A World of Trouble

"Please be patient with me. Why is there a limit of five prisoners and where do you keep them?"

"We don't keep them anywhere. She's one, and there's another. I don't see any of the others. We only take five because that's all we need."

"For what?"

"For baby night. It's something called "Genetics," and we always try to get baby juice from other tribes."

The word "Genetics" was mispronounced, but it was in English. He was starting to get a handle on the how they reproduced, but he needed more information.

"You'll get baby juice from your prisoners?"

"Yes."

"What happens to them after that?"

"They go home."

"So they're okay and everything?"

"No. Most of the time, they're sad because nothing took. But sometimes it does take and we have a big dance. The one who gave the baby juice wears the flowers and gives the baby her name."

"What will those girls do?"

"They'll have to use their own girls, unless they can win by tomorrow night. They can't attack us again until next month."

"I shouldn't have interfered," Jim said, softly.

She started to say something, something to reassure him, but fell silent instead. He was startled when she drew close and put her hand on his shoulder.

"Were you a Wise Mother in your world?"

"No," Jim said, and chuckled, "but that's the nicest thing you could have said to me. I'd like to see these pictures I keep hearing about. Would my looking at them be a bad thing in your world?"

"No, but they might frighten you. They show males like you getting their last food whistle in a terrible way."

"I know. Their heads explode."

"Hello, Youshi. Were you in the battle?"

"Yes. I was winning when Jim took all their head-thunkers away. You should have seen how mad they were. Magda farted on hers again."

"That's not very nice."

"I know, but it gets funnier every time."

"She won't be happy when they do it back to her."

"They can't. If Jim takes away their head-thunkers, we'll never loose again."

"Wise Mother and I have decided that I should not do that again."

"Why not?"

"Show me the pictures, Youshi. I think the answers are there."

"Okay. Would you like to come, Wise Mother?"

"Yes. I want to look at the pictures again, and perhaps the runes will unlock if the male comes near."

"Of course, why didn't we think of that before? The runes must have locked when all the males went away, that's it, isn't it?"

"I don't know."

"That's it. I bet it is. I'll bet they all unlock as soon as Jim gets there."

"We'll see."

It was always warm in this place, but icicles ran up and down Jim's spine as he read the magic runes. The pictures were only of passing interest. They were caricatures of men dying as their heads blew up. They were just an exaggerated warning to keep men away from the baby center when the radiation started. The machine in the baby centers used the same technology as the weapon that had killed every male mammal on Earth. They had somehow converted it from the killer of humanity, to its last chance of survival.

The magic runes were line after line of words floating beneath a hard, clear plaque set in the ground. It was all in English, and told a story to awful to believe.

The friendly wink the man in the moon had developed was actually the charred remains of the perpetrators of the great atrocity. Their stores of animal embryos were burned to a crisp along with the men who thought they'd repopulate the Earth with their own seed. They thought they had killed the old Earth, but in her death throws, mother Earth struck back. The debris of that final conflict still circled the world in sparkling rings of torn metal.

"What's the matter?"

"Nothing, Youshi. Nothing."

"Come away. The pictures are false. You won't die, I won't let you."

"It's okay, Youshi. The pictures are nothing. They're just warning that men can't get close to the baby center when it goes on. Whatever it does that gives you babies hurts something in men's heads and they die. As long as I stay away from it on baby night, my head will be fine."

"Baby night is tonight! We have to get you away from here."

"Calm down. According to this, some kind of line starts glowing before the thing kicks in. As long as I stay outside that line, nothing will happen."

"That's what that line is for. The runes are telling you all this? Why have they unlocked for you, and we still see nothing but lines?"

"Those lines are from my time, my world. We could talk with those lines, and the people who made the Food Temple and the Baby Temple left these words to tell what they'd done, and why."

It had been a melancholy afternoon for Jim. Lost in introspection, he'd sent one girl after another away when they came up and put their hands in front of his face.

One girl didn't bother with this formality, and when he tried to brush her away, she latched on to his nut sack with both hands and wouldn't let go.

Youshi came running when she heard him yell, and immediately started beating the shit out of the girl. Not only was she being as violent as the ones who took Dave down, she didn't stop when the girl gave up. She put a hell of a knot on the girl's head before they were able to drag her off.

"She hit me. She hit me with a head-thunker right in the head. Look at that bump."

"Who hit you?"

"Youshi."

"She was hurting my male."

"It's not yours, Youshi."

"I wasn't hurting it anyway. I was just playing with its baby maker thing."

"You were yanking it like a root bush. You almost tore it off. Didn't you hear it screaming?"

"She hit me really hard. I think I'm bleeding."

"Let me take a look at it."

"No. We're going home. I'm telling our Wise Mother on you. You'll be sorry."

"You can't go home. You are prisoners, besides, baby night is tonight."

"You should have thought about that before you started hitting us."

"Look, we're sorry. I'll go talk with your Wise Mother tomorrow, and we'll think of a punishment for Youshi. Please don't go."

"I don't care what the others do. I'm going home. Youshi's gotten mean since that male has been around."

"Good riddance. Go home and don't come back."

"Youshi, go over there and be quiet."

"If she ever hurts him again, I'll pull all her hair out and replace every one with a bump."

"Magda, sit on her if you have to. I want her to sit down and shut up."

"I'm okay, Youshi. Calm down. Come here, honey."

"The rest of you will stay, won't you?"

"Yes, we'll stay. She always gets people mad at her, but Youshi shouldn't have hit her."

"Yes, I know dear. Thank you for staying."

"I didn't want to go. I've never been a mad one before. I've been looking foreword to it."

"You know you won't remember anything you did, don't you?"

"I know, but everyone seems to be a little different after they've been mad. Sexier, you know?"

"Yes, dear, I know. But you're very sexy already."

"We only have four now, Youshi."

"I know. I'm sorry. She was really hurting Jim, though."

"I'll get over it. The girls don't understand that I'm a little delicate down there. I don't think she ment to hurt me."

"That still leaves us one short. Since it's your fault, you have to take her place, Youshi."

"Yes, Wise Mother."

It was a good thing that the warnings had been so explicit. With Jim's technical background, he was dying to get close and see how the baby center worked.

He had a rough idea what the final picture would look like, but he was still sorting through the pieces of the puzzle.

He was well back from the Temple. Youshi had made him promises not to come any closer. He could see her standing with the other four girls by the temple door.

The girls were uncharacteristically shy about going into detail about what went on on baby night. Even these bold vixens were modest when it came to real procreation.

He got his best information on that count from one of the kids: "They run around and scream a lot," she had said.

Even now, he could see a few of the naked girls waiting in front of the temple glance shyly over their shoulders at him. It was the first time they'd ever made him feel like a voyeur.

He could feel the tension as the moment drew near.

Somehow, the machine in there would take over the minds of the five girls. It would force them to get DNA from there own bodies and put it into some type of syringe. The shape of that syringe was a touch of humor lost on the people of this time, but he had gotten the joke as soon as he understood the term; "baby maker."

Once the girls had loaded their DNA into the cock shaped syringes, the machine sent them out like zombies to squirt some "baby juice" into whatever hole they came upon.

The success rate was not very high. Some girls got juice squirted down their throats; Magda was one of many who had got it squirted up their ass. Even the ones who got it in the right hole didn't conceive that often. The white-top tribe he now belonged to had absorbed the Ming-lo tribe so there'd be enough to keep a real village.

They weren't a bunch of foolish girls who wanted to be mommies. It wasn't just the ticking of a biological clock. Their desperation was the screeching nails of the human race, clawing at the walls of the pit, as humanity was pulled down into oblivion.

A low electronic hum started, and was soon joined by a slightly higher one. More joined in and the Baby Temple started to glow.

He could see Youshi. She was the tallest of the five. They were all naked, the five at the temple, and the ones waiting in front of them. She was also frightened. Jim's eyes darted to the other four. They were all terrified.

"What the hell's going to happen to them? Why are they afraid? What's going to happen to them?"

"We didn't want you to see this," Wise Mother said, "We even planed how we could trick you and tie you up again. We all know it's a mystery that you should not see, but we didn't know how to stop you without hurting you. I asked you before not to watch this, but you pretended not to hear me. I ask you again. Turn your back, cover your ears, I'll walk with you into the deep woods and sing you to sleep."

"What's going to happen to Youshi?"

"She'll go mad. She'll try to put baby juice in the girls who get close to her. She'll become a fierce beast with no mind."

"Then why is that one crying and shaking like a leaf?"

"Sometimes they hurt themselves, sometimes they hurt each other, and they always hurt some of the girls. It's something you shouldn't watch. It's the pain we must suffer to bring forth life. It's worth the price for us, but you shouldn't have to watch."

"Youshi," Jim yelled at the top of his lungs.

Her eyes locked on him instantly across the distance. She opened her mouth, and then disappeared as a curtain of green irradiance swept past her.

A red line, shot with white sparks had sprung up from the ground. This was the line of death for men. Behind it, a green dome sat on the ground, and nothing was visible thru it. The girls who wanted to get pregnant, numbering in the hundreds, rose as one and moved toward the glowing green and red.

The green thinned and dissipated, as the red darkened and went out. Everything was bathed in a yellow/white light from an unknown source.

All five had moved under the green dome. Two were on the far left and nearly behind the building. They started fighting as soon as they saw each other. One was on the far right, and was wandering off into the trees. The forth was in the doorway of the temple. Her back was to them, and she soon disappeared inside. Youshi had moved strait ahead under the green dome, and was already among the girls.

The kid was right about the running a screaming. Mobs of girls went running after each of the wayward zombies, all of them screaming and waving their arms as they ran. The ones near Youshi screamed and waved their arms too, but they ran around in front of her.

Jim could hardly recognize the slack jawed face of Youshi. There was nothing in her eyes but feral madness. She lashed out at a nearby girl, and Jim saw the girls feet cut an arc in the air as Youshi drove her to the ground. Jim thought he saw her dry humping the girl before the others closed in and blocked his view.

Her head popped up an instant later, and he watched, as she seemed to sniff the air, and turned completely around. She ignored the girls crowding around her, and kept searching.

Her eyes swept past him once, swept past him on the return, and then finally locked on him. Step by step, like the night of the living dead, she moved toward him. Girls who got in the way were thrown aside like rag dolls. Silence had fallen, and Jim realized that all five had locked onto him. The others were a long way off, but Youshi was only a hundred yards.

"Oh, my god," Wise Mother said, "Run, Jim. Run."

"What's the matter? What's going on?"

"Get out of here. Run as fast as you can."

She pushed him, and Youshi rose to the balls of her feet. The dead stare wasn't in Youshi's eyes as it had been before. There was something else there; blind, animal lust.

Something inside told him to take Wise Mother's advice. He was frozen in a fight or flight mode, when Youshi took another step and he saw something bounce. It was like a dream, where his mind told his body, but his body didn't respond. Dropping his eyes those few degrees cost him a fortune in will power.

Youshi had a cock.

Not a large citreous, not even a normal male appendage. She had a bulging veined twelve-inch monster with cum dripping out of its enlarged pee hole. A sack bigger than his fist dangled below it, and the whole thing swayed to the right as her left foot took another step.

"Jim," she said, clear as day, as saliva dripped off the tongue hanging out of her mouth.

Jim turned and ran for his life. An inhuman cry shattered the night behind him, and it to sounded his name.

The full moon showed him a trail. The tribe took this wide trail to some kind of celebration. It went for miles. He couldn't afford a stumble in the forest with that thing behind him. He needed an open road ahead of him.

She gained a little by cutting the corner, and he could hear the others crashing thru the trees as they too took the shortest course. He knew they'd loose ground in the rough terrain, but Youshi was only fifty yards behind him and he couldn't pull away.

"Jim," she said, like the Amityville horror.

He needed to pace himself, hit a sustainable stride, keep out of her reach until whatever had happened to her wore off.

He got more spring in his step, he stretched out his stride, and he was covering more ground using less energy. He checked the ground in front of him and risked a quick glance behind.

She wasn't gaining. She didn't know how to run. She had both hands in front of her, holding them like claws, and she was starting to fall behind.

Seventy yards, eighty, she'll see she can't catch me and slow down, ninety, a hundred, she's keeping the same pace like a fucking machine.

She stumbles over something and goes canter wheeling down the trail, only to spring up again and resume her relentless pace.

Jim's ankle is starting to hurt. It's the ankle he hurt when he got here, and he knows it will only get worse. He tries to favor it, but he's not pulling away from her any more.

He checks again, is she gaining? He keeps running. He keeps checking. He crashes to the ground with his head turned back at his pursuer.

She's less than twenty yards behind him and he's limping. He'll juke her when she gets close. He'll dodge around her and take off again. He still has a man's strength, and he'll fight her if he has to.

She catches his arm as he tries to dodge, and almost dislocates his shoulder throwing him to the ground.

"Jim," she said, one more time as she pounced on his back.

He screamed when the burning hot poker plunged into his ass, and fought wildly as she forced it deeper. Her arms wrapped around him like steel bands and pinned his hands to his chest.

She started fucking him in the middle of the grass trail, and it wasn't the two pokes and switch that the mad women normally used on baby night. She didn't have to search for the right partner. She'd found the other half of her race, and now she was going to get it pregnant.

The agony in his ass had died down to a constant burning. She kept fucking him with the same relentlessness as the chase. He could feel something dripping out of his ass, and didn't know if it was cum or blood.

Footsteps were coming up the trail, and he twisted his head to see. It was one of the others. She slid to her knees in front of him and lifted his head. He clenched his teeth, but she gave him a bloody lip and got his mouth open anyway.

He gagged as soon as it hit the back of his throat, and saw stars when she forced it all the way down and held his face clamped to her body.

He couldn't move, he couldn't breath, and merciful unconsciousness released him.

Most of them were wiped out by the time they caught up. Wise Mother was way behind when the first ones caught up.

Youshi was the only one standing, and her baby maker was soft. No one had ever seen a soft baby maker before.

The male was sprawled out behind her, and he looked dead. The other four had clearly been beaten up.

As they watched, one of the four started crawling toward the male. Youshi pounced on her, lifted her off the ground, and threw her into the woods.

Youshi wouldn't let any of them near the male either. They tried to lure her away by running in circles and screaming, but she only moved when she thought they were moving closer to the male. One of the others got close enough to touch the male, but Youshi threw her all the way to their feet.

"It should have been over by now."

"It is," Wise Mother said, finally staggering into their midst, "Look."

Youshi's baby maker was shrinking, and she was slowly sinking to her knees.

"Is the male alive?"

"I don't think so."

"Has anyone checked?"

"Youshi won't let anyone near him."

"I'll check," Jen said.

Youshi's head turned to follow as Jen gave her a wide berth. She waited until Jen got close, and then lunged at her. Jen jumped back, and Youshi just lay where she'd fallen. She had nothing left; she couldn't even lift her arm.

They waited in silence as Jen turned him over and his arm flopped to the side.

No one went to the next baby night. The machine went thru its cycle alone. The whole village went to the Carnival, however, and it was the greatest Carnival ever.

The brown-nipples had captured a violent male, and were charging three coppers for people who wanted to play with its baby maker. They had locked it in the food temple on their first baby night, and no one got any baby juice as the five mad ones tried to break in. They locked it in the food temple of an abandoned village the second baby night, but the mad ones kept sniffing the places where the male had been.

Jim couldn't believe that Dave was still alive, and the brown-nipples couldn't believe the white-tops let their male run around free.

Rumors that males would be at this years Carnival made it the biggest since the old days, and a great crowd gathered for the show where the whit-tops male would speak words.

"This is Youshi," he started. He waited for the hubbub to die down, "she is pregnant."

Enthusiastic applause made him wait again.

"This is Magda. She is pregnant too," more applause, "Jen, here, is going to have her second baby."

Jim took a break and had some water while that news sunk in.

"Ladies, ladies. Twelve women are expecting in the whit-top tribe, four from the red-eye, and three more from the blue-liner tribe. None of them got pregnant from the baby temple."

Three of the tribes were well aware of this fact, and Jim had convinced them to mingle with the other tribes instead of bunching up with their sisters. Each one was confirming his outrageous claim as he waited. He smiled at Wise Mother as she acknowledged that his plan was working exactly as he said it would.