Page 27 of Juniper Unraveling

Having assisted with resections, as I’ve come to learn they’re called, with Doctor Falkenrath, I can’t seem to find a moment of reprieve from the disgusting visuals of human infection and suffering. In nearly a month, though, I’ve learned one thing about this place—food is scarcer than living on the Deadlands, and no one will encourage you to eat if you refuse. More for everyone else.

Meals are the only times that I have any prolonged exposure to the other prisoners, and only for the thirty minutes we’re given to scarf down the food and get some fresh air in the yards. Each cell block has about a quarter acre yard for about fifty subjects.

That’s what we’re called here.

Not prisoners. Not patients.

Subjects.

I make my way to an empty table, closest to the window that overlooks the yard, and sit alone, as usual. The yards are lined with razor wire, and on the other side of that are Ragers, pacing at the perimeter. Guards sit in watchtowers between the cell yards, each toting a gun. The yards are also separated from each other by fencing, and every day, I’ve searched the adjacent ones for Abel.

Lunch is bread, and a broth made of mostly water, with a few potatoes and beans. Supper is the same. Water is only provided with meals, except breakfast, when cold coffee is served. The boys who perform hard labor are permitted extra water, to keep them from passing out in the heat. They’re the only exception, though. Everything is rationed to one ladleful each.

Food is all I can think about. It’s all the boys in the cellblocks talk about. When they’re working, when I pass them in the yard. Starvation makes a point of not allowing the mind to forget the body.

I’ve learned this block is mostly teenage boys around my age. Many of them sit together—bunkmates, I presume, and they watch me carefully each time I enter the commissary, as it’s called. There are a group of older men, and that’s mostly who we get down in the surgical suite. Those are the ones Doctor Falkenrath studies for the progression of disease. They’re here as a control group—first generation survivors. The occasional teenage boy is sent down, but they’re mostly progressed, or actively dying of something.

I suppose that’s the case with all of us here, though. Actively dying of one thing, or another.

There’s nothing ladylike about the way I eat, so I’m guessing they haven’t caught on to my secret. In here, I carry myself like a boy and keep my head low, as Doctor Falkenrath suggested. Everyday, my goal is to finish eating so I can search the yard for my brother.

I can’t look at the surrounding boys, knowing why they’re here and what will become of them. I feel like a traitor amongst them. A fraud. A sympathizer to the enemy.

In addition to suffering the cruel, and often sadistic, experimentation here, the boys are beaten regularly, whereas I’ve been treated more like a colleague. They’ve formed camaraderie with one another to stay alive. Sticking together in smaller groups. And even when they progress to the point of madness and end up in Doctor Falkenrath’s lab for death and dissection, I can’t help but see a small bit of betrayal behind the milky white eyes. It kills me to know my face is the last thing they see before they die. Doctor Falkenrath assures me that the stage three and four subjects are far too gone to recognize my face, or feel any sort of emotion, but I think he’s wrong. I know he’s wrong.

This isn’t a place of science. It’s a place of death and torture without rules, and I’m a traitor amongst them. Picking apart their carcasses like a vulture in the desert.

The ones from my hive are the worst. If they could speak, they’d undoubtedly call me a liar. A girl. They’d surely spill my secrets in those moments of recognizing my face.

The sound of voices moving into my space stiffens my spine, and I turn to see three boys taking a seat at the table behind me.

“They took James and Andy last night. And three the night before that,” one of them says.

Partway through gathering up my bread and bowl to move, I pause to listen.

“It’s called Alpha Project. Heard one of the guards talking about it,” another boy responds. “Ain’t gonna see those two again. I heard, once they go to S block, they don’t come back.”

“What happens in S block?” A third voice joins the first two.

“Bad stuff.” The first boy’s voice is lower, but I can still just make out the words. “They fuck with their heads. Cut off their cocks.”

“Quit talking about it, man.” A sliver of tension rides the voice of the second kid. “The walls have ears.”

When I’m finished, I return the empty tin cup to the bucket for washing, and make my way through the door to the courtyard. A few of the boys’ sit talking, while some sleep. Others pace, and those are the ones you have to watch out for. Stage three and four Dredge subjects are kept in a separate block, so as not to infect the others, but in the relatively short time I’ve been here, I’ve seen a boy spontaneously attack another subject. The bitten are removed, of course. Placed into stage one isolation. No one knows what happens to the biters.

They’re not usually seen again afterward.

Crying catches my attention, and I swing my attention to the right. The familiarity of it brings tears to my eyes, and I run toward the fence that separates me from my brother.

“Abel!” I call out to him, and he toddles over, wearing what appears to be a diaper and a dirty shirt. None of the younger boys’ wear uniforms like the rest of us, but then, none of them wear as many scars, either. Or sport shaved heads. He looks like he hasn’t been bathed in a week, and when he meets me at the fence, the stench of his soiled pants hits my nose. The healthy, chubby little boy I knew has grown thinner in the last month. A red and purple bruise above his eye, and one along his cheekbone, impels me to look him over, and I notice another bruise on the side of his thigh.

He clutches the chain-links with a hysterical cry that’s mingled with laughter. Hands raised up toward me, he tips his head back. “Up-up, Nenny.” Hearing the nickname he gave me brings a slight smile through the tears that fill my eyes.

“I can’t,” I say, crouching to my knees so I’m at eye-level. My hands won’t fit through the chain-links, so I curl my fingers over his, gently caressing his baby-soft skin.

“I want momma!” Abel sobs and snivels, and I feel completely helpless.

“Don’t cry, Abel,” I croak, trying to hold back my own sobs.