The Last Girl

by Joe Hart

  The beam stops on the cracked casing around the right panel, and holds.

  Dellert freezes and slowly turns his head to look at her over his shoulder. “Oh Zoey, you clever girl.”

  Zoey begins to move, but the Redeye’s hand grips her arm and he shoves her back against the wall. Simon gives her a small shake of his head without looking her way.

  “Bring me the chair,” Dellert says. One of the other guards carries her desk chair to him, and he stands on it. There is a hanging moment that stretches and hope keeps the delicate thing in her chest whole for a moment before the glass panel shifts. Dellert pulls the piece away, his smile beyond joy as he hands it to the guard beside him. He turns back to the opening that floods the room with cool air and reaches into the darkness outside the window.

  When his hand reappears, it is grasping her books and the package of gum.

  “Well, look what we have here. Contraband.” Dellert shakes his head and steps down from the chair. As he approaches her, he begins tearing out single pages from The Count of Monte Cristo. They fall gracefully to the floor and the guard steps on several of them as he nears her. “So where did you get all this, Zoey?”

  She says nothing, only stares back at him with all the hatred she can muster. She wishes Zipper would have been in the alcove and torn his smug face completely off.

  Dellert shifts his gaze to Simon. “Cleric, do you know anything about this?”

  “No,” Simon says. “But it needs to be reported to the Director.”

  “I couldn’t agree more.” Dellert gives the guard at the door a quick nod, and the other man moves away down the corridor. “You’re in very big trouble, Zoey. This is quite the malfeasance. You’ll be going to the box for this.” He strips open one of her last pieces of gum and pops it in his mouth. Outside the room she hears something that lowers the temperature of her blood between heartbeats.

  Lily, babbling in a frightened way.

  A moment later the guard reappears, holding the girl by the arm, Lily’s eyes frantic and bloodshot from being woken.

  “What are you doing with her?” Zoey asks.

  “Why Zoey, she’s going into the box too. Don’t you know the rules?”

  “No, please, she didn’t do anything.”

  “You’re right, she didn’t. But you should’ve thought about that before filling up your little hiding spot with contraband,” Dellert says.

  “You can’t,” Zoey whispers. “She won’t make it.”

  “I guess we’ll see, won’t we?”

  He grins.

  The rage flash-boils within her and emerges as a scream. Ripping her arm away from the Redeye, she takes one step and rakes both hands down Dellert’s face, feeling his skin peel beneath her fingernails. Fingers wrap in her hair and she’s yanked back off her feet, but not before she sees what she’s done.

  Dellert’s cheeks hang in tatters. Red, vertical mouths gape open below his eyes and course blood onto the floor. The guard’s gaze is manic, insane. His lips part and he bellows, flecks of blood spraying in all directions.

  The room falls silent so fast it’s as if the air has been vacuumed out.

  Zoey slams down, the floor biting into her spine. Her vision sways. The Redeye is above her, leaning in, and suddenly he’s gone. There’s a tug at her hair, and one of Simon’s hiking boots steps past her. Someone issues a grunt of pain, and then the other two guards are shouting.

  Zoey rolls over, cowering beside her bed. Simon is facing away, one hand locked around the Redeye’s throat. His opposite hand holds the soldier’s wrist at a painful angle. Simon shakes, his muscles trembling beneath his shirt, and when Zoey looks down she sees the Redeye’s boots are an inch off the floor.

  “Drop him!” one guard yells. His prod is charged, blue fire crackling on its end. He moves in behind Simon as the Cleric pulls his gaze from the man he’s subduing. There is a beat before Simon drops the soldier. The Redeye makes no move for retaliation. He simply rubs his throat and twists his head once, an audible crack coming from his neck. Simon steps toward the door, hands held at shoulder height.

  Dellert curses and steps up to Simon.

  “You’ll hang for that,” Dellert says. His face is a mass of dripping ribbons, yellow teeth smeared with blood.

  “No, I don’t believe I will. But he might,” Simon says, pointing at the Redeye. “No man is allowed to harm a ward unless suffering bodily injury himself. He wasn’t being attacked, you were.”

  Dellert blinks, slowly bringing his gaze to the Redeye before looking down at Zoey. He licks his lip and spits a gob of blood onto The Count of Monte Cristo where it lies on the floor. “Check the space again outside the window,” he says to the guard not holding Lily. Zoey stares down at her blood-caked fingernails before looking up into Dellert’s leering, nightmarish face.

  “I hope you like the dark,” he says.

  7

  They stand before the gathered Clerics and women.

  Assistant Carter, wearing his suit even at this hour, paces the floor. Zoey hovers in place, one moment sure that she’ll faint while the next she wonders if she can somehow kill Carter before they can lock her inside the box. Her eyes burn from crying. She clenches her jaw.

  Lily laughs loudly and Zoey glances her way. The girl stands in front of the opposite door, slowly turning in a circle before her Cleric. She wears the same clothing she had on the day before, Zoey can see the spatters where she spilled stew down the front of her shirt. Lily smiles and gives her a little wave before spinning around again.

  “Unspeakable contraband,” Carter says as he stops pacing. “I won’t even begin to describe what Zoey had in her room. Needless to say, punishment is the least she deserves. What is it that makes her believe she is more important, more special than any of you?” Carter walks closer to the seated women. Penny and Sherell watch him pass, but Rita stares at Zoey, a hint of a smile poised at the corners of her mouth. Meeka looks at the floor between her feet, her narrow shoulders slumped.

  “You are all beyond precious, but not one is more significant than the other,” Carter continues before turning to look at Zoey. “That is something you’ll learn very soon.” He faces the cluster of women and Clerics again. “Zoey and Lily, you are both sentenced to seventy-two hours in confinement.” There are gasps among the crowd, not only from the women but from the Clerics as well. Zoey feels as if she’s been struck. Seventy-two hours? She must have heard him wrong. No one’s ever been in the boxes for more than two days. She looks at Simon, but he doesn’t return her gaze. Carter clasps his hands behind his back. “You will have no contact with the outside. Do not stray from the path again. Clerics?”

  Simon hesitates only a split second before guiding Zoey toward the waiting door.

  “Simon, please,” Zoey whispers. Tears run from her eyes. “Please. At least spare Lily.” Simon scans his bracelet and the door unlocks. Darkness washes out from the gap as it swings open. It is a solid thing, as corporeal as any person in the room. And she senses its intelligence, its intent. The darkness is alive.

  “No, no, no, no, don’ wanna go there,” Lily says. The panic in her voice wrenches at Zoey’s heart, and she wishes then that she would die, just to escape from hearing Lily sound like that again.

  “It’s okay, Lily, it’s okay. I’ll be with you,” Zoey says, but her voice cracks. Lily’s Cleric pushes the girl forward.

  “Nah, nah, sta, sta, sta, no!” Lily cries, struggling away from the waiting dark.

  “Cleric?” Carter says. His tone holds the promise of what will be done if Simon doesn’t comply. Zoey tears her gaze away from Lily, resisting the urge to cover her ears, and steps into the box. She turns as Simon begins to shut the door.

  “I’m sorry,” he breathes. Beyond him Meeka is mouthing something to her, over and over. Be strong, be strong, bestrongbestrongbestrong.

  Lily begins to scream, but the door closes and the sound is cut off. The darkness rushes in and is complete.

  Zoey lets
out a held breath and it is loud. Beyond loud. She can hear the thudding of her heart. She puts out a hand and touches the door, making sure it’s still really there. Yes, she can feel its borders, but no light seeps from around its edges.

  She’s barefoot, and the floor is smooth and cold where she stands. She shivers and blinks. Never before has she experienced darkness like this. There has always been light available. Even a year ago when the power had suddenly faltered and failed in the middle of a huge lightning storm, the faint glow of emergency lights had shone in the hallway outside her room, filtering in beneath the door. The lightning had also kept the darkness away as it crawled in breathtaking pulses across the sky. She’d watched the storm for hours until the lights sprang on once again as quickly as they’d failed. She hadn’t been afraid then. She’d been captivated, entranced.

  But she is afraid now.

  She breathes deeply, trying to stave off the panic that’s threatening to overtake her like a drenching rain. It’s only darkness, the absence of light. Nothing can hurt her here. She should explore the space, catalogue it, get to know every inch. She takes a step to the right, keeping her hand on the door.

  The floor and ceiling change.

  Her head bumps into something, and the floor becomes upraised and knobby beneath the sole of her foot. She curses, rubbing the blooming spot of pain on the side of her skull. She puts a hand out and feels the ceiling descend down in a sharp angle. She kneels, running her palm over the floor. The upraised bumps are perhaps an inch tall and rounded, the space between them wide enough to trace her fingertip through. She stretches out, unsure of what to make of the floor. The bumps continue in all directions. In fact, the only smooth space she feels is directly before the entrance to the box. The area without the bumps is only two feet square by her estimate.

  She stands again and puts out a hand, finding the sloping ceiling. Zoey takes a step onto the nubs, their rounded forms immediately painful as she settles her full weight onto them. The ceiling forces her down farther and farther until she must crawl. The floor gouges her knees, her hands, but she continues. The ceiling barely clears her back but doesn’t slant any lower. She moves forward until she senses the next wall ahead. She traces it with her hand, finding the nearest corner. It is smooth and unbroken. She turns and crawls on, trying to ignore the growing agony in her knees and palms. The back wall comes up to meet her after she has moved for thirty seconds. She turns again, trying to trace the wall with one hand as she crawls. The box is exactly that. A box. Unmarred by any entrances or holes that she can feel other than the door she entered through.

  She is nearly back to her starting point when she hears a sound. It is a skittering that immediately rolls waves of goose bumps across her arms and back. She’s heard it before.

  Six months ago a black beetle emerged from the drain in her shower. Its head was blunted save for two flicking antennae, eyes as black and shiny as the guards’ gun holsters. Its body was ponderously long, and it made short hissing sounds as its six legs dragged it forward. She hadn’t been showering at the time but had heard the thing’s progress long before it revealed itself. The revulsion she’d felt at the time had been a tangible thing. She’d crushed the insect with her shoe on pure instinct before it could trundle back down into the dark of its hole, scraping the remains onto a piece of toilet paper before flushing it away. It had taken her a full week to feel comfortable in the shower again. Each time she had to close her eyes to wash her hair, her imagination conjured the sound of the insect’s body above the shower’s cascade.

  But now, alone and in the dark, she hears it once again.

  Zoey stares into the black depths, eyes swimming with colors that aren’t there. Where is it coming from? From the left—no, the right end of the box. There’s more than one of them. She sidles toward the door until she feels the smooth patch of cement and stands. The chittering scrape of hard carapaces fills the room. Her breath heaves in and out. She can almost see them advancing toward her through the maze of knobs, turning corners and climbing over the small mountains, but always coming closer.

  Zoey spins and slams the bottom of her fist on the door. “Hey! Help! There’s something in here with me! There’s bugs in here!” She hates the hysterical pitch of her voice, but there’s nothing for it. The sound is louder, closer. “Help me! Please!” Her throat constricts with tears and a fear so consuming she thinks she’ll go mad from it. Zoey turns, backing up as tight as she can against the door, trying to press herself through it. Please, make it go away, please, let them leave me alone.

  Something grazes her foot and she screams.

  Zoey lunges away, the cry of terror reverberating in the enclosed space. Her head meets the ceiling, and as the pain detonates in her skull she realizes she forgot about the slant.

  She crumples to the ground, hard nubs embracing her knees, her hip, and finally her shoulder as she folds over. The floor seems to tilt. Maybe that’s what this place is. Maybe it’s not even part of the ARC. It’s somewhere separate and moving, distant beyond the reach of all she knows and recognizes. As the wobbling in her head slowly stills, so do her thoughts. The bugs—one of them touched her. That’s why she hit her head.

  Zoey draws her knees up to her chest, making herself as small as possible, and listens.

  The sounds are gone, vanished as if they never were.

  She doesn’t believe her ears, sure that something happened to her hearing when she bashed her head. She snaps her fingers. Yes, she can still hear. The bugs are gone. Or they’re waiting, completely still and biding their time. She imagines them resting on the top of the nubs like kings on hills, long antennae flicking, tasting the air for her presence.

  Zoey waits for many long minutes before sliding back to the smooth doorstep. That’s what she’s named the flat square, the doorstep. She feels around its entire area. Her hand encounters no thin feelers, no scrambling legs, no hard shells. How would they get into the box if it’s a sealed container? And if they did, how would they get out again that quickly? Did she imagine it all? No. She heard them, heard their bodies sliding on the floor, she felt something touch her. Fear and darkness, no matter how thick, couldn’t change her perception that much.

  She sits in the same place for a long time, her back against the door. Or maybe it’s a short time. Strangely, she feels like time passes differently without light to gauge it by. Three days. Seventy-two hours. Four thousand three hundred twenty minutes. She tries to do the calculation for seconds, but the math keeps getting jumbled in her head. She fingers the lump above her ear. It’s enormous and still growing, but it isn’t bleeding. Blood. Blood on her book, her ruined book. No, she’s not going to think about that, not right now. She needs to heed Meeka’s words. Be strong, be strong, be strong.

  She’s repeating the words like a mantra when a new sound begins to invade the box. It’s a high, fluting noise with hitches and breaks punctuated by solid bangs. Zoey listens, unable to identify what it is until she makes out words among the flotsam of sound.

  Out! Out! Wan out!

  Lily.

  Zoey’s heart pummels the inside of her chest, and she leaves the sanctity of the doorstep to crawl across the torturous floor. How can she hear Lily now? How is it possible? She meets the wall that runs parallel to Lily’s chamber and feels along it as the cries increase in volume.

  “Lily! It’s okay, I’m here! I’m right here!” But Lily continues to scream incoherently. Zoey scrambles the full length of the wall again. No breaks, no holes, but she can hear Lily as if she’s only steps away.

  Nah! Nah! Out!

  “Stop! Stop it!” Zoey screams, not yelling at Lily but at those who put them here. “She didn’t do anything! Let her out! Please, let her out!” She tries to yell more, but her voice withers to hoarseness. She lies on her side, the knobby floor nosing its way into her bones. She cries, hot tears flowing as she jerks with the fury of her sobs. “Please, God.”

  This is the first time she’s ever truly pr
ayed. The notion of a higher entity gathered by bits and pieces of conversation overheard and rumored throughout the years.

  God is good. He watches over us.

  God is old, so old, older than everything.

  God lives in the sky. He is kind and has long white hair. He watches out for us.

  God is cruel. All suffering is his doing.

  God is dead.

  God never was.

  She has never believed in a higher power, and she still doesn’t now. But Lily’s pitiful cries have broken her last reserves. She is willing to try anything simply to help her friend.

  But her prayers aren’t answered. The wails go on and on until she’s sure she will go insane from listening to them. There is no escaping it, not even if they stopped this second, because she will never forget the sound.

  After a long time Lily’s voice fades away and silence returns, broken only by the sound of her own weeping.

  Sleep finds her after a time. She’s a husk of guilt, drained of any motivation to move. Her body aches from the floor, because even after she moves back to the doorstep and lies down, her upper body still rests on the nubs. She fades in and out of consciousness. No other sounds invade the box, and at times she doesn’t know if her eyes are open or not.

  Hours, or years, later, there is a clack and something hits the floor a few feet from her. Zoey pops into a sitting position, her arms in full revolt as blood attempts to reinvade them. She winces at the tingling until it recedes enough for her to move. Something dropped from the ceiling, she’s sure of it, and judging by the sound it was something fairly small.

  She stretches out, barely able to tolerate even a second’s worth of pressure on her knees now. They are two pulsating masses of bruised skin, cartilage, and bone. She sweeps her hand out, afraid of encountering some horror in the darkness, but instead her fingers brush something cool and cylindrical. Zoey prods it, hearing the tinkle of steel and slosh of liquid. She picks the object up and brings it back to the doorstep.