by Beth Mattson
I sprinted to the Clinic, manic rage and ideas propelling me through the dusk. I shifted from foot to foot at the back corner of the Clinic's dumpster, watching the boxes of supplies being delivered. The delivery woman hauled all of the boxes off of her truck with a dolly. She rang the service bell, got back in her truck and rumbled away. Moments after the bell, Jim stepped out of the door.
He stretched and clicked the pen in his pocket. When he reached for the triplicate paper that was taped to one of the boxes of gauze, I stepped out of the shadows. He ducked and covered his head.
“Oh geeeez!” he yelped, “I didn’t expect to see you this early.”
He fumbled inside of the door that his foot was holding open. He reached in and pulled out his fighting crutch and a thermos full of coffee. I took the thermos and sat down to drink without giving him any instructions. I almost bit into the insulated aluminum.
“No dummies tonight? Are we going to see some Live Action?”
“There’s too much Live Action in this world. It's horrible. It’s not something to get excited about.”
He frowned.
“Ookaay. Did you find the word for 'radio?'”
“R-a-d-i-o.”
“Yes! Nice job.”
“Look, Jim, I’m going to need some scalpel blades.”
“Can you spell 'scalpel?'”
“I’m not joking around.”
“Me neither. You know I can’t steal very many supplies. Otherwise I would give them to you all the time.”
“I am going to need some rubbing alcohol, too.”
“Well, that’s easier, but what for?”
“I am going to get myself Auctioned off.”
He looked at me blankly.
“They are selling girls, Jim. Selling girls for mating and dangerous errands. Really bad men. Young girls on a stage. They’re coming after us. And I don’t have anywhere else to run. I can’t very well run while taking care of two …. Nevermind. I just need to destroy an Auction. They’re selling girls, Jim.”
“Yes. I’ve heard about that,” he fiddled with the tassels on his scarf, “I haven’t bought any, though,” he added, hastily.
“Wow,” I blinked and gurgled, “I would have assumed not. You’ve considered it?”
“Well, sure. My Great Aunt has the money, we have lots of space in the Highrise and I could give a girl a good home.”
He’d thought about it. He’d thought that a girl would be grateful to be owned. Just because he could give her food and a roof, he thought she would be happy to leave behind her whole Family, with the Training and Love that they could have provided. He thought that he was better than the girl’s Family and that he was better than the other Buyers. He thought she’d be grateful for a nice sweater that he’d feel free to touch, and own her just the same. He didn’t think that he was as bad as the men in the overalls with no shirts for themselves or their purchases, better than the women in grubby shawls who ran the brothels that had larger Burn Piles than zombie-infested Squatter buildings. He thought that he could buy another person and still be Good.
“You Dirtbag. You can’t own a person. For any reason. Ever.”
“I didn’t. I don’t. I’m just saying, I could provide a nice home.”
He hadn’t offered me a nice home. He didn’t offer to take in any of the Squatters for free. He would only offer a home to a person that he could own. And I didn’t want a nice home with him anyway, with his busybody Great Aunt probably sticking her nose into everything, not wanting to share, not even knowing how to kill Juliet properly. I stood up, filling with fire.
“I am going to destroy the Sellers,” I said, “And as many Buyers as I can get my undead hands on. That includes anybody who has enough supplies to help but won't share.”
I thrust the thermos at his chest, knocking the wind out of him. He was aghast and then furious. He threw his hands up in the air and kicked one foot at an invisible stone.
“Oh sure, Ophelia. You go ahead and judge me and try to save the world. Did you say by going to one Auction? And getting yourself sold? Good idea. I’m sure that everyone will really want to buy you. I’m sure they’re really coming after you!”
I let my jaw drop until I remembered to clench it and spin on one foot and stalk away as he called my name. After a few yells, I heard him give up and drag the boxes into the Clinic. My plan would be a good one. What did he know? If we couldn’t run; if that wouldn’t take care of things; if our doors could remain locked and unbashed until we were ready; if Swan and I really weren’t so fragile; if I could get Swan and I sold into the caravan of girls, we could attack it from the inside. We could ambush them, show the Auctioneers what girls can really do. We could clobber the unsuspecting turds who would otherwise smear themselves on us. We could go down swinging, as things should be taken care of. I worked out the details as I marched home.
Swan was awake when I got there, sitting in a corner, hugging her knees. She jumped and shuddered when I entered with gusto. I brought her a blanket, tucked it around her, and poured hot tea into two ceramic mugs. I gave the favorite one to her – the one with the rainbow and the unicorn – and set it next to her on the floor. I pulled on a mitten so that I could pet her head and comb the knots out of her fringes.
“I have a Plan,” I said out loud, coaxing her out of her headache.
She held her pulsing temples.
“I have a Plan,” I announced again, louder this time, “And I think you’re going to like it, more than I do.”
She shivered so hard she splashed her tea.
“I don’t really want to move,” she tried to laugh.
“My Plan is this: I will train us to attack an Auction, but we’re not going to attack it from the outside. We’re going to attack the Auction from the inside. We’re going to get ourselves sold. And ambush it. We’re going to go down swinging.”
“Maybe if we swing hard enough we won’t go down at all,” she growled more deeply than I was aware her voice could go.
“Yes! You saw those vans lined up by the valet! I’ll get sold first and you’ll get sold last and we’ll punish the caravan from both ends. Make explosions! Grab the keys. Open the doors. Bash heads. The ones that are coming for us.”
“Hold up, Ophelia. Sold first? How on earth would be get you sold at all? Nobody wants to buy zombies.”
“Oh, yes. I am green. There must be a way to disguise me …”
“Ophelia,” Swan sighed at me, “Even if you weren’t green, you’d be Brown. I mean, right? Your hair looks like you were Brown.”
I stood up silently, felt a molar pop out of its socket where I ground too hard. I smashed my mug against the wall and disappeared into the night.
I had begun to Train her, had started to make her less fragile, had tried to show her how to take care of things. But I wasn’t taking care of things. My closest allies didn’t believe in the Girl parts of me or the Brown parts of me. And there was Juliet, above my head, in our apartment, tied where I left her as I stomp paced the alleyway, probably rubbing her face across the floor to chase dust bunnies or mice. Because I hadn’t taken care of her and put her out of her misery. Because I bet on a stupid Scientist who didn’t believe in any part of me, as my little Swan clearly didn’t either. At least I loved myself more than they did. I had more in common with undead Juliet. I should pack up Juliet and run again. Would that be how to handle things? Bank on the dead? No. Probably not. We’d have to live in the woods again, happy to be Brown Girls, but cold, weary, and not teaching anyone anything.
I ran again. Alone. Twice in the same night I ran through the alleyways of the tainted, broken brick city. If Swan and Jim were too dumb and weak to help themselves, I would figure out how to do it anyway. I would take care of it. I knew where the good supplies were – inside the Clinic – not just scalpels and rubbing alcohol for plans that would help other people, but Propane and wood and cash for me to use to keep my Little Sisters Warm. Big Sister to the rescue. Again. Brown Girl to th
e rescue. Again.
The alleyway by the Clinic was empty: no delivered boxes, no zombies, no Jim. Just the single dim lightbulb above the door and a large plastic envelope. I ripped open the brand new envelope, glossy from lack of previous use. It was nice to destroy something rich.
Inside was a children’s picture book. Embossed onto the green cover were painted golden letters that I could decipher after peeking at the pictures of trains inside, The Little Engine That Could. I had been told that story even though I hadn’t ever seen such a lavish book in my life.
A card fell out. I turned it over in my hands.
“I’m sorry,” it said, “XO, Jim”
“Oh, that’s not enough to take care of me, buddy.”
I rang the delivery bell. Footsteps approached.
I was relieved that it was not Jim, but if it had been, I would have hog-tied him with fraying bungee cords just the same.
“Pl - pl - please! What do you want? My wallet is in my back left pocket!”
“I just want to borrow some supplies from one of your Doctor friends. But I will take your cash, if you don’t mind.”
I tucked the empty wallet into his mouth for silence and stepped over his bundled limbs as he whimpered for me to not leave him there as Bait. He wouldn’t be there long. I’d be right back to roll him inside on my way out.
The heavy door closed surprisingly softly behind me. Muted fluorescent lights were brighter than I was used to at night and they made me glow a bit neon, but they weren’t unpleasant. More richness. I savored the clean, shiny floor squares, the precision with which all of the visible single doors off of the hallway were shut, dark, orderly.
There was one set of double doors not more than ten steps down the hall. The placard on the wall next to them read, “Supplies.” Too easy, too easy. They opened without a squeak. I stifled a laugh. Shelf after shelf of supplies, and a pile of empty delivery boxes, to which I helped myself.
Into my box, I scooped many things that Mom and I had only glanced at behind Ranger’s counters when we had still been Drivers: alcohol, cotton balls, scalpels, bleach, peroxide, gauze, a chemical ice pack, a chemical heat pack, a lightbulb just for fun, soap, tongue depressors, beakers a pair of forceps, tweezers, rubber bands, paper clips, pens! Colored pens! Three notebooks! A clipboard and duct tape just for good measure. Batteries and more alcohol. Alcohol until the box was almost too heavy to carry and I had to remove the tongue depressors and paper clips to make more space for the last of the alcohol.
Happier than a kid with a new stick and beehive, I whistled as I bumped out the door with my packed treasure chest. I whistled as I rolled Jim’s fellow Doctor back into the Clinic and let the door bump his bottom when it closed him in. I whistled all the way home, only stopping when I was closer to our building, realizing that I was drawing attention to myself and remembering my fight with Swan, that stealing couldn’t take care of that fight.
This wasn’t Winter Solstice. I wouldn’t wake up with a sugar cube next to my cozy wool blanket. Nobody would take care of anything, except for me. I longed for a pair of understanding arms to wrap around me and read me my new Book without fear of getting sick, without me paying them in blood, without insulting my whole being, without them clobbering me without knowing me, without failing to end it all if I was wrong to keep walking.
Juliet was the only one that I could hug without worry, insult, or payment and she wouldn’t hug me back. Hard things to remember while holding treasure. Juliet moaned in frustration that she couldn't play with the box of supplies I was unpacking carefully onto our table, the cardboard flaps wafting invitingly to her clacking teeth.
“You can't have this package, Smiley,” I stroked her distorted grin, “I need it to take care of things.”
I brought her ribboned leash to the bathroom and called her. I didn’t like either of us going in the bathroom. It was only for disgusting tasks – washing dirty pants, rinsing away bile, dying myself for sale. I tied Juliet in the doorway so that she couldn’t reach me when I stood in the fake porcelain basin with the bottles of bleach and peroxide. It smelled of Campsite sewage sinks and rat-drowning buckets. I was about to poison myself to prove that I could beat the Dirtbags who bought and sold people. To save another who didn’t love all the parts of me.
“You remember Cousin Judy, Juliet? The one with the little daughter, Hannah? You only met them once, at the Picnic, I think. You and Hannah and I all got Infected. I saw Cousin Hannah’s father recently, and it was terrible. Really terrible. Well, I am going to do what Judy used to do – dye myself. I can’t be green to get sold and I can’t attack them if I can’t get them trapped and unsuspecting. I need to be sold first. I can’t be any of my own colors.”
She creaked and leaned to grab the bottles.
I bit the first cap off with my teeth, spitting bleach onto my bare feet. I sloshed it over my red rag towel. The terrycloth sucked the chemicals with glee, turning it white as it spread, holes forming in bare spots. With the first rub against my skin, I pushed too hard and stripped skin off of my muscle, feeling nothing as the bleach killed even the tingles. I pressed more gently, watching it work. Smoke would have been more comfortable than the steam for all of the burning it was doing. When I was no longer green, I rinsed the chemicals off, letting them fry the drainpipe instead of my body.
Juliet retreated as far as she could get from the smell, but I didn’t have the strength to untie her before I wiped the condensation off of the mirror. My tear ducts were too burned to cry.
“Oh my Gods, Juliet. I look like Judy! I’ve really done it. At least I'm not blond. Almost, though. I look like … like … ”
I knock, thud-thud-thud, knocked on Swan's door. She rapped it back to me correctly with no jokes and unlatched the combinations.
He face turned from blank slate to a scream when she saw me. It took her two full hours to calm down after prancing happily that we looked like Real Sisters. She swore her sorries over and over again, insisting that she would Love me no matter what, despite the fact that she clearly Loved me Lighter. It was my turn to look defeated and miserable with my new appearance. She swore that she had only been skeptical because she was in shock over seeing the girls on the stage, that she didn't doubt me for longer than it took for her despair to lift when she saw how convincing I looked. She delighted in my disguise and danced and gave us matching pedicures with industrial red markers while I was careful not to breathe, lest I moan and sob about how I looked, and about how she loved it. She told me the story of her Family and her sale. I tried to listen without regretting that she only told me after we became Lighter mirror images.
Her Family couldn’t afford food anymore – not the cans, not the produce from the Markets, not the eggs that mix with flour and water to make bland bread when you have the means to make a fire – so they sold her. They hoped that she would get more to eat in her new household, and that they could use her price to eat for a few months themselves, longer than the money would have stretched if her stomach had still been around. They risked that she wouldn’t die in the Market or be eaten by a fat man in a Squatters’ hovel so that they could have groceries that wouldn’t even last them a few months. She guessed that her Family had probably had to give the money back when she had escaped. They gave her away for a few boxes of groceries that they probably never got to eat.
“I hope they started to chew,” she snarled, “and choked on it.”
“I know what you mean. They should have Loved you more than air,” I sighed, “more than enough to figure things out before they left you alone in the world.”
Lonely, and longing to move past our tears, I retrieved the new children’s Book that had Jim had left for me outside of the Clinic. I made up the words that I didn’t know by looking at the pictures, but I figured out most of the real words; I was getting pretty good at reading.
Chug, chug, chug. Puff, puff, puff. Ding-dong, ding-dong.
A tiny, red train rumbled over the tracks.
“I like this story,” she murmured through her sniffles, tightening herself into a small package on her floor, drying freckles that I would never have unless I burned myself worse than this.
The toys were not the only things
carried by the tiny, red train.
The tiny, red train carried all sorts of good things:
big golden oranges, pink-cheeked apples and bottles
and bottles of creamy, fresh milk.
“I love this story,” her eyes twinkled through half closed lids. She licked her lips.
But all of a sudden the tiny, red train stopped with a jerk.
Her engine stopped. She simply could go no further.
Swan stretched and yawned.
Please carry me, the tiny, red engine asked of each huge, important engine that passed her by.
One by one, refusing to help her, all of the big,
fancy machines looked the other way, saying I cannot I cannot I cannot.
And then, along came a little green engine.
It was smaller and less new than the rest,
but it stopped to say hello.
“Green, like you,” Swan murmured almost sleep.
I don’t know if I can help, said the little, green engine, but the tiny, red engine asked again. Please?
I will try, replied the new green Friend.
And they set off up the mountain.
I think I can I think I can I think I can.
I closed the book before the ending. I hoped that the two little trains found a repair shop and a nice, long rest in a heartily defended garage on the other side of the mountain, so that they never had to climb a hill ever again. I swaddled my small, sister-looking Friend into her blankets and set her tenderly on her rag mattress. I could take care of things, but I still couldn’t touch her. And I didn’t know if I wanted to, burned as I was.
The Cell
Swan stood in the pale moonlight and swished her thin hips back and forth, swinging her rag dress about her knees. She held her arms out just so, prancing on her tiptoes and curtseying to me. She hadn’t eaten more than one meal a day for the last three weeks.