Everyone Dies in the End #60

Katarina

Turns out that Dan was a multi-talented guy, or at least a multi-weaponed guy. Bastardized English aside, Dan had shot her. Not with the riot gun, but with a pistol. In the thigh; the right one. The bloody bandage on her bare leg made that much clear. She had woken in the same cell, on the same cot, the same freaking cot, lying there in t-shirt, panties, and bloody bandage.

Smoke curled through the bars of her cell door. She couldn’t see anyone, but didn’t need to; coughing came hot on the heels of the wispy trails—rough, raspy, loose, almost gurgling, coughing. Definitely not healthy, Katarina thought. She swung her legs over the side of the cot and sat up. The blood on the bandage was stiff and dry, but she felt no pain. She wasn’t surprised. Standing, she ran her fingers along the outside of the bandage until she found the adhering tape. With a sharp tug the bandage parted. She let it fall to the floor and examined the leg. Healed, of course. A body incapable of generating its own blood learned to seal its wounds quickly. Otherwise the smallest injury would lead to death. All that remained of the wound was a star-like scar, the skin lighter than the surrounding tissue. Come tomorrow even the scar would be gone. Bullets didn’t scar her kind, most injuries didn’t. But some did. She raised a hand to her face and lightly traced the thin scar that ran the length of her jaw. Nevertheless, she could feel the lightheadedness, the desire, the signals that it was time to feed, accelerated by the loss of blood from the bullet’s ripping journey through her skin.

“He doesn’t kid around.” She looked to the bars. Fat, cancer-ridden, phlegmy Dan regarded her with a slight smile on his lips and a cigarette between his teeth. She didn’t answer.

“Here.” He pushed a pair of khaki pants through the bars. “I think they are about your size.” Katarina didn’t move. “I threw your jeans away. Big hole, lots of blood.” He made a face. “Nasty.” To his credit, Dan’s eyes never left her face. “These are clean,” he added.

Not moving didn’t seem to solve much, so Katarina took the pants and slipped them on. “How do you know my size?”

Dan shrugged. “I got a daughter.”

She regarded the ruddy, red face for a long moment. Dan puffed and regarded back. “Why do you do this?” she asked.

“Like I said, sister, I got a daughter.”

She stepped to the bars. Dan stepped back. Katarina laughed. “Are you afraid of me?”

Dan puffed, Dan coughed, and Dan smiled. “Sure lady, I’m afraid of a lot of things, but most of them are dead now, and I’m still living. So, I figure being afraid isn’t a bad thing.”

She smiled. Dan looked like a lout, but he was anything but. “No,” she replied, “being afraid is never a bad thing. Especially when it comes to us” There was no need to clarify “us,” they both knew who the “us” were. “Your boss would do well to learn that emotion.”

Dan laughed. “I don’t know about that. I’ve been with him since before those pigs nuked us. He don’t fear much. It usually flows the other way around him.” The cigarette was down to the filter now. He dropped it the bucket. The same one in which he spit. Wouldn’t want that clean up job, she thought. He fished another smoke out the pocket in his plaid shirt and lit it. The fumes drifted up, the smell hitting her strongly. All smells hit her strongly. She took a step back. Dan laughed again. “You afraid of me?”

She laughed, genuinely laughed. “I’m afraid of that.” She pointed at the cigarette. “It’s repulsive. How do you suck that into your lungs?”

He looked at the floor. “It’s not that hard. Easier than I lot of things I do.”

She came back to the bars. “Most people. I can…” She paused, thinking of how to best say it. “I can suggest things to them. What’s up with you?

He puffed and looked up. “Dunno, maybe I have a certain lack of imagination.”

She thought it might be more than that, but let it drop. There were other, more important things, which she needed to know. “What does he want with me, Dan?”

“How the hell should I know?” Behind him Katarina noticed a spider making its lazy way up the sheetrock wall. “Look sister, I ain’t his friend. You know what I’m saying? I’m what they call muscle.” The spider disappeared into a small crack where the suspended ceiling met the light green sheetrock.

The acrid smell of Dan’s just dropped cigarette mixed with the smoke of his current, making her eyes water. “You must know, Dan. You work here. What does he do with the others?”

He sucked in more smoke and shrugged. “Depends. Mostly they are muscle.” He laughed, which led to a fit of wet coughing. “Muscle like me.”

Katarina lowered her voice. “But not like you, huh?”

He smiled at her. There was something sad in that smile. “No sister, not like me.”

“So, what about me? He’s got the coven. What does he want with me?”

He regarded her silently for a long moment. “Sister I’m afraid that there is no telling what he wants from you, but I know two things.”

“What’s that?” Katarina asked.

“Thing one, you ain’t gonna like it, and thing two, you’ll do whatever he wants. He always gets what he wants.”

She had opened her mouth to reply when the dizziness hit. Like a wave, a strong wave. She felt her knees go weak and she grabbed the bars of the door, willing the weakness to pass. Dan didn’t step back. Instead he watched, the same sad smile on his face.

The hall began to spin. She had been too long without fresh blood, too long by a good measure. She had fed with Ramzke on the young boy. What? Three, maybe four, nights ago? Too long, and then she had lost more blood in the wounding. She slipped, slid down the bars. She needed blood, needed to feed, her eyes fluttered, and then she collapsed.

Dan didn’t move. At last he spoke, a whisper to himself. “Like I said, he always gets what he wants.”