Man Hunt (15 page)

Two staircases later Josie reached the basement landing and opened the door. Awaiting her on the other side was the longest, emptiest hallway in the fortress. Down here, there were no windows and only four doors. Five widely-spaced, dangling 40-watt bulbs were the only source of illumination.

She walked the long hall the same as she always had: quickly, and unaware that she was holding her breath. Men were on the other side of those blank walls. Lots of men in uncomfortably small rooms or running like dogs on high-speed treadmills. Josie's subconscious feared that one day some strong man who had not yet been broken would come bursting through the wall into the dark hallway and attack her without any restraints to hold him back. And he would be filled with rage, ready to die if only to take out just one woman on his way.

She finally neared the door to the training area, about to lift her hand to the doorknob, when she suddenly stopped walking, not wanting to proceed. She listened to the clanking of metal on the other side. It was the sound of the other trainers giving the men, all 186 of them, their daily meal of slop and stale bread. She could hear the squeaks of mail slots being lifted, the scrapes of metal bowls being taken off the cart and slipped through to a greedy waiting hand within, and the clank of the slots closing again.

When she had left Monica's office not two minutes ago, Josie was eager to walk through that door and spill as much food as she could. She had been looking forward to lavatory time. Then the true training afterward would seem like a dream come true. Now, however, she once again doubted her aggression. At Monica's expense, she swore and forced herself to think of Charles, sweating and grunting above her. Then, before more trouble could begin in her mind, she opened the door and walked in.

Rhonda heard the door close and saw Josie. She then looked to the clock on the wall.

"You're late," Rhonda said.

"Gertrude had me see Monica," Josie explained. Rhonda humphed.

"I didn't know anything about it."

"She just assigned it this morning."

Rhonda was satisfied with this answer, though secretly she wondered how bad the incident with the GOPHER must have been if Gertrude had been so distracted as to not mention this information. "You owe me twenty minutes. Do you want to do it late today or early tomorrow?"

Josie suppressed the smile that tried to follow the warm flow that filled her. She had been thirty minutes late, not twenty, and it was well known the trainers were to make up any missed time, regardless of the reason, on the same day. They were not supposed to be given a choice. It was a secret bond Rhonda shared with her girls that the headwomen and Monica still know nothing about.

"If you don't mind, I think I'll be able to help you much more by coming in early tomorrow."

"That's fine. You might as well get the lavatory ready. The others are almost done serving meals." Josie let a smile slip through as she walked away, but Rhonda held hers back until Josie was gone.

Josie walked past Steph and food cart she was working from to the far end of the corridor. Steph followed her and leaned against the wall while Josie opened the door to the bathroom, letting in welcomed sunlight from the small, high windows just above ground level.

"You're late," Steph said. "Rhonda's going to make you do extra time." Josie gave her a mock look of horror and the two smiled at each other. "How'd it go with Dirty Gertie?" Steph finished.

"Bad," Josie answered. "Gertrude had me see Monica. Emergency session. You're so lucky to still be with Lorraine."

"Oh, come on. She can't be
that
bad."

"She is. Every month it seems to get worse." Josie lugged a bright yellow fire hose from a recess in the wall and began straightening its kinks. "Go on… guess what it was this time."

Steph nearly shouted when she replied.  "Did she find out you cheat on your chest exercises?!" Josie wheeled around, too shocked to hide the look of bewilderment and anger on her face. But when she saw Steph smiling mischievously and then realized no one else had been close enough to overhear, she relaxed and returned the smile.

"Jesus, Steph. You nearly gave me a heart attack!"

"Yeah, yeah. Whatever. What was it really?"

Josie eyed her best friend, wishing she could say something witty. Instead, she just complained.

"I couldn't remember
exactly
how many men we have in holding. Can you believe it? She didn't even give me a chance to think about it, and on top of that she made it sound like I had no idea whatsoever. One eighty-four… one eighty-six … who the hell
cares
? It doesn't make a difference!"

"Oh, that
is
ridiculous."

Josie lowered her voice. "And Rachael didn't help any. She was right there with the snappy answer and the pompous attitude."

"She's just covering her own ass, Josie. Besides, you know she's hoping to get second-in-command when Lucy leaves."

"I know, I know. It's just that… it made me look even worse and got me that session with Monica." She paused and stared at the hose in her hands. Then she stepped to the bathroom door and checked both adjoining halls to make sure there was still nobody within ear shot.  Then she whispered, "
I'm in real trouble, Steph.
"

"
What do you mean?
" Steph whispered back, suddenly serious. "
What happened?
"

Josie's eyes continued to flick left and right before settling on Steph. "
She knows,
" was all Josie said.

Steph's mouth began to slowly gape open.  "
Knows what?
" she asked.

Josie shrugged helplessly and shook her head. "
Everything.
"

Steph stared back wide-eyed before putting a hand on Josie's shoulder.

"It'll… be ok. We'll get through this."

"I don't know. Maybe not this time." She continued staring at the industrial hose in her hand. Its off-yellow textured surface suddenly reminded her of snake skin. She'd never noticed that before. "Don't worry," she finally said, looking back up to Steph. "I didn't mention you. You're safe. At least for now." But Steph's eyes didn't soften as Josie had expected. Didn't show a single sign of the relief which should have been washing over her.

Steph looked quickly down the two hallways and pulled Josie deeper inside the bathroom.  "That's… not necessarily true," she said. Josie stared back, trying not to feel the mountain of rocks pile on top of her that she knew was coming. "She already knows about me, too. She dragged it out of me last week. I'm so sorry. I was going to tell you, but…" she trailed off, unable to finish.

"Shit," Josie said. "So
that's
how she knew. I thought she was just pulling another of her mind-reading tricks.

"Are you mad?" Steph asked. The look on her eyes was now laced with a touch of fear, and Josie realized that despite their equal time on the island, there was obvious reason Josie had advanced to the black squad and Steph hadn't.

"No. Of course not," Josie said. "I just… oh, Steph, what are we going to do?"

"I dunno," Steph said. Her voice was low. Humbled. "Keep our noses clean, that's for sure. Other than that, I just don't know. They could send us home, you know. Lorraine didn't give me official warning when Monica told her, but she implied that one more slip up and she would."

"Why didn't you tell me about any of this?"

"I was…" Steph kicked at the hose and her voice dropped another decibel. "Scared, I guess. Embarrassed. I
wanted
to tell you. Was working up the nerve. But I didn't want to burden you with any more responsibilities than you already have. I've seen what working for Gertrude has been doing to you." For a moment she looked like she was going to say something else, and Josie gave her the chance. After a long moment that bordered and then passed awkwardness, she pushed the hose away with her toe and said, "Besides… I'm trying to be stronger. Like you. I figured you'd be able to handle it on your own, so I should too."

Josie smiled. This was the Steph she loved so much. Still, she couldn't shake the feeling that this hadn't been Steph's original thought. There was something else she had wanted to say.
Later,
she told herself.
Maybe tonight or during her guard duty later this week. She's not ready right now. Not here. God, what the hell else is going on in this place?

Aloud, she said, "Girl, you give me too much credit. I was bawling like a baby upstairs. Monica made me relive what happened with Charles."

"Oh, God, I'm so sorry."

"Ah, it's okay. Probably good to get it out. I never really dealt with it like that before. I mean, I cried a lot after it happened, but that was to myself. It's not the same thing. I hate admitting it, but it was good to get it out with someone else there, even if it had to be Monica."

"LAVATORY!"

Rhonda's shout, always loud but today somehow exceptionally so, caught both women off guard. Steph jumped and Josie nearly dropped the fire hose. That yell came once a day right after mealtime.

In moments some men's muffled voices started groaning their disappointment. Others started pleading to hurry up.

"Back to work," Steph said, and helped Josie unkink the last giant knot in the hose. Josie wanted to compare notes with Steph to find out exactly which details she'd divulged to Monica, but she supposed it didn't matter. The damage was already done.

Lucy reached into the cup holder of the black Ford Mustang and pulled out a small plastic box with a single gray button on it. She looked around to make sure she was alone and, satisfied, pressed it. A second later a motor started churning and pulling at the chains of the garage door she was idling in front of. With the door opened, she drove inside and pressed the button again.

Normally she and the other hunters would have had to continue in complete darkness. Conserving the output of the island's eight generators was a necessity. Monica couldn't afford to purchase more gas just because they all wanted a little more convenience. The gas priority, after all, was for driving the cars.

But today Lucy had come late and alone, and the hatch to the roof was already open. It shone a beam of sunlight down the ladder. The rest of the empty warehouse was now slightly illuminated. She got out of the car and left her bat on the driver's seat.

When her head breached the opening, her eyes were branded by the noon sun. The loud stir of men coming up over the edge of the building told her the feeding had already begun, but many men were still there. She hadn't missed too much.

"Lucy!" Emma shrieked. "Where the hell have you been? You're missing the feeding. Someone just got thrown against the wall. It was wonderful! Earned an eight point five!"

"I had to do more bullshit legwork for Dirty Gertie. And I'm not done." She looked at Sherry. "I need to talk to both of you then. Christ, I can't
wait
to get out of this place."

"Relax girl," a woman wearing a blue shirt said. "You'll be outta here in no time. What is it now, five weeks? Four?"

"Sharon, my love, it's a mere
twenty-five days
."

"Ooo! Counting by
days
now, are we?" Sharon said. "That
is
exciting. Come on over here and help me load bags. Who knows? It might be your last chance."

Lucy approached the side of the roof and leaned over the edge to have a look. Just then a thin young man was elbowed in the face. She called attention to it and the others quickly leaned over the edge to watch. A few moments later the same man was kicked in the face and he dropped to unconsciousness instantly.

"Like a stone!" Emma cried.

"Like a swooning woman!" topped Sherry.

"Oh, dearie me," Sharon mimicked. She held the back of her hand to her forehead, batted her eyelids, and voiced an excellent impression of a classic Southern Belle. "I cain't
imaigine
whut's come ova' me. It
must
be this Su'thun heat. Ohhhh!" When she slumped slowly to the floor the other girls all laughed again.

As they all watched for more carnage, Lucy thought about her approaching departure and frowned.

"I swear I'm going to tell her off once and for all when I go," she said aloud to whomever was listening. "I'm too old for this shit anymore."

"You better be sure you have that cash in hand when you do," said another woman holding a fishing rod over the edge of the building.

"Yeah, and a head start, too," added Emma.

"You'd be better off with a gun," Sherry suggested while digging her hand into a bag of food.

"Speaking of guns, did you girls hear that shotgun blast earlier? I was with Monica when we heard it. She went on and on about omens. I can only imagine what Gertrude must be thinking. I don't want any major shit happening on my way out." She stopped to notice the other five women holding back laughter. "What?" she said, and then their guffaws came. Emma's shriek easily topped the rest.

"Well, worry no further, girl. Your 'bad omen' is sitting right over there." Lucy followed Sharon's pointing finger. What Lucy saw was the remains of one of the burlap bags of food. The fruit and drink inside had exploded all over the roof. The bag itself was shredded, useless. Lucy started to reciprocate the now infectious laughter even though she was confused.

"What the hell happened?" she asked through her chuckles.

"Sherry let off some steam," Sharon told her. "Emma picked up that bag and told her she should imagine it was Dirty Gertie's head. Told her to give it a good kick in the face. The next thing you know, Emma's knocked to the ground covered in water and apple chunks, and Sherry's holding a gun smoking from both barrels!"

"Made me shit my pants!"
Emma bellowed through gales of laughter. Now Lucy was caught in the moment and let her own true laugh pour out. It was clear and pure and beautiful.

Sherry had turned red with embarrassment and laughed the quietest of all. Soon, however, the joke had lost its flavor and the women turned their attention back to the men below. There were only a handful of bags left in the crate, and those last few always promised a good show.

"So, what did Dirty Gertie want from you this time?" Emma asked, offering a stolen apple.

Lucy took it, but didn't answer right away. "Sherry?" she finally asked.

"Yes?" Sherry answered, biting into an apple of her own.

"I'm sorry, hon, but Gertrude had me set up an appointment with Monica for you. It's tomorrow, just after lunch."

"What? Shit! Just because I was trying to be nice to her? That's not fair! What the hell is wrong with her? Lorraine never would have done this!" In her protest she had thrown the partially eaten apple to the ground. There it joined the ranks of the many discarded plastic bottles, orange rinds, banana peels, and rotting apple cores.

"I suspect," Lucy said, "it was because you let yourself get flustered in front of her. You can't show emotions like that to Gertrude."

"
See
, Sherry," Emma jumped in. "I told you she was all-business. You wanted to treat her like one of us, but I told you it would just cause trouble."

"Emma," Lucy said. But Emma kept going.

"Now you've got to go sit with Monica because of it, and all you had to do was listen to me. I told you yesterday when you brought this up that–"

"Emma!" Lucy was suddenly stern, and Emma stopped. "Lay off her."

"But I'm just trying to help her out."

"Not now. Not like this. Gertrude says to lay off." The name brought instant silence and the women quickly busied themselves over the last few bags of food.

"So, Erin," Emma said to the youngest woman in blue. "Has Monica ever gotten you to cry?"

"Are you kidding?" Erin said. "Who hasn't cried in that ugly office?"

"O.K. Fair enough," Emma continued. She noticed that Lucy was eying her closely, but she continued nevertheless. "But what I meant was if she's ever forced you to talk about… well, about whatever some man did to you back on the mainland. Has she?"

"No. Not yet. But I've heard the tales. I'm afraid I might disappoint her, though. I wasn't raped. My story isn't even sexual."

"Really?" Sharon and Lucy asked at the same time. "You're lucky," Sharon finished for the two of them.

"You really think so?" Erin continued. "My dad used to beat up my mom and me. He loved my brother, though. All-star quarterback. You can't compete with that."

"God, men are pigs," Sharon said. "Just look at them down there. With all their pride in that little 'family' of theirs, they can't even organize a fair way to divvy out bags of food. Pathetic."

They watched in relative silence as the last bags were lowered. An excellent fight broke out when the second-to-the-last bag went down, and all the women cheered. In the end, one man fled with the prize and two more chased him. The final two lay panting, both fully beaten.

"Well, there's only one left," Erin said. "Anyone hungry?"

"I'll take it," Sherry said. "I only had two bites of my apple." The other women began to smile. Making any excuse to prevent the men from getting the final bag had become standard procedure. "I might want a
snack
later," she said with all the innocence she could muster.

The others smiled wider and she caught the incoming bag with a swift, strong hand, and tore open the drawstring tie. She pulled the apple from its middle and bit into it, looking over the edge again. At first she saw nothing she hadn't seen before. The last few men always sat on the ground nursing their wounds. Then, she looked a little closer and lit up. "Shit,
he's
the one we chased in there!" she yelled, pointing.

"What?" Emma and Lucy said together. They all peered over the edge.

"That's him, alright," Lucy said. She was using the binoculars they always kept down in the warehouse.

"Fucker should be run over right where he lays," Emma said. "Lucy, you want me to take him out?"

Lucy slowly lowered the binoculars and looked down at the two remaining men without speaking. Neither Emma nor Sherry nor any of the blue squad girls said a thing. This was considered official Cause business. "No," she finally said. "I told Gertrude about what happened. He's her problem now."

"Oh, shit," Emma nearly gasped. "Did she freak?"

"Yeah," Lucy said. And that was all. The lingering silence was thick with anxiety.

"That's it?" Sherry finally said. "What do you mean, 'Yeah'? What
happened,
for God's sake
?
Give us the goods!"

"Like I said, she freaked." Then, seeing that all the girls, not just Sherry, were eyeing her with increased bewilderment, she added, "If I told you more, you'd lose respect for me." She paused. "No, actually, I think you'd lose even more respect for
her
. And The Cause can't afford that. Gertrude is nuts, I'll give you that, but in matters of The Cause she knows what she's doing." She was speaking mostly to Sherry, of course, but a little reinforcement for Emma and the others didn't hurt.

"No," she went on. "We don't take him out. Gertrude is aware of him, and we don't want to cross her. He'll get what he deserves." Then she stood up and looked back at her two companions, the women with whom she would spend the majority of her final twenty five days on the island. "Where's he going to go?" They all smiled at that. Another perpetual joke making its serviceable rounds. "But I took a hell of a bitching because of that fucker, so I'm still taking my revenge."

"Alright, here we
go
!" Emma nearly yelled. "What's the plan?"

"Short String," Lucy said. "Simple, but effective. Who's joining me?"

"I can't," Sharon said. "It's time for my routine."

"Me too," Erin said, clearly upset.

"Me three," said Vicky, the third blue hunter.

"Blow it off!" Emma suggested.

"Yeah, right. Like you'd blow off Gertrude's schedule."

"Dirty Gertie is different," Emma began. But the three women in the blue shirts were already leaving.

"Sorry, Lucy. Maybe next time. We'll see you Wednesday."

As the other women began their descent into the cavernous building below, Lucy prepared the final bag and leaned over the edge. She saw that the two men were stirring, perhaps getting ready to leave, and yelled loud enough to be heard.

"Hey, Sherry! Look at what we've got here!" The men, predictably, looked up.

"Well, well, well," Sherry said loudly, joining in. "Isn't that interesting. The two douches who fought the hardest lost out. How tragic. How utterly fucking pathetic. LOSERS!"

"LOSERS!" Emma echoed. The light in her eyes that was always present whenever she laughed her signature cackle was beginning to grow.

"Hey, Sherry!" Lucy yelled.

"Yes, Lucy?"

"What do you say we give these poor souls a break?"

"Why, whatever do you mean?" All three women were giggling now.

"Well, I just so happen to have one more bag of food here!"

"You don't say!"

"Yes, indeed I do! And I was just thinking we could give it to them!"

"Oh, Lucy," Sherry cooed. "You
are
such a dear. How
ever
did you turn out to be such an
angel
?"

"Just luck, I guess! Here you go boys!" And without further warning she tossed the bag over the edge of the roof. One of the men– in fact, it was their GOPHER– was instantly on his feet, scrambling to the area where it was headed. Fifteen feet from the ground the bag jerked in mid-air, restrained by the thick fishing line attached to it. The three women howled at the look of shock and disappointment on the GOPHER'S face. Sherry held onto the newly recovered fishing pole. A knot that had been tied into the line was wrapped around a short piece of red yarn that now dangled only one inch from the end of the pole. This marker kept every bag out of reach.

"Sorry chump!" Emma shrieked. "We're all out of line!"

"Yeah, see if you can jump for it, pig!" Sherry added. The three women laughed again and peered over the edge.

The man looked like he was summoning the courage to give them all the finger.
But he won't do it.
Lucy thought. 
No, he wouldn't dare.

Lucy saw it start before the others, but soon they all were watching the inevitable ending take place. The other man, clearly the veteran of the two, snuck up behind their victim and used a double-fisted hammer to slam the GOPHER in the back of the head.