Free The Product Line (Book 1): Product by Ian McCain

Chucky. It’s a stupid standoff, but something that amuses Ernie.
    --Jules? Chucky?
    --Arnold, my dear. We were getting worried, weren’t we, love?
    Ernie cringes. It just doesn’t make sense the way they talk. It’s like watching some sort of play written in the 1920s.
    --Yes, yes, love. Terribly worried.
    --Well, I am here now. I have your product.
    Ernie walks through the great room and turns left into the formal dining room. Ernie continues.
    --I’m sure you were all aflutter.
    The space is just magnificent. Jules, as much of a cunt as she can be, truly is gifted at design. Two and a half lifetimes can do that to a person, Ernie imagines to himself. She and Charles are perhaps the most unique of his deliveries, not just because of their mannerisms but their physicality. They are strikingly attractive, yet their eyes are hollow, irises lightly rimmed in reddish black, as if a deep magenta pen has been used to draw in their perimeter. Also, the way they interact with each other is creepy. He doesn’t know if they are a romantic couple, or brother and sister.
    Out of nowhere, Jules sweeps in for a kiss on Ernie’s cheek.
    --Oh, Arnold, thank you.
    Ernie sets the briefcase on the impossibly large dining room table. Charles withdraws a card from the breast pocket of his silk smoker’s jacket. He turns the dials on the combination lock to match this order’s combination. The tumblers move into place and unlock with a gentle click. Ernie turns the case toward them and opens it, exposing the bags of liquid crimson—their treatment.
    --Here you are. Twenty-six pints of O-negative.
    --O-negative? Oh yummy, truly a treat. My favorite of all the menu’s offerings.
    --Arnold, which is your favorite?
    Ernie shrugs. He has been put on a rationed amount after his only time drinking the product. He had put a drop on his finger just to see if the taste was enticing. He didn’t feel the same warm loving rush that he had heard came with tapping a vein, but something else awakened in him, a hunger that scared him to his core and filled his head with a long-lasting bliss. His mouth watered and quivered in search of more. Before he was aware that he had done it, Ernie had consumed his entire week’s supply. He came back from his bliss to find his tongue cut to pieces and probing the shattered vials of precious treatment.
    When he approached Gideon about getting more, Gideon knew what had happened. He had apparently been expecting it for a while. The solution was to keep Ernie with enough product to keep him healthy and happy, but not enough for indulgences like drinking. Just one more fucking injustice—it was like a forced methadone treatment, just enough to keep him from getting sick, never enough to let him go on a bender. Sure, it was a good idea on Gideon’s part, but a shit deal for Ernie.
    --It’s all the same to me.
    --Oh, for shame, how can you be so glib? Certainly you must have a favorite.
    Ernie empties the bags onto the table. The bags always go to the drinkers, vials go to the needlers. Most folks on his route are drinkers. Even within the infected communities there is this unspoken hierarchy, a class system. Drinkers are the oldest, generally speaking. They have been around the longest and like any junkies are set in their ways. Gideon still caters to them, in the interest of keeping them from killing half the city in some Rage. They in turn supply him and the rest of the Organization with the money needed to run the Farm.
    Jules and Chucky are treated differently though. They receive more than twice as many deliveries as the other drinkers, as if Gideon is working especially hard to keep them happy. Also the weight of their envelopes leads Ernie to believe that they pay a bargain basement price as well.
    --I’m not really a drinker, Jules. Gideon’s got me on a special diet.
    --Yes, can’t feed the dogs from the table, I imagine.
    Jules smiles a knowing and evil smile.
    --Something like that. We all set?
    Jules