by John L. Monk
What the …?
“The real Jack’s got golden hair,” the girl said, pointing at him. “Golden haired, that’s what Greg said. His hair’s blond.”
Another said, “Golden hair is blond hair, you idiot.”
An argument abruptly sprang up about what degree of blond constituted golden.
“Check if he’s got a radio,” someone said at one point. “Maybe he heard about it there.”
“What’s this about?” Jack said, mystified and a little irritated. He wanted to get to his meeting with Carter and be done with it. “Why’s my hair so important?”
The boy with the shotgun walked over to the passenger door and tapped on it. The window rolled down and Eddie said, “What?”
“Just wanna look in your car a minute,” the boy said, peering inside. “Thanks.” He turned back to the crowd. “Doesn’t have no radio. Gotta be him.”
Jack narrowed his eyes. A nagging suspicion began to tug at him. “What exactly did Greg say to you people on the radio?”
The girl cracked a smile and said, “Shit—what didn’t he say. Tore Carter a new asshole, that’s what he did. We’re what’s left of the gang. We’re done taking orders from that jerk anymore.” She smiled apologetically. “We thought you were them. No offense.”
“So, Jack, what are you doing here?” the one with the shotgun said. He pointed at the Humvee. “And who are those guys? I’m Larry, by the way.”
He held out his hand. Jack shook it, not missing a beat.
“The one in front was going to turn me in to Carter,” he said. “His name’s Eddie, and he’s a backstabbing killer. The two in the back, I don’t know.”
“Is that right?” Larry said in a flat voice. He walked to the Humvee and tapped on the window.
“What?” Eddie said.
“Out of the car,” Larry said. “You two in the back—stay put.”
Eddie got out, his whole demeanor meek. Then he came around and stood where everyone could see him.
“Jack says you’re a backstabbing killer,” Larry said. “And we’re with Jack.”
Then he blasted Eddie in the chest with the shotgun.
35
“Why are women physically weaker then men?” Jack’s mom, Mrs. Ferris, had said when they stopped to refill their water from a stream. The boys and Mr. Ferris were a ways off, sitting on rocks and relaxing. Typical male behavior—lazing around while the women did all the work.
The Mitchell twins and the Ferris family were hiking in Dolly Sods, West Virginia, working their way to an overlook they’d camped at the previous year. Lisa’s parents couldn’t go because … well, the truth was both were overweight, and it was a five mile hike up and down hills. Jack’s parents, in their sixties, were healthy and trim, and could manage the trek almost as well as the kids.
“I don’t know about that, Mrs. Ferris,” Lisa said. “I’m stronger than Greg. And I can crush an apple in one hand. Jack can’t even do that. And I always win when we wrestle.” She laughed. “No offense, but even with all that karate, Jack’s sort of a wimp.”
Mrs. Ferris laughed too. “You’re still young. When they hit puberty, they’ll produce more testosterone, and that’ll stimulate muscle growth. By the time they’re twenty, they’ll be at least twice as strong as you if they don’t do anything but sit around, and a lot stronger if they exercise.”
Lisa didn’t think that was fair, or necessarily true. She’d seen women on TV run super fast and lift weights that even her dad couldn’t pick up.
“What if I exercise too? Wouldn’t I get stronger if I started now? Then could I keep up with them?”
“I’m sorry, no,” Mrs. Ferris said sadly. “Not in sheer physical strength, at least. The strongest man in the world will always be stronger than the strongest woman. You could outrun a man if you had to, but only if he’s out of shape and you’re in good shape. But again, biology’s against us. The fastest man in the world will always be faster than the fastest woman. In this case, it’s more because of the way our hips are structured, and because of the differences in the way men and women distribute weight.”
She looked hard at Lisa, and her face grew deadly serious. “If you’re ever in a fight with a man, unless you get very lucky or have some other advantage, he’s probably going to win.”
Lisa didn’t say anything for a time, letting the unsettling thought digest. Briefly, she considered not talking to Mrs. Ferris anymore. For an adult, she was actually pretty weird, as well as sort of cold. Jack said his whole childhood was based around his parents dying the day he turned eighteen. How messed up was that?
She couldn’t help herself. She had to know the answer.
“All right. So why are girls weaker than boys?”
Mrs. Ferris paused before answering, as if choosing the best words for her audience.
“Size and strength in animals often tracks closely with monogamy and polygamy. Do you know those words?”
Lisa nodded. She loved reading, and always had a dictionary handy when she did. She particularly liked grown-up books, though she had to hide them under her bed if they had S-E-X in them. Not from her mom, but from her dad. He was prudish about stuff like that.
Mrs. Ferris said, “Polygamous animals, like chimps and gorillas, tend to have larger males. Monogamous animals, like gibbons and beavers, exhibit no such sexual dimorphism. Why do you think that is?”
Lisa shrugged, feeling less and less comfortable with the conversation, but not wanting to be rude now that she’d committed to it.
“I’ll give you two reasons,” Mrs. Ferris said. “One: males are forced to compete with each other for access to females. When they fight, the bigger ones usually win, and they get to mate.”
Lisa frowned. “But that’s not true about humans. Humans get married. They’re—we’re—monogamous.”
“Tell that to any invading army since the dawn of history. Or any frat boy, or lonely barroom drunk.”
Lisa didn’t know much about drunks or frat boys, but she got the point. “So what’s the other reason?”
“Just this: weak females are easier to dominate. If strong men and weak females tend to have more babies, a pattern will eventually develop.”
Lisa nodded slowly. “You mean evolution, I’m learning about that now. Mom says we believe in God, so we don’t believe in evolution. But Dad thinks God made evolution. They don’t really talk about it much.” She frowned in thought. “I don’t know what to believe. But why do weak girls have to … um … keep on being weak? We’d just get eaten by lions easier. Right?”
“Without parents or a vigilant community,” Mrs. Ferris said, “boys would get eaten by lions too. You’re talking about competitive advantage. But there are other forces at work—sexual selection, culture, environment. In the end, though, it’s all a numbers game.”
Lisa was really confused now. Numbers game? What was this, math?
“Think of it this way,” Mrs. Ferris said. “Do you know what a human being really is? At its most basic level?”
“A person? Um … someone?”
Mrs. Ferris smiled gently. “Yes, in a sense. In another sense, a human is simply a way for human DNA to make more human DNA—a curious byproduct of a chemical reaction that happened three-and-a-half billion years ago.” At Lisa’s shocked, faintly offended expression, she added, “Unless of course we were created. As far as that goes, I’m more likely to agree with your father than your mother.”
Lisa pondered what she’d heard and clipped another bottle to the water filter.
Over on the rocks, the boys were laughing out loud about something, blissfully ignorant of the meaning of life. She loved her brother, but he could never be serious. She couldn’t imagine either him or Jack trying to dominate a girl. Still, she wasn’t completely naive. She watched the news sometimes and knew not every boy was the same. She also knew what dominate meant, even if Mrs. Ferris wasn’t saying the word.
Unexpectedly, she felt like crying. “Why are you tell
ing me all this terrible stuff?”
“Because I want you to be prepared,” Mrs. Ferris said. “We women don’t have to be victims. There are things we can do to protect ourselves.”
Lisa wiped her eyes. “Yeah, like what?”
“Like you said, we can exercise.”
“But you said that wouldn’t help.”
“Not true—I said it won’t make us equal. But it will help. Another numbers game, but we can skew the results if we try. If you’re walking alone one night, chances are you won’t be jumped by an Olympic swimmer, right?”
Lisa nodded. “Yeah, I suppose.”
“So if you’re stronger than he expects, you’ll have a better chance. If you’re healthy—and you know how to fight—you can use your body far more effectively. You can increase the odds of survival.”
After that, Lisa felt more at ease. She felt even better when, the following week, Mrs. Ferris invited her to the gym.
At first, Mrs. Ferris started her on stretches, running on the treadmill, and lifting weights. She said most women didn’t like weights because they were afraid of growing big, ugly muscles, even though that was biologically impossible without anabolic steroids.
Despite the work she was putting in, Lisa wasn’t blind. She saw the burly men in the gym, and cringed at how much they were lifting—sometimes twenty or thirty times what she could. Heck, she could barely lift up the free weight bar with ten-pound plates on it. And here she’d thought she was pretty strong.
“If you can surprise someone,” Mrs. Ferris said, “you can end the fight sometimes even before it begins. Hurt the bastard and run away, then trust your cardio training. Most of these meatheads will fall over gasping if they have to run five feet. You don’t need to beat them to a pulp to win. You only need to outlast them.”
One day, they didn’t lift weights or run on the treadmill. Instead, they attended a self-defense class, which Mrs. Ferris paid for with her own money on the condition that Lisa hide it from her parents. Not entirely ethical, Lisa knew, but she also knew her mother would have forbidden her to go. Her parents also didn’t know she and Greg had gone shooting at the range with Jack, and with luck they never would.
The defense class was taught by a former mixed martial arts fighter and emphasized boxing, jiu-jitsu, and dirty fighting. Lisa loved it, because ever since Mrs. Ferris said she was just human DNA trying to make more human DNA, she’d felt something close to helpless—adrift in an unfair universe of violent men who could do what they wanted no matter how she felt.
There were several women in the class, and only a couple of girls and boys. As the weeks went by, she looked forward to training against the boys because she was able to beat them more times than not. And when she went home and tried the moves on her brother, she wiped the floor with him.
Now, two years later, Lisa looked back on those days at the gym and the only thing she wished is that she’d trained even harder.
“Just leave everything to me,” Carter had said, and gently eased her down onto the bed.
He touched her chest with his fingers and groped clumsily.
“Wait,” Lisa whispered. “Let me … um … I need to get comfortable.”
“Sure, no problem,” he said, overly agreeable. He had a look in his eyes she’d never seen before from anyone. A little like hunger and hate, mixed together.
Lisa arranged her legs beneath him, one on either side of his waist, then took his left hand in hers and kissed it.
He leaned down to kiss her on the mouth and she shied away, saying, “Not yet, don’t ruin it.”
Carter’s jaw clenched with impatience. She kissed his fingers again and spread her legs wider and he relaxed.
“What are you doing?” he said when she adjusted her right leg up high and sort of angled it sideways.
“I saw it on the Internet,” she said. “You’re gonna love it.”
“Huh? Saw what?”
Before she was forced to kiss his nasty fingers again, Lisa slipped her leg from beneath his arm, up around his neck, and then clamped down with her left leg. Simultaneously, she pulled his right arm straight with both hands and squeezed her legs together. Carter yelped in shock. She squeezed harder to cut off his airflow, lest he alert anyone downstairs. He struck out with his left arm, flailing to hit something, but only landed a few ineffectual punches to her side.
Lisa was great at squeezing. She was the girl that could crush apples in her bare hands when she was twelve. She could beat up her brother and Jack—karate or no karate. Sure, the strongest man in the world would always beat the strongest women. But Carter wasn’t a man—he was just a boy, not to mention a bully who probably won most fights because his opponents were too scared to fight back.
Well, he’d caught a double dose of bad luck in Lisa. Not only wasn’t she scared, she enjoyed fighting back.
A moment came where Carter stopped batting against her with his free hand and began scrabbling at his side. Lisa’s eyes widened in alarm—he was going for his gun!
Rather than let that happen, she did the unthinkable—she rolled sideways off the bed, pulling him with her, trusting in blind luck for a safe landing. They landed, and it sure didn’t feel safe or lucky the way her vision swam down a funnel of fading light. She’d landed on her bruised back, and the breath was knocked clear out of her. Carter issued a weak groan and gasped raggedly for air. She still had hold of his arm, though her legs had shifted a little.
Before he could yell, she pulled back harder and squeezed, arching off her back for a tighter grip. Holding the pose, she squeezed like her life depended on it—which it did—and hoped nobody downstairs had heard them fall.
After what seemed like hours, but was probably only a minute, Carter’s body turned limp in her perfectly performed triangle choke. Still she held on, choking him with everything she had, now panting and sweating from exertion, her inflamed back and legs screaming in agony. When she couldn’t hold on any longer, she let go and fell back gasping for breath with the boy lying grossly between her legs.
“Was it good for you, asshole?” she muttered.
She crawled backwards on her elbows and lay flat. A minute passed and her eyes snapped open. She’d almost fallen asleep. Her whole body felt like a big, giant sore, and all she wanted to do was sleep. Instead of that, she got to her knees and checked Carter’s pulse—still there, and somehow he was still breathing.
Lisa got up, grabbed one of the pillows off the bed, and shucked it free of the pillowcase. She twisted the pillowcase in her hands like a rope, then sat behind Carter and wrapped it twice around his throat. Once again, she mustered her hard-earned strength and squeezed. For more leverage, she twisted it around her foot halfway and leaned back. In time, her hands began to burn and she let go, giving them a break. When they felt better, she resumed strangling him.
After he was finally dead, she let go, liberated the gun from his corpse, and stood up.
Lisa’s whole body shook, and she was as tired as she’d ever been in her life. But she was armed, she was desperate, and sleep could wait.
Upon checking the magazine, she swore quietly. There were only three rounds left. The idiot was carrying a nearly empty gun. There were ten of them downstairs, including that crazy girl, Cassie, and that traitor, Miguel.
Quietly, Lisa left the room and crossed to the landing. She needn’t have tiptoed—they were still playing their dumb music.
She made her way down the stairs and peeked into the great room. Some were sleeping, others talking, and two were playing a card game. Cassie was pacing and looking at the ceiling, shaking her head and muttering to herself.
“Would you sit down already?” someone said.
“Mind your own business!” she shouted.
Lisa eased back and crept to the kitchen, then to the pantry. She saw two boards with nails sticking out of them resting on the floor. Another board was hammered across the door, and a claw hammer lay on the counter next to a box of nails. A couple of strong
kicks from the other side would have knocked the board free. If Carter had seen it, he probably would have yelled or threatened someone or whatever bullies like that did.
After a quick look to ensure nobody was coming, Lisa pried it loose and opened the door.
Greg flinched in terror, then smiled when he saw she was alone.
“I’ll help you up,” she whispered, staring at his leg. “Whatever you do, don’t scream.”
When he was on his feet—mewling softly in agony—he gasped out, “We gotta get Steve, too. Can’t leave my wingman.”
Cursing the time it was taking, but knowing she couldn’t just leave the poor boy here for them to slaughter, she tried to help Steve to his feet. It was hard because his legs and arms were like jelly, and he moaned loudly when she tried to lift him. She was about to suggest they leave him anyway, try to free the others and come back, but then someone said, “I thought I heard something. Got you now, you ugly slut!”
The door slammed behind them. Lisa let Steve go and slammed it with her shoulder. It held fast. She twisted the knob and pushed. It gave about six inches, but slammed shut again. Now the doorknob wouldn’t move—Cassie was holding it from her side and screaming for help.
The doorknob was more decorative than functional, not meant for heavy duty. Lisa twisted it hard and heard a snap. After that, it moved without resistance, the internals clearly broken.
Lisa heard more voices, then hammering as each of the boards was secured with way more nails than before.
“Trapped again,” Lisa said.
With nothing to do but wait, she pulled the gun free of her waistband and slumped down against the wall.
36
“It’s really cool meeting you, Jack Ferris,” Larry said, shaking his hand again. Despite being a killer, he was one of the few people Jack had met after the Sickness who shook hands without prompting. Tony always did that head-nod thing, and Brad was big into fist bumps.