Unknown

by Jane

  CHAPTER FIVE

  May 12, 2024

  1. JACOB

  It’s only a matter of time now. They found the telescope and know that I have seen the ocean. Why they didn’t kill me I don’t know. They should have. I have two choices, I think to myself, as I stand in the kitchen with the ice pack on my face. I can run or I can fight. If I decide to fight it won’t be with my fists. It will be with my mind, with my knowledge, from within. The sunlight eases in the grime streaked windows. How long since I cleaned them? Never? I can hardly concentrate, my mind keeps wandering. There are rumors to chase down, whispers I’ve heard around bonfires that might be true. Evidence of things that exist behind the scenes. I have to hurry if I am to get to the car. If it’s still there. Who knows if it works.

  Glancing around the white on white room, the cupboards whisper concern, while the fridge simply hums tantric. Nobody knows what I am capable of, including myself. Maybe it’s time to find out.

  The only thing I grab on the way out is my sunglasses. Flipping the sign on the front door around, it now reads CLOSED. Fuck locking up, who cares. Pulling it shut I wander casually down the street towards the old barn. Passing the shops, a wave of nostalgia hits me like a gust of wind, and I stagger a bit as I pass the people and things that have made up my life for the past 6 years. Past the grocery store, past the ice cream shop, past this cardboard illusion of what really goes on here. Past the oppression and the lies, the movie theatre that has never shown one goddamn film in all the time I’ve been here. They build you up and then break you down until nothing is left of your former self. Until nothing is left at all. If it wasn’t for the books, I would’ve eaten the business end of a gun a long time ago.

  Up the hill I go, keeping my eyes on the ground, avoiding anybody that knows me. Knows me. Ha. Everybody knows everybody, no matter how many parts you play. Tonight, in the roles of bookstore owner, rapist, priest, and farmer #5 is Jacob Millhouse.

  Sweat bursts out on my forehead as I top the hill, the sidewalk fading away into dirt and weeds. Who is supposed to believe this crap? The grandeur fades so quickly. To one side, down the flatland, were the crops, and the labor that gathered it. Corn, beans, rice. To the other side, jungle, the wild and unknown, and a trickle of water. Moving fast I turn a corner and push back into the weeds and hanging vines. Beyond the withering palm and rubber trees is the squat, red barn. Abandoned for years, walked by every day, it hides in the shadows, offering up nothing but contempt. I know its secret. That knowledge has cost me.

  I go around the back to the small door only to find a shiny padlock fastened tightly to the knob. This is new. If it is Marcy that had done this then the solution will be a quick one. Reaching up to the door frame over the faded wood, I run my fingers back and forth over the peeling paint and dusty lip. Found it.

  Pulling the key down, I quickly snap the lock open, and go inside. I ease the poor excuse for a door shut, and set the lock and key on the workbench. In the middle of the room under a large tarp is the unmistakable shape of a car. My baby. Still here. I don’t need to pull it off to know that the ‘66 Candy Apple Red Ford Mustang waits for me. So patient. I missed her. The first car I ever loved, this first car I assigned feminine properties. I used to wash her with a previously unknown passion, every inch of her sexy frame, soaping her up, and hosing her off. I’d listen to the Cardinals play an afternoon game while I did it. Ozzie Smith doing back flips on his way to shortstop, Willie McGee in centerfield. This was long after Lou Brock and Keith Hernandez had retired. They’d go 79-82 that year, but on the days I washed her, it didn’t really matter.

  I pull the brown tarp off of the car, choking on the dust and cobwebs. She was still intact, still shiny and clean. I open the door with a gentle creak and sit down on the red leather. The keys still dangle from the ignition, the stallion up on hind legs, raring to go. I’m going to floor this baby down the highway on my way to the beach. I’m going to shoot past the guard towers so fast they’ll never see me coming. When I get to the beach it’ll be a quick boat ride to the mainland. Who is expecting me? What can they do? I have to get off this island before they bury me with the rest. Maybe I can find Jimmy. Maybe there is hope.

  2. MARCY

  Climbing up the hill on the backside of his property, the anticipation is building. Every time my thighs rub together it sends a shiver through my stomach down deep into my sex. Every time I jostle my breasts moving side to side or reaching out to grasp a tree branch, my nipples rub against the inside of my tight tank top, keeping me in a constant state of arousal. My left eye twitches and my heart pounds in my chest. Sweat coats my body in a thin sheen as I work myself into a sexual frenzy. Something has come over me, enhancing my already frantic libido until I am out of breath, eyes focused on the tree line at the top of the hill. The back of his house sits dark and quiet but I know where he is. I can feel his presence all around me. He is waiting for me, and he is ready. A haze drifts over my eyes and the world dims, as every sense is diverted to the heat pulsing between my legs.

  Cresting the hill I pull a key out of my pocket, this part of the dance a ritual, opening and unlocking, freeing myself. Shoving the metal into the lock at the gate, the eight foot slats of wood that run around the property, I twist and push, a subtle breeze cooling my overheating flesh as I shut the gate with a click and start to undress.

  Peeling off my damp shirt I drop it on the grass just inside the fence, moving forward to the patio. My shoes are lost somewhere on the hill, so there are only the khaki shorts to unbutton and they slide down my long, slender legs with ease, mid-step. No tan lines on this glistening brown body. I pause at the edge of the house to slip my thumbs under the elastic of my panties, pushing them down as I bend over, every whisper of wind caressing my skin. His back is to me as he sits in the wrought iron chair. A quick burst of color on the table shows me his clothing is folded in a stack next to him. He is ready for me and I am ready for him.

  I slink towards him, stalking his energy like a tiger on a hunt. I place one hand on his bare shoulder, swing a leg over and straddle his awaiting body. His eyes are closed, he has been waiting for me, summoning me. Behind the eyelids there is rapid movement, and I know he is channeling from far, far away. I glide my heavy breasts down over his chest as I lower myself to him. With a quick hand I gently reach down and guide him inside me, a moan escaping my lips, and I become complete but for a moment. The sweet scent of jasmine drifts to me as my eyes close and the sunlight slips away. The gentle push and pull, the tension of glossy friction, I am empty and full, empty and full. Empty.

  Darkness envelopes me as the island falls away and my skin chills. Surrounded by a field of snow, a blanket of cold numbs my flesh, and I am gone.

  3. JIMMY

  Forking the cold hash into our mouths we sit in the tiny room on two beat up storage lockers, the best meal we’ve had in days. I stare at Madison in her snow white innocence and know I have to toughen her up. But there needs to be a carrot in front of the cart or the nag won’t move. I don’t know how she survived this far, blind luck, I think. When she stumbled down the stairs, twisting her ankle, it was the best thing that could’ve happened to her. She’d been unable to walk at first and had hidden in the janitor’s closet. I only stumbled upon her a couple of weeks ago and that had been just chance. So I guess her sitting in the dark, crying had been a good plan after all.

  “You’re lucky I wasn’t a Blisterhead. A butter knife for Christ’s sake.”

  She finished chewing, and swallowed, thinking back.

  “I know Jimmy, I know. I was hurt and scared and you saved me. You want a cookie?”

  I sigh and place the empty can beside me. I stare at her luminescence, pierced by her eyes as if I’ve never seen, or been seen, by a woman before. My eyes fill with tears and I can’t hold back the anguish. She’s all I have. She’s all I’ve ever had.

  “Baby, I’m sorry,” she says getting up and coming to me.

  “Wha
t is it, why are you so upset?”

  “Madison, I can’t protect you. It’s really fucked up out there. You haven’t seen anything yet. The bodies are piled everywhere. The fire and smoke, oil burning, cars overturned. The smell. It makes the musty rot down here seem like a spring shower in a flower garden. I have to toughen you up, teach you some things - how to shoot, to find your way around the city, to hide from the Blisterheads and Ethereals. They’ll skin you alive and wear your hide. Even a tribe of survivors like us would take one look at you and gang bang you in the nearest alley.”

  “Jimmy...”

  “No. I’ve been keeping it from you. I’ve been trying to hide the destruction and brutality, but I can’t anymore. If I leave you down here they’ll find you.”

  “Okay. What do you want to do?” she asks, her gaze wide open, kneeling at my feet, her tiny hot hands on my knees. A rivulet of water runs down the far wall.

  “We can’t stay here, that’s for sure. There’s no way out if we get cornered. We have to find a safer place, get supplies, and figure out how to work our way to the nearest airport.”

  “Airport, what for?”

  “We have to go back.”

  “Back

  where?”

  “To the island. There’s nothing out here. We have to wipe the slate clean, but we can’t do it alone. I thought if I got out that things would be better on the mainland. It’s not, Madison. It’s so much worse. We have to be part of the rebirth, or we’ll be part of the erasure.”

  “Jimmy, I don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re scaring me.”

  I hold her head in my hands.

  “I know. I’ll explain it all to you later. For now, we need to get supplies. We need to get you some new clothes, some boots. We need to work on our hand-to-hand, our gun skills, and staying in shape. It’s a boot camp for the apocalypse.”

  4. X

  She is coming, very close. Stripping off my clothes, I neatly fold them and stack them on the table. I recline in the chair and begin the process of submitting to the Mahayana meditation. The parable in my mind transforms into a complicated mathematical equation, into an intricate pattern, into a hot white light. I need to catch her past before I can transform her future.

  I am in Marcy’s apartment. The windows are closed, and the stale smell is of cigarette smoke and red wine, the bureau dotted with the remnants of cocaine. I stand in the studio apartment, naked and flushed red, while the movement in the bathroom hints at an upheaval. I creep to the open door to see what she is doing, down on her knees out of sight.

  The crumpled pack of Marlboro Lights sits on the bathroom sink, open, two left. She clutches the sides of the porcelain bowl and retches out the rest of her lunch. The chunks of pink salmon were not good enough. The bits of lettuce and carrots, roughage that would’ve been hell on her stomach, lone trespassers on a dry stretch of road. The diet coke with lime swirls around the partially digested remnants, while her forehead shines under the harsh lights, a sheen of exertion.

  Standing up with a shake in her arms, Marcy pulls her long brown hair back into a ponytail, and fastens it with a rubber band. She straightens the pink kimono, and cinches the tie. I backtrack to the bedroom, two open French doors with lace curtains leading to a queen sized bed. The crisp, white sheets are our canvas.

  She checks her hollow cheeks in the mirror, sparkle eyes and vacant earth. Glancing out to the living room the stack of bills and paychecks mock her. The answering machine flashes the number 12. Beneath the side table is a set of hand weights, 10

  pounds each, dinged at the edges, like the floor beneath it. Back to the mirror her ivory skin is this month’s fashion trend.

  It’ll take another year of this to get her out of hock. At least that long to get the paperwork in order and her son back. Maybe she’ll be ready by then, clean. She smiles at herself, empty.

  She has been asking for me and I am here. When she enters the bedroom she stops, frozen in her tracks, her kimono clutched tightly around her emaciated frame.

  “You’re

  here.”

  “I

  am.”

  “Time to go?”

  “If you’re ready. You’d probably find me more desirable there. You’d be less, how should I put this...intact. Less susceptible to pain. Less aware.”

  “No. I deserve everything I get.”

  “Good. It’ll go much faster, it will sink in, penetrate, encase your every fibre if we do this here first. There, I have no guarantees. Of anything. Here, it’s for sure.”

  “It will hurt?”

  “You tell me,” he states, gesturing down to his engorged lower region.

  A wisp of silk falls to the floor. The creak of a bed frame and his guttural laugh are no match for her screams. In the snow capped mountains she moves up and down, the howl of a coyote in the distance snapping her out of her state. Obsidian eyes stare out, blind as panic overwhelms her, while he plants his seed. Eden has been reborn.

  5. GORDON

  “Your shit will be here when you’re done.”

  Zeke is the muscles half of the equation. Seems that Eddy has other things to do. Jerking off and picking his nose no doubt. I barely know where I am, disoriented and weak. Zeke’s meaty hand is shoved between my shoulder blades as I am pushed up against the door frame while he tosses my bags inside.

  “This is where you’ll live. The town center? We’ll work up to that. I don’t think you’re ready for the bright lights and center stage quite yet. Personally, I don’t think you’ll ever be ready but that’s not for me to decide.”

  My face is pressed against the straw and timber as he lectures me on my new existence. I don’t know what he is talking about. So much work to do. I have a gigabyte of text already filtering through my head.

  “You’re probably worthless today, but I’m going to take you over to the fields anyway. I can’t have you wandering around here all day. Who knows what kind of trouble you could get into. The worse case scenario in the field is that you pass out in the corn.”

  Field. I can barely stay conscious. How am I going to work on the crops?

  “It’s okay Gordon, they’ll wake you up. You ever have a cattle prod shoved up your ass? That’s an eye opener for sure. I’ll tell them to set it on low since you’re a virgin and all, and have been such an ideal prisoner. I mean, citizen.”

  “Thanks asshole,” I mumble.

  I’m spun around and barely have time to focus on his contorted face before I get an extreme close-up of his knuckles. It feels like he hit me with a shovel, fast and complete, the pain swallowing my face as I crumple to the ground. A light show behind my eyelids gives me pause.

  “Listen dickhead, you’re low man on the totem pole. You’re fresh meat, the new kid on the block. Keep your mouth shut, and do your time, and you’ll be fine. I don’t need much of an excuse to kick your ass. What you did there, we call that insubordination. It gives me grounds to smack you. So, say something else, Gordon. I’m already in a foul mood, so feel free, give me more ammunition. It’s bad enough that I have to watch Marcy work you over without any reciprocation, but now I have to listen to your lip? I don’t think so. Anything else?”

  Sucking up dirt I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand, a trickle of blood clinging to my wrist. A quick intake of air, wheezing as I exhale.

  “Sure. Your mother sucks cocks in hell.”

  I grin. I squint into the sun waiting for the explosion. And I’m not denied. I’m not going into the fields today. He just doesn’t know it yet. As the world shuts down again and I feel the sensation of my body rising, only to be beaten down and dropped again, I scan the display.

  Ezekiel “Zeke” Sanders

  Domicile: Sector 4, building 121:

  Six fEEt, four inches, two hundred

  eighty pounds

  Detail: Security

  Charge: Murder, rape, armed robbery.

  Maybe X could wait. />
  6. ASSIGNED

  //

  reboot

  ALERT

  sectors 1, 6

  violation: roland

  code: 1221

  description: moving sxsw along wayward

  creek

  time: violated sector 1 at 13:42 hours

  status: monitor until further notice,

  boot stun chip

  report: x informed

  violation: jacob

  code: 1221

  description: entered red barn premises,

  mustang security violated

  time: violated lockdown status, trespass

  authority via marcy_298631 at 13:02

  status: monitor until further notice,

  boot stun chip

  report: x informed

  system run, additional staff:

  marcy: compliant, heart rate elevated

  gordon: compliant, heat status

  questionable

  jimmy: no signal

  x: denied access

  aberration:

  1. anima security breached, assignment

  late, location unknown, checking status

  2. electromagnetic field surge, checking

  source, sector 12

  running system wide reboot and analysis

  estimated time of completion 22:34 hours

  end

  //

  7. ROLAND

  I pull on my jeans and zip up the fly. Stuffing my shorts and t-shirt in the bag I button up the long-sleeved shirt leaving it unbuttoned half way. It’s still hot here in the shade by the creek, but at least there is less flesh exposed. Kneeling down by the creek I scoop up a handful of water and washing my face, drink from its chill. A deep breath, and momentary sigh of relief, and I must be on my way.