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I keep irls shackled in there as well I currently own three of thees of fourteen and twenty, each collared and chained to a wall

Healthy young females like Evie have become rarities, resources Like everyone else alive, I hoard resources

Itthis before the apocalypse I need theht say I torture simply because I myself was tortured by my father, a tyrant who’d tried to "beat the evil" out offractures and repeated contusions for all of my childhood--up until the day I chlorofore tub, then leisurely dissolved him in hydrochloric acid

He’d awakened in time to meet the evil up close

Andto stop hi his ire?

She fared worse

But irls only to further my research This is my life’s work I don’t set out to har pain on them is incidental

No, the research is all that eon, the trio falls silent behind the plastic curtain, their chains rattling as they scurry back toward the wall

I push past the plastic, turning up the battery-powered lantern on the wall As they shield their eyes froht, I stare down at thearments, they cower on the packed earthen floor, their hands caked with dirt They’ve been digging into the ground,little nests in which to keep hen they sleep

A ot-ridden corpse lies curled up in one nest, still attached to her chain That one succuned to lessen the body’s need for fluids

For weeks, it’d worked faultlessly Then itdidn’t

I view her reans used to be a person--a fore That pile of meat used to embody a soul

Now it’s just a collection of elements

Evie will take the scholar’s place Perhaps she’ll live longer than a month Perhaps my newest elixir--immortality in a bottle--will finally cheat death

It must

Why does everyone assume we’ve seen the worst of the apocalypse? I will be ready

I clench the chain of the oldest girl, yanking her to her feet "Why has there been noise?" I de her neck runs atery blood All of theet neck wounds from the rusty iron collars This one needs ive it to her now

She considers answering, then thinks better of it She’d been rebellious at first, sassy Now she’s hollow-eyed and quaking

"If I hear another sound, I’ll old elixir" It’s a pain potion that rips through their intestines I relish their stricken looks "Understood?"

They mumble, "Yes, Arthur"

When I return upstairs to Evie, I find her relaxed in her chair, staring at the fire Her heavy-lidded gaze follows the flames

The last fire she’ll ever see Enjoy it for now

"Sorry about that," I tell her "A pack of rats seems to have moved in over the winter" I hope that my statement doesn’t sound conceited A rat infestation these days is a bounty "If only they’d stop knocking over empty paint buckets Nohere e?" I turn the recorder back on, taking a seat "Tell me what those first feeeks were like"

"My hometown used to have a few thousand people Almost all of them watched the Flash--less than a handful lived Directly after, they holed up in as left of the still-s church, but not Mom and me," Evie says "When none of the cars worked, we took our one surviving horse, hooked up a cart, and went raiding"

She leans forward, growing a bit rocery store had burned by the ti aisles Mo o for calorie-dense food, like peanut butter The pharmacy had burned down completely, so we ransacked the vet’s supply of antibiotics We looted guns and ammo from Flash victims’ homes We were like locusts"

Evie says this with pride She should If it wasn’t for enterprising souls like her, I’d have no supplies to appropriate

"Though Mo and save the day--govern, or whatever--we prepared like ere on our own We worked ourselves to the bone, until our base the thousands of cans, the bags of beans, the canisters of weight-gain powder"

Shaking her head ruefully, she says, "I re our supply would last us years As soon as Mom had prepared us as best as she could, shebroke down"

"What do you uilt that she’d sent her mother away, that she’d sent ine it? Her hter’s visions had proved pretty men, pale-eyed and slimy Not to mention the details of the FlashWell, Moot a violent reboot Her confidence was obliterated"

"Did your grand to her that she could pass on to you?"

"Moressively blocked them out So she didn’t know a lot And anytime I pressed her to try to renolia I’d always known"

"There s My clairvoyance had to do with Tarot cards soht be destined to"--Evie h at this This girl is weak in body and in ullible; if the fate of mankind rests in her hands, we are all utterly dooirl’s shoulders, isn’t it?"

"I know! It was so frustrating If Gran was right and I actually was so point? Could I have saved uilt of my own to haunt me"

"Did the visions"--hallucinations--"continue after the Flash?"

She gives her head a clearing shake, blinking for focus "The ones of different characters were rare, but I did see Matthew about once a week Each visit, he seemed even e, so I welcoraines, nosebleeds, and all But I had a whole new sy voices in htruesome deaths, visions, voices"

Voices? That would correspond with her pathology "What did they say?"

"Forthat rew clearer each day, but that alsoon itself" She rocked faster "Stress, hunger, night"

Evie was alone on that farood as stranded on a deserted island It’s no wonder she conjured voices, to give her a sense of belonging Like iinary friends

And naturally, she fabricated those superpowers for herself In a world filled with peril, where girls like her are targeted at every turn, she needs to feel powerful

I would diagnose her as a paranoid schizophrenic with delusional features It’s because of my own madness that I can so readily identify it in others But odhood