Jack Ketchum - Right to Life

The day after she’d buried a man.

The day after they had killed him.

Before he left he’d slipped the bedpan between her legs and she’d used it awhile ago, pissed into the silence, unable in the deep thick quiet of the box even to know if she’d hit or missed her target, only knowing that some of it had run down her leg and still felt sticky and uncomfortable along her thigh, a trail of her own self-disgust because she could do nothing to stop this new humiliation nor any other. It was a wonder to her that a human being could turn so powerless all in the course of a few days’ time. Not even days. In moments.

Their faces haunted her, inhabiting the dark inside the box like pale flickering holograms. The woman’s face so empty of feeling, of any recognizable emotion at all as though this were nothing to her. Routine. Another day in the life. His face nervous and unsettled — reading lust, greed, power.

She had written out and signed the letters he dictated but was certain they’d fool no one who actually knew her. The language was his language, not hers. Stilted, formal. It betrayed him. It was not going to convince anybody that she was here on her own free will much less an accessory to murder.

I am filled with uncertainty and doubt. A baby’s life is a sacred thing, isn’t it? How dare I take this step?

What’s your problem? she thought, whoever the hell you are. Why’s this so damned all-important to you? What happened? Mommy never breast-feed you?

The woman, Kath, was only along for the ride. It seemed obvious that none of this was her idea. That didn’t matter, though. Because it was also obvious that she’d continue to play her part in Sara’s nasty little drama. But she knew that the craziness originated with him. That if there was an Organization it was he who’d joined it, he who’d decided to capture her, he who dreamt up the tortures and humiliations. The woman was just a follower.

She wondered how willing a follower. Was there any weakness there? Anything she could exploit? She doubted it, but she’d watch for it nevertheless.

Watch for it. Now there’s a bad joke, she thought.

She hadn’t seen anything but the dark and the images inside her head since entering their names in her address book the night before. They’d blindfolded her, stripped her and led her down here to lie the night through in the Long Box, in her coffin. Got her up and fed her a peanut butter sandwich and tied her naked to the chair — which she realized for the first time today was bolted to the floor. Fed her again and hung her on the X-frame for however long it was going to take them to see their movie and eat their goddamn pizza.

For however long they wanted.

Her breath smelled old and stale and sour inside the box. An old person’s breath.

She was growing old here.

The baby still blooming inside her.

The beautiful baby girl. The one she’d wanted to kill.

No, goddammit, that was his thinking. An abortion wasn’t murder. An abortion was only her, Sara Foster, in the act of controlling her own body. Exercising will and choice over her own destiny. If anything this was closer to murder. This utter forced loss of control to the point where she couldn’t even take a piss without fouling herself or feed herself or take a drink except when he permitted it. You could murder a personality, an identity, just as easily you could kill the body.

She wondered how long it would take for him to do that. To make her into another little zombie like Kath who wanted only to please him and accepted whatever he did or wanted.

Even to digging graves for him.

She wondered if he could. She knew about brainwashing. She knew it was possible. But possible for her? That was another thing.

Resisting could mean death. Pretending was risky in the extreme. Giving in was unthinkable.

Could he really expect her to have this baby for him?

To live the next six months this way and then give birth to a child?

The idea was monstrous. Lunatic.

And why? What could he have in mind? For the baby or for her?

Zombie mother? Zombie child?

She jolted, felt hands on the headbox, undoing the clasps, the base of it chafing her collarbone again as they did so and then felt the hands lift the hook on the box off the eye on the X-frame and she sucked in damp cellar air through her mouth as he lifted the foul thing off her.

“Don’t turn around. Don’t speak.”

He looped the blindfold over her eyes and tied it off.

“Open your mouth.”

He pushed the soft rubber ball into her mouth, stretching her jaw, the taste of it bitter and dry. He tied the gag over it. Her hair caught up in the knot but she made no protest.

Whatever this is, she thought, just get it over with.

She heard soft footsteps on the stairs and heard them cross the room and thought that would have to be Kath joining him. She heard her go the work table and put something down on it — no, two things. One that sounded like ice in a glass and another heavier, thumping to the table and then a few moments later smelled something strange in the air, something that smelled like superheated metal. Like an automobile cigarette lighter and she began to tremble even before he told her.

“I’d really rather pass on this, Sara. But it’s Organization rules. A slave has got to be marked with his or her owner’s personal symbol. Mostly so she can be identified if she tries to run. My symbol’s a V so that’s what you’ll wear. But don’t worry. I’ll do it where it won’t show in a bathing suit or anything, I promise. I know it’ll hurt for a second but after that you’ll be fine. And I honestly don’t have any choice, y’know? I’m sorry. Kath?”

She heard the footsteps cross the room and the burning smell was stronger and she tensed herself knowing what was to come, that they were going to brand her like a cow, scar her, that she’d wear this awful thing the rest of her life, she’d have this to remember them by even once they were dead and buried, knowing too that it was useless to struggle, that it would only be worse for her later, god only knew how much worse and she damned them and damned her helplessness and steeled herself, telling herself not to move, it would hurt even more if she moved or if they had to do it over again god forbid so she pressed her body tight to the X-frame, the X-frame was suddenly her friend, it would help her not to move and when the burning began just to the left of the crack of her ass she screamed long and hard and high into the ball and gag and heard and smelled her own flesh burn, fine hair burning and meat.

Her body drenched itself with sudden sweat, her body wanted to put out the fire that was huge like a thousand pinpricks everywhere, not just her ass but everywhere and when it was done she slumped groaning in her manacles and hung limp against the X-frame and heard ice and water sloshing in a metal container and then he was pressing an ice cold cloth to the wound and some of the pain slid into the cloth and out of her, coming back fierce and hot again and again as the rag cooled until he immersed it again and pressed it to her and all the while they said nothing, silent as priests standing before an altar.

Kath double-checked her work on the bandage. There was just enough play in the square white gauze pad so that when Sara moved around inside the Long Box the tape wouldn’t pull it too tight and the wound would be able to breathe. Overnight the bacitracin would do its work but the V-shaped blister probably would still suppurate for a while. She’d have to watch that. Have a look at it first thing in the morning.

No infections.

The home-made branding iron, a two-pronged fondue fork with a tooled wooden handle, lay beside the cooling hotplate on the worktable. She needed to put that away. Sara was never supposed to see what he’d used to create “his symbol.” He was very good at coming up with imaginative uses for everyday household items. In his hands a meat skewer, a pizza cutter or even a dozen clothespins and some twine could transform themselves into instruments of exquisite torture, worse in a lot of ways than all the belts and whips. The fondue fork was a new one but then he was always coming up with new stuff. She’d see him sometimes just sitting in a chair staring off into space and know he was dreaming about all the possibilities. Trying them out in his mind.