Chapter 5: The Evil Doctor Hyphen

Mr. G had a huge back yard, and on that particular afternoon, it was one of the most pleasant places on earth. Allow me to set the scene.

My former teacher and his older brother were standing next to a gas grill, where a dozen brats were sizzling. They were each holding a bottle of beer. I was sitting in a sort of double-sized chaise lounge chair with an arm around Wanda. She was sipping from a glass of chilled white wine, while I also had a bottle of beer. I couldn’t help but wonder 1) how much longer beer was going to be available anywhere, and 2) why Mr. G had chosen to hoard that in the early days of an apocalypse, rather than something else. There was a picnic table set for eight with paper plates and napkins. Before that, Mrs. G had come out of her kitchen to pass around little baked hors d’oeuvres that contained cheese and something else delicious; and then she had offered the drinks. When Doriana had refused the wine, explaining she was pregnant, the lady had pulled her inside to help with dinner preparations and “for a little chat.” My blonde girlfriend had happily accepted. Sofia and Sadie were sitting on the lawn, playing with Rocko.

And then, in the midst of it all, the sheriff came barging in, limping heavily on a freshly bandaged left foot and using a cane to great advantage. He threw himself down in a lawn chair that creaked and groaned but otherwise sustained the abuse, and he happily ignored the fact that he was crashing a private party while helping himself to a beer and some munchies.

“What are you going to do about the old mayor?” the sheriff asked while smacking on a canape.

“Me?” Mr. G asked incredulously. “What are you talking about? I can’t do anything about anybody!”

“It’s pretty much a given that you’re going to be the next mayor,” the man said, reaching for another snack. “Everybody knows it.”

“If and when I am duly elected,” my teacher said seriously, “we can have this conversation. Until then, as a CITIZEN of this community, I expect you to give your prisoner due process.”

There was a steep declination in the man’s spirits. “Why couldn’t there have been just one judge to survive this?” he moaned. The county seat is (or at least was) Eugene. “I don’t want to be responsible for that dickass! Why do I have to scrape him off the bottom of MY shoe? As far as I’m concerned, he can go to Hell on a full scholarship! You’re going to make a MUCH better mayor! That guy was always about as useful as an ashtray on a motorcycle! And DUMB! I mean, I’ve stepped in puddles deeper than him!”

“Um, Sheriff,” Wanda said. She fluttered her napkin for a second, then pointed at his face. Finally, she pointed at the corner of her own mouth. “You’ve got a little bit of bullshit stuck right here.”

The sheriff had lifted his own napkin halfway to his mouth before he stopped. He scowled openly while the rest of us laughed, despite ourselves. Finally, he sat back heavily and regarded the girl beside me.

“I think maybe I’ve been looking for a woman like you my whole life,” he said, smiling.

“In your dreams, big boy!” Doriana declared loudly, walking out with a huge bowl of potato salad. The laughter slowly died to a lull. My teacher and his brother were still using tongs to turn the sausages. Mrs. G brought out a package of hotdog buns.

“What’s in bratwurst, anyway,” the professor asked.

“Two things you should never ask how they’re made: laws and sausages,” my teacher commented.

“Pork, veal, nutmeg, caraway and garlic,” Sadie said. “Isn’t that so, Rocko?” she rubbed the puppy’s ears.

Mr. G turned and stared at her. “Really?”

“Here in America, they substitute regular beef for veal and sometimes add cayenne,” she nodded. “Right, Rocko?” The dog licked her.

“Sadie knows things,” Sofia announced. “In fact, I’ll make you a bet, professor.”

“What’s that?” he asked.

“Sadie doesn’t know about The Event yet,” she told him.

“What event?” asked Sadie, suddenly perking up.

“I’ll bet you a soda pop that in the next five minutes, Sadie can tell you more about what caused it than you’ve figured out in a week.”

The doc arched an eyebrow. “Okay, you’re on.”

Sofia turned to her friend. “Sadie, last Monday morning at 7:47, everybody outside the city limits of Acton vanished.”

Sadie issued a single laugh and started scratching the dog that was lying between them. “People don’t vanish, do they, Rocko?”

“But they did!” her friend insisted. “They did, but their clothing didn’t. There was nothing left anywhere except little piles of clothes.”

“My, my, Rocko,” Sadie told the dog. “THAT’S certainly dramatic!”

“And there WERE other towns that survived, but there’s no rhyme or reason why they were singled out!” Sofia continued.

“There are patterns in EVERYTHING, aren’t there, Rocko? There are always eventual logical progressions, even in chaos. Isn’t that so?” The pup rolled over on its back and stuck all four legs in the air, wagging its tail frantically.

Wanda couldn’t help chiming in. “And it wasn’t magic, and it wasn’t ghosts, or the Rapture, or aliens! At least, that’s what Jacob says. AND, he doesn’t think they’re dead!”

Sadie gave another little laugh and rubbed the dog’s belly. “Dead? There’s no evidence of that, is there? Also, Jacob might not have eliminated EVERYTHING that’s impossible, but he certainly eliminated everything that’s silly.” She looked my way and smiled. “I don’t suppose anybody got a recording of this ... um ... event?”

“That’s another weird thing!” Wanda interjected. “All the store recording devices were blank before The Event! It was like all the archival recordings STARTED the moment after it happened!”

“How very convenient,” Sadie mused, scratching the dog. “But, of course, it wasn’t the moment after. It was the moment itself.” She shook her head slightly, smiling and thinking, her brown hair swinging back and forth. “Is this for real?” she asked, staring at me. “It really happened?”

“And the animals!” Sofia added. “All the pets and farm animals disappeared wherever the people did! But they DIDN’T disappear where the people remained!”

Now Sadie knitted her brow. “Really? Wow. That’s ... That’s...”

“Sinister?” Wanda guessed. “That’s what Jacob says.”

“Sinister,” Sadie repeated, looking toward me again. “Yes, I suppose so.”

“But he doesn’t think they just took everybody’s atoms apart and beamed them to a spaceship or laboratory,” Wanda interjected.

Sadie nodded. “No, but at long last, you’d be in the right field of study.”

“And that’s not all!” Doriana chimed in. “All the colleges and universities were affected, too. Every single one of them!”

“Oh, HO, Rocko!” Sadie declared. “That sort of narrows things down, doesn’t it boy?”

Now I was very interested. “Narrows things down to WHAT?”

She looked at me and grinned. “Reginald Barrington-Smythe. With a hyphen.”

There was a resounding crash, and everybody turned toward the professor. Thank goodness, the brats were still on the grill; but the tongs and the ceramic platter he had been holding were now at his feet. He was gawking, open-mouthed, at the girl on the lawn next to the funny-looking puppy. Dumbly, he looked down at the pieces of the dish he’d just dropped, then back again.

“What kind of soda?” he asked quietly.

“Mmmmm, root beer!” Sofia gushed. “I’ve been dying for root beer for a month now!”

His eyes seemed to bore into Sadie. “Young lady,” he said, almost reverently. “I MUST have you on a team I’m building. We NEED you!”

Sadie just shrugged. “Sorry, doctor. You need me, but I don’t need you. You don’t have what I want.”

“What?” he asked breathlessly. “I’ll get whatever it takes. What is it you want?”

Sadie stopped petting the dog and pointed toward Sofia. “Her. In all of this world, she is the only thing I want.”

“One word in that sentence is much more important than the others,” he told her flatly.

Now she threw back her head a laughed gaily. Finally, she quieted and smiled at him. “What difference does THAT make? THIS is my world! This is OUR world! Nothing can change that now. Why should I be concerned about any world other than this one? Or any other universe? Make the most out of what you have! If revenge is your goal, then plan it and take it! But as long as I’m with Sofia, there’s nothing else that I want, in this or any other world.”

The prof shook his head. “Who ARE you?”

She shrugged again. “I’m just Sadie.”

“What happened to my best platter?” screamed Mrs. G. And so, even the professor’s priorities proved to be subject to change as he stuttered and apologized to his sister-in-law, then hurried to the kitchen to find a replacement.

Dinner was a happy affair, though the sheriff had to stay in his chair for the meal, not only because of his bandaged foot, but because there was no room at the table. He otherwise seemed to really enjoy his brat and beer. I got the impression he was a rather lonely man most of the time.

We were helping clean things up and getting ready to hit the road when a few rather momentous things happened. First, a man and a woman showed up with a gift for us. They were from near the edge of town, where they owned a small farm. The man, dressed in overalls and a checkered shirt, tossed a couple big bags of something in the back of the pickup, while his wife offered the girls a flat box, about two feet square and maybe four inches deep.

“Oh, my gosh!” Doriana gushed. “This is wonderful! Thank you SO much!”

I found it strange, to say the least, since she hadn’t even looked inside. But as I approached them, the contents of the box announced itself. It was full of baby chicks.

“They’ve been sexed,” the man said. “One rooster and ten hens. Four weeks old. Feed them the fine-cracked corn I put in your truck. Should start laying in about six months, and will lay until they die. Up to ten years, with care.”

“We’re just so glad you got those two young women back,” the wife announced. “If you’re moving away, I hope you come back to Acton to visit from time to time.”

I promised we would. The girls offered hugs and thanks, and the pair was gone.

Another occurrence of note was that Sofia and Sadie asked us formally for permission to join our group. That had sort of been a foregone conclusion with Sofia, but Sadie made it official by asking us each in turn for the “honor” of bona fide membership. Not for the first time, I wondered to myself how old this girl was. She gave off shifting vibes: a little girl one moment, and almost the next instant, she was a woman who seemed to consider a professor emeritus an equal. I chided myself that it didn’t really matter.

Lastly, I was surprised when the sheriff took me aside and gave me a slip of paper with some numbers on it. “What’s this, sir?” I asked.

“Last week, I almost chucked this job and took off for the hills. That’s the place I was going to try and take over. Do you have decent maps of the mountains southwest of here?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Look it up. Plan a trip out there, then fly one of those drones around and check it out. But do it soon. I’m betting you’re going to like it. It’s a private lodge. Well, half lodge and half survivalist compound. If it’s occupied already, you’re shit out of luck. But if it’s vacant, it could be a really nice home for you and the ladies. The original owners were from Portland and Newport, I think. I’ve only been there once, and to say I was impressed would be a bit of an understatement. If you decide to settle there, maybe you’d let me visit again sometime.”

I considered. “Thank you, sir. I’ll check it out and let you know one way or the other. It’s been very interesting meeting you. I’m really glad I didn’t kill you.”

He barked a laugh. “Me, too. See you around, kid.”

The professor REALLY wanted to question Sadie some more about Whatshisname Hyphen Whatshisname, but I told him we’d call the next day. We only had about an hour’s daylight left, and I wanted to get back while I could still see all my own booby traps. Wanda and our two newest girls took the minivan, along with the puppy, while Doriana and I took the pickup. Those damned chicks in their box on the back seat peep-peep-peeped all the way home, but the thought of fresh eggs for the next decade made the inconvenience worthwhile.

The return trip was non-stop, and we made it in just over half an hour. When we got there, Doriana took over driving duties, and Sofia and Sadie jumped out to help me deal with the locks and other deterrents to trespassers. Sadie told me that she had a couple ideas that might streamline the process.

“We’re not going to be staying here that long,” I told her. “In fact, after we rest up a day, I plan to launch a new expedition into the mountains to help us find our next home.”

“Sounds like an adventure,” she said, smiling.

“Let’s just hope it’s not as adventurous as the last one,” I mumbled.

When we got to the barn, we parked the vehicles inside and started the tour. Sofia was seeing much of it for the first time, as well. Doriana had to examine every square inch of the chicken coop, which bordered one side of the structure. One coyote could wipe out the entire population in less than a minute, she warned; but the pen was eventually declared secure and ready for habitation. Pans of water and food were set out, hay was lumped into a sufficient bed for them, and the chicks took to their new home very well indeed.

I plugged in both the truck and the minivan, wondering if the circuit breaker would hold, or if I’d have to charge them one at a time. As if reading my mind, Sadie told me that there had to be power limiter somewhere in a place like this, and that she’d look around for one in the morning, when she could see better.

I showed Sofia and Sadie the generator, and taught them how to check it before starting. Then, we walked around the house to check for light leaks. I told them that we had been attacked our first night here, and that light from the house had been the root cause.

“Wanda said you killed them all,” Sofia said quietly.

“As it turns out, killing isn’t very hard to do when you aren’t given any other choice,” I told her in a sad voice. I took a deep breath and thought a little more about it. “I guess one of those men was just trying to get away when I shot him; but he was party to the plan to rape and kill. Also, I didn’t want him spreading the word about a household of potential victims on a lonely country road. And ... we wouldn’t have Rocko now if I’d let him go.” I smiled bitterly.

“It weighs on you heavily,” Sofia said, putting a slim arm around me. “It shouldn’t.”

“Doriana turned out to be the brave one,” I told them, smiling. “She cleaned up the mess and buried them all the next morning. I was prepared to just leave them all lying there and find a new house. She’s turned out to be quite a woman.”

I looked down in shock at the slim hand that had just taken my own. It belonged to Sadie. “I have joined a group comprised of brave individuals,” she said thoughtfully. “I’m afraid I don’t fit in very well. The only thing I’ve ever done when confronted with physical violence is surrender.” I couldn’t, for the moment, think of anything to say; and when I did figure out a decent comeback, she spoke first. “You have extraordinarily large hands.”

“So I’m told.”

The other two girls were in the dining room. “Family meeting!” Wanda announced loudly.

“It’s been a very long day!” I groaned.

“Oh, no you don’t,” Doriana interjected. “We’ve put together a great welcome party for our two newest members! Look! I have another bottle of wine to celebrate!”

Wanda held up two bags of potato chips. “Only the best hors d’oeuvres! Regular or Barbecue?”

“Barbecue!” both of the new gals shouted in unison.

“Pairs well with a nice Pinot Noir,” said Doriana, though she had a cola, instead.

I gave up and sat down. I figured I’d better get used to doing that. Giving up, that is. When the glasses had been filled, I raised a toast to our new members; but afterwards, I protested.

“No fair. I don’t even know your name. Sadie’s a nickname, right?”

But Sofia interjected. “She is DOCTOR Sarah Greenflow, and she got her degree at MIT when she was nineteen. She teaches at...” She looked at Sadie. “ ... University of Washington?”

Her friend smiled. “Washington University. They’re both in the same country, though.” Sofia stuck out her tongue at her, which made Sadie laugh.

“And how did you wind up here?” I asked, intrigued.

“I was speaking at a seminar at OU. I went for a run, pretty late at night. I think they shot me with one of those darts. Next thing I knew, I was trussed up in ropes in the back of a van. I believe they took me because I look so much like Sofia. Or maybe we both fit whatever body type they were looking for. Of course, I suppose if I hadn’t been kidnapped, I wouldn’t have met Sofia, and I wouldn’t be here right now.”

“What was your lecture on?” Wanda asked.

“The behavior of tachyon particles in a field of liquid argon.”

“Mmm hmm. I thought that might have been it,” Wanda said, thoughtful and straight-faced. That earned a round of chuckles.

“And how did you girls wind up thinking of yourselves as ... um ... sisters,” I asked gently. I thought the topic might be a sensitive one. I was right.

Sofia reached out and took Sadie’s hand in her own. “We don’t have to go into that right now.”

“But we do!” her companion said plaintively. “I mean, I do. I should. I’ve asked them to take me in. They deserve to know.”

“No, we don’t,” Doriana said, firmly but quietly. “We accept you for who you are. As you are. We have no conditions, and we make no demands.”

Sadie thought about it, then looked toward us. I just happened to be sitting at the end of the table, Wanda to my left, Doriana to my right. “Do you three keep secrets from each other?” she asked.

Together, my first two girls looked directly at me. Together, they smiled; and together, they answered. “No.”

Sadie’s smile was wistful. “No secrets. I like that. Okay, then, here are all of mine.”

Sadie Greenflow’s father began sexually abusing her at the age of nine. When she ran away, her parents had found her, brought her back and he beat her for her transgression. She still bears the scars. She had never tried to challenge them, or any other person in authority, ever again. Fortunately for young Sadie (though unfortunately for others in her community), the father’s appetite was not sated on the home front, and he began preying on other young girls in the neighborhood, as well. That lasted for about a month. He was arrested and released on bond; which was very odd in the case of a suspected child molester, though the action never had the chance to be questioned. The very next day, his bound body was found hanging by his neck from a tree in the woods near their home, outside Selma, Alabama. He had been castrated; apparently, according to the ME, while still alive. The three brothers of his latest victim were suspected, but they were never indicted due to alibis provided by their entire family.

Sadie’s mom had always consumed alcohol to excess. The little girl was removed from the home without objection and placed in the care of child protective services. For two years, she had been bounced from home to home in the foster care program, but she was not well received. In each of the five families she had been assigned, they all had the same complaint. She was a habitual thief. At thirteen years old, she was assigned to an orphanage and its attached middle school. She was slated for expulsion, again for the charge of theft, when the principal had the wherewithal to ask what she had allegedly stolen. Books, was the answer. A bit of research showed that it had ALWAYS been books. From foster parents, from schools, from libraries, from teachers. She was a compulsive book thief.

Oddly, she had always been categorized as mentally deficient and below grade level in every subject. Even her transgressions made no sense. Almost immediately after taking a book, she had gotten rid of it. When books were recovered, they had always been found in trash receptacles or somewhere else she had discarded them. Two dozen books had been found buried in a back yard. When asked why, she had consistently answered that she didn’t want to get caught. Her teachers had constantly called her a slow girl, a quiet girl; and she had been held back twice. Whenever called upon in class, she seldom answered. Her thoughts always seemed to be elsewhere. The phrase “In a world of her own” had been used in several required reports.

On a hunch, the principal had called in a certified clinical social worker and demanded the girl be observed for a period of time. That woman had somehow seen the truth of what was going on, and called for immediate help from her superiors. Then state experts in child behavior were summoned. Then college professors. Within a week, word had gotten out, and psychologists from around the world were clamoring to be the one to help (and study) the new savant. Sadie had been stealing books, reading them (in their entirety) in an hour or two, and then hiding them or throwing them away in hopes of escaping punishment. And she had retained every single word she had ever read. She could repeat the sum total of A Tale of Two Cities, verbatim, having read (and discarded) the book only once, two years previously. In class, and in life, she had mentally shut out her surroundings, and she lived in a “bubble” of her own thoughts and conjectures.

While she had been a terrible 5th grade student, she really perked up when they put her in a 12th grade (high school senior) classroom. Given unlimited access to textbooks from all categories at all grade levels, including basic college texts (with the stipulation she not throw them away), she soon passed all her placement exams and began undergraduate classes at MIT at the age of 14. At 17, she graduated cum laude with degrees in math, physics and literature. And then the troubles started.

Looking back, it made sense, psychologically. She had tried to please her father, and when she had disappointed him, she was punished. Since then, she had done anything and everything to please those around her and escape further abuse. When she did transgress in the face of an insatiable thirst for knowledge, she tried to hide stolen books to avoid reprimand. And when her later teachers and doctors had told her they expected excellence, that’s exactly what she had given them.

But then, boys began asking her for dates. She WAS a very pretty girl, after all. Resident Advisors and counsellors who were responsible for her during this period, and knowing her psychological shortcomings, had refused to let her socialize with members of the opposite sex; but when she reached age 18, they legally had no standing to prevent it. When boys asked, she would usually tell them no. But boys can learn, too; and some of them learned NOT to ask, but to tell. “I’m taking you out tonight. Pick you up at six,” one would say. Given no choice, she had capitulated, just as she had given in to every demand made of her since that horrible night her father had beaten her. And then, of course, on those dates, the boys demanded sex.

She rapidly earned a reputation. She soon learned that the quickest way to get back to her studies (which was always the thing in life she personally desired the most) was just to give in and do what they wanted. She had survived sex with her father, she thought, so she could survive this. And that, as it turned out, became the status quo for almost a year. She never told her counsellors, because she never wanted to disappoint them; and somehow, she suspected that this behavior would. Looking back, she didn’t consider it a particularly bad time in her life. It just became the norm. It might have stayed that way forever. But then came the date with the abusive drug dealer.

She had shown up her for Quantum Theory class the following day black and blue and high as a kite from what turned out to be a near-overdose of cocaine. She was still sort of the darling of higher education in academic circles, and this rapidly escalated into something that threatened to be a national incident. In a hospital room, they had questioned her for hours. Not only was the latest boyfriend arrested and charged with more counts than he knew existed, but every boy she had been out with for the past year was picked up and grilled unmercifully. The Mayor of Cambridge wanted to know what protections were being afforded all female students at the school. It had been a huge embarrassment to the university. For her last two semesters, Sadie had a bodyguard assigned to her, and she never left her room without a chaperone. She thought it was wonderful. She had never particularly liked boys, anyway; and sex was simply a chore, as far as she was concerned.

And then came graduation. She was officially an adult (even though she hadn’t changed emotionally since puberty). No more bodyguard. No more chaperone. She had gotten the appointment in St. Louis at WashU as a research professor; and it was the perfect job. She only had one class to teach, and that was in Dynamic Particle Manipulation, which she loved. But, just a month later, she had gone to Eugene for the seminar.

Waking up in that van, she had been raped twice before being taken to her new home, a barren cell with a lone high school girl as her only company. Then, within the space of just one more day, they had both been drugged and raped again. For the first time in her life, Sadie found herself trying to understand the feelings of another person. Sofia was acting exactly the way a rape victim SHOULD act: hurt, angry, violated, bitter. But Sadie felt nothing at all. This had happened to her over and over in life. Sex, in her mind, was simply something to be tolerated. It would be nice to forget about it, but Sadie never forgot anything. At least these guys used drugs. That dulled things a little.

She wasn’t surprised that Sofia had taken the lead. After all, whenever two or more people got together, somebody always had to be the leader; and Sadie certainly never had been. When Sofia had told her to get into bed with her, she did it, just as she did what everybody told her. But this time, for the very first time, there appeared to be no ulterior motive. Sofia made no demands. There was no pressure; there were no requirements or rules or mandates. She only wanted to be near, to hold and comfort her fellow captive. She only wanted companionship. In her entire life, Sadie had never experienced anything like it.

When the lights went out, Sofia began talking, softly and intimately. She spoke of her family, her friends at school, her greatest joys and her greatest sorrows. The next night (or period of darkness), Sadie had told her story. And, for the very first time in her life, she had shed tears that were not caused by physical pain. She told Sofia that she didn’t understand why explaining what had happened to her was making her cry; and Sofia, despite crying tears of her own, had kissed them away. The next time the lights went out, Sofia had kissed her on the lips. And touched her. And then, Sadie had experienced her very first orgasm.

They came and took Sofia away, and for six long hours, Sadie knew the depths of utter despair. But at last, they had brought her back, drugged and woozy and dripping cum. Sadie had cleaned her and fed her when the food arrived, and put her to bed and held her all night. They discussed the “hunting” thing, but saw no way to escape. About twice a week, their jailers came with medicinal-smelling rags and drugged them into sluggish immobility before raping them again. When that happened, they would clean one another afterward, and give comfort and companionship. And when the lights went out, they would hold and touch and ease tensions and give pleasure.

So, on it went.

And Sadie had an epiphany. “Sofia, is this love?” she had asked into the intimate darkness.

And Sofia had replied immediately. “Yes.”

When the tale was done, the girls all hugged and cried and soothed each other. I seemed to have something in my throat, and I mumbled an apology and went into the bathroom and washed my face.

A quarter hour later, calm had returned to our household. There were so many things I wanted to discuss with everyone, but I thought we could use a distraction, instead. And so, I ordered each lady to grab a blanket and follow me. That must have sounded intriguing enough that no one objected. I turned on the porch light and marched everybody out to the far side of the front yard, the part that didn’t have a huge maple tree, and I had them spread half the blankets on the grass. Then, I went inside, grabbed a bunch of flashlights, turned out every single light and rejoined them. By the time I got there, they’d figured it out. It was a dark, dark moonless night, and there was no light at all; except for about eighty-bojillion stars. The girls were all on their backs, oohing and ahhing and pointing. I identified the six constellations I knew, and I was not too surprised when Doriana pointed out a dozen others. We held hands and gasped at shooting stars, and spotted a satellite tracking overhead. We got chilled and covered up with the remaining blankets and we all cuddled for warmth.