Cameron Pierce - Abortion Arcade

enough by then if you start now.”

“Why would you do this to yourself?”

“I love you, Grieves.”

“You love me? How can you say you love me when you’re pregnant with Bill’s child?”

“I’m not pregnant. Anyway, did you really think I was going to profess my love in front of every single person on this farm, all of the dead people?”

“You’re not pregnant? Then how are you alive? Why didn’t they slaughter you this morning?”

“I found this in the feeding trough a couple days ago.”

She lifts her dress to pull something from between her legs. At first, only a tiny hand appears, dangling like a cock, then a second hand, and a blackened head. She proceeds to remove a shriveled fetus from between her legs.

“Don’t worry, it’s not mine,” she says. “I found it in the troughs, dead. I put it aside so that if I happened to be chosen as a bride this wedding season, I could put this inside myself and not be found out right away. After Wolf and the other man, I couldn’t handle the agony of taking another husband, not while you were alive, at least.”

Pym’s admittance of love brings me to tears. I reach out to draw her close to me, but she recoils.

“Why did you kill your mother?”

“She asked me to kill her, so I did.”

“Grieves. You idiot.”

“How was I supposed to know you were going to come to the rescue?”

Pym’s face looks strained and tender. Pitying, almost.

This is such a huge shift from the cruel disdain she showed me last night when I gave her my drawing.

“Anyway, there’s no time. If we meet again, I hope we live a happy life together. Right now you must go, get as far from here by morning as possible. Take my breasts and save yourself.”

“Why can’t you come with me?”

“There are only two breasts. Hurry now.”

“Wait.” I rush over to the bed and pull off the bottom sheet. I go over to Pym and crouch down behind her. I fold the sheet in half, long ways, and tie it around her midsection.

“This won’t stop the bleeding entirely, but it should help some,” I say.

“Thank you,” she says.

She takes my hands and pulls me close. I bury my face in the crook of her neck. She twists around, naked except for the sheet bandage. I’m in awe of her bravery. She scaled the wedding tower naked.

She spreads her legs.

I get down on my knees between her damp and hairy thighs.

I feel myself stiffen and take off my clothes.

I lie down on top of her. Her body is warm, her flesh is soft.

Sliding into Pym, I squeeze my eyes tighter and feel myself floating into the puffy white clouds I always dreamed were inside of her.

I pump faster and faster until I lose control and then I scream. I scream out of rage and pity and anguish and fear and sadness and horror and love, but most of all I scream out of hope. A hope that I am already dead. A hope that I was never alive. A hope that time will freeze and I’ll live right here in this beautiful moment forever. A hope that before my execution, I will perform an impossible trick and redeem everything.

I thrust one last violent time and come deep inside of Pym.I pull out. A sticky string of semen connects the tip of my penis to her crotch. Dampness trickles out from between her hairy thighs.

“I love you,” she says.

“I love you too.”

“But you must go.”

I nod and reach for my pants.

After slipping into my clothes, I pick up her severed breasts off the floor. She helps me tie the nipples, which have been elongated to serve as straps, around my wrists.

“Keep the flat, meaty side moist,” she says.

“Will you be safe here?”

“I’m still young. Even with you gone, the zombies will spare me so the child may be born.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’ve impregnated me. I can feel it.”

I catch a glance of my mother’s corpse on the floor and get an idea that just might save us.

“Pym, we can cut off my mother’s breasts and turn them into suction cups. We can escape the farm together.”

I begin scouring the room for a sharp object to severe my mother’s breasts.

“Wait,” Pym says. “I’m afraid that isn’t possible.”

I turn to face her. “Why not? Don’t you want to go with me?”

She smiles at me. There’s blood on her teeth. Now blood dribbles out of her mouth. Now I understand.

“You’re bleeding to death,” I say.

Tears roll down her cheeks. She shakes her head insistently. “No, I’ll be strong.

I’ll stay alive, Grieves. I want to have our baby. Please, believe me. I’ll stay strong. Now go.”She coughs, spraying a strand of crimson spittle, which hangs there from her mouth.

Without hands to draw her close to me, I lean in and suck the spittle rope into my mouth, bringing our mouths together. While making love we did not touch lips. This is our first kiss since childhood. She embraces me. I gently squeeze her breasts as if they are still attached. Then the moment is over. She pushes me away and collapses. She’s already too weak to stand. There’s no way she’ll survive until the zombies unlock the tower in the morning.

“I’m coming back with help,” I tell her. “I promise you, Pym, stay alive for me and I’ll return. I’ll take you to our cloud castle in the sky. I promise we’ll be happy.”

She nods, her face distorted by tears and blood.

I climb out of the window and force myself not to steal a final glance at her. The sight of her in this state destroys me. And she did this, she sacrificed herself, for me.

My hands are suctioned to the sill and my legs dangle in midair.

It is easy to underestimate the terror heights may induce, until you find yourself high as the moon itself, without any wings or cloud magic to keep you aloft, only the breasts of your one true love, who is dying and possibly pregnant.

“I love you, Pym.”

I realize, though, in peering back into the room, that I forgot to bid farewell to my mother.

“Oh, and I love you too mother. You were always kind.”

Her corpse says nothing.

“Go now. You do not know what you’ll find beyond the great wall,” Pym says, her voice hardly a whisper.

“I’m coming back for you. We’re going to make it through, Pym.”

I close my eyes and begin the long descent. For the second time in as many days, I believe I’m seeing Pym for the final time, but I told Pym I would return with help, and by the great cloud castle in the sky, I will.

Down from the window, I crouch at the tower’s base to recover my strength and determine my next course of action. With no way of knowing what lies beyond the great wall in any direction, I realize that no planning is possible.

I must scale the wall and hope to come out lucky.

I stand up, careful not to set my hands in the dirt, afraid to weaken the suction strength of Pym’s breasts.

I start toward the great wall in a semi-crouching jog, but I don’t get far before a voice calls from behind, “Hey, wait up!”

I turn and look up to the window of the tower, my heart lifted in anticipation of Pym’s face. Has she removed my mother’s breasts after all, and mustered strength to climb down and escape the farm with me?

The window is empty. Pym is not calling, nor evening watching over my escape.

I start off again, but someone tugs at my elbow. I spin around, sure that a zombie has seen me escape.

I see the outline of two little horns. I sigh, relieved. It is only Robbie.

“Robbie! What are you doing here?”

He wipes his shit-stained mouth, looking guilty. “I was just sitting in your hole by myself when a head popped down. It was Pym. When she saw me, she fled. So I followed her to see what she was up to. I watched her climb the tower. Looks like she saved you, huh?”