The Last Girl
Authors: Joe Hart
Tags: #Mystery; Thriller & Suspense, #Mystery, #Hard-Boiled, #Women Sleuths, #Thrillers & Suspense, #Crime, #Spies & Politics, #Conspiracies, #Suspense, #Science Fiction & Fantasy, #Science Fiction, #Adventure, #Thrillers, #Dystopian
ALSO BY JOE HART
NOVELS
Lineage
Singularity
EverFall
The River Is Dark
The Waiting
Widow Town
Cruel World
NOVELLAS
Leave the Living
The Exorcism of Sara May
SHORT STORY COLLECTIONS
Midnight Paths: A Collection of Dark Horror
SHORT STORIES
“The Line Unseen”
“The Edge of Life”
“Outpost”
“And The Sea Called Her Name”
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Text copyright © 2016 by Joe Hart
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Thomas & Mercer, Seattle
Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Thomas & Mercer are trademarks of
Amazon.com
, Inc., or its affiliates.
ISBN-13: 9781503952089
ISBN-10: 1503952088
Cover design by M.S. Corley
To my wife, my mother, my daughter, and my sister, the strongest women I know.
CONTENTS
The savage in man is never quite eradicated.
—
Henry David Thoreau
BEFORE . . .
“As of today we don’t have any solid factual data or numbers to speak of concerning the phenomena. We are working tirelessly with the World Health Organization as well as the Attorney General’s office. Everyone can rest assured that we will issue a statement soon, and in the meantime we’re doing everything we can to identify the cause.”
—Cameron West, United States Secretary of Health and Human Services, January 2017
“I think what most people are missing is the fact that this isn’t a localized event. This is global, and it happened overnight. To my knowledge no one—not a scientist, not a government official, and not a single news source—has come up with a satisfying explanation for what’s happening.”
—Ramona Chandler, independent journalist for The Underground, May 2017
“The National Obstetric Alliance that was formed early last year has made significant progress in determining the cause of the so-called ‘drought of female births.’ I can honestly say that we are on the verge of understanding the origin of this occurrence, and we implore the American people as well as citizens throughout the world to remain calm and strong in the face of this unprecedented challenge. An answer is very near.”
—Benson Andrews, 45th President of the United States of America, February 2018
NT: In your opinion, what truly caused the uprising in Harrisburg?
FW: (draws on cigarette) Limits.
NT: Limits?
FW: Yeah, limits. Everyone has theirs, you know? When the induction into NOA’s research program went from voluntary to mandatory, that’s what did it. It pushed people past their limits. This is America, for God’s sake, the land of the free. But suddenly we’re being told that all women who’ve given birth to baby girls in the last five years have to report to one of NOA’s reception complexes, or else? (shakes his head) No way. No way were people going to put up with that.
Listen, I’ve heard stories of armed raiding groups taking entire families from their beds at night. There is a woman in New York who said her eight-month-old daughter was taken from her crib and that a government official contacted her the next morning warning her not to take action. And then of course there was the Divinity cult that Senator Jesperson was associated with in Texas that was exterminating newborn boys in its membership. They thought that this was all God’s work, and if they kept killing male infants the females would start being born again. I mean, this doesn’t sound like the United States at all, at least not the one that I’m familiar with.
NT: There hasn’t been a female birthrate report released in over six months now. The last one put the percentage at one in one hundred thousand. Would you say that’s correct?
FW: (laughs) Are you kidding? One in a hundred thousand? Try one in ten million. That’s the last statistic I saw before resigning, and by all accounts it was getting worse. I wouldn’t be surprised if the new data shows one in a hundred million. When the masses start to realize what’s happening, there’s going to be war.
NT: You predict there will be more uprisings like in Pennsylvania?
FW: Slaughter. Call it what it was. A slaughter of American citizens by their government. And yes, this is only the beginning.
—Excerpt from NewsTime interview with Foster White, former Undersecretary to the Attorney General’s office, ten days before his disappearance, June 2018
“The rebellion’s a tide, just like whatever the hell happened to the baby girls. You can’t stop it.”
—Anonymous rebel soldier, November 2018
No women
No babies
No hope
—Graffiti on the Washington Monument, December 2018
AFTER . . .
1
A flash of light against her closed eyelids brings Zoey up out of the limbo between sleep and waking.
If she could stay there, in between dreams and reality, she would, but there is no use trying. She stands, stretching her arms above her head, feeling the coldness of the concrete floor begin to leach the heat she’s gathered while sleeping. A hint of sickness roils in the base of her stomach. Her slippers are under the bed, and she puts them on before moving to the window.
It rained again in the night. A few streaks made it past the stark overhang that juts above the unbreakable glass, staining its exterior in slashes of transparent scars. The concrete beyond the window is dark gray, moist but already drying into pooled splotches dotting the promenade that circles the building. Beyond the walkway’s gap is the curving wall that stretches up and nearly out of sight from her third-floor view. Atop the wall, a sniper shifts in his nest, readjusting himself to a more comfortable position, his rifle scope a bright wink of light as he turns. A flash like that is what woke her. She wonders if sometimes they look in the women’s windows, trying to catch sight of them changing, perhaps. It is forbidden, but the thought of the possibility lingers like a bad dream.
Zoey swallows, placing her hands against the glass that’s as cold as the concrete floor. Her breath fogs the area in front of her face, and she draws a circle there. Inside the circle she makes seven dots with the tip of her finger, one for each of the remaining women, then swipes the last dot away. Tomorrow, only six.
She turns from the glass, surveying the room. The softness of her bed is incongruent with the rest of the space. There are no gentle lines anywhere else. Everything is ninety-degree angles and harsh edges. The corners of the small desk bolted to the wall. The solid steel door leading into the tiny bathroom—no lock on it, of course. The windows to the outside shaped in a T, breaking the drabness of the room by letting in the gray light of day. Everything sharp and unforgiving.
The shower is hot, the water the only thing that’s ever warm except for Lee’s hands. Zoey recalls the times he’s touched her back, so discreetly, always at a perfect angle to avoid the cameras. She thinks of his face, the freckles sprinkled across his nose and cheeks like the constellations in the sky at night. The thought of his smile creates a warmth that blooms inside her and grows with the fantasy of his hands on her skin, teasing, caressing. She stiffens with the memory of what is to come today, and the flame inside her cools.
She tugs at the rubber bracelet around her wrist, washing beneath it with soap because at times it can begin to smell of sweat. It gives only enough for her to get a single finger beneath it. She’s pulled on it before, hard, and knows there are wires hidden within the rubber casing that assist whatever mechanism unlocks the door to her room when entering, but there is no scanner on the inside that allows her to leave.
Zoey steps from the tiny shower and dries herself on one of the towels that she’s folded countless times. She brushes her teeth, scrubbing away the sour taste and replacing it with the bitter tang of something that’s supposed to be mint but isn’t. She knows what mint tastes like, from the chewing gum she’s not supposed to have.
She wipes the steam from the small mirror over the sink and sighs. Her hair. What to do with it? “Unmanageable” is a kind term for the long, dark curls that seem to have a mind of their own. She tries sweeping it to one side and securing it with a thin clasp, but it pulls free and dangles over her face almost immediately. She frowns, changing tactics, and draws it straight back, tightening it into a ponytail before winding an elastic tie around it. She gives herself a last look and leaves the bathroom.
Zoey dresses in rough cotton pants the color of the early morning light, then pulls on a shapeless top, which hangs down to her narrow hips. She’s given up looking in the mirror in the bathroom in regards to her clothing. There are only two styles to choose from. She has one on and knows she’ll wear the other later that day.
A tremble runs through her that ends in her center and curls there, making the slight nausea she woke with worsen. She tries not to look at the digital calendar above her desk but does anyway. It’s the brightest and most prominent object in the room, with its glowing numbers that shine too bright even when the contrast has been turned down.
The date is important, almost as important as the rules. It’s the first thing that is taught: the months and days, numbers to form dates, those are what are supposed to be remembered. She can still hear Miss Gwen’s voice through the years that have passed since their very first lesson. She remembers standing before her, no more than four years old and afraid, the instructor’s pert dress like a bell above her flat-soled, black shoes. The older woman seems not to have changed at all in the last sixteen years. Miss Gwen is like the calendar, a constant fixture, always reminding, chiding, telling them that they are special, that they are hope. Telling them that their lives are not their own but belong to the greater good.
How much is a life worth?
This question is the first that enters Zoey’s mind each morning, and it is the last she thinks before falling off to sleep every night. Can a price be put on such a thing? And if it could be, would one ever be able to pay it?
She reaches out, wishing she could smash the protrusion of the calendar off the wall but knows they’ll just put another up, and an act like that would earn her time in one of the boxes. She’s never had to go inside but knows she doesn’t want to. There are some things in life that don’t have to be experienced to form an opinion of.
A quiet scratching comes from the window and she spins, her breath catching in her chest. Zoey hurries across the room, grabbing the chair from her desk to set it beside the glass. She peers out at the closest sniper, but the angle is enough to hide her from his sight. She places her fingers in the joint of the right side of the smallest pane that creates the top of the T. It is only eight inches tall by two feet long, but it is heavy, bonded in place by some material that has hardened over the years since the Advance Research Compound was built. But with the time, like most things, it has cracked around its border. Enough so that a fingernail can be inserted, causing the gap to widen over weeks and weeks of worrying.
Zoey listens for sounds of footsteps in the hall outside her door, over the thud of her excited heartbeat, but there is only silence. It’s still early, and Simon won’t be waiting for her for another half hour. She has time.
She presses against the right side of the pane, and there’s a soft squeak as the entire piece of composite glass shifts. She turns it until she can grasp its closest end before drawing it out of its frame. Cool spring air courses into the room, bathing her face with dampness left over from the night. She shivers, partially from the cold but mostly from happiness.
Could he finally be back?
She tosses the glass onto her bed, where it bounces once without a sound, and leans forward to gaze into the small alcove set outside her room on the face of the compound.
The space isn’t large, barely ten inches across and five inches deep, but it is recessed in such a way that it stays dry from the rain and can’t be seen unless someone were to remove the window just as she has. And since the bedrooms are the only places in the compound that don’t have cameras, no one knows that the window can be extracted.
Zoey stretches up farther on the chair, tilting her head so that she can see the entirety of the alcove.
A lone, dry leaf scratches against the concrete, nudged by the wind.
Disappointment courses through her. There is no downy, brown owl waiting for her, and there hasn’t been for several months.
When she first found the owl huddled in the alcove nearly a year ago, his wing cocked away from his body at a strange angle, she was sure the bird would die, either by starvation or by the hands of one of the guards. There are no pets allowed within the walls of the ARC. She could hear Miss Gwen’s high, nasally voice telling them that the virus could be carried not only by people, but by animals as well, and if they were to ever find one to notify a Cleric or a guard immediately.
It was two months after Zoey found the owl that he flew again. Two months of sneaking bits of bread hidden in the collar of her shirt, of keeping stringy chunks of meat tucked next to her molars in the back of her cheek until she returned to her room each day, always worried that someone would hear a slight slur in her speech and ask her to open her mouth for an inspection. Slowly the owl mended and became more and more tolerant of her company, the gentle touch of her hands, her low words to him each night before she retired to bed.
One day while the women were out for their daily exercise, a starling had swooped low past their heads, and Simon had laughed as they ducked, saying that the songbird was “quite a zipper.”
And so she had found a name for the owl, because something as precious as a secret should always have a name.
In the last light of a day several months ago, Zipper had swooped away into the deepening night and never returned. The ache at his absence was a nearly constant pain in her center, and each time she took the window out, the hope rose that he would be there staring back at her with his luminous, yellow eyes, and then it fell when she saw that he wasn’t. But why would he stay when he could leave?
She reaches out and pulls the wayward leaf from the alcove, tossing it away to reveal what does still reside in the small space.
The books. One of the many mysteries within the ARC. She found one of them a year ago, tucked away at the very bottom of her bed, her toes touching it when she climbed in to sleep.
The Count of Monte Cristo
. The title itself raised goose bumps on her arms as she read it over and over. It was the first book she’d ever seen that hadn’t been printed by the National Obstetric Alliance.
Three weeks later another book appeared once again beneath her covers.
The Scarlet Letter
. She had already devoured
Monte Cristo
twice in that time, her heart pounding so hard as she turned the pages, eyes wide as Edmond endured unspeakable torture and eventually seized the day when his escape presented itself. Hawthorne’s book was much different, but the same in some ways because she realized Hester was trapped in a prison as well. One of love, and honor, and faith.
She’d considered throwing the books out more times than she could count. If anyone were to find them, she would surely spend time in the box. She imagined herself locked away in the infinite darkness, but there was something indefinable about being punished for such a thing as imagination. She thought that the discipline might fan the flames that had begun to burn within her instead of snuff them out.
But the electrifying question was, who had left them for her?
She had questioned Lee in a roundabout way, never alluding to the fact that she had the books, but instead prying at him, attempting to see a chink in the cheerful armor he wore as he squinted at her with confusion. She so wanted to tell him, but secrets were heavy, and Simon might notice him carrying such a weight. Such was the way with fathers and sons, it seemed. Whoever it had been, they were telling her something, encouraging her in a way that would bring swift and terrible punishment if spoken aloud.
She shakes herself free of her thoughts and considers taking a piece of chewing gum from the dwindling package that was left in her bed the same way as the books over a month ago. No, she’d better not; she doesn’t have enough time to savor the sweet and spicy mint until it fades to nothing.
Maybe tonight.
She replaces the glass carefully, the persistent fear of losing her grip on it and seeing it plummet into open air washing over her. As soon as it’s in place, footsteps begin to echo down the hallway, coming closer and closer to her door. Zoey hurries, securing the glass before climbing down to replace the chair beneath her desk. She stands near her bed, sliding on her worn shoes as the footsteps stop before her door.