The Forsaken - The Apocalypse Trilogy: Book Two (11 page)

This whole exchange had taken place in the
awkward space between a low brick wall and a wooden fence that ran
out to the street in front of the coffeehouse. As people made their
way in and out of the door, Dawn had to keep herself as small as
possible.

The whole time that Carmen had talked, Mr.
Jay listened and nodded and spoke and before long she invited him
back to her apartment. Mr. Jay said it was on their way anyway so
why not.

As she sat under the stairs and waited for
the grownups to finish their
thing
in the rooms above, Dawn
remembered the first time she had recognized a change in Mr. Jay’s
voice when he spoke to women.
She
rarely spoke to other
people, so her knowledge of Mr. Jay’s voice was intimate. It was
the third or fourth time that he had used this voice that she asked
him about it. He smiled.

“You’ve got to give me something,” Mr. Jay
said blushing. He picked at the ragged hem of his coat and twirled
his dirty top hat. “I’m not much more than a beggar without it… And
as much as I trust these women’s hearts—their eyes, well they are
another matter.”

Dawn pressed the issue: “Is it a trick?”

Again Mr. Jay blessed her with his secret
smile. “Not like a card trick or some sort of illusion that
confuses the senses. It’s really just listening.” Her friend
pondered the point for a little. “In fact, it’s mostly listening.
You have to hear past the words to feel the emotion behind them.”
Then he laughed. “And there might be more to the process. It’s hard
to tell; but who would blame me if there were. I was too duty bound
in my former life.” He squinted in a villainous way. “But, I’ve
always had a
thing
for women.”

The forever girl drifted back to where she
hid under the stairs like a troll. Carmen was nice to her during
their walk to the apartment, but upon their arrival Mr. Jay had
insisted that his friend, Mojo wait for them on the main
floor—somewhere out of the way. He pointed with his walking stick.
“My associate has had a terrible time learning a certain few card
tricks. I must implore him to use the time practicing. We shan’t be
long, Mojo.” He handed Dawn his pack, and the pair walked up the
stairs to Carmen’s apartment. The building was very old, like it
was built just after the Change. Stairs at the end of the hall
leading down suggested that the building protruded through the
Level they were on. It was an old structure so Dawn had no trouble
finding a place to hide behind some trashcans under the stairs.

While she scooted around for comfort, Dawn
wondered what was going on up there. She remembered Kevin’s
magazine and felt like puking about what that crazy boy said. But
she was curious just the same.

Mr. Jay’s descriptions of what actually took
place were vague and misleading. “We had tea…” Was the one he tried
at first, until he realized that Dawn could have tea too, so he
added quickly, “And talked about things that grown ups have to talk
about.
Adult communication
, Dawn.”

Dawn brooded on her backpack chair and picked
at her sticky beard. Mr. Jay would soon come skipping and whistling
his way down the stairs very soon, but she couldn’t shake the
anxious thoughts just the same. She knew it was sex up there or
something like it, but she couldn’t understand its attraction.
Usually after these
adult communications
, Mr. Jay would call
her out of hiding, and the pair of them would make their way back
to wherever their hideout was. As she stewed, her mind turned to
dark imaginings.

What if Mr. Jay stayed up there all night? Or
worse, what if Mr. Jay fell in love with this Carmen.
Real
love
, not just the love he felt for them all. Dawn knew that
sex and love were sometimes talked about like they were the same
thing, but she didn’t know what either was really. And as always it
was while keeping these sad obsessive thoughts from her mind that
she most had to fight the urge that inevitably sprang into being.
I have to go get Mr. Jay! Make sure he’s okay
!

Only once, not long after she had first taken
up with Mr. Jay, had she found that urge impossible to resist. That
time, she was hiding in a backyard garden shed while Mr. Jay was
busy having adult communications in the house with a big breasted
woman who had really liked their act. They entertained that night
at an inn Mr. Jay described as something from Henry Fielding but
with rain. An old gas station he said less imaginatively,
later.

Dawn only knew that it was in one of the
dirty little villages that had cropped up after the Change—at a
crossroads in the wild lands far to the north and west of any of
the bigger cities and the highways. But as Dawn hid herself in this
garden shed she struggled with this fear and the urge. What if Mr.
Jay was tired of her company? It was only two years since her
mother disappeared and a year since she found Mr. Jay.

The fear became too much, and leaping from
her hiding place she ran into the woman’s house—hot tears pouring
over her round cheeks. Dawn felt terrible replaying that particular
memory, but the shame always kept her dangerous urge at bay. She
wasn’t embarrassed surprising Mr. Jay naked in bed on top of the
yellow-haired woman—also naked—not then, and not now. It was what
Mr. Jay said after that made her cheeks flush red.

He had followed her back out to the shed when
she ran. A light rain gave the grass a shushing sound as his boots
slipped through it. Orange light from a lamp jumped in front of
him. At first she had thought she would be punished, but even then,
she couldn’t imagine Mr. Jay punishing her. Instead of that, when
he found her cowering on some tarps in the far corner of the shed,
he had gently called her out. Dawn could remember the look on his
face, he was sad not angry.

And he said: “I am sorry that things have to
be the way they are, but they do. The open world is not safe for
you, and yet I must live my life too. I will not deny it. Dawn, all
I want you to do is trust me, have faith in me. I will never lie to
you.”

And he never had, as far as she could tell.
But the memory always calmed her down, made waiting more fruitful
than fearful. Mr. Jay would return, he always did. Hugging that
hope to her chest she started dozing. But a thought brought her
back. Why did those men chase them?

15 – Night Creature

Sister Cawood climbed out of the taxi. The
driver stared in the rearview as she threw one, then another leg
out the door. His eyes flashed wide when her spandex miniskirt
rolled up her thighs. Outside the cab she paused to wriggle it back
into place. Feeling his eyes staring at her every action caused
pleasurable impulses to ripple over her skin. She bent at the
window to pay him. His face held a look of passionate disbelief and
desire.

“What?” She threw money in his lap. “You
never see a girl without her panties before.” Cawood didn’t wait
for an answer. A succulent and abhorrent realization tugged at the
corners of her mouth as she wondered what he would have thought had
he known she was a nun.

Orgasmic tremors ran down her legs at the
thought. To look at her that way, had he known—especially if he was
Catholic
. The notion sent a pulse of pleasure over her
abdomen and up her spine. She turned from the cab, pulling the
purple and pink miniskirt over her butt. In addition to this
provocative gear she wore a lavender plastic jacket and white
cotton tube top. She had bound her hair on top of her head with a
pink scarf. Purple pumps and matching rubber hoop earrings
completed the picture. From a small belt purse she pulled a compact
and cosmetics clutch. She touched up the bright lipstick without
catching her gaze in the mirror.

Mary, Mother of God we confidently
undertake to repulse the attacks and deceits of the devil
.

The music pounded out of time to the rhythmic
flicker of the neon sign. The sound, like all sound in the City
came out distorted and strange as it bounced first off the
buildings around and across from it, then as it returned from its
echo off the solid Level above. Hissing car noises came from
everywhere, echoing and reverberating among the City’s many facets.
A light mist fell on a dark and noisome breeze. The pavement
sparkled with the same pink as the neon sign across from her.

The bar was called “Carthage.” A stylized
elephant was worked into the polished steel sign over the door. The
name and image briefly conjured ancient memories from history
lessons almost forgotten—brought vague references to Hannibal
crossing the Alps.

“When in Rome,” she heard her voice say. It
was a different voice from the one she used in Archangel Tower.
This was deep and resonant. It was throaty and free. She snapped
her belt purse shut and strutted across the street toward the
entrance.

There was a lineup. Forty people from all
walks milled behind a barricade. There were no telltale
distinctions of class, just the type of thing you could find at a
Level Four nightclub. It was a low enough Level to be exciting but
high enough to be respectable without being too public—an example
of the complicated end of the world social ethic. The rich tried to
fuck the poor and the poor tried to fuck the rich. Nothing new,
just more extreme—there were few illegal drugs anymore and most of
them were sold at the counter alongside over proof alcohol.

As Sister Cawood jogged out of the way of a
retro-Beetle van a number of Bully Boys in line started crowing.
Bully Boys ran in gangs. She’d heard enough about them in talks
with clients at the Relief Center to be wary of them. They promoted
a sadomasochistic lifestyle with the onus on omnisexual behavior.
Gang members could be identified by their habit of staining parts
of their anatomies—usually bright neon reds, oranges or blues. They
dyed the flesh around their eyes, ears and orifices. Their clothing
was rubber and leather, with chrome and steel accessories.

She was thrilled and repulsed by their lewd
suggestions and their graphic appreciation of her body. She could
not resist smiling at their taunts or feeling guilty at her
response. The catcalls she received caused her abdomen to pulse
with pleasure. Her face flushed. For the moment, she felt safe from
them, since they were stuck close to the front of a growing line
behind a barricade, and would be unlikely to break ranks just to
hassle her. Still, she imagined what would happen if a gang of them
ever got her alone—really got their hands on her. Her nipples
tingled.

Their vocal approval turned to roars of
indignation as she walked past the lineup and approached the two
bouncers who stood like stonework before the door.

“Back of the line.” A blond man with a spider
tattooed over his left eye gestured with his chin. He wore leather
pants and a T-shirt.

“Oh fuck off!” she said, moving closer,
running a fingertip up his arm to a steroid-enhanced biceps. “I’m
freezing.” She dropped her gaze knowing the bouncer’s eyes would
follow, and with two fingers slowly lifted her skirt a few inches
exposing more pale skin. “You don’t want me to freeze…”

The Bullyboys howled at that one, booing and
hissing her performance. A big one in the lead wearing rubber bib
overalls pushed his dark welding glasses up.

“You bitch!” he yelled. She saw that his lips
and strong cheeks were smeared a dark red. “You Brazil-waxing
bitch! I’m on the highway to hell too!” This was followed by howls
of laughter from his companions. “Shake your ass for them, Cherry!”
they yelled. More laughter.

The other bouncer laughed along with them.
“Yeah, you go in baby. You’re a peach.” The bald man had a Mohawk
of bolts piercing the skin across the top of his skull. One of his
hands squeezed her left buttock.

Cawood snarled and smiled at him, then moved
through the door they held open. She made sure her buttocks ground
against the bouncer’s groin. A grunt of pleasure and she moved
past. She walked through darkness in a short hallway past a
smoke-filled coat-check then the music caught her. A throbbing
electronic beat hooked on something deep inside her body and drew
her in. The vibrating air ran invisible pulsing fingers over her
skin. Passion and shame colored her cheeks as she pulled a
cigarette out and lit it. She watched out of the corner of her eye
as men along the bar devoured her with looks.
Sodomy
.
Sin
.
Purgatory
.
Whore
. Cawood felt a tingle
rush over her pelvis as they whispered approval to each other.

She took a deep drag from her cigarette and
walked over to the bar purposefully choosing a point between two
large groups of youngish looking men. She thought “youngish”
because she knew that everyone had suffered the effects of the
Change and were a century older than they looked. But she sidled in
between a couple of tall men one black and one white, purposefully
ignoring their gazes. She had noticed a pair of women eyeing her
seriously but fresh from Juanita, she was not in the mood for more
cunnilingus. She felt like a man.

“Vodka and seven!” she shouted at the
bartender.

A pale redheaded man with serious lines
around his mouth nodded and made the drink.

“Hey sister!” a man said to her left.

Cawood froze, fear coursing through her.

“Hey sweetheart,” a voice said on her right.
She turned slowly. He was tall and muscular. His skin was as black
as coal and shone with a blue light. “Can we buy you a drink?”

Her fear drained away as she looked at the
man’s solid chest. “Yes, you can.”

“I’m Dave.” He smiled, the black light
turning his teeth sun bright. “That’s my buddy Raul.”

Cawood turned to his friend. He had long
sandy hair, was shorter than the black man, and of a smaller
build.

“We’re waiting for our bro’ Sam.” Dave called
her attention back by tugging at a loose locket of her hair. “We’re
gonna trip.”