In the After

After a few long minutes, I heard voices down the hall and tried to follow the noise. Again, I turned the corner too late and saw a black door with a RESTRICTED sign closing slowly. I rushed forward and slipped inside just before it clicked shut. The hallway was empty. Where did those people go? I walked forward, my shoes echoing loudly on the hard floor. Out of habit I slipped them off and tied the laces together, draping them over my shoulder.

I slowly continued down the bright hallway. I didn’t know what I was doing; I just wanted to find my mother and go home.

I noticed the hallway wasn’t like the other ones. One side was lined with black doors, one of which those people must have disappeared through. The other wall had several windows. Curious, I stepped closer to the nearest window and peered through the glass. I looked into a small room, completely white except for a green form against the far wall. The green splotch wasn’t part of the decor, though, and it began to move slowly across the room.

It took me a second to realize that I was looking at one of Them. I quickly threw myself against the opposite wall, my heart beating out of my chest. Why was the creature there? Breaking into a cold sweat, I realized that this must be where the Floraes were studied. This is where They were kept.

I slowed my breathing back to normal and gathered enough courage to approach the glass again. The creature shuffled unhurriedly, circling its confined space. It had no reason to do otherwise; it clearly could not sense that I was there, that food was near.

I walked slowly down the hall to look into the next room, where a Florae was feeding on a pig. Frenzied, it focused entirely on the task at hand: gore, slash, consume. The walls dripped with blood as the Florae ripped the pig to shreds, gnawing on its flesh.

I quickly moved to the next room. There, the window was oddly bright. The Florae inside didn’t shuffle mindlessly, but instead remained still in one place. It looked shrunken, as if its skin were too tight for its body. It was hugging itself, its mouth open in a scream of agony I couldn’t hear. Its skin was dry and flaking. I looked to the ceiling and saw that extra-bright lights bombarded the creature. UV?

Floraes loved the sun but something very bad was happening to this one. I wondered if there were ways to use this in a weapon, or if there were areas of the planet where they couldn’t survive. Fascinated, and heartened by the possibility, I moved on.

In the next room the creature shuffled, as it did in the first, but after a few seconds the floor lit up. The Florae trembled uncontrollably and fell, unable to remain upright. Writhing, its skin sparked where it was in contact with the floor. I’d seen enough Floraes wander into our electric fence to know what was happening. The creature was in agony, convulsing as electricity flowed through its body.

After a moment, the room was back to normal and the creature stood. Jerking slightly, it resumed its shuffle around the room. I waited until the floor lit up again, watching the Florae as it suffered, then resumed its behavior as if nothing had happened, unaware that it would soon again be in horrific pain. I had no idea how long I watched the cycle. It was mesmerizing.

“Amy?!”

I couldn’t stop staring at the creature sprawled on the floor again, twisting as it was electrocuted. How much could it take? Why didn’t it die?

“Amy. Amy! Look at me.” I broke my trance and turned to find my mother inches away. She grabbed ahold of my head, forcing my gaze on her, into her eyes. “Amy?”

I blinked hard. “Yes?”

She didn’t ask how I got in or what I was thinking. She simply steered me toward the door, quickly through the maze of hallways, and back into Dr. Reynolds’s waiting room.

“Oh, I was wondering where you got to,” the secretary said.

“I just took my daughter to get some air,” my mother told her. She sat me down. “Amy, put your shoes back on,” she instructed quietly.

I was still carrying them over my shoulder. I dropped them to the floor and slipped them on one at a time. My mother was the one who bent down, untying the laces from each other and retying them properly. After she sat back in her chair, I stared at the floor for a while, uncertain of what I should do.

“Mom . . .”

“We’ll talk about it later, Amy.” My mother smiled brightly at me as the door to Dr. Reynolds’s office opened. “And how was Baby?” she asked cheerfully.

“Are you okay?” Dr. Reynolds asked, looking at me.

“My . . . my stomach hurts,” I offered.

“Let’s get you home,” my mother said, helping me up from my chair. “It can take a while to get used to a normal diet.”

I reached over and took Baby’s hand, not wanting to let her go for even a second. As we walked, I debated telling Baby about the lab Floraes, but decided against it. I didn’t want to upset her. Still, I couldn’t get the image of the creature being electrocuted again and again out of my head. Tortured.

My mind focused back on Baby, her psyche-eval. What was it like? I asked as my mother led us from the building and back to the apartment.

I played with some toys. . . . He didn’t even loud speak at me.

Weird.

We had lunch at the apartment while my mother tried to explain the purpose of their experiments. “We need to test their pain threshold, their reaction time, their ability to withstand fire or electricity or . . .”

“I get it, Mom.” She didn’t need to justify the why of it. I was clearheaded again and more curious about what they’d found out from all their testing, what they’d learned about the Floraes. When I asked my mother, though, she was withholding.

“That is a conversation for another time,” she told me. She eyed me intensely. She was the one thing I could trust in this strange place but I knew she was also an integral part of it. She was my mother and the director, both. “And I know I probably don’t have to ask, but you know not to mention what happened earlier, right?”

“I won’t.” I didn’t want to get in trouble. Or get my mother into trouble, for that matter.

“Good. All right.” She exhaled. “Who wants a cookie?”

Baby raised her hand, excited. In two short days she’d learned to recognize her name, my name, and the all-important word cookie. As I watched her eat, I tried to push the visions of the Floraes from my mind. I’d thought, for a brief time, that I was free from Them. I knew then that even in New Hope, They would plague me.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Baby appears at the foot of my bed. At first I think it’s a dream. They’ve increased my medication, and things are getting fuzzy again. The line between my daydreams and reality is blurred. It’s hard to keep everything straight. But then I see Dr. Reynolds has followed Baby. He pulls up a chair and watches as she jumps in bed to snuggle next to me.

She grabs my hand. Amy, I’ve missed you! Her face is bright and shining.

I’ve missed you too. I begin to cry.

“Amy, what’s wrong?” Dr. Reynolds asks.

I shake my head. “I don’t know.” Dr. Reynolds now has a strange look on his face, almost a smirk.

I close my eyes. Are you happy crying? Baby asks. She must be signing into my hand but I swear I hear a child’s voice echoing her words. “Are you happy?”

I open my eyes and study her, hoping that I’m not just hallucinating. That she is real. Baby grins at me, and I glance at Dr. Reynolds. “That must be it,” I tell them slowly. “I’m crying because I’m so glad.” I don’t really know how I feel, other than disoriented.