Apocalypsis 03 - Exodus

dead,” she said flatly. “Most of the people are dead.”
    “I know. But he’s not.”
    “How do you know? Some of the living are dead too. Did you know that?” She sounded like a small, innocent child.
    Oh shit. She really is bonkers. “Yes,” I said. “I do know that. Their souls are dead. Like the kids we killed here. They were dead souls.”
    She smiled without any trace of humor, making me feel a little sick with the nervousness it created in me. “Yes. They were, weren’t they? Especially The One .”
    “The One?” asked Winky in a high-pitched near-whisper.
    The girl turned her head slightly to acknowledge Winky standing just to the left of and behind me.
    “Yes. The One. The one they called Loco. He came in here, once.”
    I swallowed hard, knowing something bad was coming. She was going to tell us something I didn’t want to know. The sweat started pouring out of my body.
    “He did?” asked Winky, her voice sounding strangled. “What happened?”
    The sound of an infant’s cry broke the following silence.
    My mouth dropped open and my throat closed up. I nearly peed myself with fear and disgust. Oh God, please don’t … please don’t let that be what I think it is …
    The girl spoke, cutting off my prayers, her face now taking on an emotion finally: desperation. And I knew I would hear her words in my nightmares for the rest of my life.
    “Will you kill it for me?” she whispered. “Please?!”
    ***
    She took a step forward, her hands out.
    Winky and I moved backwards, nearly tripping over each other in our need to get away from her.
    “Please, don’t leave!” she sobbed. “I’ve tried to kill it … I’ve tried! But I can’t!” Her last words came out as a screech. Her voice was crazy-demented with anguish or despair, but she had no tears; and that missing link to her misery was so disconcerting, I didn’t know whether to run or smash her in the face to protect Winky and myself from the evil I felt coming at me in waves.
    “That’s a baby down there,” said Winky, sounding a little unhinged herself. “She’s got a fucking baby down there, Bryn.”
    “Yeah, I know,” I said, searching the Lost Girl’s face, looking for her to telegraph her next move. Her body language was all wrong. She looked like innocence personified, dressed all in white with her little-girl headband on her stupid head, but her lack of tears and grossly freaked out expression made her seem dangerous and downright evil. My only sense of relief came from the fact that I saw no weapons on her and no signs of any ability to take me in hand-to-hand combat; but I remained on the alert nonetheless.
    “It’s his,” she said, talking low, as if someone might hear us. She was nearly screeching her whisper though, giving it an eerie quality that set my nerves on edge. “He came. He came in here and I was sleeping. He … he … did that thing to me. And now this is here.” She gestured to the space below her parents’ cabinet. “You have to take it away. Kill it . Make it go.” She put her arms around herself and hugged hard, moaning a little before continuing. “It’s ugly. It cries all the time. It’s not human.”
    A lightbulb went on in my head. She’d been damaged. Way too damaged for me to appreciate or even understand. And she had this baby down there to take care of. A baby . I couldn’t fathom the torture it had to be for her in her current state. Revulsion and pity warred inside me.
    “That canner guy raped her and she had his baby?” whispered Winky, disgust in her voice. “Oh, that is so messed up. I can’t even … holy shit , Bryn. What’re we gonna do?” Winky came up to stand beside me, gaping open-mouthed at the poor girl in front of us.
    “How old is it … is the baby?” I asked.
    She shrugged, looking off to the side, almost distractedly. “I don’t know. The days go into weeks and weeks go into months and months go into years and years go into decades and people leave and people die and the world ends and we get left alone and terrible, terrible things happen and nothing will ever, ever be alright again …”
    I took a couple steps forward and picked her arm up by the wrist, gently shaking it a couple times to wake her out of her nightmare. “Hey! Stop that,” I said.
    She turned her head to look at me. The blank stare there was freaking me out even more than her soliloquy had.
    “Stop what?”
    I shook my head and blinked my eyes a couple times in