The One Read online

  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 todd
ler 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.”