Craig Dilouie: The Killing Floor

“If you don’t feel right in the head tomorrow, come and find me,” Anne says. “I’ll be here.”

“Wait,” Todd says, scanning the crowd. “Where’s Ray Young?”

He turns back, but Anne is gone. And Ray is nowhere to be found among the sea of empty, grinning faces. Someone presses a warm can of beer into his hand and tells him to drink up.

“Ray!” he cries.

A girl walks out of the crowd. He catches a glimpse of her blue eyes and wild red hair before she cups his face in her hands and kisses him. The crowd applauds heartily and whistles, the sound blending with the roar of blood rushing through his ears.

“Erin,” he gasps. “It’s you.”

“Come on. Let’s get out of here.”

She takes his hand and leads him through the clamoring mob. Hands clap him on the back and seek out his to shake. He gives someone the can of beer. As they reach the rear of the crowd, they disappear into the darkness, navigating by the dim light of cooking fires. Erin appears to know the maze by feel alone.

Todd can smell her on the breeze. His hand sweats against hers. She leans against him as they walk through the warm, humid night, and he becomes aware of her chest pressed against his arm. He remembers she does not wear a bra.

“Where are we going?”

“I’m taking you home, baby.”

He wonders if he is hallucinating. He feels like he could sleep for days. Just a few hours ago, he was standing on the bridge in the sunlight, screaming for his friends, as it exploded in a blinding white flash. The monster charged, a giant thing covered in flailing trunks, each bellowing its deafening foghorn call. He and Ray stood their ground among the piles of dead, emptying their guns at the thing until it fell through the bottom of the world.

“What’s wrong, baby?”

Then he is back at Camp Defiance, walking among the shanties with this beautiful creature he thought he’d never see again.

She asks him again if there is something wrong.

“I don’t know,” he says.

“You’re not hurt, are you?”

“I don’t think so.”

“I had to ask. You may not know this, but you’re, like, covered in blood.”

“Oh,” he says, touching his chest. His shirt feels stiff as cardboard. His entire body hurts, but he does not believe anything is broken. “I didn’t know.”

“You also smell like smoke and sour milk,” she laughs. “Come on.”

Erin leads him into the small shack and lights two candles, revealing a bucket of water and a stack of towels on a blanket.

“Take off your clothes,” she says.

“I don’t have anything,” he tells her. “You took it all already.”

“Do as I say, mister.”

He obeys, peeling off his grimy shirt and tossing it into the corner. Then his boots and socks and pants. None of it is salvageable. He is going to have to burn all of it, and find more. Last, he tosses his gun belt and pistol on top of the pile.

“Now lie down.”

He stretches out his long, gangly body on the blanket. Erin dips a sponge into the foamy bucket, wrings it out, and gently rubs him down. Pure bliss.

“Why did you come back?” he asks her. “You really hurt me.”

Todd arrived at the camp with a bag full of DC-powered electronic gear, hoping to use it as capital to set up a trading business. Erin marked him, seduced him and robbed him. Reeling from the blow, he sought out Sarge and Wendy and signed up for the mission to destroy the bridge.

“I’m sorry for what I did to you,” she says, blinking tears. “I didn’t know. What you did, going to that bridge. . . You’re an amazing boy. I really hoped you would make it back.”

“My friends are dead,” he says.

“Tell me about it.” She pulls her shirt up and over her head. “Tell me everything.”

♦

The Infected shriek down at him, kicking and clawing with faces twisted by rage. The shotgun roars and their bodies explode in a shower of blood and smoking entrails.

The deep voice booms: “Don’t you touch that boy!”

He opens his eyes. Paul, the old reverend, stands over him, chambering another round and firing again. The Infected squeal and crumple in a wave in front of the blast.

“ Don’t you touch that boy, I said!”

BOOM. Reload. BOOM. Bodies splash in piles onto the bloody roadway.

The boy looks up at the Reverend through a blur of hot tears. The man’s grizzled face looms large, frowning. He grips the boy’s hand in his own, his eyes burning with worry and love.

“ You’re all right now, son. I’ll get you out of here.”

A rumbling sound fills the air, the monster purring deep in its throat. The boy can feel it deep in his chest. The Reverend gasps, his eyes wide with sudden knowledge.

“ You all right, Rev?”

The Reverend smiles sadly.

“ God bless you, Kid—”

Paul lurches thirty feet into the air and into the chomping mouth.

Todd screams.

“I’ve got you, baby,” the girl says, hugging him from behind.

Todd sits naked on the floor of his shack, arms wrapped around his knees, screaming.

“It was just a dream,” Erin tells him. “Just a dream. You’re okay. See? Everything is fine.”

He stops, panting for breath. Tears and snot stream down his face. His skin is slick with sweat and Erin’s body feels like fire against his back. Sunlight streams through cracks in the walls, illuminating the dust. The small shack feels like an oven.

“What was your dream about?” she asks him.

“I was being saved,” he says hoarsely, barely recognizing his voice as his own. He wipes his face with the back of his hand.

“That sounds like a good dream.”

His face twitches. He notes the symptom.

“Not for the guy who saved me.”

Todd tries to stand and sits back down with a grimace. Every muscle in his body is stiff and sore. His lungs seize from the smoke he inhaled during the fighting on the bridge, and he coughs loud and hard into his fist, just trying to breathe. His throat feels like it has been burned raw from smoke and screaming.

“I’m glad I’m not alone,” he rasps, pulling on his glasses. The left lens is cracked.

“Oh baby, I’m right here,” Erin tells him, squeezing hard.

He did not mean her, but says nothing.

“I have to go see Anne.”

“Who’s that?”

“One of my friends who made it.”

Erin kisses the back of his neck. “Let’s stay in bed all day.”

“No, I have to go.”

“Come on, baby.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Then I’ll come with you.”

“Erin, please.”

She pushes away from him and pulls on her jeans. “Fuck it. I thought you liked me.”

“I do like you,” he says, watching her nudity disappear with longing.

If he had more energy, he would try to please her in some way, but he has none to spare. He stands, pulls on a clean pair of boxers, and buckles the gun belt around his waist.

“You’re going out like that?”

He drapes the blanket over his shoulders. “My clothes are contaminated with Infected blood. They shouldn’t even be in the camp. Put the ribbon on for me, okay?”

“I’ll wait for you,” she says, pinning it over his chest. “I’ll get us some lunch, okay?”

Todd smiles. God, she’s beautiful . “That sounds perfect, Erin.”

He steps outside and enters the mundane chaos of FEMAville. The air is so humid it is difficult to breathe. The smell of wood smoke sets off another coughing jag. Water glistens on the ground, evaporating in the sunlight. Hard rain came last night; he fell asleep to the sound of it drumming on the roof. His bare feet sink into soft, warm mud.