Right now, Jen felt they were once again two young kids lost in this ugly world created by his mother. Lost, clinging to one another, wishing all was different. Jen inhaled a long breath to speak but realized Danny wasn’t wearing his usual expensive cologne.
“You’re not wearing that stink water,” she said to break up the grief that now hung in the air. She hoped it would at the least make Danny smile.
“I wanted to see you, and after the factory, I wanted to smell like you,” he replied.
Danny held Jen then, grasping her as if for salvation. The desire to hurt him faded away, and in that moment, Jen wanted nothing more than to shield him from all the ugly the world offered.
“We need to stop her. We can’t wait any longer,” Jen said, clinging to Danny. They were in a lifeboat of their own making, sitting on rickety patio furniture in a forgotten home.
Danny leaned back, in his eyes. He brought Jen’s hand to his mouth and kissed it.
Jen said, “But first you need to help me with something.” She hated to ask anyone for anything, especially Danny, especially at this moment, so tender, so real, but she had to, she had to.
“You need to help me get my parents out of Nutri-Corp City.”
Danny’s eyes widened with terror, but Jen held his gaze and continued, “Let me tell you about Chandler and The Hills.”
Hours after she had first met up with Danny, Jen burst into the library, sweating and wiping her hands on her jeans over and over, panting. Lola, Chandler, and Suzy sat on the library couch watching her, waiting for whatever doom she was about to throw at them.
“We have to leave now,” Jen blurted after catching her breath. “I met Danny. He told me a Hunt is happening tonight.”
All hopped to their feet, Chandler and Suzy going for their bags.
Lola was the only one who didn’t rush. She looked at Jen and said, “So soon? They just had one, not even a week ago.” Lola nodded toward Chandler.
Chandler was pale, her bright blue eyes now shadowed. “Whatever, we need to leave now,” Chandler said. Sweat trickled down her neck, lapped up by her t-shirt. Sweat beaded on her upper lip and forehead, but she wasn’t hot. Chandler looked at Suzy, and something that had to be panic swelled in her chest, making it hard to breathe. Her lips then her whole face trembled.
The room began to spin. Chandler felt as if she were drowning in swamp water, thick and rancid. Her vision blurred. Chandler fell to her knees, sobbing. Fear nailed her to the floor. The Hunt was coming. She’d escaped them once, but what were the chances of her escaping again? None. She’d be caught and double punished for escaping. Chandler felt her breath quicken, her chest heave. She could do nothing to stop it.
Jen and Lola stared at each other and cast glances out the windows, looking for Poppers or drones. They looked down at Chandler then at each other, both asking the silent question, should they leave her?
Also asked, could they live with themselves if they did? Lola could. Jen could. But what about Suzy? Would Suzy understand her sisters’ choice to leave behind a panic-stricken Chandler to save their own skins?
“We must leave now,” Lola said pointblank. She hoped her words were forceful enough to impel Chandler into action. But she wasn’t. It was useless. No matter what she said, Chandler would not move, and if she did, she’d make too much of a fuss. With her they couldn’t escape unnoticed back into the woods and to the safety of Gardener camp.
Jen looked at the ceiling, losing any good will she might have had for Chandler. But Chandler had held her down when she would have gone straight for her mother and gotten shot by a Shaky. Chandler had taken Jen’s chaos at that moment and swallowed it, controlling her and the situation. Now, Jen looked down at Chandler, lost as to what to do. Her eyes darted from Chandler to Suzy, Suzy to Chandler. She knew who she’d save, friendship be damned.
The third time Jen’s eyes went to Suzy she found her little sister lying on her belly, her dirty face inches from Chandler’s, her small hands wiping Chandler’s tears away and leaving behind smudges of dirt. Suzy spoke to Chandler in whispers.
Lola smiled when Suzy blew her bangs out of her eyes, that so familiar gesture of Suzy being Suzy.
Suzy stood, pulling Chandler up with her. Quiet now and somewhat composed, Chandler’s shoulders slouched. In fear? Shame? Jen couldn’t tell.
“We leave now.”
Lola spoke to the room, the books, her sisters, and Chandler. She hoped her voice thundered. She hoped her words would become a veil to protect them from the evil now on the way.
“We can’t hide,” said Suzy, mimicking her big sister's voice.
“We will go fast,” said Jen, nodding at both Lola and Suzy.
“We will win,” said Chandler, finally making eye contact with Lola and Jen.
“Maybe...” said Suzy, shrugging and smiling at all three.
Chapter Fourteen
And She Did
Laverne had been leaving work when she got took. She didn’t know how long ago that was. All she’d known since was she was being kept in a cage, in the dark. She managed to sleep but woke to stare at nothing, watching others being taken outta them cages, one by one by one. No explanation. Nothing. Nobody would even look her in the eye.
Besides losing track of time, Laverne had lost track of herself. She forgot where she started and stopped. She felt no separation from the dirt on the cage floor or the metal of the bars. She could smell the dirt on her, in her. It was on her teeth, wrapped up in her hair and brain. Every day, she sat in the muck of her cage watching the dark around her and trying to scrape the dirt off her tongue with her teeth. Sometimes when the dark got to be too much, she pretended the dirty film that rolled off her tongue was buttery biscuit leftovers from a hearty dinner.
Laverne brought her hands up to her nose to smell them, wishing she could smell the clean scent of Dove soap on her skin. Instead, she smelled nothing but yuck. She couldn’t tell the difference between dirt, feces, and urine anymore. It had all became a clay that she rolled around in like a pig. This got her to thinking that’s what who took her wanted. She was nothing but an animal sitting in her own shit forgotten for another day, and another, and another.
So wrapped up in her own stink it didn’t matter what day it was anymore.
She knew she was next. Cages all around her had been empty for some time now. They took an older man a while ago. No tellin’ how long. They’d took the skinny little white girl next to her but not Laverne. Not yet. But her time was coming.
She didn’t know if she’d fight the mens when the time came. Could she even fight the mens? She didn’t know if she could be strong like that. She smelled her hands again, thinking that something that smelled that rotten wouldn’t be strong enough to fight. No, she did not think so.
Laverne had a bad feeling about being last. They were saving her, but she didn’t know for what. The mens who came and took people didn’t talk. They said nothing but poked people with sticks and pointed until the person walked outta their cage and left the room with them.
When those mens left, Laverne would hear laughing on the other side of the door, as if this were all one big joke. Sitting in her filth for what she assumed had been weeks, Laverne had lost all faith someone would rescue her.
The first days in this hell pit Laverne had believed her husband would call the police, or what was left of the police, and report her missing. The police would then go looking for her, bust through the door, and take her back home to The Hills.
Days passed. Nothing happened. People got took. She stayed. All they did was put tray after tray of food in her cage. Bread, meat mostly but the best eatin’ she’d had in a long while. It wasn’t until her pants started to fit too tight that Laverne realized they been fattening her up.
She didn’t know if the stories she heard in The Hills were true, how people went missing. Laverne’s husband heard tell that those missing people ended up in Nutri-Corp City.
Nobody knew what happened to them af
ter that. Laverne had a bad feeling she had found out. The first half, anyway.
When the doors opened this time, Laverne watched the mens grab sticks that were leaning against a wall. Same sticks they used on everybody they were about to use on her. She knew it. She wished she could grab one of those sticks and beat them with it. She’d poke their eyeballs out for keeping her locked up, away from her husband, stuffing her with food like a pig ready for the slaughter. But she smelled herself, and that made her feel nasty and weak.
The mens headed right for Laverne, and she decided she wasn’t going to fight. ‘Cause anything was better than the cage. She wasn’t sure where she was going was better, but she knew it would be different. Sometimes, different was better.
Laverne looked the mens in the eyes as they approached. They glared at her with an expression she’d seen before: like she was nothing, less than nothing, and they could do anything they wanted with her. She changed her mind real quick. Sometimes different wasn’t better, and she was in no mood to be beat. Instead, she stood when they opened her cage and walked to the door she’d watched others go to, bracing herself to hear the laughter.
On the other side of the door, both men let out a howl. “Woo-wee! Man, you smell darling,” said one.
“She smells like a feed yard,” said the other. They bellowed together.
Laverne knew she smelled, and she would not be bothered by their jokes. She was standing in light. It was fake light. Inside light, but after being in the dark for so long, it almost felt like sunshine on a cold winter morning.
“We are going for a little outing, my darling, dear,” said the fatter and uglier of the two men. Fat and ugly to Laverne, anyway. Her husband was a handsome man with eyes as green as spring grass.
“Yes, a bit of a run, I think,” said the other.
That was when they put a bag over her head and tied her hands. Laverne thought about her kitchen. It had taken her years to get it right. The right color walls, the right plates. She even had a perfect tea kettle and cups to match, but Laverne knew she’d never sit in her kitchen again.
One on either side of her, they walked her outside. She knew outside from the fresh, clean air, so different from the cages. She wished they’d take the bag of her head for a few seconds. So she could see outside one last time. The men picked her up and put her somewhere hard, with a metal floor. Something slammed, and then two more slams, like car doors. A truck. They’d put her in a truck bed. The truck started and pulled away.
The truck bounced hard on the road, making her flop around and making her bones pop. She didn’t know where she was going, but the truck moving made a breeze that came through the bag. Laverne breathed in the fresh air.
She smelled pine. She smelled wet. It smelled like life.
Time was nothing anymore, she didn’t know how long they traveled. The truck came to a stop. Both men pulled at her feet and dragged her to the edge of the open tailgate. They stood her up like some no good drunk. She wanted to tell them she could stand by her own self if theys just take the bag off her head.
She couldn’t understand what they were playing at. Maybe they were taking her back home to The Hills.
They yanked the bag from her head. Laverne blinked and looked around, seeing nothing but Georgia pines sky high. She tried to look around some more, but the ugly man blocked her from seeing nothing but him. He cut the zip ties off her wrists and ankles. He put his face up in hers and snarled.
“We’re gonna play a game, darling. I say, ‘Boo!’ and you run like your life depends on it.”
“‘Cause it does...,” said the skinny man, trying to stifle his laughter.
Laverne looked at both men, and the sound of a trumpet thundered close by. She heard music, laughter. She wondered who those people are and what they got to laugh about.
“Run, darling,” the fat man said. “Run for your life.”
And she did.
“It’s filthy,” said the cook, nose wrinkling as she kicked the body once called Laverne. Her assistant had tossed the carcass on the slab inside the shed nicknamed The Butcher Shop by everyone except the cook.
“It’s fresh,” replied the cook's assistant, shrugging. He studied Laverne’s body no doubt estimating her weight and calculating the amount of meat she’d render. “What you gonna make with this?” he asked the cook.
“Cut off its head, then scrub the body down. Don’t need no legs or arms. Just the torso,” said the cook, holding a white linen napkin over her nose.
As her assistant got to work, the cook’s thoughts churned in her head. What, indeed, was she going to make with this? What could she conjure up for Madam’s feast that would keep her in Madam’s good graces, that would keep the cook off the street and far away from the muzzle of a Shaky or the pointy end of meat hook herself.
“Well,” the cook mused. She looked at her assistant with disdain. He was a nervous young guy, mostly hired for his muscle and his lack of tics. He’d once gone to culinary school and had wanted to specialize in cheeses. Cook rolled her eyes every time she thought of “cheeses.” She’d spent her days working as a lunch lady at the school down the block from her home in Old Town when Nutri-Corp and YUM happened.
She pushed that unwanted memory aside and opened her mouth to tell her assistant something. “ACK!” was all that emerged. Cook pinched her lips closed. Her tic was verbal: random words, grunts, gagging sounds sprang from her mouth without warning. She could mostly control it, but butchering days put her nerves on edge, generating more tics. It also meant she’d be nervous around Madam, and Madam hated tics. Cook hated herself.
She tried again, “UH! Make sure you wash everything and bring it to the… ACK! …house nice and clean...”
“Got it,” said her assistant, so she wouldn’t have to talk more. She was grateful for that. She told herself to not be so ill-tempered with the young man. He, like she, was doing what it took to survive.
“Is this the one, that last one?” asked her assistant, scrub brush and bucket of soapy water in hand.
“Yes, the one they’ve been… GACK! …saving for this dinner. Fattening it up,” answered Cook. She didn’t need her assistant to go on with his questions. She didn’t care to recite the details.
Time to get back to Madam’s house where Cook had been working on sauces for the big dinner. A good sauce could cover up the oddness of the meat, disguise it for those at the dinner who did not know exactly where the protein came from.
Cook hustled away from the shed, as if her own morals chased her, nipping at her calves.
“I want to go to the party.”
Dolly squirmed from her mother's embrace, tumbling onto the bed. She gave her mother a stern look but thought better of it, knowing innately her mother was a thing of wrath, a mother who should not be poked, prodded, or pushed.
Dolly rubbed her arm, looking down at the marks Madam’s fingers had left. When Dolly had pulled away from her yesterday, Madam and dug her long nails into Dolly’s skin. Not deep enough to draw blood but enough to show.
Dolly swallowed and lowered her eyes, remembering Danny’s warning to be careful with Madam, always careful. “Don’t be naughty,” Danny would say. “Madam can sometimes be not so nice.”
“Can I please go to your party?” Dolly repeated, kindly, sweetly, making sure her words dripped with love.
“Yes,” said Madam. The word rolled from Madam’s mouth like a purr, and she smiled softly. The next words, though, had a certainty, a finality about them: “When you are old enough.”
Madam stepped back, and Dolly was mesmerized by her mother’s tight blue dress. The fabric shined against her mother’s skin. Dolly wondered if she would ever grow up to be as perfect as her mother.
“Go to sleep. Ms. Ava will watch over you until morning,” Madam said.
As Dolly scooted under her covers, Madam stroked the girl’s curls the way someone touched a rare jewel, with gentle fingertips, not daring to mar it.
Dolly scrunched her ey
es as Madam walked away. Something was wrong with her mom, but she didn’t know what. Did that mean something wrong with her, too? Dolly thought there was, but she knew to never tell Madam how she felt.
Sometimes when her mother tried to fix things, the results weren’t wonderful.
Several minutes after Madam left, Dolly’s bedroom door slowly opened then silently closed. Something crossed the room to her bed, and she waited under her blankets with only her nose sticking out, anticipating who she hoped it was.
A fingertip pressed her nose, and Dolly heard the words she’d been waiting for.
“Ding Dong, anybody home?” the voice asked.
“No! Go away!” responded Dolly, trying not to giggle.
“Seriously? You’d send away your one and only bro?”
Dolly whipped the blanket off her head and responded with, “Fine!” Her face scrunched up, trying its best to display annoyance, but the giggling won out. Danny always felt right to Dolly. Danny felt safe when mom did not.
“Is she gone?” asked Dolly, eyeing the door.
“Yes,” answered Danny, looking towards the door himself.
This was her moment. Dolly had to spill it all right now.
“I’m going to tell you something,” Dolly said, squinting at her brother. “Promise not to tell Mom... Uh, Madam?” She corrected herself, and when she looked at Danny her eyes welled with tears.
“Go ahead,” Danny calmly answered. “You know I never tell.”
Dolly inhaled a deep breath and wiped away her tears. “I’m scared of her.” Again, she looked to the door before she continued, “And I don’t know why.”
Danny would know why his sister, the pretty doll, the perfect baby born of YUM, raised on YUM, Madam’s trophy child, was afraid of their mother. Their mother the sadist. Their mother the villain. Their mother the destroyer of all good and wonderful things. He knew, and Dolly knew he could give her a list of their mother’s sins right now. But would he?
Garden : A Dystopian Horror Novel Page 10
