by Jones, K. J.
“Keep the line going,” an officer barked.
“A fucking butter bar,” the other supremacist who walked like could handle himself muttered. He was on the line to the left of Peter and Phebe.
Tyler whispered, “That’s a second lieutenant, right?”
Peter nodded to him.
“I hate this.”
“You and me both, little brother.”
It was an overload of the senses. Warnings flashing in their warrior-honed minds of danger coming in every direction. They had threats surrounding them.
“Take those piercings out.”
Peter looked back at the security where the voice ordered.
“Not allowed on base.”
A voice from the other direction at the admin desk. “You cannot separate us,” a blond woman, visibly pregnant, yelled.
“Sir, go stand over there.”
“He’s my husband.”
“Ma’am, you can go to the right.”
“Sir.” The specialist ahead of Peter called him.
Too much going on.
He focused, cleared his throat, and made sure to dramatize his limp with the cane.
“Name?” Peter was asked.
He put on his charming smile. “Sullivan, Peter T.”
She didn’t seem impressed. “Put your hand on the screen.”
“You are checking my fingerprints?”
No response. The laser scanned beneath his hand.
“Date of birth?”
Her body language told she was confirming rather than inputting. He had shown up in the system by his prints.
In the next line, Jayce spoke with a specialist administrator. “No, sir, I am not an orphan. Our mother is here somewhere.”
Nia said from behind her brother, “We were told our mother was coming here, too. Where is she?”
The specialist asked, “Miss, stay behind the line.” Once Nia obeyed and stepped back, he asked Jayce, “Do you have a guardian here with you immediately?”
“Me,” said Phebe, listening in. “I will be their guardian. All of the minors.”
“You are not cleared at check-in, ma’am.”
“What does that mean?”
“If you aren’t checked-in to the system, then you can’t be logged as his guardian.”
“Um, then check me in.” Phebe barely contained her disdain for stupidity, her biggest prejudice.
Peter shook his head. They were deep in the American bureaucratic system of No-Boxes. No’s everywhere. No answers. No solutions. No logic. Policies that made problems of the individual sit there like big steaming, smelly turds.
“Look,” Peter said. “She’s right behind me. You can wait a minute.”
“Sir,” his specialist said. “When was your last disability medical examination?”
Peter remained calm, though he freaked out inside. He had foreseen a challenge on his disability. Civilian Congress may have thought of this rescue from the Zone as a do-gooder thing, and they were feeling great about themselves for it, but he doubted the military would hand out blankets without a benefit to themselves since a terrible war raged.
Another white supremacist was put to the wall. Another wailing, blond female went in the opposite direction. A loner young supremacist guy went to the wall, no female wailed – at least they weren’t all breeding for the Fatherland.
Checkered Shirt Guy gazed across the lobby at his tribe at the wall. He tisked his tongue and shook his head.
“What?” Mullen’s voice hit a too high octave at his admin station. “No, no. You can’t!”
“Sir, wait along the wall.”
“No. You cannot draft me! I pee the bed. I’m gay. Sully, help me.”
“When was your last disability medical examination, Mr. Sullivan?”
Peter wanted to scream. The chaos brewed a headache. His heart beat faster than he’d like. Was he old enough yet to drop dead from a heart attack?
“It was on the USNS Comfort,” he spat out. But his gaze stayed on Mullen.
“I am a transgender.” Mullen tried everything he had ever heard the military did not like. “I have flat feet.”
Emily gripped Brandon’s belt to hold onto him. They both watched Mullen.
Mazy rested her forehead in her hands.
Ben whispered into her ear, “I love you.”
She picked up her head. Her face broke into a happy glow.
A black patch stopped right next to them. The presence shut her mouth and hardened her face into Angry Black Woman. Avoiding looking at the black patch, and instead of verbalization, she nodded her head to Ben and tapped her chest above her heart, then pointed to his heart. Who knows, maybe fraternization was executable nowadays. She wasn’t taking any chances.
“Just remember it,” said Ben.
“You, too.”
Despite Mullen announcing he was a bed-wetting, gay, transgender with flat feet, he was still put to the wall. He stood with the white supremacists. They looked at him with overjoyed fondness. Cockroaches received similar greetings.
“You will be examined for your disability.” A white card was presented to Peter. “Move to the right, sir. Next.”
“This is my wife. She’s pregnant. And this is our kid.”
The specialist didn’t care. Peter could have said this was the second coming of Christ his wife Mary was pregnant with, it would not have made a dent in the admin specialists. All the specialists looked to have had their souls sucked out.
A crazy meth head screamed from the back of the line. A girl fell on the ground and foamed at the mouth as she seized. She had hit peak withdrawal. Peter recognized it, not from his own experience since he couldn’t remember any of it. But he had seen it as a teenager. Though he felt a certain twinge of fellow drug addict sympathy towards her, he did not offer anything up. It was her problem, not his. Using boards with nails as weapons made a bit of lingering resentment in a man.
Black patches pointed their weapons at the seizing girl on the floor as if this was a zom turning process, which it was not except in the movies.
Peter caught the gaze of Checkered Shirt Guy. His enemy yesterday. Was he an ally now? Checkered Shirt shrugged with a What can you do? body language. He, too, informed no one the girl was in bad withdrawal. Perhaps he, too, held onto that boards-with-nails resentment. Karma was a bitch.
Karen said, “The girl is seizing from drug withdrawal.”
Always gotta be a do-gooder in every crowd.
One of the worst face piercings meth head guys— Pin-Cushion Face Guy – gave a creepy, madman laugh. “We are all doomed!” He screamed so loud, it bounced off the cement block walls, followed by the irritating lunatic laugh again.
“Oh, here we go,” Peter muttered.
While medics ran in for the girl, the rest of their insane tribe broke into their full-blown, albeit familiar, madness. Laughing. Jumping around. The two other tribes stared at them with the universal What-the-Fuck facial expressions on. Those at the back of the lines pushed forward to get out of the way. Excited monkey houses had less hooting and chattering. They ran up walls and jumped up and down.
“Holy crap,” Peter said.
The young tribe seemed to be channeling Sid Vicious of the Sex Pistols. Peter’s elders familiarized him with the lunatic, bodily injury stage performances of the Punk Era peak. This was similar.
Phebe pulled Tyler close to her, though the kid watched with a degree of fascination. Perhaps some recognition from his past in the Before, having been exposed to a great many addicts with no social mores.
Black patches moved in. Medics and regular soldiers scurried out of the way. The admin specialists melted off their seats to below their desks. That was a sign.
“Get down,” Peter barked at his people.
Checkered Shirt Guy echoed the order to the supremacists, “Get down!”
The first shots, they flattened to the floor as if an invisible wave hit them. The shot reports echoed off the cement blocks from all direct
ions, loud as hell.
Though the admin specialists gave screams and whimpers, none of the Zone tribes made a sound. All of them watched from their positions on the floor, silent and readied to scurry to another position at a second’s notice. Even the heavily pregnant white supremacists blond women flatted with expertise, maneuvering around their big bellies.
The lobby filled with the familiar smells of gunpowder and the copperish scent of human blood spilled. When the shootings stopped, all of the meth-head cannibal tribe was dead. Blood pools growing on the floor. Red splatters on the walls. Urine and feces scents as was usual with sudden death—bladder and bowels released.
“Oh, my God,” Karen muttered, showing she was still lightweight.
Catholic Mazy made the sign of the cross on herself – forehead, stomach, left shoulder, and right shoulder. Phebe covered her nose so she wouldn’t puke. And Peter crossed himself, feeling he should do something to mark the passing of so many people. Though they hated that tribe, in death, they now looked very young.
All gazes went to the killers, who resumed their positions as if nothing had happened – ho-hum, just another day at the office. No horror or regret on their faces. Absolutely nothing, except a slight trace of contentment with themselves. Eyes shined. Sociopaths who would normally be watched for a future Section 8 mental health discharge found their niche.
Peter wondered why they had exposed faces. They wore black face masks ala COVID covering nose and mouth, but the rest of their faces exposed. Why not cover their identity fully since they hid their last names? He suspected they were an execution squad. Not riflemen who were ordered to shoot AWOLs and cowards in the World Wars. A new kind of execution squad. These men were in charge of putting down the recent bit within the military. He remembered back to the day of the outbreak in Wilmington. The Army’s Black Hawk and Little Bird helicopters hunted the bitten National Guard platoon. That platoon knew their lives were over and followed an unhinged leader and his equally deranged betas. They knew they were hunted since they reacted so quickly to seeing the helicopters. No questioning. No “I wonder what they want? They broke into instant fleeing.
The Army had arranged for soldiers to do the killing upfront and personal. Guys who had something about them making them good choices for the job. Sociopaths popped back into Peter’s mind. They did not have Zone hard eyes. It was something different, more unnerving than Zone.
As everyone stood back up, Jayce hugged his sister to him. She was not crying, but he held her like she was.
“Well, that happened,” said Checkered Shirt Guy.
“Back in line,” the second lieutenant ordered.
And they did. The tribal members at the back of the line tried to avoid stepping in blood.
Checkered Shirt Guy said in a low volume to Chris, “Executioners.”
“I ain’t fixing on giving them any reason on me.”
“Me, neither.”
“Chris Higgins.”
“Kevin Alden.”
They shook hands. Enemies yesterday. Today, potential allies. The enemy of my enemy is my friend, as the ancient saying went. Peter had suspected this to be inevitable between those two, though he still wanted to roll his eyes.
Soldiers collected the bodies. Others came with buckets and maps.
Mullen stared from the wall. His saucer-sized wide eyes reappeared. He hadn’t looked that bad since North Carolina.
Karen showed upset.
“Don’t let them see it,” Nia said to her.
The older girl scowled at the younger girl. The look on the thirteen-year-old’s face, the hard eyes of the Zone infiltrated Nia’s big browns.
Peter was directed to the right where those who were not being immediately drafted into the Army went.
Phebe’s turn at admin intake.
“I’m sorry. My identification and paperwork pouch are in my rucksack.” Phebe talked to the specialist as if she was at the DMV. “But my husband has our marriage certificate. And Tyler here has his guardianship papers. I’m his guardian.”
“Hand on the screen, ma’am.”
She did so and her hand scanned.
“The name says Mar…” She struggled with the pronunciation.
“Marcelino. Yes. But I took my husband’s name. Sullivan.”
“Do you have evidence of your pregnancy?”
“Um.” Phebe pulled her shirt up to show the pooch. “Isn’t this enough?”
“You’ll be medically examined.”
A pink card, like the ones the heavily pregnant blond supremacist women received.
“To the right, ma’am.”
Phebe didn’t want to leave Tyler. She moved to the right slowly, her gaze on him.
Mazy finished her processing. She went to the wall with resignation and stood beside Mullen, much to his relief.
“What’s going to happen to me?” Mullen asked her in a hushed voice. No one wanted to provoke the killing squad already circling them like attack vultures.
“I think you’re going to basic training,” Mazy answered.
Karen’s specialist said, “You are two weeks from your eighteenth birthday. You will be held here at base until then.”
“Excuse me?” Karen responded.
“Go to the right, miss.”
Karen had a yellow card.
Jayce received an orange card. Nia soon received the same.
Everyone in their group was in the system, found by their handprints. The USNS Comfort’s processing had recorded them, and the chunky DoD laptops of the specialists linked into that system. No other explanation for how the admin specialist found them all so easily.
Tyler cleared with an orange card. Ben crossed the lobby with his red card and joined Mazy and Mullen.
Peter whispered to Phebe, “This is to find the cannon fodder draftees.”
She nodded, already deduced it.
Chris gave an annoyed, pissed-off bull sound as he was handed his red card. He shot Peter a look as he headed to the wall.
“And here we go again,” Peter said to Phebe.
Yet another separation of him from Chris. Peter unconsciously pulled Phebe closer to him as if to keep her.
Emily received her red card.
“Wait,” Phebe hollered. “She may be pregnant.”
Emily shot her a startled look.
“She needs to be medically examined for pregnancy.”
“Is this true?” the specialist asked.
“Um,” Emily looked at Brandon behind her.
He nodded. Anything to keep that red card out of her hand.
“Ah, yeah. Could be.”
She handed the card back to the specialist and received a pink one.
“You’ll be examined for pregnancy and assessed later. To the right, ma’am.”
Peter groaned, “They’re taking girls, too.”
Emily looked forlorn at Brandon while she slowly moved right.
Kevin Alden, the Checkered Shirt Guy, received his red card. He seemed unsurprised.
“Welcome back to the Army, Sergeant,” the specialist said.
“Go fuck yourself,” Kevin muttered as he walked to the wall. He could say it. He outranked specialists.
Brandon’s check-in was fast. Red card. Boom.
“No,” Emily screeched. “No, you can’t take him. He’s the father. He’s … he’s my husband.” She lied.
“Calm down,” Peter said through gritted teeth at her.
His vivid blue eyes implored her to behave calmly. The black patch death squad eyed her for trouble.
“Emily.” Phebe shook her head rapidly.
“This can’t be happening.” Emily’s breathing came fast.
Brandon was her wooby safety blanket.
“Calm down,” said Phebe. “You’re gonna have a panic attack.”
“This can’t be …”
“Breathe.”
Peter moved over to Emily and rubbed her back. “We’ll be okay. Just not in front of the killing squad, okay
.”
Emily’s gaze moved to the nearest black patch man, who watched her with eyes as compassionate as a lizard’s.
2.
The group split up. White cards, yellow, pink, and orange went in one direction, while red cards in another. The last looks between separated tribe members as they were moved out to their respective next steps. Mullen looked as if he might cry.
Further on, the card carriers were further separated by sex. Soldiers corralled women and girls down one hall, and men and boys down another. Fortunately, both sexes left the black patch soldiers behind in the lobby.
Onto the female showers. The warm water felt nice, but the disinfectant body wash and delousing shampoo unpleasant, among other unpleasantries. They were not permitted any privacy while showering. A female guard patrolled the shower stalls where the women and girls had to leave the curtains open. Nia was particularly nervous being seen naked. It did not help her that white supremacist women and girls were there, too. Nia was the only female of color. She felt like a spotlight shined down on her.
After the shower, everyone had to run a tight-toothed lice comb through their hair with a warning if they could not, their hair would be shaved off. Karen had thin hair, like the white supremacist females, so no problem with the comb. Phebe and Emily, both with an abundance of hair to get through, had bobbed short hair. With a determination to never have it shorter, they yanked any knots out violently. The lice comb was not made for African-descent hair, and Nia struggled, growing teary, fearing her head would be shaved. Phebe and Emily came to the rescue. Long versed in dealing with unruly hair given towards knotting, they knew to comb from the ends up, while giving slack to the root to decrease pain. They worked on opposite sides of Nia’s head and used the lice shampoo to lubricate.
“Can’t do this without a hot comb,” Nia whispered. Her pout was prominent. Her braided plaits already removed.
“We’ll take care of this,” Emily assured. “Don’t worry.”
“I need my mama.”
It tugged at their hearts, but they were powerless to help her on that one.
They worked on each section. Once straightened, Nia’s hair was down below her shoulders. Achieving straightness, they both combed through until the comb could easily gain passage, then called their guard.