Brendan DuBois: Dead of Night

‘Nothing’s wrong,’ I said. ‘But everything’s wrong.’

‘Yes,’ Miriam said.

I looked over at Peter and Charlie, who seemed to be waiting for me to do something. Even with all that was no doubt going on inside his head, Peter stood still, no real expression on his face. So I went ahead, turned round and said, ‘Welcome to Site A.’

And one of the horrible things, though I’m not sure if it was the worst thing or not, was how damn easy this was going to be. The militia units or rogue state police or whoever had been in charge here had created an efficient system. The mine shaft went in for a couple of hundred meters and there was still enough room to walk down the middle. On each side, lined up one after another, were the bodies, wrapped in green plastic garbage bags secured with twine. The smell was horrific, a deep, thick odor of decay and sweet-sourness that seemed to ooze right into our pores. The light overhead came from single light bulbs dangling from long power lines, and they wavered some in the air flow, making the shadows quake upon the long lines of dead men, women and children. I wasn’t sure what was worse: the sight of all those green-wrapped bodies, stretching out, or the sight of the wet stone floor where the bodily fluids had been leaking out. We walked in slowly, using flashlights to help light our way, and I had to look away each time there was a shorter bundle lying next to a longer one.

Peter led the way and Miriam was beside me. She pulled my head close and said, ‘The hate, my God, so much hate.’

Charlie was behind us, his face cold and impassive, and I knew that if we’d been back at the hospital parking lot he would have opened fire in an instant on the militia representatives who were waiting there, hoping for another armistice.

Then the path ended, at an exhibit of rusting old machinery. There were no more bodies. Just the gloom of the mine shaft, now descending at a steeper angle. Peter leaned in, flashed his light down there, and said, his voice muffled, ‘There might be more, tossed down the shaft. We’ll have to send a crew in there with lights and ropes.’

Miriam looked back at the little round spot of light that was the entrance to the tunnel. I stood beside her and shifted my duffel bag from one shoulder to the other. I knew we had work to do, I knew my gear was ready to be pulled out and used, but the sheer scale of everything overwhelmed me. It was like trying to excavate a house foundation using nothing more than a teaspoon.

‘Two hundred and twelve,’ Peter announced.

‘Excuse me?’ I said.

‘Two hundred and twelve,’ he said. ‘That’s how many bodies are in here. Look, we’ve got work to do. We’ve got to get that engineer unit in here, make sure the bodies aren’t booby-trapped, and we’ve got to do everything we can before night falls.’

Charlie said, ‘I think you’re too late, man. It’s already twilight. Can’t you see?’

I think Peter was going to say something about it not even being noontime yet, but he looked at Charlie’s face and knew what he meant. I could only imagine what it must be like to see so many of your countrymen laid out like that, dead, for the crime of being hungry and being from away and for being different. That was all.

For being different.

Several hours later I was on an exposed piece of rock that was getting some late-afternoon sun, near the entrance of the mine shaft. The two helicopters were still overhead, doing their patrol work, making sure, I guess, that nobody was creeping around to steal the bodies. I’d taken off my gloves, safety glasses and mask and they were in a little pile at my feet, and the cream over my lip and in my nostrils was doing its job as best it could. I had a liter bottle of mineral water, which I was sipping slowly. I was into some sort of nutty routine where I would take a gulp of water, swish it around, spit it out, then take another gulp, and then swallow it. I think I was fooling myself into thinking that maybe I was rinsing out whatever bacteria and odors were coming in from the open mine shaft before I swallowed the next gulp of water.

The work had gotten underway after the engineers had determined that there were no booby traps inside. Soon enough, the bodies started coming out. Temporary morgues with refrigeration units had been set up in large canvas tents in the parking lot, and myself and a couple of other recorders went in first, taking photos and writing down descriptions. Then there was the first pass from the forensics investigators who took measurements and other details of each body. That took some time. Then I helped photograph each body as it was removed and brought out to a flatbed truck. It could hold twenty adult corpses at a time. The soldiers who moved the bodies wore full chemical/biological-warfare gear, with gloves and gas masks. Us UN civilians had to make do with the little face-masks and glasses and ointment. Then, with a roar of diesel engines, the truck carrying twenty dead Americans — or twenty-four or twenty-six, depending if children had been brought out—were taken down to one of the tents, where the real horror began.

I raised the water bottle, swished, spat, and then raised it again, swished and swallowed. The bottle shook so hard that its end rattled against my teeth.

‘Hey,’ came a voice.

‘Hey, yourself,’ I said as Miriam came over and sat down beside me. Her hair was matted at the back of her head and her face was bright red. I offered her my water bottle and she nodded gratefully and took three long swallows. No spitting. She was an expert at this, while I was just a kid newspaper reporter looking to do something different.

‘We’re almost done emptying the mine,’ she said. ‘How are you doing?’

‘Lousy,’ I said.

‘Why?’

I took a breath and then regretted it. The stench from the mine shaft seemed to come in waves, and I’d got a good whiff that made my stomach do flip-flops. I coughed and said, ‘Because I haven’t done shit in the past few hours, that’s why.’

‘What have you been doing, then?’

‘Sitting. Breathing. Letting other people do the work. I should be down at the tents, doing the documentation, but I can’t.’

‘I know,’ she said. ‘It is very tough.’

Tough. There was a procedure at the tents, too. With each delivery, soldiers would pick up a body and bring it into the cool interior of the tent. It would then be placed on a metal examining table, set at an angle so that any blood or other bodily fluids would flow down to the feet. Then the medical examiners would get to work, gently snipping away the twine and unwrapping the plastic trash bag. I would be there as well, taking photos, trying to stay out of the way. There would be the low murmur of voices, the clinking sound of medical instruments being dropped into trays, the rustling as the plastic wrapping was taken off and tossed onto the dirt floor. And I would be there, taking photos. The very first photo was that of an old woman dressed in a red flannel nightgown. That was what got to me. A nightgown. I imagined her in a tiny apartment, maybe a cat or two at her feet, having a cup of tea, feeling scared and lonely about what was going on after the attacks, not sure of what tomorrow would bring, and then…

The knock at the door. Her family has come, or maybe her neighbors. They are leaving the city, joining the others who have given up after weeks of no power and no water and no food deliveries, of no news on the radio or the television. So she leaves her home and departs from the city and maybe there’s help out there, friends, fellow Americans who will help her and her neighbors.

Doesn’t that make sense?

And then the refugee column is halted, they are yelled at—and maybe they are robbed and maybe the younger women are taken away—and there you are, cold and frightened and not quite believing that this is happening to you, a little old lady, here in the United States of America, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, believing it must all be a mistake, right up to the point where someone -maybe even Gary, the local schoolteacher—places a pistol at the back of your head, right below the gray curls of hair.