the bag. “We’ve got two options. I can waste these fine bottles, or I can mix up a bunch of the cleaning supplies we snagged from Canadian Tire. Either way, we’re gonna have lots of flames on our hands.”

“Cleaning supplies,” Clementine said. “Wasting booze on Baggers seems wrong to me.”

“Yep,” Aries said. “No booze wastage. That’s just sacrilegious.”

“Done and done,” Raj said. “Now let’s get to work.”

*   *   *

Jack was back in his room when she knocked softly on the door about an hour later. Joy was with him, sitting on the bed, and they were talking in hushed whispers. She stood up when Aries entered, brushed off her shirt, and ran a hand through her hair.

“I’ll let you guys be,” Joy said. “Should be starting with dinner, I suppose. Not much to work with tonight. The Safeway is starting to get a little sparse.”

“We’ll have to go farther out,” Aries said. “I promise you, once we get Mason back, we’ll take a chance and hit up a Superstore or Costco.”

Joy nodded and headed out. Jack waited till he heard the door click and her footsteps echoed down the stairs.

“Eventually we’re going to run out of food,” he said. “The grocery stores can’t support us forever. What isn’t hoarded by the Baggers and remaining survivors is only going to get eaten by the wildlife. Mason told me he saw deer a few days ago, wandering down Granville Street.”

“Yeah,” she said as she sat down beside him. “The raccoons and skunks have all pretty much realized they run this town. The last time I was at Safeway, the cereal aisle and all the crackers were demolished.”

“Raccoon heaven.”

She choked back a sob.

“Hey.” Jack’s voice was soft as he reached out to touch her face. He missed and brushed her ear instead. Her sob turned into a half giggle, a noise that didn’t sound happy in the slightest.

“What am I going to do?” she asked. The tears were falling again. Now that they’d started, it felt like they weren’t ever going to end. “If I hadn’t been so pigheaded, none of this would have happened. I killed Nathan. And now I’m falling apart and I can’t let anyone see.”

“Why not?”

“Because someone has to lead this group. Someone has to keep everyone safe. And what good am I going to be if I’m having a mental breakdown? How on earth am I going to lead them all into battle? I’m breaking down, Jack, and I can’t tell anyone.”

“You’re doing a good job telling me.”

She let out the half sob, half giggle again. “Yeah, I guess I am.”

“Do you feel better?”

She sat back down on the bed and kicked at the bedpost with her heel. “Maybe.”