PRODROME (ch. 2): Dummy

Catch up on PRODROME! Read episode 1 below:

*

Rather than haphazardly running up the slanted staircase, Riley stretched his ascent more than twice as long as it should've taken. Each placement of either foot was accounted for — every pound of pressure and every cant of his big toes. Though the handiwork of the stairs appeared completely unreliable, the planks, bloated from seasons of rainfall, didn't so much as creak. He finally exhaled when he reached the top.

Several slats of cheap wood were stapled together to create an expansive, equally shoddy second floor. How the weight of the tiny home didn't buckle the entire structure baffled him. With every step, a sliver of confidence returned to him. It wasn’t long before he found himself at the foot of his new home's front door.

He checked over his shoulder and spotted Todd and George on the ground below. Sparse crowds of people went about living their lives without a clue that he even existed. Some were laughing, others were plotting their day through curious conversation. He noticed two children who were young enough to have been born in the world he resented so much.

The two men locked their gazes on him, their pointer fingers bracing the cold plane next to their rifle’s triggers. George rested his weapon on his right shoulder and gave Riley a thumbs up with his free hand.

Riley exhaled a nervous sigh and ran both hands through his long, dense mane. After four hesitant knocks, a new face greeted him; a man considerably older than him and weathered from decades of stress.

"You're the new guy." It almost wilted into a question — but not quite. The man fit his bulky form in the door's threshold and stared down the newcomer. "Number thirty-six himself."

"Jesus," Riley massaged the bridge of his nose. "Does everyone know about that?"

"It's a small town and news travels fast. You gonna come inside?"

"I..." He checked back on Todd and George. They moved on with their day after seeing Riley pawned off onto someone else. "Don't have a choice.”

"You have one choice." He cocked an eyebrow with a vague glint of humor grazing his tongue.

The anxious Riley offered a chuckle, even if he hadn’t been quite so sure if what the man said was a joke. When returned with a hardened stare, he apologized under his breath.

"Come on, Thirty-Six." He stepped aside just enough to create a crack in the frame. Riley muttered his thanks and squeezed his way through, careful to avoid eye contact even as their torsos grazed. "They didn't even spray you down, eh?"

Riley acquainted himself with the interior of his new home. Spotless — no dust bunnies, no smell. A pile of magazines rested next to a short stack of novels on a desk pressed against the farthest wall. Wooden chairs equipped with flat, handmade pillows were fit into a triangle in the center of their shared living space. Natural lighting danced into the neat space, the late-day sun goldenrod and warm.

The large man rolled his eyes. "Everything's becoming so lax. Used to be bad praxis to let someone in without giving them a bath. Kills morale to see someone so filthy. Now what? We're so desperate for bodies?"

"I — I don't know." Riley flashed a weak smile and wandered into the attached kitchen. Someone had left a cast iron skillet on a portable hotplate. It gleamed with sticky oil, well-kept without as much as a mote of rust. He turned to his new roommate, astonished. "You guys cook your own food?"

"Well. Y'know, Eddy was the cook," the man responded with a raised, square chin. "A real chef type. Hell of a shot, too, but his real talent was cooking. Most people don't know the difference between over easy eggs and sunny side, but this guy..." He shook his head and leaned against the door to shut it. "He'd use stupid ass words like au jus and mirepoix. He meant it, too."

They simultaneously took a moment to size each other up. Riley felt obligated to respond to the man with tired eyes. "He sounds—"

"What do you do?"

Riley cracked his lips. "What do you mean ‘do’?"

"Cook? Weld? Nah, let me get a good look." The man stepped closer to examine Riley, who suddenly felt self-conscious of his crooked spine and ragged outfit. "Torn clothes, so you probably can't sew." He extended his gloved hand and, after a confused beat, the newcomer reciprocated. Warmth blushed Riley’s face as the man pressed his leather-sheathed fingers into his palm. "Got a few calluses for sure, but none of them in the right spots for foraging or for shooting."

Riley’s hand dropped like a hot potato. "Yeah, I'm — I guess I'm kind of new at this. Been lucky so far, I guess."

"Mm-mm. No way you've survived a decade on luck alone. What are you, twenty-five? Shit. You were a kid when it all went down. Still..." The man exhaled, shrugged, and said, "I'll figure you out."

"'Um... Alright." Riley fought off a spell of dizziness born from the overwhelming conversation. He floated back into the main living space and examined a slim bookcase of novels with torn spines and missing covers. "What am I supposed to do until tomorrow evening? I really wish I could shower."

A grunt from behind. His roommate dropped onto one of the uncomfortable looking wooden chairs with a long exhale. He answered as he removed each glove. "Take a fucking seat. Read a fucking book. Eat some fucking oatmeal." His nostrils flared. "Learn my fucking name."

"Oh! Right." He shook his head and marched forward with an outstretched hand. "Riley."

The man bent his brow with so much force, Riley feared his face would collapse in on itself. "We don't touch each other — not gloves. Where've you been? Did Marisa tell you nothing?"

Withdrawing his hand and placing it in his pocket, he defended himself with a small voice. "I've never heard of that. Sorry."

"Yeah, dummy."

"Wait — there's no way you guys don't touch here. How do you...?" Riley rolled his eyes and gestured provocatively. "You know?"

The roommate leaned back into his chair and savored the rubbery creak it breathlessly sang. "No, I don't know. How do we what, Thirty-Six?"

A new voice floated into the room as though belonging to a transient moth flitting from one dark corner to the next. "Don’t be a dick, Eric. Just call him by his name."

Riley swung his attention to the frail voice of his second roommate, a man with broad shoulders and a thin, shapeless waist. His large hands, pink with life, embraced the handle of a hand-blown ceramic mug. It bore a name, Patrick, and he assumed it found its way to its rightful owner. A second, almost identical mug was placed on the varnished kitchen countertop right after.

"Now, don't you go using Eddy's mug," Eric straightened his posture with both hands pressing into his knees.

"Or what? He'll come back from the dead and snatch it back?"

"I told you! Don't make those jokes. No one will ever catch me saying stupid shit like that when you die." Eric scoffed and stood up from his seat. "Don’t speak ill of the dead. Who raised you?”

“Your mom.”

“Shut the hell up. Stop saying rude stuff about Eddy.”

“Like what?”

“Like ‘he’ll never use it again, anyway’. Shit like that.” Eric thumbed his nose. His face burned with irritation.

Patrick fetched a pair of nitrile gloves from a low cabinet near their squat icebox. "Well, he’s not.”

When Eric stood up, the chair skewed several feet away. He approached Patrick and grabbed his bony shoulder. Eric forced him to turn around and stared into his soul. "It's the principle."

"What's Riley gonna use, then? His fucking hands?"

"To do what?"

"Drink tea with me." Crimson feathered onto Riley’s cheeks, doubly so when Patrick turned to acknowledge him head-on. "Right, Riley?"

“Yeah, sure. I mean, I don’t want to start anything.”

"It’s not an issue,” Patrick said while straightening the fabric of his wrinkly, white cotton crewneck. “But, can you do me a favor? Fetch a pot from the sink."

Eric seethed through clenched teeth and retreated with a vicious shake of the head. He kept his comments internal and disappeared into one of three, small rooms nestled in the only hallway. Each room was separated by a thick, blackout curtain; they heard muffled curses drop from Eric’s swollen tongue.

Before Riley could utter a word of thanks, Patrick’s voice softened as he explained, "He acts like Eddy wasn’t the biggest asshole on the planet. You know those kinds of guys who only say negative and unhelpful things?"

Riley scratched his lower lip while watching Patrick excavate a block of ice from their bright blue cooler. It clattered when tossed in the pot. A series of short, abrasive electronic tones from the hotplate followed. It’d been so long since he’d heard the unapologetic song of technology. Each strident stab both unnerved and excited him. The grill of the hotplate glowed red within seconds, its crackling hum a choir to his desperate ears.

*

Before long, the two sat across from each other in the wood-paneled living room. Patrick observed Riley as he stared into the interior of Eddy’s mug. The limited light of the falling sun caught against the visible vapor as it swam above the surface of his expired black tea.

Riley said, “I could take a bath in this.”

"Oh, yeah?"

"Mm. If I don't feel hot water against my skin soon..."

"When it does, it'll probably burn — regardless if it’s water or tea. That little thing works hard," Patrick nodded to the portable hotplate. "It's my favorite find."

Riley almost ventured to take the initial sip from his cup, but retreated when the heat tickled the tip of his nose. "You scavenged that? I didn't know you could take stuff. One of those guys outside said you have to donate to the thrift store. Something like that."

"Not really. We don't have to donate everything. It's not, like, a complete fascist state here." Patrick sipped from the cup and refused to flinch when the scalding tea struck the back of his throat. His tolerance to hot food and drink was a luxury Riley hadn't been reacquainted with. "We still have a lot of little personal freedoms. See, there needs to be some kind of incentive for us to go out. We're risking our skin every time. Imagine if we gave everything we found to the thrift..." He shook his head and played out a terrible scenario in his mind.

"Yeah, nobody would leave. A lot of houses are picked clean," Riley said with a fallen brow. "Or... Maybe they aren't. I mean, when I was out there—"

"I have no idea how you survived for so damn long, Riley. I know for a fact you weren’t searching for hotplates or spare bedsheets."

"That's definitely true." His first sip burned just as much as he expected and pulled away with a jerk. Patrick smirked before displaying dominance by swallowing another mouthful. Riley examined the name on his mug with a decaying wince. He stroked the embossed font with both thumbs. "Can I ask how Eddy died?"

Eric's husky voice sounded from the other room. "Don't you fucking tell him!"

Patrick rubbed his inner eye, nodded, and said, "You heard the man."

In a low voice, Riley asked, "Were they close?"

"Not as close as I was. Not sure why he’s acting so goddamn protective." His tone shifted into oblique territory. Patrick cleared his throat. "Anyway, is the tea good?"

Riley distorted his face with consideration. The flavor stung, a bitter bite, chased by the unfathomable sting of fire. It was like drinking a forest fire.

"That's okay," Patrick laughed. "It's old, but it’s something.”

Once again, Eric chimed in from his cot: "It's decaf. It's shit."

Patrick walked his seat closer to Riley and whispered, "Don't mind him. He's full of opinions. Opinions and resentment. Listen," he stared into his cup as though his next words would be printed on the inside. "You can ask anyone if you have questions. I’m not always going to be here to be nice to you. It’s just… You have to know when to stay in your lane."

Riley’s chin firmed. "Got it. I, uh, actually have around a thousand."

"Questions?"

"Yeah."

"Alright, shoot." Patrick adjusted his posture to find a little more comfort on the hard, uneven chair. "But, I reserve the right to ask you one question for every question you ask me."

Riley considered the trade. After a moment of deliberation, he agreed, believing it to be a reasonable offer. "I talked to that Marisa woman, but she seemed too tired to tell me everything. Are there any unspoken rules I should know about? Ones that'll get me kicked out, or executed, or..."

"Everyone's typically on the same page," Patrick started with a gentle air surrounding his words. "And you tend to fall into your place pretty quick. It's not like she's asking a mechanic to be a doctor. Just don't get rowdy or do suspicious things behind people's backs. Oh, and be transparent. Really, I mean it. Like, right now — I'm about to ask you how many demons you've killed."

The terminology caught Riley off-guard. "Demons?"

"Whatever your preferred nomenclature is. Marisa must see some kind of warrior in you. Some kind of fire. You’re probably a maniac out on the field, huh? Hackin’, slashin’."

"What if I don't have any fire?"

"No hypotheticals allowed here. Hey, that's a kind of rule. Yeah, no hypotheticals or living in the past. Such thoughts are a waste of precious energy." Patrick waited for Riley to react. He observed the newcomer with empathy boiling over in his heart: a long-faced kid with unwashed hair, patchy facial hair, and a metric fuck ton of trauma hidden away in a ironclad vault buried inside his chest. "Answer my question, please."

The silence was so thick, Riley could barely hear Patrick breathing. A tiny pop broke the quiet — the heating element of the portable burner settling. "How many ‘demons’ have I killed?"

“Yep.”

“None.”

Eric returned to the living room with a grand swipe of his curtain. "That's bullshit." He pointed a stiff finger. "No way Marisa would bring in some sad sack with no experience. Come on, pal," he continued while inching closer. "What use are you?"

Riley suddenly felt very silly holding a mug with someone else's name on it, someone who had been so damn useful. He looked to Patrick for help, but received only a shrug of agreement.

Patrick sighed. "I have to agree with Eric, here. Look, you seem like a nice guy and all, but we're tasked with a heavy burden here. If you can't keep up—"

"I didn't ask to be here," Riley's voice sharpened. "I didn't ask to meet with that lady. Someone found me squatting in a house — one apparently way too close to your camp — and I got dragged here by the collar. I'm fucking disoriented," he exhaled with a whine. "I'm tired, I'm hungry, and, yeah, I'm lucky. I'm lucky I never had to fight any of those things."

Patrick bent to place the mug on the floor between his feet. He spread his knees, slid his heels out, and said, "So, you’ve never had to kill anything or anyone? Alright. That just means we're doing our jobs. Me, Eric, Eddy — the other teams. Maybe I'm speaking for both of us here, but, it's less about the fact that you haven't killed one. We're just asking if, when the time comes, you’ll be able to?"

Eric shook his head and crossed both bulging arms. Beneath his fleshy coat of fat was a body hardened by discipline. "For once, Patty speaks for both of us. What I want to know is, how can you benefit the team? Look, anyone can learn how to shoot someone else. Do it once and it's like riding a bike. Me? I'm a carpenter. See this house?" He spread the fingers of his rough hands. "You can thank these bad boys."

"And I crochet," Patrick succinctly admitted. A coy smile appeared. "All these pads on the chairs, the quilts on our beds. It might sound stupid, but people here rely on me and my ability to give them comfort in hard times."

"So, Thirty-Six," the barrel-chested Eric finally dropped himself into the third, open chair. His heft stressed the flexible wood. "What can you do?”

Two strangers watched all the infinitesimal twitches and gestures Riley tried so hard to subdue. When he swallowed, he swallowed hard. The longer the question lingered unanswered, the more his eyes searched the interior for answers.

Eric rubbed both eyes and muttered under his breath, something about him being useless and a burden.

Riley conjured an answer out of panic. "I'm — I'm well read. I like to read." Neither of the men responded, and he solidified his case with an additional, clumsy explanation. "History, languages. Um, politics, too."

Patrick couldn't look Riley in the eye. Eric noted the cue and softened his voice. "When you come up with a real answer, let me know. 'Til then," he stood and stretched his meaty arms. "Enjoy your last day of innocence." The large man roamed back to his room but stopped before pushing through the curtain. "Oh, and your tea. Enjoy your shitty fucking decaf tea."

An effortless shove, and the room swallowed Eric whole. The three wouldn't meet again until the next morning.