by R A Doty
Behind her a horn blasted, so she ran again, leaving the alley and entering the city. Another horn beeped as she ran in the street. Brakes squealed and people screamed from opened windows. “Watch where you’re going! Do you wanna die?”
No! I don’t want to die!
She ran again, down the sidewalk, past the bright lights in the store windows, past the people—all staring at her, all laughing—the entire city laughing. And then their faces turned sinister. The laughing had stopped. They seemed angry. Hungry. They reached for her—hundreds of arms all trying to grab her—everyone trying to grab her. The cars stopped and looked. The people standing in line at the movies—all turning in her direction.
More horns blasting as she crossed the street. More brakes squealing. More people staring. Yelling. Pointing.
Finally, the city was behind her. The lights dimmed. The voices faded. The waves crashed and the gulls screeched. She dropped to her knees—tears streaming from her eyes, dripping in the sand. The air was heavy and thick. Not enough to fill her lungs. She pulled it in, deep and hard, again and again. Her heart slowed—as did her breathing. She raised her head, looking for something, anything that looked familiar. The stone wall.
She stumbled to her feet and staggered forward. The concrete rough against her hand as she followed the wall. It has to lead to some place safe. After five minutes she stopped and stared at the kennel in the distance. She exhaled a sigh of defeat. There was no escape. Before I am harvested, she thought, I would like to see Manolin and the others one last time.
As she neared closer she could see the tree just outside the fence that Calla had sat against. She remembered the day. The sun was shining. The concrete floor of the yard felt warm under her bare feet. There was no outside world or beaches, no stores or people—no nutrimen. It was just her and the others surviving every day as they did the day before and the day that was to follow. Nothing mattered then.
She quickened her pace, hoping everything behind her would disappear: the city, the lights, the noise. She longed for the serenity of her pen; the occasional bird perched in the tree, singing a song just for her. She grabbed the links of the fence; her fingers curling through like a tightly woven vine. The kennel was dark. All the doors of the pens were closed. Manolin. His pen was dark.
Only one door remained open—an empty pen. She could see the bunk with the blankets neatly tucked over the mattress, the pillow with no head resting on it. She remembered how comforting it felt against her face, how warm and protecting the blanket was over her body. She sat in the grass, her face pressed against the links that now kept her in this world she had once wanted so desperately to be a part of. She would give anything to be back on the other side. She sobbed in her hands.
“Are you okay, Miss?” A man said, his hand touching her shoulder.
April jumped to her feet.
“Don’t be frightened, child. I’m won’t hurt you. What’s your name?”
April stood silent. She trembled, sensing danger.
The man held out his hand. “I’m Bill Weston.”
April backed up.
“April!” a voice yelled. Calla rushed over. “I’ve been looking all over for you. Hi, Mr. Weston.”
“You know this girl?”
“She’s my friend. Her name is April. She’s staying with us for a while.” Calla noticed Weston staring at April’s wrist. “Come on, April.” She grabbed April’s hand. “We’d better get back home. My parents will be worried.”
“Wait,” Bill said. He walked up to April. Her skin was pale and free of blemishes—except for the freckles on her face. “She never told me if she’s okay.”
“She’s fine,” Calla said, and began to tug April away.
“Now just wait a second, Calla. She seemed pretty upset, and I want to make sure.”
Calla stopped. After a few seconds, she and April turned around to face Weston.
April looked at the man. He seemed nice, but she feared him and didn’t understand why. Should she go back to Calla’s house where Calla’s mother was waiting to carve her into pieces, or should she tell this man she was in danger and trust that he would protect her? She obviously didn’t trust Calla and her family, so to trust him would be the logical decision.
Bill Weston walked closer to her and put his hand on her shoulder. “Answer me, child. Are you okay?” He was surprised to hear her voice.
“Yes, sir. I’m fine now. Thank you.”
“So, you can speak.” Weston took her hand and caressed her palm to her wrist, feeling everything beneath the skin.
Calla pulled April away. “We really have to be going, Mr. Weston. My parents will be worried.”
Weston nodded. “I understand.”
The girls walked away.
“It really was quite a pleasure to meet you, April,” Weston said. He studied April as she walked away—his face expressionless. “Quite a pleasure indeed,” he said silently.
CALLA DIDN’T SAY A word until she was far away from the kennels. On the outskirts of town, she stopped at a bench under a tree. “Let’s sit for a while.” She sat, and April joined her. “Why did you run away? I was so worried.”
April stared at the shoes covering her feet. They felt tight and constrictive. “I know why I was created,” she said, without looking up.
“What do you mean?”
“I heard what your mother was going to do to me.” She looked directly at Calla. “It’s okay, though. I’ve accepted it, now. I thank you for showing me your world, Calla. You’ve given me something that the others will never have.”
Calla searched for the right words, but what could she say? It was time to tell the truth. “I won’t lie, April. You and the others were created to be eaten. I know it sounds horrible, and I feel terrible it has to be that way, but it’s just the way things are; the way they’ve always been. But when I met you things became different. You were different. You aren’t like the others. You’re more like a girl. I mean—you are a girl; for some reason I never noticed that before. And then we became friends, and I no longer thought of you as a nutrimen. I didn’t mean to mislead you by removing you from the kennels. I did it to save you. My mother was only joking when she said what she said. She wondered why you didn’t speak to her, and I told her it was because you were frightened because you weren’t used to her yet.” Calla took April’s hand. “You have to believe me, April. I would never harm you, and neither would my family.”
“Is the world really so cruel that humans would eat each other?”
“You don’t understand. It’s either that or starve to death. There is no other food. The human race would become extinct if we didn’t think of a way to survive.”
“Is that not Darwin’s theory of natural selection? Maybe humans aren’t meant to survive. Maybe it’s time for a new dominant species. A species free from disease and biological defects.”
Calla stood. “You may be right, but right now we’d better get home before my parents make us extinct.” Calla started walking and then stopped. “Something’s odd, April. How could you have possibly learned so much from inside the kennel? I can understand that you learned how to speak from me, but how did you learn everything else, like Darwin’s theories or poetry by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow? It doesn’t make any sense when you had no access to these things.”
April stared silently at Calla. If I confess, would she be angry? Would she send me back to the kennel? Maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad thing anymore. “I guess it’s time for me to tell the truth. Do you remember when you lost your tablet that day in the kennel?”
“Yeah...”
“Well, you didn’t lose it. I took it. Please don’t be mad. I couldn’t resist. It was magical the way a whole world of information appeared on the screen when you tapped it.”
“April! You can’t just take whatever you want from people.”
“I know, Calla. I’m so sorry.”
“I have a lot of private things on there that I don’t want an
yone to see.” Having said that, Calla remembered what she wrote in her journal about April and the other nutrimen. “Where is it? I need to get it back!”
Chapter Thirty-One
LUKE AND THOMAS WATCHED from inside the fence as Colton, Dan, and Janette headed toward the city. Colton had his bow in his hand and a quiver of arrows on his back. A rifle hung over Dan’s shoulder, and Janette had no weapon—she had to earn their trust before being allowed to carry a weapon.
“So you lived in the city all your life?” Dan asked Janette.
“You can stop with the small talk,” Janette said. “I told you, we’ll never be best buds so stop trying.”
Luke shook his head with a smile and turned back toward the house. “I hope he knows what he’s getting into.”
Thomas followed. “He has no idea.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Thomas shrugged his shoulders.
JANETTE LED COLTON and Dan through a strip of woods just outside the city. A small stream trickled about twenty-feet in front of them. Huddled by the stream, near a circle of rocks that once formed a campfire, sat four decomposed human corpses: two adults and two children. Their bodies were hunched with their arms over each other’s shoulders. An empty pill bottle lay on the ground next to one of the adults. Janette couldn’t take her eyes off the sad remains of what was probably once a happy family. She wondered what their last words to each other were, or the last meal they ate. When was the last time either of them laughed? She tried to remember what laughing was like. She remembered the last words she spoke to her sister: I’m so sorry.
“Which way now?” Dan asked, pulling her back to the present.
Janette pointed upstream. “That way.”
“Isn’t Elm over that way?” Dan said, pointing straight ahead. It’s been years since he’d left the city, but he still remembered some of the street’s locations.
“We gotta take the back way. It’s safer.” Janette tromped through the stream and headed in the direction she pointed. “And no more talking from here on. David sometimes sends out scouts to patrol for sinners.”
Dan followed, and Colton slowly scanned the vicinity before moving forward. Over the city ahead, an amber sky glowed from the afternoon sun. All the vegetation was a dark green and had that just-washed look from the earlier rains. The air was still and carried the pungent scent of ragweed.
When they reached the edge of the city, Janette stopped beside a warehouse at the end of an alley. She leaned close to Dan and Colton and whispered the route they would be taking. “We’re gonna go that way, three blocks, and then take a left onto Union. Elm is two blocks from there. And please be quiet. The church isn’t far from Elm.
Dan and Colton nodded.
They continued walking and stopped suddenly when a dog barked in the distance. Colton pulled an arrow from the quiver and readied the bow. He remembered dogs being pets in the past, but things were different now—the new rule was: if it has teeth, run. Pets were a luxury from a world long gone. They continued walking and turned onto Union. Most of the bodies had been removed from the sidewalks and the streets, but a glance in the right window would sometimes reveal a forgotten corpse.
“Okay, just two more blocks,” Janette, said. She quickened her pace, stepping through newly formed mud-puddles. An eerie silence covered the once-bustling city where the ghosts of people going about their everyday lives clung to the weathered brick and mortar like moss to a rotted tree. What was once a child’s laughter was now a rat squealing from the jaws of a dog. Rusted automobiles sat on sidewalks that were once lined with tables stocked with wares.
“That must be it, up ahead on the corner,” Dan said.
“Shhh!” Janette whispered.
They slowly approached the building and stopped at the bottom of three steps leading to the door. A vine had grown in an arch formation around the door with its leaves framing the opening like the mouth of a cave.
Colton stepped up to the entrance. “I’ll go inside, and you two stand guard.”
“Okay,” Dan said. He and Janette climbed the steps and scanned the streets, their heads constantly moving from left to right.
“You can stop staring at me,” Janette said, glancing at Dan.
“I’m not staring at you. I’m watching the streets, and you just happen to be in the direction I’m looking.”
“Yeahokay.” Janette headed down the steps.
“Where ya going?”
“To take a pee. And don’t follow me or watch or I swear to god I’ll kill you.”
“I don’t think it’s a good idea to leave. We should stick together.”
“Yeah right. You’d like that wouldn’t you? I’m a big girl and I can take care of myself, and I damn sure don’t need you to look after me.”
“I’m serious, Janette. Just go behind that car. I promise I won’t look.”
Janette kept walking. “Dream on, perve.” Having noticed a moving shadow on the walls of the buildings, she glanced up at two hawks flying overhead.
Dan watched as she walked down the alley. When she stepped behind a dumpster, he paced back and forth looking for any signs of the city dwellers. First Colton left, and now Janette. He felt odd, being alone in the middle of the city. He peeked his head in the doorway and visually searched Thomas Steinberg’s old lab. The walls and floors were covered in graffiti, broken test tubes and beakers lay on the floor, a desk had been tipped over, and a multitude of chairs were scattered around the room. “Cole,” he called. “Did you find the medicine?” No answer. He shook his head and turned back toward the street. “Who the hell are you?” he asked, startled by the giant of a man standing in front of him.
The man grabbed Dan’s throat and pushed him backward against the wall.
Dan dropped his gun and pounded the man’s arms, trying to break free, two solid rods of steel that refused to release their hold. He gasped for air, as the man tightened his grip.
After stuffing his pocket with as much penicillin that would fit, Cole figured he had better not push his luck, so he raced for the exit. Instead of Dan waiting for him by the door, he was surprised to see a strange man standing with outstretched arms. When he heard pounding on the lower part of the wall, it didn’t take long for him to realize it was Dan on the other end of the man’s arms with his feet kicking the wall. Before the man glanced in his direction, Cole retrieved an arrow from his quiver and, without the use of his bow, snapped his hand forward propelling it through the air. It was a clean shot to the eye. The man released his grip and fell to his knees, writhing so severe he looked as though a lethal surge of electricity had coursed through his entire body. Cole was surprised the man was so silent. How the hell can anyone take an arrow to the eye without making a sound?
Cole steadied Dan and led him around the man and down the steps. Just as they reached the last stair tread, Janette came around the corner.
“What’s going on?” she whispered as loud as she could, as if David Crullen’s entire congregation would arrive any moment if she spoke too loud. “I told you guys you have to be quiet.” She noticed the large man curled in a fetal position at the top of the stairs. The man she knew as Cain. His body was lifeless, and his right hand was covered with blood and lay limp over his eye with the shaft of an arrow protruding between his fingers. She wanted to run to him, for reasons only she could justify, but he was obviously dead, along with a part of her and the life she had once known. She had to move forward and forget the past. And then she noticed Dan, whose face was as red as the finger stripes circling his throat.
“Help me get him out of here,” Colton said, straining to keep Dan standing.
Janette tucked herself under Dan’s arm and helped Colton lead him away. After one last glance at the man she had spent what seemed like an eternity with, she turned away and walked into her new future.
“WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?” Colton said, releasing Dan and stopping to rest, two blocks away. Dan stood next to him, rubbing his thr
oat.
Janette turned to see if by some miracle the man they left, lying on the ground, was coming. She wasn’t surprised to see the street behind them quiet and empty. “We gotta keep moving before the others come.”
“Damn it,” Dan said. “I must have dropped my gun when he grabbed my throat.”
“You did,” Colton said. “I saw it on the ground next to that thing that attacked you. I considered reaching for it, but decided against it.”
That thing, Janette thought. How can a man’s entire existence be diminished to a single word – thing? She turned to Colton. “His name was Cain.”
“You knew him?” Colton asked.
Janette nodded. “Yeah.” She smiled quietly, a smile not so visible on her face. As if some fond memory had found its way into her thoughts.
“Did you get Monica’s medicine?” Dan asked.
Colton reached into his pocket. Shards of glass pricked his finger and dampness lined his pocket. He carefully sifted through the broken vials, expecting to find nothing usable, but in the corner of the material he found one intact jar that was full when he retrieved it from his pocket. “I got some, but I can’t guarantee it’ll be enough.”
COLTON LED THE WAY back to the compound with Janette close behind and Dan lagging farther back. The sun had descended close to the horizon and dusk had already entered the woods, limiting visibility.
Janette slowed her pace until Dan caught up. “How’s your throat?” she asked.
“A little sore, but I’ll live. Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For helping to get me outta there. I guess we’re even now.”
“Even?” Janette said. “How do you figure that? The way I see it you owe me one.”
“No I don’t.”
“Yeah. You do.”
“No, I don’t. If it wasn’t for me, my brother would have kicked you out and you probably would have died trying to live outside the fence. Now you’ve got a safe place to live, and you don’t have to worry about that big guy anymore.”