World After Geezer: Year One

by Penn Gates

  “It looks like there are tw—three of you that need medical assistance right away. I'll get Cash—he’s the one that was in here before—to carry them outside. Is that all right?”

  Still no response.

  “Who can walk out that door under her own power, and who needs assistance?”

  Nobody responds to that question either.

  “Thirteen of the folks here are young men—some of them Mennonites,” she continues in a soothing voice. “Do you know about Mennonites? They believe in non-violence. They believe in honoring women.” She raises her right hand. “I swear to you, they will not hurt you.”

  She looks at each of the girls individually and hopes they can see her sincerity. “I'm going to ask Cash to come back in because we need to get those three girls some care right now or they're not going to make it.”

  Nix steps to the door and signals. “Get the dead girl out of here,” she whispers to him. “Don't cover her face, though. I told them they can watch out the windows to make sure it's safe, and I'm not sure they know she's gone.”

  Cash nods and walks very slowly toward the front of the camper, his hands at his sides. He squats down next to the still form.

  “She's dead, isn't she?” a painfully thin girl asks in an emotionless voice.

  He looks up at her. “She is,” he says thickly. “I'm sorry.”

  Her expression doesn't change. “Can I go with her?”

  Nix looks at her closely. It sounds like she's asking to die, but Cash responds literally to the request.

  “Sure. We all need a friend to sit with us at our wake." He bends down and lifts the still form. “It's good she can be outside, you know. It makes it easier for her to find her way to heaven.”

  The girl's expression still doesn't change, but tears leak from her eyes.

  Cash pauses at the door. “I need help to carry those two other girls outside. Please don't be afraid. Rick DeJesus is a decent man." It seems to Nix that Cash has used Rick's last name to subliminally reassure them. Clever. Or, is the word kind?

  When Rick steps through the door, he crosses himself. “El Diablo,” he whispers under his breath.

  “Not now,” Nix says. She points. “The girl over there—carry her out—and gently.” She lowers her voice. “Rick, you ever try to save a stray dog?”

  He stares at her. “Yeah, once.”

  “Remember that animal's fear? Make no sudden moves. Say what you're going to do before you do it. Understand?”

  By the time Nix steps out of the camper behind the last girl, she can't smell the decay and excrement and other things she'd rather not positively identify. Her olfactory nerves have stopped sending signals to her brain. She stands gulping in breath after breath of fresh air while she surveys the surreal scene in front of her.

  Margaret, in her Mennonite bonnet and apron, strides rapidly around the corner of the house and stops dead. Gaunt figures in tattered rags are slumped over on the grass. Margaret goes white as a sheet, her knuckles pressed to her mouth as if holding in a scream. Just behind her, Douglas carries the medical kit and a pile of old blankets.

  Doug, who in the heat of the day has resorted to wearing his droopy gangsta shorts and another of Gramps' sleeveless undershirts, drops everything and grabs Margaret's other hand. Nix can’t hear him, but she can read his lips. “It’s OK. I’m right here.”

  Gone is the sniveling addict she'd threatened to kill a short time ago, and she knows fear has nothing to do with this transformation. How could a culture-fucked brat like Doug fall for a plain Mennonite girl like Margaret? Maybe it's true. Love does has a logic of its own.

  Margaret regains her composure almost immediately. Nix heads toward that calm in the eye of the storm as she calls, “Just tell me what you need, and I'll make it happen.”

  “I must look at each of them to find the ones who are most ill,” Margaret says.

  “Those two over there,” Nix says, pointing. “They were unconscious when we found them—and they still haven’t moved.”

  “I will examine them first. The rest—“ Margaret looks around. “They will need to be cleaned up. There is no way to know what is under the filth." She shakes her head. “Mien Gott! I would not have believed anyone could be so cruel to their fellow beings.”

  Brittany has her arm around Mary's shoulders. “Go make some, uh, very thin oatmeal. I don't think they'll be able to keep anything else down.”

  Mary scurries off, looking at Nix with anguished eyes as she passes her.

  “Mary shouldn't be out here,” Brittany says, as if she expects Nix to order her back. “She's too young and—”

  “Innocent,” Nix says, “Is the word you're looking for. When it comes to shit this depraved, I think we're all too innocent." She pats Brittany's arm. “I'm sorry you have to go through this. If there was anybody else—”

  Brittany shakes her head. “Don’t worry about me. These girls need all the help we can give them.”

  “That fucker will pay,” Nix says fiercely. She turns her attention to the cluster of young men who are standing silent and awkward to one side of the scene. They learned quickly these brutalized women are too terrified of males to accept any assistance from them.

  “Hey, feeling bad isn't going to change anything. Start lugging buckets of hot water over here, and stand by to grab the empties and refill them. And I probably don’t need to tell you—no loud talking." Nix points at David. “Find some tarps if you can. These girls need to be cleaned up, and they should have some privacy at a time like this.”

  As they all move in different directions, Nix stands motionless. Where will they put them? Not just tonight, but from now on. It's too much. They keep coming, not in the ravening hordes she’d feared, but in small, bedraggled bunches, so needy that no one with a shred of decency could turn them away. She wants to cry. She wants to rage against fate. She wants to beat that depraved bastard to death with a club.

  “Come on, you need to get off your feet for a second." Cash is at her side, a look of concern on his face.

  “That's right, single out the old lady.” She tries to smile. “Age discrimination is illegal, and I can arrest you for that—I’m still a cop.”

  “I mean it, Nix. Take a break.” He looks pretty stressed himself. Like he’s aged 5 years in the last hour.

  “Are you kidding? Look around you. There's only a few of us that can get near enough to tend to them.”

  “I know, but five minutes—just walk away for five minutes before you start. You went through shit in that trailer nobody else did. You got them out single-handed.”

  “You were the one that had to carry out a dead body,” she responds.

  Nix has a sudden thought. “Where's George?”

  Cash shrugs. “Haven't seen him. Must still be in the house with the kids.”

  “Well then, I'll just go find him. Be back in a tic.”

  “Nix—”

  But Nix is half way to the house, and the more she thinks of George in there hiding from the horror of what they've found, the madder she gets.

  “George! George!” she yells as she slams into the kitchen.

  Martin has plainly been crying, and George is squatting in front of him, talking softly. But he is uncharacteristically angry when he looks up at Nix. “Stop it!” he says. “The kinder are scared enough already. They have just spent an hour closed in a dark hole.”

  “Let's take it outside then, Nanny,” Nix answers flatly.

  George turns toward his sister. “Mary, will you—”

  “Never mind issuing orders,” Nix snaps. “Mary is already doing something useful. She's making food—for our patients.”

  “Nix,” Mary falters. “Brittany did not say. How many are there?”

  Martin, scared to death. Mary, trying to keep it together—Nix knows she needs to get herself under control before she can calm anyone else. Cash is right. She needs to take five and find some peace or she won't be fit to get near those fear-crazed girls.

>   “I don't honestly know,” Nix says slowly. “Maybe a half dozen. Don't worry about having enough. They won't be able to eat much at first."

  For the first time Nix notices the other kids sitting around the kitchen table, watching her with big, round eyes. “Listen, you guys—it turns out there was only one bad guy, and we have him all tied up. But there were some folks in the camper that he hurt, and it would be better if you stayed inside while we take care of them.”

  Nix fixes a steely stare on the Apostles, who are usually the ringleaders in any mischief. “Get some games from the parlor and take them to my office. Everybody who sits quietly on the floor and plays without arguing can have peaches and cream for supper.”

  “You—” She points to George. “Get moving.”

  As soon as they're on the back porch, George turns on her. “You should not be speaking to me like that in front of the children—”

  “Shut up!” Nix snaps. “I've never understood your pacifism, but I could respect you for following your principles. I just never figured you for a total coward.”

  “You have enough people with guns,” he says stiffly.

  “I'm not talking about physical cowardice. If there is such a thing as evil, the results of it are outside lying on the grass—and that's what you’re scared to face.”

  George stands stony-faced, refusing to defend himself.

  Nix moves closer to him and stares straight into his eyes. “You need to understand what that monster did to those girls. You’re going to look inside that camper and see the filth they were forced to live in.”

  George turns his head away, but Nix grabs his jaw and forces him to look back at her.

  “Because when we get to the part where we decide what to do with that son-of-a-bitch and I have to listen to your sanctimonious bullshit about forgiveness, at least I'll know you're not speaking from willful ignorance.”

  Nix stands there, breathing hard from her tirade. Her expression is still angry, and she seems unaware that tears are trickling down her cheeks. “Go on!” she says. “Go see what he did to them.”

  The sight of Nix crying seems to impress George far more than the words she's hurled at him. He nods mutely, but as he steps off the porch, Nix adds, “When you’re done looking, you’ll need to build another coffin. One of the girls was already dead when we found her.”

  ◆◆◆

  Somehow Nix managed to bury her feelings during the long hours of the afternoon while she helped bathe and dress women too weak to sit up by themselves. She rubbed ointment on open sores and combed lice out of their hair, and fed them gruel, a spoonful at a time. She'd noted the coffin when it was brought for the dead girl. And she paused to watch them take the prisoner to the barn. Beyond that, everything blurred together, and when finally someone told her there was no more to do, she was so exhausted she was certain she'd fall into a deep sleep once she showered and changed her clothes.

  Unfortunately, as soon as she's alone under the shower, scrubbing viciously at her skin and wondering if there's enough soap in the world to wash away the smell that seems to cling to her, the rage resurfaces like lava. She knows that worthless fucker is going to die, and there’s no time like the present.

  Nix scrambles into her clothes and stumbles across the darkening yard toward the big barn. She sees the glow of a lantern and curses. They didn't leave a light on for the prisoner. Someone's in there guarding him.

  The reality is, there are two guards—Terry and a guy Nix has barely spoken with.

  “What's your name again?” she snaps at the kid.

  “Colton—Colt,” he answers, standing a little straighter.

  “Hey Nix,” Terry says. “How ya doing?”

  “Where's the pimp?” Nix says, ignoring his question.

  Terry jerks his thumb over his shoulder. “We got him locked in the cooler where they stored the apple cider.”

  “Isn't that airtight?” she asks.

  “We'll find out in the morning, won't we?" Nix can almost hear Cash saying it. Seems Terry, too, has come down with a case of hero worship.

  “Let's find out now,” Nix says. “Where's the key?”

  “I don't have it,” Terry says, looking alarmed as he catches sight of Nix's expression. “In fact, it's not here.”

  “Come on, Terry,” Nix says menacingly. “Give me the fucking key.”

  “He told you he didn't have it.”

  Nix whirls around to face Cash. Pony Boy must have run to get him.

  “Then you do, Cash. Give it to me. I've got one last thing to clean up before I go to bed." Nix pulls her gun.

  “Fellas, step outside for a minute, would you? Nix and I need a little alone time.”

  He watches them leave and then, so fast she doesn't see it coming, he spins and grabs both her wrists and pushes her against the wall of a horse stall. “Drop it,” he says quietly. “We'll go somewhere and talk and you'll feel better. I promise.”

  After a moment, Nix nods and stops struggling.

  Cash nudges her from behind as they walk along the familiar path. “I don't want to go fishing,” Nix grumbles. “And I don't want to go swimming." She glances over her shoulder. “But maybe we could drown him. Let's go back and get him.”

  “Get in the boat,” Cash says, and then pushes it farther into the water before jumping in himself. He rows to the center of the pond and ships the oars.

  “We can't just shoot him like the rabid dog he is,” he says. “You realize that, don't you?”

  “The hell we can't!”

  “Stop,” he says. “Just listen for a change." For a moment, she thinks he means for her to listen to the sloshing of the water against the side of the boat, but he continues to speak. “He's got to die for what he did. We agree on that. And even if we didn't believe in capital punishment, there's no other choice—we sure as shit can't turn him loose. He'd go somewhere else and do it all again.”

  “That's what I've been saying, isn't it?”

  “It's how we do it,” Cash says quietly. “The process has to include everybody, except for the youngest kids. They all need to hear the victims testify. And those victims will have to speak for the dead girl.”

  “A kind of trial,” Nix breathes. “George isn't going to like his sisters exposed to that.”

  “I'd say they've already been exposed to more than most people see in a lifetime,” Cash says. He's silent for a second. “George can’t handle the responsibility for takin’ a life. If it makes him feel better, we can make him the guy's advocate—like his defense attorney.”

  “That might change his whole view of the world.”

  “I hope not,” Cash says. “The kind of belief in goodness that George has is a rare quality.”

  Nix doesn't comment on George. He mostly irritates her because she can't understand where he's coming from or how he got there.

  “I'll start talking to the girls as soon as they're strong enough,” she says instead. “It wasn't only perps I interviewed. I talked to victims all the time." She takes a gulp of air and keeps talking. “I bet we can get the whole thing over and done with in less than a week. Then we can shoot him.”

  “No.”

  “What do you mean, no? You just said we're going to put him down.”

  “I know you've killed in the line of duty—but it was in self defense, or to protect someone. It's not the same as an execution.”

  “So you have experience in executions, do you?”

  “Snipers don't execute criminals. They kill the enemy—maybe when he's takin' a piss or in the middle of sayin’ something he doesn't know will be his last words—and we hope he was really one of the bad guys.”

  Nix hears something in his voice she can't quite define. Regret? Guilt? It's hard to identify emotions in others. She can zero in on certain kinds of behavior that are clues to solving a crime, but she's always consciously ignored the feelings behind the behavior. By now, it's second nature to her. For the first time, she wonders if there's something w
rong with her.

  “Did you see that?” Cash asks suddenly, pointing to the horizon. “It was a shootin’ star. Means good luck.”

  “I don't believe in luck,” Nix says immediately.

  “Sure you do. You just believe in bad luck.”

  “I think another of those girls is going to die,” Nix says in a whisper. “I don't want to go back into that house.”

  “I have an idea,” Cash says and dips the oars into the water.

  “You never run out of those, do you?” Nix mumbles, slumped on the plank seat opposite him.

  “I'm gonna show you something—something I bet you never saw before,” Cash tells her and then falls silent as he rows to the other side of the pond.

  “Come on, get out.” He offers a hand, which she ignores.

  Once they've climbed up the bank, Cash says, “Close your eyes and don't open ‘em 'til I tell you.”

  She hears his footsteps rustle in the dry weeds somewhere ahead of her. “Hey, I'm walking around blind. I'll step in a woodchuck hole and break my ankle.”

  She feels a sudden tug on the end of Gramps' wide leather belt. Nix has never had the heart to cut off the extra length hanging down from the buckle. It would seem like severing another connection to his memory.

  “Just follow me,” Cash whispers. “And be very quiet.”

  Nix reluctantly does as he asks, feeling in front of her before each step. She's always hated any loss of control. For some reason it feels soothing tonight, like she can be a little kid again during a short intermission while reality sets up more surprises behind the curtain.

  “Are we there yet?” she whispers.

  “Almost."

  They stop, and Nix feels Cash release the end of her belt.

  “Count to ten and open your eyes,” Cash whispers in her ear.

  “Are we gonna play hide-and-seek?” Nix whispers back, “Because I don't want to.”

  “Close enough,” Cash whispers. “You can look now.”

  The darkness behind her lids gives way to the darkness of the night, but the night is filled with a thousand twinkling lights like fairy dust in a Disney movie.

  “It's magical,” Nix breathes, and then just stands there drinking in the scene. They're at the edge of some sort of meadow and the night mist hangs low over the ground. She imagines she's standing on a cloud watching the stars dip and swirl in their eternal dance above and all around her.