If I Lose

by Kelsey D. Garmendia

  “Well, we aren’t exactly normal, are we?” I respond. Aisley stops chewing her food for a second, nods her head and continues eating.

  A knock at the door makes me drop my glass on the floor. Milk spills across the wood floorboards.

  “I got it,” Tristan says. He springs from his chair and grabs a towel from over the sink.

  “Who’s coming to dinner?” Aisley asks helping Tristan with the milk.

  “I don’t know,” I respond. I waddle to the door and open it.

  “Hi!” Keturah says from under a poncho.

  “Hi,” I respond. “What are doing out in this weather?”

  “Well, I haven’t seen you in a while, and I wanted to make sure you were ok,” she answers. “I brought over dessert. Fresh watermelon with whipped cream.”

  I look down at the covered tray in her hand and feel my mouth water. “Is that—”

  “Homemade whipped cream?”she asks. “Yes—yes it is.”

  “Whipped cream!” Aisley says shooting up from the floor.

  “Come on in,” Tristan says taking the tray from her hands and holding the door open for her.

  I can’t disagree with either of them right now. Homemade whipped cream doesn’t come walking into our kitchen everyday.

  * * *

  “Thank you for bringing that over,” I say at the kitchen table.

  “I’m gonna walk Tristan back to Camp,” Aisley says pushing in her chair.

  “Ok, be careful on your way back. You’re cutting it close to curfew—”

  “Yeah, yeah. I know, Mom,” she says grabbing their jackets from the coat rack.

  The door closes and it’s silent once again. Keturah and I rub our enormous stomachs while the watermelon settles.

  “I don’t want to move,” Keturah laughs.

  “Neither do I,” I respond. I find myself laughing with her. I haven’t heard my own laugh in what seems like years. It feels nice to do it again finally. “You’ll have to bring dessert over more often.”

  “If I’m invited, then I surely will,” she responds.

  “How did you get the ingredients to make homemade whipped cream?” I ask.

  “Well, I asked for whipping cream from the milk man,” she says. “He brings it around at the beginning of every week.”

  “Like the old days?”

  “Yeah, kinda like that,” she responds. “They’re in glass bottles and everything. It’s the purest you can get. And occasionally he’ll bring some whipping cream. I make it when he does.”

  “Oh my gosh,” I respond. “I wish I knew how to.”

  “I could teach you if you’d like,” Keturah responds. “We all could eat breakfast together in the mornings. I’ll bring over the whipped cream and cherries.”

  “Where do you get cherries from!” I yelp.

  “It’s what I grow,” she responds.

  “What you grow?” I ask.

  “Did anyone explain anything to you?”

  “Well, Aisley is the one who brought the food in these past couple of months,” I respond. Wow, that sounded a lot worse coming out of my mouth than I thought it would.

  She lets out a long sigh and straightens herself up in her chair. “Well, second class is in charge of tree plants. So any produce that grows on trees, we harvest. Make sense?”

  “Yeah,” I respond. “But how do we transport it?”

  “You don’t,” Keturah replies. “You’re allowed a quarter of what you harvest and the rest is delivered throughout the camp.”

  “A quarter? I have to feed Aisley and I on a quarter of fruit?”

  “It works in the end,” Keturah explains. “You get the same amount from everyone else’s harvests in second class. Because we’re the woman bearing children or women with young infants, they only give us fruits, vegetables, legumes, milk, etcetera.”

  “What about a burger?” Just letting the question past my lips already has me drooling.

  “Oh no,” Keturah responds. “We don’t slaughter cows here. The only time we kill one is when it becomes ill.”

  “So no burgers?”

  Keturah laughs. “Yeah, no burgers,” she says. “They’ve done studies that meat can be substituted with vegetables. It’s actually preferred by many doctors.”

  “I’m gonna assume Isha told you that?” I say.

  “He is the head doctor,” she responds. “He’s always looking out for us.” She pats her stomach three times before standing up. “Well, I should head home.”

  “Already?”

  “It’s nearly curfew, and I’ve got to trek back across the grounds to my housing,” she responds. “But I’ll see you after meditation tomorrow, right?”

  I bite my tongue before I speak. I don’t think I’m ready for another session with the hypnotist if that’s what she’s implying. The last one wiped me out and left me feeling like a lab rat in a twisted maze.

  “You’ll see me at meditation,” I respond.

  August 25, 2013

  “Count backwards from ten,” the hypnotist’s voice says. I didn’t want to go back, but some invisible itch under my skin took me down the alley with Keturah after meditation. “When you reach one, you will be a deep state of relaxation.”

  “Ten, nine, eight, seven,” my eyes are already closed; I feel like I’m floating. “Six, five, four, three, two—”

  “One thing will get you out of here,” a heavy voice echoes.

  I open my eyes to a single lightbulb burning just bright enough to make out shadows. I try to turn my head, but the pressure on my wrists keeps me lying like I’m nailed to a cross.

  “Say it,” the voice growls.

  I whimper, and before I can stop myself, I’m sobbing. I pull at the restraints and let out a scream. The back of a hand whips me across my face. I bite my lip and stifle sobs somewhere in my throat which makes me sound like I’m choking.

  “Now, Ms. Henderson,” the voice continues. “What happened to never saying that name again? Hmm? I thought you said you promised you knew. I thought you swore—”

  “I—I—” my voice is stuck in my throat. My cheek sears with pain, and I’m positive I taste blood.

  The voice sighs and the click of its shoes comes closer to me. He steps into the dim light and straddles me with both arms.

  Gunnar.

  I flinch and turn my head away from him. A drop of blood hits the floor and echoes throughout the room. The pain in my cheek burns worse now. His breath is hot and sticky on my face. I feel the pull of my stitches in my stomach when I cringe away from him.

  “Xavier is dead,” he growls. “The sooner you come to terms with this, the sooner your session ends.”

  “He isn’t dead,” I mumble. It’s like a waterfall of the phrase spills over my lips. I want to believe to it, I think some part of me does. But my head is jumbled. I can’t keep

  the thought of Xavier’s ice-blue eyes and crooked smile real enough to hold on to.

  “Oh, he is, Ms. Henderson,” Gunnar laughs. “He’s dead. He was shot and killed by those animals out there—” I sob silently; my chest shuddering so violently that I can’t breath.

  “Right in between his forehead,” he continues. He takes his index finger and thumb and puts it to my forehead adding the sound of a gun. “His brains covered you like a shower.”

  “Why are you doing this to me?” I choke out.

  “Because the sooner you accept he’s dead, the sooner we can rebuild you,” he responds. “After we rebuild you into who we want, we can start over—start new.

  We’ll look like Gods, and the world will have gotten what it needs.”

  2003 Hours

  I gasp in air when I wake. I feel my cheek, my stomach just to make sure that I’m not there—wherever ‘there’ was.

  “Informing session, Hayley?” the hypnotist asks when I finally sit up.

  I flinch at how close his voice is. He still sits in the shadows, but for some reason he seems more real than he’s ever felt before. I nod my h
ead unable to get words out.

  “Very good,” he purrs. “I take it I will see you again soon?”

  I push myself up and nod my head like a robot. Even though my heart protests my answer, I need to go back. I have to remember more.

  “Hayley!” Keturah squeaks. “Are you all right? You look as pale as a ghost! What did you see!”

  “I, uh—I haven’t decided what it means yet,” I respond.

  “It’ll come to you when you’re ready,” she says gripping my shoulder. “Why don’t you go home and get some sleep?”

  “Sleep?” I ask. “How long was I out for?”

  “It’s 8p.m.,” she answers. “You were under for a long time.”

  “Oh my god,” I mutter. “I should get back to Aisley.”

  “I’ll see you,” Keturah responds and disappears into the darkness.

  I rush back in a half speed walk, half waddle to our house in the second class district. Soldiers on patrol eye me up-and-down, the boys tip their hats towards me with a polite, “Ma’am,” attached.

  God, is this Gunnar’s plan running like a machine? Popping out warriors instead of frightened kids? Molding people like they’re fucking clay?

  We’ll look like Gods, and the world will have gotten what it needs.

  Aisley—is that what they’re doing to you? I cradle my stomach and feel the baby kicking wildly. It’s what they’re going to do to you also. Gunnar will take in every one of the survivors that stumble through the Fort’s gates and make them into a bunch of warriors.

  I run through the front door of our house and to the sink. I vomit until I’m dry heaving.

  “Mom!” I hear Aisley yell behind me. She drags a chair over from the kitchen table and helps me down into it. “Are you ok? What happened? Where have you been!”

  Aisley takes hold of both sides of my face. I can feel her racing heart pounding just beneath the skin of her hands. I reach for one of her wrists and pull her hand down.

  “I’m ok,” I respond. “I just—went for a walk after meditation with Keturah. I felt sick when I was about halfway here.”

  She nods her head—she knows I’m lying. I lean back on the chair and let out a long breath. Aisley places a cold facecloth on my forehead.

  “Here’s some ginger water,” she says handing me the glass. “Fresh ginger root too. Grew it myself.”

  I drink down most of the water and place the glass on the counter. The ginger settles my stomach quickly, and the clamminess from my skin evaporates.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t come home sooner,” I say with my eyes facing the ceiling.

  “It’s all right,” Aisley responds. I watch her walk back to her bedroom; her dirty blond hair pulled into a loose bun swings as she walks.

  “Hey,” I call out. She stops just outside the doorway to her room. “Do you want to talk?”

  Her shoulders rise and fall—she shakes her head. “Mom,” she starts. She clenches and unclenches her fists several times. “I’m tired. I really should be focusing on school. You need time for yourself. I can’t keep nagging you.” She walks into her room before I can get anything out of my mouth.

  I don’t want to be alone. Gunnar’s voice creeps up the back of my neck and rattles inside my skull. My skin breaks out in goosebumps.

  Xavier is dead. Xavier is dead. Dead. Dead.

  Dead.

  August 27, 2013

  “Gunnar?” Keturah asks. “He did that to you!”

  We pace around the open areas of the fort. The notebook we usually write to each other in wasn’t in Aisley’s book bag this week.

  I kept the hypnotist’s sessions to myself mostly because it wasn’t safe to talk about them. But after the last one, I couldn’t do it anymore. I was haunted by Gunnar’s voice. When I slept, I was in that room with the dull lightbulb hanging from the ceiling like a pendulum. Then, I’d wake up to the fact that he was running the place that I thought was safe.

  “It happened Keturah,” I respond. “I felt it. That pain was real.”

  “I believe you,” she responds. “They did it to me too. The hypnotist showed me that in my earlier sessions with him.”

  We walk in silence as a group of soldiers march past us. The man leading the young boys marching tips his hat towards us as he passes. The woman in the back of the boys snarls at me.

  “Woah,” Keturah says. “What did you do to Broefsky?”

  “You know her by name?”

  “Yeah, she’s high up around here.”

  I laugh—of course she is. I seem to piss everyone off who has any type of power in this place. “She caught Aisley and I out past curfew the first night I was released,” I respond. “She wanted to get Aisley in trouble, but I vouched for her and called myself an idiot. Wasn’t too happy that I found a loophole in her disciplinary process.”

  “Ouch.”

  I nod my head, and we continue our walk. The heat is unbearable today, but Keturah forces me to keep walking. She says it’ll help with her labor. She’s getting closer to her due date. She remembers it from before the food disappearance. It makes me wish I knew mine.

  “I honestly didn’t think I would get pregnant,” I say out loud.

  “Hayley, you do know where babies come from, right?” she laughs. “What did you think was going to happen?”

  “I don’t know,” I respond. “I mean, we were all hanging on by a thread. I was well underweight, Xavier

  too. I don’t think I had an ounce of fat on me when we were running.”

  “Because of Aisley,” Keturah responds.

  “Yeah,” I say nodding my head. “I didn’t want her to suffer. I was starving myself so that she could be healthy. After all, she was the future, right?”

  We walk to the wellness center and find a place in the break area where we can sit. I watch the cadets sprint around the track and hear the crack of the commander’s voice boom inside the metal walls.

  “I’m happy Aisley and I are safe from The Wild—”

  “But?”

  “But, I can’t help this feeling that these walls are going to come crashing down on me and my family,” I respond. “I couldn’t imagine carrying a child and running. I don’t think I would have survived. But I don’t feel that much safer here.”

  “Don’t be silly, Hayley,” Keturah says. She places a hand on my arm. “In here is nothing compared to what would’ve happened to you in The Wild. To be honest, I’m happy to have a friend here. Have someone I can trust.”

  I nod my head. It is nice to have someone I can talk to finally. For months, I let myself dwell on the fact that Xavier wasn’t here. That I could trust no one because of that. It was Aisley and I against everyone.

  But I was tired of leaning so heavily on a 10-year-old who was losing her grip on reality too.

  September 20, 2013

  I make my way to the rusted-out wellness center early and meet Keturah on the way.

  “Afternoon,” she says once we’re side-by-side.

  “You look good today,” I respond.

  “I’m dealing,” she says smiling. “Are you coming for another session?”

  I nod my head without thinking. I need to know more. As scary as it could get, I need to know what they did to me during those six months. I know Xavier is still out there running—and I know the Fort was lying to me. And if they lied to me about him, I can only wonder what else they’re trying to smother.

  “I’ll walk you there,” Keturah says bringing me back to the real world. “But I can’t stick around. I’m being induced tonight.”

  “Oh!” is all I manage to say in response.

  She rubs her bulging stomach in a small circle and smiles. “Can’t wait to bring this girl into the world.”

  “It’s a girl!” I say. “How do you know?”

  “Call it an educated guess,” Keturah responds. “Nik—I went to the doctor before everything happened.”

  I cradle my own stomach—only two more months, and I’ll be in her shoes.I hope things
change by then, little one.The baby kicks in response.

  “I wish I could know what I was having,” I whisper.

  Keturah squeezes my shoulder. “You’ll find out,” she says. “And trust me, a surprise is way better.”

  I smile and rub my stomach in a small circle like she does. “Good morning class!” the instructor calls out over the dull murmur of the women. “Everyone settle down.”

  The instructor today is the same woman as usual. She looks so familiar. I still can’t figure out where I know her from. She’s young, maybe five years older than me. Her hair is cut in a short bob and is a light brown color. She stands with her hands folded behind her back.

  “Now, let’s start our deep meditation with a breathing countdown,” she says in a smooth voice.

  “I want you to be the Godmother,” she whispers.

  “Me!” I look down at Keturah’s stomach and then back at her face.

  She laughs, “Yes, you!” She nudges my shoulder as if just to reassure me. “You’re my friend.”

  And for the first time since this hell started, I find myself agreeing with her. I trust someone other than

  Xavier, Aisley and sometimes Isha. Another foothold in a decaying world.

  “Wow,” I mutter.

  “I was expecting a different reaction—”

  “No, sorry. Yes,” I say frowning at my response. Keturah lets out a throaty laugh.

  “Ms. Henderson,” the instructor calls out towards us. My flashes to rehabilitation—I’m in my bed screaming at a nurse. She just told me I’ve been sedated for four months. “Ms. Henderson, this is time for meditation, not conversation.”