by Jacy Morris
Reed giggled at this, saying, "There aren't enough people left in the world to make that a significant statement."
Clara could have stabbed him in the face. She was about to explode when Mort put a reassuring hand on her arm. She turned to him, and he said, "It's alright, Clara."
"No, it's not alright."
Chad raised his eyebrow at this. His smugness and confidence were repulsive, and Clara could tell that he got off on the power of running the place.
Mort continued. "Yes, it is. We're gonna be fine. Besides, Katie's still out there, and I think it's a bad idea to leave her alone."
Clara nodded. Then she wrapped her arms around Mort, realizing just how much she had come to care for the big man. She buried her head in his chest, and his scratchy beard brushed the top of her forehead.
"It's gonna be alright," Mort said. "I gotta go now, see if I can find Katie and find some place to hole up tonight. I'm not a big fan of sitting in the woods in the dark." How he was able to smile, Clara didn't know, but he did. She smiled right back. Then he left. She stood in the courtyard of the compound feeling more alone than she had ever felt in her life.
"I like that guy," Chad said, oddly cheerful.
"Just not enough to let him stay here, right?"
"My backyard, my rules," he said, as if that ended all possible conversation.
Clara turned and headed back inside the trailer. Chad and Reed followed along. They made her nervous. Reed was obviously unstable, but Chad seemed to be the true danger. Something was off, and she knew that she would find out what it was soon enough.
Inside, she smiled at Joan. It was so good to see her. She walked around the edge of the tiny bed she and Mort lay on, and she took up Joan's hand and squeezed it with her own.
"Where's Mort?" she asked.
"We'll talk about it later."
Chad stood outside the door, leaning a shoulder on the door frame. Clara could tell he had more to say.
"What now?" she asked.
For the first time, Chad hesitated, trying to find the right words.
"Spit it out," Clara said.
Chad did not take kindly to Clara's demand. "You're a mouthy one, aren't you?"
"I like 'em mouthy," Reed said from an unseen part of the trailer. It was too small for them all to be in the trailer's tiny bedroom.
"Shut up, dipshit," Chad spat over his shoulder in a weary voice. Then he turned back to Clara and said, in warning, "Now don't go getting the idea that you can treat my brother like shit just because I do. I love the little guy."
Clara stared Chad in the eye. His eyes were blue, but not a cold blue. There was life in those eyes, a twinkle. He might be crazier than his obviously crazy brother she finally decided. "Why don't you go ahead and lay it on us?"
"Lay what on you?"
"The big secret that you've been trying to tell us but which you can't seem to actually say."
Chad leaned his head against the wall, the tension sucked out of his body. "Am I that obvious?"
"More so," Clara said. Joan squeezed her hand tightly, warning her not to push the man too far.
Lou grumbled, but his eyes stayed closed. Chad looked at him and then wiped a hand across his brow. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Then he locked eyes with Clara. "Alright, here it is."
"Oh, boy!" Reed said from the other room, earning himself another admonishing glare from Chad.
"Look, we've got ourselves a philosophy here, and this may sound crazy to you guys, but I don't know, to me, it just makes perfect sense. I mean here we are, just a bunch of people trying to get along while the world is dying around us..."
"Get to the goddamn point," Clara said.
Chad stopped talking and nodded. His next words were spit out at a million miles an hour, so fast that Clara wasn't sure she had heard him right. "If you're going to stay here, you're going to have to breed."
"What?" Clara asked.
"I said, 'If you're going to stay here, you're going to have to breed.'"
"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Clara said, rising from the bed, her hands put out against any sort of advance Chad might make.
"What the hell is wrong with you?" Joan asked.
At their protestations, Chad suddenly became a different man. "Listen. Shut up. Just shut the fuck up. Who do you think you are?" He pointed at them, spittle gathering at the corner of his mouth as he continued. "We saved her! We kept your friend alive. She would be in the stomach of one of those things if we hadn't come along and saved her. And here you are getting all high and mighty."
Chad's voice was a roar. Clara imagined that she could feel the windows of the trailer shake as he his voice rose. Reed giggled like a madman in the other room. "Oh, you're in for it now!" Reed called, his voice fading as he rushed from the trailer.
"This is the way it is. We are here to repopulate the world and make it the way we want it. No more freeloaders. No more letting the rich take advantage of us. It is our duty. I don't know if you noticed this, but there aren't a lot of women running around these days. If you stay here, it's under our rules. So what's it going to be?"
That had come to a head quickly. Clara looked at Joan and the unconscious Lou. "Look at them; that's no choice at all," she said.
"Well, it's the only one you got."
"We'll go," Joan said, attempting to rise from the bed and grunting in pain.
"No," Clara said. "That's ridiculous. You wouldn't last two minutes out there with a broken leg." She turned to Chad. All pretense at being a regular guy had left him, and Clara saw him for what he was, a petty, wannabe despot standing at the end of the world. "You say we have a choice, but if we go out there, we're dead." Chad said nothing, so she continued. "How about a little compromise?"
"What did you have in mind?" Chad asked.
"You let us stay here, get better, and then, when we're healthy. We'll decide."
Chad shook his head. "Uh-uh. It's not a fair deal."
"Why?" Joan asked.
"Just look at yourselves. Two of you are damn near useless. You're going to be eating our food, drinking our water. What do we get? The pleasure of your company? That's not fair at all."
"I can work," Clara said.
"You do the work of three people? I'd like to see that," Chad said, still unconvinced.
"I'm a doctor," Joan said. "You've got pregnant women around here. I can help."
Chad nodded. "Now that is worth something. "And what about this guy here? Assuming he recovers."
"He's tough. He's a leader. You need someone out there guarding you, he's your man."
"And what about those others, the black fella and the woman? They gonna be any trouble?"
Clara shook her head, knowing full well that Katie was nothing but trouble. "Mort wouldn't hurt a fly. And Katie, well, Katie's pregnant. I don't think she'll be causing you much trouble."
Chad looked thoughtful for a moment, weighing his options. "Alright. You can stay here for as long as you need to heal up. But when the time comes, if you decide to stay, it's under my rules, and I don't want to hear any pissing or moaning if you stay. How's that sound?"
They nodded their agreement.
Chad stuck his hand out. "Shake on it."
They each shook his hand, and then he stepped over to Lou. "I assume this guy will abide by our agreement as well." He leaned forward and shook the unconscious man's hand. With that done, he turned and smiled. "I'll leave you two to catch up. When you're done," he said, talking to Clara, "I want you to come outside. I got some work for you to do. You can find me in the big house."
Clara nodded and Chad turned to leave, the screen door of their trailer slamming shut behind him. They waited until he had been gone for a few moments, and then Clara sank to the ground, exhausted. This was not good, in any way. She knew that. Chad's agreement had the ring of truth to it, but she didn't trust him one bit.
"How are you doing?" Clara asked Joan.
"I need you to take a look at my leg for me."
"I don't know that any of these people know what they're doing."
"Ok, what do I do?"
Joan threw back the covers, and Katie gasped looking at her leg. It was bruised, battered and swollen. It hurt just to look at it.
"What am I looking for?"
"I need you to run your hands along my leg, see if anything feels out of place. Don't be gentle, or you might miss something."
Clara did as she was told. Joan's leg was hot, like fire. She slid her hands upward, cringing at the thought of causing Joan pain.
"You're going to have to do it firmer than that," Joan said.
Clara nodded and then she wrapped her hands around Joan's leg, sliding them up towards the knee. When her hands hit a rough protuberance, Joan screamed in pain.
"What? What is it?" Clara asked.
It took a moment for Joan to stop thrashing in her bed, and when her grip finally relaxed on the sheets, she finally spoke. "Did you feel anything?" she asked.
"There's something sticking up," Clara said. "I don't know that your leg is straight.
"Fuck," Joan said, her head falling back on her pillow.
"What? Talk to me, Joan."
"It's not set properly. Dammit." Joan looked off to the side, wishing that there was another option, but there wasn't it.
Clara had some inkling of what she was going to have to do, but she dreaded the prospect. "You need me to set it."
"Yeah," Joan sighed. "If you don't, I may never walk again, or I'll have one real mean limp."
"What should I do?" she asked, perspiration gathering on her upper lip.
"You're going to need to pull my leg, and then press down where you felt the break."
It sounded simple enough, but Clara was feeling lightheaded at the mere idea of pulling on Joan's broken leg, but it had to be done. She figured there was no time like the present. "Ok. Here goes nothing." Clara grabbed Joan's foot and immediately Joan's hands grasped the sheets of the bed, every muscle in her body straining to stifle the scream that she wanted to unleash. Clara pulled on Joan's foot with her right hand and pressed down on the broken section of her leg with the palm of her left. The pain was too much. Joan screamed, her voice echoing off the cheap walls of the trailer. The broken part wouldn't slide into place, so Clara pressed harder. There was a small pop, and then Joan's leg was smooth again.
"I think I got it," Clara said. But Joan didn't hear her. She was unconscious, sweat dripping down her forehead. Clara rose up and pulled the blankets over her. She checked on Lou, but she had no idea of how to help him. His skin was shiny where he had been burned, which, as far as she could tell, seemed to be everywhere. The area around his eyes was swollen and blistered. She gave up, and then left to find Chad and see what he had in store for her.
****
She shielded her eyes as she stepped out of the cheap trailer. The courtyard was packed dirt, walked over many times. Only a few sparse tufts of grass grew in the place. On the watchtowers, men with red, sunburned faces stood guarding the gate. A couple of big-bellied women tended the garden, and Clara knew that Chad wasn't lying about his desire to repopulate the world. What a fucking nightmare that would be if the whole world was populated by Chads.
They didn't look particularly miserable, but they didn't look like the type of women who would be able to survive on their own. They were probably just happy to be alive. Clara walked across the dusty courtyard, enjoying the sunshine. It was a cool day. It must have been the middle of September. She could smell fall in the air. She jumped as one of the men on the watchtower hooted, and then yelled, "I got one!" He hauled a bloody spear upward as his partner congratulated him. The rifles on their backs would only draw more of the dead, but they would be good to have if the dead or the living ever showed up in overwhelming numbers.
In front of her was an old dilapidated house. Its windows were covered in boards, and through the cracks in the boards, she could see that the glass was gone. Plastic sheeting snapped in the steady breeze, and the trees around the compound rustled in their indifference to Clara's plight.
She climbed a rotting wooden porch and knocked on the door. She heard boots stalking across creaky, wooden boards. There was no better security system than a house with creaky floorboards. The door was pulled open with a horror movie creak, and Reed stood there, looking at her like a goon. Behind thick glasses, his eyes wandered all over her body. He had a sick, sour smell to him, like he was constantly sweating.
"Entrez-vous," he said, and he stepped aside to let her in.
The inside of the "big house," as Chad had called it, was less impressive than the outside. The wooden floorboards looked rotted, and many of them seemed like they had recently been the object of a termite feast. The walls of the cabin were splattered with graffiti. She imagined that at one point, this had been the place where people had come to smoke dope, drink, or fuck when they were in high school. It had been cleaned up a bit, but it was obvious that the place had long been abandoned.
"Chad's in back," Reed said, that goofy smile on his face. She walked down a hallway, peering in doors until she found Chad in one of the back rooms. Chad sat in a rickety chair. On the floor was a sleeping bag. A gas lantern sat on a table with uneven legs.
"Ah, hello again," he said, as if they were friendly acquaintances.
"What did you want to see me for?" she asked, ready for this whole charade to be over.
Chad sighed. He looked weary. "Why do you have to be like that?"
"Like what?"
"Like you want to kill me."
Clara shrugged, not saying anything.
"Can't we just pretend to be civil. Maybe you don't want to be here, but here you are. If we just pretend, maybe we'll actually come to appreciate each other."
"You want me to pretend? I can do that." Clara cleared her throat and plastered her fakest smile on her face. "Hi, Chad! Did you need me to do something?"
Chad stood up and clapped her on the shoulder. "See? That wasn't so difficult was it?" Whether he was just fucking with her or not, Clara didn't know. "Follow me," he said.
Clara followed him to another room in the back of the house. "What was this place?" she asked.
"Oh, this? This used to be a ranger station. I don't know why they stopped using it, but they did. Since then, it's kind of become me and my brother's own special hangout, along with every other kid in the county. But they're probably all dead now, so I figured we'd just move in. This place is special to me."
"Why is that?"
Chad moved to a locked door. The bracket's were new, the screws shiny. A padlock secured the door. Chad reached into his pocket and produced a small key. "Oh, this is where me and Dez first kissed. You never forget a thing like that."
"Dez?"
Chad turned the key in the padlock. It clicked open, and he undid the latch that held the door closed. "Dez. My wife." He pushed the door open. "Come on. I'll introduce you."
Chad stepped inside, and Clara followed. From another part of the house, she heard Reed laughing at something. He was mad as a hatter she decided. The first thing that hit her when she stepped inside was the smell. The small room reeked of body odor and shit. Immediately, her hand came up to her face.
"You don't like the smell, then get out, bitch." These words came from a woman who was covered in grit and grime. Her hands were bound to a headboard. Her feet were similarly bound so that she lay on her back spread-eagled under a blanket. On her face was a look of pure hatred.
"Is this your new sow?" the woman spat. "How long until she starts poppin' 'em out?"
"Don't mind her," Chad whispered conspiratorially. "Dez. This is Clara. She's going to take care of you."
Dez snarled as she said, "I don't give a fuck who she is. If you were a man, you would take care of me yourself with a bullet, just like you did my parents."
As she looked at the hateful woman, she noticed that she was pregnant. Telltale bandages were wrapped around her wrists, and Clara
knew why she was tied up.
Chad nodded at Clara to exit the room, and he closed the door as she exited. She stood in the hallway, wondering just what sort of nightmare she had gotten herself into.
"You meet Dez?" a voice asked. She turned to see Reed hanging in a doorway, a suspicious wet stain on the front of his trousers.
"Yeah, I met her."
Reed whispered the next words in a conspiratorial tone. "She's a real bitch, ain't she?"
Clara said nothing.
"She didn't used to be like that, until she got pregnant. I think she's got temporary crazy up in her from that baby. You gonna take care of her?" he asked, a hint of hope in his voice.
"I guess so, if that's what I've gotta do to stick around here."
"Cool. Cool." He stopped talking to her and cocked his head as if he were listening to some unheard voice. "I gotta go, but I guess I'll be seeing you around." His let his arms fall from where they were gripping the doorjamb above, and he disappeared into a side room.
From inside Dez's room, she heard the muffled shouting of Chad. She tried not to listen, but the walls in the abandoned ranger station were so thin that she couldn't help it.
"Just shut up! Shut up! I did what I had to do! You know that!"
"Why won't you just kill me?" Dez moaned, begging, pleading.
"You know why. You've got my child in there, and I will see it born."
"It'll be a monster."
"It'll be my monster," Chad said.
"Fuck you! Fuck you! Fuck you!" Dez shouted. She too appeared to be insane. Clara stepped further from the door as she heard the sound of approaching footsteps. Chad threw the door open and stepped into the hallway as if everything were fine.
"Sorry about that. She's been a little crazy recently."
"I guess so," Clara said.
"I guess you saw the marks on her arms." Clara nodded. "I don't want to keep her tied up. I love the woman, despite all appearances, but right now, we just need to get her through this pregnancy. Your job, since you're doing us the favor of sticking around, is to take care of her. Whatever she needs. But do not, under any condition, untie her. Last lady that did that got her jaw broken. We clear?"