The Soul Bazaar

After The Disease part one: The Cure

The single-story canteen sat in the middle of the compound. Once, you had been able to walk to the rec hall, the bunks, and the main control building under Perspex canopies. But they had long since been taken down, the materials used elsewhere. Now if you wanted to leave or enter you got hot when it was sunny, cold when it was windy, wet when it rained.

Right now the canteen was empty. Lucas sat in front of his plate, the streak of gravy for company. Blobs of grease stared at him. He'd spent the day wandering around the compound, doing odd jobs here and there. He'd swept the rec hall floor. He'd straightened the chairs around the tables. He'd checked the guard posts. Nobody missing, all accounted for. He'd taken an inventory of the munitions stock.

It was a change from his previous role as a hunter. He'd been the fifth member of Green Team, had patrolled their area twice a week. The foot of the mountains to the northeast of here. Their objective was simple. To find and kill the diseased before they attacked the compound. 'Proactive protection', they'd called it. Killing other humans, if they were still human. In the early days, the diseased killed and infected countless thousands of people. Yet Lucas still couldn't fathom whether they were 'evil', as many insisted. The devils among us. No, they were ill. Had to be. His father caught the disease. What he became had not been the man who'd brought him and his cousins up, wasn't the man who'd nursed and mourned his mother. They were ill. But you couldn't negotiate with them. Bullets were the only answer until they could manufacture the cure.

He jumped in his seat as someone kicked the door open. Karl. Short and square, he stood in the doorway and glared at the room. Satisfied, he stepped forward. Jed and Kim followed him. The two of them looked past Lucas and sat at the far end of the room, facing away from him.

"So how d'you swing it?"

Karl sat uninvited, too close to Lucas. His voice carried to all walls.

"I volunteered, a few of us did. They only needed one person, and they picked me."

"Because you're so bloody great? Nah, mate. I reckon it's because they know you're expendable." Two thunderous, bone-rattling claps on the shoulder. There'd be a bruise.

The door to the canteen opened again and Dr Martensen strode in.

"There you are, Lucas. I've been looking for you. Are you ready for tomorrow?"

"Yep, pretty much."

She sat opposite Lucas and nodded at Karl. Her enamel mug clinked on the table.

"You'll be fine. You should try to relax a little, prepare your mind for tomorrow."

"I try, but after what happened..."

"Relax. Hunting is dangerous. I read your report. Philip broke protocol. Philip wandered from the group. If any hunter-"

Karl leant over the table, snarling. "He wasn't any hunter. He was my best friend and Lucas should have stuck by him."

Martensen looked at Lucas, tall and sandy-haired. And tense. He looked like a thin dam holding back a torrent.

"Tomorrow. Be careful out there. You'll be on your own unless you've changed your mind. We still have time to find you a partner if you'd like."

Karl leant back and shook his head. "Not me".

"You should find someone. They're smarter than we think-"

Karl rolled his eyes. "Yeah, you say that. But they keep on attacking, never changing what they do."

Lucas pulled his gaze away from his empty plate and looked into Karl's face. "We've killed so many of them. How many of their attacks are for revenge? Isn't that part of the reason we send out hunters, to pay them back? If they think, can they feel? Do they miss the ones we've killed?"