The Breeders Series: The Complete Box Set

by Katie French

  The double doors were locked, but almost every door was locked, especially when you got upstairs where the girls and their babies were kept. These doors had the familiar key card slider on the wall to the right. Nolan slid out his key card and swiped.

  The key card slipped through the slot and the light blinked green. Nolan palmed down the handle and pushed through.

  Darkness greeted him. He fumbled for a switch and found none. Using the hallway light, he peered in. The room was large, judging by the echo of his footfalls as he took a step inside. Slowly his eyes picked up green, scrolling lights. Computers. Maybe this room held rows of cubicles.

  Yet, there was a smell…something that made the hairs of his neck tingle. Something that stank like…the garbage dump where his dah used to work. The tangy, rank odor of decay. He’d smelled only new and clean in every nook and cranny of this place since he’d started. Something had spoiled in this office. It was his job to weed it out and remove it for the good Breeders’ doctors. They weren’t used to putrescence. He, unfortunately, was bred on it.

  Leaving the safety of the doorway, he fumbled along the wall for the light switch. There’d have to be one somewhere. But, as the door clicked closed, plunging him into blackness, he realized his mistake. Fumbling around in the dark? He’d break something and then Samuel would have his head. He started back toward the door.

  Except…where was the door? He swam in a sea of night with no right or left. And the smell— like dog carcass left to rot in a garbage pile—grew stronger. The fear crept up his limbs. Why would something stink like that in a hospital? Was it…a body? He thought of Herry by the campfire.

  They pluck the babes from their ma’s cracks and gnaw on their arms and legs. Suck the marrow outta their bones.

  A shiver ran up Nolan’s arms. He turned to run.

  His knee banged into something metallic. A clang echoed beside him. His hand fumbled over soft fabric, a sheet perhaps, and something firm, yet…cold. He gripped it, trying to identify. A wrist. A human wrist.

  Nolan screamed.

  He bolted. Another crash. He was banging around like a dog in a market alley, smashing into racks and spilling things just to escape. He’d be punished, but the terror wouldn’t allow him to stop.

  A human wrist. Dear God!

  A wedge of light cut into the darkness. “Nolan!” Samuel’s voice sounded frantic. Footsteps thudded through the room and then the click of a switch. Above, a dim light snapped on.

  It was even more horrible in the light. Nolan stumbled back into the wall. Vomit rose into his throat.

  Now he knew where the smell came from.

  In a room the size of a small gymnasium, lay rows and rows of hospital beds. On each was a woman, or rather what might’ve been a woman once. Now they looked like corpses with bed sores, stringy hair and skeletal limbs. Closed eyes sunk down in hollowing sockets. Monitors beeped at each bedside and tubes pierced arms, mouth, and nose, making their bodies look half flesh, half machine. Beneath the top sheet, their bellies rose in tell-tale mounds. Pregnant, all.

  Nolan vomited on his shoes.

  When he looked up from his haze, Samuel was at his arm.

  “Oh lad”—he said, shaking his head— “this is not how I wanted you to find out.”

  They sat on buckets in the supply closet, sipping weak coffee for twenty minutes before Nolan’s head stopped spinning. He looked up at his supervisor.

  “Why?” was all he could manage.

  Samuel swallowed hard and itched a finger under his eye patch. “Well, son, the Breeders’ ways is not for us to know. We clean their shit and they feed us.” He dropped his head, running a calloused finger around his coffee mug. His bald patch gleamed in the overhead bulb. “But, I’ll tell ya. Them girls in there, something went wrong on their insides. Made ’em broken both down here,” he pointed to his paunch, “and here.” He pointed to his head. “They ain’t aware. They can’t feel. Knowing that makes looking at them a bit better.”

  Nolan shook his head. “But they’re…alive?” Before he could stop, the images flashed through his mind—rancid bed sores, hair falling off in clumps, their skeleton faces with paper thin skin. He shivered and fought the urge to lose what was left of his lunch.

  Samuel watched and nodded sadly. “Technically speaking, I guess they’re alive. The babies in their bellies come out bawling just like the rest of ’em. But their brains ain’t alive. They’re heads are empty as this bucket.” He kicked the heel of his boot into the plastic with a thunk, thunk. He leaned forward, his paunch spilling into his coveralls. “Best not to think on it. Hey” —he said, shaking Nolan’s shoe— “today’s payday.”

  Nolan nodded, but his enthusiasm for a payday had gone the way of his lunch, heaved out at the sight of those girls. He stood up on weak legs. “But, we don’t have to go in there again” —he looked up at Samuel— “do we?”

  The slow sad nod of Samuel’s head turned Nolan’s stomach again. “Yes, lad. Yes, I’m afraid we do.”

  Nolan dreaded Fridays. Fridays meant floor days and floor days meant entering the Plan B room. A crawling sensation began in his heels as he walked the mile through the garbage-strewn streets on those dark Friday mornings. By six a.m. the crawling had moved to his calves, slowing his walk to the storage closet. By eight a.m. the crawl became a tightening in his chest as he slid his key card through the reader slot and watched the light blink green. He wished each time that the blood red light would appear. It never did.

  With mop and bucket, he slowly pushed into the thick darkness. The smell assaulted him immediately—a decaying flesh smell that sent images of corpses running riot through his mind. He found the switch and flicked it, his eyes shut. When they opened, the room had its dim glow. Enough to see by. Not enough to banish the ghosts.

  He mopped quickly, not caring about streaks or a missed clump of mud. No one paid attention to this floor and if they did, he’d take a scolding if it meant getting away faster.

  He swung the mop bucket to the right and it collided with a bed frame. Water sloshed onto the floor.

  “Christ!” he swore and then, realizing his sin, prayed quickly for forgiveness. He wanted God on his side while he was in the midst of this hell.

  His eyes skimmed the girl in the bed beside him. He tried very hard after that first day not to look at any one face if he could help it. Every now and then he’d pass a girl long gone, with hair like cobwebs and flesh like flaking onion skin. Those girls were the specters that haunted his nightmares and he didn’t need another image in the picture show. Yet, when the girl on the bed let out a small moan, his eyes snapped to her face on their own.

  A noise? From this girl? Not possible. He stared down into her face, his heart spurring from gallop to sprint. Her fresh youthful face drew him in—pale skin, red cheeks, lips as pink as salmon served on paydays. Her long golden hair cascaded down one shoulder and spilled into a pool at the hollow of her throat. Her hands were folded below her rounding abdomen like a child ready for her first catechism.

  Nolan could almost picture her at the Church of the Sunset Redeemed, the open air church a half a mile up the hill from their shanty town. On Nolan’s big day, his father had run a spit-laden comb through his hair and smiled when Nolan said his commandments. It was a day all boys both loved and feared. The day they were freed from their father’s shackles to make their own way. It was also the day they learned how cruel the world really was.

  That day, Nolan’s father had placed a hand on his son’s shoulder and said, “My boy, I’d understand if you want to go, but in my heart I want you to stay.” It was that day Nolan knew what a good man his dah was. It was that day Nolan understood love means sacrifice.

  All the more reason to work harder to make sure that he could afford the soothing balms that eased his father’s pain. If he kept gaining favor, Nolan planned to ask one of the Breeders’ doctors if there was any chance they’d heal his father. He knew their technology was far more advanced than anythi
ng on the outside. Maybe if he worked harder—

  Moaning made Nolan jump. He stumbled, sending the bucket wheeling wildly. The girl on the bed him had made a noise. He leaned over and stared into her face. Her slender nose and high cheekbones, coupled with her golden hair, made her ethereal (another word stolen from an advertisement his father had brought home from the dump). She looked like an angel. It didn’t help that the only other girl he’d seen his age had been a prisoner of the local bounty hunter. Garthan had caught a wild wretch in the desert and brought her through town. Nolan had felt nothing but pity for the dirty, wide-eyed girl as the local men had handed over barter slips to spend ten minutes in a tent with the poor creature. Staring at this beauty, he felt something stir in his chest, something like drowning and ascending at the same time.

  Stop it! he thought, taking a step back. The penalty for “messin’ with the girls”, as Samuel put it, was banishment. And not just from the hospital, the entire city. Nolan grabbed his mop and walked over to retrieve the discarded bucket. He would be here longer because of this foolishness and if that wasn’t punishment enough he didn’t know wha—

  “Mom,” she called.

  Nolan froze. He swiveled toward the girl. These were brain dead. Samuel had said—

  “Mama,” she murmured, her brow wrinkling, her head shaking from side to side as her golden hair rippled on the pillow. “Mama!” Her voice was a throaty whisper and yet there was so much terror. He watched as her hands bunched the blankets at her waist.

  Then she was still.

  Christman God in Heaven.

  Nolan turned and ran from the room.

  It wasn’t until quitting time that Nolan found the courage to ask Samuel about the girl. They were standing in the hospital parking lot with the other day laborers. When it was his turn, Nolan accepted his food sack and barter slips, taking care to fold the delicate paper into his britches. His slips might not smell like roses when he went to use them, but if he was jumped maybe they wouldn’t be found.

  Outside the gate, he stepped to the side and waited. His dah would be expecting him, but what he’d seen today was eating him like a cancer. If he didn’t get to the bottom of things, he’d never sleep, much less step foot into the Plan B room again.

  Samuel came limping out minutes later, already biting into his apple. Samuel tucked the barter slips in his pocket, pulled out a serrated knife and took off toward the lights and sounds of the bazaar.

  Nolan galloped after his supervisor. “Samu—”

  The old man whirled with such speed Nolan almost lost fingers, the blade slicing inches from his hand. Samuel’s ferocious look fell away as he saw Nolan cowering before him.

  “Boy!” Samuel said, dropping his blade. “I nearly cut off your dome. What’re you doing running up on me when I got barter slips in my pocket?”

  “Sorry,” he said again. “Had something I wanted to talk to you about.”

  “Now?” Annoyance crept onto Samuel’s face. He adjusted his tan eye patch and sighed. “Couldn’t it wait ’til morning? It’s payday, son.”

  Nolan nodded. “It’s just”—he lowered his voice—“I can’t ask you in the hospital.”

  Samuel’s face tightened and he scanned the crowd streaming toward the bazaar. Sucking in his paunch belly, he leaned close to Nolan. “Anything you need to say to me out here is probably best left unsaid,” he whispered.

  Nolan furrowed his brow. “I can’t.” He felt that swelling in his stomach again as he thought of the girl. He remembered her pink lips tightening. What if she was aware? What if she knew what was happening to her? He locked eyes with Samuel. “I need to know.”

  Samuel harrumphed, pushing air through his nose. He swiveled toward the bazaar. “Better walk fast if you’re gonna keep up with me.”

  They cut through the crowd streaming toward the center of town. Torches lit the way, smelling of burnt oil and throwing jittery shadows across the landscape. The air was full of drums and guitar and the calling voices of women. Whores past breeding age beckoned from tents, their lips rouged and their skirts high. Mounds of soft, pale flesh curved out of tight bustiers. Twanging guitar floated out of a make-shift shack, while men’s voices sang a drunken refrain. Nolan had never been allowed to go to the late night bazaar and guilt followed him as he clomped after Samuel. His poor dah was lying in bed, coughing, while he attended this display of sex and food and drink. And yet the music and the flickering firelight was intoxicating. His heartbeat pounded along with the taut bongos, their tat-ta-ta-tat-tat filling the air. Nolan veered closer to a stand wafting the aroma of roast meat. A hand seized his arm.

  Samuel’s one-eyed glare met him. His supervisor drew him close. “You ever been to the night bazaar?”

  Nolan shook his head. Samuel’s grip was a vice. The boy tried to pull away. Samuel tugged him closer. The firelight danced over the old man’s wrinkled features. “You wanna live this night ’til the morn?”

  Nolan nodded numbly. This was a mistake. He should be home with his dah, and yet, he needed to know.

  “Then you stick to my heel like a well-trained mutt or you’ll be dead ’fore sun up. Get me?” Samuel let go of Nolan’s arm.

  Nolan rubbed his bicep, feeling like a spanked toddler. “I get you.”

  Samuel adjusted his eye patch and strode back through the throng of men. Nolan followed.

  A few minutes later he found himself at an apothe’s stand, far from the main thoroughfare of drinking and womanizing. At least it was quieter here. Nolan’s head was thick from all he’d seen and heard. He wanted to go home, but now he had no idea what direction his home was. He pressed after Samuel into the apothe’s lean-to, wishing he had gone when he had the chance.

  “Sammy!” the tall, long-haired apothe said when they walked in. Stooping under his low-ceiling lean-to, the apothe hugged Samuel with one arm. “How’s the Breeders, our last beacon of hope and wonder?” The apothe made a mock serious face, puckering his mouth and lidding his eyes as if he were at worship. Then he guffawed, a sound both too loud and too abrasive for the late hour. “Dr. V put you out to pasture yet?”

  Samuel cracked a smile for the first time. “Dr. V wouldn’t know what to do with her shit if she fired me. Though Nolan here” —he said, turning, snagging Nolan and drawing him forward— “he’d probably pick up where I left off. Good at cleaning shit, this lad is.” Samuel smiled at him. Nolan nodded awkwardly.

  “Well, Dr. D has got what you need right here,” the apothe said pointing to his chest. He reached behind him to racks stuffed with pots, baggies and dried plants hanging by stems. Nolan noted a very old shotgun tucked behind the counter, illegal and very necessary in this man’s line of work. Dr. D came out with a paper bundle and handed it to Samuel.

  His supervisor turned over most of his barter slips without batting an eye. Nolan hadn’t seen someone pay that much for one product in all his days of bartering. What, in God’s name, was in that bundle?

  “Always a pleasure,” Samuel said, tucking the package under his shirt. He tapped his head with two fingers in a sign of parting and turned to leave.

  “Wait,” Nolan said, staring into the apothe’s half-lidded eyes. “You have anything for wet-lung?” He drew out his barter slips. “I can pay.”

  The sad shake of the apothe’s head dropped Nolan’s stomach. “Wish I could take your money, sonny, but there ain’t nothing can cure wet-lung.” He turned away from Nolan’s outstretched barter slips. “Sorry.”

  They arrived at Samuel’s shack when the moon was high. Nolan drew his arms over his thin shirt and shivered. Samuel threw him a tired look. “It’ll be warm in here, lad,” he said, pushing open the door.

  Samuel’s shack was much like his own. The one room home had been constructed out of boards, chipped concrete blocks and a corrugated metal roof. Inside was a single bed roll where Nolan’s had two. (He thought again of his dah. He’d be worried sick.) The few possessions Samuel had were tucked neatly in a wooden crate—another pa
ir of boots, a comb, a fraying towel, a jar of some sort of balm. On one side hung two spare sets of tan work coveralls, worn through on the knees. Nolan smiled at the sentimentality of it. The hospital always gave a new set when the old wore out. Most men traded the old coveralls at the bazaar, but Samuel hung his up neatly like paintings in a twenty-first century museum.

  “Sit down,” his supervisor said, gruff again. Tiredness had leached into his step after they’d slipped past the bazaar lights. Now the old man fumbled for his package, drew it out and pressed the paper to his nose. “Whatever you’ve got to ask, better do it quick ’fore I can’t answer anymore.”

  Nolan wondered what Samuel meant, but he obeyed, folding Indian-style onto the bed roll. He watched as Samuel carefully opened his package. The dried plant inside threw a spicy scent into the air.

  “I wanted to ask you, sir, about the girls.” Nolan’s voice wavered again. He clenched his hands together. Could this get him fired? Get him kicked out of the city? He didn’t think Samuel would turn him in, but coldness encased his heart.

  “Don’t call me sir here.” Samuel drew out a square of rolling paper from a box in his crate. “It’s the Plan B girls you wanna talk about.” He lifted one tired, red-rimmed eye to Nolan. “It’s about Plan B?”

  Nolan nodded, shivering. He hugged himself and leaned back against the far wall. The wood dug into his spine. “Are you sure those girls are brain-dead? I mean” —he paused and swallowed— “have you ever heard one…say something?”