The World Without Flags

When they’ve stopped laughing, the first bandit comes forward, stepping out of the shadows toward me. He’s got a lean, dirty face, with thin, cruel eyes. The eyebrow on his right eye is almost totally missing from a scar, and his right eye has a milky color to it. I doubt he sees through it. His good eye shimmers with dark intelligence. This one is dangerous. “Now don’t you move so much as an inch,” he says as he comes closer. “Don’t you budge.” His gun is tense in his hands. I keep as steady as I can, but it’s hard not to shake a little, knowing just the tiniest movement could end your life. “There you go,” he says to me as he gets closer. “There you go.” He’s close enough now so that I smell him, a mixture of smoke and sweat and dried shit. He takes my hands and spins me around. Before I know it, he’s got me down on the ground, tied up.

With my face pressed to the ground, I watch as they guide Eric out of his stall. The way they do it tells me they know what he is. They’re careful to stay clear of his face and hands, and the way they guide him with gentle tugs tells me they’ve done this before. These aren’t normal bandits, I realize. They know what they’re doing. My mind races. Why would they want to keep an infected person alive? I’m glad they do, it keeps Eric alive a little longer, but the question is disturbing. I try not to think what they want with me alive. I can’t think about that. I have to plan a way to get both of us out of this alive.

71

The caravan of assholes is made up of four other bandits plus the three who surprised me. The one with the milky eye seems to be something like the leader. At least people ask him what to do and he tells them. The other four are scraggly, dirty, vicious beasts. Their eyes glitter darkly, without intelligence, just malice and cruel humor. They are like a pack of starving dogs, willing to do anything to survive, and enjoy it when it has to be done. Together they have an attitude that’s hard to describe, like looking at the edge of a sharpened blade. These are what people can become, malignant shells, ready to tear at anything that gets in the way of a full stomach or a shot of whiskey. These are the ones who kill as easy as coughing, as naturally as sneezing. These are the ones who laugh at another’s suffering, who revel in perverse joy to see pain in another person. They aren’t human anymore. If Eric and I are going to survive, I have to be very careful. I have to use my head. I have to think.

I’m not the only captive. Stumbling next to me is a woman around forty. Her face is covered in caked, dark blood. I’m not sure it’s her blood. Her black hair is going grey. She doesn’t look at me when the bandits shove me in line next to her. Both of us are bound at the hands by rough rope that is already biting into my skin. There’s another girl too, on the other side of the older woman. She’s young, younger than me. Her face is streaked with tears, but her eyes are like pits drilled into the dark earth. I look away. I don’t want to know. I don’t.

The three of us are tied to a cart. The back of the cart is a wooden cage, but so badly made, with such lack of skill, that it looks like it would fall apart in a stiff wind. Inside the cage are two people: one is Eric, who is lying where he fell when they shoved him inside; the other is a young woman who stares out of the wooden slats with dark, bleeding eyes. She has her head turned slightly up, the opposite shoulder down, in a strange contortion. It’s not hard to know that she has the Worm too. Although her hair is filthy, her face is wrecked, and her body has shriveled down to leather over bones, I can still see some prettiness in her, the way you can see the child in a man or woman if you look closely. I glance over at the two other prisoners. Mother? Sister? Was this another family who, like me, had to hide away with their diseased to keep from getting killed? Or is there no relation? Everyone is so filthy, it is hard to tell. That’s the world we live in: so covered in grime and horror that you can’t recognize anyone.

I can’t think of these others. I have to think about us, Eric and I. I don’t know why we’re not dead, but it’s not good. I swallow drily. It might even be worse than dying.

I turn when there’s some joyful whoops and hollers behind me. A second later, the house and barn where Eric and I were able to rest leaps to flame. The bandits jump up and down and howl in front of the growing fire. I feel the heat from it from where I stand. The fire makes a sound like rushing wind and throws giant sparks spiraling into the air. It only takes minutes for the blaze to consume the house and the barn.

Then the caravan lurches forward, jerking painfully at my wrists. I close my eyes and walk, trying to battle away the despair.

72

I learn their names while they’re arguing about which ones to rape that night.