Man Hunt

by K. Edwin Fritz

  "And when you didn't disappoint him, did you like that, Josie? Did it make you happy to please him?" A stupid question.

  "No." Her lack of anger surprised her, but she was so tired. So hollow.

  "I want you to go back even further now. Before Charles hit you or screwed you. Before that night started, even. When did you first feel uncomfortable around him? Unnatural?"

  Now the story flashed back even further. It was a few weeks before. Charles was wearing his favorite football jersey. They had been kissing heavily for the first time, and just when she was beginning to fall in love with him, his hand had found her thigh. It didn't quite feel right, not just yet, but she didn't push him away. She didn't want to hurt his feelings, and it was definitely exciting. He was the first boy to ever do that.

  But in the echoing image that trailed behind it, Josie giggled another of her fake laughs to a man in a bar. She had already scouted and marked him for selection. Now she was working her easy magic. He smiled and laughed back, completely ignorant to the hell he was soon to encounter.

  "It was our third date. No," she paused, thinking, "our fourth date. He wanted to touch me then, but I asked him not to." The story jumped forward again to when Charles' hand started to move toward her thigh. She stopped kissing him and asked, as nicely as she could, that he stop.

  "The look on his face when I said stop," Josie continued. "It was anger. He tried to hide it, of course, and I ignored it for him. But it was anger. That's when I first noticed it." Her tears were slowing now. "That's when I knew in my heart he was a pig." Her mouth grimaced, and she didn't mind at all that this had always made her ugly.

  In the after-image, the man in the bar was putting his arm around her and she was leaning into his chest. His body odor was strong and rank, but she ignored it easily. He kissed her neck and she giggled again. He slid his hand to her inner thigh and she opened her knees an extra inch.

  "And why did you feel the need to bend to his sick desire?" Monica asked.

  "I just… just wanted him to be happy." Josie's chest and throat felt the pressure of fresh tears, but she pushed them away.

  "And after he raped you, was he happy then?" Instantly Charles was above her again. This time his face was red from exertion. When he'd grunted out his orgasm, she had sworn she had felt herself being planted with a demon seed. Not pregnancy– and a test administered by Monica some weeks later confirmed this– but the seed of evil itself.

  There had been times in the past few years when she had remembered that thought and believed she'd been right. She hadn't felt wholesome since. In the memory, Charles looked down at her in the instant after finishing, and the look on his face was utter disgust.

  In the inevitable echo that followed, she spat onto a naked man's whip-scarred back. He was crying. She was mocking him. She was disgusted by his weakness.

  In Monica's office, the image almost made her smile. The scarred man had raped his step-daughter three times. Three times that the girl's mother had suspected, at least. The little girl had been only seven years old.

  "Was he happy, Josie? Were you happy for having pleased him?" But Josie couldn't answer. She was drowning now. The pain in her heart was unbearable, and the tears had opened her up.

  Monica didn't speak for a long, long time. Josie simply cried more tears. She saw Charles hit her, Charles rape her, Charles sneer at. She saw her own hand hit, her own boot kick, her own victims cry and beg and wail.

  And on the heels of every vision– from Charles and from herself alike– was a growing rage. Rage at Charles and rage for the men who had come to the island. She had forgotten how painful a man could be, and now she did smile, thinking again of a particular, crying man. He was her very first assignment on the island. The very first man she had beaten and tortured and made to beg for his very life. His name was Charles, too. Rhonda had made sure she had known this before giving Josie her chosen weapon.

  Only that man hadn't begged enough, for Josie had killed him that day. Instead of teaching him that she was strong and dominant, she had wailed on and on with the mace in her hand. Its spikes had been shortened so each woman would only bleed a man, not kill him, but Josie had managed the deed anyway.

  "It's alright, dear," Rhonda had cooed at her afterwards. She had reached forward as she spoke, wiping a speck of blood from Josie's cheek and casually sucking it from her finger. "We just need to teach you a little restraint, that's all. You'll learn soon enough. Don't you give a second's thought about that piece of shit. He got what he deserved. Remember, this place is here to heal you as much as it is to educate these useless men."

  The memory of her first kill– an unintended one, but her first all the same– was among the most powerful she knew. She hadn't thought of it for some time, and she was suddenly glad she had. She had forgotten what The Cause was really all about. The Charles she had killed– 'Charles 2.0' she had always thought of him– had been a rapist, too. Many of the men on the island were. But he hadn't been the garden-variety rapist. This scum had served real time for his deeds. Twenty-five years. Yet upon his release he had raped again. Bethany, a woman who had since retired from the island, had scooped him up during the initial police investigation. The stories in the paper that followed assumed he had fled the country.

  "Did Bethany decide to go home or start over somewhere new?" Josie had asked Rhonda once. "I'd like to look her up one day. What's her last name?"

  "She has no last name," Rhonda said. "None of you do. And you can't meet each other. It's just safer that way. I'm sorry, dear."

  Josie had said she understood, but of course she hadn't. The bond these women formed in their years on Monroe's Island were tighter than any friendship. Tighter, even, than any sisterhood. Nothing, Josie had learned, was as strong as the bond formed over a shared murder.

  But now that was over. Bethany was gone. Charles 2.0 was gone. Even Charles 1.0 was gone from her life. She was on an amazing island that was making a real difference in the world, and she had been for six years. But she wouldn't be much longer if Monica worked her own breed of magic.

  "I know what it is you think you're hiding from me, Josie."

  Josie didn't look up. Yes, of course Monica knew. Had probably known since their last session, perhaps even the one before that. Might have even known before she had. She was a fool for thinking she could hide a thing so big.

  "You think you feel compassion for the men you train. You think we're unfair to them, that we judge them too quickly. You can't bear to watch them suffer because you think your suffering was the same."

  "I'm sorry, Monica," she said. And suddenly talking was a little easier. She purposely pictured Charles and his wicked backhand. "I have failed you." There was no point in fighting it anymore. She'd probably be sent home within the hour.

  "You think," Monica continued, deliberately ignoring her, "that when you are training them…" and she slowed her speech yet again, purposely emphasizing her next point, "that when you're in that back room where nobody is there watching you… that those men are unjustly punished. And you think that because you think they're actually innocent."

  Josie flinched. It was true. Not all of the men were rapists. Not all of them beat their wives. Some were guilty of crimes far less severe. She knew, for she had recruited hundreds of them herself.

  For Monica to have guessed her compassion for the men was one thing, but to have nailed an exact detail was profoundly unnerving. She was suddenly scared now. She really was going to be sent home. She really would have to face the real world all alone.

  Monica began talking faster now, her voice rising in pitch a little now that her hypnotism was no longer needed.

  "It always saddens me to see our girls in training feel this way. Every so often, Josie, a girl like yourself comes along who thinks she's better than the rest of us. I want you to remember what Charles did to you the next time you feel compassion for one of those pigs in there. I want you to remember the weeks and years of pain he caused in only fi
fteen minutes."

  Josie laughed and finally opened her eyes to the floor. She could see the spattering of her tears darkening the floorboards. "An hour," she mumbled.

  "What?" Monica asked.

  "It took him an hour. My parents were upstairs the whole time. I could have called out and stopped him. They never came down."

  Monica was silenced for a moment, and Josie felt she had somehow earned a drop of real pity for the first time since sitting in one of these brutal sessions. Soon, however, Monica picked right up where she left off.

  "I want you to think of every woman who has suffered at the hands of every one of those men. Every woman who, just like you, couldn't find the strength, the courage, to fight back. Think, even, of those who did fight and were only hurt the more for it. These men you girls recruit are not the angels you'd like them to be, Josie. You know that. Each and every one of them is guilty. One-hundred-percent guilty and deserves what he gets here."

  The tears had finally come to a halt. Anger had a way of doing that. Josie pulled her eyes from the floor to Monica. She was back in her fingertips position again. Her eyes were sharp, and when she spoke again her voice was loud, high, and crisp. "So how do you feel now, dear?"

  Josie wanted to say 'tired,' but knew she was in enough trouble already. Instead, she told another breed of the truth. "Pissed," she said. Monica's face didn't change. "And tired," she added. Monica smiled a little.

  "You should be just fine if you take the next few weeks seriously, but you do know how serious of an offense this is." It wasn't a question. "I'll be informing Gertrude about what we discussed today. She won't be pleased. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if she decides to give you official warning. You would not be the first girl sent home prematurely, Josie, though you would be the highest ranking. By now these things should have been worked out of your system."

  Josie only nodded. She couldn't speak. She just wanted to escape.

  Monica tisked her teeth once and quick, then continued. "What happened to that fire I saw when you first came here, Josie? You were such a promising prospect." Monica stopped as if waiting for an answer, but Josie knew it was better to let her finish.

  "You are the single best recruiter we have right now. Perhaps the best we've ever had. And at your age you still have so much potential. So few get to the black squad so quickly. Do you know that at your pace you'll break the recruiting record in only your eighth year? It's unheard of, Josie! You've really started to make something of yourself, and now you want to throw it all away. And why? Because of a little doubt; a little guilt that's not even based on sound arguments? Josie. Tell me you've learned something here today. Tell me I don't need to worry Gertrude any further."

  "I have," Josie said truthfully. "It's been painful, but…I feel much stronger now." Her chance to escape had finally come. She knew Monica's routine from here and finally began to sigh.

  "Do you feel you can continue helping Rhonda with the training?"

  "Yes. Definitely."

  "Have I helped you, Josie?" This question was always Monica's last move, her calling-card finale. She would look for uncertainty, a weakness of any kind, and if she thought she found it, the session would begin again from virtually the start. Josie let a moment pass before answering.

  "Yes, Monica. Thank you. It's…very good to have let this out. I feel like I can start over now with so much more anger than before. If Gertrude permits me that honor. I must think of every man as Charles. It's the only way. I'm embarrassed for having forgotten what scum these pigs can be."

  Monica didn't move, didn't breathe. Her eyes simply bore down on Josie while her fingertips played their waiting game.

  Finally, the hands separated and opened, palms upward, and Josie knew it was over.

  "Then you may go. Rhonda's already waiting for you, I believe. You can take care of some of that anger right away."

  Josie smiled weakly and rose to excuse herself.

  "I trust you, Josie," Monica said in her hypnotic voice. Josie's smile widened, but she didn't dare speak. A moment later, she turned and left.

  But as she closed the door to Monica's office, the smile died and turned instead to another awful grimace. In her mind's eye she could see Charles hitting her again and again and again. His grunting and sweating as he raped her. His look of disgust when he had finally finished.

  There are men downstairs who like to hit women, she reminded herself. And some of them need to learn their new names.

  2

  Gertrude stepped into the hallway and closed the door to her office. The behemoth of a woman made her way through the halls and toward the training area. Her torso twisted sloppily as her feminine lower body lumbered to carry her weight. When others were around she walked slower to conceal this awkward movement, but the halls were empty now, and she was anxious to get into Rhonda's files.

  She passed many doors, most of which were locked, utterly unused and collecting dust. In the stairwell, she looked out the window at the steep grade of the land outside.

  The term 'ground floor' was a relative term for the old hotel. It was no more excused from the island's rich landscape than any other place. On the north side, the first floor was at ground level, but on the south side it was the basement that opened to the streets. Outside Gertrude's office, the large circular driveway that had once admitted so many vacationing guests was now so overgrown that it was more grass than asphalt. Here and there chunks of the blackened tarmac sat askew and graying in the sun, but mostly there was that grass, tall and unmanaged. Wild. Gertrude often enjoyed looking out her window at that slowly dying landmark of civilization. One day, she would tell herself, it will all be gone.

  Because of their particular needs, the entire basement had been renovated. The western third was a large garage equipped with enough machinery and tools to be the envy of any modern mechanic. The island's hunters were, of course, also adept at the many skills needed to repair and maintain– and to modify– their heavily-used machines of death.

  But the lion's share of the basement housed the immense training arena.

  Gertrude emerged from the eastern stairs that led directly to Rhonda's office. She hoped the trainers were all busy inside their torture rooms. She didn't want to be disturbed while gathering information.

  She opened the heavy door and exposed the enormous gray room. A long corridor stretched off to her right. Another, shorter one loomed straight ahead. Both were lined with dozens of square doors just big enough to crawl through. None had windows. Between the door and the corridors was Rhonda's open office space. And against the left-hand wall were her numerous files.

  The only well-lit space of the training area, Rhonda's office was dominated by her own enormous desk. On it was the island's only computer and a mass of unorganized papers. The tall, metal filing cabinets were stuffed with folders and notes and photographs of the thousands of men the island had had swing through its revolving doors. Gertrude longed for one particular file now, but first she needed to talk to Rhonda. She did have a name to work off of, but it was the wrong one.

  Rhonda's files were organized by Emotional Marker, not by jumpsuit name. It would be idiocy to do so. Each jumpsuit saw so many men die within its stiff confines that any such file would be a foot or more thick. One of the behind-the-scenes details the men never knew was that jumpsuits were eventually retired. The magic number was one hundred.

  When a jumpsuit had aged a full 'century', it was taken out of commission, framed, and added to their collection in the grand foyer. At the most recent Women's Meeting, Rhonda had retired another one. The 'HEDGEHOG'– a green suit with a foot-long rip down the middle of the left thigh and a distinctive, strawberry-shaped bloodstain in the middle of the back– had taken its place and become the one-hundred-and-eighth jumpsuit to hang on the grand foyer walls. Since the jumpsuits were all displayed front-out in order to show their names, the strawberry bloodstain had of course been cut out and displayed to the side.

  Rhonda was sit
ting at her desk again. Had probably been clacking away at her computer through another night of sleeplessness. Gertrude considered the notion of efficiency for a moment, and mentally reprimanded Rhonda on her only true flaw. She consistently wasted a perfectly excellent trait as insomnia on researching and writing a book rather than on the men themselves. The only good that Rhonda's condition did for The Cause was in keeping nearly two hundred pigs from ever getting a good night's sleep. Sleep deprivation, Gertrude knew, was an integral part of Rhonda's work.

  "Gertruuude!" Rhonda nearly squealed. "Good to see you! What can I do for the black squad today? Have we made an unexpected kill perhaps?"

  "No. Nothing that exciting, I'm afraid, Rhonda."

  "I should have known. The moon isn't due to be full for another week, right?"

  Gertrude faked a smile. She seemed to be the only one to not find that particular repeated coincidence humorous. "I'm researching. I need the E. M. of the man currently wearing the GOPHER suit."

  "Oh, well no need to look that up. His name is Obe. The blue squad just transferred him a few days ago. I thought you might be looking into a transferal yourself. Don't tell me there's been a mistake. Are you sure you've got the right jumpsuit?"

  "No mistake. That's the one. Thank you, Rhonda." Gertrude turned to go, but Rhonda's question called her back.

  "Do you want Lorraine's help, Gertrude? I'm sure she'd be more than happy to fill you in on…"

  "That won't be necessary. I'd like to handle this one myself. There's been a breach in the rules, and it does affect black sector." Gertrude turned again, this time determined to continue her own business regardless of what Rhonda might say. But Rhonda was a better woman than that. The two of them had dealt quite comfortably together for years, and part of that comfort was a respect in professionalism. Intrigued though she must have been, Rhonda kept herself busy by carefully choosing among the many hand-made contraptions proudly displayed on the wall behind her desk. As Gertrude found the 'Oa-Om' drawer, Rhonda had already selected something that resembled a metal, spike-lined corn-on-the-cob. Many of Rhonda's devices had spikes.