Known by Its Fruit
by James Hanna
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Table of Contents parts 1, 2, 3 |
conclusion
Jeb led Molly to a third barn. The door was sealed shut by a heavy, iron bar and a padlock the size of her fist. He opened the lock with a thick key, and they entered through a small sally port. Beyond the inner door, Molly heard ravenous sounds: chomping, gulping, slurping noises that chilled her to the marrow.
Her fear only increased when Jeb unlocked a gun cabinet and removed a semiautomatic pistol. He slapped a magazine into the grip. “Stay close beside me,” he ordered, “whatever happens.” He tucked the handgun behind his belt and then unlocked the inner door.
As they walked into the barn, Molly clutched his elbow and gasped. In front of them was a deeply-ploughed field, a field fitted with grow lights and harmless-looking sprinklers. But poking through the topsoil were hundreds and hundreds of fierce-looking orange heads. The heads were aligned in rows, like troops awaiting inspection, and some of them were devouring the craniums in front of them.
Jeb shook his head; he seemed to be embarrassed. “A crop of adolescents,” he said. “Guess we planted ’em too closely together.”
Molly could only shudder and stare. What on earth had possessed her to follow Jeb into this barn?
“We’ve injected these with steroids,” Jeb went on. “They’re going to fight our wars. Once they’ve reached their full growth, that is, and we’ve put memory chips in their heads.”
“Are they really?” Molly asked. She wanted to cover her eyes. She wanted to vomit her cake. “I find the very sight of them revolting.”
“Soldiers should look revolting,” Jeb said. “One look at these chaps and our enemies will be sweating in their turbans. It’ll make ’em think twice about taking back their oilfields.”
Molly released Jeb’s elbow and gasped. She was ready to bolt from the barn, but her legs felt rubbery and spent. “And so you’re a warmonger too,” she stammered. “Or is that a war profiteer?”
Jeb shrugged and winked. “I’m more of a war economist,” he said. “There’s not much profit in war anymore, but at least we can trim the tab. These suckers will fight for nothing, and they like to get down in the dirt.” He chuckled at his own joke and gazed serenely at the heads. “No more hospital expenses for the wounded,” he said. “No more military pensions. No more lawsuits from veterans who have outlived their usefulness.”
Molly could feel her nails stabbing her palms. She wanted to claw out Jeb’s eyes. “So you’re going to replace them with cannibals,” she cried. “Jeb, I find you disgusting.”
“Do you, darlin’?” Jeb buried a chuckle. “We’re already fighting our wars by proxy; this isn’t that big a step. And once we lower the goddamn cost, we can fight our wars to win.”
Molly clenched her teeth. He’s a murderer, she thought. A cold-blooded, calculating murderer. “Those beastly, beastly wars!” she cried. “I never, never believed in them!”
“No one believes in our wars,” Jeb shrugged. “Not enough to fight ’em, anyhow. But our enemies are growing stronger, and they want their oilfields back.” He cleared his throat and spat contemptuously. “If you don’t want us killing off Arabs, darlin’, give up your goddamn car. You can’t have it both ways.”
“You’re disgusting,” cried Molly. “You’re evil and cold. Somebody needs to stop you, Jeb Judson.”
“And who is going to stop me?” Jeb laughed. “Your spoiled and precious people?”
“Somebody has to stop you. This is a crime against God!”
“God’s not as proactive as I am.” Jeb shrugged. “And the people won’t give a hoot. If we give ’em their gas-guzzling cars, if we give ’em their baseball and beer, if we give ’em their sitcoms and TiVo, they’ll stay happy as pigs in shit. Hell,” — Jeb blew his nose and laughed — “once we’ve lowered the price of gas, we won’t even have to beat up demonstrators—”
A predatory squawk interrupted Jeb’s speech. He yanked the gun from his pants.
“Get behind me!” he ordered. He quickly racked the slide then went into a shooter’s crouch. “Behind me!” he repeated. “Plug up your ears!”
Only then did Molly realize that one of those vile, little gluttons was loose. Somehow, while she was scolding Jeb, it had managed to uproot itself from the ground. Its eyes were blazing, its jaws were snapping, and it was tottering towards them on newly discovered legs. “Raaawk!” it cried, a soulless sound like a nail being ripped from a coffin.
POW.
The podling kept lumbering towards them.
POW.
The beastly thing barely flinched.
POW POW.
Molly jammed her fingers into her ears. “Kill it!” she screamed. “Kill it, Jeb!” The little brute seemed unstoppable.
Pow Pow... Pow.
As the seventh shot echoed, the thing stopped walking. Its legs began to liquefy, then it thudded to the ground. Even so, its jaws, pasty with pulp, continued to gnaw and snap.
Molly removed her fingers from her ears. She felt stunned, as though she had just walked away from a car crash. But her blood still boiled when she looked at Jeb. “For a war economist,” she accused, “you’re really not much of a shot.”
Jeb grinned. “They have seven nerve centers,” he said. “Two are in their ankles, two are in their knees, three more are in their head. You gotta hit each one if you want to take them out.” Setting the safety catch, he tucked the pistol back into his pants. “Once we’ve programmed them properly, they’ll attack only towel-heads. They’ll blow ’em to bits with grenades, then gobble up their brains.”
Please, God, make him stop talking, Molly thought. Can’t he see I’m about to be sick?
With morbid pride, Jeb kept lecturing. “They make great suicide bombers, too. We’ll wire them up with TNT then detonate ’em by remote control.”
“J-Jeb,” Molly stammered, her knees shaking, “If you care for me at all, you will stop this conversation.”
Jeb’s eyes began to soften and he took her by the arm. “Very well, darlin’. I’ll say nothing more. But the tour’s not over yet.”
* * *
Slowly, as though walking through smoke, Molly followed Jeb to yet another barn. Her horror had morphed into an eerie enthralment, the same captivation she’d felt when she’d first read Dante’s Inferno. What else did this man have to show her, what new and unprecedented horrors? She felt as though she were hypnotized.
Jeb unlocked a fourth barn and they walked inside. There were fifty or so creatures in the barn, all of them full-grown, and they looked like a failed experiment. Their craniums were uncommonly small and long, drooling tongues were hanging from their mouths. “Quack,” they kept crying. “Quack, quack, quack.” They looked as though they were trying to utter words.
“These will be our politicians,” Jeb said. “They’re on a break now, but speech therapists are working with them ten hours a day. That’s why their tongues are so big.”
“Politicians?!” Molly cried. She could not believe her ears. “Jeb, is this some kind of joke?”
“Mayors, congressmen, senators, you name it. The politicians in office now pretty much stay in line, but one of ’em gets a wild hair now and then. One of our presidents is a perfect example, what with his blocking the Keystone pipeline and his goddamn socialized medicine. He forgot he was bought and paid for.”
Molly felt laughter welling up inside her, sunless, hysterical mirth. The creatures looked so comical, she could hardly hold it in. “Jeb, do you hear what you’re saying?” she giggled. “Who would ever vote for these clownish things?”
“As long as they’re preaching the politics of fear, it won’t matter a damn what they look like.” Jeb placed his whistle between his lips. “Listen,” he said.
At the blast of the whistle, the mob began to babble. “You are under attack,” they cried out in unison. “Quack, quack, quack. You are under attack.”
One of them, apparently better schooled than the rest, parroted several sentences:
“The government will protect you.
The government will make things right.
Just give it all your money.
And give it all your rights.”
Jeb put away the whistle and smirked. “Not a wayward thought among ’em,” he said. “How about that?”
Molly covered her ears with her hands. The Pavlovian clamor, the horrid quack quack quacks, were making her head buzz. But her palms were unable to shut out the sounds; she could hear yet another voice: a monotonous riveting croak that reminded her of a frog.
“Stop all handouts,” it droned. “Don’t control businesses.” One of the freaks, a yard shorter than the rest, was speaking directly to her. Its eyes were wide, its nostrils were flaring, its face was a mask of self-righteous composure.
“What on earth is that?” she screamed.
Jeb stuck out his chest and grinned. “That is a special project,” he said. “A Supreme Court justice replica.” He pushed the dwarf away from her then patted it on the head. “Think of it: the most conservative, program-averse, pull-yourself-up by your bootstraps jurist ever to pass the bar. If we get four more like him on the bench, the people, as a class, will be completely disenfranchised.”
O judgment, Molly thought, you have fled to brutish beasts! Was there no limit to this man’s madness, no bounds to his swinish ambitions? And would the people, the stupid, lotus-eating people, really allow him to succeed? As she looked at Jeb’s face, his crafty intelligent face, she feared that the answer was yes. The people are cattle, his eyes reminded her. And cattle should stay in herds.
“Jeb,” she cried. “Jeb, this is total insanity.”
“Well and good,” Jeb replied. “That’ll push things along. You can’t stop a madness whose hour has come.”
He put his whistle to his lips and blew it once again. The voices grew even louder:
“YOU ARE UNDER ATTACK!”
“WE’VE GOT YOUR BACK!”
“THERE’S NOTHING YOU’LL LACK!”
“QUACK, QUACK, QUACK!”
As she started to faint, Molly heard random laughter, laughter that seemed to arise from a void. And so, she did not recognize it as her own.
* * *
She recovered consciousness on a bench outside of the barn. Jeb Judson was patting her cheek. “Darlin’,” he said, “the tour is almost done. But maybe you’ve reached your limit.”
As she stared at his hawkish, attractive face, her eyes hardened with resolve. “Show me the rest!” she commanded. Why she said that, she did not know. Perhaps it was the fastidiousness in her soul, her librarian’s need to delimit and define. Or maybe she needed a complete inventory of the man to totally cast him out of her life. After all, he was still one hell of a hunk.
“Show me the rest!” she repeated. Just one more outrage ought to do it. Just one more horror ought to kill her affection for him entirely.
“Very well,” Jeb replied. He helped her to her feet. Taking her by the hand, he guided her to a fifth barn. She waited impatiently while he unlocked the door.
As they entered the barn, Molly felt her jaw drop. The freaks in this barn were hourglass-shaped and their skin was pale and smooth. With their heroic busts and swelling hips, with their hair tumbling down to their tiny waists, they looked like lewd parodies of women. They were watching Jeb as he closed the barn door, appraising him like dogs smelling meat.
“These,” Jeb explained, “are our sex toys.”
This has to be the final straw, Molly thought. He’s obviously a pervert, to boot.
Reading her thoughts, Jeb stifled a chuckle. “They’re for the goddamn people, not me,” he said. “A gift to make sure they keep out of our hair.”
“A gift for pigs just like you,” Molly said. “What will their wives say?”
“They’ll be too busy competing for their men. Watch.”
Jeb put the whistle to his lips and blew. Immediately, the things fell onto their backs and began thrusting their hips into the air. “Baby, baby, baby!” they shrieked. “Nobody does it like you!”
Molly could stand it no more. The vulgarity of the display, its utter depravity, blew away the last of her reserve. “You sexist!” she cried. “You Stepford pig. Is that what you think of women?! Is that what you want me to do?!”
“No, darlin’,” said Jeb. He took her hand gently in his. “You I will treat like a queen.”
Snatching her hand from Jeb’s grasp, Molly slapped him across the face. The creatures, aroused by the sound of the blow, began thrusting their hips even harder: “SPANK ME, SPANK ME, DADDY!” they cried. “NOBODY DOES IT LIKE YOU!”
“Why?!” Molly sputtered, her eyes bright with tears. “Why this, Jeb?!”
Jeb shrugged. “A little insurance to keep folks distracted. Beer, films, and sports may not always be enough. But sex,” he rubbed his cheek and winked conspiratorially, “nothing will make people dumber than sex.”
“But this is so insulting—”
Jeb laughed. “The country’s already obsessed with sex. Films, clothes, commercials, you name it, it’s there. This will help us secure our power and save our beloved land.”
He clapped his hands twice. “That’ll do!” he instructed. The creatures shuddered orgastically then collapsed in exhausted heaps. But they continued to plead and babble as he walked Molly out of the barn. “Daddy, daddy, daddy,” they piped, “nobody does it like you.”
* * *
Molly sat silently on Jeb’s veranda, clutching another glass of wine. The sun had set but an afterglow lingered, and the horizon looked like a bruise. She stared hypnotically at the barns, ignoring the bowl of mangos and pears that Jeb had set beside her.
“Don’t think the worst of me, darlin’,” Jeb said. “Have a piece of fruit.”
Molly put down her wine glass and dabbed her eyes with a Kleenex. “Just what do you want with me, Jeb?”
Jeb cupped her hand lovingly in his. “I want you to be my wife,” he said. “I want you to give me a son.”
“Those loathsome, loathsome creatures you’re raising...”
He squeezed her hand gently and smiled. “A towering, godless, unblinking son who will one day manage all this.” Releasing her hand as though freeing a bird, he pointed towards the barns. “A son to make Nietzsche proud.”
Jeb fumbled in his pocket, retrieving a small leather case. He opened it slowly and showed her the ring. The diamond was as big as her knuckle and it winked in the cold evening light. “Marry me, dear, and I’ll make you my queen.”
As she looked at his face, his strong paternal face, her anger melted like snow. His gaze was so warm and protective, his eyes so clear and blue.
Molly slipped the ring onto her finger, sighed and asked, “Shall we set a date?”
Copyright © 2024 by James Hanna
