Heartless

by Leah Rhyne

  “Turn off the flashlights now,” Martha whispered. “If they didn’t get out, they’ll be stuck right up ahead. The Master and I explored this tunnel when we first moved in here. It ends soon. They don’t need to see us coming.”

  Suddenly, I remembered: I didn’t actually have a plan.

  Each second took hours.

  I was naked. I was mostly dead. I was short a toe, several fingers. My arm was broken, my nose gone.

  How the hell was I going to help anyone? Let alone, all the people I loved most in the world.

  I tried not to panic.

  “This isn’t going like we planned,” Sondra whispered. They were close, less than a hundred feet away. The tunnel was bent, though. They couldn’t see me yet. “I’m not supposed to be a part of these types of things. I just find you girls.” She sounded terrified.

  “Shut your mouth and hustle up.” Sondra cried out as, I guessed, Strong shoved her forward as he spoke. Or maybe slapped her. I couldn’t be sure.

  I didn’t care in the least.

  “Psst, Jo,” came a whisper from above my head. I looked up and saw the trapdoor was again cracked open. They’d turned off the light in the vault, and Lucy hung through the opening. This time, however, she was holding an ax.

  “Here,” she said. “We thought it might help with whatever you have planned.”

  I reached up and wrapped the remaining fingers of my right hand around the blade.

  “Careful,” she hissed. “Take the handle instead.”

  “Like it matters.” I winked at her, but she didn’t see. I didn’t tell her another finger dropped to the ground. The ax was sharp. “Where’d you get it?”

  “I told you this place was stocked. Looks like somebody planned to live down here for months or something. Your dad said maybe it’s a leftover shelter from the Cold War or something…hey!” My father had pulled Lucy back into the vault. She was gone from sight and the trapdoor closed.

  I slid down the hall, further away from the hunters. My plan settled. I could corner them, let them come. If I kept them hunting me, or if I corralled them in the corner with my new super-strength, my parents and friends could sneak away, back the way we all came. I tried to telegraph my idea directly into Lucy’s head, but apparently the Order hadn’t seen fit to give me the powers of telepathy. I’d just have to hope for the best.

  I stopped walking when I reached the wall at the end of the tunnel. Crouching down, I gripped the handle of the ax and said a silent prayer.

  Dear God, if you’re there, please save my family and my friends. Please get them out of here. Please don’t let this happen to them.

  There was no response. No lightning came and struck Adam down. No flash flood washed Martha and Sondra away into another world. Not like I had expected that to happen, but a girl can dream, even in an impossible situation.

  So I let the bad guys come while I waited in pensive silence. I had no choice.

  I got my first view of Martha when they rounded the corner. She was tall and skinny, even taller than Lucy. Gorgeous. In the darkness I judged her hair to be a coppery auburn. Even in an area devoid of light, it seemed to sparkle and curl, all the way down to her waist.

  She wore a long, flowing, robe-like garment and way too much makeup. Her lips glowed in the dark, they were such a bright red.

  I wonder if there’s any lipstick on her teeth.

  I wanted there to be lipstick on her teeth. Perfection like Martha’s had to be marred in some way. She looked just like a high priestess from any book I’d ever read that actually included some sort of Woman of Power. Like she wanted to be a cliché in a movie.

  Or like she was hiding something under those robes. I wondered what it could be.

  And with only a glance, I saw how much both Strong and Sondra worshipped her. How in charge of them she really was. They walked a step behind her, flanking her, each with a hand stretched out and touching her back. It could have been a safety thing, but in the way their hands rested so lightly, I read love. Adoration. Even…fear? In their opposite hand, they each held a gun.

  I tried not to flinch when I saw them. I couldn’t get used to the idea of all this danger. I’ll never really be a superhero, will I? But it doesn’t matter. I can help.

  In front, Martha was unarmed.

  Or so I thought, until I saw, nestled in her hand, a small black object. It took me a second to figure it out.

  A Taser. Crap. Electricity is my Kryptonite. I’m sure of it. I couldn’t let her reach me with that thing.

  I was grateful for the silence in which I could exist, since I didn’t have to breathe, and couldn’t feel my arms or legs going numb as I crouched. In front of me, Martha glided and Sondra and Strong stumbled forward. I flattened myself even closer to the wall as they passed.

  “Do you see them?” Strong whispered, and Martha shushed him.

  They neared the wall, and me, but they didn’t know it yet. The darkness was my friend, and I hoped to use it.

  “They’ll be close, and unarmed,” whispered Martha, her impossibly shimmering mouth curling into a cruel smile. “Try not to kill Lucy. We need her. And do remember not to damage Jolene’s heart pump. We can’t waste materials, you know.” She paused, took another step. They were less than a dozen feet from me. “And…now!”

  Strong and Sondra let go of Martha, who allowed them to step in front of her. They each pulled out an economy-sized Maglite from behind their backs and turned them on. I flattened myself to the ground on top of the ax, so the light trained on nothing but blank, cinderblock walls.

  “What the…” Strong said. “Where’d they go?”

  Sondra’s light cast down, and it shone on me. She screeched and jumped back.

  I had no idea what I looked like under the harsh spotlight, but seeing her jump away in fear gave me an inkling. Keeping my body on top of the ax, I looked up, slowly. With the light in my eyes, I snarled. I growled. Letting my sparse hair fall before my eyes, I reached out my decimated hand toward them, channeling a ghost in a movie I’d seen as a child.

  The threesome stepped back.

  It was just a small step, but it was a step.

  I began to crawl forward, jerking and twitching.

  And Sondra Lewis began to cry.

  The gun in her hand began to shake. She sniffled and sobbed. “No, Jo. Jolene. No. You were going to be our best soldier. The scientist assured me. You were strong, and I was so glad I found you. My favorite student. But now look. Look what we’ve done to you, Jolene. Such a beautiful girl. So far you’ve fallen.” She dropped to her knees and dropped the gun.

  Strong and Martha turned to Sondra. Behind the trio, I saw something move. With the light in my eyes it was hard to see what it was, but I took a leap of faith.

  I leaped to my feet, pulling the ax up with me. Strong and Martha turned to me, but Sondra remained collapsed on the floor.

  I stared into the black eyes of Martha, and pulled the ax over my shoulders like Casey at the bat.

  Then I smiled, baring my teeth and licking my lips with my parched tongue. “Thanks for all you’ve done to me…bitch.”

  She wasn’t fast enough with the Taser. I closed my eyes and swung. The ax landed with a dull, sick thud, and I tumbled to the ground. Someone screamed. A gunshot rang out. Rocks exploded behind me and showered down around me. More screams, and then I heard Lucy’s voice, above the other noise. “You bastard!”

  I opened my eyes and immediately wished I hadn’t. My hands still gripped the ax handle.

  In front of me stood Martha, her head split in two. Her face, in two parts, pulled backwards in a silent shriek, her mouth opened like a lunging shark. She and I were both splattered in the thick, viscous substance that filled my veins, and Martha’s.

  Martha was one of the Order’s soldiers. She was the successful version of me. An older model, I knew in that moment during which time stood still. She had none of the enhancements I enjoyed. She couldn’t see in the dark, couldn’t hear. She wa
s limited by her human abilities, while I was not.

  But still, she continued her attack, her arms spread wide, her mouth in two parts ready to swallow me whole.

  I screamed, and so did she. I swung the ax again. It hit her shoulder, embedding itself in flesh and sinew. I yanked back as she continued to drive at me, and I swung again.

  An arm flew from her body, squirting fluids from the stump.

  Her body was knocked backwards by the blow, and I hacked away at her as she fell. Finally, a blow struck true, and I decapitated the monster woman before me. She froze for a second, and then collapsed to the floor in a sticky, messy heap.

  I fell to my knees beside her. The ax stood, embedded deep into her neck. I closed my eyes and folded in on myself.

  And then came silence.

  Or at least, mostly silence.

  Someone was sobbing. Uncontrollable, choking sobs.

  I was shocked when I realized it was me.

  I wanted to open my eyes, but the sobs that shook my decrepit body made me terrified to move any other muscle for fear I’d dissolve into nonexistence.

  And then suddenly there was pressure on my body, and there were arms around me, pulling me up. Someone slid their legs beneath my head and stroked my matted, stringy hair.

  “Shh, baby,” whispered my mother. She’d maneuvered so that my head rested in her lap. “It’s okay, baby. You did what you needed to do. It’s okay, my love. Stop crying now, baby. It’s going to be okay. I love you. Mama’s here.”

  “Jo! You’re crying! You thought you couldn’t cry.” Lucy lay atop my back, holding me tight like she had all those drunken nights ago.

  “No tears,” I managed, in between sobs. “Less satisfying.” I forced myself to calm, counting backwards from fifty like my mother taught me so many years before. Slowly the sobs faded. “I think I can sit up now,” I said, and Lucy pulled me up. I opened my eyes.

  My father and Eli stood together, against the wall. They held the flashlights, pointed down at us on the ground.

  Beside me, Martha lay. Dead. A decapitated monster. I’d destroyed one of my own.

  We could be destroyed. I could be destroyed. I would be destroyed.

  I clenched my hand into a fist, trying to keep from screaming.

  It didn’t work, though, and I screamed out into the darkness beyond the flashlights. Then I tried to turn off my super-hearing so I wouldn’t have to hear my own voice echo through miles of otherwise silent passageways. It didn’t work. I heard myself scream again and again and again.

  Adam, too, lay dead beside Martha, a knife handle sticking out of his neck.

  “Who did that?” I asked when I could speak. I looked at the two men against the wall, but they shook their heads and pointed to Lucy.

  She flushed, and looked down. “I thought for a second about feeling guilty, but instead I feel proud. He’s a liar and a thief and a killer, and he can’t hurt anyone anymore.” The corner of her mouth turned up, just a little. “It’s a shame. He really was gorgeous.”

  I lifted my head from my mother’s lap. “How are you?” I asked, staring into her eyes.

  Her face was flushed and filthy, and her hair had fallen around her face and shoulders. Makeup ran down her face in rivers of mascara and eyeliner. But she was my mother, and she held my broken hands in hers. Somehow, in her grief, she looked younger, and more beautiful, than I ever remembered. “I’m here,” she said. “That’s all that matters right now. I’m here, and you’re here, and your father’s here, and we’re all alive.” She tried to smile.

  “I’m so sorry I got you into this. I wish you were back home, safe.”

  “Baby, there is nowhere else in this world I’d rather be right now than here with you.”

  “But I’m a monster.” I looked from her face to my father’s. “A killer. How can you guys ever love me again?”

  She did smile, then. “From the minute you entered this world, you’ve been nothing but trouble. You wouldn’t sleep as a baby, wouldn’t eat as a toddler, wouldn’t leave my side as a kid. Don’t even get me started on high school. But I’ve loved you every minute of every day, and nothing will change that. Not even if you become a murdering monstrosity.”

  She leaned over and kissed my face.

  She never even flinched.

  Then she pulled me into a hug, and seconds later my father held us both in his arms. I felt safe and warm and hundreds of miles away from the tunnel in which we sat, lost and trapped.

  But it didn’t last.

  Eli spoke, and he sounded wheezy and ill. “I hate to break this up,” he said. “But do we know where Sondra is? She’s not here, and she’s not dead. And if I’m not mistaken, haven’t you mentioned some others? On their way?”

  I pulled away from my family, wiping at my face out of habit instead of necessity. “How many guns are on the floor?” I said. “She had one. Adam had one. Tell me there are two guns on the ground.”

  But there weren’t.

  There was only one, still clutched in Adam’s stiffening hand.

  Wherever Sondra was, she was armed.

  And now that we knew I wasn’t the first monster-girl, we had no idea if Sondra was even human.

  Flashlights provided meager light in the bowels of the mountain where we sat, battered and broken but together.

  “Do we just leave them here?” Lucy asked, stepping over the dead bodies. She kicked Adam’s as she passed it.

  She was so strong, I envied her. Even though there was no physiological reason for it, I shook from head to toe. I kept picturing the ax slicing through Martha’s arm, her skull. I couldn’t believe I was a killer. I’d destroyed another life, such as it was, and I was horrified.

  Add to that the fact that we still weren’t out of danger. I needed to get my family to safety.

  Plus, I had another problem.

  No one else had noticed yet, but there was a small hole piercing my chest, right through the center. While no one was looking, I stuck my finger in and felt the hum of my heart pump, and also a hole right through its center. It already hummed a little slower, a little less consistently.

  I didn’t have much longer.

  My father pulled the gun, a small one that looked like a track meet starter pistol, from Adam’s dead hand. I stood beside him. My mother and Eli were unarmed, as was Lucy.

  Lucy looked at us, then back down at the bodies. The ax was still imbedded in Martha’s neck, and I made no move to remove it. Nor did she look willing to pull the knife from Adam’s throat.

  “Well,” she said. “We need weapons. More than just one gun anyway. I’m going to hop back up there and see what I can find. Jo, care to give me a boost? Just watch my ankle, okay?” She smiled and winked.

  “Why not?” I stepped away from my father’s side and tossed her up through the trapdoor. Without the chaos around me, I heard more of the tendons popping and bones creaking than I’d heard earlier, but it was still surprisingly easy.

  She turned on the light, and everyone jumped. The additional illumination settled on the pools of blood and embalming solution surrounding the dead, and I shuddered. My mother put her arm around me, but I could feel her trembling, too.

  Eli stood below the trapdoor. He was stiff, partly bent at the waist, but he craned his neck upward to look into the vault. “Maybe grab some of that food we saw. It’s been a while, we could probably all use a snack.” He glanced at me, and then looked down. “I mean, most of us. Sorry, Jo.”

  “No problem.”

  “You sure?” Lucy called. “Didn’t Mr. Hall say it looked old?”

  My father nodded. “Yeah, that stuff looks like it’s been up there since I was a kid. I think you can wait.”

  “But look at this!” Lucy appeared at the hole in the ceiling. She dropped down a rope, a shovel, and a baseball bat. It was an old one, wooden, and I picked it up. It felt solid in my hands, like it belonged there.

  Eli picked up the shovel, and my mother the rope, although she looked at
me and whispered, “I have no idea what she expects me to do with a rope!”

  When Lucy dropped back down, she held a garden hoe. “I’m not sure where they were planning on putting the garden, but they were prepared. There are seeds up there, and all kinds of other gardening things. I guess they thought they’d celebrate the end of the world by growing a victory garden?”

  “Well, if nothing else, I feel pretty invincible with my shovel,” said Eli, but with the way he winced as he spoke, he looked anything but invincible.

  “We need to get you to a hospital,” my mother said to him.

  I tried not to be sad about the fact that even she knew a hospital couldn’t help me.

  My father came up behind me and draped his jacket over my shoulders. It came halfway down my thighs, and I buttoned it up to make him happy.

  We headed back the way we’d come. It was much easier for the group now that we had some light, but the twists and turns were still difficult to navigate, and the floor was less than smooth. We had to move slowly, carefully, and by the time we reached the room in which I’d awoken, I was running low on battery. There was no sign of Sondra Lewis. She’d disappeared completely into the darkness.

  I sat down on the table and my mother plugged me in. I felt better as soon as the electricity flowed in, but the flow was no longer steady. It came in fits and spurts, like I was short-circuiting somewhere. I knew it was my heart pump, not doing its job.

  I could tell that, even plugged in, I didn’t have much longer.

  But there was no reason to tell anyone else that. Not then.

  I looked at Eli. “You need to get to the hospital as soon as we’re out of here.”

  “No.” His voice was flat.

  “Yes,” I said, glaring at him. “You’re hurt. You need some help.”

  “If I go to the hospital, they’re going to ask what happened. If I tell them what happened, they’ll come for you. If they come for you, you’ll die. And I’m not ready to say goodbye, after all we’ve been through. I love you.”

  My mother walked to him and put her arm around him. Her eyes were again filled with tears. “I’m not ready, either. I’ll never be ready. But Jo’s right. You need to go.”