The Burning World (Warm Bodies #2)(39)

“It was never a negotiation, was it,” Julie says, watching soldiers mount a grenade launcher to the hood of a Toyota pickup. “You’d take a willing merger if you could get it, but you were coming in one way or another.”

A bitter smirk touches Abram’s mouth. “We offer innovative solutions to modern problems.”

He parks the truck next to one of the cabins. He hops out and goes inside, and we follow him.

It’s warm and dry in the cabin, and surprisingly cozy with a fire crackling in a little iron stove. There’s a twin bed and two chairs, a TV and an old video game system. Perhaps a room for one of the family’s adolescent boys seeking independence and manhood. The old bloodstains on the curtains suggest an abrupt end to his quest.

His room is now occupied by a woman and a girl. Both of them sit in front of the TV, watching an airplane take off, watching a cat play with an injured bird, watching long-dead singers perform for long-dead celebrity judges. The kaleidoscope of images splashes strange colors on the walls of the room.

“About time,” the woman says without looking up.

The girl runs to Abram and hugs his leg, but she doesn’t smile. She is about six years old, straight black hair, tawny skin—the blond, ruddy-faced woman is clearly not her mother. One of the girl’s eyes is big and dark, the other is covered by a sky-blue eye patch with a daisy painted on it.

“Hey, little weed,” Abram says and hefts her into the crook of his arm. “You been having fun with Carol while I was gone?”

The girl shakes her head sadly.

“Well of course you haven’t. Carol’s no fun.”

“She asks when you’re coming back about every five minutes,” Carol says. “I was about to tell her you died, you fuckin’ deadbeat.”

“It’s been a busy week.”

“So I hear. You owe me five days with Luke.”

Abram bounces the girl on his arm, smiling absently. “I might be on assignment for a while, but when I get the days . . . yeah.” He puts her down. “Sprout, I need you to get your backpack and pack up your clothes. We’re going on a trip.”

Carol frowns. “A trip? The fuck are you talking about?”

Abram ignores her and begins throwing clothes and food into a backpack.

“Hey Kelvin. You can’t take your kid on assignment—”

“Thanks for watching Sprout, Carol. You can head home now if you want.”

The light on the walls turns red and the TV’s audio cuts to a warbling alert tone. Abram freezes over his pack.

“Oh shit,” Carol says, rushing up to the screen like her favorite show is about to start. “Did they finally get in? Are we live on Fed TV?”

The tone plays over a blank red screen for about two seconds, then the kaleidoscope continues.

A bear swiping a salmon out of a stream. A lion pouncing on a zebra in lazy slow motion. Soldiers marching into a village.

“This fucking code,” Carol mutters. “Can you follow it yet, Kelvin? I haven’t finished my homework.”

“Nope,” Abram says with a casual calm that belies the haste of his packing. “Check the producer’s guide.”

Carol pulls a thick binder off a shelf and thumps it down on the table as the TV flashes through its collection of tropes. “I can’t believe we’re gonna keep using this Old Gov bullshit for all our messaging,” she says, flipping through the binder’s tabbed and laminated pages. “Why can’t we just say it straight?”

Abram chuckles in spite of himself. “If we ‘said it straight’ people might actually understand us. Can’t have that.”

Carol glances back at him. “Huh?”

“It’s right there in the title.” He jabs a thumb toward the binder, which looks like a manual for some vintage industrial machinery. “Leveraging Euphemism for the Prevention of Overcomprehension.”

Carol examines the binder’s cover. “I’ll say it again—huh?”

He zips up his pack. “Forget it. I’m sure this is just a test run anyway.” He moves toward the door.

A voice cuts through the background music, methodical and grim: “Everything happens for a reason. Everything has its place.”

On the TV, a gorilla paces in a zoo enclosure.

“Man is the only creature who questions his.”

The gorilla fades to a badly lit photo of a man’s face.

Abram’s face.

Carol’s eyes widen and she looks at Abram. “Well that one was clear en—”

Abram cracks a fist into her temple. She sinks to the floor.

“What the fuck!” Nora shouts.

Abram snatches a gun out of Carol’s belt and tosses it to Nora. “You know how to use that, right?”

Nora opens her mouth to reply, then a shot of a goldfish swimming in a tiny tank fades to a photo of Nora sitting on the floor of her cell, scowling at the camera, and she goes quiet.

“What the hell is this?” Julie whispers as a goldfinch in a cage fades to a dim shot of her strapped into the torture chair.

“Suffering comes when man climbs out of his place. When he resists his nature and rejects his role.”

Sprout is staring at her unconscious nanny and whimpering. Abram hefts his pack over his shoulder and grabs his daughter’s hand. “Move,” he says to everyone in the room, and then he’s gone.