Demitria Lunetta - In the End

“Yes, of course.” I pull roughly away from him and step toward the door. I’m all mixed up, Jacks bringing strange feelings to the surface. I push down my confusion and try to recover my wits. “So, are you ready to go out now, to look for Ken? I’ve got a lot of ground to cover,” I say, changing the subject.

“Now’s not a good time,” Jacks says.

“Why?” I’ve had enough false starts, enough dead ends. I’m also not sure I want to be in such a confined space with Jacks at the moment, not feeling the way I do, flushed and tight, like my skin is too small for my body.

When I hear shouts from outside, I welcome the distraction and hurry to the window. A crowd is gathering, pushing its way through the exercise yard.

“What’s going on?”

Jacks won’t look at me. “A trial,” he says grimly.

“A trial? What for?” Below me, the crowd is swelling, pushing toward the front wall.

“Murder.”

“Murder?” I turn around and look at Jacks. Doesn’t that happen here all the time? “And how does the trial work? Is there a judge or a jury or something?”

“There’s no judge or jury.”

“Does the Warden decide the verdict?”

He shakes his head.

“Then how will it be decided if the person is innocent or guilty?”

“Amy,” he tells me with a sigh, “they’re always found guilty.”

Despite Jacks’s protests, I drag him to the trial. If this is a main event at Fort Black, and if Ken’s in the prison at all, he might be there.

When we leave Cellblock B, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to find Ken, let alone see the trial. There are too many people pushing to the walls across the Yard. In fact, it looks as if the wooden stairs might collapse against the weight of so many people. Jacks grabs my hand, and we head away from the crowd, past Cellblock C and the black building that used to be the cafeteria and visitor center. On that side of the wall, we pop through a door and circle around within the corridors of the wall to the opposite end of the exercise yard, then climb up so we’re standing on top of the outer front wall of the prison.

If it were empty, we could see for miles outside of the prison, but the area is packed with spectators pressing for a view. Jacks slices through them and I run along behind him until, somehow, we’re at the front railing. The still-swelling crowd pins me against the iron, cutting off my breath. I can feel the three crossbars that make up the railing shifting under the pressure, and the top bar digs into my rib cage.

As the pressure gets harder, I concentrate on breathing and pressing back, so I don’t get cut in half. Then Jacks wedges himself behind me, reaching around either side of my waist and grabbing on to the railing in order to relieve the strain.

“Better?” he asks from behind me, his breath in my ear.

“Yes, thanks. But I don’t know how I’m going to find anyone in this crowd.”

All at once they begin to chant in unison. I can’t make out what they’re saying at first, but then it becomes clear.

Guilty . Guilty . Guilty .

“There,” Jacks says, his voice strained.

On the corner of the wall, in the guard tower, the Warden stands.

“People of Fort Black,” the Warden’s voice booms over the loudspeakers throughout the compound. “We have a good thing going here. The monsters are outside and we’re safe in here.” He says thing like thang , laying on his Texas drawl.

The crowd buzzes excitedly, and the Warden gives them a moment to calm down before starting again. “But we have to have some rules. We have to have some order. We’re not animals,” he spits. “A man has taken another man’s life. . . . And for what? To settle an argument? Well, the good book says an eye for an eye, and I say a life for a life!” The crowd goes wild at that, and Jacks lets out a sigh, his breath hot on my neck.

“Let this be a lesson to y’all,” the Warden yells. “I don’t hold none with murderers!”

Everyone is screaming and I’m not sure what is happening until I look down. A man has been released out of the prison through a side door below us. He takes a few steps away from the wall, stunned, then runs back, trying to get inside.

“The people’s calls will bring the Floraes,” Jacks says.

“ This is his trial?” I shout.

“This is Fort Black justice.”

The man is still at the door, banging desperately. His mouth is moving, and I reach up to my ear to turn on the sound amplifier.

“Please,” the man begs. “Please let me back in. I’ll do anything.” He falls to his knees, sobbing.

A Florae appears on the rise across from us, pausing at the same housing development I rested at before approaching Fort Black. I don’t have my Guardian glasses, so it’s just a speck, but I know what it is by how quickly it moves as it jumps from the edge of the development down to and across the highway. More people have spotted it, and the chanting becomes more frenzied. Closer it speeds, and still the man blubbers next to the door.

“Run!” I scream, my voice lost in the crowd. But of course it’s too late. The Florae hits him so hard, the man slams into the wall and bounces off it. He tries to push the Florae away, but it’s already feeding on his flesh. Its claws secure in his sides, its face in his stomach.

Before I can turn off my amplifier, I hear gurgling as blood spills from the man’s mouth. Then a gunshot sounds and the Florae lies still, its head blown open into the mess of the man’s stomach. Another gunshot, and the man’s body twitches, blood pooling around what is left of his head.

Some people stick around to watch the guards pick off the other Floraes attracted by the noise and blood, but, with the spectacle over, most of the crowd slips back into the prison.

“That was barbaric,” I say at last.

Jacks doesn’t answer, but drops his arms, allowing me some space.

There is another volley of shots—more Floraes, probably—but I don’t look for them. I continue to stare at the remains of the man below us.

“In the place I was before,” I say, “they would banish people sometimes, but they wouldn’t watch gleefully while the person was devoured.”

After a moment Jacks asks, “And does that make it better, not watching?”

I turn to face him.

“No. I guess not.”

He nods. “Shutting your eyes doesn’t make you a better person. It just makes you a coward. You’ll notice my uncle didn’t watch the man he sentenced to death actually die. He turned away.”

I close my eyes and think of Dr. Reynolds. He had the same depravity as the crowd, the same delight in doling out punishment for transgressions, real and imagined. I open my eyes again, looking at Jacks. I’m so tired of running. I so desperately want to trust him, to have a real friend.

“I shouldn’t have brought ya here,” he says, his tone filled with concern, his accent more pronounced.

“No. I . . . was thinking about the Ward.”

“You talked about the Ward before, then you freaked the hell out. Over a hospital?”

I shake my head. “No, it only looked like a hospital.”

He doesn’t say anything, just waits for me to go on.

“I . . .” I’m trembling, but I want to tell him. I have to. “I was placed in the Ward, a sort of institution . . . because I questioned the rules of the society I was living in. But when I was in the Ward”—I pause for a moment—“there was a girl I knew . . . I didn’t even like her, but she didn’t deserve what they did to her. They damaged her beyond repair.”

I picture Amber’s lobotomy scar. The dead look in her eyes.