by Joe Nobody
“You got it, boss,” the older man answered, immediately moving off to make sure there weren’t any additional bushwhackers in the vicinity.
Less than five minutes later, Terri, Bishop, and Butter stood beside the road as the procession of trucks began their parade by them. Turning to his wife, the Texan nodded toward the detainees and instructed, “Get their story.”
Terri started asking the conscious prisoners questions in Spanish but none would answer. With a nod from Bishop, Butter took a step toward the closer man and drew his blade while flashing an angry scowl.
All of the locals immediately began talking, all at once. With big eyes darting between Butter’s blade and the unresponsive man at their feet, Terri had to slow them down more than once.
After a few minutes of exchange, Terri called Bishop aside to explain. “These men are from a village about 100 miles west of here. Sounds like a tiny place. They’re trying to reach a cousin’s ranch near Brownsville, doing a little looting and the occasional robbery along the way. They are very hungry and scared to death of Butter.”
“Who can blame them?” Bishop grinned, staring at the looming giant. “Tell them we will drop off their rifles a mile up the road. Tell them if they ever bother us again, I will let the big guy skin them alive.”
Terri seemed puzzled by her husband’s words, but knew it wasn’t the time or place to question his orders. After hearing the message in Spanish, the prisoners eagerly nodded their agreement.
“Why are they so scared of Butter?” Terri asked as they headed back toward the pickup.
“I have no idea,” Bishop answered, shrugging his shoulders. “I guess because he’s so large.”
Terri nodded with a smile, “I suppose. Little do they know he’s just a big, friendly teddy bear under all that muscle. Interestingly, though, one of those men asked if we were Copperheads.”
Pulling up short, Bishop stopped and stared at his wife. “Did he say anything else?”
“No,” Terri replied, shaking her head. “I could tell he was relieved when I told him we weren’t. He seemed to be very frightened of them. He said that everyone they met along the way had warned his little gang about avoiding them. That’s all he knew.”
Bishop pivoted, wanting to press the bandits for more information, but they had already run away. Turning to assess at the line of trucks now rolling off into the distance, he decided there wasn’t time to hunt down his former prisoners. “I’ve got a bad feeling about these snake people.”
Julio’s grammar needs a lot of work, April concluded as she scanned the amount of red ink she had just deposited on his paper. “I need to keep him after school for a little one on one tutoring,” she whispered.
A quick check of her small desk confirmed that she had indeed saved the worst for last, at least when it came to grading tonight’s homework.
Neatly sorting the papers into their respective stacks, she deposited the children’s assignments into the canvas satchel and hung the old bag on its hook near the head of her cot.
She next checked her skirt, trying to remember if she had changed to this outfit yesterday or the day before. A quick glance at her only other clothing confirmed that she was wearing the least soiled of her two options. Her analysis was confirmed by the size of the dust cloud that rose into the air when she patted the bottom seam. Laundry day was tomorrow. It would have to do.
Finally ready for bed, she pulled off her clothes and hung both blouse and broadcloth skirt on the same hook as her bag. The next time Castro came by to visit, she would meet his needs with a little more vigor than usual, and perhaps he would remember to install a second hanger in her room. A second candle would help as well.
After pulling back the old wool blanket, she sat on the cot’s edge and as usual, planned the next day’s agenda. There was the spelling test in the morning … then the children were to take a field trip to one of the remote silos where grain was stored. There, they would learn how some of the machinery worked.
Like most of the curriculum at the plantation, practical skills and life lessons were always intermixed with reading, writing, and math. For a moment, she pined for more books, better equipment, and an expanded education for her pupils, but that simply wasn’t an option, and probably wouldn’t be for years to come.
Still, the children of the plantation were learning the basics, and that was far and above what most of the world’s youth were receiving since the apocalypse. Her students were well fed, had shirts on their backs, were given basic medical care, and had roofs over their heads.
That thought led April to, once again, study her own surroundings.
Her room was really a closet, separated from the main barracks by a partition of scrap wood and a sheet of roofing tin. Three years ago, before the world had gone to hell, she would have considered it a shanty at best. Now, she was one of the few who had her own private space, cramped and drafty as it might be.
Part of her good fortune was due to her need to grade papers and work into the night. Mostly, she had to admit, it was because she had caught Castro’s eye, and he liked a little privacy when he came to visit.
A scuffle on the floor outside her curtain drew her attention, her heart sinking at the thought that Castro was indeed on the prowl. The footfalls continued past the old bedsheet that acted as her door, most likely one of the laborers on his way to the outhouse.
An outhouse. Quarters that were barely three feet wide and sported a curtain for a door. A wardrobe that consisted of two blouses and two skirts that felt like they were made of a burlap blend fabric. A man who dropped in for sex anytime he wished, regardless of her state or mood.
April fought the urge to feel sorry for herself. “Stop being such a fussbudget,” she reprimanded herself. She was teaching school, the only occupation she had ever wanted. She had shelter. She was part of a community. She was safe. Her stomach was full. She was no longer slowly starving to death.
Hunger.
Recalling that first winter after the apocalypse was always difficult. For a fleeting moment, she wondered how her mother was doing … wished she could sit and argue with her sister, if only for a few minutes. She missed her family terribly and yearned for a simpler time when she would wake up and smell the morning air coming off the lake. As was often the case, she dreamed of the racks of clothes that probably still hung in her closet.
All of those memories were trumped, however, pushed aside by one intense, overriding recollection – hunger. It was a sensation that was impossible to forget … the gnawing, bone-deep, grinding emptiness that had consumed every fiber of her being. She would never forget how it felt, swore that she would go anywhere, do anything to avoid being hungry again.
“Stop your bellyaching,” she whispered to the candle. “You ate today. In this world, what more can you ask? Besides, life here on the plantation isn’t so bad. In some respects, it is a lot like how you thought the world should function even before the collapse. A modified communal utopia.”
That question directed her thoughts down a different path, a well-worn mental route that she had traveled a hundred times since she had been “rescued” that morning so long ago.
After leaving home before sunrise, she remembered reaching the end of the marina’s lane and wondering which direction to walk. The sound of a distant motor made the decision for her, and she turned toward the rare noise.
The men at the pickup seemed surprised to see her meander up to them as if they were giving away free food. “Are you hungry?” they asked.
“Yes. I’m very hungry. Do you have anything to eat?”
“We will take you to a place that has all the food you can eat. You have to work hard for it, but they will feed you.”
“Sounds like a plan,” she had instantly replied, beyond the point of worrying about where she was being taken, what these strangers would do to her, or the family she was leaving behind. If what these men said was true, she would return for her sister and mother. She would save them.
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One of the men handed her two stale pieces of flatbread while they traveled south. She had gobbled down the meager nourishment in a few, very unladylike gulps. A short time later, she was offered water.
After several hours of riding in the back of the pickup, they finally arrived at the pens.
April was amazed at the sheer scale of the estate. There were literally hundreds and hundreds of people being “processed” for a new life on the plantation. Step by step, she was prodded, guided, searched, stripped naked, deloused with some sort of cold liquid, and then finally fed.
During the ordeal, she spotted one man try to escape, darting from one of the holding areas like he was being pursued by the devil himself. A horseback rider thundered across the grounds, his lasso making a perfect circle in the air as his mount quickly closed the distance.
The vaquero’s rope encircled the escapee, slamming him to the ground like a stray calf.
April remembered standing at the fence, one of the unwashed multitudes who were pressing their faces against the wire and watching the drama like motorists on the highway slowing to rubberneck at a traffic accident.
The captive was unceremoniously dragged across the gravel, screaming in agony as the rocks peeled away his skin. After two laps around the large area, the rider finally stopped directly in front of the penned audience. Another man appeared holding a large machete. Castro.
Without pause or ceremony, the blade arched through the air, chopping into the escapee’s neck and nearly severing the head.
April couldn’t pull her eyes away as the almost-headless body jerked and twitched, flopping like the fish she once pulled from the water. It seemed like several minutes before the corpse finally went still.
“You are now the property of the Castle,” Castro turned and shouted at the horrified onlookers. “If you try to escape, you will die like this man. If you work hard and follow the rules, you will be fed and sheltered. Our laws are very strict. There is no mercy, leniency, or exception. Live by them or be severely punished.”
Even before having studied the language as her minor in college, being a South Texas native had provided April with an excellent grasp of Spanish. Frightening murmurs and hushed whispers began circulating among her fellow detainees. Words like slavers, bondage, and thrall began circulating through the throng.
After being processed like cattle purchased at an auction, April found herself in a line of people waiting for an assessor. An hour later, she was roughly manhandled to stand before a middle-aged Hispanic man who was seated at a cheap, folding card table.
“Name,” he barked, scribbling something with a yellow pencil.
“April,” she replied, nearly frozen with terror after what she had seen and experienced.
“Take off your clothes,” he ordered with a voice containing no more compassion or interest than a man looking under the hood of a used car.
She hesitated, only for a moment, but it was too long.
A searing line of pain flashed across her back as one of the guards whipped her with a length of bamboo. “I said, ‘Take off your clothing!’” repeated the man at the table.
She immediately complied, eventually standing nude in front of complete strangers and shaking in fear.
“How old are you?”
“I am 22,” she stuttered.
“A gringo? Are you from Tejas?”
“Yes.”
Now, she had his attention. Rising deliberately, he came from behind the table and circled her slowly, his eyes traveling up and down every inch of her exposed flesh. “You are young enough and strong enough to be a P,” he noted.
“What is a P?” she questioned.
“Silence!” he barked, slapping her hard across the mouth. “I did not ask you a question!”
His composure returned by the time he managed to sit again. “What did you do before everything went to hell?”
“I was a schoolteacher,” she exaggerated, more from not wanting to risk a lengthy answer than any measure of pride or ego.
“Is that so? Exactly when and where did you attend university?”
On and on, the questioning continued, April standing naked in front of this stranger who was completely unpredictable and seemingly intrigued by her resume.
“I am feeling benevolent today,” he finally announced. “I am going classify you as an S, which is short for ‘skilled.’ You are fortunate in that others of the refugees processed will be assigned with less desirable job descriptions on the plantation. You could have been allocated for pleasure, and the life expectancy of Group P is nearly as short as those who are designated as L, or laborers.”
April was allowed to redress and then escorted to another pen where she found a slightly more refined group of captives. There was a man who bragged about being a dentist, a woman who was a nurse, and a gentleman who claimed to be an engineer.
Over the next few days, April opened wide for a dentist, was examined by a doctor, and interviewed with the head of the plantation’s extensive school system. She was issued a set of clothing which consisted of sandals, a broadcloth skirt that had the texture of jute sackcloth, and a single, secondhand blouse. Her new wardrobe was clean and smelled like it had been dried in the sun.
She was assigned what appeared to be a surplus Army cot in an oversized barracks. Nearby, there was a five-stall outhouse that emitted a sickening stench and a three-bay, alfresco shower complete with lye soap and icy water.
Over the next few days, April received what could only be described as an indoctrination into the laws and daily life of the plantation. “You are an American,” one of the instructors stated. “You won’t last long here. The Yankees never do.”
Meals were served in a huge, open-air pavilion that contained row after row of rough, wooden picnic tables. Everyone received all of the vegetables, fruit, and bread they could eat. The meat, normally boiled chicken, was rationed.
April consumed more calories during those early days than she could have ever thought possible in this day and time. Slowly, the pounds returned, along with her strength and stamina.
She was assigned to one of the many small schoolhouses that dotted the Castle’s extensive territory. In reality, these facilities were often barns or storage buildings that were temporarily empty, waiting for the next harvest. When the crops began flowing in, the children were moved to an alternate, empty shed. April began her teaching career amid the smell of corn, freshly picked limes, and hay.
She pulled back the blanket to check for scorpions or any of the other nasty crawlies that lived in the region. Finding no unwelcome occupants in her bed, April laid back and tried to slow down her mind so that sleep would come.
“The plantation isn’t so bad,” she told the candle. “The system works. Lady Bella Dona and her men are feeding thousands of people who would otherwise die of malnutrition or diseases. The children are learning to read and write. There is rule of law and order. This isn’t such a bad place.”
In fact, before society had vanished, the plantation’s system wasn’t far from what April had believed would best for the entire world.
Before heading off to college, she had never paid even the slightest mind to politics. During her first semester, when asked by an upperclassman if she was a liberal or a conservative, April hadn’t known how to answer.
Like so many campuses across America, April’s school was a bastion of left-leaning thought. In Political Science 101, she read about the historic presidential campaign where a self-declared socialist almost captured the national nomination for his party. Her professor boasted how that campaign had inspired an almost religious following. The assurance of guaranteed employment, free education, an extensive government safety net, and a society that distributed its wealth evenly seemed like a far superior alternative. Students gravitated to the promise of a benevolent political system that nurtured its people, eliminated poverty, and educated its young without fear of burdensome student loans.
A few of April’s
older friends had even abandoned their classes to join the Occupy Wall Street movement. The fervor for change had invaded American colleges and universities from Maine to California. Large corporations were depicted as evil empires, sucking the economic lifeblood out of the many while a few vampires at the top could live in unholy splendor.
Capitalism wasn’t working. It seemed that practically every underclassman had siblings, cousins, or friends who had graduated with honors, only to discover themselves under mountains of debt and unable to locate jobs. The 2nd Great Depression simply added fuel to the growing bonfire of disenfranchised youth.
Was the plantation really all that different than the cultural models fancied by her classmates before the collapse? They had envisioned an idyllic system where everyone worked, received basic sustenance, was compensated and treated equally. They believed that issues like race … gender … nepotism … and class distinction could be wiped from the face of the U.S. No child would go to bed with an empty tummy. Diseased folks who could not afford treatment would be things of the past. No doubt, violent crime would evaporate. After all, what would be the motivation if everyone were treated equally? Wouldn’t socialism provide a recipe for a perfect, Utopian society?
The activists had droned on and on about the European examples, countries such as Norway and Sweden where healthcare, education, and opportunity were provided by the government. Why couldn’t the United States be like those distant paradises?
The plantation provided doctors and dentists. All of the laborers were treated exactly the same. Food was provided, as was a free education. In those respects, there was little that separated the seemingly flawless political system she envisioned in college and the path her life had taken now.
Still, there were some differences, creating a less than pure socialist society. Lady Bella Dona lived in far more luxury than any of the workers. The plantation’s matriarch wore better clothing, consumed better meals, and slept in finer surroundings. But someone has to be at the top of the mountain, April supposed. There had to be an inspiration ladder … a motivating goal … a hierarchy to climb. Leadership was essential and rewarded.