Homebound

by Lydia Hope

  He managed to tie her shoelaces into an unfamiliar knot. His arched brows rose slightly as he regarded her shod ankle with great concentration.

  “Your foot needs rest,” he advised in his lilting monotone.

  The comment startled Gemma. She didn’t know how to handle this conscious Simon, a man with opinions, so different from the docile creature she’d made him out to be in her dreams. In her dreams, he never told her what to do. She was getting a strong suspicion the real Simon would be quite different from her imaginary one.

  “We can’t always do what we need, can we?” she said mildly.

  He didn’t reply. Their interaction seemed to have tired him out, and like a freeze coming down after a mid-winter thaw, he withdrew within himself, a familiar cocoon of waxy indifference enveloping him.

  Immediately, Gemma felt bereft.

  She removed her foot from his lap and tested it for stability. Thinking that she might yet have to tighten the boot to get extra support, blood flow be damned, she steered the chair back to the prison.

  Chapter 11

  The night was relatively warm when Gemma left for home at the end of the day. The clouds hung low obscuring any potential moonlight, and a fine misty rain hung suspended in the air.

  She stopped briefly at the old church to pick up the empty yogurt jar from between the crumbling bricks, the action so familiar now that the absence of light didn’t slow her fingers from their precise dip into the hiding spot. She went alongside the junkyard, its rugged shapes customarily spooky, the ugly silhouettes of black against black.

  The City was not calm. Gemma felt it once she turned to another narrow street that led toward the barracks. Up ahead, people were congregating again in a loose disorderly crowd that rippled and sloshed like disturbed water. There was going to be another fight.

  The fall from yesterday too fresh in her mind, she proceeded with great caution, broken glass crunching under her uneven steps. Her swollen ankle throbbed inside her boot, pain gathering force until the act of walking became agonizing. When she passed a side entrance to the docks, she had to sit down on the ground and rest. The misty rain kept coming, dampening her garments.

  People hurried by, single and in groups. Somebody broke into a run. Shouts reached her ears. Unnerved, she got up and trudged on openly dragging her foot, her only thought to get home safely.

  More people appeared, forming a mob, blocking Gemma’s path, forcing her to stop and consider a different route. From the darkness, silent shapes glided on legs that bent backward, joining the crowd.

  Perali.

  Several of them surrounded two men. One man raised his hand and pushed at one of the aliens to stop him from advancing. And suddenly, a Perali charged the man and bit him on the neck. Gemma was too far to see the details in the darkness, but from the way the man’s body convulsed, legs kicking, and then falling to the ground, she was afraid he… died.

  More angry shouts sounded from nearby, and a large group of men rushed the Perali attackers. They must have witnessed the bite, the killing.

  The aliens formed a tight body of defense. The men attacked, hitting and punching, grunting and cursing. The aliens moved close together and then dispersed, schooling and shoaling like fish in the ocean. They bit, they stroke out, and they howled.

  Gemma shrunk back, working to blend into shadows.

  The altercation was swelling, attracting more participants from both the human and Perali sides. Someone produced a stun gun powerful enough for Gemma to hear its sizzling zaps followed by screams of agony and hoarse moans of the affected.

  She heard a small sound, terribly near. Her head whipped around, gaze sharpening, heart rate going from zero to sixty in two seconds.

  She saw nothing except the darkness. She heard her own shallow breaths. She turned again, slower this time, her eyes re-focusing from far to near, and a scream lodged inside her throat.

  Alien eyes reflected the nonexistent light a mere two feet away. In the same split second that Gemma spotted the Perali, she realized that he had spotted her much sooner.

  She ran. She didn’t know how, she didn’t know where to, she simply turned and fled. He tried to grab her but missed, the swipe of his hand passing close enough to brush against Gemma’s coat.

  She felt no pain in her foot. Hell, she could feel no feet under her as she flew into the darkness, heading for the City center and its perceived safety, passing more of the small clusters of people, of aliens, or together, fighting or talking or she didn’t know what. All she knew was that the Perali was giving chase. She heard his footsteps and his hacking, evil laughter, reminiscent of Number 34 only much, much more sinister. In her mind’s eye, the poor bitten man twitched and dropped on the ground, over and over on repeat.

  Just as abruptly as the adrenaline had inundated her, it drained. And Gemma couldn’t run anymore. She couldn’t even walk. She dropped to the ground like a rock. Crawling, she wedged her body into a crevice in a stone wall surrounding a tall building and curbed her ragged breath. Closing her eyes, she tried to pray but words wouldn’t come. Her mind went blank like a newborn baby’s. She knew nothing around her, she existed in no particular place and time. She simply was, crammed into the crevice, cold, hurting, and afraid.

  She had no idea how long she’d spent in her hiding place, stuck into the hard rock like a cork into the bottle neck. Eventually, her cramped muscles screamed for release reminding her that she was still very much alive. And hungry - her stomach turned and squeezed, demanding sustenance.

  Cautiously, she peeked out.

  No one was near.

  The darkness became very still and quiet, and the absence of people on the street could only mean that it had grown too late. The curfew had started.

  She got out with great difficulty and stretched her sore muscles. Her clothes were damp and the air felt colder.

  She started toward home hoping a sweeper wasn’t going to patrol this street yet.

  But her luck had held rotten all evening.

  She’d heard it before she saw it, a clanging, chuffing metal contraption resembling a dwarf grain holder made out of cast iron and mounted on small rubber-less wheels, with antennas and blinking lights. The City released a slew of them onto the streets every night to enforce the curfew. They rolled along the scheduled routes sending out “feelers,” the tentacles of energy that reached far and wide detecting movement and body heat. Once detected, the sweeper pulled the violators toward its metal body and kept them prisoners with the electric force field until the militant patrol came and released them after charging them with a fine.

  Gemma’s body tingled from a feeler hitting her. She instinctively resisted the pull, and the punishing zap made her yelp.

  Resigned, she made her way to the sweeper, now a prisoner for the night. Approaching the home base, she peered into the darkness with apprehension. She’d heard that sometimes a group of violators could get quite eclectic. Rabid dogs got pulled in. Crazy people. Criminals. She wasn’t looking forward to seeing, for example, her Perali attacker among this evening’s catch.

  Only one person was silhouetted next to the sweeper, and on approach, Gemma saw it was a young girl shivering in her threadbare sweater.

  “Hi,” Gemma greeted her.

  “Hi,” the girl responded shyly, teeth chattering.

  “Been here a while?”

  The girl nodded and rubbed her arms. “My brother and I got separated in a street fight, and I got lost. And then this.”

  Gemma smiled. “Looks like both of us have had a crappy night.”

  “So it does,” the girl said with mature understanding.

  Upon closer inspection, she wasn’t that young. Maybe around nineteen or twenty but very thin and with a fragile appearance of someone who grew up malnourished. She looked like a typical migrant from West Plains - clothes shabby, hair unwashed, destitute. Gemma wondered if she had a roof over her head at night.

  “Have you been in the City long?” Gemma asked.r />
  “No, only a few months,” the girl admitted, visibly embarrassed. “I know we’re not welcome here. I wish we could stay at home in the Plains. But we don’t have a home anymore. They burned it.”

  “I am sorry.” Gemma knew the pain of losing a home and of feeling unwelcome. “Did aliens burn it?”

  “Yes. I hate aliens. They are very bad for people.”

  “You mean, Perali?”

  “Others, too, but especially Perali. There are so many of them here in the City, I hadn’t realized…”

  They lapsed into silence and trailed after the sweeper.

  Unable to hold herself upright any longer, Gemma put her hand against the metal side of the robot for support. It moved along very slowly, the only saving grace for her ailing ankle. Noticing her injury, the girl sidled closer.

  “Lean on me.” Reading Gemma’s startled expression, she smiled endearingly revealing small, widely spaced teeth. “That’s alright, go on. You don’t look very heavy.”

  “I am heavier than I look,” Gemma said dubiously.

  “You are not.”

  Reaching for the girl’s shoulders, Gemma was startled to realize that they were about the same size. Did she look as fragile and helpless? The idea was disconcerting.

  The girl’s small frame was cold and wet under Gemma’s arm. Without hesitation, she shrugged out of her coat and draped it over her forced companion’s shoulders.

  “No, you’ll freeze!” the girl tried to protest.

  “You’re already freezing.”

  “No, I'm not…”

  “That’s okay. Wear it for a the time being.” She leaned heavily on the girl. Strength was in such short supply for Gemma.

  Glued together like this, they remained stuck to the sweeper for hours as it crawled up and down the streets on its tiny wheels. Back and forth. Back and forth. And so they followed.

  Fortunately for them, no sketchy individuals decided to violate the curfew that night, not in this part of the City anyway, and the two of them remained relatively safe.

  “Do you think the militants will be here soon?” the girl asked the question that was on Gemma’s mind.

  “They should. It’s going to be morning soon.”

  “And the fine? Do I have to pay it right away?”

  “I believe so. They will take you to your home if you don’t have money with you.”

  The girl got quiet.

  “Where do you live?” Gemma asked the girl.

  “Oh, not far from here.” She vaguely waved her hand indicating everywhere and nowhere in particular.

  Gemma didn’t press. It was obvious the girl’s circumstances were dismal.

  Finally, two militants in gray raincoats showed up next to their sweeper and slapped handcuffs on Gemma and the girl before they disabled the sweeper’s force field. Gemma told them her address, and they all headed to her residence first.

  To her surprise, the windows glowed with light when they approached the McKinleys’ home. Could it be that Aunt Herise and Uncle Drexel were waiting for her, Gemma, worried that she hadn’t come home? The suggestion was so preposterous that she immediately dismissed it.

  Once she opened the door, the reason for the lights became clear. Uncle Drexel lay on the kitchen bench padded with blankets clutching a bloody arm to his chest and moaning in pain. He appeared to be delirious. Leena was crying wrapped in a colorful blanket on the pallet on the floor that served as her bed. The twins were in their loft, Desh sleeping, Ravi staring at his father with intense concentration.

  Herise, tight-lipped and pale, was boiling water at the stove. She barely glanced at Gemma, her eyes skipping from her shackled wrists to the guard holding her elbow. There was no concern in her gaze; not even interest.

  Gemma stopped just inside the room. “What happened?”

  “A street fight,” Herise threw over her shoulder. “Your uncle was attacked by aliens on his way home. He’s in a bad shape.”

  “Good God. I will help, Aunt Herise. Let me pay my fine.”

  The militant released her to go to her room to fetch the dollars. Taking her little savings box out of her drawer, Gemma carefully counted out the exact amount to cover her dues. Then she took a deep breath and counted out more. Scooping up the coins, she brought them out.

  “This is for both of us,” she told the militant.

  He collected the money and left. From the window, Gemma watched them take the cuffs off the girl whose stunned, pale face was briefly illuminated by the lights streaming out of their home. And then she turned and ran into the darkness.

  Chapter 12

  Gemma overslept. Not by a few minutes, oh no, - by hours. When she opened her gritty eyes, gray daylight was pouring into her window, weak and diluted. At first, Gemma’s sleepy brain had thought she was in her old room on The Islands, and it was summer, and the weekend breakfast of poached eggs and waffles with strawberry syrup was about to be served by mama on the porch. And coffee. She could almost smell the coffee.

  Oh, it hurt to come crashing down to reality.

  Gemma groaned as she rolled out of bed. Her foot shot shocks of pain up her leg when she put weight on it, but on closer inspection, the swelling seemed to have gone down a bit. Surprising, given her last night’s workouts.

  She quickly dressed and laced up her damp boots, then looked around searching for her coat. A small laugh escaped her when the realization hit: She had never retrieved her coat from the girl last night.

  Bundling up in layers of shirts and the two sweaters she owned, Gemma stuffed her chin-length hair under her knit hat and opened her bedroom door.

  The house was quiet. The kids had left for school and Aunt Herise for work. Uncle Drexel’s arm was in really bad shape, torn up in several places, and he would be out of commission for a while. He must be sleeping now, the door to his and Herise’s room closed.

  Last night Gemma had helped Herise to stitch pieces of his flesh together the best they could and bandage it tightly. Drexel needed antibiotics, but the family had no connections in the medical field, and without connections procuring medication would be a difficult affair. Aunt Herise was worried sick.

  What a sad situation.

  In a gloomy mood, Gemma left the house and went to work. The temperature had dropped sometime in the wee hours of the morning and the misty rain of yesterday turned into cold snow falling in small but persistent flakes that clung to her sweater. By the time she reached the rusty prison door and touched the onyx plate, she resembled a snowman.

  No one attended the check-in counter, for the time for checking in was long past. Gemma shook off the snow from her clothes and made her way to OO’s office where all latecomers were required to go for a reprimand. A particularly unwelcome requirement for Gemma, given OO’s avid interest in certain body parts of hers.

  She knocked and he answered. Pulling the handle, she went in.

  “Good morning, sir. I’m late. I am very sorry.”

  He recognized her immediately, she saw his eyes narrow.

  “Helper McKinley, is it?” He leaned back in his chair, assessing.

  Gemma nodded. Her clothes were damp, and she was cold, and her nipples were like pebbles poking against the many layers of her shirts. She hated the reaction but was powerless to change it.

  He noticed - and smiled.

  “Only now coming in?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Do you have an explanation?”

  “I… there were disturbances on the streets last night, and I got home very late. I overslept. I apologize.”

  While she was rambling out her excuses, he got up and approached circling her like a predator he was. He stood so near that she could feel his body heat and smell the cloying fragrance of his aftershave. Where did he manage to get aftershave from, anyway? Regular people had to boil their soap, for there was none to be had in the City. They read about aftershave in magazines. That is, if they had access to a reading screen.

  A hypocrite and abuser o
f his position.

  He smiled warmly at Gemma. “You’re forgiven. Nothing can be done about your lost pay…”

  He trailed off and tapped an index finger across his lips as if considering exceptions for her transgression. His eyes, impassively cold and hotly appraising at the same time, openly roamed over her chest.

  “I understand, sir. I will do better next time,” Gemma rushed to assure him.

  Screw the money, the last thing she wanted was a favor from him. Not if she could help it, and she was very much afraid that soon she wouldn’t be able to. He was enjoying the novelty of her, this game of innuendo, his little chase, savoring the anticipation. But he wouldn’t want to wait long.

  “May I please receive my stun stick?”

  His brows rose slightly, but luckily for Gemma, he chose to postpone his pursuit of her breasts for the time being.

  “Follow me,” he said curtly and led her out of his office to the counter behind which a secured rack of stun weapons was located. He unlocked it and gave her one, notating her time in in the ledger with a fat note “tardy.”

  Feeling like she dodged a fast bullet, Gemma climbed the stairs to the third floor where Arlo and Ruby crowded her with questions. She re-told them the events of the last night and even groused about losing her coat to the unknown migrant girl.

  “Scatterbrain,” said Ruby.

  “Idiot,” said Arlo.

  They exchanged light banter while doing absolutely nothing productive. Sharing Uncle Drexel’s accident with Ruby and Arlo seemed to have affected their mood and made her partners introspective.

  The entire cell block seemed introspective. Perhaps the general unrest of the City penetrated the thick concrete walls of the prison and affected the inmates. Everyone was on guard as if waiting for something to happen. Tension filled the air.

  At lunch, Little Green Man received his ration and licked the gruel twice before dumping it on the floor. He proceeded to roll around in the gooey contents of his bowl with self-abasing pleasure, grunting and moaning, as Gemma and Ruby watched helplessly on.