I was confused when I woke. My body was being jostled and it looked like Eunice was jogging beside me. Pain radiated from everywhere but there was a new sense of pressure and pain in my cheek.
Eunice looked at me. “She’s awake.”
It took me a few more seconds to take in the situation. I was on a military gurney and two new officers were hurriedly running me toward a building.
I asked Eunice, “What’s happening?”
“You fainted,” she said.
One of the officers added breathlessly, “Everything will be okay. We’re taking you to the infirmary.”
I said, “Where’s Megan?”
Eunice said, “They needed her.”
We entered a large building with thin curtains hung as makeshift walls to separate the beds. The room was so big the sounds bounced around and the mix of moans and whispers and crying intermingled into a sound like a low rush. But through all of it I could distinctly hear the screams of an infant and the sound instantly brought me to sobs. I didn’t want to see the mental images of what could’ve happened to the baby if it was female in our current situation and the infant’s cries were more than I could bear. Eunice touched my arm to comfort me.
I moaned, “Please don’t tell me what happened to the baby,” before another sob choked me.
The officers sat the gurney on a cot as Eunice wrung her hands at the foot of it.
One of the officers asked, “Do you think you can stand? We’re gonna slip the gurney out from under you.”
I nodded as I bit back more tears and tentatively stood as one of the women supported me. They gathered their gurney as a petite officer bustled toward me, pushing a large cart. Eunice looked on in a state of helplessness as I sat on the cot. The officers who’d carried me in took their leave as the petite woman assessed me with bloodshot eyes shadowed by huge dark rings showing the little sleep she must have received.
She pulled on a pair of latex gloves before approaching me. “What’s your name, hon?”
“Sonya,” I said.
“My name’s Rachel but most people just yell nurse at me.” She gave me a worn smile while her eyes ran over my half-ass bandage attempt and hodgepodge underwear. “Pretty beat up, huh?”
“You could say that.”
“Is it okay if we take a look?”
I nodded. She turned to pull the curtain to cut us off from the other beds. She asked Eunice to step out but I protested. Either it wasn’t strict protocol or the officer was too tired to argue with me and Eunice sat at the foot of the cot as Rachel carefully removed my bandages and haggard underpants. I covered myself with my hands. She excused herself and returned with a tub of cold soapy water and a washcloth. The water smelled strongly of hospital disinfectant and she proceeded to clean my wounds.
“Were you assaulted?” she asked in a whisper.
I nodded and my breath hitched.
She turned to Eunice. “You?”
“Yes,” Eunice said.
Rachel answered by nodding and asked me, “Are you on birth control, hon?”
Someone in the cot next to me coughed wetly.
“No,” I whispered.
She turned to Eunice for an answer to the same question.
Eunice watched me with a look of concern and said, “I’ve gone through the change.”
Rachel retrieved some packages of gauze and tape and began opening them and lining them up on the cot. She asked me to stand so she could clean and bandage my buttocks first. As she worked she said, “We’re currently out of Plan B. We have a crew out now on a food and supply run. I gave them a list of supplies to commandeer from pharmacies. They should be returning before too long. We have a dusk curfew.”
She worked on dressing my wounds in silence. The person in the cot beside us coughed again and grumbled something to themselves. Once she was done with me she asked if Eunice needed any attention, to which she declined. Rachel retrieved all the open packages and told me she’d return with a pair of fatigue pants I could wear and asked what size shoe I wore. Eunice and I sat in silence until she returned with the pants, which were a little too big, a pair of wool socks, and a pair of combat boots. The only thing keeping me from looking like the other officers was the red blouse.
Once I was dressed Rachel asked, “Do you feel well enough to move to the general population, hon?”
“I think so,” I said.
“I’ll direct you two over to the living area. The troops there will help you get situated. Come back tomorrow after breakfast and hopefully we’ll have some Plan B for you. Okay?”
“Yeah.”
Rachel led us through the maze of cots and pointed us in the direction of the tents once we were outside. Eunice and I crossed the paved lot and made our way toward the field of tents and people.
She said, “Cattle.”
I’d been staring at the ground in a thoughtless numbness of my own physical pain and grief until she spoke. I looked up at the crowd and took in the scene. A sense of uneasiness crept up my spine. The people were milling about in an open and unprotected space with the expectation the radio station would save them. I had an overwhelming sense of false security and instability. And what were we to do even if the invisible force field held forever? Live in tents and in fear for the rest of our lives? Someone had to put a permanent stop to the broadcast.
I replied, “Ready for slaughter,” and wasn’t sure if I meant myself or the crowd.
Chapter 14
The next few days were uneventful. Eunice and I were assigned sleeping bags and slept in a tent crammed with women. There were too many to count and our bags were arranged in such a way it was impossible to maneuver through the maze of bodies at night if you needed to use the restroom, which happened to be a reeking line of portable toilets along the fence. The constant moaning and coughing and crying and praying made it nearly impossible to sleep and, to top it off, the temperature dropped drastically during the night and left most people shivering sleeplessly.
I was fortunate enough to be a recipient of a Plan B pill the day after our arrival. I left the cafeteria early during breakfast to stand in line at the infirmary and as I was walking back to meet up with Eunice a woman near the end of the line became hysterical when she found out they’d run out again.
Eunice and I stayed together even though we didn’t speak much to each other.
Out of boredom and not wanting to have a conversation with anyone I roamed the grounds aimlessly. I spotted a thirteenish-year-old girl with the worn expression of a sixty-year-old woman hiding behind a building smoking a cigarette and I approached her and asked if I could have one. The girl was reluctant until I threatened to tell on her unless she forked one over. The poor girl responded, “I don’t think they can do much more to me that hasn’t already been done,” before handing me one. We stood beside one another and smoked in silence as Eunice nervously stood nearby, watching the girl. I gave Eunice a look that said shut the fuck up or go away. She chose to shut up. I hadn’t smoked in years and had only ever done it casually but as the rush of nicotine filled my body and made me lightheaded and I stared silently at the young girl who’d obviously seen and experienced the dregs of life in the last few days and would forever be haunted by it, I wondered if I shouldn’t take up the habit so I could feel something more than the numb pain that filled me.
We were kept on a loose schedule of breakfast, lunch, and dinner and after each one an officer would shout for volunteers to help with chores. There were plenty of bored people who happily volunteered to have something to do other than be stuck thinking about all the horrible shit that happened to them or talking to other people who had horrible shit happen to them. And I would’ve volunteered my time as a gesture of generosity for a place to sleep, free meals, and access to the thin stretched medical care, but I was in the insular world of grief where doing anything but breathing was an extreme physical or mental exertion.