CORPSES ON A CARDBOARD PIRE
The moon was out, and the sky was full of stars. It had been 36 hours since the massacre; the bloodshed was over. The blood had dried on the pavement. Every patient involved was either discharged, fighting for life in the ICU, or dead.
There were six dead so far. Two of the bodies, a father and his teenage son, had been claimed by a grief-stricken mother. Four unclaimed bodies burned on the cardboard and rubber pyre outside the gates of Fort Mormon. No one knew their names, their family had not come looking for them, but a small crowd had gathered to mourn their death. A man in religious garb, who had been at the protest, knelt on the cracked asphalt and recited a prayer.
You'd think there'd be a smell. Bayen was always told that burning flesh and hair was one of the worst smells imaginable. But the fire burned so hot that he couldn't smell the burning corpses at all, just the gas and rubber. It was so hot that no one could stand within thirty feet of it, and even then it was hot on your face. It spewed thick black smoke into the still nighttime air. No one could even see the bodies through the thick smoke and flames.
"Fuckin' NCR pig bastards," said Squid. She stood beside Bayen, staring with a vacant expression at the burning heap of garbage and corpses. She didn't seem at all bothered by the heat. "They got us pretty good, huh?"
The fire was loud. Bayen could barely hear what she was saying, even with her standing right next to him. It still felt wrong to yell, though, so he only raised his voice a little. "Yeah… Did you know any of them?"
Squid's gaze stayed locked on the fire. The flames reflected in her beady little eyes. Her eyes were usually filled with passionate malice, but tonight was different. Tonight they glistened with pent-up emotion. "Me and that white-skinned kid used to play basketball, before I got all caught up doing this medic shit. I don't remember his name." She glanced briefly up at Bayen. "Did you?"
Bayen nodded. "I'd met a few of them in passing. It was really weird to see their bodies laid out on the ground..."
He trailed off awkwardly. The two were silent for a while longer, though the world around them wasn't. The priest continued his prayer. He was shouting, but his voice was distorted by the fire. Bayen only caught a few lines.
'God our Father, Your power brings us to birth, Your providence guides our lives, by Your command we return to dust…'
"Sorry for all the stuff that happened back there," said Squid, from out of nowhere. Bayen blinked in surprise.
"What?"
"I dunno. Sorry. I didn't mean to freak you guys out." She stopped and stared at Bayen to gauge his response. He didn't have one at first, so he just stuffed his hands in his pockets and stared back at Squid.
"Okay? Anyhting else?" he asked, eventually. Squid hung her head in shame.
"Yeah. I'm sorry about some other shit too. I'm not proud of this, but I was at that protest, right? I threw some shit at Senator Monroe. I got Rylan involved. It was stupid. I was just trying to have some fun and piss off some NCR. But now it turned out like this and it kinda feels like my fault too."
Bayen wasn't surprised, nor was he particularly upset. He suspected she'd been involved somehow. It would be out of character for her not to come out and protest for Freeside. Still, it made him uncomfortable to think about. What if she'd been laid out with the rest of the bodies here tonight?
"That's okay. You weren't one of the people fighting. It's not your fault that you showed up," said Bayen, while in his head he was still trying to put away the images of Squid with her blood splashed all over the pavement. He trailed off for a moment, then snapped back and gave her a critical look. "You didn't get involved in the fighting, right?"
Squid shook her head fervently. "No way! I grabbed Rylan and dipped the fuck out of there as soon as shit got violent." Her voice was unusually earnest. She couldn't seem to finish the story, though; she had her lips pursed and her eyebrows scrunched like she was trying really hard to decide how she was gonna say the next thing, but she just couldn't get there.
"It's alright Squid. Say what you need to," said Bayen. Squid exhaled loudly and ran her hands back through her hair. With her hands pressed on her forehead and her greasy black hair pulled up out of her face, she looked to the sky and stared into the stars.
"I don't even know. I thought I wanted a revolution in Freeside. But this is just fuckin' sad, man. Literally nothing good came out of this."
"Just a bunch of dead Freesiders."
"Yeah. And now everyone hates each other even more."
The priest finished his prayer, stood up, and joined the rest of the crowd. People decided it was time to throw offerings to the dead, now. There were beads, pre war trinkets, and food. Someone ran up and splashed what looked like Brahmin milk onto the fire, where it instantly evaporated. Someone threw a beautiful copper flower.
Bayen removed the dog tags from around his neck and held them up in the flickering light of the burning corpses. One of the tags said: Pvt. Connor Bayen. AB Pos. Protestant. The other: 24601. Mechanized Infantry. The chain made a little clicking noise as it slipped between his fingers. It was like dangling a greasy metal snake in his hands.
A strange, dark feeling filled Bayen's heart as he balled up the chain and tags in his fist. The metal tags were cold against his sweaty palm. He could feel the raised inscriptions. He could feel the little grooves he'd carved into the back of his name tag, where there were three sets of dates and initials etched messily into the smooth metal surface. He wound back his arm, took aim, and threw the dog tags as hard as he could, casting them into the flames. His offering disappeared somewhere in the cloud of black smoke.
Bayen found himself quietly panting with emotion. He wanted to shout something, to let the whole city feel how he was feeling now, but no words came to mind. Instead he just sat with his mouth open and his heart aching, breathing hard and staring at the corpse pyre.
