Dog Blood

I try to stand up, but one of them slams me back down, pinning my arms to the ground. Another one holds my legs. I struggle, but they’re too strong. There are too many of them.
    “Just do it,” I yell at them. “Fucking do it! Kill me now and get it over with.”
    Yet another one appears, looming over me. I can see this one’s face. He looks me up and down, then pulls the plastic stopper off the tip of a hypodermic needle with his teeth and spits it out. I try to arch my back and get away, but I can’t do anything to stop the fucker from thumping the needle hard into my chest.

iii

WITHIN WEEKS THE MECHANISM for the ongoing distribution of food and medical aid to the population of the refugee camp had begun to falter and fail. In retrospect it had seemed a large-scale but reasonably straightforward undertaking, but, as what had originally been envisaged as a short-term operation dragged into its fourth month and with no end in sight, the situation continued to rapidly deteriorate.
    The initial ground rules and hastily cobbled-together official procedures had been simple. Under military control, all resources were to be coordinated via the City Arena-a vast, cavernous, ten-thousand-seat concert venue. Its huge, soccer-field-sized concrete floor had been cleared, and all rations, supplies, emergency aid, and “collected” foodstuffs were held there under armed guard. Trucks full of provisions were shipped out to ten nominated distribution centers within the huge camp on a daily basis-a movie complex, the town hall, two sports centers, and various other similar-sized public buildings. From these centers food was distributed to the city’s population, who carried ration books with their identification papers.
    By the beginning of the second month, supplies had already dwindled to dangerously low levels, the authorities having severely underestimated both the number of refugees requiring rations and the duration of their enforced incarceration. Similarly, they’d overestimated their ability to source and replenish food stocks. Officially acquired (looted) food continued to enter the city on a daily basis as a result of frequent military excursions, but it was nowhere near enough. More importantly, no more food was being produced. No crops were being grown and harvested, no factories were operating, every transportation and distribution system had been rendered unusable…
    By midway through the second month, supplies had fallen to such a low level that the daily restocking of the ten distribution centers was reduced to every other day. By the beginning of the third month, deliveries were only being made weekly.
    A black market emerged on the streets, and for a short while it thrived and flourished. Also in month two, a militia faction known colloquially as “the Milkmen” because of the herd of stolen cows they kept penned in on the heavily guarded field of a local soccer team, assumed control of two of the distribution centers. The irony of small-time criminals dealing in milk and occasionally beef alongside the usual staples of drugs and weapons was not lost on either the military, who tolerated their activities (it took some of the pressure off them), or the poor bastards forced to trade with them. Business boomed temporarily until the basic economic principle of supply and demand could no longer be applied. Food, water, and medicines became both the commodities and the currency. The demand was inexhaustible, the supply nonexistent. Trade stopped. The militia groups closed their doors, emerging only to attack and raid other distribution centers to continue to feed and water themselves. When even the black marketeers could no longer source enough food and water for their own needs, infighting took hold, and their previously untouchable operations imploded.
    As the end of month three approached, the City Arena was all but empty, and eight of the distribution centers (including those previously run by the militia) had ceased to function. Of the three remaining sites, the Arena was now being run by the military, purely for the benefit of the military. One of the distribution centers housed in an old warehouse continued to be maintained by a rapidly dwindling group of do-gooders who were stupid enough to still believe in helping other people and who dutifully handed out almost microscopic portions to the ever-growing crowds continuing to line up outside the building twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.