Man Hunt (17 page)

Obe stirred and felt the thick throb from his nose immediately. His face was on the graveled asphalt of the alley. In the nearby horizon he saw Rein stirring from his own long break from consciousness. He sat slowly up and saw Leb to his other side, still sitting on his bucket, simply watching. Obe shook his head in more confusion and turned back. Under the elevated crate, there were still three men straining their arms and necks at a descending satchel of food. His absence from the turmoil had been brief.

The bag lowered a little more and all three men jumped. Two hands grabbed it, and it easily slid off the blunted hook. All three men instantly fought. Eventually one pulled the prize to his stomach and swallowed it with his arms and torso. The other two pawed at his hands and fingers until one of them noticed another bag getting closer. Then they both gave up and the victor– a bald man with stubby arms– made his escape. As he passed by, Obe leaned away from him and saw there was a nasty scratch over one of his eyebrows.

Obe made it to his feet and approached the remaining scrum, determined to get the next– the last?– satchel of food. Rein, he noticed, was also on his feet and moving. The last two men under the crate were already fighting one another for the valuable space under one more sinking satchel, wrestling on the concrete like homeless dogs.

As Obe approached, he felt himself zoning into his running high. Each step closer brought him deeper in. He saw which of the men was winning the fight and grabbed him by the back of the jumpsuit. With a great heave he threw the man clumsily away, hoping he'd hit his head and fall unconscious. He kicked the other man as hard as he could in the thigh. The man screamed. Obe didn't care. He wanted to be the only one standing when that bag arrived. He kicked the downed man again and glanced upwards. The bag was halfway down. Just a few more seconds.

Rein had backed off, allowing Obe to take command of that space.
Thank God,
Obe thought.

The man beneath him grabbed Obe's ankle with two strong hands and pulled hard. Obe lurched but did not go down. He yanked twice before freeing his leg, then swung it forward, kicking the man's shoulder.

A hand landed on his own shoulder, and Obe whirled around, elbow first, and connected solidly with Rein's jaw. As Rein stumbled backward, the man Obe had tossed aside came running back, head down and shoulder first. Obe caught him in the gut and the two flew backwards, falling onto the other downed man.

Abruptly all three were in a tangled mess. Obe saw an ankle and a forearm and he hit them both with his only free hand. Then Rein jumped onto them all, snarling as he flew through the air. His outstretched hand landed palm-first into Obe's cheek. A fresh blast of pain screamed from his nose. More white light threatened to knock him out, but adrenaline kept him conscious. Somebody else was beating his back with both fists. Now the four of them rolled and punched and clawed.

Obe felt a hand scratching at his chest, which meant nothing until the zipper on his jumpsuit was suddenly yanked opened and the hand reached inside toward his sneakers. The sleeve of the intruder's jumpsuit had slid back in the process and Obe saw a flash of rows of tiny scars.
An elder!?
he thought wildly. Then the hand found the toe of one sneaker and he felt that same panic-driven invasion he'd had from the crazy man in black earlier that morning.

He screamed, beating at the intruding hand with all his might. The hand jerked and nearly pulled the sneaker free. Obe yelled again, grabbed the arm with both hands and bit down on the inside forearm near the elbow with his front teeth. Skin broke. Muscle ripped. Hot blood pulsed into his mouth.

A wild scream from someone in pain. Music to Obe's ears. The hand dropped the sneaker and tried to pull away. But Obe held his teeth firm like a fighting bulldog. Finally, with one monstrous shake and tug, the arm pulled itself free and a small chunk of flesh came off in Obe's mouth. For one crazy second, the nourishment of real protein taunted him. Then revulsion hit him and he spat out the chunk, suddenly drained of the will to fight any longer.

When he rolled over, Obe saw an amazing thing. A satchel of food was right there in front of him, only a few feet from the ground and still dropping. He wriggled forward as far as he could and reached out a hand, but someone scrambled over him, dug a knee into his lower back and pushed his face to the ground. He turned his head at the last second, saving his nose yet another impact, but his cheek was raked painfully across the asphalt. He grabbed the ankle of whoever had crawled over him and held tight. He was then lurched from the other two fighting men one heave at a time.

It was then Leb appeared. He casually jogged into view and snatched the unattended bag of food from the hook. The plan was so obvious now that Obe saw it in action. Not even the first few men, the small group who had been pushed around, or the two who had fought for their food together had gotten their food with such ease. Obe was suddenly furious and he released the ankle he was holding and watched that man scrambled after Leb. Leb saw the danger just in time and sprung sideways to avoid being tackled. Then he was fleeing from the alley with a single pursuer in tow.

The fight on top of Obe's legs suddenly stopped and one man ran after Leb and his assailant. The last man stayed back, obviously too worn for any more abuse.

It was Rein who still lay at Obe's feet. They were bruised and battered alike, bleeding from numerous places. They had lost, both of them, rookie and veteran alike.

Obe looked up in the hopes of just one more bag, but the crate above was already moving back onto the roof. The cloud he'd seen earlier was still there. The frenzy of grocery day in blue sector hadn't even lasted long enough for the wind to whisk it away.

As his vision wavered, Obe

like probe!

realized the cloud had no picture in it at all. It was nothing more than a dark, gray, floating glob of mush.

INTERLUDE

Far out from the island, miles and miles from any shoreline, the empty ocean sang a song of patience.

The song went unheard, but not unwelcomed.

It went unknown, but not unloved.

It went unappreciated, but not unneeded.

It was a song that has been sung since the beginning of it all.

Since the beginning of time itself.

It is still a song that is sung with purest beauty.

It is still a song that sounds like conjured miracles.

~

Nighttime followed by daytime.

Repeat.

Brilliant moonlight followed by scorching sunlight.

Repeat.

Then repeat again.

In those leagues and leagues of vacant seas, time passes with exceeding slowness. Seconds tick by like hours. Days pause and linger, unable to progress to their brethren, the nights.

But this is merely an initial perception. An interpretation of sameness that bores all but the most patient, the most serene, into a submission of immobility.

Eventually, the ocean learns.

And when the sameness becomes large enough, when it is only the black and blue skies that become an instrument of change, it is then that the ocean's perception speeds up.

It blinks instead of waits.

It palpitates the days and nights like a flutter of butterfly wings.

FLASH! and another hot day leaves an imprint.

FREEZE! and the frigid night steals the stage.

FLASH!

And then FREEZE!

FLASH!

And FREEZE!

Over and over with relentless patience it continues. It has been thus for time out of mind. It shall be thus for all time moving forward.

This is the song the sea sings.

This is the chorus no one hears.

~

On the water there are always reflections.

The day reflects the thousand sparkling expressions of the angry sun of old and the million puzzled depictions of newborn clouds on the gradient blue sky.

The night reflects the thousand moody likenesses of the jagged crescent moon and the billion speckled patches of stars on their canvas of tar.

But the water doesn't reflect upon itself. It doesn't wonder how large it is or how deep. It doesn't ponder on the different worlds that it touches. It only sits, resting in its vast valley, its home.

The water accepts, impassively, whatever it is given.

Disengaged seaweed, raucously skimming boats, pearlescent shimmering chemicals… or even a simple scrawled message inside a simple, corked bottle.

To the undulating waves, each has an identical fingerprint.

They are mere things.

They cannot hold the magic and beauty of the sun, the moon, the clouds, or the stars.

Nothing so brief could be of any true consequence.

Those that sink are swallowed and forgotten.

Those that power themselves are tolerated and perhaps scorned.

And those that simply float are at the mercy of the waves and the wind.

Time will someday tell their fates.

But time is patient, and so is the sea.

~

The Pacific Ocean is deep. Leagues deep. And within these great depths is a fortitude of life that is yet to be fully comprehended.

A mile down.

Two miles down.

More.

The single and multi-celled beings within it continue to eat and swim and die. They always will.

But far above them, alone on the topmost forgotten inches, was once a small thing not alive yet filled with the very stuff of purest life.

The very beauty of the reflecting cosmos.

It was a small thing floating at the mercy of the waves, subjected to the incessant flash and freeze of day and night chasing each other for all eternity.

It was a thing filled and somehow overflowing with simple hope.

It floated helplessly, dipping and bobbing to the swells and foamy whitecaps while another day flashed by, while another moon waxed or waned.

Its age was infant, and its character was pain.

Its vision was deliverance, and its meaning was trust.

Its name was message, and its beauty was love.

Yet what else could such a thing be? What could better represent romance than a corked bottle stuffed with a message of truth?

~

The Pacific Ocean is wide. Realms wide. And beyond the edges of its domain are worlds as different from each other as from the life within its depths.

The thick glass bottle which once floated somewhere on the ocean's skin came from a tiny world of torture and death.

A world where men were ruled by women and where courage and consternation were sometimes synonymous.

The bottle floated between this world and others, never knowing when

or where

or even if

it would eventually land.

~

The Pacific Ocean is patient. Eons patient. And before that patience dies whole societies shall come and go.

Male and female beasts of unseen genetics, of unseen makeups, of unseen perceptions will emerge and expire.

Will live and die.

Will breed and evolve.

Will record and forget.

On this measureless empty ocean, a desperate message in an angelic bottle might be decades old before it is actually found.

It might need regimes to mature for it to be finally understood.

It might be in a language so lost its author will never be known.

Will only be prey.

Will already be dead.

Will always be forgotten.

Such a bottle, such a message, may never find the shores of salvation at all.

It may even wander that ocean membrane for all eternity above the deepest abyss until the very seas have dropped and drained and dried. It may come finally to rest not on a peaceable shore but on the edge of a towering cliff.

A cliff very much like the one from which it may have once been thrown.

But if it is lucky enough,

if it is patient enough,

if it is beautiful enough,

it just might become a miracle.

CHAPTER 9

When Steph joined the two women in green down the neighboring corridor, Josie felt abandoned. She needed her friend just then, but there was much work to be done. Meanwhile, Steph's partner in blue, Laura, had been assigned to assist Josie and Rachael with the lavatory duties. This was always how it had been. The blue squad was always split up to help the other two squads. It was designed so a blue girl could one day aid the less-experienced green squad girls, and on the following day learn from those who were already more experienced.

Laura opened the first two knee-high doors at the far end of Josie's corridor and stepped back. She and Rachael both held shotguns. The numbers 51 and 76 were painted neatly on the doors. Rhonda, wearing white and with her hands on her hips, stood at the intersection of the two corridors so she could watch both.

A chinking sound preceded the man who crawled out of door number 76. He pushed the empty, tin food bowl in front of him and slid it against the wall beside the door. From door number 51 opposite him, another man was emerging, also on his hands and knees, also pushing a tin bowl. Both men were as naked as the day they were born.

They soon waited in the middle of the corridor. Their hands and feet were chained at the wrists and ankles, and a third chain connecting these was kept purposely short, forcing the men to hunch over. Their wrists and ankles were raw from the heavy shackles.

Man #76 sported a wild, uneven, full beard and moustache. Dark circles were under his eyes, and he stared directly at the boots of Rachael, his nearest woman. The other man was newer to the island. His facial hair was less than an inch long, and while his eyes were far from lucid they had yet to develop the deep seed of despair that all the men eventually earned.

"Did you dirty your box?" The question was directed at both men. A dual 'no' was the reply. Rachael checked the box on her side to be sure man #76 had not been lying, and Laura checked the other. Satisfied, the women nodded to each other. "Alright then. Go."

Instantly both men scrambled to their feet and were hobbling down the corridor. Rachael and Laura followed them, shotguns in hand but fingers far from the twin triggers, while Josie readied the fire hose.

Man #51 arrived first and dashed through the open door. He positioned himself over a grated hole in the floor and began urinating into it. Man #76 went directly to another grated hole, squatted over it, and tried to defecate. Urine poured out of him and pooled around his left foot, which he did not move.

Josie pointed the hose and opened the valve halfway. A blast of frigid water slammed man #51 in the middle of the back, knocking him off balance and slamming him face-first against the wall. He turned, sputtering, and Laura tossed a bucket of hot soapy water directly into his face. The suds went into his open eyes.

Josie stared stoically ahead. The aggression that had been so suddenly restored in Monica's office was receding just as quickly. It wasn't her true self. She and Steph had both come to realize that the island took things too far. But they felt trapped now, almost as much prisoner as the men themselves.

She uttered a silent apology to the man. She didn't want to hurt him, but doing so was now as much a part of her life as breathing. The man didn't react to the water or the soap. Being abused was a part of his life.

And what crime did he commit?
Josie's stubborn mind asked. The question came to her in Monica's voice, and for an instant her anger returned.

She answered the question in her own voice.
It doesn't matter. He doesn't deserve this. There are courts and laws for criminals, and for your information what this man did was unkind but not illegal. Not everyone here is a rapist. What he deserves is counseling, not torture.

The Monica-voice countered almost without hearing.
Do you remember the cavewoman?
it asked.

Josie thought again of those days when she was being actively recruited herself. In the crisis center, a huge black woman smiled widely at her.
Hello dear,
she had said.
I'm Monica. I believe we talked on the phone?
Little sixteen-year-old Josie had nodded, still afraid to give away her name. But Monica hadn't asked her name that day. Instead she'd simply asked her to sit down and then pointed to a cute little cartoon mounted on the wall.

It was a single frame of a comic strip from the Sunday paper. Josie recognized the comic, though she'd never seen this particular drawing. It was of a caveman proudly dragging his chosen woman by the hair. A thick club dangled from his other hand, and a dinosaur peered from above a nearby boulder. What Monica had pointed out, however, and the detail that Josie conjured up now, wasn't the caveman's look of arrogance, the dinosaur's hungry grin, or even the volcano spouting black ash in the distant background. It was the look of uncaring patience on the face of the cavewoman. It showed she was complacent in her given role. As happy there as anywhere else in life.

This image
, Monica had explained,
is as true as any woman lets it be. To ignore a man's faults is the greatest fault a woman can have. Equal, in fact, to the man's. You can't let this boyfriend of yours let you beat yourself down too. You need to show him you're stronger than he is. You need to show him you will
not
accept his abuse.

From that day forward, though Josie hadn't yet known about Monroe's Island, she had begun learning about her own role in retaining control of her life. On her third visit to the crisis center, she had met Steph and had instantly taken it upon herself to help the younger, more-recently battered girl.

As she held the flow of water on the back of man #51, Josie cringed internally at the force and painfully cold temperature with which it blasted him. But the caveman comic had done its trick, and she forced herself to remember who man #51 really was.

Though Josie hadn't personally recruited him, she knew him well. All the trainers knew every man well. This one's real name was Anthony, and he'd been married with two children before being seduced by Laura four months ago. His 'crime' had been two-fold. First, he had been an alcoholic. The angry kind. And he had constantly berated his wife and children whenever he drank, though he had never beaten any of them. This was information Laura had correctly suspected upon her first visit to the bar he frequented. Listening and watching was all it usually took, and Laura was a fine recruiter. The full truth of his abuse had been confirmed when he'd been broken here on the island. Anthony would now and forever be known as 'Ik'.

Josie thought all of this in the few seconds she held the hose at his back before turning it to the other man. Then her damned mind repeated the entire torturous process with man #76. William was his name, or 'Blut'. When the force of water hit him, Blut held himself up, though Josie could see he was having trouble defecating.

Then the image of Charles suddenly came again– that backhanded slap across her face this time– and she opened the valve a little further.
Blut and Ik are assholes, too,
she told herself
.
And if they didn't rape and beat exactly like Charles had, it was probably only a matter of circumstance.

Blut's crime had been that he was a womanizer, simple and pure. A bachelor who thought he was God's gift to women, and who threw them aside as soon as he bored of their willingness to pleasure him. Josie wished she could aim for his testicles but settled for his sensitive inner thigh instead. She smiled when he winced, but the joy didn't last. In moments she was feeling as guilty as ever and wishing she had the courage, the strength, that Steph thought she had.

This turmoil of conflicting emotions had been battering her mind for months. For years. And she was becoming weary, so weary, of the whole thing. She wished she could just commit to one side or the other and be done with the whole internal debate. But every time she made up her mind to give in, to just acquiesce and join the ranks of Gertrude's sheeply minions, her conscience first chirped then shouted that this wasn't right, wasn't fair, and that she should
do
something about it.

But what to do? That was the million dollar question. What could she, lowly pawn that she was, exactly
do
? The answer, of course, sent her back to the herd of sheep, following complacently. Sent her back to the happy, beaten cavewoman, back to the commoner flower girl who didn't know she was being visually defiled, back to the sad clown that had slowly lost its caring for spreading joy. Only Steph had ever helped give her hope.

She turned the cold force of water from one man to another, pausing a few seconds on each. When she remembered Gertrude would get a report about her situation, her anger flared some more and she purposely aimed the water at the men's heads.

"Time!" Rachael yelled from behind her. Josie turned the water off and man #51 turned and scurried out the door. Large red blotches had already started swelling on his skin where the water had hit him directly. Man #76, however, was still squatting and straining to finish defecating. "Come on jackass! Now!" Rachael yelled. The man looked up. Terror was on his face, in his eyes. Without even completing his half-finished need, he stood as erect as the chains would allow and waddled out of the lavatory. Rachael clocked him in the middle of his back with the butt of her shotgun as he passed.

The two men were escorted by shotgun back to boxes 51 and 76. They crawled inside, and the freezer-style doors were slammed shut behind them. If they were lucky, it would be the only time out of their boxes that day. Next, doors 52 and 77 were opened, and the routine began again.

The six trainers continued this way in both corridors at a steady pace. Sometimes, Rhonda would take over one of the guard positions, and once or twice in the past Josie had seen her take a hose. Today, she simply wandered back and forth from one corridor to the other, encouraging the other women positively or helping to threaten any trouble-making men.

When all the men had gone, more than an hour had elapsed. While Josie wrapped up the hose and squeegeed the lavatory floor, the others collected the tin bowls for tomorrow's meal. Rhonda waited for all six trainers to gather around her office area before handing out short lists of their day's assignments.

The lists contained a few numbers like 35 or 66 and a brief description of the job that needed to be done. Most of these were merely one or two words. The meanings behind them all had been memorized long ago.

Josie looked at her list. Today, it had only three numbers. That meant lengthy time with at least one of them. The descriptions confirmed this instinct. Number 18 was scheduled for three jobs, not just one: Device Implementation, Water Torture, and Crowding. This one had been fighting hard and was still unbroken. It looked like Rhonda was making it his day.

The other two on her list were fairly simple. One had Continued E.M. Training, and the other had Device Implementation. These were both standard jobs. The Continued E.M. Training didn't even require much work. All Josie had to do was sporadically check in on the man right there in his box, listen for a second to the repeated recording that was always emanating through the small speakers in the corner, and ask the man his name. Undoubtedly he'd answer whatever the recording had been telling him for the last few days, but this was not what Josie listened for. She listened for conviction in his voice, any sign that he was beginning to believe it.

She noticed that number 80 was not on her list. It was a relief. He was the one slated to get his Emotional Marker Introduction today. Watching a man struggle through speaking his new name with conviction– and recording the long, repetitious process, of course– had always been a favorite job of Rachael's, and Josie suspected Rhonda had assigned it to her.

"Before you begin today, girls, we all have to pitch in to let number 21 out of solitary. And when I say 'we', I mean 'you.' I'm not going near the filthy bastard. Have fun. When you're done, let me know. I'll be filing." That Rhonda hated filth was common knowledge. In fact, Solitary Confinement was the only job she refused to do because of the stench alone. None of the women liked it.

"You're always filing, Rhonda," one of the green women said.

"Yeah," her partner joined in, smiling. "Why don't you get out from behind that computer and help us? You always say it's less work with more people."

"Nice try, girls," Rhonda said, "but it won't work. You know how I feel about solitary. I wouldn't use it at all if it weren't so damned effective. Now get along."

Rhonda walked away from the small group and back to her office area. The six women were left to look at one another. Josie and Steph found each other's eyes and a thousand messages transferred between them, but the only one that mattered was 'Keep your nose clean.' Finally, Rachael broke the silence.

"C'mon, girls. The sooner we get started, the sooner we'll be done." She walked toward the left-hand corridor briskly. When the parade of women reached the end of the corridor, they turned right and into the very dark back half of the training area. Josie and Steph were at the back of the pack, but neither of them said a single word. As it always had been, for the rest of the day they would each be on her own.