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THE HOURS ALONE ALLOWED her to think more about escape. The cabins were stone, but the roofs were flammable. Instead of sneaking out, what if she set the place on fire that night? They’d be busy trying to put out the fires and fewer could be spared for chasing after her. Maybe she and Benjamin would not be missed in the confusion.
But as she played out that possibility, she saw it wouldn’t gain them much time. They’d see their two captives were missing soon enough, and they could spare a couple of the men to chase her.
Better to be stealthy, to get away at midnight, and have it be perhaps as long as six hours later before they were missed.
She thought, too, about using Jubilee and the possibility he’d give her away with his braying. She didn’t know a thing about donkeys. Mules were known to be stubborn. Were donkeys? Not a clue. If she had to drag him, or if he balked, or if he bugled out an alarm, he’d be more trouble than he was worth.
If he could be made to pull them—or if one could ride and one be pulled—would that help them outdistance their pursuit? She’d watched a couple of Kentucky Derby broadcasts in her life. Horses could run that pretty fast. A race was about a mile, she guessed, and they ran it in a couple minutes. Of course, this was a donkey, but if they could get even a couple five-minute miles from the donkey before it stopped.... She shook her head at herself. It was all pure conjecture. She had no idea if Jubilee would cooperate at all, how noisy he might be, what sort of terrain they’d encounter, or how many miles the donkey would go before he refused to move another step.
She wanted, so much, to talk with Benjamin about this. Twenty minutes alone with him would make a plan come together; she was sure of it. And it’d do her a world of good, too, to make sure he wasn’t converting to this ridiculous religion, to hear his voice, or to sit quietly next to him while he sharpened their knives.
She patted her pocket again, feeling the reassuring solidity of her pocket knife. That was one thing she had going for her. She still had the paper and pencil lead, too, to communicate with Benjamin, so two things. She had less time befriending the donkey than she’d have liked, and she didn’t know how realistic of a plan stealing him was, but there was that possibility, too. A slowly developing trust from the cultists had been another resource, but today she’d blown that all to hell. Why didn’t she have better self-control? She’d never been a fighter or a screamer before.
Water under the bridge. Her grandmother’s voice came to her, saying those words. It was done. No taking it back now, and no benefit to obsessing on how she’d screwed up. She’d have to move on somehow, snatch all opportunities she saw, be on her best behavior, and find a way to meet Benjamin at the outhouse in three nights.
She went to the door and pushed the blanket back an inch, peering out. She wasn’t being guarded. Back at the bunk, she drew out the pencil and paper and wrote Donkey + cart—yes or no? Alternative weapons? Flashlight? Food? Cave? She’d add more later, as she thought of it, and get the note to him when she could.
She heard the wind pick up outside. The blanket door stirred in the breeze. Maybe a storm was blowing in. If one blew in the night they left, the snow could cover their tracks.
How she wanted to leave.
Not tonight. Not tomorrow night. But the next. She only needed to hang on for that long.
By the time the men came for her, she had to pee pretty badly. She asked if she could visit the outhouse. The men looked at each other and finally one of the ones whose name she didn’t know went to ask Tithing. It was spooky, how they couldn’t think for themselves, despite all being grown men.
She was given permission and had two men accompany her down the path. In the outhouse, she took the note from Benjamin from her pocket. She tore it into little pieces, wrapped it in a sheet of the brown paper and tossed it in. Then she emerged and was marched back to the dining cabin, a man behind her, a man ahead.
As she approached the cabin, her heart beat harder and her palms grew damp within her gloves.
Only the men were inside the main room. She had no idea if the women were in the kitchen or not. The door between the two rooms was shut, and there was no sound coming through the wall.
Tithing was standing before the dream catcher on the wall. The men were seated, facing him, but as one, they turned when she entered the room. Benjamin was nowhere to be seen. She hoped she hadn’t gotten him into trouble, too.
“Where is he?” she asked. She glanced around at the men. “Where is Benjamin?”
No one answered. She was pushed up to Tithing, and he pointed to a spot for her to stand.
She took her place.
Tithing began to speak in his meeting voice. “The Reaping has begun.”
“And we are The Seed,” responded the men.
“Our time finally has come,” he said, “And we rejoice. But we also have a problem.” He looked at Coral.
“We need to be told if this one is Weed or Seed.” He raised his hands, palm up. “We need to be guided. And so, we test her.”
Coral’s throat was dry and she felt like she was quivering all over. Maybe she was trembling, and visibly. She shoved her hands into her pockets to keep anyone from seeing the tremors there.
Tithing motioned for her to approach him.
Damn damn damn. She did not want to go. But she made herself take a step. She could feel that her shoulders were hunched. When she saw him raise a pair of scissors, she stopped.
He beckoned her with a forefinger. The gesture was really creepy, somehow, creepier than the whole rest of the scene.
She swallowed, swallowed again, and coughed. She took another step, another, and was looking up at Tithing’s face, close enough that she could count his pores.
He looked troubled but calm. A man trying to be fair, having an unpleasant duty but knowing he needed to do it. He reached out to her face and pushed down her bandana.
She flinched from the touch of his fingers.
He pushed back the hood of her jacket. She drew a shaky breath, trying not to pull away from him.
He raised his hand, and the blade of the scissors glinted yellow in lamplight.
The breath caught in her throat.
Gently, he pulled her hair out from her collar. Then he took a hank and cut it off, so close to her scalp, she could feel the cold blades brush her skin. Her skin was all gooseflesh. He cut another hank, and another. When he let go of each chunk of hair, it slithered down her jacket, making a whispery sound.
Methodically, he cut her hair off. Then he reached into his pocket and brought out a razor and began shaving her head.
Coral couldn’t say how she knew, but somehow, she felt a wave of sexual excitement coming from someone—or more than one of the men—behind her. If gang rape wasn’t planned, she feared it might happen anyway, spontaneously. The feeling of her awareness of them—some of them? all of them?—lusting for her only grew as he shaved her.
Without any water or soap or foam, the shaving was a dry, painful process. The razor blade wasn’t terribly sharp, and it caught at her scalp. He cut her, and she jerked at the hot sensation. His hand took her chin, cool fingers holding her steady.
She realized she had started breathing again at some point, for she was panting now, as if she were running uphill. He gave her a “turn around” gesture, and she turned, closing her eyes, not wanting to see the gleaming eyes of the men who were excited about this, not wanting to see anything, wanting to disappear, to not be, to never have been.
That’s what they want. The thought came to her in Benjamin’s voice. Her eyes popped open. He was nowhere to be seen, but the cult’s men were all there, staring at her. She made herself meet their eyes, one by one. Alva looked away. So did Jim. The rest looked at her, or at her head and the razor being guided by Tithing’s hand.
Finally, it was over. Her head felt strangely light.
From behind her, Tithing said, “Apologize to Pratt, now.”
She looked at Pratt. He was smirking. Her voice was steady, and she was heartened by that, made braver by hearing herself sound brave. “I’m sorry I flew at you like that. I know it must have scared you.”
“I’m not scared of a girl.”
Coral almost smiled at his defensive tone. “I promise you, it won’t happen again.”
Tithing said, “Give me your jacket.”
Coral’s pleasure at provoking Pratt fled. She really, really, really did not want to be raped. She’d managed to avoid it so far, and before the Event she had hoped she’d make it to old age without having that experience. Maybe it was inevitable in this new, lawless world.
“Now,” he said.
She turned back to face him, peeled off her jacket, and handed it to him.
“And your gloves.”
She handed them over.
“And that sweater.”
She pulled it off. She still had on the thin turtleneck beneath it. She shivered. The cabins weren’t all that much warmer than the outdoors, and it was hovering somewhere below freezing in here.
“You will not harm another of this Farm again. Or you will be cast out into the world naked.” Tithing’s voice was stern. “Do you understand?”
She nodded.
“You’re going to spend the night here, without your jacket, without your gloves, to get a taste of how that will feel.” He lifted his chin and spoke over her head. “Go on about your business.”
She could hear a murmur of disappointment. They’d wanted more—they’d wanted worse for her.
Soon all of them had filed out but Tithing.
“You may not last the night,” he said.
“I’m relieved you didn’t hurt me.”
“I don’t need to hurt you. You seem to do a very good job of hurting yourself.” He took the lantern, turned it off, and stepped to the inner door, the one that led to the kitchen, and put a key in the lock. He turned the key, rattled the doorknob to make sure it was locked, and walked to the main door.
“Tithing, wait. Where’s Benjamin? You didn’t hurt him, did you?”
He paused and turned to look at her. “He didn’t want to come. He said you shamed him.”
He slipped outside. She listened for the turn of the lock. It was a quiet sound, barely audible.
She was locked in. Night was falling. And she was already cold.
Coral brushed her palm over her head. “Missed a spot, asshole,” she muttered. The nick was damp with blood, but it wasn’t flowing fast. She untied her bandana from her neck and held it to the spot.
What had he said about Benjamin? Shamed by her? She couldn’t believe that. He’d been banned from coming, more than likely, by Tithing. She wondered if someone had an eye on him. Probably Brynn was guarding him.
She brushed her hand over her bald head. It could have been far, far, worse. She was expecting worse. The guys behind her—a few of them, at least—had been hoping for worse. She shivered at the memory of that feeling, the crawling sensation on her neck of knowing that anyone had wanted to use her.
The shiver was warranted as much by the cold. The fading light outside wasn’t penetrating the cabin. There were two windows, but there were shutters on them blocking the light. The temperature would fall further with every passing hour. There was nothing here to wrap up in. Not a tablecloth, not a blanket, not even a wall hanging. She figured her choices were three. Stick her arms under her shirt, sit in a corner, and shiver all night, hoping she didn’t die from hypothermia. Or she could pace all night and hope that kept her warm. Or she could break the hell out of here.
She wondered what old Coral would have done, and she realized she had no idea. That girl, that university student, pretty good sister, that would-be doctor was dead. This Coral had fought, and won, and survived, and taught herself to shoot a bow—
Damn. Her bows and arrows. Her chest hurt at the thought. She would grieve their loss for a long while.
She went to the front door and leaned against it, listening. She heard nothing. Carefully, she tried the doorknob. It was locked. Crossing to the inner door, she pulled out her pocketknife. When she reached the door, she knelt and looked at the lock. It was below the doorknob, not embedded in it, a pretty modern lock, but not brand-new, either.
She’d never picked a lock before, but this seemed a good time to teach herself how. She began opening, one by one, every blade in her knife. One by one, she shut most of them. First she dismissed the blades—too wide. The can opener, ditto. Little scissors, rejected.
When she was done closing each of those tools, she was left with the four thinnest arms: a corkscrew, a tiny hook, a miniscule nail file with a hole in it, and a pointy thing she forgot the name of. There was also, stuck in the end of the knife’s body, a toothpick, detachable. She detached it and gripped it between her front teeth.
Okay. She started with the hook, probing the lock. People seemed to manage this in the movies. Was that only Hollywood nonsense, or could it be done?
The light was fading fast now, but light wouldn’t help her much anyway. She felt something give under the hook, then spring back. Again, she pushed. Same thing. Okay. That was something. Now what? A visual memory came to her, from a movie or TV show. The person had both hands at the lock, and two deeliebops in there.
Reaching up, she plucked the metal toothpick from her teeth. Could she fit both these things into the lock? She took the hook out, put it back in at the top, and stuck the toothpick underneath it. Tight fit, but they both were in there. Of course she had no idea what she was doing with them. But she had all night to fiddle with it.
She settled into lotus position and began to experiment. One tool up top, one on bottom. Up top was where the action was. Soon she had found a two springy things up there. Push them, they sprung back. Push them, they sprung back again. Push them, hold them, wiggle the bottom thing, nothing.
Hmm. She tried the doorknob, hoping somehow she’d miraculously unlocked the thing without knowing, but it was still locked. There had to be better tools for this job than the ones she had on the knife.
She swore, if she ever wandered into a hardware section of a Walmart with Benjamin again, she was going to make them camp out there for a month while she learned how every damn thing in the aisles worked.
She brushed her hair back—oops. No hair. Weird that the urge to push it back as still there. Habits can be strong.
Hmm. She wondered what habits of the cult she could exploit to help her escape. She’d think on that later on, after she’d gotten through this lock. She stretched her neck back and forth to ease the tension and began again.
Finally, she figured out there weren’t just two springy things but more. The third one was so tight, it took several minutes to figure out that’s what it was. The spring was tighter or something. She wiggled the toothpick under it and pushed, but the toothpick’s narrow point wasn’t enough surface area to gain pressure on the thing. She reversed it so the back end, thicker, was in there. It took her a minute to find the edge of the spring thing—whatever the hell it was called—again, and this time, when she fought the pressure of the spring, it retreated with a solid click. And it stayed there.
Aha. Now she was getting somewhere. She tried turning her hook again like a key. No dice. Toothpick in again. Damn, the strong spring had released again. So back to it, push that out of the way until it stuck, and dig deeper. Another springy thing. Push that one. The hook-key still wouldn’t turn.
It took many more minutes before she realized that if she kept the bottom thing half-turned, like a key, the spring things up top, whatever they were, stayed in place once she had shoved them back. Finally, she figured out that there was a fifth spring, too. Two loose ones, a hard one, another easy one, a hard one.
Full dark had fallen, bringing with it a drop in temperature, and now she had to stop every few minutes to warm her fingers by sticking them in her armpits. The cabin was pitch dark, so she was working entirely by feel and sound. Every little click made hope rise in her chest, but the lock wouldn’t budge.
Until, with a loud snick, it did. The hook turned, like a key, and the door popped open, brushing her face.
Damn! Coral did a seated happy dance. She had a new career as a lock-picker. Although, in the post-Event world, really, a person could normally bludgeon a door, tear it down, and leave it in ruins, and no one would complain. And there weren’t many doors left in the world anyway. So it probably wouldn’t be much of a career.
Beat the hell out of alien brood mare, though.
She was cold and stiff. She hadn’t noticed the cold so much while she was focused on her task. But now she realized how freezing she was. After tucking away her knife, she rubbed her arms, shook out her legs, and entered the kitchen. There was a lamp somewhere in here, and matches.
Oh, wait. Maybe not a good idea. Could they see the light? She tried to imagine the building. No windows back here. As long as she kept the door between the dining area and kitchen shut, she should be able to risk putting the lamp on low.
She fumbled along the counter until she found it. Then she pawed around until she found the matches. She struck one and turned on the lamp, turning it low. It went out. She tried again, and this time she turned it down without putting it out. It cast a pale yellow light over the kitchen.
There was no reason to steal food for the trip—not yet, at least. On the night they escaped, maybe she could pick the front lock, too, now that she knew the procedure. She almost started eating the carrots from the bin, but then she realized it would be better if they didn’t know she had gotten in here. No one was obsessive enough to be counting the carrots...but still, for now, she let them be.
She found the stack of dish towels and took them out, tying them together at the ends, until she had a small, lumpy shawl. She stuck it over her head and shoulders. That was better. Between that and keeping active, she might not freeze to death this night.
She carried the lamp into the back alcove. There was the radio. That was what she had wanted to get to—ever since she had first seen it. Somewhere out there, people were still alive. If this Farm place, and if another in Oregon had survived, so had other people. And a few of them must also have radios.
Her ignorance about radios was as pure as her ignorance about lock-picking. She studied the dials on the front of the device. Taking a deep breath, she flicked the off-on switch and listened. It was entirely dead. No static. Not so much as a click when she turned it on.
So the stationary bike must make it work. Someone had complained about the charge, but they hadn’t said it wasn’t working at all. And they had gotten the news of the baby being born, right?
She hoped the thing was all hooked up, because she was entirely out of her depth here, and biking was the one part of it she did know how to do. She climbed on the bike and began pedaling. Almost immediately, a light glowed on the radio. She stopped pedaling, the light went out.
Huh. She couldn’t be in two places at once, so this might not work at all. Still, at least biking would warm her up. So she set to it, pedaling fast, until she began to pant. The light on the radio burned brightly. She pedaled and pedaled, until she was gasping for air, then stopped. The light didn’t go off.
Eureka! How long would the charge last? No matter, she could always pedal some more later.
She pedaled again, more slowly, while she thought about this. What if the radio were set at a place where only the Farm people were listening? It probably was set to a, whatsit—frequency, that was the word—where the Oregon Farm and maybe others had agreed to meet this one. So maybe she should turn some of those dials before she started talking.
Off the bike, then, with a plan. She leaned over the desk, adjusted the lamp a bit higher, and studied the dials. Preselect, range, gain, mode, unlabeled. All that meant nothing to her. Wait. Mode had an “AM” setting—as in AM radio? AM, CW, SSB, FSK. It was pointing to SSB.
Really, she didn’t have a clue what any of it meant. Preselect, though, might mean what it would mean on any radio. It was on 2, and there were 10 settings. She’d avoid 2 for now. She clicked through each setting, listened, but heard nothing but faint static. She hoped that static meant she was on the right track. She turned up the volume, and the static grew louder. She turned it back down. She made it through all the numbers, turned back to 2, and listened for a longer time.
Nothing.
So, okay, try and talk. The radio light was beginning to dim, so she got back on the bike, pedaled again until she was beginning to sweat and the lights were bright, and then she got off and sat at the radio. She went through the preselects one by one again, avoiding the setting she had found it on, this time saying, “Hello? Anybody out there?” Then she turned off the mike and listened. She said it a second time, and when she didn’t get an answer, went on to the next. She’d save setting 2 for a last resort. The last thing she wanted to do was alert the buddies of this group that she was on this radio.
They might not be able to tell where she was calling from, but why take the chance? Try and find someone sane, instead.
She tried different “modes.” She had to pedal again to charge up the radio—or the battery inside or whatever.
She tried her greeting again and again. No one was there. At least, no one was on a radio this late at night. She figured it must be ten o’clock or so, give or take. She’d better get someone soon, because the more time passed, the less likely someone would be awake and listening.
One by one, she tried the other knobs. The unmarked one changed the tone of the static, gave her a sharp whistle that faded when she turned the knob further. Okay, so set everything back the way it was, and twist that one.
The static was quite a bit louder.
And then, out of the static, she heard a voice. A human male voice, talking. She turned up the volume, but she couldn’t make it out. It spoke, it faded to quiet, and it spoke again. Was it looking for people? Talking with someone else who was too far away for her to hear?
She grabbed the microphone again and said, “Hello. Can you hear me? Can you hear me?” She let go of the switch and listened. There was no change in the voice. It went on with its announcement or conversation. She fiddled with the unmarked dial, but the voice grew softer. When she turned it back again, trying to find the right spot, the voice was gone.
Damn it! So close. She spent long minutes trying to get the person back, but he was gone. Time to bike again. She pedaled furiously, wanting to get back to the radio before more time slipped away.
Turning the unmarked knob again—tuning the radio, she supposed—she turned all the way to its upper limit. Then she turned it back, a fraction at a time, listening, leaning forward. Nothing.
Well, hell. What now? Okay, listening wasn’t working, so try talking again. She started at the far limit of the knob and spoke into the mike. Listened, spoke again, twisted the knob a fraction, tried again.
Time was wasting. But she forced herself to go slowly and methodically. Again, she had to stop and pedal the bike to recharge the radio. At least the pedaling warmed her up.
Then a voice spoke to her. Crackly and faint, but a human voice. “Come again,” it said. “Is this Winnipeg?”
She touched the dial. The static receded. “Is that you, Giles?” it said. Much clearer this time. She turned up the volume, and with a trembling hand, tried the microphone again, saying, “Can you hear me?”
“Say over, if you’re done. Over,” said the voice.
“Thank you. I don’t know a thing about radios, over,” she said.
“You’re not Giles.”
“I’m—” she realized that she couldn’t use her name, not if this had any chance of being another Farm. “I’m a captive of some mad men. I broke into their radio room.”
“Damn,” said the voice. “Sorry to hear it. You okay?”
“Been better, but I’m alive for now. I guess you don’t know any way to get some police to help me?”
“No police or anything like it left. Where are you?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “Somewhere east of Boise and north of the Interstate highway.”
“I’m in Alberta,” he said. “Canada.”
He wasn’t going to be running down to rescue them any time soon. So put aside that hope. There was something else important to talk about.
“Do you know what happened?” she said. “Back in June? Over.”
“Best info I have, an asteroid hit. Or two, nearly the same time. One in Venezuela, one about Dallas, Texas.”
Dallas. Wow. If true...that was farther away than she would ever have guessed. “Do you know anything about Ohio, in the States? I have family there.”
“Only part of the States—the mainland, I mean—not in trouble at the start was New England, like Boston and north of there. But now I hear the weather has gotten so bad, they had food riots and some say cannibalism...so now it’s bad there, too.”
“How are you making it?” she asked.
“We could survive maybe six more months. Hoping summer comes back next year.”
His voice faded at the end. The radio was dying.
“Don’t go anywhere. I’ll be back in five or ten minutes,” she told him. She jumped back on the bike and pedaled hard, until the light on the radio shone brightly again.
She grabbed the mike again. “Do you have contact with anyone in Ohio? Or Michigan?”
“Can’t reach that far, but sometimes I get a lady in Ontario. She might get to Michigan.”
“Can you write this down to tell her?” She gave him her hometown, brothers’ and grandmother’s names. “I know it’s a long shot, but if she hears of anyone in that town, pass along to them that—” she hesitated giving her name, still worried a fellow cultist could hear this. Well, screw it — “that Coral is okay.”
“I will,” he said.
“I don’t know what else to ask you,” she said. “But I hate to let you go. How many are alive up there?”
“Maybe one of twenty. I lost my son.” His voice broke.
“I’m sorry. Numbers were even worse down here. If one in five hundred are alive, one in a thousand, I’d be surprised. I’ve only seen maybe thirty survivors in total. And four recent suicides.”
“We have some of that.”
She really didn’t know what else to say, what else to ask him. He was too far away to help, too far away to walk to, and in the wrong direction to get warmer, in any case. He was a lonely voice in the cold. “I guess I’ll let you go.”
“I was just about headed for bed.” His voice was fading again as her radio’s power ran down again.
“Okay. Thanks, and Good luck.”
“Signing off. And if...” his voice cut out. Then it faded back in. “...in Boise, I hear.” Then it was gone.
“What?” she said into the mike. “What about Boise? Over.”
But the radio was dead. She climbed back on the bike, pedaled until the light was half bright, and jumped back over to the radio. “Alberta, you still there? Over.”
No answer.
“Alberta? Alberta?”
No answer.
What? What in Boise, he heard? Riots? Military law? Lots of food? A restoration of normalcy? She balled her fists in frustration. If only she could have heard that sentence—even one more word would have given her a hint if they should head for it or avoid it.
When she and Benjamin escaped, their hope of survival was slim. But if there was a place to head, if Boise was functioning, that would give them a goal, a reason to push on, a reason to hope.
There was no hope to be had here—not for her, at least.
And not for Benjamin either. He knew that, right? The warmth of her spark of hope fled.
What if Tithing hadn’t been lying about him simply to upset her?
Though she tried for much of the night, she raised no more voices from the dark.
As she tried and failed, her mood darkened. She worried more and more about Benjamin.
What if he had been converted? Maybe he didn’t want to leave this place. Maybe having four walls, three meals, and an armed group to protect against invasion by even worse people...maybe that was enough for him. She wished he would have written something else in his note, something that reassured her that he wasn’t being brainwashed, that they will still in this together.
She could almost understand him wanting to stay for the food and safety. The cost to Benjamin wasn’t so terrible as it was to her.
But she could not shake the thought that he’d been converted to the crazy cult. As she tried and failed, again and again, to raise anyone else on the radio, the thought took root and grew, and grew, until it filled her mind.
She tried to be logical in examining every brief interaction they’d had. There was the moment in the cabin, when Coral learned of the cult’s plan for her. Benjamin hadn’t spoken up in her defense, had he? He’d touched her, and she’d taken it as comfort then. He’d done something—shook his head?—that made her think to stop yelling back at Tithing. Then, she had thought that he was cluing her in that they were both in danger. But what if it had indicated something else?
He had helped stop her from hurting Pratt any worse. What if she had read that wrong too?
And his note. She thought he had been giving her information, or making fun of the cult by saying they were building some space ship thing...but what if he had succumbed to their brainwashing and was excited about the idea?
No. Impossible. Not him. He was too solid. Moreover, he was her friend.
Right, a friend of a whole three or four months. Friendship forced by circumstance and need.
The more she thought about it, the more she despaired. She did not want to think it of him, but she had to. What if she had lost Benjamin?
If Benjamin had turned, she would leave anyway. She’d rather die out there alone, freezing to death, starving to death, than stay here and be forced into sex, marriage, and motherhood by the cult.
But how she would miss him.
