Go-Go Girls of the Apocalypse, стр. 18
“She likes things just right,” Ruth said.
Mortimer smiled weakly. “Who doesn’t?”
She showed him through the kitchens, then took him down another level. She opened a big steel door, and Mortimer balked at the darkness and the damp smell. But Ruth took a lantern hanging from the wall and flipped it on. It hummed and buzzed to life, casting a blue glow on the rough cavern walls beyond. She led, and he followed.
The tunnel’s low ceiling was a mere two inches from his head, but it soon opened into a wide cave. The sound of rushing water. She held up the lantern, showing Mortimer the pool of water, the underground river flowing in one side and out the other. Mortimer thought of his own caves, where he’d hidden from the world for so long.
“We catch fish here,” Ruth said. “This isn’t the drinking water. The hospital has a system fed by a very deep well. But we have plans to put in a hydroelectric waterwheel here if the solar panels on the roof give out. There are complete diagrams for how to build a waterwheel in a book in the hospital library.”
She took Mortimer through the rest of the hospital, showing him inconsequential nooks and crannies. The entire time something about the place nagged at him, something beyond the general strangeness of the people he’d met. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it.
“How many live here?” Mortimer asked.
“Eighty-eight,” said Ruth. “Fewer than in the old times.”
“The old times?”
“Before. The time before the society.”
Right.
A large room with many shelves and books was obviously the hospital library. Ruth credited the written knowledge within for a good portion of the society’s survival. Everything anyone needed to know, she claimed, was written down in one book or another. How to make soap or repair a furnace or catch fish or set a broken arm or…well…anything.
Mortimer wandered while Ruth chattered on about the wonders of the library, her bubbly voice fading to background music. He drifted toward a wall where several framed newspaper articles hung. The newspaper had yellowed almost to brown. He scanned the headlines and photos.
A man in a hard hat and a business suit breaking ground with a ceremonial golden shovel. Another photo dated almost twenty-four months later, of a sharply dressed woman cutting a ribbon. Various headlines:
GROUND BREAKS ON INNOVATIVE CARE CENTER.
SECLUDED WOMEN’S HOSPITAL A RETREAT FOR THE WEARY.
RENOWNED PSYCHOLOGIST TO JOIN SAINT SEBASTIAN’S STAFF.
Mortimer scanned the articles, frowned as other headlines and bits of story jumped out at him.
DEPRESSION UP AMONG WOMEN, CLAIMS SAINT SEBASTIAN’S DOCTOR.
SAINT SEBASTIAN’S TO OPEN NEW WARD FOR VIOLENT PSYCHOTICS.
KNOXVILLE WOMAN WHO MURDERED FAMILY TO GO TO SAINT SEBASTIAN’S.
Something cold and leaden sagged in the pit of Mortimer’s stomach. He glanced sideways at Ruth, who still gestured airily at the many volumes. Oh, hell, he thought. I’m in a nuthouse.
Mortimer cleared his throat. “Uh…well, this has been fun. If I could just get my boots, I really need to hit the road.”
Ruth tilted her head, frowned at him. “The road?”
“I want to leave. Thanks for the soup.”
She shook her head. “Nobody leaves. This is the society. We are within, safe from the outside. No one leaves. Ever.”
Mortimer suddenly realized what was so strange about the hospital. He’d not seen a single open door or window.
XVIII
He burst from the library and headed down the hall at a fast walk, Ruth trailing behind and looking confused. His eyes darted in every direction looking for a door to the outside or a window. There wasn’t even an EXIT sign.
Mortimer spotted a hall branching off, turned on his heel and jogged down it.
“Not down there.” Ruth trotted after him. “Nobody goes down there!”
The hall was dim, every third or fourth fluorescent bulb burned out overhead. Cobwebs in the corners.
“Stop!” she shouted. “You’ll get us in trouble.”
He ran faster. “Why? Is this where the door is?” he shouted back. “Is this the way out?”
“Please!” Distress high in her voice. “Stop!”
“Get away from me, wack-job.”
A door at the end of the hall snapped into focus, and Mortimer ran for it. As he got closer he saw the DO NOT ENTER sign across the front, the yellow police tape crisscrossing the doorway. A large padlock.
Above the door was another sign, spray-painted in rough, juvenile lettering. HOLY OF HOLY.
He heard more footsteps stomping up behind him.
Mortimer ripped aside the yellow police tape. He kicked the door hard, rattling the padlock. The shock traveled up his leg, hurt all the way to his hip. He ignored the pain, kicked again.
Ruth screamed.
Mortimer tried to turn, but white-hot fire struck him in the side, bathed his nervous system in electricity. He fell, twitched and slobbered, tried to turn his head.
The last thing he saw was a man in a dress.
“Hit him again with the stun gun,” he said.
ZAP.
When Mortimer came around, he was tied spread-eagle on an operating table. Bare-ass naked. He felt slightly queasy, his whole body still humming from the massive zap, all his nerve endings buzzing and raw. It was cold, and Mortimer shivered.
He blinked the blur from his eyes, saw the rows of faces above him like some grim jury. He realized the operating room was theater style, a place where surgeons could demonstrate complicated procedures to student cutters.
Mortimer worried what they intended to demonstrate on him.
The women in the gallery were of every variety, tall, short, fat. Women with haggard horse faces. Younger women with open, timid expressions. Old crones crazy eyed and wrinkled.
Some regarded Mortimer like a new species of insect to be logged and dissected. Others had an eerie, hungry look, like Mortimer was raw red meat.
“Some hardly remember what a naked man looks like.” The voice behind him was gruff and low. “A few have never seen one at all, not quite like this.”
Mortimer twisted, tried to turn his head. All he could see was the suggestion of a big, dark shape behind him.
The voice rose for the benefit of the gallery. “Fate has sent us this man. His seed will ensure the survival of the society. The lucky chosen shall bear children, and we will know life again.”
Murmuring from the gallery, a mix of excitement and anxiety.
“For years have we lived in harmony and peace and safety,” the voice continued. “We need not have any contact with the world outside. The world poisoned and destroyed by men. We happy sisters live and prosper here in our sanctuary of Saint Sebastian’s. Only one thing do we need: the seed of life. It is the ultimate irony that those who would destroy the world would also hold the essence of life, the seed. But destiny has provided this man. We will take his seed, and we will live!”
Halfhearted applause from the gallery.
The voice walked around the table until it came into view. Mortimer gasped. It was the man in the dress, a flowing black gown with a high neck. He was tall, broad-shouldered. He had a potbelly and big arms bulging beneath the silky sleeves, a five o’clock shadow on an anvil chin, an Adam’s apple the size of a baseball. The blonde wig was some sort of cabaret nightmare.
He leaned in close, his hot breath like bad cheese on Mortimer’s face. “You’re going to get it up, little man. And you’d better perform.”
He turned back to the gallery again. “Let the breeding begin!”
A door slid open on the bottom level of the amphitheater. Mortimer lifted his head, watched the newcomer enter between his feet. A silhouette against the harsh light from the hallway. She came into focus as she entered the operating room.