Repopulation Pt 02

Prologue: In the first part of 'Repopulation' student Nurse Allie Cooke tried to survive in the horror of post-apocalyptic Nebraska. Working at a hospital for the war's casualties, she has been kidnapped by someone or something...

Chapter 3

As the effects of the anesthetic wore off, and Allies mind cleared of the deep dark fog that had kept her unconscious, she gradually became aware of her new environment. The last thing she remembered was being grabbed somewhere in the stairwell at the hospital, and a heavy hand almost suffocating her. Then she blacked out. Now, her eyes still shut tightly and her body contorted painfully, she tried to slowly make sense of what was happening.

Allie's first thought was that there'd been some kind of recurrence of the war. The trauma of those brief moments of nuclear attack triggered a mental shadow that in truth had no relevance to what her current situation was. Then, as she threw off her hazy thoughts, she got a clearer sense of her position. She tried to speak, but there was a rough and tight gag tied haphazardly against her face. She bit and gnawed at the cloth, but all she could do was take in the horrid taste of what may have been chemicals, or something more like sweat. Her wrists were tied behind her back, and she felt the cruel biting constriction of electrical wiring used as the bindings. Her legs on the other hand were tied at the ankles by hemp ropes.

Her eyes were slowly opening, but the lack of any light helped to give her an idea of her surrounds. Emerging more and more from her drugged state she realized that she was lying on her side, and she seemed to be very low to the ground. Underneath her torso and hips it felt like she was on a mattress, but it wasn't a bed. Looking left she saw the frame of a door, to her right there was a blank concrete wall. Behind her head she thought she heard a scratching sound, but not being able to twist herself to see what the source was she tried to ignore it. Allie was trapped...tied up, unable to yell for help, and in some strange place that was as inescapable as a prison cell.

The 19-year-old student nurse lay breathing shallowly, and then looked down at herself. As the cold prickled her bare arms and legs she realized that her uniform was still covering her, but it had been unbuttoned revealing some of the fabric of her simple blue bra. Unable to touch or feel herself, Allie assumed that so far she hadn't been attacked sexually. Of course the frigid air and her tied up position pained her, but she drew some comfort from the absence of any worry of being molested.

Allie was not some silly, infantile teenager even though she was still weeks away from turning twenty. She'd seen enough horrors these last months to know that life in Omaha after the nuclear war was brutal and tragic. It had instilled in her a desire to survive, to do what she could to survive not just physically and mentally. Part of Allie's mind was still shaking off the dulling of the ether but more and more of her thoughts were diagnosing her problem and trying to assess a prognosis. Could she stand up? Could she undo her bindings? Could she free her mouth from the gag and then cry for help? And on top of all; why was she here and who had brought her?

Before Allie was able to take any further action, limited as she was by her ties and her imprisonment, she heard that same scratching that she noticed a few minutes before. This time however she also heard a low whimpering; a suppressed sob. No matter how Allie twisted and turned her head, she couldn't see what the source of the sound was. Then, to her surprise and fright a low whisper echoed.

"Hello...are you awake?"

It was a female's voice. Subdued and with a slight twang that could have been Texan, it came again. "Hey...you...over there. You hear me? God...please say something." A pleading tone crept into the whisper as it came through the darkness. "Answer me for Christ's sake!" Allie couldn't speak, but she murmured as loudly as she could from behind the gag. She also kicked with her bound ankles, getting some purchase on the mattress. Slowly, Allie tumbled and struggled to face the point where the voice came from. "Yes....I know you're there, can hear me. Hey...hey! You hear me don't ya."

By now Allie had twisted enough to now look up and behind her left shoulder to see a figure about 10 feet away. Like her, the woman who was now writhing as she mumbled pleas and whispers was tied on a low mattress. However, Allie noticed one sharp difference. The stranger was bare breasted, and instead of her legs being tied together they were instead bound to what looked to be stakes or tent pegs. Hammered into the wooden floor, they kept Allie's co-prisoner pinioned. The young nurse squealed under her gag, and blinked trying to make sense of what she was seeing.

"They brought another...oh thank fuck...there's another here now. Oh yes...yes...yes." The woman with Allie burbled madly mostly to herself. "Been so hard...so hard," and a great wail wrenched from her soul came crying from the stranger "Now they have someone else to use. Someone else to do...do...ohhh....uhhh." The last guttural groans came with a sound of stifled pain. And with those noises the small ball of fear that had been sitting deep down inside Allie exploded into full terror. "Oh...it hurts...it HURTS! The cramps...ohhhhh."

Before Allie could even think further a thud resounded from the direction of the door. Looking back, she tried to speak but again the gag kept her from saying anything. The painful position of her body distracted her from staring straight at the door, but then a flood of light poured in on her face as the door swung open. Blinded momentarily, she failed to notice that the woman in the same room stopped crying and complaining about her cramps.

Shuffling footsteps thumped now into the room, and the light's glow muted as a shadow moved towards Allie. A bulky form came closer, closer...hobbled and dragging along feet that from Allie's position looked to be in military style boots. Perhaps this was a air force person come to help, or one of the survivors who'd scavenged for stuff like military equipment, clothing and food so as to keep living. Allie wasn't sure, but as a more subdued sob of 'No...no..." came from her unknown female companion, she knew straight away whoever this boot wearing person was, he or she probably meant no good.

Then the form came closer to Allie, bending over her and almost blocking out all light now. Casting a misshapen shadow, the person leaned down. Allie could smell dank male flesh, and the ripe aroma of someone who hadn't bathed for ages. It made her feel sick, but with the gag in her mouth Allie kept the bile down at the back of her throat. The stench of a strange man and the fear he was undoubtedly drawing out in Allie and her co-prisoner coalesced into a hopeless disgust and angst.

Allie lay still. Then, the same hissing sound she thought she recalled hearing in the hospital stairwell came forth once more. "Hello my pretty one. Hello.....are you awake? You look so pretty...so sweet and pretty." For some reason Allie was reminded of a snake's hiss. She tried to focus her eyes towards the voice that was speaking to her. "Welcome nursey...you're safe now. Safe." Allie didn't feel safe. "Isn't she safe Lieutenant Betty."

"Yes...safe sir. Safe indeed." The strangulated tears of Allie's room mate came like a subdued cry from the heart. Whoever Lieutenant Betty was she had to say what she said not because she believed it, but because the man who asked her was obviously willing to inflict some punishment if she disagreed.

"And how's your stomach this morning Lieutenant Betty? Not feeling as bad today?"

"Better sir. Much better. Thank you for asking." Allie wondered why the man was asking such a caring question yet seemed to evoke nothing but pain and fear from Betty.

The voice above Allie's bound body hissed again. "The nausea passes. Before you know it Lieutenant Betty it'll be over and then...well we'll have you nursing your newborn and you'll be happy. Content and well."

Allie shuddered. "What the fuck is going on?" she screamed to herself. Her eyes wide now with a mad scrambling need to make sense of her situation, to see who was talking about babies, she saw something that repulsed her as soon as it came into focus. She saw the face of the man who was hissing. It was almost non-human; a mess of great seared scabs of flesh, a twisted and pursed set of lips that sat at an angle to the almost skeletal remains of a nose. And under a totally bald head and high forehead was only one open eye, the other covered in a flap of scorched skin. Allie screamed but no sound came out.

"Hello my pretty...my pretty nurse. Shall we play? Shall we..."

And as the hissing words from that cruelly scarred face drilled crazily into Allie's consciousness, she felt a single finger touch her exposed bra. Looking down, she saw a hideously contorted hand that was barely a stump, where the gnarled twisted finger grew from like a diseased branch. The finger trailed up to Allie's neck, and as it did the voice of Betty cried with a cackle of guttural groans. "Her turn now...her turn."