by Judd Vowell
The prison camp was approximately twelve miles outside the city limits. The highway would lead the convoy to it, but their intelligence showed it to be two miles south of the road once they arrived. Jacob could see two faint lines on the map that ran perpendicular to the highway on the east side of the prison. One was a river, running from north to south and then west for hundreds of miles. But the other was short and stopped abruptly. He showed it to Simone as they got closer. “That must be the road in,” he said.
“What about the other side?” she asked.
“From what we know, it’s all dense woods. Trees growing on top of each other.”
“And between the highway and northern boundary?” She asked it as if she already knew it wasn’t a feasible option.
“Man-made marsh. No walking, no vehicles.”
“Leaves us no choice then, right?”
“Simone, with only one way in, we’re putting ourselves in a precarious position. We could get bottle-necked in there. Then, if that camp is what we think it is, we’ll be sitting ducks.”
“You’re forgetting one thing, Jacob.” She raised one of her dark eyebrows. “The classic element of surprise – they don’t know we’re coming.”
◊◊◊
Jacob organized the assault on the outsiders’ camp, sending three-quarters of the Omega XT force down the road to the prison’s south entrance. He and Simone watched the attack from an elevated position on the highway’s bridge that spanned the river. They had night-vision scopes that gave them as close a view of the action as they needed. Jacob felt like a general in battle.
They had no knowledge of what or who was inside the camp. For all Jacob knew, it could have been the two children hiding by themselves, but that made no logical sense. The former prison was too far off the highway and too difficult to access for use as an overnight hideout. Simone’s hunch was that a gathering of rebels was taking place there, and Jacob’s deductive reasoning had led him to the same conclusion. It was all confirmed as the first Omega XT vehicle reached the camp’s south wall.
The rebels turned blinding spotlights on the ANTI- troops and began firing on them as they crossed the river. The first vehicles suffered heavy damage, and casualties mounted swiftly. But slowly, the Omega XT got through and were able to position themselves and return fire. There were watchtowers throughout the camp where the rebels were perched, giving them a great advantage. The frontline Omega XT ANTs finally took down the first line of watchtowers with rockets launched from the back of equipped jeeps. That gave them enough of an opening to move down the south wall and establish a strong offensive line.
“I don’t know much about battle strategy, Jacob, but this looks pretty good so far,” Simone said after an hour or so of gunfire and explosions.
“For not knowing what we were getting into, I’d say they’re doing well. But if it turns against us, I’m pulling us out. I want you to know that.”
“Don’t worry so much, Jacob.” He flinched, wishing she hadn’t used that word. It seemed prophetic by then. “I guarantee you – Salvador is going to be proud of what we’re doing here tonight.”
Jacob thought that was a funny thing to say, but he appreciated it. It gave him a feeling of satisfaction. And what transpired over the next few hours did make Salvador proud. But it also changed Jacob’s notion of the new world, and his obligation to it, forever.
29.
S imone noticed the movement deep into the night, after many hours of fighting. She had not checked the tracking monitor at all during the battle, distracted by the excitement of war. But what she saw on the screen made her crazed, and Jacob couldn’t do anything to stop her.
“Look, Jacob,” she said, as she pointed to the screen. The two flashing blue lights were outside of the prison’s fences, on the west side in the thick woods. They were moving north and appeared to be making their way to the same highway where she and Jacob stood watching the battle.
“Yeah, ok. So what?” he replied.
“So they’re getting away,” she said frantically.
“Simone, forget about it. You’ve gotten what you wanted out of them. Look down there.” Jacob motioned to the battle below. “This is why we’re here. Not those kids.”
“Some things you’ll never understand,” she replied.
He glanced down at the monitor again and saw the blue blips getting closer to the highway, maybe two miles to the west of their position. “Let it go, Simone. For me.” He tried to express it as an intimate plea.
“No way, Jacob.” She turned to a group of Omega XT waiting in a jeep for orders. She directed them to drive west and watch for the children as they escaped from the woods. “But don’t act, you understand? Just find out who’s with them and come tell me immediately.” They sped off.
Jacob turned his attention back to the battle, but worry was trying to overcome him again. It was starting to cloud his focus, just as he had thought it might. He had never let emotions control his logical life, and yet here they were doing exactly that. He was angry with himself, but he was enraged with Simone. He didn’t understand how someone could be so hateful. This revolution was never supposed to be personal.
The group of Omega XT that Simone had sent came back quickly. Jacob overheard one of them reporting to Simone. “Just the kids. Nobody else. They came out of the woods and turned in our direction.”
“You’re sure?” Simone asked. “Just the two of them?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Did they see you?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Very good,” she said. “Very, very good.”
Jacob couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Simone sounded almost maniacal. This was vengeance for the sake of vengeance. And it was children.
“I’m not going to let you do this, Simone,” he said as aggressively as he could. “You’re out of your mind right now.”
She laughed. “You don’t have to let me do anything. This one is all on my own. This one’s for that bitch Anna.”
She leapt onto the back of the jeep that held the Omega XT she had just sent to spy on the kids. “Let’s go!” she yelled at the driver. And before Jacob could say anything else, they were gone, on a renegade mission to kill kids.
He was nauseous. He didn’t care anymore about the battle at the prison camp, or the group of rebels they were fighting. And as the sun rose behind him, and he heard the sound of gunfire coming from the western horizon, Jacob didn’t care about ANTI- anymore either.
PART FIVE: GETTING BACK
1.
W hen we’re alive, we tell ourselves that whatever comes next for our beings or souls is overwhelmingly joyous. That we are relieved of all the physical pain and limits instilled upon our animal forms. Maybe that we see the ones who preceded us in death. Or in our most morbid reckonings, that we stay in the world in spirit, appearing as ghostly apparitions to spook anyone invading our phantom territory. You’ve got to give it to the human mind: creativity abounds if it means we can make ourselves feel better.
Death wasn’t all bad. I got to watch the kids. And Meg. No, I wasn’t a guardian angel or anything like that. I was just present. In the energy. I suppose the cosmos or God or the soul’s unwavering will allows us to see the ones closest to us. The ones we love the most as they continue with their lives. For a little while, at least.
But I don’t need to get ahead of myself. First I have to tell you how I got there.
2.
T he one bullet that invaded my body pierced through my back, at the bottom left side of my rib cage. It didn’t stay long, exiting the front of my midsection almost as quickly as it had entered. Initially, there was a pulse of pressure followed by sharp pain. But the pain disappeared quickly. I had always heard of the human body protecting itself from physical torment through shock. That would be my first, and last, experience with it.
I knew it was bad. I knew there was flesh and bone and organs torn to shreds. But I tried to survive anyway.
I
rolled over onto my back and reached down to the fresh wound with my right hand. I could feel the damp flow of blood coming out of my body, soaking through my clothes rapidly. It was difficult to comprehend what was happening. Life had become fuzzy and surreal.
The kids were suddenly kneeling over me.
“Dad, are you hurt?” I heard Henry ask. All I could do was raise my blood-covered hand to show him.
“Oh, no,” Jessica said, covering her mouth. The next succession of bullets landed with muffled thuds in the dirt two feet beside her. I raised my head enough to see that the spotlight was slowly making its way to where I lay.
“Move me, guys...fast,” I muttered.
“Under his arms, Jess,” Henry instructed.
They took me by the armpits, each of them using the bend in an arm to hook me from behind. I could feel the sticky underbrush scraping my lower back and buttocks and legs as they dragged me. The forest was thick, but they managed to push through it swiftly. My kids, my heroes. I stopped them when I felt the euphoric death chemicals begin to rush into my brain.
I tried to convey to them as much love and direction as I could in the last moment of my life. But my thinking was cloudy. I felt like I was falling backwards through a long dark tunnel, the world getting further away with each labored breath.
“The...river,” I said. “Get to...to the river. It will...fork. Get...out...at the fork.” I couldn’t tell if the words were even audible. Or if anything I was saying made sense. But I was coherent enough to remember the river that ran along the prison’s opposite boundary. And to remember that it was the fastest way out of that mess, if they could get to it. It flowed south for two hundred miles until it opened into a massive lake. But before that, a tributary broke in, bending from the west. Following it would lead them back to the farm. I could barely recall its image on the map, but I knew it was there. “Follow...the...fork. Follow...it...home.”
Jessica’s cries were becoming sobs. Henry was trying his hardest to remain strong in the face of inevitability, but tears had begun to well up at the corners of his eyes. Then they became too full, and a drop fell and landed on my cheek.
For the minute or two that remained, everything around me became abundantly clear. It was still dark, but I could see my children’s faces with great detail. They seemed to become illuminated from within somehow. I loved them so much, and wanted desperately to stay with them. But I couldn’t stop what was happening.
I was able to speak one last time. I repeated something that I had said to them on the morning of their capture, before I watched from a fifth-story window as they were kidnapped into the grid. Something that held a whole new meaning as I died on that forest floor.
“I’ll be right above you, guys. Don’t forget that. Triumphs forever.”
◊◊◊
As everything faded into dark gray and then black, my singular focus became that buzzing fly. I could hear the individual flaps of its wings distinctly as it flew back and forth across my numbing face. And then I was gone.
3.
I was no longer mass or weight or volume. I wasn’t shape or size. I couldn’t touch or smell or taste.
I just was.
4.
J essica and Henry knelt over my lifeless body for a long time. They didn’t say anything. But they cried it all out.
Henry composed himself first. He turned his attention back toward the prison camp, where the battle was still being fought. The watchtower that had been focused on us had transitioned to closer targets along the fence line. He and Jessica were in the clear.
She interrupted his study of the situation behind them. “What do we do now?”
He dragged a sleeve across his face, wiping the residue of grief away. “We move,” he said. “We get to that river. And we get back to Mom.”
“I know that,” Jessica responded, “but what about Dad? We can’t just leave him here, in the middle of nowhere.”
Henry reached across my body and took her hand in his. “This isn’t Dad anymore, Jessica.” I wished I could tell him that he was right. “We leave this behind, just like he did. We have to.”
She gave him a quick nod and wiped her own face clean. She took his other hand and gave it a hard shake. “We have to,” she repeated.
He went to my backpack and unzipped the front pocket, where I kept the maps I had been carrying. I had picked up a new one since we had arrived at Camp Overlord: a prison guard’s map of the property and the area surrounding it. There had been a few copies in one of the training offices at the camp’s atrium, and I had sneaked one of them for myself, just in case.
“Here’s what we need,” Henry said when he found it. He spread it out on the forest floor and pulled out a flashlight to read it. He explained to Jessica what he was thinking as he studied it. “Based on the position of the storage garage here,” he pointed, “we should be in this general area of the woods.” He pointed again. “That leaves us a whole lot closer to the highway than if we went around the south end. I know that’s back-tracking, but it’s the easiest path.”
“Plus, most of the fighting is at the south wall,” Jessica said. “If we go to the highway, we can avoid the ANTs.”
“That’s assuming there aren’t more waiting. But it’s worth the risk. There’s only two of us. We should be able to stay hidden until we get to the river.”
“And what exactly do we do when we get there?” Jessica wondered.
Henry thought for a moment and shrugged his shoulders. Matter-of-factly, he told her, “We float.”
5.
I f you’ll allow, let me pause my story here. Because things are about to get strange, if they haven’t already.
I cannot completely describe to you what happened to me. Your mind wouldn’t comprehend it. Mine wouldn’t have either when I was alive. The great mystery we humans have forever tried to solve. I know at least part of the answer now, but you wouldn’t accept it if I told you.
So I’ll keep the earthly restrictions in place. It will be easier that way. Do this: imagine me as a spirit, able to transport myself anywhere in an instant, floating invisibly above the action.
That’ll help you understand how I got to see Meg again.
6.
T he kids gathered themselves and said their goodbyes to my remains. Jessica kissed my body’s forehead and whispered something that my mortal ears couldn’t hear anymore. Henry took a blanket from my backpack. He crossed my limp arms across my chest and covered me with it, face and all.
They set off north, on a direct line to the highway. The night hours were fading quickly, and they knew it. The more progress they could make under cover of darkness, the better.
As they trudged their way through the dense woods, I felt I could leave them for a while. Their trek to the highway would take some time. And there was someone else I had to see.
She was just as we had left her, in the farmhouse’s upstairs bedroom. She was lying on her side asleep. Her face was peaceful, but her cheeks and eyes were sunken. And her skin was an off-white pale, unnatural and translucent. But she was still my beautiful Meg, breathing and living and waiting.
I watched her for a long time, until she woke with a sudden jerk. She began coughing uncontrollably and writhing under the bed’s sheets. It lasted for minutes. When she finally conquered the fit, she rolled onto her back and stared up at the ceiling above her. Her glazed eyes seemed to look further, through the plaster and wood and shingles.
She was so tired and sick. I wanted to soothe her, to tell her that her extraordinary children had retrieved the medicine and were bringing it back to her. More than that, I wanted to hold her. One more time.
I soon needed to leave her, to go back to the kids. But before I left, she did something that made me think she may have felt my presence in the room with her. Just maybe. She smiled with solace and closed her eyes again, falling back asleep with ease.
7.
T he twins had almost reached the edge of the woods when I retur
ned to them. It was still dark, but wouldn’t be for much longer. They wouldn’t have enough time to reach the river before daybreak. And unfortunately, I didn’t know what, if anything, lurked down the highway toward it. I could only follow their path. I could only witness what was going to happen to them.
When they got to the tree-line, they stopped. They both pulled out binoculars and peered through them in the direction they planned to travel. But it was still black night.
“I can’t see a thing,” Jessica said in frustration.
“Me neither,” Henry replied. “But maybe that’s a good thing. It means we’ve still got some darkness to protect us. Let’s stay at the side of the road, in case we need to dart back into the woods.” He started out of the forest.
“Hang on, Henry. Before we do this, I need to know – how’s your leg?”
“Don’t worry about me, Jess. It’s never felt better.” And he was off, leaving her no choice but to follow him.
◊◊◊
They hadn’t made it far when the noise of a vehicle coming toward them became audible. There were no headlights, and the sound disappeared as abruptly as it had emerged. Jessica and Henry continued walking. Had I been able to hear it and not them? I felt helpless.
Then the noise was there again. And this time the kids caught it. They ran to the woods simultaneously, crouching just inside the leading edge of trees.
“Did you hear that?!?” Henry asked excitedly. The screeching sound of an off-road vehicle turning around and speeding away quickly was undeniable.