Surviving the Dead 03: Warrior Within (39 page)

I cleared my throat and sat up straight, blowing out a deep breath to relax. “No, that’s good enough for now. Go on, fuck off.”

I stared at her as I said it to let her know I didn’t mean it. She gave me a small smile, and squeezed my knee.

“Are you being sure?”

Looking up, I saw Kasikov still ravaging the redheaded girl. Jones cried out across from him as he came in the girl’s mouth.

“She is good, my friend. Well trained.” He switched his attention to Jones. “Hey, hand me my vodka.”

“Okay, enough bitch.” Jones pushed the girl’s head away. “Goddamn woman, the thing gets sensitive right after a man cums. Didn’t anybody teach you that?”

He leaned over and grabbed a bottle off the floor, then held it out to Kasikov over the redhead’s bare back. The Russian unscrewed the cap and took a long swig, then gestured at me. “Go on, my friend. There are many things she can be doing to you. Give it a few minutes. You will be getting it up again.”

I opened the bottle of rum and faked a languid yawn. “I appreciate it man, but I haven’t had a good night’s sleep in … shit, I can’t even remember. If it’s all right with you guys, I’m just gonna have a few drinks and go to bed.”

Rat-Face turned around from where he had the black girl bent over in front of him. “You’re fucking lame, Morrison. A goddamn two-pump chump.” The others laughed.

“Yeah, yeah. Pick on the new guy. See you tomorrow, fellas.”

Their attention went back to the women as I left. Jones called Miranda over and ordered her to pick up where the redhead had left off.

“If the new guy doesn’t want to use you, I will …”

I propped up a pillow, lay down on my bunk, and tried to ignore the sounds coming from the common area.

You had better enjoy yourselves, you sick fucks,
I thought, taking a pull from the rum.
Because by God, your days are numbered
.

*****

I awoke from a nightmare in the middle of the night.

It was one of those dreams where in the middle of it you realize you’re dreaming, and when that realization strikes home, you wake up. I didn’t sit up in my bunk screaming, or anything. My eyes simply snapped open, and suddenly I was awake.

For all the light in the warehouse, I might as well have kept my eyes shut. The darkness was complete and impenetrable. I reached down and fumbled in my pack until I found the wind-up lantern. A few spins of the crank handle charged it, and I used it to find my boots and make my way to the main entrance. A sleepy looking guard stood by the doorway, Kalashnikov in hand.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

I motioned toward the door. “I was going to step outside and get some air for a little while.”

“Not out here, you’re not. This entrance is off-limits after dark. If you want to go outside, you’ll have to take the tunnel over to the admin building. There’s a courtyard behind it that’s invisible from the road. But you’ll have to leave your lantern with the guard over there. No lights outside after dark; it’s the rules.”

“Oh, okay. Thanks.”

He dismissed me with a nod and went back to looking bored. I climbed down the hatch to the tunnels and ran into two more guards at the main intersection. One of them yawned and pointed me to the tunnel leading to the admin building. I thanked them, and headed that way.

I emerged into the same basement as the first time I went there, and had to use my lantern to find the stairwell in the darkness. At the rear exit to the building, another set of guards challenged me and took my lantern before letting me outside. As soon as I stepped through the door, the acrid scent of marijuana smoke made me curl my nose. I looked around for the source, and spotted a familiar figure sitting on a picnic table nearby. I moved closer.

“That you, Paul?”

He turned around. “Yeah. Morrison?”

“Guilty as charged. Mind if I join you?”

“Not at all, man. Have a seat.”

He scooted over and let me take up one half of the table. We sat on top of it, resting our feet on the bench beneath.

“So how’d you like your first day with the Legion?”

I shrugged. “It started out uneventful and boring, but then I got a shower and a blowjob. Can’t remember the last time I had both of those in the same day.”

Paul laughed, and I wanted to stab him in the throat for thinking it was funny. “Sounds like you had a good day.” He took a plastic baggie out of his shirt pocket and began filling a glass pipe with a swirling purple design embedded in it. “You smoke?”

“Depends. Is that weed?”

“Yep. Grow it myself. One of the benefits of being on Lucian’s staff.”

In the silver light of the half-moon, I could see that his eyes were bloodshot and a little swollen. The odor of marijuana coming from him was enough to make me cough.

“What’s the story with that?” I asked. “I mean, how’d you end up working for Lucian?”

He picked up a butane lighter, lit the pipe, and inhaled deeply. He held his breath, and then blew out a plume of thick gray smoke. “Can’t talk about that. He swore me to secrecy. You don’t break promises to a guy like Lucian.”

Okay, let’s try a different approach
. “That’s cool, I understand. But still, that’s got to be a sweet job, man.”

I could only see him in profile, but the half that was visible smiled. “Yeah, it is.” He held out the pipe. “Want a hit?”

I hesitated for a few seconds. I had tried the stuff a few times, but never really cared for it. All it did was make me hungry. But it was an opportunity to gather information and further cement my cover, so I took the pipe.

“Been a long time, man. I’m probably gonna cough like a motherfucker.”

“It’s cool. Just take little tokes. Here you go.” He handed me the butane lighter.

“They let you have this outside at night?” I asked, holding up the lighter.

“The guards know better than to give me shit about it.”

I nodded and lit the pipe, covering the vent hole on the side with my thumb. The dry, smelly buds turn orange, and after a second or two, I took my thumb off the vent and breathed in.

“You look like you’ve done that before,” Paul said.

I nodded, held the smoke in for a few seconds, and then blew it out. I didn’t choke, but I did have to cough a few times before I could breathe again. “Yeah, once or twice.”

Paul chuckled. “Go on and take another hit, man. I’m pretty baked.”

I did, and then handed the pipe back to him. “Gotta take a break. It’s been a while, man. Not sure how bad it’s gonna hit me. I don’t want to get lost in the fucking tunnels on the way back.”

Something about that must have tickled Paul, because he spent a good five minutes giggling uncontrollably. I waited while he got himself together, and felt the THC beginning to kick in. His weed was some strong stuff.

“Oh, man. I needed that. Thanks.” 

“So how long you been with the Legion?” I asked conversationally.

“About a year now, if you count the time I spent in the mines. A patrol caught me as I was heading north from Hollow Rock. Traded a box of ammo for some food there, and then set off for Canada. I’d heard there were a few communities up near the border that were welcoming survivors.”

“Doesn’t sound like much of a hope to go on,” I said.

He shook his head. “It wasn’t, but at the time, I had nothing else going. I figured I’d get there, or die trying. Then the Legion came along.”

He was silent for a while after that, gazing blankly into the darkness. Just as I was beginning to worry he wasn’t going to say anything else, he spoke up again.

“At first I fucking hated it, you know. You’ve been there, too, you know what I’m talking about. They beat the shit out of me. Starved me. Wouldn’t give me any water. For a while there, I just wanted to die. Get it over with, you know? I even begged the guards to kill me, but they wouldn’t do it. They told me I’d get stronger. And you know what? They were right.”

He went quiet again, his bloodshot eyes hardening. I didn’t really care why this guy had sided with people who’d brutalized him, but there was the odd chance that he might let something useful slip. So I decided to encourage him.

“I think I know what you mean, man. That first week was rough, being in isolation. But at the same time … I don’t know. I kind of feel like it taught me something.”

“That’s because it did.” He turned to face me, his expression showing a fierceness that hadn’t been there before. “You learned the same thing I did; you’re stronger than you think. Tougher than you think. You can take a hell of a lot more abuse than you thought you could. You can survive on just a little bit of food and water. You can sleep when you’re freezing cold. You can work when you’re so exhausted you can barely move. Your body will do whatever your mind tells it to.”

He tapped a finger on his forehead, and went back to staring into the blackness of the forest. “When I was in that hole, something changed inside me. The old Paul was weak and stupid. He was still holding on to all the bullshit he’d believed back before the Outbreak. All the lies politicians used to feed people to keep them under control. All the years of indoctrination that had turned me into a sheep, the same as everybody else. I wasn’t the man I was meant to be. I’d never been shown what I was really capable of, never had a chance to learn it for myself. Lucian changed all that.”

He paused long enough to take a hit from his bowl, then went on. “At first I was just scared. When they took me down to the mines, I literally pissed myself. The work was terrible. My body wasn’t used to it, I hurt constantly, and I cried until I ran out of water to cry with. The guards mocked me and kicked me around like a dog. God, I had hated them then. Hated them with a passion. But a few weeks went by and, as much as I didn’t want to be, I was still alive. I got used to not eating. Not having enough water. My body adjusted to the workload, and it got easier. I think that was when I first started to really get it, you know? When I first started to understand.”

I looked down between my knees and feigned contemplation. “I think I know what you mean.”

His head turned, and he put an arm around my shoulders, giving my deltoid a quick squeeze. “Of course you do. You just went through the same thing. It’s a fucking harsh crucible, man. But can you honestly say you’re not stronger for having gone through it?”

I stayed quiet for a few seconds, nodding slowly and pretending to think about it. “You know, you’re right. I hadn’t really thought about it that way, but you’re right. I think I am stronger now.”

He withdrew his arm. “Goddamn right you are. Want another hit?”

I held up a hand and waved the offer away. “No, not right now. Those first two are hitting me hard. That’s some good shit, man.”

He laughed. “Yeah, it is.”

I waited while he took anot
her drag, and then he continued, “I went to the fights every Sunday, just like everybody else. There were some big guys down there with me, so I figured it would be best to wait until they got out before stepping up. After about a month, the toughest guys were gone, and I figured I could take the rest. I almost won it, but I fucked my hand up on the last guy and wound up getting choked out. The guy I lost to is actually on your team. Mike, that rat-looking fucker.” He shook his head ruefully. “That was fucking embarrassing. I had to give my hand a couple of weeks to heal, and then I tried again. That time, I won.”

A smile crossed his face at the memory. “I can’t tell you what that was like, man. I stood up over my beaten opponent and roared like an animal. Everyone was screaming and cheering. It was fucking surreal. Lucian came out to congratulate me, and I gave him a hug. Can you imagine
that? He didn’t get weird about it, though. He just looked me in the eye, and he said, ‘Today, you’re a man.’ And that was when it clicked, you know? When it all made sense. The old world was soft, and it raised soft people, and it fed them lies to keep them under control. Reality is way fucking harsher than that. Reality doesn’t lie, and neither does Lucian. All the shit he put me through, all the beatings, and the work, and the starvation, it was like putting raw metal in a fire. You have to melt it to make something out of it, and in the process, you burn away the impurities. All the things that make it weak. And when you add the right ingredients, and shape it, what you get is something stronger. Sharper. That’s what Lucian did for me. He dragged me kicking and screaming into the fire, he burned away all the lies that made me weak, and he showed me what it means to be strong. I’d have never done it on my own, never would have put myself through that. I’m glad Lucian did it for me. Not a day goes by that I don’t look at that great man, and think how lucky I am. I’d say I’m grateful, but grateful ain’t the word, man. Grateful doesn’t cut it. Not by a long shot.”

I thought about pointing out to Paul that his logic was as full of holes as the proverbial Swiss cheese. But looking him in the eye, I could see that he was a fanatic. A convert. A zealot. There is no arguing with people like that, no reasoning with them. They’re going to believe whatever they want to believe, and nothing you say is going to make a damned bit of difference. I stared at Paul for a long moment, and wondered at the things people become.