Chapter 35: Truman

As Doctor Jack had predicted, Truman could, in fact, pick locks. Learning to do so had been a nice distraction from studying the vocabulary books over the last few days. Truman still wasn’t very good at it, however, and it didn’t help that he was working in the dim light of early morning, with his head still spinning from what they’d done to him the night before. It took him a long time to get the lock off Ramona’s ankle and free her. After he did, she shuffled over and helped Lou pull up the stake to which he was chained.

“Help Truman,” she said when they were done with that part of the plan. “I’ll get my coat and see what other stuff we can take.”

Doctor Jack had also been careful about not letting Truman see the combination to one of the locks on his cage, and Truman definitely had not learned how to undo that kind of lock. He thought you were supposed to listen to it as you turned the dial, but he’d already tried that on many previous nights without success, so he didn’t try again this morning. Instead, he’d unscrewed some of the bolts that held the bars to the frame of his cage. The cage had not been carefully constructed, and some bolt heads were exposed, especially along the top. But not all of them, so Truman couldn’t simply disassemble the whole thing and slip the bars out. There were some bolts along the bottom holding it together, but with Lou’s help, he thought he could now wrench and bend the bars out of the way enough that he could slip through. It was taking more time than he’d expected, and was making more noise, too, with the cage rattling and creaking as they worked.

Truman winced and was temporarily blinded by the lights coming on in the tent. Not the torches of the night before, but the regular house lights. He covered his face as he heard Lou groan from the uncomfortably harsh illumination.

“Well, damn,” Doctor Jack said, as Truman brought his hands down and saw the man in the middle of the tent. “And here I was, trying to be nice, getting up early to check on you, to see if you were still moving, and you’re trying to get away.” He had his pistol out. “You are one annoying little fucker, you know that? You just don’t learn. Smart as hell and you don’t have any common sense—that’s your problem. And now you got poor Lardo on your side. You’ve gone and gotten him in trouble now, too. But that’s always how it is with troublemakers, alive or dead. They just drag other folks into their mess and ruin things for everybody. Now we’ll have to think of something special for the two of you. Maybe something with fire. Yeah—people always like that. Oh—make you two dumb asses fight while you’re on fire! Yeah, that might work. But anyway, once we finish with you two, I’ll hardly have a show anymore and I’ll have to buy more stock and train them. Well, at least I have Dalia to help me with that, but still—what a mess.”

Truman heard a whistle from the other side of the tent. Doctor Jack turned toward the sound just as the cannon went off. The ball hit him, and he flew up and backward, not as far as Lou had when he did it for his show. He landed on his back and lay still. Truman couldn’t see the actual wound, but for a moment he watched the bloodstain grow, darkening the right side of his jacket.

“What’re you doing?” Truman said as he went back to working on the bars. “People will hear that. We’ll be caught now for sure.”

Ramona came over and helped Lou pull on the one bar they’d bent the farthest. “Shhh. Just hurry. They’ll think they’re just practicing. You know how fucking noisy they are all the time. They won’t notice one more bang. They’ll go back to sleep.”

Truman wriggled through the opening. It felt so good to be out of there, even though his whole body ached and his head still buzzed. He heard a moan from Doctor Jack and walked over to him. Truman couldn’t tell if the cannonball were still inside him, or if it had gone all the way through. He didn’t see it in the hole in the man’s stomach, but that was so full of blood it might be in there, maybe behind all the guts and stuff. It didn’t matter, of course, but Truman felt strangely curious about it as he knelt down next to the dying man. Funny, too, how people’s muscles tensed up, Truman thought, as he had to use both hands to pry the gun out of Jack’s hand. Lou and Ramona stood next to him as he worked on getting it loose.

Doctor Jack gave a wet, wheezing chuckle as Ramona knelt down next to Truman. “Ah, women,” Jack said. “I should’ve known you’d be in on it too.”

“Yes, you should’ve,” Ramona hissed. Her eyes narrowed and her look frightened even Truman, though he could hardly blame her for her stored-up hatred.

Doctor Jack laughed a little harder. His wound bled more when he did, so Truman pressed down on his shoulder and tried to shush him. “Stop, calm down,” Truman said. “You’ll make it hurt worse.”

“Oh, fuck, you all can talk. Well, then I guess it was just a matter of time before something like this happened.”

“Yeah, we can do lots of things,” Ramona said. “You just never bothered to find out.” Doctor Jack gasped and writhed under Truman’s hand as she plunged her fingers into the wound. She held them there a while, blood welling up to the middle of her forearm as she smiled, then she opened her mouth and sighed. “How’s it feel, having something moving around in your guts? How’d you like to do that every night while guys laughed and jerked off and called you their ‘babe’ and their ‘bitch’?”

Ramona brought her bloody, dripping hand to her face and considered it a moment, before taking her pinkie and ring fingers into her mouth, up to the second knuckle. Like everything she did, it seemed sensuous and horrible at the same time.

Ramona held her index and middle finger out to Truman. “You want some?” she said, smiling with bloody teeth. “Only nice thing I’ve ever gotten from him.”

“No, thank you,” Truman said quietly.

“Lou? You want to reach in there before we go? Liver should be nice,” she said before taking the two fingers in her own mouth. Truman couldn’t help but stare as she worked her lips and tongue around the two bloody digits.

“No,” Lou replied. “Lou hasn’t wanted to eat since he saw Martin with the rats. Never been hungry since.”

Doctor Jack rallied for a moment, raising his voice again and pushing up against Truman’s hand, finally forcing Truman’s attention away from Ramona. “Fuck you all,” he said. “You’re a bunch of sick, fucked-up monsters, even if you’re not as stupid as I thought. So fuck you.” He fell to coughing a bit before he wheezed, went slack, and closed his eyes. Truman thought he’d be gone soon, if he weren’t already.

“Oh my God!” someone squealed from across the tent. Truman looked to see Dalia there in the entrance, the sunlight framing her tiny body.

Truman and Ramona both stood as the girl came towards them. Dalia stared at the body, then brought her gaze up to Truman’s face. She looked shocked, but as they stared at each other, her features grew harder.

“You killed him?” she said, looking back at the body, then up at Truman again. “You killed him because he hurt you? How could you?”

“No,” Truman started. “No, he came in this morning. He had his gun out. He was going to shoot us.” Truman showed her the gun, but the gesture only seemed to increase her agitation. She cringed from him and screeched.

Ramona, carefully hiding her bloody hand behind her back, took a step toward Dalia, her other hand extended toward the girl. “He was going to shoot them,” she said. “So I shot him with the cannon. It was my fault. Don’t be mad at him.”

Truman made a show of setting the gun beside Doctor Jack’s body before taking a step forward. “There—I don’t want that,” he said. “I’m sorry we hurt him, Dalia. We didn’t know what else to do.”

Dalia looked at the body, then at each of them, ending with Truman. “You all can talk—not just the Professor? Then you’re all smart. You should’ve known better than to act like this. I was coming here this morning to see if you were all right. I was gonna tell Doctor Jack I didn’t want to be his friend anymore, if he was gonna be so mean. But now you’re mean, too. I would’ve helped you escape, if that’s what you wanted, and then you wouldn’t have had to hurt him. I know Doctor Jack was mean sometimes, but you were always nice. He was mean to hurt you, but you should’ve been nice and not hurt him back. Why’d you have to go and ruin that?”

Truman looked in her eyes—those beautiful eyes that’d seen so much they shouldn’t have. He hung his head. “I’m sorry. Please forgive me, Dalia.”

“It’s not up to me,” she said. “I forgive you, but I can’t be your friend anymore. I can’t be friends with bad people, even if I feel sorry for them. Now you all should go before more people come and hurt you and you hurt them. More badness.” She shook her head.

“What’re you going to do?” Truman asked.

“I’ll stay here. He’ll need to see someone he knows when he gets back up, or else he’ll get scared and angry. He was so smart when he was alive. I’m sure I’ll be able to teach him some tricks now, but he won’t learn if he’s all mad and scared.”

Truman looked to the body, then to Ramona, who shrugged. “But he might—not be friendly when he gets up,” Truman said.

“No, probably not,” Dalia continued. “They never are, at first. But I don’t think he’ll be able to walk, from the looks of him. That’ll make teaching him tricks harder, but it means I don’t have to run away now.”

“Kid’s smart,” Ramona said.

Truman bent down to retrieve the pistol, which he carefully gave to Dalia, handle first. “All right, but if any more dead people come close, you run back to your mother, and lock yourselves in your house, okay? And take this to her. You all might need it. I think there’s going to be some trouble.”

“All right,” Dalia said, taking the gun.

“Oh, and Dalia, could you tell me one more thing? I heard something about the City Patrols. Do they have a base near here? Where would I find them?”

“Yeah, their base is just a little farther outside the city walls, and closer to the river.” She pointed. “You go out of camp that way, and keep going. You should see it before too long.”

“Thank you, Dalia,” he said. “I’m so sorry we can’t be friends anymore.”

“Me, too, Professor,” she said, nodding. Her features softened a bit. “But I’ll pray for you.”

“You will?” Truman had never heard anyone say that, and he didn’t quite know how he felt about it—touched, but also a little offended. From anyone but Dalia, the gesture would’ve seemed oddly presumptuous, he thought. And from her, even the harshest, most judgmental comment or action would have a certain irresistible grace, so how could something as generous and innocent as this remark not move and impress him?

“Oh yes. Jesus says to pray even for your enemies.” There was just a hint of her impish smile. “But don’t worry—you’re not my enemy. I just mean I’d pray for you even if you were. You’re just a bad man that I can’t be friends with. So I’ll pray that you not be so bad.”

“Oh. Well, thank you. I appreciate that.”

Truman looked back at Dalia as he left with Ramona and Lou. The child was sitting where the now undead Doctor Jack could see her, but far enough out of his reach that he couldn’t do anything to her except be perturbed or comforted by her presence. Watching the feeble motions of his arms and listening to his moans, Truman wasn’t sure which effect it was having on the dead man, but he now trusted in the girl’s judgment and quiet strength even more completely than before.