by James, Jill
"I can't have this baby. I can't. I'm not claimed. I'm dirty."
"What is she talking about," she asked Shannon. "Jed loves her. I can tell. He's going to marry her, isn't he?"
A flash of disgust rolled across the doctor's face, worse than any she’d ever seen on Shannon’s face.
"Oh, Jed wants to marry her all right. As soon as the baby was born, from what I hear and he told Jim."
Shannon reached to examine Beth and Michelle stared off across the room, afraid to look at the young girl’s bloody thighs.
"But?"
"But she's got some stupid notion that she has to be 'claimed.' That she won't be pure until she is submissive and a wife, just like those nutjobs at the church. You saw their women, right? You think they cut their hair off themselves, like some modern day ritual of the Orthodox Church from the ancient past. Hell, no. That's how the men 'claim' them. At least that's what Beth told me and Jim one day after she'd been to see Reverend Billy Joe Bennett. They marked them by cutting off their hair."
Shannon sat up and wiped her hands on the covers. "Tell Jed and Jim to boil water and find me as many towels and blankets as possible. She's dilated. This baby is coming today, whether it is time or not."
Michelle left the room and got the pot of water going. She sent Jed to get towels and set Jim to watching the water. She took a deep breath and returned to the bedroom. Beth sat up on her elbows and strained, her face red and covered in sweat. Her lip bled where she’d bit through it.
Michelle went to the head of the bed and placed herself behind Beth, supporting her shoulders and giving her something to lean on. The girl collapsed back and panted in gulps. Her crying brought tears to Michelle's eyes. All this effort in what would almost certainly be a lost cause. Was this what Emily had felt every time she'd thought she was pregnant and she wasn't or she lost the baby after only dreaming of it for days or a week or two? Poor Beth had seven months to think and dream of a baby.
She stepped away from thoughts of babies and dreams and futures. All there was, was now. This just highlighted the point. Beth cried out as her stomach stretched and moved, pressure from hands and feet appearing on the taut skin. She moved and pushed the girl up higher.
"Push, Beth," Shannon yelled from between the girl's legs. "Just a little bit more."
Beth groaned, her fingers grabbing into the covers. Her screams echoed in the little room as a gush of blood proceeded the baby. Shannon worked to pull the baby the rest of the way out. Stark silence filled the room.
"Why isn't it making any noise? Let me see my baby." Beth cried as she tried to reach for what Shannon held in her hands.
Michelle forced herself to look. She girded herself to look at the blue, lifeless body of a baby born before its time. But she gasped and choked gagged at the gray thing in the doctor's hands. It lay there motionless, and then twitched, its eyes opening, opaque and dead.
"Oh, hell no," Shannon whispered. "Michelle, hand me your knife. Now."
"No, don't hurt him. He's resurrected," Beth cooed and smiled.
The hair rose on her arms as she reached for the knife in her boot. She handed it to Shannon and wrapped her arms around Beth. The girl thrashed and tried to reach for the thing she’d birthed, but Michelle was stronger than Beth, especially in her weakened condition.
Shannon removed her shoelace and tied off the umbilical cord. She reached and cut it a few inches from the stomach of the abomination on the bed. She placed it to the side, and worked to take care of Beth.
By the time she finished and gave Beth a shot from her medical bag the infant skinbag bled out and lay truly dead on the stained and soiled covers.
She turned away as Shannon used the knife on the tiny skull to be sure. Michelle gagged and swallowed against her stomach rising to her throat.
The room looked like a battlefield and maybe it had been with the bloody sheets and the dead thing on the bed. Michelle got up and reached for the doorknob.
"Michelle, tell Jim and Jed the baby was too soon. Okay?"
She nodded. "Of course."
Because what else could she say? We're not going to hell. We're already there.
***
Michelle plodded down the stairs from the motor home like a million pounds sat on her shoulders. The bloody, lumpy blanket she held in her arms said it all. Her red-rimmed eyes looked up at him and Teddy wanted to take all that weight off her shoulders and his heart ached with knowing he couldn’t. He didn’t care what anyone said. Women were the stronger sex, they had to be. How else could they keep getting pregnant and having babies?
“It was still-born. Can you ... you get rid of it, please?”
He took the bundle with all the care he would have given a newborn baby. His natural curiosity rose as he cradled it in his arms.
Why hadn’t she said he or she or even, the baby?
“Don’t ask,” she said, her eyes refusing to meet his.
“It will be okay,” he whispered, wanting to hold her instead of the bloody bundle.
“I’m not so sure,” she muttered as she turned and walked back to the motor home. Several people opened a walkway and gave her a wide berth.
At the click of the door, Teddy hefted the tiny load and headed out to the gate and the field across the road. He plodded along until the boys of Rogue Vantage met him at the gate. He shook his head as they tried to exit the yard with him.
“Not today, boys. You don’t need to be seeing this.”
“We can watch your back,” Aiden and Bryant piped up.
He gave them a weak smile. “You watch from the gate, just in case. Give a holler if you see anything.”
Trudging across the asphalt his gaze swept over the tidy field with its collection of makeshift memorials and crosses. Not a lot, but still too many. The first row contained the parents of the boys watching his back. Commander Canida told him of finding the little ones the only living beings in the yard. The bodies of their parents and the other grown-ups had been too heavy for the children to move and the skinbags had made it too dangerous for them to dig graves.
The next section held four graves of people with injuries that in the before Z time would have needed a shot of antibiotics and rest to cure. He scuffed his feet in the dirt as he passed the next section with three graves of the elderly who’d died in their sleep and needed to be put down after the turn.
He trudged along until he reached the empty section with a grave already dug, with Jed standing by its side. Teddy stopped and gripped the bundle tighter. “You don’t need to be here, bro.”
Jed’s hands gripped the handle of the shovel until his knuckles stood out against his pale skin. “Yes, I do. I let Beth down. I should have seen it coming.”
He knelt beside the grave and slowly lowered the blanket-wrapped bundle into the ground. His vision blurred with wetness as he stood and wiped his hands on his pants.
“Can you say a few words?” Jed blurted out, the tears rolling down his face.
“I’m no minister or pastor,” Teddy started.
“To hell with them all,” Jed said, his eyes narrowing and his lips thinning.
“Okay, then,” he began, lowering his head. “Lord, please talk this baby into your arms and keep it safe in your love and protection. Amen.”
“Amen,” Jed echoed, taking his glasses off and wiping his face with his sleeve.
Teddy reached for and took the shovel, scooping up the dirt of the field and filling the small grave with three or four shovelfuls. He leaned on the tool as Jed squatted down and picked up the tiny cross he’d made of two pieces of wood nailed together. Colorful ribbons criss-crossed and wrapped around it.
Teddy read Baby Evans-Cruz as Jed hammered it into the ground at the top of the mound of freshly turned dirt.
Chapter Fourteen
Two weeks later
The mouth-watering scent of pork wafted through the RV yard and carried to the gate where Billy Joe stood, his face red and his anger raising his blood pressure. The id
ling motor of the bus and the sound of irritating voices reminded him he wasn’t alone.
Jack Canida and Paul Luther stood on the other side of the gate, arms crossed on their chests. The field beside the encampment stood empty of tents and people eager to trade.
“Like I said,” Jack told him in that uppity military tone. “The people of RV-1 will no longer do business with you. You and yours are no longer welcome here. Leave us in peace and we will do the same. Mess with our people again and Hell will seem like a picnic to what we will do to you.”
“Now, Jack. I told you I was sorry about that little girl’s baby. But I don’t see how it is our fault that she lost a baby conceived in sin. Only God talking care of things, as far as I can see.”
Paul started toward the gate with murder in his eyes, until Jack reined him back with an arm across this chest, stopping him from going for Bennett.
Billy Joe put his hands on his hips. “That’s right, Canida. You better stop your bisexual bulldog before God brings his wrath down on his wicked ways as well.”
Jack laughed, his eyes bright and shining. “I wasn’t protecting Luther, I was protecting you.”
He bit his tongue. He didn’t think his face could get any hotter, but now it was on fire. He’d tried to help these sinful people and this was the thanks he got. Why were good Christian people always persecuted? How much were they supposed to take before they snapped?
“I’ve always just wanted to help. To bring salvation to your people.”
“Our people don’t want what you’re selling.”
A scuffle and yelling started twenty feet or so from behind Jack and Paul.
“I don’t want to go, Juan.”
“You will do what you’re told, Lila, or so help me God I’ll give that little whore Selena to the first man who wants her.”
“Please, Juan. Don’t hurt her. She’s only eight years old.”
Billy Joe stared over Jack’s shoulder as Paul grasped the commander’s arm and pulled him back. Now, wasn’t that interesting?
Juan Morales had his wife, Lila by the arm, her struggles doing nothing to throw him off. The man was thin, but wiry. Their daughter, Selena scrambled in their wake, weighed down with a backpack bigger than she was.
He grinned. At least one man in this group knew how to be a man and put women in their place. Locking his fingers together in prayer, he raised his face to the heavens and called out to Juan in a voice that carried over the growing crowd inside the gate.
“Brother Morales, God has shown you the way. The Church of Fruitful Harvest welcomes you and your family.”
“We are ready to join you, Billy Joe,” Juan called, dragging his wife to the gate and glaring at Jack and Paul. “We’re leaving this evil, Godless place, and you can’t stop us.”
“This isn’t a prison, Juan. You are free to leave,” Jack said, raising his shaking hand and giving a signal. The gate slid open wide enough for one person to pass through.
Paul turned to the commander. “You can’t let him treat her that way. You have to do something.”
“I can’t. We aren’t the law. She’s his wife. We don’t have the right to stop him.” The words were said hard and cold, but the commander’s eyes were warm as he stared at Lila. There was something there. Something he would store for later, in case he needed it.
Billy Joe raised his arms. “Only God is the law.”
Jack stared at him, those cold eyes probing and dissecting. “I think Governor Rivers and President Thomas would have something to say about that. Doesn’t the Bible say, ‘Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's’?”
His face heated again and he wished for a weapon to destroy Jack Canida and his band of heathens. He put his shaking hands behind his back and waited for Juan and his family. Perhaps one man’s leaving would start an Exodus of the barbarian camp.
The girl shrieked as the man kicked her out the gate. She fell to the ground, white-blonde hair falling all around her. One of the women came off the bus and picked her up, helping her back to the vehicle. Her cries faded away, drowned out by the yells of her mother.
Her hands latched on to the metal fence until Juan kicked at them with his boots. Her bloody fingers dropped to her side as her husband shoved her toward the bus. Defeat permeated the air around her as her head drooped and Juan placed his fist in her hair to pull her along. She stumbled over the rough road, only her husband’s hand keeping her upright.
“You bastard,” a yell went up as a woman streaked to the fence. Long brown hair cascaded over shoulders barely covered with a tank top, the rest of her exposed in a pair of tiny shorts.
“Michelle,” he whispered on an exhale but she ignored him, her eyes set on Juan Morales.
She stomped up to the man and yanked his shoulder. He came around with a gun in his hand, pointed at her chest. The woman skidded to a stop, the gun’s barrel inches from her body.
Michelle sneered at him. “You know what they say about a man and his gun, don’t you? Compensating for something, are we, Juan?”
Billy Joe bit his cheek to stop the laugh he might have let slip. The woman was fire and sunlight. Hard as a rock and as soft as a woman should be. His erection throbbed with the rapid beat of his heart. He was going to get this woman. He licked his dry lips and swallowed. His time would come.
The large, black man strode through the gate and stepped in front of Michelle. He glared at Juan until the man’s face reddened and the gun in his hand shook.
“You want to put that away, little man, or I’ll make you eat it.”
The man slammed the gun into the holster on his belt. “We’re leaving and you can’t stop us.”
Teddy Ridgewood leaned down until he was face to face with Juan. His raspy whisper carried to Billy Joe.
“Just know, I would if I could. Don’t doubt it for a minute.”
Michelle came from his back and slipped under his arm. He hugged her shoulders and squeezed. She smiled up at him and Billy Joe felt the green-eyed snake of jealousy rip through him. His hands tightened behind his back until the knuckles cracked.
I’ll have you naked and in my bed. Or I’ll have you Resurrected in a cage.
***
Michelle shuddered as she glanced over her shoulder and caught Bennett staring at her. Teddy squeezed her shoulder and pulled her in closer.
“Are you cold? You could have put more clothes on to run to the rescue, you know?”
“No, I’m fine.” She refused to turn back but she could feel his eyes on her like a gun pointed at her back. “It’s just the Reverend.”
“What about ol’ Billy Joe?”
She laughed, but it died quickly. “Don’t make light of it. He is like a skinbag creeping in the tall grass, just waiting to get you as you walk along, all unawares.”
“Well, he can’t get you unless you go running out of the gate without thinking.”
“I did do that, didn’t I” She smiled up at him.
He stopped, pulling her to his chest, leaning down and taking her lips in a deep, hungry kiss. “You’ll be off zombie-hunting with me in no time,” he said as the kiss ended.
“I don’t think so,” she whispered, sliding her lips across his, not wanting it to end.
She pulled back. “I wouldn’t mind hunting and doing in Bennett. The man gives me the creeps. He looks at me like he wants me naked, sprawled at his feet.”
Teddy grinned. “That’s a nice picture. I’d like you naked, sprawled at my feet.”
She grinned back and slapped his arm. “Tag, you’re it. Last one to the trailer is the naked sex slave.”
Her long strides had her touching the metal door two steps before Teddy. She turned as he pressed her up against the side of the trailer. “I think you let me win. I think you want to be the sex slave.”
“But of course, Mistress. Whatever you desire.”
His rich, deep voice sent shock waves through her body. His hot gaze drove tremors to her
thighs and between as well. His warm hands on her arms delivered X-rated visions to her brain. Her hand fumbled and found the doorknob. They fell in, as she ripped his T-shirt from his body. His chest and abs glistened with light perspiration. His sandalwood scent filled the confines of the trailer as he stripped and came to her on his knees.
“Whatever you desire.”
“Strip me,” she ordered.
His hands came at her in a rush. She stared into the dark depths of his eyes.
“Strip me, slowly.”
His gaze lowered to follow his hands on her legs. His fingers glided down and in slow motion took off her boots and socks. Her panties were wet and she still had most of her clothes on.
His enormous, hot hands took up a foot and caressed the sole. She arched her back and moaned. He slid up her body until his hands were on the button on her shorts. A flick of his fingers and they popped open. Her grabbed her hands and stood her up with him still on his knees before her.
He peeled the old cotton shorts off of her with a slow glide that would have done excellent duty for undergarments of silk and lace, on a night of candlelight and champagne.
Her heart beat faster at the thought of all the time in the world with Teddy in a safe place that allowed lingerie and long, slow love-making. She imagined Penthouse hotel rooms and hot tubs to relax in after scalding, passionate love-making. The heat rushed to her face as the man before her helped her step out of her shorts and he tossed them aside. He stretched and grasped the bottom of her tank top. Moving it an inch at a time, his fingers grazed over her stomach and tickled her sides. The thin material caught on her nipples and brought them out firm and sensitive. Her top joined the shorts across the room. With a finger, Teddy pulled on the top of her panties, the tip teasing at the curls between her thighs. Electricity zinged through her body and sent a gush of warmth to her woman’s core. Her knees turned to rubber and she placed her hands on his shoulders.
