Rotter Nation by Scott M Baker Page A

down around her knees with him on top of her. Then, a few hours later, he had roused her and demanded a blow job. Christ knew what he wanted now. Swallowing hard to force down the bile rising in her throat, she rolled over to face the latest indignity.
    Debra knelt beside her. “How are you doing?”
    “How do you think I’m doing?” Windows sat up and pulled the end of the sleeping bag across her chest, holding it tight against her. “He raped me twice last night. And Jesus Christ, doesn’t he ever bathe? He smelled so bad it gagged me.”
    “Hygiene is not a priority around here.” Debra stood up. “Besides, last night was better than the alternative.”
    Windows’ face flushed. “That’s easy for you to say. I’m the one who took over being his play toy while you got a break.”
    “Not for long. Meat will soon get bored and want to do us both at once.” Debra wrapped an arm around her daughter, hugging her close. Her tone became hard and angry. “I went through the same thing you did my first night here, only Cindy was made to watch the entire time. So don’t lecture me about how bad you have it.”
    “Sorry.”
    “Forget about it.” Debra rubbed her daughter’s head, and then looked over at Windows. “Come on. We all have chores to do around here. I got you assigned to work the kitchen detail with us. It’s the best job available.”
    “Why’s that?” Windows rolled on to her knees and began folding the sleeping bag.
    “It’s not that difficult. You have to prepare three meals a day, which is challenging considering how limited the food supplies are. More importantly, there are four of us in the kitchen most of the time. You’ll make the fifth.”
    “Safety in numbers?”
    Debra nodded.
    “And we can sneak food,” said Windows trying to lighten the mood.
    “Trust me, you won’t want to sneak any of what we serve here.”
    Five minutes later, the three girls reached the “kitchen”, an empty storage unit facing the northern wall of the compound. Outside the open sliding door, a large pot hung by a chain from a tripod, with embers from a dead fire piled up underneath. One woman, a blonde in worn and dirty jeans, swept the ashes into a dustpan while a brunette with short-cropped, badly-cut hair poured water into the pot and cleaned it. Along one wall inside the unit sat a fifty-five-gallon drum filled with dirty water. A teenage girl stood in front of it, taking a soiled dish, pushing it beneath the surface, and wiping it clean with her hand. When she pulled out the dish, she flicked off the excess water and used a towel almost as dirty as the water to dry it.
    Debra stepped into the middle of the women. “Girls, this is Windows. She’ll be joining us on kitchen detail.”
    The brunette glanced up. “So, this is Meat’s new whore?”
    Windows bristled, but Debra interceded. “We all do what we have to in order to survive.”
    The brunette huffed and went back to cleaning.
    Debra turned her back on the woman and spoke to Windows, gesturing behind her to the brunette. “The pleasant one here is Tracey. That’s Karen.” She pointed to the blonde sweeping the ashes, and then to the teenager cleaning the dishes. “And that’s Lisa. Follow me.”
    The two stepped inside the container unit. Against the rear wall sat a stockpile of boxes of rations. Windows read the labels. Almost everything came in cans, from luncheon meats, tuna fish, beans, and chili up to a variety of fruits and vegetables. A few cartons contained packages of jerky.
    “This is all you have for rations?” asked Windows.
    “It’s all we have left. We went through the perishables within the first week, and all of the frozen foods shortly after. Every time the raiding parties go out foraging, they bring back as many canned goods as they can find. The past two months they’ve come back empty. Everything within a forty mile radius has either been cleaned out by us or someone else, or it’s in one of the big towns