Machine Of Death Part 6

"You thought about coming at me?" asked Johnny.

"Dammit, kid. I thought about everything everything." Dalton looked down at Johnny. His face was harsh. "I thought about every possible way to get us both out of here alive, or one of us, or neither of us. I'm trying to figure this thing out. I'm trying to think up a plan where neither one of us gets hurt. So yeah, I thought about jumping you while you were lying there pa.s.sed out. But what good would it do? What would be the point? I'd just be risking my neck for nothing. We gotta do this together. It's the only way, and I know I can get us through it. But we gotta get rid of those knives to do it."

"Forget it!" Johnny's voice was loud. He had taken his knife out and was holding it now, squeezing the handle tightly. "If we ditch the knives, then there's even less hope we'll ever eat again. And dammit, Dalton, even if you can't kill me, there're other things you can do."

Seeing the knife out, Dalton drew his, too. "There's no point dragging this out then, is there? Why not just do it now if you're so sure how it all ends?"

"That's what I thought," said Johnny. "You keep pretending that you don't think I'm gonna kill you. You keep pretending you're not afraid of me. But now what? You trust me so much that you want to fight me when I'm sick?" Johnny lurched forward, half rising. The blood rushed to his head and he almost fell over, but he regained his balance. "You want to come at me?" He waved his knife at Dalton. "You want to come at me, then come!"

Dalton looked from his knife to Johnny's. He clenched his fists and let out a howl. Then he turned and stalked into the jungle, slas.h.i.+ng at vines and branches as he went. He didn't come back at all that day.

Johnny hardly slept at all that night, but he dozed a little towards dawn. Still sick and weak, he couldn't force himself to keep watch any longer. When he woke, Dalton was sitting calmly on a log at the edge of the camp. He held up his hands to show they were empty.

"You were asleep a long time," said Dalton. "If I'd wanted to do anything, I could have done it easily enough."

Johnny nodded, rolling over. "Where's your knife?"

Dalton jerked his head over his shoulder. "See it?" It was sticking out of a nearby tree. "Can I bring you some water now?"

A few minutes later, the two men were facing one another a couple of yards apart. Johnny still kept his knife, but he had sheathed it. They were talking almost easily again.

"I found a spring yesterday," said Dalton. "It was down in a cave, practically underground. I wasn't going to tell you about it..." He paused a minute, then cleared his throat. His jaw was tight when he spoke again. "It's like I said, though. We do this together or not at all."

Johnny sneered. "Yeah."

"Look, the way I see it, this can still turn out a few different ways. I could have left you here and taken the food and the canteen and not told you about the spring. Then I could have let you chase me all over the island. As long as you never caught up to me, I'd be safe. And eventually you'd starve."

Johnny snorted and looked away. "Is that supposed to scare me?" he asked. "I'd get you sleeping or something."

"You're missing the point, kid. I don't want to do it that way. I don't want to be sitting here trying to think up ways to get rid of you. I want to get us both out. And if I didn't have homicide on my ticket, we wouldn't be at each others' throats like this. It's just because we think we already know how it's going to work out. But maybe we're wrong. That's the point I'm trying to get at. Maybe we're wrong. There's more than one way to look at this yet. It doesn't have to be us fighting until you kill me, and then you starving to death by yourself. So forget about that machine and those d.a.m.ned predictions, and we'll just work this out our own way."

Johnny shuddered and closed his eyes. When he opened them, Dalton was holding out his hand.

"Come on, kid. What do you say? Let's be friends still. We got a chance to get out of this alive, both of us. Let's not give up yet."

Johnny sighed and then nodded. He reached up to take Dalton's hand. They shook. "You found a spring then?"

"Yeah," said Dalton. "If you're strong enough to walk, you can wash off some of that muck."

It had been days since Johnny had been on his feet, and after five minutes of walking he could feel it. The jungle was still sticky and hot, and roots kept tripping him up. Dalton led the way, breaking off branches and clearing a path, but Johnny still recoiled from every leaf and every spider web that brushed against him. His nerves all felt like they were twice as sensitive as usual.

"You okay back there?" asked Dalton. He didn't turn around. Johnny only grunted.

Johnny lost track of time. It could have been an hour or two hours. It could have been twenty minutes. All he knew was that he was taking step after step, his hands moving from tree trunks to vines, trying to steady himself. He hated those palm trees. He'd only ever seen them on TV and movies before he s.h.i.+pped out. They had them in Hollywood and Miami, in glamorous places like that. But looking at them up close, they didn't even look like real trees. They just reminded him that he was going to die thousands of miles from home where everything was different. There were moments when he would have given his right arm for an oak or a maple and an ugly little squirrel. Everybody had to die someday, he knew. But why did it have to happen in a place you hated?

Dalton paused and pointed into the jungle. "Fruit tree," he said. "I don't think they're ripe yet, but it's something." Dalton grinned. It was the first time he had looked at Johnny since they started walking. "So don't give up hope yet, kid."

They pushed on a little while longer, and then Dalton stopped at the lip of small cliff. It led down into a dark chasm about fifteen feet deep. Johnny could only see that the walls were steep, and that it was dark under the canopy and rock below. "How you feeling?" asked Dalton. He didn't even wait for an answer. "It's down there, down at the bottom. That's how I missed it the first time."

Johnny leaned forward, his hands on his knees. He didn't hear any water, but it had to be there. He was exhausted. If he was ever going to make it back to camp, he needed a rest and a drink-and food. "Give me a minute," he said. He didn't even want to think about how he was supposed to get down to the spring. Dalton should never have brought him. He should never have come.

"I'll give you a hand," said Dalton, pressing his palm against Johnny's back.

"Wait," said Johnny. Dalton's hand pushed against him. He took a stumbling step forwards. "Wait." The pressure grew more insistent and Johnny felt himself tipping. He took another stumbling step. The edge of the chasm opened wide before him, stony and dark. Johnny's feet sank into thick carpets of moss.

"Sorry, kid," said Dalton. And suddenly Johnny was moving faster than he thought possible. The ground and the trunks of palms rushed by him, spinning into each other as his feet dragged and scuffed and then lifted entirely into the air and for one breathless moment Johnny was touching nothing. He had no connection to anything except Dalton's hand clutching his s.h.i.+rt, and then that too was gone and Johnny tumbled lightheaded through a cus.h.i.+on of air. His arm brushed something rough and the skin split wide open. He tried to push away but it kept coming at him, pinning his shoulder tight until a stabbing pain sliced through his body. Just when he thought his shoulder must snap, his left leg struck hard against something and he sprung free, spinning through the air again before coming down hard once more on his leg. Something happened in Johnny's ankle and a rush of black swallowed up his eyeb.a.l.l.s in a single gulp and left him tingling for a moment.

When Johnny opened his eyes again, there were hands on his body. He thought it must have been three or four pairs, but only Dalton was there. He was stepping back, away from Johnny's body, a knife in his hand. Dalton was sweating hard. Johnny tried to move, but his ankle flared into a throbbing ball of pain. There were brands burning all over his body, sharp points of fire on every muscle and bone.

"Come on, kid," said Dalton. "Listen to me, kid. Did you hit your head?" He was looking down over Johnny, his hands searching his face and head. "Come on, you'll be okay."

Johnny didn't say anything. His mouth was full of blood and rocks. Sharp, hollow pebbles biting into gums. Johnny spit out the blood and the pebbles. Teeth, he knew. Even then he knew. He breathed through his nose. That smelled like blood too.

"I'm sorry," said Dalton. "I'm sorry I had to do it. But I couldn't let you have that knife. I was gonna take it when you were sleeping, but it was too risky. You could have just woken up and stabbed me. You could have just been pretending to sleep. So I had to-I had to. You understand that. I had to do it like this. I knew it wouldn't kill you, so I had to."

Dalton looked down at the knife in his hand. He shook his head and suddenly flung it away, up over the rim of the chasm. "It's gone now," he said. "It's just you and me now. Just us. And we're gonna make it, just like I told you." Dalton crouched down, lowering his face next to Johnny's. "Just trust me, that's all. I'm gonna look out for you. I'm gonna look out for both of us. I'll be back with food and water every day. I promise. I promise I'll be back. I know I can do this."

Dalton stood again. "You were shutting down," he said. "You gave up. You can't do that. I learned that here. Even though you think you're gonna die every minute, you just keep going. You keep doing whatever you can to beat that. And this is what I had to do. And now we'll be okay. You'll see-just trust me, kid. I know I'm not gonna die here. I'm gonna die an old man, murdered warm in my bed. And you too, kid. Both of us, we'll be so old we won't even know what happened."

And then Dalton was gone again, climbing up to the rim of the chasm. Johnny lay there at the bottom alone.

Time pa.s.sed. A lot of time pa.s.sed. Dalton came now and then. Or at least Johnny was aware of him now and then. He brought helmets full of water and left them for Johnny. Warm, gritty water. There was no spring in the chasm, of course. That had been a lie, like all of it. Holding the helmet in his good hand, Johnny lapped at it. When the fever was on, the water seemed to be full of crawling and swimming things, tiny snakes and tiny fish. But Johnny drank it anyway and the snakes and fish wriggled around inside his belly. They wriggled through his intestines and down his leg, down into his swollen ankle. It was broken, maybe infected. But it always hurt and Johnny couldn't put any weight on it. His wrist was better, at least. It was just stiff and sore. Johnny could squirm his way from place to place at the foot of the cliff. He could squirm up to the wall and lean against it. He could squirm over to where Dalton left the water. He could squirm to the corner if needed to relieve himself. But he was stuck down there. There was no way he could make his way back up.

Sometimes Johnny was able to fall asleep just before dawn. He would wake a few hours later, the fever gone for a little while. It was then that he felt hungry. The hunger built inside of him, day by day, brick by brick. First it was an emptiness, and then it was a nauseated feeling. Johnny heaved now whenever he awoke to the hunger. It was the hunger that was going to kill him and he didn't want to die. So he woke and he heaved, and nothing came up save some sour juice and a panic that threatened to swallow him.

Every now and then, Dalton brought something to eat. A piece of fruit, a little bit of fish, some grubs. They were in a jungle, for G.o.d's sake. There should be food hanging from every tree, was.h.i.+ng up on every sh.o.r.e. But day after day Dalton brought only leaves to chew. He was eating plenty, there was no doubt of that. Johnny never could have kept up such activity on the scant food he was getting. No, Dalton was eating everything and only bringing him the sc.r.a.ps he couldn't finish. It should have been the other way around. It should have been Dalton lying in that hole with leaves to chew, and Johnny out filling his belly from the jungle. Dalton wasn't going to starve. Johnny tried telling Dalton this once.

"You were right," said Johnny. He could barely mumble the words. "You were right. You're not going to starve and I'm not going to get stabbed." Johnny's fingers clutched Dalton's sleeve weakly. "I'll give you my knife for the food. You take my knife and give me the food. You won't starve and I won't get stabbed."

Dalton unhooked Johnny's fingers from his arm. "There is no knife," he said calmly. "Now listen to me. No one's coming for us. They would have been here by now. I need to swim to one of the other islands and see if I can find anybody." Dalton set down the helmet, full to the brim with water. "I'll be gone a couple of days at least, so be careful of the water. Until I get back, that's all there is." Dalton stood and reached up to climb the cliff wall. "And I will be back," he said. "Don't think I won't be."

More time pa.s.sed. Johnny lapped at the water in the helmet. The hollowness in his stomach grew and sharpened, and then dulled again. He didn't heave anymore when he awoke. The hunger was too familiar. How long had it been since he had eaten? Johnny didn't know. He didn't even know how many days he had been in that hole. He moved his good hand over his body, feeling his arms and legs and ribs and face. He wanted to feel how much flesh had wasted away, how thin he was. He didn't feel like a skeleton yet. There were still some meaty parts on his body. He had seen pictures of people with nothing but skin and bones, so he still had time. Of course he did. Hadn't he read that it takes a month to starve to death as long as you have water? But he didn't have much water. Not anymore.

More time pa.s.sed. n.o.body came. Had Dalton left him there? Had Dalton been killed or captured? Or was he just sitting up above at the rim of the chasm, waiting for Johnny to finally starve to death? Johnny licked a wet rock experimentally. Was that how he was going to live? Was he going to spend a month licking rocks while he slowly deteriorated into a bag of sticks? Johnny's ankle and wrist hardly hurt anymore. He couldn't feel anything beyond the ravening tumult in his stomach. Dalton had done this. Dalton had killed him, had tortured him to death. How long had he been gone? Two days? Three days? If he were coming back, he should be back soon.

Johnny lifted his good leg slowly. Inch by inch, he raised his knee to his chin and curled his body so he could reach the boot. How long had he worn this boot? No doubt his toes were shriveled and black inside. Covered in mold maybe. Infected, gangrenous. Dalton had done that to him too. Slowly, Johnny picked at his bootlace. It took him ages to untie the knot and pull the lace out of one eyelet. He stopped and rested. His fingers were numb and they felt raw. Johnny pulled at the lace again. For hours, he worked at it, pulling it from eyelet to eyelet, until finally it was free of the boot. He clenched his fingers. The lace was still strong at least-it hadn't rotted. It would hold fast. He would pull it tight, like a noose, and it would hold fast.

More time pa.s.sed. It pa.s.sed darkly, mostly in unconsciousness and in fever. Johnny tried to get used to being dead. As he felt himself falling asleep he breathed deep and let death smother him. He fell into darknesses long and still, where no dream troubled him. These were deaths, he told himself. He had died over and over again, thousands of times all through his life. He was always dying, and it was nothing to be frightened of. The only difference was that he had always woken up before. Soon he wouldn't wake up. That was fine. Death was fine. It just meant not waking up. Johnny clutched the bootlace tighter.

He woke with a start. One more death over. One more life begun. But something had woken him. There was a scrabbling and crumbling noise. Something landed near his head. "Johnny, Johnny!" yelled a voice. "Come on, kid, wake up!"

There was a hand under Johnny's head. Water splashed his face and he opened his eyes. The voice called his name again. Johnny couldn't see who it was, but the person had Dalton's voice. That was good enough for him. Water was flowing over his lips now and Johnny swallowed reflexively. He coughed weakly. A head bent down near, and Johnny moved his good arm. He aimed the loop in the bootlace for the head. He tried to catch that throat in his lace, he tried to pull it tight. But he was too weak. He couldn't do anything.

"Hey, careful, kid." Dalton lifted Johnny's torso in his arms. Now Johnny could hear other voices up at the rim of the chasm. Johnny tried again with the lace, but he couldn't see anything. He had wanted to kill Dalton so much, and he couldn't even do that. He couldn't even kill a man who was fated to be murdered. "Don't worry, kid," said Dalton. He wasn't even paying attention to the bootlace, probably didn't even realize what it was for. "There's a little camp on the next island over. I got their medic here. I got food here. You're gonna be okay. They're gonna get us out of here." Dalton hugged Johnny's head in his arms. "I'm sorry, kid. I'm sorry I did that to you, but I told you to trust me. I told you I could do it. I told you, just keep doing everything you can. Oh, Christ." Dalton was almost crying now. "I swear to G.o.d I thought they were gonna shoot me when I found them. Friendly fire, after everything we've been through. But we made it, kid. We made it."

A couple of months later, Sarge came to see Johnny in the hospital. His ankle was still mending, but he had finally moved back on to solid food. And his wrist was good enough to write a couple of letters back home. Dalton was right, after all. He was going to make it. He was going to survive. Johnny could hardly believe it.

"So what did they do to him?" asked Johnny.

"Court-martialed," said Sarge. "He'll be in jail awhile, then he'll get a dishonorable discharge." Sarge smiled a little. "They're not gonna shoot him or anything. Too many extenuating circ.u.mstances. n.o.body wants to be that harsh on a man who came back for his buddy in the end."

Johnny was quiet. Then he looked up at Sarge. "I tried to kill him, too, you know."

"When?"

"When he came back for me with the medic. I was crazy, I guess. I tried to strangle him with my bootlace."

Sarge laughed. "Son, when he brought you back to me, you weren't fit to make a fist, let alone kill anybody."

Johnny nodded. "I tried anyway." He shut his eyes. "It was the worst experience of my life. That hunger was the worst pain I have ever felt." Johnny shook his head. "I never knew what it would be like. I never knew it would hurt so bad."

Sarge patted Johnny's leg under the covers. "It's over now, son. You'll be on your way home before you know it."

Johnny laughed a bitter laugh. "Yeah," he said. What did Sarge care? As soon as Johnny was gone, he wouldn't be responsible for him anymore. He would feel fine. He'd gotten him out of the jungle alive and sent him home to his folks. That was fine for Sarge. But Johnny hadn't been lying. Starving was worse than he had ever imagined it could be. And now-since he had lived-he would have to do it all over again some day.

"Thanks, Sarge," said Johnny, holding out his hand. What the h.e.l.l? They might as well shake on it.

Story by M. Bennardo Ill.u.s.tration by Karl Kerschl

CANCER.

IN THE MONTHS AFTERWARD, IN SUBURBAN DINING ROOMS, THE BOHEMIAN BOURGEOISIE DEBATED THE ETHICS OF THE MACHINE. The first had been installed un.o.btrusively in leading doctors' surgeries, and as they spread across the country, schoolteachers and bank managers and creative consultants and publishers met for c.o.c.ktail parties, suppers, restaurant lunches, and the conversation turned to the machine, the machine, again and again, the machine. Like the weather, or, in time of war, the latest battle, it provided a constant conversational reference point, came to be something akin to a worldwide obsession, in the West, at any rate.

"I saw one," said Kate Boothroyd, sucking on a cigarette, "on Kensington High Street. There was a line a b.l.o.o.d.y mile long-madness."

A temporary silence settled over the Broad's dining table, broken by the hostess.

"And would you?"

"What?"

"Use it."

Kate pondered the question a moment.

"No-I don't think so. I mean, human beings, ultimately, don't want to know-do they? Or do they? I mean, didn't somebody write about that?-in trying to avoid the inevitable, you actually bring it about. Who was it, Rory?"

"I don't b.l.o.o.d.y know, do I?"

Kierkegaard. Nietzsche. Dostoevsky.

The argument continued around the dining table long into the cheese and coffee.

This was the debate, amongst the upper middle cla.s.ses. Did one really want to know what life held in store? When there was nothing one could do about it at all, when there was was no happy ending. A blank slip was an impossibility. At best, "old age." At worst, something unspeakably awful, the self-fulfilling prophecy one couldn't do anything about. no happy ending. A blank slip was an impossibility. At best, "old age." At worst, something unspeakably awful, the self-fulfilling prophecy one couldn't do anything about.

But people were were doing it. Sure enough, in the days after department stores and pharmacies installed "the machine," lines of hundreds formed, eager to know that which could not be avoided. The evening news carried scattered reports of suicides, occasionally doing it. Sure enough, in the days after department stores and pharmacies installed "the machine," lines of hundreds formed, eager to know that which could not be avoided. The evening news carried scattered reports of suicides, occasionally en ma.s.se en ma.s.se. Support groups sprang up, devoted to those whose slips had read "suicide," those for whom the specter of whatever horror could drive them to such desperate measures proved too much. Support groups that turned to cults. One weekend, two hundred teenagers, neatly arranged in two rows along an underground railway station platform on the Victoria Line, stepped neatly to their deaths, drugged smiles on their pimply faces. The whole event engineered by means of the Internet-"Facebook Event Invitations" with a difference.

Marion Broad was out shopping in the West End the day of the Victoria Line suicides, the day public transport was crippled and she had to take a cab to Kate's for lunch.

Stringy hair, no makeup, Kate answered her door with a drawn look to her face, lit cigarette between her fingers.

"Jesus," breathed Marion. "You've done it, haven't you?"

She followed her into the house, through a bluish haze of tobacco smoke.

"Emphysema!" barked Kate. "b.l.o.o.d.y emphysema!"

The words hung between them, over the John Lewis coffee table.

"Not exactly a surprise, but still... At least I won't be needing to quit anytime soon."

A dry laugh crinkled her darkened eyes, and Marion's heart grew cold.

And so it went on, for months and months. Parliament rejected bids to outlaw the machine, and rejected them again, despite the frenzied speeches of religious groups, political organisations, mothers, fathers, societies for the old, societies for the young, all futile in the face of humanity's child-like curiosity.

Supermarkets quietly erected them, in the entranceways, by the photo booths.

Leaving Selfridge's, Marion saw a well-dressed mother leading her infant daughter out of the curtained booth, tears trickling down, melting away the makeup.

James Broad, good-natured and stoical, steadfastly refused to do it. Late at night, taunted by the faces of her friends, Marion envied her husband's easy sleep, as she tossed and turned. Dinner parties were a grim fandango of fraught nerves, now. Those who had "done it"-euphemisms all round, like it was something dirty-seemed half-dead and half-alive, eyes dull, filling in time until what was predetermined by the fates rolled around. Emphysema. Cancer. Cancer. Suicide. Cancer. Cancer. Cancer.

For the rest, eggsh.e.l.ls everywhere. Mentioning the mode of death marked out for anyone at your dinner table was taboo, and the Broads desperately strained to keep the conversation away from illness, disease, and demise. Almost buckling under the strain, like tired horses, never a pleasure, only a ch.o.r.e, they gave up entertaining.

Bars emptied in the suburbs, where stoical stockbrokers bunkered down in semi-detached splendor to await their various tumors and cancers and sleep apneas. In the cities, they filled by night, as cosmopolitan sophisticates drowned their morbid sorrows. On Sat.u.r.day and Sunday mornings, the lithe young bodies that washed up on the banks of the Thames posed a serious danger to public health.

And then, one afternoon, coming out of the Food Hall at M&S, she stopped, bags over both wrists, and stared solemnly at the new machine in the vestibule. Rebuking herself, she pa.s.sed by.

That night, in the darkness of the witching hour, across the bed-sheets: "Are you ever tempted?"

From the husband, only gentle breathing.

The next morning, unspeakably early, pale and baggy-eyed after a sleepless night, nursing bitterness in the kitchen: Enough! Enough!

On with the jeans and cardigan, and out into the car, down the deserted, cold, early morning city streets, to the nicest place she could find.

She slipped inconspicuously into the booth, inserted the credit card, tapped in the pa.s.skey. Pale and wincing, placed her finger under the needle, poised like the sword of Damocles.

Down and up, in and out, she barely felt a thing. The machine churned out its slip, and she turned it over, in fearful, trembling hands.

"Cancer," there, and nothing more.

Marion Broad walked slowly through the empty foyer, towards the car in the empty lot, maneuvered herself into the driver's seat, and drove carefully home.

Letting herself into the grey and silent house, she tiptoed upstairs and into the bedroom, where the light of dawn seeped around the edges of the curtains. Slipping off her trousers and sweater, she drew back the covers and let herself into the bed, and into the small of her husband's back, smiled a secret smile.