Apocalypsis: Book 3 (Exodus) (27 page)

I looked up at Bodo, and he was hanging from the column, his upper body leaning forward.  I swore I could hear him snoring lightly.

“He’s going to be pretty hard to … uh … do things with in his current state.”

She looked over her shoulder, sighing aloud.  “Yeah.  We might have gone a little overboard with our happy drugs.  But they’ll wear off.”  She turned back to me.  “So unless you want to trade your other friend for him, I’m going to have to decline your offer of taking Bodo away.”  She smiled.  “He’s pretty fun, though.  I can see why you’d want to keep him.”

I was getting cranky over the way she was talking about him.  “He’s not a piece of property, Kiersten.  He’s a man, and a good one.  And he’s
mine
, besides, as in
my boyfriend
.  I’m not going to take no for an answer.”  I schooled my mind and body to remain non-threatening.  I couldn’t let her see me as a challenge for her power.  She might be all peace and love and harmony in theory, but she’d found a way to make friends with vicious canners and lived to tell about it.  The only way that happened was by sheer cunning.  Kiersten was no one to mess with.

“Unless you have another offer, you hold the losing hand here,” she said, turning to leave us and walk back to the stairs.

“Wait!” yelled Winky from behind me.  She came up beside me and whispered, “We do have something else to trade.”

“What?  Bikes?”

“No, stupid.”  She lifted up her bundle.  “The baby!”  She grinned at me expectantly.

I looked at her, aghast at what she was suggesting.  “Do you honestly think I’d turn over a baby so it could be molested by a bunch of man-chicks?!”

Winky reached over the baby and punched me.  “Shut up, you deviant!  They wouldn’t molest him.”  She shook her head.  “Damn, Bryn, sometimes you’re so thick.  I’m talking about giving them the baby to replace the one they lost!”  She gestured with her chin at Kiersten who was waiting near the bottom of the steps.

I held up my hand towards her, asking her to give us a minute.

“Are you serious?” I whispered back.  “Is that … I don’t know, even legal?”

“Legal?  Bryn, if you don’t stop that crap, I swear to all-that-is-holy, I am going to slap you right in the face.  There are no laws here.  There are no rules.  We are making this junk up as we go along.”

I pinched her on the shoulder.  “I
know
that, mean girl.  I’m just saying, isn’t that kind of bad mothering?  To hand over your baby for a trade?”

Winky frowned at me.  “I ain’t this baby’s mother, and neither are you.”

“Yeah, but we took responsibility for it when we murdered it.”

Kiersten had come up to stand behind me, overhearing my last statement.

“You murdered a baby?”

I turned and fake laughed.  “Heh, heh … yes and no.”

She stood there, waiting for me to explain.

“So okay, here’s the deal.  We were at the canner place, looking for Bodo.  And we met this girl there, the Queen of the canners, and she had this baby here.”  I gestured to the bundle that I suddenly noticed was seriously ripe-smelling with baby doodles.  “And she asked us to kill it by cutting off its head with an axe.  She was obviously off her rocker, so we pretended to kill the baby and then took it from her.”

“Yeah,” said Winky.  “And now we have this thing with no diapers, no milk or whatever, and we have no clue how to take care of it.  So, it’s probably going to die.  So what do you say we trade this baby here for Bodo?  That’s a good idea, right?  Little baby for big baby?”

Kiersten tilted her head to the side, thinking.  We all stood with baited breath, like we were in a courtroom waiting for the jury to announce the verdict in a murder trial.

She looked over her shoulder and yelled, “Melody!  Get out here!  I know you’re standing right there!”

Melody came flying down the stairs, obviously having been listening at the door just out of sight.  She arrived five seconds later, breathless, wisps of her blond hair stuck to the sides her face with sweat.  “I’m here,” she said, nearly choking with happiness.  “You’re going to let me hold it?  Ohmygod, ohmygod, ohmygod … thank you, Kiers.  I promise I’ll give it back in just one minute.  One minute is all I need,” she said, holding out her shaking hands.  She was bouncing up on her toes, her expression one of pure rapture.

Kiersten nodded at Winky.

Winky reached behind her to detach the cloth that she had wrapped around her and the baby to keep it secure.  She ducked her head and pulled the cloth over to release the bundle from her front completely, gently handing it over to Melody. 

Tears were streaming down Melody’s face by the time she had her arms around him.  “Oh, my dear sweet baby boy … you are
so,
so beautiful,” she said, moving the blanket aside to expose his puffy baby cheeks.

“He stinks pretty bad,” said Winky, screwing up her nose.  “I wouldn’t get too close if I were you.”

Melody’s eyes never left the baby and never lost their soft and gentle tone.  “He just needs a little diaper change, that’s all.  He’s a little angel, stinkies or no stinkies.”  She leaned down and put her nose to his forehead, inhaling deeply.  She hiccuped a small sob.  “Oh, God … there’s nothing like the smell of a baby’s head.  Nothing in this rotten world could
ever
take away that bit of heaven.”

I had no idea what she was talking about, since the only smell I was getting from him would never be called heaven in my book.  But I wasn’t going to be the one to burst her baby-worshipping bubble.

I looked at Kiersten, trying to gauge her reaction to the whole thing.

She was crying silently behind her sister, but when she saw me watching her, she moved quickly to wipe her face.  She walked up to stand by Melody’s side.

“Babe.  Look at me.”

Melody shook her head, crying for real now, no longer happy.  “No.  I know you’re going to tell me to give him back, and I know I have to, but just let me hold him for a little while longer. 
Please.” 
Her shoulders hunched over the baby in what appeared to be a protective move.

The baby started to mewl and that was all it took to start all four of us cry along with her.

The anger and the fear and the dire straits of the moment kind of fell away as I stared at Melody, listening to her weep.  My heart was breaking for this poor girl.  She was the youngest mother I’d ever known, and she’d lost her baby.  Our parents and grandparents and neighbors and friends had been cruelly taken from us, leaving us here all alone, scared and broken.  I could see now how a baby might feel like a new, fresh beginning - the embodiment of hope.  And then to have that hope stolen away when it died … it was too much to contemplate.  I reached up and rubbed Melody’s back in sympathy, begging her big sister with my eyes to take the deal.

“You don’t have to give him back if you don’t want,” Kiersten said in a trembling voice.  “They’ve offered to trade him for Bodo.”

Melody cried harder, pulling the baby up and burying her face next to his.  “I want to, but I can’t,” she said, her voice muffled.  She lifted her head.  “I know what it’s like to lose a baby.  I won’t let you do this to yourself,” she said to Winky, extending the baby out away from her now, trying to give him back.  She looked over at her sister.  “See?  I said I’d give him back.  I just needed to feel him in my arms for a minute and smell him once.”  She looked down at her chest, which now had two wet circles on it.

“I think he peed on you,” I said.

“That’s not pee,” she said, softly.  “That’s milk.  When I heard him cry, it started flowing.”

“Whoooaaa,” said Winky, her arms not moving, remaining at her sides.  “That’s kind of … gross and cool at the same time.”

Melody smiled briefly and then squared her shoulders, standing up straight.  “They’ll dry up soon.  Just take him.  Really.  I’ll be okay.”

Winky shook her head and took a step back.  “Hell to-the-no.  I don’t want that baby.  It’s not mine.”

Melody frowned.  “Whose is it?”

“They said it belongs to the cannibal girl,” said her sister.

“Who? 
Brittney?”

“Yeah.”

“You guys know her?” asked Rob, coming over to join us.

“Yeah.  She went to the same school as us, back in the day,” said Kiersten.  “Mean girl.  Totally vicious.”

“Nothing’s changed there,” said Winky, her words loaded with meaning.  “She made us chop this baby’s head off, so I’m pretty sure he’s better off with you.”

Melody pulled the baby back into her chest, gently tugging the blanket back to examine his neck.  “You seem to have missed,” she said, studying his face closely and smiling absently.  She looked mesmerized, unable to tear her eyes away from his.  He stared back up at her, no longer fussing, one little hand escaping to wave around.  She took it in hers and gently kissed his tiny fingers, one at a time.

“We just pretended to kill him,” Winky explained.  “The blood on the blanket isn’t his.  So essentially, we rescued him from a mentally deranged killer, and you need to keep him safe here so she doesn’t come after him.”

Kiersten nudged her sister.  “So what do you think?  Are you okay with taking in a cannibal baby?”

Melody’s face lifted quickly and she glared at her sister.  “Don’t you
dare
say that about him. 
All
babies are innocent.  We are
not
our parents!”

“God, I hope so,” breathed out Kiersten.  She looked at me, nodding her head.  “We accept your deal.  You can have Bodo, so long as you leave the baby with us and release any claim on him.”

“Done,” I said without hesitation, holding out my hand so she could shake it.  Winky put hers on top of ours and so did Melody.  We moved our hands up and down in tandem, all of us smiling.

“Sorry we kind of overdid it with Bodo.  He’s going to be a little bit hard to move for a while,” Kiersten said, smirking.

“How long?” asked Rob.

“A few hours?  So why don’t you stay and have some food with us.  You can go when he can walk.”  She looked at each of us and added, “I promise you’ll be safe.  No one will mess with you while you’re here.  You get a free pass today.”

I looked at the others and they nodded.  I wanted to get the hell out of there, worrying that if we stuck around they might change their minds.  But Bodo couldn’t even stay awake, and I had a feeling he’d collapse to the ground if he were released from his bonds, so I agreed to stay.

“Sure.  We’ll leave in a few hours.  But, uhhh, not to offend you or anything … but we don’t eat, you know … people.”

“Neither do we.  But I hope you don’t have issues with vegetables, because we’re mostly vegetarians here.”

“Mostly?” asked Winky.

“We eat an occasional dog or fish if we can catch it, but only enough to keep our strength up.”

I swallowed hard, thinking of poor Buster less than two miles away.  “Yeah, I’ll pass on the dog, but vegetables sound good to me.”

Kiersten gestured towards the fire, yelling out to the girls.  “The festival has now officially begun.  Bring the food and Alejandro.  Let’s celebrate our new addition!”  She gestured to the baby bundle and Melody held him up, smiling from ear to ear.

The girls started whooping for joy, several of them running up the stairs to do their leader’s bidding and the rest coming to swarm around Melody and her adopted offspring.

I spared a moment to look at the new mom again; she had quieted the baby’s newest fit by giving him her breast, and the look of utter rapture and calm on her face made me almost jealous.

I left her to run up the stairs to Bodo, reaching his side in seconds.

***

I could hear all kinds of things happening around me, but all I could think about was Bodo.  He was passed out, or appeared to be - hung over with his head dropping down to his chest.  I put my hands on either side of his face to lift it up.

He jerked his head out of my grasp and struggled hard against the ropes holding him for a moment until his eyes focused and he realized it was me.

“Ooooh, hey dare, Bryn.  Is dat really you?”  He squinted his eyes and shook his head a little.

“Yeah, it’s me.”  I was grinning like an idiot.  I couldn’t help it.

“You look happy,” he said, smiling back for a moment.  Then his smile turned into a frown.  “Are you with dem now?  Are you going to rape me, too?”

I laughed, grabbing him into a bone-crushing hug.  “No, you idiot.  I’m here to rescue your stupid butt.”

“Oh, dat’s a relief,” he said over my shoulder.  “You are here to rescue da meat.”

I backed off my hug to look at him.  His head was up but still bobbing a bit.

“Meat?” I asked.  “They weren’t planning to eat you, Bodo.  You know that, right?”

“Man meat.  Dey want me to be da man meat.  Not for eating but for da sexy time.  Dat’s what dey said.  But Bryn, I see dat I really don’t like to be a piece of man meat at all.  Dat’s a problem for me.  It’s a bigk problem.”

I hugged him again, patting and rubbing his back, trying not to giggle.  “Yeah, I understand.  I wouldn’t like being treated like meat either.”

“Man meat.  It’s
man
meat.”

“Yeah, sure.  Man meat.”

Alejandro had been released and wandered over to join us.  “Hi, Bryn.  I’m Alejandro, as you already know.”

I let Bodo go so I could shake his hand.  It was warm and dry, very unlike Bodo’s clammy skin.

“You don’t look very drugged-out compared to Bodo.”

“Oh, I’m not.  Not at all.  I’m stone-cold sober, actually.”

I lifted my eyebrows, waiting for an explanation.

“Don’t look at me like that.  I’ve got an awesome gig here.”  He looked out and gestured to the fire and the people gathered around it.  “I’ve got twenty-odd women worshipping the ground I walk on, any number of them wanting to have sex with me at all hours of the day.  They feed me, keep me clothed, protect me from the crazies … it’s different than before, but hey … it ain’t all bad.”  He grinned.

“Man meat!” burst out Bodo, slurring his words.  “Dat’s all you are.  Man meat.”  His head flopped down again.

“What’d they give Bodo?” I asked.