by Jones, K. J.
2.
“Alden,” a drill instructor called.
The recruits cleaned their weapons, followed by taking them apart and putting them back together while timed for speed.
The drill instructor called more surnames, including Jerome’s.
The others watched as the sergeant told something to the small group. It was something that upset them terribly. They returned, splitting into their tribal groups, each one pale and shocked.
“They’re dead,” Jerome said in a voice so low it came as nearly a whisper.
“What?” shrieked Kanesha. “How?”
“A breach at the base. They’re all dead.”
“No,” said Eric. “My people too?”
“I guess.”
Kanesha said, “Only those with family had been told. We got no family there. They would not have to tell us.” Her tone filled with scorn, “Though they should.”
Jerome’s eyes swam. “I can’t sit here.” He got up and ran.
“Let him go,” the sergeant told the other drill sergeant.
At another table, Alden the Younger wailed, “My brother!”
“Alden,” the sergeant said. “You’re dismissed if you wanna go.”
“What’s going on?” asked Fat Gamer from the table of non-Zoners.
“Guess they done got some bad news,” said Ghetto Guy.
Mullen stared at the pieces of M4 laid on the table, but he did not see them. “They’re dead?”
“They can’t be,” said Eric. “No. It’s a mistake. They aren’t dead.”
“Sarnt.” Mullen stood up. “We got people there too. Can we be dismissed?”
All the Zoners looked at the drill sergeants for an answer, for all had lost people. Since Zoners outnumbered non-Zoners in this platoon, the sergeant agreed and dismissed them all to mourn.
“You know where the chapel is,” the sergeant said. “There’s also mental health therapists. I recommend you folks utilize these resources.”
Since they weren’t allowed to mix genders in the dorm, and none felt like being alone, they moved to an area overlooking a mountain and sat in the dirt. Mullen comforted Kanesha, his arm around her as they rocked back and forth. Comforting her helped to comfort him.
“I can’t believe they’re gone,” Kanesha kept saying. “Everyone? Monty, Matt, all of Jerome's family, my God.”
Mullen still didn’t believe it.
Jerome had not joined them. They spotted him punching a wall. His sister – half-sister technically – he had looked out forever since they reconnected as young adults. He helped raise her children. He had no more family alive.
Dre and Vi went to the chapel. Their solace was their religion. They, too, were the last of their family lines, but it had happened earlier in Charleston.
“I was wondering if I’d find y’all.”
Eric, Mullen, and Kanesha turned around at the familiar voice. There stood Mackey, bald head and wearing Army ZBDUs. Like them, he had no hash marks, or rank stripes, on his uniform, the indication of a private.
“Where the hell have you been?” demanded Kanesha.
“Long fucking story.”
“We got bad news.”
“About the base?”
“You know already? You got no family there.”
“I was there.”
Mackey dropped down and sat in the dirt with them. They stared at him for the bomb he dropped.
“What happened?” asked Eric.
“They nuked it.” Mackey’s brown eyes looked at the mountain. “That sure is pretty.”
Kanesha roared, “What do you mean they ‘nuked’ it?”
“Keep your hollering down, crazy woman. You ain’t among friends.”
“Excuse me? These are my friends.”
“I mean the rest of ‘em. Don’t trust nobody in uniform you ain’t already known. All kinds of fucked up, crazy shit went down. All kinds of crazy motherfuckers.” Mackey’s anger grew. “Niggas gone and lost their motherfucking minds. Doing bullshit they ain’t supposed to be doing in the worst of times. Motherfuckers.”
Mullen stared at him, blankly blinking. Mackey sounded like one of those black guys on TV or in rap songs.
“Were they there?” Eric asked. “My people?”
Mackey took a moment to answer. “Yeah.” He didn’t make eye contact.
Eric’s bottom lip quivered; his eyes filled with tears. “No.”
“Sorry.”
“How did you survive then?” Anger replaced sadness for Kanesha. She did anger well – her go-to place for most things. “Talk, man.”
“Those motherfuckers still delivered us here. Can you believe that fucking shit? I was in a helicopter to come here when it happened. Bad shit went down. Bad, bad motherfucking shit.” Mackey shook his head. “Shit I wish I ain’t never seen!” He shuddered, then seemed to internally shake it off, pulling back his rage and locking it into its cage. Irritation remained in its place. “What fucking base is this? Where the fuck are we?”
“Colorado,” said Eric, sniffling. He used his sleeve to wipe his nose.
“How’s security here?”
“What do you mean?”
Kanesha rubbed Mullen’s back, his face hidden in his arms which lay atop his bent knees. She rested her head on his shoulder. Her eyes stared off at the mountain.
“The security,” said Mackey. “Getting in and out of here.”
Kanesha picked up her head. “Why you asking that?”
“Curious.”
“Oh, bullshit, you’re curious. You wanna leave here? Go AWOL? You know that’s what it is.”
“You wanna go into some zom war, Nesha? Our lives mean less than nothing to Uncle Shug. Worse than before” Mackey emphasized, “Less than nothing.” His eyes burned with reignited fury. “They ain’t building a new career for you, girl. We all just here to die for their war that ain’t mean nothing. They don’t know what the fuck they doing. All they are doing is getting niggas killed. Ain’t nothing more.” He looked away. His face set in a fierce frown.
“We’ll be wanted throughout the nation. A warrant for our arrests.”
“Been wanted.” Mackey huffed like a pissed-off bull. “Then don’t go with me, girl, if you more scared of that than dying for no good reason.”
“I ain’t said nothing like that.”
“What motherfucking country you think is out there? Whole motherfucking place melting down and gone crazy. They fucking nuking our own. Americans. Civilians. Little kids and shit. Nuked ‘em all! Big blast. Mushroom cloud and all that shit. Just business as usual to these motherfuckers. Deliver our asses here still. Took two stop-overs to fix the fucking helicopter cos it got damage from the nuke. Fucking craziest motherfucking bullshit I ever seen. Probably got radiation in me now. All these motherfuckers crazy. Every dang last one of ‘em. They all lost their motherfucking minds.”
They let Mackey rant for a while. There was nothing to say.
3.
The sun would set soon. They needed a place to hole up for the night.
“I see no houses.” Pez scanned through his rifle scope. The scope was its only function now without bullets. “Not a single one.”
“What the hell’s out there then?” asked Chris.
“Probably farmland.”
“Pez,” said Peter. He looked pale and worn out. “What’s that up ahead? On the highway. An RV or something?”
The rifle turned. “Yeah. An RV. Nice one.”
“Let’s head there.”
“It’s gonna be cold without a fire,” said Brandon.
“We’ll make do. It’ll be colder out here without shelter. Move out, people.”
4.
“They said we could,” said Eric.
“Why would they let us contact the outside world, suddenly?” asked Mullen.
“Don’t know, but I’m going with it.”
Eric sat at a computer terminal in a room containing several computer terminals on desks. It was where sold
iers could go to use computers for personal usage. No one else was there.
“Why? What’s there to see? Everyone’s dead.” Mullen’s eyes retained the look of having cried. Still puffed and red-rimmed.
“I don’t know. Maybe I just need a computer fix.”
“Whatever.” Mullen dropped into a chair at the next terminal and looked around despondent.
Eric typed on the keyboard. “Ha, there’s the Internet. It’s still there.”
“Joy.” Mullen’s face said the opposite.
“Checking my emails now.”
“Emails? Really? Never thought emails would happen again. Who the fuck is there to email with? Your friends from back home are dead if you haven’t figured that out. Who knows if your family in China’s alive?”
Eric sighed to keep calm. His voice steady. “I saw … I know they are. Stop it. The world is still there. Just let me do my thing. I think Mackey’s ranting got to you.”
“For how long?”
“What?”
“Fuck it.”
“Hey. There’s an email from Julio’s wife.”
“Luciana Reyes?” Mullen asked.
“I don’t think her last name’s Reyes. Mexican women don’t take their husband’s name.”
“Weird. What does it say?”
“Oh, no.” Eric sucked air. “They’re in trouble.”
“How? What do you mean? Weren’t they leaving Chicago last we heard?”
“They got to New Mexico. But things are bad there.”
“What kind of bad? There’s a lot on the list of potentials nowadays.”
“Bad guys. Some gang taking over the town.”
“Why is she telling you?”
“To reach Sully and the guys.”
Bitterness in Mullen’s tone, “Well, that’s not happening.”
Eric turned to him. “But we owe them. And we owe Julio. We gotta help his family.”
“Um … how, Eric? Hello. Look at us.”
“Mackey was talking AWOL.”
“Okay. But Mackey’s a criminal.”
“What if we all go? We’ll go to New Mexico and help them.”
“Hmm. Eric, I think you have lost your mind in a new and unique way now.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I. How do we get to New Mexico? Where the hell is it even?”
“The southwest.”
“So … we just go southwest from here, really? Get to the road and turn southwest?”
“No, I don’t think we just head in a direction.”
“Since we’re walking.”
“Are we?”
“Um, yeah. Eric, c’mon.”
“I’m gonna talk to the others.”
“You do that. But don’t get hurt if they call you crazy, okay?”
5.
Pez was right, the RV was a nice one. The expensive kind well-off retirees and rock stars used on long road trips. A pop of the lock and the door opened. Instant smells told it had been inhabited.
“Oh, Christ,” Pez complained from the bedroom. “Nana and Pop-pop bit it with the dog. Everybody’s dead and it stinks.”
“I found some spray,” said Brandon. He came out of the bathroom with a can.
“Don’t waste it while the bodies are still here. We gotta get them out. Wrap the sheet around them.”
“This looks like a suicide,” said Matt. “Look at the end tables. Red wine. Empty prescription bottles.” He lifted a bottle and read the label via the illumination of a headlamp looted from a car. “Oh, yeah. Heart medication. They OD’d on it. Probably did the dog with it too.”
“Some help, guys.” Pez had the first body wrapped and ready to go.
With assistance from the guys, the two human bodies and one very small dog body lay on the snow on the highway, off towards the shoulder. Brandon sprayed an air freshener through the RV.
“Should we open the windows?” he asked.
“No,” said Peter. “It’ll get as cold in here as it is out there.” He looked around. “Nice place.”
“I liked the Molly better,” said Tyler.
“That’s right. Nothing beats the Mol, right, Ty?”
“Exactly.” Tyler jumped on the sofa. “This is nicer than my mom’s trailer.”
“We got TV, VCR, DVDs.” Pez snooped.
“What about electricity?” Peter asked.
Phebe dropped down beside him, tired from the all-day walk.
“It’s been a week,” said Pez.
“Yeah, I guess.”
“The fuel should still be good. Should be diesel.”
Matt sat in the driver’s seat, which he had to reveal by pulling back a privacy curtain customary in RVs. He turned the key. After a moment of the starter trying its best to turn over, the engine roared into life. “Yes!”
Pez said, “There should be a generator. That’s what these RVs have.”
“Like my boat,” said Peter.
“Yeah, like boats. We can cut off the engine and run the heater off the genny. It’ll be good.”
“Hopefully,” said Matt. “Before we run out of fuel for it. There’s only a quarter tank left.”
“Aw,” whined Chris. “Don’t tell me we gotta go out there and siphon. I can still taste the gas from Wilmington.”
“Yeah, I’m on Chris’s side,” said Peter.
Next to him, Phebe was already asleep. Peter looked around and more of the usual suspects were missing.
“Where’s Em and Ty?” Peter asked.
Brandon listed them. “Kid’s on the bunks over here. Emily on the bed … which needs to be turned over. Damn it, I gotta wake her up. I’m not sleeping on that nasty shit. She shouldn’t be either.”
Chapter Nine
1.
“You wanna go AWOL to save some people?” Mackey’s nose scrunched up in dislike.
“We’ll need a vehicle, a tough one,” said Eric. “And guns with a lot of bullets, preferably explosive hollow point.”
“Where you expecting to get all this?”
“Well, here. Except for the hollow-tips. I don’t know. Maybe they have them somewhere. But there are portable machine guns here, though, aren’t there?”
“You done lost your mind, Chinaman.”
“I’m American.”
“I don’t care, you still gone crazy. You think they just gonna let us help ourselves here?”
“What was your plan for AWOL?”
“Sneaking out. Quiet. Not take their shit.”
“Out there? Without guns?”
“Not the Army’s guns.”
“Wait, wait, wait,” said Kanesha. “The country is still out there. Cops are still out there, ain’t they? How can a bunch of AWOL draftees make their way all the way to New Mexico?”
“I’m in,” said Jerome. He nodded his head several times, determination on his face.
“Huh?” Kanesha asked.
“Enough people have died. We can make a difference.”
“Oh,” roared Mackey. “We got the black Superman here. Super Black Man. He gonna put on his cape and save a family of Mexicans. We got the people of color D.C. Universe here.”
“There has been enough families dead. No more.”
“How you think we gonna pull all this off, Officer Jerome?”
“We can figure it out. The first step, recon. Collect the intel. See if all the stuff on Eric’s list is viable to achieve.”
“Oh, my Jesus. All y’all lost your damn minds.”
“Ironic you said Jesus. Maybe this could be your repentance and make you right with Him. Maybe doing something for someone other than yourself can get you to Heaven.” Jerome’s voice deepened. “Cos you ain’t going the way you are.”
“Huh.” Mackey’s mouth twitched as he eyed Jerome.
2.
Exhaustion sleep, they were all dead to the world, laying on every flat surface on which they could fit. When the nasal exhale snort of a large animal close by the side of the RV came, they all sat bolt up
right, wide awake.
“What the hell was that?” whispered Pez.
The heater ran, but all the lights off.
The sound again. They could hear it on the other side of the wall and windows on the opposite side of the RV from the door.
Kevin crawled on his hands and knees to the window in the living room. He parted the curtain at the corner and looked out. “Aw, hell.” He moved backwards so fast, he fell on his butt.
“What was it?” Jayce asked.
“I don’t know. Something fucking huge. Huge antlers.”
“A deer?” asked Pez.
“No. I think a moose or something.”
“A moose? Here? Nuh.” Pez moved to the window, using the same corner viewing as Kevin had used. “That’s an elk.”
Pez watched for a moment. The huge animal was easily seen by the contrast of whiteness from the snow. It pressed its nose to the window, fogging the glass with exhaling.
“Ah,” Pez said, alarmed. “It’s foaming at the mouth, youse guys.”
“Aw, hell no,” said Kevin.
“Elk,” said Chris from a bottom bunk. “Of course. We ain’t done zom-elk before.”
“Racking up a lot of new experiences,” Matt said from the top bunk. “Maybe it’ll go away if we’re quiet since they can’t smell too well.”
“You know elk, Wyoming?” asked Kevin.
“Yeah, I do.”
“He knows anything with hooves,” said Chris.
“I kind of do.”
“Just don’t ask him about anything with an engine.”
“That’s not entirely true. I know tractor engines.”
They all moved to the windows to watch. Tyler hung out of the bed over the cab to peer through the top of a window.
“Whoa, check that out,” he said.
Jayce had to share the bed with Tyler or sleep on the floor.
“I can’t from here,” Jayce said.
He slid past Tyler and dropped to the floor. Then he knelt on the table which turned into a bed, where Phebe and Peter had slept, and he joined them in looking out.
“Whoa, that’s big.”
A full rack male elk. Normally, he’d walk with his head high. Instead, he kept shaking his head as if he had an earache. Streams of phlegm flung out from his mouth. He bellowed, and it turned into a Gollum-bark, jerking his whole body.
“Is he having some kind of fit?” asked Kevin.