Vern skidded to a halt. She threw a glance over her shoulder and froze. Queen had come to Vern in a haunting, but her real-life presence could not compare. In the light of day, hot and alive before her, she was a revelation, a marvel, an angel. Queen’s carapace put poor Vern’s to shame, its massive web of bone unfolded outward nearly four or five feet on either side of her. There were no clothes to cover any aspect of her glory. Exoskeleton covered all but her belly, breasts, and genitals.
Queen growled at Vern and unsheathed herself. The curves of white bone that outlined her rib cage unfurled, creating a set of claws on either side of her torso. It was a threat, one that Vern did not take lightly, and she turned to run again. As she did, Queen screamed another agonized wail, wincing, in pain. Her skeleton folded into itself, and for a moment she looked but a mere woman.
Queen shrank to the ground, crying out, and Vern took a wary step toward her. As Queen rasped and hissed, Vern pressed forward, drawn toward her as if by a magnet. She was a picture of Vern’s future, rabid and powerful. Even if it killed her, Vern needed a closer look.
A helicopter whirred nearby. Run, Vern told herself. She didn’t. Instead, her feet moved one in front of the other toward her future.
Collars made of thick black plastic circled Queen’s neck, wrists, and ankles. They buzzed, and Queen cried out again and fell to the ground, convulsing.
“God of Cain,” Vern said quietly. “You poor fucking wretch.” Queen lay in front of her no mightier than a wounded deer as shocks zapped through the collars and cuffs.
Ollie truly had treated Queen as some inhuman pet: calling her back to heel with an electric leash.
“Don’t fucking move,” Vern heard from the trees.
She whipped her head to the side, where two figures stood, both armed with rifles pointed at her and Queen. The men were lean and wore red caps, army fatigue pants, and orange vests over indistinct long-sleeved shirts. Hunters.
The sun was heavy in the sky as evening sauntered in. Fading light blessed and cursed in equal turns. The bright glare of midday was gone, and Vern’s eyes were thankful for that. But shadows obscured the path down the mountain, her escape route. She’d have to tread more slowly now.
The hunters stalked closer, guns at the ready. Vern straightened herself up into a prettier woman, as much as she could, slicking down the hairs that had escaped the elastic holding together her bun. Sweating and dirt-smudged—as much a monster as Queen—she didn’t stand a chance of passing as respectable. But who wanted to be respectable?
One of the men walked up to her, head cocked. There was maybe a smirk on his face. Dead rabbits hung from his belt. He pressed the end of the barrel into Vern’s belly and dragged it down just past her navel.
The other man stooped over Queen, who was crouched on the ground, his gun to her head. “What the fuck are you, freak?” he asked.
“You heard him. You, too. What the fuck are you?” asked the man with the rifle jutted into Vern’s abdomen.
She wanted to be a girl in an action movie and say, Your worst nightmare, creep, then rip him open like a birthday present, but bravery was a finite resource. Like a piece of thread, it frayed in time when tested too heavily. Vern couldn’t dodge a rifle bullet at point-blank range.
“Just leave us be,” said Vern.
“I don’t take orders from freak bitches like you,” he said.
“Please,” Vern begged. “For your own good.”
“Shut up, bitch. Don’t talk unless I say talk.”
Vern gritted her teeth, not for the first time made helpless by a man who thought the world was made just for him. How could someone think such a thing in the woods? One need only look up at the towering evergreens to be reminded of one’s smallness.
With his rifle pressed to Vern’s belly, he thought he was King of All. He was king of nothing. Even if he shot her dead, he would be no more a thing than he had been when he woke up this morning.
“If you want to shoot me, then shoot me,” said Vern, anger rising. The hunter smacked her across the face with the gun.
Vern laughed. “Was that supposed to hurt?”
He did it again, harder this time, and Vern spit out the blood in her mouth. She wanted to end him right here, right now, but even more than that she wanted to understand what had gone so wrong with his upbringing.
What turned babies, fragile and curious, into Shermans? Into Ollies? Into men who could not interact with a new thing without wanting to dominate it?
What order of events did Vern need to disrupt in the lives of the millions upon millions who woke up every morning proud to be Americans? What made someone love lies?