Mass Hysteria

by Michael Patrick Hicks

  The men kept them to a slow and steady pace. Cautious but alert, they each kept their eyes wide open and their heads turning in search of potential threats. She watched as they checked down alleys and the dark crevices between buildings, scanning upward to the windows above. How much of it was a defense against tactics they themselves had employed—attacking from the high ground or snatching women off the sidewalk from blind spots—or had borne witness to in the comets’ aftermath?

  Ultimately, she supposed it made little difference. She could only contend with the here and now, taking things, quite literally, one step at a time. For now, her options were severely limited—hands tied behind her, trying not to choke herself, leashed to a small caravan of bodies ahead of her, and with armed men on either side and behind her. All she could do was put one foot forward, followed by the next, and wait for her opening.

  While the men were a threat, they were not an immediate danger in her mind. Clearly they wanted her alive, for whatever reason—reasons she suspected were limited either to fucking or eating—and were intent on delivering her to a man named Ward. The name was dimly familiar, but she couldn’t place why. The real threats, the immediate threats, were likely the ones she couldn’t yet see. She waited for the stampede of buffalo to find them, for dogs to chase after them from an alleyway, or for birds to launch an aerial assault. She kept her eyes moving, seeking out these threats, the complications and potential game changers.

  Slowly, they were led into a turn down Eighth Street and she dimly realized they were heading toward City Hall, her own destination prior to her capture. There was a certain fortitudinous to this, but also an implication that unnerved her. Where was Shay? Would she even be able to find her? What if she had been captured, as well…or worse, had been killed?

  No, she thought, interrupting her thoughts. Don’t go down that road.

  They shaved off a few minutes of travel time by cutting through one of the public parking lots. As they passed the drive-thru teller windows of the bank, Lauren noticed a flash of movement across the street, between an Italian restaurant and a photographer’s studio. A dark streak slunk low to the ground. She could not discern any other details, and was forced to move past with the rest of the group.

  Rather than warn her captors, she kept her mouth shut.

  She waited, though, expecting the attack to come at any second. She kept trying to spot the creatures that would come for them, trying her damnedest to not appear nervous, nor overly alert enough to warn those around her.

  After five minutes passed and no assault came, she began to relax, but only slightly. She recognized the narrow expanse of road they had been led down, and knew this street terminated outside City Hall.

  One of the women ahead of her made to lunge for the corpse of a dachshund as they passed close to a smattering of canines that had appeared to have been shot. The woman behind her was dragged out of line, tripping over her own feet. Panic and excitation soon took over, along with, perhaps, a sudden mouthwatering craving for flesh and muscle. The woman directly ahead of Lauren was pulled off balance, jerking the rope along with her and forcing Lauren to stumble forward. She hit her knees hard, while the woman slammed into the ground, her head bouncing off the pavement.

  The men worked to contain them, manhandling them back into place, or at least trying to.

  “Get the fuck back!” one of them yelled. “Back in line!”

  Several of the women shrieked, their mouths snapping at faces brought too close. Lauren let one of the men drag her back to her feet, while another attempted to corral the woman that had been in front of her.

  A throaty growl broke through the commotion. The fine hairs along the back of Lauren’s neck stood on end as she turned toward the noise, spotting another flash of movement beside the library, along the stretch of lawn and in the parking lot. A Rottweiler darted around the rear of a Lexus, charging forward toward them.

  Lauren stopped counting after twenty dogs.

  Before the animals could begin grouping, the men opened fire. The dogs moved faster than most of them could aim, and the shots went wide and high, missing by a mile. A few of the men proved to be capable marksmen, but of the nine, most were losers.

  The women were equally disorganized. One darted toward the presumed safety of the library, forgetting her bondage until the ropes halted her. Two of the others lunged toward one of the men, snapping at either side of his neck and falling atop him.

  In a slurry of whipping hair and blood, she saw the face of the man who had abducted her from the antique shop. Then his face was lost beneath hungry mouths, his screams inaudible beneath a frenzy of gunfire and vicious barking. As one leg uselessly kicked out, she noticed the hunting knife at his belt. There was enough play in the rope for her to turn and work the knife free of its scabbard, and she hoped she didn’t accidentally slit her wrists as she began sawing at the rope.

  One of the riflemen saw what was happening, saw his fallen companion and the women gorging on his throat. Saw Lauren. He clubbed her in the head with the butt of his rifle and she stumbled back, dropping the knife. She could feel the flat of the blade against her ass, the knifepoint pressing into the back of her thigh.

  In attacking her, the man had taken his eyes off the immediate threat. A Rottweiler leaped onto his back, tackling him to the ground and tearing skin from the back of his neck. As the man thrashed, Lauren caught sight of the exposed knobs of vertebrae before the dog’s mouth dug into the opening and attacked the chew toy of the man’s spine. Bones popped between the Rottweiler’s jaws as its head shook back and forth. A moment later, the man was still.

  Lauren kicked her way back, rolling off the knife, and spent a frantic few seconds trying to find the blade once more. Her fingertips danced along the pavement, finding only the edges of tiny stones.

  The Rottweiler’s eyes were pinned on her. Bloody drool hung from its jowls, and it took a threatening stride forward. Its eyes were home to unbridled savagery and pure hatred.

  Midstep, its head exploded, and its thickly muscled body collapsed onto the road with a meaty thud.

  Hands hauled Lauren to her feet, and a moment later she felt the ropes fall from her wrists and neck. The shooting had intensified, and a dozen more people came rushing out from the library and onto the street. They attacked the dogs with guns and knives, and some with nothing more than fists and fury. One woman carried a brass stanchion, the kind that were set up for a line to snake through at the circulation desk, the frayed retractable belt dangling off the end. She wielded it like a club, smashing one canine’s head with the heavy base. Another woman bludgeoned an animal with the spine of a thick, heavy-looking reference book.

  When Lauren turned to see who had freed her, she could not help but smile.

  Shay.

  Beautiful Shay.

  Lauren snatched up the rifle her abductor had dropped and took aim at the nearest dog, then sought her next target. Blood pounded in her ears, and a quiet rumble shook her belly. Her finger found the trigger, and she suddenly felt starved.

  Men and women clashed with the beasts, rending one another with tooth and nail, knives and claws. Bullets slammed into canine skulls, leaving behind shards of bone and pulped clumps of brain and gore.

  Her heart hammered in her chest, trilling at the heat of war, her blood pumping hot and fast.

  When it was finished, it felt like hours had passed, but in truth the violence had resolved in mere minutes. She was left breathless and ragged, and the fog of combat cleared enough that she realized Shay was still there, beside her. They had, apparently, fought together. Shay’s lips were close to hers, and slightly parted. Lauren leaned in and mouthed the words “Thank you” as they embraced and kissed each other’s cheeks.

  “Who did this to you?” Shay asked, gently massaging the raw rope burns around Lauren’s wrists.

  Lauren spotted the men that had captured her, or what was left of them, at the edges of the crowd. Their numbers had been halved, and those
that remained regrouped and strode forward toward the women they had taken prisoner.

  They stopped two paces away, their eyes drawn to Shay.

  Lauren realized there was something different about the police officer, and that she carried a certain authority now that went far beyond a mere badge. There was a maternal air about her, a sense of strength and leadership, and the men recognized this as well, enough so that it stopped them in their tracks.

  “These women were for Ward. Where is he?”

  “Ward’s dead,” Shay said simply, offering them a half-hearted shrug. Then she took Lauren’s hand and held it toward them.

  “You did this to her?”

  “She was for Ward,” he said again, as if that explained everything.

  Shay nodded, and with a slight flicker of her hand the men found themselves surrounded, plainly outnumbered by the women. Looking at the assemblage of bodies, Lauren realized that the majority of Shay’s group were female, with only a handful of men.

  “Kill them,” Shay said. “Do whatever you see fit with their remains.”

  Shay turned her back on the noise of screams that dissolved into moist gurgles, and the sound of wet, smacking lips and grunts of engorgement. She took Lauren’s hand.

  “Come.”

  Lauren turned to follow her into the library, leaving behind the coppery stink of recent death. Inside, she found a barely lit tomb scattered with enough remains to explain what had happened to so many of the men. Gutted corpses were splayed across the floor, purple chunks of organ meat speckling the floor.

  “This is a new world, sweetie,” Shay said. “This is our world now.”

  LAUREN WATCHED THROUGH ICE-COVERED windows as snow fell, glistening in the moonlight. Outside, a pure blanket of white stretched off into the distance, broken only by trees draped in snow. The scene was beatific, but the pain of a contraction wrenched her eyes away from it.

  She sat on the corner of the bed, holding her engorged belly between swollen hands. Her eyes pinched shut and she tried to control her breathing. In through her nose, out through her mouth. Repeating until the cramping eased.

  “You’re doing so well,” Shay said, encouraging her through the agony.

  The contractions had been coming faster, harder, and longer.

  “I’m not ready for this.”

  “You are,” Shay said. “You can do this. You have to do this.”

  Lauren offered her a lopsided smile, sweeping back sweaty strands of hair and tucking them back behind her ear.

  “I guess it’s too late go back now, huh?”

  After she had missed her period eight months ago, Lauren had found a home pregnancy test in a drugstore while on a reconnaissance run. They had been looking for other survivors, people that they could corral and bring back to the winery. A few weeks prior to the recon, Shay had decided to move the group onto the peninsula, setting up camp at one of the vineyards situated atop a hill that provided them with a panoramic view of the landscape.

  The baby was Jacob’s. There had been no other men since him, and the last time she had been with him, using protection had been far less important than their primal needs.

  She had finally told Shay after the first trimester passed.

  Several other women in their group had become pregnant in the intervening months as well. Beyond serving as a food source, reproduction had been the one other thing the men had proved adept at. The rooms of the vineyard’s bed and breakfast had become a de facto live storage area, and the men, most of them lone survivors they came across in the wild or on the outskirts of town, were subdued and chained to the bedframes. They were fed as little as possible in order to conserve the camp’s rations, and the women were allowed to use them as they saw fit. At least until other priorities demanded the men be dispatched.

  Five months ago, they’d had four men subdued. Shay demanded that the group subsist on wildlife as much as possible and hunting parties routinely sought out game. Their hunters returned with deer more often than not, and they had been flush in venison for a good while. Over the last few months, the deer had grown scarce and they had been forced to turn toward their stockpiles.

  They were down to two men now. Well, two and a half, really. Six women were pregnant, one with twins if her size was any indication.

  Stock and supplies were in need of replenishment. One group of hunters was stalking the city for any signs of life, while another scouted the surrounding woods.

  Lauren bent forward, screaming while Shay wrapped both arms around her. She shoved her way out of her friend’s embrace, and then turned on the bed, kneeling facedown and grunting into a pillow.

  How the hell am I supposed to do this?

  “We can fill the bathtub with water,” Shay said. “That might help.”

  “No,” Lauren moaned, her face still buried in the pillow. Another contraction hit, twisting her insides into a fist-sized knot.

  She’d kill every man, woman, and child in this inn for a simple painkiller. Or better yet, an epidural. She had heard one of the other women talking about how much of a godsend an epidural was. That sow had been pregnant twice before, and was expecting her third any week now. She didn’t know which of the captive men was the father, and with only two prisoners left she joked about having a fifty-fifty shot at guessing correctly.

  “We’ll know once he pops out,” the woman had joked. Lauren hadn’t laughed then, and it seemed even less funny now.

  “Motherfucker!” she screamed as another contraction seized her innards and yanked. “God motherfucking he—gaaahh!”

  A part of her dreaded seeing the baby, of seeing Jacob in the baby’s features. How much of a resemblance would there be? Would he have the same dusky eyes as his father, or his softly upturned nose?

  “Oh, fuuuuuuuuuck!”

  Another part of her reasoned that it did not matter, and she was able to close the door on that line of thought. The child could be Jacob’s perfect little twin, and it would not change a thing. It did not matter what he, or she, looked like.

  The pain of labor was immense, and all she could do was deal with it. There was simply no other choice. She knelt there, her elbows and knees bearing the brunt of her weight, her bare ass sticking up in the air, screaming into her pillow and—after the pain grew so intense she flung the pillow aside—into the mattress.

  “You’re crowning,” Shay shouted over her screams. “You need to roll over.”

  “It fucking hurts, goddamnit!”

  “You’re doing great.”

  “Fuck you!”

  Shay helped her roll over, moved her to the end of the bed, and spread her legs for her.

  No painkillers, no doctors. In this room, only her and Shay. Earlier, when the contractions had first started, she had made light of their initially innocuous pings for attention, and joked about how she was doing this delivery old school. The way women did it way back when, before hospitals, before medicine was even a thing. Shay had squeezed her hand and told her, with the pride of a mother,

  “You’ve got this.” Lauren had nodded, believing that she really, truly did have this.

  She had been good and fucking truly wrong. She had been so fucking delusional she would laugh at her earlier self right now if it did not hurt so goddamned much.

  “Breathe!” Shay demanded.

  Lauren’s next scream was belly deep, a primitive and vulgar sound, the pain drawing her torso up. The bed sheet was drenched in her sweat, her whole face slick. She pushed as hard and for as long as she could before collapsing backward.

  “That’s it, that’s it,” Shay said excitedly. “Keep pushing, sweetheart!”

  Lauren did, the pain increasing even further. She could feel the muscles stretching painfully inside her as this child forced its way through. Her screams raised a notch as she felt her skin tear, the baby’s head prompting a burning sensation in her core, just one more misery to add to the growing catalog of pain she was experiencing.

  “Keep going. You
’re almost there. You’re almost there.”

  Shay’s words made zero sense to her. She could barely even hear the woman over the throbbing, hammering drumbeat of her pulse in her skull. She pushed, and a pressure built inside her and then released in a gushing spasm, barely cognizant of the fact that she had just shit the bed. That aching, burning pain grew as her coccyx cracked and her perineum unzippered, and a small human being pushed through her birth canal, cutting her in half like a split log.

  She screamed, delirious with pain, and fell back, weary and sore. She felt like she had run a marathon. The longest, most exhausting marathon ever. Her muscles ached right down to the bone, and she shook uncontrollably. It was over. It was over.

  The baby screamed, and she caught a glimpse of the child cradled against Shay’s chest, the flap of an arm and the turn of a blood-streaked face.

  “Oh my god,” Lauren said. She could not help but smile, even as her head sank deeper into the thin mattress. “Oh god.”

  “I need to get him cleaned up.”

  Lauren nodded, practically feeling the glow of afterbirth. She was golden. So gold even that the pain was forgotten.

  She turned her attention back to the window, to the still-falling snow and the idyllic scene of pure whiteness. She listened to Shay’s steps as the woman padded toward the bedroom door and into the hallway beyond.

  “Shay!”

  A moment later, the woman returned and stood in the doorway, still cradling the screaming infant. She raised an eyebrow curiously.

  It did not need saying, maybe, but Lauren felt she had to anyway. Just to be sure. Just so her friend knew.

  “Save me a piece.”

  Shay smiled and nodded. She turned without another word, back into the hallway and to the stairs that descended to the inn’s kitchen.

  She watched the snowfall for a bit, until fatigue overtook her and her body forced her eyes closed. She needed to rest. Shay would send somebody in to stitch her back together soon enough, but in her exhaustion, Lauren failed to care. She was tired. Beyond tired.