by Guess, Joshua; Ribken, Annetta; Ayers, Rachel; Whitwam, Lori
Then I began searching the room for any means of defense or escape. I knew it was hopeless. I was a bookworm, not an action movie heroine. Climbing through ceiling vents or scaling walls was completely beyond me. The hotel seemed well-fortified, with plenty of armed guards. And even if I got out, un-shot, the streets were crawling with zombies.
My window had thick plywood over it, except for about six inches at the top. I guessed they weren’t worried about zombies smashing in second floor windows, but they wanted to keep their captives in, without eliminating the only natural source of light. The sunlight faded, and I turned on my lantern, unwilling to subject myself to darkness. Just after that, I heard the lock, and Mason entered the room.
I backed away, putting the bed between us. “What’s the matter, princess?” Mason said. “Not happy to see me?” He pushed his sandy hair back on his forehead, and I noticed his gray sweatshirt had splatters and smears of what could only be blood.
I tried to think of any argument that could stop what was going to happen, knowing it was futile. “Look, Mason, you don’t want to keep me here.”
“I think I do.” He walked over and took the tray and put it out in the hall. He said something to someone, and the door closed again.
“Well, not like this.” Despite my resolve to sound confident, my voice shook. “I can help, though. I could cook. Or if you have maps, I could figure out where you can find supplies. I’ve lived here a few years, and I’m good at research.” It was an extremely lame plea, and I knew it.
“We got men who can do that stuff. But a sweet little piece like you, that might be even more valuable than booze before long.” He advanced, until my back was up against the boarded window. “Let’s see what you’ve been hiding. You’re not gonna be so untouchable now.” He used his thigh to hold me there, as he unfastened the four buttons that led down from the neckline of my dress. Apparently they didn’t go down far enough, because he ripped it several more inches and pulled the sides apart, exposing me.
I tried to fight, but a backhand across the face split my lip and shut me up real fast. In books, the heroine always fights, refusing to surrender her dignity or her innocence. Not that I was completely innocent, but I wasn’t far from it. Did not fighting make this partially my fault? I didn’t think so, but right then I didn’t care. I just wanted the pain to stop.
It turned out Mason loved causing pain. I didn’t dare think about the source of the blood on his shirt and crusted around his fingernails. It quickly became obvious he really liked blood. If he didn’t get enough of it using his fists or teeth, he used a butterfly knife. He’d open small wounds under the jaw and around the breasts, or in the fleshy parts of arms and thighs, never enough to cause serious injury, but enough to show he could bleed me dry if he wanted, and sometimes I wished he would.
I’d like to say that first night didn’t break me, but maybe it did. I was violated in ways I’d never imagined, left with bruises to my face and thighs, and bite marks on my chest and shoulders. My mind went somewhere else, images of Matt laughing when he tossed me his keys and told me to make sure to bring his truck back with a full gas tank. Wondering if I should have left Skip in the truck that morning, and what might have happened to him if I did. Trying to equate the vision of Mason as the quiet warehouse worker with the monster who had his hand fisted in my hair, forcing me to my knees.
When he finally left, I buttoned my dress despite the rip below the placket, turned off the lantern, wrapped myself in the musty-smelling blanket, and wept.
***
The next several days passed in a blur. Food was brought twice a day, usually by an elderly man with thinning gray hair and a bushy beard. He didn’t seem to be one of the “gang,” or at least he never tried to molest me. I made attempts to get him to talk, but he shook his head and put a finger to his lips, indicating he was not permitted to speak to me.
Each day, some men brought in buckets of water so I could wash and fill the toilet tank. The water was cold and smelled stagnant. I was given one tiny bar of soap, which I also used to wash my hair. I was allowed a second dress, and the first time Mason visited after that, he ripped it the same way he had the first. My socks were filthy, so I washed them in the sink. I couldn’t get out all the bloodstains.
Mason came to me every day, and he wasn’t the only one. Not even close. They worked in shifts, and at any time I could be wakened and used. They usually came in pairs, one guarding outside the door while the other was with me. Sometimes it was a group, two or three in the room with me at a time. Nothing, no matter how depraved, was off limits. They told me to do something, and I had no choice. If I didn’t, I’d suffer even more.
I hated them all, but my hatred for Mason burned in my gut. He was the most sadistic of the bunch, truly vicious. He also delighted in taunting me with memories of Matt. “I used to think about killing him, even before this happened,” he said. “I hated that obnoxious little prick.” I tried not to listen. I wondered what had happened to Matt’s body after Mason shot him.
The old man came often with peroxide, antibiotic ointment, and bandages. I always needed them. He never spoke, and the “inmates” were forbidden to communicate with each other. If the guards heard us trying to talk through the walls or doors, we were punished. It might be taking the lantern away, or missing a meal. Other times it was much worse.
One day near the end of the second week, I got my first real information. Earlier, I’d heard shouts and the sound of feet pounding down the hall, and the rest of the morning was filled with more gunshots than usual. As I’d done on numerous occasions, I climbed up on the table and peered over the plywood covering my window. One of the fences surrounding the hotel had buckled under the combined force of what must have been over a hundred zombies. This was the most I’d seen at once since the outbreak began.
A short time later the old man brought me what looked like boiled spaghetti doused in ketchup. After placing the tray on the table, he went back to the door and looked carefully up and down the hallway. Seemingly satisfied, he came back to stand by the table.
“They’re all outside, fighting,” he began. “I have to be careful, though. They keep me around to do the cooking and help take care of you girls, but if I cause them any trouble, they’ll give me to the creatures.”
Tears filled my eyes. I couldn’t speak yet, so I nodded.
“My name’s Carter.” With another glance over his shoulder, he lowered himself into the chair opposite me. “I’m sorrier than I can say about what they’re doing to you girls. I want to help you, but I don’t know how…”
“Ellen,” I choked. “My name is Ellen.”
“Ellen,” he repeated. “I’m sorry. I’d help if I could.” His pale blue eyes reddened at the rims. After all he’d seen, he could still cry for us. I supposed he was just a different sort of victim.
“Please. Carter. Just talk to me. Tell me about this place. I keep trying to understand it, to make it make some kind of sense, but I can’t.” I dug my plastic fork into the pseudo-spaghetti and forced down a bite.
He thought a moment. “That Mason and some of his buddies figured out early on how things were probably going. They started breaking into places and taking what they wanted, knowing whoever had the best stash of supplies would have the most power.”
“I guessed that part. They killed my brother at his store, and took me.” I choked up again at the thought of Matt. And Skip.
“I’m ashamed to say, my grandson’s one of ‘em. He was friends with Mason before, and I have to say I never trusted him. There was something sneaky about him, like he was waiting for something. Like those people the neighbors say were so nice, kept to themselves, then they go into a mall with a gun.”
I thought that’s exactly what Mason sounded like. Undoubtedly his access to the truck and warehouse, and his willingness to commit violence cemented him in the position of “chief” of whatever fucked-up kind of gang this was.
“How many of us are here, C
arter? How many women?”
“About two dozen, I think. The rooms they’re not using for barracks are all full.” He looked sick at the thought.
“What else? Are they just going to keep us like this forever?” Again, I probably didn’t want to know, but Carter looked jumpy, and I knew he wouldn’t risk staying much longer.
He scratched his beard and seemed to gather his thoughts. “They went out the other day, looking for a big enough generator to get some power going here. They found a building a ways out of town, and they want to set up another depot there. Maybe move some of the girls.” His eyes skittered across the room as if ashamed of what he was about to say. “They’re talking about using them for barter. If someone has a stockpile of something or information they want, they might trade it for time with some of the girls, maybe even buy one outright.”
Fantastic. Another step up the sex slave ladder. Carter suddenly seemed to think he’d said too much. He listened at the window for a few minutes, then took the tray of uneaten food and hurried away, whispering a final apology as he went.
***
The days dragged. I’m sure it said something about my damaged mental state that it became harder to horrify me. When a man simply came in, did his thing, and left, I was grateful. Mason continued to visit regularly, which meant I was never without fresh wounds. He also kept coming up with ways to torment me emotionally.
One night, as he wiped my blood off his chin, he said, “Hey, that little dog you had, I think I might’ve seen him today.”
My heart swelled with hope. For about a second. No way would Mason offer me any sort of kindness, even a shred of hope that Skip might be alive. I kept my expression blank. This didn’t stop Mason.
“Yeah, thought I saw him running around out by that chicken farm west of here. We’re thinking of going into livestock.” He buckled his belt, the holster empty at his side. The men always left their weapons elsewhere before entering one of the rooms, so they couldn’t be used against them. I hoped every day Mason would forget. Just once. “But there were a bunch of guys huntin’, so they probably got him.”
I couldn’t help myself. “Got him?”
He smirked. “Some of the groups, not ours, of course, have been huntin’ dogs. They trust people, so they don’t run like game does. Easy to shoot. They’ve been sellin’ them to some camps as meat. Don’t tell ‘em it’s dog, though.”
My stomach clenched, but I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing how sickened I was.
He was almost out the door when he turned back for one final zinger. “By the way, I’ll be back later tonight. I’m bringing you some overnight company. Ain’t that nice? Her room isn’t quite ready yet. The last tenant… left it kind of a mess.”
The door closed, and I grimaced. There was no way this was going to be good.
***
It was late when I heard the wails in the hall. Then the lock rattled and Mason entered, dragging a hysterical girl behind him. Her long, dark hair, the opposite of my mid-length dishwater blonde, was stuck to the sides of her face. Her clothing was torn, and she had a gash on one cheek.
“Princess, meet Melissa. She needs a place to stay tonight, and I knew you’d appreciate the company.” He slung the girl, who couldn’t have been a day over fifteen, toward the bed and called for someone out in the hall. The tall, scrawny kid came in, pulling a folding cot, which he set up near the window. He was gone in less than a minute.
Mason ordered me to sit on the cot, while he stalked toward the quivering girl on my bed. I can barely stand to think about the things he did to her. I tried to close my eyes and look away, to will myself not to hear her screams, but Mason wouldn’t have it. “Turn over here and open your eyes, girlie,” he said. “Every time I catch you not watching, I’ll cut her again.”
I believed him. I watched. I wished I could command my brain not to record the images. But it did.
***
Mason left before dawn, and Melissa didn’t say a word. I got a rag from the bathroom and cleaned her up the best I could, but it was obvious that her mind had gone somewhere far, far away. I wished I could go there with her.
An hour or two after sunrise, everything changed. At first I thought it was another zombie attack, but I heard shots coming from farther away, as if someone were firing at the hotel. I had no idea if that was good news, then decided anything was better than the hell I’d endured for the past few weeks. Even death.
Booted feet ran down the halls, shouting about defensive positions and points of attack. I pulled Melissa down against the wall beside the bed, and we waited.
It might have been an hour later, maybe two, when I realized I was hearing shots inside the hotel, not just in the streets. I heard doors crashing open, screams, softer cries. When our door flew open, I clutched Melissa. If these men wanted to kill us, I couldn’t stop them.
They didn’t kill us. They saved us.
***
The next few days were a whirlwind. I know Josh has written extensively about the rescue at the hotel, and the subsequent events at the Compound where we now lived. The looters who were left, or who converged from other locations, attacked repeatedly, as did the zombies. Some of us from the hotel fought, but I stayed hidden, trying to get Melissa to talk. And I started drinking.
Everyone wanted to help us. They knew some of what we’d endured, but nobody who hadn’t gone through it could ever really know. There was still plenty of stockpiled liquor around, and some people thought maybe it would calm us, help us sleep, whatever. I didn’t care. If I drank enough, I forgot about things for a while. And any second I wasn’t reliving Mason’s atrocities, and hoping someone had blown his head off during the rescue, was precious.
During my lucid moments, I learned one thing. We all had lives before this pandemic – because it was beginning to look like this was some sort of disease – but none of it mattered. The only parts of our past lives that were relevant were the experiences and skills we had that might contribute to the survival of the community. I was a librarian-in-training. I could research and catalog with the best of them, but I didn’t have any particularly useful skills. I’d have to figure out a way to fit in here, eventually. But for now I was busy being depressed. And terribly, terribly angry.
It was strange meeting the women who had shared my captivity. They’d suffered the same abuse, from the same men, but we couldn’t talk about it. And most people didn’t talk much about their lives before. It was too painful, because the majority of the people in that life were lost to us. So some of us worked, some raged, some cried alone in the dark, and I drank.
A few of the women attached themselves to men in the community. I guess they needed to be reminded what it was like to be touched without violence. I couldn’t. If bland, inconspicuous Mason could turn out to be such a monster, how could any man I saw here be any better, any safer? I knew that didn’t make sense even as I thought it. But it was how I felt.
A few days after I came to the Compound, some looters tried to burn us out, and got captured. When I heard this, I hoped Mason was one of them, because I was certain they’d be executed. I wanted to see him beg for his life. I wanted to pull the trigger. I was disappointed when he wasn’t among them, though I recognized them all.
The residents were debating how to punish these men, and weren’t even close to a consensus. Some wanted to send them away, while others thought they could be imprisoned and forced to perform hard labor. Others wanted them executed. Guess where I cast my vote.
I couldn’t understand how anyone could show these abominations any sort of mercy. They hadn’t shown any to me, or any of the other captives. And the fact that some of the women here actually wanted to put them out of the Compound, where they could torture even more women, infuriated me. Courtney and Darlene were the worst. They were part of the group who would ultimately decide, and I considered them the worst sort of traitors. I’d heard rumors that Darlene had briefly been held captive herself, and that she would
not want rapists dead was beyond my comprehension.
When the men were sent packing, I drank for two straight days. I missed my shifts clearing debris from the recent attacks, and my mood didn’t improve once I sobered up. Not that I was sober for long at that point.
A little more than a week later, the biggest swarm of zombies so far attacked the Compound. The residents suffered their first loss of life that day, and it hit everybody hard. It was decided to have a day of mourning and reflection to try to reconnect with the tattered remains of our own humanity.
Darlene thought it would be a good time to resolve the animosity between us. It would have been better to wait till I wasn’t drinking, but those times were few and far between. She wanted to share the story of her captivity, and explain that if she could overcome it and use it as a way to make herself stronger, then maybe I could, too. But all I heard was superiority and condescension. I know she didn’t mean it that way. She was trying to help. Still, it felt like she was saying I was weak, that my helpless rage was somehow my own fault.
Before I knew it, an adrenalin surge gave me the strength and coordination to launch myself at her. After that, things were a confusing jumble of images. I punched, kicked, clawed, bit… I wanted to hurt her. I wanted her to remember what it was like to be at someone’s mercy, when that person didn’t have any mercy left.
Others finally pulled me off her, and I found myself locked in my bedroom. When the whiskey wore off and the hangover set in, I was deeply ashamed. I believe I would have killed her if I could. I had almost become one of the monsters myself.
Several of the community’s leaders came to talk to me. The full impact of my remorse was crushing. I think they saw it, and that they had some sympathy for what had driven me to such a terrible act. I was still uncomfortable talking to men, though, so Jess helped me the most. When I completed my sentence, a week of hard labor chopping wood, and confinement when not working, Jess asked me to help her organize and catalog the many books she was beginning to accumulate. That single gesture made more of a difference than anything else. For the first time, I felt useful, and gained some hope that I had a place in this new world.
