by Schow, Ryan
Were they so starved they were no longer a threat?
Then the food stopped coming altogether. It was just water being delivered at different, unpredictable times. Like the three of them were an afterthought, an oh-crap-we-forgot-about-them moment.
And the water was never clean. It could have come from a toilet, someone’s unfinished water from a dirty glass, a duck pond out back.
Sometimes, when she felt the mania rising inside of her, when she felt a sort of agitated frenzy taking hold of her the way demonic possession might take hold, she lost track of everything, even herself.
She’d pulled her clothes off long time ago to make a bed of them. She felt her arms and they were bones. Her knees were protuberant against starvation and malnutrition, against the lack of clean water and reasonable accommodations.
When the guard first saw her naked, he stared for a long moment, unemotional, seemingly unaffected. Now he wouldn’t even look at her. For her, this became the measure of human value: whether or not her body garnered the attention of a man. What had the world come to when—as a prisoner in lawless times—her captors would rather starve her than rape her? Talk about your low moments.
Talk about feeling like God’s unwanted child.
Bailey was already saying good-bye to that world, to that body when the sounds of gunfire and screaming cut through the customary silence. She wanted to sit up, but couldn’t. She heard Marcus sit up in the cell beside hers (still alive), but hope was a fleeting thing.
She wanted to ask what was happening when two very loud explosions rocked the ground beneath her. Again, she wanted to get up, but she couldn’t muster the strength.
She didn’t have the energy.
If the building collapsed around her, honestly, it would be a mercy killing. All she wanted was to go. To be gone. To ascend this miserable world and deal with whatever was in store for her soul on the other side.
Then the gunfire stopped. The explosions stopped. A little while later, there were shots fired, but not a volley of shots. It was one shot, two shots, three shots. Not rapid fire succession. Were they executing people? All in all, she counted twenty-three shots fired. Would they come and execute them, too? Would they be so kind, whomever “they” were?
Then nothing. Nothing for so long the only thing she could imagine was that people outside their cells were dead, and that she, Marcus and Nick had been left here to rot and die.
Oh, God, she wanted to die.
Chapter One Hundred Thirty-Seven
Corrine and Amber were playing with a handful of kids in their respective pens. Kids assigned to them were put in the same pen. That’s what Abigail called the chain link cages before she was taken from Amber and Corrine and assigned to another parent. She called them pens. Like play pens for adults. Play pens they couldn’t leave without supervision or a key. Pens were better than cages, Amber reasoned.
It was better than thinking of themselves as prisoners.
When the guards came for Abigail, Corrine and Amber fought them viciously. Both women were subdued, put down with stun guns. This was early on. This was back when they had some fight left in them. When they came to, the offending guard told them there were reasons for the separation, but that Abigail was not being taken from her as much as she was having her quarters reassigned.
“That’s what you call these cages?” Amber said, violently shaking the metal fencing. “Living quarters? Like we have our own bathrooms, our own kitchenettes, our own television and plenty of furniture? These aren’t living quarters, this is a detention facility!”
They had cots. Not beds. Nothing to protect them from the snoring, farting, whining masses. Everyone was in the open. Privacy was something no one was afforded. Both women had been wearing the same clothes, the same underwear for two months now.
Amber’s hair stunk, her armpits stunk, her face was dry as the desert, almost as dry as her lips. Whatever beauty she could conjure through makeup was now gone. Her eyeshadow, her eyeliner, her mascara and lip liner—all gone. It wore off completely six weeks ago. That’s when she last showered. That’s when any of them had last showered.
Now, by Corrine’s count (she was in charge of keeping the date), they were more than two months in their “stay” at the Walmart dog pen (Corrine’s words not Amber’s).
“Where’s Abigail,” Corrine asked when the guards delivered lunch.
“She’s fine,” the guard named Bruce said.
“I want to see her,” Amber replied. “She’s my daughter, I have a right to see her.”
“Under martial law, you have no rights.”
“So you say,” Corrine replied.
This was a daily conversation. A regular argument about whether or not the President was still alive. A routine debate about whether or not there was even such an order without viable forms of communication as proof.
“We can contact each other by ham radio,” Bruce finally said.
“So you talk to the President on ham radio?” Corrine mused. “Because you’re so special. He told you himself, did he?”
“I’m not in command here, but if the CO says we’re under martial law, then we’re under martial law no matter what President Dupree is doing, whether he’s dead or alive or dressed in his mommy’s clothes raving about the end of the world.”
“You don’t even have a ham radio, you piece of sh—” Corrine started to say.
Cutting her off, Bruce said, “Shut up, the both of you!”
“I want to know where Abigail is,” Corrine said, louder, more insistent.
“She your sister?” Bruce said, a glint of humor in his eye. He knew she wasn’t. Now he was just antagonizing her.
“Close enough, maggot,” she finally barked, her temper getting the best of her.
Bruce found this humorous. Like not answering their questions and taunting Corrine was his own form of entertainment.
“I want to know about Marcus,” Amber said, taking over. Bruce rolled his eyes, but Amber was not laughing, and Corrine was not laughing.
“I told you, he—”
“I want to know about Nick!” Amber said, louder, glaring at the tall, dark haired soldier.
In another life, he might have been a decent guy, but by Amber’s measure, taking orders against US citizens disqualified you as being a uniformed hottie.
“You ask me this every day without—”
“Where’s Bailey?”
“Is that what we’ve come to?” he asked, holding Amber’s angry gaze. “You ask questions you won’t even let me answer.”
“Then give me an answer, Bruce!”
“I’ve given them to you and you don’t like them. The truth is one answer, and it’s not always convenient.”
“You’re purposely being evasive,” Corrine said.
“I am assigned to people the same way you’re assigned to people. I’m not assigned to Marcus, Nick or Bailey. Neither is anyone I know. Maybe they’re here, maybe they’re dead. I don’t know. No one tells me anything and I’m smart enough not to ask. How many times do I have to tell you this?”
“No one ever got smarter not asking questions you fat headed prick,” Corrine growled.
“Your mouth is getting worse.”
“You won’t let us out and you won’t give me my child,” Amber hissed, fingers gripping the chain link fence, her eyes locked on his. “You stand there with your gun and your ugly face and that sick, sanctimonious look and you say nothing. Wait until you’re on this side of the cage, Bruce.”
“Won’t happen,” he said. “Plus, I’ve got a gun and your only weapon is your stinky armpits and your matted hair.”
Fuming inside, Amber said, “Where’s Marcus?”
Shaking his head, he started to walk off. Corrine was right beside her, fingers in the fence, shaking it.
“Where’s Nick?!” Corrine screamed at the top of her lungs.
The entire Walmart floor was open, separated only by cages. The white noise fell to a whisper; now eve
ryone was looking at them.
Bruce unholstered his weapon, drew it then turned and walked up to Corrine with a haste that spoke of impatience, or perhaps a man at the end of his rope.
“Scream again, kid,” he said, his eyeballs rocking in their sockets, something in his cheek twitching the slightest bit, like the stress in his brain was too much for his face to handle.
By now there were about fifteen other kids in the same cage looking at their guardians wondering if Amber and Corrine would be “going away.”
“Where’s Nick?” Corrine said, unblinking. Bruce pulled the slide, let it hammer slap back in place. The warning wasn’t lost on anyone but Corrine. She pushed her forehead against the pistol and said, “Where’s Marcus?”
“I don’t know,” Bruce said through gritted teeth.
“Where’s Bailey?” she asked.
“They’re probably dead by now,” he said. “And you should probably be dead by now. In fact you would be if you weren’t so pretty. But you’re not pretty are you? Not anymore. Not without your face paint, your push up bras, your fake eyelashes and styled hair. You’re just mutts like the rest of them, only worse. You’ve got a mouth on—”
“Where’s Nick?!” she screamed into the man’s face on the other side of the cage. Bruce lowered his gun at the sight of the tears boiling in the girl’s eyes. “Where’s Marcus?” she asked again, this time on a choked sob. The tears started to fall, weakness pervaded. “Where’s Bailey? And Nick?”
By now, her voice was a shaky whisper, the desperate pleas of a girl on the verge of mental collapse. When a person no longer fears for their own life…
Amber pulled Corrine into her arms as the girl broke down. She just glowered at Bruce, who genuinely saw the sadness in Corrine for what it was. She was not a defiant girl. Not a troublemaker. Amber knew Bruce saw this, even though she wasn’t sure if he was going to shoot her a moment ago or not.
“I’m sorry for all this,” Bruce finally said, his tone softer, genuine sympathy in his eyes for the first time since they met.
Amber couldn’t speak. All she could do was nod her head in acceptance.
Corrine returned to her cot while Amber started to say something to Bruce. He was one of the first to get shot. A deafening volley of gunfire shattered the white noise of the indoor internment camp, but for some reason Amber stayed standing, frozen with fear perhaps.
The terrifying sounds of automatic weapons unleashing hell upon them tore through the building, and still she stood. Her eyes should have scanned the various cages for Abigail. She should have ducked under a bed. Hidden anywhere. Instead her eyes found one of the many men doing the shooting.
He suddenly turned his head her way, meeting her eyes. She was too far away to get a read on his soul, but by virtue of what he was doing—killing all those people—she knew his soul was black.
Get down, she told herself. Get as low as you can!
But she wasn’t listening.
For too long now they were treated unfairly, inhumanely. Now they were going to die? Standing in cages they’d been stuffed in for months now? He turned his weapon on her. They were maybe a hundred feet apart, maybe a few feet less.
If he does it, she thought, if he kills me, will it really matter?
Corrine was screaming her name, but the noise was muted, everything moving lightening quick, everything moving in slow motion.
When he aimed at her and fired, a voice in her head told her she should have taken the kids she was assigned to safety. But where was safety?
They were in chain link cages in the middle of a warehouse offering nothing in the way of cover. There was no such thing as safety. Instead she watched the flash of orange around the gun’s muzzle and the next thing she knew, she’d been hit.
Chapter One Hundred Thirty-Eight
Maria Antoinette and the girl walked for days. Weeks really. They wandered the town, collecting food, finding shelter, staying alive. For a month and a half after the day Maria walked out of the college campus she was housed in, she tried to make this body hers. It wasn’t easy. Not at all. It was, in fact, a work in progress.
The good news was, the host personality—Antoinette—was gone. As in no where to be found. The body was finally Maria’s. Only when the integration truly felt aligned and complete did she suggest to the girl that they leave Palo Alto.
By now it was really dangerous. People were hungry, thirsty, at the end of their rope. They were starving and dying, they were freezing cold and realizing their government wasn’t going to save them or anyone else, so they were hunting and abusing and killing people, too.
Maria thought she could handle this, but she was human now. Vulnerable. As was the child, who was starting to grow on her some—an unforeseen curiosity in itself.
Heading for San Francisco where she ultimately wanted to be, Maria and the child trekked through the backed up mess of highway 82. They slept in cars, or roadside homes; once they slept on the side of the road itself and once they slept in a big rig’s sleeper. Twice, however, they were approached by other people, men.
Maria put off the air of a closed book. As in, she was unavailable for conversation.
When the two men finally managed to get her to talk, it was because they wouldn’t leave her alone. They matched her stride, hillbilly grins on their faces, a little lust in their watery red eyes, needful tremors in their hands. These men walked step-for-step beside her telling her she had nice eyes, a great rack, the kind of juicy butt most girls would kill for.
When he tried to pinch her butt, Maria swatted his hand away. He winced, shook off the pain and looked at her funny. Like she didn’t seem to have that much whip to her, or that much weight. When she struck him, though, it really hurt.
“This tush is not yours to grab,” she said the same way you’d scold a child, or stand up for yourself against what workplace literature called “unwanted sexual advances.”
“You one a them feminazis er sumpthin?” he said, grinning but holding his wrist.
The girl fell behind because Maria didn’t realize her stride had lengthened. The frisky one with the sore wrist kept up with her; his buddy fell back with the girl.
Behind her, Maria heard the child say, “Don’t touch me,” and that was enough. Maria turned and unleashed a torrent of violence upon the man. In the end, she broke most of his ribs, then lifted him up and dropped him on her knee, breaking his spine in half. Dropping the battered body, she set her eyes on the other guy who had since drawn down on her.
“How did you do that?” he asked, looking at his friend on the side of the road, his body twisted up in all the wrong places.
“Put down your gun and leave if you want to live. If you want to end up like your friend, just keep on doing what you’re doing.”
He closed the distance between them, then raised the gun to her face and cocked the trigger. She could see it in his eyes. He planned on shooting her. He also kept enough distance to get off a shot if he needed to because he was scared.
“What was he to you?” Maria finally asked the man.
His eyes naturally dropped to his friend as he tried to find the words to describe their relationship, or friendship. That was the split second Maria needed. Using inhuman speed, she rushed the man, dipped under his gun hand and took a slight angle. One hand clutched his wrist; with her free hand she palmed his elbow, pressing it the wrong way.
In a mighty show of force, and at the same time, she jerked the wrist and shoved the straightened elbow, causing a loud popping sound and catastrophic damage. She then punched him in the throat so hard he damn near died on his feet.
Turning around, even as the man was falling, she said to the horrified child, “Are you okay?”
Behind her, the second man with the salacious mouth and the frisky hands hit the ground with a thud.
The child was looking at the two dead bodies, tears welling in her eyes. Drawing on her database of human reactions, Maria knew all children reacted to traumatic situ
ations differently. Some kids got quiet, pulling themselves inward; others ran away, or stood in one place and broke into tears. Still there were some who screamed or hid. But not her child. Not this little girl.
She just stood there in between the men. She might be about to cry, but she wasn’t running, or hiding, and she wasn’t overreacting.
Interesting…
“You’re going to see a lot of that,” Maria finally said to the child. “So long as pretty women exist, pigs like these will try to hump them.”
“What’s hump?”
“Sex.”
The girl’s face turned red.
“You’re embarrassed, but you have no idea what sex even is. Get me that man’s gun, please.”
“It’s bad for kids,” she said, answering the question about sex. Wiping her eyes, she said, “But my mommy says it’s what parents do to make babies come into this world.”
“Yes, that’s true. In fact, that’s the purest view of it. But it’s also what people, mostly men, use as leverage on other people, mostly women. It’s called intimidation, or a show of control. And then there are men like these who just see a pretty girl and want to have her. You know men live their lives at the behest of their penises, right?”
“What’s a penis?”
“Forget it,” she said. “You’re too young for this conversation. The point is, you’re going to have to see people die if you want to be with me. Do you still want to be with me?”
The girl didn’t answer. She looked away. Eyes down. Quiet.
“I can leave you with them,” she said, letting the statement hang. Then: “Remember when he touched you? He might have wanted to touch you in places that are private. Lots of men will want to do that to you over the years, but until you’re old enough, they will all be the wrong men. Do you understand me?”
“He touched my shoulder,” she said, almost as if she was embarrassed.
“It’s wrong to try to do it with children.”