Cameron Pierce
ABORTION ARCADE
NO CHILDREN
Where I Am and How Close to Death
There is a light that never goes out. This light hangs in the wedding tower. Tomorrow, I will sleep there for the first and final time. Tomorrow, I am getting married.
I’ll make love for the first time.
The morning after, the dead people will come. They’ll cut off my head and steal my brain.
My wife, hopefully Pym, will become pregnant and give birth to a child who will never know its father, as I never knew mine.
To the dead people, male humans are only good for one child, then they are slaughtered and de-brained.
Naked, I crawl out of the dirt hole I sleep in. The hot fog eats at my flesh.
I’m damn hungry but take my time walking to the feeding troughs. Wedding season never brings anything good to eat for breakfast, only leftovers from the previous night’s celebration.
In the distance, a tumbleweed blows against the gargantuan brick wall that closes in around us like a fist squeezing an eyeball.
Breakfast Heart
“Fill your belly, son,” my mother smiles. She scoots aside so that I can kneel beside her at the trough. Her face is bloody.
She sucks the meat off the severed thumb of a man.
I know the hand belonged to a man and not a woman because it is a young hand, a boy’s hand. Zombies harvest males at a young age, never females, unless the female proves infertile or dies of suicide or some natural cause.
That is because females are for making babies. From the time they are first married off, most females give birth to six or seven children, each with a different husband.
A man can fill a woman with his seed for one night and then he must die. The zombies cut off his head. The zombies want his brain.
The rest of his body? Human food.
Zombies are wasteful, inefficient farmers, but they know how to keep our gene pool diverse.
I squeeze between my mother and a ratty bitch who could very well be my wife come tomorrow.
Humans don’t choose who humans marry.
I dig around inside the trough, looking for some choice bits. My mother grabs my wrist and forces something wet and soft into my hand.
A human heart.
She tilts her neck so that I can see the bite marks lining her jugular. “A bastard nearly ripped my throat out for taking this away. However, I promised myself as a little girl that no son of mine would ever go to his wedding night without the nourishment of a heart. Eat it now so that your seed may be strong tomorrow.”
I am my mother’s fifth child. She birthed four boys be-fore me. They all went to their wedding nights before I came along, so I’ve never known the company of a brother.
“Thank you for your troubles, mother.”
I bite into the heart, savoring the brackish gravy that gushes from the inner chamber.
As I chew, savage eyes fall greedily upon me. Everyone knows that in a few days I’ll be in the trough. I meet each pair of eyes, wondering if any of these women will be my wife. I return to my hole after breakfast.
I don’t feel like talking to anyone.
What I Keep Hidden in the Dirt
I doze to stave off the hot air. Even though I’m naked and underground, the heat is overwhelming. I toss and turn, my sweat transforming the dirt floor to mud.
I’m awakened a short time later by the prodding of a shit-stained claw.
This can only be one person: Robbie, the goblin child.
“Please wake up, Grieves,” he says, speaking with a grating lisp.
Robbie came from an old mother who died giving birth to him. My mother took him in at a young age, so he is sort of like a younger brother to me. The front of his oversized head is sloped and wart-covered. Two large twisted horns jut from his forehead. From the neck down, smaller horns cover his tainted, green skin. A permanent wheeze emanates from his nostrils. His breath stinks because he’s got this nasty habit of eating his own shit. It’s why his hands are stained.
“Wake up, Grieves. Please wake up.”
“Get out of my hole, you shitting bastard.”
“But your mother told me to wake you. The bridal lottery for Bill’s wedding is about to begin. Your mother said you ought to be there, owing that your wedding is tomorrow.”
“Get on going. I’ll be there shortly,” I say.
“Right, see you there!” Robbie turns around and scuttles out of my hole.
Certain I’m alone again, I uncover the little wooden box I keep buried in the floor. I remove the box and pull out the two withered papers within. One is a letter from Pym, the only letter anyone ever wrote to me. We were crushes as children. At the age of seven, she found blood between her legs and was promptly married off to Wolf, then the oldest man, all wrinkly and gray. Wolf nearly fucked her to death on their wedding night.
Pym had given the note to me right before her wedding. In it, she promised that when I grew bigger, big enough to marry, that we would be married and unlike all the others who come together for one night only to be lost to each other, we would never part.
The other thing I keep in my box is a drawing, more recent than the letter. I drew this picture of Pym a year ago at most. Pym is thin and frail like most of the girls, except she does not resemble a diseased rat. Pym looks angelic. White hair, white skin, white eyes, white teeth, white tongue. I want nothing more than to be her husband so I can peer between her legs and see up inside her.
I bet she is full of clouds.
I bet she will be chosen as my wife tomorrow.
I will be her third husband. Some say that is the best one to be.
I return the letter and the picture to the wooden box and rebury the box in its hole, thinking I’ll give the picture to Pym as a wedding present.
Pym, be my wife.
I scamper out of my hole and off to Bill’s bridal lottery.
The Bridal Lottery of a Good Man
Bill is a good man. So good I almost consider him a friend.
He acts kindly toward everyone, even Robbie. Unlike most of us, Bill was not born on the farm. He lived as a wild man, a free man, for many years. Until the zombies captured him and brought him here. Bill is educated about the outside world and many other things as well. Upon his arrival, he took on the role of teacher. He has taught young and old alike. We know many things thanks to Bill.
He told us about this place called City, where humans live free to this day. Now it is time for Bill to get married. A good man, that Bill.
People crowd around the stage, which is situated in the exact center of our enclosed prison habitat, or farm.
Surrounded by so many people squeezing close around me, I try to forget that we’re imprisoned by brick walls a hundred feet high. I try to forget that all important things end in death. So much excitement but these bad thoughts squelch it.
The crowd parts to let the zombies through. Bill stands onstage by himself, looking dignified but solemn.
Like an army of drunken owls, the crowd chants:
“Who will be his bride? Who? Who? Who will be his bride? Who? Who?”
The zombies shamble onto the stage, maggots swimming in the flesh that falls off their bloody bones.
The zombies dress in blue overalls and yellow boots.
Some of them wear straw hats. Others are missing their faces, preventing them from wearing hats. Those faceless ones hold their eyeballs in their outstretched hands to guide them. It must be inconvenient going around like that.