by Terry Yates
The older girl’s name was Heather Schill. She was fifteen and had been on her way back home to Gulf Port from the boarding school that she attended in Chicago. Her plane had been rerouted first to Houston, and then Tallahassee. Where Dustin was pretty sure that no family members survived the tsunami, Heather had no idea of the whereabouts of her parents, both brothers, and both sets of grandparents, all lived in Gulf Port. Ma Wartler pulled her out of the crowd of children just after Dustin.
The twins’ names were Werner and Astrid Schmidt. They were both twelve and had been in the U.S. with their parents. The family had flown in from Germany, because their father, Hans Schmidt, was to be interviewed by the University of Miami staff about becoming their new professor of German Philosophy. The family had been in Miami for three days and had seen most of the sights. Prof. Schmidt’s interview was on the fourth day. The twins had stayed in the hotel room while their father went to his meeting and their mother went shopping. They’d been alone for two hours playing a video game, when they heard a series of loud, almost maniacal knocks at the door. When they answered the door, they were met by four people, a man and a woman who were nicely dressed, both of whom they’d seen around the hotel, probably the manager and the concierge, and two men dressed in khaki fatigues. They talked loud and fast and in English, which the children didn’t understand. The well dressed man and one of the fatigue wearing men, each took a child by the arm and pulled them outside, while the woman and the other soldier searched the room. When they were out in the hallway, the well dressed man began to speak to them. He held his arms up and shrugged his shoulders while he spoke. The children assumed that he was asking about their parents. The twins became frightened as the four hustled them down the hallway and down the emergency exit stairs, and out into the street, where they were loaded into an army truck filled to the capacity with refugees. Werner and Astrid began to frantically search for their parents, both outside and inside the truck. They weren’t sure what was happening. People were speaking in panic stricken tones, some yelling, some crying, and some who seemed to be dazed and just muttered quietly to themselves.
The children screamed and yelled, trying to tell the people that they were leaving without their parents. Everyone just looked blankly at them, either not understanding their language, or too deeply involved in their own worries. As the truck began to move down the street, Werner and Astrid tried to jump out of the truck, but were forced back in by several soldiers and well-meaning civilians.
Main Street was crowded with both traffic and pedestrians, the traffic hardly moving faster than a crawl, the pedestrians scurrying on the sidewalks and dodging in and out of traffic. Astrid began to ask people what the big emergency was, but again, she was met by silence.
“Look over there! The sky!” Werner cried, pointing toward the ocean’s horizon.
Astrid looked out the back of the truck.
“It’s pitch-black!!” she squealed.
They had noticed that it had been extremely windy when they had exited the hotel, but within minutes, the wind had kicked up immensely, the sky darkening as the clouds moved toward land. The truck sped away as fast as possible. It was an army truck, so it went over the sidewalks and through lights, almost daring the pedestrians who were scrambling out of the way, to move slower. It took almost forty five minutes to get to the interstate, and another hour after that to get moving quickly. By the time the first hurricane hit Miami, they were well on their way to safety. They, along with truckloads of other refugees, were taken to Camp A in Tallahassee, which normally would’ve been a drive of several hours, but because of all of the people also trying to escape Miami, it had taken their army truck almost a full day and a half to get there.
Both children began to cry, Werner silently, and Astrid loud and wailing. A fat middle-aged black woman who was holding a small baby to her bosom, took one hand away and began to rub Astrid’s back, cooing softly and humming in a low, but vibrant voice.
When they reached the camp, the refugees were dirty and hungry. Most of the people on the truck had at least a few essentials, but the German twins had none. A kind gentleman had given them each half of a Snicker Bar, which they gobbled down in seconds.
As they disembarked the truck, they were met by soldiers, who hustled them out of the truck, and across the compound to where all of the refugees were being taken. Werner and Astrid were in the first group of refugees. No one was still sure what was happening with the weather at that time, but the twins could hear radios blaring, and there were news reporters all over the place, one of whom…a lady…put her microphone in Werner’s face and asked him a question. Not understanding English, he simply stared up at her. The woman looked down at him sadly, but said nothing for several seconds. Finally, she looked at the camera and said something that sounded like a name, and then walked away.
Werner and Astrid spent the first couple of days housed in a barracks with other children, some of whom they could tell didn’t speak English either. On the fifth day, the camp was so overrun, that the children found themselves in the middle of the camp with people milling about, and pointing at the children, who were summarily herded into cars and trucks and driven away. The twins were taken by an older woman and a sweaty fat man named Maurice, who’d shoved them roughly into a car and had driven away.
Six-year-old Meredith Bayfield had been with her father in a small town next to Birmingham, Alabama when the first of the storms hit. All she remembered after that was being in a makeshift hospital for several days before she was moved, along with other injured refugees, to Camp A. She was the first child that the Wartler’s took away from camp.
Nothing was known about Anthony but his name. That was all he could remember. Shock, mixed with the Down’s Syndrome, had made it almost impossible to get anything out of him. He would say the name ‘Wamona’, which they took to be Ramona, once in a while, but no one had been able to find out who Ramona was. Anthony was tall for a Downs Syndrome person…about five-feet-nine. He was barrel-chested and stocky with long arms and forearms that would’ve made Popeye shiver with fright. That was the perfect build for the Wartler’s, who took Anthony from the crowd shortly after they took Meredith, and immediately put him to work.
Kyler stared around the room. For the moment, he was keeping the children with him in his quarters. Willette and Hebman weren’t there…they were on their rounds…but Kyler was sure that they wouldn’t mind him keeping them there for a few hours. He wasn’t sure if it was because he was the only person that would pay close attention to them, or if it was because he was subconsciously waiting for Gen. Mueller to show up with the Wartler’s, and drag the kids away, back to whatever hell that they had been living for the past weeks.
“All right,” Kyler said rubbing Anthony on the head. “We’ll do it later on.”
Anthony broke into a wide grin and slid off of the table, joining the other kids who were sitting on either his, or Hebman’s bed. All except Lauren, who was looking sadly out of the barracks window. Kyler had been forced to tell her about Michael Blum leaving with his family. He’d wanted to prepare her for it, but she hadn’t stopped asking about Michael since they’d reached the base. He’d taken her aside as Potts lead the other children into the house. Tears welled up in Lauren’s eyes…Kyler’s too…as he broke the news to her. Michael had been the closest thing to a friend that Lauren had, and now he was gone. She looked wistfully across the compound as soldiers, volunteers, and refugees milled about, none seeming too sure as to what they were supposed to be doing, or how they should be acting. They just all seemed to co-exist with one another.
Kyler walked to the window and put his hand on Lauren’s shoulder.
“There’s one guy that I’m sure would love to see you,” he said softly.
CHAPTER 23
Kyler nodded at the soldier who stood in front of Joe’s pen. Amazing. Joe had to be the only dog with his own guard.
“Are you here to see that no one gets in or he doesn’t get o
ut?” Kyler asked half jokingly.
“I was just told to stand here, Sir,” the soldier answered, looking straight ahead.
Kyler sighed and shook his head. The children stood behind him as he peered down at the dog, whose nub of a tail had begun moving furiously back and forth upon spotting Kyler and the children. He hadn’t noticed Lauren who stood behind Anthony and Dustin.
“It’s a doggie!” Meredith squealed, placing her small dark hands on the fence.
Joe immediately jumped up on the fence and began to lick both of her hands much to the child’s delight. Kyler opened the gate and walked inside, followed by all of the children but Lauren, who remained outside the gate. Joe sniffed around at the children, who all reached down and gave him a pat. Kyler wasn’t sure, but he thought he saw Joe do a double-take when he spotted Lauren standing outside of the fence. If his nubbed tail had been wagging hard when he had seen Kyler and the children, it was moving even faster now. He barked and jumped up on the fence upon seeing Lauren. He barked, and he whined, and he jumped up and down. His best friend was back and he wanted to jump all over her, but Lauren simply stood there expressionless. Kyler moved up to the fence and put his hand on Joe’s notched ear. The dog leaned his head to the side and let Kyler scratch him. As he did, Joe began to whimper, but Lauren just stood there, the blank stare still on her face. Jesus, Kyler thought to himself, how could she resist those golden eyes of his. They could melt butter from two hundred feet away. Kyler gave her a “come on, Lauren” look, but she was having none of it. Without a word, she turned and walked away.
“What’s going on here?” Kyler looked up to see Sam standing inside the gate looking down at him. “Was that Lauren I just saw?”
“Yep.”
“When did she get back…and who are these youngsters?”
Kyler explained the whole Potts massacre, including his tirade with Gen. Mueller, to which he noticed an expression of extreme anger come across Sam Fong’s face.
“What are we going to do about them?” Sam asked. “We can’t let them go back. Who knows what other atrocities are going on out there? Jesus, it’s only been a couple of weeks! You would think that they could’ve waited before they turned over these kids to just anybody!”
“Mueller’s doing the best he can under the circumstances, I think,” Kyler said, rising to his feet while still managing to scratch Joe’s ears. “He seems a bit overwhelmed at the moment. Guess I would be, too if this mess landed in my lap.”
“But he’s a general. This is supposed to be his thing, his forte.”
Kyler looked at Sam, whose face was red with anger, and suddenly realized how much he liked this guy. Once again, he thought of him standing tall, erect, and looking straight ahead when the pockmarked man was going to have all of the survivors executed back on the island. He hadn’t been afraid to die…or if he had been, hadn’t shown it. Kyler himself had been shitting nickels when he’d thought that he was going to die that night.
“What are we going to do…with the kids, I mean?” Sam asked.
“Please don’t make us go back there!” Meredith Bayfield squealed, hiding her face into Anthony’s chest, who clumsily put his arms around her and gently kissed the top of her head.
“We not go back to the house,” Anthony said, his voice calm, but his eyes full of fire and staring straight at Kyler.
“Anthony’s right. We’re not going back to that house.” This time, it was Dustin who spoke.
Dustin was built much like Kyler himself had been built at seventeen…tall and wiry, but more sinewy than Kyler had been at that age. He pushed his greasy brown hair out of his eyes. None of the children had had a chance to shower yet, and by the looks and smell of them, they hadn’t probably bathed in a week, if not longer.
“No one’s going to make you go back,” Sam told the boy just as Kyler was about to speak.
“What he said,” Kyler said softly, pointing his thumb toward Sam. “We just have to figure out what we’re going to do.
“About what?” came a voice from behind them. They all turned to see FranAnne standing there in her khakis. “Did I just see Lauren walk by?” she asked quizzically, her thumb pointing back over her shoulder.
CHAPTER 24
Rhonda Weaver was pissed. One: It was dark Two: The car was full of groceries, so full in fact, that it looked like the hatchback was sinking to the ground. Three: Her husband Marshall and her kids Ellen, Tobin, and Keith, all knew that she was going to the store, and should’ve been outside to help her once she honked the horn, which was their universal sign that meant she was home, and to get their asses outside to help with the groceries, but she hadn’t seen hide-nor-hair of any of the fat, lazy bastards.
Rhonda began to have one of her waking, walking fantasies. She was in Tahiti, standing on a sandy beach, the hot sand burning the bottoms of her feet. A cabana boy named Jacamo is approaching her. As he moves nearer, she sees that he is pouring coconut oil into his hand like he does every time she has one of her fantasies. But before she actually gets touched by Jacamo and the oil, she comes to her senses, and realizes that she’s a forty-six year old mother of three, and wife to the laziest piece of shit that God put in Harmonville, Oklahoma…and that was saying something. She immediately felt bad for her bad thoughts of the Harmonville men. There was many a good man in their town of twelve hundred residents. Her husband though, was not one of them. Ever since Clay Construction laid him off…two years ago…he’d done nothing but sit at home and pretend to fix things around the house, which never seem to get fixed. Her children weren’t much better. Her daughter worked at the Shell Station/Convenience store three days a week. What little money she did make, she spent on herself after work at Shifty’s Tavern, drinking most of the boys under the table instead of coming home to her two-year-old daughter Jordan. Her sons were no better. Tobin was twenty-one and had just finished serving ninety days on the P-Farm for growing pot on their two acres. As all boys who get caught do, he told the authorities that he didn’t know that it was there, even though they found enough of it in his bedroom closet to get the whole town stoned, and probably one or two of the surrounding communities, as well.
Although her son Keith had never been busted for selling pot, he had smoked his weight in the stuff, and couldn’t get off of the couch long enough to find a job. He was eighteen and a high school dropout. She hadn’t been that disappointed when Ellen and Tobin had dropped out. She’d expected it with those two, but not Keith, who actually had a brain, or had one at one point in his life.
Rhonda looked down the road. It was a quarter mile of blacktop road where nine homes stood on both sides, separated by several hundred yards. Four of the homes were modern one-story brick houses. Three of them, Rhonda’s included, were old wooden homes that had been standing for over fifty years. She and Marshall had bought the old house, and its acreage, with the plan of saving their money, and eventually bulldozing the old home and building a brick one, but as most things in her life over the last fifteen years or so, nothing had come to fruition. In a few more years, their house would be as old and dilapidated as the two old houses that had stood empty for the last twenty years. No one was really sure who owned the homes or the land that they sat on, and she supposed no one really cared. Both houses seemed to be used as either dens for the pot smoking populace, or the half a dozen teenage Goth Wannabees who like to leave Satanic or shocking graffiti on the walls. She chuckled at the thought of Okie goths. They all dressed like Marilyn Manson, but sounded like Oral Roberts when they spoke. Two of them…Denny Lusk and Josh McClewn…were from decent families. The other two or three were from the poorer side of town. Hell, every side of town was the poorer side of town with the economy the way it was. Jobs were scarce. Rhonda was lucky to still have her job at the bank, things being the way they were.
She continued to look down the road. Lights were on in all of the houses that had inhabitants, save one. The Berry house was still dark. The school band had a recital that night and
both of the Berry children played. Sixteen-year-old Artis Berry played the trombone, and fourteen year old Nicole Berry played the clarinet. Both kids were active in school. Both were on the newspaper AND annual staff, both ran track, and both made straight ‘A’s’. Nicole also played volleyball. The only sport any of Rhonda’s kids played was Who Can Get To the Dinner Table the Quickest.
Just past the Berry house, but on the other side of the road, sat the Hagen house. Rob Hagen had been the County Assessor for the last nine years, and had owned Hagen Insurance for the last fifteen. He and Betty Hagen had five kids between the ages of six and fifteen, and all were bright kids. The two boys worked at the grocery store and bagged her groceries often. Both always gave Rhonda a larger than life ‘hello’ when she came through their checkout lane. How had she been one of the ones who got the shit family?
Rhonda sighed and picked up four of the plastic grocery bags, and began walking to the front porch. As she reached the steps, she noticed that something seemed different. It was too quiet. As usual, all of the lights were on, but there was no noise. There was no screaming, no crying baby, and no loud television or stereo.
“Hello?” Rhonda yelled. “Hey!”
Rhonda stepped up on the first step and stopped.
“Hello?” she asked again. “Where is everybody?”
Getting no answer, she stepped onto the second step. Just as her second foot landed on the step, she heard a faint noise off to her left. It sounded like it came from the Hagen house. It sounded like an animal snarl, followed by something heavy breaking. She stood still, not exactly sure what to do, Rhonda stepped over the third step and onto the porch, never taking her eyes from the Hagen house. The sound had given her the creeps.