he was, after all. But a little maturity wouldn’t hurt… would it?
After what seemed like hours of walking, the group finally crested a small hill that overlooked a valley lush with trees and a patchwork of multicolored foliage. The sun was hanging low in the sky but the temperature had already begun to climb which caused her skin to be coated with a sheen of sweat. From this distance she could just make out a stream that snaked its way through the valley below; its waters sparkled as if millions of pixies bobbed on its surface and it was all too easy to imagine how cool that water would be as it lapped against her sunburned skin, how good it would feel as it quenched the dry harshness of her throat….
“Wait here.”
Donnely’s command had pulled her thoughts away from the meandering creek and back to the cluster of camouflaged tents clustered just within the grove of trees before them. Three men walked out to meet him, each with a rifle slung over their shoulders by a thin strap. All of the men were similar in build to their guide: muscular, seemingly well-fed and healthy, and obviously selected for Eden Team because of their athletic physique. However the center of attention seemed to be a short bulldog of a man with a neck so thick and brown that it could have passed for the trunk of a small tree. As the others spoke, this man kept shooting glances at the newcomers through his spectacles and something about his gaze had made her feel like an insect beneath a microscope.
She shifted her weight from foot to foot and kept discovering new patches of skin on her arms and face that needed scratched; something about this little man and his cold, hard eyes made her uneasy.
“Must be their leader.” Jeremy said. “Kinda looks like a general, huh?”
She’d nodded in response, maybe uttered some non-committal answer… she couldn’t be sure. All she knew was that, for reasons she couldn’t understand, she now felt as uneasy as if they were standing among a group of ravenous rotters. But that was ridiculous. These people were here to help, right? They were Eden Team. From The Garden.
The group of men disbanded, Donnely disappearing into the woods as the others walked slowly toward them. The one Jeremy had referred to as a general seemed to be smirking slightly and she’d gulped hard, trying to tell herself that it was simply thirst that made her feel as if her airways were constricting.
Maybe if they’d actually said something, she would have felt better. But no. General Bulldog and one of them men stopped several yards away from them and seemed to study the small group with their eyes. At the same time, the other man circled around them and for some reason the image of a pack of dogs came to mind: the way they would circle their prey, cutting off any means of escape before lunging into their attack.
But that was silly. Of course these men would be wary. The world was full of people who saw the apocalypse as a handy excuse to simply do whatever the hell they wanted. Rapists, murderers, thieves: as the number of survivors had decreased, the sins of those left alive had grown exponentially. It made sense that they would be very careful about the people who were brought into their fold.
It was all entirely logical. But logic did little to assuage the nervous tightening in her stomach and even less to silence the voice in the back of her mind which whispered that something just wasn’t right.
General Bulldog’s eyes studied her for a moment and for some reason she felt the same way she had when she’d walked through the din of catcalls and innuendo of construction workers. Like she was nothing more than a piece of meat, something to be had and discarded.
“Useable. Good hips.”
His voice was gruff and abrupt and somehow sounded as if he were passing judgment on her. She immediately felt herself stiffen as her hands balled into fists; she wanted to spit some caustic remark back at him, but her mind balked and left her simply standing there with her mouth agape.
The little man’s eyes darted to Jeremy and for a moment he almost seemed to wince.
“Weak. Bad stock.”
Then onto Mama.
“Too old.”
A moment of silence before the man spoke again.
“Tree of Life has an adequate number of test subjects. These two are useless.”
It happened with the quickness of a lightning strike. One moment, these two groups of people were simply standing on the hillside staring at one another as a cloud passed across the sun. The next, General Bulldog and his underling had their rifles shouldered as if by magic.
Two shots rang out and echoed through the valley below, startling a flock of birds into flight as twin puffs of spent gunpowder filled the morning with their sulfuric odor.
Jeremy and Mama’s heads snapped back as a crimson mist seemed to spray in slow motion from the dime- sized holes that had appeared in their foreheads. Their bodies crumpled to the ground, falling atop one another while unblinking eyes stared at the boots of the men who’d killed them.
She’d screamed and turned to run then, spinning around just in time to see the stock of a rifle racing toward her face. A flash of pain, dark spots that had exploded like antimatter fireworks in her field of vision, the sensation of falling backwards… and then nothing but darkness.
When she came to, her forehead throbbed as if her heart had taken up residence just above the bridge of her nose. Her entire face ached and she could feel something tacky on her bangs, something that felt like half-dried glue. Reaching up, she winced as her fingertips brushed her wound: streaks of pain radiated from a central point and her head immediately felt as if it had tripled in size; she was nauseous, as if her stomach were on the verge of purging what little food it contained, and she viewed the room she was in as if through a fog. But even so, she realized that the dark stains on her fingers were partially congealed blood.
“Just cooperate.”
The voice was familiar, but not overly so. Where had she heard it before?
“It’ll be easier if you do.”
She turned her head toward the source of the words and it seemed as if it took the world a fraction of a second to catch up with her. But when it did, she saw Donnely. He was on the other side of the door, looking in through the little window with his hands wrapped around the bars. For a moment he became nothing more than a blur before snapping back into sharp focus.
“You should feel honored, really. They don’t select just anyone.”
He seemed to be looking everywhere but directly at her. As if he couldn’t bring himself to meet her gaze.
“Wh… where am I?”
Her voice sounded as if it were coming from the end of an infinitely long tunnel and only the stabs of pain that accompanied the movement of her jaws convinced her that it was her own.
“The Garden. You’re safe now.”
Something about his tone sounded almost apologetic. Or as if he were trying to convince himself of his own statement.
She closed her eyes for a second and was suddenly back on the hillside. She saw Jeremy and Mama lying in the grass, their blood mingling in a collective pool below them. Unmoving. Silent. Dead.
Her eyes snapped open and, even though it hurt like hell to do so, her brow furrowed as she glared at the man on the other side of the door.
“You bastard. What they hell have you done? What the fuck….”
But then she was sobbing, her back heaving with tears as her fingers pressed against her temples and bubbles of snot erupted from her nostrils.
“I’m… I’m sorry. It had to be done. For the good of all. For… humanity. See? There’s a greater good. A higher purpose. But for what it’s worth… I am sorry.”
That was the last time she’d ever seen Donnely. In the beginning, she’d entertained fantasies of him returning in the middle of the night; dreams of keys rattling in the lock and the door swinging open to reveal him silhouetted by torchlight , ready to whisk her away from this place and make amends for the evil he’d brought upon her.
But that was so long ago and she now knew he would never return. On some level, he probably did feel bad for his part in what had happened; but she couldn’t help but remember the look in his eyes as he’d described the work done here. What she’d rightfully identified as the passion of a true believer. Any guilt that kept him awake at night was undoubtedly overshadowed by the zeal of his belief.
The door to her cell swung open and two men shuffled inside. This morning it was the ones she thought of as
