Poor Things (Wattys2018 Winner)

25. The Milky Way

♫

A burst of bluish white popped the darkness. The mountainside leapt up, its edges as sharp and red as bloodied knives. Thunder crashed and the mountain vanished. Booming echoes rolled down over us, carrying with them a warm sprinkle of rain.

"What's that?" Ash said.

"Lightning," Wasp answered, his voice stretched thin by impatience.

"No, not that." She pointed as a flash unmasked the building sitting up ahead, off the road. It was surrounded in trees, a few of which leaned tiredly against its walls, their roots pulled up from the soil in bloody clumps. Around the building was a crescent of asphalt, once black, now the same color as the fog hanging low above the roof. "That."

"The visitor center."

Ash shouted over the rising storm. "Honaw has a visitor center?"

"It did."

The building stayed hidden until it was behind us, then it jumped out one more time for a goodbye, its trees waving branches in the growing wind. Rain drops slid down my chest, pinkening as they traveled my skin. I pulled the flaps of my leather jacket tight. My hair was glued to my forehead. My jeans seeped red.

We had been moving for a mile or more, Ash talking the whole time. What kind of food did they have at the medical center? Were there showers? Were there baths? Was the fog, like, some weird weather pattern? What was going on around town? That was as close as she came to directly mentioning the kids or school, though I suppose the scratches on my chest and stomach spoke for themselves, if our escorts cared enough to listen. Wasp didn't, I was pretty sure. And Moth definitely didn't. They were telling their own stories, the two of them. What did it matter who Ash and I were, or what we had been through, as long as we came along willingly? The road ended the same regardless.

"How close are we?" said Ash. "Are we close?"

"Over halfway." Wasp was panting. He pulled the handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped off his dripping visor to no effect.

"I don't want to be out in the storm if it gets bad."

"Then walk faster."

Ash slowed the tiniest bit. "I can't. I'm too tired. Why didn't you drive again?"

"The road is blocked."

"Yeah, but that's all the way back in town. You could've parked by the fuel truck and saved us the whole hike."

"That would have been nice."

"Why didn't you then?"

Bitterly he said, "The Rocky Way has appropriated all of our vehicles for their own use."

I considered this briefly. If The Milky Way (the part of the highway running to the east of town) had been named for the milk spilled by the fuel truck, then it stood to reason that The Rocky Way (the part of the highway running to the west) had been named for the boulders that had tumbled loose during the earthquake.

"Really? What do they use the vehicles for?"

"Whatever tasks they've been given."

Like driving from house to house looking for 'subjects,' perhaps?

"What kind of tasks?"

"The kind we can't talk about."

"Oh." Ash's red mask was washing away. Behind it her face was clenched. "I bet you have a lot of those, don't you?"

The sky flashed a photograph of Moth, tall and pale in a world saturated white, his silhouette thrown in every direction. He was five yards ahead, and increasing the gap between us with every step he took.

Ash gestured to him. "Is he your friend?"

"Who?"

"Your friend. Is he your friend?"

"He's my partner."

"Yeah, but is he your friend?"

"In a way."

"What way is there? He's either your friend, or he isn't. What about if he got hurt? Would you be sad?"

"What kind of question is that?"

"An easy one. Well, would you?"

"Sure."

"What about him? If you got hurt, would he feel sad?"

"I don't know." Wasp's voice was breaking from the strain of talking and moving in his heavy suit.

"You don't? You don't know if he'd feel sad?"

"I think—"

"You think?"

"—I—"

A writhing blue-white line cracked the night. Thunder hammered at the mountain, the road, my bones. The woods filled with static, and then the rain came, the true rain, a rushing downpour that churned red mist up from the road and made rivers on the muddy shoulder. I felt Ash let go of Bitchmaster. There was another flash, a cathedral bell crash of sound, and when I glanced back, Wasp was lying on the ground, his hips arched high into the air, one hand tight around the flashlight. Water streamed off his helmet. Inside it I could make out his glasses.

The lenses were fogged pink.

Ash dropped to her knees beside him. She grabbed his waist and shoulder and flipped him onto his stomach with one big push. I saw it then, the hole on his right ankle, the flapping mouth cut into his suit. Her scissors. Ash had sliced open his suit with her scissors, and the fog had found its way into him as it had found its way into everyone else. She tugged at the gun on his back. It wouldn't come off. It was strapped on tight.

I turned my head.

Up ahead, Moth stopped walking and looked back. He stiffened. Slowly, like his limbs were weighed down, like he was in a nightmare, he took a step toward us. His voice was soft in the thunder. "You. Girl. Stop that." He reached behind his back. I reached into the pouch hanging from Bitchmaster's armrest. The gun swung up in his hand, shiny and black, as I pitched the drumbeater.

It was no football, and my aim was well off.

But it made him flinch, and by then I was pushing toward him, rain blind, Bitchmaster's wheels slip-sliding on the road. Moth pointed the rifle past me and at the last instant hopped sideways the way a matador does to a bull. Except bulls don't have arms. I hooked mine around his waist, the chair still going, and pulled myself onto him. His suit was slick, hard to grip. I bit into it. His long-fingered hand closed on my hair, and I had time to think, damn, should have let Ash cut it after all. Then I was on the asphalt, staring up at him from my back.

The sky flashed.

Moth's visor glared lightning.

As the butt of his gun hit my skull, thunder cracked and the world went dark.

____ ____

Author's Note:

All right, all right, we're in the thick of it now. How're you all doing?

Oh, almost forgot . . .

. . . coming up next, things get crazy.