The Patriot Protocol

by C. G. Cooper

  “I’m happy Mommy’s okay,” he said, adding a short nod as an exclamation point.

  “Sybil, how about you?”

  My daughter slid her hand in between mine and Jane’s and said quietly, “I’m glad we’re all together.”

  We were all quiet for a moment. Well, all except Charlie who was singing some undecipherable song under his breath, waving the bouquet in circles.

  “Honey, how about you?” I asked Jane.

  She smiled at all of us, the tight skin pulling around the bruises on her lovely face. I winced inwardly.

  “I agree with Sybil. I’m glad we’re all together on this beautiful day.”

  With that she stood up suddenly, pulling Sybil and Andrew with her, and twirled them around. The children laughed, and Charlie hopped up to join the fun.

  I could’ve watched them for ages, the light in their eyes, the silly giggles and bodies so full of untainted life. But then Jane stopped and looked at me.

  “What about you, Daddy? What are you thankful for?”

  I took my time. I always did. I did it on purpose, just to get a rise out of the kids. Andrew groaned first and then Sybil rolled her eyes. “Come on, Daddy,” Sybil said.

  “Yeah, Dad, it’s not a test,” Andrew said.

  “Yeah, test,” Charlie parroted.

  I eased myself to my feet, and I gave them a scholarly nod, like the answer had finally arrived.

  “I am thankful for…,” I spread my arms, like I was going to give them a huge bear hug, and then said, “bacon.”

  Charlie giggled first, joined by the older two. Then they ran to me, wrapping me in their tiny arms and trying to tackle me to the ground. I let them have their way, and I landed with a soft thud, all three collapsing with me. Jane watched it all with a tender smile, like she knew the happiness wouldn’t last. I tried to ignore the rare pessimism in her look, and nuzzled my stubbly face in Andrew’s neck.

  +++

  One week bled into two, then three and things felt like they were getting back to normal. Normal. What was that really? A magical place or thing that we concoct in our heads to tell ourselves that everything’s okay? When are things really okay? Sure there were spots of joy and times when we could forget and ignore what the world now was.

  That’s what we tried to do. Jane did it best, and every day, as her wounds slowly disappeared, she came up with new adventures for the kids. Even I got swept up in the fun from time to time. It was hard not to when Jane was in charge. She had the infectious spirit of a soul made to celebrate living.

  I spent the morning making more ammunition and working on our stockpile. It would be impossible to carry it all, so I made little trips to find hiding spots, and then I buried some next to a drooping willow tree or under a massive magnolia in full bloom. On my much-used map, I marked every spot after tattooing it in my brain.

  Trouble let us be, and it really felt like life was giving us a fair hand.

  Jane and I talked about my encounter with The General one night. She asked me questions, and I answered every one. I told her the truth, about what I’d planned to do to her attackers. She never berated me, just listened.

  She did have a lot of questions about the tech I’d seen, about the transport and about The General. Jane was probing me, like she’d seen me gazing at my old life with longing.

  “I don’t ever want to go back to that,” I said.

  She nodded and didn’t press. We both knew where my allegiance lay, and only a catastrophe would see me swayed from my chosen path.

  +++

  The catastrophe came soon afterward. It was morning, and Jane was doing her best to rustle the kids from sleep. Andrew popped up like he always did, but Sybil and Charlie moaned from their sides of the bed. As soon as I touched Sybil’s scorching forehead with my hand, she turned her head and threw up. As if on cue, Charlie moaned and did the same. The next hour was spent fetching fresh washcloths to dab on the kids’ foreheads and cleaning up vomit.

  When the spewing subsided, I finally had a chance to ask Jane, “What do you think?”

  She had her nurse’s face on when she said, “It could be the flu or maybe just a bug.”

  Jane was always cautious with her diagnoses. I was the one that liked to jump to the worst-case scenario.

  “How can we be sure?” I asked.

  “Time. We’ve just gotta give it some time.”

  Hours passed and there was still no improvement. Night fell, and Charlie was the first to become lethargic, resting completely limp in my arms. My heart raced as I looked down at him. If I told you our options were limited, I’d have been over-exaggerating. We had no clinics, no hospitals. The best we could do was provide the mild pain meds and sedatives Pete sold for exorbitant prices. They looked like something a medicine man had made, some the size of my thumbs and bristling with herbs and who-knew-what-else.

  “We need to do something,” I said.

  Jane nodded absently, stroking Sybil’s sweat-matted hair. Her calm had turned to alarm, and that put me on the precipice of panic.

  “Jane, what should we do?”

  “I don’t know. I was hoping that their fevers would break, but…”

  She let out a little sob then caught it glancing over at Andrew. He was sitting in the corner whittling a strip of cedar I’d found in the woods. Luckily, he hadn’t heard. He’d become accustomed to our private chats. I wondered when that would change.

  “Honey, tell me what I need to do.”

  Jane shook her head, thinking.

  “We need to get them to a hospital,” she said.

  There were no hospitals. I tried to think of something, any alternative. Goddammit!

  “Let me talk to Pete. Maybe he’ll have an idea.”

  Jane nodded, and I moved Charlie over so she could hold his head on her lap.

  I found Pete where he always seemed to be, behind his wares, waiting for customers.

  “How are the kids?” he asked. He was gnawing on something that looked like a piece of beef jerky. There were rumors that Pete had a secret horse farm where he sourced a lot of his meat. I never asked. Frankly, I didn’t care what animal my family’s food came from.

  “Not good. I came to ask if you’ve heard of any clinics or maybe hospitals that The Zone runs.”

  “The only hospital I know of is up near the airport.” I groaned inside. “You know, they’re recruiting.”

  “Yeah, I’ve seen the flyers.”

  “Why don’t you give it a shot? Hell, I think one of their convoys might be coming through to pick up recruits and their families tonight. Maybe you can pretend you’re joining and pay them off or something.”

  “You think that’ll work?”

  He shrugged as if to say, “It’s worth a try.”

  “What time do they come?”

  Pete glanced at his watch and said, “In just over an hour.”

  I’d never seen the convoys come into town. “Do they come here?”

  “No. They stop on the side of the highway, over by where the old McEwen Drive exit used to be.”

  That was miles away. There was no way I could get myself, let alone my wife and sick kids, to the pickup point. As if reading my mind, Pete said, “I’ve got a truck.”

  Pete was full of secrets. I never knew he had a vehicle. Hell, they were so scarce that every time you saw one it was like seeing a unicorn.

  “Can you give us a lift?”

  “For all the ammo you left me,” Pete snorted. “I’ll take you for free.”

  Five minutes later, Jane and I had the kids downstairs. Ten minutes later, Pete pulled up in a truck that looked like it’d been put together with glue and parts from a hundred different trucks. It was roughly rectangular, and had four different-sized tires, but at least the engine sounded clear and throaty. I piled my family into the roomy truck bed, and we roared off down the crumbling road.

  Chapter 6

  It felt like the longest ride of my life. We rambled over hills and cut corn
ers. One time I had to grab Andrew’s arm before he flew out of the truck bed. From then on he clung onto me as I held him and Charlie close.

  The seconds ticked by in my head, the deadline real. Would the convoy still be there? Were they even sending one tonight? Pete seemed to be sure, and that was the only thing I could put my faith in. He’d treated me decently up until this point, but things could always change. Relationships were never static, especially in the surreal reality we’d been thrown into.

  As we came over a ridge, I saw lights in the distance, the first I’d seen since leaving downtown Franklin. They were faint, but seemed to be moving in our general direction.

  “That’s them,” Pete yelled back through the cracked rear window.

  I allowed myself a minuscule breath of relief, but then it flew from me as I felt Charlie’s head for what seemed like the hundredth time. His breathing was shallow, ragged even.

  “We’ll make it, I promise,” I whispered to my unconscious son.

  I hadn’t been to the interstate in close to a year, and I was surprised to see that some work had been done, the debris I’d last seen scattered was now cleared to one side. There was still only one lane in working condition, and my heart leapt when I saw headlights under the overpass.

  “You’ll have to walk the rest of the way,” Pete said, after he’d parked the truck next to the rusting hulk of a long dead semi.

  We didn’t waste any time. I handed Charlie to Jane and I scooped up Sybil. She felt lighter somehow, like her life force was being drained. Stomach in my throat, I ordered Andrew to follow us as we picked our way along the on ramp.

  When we reached the point where we could see the convoy, there was a gaggle of maybe a hundred people gathered facing a wall of armed soldiers clothed in black. A line had formed and individuals, some with families and some without, took their turns stepping up to a folding table and talking to a skinny man who shined a flashlight in each potential draftee’s face.

  “What’s your name, girl?” I heard him harshly ask a child of no more than four years. She hid behind her father, or rather, I assumed he was her father. You never knew anymore. In our new reality, people just died, leaving entire families without one or both parents.

  I ignored the line and headed straight to the first soldier.

  “Please, I need help. My kids are really sick,” I said. I wasn’t a beggar, had never begged in my life. The desperation must have been plain in my voice, but the man with the scoped rifle automatically eyed me with open suspicion.

  “Get in line,” he said coldly.

  “Please,” I whispered, “I have ammunition.” I patted the bag at my side. It was chock-full of all the ammo I could fit, sealed in jingle-proof padding.

  “Get in line,” he repeated, now looking away.

  I moved down four more and tried again. This one didn’t care either. I was starting to get desperate.

  “Let’s get in line,” Jane said after the second rebuke.

  “Okay,” I said, breathless.

  It felt like hours before we got to the front of the line, and when the skinny man, the only one not in uniform, looked up, it was in disgust.

  “How many?” he asked.

  “Five,” I said quickly.

  “And you understand the commitment?” He was shuffling papers, actual papers.

  “Listen, my kids are sick. I was hoping we could go up to Headquarters with you, maybe pay for treatment.”

  “That’s not how it works, sir,” he said in a simpering tone. He had said “sir” the way someone does when they’re being insincere. “The minimum commitment is five years; after that you decide whether to remain or leave.”

  I didn’t want to enlist; I’d already done my time. I’d left Jane time after time. I’d served my country and look where that had gotten both me and my country. Then a name came to me like a bolt of lightning.

  “The General told me to come.”

  The skinny man twitched and looked over at the closest guard. Then he recovered and looked up at me.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.

  “I told you: The General told me to come.” I said it in a voice that promised pain, or at least the wrath of The General if he didn’t comply.

  “You’ll still have to sign the papers,” the man said.

  Now I took a chance. “The General said not to sign anything. His words, not mine.”

  The skinny clerk looked like I was ruining his whole career, but he grudgingly waved me and my family to one of the armored troop transports. As we made our way to the back hatch, I noticed a medic’s bag at the foot of one of the soldiers.

  “Do you have any meds in there?”

  I didn’t know it was a woman until she spoke. “For troop use only.” She didn’t say it unkindly, just officially.

  “Please, my kids are sick. Is there anything you can give them…”?

  “For a fever,” Jane cut in. “And maybe some fluids.”

  God bless that woman.

  The female soldier looked at me, then at Jane, and then at the two forms in our arms. She was wavering. I could feel it.

  “For both?” she asked, shouldering her rifle and reaching for the oversized bag.

  “Yes, please. In liquid form if you have it, or injections,” Jane said, lowering herself to a kneeling position.

  I did the same. The soldier produced two electric syringes and handed them to Jane.

  “You’ll have to do it,” the woman said.

  “It’s okay, I’m a nurse,” Jane said, “Or at least, I was a nurse.”

  That piqued the female soldier’s curiosity.

  “Where did you work?”

  Jane gave Charlie his shot first. He was so out of it he didn’t even flinch.

  “I was a flight nurse at Vanderbilt,” Jane said.

  “You know they’re looking for nurses. Maybe you should apply.”

  “I’ll think about it,” Jane replied, injecting Sybil next, in her upper arm. Jane appeared to be calmer now. That made my heart beat a little slower.

  “You’ll have to give them the fluids inside,” the soldier said, pointing to the transport. “Do you think you can handle it?”

  “Yes, thank you,” Jane said, grabbing the fluid bags.

  “Thank you,” I said quietly. The female soldier nodded and returned to her post.

  The transport didn’t have any windows, and some of the vehicle’s exhaust leaked into the space, making more than one of the passengers sick. Charlie and Sybil were sleeping now, and Jane declared that their temperatures had gone down.

  I didn’t know if that was the truth or just wishful thinking. To me, they both still felt burning hot.

  A row of green lights cast a ghostly glow over the thirty-odd passengers. Most rode in silence, and I scanned their faces for anyone I knew. Not one. They all looked hungry and pathetic, like beggars after a thousand-mile march. I didn’t see how these people would be of any help to The Zone. Some looked like they could barely stand.

  “Dad, are we going to be there soon?” Andrew asked. He’d been quiet since leaving the apartment. Normally he would’ve been a fount of endless questions and observations, but he must have understood the gravity of the situation.

  “Yeah, buddy. We’ll be there before you know it,” I said, giving him the most reassuring smile I could.

  Some more time passed and then he asked, “Hey, Dad?”

  “Yes, Andrew?”

  “Can we play that game?”

  “Which one?”

  “The animal game. The one where you have to figure out what animal I’m thinking of?”

  Kids. If only adults could find the silver linings in things so readily.

  “Sure, bud. You want to start?”

  He nodded with a big grin like he had the perfect one already selected.

  “Okay,” I said, “Does your animal live on land or in the sea?”

  “On land,” he replied, haughtily.

 
“Hmm. Does it have fur?”

  The game went on for most of the ride, and by the time we stopped, half of the other passengers were peppering Andrew with questions. My son, my little professor, had somehow wrestled us from our misery, even if only for a short time. From moles to giraffes, we guessed and laughed.

  It wasn’t until the back hatch opened, and a glaring light stabbed into our cocoon, that we splashed back to reality.

  My family was the last to emerge, straggling out into the blinding spotlights that looked more like the blinding summer sun.

  “I can’t see, Dad,” Andrew said.

  “Just hold onto me.”

  He grabbed onto my pants’ pocket as we followed the procession away from the small convoy. A speaker squeaked somewhere high above.

  “Please proceed in an orderly fashion. If you have identification, please keep it ready for inspection.”

  Identification. I hadn’t had an ID for years. It wasn’t like there was a DMV to get a new one. Besides, where would you need one? With most people going only by their first names now, who really cared?

  We rounded the last vehicle, which looked like a squashed grape, and for the first time in ages, I couldn’t find the words to speak. There in front of me, above me, and soon to be all around me, was the largest structure I’d ever seen. It looked like a football stadium, curved at the top, but this one had metal plating that resembled the vehicle we’d just left. The only opening was a large door to the right that looked more like something from the Middle Ages.

  We came to another table, but this one at least had five clerks who helped disperse the workload. Most of the passengers from our transport let us go first. Whether it was because of Andrew’s game or the obviously ill kids in our arms, I didn’t really care. We needed a doctor and medicine, and I was willing to do anything but sell my soul to make that happen.

  “Name, please,” the woman we stepped up to said. She looked like my third-grade teacher, all gray hair and clean lines, with a voice that was clipped to perfection.