The MotherTruck returned almost ten days late, but it was packed. Clara was driving it as we watched them pull up to building four, the cab full of women. Lena and Dahlia followed in two more farm trucks, each pulling horse trailers. Both trucks had several extra women on board.
Lena's trailer had another, smaller trailer behind it. It was one of those cage-style trailers used for lawn or construction equipment and tied up in it were four more men, all but one heavily bandaged.
Clara hopped out of the MotherTruck along with a thin blonde woman who was wearing what amounted to rags. The woman followed Clara as she sauntered over.
'Like a dozen rescued and four men captured and I didn't even have to touch that stupid gun.'
Janice and I laughed. Marisol gave her a look that I had come to realize meant 'you're talking too much.'
Clara continued, 'This is Jordan. She's in charge of the women from the Becker's.'
We all introduced ourselves. Jordan spoke confidently but there was an edge to her voice, as if she could snap at any moment, 'Thank you for your help. I'm not sure how long we could last without power. We didn't want to start a fire and attract more men. I think we've had our fill.'
'What happened to those?' Janice gestured at the men in the cage-trailer.
'When the others hadn't returned after more than a month, we dealt with the ones left behind. We had been the only ones capable of cooking since October, so I just loaded their food up with sleeping pills.'
'How did they get hurt?'
'Some of us, had, errr, frustrations to take out on them.'
Janice looked over at me and I took the hint, 'any of you that is hurt, this is the clinic. I'll stitch up what I can and we have some pills that will probably help with panic.'
Jordan gave me a smile, 'you're a doctor?'
'Veterinarian, close enough.'
Jordan and one other woman were the only ones who didn't have obvious injuries. One of them, Gisele, was in bad shape. The men had amputated both of her lower legs and carved vulgarity into her belly and back. Mika brought out the garden cart and helped her into a bed in the building.
Marisol told Jordan, 'you'll probably feel safer living with each other at first, so we have set it up so three or four of you can stay in in each of buildings seven and eight. The most injured will stay at the clinic until better then we will settle them with the rest of you and start moving furniture back into twelve and thirteen.'
Marnie stepped in, 'I really want to make sure that thirteen is actually liveable, so if anyone feels like crawling around in an attic, I'm asking for help.'
One of the more lucid new women stepped forward, 'I'm Liv, my husband and I ran a contracting business before. I'll help you.'
Brandie also chimed in, 'you know I'll help where I can. Also, new ladies, I'm Brandie and I'm the bouncer around here.'
Lena looked at Janice and I, 'bouncer?'
Janice giggled, 'she got to pick her own title.'
--
Jordan, Mika and I set up Gisele in a room with another rescued, Bella, who was completely noncommunicative. Gisele explained to me that Bella was the men's 'favorite' and that they spent weeks at a time continuously abusing her. Bella, for her part, curled up on her side in a ball, pulled the blanket over herself and immediately fell asleep.
Another woman with severe injuries, mostly badly healed or healing fractures, named Arlene, was put into a room with Keely, who had been tortured for fun, but seemed to be pretty chipper despite it.
I put three of them on antibiotics and gave Bella a Xanax and told Mika not to let her near any other meds or booze for 8 hrs. Mika took out a whiteboard marker and wrote it on the wall.
I then went out to check on my other patients.
--
Lena had brought back two bulls and five cows along with a trio each of stallions and mares as well as two foals and ten calves (all female). All of the animals seemed relieved to be out of the trailers. We had cleared out three two-car garages for the horses and put down hay and soil. Clara seemed genuinely happy to be around the horses and was blabbing away at one of them when I examined it. The horses, for their part, seemed to immediately acclimate to their new homes. Clara showed me where she'd grabbed almost 200 yards of chain link fencing to build them a roaming area.
'Nice, you're excited about these?'
'I never got to do anything like riding horses when I was young, I mean growing up in the city and all of that? But Dahlia showed me how to ride when we were bringing them in and oh my god, It's all I can think about besides dick.'
I laughed. We got them settled and walked over to where Marisol, Lena and three of the other women were attempting to get the cattle into a pasture that had been assembled out of six contiguous back yards. Mika and I had turned a couple of covered decks into barns, but the cattle were having none of it. Finally after the calves were in the pasture, we backed the trailer with the remaining cows in it up to the pasture, locked the wheels and left it for a bit.
Clara and I sat down in a screened-in back porch and watched them.
'Why weren't the bulls affected like human men?'
'Because whatever did that, didn't work on cattle.'
'Do you think horse or bull cum would work to cure humans?'
'I have no idea. Why are you so curious about this?'
'Just thinking while showering.'
I laughed, 'I'm not sure it's ethical but we could test it on one of the captives.'
'We would have to vote on it.'
--
The cattle acclimated.
It snowed.
The horses got a lot of workouts.