by Meg Elison
“Bring the girl to the infirmary alone. Wake the council to meet with the men.”
Jane’s living quarters were nearest to the infirmary. They had moved someone else out so that she could be there. She was in her scrubs and walking through the doors in less than five minutes.
The girl sat on the exam table listlessly. She was milk pale, once her face was uncovered. Jane could see the blue veins in her arms from across the room. The girl’s hair was coal black, and her eyes seemed the same. She stared.
Jane spoke gently. “Are you all right?”
She shook her head.
“Are you hurt? Are you pregnant?”
The girl shrugged.
“What’s your name?”
She whispered, and her voice was tiny. Up close she was a young woman, maybe nineteen or twenty. “Colleen.”
“Hi, Colleen. I’m Jane. I’m here to help you, ok?”
She nodded.
“I want to check you out to make sure you’re all right. I don’t want to do anything that will hurt you or scare you, but I need to look at your body. Is that all right?”
Colleen nodded and teared up. She stood up and stripped quickly, efficiently.
Her eyes were red rimmed, and her lips pressed together. She sat back down. She was gone from her body. She looked at nothing.
Jane checked over the bruises and scrapes, the ligature marks at her wrists, and knew the story. She palpated the girl’s belly and determined that she was not pregnant. Wonder of wonders.
Colleen’s inner thighs were bruised, and she showed handprints and finger marks all over. When Jane probed gingerly at the girl’s vulva, she got a shock.
“Who did this to you?”
Colleen shrugged, not looking.
“It was a while ago. More than a year, right? Maybe two?”
She nodded.
“Was it the guys you’re with now?”
She shook her head.
“But these two raped you. Recently. Probably today.”
“Every day.” The same baby voice.
Jane gave her back her clothes. She wanted to hug her, to hold her hand, but she thought the girl had had enough. She looked out the door to where Bernardo had posted guard for her. She told him to go get Old Maria. The old woman was always perfectly calm and would care for anyone.
“Please tell Maria to give her a good dinner and put her in her spare bed. This girl shouldn’t be alone.”
Bernardo nodded and was off. Jane waited until Old Maria came.
“Colleen, would you like to go with Old Maria? She’s got dinner and a nice warm bed for you. Is that all right?”
The girl nodded again.
“Listen, you’re not going back with those guys. Nobody is going to hurt you here. Nobody will even touch you unless you say ok. I promise that. Ok?”
Colleen did not look as though she believed Jane or cared. She went where she was told. Jane went to the council room.
Council was set up in the offices that had formerly belonged to the fort’s commanding officer. Only Daniel had been summoned to meet with the traders. Female members of council were not called upon to deal with outsiders.
The two men were kept standing. They wore ragged ponchos and stank of unwashed bodies.
When Jane walked into the room, they started.
“Holy shit.”
“Where’s Colleen?”
Jane ignored them and spoke to Daniel. Daniel was in his fifties, a career military man. His bearing was erect, and his clothes looked pressed every time she saw him. He took to leadership naturally, but without the insecurity that drives a man to be cruel.
“Daniel, Colleen is badly injured. Her genitals were cut a few years ago by someone with a dull knife and no brains. These two are rapists.”
Daniel nodded curtly. He had expected that the men would be of no use, but genital cutting was something new.
“Hey, we didn’t cut up her pussy. She was like that when we bought her. Some old guy did that.”
“But you have been forcing her to have sex with both of you?” Daniel’s eyes were ice.
“Well, she belongs to us. We care for her and feed her. It’s an arrangement.” The two men were bearded twins with the same shiftless way of talking. Jane could not tell them apart.
“Do you two have anything else to say?”
“You’re not gonna let us stay, are you? We’ll just take our girl and be on our way.”
“Do you mind if I do it, Daniel?”
Daniel sighed. “No, but don’t do it in here. I’ll send for a burial detail. Take them to the field.”
Jane pulled her revolver out of the back of her scrubs and pointed it at the last man who had spoken.
“Turn around and walk out the door.”
The other man reached under his poncho and pulled his gun. Jane shot him in the eye from a distance of three feet, and he crumpled.
“Sorry, Daniel.”
“Shit. Get him out of here.” Daniel touched his ears, frowning.
Jane pointed her gun at the other one. “Move.”
He did.
They walked out together to the spot they called Potter’s Field.
He was talking fast. “Look, I’m a mechanic. I can fix things. You wouldn’t be sorry if you kept me. There’s no reason to get all bent out of shape about Colleen. She’s fine. It wasn’t a big deal, she just wasn’t that into it. But she—”
“I’m only walking you out here to keep you from becoming a carpet stain. Shut up.”
“Oh, so you just take her side of it? Is that all?”
“Did you fuck her today?”
“Well, yeah.”
“Did she say yes?”
“You don’t understand.”
“Stand or kneel?”
“Please don’t shoot. Please. I’ll make it up to her. I’ll never touch her again, or anyone else. I didn’t mean to hurt her.” His eyes were green in his haggard face. They darted as he begged.
“I can’t fix you. I don’t have the time to teach you why you’re wrong if you don’t already know. So this is it. Stand or kneel?”
He lunged toward her. She took the shot, and he pitched forward, laid out on the ground.
The burial detail arrived as Jane was walking away. “Check him. He might have a good knife for one of you.”
Jane got out of her scrubs and into bed. She slept with her door unlocked. She dreamed of nothing at all.
When the settlement at Fort Nowhere had been in place for seven years, Jane was nominated to council. It was only a gesture. She could not leave her work. But the people of the fort trusted her; they knew how she decided and how she acted. She saw them through seven hard winters with minimal loss of life. She treated the flu and kept panic about fever to a minimum. She delivered dead babies and buried mothers. She established the hospice and trained attendants so that when Old Maria began to show the signs of cancer, there was a network in place to see her mercifully to her death.
Refugees and wanderers came. Some could stay, some could not. No one with medical training joined the community, so Jane began training a couple of sharp teenagers. Every once in a while, the council debated creating a school, but the population did not grow. They did not see the point.
Jane’s diaries gained legendary status even as she wrote them. The books were always in evidence in the infirmary. When her time was most scarce, she would ask others to add to the story of where they came from and what they had seen. Not everyone took her up on it, but still the story grew. When she ran out of space in the journal she had, an order was given to a raiding crew to bring back more. The crew returned with a trunkful. Journaling caught on as a fad, then became embedded in the culture. Storytellers emerged among the inhabitants, and it was Daniel who first remarked that they ought to appoint someone to act as a historian. A scribe for the community. They might not be able to leave anything else behind. The resolution passed.
The Book of Histories and Hives
Please share some part of your story here. I want us to start collecting histories.—Jane
Daniel Emory Woolcott, Colonel. US Army, 54673
I was born in Bloomington, Illinois. My parents were James and Emily Woolcott. I joined the army when I turned eighteen. I served in actions in the Middle East for most of my career, and I should have retired ten years ago. I hung on because I’m still in good shape and they always seemed to have a job for me.
I was assigned to Fort Leonard Wood during the outbreak. Initially, I was assigned command of a regiment stationed here for the evacuation of the city centers of Missouri and part of Kansas. That plan went immediately to hell, and we had refugees flown in from all over, mostly doctors and scientists. This place became a lab center where they tried to figure this thing out. They failed in their efforts. There was a rash of desertions and another of suicides. I served with some fine men and women, but I am the only one left of the people who were brought here by medevac.
I dug a lot of holes.
I lost contact with my wife and grown children almost as soon as I got here. Communications broke down all over the country, and the cell network was the worst of it. The last time I spoke to Maude, I didn’t think I had any reason to say good-bye. She was in Savannah, and I don’t think I have any reason to go looking. I don’t have many reasons at all.
I helped to form the first council here because there was work that needed doing and people need structure. My training helps me keep focused while everyone is losing their heads. It was the right thing to do. We have order, and outside they have nothing.
My last orders from the United States government instructed me to pray. I have always followed orders.
Andrea Ramirez
I didn’t know where to start, so I looked at where other people have begun. I don’t know if it matters now, but I was born in Little Rock, Arkansas. I lived there my whole life, and enrolled at UALR. I was a sophomore when everything fell apart. The CDC set up these huge tents out on the quad, and the rumor was that it was a really bad strain of the flu. They were giving out flu shots and trying to get everyone to get tested, but there wasn’t much information and there were protests and a lot of people refused. We got confined to our dorms when the National Guard showed up. The power and the water went out, but my iPhone kept working. I got my parents to come and get me, and the guard couldn’t say no to that. They took me home.
My mom got it first, then my little sister Violet, then me. Violet died first, and my dad went crazy.
We called and called for someone to help, and then for someone to come get the body. Cell service died and we had to bury her ourselves. I thought that was the worst thing I would have to do, but I had to bury my mom a week later. I’m always adjusting to the new worst thing.
My dad went out to find water one day, early in the morning before sunrise. I waited but he never came back. I had to go out on my own.
I made it almost a month, but I couldn’t get out of the city. I was so scared. I carried a baseball bat, and I only moved when I knew I wouldn’t see anyone. When I ran into Mark, I assumed the worst. I hit him twice with the bat in his belly. He caught the bat and I was terrified, but he just sat down on the ground and asked me to talk to him. He convinced me, and we traveled together most of that year. He got us out of Arkansas, and we headed toward Tennessee. Everywhere we went, all we saw was men. A lot of them were dangerous and most of them wanted me. Mark killed for me. I thought that was going to be hard to live with, but it’s not.
Mark got swept away by the spring floods, and I couldn’t save him. I barely got away myself. I was so depressed after that, I don’t know how I lived through it. I met Kacie that summer, and she tried to teach me how to keep a few guys on a string, to protect me and take care of me. Kacie had five guys. One of them was pretty old, maybe in his forties. The rest were ok. People here at the fort call it a hive. Kacie said it was just the natural reaction to things. She was a grad student in anthropology, so I guess she’d know. I could never get used to it. She asked me to join them and said we could pick up some more guys for me, no problem. I didn’t like it. I should have stayed. I didn’t know how bad things could get.
When I left them I headed north, and I think I was in Kentucky but maybe it was Illinois. I was alone for a long time. I’ve heard some of the other women here tell how they dressed like men, and I wish I’d thought of that. I didn’t even cut my hair.
When the slave traders found me, I figured I would die. They beat the shit out of me and raped me for days. They had one other girl, Chandra. They traded us both for a gas station, but then they came back in the middle of the night to steal us from the two guys who bought us. They killed them and we lived at the gas station for a long time. They brought in cars and motorcycles from all over and used them to bring stuff back. We had a motel to sleep in, and thank god I was there the night they blew up the station. I don’t know how they did it and I don’t care. It gave me enough of a diversion to run away. I don’t know if Chandra made it.
I didn’t know I was pregnant until I got here. Dr. Jane says not to get my hopes up. I know. I told her I’ll take anything after the baby dies. If I make it. I don’t ever want to do this again. I don’t care if none of the babies live. We don’t deserve it, as a species. Evolution.
Barry Rangel
I am so glad I found this place. I thought I would never see anything like civilization again. A community, a society, a group of people getting along together just means so much.
Chicago fell apart faster than I would have ever imagined. If I hadn’t been with the highway patrol, if I hadn’t had guns, I don’t know what would have happened to me. I had nobody to worry about but myself, so I headed into the city. What a nightmare! I’ll never forget it. Buildings on fire and screaming and dead bodies in the street. I saw someone lynched from a telephone pole, I couldn’t make any sense of that. People saw my uniform and started asking for my help, but I didn’t know what I could do. Then people started to try to steal my gun and I just took off. I don’t know what I owed those people, but I had to run.
I stopped to get some food in a store in Springfield one day, and that’s where I saw my first hive. This woman was very smart. She looked at me like she was a spider and I was a fly, but she was calling herself Queen B. They had a beautiful house, a mansion really. There was a gas generator and they were bringing in fuel from all over. They had tons of food and guns and a really great setup. There must have been forty guys in and out of there, I don’t know why she wanted to add more men to the mix.
I guess there’s no reason to lie. I wasn’t married, no girlfriend. I had nobody to turn my back on.
I stayed there for a while. I wouldn’t say I got to know her well. I know her real name was Bonnie and she was an actress. She was good-looking. Redheaded and green eyed, and she was really good in bed, the kind of thing a man dreams about. I told her I had never slept with a white woman before. She laughed and told me there were no firsts left. I still had a couple.
I never had group sex before, or any kind of sex with a man. We would work all day and pretty much fuck all night. It wasn’t the worst setup I’ve ever seen. I would do it again, if someone started a hive here. Especially if it was Tamara. But I really wanted something more. I knew we wouldn’t be able to get gas forever, or find food forever. Bonnie wasn’t interested in farming, and she said she had her tubes tied. There wasn’t a future there.
That all seems like a dream I had now. Hive life is like something out of Penthouse letters, but like from the Mad Max world. I’m here and I can still have a good time with a couple of the people I know, but I also have a job. I have a community and a life here. That’s what I came for.
Mariah Sweeney
I never thought I would be the kind of woman who has a hive. I was too old, to begin with. Forty when the shit hit the fan, and not very good-looking. It just kind of happened.
I was living outside of Oshkosh. I never got sick. My Davy brought home our
neighbor Gus
Szalinsky and my brother-in-law Jerry. We were all scared together and had to stay pretty close. Both of their wives had died, and we had lost our Nina. No kids, all of us worried about the same thing, it was bound to happen. Davy was jealous at first, and he couldn’t be around me and Jerry. But eventually it was all four of us together. It felt like we were a family. And I could end any fight and solve any problem and make everybody feel better by just laying us all down.
When Phil joined us, I was starting to feel like it was too many men. Then we added Hank, Jax, and Matt. Jax was only sixteen years old. He was so beautiful and so young, and I never thought he’d want to sleep with me. Everything got so tangled up and strange. In some ways, it’s been the freest time in my life. It feels terrible to say that with my Nina dead of the fever. I miss her every day. I miss everything. It’s awful and selfish and heartless, but I have to live. I’m living.
We moved on together. We ran into trouble looking for guns, that’s when Gus and Matt got shot. We got a shotgun out of it, but it wasn’t worth it. We lost Phil right after that from some sickness. I think it was from eating bad food. It’s a terrible thing to say, but he basically shit himself to death. The rest of us found our way here. They separated us to ask us some questions. I haven’t seen anyone out raping or taking slaves, but I guess they’ve seen a lot of that here. We saw murderers, so I guess it’s not far off. I told them that my guys weren’t like that, and that we were used to taking care of each other.
We all got a barracks together, but Davy left us last year. He wanted to be monogamous with someone, but I can’t go back to that. I’m living with Jax, Hank, and Jerry.
I don’t like the term hive. I don’t think of it like that. We’re more like a web.
I don’t know what the future will bring. I wish I could have another child. I’m not on anything, and I still get my period, but it just hasn’t happened. I know none of the babies survive, but we can’t stop trying. I wish Jax could get me pregnant. That’s what I’d choose.