by catt dahman
“We aren’t eating?” Connie asked.
“You will later; trust me.”
John motioned to Connie to put her cuffs on and checked them. Neither of the women could get loose. “You need to see something.”
They were in cuffs and ankle shackles; both women were taken outside with John. “I need for you to see and understand but remain very, very calm.”
The air was crisp and smelled wonderful; it made Alice desperate to get free.
“This is the smoke house,” he pointed it out. “We can butcher and then smoke meat or salt it.” He let them go inside.
Alice felt a wave of déjà vu. She looked around for a nail or something like that to sneak away.
“Some meat we use, and some we dry to make jerky and put it away for the bad days that are coming.”
There was no smoke in the building, but they could smell that there had been: savory, dark, and faintly sweet. It wasn’t a new building, but it was clean and had drains set into the concrete floors.
It seemed somehow familiar to Alice.
The women blinked to understand what they were seeing. From a rack, a man hung with a barbed holder shoved through his nose and into his brain. He was naked and dark from the wood smoke and only barely swung from his hook.
Connie leaned over to vomit into a drain, sure that if she had missed the drain, she would have been beaten badly.
Alice tried to scream, but no sound came out.
“Did Tara tell you she lost her husband?” John asked. “She cried and screamed and carried on something awful over him.”
Alice fell backwards onto her butt as she watched the man.
“He died.”
“My God, that’s Nate,” Alice screamed as she saw the hanging carcass, slabs cut from his legs, arms, and buttocks.
“He was a fighter, though.”
Only Nate’s face remained untouched, but it was withered and dark like leather. He had been neatly gutted like a deer.
Alice got to her knees, unable to look away while Connie kept vomiting to the side. “Why did you do this?”
“I didn’t. Tom and Aaron did. And they did it because we don’t waste meat or any food.” He looked a little surprised that she had even asked.
“It’s not food; it’s a man.”
“It isn’t my favorite thing either, but we don’t waste. What were we to do? Bury him? That’s wasteful. His bones will go into the well when he’s all gone.”
“You killed him?”
“No, I didn’t. Luke did. How could Luke have gotten Tara back here if Nate were still around and fighting? He wasn’t a good husband to her; you should have seen his cell phone with porn on it and texts to other women. He also had drugs in the car: marijuana. That doesn’t sound like a good husband, does it? She has been given a second chance here.”
“She is being held hostage and is being tortured, and that is better?” Connie asked. “And you all are eating her husband? My God, John.”
“When God gave Adam and Eve the Garden of Eden, they didn’t have to eat meat. There was plenty of food, and the animals lived in peace, but after their wickedness, the peace vanished, and they had to cover themselves and fill their bellies with flesh.”
“But he’s human,” Alice croaked.
“When the bad times come, we will have to eat whatever we find to survive. That may include humans.” John shrugged calmly. “Alice, man is just an animal when he is dead. We have to prepare to eat whatever we can scavenge.”
“You’re sick, John.”
He nodded. “I know you think so.” He didn’t show that he was insulted. “Do you think we asked for life to be this way?”
He led the women back outside and allowed them to sit down again, since they both were shaking.
“Father didn’t get religion until Cain was born; I mean he was a Christian but not like he is now. When Cain was born, we could hear our mother crying and all….”
“She wasn’t in a hospital?”
“No, she gave birth here. Father started yelling, saying it was her fault, said that she had been proud and sinful. Let’s see, she was of this world and hankered after sinful things; I think she was always wanting pretty clothes and lotions, fancy girl things.”
“And Cain was her…punishment?”
“I guess so. Father set new rules and started reading the Bible to us a lot and preaching, sometimes.
Mama rolled her eyes and didn’t like it at all. She didn’t like giving up the television and telephone and such; then, she up and vanished on us a while after that…that really was hard not having a mother to grow up with; we needed a mama. And that taught us how women could be there one day and gone the next….”
“But you aren’t supposed to force a woman to stay. You date and fall in love and find trust. That’s how it is supposed to be,” Alice said.
“It isn’t always that way.”
“I see.”
He stared at the ground before he spoke, explaining again how bad it was growing up without a mother and how they had little to no trust in females, now.
They had been working the farm and planning this a very long time since their father had predicted the end of the world. “But he doesn’t use witchcraft. Father had a vision from God; the world is going to end soon.”
“John, that’s too silly for someone as smart as you to believe,” Alice told him. “I don’t think that God plans to do anything to the world or that He told just your father.”
“I’m just trying to explain things and teach you how we believe.”
“Okay, well…it helps.” Alice tried to sound encouraging, but her eyes kept darting to the door of the smokehouse and imagining Nate hanging there. “How does Mike fit in?”
“Mike, he’s the best.”
“He’s a cute kid. Whose is he?”
“Oh, my sister had him before she disappeared.” John’s lips drew tight. “After she got older and had gone through some bad times, she didn’t believe in things like we did.
When she was little, she was so good and sweet, and she never fought the changes we had to make, but she had some bad times, like I said, and then was a quiet teenager and maybe a little sullen; she wasn’t herself, I guess we could say.
Then one day, she came up pregnant. We were a little surprised. Father didn’t allow dating or anything like that, but then we worked it all out, and it was okay.”
For a while, their father had wanted to beat her but was afraid she would die and kill the baby, so he yelled a lot but didn’t hurt her. She also didn’t leave the farm again, and in four or five months, she delivered Mike.
“And then?”
“Then she up and disappeared again, just like Mama did.”
“So Mike isn’t Aaron’s son like he told me when he abducted me?” Alice mused.
“We kind of always say that Mikey is a lot like me, so we say he’s mine mostly,” John said and looked sad.
“I see.”
“You can’t go away; you need to try harder, Alice.”
“I have tried, but I don’t know all the rules or like being kept here against my will. What am I supposed to be trying to do?”
“To accept and work with us. You need to fit in and stay focused.”
“I am focused, and I want to live, but not this way.”
He sighed. “You keep saying that. This is the only way.”
Alice glared. “I can see why women would run away. You’re all crazy and mean to us.”
“Maybe so, we don’t intend to be mean, but we’ve done everything we can think of to help you. We’re not giving up; we’re trying. In case we’re right, you’re better off with us.”
Alice couldn’t think of how he thought rape and beatings weren’t mean. She was sure it was supposed to be a man teaching his females to follow the right path or something, which was infuriating as hell to her.
They looked up as Aaron came outside. “Connie, come spend time with me; I have something special planned, dinne
r later and a nice bath, and then, you can join the other women and get to know our new arrivals.”
He gently led her away, ignoring her quivering lips and wet eyes. “I won’t hurt you; you’ve been good today with all the chores.”
“She’s coming around,” John noted to Alice, “I think Aaron likes her. I think he likes her a lot.”
“Stockholm syndrome,” Alice responded. “Seeing him as a good person and going along is better than being beaten and raped and seeing dead men hanging on a hook. She is identifying with him as part of her own survival mechanisms.”
“How are you coping? Maybe her ways are better.” John stood, reached to help Alice to her feet, and then led her along a path where she had seen a barn, a workshop, a huge chicken coop, and gardens and fields of food.
Cuffed or not, as soon as she got a better idea of the lay out of the place, she was going to make a run to get a tree branch as a weapon. She watched for one on the path since she couldn’t get far in shackles.
An old, tire swung from a huge oak, and Alice could imagine a fresh breeze caressing her skin as she swept up and back, laughing as she pumped her legs to go higher, her dress tickling her as it flicked across her skin.
In the summer, there would be a strong aroma of honeysuckle and gardenias; her fingers would be stained purple from picking and eating fat blackberries, arms scratched from the thorns.
But for the cuffs, it was as if John were courting her by taking a nice walk. She shivered.
“Wow, what a nice day for a walk,” she sneered.
John suddenly pushed Alice forwards so she fell on her stomach, but she didn’t stop sliding. Her arms in front of her, she felt them and her head fall into space just as John grabbed her legs and feet firmly. Dirt and dead grass fell into her face as she hung upside down in a hole in the ground. The stench was unreal. It was old, stagnant water, with feces and rotting flesh. Please don’t let me fall in.
“Don’t fight me, Alice. I have you. Let go, and let me hold you; trust me, and just let go of your fears.”
She grimaced.
“You see and smell that?” John called.
She didn’t see anything but blackness in the hole but felt that it was a very deep, narrow tunnel downward, a little larger around than a manhole cover. She felt him let her slide, so she screamed as more soil fell in her face. John yanked her out, and she slapped at the dirt and bugs she felt were all over her as she pushed herself away from the hole.
“Down there are the bones of Jodie and a few more. They’ve been there a while now, not much more than bones and scraps, I suppose,” John said. “How did you know their names, Alice? How did you know Jodie and Robin?”
“Why do you care?”
“You have to tell me; that’s my job today: to learn how you know.” He looked hopeful for some reason.
“Their names? I’ll trade you secrets for that.” She narrowed her eyes.
“Trade?” John looked a little amused since he could beat it out of her if he so wished, but this was interesting, to see what trade she would make with him. He nodded, “Alright then.”
“They scratched them into the floor where we’re kept. I saw their names there.” She felt rebellious, seeing him take in that information. “They got their message across, didn’t they?”
“I guess they did. I’m glad they are no longer with us,” he said. “And your trade?”
“What was your sister’s name?”
John ignored her.
They didn’t like names very much, it seemed to Alice Names made them real people and not livestock.
On the news, when family members asked kidnappers to return their ones, they used the missing person’s name a lot to make them real people. She wondered if people were using her name to plead for her release. But her abductors wouldn’t see it since they didn’t have a television or a phone. That was interesting because it ruined any plan to find a phone and call for help.
“I told you a secret, John.” She wasn’t sure why she wanted to know but because he wouldn’t say, the name became important.
“You don’t repeat it to the others. Understand? I’ll beat you myself if you do.” He meant it. “I’m not supposed to tell you.”
“Okay.”
“Jennie. And never say her name.”
Alice glanced at the old well with its markers of random stones all around the edges. She wasn’t a psychic, but she would bet a million dollars that his sister, Jennie, had not run away as John said she did. Alice thought the girl’s bones were down there as well. Maybe their mother’s were, too. Who got her pregnant?
“Let’s go.” John flashed angry looks at her and refused to look at the old well again.
He knows or suspects they are down there, too, Alice thought. He isn’t sure, but yes, it has crossed his mind more than once. He’s looked at that well many times over the years and wondered, but he doesn’t suggest it aloud or ask.
He pushed and pulled her along too roughly.
“Sit down,” he ordered and locked her to the chair in the kitchen again while he stood, staring out the kitchen window until he took notice of Alice again.
She, as always, tested the cuffs, but they were secure.
He slammed a plate in front of her, and she reached for a cucumber with trembling fingers; it was tart with vinegar but muted with sugar and water and had a salty taste. It was very good and had a little bite to it. She had potatoes and a sliced tomato, too. After some rattling, he set a dish of steaming, buttery, scrambled eggs in front of her. “We have things to do, so eat all you can; there won’t be another meal tonight.”
“No roast?” Alice asked. It had smelled delicious, the fat was crispy, and the skin was peppered.
“Would you rather have that?” His look wasn’t encouraging.
Alice shrugged. “This is fine.”
“Down below, I guess they’ve cleaned their plates, huh? Do you think they were hungry? The new girls?”
“Probably.”
He ate the same as she ate and set the plates in the sink to be washed, and then sat with her in silence until Aaron came down and fixed plates for himself and Connie, bringing the woman in to sit at the table.
Her eyes were red from crying, but Connie sat and obediently ate her food, finishing every morsel and trying to smile meekly at Aaron as she complimented the ‘cukes’, the potatoes, and the roast.
When they finished, John put the dishes in the sink with detergent and hot water and then told the women it was time to go downstairs.
John removed the shackles and cuffs; Alice rubbed at her sore wrists, unhappy with the red welts she had.
Before Connie and Alice could step into the room, Aaron whispered two words to them to upset them both and to remind them of who was in control. Both women looked confused, and then Connie pushed past them to run to the potty chair and vomit violently, startling Audra and Brenda.
Alice caught John’s eyes and wondered why he had fixed her scrambled eggs, but he looked away from her. She didn’t speak but silently thanked him. She thought he might be angry with Aaron for telling them.
The new addition, the girl Alice just saw, Joanne, stayed very quiet and wouldn’t participate when Father came in later to read the Bible and ask them questions. They all responded the way they thought he wanted them to reply, but Joanne made a big show of remaining silent, arms folded and lips drawn tightly. Aaron slapped Joanne over and over for refusing to speak. He was sadistic.
Tara was still on her stomach, her wounds slightly better.
“ Nate roast,” Aaron had whispered. Alice would have screamed herself delusional if she had eaten any of the meat, but as it was, she shivered as she thought about the women being fed the roasted dead man. Connie vomited a long time, but neither explained to the other women.
6
Alice sat and rocked back and forth.
Connie vomited all night and refused breakfast even if it were eggs and fruit; sullenly, she would only drink the apple juic
e.
Audra spent hours going over every bit of the room, inch by inch, trying to find a loose piece of mortar or a way to get out. Maybe she was hopeful, but maybe she wanted a chore to keep her mind off of what was happening.
Brenda tried to talk sense into Mike when he brought food, but Aaron just laughed from the doorway at her efforts as Mike ignored her. He took a lot of time staring at Alice, looking at her with hope and a slight, shy smile.
Joanne took her beating silently, wiping at the blood on her face. Connie sat with her in a corner and whispered as she wept; she jumped as Joanne screamed the word, “Nate,” before her eyes rolled back in her head.
Aaron checked her and carried her away, and she didn’t return to the basement.
Several days had passed, broken only by Joanne’s going away and a few meals that Alice and Connie looked over before they touched.
Alice found another name etched into the floor in her corner, ‘Amy’. Then she found one along the far wall, ‘Nan’.
Tara and Alice didn’t speak at all as the days passed.
In time, Luke came in with Tom, and the men pulled Tara to her feet with a lot of effort while she screamed from the pain of her wounds breaking open to leak.
From the corner and unexpectedly, Maria, the new girl, bolted forward to slam a fist into Luke’s face, danced around and away from Tom, and flew through the doorway. The other women stared in shock at how fearsome she had looked and how she had taken action and managed to get out of the room.
She had only faint marks on her arms and legs, ran like a warrior, so many possibilities showed on her face as she tilted her chin to her chest and ran full out.
Of course, she was the newest addition and was not without hope, but still angry and eager to get free.
Tom raced after her. The other women lamented that they hadn’t run as well. Why hadn’t they all done this together? Brenda’s face was full of hope.
Luke dragged Tara with him. This distraction would not stop his mission.
Maria dodged into the kitchen and took a few precious seconds to pull a knife from the drawer before running out the door and into the yard.
Getting her bearings, she ran barefoot to the back of the smoke house where she stopped for a moment to get her breath.
