by Lauren Salem
Veronica crept into the office, closed the door slowly, and crawled to the desk.
“If you get good reviews and the community likes you, we will offer you a higher-level position next year. It may or may not be in laundry services. Your first job at Walnut Cherryville is not given to you based on what you want or the skills you already possess. We just picked the jobs at random, because it shouldn’t matter what job you’re assigned. The jobs are so easy that anyone could learn to do them within a week.”
Veronica quietly rummaged through the desk drawers.
“All we’re looking for are the basic qualities of a good worker. You have to learn the rules before you can play the game. Show up for work on time, listen to your supervisor, and perform your duties without many mistakes. If you do that, you will get the job you want within a few years.”
I didn’t understand. When we first arrived at Walnut Cherryville, Kenneth told us that we were captured because we had skills that the village “desperately needed,” and now he was telling me that anyone could do my job? I already knew that was true, but why couldn’t he get his story straight? There was something really odd about this whole situation.
“That’s a long time to wait,” I responded. “Don’t you think workers would perform better on their jobs if they actually liked what they were doing?”
“People don’t know what they actually want to do with their lives,” Kenneth replied. “If the government let people do that, they’d change their jobs a thousand times before they discovered which jobs they liked. The point of Walnut Cherryville is to create a stress-free environment where all the hard decisions are made for the people. You’re new, so you don’t appreciate this yet. If you ask anyone who’s lived here for several years, they’ll tell you how great it is not to be burdened with making life’s tough choices. Besides, people who work for Walnut Cherryville get everything they could possibly need handed to them for free. What could be better than that? What could be better than a life where you don’t have to worry about anything?”
“Maybe a shave and a haircut,” I said. “I’m a little scruffy.” Veronica chuckled, and I laughed over her.
“I heard a sound,” Kenneth said. “What was that?”
“I didn’t hear anything. What did it sound like?”
“It came from over there, by the desk,” he said, as Veronica ducked her head down right before Kenneth glanced over there.
“Anyway, is there anywhere I can get a shave and a haircut?” I asked.
“Well, there is a place in the glass building that gives a good shave and will shorten your hair. Ask ComCon about it. Well, if that’s all, I must get back to work. I’m a very busy man.”
Veronica crawled back to the door, opened it slowly, and stepped out of the room.
“I hope you’re happy here, Johnny, and appreciative of everything Walnut Cherryville has given you.”
“Thank you for taking the time to talk to me,” I said as I stood up.
“You’re welcome.”
I left the office and met up with Veronica in the hall. “Why did you laugh? Kenneth was getting suspicious.”
“Sorry, I couldn’t help it,” Veronica laughed. “But I’m letting it all out now.” She pushed me playfully. “You’re funny.”
I pushed the up button on the elevator. “Did you find anything?”
The elevator door opened, and we got in. “I got a few things. Seems like somebody does a lot of traveling.”
When we got to my room, Veronica emptied her uniform. She had found water purification tablets, a flashlight, a compass, and a map. Laura, Vincent, and Collins gathered around.
“Ready to find out where we are?” I asked before I unrolled the map. The map was printed on parchment paper and sketched with black pencil…not what I expected. Unfortunately, this was only a map of Walnut Cherryville Village, which looked more like a drawing or urban plan.
“Was this the only map in his desk?” I asked.
“Yep, the only one,” Veronica responded.
“I don’t think that’s what we were looking for,” Collins said.
“Well, we can’t put it back now. I guess we’ll just have to keep it. Who knows, maybe it’s not as simple as it seems.”
I rolled the map back up and hid it in my sleeping bag.
* * *
You know what was not as simple as it seemed? Becoming a real cowboy. Like all kids between the ages of seven and ten, I went through a phase. The old Westerns my biological parents watched at home convinced me that I wanted to be a cowboy. For Halloween, I was a cowboy three years in a row because I liked the personality that came with the costume but also because my parents didn’t want spend money to get me a new costume. They bought the costume from the Salvation Army, where they usually bought all my clothes and gave it to me as a birthday present wrapped in newspaper. Halloween wasn’t the only time I wore that costume; I wore it religiously like it was everyday clothes. Sometimes I’d try to go to school in it, but my mom always caught me and made me change into normal clothes before I walked too far from the trailer park. I felt so cool in my cowboy costume because, besides the clothes, it came with a traditional hat, boots, and even a toy gun. I’d spend hours on Saturday afternoons watching cowboy movies in my costume, jumping on the couch, and shooting at imaginary Indians. When the movies were over, I’d sneak around outside, protecting the trailer from neighbors who passed by. They all looked at me like I was crazy. Everyone dropped to the floor when they heard the sound of my fake gun. They must have thought it was a real shooting.
One day my dad said if I wanted to be a real cowboy, I needed to learn how to shoot correctly, so he took me out to an abandoned country area, and we practiced shooting empty beer bottles with real guns. I wasn’t very good at first, but he taught me how to aim and focus on my target, so after a few tries, I got better. Once I got beer bottles down pat, he introduced me to birds and small animals, so I could practice on moving targets. Whatever I shot that day was what we ate for dinner that night: mostly snakes, lizards, and scorpions.
The night I shot a man was the last time I held a gun of any type. What I’ve always tried to forget seems very clear to me now. My father and I sat at the dinner table watching Mom carve and serve the snake with a side of collard greens and whole-kernel cornbread. Father was impatient, so he grabbed a beer and popped the top by banging it against the edge of the plastic table.
“Fredrick, how many times do I have to tell you about not using the furniture to open your beers,” Mom shouted.
“You can’t tell me what to do, woman,” Dad responded. “I make the money in this house!”
“Hardly,” she muttered under her breath. “If you did, we wouldn’t be living in a trailer.”
“What did you say?”
“Nothing, sweetie, here’s your dinner,” she said as she placed his plate in front of him with a fork and knife. “Enjoy your snake.”
“That’s right, my trailer, my furniture, my snake; you can only have it if I say you can.”
“Trust me, I don’t want it.”
Mom always made the best snake. It was so tender, juicy, and flavorful. Almost like eating buttermilk-fried chicken, because she sprinkled salt and pepper on it, dipped it in buttermilk, and then coated it in flour before it was fried in vegetable oil on the stove top. Buttermilk-fried snake used to be my favorite dinner. We finished eating at eight o’clock in the evening, and Mom was tired from all the work she put into preparing the snake for dinner.
“I’m going to bed, Fredrick; I’m tired as shit,” Mom said. “You make sure little Johnny don’t go to bed too late, now. Remember his bed time is nine o’clock.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, I’ll tuck him in later,” Dad said. After Mom fell asleep, Dad whispered to me. “Hey, Johnny, do you want to go on a cowboy adventure?”
“Yeah,” I said, excitedly. I was ready to go because I’d been wearing my cowboy costume all day.
“We gotta visit an old friend in
the rich part of town. He borrowed some things that don’t belong to him, so we need to take them back,” Dad said as he took out a hidden bag of tools from under the couch. We headed out of the trailer and into the truck.
“What did he borrow, Pa?” I asked.
Dad started the truck. “A lot of shiny, expensive things.”
We drove for thirty minutes until we entered a neighborhood where the houses looked like white mansions. They were built far apart from each other and were equipped with columns on the front porch, a large garden, and sculptured fountains. When we approached my dad’s friend’s house, Dad turned off his headlights and snuck into the driveway quietly before he turned off the car.
“Johnny, you stay in here, OK?”
“But, Pa, I want to go on the adventure with you!”
Dad reached into his bag of tools and pulled out a gun. “Take this,” he said, putting it in my lap. “If anyone tries to hurt you, then you know what to do with it. Stay here; I’m going inside. Also, here are the keys. When you see me come out, start the car right away.”
“OK, Pa.”
Dad got out of the car, closed the door, and walked to the front door. He stood there for a long time, doing something to the door with his tools. I wanted to ask him if he needed any help, but he told me to stay in the truck, so I did. When he entered the house, I couldn’t see anything anymore. This wasn’t an adventure; it felt like an errand. After a few minutes, the dark house became lit with lights on the first floor. The shadows of two people physically fighting appeared through the window, and I got out of the car to see what was wrong. I took the gun with me, opened the front door, and saw that my father was being choked to death by a strange man I had never seen before.
“Shoot him,” Dad said.
With trembling hands, I aimed the gun at the strange man, focused on my target, and shot him in the head, which exploded with blood. The man thumped to the floor, and my father walked away to collect his things. I dropped the gun, rushed over, and kneeled beside him to examine the damage…He might be all right. His skin became pale fairly quick, and I noticed part of his skull was missing, but where did it go? A crimson tide of blood approached my feet and tainted my cowboy boots. I found the missing piece only a few feet away. When I reached for it, I fell into the pool of warm blood. I thought that maybe if I put it back, he’d be OK.
“Johnny, what are you doing?” Dad shouted. “Get away from the body!”
“Is your friend going to be OK? He’s missing this,” I said, holding up the skull piece.
“Put that down, and don’t touch anything!”
I dropped it on the floor. For some reason, shooting a person made me feel self-conscious, which was something I never experienced when I shot animals. There was no challenge or thrill of the chase: just a defenseless man who was outnumbered and had no place to hide. Hunting always felt like a fun game to me, but this didn’t feel like hunting. Dad grabbed all the shiny things he could and stuffed them into bags. As I continued to gaze down at the body, sadness stirred inside me, and I really didn’t know why. I didn’t know this man; I had never seen him before in my life. Why did I suddenly have feelings for him? My eyes watered. “I’m sorry I hurt your friend,” I said.
“It’s OK,” Dad said. “We weren’t that close.”
I started crying, and Dad dragged me away from the body. “Johnny, it’s OK; you’re a real cowboy now.”
“I am?” I asked as Dad rushed me out the door. He threw the bags in the back of the truck, started the engine, and casually drove away like nothing happened.
“You were so brave in there, and only real cowboys are that brave.”
“Oh, wow, wait until Mom finds out how brave I was.”
“You must never tell your mother about this,” Dad said. “You must never tell anybody about this. If someone asks you about tonight and what happened, you say, ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ You understand me?”
“Yes, Pa.”
Chapter 13: Laura
Tomorrow we escape, but today I had to pretend to seduce Darnell, the truck driver. I stood outside, leaning against the glass building and watching the truck drivers as I licked my strawberry frozen yogurt cone. The trucks looked like they were almost ready to leave. Their cargo containers were pretty much full, so I had to think of something fast. How was I supposed to get Darnell to leave with me? Should I go over there and flash him a boob, or come up with a cheesy pick-up line? Wait…I saw a black man walking over here, maybe it was Darnell. As he walked closer to the glass building, I noticed his sunglasses. Yep, it was him. Now that he was separated from the other truck drivers, this should be a little easier. I threw the cone away, fixed my hair, and unbuttoned the top three buttons on my uniform. Darnell scanned his key under the key scanner, and the door unlocked. As he reached for the door, I bolted in front of him and sprawled myself across the glass.
“I’m horney; do you want to have sex?” I said.
“Hmm,” Darnell said, thinking while he rubbed his chin. “Flash me what’s under your uniform.”
I unbuttoned all the buttons on my uniform and flashed him my boobs and midsection.
“Nice; I can work with that,” he said. “Yeah, I’ll do you. I’m supposed to drive the produce to a grocery store in fifteen minutes, so we’ll have to rush. You want to come up to my room?”
“Well, I was thinking something more exotic,” I said as I buttoned up my uniform. “Something that takes longer than fifteen minutes.” I ran my hand down his face and felt his strong, chiseled chest.
“Oh, sexy, I could have you right now,” he said as he pulled me toward him and squeezed my butt. “What do you have in mind?”
“You’ll have to find out once we get to the forest,” I said, pulling away.
“The forest, that’s far. I don’t know if I have time for that.”
“Are you sure? It’s only a one-time offer.”
“Well, let me see if I could get someone to fill in for me.” He opened the door, and we walked into the glass building. Out of nowhere, he picked me up and carried me to the elevator.
“Oh, what strong arms you have.”
“I work out every day.” He put me down in the elevator and flexed his guns at me until we arrived at the thirty-second floor. After we got off the elevator, we went to his room where he used ComCon to send a message to his supervisor. He said he felt sick, would be going to the medical wing for treatment, and asked if it would be possible for someone else to fill in this shift. “Let me know if he responds, I have to go to the restroom.”
The rooms on the thirty-second floor looked different from those on my floor. Darnell’s room had a full-sized air mattress accompanied by a sheet, blanket, and two pillows! Why did the people on this floor have more things than the people on my floor? He even got his own room and didn’t have to share.
Darnell was in the bathroom for five minutes, and he didn’t receive a reply message yet. I didn’t want to wait forever to get this guy’s scan key and sunglasses, so I lied to him when he returned from the bathroom. “Your supervisor said that he’s got you covered,” I said.
“Great, lead the way,” he said.
Once we entered the forest, I looked for a secluded spot with objects I could use to knock him out. Unfortunately, all I found was fruit, when I wanted rocks. Maybe if I had asked Amy in advance, she would have let me borrow her shiv (just kidding). I should have stolen a knife or fork from the cafeteria, but I never thought of it. What if it wasn’t that easy to knock him out? Hopefully he would go out if I pushed him hard against a tree. “Here we are,” I said. I pushed him against the tree as hard as I could, but it didn’t work.
“Oh, yeah, I like a girl who plays rough,” he said as he ripped off my uniform.
I kissed him while I scanned the tree for reachable mangos. There was one in reach, so I pulled it off the branch. For my second attempt, I rammed the mango into his forehead, which caused the back of his head to hit the tree
. That still didn’t knock him out, but he became disoriented for a minute, which was long enough to give me a head start. I stole the key from his breast pocket, took the sunglasses off his face, and started to run away, wearing nothing but my panties and bra. He had the advantage of still wearing his uniform and shoes. I ran as fast as I could, but without shoes, my feet quickly became wounded with cuts and scrapes from scattered twigs on the ground. He was gaining on me. I needed to find help. “Help, this man is trying to rape me,” I screamed. I tripped on a tree root and fell face down on the ground.
“You brought me out here to steal from me! Oh, that’s a bad move, little girl,” he said as he picked me up off the ground and threw me over his shoulder. He held my legs together, leaving me nearly defenseless. “You’re going to pay me back for all my time that you’ve wasted and for getting me excited and not putting out!” He started walking deeper into the forest.
I punched his backside several times, but he still marched onward like he didn’t feel a thing. I did the only thing I could think of. “I have HIV,” I announced.
“No you don’t,” he said. “You’re just saying that to get out of getting fucked.”
“I’m not lying,” I insisted.
“It’s better if you’re not awake for this.” He stopped short, spun around, and smacked my head against a tree.
My body became weak as my mind filled with blackness, and I was entranced in a deep, deep sleep.
When I opened my eyes again, I was resting under a tree naked. My eyes were sensitive to light, I suffered from a pounding headache, and my muscles were still weak. Darnell was next to me, naked and sleeping…What happened? Did I even want to know? Did he rape me?
“Ah, I see you’re up,” Amy said.
I looked around and couldn’t see her. “Where are you?”
“I’m sitting up here in the tree.”
“What happened to him?”
