Woman Scorned Read online

  “Forty six so far. Quite a few doubles, by the way, and Nit had three.” Soft murmurs of congratulations filtered Nit’s way.

  “We can expect another few days of high numbers like that,” Doov continued. “We should all just pray we’ll receive scars from it and not broken backs. Who have we lost, Paist?”

  Paist, standing to Doov’s right, moved his hands behind his back and swayed a bit as he spoke. The words that came from his mouth were in a monotone and lifeless, yet every man around Obe listened intently.

  “Today, we mourn for nine men of the Family of Blue; Fint, a survivor of seventeen runs, was last seen alive Friday afternoon. He is missing and presumed dead. He was a good man. He will be missed. Naz, a survivor of eighteen runs, was last seen alive early Friday morning. He is missing and presumed dead. He was a good man. He will be missed. Kelt, a survivor of thirty-four runs, was last seen alive at our previous grocery day. He is missing and presumed dead. He was a good man. He will be missed. Gown, a survivor of thirty-nine runs, was last seen alive just a few hours ago. A witness, Plat, has come forward to report his death. Plat?”

  A man from the crowd spoke. His voice was as emotionless as Paist’s. “I saw the blue car kill him. It was on my way here just this morning. He was tired. The car ran him over two times. He was dead.”

  “Thank you, Plat,” Paist said. “Gown was a good man. He will be missed.” Paist sighed with obvious strain and went on with his list.

  Terd, a survivor of forty-nine runs-

  But Obe missed the next words. A stab of pain suddenly hit his heart, and his composure flinched. Terd wasn’t just another faceless name. Obe had known him. He wasn’t just a name, but a person.

  …was a good man,” Paist was saying. “He will be missed.”

  He went on to list Smad, who had survived fifty-three runs, Poal, who had survived fifty-eight, and Zeen, who had survived sixty.

  The final obituary was Wrot. “He was a survivor of seventy-one runs,” Paist said, inflecting his voice for the first time. “He was last seen alive Saturday afternoon. He is missing and presumed dead. He was a good man. He will be missed.”

  The silence that hung in the air was palpable. Obe looked around at the other men. Their faces were a mixture of pain and emotionless stoicism. The funeral, he decided, was odd but better than what happened in green sector, which was nothing.

  “We will now open the floor for your comments on the deceased before we leave them forever.”

  “I thought for sure Wrot would make elder,” one man just behind Obe voiced. There were many nods and murmurs of agreement.

  “I owed Wrot a piece of bread,” another man said. “Out of respect, I’m going to throw it off the Cliffs of the Moon tonight.” This time the murmurs were louder and more energetic. Obe wished he had the courage to offer the same for Terd, but held his tongue. After tonight, he would have no bread to give.

  Besides, he reasoned, nobody else even knows I owed him anything. He turned to see who this last speaker had been. Rein stood there, somehow proud of his great sacrifice, and Obe wondered if his own bread would end up in Rein’s mouth. Deciding this was probably the case, he wrinkled his brow and faced forward again.

  “I’ll remember Kelt as the only man tall enough to get his groceries from the back row,” another voice said. There were brief chuckles, and then silence. Another tiny stab hit Obe. Kelt was the one to break his nose that first grocery day. In a way, he had known him too.

  Two people I’ve actually known, he thought.

  “Gown was a good runner.” And now it was Tick speaking. “He’s the one who taught me the old double-back. I’ll miss him.” Again, nods and murmurs of agreement flowed all around.

  “Naz…” one man said, and all eyes turned to him to finish what the others had started. “Naz took his hunger like a real man. He refused to borrow from me, even at a good price, and I heard he did it to others too.”

  “That’s right, he wouldn’t take from me either.”

  The silence afterwards drew on. And on. Obe wondered why Paist didn’t say anything. He wondered why Terd and Zeen and Smad and Poal hadn’t gotten anyone’s attention.

  Two minutes passed. Then two more. Obe looked around for bowed heads, but the men of the Family of Blue only stood in quite patience, unmoving.

  “Thank you for your time, gentlemen,” Doov finally announced. “The Family thanks you too, as do today’s honorees. We have no new Family members to introduce, so you may go on with your day. Good luck with groceries. Good luck with your running.”

  And with that the crowd of men broke apart and dissipated into the little clusters Obe was used to seeing in the grocery alley. Three more men made their way over to Baj to get their marks. Obe saw Rein making conversation with Tode, the man who had been introduced the same day as Obe. Look out, Tode, he thought. Whatever you have of value better be stashed somewhere other than your jumpsuit.

  When the groceries finally came, Obe’s hunger must have still showed to the other men because he got his food early and with only a handful of punches to his face from Jile and Roe in payment. But as he jogged away from the alley with his prize in hand, he couldn’t help feeling confused. He had instinctively looked for Leb, the man who had waited so patiently on his first grocery day to snatch one of the last bags of food uncontested. The man was nowhere to be seen.

  But he wasn’t listed in today’s dead, he thought. How do they know he’s still alive?

  He had already made up his mind not to even look inside the bag of food. He would instead see if he could get something from the men of the green sector. When he’d been there, it had been somewhat commonplace for men in blue to cross the border and steal food. Obe had never had it happen to him, but he’d heard of it happening several times.

  I won’t steal a whole bag, he decided. Only one bite. From a few different men. That’s how they survive becoming a Family man. It must be. And while I’m there…

  But even his mind didn’t allow the full thought to come. Whatever-

  You mean whoever, Mr. ‘C’!

  he might also come across was another problem entirely. What Obe didn’t notice was that he was now crossing the perimeter poles without any fear.

  3

  Charles was in Hell. This was no dream, it was actual, biblical, Hell. Only the demons were women instead of red-skinned monsters with pitchforks. Every time it had been a different one. Every one of them had her own particular pain to inflict. And every one of them said she were doing it for Josie.

  Josie. He would fucking kill Josie if he ever saw her again. No bullshit. No fooling around. He. Would. Kill her.

  There were two kinds of pain. He knew that now. There was pain that you hated. The pain that made you curse and hop around and even scream when it got high enough on your scale. But it ended there, and you lived with it and moved on. But there was another pain as well. A pain so much worse than the first kind. A pain that quite literally could not compare to it because this pain was the kind of pain that changed you fundamentally. You questioned your sanity, and then you lost some of it even as you wished and begged and screamed for the old, normal pain.

  Charles had experienced this kind of life-changing pain over and over again here in Hell. And it was all Josie’s fault. Yes, he would kill her. He didn’t care about the police or his eternal soul. There was a thing called revenge, and it was a stronger call than all the fears of the world.

  He whipped his head to the door. He had heard something. Rhonda’s footsteps? Rachael’s? Stephanie’s? Maybe Laura’s or Rebecca’s? He’d met them all. Swore and spit and blubbered before them all. How many were there? How many days had he been there? It felt like a month already, but surely it couldn’t have been more than a week or two. With a start he realized he’d been given lavatory time only twice and had been punished with having to skip it once as well.

  Lavatory is once a day. Every morning. They told me that, so… Three days? he marveled. It can’t be. They’ve
tortured me a dozen times. A dozen times at least. It can’t have been just three days. My God, how will I get out of here? I can’t go on like this. Every time feels like it’s going to be the la-

  His door popped open and a pair of black boots stood before his eyes.

  “Three seconds,” the woman’s voice said. Charles didn’t wait. He ran for the boots, his lips already puckered to kiss them.

  “One,” the voice said. “Two.” She was counting too fast! That wasn’t fair!

  When his head breached the opening beyond his door a wooden something slammed him in the back of the head. His face smashed against the concrete floor. Blood sprayed and he blacked out.

  “…slow,” the woman’s voice said. “And frankly, I’m glad! Now…” her voice was suddenly calm again and Charles recognized it as Rhonda’s. Hers was the voice he’d never forget. It had become ingrained in his mind when she’d ripped his testicles from his body and forced them down his throat. “I have some good news for you, you cantankerous pile of putrescence. But I have some bad news too, and it’s just wonderful!”

  He opened his eyes and saw nothing. Not her boots, not her gleaming scalpel, not even the concrete floor. He was blinded by another concussion.

  “The good news is that Josie has decided she’s going to deal with the rest of your education herself, which means until further notice you’re going to live in solitary confinement. No more beatings. For now, at least.”

  Charles’ eyes were slowly clearing. The scuffed toes of Rhonda’s boots were in his blurred field of vision. Swinging gently from side to side an inch from the floor was a brown stick of some kind. A fat one. Was it a two-by-four? No. It was rounded and darker than that. He blinked and it came into view: a simple baseball bat. A trickle of blood glinted from its rounded end, and she rested it on the floor now and began to spin it slowly on-end.

  “The bad news,” Rhonda went on, “is that you won’t see the light of day, and you won’t get so much as a hole to shit in. You’ll sit in that black box and soon start wishing we’d beat you again, if only to confirm that you’re still alive. Oh, I’m sure you think it won’t be like that. But ask yourself this, pig… why is it men in prison work so hard to avoid solitary, hmmmm? Answer: because it’s the worst thing a man can ever live through. I hate it myself, but only because of the stench. But knowing that you’ll be in there suffering and crying and begging for freedom… well, that will be music to my ears. I might even sit outside and listen to you sometimes. Yes, I think I will. It will be wonderful research for my book.”

  The bat spun, spun, spun, and now finally began to slow. Charles felt dizzy, so that was good. Or was it just the concussion? He couldn’t tell. He didn’t even know if he cared. Solitary confinement sounded simply wonderful. He’d gladly go a little crazy and deal with the stink of his shit if he knew they weren’t going to beat him anymore.

  “Oh yes,” Rhonda cooed. She suddenly stopped the spinning bat completely. “There’s one more thing.” In front of his wavering eyes Charles saw the bat had writing on it. Almost like an old-time autograph in simple black ink. It had big, looping swirls on it that looked vaguely familiar.

  “I’ve decided that as a little treat to myself, I’m going to take you into my favorite training room and work you over for a few hours first. Sort of a… going away present. Won’t that be fun? Oh yes, I forgot to tell you, there’s also very bad news. And this is it. I, my little slimeball, am going to make you pay for what you’ve done to my Josie. I’ve cleared my schedule and sent all my girls home early. All the other men get a reprieve tonight.” She bent down and said the rest in a whisper so filled with wrath that Charles actually wet himself.

  “You and I are going to have a little party. And the only thing I can promise you is that you won’t… quite… die. Now, what do you think of that?”

  Charles didn’t dare open his mouth, but a flurry of curses and seething anger rose to his brain and began to throttle his will. His clenched jawline was probably what tipped her off.

  “Wrong answer!” Rhonda said. And suddenly Charles’ hair was grabbed and he was being hauled out of his box. His chains clanged and scraped against the concrete floor and he screamed in fear and pain. He couldn’t help it, but he was so tired and dizzy and bruised already and Rhonda had been the worst one.

  She dragged him like that, one-handed from the top of his head, down the long, long corridor. When she rounded the corner his legs swung out and his ankle bone slammed against the wall. It hurt, and in another world he would have screamed and cursed. But here, in Hell, where he’d experienced so much worse it didn’t even register on his new pain scale where his identity seemed to leak out of him as much as his blood.

  She threw him against the legs of the metal table and shut the door behind her. Charles held up his arms protectively and started muttering the apologies he knew she would eventually require to make the beating stop.

  She ignored him and moved the barrel of the baseball bat close to his face.

  “See that?” she asked.

  Charles looked. The black ink was swirled there and it did indeed look like an autograph.

  “That’s an authentic signature,” Rhonda said.

  Charles looked again and finally made out the words ‘Babe Ruth’.

  “I borrowed it from Lucy. She’s one of our best hunters out in the field. But you’ll never get to meet her. She said she’d be honored to let her favorite bat go to work on your face. And your elbows. And maybe your shins. I’m not sure yet. I’m just going to let the flow take me where it wants to go.”

  “Please,” Charles said. It was the first word coherent word he’d spoken since she’d opened his door.

  “Please?” Rhonda mimicked. “Please what? Please don’t? I think not, Charles DeSalvo, rapist of young girls and pig of all pigs. I’m going to make you lick your own blood from the floor, and I’m going to wipe this autograph from this wood in the process. Does that sound fair? Or do you have something else to say first?”

  Charles’ mind whirled. This was really happened. It wasn’t Hell. It was real. And he was going to die here, though he believed her when she said she wouldn’t let that happen today.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. And it was the truest thing he’d ever said in his life. The fear of what was about to happen had brought forth an understanding of what he’d done to Josie six years ago and again six nights ago, and for the first time in his life, he was honestly remorseful for what he had done.

  “I know,” Rhonda said. “I can hear it in your voice. Except… I simply… don’t… care.”

  And then she raised the bat and screamed.

  4

  Obe felt a sense of pride the moment after he handed over his bag of food to Doov and was instructed to roll his right pant leg up.

  “You’re officially in the Family of Blue,” Doov said. “Congratulations.”

  That night and the following morning, he met many men as he slowly joined the lower ranks of the Family. Everyone, it seemed, noticed his rolled cuff and welcomed him. But the most surprising meeting was the day he finally saw Leb, alive but not well.

  He was rounding a corner, following a lead for the stream that he’d managed to get at no expense- It’s in the eastern half. That’s all I’m saying, the man, Pok, had said- when he saw a disheveled figure sitting on a curb looking like he’d just survived an hour-long run. As he got closer, Obe realized the man was Leb. His mane of blonde hair was unmistakable.

  “Leb?” Obe said.

  As Leb looked up, Obe had to hide his shock. Leb wasn’t just out of sorts, he looked like he’d escaped hell itself rather than a simple chase from the women. Dark circles highlighted his sunken eyes. His yellow hair had little clods of dirt in it and looked about as stiff as rope. On his forehead was another long smudge of dirt. When he smiled it was weak, wavering slightly like a lunatic, and Obe could see flecks of something green caught in his teeth.

  “Oh, hey Obe.”

  “Leb,�
� Obe said slowly, “what happened?”

  Leb hung his head back where it had been. “Nothing,” he said.

  Listening for the telltale call of distant tires, Obe sat down next to him. “Bullshit.” Obe realized now that the man had lost weight as well, and as emaciated as they all were, Leb now bordered on skeletal. “Jesus, Leb. You look…” but Obe could not find the right word.

  “Dead?” Leb offered.

  “Do you need food? I haven’t seen you at groceries for…” he quickly calculated, “…over a week.” I can get you some. The green sector… it’s not that hard. He was already reaching inside his jumpsuit for the bite of bread he had stolen from a green earlier that morning. Tucked away he still had a half a banana and a bottle with two swallows of water. It was enough, he decided. And he could always go steal more.

  Leb lifted his head again and Obe could see the hunger in his eyes. “No,” he said. “Don’t give me that. They’ll… even you, Obe. They would.”

  Obe shook his head. “What?” he asked. “I don’t understand you.”

  “You’ll be tainted,” Leb said. “And I’d be sent right back.”

  “Sent where?” Obe put the bite of food back in his jumpsuit.

  Leb didn’t say anything right away, but when he finally did he said it all in his first words. “I was punished,” he said. “Temporary banishment because of my big mouth.”

  “Banishment?” Obe said. “They can do that?”

  “Sure,” Leb said. “Sure. It’s their family. The fuckin’ Family.”

  “What did you do?” Obe asked.

  Leb didn’t speak for another long moment, and when he did Obe found it difficult to only listen, but listen he did.

  “I was approached by the black sector. A month ago.” He hung his head again as he talked. “Damn near gave me a heart attack. Thought it was the women. I was by the stream. You know how dangerous it is there.”

  Obe didn’t know, but he held his tongue and kept listening.

  “I had heard of them same as everyone. Crazy. Manipulative assholes. Thieves. But this guy didn’t strike me like that, so I listened. Asked me for... help. I told him I’d think about it. It would have ended there, but my fucking big mouth screwed me. I knew the Family wouldn’t like it, but the offer… the offer, Obe… you’d shit a brick.”