Free The Zona by Nathan Yocum

equipment journeyed north.  The men continued in their lives and in parting, unknowingly severed forever from each other, for there comes a point in all men’s lives when they see each other for the last, and this was that point for the ex-Preachers and Eric the Dead.

VI. That which occurred in Las Vegas
    Lead pulled the cloth mask off of his face and watched Terence twist smoke and fire out of a nest of desert branches.
    “That day in Yucca, I recognized you from Vegas.  That’s what kept me from gunning you dead,” Lead said.
    Terence stopped his twisting and blew life into the embers. He tipped the smoking ashes into a crushed pile of tumbleweed.  The dry brush exploded in the heat.  Dust hung in the air and reflected the firelight, enveloping the ex-Preachers in a luminous cloud.
    “That was a bad bit. If there’s a Hell, my place in it was earned that day.”  Terence looked back at Lead.  “What part did you play?”
    Lead shook out his face mask, giving the dust back to the air.  He spoke.  

    Plague and famine were long standing residents of Zona Refugee Camp Three.  They took their toll daily.
    Military tents housed survivors and uncollected corpses in numbers not significantly favoring one over the other.  The fugees who had yet to join the corpses did not survive by will but by chance.  They spent mornings and evenings staring at the razor wire perimeter, watching well-fed guards stand and chat and smoke.  The fugees were waiting for the virus, or for their bodies to finish its closing cycle from lack of nutrition and clean water.  The dead were sometimes recovered and discarded onto a funeral pyre south of the perimeter.  The wrong wind brought the scent; the fugees grew accustomed to it eventually.  The water of the nearby river receded in the heat, returning to primordial muck as the climate became less favorable.  The water the fugees took was thick with grit; it killed from the inside out, with coughs of blood and vomit.  Every few days guards distributed rations, but it was never fulfilling, there was never enough to eat.
    Over time guards were rotated less, which meant less supplies and food.  They too became leaner, like jackals.  The guards’ uniform changed twice in the seven years of Leonard’s confinement.  The first was subtle, the second, not so much.  One day new guards arrived without the stars and stripes patch.  They were in uniform, but the American flag was gone.  A discolored rectangle on their shoulder marked the absence.  No one mentioned it, no one asked, no returning guards carried it.  Months later, the guards took to wearing silver crosses around their necks.  The discolored patch was covered by the Zona’s crucifix-in-star. They started referring to each other as brother.  The female guards vanished from rotation.  Then the Inspection Committee came.
    Leonard had grown tall in the camp, but his body was meager and his stomach was distended from malnutrition.  His arms and fingers were long and thin, his chest sunk in contrast with his bloated stomach.  The muscles in his limbs developed like rope close to the bone.  Unlike many others, Leonard still could walk and stand, and for this reason he was escorted by guards to the inspection.  Leonard was placed in a line with other young boys of passable health.  A tent at the end of the line housed the Inspection Committee, whose job was to conscript boys into the service.  The Committee was tasked with leaving those who were dying of the Rot or New Malaria or any of the plagues, and to take those of use and promise.
    Leonard entered the tent and stripped off his soiled singlet.  The inspecting guard shined a light down his throat and tapped his teeth with a metal pick.  Another inspecting guard shined a light on Leonard’s testicles and anus, looking for telltale signs of the Blossoms.  Leonard stood still and forced himself not to tremble until he was told to exit the tent.
    Outside a young