by Billy Roper
The girls had dress up parties, since there were extra clothes from all the ones who had left. They put on a fashion show for the teachers. Some of their more daring outfits made Mr. Thomas’s face turn red, which only encouraged them more. By the end of the show he had to get up and leave. The girls considered that huge applause, and talked about it for days.
Using a compound bow and arrows from the archery locker, Mr. Thomas got good enough to bring in squirrels, marmots, and birds. He also fished in the meditation pond and brought in huge coy that were pretty good, along with turtles and other fish. They never saw any big game, or any other people. Just the soldiers, that once. That had been close enough. People were more to be feared than wished for, it felt like, but she wasn’t sure when she had started to feel that way.
Susan, as acting dorm hall monitor, had talked to one of the moms who had made it in to pick up her daughter on the day. She said that the civil defense system had gone on their radios and there had been a flash and rumbling thunder from where the beltway was. They all said it was a bomb. Nobody knew where to go to, just away from that. Away from the beltway. She elaborated on the story each time she told it, until she was describing the mushroom clouds and naming cities hit, but Caren preferred to think of it as a Zombie apocalypse.
She knew that the Pentagon where her daddy worked was outside the beltway, the direction of sunset from it, but how far? Far enough? Where had her mom been when she had called? She thought about those things a lot. Had her mom been zombified on the side of the road, trying to reach her? Had her dad died in his office, where he had taken her to visit, once? It was such a big place, how could it all be gone?
Susan made up for being a year younger and less experienced by throwing herself at Mr. Thomas harder, so she eventually pried from him the stories of growing political protests and riots that had caused so many of the staff to call in sick. He told her that the academy had emergency generators and a supply of fuel for them out in the maintenance shop that he would use when they were needed. He had been waiting to see how many people left, and how many stayed. He still had his SUV, and Miss Caldwell-Kline had her little hybrid car, but Mrs. Joens was stranded, after Mr. Ogilvie had driven her out to the academy the last time from her apartment in the city in the school van, then left her there. Mr. Thomas, whose first name was Robert, kept his vehicle in running order in case he had to leave, with the tanks topped off. So, he was ready to fall in either direction, to stick it out or abandon them, depending on how things went. Caren thought about stabbing holes in his tires so he couldn’t. But wouldn’t that make him angry?
It wasn’t their fault. He liked all of the girls, he promised Susan, even Dana and Phyliss, and he got along with Mrs. Joens. It was just Miss Caldwell-Kline he couldn’t stand. They had begun to argue more and more, especially when the girls weren’t around. They talked about it among themselves, after that. Angel though Miss C.K. was jealous of Tracy, but she was embarrassed when it was explained to her that she was probably wrong, and why. Some girls were just so immature. They didn’t know how the world worked. What they really needed was more Mr. Thomas’s. One wasn’t enough for all ten of them. Even if Shawna did finish the job and kill herself, making it nine, like she threatened to do. At least Wendy wasn’t around. Caren had a feeling she would have gotten him all for herself.
One day during a lunch of canned spaghetti with scrambled eggs mixed in and roasted squirrel, things came to a head. Miss Caldwell-Kline could be heard whispering fiercely to Mrs. Joens through the kitchen door of the dining hall. Mrs. Joens kept saying “No, no, don’t you dare!” and the like, but she got nowhere. Mr. Thomas walked in from working on the tractor, greasy and smiling, and when he said hello to the girls Caldwell-Kline heard him and burst out into the dining hall, shaking her finger at him in accusation. She was wearing those ridiculous big green boots, like a clown.
“I tried to warn her of your toxic masculinity when you began killing the poor animals and turning these girls into murderers by proxy, but she wouldn’t listen. You ran Judi off with your crude jokes and sexual innuendos, and now you’ve gone too far. You’ve singled out Susan and Tracy for your little harem, and you probably think you’ll have all of them, don’t you, Mr. Man? Well, you will NOT. I want you gone. I want you out of here. We don’t need any man here. Especially not one like you. So, you can go! Go!”
“Are you f’n crazy, you can go, any time you want to!” he countered. “Just like Judi did.” That hit her hard.
“I’m not going, you’re going. You’re outvoted, you’re not wanted, we don’t need you, you grabbing ogling pervert man!” Miss C.K. replied.
He looked at the girls, who stared at the two over their spaghetti and eggs. Tracy and Susan and Becky all shook their heads, their eyes wide. Mr. Thomas shrugged his shoulders and sunk his chin to his chest. Shawna whimpered, and began to cry quietly to herself.
“Mrs. Joens?” he called out. “You’re the last admin here. The last of the Mohicans. I don’t think it really matters any more, democracy or admin or anything else, but what do you say?”
Mrs. Joens looked out through the door. “Oh, not in front of the children, please! We all need to stick together. Times like these…”
“Oh, go back and cook something, like a good little housewife, and let me handle this!” Miss C.K. snarled, turning on Mrs. Joens.
“Why don’t you leave her alone, you bitch.” Mr. Thomas spat. The girls gasped, like it was a line in a play. Even Shawna, who normally was deep down in her own pit of despair. Mrs. Joens’ eyes got big.
“What? What did you call me? How dare you! I’ll kill you! I’ll…”
Mr. Thomas didn’t laugh at her this time. He didn’t argue or debate or mock her. He spun around on his heel and headed for the door. That surprised her more than anything she had expected. A mixture of triumph and confusion spread across her broad features.
“Wait, Mr. Thomas! Oh, to Hell with it… Robert! Robert, don’t go!” Mrs. Joens cried out, following from the kitchen where she had held back during most ofthe outburst.
The faces of the girls fell as they realized what was happening. Tracy said “Don’t leave us.” Susan stood up and stepped towards him, saying “take me with you”. Becky and Shawna both started crying. Caren took it all in. He stopped at the door and looked at them each in turn.
“I’m sorry, girls, but I won’t be accused of such vile things and treated this way. I’ll spend the night in my office like usual, and tomorrow I’ll go hunting and get as much meat as I can for you all, then I’ll pack my things and go.”
Tracy said, “Mr..Robert…you can’t…you…”
“No”, he grimly stated. “I can. It’s time. I need to see what’s out there, find out what’s left. Maybe I’ll come back if there’s anything better to go to. If not…” he shrugged his shoulders again, then turned and left. Caldwell Kline snorted.
“Okay, now that THAT is over and decided, go ahead, finish your food. We can’t be wasteful. Don’t leave it all to the chickens!”
The chickens ate well.
Caren didn’t sleep at all. Big gray fiberglass elephants weren’t as scary as him leaving. She and Tracy had talked about it after lights out, which was when the fire finally died in the fireplace of the library and cast shadows down the rows of books for the night. Tracy had disappeared for a couple of hours after dinner. Everyone knew where she had been. Then they had woken the other girls and told them their plan. Susan wished she had thought of it. Dana found the right resource book and they read by cigarette lighter the description and memorized the picture of what they were looking for. One of the older girls who had left had brought cigarettes with her when she came, and sold them to the others until they were all gone. Then one of the Mexican gardeners had brought her a vape from town in exchange for her phone number and a whispered promise to go out with him when she went home for the weekend. The lighters were all that was left of her. Caren didn’t even remember her name. Wasn’t that stra
nge? No matter how hard she tried, it wouldn’t come to her.
“I don’t think it will work”, Shawna offered.
“It will if we want it to”, Angel countered.
“And if you do your parts”, Becky added. “All of you”. She was looking at Caren. When had she been the weakest link? Never!
“And if Joensy helps.” Tracy emphasized. “I’ll handle that.”
“You’d better”, Susan told her. “Or we’re all done for.”
Phyliss came in from the latrine, telling them that they were out of pads again. Time to recycle more hand towels.
Since they had stopped having classes and running water, Mr. Thomas had quit shaving. He had a respectable beard now that was reddish- blonde in contrast to his yellow hair. Tracy bragged that it was scratchy, like she really knew, as much as she might want to. He had gotten kind of buff from working outside a lot since the bad day, too. And he smelled different from everyone else, in a good way. Caren wasn’t the only one with him on her mind when the fires died down.
Everybody was agreed. They swore secrecy, and talked about how things might be afterwards. Each had a part to play. They even rehearsed their lines. It all had to be smooth. The younger girls worried her the most. Would they get scared and tell?
Fridays used to be the best time of the week. Finally, after a long week of classes, her parents would come and get her, and she would get to go home and sleep in her own bed in her own room, and the next morning she could sleep late and mom would make breakfast for them and her daddy would watch the news and eat and then they would go to a museum or shopping. She always liked the Smithsonian. The Natural History one. Was it there any more, or full of zombies?
Her last class had been science, with Ogilvie, then she had been the first to get her lab station cleaned up and race back to her dorm room to pack. No more uniform skirts and button downs. Jeans and T-shirt time. No books, either. Who did homework on the weekends? That was the Friday afternoon routine, every week. Then she sat in the lobby with the other weekenders and watched for her daddy’s big black BMW to slide up the driveway. She could always see it coming from far off, puffing up dust behind it like waves from a torpedo boat. If she watched for him too hard it took longer, but if she just kind of pretended not to look, and glanced out of the corner of her eye, there he was, every time.
Maybe her mom had gotten lost, that day. She’d never driven when they came out before. After student orientation, she hadn’t even visited. It always been daddy. He should have come and gotten her. He should have left sooner. Gotten away before whatever happened at the Pentagon kept him away from her. She remembered how we looked in his uniform. Had he been wearing it that day? Of course he would have. What about her mom? Caren imagined her wearing the dark blue dress she had worn to dinner when they celebrated daddy’s promotion. She looked so pretty in it. It was how she should stay, forever.
Very few girls didn’t get to go home for the weekend, only those whose parents were very far away. Overseas or out of state. Of the eight of them, five had been stuck there on weekends. With no classes or other distractions, they had been free to explore the grounds without supervision or limitations. They knew the place inside and out. Especially out.
When her daddy took her shopping on weekends she could get whatever she wanted. As long it didn’t make her look slutty. To him, even the school uniform skirts were too short. Caren wondered if Mr. Thomas, Robert, would be the same way. Or would it be like going with her mom, who always had to ask what everything costed? What if it was like that for Tracy and Susan but not for her? She’d have to fix that.
That morning felt like a Friday back before the bad day, when there was still a big test to take but then it would be all free time. The five resident girls followed Mr. Thomas into the woods right after sunup, staying quiet so he wouldn’t hear them. They each scattered out in a line, on a mission. He never knew they were there. An hour later they had found what they were looking for.
Mrs. Joens was still asleep when they finished breakfast. Miss Caldwell-Kline wasn’t pleased. She jumped at the girls.
“So, you’re making a fancy going away treat for the predator, all of you?” she asked, her loose skin wobbling. She looked like a turkey. All flaps and folds.
“No, it’s for you, for all of us, a celebration of our freedom, kinda,” Tracy said. “We all stayed up late last night talking about what you said, what you did for us, and we know it’ll be easier now, without…him.”
Susan walked up behind the art teacher and hugged her, taking her by surprise. “We just need to all stand together, now more than ever.” She added. The other girls nodded. It all seemed like watching a movie where you knew the ending but wondered if somehow things would be different, this time.
Shawna stood alone in the corner, rubbing her uneven red bangs against her temples. She was keeping her mouth shut, at least. She had cut holes in every joint of her dark clothes again, her elbows and knees poking through in bony angles.
“Okay, well, what are we having?” Caldwell-Kline asked, blinking through her thick glasses. She hadn’t expected them to come around so soon, but it was nice.
“Just vegetarian omelets, with wild onions and mushrooms, and reconstituted orange juice, sorry.” Caren apologized.
“Hey, that sounds pretty good! Where’s Mrs. Joens?” the feminist asked.
“Right here, Erin.” A voice came from the kitchen. “Just finishing up the dessert. It’s a surprise, too!”
The girls had splattered egg batter and grease all over themselves from the cooking process, and sat the platter of omelets and a stack of plates and forks on the table before excusing themselves to go wash up. By the time they had brought down buckets of water and cleaned themselves and made their way back to the dining hall, Miss Caldwell Kline had already finished off her first omelet, and half of another. She still ate like a fattie.
“That was good, girls, a little heavy on the onion, but good. I have a feeling that we’re going to all be a lot closer around here, now. A lot closer.” Caren shivered at how she said that, and especially at how she looked at Tracy when she did.
“All that we care about,” Tracy said, “is that you never leave.”
“No, I won’t, I promise. I’ll take good care of you, now. You’ll all be my special girls.” She looked hungry again at the thought.
Caren asked the art teacher to tell them a story about what things would be like when it all got better. The next few minutes dragged on and on with mind-numbing platitudes about diversity and matriarchy. She lost her train of thought once or twice, in the excitement of the telling. Then they shifted gears again.
They got to hear how societies led by women stayed free so long as they remained free of men, and theirs would be the most pure example of true democracy, ever, so long as they never let men in. Then they got to hear about how men had invented war, which had destroyed them all. She sounded drunk.
“But, umm, how will we keep things going, you know, for the future?” Angel asked.
“The future?” Erin questioned.
“Yes, ma’am, like, the next generation, and all, you know…” Becky explained.
“Who cares?” Shawna wondered. She was always the black pill.
“Oh, well, one day science will make men obsolete, but until then we may need one or two just for, well, that. But not for a long, long time. And not for a very long time, then.” She had meant that as a joke, but her face had grown pale while she spoke, and her voice was fuzzy sounding. Just then they all heard her stomach growl, and the girls took that rumble as their cue.
“Miss C.K., is it true that Mr. Thomas is going to load up the electric generators and gas for them and take them with him, too?” Susan asked, innocently. Becky bit her tongue hard to keep from laughing. Dana stepped on her foot.
“What?! What generators? All this time he was hiding generators and never told me? That, that misogynist rapist cis-gendered white bigoted piece of…! Where! Where are the
y?” she demanded. Color leaped back to her cheeks.
“I think he said they were in the maintenance building. He was saving them for an emergency.” Caren offered.
“An emergency! As if the breakdown of civilized society and the nuking of the government by territorial imperialist capitalist pigs isn’t an emergency? Ohhhhh, No! He’s not taking anything of ours, girls. You just watch!”
“Yay, Miss Caldwell-Kline, you show him, stop the patriarchy!” Becky encouraged. She looked and sounded sincere. What a poz.
The man-hater was suddenly up and out the door, heading down the steps, where she had to reach out and grab the handrail to steady herself. Shaking her head, she continued down the steps and across the overgrown lawn. She intended to make a bee-line for the maintenance shed, but it ended up being more of a zig-zag. About halfway there she had to sit down and rest, perched on the concrete lip of a flower bed. When the girls caught up with her, she was staring up at the water tower, fascinated by the light reflecting form its metal sheathing. It was such a long way up, and down. Her ugly green boots were smeared with mud.
“I’m just a little tired, girls. I need to rest a minute. He’s not back yet, is he?” she asked, squinting up at them. She seemed a bit confused. Her stomach growled again, louder than before. They pretended not to notice. They were caught up in the game.
“No, Miss C.K., he’s not back yet. We’ll be through a long time before he is, don’t worry.” Tracy reassured her, standing closest of the group to the hunched over figure. She was the bravest, the most confident of them all.
“Through? Yes, oh, right. Thash right. We’re through with taking orders from our rapists. We’re through trying to make ourselves look a way to make them want to rape us. None of them want to rape us. Rapists. Rape us. Why is that? What’s wrong with us? There’s nothing wrong with us!” She began to cough, then gagged and leaned over and dry-heaved into the flower bed. The girls’ faces hardened. They circled her, like cats around a wounded bird.
