The Unchosen
Curled smoke and ashen snowflakes canvassed on a pigeon gray flocked sky. Bark stripped trees and acrid breeze. Caustic rain drizzle driven under a tattered tarp flapping against the sides of a rattletrap truck.
Dips. Swerves. Mud splash on wheel wells. Tight packed, half naked bodies thrown into a gear ground downshift turn. Men. Women. Children. Grimy breasts jostled on bloodstained elbows and unwashed crotches mashed on shrunken nuts.
Prayers. Some in English. A few in Spanish. A hint of Cantonese. Cadaver blue lips murmur in unison.
She is worn. Eyelids heavy. The corded loop fastened around her neck holds her upright. Her head bobs. She is snapped awake.
The tarp flutters. Roadside trenches and barbed wire curve around the mountain. Ghosts of men, concave chests and shaven heads, plumb scorched earth in grim harmony. Shovels down. Shovels up. Charcoal soil tossed over stooped shoulders.
Open bed trucks idle in broad, fire swept fields. Burlap bags of humanity heaped upon unsteady backs.
She closes her eyes. Inhales sour urine reek, and smiles. She is alive. Her nose tells her so.
The truck lurches to a halt. The last stop for the 'unchosen'. Boots squash damp earth. Laughter. Mock indifference to the leftover rabble hung like sides of beef, swimming in flies and filth.
There are four captors. Heavy. Well fed. Feasted on the misery and flesh of those with the audacity to live, survive. The unworthy who were left behind. Pocked faces. Thin, black leaf stem streaks course beneath sun reddened faces.
The tarp is thrown aside. Hell vomited upon the earth. Steel and stone. Stench and bone. The rattle of chains and the solitary pop of gunshots over the wail of children and cries of women. A vast compound wedged between towering cliffs at the head of a boulder-strewn valley. Smokestacks belching columns of incinerated remains high above fire pits and tin roof shacks. Turrets ring the upper ramparts. Sniper towers and razor wire dot the perimeter.
Tiny fingers press into her palm. She returns a reassurance squeeze.
She counted fifty when they started. Downcast heads and the sway of stiff limbs gone green in the heat tell her ten are dead. Perhaps, more. The children, clinging to their parents' legs, are hard to see. Their nooses disappear below starvation-ridged hips.
One by one they are removed. The elderly gentleman, hair tufts thicker in his ears than on his head, is slow. Too slow. They drag him from her field of vision.
She patiently waits. Numb fingers plucking, and chaffed wrists twisting, at the frayed rope that binds her hands. Hands first. Noose next. Freedom.
The body in front of her is stripped of its jewelry. Earrings and a diamond ring pocketed in a leather pouch. It is cut free. The thud jars the metal beneath her bare feet.
Now for the back row. Her row. His gaze finds hers. She is prepared his touch. He promised his intent the night he cinched the cord around her head and flicked his whiskey-coated tongue over her breasts.
He reaches for the girl. Exhales his foul breath in her ear. Vile sentiments reserved for whores.
She leans into the girl. Throws her hip against the side of his stubble cheek. "Leave her alone."
It's not a threat, and he knows it. She killed five when they found her. Snapped bones like toothpicks.
His hand trails her thigh. Better hers than the girl. Calloused fingers streak dirt on sweat soaked skin.
"And what is she to you?"
"Innocent."
Higher. Rougher.
She reprioritizes. Hands first. Pig next. Noose third. Three broken necks. Freedom.
The rope slides free…