LIFERS Chapter Twenty One
By sabital
- 255 reads
Martinsville
Seventy years previous
Alice could do no more than look on as Harold slipped from her grip and fell for a second time. She called after him over and over, only to have her words fade into the distance. She gripped a fistful of wet grass and leaned from the hillside to the extent her balance would allow but couldn’t see where he’d landed. She pulled herself back and lifted her head to look over the tree tops in the direction of Martinsville, and somewhere among those trees she heard them, people shouting, dogs barking. It wouldn’t be long before they reached the clearing by the creek and then Hal. Reluctant as she was to leave him and go on alone, Alice had her own safety to consider and made for Tarboro Ridge.
She found the climb hard, with loose rocks and wet ground making it non-the-easier. Her mind forced her to climb, to reach, to grab, to pull herself higher. Exhausted, and ready to give up, she saw Tarboro Ridge only fifteen feet above. She could make it; she could crest the ridge and hide in one of the shallow caves. She looked back one last time in the hope she’d see Hal catching up, but that wasn’t to be.
When she managed the top she ran as fast as her aching limbs would allow; her dress, her arms, her legs, her face, all paid the price as she pushed on through hawthorn, spiky black locust and bramble to get to the one cave she knew would be safe. When they played hide go seek up there as children, Hal could never find her and she’d win every game. It wasn’t a deep cave, just big enough for two of Alice, but its entrance was hidden by thick bush. Once inside she curled into a tight ball, and there she’d wait until it rained again before moving on, however long that might take.
She had every intention of staying awake and alert during her stay in the cave, but the terrain used in escaping Martinsville had left her so tired she couldn’t manage either of those. She slept, and in that sleep she dreamed of running alone through pounding rain into the clearing by the creek, the dogs still hot on her trail. She started across the water and pushed herself along on legs she found harder to raise with every step she took. She looked to see them buried knee-deep in mud and tried to fight her way free, but the more she struggled the thicker it became and the stronger its hold on her. The noise of the dogs came from every direction, behind, before, above, and even below.
Half an instant later all was silent; the mud receeded like fallen leaves on an autumn breeze and the cool, clear water of the creek ran over her feet once again. The raindrops had ceased in mid-fall, like transparent pearls suspended in the air. She turned on the balls of bare feet and looked to the heavens which only seconds before were thunderous and storm-sieged, but now bathed her in warm sunlight. She felt safe, her world once more tranquil.
Then a twig-snap underfoot rocked that tranquillity. Alice spun to the trees, saw Hal, his hand held out to her, beckoning her to join him. She smiled, moved toward him, then looked beyond where he stood, looked deeper into the woods, and there she saw them; small, deep-red, and blinking, first two, then four, then hundreds.
A shockwave of thunder shifted the air and the rain began to fall once more, its drops as big as apples as they beat the earth at her feet. Alice turned and again she ran, again she climbed for the ridge, and again she entered her small cave. But this time only managed the entrance before she felt powerful jaws clamp down on her foot. She woke with a jolt and struck her head on the cave’s low ceiling. Dazed, and with fading vision, the last thing she saw was Zach Jackson sending in one of his dogs.
Alice regained consciousness to find she’d been taken back to Martinsville and locked in her bedroom. She stroked the small depression at the base of her skull but there was no trace of an injection. What she discovered elsewhere were bruised inner thighs, missing underwear, and blood encrusted pubic hair. Monique DuPont had followed the rules and allowed Martins into her room, and although she had no recollection of the rape, she knew if pregnancy was the outcome, inside ten weeks he would abort the foetus he’d seeded for use in his research.
Alice put her own misery aside as her thoughts turned to Hal; if she hadn’t made it, she doubted very much he would have fared better. Her return, though unusual, was for one reason only, and that reason was the life thatcould be growing inside her now. But what did they do with Hal? Did they leave him out there? Did the dogs get to him first? Did he even survive his fall?
It was four days later when Alice heard of her brother’s fate. Monique had passed on the message that he’d found his way back and since been locked in one of the cells in the stationroom. The fact that he was alive brought relief, but the fact he was allowed to return -even under his own steam- was nothing short of unprecedented, and the fact that Monique had been told to relay that message to her –though she wouldn’t say from whom- means someone in Martinsville had to be overriding the rules, and it had to be someone whose actions would go unchallenged.
Since her recapture, Alice would undergo a daily routine of dipping one of her fingers into a cup of water, and it wasn’t until the sixth day that the water had any affect on her. But that shouldn’t have happened; not if she hadn’t been turned. How could she suffer the consequences of an injection she’d never had? But she did suffer the consequencies, and there could be only one reason why.
After one month Hal still hadn’t been released and Alice found she was indeed pregnant, and as the routine for breeders works, she’d been moved inside the town hall on the upper floor and locked in one of the small rooms, and there she would stay until her time had come. A daily ration of blood was brought to her and two other girls who were in the same situation as she. The blood had been taken from cattle and tasted worse than she expected it to taste, but she had to ingest it if she wanted to live.
During the evenings and sometimes through the night, Alice would hear Ella checking on the other two girls, one on either side of her room. Helen in the room to her left, also sixteen, was six weeks pregnant. Sarah, the girl on her right, was eighteen and this was her second pregnancy, she was seven weeks gone. Their conversations were short and to the point. How are you? Are you eating? Are you sleeping? But Alice she talked to.
‘Is there anything you need?’
‘How’s Hal? What’s going to happen to him?’
‘It’s still being decided. Now is there anything you need?’
‘A candle,’ Alice said. ‘I need a candle so I can see when I need to get up in the night.’
And that was granted.
Another month went by before Alice found out that Hal was again trusted and allowed to work on the extra tunnels needed to connect key points of the town. She was happy about that, because in two weeks it would be her turn to be taken from there, and the day after that, she be free to see Hal again. But it was only a week later that she woke to hear someone going through keys outside her door. Helen’s and Sarah’s pregnancies had already reached term and they were taken three and four days ago, and now two new girls had their rooms, so it wasn’t them the keys rattled for.
She heard the key enter the lock, heard it twist, heard it click, then stepped back as the door swung open, and in the dim yellow glow coming from the three candles she’d accumulated; she saw the scarred face of her brother.
She threw her arms around him and for many long seconds nothing was said between them until Hal held her at arm’s length. Alice reached out, stroked his face. His skin felt rough, like the bark of a tree.
He touched her stomach. ‘At least I only had to suffer an injection,’ he said.
Alice’s head snapped up. ‘They injected you?’
‘Yes, out in Bones Creek. You weren’t injected?’
She held her finger up. ‘No,’ she said, ‘but I still burn.
‘How?’
‘Because we were born this way,’ she told him. ‘We didn’t have to be injected, we’ve always been like them, but it took time to show.’
‘So why inject me?’
‘Because someone here knows who we really are, and that someone was able to stop it from happening to me. But out there at Bones Creek nobody knew who you were, nobody cared.’ She closed the gap between them, held his face in both hands. ‘But we’re together now, and you know how much I care, how much I love you.’
He stepped back. ‘Stop it, I’m only here to free you.’
Alice frowned. ‘How did you get the keys?’
‘From a friend.’
‘Which friend?’
‘It doesn't matter which friend.’
‘It was Ella, wasn’t it?’
‘What?’
‘It was Ella who gave you the keys. She’s the one who’s been watching over us, helping us.’
‘Like I said, it doesn’t matter who. All that matters is that you get away from here before they come for you.’
She raised her voice. ‘Just me, you’re not coming?’
‘No, and stop shouting, you’ll wake the other girls.’
‘Why can’t we both go?’
‘Because my instructions are to stay and make sure no one follows you.’
She grabbed his hand. ‘I’m not leaving without you,’ she said, then pointed. ‘No one out there will know us; we can say the baby’s ours.’
‘We can’t be together in the way you want, Alice,' he said, pulling his hand back. 'Can’t you see how wrong that would be?’
‘And is this what you want, the two of us never to see each other again?’
‘No, but it’s something I have to accept, and you do, too. Now grab a blanket and follow me.’
Alice did as asked and Hal closed and locked the door to her room before they went down the stairs. They dropped into the main tunnel where Hal led the way to one of the newer tunnels leading to the dog kennels. Alice could then go along their original route over Tarboro Ridge and on to freedom.
Once they reached the kennels, Alice forced him to look at her. ‘Come with me,’ she said. ‘I left you behind once before at Bones Creek, I don’t want to leave you again. I need you, Hal, I love you.’
‘No, Alice,’ he insisted. ‘I love you because you’re my sister, but I can’t love you any other way.’ He pulled a book from under his coat. ‘Take this with you.’
‘What is it?’
‘It will help the outsiders understand you, and if there’s someone smart enough out there, someone like Martins, maybe they can save you. Now go, don’t look back, and promise me you’ll never return to this place or even speak its name.’
She felt him give her a gentle push; she nodded her promise, turned, and ran.
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