Apocalypsis 04 - Haven

us to see. “Here is the leg band.” She took the bird’s leg in her hand and stretched it out for us to look at. The ring was plastic and bright red. “The message goes on a piece of paper folded up inside here. Use the code. Don’t send anything in plain English. Jenny will learn it and the abbreviations we’ve come up with. We’ll show her some bird handling techniques in just a few minutes. Chances are this bird will need a few trial runs before he gets it just right. So expect to see one of us around for the next week or so.”
    I nodded. “This is very generous of you.”
    “Nonsense. This is all about survival. The more of us there are, the safer we’ll all be from the monsters. Your job will be to train the people south of here when the time comes. We haven’t identified anyone we can trust there yet.”
    “Maybe someone from here will move there,” I suggested
    She shrugged. “Maybe. You have a lot of work to do before that happens. We’ll be around.”
    I gave her a weak smile. “Populating the earth with women warriors.”
    “Bet your sweet ass we will.” She put the bird back in the box and stood again, placing her hand on my shoulder. “About Bodo. I know you don’t want to talk about him anymore, but I’m going to just say this. I want him, if you don’t. I’m not ashamed to say that. He’ll breed strong children, and he’s practically a child himself, so he’s fun to have around. But his heart is with you. It was just parts of his body I possessed for a short period of time.”
    “That really doesn’t make me feel any better.”
    “I don’t really care either way if it does, to be honest. I’m just telling you how it is, so that if Bodo comes to me in the end, it will be because everyone knew the truth of things.”
    “But don’t you know that you could never trust him if he did come to you? You’ve already seen that he lies.”
    “I don’t need to trust a man to have him by my side. I think it’s unreasonable for you to have expected him to remain true to you when he was with a group of women like us.”
    “Well … that’s kind of insulting. Really insulting, actually.”
    “No insult to you. Not at all. It’s an insult to men in general. Cold hard scientific facts here that you can’t dispute. They think about sex a thousand times a day. It’s a drive they almost can’t control. It doesn’t take much to tip the balance in favor of indulging.”
    “But he never had sex with you, and you wanted him to.”
    She smiled, but there was a certain warmth missing from it. “That’s only because I didn’t have enough time to wear him down. I would have eventually, you know. He loves you … but he is a man.”
    “You don’t hold them in very high regard, do you?”
    “Why should I? What have they done to deserve it?”
    “There are some good men out there. They’re not all like you’re describing.”
    “Well, when you meet one, you introduce him to me and we’ll see.”
    The idea made me sick. I’d already accidentally introduced her to my last boyfriend who I thought would be faithful, and now I knew how well that had worked out.
    She spared me any more thought provoking conversation and walked over and grabbed a backpack from the pile, throwing it up onto her back. “You going to forgive him?”
    “Sure. I forgive anyone pretty much anything if they’re genuinely sorry.”
    “Are you going to take him back, though?” She picked up another backpack and blew a really sharp whistle towards the door using just her lips and teeth.
    “I don’t know,” I said, mostly to myself. I couldn’t imagine a life without him, and I couldn’t imagine one with him either. It was probably because the Bodo I thought I knew didn’t really exist, and in his place was this stranger.
    “Well, if you decide to cut him loose, send him my way. We’ll take good care of him.”
    I’ll bet you will, you boyfriend ruining jerk . “Thanks.”
    I was leaving to go back inside when I remembered the other thing I’d wanted to talk to her about.
    “Oh, I forgot to ask … do you have any way of making antibiotics?”
    “Yes. We’re stockpiling the ingredients now.”
    “Can we trade you for some?”
    “Sure. What did you have in mind?”
    “Not sure. What do you want?”
    “We could use some clothes.”
    “I have lots of prisoner jumpsuits. And apparently lots of slippers and hairnets.” I laughed at that, picturing these gorgeous girls running around like