by John Burks
The kid growled like a lion, and the other caged children close enough to see us became agitated, barking and snarling at me and the red suited man. It spread, thought the complex, and the kids in the other cages began to hoot like wild gorillas. The little monster squatted like a Vietnamese man eating from a rice bowl, defecating without missing a beat, never taking those dark, hateful eyes from mine.
“As I said, our supply of actual Touchers is small. There are not nearly enough to tend to these beautiful, beautiful children one on one. It’s more than they can do to keep our next generation fed and somewhat clean.”
“How many of them are there?”
“Fifty-two, right now. There will be more, of course. We are constantly searching for more fertile female Touchers. We will be that much better off when you return Jenna to us. She has been our best mother to date and she still has years of child bearing in front of her. Her children have been… the most human. She is mother to ten of these children, including Brian here. We have not yet quite gotten the process right, as you can see, but we are so very close. It’s simply a matter of mixing the correct genetics.”
I looked at the kid and I didn’t see human. I saw a plague ravaged monster who should have never been born. But I also saw someone that I suspected Jenna loved, if she knew the boy at all. As horrible as the beast was to look at, I was sure this is what I’d left behind. Though I’d had no idea when I’d formulated the plan, this was what I’d come here to trade her for.
Madness.
“But he is immune. That child will never contract the Preacher’s Plague. He was born with it. There are just other… issues, as you can see. We need her back, Jack. Humanity needs her back.”
“I understand, sir. I’ll bring her to you,” I lied. I’d do no such thing. I had to figure out a way to, at the very least, make the girl understand how sorry I was. At worse, I’d help her flee the city and never see her again. I owed her that much.
“Is she currently safe?”
“Yes sir,” I said. I’d left her chained to the bed like an animal, but she was safe. I wasn’t much better than the people of Fortress.
“Good. Then you can spend the evening with us and you can see just how well we treat our Touchers. Maybe, just maybe, you are even equipped with the right genetics to help us further our cause. Perhaps you can be a part of this community.”
The man slapped me on the shoulder the way a doting father might his son and it drove me bonkers. I didn’t want to spend the night. I just wanted to flee. But I also didn’t want to give them cause to detain me further. I wanted to leave on good terms if for no other reason than I didn’t want them following me through the city.
“Okay,” I said, meekly, still stunned by the so-called nursery. I had no idea what other horrors to expect from this place, and I didn’t want to find out.
The wannabe Preacher in red armor led me from the Nursery and we went across a large courtyard with a much larger garden than I’d seen before. He took me to another set of trailers, without containment systems, and knocked on the door. An old man opened it, eyeing me suspiciously.
“Preacher be with you, sir. How may I help you this evening?”
“This young man is Jack Wyatt. He is our guest, for the evening. In the morning, he will retrieve Jenna and bring her home for us.”
He raised one eyebrow. “Oh will he now?”
“Indeed. He has even brought proof of life. I want you to give him the best treatment possible, yes Duncan? The full ride.”
“Whatever you say, sir. It will be done.”
The man turned to me once more. “I want you to enjoy your evening here. You are safe. This is not the ruins. We have law and we have order. And I want you to take this opportunity to get to know us. Consider my offer. We always have a place for a resourceful young man such as yourself, even if your genes do not further our cause. Thank you.”
I stood watching the man leave.
“You can’t run, kid.”
“What?”
“That’s what you’re thinking, right? He showed you that damned horror show in the Nursery and you want to run. I’m with you. I want to run too. But you just can’t do it. Since Jenna ran away they’ve tripled up the guards on us. There’s at least five in them trees watching us now. Running away would just get you shot.”
“I wasn’t thinking of running,” I lied.
“It was what you were thinking. I can see it in your face. We all think it, everyday, son. Now come in before one of those guards gets an itchy finger.”
I hesitated and the man saw that as well. “Come on boy. We are all Touchers here in the Pit. You won’t explode from dining with us.”
I finally nodded in agreement and followed the man inside the large trailer.
The inside was night and day different than the slums I’d seen when I’d entered Fortress. The trailer was packed, but it was clean. There was no trash blowing through and the people who stared at me as I entered looked as if they could have come from the days before the plague. Besides looking a bit haggard, they were healthy looking. But just like the people who toiled in the fields outside, there was no joy in the room. No one was happy to see me and, if anything, they felt as much apprehension at my presence as I did. Seeing so many people without body armor and nothing preventing the exchange of our pheromones just nearly stopped my heart. My breath came quick and ragged and sweat poured from my forehead. This was against everything I’d trained myself for over the last fifteen years. Even my few hours with Jenna had not prepared me for exposure to so many people.
“Calm down, son. You’ll give yourself a heart attack. Here, sit down and have some water,” he said, pulling a wooden chair away from the wall for me to sit in. An older woman came to his side with a glass of water and offered it to me. She could have been my neighbor, back before it all went to shit. She was just that plain. So plain she was out of place. She wasn’t a survivor in the ruins, she was someone’s grandmother.
“Here, honey. Take this. It’s a lot to take in, I know. You have to pace yourself,” the old woman said.
“Thank you,” I told her, taking comfort in her mannerisms and smile. She could have been my grandmother, for all I knew.
“My name is Jane. Did I hear right that you know where our sweet Jenna might be?”
“Yes ma’am,” I told her, trying my best to return the smile. “She’s safe. I’ll have her back to you tomorrow,” I lied.
“I’m glad she is, son,” she said and then, leaned in and whispered. “Don’t bring her back here, okay? Don’t you dare bring her back here.”
I stared blankly at her for a moment. I didn’t know what to say.
The older man saw my discomfort and, thankfully, intervened. “The Boss said to give him the whole treatment, Jane. I think that puts you up, this time.”
“Oh my. Already?” the woman asked, quizzical look on her face. “Well, I could do worse, I supposed. Okay, sweetie. After you’ve eaten and relaxed a bit I’ll give you the whole tour, okay? Just come holler at me out back, when you’re ready,” she said, pointing to a door leading to the rear of the large trailer.
“Yes ma’am,” I replied, imagining her baking cookies or something. I didn’t have a clue what the whole tour actually entailed.
There were half a dozen other people in the room and I could hear more in other parts of the trailer. There were two men not much older than me, sitting very close to each other on the couch. There was an older Asian gentleman cooking at the stove. Next to him was another middle-aged, haggard looking woman. Two much older men sat playing dominoes at a far table.
“How many of you are there?” I asked, looking around in amazement. If I didn’t know the world’s history for the last fifteen or so years I would have sworn we all just gathered around for dinner. It could have been just an ordinary night.
“A dozen, with Jenna,” the old man that had met me at the door said, sticking out his hand. “I’m Frank Lawton. It’s a pleasure to meet yo
u.”
“Thanks, Mr. Lawton,” I said, shoving down the revulsion I felt at touching the man’s hand. It had been all I could do to touch Jenna. To touch someone else so soon was cringe worthy.
“She’s really okay, that Jenna?” one of the men playing dominoes asked.
“Yeah, she’s fine.” I said. It wasn’t necessarily a lie, but it wasn’t the whole truth either.
“And you came here to trade her? Why in the hell would you do that?” the man’s partner asked.
“Keep it down, Harry,” the first man ordered. “You know they listen to everything in here.”
“Fuck them,” the man said. “What are they going to do? Kill me? They’re already doing a pretty goddamn good job of that, wouldn’t you say? Working us twenty hours a day in that little shop of horrors. I hope they hear me and, honestly, I hope they come in here and put a bullet in my head. I should have done it myself years ago before they caught me.”
Frank smiled knowingly, “Sorry about that. Harry tends to get a bit cantankerous in his old age. But he’s asking the question we are actually all dying to know. Why would you bring her back? You could go anywhere with her, do anything you wanted. You’re a young man, about her age, a little skinny but not bad looking. She could even probably learn to love you. So why come back?”
I didn’t want to tell them the whole sordid story and I especially didn’t want to tell them about her being chained up to my bed. I needed to simplify events.
“I haven’t had her since she’s been gone, which I take it has been a long time, right?”
“Years.”
“I was out scavenging and, well, I just ran across her. She wants to come home, she really does. She just wanted me to come make sure it was safe first.”
That produced a laugh from the two younger men sitting on the couch. There was something about them I couldn’t quite place my fingers on.
“Seriously?” Frank asked. “You expect us to believe that?”
I shrugged. What else could I say?
“No,” the man continued. “The more likely story is that Fortress has something you want. Maybe something you need pretty desperately. That would be the only reason you’d be willing to trade away your steady pussy, right?”
“She wants to come back,” I insisted, still lying. “She really does.”
All of them chuckled at that. One of the men on the couch smiled. “Do you really think any of us want to be here? Do you think we want to be working for that monster that brought you here?”
“Calm down, David. He doesn’t know anything,” the other man said, wiping the sudden tears from David’s face. The way they touched reminded me of lovers in old movies and suddenly I got it. The two were gay and in love. Despite the end of the world being caused by a plague that originally targeted gay men, these two had somehow found each other and fell in love. There was a certain sense of victory with that. Whatever the Preacher had wanted with his maniacal plague, he’d failed. He hadn’t killed off the gays. Good, I thought. Fuck him.
“I’m sorry,” was all I could think to say. I didn’t want to lie to them anymore. “I just have to get seals for my suit. She’s fine, though, I swear. I haven’t hurt her. I found her in a… it was a bad place with a bad guy and I sort of kind of rescued her.”
“The guy who attacked the bar the other night? The one who killed Kitty?” Frank asked.
“Yes. She called him Big Woody.”
That produced a growl from the residents of the Pit. David nodded in agreement. “He’d been talking to Sharon too, trying to talk her into leaving with him. He was the one who talked Jenna into running, wasn’t he? They were never sure, back then, though they searched for her for months.”
“I think so. I don’t really know all the details,” I said.
“And he’s dead?”
I nodded in agreement. “She killed him. She saved me in the process.”
The old man, Harry, piped up again. “Well, you can’t bring her back here. She’s free now, boy. I don’t think you understand what that means. She can get out of this goddamned city and make something of herself.”
“Hush, Harry,” Frank ordered. And then his voice got very low. “He’s right. Please don’t bring her back here. They’ll end up killing her with all the babies.”
“How many has she had?”
“No one knows for sure. I think about ten. She was one of the first. They keep trying to breed us together to make immune children, but it’s not working. They’re just making the monsters you saw. We’re… we’re all going to die here, kid. Don’t make her die with us.”
“I’m ready,” I heard Jane call from the back. “Come on.”
I wasn’t sure, exactly, what that was about, but Frank urged me to head back.
“Go on, kid. The boss will want to know we took care of you in the morning. He’ll be upset if you don’t… well, you know.”
That was just it. I didn’t know. But I was going to find out.
The back room was lit with dozens of candles. It looked, for all the world, like the set of some cheap porn movie in my collection back home. Leopard print carpet stretched from one end of the room to the other. What furniture there was consisted of a sex swing dangling from the middle of the room, various binding devices affixed to the walls, and trays of… dildos? Jane waited for me on a round, red bed that rotated.
“Hello cutie. You ready for the whole tour? The best treatment?”
She was naked save for some thigh high black boots. Judging by the wrinkles she was older than I’d first thought. She’d been beautiful, once upon a time. I could see where the slender lines of her body had bloated with age. Her once taunt, firm skin had dotted with sun spots, sagging in spots. Jane’s breasts were small to begin with, but had drooped with age. Her pubic hair was neatly trimmed and gray.
“I’m sorry?” I asked, completely taken off guard.
“You get the full ride. The boss said so. It’s my turn. I know I’m a bit older than Jenna,” she laughed, “but I can still hang in there with the big boys. You look like a nice boy. You won’t be too rough with old Jane, will you?”
“I thought the full treatment might mean cookies,” I admitted.
“Oh, there’s cookies sweet heart. And I promise to make the evening extra special if you can promise me one thing.”
“Ma’am?”
“You don’t bring that girl back here, you hear me? When you get out of here, you go to wherever you have Jenna stashed and you take her and you run. You run far and fast and you don’t look back. Not one single time. This city is dead. There ain’t no need for a young couple to be here anymore, right? You promise me that and and I’ll rock your world, young man.”
I really didn’t have the first clue what to do. The woman was somewhere north of three times my age. She was still attractive, despite the spots and the sags, and yes, I felt myself aroused at the sight of those gray pubes. Of course I’d pleasured myself to mature porn. I’d seen a little bit of every kind of porn there was. I had mountains of hard drives and laptops with porn I’d yet to see. And as much as I desired to do just this thing, it wasn’t the reason I’d come to Fortress.
“I’m sorry,” I told her. “I’m not here for that. I didn’t ask for this.”
The woman didn’t look hurt. Maybe a little amused, but not hurt. She didn’t bother trying to cover herself as she sat. “I didn’t think you had, honey. You don’t have the right demeanor, though I’m guessing I’m one of the actual naked women you’ve seen that you can count on one hand, right?
“Yes ma’am, besides video anyway.”
“Probably seen Jenna. Last time I saw that girl, she was a damn sight better looking than this old husk.”
“You’re beautiful, ma’am,” I stammered, hoping my growing erection didn’t show through my shorts.
“Aren’t you sweet. I’m also going to guess you have never done this before, huh? Not even with Jenna?”
“No ma’am,” I said nervousl
y, slightly embarrassed.
“No shame in that, hon. Everybody has a first time. I remember mine like it was yesterday, but that’s probably a story a young fella like you doesn’t want to hear.”
“I’d hear whatever you want to say, ma’am,” I said and it was only partly because of the screaming desire I had to throw her down and pound her. I also genuinely liked the woman. She was the first woman that, despite the situation, had made me feel comfortable since… well since my mother.
“Again, so sweet. I could just pinch you. Now come here so I can show you the right things to do when you and Jenna finally get away. Let me show you how to make love to a woman. Because, son, that’s what you need to do. You need to make love to her. Put those fuck videos out of your mind. Forget them.”
I still hesitated.
“Look, son. I know what those feelings do to the teenage mind. If you don’t come here and let me release all that pent up tension you’ve had for the last however long, you won’t be able to concentrate on getting Jenna out of this city. She deserves more than this, son, and I suspect that you do as well. You’re a good boy, aren’t you? Come here and let me reward you.”
I couldn’t resist and I took the bed with her. She was careful, delicate… it was nothing like the rough hand job I’d had with Jenna. There was nothing rushed and she treated me not as an unskilled boy who had no idea of these things but as a man, her lover.
For a while I forgot all that other shit.
I made love to Jane four more times in the next couple of hours. Despite her age she had a vigor about her and acted like she was decades younger than she actually was. I lay there a long time, afterwards, thinking about it and listening to her breath next to me. I couldn’t sleep, though. However much the act had made me temporarily forget my problems, those problems were still there. I had things to do.
I now had a mission. Whether Jenna actually wanted my help, after what I’d done, was another matter entirely.
