Ophelia Immune: A Novel

by Mattson, Beth

  Kite stifled a giggle, reaching for the sickle on the back of her belt.

  “Wow. Wind you up and watch you go!”

  The stand collapsed when the vast, floppy rear end of the man I had kicked into it fell backwards, his jowls flapping as the splinters flew around him. Flecks of gyro, yogurt sauce, and shattered pressboard splattered across his chest. I spat down on Uncle Donnie.

  He laughed up at me, even as I pressed one of my laced sneakers against his crotch.

  “I knew it!” he chuckled, “I knew it was you! When they told me some Scrawny Little Brown Bitch had made a mess at an Auction, I knew it was you.”

  He tried to run his fingers up my calf. I pressed my foot harder into the fleshy valley of his groin. It was fun to make him moan like the undead.

  “What did you say,” I demanded, “About me running off without my family seeing me?”

  “I finished you after all,” he showed me the beef stuck in his teeth, “You embarrassed me and took things that were mine, so I threw you in that stream, and it was that easy. You turned and then you ran, all the way to the city, where I can destroy you again.”

  He tried not to grunt every time I leaned my foot deeper into his pelvis.

  “So I shot Hannah, and then you threw me in the stream, and then I disappeared? My dad didn’t fail to see me or shoot me?”

  “Stupid, Sick Bitch,” he slurred.

  It was my turn to smile. I lifted my foot only high enough to stomp it down on his balls. He screamed and fainted. I loomed over him and shouted to Kite, who was pounding on Peyar and Jeff as they crawled out from beneath their collapsed cart. I joined her.

  They shrank from me, not the hulking threats I had remembered.

  “I know these three,” I told Kite as she rolled Peyar around by the collar of his jacket. She cocked her head at him and butted him in the face. I heard bones popping. Kite was rough on faces, but her forehead would heal.

  “Not very pretty,” she replied, letting him run a few steps and then tugging him back for more.

  I kicked Jeff in the knee. He smiled meanly and pulled a gun out of his pants, but his arm shook. I wasn’t afraid. I was angry, and happy to take it out on them.

  “Jeff is this one that I am fighting – the one with the gun,” I told Kite, pointing, “You are fighting with Peyar and his moustache.”

  “Oh, Ophelia,” she said to me, one foot in his stomach, “It’s Pierre. It’s French, Darling.”

  Jeff shot me in the chest at point blank range. I felt myself splatter on the wall behind me. I didn’t care.

  “So I am fighting Gieffe?”

  He aimed at my head, his arm shaking harder. I kicked the smoking pistol out of his hands.

  “No, it’s just Jeff,” she pushed Pierre face down on the pavement and twisted his arm behind his back. I tackled Jeff and let his nose fall on the asphalt next to Pierre’s, my knee on his spine. Donnie still unconscious on top of the flattened cart.

  Kite snipped a short length of the wire that had held the five girls who were for sale. I used it on Jeff’s wrists and kicked his knees again so that he couldn’t get up. When the two of them were packaged securely together, Kite ripped open her wrist and smeared “Bait,” on the limestone above their heads. She laughed wickedly, plucking a brown, uneven Flyer from its tack on the destroyed Wife Cart.

  “Your Flyers are all sooooo crappy in this town. I could do so much better.”

  She crumpled the Flyer and jammed it into Pierre’s mouth.

  “Stop selling girls, or we'll kill you next time,” she snarled at them.

  Only one girl remained, quivering nearby, watching us. The rest of them had fled. She pressed herself against the wall when we noticed her, but she kept her shoulders broadly squared and her jaw set.

  “We’ve got to get out of here,” my eyes darted, my ears twitched and waited to hear sirens wailing around the corner. It wouldn’t be long before a Ranger took a break from the Concert and discovered us destroying his fancier Wives’ slaving system. We couldn’t beat and tie everyone. Bolder together or not, someone would show up to chase us. Follow us. Find our place.

  “We can’t keep the girl,” Kite said.

  “No, we can't,” I agreed.

  “You can’t stay here, Girlie. And you can't come with us,” Kite flung a pebble at the girl’s chest. She flinched but didn’t run away.

  “She has nowhere else to go,” I said, “We should take her to the Safe House.”

  “I mean, I really am impressed that you’re not such a sissy as I thought,” Kite said, “But what on earth makes you think a Buyer took those girls to a Safe House when you let him go? He probably just kept all those girls. Killed them or …”

  “The Buyer in the top hat, Carl,” I said, “He helped us fight the other Buyers and Sellers. He described his Safe House to me. He told me where it is.”

  “Probably just to score all the girls for himself, but let’s go check out this supposed Safe House, before everyone hears all the racket you just made. No wonder you’re scared of daylight and being noticed.”

  “Come on, Girlie,” Kite waved at the young girl, “Let’s go check out the next hare-brained plan of O’s.”

  Kite skirted the Ranger's building, giving an extra kick each to Pierre and Jeff. I spat on Donnie once more and grabbed the girl by her holey vest and to hustle her with us towards the Old Wharf, glancing behind me the whole time. I had been making too much noise.

  None of the Rangers noticed what was happening before we were gone, and nobody else cared. Not about two tied and crying Sellers. Not about the girls. Not about us. The entire long walk across the City. Nobody. They didn’t care if we were buying or stealing or rescuing the girl we towed behind us. They didn’t care that we were green beneath fancy hats. We wore nice outfits and walked confidently. The only Rangers we saw were too fat to chase us and were busy chatting with the owner of a brothel.

  “That’s what acting entitled gets you,” Kite smirked, “Everything.”

  We crouched outside of the old warehouse that Top Hat had described to me at the Auction. If this wasn’t a Safe House, I had given him, Carl, the man in the top hat, a van full of girls for free. And then hadn’t checked in on them. I hadn’t taken care of them either.

  It was all darkened windows and broken corrugated steel siding, with the usual dust, dirt, and rusty gashes. Its sides were graffitied with charcoal and other greasy, black streaks, like any other warehouse. The doors were all missing or swung wide open, tilted on halves of hinges. There were no spiders in the cracks and crevices, no crows on the roof, no mice scurrying about. Just plywood patched holes and a deep, dead silence surrounding the abandoned factory.

  “New Girl,” Kite ordered, “Stay over there while we explore. Hide yourself until we tell you to come out.”

  Kite and I ducked inside, smelling nothing, hearing nothing. It was too dark to spy anything but the low ceiling, scraped free of its old industrial equipment and an old staircase up to the second floor, draped with shredded tarps and empty crates. Kite signaled to slowly approach the staircase. There was shuffling above us. Dust wafted. Something zinged through the air and made a soft crunching noise.

  An arrow stuck out of Kite’s leg. We looked at it. We looked up. A girl appeared on the balcony. She held her shoulders back triumphantly, and aimed for me next. I almost laughed.

  “What the?! What is your problem, kid?” Kite hollered threats at the waif, “You stupid Squatter! I am going to rip you into …”

  Another arrow splashed cleanly into her other leg, dropping her jaw further. She wrenched the arrows out of her thighs and threw them on the ground, bolting for the girl, fists and knife raised high. Her boots rang out on the metal steps of the balcony.

  “Kite!”

  She reached the girl with the bow and arrow and snatched her up by her clothing, dangling her from one fist, the child’s arms twisting and swinging, trying to punch Kite.

  “I think we found it, Ki
te. Put her down.” I said through the dust.

  A large metal door open behind the Bow And Arrow Girl. It slammed heavily into Kite. Bow Girl jumped aside and giggled. Crisp, golden light poured out of the doorframe. A large man stepped into the spotlight it created. He glowed like the electric torch in his hands. He grabbed a top hat from the rack inside of the door and put it on. It was him. And this was his house, Safe or not.

  Kite pushed the door off of her and grabbed him by the neck, pressing her blade there.

  “Kite! Drop it,” I hollered above the attack call and swift actions of the Bow Girl who was reloading, “No need to Infect anyone while we check it out.”

  “Yes, please drop it,” Top Hat murmured.

  “This is his house, Kite,” I said again, “And his name is Carl.”

  I waved for New Girl to join us instead of standing in the middle of the empty floor. Kite relaxed her arms around Top Hat a little bit, who called off his scrawny, bow and arrow security guard. He stepped suavely aside, smoothing his suit jacket, and bowing lavishly to Kite. She shrugged. He turned to me.

  “Every time I see you there’s somebody at my throat.”

  “Kite, this is Carl,” I introduced, “He says he runs this Safe House.”

  She gaped, more impressed now that she had time to eye the velvet strolling cape that swished about his shoulders. His polished boots and pleated pants didn’t escape her attention either. She extended her hand, demurely.

  “Se llama Carlos, si? Capa caliente. Me llamo Kite.”

  He kissed her hand, “Encantado.”

  He gestured that we were welcome to enter the second floor. Kite turned to me and New Girl, who was timidly picking her way up the stairs.

  “Come on, New Girl, let’s go.”

  New Girl spoke up.

  “My name is Cherry.”

  “Great. Hurry up. Let’s follow this fabulous man.”

  Carl held his hand out again for Kite and Bow Girl to enter. Kite bowed her thanks to Carl, but as she did, Bow Girl slid past her and slapped her on her leg wounds. Kite glowered and may have slapped her back, but the girl was too fast.

  “Come on, Cherry,” I held the door open, “Let’s go see if this is a home for you.”

  The Safe House

  The second level of the old factory floor was bustling and Warm. Carpets were thrown down over the linoleum squares. Old offices were converted into sleeping and sitting rooms. There was a huge kitchen in the middle, with long, large dining tables and mismatched chairs of every color. There was a girl at the refrigerator, another stirring a bubbling pot and many other girls sitting on most surfaces, or lying on their bellies, playing board games. They looked up, but took little notice of us.

  A girl stumbled in from a back room, arms full of laundry and dropped the mountain on the longest table. She poked another girl in the ribs until she rose to help roll, sort, and fold. I tensed in their comfortable air and tucked my weapons as far into my belt as I could.

  The new girl, Cherry, scooted away from us and inserted herself into a board game that was already in progress on the floor. The other players enthusiastically handed her a pile of shiny, plastic pegs and laughed when she plopped one down on the mat and took a handful of somebody else’s pegs in her first move. They laughed and cheered.

  I tilted my head in wonder. All of my game pegs had always been made out of splintering same-colored wood. All of the pots in this house had copper bottoms and the soap was resting in a brand new, ceramic container. There was an open jar of crabapple sauce on the table, a spoon propped casually under the lid. I could see Mom pacing in front of the stove, using her nose to tell whether or not the next batch was done. I swallowed hard.

  Somebody cleared her throat nearby. It was Kite. Kite and Carl were talking to me. I tried to give them my attention.

  “Ophelia,” Kite waited for my gaze to settle on her, “This is Carlos.”

  “Ohhhh,” I nodded, “French.”

  Carlos smiled politely. Kite spoke through her teeth.

  “No Silly,” she patted my arm hard, “This is another language. My language. Spanish. Espanol. From the South. La lengua de mi dios.”

  “Hmmm?” my eyes followed the plump children.

  A little girl sprinted past me and plunged the crabapple sauce spoon into her mouth before anyone could stop her. Her eyes lit up and she reached for more, her hands getting slapped by the teenage cook.

  “I said,” Kite cleared her throat, “‘I think we should work with this lovely man.’”

  “Work?”

  An older girl held the little girl by her pot-bellied waist as she squirmed and tried to escape having the sweet stickiness scrubbed from her face.

  “We can’t just let the Bait Buyers keep getting away with selling all these girls.”

  “Of course not. That’s why I bombed the Auction where I met Carlos.”

  “Don’t be so savage,” Kite gripped my arm a little too hard.

  Carlos laughed and hung his hat from the back of a chair, revealing his short, shiny, dark curls. They looked slippery and soft, glinting with the same shimmer as the little girl at the sink. The same as Kite. I almost reached out to touch them.

  “Well, it was very impressive,” Carlos chuckled, “Ophelia and a Friend of hers attacked the Auction, bottles flaming, axes flying – they really showed that Boss who was in charge. Of course, after I helped them escape, it became impossible for me to buy more girls in order to save them, but it was a Noble Gesture.”

  “You’ll have to forgive Ophelia. She means well, but she’s a little bit backwards,” Kite demurred.

  Hands dried, the little tot with matching curls was released to charge back to an art project, streaking like a comet, yanking off her sweater as she ran.

  “It’s really no problem,” Carlos assured Kite, “I’ve got a full house here anyway. Not much more room for now. Would you like a tour?”

  “Por supuesto,” Kite bowed to him, and hissed to me, “Don’t mess this up. Don’t do anything sudden. Just look at this place. We have got to get in on this! He's Loaded.”

  “In on this? Loaded?” I shook myself out of it. Why did he keep all these little girls? He fed them and they kept each other cozy, but why? “How do we know we can trust him? He seems ok, but he wasn't fighting for the girls. He was just Buying them.”

  “Just look at him, Ophelia. Obviously he is respectable.”

  “No, it's ok,” Carlos folded his hands, “I can explain myself. My Family was Rich before the Plague. When I met my wife, a nurse, my Family scoffed at her involvement with the masses. They thought she was dirty for interacting with regular people. I thought she was beautiful, and smart, and generous.

  “When she was bitten at work and Turned, she left me alone with my daughter and my disapproving Family. As they died, one by one, I inherited their money and used it to do what she would have liked. I'm no nurse; all I have to offer anybody is money, so I use it to buy the little girls that my wife would have treated. I rescue them and buy them toys and let them play with my daughter.

  “I'm willing to overlook your Infection if you will overlook the barbarity of my birth Family. Will you give me a shot?”

  “Shot?” I asked.

  “She'll give you more than one shot to the head if you're not treating these little girls right,” Kite smirked, “But she'll come around to you, too. Yo mismo, que te gusta ya.”

  “I like your style,” Carlos offered her his silk-sleeved elbow. I nodded to the tour, hoping that no skeletons would fly out of the Rich closets.

  Room by room the Safe House grew more secure and lovely. All of the girls were healthy, free of mud and fleas, in possession of dolls and carved trucks. There were Books on their shelves and clothes in their closets, even if they stripped them off and left them in piles on the floor so that they could better splash in the bubbly tubs.

  They smiled if they noticed us at all. Cherry waved as we passed her, curled up on a couch with a knitted bla
nket, snuggled deep between the other girls. The smallest of the girls toddled about from cushion to arm to radio; the eldest girls – busy with glossy magazines, knitting, and toddlers – were quite a few inches shorter than Kite, almost my size.

  Carlos paused in front of the marker-board in the room with the girls’ papers and pencils to explain that the Auction trend right now was to buy girls when they are quite young, so that they didn’t remember any other way of living. He said that the girls in his house didn’t linger long after they could fend for themselves, often taking younger Friends with them, to live in the free quarters provided at jobs as housekeepers, cooks or security guards. He said some ran away back to their Families or Buyers right away, but that they were all welcome to stay as long as they like and to return anytime.

  They had bunk beds and cookies and oranges – something that Juliet and I had never tasted. I wondered if Immogen had ever tasted a lemon or if Swan would have liked to have sniffed a kiwi if she had turned out to be Immune like me. The girls tossed bananas in their mouths like princesses and leaned with their limbs draped without thought, peeling and popping ripe slices into their cheeks. One bounced out of her place on the couch and jumped onto a large pillow that skidded across a pile of magazines – just like Juliet or Hector would do. Like I would have done to Immogen.

  There were shouts and grumbles of who was going to have to clean it up, but the offending girl just hugged her Friends and provided a pair of scissors that they could use to cut out fresh collages. She left the scissors behind do a handstand that finished with a backbend onto the bench in front of me. Her short, round fingers shone bronzed in the bright electric light.

  I reached out my hand and held it above hers. She was so close, so smooth and Warm. I shouldn’t be this close. She jumped to call instructions to a Friend, and her arm grazed my fingers. She didn't notice me, but I backed away, horrified by what I had done. I could have killed her. I knew better than to come close to touching anyone.