Famine

by R A Doty

  How the nutrimen were transported depended entirely on their year of growth. If they were raised for ten years or more, they were transported one at a time. Anything less than ten years meant they would more than likely be transported in groups of ten and under, with each nutrimen of the group being birthed on the exact same day. The entire staff at the kennel was notified in advance if a transport was going to occur, and when the event happened they were instructed not to speak in the presence of the nutrimen. It was a rule that was never broken due to the severity of the punishment. Having never heard a human voice their entire life deterred the nutrimen from communicating. Another alternative to keep them silent would be to sever their vocal cords, but this procedure was carefully considered by the Power Elite and decided against for fear of possible infection and internal contamination of the meat. They wanted the nutrimen to stay as pure as possible. However, the procedure was acceptable as a means to silence any mainlanders that were purchased solely as a source of sustenance. Their meat wasn’t considered as pure, but after being thoroughly tested it would be used to subsidize depleted inventories until the nutrimen were replenished to acceptable levels.

  Outside the kennel, the sun was shining bright through a light blue sky spattered with fluffy white clouds. Seagulls soared in spirals above the ocean like snowflakes falling gently to earth, each pass pulling them closer to the water.

  Inside the kennel, a group of ten nutrimen was being transported down a hallway to undergo their fourth annual examinations. Most walked in a straight line behind their predecessor, but one would occasionally waddle sideways to touch the shiny white wall. A nurse would quickly run up and guide it back to the line. When they finally reached the examination room, the nutrimen were contained in what looked like a small corral assembled in the far corner of the room. As they were taken, one at a time, to be examined, the others would run around the pen like a litter of puppies chasing their tails, oblivious to their surroundings. They consisted of an equal number of males and females, and five of the ten had dark colored hair, and four had light.

  A single female with bright red hair stood by herself with her tiny hands gripping the stainless-steel rail of the corral. Instead of frolicking around the pen as the others were doing, she stood quietly, scrutinizing everything that lay before her eyes. A nurse walking by became the object of her attention, until another came from the other direction and her gaze shifted to her. She focused on shiny utensils on shiny carts before twisting her head toward the ceiling to examine the bright light that hurt her eyes to look at. She blinked to regain her focus. When her vision cleared, she watched intently as a nurse poked and prodded a dark-haired male nutrimen. When the male grabbed a shiny object hanging from the nurse’s neck, her attention turned to the object. She was equally interested when the nurse clipped the object to her ears and pressed the shiny part to the male’s chest. She covered her own ears with the palms of her hands and was intrigued by the odd sound that was made. She did this three more times and smiled.

  After the nurse finished examining the dark-haired male, she carried him back to the pen and lifted the red-haired female. She placed the female on an examination table and then turned to pull-up her file on a computer just to the right of the table. When she turned back to the female nutrimen, her mouth opened and her eyes widened. She instinctively reached for her stethoscope, only to discover it was no longer around her neck, but instead, clipped to the ears of the nutrimen. She stood amazed as the female pressed the sensor to her own chest, directly above the location of her heart. Aren’t you a smart one, the nurse thought, unhooking the instrument from the nutrimen’s ears.

  After the remaining nutrimen were examined, they were all assembled back into a line by the door where they waited obediently to be led back to their private kennel. The nurse that initially brought them stepped to the front of the line and silently counted each nutrimen to confirm their attendance, her lips moving and head nodding. It wasn’t uncommon to locate a straggler who had managed to slip under a table or wander off to the other side of the room. When they were each accounted for, the nurse opened the door, poked her head into the hallway to verify none of the kennel staff were speaking to each other, and slowly guided the line of nutrimen through the doorway. They resembled a long caterpillar as they walked barefoot down the hall in their white pants and t-shirts, the line zigzagging slightly from side to side. A tiny hand reached out to touch the wall.

  Chapter Eight

  THE morning sun peeked over the ocean like the orange eye of a Cyclops. Brian stood patiently by the window and waited for the city to show itself, his face just inches away from the wire-reinforced glass. The silhouette of a large wall appeared first, which seemed to go on forever. He pushed his cheek right up to the glass and twisted his head sideways, hoping to see an end to the wall, but there was none. He twisted his head in the other direction but the wall continued. He sighed, another impossible obstacle. It was time to go.

  With the bag hanging over his shoulder, Brian walked over to the door and turned the handle. The way his luck was going, he was somewhat surprised to find it unlocked. He slowly poked his head out and stared down a long vacant hallway. How odd it was he didn’t remember it from the night before. He crept forward, his head twisting from left to right. He thought he heard voices in the distance, but he was heading in the other direction so he wasn’t too concerned. With each step he took, his bare feet stuck to the shiny tiled floor. His loose-fitting clothes felt like pajamas. A few months earlier he would have been getting ready to leave for the base, wearing his pajamas and walking barefoot in his apartment at this exact same time as Shannon slept.

  So far so good, he thought, edging his way down the hallway and glancing back occasionally. The hallways looked like an intricate maze, and it was impossible to tell which direction would lead to the exit. He shouldn’t have waited so long. It would have been better to locate the exit sooner and wait outside for the sun to rise. He turned a corner and faced another hallway of mysterious white doors, all exactly the same except for the numbers painted on them. He did a one-eighty when he heard the voices behind him: two men talking, just around the corner of the last hallway, and heading his way. He tried to open one of the doors but it was locked. He tried another. Locked as well. His only choice was to run down the hall and hope the door at the end led to the world he so desperately wanted to get back to. His feet slapped the floor tiles and his eyes studied the door ahead. At the speed he was going, if anyone walked out of one of the doors and into the hallway, he’d slam into them so hard it would be like hitting a brick wall. Just a few more feet. He glanced back, but still no sign of the men. And then a shoe appeared. Before seeing the rest of the man’s body, he lunged for the door and pushed it open. A solid, thud, stopped the door mid-way. He squeezed through the opening and carefully closed the door behind him.

  When he turned, the eyes of nine small children, dressed similarly to him, were staring in his direction. A tenth child was crouched to the floor, just behind the door he had so quietly closed—a small female, crying through hands pressed tightly to her face—the reason the door wouldn’t open fully. He touched the child’s bright red hair.

  “I’m so sorry,” he tried to say, but a series of hisses was all that came from his mouth.

  The female lowered her hands and looked up at the man towering over her. Blood covered the palm of her right hand and was still flowing from the gash in her upper lip. Although her face throbbed with pain, she stopped crying as she studied the man’s face. A sense of comfort came over her, and as the other children backed away, she saw something in his eyes that made her relax. Something that was missing in the others who have so diligently fed, clothed, and bathed her every day of her life. She didn’t fear him.

  When the nurse leading the nutrimen realized the pattern of tiny footfalls trailing behind her had silenced, she turned in their direction. Her attention immediately went to the large mainlander who was leaning over one of the fe
males. When she noticed the blood on the nutrimen’s face, she reached into her pocket, pulled out a whistle, and blew into it as hard as she could. The sound was ear piercing, and all eyes turned toward her.

  Brian knew it would only be a matter of minutes, if not seconds, before he was apprehended and brought back to the room where his life would most definitely end. He took the red-haired girl’s hand and held it briefly. The fingers were tiny and soft. Words weren’t necessary to express the feeling they shared. One had the ability to speak but lacked the knowledge, and the other had the knowledge but was forever silenced. The whistle blew again.

  Three men dressed in red appeared from the far end of the hallway. They charged forward in the direction of the whistle.

  Brian sprang to his feet and ran past the woman.

  The whistle blew louder.

  The young nutrimen gathered around the nurse—a flock of frightened little ducklings clinging to safety. The red-haired female stood and watched the man running away. She held up her hand and studied it as if she could still feel his touch.

  IN one of the houses overlooking the ocean, a small girl pressed her hands to a door made of glass. From her viewpoint, she could see over the wall of concrete to the sandy beach below. She imagined how the sand would feel beneath her bare feet, tiny droplets of moisture sticking to the glass as she exhaled. Desire gave way to impulse as she reached for the door handle.

  “I’m going outside to play, Mother.”

  “Calla, it’s too early to go outside,” a woman replied from the kitchen to the right. “It’s barely light out. Give the sun time to come up.”

  “It is up, Mother. I can see it over the water. Look.” Calla pointed to the giant orange ball. “Please, can I go out?”

  “Well, just for a few minutes. And stay away from the wall.”

  “But I want to play in the sand. I promise I won’t go near the water.”

  “Honey, if you want to go outside and play in the grass you can. But I don’t want you to go near the wall. If you’re not going to obey, you’ll have to stay inside.”

  “I’ll obey, Mother.”

  The door slid open and Calla ran outside. The air was new and fresh and everything smelled wonderful. A gull shrieked from above as if to say ‘good morning.’ Calla tilted her head toward the bird while skipping through the grass on her way to the wall. Everything seemed magical: the warmth of the rising sun on her skin, the sound of the beckoning ocean on the other side of the wall—always calling her to play in the sand, the dew-laden grass beneath her bare feet, and the scent of the yellow miniature roses climbing higher up the wall each day as if to satisfy a curiosity that can only be matched by a small girl who constantly wondered what the warm sand would once again feel like between her toes. When the grass met the wall of concrete, Calla stopped skipping and glanced back toward her house.

  If she moved very quickly she could run down the stairs, open the great door in the wall, and run to the sand, all before her mother realized she had left the grass. She could hear the waves rustling over the sand—whispers to come and play. How could she possibly resist the invitation?

  The wall was a giant barrier to a seven-year-old child. Once on the other side, the entire world of reality had vanished and was replaced with a world filled with wonderment. Calla plucked hidden treasures from the sand and cleaned them in the ocean, each finding a spot in her pocket. She could talk to the seagulls and they would respond to everything she said. The clouds high above would form wonderful shapes just for her, and the wind would douse her with scents she would be able to smell at the end of the day as she lay on her bed, imagining how fascinating the following day would be. Life was perfect in her perfect world.

  EACH door Brian opened led to another hallway. Shoes pounding the floor behind him gave warning that the men were still coming. When he reached the end of one hallway, he pushed the door open and turned his head from left to right, deciding which way to go. Both options were similar in appearance—nothing but rows of doors with numbers on them. He wedged an empty gurney under the door’s handle after closing it and picked the path to the right for no other reason than being right handed. As the end of the hallway drew closer, his feet slapping the floor faster than before, a glass door came into view. Behind it appeared green grass and the trunk of a tree. Finally, a way out.

  Back in the hallway behind him, doors banged against the gurney. Without looking back, he pushed the glass door open and ran outside. He took a deep breath, the scent of the ocean filling his lungs. A ten-foot tall, concrete wall was the only thing stopping him from reaching it. There had to be a way around it. He ran down a sidewalk, studying the wall as he went. No openings, no end in sight. He’d run all goddamned day if he had to, because there was no way in hell he was going back to that room to be butchered alive.

  As he ran past magnificent houses with facades of glass windows facing the ocean, he saw a wooden door built into the wall at the bottom of a set of stairs. He ran down the steps and up to the door, but it was locked. He headed to the sidewalk again, never noticing the red and green buttons embedded into the wall. Farther down the path he saw another door, but it too was locked. He ran to another and another, all locked. There’s no way out, he thought, gasping for air with his hands on his knees. And then one of the doors, ten yards away, began to open. He sprang forward in that direction. When he reached it, a young girl was climbing the steps with the door slowly closing behind her. With a single jump he traversed the steps and got to the door just before it closed.

  The child fell to the grass at the top of the steps, her knee scraping the last concrete tread. When she looked at her leg, blood had already begun to cover he kneecap like a small red patch. Her first thought was to cry, but her attention was immediately drawn to the group of men dressed in red running in her direction. She froze, waiting for their arrival. Did she do something wrong? Did her mother call them to locate her? The men stopped in front of her.

  “Did you see a man in this area, child?”

  Her first thought was to nod and point to the door, but she knew she was the reason he got past the door. A door she wasn’t supposed to be opening, her mother had said. She shook her head, tears welling in her eyes.

  The man noticed the blood on the girl’s knee and assumed that was why she was crying. “He must have gone in the other direction,” the man said. “Let’s go!”

  Chapter Nine

  BRIAN Harris ran along the base of the massive wall until the mainland became visible in the distance. It was an impossible swim, he thought. His body would tire long before he made it and that would be that. But it was still better than being butchered and fed to these psychos. He double-checked to make sure the bag over his shoulder was zipped tight, and he made a run for it. Running across the sand was like running through wet concrete. Every step was a chore that came with great effort. No matter how hard he tried, he could only go so fast. By the time he reached the edge of the water, he felt as if he had already swum ten miles. When he heard the voices shouting from somewhere near the top of the wall, he dove into the ocean and hid behind a large log that had marooned itself on the beach.

  “We need a team down by the water,” a man yelled from the top of the wall. “Hendricks, that’s you, Thompson, and Anderson. Search the perimeter and report back here.” Three men ran to the nearest door in the wall.

  When Brian saw one of the doors opening, he pulled the log across the sand until it floated in the water. With just the top of his head peeking over, he waded deeper into the water, his hands gripping the base of two broken-off branches. Soon, the feel of the sand beneath his feet had disappeared, and the only thing keeping him afloat was the log itself.

  The men ran through the door and stopped halfway on the beach, between the wall and the ocean. One of them noticed footprints in the sand. He followed them until they stopped at the edge of the water. He scanned the ocean but saw only a log, thirty feet out. He watched the log carefully before pointing up
the beach. He and the other two men headed in that direction.

  Once the men were a safe distance away, Brian twisted his body perpendicular to the bottom of the log and began to kick his feet with his head facing the sky. The sun was now shining bright and it was impossible to look at for more than a second. That was okay, though. It felt good to close his eyes and let his legs do all the work. Swimming to the mainland wasn’t going to be as hard as he had imagined. It was just a matter of staying on course, which was easily accomplished by a quick twist of the head every few minutes. And then he heard the chopper, the rhythmic pounding of its propellers getting louder as it drew closer.

  Brian took a deep breath, plunged his legs deep into the water, and pushed himself under the log, the bark scraping the top of his head. The muffled sloshing of the expanse of water against his ears was a familiar sound he had grown accustomed to while serving the National Guard. He was drawn back to the Guard’s version of boot camp. It was early autumn. The sun was just as bright as it was now, but the water temperature was much colder. “This’ll separate the men from the boys,” the squad leader had said as the men jumped off the boat. Twenty men treading water with no bottom in sight. None knowing how long the others could stay under. The frigid ocean bit their skin as they waited for the command to submerge. Just before the whistle blew, Brian filled his lungs with as much air as he could squeeze into his body. And then it was nothing but muffled echoes as he sunk deeper into the cold. Breathing wasn’t a luxury he allowed himself to think about. Once that thought got into your head it was just a matter of time before your body desired what your mind was thinking of. He thought of how the most beautiful woman he had ever met was waiting for him when he returned home. Her body would be warm against his cold hands and her hair soft to the touch of his lips. That’s what he always thought of when he needed to escape reality. Seconds turned to minutes, and soon the others were popping out of the water like balloons released to the sky. When Brian felt as though he would pass out at any second, he pulled at the water above his head and made his way to the surface. He was the only man left in the water; the others were standing on the boat, their hands all clapping in unison. “Congrats, son,” the squad leader said. “You just broke the record.”