Botanicaust

by Linsey, Tam

  Levi stiffened. “Where’s Eily?”

  Eily chimed from Tula’s side. “Here.” She must have returned from the other direction.

  His heart hammered with worry. He no longer cared about violence. Only survival. They’d set a grueling pace, and the twins had probably doubled the distance during their food gathering. He squinted into the sunrise. A smudge of white hovered across the horizon. Clouds? Or the exhaust steam from the methane stack at the Holdout? “We’re not far, now. Can you keep going?” He made walking motions with two fingers. They all seemed to get along best using a mish-mash of languages, and he wanted to be sure he was understood.

  Mute nods all around.

  Everyone drank, and gulped down the desiccated chokecherries and raw insects the girls had gathered. Leaving the pack where it lay, Levi set a stride he thought they could sustain for another few hours, but his feet ached, and his eyelids drooped with exhaustion. As they drew farther east, the cloudbank on the horizon clarified into an artificial plume.

  Home.

  Levi pointed ahead. “That’s where we’re going. The gate is on the south side. No matter what, don’t touch the fence.”

  Tula reiterated it in Cannibal for the twins.

  The sun hovered directly overhead when they crested a swell, and Levi spied movement on the plain behind them — three male figures moving at a trot in spite of the limp of one man. The cannibals spotted Levi and the injured man raised an arm menacingly toward him.

  “They see us.” Tula said near his side, her voice quavering in fear.

  “Run.” Past the point of panic, he spoke low, without inflection. How could they hope to beat hardened cannibals in a sprint for the Holdout?

  Tula and the girls picked up and ran. Levi stayed a heartbeat longer, watching as the hunters descended into a swale five hundred yards away. As soon as they were out of sight, he turned and loped after the girls. The Holdout was a quarter mile away. If the cannibals caught up, he wanted to be the first to confront them. Violence be damned. Peace had a different set of rules out here.

  On the other hand, the Holdout wouldn’t let Tula or the twins inside without his presence. They may not let the Blattvolk inside at all, with or without him. But he had no other options. He kept close behind Tula.

  As they approached, the fence solidified against the pale blue sky. The metal links rose fifteen feet into the air, topped by coils of barbed wire. Inside, a gleaming white water tower marked where a cluster of houses squatted in the center of the fields. The Elders must have finally approved re-painting. How long had he been gone?

  The faint hum of electric current grew louder as they neared the perimeter. Freshly burned weeds drooped at the base of the fence line. Inside, a tractor turned a field in preparation for planting winter wheat. Levi waved furiously.

  The tractor stopped and the driver stood on the running board facing Levi’s direction. Too far to pick out features, Levi tried to remember which family claimed this portion of co-op land. A glance over his shoulder showed him the determined faces of the pursuers. From the Holdout, a bell struck its first chord of warning. Levi knew the drill. Everyone would abandon chores and retreat to the tunnels. The only ones left outside would be old Peter the Gatekeeper, and a few volunteer handlers for the dogs.

  Ahead, Tula and the twins reached the gate. Peter stood outside his stone house a hundred paces in, mouth agape.

  “Peter! It’s Levi!”

  The old man couldn’t take his eyes off Tula and the girls. Several men charged up from the village, restraining the dogs on leashes. Among them Levi saw Brother John, an Elder who had been willing to listen to Levi’s request to search for a cure, and Abe, one of Levi’s playmates in youth. The dogs lunged against their restraints, barking and yowling in anticipation.

  “Levi?” John let the dogs pull him forward a few steps.

  “Cannibals are after us! Let us in! I’ll explain later.”

  “Blattvolk!” one of the handlers yelled. In his panic, he lost hold of the beast he’d been restraining. The creature leaped forward, facing off with Levi without touching the fence. The hackles between its shoulder blades looked like the edge of a serrated knife.

  “Platz!” Levi commanded the dog to stand down. Every child in the Holdout was taught dog commands as soon as they could speak. Trained to fight cannibals, the canines could be indiscriminate in who they attacked. The dog trembled but moved back, hackles lowering a fraction. Levi peered back over his shoulder to see the pursuers huddled about twenty yards back. The hunters strafed apart, flanking the gate on both sides with the remaining cannibal facing head on.

  “You bring us abominations!” Brother Abe spit at his feet to punctuate his disgust.

  “Cannibals.” Levi pointed to the men ducking behind the amarantox. Standing as near the fence as he could without touching, he called each man by name. “Brother Abe. Brother Marcus. Brother John. By leaving us out here, you condemn us to die.”

  Peter shouted. Tula screamed. Levi spun to face her. The cannibal on the left darted in and grappled with her. Levi threw his arms around her to keep her from being pulled away. A collective gasp from the men inside the fence frightened off the attacker, and he retreated into the amarantox.

  “Please.” Levi didn’t let go of Tula. The twins crowded close, cowering against his sides. “Abe.” He looked his former schoolmate in the eye.

  “You are in the Bann.” Slowly, the men turned their backs. The dogs continued barking. Peter stared agape a moment longer before Brother John bumped him with his elbow. He shook his head and went back inside his house.

  Shunned.

  His own people refused to help him. Hope was lost. He looked down at Tula, loosed his grip about her. Only one way left to save her. “When they take me, you and the girls run. As far and fast as you can.”

  He took a long, purposeful step backward toward the amarantox. Toward the hunters. He raised his chin to glare at his brethren beyond the fence and balled his hands into fists. “May God have mercy on your souls!”

  “Levi, no!” Tula grabbed his hand and pulled. Her gaze widened and she screamed as the sound of thundering footsteps approached. The next thing he knew, he was airborne, headed face first into the electric fence.

  Tula clutched Levi’s hand as a cannibal burst from the amarantox and tackled him. The force of the impact yanked her to the ground and tore Levi’s hand from hers. Both men tumbled into the fence. The pop of electric current, followed by the smell of seared flesh, filled the air as both men jerked and flew back off the grid.

  Scrambling on all fours to Levi’s side, she felt for a pulse. There. He was alive. But the other two cannibals were creeping forward from opposite angles. The third cannibal lay prone within an arm’s length. Ana and Eily grabbed Levi’s feet and dragged him toward the gate. They stopped shy of the wire and bounced on the balls of their feet anxiously. “They not let us in,” one of the girls said.

  “No,” Tula said on a breath. Tears filled her eyes, fell onto burn lines on Levi’s cheek.

  She traced the pink scar on her arm. No mercy for abominations.

  The men kept their backs to the fence. Across rigid shoulder blades, suspenders crossed each man like an X, barring supplicants from access. The vicious dogs drooled and barked, drowning out the twins as they clumsily recited the Lord’s Prayer. The older man, the one Levi called Brother John, adjusted his black brimmed hat and glanced over his shoulder without making eye contact. He leaned close to one of the other men and muttered.

  The girls finished their prayer and then Ana flung her arms about Tula’s waist and squeezed. Turning to her sister, she pulled her close. She looked Tula in the eye over Eily’s shoulder. “They wants a Spirit Healer. You gots to run.”

  With that, she released her sister and spun. In the blink of an eye, she lowered her head and plowed right into an oncoming cannibal. He snatched her up like a prize and tilted her upside down in a bear hug. “Gots one!” The other cannibal veered to j
oin his partner. Together they disappeared into the amarantox, leaving their fallen comrade behind.

  “Ana!!!” Tula and Eily screamed together. They both lurched forward. Tula stopped shy of the crushed amarantox, holding tight to Eily’s hand.

  “Ana! Ana! Ana!” The child stretched toward the trail, sobbing.

  Up until now, Tula’s losses had been her own. Her job, Mo, her home. Levi’s son still had hope, in spite of the Fosselite fiasco. But losing Ana was real. Final. Tula remembered her own ordeal with the cannibals, the way Brother Eli screamed as they ate him. Her life had come full circle. The little girl she used to be flooded her mind, and her final song welled up in her chest. “Jesus loves me, this I know…”

  The music rose from her heart, her protection song, her acceptance song, her song of hope. As her tears cascaded down her face, she let the words soar to Heaven.

  A clatter of metal drew Tula’s attention to the Holdout. Brother John and another man hauled Levi toward the fence while the old man, Peter, stood outside the open gate, staring at her. His ancient blue eyes watered the crevasses of his weather-lined face. His shock of white hair stood up around his head. She wondered where his hat was.

  He reached out a gnarled hand. “Katie?”

  Tula’s heart stopped. The world swam before her eyes.

  Her name was Katie.

  “Papa?” She mouthed without sound. He looked different, yet his eyes were the same. So was the set of his mouth above a beard gone white with time. She recalled sitting on his knee at the dinner table, playing with his pocket watch while he counted the numbers circling its edge. The slow ticking movement of the second hand.

  My name is Katie. She couldn’t breathe with her chest so full of longing for the childhood she had lost.

  The men reached the gate with Levi in tow. Through the shock of her returned memories, Tula registered the others shouting Papa’s name — Peter. He moved slowly backward toward the fence, his face wracked with loss. His big-knuckled hand hovered in her direction. Tula blinked, trying to think clearly. Stars crossed her vision. If she didn’t move fast, she and Eily would be trapped outside.

  Twisting, she grabbed the child by the arm. The girl screamed Ana’s name in protest but only half resisted as Tula dragged her to the gate.

  Papa waited until she was inside, then shut the gate with a clang.

  The men erupted. “Peter, what have you done!”

  “Activate full alarm!”

  “Watch the fence!”

  One man released his dog to charge Tula. Her childhood training returned, she shouted, “Platz!”

  The dog stopped.

  “It’s my Katie! Don’t you see? She knows the dogs!” Papa’s voice rose above the din. The alarm changed its rhythm from an ebbing and flowing wail to a blaring staccato.

  Wave after wave of memories crashed against her as the dam retaining the past crumbled. Sneaking off into a hailstorm to catch ice with her brother. A crash of lightning and the tingling jolt across the wet soil as a bolt struck the nearby fence. The frenzy of the Holdout dogs attacking her brother and cannibals alike as the invaders swarmed the opening. A shudder passed through her as she recollected the scent of cooked flesh and she crumpled to her knees, hardly able to breathe.

  In the back of her mind Tula was aware that Eily knelt with her forehead against the ground and keened.

  The men caught the loose dog but kept it within inches of Tula’s bare shoulder. Tula smelled the creature’s breath as it snarled and panted. The rest held their dogs in check, in a circle around her and Eily. Levi lay forgotten in the dirt next to the small stone house.

  Papa’s red face appeared and disappeared behind several sets of shoulders as the men blocked him from her. “Katie! My Katie!”

  She wanted to run to him, to press her face against the coarse spun cotton of his blue work shirt like she did when she was a child. But angry men blocked the way.

  “Go back into the house, Peter. Katie is dead. You accepted that long ago.”

  “What do we do with them?”

  “Put them back outside!”

  “Let the dogs have them!”

  Papa bellowed and shoved his way past the men. Tula rose to meet him, heart like a bird in her throat. He seemed so much smaller than she remembered. Reaching a knobby hand to caress her cheek, he asked, “What did they do to you?”

  Abomination. Shame flooded her, even though her mind argued against the feeling. The Protectorate had saved her, not damned her. She clutched his weathered fingers, tears clouding her vision. “Papa.”

  The siren fell to silence, and everyone froze. The dogs continued barking. A man emerged from the small stone house. “Platz!” he bellowed. The dogs ceased barking but growled low in their throats. “These two Blattvolk pose no immediate threat. Let us discuss our options like men.”

  Papa faced the man squarely, using one hand to thrust Tula protectively behind him. “My Katie has come home.”

  “Peter, this isn’t the Katie you know. Be cautious.” The man focused past Papa’s shoulder to her. “You bear the Mark of the Beast. We owe no sanctuary.”

  She felt like she was five again, being scolded for sneaking out of Sabbath. “I was very young when the cannibals stole me.” Softer than a whisper.

  “She’s a Blattvolk!” another man cried, and his dog barked.

  “Platz!”

  Eily keened Ana’s name over and over. Torn between comforting the child, wanting to check on Levi, coming face to face with her forgotten papa, and worrying about her future, Tula shook with unsteady legs. She collapsed again next to Eily.

  The man in charge raised a hand. “We will pray. Show them to the old milk house north of the orchard.” His stare bored into Tula. “If you try anything, we will loose the dogs, and no command you give will stop Gotte’s Wille.”

  Barely able to focus, Tula asked, “What about Ana? The little girl they captured?” She pointed outside the fence. “Please, we can’t leave her to the cannibals.”

  “Ananananana,” Eily held herself in a tight fetal position.

  “I know, baby. I know.” She stroked the girl’s arm.

  “We cannot expose the entire village to attack a second time.”

  Tula’s throat tightened as she recognized the truth. She stared through the linked fence into the seductively calm amarantox. The unconscious cannibal remained where he had fallen, the only sign a struggle had occurred. “What about him?”

  The man rolled a shoulder. “We’ll keep the dogs here. Never seen a cannibal hit the fence a second time.”

  “And Levi?”

  “His family will care for him.”

  Papa clasped her shoulder. “Brother John, Katie’s coming home with me.”

  “Peter, let the congregation —”

  “Come on, Katie.” He slid a hand under her arm to help her to her feet.

  “We have to bring Eily.” She tried to lift the child at the same time Papa pulled at her.

  “She can go to the milk house.”

  “I can’t leave her alone. She just watched her sister get taken by cannibals.”

  “She’s a Blattvolk, sweetheart.”

  Tula stiffened. She pulled herself from Papa’s grasp. His weathered hand contrasted with the green skin on her arm. Or was it that her skin contrasted his? She looked into his blue eyes. He was a ghost of memory — only a tiny part of who she had become. The corners of her mouth twisted into a frown so deep her throat hurt. “Papa. I’m a Blattvolk now.”

  Papa scowled. “That’s different.”

  “How?” Tula shook her head. “You can’t condemn her without condemning me.”

  “I’m not condemning her. I just want to take my daughter home.”

  “Peter,” Brother John interrupted. “You can’t take her into your home. You live in the gatehouse. We can’t allow her near the fence controls.”

  Tula didn’t look at Papa. She wasn’t his little girl any more. She couldn’t regret her conversi
on. “I’ll go to the milk house. With Eily.” As she rose, she pulled Eily to her feet by pure strength and added, “Please pray for us.”

  Their god was no longer hers. She barely remembered anything but singsong prayers. But she remembered forgiveness. These men should forgive her. Forgive Eily. And if it meant feigning belief to keep the girl safe, Tula would do it to the end of her days.

  Their god labels you an abomination.

  The stares of the men confirmed it. She dropped her chin to regard the dusty earth below her feet.

  Sighing, Brother John removed his hat and wiped his brow before planting the brim back on his head. “I’ll call the Brethren to order.”

  The men with dogs maintained a wide circle around them as they crossed a field and passed between the crooked limbs of heavily laden fruit trees. A few rosy orbs lay scattered along the ground among partially filled baskets. Work had obviously stopped suddenly when the alarm sounded. The air in the orchard smelled sweet. Apples. Tula closed her eyes and inhaled deep with the memory.

  They reached a weathered brick building slightly bigger than Tula’s bedroom back in the Protectorate. The slatted wooden door creaked, looking about to fall apart as a man opened it. He stood aside and pointed, his gaze above her head to avoid her nakedness. Swallowing, Tula continued inside with Eily. The door clapped shut, sealing her and Eily in darkness. With no windows, the building felt like a tomb.

  She allowed Eily to sag to the dirt floor and then joined her, pulling the child half way onto her lap. She rocked her for a while, humming Jesus Loves Me as two thumb sized spots of sunlight drifted across the floor through chinks in the ceiling. Her plans to convert Levi’s people flitted through her mind, poisoned by the return of her memory. The Blattvolk were the very definition of evil. To accept such a transformation was to deny God.

  Yet she didn’t remember denying God. She remembered being saved.

  Eventually, voices outside drew her attention. The door squeaked open and a man with a lantern entered. Tula squinted her bleary eyes against the sudden light. Behind him, a woman hovered on the threshold. Beyond, two men with dogs stood watch. The man set down the lantern. “Brought some decent clothes.” He looked at a spot beyond Tula’s head. “Don’t try anything funny.”