The Hounds

“Do we have to do this, Doc?” I sighed. Everything was clean in the interrogation room. Everything. From the metal table with its cold, metal chairs, to the four white cinderblock walls that closed in around us.  Every session I looked over these walls for a chink or a chip. For three years, after every Outing, they have remained white. You would think it would be smeared with our celebrated sins, but alas. The air was perfumed with the scent of medicine; it was thick, like a blanket. But you get used to that after three years. It becomes a source of comfort.                      

Good ol’ Doc sat across from me at the table. He almost blended into the surroundings with his bleached lab coat. The man tapped his pen on the table then looked up at me from his notepad.

“We’ve been through this, Bea,” he muttered. “You have to be mediated after Outings to be --,”

“Sane.”

There was a moment of silence. Doc looked down at his notepad to avoid my gaze, because it’s true. The Corps does not want me to crack. Why would they?  A Hound like me crumbling at the seams. It would be a waste of time and money.

Doc cleared his throat and rapped his ballpoint pen once more. “Connors spoke to me about the girl. Seems like a moment of weakness, which is rare for you…”

“Connors can back the hell off,” I spat. I could feel my shoulders tense up. My face grew hot. Doc looked me up and down at my remark. He squinted, smirked, and scribbled down my anger onto the loose-leaf paper.

I adjusted myself to sit up straight, like a lady. I took in a deep breath, to soothe my nerves. The metal was cold and stiff against my spine, as if it was pressing for more information. The caked dirt between the tracks of my boots showered onto it after I plowed the heels into the nice, silver table. Doc met my gaze. His face was blank and eyes dull.                                

This was our thing. Our little routine.                                                                                       

His jaw used to grind like gears when I held my ground. When his jaw muscles rolled around in his cheeks it was almost soothing in a way. His eyes would roll into his skull once I slammed my heels onto to the table and stretched like a cat. I like to believe that my stubbornness is the reason why his black hair is turning grey and face eroding.

“Bea. Do you want to get out of here?”

I sighed.

“Then talk.”

I took in a deep breath: an inhale – then an exhale. I dragged my legs off the table and dug my nails into my kneecaps. The freshly opened skin burned at the touch of my form-fitting uniform. I didn’t want to go back. Not there. My nails sunk deeper and so did Doc’s gaze. He tapped his pen against the table. I could feel his eyes glare into my skull in the hopes he could  see what I saw. You could not take me back there. I bit my lip as I pressed into myself harder. But the sunbaked earth began to sprawl out in my mind, as if it were a dusty red carpet. The memories began to slip out. The patches of crisp blood, the torn bodies of the tents. All of it.

“I can’t.” I heard myself croak.

Doc clicked his pen.

I pressed the heels of my hands into my eyes. My lungs grew taut as the scent—the thick, acrid stench of sunbaked decay flooded my senses, every breath I took was more and more of it. Tears slipped past my hands and down my cheeks. The pen hissed across the page as Doc scribbled this moment down.             

“Now.” Doc said. His voice was firm. A soft clatter came from the table, followed by a whirl from the beloved recorder. It was soaking in everything in the air. But not the smell or memories, no. But the muffled whimpers and cries from my poor self. 

            “Please.” I whispered.

They didn’t need to know this.

“Tell me what happened in today’s Outing in detail and I will then give you the Holy Water.”

“Just this once, Doc, just this once.”

“Your public is waiting,” he sighed. He wrote something else in his notepad

“Will this be in a report?”

I peeled my hands from my eyes. A few blinks and Doc was no longer a white smear at the silver table. He furrowed his eyebrows, smirked and scribbled, shaking his head in disbelief.

“Yes, there are always reports.” He replied with a small chuckle.

My chest tightened. They didn’t need to know. No one did.  

The sessions were not to just keep me “sane” after Outings. They were for the survivors. The remaining people want to know how their beloved “martyrs” or “idiots”, or, professionally referred to as “The Hounds,” are doing to decimate the thriving zombie population.

You see, when the world went to shit, groups of people were handed out specialized radios for their encampments. The radios would not only give them the top forty hits but information they needed to keep their wits. After every session myself and the other Hounds went under, reports of the recent Outing were sent out, for all the camps to hear me and my comrades wailing.

“Would you start then?” Doc said between his gritted teeth.

I inhaled and exhaled. I can’t win. I couldn’t win. I needed the pain to be taken away. If I persisted with avoiding the questions and held up the session, the Corps might even put this Hound down instead of bathing me with Holy Water. Inhale, exhale. I bowed my head and wilted. I looked down at my boots for stability.

“Fine,” I breathed.

Doc’s chair scraped across the floor as he slammed against it to recline. I jumped at the clap of his loafers on the metal, like two gavels coming down on a sentencing.

He cleared his throat, “Question one: What was your mission today?”                                 “You already know what it --,” I was cut off by a rapid fire of him tapping that damn ballpoint pen. I lowered my head more. I tucked my chin into my chest. I could feel the thud of my heart against my jaw.

“Answer the question,” Doc muttered.

“An alarm went off at a Settlement 42: one of the encampments at Yellowstone. There was a gorgeous sunrise, by the way. I never had the opportunity to go before and it’s just -,”

“Don’t ramble.” Doc snapped. His voice was sharp. It cut through the streaks of indigo and orange that had been streamed in my mind. I was using them as a sort of police caution tape, to keep everything out. Doc just sliced it open.

I peeked up at him through the curtain of black hair strewn on my face. He flared his nostrils at me. He snarled, “Stick to the script. What did you find there?”

 Doc looked like a madman, mumbling words as he noted down the session. I bit into the pulp of my lip. I could feel heat burn from my cheeks.                                                                           

“You want me to vent – well, I’m venting.”

“You’re avoiding the question.”

 Inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale. I bowed my head once again to focus. There was silence but the manic whirr of the tape recorder and my breathing. My fingers plucked at the silky fabric that made my uniform. Thin and sleek, like the tattered membrane of the tents … some had been thrown this way and that, some tangled in the trampled trees, some ---                                 

“Tents were torn to shreds and the people – the people were too.”                                               My eyes roved onto the scratches etched into the table. They were almost like the slashes in the trees, and rocks that dotted Settlement 42. Tears began to obscure my vision slightly. I tried to hold back the memories by pulling and peeling at my fingers. But they kept on coming out.                                                                                                                                                           

“I surveyed the encampment to get the body count with Trig while the others patrolled. And there was this tent …. And I – I went into the tent because there was --,” my throat began to close up around my words. I swallowed back a wail as the image started to unfurl.

 “There was this thing in it. But--it wasn’t a thing. It was this -- little girl who had been hidden in these blankets. She had to have been five years old at least.” I muttered.                                       

I remembered how the tent had been desecrated. The flap to the tent was shredded, everything had been shredded. Blankets had been thrown everywhere. Sunlight peeked through the slits of the tent’s nylon body. The air in the tent was thick with humidity and clogged with the metallic scent of blood -- old blood and mildew from the blankets that pickled the air.

That tiny frame amongst the bundle of blankets. So frail and quiet.          

I had crept closer and closer and closer to inspect. Pieces of black hair stretched out from underneath the blankets. Flies buzzed around her head. I had squatted beside her to swat the torrent of insects away from her.

“She was so small!!” I cried out.

 “I wanted to look at her … I had never seen a victim this small before … she had no way out. I -- I peeled the blanket back. Blood was everywhere. I could smell it and … I could see it. Everywhere.”

Doc stopped the tape recorder. Which is against protocol. Very against protocol. I could feel him studying me. My body went rigid at his gaze. He sighed, and the recorder resumed its incessant whirring.

I remember looking over the little girl. I had carefully rolled her limp body from side to side. Was she bitten or thrown around? There were of bug bites on her arms; she had probably received them by playing with other children in the encampment. I took a cold hand into mine. There were deep blue and purple stains underneath her fingernails – she helped to scavenge for berries. No bites on her arms. Or on her legs either. No wait -- curved bruises were branded around her calves. The girl had been trying to escape but had been held down. I started to roll her onto her back – a lock of black hair moved away from her neck.

My stomach dropped.

Pale green pigmentation began to spread across the skin.

“I had to shoot her. She was changing. She tried to bite me and instinct took over. I had to protect myself!”                                                                                                 

I thought someone else was bawling and choking on their words. But it was all me. I was in this shuddering body.  I felt like shattering at this moment in time.

I hoped that the audience was enjoying this submission.  

The recorder whirred onward.

            “Beatrix does what she can for the Cause, to protect us from them,” Doc muttered, then he turned it off. I flinched at the touch of hands that grasped my shoulders. I didn’t hear him slip over to my side from me slobbering and sobbing like a maniac. His hands palmed my whole shoulders, they sealed me to my seat and at that moment, it was a sort of comfort to be held.

        “I’m going to give you your Holy Water now. Then, I want you to go rest,” Doc whispered, his voice was gentle on my ear. His thumbs massaged my shoulders, they rolled into the tense muscle over and over. A chill ran down my spine and sent pins and needles to prick every inch of me. I could feel every muscle contract at his touch, his attempts to soothe me were in vain: I knew what was coming.

                        “Ahhhh!!!!”

My teeth plummeted into my bottom lip and latched onto the meat. The tang of blood soaked into my tongue. The needle scraped against my right shoulder. Pressure intensified once Doc pressed down on the plunger which released the formula called “Holy Water” into my system. Every nerve burned and churned in agony. My chest tightened at the “medicine.”

            I couldn’t breathe.

            “Breathe or you’re going to pass out,” Doc warned in response to my wheezing. The needle slid out from my shoulder and I slammed my fists into the table as I screamed. I screamed and cried as the Holy Water raged on. It was like a rampant child, tearing down pictures and wallpaper from walls and throwing it onto the floor. It was stomping me out, it was killing me. My tear stained eyes rolled back into my skull as I tried to focus on my breathing.

            Doc’s thumb massaged my shoulder.

 “Hail the Corps,

Full of grace.

May they protect us and watch over us,”

The Holy Water barreled its way through my arteries and organs. Inhale, exhale. Its fangs wouldn’t let go of my intestines. Sweat beaded my forehead.

“Hail Corps,

Full of Grace and Wisdom.

You shepherd us with the Hounds.

You lead us with your appointed Ones

Grant mercy on us.

Holy Corps,

Thou are righteous and true.

Cast out –"

“Doc,” I whimpered. But he continued with the prayer. The Holy Water was now in its “eradication stage”, it pinched onto a memory from the Outing and uprooted it. One by one.  It was like a fist ensnared in hair and wrenching out the mass. A million times. I swallowed saliva and blood. I coughed on it. My mind wandered back to Doc’s chant.

“The monsters that shadow us,”

The desolate encampment of Settlement 42 disappeared. The sunbaked earth brushed away from my mind. The clawed tents and the snapped trees disappeared.

“Devine Corps,

Shield us with your light.”

I could feel myself peel away from the room. Doc’s low voice became a rhythmic mumble to me. A quietness spread throughout my body, “Where – where am-?”

I inhaled then exhaled.

Twelve. That’s how many cracks it would take for the whole ceiling to collapse with cinder blocks raining down onto me, hopefully. I wanted them to bruise my body and flesh. I was numb. I forgot I had arms or legs until I saw a foot shift on my bed or I rolled a wrist.

 “Long day, Beatrix?”

I shifted over onto my left side at the creak of the rocking chair. I could barely feel my mouth curve when I saw Booker, my baby brother. Him and I were able to get out of our stricken town when it all went down. I had guided him through alleyways or carried him in the rancid sewer tunnels. Many people would have dropped him.

The Corps granted permission for him to live with us Hounds when I first joined the Cause. They needed me and knew that I would not join without him.                                                                                    

Connors, a fellow Hound had stated the mistake I made when we had been taken into the compound. His steely eyes had leapt from me to my sibling. A sneer crinkled at the abnormality – the fragility of Booker. Booker was blind. He has been ever since he was five. Connors had proceeded to then spit a wad of his saliva, barely missing my boots. My eyes  latched onto those icy ones. Connors pointed at Booker and hissed, “I would have left him,” before turning a heel.

I catch facilitators, gods in their lab coats, sneaking a glance or two at Booker when he is feeling through the food on his plate at the Dining Hall. I see the same thought stirring in their heads, that he is a weak link to the Cause’s chain, but they know: touch him, and you’re dead.

Booker’s mouth formed the bodies of words as his fingers ticked across the pages of the hard cover book stretched out in his lap.

“I don’t even remember it,” I muttered. I stretched out my mind to grasp something, a memory. But it was all a smear after talking to Doc.

“You never do,” Booker retorted under his breath. His fingers continued to file through the goosebumps of brail. He always hoped to get a taste of the outside world. But I never knew what to tell him. So, he sat and rocked or meandered down the halls.   

His words stung so I knew feeling was returning to my body. He shrugged and flipped a page. The story was more interesting than my memory loss. I studied him. He was this peaceful being, unaware of the cinderblock we were confined in. Or the Outings I somehow endured. He was on his own plane of exsistance. Where touch was another form of communication and black was at every turn.

“It’s not that I don’t want to share, Book. I just – can’t remember.”

“Bea, its fine.”

“You know I would if I could. I would give you all of the details too, whatever made me have a “long day”.”

Booker leaned in and the chair groaned in disagreement. His nostrils flared as he smelled the air to locate me. He was a snake in this sense, a gardener snake, smelling and finding things by the warmth they emitted.

“Bea, I know why you can’t remember. It’s so you don’t get off the bandwagon. It’s also a health hazard. It’s ok.”

“But I know you want to know what I do. I owe you that, I took you here--,”

“You didn’t take me here. We were picked up. I remember hearing the propellers of a helicopter.” Booker corrected sharply.

“You know what I mean.”

“It’s luck that we are here. You are a muscle that needs constant exercise and I’m the brains that stays behind. That’s why I know what you do. It’s obvious. And no – I’m not going to tell you what it is.”

I hung onto his words.

What did he mean?

What do you know?

I slipped off my bed and walked toward Booker, I moved carefully through the dim room to avoid tripping.

“What is that exactly?”

Booker flipped another page.

“Like I said. I’m not telling you. Health hazard. But when you walk out of this room with a facilitator, you’ll remember. You seem to at least when the others talk about you in the radio spots -,”

“Radio spots?”

Booker’s head raised from his book, a small grin on his round face, his milky eyes were reminiscent of thoughtfulness.

 “ I know you do well,” he muttered.

Heat burned in my cheeks, “Don’t be condescending, Book,” I hissed. My teeth crunched in my ears as I grinded my jaw. Just tell me.

“I can hear that. You do it in your sleep too.”

“You’re bold for a sixteen-year-old,” I snorted, my forearms pressed against my ribcage.  

We were six years apart in age, but Booker sounded like a goddamn Einstein with his vocabulary.

Booker licked the finger tip of his left index finger to turn a page, “I’m smart for a sixteen-year-old,” he corrected. His eyes wandered away from me as his hands resumed scurrying over the pimply brail.

“What are you even reading?”

“The Visit, Albert Camus,” Booker replied as he flittered through the passage. A page lashed through the air. The story was picking up, or so it seemed to me. I exhaled my hot air, I was not going to get an answer from him tonight about the goings on.

“What is it about?”

“A dilemma; a schoolteacher houses a criminal. He must decide to keep the criminal in or let him run away to freedom and accept the consequences,” he sighed. He then closed the book after the summary. He sniffed to find me once again. A bloodhound. His thin mouth drooped at the corners, as if he could taste the numbness stem from me, it was probably bitter and coarse on his tongue by the expression.

            I shied away from his robin’s-egg-blue eyes.

“You should rest up.” he said quietly.

“I have a dilemma,” I muttered, a weak laugh shuddered from my mouth. But I strolled back to my bed obediently. I melted into the mattress and twisted my body into the paper-thin blankets. The dilemma was being numb and clueless. I could feel Book’s eyes graze my back for a few minutes, he paused from shifting in his chair. He was waiting to see if I would move and disobey him. The whisper of pages shifting resumed once again, lulling me to sleep.

 As I started to seep into my mind, I heard the flap of pages, then Book mutter something, -- what, I don’t know.

I may never know what he knows.

Or what they know of me.

I don’t even know myself anymore.

*

Another story I found while wandering down Memory Lane (while cleaning out my email). I have carried this story with me for about ten years, and maybe in the next ten years, it will finally be its own novel. In the mean time, I hope you enjoy at a peak of this apocalyptic tale.