Hopeless Doom

Chapter 20 Scraped Grain

Deck Four stunk of a backed-up sewer and dying skin. Four thousand people squeezed into a space meant for five hundred. No lights. No air. Just oily black heat. A woman felt her way down the bulkhead, her palm skidding on cold sweat. She had a canvas bag white-knuckled against her ribs.

A shadow flared near the stairs. No talking. Just a heavy shoulder slamming into her chest.

She went down hard. Her skull hit the linoleum with a c***k like a dropped melon. She didn't waste the breath on a scream. She just reached up and tried to gouge the man’s eyes out. He didn't even grunt. He drove a knee into her gut, hard enough to bottom out her lungs. While she was flat on her back, choking for air, he yanked the bag and ran.

Near the port-side elevators, Robert was in the dirt. He was thinking about one grain of oat. He’d spent two hours with a paring knife, digging into the floorboards like a starving rat.

He had a palmful of gray dust. Maybe two ounces of grain. He mixed it with stagnant pipe water in a steel bowl, mashing it into a paste with his thumb.

A woman watched from the corner. Her kid was slumped against her, eyes rolled back.

"Hey," Robert croaked. His throat was too dry for a real voice.

He shoved a fingerful of the gray slime into the boy’s mouth. The kid gagged.

"Swallow it. Don’t you dare puke," Robert muttered.

Then came the boots. The heavy, rhythmic thud of men who actually ate. Robert didn't freeze. He slid the bowl behind his back, his heart slamming against his ribs.

Byron and Brian. The muscle. Byron had the crowbar; Brian had the light. The beam cut the dark and hit the boy’s wet chin.

"You holding out, Rob?" Brian asked.

"Floor sweepings," Robert said. He stayed low. If I jump now, Byron cracks my skull before I reach his throat. "Dirt and spit. Not worth the effort."

"Everything belongs to the vault," Byron said, holding out a hand. "Give."

"The kid’s dying, Byron. Look at him."

"Then he’ll die without a bowl. Hand it over."

Robert looked at the mother. She was trying to shrink into the wall. Robert looked at the bowl. To hell with this. He didn't hand it to the guard. He slammed the bowl into the mother’s lap.

"Eat it! Now!" he barked.

The crowbar came down.

It wasn't a movie hit. It was a wet, heavy c***k. Robert’s ribcage buckled. He hit the floor, the world turning into a smear of gray pain. He tried to inhale, but his chest just clicked.

Byron wasn't done. He stepped on Robert’s right hand and ground his heel in. Robert bit his tongue so hard he tasted blood, but he didn't make a sound. He wasn't giving them a groan.

Brian stepped over him, kicked the bowl out of the mother’s hands, and watched the paste spill onto the filth. Then he ground his boot into the food, turning the kid’s last meal into a black stain.

"The count has to be right, Robert," Byron said, tapping the bar against his thigh. "Try it again, and I’ll take your jaw."

In triage, Sarah was wrapping a man’s arm in a rag that was 90% blood.

The doors banged open. Two men dumped Robert onto a cot.

Sarah looked at him. The right hand was a purple mess. His chest was heaving in short, jagged hitches. She pressed his ribs. Robert hissed.

"Three broken. Maybe a lung puncture," Sarah said. She didn't look for meds. There weren't any. "Shut up. Don't move."

"They... they ground it into the dirt," Robert wheezed.

"I told you to shut up."

"It was oats, Sarah. Dirt. And they still took it."

Sarah stopped. Her hands were coated in someone else's fluids. She looked at the room—a warehouse of people waiting to die. Jeffrey was upstairs eating canned peaches while this man’s bones were being turned into powder for a handful of dust. The "rules" were a lie. The Captain was a coward.

Sarah dropped the gauze. She didn't wash her hands. She grabbed her bag.

"Watch him," she told Janice.

"Where are you going?"

Sarah didn't answer.

The Lido deck was an oven. Thousands of passengers sat there like sun-bleached laundry. Sarah walked to the center, stood on a chair, and let out a whistle that bit through the heat.

"Get up!" she yelled.

A man looked up, his tongue thick and white. "Water’s gone, Doc."

"I know it’s gone. Jeffrey has it," Sarah pointed toward Deck Twelve. "He’s got the water. He’s got the steaks. He’s got the antibiotics your kids need."

The crowd shifted. Dead eyes started to focus.

"They just broke the chef’s ribs because he found a spoonful of oats," she shouted. "They didn't even eat it. They crushed it under their boots. They want you weak so you can't fight back. They’re going to let you rot in the hold while they walk off the gangplank."

"The rations..." someone started.

"There are no rations!" Sarah snapped. "There’s only what they’re hoarding and what you’re dying for."

Janice was in the crowd now, whispering like a snitch. "Fifty cases of soda in the VIP lounge," she told a mechanic. "Brian’s eating sugar right now. You can smell it on him."

The mechanic gripped his wrench.

"They’re waiting for you to become corpses," Sarah said, stepping down. Her heart felt like a stone. "I’m going up those stairs. I’m taking our stuff. Who’s coming?"

Three shipping pallets blocked the hallway. Byron didn't move. He stood there like a wall of gristle, the iron crowbar resting heavy on his shoulder. Next to him, Brian was vibrating. His riot helmet was too big for his head, and his knuckles were white as bone on the baseball bat.

Behind Sarah, four hundred people were a single, breathing lung.

"Pantry’s closed, Doc," Byron said. His voice was flat.

"Move the wood, Byron," Sarah said.

"Not happening. Jeffrey’s orders. Essentials only."

"Essentials?" Sarah stepped up. Her chest hit the rough pine of the pallet. "You think you’re essential? You’re just the dogs guarding the meat while the masters get ready to jump ship. When we hit the reef, you think they’re saving a seat for the hired help?"

Brian’s bat tapped against his shin. "Back off, Sarah. I mean it."

The crowd didn't back off. They surged. A slow, heavy wave of unwashed bodies pressed Sarah into the pallet. A nail tore a jagged line across her forearm. She didn't blink. She just watched Byron’s eyes.

Byron didn't flinch. He adjusted his grip on the bar. He wasn't scared; he was just waiting for the first head to pop.

"One more inch," Byron muttered, "and I start breaking teeth."

The mechanic reached through the gap, his fingers clawing for Brian’s throat. Brian panicked. He swung the bat—a short, ugly arc.

The metal hit the mechanic’s forearm. The sound was dry, like a dead branch snapping. But the man didn't let go. He made a low, gutteral sound and hauled Brian’s face into the wood.

Byron raised the crowbar, ready to split the mechanic's skull. Sarah shoved her own arm into the gap, blocking the strike. The iron smashed into the top slat, wood exploding inches from her face.

But the pallets held.

Byron shoved back with his full weight, his boots skidding on the tile. Brian kicked through the slats, boots hitting ribs. The crowd pushed. The guards pushed back. It was a grinding, silent war of muscle against wood. No one was screaming yet. It was just the sound of wood groaning and teeth grinding.

"You can't hold it forever, Byron!" Sarah hissed, her face pressed against the pine.

"I can hold it long enough," Byron spat.

They stayed like that. Locked. A thousand pounds of starving meat against two men with iron and a few slabs of pine. Neither side blinked.