365

004 - Foment [dystopian thriller]

[Warning: long chapter ahead]

Jolene was committed to her children, all of her children.

Every morning was the same, she rose with the sun and began her rounds. First she would check on the window plants, trim and water them where needed, then she would make a small meal from the family bounty. Then she would give thanks.

Once this was completed she would dress and, if it was the 3rd or the 17th, she would wash. Jolene dreaded the waste of water but it was an unfortunate necessity as the smell, if allowed to fester, could draw children that were not her own.

After carefully checking out of all of her windows, Jolene would then step outside, rifle slung and spear poised, ready. She was always mindful of the 23 rounds she had left; each one more precious than a day of food.

Outside, Jolene's routine began with a patrol of her property and plants, gathering what scraps and brackish water she could find, then then journeying into the valley below. She longed for the old sounds, like birds chirping and insects buzzing, but instead she heard the giggling of the children, a sound she could not love, but one that gave her purpose and companionship.

Steps away from the pit she froze, the giggles had stopped. Jolene took a deep breath and raised her spear. Slowly and carefully she lowered her backpack, then checked her surroundings. She went from bush to bush and other obvious hiding spots but found nothing. She was about to withdraw for the day when the giggling began again.

Jolene gave a sigh of relief and returned to her bag. She could not be sure, but she felt as though her bag was just slightly lighter than she left it. Giving one last concerned look around, she pressed on to the pit.

Pit was a bit of a misnomer, or at least an understatement. It was what James used to call it, but really it was a quarry. Jolene could see the children scurrying around, laughing, screaming, and chasing each other. Insuring none of the children had scampered up to on to the platform at the base of the cliff she lowered the ladder.

Climbing down the she could hear the children begin to shout what sounded like mostly happy noises. By the time she reached the bottom they were clamoring just out of reach, lumbering over each other, grunting and reaching out to her.

Jolene took off her bag and upended it dumping the scraps she had collected down among the children who yelped with glee. Their fangs, which once may have been mistaken for toothy grins, quickly came out as the younger, faster children made off with a few morsels. Within a few minutes all the scraps were gone and the elderly and lame children, three in total by this time, were all that remained.

While Jolene still could not let her guard down, even with these three, she liked to believe she had developed a relationship of some kind with them and could trust them. Still, it was trust like that that had cost James his life. She motioned for the three to come closer and gave them each spoiled crab apples, all the while conscious of the knife in her boot.

Each child took their apples without incident and sat in the shade of the platform while Jolene ate her own small lunch. Sometimes she would talk to them and pretend their grunts and shrugs were answers, but today she just watched them in silence.

She called them children, but the things just below her were anything but. They looked similar in size and proportion, but when one was close it was obvious everything was just a little off beyond the fangs. The eyes a little too big, a little too far apart, limbs a little too long. They wore no clothes and mostly moved around on all fours, filthy with long hair. As far as she knew, and her own observations did not deny it, they had no communication and rarely acknowledged one another. Her children would giggle when they knew she was approaching, but she believed it to be a Pavlovian response. They did not age in any outward way beyond slowing down and becoming more docile. Certainly they could be killed but she never found one to have died of natural causes.

Long ago, when she was a child herself, people stopped being able to have children. Scientist were not able to explain it but as the years passed rumours spread about experimental trials designed to help couples get pregnant. It was soon after that that the first children appeared.

Like predators hunting overpopulated prey their numbers exploded and just as quickly collapsed in the violence they fomented. James and Jolene had started out in a colony but, as the other humans fought, aged, and died it became more and more difficult to secure against the children who were drawn to the stench of the settlements.

Ironically, in the end, it was safer to disperse into the wilderness and keep clean. James and Jolene settled down near the quarry where they were often able to trap children who happened upon them. In time, she and James became affectionate with the slower children until one day...

Jolene let out a gasp, the pain in her heart bringing her out of her memories. One of the three sitting nearby vaguely looked up at her, then lost interest. She loathed them, they took everything from her, but in the end they were all she had left.

Sighing, Jolene collected her thing, said goodbye to the inattentive children, then began to climb. Just below the top she stopped and grabbed her spear from under her bag, poising it at the ready. Peeking her head up she looked around, suddenly noticing her heart was pounding.

Just as suddenly she saw a bush rustle and instinctually she raised the spear. She heard a pitiful noise and out crawled a child, nearly black with filth, with what she could swear was fear in its eyes. The child was dragging its leg behind it, apparently injured.

Jolene froze; she had not seen a child in the wild in years, certainly not since she lost James. Where did it come from? It must have been the disturbance she had felt this morning, perhaps it had helped itself to some of the scraps she had in her bag.

Lowering her spear slightly, she approached the child. She had never been the one to lure a child to the quarry, James had always handled that, but now it was up to her. Reaching into her bag, she removed an apple she had saved and placed it on the tip of her spear.

Placing it just out of reach, the child strained to reach the apple and she began guiding it back to the pit. They were just a few metres from the pit when suddenly Jolene felt her heel catch on a root and found herself flat on her back.

Before she could reach for her knife the child was upon her, moving with a sudden swiftness that she wondered whether the injury was an act. The child immediately sank its claws into her arms causing her to scream. In the pit below she could hear the other children howling and this momentarily startled it.

Seeing her chance, and despite the searing pain in her arms, she pushed the child off her with her left arm and deftly drew her knife with her right. The child hissed and chomped down on her arm with its fangs. Jolene raised the knife and sank it into the child's neck.

The child reared back, releasing her arm and clawing at the knife, shredding the skin at its neck while it gurgled a scream. Suddenly there was a loud crack and the child's head exploded in a spray of hot blood.

Jolene threw the body off of herself and crawled away, heaving and ready to vomit. She looked around, trying to make sense of what just happened when a boy, not quite a man, emerged from the bush, cracked rifle across his arm, loading another round in the chamber.

The boy closed the rifle and reluctantly aimed it at her. "You OK? You normal?"

Jolene was completely overwhelmed, her entire world upended. She nodded and stood up, hands in the air.

As she did three others emerged from the woods around her, a man, a woman, and a teenage girl.

Jolene fell back down to her knees, cried out "Oh James," and wept.