After (63 page)

Behind her, a door slammed and she heard the thud-thud-thud of soles on cement, the whiff of cloth on cloth. Her chest cramped as she turned to see who was running at her, but the tall, wide figure turned off, running for the fire. He hadn't even noticed her.

Here and there, a face peered from a window, women and girls locked up tight while the men ran off to douse the fire. In the world, it seemed they were so few. And sometimes it felt like so many had gotten away. How could they be leaving so many behind?

She found the house with the curved stone path leading from the cement walk, through a rectangle of lawn, to a brown porch with white columns. The front door was unlocked. In their haste to get to the fire, someone had probably just flung it shut as they ran out. Maybe the baby wouldn't even be there.

Inside, it was quiet. In the distance, she heard the shouts of men, the clatter of hooves on the asphalt streets, but inside the house there were no voices, no footfalls.

She crept up the stairs, and flinched when one step creaked under her boot. Everything else stayed quiet, though, and she took the next step, up, up to the landing, her gun drawn, her finger on the trigger.

The hall and most of the rooms were dark. The cries from the field where the winter's grain was burning and spilling from the wreck of the blaze, into the mud, drifted through the still house as she crept along the carpet runner, past dark rooms and closed doors. Near the end of the hall, a door was ajar and light seeped into the corridor. She checked behind her, then with a fingertip, nudged the door open.

By the window, a man stood looking out at the conflagration, at the men scurrying around it like bugs. He turned. As if he'd sensed her there, or maybe seen her reflection in the window. Saw her. Saw her gun.

In his arms, a baby.

“Put him down,” she ordered, keeping her voice low. “In the cradle.”

The man looked down at the baby in his arms, and back at her. He opened his mouth as if he might say something. Threaten. Maybe beg. Instead, he turned and set the baby in the cradle.

“Over there. Get on the bed.”

He was already starting to sweat, clear beads glistening across his high forehead. When he sat on the edge of the bed, she ordered him to lie down. Why hadn't she shot him? Like she'd planned. There was no time for this, tying him up. Making him cry. Making him scream. But what he'd done. Filled that girl up. Hollowed her out. He'd earned himself a few memorable minutes with her knife.

When she had him tied down, she straddled him. Something, his dusky skin, his kinky hair, the shape of his mouth, reminded her of the other night. The one who'd pounded her head against the floor as he'd raped her. But that man was dead. The man under was sweating, shaking, whispering, “Please, please, please” while she scraped the blade of her knife over his nipple, making it stiffen under his thin white shirt.

Splayed in a vulnerable X on the bed, he was hard to resist. That's how it goes.

Powerless, you're a magnet. You pull them against you.

“What? What?” he gasped.

Under his pants, his cock was soft and small. The whole soft cluster, balls and cock, fit under her palm and fingers. She squeezed and he whimpered. They whimpered, too. Fear made their eyes wide and made their eyes squint tight, eyelashes poking through crinkled lids.

She unbuckled his belt, unzipped his zipper, unbuttoned the button, worked his pants and briefs down to his knees, baring the puff of black curls, the fat slug of flesh the color of a cooked beet, the balls drooping and wrinkly, like two peach stones under the black fuzz.

“Was she a virgin?”

He panted, panted, “Who?”

“Your wife. Your baby's mother. Was she a virgin when you bought her? The first time you fucked her?”

“Yes.”

“Did she cry?”

“No.” A gurgle in the back of his throat. Maybe he was going to vomit.

“She liked it? The way you fucked her?”

“I. I didn't. Um. I tried to make it not too bad for her. You know?”

“Uh huh.”

“Please.”

Maybe he didn't know that every time he said “please” like that, it just made her want to hurt him. The way they'd always hurt her when she still used to ask them not to.

So little, so soft. Delicate. Nothing like what they raped you with. She wanted to take it when it was hard, when it could scare and hurt. Not this pathetic little bit of soft flesh lying helpless in its nest like a baby bird with no feathers, too weak to fly, too weak to even lift its head.

In the cradle of her hand it was warm. Warm and soft. Remembering how Gareth touched himself, she stroked the crown with the pad of her thumb. Caressed the part that reminded her of the groove in a plum. His eyes locked on her hand on his cock, and his chest and belly rose and fell, lifting and dropping his shirt. She stroked her thumb along the faint ridge running down the length of the shaft, into the fuzz coating his balls.

Already the little slug, the crippled baby bird was looking bigger, stronger.

“What are you doing?” he breathed.

He wasn't crying yet. That part would feel good. His tears. His screams.

Now the cock was standing up all by itself, the turgid shaft thick and long, the crown flushed and swollen. When she dropped a gob of spit onto it and smeared it over the length of it, rubbed the clear and white froth over the fat, cleaved head and made it shiny, the whole thing twitched in her hand. Thick and heavy in her grip, she coaxed it, caressed and rubbed it until the man's breath changed, until the panic in his eyes shifted and flared.

He'd stopped writhing his wrists in their restraints. Now he wanted it. At least a little. She gripped the knife handle harder. Gripped him harder too. Hurt him. He made a hurt sound and the baby started crying and everything fell apart. The man saw the want, the fierce need in her eyes, need for pain, need for blood, and the fear and the sound of the baby made him soften in her hand. The hard, thick cock was gone, the thing that scared her. Now there was just the limp, fat slug. She let go, let it flop down into its little nest.

“What's your name?” she asked him. “The name they tattooed on his mother's arm?”

“Anderson. Mark Anderson,” he stuttered.

“And what's her name?”

“Who?”

“Your wife. The mother of your baby. What's her name?”

“Melissa.”

Nix ripped Mark Anderson's shirt open, surprised that the sound of threads snapping was the same, even when it was a man having his clothes torn off.

“What? What are you doing?”

“I'm carving Melissa's name into your chest. Nice and deep, so the scars don't fade.”

“Please!”

His body clenched and shuddered under her as she touched the tip of the cold blade to his naked chest. But he didn't scream. Didn't call out for help. Strange how men almost never did.

She pressed, and the razor-fine point pierced the smooth, firm swell of his flesh, just by his nipple, and a crimson drop swelled up against the blade. Her body went hot.

Wanting.

A wail, high and long. A choking, gagging scream.

The baby.

The hot want in her drained away. Left her cold. Nix jumped off the bed and plucked the squalling infant from the crib.

“Please. Please. Don't hurt him.” Mark Anderson started crying.

Hurt him. Put the blood-marked blade to that soft neck, those little rolls of fat under that chubby chin. Slice into that honey-colored skin and see the crimson come out.

That's what the father thought. A baby boy. Fit for the knife, guilty of crimes still years off.

“I'm not going to hurt the baby. I'm going to give him back to his mother.”

“Melissa? She's alright? They told me she'd run off. I was scared she'd...”

The baby squawked and wiggled, its face turning red, its fists bunched and flailing.

“Is he sick?” she asked.

“No. Just tired. He'd just gone to sleep when all the shouting started.”

Mark Anderson was looking at her with terror-tinged hope. Tied down on the bed, his face twisted, his eyes red and leaking tears, it seemed impossible he was a man.

She bounced the baby a little, to make it stop crying. It kept making its wet little guttural sounds, and she laid him against her chest, patted his back.

So little. Warm and soft. A bundle, really, like the expression. Bundle of joy.

A trickle of Mark Anderson's blood zigzagged down the blade of her knife. The baby stole her heat, her want. Drained her fierce need to put the point of the knife against the father's dusky skin and tear Melissa's name through it.

She set the baby back in the cradle, found a sock and stuffed it into the father's mouth, and tied off the gag with a square of cloth from the top of a stack of neatly folded squares. The baby's diapers. Then she took the baby and left.

Now that she was running, running away from the father, away from the fire, the baby was quiet. Heavy and small and warm in her arms. Now that she was out of that house, away from the man, out in the big world, the cold air, the starry night, she was scared. She'd forgotten time. Taken too long. Playing with Mark Anderson. She should have shot him the moment he'd set the baby down. Snatched it and run. If she got left behind, fine. But the baby. What could she do with it? There'd be no one left to give it to.

She ran. Hard. Holding the baby tight against her, willing her feet, her legs, her stiff knee, to go faster, faster, faster. Please. Please.

She heard something. Someone behind her. Stopped, turned, grabbed her gun. It was nothing. No one. Maybe she'd kicked a rock, heard it scuttling over the ground.

The gun clutched against the baby's back, she turned and ran again. Gareth. Her chest seized, picturing his face when he gotten back, realizing she wasn't there.

If he'd gotten back. What if someone had been nearby as he threw that first bottle, it's wick aflame, against the side of the granary? What if he'd been shot in the back, never even had a chance to fight? Or the wave of townspeople pouring into the field had spotted him? Chased him down?

She gripped the baby tighter, ran harder. Air gone. Legs soft. Go. Go.

Through the thick, vast dark she heard something. Something else. Not a rock.

Not a man or a horse. A hiss. Low and rhythmic.

A fresh flood of panic hit her heart. Too late. They were already moving and she'd ruined it. Melissa wouldn't get her baby and she'd stay like that, transparent and hollow.

And Gareth would never understand, never know. Or, god, he'd stay behind, give up his chance to go over the line, to escape the barren hell his father had dragged him into all those years ago.

A different sound. A high whine. Like the scrape of a knife down a piece of metal pipe. Not too late. Not.

They were all there, clustering by the tracks, a churning mass, the excitement finally infecting them, waking them from their stupor of doubt and loss. Their backs were to her, their eyes fixed on what was coming. But in front of all of them, facing the town, waiting, eyes fixed on her, now, Gareth.

He'd shout. Fine. She'd done a stupid thing. Risked his safety. His escape.

No. He wouldn't. His eyes were red and she watched the tears rise, blurring those irises like two storming seas.

“You're here.” He'd breathed it and the tears spilled over. His hands came up, like he'd touch her, but he pulled them back. “You're alright,” he said, one of his unasked questions. “You made it.”

She showed him the baby.

“What's that?”

“It's a baby.”

It wasn't funny but they both laughed.

“Why?” he tried this time.

She just smiled, then wandered among the women until she found Melissa. Put the baby in her arms. Melissa stood there, holding her baby, trembling, staring at the nearly bald head crowned with fine, ash-hued fuzz, at the hazel eyes. Then she pulled the baby to her chest, cradled and rocked him.

From the west, from the night, the iron beast emerged, a black beauty belching steam into the cold night air. A great metal caterpillar to bear them all away.

Already, they knew, most of the cars were full, full of women and girls and maybe a few resistance men from the west and north and south. A door opened, a woman hopped down before the train had fully halted, and silently gestured toward the empty car. The aimlessly churning crowd converged, still silent, still orderly, on the narrow door and started filing through. Jason, then Miguel were last, behind Gareth and Nix. Then the woman who'd stepped off the train stepped back up, signaled with thee blinks of her flashlight up the length of the chain of cars toward the engine, and the iron caterpillar hissed and groaned, and lurched forward.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

In the belly of the iron caterpillar, they crept forward, hardly faster than a comfortable march. How had they made it across the girth of every state from the Pacific to there, across Nevada and Utah, all through Colorado and Kansas and Missouri, the thing crawling along on its belly at that pace? Nix wiped a swath of steam away with her sleeve and peered out the window, her pistol ready for the first glimpse of men converging. The huff and hiss of the train aggravated her; she'd never hear the horses over that asthmatic panting.

“It's slow going at first, but when we're up to speed, we'll be going forty, forty-five miles an hour,” Miguel assured her. “Even if they saw, even if they come after us, no horse can catch us.”

Minute by minute, they picked up speed, just as Miguel had promised. By the time they wound their way out of the dark rural emptiness and surged up on the first town, points and rectangles of yellow glimmering from windows and lanterns, they wooshed by so fast that the few men who'd heard something and come out of their homes, out of the local tavern hardly had time to get to the tracks to see the metal beast soar past. There was no light inside any of the cars, so those curious men were left to stand there, wondering what mysterious cargo the sleek black train belching its steam and smoke was bearing east.

Hope. Nervous joy. All around her in the dark, whispers and tentative laughter.

But Nix felt sick. Her gut heavy and overstuffed with dread. And nothing to pin it to.