“Go to hell,” the tattooed soldier said haughtily, his head bowed.
The guy with the injured shoulder smiled—even on his knees, his buddy still maintained his dignity. Hong turned his head and studied the man for a few seconds. Then without a word, he drew his pistol and shot him in the head.
The man collapsed like a bag of sand as blood pulsed out of the hole in his forehead. The woman next to him screamed hysterically, her eyes glued to the pool of blood slowly approaching her knees.
Hong grabbed the hysterical woman by the hair and brutally beat her with the butt of his gun. Thump. Thump. Thump. With each crunch, the woman’s nose and teeth turned to grit. Then he pressed the hot barrel of his gun to the woman’s neck and looked down at the black soldier, whose eyes were shooting sparks of anger.
“Let’s start over,” Hong said, as the woman sobbed through bubbles of blood, tears, and snot. “What’s your name? What’s your name?”
“Darnell, Darnell Holmes,” the man replied after a very long second, chewing each word with a deep hatred.
“Where are you from, Darnell?”
“Gulfport. If you do anything to Chantelle, I swear I’m gonna—”
Hong smiled at that. “You’ll speak when I tell you to, Darnell Holmes from Gulfport. Tell me, how did you get those wounds?”
The soldier looked from Hong to his bandages. “What the hell difference does that make?”
“I’ll decide that, Darnell Holmes. Now, answer my question.”
“Look, I don’t want any trouble. We’re just looking for supplies—”
Hong cocked his gun and pressed it into the woman’s neck. She shrieked in horror.
“I’m losing my patience, Darnell.”
“OK, OK, dammit! We were in Africa a few weeks ago. Looking for oil. Some Undead cornered me on the dock and bit me.”
Shocked by what he’d heard, Hong staggered back a couple of inches, and his hand wavered. He’d expected the man to say he’d gotten his injuries in a previous shoot-out. That would’ve suggested there were other armed groups he’d have to deal with. The last thing he expected to hear was that an Undead had caused that injury.
“How’s that possible? Explain!”
Darnell smiled knowingly. “I’ll tell you on one condition.” He licked his dry lips as he thought at full speed. “You let the girls and me go, unharmed. Are we clear?”
Hong stared at the group for a few long seconds, then leaned forward, holstered his pistol, and placed his right hand over his heart. “You have my word as an officer that I will let you go on your way. Now explain how an Undead attacked you and you’re still alive.”
Darnell looked at him suspiciously. He didn’t trust the bastard, but he had no choice. In his hometown of New Orleans, when someone points a gun at your head, you don’t have many options. So he started talking.
The expression on Colonel Hong’s face changed from amazement to deep reflection, then to determination. Darnell wondered if he’d made a big mistake.
An hour later, that determined look was still on Hong’s face. The Korean convoy rumbled through the town, taking the soldiers’ surviving tanks and trucks. The bodies of Darnell and the four others lay rotting by the side of the road. Coyotes would feast on them that night.
With a satisfied smile, Hong leaned back into the tank’s hard seat. He peered into a bottle filled with a milky fluid that he’d pulled from Darnell’s pack. He’d take back something even better than the location of an oil welclass="underline" the key to his country’s victory over the entire world.
35
The next morning, a surprisingly large group of Green Guards and militiamen came to escort me from the police station. I guess they didn’t want any trouble. They had me stick my hands through the bars to handcuff me, then they marched me out of the cell, three men in front, and three behind. They evacuated me through a side door to a van waiting in the alley. That way, they avoided any witnesses and the protesters throwing rocks in the front of the building. I was almost grateful.
The ride was mercifully short. The minute I climbed in the van, they pulled a sack down over my head. It must’ve contained onions once and the smell was sickening. I made a superhuman effort not to throw up. I wasn’t worried about getting that ratty van dirty, but vomiting could cost me my life. I needed to retain as much liquid as I could and not waste a single drop of Cladoxpan.
After Grapes left the night before, I swallowed a little of the drug. With the first sip, my anger immediately ratcheted down a few notches. I’d never smelled anything so repulsive, a cross between spoiled milk and orange juice past its expiration date, with a touch of acidity that stung my nose. But its taste was the complete opposite… and absolutely wonderful. Although the liquid was at room temperature, it felt cool, as if I’d drunk a pitcher of ice water. Every pore in my skin seemed to open up and breathe again. My fever and tremors stopped abruptly; my hands stopped shaking too. I didn’t need a mirror to know that the broken veins on my skin had disappeared.
It took all my willpower to stop drinking. Every cell in my body screamed for more of that sweet, creamy liquid. If I’d had a keg of it, I’d’ve kept drinking till I was full, then thrown up so I could drink some more. With that one sip, I was addicted.
I felt better than I’d felt in a long time—elated, even. It was as if a handful of amphetamines had kicked in. I was energized and eager to get a move on.
That feeling must give helot troops a boost when they went on raids outside the Wall. It reminded me of my grandfather’s stories about how officers passed around bottles of brandy to the troops before an attack on the enemy’s trenches. You wouldn’t need that with Cladoxpan. I felt like I could wring a buffalo’s neck. That must be why they’d sent so many men to escort me. How ironic… I was a junkie, but my jailers were the ones who’d gotten me hooked on this powerful drug.
The van rattled when we crossed over something rough. Train tracks, I guessed. Someone’s hand whipped the sack off my head, and I squinted in the dazzlingly bright light. After the silent tomb of my cell, the sounds of hundreds of people were hard on my ears. I must’ve looked pretty scary. My hair was matted; there was dried blood on my face and a huge welt on my forehead.
“Careful, Sal,” another guard told the man who’d taken off my hood. “This animal’s got blood all over his face.”
“That’s why I’m wearing gloves and goggles. Let’s go, pal.” The first guard gave me a shove with the butt of his M16. “Outta the van.”
I stumbled down. We were parked at what had once been a freight terminal. I could make out the passenger terminal off in the distance, far enough away that none of the fine citizens in that idyllic paradise could see how Greene’s men disposed of the riffraff.
There was a huge concrete parking lot next to a long bank of portable toilets. On the tracks in front of me were a half a dozen train cars and a gleaming Amtrak locomotive engine. The front of the engine was outfitted with an inverted blade at least six feet long, like the cowcatchers that steam engines in the Old West used to push dead animals off the tracks. I figured the attachment now pushed aside the Undead that got in the train’s way. The rumbling of the two idling diesel engines echoed across the parking lot.
I was shocked to see boxcars with a sliding door that locked from the outside. In front of each of the doors was a ramp. Heavily armed militants stood beside each car, laughing and passing around bottles of whiskey. In each group, one of the men gripped the leash of a vicious German shepherd, which was barking its head off. If it weren’t so awful, I’d have laughed. It was a backwoods version of the trains to Auschwitz. All those assholes needed were SS uniforms. I bet none of them were aware of the parallels.