Half Mile

I knew that I would hear him coming, but I didn’t think that the sound of the lockets hanging off of his belt would make it so damn haunting. I guess everything’s a little more eerie since the sun burnt out on me: my mind likes to fill in the darkness with what it thinks things might look like now, but my mind doesn’t have much good left in it. I slump back into the seat of the car and I wonder what time it might be. It’s the first I’ve remembered of the concept of time at all since I been on my own. Guess I want to know my time of death, since ain’t no one else gonna pronounce it. Maybe he’s got a watch amongst that string of silver hearts and I could catch the time before my locket is added to the collection. Surely one of us owned a damn watch, too.

I remember hearing someone back home say that as a human, your brain somehow knows you’re going to die when you’re facing your death, and it shuts off or goes dead before you ever have to feel pain. I wonder how close he has to get before my brain would go dead. I’ve spent a whole year wishing I’d died when everyone else did, and now here I am, afraid of my final miserable moments as if they’re different from anyone else’s. Maybe it ain’t fear, I just don’t want to feel it. I ain’t sick like that.

Every girl left around here has heard the stories of what he likes to do to us when he hunts us down. Each time I’ve left the half mile for supply trade, the girls swap horror stories about the last time he killed. No one speaks of love, recipes, memories, or people. It’s not like that anymore. All they seem to speak of is him, like if ants spoke of the nasty little bastard with the magnifying glass, except most of these girls ain’t locket girls. I know they see the heart hanging from the chain around my neck, and they always quiet down when I approach the conversation like they’re saving me by attempting to hide my fate. “I can’t see two inches in front of me,” I remind them, “but I do see what’s coming’.”

The scrap yard is practically rattling with every step he takes, and if I weren’t in total darkness, I’d bet I’d see that the dust was clouding the entire half mile with how long it’s been since we had a drop of rain. I‘ll shuffle out of here and stroll on over to my death, I suppose. I stop myself before shutting the car door: a couple more seconds of peace would be nice before he comes dashing over for the slaughter like a crazed animal. Or maybe that’s what will make my brain shut off. I’ve had enough peace: I slam the car door and flinch.

The jingling of the lockets becomes faster and closer. My stomach goes tight and I hold my locket between my fingers. My thumb traces the heart shape, picks the locket open and snaps it shut. I try to shut my brain off. I should have killed myself first, not giving him the satisfaction. I wonder if he knows I’m blind. I wonder if he ever even bothers to learn our names. I wonder if it matters.

The jingling halts so suddenly, I figure maybe my brain really did shut off. I open and close my fists to see if I even have a body at all anymore, and then I hear him breathing. He knows I can’t see and he thinks he can sneak up on me if he’s quiet, but he can’t be quiet. He sounds like he’s about 9 foot tall and 500 pounds. The girls always said he was a mutant, but I thought they’d exaggerated his size.

I spoke in a low register to help my voice from shaking:

“I know you’re there. You ain’t sneaky— so if that’s what gets you off, you ain’t getting it. Quit toying with me and kill me already. I know who you are. I heard the lockets.”

“Ren?” An astonished, surprisingly gentle voice. I guess he does learn our names.

“Yeah it’s me— ain’t I the one you was looking for? Maybe you weren’t expecting the eyes: I lost my sight when the big flash happened ‘bout a year ago. I’m sure you can have fun with that somehow. You’re sick.”

The voice sounds near tears at this point. “I didn’t know it was you.”

I scoff. “Oh well I’m real sorry if you were saving the best and most vile for last, but you got me now. Surely by the sounds of your collection on your belt loop there ain’t too many more of us worthless creatures left to harvest.”

The voice is still so calm and gentle. “Renata, I won’t do that to you.” I hear his voice change as he breaks into a smile. “It’s me. It’s Vince. I didn’t know you’d been given a locket— I know you’re not like the rest of them.”

Somehow my brother being a murderous creep harvesting silver from sex workers was even less shocking than the end of the world. He was a fed before, so I knew he was a classist pig already. I remember him talking about the locket rollout at dinner with mom and dad, the smug look on his face, so proud of permanently marking a “class” of women with heart shaped lockets. The lockets were disguised as safe, irreplaceable keys to enter sex clubs, only they were also irremovable and marked you as lesser for life. Branding us like cattle must have lost the popular vote. He didn’t know I was a sex worker then, and I was so looking forward to showing up that next Christmas with my locket. When the world ended I knew they’d have protected bastards just like my brother, but I guess I’d hoped he died with everyone else.

“I ain’t gonna live another minute as your kin, Vince.” I lean into the window of the car and reach into the middle console to get my pistol. The mag is fully loaded just in case anyone figured half mile was a good place to steal supplies instead of trade them.

I can sense the smug look on his face again. “You aren’t gonna kill me with that, kid; part of the mutation they gave me. Quit being a female and just let me save you.”

I laugh, probably the hardest I’ve laughed in a year.

“I’ll save myself, big brother. Enjoy the silver.”

I put the barrel to my forehead, and my brain shuts off.