But that was silly. Of course these men would be wary. The world was full of people who saw the apocalypse as a handy excuse to simply do whatever the hell they wanted. Rapists, murderers, thieves: as the number of survivors had decreased, the sins of those left alive had grown exponentially. It made sense that they would be very careful about the people who were brought into their fold.
It was all entirely logical. But logic did little to assuage the nervous tightening in her stomach and even less to silence the voice in the back of her mind which whispered that something just wasn’t right.
General Bulldog’s eyes studied her for a moment and for some reason she felt the same way she had when she’d walked through the din of catcalls and innuendo of construction workers. Like she was nothing more than a piece of meat, something to be had and discarded.
“Useable. Good hips.”
His voice was gruff and abrupt and somehow sounded as if he were passing judgment on her. She immediately felt herself stiffen as her hands balled into fists; she wanted to spit some caustic remark back at him, but her mind balked and left her simply standing there with her mouth agape.
The little man’s eyes darted to Jeremy and for a moment he almost seemed to wince.
“Weak. Bad stock.”
Then onto Mama.
“Too old.”
A moment of silence before the man spoke again.
“Tree of Life has an adequate number of test subjects. These two are useless.”
It happened with the quickness of a lightning strike. One moment, these two groups of people were simply standing on the hillside staring at one another as a cloud passed across the sun. The next, General Bulldog and his underling had their rifles shouldered as if by magic.
Two shots rang out and echoed through the valley below, startling a flock of birds into flight as twin puffs of spent gunpowder filled the morning with their sulfuric odor.
Jeremy and Mama’s heads snapped back as a crimson mist seemed to spray in slow motion from the dime-sized holes that had appeared in their foreheads. Their bodies crumpled to the ground, falling atop one another while unblinking eyes stared at the boots of the men who’d killed them.
She’d screamed and turned to run then, spinning around just in time to see the stock of a rifle racing toward her face. A flash of pain, dark spots that had exploded like antimatter fireworks in her field of vision, the sensation of falling backwards… and then nothing but darkness.
When she came to, her forehead throbbed as if her heart had taken up residence just above the bridge of her nose. Her entire face ached and she could feel something tacky on her bangs, something that felt like half-dried glue. Reaching up, she winced as her fingertips brushed her wound: streaks of pain radiated from a central point and her head immediately felt as if it had tripled in size; she was nauseous, as if her stomach were on the verge of purging what little food it contained, and she viewed the room she was in as if through a fog. But even so, she realized that the dark stains on her fingers were partially congealed blood.
“Just cooperate.”
The voice was familiar, but not overly so. Where had she heard it before?
“It’ll be easier if you do.”
She turned her head toward the source of the words and it seemed as if it took the world a fraction of a second to catch up with her. But when it did, she saw Donnely. He was on the other side of the door, looking in through the little window with his hands wrapped around the bars. For a moment he became nothing more than a blur before snapping back into sharp focus.
“You should feel honored, really. They don’t select just anyone.”
He seemed to be looking everywhere but directly at her. As if he couldn’t bring himself to meet her gaze.
“Wh… where am I?”
Her voice sounded as if it were coming from the end of an infinitely long tunnel and only the stabs of pain that accompanied the movement of her jaws convinced her that it was her own.
“The Garden. You’re safe now.”
Something about his tone sounded almost apologetic. Or as if he were trying to convince himself of his own statement.
She closed her eyes for a second and was suddenly back on the hillside. She saw Jeremy and Mama lying in the grass, their blood mingling in a collective pool below them. Unmoving. Silent. Dead.
Her eyes snapped open and, even though it hurt like hell to do so, her brow furrowed as she glared at the man on the other side of the door.
“You bastard. What they hell have you done? What the fuck….”
But then she was sobbing, her back heaving with tears as her fingers pressed against her temples and bubbles of snot erupted from her nostrils.
“I’m… I’m sorry. It had to be done. For the good of all. For… humanity. See? There’s a greater good. A higher purpose. But for what it’s worth… I am sorry.”
That was the last time she’d ever seen Donnely. In the beginning, she’d entertained fantasies of him returning in the middle of the night; dreams of keys rattling in the lock and the door swinging open to reveal him silhouetted by torchlight , ready to whisk her away from this place and make amends for the evil he’d brought upon her.
But that was so long ago and she now knew he would never return. On some level, he probably did feel bad for his part in what had happened; but she couldn’t help but remember the look in his eyes as he’d described the work done here. What she’d rightfully identified as the passion of a true believer. Any guilt that kept him awake at night was undoubtedly overshadowed by the zeal of his belief.
The door to her cell swung open and two men shuffled inside. This morning it was the ones she thought of as Fred and Barney, which meant that Larry and Curly would be making the evening rounds.
Barney glanced down at the clipboard he held in his hands and thumbed through the pages with bored detachment.
“Says here her last period was two weeks ago.”
Fred nodded and propped his sawed-off broomstick against the wall.
“Assume the position, Hips.”
In the beginning, she’d fought. She’d scratched and bit and kicked and ripped out clumps of hair. She’d been beaten until it hurt to take a breath, had been held down and forced to take part in the routine no matter how much she squirmed and writhed. She’d had breakfast and dinner withheld. Even though it was the temperature and consistency of warm puke, it was still food… and she’d gotten tired. So tired of the purple and green bruises, of trying to sleep when it felt as though her ribs had been kicked by a wild mule. No matter how hard she fought the result was always the same. Donnely had been right: it was much easier just to cooperate.
And so it was that she closed her eyes, bent over in a wide-legged stance, and gripped her ankles. She imagined that she was back in her little apartment: Lady Gaga was on the radio and Jeremy was bitching about some cock-knocking camper who’d just picked him off three times in a row. Outside, an ice cream truck called to children with its pied piper jingle and the scent of curry drifted from the Singh’s apartment next door.
She tried not to let the cold glass of the rectal thermometer shatter the illusion as it invaded her body, tried to convince herself that she was only gritting her teeth because Jeremy had launched into another curse-laden tirade against the sniper who’d become the bane of his existence.
The DJ on the radio was calling for sunny skies with a ten percent chance of precipitation; but then his voice melded with Barney’s nasal whine as she felt the thermometer glide out of her most secret of places.
“Congratulations, Hips… you’re ovulating.”
She heard one of them crossing the room, cursing beneath his breath as he picked up the waste bucket with a slosh.
“Hard to believe someone so pretty can smell so damn bad. Shit.”
She kept her eyes closed as she stood upright, continued envisioning her apartment, the potted plant by the door, the opening notes of The Entertainer as her cellphone lit up with Mama’s number.
> It had been Fred complaining about the bucket. Which meant Barney was currently bringing in the gruel that passed as breakfast. As if on cue, the smell of the meat and vegetable slop overpowered the curry of her dreamworld.
“Eat up, Hips. You’re gonna need your energy.”
They both laughed as if they’d heard the joke the DJ had just made about lesbians, potpourri, and open cans of tuna. And then her door creaked shut, there was the click of the lock, footsteps, and the entire scene replaying itself in Scar’s cell.
She bit her bottom lip and tried to take a long, slow breath but the air seemed to stick somewhere in the back of her throat.
Ovulation.
She knew what that meant. Within an hour, there would be a stream of men coming through her cell. Each one having his way with her. Each one filling her with millions of tiny swimmers, some of which were destined to trickle down thighs that would soon feel raw and stingy. For the next few days, she would know practically every man in The Garden. Multiple times. Some would border on brutality with their savage thrusts and the twisting of her nipples; others would behave as if this were simply another chore, no different than cooking the slop or slaughtering the cats which went into it. A select few would be shy and apologetic, each telling her that she had to understand that there was a greater good.
They had to repopulate the world after all. They had to outnumber the dead. To have children who would grow into soldiers. To keep the gene pool as diverse as possible.
Within a few months, her fate would be decided. If their seed didn’t take purchase, if her belly didn’t begin to balloon out and her monthly flow come to end, then she would be declared barren. She didn’t know exactly how it would be done, but the end result would be the same: she would end up on the other side of this cell, in the darkness with the other rotters, just another subject for The Tree of Life to experiment on.
She opened her eyes and saw their hands reaching through the bars of the wall’s window.
Flaky skin, some deteriorated to the point that strands of muscle could be seen beneath patches that had been eaten away by time. They grabbed and grasped with mindless enthusiasm, seeking purchase that would never come.
But the living would come. And come. And come.
To them, she was nothing more than an incubator, just another breeder in a long row of nameless women.
She walked over to the hands, keeping just out of reach and inciting them into a frenzy with her presence.
Those men had killed Jeremy. Had killed Mama.
They’d locked her up and humiliated her on a daily basis.
Raped her countless times all in the name of procreation.
And they’d kill her, too, if she didn’t produce a child soon. But what if she did? Nine months of respite? Nine months of being in the maternity wing before being transported back to this dingy cell? Wouldn’t it be worse then? Knowing that there was better food, more comfortable quarters with no chance of beatings for fear of damaging the fetus? It would all begin again. The daily inspections. Assuming the position. The monthly violations.
The hands were so close that she could see the little black specks beneath what was left of the fingernails. They clutched at the air, seeming to squeeze invisible stress balls with sheer abandon.
Even now Donnely, and others like him, were probably out there. Scouring the countryside. Searching for fresh stock. For new victims, for more women to defile.
How long would this go on?
“No more.”
Her voice was a soft whisper but was filled with more resolve than the loudest shout.
She could still fight back. She could bring the entire Garden crumbling down, could utterly destroy all they’d worked so hard to build. And it would serve the bastards right.
She extended her hand quickly before she had a chance to lose her nerve. Thrusting it into the darkness, through the bars on the little windows, squeezing her eyes shut.
It didn’t hurt as badly as she thought it would. The bite was quick and felt no different, really, than the time she’d been nipped by the neighbor’s chow as a kid. Wrestling her arm free from the rotter’s weak grasp she immediately wrapped the open wound in the hem of her dirty smock and applied pressure. Blood blossomed on the fabric like a rose in a dirty field of snow, but it had been nothing more than a flesh wound. Within fifteen minutes, the blood had clotted and she licked the iron tasting flecks from the tip of her finger. If anyone bothered to ask, she’s simply say she’d jabbed a splinter from the door into it. But no one would. She knew this as surely as she knew the contagion was flowing through her veins, poisoning her healthy cells with the infection of the walking dead.
“Bring it on, fuckers!.” She shouted so loudly that her vocal cords felt strained with the words. “Bring it fucking on!”
At the same time she heard another voice, this one echoing through the corridors of her mind instead of the hallway with its series of cells and captives: it was the voice of Donnely, culled from her memory.
“Did you know that any exchange of bodily fluids will do the same damn thing? You kiss someone who’s infected, for example, and get even the smallest amount of spit in your mouth and you’re done for.”
So let them come. Let the parade of rapists begin. She would spread her legs and would welcome them into her body, would take every single man in the colony if they sent him. She would exchange bodily fluids with each and every one and let them have their way.
She would have her revenge.
From down the hall she heard a door swing open. A male voice doing an off-key rendition of Snoop Dogg’s Sexual Seduction.
Laying back on her sleeping bag, she closed her eyes and waited for him to enter her cell.
“My name is Alejandra.” she whispered.
“My name is Alejandra.”
Skinning the Freshy
I. FRESHIES & ROTTERS
The basic rules of Freshies and Rotters:
1. Half of the players are designated Refugees and represent the living. Refugees can basically do as they please and are bound to no special handicaps.
2. The other half are Rotters. Rotters can only stagger after the refugees and are not allowed to use tools or anything that would denote a higher intelligence. The job of a rotter is to pursue the Refugees through the muddy streets of Free Town and try to catch them.
3. If a Rotter lays a hand on a Refugee, then that player becomes a Freshy. Freshies are allowed to sprint after the remaining Refugees as quickly as they can. However, they can only run for the amount of time it takes to count, out loud, to thirty. After reaching thirty, the Freshy becomes a Rotter and must shamble along with the rest of the undead team.
4. The game continues until the last Refugee has been cornered and changed into a zombie.
I spent God knows how many hours playing this game as a child. And I was good at it, too. Whenever I was on the refugee team, I would always be the last one left alive. So much so that some of the other kids began demanding that I always start out as a Rotter. I declared it wasn’t fair that I should always be undead just because I was good at running; they would argue back that they wanted to know what it felt like to be the last person left alive and that I was ruining the game for them. Sometimes, it would even come to blows and we would scuffle the ways boys will, fighting over something that really doesn’t really mean a damn in the larger scheme of things. But to me it was important: I loved that silly little game more than anything else in the world.
I remember the feel of the mud squishing through my bare toes, the smells of shit and piss and boiling roots that wafted from the shanties and lean-tos, the constant coughing and hacking as dark smoke curled from barrels aglow with crackling flames. Free Town was the only world I’d ever known and I was enamored with every soot stained nook and cranny of it.
Some of the kids would lean against the wall that encircled our little city and press their ears so tightly against the bricks that they would leave bloody pucker marks wh
en they finally pulled their heads away again; they would try to listen for the world beyond the wall, for the scratching of the corpses we knew were just on the other side. Tommy Ballister used to stand like that and daydream about exploring the wilderness beyond our home, of hacking his way through the undead horde and discovering cities hidden in the undergrowth of forest; and Sarah Thompson would be right there with him because, as she so often reminded us, her Grandpa had taught her everything she’d ever need to know about surviving in the outside world. They wanted to be adventurers, to find the artifacts and relics of a world we had never known. A world some of us doubted had ever really existed. But me? I was happy with my family’s tent, with the mouth-watering aroma of roasted rat on Sundays, with life inside the wall. The other world held no interest for me: let me do my chores, let my mother teach me to read and write, let me play Freshies and Rotters until it was time to bed down for the night. I was perfectly content.
Though it was never put to us in this manner, I can now see that Freshies and Rotters was basically a parable game. And the lesson it taught was the lesson of life outside the wall: in the end, you can’t win. Everyone becomes a freshy or rotter sooner or later; the undead team will just keep coming after you until there’s no refugees left.
Maybe if someone had explained it to us like that things would have turned out differently. Perhaps there would have been more fear of what waited out there in the dark. Or maybe it wouldn’t have made any difference what-so-ever. Maybe we would’ve thought it was just another made-up story to scare little kids like the Boogeyman or Charlie Manson. But atleast we would have had the facts. At least we would have known.
II. RETURN TO INNOCENCE
Sometimes, I awake in the darkness with tears still warming my face. I listen to the chirping of insects in the underbrush, to the distant call of an owl who sounds so forlorn and alone that he could very well be the last of his species. I awake with the feeling that something inside me, part of my soul perhaps, has collapsed like a sinkhole during my sleep, leaving nothing more than a dark, empty pit.
Sex in the Time of Zombies Page 11