H Romero - The Girl Who's Made of Leaves - Post Apocalyptic Science Fiction

“Green men,” slurs Rose, looking from one soldier to the other.

Dr. Valentine says nothing, pushing Rose to an area not far from the cold white room, where the Man-In-The-White-Coat, or, Dr. Shaw, was going to cut pieces off her. That’s how Dr. Valentine said it; ‘cut pieces off her,’ Rose feels very lucky that Dr. Valentine showed up when she did.

The place where Dr. Valentine is taking her is unfamiliar and appears to be uninhabited by people, but only at first.

One turn left, two turns right and then left. Rose will be sure to remember the way, so should she ever need to come this way again, for any reason, she’ll know how to get here. She’ll store the directions away in a little box, she’ll keep them safe on the inside of her head, where only she can get to them. She’ll snap the lid closed so no one can get inside.

A sign affixed to the wall to Rose’s right reads East Wing . It comes into view and then passes by just as quickly. Her eyes dart from side-to-side soaking up everything, every tiny detail; no matter how insignificant. She will keep those details inside her little box too. Her mind is a gravity-well catching everything no matter how trivial they may seem. She’ll sort out what is worth keeping, and what isn’t, later.

Another green man stands ahead, his name is Private Tummons, and he clears the way by stepping aside and hugging the wall carefully. Rose only knows that this is Private Tummons, because it says so right on the name tag, sewn to his uniform. The private slightly favors one knee over the other, an old injury perhaps considers Rose. He smells of sweat and dirt and cheap aftershave.

Private Tummons watches her like a fatted rabbit would watch a starving cat, as it crept past, knowingly, and appropriately cautious.

Rose smiles at Private Tummons, but her friendly gesture isn’t reciprocated, so the smile wilts where it grew, on her small face.

Dr. Valentine continues to push the gurney steadily down the hall. The right front wheel clicks, and it jiggles almost imperceptibly as it rolls along.

Rose imagines that there is probably something small and hard stuck to it. Rose times the bumps in her mind each time the wheel rotates, to the point where the unknown object makes the wheel click on the linoleum floor. Her timing is precise: click… (Two seconds) click… (Four seconds) click…. (Six seconds).

There are doors on either side of the corridor; fifteen on the right side, and twelve doors and one elevator on the left side. Some of the rooms have doors which are standing wide open. The rooms with the open doors are unoccupied and dark inside. Twelve of them, six on the right side and six on the left, are secured with weighty padlocks.

There are other green men here too, and they react precisely in the same way, to Rose as Private Tummons had. They hug the corridor walls close and tight, all except for the ones who are armed and the one who has a big dog standing beside him.

The pace of the clicking wheel is slowing. Dr. Valentine is coming to a room that is labeled, Row – Zero – Five – East, and below that the name “ROSE’ is written in all capital letters. Rose decides that her name is nothing more than a reflection of where her room is, in this place: R-05-E (ROSE). An interesting coincidence and nothing more.

The green man with the dog fumbles with a large ring of keys. The dog is brown and large. Its tongue hangs from his mouth and occasionally drips with saliva. The green man is searching for the correct key, on a ring of too many. Most of them don’t go to anything, anymore. He unlocks the padlock and opens the door. It opens without a sound, even though, by the look of them, the hinges haven’t been oiled in a long, long time “Welcome home, princess,” he says, but not warmly.

Rose can tell he has no affection toward her, in fact, besides Dr. Valentine, there is an undercurrent of loathing. The green men hate her. She can feel it. You don’t have to be a genius to know when someone doesn’t like you. It’s something you can sense.

Nothing… not the smallest of details escapes her. Her brain churns at such a blinding speed it causes her to feel lightheaded. Rose scrutinizes everything, turning over every pebble in her mind, and looking underneath, searching for a clue that might tell her where she is, and how she came to be here.

She drinks in all she can and tries to assemble it all into some tangible structure, before stuffing it away in the little box.

Before she can be wheeled inside, she notes that the doors to either side of her own are padlocked.

All the doors are similar in the way that they have small rectangular holes, reinforced with steel grating. The holes can be closed, only from the outside, by sliding a rusty metal plate across the top. Someone has written: ‘IVY’ on the plaque next to one door, just below the location numbers, Row – Zero – Six – E, in heavy black marker ink, and all in capital letters, just like her own. Small, pale, fingers are probing blindly between the tiled floor and the bottom of the door. A green man kicks at them, heartlessly, and hisses loudly through his teeth. The fingers withdraw, disappearing quickly back inside.

Next, to the other door, the word on the plaque is: ‘HAWTHORNE’ it is written in the same type of heavy black ink. The other rooms, the ones that are locked, all have names too, and through the little rectangles, light shines through at varying levels of intensity. Rose wonders who is inside each of the rooms. She doesn’t have time to read all the names on the plaques before being rolled into her own.

The green men are on edge, but steely nerves stay their fingers from the triggers of their rifles, which are pointed directly at her head. The big brown dog growls. Rose can’t stop her body from shaking, whether it is from fear or from the effects of Dr. Shaw’s drugs fading away, she is uncertain.

Dr. Valentine says, “Rose, I’m going to loosen the restraints. You are not to move until we leave the room, and you hear the lock on the door click shut. Do you understand? It is very, very important that you don’t move, okay?” Dr. Valentine nods her head up and down, to elicit a return demonstration.

Rose nods her head. “Yes, Dr. Valentine.” The little girl makes it clear that she understands perfectly. She won’t do anything to make the green men hurt her.

There is a funny smell filling the small room. In time she’ll come to recognize the bitter odor as the scent of fear; harshly acidic with a metallic taste which dances on the back of her tongue. Rose does not move until Dr. Valentine and the green men back out of the cramped space, and she hears the click of the padlock being snapped shut.

Her room is small. A single window is boarded over from the outside, with a large piece of scavenged plywood sheeting, painted with flat black paint, peeling away from the splintered and cracking surface of the wood. The glass was, long ago, removed from the window, so only the wooden frame remains behind.

Closely set bars, bolted over the space, keep things out, and also, to keep things in. The cramped space is otherwise empty except for the gurney on which she sits.

A teardrop-shaped light bulb, with a thick, spiral filament, hangs from the ceiling by a simple hook, coated in multiple layers of old, dried, paint; a metal cage surrounds it to protect it from damage, and from small hands.

A chalkboard, caked with dust, is screwed to the wall at all four corners. There are some words on it, an agenda of sorts; the words read: Monday: Library, Tuesday: Assessment, Wednesday: Social Observation, Thursday: Lab W—, but that’s where the rest of the words transition into a white smudge and are lost to her. The rest of the schedule is a mystery for now. She wonders if it has anything to do with her. She surmises that surely it must somehow have something to do with her.