Ration by Cody T. Luff Book Tour and Giveaway :)
Ration
by
Cody T. Luff
Genre:
Horror
Set
in the far future, Ration is an unflinching take on the ways society
can both thrive and go wrong as pressure to survive builds.
All
the girls who live in the Apartments are forced to weigh their own
hunger against the lives of the others living in the building. When
Cynthia is wrongly accused of ordering an "A" ration, she
punished by the other girls. Eventually, she is forced to leave the
Apartments along with Ms. Glennoc, one of the former managers who has
tormented and abused her for years. Together, they encounter a world
of even more scarcity, but one filled with politics and intrigue.
Cynthia struggles to return to the Apartments and help the girls who
are still there.
Forced
to reconcile her role in the destruction of these girls with the
greater needs of society to find any sustainable source of calories,
Ms. Tuttle makes one bad decision after another while she grapples
with a mother who is growing more and more impatient with her
mistakes.
Ration is
a dark and forceful book, written in a surprisingly nuanced and
accessible way. It combines the darkness and despair of The
Road and The Handmaid's Tale, but has notes of
charm like Lauren Oliver's Replica.
Cynthia
stops eating after the scream finally trails off. The power is still
out, and the smell
of her B-ration hangs meaty and dense in the still air of her
Apartment. She’s
cross-legged on
the rug in the kitchen, her naked feet white even in the darkness. A
deep glubbing sound
burbles in the wall; someone flushes a toilet above her. She swallows
and winces as B-ration bits stick to her throat. She waits a moment
more, allowing even
the biologic gurgle of the building’s plumbing to quiet before she
forks another mouthful from
the plastic ration pouch. Third floor,
she thinks. Scream is on the third floor, still above, just
not far above. After
she finishes the last of her ration, the power hisses to life, the
ceiling fan jerks to a spin,
the fluorescents in the kitchen click to life, and the little radio
she keeps by the bathroom door
retches static. Cynthia stands slowly, her stomach begging her for
another ration even as it disagrees
with what she’s given it. “That’s
what we have,” she says. “Hang on to it.” The
door bangs, a flat palm in the hallway slapping the thin wood.
Cynthia freezes, finger covering
her mouth. “Cinnie?” Cynthia
hiccups, belches softly, and sags where she stands. Imeld. Of course,
it’s Imeld. “Cinnie,
did you hear that one?” “Just
a second.”
Cynthia scuffs her barefoot way to the door, one hand pressed to the
flat of
her belly. She pulls the sliding latch and chain, stepping away as
Imeld slips into the apartment. “I’m
pretty sure that was on the third floor, right? You heard that one,
right?” Imeld takes Cynthia’s
hand immediately, her cold fingers like water. “I
heard it,” Cynthia says. She closes the door with her free hand and
slides the latch. “I would
say the third floor, too.” Imeld
is small, even for the Apartments. Dark hair that riots away from her
brown face in startled
waves. “I don’t know anyone on the third floor.
Well, not really. I know Mei and huvo, but
…” Imeld
pulls her hand away, frowning. She brings her fingers to her nose.
“You were eating,”
she says. Cynthia
stands motionless. She does not meet Imeld’s eyes, instead studying
her friend’s stockinged
feet. Imeld is wearing the red pair, one brown heel completely nude
and wreathed in worn
threads, almost
like curled springs. “Yes.” Imeld
does not speak, she doesn’t need to. “It
was a B.” “Cynthia,”
Imeld says, her voice nothing more than a whisper. Cynthia
turns away, pulling her arms to her chest. “What
could I do?” The
building hums around them, the newly restored power feeding the other
Apartments in
the complex. From somewhere above, a television laugh track rolls
uninterrupted, a hair dryer hisses
next door. Imeld’s
fingers find her hands and pull Cynthia’s arms gently apart. “It’s
okay, Cinnie. It’s
all right.”
Imeld is hugging her, standing on her tiptoes and pulling Cynthia
against the sharp angles
of her body. “How long was it?” Cynthia
shakes her head; Imeld’s
hair smells of government soap and chicory coffee. “I don’t
know. Maybe three days.” “Oh,
Cinnie,” Imeld says, and they hold each
other for a moment, both cold and glad for the
warmth of the other. Without agreeing to, they sit on the little rug
in the kitchen, hands still entwined. “I
didn’t want to,” Cynthia says. Imeld
smiles, lips tight. “Not true. You wanted to eat;
we all do.” “But
not …” Cynthia begins. “But
not a B. I guess that’s right. You do and you don’t.” “You
do and you don’t,” Cynthia repeats.
Nothing truer, she
thinks. Nothing at all truer than
that. How long have they known each other?
Two years, maybe? Cynthia stopped marking her
calendar soon after the two had run into one another in the hallway.
Imeld had been the first girl
Cynthia had spoken to in over a month. She’d been smiling, a
beautiful, full-toothed smile. “Well,”
Imeld says, squeezing Cynthia’s hand, “I think we should see
which one it was.” Cynthia
stares. “You
mean now?” “Yes,
now.” “It’s
too soon, Imeld. We don’t know if they’re, you know, done yet.” A
girl calls a name down the hallway, the walls break the syllables
into a muddy sound and
both Cynthia and Imeld jump. “Barbara,”
Imeld says. “That was Barbara.” “Who
was she calling?” Imeld
shrugs and both sit for a long moment, listening. The
building breathes its constant hush, distorted voices, touches of
static, the deep belly gurgle
of flushing toilets, running taps. It is the dull music of Cynthia’s
sleep. It lulls her, and she closes
her eyes. So many nights, lying on her thin mattress in the dark.
Smelling the sweat of the place,
old, harsh soaps, unwashed clothing, even the mattress itself holds
the odor of the girls before
her. Backs and shoulders carving out the well in the cotton batting
she sleeps in. Heels pressing
the gentle craters into the seam at the foot. She imagines all of
them, all the girls who came
before, curled around one another in sleep, holding one another for
warmth in the dark and listening
to the building whisper its rumors. “Come
back to me,” Imeld says, and Cynthia
opens her eyes, her box kitchen flickering into
view. The empty refrigerator, silent and warm, the single gas range
built into the counter. Has
she ever used either? “Where
did you go?” Imeld asks as she squeezes Cynthia’s hand. “Sorry,”
Cynthia offers. “I guess I’m sleepy.” Imeld
smiles again, a small flash in the fluorescents. “Eating
always makes me sleepy, too.” A
twinge, a gentle reminder that Cynthia has chosen a B ration. “I’m
sorry,” Cynthia says. Imeld
answers with another hand squeeze. “I still want to go check,”
she says. Of
course she does. It is inevitable. Imeld is everything Cynthia is
not: brave, beautiful, willful.
She doubts Imeld has ever chosen a B ration, although this is
ridiculous. Eventually everyone
in the Apartments
eats their B. Everyone. “Okay,” Cynthia says. Imeld
does not release her hand; as she stands, she draws Cynthia with her,
pulling her close
as she opens the latch and slips into the hallway. The
hallway is very wide, entirely too wide. Cynthia has always hated it.
She is the tallest girl
she knows in the Apartments, and
even she, with her arms fully outstretched, can’t touch both
sides of the hallway. It would take two of her, and possibly one of
Imeld, to create a link between
the walls. A damp, red tongue of a carpet lies stretched loosely in
the center of the hallway,
threads bleeding from its seams, peeling away and creating rusty
drifts that the girls sweep
up dutifully on cleaning day. Her feet hate the texture of it, hate
the cool slickness and sticky
threads. Doors stand opposite of one another the length of the
hallway. Twenty per floor, beyond
each, an identical Apartment, identical mattresses, identical, unused
burners and refrigerators.
The stairs create a pivot between each length of hallway, also
terribly wide, also tacked
with rotting red carpet. Cynthia uses them only when she must, only
on cleaning day and bath
day. Imeld pulls her along behind, her own bare feet whickering
through the carpet’s
shed skin. “Wait,”
Cynthia says. She knows Imeld will not wait, but she has to say it,
has to protest even
with such a small voice. “Come
on,” Imeld says as she pulls, and
Cynthia follows, watching her friend patter up the
stairs, still connected to her
by cold fingers and Imeld’s greater will. The
stairs speak as they climb. Bitter old wood, sour creaks chased by
the occasional sharp
crack. Even from her Apartment, Cynthia can hear when girls moved
between floors. “Have
you ever eaten a … B?” Cynthia
whispers. Imeld
does not slow her ascent. “That’s
a stupid question, Cinnie.” “Oh,”
Cynthia says. They turn the sharp corner
on the small landing. A ration pouch lays folded
against the stair wall. The large A printed in faded maroon on the
tan plastic face of the pouch
stops both girls. “Somebody
just left it here,” Imeld says. “For
anyone to see,” Cynthia whispers. “They
wanted us to see.”
Imeld lets go of Cynthia’s hand and bends to pluck the ration pouch
off the carpet and bring it to her nose. “Oh,” she
says and the smell hits Cynthia. Warm spice,
meat, ghosts that brought saliva flooding to her tongue. “Why
would they do that?” Cynthia asks. Imeld
opens her mouth to speak and a thin, silver thread of drool slips
from her lips. She drops
the pouch and wipes her mouth with a palm. “I,”
Imeld begins, and her stomach speaks a
high and needy note. She reaches out to Cynthia
and steadies herself on her friend’s shoulders. “Are
you all right?” Imeld
waits, her eyes locked on the ration pouch at Cynthia’s feet.
Another groan courses through
her body, ending in a painfully loud gurgle behind her breastbone. “How
long?” Cynthia asks. “I
had a C four days ago,” Imeld says. Shame
rushes to Cynthia’s face, blood squirms at her temples.
“You’re …
so much stronger
than I am,” she says. Imeld
frowns, her fingers tightening on her friend’s shoulders. “Don’t
say that.” “But
…” “Please.
Just don’t.” Neither girl moves, the fluorescent light bolted
crookedly to the stair wall
fizzing unhappily. “Whoever
had the A wanted us to know,” Imeld says. “Why
would they?”
Cynthia asks. The last time a girl was discovered eating an A, everyone
on the second floor gathered outside her door. The girl knew, of
course. She could hear them
out there, could hear the whisper of their clothing, of their feet.
She did not open the door when
the first girl in line knocked. They waited for three hours before
the offender had finally opened
the door, resigned to her punishment. They held her down in the
hallway, rolling up her sleeves
to the elbow. Each girl in line stomped once, just once, on one of
her outstretched hands. Cynthia
had been the one to hold the offender’s right arm, forcing the hand
palm down on the floor.
She felt bones break after the first bare heel struck just above the
wrist. The
offender didn’t
scream
until the fifth heal, tears coursing over the cheek that was not
forced against the floor. Cynthia
was offered a turn after the line had dwindled to just a few girls,
the offender, sobbing weakly
against the floor, no longer needed to be held down, her broken hands
curled against her chest
like bloody bicycle spokes. Cynthia had passed. Imeld had watched
from down the hall, she
hadn’t even joined the queue. “Maybe
they’re just that mean,” Imeld says. “They want us to know we
have to pay.” “But
we always find out,” Cynthia says. “No.
We don’t.”
Imeld turns from her, slipping Cynthia’s hand in her own as she
does so. She
kicks the ration pouch as they continue their ascent. The
third-floor hallway is much like the second, save the carpet has been
worn nearly through.
Great holes lay open to the bare wood beneath like terrible, fleshy
wounds. There are girls
in the hallway, all strangers to Cynthia, all draped in shirts
entirely too big and bottoms that pool
around their feet like muddy water. Several glance their way. One
girl, her red hair fizzing around
her sharp face like watercolor, holds a single finger to her lips. “They’re
not done yet,” she
says, her words too round. Imeld
pulls Cynthia over along the tortured carpet, the redheaded girl
falling in beside Cynthia.
They stop just behind the greatest concentration of girls in the
hallway. Five or six faces,
blank and still, all stare into the open door of the Apartment
labeled 19. “They’re
still in there,” one of the girls says. “We
know,” the redhead responds. From
the hollow of the Apartment, Cynthia hears a heavy grunt. “Now
be careful, Ms. Glennoc.”
A Woman’s voice, warm and richly spiced. “I
always am, Ms. Tuttle.”
Another voice, higher, sharper. The
girls in the hallway draw together; Cynthia’s
free hand is taken by the redhead. “Now
there, you see? Not to worry, not to worry at all,” Ms. Tuttle says
with a pleasant open
mouthed ah for all. Another
grunt and a quick burst flat, staccato sound. “Oops.” “Oops,
indeed. Say
you are sorry, Ms. Glennoc.” “I
say better out of me than in me, Ms. Tuttle.” A
sharp sound, flesh against wet flesh followed by a hissing pause. “Now,
say you’re sorry, dear. Right?” “Yes,
Ms. Tuttle. I am really quite sorry.” The
girls fill the open doorway, Imeld at the center of the group,
Cynthia just behind. The Apartment
is deliciously warm, the heating vents somehow alive and generous.
The little kitchen beyond
is a mirror of Cynthia’s, the same ragged rug, the same pointless
counter, the same blistered
paint. The bedroom/toilet room door stands open, the back of a very
tall Woman framed in
the black doorway. She is wearing a beautiful white blouse, pearls
stitched into the shoulders, cuffs
kissed with cream lace. Her bottoms are vivid green corded and clutch
at her wide hips greedily.
But it is her shoes that Cynthia focused on. Black leather flats,
real shoes surrounding black
stockings that look impossibly thick and richly warm. It is the shoes
that always catch her eyes
during these rare moments when the Women come. “Well,
we have quite the crowd out here, Ms. Glennoc. Nearly the entirety of
floor three, did
you know?” Ms. Tuttle, the speaker, turns slowly, red lips parting
into a white blade of a smile.
Blonde hair curls at her temples, parted at the center of her
forehead, framing a smooth face
and wide eyes. The flat, blue latex of her gloves diminishes the
perfection of her clothing, long
fingers caught in clinging surgical wrap. “They
always come out for a show, Ms. Tuttle.
Moths to candles and such.”
Another grunt
issues from the darkness of the bedroom. “Good
evening, girls.
You all are looking so very well, aren’t you?” Ms. Tuttle sweeps the
group with her eyes, and Cynthia feels the absence of the girls
behind her, hears the slap of their
feet and the click of their doors closing. Imeld squeezes her hand
painfully. None of the remaining
girls speak. “Just
cleaning up a bit. You
know the drill,” Ms. Tuttle says. She seems to notice her gloves
and frowns, thin lines crawling away from corners of her mouth.
Another wet sound, fabric
and flesh, issues from the room behind Ms. Tuttle. “You’ll want
to give Ms. Glennoc some
room, girls,”
Ms. Tuttle says, the frown bending her red lips. “She’s none too
steady on her feet
these days.” “Is
that so, Ms. Tuttle?” Ms. Glennoc says from within the bedroom,
annoyance thickening
her voice. “Well,
yes, it is. How many times have you dropped her now?” “A
job for one is made simpler still if it is made by two,” Ms.
Glennoc says, her form blooming
in darkness behind Ms. Tuttle. The other Woman steps aside and Ms.
Glennoc shuffles into
the little kitchen. She is much taller than the already tall Ms.
Tuttle, hard shoulders with a drawn
face balanced on a neck corded with sinew and veins. Long, black hair gathered into a braid
falling away down her back. She balances the girl from Apartment 19
on her shoulder. Naked
and wrapped in many layers of clinging plastic, the
girl’s mouth visible as a black O, she curves,
boneless, over
Ms. Glennoc’s shoulder like a rolled-up
rug. The Woman adjusts her burden
with a flat grunt, muscles crawling the length of her forearms. Imeld’s
hand crushes Cynthia’s and she tries to pull away. Her friend’s
eyes spark, tears immediate
and heavy. “Mei, it’s Mei.” “One
side, girly girls. I
need to get her there before all her uses are dried up,” Ms. Glennoc’s
says, her
black brows heavy against her pale face. “We don’t like to waste,
do we, Ms. Tuttle?” “No,
we surely do not like waste of any kind. Move aside,
girls.” Ms.
Tuttle steps forward,
shedding her gloves on to the floor of the kitchen. Cynthia imagines
the girls of floor three
staring at these on cleaning day. They would have to be picked up,
but who can do it? “She
was my friend,” Imeld says and the shock of her voice splits the
little group of girls in
the doorway. Some simply leave, others step away, their mouths open.
Cynthia feels the redhead
drop her hand, the cold of the hallway immediately replacing the
warmth of skin. “Well,
I am sure she was. Which one are you?” Ms. Tuttle smiles again,
reaching out and touching
the frizz of Imeld’s hair, plucking at it gently. “Imeld.” “And
which Cohort?” “Floor
two, room eleven, Cohort Five,”
Imeld says. Her voice cracks on five. “Oh,
I like Five,”
Ms. Glennoc says brightly. “We
all like Five,”
Ms. Tuttle says as she wipes her hand on the hem of her blouse. “She
was my friend,” Imeld says, and Ms.
Tuttle sighs, a soft little puff between impossibly
white teeth. “Yes,
I’m sorry, dear. But friends fade. It
looks to me that you have a new one anyway.” She
gestures to Cynthia, and
Cynthia steps away, trapped only by Imeld’s grip on her hand. “Besides,
if you wanted to keep your friend, you
should know better than to ask for so many A rations,
right? I mean, we all know the rules here, don’t we?” “You
asked for an A?” A voice from the hallway, Cynthia turns,
and the redhead peeks from
behind her nearly closed door. “I
did not,” Imeld says. “She
didn’t,” Cynthia says, staring at the redhead through the slit of
her door. “We’re Floor
Two, anyway.” “Well,
there were ten As this week,” Ms. Tuttle says, her voice thick with
sympathy. “Ten.
Hungry girlies, I should say.”
Ms. Glennoc adjusts her burden again,
shifting from foot
to foot. “You
should say so, indeed, Ms. Glennoc.”
Ms. Tuttle nods. “I
can’t stand here all day, Ms. Tuttle,” Ms. Glennoc says. “Right.
Time to be off, girls.” Imeld
swallows and Cynthia hears the click of dry flesh against dry tongue.
“If there
were ten
…” “Then
we are coming right back, girly. My back
will give me hell even if the next one is skin
and bone,” Ms. Glennoc says. Ms.
Tuttle steps to her companion, hand raised, and brings her palm
across the taller Woman’s
face. The sound is like wet cloth against tile. Both Women
are still for a moment, Ms. Glennoc
holding on to Mei with both hands, her cheek blossoming into an angry
red. “Say
sorry, Ms. Glennoc.” The
Women stare at one another and Cynthia wishes for nothing more than
to sink through
the floor and into her own Apartment, to pull the old rug from the
kitchen and wrap herself
in it as she lay on her mattress. The thought of the rug causes her
to once again find the dark
O of Mie’s mouth through the plastic wrap. She looks away. “Ms.
Tuttle,” Ms. Glennoc begins. “Make
your manners,” Ms. Tuttle says through bared
teeth. Again, a moment of silence. “I
say sorry, girlies. I say sorry, Ms.
Tuttle. Now, let me
by,” the taller Woman says, her voice
thick and clotted. “Good.
Let her by
now, girls.” It
is perhaps the smell of Ms. Glennoc that forces Cynthia away more
than Ms. Tuttle’s order.
The Woman smells hot, like black oil baking on raw steel. Both Imeld
and Cynthia step away,
the rug catching Cynthia’s foot and causing her to stumble. “She
took ten As,”
a voice says,
the voice leaking from behind a door barely held open. “Ten. That’s
two of us.” Ms.
Glennoc moves fast, her legs pumping, and her shod feet heavy against
the raw wood of
the hallway. Ms. Tuttle follows. She stops for a moment, reaching ut
to Imeld, dropping something
small and white into Cynthia’s friend’s hand. “If
things are a little unreasonable, this will help a bit. Off you go.”
She pats Imeld’s shoulder,
her hand awkward and loose. The
Women retreat to the stairway, Ms. Glennoc bent beneath Mei’s
wrapped body. They whisper
to one another, Glennoc’s voice hot, Tuttle’s voice bitterly
cool. The stairs speak
beneath
their feet as the Women climb to the final floor. “You
took ten As,” a girl steps from her doorway, her brown face
twisted, her own teeth visible. “She
did, I heard Ms. Tuttle say so.”
The redhead slips from her own doorway. Within a moment
the hall is filled with girls. “We’re
from floor two,” Cynthia says. “We’re not from three.” “Maybe
they changed the rules,” a girl says.
Her eyes wide, poisoned. “They
would have told us,” Imeld says as she glances into her palm. The
redhead holds up her hand. “I
smell it!” she says, triumph in her
voice. A short girl with
a flat face grabs the redhead’s wrist. She brings the girl’s
fingers to her nose. “I do, too.”
A hiss
moves through the hallway and Cynthia reaches out for Imeld. “That
was a B, Cinnie had a B. A floor two B. Nothing from floor three.” “I
smell it,” the
redhead says again as she stares at Cynthia, “I held your hand and
I smelled
it on you.” “I
had a B,” Cynthia says, her voice shivering in her throat. “She
admits it,” a girl says. “She
said a B,” Imeld shouts, and the girls
flinch in unison. “A
B is just as bad,” the flat face girl says. Cynthia can see blue
veins running the length of
the girl’s thin neck. “Which
one did it?” A voice from the back, fingers are pointed. “You
know what’s coming,” a girl says. “You
smelled a B, just a B ration. We’re from floor two, don’t be so
stupid.”
Imeld points
at the redhead and the redhead seizes her hand. She sniffs violently
at Imeld before Cynthia’s
friend can pull her hand free. “I
don’t smell anything on that one,” the redhead says.
The hall grows silent and the girls turn
to Cynthia. “It
takes 25 Bs,” she says, tears breaking her voice. “I just had
one. I just had one,” she says,
and the girls
move. They are not fast, they don’t need to be. Imeld tries to
shout, tries to pull
them away, but just like the girl who hid behind her door, Cynthia
knows what will happen. It’s
the same on every floor. It’s the same anywhere. They
push her down, a girl sitting on her back, another holding her right
hand against the floor.
A third girl struggles
with Cynthia’s left hand, Imeld desperately trying to hold her
back. “Don’t
fight, okay?” she says to Imeld. The
girls might hurt her, too, might kill her if she keeps
fighting them. “You hold me, okay?
Will you let her hold me?” The
girls of floor three look to one another and finally the redhead
nods. Imeld is crying but
she holds Cynthia’s left elbow down, her fingers gentle and cool. “Everybody
gets a turn,” the redhead says. The
girls begin to form their queue. “Eat
this,” Imeld says, pressing something to Cynthia’s lips. “Ms.
Tuttle, she gave …” The
first girl in the queue, the girl with the flat face, misses
Cynthia’s hand, her heel instead
crushing Cynthia’s thumb. Pain,
so much at once. Cynthia remembers the girl she held down in the
hallway of floor two,
remembers how the girl was silent for so long. She can hear herself
screaming and feels Imeld’s
fingers in her mouth. Bitterness
blossoms on her tongue. Slowly, lightning courses down her throat.
What was it?
What did Ms. Tuttle give Imeld? The
next blow is muted, still bright, still liquid red, but the bones
that break do so at a distance.
After the seventh heel, she is gone somewhere dark, somewhere
crimson.
Cody T Luff’s
forthcoming novel, Ration, will be released by Apex Book Company in
2019. Cody’s stories have appeared in Pilgrimage, Cirque, KYSO
Flash, Menda City Review, Swamp Biscuits & Tea, and others. He is
fiction winner of the 2016 Montana Book Festival Regional Emerging
Writers Contest. He served as editor of an anthology of short fiction
with twelve contributors titled Soul’s Road.
Cody teaches at
Portland Community College and works as a story editor. He completed
an intensive MFA in Creative Writing from Goddard College. Cody grew
up listening to stories in his grandfather’s barber shop as he
shined shoes, stories told to him at bedsides and on front porches,
deep in his father’s favorite woods, and in the cabs of pickup
trucks on lonely dirt roads. Cody’s work explores those things both
small and wondrous that move the soul, whether they be deeply real or
strikingly surreal.
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