Eden Box Set

by G. C. Julien

  A loud vibration scares the crap out of me. My eyes jolt open. Did I fall asleep? There’s a cold puddle of drool beside my face. The vibration goes off again. My phone. It’s Ophelia, my best friend.

  I slide to answer, still groggy and wanting nothing more than to curl up inside a sleeping bag for days. “Hello?”

  “Eve? Did you hear? Is this truly happening?”

  I roll my eyes again. Really? Was I woken up only so she could vent?

  “Oh, I’m not in the mood right now,” I say. I sound like a toad.

  “Eve! How’re you not freaking out?” Ophelia asks.

  “I’ll freak out after I sleep,” I say. I don’t mean to be rude, but I can’t think straight. I hang up while she’s still talking, put my phone on silent, and everything fades away.

  “Eve, wake up.”

  I crack open my eyes. It’s Mila. How long was I out? She’s staring at me with her sky-blue eyes wide open like she always does when she wants something.

  “What?” I moan.

  “Mom’s going out to riot,” she says as if Mom went out to riot every night.

  I quickly sit up. “What? Why—”

  “Everyone’s going,” Mila says.

  “You’re not,” I say as if I have any control over my thirteen-year-old sister.

  She rolls her eyes at me. “I don’t want to go. But I don’t want Mom going either.”

  I jump out of bed, my heels making a loud thud as they hit the hardwood floor. “Mom!”

  But the front door slams shut and the walls of the house shake.

  “Goddamnit,” I mutter. What am I supposed to do? Chase after her? How will I even find her? I know my mom—she’s small, but she’s feisty and crazy as hell. I once saw her spit in a man’s face for scoffing at her when she told him she did her own fixes and renovations around the house. She doesn’t put up with bullshit, especially when it comes to men.

  “This isn’t like those feminist parades,” Mila says. “Mom’s not gonna go swinging her bra around this time. Women are really pissed off.”

  “I know, Mila,” I say, but I wish I could do more to console her. I can tell she’s scared. I’m scared, too. It seems like we’re going to war—war against the male gender. The only thing I can pray for is that Congress won’t sign off. They can’t. They’ll realize this is ridiculous, right?

  “It’s bad,” she continues. “Have you seen the news? The riots are getting worse.”

  I glance out my bedroom window and realize the sun’s already set. Where’s my mom going at this time, anyway?

  “I haven’t watched it since this morning, no,” I say. I snatch my phone and open my news app. A bunch of articles detail marches and riots that are going on all over the states. Something about women standing up against President Price’s bill to illegalize abortion.

  The headlines are so many, I can’t decide which article to open first. But then I see something. I turn my phone’s screen away from Mila so she won’t see the headline: Thirteen women confirmed dead in recent riot due to homemade explosive device.

  CHAPTER 5 – GABRIEL

  Gabriel – Present Day

  “You know,” Castor says, chewing through an old pepperoni stick that looks rotten at one end, “I never thought I’d say this, but I’m happy the world went to shit.”

  I stare at him. Am I supposed to respond to that? Castor’s part of Adam’s Rebels. I don’t like him, but he’s probably at the bottom of my hatred list. He’s a bit dumb at times (you know, like an overly submissive dog), but he’s not vulgar like the others.

  For that, I hate him a bit less than the rest of the crew.

  He takes another bite, then licks his thick sausage fingers that are bigger than the stick of meat. “No rules, no laws.”

  “And that’s a good thing?” I ask.

  He chuckles, showing me his mouthful of missing teeth.

  “No dental care,” I add.

  He quickly shuts his mouth and gives me the stink-eye, but it isn’t long before he starts laughing again. He punches me on the shoulder and says, “I walked right into that one.”

  “Looks like you walked into something, all right.”

  He cracks up again, slapping his knee, then points his greasy finger in my face. “You’re funny.”

  That’s the one thing I love about Castor. I can insult him, and he thinks I’m joking. It helps me let out some of my hatred, at least. I could tell him to go fuck himself, and he’d probably laugh at that, too. But I don’t say that to him. He’s an idiot, but he’s not a jackass. I bulk all of Adam’s men up in the same category, even though the rare few, like Castor, don’t really deserve it.

  Sometimes, when Adam talks about the women he’s put in their places, Castor walks away, usually to find me. He thinks I’m a clown, apparently. I don’t smile when I insult him, so I don’t understand what he finds so funny.

  I gaze around, and I spot Adam searching the school’s perimeter. No doubt he’s looking for weapons or something. We’ve walked about sixty miles from our last location, Jackson High School, to find ourselves at another school… Riverside Elementary School.

  Adam seems to have a thing for schools. The hateful side of me can’t help but wonder if he has a sweet (pedophilic) spot for the young ones or if he likes brick buildings. There’s a certain level of safety, I suppose. That, and the cafeterias sometimes still have nonperishable foods.

  He fastens his AK-47 over his shoulder and walks out toward the rest of us, his chest puffed out.

  “Perimeter looks good,” he says.

  Seriously? Was that his version of a sweep? Fucking moron.

  He drops his gun into his hands. “Let’s move in.”

  He’s such a prick. How are the other men not realizing how unfair it is for him to hold a semiautomatic AK-47, while we’re left with our fists to defend ourselves? He likely has a fucking tiny peanut-size dick. A micropenis. He needs to feel like a big man with his big gun.

  I can tell by the way he holds it that he has no prior experience with guns. He’s a loose cannon with a weapon. Fantastic.

  I’ve seen him shoot it twice, and both times, he wasted dozens of bullets before hitting his target. If he were smart, which he obviously isn’t, he’d hand the gun over to me, the only marine in the crew.

  Then again, I’d probably kill him on the spot. So it could be he’s smarter than he looks, with his nasty acne-scarred face and gummy smile. Now that I think of it, he looks like a horse. A hairless horse with those big teeth of his.

  I picture myself pressing my boot into his throat, my old 9mm pointed at his shiny forehead, and I smirk to myself. My last words to him would be “Hay, hay there, stop struggling. You ain’t geddying up.”

  And with that, BAM, right in between the eyes.

  The men around me get up one by one, and we follow Adam toward the school’s main entrance. Shattered glass is sprinkled all over the pavement that’s smeared by a dark red stain. On the door’s stone-blue paint, there’s a bloody handprint.

  For heaven’s sake, this is an elementary school. Why is Adam going in? There were rumors that some men (especially religious fanatic followers of President Price, pretty much all white men) believed that children born of women during the revolution weren’t pure… That they were sinful because their mother’s generation fought the biggest rebellion in history. And because of this, they thought the children deserved to die.

  I saw it on the news, but only once. An elementary school had been infiltrated by a group of men with dark masks and semiautomatics. They killed every girl in sight and took the young boys. No one ever figured out what they did with the boys, but it isn’t hard to put two and two together. They were fanatics who wanted to build an army of men. What better way to do it than to raise kids into it? To teach them from a young age that women are nothing but tools. Nothing but species used for reproduction and pleasure.

  I’m terrified of what I might find inside this school. Adam doesn’t seem to care. He�
��s walked over hundreds of dead bodies across the wastelands without so much as a glance. I don’t understand him. These dead bodies were once people. They had families. Loved ones.

  Adam only cares about himself. He doesn’t give a shit about his men, either. He’d kill us all if it meant guaranteeing his safety. That’s why he holds that gun. He needs to be in control.

  He kicks the front doors open, and the remaining shards of glass sprinkle to the ground as the doors hit the walls on the inside. There’s more blood inside, and I’m sick to my stomach.

  His leather boots squeak as he cautiously moves forward, his back hunched and his gun improperly aimed in front of him.

  Idiot.

  The men follow with tight fists and huge eyes, while mine wander to the walls, where massive picture frames are mounted in a perfectly even row. Little plaques indicate the years above them: 2060, 2061, 2062, 2063, and 2064. But that’s it. There’s nothing else. 2064 was the last year children went to school.

  I look at the kids in each picture. They all have silly grins for the most part. Someone on the other side of the camera was trying to make them laugh.

  I wonder how many of them are still alive if any. That’s what sickens me so much about the revolution… about the war. Women and children weren’t spared. There was no mercy. So many men were brainwashed into believing what women spent countless years trying to erase: that men were better than women.

  Is it that fucking hard? Is it so difficult for us, as humans, to live peacefully and equally? No one’s better than anyone else unless one of them is a complete piece of shit like Adam. Everyone’s better than Adam.

  But I suppose that’s how wars start. Everyone feels entitled to something. Everyone wants to prove they’re right and others are wrong.

  Just like religion. I fucking hate religion.

  All it does is tear people apart. It’s like humans can’t think for themselves. They need a higher power to tell them what’s right and what’s wrong. But even then, it’s twisted, isn’t it? It’s all left to interpretation. Interpretation of a man-written book.

  I clench my teeth and move away from the picture frames. Adam signals us to move closer, lifts his gun at what appears to be a set of cafeteria doors, and kicks it hard. When he enters a room like that, I pray that we have enemies on the other side. I pray that he gets a bullet straight in the head.

  Although I hate our crew, except for Castor, sometimes I wonder; would they behave differently if they had a better leader? They are sheep, after all. Their brains are moldable. What if I led them? Could I teach them that they’re a bunch of pigs? Could I also unteach them? It’s hard to imagine me teaching grown men a lifetime of values my mother taught me.

  But, it might be possible. I have to believe it is because I don’t want to be alone in this world, and I don’t want to be with men like this, either.

  Adam takes a step toward the open doors but quickly throws his arm over his mouth and nose. “Jesus Christ.”

  I don’t need to step foot into the cafeteria to smell it. I’d know that smell anywhere. I’ve smelled countless times on my missions. It’s a foul, stomach-churning stench that makes you want to vomit out your entire stomach.

  “Nothin’ good in here, boys,” Adam says, and he continues down the hall.

  As the men walk away, I stop at the cafeteria entrance and peer inside. Castor quickly glances back at me, a look of despair in his eyes.

  Big plastic tables are sprawled throughout the giant room. Some have fallen over, or maybe they were pushed over to be used as shields because there are black bullet holes in them.

  But what’s around these tables is what makes me want to drop to my knees.

  Hundreds of decaying children, anywhere between the ages of six and twelve, lie still in pools of crusted blood.

  Gabriel – Flashback

  She doesn’t want to let go of me, and neither do I. I don’t know when I’ll see her again.

  “I love you, Mama,” I say.

  She nods quickly, her face pressed against my chest, then pulls back. Her eyes fill with tears, and her lower lip trembles like boiling water. She places a soft hand on the scruff of my cheek.

  “Oh, my sweet Gabriel. I love you more than words can say,” she says.

  I bend down and kiss her forehead, then throw my bag over my shoulder and climb up on the shuttle bus. I stare out the window, my forehead pressed against the glass. I wish I could tell her that I’m not even leaving the country. That I’ll only be a few hours away. But I can’t. I can’t tell her anything, and it kills me.

  She rests a hand over her mouth, then wipes away her tears. The driver closes the doors and drives ahead. My throat swells, but I fight back the emotions. The last thing I need is to show weakness on a shuttle bus full of new marines.

  “Gabe?”

  I clear my throat and quickly turn to the side. I can’t believe it. It’s James Walsh, my bunkmate from training. He looks the same as he did when we were training, only his dirty blond hair has grown out a few inches. He has an unsightly scar that cuts through both his pale lips and down his freckled chin. He’s wearing his full uniform—a blue, gold-buttoned top with a white undershirt and a tie—the same as mine and every other man’s on the shuttle.

  “James?” I pull my bags on my lap and he sits beside me, a big deformed grin on his face.

  “You’re working GENESIS?” he asks.

  I nod. “I thought you were posted on the southern coast of Iran?”

  He looks around, then leans in, his voice almost a whisper. “No, man. Haven’t you heard? They’re pulling a bunch of resources from the Middle East to assign them here in the US.”

  “Why?”

  “Same reason they’re assigning us to GENESIS,” he says. “The riots are getting out of control. Every state has been hit. And the riots are getting violent.”

  He pulls away and gives me a full up-and-down look. “Don’t you watch the news, man?”

  I shake my head. “Haven’t in the last week. I’ve been spending time with my mom.”

  He scoffs like I’m a loser because I’m so close to my mom. “I’m friends with a few of the corporals down at Area 82. Well, they’re friends of my father’s. Anyways, I hear everything. You’ll get a full briefing when we get to Area 82.”

  I feel like a dog being sent to an adoption center. I have no idea what’s going on. I’ve only heard of Area 82, and it’s supposed to be a top-secret compound. Why the heck would they send new recruits of Black M there? The only thing I do know is that I’m obeying a specific order, which was to climb on Shuttle #45 at 9:00 a.m.

  That’s what I did. But what now? What’s this briefing he’s talking about? How much has happened that I don’t know about?

  “Bet you didn’t know that the funding for Black Marines has skyrocketed this year. Two-hundred and fourteen billion dollars.”

  I part my lips to tell him how crazy that is, but he continues. “And, rumor also has it that they’re removing women from the military. No one’s talking about it, but it’s happening.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Why do you think, Gabe? They’re outnumbering us. They’re infiltrating from the inside.”

  I almost burst out laughing, but I realize he’s serious. He’s staring intently at me from behind his yellow-green eyes just like he used to do during training when we were about to tackle a complex, terrorist-themed drill together.

  “Come on, James,” I say. “Are you seriously buying into all of this? That women are trying to take over? Men are the ones stripping their rights away.”

  His jaw muscles pop, and he looks away. I hit a nerve.

  “Did something happen?”

  He shakes his head, but I know he’s lying.

  I nudge him with my shoulder. “James, come on. What’s going on?”

  He’s staring at the blue leather seat in front of him, his eyes wide and his nostrils flared so much they’re red. “Dayna left.”

  “Your
wife?”

  He doesn’t say anything.

  “What do you mean, left?” I ask.

  He quickly turns to me, and I can’t tell whether he’s about to cry or punch me in the face.

  “She took off. With Maddison, too. My baby girl. What the fuck? Who does—” He clenches his fist and raises it like he’s about to punch something. But he doesn’t. He lets out a long sigh. “Said that if I didn’t stand up to President Price, I was no better than all the other men out there. Took her fucking bags and left overnight while I was sleeping.”

  “Jesus, James. I’m so sorry.”

  He shakes his head again, then rubs his face with his freckled hands. “I’ve been training for this, you know? It’s my career. She wants me to drop everything? And for what? How am I gonna stand up to the government? I’m one man. One fucking man.”

  I don’t know how to console him. I stare at the shuttle’s gray floor.

  “You know, I spent weeks beating myself up over this. Kept thinking that maybe I should’ve quit the marines. Maybe Dayna was right, and I was being brainwashed. But then I realized, she’s the one who’s being brainwashed. She’s exactly like all the other women. Trying to take control of men. Trying to dictate how I should live my life.”

  I don’t agree with his view, but James is my friend, so I keep my mouth shut.

  “Anyways, there’s nothing I can do now. She’s gone. I don’t know where she went. She’s probably joined some rebel group. With Maddison, too. My little girl.”

  He bites down on his fist.

  “I’m sorry,” I say. I may not agree with or believe everything he’s saying, but he’s obviously hurt by the whole thing. And as his friend, I truly am sorry.

  “It’s fine,” he says, and a smile returns to his face. “Goes to show you that women can never be trusted.”