Page 10 of Juniper Unraveling

We hop off the back of the truck onto the dusty gravel, and we’re instructed to line up as before.

Overhead, the sky is an array of oranges and yellows, while below, the silhouette of desert plants dot the canvas, as daylight settles toward night. Against the harsh colors are two smokestacks, with pillars of soft gray clouds that float toward the sky.

The smell that hangs on the air tugs at the back of my throat. For those of us who haven’t eaten well, it has the savory thickness of meat that’s been charred, a greasy, delicious scent. Like the few times my father hunted mule deer and cooked it on an open flame.

In single-file, we stumble along, through a narrow path between a building and a long row of fencing, the pounding of our shoes against the dry dirt hardly carrying over the surrounding moans and growls. To the right, a bloody maw snaps at us, like a dog, as we pass. The bones of the Rager’s jaw peek beneath wet glistening flesh, which has been peeled back, revealing the roots of his teeth. Dozens of others reach through the fence at us, their deformed fingers snapping out at each passerby.

A screech hits the air, as one of the younger boys is snatched. His body drags across the dirt, before a fast-thinking older man in our lineup grabs hold of his leg and sets him back. Sobbing, the boy keeps to the building side of the path, dodging the outstretched hands.

I pull Abel closer to me, out of their reach, as we march alongside the wall.

The monsters behind us laugh and sneer, mocking the boy’s screams, and the sound of their amusement heats my cheeks with anger. If I were my father, I’d have killed one by now. Taken his gun and shot the other. There’d be a flurry of gunshots and people taking cover. Some might escape. Maybe I’d die, but it’d be better than doing nothing. It sickens me that the older men who march along with us, the ones most capable of fighting them, follow their commands like sheep.

The narrow path widens to a courtyard, and we reach the entrance of a dome-like building, the walls of which are lined with some kind of shelving, four levels high with ladders interspersed between. More of the men in black suits stand sentry inside, as though waiting for us to arrive. All of them have removed their masks, revealing they are human beneath, oddly enough. Soldiers, it seems, based on the way they all stand at attention, though I never thought a human being could be capable of such cruelty.

Murder carried out as indifferently as if they were Ragers.

A soldier with a long, black stick swats at the legs of each person, directing them up the ladders and into the shelves.

“Five to each bunk!” he shouts, and brings the stick down hard on my calf. I grit my teeth, the pain traveling straight to my eyes as they blur with tears.

Better me than Abel, because if he’d hit my brother, I’d probably turn psycho on him and find myself in a pool of blood.

Hands set at each side of Abel, with my book tucked beneath my armpit, I allow him to climb before me, waiting as he pulls himself up each rung, until we’ve reached the next open bunk at the second level. It takes a half hour to get all of us settled in, and I notice the bunks across from us hold men and boys I don’t recognize, perhaps from another hive.

“Welcome to Calico, shitheads! No talking, or moving. Should you need to piss in the night, you’ll hold it until morning. In the morning, you’ll be sorted and sent to assigned buildings. Anyone tries to escape? I, or my colleagues here, will shoot you on sight.” He glances back, exchanging a sharp nod with two soldiers, who stand behind him. “That, or we’ll toss you to the Ragers.”

“Why are you doing this? Why are we here?” A voice calls out from one of the bunks.

The soldier’s head shifts back and forth, his stick pointed up. “Who asked that question?” When no one answers, a wicked grin stretches across his face, and he shakes his head. “Nobody, huh?” Stick flat to his back, he paces in front of us, and when he stops, he pulls the gun from his side, racks the chamber, and shoots without bothering to look where.

The pop rattles the crowd, startling Abel, who covers his ears, and someone below curses.

I peer over the edge of the bunk at where blood seeps onto the concrete floor.

“Understand one thing,” the soldier continues. “Here? You are nothing more than cattle. Why are we doing this? Because we can, and there’s nothing you can do about that. Now, I suggest you all shut the fuck up and go to sleep.”

He twists to one of the soldiers and waves his gun toward the entrance. “Toss this one. Bastards haven’t eaten much in weeks. I’m sure they’ll appreciate the meal.”

A shiver races up my spine as I watch the soldier drag a man from the bunk below us. A trail of red marks his path through the building, until he disappears around the corner.

The growls from outside grow louder, more excited, and the rattling of the fence brings on visuals of all the Ragers in a frenzy over the discarded body.

I roll onto my side, pulling Abel in close to me. “Be quiet tonight, Abel. No going potty. No talking. Understand?”

“’Kay.” His fingers curl into mine, wrapped around his midsection, and I try not to think about the fact that complete strangers lie at either side of us. One I can hear sniffling behind me. The one beside Abel stares up toward the underside of the bunk above us.

It’s the most uncomfortable I’ve been in my whole life. Even before we stumbled upon our small hive and settled into our apartment, we braved winters in the desert and the threat of Ragers. Even still, that didn’t hold a candle to the fear and distress of lying among strangers, praying that my brother won’t wet himself in the night.

Above us, dust shivers from the top bunks with the movement of others, the small specs tickling my face as they land. My feet touch the concrete wall, and I lift my head to examine markings scrawled across there, which glow in the floodlights shining in from outside.

Es mejor la muerte. Death is better.

When I was a baby, we traveled a few years in a caravan of mostly Spanish-speaking families, who’d lived as immigrants. It became something of a second language to me, and eventually useful, as many of the survivors we stumbled upon mostly spoke the language.

The man next to Abel turns away from us, thankfully, and shifts with abrupt movement. He coughs and sputters. Gags. For about five minutes, he sounds as if he might hurl, until he, thankfully, quiets again.

It takes a good two hours before the men at either side of us fall asleep, and Abel starts twitching, as he does sometimes. This is when the events of the day crash over me, and my mother and Sarai push through visuals of the last four hours.