Solo

by Dan Yaeger

  Meanwhile, Samantha was being frog-marched back to the “Pen” by Maeve. “Ya think yer good, don’t ya bitch?” Maeve spat into Samantha’s hair as they walked through the medical centre that had been turned into a prison of sorts. She closed her eyes and shivered with an involuntary fear, hunching momentarily but still walking in the high-heels the doctor had made her wear. In fact, her entire outfit had been picked out for her. The violence Maeve had put on her was limited but terrifying. Maeve would get seriously hurt if she left marks on Samantha so she found other ways of hurting her or getting at her. Sam knew little about her tormentor other than that she had learned all she knew from someone and couldn’t have grown up in a happy place. Sam marched on, with resolve and resilience.

  The foot-falls on the floor, the clicking of heels, usually meant a coffee before work, in the legal chambers or a night out with the girls. This sound was now her passage from captivity to torment and back again, daily. It was always walked in the hope that she could pass by unnoticed, untouched and get by. That was rare. Samantha had learnt the unenviable lesson of the world that when people are down, others kick them to keep them there. She knew her walk past a part of the medical centre meant for a proverbial kick. She passed Barlow’s Den; a windowless room that served as Barlow’s bedroom, their jail and armoury with all the scavenged guns, ammunition and melee weapons that had been acquired by this group headed up by Doctor Penfould. The room was stacked with military cases, boxes, gun racks, lockers and bondage and discipline posters, calendars and tattoo and counter-culture artworks. Just the sort of company Dr Penfould liked; reptiles without a conscience who had fetishes that could be appeased in return for service. Barlow was a gross, portly man with red hair and a goatee who had been an armourer in the army. He continued his line of work for a crime gang in the 2020s until he was imprisoned in the Cooleman Jail facility where Dr Penfould had sourced many of his troops. Barlow loved guns, leather, tattoos and earrings and acting like a pig. He did not disappoint today either; flicking Sam a “pussy-fingers” and a dirty chuckle. “Fat pig bastard,” Sam thought to herself. Barlow was scum but he hadn’t raped her or any of the other girls. He sometimes had a session with whips and ropes that left them mentally scarred if not physically welted. But in the main he liked to watch people and make disgusting advances. He was another peculiar animal in the menagerie of Doctor Penfould. Sam kept walking with Maeve, the jailer right on her heels. “A day at a time, a day at a time…” she reminded herself as she stepped one foot in front of the other. She held onto hope for better things. She had reconciled that the horrors outside were marginally worse than the horrors inside so she kept herself together with thoughts of rescue. But she was infected, she had no choice. Doctor Penfould had a preventative medicine that kept her and everyone else at the Rock from descending into a zombie state. So she went on; survival.

  It was unnerving for Sam, having someone so nasty behind her, someone that hated her with a passion. Many of the people with power, in the Doc’s warped community, had once been the dysfunctional miscreants, addicts, low-lifes and cast-offs from society had suddenly become powerful. Sam could not understand their world, what made them the monsters that they were but understood perhaps how they had felt before the world had collapsed into the Great Change. Maeve was indeed one of those people; a cast-off, used person who had never been valued. Maeve had been used and abused in her life; never adored. Her drunkard father and addict mother had never helped her understand an appropriate relationship and how a man and a woman could complement one-another. Maeve had also learned that her father, high-up in the police and in the fire service only showed her affection in the wrong way, when he wanted, when no-one was looking. While Sam didn’t know these details she suspected as such and, in reality, such a combination of things was bound to create the nasty, toxic individual that was Maeve O’Grady. Sam was in her thirties and was one of Cooleman’s lawyers before the Great Change. Her husband ran a successful business and she kept herself going with the memories of the good times, the old times. All of the protections, physical and societal were gone and in the anarchy, violence and suffering that followed the Great Change, Sam’s world of freedom of choice, being opinionated and, essentially a powerful woman in her community were long gone. The world and Sam had suffered a great cataclysm; the world destroyed.

  Sam was naturally attractive, mature, classy, tall, well-educated and something Maeve would never be. Maeve perhaps wanted to be, and consequently hated, everything that Samantha was. But all of Sam’s traits made her a captive and all of Maeve’s an oppressor in the new world. Maeve believed that in the new world, after the Great Change, women like her could and would be more successful than women like Samantha. Of all the “cows”, “girls” or other condescending names given to the group of women huddled and cowering in the dormitory known as “the Pen” Maeve disliked-no, hated Sam, the most. It was there that they arrived; the Pen.

  A key came out of Maeve’s pocket and opened a locked door into what was a waiting room and the partitioned areas of medical chambers converted into a dorm. Like an airlock, there was a mechanical breath into the room and a collective sigh of scared women could be felt and heard. The room was a tired, with linoleum floors and scuffed wall, with windows that were barred to stop escape but let light in. They had old hospital beds in a dorm-like arrangement but it got dim and dingy the further into the long dorm-like room you got. Generator power and a poor supply of emergency solar-backup power were available to the facility thanks to some handiwork by some of the legion of “junkies” that Dr Penfould had in his gang. The “girls” were considered working animals and got the least of everything and that included electricity. In summertime they were hot and in winter they were cold. Their food was always the poorest as, according to Maeve, they were all “fat bitches sitting on their arses” that didn’t need extra food.

  They were used for a range of services, a sort of barter system which included clothing repairs, haircuts, cleaning, washing, sewing, massages and, ultimately, sex. These prisoners were largely not forced but very much coerced and obliged to give up their bodies for the men that controlled them or those rewarded by a visit to them. While this was the case, they were more scared of Maeve, their Jailer, than they were of the men and few women from the squads who came in for market days of sorts. This was with the exception of one man, or animal, in the Rock. Xavier. Xavier was the least favourite of all the inhabitants of the Rock. As they looked up at Maeve and Sam, the women in the dorm saw their second-most hated individual had arrived with one of their favourites.

  “Alright you lazy fuckin’ cows, stand up!” The women got to their feet, a couple with babes in arms crying. “Shut those little shits up would ya!” Maeve shouted. She pointed angrily at the babies. The mothers nodded and quickly put the babies on their breasts for a feed. Stephanie was one of the young mothers and she looked at Maeve with a look that even Maeve chose to ignore; the indomitable look of a mother that would kill for her child if she had to. Maeve wasn’t interested in fighting Steph, she was more interested in control, power and self-preservation. According to Maeve, the cows in the Pen were working animals; all about the precious resource they held. Her view was short-term. The Doc had a plan far greater he never shared with anyone; breed these people and create a slave culture he and his lineage could exploit for generations to come. He had delusions of one day sort of retiring and handing the baton to a son that was yet to be conceived. He would be handsome, blond and ever-so slightly Eurasian. “A bit like a former Russian President,” Penfould had thought on occasion. But Penfould was far too old for fathering a son and being vibrant enough for a strong hand-shake and stern smile to signify the handover of the family business. Penfould’s fantasies were just that; dreams as fantastical as a children’s faery tale. In the meantime, until he had successfully bred the people of the Rock into submissiveness, he would lie and pretend he was keeping them there, safe and waiting for the promised cure. They were to be bred
, controlled and exploited like working animals on a farm.

  “Not too fuckin’ much; the Doc will need that!” Maeve warned, poised to back-hand one of the mothers feeding her baby. Old for a mother at 42, Maria was from a South American background and prayed to god as she closed her eyes and winced. The back-hand never came. Sam took charge to stop the innocent mother and her babe in arms from copping a beating; still brave and powerful, the Sam from the old days. “Please-“ was all she said, reaching forward to get in between Maeve and the potential victim. Maeve yanked on the leash for effect, making Sam, stumble backward and choke. A sick smile twisted on Maeve’s lips and she was satisfied that she had dealt some punishment and felt the according satisfaction. Silence. “You don’t do that!” Lakshmi, one of the ladies in captivity there said scoldingly. “You fuckin’ what?” Maeve glared at her with malicious intent. But it stopped, Maeve had already enjoyed humiliating someone, spitting in someone’s hair and now pulling the leash to dehumanise and hurt. Besides, Lakshmi was a good worker and producer of many things, including milk. Penfould would be displeased if Lakshmi was hurt in a senseless squabble over nothing. “You’ll keep, bitch.” Maeve said, clearly ignoring the challenge and turning her attention to the broader group.

  The 15 women were down-trodden and dominated as their hollow, fearful eyes looked up at Maeve, their oppressor and matron. They waited, confused, and just hoping what would come next would not be too bad. It was all a scale of bad as opposed to anything good. “OK bitches, the Doc has given you extra food today because this slut will be back to do ‘im ovah t’night. Say thanks to Sam the Slut“. Maeve announced this humiliation and snorted with as much class as her army camouflage pants, metal music t-shirt, army boots, flannelette shirt and straw-like red hair. No-one else found the concepts of rape or coercion amusing, but no-one said a word. They looked down with shame for themselves and shame for what their captors, purported saviours, were doing to them. Maeve looked darkly at them. “No sense of humour eh?“ She sneered “I’ll be laughin’ laydah cuz I’m gunna have Xavier come and deliver the food for you’s. Enjoy bitches.” Maeve turned and walked off, headed back to the Doctor. She knew Xavier was never allowed near them since the last incident but she enjoyed making them cower in fear and worry unnecessarily. The door closed behind her with a characteristic “click”; prisoners again but free to be amongst themselves until the depraved Xavier or someone else would bring them food and, possibly, a whole lot of trouble. Sam would have a short break before another shift “working” in the Doc’s chambers.

  Chapter 11: The Bear Pit, the armpit

  At the other end of the building, Sirocco was too angry to talk and nodded at Price to continue the story they were relating to Dr Penfould. Price pushed himself forward in the chair, which creaked under his weight. He was leaning in on his haunches like he was telling a secret and spoke in a hushed tone. “We flew to Mount Kosciuszko at first light, as directed, and we surveyed the area. We saw some distant smoke into the high-country as we passed Tantangara and headed near Crackenback to the mountain. ” Price said in hushed tones. The smoke was coming from bush that was too thick and didn’t offer us a place to land. ” Price looked at Sirocco who chewed gum and nodded in support. “Go on, go on.” Penfould said, now thinking he should pay attention. “So we decided to land nearby, about 06:45, with the intent to walk to the scene of the smoke. Our envisaged landing site was just a few clicks from the smoke“.

  Penfould changed his position in the chair uncomfortably. “Smoke can occur with a small conflagration from glass or other means. Well, I am not Cherokee, Apache, nor am I Navajo, am I Mr Price?” Penfould smirked expectantly at them and the looking into his tea; he loved his own wit. The quip was completely lost on Price and Sirocco. Penfould looked up to see their blank faces and said “What I mean to say is that I don’t understand the meaning of the smoke signals you dullards, Indian Smoke Signals? Philistines…OK -tell me, go on,” he rolled his eyes behind the thick glasses and sipped his tea some more. “Just as we were about to land at the designated site, we noticed some more smoke about ten clicks-“, Price was beginning to smile as he spoke but that faded as Penfould abruptly interrupted him. “You mean to tell me you saw smoke in two random spots in the bush and you think that constitutes success?” He was getting snotty with them now and would lay it on thick. “If I could fly that helicopter myself I’d do away with you two morons-“, he was cut-off abruptly. The self-righteous doctor was made to feel small like he had most of his life. “Tha first smoke wah in thick bush, sure dog, but second was at a farmhouse in da meadow, bitch.” Sirocco bit him hard. The Doc was stunned and speechless a moment.

  The effect had soothed the savage beast and Siro had calmed down. The Doc took a long sip of the strong tea that made him grimace a little. There was a brief pause and Siro and Price looked at each other, not sure of whether the Doc was still with them or if he had lost his marbles. They shrugged; no acknowledgement of that either.

  There was another sip of tea and the Doc scanned the room, clearly thinking and preoccupied. With some stealth and guile, Siro managed to get Penfould’s pipe and was now smoking it while Penfould was on the tea. He had even stolen the small leather pouch Penfould kept his sweet-smelling tobacco in too. This made him a little happier and he grinned. The Doc was seemingly oblivious and off in some lucid moment of thought.

  Penfould, to everyone’s surprise, ignored the insults, the oblique interruption and theft of his pipe to become intently focused. He thought deeply; he didn’t want a cure, but he had to pretend he did. If people were cured and free, he would lose control of those he would breed as his subjects. He could not ignore a cure though; he would make plans to play along and eliminate any threat to his throne. In true form, Penfould moved the focus off of him and onto a response.

  “A lost squad, two smoke locations, and one dwelling is no coincidence. You should have said it just like that“. He sipped the tea and continued. “That does mean life, gentlemen”. He didn’t smile but there was a new focus and positivity rather than the usual one-upmanship and negativity. “Well that changes things; that changes everything. Here’s what I want you to do,” he went on, as he leaned over to his drawer and removed three things obscured by his notepad. His hands were shaky, weak, delicate but fat. His clumsy hands had some craft in them after all; he skilfully took these items, juggling them in a way without dropping them. With his notepad and pen, he wrote out an order and stamped it “Go to Barlow and get a shotgun, a pistol, two machetes and two knives.” He handed the chit of paper to Price and kept writing.

  “You will get additional credits of three food stamps, three pharmaceuticals of your choice, one evening with one of the girls of your choice, not Samantha or Angela, AND- Maeve are you back yet? MAEVE?!” His last word was a shout. He looked at the door as though Maeve was at his beck and call and that she should have heard him. She was well-trained and this was proved as, not a moment later, the heavy door swung inwards. In that moment all eyes went to the door, he made a quick movement and placed something on a shelf underneath his coffee table. Maeve had obviously just come back from dealing with Samantha and entered quickly “You was callin’ me?” she said, breathing a little heavily. “Yes,” he smiled at her awful appearance. “Maeve, have you asked Raj how much milk we have left?” He looked at her with the clearly loaded question. She knew she should know and she did. “Doctor sir, Raj said that we had about 84 units left and we done 28 today and won’t be getting any more today.” She was “at ease” again, standing in front of him like she was back in front of her step-father, the army reserves or volunteer fire brigade again. Back under the command of others; home. “Yes, well, it is or it isn’t 84 units. Nothing is about if you know-“ he rambled gesturing with his pen. “It is 84 units, sir.” Maeve replied coolly and without any ego or arrogance. “This guy’s got nothin’ on my step dad.” She thought to herself as she recalled the abuses, addiction and domestic violence she had come from and wa
s accustomed to prior to the Great Change. His mind was racing, calculating. Penfould parked the concept of the milk reserves for a moment. “So Sirocco and Price- Ha! sounds like a detective show, how appropriate,” he mused almost not caring that no-one in the room cared. “Get that helicopter refuelled as a priority,”

  “But man, we are tired.” Sirocco blew queasy smoke from Penfould’s pipe at its queasy owner. The distance was too great and the attempt at disrespect was either unnoticed or kept in reserve by Penfould whose mind was elsewhere. “Well, you must-“ he was interrupted by Maeve. “Excuse me sir,” Maeve said loudly but without a tone to get him riled up. “I wanna go out with Siro and Price. Can I refuel the chopper and go out wiv ‘em?” Maeve loved the idea of being with the two biggest alpha males at “the Rock”. She had hoped one of them would have knocked her off by now but it hadn’t happened. She could still fantasise. The doctor was bemused by the request. “And why would you want to do that?” He smirked. “I am a country girl, sir. I like to get out and-“ she blushed and said what she wanted to, “get down and dirty.” The men were all taken a little off guard by the request and Penfould used it as another opportunity to attempt another joke that wouldn’t work. “Down and dirty?! I never picked you as a pig on a spit type!” He slapped his thigh and spilt his tea but he was so busy laughing at his own joke that he barely noticed. Sirocco and Price smirked and nodded, giving each other knuckles. Maeve wasn’t the shy retiring type, despite her demeanour as the faithful and respectful henchman. Even still, she smirked in response and blushed. “No, I mean if there is someone to kill, I would like to ‘ave a go.” She lied and said somewhat naively. Penfould loved the idea; “eliminate the potential cure?!” He hoped Maeve would do as she said. But he responded darkly to keep up appearances.