Woman Scorned Page 34

  “Hello, men,” Rhonda said. “Today is a very happy day, indeed. I take it you are all refreshed and enjoying yourselves?” Nobody answered aloud, but every head nodded and every mouth smiled.

  “Well, you probably all know by now that you are being treated today for your good performances. Even though I ask my girls not to say anything until we all arrive together, I’m sure they leaked out a few compliments. Perhaps even a few details. They are all just as happy as you are.” Obe looked around. There were some men smiling brighter than others. He had been told they had graduated from something. What things did the other men know?

  “Just so we all understand each other, I’m going to explain this whole thing.” The smiles faded quickly. This was what they had all been waiting for. “As you all know, you’ve been very bad in the past. That’s what got you here in the first place.” The men dropped their eyes, their heads. Yes, they had been bad. Very, very bad.

  “And we brought you here for a first-rate education. We do this because we love you and we need you. If we didn’t, we would have simply killed you off months ago.”

  Obe felt his heart skip. Even though he had been told this many times, it was a frightening thought that his life was always in their hands.

  “We’ve brought you here today because each of you has graduated from the first grade, so to speak, and you are now ready to move on. We are so splendidly happy about the whole thing. This is a nice-sized class. We’re often lucky to graduate six at one time.”

  Other women were coming into their little gathering now. It was somewhat overwhelming, but still exciting. One of them carried a very large and lumpy drawstring bag.

  “Ah, here is everyone. Thank you, Rachael.”

  Rachel- Obe had never known her name, though she’d tortured him many, many times- handed the bag to Rhonda. He looked around and saw that everyone truly was there. Every woman he’d ever seen was in the room now. Two of each color: green, blue, black, and Rhonda in white, of course.

  “Everyone enjoyed their showers, right?”

  The men nodded happily. Obe glanced around and saw the other men trying to hide their smiles, just as he was. “Well, remember something very important about those showers. It was a present to you because we want you to be clean from now on. Can you remember that?”

  “YES,” came the combined reply from every man. Yes, they would remember to stay clean.

  “Good. Well, then, we have another present for you. And I think you’ll find it even better than the shower.”

  What was this? Another present? This was a vacation! Then Rhonda reached into that bag and pulled out a pair of fuzzy green sneakers tied together at the laces. The men oooohed and aahhhhed. As if the showers and the jumpsuits with the fun names weren’t enough, now they were getting sneakers!

  Rhonda held out a pair and said simply, “would you each like a pair of these?”

  “YES, YES!” they cried in unison.

  “Okay, then. But this is a very, very special present. You must be very careful to never lose it or abuse it.”

  “OF COURSE! YES!” The men nodded, smiling even wider now.

  “That is especially important to remember because some other men might want to take them. You see, some men forget and they lose theirs or abuse them until they fall apart. That’s when they start to be bad again. You won’t be bad if I give you these, will you?”

  “NO, NO! OF COURSE WE WON’T! WE’LL BE GOOD! WE PROMISE!”

  Rhonda smiled and even laughed a little. “Okay, okay. I believe you. We’ll play a game. We’ll see how fast everyone can get a pair and put them on, okay?”

  They all nodded eagerly. Obe knew she was treating them like children, and he felt like a child begging and nodding for a pair of sneakers like some toddler wanting candy. But was that so bad? After all the weeks in his box and the lavatory hose and all the months with the treadmills and the years and decades and centuries listening to the Voice of God? He was finally having a good day. And he wanted the sneakers so much!

  “Alright, then.” She dumped the sneakers on the floor and the other women helped her spread them around. “Ready?” she asked, and the men slid to the edge of their seats and leaned forward. “Set?” They leaned forward further. One man slipped off and everyone laughed as he got back to his chair. “GO!”

  They jumped up in a big stumble of hands and feet. Chairs crashed and fell to the floor. Men landed on the pile and on each other. They didn’t fight. It wasn’t necessary. As soon as a man had one, he scrambled back to a chair and put them on as soon as he could. Obe got a pair and a chair leg hit him hard on the anklebone. After his eons of torture he ignored it easily.

  He dashed back to his seat and frantically jammed his feet into the sneakers. They too small, too small by far, but like everything else that didn’t work when he tried, the women had solved the problem. Somehow the sneakers had been stretched and he was able to squeeze and wrinkled his toes up until the heel slipped halfway down. It was as far as it would go, but it was close enough. Then he had the knot to deal with. The other men around him had the same troubles, and it was a wonderful game.

  Eventually, everyone got both sneakers more or less on their feet and tied down. Obe looked around and saw most of the men had to fold and squash the heel down. Only a few had succeeded in getting the heel inside like he had.

  “Wonderful!” Rhonda said. “That was just wonderful. Very good, men. Very good. I can see you are enjoying yourselves after all.”

  They smiled more.

  “But I must be serious for a moment. There is more to tell you.” Instantly the men were silent, waiting. “Alas, I must also tell you that today we say farewell.” The men looked around, confused. What did she mean? Were they being killed after all? Were they… were they going home? Already?

  “Along with graduating this first step, I must allow you all to spread your wings and become your own men again. Remember, this is all an education. I have done my part, and my girls here have been as wonderful as ever. But now you must be on your own to prove yourselves. Turn around, men, and see the door behind you.”

  They did. There, standing like a last rite of passage was a large, metal, green door. It didn’t look like the other doors they’d been through that day. It looked heavier and so much more important. It looked like the door in the treadmill rooms that opened to the outside world.

  “That door leads to the outside,” Rhonda said.

  Outside! Obe thought. We’re finally going to go outside!

  “You remember trees and grass and sky, of course. Well, on the other side of that door is just that. Lots of it. And it’s yours.”

  The men’s eyes lit up. It didn’t seem possible.

  “But… not all of it is yours. Now turn back to me and listen carefully.”

  They did. It didn’t seem like a trick, but at the same time it did.

  “Just as there were rules in your box, there are rules out there as well. I’m only going to explain this once, so listen carefully. Outside that door is the rest of Monroe’s Island. The island is divided into three parts. Those three parts all have men on them who have already graduated and gotten their showers and sneakers and everything. But all three parts are a test. Consider them like childhood, middle age, and old age. You start today in the section that is childhood. That’s the green sector. If you prove to us that you have been good as a child, we will be happy to move you on to middle age. That’s the blue sector. If you prove yourself good at middle age, then we’ll move you on to old age, the black sector. And then, if you can prove yourself still good after all that… well…” Rhonda paused, smiling.

  They looked at her, listening, waiting, yearning.

  “…you go home,” she said. “It’s as simple as that.”

  Home. She had said it. Obe didn’t want to believe it. He feared hoping for it ever since the shower, but now she had actually said the word of his dreams, and it was heaven in his ears. The women never lied.

  �
�You are not allowed outside of the green sector until we move you. You’ll know when. You’ll see us coming to get you and you’ll fall asleep. But when you wake up you’ll have on a blue jumpsuit with a new nametag which I saw you all enjoyed. And you’ll be one step closer to home. There are simple boundaries to each sector. The tall white poles in the fields and the thick white lines in the city are that boundary. Don’t go past them. It would be bad.”

  The men shook their heads. No, they would not be bad. They would not go past the tall white poles or the thick white line.

  The other women were moving now. Obe caught from the corner of his eye that the beautiful one, the one who had once been nice to him, had come in with a pile of shotguns. They were the kind with two barrels and a trigger for each. The other women were each taking one and lining up by the wall in pairs like animals from Noah’s ark- two green, two black, and two blue.

  “You already know all the rules about being bad here inside our fortress,” Rhonda continued. “All of those same rules apply outside. When you meet a new man, be polite. Introduce yourself but keep the conversation short. You don’t want to be a gossip.”

  They shook their heads. They would not spread gossip. They would be polite.

  “Food will change for you. You’ll be out on your own, and I know you’ll just love the wind and the sunshine, but there are responsibilities that must come with those privileges. That’s the change in food. It won’t come to you anymore. You’ll have to go get your own groceries. There is a time and a place. In the city, in the center of each sector, there is a wide alley that comes to a dead end. You’ll know it by the large wooden crates. On grocery days, at noon when the sun is highest in the sky, be there and follow what the other men do. Grocery days are twice a week, Sundays and Wednesdays. Today is a Saturday, so you’ll have to find that alley quite soon, but you’ll manage I’m sure. That is as much as I can say.”

  The women all had their powerful double shotguns now, and one of them opened the big green door. Light- real light from the sun itself- streamed in and blinded them all, even the women. Obe wondered just how dark it must have been in his box. The shower halls had seemed so bright earlier and now it was so dark in comparison. The women filed out one at a time until Rhonda alone was left in the room full of excited men.

  She looked at them solemnly, and Obe could tell there was something else.

  “There’s one other thing to tell you,” she said. “And it is the most important thing of all.” They looked back to her. Obe didn’t know how much more important information he could learn. But Rhonda told him to, so he would.

  “While you are out there on the island, there will be other women that you’ve never met before. They are there to test you. They’ll chase you with cars and bats and fists. I won’t lie to you. A woman never does. They are going to try to kill you. That is the true test. There is one more word I’ll teach you, one more way to be good. That word is ‘Run.’ Say it with me.”

  “Run,” the men said. It was a quiet, ominous sound with their nine voices together.

  “Good. It’s the last thing I’ll teach you, but I think you’ll learn more about it on your own very soon. You need to run, men, or you will die. If you should graduate all the way through black sector and then home again, may you never forget how to run. Running can save your life now, and it can be a way of life in your future. Now… I want you to stand up and line up by the door, but don’t go outside yet.”

  The men hurried to the door. Obe felt that he had to be first. What would happen to the man at the back of the line?

  “This is your first test. There are nine of you today, so you all have a very good chance. But I’ve already noticed that one of you has been bad since being taken out of your box this morning. That man is going to be killed very, very soon. Perhaps right outside the door.”

  Obe felt his throat swell, felt his heart stop, felt his legs go weak. She knew he had gotten an erection. He was going to be killed after all, he was sure of it. But another man moaned loudly, and hope swelled within him. Maybe Rhonda hadn’t seen the guilt in his eyes. Maybe she had seen it in one of the others. Already he was mouthing the silvery words.

  “Only the guilty get killed, men,” Rhonda said, “and only the righteous survive.”

  Outside, first one then five more shotguns cocked loud pops through the silence as the double barrels were loaded with shells. Obe wanted to peek around the open door to see where the women were standing, wanted to push forward to the front of the line of men, wanted most of all to take the stupid sneakers off that were far too small and were mashing his toes and already hurting his heels.

  But he did none of this. He didn’t dare. He only waited.

  Listened.

  Prayed with his moving lips the magic litany of silver and brotherly love.

  “A minute from now,” Rhonda said, “one of you will already be a ghost.” She had moved toward them, come up behind them. She was breathing down their necks. She was going to eat their souls.

  “Now,” she said, “RUN!”

  10

  When he opened his eyes again, Obe saw that the real release was over. He had heard them, of course. The men screaming in fear. The women laughing and shouting threats. Their pounding, running footsteps. The women giving chase and cocking their guns for impressionable ears to hear and register and fear. All like had been done to he and his eight companions that day. And he’d heard the car, too. Hidden in the shadows and chasing one poor soul down, killing him before he got more than a few dozen paces into his newfound freedom.

  He looked but didn’t see a body. This didn’t surprise him. Probably whoever he was had already been collected and taken to… well, wherever the women took dead men. He didn’t know how long the tree had helped him hide inside his memory while he mouthed his silvery litany.

  What he did see were two women in black stepping through the gate and closing it. There was nothing about the way they guarded the gate- not on their faces, and not in their postures- that suggested they were at all moved by the utter terror they had helped pump into those men.

  How many times does a person have to do a thing before they’re completely immune to it? Obe thought. These women looked like they’d been immune for years.

  Idly, Obe reached inside his jumpsuit and took out the wad of grass he had stored there. He ripped into it with his teeth and began chewing. Am I becoming immune, too? he thought. I’ve seen a kill firsthand, and I’ve seen doomed men chased by the cars. I’ve seen men murdered by other men, and I’ve seen mobs fight in a riot every two days over a paltry bag of food. None of it feels the same as it used to.

  He chewed the grass, relishing the sustenance it gave his body despite its taste. I’ve become accustomed to death and destruction. They’ve trained me. I’m just another Pavlov’s dog.

  The new memory startled him. Usually his new memories came in a mosaic of confusing bits and pieces. But this was a complete memory, fully formed and solid in his mind. It had happened all in an instant. He knew exactly who Ivan Pavlov was, exactly how he’d trained his dogs to salivate at the sound of a dinner bell, and exactly how Obe himself fit into the analogy.

  I’m still growing, he thought. And it’s starting to pick up speed. But I’m losing my empathy in the process. I’m losing my humanity.

  He thought of Jile and Roe’s double death and knew this wasn’t quite true. Still, he forced himself to admit, I was ready for it. Just as I’m ready for my own death.

  He stopped chewing. Was that true? Was he really prepared for his own death?

  Yes, he thought, I am, and I have been. Ever since Tick’s murder, perhaps. Hell, ever since I saw how the Family of Blue hosts a funeral.

  The matter decided, he began chewing again. This time when he swallowed, the urge to spit it all back up was a mild grumbling. God, how he wished for another apple. Or bread. Even stale bread would be pure heaven.

  He sat in the tree for some minutes more, content to have found a
place where the women didn’t see him, but knowing his safety was both a fluke and a temporary reprieve. He was no safer there than in the grand ravine.

  A tiny buzz caught his attention and he glanced down to the hand that was resting on his thigh. On his wrist was a mosquito. Under his hand was an old bloodstain.

  He looked at the creature carefully. It walked on the skin of his hand as if it were trying to find the sweetest spot to take his living blood. Obe could feel nothing. He brought his hand slowly up to his eyes and looked even closer at the tiny predator.

  There’s life here that has nothing to do with women or men, he thought.

  As he watched and concentrated, he felt a tingle where the mosquito finally rested. It had settled onto a spot now, and he wondered if it was even going to bite him, and if it would hurt. Then he felt the tingle intensify for the briefest of seconds, and he realized the deed was already done. But it didn’t itch or hurt at all.

  I’m blocking it out, he thought. A man can become numb to anything.

  Then that old evil side of his mind spoke up, seeming to reappear like a forgotten ghost that has just decided to once again haunt its favorite house.

  Numb? it asked. You mean like giving up on your brother?

  The thought hurt, and Obe almost groaned with displeasure. When will I be done with this other torture? he wondered. I cannot find him, and I certainly cannot help him. If I’m truly growing, it should be time I let him fend for himself and let Fate decide if we should ever meet again.

  But this was something he could not do, of course. The memory of his brother had been the glue that had held his tenuous sanity together. He could not ignore his brother’s presence on the island. He could not abandon him in his time of need.

  The mosquito’s tingle didn’t wane, and Obe looked closer, hoping to see where he and the other life form connected. And there, so tiny his concentrated eyes could barely discern it, was a long thin snout that reached directly toward and into his skin. He was amused to learn it was ringed like a raccoon’s tail. This was no memory gleaned from the past. This was a brand new bit of knowledge, something he had never known back home, and he smiled.