Chapter 31

“-ke up! Wake up! Wake up!” I grabbed the hands that were slapping my face. I opened my eyes to sharp pain. My cheeks were sore but my ass was throbbing. I blinked hard. That green light was hell.

“Oh, thank God!” I was tackled in a hug from the side. I let go of Renée’s hands and stroked Pat’s hair. Xiomara hurried over. I got to my feet. It felt like I weighed thirty pounds less. I landed right in front of Xiomara.

“OK, hi girls. Good morning.” I said, blinking and shielding my eyes. The green strips of light were uncomfortable. “Sound off, are we all here? Is anyone hurt?”

“I’m here,” Renée rubbed my cheek. “I’m sorry about your face. It’s Pat’s fault we dropped you.”

“I pulled on go! You pushed on three!” Pat complained. “I’m here.” She addended when Xiomara elbowed her.

“You didn’t land on your head, but your neck might’ve swung back when you landed. The good news is, despite falling three stories, you didn’t fall all that fast.” Xiomara rubbed my other cheek, “I’m here. How are you feeling?”

I smiled as she rubbed her hands through my hair feeling for bumps and welts. I lost the smile when black flakes, black in the green light at least, fell in front of my face.

“And I followed along,” Andrea pressed a finger in my back. Her sheepish frown looked otherworldly in the green light. Under her arm she had two boxes of cereal. Ohs and Ohs, oh... “Laurie had mentioned you probably wouldn’t get to eat until you got back so I grabbed some food.”

“And?” Pat prompted her to continue.

“Fine, I wasn’t comfortable staying with Dashawn. He’s always looked at me weird.”

“He’s always thought you were hot,” I defended my friend, “But you’re here, so you have to help. I fell, tell me about that.”

“At the end of the night, the inward facing sides of all of the boxes swing outward on cranes.” Renée forced me to look down a giant corridor, more like a city street, five stories of boxes were lined up on both sides. “They then descend as replacements come down after them. They loop out at the bottom and then are reeled up behind the new sides. Once all the boxes have new cabinets, up they go.

“There’s walkways on top of each box, with ladders down to here. To jump from the crane to the walkways, it’s about a foot and a half gap. Pat and Xiomara jumped over, Andrea and I had your shoulders. We had to hurry before we were pulled back. We counted to three. I pushed. Pat didn’t pull. Xiomara couldn’t hold you by just one leg. You tumbled down to here.”

“We were terrified, we had no idea if you had a concussion or were just knocked out like you get every night.” Xiomara still held my head. I leaned my forehead onto hers.

“How am I doing doctor? Is anything broken?” I asked her. She frowned.

“Just your brain, you should be fine. Your dick still works after all.” She gestured around the tent of my pants. I really did need to pee.

“OK, so where are we, where can we go?” I asked as I walked around the corner of the nearest box. It was labeled OA-91. Pat hurried along beside me until I turned towards the wall and inched down my pants.

“Gross!” Pat giggled. The tinkle should’ve boomed in the still of the ship. There was a damp on the sound. I put my ear to the wall of the box. I could hear nothing from inside.

“He’s not the only one,” Renée worried.

“C’mon, don’t you dare look Dean!” Xiomara took Renée’s hand and crossed the floor (or was it the deck?) to the other set of boxes.

“We don’t have to tell him anymore, he treats us right,” Andrea defended me. I smiled for both girls. I loved the attention from Xiomara. I loved the support from Andrea. I loved the “That’s a big pee.” from Pat. I shook myself with extra care before I tucked myself into my pants.

“Where and where to?” I asked again. I reached for one of Andrea’s food boxes but she pulled back.

“Your hands are gross.” I opened my mouth. She took a fingerful of Ohs and slipped into my mouth. She smiled when I sucked on her fingers. I spit out a flake. She lost her smile.

“It looks to be about sixteen deep and we’re at row three.” Pat explained, “Or fourteen depending how you look at it. The supplies come down from above and there are ladders between rooms leading up to walkways. We haven’t seen how far we can go up.”

“I say first we should head to the far wall, we’ll make our search as thorough as we can from--”

“Hello! Is someone down there!” A panicked woman’s voice called down. It was muffled and the words were disrupted in the travel. I looked up, saw the shadow above. A feminine silhouette leaned out over the second storey rooms. “Oh God! Oh God! Oh God!”

“That sounds like Mrs Leifson.” Renée returned. She had her hands behind her back. She stood with her feet a little too far apart. “But not as cigarettes and gin.”

“I think Zoë said she was in the same room as Reggie and Laurie.” Pat reminded me.

“We’d better wait for her then.” I said.

“Why? She might be as bad as Reggie.” Renée warned.

“Dean’s here and so is Pat,” Xiomara rubbed Renée’s shoulder. “We’ll be fine.”

“Of course we will,” Andrea fed me another finger scoop. I smiled at her.

“Holy shit! We thought we were going to die!” At her utterance of the word we, Pat and I took a phalanx position, shoulder to shoulder. Her shoulder to my elbow anyways. We arrayed ourselves in front of the other three girls.

Two women came out from behind the next box. Yuming, Mrs Lan, Suzi’s mother, had changed from a forty four year old MILF into an eighteen year old bombshell. Mrs Leifson had been pushing seventy. She had been a harsh weather beaten mockery of a woman. I had never imagined what she might’ve looked like young. She had dressed worse than she looked and her classroom had a smell to it.

She had become near unrecognizable: at least four inches taller, her nose now seemed to fit her face, her eyes were bright, her hair was silky. She was drop dead gorgeous. Her big breasts should’ve been attractively displayed in her low-cut t-shirt but she was smothered in black flakes.

Behind her, skittish and slowly approaching, was Vanessa. I’d always know her as a platinum blonde with too much makeup. Hell, she had always been a bit of a scene girl, good looking, makeup, expensive clothes, no personality. She was still just as pale. Her eyes seemed smaller, angrier. Her over-straightened hair was now a tangle of curls. Her nose looked bigger. She frowned, and showed her teeth. Those were as perfect as I remembered them at least. She looked like a frightened rat, with darting eyes, worn clothing, and messed up hair. Her dress had been polluted with dark flakes.

“You--you were Reggie’s friend. We need your--”

“Franny, the slut has food.” Vanessa stared down Andrea. “It’s been two days, please!”

“Stop!” I said strongly. Vanessa shook still for a moment, ready to uncoil and leap forward given any suggestion. Franny Leifson raised her shoulders up and stared me down. “You’ve got the orange stuff all over you. Andrea, Xiomara, will you feed them and keep the stuff out of the boxes.”

“This shit is orange?” Franny steadied her stutter after a deep breath.

“Trishie’s hair is black?” I flipped my martial artist’s hair. A couple of flakes skittered away in crooked tornadoes.

“If you feed them they might follow us home,” Pat mocked them. She also punched me in the hip for calling her Trishie. I slipped my arm over her shoulders.

“They’ve been around, they’ll answer questions better if we treat them well. I want to make sure this is done safe and smart.” I told her.

“Good, and it’s two more sluts for the harem.” Andrea vengefully called them sluts.

“Harem?” Franny asked. Xiomara was slowly feeding Franny. Renée had wiped away the crust of flakes around her mouth. She was sneering at the buildup on her left hand.

“Eat or don’t,” Xiomara growled at her former teacher. The rejuvenated girl subsided and opened her mouth.

“You did say you wanted Vanessa, Trishie.” I grinned. She stepped on my foot. She made it look like a stomp to the eyes on us but she had caught her heel before she could hurt my delicate toes...

“No one wants me in anything,” Vanessa crunched the cereal noisily. “I’m sorry, I’m trying not to ‘thank you’ hug you for how gross I am.”

“Keep trying and don’t fuck it up,” Andrea countered. Renée came over to me and I realized my eyes had acclimated to the powerful green lights.

“I was thinking of starting down that end and then crossing the bottom. We could climb the ladders at the ends and zigzag up to the top floor. See if we could find--”

“There’s no point, the only things that are different are way down that way,” Mrs Leifson gestured to the far end of the hallway, “Or you could maybe find a way up into the cranes.”

I followed her fingers way up into the darkness. I frowned. I looked to Pat, still tucked under my arm.

“I didn’t look around much while I was out here. I didn’t want to lose place of home,” she countered.

“Thank you so much for the food,” Vanessa blubbered. She clamped her eyes shut to keep from tearing up. “We tried going back but they wouldn’t let us back in.”

“We got the crate wrong and the folks inside were creeped out.” Franny explained. She gestured behind me to the PA10-0 crates stood. “We tried a couple down that way and got the same response. Thank you, we don’t want to eat you out of supplies.”

“You’re welcome,” said Xiomara. “C’mon let’s walk down to the far end and see this different thing she mentioned.”

“Please, we came out looking for Zoë and Reggie.”

“We came out to get away from boys who thought they were entitled to us,” Franny countered. “Shit went sideways after Elizabeth and Zoë ditched.”

“They’re safe.” I claimed. “C’mon or get lost in the dark.”

“We’re coming,” Vanessa said. She had a glare down with the rejuvenated teacher. “Yes we are.”

“He said he was recruiting for a harem.” Franny countered.

“No I didn’t. That was Andrea.”

“Yeah, now hurry up sluts. You gotta get the OK from all four of us before you talk to our guy.”

“We’re his girls.” Xiomara explained. “We never said he was our guy.”

“All you’ve ever had to do was say it,” I said. I reached over and pulled her in on my left side. The black flakes kicked up with every step. They flew around the otherwise still air in random spirals. They stuck to anything but each other. I’d only been awake for minutes and I was laden down from my knees to my bare feet. If only there were shoes in space.

“Penny for your thoughts?” Xiomara asked as we crossed box seven, I was counting as if we had started at two.

“We may never see a penny again,” I said.

“I won’t but you can, every night.” She slumped. I rubbed her shoulder.

“What’s she talking about?” Vanessa hurried up to Pat’s side. “Do you warp home like Zoë once did?”

“What do you mean warp home?” Franny scowled. Andrea was staying two paces behind our discovered guests. Renée was right behind Xiomara’s elbow.

“Zoë said she dreamt of going back,” Vanessa murmured.

“We all do,” Franny scoffed. “There’s no way to travel back. That’s stupid.”

I let her believe. I didn’t care. We marched forward, trying to reach the other side of the ship. Inside each box had felt so small, but walking past 14 of them and I was wishing they were a little more compact.

“Hey, Xiomara,” I called her attention. Renée was loathe to give up her place at my side. Pat moved after I kissed her head. I spit away a flake. I would kill for a shower. Xiomara was a warm little space heater against me. Pat kept a hand on my back, Andrea added hers.

“You guys seem terrified you’ll be separated,” Franny said.

“More than a litte,” Renée agreed.

“Just a moment ago,” a moment to Andrea could be about ... I had no idea, it had felt like an hour of walking, it might’ve been ten minutes. “You guys were only as far away as,” Andrea pointed to the gap between the second and third story boxes. “And it sounded like you were screaming through water.”

“It was more like their voices were chopped up in a big fan,” Xiomara corrected the simile.

“Yeah, but you’re fine if you can make out each other’s faces. You don’t have to be some weird one cock, four clam, tentacle creature.”

“Ew.” Andrea cocked her lip in disgust at the image.

“I always thought octopi were cute,” Xiomara grinned.

“It’s octopuses,” Renée corrected.

“I think we get to be in charge of grammar from this point on.” I said. “Girls stay as close as you feel safe.”

After a minute further of walking, I felt Vanessa’s hand on my shoulder. Franny muttered off to Xiomara’s right.

“You called Xiomara over.” Pat reminded me.

“Right,” I said, we were about three boxes away from the end now. “Zoë called you, trying to pimp me out on you.”

“Jesus, your sister is a fucked up person,” Franny growled. “It’s girls like her that ruined my time as a teacher. At least in teaching advanced courses, the boys were less likely to be idiotic bullies.”

“Why are you antagonizing him?” Xiomara snapped, “You don’t have to be here. If you are going to stay, you damned well better be worth keeping.”

“I’ll help. We’re going to have to climb up to the third floor to get over that wall ahead of us.” Vanessa tried to smile as she talked. I could hear her fail. Xiomara cursed. Pat had kicked her in the back of the thigh.

“Answer him,”