Eden Box Set

by G. C. Julien

  “Reports are confirming over eight hundred women have died in today’s tragic event, however, that number is expected to rise.”

  He stares into nothingness and nods again.

  “The barrier around New York City has been abolished by military forces, and they’re sweeping through the city as we speak.”

  A big red bar scrolls across the bottom of the screen: “Rioters in New York City taken down after President Price approves a kill order.”

  Mila suddenly jumps up, the remote control held above her head. I grab her by the arm and pull the remote out of her hand.

  “I get it!” I say, and my angry voice seems to calm her.

  She stares at me, her nostrils flared.

  “I’m pissed too,” I say, my heart beating so fast I wonder if my shirt is flopping up and down. “Beyond pissed. Livid. If I were standing face-to-face with President Pr—with that piece of shit—I’d fucking kill him. With my bare hands. Okay? I’d kill him. He has no right to do what he’s doing. No right at all. He’s turning this whole fucking country into a war zone. And the men follow him because they’re all a bunch of goddamn dogs. All of them. They’re brainless fucking dogs.”

  I suddenly realize I’m digging my fingernails into Mila’s arm. Her eyes are huge and her lips are sealed tight. I quickly release my grip.

  “Sorry,” I blurt out.

  “That’s exactly what we need,” she says.

  I stare at her. What is she talking about?

  “That, right there!” She points at me. “That anger. We need more of that fucking anger! Enough is enough!”

  I feel like an idiot, having vented out all my anger, but at the same time, I needed the release. I’m so sick of holding everything in—of trying to be the good guy who tries to maintain peace or who tries to ignore the topic altogether.

  Our country is going to shit, and the women sure as hell don’t need a pushover like me to stand in their way. Mila’s right—we need this anger. I need this anger. I can’t sit on the sidelines and hope for the best because the best isn’t going to happen. Things are only going to get worse from here.

  “We need guns,” Mila says.

  I’m a little taken aback by this. I was fine with being angry, but to carry a firearm?

  “Don’t look at me like that.” She throws an open hand toward the TV. “Don’t you get it? This is war. This might be happening in New York City, but it’s going to start happening everywhere else. What’re you gonna do if some guy grabs you in an alley? Huh? Tries to rape you? Haven’t you been online? Abuse victims are coming forward by the hour.”

  I swallow hard and look away. Mila doesn’t know, and I don’t want her to know. I don’t want her to know that a police officer held me down and forced himself inside of me. It’ll only hurt her.

  “Eve?”

  I look up at her. Shit. Did I make a face?

  “What happened?” she asks, her tone dropping an octave.

  “Nothing,” I say quickly.

  “I know when you’re lying, Eve. Did someone fuckin’ touch you?”

  She steps forward, her shoulders drawn back and her hands forming fists. If she wasn’t my sister, I’d think she was about to hit me.

  “It was a cop,” I say.

  She still looks so angry, but her bright eyes fill with tears.

  “When?” she asks. “What—what happened? When was this? Eve? Say something.”

  I shake my head. “When I went out looking for Mom.”

  I hate that I brought her into this, but at the same time, a weight lifts off my chest. I can breathe again.

  She slaps a hand over her mouth. “Because of me. You went looking for Mom because of—” Her voice cracks.

  “Mila,” I say. “It’s not your fault. It’s them. It’s all of them.”

  She wipes tears from her cheeks and nods.

  “You’re coming with me,” she says, matter-of-factly, as if she’s intercepted a direct order from someone with a high pay grade.

  “What? Where?”

  “Tonight,” she says. “Bethany’s holding another meeting. I can’t talk about it here.” Her eyes dart toward her cell phone.

  It sounds like something out of a sci-fi story: the government listening in on citizens through their cell phones. But everyone knows they can do it. It’s already been exposed. Mila isn’t crazy for taking precautions. That’s why we’re not allowed any electronic devices during these meetings.

  Bethany Lee, I remember, the leader of the underground rebellion group. I went to a few meetings, but I haven’t been in over six months. Mila’s the one who’s been keeping in contact with the group.

  “Why tonight?” I ask. “What’s so important about tonight?”

  Her eyes dart toward her phone again, and she bites down on her lip. “They’re planning something big—something huge.”

  CHAPTER 23 – GABRIEL

  Gabriel – Present Day

  “What’re you gonna do?” I ask, staring at the abandoned prison’s exterior wall. “Walk right in?”

  Castor looks at me with a crooked grin. Like he’s the most confident guy in the world. Like he’s king shit. “If there’s a chance my daughter’s in there, then yeah, I’ll walk right in.”

  I pull on the collar of his shirt and look at him square in the face. “Don’t be stupid.”

  He’s too impulsive. If Castor’s story is true… If women were told to meet by this so-called Alpa mountain after the revolution… Well, chances are, they’ve been living out here for a while now. Long enough to completely arm the place and collect guns and build solar-powered weapons. And the only habitable thing near Alpa, aside from forest, is this abandoned prison. So that’s where they are. I’m sure of it.

  I stare at the front gates. How many of them are in there? Are they even in there? What if no one made it? And if some did make it, what if they went wild? Feral. Are they all a bunch of crazies? Or, are they living the life they’ve always wanted? A life without men?

  After everything that’s happened to them, I can’t imagine them welcoming any man with open arms.

  “Let’s just hold tight,” I say, turning away from the prison. “We can stay in here for a while… out of sight. We’ll keep watch. See if anyone opens those gates. I don’t think it’s smart to walk up to the place. For all we know, they have snipers watching the walls.”

  Poor guy. He looks like I just killed his dog. It’s like telling a kid about a giant indoor water park, and then telling them that it’s going to open in two years. He’s so close he can almost taste it. He’s licking his lips and blinking over and over the way someone does when they wear contact lenses for too long. There’s obviously a lot going on in that big round head of his right now.

  I rest a hand on his shoulder. “Hey, come on. We don’t even know for sure that there’s anyone in there.”

  Castor nods, lets out a long sigh, and drops his backpack into a pile of leaves.

  I want to move closer to the prison. Maybe if we were standing right outside the walls, he’d hear something. But it’s too risky. If there truly are women in there who’ve built an empire, they’ll do whatever they need to protect themselves from outside threats. Which essentially translates to killing us where we stand.

  “What if they don’t open those gates for weeks? Months?” he asks. “What then? We gonna rot here?”

  I smirk at him. “Why would we rot? We’re in a forest. I’m sure there’re animals to hunt.”

  “I don’t hunt,” he says.

  I laugh. For the first time in months, I laugh. It could be because I’m tired or because of that stupid look he has on his face again.

  “Don’t worry, princess,” I say. “I’ll take care of feeding us.”

  He glares at me but then snatches his daughter’s keychain out of his pocket. He runs his filthy thumb across the engraving and bows his head.

  “She’s a sweet girl,” he says.

  I notice he’s talking about her in the present
tense, but I don’t say anything.

  “She didn’t deserve to be a part of this,” he continues. “No kid deserves to be born in a world torn by war.” He kisses the piece of silver again and looks up at me. “What about you? Did you lose anyone during all of this?”

  I look away and clench my jaw.

  “Hey, that’s cool,” he says. “No need to talk about it.”

  Good, because I don’t want to talk about it.

  “I will find her,” he says, now tapping his thumb against the keychain. It’s making a ticking noise because his fingernails have grown out so long.

  I miss nail clippers. That’s what I’ll look for in the next town we get to. A pair of good old nail clippers.

  I’m envious of him. If only I had that strength. But maybe it isn’t strength at all. Could be it’s a delusion. Wishful thinking. He wants so badly to believe his daughter’s alive that he actually believes it.

  There are a lot of things I wish I could pretend never happened, but I can’t. It happened, and I’m haunted by the memories of it every damn day. Life isn’t some fairy tale that gives you a happy ending because you’re hopeful or because you’re positive.

  I’ve been hopeful many times before. Hopeful that tomorrow would be better than today. But every day’s only been worse than the last. After the massacre in New York City, everything went to shit. I’m not one to insult a superior, but our president was an idiot.

  “So, what’re you gonna hunt with?” Castor asks, breaking the silence.

  I raise two hands and form claws. Maybe I shouldn’t use those nail clippers after all. These bad boys are pretty useful.

  He scoffs. “Your hands? And those nails?”

  He thinks I’m joking. He has no idea how many lives I’ve taken with these hands.

  “Until I have the time to carve myself a weapon,” I say. “Yeah, my hands.”

  He shrugs and sits down on the forest floor. It crunches underneath him, and it sounds so loud in comparison to the silence around us. “Better get to it,” he says, slapping his hard belly. “I’m hungry.”

  Gabriel – Flashback

  James is cleaning his semiautomatic rifle with one knee on the bench and a cigar in his mouth. He’s surrounded by six or seven other marines who are sharing a bunch of gruesome stories. I’m trying to block out most of it, but I keep hearing everything. It’s disgusting.

  “Her head was shot right off,” James says, the cigar wiggling up and down. He laughs, puts his gun back together, and makes eye contact with me. “What about you, Gabriel? Any good kills?”

  Good kills?

  I’ve spent the last six months trying to take out my own kind without being seen. If I’m caught, they’ll tear me apart. Literally. Probably with their hands, too. I’ve seen some of the men do it. It’s like they’ve reverted to medieval times when they used to tie men up to horses and split them up into four pieces. Only these guys… They team up and use their hands. They pull as hard as they can until things start to snap, pop, and rip. It’s the cruelest thing I’ve ever seen.

  The worst part is it isn’t enough to kill the woman. Only enough to dislocate her joints, tear tendons and muscles, and cause excruciating pain. I saw this happen in New York City when there was smoke and gray dust everywhere. No one knew what was going on, and men were having a free-for-all. Like it was some kind of party.

  I killed the four men I caught doing it, but it wasn’t enough. The woman, a middle-aged lady who was in so much pain her face had gone white and she’d passed out, was lying there, her limbs loose and her body looking like a fifty-year-old rag doll

  The only thing I could do was offer mercy with a bullet. It’s like I’d told Josephine, the woman I saved in the hotel lobby… Help wasn’t coming. If the military and special forces received a kill order, there was no way they were sending in paramedics after the attack. The only help they’d be sending would be for our own.

  “Come on, Gabe. Let it out,” James says.

  He’s not the James I once knew. He used to be a proud, respectable man who always helped anyone in need. At least, that’s the James I met. They’d turned him. Brainwashed him. I stare into those empty marble eyes, wondering how they managed to turn a good man into a monster. I think they used his wife and daughter against him. Made things personal… Made things painful enough for him to get so angry, he’d want revenge on all women.

  It would make sense because that’s what they did with me. They said if my mom had done her job as a wife, my dad wouldn’t have died in battle. I didn’t believe it. Not for one second. But I had to pretend I did, which is what killed me. Saying my mom’s a worthless excuse for a human being, even if I didn’t mean it, destroyed me. But I had to. I had to play along. She’s the one person I love most in this world, and I’d do anything to be back home right now.

  “Don’t worry about me,” I say, and I turn away.

  The men should know by now that I’m not the type of guy to make conversation in the locker room. One of the men standing beside James, a hefty, six-foot-something guy with a thick black beard, puffs out his monkey chest and unwraps the towel from his waist.

  The guy’s huge. I didn’t mean to look, but he’s so damn hairy, I couldn’t help it.

  A few minutes ago, I watched him bench press nearly 400 pounds. He could easily do damage to someone with his bare hands.

  I stare at him, imagining myself pointing a rifle at his face. His muscles can’t save him from a bullet. He lets out a deep laugh that resonates across the lockers and claps both of his massive hands together.

  “I’m sure you have something to share,” he says, his voice so deep it vibrates across the lockers.

  I’m about to tell him to piss off, but I’m not suicidal. I know my limits and my weaknesses. I’ve been through intensive training, and I’ve fought against some of the most highly trained men this world has to offer, but it isn’t enough to take on a dozen men in a locker room… A dozen men who just spent the last hour lifting heavy weights. They’re all pumped, with their veins bulging out and their muscles looking hard under their skin.

  Sometimes I wonder… Should I try harder to blend in? Should I make up some sick story about something I’ve never done to a woman? Would this get them off my back? Because they look at me funny sometimes like I’m a liability. Like I’m the guy who’s going to fuck everything up.

  If only they knew how many of our own I’d killed… They’d tear me to shreds, literally. I stare at the man’s curly beard, then down at his chest, where he has so many dark hairs curling around his nipples you can barely see any pink. The man’s a beast. He’s looking at me, nostrils flared and his bushy eyebrows flat, like he’s ready to grab me by the throat and pin me against the locker if I don’t answer him.

  I can only imagine what he did to women during the New York riot. I wish he’d been a part of my crew. He’d be rotting in a pile of rubble right now.

  “Well?” James says.

  They’re all looking at me like a bunch of hungry hyenas with big smiles on their faces and their tongues practically dangling out. Dozens of ideas run through my head. I have to convince them that I’m as sick as they are.

  “Shoved a grenade in one of their mouths,” I say. “Blew her head right off.”

  Who am I becoming?

  The bearded man slaps his chest and lets out a laugh so loud, I flinch. “I knew you had it in you,” he says. “Sick son of a bitch.”

  Was it enough? Did my fake story convince them?

  “Never even thought of that one,” he goes on. “Grenade in the mouth…” He then points a stiff finger toward the industrial ceiling, raises one bushy eyebrow, and leans forward. “Know what’d be even better?”

  The men are all hunched forward like kids around a campfire. Only, big kids. Ugly, hairy kids.

  He suddenly makes a hook-like movement up in the air and yells, “Grenade in the fucking pussy!”

  The entire locker room blows up with Ohhhs, and some of the me
n are punching fists in the air.

  Goddamn it. What’ve I done? I’ve given these gruesome bastards more ammunition. More imaginative ways for them to murder someone. Because that’s what it is. It’s murder. The only difference between what they’re doing and violent murders in this world is that they’ve received approval from President Price himself.

  There’s a loud knock on the door, and some man wearing a tightly buttoned blue dress shirt and a long black tie pops into the locker room. I can’t tell if he’s a sergeant or a messenger. He’s probably someone responsible for administrative duties.

  He clears his throat. “Gentlemen.”

  The room goes quiet, and everyone looks at him.

  “Master Sergeant Nicholson wants you all in P-04.”

  P-04. That’s one of the large auditoriums here in Area 82. In fact, that’s the first auditorium I stepped foot in when I got here. The only time we’re brought into P-04 is to be debriefed on our next mission.

  “What’s this about, Lucas?” one of the guys asks.

  Lucas, the man with the tie, smirks at the man who said his name, his light eyes darting from side to side behind his thick-rimmed glasses. For a second, it almost looks like he’s flirting with him. He leans forward in a feminine way, his chest pressed against the doorway’s frame.

  I’m surprised he hasn’t been killed yet.

  “Something to do with Washington,” he says, “but you didn’t hear it from me.”

  CHAPTER 24 – LUCY

  Lucy – Present Day

  “Where’s everyone going?” I ask, looking up at Nola.

  All the adults are moving through the corridors, urging the kids to stay in their rooms or to go outside, so long as a sixteen-year-old is present to watch them.

  A young girl in the cell across from mine tugs on her mom’s dress. “Mommy, where are you going?”

  Her mom pulls her little hand away, kisses her on the forehead, and says in a rush, “I’ll be back, honey. Mommy has to go talk with the adults.”