After the End Trilogy: The Complete Post-Apocalyptic Box Set by Mark Gillespie

Author:Mark Gillespie [Gillespie, Mark]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-07-13T22:00:00+00:00

7

The next morning, Eda and the other three prisoners were dressed.

A man and a woman – Eda didn’t catch their numbers – came into the hut not long after sunrise to help the prisoners put on the outfits that Baldilocks had left for them. It had been a long night inside the hut as Eda had suspected it would be. She’d dozed for an hour or two at most but the close confinement with three strangers, the weird sounds coming from the swamp and of course, the thought of what was to come – that was more than enough to disrupt anyone’s night. There had been other noises inside the hut – mostly this was Murphy’s ridiculous snoring, as well as a scattering of muted conversation between Becky and Mike. Somebody wept at one point.

Eda almost welcomed the dawn when it finally came.

The two numbers had brought with them a light breakfast of dry meat and some salad scraps for the prisoners. Nobody ate a thing.

The garment bags were opened. Four black suits, dusty and wrinkled were pulled out.

Eda allowed the numbers to dress her. Her only protest was a contemptuous expression that she wore throughout. She undressed first, taking off her rain cloak and her other clothes while the men in the hut – at Murphy’s insistence, not Eda’s – were forced to look the other way. Eda thought this gesture, this clutch at chivalry, was ridiculous. They had bigger worries going on.

They put a white shirt and pants on her first. Then came the suit jacket. It felt heavy, like one more burden to carry and on top of that, it felt like someone else’s skin taking over Eda’s body. She watched as one of the numbers put on the tie, turning and pulling until the knot was tight up against the collar of her shirt. She couldn’t believe that people used to put themselves through this shit. Putting on a tie felt like punishment enough.

Eda was allowed to keep her boots on. She was thankful for that at least.

When they were all dressed, the prisoners were taken back to the main camp. They walked through a forest of glue-like sludge to get there, moving in single file with the guards and two numbers marching on either side of them. Overhead, a miserable blackish-gray sky threatened to unleash rain.

The four prisoners weren’t the only ones dressing up for the big day. The Children had taken off their filthy camouflage rags at last. Now they were dressed in what Murphy might have described as their murder clothes.

As Eda walked back into camp, she saw the small community, all of them dressed in long gray cloaks that looked like a cheap bathrobe. A snake-like belt was looped around the waist. The cloaks stopped at the knees and the legs were naked down to the shoes or boots that covered their feet.

They also wore masks over their faces. It looked like the skull of an animal, long and narrow at the snout, like a wolf.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.