Lake Of Sins: Escape

Chapter 1

        TRINITY BRUSHED THE DIRT OFF HER HANDS and stretched, exposing her claws and giving the small of her back a good scratch. She was the last to finish preparing her fields for winter. Everyone else was gone, hiding in their huts. Producers did not like the night, but being half House Servant she didn’t mind it. When she was alone or in the dark, she didn’t have to hide her claws or fangs. Still, she retracted her nails as she bent to pick up the spade and hand trowel. It was habit now. She’d learned as a child that either she concealed her differences or her parents would. She ran her tongue over her large, sharp canines, so different from the Producers’ flat teeth. Mom and Dad had filed her fangs down only a couple of times before she’d learned to smile with her lips closed.

        She tucked the tools under her arms and took a moment to memorize this view of her home. The Producer village sat in a valley. On the north and where she stood in the west were the fields, fallow now and waiting for winter. Dirt trails ran down the hill and into the camp, most leading to the pine cabins huddled together in the center of town with fires burning in pyres outside each hut. A few paths broke free and escaped to the edge of town where smaller, older cottages like hers sat. Other trails led to Shadow Lake, fed from the Elavital River which flowed from the thick, lush forest on the south and east side of the valley.

        She sighed and headed down a trail toward home. She’d miss the freedom of the forest once she was gone. Although, it wasn’t as much fun sneaking into the woods alone as it had been with Travis. The two of them used to talk about what the earth might have been like before the Great Death brought extinction to all animals larger than twenty pounds and death to most humans. She’d learned about the event in some of the books that her dad had borrowed from his master’s house. Producers weren’t supposed to read, but Dad had taught her and her mom. According to one book, the Almightys were the last descendants of the human race. She’d searched every book she had but there was no mention of the ancestry of the other classes.

She stopped at the storage shed and put her tools away. She wouldn’t need them again, ever. Within a couple of weeks, she’d be taken just like Travis had been last year. She turned onto the path that led through town. There was no doubt in her mind that her name would be on the Harvest List. The Almightys only chose the finest examples of Producers to stay and breed. The males were always the tallest and strongest, averaging seven to eight feet in height and almost as wide. The females were at least six-feet tall and had to have large, wide hips and big breasts. She glanced down at her less-than-curvy shape. After the Terrible Sickness had killed her brothers and sisters nine years ago, her mom had switched her name with her younger sister, hoping to give her time to fill out. That hadn’t happened. At almost seventeen, she was over three years older than the other girls up for the Harvest List but still only five foot eight and less endowed. She shook her head. She was definitely a Lister.

“Hey, look who it is,” Clarabelle said, shoving Randy toward her.

Clarabelle and her group of friends stood near some huts along the path. She groaned, glancing down at her filthy clothes. It was just her luck that Randy would see her like this. If she hadn’t been so tired she might have remembered that the teenagers who were up for the Harvest List often hung around outside the huts well into the night. Sometimes, they even mated with each other. It was forbidden but the Lead Producers didn’t enforce the rule; they too had once been teenage Producers dreading their List year.

She stopped. Experience had taught her that it was easier to let Clarabelle have her say. She kept her eyes down. She made the others nervous when she stared at them. It had something to do with her not blinking enough. It was one more gift from her House Servant father.

        Clarabelle stepped up alongside Randy so that the two of them blocked her path. Well, they thought that they did. She could zip around them in a flash. She’d love to do it too, but she wasn’t allowed. Producers weren’t slow, but it took them awhile to get going, unlike her.