59
ATTICUS
I fell on my hands and knees when Driggs shoved me into the kennel; the concrete floor scraped skin from my palms. The chain-link door slammed shut afterward, and the sound of a padlock clicking into place followed, further filling my stomach with dread.
Driggs, and the armed men with him, left without a word; other prisoners shouted curses at them as they walked by.
I was surrounded by cages. Up and down the narrow walkway, and on both sides, two dozen of them lined neatly against the baby-blue brick wall. At one end of the room there was a steel door with a little box window; above it, in white letters on a red background a sign read: Employees Only.
I threw my head back and laughed so hard and so loud my voice echoed off the walls.
“What’s so fucking funny?” a voice from the cage on my left asked.
“Yeah—why don’t you shut the fuck up?” said the one to my right.
A flurry of other voices rose over my laughter then, most expressing irritation, a few with questions of the world beyond their prisons.
“Where’d you come from?” said one man in a kennel across from me. “I have family in Frankfort—is it still standing?”
“Were you the one who gave Driggs that shiner?” asked a woman in a cage next to the man. “I hope so—I hate that red-headed piece of shit!”
My laughter continued until there were tears in my eyes and I could barely breathe.
The man across from me, with stringy yellow hair and pale blue eyes, watched me with curiosity for a moment. "I laughed like that once,” he said, “fifteen minutes after my son died. Because ten minutes before that my wife had died. And a day before she died, my daughter had died. By then, all you really can do is laugh, I guess.”
Sitting on the floor with my back against the brick wall, I looked through the links in the door at the man.
“I worked at a Humane Society when I was seventeen,” I said, more to myself, really. “It looked just like this place. I only lasted a month. Watched too many animals get put down, and I quit.” I laughed shortly, shook my head. “It’s only fair I end up exactly where they used to be.”
“I understand,” the man said.
“No. You don’t,” I put in, and then I fell silent.
I had wanted to also say that because I didn’t stop the workers from euthanizing those animals was the reason I was here now; I had wanted to explain that because I sat back, with a heavy heart but not heavy enough to do anything about it, and watched it happen, that I was being punished. I had wanted to say that because I was a coward and didn’t stand up for what I believed wrong, it was what led me to this moment. But I didn’t say any of this, instead, I rested the back of my head against the brick and shut my eyes so I could suffer the moment in silence.
“Atticus?” a familiar voice spoke up, and in an instant my eyes sprang open. “Am I hearing things, or is that really you?”
Not believing my own ears, but determined to find out the truth, I pushed away from the wall and scrambled over to the chain-link door. I grabbed it and pressed my face against it so that the cool metal made an indention in my cheek, and I tried to place the face with the voice, but I couldn’t see the man two kennels down on the same row as me.
“Peter?” I asked with disbelief. “Is that you?”
“Holy shit!” Peter said, and I could hear the chain-link door rattling as he also pressed himself against it trying to see out. “Where the hell have you been, man? All hell broke loose in Lexington when you skipped out and took that girl; they’ve been looking for you.”
“I used to live in Lexington City,” the woman across the hall from me said. “Same as this hell-hole really—except I never hated any man in Lexington as much as I hate Driggs.” She spit on the floor.
Peter Whitman? I never imagined I’d see him again. Or Evelyn Bouchard.
“Is Evelyn all right?” I asked the moment I’d thought about her.
Peter was slow to answer, giving me the worst feeling.
“She’s dead,” Peter finally said, and my breath fell as heavily as my heart. “It was really fucked up. They thought she knew something about where you’d gone. They tortured her for information before they finally killed her.” Peter sighed again. “Either that woman was crazy-loyal to you, man, or she didn’t know shit.”
“She didn’t know anything,” I confirmed and lowered my head thinking about Evelyn, regretting that it was my fault she was dead.
I sat back down on the stained concrete floor, this time with my back against the chain-link door.
“Seriously—where have you been?” Peter asked. “What happened to the girl?”
I’d been trying not to think about where Thais was and what might’ve happened to her because I needed to focus on getting out this place first. But not thinking about her more than anything else, was impossible.
Instead of answering Peter’s questions—I didn’t entirely trust him, regardless of our friendship—I needed many of my own questions answered first. Starting with the most obvious.
“Everybody knew you and I were close,” I said. “So why didn’t they torture and kill you too?”
“Because I did what I told you I’d do—pretended to have it out for you. At first, they didn’t believe me, but I’m a good liar.” There was laughter in his voice.
“Then what are you doing here?”
“I volunteered to go with Marion to find you,” Peter explained. “Convinced him and Rafe that I knew you better than anyone, and that I hated you more than anyone”—he laughed again—“I don’t know whether to be proud I was so convincing, or ashamed I’m that good at looking like a jealous douchebag.”
This information—if it was true—triggered hope in me. Because Peter was here without Marion and his men, did that mean they were dead? Did that mean Thais and I were no longer being followed?
I turned around and took a greater interest in those locked in the other cages, and I looked at each face I could see across from me. None looked familiar, not even the woman who’d claimed she’d lived in Lexington City.
“Where is Marion now?” I asked.
“No idea,” Peter answered. “Three weeks ago, our camp was attacked and I bolted into the woods. I went back the next morning, and when I got there, Marion and some of his men were gone. The rest of them were laying there dead, their hands had been cut off. I took off into the woods again, and then a few days later these perfect gentlemen found me, bound my hands and gagged me, and now here I am!” I could picture Peter’s arms out wide at his sides, a sarcastic smile spread across his face.
“So Rafe didn’t go with you?” I asked, though I already knew that he hadn’t.
“Nah. Rafe’s the big-shot General now; he’s got more important things to worry about than chasing after you.” I heard Peter shuffle his back against the door, adjusting his position on the hard floor. “But he sure as shit wanted that girl you took with you. That pissed him off more than anything—you know how he is with the girls. Marion, of course, wanted you”—his laughter was sharp and brief—“Shoulda seen the look on his face when he found out you killed Private Masters! Holy shit, Atticus, that guy’s head was split open like a watermelon on the street! It was brutal. Well-deserved, but brutal. I’ll never eat another watermelon after seeing that.”
“So, you haven’t seen Marion for three weeks?” I held my breath, hoping Peter wouldn’t tell me that Marion was in Paducah, too.
“Nope,” Peter confirmed. “As far as I know, he thinks I’m dead, and he’s still on his way to Shreveport.”
I sucked in sharply, and my palms sweated. I stood up and grabbed the chain-link with more force than before; it rattled in the heavy frame.
“Why is he heading to Shreveport?”
Fuck! I’m going to kill that brown-nosing fucker if I ever see him again! I was convinced Edgar had been lying, and that he’d told William Wolf and Rafe and Marion where Thais and I would be heading.
“We were going west at first, toward Topeka,” Peter said. “But plans changed when we got word to redirect and head to one of the outposts. Signal fires had been lit. It was a small farm. An old woman and two pretty girls. Ring a bell?”
“Yeah,” I admitted, and slowly my heart sank. “And a dead man named David Doakes?”
“Yep,” Peter said. “His daughter wants your head on a pike, just so you know. Anyway, one of them had overheard you or the girl mention something about Shreveport. So, then Marion decided to change course.”
So, it wasn’t Edgar who gave us away—it was Thais. I let out a long, disappointed breath. I knew it hadn’t been me who’d let Shreveport slip—I was careful never to say it out loud, even when I thought Thais and I were alone—so it could’ve only been Thais’ mistake. Maybe when she was making friends with Emily and Rachel and Shannon, or when she was helping with the dishes, or—it didn’t matter.
“And what about Wolf?” I asked of my former leader, trying not to think about Thais.
“Wolf, believe it or not, changed his plans about seizing the Great Lakes for now. Apparently, the allure of guns in the South is more than the allure of water in the North.”
I sighed. “So now Wolf’s army is going toward Shreveport?”
“Not Shreveport as far I know,” Peter said. “More like Texas; it’s what Wolf said in a meeting just before I left with Marion for Topeka to find you. Wolf didn’t know anything about you going Shreveport.”
This was good news. If they were going toward Texas then I could still take Thais to Louisiana as planned. Where else could I take her? Shreveport was the only viable option, the safest option.
“Why Shreveport, anyway?” Peter asked.
I didn’t answer.
After a moment, Peter said, “So is she still alive? The girl?”
I felt a stab in my chest—I don’t know if she’s alive! But still, I didn’t answer. The less Peter knew about us, the better.
After another moment, Peter said, “Y’know, man, we had it good in Lexington City, and I never really thought about leaving before, but now that I’m outta there, I’m kinda happy about it.”
“You’re in a fucking cage,” the woman across from me reminded him, sourly.
We ignored her.
“Why are you happy about it?” I asked.
“I guess because I don’t have to pretend anymore,” Peter answered. “I never liked the way Wolf did things there. Never really was my style, but I had to act like it was. I didn’t like that so much. Did you know I used to be married? Before the world ended?”
“No, I didn’t know that,” I said.
“There was a lot you didn’t know about me,” Peter went on, “because—and don’t be offended—I didn’t trust you.”
I smiled thinking to myself about how neither of us had ever trusted the other.
“My wife, Liana—born ‘Liam’—was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen,” Peter said. “We lived in Mississippi. Had two adopted daughters. And the four of us survived The Fever and almost everything after it. We migrated north when the cracks and the savages forced us out of Tupelo. I had to leave them alone one night, in an abandoned house hiding in the basement so I could go out and find food and water. When I came back the next day, they were gone.” Peter choked up, and made a noise with his throat as if trying to clear it. “I looked for them for days, weeks, I don’t know how long, Atticus, but by the time Marion’s party found me half-dead from dehydration, I had walked all the way to Jonesboro, Arkansas, without knowing it.”
I heard Peter sniffle, and then he sighed and made movements against the cage door again.
“On the way to Lexington City,” Peter continued, “we came upon a small group of gay men just tryin’ to survive like everybody else, and instead of taking them with us, they slaughtered them all in the street. I was fucking horrified, man—fucking horrified. But what the hell could I do? I could hardly stand up on my own; I was being carried to Lexington on a stretcher.” He paused. “After that, I was afraid to tell them anymore about my wife and daughters. Or about me. I was afraid that not only would they kill me for being who I am, but that they’d somehow find my family and kill them, too. After the slaughter, I started pretending that I was ‘normal’.” Peter paused, sniffled; I could hear the pain in his voice, the regret. “After a while, I forced myself to accept that my wife and daughters were dead. I knew I’d never find them. So, I did the only thing I could do, and accepted my new life in Lexington.”
“You’re a piece of shit,” the woman said. “You should’ve kept looking for them.”
“Shut up,” Peter bit back. “You don’t know anything about me.”
The woman laughed scathingly under her breath. “You just told me, and everybody else here, all we need to know—you abandoned your family.”
“I didn’t abandon them!” Peter bit back.
“You can’t blame a man for movin’ on with his life,” the man with stringy yellow hair spoke up. “After lookin’ that long I probably woulda done the same thing. These are bad times; life ain’t like it used to be.”
“Then that makes you just as much of a piece of shit as he is,” the woman accused.
More prisoners joined in on the argument, but their voices faded into the back of my mind as I sat against the concrete with my back pressed to the door.
I didn’t care that Peter had been married to someone who was once a man, or about Peter’s regrets. I had only one thing on my mind—escape—it was all I had room for. And although I didn’t blame Peter for ending the search for his family, I knew I could never stop looking for Thais.
Thais, I’m going to get you out of here. I hope I can get you out of here…
My head fell forward, my shoulders slouched, and I stared at the black stains on the concrete beneath me until spots appeared before my eyes. Behind me the debating voices rose, and the sound of hands shaking the doors reverberated. Long after the debate had reduced to a few mumbles, and the prisoners retreated back to their quiet corners, and after the sun had set and the light beaming from two high windows faded, I still remained silent, thinking only of Thais.
I had nodded off at some point, and then snapped awake when the heavy metal door at the end of the hall opened with a groan. I remained sitting, while other prisoners jumped to their feet and peered through the links into the slim walkway as Driggs shuffled his way through, two armed men behind him.
“Pick me!” one man shouted, his skinny wrist poked through a hole in the door, reaching for Driggs.
“N-No, not me…p-please, don’t take me,” pleaded another.
“I’ll go! I’m ready!” said another.
“Fuck him! It’s my turn!” argued the woman across from me. “And I want you! I challenge you!” She pointed at Driggs, her thirty-something face twisted with rage.
Driggs’ hand sprang forward and slapped against the fence so hard it bulged inward and bit her in the face. Grabbing her nose, the woman stumbled backward.
“You’ll get your turn,” Driggs taunted her, walking past.
She threw her body against the door. “Fuck you, Driggs! I’m gonna kill you! That’s why you won’t let me out of here—you know I’ll fucking kill you!” The chain-links shook chaotically.
Driggs kept on walking, a grin set in the corner of his mouth. He stopped before walking past my cage, turned in his worn leather boots, and looked in at me.
With audacity and ease, I stood, and I walked forward the few steps that separated the back wall from the door. I looked at Driggs with the eyes of a man who feared nothing, a man who wanted this opportunity. I had an idea about why I was in this cage, what I had been brought here for, what the woman and several other prisoners wanted to be a part of so desperately. And although I had no interest in complying, I knew too that it was a way out, and that was all I cared about. I would fight if it gave me an opportunity to escape—I hoped prize-fighting was what this was all about.
Driggs studied me for a moment, smiled smugly before walking away.
I was the one throwing myself against the door then. “I volunteer!” My fingers coiled around the thin chain-links, the force of my hands I felt could’ve crushed them if that were possible. “I volunteer!” I roared.
Driggs looked back at me.
“Oh, you’re going to fight tonight for sure,” he said. “But you’ll be going last.”
My confidence surged when Driggs confirmed it. Fighting I was good at. Fighting I could do. Fighting I wanted!
“Why wait?” I said eagerly, trying to convince Driggs, shaking the fence now with the same fury the woman had.
“Because you’re going to be the main event,” Driggs revealed. “You’re the one who’s going to line my pockets tonight.”
“Why me?” I asked, confused.
“Yeah! Why him?” another voice called out.
“Because he’s the only one of you worthless shit-stains whose got that look in his eye.” He raised his voice over the others. “I don’t have the reputation of being the best talent scout in Paducah for nothing!” He laughed.
Then his voice lowered, but there was something dark in it, and he said as if only to me, “Besides, the things a man will do for a woman, often turn a man into an animal.”
My teeth ground together within my tightly-clenched jaw. I shook the door violently, throwing myself against it trying to get at Driggs. “Where is she? Tell me where she is!” The blood rose up into my head like mercury in a thermometer; I could feel the veins pulsating in my temples.
Driggs ignored me and continued down the hall where he stopped in front of Peter Whitman’s cage.
“How’s that shoulder doing?” he asked Peter.
“Uh, it’s uh, still sore,” Peter answered, failing to hide the apprehension in his voice. “It’s uh…it’s still hard to move.”
I pressed my face to the door; I couldn’t see Peter inside the cage, but I glimpsed Driggs standing outside. His arms were crossed, his head cocked to one side as if he were contemplating. Then he snapped his fingers, pointed at Peter’s cage and said, “He’s fine. A week has been more than enough time to heal. Bring him.”
“No! I can’t fight! Look at me! I’ll be killed out there!”
“That’s the point!” Driggs laughed.
One of the armed men adjusted his gun strap over a shoulder and then he unlocked the cage. Peter’s shouts and pleading filled the room, and the sound of him struggling against the man, until he shoved Peter out of the cage and into the hall, hands bound. He fell forward against the cage across from his, and went to his knees, unable to break his fall.
The man I saw was a glaring difference from the one I once knew. Peter’s boyish-looking features were overrun by dirt and sweat and rampant facial hair; around his once playful eyes, dark circles had set in, making him appear tired and weak. And he was emaciated to the extent he hardly looked like the old Peter at all, but instead some wispy, frail, broken young man of twenty-four who could only be identified by his voice anymore.
“You were always a good friend, Atticus,” Peter said as he was being pushed in the back with the barrel of a gun. “If you love that girl, don’t ever stop looking for her.” Our eyes met as Peter was pushed past my cage. “If anybody can get out of this, it’s you, man!” The farther away he got, the louder he shouted. “Kill them, Atticus! Kill them all!” And then his voice was cut off as the heavy door groaned and closed behind him with a booming echo.
With my hands still clutching the chain-links, my head dropped between my rigid shoulders. Then I drew back my fist and slammed it into the flexible door. “Goddammit!” I roared, and then slapped the door with the palms of both hands.
I paced.
“Sorry, but your friend won’t last one fight,” the woman across from me said.
“She’s right,” the man with the stringy yellow hair added. “He held off for as long as he could. When they brought him in here a week ago he was hurt pretty bad; kept moaning about his shoulder. They won’t put a wounded guy in a first-fight; they let ‘em heal first.”
“Why just the first fight?” I asked.
“The first one is always to the death,” the man answered. “All the fights after that one are…well, basically whatever Ravinia wants. But first-timers are everybody’s favorite because somebody always dies.”
“Who’s Ravinia?”
The woman scoffed. “A sick, twisted bitch,” she said. “But I admit, I like her; got her man’s nuts crushed in her fist twenty-four-seven.”
“Lord Maxima,” the yellow-haired man put in. “He’s the leader of this place. But his wife, Ravinia, is who calls all the shots.”
The door opened again suddenly, and their voices fell silent. All eyes were on the unfamiliar man who stepped into the room at the end of the hall.
“Cages three, four, ten, eight, and fourteen,” he said to another man behind him. “All newcomers.”
“Driggs said cage eight is off-limits,” said the second man.
They went down the hallway, discussing the cages in question, and stopped in front of mine—apparently cage eight. They looked me over, nodded as if satisfied with Driggs’ choice for the main event, and then they proceeded onward to the fourteenth cage.
I pressed my face against the door again so I could see; the prisoners in my line of sight did the same.
“This one,” said the first man; he then raised a gun at the cage.
The second man slid a key into the padlock and opened the door.
“Turn around,” the man with the gun instructed the prisoner inside.
Seconds later, a gargantuan man the size of a bus stepped out and into the hall with his beefy hands bound behind his back.
My eyes grew in my head.
“You’ve got to be kidding me!” I shouted at the men. “That’s not a fair fight!” I assumed this was to be Peter’s opponent.
The man with gun grinned. “It’s not supposed to be fair”—he chuckled as they walked past—“It’s supposed to be entertaining.”
“Goddamn you! Pick someone else! Give the guy a chance!” But I knew my pleas would fall on uninterested ears. And they did, as the two men escorted the bus out of the room.
Too enraged anymore to even curse my frustrations, I slammed my palms against the door again, and then slid my back down the brick and sat heavily on the concrete floor.
“I know a way out of here,” the woman spoke up.
“If that’s true, then why are you still here?” I never even raised my eyes.
“Well, see that’s the thing,” she said, lowering her voice just above a whisper. “The only reason I’m still in here is because I have a pair of tits. Unfortunately, Ravinia doesn’t swing both ways, so my chances of winning her pardon are pretty much zero. But a guy like you, well, you could probably be out of the trenches after your first fight if you play the game right.”
“She’s tellin’ the truth,” the man with stringy yellow hair said. “You go out there, crush your opponent—”
“But make it bloody—she likes it bloody,” the woman interrupted.
“Yeah, put on a violent show,” the man continued, “and she’ll almost surely send for you within an hour after the fight. You’re a good-lookin’ man. Young. Mad as hell. Got everything going for you.”
I finally raised my head.
“Yeah,” the woman added. “Unfortunately for him”—she nodded in the man’s direction—“looking like a meth-head, no matter how many fights you win, won’t get you anywhere with Ravinia, either.”
“And then once you’re free—” the man said, but was interrupted by the woman again.
“No, let me tell him”—she pushed up on her knees, curled her fingers around the links and peered eagerly across at me—“Once you’re free, then you can come down here and set us free.” She pointed at herself and mouthed “me”, then pointed her thumb at the man in the cage next to hers and mouthed, “not him”.
She smiled hopefully at me from behind her prison door. The man, who did remind me of a meth-head, looked hopeful, too, but also irritated—he shook his head and glanced in the woman’s direction with an expression of warning.
I was not interested in the two; I didn’t care about getting either of them out of this place, or even taking their advice and going through with their plan. Not all the way, at least. If what they told me was true, then I would absolutely put on a violent and bloody show, and I would kill anyone I had to for Thais’ freedom, and I would accept this ‘Ravinia’s’ request that I meet her privately, with false intentions of showing her a good time—but I’d kill her before I ever put my dick in her.
And that became my plan, in a matter of the eighty-four seconds I took to contemplate it: I would kill Ravinia, find Thais, and get the hell out of the place before the sun rose the next morning.
The first fight of the night was over quick, announced by the sound of the door opening again.
Peter did not walk back in; instead, the bus of a man who had killed him strode past without uttering a word, and with Peter’s blood still glistening on his fists.