CHAPTER 13: BAD DIET
1867 Words
Eli got back from the pier very late.
His amazing brain recalled all he had read about tee army boat, and he worked on it relentlessly. He barely acknowledged the stunned Saints breaking open the warehouse. Their screams of pure happiness at whatever they had found inside did not deter him from what he was doing.
Doug Holy came to stand on the deck for a while, marvelling at how one so young could have killed over a hundred vicious Searots and still find the strength to strip parts of the boat engine bare.
He washed some with gas from the storage and greased others. He welded some at the workshop and was in constant movement.
Finally, with darkness beginning to cast its attitude, he stopped working and walked back to the community. He saw Saints still carrying boxes and other items from the warehouse, but he showed no interest, not even when Mack called out to him to come over.
Zeus drove him back to the BRP.
Eli wanted to stop over and visit Elsie and Zion, but Zeus quickly told him it was too late and he should make it the following day.
Eli went to take a shower. He was in the bedroom dressing up when he heard voices and a great commotion outside. He slipped into a comfortable long and thin robe and walked carefully to the door.
He opened it to see a minivan in the yard. Doug Holy had gotten out of it and was speaking in animated fashion with Kate. There were other members of the Saints around, and so were many of the BRP inhabitants.
They were all looking happy and animated.
Doug let out a whoop of delight when Eli emerged and came towards him with a beaming smile and put his hands on the shoulders of the big boy.
“Eli, Eli, Eli!” he cried happily. “I came here personally to bring your dinner! What you did today was awesome, beats the imagination! That warehouse was filled with supplies we’ve not been able to gather in years! It ranged from medicals to provisions of food, water, and even two small generators! We brought one here, boy! You’ll have electricity tonight, maybe put on the ceiling fans, watch some videos on the CD player! Awesome, my boy, awesome!”
“I’m happy to be of help,” Eli said calmy.
Kate threw her arms around his neck and squeezed him hard. Other girls from the BRP hugged him too, suggestively, and most of the men looked at Eli with clear envy.
“So, the boat,” Doug said carefully. “Is it any good?”
“I think it is,” Eli replied. “Tomorrow I’ll put the parts back and try to get it started.”
The smile disappeared from Doug’s face.
“Meaning you will still leave us.”
“I need to see my parents, and sibling, if I have some.”
Doug looked hurt.
“Well, that’s sad news to me,” he said, sounding disappointed. “But, go on, eat your dinner. I’m still praying you’ll change your mind.”
“I will not,” Eli stated simply.
Doug stared at him for a while with a dark expression, then he turned away and headed for the van.
“Never say never, Eli, my boy,” he said over his shoulder. “Alright, boys. Set up the generator, serve his food, and let’s get out of here.”
Kate and the other citizens of the BRP looked at Eli reproachfully as he stood stoically on the veranda watching them moving around, then he turned and walked into the room.
A few minutes later, Kate came in and walked wordlessly to the dining-room where sweet-smelling food was packed in a basket and covered with lacy napkins.
Eli noticed that she was now wearing the same revealing, white dress that the mating young people of the BRP wore. She set the table and stood watching him for a while.
“Please, come and eat,” she said, and he could see that she was struggling to remain calm. He stood up and walked to the dining table where she had served braised rice and green vegetable stew, making Eli feel hungry suddenly. Since his breakfast early in the morning, he had not eaten again.
He sat down and picked up his cutlery. He closed his eyes as Kate said a short prayer, and accepted a plate from her. The food was delicious. The green stew had chunks of tender meat that Kate devoured, but which Eli found a little unpleasant. He concentrated on the rice and stew and bits of fish, ignoring the meaty chunks.
The silence was shattered by a dull sound as the generator came on outside, and a moment later the lights came on. Kate shouted with ecstatic delight and rushed to switch on the overhead fans.
A moment later, cool air blew luxuriously over them.
Kate threw her arms around his neck and tried to kiss him. Eli pulled his head back with a look of mild reproach on his face because her mouth still had food remnants.
“You have food in your mouth, Kate!” he said with a scowl.
She laughed and resumed her seat, and promptly served herself another plate of rice and scooped more stew on it, adding the largest chunk of meat to it.
Eli pushed his half-empty plate aside and stood up. He poured himself a glass of water and drank half. He was turning towards the living room when Kate’s words arrested him.
“This part of the meat is not tender,” she said, regarding a particularly broad piece of meat. “Seems there’s some writing on it.”
She pushed it apart and resumed eating.
Eli scowled, then he approached the table, leaned forward, and picked the meat she had rejected.
“Thought you didn’t like it,” Kate said with a giggle, but Eli ignored her and walked towards the kitchen. The light was on, and he held the piece of meat under the tap and washed it thoroughly of pieces of rice and stew.
He regarded it, and then his blood went cold a moment before he was hit with nausea. He turned from the sink and rushed blindly towards the bathroom.
“Eli, my love!” Kate said with her mouth full. “Are you okay? Is everything all right? What is it, honey?”
She stood up from the table and followed him to the bathroom.
She found him bowed over the toilet bowl retching horribly.
“Eli!” Kate cried with mounting anxiety. “What’s up with you?”
Eli stood up slowly and flushed his vomit, then he turned on the tap and rinsed his mouth as he extended the piece of meat towards her.
“There’s a writing on it,” he said softly. “See.”
She took the meat and squinted at the writing.
She saw the words: ck Li
“What does it mean, Eli?” she asked with mounting horror.
“I believe it is what is left of the words ‘f**k life.’ When they thought I was dead, they took me to a place where I was told they were preparing me for burial. But the people attacked me when I woke up, and I found that rather strange. But, there was a corpse on one of the benches. On his chest was a tattoo, ‘f**k Life.’ I believe that is part of his chest!”
Kate’s face shook with horror as tears came to her eyes, and she shook her head numbly.
“Eli?” she whispered, horrified. “What are you saying?”
“They’re cannibals,” Eli said, his voice unsteady. “They’re feeding on dead bodies! Have you heard from your mother? I think Saint Doug Holy is concentrating on his supreme race he’s raising here, and killing the others in the community to feed them.”
Kate keeled forward in a faint, and Eli caught her before she crashed. He carried her to the bedroom and put her down.
He took a deep sigh.
He knew it was time to find out if his suspicions were true.
***
Eli stood on top of the roof surveying the brightly-lit BRP for a while and feeling his disgust rising. From the top of the roof, he could see the pool area of a couple of houses away, and what he saw sickened him.
The people gathered around the pool could not have been less than fifty, and they were all naked, men and women.
And they were engaged in a s****l orgy!
Men lying on women, women on men, engaged in frenzied s****l acts. Morality had fled, and their sense of purpose were all gone. He could see several bottles of alcohol lying around. In a world where basic survival was a war, where nobody could be assured life after the night, here were young and able-bodied people doing nothing but eating human flesh – albeit unknowingly – and committing the foulest of s****l fantasies.
Eli’s young heart was filled with fury as he jumped into the air and soared high in the darkness above them. He landed silently on top of one of the buildings in the community, then he jumped again, landing near the place he had first been brought.
Three guards were guarding the entrance, but they did not know what hit them. Moving with blinding speed, Eli’s fists thudded savagely against their chins, knocking them unconscious.
He went in, rounding corners and corridors and finally entering the room of benches and knives and boiling cauldrons.
It was hell!
The lights were burning brightly, and the floor was slick with blood! To one side were packed the headless bodies of men and women, and on one of the benches were packed the severed heads!
He saw about ten heads, and one of them was George, Farida’s husband!
The bodies had been stripped naked, and one of the Saints had started washing them with a hose!
Eight naked people were kneeling around what appeared to be a huge chopping block and which was slick with blood. Their hands had been tied brutally behind them, and coarse cloth pushed into their mouths to muffle their screams!
One of them was a horror-stricken Elsie Brown!
Standing behind them were eight Saints holding bloodied machetes! In the far corner, another Saint had hacked the body of one of the victims into sizeable chunks, and another was loading the meat onto trays to be sent to the cauldrons!
Now everybody was staring at the shocked Eli, and as he looked at Elsie and the others, all of them weeping and obviously traumatized, the rage took Eli’s breath away.
“You vile pieces of s**t!” he hissed furiously.
- Writer
