by Andrew Smith
“Did people actually do that?” Mel asked.
I nodded. “Wendy said they did it to all the boys in her family. I asked my dads about it, and they showed me things about circumcision in a book.”
“Why would anyone ever cut off part of a boy’s penis?”
“Before the hole, the world was dangerous and insane, Mel.”
Mel said, “Were you afraid?”
“Terrified. I did not want Wendy to get anywhere near my penis with something sharp. I think Wendy was trying to frighten me about my penis, because I was growing up, and, well, this happened right after she made us stop taking baths together.”
Mel smiled and looked down. She couldn’t possibly be embarrassed, right? Mel would never be embarrassed with me.
She said, “That time when we lost the lights?”
I felt my cheeks getting hot. I looked up at the screaming stag and nodded.
“Did Wendy cut off part of your penis?”
“Dad wouldn’t let her.”
“Thank God.”
“Thank Dad,” I said.
“That would hurt.”
“Worse than a bag of rocks hitting your balls,” I said. “I’ll be honest. I cried about it for days, until I talked to my dad, and he told me not to worry, that nobody was allowed to circumcise my penis.”
“That’s terrifying.”
“Maybe in this church, the Church of the Screaming Stag, maybe they never circumcised boys just to show they were good. Maybe they let girls play basketball on the same teams as boys. Maybe the stag is screaming like that because he took all the unfairness away from people and bore it himself.”
Mel did not ask if that story was true.
We both knew that people before the hole were far too stupid to follow such sensible dogmas as that of the Church of the Screaming Stag.
The Rome hole we found was very small. In fact, it was smaller than the refrigerator room in the hole Mel and I were born—and conceived—in. It was mere chance that I discovered it too, because the heavy metal disc that covered its entryway was plastered in filth and ash and blended in almost perfectly with the rest of the garage’s floor.
We had a gas lantern with us, so we could see down the little opening and the ladder, which was very much like the ladder down into our hole, only miniaturized.
“Hello!” I called down into the hole.
I definitely did not want to surprise any inhabitants, even though I could tell by the staleness of the air rising up from the portal that there was nothing living down there.
After waiting a sufficient amount of time to rule out the existence of residents, I climbed down with the lantern, and Mel followed.
“This place is really creepy,” Mel said.
“You know what I think? When you build a hole, you never expect you’ll have to use it,” I said. “When you do have to use it, chances are it’s already too late.”
The thing had been built inside a large, ribbed metal pipe of some kind. I imagined the childish stories I’d heard about people who lived inside the bellies of whales after having been swallowed by them. The hole was barely big enough for me to stand up inside; the confinement of it made me feel as though I had to hunch down.
Along one side of the pipe-hole were two sets of narrow bunk beds, perfectly made as though someone were expecting important guests. Opposite the beds were shelves with a desk and television. The place was wired for electricity, but there was none. At the end of the cramped room were a toilet and a sink basin with a hand pump, and that was it.
It would have been the most terribly oppressive experience, trying to live your life in such a place.
On the shelves were a small gas stove, utensils, and a framed photograph of what I assumed was the family that had lived in the burned-down house above. There were four people in the photograph: the mother and father in the middle, and on each side of them, teenage boys who looked to be about thirteen and fourteen years old, near replicas of each other, with very short-cropped hair, big ears, and comfortable smiles. The family was standing on the front steps of a house, most probably the one that had burned.
I said, “It’s sad, isn’t it?”
Mel said, “Yeah.”
“I mean, I can tell I really would have liked to talk to these boys, to ask them what their lives were like, and maybe if they knew how to play basketball.”
“Yeah.”
“Maybe, given a world such as this, you could have fallen in love with one of them.”
“I doubt it,” Mel said.
I was only testing her, and Mel was too smart to fall for it.
There were colorful boxes of games on the shelves too, but no books at all except for one—a Bible.
“Clearly, these people did not attend the Church of the Screaming Stag.”
“Poor boys.” Mel shook her head. “It’s a wonder they could manage to smile, considering what they may have had to endure just to show they were trustworthy to God.”
I laughed.
Some of the games we’d had in our old hole—I found playing cards, chess, and checkers—but most of them I’d never heard of before. One of the boxes said this: YAHTZEE—THE CLASSIC SHAKE, SCORE & SHOUT DICE GAME! AGES 8 TO ADULT.
So many rules, without end.
“I don’t know if shaking and shouting sounds like a game,” I said.
Mel shrugged. “I’d like to play it.”
I placed the game box down on the edge of the desk. Then I moved our lantern and saw that we’d both been standing on a large rectangular trapdoor that had been cut right into the wood floor of the hole. And when we opened the door, we found six large blue plastic barrels below the floor, and all of them were sealed shut and dustless.
“This is exactly what we’ve been looking for, Mel.”
“Praise the Screaming Stag.”
Fuckers from Space
The only light inside Doc Sawbones’ Field Amputation House of Horrors! was a dancing yellow ghost that flickered out from the mouth of the open door on a potbelly stove.
Houses of horrors never have windows.
This was one of the reasons Edsel and Mimi had survived. Before the hole, they had been seasonal carnival workers who traveled the country mostly by hitchhiking, and now they were, in effect, king and queen of the abandoned Rebel Land.
Edsel, who tried to explain things to Breakfast a little too much, insisted that he and Olive were not prisoners—Edsel just didn’t want to let them leave, which made as much sense to Breakfast as it did to Olive, who pretty much understood everything she heard, anyway.
“You can’t leave without visiting me and Mimi for a while. It would be rude,” he said.
“How long is a while?” Breakfast asked.
“I don’t know. We’ll see. Maybe a few months. Maybe you’ll like it here. Maybe we’ll find you a nice rebel uniform with a cap, so you don’t have to run around naked like that. Would you want that?” Edsel said.
Breakfast had no intention of remaining captive to the old man for a few months.
“I don’t want no uniform and cap,” Breakfast said.
“Suit yourself. Or, un-suit yourself! Ha-ha-ha!”
Edsel and Mimi used to be addicted to heroin and methamphetamine.
Holding the pistol aimed between the boy’s shoulder blades, Edsel escorted Breakfast and Olive up a ramp, and then he unlatched the thick metal door marked ENTRANCE to Doc Sawbones’ Field Amputation House of Horrors!
“Just follow the path into the hospital,” Edsel said. “That’s where we live.”
The “path” was a very narrow trail through the first room, which was called Sharpsburg. The path snaked through a canyon of garbage that was taller than Breakfast. The floor was slick with a fermented goo that had percolated down through the years and years of waste deposited in Sharpsburg by Edsel and Mimi.
At the very bottom of the muck and rotting slime were the occasional outstretched arms and a couple of bloodied faces from the plastic-prop dead
soldiers who were essential decorative components to Doc Sawbones’ Field Amputation House of Horrors!
It smelled like death, and there were rats wriggling through the mountains of shit, unfazed by the presence of the three marchers, setting up what looked like potential lines of attack along the ridges.
“This is our rat farm,” Edsel said. “You ever eat rats?”
“Lots of times,” Breakfast said.
“Mimi! Mimi! I got ’em! Only, one of ’em’s a chimpanzee, and the other one’s a naked boy!”
“I’m wild,” Breakfast muttered.
Once inside the hospital room, Edsel told Breakfast and Olive to sit down at a table next to the stove. Overhead, hanging like a vast constellation from hell, were bloodied limbs—arms, legs, feet, hands—the ambiance of the former fun house. The walls were lined from top to bottom with mirrors that were bent and curved to stretch and distort every image they captured.
“Well, my, my, my. I just can’t believe it. We’re sitting here with another person—a little boy, no less!” Mimi said. “How long has it been since there were any people here, Edsel?”
“Oh, say!” Edsel’s pistol lay on the pitted steel dinner table, pointed at Breakfast’s chest. “It must be fifteen years now. Maybe fourteen since that last feller come through.”
The table had a mesh-screened drain in the center of it, and at each of its four corners were leather restraints with thick brass buckles on them. Olive fidgeted in her chair. She had her hand on Breakfast’s knee beneath the table. Olive stroked Breakfast’s thigh. She could tell Breakfast did not like the old couple, and she wanted to make him feel safe.
Mimi, who had no lower teeth, scratched her head. She was mostly bald and had big brown spots all over her skin, but no pictures on her, like Edsel did, at least not as far as Breakfast could see. Mimi wore a long-sleeved nightgown with a white collar that tied in a bow at her neck.
She said, “Yes. Maybe fourteen years back. Do you remember how that man—he looked like he might have come from Ohio, the way he was dressed so fancy—climbed and scrambled all the way to the top of the General Lee’s Wild Revenge Coaster, trying to get away from them two big bugs? Ha-ha! What a dummy!”
Edsel nodded and smiled, the fire making little dancing tornados in his dark eyes. “That was the dumbest thing I ever saw anyone try to do in my life.”
Then he held his hand over the tabletop and slapped it down.
Breakfast and Olive both jumped.
“Spee-lat!” Edsel said, then laughed and coughed a drumbeat of wheezing, phlegmy barks.
Mimi reached across the table and put her hand on Breakfast’s.
“How old are you, little boy?”
Breakfast pulled his hand back, repulsed, and said, “Twelve.” He picked at his earwax and scratched his balls.
Mimi looked up into the dark, concentrating, counting on her fingertips.
“Twelve? That’s a miracle. You don’t have no clue, no clue at all about the things that happened, do you?”
“Maybe a bit,” Breakfast said.
“It was a invasion. Fuckers from space,” Edsel said.
Breakfast had no idea what the crazy old heroin addict was talking about.
“Maybe you might tell us all about what you did—how you come here, and how you managed to live like this on your own,” Mimi said.
“It wasn’t on my own,” Breakfast said. “I have Olive. She keeps me safe.”
“We can be like family now!” Mimi said. “Edsel and I never had no babies of our own!”
“Are you hungry, boy?” Edsel said. “We should have a special dinner for our newest little rebel, don’t you think, Mimi? A special dinner. Not rats tonight.”
Edsel’s narrow eyes were fixed on Olive. He licked his lips and swallowed an obvious mouthful of warm saliva.
Breakfast balled his hands into fists. He had never encountered such cruelty and nastiness in his life, and if this was what other people were like, he thought, he’d just as soon go on with no one but Olive.
“No,” Breakfast said.
Edsel put his hand back on the gun, just resting there.
“Dumb little fucker,” he said. “If it gots hair on it, you eat it. Good thing for you you ain’t got a lick of hair except for that mop-head jungle up top. You wouldn’t be the first person we eat. Maybe the littlest, though, huh, Mimi?”
Mimi and Edsel laughed. Drool ran down the old woman’s chin.
“I can catch you some catfish,” Breakfast offered. “There’s lots of them in that pond out there.”
“You can catch fish?” Edsel asked.
“With my bare hands. And I can swim fast,” Breakfast said. “Because I’m wild.”
Edsel was excited. He leaned so close to the boy, Breakfast could feel the sweaty steam rising from the old man’s bare chest. Breakfast lowered his eyes, fixed them on the smeary image of two crossed rifles just below Edsel’s hairless left nipple.
“Hoo-wee! A boy what can catch fish barehanded! And can swim, too! Mimi, we might want to keep this one around forever!”
Mimi nodded and wiped her chin with the snot-varnished sleeve of her nightgown. “Forever!”
Survival Gear
The supplies from the Rome hole ended up being more than we needed and were also more than we could figure out.
Three of the barrels were filled with drinking water, and the other three contained smaller buckets of rice, beans, spices, and dehydrated food that was sealed inside vacuum pouches, along with other nonedible survival supplies. Among those items we found flashlights and a solar battery charger, a .45-caliber handgun and ammunition, a first aid kit, a handheld fire starter, packages of medicine, a carton of fifty colorful butane lighters, and a plastic-wrapped purple box of something neither one of us had ever heard of before.
The box said this on it:
durex® extra sensitive™ ultra-thin condoms with extra lube for heightened sensitivity
“Any idea what ‘ultra-thin condoms’ are?” I said.
Mel shook her head. “Maybe it’s something to eat. The box is an appetizing color. They’re probably sweets. You know, to make you feel good, if you’re sensitive about living in a hole throughout the duration of a mass-extinction event.”
“I don’t get the ‘lube’ and ‘sensitivity’ thing. Maybe they’re used in a motor or something.”
“Yeah, maybe they are,” Mel said.
“Or maybe condoms were invented for people who were very sensitive about frightening movies with things like Bigfoot and murderous birds. Condoms are a kind of medicine, which sensitive people would put in their ears and eyes, so they could enjoy terrifying things in the presence of other people who did not have heightened levels of sensitivity to such things,” I offered.
“Judging from what I know of the world before the hole, as you say, I think condoms were a definite necessity in that case,” Mel said.
All stories are true.
“No doubt, Mel. I’m going to open the box and see what they are used for.”
Mel sat down on one of the little bunk beds next to me. She wanted to see what was inside the box too.
It was almost like Christmas, but without the bitterness and arson.
The box contained thirty-six little packets, as well as a glossy pamphlet with very small print and black-line illustrations that gave instructions on how to use ultra-thin condoms with extra lube.
I said, “Oh.”
Mel leaned against my shoulder, looking at the diagrams on the instruction sheet.
“They’re for your penis,” she pointed out.
“Apparently.”
She took the page from my hands and read aloud. “ ‘Once the penis is erect, open the condom package. Squeeze the tip of the condom with your fingers, and unroll the condom over the head of the penis until the entire penis is completely covered. Leave a half-inch space at the tip of the condom to collect the semen.’ ”
I cleared my throat. The temperature inside th
at little hole had risen significantly.
Mel said, “This is really interesting.”
“Um.”
“Are you turning red? What’s wrong with you?”
“Nuh—nothing,” I said.
Sweat dripped from my armpits, tickling my ribs. Despite the fact that I was wearing Julian Powell’s rule-breaker Wolverines basketball jersey, it was entirely too hot down here. I was also getting an erection and did not want to stand up.
Well, I wasn’t actually getting one; I had one.
Stupid penis.
And Mel continued, “ ‘After ejaculation, while the penis is still hard, clamp the condom at the base of your penis and then slip it off, being careful not to spill any semen onto your partner.’ I guess these condoms were to help boys not get their semen on stuff, or on other people. Have you ever had that problem, Arek?”
“I. Uh. Well.”
What was happening to me?
I said, “Yes, I guess I have. At nights, sometimes it just happens in my sleep. I didn’t understand it at first, and it makes a mess. So after the first couple times, I talked to my dads about it, and they told me it was a normal thing that happens to all boys.”
“Like girls getting periods,” Mel said.
“I guess.”
“Maybe you should put a condom on your penis at night when you go to sleep. That’s probably what these were for. The family who lived here probably needed them for their two boys.”
“Um. Uh.”
“You’re sweating.”
“I know.”
“Does this make you feel uncomfortable?” Mel asked.
“No.” I was such a fucking liar.
“Open one. I want to see what they look like.”
“I liked the story about the scary movies better.”
“Stop being weird.”
“I can’t.”
“Give me that.”
Mel took the box from my quaking hands and pulled out one of the shiny purple packets. She squeezed it between her thumb and fingers. “There’s definitely something slippery inside it.” Then she held the packet out to me and said, “Here. Feel it.”
