Part 2, Chapter I
Buckle up, bunker sluts. As Part 2, Chapter II begins, our boys are headed north in a van and I’m opening the first of a six-pack of high-ABV beer.
Lady slippers, bruise-colored and vaginal, grew wild among the nodding ferns. Twice Fran saw deer bound away into the gloom at the car’s approach, and once a fat porcupine ambling through the underbrush as though out for a morning stroll.
I had to Google lady slippers:
Fair enough, if by “vagina” you mean “ballsack pussylips” (he does).
“Fuckin’ Redwall up in here,” Beth muttered.
Nerd. I don’t know about anyone else, but the “Beth” in my mind looks just like the author.
The skinny-fat thirtysomething slouched in the passenger seat in mirrored sunglasses and a wifebeater stained yellow under her armpits, strawberry-blond hair up in a loose bun, said “Slow down” in a tone of voice that left no room for argument.
Pit Stains’ name is Dorothy, or Doe, and that’s some serious glass houses coming from a definitely fat-fat and likely pit-stained thirtysomething.
Anyhoo, they get to the bunker. Standard refugee camp outside. Pee bottle is thrown. The van goes through some big-ass blast doors and past a phalanx of ladies in riot gear. The author masturbates. (I made that last one up, but it’s highly likely.)
Set into the bay’s inner wall a few dozen yards away from the motor pool, a huge circular pressure door like something out of a submarine cycled open with a hiss of hydraulics. Through it stepped Sophie Widdel. She was doll-like, no more than five foot three with pin-straight blond hair and big, protuberant blue eyes that reminded Fran of a tree frog or a bush baby. She wore a navy romper and an open gold silk jacket with fitted cuffs that looked like it had probably cost more than Fran’s tuition, at least back when money had mattered. Balenciaga, maybe, or Versace. The kind of thing Fran had only ever dreamed of wearing.
Sophie is played by Tori Spelling and she is SO EXCITED to see the new arrivals. The bunker is called the Screw. Everyone climbs onto a golf cart (make that two golf carts, because Indi, like the author, is fat). Driving down into the bunker, Robbie sees:
A glimpse of polished wood. The sound of rubber squeaking against its hard finish. Clean sweat on smooth skin, and on past a line of chatting girls in matching floral print bikinis, towels wrapped about their waists and in beehives around their dripping hair. Beth, seated beside Dorothy on the cart’s front bench, clung white-knuckled to her strap as they followed Sophie’s cart down the hallway’s shallow slope, staircases cut from the raw stone rising to either side of what Robbie thought was a gallery, or some kind of mezzanine. It looked like the atrium of an expensive mall.
OK, the bunker is laid out like a corkscrew, hence the name. It’s the Lesbian Slumber Party Guggenheim.
Robbie and Fran make out. They’re still on the golf cart and I feel sorry for the driver. Someone’s teeth get licked.
The boys get their rooms. Beth’s has a painting of a man on the ceiling. The man in question has a pockmarked face and he’s built like Gru from Despicable Me. Because this is Manhunt, he’s also nude and packing a “thick and downward-curving” D. I open a second beer and ponder the logistics of having sex with Gonzo’s nose while Beth gets philosophical:
She wondered, as sleep stole up on her, if the man on the ceiling had been alone, when he changed, or if someone had been with him.
Aww. Don’t make me sympathize with you, woman-hater.
POV switches to the lab. Sophie thinks they need “E” for around 70 people. Does that mean there are 70 men in the bunker?
“Seventy-six,” said Doe, who sat swinging her feet on the counter’s end beside the bulky industrial freezer. She was sucking on a bright red Popsicle, the first Indi had seen in years. Behind her the sheer concrete walls rose to a wrought-iron balustrade fronting steep, tightly packed tiers of seating. Bizarre, for a clinic, but then the whole bunker was surprising— too ornate, too big, too sprawling. It didn’t feel at all like a little folly two billionaires had bought to hedge their bets against the end of the world.
NGL, this bunker sounds goddamn awesome. Ten points for the Brutalist playhouse. Minus five for the mild Popsicle BJ imagery.
Re: estrogen, Indi says that she’s looking at clover-based phytoestrogen production for the long term but will make do with zombie balls for now. (Which, why would they need a scientist for that when we’ve already seen the boys get by with balls tartare?) Also, Indi forgot to powder up that morning and her fat rolls are sweaty and chafing.
She wished she was alone, free to lean naked against a work surface and let the dry, cool recycled air that blew in through the theater’s vents run over her.
I’ll say this for the author: he’s an equal-opportunity nudist. Plus he does a great job of telling us what it feels like to dry out one’s fat crevices under an air conditioner.
Tori Spelling, I mean Sophie, explains that her dad and stepmom built the Lesbian Slumber Party Guggenheim as some kind of post-apocalyptic medical school. But, Sophie says through tears, stepmom killed herself a few weeks after Daddy died of the man flu. Indi thinks that Sophie’s faking the tears. My sympathy for the author vanishes.
Also, Indi hates herself for getting so fat.
Like drowning in buttercream frosting.
LOL
Honestly, I’m surprised she’s still that fat five years into the apocalypse. That’s dedication.
Indi and Sophie walk through two doors with palm and ocular locks (this will be important later) while they discuss Indi’s credentials:
“So, you’re a fertility specialist.” Sophie said it as though she were setting up a joke. A fertility specialist, a cop, and a rabbi walk into a bar …
“In vitro, prenatal health, premature birth care; I was a midwife before I was a doctor.”
Listening to white women babble about homeopathy and healing crystals while I cleaned up their shit and blood.
You know, for someone who claims to be a white woman, the author spends an awful lot of time shitting on them in this book.
I open beer number three as the second locked door opens onto a walkway. Sophie makes here-kitty-kitty kissy noises and extends her hand downward. Fluorescent lights flicker. It’s a real Resident Evil vibe.
A shape reared up in flashing light and dark. The lights came on. Stayed on. The man rose clumsily, almost bearlike, onto his hind legs, and stretched up to butt his muzzled face against Sophie’s hand. His long, slick black tongue slid through the wires and curled around her wrist. His hands were cuffed, the chain run through a steel ring bolted to the floor. It slithered, clinking, as he withdrew his tongue and nuzzled Sophie’s palm, a glottal purr bubbling up from somewhere in his chest. He was big, more than six feet, with a peeling underbelly and long, sinewy arms.
"Kenz, this is Doctor Varma.” Those big blue eyes found Indi’s. A shy smile curved the rosebud lips. “She’s gonna help us make a baby.”
OH SHIT! Sophie’s keeping her boyfriend Mackenzie as a pet Rancor! Because this is Manhunt, she also wants to fuck it, or at least become impregnated by it.
