02 The Ghost Brigades by John Scalzi

Author:John Scalzi
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2010-07-23T04:00:00+00:00

PART II

EIGHT

It was the black jellybeans that did it.

Jared saw them as he was browsing at a Phoenix Station commissary candy stand, and passed them over, more interested in the chocolates. But his eye kept going back to them, a small container segregated out from the rest of the jellybeans, which were in a mixed assortment. “Why do you do that?” Jared asked the vendor, after his eyes tracked back to the black jellybeans for the fifth time. “What makes the black jellybeans so special?”

“People either love ‘em or hate ‘em,” the vendor said. “The people who hate ‘em—that’s most people—don’t like having to pick them out of the rest of the jellybeans. The people who love ‘em like to have their own little bag of ‘em. So I keep some on hand but in their own space.”

“Which sort are you?” Jared asked.

“I can’t stand them,” the vendor said. “But my husband can’t get enough. And he’ll breathe on me while he’s eating them, just to annoy me. I kicked him right off the bed, once, for doing that. You’ve never had a black jellybean?”

“No,” Jared said. His mouth was watering slightly. “But I think I’ll try some.”

“Brave man,” the vendor said, and filled a small clear plastic bag with the candies to hand to Jared. Jared took it and fished out two jellybeans while the vendor rang up the order; being in the CDF, Jared didn’t pay for the jellybeans (they, like everything else, were gratis on what CDF soldiers lovingly referred to as their all-inclusive package tour of hell), but vendors kept track of what they sold to soldiers and billed the CDF accordingly. Capitalism had made it to space and was doing reasonably well.

Jared took the pair of jellybeans and popped them into his mouth, crushed them with his molars and then held them there as his saliva suffused the licorice flavor over his tongue, vapors of its scent moving beyond his palate and expanding in his sinus cavity. His eyes closed, and he realized that they were just as he remembered. He took a handful and crammed them into his mouth.

“How are they?” the vendor said, watching the enthusiastic consumption.

“They’re good,” Jared said, between jellybeans. “Really good.”

“I’ll tell my husband there’s another on his team,” the vendor said.

Jared nodded. “Two,” he said. “My little girl loves them too.”

“Even better,” the vendor said, but by this time Jared had stepped away, lost in thought, heading back toward his office. Jared took ten steps, completely swallowed the mass of jellybeans in his mouth, reached to get more and stopped.

My little girl, he thought, and was hit with a thick knot of grief and memory that made him convulse, gag and vomit his jellybeans on the level walkway. As he coughed the last fragment of the candies from his throat, a name formed in his head.

Zoe, Jared thought. My daughter. My daughter who is dead.

A hand touched his shoulder. Jared recoiled, almost slipping on the vomit as he twisted away, bag of jellybeans flying from his hand.

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