by David Coy
“What the . . . ?" John asked in disbelief and opened the door to look. He saw Donna on her knees leaning against the truck, her hand splayed open, framing the dark spot on her neck. He slipped out of the truck and went to her side. “What is it?"
Donna couldn’t speak. She sucked another gulp of air and roared again—a sound part growl, part moan.
“Shit!” John said. He looked around nervously for someone— soldiers, security, anybody—to catch them any second.
Rachel and Eddie clamored out of the truck to help. Rachel rested her hands on Donna’s shoulder and head and examined the insect, now seemingly stitched to her neck. “Christ, it’s a pepper bug,” she said. “It’s on good. We gotta get her outta here.”
They helped her to her feet, her body pain-stiffened and her head cocked to one side. She stopped howling, her eyes and mouth now pinched tight.
“Where?” John asked.
“To the clinic, I guess. Maybe there’s something left we can use,” Rachel said.
Holding Donna between them, they started in the direction of the clinic.
The voice behind them stopped them cold.
“Bring her inside,” Joan said.
John turned to confront the voice, his hand taking a grip on the rifle slung over his shoulder. He noticed that Eddie stood there stiffly, facing the other direction.
“Well c’mon,” Joan said. “We’re being eaten alive out here. You too, Eddie,” she smiled. “Get your butt inside.” Joan turned and double-timed it up to the shelter’s door.
She held the door open for them as they came in, whacking at some of the larger bugs that tried to follow along. Sheepishly, Eddie walked in. Joan slapped a large beetle off his shoulder and mashed it with her boot.
“Hey,” she said to him. “I’m glad to see you.”
“Yeah,” Eddie said, not meeting her eyes
“We have some things to talk about, huh?”
“Yeah.”
“C’mon.” She guided him inside with her hand lightly on his back. He moved as easily as a feather. It seemed to her he weighed nothing at all.
They moved Donna into the kitchen and sat her down. Joan turned up the lights. When she looked at the thing on Donna’s neck, she could see a thin line of blood running out from under it and down into her clothes. The blood had gathered in a fist-sized blot on her shoulder.
“Rachel,” Donna said weakly. “You’ll have to do it. It’s easy. For you, it’s easy.” She tried to smile.
“What’s the procedure?”
“Pull the long, back legs off with your fingers.”
Donna’s voice was so weak and low, Rachel had to lean in to hear her.
“Okay.”
“Use some clippers or scissors to nip the head off at the thorax,” she continued in a weak voice.
“Okay.”
“After you get the head severed, nip off each leg about a centimeter from the body.”
“Got it.”
“After that the legs will slip right out. The head will come out if you work it around a little.” She looked at Joan. “You’re uh . . . ?” she asked.
“Joan Thomas. You treated a couple of my kids on your first day here.”
“Joan?” Donna asked. “Do you have any antiseptic?”
“Sure. Lots.”
“We’ll need it.”
“I’ll get it. I’ve got some little wire cutters, too. Would those work?”
"Sure.”
A few minutes later, Rachel finished taping a clean white bandage over the rows of wounds on Donna’s neck. Donna was clearly relieved and was on the very verge of smiling. “Those little bastards are horrible,” she said.
“So I take it you all escaped from that brig they set up down the road,” Joan said. “That took some doing. I like that. They say you three are murdering outlaws.”
Donna and John exchanged looks. “What if they’re right?” John asked.
“Seems to me you’ve killed the right ones, that’s what,” Joan said.
“There are no right ones,” Rachel said.
“Yes there are,” Donna said in a tired voice.
“No, there aren’t,” Rachel repeated.
“Cut it out,” John said in a calm voice. “Look, Joan. You could get in a lot of trouble by helping us like this. You know that, don’t you?”
Joan laughed a brief, loud laugh. “I’d say you’ve got that reversed.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. You definitely have that backwards,” she said, her tone taking a deadly serious turn.
“Why do you say that?”
“Because we’re taking our lives and the planet back, that’s why.”
“Who is?”
“Let’s just say it’s the ones at the ass-end of the food chain. You, too. In fact, the four of you are at the dog’s ass-end.”
“So how are you gonna pull off this insurrection?” Donna asked.
“God, I like the sound of that——insurrection—don’t you?” Joan asked with a half-mad conspiratorial smile.
“Yeah, we’re revolutionaries. Real big time. So how?”
Joan smiled a warped smile. “We’ve got a surprise for Mr. Jacob No Name.”
“What kind of surprise?” Donna asked, intrigued by this determined, though maybe slightly deranged, woman.
Joan sniffed, then looked from one to the other as if she were keeping some incredible secret and unsure whether or not to tell it to these relative strangers. She thought it over. It was so cool. She had to show it off.
“I’ll show you,” she said.
She got up from the table and headed down the hall. She returned a minute later with the nuke attached to its carrying strap. She dropped it onto the table with a loud thump.
“Is that what I think it is?” John asked.
“Not if you think it’s a big bird’s egg,” Joan said. She took her hand off it and the device rolled over. John nervously grabbed it, and then eased it over until it rested on the strap. Joan took the detonator out of an upper pocket and held it up.
“This is the gizmo that sets it off,” she said. “I’ve got it all programmed and ready to go. What do you think?”
“What is it?” Rachel asked nervously.
“It’s a nuclear bomb,” John said.
Rachel swallowed and crossed her arms. Eddie sat down with a concerned look, his hands between his knees.
Donna rested her chin in her fist and knitted her brow at it. She could almost feel the energy inside the thing, pushing and snarling to get out, like some raging demon. The exterior of the device was covered with neat rows of printed instructions and big red and yellow labels that wrapped perfectly around its curved form. The warnings seemed superfluous. Why have warnings at all on a nuclear bomb? The surface was dark gray, smooth, with a texture of satin. It was actually quite attractive, like a piece of sculpture. She could imagine it being on display somewhere. She imagined, too, the title, printed on a white card affixed to the corner of the pedestal: Proto-nuclear Exploding Device. The artist’s name would be Commonwealth Armed Forces.
“Where did you get it?” Donna asked, more casually than she was feeling.
Joan sniffed again and hesitated. She’d told them this much; even showed it to them. What did she have to lose?
“I stole it,” she said with a quick glance at Eddie.
“From the Council’s hired hands?” Donna asked.
“The Council is the hired hands,” John added with sarcasm.
“That’s right. Right out from under them. They think it’s buried in a mountain of containers on Dock Four. They don’t even know it’s gone.”
“Pretty slick,” John said. Here was the most powerful weapon on the planet, he was sure of it—and they were in control of it, and as long as they were, they were in control of everything. All that was missing from their little pot of revolutionary stew were the right communications mixed with an ultimatum or two and the guts to turn up the heat.
“So th
at thing could blow us all up? Blow up everything?” Rachel asked.
“No everything. But enough,” Joan said.
“You’re going to threaten to blow something up if you don’t get your way, is that it?” Rachel asked.
“Something exactly like that,” Joan said coolly.
“That makes a lot of sense,” Rachel replied curtly. “There’d be exactly nothing left, probably.”
“I said not everything. It’s not that powerful. And look around you, Sister. You’ve got exactly nothing left right now.”
Rachel seemed to draw up tighter. “I don’t want to talk about this,” she said.
“Where would you put it?” John wanted to know.
Joan told him.
“That seems reasonable,” John said.
“Reasonable?” Rachel said under her breath, unable to believe John had said, "reasonable.”
“Count us in,” Donna said unexpectedly.
“Count yourselves in,” Rachel said. “Not me.”
“She’s right, you know,” Donna said to Rachel. “We have nothing to lose. It’s either jail and probably death or the jungle. I don’t like either option.”
“So what’s this?” Rachel said, pointing an accusing finger at the bomb. “That’s somehow not death? You’re crazy. I always thought so, but now I’m sure of it.”
“It’s a tool,” John said. “We use it as leverage.”
“You should hear yourselves,” Rachel said. “You sound like . . . like . . . I don’t know what.”
Donna looked at Joan. “Rachel always spoils the party,” she said, her voice thick with sarcasm.
“Oh, sure. It’s always me,” Rachel complained.
“Hey, if the shoe fits . . .”
“I say we do it,” Eddie said. “It could work.”
“You’re as crazy as they are,” Rachel said to him.
“Why? Because we’re tired of hiding and living in the jungle like animals? Because we don’t want to run anymore,” Eddie said.
The passion in Eddie’s voice surprised them all. Rachel was taken off guard by it. “Well, I don’t think this is the answer, is all. You’re all . . . crazy.”
“You’re the one who's crazy, Rachel,” Donna quickly countered. “You’re the one who has the crazy dreams and visions. Not us.”
“All right,” John said. “This is getting us nowhere. Rachel is free to do as she pleases. She doesn’t have to do anything if she feels it’s not right.”
“You sound like her psychiatrist,” Donna said with a crooked grin.
“Oh, shut up Donna,” Rachel said.
Donna gave her a black look. Rachel gave her one right back.
“Hey, not in my kitchen,” Joan said. “Besides, there’s a bomb in here.” The comment brought a couple of wry grins—none from Rachel.
“Rachel, relax,” Donna said with a note of mockery. “It’ll be okay, sweetheart. Really.”
Rachel slumped into a plastic chair and turned away, arms still crossed like an angry child. “I said I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”
“Okay,” Donna said with a baby voice. “Okay. We won’t talk about it anymore. We won’t upset widdle Rachel.” She turned to Joan with a smile. “Now, let’s talk about how we’re going to do this.”
Rachel sprang out of the chair like a tigress. She grabbed Donna’s hair with one hand and threw a punch to her face with the other. Before anyone could react, she had Donna down in the seat, throwing punches with both hands. John wrapped his arms around Rachel’s waist and yanked her backwards. Donna kicked out at her with a foot that missed by a full meter.
“You bitch!” Donna screamed, blood running out of her nose.
“I’ll kill you, you scrawny bitch!” Rachel yelled back. “I’ll wring your neck!”
Rachel was wild, and it was all John could do to hold her. Her strength was tremendous, and her madness amplified it. If he let her go, she might kill Donna, and she was capable of doing it. She thrashed at him with her arms and legs while the others gawked, wild-eyed. He couldn’t hold her forever. Maybe he and Eddie could wrestle her to one of the bedrooms and lock her in.
“Rachel!” he yelled. “Stop it!”
As he held her, her struggling took on a familiar and dreadful feel, a staccato rhythm. With mindless fury, she now fought the invisible riot of a seizure. It was a bad one.
“There she goes . . .” Donna said, wiping blood on her sleeve.
John lowered Rachel to the floor, her body convulsing so violently that her head banged on the floor like a hammer.
“Hold her head up,” Donna said, climbing out of the seat to help. “Don’t let her bang like that.”
* * *
Rachel flew through tunnels dark and shiny wet past things nonhuman and tortured. She raced up and down and through dim brown shafts faster and faster until she burst out, stopped and floated limp in a chamber of madness. She rolled slowly in the wet air above tables topped with human forms splayed open and pinned back.
She looked down at her own face looking up. “Help me,” her mouth said silently. The air thumped with the sound of a giant heart, and she was swept through the guts of a thing not right, a thing not right, and a thing not right—and sick. Faster and faster she flew until she raced straight at herself, arms and legs spread wide, laughing with idiocy.
“Look at me!”
* * *
Hours later, she awoke as she always did, in a place not quite recognizable. This one was a bedroom in a shelter, and, for once, the place felt a little good to her somehow. There was a light and a pleasant scent on the air as if flowers were there in the room. When she was awake enough, she turned and looked for them in the low light, hoping to see them on a dresser or table. But there were no flowers, only the light scent of them.
The door opened, and she squinted against the blade of light that struck her eyes from the hallway.
“Hungry?” John asked.
“Hungry,” she replied.
“They’re making some stuff up now. Do you want me to bring it to you?
“Yeah. I don’t feel much like getting up.”
“Okay.”
“Hey,” she said as he started to leave.
“What?”
“Come in, I want to ask you something.”
He came in and sat on the edge of the bed. His hand reached out and rested on her forehead, out of habit.
“Are they—are you—going to go through with this?” she asked.
He stroked her head once or twice before he answered. There was no easy way to put it to her.
“Yes.”
“And blow up the settlement?”
“Some of it. If it comes to it.”
She studied his face in the dim light, searching his eyes for signs of a bluff. She saw nothing but resolve in his brown eyes.
His look confused her. She wondered for a moment if she really knew him at all. But that thought reluctantly gave way under the weight of her own ambivalence in the matter of the bomb and forced her to consider that, perhaps, she and John simply came from different places, had different histories and that those differences had now surfaced, not for some shared enlightenment, but had risen like a wall between them. She shuddered briefly, as if chilled.
“This isn’t like you,” she said gently.
He pursed his lips and took a deep breath through his nose. He leaned forward, his arms on his knees and hands interlocked. He stared at the floor.
“John…?”
Finally, he looked up. The resolve in his eyes even stronger. He didn’t look at her as he spoke, his eyes fixed on something, or nothing on the wall.
“Have you ever considered how trampled down we are on this planet?” he asked, his voice even and measured. “We’re planting the bomb tonight. We’re delivering our list of demands in the morning.”
“Your grievances, you mean?”
“No. Our demands.”
“What if they won’t give in? Then what?”
> “I already told you.”
Of course he had. She just wanted to hear it again. She wanted to test him again with the question, hoping he’d back down.
“We’ll detonate the bomb and start over,” he said.
“With what?” she implored.
“We’ll have our freedom. That’s enough.”
“You know, we could just run away like we did before,” she said hopefully. “We could go so far they’d never find us. We could just steal a shuttle like we did before and fly away.”
“Not this time,” he said, his voice stony.
They stared at each other. She kept hoping he would soften and give up this murderous plan. The idea of setting off a bomb and killing people with it, even ridiculous people, made her sick. It made her so sick she wanted to vomit. It made her so sick she wanted to shake him and slap the nonsense out of him.
“I wish there were another way,” he said.
“Can’t you try to find one?”
He got up and stepped toward the door. “Meat or fish,” he asked with a sigh.
“Both. And tell Donna I’m sorry. I’m not right, you know . . . in the head.”
He nodded that he would deliver her message. The plastic door closed slowly and latched behind him with a faint and tinny click.
10
Hiding the bomb was a dirt-simple job. It didn’t seem right that such an important event should be so stinking easy. With a few simple motions, Joan Thomas nestled the strangely pretty, ultra-destructive little thing in the weeds and covered it up so no one could find it. Now they had the Council, the soldiers, the entire settlement by the proverbial short hairs. Things were going to change rapidly for the better because of this simple no-brainer of a job. It was an odd feeling.
She brushed bugs away from her face and eyed the location one more time from several angles. No way. They’d have to go in there and scratch around to find it, if then. Donna had suggested they bury it in the ground, but the others thought better of it. You could always tell where something had been buried, at least until the spot was weathered down. No, this would do. It was the right place strategically; that was the most important thing.