“She’s in the factory beneath Yanloo City,” Kizzy said.
“Who told you that? Your mother?”
Kizzy felt instantly sad at the mention of her mother, as if there was a hole drilled into her chest that the wind could blow into freely. But there was no use in feeling that way anymore. Her mother was gone forever.
Kizzy pushed on. “I’ve been there, to Josephine’s lab. She told me how the Enoch Pill turned lethal and how everyone died and how’s she’s been working to find a cure ever since.”
“So maybe you’re not lying,” the constable said.
“I told you I wasn’t,” Kizzy answered. “And the reason I was hiding, the reason I’m so important, is that I’m the only girl on earth who is capable of having children. I can help bring things back to the way they were.”
The woman stepped on the brakes and the car jerked to a stop. The constable sat quiet for a second, taking in all the information. “You can have children?”
“Yes,” Kizzy said.
“And the plan is to make things the way they used to be?”
“Yes.”
The constable sighed and began to drive again.
“What are you doing?” Kizzy asked.
“Taking you to the courthouse.”
“But why?”
“Things don’t need to go back to the way they were. And a debt needs to be paid.”
“You can’t kill me.”
“Watch me.”
The car continued to bounce down the bumpy gravel road. Kizzy’s stomach was a ball of anxiety.
“Please,” she whimpered.
But the woman said nothing.
Suddenly the thought of being executed became extremely real to Kizzy. Her head began to spin. She was twirling in space above her body, with her arms outstretched.
“I’m gonna be sick,” she said. “Please, I’m going to throw up.”
The woman sighed and stopped the car again. A second later the bag was torn from Kizzy’s head. Kizzy opened her door and leaned out and stared down at the road, gasping. Her vision spun and the breath left her body. If her stomach wasn’t empty she would have thrown up right then and there.
The constable grabbed a plastic bag and went out to get water from a nearby stream. When she returned she poured some into a wooden cup and handed it back to Kizzy. Kizzy brought it to her lips with handcuffed hands. The water tasted of plastic.
The constable consulted a map that sat on the passenger seat.
For the first time Kizzy was able to get a good look at the woman. She was pale-skinned with a nose ring in her right nostril. Her nose was sharp and her black hair was cut short. Her arms were thin, yet muscular and her eyes were an intense brown, almost orange.
“You really don’t know what you’re doing,” Kizzy said. “She’ll come after me you know, Josephine, and the men of the city with her. And they’re going to be pretty pissed off if I’m dead.”
“You can talk all you want,” said the constable, “but you’re wasting your breath.”
“Why aren’t you listening to reason? Please, just let me go.”
“You have to pay, just like everybody else. You won’t get preferential treatment just because of your condition.”
“But I should, shouldn’t I? Isn’t this an unusual situation?”
“Just drink your water before I put the bag back over your head.”
Kizzy drank up. A few lonely birds sang out in the woods. It was nice to hear them, better than the caws of those disgusting crows. She could feel there were a couple in the surrounding trees, watching her.
The constable never put the bag back on her head. She started up the jeep and continued down the road. Kizzy went to sleep against a box that read, ‘Radar Equipment’ on its side. They traveled through the night on the abandoned roads of an era passed, through forgotten towns and forlorn fields. Neither of them said a word.
It was still dark when they arrived at the courthouse. Kizzy had been there once before with her mother to register their old station wagon they had found in the woods. Her mother had been nervous, Kizzy could tell. It rattled in her voice. She never liked dealing with people, especially ones she didn’t know. She’d take on a whole new way of speaking and her head would shake nervously.
They went to an ice cream shop afterward, but all the store had left was chocolate. Kizzy refused to get anything, she hated chocolate. She shook her head and came back to the present.
The courthouse sat on a small main street on the far north end of the country, as far away from Yanloo City as you could get before you hit the ocean. There were grain silos and meat storage facilities, the wooden courthouse, a couple of apartment buildings, a stone post office, and the constable’s small station. A long pier went out into the ocean and some lonely fishing boats bobbed in the water on the horizon. There sat the old ice cream shop, but it seemed to be boarded up and closed now. The jeep rolled to a stop and the constable escorted Kizzy into her office. A bell rang when the door opened. Inside, the floor was made up of large black and white tiles that were old and worn. A prisoner’s cell sat to the left and two desks laid on the right. The constable guided Kizzy into the cell and locked the thick, iron door.
“I’ll alert the mayor, she’ll probably want to see you.”
Kizzy sat on a hard wooden bench. Her wrists were sore, the harsh metal cuffs had rubbed her skin raw. “Could you take off the cuffs now?” she asked hopefully.
The constable just left. Now that she was alone Kizzy immediately went to the door and shook the bars. They were solid. She turned and tried the bars in the window with the same result. Trapped like a rat. She gazed out the window, a few women walked past on their way to the grain silos. Kizzy really began to worry. Was this the end of the line? How soon before they’d execute her? It was all so surreal. She had survived so much, but in the end it would be an antiquated law that killed her. Every death needed to be blamed on someone.
If the opportunity came Kizzy would beg and plead, she wasn’t too proud for that. Hopefully Diego, or Josephine, or anyone at all, was out there looking for her.
A few minutes later the constable returned followed by a pretty woman with short blond hair, rosy cheeks, and glasses. She was shorter than the constable, curvier too. The type of round that only middle aged women who worked in offices could be. She must have been around 45 when the Enoch Pill came out and froze her age in time. That made her about 63 now.
“Well this comes as a bit of a surprise,” the woman said stepping forward, her blue eyes small and suspicious. “I’d never thought you’d turn up again, Kizzy. Theresa here tells me you know about Josephine Yanloo.”
“I do,” Kizzy said. “I was there, in the lab.”
“You know how unlikely that sounds?”
“Well, it’s true.”
“Where is it?”
“In the factory underneath the city.”
“What did she tell you then?” the mayor asked.
“That I am able to have children.”
The woman stood shocked by the words. Frozen for a moment, she looked back at the constable with a scowl. Obviously she hadn’t relayed that part of the message. The mayor looked back at Kizzy. “Is it that the truth?”
Kizzy nodded.
“Well, that leaves us in a bit of a conundrum.”
Kizzy perked up.
“Because we have to uphold the law. If we don’t, well what use is anything then?” she looked back at the constable.
The constable smiled and nodded in agreement.
Kizzy’s heart went to her throat.
“But this is a special circumstance,” the mayor continued.
“What?” the constable snapped.
Kizzy breathed a sigh of relief.
“Well isn’t it? We can rebuild the world.”
“With all due respect,” the constable said. “It begs the question of whether or not we want to rebuild. Whether things need to be changed at all.”
“You don’t think th
ings should change?”
“Can we speak about this privately?” the constable asked.
“No! The girl deserves to hear whatever bullshit reason you have to want to execute her.”
“I think things are better now than they ever were.”
The mayor furrowed her brow. “Are you serious?”
“Yes.”
“Look, I know your history, but don’t you think you’re being a bit narrow minded?
“No.”
“Don’t you miss children, Theresa?”
“Frankly, the only reason I think we loved children so much is because they hadn’t become monsters yet.”
“I know you don’t believe that,” the mayor said.
“You don’t know me then,” the constable replied, folding her arms.
There was a tense silence for a few seconds.
Kizzy spoke up. “Josephine said we are close to extinction. A bad harvest or natural disaster could wipe us all out. There needs to be more of us if we want to survive.”
“That’s a very good point,” the mayor said, turning back to Kizzy. “I hadn’t even thought of that. How many are we anyway - a few hundred thousand?”
“If that,” Kizzy added.
The constable shook her head. “Things are at a balance now.”
“What if there’s a drought?” Kizzy asked. “What if there are more crow attacks?”
“Then we deal with those things when they come. We don’t need to go back to the way things were, and we definitely don’t need to sacrifice the law to do it.”
“I need time to think about this,” the mayor said. “No decisions without me.”
The mayor left the office. Kizzy and the constable were alone once more. The woman kicked over a chair.
“I don’t want to be treated differently,” Kizzy said.
“You won’t be,” the constable said, picking the chair back up and sitting in it.
“But things are different now,” Kizzy said. “Ever since I became like this, it changes the way the world works.”
“And if you’re gone the option to change goes too,” the constable said, almost to herself. She stared off into space. She opened the top drawer of her desk, pulled out a small handgun, and sat it down in front of her. “This could all be solved so quickly.”
“That would be against the law,” Kizzy said, gripping onto the wooden bench.
The constable closed her eyes. “Mary is blinded by hope.”
“How?” Kizzy asked.
“She thinks people are inherently good.”
“And you don’t?” Kizzy asked, eager to keep the conversation going, afraid that if the constable became bored she would pull the trigger.
“I’ve seen too much to be so naive.” The constable put the gun in her holster. “You’re lucky the law is all I care about. A lesser woman would have shot you dead.”
With that she got up and walked straight out of the office. The bell rang with the opening and closing of the door. Kizzy sat alone in the cell, breathing heavily, happy to be alive. Soon the sun came up and the rest of the day passed with Kizzy laying on that uncomfortable wooden bench.
In the evening a young girl entered the office and glanced at Kizzy. Kizzy sat up; she remembered the girl from school, she was a couple of years older than Kizzy. Meg was her name. One of those boring, standard girls who never got into any trouble. She ignored Kizzy back in school and she ignored Kizzy now in the constable’s office. Quietly, she approached the constable’s desk, gathered some folders and took a jangling set of keys from a drawer.
When the night finally came Kizzy couldn’t fall asleep. The hard wooden bench didn’t help and the handcuffs made it even worse. She kept her fists resting on her chest the whole night. She stared up at the ceiling of the cell and wondered if anyone was out there looking for her. She was worried about Diego. The constable had hit his head so hard, it could have done serious damage to his brain. And now for the first time in 60 days he wasn’t at her side. It was lonesome.
Early the next morning Kizzy awoke to the jangling of keys in the cell door. It was the constable.
“What’s happening?” Kizzy asked, rubbing her eyes.
The constable swung the door open. “The mayor wants you to help her with something in her office.”
Kizzy didn’t know whether she could trust the woman. But she seemed annoyed, as if she didn’t approve of whatever was happening. As if the mayor was forcing her hand. That was a good sign.
“Can you take these off?” Kizzy asked, raising her cuffed hands.
“No,” replied the constable. She looked back to her desk. “In fact, you have to wear these too.”
Kizzy walked across the street with her hands and feet in chains. The constable escorted her closely, holding her arm the whole way. A couple of woman standing by the grain storehouse whispered to each other when they caught sight of Kizzy. She didn’t recognize them. Thank goodness.
When they reached the courthouse they climbed up wooden stairs to the mayor’s office on the second floor. Inside, the mayor sat behind her desk going through files. She smiled at Kizzy as she entered.
“Good morning Kizzy. Did you sleep alright?”
“Uh no, not really.”
“Theresa,” the Mayor said as she got up behind her desk. “You can leave us now.”
The constable stood defiantly for a moment, holding Kizzy’s arm.
The mayor shot her a look. “I said you can leave now.”
With a sarcastic laugh the constable turned and walked out.
Kizzy waited uncomfortably, staring at the mayor. Was this someone she could trust?
“So, let’s make sure of something first,” said the mayor, walking to the window and surveying the street below.
Kizzy looked out over her shoulder. The constable crossed the street, got into her jeep, and drove off.
“Well now she’s gone,” said the mayor, approaching Kizzy. “Which means I can do this.”
Seemingly like magic she produced a set of jangling keys and unlocked the cuffs from Kizzy’s wrists and ankles. It felt amazing to be free.
“Don’t tell her, but I had copies made yesterday,” the mayor said.
“I won’t,” said Kizzy, rubbing her wrists. She smiled. “Thanks.”
“No need to thank me. I think it’s ridiculous she even had you in these things.”
Kizzy nodded.
“So, you’ve been down to see Josephine and she said you could have children, huh?”
“Yes, and she contacted me last night and said she needed me right away. Things have gone wrong and I was supposed to stay where I was.”
“Shh, shh,” said the mayor with bouncing hands as if to say, ‘take it easy.’ “We can deal with all of that as it comes. Right now, what would you like to drink?”
“But something has gone wrong.”
The mayor pointed to a purple telephone on her desk. “This is connected to the Yanloo City Committee. I keep contact with one of the board members, Bryson Patel. If something really had gone wrong, we would have heard about it by now.”
“Maybe he doesn’t know,” Kizzy said worriedly, feeling the weight of mankind’s future on her shoulders.
“Patel knows everything that happens in the city.”
“He might not know this...”
“Look, Josephine’s main desire was for you to stay safe, right?”
Kizzy nodded.
“Then this is the safest place you could possibly find.”
“What if I escape?”
“I’ll have to ask you not to do that, since it would reflect badly on me. And Theresa would find you, I can guarantee you that.”
“We managed to stay away from her before.”
The mayor smiled. “You managed to be herded somewhere she could make the arrest. Her jurisdiction only goes as far as Hazelton. She’s a stickler for the rules, as you’ve probably realized. And there’s no running from her.”
It was a strange fee
ling, to believe you were outsmarting someone to only find out you were being manipulated the whole time. Herded like a sheep, dumb as a cow.
“If you go anywhere, Theresa will find you. And I’m the only one with any type of power over her. So as I said, this is the safest place on earth.”
“Well, Josephine will come and get me,” Kizzy said. “I can guarantee you that.”
“I look forward to meeting her then,” the mayor smiled. “Tell me, are you any good with computers, Kizzy?”
“Not really,” Kizzy answered.
“Because I’m useless, so you’re bound to be better than me. What did you say you wanted to drink anyway?”
The mayor made her something called an appletini. It made Kizzy’s head spin the tiniest bit when she sipped it. “Are you sure this something you’re supposed to drink for breakfast?”
The mayor nodded and took a swig of her drink as she danced to the record she had put on.
“My computer won’t let me access our crime database,” the mayor announced, shaking the mouse. “It’s as if there’s thousands of people trying to get in at once. See what you can do.”
Kizzy approached the computer with literally no idea of what she was doing. She moved the mouse, pressed a few buttons on the keyboard, and finally when all else failed, gently pounded the top of the monitor. “I don’t know what’s wrong with it.”
“Wow, okay,” said the mayor with a chuckle. “I always took it for granted that anyone younger than me would be better with these things. Haven’t you ever worked on one?”
Kizzy shrugged. “Sort of.”
“Sort of?”
“We had a really old one at my school. I used it for an hour once.”
“Then here’s a free history lesson,” the mayor said she patted the monitor. “These things used to run everything in the whole wide world. They were all connected to each other, and everyone was afraid they would someday turn smart and try to kill us. Until we beat them to the punch. Now this one just sits here, only connected to the constable’s computer for the crime database. Two lonely castaways stuck on an island all by themselves.”
“Is this the reason you had me come here?” Kizzy asked.
“Honestly, I just wanted to get you out of that cell,” the mayor said, sitting down in her chair. “I have no intention of having you executed Kizzy. But I just can’t let you go, Theresa would never allow that. But she needs my approval to perform an execution and so that’s where we are.”
The Enoch Plague (The Enoch Pill Book 2) Page 6
