Bury Me in Black Page 6

  Blue. An ocean of blue. How she’d missed it.

  She stood outside her father’s little dump of a house, deep in the woods of Ridgewood, dipping her hands into the pockets of her black hoodie. She’d forgotten the feeling of a cold breeze on her cheek, forgotten how it felt to swallow the chilled November air. But, this wasn’t real. Couldn’t be. This was a lucid dream. A trick. A trap.

  “Okay. You’re outside,” she whispered aloud. “Now what?”

  In this new world, Ridgewood looked much the same as it always had. She walked the hilly roads, with farmland on either side. She remembered the pickup trucks passing by and that smell of manure and grass. She thought she could still catch a faint hint of that old, familiar scent, but it may have been in her head. Her footsteps sounded so loud against all this silence, all this emptiness.

  A light snow began to fall around midday, a dusting. She lifted her hood, crossing her arms as she walked. She always got cold so easily. She was beginning to grow hungry as well, but that could wait. She needed to explore first, to see. A mix of anxiety and excitement churned within her. Good fear and bad fear. She was unsure which had the upper hand.

  The library was right beside Ridgewood elementary school. It was a small building with a quaint, undersold little entrance. She mounted the steps, glancing up at RIDGEWOOD PUBLIC LIBRARY, displayed in broad white letters. Justine halted on the precipice. She scanned the distant hills, feeling oddly vulnerable. Justine took a deep breath. It’s nothing. She stepped inside and closed the door behind her.

  Inside, she walked the stacks, shivering every now and again, and read the first few pages of this book or that one. Once or twice she sat and actually gave the book she’d selected a chance. Not often, though. The list of crime novels on hand wasn’t much to rave about, but it beat what she’d kept down in the basement. She sat on a stool at the end of one row and read, shifting in her seat each time she heard a creak or a gust of wind against the building. This ghost town had an eerie feel to it, she had to admit, but she didn’t much mind. It was tenfold more interesting than the stuck-up old farm town it had been in a past life.

  She licked a finger and turned the page. Her eyes skimmed the words, but her mind was elsewhere. She was thinking about her father and whether he’d even bother to give chase. He was just as likely to pull that door back shut and forget she’d ever been there. Any affection he’d convinced himself to harbor for her had surely eroded during their five months trapped in that room together.

  Another creak sounded, this one much louder than the last. She sat completely still, listening intently. For a long moment there was nothing. Dead silence. She did her best not to move, not to breathe. She stood up. She left the book in the chair, forgotten.

  Justine hastily tiptoed through the rows of books, glancing back several times. She saw nothing. She turned off the lights as she went, eliminating all evidence that she’d ever been there. She scurried past the front desk and looked up towards the front door.

  A man blocked her path.

  He was dressed all in black: black turtleneck, tight black pants, black boots. He leaned casually against the wall by the door, expressionless. She didn’t see the scar at first glance; just that pretty face and the spiky blonde hair. Dangling at his hip, strapped loosely to his belt, a sawed-off shotgun hung. She didn’t recall ever seeing a gun before, not this close, at least.

  He surveyed her a moment, unimpressed, one of those boots tapping on the ground. Then, suddenly, his face came alive. His eyes grew wide, expression suddenly breathless. He forgot his cool, stoic demeanor, just for a moment. He took a step towards her, one hand outstretched. She was frozen in place. Good fear or bad fear, it was impossible to tell.

  He halted an inch before her. Close enough that she could smell him, close enough to feel his breath. He reached up, gently cupping her chin in his hand. Paralyzed by fear, she didn’t fight it. He looked down at her, his expression that of muted wonder.

  “What…” David began. “What did he see?”

  “He umm,” she said, placing down her drink. She pushed the hair behind her ear. “He saw me.”

  ~

  She finished her wine and bid David goodnight. Upstairs she went, her head swimming. She pressed a palm to her forehead as she walked past the chandelier and up the crimson stairwell to the second floor. Her bedroom was also in the east wing, last door on the left. She found it empty, the four-post bed perfectly made. The dressers were all empty save for her one large makeup bag.

  It was a lavish room, albeit nothing compared to Jacob Crowe’s chambers, or so she’d heard. Justine walked to the vanity, to that cloudy oval mirror and the wraith that stared back. She removed her necklace, placing it in that long, thin box with the others.

  Justine made her way to the bathroom. This room alone was roughly the same size as her father’s old shelter. There was a stand-up shower and a marble countertop with two sinks and mirrors, but the crowned jewel of this room was the tub. The thing was composed of ornate white stone, with a gold faucet to match. She turned it on, with a squeak, and walked away as it filled. She stumbled once, holding out her arms to steady herself. Too much wine. Not there was anything else to do to keep her sane. There was telling stories and there was getting good and drunk, and not much else.

  Her mind wandered. She thought of the way he’d looked at her that day. Him, with the spiky blonde hair and the scar that ran from the edge of his lip down to his neck. He’d been beautiful, had Zeke. It was the way he’d carried himself, smooth and catlike, embodying an effortless grace she’d never come close to attaining. Her mother had been clumsy, too. Even after she’d wed that Garland judge and entered his ritzy circle, she’d still been a world class klutz. But, not Zeke. He’d been glamorous. He’d been powerful.

  Justine removed her dress before the mirror and stood naked, staring at her unnatural form, her skin white as a geisha. So thin, so feeble. Hardly the creature she’d wanted to become. At Zeke’s side, she’d felt as if she could move mountains and part the fucking sea. But, he was gone, and the spell was broken. This was what remained. She looked back towards the bath.

  Naked, she walked cautiously back towards the tub, grabbing a bar of soap on the way. She dipped a toe in first, then one leg, then the other. She sat down, cocooned in the warmth, in this man-made womb.

  She scrubbed at her neck, her arms, the top of her chest. Everything that hadn’t been covered by the dress. That pale, chalk white washed away, revealing pink, healthy skin in its wake. Slowly, scrubbing and scrubbing away, she became a person again. She washed her body until the tub had a sheen like dirty tap water. She cared not. Justine put down her soap and leaned her head back, closing her eyes.

  She exhaled.

  When it was done, she stepped out and toweled off and watched what looked like a combination of milk and water circle the drain. She grabbed a bathrobe from the door, donning it to walk to bed. She halted before the mirror, leaning forward. Oh. She’d nearly forgotten.

  With each of her index fingers, she pressed at the corners of her eyes, removing her red contact lenses to reveal those cool blue eyes beneath.

  6

  -PRIVATE MARCO SHAW-

  -Marco-

  LEON POPPED THE TRUNK. The old trans-am was rust red and seemed ready to sputter and die at any moment.

  “In,” Leon said.

  Marco ducked into the little crawlspace, bending his knees to fit. They didn’t wait for him to get comfortable. Leon slammed the hood shut.

  Marco blinked. There were no lights on inside. He tried to take deep, slow breaths to calm his pulsating heart. He heard the sound of Knox’s motorcycle starting up beside them and felt the rattle of Leon’s door slapping shut. The shitty excuse for a vehicle bucked once and off they went.

  In the darkness, his only company was the Pulse. Half-curled into a fetal position, Marco rolled over, facing the inside of the trunk now. He closed his eyes, beyond drained. He quickly became used to the bumps in the
road, growing more comfortable. He began to drift to sleep, fading into that same memory. Smell of smoke, sound of gunfire.

  He began to itch. All around him, he could hear cockroaches creeping in the dark. Little legs skittering against the wide trunk floor.

  Tsk-tsk-tsk-tsk-tsk-tsk-tsk.

  Marco opened his eyes. Across from him, something was shifting in the dark. A person, maybe half his size.

  “Shelby,” he whispered. “Are you there?”

  Suddenly, a bright light shone before him. He bounced up, hitting his head.

  “Fuck,” he said to himself, rubbing the top of his head.

  The little girl lay on her side, facing him. Shelby wore the same little black dress as always, white socks up to the knee. Same veil, covering half her tiny, freckled face. She held a flashlight just below her chin, giving it the eerie glow of a child telling a ghost story.

  “Sorry,” she said.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked, lowering his voice to a whisper.

  “You looked lonely.” She spoke at full volume. Not that it mattered. “What did they do to your hair?”

  He lifted a hand to touch it. It felt weird, like he could still feel the hair he’d lost. Phantom locks. It kept surprising him to reach up and not find it there.

  “I like it,” Shelby said.

  “They’re cleaning me up for Mother. Leon said she likes it better when men keep their hair short. They want me to impress her.”

  “Do you trust them?”

  “Of course not.”

  “The quiet one. He gives me a bad feeling.”

  “Me too,” Marco agreed. “But, they can’t hurt you, Shelby. No one can hurt you.”

  “Because I’m dead?”

  “No. You…don’t say things like that.”

  From far off, he could hear the cockroaches again. Scurrying in short little bursts, then stopping. Hiding.

  “I’m not stupid, Marco.”

  “I never said that.”

  “So, then, tell me what happened. Tell me why I am how I am.”

  “Shelby.”

  “Marco.”

  “Shelby.”

  “Marco.”

  “Tell me.”

  “No.”

  “Tell me!”

  “Is this really the best time?!” he yelled.

  Inside the car, someone pounded a fist against their seat.

  “Hey, shut the fuck up in there!” Leon yelled.

  Marco lowered his voice to a whisper.

  “Is this really the best time?” he hissed.

  “Why?” Shelby asked. She looked around the trunk. “Got somewhere to be?”

  ~

  He blinked, and he was nineteen years old again. Marco sat alone, a few inches from the television, on the hardwood floor, legs tucked under him. His parent’s basement was dark, save for the glow of the tube. He had the remote in his hand, eyes locked on the target. Pupils dilating. The clock on the wall read 3:30, but he ignored it. He was wide awake.

  “These people were all here when the quarantine walls went up,” he told Shelby. “I wasn’t. I came here by choice.”

  “Why?”

  “Well…” he chewed on this a moment. “I lived a few hours away, outside what is now considered the q-zone. But, everyone was aware of it. When the virus first sprung up and the quarantine was enacted, it was all over the news. On damn near every station. Like probably millions of other people, I became obsessed. I watched the news non-stop. I took my meals in front of the T.V. When my parents gave me shit for it and forced me to go outside, I’d head to a diner or a friend’s house. Somewhere where they’d have it on. I was a year out of high school, flunking community college classes I barely bothered to show up to half the time. Something about it spoke to me. What was going on in these three towns, it felt vital. It felt like whatever happened there mattered. I wanted to be a part of that. I think I’d wanted it my whole life.”

  “On the dotted line. Right there,” the man said. Marco took up the pen in his left hand. He glanced up at the man once, then back down to the page. He signed.

  Marco Shaw.

  “I told them I wanted to join the U.S. Army. I wanted to fight for our country. But, more specifically, I wanted to go where no one else wanted to. The quarantine zone.” Marco smiled. “You should’ve seen the look on the recruiter’s face.”

  They gave him a haircut. High and tight. Then came boot camp. Breaking him down. Building him back up. He was less jittery then, and some thirty pounds heavier, with chocolate brown eyes. They taught him wilderness survival skills and discipline and self-defense. He didn’t make many friends. He’d never been very good at that. Mostly, he kept to himself, quiet and focused. Boot camp seemed harder for him than most, but when it was over, he was shipped off straight to Covington. No time to stop home. No chance for a last look.

  The transport to Covington was near silent. All around him were blank stares and sunken faces. You could always tell who knew the score, and who had yet to realize it.

  “Realize what?”

  “Our base was set up on the outskirts, but we were going to be close to the virus. Possibly exposed. If you’re the Army, do you risk sending anyone home after that? No. I knew once we were there, we were staying there. None of us were ever going home.

  “Soon as we got to base camp, they ran a million tests on us. Marksman tests, combat strategy. Physicals, psych evaluations. The works. My tests come back, and they find that I’m not suitable for infantry. Instead, they give me a job as a drone operator.”

  Behind a tiny desktop screen, Marco watched. He jotted down notes. He charted the path of his machine.

  The drone dipped, hovering low enough for a moment to make out those lonely, empty roads. Not a soul in sight. Block upon block had been long scavenged and left in ruin. Marco felt eyes on the back of his neck. He stiffened in his seat, stroking a few keys. The drone took skyward again, high above the trio of ghost towns.

  Around him, the other drone operators all sat silently in rows, wearing headsets. They’d frantically type for a few minutes, then stop, then type again a few minutes later: always in those short bursts. There were twenty operators total, Marco included. In that windowless room with the bright overhead lights, it was hard to tell whether it was night or day. Counting the hours was a fool’s errand anyhow. Mostly the room was silent, save for all that typing. A few hours in, a commanding officer would enter and stroll through the rows, monitoring progress. A report was due at the end of each session describing how the drone ran and if there was any activity. “Activity” meaning, had any denizens of the strange world down there bothered to poke their heads out.

  “This was every day. I came all this way, I gave up everything, and as a thank you the Army gave me a god-damn desk job. Clock in, clock out. Hoo-ah.”

  They hit a bump, and Marco bounced in the air, landing hard on one of his elbows.

  “Anyway,” he said, wincing, “I tried to transfer to infantry later, but my request got denied. Mostly because I wasn’t a great shot.”

  “Not to mention your psych evaluation.”

  “Wait, so I have told you this story.”

  She knows what I know.

  “I do,” she said, proudly, rolling onto her belly and propping her head up in her hands. “But, I love hearing you tell it.”

  The room around him was alive, but Marco sat in stasis. He wore a pale blue uniform, with a collar and a silver nameplate on the breast displaying his last name. His skin was healthier looking then. His eyes a deep chocolate brown. He was clean.

  All around him, other men in pale blue were haphazardly putting on their armor, one piece at a time. They were in a tunnel tent, the floor covered in cots. Marco fingered the dog tags dangling at his neck. He then put on his white shin guards, his white chest plate and his black gloves. The ‘Stormtrooper Suit,’ as the guys liked to joke.

  Marco reached down for the final piece to the puzzle. The helmet was all white, save for an
obsidian visor in the front, stretching from the bottom of the chin to the top of the hairline. Like a two-way mirror, a soldier could see out behind the mask, but not vice versa. He took a deep breath. He hadn’t noticed until then how bad his hands were shaking.

  “Then Garland happened. The Army lost control of the city. They sent in so many of us, eventually they needed to bring in people who weren’t initially infantry. I was probably on a waitlist somewhere. On the bubble of being a real soldier. The shit hit the fan, so they called my number. Finally, after all that waiting and wanting, I was going to get my shot. Of course, in my head I’d imagined exploring the city and keeping the peace, not full-on warfare.”

  His ears were ringing. Marco crouched, blood in his mouth. His white armor was stained with dirt and grime. He breathed deeply, in and out, behind that black visor. Behind him, the Humvee he’d arrived in was totaled, a smoking ruin. He crawled past the dead and dying, bullets whizzing overhead. Marco fired wildly ahead, hitting air. All around was gunfire. The automatic blasts of Army rifles and the pop pop pop of scavenger pistols. Far off, a child was crying.

  “They were right about me. I wasn’t ready.”

  They’d been ambushed. Killed, nearly to a man. Marco’s helmet was cracked, the glass splintering right in front of his face, making it impossible to see. He removed it.

  Marco darted across the street, holding his rifle in two hands. He could hear the bullets zipping by, a few sounding painfully close. Up a set of steps and beneath a rounded overhang, an apartment complex’s glass front door had been shattered by the gunfire. Ducking, he pushed through, and felt a sting of pain. A shard of glass had caught the side of his head as he went through, opening a small gash just above his ear. He reached up to touch it, feeling warm blood seeping into his hair. Marco continued to hobble inside, halting before the stairwell. He held his rifle in two shaking arms and drew closer, ready to spray if an enemy poked their head out.