The Beginning (Book 4): Liberating Barriers

by Shepp, Roman

  Liberating Barriers

  The Beginning Book 4

  Roman Sheep

  Copyright © 2018 by Robert Spake

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter One

  Being so close to Frank again was horrible. Jane clenched her fists, and gritted her teeth as the anger roiled inside her like a tempestuous storm. While she tried focusing on the land ahead, her eyes continually darted toward Frank, as though she was trapped in his orbit.

  A long time ago, it had felt exactly like that, and that had been exactly what she had wanted. Never before had she met anyone with such gravitas, with such an aura, and she had been instantly mesmerized. It was as though he had cast some magic spell over her, rendering her unable to do anything but follow him. Of course, it hadn't been something as easy or simple as that. Jane was not blameless. She had fallen for him. She had made the choice to be with him, even though she knew he was married. Looking at him now, she wondered how she ever could have made that choice. Then again, she also thought, how could she not have, and that thought terrified her.

  For so long Jane had assumed that Frank being out of her life was good. When they found him again in the bunker she could at least comfort herself with the idea that they would move on and go their separate ways again, but it seemed as though she was locked with him. No longer could she leave. If she left, then Phil would come with her, which would leave Rosa alone with Frank. Looking at the soldier, Jane was sure Rosa could handle herself against him. However, she couldn't allow herself to leave another woman alone with Frank. There was no telling what he'd do.

  Flashes of the past seared through her mind, thoughts that she wanted to push away, wanted to force away. Thoughts of naked flesh pressing against each other, of sizzling sweat trickling down into dark, intimate areas, of two breaths becoming one. Arousal swam through her body. Jane blushed and then tried hiding her face out of embarrassment. It was as though her body was at war with her mind. The worst thing about Frank was that he had been so good it was hard to fight the pleasure, especially after she had been through so much pain.

  The grogginess from being knocked down by that masked maniac had been dispelled. For a while there, Jane truly had been afraid that she never would get her memory back again. Jane always had prided herself on her intelligence, and the thought that she could lose even one iota of her cognitive function was terrifying. Yet, with that return brought with it even more sadness. Tony was dead. Left in that bunker there was no way he could have survived alone with that madman.

  Jane felt guilty, bitter, and wished she hadn't been so caught up in her petty argument with Frank so she would have been more useful. Then there was Tara as well. She'd gotten out with Saeed, but Jane had no idea where they had gone. She'd started to form a bond with the girl, even started to imagine that one day she could call Tara her daughter, but that was ripped from her as well. Instead she was with Frank again, as though that was the only destiny the universe could plan for her. If that indeed was the case, then the universe had a pretty poor imagination.

  Night fell. The moon and the stars returned, hanging over the forest. Through gaps in the leaves and branches Jane could peer up at the night sky and pretend that none of this was happening. The air was cool, and they found a mossy glade in which to make camp. They decided to take watch in pairs, mostly because none of Jane, Phil, or Rosa trusted Frank by himself. Jane and Rosa took the first watch. They all had decided that the best person to stay up with Frank was the man with a knife for an arm.

  “So, you and Frank huh?” Rosa began. Jane nodded, pursing her lips. She knew the question was coming. Rosa didn't seem like one of those people to put tact and manners at the top of her list of priorities.

  “Yep, me and Frank.”

  “I guess I can see how it happened. Pretty typical story really, young girl gets wowed by an older man who has power.”

  “It never felt that typical when I was living it,” Jane replied in a hollow voice.

  “When he woke up before you he said some pretty horrible things. Said that you were opportunistic, and you carried on the affair even though you knew he had a family. He also said you only were using him to further your own career, and so you both were using each other.”

  When she heard this, Jane laughed bitterly. “If it wasn't so tragic, it would be funny.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Jane clasped her hands together and rubbed them, trying to keep them warm. The soft glow of the embers provided some dim light, but not enough warmth for Jane's satisfaction. Still, they didn't exactly want a blazing fire around to announce their presence to everyone.

  “That's what Frank believes, and a few other people probably believe it as well, but the truth is that I loved him. I was with him all that time because I truly thought we were good together. We worked well together, the sex was great.” As she said this, Rosa glanced at Frank and winced. Jane shrugged.

  “And I knew he wasn't happy at home. Frank had so many brilliant ideas about how to change the world. My only mistake was believing in him. We used to stay up late talking about how we wanted to move up in the world and make changes on a grander scale. I truly believed he wanted the same things I did. The whole reason I got into politics in the first place wasn't to sleep my way to the top, it was to convince other people to see the same cracks in the world that I saw, and then to paper over them. Believe me, if my goal was to sleep my way to the top, I would have climbed way above Frank. I was propositioned so many times, but I always stayed faithful to him.”

  “But how could you do that when you knew he had a family?”

  “Cognitive dissonance I suppose.” Jane ripped grass from the ground, then tore it in between her fingers before scattering it.

  “The human mind has a way of twisting logic to fit whatever you really want to believe in. I knew he had a family, but he always said he was going to leave them. It made sense to me. You know, people change, they drift apart when they get older, and for a politician it was important for him to be with someone who saw the world the same way. It made sense to me that he and his wife would drift apart. They lived in different worlds, but Frank and I lived in the same one. Have you ever been in love?”

  Rosa shook her head.

  “They say that love is blind, but really love blinds you. In the back of my mind I knew who Frank really was, but I told myself that he was what I always had wanted. The pleasure I got from being with him, the way he made me feel...it was so natural. There were times it felt exactly like what I thought a relationship should be.”

  “And the times when it didn't make you feel like that?”

  “Those were the times when I lied to myself. I ignored them and carried on with my life. It was only at the end that I realized there was no going back for him, that I had made a mistake all these years. But the stupid thing is that after all this time, after all that's happened, I'm still stuck with him. Good men s
uch as Tony suffer while people like Frank continue to go on living. I suppose that's always been the way of the world. The more things change, eh?” Jane said glumly.

  “You know it was Tony who insisted we take you both out,” Rosa said quietly. “He ordered me and Phil to take you both. Not just you. We easily could have left Frank down there with him, but he didn't want that.”

  “That's Tony all over, really. He was always so good, so kind. I often looked at him and wondered how a man could grow up in the world and show so much compassion. I guess my outlook was skewed from working in the government. I saw deceit and manipulation every day, but Tony was sheltered. He lived in his own little world, one where people were trustworthy, where they looked out for each other. He should have left us down there and used everyone else to fight that man, but he'd always been looking to save people. It's just...it's such a shame. I only knew him for a few weeks. Maybe a month. God, where does the time go? It seems so much longer than that. I don't know how long we were walking out of the city, but however much time it was, it wasn't enough. I felt like I was only really getting to know Tony. He wasn't like anyone I'd ever met. Probably the polar opposite to Frank.”

  “Did anything happen between the two of you?”

  Jane shook her head. “There were moments when I think he wanted to, and some moments when maybe something should have happened, but it never did. I still was reeling from all I'd been through. Didn't think I was ready for anything like that. How could I trust myself with another man when I'd made such a mistake with Frank? But Tony wasn't like Frank. And I'll never get to tell him. I hope at the end he knew...” she couldn't finish her sentence because the sobs came. Her entire body shuddered, and she felt so foolish pouring out her emotions like this in front of the hardened warrior, but there was no stopping them. Jane was exhausted, stressed, and felt as though she barely had any strength left in her to continue.

  “I'm sorry about how things happened. We should have been better, more prepared. None of us saw it coming. I don't know how he got the drop on us so quickly. Before I could do anything, Don and Steve already were dead, then I was on the floor.”

  Jane sniffed. Suddenly she realized that she wasn't the only one who had lost a friend.

  “I'm sorry for you too. I can't imagine what it was like to have to watch your friends like that.”

  “The funny thing is that I never really considered them my friends. I didn't like human connections. Thought they were a weakness. They were just military personnel, men who I happened to be stuck in a bunker with for months. They drove me crazy. Don with his whining about getting home to see his sweetheart and his child, Steve with his insipid dedication to duty. Yet, in the end, I just wish I had been able to do more. I felt so stupid. When that man hit me like a train I was stunned. I laid there, and time seemed to stand still. That's never happened to me before, you know? I mean, I've been trained to keep cool in stressful situations, but my mind hurt more than my body. It was telling me to stay down. I had to actively fight it to get back on my feet and rejoin the fight. I just wonder if I spent a few seconds too long. Maybe if I had been quicker things would have been different.”

  “I think we all wish we could have done things differently. At least you tried to fight. I ended up getting caught up in an argument with Frank.”

  A few moments of silence descended upon the two women as they reflected on their mistakes. The soft embers glowed, and the powerful crackling of the fire long since had faded away. Frank and Phil were sleeping soundly. Jane closed her eyes at the familiar sound of Frank's snores, thinking about all those times she lay in bed beside him, curling up with her arm draped over his chest, breathing in his masculine scent and thinking about how fortunate she was that he had bestowed his affection upon her. Then she blinked tears from her eyes as she thought about Tony, and how he must have died in anguish. He had given his life so that all of them could survive, but why? He was better than all of them. He had more hope in his heart, more goodness, than any of them. Yet he had insisted she and Frank get dragged out of there when it was they who should have been locked in that tomb.

  Jane remembered the way Tony looked at her when he thought she wasn't looking. Maybe Jane should have said something. Maybe she should have tried being with a good man for once. It wasn't as if it would have been difficult to do, and everyone needed some kind of comfort in this world. The only thing that stopped her was knowing that Tony needed someone better than her. Someone as good as him. Jane wasn't that person, and she hadn't wanted him to waste his time with her...but now he had no more time to waste.

  “I don't know where to go from here,” Jane admitted, her words riding on choked breaths. The only chance she had of not descending into complete and utter oblivion was to distract herself with conversation, but even that was not guaranteed to work.

  “I know how you feel.”

  “Really? I thought you would have had a plan, what with you being in the army and all. Don't you have orders about what you need to do in situations like these?”

  “There are procedures we're supposed to follow, although what use are they when the army probably doesn't even exist anymore?” She looked down at her uniform and pinched the emblem stitched into her clothes. “I never really believed in this thing,” she murmured.

  “Then why did you become a soldier in the first place?”

  “It was a job. I wanted to get away from home. Wanted to support myself, and I didn't want to be a maid. The army seemed like as good a place as any. Have you ever been anywhere where everyone else believes in something so fiercely that you feel like a fraud the entire time?”

  “I do. Mom and dad dragged me to church until I was eighteen. I still remember how I felt when I looked around at all those people lost in the glory and love of the Lord, and I was just standing there feeling ridiculous. At the end of the day, though, I was envious of them, of being able to have that much faith in their hearts. It made me feel empty.”

  “That's exactly how I felt. When I joined the army, it seemed that everyone had embraced the myth of America, that it was the greatest country in the world and deserved defending. But, really, America doesn't exist. No country does. It's only an idea in the mind, but if enough people believe it then it begins to take on a life of its own. To me, though, it was just a job. I got a paycheck and that was it.

  “I wasn't like Steve, or Don for that matter. I mean, that man gave himself to the army even though he was in love and had everything else going for him. If he wasn't in the army he would have been with that girl and his child. Steve believed in everything too, even after we were cut off from the world. He wanted to ensure we were living up to the principles we had sworn an oath to. Now that they're gone I feel like these are just clothes. I never had much of a plan before I joined the army, and I don't have one now. I keep thinking of the world as it is, and nobody ever has been more free. We literally can do anything we want, so why does it feel so bad?”

  “Because there's no order to it. Every action needs a consequence, one that other people can see. We must try staying true to ourselves. I could kill Frank now while he slept. Nobody would know, other than you. I'd never be troubled by him again. Some would say he deserved it for all he's done, but I can't bring myself to do it because I don't know if I'd be able to live with myself. But then, Frank is the type of man who should be punished. Without a justice system that's just not possible. I don't know how to reconcile those two thoughts. It almost seems as though freedom is a curse. Maybe all this time we've been deluding ourselves.”

  “It does seem like we have to look inside ourselves and forget everything we've been taught. Nothing we believed in matters anymore.”

  “I'm not sure that's true. We still need to believe in each other, and in ourselves. Maybe what you're saying about countries is right, but that does not mean that it all has ended. The terrorists didn't manage to break America because it lives in everyone’s hearts and minds. We've been taught all our life how to be
patriotic and how to follow the American dream. Maybe this is the way we can make it into a reality again, to look inside ourselves and carry that idea with us. Still, that doesn't mean everyone is going to see it the same way. There are people all across the country who have been through the same as we have, those who are still alive anyway. I don't know if we're all going to be strong enough to come back from this,” Jane said in a small voice. In truth, she wasn't sure if she was strong enough. All her life she had taken on every challenge placed in front of her, but this felt like one too many.

  “Americans are good at coming back from the brink. I think it's something in the blood.”

  “There's never been anything like this, though.”

  “Things change, but the people stay the same,” Frank said.

  Rosa and Jane jumped. Both of them turned to glare at Frank, not having realized he was awake. Jane wondered how long he had been awake, and how much he had heard. Had he faked snoring? At this moment in time she wouldn't put anything past him. Frank ignored their astonishment, though, and pushed himself up, reaching out to the fire to warm his hands.

  “The thing you have to understand is that ultimately people want to live, and they'll do anything that helps them with that. A lot of people have died, but that's just a culling of the population. The ones who live will be the strong ones. Maybe in some roundabout way it's what America has needed all along,” Frank said.

  “Trust you to be so callous about so much death,” Jane spat, pulling her knees into her chest and folding her arms around them.

  “I'm just being pragmatic. One has to be in this situation. It's no good thinking about how things were or how things should be, only how things are. Every American has to look into themselves and think about how they want to move into the future. We've just been sent back into the Old West, where everyone was out for themselves. The New America is going to be a strong America, forged by people who have been through hell. The ones who survive are the ones who are going to make this country great again. The ones who survive are the ones who do find purpose, who do find truth, who do find meaning.