The World Without Flags

“What’s wrong?” I stand up, confused. For a moment, I think the milk must be spoiled and I’m about ready to laugh, but then I see them in my mind. They flash eagerly in my mind. The granola bars wrapped in plastic. Randy gave them to us at the Homestead. I remember how most everyone ate them and then the Worm came. Then the bar I slipped into Eric’s pocket. Squint ate that one, just hours before he turned. That granola bars. I jump to my feet and stab out an accusing finger at Randy. “You infected us with the Worm!”

Randy turns toward me. His face is no longer marked with careless laughter. His green eyes flash. He wipes his mouth of spit and vomit and strides toward me. “You had to poke around,” he tells me darkly.

I stumble back as he lunges toward me. I try to raise my arm to protect myself, but the last thing I see is Randy’s arm swinging wildly toward me and a brief, beautiful flake of the morning sky as I tumble into darkness.

131

I can’t see properly, like I’m walking through fog or smoke or that I have a thin cloth stretched tight over my eyes. I feel myself walking. One step after another. But it’s not like me. It’s me, but it’s like I’m riding in myself, like I’m watching things happen from a distance. To each side of me are people walking. I look up and it’s my father, a big, burly, hulk of a man. On the other side is my mother, beautiful, thin, delicate with long flowing hair. The world around us is on fire.

I see my father then, his round face, his deeply caring eyes. He takes my face in his hands. “You’ll be okay, Birdie. Do you understand?”

Then he begins to twitch. He closes his eyes and when he opens them, worms begin to writhe out of them, curling in the air, reaching for me. I can’t move. They come closer and closer.

“You’re going to be fine,” my father says as the worms begin to tap at my face as if searching.

Somewhere my mother is singing.

132

I wake up choking. I roll over and sit up. My hands and feet are tied so tightly that they’re numb. I take deep breaths, trying to rid myself of the nightmare.

“She’s awake,” I hear. It’s a voice I recognize and my blood chills.

“I told you she was tough,” answers Randy.

“Still it was unwise to risk striking her so forcefully.” The both of them are behind me, and I struggle to turn around to face them. When I get turned around, I almost wish I hadn’t.

Sitting next to a crackling fire is Randy, smiling at me, revealing his long donkey teeth. Next to him, sitting on a log is Doctor Bragg. He isn’t smiling. He has a long, jagged red scar on his forehead where he was knocked unconscious with the glass jar. It’s angry and red, not entirely healed. His dark, empty eyes are looking at me, but I can’t read that emptiness. Worst even than that is what they have tied up near them. It’s Squint, now entirely claimed by the Worm. His eyes are writhing white clumps of worms. His jaw is crudely sewn shut with barbed wire. The wire enters beneath his chin, through his jaw, and emerges just beneath his nose before the two ends are twisted around each other. Dark ooze drips from this wreckage down his shirt. The two nostril holes where his nose used to be have little metal cones shoved into them. I look away as quick as I can.

“Oh yeah,” Randy laughs. “He’s gruesome, ain’t he?” He laughs again.

“Crude,” Doctor Bragg says unhappily.

“I ain’t having him bite me,” Randy snaps at him. “I told you that.”

“And I informed you,” explains Doctor Bragg with exaggerated patience, “that he is harmless.” He sighs. “You’ve reduced his useful lifespan by half.”

“You’ll have plenty to work with,” Randy says, smiling toward me. “Trust me.”

“You don’t seem to understand,” the Doctor continues. “She is a different specimen. I haven’t had nearly enough subjects of African heritage. I have to infect her differently. She won’t be of any use to me afterwards. Not like him.”

“There’ll be others,” Randy says, still smiling at me. “Lots of others.”

Doctor Bragg looks at me with his long face. For a moment, I see a shock of sadness, like a kind of horror cross his face. But then it’s gone, leaving nothingness in its wake. “No doubt.”

Looking at Randy, a sudden thought fills me, and although I didn’t want to say a thing, I blurt out, “Did you poison Cairo too?”

Randy looks over to me, his green eyes shining in the firelight. “You were supposed to be there to see the whole thing. By this time,” he tells me, “that town is burning its dead.”

“They’re useless to me burned,” says the Doctor unhappily.

I ignore him, seething with anger, and concentrate on Randy. “But why?” the sound comes to me like a hurt cry. I want to sound tougher than that. “You were our friend!”

Randy scoffs. “Yeah, the Vandal is everyone’s friend when he’s got something. When he has something they want. But when he doesn’t, oh, that’s a different story then.” He turns toward the fire. “There ain’t friends anymore.”