Ben Bedard - The World Without Flags

Later that night, while they are all sleeping, I find a loose nail in the cart. Quietly, carefully, I begin to work it back and forth, loosening it from the dry wood.

There’s a fight.

Squint catches Tony trying to bring the older woman into the woods.

At first they argue, and Tony says something to him, something I don’t hear very well, and Squint goes quiet in the face. It’s like he loses all emotion, all life. Then he beats him. He does it methodically, carefully, an expert with his fists. Tony tries to fight back, but he’s as helpless as a child. In the end, Squint drags him in front of the other men. Tony is groaning, bleeding from his nose and mouth, his face already swollen.

Squint doesn’t say anything to the other men. He just looks at them. Then he bends down and grabs Tony’s throat and squeezes. Tony’s too weak from the beating to struggle too much. His arms and legs quiver at the end. Squint stands over him looking at the others with his one good eye. They don’t say anything. When Squint walks away, the others drag off Tony’s body and set it afire.

We keep moving long into the night, the fire from Tony’s body burning behind us, like a red candle.

I keep my ears open. I need information. I listen carefully and remember. They’re out here for Dr. Bragg, to bring back zombies and to set fire to everything else. They call it a cleaning mission. I can tell by the way they say it, they’ve done it before. I can tell that they think they’re the good guys, getting rid of the Worm for the benefit of everyone. I can hear it in their voices, so smug, self-righteous. When they talk of us, the prisoners, the ones they have lashed to the carts, the ones they rape and brutalize, they speak of us as people they are saving, as if we’re lucky to be here. In their minds, they’re not raping, they’re objects of desire. Our desire. They call us sluts and whores. They call us horny. They say they can tell by the looks in our eyes that we want it. We want them all. We’re practically begging for it.

Only Squint seems to understand. He’s quiet. He looks over us with a careful eye, the way a guard would, a guard that had the sense to fear the prisoners.

On the third day, maybe the fourth, while we’re stopped to eat our oatmeal, our only meal of the day, we see a horse and rider in the distance. Just an outline on the horizon. The bandits stand nervously, their hands at their guns. Squint orders one of them to ride out to investigate. Gary swings up on Bandit, who reluctantly trots off to the north.

He doesn’t come back.

Now the bandits are on alert. They ignore us for now, except to kick at us sometimes. The woman I am with and the little girl still haven’t spoken. They huddle together every night and seem to live in a world of their own, turned inwards. It’s almost as if the rest of the world doesn’t even exist. I am relieved. I can’t look after them. I have enough to worry about, and any day now, either of them might die or be killed. I’ve seen the look they have in their eyes before. People with that look don’t last long in this world. I won’t try to describe how horrible it is to see that look in a little girl. I wonder if I have that look, if that’s what they’re thinking when they see me.

The gang is always on the look now since Gary vanished. Their hands are on their guns. They no longer laugh or poke at Eric and the other diseased girl. They don’t bother us anymore. I no longer get greasy, disgusting looks from them, as if they could touch me with their putrid gaze. Now they are afraid, and I am glad. We have become much more invisible.

I feel a little hope rise in me. There’s an opportunity here, if I can just take advantage of it.

The next day the rain begins. It comes down in gray sheets, cold and miserable. They drive us hard, fearing the mysterious rider. All day we push through the rain, without stopping to eat. After several hours of stumbling forward, my wrists bleeding, I see why. My heart falls. If I had a chance on the road to escape them somehow, I’ve lost that chance.

As the sun begins to set, we arrive at their base. It’s about a dozen clapboard houses and a long, steel warehouse, all surrounded by a corrugated steel fence, about ten feet tall. The gate is open when we get there. Other bandits, looking only slightly less ragged and carrying shotguns and rifles, shut the gate when we stumble through.

By the time the gate shuts, we’re surrounded by these new men—and they are all men—who laugh and point and spit in our direction. They brave the onslaught of rain for the chance to see the new arrivals. They point at the cart with whispers of fear and hatred. I hear several of them refer to the “nigger girl.” I get that same fury and fear in me as the word slices into me. I feel like some kind of circus freak on show. They move us slowly up the crumbling asphalt road toward the warehouse.

As we slog through the rain and mud, I keep an eye on Eric in the cart. His head is pressed against the wooden slats of the cart, his jaw hanging open, his black tongue coiling out, trying to capture the rainwater as it falls. I shiver and look away, hoping that none of the onlookers decide to throw a rock at him. If these bastards hurt him, I think to myself, I’ll have a new goal rather than escape. I’ll burn every single one of these sons of bitches to the ground. The anger gives me strength and I straighten up a little as I walk, not enough to bring any attention my way, but enough for my own good. Enough to know that I’m still alive and thinking for myself.

Our pathetic caravan stops in front of the warehouse. I look up to see Squint swing off his horse. He looks back toward us with his good eye. I can see he’s proud of what he’s accomplished. He’s brought back his goods, untouched—mostly—just as he was told. He gives us a smile. I look away, but can’t help but watch him out of the corner of my eye as he disappears into the warehouse. A moment later the large doors clatter open and the cart is maneuvered inside, with all of us prisoners following. I look over to see the woman and the young girl walking close together with their heads down. I have a terrible feeling they’re already dead and don’t know it. Maybe we all are.

I can’t think that way. I can’t. I have to keep it together for Eric. I can’t lose it. I can’t lose hope. I close my eyes and take a deep breath. In my mind, I try to remember better days. Summer days at the lake with Eric. Swimming. The warm waters all around me, comforting, cool, fresh. The way the water drops sparkle like jewels when I come out of the water. The fireflies over the fields. Eric reading to me in the cabin by candlelight. His voice in the night answering mine. “Good night, chipmunk.”

I’m not done yet. Eric has no chance if I give up. None.

I won’t be defeated so easily.

Inside, the comfort of dryness is replaced with claustrophobic fear. I’d rather be soaked to the bone. The warehouse is a steel and wire labyrinth of rooms and passages that turn this way and that. We are brought through several turns to a long corridor of small rooms with steel doors. The place smells like an outhouse that’s never been cleaned. But there’s something else beneath, something rotten and sweet that makes my stomach turn. I’m familiar with the smell of death, but I’m not used to it and I hope I never will be. At the end of the corridor, Squint opens a door, and shoves the woman and little girl inside. Then he pushes the diseased young woman with the wrecked eye inside after them and shuts the door. He locks it with a brutal little twist of his wrist.