Chapter Seven Exterminators

“Roach, wake up.”

Roach turned over on his bed, scooting down beneath the covers so that they draped over his face. “What do you want?” he grumbled, still lingering in a hazy dream between slumber and wakefulness. He heard a pitiful sniff then the quiet pattering of tears as they struck the floor. Soon the salty liquid was dropping against his cheeks.

“Roach, please?”

The voice registered then, and Roach was instantly awake and flinging the covers back. “Precious?!”

The weeping angel shied away from the bed even as Roach reached for him; the older boy’s expression grew pained, and tears rose to his own eyes. “Precious, where have you been? I haven’t seen you since… I was afraid you had…” He stopped, unable to give voice to the fears that had haunted his dreams since Precious had vanished the night of their disagreement.

“I was staying with the Drones and the Workers in the other building.” Precious explained, keeping his eyes down.

“Oh… but, you could have at least told me… its been months.”

Precious fell quiet and lifted one of his delicate hands to push his fingers through his blonde hair, his blue eyes still glistening with unreleased tears. Roach sighed and, swinging his legs over the side of the bed to sit facing his friend, he clasped his hands together in his lap. “What’s wrong, Precious? Talk to me, please? Why are you crying?”

Precious did not answer. His eyes fell downcast and his hair fell in front of his face like a flaxen curtain, swaying gently as he shifted his weight uncomfortably. His lips parted and a weak sob slipped between them before his shoulders began to shudder and his hands lifted to cover his face. Roach rose from the bed and stepped over Precious’ cold mattress, reaching again for his friend. Precious jerked back and fell against the wall, shaking his head. “Don’t touch me!”

“Why are you being this way, Precious? If I can’t even touch you then why did you come back?!” Roach yelled, tears spilling down his dark cheeks. “Why, Precious?!”

The younger boy’s hands moved to the sash tied about his waist, holding closed his long, flowing navy blue robes. The fabric eased down his shoulders and slid over the crook of his arm, pooling by his feet as it released his trembling, pale form. Roach staggered back, lifting his arm and pressing the back of his wrist to his lips to stifle a sharp gasp.

Large sores covered Precious’ chest and arms; they were like massive blisters, oozing pus and watery blood. Red, infected skin was peeling away from the sores in strips, and as Precious lifted his head and brushed his hair completely from his face, Roach could see that the sores were beginning to spread up his throat and jaw line toward his left eye.

Roach shook his head weakly and slowly lowered his arm, stretching his hand toward his friend hesitantly. Precious shivered and swallowed hard as he felt Roach’s fingers brush against his fevered brow. “They’re going to kill me, Roach.”

Roach shook his head and pulled his hand away, kneeling down to pick up Precious’ robes and drape them over the boy’s shoulders again, folding the fabric across his red and blood chest before loosely tying the sash. “They won’t kill you, Precious. Why would you say such a thing? We can take you to the Workers, they can help you…”

"You don’t understand, Roach.” Precious whispered. There was a moment of silence before Precious began again. “Roach, do you remember Little One?”

“Of course I do.” Roach muttered guiltily; in reality he had almost forgotten his little daughter. He hadn’t seen her since that time in the nursery after she had become ill. She must be getting close to a year old now, he thought to himself. Thoughts and worries for Little One had been replaced by thoughts and worries for Precious during the boy’s absence.

“The disease she had… it isn’t chicken pox. They don’t know what it is, but it became so bad that they took her out of the nursery. They were afraid she would ‘contaminate’ their new generation or something. So they put her in the chamber with the lower Drones, their Sons, and Workers, and it spread. Its affecting the Drones and Sons the most. As the disease progresses… Roach, it makes us sterile.”

Roach’s eyes grew wide and he stumbled backwards over Precious’ mattress, sinking down heavily onto the side of his bed. “Surely yours isn’t that advanced yet, is it? They must have a cure, some medicine that can stop it from advancing… right?”

“There is no medicine for it, no cure, Roach. They… they’re taking all of those people who are infected to the Morgue now. They say they’re just going to quarantine us until they can come up with something, but its not true, Roach, I know they’re just taking us down there to kill us all!” Precious was sobbing now; his thin shoulder violently shaking and his chest heaving as tears cascaded down his face tainted a faint yellow and red as they ran across the sores.

Roach stood again and pulled the boy close, holding Precious firmly against his chest. Roach closed his eyes and took a deep breath, resting his forehead against Precious’. “Precious, I swear, I’ll die before I let anyone kill you.”

“You can’t promise that,” Precious whimpered, clinging to the back of Roach’s robes.

“Just,” Roach bit his lower lip and pulled away carefully from Precious, touching the other boy’s cheek with his hand. “Just wait here. I’ll go talk to Joyful Tears. There’s got to be some mistake. They can’t just kill everyone.”

“You’re naïve, Roach.” Precious whispered as he slowly moved to the window and watched as a row of Drones were marched down to the hill to the Morgue. “You’re blind; you can’t see what’s right in front of you. To them… to them we are nothing more than pests that must be exterminated.”

“Precious…”

“I told you, Roach. I told you this long ago. Who gets to decide who lives and who dies?”

Roach stiffened, swallowing hard as he crossed the room and pulled open the door. “Just stay here, Precious. Everything will be fine, you’ll see.”

When he stepped out of the room into the hall, Roach was immediately immersed in a flood of the higher Drones that lived in the mansion like himself. He struggled to break through the current that was pulling him in the opposition direction of Joyful Tears’ chamber, but to no avail. Falling into step with the other confused Drones, he took the wrist of the boy next to him. “What is going on? Where is everyone going?” He questioned as the group stepped outside and started down the hill.

The Drone looked up at Roach with a raised brow. “Haven’t you heard? Some kind of plague has broken out. Sun brought us a direct order from the Great Mother herself, we are to meet him in a place called the Armory and we will get our instructions there.”

“What is an Armory?” Roach questioned, releasing the Drone’s wrist as a frown turned down the other boy’s lips. He shook his head, his shoulder length, straight blonde hair dancing in front of his stormy blue eyes.

“I’m not sure; none of the other Drones I’ve asked know anything about it”

“What’s your name?”

“Cherry Toes. And yours?”

“Cockroach, but… I prefer just ‘Roach.’ ”

Cherry Toes winced. “Roach? Why would anyone name their child that?”

Roach straightened. “Why would someone name their child ‘Cherry Toes?’ ”

Cherry Toes pointed a slender finger down toward his feet, wriggling his red, bare toes as he walked. “Because for some reason my toes sometimes turn red. They were very red when I was born. What about your name?”

Roach never got the chance to explain, for by that time he, Cherry Toes, and the rest of the Drones had been pushed into a small, cramped building behind of the Morgue. There were close to twenty Drones inside of the square, brick building; Roach and Cherry Toes were near the center of the group and Roach recognized the tall, dark skinned Drone standing at the front of them on a low platform as Sun, the Drone that had was slowly becoming Joyful Tears’ favorite according to the rumors that Roach been hearing.

Cherry Toes idly smoothed down the front of his pastel pink robes, his elbows brushing against Roach’s arm. Roach glanced at the boy and was about to speak again, but was silenced as Sun’s deep, booming voice shattered the heavy silence. “The Great Mother has asked me to bring you here under terrible circumstances. The sickness has spread throughout the other building where the lesser Drones and the Workers reside. To preserve our colony, our way of life, those infected have been taken to the Morgue for immediate termination.”

Roach stiffened, his eyes widening so that his irises were small black pools in a sea of white. “Precious.” The name staggered from his lips and collapsed onto the floor like a living thing; though Roach did not see with his own eyes, he knew then that Precious, at this moment, had been found and was being taken down the steep hill to his doom.

Cherry Toes tilted his head, his blue-grey eyes turning to Roach in confusion. “What?”

“My… Son,” Roach choked out as he felt tears gathering in his eyes. “My Son is infected…” He shook his head and tilted it back, his brown hair spilling over his face as he cried loudly. “Are the Mothers not even going to try to help them?”

Sun narrowed his eyes, folding his muscular arms over his bare chest. “They have done everything they could, Drone. Now be quiet.”

“They have done NOTHING!” Roach countered, clenching his hands into tight fists.

“SILENCE!” The Drone’s voice erupted like thunder through the small room, and Roach lowered his head, tears silently working their way over his high cheekbones and curling beneath his jaw.

Sun huffed then dropped down to sit on the edge of the platform, glancing over his wide shoulder toward the piles of boxes stacked behind of the platform he rested upon. A few of the older Drones, one of which Roach recognized as Lovely, began to open the boxes and pull out thin metallic tube-like devices; devices that Roach had seen only once before. “These,” Sun began as he took one of the devices from Lovely. “Are called guns. They are weapons. You may recall being taught how to use them when you were Sons. We had hoped you would never have to use them, but the time has come. You will each get a gun, and you will all go down with me to the Morgue, and we will put an end to this.”