The Last Girl

by Joe Hart

  “Hey, let’s stay out here. Those machines give me a fuckin’ headache,” Lily’s Cleric says to Simon. “They’re not goin’ anywhere.”

  “That’s not protocol,” Simon says.

  “There’s a camera in there with them, and this is the only way in or out. We’ll be right here.”

  “It’s okay, Simon,” Zoey says. “We’ll be fine.” She nods once at him, and before he can protest, she and Lily enter the laundry.

  The ceiling is well over twelve feet high with no handholds anywhere on the bare walls, which are painted a dingy yellow. Or maybe they were white once and gave up the fight to stay so. The washing machine and dryer are stainless steel giants, their squared shoulders touching in the center of the room. Three seamless chutes protrude from the ceiling at the far end. Beneath them are wide cloth baskets heaped with clothing of different colors. The black eye of the camera in the middle of the room stares down. Zoey stares back.

  “Come on, Lily, let’s get to work.”

  They begin sorting the laundry and hauling it from beneath the tubes to the washing machine. It is painfully dull work that lost its excitement after folding the very first load of garments so many years ago.

  They start the washing machine, and the entire room comes alive with sound. It’s not so loud that they need earplugs, and she’s gotten used to it over the years. They spend the twenty minutes it takes for the load to wash sitting on the floor drawing letters in the dust. Lily rocks beside her and shrieks with delight every time she completes an entire word correctly.

  Zoey draws a circle over and over. It is the wall outside. But really does it matter if the walls are square or round? They are walls and do their job well.

  She stands and moves to the laundry chutes. Their dark hollows run straight up and out of sight. Even if Lily were able to give her a boost, how would she climb up the slick sides of the metal? And if she were able to shimmy up to a different level, what then? The walls would still be there, the guards, the cameras. Nothing would change, except she would be punished.

  The washing machine signals its completion with a buzz and they switch the load to the dryer beside it. After they repeat the cycle a half hour later, they take their heavy baskets around the wall beside the dryer and set their burdens at the foot of the folding table.

  The table is eight feet long and four feet wide. Beyond it is the garment elevator, an apparatus built into its own shaft that runs all the way to the fourth floor. It has three extendable trays spaced ten inches from one another. The clothing is folded and stacked on the appropriate tray. When the elevator is full, a button is pushed on the wall and the doors before it slide shut. It stops at each level, depositing the garments into storage closets before returning empty. Zoey has considered climbing inside the elevator time and time again. First off, she doesn’t think she can fit between the shelves, she’s been too afraid to try—and this is the first time in months that their Clerics haven’t been right on the other side of the little wall. No, she doesn’t think she can get inside unless she were able to unfasten one of the trays. And again, what would it solve?

  Nothing.

  She’s in this room for a single purpose—to clean the clothes and return them. People wear the clothes, dirty them, send them down the chutes, and it starts all over again.

  Zoey hears a strained creaking and looks down at her hands. She’s wringing the collar of a guard’s uniform so hard the material squeaks. She releases it, her bloodless fingers throbbing.

  “Do you like birds, Lily?” she says in a low voice, loud enough to be heard only by the girl beside her. She glances in the direction of the camera and is reassured as always that they are shielded from view. This is the only place within the ARC she knows of besides her room and the bathroom stalls that is hidden.

  “Burrs?” Lily says.

  “Yes, birds. Do you like how they fly? How they’re . . .” She hesitates. “. . . free?” There, she’s said it. Free. What a magical word, and how wonderful it feels on her tongue.

  “Fee?” Lily asks. She continues to fold the shirt she’s holding. Its edges aren’t even. It will have to be fixed. Zoey snatches the shirt away from her and grabs her wrists, yanking Lily around. Lily’s eyes are wide, and even the one that lazes to the side, unfocused, is filled with surprise and fear.

  “Don’t you want to be a bird, Lily? Don’t you want to fly over the walls and away from here? Go somewhere where they can’t tell us what to do? Where they can’t keep us in a box?”

  Lily’s lower lip trembles, and tears begin to spill from her eyes. “Ow,” she says through a sob, and Zoey sees she’s gripping the other girl’s wrists hard. Too hard.

  She releases them and Lily steps back, crying fully now, her small shoulders shaking. Zoey sags, leaning on the folding table before reaching out gently to bring Lily into an embrace.

  “I’m sorry, Lily. I’m so sorry.”

  “Ow, ow, ow,” Lily says, hiccupping. “Zee, ow.”

  “I know, I’m sorry. Shh, I’m sorry.” She strokes Lily’s hair and closes her eyes.

  Hours later, the tone sounds and they leave the laundry. Lily’s eyes are red but dry, and Zoey knows her Cleric won’t notice. Simon unlocks the door beside the guard, and they step through it.

  The fresh air hits her as it always does. It’s intoxicating to a point where her head lightens and she imagines it floating away over the walls. The sky is a faultless blue, distilled to a shade that hurts her eyes if she looks at it too long. As always there is the endless sound of wind, howling over the top of the walls. It growls in a monotone that rarely seems to change, like the hollow noise of air blown across an empty bottle. She and Meeka, and to an extent, Lee, have discussed where the ARC might be positioned that the sound of the wind would be so continuous. We’re on a mountain, Zoey had told Meeka one afternoon. There’s no other explanation for it. It would make sense for them to put it there. Harder to get in, harder to get out. Meeka had laughed, and when Zoey asked her what she thought was so funny, Meeka had simply said, There is no getting out.

  The promenade is more than thirty feet wide and shaped in a constant bend. As much as the building in the center of the ARC is hard angles and flat edges, the outside is all curves. The soaring wall beside the track slopes outward and the top looks as if it curls over like the lip of a bowl. Not that she would know for sure, since she’s never been high enough to see it, but it would make sense. The ARC was built for sustainability, a long-term facility meant to protect and contain. She’s seen pictures of flowers in the NOA textbook. She imagines the circular walls resemble some of them in bloom.

  The main building sits as a squat reminder of its power in the center of the promenade. Its height is only dwarfed by the walls around it, but its pure oppression can be felt even out in the open air. Zoey gazes up at its sides dotted with different-shaped windows. She spots her own and is, as always, relieved that the alcove beside it is completely hidden.

  “Get moving,” Steven says gruffly. “This is exercise hour, so exercise.” Simon gives him a look, pursing his lips, but nods once at Zoey, who leads Lily away. The two Clerics sit on a small, steel bench that is built into the side of the wall.

  Zoey leads Lily away as fast as the girl can manage. The track is easily a mile around, making it perfect for guards and Clerics to use for exercise as well. The only break from the monotony of smooth concrete on either side is the random bench or security door mounted in the main building. High above them, the snipers perch on the wall like giant birds of prey, their shadows cascading down in monstrous shapes to splatter on the promenade. Ahead, the narrow bridge extends from the roof of the main building to the edge of the wall. Its delicate structure looks weak enough to fold under the weight of a single man, but she’s seen more than one sniper on it at a time, walking calmly to relieve the other men of their posts in the high wind.

  A door on the building opens and two Clerics appear, followed by Sherell and Penny. They give Zoey and Lily a l
ook before beginning their walk ahead of them. Their Clerics shoot several furtive glances around before lighting up cigarettes, the smoke sweet and pungent as it rides the air out of their lungs and away from their mouths.

  “Burr, burr, burr,” Lily intones, not looking up but studying the path before her.

  “Shh,” Zoey says, a ripple of fear running through her.

  A gust of wind careens down off the walls and casts a cloud of dust and grit past them that stings her eyes. She watches Sherell and Penny walk ahead, their progress steady and even. They don’t look back. Zoey shifts her gaze to the bridge more than seventy feet overhead as they pass beneath it. There must be some means of descending from the wall on the opposite side. Like Meeka said, they’re not growing vegetables within the ARC.

  Zoey is so entranced by her contemplations that she doesn’t register Penny and Sherell stopped directly in their path.

  She brings her eyes down in time to see Penny’s knuckles fill up her vision.

  The blow is whip-fast and hard. Zoey’s neck pops as her head rocks back, and pain explodes on her cheek. She loses her grip on Lily’s hand. Blinking, she staggers backward, her feet scrambling to keep her upright as two hands shove her from behind, rocketing her forward again.

  She stumbles, falls.

  Her palms abrade on the rough concrete, pebbles engraining themselves in her skin. Her knee is bleeding, she can feel it beneath the untorn fabric of her pants. Her vision whipsaws, elongating before snapping back.

  Lily releases a cry that is cut off abruptly.

  Zoey looks up into Rita’s wide face. Her red hair has come loose of its tie and hangs like bloody curtains beside her pale cheeks. Her eyes are alight with a storm of fury and excitement.

  “Aww, you fell down, Zoey. Why’d you do that?” Rita says.

  “What do you want?” Zoey asks, sitting up. The pain is ebbing slowly but not entirely away.

  “I want you to know—now that the princess is gone, you’re not safe anymore.”

  Zoey pushes herself to her feet. Her legs wobble and threaten to drop her again. Sherell is holding Lily from behind, one strong hand pressed firmly over her mouth. Lily is crying and swaying in the bigger woman’s grasp. Rita must have waited for them to pass before following. Shooting a look over Rita’s shoulder, Zoey sees that the closest sniper’s back is to them and there are no Clerics in sight. They’ve planned this well.

  “What have we ever done to you?” Zoey asks, curling her fingers into fists.

  “You exist. How’s that? You piss me off by being alive. And this one,” Rita says, turning on Lily. “She makes me nauseous whenever I look at her. I can barely eat when she’s in the cafeteria.” Lily struggles harder as Rita approaches. Penny is entranced, her eyes half-lidded, lips parted in anticipation. Zoey sees her chance.

  She moves.

  She lashes out with a hard kick to the back of Rita’s left leg. It folds, and the other woman goes down with a short cry. Rita tries to lift her stocky bulk up, but Zoey gets a handful of her hair and yanks her onto her back. The satisfaction at seeing Rita’s head bounce off the concrete is short-lived as Penny’s hand chops Zoey hard in the side of the throat.

  Zoey goes down as if her legs have been cut from her. She doesn’t register the impact. Pain, unlike any she’s experienced so far in life, grows exponentially from the point of the blow down her shoulder and up the side of her face. Her throat is going to explode. She knows this and accepts the fact. Through her bleared vision she sees Rita rise and, in one motion, throw a kick at her midsection.

  The toe of Rita’s shoe is surprisingly hard, and for a moment Zoey thinks it’s pierced her stomach. When the bigger woman retracts her foot, there will be blood and entrails extending from it in a gory line. She coughs out the last of her air, and the world wavers in shimmers of darkness.

  “Now maybe they won’t want you, bitch,” Rita breathes. “Maybe I busted your fucking ovaries and you’re as useless as I know you are.” She spits, and the saliva speckles Zoey’s face.

  “Hey!” The shout comes from far away, or at least to Zoey it seems so. She knows the voice, and it triggers a burst of adrenaline that wipes away the shadows that are clouding her vision.

  Simon is running toward them with Lily’s Cleric directly behind him. Sherell has released Lily and stands several yards from her, hands in her pockets. Penny stands dead-eyed off to the side. A stricken look crosses Rita’s face, and she starts to straighten before she’s jerked away by Simon’s strong hands. He flings her toward the wall of the main building, and his eyes are ablaze. He is no longer a Cleric, but the soldier he used to be.

  Rita stumbles but manages to keep her feet. She turns, the panicked look gone from her face and replaced with indignity.

  “You can’t touch me!” she yells at him. Her cry brings Simon out of his fugue, and he stops stalking toward her. He stands, staring at her for a long moment, Lily’s soft sobs the only other sound above the wind.

  “You’re going in the box,” Simon says, so low it’s hard to hear. He turns away from Rita as more Clerics round the next corner of the building. He comes to Zoey and kneels, reaching out to grasp her hand. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine,” she manages, but tastes blood. Must’ve bit her tongue.

  “Can you stand?”

  “If you help me.”

  Simon raises her to her feet, letting her lean against his arm.

  “Maybe you want to reconsider sending her to the box,” Lily’s Cleric says. “Zoey was the closest to Rita, so that means she’ll go in as well.”

  “Zoey was being attacked,” Simon says in a voice coated in ice. “She was the closest.” He points at Penny, who merely stares back at him.

  “I don’t . . .” Steven begins again, but Zoey steps away from Simon, her anger boiling over.

  “Why don’t you help your ward, Cleric?” she says. Her stomach is on fire, the pain trying to double her over, but she won’t let it. Steven scowls but slowly turns and begins to speak to Lily in a quiet voice. She continues to rock back and forth, her hands rubbing endlessly at one another.

  The promenade is alive with movement, men streaming out of the building, all of them talking at once. The sniper is trained on their position now. The scope on his rifle flashes in the sun as he pans it over them all.

  “Come on, let’s go,” Simon says, and leads her away from the throng. As they walk, Rita catches Zoey’s eye. She bares her teeth and shakes her head. Zoey looks away and focuses on walking, one foot after the other on the concrete.

  The infirmary smells of disinfectant and vanilla linens. Zoey lies in a bed within one of the sectioned rooms that occupy an end of the medical area. Outside the open entrance there is another doorway as well as a hanging curtain around a large operating space. The tiled floor reflects cool light. Simon sits rigidly in a chair by the door. He stares at the wall beside her bed, not making a sound. A balding doctor with a long, clean-shaven face returns to the room and gives them both a quick smile.

  “X-rays and MRI look normal,” he says, pulling on a pair of latex gloves. “There seems to be only bruising to the abdomen and swelling around the zygomatic bone as well as the sternocleidomastoid muscle in the neck.” He opens a slender packet and oozes a clear ointment onto one finger. “Here, this should ease the swelling and pain a bit.” He dabs the gel onto Zoey’s cheek and neck where Penny struck her. The effect is instantaneous. The throbbing pain recedes like dust before water. She can’t help but sigh with relief.

  “Can I put that on my stomach too?” she asks when the doctor steps back.

  “No. It won’t do a lot for a larger injury like that. I’ll give you a painkiller before you leave.” He looks coldly at her as if she is something inanimate before turning to Simon. “She’s free to go.”

  “Thank you,” Simon says. The doctor leaves and Simon rises, moving toward the door. “You can change. I’ll get the pill for you.”

  He is nearly out the door
when she speaks. “Simon?” He pauses. “Thank you.”

  “There’s nothing to thank me for, Zoey.” He hesitates. “I failed you today.” She begins to tell him he’s wrong, that the Clerics haven’t accompanied the women around the track for many years now, but he’s already gone, the door closing solidly behind him.

  She stands and strips off the thin cotton gown she changed into for the examination and dons her clothes. The knees of her pants are dotted with crimson from the abrasions that still sting as she flexes her legs. She catches sight of herself in the long mirror beside the door. A skinny woman a year out of her teens with dark, unruly hair that’s come loose from its binding. Her image, the weakness she exudes, sparks the anger within her once again, and she wants to smash the mirror into a thousand pieces. But that would only make more reflections of me, she thinks. She sighs and leaves the room, not looking at the mirror again.

  After Zoey takes her pain pill under the scrutiny of the doctor, they leave the infirmary, but not before she sees the massive steel doors hiding the elevator at its far end. It’s hard to believe that Terra disappeared through them only today. Zoey tries to imagine what is happening to her, but her thoughts are lost in the tumult between what she’s been told and what she feels is true. The guard beside the doors studies her and Simon before returning his gaze straight ahead.

  They walk down the hallway side by side but when they reach the stairs, Simon turns right instead of left. Zoey stops.

  “Where are you going?” she asks.

  “Not me. We. We’re going to the boxes.”

  She shakes her head. “I don’t want to go. I don’t need to see.”

  “It’s not optional, Zoey. We have to.”

  “Please, I just want to go to my room.”

  “Zoey.” There’s steel in his voice that holds no compromise. She stands at the head of the stairs for a moment before following him in the opposite direction.

  They pass the assembly and turn down another, narrower corridor before stopping outside a windowless door. Simon scans his bracelet, and they pass through.