Adaptation: book I (24 page)

“Come on!” Ma urged while jiggling the crying baby in her arms. “Sonny, you drive this truck, and me and Earl will take Earl’s.”

“Not yet,” Earl said. “Come over here. Look at this.” Earl nudged the man over onto his back.

Sonny stood over the man. “What’s wrong with his face?”

Ma sighed and joined them. “He’s completely … black. Why is he black like that?”

Earl frowned. “I don’t know. I
ain’t never seen nothing like that. Maybe when I shot him it did something, I don’t know.”

“Maybe he got some type of disease,” Ma said.

Earl looked at her. “He wasn’t black when he got out the truck.” He felt goose bumps crawling over his arms. “Let’s just get out of here.”

Earl had done a number of terrible things over the years since the end of civilization. He’d lost much of is capacity for empathy once he no longer had to be accountable for his actions. But this thing, killing a man in cold blood and having him turn black afterwards, made him feel as if he had crossed some line that would keep him from gaining admittance through the pearly gates.

While Earl and Ma followed behind them in a beat-up Chevy Silverado, Sonny looked into the backseat at the unmoving woman. He licked his lips. She would be his. Earl had Ma, and now he had someone and wouldn’t have to think about doing bad things to animals. She was pretty, too. He was already becoming hard. He wanted to pull the truck over and …

He swerved the wheel, nearly running into an abandoned car.

Focus
.

~***~

Carmella’s stomach turned
before she was completely awake. She coughed back the bile that had risen in her throat and forced her eyes open. Pain stabbed through the back of her head as stars appeared before her eyes.

“She’s awake!”

Carmella forced her eyes to focus on the old woman.

“See!” a man shouted. “I told you I didn’t hit her too hard.”

Carmella tried to sit up but couldn’t move, her hands bound behind her.

The old woman held Raj, whose eyes were red. He was hiccupping as he chomped on his pacifier. When he saw Carmella, he opened his mouth and began to wail, the pacifier falling to a carpeted floor. 

“Oh, for
fuck’s sake!
Shut him up!”

The old woman jiggled Raj on her hip. “I can’t! He wants his mother!”

“Mamamamamama!!” Raj yelled while tears streamed down his face.

Oh my God,
Carmella thought.
He just said Mama!
Her heart nearly rose out of her chest. Carmella blinked her eyes rapidly in an attempt to see straight and clear her head. She tried to move again but couldn’t.
Bilal.
No … She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to think. Bilal was … gone. Raj was crying for her.

“Give him to me,” Carmella said weakly. “Give me my baby.”

The older woman pursed her lips and frowned. She backed away a step. “No, he’s mine now.”

Carmella tried not to black out. “You can’t have my baby …”

Raj reached for Carmella and wailed hysterically.

“He needs to be nursed. I need to feed him.”

“Give him to her,” another man said.

Carmella looked at the man. He appeared to be in his late fifties but was more put together than the others. His short white hair was sheared into a military cut, and he wore camouflage khakis and combat boots. Carmella’s eyes narrowed and felt her breath freeze in her lungs. This was the man who had shot Bilal.

“Well, untie her, Sonny,” the old woman grumbled.

Sonny grunted and knelt behind her. He roughly yanked her arms and undid the ropes. “Don’t give us no shit now, or Earl will do you like he did your man.”

Carmella rolled to her knees and focused on Raj.

The old woman cooed, but Raj wanted nothing to do with her. “I don’t know why you’re making me give him to her.
I’m
gonna be his mother!”

“You can’t feed him,” Carmella said, reaching her arms toward Raj. “He’s only three months old.”

“Three months?” the old woman screeched. “Who in the hell are you trying to fool? This baby’s nine months old if he’s a day!”

Carmella shook her head. “He’s always been big. Please give him to me.”

“Three-month-olds don’t say ‘Mama,’ Missy,” the old woman spat. “And he’s wearing nine-month baby clothes.”

“Like I said,” Carmella said, “he’s always been big.”

“Cuz you been overfeeding him,” the old woman said.

Raj let out an ear-splitting bellow.

“I told you to shut him up!” Earl shouted.

The old woman handed Raj to Carmella. “Shut his ass up if you know what’s good for you.”

Carmella hugged him tightly, burying her face into his sweet neck. She rocked and held her son, her heart breaking as she cried for the loss of Bilal.

~***~

Carmella nursed Raj
until he fell into a restless sleep.

Everyone watched her until Ma pulled herself from her seat and reached for Raj. “Give him to me. I’ll lay him down.”

Carmella bared her teeth. “No.”

Earl cocked his rifle. “Give her the boy. We need to talk. When we’re done talking, then we
might
let you hold him again. If you don’t, this will be the last time you ever hold him.”

She took a deep breath and saw her life moving before her eyes. She saw and relived the losses of Jody and Micah. She pictured Bilal being shot. “Okay.” She held Raj out in front of her.

The old woman snatched Raj away. “You need to learn you some manners.”

Carmella clenched her fists wanting badly to hit the woman in her wrinkled face.
But I have to keep my shit together. Raj needs me. He already lost one parent today.
She swallowed back her sadness. Now was not the time to give in to her hears. She unclenched her fists and slowed her breathing.

The old woman kissed Raj’s curls and left the room.

Carmella sat back on her knees and looked up at the men assessing every possibility that she could over-take them. But it always ended with Earl and the rifle he carried. 

Sonny’s tongue peeked from his lips. Now that he’d seen her
titty, he intended to have her as soon as possible. He wanted to throw her on the floor and fuck her right there in front of everyone.

“What’s your name?” Earl asked. 

Carmella glared at Earl.

Earl took a step closer. “I’m Earl. This here is Lester but we call him Sonny. The woman in the other room is Linda, his mother. I’m going to ask you again. What’s your name?”

“Carmella,” she whispered.

Earl walked toward her and offered his hand.

She looked at it and saw a series of scars on his knuckles. Ignoring the offered hand she stood on her own.

Earl chuckled at the rebuke. “Have a seat.” He gestured to filthy green couch.

Carmella sat on the edge. 

Earl sat across from her in an armchair covered with a quilt. “I’m sure you’ve figured out that there is no walking out of here for you and the little man. You’re smart, I’m guessing. I can make it pretty or I can make it plain. I’m thinking that you’re the type who wants to cut through the bullshit.”

“You’re the boss,” she stated while giving him a chilly look.

Earl smiled and then laughed. “I like you. Yes, indeed I do.”

And I want to smash in your faces and feed your bloody carcasses to Wolf,
Carmella thought. But her only response was a cold stare.

Earl’s smile disappeared. “All right, here’s how it is. There
ain’t that many humans left here on Earth. We’ve been traveling all over, and you’re the first person we’ve seen in five or six years.”

“What happened to the last person you met?” Carmella asked.

Earl squinted. “He’s as dead as your man cuz he sassed me.”

The response stabbed at her as purely as if she’d been knifed. “I’m sure you gave him a reason,” Carmella stated.

Earl leaned forward. “Yep, I surely did. You planning to sass me?”

I’m planning to kill you
, she thought.

Earl seemed to read her thoughts and threw back his head in laughter. “Carmella, we’re gonna get along just fine. You see, you’re obviously a fertile woman. We need you here with us. But if you don’t go along with the program, then we’ll just take your kid and continue our travels.”

Carmella gripped the edge of the couch. “And what exactly is the program?”

“You just need to be nice to us.”

Sonny stood. “Us? She’s mine, Earl.”

Earl looked over his shoulder at the unkempt man. “She’s
ours,
Sonny.”

Sonny stood over him with his hands on his fat hips. “You got Ma. You already got a woman. Now I do, too.”

Earl’s nose flared. “What do you know about it, pig fucker?”

Sonny’s face turned red. “Now you hold on there just a minute.” He looked at Carmella. “I ain’t
no pig fucker.”

“Do you think I don’t know what you were doing to those pigs that time?” Earl asked. “And the goat?” He looked at Carmella. “He even tried to fuck a horse, Carmella. That’s the reason his leg is messed up, not because he tried to ride it.”

“I did not!” Sonny yelled.

“You tried to fuck it,” Early said, “and it kicked the shit out of you!”

“Shut up!”

Ma came from the back room and closed the door behind her. “What the hell? Are you trying to wake up the baby again?”

Sonny hurried to his mother. “Ma, tell him that the girl is mine! I ain’t got a girl, and she’s mine!”

“Of course she’s yours, son.” Ma glared at Earl. “What are you up to now? You know he can’t live the rest of his days without his own woman.”

Earl stood. “Well, I’m certainly not going to be stuck the rest of my days fucking your withered ass. I get a piece of her, too, and that’s all there is to it.”

Carmella wanted to vomit. She was about to be tied or chained up and turned into their sex slave, and there was absolutely no one to help her. She had to be smart and strong even though she wanted to rage and kill every one of them.

“You don’t ever have to touch me again for all I care!” Ma yelled. “You think I like having you shove that thing in me?”

Earl closed his mouth and inhaled. “Then I guess we have an understanding. You won’t have to worry about my dick anymore.”

“Ma!” Sonny yelled.

Raj began to cry from the next room.

“You dumb shit,” Earl said, glaring at Sonny. “You woke that baby again. Go get him and give him to his mother before I
really
get angry.”

Ma wrung her hands. “No one is going to put a hand on that precious baby.”

“Give him to his mother, or I will leave you two to starve to death,” Earl said.

The old woman retreated to get the baby while Lester looked at Carmella as if she was slowly disappearing.

~***~

ad-ap-ta-tion n.
a
ny
alteration
in
the
structure
or function of an

organism or
any
of
its
parts
that
results from natural selection

and by
which
 
the
organism
becomes
better fitted to survive

and multiply in its
environment

Bilal’s body was stiff and cold on the cement parking lot. Even the blood which had pooled from his body had stiffened in the cold. His chest no longer rose and fell, and his heart no longer beat. Only his long hair moved, fluttering in the wind above lifeless eyes that did not notice the flakes of snow drifting down. He no longer had memories of his biggest desire: to love and to be loved.

But his cells did.

One cell remembered to turn on adaptation.

The other cells swiftly followed.

The dormant cells
in Bilal’s body sparked to life, regenerating enough to start his heart beating sluggishly in his chest.

He lay there without knowing or thinking until the sun fell. By the time his eyes popped open and he took in the night sky, he was covered in a fine dusting of frost. He moved his rigid arms to his chest where he felt hot blood on his cold fingers. He tried to close his eyes and sleep to continue repairs on his body, but his thoughts overruled the urge.

He opened his mouth. “Carmella …”