Monster Nation by David Wellington

Author:David Wellington [Wellington, David]
Format: epub
Tags: Fantasy
ISBN: 9781560258667
Publisher: Thunder's Mouth Press
Published: 2009-12-17T06:26:24+00:00

Chapter Five

JESUS IS COMING to eat your leg

[Graffiti in an Arby’s men’s room, Grand Rapids, MI 4/8/05]

Florence-ADX sat in the middle of a bowl filled with scrub grass. No trees grew in the fields around the prison, just rocks and weeds, nothing tall enough to hide a fugitive. The prison itself sat low on that empty ground, most of its bulk hidden under the earth, an animal digging itself into the soil against the threat of all that empty blue sky. The clouds overhead shot past on winds that tore them to pieces as they came howling down out of the mountains.

Clark rolled into the Supermax prison at the head of a convoy sixty vehicles strong. Deserted and besieged in a dying land the place looked more spooky than he would have liked—the refugees in his minivans and big rigs had been through a lot already and he hated to deliver them to such a frightening place, but there were no alternatives. He didn’t have time to find another safe location to build a relocation camp. Clark nodded in approval when he saw what had been done in his absence—at least the place had been cleaned up, the dogs put back to work controlling the perimeter. The trailers that constituted Desiree Sanchez’s domain, the Bag, had been moved inside the second tier of fencing, where they would be safe.

The man who had implemented those changes, Vikram Singh Nanda, waited for him at the main gate of the prison. Clark detached Horrocks to square away the men and get them started on their AERs. He greeted his old friend with a brief hug. Something clattered against the epaulets of his uniform and he lifted Vikram’s wrist to get a good look. The Sikh Major wore a hammered steel bracelet on his left wrist. Not regulation, not by any means.

“It is my karra, a sign of my bondage to the teachings of the ten gurus,” Vikram explained, looking almost sheepish. “I do not… normally wear it, though I should.”

“Trying to get right with your God,” Clark muttered, and clapped his friend on the shoulder as he headed inside to the warden’s office. As requested someone had installed a cot and a dedicated communications terminal, a laptop that connected with Washington via a secure satellite network. He intended to spend a lot of time in the small room.

He sat down in the leather chair behind the desk and placed his sidearm in a top desk drawer. He steepled his fingers in front of him and then it all hit at once.

Bannerman Clark had gone for a week with little more than catnaps and cold noodles for sustenance. In that time he had fought a war.

He had butchered civilians.

Innocent, sick civilians who desperately needed medical care and basic services.

He had fought and strived against the unarmed citizens of the United States.

And he had lost anyway.

A cold emptiness like the void of space between galaxies opened up in his stomach and it went all the way down.

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