Gray (Book 2) (17 page)

“From age ten on. We came down from the BC Farm.”

“You’re Canadian?”

“Yes.”

“Living here for how long?”

“In the States, oh, about twenty years. I could be a citizen, if I wanted. But we don’t care about such things.”

They must all live under the radar, or at least some of them must. It’d only take one person, using a legitimate name and social security number and bank account, to buy land and pay taxes. Of course, that was pre-Event. Everybody lived under the radar now—or the radar was no longer functioning, to be more accurate. Coral realized that a person could start a life over, now. If you had survived, you could reinvent yourself. New name, new background, erase a criminal record, debts all gone. Maybe even, for a short, time, pretend to be a different sort of person, until your core personality reasserted itself.

Coral liked the old her. She hated having to pretend to be something else to these people. A month of it would break her, she feared, more completely than their attempts at brainwashing her.

They fell silent, and Coral tried to think through the escape. Food, weapon, and protection against the cold: those were the basic needs. Transportation would be nice. And, most important of all, Benjamin. She’d see him across the room at dinner. She needed to find a way to get close enough to hand him the note.

The smell of the cooking meat, when it was brought in, sent her salivary glands into overdrive. She hoped the men would leave enough for the women. She watched the men array themselves around the table. Benjamin was close to this end. Could she lurch over, pretend to fall into him, get the note to him that way?

She thought not. Too many people had their eyes on her, and the women never approached the men directly at meal time.

The women were dismissed and trooped into the kitchen. Coral racked her brain, trying to figure out a legitimate excuse to go in there. Maybe they’d need something? That never happened, and if it did, Brynn would probably take it out to them. Her mind was a blank, right up until she heard the chairs start to scrape on the floor. She looked down at her hands, still bare from doing the work of slicing vegetables. Then she had it.

She flung open the door to the dining room and rushed through. If she’d been lucky, Benjamin might have been standing, and in her path. But he wasn’t, so she tore through the front door and outside. She palmed the note to Benjamin. With the other hand, she braced herself against the outer wall, leaned over at the waist, and began to cough, trying to make the sounds of a woman on the verge of puking.

The door flew open after her. From the corner of her eye she could see Tithing emerge and pull up short. Maybe he thought she had bolted.

Coral gagged. She could taste the parsnip again.
Damn, I hope I don’t make myself vomit for real
.

Another man emerged, and a third—Jim and Benjamin.

She gave a moan and made herself gag again.
C’mon, Benjamin. Figure it out
.

He sidestepped Jim and in three long strides was by her side. “Are you okay?”

She moaned and grasped for his hand. His gloves were on. She took the paper and shoved it hard up into his glove. “Sick,” she said.

Tithing rushed over, as did Jim. The rest of the men were coming out now.

She dropped Benjamin’s hand. Had he felt the paper slide in? She had a terrible image of it falling to the ground and exposing her.

Jim tugged on Benjamin’s arm and he stepped back from her.

Tithing said, “Do you need help?”

Coral stood up and panted, as if she’d just run a race. “I think I’m going to be okay. It was a wave of nausea.”

Tithing moved closer and took her upper arm. “You’re not pregnant?”

She shook her head. “No. No chance at all.”

He glanced at Benjamin, who Jim had herded back to the knot of men by the door.

“No. We haven’t, not ever.” She wiped her hand across her lips. “I tried a bite of raw vegetable today. I think it didn’t agree with me.”

He looked relieved and angry at the same time. “You’re not supposed to eat while you cook.”

“Sorry. I’d never had parsnips, and I was curious.”

“You’ve paid for it, I suppose.”

She tried to look both contrite and nauseated. Inside, she was celebrating getting the note into Benjamin’s hands.

Now she was committed to the escape. In four nights, she’d be more than ready to leave this place behind, let it fade into the bad memories of all the other post-Event encounters.

She was sent to her cabin without supper, with a sour-faced Brynn as a guard. Not having thought through her plan or this possible consequence, she was frustrated that she missed a meal as a result. She almost regretted it when she had to watch Brynn eat her own dinner from a plate on her lap.

But Benjamin had the note. It was worth skipping a meal for that.

That night, after lights out, she was hungry and she was excited, so sleep did not come easily. The benefit to that was that she was awake when the others were asleep. Brynn was snoring softly. Coral crawled from her cot, padded to the blanket door, pushed through, pushed back in, and listened. Neither of them woke. On her way back to bed, in the dark, she stumbled against the cot, and it squeaked. She froze. But still, neither of her cabin mates moved. Not so much as a hitch interrupted Brynn’s snore.

I can do this. This escape is going to happen.
If they could keep ahead of pursuit, they might survive their captivity here. She was still buzzed from the thought of it, but she needed her rest, too. They’d likely have to stay up all that night of the escape, so she had to get rest now, so she would be thinking straight tomorrow.

* * *

The next morning, Coral hoped to catch sight of Benjamin, but the men were gone from the compound by the time the women had cleaned up after breakfast. Brynn let her go out alone with Polly to care for the animals.

She hoped that meant they were letting down their guard, coming to trust her a bit.

“Have you always liked animals?” she asked Polly as they walked along.

“I guess. They seem to like me,” said the girl.

“Then you must like them. Don’t animals know when people don’t?”

“I guess.”

What a strange child, Coral thought. Wouldn’t most girls that age dote on pets? Even if these were farm animals, it seemed strange that Polly sounded so distant about them.

The girl said, “I’ll milk. You pour the donkey’s feed.”

Coral had snatched a small carrot this morning in the kitchen and took it from her pocket, looking behind to make sure Polly wasn’t watching. She removed her glove, put the carrot on her palm and let Jubilee eat it. He seemed to enjoy it, and when he was done, he nudged her, no doubt wanting another. “Sorry, sweetie,” she whispered to it. “But I can get you some nice straw.”

She pulled more out of the bale they’d used yesterday, set it into the blue plastic tub that was its donkey-bowl, or whatever they called it. Trough? Maybe those were only for water. Coral really didn’t know much about farms.

“Check the water,” Polly said. She was untying the white goat after its milking. It danced away again and went to nuzzle its friend.

Coral jumped when the donkey brayed at them. “Crap, he’s loud!”

“That wasn’t even a loud one. You should hear him when he gets mad.”

She wondered about taking him for transportation in the escape. Would the animal bray and give them away when they tried to sneak off? She should rethink this part of the plan.

Damn, but that she didn’t miss Benjamin. They were so good together that way, talking through options, bouncing ideas back and forth. She missed him in a lot of other ways, too. He was her only real connection in this new world. Was he doing okay? Were they treating him well? She’d seen no bruises on him, and he moved okay, so at least they weren’t beating him. But what about abuses she couldn’t see? She hoped he was okay.

There were only a couple inches of water in the trough. It had frozen solid. Yesterday, they had to crack the ice on top of the trough full of water. Polly had said she did it morning and night. Coral said, “Out of water.”

“Okay, so we’ll have to haul more. It’ll be faster if we carry four buckets at a time. Can you handle two?”

“I think so.”

When they had retrieved the buckets from the main cabin, they walked to the spring.

“Do you miss your family?” asked Coral.

“I have a family, here.”

“I know what you mean. Benjamin and I are family, too.” She hoped the girl might really get that. If someone here could see them as real humans, with feelings and rights and goals of their own, maybe—

“And I’ll have my own family soon,” said Polly. “Babies, and a husband. You can too, with Alva.”

They had reached the spring. Polly grabbed the pipe they used to crack the ice. Coral’s steps slowed while she worked out what the girl had just said. “Wait. You mean, they’re going to make
you
marry one of the men?”

“Next full moon. Probably same as you.”

Coral felt lightheaded. “Polly, you’re twelve years old.”

“Almost thirteen.”

“They can’t do this to you!”

“Nobody is doing anything
to
me.”

“But....” She tried to think of how to say it right, say it in a way the girl could understand. She knew it wouldn’t be enough, but she tried to explain. “It’s wrong. It’s morally wrong.”

“In the olden days, girls got married as soon as she started her menses,” Polly said, horrifyingly matter-of-fact. She banged on the ice crust over the spring.

Coral moved closer and touched the girl’s arm. “It’s not the olden days. It’s illegal.”

“There are no laws now. And there never were that we cared about.”

“They can’t make you.” Her hand was reaching out, beseeching the girl. “We can stop them.”

“They aren’t making me. Don’t you get it?”

“I get that it’s wrong.”

“It’s as it should be. The Reaping has come. I need to help gather the Seeds.”

Coral wanted to scream in frustration. How could she make this poor brainwashed girl understand? “Aren’t you worried it will hurt?”

“What?”

“Sex. Childbirth. Your body isn’t even fully grown.”

“It’s grown enough to bleed. It’s grown enough to Seed.”

Was that one of their commandments or something? A happy child-abuse rhyme? “Which one of them?” she asked.

“Pratt,” said Polly. “He claimed me two years ago.”

“You mean he had sex with you?”

“No. We don’t have sex before marriage. He said he wanted me, and Tithing approved.”

“But he’s mean.”

“He’s okay,” she said. “Good looking. Not old, like Tithing or Jim.”

Coral cast around desperately for an argument that would sway the girl. “Why do you have to have sex at all? Can the Seed just, just...jump into you somehow?”

“That’s not how it works.”

No, it wouldn’t, of course. It’d work for the benefit of the men. Sick goddamned pedophiles. Crazy cult people!

For a brief moment, Coral thought about taking Polly with them. Her imagination saw the three of them, the girl riding the donkey, her and Benjamin walking beside, Benjamin’s rifle miraculously restored to him. They were laughing, in her image, and no one was chasing them. The picture popped like a soap bubble when Polly spoke.

“I’m excited to be married. Get your buckets,” she said.

Numb with the shock of this news, Coral bent down and filled two buckets with spring water. If she had a rifle herself, she’d walk into the dining room tonight and shoot the men, one by one. She was that angry over this news. She looked over at the girl. Her face, half-covered with a mask, was calm. Polly truly didn’t care that she was being made to breed with a grown man.

Coral stood and watched Polly fill her buckets, thinking, if this whole alien thing were true, they aren’t good aliens. If they exist, they’re evil ones, allowing this. Anyone with the IQ of a tree frog could see it. What happened to people that they became so unspeakably stupid in the presence of a belief system? Why didn’t one of them wake up one day and say, “Hey, you know? Rape is a bad thing, and raping children is even worse.”

The two of them said nothing as they carried the water back and put it into the animals’ troughs. It took six trips to fill both containers. “By evening,” Polly said, “it’ll be frosted over again.”

Coral said nothing.

“I know you’re thinking about my marriage.”

“And mine,” Coral said. “And I’m none too happy about either.”

“Mine’s not your business. And you could do worse than Alva.”

That, at least, seemed to be the truth. “At least promise me you’ll tell someone if he hits you or brutalizes you.”

“We’ll be in the couple-house. I wouldn’t need to tell anyone. They’d stop it. But he won’t.”

Coral was not terribly reassured by this. In fact, she couldn’t help imagining the wedding night, with six witnesses to Polly’s deflowering. She wondered if the other men would be getting off on it—or the women, for that matter.