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“Oh, Mama’s good. Mama’s always good,” he declared with his toothy smile. “She’s got Avril making her breakfast this morning because you and I have an errand to attend to.”
I gulped. “And what is that?”
“Don’t worry,” he said. “It ain’t so bad, and it won’t last too long.”
He stepped aside and motioned for me to exit, and I walked out of the stall. I had nowhere to go, and I wasn’t about to leave Kimber behind, so I tried to steel myself for whatever was about to happen.
Waylon directed me down the dirt paths between the buildings, and he met my slow pace so he walked alongside me. We passed through buildings of zombies, all of them moaning and reaching their arms out at us as.
“That’s where we’re headed there,” he said, pointing to the building marked with a skull-and-crossbones made out of actual human bones (or hopefully zombie).
“What are we doing there?” I asked, and I hated that I couldn’t completely keep the tremble out of my voice.
He stopped just outside the door and let out a heavy sigh. “I know it isn’t pleasant, but it’s what needs to be done. It won’t make any sense to you, but it is better that I’m the one doing this. I’ll make it as quick as I can.”
“You still haven’t told me what you’re doing.” I looked up at him, but he wouldn’t meet my gaze.
“You’re getting marked to keep you safe,” Waylon said, and he opened the door.
It was smaller inside than I expected, and at first glance, it looked like a workshop. Tools everywhere, a workbench against a wall, sawdust covered the floor, and everything was so dirty. Waylon flipped on an overhead light, and I quickly realized that it wasn’t so much dirty as it was bloody.
Everything in the shop was stained rust red and zombie green. The workbench was a butcher’s block, and the tools around were all sharp or serrated. Chains with meat hooks hung from the ceiling, and there were decomposing body parts nailed up on the wall.
“This is my brother’s shed, not mine,” Waylon tried to comfort me as I looked around in horror. “But here’s where the tools are.”
“Can’t we do this somewhere else?” I asked, since I would rather be anywhere else than in this gruesome butcher shed.
“I promise it’ll be over soon, and I’ll make it as quick as I can,” Waylon told me again. “Lean over the table. It’s better if you’ve got something to hang onto.”
I did as he instructed, and that’s when I noticed the electric branding iron humming on the table beside me. The LFR design was already glowing red, so it was ready to go.
“Here.” Waylon handed me a strap of leather. “It’s to bite down on. If you weren’t going to work with my mama all day, I’d offer you a shot of whiskey to help with the pain, but that wouldn’t be good for either of us.”
I put the leather between my teeth, and Waylon told me to pull my skirt up on the right side. The cold air dimpled the skin on my thigh, and I squeezed my eyes shut.
“Okay,” Waylon said, and then I felt the brand against my skin.
Even though I knew what was coming, the searing pain was still overwhelming. It felt like fire was stabbing through the meat of my leg, and I could smell my own flesh sizzling. I bit down on the leather as hard as I could, and I still ended up crying out.
“It’s all done,” Waylon told me, but the pain raged on, burning down my entire thigh. “It’s over now.”
I spit out the leather strap, but I stayed leaning against the bench, letting tears slide down my cheeks as I gasped for breath.
Waylon pulled my skirt down for me, moving carefully so as not to worsen the pain.
“I know you don’t want to be in here, but we can stay in here until you’re ready,” he told me softly. “I’ll tell Mama it’s my fault that you were late.”
I cried, because I couldn’t help it, and because my leg hurt like hell and I was cold and hungry, and because life was so impossibly hard, and I didn’t know how to make it any better.
A moment later, Waylon draped his heavy flannel jacket over my shoulders, and I realized dimly that I had been shivering.
“Buddy isn’t branded,” he said quietly. “You saw what Wyatt did to his mouth.”
“Wyatt sewed Buddy’s mouth shut because he wasn’t branded?” I asked through my tears.
“No, he sewed his mouth shut because he means to turn Buddy into a zombie later on,” Waylon elaborated. “If his mouth is sewn up, he can’t bite anyone, and then once he’s fully tame, Wyatt will slice his mouth open again. It makes it all easier for him, I guess.”
He shrugged, as if he didn’t really understand it himself, but it also didn’t seem to bother him all that much that his brother had a practice of preparing healthy humans for zombification in advance.
