Jason Frost - Badlands

Phelps spun like a flaming dervish. No one moved to help him.

Except Tim.

Tim rushed over, kicked Phelps's legs out from under him, sending him to the ground. Then he straddled the burning man's chest, keeping him down while he rocked him on the ground, smothering the flames.

Fallows watched with his pale, colorless eyes. "We'll take a five-minute break here. If anybody wants to tend to Phelps, fine. If not, fine. Hey, Phelps."

There was a choked gasp from Phelps. "Yes."

"Be ready to march in five minutes or we leave you behind."

Phelps struggled to pull himself to a sitting position. Fallows never left anybody behind who was still alive.

"Follow me, Tim." Fallows marched off into the woods without looking back. Tim followed. They kept walking until they reached a small clearing. Fallows unpacked his binoculars and began scanning the sky. "Nothing yet."

Tim stood there without speaking. He'd decided that Fallows only used conversation to confuse him, to trick him somehow. With Fallows it was best to say nothing. Just wait for a chance to grab one 9mm bullet. Just one. Then he'd have plenty to say.

Fallows's head was tilted back, swiveling from side to side, adjusting the binoculars. "That damn Long Beach Halo. It's something all right. Almost pretty if you didn't know what was in it. What it could do to you. Right, Tim?"

"Yes." That was as much as he'd give the bastard. But it was true. The orange and yellow was pretty. But they'd seen a few people who'd tried to sail through it to the other side, despite the flyers that had warned everybody not to try or they'd be shot. The outside world was frightened of contamination. Tim didn't blame them. The ones he'd seen who'd been exposed to the Halo had gnarled, melted skin all over their bodies, their eyes half hanging out of the sockets. Those were the lucky survivors. Most died right away.

Tim looked around him, studying every bush and tree, looking for his father hiding out there somewhere. It was something he always did, searching. But lately, he'd been doing it a little less. Where was he after all this time?

"You did well back there, Tim," Fallows said, stuffing the binoculars back in their case. "With Phelps. Saving his life. Fast thinking."

Tim shrugged. "I didn't think. I just did it, that's all."

"That's a good sign. Quick reactions. You think that will make those men like you a little more? Treat you better?"

"I haven't thought about that." But he had. He'd hoped they would see how he'd helped one of them. Maybe he could turn that to his advantage sometime. Get one to help him escape, or at least make them watch him less closely. Make it easier for him to get that single 9mm bullet he wanted. "Like I said, I just did it."

"Sure. A humanitarian, like your dad. Come here. I want you to see something." Fallows plucked the binoculars from their case again and handed them to Tim. He put his hand on the boy's shoulder and pointed back toward the camp. "There. Take a look."

Tim pressed the cold glass against his eyes and lifted the binoculars in the direction of Fallows's finger. He saw Phelps still sitting on the ground, trying to pull himself to his feet by clawing up the side of a tree.

"What do you see?" Fallows asked. His tone suggested he already knew, even though Tim was sure he hadn't looked before. He'd kept his eyes on the sky. "Well?"

"Everybody's taking a break like you told them to. Smoking cigarettes or chewing tobacco. A couple of 'em are playing cards, blackjack I think."

"What about Phelps?"

"He's getting up. Looks OK."

"Anybody helping him?"

Tim hesitated. At first he'd thought they were just letting him climb to his own feet, like his father had made him do when he'd been thrown from his dirt bike. But Tim remembered the anxious look in his father's eyes, too. He'd wanted to rush over and hold his son, Tim could see that. But he wouldn't. Not until Tim got up and climbed back on that dirt bike. But these men were ignoring Phelps as if he were somehow unclean.

"I asked if anybody was helping Phelps. Giving him a hand, offering to tend to his wounds."

"No."

"Good. They've learned well."

Tim knew Fallows was waiting for a reaction. He didn't give him one. He just handed the binoculars back and waited.

Fallows smiled. "Yeah, you're Eric's kid all right. Same stubborn independence. There's a story I told your dad back in 'Nam when he was under my command. We'd just stormed a VC camp and I'd ordered my men not to take any prisoners. Well, one dumb ox from Baltimore hauls out this woman, couldn't have been more than seventeen. He asks me what he should do with her. I said, Shoot her in the head. He balked, his mouth hanging open like I'd ordered him to rape his mother. So I look around at the rest of my men and see that many are just as shocked as this Baltimore jerk. Fine, I thought. Let 'em learn a little lesson. OK, I told him, you can guard her. That night she gets hold of a knife and slices the Baltimore kid's throat. I see her sneaking out of camp and blow her head off with my.45. You see, I tell them, that's why we don't take prisoners. That night your daddy brings me the knife she'd used to shave the kid. He looks at me with those flat, ball-bearing eyes of his and says, handing me the knife, 'You lost something.' Yeah, your daddy knew right away it was me who slipped that bitch the knife." Fallows laughed. "Your dad was sharp, damn it. I'll give him that. So I told him to sit down, I've got a story to tell him. He says he'll stand. Stubborn bastard, like you. When I was a kid, I tell him, my friends and I used to hunt lizards. One day I caught about seven of them. I put them all in a cardboard box. That night I thought I'd feed them, so I caught this giant black bug, I didn't know what kind it was, and dumped it in the box with the seven lizards. Not much to eat, but I figured it would hold them until morning. When I came out the next morning I looked in the box and saw the black bug sitting on the back of one of the lizards. He'd eaten right through its back. He tried to crawl away, but the bug kept eating the red, gooey insides. The other six hzards were lying in the corners of the box with their backs turned." Fallows fixed his pale eyes on Tim. "What was I to learn from that sight?"

"That if all the lizards had banded together, they could have killed the bug."

"That's what your dad said. And if you look at it from the lizard's point of view you're right. But if you look at it from the bug's point of view, you see that the lesson is to keep everyone divided, break down their loyalties, and you can survive in a box full of lizards."

Tim stared at Fallows. "What did my father say to that?"

"Nothing. He got up and walked away." There was a look in Fallows's eyes, Tim thought, almost of great loss. Some color came back to them as he stared off. "I tried to teach Eric everything I knew. Make him into a friend. I don't know why I chose him. Something about him, something different. There are ways to make money during a war, lots of ways. I offered them to your father. He refused. No moral speeches about right and wrong. Just refusal. Somehow that was even worse. But later, when he testified against me at my court-martial, that was too much. Naturally I had to kill him. The lesson of the lizard, I'm afraid."

"But your men. Phelps."

"They won't help him. They won't help each other unless I order it. Each individual is a disposable unit, like a tissue. The only thing keeping them together is me. And that only works because I know how to get them what they want. So you see, we all need each other, but we don't need anybody."

Tim didn't know what to say. Talking with Fallows was confusing, exhausting. He was safer when he just concentrated on killing the man.

Fallows patted Tim's head. " 'Tut! I have done a thousand dreadful things/As willingly as one would kill a fly.' Titus Andronicus, Act IV, scene iv, line 82. Are you familiar with Shakespeare?"