by Jones, K. J.
Chris had to fight his eyes from rolling and pretend he was listening and cared.
“We do not profile our soldiers.”
He didn’t know who “we” was since he did all those things and he’d been in the Army forever.
“This will be your only warning. Do it again, and it will be logged in your jacket. Am I understood?”
“Yes, sir.”
Salutes. The major walked away.
“Fucking pencil dick uptight prick.” Chris walked the other way, hoping to find an underling who’d obey him without getting pissy.
He only saw more men who could be Arabs. When another Arab-looking guy walked rapidly towards him, he didn’t know what to make of it.
Then he realized the Arab was an American Indian. He knew him and liked him. He was Ben Raven.
“Where have you been?” Chris asked.
“They control my movements here.”
“You and me both. I got reprimanded by a –”
“I don’t have much time.”
“Black patches coming for you?
“Maze and I received orders.”
Chris’s jaw dropped. The tribe was being separated.
Ben continued, “I was hoping to find one of you before we left.”
“You found me.”
Chris’s voice came out despondent. He felt like pouting in the corner as he did when little, but he had to hide this.
Ben pushed a piece of paper into his hand.
“These are the numbers to family. Mazy copied them from the paper on the yacht. We got everyone else’s. We will try to contact through your families.”
Chris found no words to say.
Ben unwrapped a cloth on which a large feather lay.
“If you can, please give this to Tyler. It’s an egret’s tail feather I found in Charleston. Feathers are sacred to us. They took my medicine bags away. But I managed to hold onto this. Please, for the boy. To guide him and keep him strong. He’ll understand its meaning.”
Chris didn’t know about all this sacred bird feathers stuff, but the gesture for the boy touched him. He closed the cloth and held onto it as important and fragile.
“I hope we meet again,” said Ben. “It’s been an honor and privilege, Chris. You are a surprising man. I’ll keep you all in my prayers. Mazy will, too.” Ben saluted him.
Chris felt choked up as he returned the salute. “This can’t be it.” He wasn’t sure whether he said that out loud or not.
Ben presented his hand.
There was no Mazy around to say goodbye to. Chris wanted to hug her, but Ben would have to do. He shook Ben’s hand and pulled him in for a hug.
“Y’all take care of yourselves, ya hear, brother?” he said.
“You all too,” said Ben. “Find us. We’ll be looking.”
They stepped apart and looked at each other. This was the end and they both felt it.
“Take care.” Ben backed up; eyes filled with emotion.
“You hug her for me. Take care of her.”
“I will, brother. You look after Phebe and Sully and the rest of ‘em for us.”
“I will, brother.”
“Goodbye, Chris.”
“See ya later, Running Elk.”
Ben turned and walked away, his head down in sadness.
Chris worked hard at compartmentalization and never feeling anything too deep. But emotions choked his chest. Or else he was having a heart attack. Since his eyes burned in a desire to cry, he suspected it was emotion and not requiring medical attention.
All around him, people came and went. No place to hide. No substances on the base, not even cigarettes. Nothing but raw feelings and harsh reality.
* * *
Matt found Chris in his bunk, stroking a large feather and staring off.
“What’s with you?”
Chris cleared his throat. “Ben and Maze been re-assed.” Re-assigned.
Matt’s face filled with shock. “They got orders?”
Chris nodded. “They gone.”
“Oh, God. They’re breaking us up more.” Matt dropped hard on the bunk opposite. “Oh, God.”
“You gotta copy these here phone numbers for yourself. We all gotta keep ‘em.”
“Mullen. Did he have the numbers?”
Chris’s broad shoulders shrugged. “It all happened too fast. That kid ain’t the … well, he’s a kid. Guess I was dumb at that age too.”
“We still don’t know anything about Eric.”
“Nope.” Chris’s big fingers stroked the feather. “We don’t know nothing about nothing no more.”
DAY 3
Chapter One
1.
Another startle-awake morning. Fluorescent overhead lights flashing on and voices booming. Every bone in Phebe’s body craved proper sleep. All night long, the only winks she had were out of sheer physical exhaustion, and they weren’t much.
She and the group shuffled through the morning routine, each looking more exhausted than the next. Bathrooms. Mess hall. Barely any conversation at breakfast. Return to the hangar to wait for lunch.
The after-meals bathroom usage was less regulated by cot rows. The group set off. Phebe looked forward to the poo-smelling ladies' room like a hole in the head. She already felt nauseous today, combining with peak crankiness.
The guys split off for the men’s room.
“Do you want my cane?” Peter asked her.
“No. You keep it. I’ll just get irritated by it.”
“You sure? It’s a good tool for, um, ya know.”
“Stop,” her tone showed annoyance.
Phebe walked towards the ladies' room, where the others, including Miss Glenda, already went. Kicking open the door in her hatred for all things, a swoon as she entered. Her hand covered her nose as she willed nausea to stop. Requests for even saltine crackers had fallen on deaf ears. Some ginger ale would be amazing. All they received outside of the mess hall was water. This place was a living hellhole.
The sounds of flushing toilets and running faucets. Some bad poos exploding from stalls. Phebe went to the showers area around a cement block wall. Maybe vomit into a shower. She ran hot water and breathed in the steam.
“This is brutal,” said Emily. She sat on a bench seat. “I feel horrible.”
“Welcome to baking a new person in the oven that is you.”
“I never wanted to do this.”
“You and me both.”
“I’m never having sex again,” said Emily.
“Keep away the sperm bearers.”
“I never wished I was a lesbian more in my life.”
Phebe sat next to her. “I’d like to just not have a sense of smell.”
“That was the benefit of mild symptoms COVID. No sense of smell.”
“Wasn’t it?”
“This is gonna get worse.”
“Everything is gonna get worse. Where’s Nie?”
Emily shrugged. “In the potty area with Miss Glenda and Karen, I think.”
Angry female voices yelled from the other area.
“Aw, fuck.” Phebe groaned as she stood. “What now?”
“What are they yelling?”
“Dumb shit.”
Emily shot up to her feet when they heard key words nigger and cracker. “No, no, no.”
The pair hurried around the cement block wall. The New Jersey black supremacists and the South Carolina white supremacists had found each other. They grouped to two sides of the toilet-sink area and yelled at each other. Nia stood between two sinks on the other side, pressing herself against the wall, the mirror behind her back, and wide-eyed.
Phebe stepped forward and spotted Karen standing in an open stall, just as wide-eyed. Reaching Karen and then the door would be easy, slipping around the periphery of the facing-off groups. But reaching Nia meant going right through the clearing between the two groups. Phebe motioned for Nia to come to her.
Just as the girl stepped beyond the sinks to obey Phebe, the two g
roups charged forward and attacked each other. Both sides, pregnant, nonetheless they went after each other’s hair and punched at each other’s faces. Nia backed up to the wall, the above-the-sinks mirror behind her. She squatted below the porcelain sink to avoid being caught in the crossfire.
Miss Glenda opened her stall door enough to yank clueless young Karen in. Then shut and locked the door. Bodies slammed against the stalls, rocking the structure. Other neutral women and girls hid in the stalls. A girl crawled on the floor between stalls to escape.
Phebe felt the old adrenaline surge. While part of her vision watched everything between them and the escape door, the other part watched her young charge: Nia.
MPs blew whistles as they entered. Their entrance escalated the violence into utter anarchy. Tasers and batons. Neutrals who could escape now charged through the MPs and were grabbed and Tased.
Phebe saw a white supremacist duck under the sink towards Nia. Without a second thought, Phebe raced forward, barking to Emily, “On me.” Tunnel vision to protect the girl in her care. The white supremacist girl saw Phebe in the mirror reflection. She backed away fast, knowing who the Beheader was.
Five-foot ten and muscular with biceps showing a hump under soft female skin, Phebe was an awesome sight to the white supremacist. Her reputation had preceded her. They scurried away, not wanting to mess with a warrior.
The reflection in the mirror told Phebe that Emily was behind her, following her into the melee. And something else.
Tierra, the alpha leader of the Jersey crew, rushed forward.
Reaching the sinks, Phebe could see in the mirror reflection Tiera was coming at her back. Fist raised, ready to punch upwards at the back of Phebe’s head.
Phebe whipped around and blocked the punch. The only hand-to-hand combat she had been trained to do was for lethal results as fast as possible. Second nature for the long-timer Zoner. A block and Phebe’s other hand punched Tiera in the throat, causing instant choke and knees buckling. This was not enough. Within a split second, Phebe grabbed Tiera’s head, turned 180 at the waist, and rammed her forehead into the mirror.
“Oh, my God,” Nia wailed beneath.
Blood smeared on spiderweb cracking.
Onward, still holding the head, Phebe’s foot knocked Tiera’s leg out to tilt her sideways and rammed the side of her head against the edge of the sink.
Done. Phebe released and turned for the next hostile.
Emily cracked the wrist of a girl and dropped her to the ground.
Both women stood ready for the next attack. Chests breathing fast. Perspiration on their foreheads. Delicate-boned female fists clenched and ready. Front leg in position to support the back for a kick.
No one else approached. Indeed, the rest of the Jersey crew backed away. Eyes wide and faces shocked. They had fucked with the wrong white girls.
* * *
Hearing the commotion, Peter and the boys ran towards the ladies’ room. Male and female MPs and helping soldiers hurled women and girls out of the bathroom to get them out of the way. The place had exploded into anarchy. Voices, mostly female, bouncing off walls. Movement everywhere.
“Keep him there,” Peter yelled to Jayce about Tyler.
Peter rushed in as fast as the stupid shoes would allow, his gut feeling screaming an alarm.
He skirted past MPs and saw what he feared most. Tierra dropped from Phebe’s hands, and Phebe turned in a fight stance. Peter looked towards the right and saw Emily had a woman in a hold and broke her wrist and dropped her. The rest of the Jersey crew backed away in fear of the pair. His gaze returned to Phebe and down at her feet. He saw Nia, but also saw Tierra on the floor, staring unblinking.
“No!” His voice could not be heard over the chorus of sounds.
“Sully!” Jayce screamed as he struggled to keep a hold of Tyler.
Black patches ran past them towards the bathroom, weapons hot and raised.
Peter surged forward to get in the way of their fire and his women. He raised his hands high, dropping his cane.
“Don’t fire! They’re pregnant.”
His right knee bent nicely to the floor, but the left one caused him a yelp from pain.
“Girls, get down!” he yelled.
An MP shot prongs at Phebe and hit her chest. She winced at the sharp points of pain, which was overridden by a surge of electricity. She screamed as she was electrocuted. It ripped through her, jarring every cell in her body, quivering every muscle, and rattling her teeth. She dropped on the floor, unconscious.
“No!” Peter roared. He moved to get to her. Only to feel the sharp prongs hit his back, followed by the muscle-quivering electrical shock.
Emily fell to the floor. His last sight before blackness.
* * *
Jayce’s gripped tightened on Tyler. The boy squirmed and kicked at seeing their people in peril.
Their tribe members came out, dragged unconscious, and cuffed behind their backs. Others came out, but they weren’t the teenage boys’ people. Then Nia came out, handcuffed, but on her feet. Karen and Miss Glenda were escorted out of the bathroom just as medics showed up with stretchers. Jayce pulled Tyler to the wall to get out of the way. His arms wrapped around the smaller boy, pressing him to him. Both shook with adrenaline and upset. Their destroyed world crashing down further.
MPs took Nia in the opposite direction. Even Karen and Miss Glenda weren’t allowed to approach the boys. More soldiers kept everyone separated, then backed away as medics carried a woman in pain on a stretcher. She held her wrist. Lastly, a stretcher with a covered body came out.
“No,” Jayce whispered. “Please, Jesus, no.”
“I saw ‘em,” Tyler reassured. “They’re okay.”
“That’s not it, Ty.”
Jayce tightened his hold on the smaller boy and rested his head atop the bristly scalp, craving the comfort. He could feel Tyler’s heart racing and the sweat through his scrubs.
Inside, Jayce wanted to scream a thousand times over.
“What’s happening, Jay?”
Tyler’s voice seemed distant to Jayce’s ears. He held onto the boy as if this was all he had left in the entire world.
At the beginning of the year, some three months ago, he was looking at colleges. His mother, grandmother, sister, and he had taken a tour of Angela’s alma mater, the prestigious Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. He had the grades and extra circular activities to get in. His biggest worries had been scoring well on the SATs and what to do about his feelings for a girl in his class. Nia’s “Devil books,” as Grandmama called them, had been in November. He received a tongue lashing for getting his private school coat ripped while messing around with the guys. Christmas came then, which was always a big deal in his family with lots of decorating and baking. His father visited, and plans were made for a trip to the Sea Islands to visit the relatives for school spring break.
At sixteen, Jayce’s childhood shattered. The last shards of it fell out of its frame while he watched the remainder of his group and his little sister taken away. All he had in the whole world to hold onto was a confused, sweaty thirteen-year-old boy.
“Jayce?” Tyler’s voice came to his ears. “Bro? What’s happening?”
2.
Rifle practice. Time for shooting. After learning about the rifles – which Mullen and Eric were already well acquainted with the M4 – they were instructed on how to shoot these weapons at targets. The targets had bull’s eyes on the chest as traditional shooting targets did.
Mullen shot at the neck and lower face, hitting the mark every time. He beamed with pride.
“What the hell are you doing, Mullen?” an instructor bellowed.
Mullen jumped up, as they had been trained to do—stand when addressing or addressed by a superior. “Killing a zom, Sarnt.”
“Do you not see where the bull’s eye is?”
“That won’t kill a zom, Sarnt. Gotta drop ‘em where they stand.”
Chuckles from the other
Zoners.
“Sarnt,” the one they had come to simply call Ghetto Guy said. “If that there the way we should be shooting these bitches, ain’t we gonna learn it?”
They had become like Chris, no one had a name unless they proved themselves to not be a liability. Fat Gamer and Nerd had stuck. The programmers objected, showing upset, but Ghetto Guy didn’t. He had probably been called worse in his life. Like Chris, they did not care if anyone was offended. If words were going to hurt, how would they react to a deranged infected person trying to rip off their faces?
Despite the constant divide between the two tribes – Eric and Mullen now accepted into the central North Charleston tribe – they knew each other’s real names. Though they had gotten themselves into a brawl that broke the record books, they were beginning to see a common ground as Zoners. Shooting practice brought it out. Jogging as a platoon? Not so much. There hadn’t been a lot of group jogs occurring in the Zone without a whole group being chased by large amounts of people trying to kill them. But there had been a great deal of shooting.
They had been punished for their brawl via exercise all morning. Since there was no mention of them ever getting a weekend off whereby they could leave the base anyway, this was not taken away from them. The entire platoon was subjected to the punishment exercise, which made the Zoners as popular as the blisters on everyone’s feet.
The two tribes may not have voluntarily sat next to each other or shared too much conversation, but they may need each other against a common foe. Since both sides knew of the other tribe’s ability to handle themselves against the infected, they were the only ones they could trust in the tactically unprecedented battle scenario. Even the experienced soldiers held a big question mark.
The problem with the US Army way versus the Zoner way continued throughout the rest of the day. During a moment of downtime in the barracks, the little brother of Kevin Alden crossed the tribal line to discuss their commonalities. He seemed to be rather a leader of his group.
“Listen,” Alden the Younger said. “My brother was in the Army. Eighty-second Airborne. He started off doing things the Army way and had to get rid of useless shit to adapt to the new combat. He told me that every time a new form of warfare starts up, the brass continue the old ways and troops get their asses handed to them. The British did this against guerrilla warfare against the American Patriots. Us in Vietnam when the brass was fighting trench warfare from World War Two. The same shit is happening again.”