365 Days At War

by Nancy Isaak

  My heart became heavy; the tiny knot of fear in my belly beginning to churn. I knew what Brown had been thinking—what almost all of the people around this table were probably thinking.

  That if anyone needed a weapon for tomorrow—it was me.

  At the head of the table, meanwhile, Alice stood up and lifted her glass of wine. She tilted it toward me and, immediately, all conversation at the table ceased.

  “To she who crosses tribal lines to stand with us Stars,” Alice toasted, mumbling her words slightly—no doubt because she was partially drunk. “To she who will face the beast tomorrow—not with knives, but with the sharpness of her tongue.”

  I looked over at Cherry and Nate; they were both seated to my right. Cherry was openly smirking at Alice, while Nate held his glass of water up high, following every word of the toast closely.

  “Some call her Mother...some call her the Fallen Angel…some just call her Kaylee. But to me—” Alice took a quick gulp from her wine glass, then held it back up again. “To me—she will always be the little pissant who ran circles around me on the soccer field.”

  Looking me straight in the eye, Alice burped—not even trying to smother it. “Frankly, I couldn’t stand you in high school, Kaylee…you little goody-goody.” She burped again, this time even louder, causing Cherry to burst into delighted laughter. “You’re still a goody-goody, but I also kind of like you now…so there!”

  “Well, thank you,” I said—not really certain how gratified I should actually be.

  “Shh!” Alice shook a finger at me. “I’m not done, yet.”

  On my left, Ryan and Reena both started giggling; they were holding each other’s hands, resting them on Reena’s bulging belly. As she giggled, Reena’s stomach moved up and down slightly, and I couldn’t resist looking down at my own belly, searching for a slight curve that still wasn’t there.

  “Mother, Fallen Angel, Kaylee, Pissant…I’m just going to say this once, so listen closely, goody-goody.” Alice raised her wine glass up high again, the contents sloshing right up to the rim, threatening to leak over. “You get killed, bitch…I will never forgive you!”

  “Now, that’s a toast!” giggled Reena.

  “To our Challenger!” Alice cried—and then burped.

  All around me, boys and girls stood—raising whatever they were drinking high into the air. “To our Challenger.”

  Their voices were as muted as their enthusiasm.

  At the far end of the table, meanwhile, Erroll raised his glass toward me.

  He’d been ducking me ever since we’d arrived at the safehouse, spending the majority of his days—I suspected—reconnoitering the area around the Arena. My growing fear was that—along with Nate and some of the Stars—Erroll was planning a separate attack on Brandon and the Foxes.

  In case my plan failed.

  Of course, if my plan ultimately failed—I would probably be dead. Which is why I did nothing to stop Erroll.

  Instead—I raised my glass toward him.

  And silently…wished him success.

  * * * *

  In the midst of the animated conversations going on all around me—every once in a while—I would hear that dreaded whispered phrase...

  …dead girl walking.

  Even so, I could have stayed at that dining room table for hours.

  We ate lasagna and burritos, and snacked on potato chips, cookies, and five enormous peach pies. There was even a chocolate cake—double layered—although not quite up to Sophia’s exacting standards.

  While some of the older Stars drank wine like Alice, most seemed to abstain; like myself, they drank either soda or water. At the end of the meal, however—just as the chocolate cake was being served—Blue and Brown appeared, each carrying a glass jug filled with milk.

  They held the jugs up high to the cheers of everyone around them.

  “We got a dairy cow!” Reena leaned over, explaining proudly. “And Ryan traded for a milk separator in the market, so now we have butter and cheese and we’re working on yogurt, but we’re not quite there, yet!”

  Everyone at the table went quiet.

  All eyes watched closely as the milk jugs slowly circled the table. Blue and Brown carefully poured a few fingers of milk into each outstretched cup.

  When they reached Ryan, however, he held his hand over his glass. “Give mine to Reena. She needs it more than me.”

  Cherry immediately leaned across the table and poured her milk into my glass. “And you need it more than me,” she grinned.

  For a moment, I panicked—wondering if her words meant that Cherry knew that I was pregnant.

  But then Nate leaned over and poured his milk into my cup, too.

  “Milk for the goody-goody,” he teased. “Protein for tomorrow’s kill.”

  * * * *

  “You slaves all have got your crosses. Whatever you do—you keep those necklaces shut until you get Kaylee’s signal.”

  After two cups of black coffee, Alice had finally sobered up enough to lead us in our final planning session. It was just before 10 p.m. and the remains of our meal had been removed from the dining room table; it was now covered with a number of large, hand-drawn maps of Agoura High School, Chumash Park, and the communities nearby.

  “We’re not idiots,” Reena sniffed. “And it hurts our feelings when you call us slaves, by the way.”

  “Whatever…dudes,” Alice muttered. “So sorry that I left my political correctness in the other world.”

  “Liar!” Cherry snorted, pointing an accusing finger at her. “Alice, you know darn well that you were never politically correct. I mean, dude—you called Jay the little Gunga Din all the time.”

  Alice chuckled to herself. “Forgot about that.”

  “Instead of slaves, you should call us fashion-challenged.” This came from a sheeted-girl standing next to Nate. From her giggles, it became obvious that she was just joking. Alice wasn’t so certain, however. Her eyebrows tilted into a ‘V’, and she frowned at the girl.

  The girl didn’t seem to notice or, perhaps, she simply didn’t care. Instead, she reached out and—with a flourish—pulled off her sheet.

  Nate’s head was level with the sudden appearance of the girl’s rather large breasts, which were now straining against a low, pink t-shirt; meanwhile, her long tanned legs rose up to disappear inside of a pair of very tight, black booty shorts.

  With an audible gulp, Nate’s eyes went wide; he immediately began to flop sweat.

  “Getting warm?” I teased, nudging him with my elbow.

  He shook me off and, blushing, turned toward Alice.

  “Um…can I…um…get one of those crosses,” Nate asked, trying desperately to appear unaffected by the half-naked girl suddenly beside him.

  She, however, seemed openly infatuated by Nate.

  With complete deliberation, the girl bent down, supposedly to unhook her necklace, while at the same time, exposing her ample cleavage in a way that made it clear to all that she wasn’t wearing a bra.

  Nate’s eyes immediately flew to the ceiling—and stayed there—even as the girl undid her necklace and snapped it into place around Nate’s neck.

  “You can have my cross, surfer-boy,” she murmured into his ear. “I’ll go get another one.” And as she tottered off, Nate—unable to help himself—lowered his eyes until he was watching her butt.

  “Girl is slick!” Cherry leaned over and whispered into my ear. “Our Nate just fell in love and he doesn’t even know it, yet.”

  “Okay, people!” yelled Alice, irritated. “Like I’m trying to talk here!”

  Except for a few residual titters here and there, the room went silent.

  “As most of you know, we’ve tested the crosses out at all of the checkpoints,” Alice said. “Now, none of the White Shirts suspected a thing or even touched the crosses—so we’re pretty sure that we’ll get them into the Arena without any problem. I know that some of you want to bring in your own knives and guns, but we’re gonn
a’ have to keep them to a minimum. Every time we’ve tried to get a larger weapon through the checkpoints without declaring them, they’ve always been found. So, it’s best that we stick with the crosses and the few weapons me and my team have gotten inside.”

  Alice was referring to the last couple of weeks, when she and a few trusted Stars had—on occasion—managed to stash a knife or a gun somewhere in the Arena or the stands. A complete list of the weapons and their hiding places would be revealed only on the way to the Arena in the morning.

  “Easy-peasy.” Nate jumped as the girl who’d given him her necklace suddenly squeezed in between us. When he looked toward her, she motioned to the new cross that hung down between her large breasts. “Now we’ve both got one,” she whispered.

  He nodded, embarrassed—returning his attention to Alice.

  The girl, meanwhile, turned and gave me a big smile. “Am I stepping on your game?” she asked me, quietly.

  I shook my head. “Not at all…go for it.”

  She grinned. “I like surfers.”

  “Well, Nate is very likeable,” I told her.

  “He like so—is!”

  At the end of the table, Alice coughed to get our attention before she continued.

  “All slaves—sorry…girls…will, of course, be paired with their owner—sorry…guy-partner. Now, every pair has been given a target—a White Shirt or a Crazy who will need to be ‘controlled’ when everything goes down.”

  She held up a large piece of paper. “Ryan and Erroll have created a seating plan for the Arena and, based on previous Arenas, we have some idea of where everybody usually sits. So, it will be up to each of you pairs to check the seating map at the end of this meeting. Try to figure out the best place to sit, so that you’re in close proximity to your targets. That will also make it easier for you to control them when the time comes.”

  Control—she made it sound so polite.

  What Alice was actually talking about was murder.

  When I gave the signal, each two-person team would kill at least one of the targeted Crazies or White Shirts.

  I had been shocked when Alice had first explained the Stars’ decision to kill so many of their tribemates. But after a quick accounting of all the crimes committed by the targets—from abuse to torture to murder—I had to reluctantly agree that, if these Crazies remained alive, they would be a continuing threat.

  “Are you bothered by it?” I whispered to Cherry, keeping my voice low as Alice outlined the rest of the plan. “I mean, that you have to kill someone tomorrow.”

  She shrugged. “You’re planning on killing Brandon.”

  “I know, but…well…I’d rather I didn’t have to do it.”

  “But you do have to—because Brandon’s so fricking evil.”

  I nodded; that was exactly the reason.

  Evil must always be destroyed.

  Before it destroyed us.

  “Well, that’s basically how I feel about the White Shirt that I have to…uh…you know,” Cherry explained. “He’s a psycho who’s killed at least three girls that we know about—one of them not even 10-years old. I’m not going to say how he killed the girls, because it’s too disgusting to put into words. But I’ll tell you this—he’s one of the flesh eaters.”

  “So insane,” I whispered. “Not just what they did…but like nobody gets a trial or anything. We’re just going out tomorrow and killing—judge, jury, and executioner.”

  Alice’s voice rose suddenly and I returned my attention to her; she was responding to a question that she had just been asked by a young Star. “Well, when it comes to the stands on the other side of the field, we’ve got people already inside with the Foxes.”

  My ears pricked up. “Inside with the Foxes?”

  “Tray, Orla, and their court should be seated on the opposite side of the field, so they’ll be separated from the ‘common people’,” explained Alice. “But like I was just saying, we’ve got guys already assigned to their court who will be sitting with them. The Foxes and their White Shirts will be those guys’ prime targets. When things go nuclear, they’ll need to take the Foxes down ASAP, because we can’t chance Orla or Tray grabbing the leadership for themselves.”

  Alice stopped for a moment to take a deep breath, organizing her thoughts. “Now, we’re not so worried about Orla. She’ll be easy to take out. Tray, however, is major-league dangerous. So, she’ll be the main priority—the prime target.”

  I actually shivered at the sound of Tray’s name; the thought of her lying dead and dying gave me so much pleasure that I was disgusted with myself.

  “If I can get to her, I’ll take out Tray,” Alice continued. “But that’s not certain, because Tray doesn’t stay seated much. She likes to wander during the Arenas. So, it’s possible that I’ll have to follow her around until Kaylee gives the signal.”

  “What about Orla?” I asked. “If you’re following Tray, then who will be responsible for Orla? I mean, I know you think that she’ll be an easy target but—trust me—Orla’s just as mean as Tray. It’s just that she likes everyone else to do her dirty work.”

  “If Orla is in the stands, then one of our guys will be seated right behind her. If she’s out on the field, then it will get a little trickier. But, don’t worry…because we’ll get her.”

  Except that…I was worried.

  There was simply so much that could go wrong.

  Starting with me.

  JACOB

  It was back in April when I stopped writing—just after Ojai, when I had gotten so sick. For a while, writing seemed like such a massive waste of time to me—like there must be something so much more important that I should be doing.

  Honestly—I feel like such a dumbass now.

  Because how could I have ever thought that writing wasn’t important?

  How could I have let my mother down that way?

  How did I not realize that these journals—the story of all our lives essentially—could, one day, very well become the recording of our history?

  In some ways, I feel like I’ve finally woken up again.

  Although, to be completely honest, I’m not quite back—but I’m close.

  Still—there are two women I must have hurt deeply with my indecisiveness and I desperately wish to apologize to both of them.

  The first will be home soon.

  Or—perhaps—I will not wait; instead I will search for her, kneel down at her feet, beg for her forgiveness.

  Sadly, the second woman is lost to me.

  I have only one way to apologize to her.

  So, here I go.

  Please forgive me for not living up to your standards.

  Please forgive me for not bearing witness.

  Please forgive me for giving up when things got bad…and then worse.

  Most of all—

  —please forgive me for not being a good son, for not being a good man.

  I am deeply sorry.

  But, I’m starting again…here are my words.

  I bear witness, Mom.

  * * * *

  It wasn’t that I liked Miley; it wasn’t even like I really thought about her all that much. It was just that, when I woke up in the mornings, she was always there—waiting just outside the mansion walls—falling into step beside me.

  We would wind up sitting together at breakfast time, and Miley would tell me amusing stories about life in the girls’ house or tales of her group’s journey down the coastline that would make me forget my own troubles and insecurities.

  And then, often—we would go surfing.

  Without a doubt, Miley was relatively new to the board; she spent most of the time trying not to eat it during her pop up (translation: not fall off while trying to stand up on her board).

  But—it was amusing to watch her surf. There was nothing serious about her endeavors; she was just a young girl having fun.

  Plus—when I rode even the smallest of waves, Miley was always there when I came ashore—clapping me
on the back, telling me how amazing I was, bragging about my ‘success’ to anyone who would listen.

  And I’m embarrassed to say that I sucked it all up.

  Because Miley made me feel special.

  In some ways, Miley reminded me of Kaylee—at least, before Kaylee became the leader of the Locals. When she was just my wife—before she was Mother.

  That was the time when Kaylee would look at me like Miley did.

  Like someone who could do no wrong.

  I won’t lie; Miley made me feel like my old self again—like Jacob.

  And sometimes—if I squinted and looked at Miley through the sides of my eyes—Kaylee would miraculously appear. Suddenly, it wasn’t this silly young girl grabbing onto my arm, whispering compliments in my ear, or following me around with such awe; instead, it was my shy little soccer girl by my side.

  The girl who had once adored me.

  Who had thought of me as her god.

  Who had loved me.

  But—eventually—I would open up my eyes and Kaylee would still be off on her expedition, the pretty girl in front of me would not be my wife, and I would be left feeling both abandoned by the one girl I truly loved—and disgusted by the weak man I had become.

  And still—I continued with Miley.

  * * * *

  Toward the end of October, I was walking up Grayfox Street with Miley early one morning. We had just finished surfing Little Dume—where a pod of dolphins had joined us for part of the morning, gliding along the waves on either side of our boards.

  Miley was still giddy from the experience. She walked close beside me, her board tucked under her arm; her long hair was still wet from the ocean and there were speckles of sand glistening across her forehead.

  “I swear that little guy was puppying me!” she grinned. “On that one run, I had my fingers trailing just above the water like you taught me, getting ready for the turn. Then, suddenly—the little guy’s right there, pushing his snout into my hand—like he wanted me to pet it or something!”