Last Rites by Kim Paffenroth Page A

mouth with his sleeve. He wasn’t smirking anymore, at least, but he smiled crookedly, showing his teeth all covered with blood. “Told you, guys,” he said. “Bitch is twice as mean as a rattlesnake and almost as fast.”
    There was laughter again from the towers, but this time it sounded more appreciative than mocking. The one guard spoke again. “All right, all right,” he said. “Maybe we were too quick to judge. You sure she can see, though, with her face all messed up like that? I’ve seen lots of ‘em, but none with a face as jacked-up as that.”
    “She can see fine. Stop kidding around. She could see to clock me while you numb nuts sat up there and laughed. Now admit it. I was right.”
    “Okay, you were right, CJ. Girl’s got potential. You fill out the form and turn it in at city hall and you’ll get your money. Half now, half if she’s still up and around after a month.”
    “Yeah, yeah, I know how it works. Always with the forms. Some shit never changes.”
    CJ approached Lucy, though he stayed out of her reach. The man behind her pulled back on the collar to keep her in place. “On your knees, honey,” CJ said. “You did good and I appreciate it, but I’m not gonna take any chances, with you all riled up again.”
    The collar pressed on her shoulders and Lucy got down on her knees.
    “Hands out in front,” CJ said.
    Lucy complied. He unlocked the manacles and stepped away as she got back up.
    They walked her forward as the gate opened, then unlocked the collar. Lucy reached up to rub her raw neck. She turned to see CJ and the other guy backing away from her. She snarled at them, just to feel something good in her wretched state, but there wasn’t much point in posturing now: they were safe and in charge and they knew it.
    CJ gave a little wave—the mocking kind, with the hand held up, folding the four fingers down as one, then snapping them back up several times. “Bye, bye, darling,” he said.
    Prick.
    “She know words?” the guard called from the tower. “Take commands?” They must not have heard when CJ whispered to her. Good. The less they knew, the better.
    “Yeah. She won’t always do what you say, but she knows.”
    “Get inside, bitch.”
    Lucy walked through the gate, which slid closed behind her. She sniffed the air again. Dead were around. Some were closer than when she smelled the air before. In the compound behind the fence sat various structures in advanced stages of decay—huts or sheds more than houses, though they might’ve started out as real dwellings once, a long time ago. No more commands came from the tower, which was fine with her, but after a few moments the silence made her anxious. Then Lucy heard some shuffling and scraping from one of the buildings.
    A young dead woman emerged from one of the sheds—a girl, really, though she was nearly as tall as Lucy, and had a fuller, thicker body. Her brown hair was done up in two pigtails. Lucy didn’t remember too much of fashion, but she was pretty sure only young girls wore their hair that way—or an older girl trying to look younger.
    She had on a very short skirt, ruffled, with stripes, though the colors were so faded, you couldn’t tell what shades they’d been originally; it was also spattered with mud and blood and God knows what other filth. Lucy remembered something about girls in really short skirts like that—they’d dance and jump around in front of crowds, though she couldn’t remember what you called it or what the reason was.
    The girl’s top didn’t match, but was made from some thick fabric, like denim or canvas; it had vertical black and white stripes on it and looked ridiculous on the poor girl, like something a person would wear to make people laugh, though this hardly seemed the place where people laughed very much. Well, except for those idiots in the tower, but they’d laugh at anything degrading or ugly. The girl held a bundle of the same fabric in her hands. Lucy noticed she