“I’m Sara, and this is Leif.” I felt suddenly hot and ran my hands over my rib cage feeling uncomfortably aware of my state of undress.
“Good to meet you both,” he grinned, his eyes wandering a moment to my chest, and then to the baby. “I’ll see to it you are well cared for upon our return.” He stepped down from the truck bed.
“I guess I should thank you for saving my life,” I smiled back. He turned and nodded, then tapped the side of the truck and it roared to life.
“I’ll follow you back.”
Part Two
Chapter Thirty Six
The base was a modern marvel. It used wind and solar power for virtually all of its energy needs. There were fifteen windmills jutting up into the sky some sixty feet from a central point along with hundreds of solar panels attached to the roofs of the common buildings.
In a way, the base was an upgrade to what we had had at Joel’s house. There, we had run power off the generator that ran on fuel and had our own well, but that was it. Joel’s cold storage, though essential to our survival, was a miniature version of what the base had hidden beneath the floors of the kitchen: massive freezers and clean rooms that were stocked with dried meat, fruit, vegetables, canned and boxed goods. Enough to last two hundred people for fifty years, they told me. When I arrived at the base, there were only eighty-six people.
One of my favorite things about the base was the animals. I had missed animals, hugging them, playing with them. The base had a large metal barn that housed some twenty cattle, fourteen goats, probably fifty chickens and a couple of pigs. But when the pigs refused to mate, they instead became pets. One day we’ll just eat them, the Sergeant said once, but his children loved the pigs and he could never put them on a plate in front of them.
The base also drew its water from underground wells. The water was then treated with ultraviolet light, charcoal filters and a variety of other filters before it ever made it to our mouths. They had a brilliant grey water recycling system as well. Rain water was collected and used for the toilets and for washing. It was literally a Shangri-la in the midst of a terrible desert.
The walls, which reached a height of twenty feet in places, were outfitted with watch towers. There was also a stockade, family housing, a mess hall, hospital and the central training and parade grounds. This base even included a greenhouse.
Our daily lives consisted of keeping the base running smoothly. Everyone’s unique skills were put to good use, and I had been employed in many capacities, the last three years dedicating all of my time to the hospital.
Eight years had passed since I first drove through the gates in the back of that truck, my heart in my throat. This was where my son grew up. It was more a home to me than anything I’d known since the Reaper struck and the only home Leif had ever known. Though the grey on grey treatment to the buildings interiors was bleak, and the military precision as to how things were run felt a little claustrophobic at times, the alternative to living here was not an alternative at all.
We had been given a shower, disinfected, administered shot after shot and issued five sets of clothes each, all within our first hour inside the base. Leif had been doted over by the women here, many of the nurses becoming my close friends within the first month, the doctor a source of great comfort.
I counted my blessings and lived each day grateful for the abundance of food, water, and people. I hadn’t realized just how much I missed meeting new people.
Leif attended a school daily and grew up happy, oblivious to the world I had grown up in. It was just as well, as this world was still a mess. There were still no leaves on the trees, no grass in the fields. No nothing. My hope for a future was waning for Leif, but I remained outwardly positive.
I watched him run into our bunkroom and jump up onto his bed. He reminded me so much of his father. The way he smiled at me. His eyes were the same, and I imagined that when he got older, he would have Joel’s lean muscular physique. But there was something about my son that went beyond physical features in their similarities. An eerie recognition. Often a cloud of anxiety overtook me when he stared at me. He’d lie on his bed and stare across the room at me while I read.
“What is it, baby?” I would ask, looking up from my book.
“Nothing, Mom,” was his reply. It was as though he was trying to work out some great mystery in his head. He looked so thoughtful. Sometimes he didn’t even realize I was staring back.
“Mom,” he asked once, “was I born here?”
“Nope, not here.”
“Then where, then?”
“Why do you want to know, sweetheart?”
“Some of the other kids were telling each other where they were born and I said I was born here because that’s where they were saying they were born.”
I sat up and spun around to face him. Our cots were just three feet apart and separated by a night table. The lights in the building flickered. “You were born just a couple of days drive south of here.”
“Can we go see?”
“Not without an escort.”
“Oh, so it’s dangerous?”
“Probably.”
“Will I ever be allowed to go there?”
“Why do you need to?”
“I was talking to Blank Man. He said I would go there one day. I just wondered if we could go tomorrow.”
My heart always sank at the name, Blank Man. Leif claimed he was a figure that would visit him, a man who occasionally gave him advice and helped him with his school work.
“Blank Man huh?” It had been eight years since my witches had identified his presence, saying he was attached to my son.
“I know you don’t like him, Mom. He told me that too.”
“He doesn’t think I like him? Why is that?”
“Because you don’t,” he said matter-of-factly and tucked himself under the covers.
“I never said that.”
“You never had to.” He rolled over and coughed. “Goodnight, Mom.”
“Goodnight, Leif.” He was so intuitive. Or was that Blank Man whispering into his ear? I took a deep breath and closed my textbook, its cover filled with illustrations of combat injuries.
The idea that Joel’s angel, our angel, was one and the same as this Blank Man my son spoke of still sent a shiver through me. It’s visits were becoming more and more frequent, and all I could do was hope that something positive developed.
Chapter Thirty Seven
I walked to the mess hall at 7:00 am to pick up my food and water ration, my mind running through the conversation I’d had with my son the night before. From the mess hall I went to the post-op where three men were recovering from wounds acquired during a raid that left some of the base’s solar panels damaged.
“Hi Sarge,” I greeted Sergeant Jeffery Jones, who was recovering from shrapnel wounds. The same man who had saved our lives eight years ago. “How’s that knock you took on the head feel today?”
“I’m fine, Sara.” He was a tough one. All the men and women here were the toughest people I’d ever met. Tough, but also smart.
“Glad to hear it. But don’t try sneaking out of here just yet. The doctor wants to check that gash this morning.”
“Yes, sir!” he replied with a wink and a smile. I liked him. If he weren’t married, I would have scooped him up years ago. He’d be forty-four the following month but didn’t look a day over thirty. He and I had our routine: flirt, flirt back. My face flushed a little every time, and I knew he liked that. He was exceptionally handsome, and just my type. The more I got to know him, the more I liked him. I feared I was beginning to lose the ability to just flirt.
“Thirty-five stitches and no local.” I read his update. “Who are you trying to impress!” I smiled as I replaced his chart and moved to the next bed where a drifter, picked up west of here a month ago, laid on his side, his left leg badly mangled. “And how are you faring, Brad?”
“Been better.” His smile was pained. “Maybe I should have let
them leave me to my own devices.” The army sent patrols out in search of drifters within a ten mile radius every week while hunting local terrorists. Of course Brad chose to join our group: left to your own devices meant left to die, eventually.
“Stay off that leg,” I smiled. The patients seemed to take to my bedside manner. Perhaps in life I would have made a good doctor. Having studied with the local hospital in my last year of high school, I was grateful for what real life experience I’d gained.
That seemed like a lifetime ago.
“Sara,” whispered Jeffrey from his cot. “How’s Don doing?”
Don was the third patient in the far bunk. He’d been shot in the chest and lost a lot of blood. We pulled plasma from every available resident as often as we could, but lately we’d been going through it fast.
“He’s still in a coma. Dr. Bren doesn’t think he’ll snap out of it any time soon either.” I looked at Don, and bit at my lower lip. “He won’t keep him on support much longer.”
“Understood.” Don and Jeffrey were good friends. Don had been shot over a week earlier on a patrol. It had been a mad frenzy when they brought him in. I hated to see the Sergeant so crestfallen. But understanding our limited resources was something we all had to come to terms with, in every aspect of our lives.
“He may yet pull through.” Why did I say that? It was in my nature to comfort others. I knew Don had no chance.
“Thanks for saying that, Sara. You know, guys like Don are important now, more than ever,” he began. “If good people don’t survive, then our very humanity dies.”
That was profound. I repeated those words in my head.
“Sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.”
“No, that was a beautiful statement.”
“Still, I …” His head pushed back into his pillow and he closed his eyes.
“You never know, Jeff.” I placed a hand on his forearm and squeezed. He smiled up at me, eyes still shut.
I left the recovery room and headed for the operating room, where I would sterilize the tools and wash down the floors. En route I slowed and stopped in the hall. I felt weak, my eyelids fluttering frantically. Then I was suddenly overcome by emotion, tears streaming down my cheeks. Upon wiping them from my face, the tears flowed freely, as though I’d just poked a hole in my own defenses. I cried silently to myself in the empty hall for a few moments before regaining my composure and carrying on. It was what I had learned to do. Just carry on.
Chapter Thirty Eight
After a modest dinner with my son in the mess hall, we watched a movie in the nursery with the other moms and their children. The kids sat up front while the women talked in low whispers behind them. I almost always sat with Adrienne, Sergeant Jones’ wife. She had managed to create a school, and teach all grades single-handedly, while overseeing the nursery, and helping the one chef train an army of cooks. She was a woman of boundless energy, and I respected her immensely. But on top of that, she had won the Sergeant’s love and affection, and I think that meant more to me than all of her successes. She was a smart and modest woman. She wondered how, after hearing my story, I could hold anyone’s achievements above my own. She made me feel accomplished, as did her husband. Though she held no rank, and Jeffrey was only a Sergeant, they were the power couple on the base. That was unquestioned.
After the movie, we all returned to our bunks. Lights out was 10 pm to allow the batteries to charge over night. Once there I felt a gnawing urge to question Leif on his apparitions. So while I got him ready for bed, I did.
“What does the Blank Man look like, Leif?”
“He’s tall and shiny around the edges.”
“What about his face, honey?” I pressed.
“I don’t know.” He fidgeted with his shoes.
“Well, does he look like anyone we know? Does he look like Sergeant Jones? Or maybe he looks a little like the Chaplain?”
“Is his hair dark, light, does he have hair? Is his nose long or short? Is he…”
“He said he’d have a face when I gave him one,” he interrupted, looking up at me. “That’s why I call him Blank Man.” Leif returned his attention to his shoes.
That description rattled me. I unfolded his pajama top and pulled it over his head. “He’s dark,” is how Carol had described him.
“Why is he here, Leif? Does he want something from you?” It seemed as good a time as any to get into it. I knew he was watching us, but as yet, no reason had presented itself as to why beyond the shroud of destiny.
“I don’t know, Mom. It’s just Blank Man.”
“He hasn’t given you any reason why he’s here?”
“No.”
“Leif.” I adopted a more authoritative tone. “I’m asking these questions because I love you. Can you really not tell me why the Blank Man is here?”
“No. It’s a secret, Mom, and I don’t want to break a promise.”
“A secret,” I repeated. That made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. A sudden urge to protect him overwhelmed me.
“Leif, do you love me?”
“Yes.”
“Then you shouldn’t keep secrets from me should you?”
“But Blank Man said…”
“Forget what Blank Man said. If you love me you won’t keep secrets from me.”
“Okay.” He shot a look behind me and to my left. I quickly turned. Our door was shut, the corner was dark. Turning back to Leif, I asked, “Is he here now? Blank Man?”
“Yes.”
“Is he speaking to you?”
“Yes.”
Jesus. My skin crawled.
“Listen to me, Leif. I’m your mother. No one can tell you what to do but me. You trust me right?”
“Yes, Mom.” His eyes were still trained on the corner of the room behind me.
“Then tell Blank Man he should go, and leave us alone.” I was testing the spirit’s resolve. Pushing him to explain his intentions.
“I can’t, Mom.”
“Why, Leif?”
“Because, Mom.” He looked in my eyes. My forehead creased, my eyebrows raised in expectation.
“Just because?”
“He says he wants to tell you himself.”
“Ask him honey. Ask him to tell me then.”
Leif’s eyes shot back to the corner by the door.
“He’s gone.”
“Shit!”
“Mom!”
“Sorry, come here.” Leif stood and walked towards me. I motioned for a hug and didn’t let go for a very long time.
Chapter Thirty Nine
Days later the base was under siege again.
“What’s happened?” I asked as I approached the heavy chain link gate that separated us from the outside world. The siren wailed throughout the parade grounds, signaling to the hospital staff that casualties were on their way.
“Looks like they finally did what needed doing,” Doctor Bren, jogging beside me, shouted victoriously.
“What was that?” I shouted back, slowing as we made the gate.
“A run-in with those terrorists. They’re on their way back with a couple of car loads.” Terrorists, that’s what they called the marauding bands of misfits that continuously tested our defenses.
“We have casualties?” The question seemed redundant. The fact that we were called to the gate meant someone was hurt.
“Not ours, I hear.” Just then the covered truck transporting the prisoners could be seen approaching. But they weren’t slowing to allow the gate keeper a chance to properly unchain and open the gates. They were accelerating!
“Fall back!” someone called from the tower, and the hospital staff scattered. I landed to the right of the gates and climbed part way up the metal ladder on approach to the tower. As I climbed I watched in horror as the truck slammed through the gates, running down three of our medical staff in cold blood. It came to a sudden halt in the middle of our compound.
Doctor Bren was at the foot of the ladder. He drew hi
s weapon and shot three times into the cab of the truck, sending each shot expertly into the body and head of the driver. I watched as the man slumped over the wheel. A moment of deathly silence followed. The doctor stood with his firearm raised, feet parted while his free arm held the rail of the ladder I was hugging.
Suddenly, men in tattered clothing leaped out of the back of the truck and raced for cover. The doctor ran for cover himself, firing at the men as he waved his medical staff to safety. At this point the tower guards fired down on the intruders. Men exploded on the ground as the rounds connected. Snapping out of my horror-induced daze and realizing just how vulnerable I was, I began climbing the ladder again, shouting over the hum of the machine guns to the tower guard.
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