Fireside Read online

  He didn’t have any weapons besides a knife, so he knew that going up against them would be suicide. Judd may not have had much to live for—even back then when he was healthy—but he was alive and planned to stay that way. He hid and observed in silent rage at the loss of his food and resources. They stayed for days, loading up their giant trucks with basically everything that was moveable.

  After three days, the hunger in Judd’s belly had grown beyond his ability to control any longer. His friends whispered to him in the darkness that he would be safe if he snuck up to one of the trucks and took back some of the food that they’d taken from him. He’d argued that he would be caught. His friends wouldn’t listen to the logic he presented to them. They were convinced that he’d be okay if he waited until the middle of the night—and they’d never apologized for being wrong, he thought angrily as he walked towards his room.

  He’d finally relented to their murmurings of safety and crept up to the side of a truck where he’d seen them place the canned goods they’d stolen from his home. His friends had promised to watch his back for any type of trouble; he’d been foolish enough to believe them. They typically weren’t very reliable and abandoned him when he needed them the most. They’d missed the approach of the youth sneaking up on him in the darkness.

  He was caught off guard by the cool muzzle of the youth’s rifle pressed against his jaw as he reached underneath the tarp. Judd knew instantly that all the years of sneaking and hiding since the big booms had come to an end. He remembered television—oh God, did he miss that!—and the damage that a gun could do. He’d watched a show one time where a group of bikers ambushed a policeman and spread his blood like paint on the side of his car. He definitely did not want his blood painting the truck, so he held up his hands in surrender.

  Judd couldn’t help but giggle at the idea that he was afraid of his blood painting a truck. Was that my inspiration? he wondered as he tapped the nub of his index finger on the side of his head. Out loud, he said, “I never realized that’s where it came from. Wow, funny.”

  He stopped thinking about painting and remembered the master. Judd had turned to the youth who held the gun against his face and tried to smile. Unfortunately, the jagged, rotten stumps where his teeth had broken on cans before he figured out how to use a can opener scared the boy. He lashed out with the wooden part of his gun and knocked poor old Judd to his knees.

  Judd cried out in pain and the youth wrapped a gloved hand over his mouth, dragging him away into the darkness away from the trucks. He was beaten savagely with the rifle and begged for mercy. None came. The youth was relentless in his anger at Judd for trying to steal the things that were rightfully his.

  He’d passed in and out of consciousness until finally, the beating stopped and he awakened in the prison yard. The youth told him that what he’d experienced was merely a sampling of the pain that he would visit upon the watcher if he didn’t do what he asked. Of course, Judd promised that he would do whatever the man wanted him to. He would have been crazy not to—and that was one thing that Judd was not, no sir, he was not crazy. Those kinds of people, the crazies, lived in the isolation ward. The nurses used to let him walk around outside the ward, even gave him important jobs to do like keeping the windows on the guard shacks clean so they could keep the crazies locked away.

  The youth didn’t believe him that he wouldn’t run away, so he broke Judd’s knee and then left him in the warden’s office. The next night, the youth returned with food and several large bottles of water. He gave Judd a bottle of pills with careful instructions about how many to take and when, he said that they’d keep the infection away and that his leg would heal.

  The trucks left and Judd thought he’d never see them again. The food that the youth had given him ran out so he crawled through the prison to the cafeteria and found enough scraps to last him a long time. He made new friends with the men behind the bars in their old cells, although they never wanted to come outside, so he always had to go to them to talk, which got annoying sometimes. Why did he always have to be the one who sought out their company? Wasn’t he a good enough friend that they’d want to come see him? Kinda rude when you think about it, yes sir.

  Even though his knee flared out at a painful and awkward angle, his leg did eventually heal enough for him to walk unaided. The injury made running or traveling for long distances impossible, though. One day, he was minding his own business, rolling down the cellblock hallway in the warden’s chair when the youth materialized in front of him. He’d aged into a man by that time and asked what Judd had seen since their last encounter.

  Judd tried to avoid the question and asked his friends behind the doors for help. Again, they abandoned him, choosing to look the other way and not offer any assistance. The man beat him with a heavy stick, screaming at him that he had to be the eyes and ears outside of Salmon-Jello. He was the watcher.

  Judd had been confused. Why was the man so angry about fish-flavored gelatin? The pretty nurses used to give him Jello and it was one of the only things—besides television!—that he missed about life before the big booms. Of course, fish Jello sounded nasty, but it wasn’t reason to beat up poor Judd. Finally, he realized that Salmon-Jello was the name of a place. He begged for forgiveness once again and the man relented as Judd told him all about his friends in their cells and the food supply that he’d found. Telling the man about his life in the prison before the big booms seemed to calm the man slightly. He introduced himself as Kendrick Rustwood.

  Kendrick told Judd that he worked for him now and his job was one of the most important out of all the people that Kendrick had working for him. He was to be the watcher. If any soldiers in the trucks came back from Salmon-Jello, Judd had to find a way to contact his new master.

  Judd wasn’t a fool. He promised to work hard at being a watcher and Kendrick seemed satisfied with his vow. Then the man turned and left the cellblock, telling him that he’d be back with an army soon.

  From the window, Judd saw him get on a bicycle and pedal off in the direction that the sun came up in the mornings, which seemed silly to him. It was so hot, why anyone would want to go closer to the sun was beyond his understanding. He watched until Kendrick disappeared and began planning how he could watch for the soldiers as he’d promised he would.

  A long time later, it could have been months or maybe years, Judd didn’t really have a good way of keeping track of time, Kendrick returned with trucks of his own. These were smaller than the ones that the soldiers had used and had paintings of giant birds all over them. Judd liked the birds and planned to draw them on the walls. He thought that would please Kendrick.

  About twenty men came with Kendrick, all of them mean and vulgar. Judd’s friends didn’t like the men, so they kept quiet, which only made them the butt of the men’s jokes. They laughed and used the ends of brooms to reposition his friends, who couldn’t get out of the way. It infuriated Judd that they’d pick on his friends, but knew better than to mess with their kind. They were just like the nasties over in Cellblock A; he didn’t like going to Cellblock A because of all the mean and rude things the prisoners over there said to him.

  The images of what Kendrick’s men had done to his friends made Judd stop as he limped through Cellblock B. He peered into Jake’s cell and asked, “You doin’ okay, buddy ol’ pal?”

  I don’t like when you think about what they did to me, Jake replied.

  “I’m sorry, Jake. I know you don’t. I couldn’t help it. The soldiers came back! I have to tell the master that the soldiers were here. I couldn’t help myself from thinking about it. I was just remembering about when I met him.”

  It’s humiliating. My eyesight is still blurry, Jake muttered accusingly.

  Judd squeezed his eyes shut in an effort to not remember. Every time he tried not to remember something, it only reminded him of what he was trying to not remember, which made him remember what he was trying to forget. Why is the human mind so difficult? he asked himself and then
cut off his thoughts. It certainly wouldn’t do to be answering your own question; that’s what the crazies in the East Ward did, he giggled out loud again.

  The images of that night flooded back into him and even though he felt bad for the hurt that it would cause Jake, he couldn’t stop the memory. One of the men had reached through the bars and pulled Jake’s head towards him. Part of Judd’s mind realized that the skull had come completely off of the skeleton’s body, but that part of his mind wasn’t usually allowed to speak. All it did was make day-to-day life harder for Judd when that part voiced its opinions.

  The thug had pulled Jake’s head over to the bars and shouted, “Hey, you know how we always say things like ‘I’m gonna skull fuck you?’ Well, watch this!” He unzipped his trousers and poked his dick back and forth into poor Jake’s eye sockets. His friend screamed in pain as the men howled in laughter. Several of them tried to position a couple of his other friends with their rear ends towards the cell doors so they could rape them. Thankfully, Judd’s friends had collapsed and refused to cooperate. Charlie hadn’t talked to him since that night, though.

  Come on, Judd! I told you not to think about that! Jake admonished.

  He ducked his head low between his shoulders. “Sorry, Jake. I didn’t mean to. I…” He remembered why he was in the cellblock. He didn’t have time for small talk, he had a mission to perform. “I gotta go tell Kendrick about the soldiers!”

  Judd hurried away from Jake’s accusatory, if blurred, stare and made his way up the staircase to the warden’s office where he kept the machine. He wished that he could have kept it in his room so he could be encouraged by his friends, but the office was the only place where the antenna would reach the roof and have a clear line of signal to his master.

  He limped past the squiggly, rust-colored birds that he painted in the stairwell in his own blood a few months prior. In hindsight, that had been a bad idea. He got lightheaded halfway through the project and birds four and five looked a little off to him. He wanted to fix them, but couldn’t bring himself to cut off another finger.

  That night, long ago when the Vultures visited and did those awful things to his friends, Kendrick had given him a gift. Several gifts, really. First off, he didn’t allow the men to harm poor old Judd and then he gave him more food and several barrels to collect rainwater so he could stay healthy. The best gift that he’d given the watcher was a way to contact him.

  Somehow, Kendrick had found a radio—a radio!—that worked. It was green and had black keys with white numbers and green letters on the front. It was a very fancy piece of equipment that only specialized operators like Judd knew how to use. The master had showed him how to operate it and said that he must always leave the batteries out of it and could only use the radio if the soldiers returned.

  His hands shook in anticipation. He’d waited oh so very long to talk to Kendrick again. Sure, they’d gotten off to a rocky start with the beatings, but old Judd had deserved it for not knowing what the master wanted. Besides, he’d been beaten his whole life by the people in the prison, so he could handle little things like a few bruises and broken bones. The master was only trying to teach him the correct way of doing things. He’d even broken Judd’s leg so he could stay safe with his friends behind the safety of the prison fences. That way, he didn’t get hurt out in the wild lands around the town. It was for his own good, after all.

  In the warden’s office, he worked the latch to open the compartment where the battery went and folded the hinged lid over. Inside the drawer was a battery that had never been opened, it was sealed in a metallic foil bag of some sort. Judd made quick work of the packaging with his knife, wrinkling his nose at the strange odor that came from inside.

  Once the battery was free of the foil, he examined it until he found the indention where the plug down inside the battery box would fit and aligned the two before pushing the battery home. He tapped it gently several times to ensure that it was seated properly and then closed the lid, latching it to ensure a good connection between the post and the battery.

  He connected the wire that ran to the antenna on the roof to the upper left of the radio like he’d been shown and then fiddled with the knob on the left until he rotated it all the way over to the letters “FCTN TST” and waited. Judd didn’t know what the letters meant, but Kendrick had told him that it was important to do that first to get it going.

  The little screen lit up with a pretty greenish-yellow light and the word “GOOD” appeared in black letters. That meant the radio worked, so he twisted the knob back up to the “ON” position. He pulled a notebook out of the desk drawer that had a secret code written on it.

  Judd couldn’t help but mumble the words out loud as he pushed the buttons. Sometimes talking out loud helped him to concentrate and not screw it up. “One. Two. Three.” He tore his eyes away from the screen and verified the next number in the code before continuing. “Four… Five!”

  He waited. Nothing happened so he checked the notebook again. That’s right, he was supposed to hit the “STO” button. He depressed it and again, nothing happened. Judd picked up the radio and looked at it. Why wasn’t it working? Kendrick had made it work to show him. Had all that time caused the radio to go bad, like all the rest of the electronic stuff, like the television?

  Then he remembered about the black handset with the twisty cord. “Oh, man. How could I have been so stupid?” he yelled, startling himself with the noise. He plugged in the handset and examined it. There was a button on the side of it that he had to push to talk.

  He pushed the button in with his middle finger and what remained of his pointer. “Uh, hello. This is Judd. Master?”

  He listened to the receiver and still nothing happened. Maybe I should have practiced this a few times, he told himself. He thought back to that night when Kendrick had shown him how to operate the radio and remembered that he had to let go of the button for them to answer.

  His fingers flew open to allow the radio to work and he almost dropped the handset in the process. He listened for a few seconds and then pressed the push-to-talk button again, “Hello. This is Judd.”

  He released the button immediately this time and a woman answered, “Hello, Judd. My name is Starr. The Vultures have been waiting for your call.”

  Judd was ecstatic that the radio worked, but he was disappointed also. He’d wanted to talk to the master, not some girl. The only girls that he’d ever talked to were the nurses and his momma, but they’d abandoned him to the prison with only his friends for company. “Uh…hello?” he asked into the handset. “Is Kendrick there?”

  “Rustwood is presently engaged. Do you have a message for us?”

  He thought about what “presently engaged” meant. He knew that before people got married, they were engaged. Did this Starr-woman mean that Kendrick was getting married and that’s why he couldn’t come to the radio? That must be it! He was happy for his master, getting married was a big deal.

  “Tell him that old Judd says congratulations!” he stated emphatically. “That’s exciting.”

  “Okay… I’ll let him know that you said so.” She sounded angry to him, had he said something wrong? “Do you have news from your location?”

  “No ma’am, the television in the cellblock doesn’t work anymore, so there’s no news.”

  “What the hell are you talking about you crazy bastard? Kendrick said you were a fucking looney, but Jesus!”

  Her insults slid past him and didn’t affect him. Before he came to stay at the detention center people used to say things like that to him all the time. The only time it had ever really bothered him was that one time when the O’Connor boy said that mean stuff and then hit him. Judd didn’t really know what happened after that. The next thing he knew, there were police officers everywhere. They were really nice and gave him a free ride to his new home. The part of his mind that didn’t get to talk much told him that he bashed the boy’s head in with a baseball bat. Of course, that wasn’t true, th
at part of his mind just liked to make him feel bad. That’s why it wasn’t allowed to talk much.

  “No, ma’am, I’m not a looney. The crazy people live in the East Ward and the baddies stay in Cellblock A. I live in Cellblock B and make paintings and talk to my friends. Sometimes we play cards.”

  “Stop. What the hell are you talking about?” the woman asked. “Do you have information about San Angelo or are you just wasting the battery on the radio?”

  “Oh!” She reminded him about why he’d called. “Yes, the Jello soldiers came through in their trucks today.”

  “Jello? What the fuck? Oh, you mean Angelo. The soldiers from San Angelo came in to Eden today. Is that what you’re saying?”

  That’s what he’d just told her. She was the crazy one. He’d already told her about the soldiers three or four times. Talk about not listening. He thought that maybe she was slow in the head, so Judd spoke slowly and made sure to enunciate each syllable. “The soldiers from Salmon-Jello came through town today. Kendrick told me to call when they came back.”

  “Alright. Got it,” she answered. “I’ll tell Rustwood about your message. Keep the radio connected, he’ll contact you soon.”

  Judd leaned back away from the radio and smiled. The master would come back to him soon. He had to tell all of his friends! They would be so excited—well, everyone except Jake. He didn’t like the Vultures and told Judd that constantly. Everyone else would be happy to see their old friends though, especially the guys over in Cellblock A, they really liked the Vultures a lot.

  NINE

  “I’ve always been able to know what would happen in the future,” Maria mumbled, choosing to stare at the empty bowl of stew instead of either adult seated at the table. “I didn’t start having the visions until a few years ago—that’s when my family got mad at me and made me leave.”