“Don’t. Please, you’ll put yourself and your children in danger.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I’m not leaving you here. Now, get in.”
Jesse took the gun off the front seat and stuck it in her belt. For a moment the woman in her arms looked frightened.
“It’s okay. It’s just for protection. My husband insisted. You sit here in the front seat. You’ll have to hold the baby, but I’ll drive as safely as I can.” She got them situated in the car, then ran around to the driver’s side. Closing the door, she looked in her side mirror and saw him, a man running at the car from the bushes.
“Oh, hell no!” she whispered under her breath. She reached for the door lock button, but he was already pulling her car door open. She pulled and struggled in the opposite direction. She was strong and had the urgency of helping her children pumping adrenaline into her veins. But he was stronger. She instantly reached for the gun, swiping the safety release in one movement. There was no hesitation as she held the pistol in her steady hand. As she placed the gun against the man’s chest, he took several steps back, arms raised. She heard the woman in the seat next to her breathing heavily and wondered if this man had anything to do with her.
“Just walk away, and I won’t shoot you.” Jesse’s voice sounded calmer than she felt.
She looked at the man’s face. A twisted, gnarled crust of skin covered him. She couldn’t tell his age. The tattoos on his upheld arms were wrinkled, distorting the pictures beyond recognition. She wondered why his face didn’t register fear. Amusement, defiance, challenge—all played through his bloodshot eyes, but not fear. For a second, she saw those eyes dart toward the back seat, taking in the fact that she had children back there. She couldn’t imagine what his intentions were but knew they couldn’t be anything good.
“Don’t do it,” she said.
But it was as if she had said the opposite. The man made a leap for the back door but never reached his destination. One shot cracked the violent air, piercing through the myriad sounds in the night. The bullet stopped his chest, the rest of his body folding in around it as he fell in a twisted heap in the middle of the street, leaking an oozing dark river of blood beneath him. Jesse didn’t wait to see if he was dead. She quickly shut her door and drove away as fast as the Jeep would go, dropping the gun on the floor beneath her feet. The woman in the seat next to her simply looked at her in awe.
“You did the right thing.”
“Who knows what’s right anymore? There’s only what’s necessary. Let’s just get the hell out of here.”
Her hands shook on the wheel as the adrenaline made its frantic trip through her veins, and she felt a film of sweat forming along her back and forehead.
Fifteen minutes later, as they drove toward the edge of town, Jesse finally spoke again. “So, what’s your name?”
“Aabirah.”
“I’m Jesse. What happened to you?”
“The drones shot up my neighborhood, so we had to run. I was separated from the rest of my family—parents, husband. I kept hearing shots behind me as I ran.”
“Because you’re Muslim?”
The woman looked at Jesse with suspicion.
“I don’t mean anything . . . I mean, it doesn’t matter to me. Really.”
“I suppose it was something like that. I took the hijab from my head so I could try to blend in.”
“If you reach in the glove box there should be some bandages for your head. You should try to stop that bleeding.”
Aabirah tried as best she could to cover the cut on her head with a bandage in one hand, holding her baby in her other arm.
“Now, what’s this?” Jesse’s voice sounded tense as she slowed the car, reaching for her gun to place it in her lap. There was a roadblock ahead. They wouldn’t be able to get to the highway this way. Pulling to a stop, she looked at the people in her car who were counting on her. There was no way she was going to try to get past the soldiers on the road ahead.
“Okay, Aabirah, here’s where you make your choice. We’re heading out of town, and I don’t know when we’ll be able to get back. Do you want me to drop you off somewhere, or do you want to come with us? It’s up to you. You’re welcome to come with us.”
“There’s nowhere else for me to go. I can try to contact my family later, once we’re safe.”
“Right, then you’re with us. And it looks like we’re going off-roading, kids. So hang on.”
Jesse thought about where the next interstate on-ramp was. There was a patch of woods along the frontage road between where they were and where they needed to be. She just hoped the underbrush and the trees weren’t too thick for them to get through, but they had to try.
It was well past one o’clock in the morning before the little group finally arrived at the cabin. Once they’d managed to reach the interstate, traffic was at a slow crawl. Most of the gas was spent barely moving down the highway, so they had to abandon the Jeep about a quarter of a mile from the cabin when the gas tank was empty. Jesse and Aabirah carried the children and their bags the rest of the way to the cabin. Jesse noticed moving flashlights every now and then from deeper in the woods. But she chose to believe it was other people like them just escaping to their cabins, trying to avoid the violence in the cities.
Flipping on the lights, Jesse was shocked to see how much her husband and his best friend Charlie had managed to bring up here without her knowledge. The cabinets, refrigerator, and freezer were all fully stocked, and the hall closet contained more food in addition to sanitary and hygienic supplies. There was a large wooden box near the back door that contained about ten different kinds of guns, from pistols to rifles. Looking through the glass doors to the back of the cabin, she turned on the light on the back patio and saw, to her astonishment, a garden in full bloom with vegetables, beans, corn, melons, and more.
She wondered what had prompted them to start preparing like this so many months ago. What did they talk about in their meetings with “the Watch” and what did they know that she didn’t know? The preparation disheartened rather than comforted her.
Aabirah’s baby started to cry. The children had all slept through the long car ride. Jesse had placed Max and Jill in their bed in the back bedroom. Aabirah sat down with the baby, trying to comfort him. “I think I might have left his bottle back at the car.”
“I’ll go get it,” Jesse offered.
“It’s too far. I can’t let you walk all that way alone.”
“Maybe you’re right. I’ll lock the door here since the kids are just sleeping. And you and I can walk back together. Let me just grab the pistol and a flashlight.”
The two women hadn’t talked much in their few hours together. They each knew the other was worried about her own family. What else could be said that would be useful? Empty speculation about what would happen in the coming days? A useless occupation that wouldn’t make their current situation any better. So they walked on in silence, sharing the moment and their thoughts without the exchange of words.
The light from Jesse’s flashlight bounced along the ground as they walked down the long drive toward the Jeep, making the darkness of the woods feel like it was trying to crowd them out. Jesse listened in wonder to all of the distant night sounds—crickets, birds, animals. She had never felt fully comfortable among American wildlife. There was something that seemed foreign and exotic to her. And now there was an added danger of not knowing if there were people intent on harming her and her children hiding among the shadows.
She didn’t remember the car being this far away from the cabin. It should be coming up soon. Jesse held her flashlight up and swung around in a wide arc, looking all around them. She saw a reflection off something shiny in the distance. “That must be it,” she said out loud, her voice sounding empty in the thick night. But the reflection moved and came closer. Aabirah was just ahead of her on the path, holding her baby close to her, the movement of walking having put him back to sleep.
“Aabirah, I do
n’t know what that is, but I don’t think it’s the car. Does it look like it’s moving to you?”
“Yes, it does.”
“Let’s head back to the house. I’m sure we can find something for the baby in there.”
“Alright.”
Jesse sent Aabirah on ahead of her toward the cabin and kept her eye on the shiny movement behind them. Suddenly, she heard it, a soft whirring. The shiny thing was coming closer.
“A drone! Aabirah, run! Get to the cabin!” Jesse didn’t care who heard her anymore.
They ran as swiftly as possible over the gravel drive, thankful they weren’t among the trees and underbrush. But stepping wrong on a rock, Jesse’s ankle turned, and she’d fallen to the ground before the gunshot pierced her ears. One. Two. Three shots.
“My God, the baby,” she whispered to the rocks in her face on the ground. She got up quickly, wincing at the pain shooting up from cuts on her leg, and ran to Aabirah. She had dropped her flashlight somewhere but could see a little in the gray light of predawn.
“Aabirah! Aabirah, where are you?”
She nearly tripped again, this time over the drone in pieces on the ground. Someone had shot it down. But Jesse heard no one else about.
“Aabirah!” She strained to listen for any movement or sound. A groan came from a few feet away.
Aabirah was on the ground, still clutching the baby to her.
“Aabirah, are you alright? Were you hit?” Jesse gently lifted the mother and child into her arms. She felt the hot, sticky blood on Aabirah’s back. “What have they done to you?” The tears ached in the back of her throat. She looked at the baby and listened for breath but could only hear her own and Aabirah’s ragged breathing. There was a dark hole in the blanket around the child that wasn’t there before. Jesse knew what she didn’t want to know, that the baby was dead, and the mother would soon join him.
“Is he . . . is he alright? The baby. You must take . . . my baby.” Aabirah struggled to get the words out.
“Shhh . . . of course. He’s alright. I’m going to get you both up to the house. You’re going to be fine,” Jesse lied. “Don’t you worry.”
“Thank you . . . so kind . . .”
“Don’t talk. It’s going to be okay. I’ve got you.”
One. Two. Three breaths. Aabirah was gone.
Jesse sat there holding the mother and child until her legs ached beneath her, her sobs muffled against their still forms, tears and blood mingling in a hot paste on her face.
Zack walked heavily into the cabin. The day had robbed him of his home and his best friend. He was relieved to see Jesse at the kitchen table. Her head was down, and all the lights were on. He had seen the Jeep at the end of the drive and was happy to know she and the kids would be sleeping in the cabin, waiting for him. But Jesse wasn’t sleeping. Her shoulders were shaking. She was crying.
“Jess, honey. Are you alright?”
Jesse jumped when she heard his voice. She stood up fast enough to knock her chair over, pulling the pistol from her lap and aiming it at him.
“Whoa, Jess, sweetie, it’s me, Zack.”
She seemed to look straight through him, not recognizing him. She was covered in blood on her clothes and face. Her hands shook violently as she tried to hold up the gun.
“Jess. Jesse, baby, it’s me. It’s okay. It’s just me. I’m not going to hurt you.” He spoke slowly and quietly as he started to inch his way toward her. He reached his hand out as he moved one step closer after another. When he stood close enough to his wife to smell the smoke, woods, and blood on her, he reached one arm around her shoulders and took the gun from her with his other hand. Jesse collapsed in sobs in his arms. They stood for several minutes, frozen in fear and anguish.
“It’s okay, baby. Tell me what happened. Where are the kids? Are the kids okay?”
In those moments, Zack had played out every awful scenario he could think of for an explanation of the blood on his wife’s clothes. He hated himself for letting her come out here on her own. He should have listened to her and come with them. For all his talking of fighting the enemy and standing up for what was right, he hadn’t protected them.
As Jesse started to catch her breath again, she sat down and looked up at Zack, seeing him for the first time.
“Yes, the kids are fine. They’re asleep,” she whispered.
“What happened, sweetie?”
“There was a woman and a baby when I was driving out of the city. The woman was hurt, so I brought them with me.”
“Where are they?”
“We went back out to the car to get the bottle for her baby, and a drone . . . a drone . . . shot them. I didn’t even know her baby’s name. Zack, how the hell have we come to this place when machines are shooting unarmed people and children?”
“Oh, my poor darling.”
“What’s going on, Zack? Why are the drones after us? Tell me . . . just please tell me you’re not a terrorist, you and the Watch.”
“God, no! Jess, you know me better than that.”
“I thought I did. But I don’t know anything anymore. Nothing makes sense. And then I come here, and you’ve got all these guns.”
He sat down next to her and looked her directly in the eyes, puffy and red from hours of crying. “Know this . . . I love you. I haven’t blown up any churches, and I haven’t killed anyone.”
Jesse looked down and whispered almost inaudibly, “I have.”
“What?”
“I killed someone!” Her tears ran hot again. Her mouth was dry. She was dehydrated.
“Tell me everything that happened.”
“This man came at the car when I stopped to pick up the woman and her child. He was going to hurt the kids. I tried to just warn him with the gun, but he . . . I don’t know . . . he had this crazed look in his eye. I didn’t have a bloody choice. So I shot him. Now you tell me everything. Why are the drones after us?”
“I’m not sure I can tell you.”
Zack saw a look on his wife’s face he’d never seen before. Somewhere, it registered in him that it was because she was feeling things she’d never felt before. Neither of them knew how to navigate this new territory they had been thrust into.
She spoke firmly, but slowly. “I just ran out into the night with my children like some kind of fugitive. I’ve been attacked, shot at, killed a man, and had a woman die in my arms. So I’d say I bloody well deserve to know what’s going on. Tell me.”
“I think they must know I’m in the Watch. We’ve been planning and carrying out a series of focused and necessary attacks against the military. And before you say anything, no, we’re not terrorists. We never target civilians. But the minute they declared martial law, they declared war on the American people.”
“You’re talking about treason, Zack! About another goddamned civil war. Do you know how crazy this sounds?”
“Shhh . . . you’ll wake the kids.”
“Did you think about the kids when you made this decision without me? Since when do we do things without discussing them with each other?”
“I know. But I couldn’t. And I don’t believe it’s right to just do nothing while they take away one freedom after another. This country was built on the principles of freedom and justice . . .”
“Now is not the time to preach at me about freedom and justice.”
“I mean it. We can’t abandon those. But it wasn’t supposed to be an all-out war. That’s not what we wanted. But I have to tell you, Jess, the church bombings weren’t terrorists. They were staged by the government to look like terrorists so they could have cause to declare martial law.”
“You’re sounding crazy like a conspiracy theorist, Zack.”
“You were shot at by drones tonight. That’s not a theory. That’s fact. They’re coming for us.”
Jesse paused, trying to take in everything he was saying. She went to the sink in the kitchen and washed her face and hands without speaking.
“What are you thin
king right now, Jess?” Zack finally asked.
“I don’t see how we can win if they’ve been planning this for as long as they would have had to in order to stage everything. I mean, they have bombs, drones, and soldiers. Hell, with the storms being what they are, it may not even be an option. It may all just be inevitable.”
“So you think we shouldn’t fight? Just hunker down and wait for it to be over?”
“No, that’s not what I’m saying. Sometimes even when things are inevitable, you have to fight so you can still call yourself human.”
Jesse heard her children from the back of the cabin quietly singing their song to themselves. She looked to the window. The curtain edges glowed with the light of dawn in a frame around it. The sun would continue to rise and set again. The foreign-sounding American birds would announce the different times of day. The cabin would become more familiar, become home. And in the end, what else could be done except what had to be done? When there was only one path before you, you either took your first steps or stood still, and she had never been one for standing still.
15
SET APART
“T he short version of the story is that we fought together through some of the First Revolution. She was at my side as often as she could be.”
Zacharias paused in his story. He was looking at the cracks in the wooden slats of the shed. Then he noticed the cracks in his wrinkled skin. Old skin. Older than he ever thought he’d be. He’d survived half a lifetime without her, and it was killing him. The air started to feel cramped and suffocating, heavy with a coming thunderstorm. He could see lightning far in the distance over the mountains.
A Light From the Ashes Page 28