Page 20 of All Your Days
Jacob huffs, and looks up, too, taking the moment to wipe the sweat off his brow.
“A year? Just over? Definitely no more than two.” Jacob says after just long enough to make me think he wasn’t going to reply.
“Makes sense. I didn’t think I’d seen you before that first day.”
Jacob kicks a rock from the path with a resigned sort of sigh. “Yeah, that was my first trip to The Facility.”
“Oh. Wow, that really sucks. I’m sorry.”
Jacob finally takes his eyes off the barely cleared track, smiling at me. Or, not really smiling, it’s more straightening his mouth at me.
“Yeah, it wasn’t the best intro—”
“Whoa! What the fuck is that?”
Jacob’s interrupted by the shouts of the guards ‘scouting’ ahead. Though it’s quite possible they’ve done their job this time. Even if it’s by accident.
“Ah shit.” Whatever Jacob was about to say before is lost and his grip tightens on the rope in his hand.
Raising the other to his mouth, he whistles so loud it makes my ears ring.
“Oi! Get back here!” He calls, making a round up motion with his whistling hand and clicking his teeth to get the camels to halt.
Ryan, Cale, Malcolm, and Lou all coax their camels back to the train, kicking up a bunch of dust when they come to a stop.
“Right, from here on you stay on the track or you stay on that side.” Jacob explains, pointing to our right, the opposite side of the road to the sign. His voice is hard and deadly serious. “We’re ‘bout to pass Blue Creek Station. Under abso-fucking-lutely no circumstances are you to go on that side of the road. The fence’llstart soon, but even after it ends, you do not fuckin’ cross the road until I tell you it’s clear. Got it?”
“Why not?” Cale asks, already looking over to that side as though Jacob is daring him to go over there and piss on the sign.
“‘Cause if you are lucky, they’ll shoot you on sight. If you aren’t, you’ll wish they had—and the Union won’t give two shits. If youaredumb enough to go in there, you’re on your own. No exceptions. Got it?”
Lou nods, casting a leery eye in the direction of the sign. Cale, Ryan, and Malcolm all mumble a begrudging sort of agreement to behave and then all four are off, the guards riding ahead, pointing and guffawing at the sign, while Lou resumes his place at the rear.
Jacobs' warning didn’t quite prepare me for the sign itself.
It’s not a sign. It’s a warning. The weathered sheet of metal stands two men tall, and at least four wide, with the words ‘Blue Creek Station’ and ‘enter at own risk’ painted haphazardly across it.
The size is easy to estimate, because there, to warn anyone who can’t read the words, are three corpses hanging from the sign—all in different stages of rot.
“Oh my God.” I gasp when we pass the first hanging man, his foot hanging oddly from his body. Unable to help myself, I attach myself to Jacob’s arm, clinging to him in horror at the gory sight. The second man, I notice, before I can wrench my eyes away, is missing a large chunk of his stomach, like it's been eaten away. The third man is missing more than just his stomach. His face is long gone, and so is an arm, and most of half his leg. A tendon, or something like it, trails from his cut off thigh like a ribbon.
My lunch churns in my stomach, my mouth foaming with the need to vomit.
“I was with another group before Sarah.” Jacob nearly shouts after my first heaving gag. Still clinging to him, I look up, justas he looks down, his eyes meeting mine. “I was with them a bit longer. A few years. I was never quite sure of time until I got older. It all kinda blurs together. The leader of that group, Mitch, picked me up from a settlement. But then he got sick, and couldn’t travel anymore. He knew Sarah. All the merchies know each other, by reputation at least, and he knew I’d do well with her. Said she’d look out for me.”
I know exactly what he’s doing; he’s trying to distract me from the awful sight of the bodies on the sign. And it’s working. I only wish it wasn’t too fucking hot to cling to his arm, because I could get used to the feel of his biceps and their ropes of muscles under my hands. I peel myself off him, earning myself another side eyed glance.
Is it too much to ask that it’s because he didn’t want me to let him go?
“Well, I, for one, am extremely grateful that you joined up with Sarah. She was always nice,andif you hadn’t I’d have died for sure that day with the snake.”
Jacob huffs a laugh through his nose, giving Sheba a pat when she sticks her head between us, grunting and waving her spittle covered maw about.
“Well, I’m pretty glad about that, too. Get outta here.” The second part is to Sheba. Or I hope it is, because she’s the one he’s pushing away.
“Where’d you travel with Mitch and his crew?”
“All the way southeast. Used to be a different state. Then up to the other side of the Outback. They travelled up and down, where Sarah’s crew travelled sideways ‘cross the country.”
