Ayaan watched in horror as the rotting corpses tottered past her. Their limbs and faces were streaked with decay, their eyes cloudy'she knew that look, knew what dead bodies looked like. She hadn't seen them so focused, though, so determined, not for a long time, not since... not since she had fought Gary in New York. Puppets, she told herself, they were puppets. Nothing to fear.
They spread out across the fenced-in zone of the refinery, splitting into lines that lead to narrow pits dug in the ground capped with stone igloos. The pits must have gone deep'dozens of ruined bodies disappeared into each of the igloos. They must be underground storage units for the dead, who needed neither light nor air nor elbow room. Mass graves as high-density housing.
'You don't need to look, if you don't want.' Vassily's face had grown a little stern. Ayaan flashed him a very fake smile'all she could manage'and followed him deeper into the refinery's grounds.
Between and among the big towers of the plant living people moved freely, smiling at one another, waving at those they knew, stopping for a bit of conversation. From the shining catwalks that connected the spires they hung hammocks and clothes lines and even suspended entire houses made of woven rope. Light and open fires were everywhere and the smell of roasting meat filled the air, made Ayaan's stomach curdle. She thought she might throw up, she was so hungry.
'Is good here,' Vassily told her, and she didn't doubt it. As long as you didn't mind living in community with the dead. A girl no older than five or six handed Ayaan a slice of bread smeared with honey and whirled away, giggling. Boys lined up along the path to watch her go by. She ate the bread without thinking about it, much. It could be drugged'the bright faces, the shining eyes all around her could have come out of a pill bottle, certainly'but she needed sustenance too much to throw the bread away. It was delicious.
Vassily lead her inwards. They passed a wooden building, a long, low shed with no windows where a pair of ghouls with no hands'just spikes at the ends of their arms'stood guard. They had been so fast in the desert but here they stood like statues, perfectly still. She caught a glimpse of a green robe inside the door but couldn't make out any details. She tried to ask a question but her guide steered her down a side street. 'Is nothing,' he said, only a hint of gravel in his voice.
The towers of the plant divided the makeshift town into natural quarters surrounding a central souk or amphitheater. Vassily lead her deep into the body of the place, through noisy zones where men practiced at a rifle range and past an open-air nursery where mothers played with fat little babies. In a pen formed mostly of pipes as thick as Ayaan's arm livestock'pigs, mostly, but a couple of shaggy-maned cows, too'grazed desultorily at a trough full of scraps. Scraps that the soldiers in Ayaan's encampment outside of Port Said would have considered a banquet.
'He has farms, and she makes crops to grow,' Vassily whispered, 'corn and wheat and rye. Are fruit trees, so many. You like apples? If you don't, we grow oranges!' he laughed, and she couldn't help but smile at the idea of such luxury.