Storm Girls (The Juniper Wars Book 4) by Aaron Michael Ritchey

Author:Aaron Michael Ritchey [Ritchey, Aaron Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: coming of age religion religious spiritual, metaphysical visionary theology spiritual, lgbt survival stories Social & Family Issues, sister small town clones cyber punk genes, science fiction dystopian action adventure, Romantic Science & Technology
Publisher: Shadow Alley Press Inc
Published: 2019-10-02T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twelve

No more bottles of beer on the wall,

No more bottles of beer.

Go to the store and buy some more

Ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall.

—Anonymous Folk Song from the mid-twentieth century

(i)

ON MY FIRST TRIP THROUGH Denver on the I-70, back when I had a family and three thousand head of cattle to move, I’d played Fast Food Restaurant Bingo to pass the time. I’d had a scorecard in my mind, and I ticked off boxes as I found different flavors of restaurant now gone derelict.

Across the street from the cathedral was another restaurant I could’ve checked off my list. It was a Dairy Queen, and that’s where they stuffed us, all fifty, shoved inside.

We took turns sitting down, it was so packed. I found a place near the back door, now bare concrete, but I could see the outlines of where the sink had been. The water pipes had all been removed, and now the concrete was dotted with pitch-black holes that looked like unseeing eyes.

I crouched until I could wriggle around to get enough room on the floor for my butt. Had to push back feet and legs, but I managed to clear a space. Barefoot, my feet were hurting me again, so I wanted to sit and let them rest.

A girl glared at me ’cause of the smell. Another woman gave me a nasty look ’cause she thought I should be standing with everyone else.

A few of the other women tried to talk to me, but I shined them on with one-word answers. It’s easy to push people away when you answer every question with a yes, a no, or a shrug.

That was what I did while I tried to come up with a plan. I didn’t care about any of them. I still had Skye6 in my veins and the chalkdrive around my neck. Nothing else mattered.

But I knew I wasn’t going to escape from the DQ. The doors were chained shut, and we had monster guards standing outside, snuffling, hollering, getting in fights, and generally being mean.

My only real hope was Alice, but then she’d turned sullen again after Dizzymona ignored me. She slammed EMAT on my skin and then took off with the Vail Recreation District bag to parts unknown. I couldn’t imagine what kind of nightmare barracks they had or if they slept out in the cold. Jolie had made it clear that Alice was still assigned to her unit and that my sister better behave.

Alice had grunted and snapped a thick-handed salute. It had looked sardonic to me.

Every so often the front doors would open, a woman would be led out, and then the doors would slam shut. When it got dark, the hogs gave us homemade candles to burn. The tallow hissed and sputtered, giving off a smoky, foul light.

We were hungry. We were thirsty. The women around me were scared and talked about what it might be like getting the gas, but I sat, my legs to my chest, as the women slowly thinned out until I could stick my hurting feet out in front of me.

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