Lloyd hauled her up over his shoulder.
"Lloyd Raymond Hagel, you put her down. She's not your property. You're stealing a breeding woman."
Lloyd didn't bother replying. He whispered in her ear. “We gotta run for it."
Fine by her.
Lloyd feinted left, ran right instead.
Hub fired.
The boom of the bullet would've made her cringe if she could've. It passed close enough that she heard the whine of it slicing through the air.
Fan couldn't see a damn thing. She bounced like a sack of garden soil, slamming over and over into Lloyd's back. His shoulder grated against her hip. She couldn't see Hub.
She couldn't see. Something wrong with her eyes.
Please don't hit me. Please, God.
"No danger of that,” Lloyd panted. He ran through the field. Wove around the mounds. Got low; tossed her to the ground and rolled her under an oleander that had grown up there and—into a hole in the ground just wide enough to fit a woman her size—or a man skinny as Lloyd.
She fell ten, twenty feet. Taking loose dirt with her. The chute felt smooth except for a couple of roots. She fell until the earth curved, stopping her momentum. Her sneaker dug in—not by accident. Not to keep her from going further, either.
Mind your feet.
Lloyd slid into her, popping her between the shoulder blades and dislodging her shoe. “That was close."
Her foot?
"Hub. Catching us out there in the open."
What makes you think he's not comin’ after us down here?
"Besides that he'd need a backhoe to get in here?"
Don't think he wouldn't get one.
Lloyd chuckled. “Yeah. He's been watching a little more close lately. Like he knows what's goin’ on. He don’ know."
He grabbed her by the offending shoe. He stood up as much as he could—half-way?—and duck-walked backward, dragging her. More roots brushed the top of his head.
How come she could see that? Underground, in the dark? It wasn't dark—lichen grew on the walls and the ceiling. It glowed. Phosphorescent, she thought her biology teacher called it.
"You remember shit from Bio?” Lloyd asked. “When were you ever in class?"
Every day.
"Okay,” he said. “When were you ever in class not stoned?"
He had a point.
He picked up a rhythm. Gained speed. Making it so her shorts rode up in the crack of her ass and her shirt pulled up over her belly and her arms V'ed over her head.
Her belly moved. All by itself. Like there was something inside it. Something ... squirming in there.
Lloyd.
"Hub won't see the hole. It's camouflaged."
Lloyd! My stomach!
"Try not to worry, Fan. It's normal."
For who?
"All y'all."
The tunnel widened some and got taller, so Lloyd could stretch out to his full height. “Just a little farther."
'Til what?
"Just you wait.” Lloyd pulled her around a corner and downslope. The tunnel walls spread out and up—a cave?
The glowy lichen grew on the stone: all of it, except, as far as she could feel—and she could feel it—where she and Lloyd passed through. Water dripped.
Where are we?
"Under the jail,” he said.
From the far side of the cave, a man's voice. “You got all of her, Lloyd?” Denny asked. She knew it was Denny.
She could still hear him whispering to her in the car—the way his breath against her ear, against the curve of her neck, had sent shivers through her. His weight on top of her, pinning her down. In a good way. And—
All of her? Like Lloyd might've come back with parts?
"Yeah.” Lloyd let go of her leg. He bent down and scooped her up in his arms. “Don't you worry about that none, Fan."
He set her down on a long slice of raised rock, then stepped away. She couldn't see him anymore. Panic flowered in her stomach.
He wouldn't leave her?
"I'm right here, Fan,” he said.
More than a relief. She didn't trust anyone else. Especially not Denny—who hovered over her now. He traced a finger along her hairline. Brushed away strands that were plastered to her cheeks. “It's good to see you, Fan."
Of all the things he could've said, that had to be the most ridiculous.
"No shit,” Lloyd said.
Denny looked at him.
Lloyd arched a brow. “You oughta at least apologize for gettin’ her this way."
"Oh.” Denny smiled ruefully. “Takes two."
You're not the one lying on this rock, mostly dead. Motherfucker.
Lloyd laughed, not unkindly. Could Denny hear her the way Lloyd could? He seemed to think Lloyd was cracking up at what he'd said.
"We're going to get you back to your old self, much as possible,” Denny said. “You understand, Fan?” He glanced over at Lloyd. Waiting for the translation. Confirmation.
Lloyd nodded.
"Good.” Denny took her chin in his hand. “We got to free up your jaw."
Did that mean she'd be able to talk again?
"Dunno,” Lloyd said.
If she could've passed out while they de-wired her jaw, she would've.
The hypersensitivity that she'd felt all along her skin—she felt it everywhere now. Mostly she felt her insides being rearranged. Like someone stuck a hand in there, applied a little elbow grease, and made some new order to replace the old. It was all too much. Too much to feel.
Denny finished up. Wiped his hands on his jeans. “We're going to put you with the others now, Fan."
Women like her?
"With the kids.” Lloyd hooked her arms with his. Scooped her off the slab.
Denny got her legs. “We only ever rescued you, Fan. Before the gestation was up."
Before the baby (she remembered babies and there was no way what squirmed inside her could be a baby and she didn't believe she'd give birth to anything real) dug its way out of her? Ate her and left what remained of her carcass behind to go back to earth? Dust to dust?
Lloyd grunted. Adjusted his grip on her. “They don’ dig out on their own, Fan. That's just rumors."
She didn't want to ask how he knew.
"We got you. That's lucky,” he said. “Luckier than the others."
She wished she could close her eyes. Blot it all out. Instead she got a great view of the ceiling—more lichen—and the paths water had worn in the green. Her head lolled to the side. She saw where the water pooled on the floor in the cavities of the rock, like dark eyes.
They ducked her into another room. The lichen either didn't glow or grow so fierce in here. Fan could hardly see a thing, even after they righted her and pushed her up against a wall—into a plywood stand nailed together from scraps. It reminded her too much of the hole she'd been buried in. So close. No space.
"We need you to watch the kids,” Denny said.
Lloyd set his hands on his hips. “You know. Babysit."
He had to be kidding.
"Nope,” Lloyd said. “There's two of ‘em need lookin’ after."
"And ours makes three.” Denny flattened his palm against her belly.
Why were they holding children here? Those kids were supposed to be in the ground. Propagating the race.
Lloyd, what happened to your mother? Your sister?
It occurred to Fan for the first time that he and Denny might've planned this whole thing, starting with seduction over a medium popcorn at the movies. Leading straight to the back seat. But how? How could they know what would happen?
Lloyd shook his head. “You can't plan it, Fan. It just happens. ‘Course, you can increase your odds. You fuck as many as you can and hope for the best."
If he was trying to say this wasn't personal—
"Wouldn't dream of it, Fan,” Lloyd said.
And how many more girls were there?
"They're my kids, damn it. I'm going to raise ‘em,” Denny said.
> Fan took it back. That was way more ridiculous than Denny being happy to see her.
"This is the only one that's yours,” Lloyd said.
"The other two shoulda been. Marla's and Stacy's."
Marla: sunny brown hair with hazel eyes, olive skin, collection of Ramones tee-shirts. She'd been in ninth grade. A year behind Fan. She'd had a little brother named Charles and she drank a lot of coffee. Always sat out under that hackberry in the smoking section. Always in the grass, never on the bench.
When had he gone out with her?
Lloyd laid a hand on Denny's shoulder. Like this was an old argument. “We gotta go, man. Natives gettin’ restless."
Where? She couldn't see, damn it. How the hell was she supposed to watch them?
Unless she couldn't....
Lloyd?
The men turned their backs on her.
Lloyd.
He sighed heavy. The force of it shrugged his shoulders. “All I got's cold comfort,” he whispered.
Better than none.
"Not in this case. Be back.” He kept on walking.
Stacy. Fan hardly remembered her. Red hair? Green eyes? No. Little pucker mouth? Ghost of a face. She'd hung out with the Ag people. She'd been Denny's last girlfriend.
Hadn't she been Lloyd's something, too?
Sister.
Scraping on stone. Scurrying. Blew Stacy right out of her brain. Every nerve ending in her skin fired. Until she thought maybe she'd explode. The sounds—those might be the kids. Monsters—how could they be anything else? But the more she listened there in the dark—unable to move her head, unable to see—the more the sounds seemed to be coming from either side of her. From above.
On the walls. The ceiling.
Eyes. She saw eyes, reflecting what light there was. All white, no pupils. The child's head, its body—everything seemed normal shape. Its skin was green. No, yellow-green.
Fan's first wild thought: Little green men. Aliens.
The child stroked her belly. The squirming inside calmed.
Oh shit.
Please God don't let this be happening—but it was happening and—please God what the hell could she do about it; she was (mostly) dead and dead meant past the point of no return—she had to get out of here—
Where was the other? Lloyd said two.
No way out.
The words reverberated in her head. Only in her head.
Lloyd?
No answer there.
Goddamn sonofabitch Lloyd Hagel. She'd kill him. Or, better yet, bury his ass in the dirt and watch him suffocate. Watch him die. Watch him—
The child rested its palm on her stomach. Its green face didn't look exactly solid. A close resemblance to that ground ivy her mom kept in the front yard. No way out, it said.
It had to be him. Her. It.
She noticed finally that it had no mouth. Which made sense. What on earth would a network of underground rugrats need with mouths?
It wouldn't hurt her. Would it?
It pulled up her shirt. Way out of line.
Tucked it under her breasts. Exposed her middle. The contact between the flat of its hand (scratchy) and her skin (smooth, supposed to be smooth) felt all wrong.
Oh, there's going to be hurt, all right.
The child raised its hand up onto fingertips. Flexed its joints.
Scooped out a chunk of her and let it fall—splat—to the floor of the cave.
She would've screamed if she could've. She would've passed out from the pain.
And she would've looked down to see what the green child was doing to her. Over and over—the kid did it again and again until it lifted something small and curled out of her. She hardly noticed. Felt it at the edge of her awareness. Beyond the hedge of evisceration.
Her baby?
She wanted to see it. Her monster.
The child held it up. Not much in the way of features. Not much of a face. She couldn't make out any limbs. It didn't look like Denny. Or her. Until it reached for her with tiny fingers. With thorns. And then she saw the human in it. Or something kind of like human.
The thing was hers. From her body. She'd made it. She could do thorns. Couldn't she?
The child pulled it away. And gave Fan to understand that the thing dug out of her didn't want to bond. It wanted to eat her. Need you, the child said. Need your way out.
She caught a shadow in the corner of her eye. Another child. It laid its hands on her sneakers and for a breath she thought it would dig something out of there. Take off her feet.
But it rose up and went to work on her plywood cage. Not pulling her out, not pulling it apart. Lowering her enough for her feet to touch ground.
Oh.
She sensed the work of gravity. Her own weight.
Her feet rooted. Through the rubber soles of her shoes. Into the rock. Thick, ropy roots—they had to be. They didn't feel dainty or small.
They moved the stone. Broke it. Cracked it. And sought down. For what?
Water. The child in front of her cradled her baby.
Fan's roots snaked through the cave floor. Widening. Deepening. Of their own accord. Nothing to do with her own free will. Not one thing had, this whole time. Except her wanting Denny in the dark, in the steamy summer night in the back of that car. Human want.
Would the holes her roots made get big enough so the kids could pass through?
None of them answered her. But they skittered around her feet. And the questing of her roots got easier. Whatever they hit, it must've been paydirt.
The children squatted too low for her to see, even out of the corner of her eye. After a few minutes, all their sounds began to fade. Like the reverb of a falling penny striking the side of a well.
Right about the time Denny and Lloyd moseyed back into the chamber. She thought “mosey” on account of how one set of footfalls seemed pretty relaxed. The other, though—
"What the fuck?” Denny took hold of her arm and shook her. As if.
Lloyd didn't look at Denny; he eyeballed Fan. “They're all gone?"
Just come close enough, you bastard.
"And you'll what?” Lloyd asked, matter-of-factly. “They gone?” Of course.
Denny's gaze boomeranged. Lloyd to Fan. Fan to Lloyd.
"Want to tell me what's what?"
"Sure wasn't some altruistic charity thing,” Lloyd said. “You know, lettin’ the kids escape."
Denny stared at him.
Lloyd held his gaze. “You can't raise those things, man."
"They're mine."
"You oughta ask them what the hell they want,” Lloyd said.
"They might not answer you, ‘course, since they're not people."
"You were helping me."
Lloyd shook his head. “I was helpin’ the only people here that's left."
Denny fisted his hands.
"What're you gonna do about it, man?” Lloyd stepped between Denny and Fan. “You gonna destroy her?"
Denny thinned his lips.
"You gonna go tell Hub or one o’ them other cops? Or you gonna go find yourself someone else to impregnate?"
"It's not right, what they did. Taking them away from me."
"Your women or your children?” Lloyd spat. “First one meant somethin’ to you, din't she?"
Denny crossed his arms over his midsection.
As much an answer as words would've been. Fan thought she got it, finally. And not a hair of it was about her. She was just some player in their little drama.
Get the fuck over yourselves.
Lloyd glanced over his shoulder at her. “Hold up, now, Fan."
She made one crappy choice and this is what she got. Eternity mostly dead in a cave with her guts all over the floor?
"Don’ have to be that way,” Lloyd said.
What way did it have to be?
Lloyd turned away from her. “Whatcha gonna do, Denny?"
Denny mulled his thoughts a minute. “To you? Nothing. Figure we're even."
&nb
sp; If Denny had got Stacy as pregnant as he'd got Fan—if what Fan thought was going on here was what was really happening—. there wasn't anything on God's green earth that'd put him and Lloyd even.
Denny made to go around Lloyd. Toward Fan.
Lloyd stepped to him. Nose to nose.
"You don't mean to just leave her here?” Denny asked.
"Nope. You don’ got a say in it though. She's not yours anymore."
Denny snorted. Turned on his heel and marched out of there. Soon as he was out of sight, she turned the whole of her attention on Lloyd.
She didn't know what he meant to do. Only that it couldn't be good.
"You're right,” he said. “Nothin’ good at this point. But you still got choices."
What choices? She couldn't even blink. Or wiggle her pinky. Much less walk. Much less will herself all the way dead. If that was even possible with everything that'd gone down here. She wished fervently that none of this had ever happened.
"Don’ wish away the life you had, Fan. No other way it coulda fell out."
Did he mean fate? Destiny? Her jury was still out on either one or both of those.
"Here's the deal.” Lloyd held up a hand and counted off, bending his fingers. “I can bury you again. That'd mean you'd rot. Or some new woman gets buried next to you and her kid eats her. And you."
Wait.
You dug me up. Saved me from that fate to begin with. You wouldn't rescue the next one, too?
He studied his feet. “You could just think of me like your guardian angel."
Not good enough.
The thought surprised her. First because she'd thought she was more worried about herself than about the next girl in line. And second because she still had so much to lose.
Waiting to rot or be eaten. Conscious the whole time. That was no choice.
"Can't do anythin’ else from here,” he said. “You put it out there yourself—Hub'll get his backhoe eventually."
So where are you going?
"Can't say."
Who was she going to tell?
He looked her in the eye. “You think I'm the only one can hear all y'all out there in that field?"
She had thought that. It never occurred to her any way else. And why not?
"You think folks want to admit they can hear what happens out there, Fan?"
They probably didn't even want to admit it to themselves.
He framed her cheeks with his hands. Gentle. Like he didn't want to hurt her by touching her. (And oh God, would it hurt?) “They'd have to do somethin', wouldn't they, Fan?"
GUD Magazine Issue 1 :: Autumn 2007 Page 9