The Broken and the Dead
Chapter 25: Day 24

The morning was cool and rainy, the clouds were so low the lodge itself was shrouded in them and the tree line was invisible to us. The mood was, well, strange. Not tense exactly more anticipatory than anything else. The strike team members were meeting with the Lt. in small groups, going over a map and discussing details of their particular role in the mission. Deputy Weir was on over watch and Mr. and Mrs. Livingston were drawing up plans for spring gardens and were excitedly discussing the possibility of building chicken coops and raising chickens. I overheard the Lt. tell Amy that Tucker reported that morning that the last two broadcasts kept the monsters right on track. I wandered through the kitchen and while I really wasn’t that hungry I couldn’t resist snatching a big piece of fresh baked bread when I found it so unwisely unguarded.

I went through the back porch door and looked out through the drizzle at our new garden and it made me smile. Of course not a single sprout yet but I felt it was only matter of time. I heard a strange screech coming from somewhere up the hillside, beyond the storage shed. I saw the nose of the old blue trash truck was sticking out from behind the shed. I adjusted my rifle sling and started to wander that direction.

As I passed the shed and reached the truck I saw that the lift gate was raised but attached to the back of the truck was a steel framed chain link cube. There was a Z inside, it was rather small for a monster, no bigger than me, it was roaming free inside the cube but there was a heavy wire rope made into a noose around its neck, the other end of the steel cable was passed through a steel eye welded to the steel frame and then 10 feet past that to where it was attached to huge eye bolt driven or screwed into an enormous hickory tree. There were two loops in the wire in which two foot long pieces of steel fence post were threaded. Hand holds. Tucker could use them to pull the creature up against the chain link without much risk.

The creature noticed me and it reacted instantly but instead of trying to get to me it launched itself into far corner of its cell.

“Oh my God” I whispered.

I put the M4’s sling back on my shoulder, apparently these rifles were trained to leap into your hands when it is startled by monsters. I stepped a little closer, my eyes couldn’t quite make sense of what I was seeing, I muttered to myself,

“What has he done to you?”

Finally I could make it out, a ten inch long and four inch wide section of its exoskeleton had been cut away from its back. Bright pink flesh streaked with bright crimson veins or arteries pulsed wetly in the air. Slimy yellow pus stretched to escape thin membranes at the edges of the wound. It had to be in agony.

I spoke to the monster, “hello?” and I took another step towards the cage. It turned to face me its eyes blinked, the strange four sections of each eye looking like a fourth of a black pie sliding in and out towards the center. I could not see anything in those eyes not until it seemed to recognize that I wasn’t Tucker and a cold fury appeared in them and it opened its tooth filled mouth and screamed at me. The roar was cut off short as a loud bang started both me and the monster as Tucker hit the side of the cube with a baseball bat.

“Shut up!” Tucker growled and the monster crawled back to its corner. Tucker walked over to stand next to me, and as we watched the monster he said

“It learns fast. Sometimes in only one lesson.”

I said “It’s scared of you.”

He answered in a low and menacing voice “I know.”

He waved at a portable generator off to one side

“It doesn’t like electricity,”

Then at a large galvanized tub inside the cage,

“but it can stay underwater for at least fifteen minutes without drowning although it was pretty loopy for a couple of hours after that, oxygen deprivation I suppose.”

He turned and walking over to a little table I had not noticed before, he picked something up and tossed it to me, it was the missing piece of shiny black exoskeleton,

“It can stand pain, but it isn’t impervious to it.”

Disgusted I tossed it to the ground at his feet.

I looked at Tucker expecting to see violence, hatred or even madness in his eyes but instead he just looked like he was empty of emotion, flat. Dead. I asked him

“What are you going to do to it next?”

He took a pack off of his shoulder and from it produced a glass jar filled with a clear liquid.

“What is that?” I asked.

“Sulfuric acid, this is pretty high concentration. I picked it up at a high school about an hour from here.” He said holding the bottle up to the sun. “Look it has etched the glass.”

He added and he turned to place it on the table. I looked at him in disbelief.

“What?” he asked with a curious expression on his face.

“Why are you doing this?” I asked him incredulously.

“Because we half to know.” He sounded determined and I felt ill.

He took the glass stopper from the jar and I tried to make my feet move but they felt like clay, in an instant he bent down, picked up the piece of exoskeleton and dropped it in the jar. I found that I had stopped breathing because I was suddenly able to do it again.

“Look John. The acid is eating away the inner layers but the outer isn’t reacting at all. Incredible.” He said.

Yea, incredible. I thought.

Breathe, I thought. I had imagined him dousing the monster with that acid and it had stolen the air from my lungs. I watched Tucker as he checked a stopwatch and then made some notes in one of those spiral notebooks common in every high school backpack ever made. I heard the monster make a sound and I turned to look at it. Its eyes were wide, its gaze fixed on the bubbling piece of exoskeleton. I took the time to look over it carefully and suddenly I knew.

“It’s a girl.” I said.

“Hmmmm?” Tucker asked without looking up.

“The monster is, or was, a girl, maybe my age.” I said.

He put his pen in the notebook and closed it. Much to my surprise he didn’t make fun or tell me to ‘run along’ instead he said

“How do you know?”

I said that I wasn’t sure, but it was in the way it moved, the way it reacted. That perhaps it was just in the slender exoskeleton. Tucker thought about it for a long time then said

“I think you are right.” And a moment later, “Poor thing.”

Then he picked up a large bottle of lighter fluid and he started to pull the wire rope, dragging the little monster next to the chain link fence. I turned away and headed back towards the lodge. I had just reached the back porch steps when I heard the monster squealing. Screaming. I didn’t turn around I just sighed deeply and went into the kitchen.

Instantly I was assaulted by three giggling little girls who were doing their best to escape Karen Morena who was giggling just as hard as they were. I took my rifle from my shoulder and leaned it against the wall then gave chase, all I wanted was to be little and forget for just a little while.

Lunch was good and I was growing quite fond of the two new ladies. They certainly were the most popular people in the lodge. With everyone except Mrs. Livingston that is, the old black woman rather resented their intrusion so she was throwing herself and by extension her husband into preparation, canning, and ’putting up’. Whatever that was. All I knew was that Mr. Livingston sure seemed frazzled. After lunch Kelsey and I were asked to help Deputy Weir unload bags and bags of flour from the Humvee. I wondered who had gone back for it but I suppose it doesn’t matter. It was actually kind of fun, Kelsey talks a lot and I listen a lot. She is smart and funny and, well to tell the truth she is very pretty. Apparently our efforts drew the attention of Karen Morena who watched me with her arms crossed over her chest and her foot tapping the whole time. Girls are crazy.

I was up for over watch at three and Mr. Lowe asked if I wanted company and I said sure. I walked post and he sat and smoked a pipe, I replace cigarette smoke disgusting but I found the pipe smoke kind of nice, like apples. The sky was orange and every thong was quite, apparently Tucker was done torturing monsters for the day. Mr. Lowe stood and walked over next to me and taking out an old fashioned pocket watch the checked it and said

“Six o’clock, 48 hours to go.”

I turned and was surprised to see Tucker working his antenna thingy. I wondered how someone like him could move so quietly. I nearly broke out laughing when Mr. Lowe asked the same question. As we watched Tucker working his machine and jotting things down on his notebook. I whispered to Mr. Lowe

“Don’t under estimate him sir.”

“What do you mean?” he whispered back.

“Just don’t.” I said.

When Rico and Elaine took over I went downstairs to replace Karen, Kyle said she was in their room reading.

“What? Like a book?” I asked.

“Doofus” was his answer.

Something very weird was going on where Karen was concerned but for the life of me I couldn’t figure it out. I decided to go replace Lucy and see what she was up to. I found her in the Hardy’s room cutting pictures of people out of some Southern Living magazines. Mrs. Hardy, Mrs. Driscol, and Kelsey were in there with them and when I stuck my head in Mrs. Driscol smiled and asked how I was doing. I told her I just wanted to say goodnight to Lucy who, hearing her name waved over her shoulder to me while she, Jordan and Gina simultaneously said goodnight to me. This was apparently very funny because when I walked away I heard them all giggling. I walked past Tuckers room and saw he was writing in his notes. It was too early to go to bed so I headed downstairs, I passed the Livingstons going up and we said goodnight, Mrs. Livingston asked me if I was okay and I said sure, she pursed her lips and looked at me over the top of her wire framed glasses for a moment then said

“Well, if you need to talk, you know where our room is.”

I said thanks and thought ’something very weird is definitely going on.’

When I got to the lobby I saw Mrs. West sitting alone in the great room so I walked over to her. She looked at me like I had two heads or something but she didn’t say anything. So I sat in one of the overstuffed chairs next to her, checked my rifle safe and put it in the chair next to me. We sat there a minute or two in silence then she said

“You never let that thing get out of reach do you?”

I thought about how best to answer her then said

“Before this all happened I had never touched one before. Now? It lets me protect my family. Protect my friends.”

She sipped a drink that I had not realized she had then she said

“And you get to kill the monsters.”

I remembered the pitiful thing Tucker was torturing up on the hill, and suddenly realized something and I told her my realization;

“If I never saw one again that would be fine. I don’t need to kill them I just need to… hmmm... I can’t lose anyone. Not again, not if it kills me.”

She was silent for a minute then she said

“Your sisters are lucky Johnny, lucky to have you.”

We sat in silence for a bit then she added

“They all are.”

I didn’t know what to say so I said nothing. We sat there together for an hour before she spoke again;

“I want to kill them all.”

After that we sat in the dark together, I felt that this strong, strange woman was telling me a story, a terrible story told in painful silence.