by J. D. Palmer
Jacqueline turns, her hands raised placatingly.
“Put your hands up, okay?”
I immediately draw my gun and I can hear the rest following suit.
“You fuckin’ dumb bitch.” Sheila says it matter-of-factly, her voice tired, as if she knew where this was going all along.
“Please.” Jacqueline is frantic, her hands waving in front of her and her eyes darting towards the trees. “Momma Kay is cautious, they’ll come out and make you give up your guns. But they’ll give ‘em back when you leave. Please.”
Three figures slowly stalk out from the trees, rifles aimed at us. A woman’s voice drifts across the snowy meadow.
“Drop the guns. Drop ‘em now or we drop you. Count of three.”
We could fight them. Hell, we might win. I put a gun to Jacqueline’s head and maybe we barter. But for what? To force our way into a house containing who knows how many people? To keep fighting when we’re already dead on our feet and half frozen?
I lower my gun and turn to the others. Except for Beryl, the others don’t hesitate to follow suit. I watch her eyes dart to Jacqueline. Pike lets loose a low growl, eyes darting to Beryl and then to the figures approaching, tail held out stiff behind him. Then it gives a slow wag. Good to know he’s as confused as we are.
The woman’s voice echoes across the gap again. “Drop your gun, now!” Perhaps there is nothing to fear here. Or maybe something different. No. I’ve suffered at the hands of men. It should not mean that I automatically trust the fairer sex.
But we have no choice.
As if coming to the same conclusion, Beryl lets the arm holding her gun drop to her side. The three sentinels slog through two feet deep snow unmarred but for Jacqueline’s old tracks. They keep their rifles on us the whole time, and fan out to make a small half-circle. They are wrapped like mummies; goggles and hats and scarves cover faces. Heavy coats and thick pants over slender frames. They’re all women.
“What the fuck, Jacqueline?”
The woman in the center holds up a hand before Jacqueline can respond.
“Get back to the house. Tell Momma we got company. Two women. Three men.”
Jacqueline leaves without argument, slowly taking the sled from me and heading towards the house, shoulders hunched against the cold, or from being rebuked, or both. The woman watches her until she disappears through the trees. I take a step forward.
“We are cold and in—”
Her gun jerks towards me. “Shut the fuck up, prick.” She steps off to the side, her gun still aimed at me. “Guns, or any other weapons, dropped on the ground at your feet. One at a time.” She points her rifle at each person in turn as they slowly pull guns from coats and packs and place them on the ground. I know Beryl doesn’t give her knife up. Don’t know if I appreciate that, or am afraid of her recklessness. I guess it depends on how this plays out.
“Get in a line, link your arms.” She gestures with her gun.
Is she going to execute us? What the fuck are we going to do?
“Listen, we are just—”
“Don’t talk. You open your mouth again and I’ll shoot you. Understand?”
I’m not dumb enough or angry enough to say “yes” just to piss her off. And I’m cold. God, we are so cold.
“Face me. Link your arms.”
One of the other women steps forward. “Felicia, we should let the women walk with—”
“No!” The woman named Felicia snaps. “We don’t know them, we don’t know any of them. We aren’t taking chances.” She turns back to us, bringing the rifle to bear on Theo. “Get the fuck in line!”
Pike lets loose with a small bark, putting himself in front of Beryl and casting wary glances at the women. A woman lowers her gun towards him and he cowers backwards, barking the whole time.
“He bites, I shoot.”
I don’t need to glance over to know the look on Beryl’s face. I take her arm as we form their line. Theo is in the center and Sheila and I make bookends. I don’t know what they’re planning… Am I more help at the side? Or the middle?
“Walk backwards. You break the chain you die.”
We shoot looks at each other and she raises her gun. We take jerky steps backwards, our height and strides and the snow almost making the line topple. Honestly I think Theo is the only thing keeping us upright.
We shuffle backwards, dead legs drawing on different muscles to slowly propel us through the thick snow. The three women keep pace in front of us, one gun pointed at each man in the line. Internally, I have to applaud the method. We will be too exhausted to try anything once we reach our destination. Nor will we know much of the layout of the land. If we get there.
Sheila stumbles and drags Josey down with her, dropping Theo to a knee. She swears and starts to release herself from Josey’s arm. He yanks her back as the woman on the right raises her rifle. Her eyes burn holes in the gun-wielder as she awkwardly struggles to her feet. I pray she doesn’t lose her temper and do something stupid.
Sweat coats the inside of my hat and along my lower back, at odds with the nose and fingers I can’t feel anymore. Lungs burn raw from sucking in frigid air as we strain towards some unknown destination on shaking, exhausted legs.
We aren’t given any directions, the women marching us backwards impassively. Somehow we stumble into Jacqueline’s tracks. We slog backwards, our line lumbering to adjust as the sled runner-tracks veer to the right. I shoot glances to the side, doing my best to memorize the hills, the ridge line, anything that might help.
The snow decreases and we stumble back into timber and bushes. The women are merciless, uninterested in helping us navigate the path through the thin and twisted trees. We are forced to bunch together, hissing and grunting as we try to convey directions to each other. Theo hits a tree and pulls the line to the left around it.
I sneak a glance backwards as we edge around the tree. A large building sits on top of a hill. But my eyes are drawn to a group of cows milling around a bale of hay. A lone horseman sits among them, his eyes following us as we are disgorged from the woods.
“Face front, asshole.”
We are marched steadily backwards in a direction that gradually curves around the hill. We stumble up a shallow rise and then the next step sends us plunging down. My feet barely touch the edge of the wall before we are tumbling backwards. I’m lucky enough to have a free hand to brace my fall, but Beryl has no time to disentangle herself, landing hard enough on her back to have the wind knocked out of her.
“Motherfucker!” Sheila swears. There are groans from Theo but I can’t tell how Josey fared. We lie on our backs, breathing hard, legs cramping and shaking, completely drained of strength.
I roll over and check on Beryl. She has her eyes closed, her face pinched with pain. “You okay?” I whisper. She gives a small nod, her mouth open as she tries to choke down a breath.
“Get up.”
We release arms and the leader raises her gun. “Keep yourselves locked together.”
One of the other women turns to her, seemingly unsure. “Felicia…”
The bitch just raises her hand and silences her subordinate. We link arms and maneuver to our knees. Slowly, leaning on each other and straining at the elbows, we rise to our feet.
We are on a road. A road devoid of white powder. Icy walls of shoveled snow stand four feet tall on both sides of the path, a scary height to fall backwards tethered to each other.
We start shuffling backwards. The road is slick, the ice a mix of snow and dirt and the occasional piece of gravel to give you a moment’s respite. Each step a deception. We start to climb the hill and it quickly becomes torture. Hamstrings shake and we slip more and more. Theo loses his balance and we topple over again, Beryl letting out a gasp as her head strikes the ground.
“Felicia, this is close enough.”
Felicia doesn’t respond to the other woman, simply watches us struggle to our feet once more.
“Felicia, they’re going to ge
t hurt, we should—”
“Walk. Now.” Felicia interrupts her cohort. We strain backwards. Slow steps as we seek purchase on a hill that is getting steeper and steeper.
We fall three more times. After the third collapse we stay down. Theo is on a bent knee but Beryl is sitting, head bowed and her hand barely holding onto the crook of Theo’s elbow.
It’s an odd standoff. The line of us facing down a gruesome hill towards three silent silhouettes. They stare back at us, guns held loosely at their sides as the wind whips and pulls at scarves and collars. They don’t tell us to get back up.
They don’t say a word.
My chest is still heaving, icy wind tearing up my lungs even as sweat drips down my forehead. I focus on Felicia. If this is a death march she’ll be the first to raise her gun. Not that I could do anything. Maybe yell. Maybe push Beryl to the side.
“Felicia.”
The voice is masculine, the words spoken so softly they’re almost blown away on the wind. But the way he says her name is a rebuke. A chastisement. Horror and surprise from a person who cannot believe his eyes. I don’t turn to see who is speaking, instead I watch the annoyance flash across Felicia’s face.
“Get up.” She gestures at us, suddenly impatient. “Turn around and make a line. Hands on the shoulders of the person in front of you. You break out of the line you die.”
I want to tell her that the death threats are getting a bit redundant. I want to tell her that none of us would be capable of doing much should we wish to “break out of line,” nor would we have any idea where to go. I want to tell her all these things but my face is too cold and I’m too exhausted. And, of course, if we speak we die.
I become the head of the line as everyone shuffles into place behind me. Beryl’s hands rest on my shoulders, her body leaning into me for support. Ten feet ahead of us are a pair of steps under an awning held up by three wooden pillars. A pair of large oaken doors sit beneath an enormous elk skull, the antlers branching out almost as wide as the entrance itself.
A man stares at me from the top step. He is short and stocky in build, and he wears nothing but a faded blue jacket and riding gloves to fight off the cold. White tufts of thin hair dance in the wind and a few days worth of white stubble resides on a face creased and lined as if he were born to winter and knows nothing other. But there is no malevolence in the look he gives me. Instead, the brow is furrowed above brown eyes that stare at us with… sadness? Worry? He holds out a hand and Pike, growling, approaches. But after a second the two seem to have an accord, the man letting Pike sniff him until he is satisfied. A tentative tail wag as he turns and looks back at Beryl.
“Ya gotta get out of the way Sam, or we can’t go anywhere. For fuck’s sake.”
The man lingers at the door, his lined face gaining more grooves at Felicia’s words, before turning to knock the snow off the black treads of his boots.
The man, Sam, and the two other women file through the door. I wait for Felicia to yell before I start walking, even as my heart cries for joy at the warmth that rushes out from inside the house. We tramp up the steps in an awkward line, grunting and groaning as the heat washes over us.
The vast room ahead of us is lit by the flickering of a gigantic fire and the dull light of frosted windows in the fading light. My eyes hurt from the brightness of the flames, a dull ache behind them and the feeling as if they’re swollen. I didn’t realize what a toll the icy wind and glare from the sun had taken on my eyes.
Forms move, heads turn towards me and I come to a sudden halt causing Beryl to run into me. People sit on couches and chairs, blurred figures that my eyes have trouble making out. Silhouettes made sinister by their silence. A hand is slowly lifted, a small wave from over by the fireplace, and I can barely make out Jacqueline’s slender form.
“Keep walking, Jesus Fucking Christ!” Sheila barks from behind me. One of the women points a finger down the hall and I almost argue the command, desperately wanting to stay as close to the fire as possible.
We wind our way down a dark hall filled with framed pictures, silhouettes of people too dim to make out, before arriving at a closed door. Felicia’s knuckles do a quick rap and then we are ushered inside.
A small fireplace glows with the coals of a neglected fire. That and the dim light from a window reveal a short, beefy woman sitting at a desk across from us. Short brown hair curls down and barely brushes her ears. She wears a plaid shirt with the sleeves rolled up to expose massive forearms, a shawl around her shoulders the only hint that she is affected by the cold. There is a large gap between her two front teeth. Even before the downfall, this would’ve been a rarity with most everyone’s teeth whitened and straightened to exactness. But it suits her and the aura of “old-fashionedness” that seems to encompass her. She is someone who was probably born and raised working the land and never gave two shits for her appearance. She might be fifty years old. She might be forty. Hers is a face aged by the wind and cold. But her eyes are warm.
“My name is Karen. I ain’t in the mood to deal with all of you at once. Most of you don’t look like you can do much talking regardless. Who speaks for you?”
She is brusque, eyes taking in the whole group with a calm assurance.
I step forward and I can hear Felicia say something scathing.
“Felicia, take them to the fire. Get ‘em warm. Give them water and the leftover bread.”
“What about—”
Karen silences Felicia with a glance.
“I’ll let you know how my talk with this one goes.”
Felicia hustles the others out of the room, zombies that walk with their heads down. It takes me a minute to realize that Beryl has stayed.
“Don’t trust him to speak for everyone?” Karen says, eyebrows raised.
“I don’t… trust you.”
“Fair enough.” She moves the papers she had been working on to the side, leveling us with a gaze that will brook no bullshit.
“Sit down before you fall over.”
An old bench made from part of an even older tree sits against the wall. We sink onto it and I hope I don’t fall asleep it’s such a relief.
“I’m Karen. People around here call me Momma Kay.”
“I’m Harlan, this is…” I stop talking as Beryl’s hand squeezes mine.
“I’m Beryl.”
“Jacqueline says she found you on the road. Says you asked for shelter. Says she doesn’t think you have any ulterior motives.”
I nod. “That’s right.”
“Jacqueline has her head in the clouds half the time. She thinks weeds are pretty. Where were you going?”
“My home.”
“You’re an idiot. Your family, or friends, are either all dead or you’ll be dead before you get there.”
I’m too tired to summon a response. The small amount of heat in the room melting my pants enough to turn them into a cold damp that sends shivers up my spine. My hands and feet hurt. But this is still harsh. The truth, even when you are aware of it, have spent hours pondering it, can still sound wretched from the lips of another.
“I’m still going.”
She shakes her head. “I had three sons. They passed. But I would have hoped I’d raised ‘em with more in their skull than that.”
I stare back at her. Fuck, I don’t feel like arguing over this. She stares back at me, eyes boring into mine. I get the sense that she is testing me.
“What are you going to do with us?”
“Ain’t much we can do. We have food. Warmth, for now. It ain’t in our natures to turn away people in need.”
Thank you.
“In fact, I’m happy you’re here. I’m hoping that you will stay awhile. Although you’ll be working.”
“Stay? That woman, Felicia, she didn’t seem like she wants us here.”
“She… went through some… trauma… when all this happened. Makes it hard for her to trust. But I’m hoping your presence might help her heal.”
There
’s something different in the conversation, something new that seems a little planned. A little rehearsed.
“Everything is about balance. Too much water and you kill your crop. Too little and it dies.” She gestures broadly as she leans into her words. “Why do you think all of this happened? Why the world fell apart? It wasn’t balanced. It wasn’t…”
“Just say it.” I’m too tired for this. I want to figure out if we are going to live, or die, or how we are going to be used. And the last thing I want is to hear more justification. I do enough of that myself.
She gives me a long stare, one that seems to look past my eyes. A pause that lingers, inviting me to explain why I’m rude. Or why she should bother. A year ago this would have made me uncomfortable.
“I run things here. I was the first. But Felicia, she’s the fire that keeps everyone warm. And they listen to her. And they follow her.”
“So what’s the problem?”
Her lips twist and she looks out the window. “Do you know how this all happened?”
“Well, I know it has something to do with blood, but—”
She holds up a hand. “No, do you know why it happened?”
I shake my head.
“Felicia doesn’t know either. But she is pretty sure that it has something to do with men.”
I don’t know how to respond. But I’m starting to see where she’s going with this.
“Felicia, all of them… They blame men for what happened. For what the world was turning into before this all went down. Destruction of the world. Of culture. Misogyny. Bigotry. Abuse. They say it all led to this.” She looks down at the desk, one large thumb reaching out to dab at an ink stain. “They follow The Goddess now, and they have a certain… idea… of how men will behave.”
“They?” Beryl says.
She gives a smile. “Can’t say it doesn’t appeal. And yes, I hold myself as one of them. But I have counseled Felicia to not take it so far. To not flip the hierarchy so radically. That can only create more resentment.”
Silence as her words sink in. If I wasn’t so exhausted I think I’d laugh. Not at their new religion. But because I know how much it helps to find someone to blame.
