The Feral Sentence - Part One (6 page)

“
What’s your vision?” she asked, staring into me as a mother
would a disobedient child. She leaned in, placing both elbows onto
her parted knees.

I
glanced at Trim, but she offered no guidance.

“
I’m sorry?” I asked.

“
Your sight. What is it?”

For a moment, I was tempted to lie—to say that I was
nearsighted and required glasses for clear vision. No one would
have known. No one but Trim, that is. I couldn’t trust her to
protect me.

“
Good,” I admitted.

“
Perfect?” Murk asked.

I nodded, even though all I wanted to do was shake my head. I
suddenly visualized the woman on fire and the way she’d danced from
side to side in an attempt to outrun the flames melting her
skin.

She laid her cigar onto the floor, sat up straight, and stared
into nothingness. I shot another glance toward Trim, but again,
received no indication as to what I was supposed to do.

I watched as Murk’s eyes followed the smoke from her cigar,
which curled several times, before drifting to the left. She nodded
slowly, before reaching down and pulling the cigar back into her
mouth.

“
Archer,” she suddenly said, and I thought I might
faint.

CHAPTER
5

I felt as though I’d been involuntarily recruited into police
foundations. The islanders around me spoke of training and of
enhancing one’s survival skills. All I heard was
death
. We were just a
bunch of women who’d been chosen to defend the Village without
adequate time to develop the necessary combat skills to fight—we’d
been assigned a suicide mission.

Trim led the twelve of us who’d been chosen to the Working
Grounds to commence training. I was already so exhausted from the
long day I’d had—from being assigned the task of Needlewoman, to
the Village falling under attack—that I wasn’t prepared for any of
this. My legs burned, and my head throbbed. I couldn’t remember the
last time I’d eaten, let alone had anything to drink.

“
Archer?”

I side-glanced at the woman standing beside me, not wanting to
make full eye contact.

“
I don’t bite.”

I turned to face her. Her smile revealed a set of brown,
rotting teeth and large nostrils which were flared beyond
normality. She had the strangest eyes I’d ever seen: dandelion
yellow and charcoal gray. They stood out even more in contrast to
her dark brown skin. Her hair was cut close to the skin of her
head, not quite shaved but not quite long enough to be considered a
haircut. She was built thin, with protruding muscles that I knew
were not the result of strength, but rather, lack of
fat.

“
Yeah, I got Archer,” I said.

“
Me too.” She smirked as if this title was something to be
proud of. “Sunny.”

I glanced up at the sky, which was covered in a thin layer of
gray, but when she extended a calloused hand, I realized she hadn’t
been talking about the sky.

“
I’m Ly—Brone,” I said.

“
Pleasure to meet you, Librone,” she said, shaking my hand
vigorously.

“
Just Brone,” I said.

“
You’re new,” she said. It was a statement more than a
question. “You’ll get used to it around here.”

I nearly said, ‘I doubt that,’ but she patted me on the arm as
a father would his son, then added, “Took me about six months to
adjust.”

Six months? It had only been two days, and I was already
craving the feeling of warm soap being lathered against my skin;
the taste of cold Pepsi against the tip of my tongue on a hot
summer day; the sound of club music blasting through my car
speakers while I sped on the highway with my windows rolled down.
I’d taken so much for granted, not ever realizing how luxurious a
life I’d truly had.

“
How long have you been here?” I asked.

She shrugged. “Can’t say for sure. Stopped counting after two
years.”

“
Why two?” I asked.

She shook her head and laughed, but I knew she wasn’t
amused.

“
I didn’t believe them,” she said. She bit her lip, then
scratched her cracked fingernails against the skin of her head.
“Thought they were lying.”

“
Who? What’re you talking about?” I asked.

Her eyes narrowed on me and then shot from side to side at the
other women nearby.

“
My sentence,” she whispered, “was s’pposed to be two
years.”

I turned
away at the smell of her rancid breath.

“
What happened?” I asked.

She curled her lips upward, resembling a Rottweiler guarding a
junkyard. I could tell the island had made this woman feral. There
was an emptiness in her eyes—a lack of morality, of self-awareness,
and of empathy. This island had taken from her what had once made
her human, and I feared it would do the same to me.

“
I’m still here, ain’t I?” she said.

I wasn’t entirely sure what she’d meant by this. Had she
committed a second crime? Had she been reconvicted to serve a life
sentence? I’d been given three years of isolation on Kormace Island
as punishment for my crime, which was rather short in comparison to
standard sentences imposed on criminals convicted of murder. My
lawyer had fought for
manslaughter,
but he hadn’t won.

* *
*

“Fuck sakes, Janet, how many times I gotta tell you to wash my
clothes at the end of the week?” Gary said.

He’d found his work clothes sitting at the bottom of a hamper,
only to realize it reeked of sweat and old water. Gary, my mother’s
boyfriend, was always verbally abusing her. He was a big guy,
weighing at least two hundred pounds, with large hands and a thick
neck the size of one of my legs. My mother had always told me he’d
had a hard life—that he had demons but that deep down, he only
meant well. I didn’t believe her. I just wanted her to leave
him

I watched as my mother hurriedly gathered his dirty socks and
stained shirt, nearly falling over in the process.

“
This too,” he said, throwing a pair of booze-stained boxers at
her feet.

He walked right past me into the kitchen and opened the fridge
door. He reached inside and pulled out a cheap brand of beer. Piece
of shit, I thought.

“
You know how Gary is,” my mom said, flicking her wrist as if
to insinuate that his ways were no worse than that of a child
throwing a tantrum. She sipped her red wine, then gazed out through
the trees and toward a row of parked cars down below our
balcony.

“
Mom,” I said, “he’s too much.” But I knew she wouldn’t listen.
She was too soft—too capable of looking past one’s worst qualities,
only to see the good in them.

She went on and on about how most days, he treated her like a
queen. I had a hard time believing this. If only I’d known how
terrible things were about to become, I would have tried harder to
convince her of the danger he posed.

By the time we went back inside, he’d gotten piss drunk, and
he began accusing my mother of all sorts of nonsense. It was
difficult to make out what he was saying. She tried to calm him,
but it only angered him further.

Everything had happened so fast… He’d suddenly swung an open
hand at the side of her face, and I remember thinking she hadn’t
survived the blow. She fell to the carpet by the living room’s
coffee table, and a thin line of red slid around the curves of her
lips.

I hadn’t meant to kill him.

He’d been about to grab her again when I came at him with a
cast iron frying pan. I’d only intended to knock him out long
enough for the police to show. I raised the pan above my head with
both hands, and with all my might, swung directly at the back of
his head. I hit him so hard, he collapsed instantly.

* *
*

“Archers, let’s go.”

I glanced up. It was Trim. She stood directly in front of me
with three wooden bows in one hand and a fistful of arrows in the
other. The carving work on the bows and arrows was meticulously
done—smooth, with barely any unevenness. The bows were shaped like
half-moons, and the wood was fresh white.

She led us away from the water and toward the trees, where
handmade wooden targets stained in blood hung unevenly. I wasn’t
ready for this.

“
Is Eagle gonna be okay?” I asked, wanting nothing more than to
be dismissed.

She glanced sideways at me, but she didn’t respond. I couldn’t
help but wonder how long she’d been on the island. She was so
cold—so emotionally impenetrable. I supposed this made her a strong
leader.

By my fourth arrow—which flopped down into the sand—it became
clear to me that Murk’s expectations were to have women trained
into Battle Women overnight.

“
Keep your elbow up,” Trim ordered.

Sunny caught on. Her form was good, as was her aim, but she
lacked patience and obedience. She’d release the arrow before being
ordered to do so, which only enraged Trim.

“
Fuck you!”

I turned around to spot two women battling with wooden sticks
across the shore of the Working Grounds. One was black and the
other white. The black woman had managed to climb atop the other,
and she was pressing a wooden spear against her victim’s throat.
Her muscles were hard; her back was round. She’d lost
control.

“
Enough!” Fisher shouted, moving in closer.

The black woman didn’t listen. She pushed down harder, causing
the other woman’s face to turn a deep shade of purple.

“
I said enough!” Fisher grabbed the black woman by the back of
her hair and pulled up hard, but the woman swung backward and
punched Fisher in the face, rendering her dazed.

I hadn’t realized how tightly I was holding my bow until Trim
pulled it out of my hands. She took one step forward, slid an arrow
into the bow, and then raised it to eye level. Her movements had
been so quick—so swift.

There
was a scream.

Suddenly, the black woman was lying in the sand, crawling
backward like a crab on her heels and elbows in an attempt to get
away from Trim who was now marching her way. I noticed a trail of
red sand grains underneath her as she moved.

Trim stepped down on her chest, causing the woman to collapse
instantly. She reached down and tore the protruding arrow out of
the woman’s shoulder. I turned away at the sound of her tormented
bellowing.

“
You know the rules,” Trim said, hunched over the woman who
appeared to be begging for her life.

“
Trim, please, I didn’t mean it,” the woman pleaded.

Trim pressed her foot down harder, and the woman gasped for
air.

“
You turn on your own, and you’re no longer one of
us.”

“
Trim, I won’t survive. I’m begging you!”

Trim turned around to meet the eyes of her audience. There
were other women surrounding us; many of them had not been part of
the combat training, but their curiosity had lured them to the
scene.

Trim stepped toward the observing women with my bow in one
hand, her features hardened.

“
Let it be known, from this day forward, that this woman has
committed treason and is no longer one of us.”

Conversation erupted all around us, and large eyes were glued
to the injured woman in the sand. Trim turned her face toward the
black woman, and without making direct eye contact, said,
“Leave.”

“
Trim, please!”

Fisher moved in with several other Battle Women who were
prepared to drag her out of the Working Grounds by any means
necessary. I caught sight of Flander among these women, her silver
hair bright in comparison to the skin tones around her. Although
older than most islanders, I could tell she possessed the strength
of a dozen women.

I heard the name “Marlin” several times and realized this name
belonged to the woman who’d just been banished. I watched as Marlin
ran past us toward the jungle’s verdure. She disappeared within
moments, leaving nothing but a trail of messy footprints and a pool
of dark blood in the sand.

“
Let me remind all of you,” Trim said, “of the rules you must
obey if you wish to remain one of us.”

Everyone went silent. I stared at the water behind Trim,
wondering how such a paradise came to be so intoxicated by the
women’s egotistical desires to prove themselves within the island’s
hierarchy system.

“
This isn’t a prison,” she said. “You aren’t prisoners. There
are no walls around you—no cells. The women around you aren’t your
cellmates.”

The
women exchanged discerning glances.

“
If you want to leave—leave. No one’s stopping you. Whether
you’ll survive out there is beyond me, but at least the option is
yours. Murk has worked for years building our colony to create a
civilized space for us to live among each other. If you’re going to
act like a prisoner—like an animal—who attempts to prove herself
better than others by use of force, then you have no place among
our people.”