The Last Girl

by Joe Hart

  Now, after seeing Miss Gwen and the guard, a clearer picture is forming about her unanswered questions.

  The buzzer goes off, signaling that the load is done, and Zoey and Lily rise from the floor to switch the laundry. As Zoey sets the time for the dryer, a realization hits her so hard she nearly staggers.

  There are no cameras in that part of the mechanical room.

  Miss Gwen and the guard wouldn’t have chosen an area that was easily observed, either by the naked eye or any of the artificial ones that hang from the ceiling.

  Now Zoey knows of two blind spots in the ARC.

  5

  The day is chilly when they step outside for exercise, the air misted with fog.

  Zoey and Lily begin their walk around the main building. Simon and Lily’s Cleric follow a short distance behind. Sherell paces ahead of them, head down, not looking back. Zoey hopes she feels alone and vulnerable, maybe even a little frightened without the bolstering of her two friends. She wants to tell the other woman that no matter what she’s feeling, it’s nothing compared to the fear that Sherell instilled in Lily the day before.

  As they walk, her thoughts drift to Rita and Penny for the innumerable time that day. What are they going through right now? What will they look like when they come out? Halie and Grace had been unresponsive and cagey in the days following their release from the boxes. Halie had only been able to tell them it was dark and would say nothing further, the brightness of her eyes dimmed to almost nothing by whatever she had seen.

  Meeka joins them after a time but says nothing. The roar of the wind above them is louder than the day before, thicker somehow. Meeka seems to sense it too as she continues to glance up at the walls every few minutes.

  They make several loops around the long promenade before the chime tones. When they approach the security entrance and wait for the Clerics to let them in, Zoey notices Simon staring at her. She tilts her head.

  “What?” she asks him.

  “How did your clothes get so dirty?” he says, pointing at her. A strand of dread laces her insides as she looks down.

  There are long swatches of dirt and dust coating the front of her pants and the bottom of her shirt from where she leaned up against the cabinets in the mechanical room.

  “Uh, must’ve brushed up against something in the mechanical room,” she says. Simon frowns.

  “You brushed up against something while standing still near the door?”

  Her mind stutters. “Lily tried to get something on the closest bench and I had to stop her. I must’ve leaned against it.” Simon’s frown eases some and he nods slowly.

  “Well, you better change before dinner.”

  “Definitely,” she adds, her voice attempting to die in her throat.

  “I not, Zee,” Lily says, shaking her head. “I not duree.”

  “No, you’re not dirty, I am,” Zoey says, taking the girl by the hand. She bustles Lily away through the door when Simon holds it open for them, avoiding his gaze.

  When the door to her room shuts behind her, she lets a sigh of relief escape. She looks down at the traitorous dirt gracing the front of her clothes and swats at it, knocking a plume of dust into the air. Her mouth is sour.

  She moves to the bathroom, scooping water in her hand and drinking, but the alkaline taste won’t go away. You’re tasting your lies, she thinks. You blamed Lily for something she didn’t do. You’re getting closer.

  How much is a life worth?

  She shudders. The taste in her mouth is so sickening that she fears she will vomit. She breathes through her nose, holding herself steady on the edge of the sink. Slowly she straightens and moves to the window, carrying the chair with her.

  She takes only a half-piece of gum from the wrapper, carefully placing the other half back. She chews, letting the mint flood away the taste in her mouth. When all hints of the sourness are gone, she swallows the gum and changes into fresh clothes before knocking on the door for Simon to let her out.

  “Better?” he asks as they walk toward the cafeteria.

  “Yes.”

  “Good.” He says nothing for several paces, their footsteps echoing down the hall. Finally he glances sideways at her. “You’re different lately, Zoey.”

  The same lace of dread weaves through her stomach. “Different?”

  “You seem worried.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Is it the induction?”

  “No. I’m . . . I’m looking forward to it.” She sees him glance at her again but can’t meet his gaze.

  They near the entrance to the cafeteria but he slows and stops outside the door. “Zoey, I—”

  But his words are cut off as the doors open and Rita steps out.

  There is a fog of predetermined violence in the air, surrounding them in its own atmosphere. The look in Rita’s eyes says it all: You will pay. You will hurt like I have. Because she is smaller. She’s lost weight in the day spent inside the box. Her face contains the same hollow, burned-out look that Halie’s had after her punishment.

  Zoey readies herself for a fight even though Simon is only a step away and Rita’s Cleric is a shadow behind her. There will be no restraining Rita’s rage.

  Rita steps forward, but instead of throwing a punch, she bows her head.

  “Zoey, I’m glad I saw you. I want to apologize for my unforgivable behavior yesterday. I don’t know what came over me.”

  Zoey squints, sure she’s heard the other woman wrong. “What?”

  “I’m sorry for my actions and can only hope you’ll be able to forgive me.”

  Rita takes another step and envelops Zoey in a gentle embrace.

  It’s like being hugged by a predator. Any moment she expects her throat to be torn out or her eyes gouged. Instead, Rita holds her lightly, but close. Her lips brush Zoey’s ear.

  “I’m going to kill you. I’ll find a way,” she whispers, almost too quietly for Zoey to hear.

  Then Rita draws back, holds her at arm’s length. She gives her a smile that would be at home on a snake, and moves away. Zoey stares after her, but Rita doesn’t look back. She notices a slight limp in Rita’s gait before she turns a corner in the hall and is gone.

  “Are you okay?” Simon asks.

  “Yes.”

  “She wouldn’t have been able—”

  “I’m fine,” Zoey says. “Let’s go.”

  As they enter the cafeteria a new sense of unease grips her. Rita’s whispered threat replays endlessly in her head. She glances around to see if Penny is there, but her seat is empty, and Sherell is nearly finished with her dinner. Where will it come from? How? When? Zoey gathers her meal and goes to sit with Lily and Meeka.

  “Did you see her?” Meeka asks before she can settle onto her stool.

  “Who?”

  “For God’s sake, Zoey, the woman that tried to beat the hell out of you yesterday! The one that spent a day in the box.”

  “Yeah, I saw her.”

  “And?”

  “And she hugged me.”

  Meeka couldn’t look more surprised. Her mouth works for a moment before she shakes her head. “Yuck!” She sticks her tongue out and makes a gagging noise. “I’d rather she try to beat me.”

  “Yeah. She had ulterior motives.”

  “Like what?”

  “She said she’s going to kill me.”

  “Well, that’s more like her, I guess.”

  Zoey sighs and picks at some gravy studded with vegetables and a few unidentifiable hunks of stringy meat. “I knew it would only make things worse.”

  Meeka takes a large bite and chews loudly. “I wouldn’t be so sure. She looked like shit when she was in here. She couldn’t eat anything. She just stared at her plate.”

  “Have you seen Penny?”

  “No. She never showed up. Crazy bitch probably liked her time in the box. I bet it was like a treat for her.”

  “Maybe.”

  “So where did you get dirty like that?” Meeka asks. The sly
tone of her voice speaks volumes.

  “Like I said, must’ve brushed up against something.”

  “Umm-hmm. Well, if you want to be a real friend and actually tell me, I’ll be waiting.”

  “Meeka . . .”

  The other woman shrugs, concentrating on a gelatinous pudding. Zoey ponders telling Meeka what she saw in the mechanical room, but Meeka is like one of those small, oblong rocks they sometimes take turns kicking on the promenade; there is no way of telling which way she will bounce.

  “I’m just glad Rita didn’t change. I’d really miss her beautiful smile,” Meeka says without looking up.

  Zoey chuffs laughter through a bite of stew and nearly chokes. A moment later Meeka joins in, and soon Lily is giggling as well, shifting her gaze from one woman to the other.

  “Quiet down,” Thomas says from the other end of the table. So they laugh to themselves in silent gales.

  She is at the doors in the infirmary. The steel doors that she’s never seen open before. They are miles tall, their tops lost in mist like mountains she’s seen pictures of in the NOA texts. Her feet are wet and there is blood on her hands. She looks down, peering curiously, without the feeling of pain. She is wearing a dress of white, the ceremonial gown, yet it is crimson just below her waist, a blooming flower of blood. Her hands are sticky with it, and she hears crying. It is the cry of a baby. Her heart aches with it, and she tries to turn to see where the sound is coming from, but her feet are frozen in place, immovable as if she’s slipped into the concrete and is moored there.

  A low rumbling overtakes the crying child’s voice. It is something inhuman, so deep and alien it must be a machine. But it isn’t. There is a feral quality to it that tells her it is alive, and hungry. Another flood of wetness coats her feet, and she stares down.

  A clear, viscous fluid is leaking from between the doors. It pools upon her bare feet and begins to burn. Zoey tilts her head back to release the scream in her chest, but all sensation is washed away by what she sees.

  The doors are opening, and there is something between them. Jagged things and a lolling red shape beyond them.

  Teeth.

  There are teeth between the doors, and the saliva, the saliva on her feet is burning, burningburningburningburning . . .

  She comes awake in a flurry of movement, within and without. Her heart thunders, lungs heave, eyelids flicker, arms strain to push her upright. Her teeth are clenched, holding back a scream, and she gazes down at her feet, sure that they’ll be nothing but burnt and bloody stubs of bone, eaten away by the acidic drool of the doors. No, it was a mouth—the doors to the elevator were a mouth. It was going to swallow her whole.

  She knows she’s going to be sick only moments before it happens. She tries to run to the bathroom, but her feet are tingly and asleep. She trips, crawls forward to vomit over the lip of the shower. Her tasteless dinner spews out of her in a choking stream that runs toward the drain. Zoey coughs, tasting bile—and blood. She’s bitten the same place on her tongue as the day before.

  After many prolonged minutes, the clenching in her gut subsides. She turns on the hot water, letting it wash away her partially digested dinner. When it’s swirled away she splashes cold water on her face until the skin there grows numb. She wishes she could wash her mind, scour away the images and the sound, the sound of the baby crying.

  As she hobbles back toward the bed, a noise begins to grow in the hall. She freezes, arm outstretched toward the waiting blankets. Booted feet are coming closer and closer outside. Shadows darken the small gap below the door, and there is the clack of her lock releasing.

  Dellert’s face is the first thing she sees in the gap, followed by two other guards along with the crimson flash of a Redeye’s goggles. Behind them is Simon, his face gray and stony.

  Dellert steps fully into her room, a perversion of a smile on his lips as he looks around before focusing on her.

  “Hello, Zoey. Mind if we come in?”

  6

  The words don’t come to her, the ones she wants to say.

  She wants to tell him no. She wants to say get out, to scream it at him. This is her place, her only sanctuary, the last space she has that she can call her own. Until now.

  “What’s going on?” she asks, casting her glance from Dellert to Simon, who still waits in the hall. Dellert takes several steps closer, examining the wall while he speaks.

  “We’ve gotten a report of contraband in this room,” Dellert says. “We’re searching it. Please stand aside.”

  “I don’t have anything,” Zoey says, beseeching Simon with a look. Do something. But he is stoic and solemn.

  “We’ll be the judge of that,” Dellert says, moving around the foot of her bed. He takes a flashlight from his pocket and shines it in the corners of the room while the other two guards begin their own searches along the floor and ceiling. The Redeye stands at the door, the lower part of his face not obscured by his thick goggles lineless and without expression. He’s staring at her through the red lenses. She can feel it.

  Dellert snaps the light on in the bathroom and curses, stepping back. “The hell is that smell?”

  “I got sick.”

  “And you couldn’t get to the toilet?”

  She doesn’t answer, only lowers herself to the bed, no longer trusting the strength of her legs. Dellert huffs another curse and returns to the bathroom. The other guards crawl over the floor, scuttling along like insects, fingers probing every seam of concrete. One of them leans under the desk, sliding his hand beneath its top. The sink runs in the bathroom, shuts off. The shower spurts to life. Off. The toilet flushes. The tank lid scraping open is like needles in her ears. After a long pause, Dellert comes back into the room, walking slowly. He stops by the calendar and presses on its sides, trying to shift it on the wall. He sniffs when it doesn’t move.

  “So where is it, Zoey?” Dellert asks. He doesn’t look at her.

  “I told you, I don’t have anything.”

  Dellert smiles but still keeps his gaze on the red numbers. “You’re lying. You should tell me and make it easy on yourself.”

  “I can’t tell you about anything I don’t have.”

  Dellert places his hand on the prod hanging from his belt. It sways in its loop. “You guys find anything?” The two guards shake their heads. “You check her bed?”

  “The bottom,” one guard offers.

  “Check the whole thing,” Dellert says.

  “Excuse me,” the closest guard says, not meeting her eyes as he drags down the covers on her bed. Zoey stands and moves to the farthest corner of the room. The Redeye’s goggles follow her. The guards strip her bed. They shake her blankets out, pull up the mattress, feel along the bottom and sides. Dellert watches them, his gaze flicking to her every few seconds, waiting for some kind of reaction. She gives him nothing.

  When they’re done, the guard that asked her to move begins to remake her bed.

  “What are you doing?” Dellert asks.

  “I’m putting it back.”

  “Are you a guard or a maid?” Dellert sneers. The other man opens his mouth, then shuts it and drops her blankets back to the floor. Dellert paces past her bed, stepping on the sheets, and touches the small light built into the wall. He tries turning it.

  “Big day coming soon,” Dellert says, running his hand along the wall when the light doesn’t budge. His fingertips rasp in a way that sets her teeth on edge. “Always so exciting. And two inductions this close together.” He shakes his head. “Just beautiful.” He stops near the window and raps once on the glass. Zoey’s entire body tenses but she keeps her face placid, unmoving, even as something flexes within her, threatening to break. “You must miss her already.”

  Zoey shifts from one foot to the other. Her soles are freezing on the cold concrete. “I miss all that have gone before me.”

  “So patriotic,” Dellert says. “You say all the right things, Zoey.” He steps away from the window, scanning the walls and ceiling
s again. He taps the calendar as he passes. “Tick, tick, tick, tick,” he says in a low voice.

  “Guards, are you satisfied with your inspection?” Simon says, finally stepping into the room.

  Dellert focuses on him, cocking his head.

  “Cleric, tell me, are you ushering us away from our investigation for a reason?”

  “I’m simply saying that it’s late and we’re all tired. Besides, I already told you I’ve always made my own inspections on time and never found a thing. If your suspicions have been allayed, I would suggest letting Zoey return to bed, especially since she’s not feeling well.” He keeps his eyes locked on Dellert as he says this and a surge of affection rises within her.

  “I would suggest you keep track of your tongue, or else I’ll report your interference to Assistant Carter,” Dellert says. He holds Simon’s gaze, and to Simon’s credit he stares back without faltering. Finally Dellert looks away, shooting a last glance around. His mustached lip curls and he signals to the other guards. “Let’s go.”

  They begin to file from the room, the Redeye stepping out first followed by the other two guards. Simon stays inside the door and doesn’t seem willing to leave until Dellert has left the room. Dellert moves past him and is almost through the door when the wind rises outside the window and a whistling comes from the far side of the room.

  Zoey’s heart falters, forgetting its purpose. She quits breathing, hoping against hope she was the only one who heard the sound.

  Dellert pauses and turns back, head cocked once again. “What was that?”

  “What?” Simon says, frowning.

  “I heard something,” Dellert says, crossing the space again. The two guards linger in the doorway but the Redeye moves past them, fingering the handgun on his belt. He corners Zoey, making her retreat with his encroachment. The wall meets her shoulder blades as she backs up.

  “It was the wind,” Zoey says, and to her horror there is a pleading note in her voice. Dellert seems to hear it and moves closer to the far corner, closer to the loosened glass panel.

  “Sure was, but it sounded strange,” Dellert says. He feels along the glass, his movements faster, excited. He shines his flashlight along the floor and then across the top frame of the window.