Suzy carefully ran the clippers through ten-year-old Tandy’s hair, relieved to find lice. She knew some of the men in the vast camp were not above checking through the mass of discarded hair in the dirt to confirm their presence, trying to catch her in a lie to discredit her with Doc Benjamin.
When she was lucky enough to find lice in one head, she found she could get away with claiming a dozen. The men were so squeamish about the bugs, no one checked further. She found it a great advantage in her efforts to keep the younger girls safe as long as possible from the sexual advances of the men who owned them.
“There you go, Tandy. You might want to mention you’ve come down with scabies if you’re bothered again. I’ll speak to Doc Benjamin for you. He needs to know the men aren’t honoring his laws about the age of consent. I’m sorry they tried to force themselves on you. This should help. You have a good three years yet before you have to submit.”
Suzy lowered her voice as a group of grungy men trudged by, their boots clanging loudly on the boards that lay on the floor of the cave, lifting them a few inches off the cold, muddy floor.
She kept her glance conciliatory and vague, forcing her natural intelligence and bitter resentment to stay well concealed.
She was fully aware of the festering anger against her as she insidiously influenced Doc Benjamin to the benefit of the women in camp, even at her budding age of fourteen. For her, it was all about surviving until she could find a way to escape.
Her and Liz’s idea to shave off the hair of the younger and most vulnerable of the female children was showing encouraging progress. Little girls hardly look seductive with shaved heads, discussions of lice, nasty clothes, and surreptitious applications of feces to their shoes and the backs of their leggings.
Whatever it took to keep the little ones safe from the perverted sexual advances of their common enemy was a necessity. The fact that she herself would be at risk if not for the occasional protection of Doc Benjamin made her more determined to give the others every edge she could dream up.
Little Tandy scampered off after a timid hug for Suzy, looking like an emaciated scarecrow. She had felt Tandy’s bones protruding under her layers of rags, her skin shuddering with the perpetual chill of their makeshift temporary home.
She set the heavy clippers down, shutting off the electrical connection that Avery maintained for her on Doc’s orders. She dropped her aching arm down across her lap to rest as she struggled to massage the tired muscles. Tandy was her fifteenth cut today. Not all new shaves, some just touch ups, but holding the heavy metal razor was very tiring nonetheless.
She breathed in heavily, feeling a hitch in her chest even as she sucked in the too-common stench of feces and sweet, ripe sweat.
Most of the tribe only bathed occasionally. There was only so much you could do with one bucket of water per person each day for cooking and cleaning. At least Doc Benjamin had decreed drinking water would be limitless.
Straightening up, she quickly packed up her precious razor. It had taken her months to wheedle it away from Doc Benjamin. Her constant complaints of lice in her own hair had finally worn him down, but she knew she couldn’t take her eye off it or it would disappear. Slipping it into its box, she tamped it down to the bottom of her worn backpack for safe keeping. Her fingers searched, reassuringly patting the pilfered medications she needed to deliver to the other side of camp.
Scanning the makeshift construction of hodgepodge tiny hovels strewn around the main cave, she waited for the right moment to begin her difficult errand of tracking down Liz. She unfortunately lived in one of the other caves reserved for the men held in less esteem by Doc Benjamin.
Liz was in her late twenties. The only reason she hadn’t been discarded by her man was because she was so smart and funny. Their lives were so tragic that anyone who could maintain a gentle humor was valued. To have the ability to make one of the men laugh was priceless. Her man kept her in his hovel with the other females he bedded simply because she made him feel good in a different way. She was an Insider.
The discarded women typically slept outside with what comfort they could fashion from cast-off and surplus materials. They were the Outsiders.
Of course, nighttime was dangerous. That was when the weaker of the men prowled the discards of the stronger. Many of the women were claimed and dragged to the front of the cave where the undesirables slept, exposed to the unspecified dangers of the cold winds which blew through the opening to the entrance of their home; low in status, lower in wealth.
Yes, wealth. Females were coin. To be traded, awarded, loaned or sold.
Females did 70 percent of the work in the camps and all of the cooking and cleaning. They never stopped, not even at night. And lo, to be the lucky man with plenty of females. Remember the old expression, the rich get richer? The old practice of barefoot and pregnant now took on a more useful meaning. And if what Liz and the older woman suspected was true, a very sinister one indeed.
Her squinty brown eyes, alert as a bird of prey’s, watched for her chance to cross through the council square in the middle of the cavern, with the huts ringing the clearing based on Doc’s own private ranking system.
She was haunted by the verbose claims as the men congregated in the square after dinner with Doc Benjamin to scream about what they would do if they managed to find the lost shelter of Suzy’s grandfather.
The current wisdom was that it was filled with all the gold from the U.S. Treasury. Suzy wondered what gold looked like and what one would do with it. To her mind, the only thing of value she could recognize was freedom. Or maybe a fresh juicy peach, she thought wistfully.
She retained little memory of her old family. Just two names, Lorna and Seth. He had either been a friend or relative; no one seemed to be clear anymore. She thought she remembered having a sister, but she wasn’t sure. Frankly, she didn’t have much time to think about it as her life was consumed by frantic plots and subterfuge, all meant to keep her safe.
Liz was the center of the well-guarded subversion the women tried to keep alive in their ranks. But they had to be careful. There were spies everywhere. Some of the women would sell out their sisters to curry favor with the man that owned them. Especially the older ones as their looks faded quickly in their new, unhealthy environment.
The sickness in the air from the war nine years ago had robbed everyone of their vitality. Oddly, it had taken a bigger toll on the women. It shouldn’t be a surprise that some would turn on their friends, hoping for an extra morsel at dinner; their only real meal, if you could call it that. But it was more nourishing than the unleavened flatbread dispersed by the communal kitchen every morning.
Suzy had once overheard Doc and Avery whispering about the fact that their flour supplies were dangerously low. It forced her to wonder why most of Doc’s inner circle looked so much heftier than everyone else. The only tribe members who ate extra rations were the myriad of expecting women and the scouts. Doc was forced to bribe the scouts with extra grub to motivate them to do their jobs.
Facing the winds, pregnant with an assortment of hot bugs, came at great risk to anyone’s health. Unfortunately, someone had to do the nasty job of combing the countryside for anything left alive that could be eaten.
They labored to locate vacant grocery stores which might have something left in their cellars or storerooms, even breaking into homes to salvage what may have been left behind. And pharmacies. Not that much was ever found.
They usually had better luck with medicine cabinets in the vacant homes. When you’re fleeing for your life, you just don’t think about what’s in your medicine cabinet. Although other thugs and marauders had usually picked the houses clean from the year of the bombs, they hit jackpots often enough to keep Doc supplied and make the risk acceptable. Everyone knew that if they ran out of the critical medicines scavenged by the scouts, many would sicken further and die.
The fact that all of the original members of the scouting teams were now dead, failed to discourage the younger members of the new teams. No doubt, the extra rations and periodic borrowing of the camp women to help them relax and enjoy their week’s rotation off, served to obscure most thoughts regarding their probable early demise.
She looked down on her own frame, poking her bones under their layers of rags and salvaged clothing retrieved by the scouts. She felt her tender skin stretched taut over bony ridges that stood out in deep relief. Her bald head sprouted scabs all over its sallow surface.
She was lucky that Doc Benjamin shared his creams and medicine with her, or her sores would weep and stink like the rest. She never failed to catch the resentful glances at her dry head. Doc’s favoritism did not go unnoticed.
Now that she was no longer a child, the men thought she should integrate into the community like the rest of them. She knew she was referred to as Doc’s house pet, even though she did her share of work around camp.
But the truth of the designation made her very useful to Liz and her group of defiant women. And that was the only thing that mattered to her. She vowed to do all she could to participate in the growing female insurrection, with the fervent hope that it could somehow lead to her freedom.
You see, Suzy Calloway had a secret. Years ago, as Doc Benjamin treated her with inexplicable kindness, she had re-emerged from the distant, deep blackness her mind had chosen to hide itself in. Her psyche slowly sparked; a tiny ember that flickered in the shadows, desperate for the nourishment that would allow it to burst into a tangible flame capable of sustaining itself and allowing the traumatized child to live again.
It had taken a few years, but Suzy’s mind had healed. She wasn’t quite as good as new, but better. They say if life doesn’t break you, you grow stronger. Regrettably, Suzy had been broken. The sweet, innocent and sheltered child from a happy prosperous home with doting grandparents was forever gone.
Funny how nature sometime hands you exactly the tools you need to survive as circumstances blindside you. Some fail to adjust and perish, while others discover a buried capability.
For, in the place of the naïve victim of a brutal kidnapping, a cunning and secretive creature had emerged, wise beyond her years in the art of manipulation. Her education had been fast-tracked over the days and months she had studied everyone in camp as her recovery afforded her the unexpected opportunity. From Doc Benjamin’s elite hovel, she watched, absorbing everything. Her survivor’s mind calculated who had the power; both real and perceived.
She marveled in her cunning virgin’s mind as the men fashioned a makeshift town of bastardized abodes, using the paraphernalia looted from so many small towns and cities, purloined from the cold hands of so many murdered folks.
And then the time came to mutely witness tribe members sickening and disappearing, her thoughts refusing to accept the silent ride on their death trolley as one of the men wheeled it down the deep burial tunnel to dispose of. Oh, no. That was not going to happen to her.
Over time, she celebrated silently with the rest of the boisterous tribe members as Avery harnessed the mystery of their water source alongside the western wall of the enormous cavern.
It rose a dozen stories to the pinnacle of the astonishing launch of their life-saving waterfall. The fall dropped powerfully past the floor of their cavern to disappear deep within the serpentine faults of the mineral-laden boulders and walls of their ancient refuge. It allowed them to fill their buckets with a system of lines rigged by the ingenious Avery.
The mist from the thunderous falls drenched the surfaces of the rock walls and cold floor, intensifying the bitter cold and creating a dangerously slippery environment. Therefore, Doc restricted the water gathering to the necessities. Baths were not considered necessary, of course.
The women managed the best they could. Liz drummed it into them all that a clean body was a healthy body. Their bodies were the only currency they could attempt to control. If they were to obtain their freedom, above all, they must stay healthy.
Eventually, the tribe obtained fully-functioning electricity, thanks to the mechanical genius behind Avery’s huge ugly mug and their lifesaving waterfall. Candles no longer burned to add smoke to the widening cloud of pollution that gathered high in the cavern ceiling like a malignant tumor from the numerous individual fires that burned for warmth and cooking.
As the pollution cloud increased, Doc’s council members wisely decided a central cooking arrangement would be of great benefit. Preferably in an unexplored tunnel they could test for a possible ventilation source to remove the deadly smoke.
A location was selected and the demands on the woman increased as they staffed a huge cooking facility created to feed the several hundred members of the tribe.
Before long, under Avery’s direction, the men rigged up enough kerosene and gas heaters to make the perennially-chilly cavern livable. Suzy shut her eyes tightly, willing her mind not to remember the flames and agonizing screams of the dead tribe members, mostly women who had catastrophically fallen victim to a poorly-built gasoline heater in the dead of night. The explosion hadn’t been huge, but the sound still echoed in her nightmares to this day.
Funerals were considered a waste of time and energy. No one complained as the tribe was only together out of necessity. It wasn’t like they were family, after all. No opinions were ever solicited from the women who mourned their sisters’ deaths in silence. Swift memorial words were said with all in attendance, crushed tightly, as close as they could around the Council Center. The mess was disposed of and life went on.
Suzy’s thoughts of her earlier metamorphosis tapered off as she revisited the nugget that kept her warm at night and fueled her determination to flee. Her secret. One that was so dangerous, she refused to share it even with Liz until she knew the time was right.
For Suzy knew exactly where her grandfather and his wondrous shelter was located.
Her Grandma Lorna’s words had inexplicably flowered in her mind when she had emerged from the pit of devastation brought on by her frightful kidnapping.
How she might determine the correct time was far beyond her ability to calculate. That part she had failed to work out. Yet. The monumental task of escaping with a hundred women and children in various stages of weakness and pregnancy loomed on her limited horizon like an approaching cyclone determined to bear down on her. At this moment, she just couldn’t locate a safe path around the deadly obstacle.
“Psss . . . Suzy.” A hunched-over young woman stepped close to the doorway of the hovel, dropped a folded note, then scurried away. Suzy scrambled over to the doorway to snatch up the note. Reading slowly, she sounded out the words, identifying the author as her friend Liz who begged for her presence.
Ripping the note into bits, she stuck the tiny pieces inside the pillow on her messy bunk. It wouldn’t do to let Doc find the pieces. Women were forbidden to communicate amongst themselves except when sharing a task. Male eyes watched every move they made, making organized insurrection difficult to get off the ground.
She shivered with the knowledge of what would happen to both of them if the note were to be discovered. It didn’t take too many hammered and mangled fingers of the women around camp who had been disciplined, for the rest of them to fear the risk. The note must be very urgent.
Checking to make sure her backpack looked innocuous with its load of purloined drugs, she made a dash across the council square, well aware she was being watched as men of all ages dropped what they were doing to observe Doc’s house pet and wonder what she was up to.
Dodging nimbly around piles of garbage, serpentine aisles of hovels, bastardized bedrolls of the Outsiders and pathetic children all under the age of five, she made her way like a darting lizard toward the passageway leading to a smaller cave that housed the lower-ranked men and their women.
She stopped in her tracks as a female child of around three squatted in her path to move her bowels, naked as the day God made her. Snot ran from the girl’s nose to mix with the food from her last meal that had dribbled from a mouth she was unable to close. Her acute hair lip, one of the common deformities of most of the newborns since the war, assured the poor girl a life of misery. What man would want that at his table?
Most of the mothers learned quickly to keep them out of the way of the men who raged at the sight of them. The toddler flashed an arm from behind her back, displaying further evidence of the damage done to her mother’s DNA from the fallout of the bombs that had spread on the cold virulent winds before they had found their present shelter.
Eying the distorted limb with its missing hand and flattened forearm, she cringed. Suzy had heard unconfirmed whispers that the men found these babies such liabilities that a movement was underfoot not to waste resources on them.
Oddly enough, the male babies born with abnormalities were hailed a success, no different than an unmarked one. Her resentment simmered at the unfairness of it, but the women were powerless to do anything except attempt to hide the little girls from sight.
Sighing, she squatted in front of the child, removed a rag from her backpack and cleaned her off as she scanned the women in the area for the missing mother. Worried about the time, she tugged the child up into her arms.
The toddler’s enormous eyes stared at her unblinkingly. As Suzy watched, the child screwed up her face and let out a wail. Spewed mucus and saliva splattered the teen’s face as she ducked down with the child, trying to hush her.
“What do you think you’re doing with that kid?” From out of the crowd of milling tribe members, shot Avery’s hunk of a hand.
The giant’s ugly face leered down at her, his shaved head with its knobby protrusions, blocking her escape. He wrenched the toddler from her arms as she frantically tried to twist away. Her voice growled back at him.
“Get your hands off me, you piece of garbage.”
He laughed, tossing the toddler to the ground. Craning his neck over his massive shoulder, he shouted to another man.
“Get this worthless meat out of here. It shouldn’t have been allowed to get this old. Go find out who it belongs to and report it to Doc. I want the mother to be made an example of at council tonight. We can’t be having these monstrosities draining us anymore. You know what to do.”
Avery’s henchman bent to retrieve the child, distaste evident on his dour, scabby face as he held her by one callused hand, dangling the frightened toddler by her good arm.
Suzy watched the women from the crowd surrounding the spectacle quickly cast their eyes down in an effort to hide their burning hatred and frustration at their own impotence. Not a one dare come to the defense of the toddler as she quickly disappeared from sight, her fate unimaginable.
Avery turned his attention back to her. His hand on her upper arm tightened as he fumbled at the layers of rags on her chest. Squeezing a young breast, his eyes glazed feverishly.
“This should belong to me, bitch. Don’t you even think I’ve forgotten. Doc can’t protect you forever. He owes me.”
Avery leaned in, his rancid breath a menace of its own. Trying hard not to cry or scream, she kept her face neutral.
All predators needed to see was one sign of weakness to know they had you. Summoning up the nerve, she spat in his face. Avery recoiled in surprise, titters from the crowd inflaming him.
Suzy didn’t see the fist coming until it sank into her abdomen, the pain robbing her of the ability to speak as it forced up what was left of her last meal. Avery dropped her to the ground and turned to scream at the crowd, his thick meaty cheeks throbbing with indignation.
“What the fuck you all lookin’ at? Move on before I give you something you wish hadn’t asked for.”
Avery wiped the spit from his face, distracted enough by the crowd to allow Suzy to crawl on her elbows and melt away. She heard the giant roar his anger as he discovered her escape.
Quickly, she hobbled the rest of the way to Liz’s hut, grateful that Avery hadn’t noticed her backpack. That would have been the end of her. Doc wouldn’t have been able to save her had the contents been discovered. She realized that, sooner or later, the situation with Avery would explode. She chafed at her powerlessness, dispirited by the inequities of her miserable life.
The lingering nausea from Avery’s punch swept over her in waves, acerbated by the heavier collection of unwashed bodies and slop buckets that awaited collection in Liz’s section of the tribe’s quarters. In her own cavern they had several locations to relieve themselves. Doc insisted on strict sanitary conditions. But the further away from the main cavern you traveled, the laxer the sanitation became.
Approaching her friend’s hovel, she found Liz sitting, her enormous belly laden down with her own pregnancy; nothing new, since over half the women were pregnant at one time or another. Liz struggled to rise as she approached, getting assistance from two other young women that stood nearby, their expressions of frantic anxiety telegraphing the urgency of Liz’s note.
“For heaven’s sake, Suzy. What took you so long?” Liz hissed as she stood, her hand pressed hard to her back to message the aching muscles that invariably accompanied pregnancy and hard work. Thick clumps of coarse, dark hair escaped the elastic that swept the rest of her long mop back from her appealing face.
Signs of Outsider women, relegated and out of favor with Liz’s owner, littered the surrounds with their scavenged mattresses. Liz’s generous lips tightened as she swept them all into the relative privacy of the ramshackle quarters she shared with the man that owned her with his other two women.
The women helped lower Liz onto her bed, her delivery only a few weeks away.
“Well, did you get it?” Liz shook her hands with impatience, panic seeping into her expression to mirror that of the other women. They suddenly heard the sounds of a wounded animal not far away. Deep ragged coughing, a choke that morphed into a guttural scream filled with long agony. Suzy’s heart almost stopped.
“Oh my God. Is that her?” Liz closed her eyes and silently nodded.
Suzy dove into her backpack, extracting her critical cargo. She unwrapped the towel that hid the lifesaving box of antibiotics and pain pills filched from Doc Benjamin’s cache.
Rarely did any women have access to the drugs that often saved the life of a man felled by a formerly common infection. Infections that could now spell death if allowed to come into contact with any of the unknown microbes that strayed into their shelter on the dangerous winds that harbored them from as far away as New York City.
Dense suburbs of the onetime financial center were known to have spawned several outbreaks of diseases unseen in this country in centuries.
Suzy’s shaking hands withdrew syringes from her pack. She noted the expiration date on the box of antibiotics, but said nothing, knowing that most medication viability lasted long after the recorded expiration date. Here’s hoping it’s the same with liquids. Her fingers absorbed the vital coolness of the antibiotics. For once, she thanked the chilly temperatures found in the mines. The medicine had been in her backpack and out of their refrigerated storage for well over twenty four hours.
“You know, if it’s more than an infection, this won’t help.”
“I know, I know. But it’s not like we have a doctor to take her to. And if it’s a virus, wouldn’t others have caught it by now?”
Suzy tried to reassure Liz. “I don’t know. She’s had this for almost two weeks now. I don’t know how long viruses take to incubate. I think it varies. I don’t even know what she has. But if the men find out, you know what they’d do.” One of the other women stifled a sob.
“And Janie’s overdue. What will this do to the baby?” Another coughing scream filled the air. The four women froze, blood draining from their faces as they heard men shouting.
“Oh, my God. I have to get over there.” Suzy was close to panic. Liz clutched her arm.
“No. You can’t go, Suzy. You’ll draw too much attention. You know we can’t have that. It may be too late as it is.” They listened as male voices carried into the shelter, well into the throes of discussion.
“Kimmey, you and Liselle get over there. Now! Take this. Don’t get caught with it, no matter what. There’s no telling what would happen if the men find out. Give her a double shot. And try to muffle that noise the best you can.”
Suzy passed the medicine to the other women and watched as Liselle stuffed it under her rags, failing to obscure the telltale bulge. Kimmey reach over and readjusted Liselle's layers and they hurried off.
Suzy sank to the ground and rested her throbbing head on Liz’s comforting leg. The older girl reached down to stroke Suzy’s bald head.
“It’s okay, hon. We wouldn’t stand a chance without all you’ve done to help these last few years.” Liz turned Suzy’s face toward her with a worn hand. “You all right? Something happen?”
Suzy’s mouth turned down. “It’s just Avery again. He cornered me on the way here. But not before he had a chance to remind me of how he feels.” She rubbed her stomach, not needing to explain further. Liz sighed.
“I don’t know how much longer some of the women can go on like this. We seem to get weaker and weaker as the men still look fit. The only thing we have in common is the sores that devil me so. Uurr.” Liz picked at a particularly evil one on her arm that refused to heal.
“Let me put a bandage on that, Liz. You need to keep it clean.”
“And just where will I say I got the bandage when he sees it tonight?” Suzy reached for her backpack to pull out an adhesive bandage for Liz.
“Don’t worry, I can tie a rag over it. He won’t even know there’s a bandage underneath.”
Nodding, Liz held out her arm.
“Did you hear Deborah, the redhead over in the next area to this one, killed herself yesterday?”
Suzy stopped working in surprise, a hint of fear budding in her already delicate stomach. She lowered her voice as she continued to bandage Liz’s arm.
“I guess she never really recovered after her last was born . . . God, I can’t even think about what the poor thing must have looked like without a skull. Does it seem to you that the younger girls have more babies born with defects that the older girls?”
“Ummm . . . I’ve noticed the same thing. It must have something to do with the damage done by radiation at a more tender age. Most of the girls that deliver the worst of the babies were captured at an early age.” Liz’s voice faltered. “Just like you were.”
“There . . . you’re done.” Suzy acted like she hadn’t heard Liz, stashing her scissors back in her pack.
Liz continued. ‘You were such a sweet, little girl. Lucky too. You might be dead by now if it wasn’t for Doc. I can almost see the person you would have been if this hadn’t happened.” Suzy picked up her pack and slammed it down, startling her friend.
“What the heck is the point to all this? I’m not that little girl. I’m a different person. I care about only one thing.” Her face lit up with a ferocious determination. She grabbed both of Liz’s hands in hers. “Come with me, Liz. We need to get out of here. You can’t have your baby near a bunch of sick bastards like this. We can just walk out. Together.”
Liz stared, stone faced, her voice flat and empty. “And where exactly would we go? With me ready to deliver in a couple of weeks?” She shook her head slowly. “I’m surprised at you, Suzy. You know I can’t just walk out on the other women and leave them at the mercy of the men. What do you think would happen to them if we disappeared? I wouldn’t give some of them more than a day with Avery’s machete always itching for a chance to teach someone a lesson.”
At the strange look on Suzy’s face she stopped. Suzy noticed and turned away.
“Hey, what’s really wrong with you? This is too out of character.”
Silence.
“You gunna talk to me or do I have to drag it out of you?”
Suzy moved restlessly, not knowing where to start. “It’s Doc.”
“What do you mean, it’s Doc? Something wrong with him? Is he sick or something?”
“No, no, nothing like that.” She swallowed, suddenly shy and embarrassed with the attention on her. This was something she had hoped to avoid even as she knew it was impossible. “Eh . . . Doc . . . has been . . . eh . . . looking at me.”
“Looking at you? What the heck are you talking about, girl? He’s been like a father to you.”
Suzy cast her eyes down and mumbled, “That’s what everyone thinks. But he only cares to make me remember where my grandfather’s shelter is. He’s convinced I’ll remember someday . . .” Her voice trailed off.
“Well, that’s no big deal. It’s not like he raped you.”
As Suzy sat unmoving, the silence thickened.
“Oh . . . my sweet, little Suzy girl. Come here and sit next to me, hon. He did rape you, didn’t he?” Her horrified voice reduced Suzy to tears and she quickly moved to the bed to be swept up in the capable hands of her best friend, mentor and surrogate mother. Her hot unshed tears finally emerged to gush unchecked onto the flannel smock of the only one in the whole tribe that could give her the kind of comfort she so desperately needed.
*
Two weeks passed in the Franklin Mines. Suzy managed to elude Avery, but her evenings became a nightmare. Even though she always knew the time was bound to come, she was revolted by the sick expressions dancing across Doc’s face now every time he looked at her.
Often, they would sit outside their hovel to share the food she brought from the master kitchen. Suzy could always tell from the look on his face when she was in for another bad night, another assault. That’s what she called it. That’s what it was.
During the moments he demanded she disrobe, she could feel her spirit slip back into her secret black hole, piece by piece, as he caressed her barely-developed breasts and moved on to his beastly satisfaction.
She felt branded by the initiation. Branded and humiliated, positive everyone could see and mock her. No longer did she venture out into the cavern on her mercy errands, Doc’s trove of medicines now safe from her sticky fingers. She missed her moments with Liz, but couldn’t risk the exposure, and who had the strength anyway?
The last time Liz had sent someone to get her, she lay flaccid, unwilling to listen to the summons for help that was sure to bring more stress and pain at a time she overflowed with horrors of her own.
That’s where she lay today. On the same shabby altar Doc Benjamin had first used when he raped her. Wondering why he had waited this long to do it, she could only imagine that he must have given up on the hope she would reveal the whereabouts of her grandfather’s bomb shelter.
As she lay drifting in and out of her fugue, she suddenly felt the jarring of her bed. Opening her eyes, she realized Doc was back.
“Are you just going to lie there all day, missy? I’m not going to put up with much more of your prima donna conduct. You know I can’t afford to let the tribe see you disrespect me like this. You’re my woman now.”
Suzy weighed the merits of rising, but was unable to rouse the energy. She watched Doc as he paced, his long, greasy hair tied back like the rest of the men, unable to disguise his now receding hairline. His once-straight legs had a decided bow to them, shortening his stature. Between his scabs, the blisters in his face, and the tooth loss they all suffered, he no longer retained the aura of a confident able leader she had once thought he was.
No. He just looked like a common man with an evil core; the core of a slave owner who abused his slave.
And now that she was a woman, Doc was treating her the same way the rest of the camp women were treated.
From inside Suzy’s dark space, a burst of bitter bile illuminated her pain, crystalizing a shred of reality. She slowly lowered her feet to the floor of the hut.
“That’s better. Now go get me something to eat, woman.”
Fourteen-year-old Suzy stood, eyeing Doc’s machete that lay in the corner of the hut. The bile from her dark space began to rise, tentative and unsure. She let her eyes again flicker to the machete. Smoothing down her tattered clothes and reaching for a cloth, she rubbed down her bald head as if preparing to leave.
Her feet slowly inched closer to the machete, sweat trickling down from under her arms in the coolness of the hut. Her right hand made contact with the handle of the machete as she continued to slowly and methodically rub her scalp.
They heard a commotion outside the hut. Doc moved to the entrance, peeling back the privacy blanket.
“Ladies? To what do I owe the honor of this unusual visit?” His voice thrummed with the message that served to remind the visitors their presence clearly was not an honor.
Two women belonging to Liz’s man ducked inside, tears and red faces on fire as they gushed out the news.
“Please, Doc. Please. You must come. They’re dying.” Kimmey sank to her knees to blubber her entreaties while Liselle sidled up to Suzy with a low hiss.
“Suzy, you must come quick. It’s Liz. Where’ve you been? There’s blood everywhere. It’s the baby.”
As if emerging from underwater, Liselle’s dire news pushed Suzy through to the land of the miserable living as her spark was released from where it hid and shocked her into action. Her eyes regained focus.
“Liz?”
“Yes. Now get us some help!”
Suzy moved to a chest filled with freshly-rolled bandages, reaching in to pass them to Kimmey and Liselle as Doc Benjamin laughed.
“Just what the hell do you women think you’re doing?”
Suzy stopped, turning her bald head to Doc. She motioned to the women.
“Go . . . I’m right behind you.”
Doc laughed again; scorn his flavor of the moment. “I don’t recall giving you permission to go anywhere.” He stood with his arms crossed, relaxed and appearing not to take her intentions seriously. Looking him in the eye, Suzy demanded the keys to the medicine cooler.
“You must be joking, dear girl.”
She moved in closer, her face a mask of heinous intention and something else . . . something snake-like that flickered across her face. Something new that she understood frightened them both. “One more time. The keys.” The intonations of her voice promised nameless misery as Doc removed the keys from his chain. His unexpected capitulation emboldened her.
“You’re coming too.” Wordlessly, with a shove from Suzy, they were out the door and on their way to Liz. Doc’s medical bag with an assortment of chilled vials and capsules from the locked cooler stayed clutched in her white-knuckled hands.
The screams could be heard the second they stepped into the cavern, cutting through the thickening miasma of stench.
Hurrying, they followed the sounds of commotion until they reached the large crowd around Liz’s hovel. Men and women surrounded the entrance, fear and terror in the posture of the women as they hung on to each other, praying for the woman who meant so much to their sanity.
Suzy fought her way through the crowd, which finally parted as they realized Doc was with her. Ominously, the screams stopped.
Suzy crept up to Liz’s blood-soaked bed, struck dumb by the copious amount that couldn’t possibly have come from one boney pregnant young woman. Not my Liz.
Casting her terrified eyes around the crowded hut, she watched Kimmey sobbing softly, curled up in the corner. Liselle stood motionless, her eyes wide and unseeing. Liz’s man, Surrel, knelt at the side of the bed covered in blood as he tried to rub life back into the cooling hand of his favorite woman. Outside women clustered meekly at the foot of the bed, one holding a bundle in her arms.
Doc sized up the situation, before ducking back out of the room to return with three other men who began to roll up their sleeves.
“She died.” The words dropped like stone . . . cold venom filling the room. Liselle turned to face Suzy. “She died. And where were you when she needed you, little girl?” Liselle launched herself at Suzy, arms flailing, blows landing ineffectually on the teen’s head and shoulders.
Surrel stood up as Doc and the other men subdued Liselle. She stood shaking, fear in her eyes as Surrel slapped her hard across the face.
“What the hell’s gotten into you tonight? I said to bring Doc not his useless pet.” A quick glance over at Doc. “Beg your pardon there, Doc, don’t mean no offence, now.”
“No offense taken, Surrel. Why don’t you let the boys get her out of here so the women can clean up this stinking mess?” Doc’s tone was dismissive and impatient. He reached out to liberate his bag from Suzy’s limp hands.
“You’ve got five minutes. I’ll be waiting outside.” Doc’s voice sounded sure and commanding, the momentary control achieved by Suzy long departed.
As Doc left the hut, the men pushed Surrel aside and began to wrap Liz in the bloody sheets and blankets.
No one even heard Suzy whisper as they lifted her spent body from the bed. “Noooo, please God, give her back. I beg you . . .”
“Move aside there now, girl.” Surrel began to take control of his hut and his women. “Kimmey, for Christ’s sake, stop your sniveling and get off the floor. She’s gone. It’s not like she’s not replaceable. Now get this place cleaned up. I want my dinner.”
The Outside women brightened noticeably at Surrel’s words, hoping one of them might be the lucky replacement, enabling them to sleep safely inside, well removed from the nightly marauders.
As Suzy numbly turned to leave, she heard the unmistakable sound of a newborn cry. Turning back to the Outside women, all eyes fastened on the bundle held in the arms of one of them.
The tallest man carrying Liz out the door stopped.
“You want to throw it in with this, Surrel? Or you gunna keep it?”
Surrel scratched his head, looking at the dirty floor. “I don’t rightly know, boys. I’m of a mind to let you take it. I have enough little ones running around right now. His eyes lit up with a feral gleam of cunning.
“Don’t suppose any of you boys might trade me for it?”
“Is it a boy or a girl?”
Surrel turned on the salesmanship. “It’s a boy. And not in bad shape. The foot looks a bit turned, but no bad lip. Cauliflower ear, but that ain't nothing.” The men looked at each other, a silent message flowing between them.
“Na, we’ll take a pass. He won’t be good for much with a turned leg. He’ll just be a gimp. Doc don’t want no more resources spent on unproductive outcomes. Ya know what that means. If it had a been a girl, we coulda worked something out.”
Suzy watched everyone nod their heads as if they understood; the women all agreeing while Suzy could see they were plainly paralyzed with fear and horror at the new policy.
“Okay, just throw it on top here and we’ll be getting out of the way.” Surrel took the baby bundle from the woman and dropped it on top of the rubbish that was no longer Liz.
Weak cries came from the bundle as the infant hit the dead body of his mother. The men lifted the pile, moving out the door; just another disposal job to finish so they could get on with dinner and some relaxation.
“Wait,” Suzy shouted after the men, running after them and out the door. She scooped the infant up from Liz’s lifeless body, holding it against her chest, her heart thumping violently.
As one of the men tried to pull the bundle from her arms, the infant’s cries increased.
“Suzy, what the hell’s going on here? Let the men do their job.” Doc pulled on her arm as the baby was wrenched away from her.
“Please.” Suzy made a pitiful meow. Her face shriveled with emotions, panic paralyzing her. She cast a quick glance at the men with Liz’s body and her baby, feeling that her essence lay under the bloody sheets with them.
Her life was over. All hope of freedom had died with Liz. Her love for the young woman that had protected, nurtured and educated her in the subtlety of patience, threatened to tear her in two. And what of the other women in the tribe? What of their hopes of freedom and safety for their children, far from the brutality of Doc and his men? How could they replace Liz?
Sure that her own strength came from the spirit of Liz, she knew she had to save the baby. Liz’s baby. It was a sign. A glimmer of a lifeline. A wisp of hope.
She felt strength of purpose galvanize her into action. She threw herself at Doc’s feet, wrapping her skinny arms around his legs.
“Please, Doc. The baby. I’ll do anything. I’ll take good care of him and keep him out of the way.” Her beseeching words, so uncharacteristic, made Doc pause. Suzy noticed and pressed her advantage.
“I promise. I’ll do anything.” Jumping up, she ran to the men and made another grab for the infant.
“Hey. Doc said . . .”
Doc raised his hand silently, waving the men off. With resignation, they shrugged, mumbling under their breaths and moved off through the crowds with Liz’s body.
Suzy walked slowly back to Doc, his expression unreadable. His silence made her nervous as she began to stumble and rush the words she hoped would persuade him.
“How will you feed it?”
Suzy’s heart missed a beat. “I can get the milk he needs from any number of women in the tribe. Some have had their babies . . . eh . . . taken.” Might as well call it with the truth. “They’ll be happy to allow the baby to nurse.”
Doc’s expression remained unreadable, but Suzy could see calculations behind his eyes. She held her breath.
“If I let you have this babe, I don’t want to see any more sulking. You will take your proper place in the tribe like any other woman. You will come to my bed when I call and you will do it eagerly. Is that clear?”
The innocent child in Suzy was stung, her face drained of blood. Her thoughts warred with themselves as she considered the evenings of pain and humiliation it would take to save the baby. Her voice was a whisper. “Noooo. I cannot.”
Doc moved forward to take the baby, his face darkening with anger. The infant suddenly calmed in her arms, a sweet musical squeak that muffled its way to her ears.
“Wait, wait.” Sometimes pain can be bearable when done for the sake of love. Suzy didn’t know this, but she did know she loved Liz’s baby. Without it she would die anyway.
As Doc placed his hands on the bundle in her arms, she reached out to place her fingers on his arm, his sweaty maleness invading her nostrils. She pressed down on his arm, sliding her fingers up to his shoulder in an attempt at a caress. “Okay, I agree.”
Doc looked stoically in her eyes. The seconds ticked. Then his broken smile declared his acceptance; possessive and knowing as he slipped his arm around her. “All right now. Let’s go home. And no more nonsense.”
Anxious over the deal she had just committed herself to, Suzy followed Doc through the stinking mess that Liz had called home.
Approaching their own cavern, they could hear screams of laughter and cheering. Suzy wondered at the sounds, unusual in their nature for they included the sounds of women’s voices. As they followed the boisterous clatter, it became clear that something was occurring in the Council Center.
Weaving their way through the deafening crowd, Doc pulled her and the baby to the center where some of the men stood dancing.
Their faces were smeared with fruit juices and flakes of crusty green bits. The tribe members around them squatted in supplication, hands reaching out to beg as everyone stared at the impossibility of the giant fruit and vegetables piled high near the fire, the flames turning the healthy vibrant colors to jewels.
Stunned, Doc and Suzy approached. Doc reached down to pick up a three-pound peach, heavy with ripe juices. The fragrant smell of freshness made Suzy dizzy. Doc took a sniff, his eyes still unbelieving. He held the peach out to her, inviting a bite. She looked around at the cheering crowd then down at the bundle in her arms. She hesitantly bit down into the soft juicy meat of the mythical fruit, liquid running down her chin.
And Suzy smiled.