RATION - Chapter 1 Teaser!

Hi Horror Fiends,

Our first Kickstarter for Cody's sf dystopian horror novel RATION launches soon! As a teaser, here is the first chapter.

RATION

by Cody T Luff

Chapter 1 - Bleeder

Natalie is bleeding. Something Cynthia has heard of, but nothing she has ever experienced before. Mistress has trailed off, her hollow mouth open, teeth bared in mid-invective. Natalie cannot quite weep. Instead, the girl’s shoulders tremble, her wet, red finger‐ tips held out to Mistress. “I’m dying,” Natalie says, and for a moment, Cynthia is sure the younger girl is going to do just that. The entire Cohort stares at their classmate, waiting.

Mistress closes her mouth, leaving her teeth dry and exposed. She moves briskly between the sodden desks, stepping over the weak board in the center of the room that moans whenever a foot so much as brushes the bowed wood.

Natalie raises her hand, offering her fingertips to Mistress. The Woman slaps Natalie’s hand away, catching the girl’s wrist in long fingers.

“Where are you bleeding from, girl?” Mistress’s voice causes Cynthia’s belly to tighten. Questions from the Mistress are always followed by slaps to the head. Natalie winces and begins stuttering.

“Answer,” Mistress demands. She pulls Natalie’s arm up, bringing the girl to her tip toes and Cynthia holds her breath, waiting for the Mistress to slap the bloody girl.

“Inside, from inside me,” Natalie manages through tears. Mistress frowns, the lines gathering at the corners of her lips like papery nets, her eyes tracing Natalie’s body. The girl is smaller than Cynthia, most girls in her Cohort are. Her thin button-up is wash-grey, one elbow frayed to reveal the skin beneath. Her pants are the same as Cynthia’s, threadbare blue that had once been denim, inherited from all the girls who came before, who happened to be of similar build. Natalie’s inner thighs are dark with blood. Mistress stares. The Cohort stares. Cynthia is aware of her own hollow stare; she does not look away.

“Well,” Mistress says, her teeth still visible above dried lips. “Congratulations. You are now a member of Cohort One. Find Ms. Glennoc and tell her you are a potential.” Mistress drops Natalie’s arm and sweeps the room with her eyes. “No more interruptions. We’ve work to do, and unless you are interested in testing me, we should continue.” The Woman winds her way back through the desks, girls retracting their bare feet to make room for Mistress’s hard, black shoes. The Cohort turns as one, a collected intake of breath, and shuffles as they turn back to the front of the room. Cynthia does not turn, and Natalie does not move.

“Rights. We were discussing the seven rights of Women. Right of free passage in the cities, right of ownership of property, right of liberty, right of thought and free expression, right of natural progeny, right of pure death, and right of sustenance. These are not your rights, yet you must know them, understand them, and honor them. Now, we have only one textbook, and I expect you to pass it along smartly. Once you have the book in your hand, count to ten and pass it along. Read as much as you can in that time. If you cannot read, study the images briefly and pass the book along. Pages 32 through 65. And if one of you dares tear a page this week, I will not hesitate to task you with my stick …” Mistress’s voice trails off. Her eyes have found Natalie, still standing in the middle of the classroom, the girl’s bloody fingers still held out.

“Was I unclear?” Mistress asks. The Cohort renews their stare. Some faces hold threads of sympathy, most hold the silence that each girl cultivates behind her own Apartment door. Cynthia’s silence burns in her throat. She knows Natalie. Natalie has a green sweater, much too big for the girl. She, Imeld, and Cynthia had cut it apart, a square for Cynthia and for Imeld, and the sleeves for Natalie. She said they made terrible socks, but she wore them to sleep every night.

Natalie’s mouth opens in a silent sob. Spittle clings to her lower lip and her nose runs. She looks down, her already-wet fingers touching the blood soaking her inner thighs. “Please,” she says, her mouth forming additional words that fall away beneath Mistress’s roar.

“Get out of here, you stupid girl. You’re a bleeder. Go to find Ms. Glennoc. You don’t need any further schooling, you need Glennoc.”

Natalie flinches away.

“I’ll take her,” Cynthia says. I will? she thinks.

“Fine, just go. You’ll run back here, or I’ll have your ear. Now go,” Mistress motions to the door, fingers flicking.

Cynthia stands, untangling herself from the terrible, small desk. She steps on the weak board and it groans against the arch of her foot. A girl snickers, and Mistress’s eyes flash to the offender.

“Testing me? Fine, I see that we’ve lost a day to social and biological impudence. Very well, let’s discuss punishment, shall we?”

Cynthia catches the corner of Natalie’s shirt and pulls her through the desks. The door closes behind them, leaving Mistress to her work.

Natalie stops just beyond the door, Cynthia tugging the girl’s shirt, but she will move no further. “I don’t want to go,” she says, her voice rich with tears.

Cynthia flinches as Mistress’s voice hums behind the door.

Inside, a girl begins to cry.

“I know, but you have to,” Cynthia says. She thinks about taking Natalie’s hand, the one free of blood, but instead, she takes a few steps down the hallway. “We better go. She’s really angry today.”

Natalie nods, but doesn’t move. “I don’t know what a bleeder is.”

Cynthia nods. Does she know? Not really. Imeld was in a better

Cohort. Most everything she knew about much of anything came from Imeld. Cynthia, and for that matter, her entire Cohort, would never become Women. “Menstruation,” Cynthia says.

“Menstruation?”

Cynthia shrugs and takes another step down the hallway. “Most don’t do it. Almost none of us.”

Natalie swallowed loudly, a shiver clicking her teeth together. “Girls that do it can have more girls,” Cynthia says. Natalie stares at her. “Babies. You can have a baby. Well, maybe. Imeld told me that you can potentially have a baby.”

Natalie stares down the hallway, her lips tinged with blue.

“We need to go,” Cynthia says.

Natalie nods, but instead of following, she sits down.

The classroom door crouches at the end of the first-floor hall‐ way. The tile floor slick with a thin slime of water. The ceiling a whorl of white tile, dyed rust red from a thousand past leaks. Long dead wiring like blue veins beneath thin skin. Imeld insisted that each wire had its own purpose, but Cynthia knows that they are dead things. Colorful, yes. But just as dead as all the other machines that crowd the Apartments. What still works, works rarely and will eventually stop entirely.

Cynthia shifts from foot to foot, the biting cold of the tile working its way into her ankles. “Please. We have to go.”

“What happens to bleeders?” Natalie says, and her voice is soft in the dim.

Cynthia glances at the classroom door. She can still hear Mistress’s voice through the peeling door. Still imagine the Woman’s stick at work. Whose knuckles would be bloody tonight? Whose feet would be striped red? “We have to go, Natalie. Please don’t get me in trouble.”

Natalie sniffs and shakes her head, “I don’t want to be a bleeder, Cinnie.”

At any moment the door will open, and Mistress will be there, her stick red and hungry. Why did she offer to take Natalie to Ms. Glennoc? Cynthia is very good at being quiet, very good at being nothing more offensive than tall. Mistress has only taken the stick to Cynthia once, and she’s only been reprimanded a few times by the other Women. “I’m sorry, Natalie. Maybe it’s better.”

Natalie glances up at Cynthia, her eyes red from tears, “Nothing gets better, Cinnie. You know that.”

“That’s not true. You’ll get a ration every day, all bleeders do,” Cynthia tries to meet Natalie’s eyes with her own, both girls look away.

“Do you think it’s an A ration,” Natalie says wiping at her nose.

“I don’t know. Probably not but at least a B. A B a day.”

“That’s so much,” Natalie’s voice is a small thing, trapped in the hollow of her throat.

Cynthia says nothing, the chill of the hallway slick against her skin. After a long moment, Natalie stands and nods. They walk together, bare feet picking through puddles that always seem to form, no matter how often the girls are required to mop them up. They are silent, and Cynthia is grateful.

The stairs to the second floor are wide, and the carpet tacked to the bowed wood beneath offers no warmth to Cynthia’s feet. At the first landing, Natalie stops again. She is still for a moment before she speaks, “Goodbye, Cinnie. Will you tell Imeld what happened?”

“All right,” Cynthia says.

“I’ll never see you again,” Natalie says.

“That’s not true,” Cynthia says.

“I’ve never seen anyone from Cohort One, have you?” Cynthia doesn’t answer, and Natalie nods.

“I’ll miss you,” Cynthia says, her voice an ugly, small thing in the stairway.

“I don’t think you will, Cinnie. There is not enough of you to miss anyone else. Except Imeld, I guess.”

Except Imeld, Cynthia thinks.

Natalie starts up the stairs, alone. Cynthia watches her heels blanch under the girl’s meager weight after each step. She is about to ask if Natalie knows where to find Ms. Glennoc, but her voice is gone. Instead, she turns and carefully picks her way downstairs, imagines the best way to avoid catching Mistress’s attention when she slips back into the classroom.