Ben Bedard: The World Without Crows

Daniel Sullivan’s eyes grew gentle, almost grateful, though Eric saw there also a bright mote of pleasure that made Eric’s skin crawl with revulsion.

“But I can let you choose the manner of your death,” he said. He rocked back in his chair so that it squealed again. “These are the choices open to you. I can take you and your two accomplices here, I can truss them up, put a gag in their mouths, and line all of you up against a wall and shoot you. That would be sufficient.”

Eric felt a groan rise up in him, but the only sound he made was a dry rasp.

“Or,” Daniel Sullivan continued, “you can walk up in front of my people and confess to what you’ve done. You can tell them you conspired to kill our people, that you are agents of the Minutemen sent to test our borders. You can say that you pledged your heart, your mind, your very soul to President Jacobs, that you kneeled at his feet and you kissed his hand. You will say you kidnapped these two fine women for your own use. Then you will be taken to a wooden wheel and bound there, hand and foot, and you will be whipped until you die. If you do this, Eric, we will spare the little girl and the lovely Lucia. We will take them into our company.”

Trembling, Eric turned his attention to Lucia and Birdie.

Birdie’s face ran freely with tears and she trembled. Lucia made a retching sound, more like an animal than a human. Eric swallowed and then turned back to Sullivan.

He made a rasping sound.

“Here, my boy,” Daniel Sullivan said, pushing the glass of water toward him. “Have a drink, son.”

Eric took the glass and, his hand shaking, lifted it to his lips. He had never experienced anything so sweet. His mind seemed full of golden lightness, and it opened to a clarity he had forgotten existed. He took a breath and then drank again. And again. Finally, he set the glass down empty. He kept his eyes closed for a moment, savoring the feeling, which was already leaving him. Then he opened his eyes and gazed steadily at Daniel Sullivan.

“Don’t call me son,” he croaked. Sullivan’s eyes narrowed slightly, but he waited. “I’ll do it. I’ll say what you want. Just don’t hurt them.”

“No!” Lucia cried, sobbing. “No, Eric, no!”

Daniel Sullivan turned his eyes toward her. “What did I tell you, woman?”

Lucia’s eyes shut and she shuddered and said nothing more. Her lip was bleeding again and tears flowed down her face. Birdie had her eyes squeezed shut and her hands on her ears.

Sullivan turned back to Eric. “It won’t be easy. You will suffer more pain than you thought possible, but you must endure. If you utter one word of your innocence during the ordeal, I will have to re-investigate the issue. If I do that, your friends will die.”

Eric trembled, but he picked up his chin. “I can,” he began, but a sob threatened to interrupt him. He swallowed. “I will do it,” he finished with effort.

“I thank you for your sacrifice, Eric,” Daniel Sullivan said.

Eric said nothing, but his eyes were unwavering.

Daniel Sullivan smiled a crooked smile, and then whistled. When the guards came in, Sullivan nodded toward Eric.

“Bring him to the holding cell,” he said. “Let him have all the water he wants. He has an important speech to make.”

When it came time, Eric hardly knew what he was saying. It was as if he was speaking through another’s mouth. He stood in front of the group of strangers and said that he had plotted to destroy them, to bring them into the new state of President Jacobs. He described how he had snuck up on the two guards, shot them, and then, wanting to instill terror into them, had driven over their bodies, again and again. He said he had kidnapped Lucia and Birdie, to be used as his wives.

It was over before he knew it. They dragged him through a shouting crowd to a large wooden wheel. They ripped the shirt from his back, and then tied him down. He did not resist.

Eric kept his head down. He stared at a red, brick wall. It smelled cool and innocent. Behind him, he could hear Daniel Sullivan give a speech, but he did not listen to him. When it was over, the crowd was silent, expectant, solemn. He could hear the hard soles of boots strike asphalt. There was a gasp from the crowd, and Eric prepared himself. He prayed he would have the strength to resist, to be quiet.

The first lash was like a fire lit in his mind. He cried out in the heat and intensity of the pain. Someone in the crowd shouted that he deserved it. When the second lash hit, Eric already felt exhausted. By the fourth lash, the crowd was absolutely silent. Eric was crying now, in great sobs, but he was careful they were inarticulate. He would say nothing, as he promised. After the fifth lash, he heard Lucia scream in anguish, and it helped him somehow, the thought that he would not die without someone to mourn him.

At the sixth lash however, when the whip cut into his muscle, he no longer cared for sympathy. He only wanted the strength to die in silence, on his own terms, with something like dignity.

The seventh lash eradicated even that.

When the eighth lash burnt across his body, Eric slumped against the wheel.

On the island there was no pain. The lake waters lapped the shore. Chickadees and blue jays flew among pine trees. The low sun glittered on the water’s surface as a cool breeze swept down from the blue skies. There was a house there, rough and awkwardly made. Outside the house there were two wicker chairs, whitewashed as clean as clouds. Out on the blue waters bobbed a single canoe. In it there were people, indistinct, shadows of people.

As Eric watched, a bright stroke of lightning struck the island and blinded his vision and his world cracked open like a gunshot. Through the crack poured blinding pain.

Lucia pulled over the truck and leaned over Eric. He was pale and unconscious.

“Keep going!” Birdie cried, her voice pitched high. “Don’t stop!” She was holding Eric’s head in her lap. Her hands trembled.

“It’s okay,” Lucia whispered. “They won’t follow us, okay? We’re all right. Eric,” Lucia continued, turning to Eric. “Are you awake?” She pressed her hand to his thin face. His skin was hot with fever. Lucia could see the blood on the truck seat. She had bandaged him as best she could, but they needed a place to stop so she could do it better. “Look,” she said, pointing out the truck window to a sign by the side of the road. “You did it. You got us here.”

The blue sign had white letters:

Maine, The Way Life Should Be.

Eric’s eyes did not open.

When Lucia pulled off the road onto Route 26, she looked and soon found a suitable house. She drove up the long, curling gravel road to the farmhouse. Taking the only weapon she had found, a tire iron, she crept into the farmhouse.

It had been ransacked, but it was totally empty of Zombies.

Lucia found a bedroom on the second floor and dragged down the mattress. As gently as she could, she pulled Eric out of the truck, brought him into the house, and put him stomach down on the mattress. His back was an angry map of a red chain of mountains, swollen, purple and oozing blood.

Birdie stood over him, sniffling and crying. “Is he going to die?” she asked her. “Is he, Lucia? Is he going to die?”

Lucia wanted to answer her, but Birdie was no ordinary girl. They had been through too much together. She couldn’t lie to her about this. She couldn’t say it was all going to be all right.

Lucia checked her rear view mirror. No Carl Doyle, not yet. He had followed them after they had fled Daniel Sullivan, but somewhere he had turned off, bringing the pursuit with him. She hadn’t seen him since. Now, without Eric to stop him, Lucia knew he was dangerous to both her and Birdie. To Doyle, they were traitors, savages, darkies. And they had no weapons to defend themselves.