by Willow Rose
"Don't tell them," she said. "Please, don't do it. Don't do it for me."
"Yes, Joanna. I am going to tell them."
Joanna felt tears spring to her eyes. She really didn't want them to know about the hole. Who knew what they would use it for? Why they wanted it so badly?
"But…but…"
"It's okay," he said with a slight whisper. "It's okay."
She shook her head. "No. No. It's not okay. What about Arlene? Wayne? What about your daughter?"
He smiled again as their eyes locked. He was still holding her hands in his. He leaned over and whispered in her ear.
"Trust me. Just trust me on this. She'll be fine. She's the one who told me I was going to do this."
Joanna's heart dropped. Of course, she already knew, but what good did that do them? Joanna nodded pensively as Major General Li Xiaoyan approached them. Joanna accepted his explanation and had to admit she was terribly grateful for what Wayne had done.
"Thank you," she said as his hands slid out of hers.
Wayne was told to follow the major general and her soldiers. They all walked with the same swaying gait and Joanna couldn't name what it was they looked like, but it was something familiar.
Joanna got up on her feet and was very thrilled to realize that Major General Li Xiaoyan had decided to keep her word to them. Joanna was free to walk.
So, she did. Withered in pain from first the beating yesterday and the attempt to kill her today, she walked into the crowd, with all its staring eyes and questions asking her if she was all right. She didn't answer but continued till she met the mayor, then stopped. Their eyes locked. Joanna detected relief in hers.
"Are you okay?" she asked.
Joanna nodded. She wasn't, but she would be. "Josh?"
The mayor bit her lip, then shook her head. "We don't know."
"Irene?"
"Don't know either. Haven't seen either of them since yesterday."
"But they got away?" Joanna asked.
"We think so, yes."
Joanna had a split lip that hurt, but she smiled anyway. She knew that the mayor probably had no idea if Josh and Irene had been killed after they left City Hall, but she took what she could get. Right now, a little bit of hope was all the difference.
"Is Ellie Mae still at Wayne's house?" she asked, feeling her sore body. She wondered if she had broken a rib when Major General Li Xiaoyan wrapped that disgusting tongue of hers around her chest and squeezed. Joanna had broken a rib before and knew how it felt. This felt very similar. Hurt like a beast when she breathed. On top of it all, she was covered in this thick sticky spit. The mayor nodded. "Yes. Both girls spent the night there."
Joanna drew in another painful breath, then took off without so much as a goodbye to the mayor. It wasn't that she was angry with her for not saving her life by telling what she knew, no, Joanna understood completely. But she was just so anxious to see her daughter again and get to her before all the Chinese lizards invaded the house.
Chapter Sixty-One
Cape Canaveral, Florida
They were taken outside and blindfolded. Martha complained and told them she had rights and all that, but still, they did it. And then they placed them up against a wall. As she heard the soldiers arrive, marching in their boots, she suddenly felt Carl's hand in hers.
"Is this it, Carl? Are we going to die now?"
"I think so," he said.
Martha swallowed hard. Tears and sweat had wet her blindfold. "So…this is it?"
"I'm afraid so."
Martha burst into a loud sob. "I can't die now. Not like this, Carl. I can't. I can't die without making amends with Joanna, without seeing her and her child again. I just can't. Carl, I can't."
"It's okay," he said, "She knows you love her."
"No. No, she doesn't. She thinks I hate her. She thinks I didn't want her, when she's the most important person to me in the entire world."
"I'm sure that, deep down, she knows you love her," Carl said. Martha could feel his hand was shaking in hers.
"I'm sorry," Martha said. "I am so so sorry. You don't know how sorry I am for all I have put you through all these years. I can't blame you for wanting to leave me, for not loving me anymore."
There was silence. Martha could hear the rattling of guns.
Suddenly, Carl spoke. "What are you talking about? Where is all this coming from all of a sudden? I never stopped loving you. I never wanted to leave you. You're the one who started to talk about me leaving and how you thought it was okay if I wanted to. I never wanted to. Not once. I love you, Martha, always have. I ain't going nowhere."
Martha couldn't believe what he was saying. "But…but…what about what I did to Joanna?"
"It's all in the past, Martha. I forgave you many years ago. Heck, I even had to forgive myself. You weren't the only one who did something wrong back then. I did something even worse. I did nothing. I just left and refused to even face it. For years, I pretended like it hadn't happened, while it was eating me up. I should have been there for you. I shouldn't have left the kitchen that day. I had to forgive myself for that. And you need to forgive yourself too. It's about time. Lord knows you have suffered long enough. You were a good mother. A great mother, especially when the kids were growing up. You weren't the one who decided to go have…well, go be with a boy when she was only sixteen. Joanna did that by herself. She got herself in trouble. Should we have done more to help her? Yes, but what's done is done and we were both equally guilty for doing what we did."
Martha burst into tears and bent forward, crying loudly. The soldiers loaded their weapons and someone said something in what sounded like Chinese, but Martha still didn't really know if it was.
"Thank you, Carl," she whispered, overwhelmed by the sense of great relief, relief from a pain so deep she thought it had no boundaries, no end.
"You're welcome," he said, determined. "Now, let's go together, as the couple we are, as one flesh."
Martha took in a deep breath and stood tall, holding the hand of her husband through thirty years, for once proud of the life she had led, of the person she had been.
"I love you, Carl," she said.
"And I love you, Martha."
Chapter Sixty-Two
Ridge Manor, Florida
"Mommy!"
Ellie Mae screamed from inside the house as Joanna knocked on the door, calling their names and telling them that it was her and it was okay to open the door. Joanna saw her daughter's sweet face as she opened the door and started to cry. She took her in her arms and picked her up, even though she was too heavy for her to carry these days.
"Baby girl. How have you been?"
"Where were you, Mommy?" she asked.
"I had to take care of something in town. Didn't Wayne tell you?"
She nodded. "He did. He just didn't say what it was."
"Well, it doesn’t matter anymore. I'm here now, aren't I?"
Ellie Mae smiled. "You sure are. You look awful, though. Who did this to you?"
Joanna hugged her daughter once more, then put the girl down and groaned as the pain in her chest returned. She looked at Marley, who seemed anxious.
"Have you been taking good care of one another like I told you to?"
Both girls nodded. "Marley poked me in the eye, though," Ellie Mae said. "With her long nails."
"Did not. I was trying to hug you," Marley said.
Joanna chuckled. She hugged Marley too, then looked into her eyes. "Where's my dad?" the girl asked.
"Last time I saw him, he was with your mom," Joanna said, sticking with what she knew wasn't a lie.
The girl's face lit up. "Mom? Really?"
"Yes. And they were both very brave."
Marley's smile froze. "So, where are they now?"
"I don't know right now, but I am sure they'll come for you soon. Okay, kiddo?" Joanna said.
Marley's eyes told her that she knew Joanna was just trying to cheer her up, but she went with it.
; "Here's the deal, girls. I am afraid I have some bad news. The soldiers are coming to this house. Now, we don't want to be here when they do. Let's go inside, grab some stuff, and get out of here, okay?"
"Where are we going?" Ellie Mae asked.
"I don't know," Joanna said and walked in with the girls, wondering where Wayne would keep a backpack she could fill with cans of food. She was starving after twenty-four hours in the detention cell at the sheriff's office with no food. She hadn't given it much thought up until now, but at this point, it was almost painful how extremely hungry she was.
"I don't know exactly where we'll go, but the way I see it, anywhere is better than this house once they get here. So, grab a few things and we'll be gone."
Joanna walked to Wayne's office, found a backpack in his closet, and started to fill it with cans and bags of bread from the kitchen, eating some of it while she was working. She found a flashlight and a lighter and some cash in a drawer in the living room, then walked into the bedroom to check on the girls.
"I'm ready," Ellie Mae said, doll in her hand.
Joanna threw what little they had taken out of her suitcase back in it and started to wheel it out.
"Great. You taking the doll?"
"It's Arlene's," Marley said. "You can't take that."
"It's not like she's here to play with it anyway," Ellie Mae said.
"No, Marley is right," Joanna said. "You can't take Arlene's doll. Leave it here."
"But…she's not even here."
"I know, but Wayne might be sad to see it gone. You can't just take…"
Joanna stopped talking. The house was shaking beneath her feet. She looked up, stormed to the front door that they had left open, and looked outside. Tens of thousands of soldiers were marching towards the house, swarming the long dirt road leading to Wayne's house.
In front of them, leading the way, was Major General Li Xiaoyan and next to her was Wayne.
The girls didn't actually drop their jaws, but it was close.
"Guess we were too late," Joanna said and put the suitcase down. She sighed and looked at both girls. Marley's body was shaking.
"Go hide," Joanna said. "Somewhere in the house. Both of you. GO."
Chapter Sixty-Three
Cape Canaveral, Florida
"Are we dead?"
Martha felt drops of sweat run behind her blindfold and into her eyes. It stung. It sure didn't feel much like she was dead. But then again, this could be hell. The darkness, the heat, the sweat, and the fear sure matched the description.
They had been standing like that for what felt like a very very long time before Martha dared to speak.
"Is this what it feels like to be dead?" she said next.
Carl's hand still in hers felt warm and moist.
"I…" Carl said. "I don't think we're dead, Martha."
"Really?"
"I…don't think so. I mean, I didn't hear any shots fired, did you?"
"No, but I figured maybe it went so fast I didn't hear or feel anything," Martha replied, her voice shivering.
"I'm still wearing a blindfold," Carl said and removed his hand from Martha's. "I'm gonna pull it off."
Seconds later, she felt hands on her face and suddenly bright light almost blinded her. She blinked rapidly and held a hand up to cover her eyes from the burning sun right above them. As her eyes adjusted, she realized she and Carl were all alone. Not a soldier in sight.
"What is this? Where did all the soldiers go?"
Carl chuckled. "I don't know. Ha. They're gone. They're all gone. I can't believe it. We're still alive, Martha." He grabbed her by the shoulders, then paused. He pulled her close and planted a big kiss on her lips. Martha felt baffled, but let him do it and kissed him back.
Their eyes met as their lips parted. She could hardly speak. "That was really nice," she finally said.
He nodded, grinning. "I know. We should do that a lot more often."
She smiled. "Let's."
Carl looked around, then stopped when his eyes fell on the building they had been standing up against. A few hours earlier, they had been sitting in there waiting for doom to come, and now they were suddenly free.
"Bob," he said.
"Bob," she repeated and followed him back inside the building, hesitating just before she went in, a small part of her struck by the fear that she might never come back out.
They found Bob still in his cell. A set of keys was on one of the many dead officers on the ground and they picked them up and let him out.
"They're gone," Martha said, feeling a little silly and flustered. "They're really gone."
"I know," Bob said as he saluted the fallen officers on the ground, then looked at Martha. "I watched them leave from my window under the ceiling. Suddenly, they just marched right out of here. I can't believe it. Like they changed their minds or something or received some order to leave. There was marching for about an hour. After that, there was nothing but silence. Thanks for coming back for me. I thought I was going to rot in that cell."
"Where did they go so quickly?" Martha asked.
"Who cares?" Carl said. "They're gone."
"It happened really fast," Bob said, "it was like they all received a message at the same instant, then turned and walked away. The sound of their boots as they marched drowned out everything for a very long time. The entire building was shaking."
"So, that was what we heard," Martha said. "I thought I was in hell. I figured this was where the Nazis were marching around for eternity, wearing big black boots in the terrible heat."
"It was them, the Chinese, leaving," Bob said.
"But where did they go?" Carl asked.
Bob shrugged. "They walked west. That was all I could see. Heck, who cares anyway? The way I see it, let them be someone else's problem now. I need to help my citizens, if there’s anyone left."
Chapter Sixty-Four
Ridge Manor, Florida
Wayne didn't feel good about any of this. As a matter of fact, it was about to tear him apart inside. It was the hardest thing he ever had to do. The Chinese (or whatever they were) hadn't told him exactly what they were going to do once he showed them the hole. They had taken him to City Hall and he had told them everything, how it happened, how Arlene had been in the yard one second and the next she was gone. Then he had told them about the phone calls at night and how it had taken them months to figure out what was going on and what it was she saw. At first, she had told him that she saw him, that she saw him and her mother but she couldn't get to them, but the things she told him that she saw didn't seem right until he realized she was somehow looking into the future. He had also told how Lydia, her mother, had thought Wayne had gone mad and refused to listen to any of it, but somehow the Chinese didn't seem very interested in that part.
Now they were in his house, Major General Li Xiaoyan and twelve of her closest officers. The rest of the soldiers were waiting outside. Wayne couldn't believe how many of them there were. It was like they kept coming. Groups of them came from everywhere, from all sides and joined the others as they marched towards Wayne's house. When he glanced out the front door, he saw nothing but soldiers in their green uniforms as far as his eye could see.
"It's…it's out here in the back," he said and pointed towards the back porch. His heart was throbbing in his throat as he found the key and unlocked the door to the yard.
Arlene had told him he was going to do it. She had seen it. She had also told him he needed to save the nice lady, that saving her was more important. He knew she was right, but he couldn't bear the thought of him sending these vicious creatures by the hundreds, maybe even thousands in where she was. Would they hurt her?
"Here it is," he said and stepped aside so Major General Li Xiaoyan and her officers could step out into the yard.
"The suction is pretty strong," he said, "it comes and goes. Sometimes it's strong, sometimes not so strong, but if you feel like you're sliding, then grab onto something."
He did
n't know why he said that to them. He didn't care if they fell in or not.
Major General Li Xiaoyan's eyes glistened in excitement as she stared at the hole in the ground. She clapped her hands rapidly and exclaimed, "Finally. Finally."
Her officers, who were standing behind her as always, repeated her words like parrots repeating their owner's words.
"Finally. Finally. Finally."
"So…now that you have it, what will you do with it?" he asked.
Major General Li Xiaoyan's eyes landed on Wayne. She smiled. "You no worry your thick little head now."
Major General Li Xiaoyan lifted her hand and signaled someone, then said:
"Tang."
Wayne turned his head and immediately spotted Tang. He was hard to miss. Not because he was big and tough, but because of the aura surrounding him. He was actually small and skinny, all dressed in black, but the look on his face would be fitting on the Devil himself. He reminded Wayne more of a snake than a lizard like the rest of them. He stuck his tongue out as he passed Wayne, played with it threateningly towards Wayne, almost reaching the ground. As he passed him, their eyes met, and Wayne felt his heart drop.
Is that who they're gonna send in?
Major General Li Xiaoyan smiled and put her hand on Tang's shoulder, then pointed at the hole.
"You know what to do," she said, putting her mouth close to his ear, but still speaking loud enough for Wayne to be able to hear it.
He nodded. "Kill girl."
What? No!
Major General Li Xiaoyan made a hissing sound and spoke with a lisp. "Yes-s-s. Kill girl s-s-so s-s-she won't tell them we're coming. I'll be waiting for your call. Now go."
"No," Wayne said, heart pounding. "Y-y-you can't…you can't do that. You can't do THAT."
Wayne yelled in desperation, but there really wasn't much he could do. Tang lifted up his long black coat, twirled around, and looked at Wayne one last time before he let himself drop into the hole.