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“You’re lucky I wasn’t a Blisterhead. A butter knife for Christ’s sake.”

She finished chewing, and swallowed, thinking back.

“I know Jimmy, I know. I was hurt and scared and you saved me. You want a cookie?”

I sigh and place the empty can beside me. I stare at her luminescence, pierced by her eyes as if I’ve never seen, or been seen, by a woman before. My eyes fill with tears and I can’t hold back the anguish. She’s all I have. She’s all I’ve ever had.

“Baby, I’m sorry,” she says getting up and coming to me.

“What is it, why are you so upset?”

“Madison, I can’t protect you. It’s really fucked up out there. You haven’t seen anything yet. The bodies are piled everywhere. The fire and smoke, oil burning, cars overturned. The smell. It makes the musty rot down here seem like a spring shower in a flower garden. I have to toughen you up, teach you some things - how to shoot, to find your way around the city, to hide from the Blisterheads and Ethereals. They’ll skin you alive and wear your hide. Even a tribe of survivors like us would take one look at you and gang bang you in the nearest alley.”

“Jimmy...”

“No. I’ve been keeping it from you. I’ve been trying to hide the destruction and brutality, but I can’t anymore. If I leave you down here they’ll find you.”

“Okay. What do you want to do?” she asks, her gaze wide open, kneeling at my feet, her tiny hot hands on my knees. A rivulet of water runs down the far wall.

“We can’t stay here, that’s for sure. There’s no way out if we get cornered. We have to find a safer place, get supplies, and figure out how to work our way to the nearest airport.”

“Airport, what for?”

“We have to go back.”

“Back

where?”

“To the island. There’s nothing out here. We have to wipe the slate clean, but we can’t do it alone. I thought if I got out that things would be better on the mainland. It’s not, Madison. It’s so much worse. We have to be part of the rebirth, or we’ll be part of the erasure.”

“Jimmy, I don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re scaring me.”

I hold her head in my hands.

“I know. I’ll explain it all to you later. For now, we need to get supplies. We need to get you some new clothes, some boots. We need to work on our hand-to-hand, our gun skills, and staying in shape. It’s a boot camp for the apocalypse.”

4. X

She is coming, very close. Stripping off my clothes, I neatly fold them and stack them on the table. I recline in the chair and begin the process of submitting to the Mahayana meditation. The parable in my mind transforms into a complicated mathematical equation, into an intricate pattern, into a hot white light. I need to catch her past before I can transform her future.

I am in Marcy’s apartment. The windows are closed, and the stale smell is of cigarette smoke and red wine, the bureau dotted with the remnants of cocaine. I stand in the studio apartment, naked and flushed red, while the movement in the bathroom hints at an upheaval. I creep to the open door to see what she is doing, down on her knees out of sight.

The crumpled pack of Marlboro Lights sits on the bathroom sink, open, two left. She clutches the sides of the porcelain bowl and retches out the rest of her lunch. The chunks of pink salmon were not good enough. The bits of lettuce and carrots, roughage that would’ve been hell on her stomach, lone trespassers on a dry stretch of road. The diet coke with lime swirls around the partially digested remnants, while her forehead shines under the harsh lights, a sheen of exertion.

Standing up with a shake in her arms, Marcy pulls her long brown hair back into a ponytail, and fastens it with a rubber band. She straightens the pink kimono, and cinches the tie. I backtrack to the bedroom, two open French doors with lace curtains leading to a queen sized bed. The crisp, white sheets are our canvas.

She checks her hollow cheeks in the mirror, sparkle eyes and vacant earth. Glancing out to the living room the stack of bills and paychecks mock her. The answering machine flashes the number 12. Beneath the side table is a set of hand weights, 10

pounds each, dinged at the edges, like the floor beneath it. Back to the mirror her ivory skin is this month’s fashion trend.

It’ll take another year of this to get her out of hock. At least that long to get the paperwork in order and her son back. Maybe she’ll be ready by then, clean. She smiles at herself, empty.

She has been asking for me and I am here. When she enters the bedroom she stops, frozen in her tracks, her kimono clutched tightly around her emaciated frame.

“You’re

here.”

“I

am.”

“Time to go?”

“If you’re ready. You’d probably find me more desirable there. You’d be less, how should I put this...intact. Less susceptible to pain. Less aware.”

“No. I deserve everything I get.”

“Good. It’ll go much faster, it will sink in, penetrate, encase your every fibre if we do this here first. There, I have no guarantees. Of anything. Here, it’s for sure.”

“It will hurt?”

“You tell me,” he states, gesturing down to his engorged lower region.

A wisp of silk falls to the floor. The creak of a bed frame and his guttural laugh are no match for her screams. In the snow capped mountains she moves up and down, the howl of a coyote in the distance snapping her out of her state. Obsidian eyes stare out, blind as panic overwhelms her, while he plants his seed. Eden has been reborn.

5. GORDON

“Your shit will be here when you’re done.”

Zeke is the muscles half of the equation. Seems that Eddy has other things to do. Jerking off and picking his nose no doubt. I barely know where I am, disoriented and weak. Zeke’s meaty hand is shoved between my shoulder blades as I am pushed up against the door frame while he tosses my bags inside.

“This is where you’ll live. The town center? We’ll work up to that. I don’t think you’re ready for the bright lights and center stage quite yet. Personally, I don’t think you’ll ever be ready but that’s not for me to decide.”

My face is pressed against the straw and timber as he lectures me on my new existence. I don’t know what he is talking about. So much work to do. I have a gigabyte of text already filtering through my head.

“You’re probably worthless today, but I’m going to take you over to the fields anyway. I can’t have you wandering around here all day. Who knows what kind of trouble you could get into. The worse case scenario in the field is that you pass out in the corn.”

Field. I can barely stay conscious. How am I going to work on the crops?

“It’s okay Gordon, they’ll wake you up. You ever have a cattle prod shoved up your ass? That’s an eye opener for sure. I’ll tell them to set it on low since you’re a virgin and all, and have been such an ideal prisoner. I mean, citizen.”

“Thanks asshole,” I mumble.

I’m spun around and barely have time to focus on his contorted face before I get an extreme close-up of his knuckles. It feels like he hit me with a shovel, fast and complete, the pain swallowing my face as I crumple to the ground. A light show behind my eyelids gives me pause.

“Listen dickhead, you’re low man on the totem pole. You’re fresh meat, the new kid on the block. Keep your mouth shut, and do your time, and you’ll be fine. I don’t need much of an excuse to kick your ass. What you did there, we call that insubordination. It gives me grounds to smack you. So, say something else, Gordon. I’m already in a foul mood, so feel free, give me more ammunition. It’s bad enough that I have to watch Marcy work you over without any reciprocation, but now I have to listen to your lip? I don’t think so. Anything else?”

Sucking up dirt I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand, a trickle of blood clinging to my wrist. A quick intake of air, wheezing as I exhale.

“Sure. Your mother sucks cocks in hell.”

I grin. I squint into the sun waiting for the explosion. And I’m not denied. I’m not going into the fields today. He just doesn’t know it yet. As the world shuts down again and I feel the sensation of my body rising, only to be beaten down and dropped again, I scan the display.

Ezekiel “Zeke” Sanders

Domicile: Sector 4, building 121:

Six fEEt, four inches, two hundred

eighty pounds

Detail: Security

Charge: Murder, rape, armed robbery.

Maybe X could wait.

6. ASSIGNED

//

reboot

sectors 1, 6

violation: roland

code: 1221

description: moving sxsw along wayward

creek

time: violated sector 1 at 13:42 hours

status: monitor until further notice,

boot stun chip

report: x informed

violation: jacob

code: 1221

description: entered red barn premises,

mustang security violated

time: violated lockdown status, trespass

authority via marcy_298631 at 13:02

status: monitor until further notice,

boot stun chip

report: x informed

system run, additional staff:

marcy: compliant, heart rate elevated

gordon: compliant, heat status

questionable

jimmy: no signal

x: denied access

aberration:

1. anima security breached, assignment

late, location unknown, checking status

2. electromagnetic field surge, checking

source, sector 12

running system wide reboot and analysis

estimated time of completion 22:34 hours

end

//

7. ROLAND

I pull on my jeans and zip up the fly. Stuffing my shorts and t-shirt in the bag I button up the long-sleeved shirt leaving it unbuttoned half way. It’s still hot here in the shade by the creek, but at least there is less flesh exposed. Kneeling down by the creek I scoop up a handful of water and washing my face, drink from its chill. A deep breath, and momentary sigh of relief, and I must be on my way.

“Where you headed bro?” a tiny male voice chirps.

I glance around leaping to my feet, pulling my bag up, ready to take flight.

“Who’s

there?”

“Down here Roland. In the grass.”

I look down into the long, wild grasses. Sitting there on his hind legs is a fidgety, brown chipmunk. I look up and down, around, back and forth.”

“Where....what the...” I stutter, looking for the source of the voice.

“It’s me Roland,” the chipmunk chitters. “It’s okay. Don’t freak out.”

I stare at the creature. It must be the heat. I’m losing it and I’ve only just begun.

“It’s alright man. Take a breath. No fainting please, it’s okay. Dude, I’m just a talking chipmunk. Nothing too weird going on here. Like Thumper or Bambi. Just think of it as a movie. I’m here to help you. There is a meeting coming up soon and you need to be prepared.”

“Um. Okay. What?”

“My name is Raymond. I’m one of many. You know there are things happening here on the island, but you’ve been captive in the village. You haven’t ventured out. It’s okay. Most don’t. Most don’t want that burden or responsibility. You’re different.”

I sit down quickly, my head swimming.

“Look...Raymond. I need to get out of here. I don’t have time for a breakdown, so just go about your merry business, go play with your nuts or whatever it is you do. Go scare some little girl or have dinner with the dwarves. This isn’t for me.”

“I know. You’re not much of a believer. It’s okay. That’s good. I know all about Marcy, your mother. I know all about your resentment. Look at me. I haven’t always been like this. You’re not the only one to get your Wheaties pissed in. We have to go though. We need to get out of his range. I need to get that chip out.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Too much to explain. Here bend over. I’m going to ride with you. We need to make our way downstream fast, there’s a place we can rest and hide. There’s work to be done before the meeting.”

“Okay, sure, why not,” I laugh. “Not exactly what I thought would happen when I finally went insane, but sure, why not. I can use the company.”

Raymond scampers up my outstretched arm and onto

my shoulder. His tiny claws dig into my flesh but don’t piece the skin. Turning my head I gaze into his beady black eyes, and for a second there, I see oblivion. I see my reflection, pale and transparent. I see my mother straddling a naked man as she moves up and down, her body

glistening with sweat, her head tipped back in pleasure. I see a bonfire, and six people strapped to poles, blood dripping from their ears, eyes wide in terror. Then he blinks and the sinister glare turns to wide eyed amazement, to boyhood mischief and pranks done right.

“Hang on you little fucker. Here we go.”

Raymond squeaks in my ear, rubbing his tiny hands together, either planning my doom or working in some lotion. What to make of my new friend and the crack that’s expanding in my head.

CHAPTER SIX

May 12, 2024

Dusk fades into slate and darkness settles over the island as the group of damaged souls wander about in search of their futures by way of their past not quite living in the present.

Jacob collapses next to his beloved Mustang, eyes rolled up into his head as he is checking the oil and gas before his trip. Keys fall out of his hand and jingle to the dirt, a puff of dust rising as he lies there interrupted.

Marcy tumbles down the hill just outside the gate, done with her daily calisthenics, rolling to a stop against a lilac bush, her glossy skin scratched again. She glows in the disappearing sun as shadows race over her body. A sly grin clings to her face as she naps peacefully in the undergrowth.

Jimmy falls over as Madison screams his name, eyes twitching, his limbs flailing gently. She stands over him, shaking his shoulders as he lies limp in her struggling arms. There is no response.

Gordon never does make it to the fields. Immune to Zeke’s kicks and prodding his body slumps over in the tiny hut and eventually he is left alone. A guard is posted outside his door.

Roland lies by the creek in a blissful slumber under the watchful eye of the chipmunk Raymond as he shakes his tiny head side to side, spinning around in circles. They are not ready, his ever anxious jump and skitter shouts. The quiet prince reclines with hands folded beneath his head.