Women of the Grey- The Complete Trilogy

by Carol James Marshall

  That is how Kia had found this special door, the door that she believes is where the caged girl is kept. Maybe there were mothers in there, maybe not. Stepping forward, Kia smelled the air. The room smelled closed in. It wasn’t the smell of rot or mold, but of no breeze. There was no flow of air. It smelled still and stale.

  There was a desk in the room and one lamp with a very low light. Kia thought that was odd. The Mothers believed in efficiency. Everything had to work properly and to its full potential, “just like you girls.” Superior Mother would often make that joke and laugh at it while smiling at them.

  The girls would then giggle at Superior Mother and quickly go back to whatever they were working on. Kia didn’t giggle or make eye contact with Superior Mother. She found her terrifying.

  The desk had nothing on it. Turning around, Kia adjusted her sight to the low light, her eyes finally catching sight of the bars. Blinking, Kia took a couple steps forward to see the large metal bars that went from the floor to the ceiling.

  The bars looked sturdy and thick. That had to be the cage. Stepping closer still Kia could see the outline of a small school desk, bed, sink, and toilet. Peering through the bars, Kia could clearly see the outline of a little girl in the bed.

  She was kept in a cage! Kia frantically looked to the left and to the right. Where was the door? She’d let her out right now. She’d save this girl. Her thoughts raced. It felt like her eyeballs would pop out of her head when the little girl rolled over, opened her eyes and looked directly at Kia.

  “What’s your name?” Kia asked with a timid smile. “I’m Kia.”

  The little girl sat up, then got out of bed and walked over to where Kia stood. She smiled broadly at Kia. There was something different about her that Kia didn’t understand. They looked exactly the same; everyone in The Grey does, but this little girl felt different. She felt exciting to Kia.

  The caged girl responded “I’m Sunny.” Kia nodded and once again told herself to calm down.

  “I’ve heard a lot about you.” Kia gave Sunny a subtle shrug. “You are kind of famous.”

  Sunny wrinkled her lips and rolled her eyes. “The famous daughter of The Grey that’s locked in a cage?”

  Kia nodded, wrinkling her eyebrows at Sunny “Yea.”

  Sunny frowned at this, then shook her head. “Hi, Kia.”

  The two girls sat on the floor, each observing the other. Kia felt uncomfortable, as if at any moment she’d be seen, caught, and put in her own cage. But she couldn’t help wanting to stay. With the other girls, Kia spoke little. She spent most of her time listening, gathering information. Now, here she sat with Sunny, wanting to do the same, but not knowing how.

  Superior Mother watched the two girls from the monitors that fed from the cameras in Sunny’s quarters. She watched the them sit on the floor facing each other, nothing but bars between them. They spoke little and mostly observed each other like chimps at a zoo.

  Rubbing her ring, Superior Mother decided that she’d keep this to herself.

  June

  Sitting in the salon chair, June felt like she would burst. She knew exactly what she wanted. No, June told herself. She knew exactly what she needed.

  “I’d like you to color it black…the darkest black you have.” June paused, watching the stylist lift sections of her stringy platinum blonde hair and forced herself to speak on. “Also, I’d like you to teach me how to get it curly.”

  The hair stylist smiled then, finally dropping the lock of June’s hair she was holding. “I can do that. This is going to be epic.” She patted June on the shoulder and walked off.

  June felt a little punch in her chest. No Women of the Grey had ever changed their appearance before. June whispered to herself “All the same and none different.” Then crossed her legs and relaxed. “Not anymore.”

  June left the salon hours later with bouncy black curls that seemed to swirl around her head. She felt lighter, almost giddy. Walking down the street planning to hunt Lisa, but also to resupply herself with the Red Drug the mothers craved.

  Instead, June walked into a makeup shop and asked the clerk for the deepest shade of red lipstick they had. She wanted a lipstick that was slick and shiny, like a new car. The makeup clerk sat June on a stool. Grabbing a brush and a tube of lipstick, she skillfully lacquered June’s lips and handed her a mirror.

  In the mirror was no longer a Woman of the Grey. June now looked like a human woman, like any other in the city, with black curls tussled around her head and lips that were as red as the apples they grew in the gardens of the Grey.

  This was a triumph for June, a tremendous feat. She no longer looked like them all. She was different now, and that to June was everything. She had never wanted to be all the same, and none different. She had always wanted to be herself, for herself.

  It was in that moment, when June spied those red lips glazed over in the mirror, that her allegiance shifted. She was once a mother who believed in the cause. She had wanted to not only be saint of the cause, but to lead it. How dumb, June thought as she paid for a tube of the lipstick, sticking it in her jacket pocket. So much was clear now.

  Sunny

  Sunny was a watcher, always taking, but never giving information. She’d learned those survival skills early on as a captive of The Grey. She had also learned to never tell her secrets. The secrets were hers to keep. Today she quietly waited for one of the mothers to appear in her room. It was bath day and they always followed the same routine.

  Mother Jess or Cass would come with a robe and towels in hand. “We don’t want to be a messy little thing, do we?” They would then give her a broad ridiculous smile. Did they expect a high five from her?

  She always wanted to kill the mother who came. She could do it very easily by bringing on her real face. All she had to do was think about her anger. Soon Sunny would feel a surge of pure energy inside of her as her fingernails turned into claws and an icy vapor surrounded her. It was then, in her truest form, that she could slice a neck with a nibble from her needle teeth.

  Sunny’s only instinct was to kill. Her daily and hourly pastime was a self-reflection on the constant urge she had to shred whatever came in front of her. This caused great distraction. As she grew older, Sunny soon learned that she needed to keep this distraction to herself. If Superior Mother found out about her constant urges, her cage bars would only get thicker.

  Keeping her desire to kill to herself didn’t mean it went away. Today, bath day, she’d have to fight every step to stop herself from showing her real face, licking the ice off her lips, and enjoying killing with her claws. Sunny ignored the click of the door being opened. She was too engrossed in the idea of being free. Free from this cage. Free to kill as she wanted to.

  “Stop…stop…stop…” Sunny’s body began to shake and she could feel her fingernails sprout, becoming claws. She had to stop thinking about it or she’d lose it. “Stop it… stop it…”

  Mother Cass stood in front of Sunny’s cage door, as predicted, bathrobe and towel dangling from her arms. “Oh, what’s with that scary face?” She shook her head at Sunny. “That’s a no-no.” The mother then sat on the floor in front of the cage, humming to herself and winking at Sunny. “I think we’ll take a little breather before we try to handle bath day…what do you think, Sugar Plum?”

  The mother let the towels and bathrobe slip from her grasp. She leaned against a desk, staring at the wall and loudly humming. She lifted her arms to stretch and Sunny spotted several dirty marks on her skin and a set of keys on her beltloop.

  Sunny wasn’t sure how, but she knew both those things were vital to her escape.

  Teresa

  Teresa had forgotten the last time she had laughed. She had been thinking about laughter for hours now. The tone of laughter and the way it made your insides feel happy. It felt impossible to understand the concept of laughter. To explain to Uni how a noise made from the mouth represents happiness.

  The noise represents joy, which is the com
plete opposite of grief. Grief was all Uni knew. Rubbing her forehead, Teresa was so completely immersed in grief that laughter was a gorgeous thing to her. A wonderful unattainable thing. Teresa craved laughter the way some people crave sweets.

  Maybe she should give up thinking about it, but then again what else did Teresa have to do but think? She floated inside Uni with nothing to do but ponder why she hadn’t done this or tried that, or not done this, when she had her freedom. Why hadn’t she tried to love harder, instead of filling Superior Mothers requirements to bring her a new daughter for The Grey.

  Uni hadn’t spoken much in days. Teresa could feel its despair. The pull Uni felt, to shut itself off and will its own body for death, was tangible. Suicide was a true deception against oneself. She would lose Uni soon; it would still live, but it’s thoughts would dissipate, no longer able to handle being enslaved by the Women of the Grey.

  Uni had gone into hibernation, unable to handle its despair. The weight of sadness crushed its will to do anything but exist. Teresa knew she could no longer tolerate what was being done to both her and her friend. Uni, this thing, this creature that she was plugged into, was keeping her alive.

  Uni had reached out to her in the darkest of times, schooling Teresa on the fact that they suffer as one. Teresa knew that this commanded action from her, but how? How to escape? How to win an impossible battle? The how stuck in Teresa’s mind. It was a mental thorn in the paw of her foot. She had no answers.

  Pressing herself against the side of Uni, Teresa wanted to know if she could get out of the bubble that was Uni. Inside Uni, Teresa did nothing but float in the center of the bubble with Uni’s tentacles stuck all over her body clenching her into place.

  Long ago Teresa had realized that Uni was some sort of womb. It healed and nurtured its charge. As long as she remained in Uni she couldn’t die. Stretching her fingers, Teresa tried to slide them out of the membrane that was Uni.

  Her fingernails scraped the surface. Teresa felt a slight push, then the feel of cold air hit her fingertips. The elation Teresa felt in those moments was quickly snatched away when the tentacles bit deeper into her and pulled her hand away.

  Closing her eyes, Teresa thought, “there’s no one here…” She wanted Uni to hear her. She needed Uni to let her go. “I won’t leave you here.” She stopped and did her best to keep mentally silent, straining to hear the faintest hint of Uni responding. “I only want to look, investigate like we said. Then I will come back and we will discuss what I have seen. I won’t leave you. I couldn’t.” Teresa gulped now, fighting back the tears and the exhaustion. “You are my only friend.”

  All of Uni’s tentacles released Teresa in unison.

  Superior Mother

  Locking her bedroom door, Superior Mother sighed. Tossing off her shoes, she pulled at her blouse, dropping it in the same pile as the shoes. Next went her pants and panties. She then grabbed the ponytail holder out of her hair as if she was angry with it, and dropped down on her bed.

  Her day had been long. The demands of The Grey were heavier by the hour, and she could not help but feel that everything was now nothing more than a ticking time bomb. She often wondered if she was the bomb or if it was Lisa.

  “Fool,” Superior Mother told herself, “it’s Sunny.” Sunny would kill them all, she was positive of that, and some days she wanted to open that cage door, bend at the knee and allow it. Would Sunny kill her first and take the ring?

  Superior Mother felt the ring tingle with that thought. Maybe the ring was angry at her for such destructive thoughts or maybe the ring craved a powerful ruler. A savage leader of The Grey that was more like the Originals than Superior Mother could ever be.

  Rolling over to her side, Superior Mother ran her fingertips under the side of her bed, feeling for the hidden hole she had torn in the mattress and pulling out her little glass container of human blood. It was dried up and was nothing but flakes by now, but that didn’t matter. She could still use it.

  Sitting up, Superior Mother took some tweezers from her bedside table. She unscrewed the lid, feeling the anticipation of what she was about to do. Calm washed over her. She had originally promised herself this treat only once a week, but now it’s increased to twice.

  With the tweezers, Superior Mother scraped a bit of blood then picked up the tiny flake with the tweezer tips, she placed it on her tongue. She was careful to put the tweezers and container away before the blood did its magic. She couldn’t leave any evidence behind.

  Scooting under her sheets, Superior Mother felt the frigid cold of the ring warming. The bite of freeze that constantly sat entangled in her heart and lungs melted. She warmed, feeling a relief sweep over her.

  The blood gave such a sweet feeling, like warm lapping waves falling on sun-kissed skin. Superior Mother could feel the warmth of the sun cook into her. She welcomed it. It wasn’t the cold of space; it was the warmth of earth, and Superior Mother relished it.

  Running her tongue over her lips, she couldn’t really taste the blood anymore. Which didn’t matter — she could feel it. Feel it take over, washing away her sorrow that Lisa would never know she was her birth mother. Lisa had grown inside her, kicking at her insides. She was such a kicker; day and night she kicked in the belly. Superior Mother should have known then that she was different.

  Rolling over to her side, Superior Mother grabbed a pillow and shoved it against her belly. She wanted to feel full again. Full with baby. Full with life. That’s what being pregnant was to her, being filled with the opposite of what The Women of the Grey were.

  Baby toes were her favorite. Tiny little fat feet with toes that seemed too plump not to touch. Superior Mother remembered the feel of Lisa’s baby feet in her hands and felt the hint of tears in her eyes.

  Powder, formula, and diapers melted together into a smell that lingered on a mother’s hands, and it was comforting. Comforting to raise that hand, smell it and inhale the baby’s scent. The sheets were warm now, as was the pillow Superior Mother dipped father down into, the rush of Red covering her.

  The blood gave Superior Mother warmth where she was usually chilled to the bone. She held the pillow against her belly tighter and swooned a bit at the thought of baby Lisa cooing at her, remembering the small noises an infant makes when it meets its mother’s eyes. Superior Mother could hear the cooing in her ears, and suddenly Lisa was in her arms, but not as an infant. She was an adult, and Superior Mother held her.

  Rocking back and forth now, Superior Mother smoothed Lisa’s hair. It was her turn to coo at the girl, now woman. Tell her that she loved her like she had loved nothing else, and when their world fell to ashes she’d be there for her daughter. They’d run away, hide from the Originals and decide their paths together.

  Superior Mother swooned at the thoughts of mother and daughter whispering together. Planning a quiet life together free from The Grey. Superior Mother was sitting up now, holding a pillow tenderly, rubbing her hand against the top of the pillow. She didn’t know it was a pillow. Red had washed away her reality. Red was soothing her, giving her the comfort, she needed.

  Superior Mother sank down into the bed again with a death grip on the pillow. Eyes closed, she said nothing more, just smiled and laughed a bit. If the Women of the Grey knew what human blood did when swallowed, they’d annihilate the human race.

  Superior Mother’s breathing softened. She’d wake up in the early morning feeling loose, refreshed and wanting more. “I won’t do that,” she told the pillow and nuzzled it. She’d keep it under control, not indulging her want of Red again for at least a week, or at least a “couple days.”

  Lisa

  The hotel room was dirty. Not dirty in the way that trash was lying about, or where dirt was physically visible. That wasn’t it. The hotel room was cleaned, but when Lisa walked in she could feel the dirty of it hanging in the air.

  The dirty of old carpet, a threadbare comforter, furniture that looked like it had been around since the 70’s. Sitting on the bed,
Lisa thought she could feel the dirt of many humans coming and going from this room.

  The stench of sex, cigarettes, and bad deeds was heavy in this room and, Lisa guessed, the whole hotel. Standing up, she went to the window and closed the curtains as tightly as she could. There was nothing to see out there but parking lot and ugly barren desert.

  Israel had said nothing since they’d arrived. He’d driven to this hotel in this desert city and rented the room. When they had walked in, he dumped his backpack and went straight to the bathroom. Lisa could hear the shower now.

  Pulling off her boots Lisa kicked them to the side. She wanted nothing more than to go step into the shower with Israel. Isn’t that what couples do when alone? She’d seen it on television countless times. A man and woman in a hotel room. They always took a bubble bath or shower together. Each taking turns under the nozzle. The couple would laugh and kiss. They might even giggle at how silly it was to bathe together.

  Clicking on the television, Lisa looked for a local news channel. It was a habit of hers to make sure she or Israel were not part of the local “most wanted” of whatever city they were in. Angrily clicking the channels, Lisa felt a surge of disappointment. She knew she couldn’t go to Israel like that.

  Israel wouldn’t accept her like that and this made Lisa feel less. Less than normal. Less than human. Less than valuable. She wasn’t sure why. Lisa just knew that she wanted Israel to want her the way she wanted him, and that was not happening.

  Standing again, she opened the curtains just enough to see outside. The view hadn’t changed. All was calm. There were no cop cars surrounding the place, ready to take her away. Their car was a stolen one, and parking it right outside their hotel room door was dangerously unlike Israel. But she wouldn’t push it. She wouldn’t ask.