Regan Wolfrom - Catholic Guilt and the Joy of Hating Men

She kept screaming, for almost a minute. She was in pain.

Pouchon wasn’t doing what I’d thought he’d be doing. He’d lied.

“Oh, god,” Cadance said. “My sister…”

“She must be putting up one hell of a fight,” I said. “Don’t worry… he doesn’t want to hurt her.”

“Why are you doing this to us?”

“I’m saving my friends. You did this to yourself.”

“Come on… this wasn’t my fault. You can’t do this.”

“And so why us, then?” I asked. “What did we do to deserve this?”

“We needed you. That’s… that’s all it was.”

“Why?”

“You already know why. We needed new workers to replace the macoutes .”

“What makes us good workers? You just head over state lines to grab a handful mediocre high school basketball players?”

“Yes.”

“How did you even find us?”

“Uh… YouTube. You guys did a video, that cinnamon challenge thing. We saw the uniforms so we knew where to find you. Shannard saw it and she got all weird about it… three dumb girls… strong and fit, but not strong enough to be dangerous.”

“Dumb girls?”

“Well… cinnamon challenge…”

Pouchon strode into the room.

“That girl is worthless,” he said.

“Did you hurt her?” I asked.

“She’s okay.” He took a minute to check my work. “Nice job… this little bitch isn’t going anywhere.”

“Easy, Pouchon,” I said. “You’ve scared her enough as it is.”

“There’s no such thing as being too scared.”

“That’s not funny.”

“Yeah, okay… now it’s your turn.”

“What?”

“Hands behind your back.”

“What are you talking about?”

He pushed me onto the bed.

For some reason that was the moment Cadance started to cry.

“I wrote a story, Amanda,” Pouchon said as he rolled me onto my stomach. “I’ve had two months in this place to plot it out.”

He bound my wrists with one of the reins he still had. He hadn’t used them on Tiara.

“Please don’t,” I said.

“Please,” Cadance said. “Oh god… please…”

“Shut up,” Pouchon said. “1:33 AM. Two of the macoutes escape when their cell is left unlocked by Cadance being careless. No surprise there.” He started to bind my ankles. “2:14 AM. The sound of a girl’s screams brings Tiara down to the stable to investigate. She discovers that two of the young girls have been attacked and eaten by the two macoutes .”

“That won’t work,” I said. “You can’t just throw a couple of zombies into a stall and hope they eat whoever’s inside.” At least I hoped it didn’t work that way.

“My first draft had Tiara screaming but then escaping for a second round. I was under the impression that she had… more star power? But I’ve decided to rewrite that part.”

“What does that mean?” Cadance asked.

“What do you think it means? The zombies are going to eat her.”

“Or so you’re hoping,” I said.

“Don’t worry about it, Amanda. I’m a do-it-yourselfer.”

“What?”

“Who do you think ate Rarity?”

“Oh my god…” I said.

Cadance started to sob.

Pouchon tied my ankles and wrists together. “3:01 AM. Cadance comes to the stable to look for her missing sister. She discovers the scene and decides that she needs to rescue that one poor girl who wasn’t zombified.” He tapped the back of my head. “That’s you. She lets you out and the two of you run to the house, carelessly leaving the door to the stables open.”

“That’s a lot of carelessness,” I said. “Pretty big plot holes.”

“5:22 AM. The two macoutes eventually find their way to the house and discover the two girls cowering in a bedroom. The zombies do what zombies do.” He grinned. “That’s the part where I get to eat you.”

“Then what?”

“Doesn’t matter as far as you’re concerned.”

“Indulge me,” I said. “Maybe the extra terror of the story will make me that much tastier.”

“You’re being ridiculous. Don’t be ridiculous.” He shook his head. “Either way, Gary shows up in the morning and chomp . Then Daddy gets home a little later and, well, chomp chomp chomp .”

“And so then the zombies run off into the night and you disappear. But won’t they just think you’re one of the three escaped zombies?”

“I guess I left out the part about the safe buried under the round pen and the millions of dollars in ill-gotten teddy bear money. Did I not mention the teddy bear money?”

“You inferred it earlier. I guess that was enough.”

“Ha! I like you, Amanda.”

“Then try not eating me.”

“Oh god,” Cadance said again.

“I’m a murderer,” Pouchon said. “You know… a murderer who eats people.”

“I don’t get why these idiots would’ve picked you for this,” I said.

“That’s an endemic problem in the US Penal System. Some inmates learn how to be better lockpickers or gang bangers… I perfected a different skill. You know… I’ll bet they don’t churn out monsters like me in Scandinavian prisons.”

“I’ll be sure to set up a Facebook page about that if you let me live.”

He chuckled again. I felt like I was trying to survive based on pure entertainment value. It was a better strategy than Cadance’s “sob till you pass out” approach.

“Take the money,” I said. “We’ll rewrite the story. You’ll be the hero who saved me and tied up these girls so I could run and get help. Then you felt you had to run away; they won’t look too hard for you.”

Pouchon looked me over for a minute. “Maybe that could have worked,” he said, “but it won’t work now.”

“Why not?”

“Because I already took a big honking bite out of Tiara.”

“Why?” Cadance screamed. “Why are you doing this to us?”

“Shut up,” Pouchon said. He pulled a pink sock from his flared-pants pocket and shoved it in her mouth. “Do you know what they were going to do, Amanda? They were going to kill us.”

“Kill you? Why?”

“Because they knew it was just a matter of time before the macoutes attacked again.”

“But it wasn’t the macoutes . You’re the psycho face chomper.”

“Ironic, isn’t it?”

“I’m not sure…”

“Once they had you girls up and working, they were going to starve us to death in those concrete cells.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“They talked about it right in front of me. Big bad Kathleen Shannard herself, on and on with every damned detail. But why not? I was just a brainless zombie, remember?” He grabbed Cadance by the hair and jerked her head off the mattress. “Remember?”

“Don’t kill her,” I said. “She’s just a kid.”

“That’s a slippery slope, Amanda. You’re pretty much a kid, too. Hell, you can’t even drink a beer yet. And that tasty dish in the other room isn’t much older…”

“Come on…”

“She deserved it. And so does this little bitch. They took us from that prison and brought us here, and strapped us to that table and injected us with that poison…”

“Then you know what you should do? Rewrite the goddamn story. Take this little bitch down to the stables and strap her to that table. Let’s pump her full of enough of that green piss that she turns into a leprechaun. Make her feel it, Pouchon.”

He started to laugh. “Inmate doesn’t mean idiot, Amanda. Do you think I’m going to fall for some stupid distraction?”

“I don’t have a lot of options here.”

“No… you really don’t.” He leaned over and kissed me on the forehead. “I like you, Amanda.”