Black Parade

by Jacqueline Druga

  First light.

  Have your belongings ready, but please do not take too much.

  Out of three hundred and sixty three, forty-seven opted to stay behind.

  My father, myself, and Bentley were three of those forty-seven.

  I reasoned that if the United States was getting on its feet, it would still be on its feet when I felt the time was right to join.

  Boy did I hear a lot of flack that night.

  People said I was copping out of the work. That I just wanted to wait until everyone else did everything and then I’d join.

  They said this to me? Me? I brought them there. I built the electricity; I did a lot of things to keep the community running. I was afraid of work?

  Yeah, right.

  The forty-seven of us met up rather late that night.

  A few of us had weird vibes, but most just didn’t want to be a part of it.

  We’d bid our friends farewell in the morning and wish them luck.

  “Daniel, wake up,” my father’s voice called to me.

  I opened my eyes and it was still dark. In fact, my father didn’t have a light on at all.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  “Daniel, I have a bad feeling. A very bad feeling. We should go. Go now.”

  I sat up in bed, swinging my legs over the side. “It’s three in the morning.”

  “The escort will arrive in two hours, Daniel. I do not feel it is wise to be here. Call it a gut instinct or paranoia. I would like to go.”

  “Father, go where?”

  “To the mountains. Pack what we need. I have been thinking Daniel. Why if they are escorting do they need all of those military men?”

  “It’s pretty bad out there.”

  “It is bad here.” He pointed to his gut.

  My eyes adjusted and I looked at my father. He was wearing a spring coat and had a small black bag packed.

  He said, “We can come back for things if we need to. If it is safe.”

  “Safe?” Another moment of thought passed. If my father was worried, I had to put stock in that. I nodded and asked him to let me get dressed. I only packed a few things. A weapon, the tracker, water and food.

  I figured I’d take my father up to the mountains, wait it out and allow him to see it was fine, and then return.

  I wondered if he was experiencing some sort of later life neuroticism, because he acted paranoid.

  Before we left he looked outside. He asked for the tracker, put it on silence and checked the reading. We walked close to the house and then around it, sneaking next door to Bentley to wake him.

  Bentley was more open to my father’s concern. After jumping up and getting ready, he made us crouch down and go off behind the backs of the houses.

  It felt like we were on a secret mission.

  We followed a secret path that no one took or even knew about it. That was the route we took to the mountains where Bentley and I had been hunting rabbits the day before.

  We edged our way to a clearing while being careful to stay out of sight.

  The line of armed soldiers were still the same. Still standing in the same place and position, as if they hadn’t moved at all.

  A few flickers of light were seen from the highway below.

  As the break of dawn approached, we watched fifteen buses roll past the military line, then the soldiers followed suit with two trucks.

  “Why do they need all that?” My father asked. “Why do they need hundreds of armed men going into the town to fill the buses?”

  Bentley whispered. “Something’s up.”

  My father nodded. “Yes, something is up.”

  I peered at them both with a quirky look. Again, I thought they were making too much of it. I was tired. I just wanted to go back to bed.

  An hour later the fifteen buses rolled out of town. Soldiers marched behind them as they had going in. The buses kept going and the soldiers kept walking, despite the fact that the buses left them in the dust.

  “There, see?” I said. “We worried about nothing.”

  “There are some missing,” My father said. “There are not as many returning. Where are the rest of the trucks?”

  No sooner had he said that, gunfire erupted in the distance from below us.

  Our town.

  Massive amounts of gunfire. Rapid, machine gun like.

  My head jerked at the sound, my body jumped up and I spun.

  “Daniel!” My father called. “Do not go.”

  “I have to, Father. Stay here.” I instructed. “Stay put.”

  I started running toward the path. Bentley followed me.

  I thought my father would stay behind. In fact, I was positive of it. He did, for a spell.

  He later told me he stayed until he saw the two trucks carrying the soldiers roll from town. That was after the gunfire had stopped.

  We arrived in town after the trucks left.

  From our mountain path, we emerged to a massacre.

  I didn’t shout, I couldn’t. No words would have emerged even if I had tried.

  Both Bentley and I were running. We ran straight into the center of town, our footsteps the only sounds we heard.

  The main entrance guard was lying dead. A tracker was still in his hand. He hadn’t even a raised his gun.

  I looked at the tracker but it was blank. It was turned on and working, but blank. I pulled up the history. How many stormed the town? How many had rolled in?

  The history showed nothing.

  The tracker didn’t pick them up.

  Of all the times for it to fail.

  I tossed the tracker and looked around.

  Our home. Our community that we had built.

  Bodies were strewn across the street. They were bullet ridden and shredded. A bloody mess. The bodies of those who were saying goodbye to their comrades. Those who didn’t want to leave and chose to stay behind.

  They thought they had a choice. I suppose they did. Go or die.

  Two houses burned in the distance.

  One was Bentley’s.

  I cried as I stared at the scene. It was too overwhelming for me to fully comprehend.

  But one thing I did understand. My father’s gut instinct was right. Had we stayed we would have been killed.

  “We can not stay long,” My father’s soft voice carried across the street.

  Bentley had dropped to his knees, rifle in hand.

  I shuddered a breath. “Look what they’ve done.”

  My father nodded. “And they will be back. They know how many they killed and how many were supposed to go. They will be back. We must move on. Forward. A different location. Different direction from this New Mexico place they were taking them.”

  “Why is not important right now, Daniel? We can discuss that later. But right now, we must go.” He turned. “I want to go to the house. There is a photo of your mother I left there.”

  I walked over to Bentley and placed a firm hand on his shoulder. “We have to go.”

  “We should bury them.”

  “We can’t. We have to go.” Sliding my hand from him, I walked in the direction of my house.

  When I arrived, my father was packing another bag. He told me to do the same.

  There was so much I wanted to take, but only so much I could fit in a duffel bag.

  “We will take Dustin’s red cart,” my father said. “We can pull it with our things.”

  I nodded.

  Bentley arrived in a few minutes. He didn’t have anything to take and he stood in the doorway of my room with my father.

  “I’m ready,” Bentley said. “Your dad is, too.”

  “I’ll be done in a second.” I placed the last item in my bag.

  “Any idea on where we’ll go?” Bentley asked. “We need a direction, to aim for something. Any ideas, Dan?”

  The moment he said that was the moment I saw it. Perched on my nightstand as it always did. The one foot by one foot black cardboard box. The joke. The joke that
would become our new focus. I lifted it. “Yeah, I do. It’s the only place to aim for.” I tossed him the box. “Utopia.”

  7.

  My Father

  It’s about heroes.

  That was what I set out to write this book about. Those who went above and beyond without regard for their own life, just the good of others.

  Saving someone comes in many forms, so therefore there are many ways to be a hero.

  I have known men in my life who cured illnesses. Who took that extra step, went to the edge medically. I’ve known people who were heroes because they save others in a psychological way.

  Then there were the obvious heroes. Those who physically beat the odds.

  There is no man in this world or beyond, who was a bigger hero in my eyes than my father.

  So that is why he gets his own chapter.

  Such a minor tribute to a man who deserved so much more.

  I recall telling my father about him being my hero, even giving him that line. No one was more a hero to me.

  He chuckled. “Daniel, on earth and beyond? What about Jesus? Surely, he is more heroic than me.”

  “Um, Jesus was a cool, guy, I guess. I didn’t know him,” I replied. “But, you know, I don’t think Jesus would have kicked ass like you did during the plague.”

  At the time the plague hit, seventy-one years old was not old by any standards. Medicine had progressed and illnesses were controlled. A man who took care of himself and was healthy could kick it with the best of them.

  My father was seventy-one when the plague hit.

  He was a tower of strength and persevered.

  When Gray’s Mountain was hit, he was pushing seventy-seven.

  Not a spring chicken, still fit, but tired. He wore out easily and the jaunt across the country on foot was a lot for him. But he never complained, never asked us to stop. He trudged on.

  He was funny.

  We had taken a boy’s little red wagon with us and filled it with supplies.

  He loved pulling that wagon.

  Especially when I rigged it up. Not two weeks into our journey for Utopia, I redid the wheels, attached a small solar panel to it and it took very little effort to pull it. The wheels carried the weight.

  We were quite the trio. Especially visually. Tall, thin, me. My father, short and wiry, and Bentley, average height but bulky.

  We walked the roads or stayed near to them. We had to. If we didn’t we wouldn’t have known where we were. We had to stay close to signs.

  But the problem was increasingly, no matter where we went, we ran into those soldiers. They were usually in packs of ten, just like the wild Indian types.

  Soldiers or warriors, we ran from them constantly.

  It was too tiresome to keep fighting.

  Four months after our Gray Mountain departure, we found a horse. Actually we saw lots of them, but this one was different. It wasn’t too wild and was easily broken. It became our means of transportation, pulling us in an old fashioned Amish style cart.

  We crossed the border from California into Nevada. We followed the direction that the last group of survivors we happened across said they heard about Utopia.

  All of us knew Utopia was more than likely a myth, but we didn’t care. It was a goal.

  We stopped for the night at some house. It was run down, but it was also shelter. We cleaned it up a little, clearing the dust.

  My father had found a board game. Actually it was an older home version of the game show Family Feud. He was ecstatic because it wasn’t electronic.

  We played. Although it was difficult to play traditionally with only three people, we did. My father had to be the host. I think it was mostly because he enjoyed the questions.

  “They surveyed a hundred people, Daniel. Seventy percent said they put their dirty clothes in a hamper. Do you really believe seventy percent of all people own a hamper?”

  “Father, it’s a game,” I replied.

  Bentley added. “I never had a hamper. I put mine in a pile on the floor.”

  My father nodded. “And you never had a hamper, Daniel. You had a laundry basket. You filled it with dirty clothes; you laundered them, folded them, put them back into the basket, emptied it and started again.”

  I lifted a hand. “Why is this important?”

  “Because it is misleading,” my father said. “The question is - Name a place you put your dirty clothes.”

  “How is that misleading?”

  “Bentley did not get the top answer right away because he did not have a hamper. He answered by his own experience. I think most people do not have a hamper.”

  “You aren’t supposed to answer by your experience, you're supposed to answer according to what you think the people said,” I stated. “Bentley answered wrong because he wasn’t thinking.”

  My father gasped. “Daniel.” There it was, he scolded, like he did on every question he read and argued with. Then he moved to the next one. “Oh, now this looks difficult. Name something you would get your father for Father’s Day.”

  I rang my bell.

  “Daniel,” He pointed.

  “A tie.” I answered.

  My father paused.

  “What? Was it wrong?” I asked.

  “No it is the number one answer.”

  I grinned. “Yes. So … what’s the matter?”

  My father shook his head. “I am trying to figure out how you got the number one answer. You never bought me a tie. I don’t think most people bought their fathers ties. Do you Bentley?”

  My father was impossible, but amusing in his own way. My God, I think we played that game for hours that night.

  It was fun, we were relaxed. When the game ended my father announced he was going to bed. He was smiling as he stood, placing his hand on my head, then kissing me on my forehead. “Goodnight Daniel, sleep well.”

  “You too, father.”

  “Night Mr. H,” Bentley said.

  “Night, Bentley,” my father exited the room. I was surprised he stayed up as long as he did. Usually he went to bed before Bentley and me and was up before us as well.

  Up way before us, making coffee or something. Then he’d wake us as if we had been sleeping for all eternity.

  That was my first clue something was amiss.

  I woke up before my father that next day. I had an unsettling feeling when I went to check on him and knew immediately when I saw him why he was still in bed.

  He had passed away.

  Lying on his side, hand tucked beneath the pillow under his head, he had passed away in his sleep.

  It hurt enormously at that moment of revelation that my father was gone. But the look on his face made it easier for me. My father had the most peaceful look, almost a smile.

  He had lived a full life, struggled at the end with the rest of the world and was in a better place. He was with my mother, brother and family.

  I would miss him more than anything, but I vowed as I spent my last moments with him that he would be my example. I would strive for the goodness he embodied. And like he did when he was alive, he would lead us in our journey to Utopia.

  His strength, presence, and force would guide us.

  8.

  The Search

  When I discovered the confirmation in one of those things, it wasn’t the first time I had opened one up.

  And it wasn’t the first time my fingers had dug into their brains.

  Shortly after my father’s passing, I knew something was amiss with the soldiers. It wasn’t my tracking. It couldn’t have been that far off. The tracker would show four when ten soldiers were approaching. One time it showed two and over twenty of them showed up.

  Something about the drone-like zombie type soldiers was interfering with the electronics of my tracker. They were either wearing something magnetic or carrying something.

  The only way to be sure was to find out.

  We caught one, shot out his kneecaps and tied him up. He wouldn’t register at all,
even holding the tracker right next to him.

  Bentley and I undressed him. Nothing.

  It had to be inside.

  A pace maker maybe?

  An autopsy revealed nothing. It wasn't like we knew what we were looking for, but we couldn’t find anything out of the ordinary.

  That was when my history as a keen Planet of the Apes fan set in. I saw it. The small circle scar located above the left temple. Maybe they were just lobotomized. But in any event something about them was clashing with our first line of protection.

  We took the skull off incorrectly and couldn’t find anything. I wasn’t convinced it wasn’t the brain.

  About the third time, we drilled a hole in the back of the head and just dug in with our fingers, feeling around.

  We found it.

  The tiniest microchip you could imagine. I wished I had a computer to break it down. But having that chip was worth more than anything. I was able to use that one to reprogram my tracking device.

  It worked.

  Black dots were soldiers without the chips. Red dots were the ones with the chip.

  It was the tracker that gave us safe passage through Las Vegas along with refuge and rest with survivors at a hotel.

  We had saved them. They were grateful.

  It was there we met two men who gave us the biggest lead yet about Utopia.

  Montana.

  Although no one was even sure what state was which anymore, they were almost positive it was Montana. Eastern Montana, near the Dakotas. They came from that direction.

  Mountains surrounded it. It was buried.

  They didn’t say much about being in there; they never made it too far in, getting kicked out during the processing phase.

  Every survivor who was there claimed stupidity. They screwed up.

  Trust me, Bentley and I were learning from their mistakes.

  Why were they kicked out?

  Fighting. Being obstinate. Negative things.

  Bentley and I would be positive and look good too when we found it. My Utopia Box stopped being a joke. So much so, Bentley made one for himself.

  We traveled for months, seven more months to be exact. Buster, our horse was shot somewhere around Wyoming. But we made it into Montana.

  I felt it. I really felt we were close.

  We had raided a military base and picked up some good maps. East Montana. Mountains. I searched for the area that could hide a community and there was only one county there that fit the bill.