Salamander

by Harley Hanna

  Chapter 3

  I woke from my sleep, sweating and breathing heavily. I was out of the nightmare and relieved to be awake. I slid to the edge of the bed and got up, starting for the bathroom.

  Once I got there, I took off my clothes and hopped in the shower. I turned on the water, washing the dirt and sweat from my body. I was hoping to wash the memories away as well, but I wasn’t so lucky.

  I felt guilty, even though I knew it wasn’t my fault, I couldn’t handle it. It was eating away at me and it had only been less than a day, or had it been a day? How long had I slept? I turned off the water and put on a new set of clothes.

  I checked the clock by my bed, 6:30 P.M. I only slept 5 hours, but I slept past the meeting. I hoped Jack wouldn’t be mad at me for sleeping in. I was still exhausted, even after resting and washing up, my body felt heavy. Maybe it was the stress, maybe it was manual labor, either way I felt like I needed a drink. Sadly, alcohol was sparse.

  I opened my door and headed down the dorm hallway. A hallway full of doors on either side of me, all small rooms with beds and a bathroom just like mine. I headed out and turned left, heading towards the executive wing where the main offices were. I had one down here as well, but I never went in it. They named me head of ‘Scavenging’ two years ago. All meaningless titles. I organized all of the assault missions and scavenging trips. It was my job to make sure that stuff like what happened that day, didn’t happen.

  I opened the door of Jack’s office, it read Executive Governor: Jackson Perry, on the front. He was sitting behind his desk writing quickly on some paper, he looked up for just a second to notice me.

  “Hey! Sleep well?” He said, looking back down at his paper.

  “Somewhat. I didn’t mean to sleep past the meeting.”

  “Its fine, I didn’t expect you to stay awake after all that.” He said, setting the paper aside, he waved me to the chair.

  I sat down, setting my hands on my lap and wondering what he could want from me.

  “You will need to make this meeting though. You, I and all the department heads are going to be at the Mess Hall tonight. Be there at 10, we have a lot to discuss.” He said, as he got a very serious look on his face.

  “Is everything okay?” I said.

  “Well, to be honest, no. There isn’t much I won’t explain tonight. Just be there.” He said, going back to his papers. “You should go rest up some more before tonight.”

  “Yeah, maybe.” I said, smiling and closing the door behind me. I couldn’t stop wondering what the meeting would be about. We had only had a department meeting when Carl decided to leave, but that was four years ago. I could only assume that it would be about the incident today.

  I headed back to my room and decided to stay in until I had to leave for the meeting. I didn’t have a great feeling about talking to anyone. I opened the door to my room and laid down on my bed. The mattress felt incredibly soft on my back. It felt like I was sitting on a cloud, floating away from everything that mattered.

  I closed my eyes, thinking of everything that happened before, of my life before. High School, College, Friends, Family. Every time I thought about before, I only ended up thinking about that night, the night that the present became before. It was five years ago but I could remember it as clear as ever.

  I was at my friend Sammy’s house; we were all drinking and having a great time. It was one of the best nights of my life, just having fun with friends, nothing serious. Until Jason checked his phone, he was scrolling though his feed when he noticed something. He saw an article saying that there had been an attack on New York City. Thousands of people were presumed dead.

  We all thought it was a terrorist attack, that was until we saw the cell phone videos. The first one we ever saw, the one that ended up in New York, he was much bigger than the one that killed Carol. He was almost twice the size. He was shoving his hand through buildings and stepping on cars, wreaking havoc. I still remember the explosions and screams coming from the phone. Luckily, we were out of the city, and when all that happened, we got even farther out.

  We headed out to Jason’s cabin in the middle of nowhere and we lived there for a couple of months. But, eventually we ran out of food, and we stopped getting running water, so we left. We went farther and farther, a lot of us died. We started out as many and by the end we were few. In the very end, it was only me. I thought I was the last and I would be the end of our short lived group. Luckily Jack and his group found me in the woods. I was dying, I should’ve been dead, but they saved me. Thankfully they accepted me into their group or I’d be dead. They all were in the military, so surviving was easy for them. I had to learn.

  But that was before, and this is now. Now, I fell asleep and I have a half an hour to get to the meeting. I got up out of the bed, and threw on a hoodie. I headed out of room, quietly closing the door behind me, trying not to wake any of the other people. I made my way down the hall, taking a left at the end of the corridor, heading towards the Mess Hall.

  Once I got there, I pushed open the double doors, Jack, Sam and Riley were already there. Riley was the Head of Food Services. I sat down at the long lunch table, placing myself beside Sam who sat across from Riley with Jack at the head of the table.

  “Hey Karia, I see you didn’t sleep through this one.” Sam said, as I sat beside her.

  “Come on, give her some slack.” Jack said, I was glad to accept his defense.

  “So, where is everyone?” I said.

  “They’ll be here soon, they still have a few minutes before they’re late.” Jack said, still filling out some papers in front of him on the table.

  Before he could finish his sentence, Timothy and Dardian and walked through the double doors. They were both good friends, and they looked exactly alike, two large buff military guys, both with short blonde hair and camouflage pants. Daridan was the Head of Stock and Tim was the Head of Munitions.

  “Hey Karia, how are you?” Daridan said, as he sat down beside me.

  “I’ve been better.” I said, as he put his hand on my back, gently caressing it. Now I felt like the only one in the room that didn’t feel bad for me was Sam. And she didn’t feel bad because she didn’t feel anything. “Where’s Garret?”

  “He won’t be joining us tonight” Jack said, shuffling his papers

  No one responded, everyone silently figured out why Garret wasn’t here, he must’ve been taking the whole situation even harder than I had.

  “What is this even about anyways Jack?” Tim said, asking the question everyone wanted to.

  “Well, surprisingly, I did call everyone here for a reason.” He said, standing up and setting his papers down. He ran his fingers through his hair and pinched his before letting out a big sigh. “I want to talk about what happened today. As everyone knows, we lost Carol.She was killed during a salvage mission.” Simultaneously, all the eyes in the room glanced at me, which hurt a little. “We need to find a way to prevent this, so that this doesn’t happen again. So I feel that we need to stop the salvage missions for a while.”

  A multitude of questioning noises filled the room. Everyone was adamantly against Jack at this point, including me.

  “I know you won’t like this idea, but I think it best, to disband Karia’s department for a while.” Jack said, waiting for the inevitable questions.

  “But what about the food?” Riley said.

  “We have a enough to last us for a while, just enough to let this rest for a while and not have to risk anyone dying.”

  “This is ridiculous; we can’t survive for long like this.” Dardian said, questioning Jack as everyone else was.

  “Not long, but long enough, the missions are too dangerous. It is my job to protect all of you, and it is too risky to be sending our own people out to be slaughtered. I won’t let it happen anymore.” Jack said, feeling the finality of his own words.

  Everyone was throwing questions at Jack, and he was just taking them, as if
he’d been prepared. He lifted his hands, telling everyone to be quiet.

  “Karia, what do you have to say about this?” Dardian said, wanting me to protest as they were.

  “I think this is ridiculous. Yes, people have died, but that’s because we don’t live in the world we used to. We live a different world, a much more dangerous world. Risk isn’t avoidable; it’s just a part of our life now. It’s been five years, and none of us have accepted that. I don’t think we should be going on the defensive, I think we should be on the offensive.” I said, trying to light a fire under these people asses.

  “What are you suggesting Karia?” Jack said, sitting back down in his seat.

  “I’m suggesting we fight back.” I said, silencing the room. “I’m suggesting, that we quit lying down, and living under the ground, I’m suggesting we take back our world. I’m done with running and hiding.” Jack leaned back as he heard this and thought about it.

  “What does everyone else think of this?” he said, putting it up for debate.

  “I agree.” said Timothy. “We have so many weapons stockpiled, and so many people that know how to use them, they shouldn’t just be for self-defense.”

  “So do I “ Dardian agreed.

  “Hey, I’m all for keeping the salvage missions, but I don’t think we should be fighting these things.” Riley said.

  “I’m with Riley” Sam said.

  “Why not? They took our home from us; they killed our people, and drove us underground. We need to take it back Riley.” I said, slamming my fist on the table.

  “Let’s put it to a vote.” Jack said.

  “All opposed.” He called. Sam and Riley raised their hands.

  “That’s two. All in favor.” He called. Dardian, Timothy, and I raised our hands. :”And that’s four, the Yes’s have it.” He said, calling the final vote.

  “Four?” I said, wondering if his count was wrong.

  “Dardian, Timothy, You, and I” he said, finally agreeing with me. I smiled at his response, glad to see him on my side.

  “So how do we move forward?” Dardian said.

  “Well first things first, we are going to disband the Department of Salvage.” Jack said. “And start the Department of Assault. Karia Taylor, would you like to be the head of this department?”

  “Of course I will.” I said, excitedly. I was finally getting the chance to get the revenge I’d craved. I wanted to be the one to finally take this thing down. I vowed that night that I would be the one to kill it.