Sam Sisavath - The Isles of Elysium

“Be ready in a few minutes!” a woman called over to them.

“That’s my lady,” Steve said. “She’s a great cook.”

“Fried chicken?” Keo said. “You have chicken?”

“We have a farm behind one of the fields. Chickens, ducks, cows… Where do you think the horses come from? A man can’t live on MREs and vegetables his entire life, Keo.”

“Does everyone get fried chicken?”

“Sure, once a week. Maybe once every two weeks. Portions, anyway.”

Classes within classes. Right.

The woman in the kitchen was picking up pieces of drumsticks frying in a pan and putting them onto plates. She glanced over at Keo and smiled. Mid-twenties, blonde, and much prettier than someone like Steve deserved. She was wearing a flower-printed dress and an apron, and her hair was done in an old-fashioned style that made Keo wonder if he had stepped into a real-life Leave It To Beaver episode.

“Keo, this is Lois, my better half,” Steve said. “Darling, this is Keo.”

“Is that Japanese?” Lois asked.

“Korean,” Keo said.

“Oh, cool.”

“Keo’s a half-breed, right?” Steve said.

“Honey, that’s not nice!” Lois said.

“He doesn’t mind. Right, Keo?”

“Right,” Keo nodded, just barely suppressing a grimace.

“See?” Steve said. He went into the kitchen, slipped his arms around Lois’s waist, and nuzzled her neck. “Smells good. And the food, too.”

“Steve,” Lois said.

They were doing that pretend-annoyed thing that husbands and wives did in front of company. Keo wanted to throw up.

“Show Keo where to clean up,” Lois said. “I’ll have everything ready by the time you guys are done.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Steve kissed her neck and grabbed her ass with both hands.

She yelped. “Steve!”

Steve laughed, and Keo couldn’t decide if all of this was some theater for his benefit, or if they really were this sickeningly satisfied with their lives inside the safe zone of T18.

“Come on, you look and smell like shit,” Steve said to him. “I was going to send a uniform over to Gillian’s house, but I guess that can wait.”

“A uniform?” Keo said.

“You might as well look the part if you’re going to stay. You are going to stay, aren’t you?”

Keo shrugged. He didn’t want to come across as too anxious. “Maybe. There’s not much out there.”

“Not unless you believe the radio.”

“Radio?”

“Want a laugh? Come take a listen.”

Steve led him into a study that was partially lit by a pair of LED lights clamped to the windowsills. Keo saw a soldier outside across the street, smoking a cigarette, the outline of his M4 rifle jutting out from behind his back. Keo thought about all the things he could do with that weapon.

Steve walked to a dresser and turned on a battery-powered radio and fidgeted with the knobs. Keo only heard static, but Steve seemed certain there was something there and kept hunting around the dials.

“They had another message they were broadcasting before this one,” Steve was saying. “It went kaput about a month ago. I assumed my compatriots did that. Anyway, one of my guys picked up this new one yesterday. It’s definitely the same people.” He found what he was looking for and stopped, then turned up the volume. “Here it is. Same woman, different message.”

Keo already knew what he was going to hear before he heard it, because he had been there in person when they recorded the message on the bridge of the Trident .

“…silver. Bodies of water. And sunlight,” a female voice said through the radio. “These are three things that we know for certain that can, and will, kill the creatures, these things in the darkness we call ghouls.”

He almost smiled at the sound of Lara’s voice but managed to stop himself at the very last second because Steve was watching him, maybe trying to gauge his reaction across the semidarkness of the room.

“For their human collaborators, the traitors in uniforms that scour the countryside in the daylight for survivors,” Lara continued, “any bullet will do. If you’re able, get to a place that is surrounded by bodies of water. Stock up on silver; if you know how, make silver bullets, or any silver-bladed weapons. The daylight is no longer your friend, but don’t be discouraged. As long as you’re breathing, as long as you are free, there is hope. We will adapt and keep going, because that’s what we do. This is Lara, and I’m still fighting alongside you.”

The message paused for about five seconds before it repeated itself:

“This is Lara, broadcasting to you from safe harbor. If you’re hearing this, that means you’re still out there, too. Remember: Silver. Bodies of water. And sunlight. These are three things that we know for certain that can, and will, kill the creatures, these things in the darkness we call ghouls…”

Steve turned down the volume until Keo could barely hear Lara’s voice. “She believes it, too. Just like Tobias. She thinks you can keep fighting them. The sad part is, we’ve caught a couple of people listening to this propaganda bullshit. Luckily, we’ve managed to nip those in the bud before they got out of control. This type of thing is like a virus; if you don’t stamp it out immediately, it spreads. We can’t have that.”

“How are you going to stop it?” Keo asked.

“Easy. I outlawed radios.” Then he smiled. “Anyway, let’s go wash up. The chicken smells ready.”

On cue, Lois called from outside in that much-too-June-Cleaver voice, “Come and get ’em, boys!”

*

Lois was pretty and lively, and while she was bringing the plates of fried chicken, beans, and corncobs over, Steve leaned over to Keo and whispered, “She wants to get pregnant-you know, do her part for the town-but I won’t let her. I don’t know about you, but I prefer them slim and hot.”

Keo smiled and nodded, but all he could think about was Gillian. She was pregnant right now with another man’s baby. Four months pregnant. What was he doing four months ago? He couldn’t even remember. Somewhere in the Louisiana woods, trying to survive Pollard’s small army of paramilitary assholes, probably.

Steve had grabbed the biggest piece of chicken thigh on the plate and was about to wrap his mouth around it when his radio squawked, and a male voice said, “Sir? It’s Grant. Come in.”

Lois sighed. “Honey, why do you still have that thing turned on? It’s dinnertime.”

Steve ignored her, put down the chicken, and unclipped the radio from his belt. He keyed it, said, “What is it?”

“Uh, sorry to disturb you, sir, but I have some bad news,” Grant said.

“Steve,” Lois started to say, but she froze when Steve shot her a hard glance. She looked down at her plate of beans instead.

“Go on,” Steve said into the radio.

“It’s, uh, your brother, sir,” Grant said. He sounded nervous.

“What about Jack?”

“He’s dead, sir.”

“What the fuck do you mean he’s dead?”

Steve shot up from the table, nearly knocking it over. Lois gasped and grabbed onto a corncob as it rolled off a plate.

“The woman,” Grant said, and Keo thought his voice was trembling slightly. “She’s gone. Someone busted in on Doctor Bannerman’s place and took her. They, uh, shot Jack while they were escaping.”

Keo thought he was ready for it, but even he was surprised when Steve punched the table so hard that everything-the dishes, the chicken, and the corncobs-flew everywhere. Lois screamed and stumbled to her feet while Keo managed to grab onto a chicken leg as it bounced into the air.

“ Fuck!” Steve screamed.

Keo didn’t say anything. He took a bite out of the chicken leg. It tasted good, but then he hadn’t had fried chicken in years, so Lois could have actually been an awful cook and he might not have noticed.